Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cloud had watched his world slowly come to an end, destroyed by the virus they had all thought was no more. Slowly but surely her army, relentless and endless had all but decimated the already suffering planet. The campaign lead by none other than her favourite son. The major settlements were the first of fall to her swarms, and then, the others also began crumbling to her forces. All until not one bit of life was left, except for HIM. He was the last one left aside from her army and her General. Lying on the ground mere inches from the tip of an all-too-familiar blade above his throat – he decided that death wouldn’t be so bad anymore – he had nothing left to protect and nothing worth living for. He braced for the inevitable and expected the world to end.

“Any last words, Cloud...” the words coming from the man he used to admire - levelled and calm – completely contradictory to the older man’s sheer insanity.

“Go to hell.” he spat resistant, but feeling for all the world like he should just give up and rest without a care in the world. Shoulders sagged while anguish and exhaustion filled his tear-stained eyes. Tired, broken, and exhausted from the long chain of events that seemed to incessantly plague his life, the saviour of the planet closed his eyes. Right then and there, he laughed... Laughed hard as if it was the funniest question in the world to ask. This laugh was bitter and harsh. He looked up staring at - emerald cat-slit eyes – and at the man that had destroyed everything he had worked very hard to protect even to the bitter end.

Sephiroth smirked, pleased at the broken undertones the blonde seemed to resonate. Cloud had no doubt now that just by looking at his eternal rival and someone elses’ memories, that the former General of SOLDIER was long gone and in the General’s place was a monster that knew no other emotion than hate and disdain shown through ambition, murder, and destruction all in the name of ascending to godhood. Anger crossed his features as he thought about that condescending smirk. He hated that condescending smirk the most. He hated the way the former General would smirk in glee at victory over him and the worst part of it was the reality placed in that smirk. The reality that he had nothing left to fight for – nothing – not even enemies.

With the grace of a veteran swordsman, the man known as Sephiroth lifted the finely crafted 6’ft blade upward and swiftly brought it down. The blood covered and stained intricate steel, coating the surface with dark red paint. Green waves, strings, streams gently floated up into the sky, wandering on its way with a specific end and the wind carried his weary soul along the planet current. Just as the last being on Gaia left its surface, every being and every tendril in the lifestream poured themselves into their last attempt at saving their home and a new hope for the future. Aerith couldn’t bear the stream of consciousness that swallowed the planet whole. The agonizing screams and wails were enough to fill in every crevice and space within the dying world.

“Cloud. I don’t have much time to explain.” a feminine voice cut through his thoughts.

“Aerith?” he asked, an air of confusion invading his thoughts.

“I’m sorry to do this to you but I don’t have much time to explain... this is a chance for you to change the past. Not just for Gaia but for everyone. You’re our only hope for a better future Cloud... and I’m not going to lie, this task is going to be hard... Be careful and know that I’ll always love you as a friend even if it seems like I don’t.” she said, worrying for her friend, sounding as weary and tired as Cloud was.

It couldn’t be anyone other than Cloud because he was the only conscious being who hadn’t linked with the lifestream yet aside from her, but she needed to be there to anchor and direct the lifeforce towards its destine pathway. She’d been a special case: the last dead Cetra that hadn’t completely merged with the lifestream and had maintained her own conscious will. It’d been the reason she could pull and differentiate Zack from it. The newly deceased maintain their own identity, but over time would fully integrate with the lifestream and that’d been why the Cetra and the dead couldn’t get out of it without the use of materia that is made from forging the planet’s energy and lifeforce into a sphere that could summon them. Problem had been that these souls were trapped.

If there were no living human to continue the legacy of the planet, it’d completely die off and dissappear. They’d figured out why Sephiroth kept coming back from the dead even though he’d die from physical wounds. The mixed human and alien origin left the former general unable to truly join the lifestream and therefor, would keep ressurecting because of being rejected by the lifestream, but there is another reason that they’d resorted to resetting the planet and sending Cloud back in time rather than continuing the timeline. Gaia simply couldn’t protect itself anymore, weakened from a meteor, energy drain, war, and other threats, it had no one to turn to. No one except for her protector. They’d known ever since the day Sephiroth and by extension Jenova, had been resurrected that it’d only been a matter of time and that the threat would be too powerful for anyone to stop anymore. So – together – they paved the path to make a better future. It had taken a lot of power. Power that had come from the lifeforce of the planet itself.

Cloud heard her voice in the mess, ethereal and full of sadness, but clear as day. Drifting near the lifestream, he could feel the emotions of the dead wrapping around his very soul and choking him, tightening with each grasp. They could sense his being nearing the edge. Part of him was so tired, part of him wanted nothing more than to be erased from existence and that aqua green light would merely serve as his resting place, but he knew that if he went there, then everyone else he had known would disappear from the cycle of life. He couldn’t care less for those who had mistreated him but for those who had cared for him, he’d do what needed to be done – even if he’d been forgotten and never knew them personally again - and knew that most of them would want him to do this.

Thinking some more, he scoffed at the irony of it all, in the end, he was nothing but the planet’s dog, to protect her because she was too weak and because there was no one else; she didn’t care for her children as long as she herself survived which was not unlike the relationship between Jenova and Sephiroth. This time around, he doubted he would mean anything to the people he knew anymore. He doubted he even had a choice and it pained him that he would have to go through everything again – maybe only to lose everything – yet again. He screamed as a multitude of conscious strings coursed through his mind, enveloping and tearing it apart. Screams across the planet could be heard as the end of all life came, swept away by the threads of time, reversing everything that had been done. Bright flash contoured everything, and from that, a clean slate was born.

Chapter Text

He shot up from the comfort of his bed, his hands clutching the sheets beneath him in sweat and his breathing heavy. Headache wasn’t the beginning of what he could describe as his mental status. Feeling surreal – like all this shouldn’t have been possible, he gazed around the room he had grown up in if only to confirm where was. Cloud was definitely in his childhood home. Nausea stirred an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his gut. Quickly, he made his way to the bathroom, shoving anything in his way and landing vomit-first on his bathroom sink; hands gripping the edge of the counter heavily. He felt something akin to dread as he struggled to gaze into a face similar to his own, only younger. Sapphire eyes regarded the thin and pale figure with doubt, doubt that this boy could grow up to be his older-self. He let out a sigh as if to say he had a long road ahead of him, and indeed he did. Finding his way around the house, he grabbed and slipped on a black t-shirt, khaki shorts (not the ones Yuffie wore a couple years back mind you) and a pair of sandals from his closet. Once done, he proceeded to walk down stairs. He heard someone cooking, specifically someone he hadn’t seen in ages.

“Mom?” he still couldn’t believe it even after seeing her backside with the crane of his neck.

“Yes dear, what is it?!” she shouted from her place in front of the stove, her head turning to get a good look at her son.

He simply smiled, the worry he had been carrying becoming a little lighter and his reality becoming a little more believable.

“Nothing.” With that, he went to sit near the table, waiting patiently for her to bring her famous pancakes to the table. Gaia, he missed her. After she was finished cooking them, she sashayed over to his side, setting two plates down with two sets of knives and forks, each on top of her well-cooked pancakes. Her petite frame suddenly blocked his view – her shoulder length platinum-blond hair swaying right in front of him as she reached over to give him his share.

“Are you alright dear?” she asked in concern. Her son’s weird response seeming a little off somehow.

“Yes mom.” He mentally frowned, not used to hearing the term roll of his own tongue and noticing how he was starting to sound a little bit too much like Sephiroth and his mother complex; but knew better than to think of his own mother as someone that would use him. She had her suspicions but didn’t press her boy any further.

“I fink Im gong to fake a falk foday.” he replied, mouth-full of pancakes and fork raised.

“Young man, watch your language.” She teased.

“Mo-” he sighed. Suddenly, he found her thumb and forefinger pinching the cartilage from his cheeks, all with the force of a mother and strange sense of humour that only she seemed to possess.

“Just teasing.” She laughed lightly, amused. At that, he struggled to smile, forcing his muscles to remember when he hadn’t been unhappy.

“...Mom?... I missed you.” He finally said, the loneliness of losing her flowing through his words.

Vienna Strife tried to find the correct words to say, not knowing how to respond and noticing her son’s weird off-tone words. “... I missed you too, Clou ...” she started, using his abhorred nickname. “but I won’t be here forever, someday you’re going to have to take care of yourself and be a big boy! And you don’t want a mother complex do you?”

Cloud somewhat grinned. At least as much of a grin as it was for him, deciding to play along for the sheer humour of it. He tilted his head in mock curiosity and asked “What’s a mother complex?”

“It’s when you live in your mom’s basement forever and boys make fun of you because they are insecure about their sexuality and manliness.” she playfully said.

He almost choked at the way she said it so casually, reminding him of the odder aspect of her personality. Images flashed through his mind – teasing, joking, laughter, and warmth - memories thought to be lost were slowly returning to him. He now remembered the embarrassing jokes she used to tell him about the boys in the village and himself. He was too young to understand most of her humour though but now that he wasn’t – when he thought about what the joke said about him – he didn’t know if he wanted to dig deeper.

He was just about finished eating his pancakes when he ended the discussion entirely. “Oh, okay mom.”

Moving towards the sink, he took the two plates and washed them – automatically being used to cleaning dishes for Tifa’s customers. Vienna’s suspicions returned when her son suddenly showed prowess in using dish detergent. Skeptical, she moved towards him enough for him to hear her. “When did you learn how to do dishes hun?” she asked carefully. He froze all movement at the end of the question, like a dear caught in headlights that’d been too shocked to respond.

“I learned from the best...” He replied offhandedly and awkwardly. “... from watching you.”

“Regardless, I’m proud of you dear.” she crinkled her eyes, mimicking traditional perky mothers; however, she still wasn’t quite satisfied at the answer and he could glean that from the look she’d given him. Choosing to let it drop, she moved back to the table and sat down.

Once finished, Cloud went over to her side, proceeding to hug her tightly and vice-versa, looking at her as if she would vanish anytime and she would no longer be around once he looked the other away.

“Mom, I’m just going to take a walk. I’ll be back later.” he said to her, before shutting the door on his way out as he looked back.

Hearing the creak sound as the door shut, Mrs Strife decidedly thought that something was up and needed to analyze what had just happened a few moments ago. There was something weird about the way her son acted this morning and looking into his eyes had only solidified her thoughts and apprehension. She wasn’t a fool – when she looked into her son’s eyes, she could see a maturity beyond his years, of someone who had fought countless battles and lived to survive, of regret and guilt - the look of the haunted.

She could swear she could see that look in her son because she had seen that look many times in her medical career. If she hadn’t known any better, she would’ve thought Cloud had mako poisoning in his brain without the mako. Perhaps she was overreacting a tad bit... but there was something about her son that had changed, like he had grown up while she wasn’t looking. Before today, he had never hugged her this openly (most boys his age were embarrassed to have their mothers hug them) or said he had missed her (who would say they missed someone they’ve only missed for one night). Furthermore, he said he had missed her as if it were real like he hadn’t seen her in a long time. Not one to get stuck on one particular subject, she partly dismissed the notion as she scoffed, preparing for another long day at the Nibel Clinic. Later, she would follow her son and confront him about his strange behaviour. For now, she had work to do and some people weren’t going to heal themselves.

Cloud moved to cover the top of his forehead as he glanced into the sun’s brightly-lit rays with sweat trailing down the side of his face and the smouldering heat forcefully putting him under pressure. He walked at a leisured pace, taking his time to drink in the smooth flowing and peaceful scenery. Nibelheim was just as he remembered it with Mt. Nibel still standing as tall and as overshadowing as it had been before; the shadows draping over the quaint town like a blanket, with most of the houses revolving around the water tower that stood in the centre of the town and the rough cobblestone pathways guiding its folk. Everyone used the same material to bind different-sized and quaint homes together – wood, stone, and cement – which completed the look of a backwater mountain village. Quiet. Plain. Serene. Dark.

Pacing lightly around the small village, the planet’s hero thought about what his next move should be. He figured that now was the time to move forward and he didn’t want to get too distracted no matter how nice it had been to see his mother and how much he missed her. He probably had a lot of time but he wanted to get this done as efficient and as quickly as possible. First things first, he needed to destroy Jenova and Hojo’s research notes. Second, he needed to figure out what time he had been sent back and gather information on the world’s issues aside from mako reactors draining the planet of its lifeforce.

His thoughts eventually brought him towards how he got there in the first place: Aerith, the lifestream, and the planet. The way the flower-girl talked about loving him as a friend even if it seemed like she didn’t would most likely indicate that she wouldn’t remember just like how everyone he had met in his previous life would not remember him. That disappointed him somehow – knowing that he wouldn’t have anyone would recognize him immediately and no help – at least not yet. That brought him to think about people to get help from. If he thought about the way Tifa was right now, he doubted she would believe him if he told her that he came from the future and he doubted she would be much help. That meant his only option was Vincent and he didn’t know whether the man would consider him.

Cloud could make out the natives’ hereditary dark and tan features as he passed them by. Even more noticeable when the stares of contempt were thrown his way. This time, the images of fights flashing and images of the way people would whisper behind his back seemed to caress his mind almost vividly. Some places from his memories were still missing – fragmented – though he already had a vague idea at what had happened during the space between his childhood and his time in the laboratory. Mentally, he signed, thinking about how some things never seem to change and. Cloud wasn’t as prepared to face those looks as he wanted to, but never-the-less he didn’t have a choice but to deal with it. Fate landed him here and now he’d been stuck.

Not wanting to dwell on this train of thought any longer – he blanked out – merely continuing on his way to his intended destination. Almost there, just a few steps away from Nibelheim’s outskirts, he thought. It’d been the right time to visit an old friend. The view of a large decaying building eventually came into view. It looked worse for wear. No longer was it lush and extravagant from when it was first built, instead, it was like a decaying painting – with vines growing – wrapping and expanding their influence. Eventually fitting themselves into the aged cracks of its canvas. Shinra Mansion was true to its picture and perfectly fit for the gruesome scientific experiments that had once plagued its halls and the rumours that followed. As he looked at the large building, he couldn’t help but feel anger as a surge of memories almost became too fresh for him to bear. Pain. Needles. Mako. Years wasted in a horror-filled lab and his best friend caged like an animal, much like himself... only worse. He wanted nothing more to burn this place to the ground before his nightmares returned. And with that said and done, he pushed open the doors with the key being his will and resolve.

Chapter Text

Sheer will wasn’t going to open Shinra’s front door, it seemed. If only he had a lock pick, he thought as he lingered there for a few minutes. Suddenly remembering what Rude had taught him in the future. He had wandered into a bar, spotting the reserved Turk on a stool and surprisingly, they had hit it off pretty well since that day. He found that he had missed the silent companionship they had shared in understanding. Pushing against the thick barrier one more time, he finally gave up, abandoning his goal of getting through the front and now focusing on looking for another way in. Backing up, he possessed a much wider vantage point from his position. He steered his eyes to the left where it descended onto an entire section overwhelmed with undergrowth, seemingly slipping through the niches of an aged and battered window.

This was going to take a while, he presumed.

He lifted a large rock from the ground, viewing the window from the corner of his eyes. He heaved it with all his might (despite immature body) and threw it at his target. It reached up to 3 meters high before falling heavily back onto the ground. Cloud never thought he’d see the day that he’d miss his mako-induced abilities, especially when it was Hojo who had technically given it to him. The hatred in his heart held a special place for the good doctor.

Deciding that he would stop beating around the bush, he went over near the vines, latching onto them and grabbing a more diminutive rock to suit his purpose. He hoped that the plants wouldn’t tear while he was breaking the glass, or climbing his way up – for that matter. Growing up in a small mountain village, he had naturally developed a knack for moving, climbing, and running around when he was an adolescent. Endurance and agility would be the traits that saved him from being completely disregarded in the SOLDIER program and these abilities were something he was grateful for in the immediate present. Later, he would have to work on and get used to using his strength with his skills. He already knew the mechanics of his moves, it just came down to his physical aspects.

One by one, he conquered each plant until he eventually reached the top. With the hand that held the rock, he began applying pressure to the glass, moving it in the same elliptic circle over and over again. Tilting it, the small stone accidentally slipped from his hand and fell below, making a clack sound as it touched the ground.

‘Damn it! I was so close!... Guess I have to do this the old-fashioned way.’

Winding his fist as far as he could, Cloud punched through the glass, its shards shredding his skin not-so-lightly and leaving his hand red from bleeding. The pain in his left hand was sharp, but he somehow managed to shimmy over the window and land onto the floor, another set of broken glass digging into his back. Struggling to sit upright - he took a view of his surroundings – with his hand as well as well as his back still feeling the sting. His eyes led him into the second floor’s corridors, where the peeling wallpaper showed the structure’s maturity. Limping, he made his way into the main foyer where he could see the bland decor smothering the Mansion’s atmosphere in an eerie silence. The background, whispered of ghosts, silently stalking his every move.

He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and went to the right, carefully crouching with each step and trying to keep alert with his surroundings. Again, flashes and memories, this time, of a safe and clues. Vague. He used his hand to steady himself again, contemplating the flashes. He couldn’t remember the exact combination to this safe but he remembered looking for clues. The clues that held the combinations and the combinations that held the safe. Going back to the staircase, he proceeded to the first floor – the images of two letters invading his thoughts; one of them contained the hints needed to obtain a key, specifically the key to the basement.

Looking around, he eventually found the letter sitting atop a mahogany table. He rushed right over to it, reaching, grasping it within his unscathed hand. Carefully, he brought it up, scanning through it and looking for clues. One look was enough to slowly piece together the vestiges of his memories.

Turning the way he came from, he eventually found himself on the second floor again and made his way to the safe, solving puzzles and collecting combinations along the way. From what he could remember, he only had 20 seconds to open it and he had to do it quick. Cloud placed his hand on the dial, turning it accordingly and inputting the appropriate digits. Momentarily, he allowed the safe to open on its own, before picking up its contents; namely a key and an Odin materia.

Key in hand, he immediately went towards the door leading to the basement and twisted the knob. Gently opening it, he allowed his eyes to plummet downwards where a dimly-lit staircase seemed to beckon him into a void. Step by step he moved further down with each movement placing a heavy burden on his young body. Pressing his hand into the rough stone walls for support, he continued in a downward spiral, eventually making it into the tunnels blood dropping with each stride.

Navigating his way through the tunnels, he eventually found the coffin holding his old friend captive. He noted that unlike the Mansion main floor, the tunnels were cold, dark, and damp, but still had the same felling the structure above had. Steadying himself in front of the lid, he tried pushing it, but felt like the black cover was a WEAPON in weight against the force of his single good hand. He then tried it with both hands, putting all his weight and will into pushing the stone slab; it seemed to work, blood pouring over his injured hand quite vehemently.

Vincent Pov

Vincent heard light footsteps, accompanied with pattering liquid splashes. Now this was rare, in fact, extremely rare. He didn’t know how long he had been here, but knew that no one ever passed through here save for the occasional scientist. Whoever this was – maybe if he was quiet – whoever had decided to breach this crypt of his would decide to ignore his ominous looking coffin.

This was his punishment: to relive the nightmares in the form of one he loved most... His Lucrecia. He didn’t want to say her name for fear of her breaking his heart, but try as he might, his thoughts always lead back to her; memoirs of the way she smiled, of her beautiful chestnut tresses and of an angelic face that haunted his every nightmare. Even after realizing her part in giving up her own son he still loved her. Now, he wished nothing more than to be left alone – For he had failed her, he had failed her offspring and in the end, it was already too late. In this coffin is where he will spend the rest of his life for his single greatest sin, the sin of omission, one that he was fully prepared to accept and really hoped the stranger would bypass his prison altogether.

He had no such luck, however, when the sound of heaving suddenly interrupted his thoughts. He braced himself for when the lid moved, readying his weapon if need be, but when the lid still hadn’t opened, he had found himself growing impatient with each passing second.

Not wanting to wait any longer, he decided to push the lid off himself, wanting to get this over with and hoping to convince his intruder to leave. His crimson red eyes stared into the deep blue color of the other, his hostility gently diminishing. He was a tad bit surprised to find that they belonged to a young boy; and one that obviously took to great lengths and challenges to be here if the boy’s injuries were anything to go by. The stench of blood permeated the air like a second skin, overwhelming the normal scent of dusty layers; though, it might’ve been partly due to his enhanced abilities and the proximity with which the other held position. Sharply, something mako-laced cut through, wafting in his presence. He could detect another scent ventilating the area, but wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Cloud Pov

He stared right back at Vincent, noting that the man still had the look of a vampire down to a pat. The blood red eyes, long obsidian hair and pale skin only seemed to support his blood sucking appearance but he knew his friend long enough to know that he wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.

“Vincent...” he started.

“How do you know my name?-” said-man asked almost defensively, voice sounding as low and as cold as it always was.

“You aren’t going to believ-” the sounding gunfire interrupted him.

“Move.” Putting the flexible material of his cape behind, Vincent drew out the Quicksilver with the grace akin to inhuman agility, aiming towards the back where the bullet seemed to hit something just as inhuman as the former’s speed was.

Years of experience had him turning around only to find himself in the presence of another: a certain Lost Number. Memories slapped across his face as he remembered fighting the monster vividly – right after he had opened the safe. He cursed, wondering how he could’ve missed the deformed creature before. He guessed he was so caught up in completing his goal that he had rushed things, making a rookie mistake in the process – one that could potentially cost him.

The monstrous being fixed its half red and half purple visage in a hungry sneer, almost as if – a sharp sting throbbed from the palm of his hand, reminding him of how exactly the creature had found him. Just like breadcrumbs, a trail of his blood streamed from the entrance right to his bloodied hand. Shit.

He could only remember fighting a Lost Number once, but it was enough to give an edge in remembering how to fight it.

“Red side, attack normally! Purple side, attack with magic! When one side dies, the other takes over!” he directed his companion as the experiment suddenly advanced towards him – purple faced and intent on making a meal out of him.

Vincent fired, effectively pushing it back by a meter but not doing much damage. The experiment gave a shrill cry – before switching to its purple side and retaliating with a Quake, shaking the ground’s foundation to which Vincent fired, evaded, and moved further away, his red cape moving and flowing like water as it followed after him. Moving around the beast, the man then charged right at it, aiming the gun barrel towards its eyes. Swiftly, the creature lifted its limb, easily blocking Vincent’s attempt to blind it, but being rendered unable to use said appendage.

“Its resistant to whatever kind of attack it uses which is divided into a magic or normal attack category!” he added.

Recognizing when it was charging up for another magic attack, Cloud jumped to the side, barely missing a wild electric energy and having the gravel brush against his already throbbing cuts and scrapes. Desperately, he tried to think of something to fight with, anything, just something – and then like a light bulb hanging above his head, he recalled the Odin material he had picked up earlier.

Vincent Pov

Noticing how his bullets had little to no effect on it, he pulled out his materia reserves to use for later – only to remember that they had been confiscated long ago. Indecision gripped his psyche, trying to come up with a plan and quickly – this interval was enough to allow Galian Beast to break through the barriers which normally kept the demon at bay.

‘Let me out..’ he heard the monster pressuring him.

More and more casings were being left behind as he shot his opponent using the gunfire’s reverberations to anchor him into reality.

‘No.’

‘Don’t be so stubborn. Your bullets cannot protect you forever.’

He dodged an incoming attack and continued to ignore Galian’s requests.

‘Let me take over.’ The demon said again, this time a little more forcefully. Galian’s patience was wearing thin and he knew it – feeling himself slowing down more and more in the middle of battled.

Cloud Pov

He could see Vincent slowing down which meant that one of the demons was trying to take over. Depending on how this would go, it could be bad or it could be good. He knew his friend was desperately trying to fight it, but it was either kill or be killed.

The Lost switched heads, fighting with its purple side and took a swipe at him. Its claws fiercely dug into his shoulder, making him lose grip of the materia he held and barely avoiding the impact. If it weren’t for his experience in dealing with monsters and his quick reflexes, he probably would’ve been dead by now.

Slipping from his hands, the red illuminated-ball sailed through the air, landing somewhere near the coffins.

Missing its target, the Lost went in for another swipe, but was interrupted as a beast more disfigured than itself fired off a sweltering heat, burning everything around it. Unfortunately, the Lost switched to its red side again, effectively annulling the spell with its natural resistance to magic. From the flames, he could recognize a familiar figure, the one called Galian Beast. Thick purple skin served as the demon’s shield, protecting it from incoming aggression. Crimson locks flowed from the top to the middle, barely hiding the horns which fitted tightly on its scalp. Galian stood tall with his claws serving its purpose of maiming all who opposed.

He scampered tot he coffins looking for his missing summon and eventually spotted it laying comfortably in Vincent’s coffin. Hastily, he went over to it, taking it into his hand. Focusing – he tried commanding his will to release the knight, attempting to communicate with it. Unsatisfied with his results, he tried again. Nothing seemed to work.

From the corner of his sapphire eyes, he could the creature charging up for another spell, but at the last moment, he dodged and felt the jolt of electricity that coursed through his body during which he desperately tried to get through to the summon again; this time he succeeded.

‘Work dammit’

And with that command, a demon, much like Galian Beast, appeared. Its rotting yellow skin standing out the most while the horns coming close to second. Sitting atop its own Stallion and a tempest swirling around, it was ready, ready to exact revenge for him. The summon rode swiftly, the pink hue of its ethereal sword trailing behind him like death himself on judgment day. The lance cleanly sliced the deformed experiment in two and left them incapacitated. Once finished, like an apparition, Odin disappeared out of thin air, taking the storms it had brought; unable to maintain its form in the mortal plane any longer.

Vincent transformed back into normal, kneeling and breathing heavily and trying to find his balance. Once he caught his breath, he walked over to where the halved Lost Number lay. It gave a loud, anguishing wail – anguishing, suffering, and agonizing as it sensed Vincent approaching. Many words could not describe what it felt when it could sense its executioner approaching. It could only find peace in death now – for everything had turned out too little, too late. No words seemed appropriate save for its name. Lost, it felt lost.

“May Gaia have mercy on your soul.” He said as he lodged two bullets to both its brains, black blood gathering underneath its carcass. Life slowly faded away from its eyes, looking more at peace than when it was alive.

Twitching one more time, the corpse ceased to move as green strands collected its soul, lifting the veil back into the lifestream. No trace of the Lost Number were left behind.

Cloud nodded in respect from his place on the ground, feeling sympathy for what must’ve been one of Hojo’s many experiments. Sometimes, Cloud wondered if death would’ve been better. Because sometimes, the pain of living seemed like it was more than it was worth and wondered how Vincent could stand, watching as others grew old, withered, and died while knowing he himself would never die, would never rest. No wonder Vincent wanted to sleep.

Cloud Pov

His body ached – the bruises, cuts, and scrapes taking their toll. Not just ached, it was just painful. He was used to the mako dulling the pain until it was nothing but a smear.

“I will ask you again. How do you know my name?” a low voice demanded.

“I… know you from the future. Gaia sent me here to change the past in order to save the future. I need your help.” He said vaguely, not wanting to go into too much detail.

“How do I know you aren’t lying?”

“You’ll only have my word.” he looked down, then added a few more details to the hook, “Sephiroth, Lucrecia, and Jenova… ring any bells?”

“Tell me what you know.”

He could tell it wasn’t an option.

“… Sephiroth goes insane and destroys the world all for Jenova’s sake.” He recounted bitterly, being as succinct as possible but didn’t know why the fact seemed to utterly disturb him.

“This mansion is the beginning of your nightmares and hearing your stories is yet another sin for me...” Vincent started, closing the slab on this chapter of his life “as you can see… I advise you to leave immediately.”

‘It already is’ he'd brooded, the past once again plaguing his thoughts.

Shaking his head, he brought himself to concentrate on the present just in time to see his friend’s intent in sleeping.

“Don’t you close that lid on me Vincent!” he shouted, pausing until another set of words came from his mouth.

“If you think sleeping in a coffin forever will atone for your sins then fine, sleep in that fucking coffin forever- but at the end of the day you will have achieved nothing but an easy way out.” He suddenly flared, frustrated with Vincent’s uncooperative nature, however expected it was – it was times like these he wondered how Tifa had ever put up with him.

Maybe Vincent would change his mind later, just like last time, but he could only hope now. Disappointed but fully understanding, Cloud turned around and began walking still injured and bleeding. It seemed like fate led him all this way for nothing and he had nothing else to fall back on.

An unfamiliar emotion crossed Vincent’s eyes as he listened and watched Cloud limp away from him.

“Wait… I’ll at least escort you off the premises.”

With those words, Cloud felt a small glimmer, of what, he didn’t exactly know but he was feeling for the entire world like he was hanging by a thread, a small silver thread. Nodding in response, he continued forward – not even bothering to look behind him as he slammed the door shut.

Chapter Text

Spending hours in the basement library did nothing to ease his mind. Sweat formulated in the palm of his hand as he sifted through text after text, file after file, and book after book. Shelves that reached the ceiling contained nothing but endless rows of text, files, and books. Yet, hours later and still aching from the injuries sustained by the window, he’d seen none of the research that the scientist had left behind before. It made sense that the notes wouldn’t be in the library at this time, but he’d been hoping that it’d be that easy and he didn’t have to search for them elsewhere.

“Where are the research notes?” he calmly asked the older man as he’d been supported by a cold, brass arm. Because of his weakened state, he needed somebody to prop him up and he had been grateful the raven-haired man had noticed.

“I don’t know.” the other man quietly responded. “I need to find someone.”

“Is it… Lucrecia?” he asked.

Silence had been the only reply he’d gotten from the other man. The other man had been unreadable to most people, but not to him, he already knew his friend’s mannerisms and expressions like the back of his hand and he knew when he’d hit a nerve. For example, even with a stoic face and no response, he could tell when the other man had clearly been upset and when the other man had been bothered.

“We’ll find Lucrecia.”

Through the brooding man’s exterior, the mouth pursed into a barely visible frown, and although the other man exuded nothing but stoicism, he’d known that behind it had been a man suffering an inner-turmoil that couldn’t be placed in just a few words. Releasing himself from the other man’s grip and the shelf, he continued down the hall and opened the wooden door to the tunnels, letting the light flood into the library. He led the other man into the dust-filled, darkened caves and up the rickety wooden stairs that would creak every time he’d taken a step towards the first floor. Briefly stepping onto a loose floorboard, the older man caught him and then carried him bridal-style to the first floor. The window he’d broken had been where they both exited, with the turk digging his brass heels into the window edge and then landing outside near the bushes and trees that surrounded the area.

The former Turk merely accompanied him to the front yard where he’d been left to his own devices, before promptly disappearing without a trace and without a whisper, but he knew the man had returned to his coffin because he could hear the subtle sound of the boots touching the edge of the window. Eerie silence washed over once the other man had went back into the mansion and the leaves continued floating downwards, wilting and slowly becoming brown with each passing moment on the ground. Remaining silent, he tried to figure out where to go from there, since the man he’d asked for help all but said he’d be on his own from now on. Cloud sighed, he’d needed to get the notes from the library and then record evidence of the laboratory and experiments that’d taken place there, but the vampire hadn’t been making it easy for him. Isolation would only further cement the other man’s already depressing life sealed in that coffin. If his math had been right he’d fetched the man eight years after the other had been shot and sealed.

Vincent POV

Vincent had gathered that it’d been a very long time since another human set foot in the basement. Never had he counted the days he’d been in the coffin sleeping and contemplating the events that led him there. He thought about Lucrecia and what had happened to her. He thought about Hojo and what happened to him. He thought about himself and what happened and immediately wanted revenge on the man that ruined his life, blood boiling just at the thought of the greesy-haired and amoral scientist, but he would save that desire for another day and bide his time. The mere fact that the weak-looking blond-haired child mentioned Sephiroth had utterly disturbed him, but if he were to actually believe what the boy said about the son he never had, then he would be disrespecting Lucrecia’s memory by turning the other away.

He needed solitude and to think over the recent changes that had come into his life and to do some research. Vincent did not like anomalies or breaking routine, he much preferred achievable and concrete concepts, but a person did not become a Turk by not being adaptable nor resourceful. Perhaps he-himself would find something in the mansion that the blond-haired child had missed. For now, he’d stay in the mansion until he found something and if he didn’t, then he’d only explore the outside world to map the area once he’d been done with the place. He’d been effectively immortal not even needing food to sustain himself, but he could still die to plenty of physical damage.

Cloud Pov

That night, he pondered about joining SOLDIER and directly getting to know Sephiroth. Cloud ejected the thought immediately because he’d thought he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting close enough to watch over him. SOLDIER had been out of the question because he’d attract too much attention as an eight-year old trying to join one of the most prestigious military divisions in the world and he could clearly remember that the age limit for acceptance had been sixteen-years old. Remembering that the first time around he’d been fourteen and simply lied about his age to get into SOLDIER only to become an infantryman had made him think twice about heading down that road again, but if he were to take on more powerful opponents he needed to train not just his body but his mind. The first person that came to mind had been Vincent, but the older man clearly shut the door in his face and subtly implied: ‘I’m not helping you kid.’

The only person that he knew with any wit of fighting experience in Nibelheim had been Zangan and the burly man exclusively trained people he found worthy such as Tifa for some reason. Though even back then, it seemed Tifa had the most heart and care out of the villagers, perhaps that’d been the reason why he’d agreed to train her. He’d been known as an unruly and silent child that didn’t get along with other people with a secret superiority complex back then, but much of time had erased and humbled that part of him and he was now more down to earth than he’d been in the past. He’d needed to avoid the same mistakes he’d made before.

He flicked off the light and closed his eyes, pulling the cover of the bed close to his chest and breathing lightly against the cushy surface of the bed. That’d been the first night he’d had the much needed rest in years without a flashback. He speculated that it had something to do with the fact that Sephiroth had not yet become insane nor murdered everyone in his path after finding out his real origins. He’d make sure that the man never did find out this time.

The morning frost attached itself to whatever it could find and the birds chirped happily when the sun rose. First priority he’d had on his mind had been killing Jenova. Nothing stopped him as if he were possessed by another person with a single-minded focus. He’d went through the forest and followed the path up the mountain, but to his surprise found Tifa on the bridge. Dread took a hold of him and his stomach dropped, because he knew what would happen and he’d be blamed for it. Today had been the day that she’d attempted to foolishly find her mother in Mt Nibelheim after the woman had died. Problem had been, he hadn’t known the exact date it would happen and didn’t think it would be this soon. The other children ran and abandoned her on the bridge - not that he could blame them at their age - but they’d still been her friends. The least they could do had been to warn the other villagers that she’d gone out and made her way through the mountain pass. It took a few days to find them and when he attempted to defend himself back, the other children had blamed him. The other children barely made eye contact with him as they rushed passed. Children, that’d known the dangers of crossing such a harsh environment but didn’t have a mature mind weren’t to blame, it’d been sheer error because of a lack of experience and mature mindset. She survived back then because he’d been there to re-calibrate the angle that she’d fallen, but being the only person with her on that mountain incriminated him in the eyes of the townspeople and in subsequent years he’d been blamed and shunned even more for the incident. That wouldn’t happen this time around and he would save her to get her to see a different side of him that she hadn’t known when they’d been younger.

“Tifa, wait up!” he shouted, “Don’t cross the bridge!” but it’d been too late as she craned her neck to see him from the middle of the bridge. The whole situation didn’t sit well with him and he attempted to reach her, but the old wood snapped and she fell down the chasm screaming. That made his heart skip a beat and race to the bottom by sprinting as fast as he could. The girl had been wearing the same blue dress she’d worn the same day she and him had fallen off the cliff. For some time, the body laid there un-moving and twisted in unnatural angles, bone protruding from the arms and legs. He touched her veins and blanched. The girl that’d been his only childhood friend had just died and here he stared at her crippled form feeling helpless. Cloud felt like throwing up the contents he ate this morning, but held back the bile building up his throat and wildly glanced around for places he could find materia before the girl joined the lifestream.

He’d have to leave her here unattended which was necessary if he wanted her to have a chance at survival. Deciding that’s what he would do, he hurried to the mako reactor and desperately searched for a healing materia from it. Since it housed Jenova, the reactor had one of the strongest materias that could be found on the planet, but there were few people that knew it aside from him. Down the mountain, he hurried and hiked dodging the trees rooted between him and heading to the place where his childhood friend had fallen. No trace of her body had been left when he reached the canyon. Things had been different this time around in a way he hadn’t expected. A lot different and more than he could handle right now. He punched the ground repeatedly as anger and frustration and weakness coursed through him. Emotions that he’d regularly felt in the future. He didn’t want to face the fact that he’d lost his one childhood friend this early, but he couldn’t do anything about her now and he would have to move on because that’s what she would’ve wanted him to do instead of mope in depression and blame himself about something that’d been completely out of his control.

Blood covered his scraped knuckles as he stood up and stared at the sphere in his hand. He focused on healing himself with the green tendrils coiling around his hand, before focusing on communicating with the lifestream. “Please, I need Tifa alive, just resurrect her.” he said desperately, but even after a few moments there’d been no answer and it had been like the time where he hadn’t had a connection to the lifestream. There’d been no answer. That meant that his childhood friend is dead and that nobody remembered him because he’d indeed found himself back in time. Then suddenly, he remembered what Aerith mentioned about the equivalent exchange concept in relation to the lifestream that seemed to haunt him in the present: “to create, something of equal value must be lost, as such is the cycle of life.”

Chapter Text

Winter descended onto the Nibelheim area without warning and without mercy. Cold, white flakes spiraled from the gray clouds that loomed over the dreary skies while the winds cut through the mountain pass sharply. Snow touched his face as he made his way further into the mountain which he wiped off with the base of his hand. Still reeling from the shock of losing his only childhood friend, he’d needed an entity to release his anger upon and unfortunately for that entity it’d been Jenova. Never mind that he’d been cold and his body nearly frozen walking through the ice trying hard not to slip. If he lost his childhood friend at this stage in the timeline, then the alien entity would be the one to pay the price and he would be the one to kill the monstrous creature. Thinking about it even more he became more dejected at the thought that it still wouldn’t change the outcome. Because Jenova had been an alien entity and therefor completely separate from the lifestream, it meant that even if he swiftly disposed of her body and the associated clones with her DNA, it wouldn't bring back the late Tifa Lockheart. Then he’d need to make sure that the woman – that thing – its cells became inert. She’d live on even if he destroyed the body as long as part of her lived on in others and that meant he’d have to either render her mind frozen or reverse it through brain surgery in addition to destroying her body. Avalanche and Shinra eventually figured out what reunion meant and what it’d had actually been. It’d been a ritual reuniting her different body parts in people and organism with her DNA into one single being whose will is dictated by their mother at the cost of their own body. Pity that his childhood friend couldn’t live on like that, but even if she had carried on living through other people, he knew it would’ve been the last thing she’d wanted.

Up ahead in the cavern, he could make out a few animals surrounding a dead body. From what he could gather, they were Nibel wolves circling their prey and hungrily waiting for another. Defensive, that’d been the feeling he’d had when he looked at the scene from afar, but he inched backwards and they turned their mako-green eyes towards him and he let himself fall into a fighting stance, bracing for the worst. For some reason, the wolves merely ignored him and then headed the other way. The reactor stood above ground erect over the dirt-filled cavern that housed the experiment pods. Nearing the reactor, he drew in the sight of the door and went up the steps, his boots echoing in the expansive, wide darkened space. The name JENOVA adorned the metal plate at the top. Cloud stepped inside of the reactor and approached the pod housing the monstrosity. There she was, in all her imprisoned glory, the infamous Calamity from the Skies. It was as if his feet moved on their own traveling upwards with a sole focus on the entity laying dormant inside the reactor.

‘You, I can sense your intention and your intense hatred… but who are you?’ her feminine raspy voice aired through his mind.

‘You don’t want to know.’ he mentally told her as he released the valves and saw her unnatural gray-skinned form within the same liquid-filled vat that he’d remembered her in throughout the years. Protruding from her stomach had been one large ventricle and multiple wires while the valves to the reactor were placed on his sides. That’s when he’d stared straight into her closed eyes and knew that he simply couldn’t kill her right away, it had to be a slow process and he needed to study her in detail or find a scientist to figure out how to neutralize her alien desire to destroy every living organism on the planet. The low-density light from the tank reflected onto him, embueing its blueish tint on the side of his arm. Turning his head around, he could already see the creatures pooling around the base of the reactor, intending on protecting their parasite mother.

‘Cease now young one or face the consequences’.

He stepped back a bit, sealed the door again, and headed back down the stairs as the creatures that surrounded him parted into two sides to make way for him.

‘Join me as a son.’

‘I have a special fate in store for you.’ he’d responded, smiling at her with an enthusiasm that could only be described as bitter.

‘I know what you intend little one. I can feel your emotion, but you will not succeed and I will be victorious.’

‘We will see who wins. I will depart and leave you be.’

She’d looked humanoid in appearance because she’d taken on and mimicked the traits of the Cetra in order to absorb and destroy them from the inside two-thousand years ago, but he’d known better and seen her true whole form in the future. Tentacles, bulged appendages, a spherical pink, purple, and brown body flashed through his memories as unpleasant as they were. Although she’d been a large factor in driving Sephiroth insane, he’d been told that Sephiroth-himself managed to overpower her mentally and truly believed that he could become a God ruling over the cosmos with his brethren acting as his puppets. It’d been because he’d been subject and bred to be the ultimate SOLDIER with Jenova as a catalyst that’d he’d ended up with a broken mind. If he hadn’t been told he’d been born and bred to become a monster then perhaps he would’ve ended up differently. Jenova had merely been his excuse and yet her programming did not allow her to become different either.

She’d originally been programmed to destroy life unlike Sephiroth who very well had a choice. Sephiroth fully knew what he’d been doing and even had a choice after learning from the others in the lifestream what Jenova truly had been and what had transpired. That meant that Sephiroth’s hatred and actions had been real and partly under his control because he’d wanted revenge and to lash out at the world that hurt him. If both of their programming could be reversed and changed, then maybe the destructive future and cycle could be broken, but he hadn’t been counting it because at the moment, there’d been no sure-fire way for him to succeed and he’d been rightly angry and didn’t want to think about the alien-entity responsible for the events that’d driven the planet to reset. The creatures surprisingly left him alone as he left the reactor area. Perhaps Jenova thought he could be manipulated and used in the future since he’d been the only living being that had visited in what could very-well be decades.

Thanking whatever deity he could that Sephiroth had been nowhere near the reactor and therefor, too far away to be influenced and manipulated by her voice, he stepped out of the cavern and enjoyed the empty, desolate view of the rocks below him. He viewed the chasm and old wooden bridge with a face that said he’d been determined to find a practical and peaceful solution to a problem he was not entirely sure about, but first he’d need to find someone that he could trust and count on for science and research that wouldn’t easily fall under her influence. Not only did he need someone to act as his brain, but he needed someone to act as his muscle and to physically train him in other fighting disciplines, because of his weak stature in the body of an eight-year old and his lack of in-depth technical knowledge, he wouldn’t be able to effectively implement what he needed to.

Chapter Text

Vincent stayed in the mansion for the next day and found nothing of interest probing the old structure. Desks, shelves, drawers, secret entrances, no crack nor fissure were spared in his quest to find the missing pieces to the puzzle, but there’d been nothing he could base his actions on right now because he didn’t know where to start aside from hunting the amoral scientist that ruined his life. There had to be a hint somewhere about what happened here eight years ago. The last memory he’d seen through his own eyes had been Professor Hojo shooting him and encasing him in an experiment tube. Then he’d woken up in a coffin not knowing what happened after and had been sealed in the basement ever since, but from what he could gather he could at least confirm that it’d been about eight years since Lucrecia and Hojo had occupied the mansion, because he’d disguised himself with casual clothing as he’d asked around town about the last time someone had been in the mansion. The person he’d asked had been a petite red-head with a heavy country-bumpkin accent. She’d said: “The rumors about them ghosts started about ten yea’s ago and the people who lived ther left about that tieme. No one’s ever bin in ther ever since tha rumors began.”

The first floor window is where he’d seen the snow storm brewing outside and menacing grayed clouds floating above the small mountain town. Then he’d wondered what had happened to the blond-haired boy that’d found him and whether he’d been alright. From what he could assess, the child had the air of someone much older than what his body showed and knew a lot more than what he’d let on, but never explained the details to him as he’d left the boy on his own. Suddenly, he regretted turning the boy away. If only he’d had more sense to ask the blond-haired child more questions before leaving him at the courtyard and departing back into the large, empty mansion. It’d been quiet and there’d been nothing else in the mansion besides him and other creatures slowly decaying in ruin. Never-the-less he took the liberty of clearing the place in case he needed to come back and discovered something else here. Sighing, the ageless man stared out over the snowy area and then decidedly made the decision to attempt finding the boy in the weather, if only to get the answers he needed and get revenge for what’d been done to him.

Swiftly, he perched himself on the edge of the window and then jumped down the vines, lightly clawing them as he glided to the snow-covered ground. He’d went into town only to find a majority of the houses and buildings closed and no people that he could really approach. Save for one person, a blond-haired woman dressed in white with a very troubled expression on her face. Once she’d seen him she seemed to light up as she waved and then opened by asking him the question that he’d wanted the same answer to: “Have seen my son? Age eight. Spiky blond-hair. Effeminate.” she’d asked bluntly.

“Yesterday, but in town.” he admitted, but did not go into detail about the mansion for a reason.

“Can you help me look for him and another girl? Nobody has seen either the mayor’s daughter or my son lately and I’m worried. Nobody would look for my son, but plenty would help when it comes to the mayor’s daughter. There’s a snow storm coming and there’s no one in their right mind that would be out of town or in the mountain area.”

“I’ll help, but there’s no guarantees that I’d find him.”

“You’re not from here, are you?” she’d had a glint in her eye that he couldn’t quite understand, but he merely nodded and then headed the other way, feeling the snow push against his black pants.

“Hey! Where are you going!” she shouted from behind.

“To find your son.”

‘He went that way.’ Chaos mentioned offhandedly.

‘How do you know? Demon?’ he mentally asked. He’d been curious about how the demon had managed to identify which direction the child had taken.

‘Intuition. His energy is very distinct among other lifeforms, but I do not know what led the boy to have this fairly unique signature.’

Not wanting to inquire further, he merely went in the direction that Chaos had pointed him to and then continued on the path towards the mountains. Further into the mountain, he’d seen that the mountain that had once been full of life, had now been populated by dead trees and mutated creatures. Then again, the lifelessness might be a testament to the cold weather currently affecting the area. The mutated creatures that he’d never seen before told him signs that a reactor had been nearby and there’d probably be more of them as he made his way up the pathway.

‘That way’ the demon would say mentally pushing him towards a winding turn. They’d eventually found themselves at the base of a bridge where it seemed the support had fallen. Bridge had been completely cut, the rope and the wooden pieces leading down into a wide ravine. That did nothing to ease his worry about finding the boy alive or at least in one piece. Dead as the mountain had been, the demon assured him that the boy had survived somehow but had been on the other side of the gap between them. He’d needed to find a way across, but didn’t know how exactly he would do it. Then an idea hit him, he could use the dead tree logs as pin points to get to the other side.

‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ the demon asked, ‘To get to the other side hahaha.’

“Shut up.” he muttered under his breath, annoyed that the demon had been making jokes at such a crucial time. Sometimes he wished he didn’t have demons running around in his mind, but other times they’d been useful for purposes like these. Still, he could not help the formation of a migraine beginning to affect his mental state, but he pushed on and focused on the task at hand. Seeing the tree beside him, he made powerful shots and cut the tree as evenly as he could. Then he prepared to toss one of the logs and winded his arm as far as he could before throwing it across the open air. Running to the edge of the cliff, he then jumped and continuously threw the next log, using it as a temporarily air platform. The last log he’d had with him had been about five meters away from the other side of the mountain. He made his last jump before clawing at an edge and hanging high up above the bottom of the chasm. The rock chipped and his other slipped, but he quickly grabbed a hold of another jagged edge to avoid falling. One hand at a time, he then started climbing to the top of the mountain and breathed hard when he landed on flat ground. Since the sides of the mountains just brushed off the snow he didn’t have to worry about its edges being slippery. The only thing he had to worry about was the snow on the flat ground which he bypassed entirely by slinging his body upwards.

‘The boy is close.’ the demon merely offered.

Vincent had delved deeper into the mountain and finally found the boy huddled just a little ways from the bridge, almost as if he’d been frozen. With his golden claw he shook the boy to see if he’d been alert, but unfortunately he only got a groan for a response. Taking off his glove, he pressed his palm against the child’s forehead and had been taken aback. The other wouldn’t last if he didn’t act now and take him to a warmer place, but where could he possibly take the younger man?

‘There’s a reactor nearby. You should probably hurry.’

Then he remembered the dead trees and mutated creatures. That’s right, it’d been the sign of a reactor embedded in the land. That’s where he could recuperate. He scooped the body into his arms and then swiftly headed to the reactor. When he’d been inside he propped the lithe body against the stalactite and then went outside to get the firewood from yet another dead tree. Inside the cave, he dropped the firewood on the ground and then rubbed two sticks together, watching as the fire lit up the dark corners of the area. Taking off his jacket, he laid it over the small eight-year old from neck to foot.

Chapter Text

Cloud had awoken to the brittle cracks that exuded a warmness that he hadn’t felt in a while. It’d been reminiscent of the days that he’d spend with his mother in their small house, living out his childhood as the son of the local physician, learning how to do house work such as chopping wood and trading potions between the seller and their own stock. During the winter season, she’d light up a fire for them to keep warm and mix hot chocolate for them to pass the time; it reminded him of the more peaceful times that he’d kept longing for in his adulthood.

When he opened his eyes, that’s exactly what appeared in front of him, an orange-red hued fire that burned brightly. Then the flashbacks returned and he’d no longer been comfortable, heart panicking as everything he had come to know, had been tossed in a perpetual furnace that became the subject of his daily nightmares along with perpetually being stuck in a mako-filled tank and being prodded in experimentation. The day Nibelheim burned to the ground, he’d almost lost the one person in their small town that’d been nice to him compared to others and he blanched at the thought that the same person had now been dead. Despite the mistreatment he’d had from the other villagers – it’d been Tifa that’d been the only one that ever acknowledged him – but that small gesture of kindness had been enough to keep him sane enough to care about the small town. It’d really only been for the sake of the girl he wanted to impress and his mother that he’d actually cared enough to attempt defending the small community with such ferocity in the past. Perhaps if things had been different and he had enough hatred and anger and motivation, he would have ended up the same mental state as Sephiroth, but he’d been glad he hadn’t because that ultimately been against everything he had come to cherish and everything that he’d come to hold belief in. That’s when a familiar monotone voice snapped him out of his focus and called out to him.

“I have questions.”

Straight to the point and blunt as ever, his friend never ceased to change that much, even at the present time – the man had been quiet, reserved, and calculating. The other man DID have a softer side that could only be seen by the people closest to him and he’d been proud to say that he’d been one of the people that could witness it. By the end of their fight for the first reunion, he’d asked Marlene and Tifa where he could get a cellphone, which meant that he’d been slowly opening up to them as they fought together for a common goal throughout the years. Facing his pale-skinned companion directly and staring into the crimson eyes he knew all-too-well, he offered the first bit of information that he thought had been important to the man: “Lucrecia is crystallized in a cave and Hojo is still alive, but I don’t know where he is right now. My best guess is that he’s in Shinra somewhere in a laboratory working away at another set of experiments.” he finished.

“Which cave?”

“Hidden behind a waterfall in the center of the Western Continent on the borders of Gold Saucer and Nibel.”

The first thing that came to mind had been that Vincent had more in common with Lucrecia than he thought. They both self-imposed their own punishments by hiding from the world and isolating themselves and much like Sephiroth and Vincent, she’d been unable to join the lifestream and she’d been unable to die properly because of her Jenova cells - and Vincent because he’d been infused with demons.

“She’s immortal and can’t die because of her alien cells. She hid herself in a cave because of her guilt and part, in being responsible for the birth of Sephiroth and for the form you hold now.” he blurted out suddenly. “But she also saved your life by implanting you with protomateria that might be used later on for an important task. ” he explained further. “That task will depend on the fate of our common enemy Professor Hojo.”

“…” The red-cloaked man merely pursed his lips as a sign that he’d been taken aback by the information. Though the other man didn’t show it, he’d been as uneasy as a fish out of water, looking for a hook that would lead him on the right course.

“I don’t have anyone else I can count on in this timeline yet. The others are either too inexperienced, children, or are strangers at the moment.”

“You’re from the future?” he asked rhetorically with a skeptical undertone.

“How else would I know all this information beforehand? Lucrecia never told others where she hid after the experiment and I’m an eight-year old.”

“How do I know you don’t work for Hojo?” he leveled a suspicious stare that clearly warned him not to string him along or mess with his mind.

“Do you think a normal eight-year old could work for Hojo?” he asked the man rationally.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“For Gaia’s sake Vincent.”

“… There’s experiments that are younger than they look... and he wouldn’t be above using children for his dirty work.”

“Do you think that any experiment of his would obey what the man said after all that he’s done?”

“...”

“Then hear me out. Sephiroth burns my hometown to the ground in the future and nearly destroys the world in an attempt to become God. I’m here to prevent that in the most practical and peaceful way possible. There’s a lot of things I could change, but already things have been created at the cost of another.”

Further explaining, he went into detail about what exactly had happened in the future and the present timeline.“My childhood friend is dead because the laws of the lifestream dictate that to create life something of equal value has to be sacrificed. I’m not here because I want to be. I wanted to commit suicide and die back then, but here I am trying to rewrite history for a happy ending that others deserve that I may not even get and fighting for the sake of the other people that are innocent and that I cherished that no longer remember me even in the lifestream.”

“...”

“What did Lucrecia say to you before you ‘died’ about her son?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Then help me find the pieces of your past.”

The other man remained silent, but moved to put out the fire by heading outside, getting a block of snow, and then tossing it over the flame.

“Let’s head out. Your mother is looking for you and the storm is subsiding.”

Gently, the man yet again carried him in his arms as they headed down the mountain and then put the red cape behind him. To say least, he’d been embarrassed being carried by another man, but it had never-the-less been necessary as he’d still had scrapes and a light limp, that’d been made worse by the time the snow storm rolled around and he’d been stuck in a corner freezing. Thinking that he would die due to the bridge collapsing and being unable to cross and being unable to see due to the fierce winds, he merely huddled in weakness and closed his eyes waiting for the storm to end. Right now, he’d only slow them down by insisting that he travel on his own two feet.

Chapter Text

Vienna Strife opened the manila folder she’d kept in her desk for the first time in over eight years. One rainy night a young woman with chest-nut brown hair and a white lab coat barged into her clinic bleeding from her mouth. The woman stayed at her clinic for a day before leaving in a hurry and heading out the front door without so much as a glance at the folder that’d been left behind. She didn’t know why she’d thought to keep the folder, but she had. Perhaps she’d been hoping that the same young woman would come back for it and explain what had happened that night. Never in eight years had she decided to open it, but that changed today while she’d been looking for something else in the house, another similar folder. Reading over the files, she could tell it’d been some experiment concerning the injection and splicing of DNA just judging from the content:

Professor Sujidamo Hojo

September 13, 1980

Project-S

Hypothesis : The Cetra have long ago assimilated with the human race to the point where their race had become almost extinct if not for the efforts of Shinra. Following the series of experiments should prove to be successful in creating a Cetra and human hybrid with the cells of the last recently uncovered Cetra , Jenova, inserted into the fetus in early development. Mako injections will be utilized to stabilize and fuse the cells together due to the Cetra’s connection with the Promised Land, said to contain abundant mako energy. This will be necessary in creating a Cetra-human hybrid that can enter the Promised Land.

I. The project involves subjects L, V, J, and last but not least their fetus.

A) Subject V was chosen for his raw physical and mental instincts while subject L was chosen for her scientific intelligence and cognition.

B) Subject J was chosen for her Cetra genes.

II. Specimen-S shall be injected with both J cells and mako energy at the fetus stage to produce a perfect Cetra-human hybrid.

A) First he shall be injected with J cells in order to prepare the fusion of Cetra and human genes.

B) Second he shall be injected with mako energy periodically in order to stabilize the fusion.

C) Third he shall be monitored without being informed of his origins and then taught extensively in the fields of fighting, magic, and science.

Results: DNA fusion results are promising and the fetus is developing rapidly with cognition and strength beyond exception.

Conclusion: The birth of a Cetra-human hybrid appears to be successful and stable, but would need more time to assess the long term effects of the experiment.

The Cetra? She thought the race had only been the stuff of legends, but according to this research paper the Cetra did indeed exist. There’d been no names mentioned but she all-the-wondered who they’d been. That woman, she’d been a scientist judging by the looks of her lab-coat. She’d wondered why the woman had been in a hurry and why the woman had looked frightened. Guessing it had to do with the research paper she’d read, she merely slid the sheet back into the folder and then continued searching for the other folder she’d needed. Cloud’s father hadn’t been the most responsible person in their lives, he’d after all left them after refusing to take care of her son, but she’d needed to find him as the ex-wife of a former high-level Shinra scientist that’d known about the dark secrets surrounding the company. She didn’t even know if the man had been alive considering the stunt she pulled after discovering the gruesome experiments that’d been done under the cover of medical aid to the needy.

She’d wished that she opened the contents of the manila folder years ago. Perhaps then she could’ve helped the desperate-looking chest-nut haired woman on the run just like how she’d been quietly hiding in the peaceful town for decades. She’d stolen a bunch of top-secret documents from the company almost fifteen years ago. She’d changed her face completely and settled into Nibelheim after running from the turks half-way across the world. People with a kid out of wedlock weren’t too popular around here because of their association with one night stands and that’d been why they’d never really fit in with the townspeople who were quite conservative about traditions and never experienced different cultures, but never-the-less they’d managed to carve themselves a life and place among the townspeople after decades of suspicion. Come to think of it, Sujidamo had been a name that she'd been told to stay far away from a long time ago and it'd ironically been her ex-husband that warned her. That put her on edge and raised the hairs on her arms because she hadn't known what to make of the new information. She'd just keep the research paper in her hand for now and then slip it into the other documents, placing the subject matter at the back of her mind as she attended to the clinic. They'd been safe and sound in Nibelheim and she wasn't going to ruin that any time soon.

Chapter Text

“Sir, there’s been a break in at one of our facilities. It’s site E-7.” the man pointed out the screen, tracing his fingers along the flashing red alert message. No footage had been captured meaning it’d been an old experiment facility.

“What? That’s impossible. There’s few people that know about the entrance. There hasn’t been an experiment authorized there in years.” another man said.

Veld did not like beating around the bush one bit. Preferring to get straight to the point and get the appropriate job done instead of squabbling about what to do, he’d send the most efficient and experienced Turks to take care of the situation. He’d needed discretion about the subject matter. “I’ll send someone to investigate immediately. We can’t risk a leak of information to the public.” the burly man said as he flipped his phone open and hovered over the letters. Then, with the tap of his finger pressed in the message that he’d wanted to send.

Breach in site E-7, investigate immediately and use discretion. Take the helicopter to the outer edges of the site and blend in.

The pair headed down the mountain with Vincent acting as his carrier, passing by the many dead trees and altered wildlife that’d been affected by the reactor yet again. Barely visible had been the rocks, their grayed out hard exterior standing out among the pristine, white snow that covered the landscape. The two of them had taken the long route around the mountain due to the suspension bridge falling. Boot tracks were left behind in the snow as they treaded along the frozen, flat river bank at the bottom of the bridge. Vincent had taken the opportunity to ask another question that’d no doubt been on his mind since they’d left the cavern: “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

For the moment he paused and backtracked, searching for what he’d missed the first time. Then he found a tidbit that he supposed he should’ve said earlier, but didn’t because he hadn’t really thought about it until now. Among his first priority had been how to deal with Jenova and Sephiroth. Still, he’d needed Vincent on his side and what better way to convince the man by mentioning a certain scientist. “There’s a secret military organization based underneath Shinra Headquarters buried in my timeline before being discovered. They were originally a medical division for wounded SOLDIER members.” he’d first brought up and then further explained: “They’re called Deepground, a secret SOLDIER arm born from experimentation and an imposed survival-of-the-fittest culture. Chances are Hojo is head of the science division there.”

The cold air whipped their faces as they’d marched towards civilization. Cloud bobbed his head as they’d paced over the thick ice on the bed of the river, but before he could settle into a sense of security, a disturbing sight caught his eye. It’d been the sight of red blood floating underneath the ice and branching out towards them. Now on alert, he’d then asked the older man whether or not he’d seen it.

“See what?” the ex-turk faced him and then slowly settled his eye on the area where the blood had been starting to pool beneath the ice, seeping into the frost. Understanding immediately, the ex-turk nodded and then went to the side of the river, placing his body against the mountain rock. “Stay here.”

In this condition I’d be jumping for joy he’d wanted to quip, but didn’t mention a word and just rested at the foot of the mountain, nodding off as his companion retreated further up the river.

Vincent Pov

There appeared to be a blockage up ahead, but what had been the oddest sight he’d ever seen in years, did not come without its questions. The more he stepped in towards the sight - the more caution he’d subconsciously had – to the point he’d subsequently pulled out Quicksilver and loaded more bullets. Carefully, he’d taken the safety off and held the gun with two hands as he approached. Finally, when he’d been close enough, he’d been sensible to recognize what the barricade had actually been: animals, creatures, and monsters alike laid strewn from across the river, stacked on top of each other and exuding a smell that could only be described as foul. Above the bloody carcasses at the mouth of the river, then soared a dragon with its scaly wings curved upwards stretching out, the wind powerful enough to knock him back a bit. If not for his brass-steel toed boots and balanced experience, he’d have been flat on his rear in fear as another person.

Vincent immediately shot at the dragon’s wings and dodged the breath of fire that aimed for him. There’d been no getting around or sneaking by undetected because it’d been their only way out the mountain, and so he would have to fight for their lives if they’d wanted to get back to Nibelheim. Claws almost hooked into his shoulders as the fabled creature flew above him, but he dodged to the right of the barricade and rolled against the mountain side. Bullet cases littered the ice as he’d shot at the dragon from beneath, which didn’t seem to affect the powerful dragon much. It was as if the dragon were made of a hard material that couldn’t be penetrated. After shooting bullet after bullet into the scaly creature and then dodging its fire breathing attacks repeatedly, he’d began becoming more frustrated with each passing moment. Nearly out of bullets, he stepped to the side and kept moving. What would he use to either get past or kill the dragon now? Then he got an idea and headed straight into the pile of carcasses, hid quietly while the dragon seemed to fly to the top of a large branch projected from greater heights. That’d been odd, why did the creature simply fly to the top? Could it be that the creature had been blind and relied on a sense of smell, sound, and movement?

To test this theory, he’d squirmed a piece of meat out of the carcasses and then promptly tossed it on the open ice that hadn’t been melted yet. From the slit between the bodies, he could see the dragon fly over the little piece he’d thrown and breath fire on it. The ice immediately disintegrated. The bodies seemed to move while he’d been on top of them which meant there’d been moving water beneath him. That explained the blood trailing down to where they’d been. Thinking he’d found a way for them to get the both of them across, he’d prepared to make a sprint towards the blond’s direction and back where the bridge had fallen. It would take them a lot more time, but at least they’d make it out alive without so much as a scratch. Getting out of the pile, he’d travelled alongside of the river and went into a run. For a while, the dragon seemed to follow him before retreating on the same branch sticking out of the elevation. The boy had been just where he’d placed him, resting at the foot of some uneven rock.

Carrying the lithe body once again, he started sprinting towards the place where the bridge had fallen. From there, he took in the cut off shortened rope and started carving a fairly small rock into a sharp edged tool small enough to fit into the barrel of his pistol. He’d headed back to the ravine where the dragon had been waiting for them and shot the hook straight into the mouth of the dragon. Pulling the dragon downwards, he’d swam in the cold water and wrestled the weakened dragon into his grip further down the water, before swimming underneath the floating bodies with the blond still in his arms. The boy had been crammed into the carcasses as he used another body as a stepping stone to get them through the mountain opening. Glad he hadn’t had to rely on the demons housed in his body this time, he moved silently out of the area with the blond in his arms yet again.

After finding their way around the mountains, the two reached an opening into another area filled with limitless trees that’d been pruned of their leaves. Appearing ahead of them it seemed had been some crows gliding through the air as if the cold hadn’t bothered them. Perhaps they’d come to the area attracted to the carcasses. They were after all scavengers, but that didn’t matter right now because they needed to head back to town and recover.

Zangan Pov

Zangan had been chopping the trees for dead wood in the middle of nowhere when he’d briefly snapped out his concentration and beheld an odd sight: a suspicious-looking black-haired man carrying a blond boy he’d known briefly in Nibelheim as Tifa’s personal stalker. He couldn’t say he blamed the boy, for the girl had been one of the prettiest and friendliest females in town - her friends though they’d been a different matter - acting like spoiled brats that didn’t know any better. Just last year, they’d broken his favorite axe without telling him, but then the dark-brown brunette apologized for them. Thinking that a girl couldn’t possibly lift such a heavy axe on her own he guessed it’d actually been her friends. Wait till their parents get a hold of this, he could assure that they’d be properly dealt with, taught a lesson in responsibility, and fairly punished for the better. That’d teach them to be more mature and shape them as people. Ignoring the two, he went back to chopping firewood for the rest of the winter before heading back to his own house near the outskirts of Nibelheim.

Chapter Text

Zangan had seen the helicopter flying in from the north from a mile away. It’d been hard to miss. It couldn’t be anybody other than the Shinra folk, because they’re the only ones that could afford the technology, but what bothered him had been the lack of a decal on the side. The regular logo had been missing. Then just why did the suits decide to come to their little country-side town? If he hadn’t lived on the outskirts of Nibelheim, he could’ve very well erroneously passed it off as some giant bird in the distance. Could it be that the pair he’d seen had something to do with it? No, that hadn’t been it, for the blond boy had been part of the town since his mother had settled in all those years ago. The dark-haired stranger might have had something to do with it, but he couldn’t be too sure and perchance the blond haired boy had merely met a mountain hermit. He didn’t really get a good look at the pair that’d passed by but from the looks of it, they’d been in some sticky situation that’d been hard to pin down. Their putrid smell overwhelmingly overpowering his senses and their blood-caked faces noticeable now, but he hadn’t really noticed it when he’d been busy cutting up the wood. There’d been a children’s tale – what was it – about? That’d he’d heard in passing during his travels. Little Red Riding Hood ventured into the woods to visit her grandmother, but when she’d visited it’d been a wolf in her grandmother’s place and she’d been forced to flee, running into the woodcutter that protected her.

The forty-year old shaked his head in disbelief and merely continued cutting the wood. That is, until two shadowy figures approached him. “Could we ask you some questions?” a male interrupted. He turned around to face but two males in casual clothing. One had jet-black long hair and seemed to be of Wutai origin while the second had orange hair with a stubble accenting a gruff exterior.“What…?”

“We’re just lookin for answers bud.” The orange-haired person said.

“Really?” his voice did nothing to hide his suspicion.

“What my friend here is trying to ask is have you seen someone from out of town here lately?”

“Aside from you two?” he scoffed.

“Hey, we don’t bite and we aren’t lookin to cause trouble now.”

Still unconvinced, he merely swung his axe down at the base of the log that he’d propped up on the stump and acted as if the two weren’t there. That plan went out of the window when he’d reacted as a leather glove coiled around his arm. He’d looked into the eyes of the orange-haired man that’d been responsible and then saw something very unnerving, like he’d switched from being laidback to serious mood. Although he could defend himself very well as a martial arts master, he knew when he’d been outmatched by sheer power and finesse. These men appeared to be more than they’d presented themselves as.

“I haven’t seen anybody. Best try your luck elsewhere.” It’d been a bold faced lie, but as far as he could tell they wouldn’t notice. He’d hoped the two would leave him alone as soon as possible and he could go back to his normal afternoon routine. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be and they’d hung around for a while, the orange-haired male lighting up a cigarette. Thankfully, after the two realized that they wouldn’t get answers, they’d headed in the direction of the town.

Vincent Pov

Vincent heard the rotary blades spinning in the distance. Being an experiment housing demons and a former turk, his sense of hearing and senses had been enhanced to peak physical condition. He’d mouthed a hint to for the blond in his arms to stay quiet. To their surprise, as the sound in question got closer, a helicopter landed in the middle of a barren forest. He hid behind a tree with the blond pressed closely to his chest while the figures stepped out of the chopper.

‘They’re in a different class.’ Chaos said.

‘Shinra?’ he asked the demon.

‘Yes.’

It’d been what he needed to know. That told him to hide out until the helicopter left. When the blades spun around and lifted from the ground - the wind almost revealing his long-black hair - the metal vehicle flew in the opposite direction.

Cloud Pov

The solemn man promptly told him to stay quiet as they’d appeared to hide behind a tree. It’d reminded him of when he and Zack had been hunted by the Shinra army and he’d been too weak, reliant, and unresponsive, running from one place to another – hiding wherever they could until they made it to freedom. But he had no time to reminisce about the past right now and he’d do what was necessary to survive and accomplish what he’d been sent back for. Pressing his head against the man’s chest and curling up as small as he could, he listened intently as lo and behold a helicopter landed near them. It’d been he could guess about twenty meters away from them.

They’d been waiting for what must’ve been an hour before heading in the direction of the town. Along the way, they’d seen creatures that’d seem to first approach them, but then yelped when Vincent had stared them down. It’d probably been because they could sense the demons which he couldn't communicate with ever since his connection to the lifestream had been cut. He’d been very curious about what the demons had to say and what they’d been saying to the older man.

“What are they saying to you?” he asked.

“Directions.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.” he told him.

Chapter Text

Tseng least wanted to be stuck in a mission with the hotheaded, but efficient Turk right beside him. The other man had been notoriously hard to work with. He’d been chosen to watch over the man precisely because they’d had such drastically different personalities for the investigation. Still, it’d been a way for him to prove his worth and his professionalism to his superior - move up the ladder - to get the job done just as the company wanted. The name Legend rung terror within the ranks of the Turks even if the orange-haired man didn’t look like he’d been some assassin patiently waiting to kill them all for the name Shinra, but that’s what the Turks were supposed to do. They were supposed to obey every order and protect the company at any cost even if it meant leaving their own to die. If you weren’t a useful, you’d be disposed of faster than yesterday’s news, that’s the way the company culture worked. No matter how different he’d wanted it to be – it’d still stay the same because he’d only been a rookie Turk starting out.

Legend hadn’t been the man’s real name, that much he could tell. Maybe he’d find out in the future when the other male became more comfortable around him. They’d run into a middle-aged woodcutter on their way to Nibelheim, who’d said he hadn’t seen anybody from out of town and they'd merely continued on their way after realizing they'd be getting no other answers from the man.

“The guy’s lying.” the orange-haired Turk said.

“How do you know?” he replied calmly.

“It’s the way he ignored us and said it with a straight face. He just wanted us gone.”

“Then should we go back and get more answers out of him.”

“Nah, he doesn’t look like the type to break and spill information.”

“Why don’t we try?”

“Because there’s people in this world that you can’t buy or convince with money or torture… and he looks like some loner in the backwoods. We won’t find anything out of him, I can guarantee.”

“Then we should start with the mansion.”

They’d ventured into town acting like tourists that didn’t know their way around. Legend had been having the most fun acting ignorant and shallow. Being a small town in the middle of the western continent they’d be bound to be noticed by the other townsfolk.

“Hey babe, where’s the nearest watering hole you can find around here?” The question got him ignored. Sneaking into the property while nobody had been looking, the two Turks waded through what must’ve been one foot of snow before glancing at the broken window at the back of the mansion. The two searched the place thoroughly before coming to the conclusion that someone had been here and had been searching for something. Of what – they didn’t know yet.

“I heard you used to be anti-Shinra, what happened?”

“That’s a question that’s solely my business, but I’ll answer it partner.”

Partner. That had been a foreign concept to him considering that he mostly did solo missions.

“I’m listening.”

“I made a deal to get out alive in a situation I couldn’t possibly survive and wounded up working for a company I absolutely despised for comfort, security, and money. In a sense they saved me because I’d already been betrayed by another. What more do you want to hear?”

“...”

“Quiet? Fine, let’s get on with this investigation.”

Their next step would be searching the town for evidence of the break in and ask around for any rumors pertaining to who’d been there.

“As far as I know I haven’t seen nobody there in over ten years.” a brown-haired male responded. Each of the townfolk said the same thing. Their investigation had been going nowhere.

“The mayor’s puttin up a bounty for his missing daughter.”

Interesting. The mayor’s daughter had been missing, but since when.

“When was this?”

“Just two days ago if I recall. She’ was headin through Mt. Nibel. Rumour has it she went up there with the shy blond boy.” his accent had thick country-hick all over it.

Two days ago had been when the secret entrance had been opened. There must’ve been a connection between these events.

“Could you tell me what her name is and what the other’s name is?”

“Ah, that I couldn’t tell ya. I forget, but his mother is the local healer and physician whose last name is Strife. The name of tha girl is Tifa Lockheart. Around here everybody knows that.” the black-haired man told him. “If ya ask me, there’s somethin’ awefully funny bout that boy.”

Cloud Pov

Vincent simply told him to stand down and hide behind a bush while he put on civilian cloths. The odd man asked him if he had any scissors to which he’d replied no, but told him that he could probably procure one from the general store or the clinic. He was fidgety, he didn’t like waiting around for the time to pass when there’d been so much to do.

“Why don't we just head back into town?” he asked.

“Because the Turks are there and they’re most likely investigating the mansion... Lesson # 1: Turks know when to wait and when to act.”

Being a warrior that fought tooth and nail to learn the moves he’d needed to defeat Sephiroth head on, he didn’t know the meaning of subtlety. So when the raven-haired Turk told him to wait, it’d been like telling someone that had been used to heading face-first into battle to not do anything while the enemy made their move.

“You’ll understand that it’s not always wise to strike first. Then you can respond to your enemy accordingly.” he’d said moving with the grace of a feline as he moved to the next tree. They’d been near the clinic and he couldn't understand why they simply couldn’t enter. Freezing from the water that they’d had to go through, he needed medical attention immediately, the cuts from the rocks, twigs, and windows still fresh. Hands had been turning blue and if he didn’t at least get a potion to heal himself, he’d be unable to fight for the rest of his life from frostbite.

“I need a potion. We can get your scissors and that from the clinic.” he’d said.

“Wait here, I’ll sneak in and get them. There’s a back door.”

Vincent Pov

Vincent left the blond a kilometer away from Nibelheim. He’d taken out his bobby pin and and pressed his ear against the lock as he twisted it around. The click had been a signal for him to open the door. Silently, he crouch behind a wall, listening intently to the sounds in the small one-story building. There’d been one person searching for something vehemently, but then a knock to the door changed that and said person had answered it. While what he could assume to be the boy’s mother had been busy answering the door, he would move quickly and procure the potion and the scissors. The counter-top had been left unattended, but there were the scissors sitting beside a multitude of medical instruments.

“What’s this about?” she’d asked. There was a tenseness in her voice that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about your son. He’d last been seen heading up Mt Nibel with the mayor’s daughter and the mayor is offering a reward. We just want to know where he is.” a rough, male voice had asked her.

“Heaven’s no, I wish he hadn’t gone out, but I don’t know where he is right now.”

“Surely you can provide us with more details than that.”

He could hear the sound of her shaking her head.

“Please find him. I have no other son.” she’d finally finished.

“Alright, let us know if you have any other information. If we find your son, we find the mayor’s daughter.”

“One more thing, have you seen anybody from out of town lately?”

“You two.”

“Anyone else?” the smoother voice belonged to a younger male.

“There was a black haired stranger that I’d asked to help look for my son. Deathly pale in even in comparison to the regular person in Nibelheim.”

Then for a few moments there’d been silence. The door had been shut immediately after that. “Figures that they’d only be searching for the mayor’s daughter.” she’d said under her breath.

It’d been the Turks, they’d been fast closing in on them and digging for more information. If only the blond’s mom hadn’t mentioned him, then they would’ve been able to move without Shinra knowing that they’d ever been there, but he couldn’t blame somebody without any training to know when the people asking them questions were fishy. Taking that as a sign to get the scissors, get the potion, and run, he opened the cabinet and sifted through the collection of flasks until he found the right one labeled Hi-Potion. Then he closed it gently and went into sneak mode, heading out the door as fast and as quietly as he could.

Chapter Text

Cloud couldn’t remember a majority of his past in the last timeline. It’d only been after the time he’d spent in that lab, that he’d clutched onto the present desperately, wanting to forget what’d been done to him. The initial process had been painful. Feeling the mako within his veins flow, had been too much for him to bear and the memories that he’d fabricated had been the result of the different memories that passed through him. Zack had been the one constant conduit by his side and because the other man had been the closest person to him when he’d died, he absorbed the man’s memories like it had been his own and he’d been a blank slate. There’d still been holes where there should have been patches and monochrome where there should’ve been color. Sometimes he couldn’t differentiate himself from the former SOLDIER 1^st CLASS. Dozing off to the side, he’d seen a white rabbit scurrying beneath the white, cold fluff. Now normally rabbits hibernated during the winter, but these had been mutated by the reactor and seemed to enjoy the winter.

He then closed his eyes for a while, leaning against the tree – imagining a different life where he hadn’t had to fight for his life and where he could live in peace without being hunted, but those dreams were dashed when it reality came crashing down and he knew he needed to keep fighting for the sake of others. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be for him in the last timeline and it wasn’t to meant to last in this timeline, but he could hope and that’s what he’d cling onto.

When the older man had come back for him, he’d still been thinking about the past and the wide space between his childhood and adulthood. Not that it mattered now because at the end, nothing would stay the same due the timeline’s alterations. He’d been passed a potion which he’d swiped into his palm immediately and like a drunkard thirstily swallowed. The potion worked of course and he’d felt an extreme change from limping to being able to move; from being blue to being light-skinned; from being bruised to being unblemished. Turning to Vincent, he’d nodded and then asked: “How’s my mother?”

“The Turks visited her today and asked about you. They must’ve found the connection between the manor and your leaving town with a girl.”

“Tifa.” he’d said quietly.

“The girl is missing.”

The expression on his face twisted into a light frown, but he let it go and went forward with what he’d had to say about the event. “She’d went in search of her mother earlier than I expected and she’d fallen down with the loose stepping plank. There wasn’t anything I could do to save her. By the time I got back with the healing materia, she’d already joined the lifestream.”

“The childhood friend that’d been mentioned.”

He only nodded and then stepped up, pointing his head in Nibelheim’s direction before steadily walking with his head held high.

The pair made their way into the town long after the two Turks left and headed straight for the manor, they’d needed to take what’d been left before the turks came and before moving on. The two of them made quick work of the place, fetching whatever had been in the mansion that they could use: notes, recipes, potions, materia, and gil. Luckily there’d been an old backpack in one of the rooms that they could use to carry everything.

“What’s this?” he’d asked. It’d been a unique-looking materia that looked as if it’d been shattered into different pieces.

Vincent Pov

‘It’s Zirconiade’ Chaos said.

‘What’s Zirconiade?’ he’d had to ask.

‘Trust me, you don’t want Zirconiade. Don’t summon him.’ The irony had not been lost on him, but he’d probed the demon further for more information on the materia. For a demon, he’d been unusually helpful. Then just what is it that the demon wanted out of this that’d he’d been telling him the information as if they’d had an easy alliance.

‘Why not?’

‘He’s even more destructive than I am.’

“Don’t touch that.” he’d suddenly said. “Just leave that with me.”

The young man shrugged his shoulders and then handed the Zirconiade summon materia to him. Thereafter, they’d taken the rest of the items that could be carried with them and then headed outside.

Tseng Pov

Tseng traveled along the icy mountain path towards the bridge. Legend has it, no pun intended, in his mind that he’d bring along alchohol and cigarettes. Although the man may have been a legendary Turk his health habits were something to work on.

“I didn’t used to drink or smoke you know, but ever since I had all this money to spend, I thought it’d be a waste not to use it for the finer things in life. I’ve only got one shot at this life anyway.”

“You’re aware that these things could kill you faster than another human?”

“Mind your own damn business, rookie. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

He snorted. It’d been the other man’s life and he hadn’t had a say in how a person foolishly spent it on unnecessary life-endangering items. “It looks like the bridge had been cut off. Do you think the mayor’s daughter and that blond boy could have fallen?”

“Then we probably won’t find the bodies. If you want we could check the ravine down there.”

Tseng could only nod to his partner’s tune as he looked in the distance, but wait – there’d been something more up ahead and it’d been clear as day now that the blizzard stopped. “Wait, there, up ahead are tracks on the other side of the bridge.” he paused and then continued his train of thought: “If I remember correctly, there should be a reactor around here.”

The two of them first investigated the bottom. It hadn’t been noticeable at first but their Turk training made them able to make out the faint bloody splotches at the foot of the mountain. Tseng nodded to the older man and then motioned for them to follow the river bank which no doubt would lead them to where they’d been wanting to go. Blood flowed from the mouth of the river to where they’d been walking. Up ahead, they’d seen what looked to be a dragon flying in the air with a bloody mouth and a pile of dead unrecognizable creatures or humans.

“My money’s on them little-uns being dragon meat.”

Tseng frowned, no matter how much he didn’t want to think of their targets as dead, it’d been a reality of the job. There’d be dead children, women, men, and family dying to other factors on a regular basis because that’d been life. Not wanting to fight a dragon, he’d pointed in the other direction where they could travel to the reactor. He and Legend made to the cavern where they’d spent the next few hours navigating their way around. Of what they’d found had been burnt out fire wood near the entrance which means someone had been here and headed back to town judging by the footprints leading outside and into the river. They’d finally come upon a secret part of the reactor that they’d apparently never been told about. It’d been filled with the kind of experiment pods you’d see back at Shinra headquarters. At the top had been the name JENOVA embossed into the plate. Suddenly, when they’d neared the room, creatures crowded at the foot of the stairs. Creatures that he could guess had been the entities housed in the experiment pods.

“Hello, we’ve never been told about this, have we?” the hotheaded Turk remarked.

Tseng merely bit his lip at the quip and turned around to see the creatures below. “Let’s go.” He didn’t want to know what was in there and he didn’t want to investigate what they didn’t need to. The door appeared to be unopened. When they’d started heading down the stairs that’s when they’d heard it.

‘Join me as a son.’ a decidedly female whispered into his ear.

“Did you hear that?” he’d asked his partner. The other responded expectedly with a: “Hear what?”

“The voice.”

“No.”

‘Your army awaits.’soothingly the voice informed him. The experiments at the bottom… they must respond to the voice. The voice probably had something to do with the entity inside the reactor, but he didn’t want to find out.

‘You dare reject my offer?’

“Why can’t you hear a voice?”

“Are you going crazy man?”

“No, it’s what’s inside that reactor I’m afraid of.”

“Let’s get out before something happens.”

The creatures then fast approached them and then attacked them with tentacles. He’d managed to beat a couple of them back but they’d kept coming back like zombies. Legend planted C4’s and mines like a pro before telling him to retreat and watching the creatures explode. They’d ran as fast as they could towards the entrance. Then the orange-haired man got to work and attached another C4 in the cavern. Just as the experiments were fast approaching, the other man detonated the bomb and the inner-walls collapsed on top of each other, blocking the entrance with big boulders for good measure.

“Whatever’s in there we don’t want getting out.” And he couldn’t help but agree with his partner. Admittedly the man was beginning to rub off on him with his light-hearted attitude in serious times where most of the Turk recruits or Turk rookies would panic. Despite being opposites, they'd had a professional understanding and seem to have created a dynamic that worked well together.

“We need to report what we found to Veld.”

Chapter Text

Faded navy long-dark blue hair blew with the wind. Tseng pulled out the latest PHS he’d been given and instantly texted his superior at the top of the mountain, a look of utter seriousness and determination etched on his face. Being next to the cavern, the two of them couldn’t do much but stand there lingering around. He’d needed more information about what they’d just encountered. Especially the experiments and the circumstances that led to events.

What’s Jenova? he’d sent.

What did you do? the other man replied.

Sealed the entrance to the reactor.

Get back here. I’m sending an excavation crew over there.

Send the chopper to the reactor.

“What’d he say?”

“To get back to Shinra. He’s sending an excavation crew here.”

“Wait a minute, he knows somethin.” the other Turk remarked.

“If he does, he’s not revealing any details and Turks aren’t supposed to question orders.”

“I guess you’re one of those Turks.”

“What Turks?”

“The Turks that blindly follow orders without questionin what they’d been told to do.”

Tseng would almost be offended if it were not true, but he remained quiet as the other man continued his rant.

“If you don’t question the things around you, then the truth’ll be buried.”

“How is that any of my concern?”

“Would you be willing to kill even your friends for a ruthless energy company?”

He didn’t grace the man with an immediate answer, thinking about the question thoroughly before asking a question of his own, clearly uncomfortable answering.

“I thought you joined Shinra because of money, comfort, and security?”

“Way to deflect another question on me without answering your own.”

Perhaps the orange-haired man didn’t leave his past as anti-shinra activist completely after all.

“I didn’t blindly follow Shinra to get where I am now. I got here with my own skill and tenacity.” he’d started, but then said: “I get the job done, but not without a sense of details.”

“Then you’ll never get promoted.”

“I don’t need to be - with the money I get.”

Then again, it’d been too soon to tell and it’d been too soon to judge. He’d merely stared in the distance before heading down the mountain to where the chopper would be picking them up.

“Just let me impart you with advice as your temporary partner because we probably won’t meet up after everything.”

Tseng just nodded with his back turned and motioned for the other to get on with what he’d been trying to say.

“A Turk means being flexible in the field. Following orders to the letter won’t always work. Don’t turn out like me and shed your principles for a quick buck.”

He really didn’t know how to respond to it – so he didn’t – just kept pacing towards the extraction point. When he and Legend arrived, they’d just waited while the helicopter had been on its way.

“What’s your real name?” he’d blurted out without thinking.

“I’ll give you a hint, it’s another word for that thing we saw near the river.”

“A dragon?”

The helicopter drew nearer and nearer to their position until it hovered over them. Legend got in first, before reaching out a big hand and then pulling him up inside. Tseng had been getting ready to slide the door shut – when the dragon that they’d seen earlier flew in and flapped its wings, unbalancing the air-based vehicle.

“We have a problem sir!” the piloted shouted from the cockpit.

“Let me guess, a dragon?” Legend sarcastically remarked.

“Sir yes sir. There’s an RPG and five rockets in the back.”

The pilot didn’t need to tell him what to do next. He unlatched the RPG from the weapons rack and loaded a rocket, then he’d kneel-ed and steadied the weapon against his chest.

“Keep the helicopter steady!” he’d shouted to the pilot.

“Sir!”

The gust from the wings made it hard to keep steady.

“It’s no use. We need to pin the dragon down.”

Suddenly, he’d wished that they’d dealt with the scaly creature earlier, but it’d been too late now and they’d have to fight their way out of Mt. Nibel.

“I’ll get the grenade.” Legend said as he pulled out a circular weapon with a pin.

The helicopter circled around the top of the mountain with the weather worsening and the winds shaking their balance with each passing moment. Snow descended more harshly around the mountain than it’d had in the lower-mainland. Then – he’d heard the windows shattered and the pilot screaming -

“Shit, I’ll steady the helicopter! He’s been plucked from the seat!” Legend shouted at him as the other man took that opportunity to control the helicopter and slide into the pilot’s seat with his hand on the stick. “Shoot that thing down!”

Not waiting around to see if the dragon had left them alone, he’d searched for it within the area as best as he could. There. It’d perched itself on top of the reactor with the body of the pilot in its claw. He’d locked on and then pulled the trigger, firing a rocket at the creature. Exploding on impact, the smoke blew outwards in a fiery heat and blast that appeared not to have affected it much. Tseng cursed in Wutainese. Fire-breathing dragons didn’t get affected by fire-based weapons. He’d needed an ice or water-based materia to change the rocket’s properties.

“I need an ice or water materia!” he’d shouted at the older man desperately.

“Here partner.” the other had said, before rolling it on the floor towards him. He’d grabbed it and slotted it into the RPG materia holder, before aiming and raising it to where the dragon had been – only – the dragon hadn’t been there. Glancing around for of the dragon, he’d finally spotted it again when the helicopter turned and steadied itself, but this time the dragon stared right at them. Its eerie large ocean green cat-slit eyes and large, sharp teeth bearing half of the pilots body. Alarmed, he immediately pulled the trigger right to its face, not thinking about the balance of the helicopter. The nitrogen frost fanning outwards as it went down.

“Brace yourself, there’s damage to one of the rotors!” Legend pitched in and he’d listened as he set aside the RPG and opened the side for an air bag as they’d swerved with the harsh wind and slammed into the snow. Pressed against the cold, he’d shivered as a hand pulled his armpits from the helicopter. They’d actually landed on a cliff to which the older male had taken the liberty of getting them to flat surface before the entire helicopter collapsed downwards into the bottom. The two of them could have died because of the close-quarters stunt he’d pulled, but he’d been glad that they’d hadn’t and the dragon had taken serious damage to its face.

“What now partner?” Legend had asked.

“I’ll call Veld.”

“That’s your answer to everything isn’t it.”

He texted Veld telling the man that there might be a dragon and that they’d needed a ride. The man told them that’d be the last helicopter that Shinra would send to them and that they were on their own for now if they’d wanted to headed back to headquarters. Tsend sighed and placed two fingers to his temple, touching his forehead and looking down at his feet. Today had been a bitch.

“We’re on our own.”

“Ehhh, then let’s head back to Nibelheim.”

Their injuries from the helicopter fight would mean that they’d have to pay a special visit that doctor at the clinic and that they’d have to stay in the small town till the excavation crew arrived.

Cloud Pov

Cloud stood beside the immortal Turk as the winter descended upon the manor once again. Slow and steady, the white flakes floated in the air and spiraled down towards them. In the courtyard of the property, the two of them held the bag containing the items that they’d found helpful for their journey. Traveling to the Midgar on foot would be long and hard. They’d best be prepared for what had been ahead of them.

“Where do we go from here?” the other had asked.

“We need to take care of what’s inside the reactor and I need a scientist, but the majority of them work for Shinra.”

The two made their way to the entrance of the small backwater mountain town and then headed to the house where his mom resided, their tracks being left behind in the snow. Greeted by a pair of arms and a frown, the older man next to him blushed and tried to get out of the embrace as soon as possible; he however, let his mom hold on before heading inside with the other man in tow.

“And young man, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you!” an angry, but concerned face expected an immediate answer.

“Sorry mom, I’ve been out in the cold.” he replied.

“Don’t you go out without letting me know again!” Although angry, he could tell when she’d been relieved by the drop in her shoulders and her relaxed ocean-blue eyes.

“Yes Ma, I promise.”

“And you, stranger, I can’t thank you enough for finding my son.” she’d said. “Please, stay here until you need to and feel at home.” Vincent just nodded quietly and headed inside. The rest of the afternoon had been spent taking a shower and then eating dinner for the evening.

“Where are you from stranger. What’s your name?”

“I’m from Midgar. Vincent.”

“What made you decide to visit Nibelheim?”

“I’m looking for someone that lived here over a decade ago.”

“I might have known them.”

“I doubt it.”

“If I hear their name I might recognize them.” she’d smiled at them then.

“Lucrecia.”

Cloud stared at his mother from the dinner table. It’d been the first time he’d seen her go completely silent at the mere mention of a name. She’d taken the plates from the table and twisted the tap. Water dropped into the sink loudly. So loud that it’d been the only thing in the house that could be heard. Even the tension had been thick enough it couldn’t be cut with a knife. “Sorry, I don’t know her.” she’d finally admitted eyeing the dishes as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

“Cloud honey, Vincent, why don’t you two share a room?”

The two of them headed upstairs and then shut the door behind them as they’d settled in comfortably – Cloud in his bed – and Vincent against the wall. There had to be one question that the older man had to ask: “Your name’s Cloud?”

“Cloud Strife, at your service.” he’d replied before asking a question of his own: “Are you sure you don’t want to get a foam?”

“I slept in a coffin for over eight years. I’ll be fine sleeping anywhere.”

“Suit yourself my friend.” At the sound of friend, the older man tensed as if unsure that’d been the actual relationship they’d had and then merely closed his eyes.

“Night.” he’d said, turning the lamp light off and sleeping soundly.

Chapter Text

Tseng and the Legendary Turk arrived in Nibelheim when night fell. All their supplies had went down with their helicopter and they’d needed a place to recover. The two made their way to the clinic where the physician had spoken to them about her son and a stranger with black hair, but that hadn’t mattered to them right now because they’d needed medical supplies. Knocking on the door once again, the two waited for the blond-haired woman to open it like last time, only to wait longer than they’d like to admit and realize that the lights weren’t on.

“She’s not here.” he’d said.

“What gave that away?”Again with the sarcasm. Tseng had started getting irritated with the older man, but it could be because they’d been bleeding and had been heading towards Nibelheim for hours. And they’d been getting along so well. Truthfully, it’d been the first time anybody had even had more than a rise out of him.

Ignoring the man, he fished a lock-pick from his pocket and then started getting to work on the lock. After a few moments, the inner lock clicked and he opened the door. Thinking nobody would notice, he and Legend had walked in and closed the door behind them. They’d crouched and pulled out their flashlights as they’d searched the clinic for medical supplies. Tseng checked what looked to be the office of the physician and Legend checked the back where there’d been a counter-top with multiple cabinets and two stretchers.

“Bingo.” his temporary partner had voiced with a husky breath that he’d only seemed to notice now. It might have been the silence; it might have been the enclosed space. But he knew for sure that if it hadn’t been for their current predicament, he wouldn’t have even thought anything about it. Yeah. At least - that’s what he’d like to tell himself.

Tseng in the meanwhile, held the mini-flashlight above the desk that’d had a lock on it. He made quick work of the lock and then opened the drawer. A manila folder sat in between flasks that’d held what he’d been looking for. Written in bold letters had been ‘Hi-Potion’ and ‘Cure’. Getting the flask in his hand, he’d gulped the liquid in his throat and then returned the glass in the desk. He’d been about to close the desk – when – Legend pulled up behind him asking: “What’d you find?”

He then pointed to the manila folder, the empty flask, and the ‘Cure’ potion still in the desk. “See what’s in there.” he’d said it with force.

“I already showed you.”

“I mean the folder.” It hadn’t been an option. It had been a command from a superior. He slipped the folder out of the desk and then placed it on the metal surface. He’d then flipped it open and proceeded to read the first document.

“So what’s this about?”

“She’s the intruder at Shinra manor.” he’d said and then explained further: “Look at this, it’s a document about Specimen-S. An experiment using Cetra cells from subject J that they’d injected into the fetus of L and V. Now who do you think that could be?”

“Who else do we know with an S as the first letter in their name with extensive education and combat training?”

“I meant the J. J is for Jenova, but you could be on to something. S could stand for Sephiroth. He’d have to have been born into Shinra to reach a rank that high early in his career and at the tender age of twelve at that.”

“This is getting creepier partner. You sayin they made genetically engineered child soldiers?”

He flashed the light on the nameplate at the metal desk and then stated: “The physician – Vienna Strife – has been keeping these documents in her desk.”

“Check the other documents.” the older man commanded. Nodding, he flipped through the others and what he’d seen had disturbed him even more than it had before. “This is top-secret clearance why would the woman have this?”

“This is beyond the scope of even the majority of Shinra employees.”

“What’d you find rookie? Spill.”

“It’s a memo about a hidden underground base beneath Shinra Headquarters called Deepground. According to the file, it’d been built with the intention of being a medical devision housing wounded SOLDIER.”

“The other memo details that although the patients would be healed, they’d be subjected to experiments at the leisure of the science department.”

Legend merely felt the documents with his palm, boring holes into it like he’d been extremely pissed, but didn’t mention a word.

“The plans for underground facility and reactor zero are here.” he’d said, pointing to the barely visible blueprints.

He’d texted Veld immediately asking if there’d been something like this that existed and no response had been made. Not at first that is.

Is there an underground base beneath Shinra Headquaters?

Where’d you find this? Return immediately.

Legend then put his large hand over his own, taking the phone into custody and then stared at him with a serious air.

“Don’t text Veld. If he finds out we’ll die.” the older man had said.

“How do you know?”

“The documents weren’t meant for us.”

Tseng swiped the phone back, flipped his PHS shut, and then slipped it into his jacket pocket. “Let’s get out of here and check into the local Inn.” he’d finally said before locking the front door and then escaping through the back which had surprisingly been open. Cold as the night air had been they’d managed and headed for the Inn with the folder slipped into his jacket. “That boy must’ve went to the reactor and then headed back here.”

“There’s a chance we’ll have to kill the woman.” the orange-haired male had whispered.

“I don’t like it as much as you do, but it’s to be expected if we want to live.” he’d offered.

Opening his phone, he texted Veld once again and lied about where he’d procured it from.

Shinra Manor.

“Didn’t I tell you not to text the old man?” Legend looked at him like he was about to be slapped.

“I just told him I found it in Shinra Manor.” he’d said with an apprehensive look on his face.

“I’m impressed. I didn’t think ya had it in ya to lie.”

Veld Pov

Veld looked at the text message sent to him from Tseng. Reading it over and over again as if he’d been obsessed. Impossible. The documents pertaining to the information about Deepground and the construction and plans for the reactor zero had been taken a long time ago. He’d remembered the blond woman who’d stolen the documents like it’d been yesterday, but she’d acted as the documents had already been sold to the black market. She’d been shot and wounded severely, there’d been no way she could’ve survived through the ordeal, but then again he’d never seen her succumb to her injuries. It was as if a ghost had surfaced from the past and had come back to haunt him. He’d reported the mission a success back then. No, the rookie Turk couldn't have possibly found the documents pertaining to Deepground. Not in the mansion. The woman wouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place, but after all this time she’d been hiding in Nibelheim? If she were still alive, then he’d heading there for her. What had been her name again? Mercy Graves, whom he distinctly recognized as married to Khael Graves, a former company employee that they'd killed a long time ago because of the document leak. He simply couldn’t believe that the last place that they’d think to look for her had been a backwater town in the middle of nowhere next to an experiment site housing the Cetra they’d uncovered decades ago and all this time she'd been right underneath their noses.

The excavation crew will arrive at the reactor at approximately 8:00 am in the morning.

That meant the rookie had been lying, but why? At the behest of Legend? He paired Tseng with the older Turk precisely because he’d trusted the younger man to follow orders and never question what the mission entailed. He’d see to it that the two be properly punished for their actions, but for now he’d had more important things to focus on. No matter, he’d prepared the excavation crew to Mt Nibel to recover Jenova and they’d be leaving by tomorrow morning. He’d personally be heading to Nibelheim in search of the blond woman he’d thought he’d killed almost ten years ago and would forcefully retrieve the documents from his disobedient employees. If they hadn’t been willing to hand the documents over, then he’d rip it from their cold, dead bodies. Tseng had been a rookie that didn’t have much combat experience and therefor, would be easier to handle than his assigned partner: Legend.

Chapter Text

Mercy Pov

Mercy had been set to head the medical division for Deepground about two decades ago when she'd been young, naive, and foolish, but what exactly had led her to leave and start a new life in Nibelheim? Shinra had been the type of company that didn’t care about the alleged actions they’d done if it meant keeping their image clean and increasing their profit. By the time she’d discovered what they’d planned for reactor zero and the underground facility, she’d told the people under her to quit working for the company and then blame everything on her while she’d run to the other side of the country to disappear. She’d showed them the memos to prove her point and that their lives had been in danger.

The fact that they’d be letting Shinra scientists run potentially lethal experiments on people from the settlements and their own employees didn’t sit well with her, because as a doctor that meant she’d be taking lives instead of saving them. She knew that if she’d just left without a word, she’d be killed off along with the other people under her because the company would be after them long after everything had been said and done. She’d needed the assurance that she and the others would be getting out alive. Except, she'd underestimated their ruthlessness and had paid for it through a false death.

From Wutai, to Midgar, to Junon, to Costa Del Sol, to Mideel, last she’d heard that’s where the others had been, but she couldn’t think about them right now because for all she knew, the man that’d found her son could be from Shinra. He’d mentioned his name yesterday along with a woman named Lucrecia. The documents held the letters V and L. V had been male from what she could tell and L had been a woman. Although whether it’d been the woman that had entered her clinic eight-years ago, had still yet to be seen.

So how had she survived against all odds that night? She’d had a phoenix down in her pocket that she’d timed to go off when died. She’d discovered a process in which to stall death for hours while reviving herself. Because the skin tissue had not healed the same, it had actually changed her face completely and she’d become unrecognizable which suited her quite nicely. She’d been sure Khael would be fine because they’d needed him to interpret and oversee the layout of the structure.

Khael Graves, her ex-husband, had been the chief architect and engineer for the large underground facility. She’d secured the documents from him in exchange for the safety of his son. She’d ran to other side before getting shot, luring the Turks to concentrate on her while the others hid wherever they could and she hadn’t known she’d been pregnant at the time. She’d hadn’t known whether or not Cloud would survive, but by some Gaian miracle he’d had been born about ten months after her temporary coma. Luck would have it that they’d stumbled upon a stranger that’d helped them get to Nibelheim without saying a word or asking questions. The stranger had an appearance she could distinctly remember: silky-smooth beige skin, wavy brown hair, large expressive blue eyes, a hot-pink dress, and a purple cloak tied around the woman’s lithe waist. When she’d asked the woman for her name, all she’d had to remember the kindness of the stranger had been the mysterious smile that could’ve very well melted the ice caps.

An orange-red sunrise shined light into their home as she’d opened the curtains and the birds filled the branches outside, chirping in the morning. Mercy had left the house early, wrote a note for Cloud, and then headed straight for the clinic with the documents in mind. At around 8:20 am, she’d arrived at the clinic and pushed in the key, heading inside once the wooden door had been open. The blond-haired woman had opened the top drawer of her desk only to blanch at the missing folder and the empty flask left inside. Why had the drawer been unlocked? But she’d been sure she’d locked it before clocking out early. Someone must've broken into the clinic while she'd been at home waiting for Cloud. Come to think of it, she’d noticed that one of the ‘Hi-potion’ bottles had been missing from the cupboard yesterday, but didn’t think that’d it’d been anything but a case of misplacement. Maybe the black-haired stranger had something to do with it? The man had been with her son all this time and when they’d came back, the only thing they’d seemed to carry had been two rucksacks. The only two people who’d been from out of town then had been the red-headed and the navy-headed tourists that were looking for Cloud and Tifa.

That meant it’d been time for them to skip town and she’d have to ditch the man who’d found her son. Their lives had been in danger if the documents fell into the wrong hands, namely Shinra employees that'd been looking for them and wanting to cover up what'd been done in the past.

Veld Pov

Veld had seen the woman get shot multiple times in the face and body, there’d be no way for her to survive. He’d been sure of it and even if she’d had, she’d have been living with bullets in her head and would have difficulty leading a normal life. He’d had to head to Nibelheim to confirm if it had indeed been the blond haired woman he’d been told to dispose of when he’d been but a rookie Turk. In the helicopter, he’d also thought about the two Turks that had straight out lied to him, perhaps irrate because he’d refused to send more resources than necessary. He’d have a personal talk with the two if it’d been the last thing he did at the quiet town.

When the excavaction crew had landed near the top of the mountain, he’d gotten off with them and checked to make sure that they’d started on clearing the rubble. They were to extract Jenova first and then head back to Midgar with her body. She’d be housed in reactor zero for the time being while whatever the scientists had planned for her had went into motion. After a few hours, everything went by without a hitch and he’d headed to Nibelheim to pickup his subordinates and find the woman. For the mission, he’d worn an auburn-white sweater that’d matched his hair and puffy black ski pants with overalls.

Pulling up into the town, he’d asked the locals if they’d known a blond woman and seen two others with orange hair and long navy-black hair. The two turks had been staying at the local inn while they’d perhaps been waiting for a way to return to Midgar. The blond woman they’d stated had been the local physician aptly named Vienna Strife with an eight-year old misfit son. He’d asked if she had a husband and had been told that the man left them out of wedlock and hadn’t been seen around the town ever since the blond had moved to Nibelheim around nine years ago.

The information added up and matched up with the profile of the woman who’d been the ex-head of the first incarnation of the medical division in Deepground. She’d stolen the documents from her ex-husband and then left Shinra in a hurry, traveling all the way to Costa Del Sol before she’d been riddled with multiple bullets. She couldn’t have survived, but as fate would have it, she’d had and even started a new life here. The woman had probably been in the clinic that afternoon attending to work as the town physician. If he didn’t hurry, she’d be alert enough to elude his grasp yet again.

Chapter Text

Mercy had taken the black briefcase, put all of the medical supplies and gil they’d need for the trip while in the clinic - but then the back door suddenly clicked and she’d taken a glance at the back, worried. Hastily, she hid behind the medical cabinet as whoever had just entered drew closer. Footsteps slowly headed towards her and her heart beat faster. She’d stayed as quiet and as still as she could while her breath halted. The footsteps seemed to move away from her before the sound of the cabinets being opened could be heard. She’d briefly took that moment to see who’d it’d been and had been astounded to find that it’d been a face that she could remember clearly from that night in Costa Del Sol. After all, who could forget the face of the man that’d ‘killed’ her? The auburn hair, the beard, and pointy matured face had stood out even among the Turks that’d pursued her and she could clearly remember how tenacious the man had been.

Immediately, she’d went back to hiding in the corner of the room but just as she’d thought that she hadn’t been noticeable - rough, calloused hands grabbed at her shoulder and then forcefully shoved her to the floor. She’d felt the large hand covering her mouth before instantly biting into the age-old Turk and lunging for the briefcase that slid to her left. The man staggered to the floor clutching his hand, but pulled her hair back to jerk her backwards. She hit the man with the back of the briefcase and then made a beeline for the front door. She could hear the man behind her regain his footing before he’d pulled something out and a click sounded from the back. She’d stopped all movement when the bullet almost hit her from behind. “Don’t move!” he’d said as she’d turned her neck around to see the gun in the man’s hand. Slowly, she’d raised her hands and then felt another bullet pierce into her. The adrenaline rush coursed through her and she’d felt immense pain as the blood traveled down her white doctor’s coat. All she’d thought about had been Cloud and helping him to safety, but it’d looked like it had simply been the end of the line for her and she’d been out of luck this time.

“If you want your son to live – tell me where the documents are.” Once more, he’d pulled on her hair as the blood spurted out her teeth.

“I don’t know – I thought you had it.” she’d coughed with her knees to the floor and the briefcase beside her. The medicine - it’d be her only way to survive. If only her captor would be distracted long enough for her to open it and drink it she’d thought, but she knew there wouldn’t anybody heading through either the front or the back door and she’d slumped on the ground.

“...” the man merely remained silent and then put a gun to her head. “Any last words?” he’d asked. Knowing that it’d be her last time alive, she’d merely pleaded at the man to spare her son. “Please - ” she’d continued. “Spare my son.”

Then she realized one important fact: the pistol had been silent, which meant nobody would hear her dying words and there’d be nobody to look after her son. The shot lodged in between her eyes as her world completely blacked out and she’d breathed no more, the blood flowing down her cheek.

Cloud Pov

Cloud had woken up that morning without Vincent sleeping on the wall, sunlight flashing into his eyes so brightly that he’d had to move his hand just to cover his forehead; the dust had been visible enough to see floating in the air. He’d slid out of the bed, put his comforter next to him and then approached the large dresser on the other side. Fingers passed through what seemed to be a small selection of clothing until they’d decidedly settled on a white shirt and white coat, that’d he’d pulled out of the drawer and draped over his arm. He’d then taken a shower and let the water wash through his oily hair and skin. Although the night had been cold, he’d sweated like no tomorrow as the sticky substance stuck to his skin. After the shower – he’d felt much better and much cleaner. When he’d walked out, he’d seen the immortal Turk pouring coffee at the table and then quietly lifting the cup to his lips, eyeing the him as if he’d been the only person in the room.

He’d pulled up a chair and then then brought up a question that he’d been wondering about: “Where’s my mother?” he’d asked the other.

“I don’t know. She’s been gone since this morning. I heard her leave like she was in a hurry.”

“Is there anything left here we’d need to get before heading to the mountain?”

“It doesn’t appear that we’d need anything else.”

“Let’s mosey then.” he’d said, eating the last of his breakfast and depositing the plates into sink before heading out the door – but that’s when he paused and noticed the paper note on the table, that’d probably been previously hidden underneath the plate.

Cloud, go to the clinic without the man named Vincent after breakfast because we need to be prepared. We’re going somewhere far away from here. I have to explain to you something that I didn’t think that you were old enough to understand, but I know that whatever happened a few days ago that your actions tell me that you are old enough. Please tell the man that’d found you that he can live in our home from now on.

Mom

Frowning, there’d been something extremely wrong that he’d missed about the conversation yesterday almost as if that’d been the reason that she left the note behind.

“She doesn’t really trust you.” he’d said.

“I would not blame her for being suspicious of somebody she had just met.”

“She told me to go to the clinic without you.”

“That’s odd, but what is the reason that she doesn’t trust me?”

“She said you could live here, but we’d be going somewhere far away.”

Vincent pursed his lips into an unsure expression and then motioned for them to leave almost as if someone had suddenly informed him of something.

Vincent Pov

‘The woman’s life signature is almost dead.’ Chaos mentioned.

‘Where IS she?’ he’d asked.

‘Where the Hi-Potion and scissors were.’

“We need to go to the clinic now. Your mother could be in trouble.” he’d said as he’d opened the front door for the two of them and didn’t bother to lock it. The pair made their way to the clinic as fast as they could and opened the front door. Seeing the blond’s mother lying dead on the floor and a man in an auburn sweater standing over her with his back turned staring at her cold, dead body, had the child beside him exploding into a rage that could only be seen through the clutched hands. “Someone help! Please!” the blond had said desperately looking at the body on the floor.

The man immediately turned his head towards them as they’d entered the clinic and then started sprinting out the back door while the boy approached his mother and held her in his tiny and weak arms, but the fact that he’d known who the culprit had been bothered him a lot. The face had been unmistakable to him - albeit much older than the last time he'd seen him - because he’d after all interacted with the man on a regular basis when he’d been part of the Turks and they'd been partners while there.

Cloud Pov

Cloud kneel-ed next to her and then spotted the black briefcase she’d been holding. Removing the latches, he’d opened the suitcase and then fished around for anything he could use. Surprisingly there’d been a Phoenix Down mixed in with the items. He uncorked the bottle and then desperately put the edge to her mouth, trying to force the liquid in. After a few moments, he’d checked her pulse and realized that his mother had been dead and there’d been nothing he could do to revive her. Angrily, he tossed the bottle on the ground in frustration and then watched the mixture pool beneath him. The glass had broken into tiny little shards that couldn’t piece back together. Vincent closed his eyes and then shook his head, putting his hand over his with the assurance that there’d been nothing they could have done.

“It’s not your fault.” the other man quietly stated.

“I should’ve seen the note quicker.” he’d said, but knew that his friend had been right. There had been no use crying over split milk, but that didn’t mean her death hadn’t impacted him. On the contrary - it had shaken him to his core but he neither showed it through tears nor despair, for he’d learned how to deal with death a long time ago, seeing every one of his friends in the last timeline die. But not this time, there’d been a chance to change the future for the greater good and for his friends still alive. There’d been nothing they could do about his mother.

Cloud closed his mother’s eyes for the last time and then left her body in the clinic. The task at hand had been more urgent and they’d needed to get to check on Jenova and find a scientist willing to help them do more research on her and do it fast while there’d been no one else at the reactor.

Chapter Text

Cloud Pov

Shredding through the thick snow that’d stood between them and their destination, the pair had taken the straightest path they could through the mountain. Vincent had cut a few logs from the stumps and dead trees near the collapsed bridge. Then apparently, just like last time had thrown them into the air to get across and had jumped onto the temporary platforms while he piggybacked to the other side. When they’d landed, the two of them headed to the reactor on foot, passing by the many birds that called the mountain home: zuus, sonic speeds, and kyuvilduns and of course, last but not least the mutated screamers, plant-like twin brains, and the insect-like kyuvilduns. Luckily they hadn’t had to fight any of the creatures and merely made their way up the mountain. The two of them made it to the reactor at around noon as the sun could be seen from behind the snowy mountain, its rays glinting into their eyes but that quickly paled in comparison to the sight at the top – the bright red Shinra logo on the black helicopter became noticeable at the turn of the incline.

Vincent pulled him aside to hide behind the steep mountain rock and silently asked him to be quiet through the flick of a half-nod and a finger next to his pale-blue lips. Their bodies had been pressed against the mountain wall with the older man sneaking glances around the corner when he could.

“Is the extraction ready?” Vincent had been bothered, but by what? He didn’t know. The man didn’t say a word as they’d stealthed beneath the cliff, spying on Shinra personnel that had been there for the purpose of what – wait – the most probable reason that they’d been there, had been to secure the alien entity and cover up that the experiments even happened, but where pray-tell would they be moving her? The two of them had to sabotage the extraction or else things would go from bad to worse.

“Sir yes sir."

The helicopter began spinning its rotors as it lifted off the ground and then flew down towards the bottom of the mountain - thankfully not detecting any intruders in the area - intruders such as them. The two had taken that as a sign to quietly sneak into the cavern and investigate the status of the reactor and Jenova.

Veld Pov

Veld headed out of the clinic as soon as he’d seen the two enter the one-story building, but before he did, he lingered briefly to get a good look at their faces. From asking around, he’d figured out that the frail-looking boy with a face that could be mistaken for a girl had been the son of the woman he’d just killed: Cloud Strife. Standing beside the boy, had been a taller male with long black-hair that possessed a face that’d been so familiar it’d sent a shiver down his spine. Except it’d been paler and the man possessed a mechanical arm that he hadn’t seen in his former partner before. But the last mission that the man had been recorded as having been on had been body-guarding a scientist in Nibelheim, where the other had promptly been declared deceased. If his former partner were still alive, then he wouldn’t have had an ageless face and he’d have been in his forties. No, the man had either been his clone, twin, brother, or son, but those red eyes immediately established a connection between them as if they’d known each other before.

Veld couldn’t very-well count out the possibility now - because he’d made that mistake before and there’d been a lot of people that he’d thought dead turning up alive lately. Unfortunately, he couldn’t linger on the other man as he’d had more important things to attend to such as the extraction of Jenova and the cover up at the reactor. Not only were their excavation crew to hide the metal from the ruined helicopter, but they were to destroy all evidence of the experiments except for the Cetra that they’d known only as Jenova. Shinra would simply say that the reactor had a meltdown and exploded after years of operation. He’d see the other man again before the end of his time in Nibelheim, but for now he’d had to get to the Inn where his subordinates had been staying and have a talk with them about the documents that he knew that they’d procured. It'd been early and he'd wanted to get the mission done as soon as possible.

Nine ay-em in the morning and the leader of the Turks had to deal with the fallout and the possibility of the witnesses testifying against them.

“Where are the documents?” he'd demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin about boss.” Legend had to play ignorant about the situation.

“Bullshit, I know you have them.”

Tseng just looked at him before sliding the manila folder out of his jacket pocket and then placing the documents in his hands.

“Thank you Tseng.”

“Is it true?”

“I told you that it’s best if you don’t ask and don’t tell.”

“Then it is true.” there had been an unreadable emotion in there.

“That’s more information than you need to know. If I have your assurance on silence then you’re both off the hook this time, but the next time I won’t be so lenient.”

“… Of course sir.” the Wutain Turk had replied.

“The helicopter is near the reactor and the two of you are to return to Midgar with me in it. I’ll text the pilot to pick us up at the bottom of the mountain.”

Tseng Pov

When their superior himself decided to visit them that day – it’d been quite a surprise – considering that he’d been told that they wouldn’t be getting backup. That meant that the man had been here for another reason and he could just let the extraction crew do their jobs on their own. He’d handed the documents to his superior without a word as his partner had acted disappointed in his compliance with the older man – but he hadn’t handed it back – without photocopying the documents at the general store. He’d keep this information just for leverage in case they’d be punished despite Veld’s assurance that they wouldn’t. The man imparted them with instructions: “The helicopter is near the reactor and the two of you are to return to Midgar with me in it. I’ll text the pilot to pick us up at the bottom of the mountain.”

The three of them did just that as they’d checked out of the Inn and then waited at the base of the mountain for their supposed ride. Veld had informed them that they’d be heading up to the reactor first, before heading back to Midgar with Jenova in their hands.

Chapter Text

Ifalna had collapsed at the train station, her daughter cradling the exhausted body, after their desperate journey on a train headed for the sector seven slum area. The two females had made it, but at a large cost to her soul and well-being. Aerith had been but a baby when she’d been taken into custody and had known nothing but the years spent in the lab. The experiments had shaped the little girl to be unaware of what happened in the outside world and Ifalna didn’t know how little girl would fare on her own now that she’d been dying.

Ifalna had seen the future through her connection with the planet and because of that, she’d felt the pain associated with its end as she’d teetered between the plane of existence and the plane of death. Green tendrils had been locating around her and she’d almost passed through the lifestream, but then – a distinct baritone female voice reached out to her, powerful and solid. An ethereal blond woman in white then appeared before her speaking to her as if the other had known her throughout her life.

‘Who are you?’ she’d asked.

‘I am the guardian of time and the avatar of the conscious planet. Minerva.’

‘Why have you appeared before me when we both know that this is the day that I will join the lifestream.’

‘It is not yet your time to leave. The life of another has been traded to allow you more time.’

Eight years ago, she’d sensed an odd being out of sync with the lifestream, it’d told her to head to Costa del Sol to find out why. She’d arrived there and then came across a blond woman that she’d hadn’t seen before. Although the woman asked what her name had been, she hadn’t answered because she neither knew the woman or had been close to her. But she could hear the desperation in her voice as she’d struggled to stand and then when she’d touched the woman, unpleasant events had coursed through her, telling her of the possibility of a dark future where a great sickness plagued the land and a large chunk of the planet had been destroyed down to but a single man. She’d seen visions of the man responsible that hadn’t been named, of a silver-haired man fused with what she sensed had been related to Jenova, fighting a saner spiky blond-haired man with a large sword that did not have Jenova cells implanted in him at birth. She’d seen her baby girl all grown up dying to the same silver-haired man that had ravaged the planet and a powerful spell blocking a large meteor just before it’d hit the planet. What she’d seen that night couldn’t be erased and it’d taken her a long time to get a complete picture of what what the visions meant.

Much younger than what she’d seen in the future, the silver-haired twelve-year old with the glowing aqua-green eyes stared at her from above, face plastered all over the billboard as the newly acquired poster boy for SOLDIER. Underneath the light, where she’d laid dying with soft hands cradling her body, Ilfana hadn’t wanted to die yet. The picture a reminder of the future of her daughter and her friends would face, but she’d done as best as she could teaching Aerith about the spell that would save many although leave a majority of the living world in ruins. Not many people had known that Jenova had in actuality been male, but that paled in comparison to it being an entity destined to destroy all life on the planet, including his favoured son that’d been bred for the purpose of entering the Promised Land and a life of war. It’d been easy to mistake the alien for a female because of its female voice and female form. It'd merely taken on the form of a female Cetra two thousand years ago. She’d seen her beloved little girl, Aerith, die at the hands of the man that had been admired by many.

She’d then escorted the woman to Nibelheim where the planet had told her that had been where the other woman resided without so much as a thought. The woman had been gravely injured to the point it’d been hard to walk. Luckily for the woman, she’d been a seasoned healer with the power of the Ancients and she’d taken it upon herself to take care of the other until they’d reached the small town. Ifalna had sensed the bullets in the woman’s body beforehand and had transformed the metal into a substance that’d been less harmful. Then she went to work patching up and repairing the organs, scars, and tissue like a master hand-sower. When everything had been said and done, she’d went back to the Icicle Inn where after a year, their little girl had been born. The day when Gast had died had been a particularly upsetting memory for her, but knew that the older man would have wanted his daughter – and her - to be safe even when he’d been gone.

Aerith had been crying and desperately seeking a passer-byer that would help them. Then there she’d been – a brown haired fairly older woman with a green dress and a white apron standing over them. Not having the strength to heal herself, she’d asked the woman to take care of Aerith while she just closed her eyes. She’d expected to die right then and there – but she hadn’t. The next day, she’d been in bed staring at the wallpaper that’d been peeled through age and quietly sat up as the woman and Aerith brought in food and medicine. “Mother! She helped us at the train station.” the little brown-haired girl excitedly told her.

Chapter Text

Cloud entered the mako-illuminated cavern with the ex-Turk right behind him as they’d settled in far corner of a stalactite. The two of them viewed the other workers from afar with calculation. Busy like bees attending to their queen, the employees headed up the stairs while a few of them had carried out the trash bags down the reactor stairs. Four of the Shinra personnel had been hauling a rectangular box only fit just right for the size of a humanoid.

There’d been one thing that’d been glaringly apparent: neither the mutated creatures nor the experiments had occupied either the cavern or the reactor. People had been in casual clothing, which meant that the people doing the cleanup work had wanted to keep the situation under control.

After a few minutes, it’d seemed that the workers had stopped coming in and out of the sealed door and then they’d made their move – heading inside the reactor to check. He’d marched up the stairs and then opened the sealed chamber with the valve. To find that the female gray-skinned alien had been nowhere to be seen. Unconsciously, he’d hit the reactor wall with his weak fist and then turned to other man with a determined expression on his face. Vincent coolly stared at him as the older man had stood beside him in the illuminated chamber.

“We have to make sure that the helicopter doesn’t leave the mountain.”

Nodding, the black strands flowed behind as the two of them ran towards the mouth of the cave, light shining into their eyes. When they’d arrived at the edge of the landing spot, the helicopter had not yet taken off and they’d found themselves against the steep mountain side. Vincent had taken the moment to mouth a barely audible sound towards him, but he couldn’t hear too focused on getting the to helicopter. “I’ll handle the helicopter.” the ex-Turk lowly whispered a bit louder. The man attached himself to the bottom of the helicopter and had taken out a blue sphere, which he could recognize as the blizzard materia they’d found in the manor earlier. Sliding the materia into one of the slots, the man prepared to fire an armor piercing bullet at the helicopter’s engine. Straight into the heart of the vehicle, he’d seen the icicles spawning through the metal.

“You fools! The reactor is set to explode in five minutes.” a person had shouted, now alert that the pair had been there. The three stepped out of the chopper and then went in different directions, judging by the footsteps he’d heard. “Sir, they’re on the first incline.”

The low voice sounded familiar, but he hadn’t time to really think about who it’d been. Vincent slid down the incline back to where he’d been and then motioned for him to stay quiet as they’d crouched – the stealth materia had been activated and they’d both blended into the snow while he recognized the auburn-haired man that murdered his mother run by them. Hand clutched into a fist, he’d be lying if he hadn’t felt the temptation to beat the other man to a bloody pulp. He’d held back knowing that he hadn’t stood a chance against and they’d be better off hiding in plain sight. The man with the auburn hair appeared to stop at the curve before looking straight at them and shooting them with a fire bullet. Arms around the taller man’s shoulders, they’d leaped to the top of the small cliff and landed near the helicopter. “They’re at the helicopter get them.” his mother’s murderer had shouted as the stealth materia wore off as soon as the backdrop changed from the snow to the clear skies. Shinra had been his first guess, but he didn’t think he’d encounter the other man this soon.

“Destroy the helicopter.” he’d stated.

Vincent merely placed him one of the large spaced ledges and then returned to the landing area. He’d sat there while he waited for the other man to handle the situation.

“Vincent.” he’d heard the auburn-haired man state. That alarmed him, that meant the other man knew the person that’d murdered his mother, but didn’t say anything about it until now. Perhaps the other man had a reason; however, this had been important information that the other man should’ve told him. He had to remind himself that he hadn’t known this timeline’s Vincent that well.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Vincent had said.

Chapter Text

Veld Pov

“Are you fucking with me?” he’d asked the raven-haired man before him, but all he’d gotten had been a silent stare that he couldn’t fathom. Perhaps this hadn’t been Vincent after all. The task at hand required him to subdue the other man before something else had happened.

“Who are you? Why are you here? Where’s the boy?”

“That’s an awful lot of questions now.” the not-Vincent person responded.

“If you hand over the boy to me then you’ll both live.”

“Sorry, we both know that isn’t happening. Did you tell that to his mother as well?”

The long haired man suddenly drew out a pistol – the Quicksilver – the same one that Vincent had possessed decades ago – pointed in his direction. Although it’d been a long time, he’d instantly recognized the weapon, being either the real one or an exactly replica of it.

“That pistol. It is you Vincent! But how - ? You’ve been dead for about a decade. There’s no way that you’d still stay the same after all this time. You would’ve aged!” he’d continued, trying to probe more of an answer from the man.

“I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” the man said again.

“Then where’s the man that’d been my partner decades ago when I’d been but a rookie Turk!” he’d shouted on the other side while Tseng and Legend returned from the cavern.

“What’s in that box is dangerous.” the other man had finally responded with actual information before freezing the entirety of the helicopter.

“We have no time, we’ve got to get off the mountain!” he’d said to the two beside him and motioned for the two to take the box out of the helicopter.

‘while I hold off this look-alike of Vincent’ he’d thought to himself. Pulling out his own pistol, he’d shot at the demonic-looking man in front of him and then moved to sweep the man off his feet, charging at the legs. The other man merely dodged and then shot another bullet at the helicopter’s rotors, spreading the ice on it and then shattering the blades with another bullet.

“Boss, we can’t get off the mountain with the helicopter completely nonoperational!”

“Then find a way!” Anger and frustration had taken a hold of him, but he wouldn’t let that get in the way of completing his mission.

“Where’s the bomb?” Tseng interceded.

“There’s no time to diffuse it! Just go you fools!” he’d ordered. “It’s in the reactor.”

At the mention of the bomb, the look-alike retreated into the cave and then left them alone on the perch of the landing.

Cloud Pov

“Where ya going vampire?!” he’d heard a gruff voice shout out.

Cloud hid on the ledge, hearing the whole conversation and hearing the men pass back and forth in a panic. There’d been a bomb that’d been mentioned and if he didn’t start heading down, he’d be blown up along with everybody else still in the reactor. But he couldn’t get down on his own, he’d been stuck here until Vincent picked him up from the ledge. In the meanwhile, he’d heard the the men converse with each other about the box.

“What’s in the box Veld! Tell us the truth or I’m not moving it!” the voice that’d been familiar to him had said.

“You’d rather die at the hands of the reactor explosion? I thought I taught you better than that Tseng!” the auburn-haired man had shouted back and then added: “That box contains the last Cetra!”

“It’s not the last Cetra! You’re making a big mistake! It’s an alien entity wanting to destroy all life on the planet!” he couldn’t help but interrupt the conversation.

“Lies!” he’d heard his mother’s murderer stubbornly insist, but it’d been too late and the explosion engulfed the area, blowing heated-winds above him. Green-mako liquid showered the area, melting the snow as it imbued the ground with a glow he’d been all too acquainted with. The mako burned and then his memories flashed as he’d felt the ground beneath him melt. Falling off the very mountain that he’d been stuck on, he’d slid and rolled on the snow, the painful scrapes along his skin being felt even as the cold overtook the warmth of his clothing and the memories of the time in the lab coursed through him. He’d screamed as he’d tumbled down the steep chasm and then when he’d landed, he’d blacked out as he felt warm arms around him.

Chapter Text

Tseng Pov

Tseng had known that the entity within the reactor had been nothing but trouble since the voice called out. What someone had shouted before the smoke fanned out had only confirmed it. If only Veld had listened before the shrapnel struck into him, then maybe he’d still be alive. Tseng had jumped off the ledge with Legend before the explosion caught up with them, but they’d unsteadily hung onto a stalactite for a few minutes, before letting go to land on flat ground. The mako rained down and had touched their faces when the two looked up.

“How are we supposed to explain the death of the leader?” he’d asked his partner.

“I’ll recommend you despite your young age and inexperience.”

“Why?” he’d asked.

“Because you don’t follow orders to the letter and you did what you thought was right.” the other man explained. “I’ll help you become the best damn leader the Turks have ever had.”

“Wasn’t Veld a good leader?”

“No, he wasn’t, because he’d always followed the company blindly even when it’d been wrong.”

He didn’t say anything, merely remained silent as he and Legend scaled down the cliff with nothing but the cloths on their backs and determination to head back to Midgar. Although it would take them hours, they’d find their way to the city if it had been the last thing they’d done and the turn in the report they’d draft up. That is, only after they’d warned the surrounding townspeople to evacuate the area.

Need a mako-fallout cleanup crew at the Nibelheim reactor. We’re on our way to tell the townsfolk to evacuate. he’d sent to another Turk before pocketing his PHS again and landing on the side of the mountain pathway.

He and Legend started making their way to Nibelheim, intent on warning the townspeople of the impending mako-fallout from the reactor meltdown. Fishing a ‘hi-potion’ flask from his jacket pocket, he’d immediately felt better as the substance repaired his wounds. He’d passed the half drunken glass to his partner who looked grateful before looking ahead.

Zangan Pov

Zangan watched as the top of the mountain had been cut into large rocks that flew right off the mountain. He’d heard a loud boom when he’d been chopping up the firewood and then immediately rushed to the scene to investigate. At the base of the mountain, he’d found a blond-haired kid laid off to the side with what’d seemed to be blood scrapes on his face, green mako laced onto the skin, and an arm that had been twisted at an angle. It’d been hard to look away from the sight as he’d picked the blond up by the arms and headed back to his house. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any potions with him at that moment and needed to head back as fast as he could. The boy would have to wait till he’d gotten to the house to get medical attention. Zangan didn’t think much, he’d just ran and sprinted with the boy in his arms, hoping that he could save him.

When he arrived on the outskirts Nibelheim, it’d been dark and he couldn’t see very well, but he’d pushed on determined as the snow fell. Then he’d suddenly opened the rickety wooden door to his own house that’d barely looked presentable. Being a martial arts master certainly didn’t help his financial situation - even more so when there’d been few people he’d been willing to take on as students - but that hadn’t mattered to him much. He could live a simple life as a traveling nomad for all he cared as long as there’d been food on the table, clean shelter from the weather, and he could survive. The poor run-down shack had been worse for wear, aging as the wood chipped and termites at it. He’d been chopping all that wood in preparation for repairing and upgrading his house because he’d quite liked Nibelheim compared to the other cities and towns he’d visited; it’d been quiet, serene and peaceful. Lately that hadn’t been the case with plenty of events interrupting his life.

He’d placed the lithe body on the hard wooden bed and then searched for any potions that he might’ve had from the wooden crates he’d used as containers. Finding a regular potion, he’d went over to the boy and twisted the arm to its rightful place. The reaction he’d gotten had been a rude wake-up call, a scream, and a scratch to the face, but he’d ignored the little one and taken that moment to force the potion down.

Cloud Pov

Opening his eyes in cold sweat, he’d immediately felt excruciating pain as he’d clutched onto whoever had woken him up. Feeling around, he’d realized he’d been sitting on a hard wooden surface. Eyes darted around for the culprit and then eventually landed on bright blue eyes and tanned skin. Through the pain, he’d grit his teeth as he’d swallowed the potion that’d been put to his lips. The potion did the trick and he'd felt mildly better when its effects washed through him.

“Zangan.” he’d addressed.

“How do you know my name?” the aging forty-year old had asked.

“Tifa had mentioned you.”

“She did?”

“Yes.” he’d said, before sliding his legs over the bed and then talking with the man about what happened.

“I found you at the bottom of the mountain. Arm twisted and health low.”

“I see. I’m thankful.”

“You’re welcome young man. Now let’s head home to your mother.”

Then he’d remembered he’d had no mother to come back home to.

“She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” the man had said sincerely and then fixed him with an expression he couldn’t read. “What happened to your companion?”

“I don’t know.”

“What were you two doing on the mountain? That place certainly isn’t a place for kids.”

“We were looking for Tifa but couldn’t find her. I winded up being stuck on the other side of the bridge when it collapsed. The man found me and nursed me back to health.” he hadn’t exactly lied, just left out the details that would make them look suspicious and the part about Jenova and the mako reactor exploding. Still, he’d felt guilty for not being totally honest about what had happened and not being able to save her.

“How did your mother die?”

“Murdered. I don’t know who.”

“Let’s see about we can do young man. How about living with me from now on?” Zangan had told him. He didn’t know what to say and didn’t know how to respond. So he hadn’t.

Chapter Text

Zangan had cooked him a meal from venison meat over a low fire. The heat warmed them up as they’d enjoyed each other’s company while talking about many subjects that’d been on their mind that day. Namely: martial arts, traveling, places, and food. The next day, they’d headed back into town to check up what’d had happened since his mother had died, searching inside the clinic first. Cleared and clean, it’d been evident that someone had tampered with the scene before they’d gotten there. The body of his mother had disappeared along with most of their medical supplies. He still hadn’t known why she’d been murdered, but perhaps the Turks knew that he’d been snooping around the mansion and needed a person to scapegoat. Crouching near the spot where his mother had died, he’d felt the floor where the body should have been – when suddenly a loud ringing sounded and there’d been shouting from outside.

There’d apparently been a town meeting of sorts because the neighbors concentrated together in the middle of the square. The two of them headed out the door and then had approached the side of the square. In the center, had appeared to be the one person that he’d never expected to see this early in the timeline, the future leader of the Turks, Tseng. Except that he’d been younger and didn’t have his customary white dress-shirt and navy-blue Turk suit on. But that’d explained the why the voice on the mountain had been familiar because it’d been the leader of the Turks in the other timeline all along. That meant that the other two on the mountain had probably been Turks too. Vincent had known the other one that’d killed his mother and he’d overheard that the man had once been Vincent’s partner within the Turks. That’s one bit of information he’d never known and the man hadn’t actually told him.

“Listen up! The town has to be evacuated! The mako reactor just melted down.” Tseng shouted over the crowd. More voices interceded and joined in as panic spread among the people.

“What? How will we live now! We can’t just leave everything behind.” a woman in a black winter coat had said, crossing her arms.

“The company will cover the cost of relocating. Head to Rocket town! The company will send reimbursements there!” he’d said before turning to the person with wild orange hair.

“No! My Tifa, I have to find her! She’s still on that mountain!” Mayor Lockheart had all but spat at them.

“Sir, unless you want to die, then I suggest you do not approach the mountain.”

“Like hell – I’ll find her!”

“Sir, calm down.”

“How can I stay calm when my daughter is out there?!”

“There is nothing more we can do.”

Zangan didn’t know what to say except that the announcement certainly put a dent into his plans of living out the rest of his life in Nibelheim – after having already decided to settle down. Now that the plan had been dashed, he’d needed to figure out what to do and where to go from there. With the younger boy’s mother murdered and nowhere to go, he’d take him to move someplace where they could survive and live off the land. Although he could empathized with that nice girl Tifa, imagining her wandering the mountain alone, he’d had no choice but to move aside because the area had been charged with mako and it’d been dangerous.

“Wutai is a good place.” the blond had mentioned. The Strife boy did have a point: Wutai had been a place occupied with lush green forests and vegetation. It’d been a perfect place for them to live out a quiet life.

“To start over?”

“Yeah.”

“Excuse me, but did you just say Wutai?” the long-haired man of the duo had suddenly approached them. Cloud didn’t reply, eyeing the man with careful air as the other man had simply continued.

“Yes, why?” he’d asked the man.

“I would advise against moving there.”

“Is there something we should know about?”

“The war is commencing.”

“War?!” he’d reacted, not very keen on moving there anymore.

“Keep it quiet. I’m not supposed to tell anybody this, but the company is sending people there. I’m only warning you for your own safety.” the man finished barely above a whisper and then went back to conversing with his partner like he hadn’t revealed important information.

“I need to talk to you.” Cloud had told him, before pulling his arm towards the back of the clinic and stringing him along to a place where a majority couldn’t hear them.

“Let’s move to Wutai.” he’d said firmly but quietly.

“What’s the reason that you want to go there?”

“Shinra – they murdered my mom.”

“You’re in no shape to take them on young man and how do you know that?”

“The two people that warned the town – they’re in reality from the assassination, bodyguarding, and investigation division at Shinra – the Turks.” the blond had bluntly said and then added: “Train me. I’ll be a good student.”

The moment that the young man had asked him to train him had been the moment that he’d replied with an immediate ‘no’.

“Why not?”

“You have a lot to learn.”

“I know.”

“When you can assure me that it will not be used for revenge then I will train you.”

“I need to get stronger to protect what’s important to me.”

“What exactly is important to you, boy? You need to think about this.” he’d said.

“To preserve the greater good, fight for what's right, help other people, help my friends, and secure the future.”

“For yourself?”

“No, for others.”

“Then I will train you boy.” he’d said, heading towards the mountain pass that would lead them to Rocket Town. Cloud hadn’t said a word and had kept walking behind him until it looked like they’d reached an opening between two mountains. “We’re going to Rocket Town aren’t we.”

“I still need reimbursement.” he’d nodded.

After what seemed to be hours, they’d finally arrived at the tiny town and encountered an influx of refugees from Nibelheim, looking as if they’d been about to riot. “Where’s our reimbursement!” shouted a man with light-brown hair. Even the mayor had been there and he looked angry. That energy had then turned the focus from Shinra infantry to what seemed to be them.

“You! Where’s my daughter?” the dark-brown haired man had said, heading towards them as he'd shouted profanities and then laid a hand on the blond's shoulders rather tightly. Shaking the younger boy, the mayor did not relent until a response had been served.

“I’m sorry I don’t know.”

“The other children had said otherwise!”

“Mr. Lockheart, I did see Tifa on the bridge and followed her, but I don’t know where she is now. I was stuck on the other side of the bridge when a stranger helped me.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“If the other children had seen Cloud then why did they leave her by herself?” he’d asked the mayor.

“...” the man didn’t know how to respond, but the other had merely let the subject drop and then went back to where the crowd had been.

“Thanks for defending me.” Cloud had said.

“I know those children. They’d pass off the blame if it didn’t get them in trouble.”

Tseng

Legend

January 24, 1992

Nibelheim Reactor Incident # 2

Veld, the leader of the Turks has died and the Nibelheim reactor located on Mt Nibel is gone. Jenova – the Cetra – has been destroyed. Possibility of the surrounding area being affected by mako fallout extremely high. Sending a new cleanup crew for the mako fallout after the radiation has subsided and evacuating the townspeople. The reactor had malfunctioned, melted down, and exploded, killing many of the personnel attending to the reactor. In the wake of the disaster, the snow has melted and the top of the mountain has been sliced off.

Tseng didn’t add anything more to the report because he’d no doubt be revealing the documents they’d found and the dead woman, that he’d guessed had been the blond child's mother. The one with the muscular tanned man back in Nibelheim. But he’d hoped the blond child would live a normal life after the ordeal. It’d seemed that the incident had tossed the two together.

Legend had nominated him as promised and the more higher-ranked individuals had objected, but other Turks that’d he’d known also vouched for him, telling the review committee that he’d followed orders to the letter and made good decisions as needed. He’d set up his office in the room that Veld had previously occupied. Although Legend had become his friend, mentor, and right-hand man, he’d still held the same rank as he’d had before, citing that he’d hadn’t really been interested in becoming an individual tied with protocol. The photocopies of the documents had been slipped into the bottom drawer of his newly acquired metal desk with one of the strongest locks that a Turk could ask for.

“The town is empty now correct?” he’d asked.

“According to the cleanup crew you’d sent over there.”

“I’ll order them to bomb it to prevent the mutated creatures from springing up and erase all evidence that there’d been experiments there in the first place.”

“That’s quite ruthless of you.” Legend had smiled.

Bomb Nibelheim. Tell everyone in the vicinity to stay away from Nibelheim. Especially the new cleanup crew. Investigate what happened at the reactor thoroughly and clean the mako from the place. he’d simply sent to another person in a long line of personnel that’d been there. He’d imagined people in hazmat suits scurrying about trying to find items and creatures from piles of rubble. Among the people sent to investigate the reactor and its after effects were battle-capable Turks with clearance. A majority of their SOLDIERS had been deployed to Wutai, stationed at Shinra headquarters, stationed inside the plate, or stationed just outside of the city in case there’d been an attack.

Roger that boss. the person had sent back. Then he’d flipped his phone closed and he’d spun around his chair to watch the view of the city from a great height. Seeing the building and street lights turn on at around five o’clock. The city had indeed been a sight to behold with its tall concrete, iron, and stone structures erected above the plate and the pizza walls that separated each sector into eight pieces.

Chapter Text

Cloud opened his eyes to the green tint and shurbbery populating the small town. The two of them had been pacing around aimlessly and sitting outside for hours. The Shinra Infantrymen neither breathed a word about when they would get their ‘compensation’ nor when they’d be allowed to leave. Troops had been extremely tight-lipped with their guard flanking and surrounding the Nibelheim refugees, their distinct navy-blue uniform standing out among the crowd. That night, he’d seen the crowd almost become livid, constantly complaining and asking more questions than they really should’ve if they knew what’d been good for them. Their only source of light came from the torches that burned brightly around the area, illuminating the concrete, stony paths, and the old cobblestone dwellings.

Mayor Lockheart hadn’t been seen for a while, probably having enough gil to stay at the nearby Inn and thinking about what had actually happened to Tifa. That’d been fine with him and as much as he’d cared about his childhood friend, nothing would change the fact that she’d died and he’d now had to deal with other situations entirely. He couldn’t afford to linger on what couldn’t be changed. Then he’d do what needed to be done for the sake of the entire timeline. Sitting there, underneath the moonlight, his thoughts then went back to the Wutai war. Cloud decided then and there, that he’d rebuild AVALANCHE as a representative of peace, justice, and reformation, instead of the eco-terrorist group they’d been labelled as before.

If he let Shinra stomp all over the island nation, its ninja and samurai forces would be decimated by the superior strength of corporate military might. The best chance at fighting against Shinra on equal footing would die out and there’d be nobody left to stand between their immense greed and the well-being of the planet. But hadn’t he just wanted to leverage for peace, reform, and justice? At the state that Shinra had been now - with a vastly corrupt administration and a military at their disposal - there’d be no way to talk their way out of war and there’d be no way to establish peace, not until he could round up allies within the company. Though no doubt, they’d still be painted as terrorists through Shinra propaganda and would be blamed for the company dealings. No longer would AVALANCHE use the bombing of reactors as its main method in dealing with the forces of Shinra. Instead, it’d act solely as a diplomatic and defensive paramilitary group employing guerrilla warfare for the people. The reactor bombing had opened his eyes about what they’d done in the past without consideration for the life around it, being no better than Shinra had been. This time, he’d be changing the way AVALANCHE dealt with other people, factions, and situations.

Wutai would be their base of operations as they’d help build and defend the island nation, fending off its enemies and establishing it as an independent power. Their only real hope of saving the planet had actually been finding alternative sources of energy and destroying the reactors. Building a company on the promise of alternative energy and as a defense contractor that would become just as powerful as Shinra would take time, but would ultimately save lives. But he wasn’t a bureaucrat and he wasn’t a businessman and he’d known that he would fail without people that’d known what they’d been doing. Rufus Shinra had always had ambition to supersede his father and he’d been told that the man had even funded AVALANCHE in its infancy, but being ten years old at this point in time did no good for them. Reeve should be around twenty-two years old along with Barret; Cid should be nineteen years-old; and Red should have been older than either of the three. Reeve might be of help if he could convince the man of the real damage Shinra would do in the future and Cid might’ve been an option – they’d been in Rocket Town – after all.

Firstly, he’d need to recruit people to Wutai and establish a company to aid the surrounding areas. Then he’d need to find a resource to market as an alternative to the widely-used mako energy. Oil had been Barret and Cid’s first choice, but that’d polluted the air more than mako energy ever had and he’d known when their airship had broken down, spilling a black substance all over the ocean that poisoned the fish. In due time, creatures from the sea turned up washed ashore or floating un-moving. Although, it’d still been a better alternative to the other sources of energy, being efficient for machinery, flight, and weapons, he’d been thinking of other viable alternatives. He’d thought about perpetual hydrogen conversion using water as fuel, but didn’t know if it’d work because the design hadn’t been implemented yet even in the future. How had he thought of it in the first place? Being friends with an inventor, mechanic, and scientist did help him learn a thing or two about machinery. Never-the-less, he’d think about it later after he’d shut his exhausted eyes as the fire warmed them up.

When he’d been resting against the wall, the flashbacks had become stronger and the pain had become more fleshed out – countless needles had poked into his skin and he’d been back in that hell-hole he called a mako-tank, drowning forever in green liquid. But something more disturbing had come up: he’d felt ghostly touches along his skin as if he’d not only been experimented on but felt and he’d felt almost as if he’d been about to throw up. He’d woken up sweating, blindly trying to grab at anything nearby and then had clutched onto the bulky arm of his compatriot. The venison meal he’d eaten yesterday had spilled all over the ground as he’d lurched forward and vomited.

“What happened?” the burly tanned-skinned man asked him.

“Nothing.” he’d said almost defensively. Cloud continued resting against the cobblestone, shoulder digging into the side as his taller – adoptive father? - had stood upright beside him.

The two had discussed the events that had led them there.

“You’re not giving the full details about Tifa.”

“I followed her, but she fell down the bridge and when I’d come back to heal her, the lifestream had already claimed her. I’m sorry.” he’d admitted.

“It’s alright, there hadn’t been much you could do for her, but you really need to apologize to the mayor for Tifa. Keeping this from him will only hurt your credibility. At the moment, I will understand if you do not because he might not react that well at being lied to.” the martial-artist had said.

Little did they know that all this time, a certain Mayor Lockheart had actually been listening in on their conversation, biding his time for when he’d act. That’d been the first time that Mr. Lockheart had seen absolute red. Seeing neither reason nor rationality as he’d pinpointed a person to blame the death of his daughter on. The Strife boy had even lied to him about his little girl and that’s all he’d seen, not the fact that it’d been accident nor the fact that the other boys had gone with her but then abandoned her to the treacherous mountain. Determined to get vindication, he would see to it that the lithe boy never saw the light of day again, much like his little girl.

“Shh.” Zangan had pointed to a spot where he couldn’t see very well.

“What?” he’d asked.

“I might be older than I used to be, but I know when there is somebody there.”

Nobody turned up, however, and the two had gone back to waiting around outside as boredom eased the tension and they’d let the whole issue of being watched drop. Time passed by and it’d seemed there’d be nothing happening that night. Through eyes that’d witnessed the burning of his home town and all his dreams turn into nightmares, he’d stood up taller and had come back a stronger person than he’d ever been. But he’d ultimately learned what it’d been that he’d been missing in the last timeline, that the pen is mightier than the sword because it’s the pen that could rewrite history. It’d after all been the words and notes that shaped the world around them with the hand that pushed it into the paper.

Peace and quiet had been much needed – but unfortunately it wasn’t to last when the pitchforks and torches came out – and they’d looked on as multiple figures had looked at them with disdain. He’d woken up his newly adopted father, shaking the man and then motioning for them to get out of the town. The leader of the mob, Mr Lockheart, had approached them. “You killed my daughter!”

He sighed as fate had seemingly decided to throw him another curve ball. “I didn’t Mr Lockheart.”

“You said she’d collapsed on the bridge but you survived and she died!” he’d angrily brought up. “The other children, they’d said they’d spotted you, escorting Tifa - ” he began, but had been interrupted.

“Mr. Lockheart… I don’t hang around Tifa.”

“You didn’t tell me everything. I’ve known the other children far longer! How can I trust you?” he’d said with all the recklessness of a grieving father and could really understand.

“Both of you better get out of town!” another person in the crowd had shouted, fueling the fire that’d already started. It’d been the parents of the children.

Motioning for Zangan to follow him, the crowd followed them angrily as he’d made a jump over the fence to Cid’s house and banged on the door repeatedly. The rough man he’d known in the other timeline had now been replaced with a younger version with a clean-shaven face.

“Help.” Seeing the angry mob behind them, the other blond had nodded and ushered them into the house, closing the door shut. It’d been as if zombies were banging on the door and shouting relentlessly.

“We know you’re in there!” they’d heard.

“What made them so angry?” Cid had finally asked.

“It’s a long story.” Zangan had chipped in.

“I’ve got time.”

“But we don’t, if we don’t get out of here fast, we could be pitchfork meat.” he’d said desperately. “Could we borrow your plane?”

“What? - Hell no!”

“Please, we really need to get to Wutai.”

“If yer goin I’ll be driving.”

“Please.”

“Ah! Fine – but you folks gotta explain just why tha hell I’m helping you.”

“It’s because the mob outside your door wants our heads pitchforks for an incident that isn’t our fault.”

“Then hell – we’re surrounded! I’ll open tha stairs to tha attic.” Cid had finally said, before revealing a wooden ladder leading to a dark area. The three of them clawed their way up the top and then hoisted up the ladder into their fold. Cid shut the trap door and then finally turned to them. “We can stay ere till they either leave or head inside the house.”

For hours, it’d seemed like the villagers had finally either slept through the night or had calmed down enough to back down. No sound being apparent or discernible from the confines of the old attic. There’d been a chest at the back that he’d checked out. Glowing in the dark, he’d put it away and then closed the lid. “Don’t touch ere. It’s an heirloom passed down from father to son.” Cid had said with a heavy country accent.

“What materia is it?”

“Hell if I know! It has sentimental value.”

“The villagers are quiet.”

Nodding, the older man – who’d currently been nineteen at the time – had slightly opened the hatch and then taken a peak through the slits before shutting it again. “It’s all clear.’” the man had told them.

Quietly, they’d stepped down from the attic and made their way out the back door. What’d been odd had not been the sight of the empty-untouched house. No, that’d been normal. It’d been when they’d stepped outside that’d been what bothered him. None of the villagers from Nibelheim had been around or could be seen. Almost as if they’d up and left in a hurry. “I’ll drive ye ta Wutai.” Cid had finally said.

“Thanks for helping us with our situation.” he’d said finally.

“I feel very uneasy.” Zangan had stated.

“Me too. Why are there no people around?” he’d asked, curiousity now piqued. Then from the bushes came out a person with dirty-brown hair. “The troops from Shinra, they’d shot down everyone in the town. I’m the only survivor along with you all.” he’d said.

“How’d you survive?”

“I wasn’t part of the mob that surrounded your house. I’d been out of town and then came back just in time to hear the swords clashing.”

“Shera!” the blond-haired pilot said angrily, before banging on the door to the house across the street and then all but busting through with a spear, breaking the wood as he’d unlocked the entrance. “No, she’s gone along with eryone I ever knew.” The pilot then fell to his knees in despair almost as if not believing it’d happened. The survivor then turned to them: “I don’t want to go back here.”

“I’d never thought that Shinra could be this remorseless.” Zangan had stated. “Me and Cloud are heading to Wutai to start a new life.”

“Why in gaia’s name would ya want to head to Wutai?”

“Shinra murdered my mother and the people that’d didn’t know any better.” he’d said to the other three. “I need to get to Wutai to not only request help but change their tactics. Their forces will get decimated.”

“No offense kid, but how in tar-nations will ya do that?” the blond-haired pilot had said.

“There’s a war brewing in Wutai?” the brown-haired survivor had asked.

“Yes, surprisingly, a Shinra employee had warned us from moving there before we left Nibelheim because the reactor melted down.”

“Zangan – father – you’ll have to speak with the leader of Wutai about Shinra’s secret invasion.” he’d said with no hint of sarcasm. It’d sounded weird calling Zangan his ‘father’ but he couldn’t really let them know that he’d actually been from another parallel world and he’d have to be extra careful about what he revealed around other people from now on.

“I won’t make any guarantees but - ” the other man merely said before nodding.

“Now hold on just a fuckin minute!” Cid had told them, “Let me get this straight – yer going ta fight Shinra! Are you numbskulls? No one in their right mind - ” but had been cut off during the rant.

“Shinra killed your friends and your family.” he’d said.

“But what can I do’? I’m just a fucking pilot.” Cid had told them.

“Take us to Wutai and help the resistance.”

“There’s no future on this side of the continent.” the dirty-brown haired survivor had said. “I just want to live.”

“Do you know about weapon-smithing and machines?” he’d asked the dirty-brown haired survivor.

“A lot of the people in town are mechanics, inventors, and scientists. It’s why we’re called Rocket Town after all.”

“Build a company, you’ll be the first Wutain and Western continent defense contractor and get rich off of the inventions that protect people instead of kill them.” he’d told the other man.

“For a kid, you know a lot of adult terms.”

“I’m the son of a local physician. She taught me what she could.” he hadn’t exactly lied, but he left out the part where she hadn’t taught him about corporate terminology.

“Are we goin or not?!” shouted Cid as the man headed for the Tiny Bronco. The three of them had followed after the uncouth man, sliding into the two-seater plane and sitting on the wings. He’d gotten in with Cid sitting at the front, who'd then put the key into ignition and then waved off that they’d been about to fly. Roaring to life, the old plane had become brand new in its prime and gone were the peeling paint and the rusted metal. Now, the sleek maroon-painted vehicle took to the skies without a hitch.

Chapter Text

The view from the plane had been absolutely breathtaking with its endless blue waters, fresh air, and height. Reminiscent of the girl that’d been his teammate, ahead of them had been a green landmass that’d been fairly wide enough to fill the ends of his eyes. Mountains, forests, bridges, beaches, and pagodas, had passed them as they’d landed near the biggest village on the island nation. Dust, sand, and dirt scattered behind them as the vehicle pulled out its wheels, touched the ground, and skidded to a halt when it’d briefly hit a large object.

“What’d she hit?” the nineteen year old had asked while shimmying over the edge of the seat. Cloud had jumped off too as the other two had pulled themselves down from the wings.

“That’s a big rock.” he’d merely stated, pacing towards their destination, which from what he could tell had been a long way considering that they’d actually landed on the beach.

“Wait, what am I going to tell the leader of Wutai?” Zangan had said.

“That Shinra’s coming to invade them. Offer them your help and train their army.”

“I don’t know the first thing about military tactics! I’m a martial-artist.”

“Then I’ll tell you what to do.”

“You’re expecting me to believe that a child can outmaneuver Shinra troops?”

“They’re predictable, attacking from the front and relying on the strength of SOLDIER.”

“Have you even seen a SOLDIER? We would be wiped out because of how crazy strong they are.”

“SOLDIERS get regular mako injections. If we can reverse the process, freeze, or neutralize it then their strength would be reduced and they’d be much weaker. Mom was a specialist on mako-poisoning and mako-related subjects.” he’d lied, but he’d needed to get them to see what had been possible.

“I can try to produce bombs that can counter the mako injection process, but I’d need a lab to work on it.” the inventor had said.

“Ya still haven’t told me yer names yet.” Cid had told them as he’d gotten back on the Tiny Bronco.

“This is Cloud Strife, I’m Zangan Strife and?” Cloud raised an eyebrow when the man adopted his last name, but he supposed that would truly make them family now. Even then perhaps the man had wanted to conceal his past and where he came from.

“The name’s Theodore Proctor.”

“What’s yer specialty pretty boy?” the blond-haired pilot had asked.

“I’m a mechanic and inventor, but I’m well-versed with substances and materials.”

“I’ll stay ere and wait. I got all day but I ain’t goin with ya to tha village. I need ta watch ma plane in case someone tries ta steal it.” he’d said curtly.

Ironically, that’d been a concern that the pilot hadn’t had when they’d met him in the other timeline. Perhaps the planet had been subconsciously implanting memories of the future in his friends.

Chapter Text

“I don’t have time to entertain guests… Get on with it.” Godo Kisaragi had said sternly.

“Your lordship, Shinra troops are on their way to invade Wu -”

“Don’t you think I know that? My scouts have told me that they’re on their way.”

“Then let me offer you assistance.” Zangan had said determined. He and Theodore had been standing in the far corner of the throne room while the older man negotiated their terms. Structured with bright lights, red-painted wood, and lime-stone, the building had certainly been impressive for a town on the other side of the main continent. Though compared to Midgar’s big buildings and structures, it’d been but a blip in the construction industry.

“What could you possibly offer our country during these trying times. How do I know that I can trust you?”

Zangan remained silent, but pushed for reason and a deal. “Don’t count us out. We can train your army to counter Shinra.”

“Really, a bunch of ragtag strangers offering to train MY army better than I have trained them myself?”

“Yes, we can teach your army how to conduct ambushes properly and maneuver in the field. Theodore and Cid can be our defense contractors. Their experience in mechanics, invention, substances, fuel, and materials is invaluable. Permanent strongholds are useless if not for luring in the enemy.”

“Do you have anything to show for your words?” Godo had asked sternly, but Zangan couldn’t seem to construct an argument at that moment. Too much at a loss for words.

“Sir, please believe in us. Your nation will fare better in the war with our help. We can promise to reduce your losses.” he’d spoken up.

“Young man, I need confidence not meaningless words.”

“SOLDIER are injected with mako in their veins. That is ultimately why they are strong, but if we can find a way around it we can gain a big advantage. We will not provide you with advanced weapons, but we will provide you with a way to defend yourselves and teach you how to use the environment and science to bolster your chances. Even make armor that is more efficient for war and a better way of communicating.”

“Goro! I need your advice.” Suddenly, a man appeared before them out of thin air, probably using a stealth materia.

“You summon me, my lord?” the man wore regular wutain armor and had black hair much like the majority of wutainese people. It’d been one of the uniforms that he’d seen in old pictures that their resident ninja had shown them. The sleeveless light sea-green shirt stuck out from underneath the metal chest guard as a black satchel adorned the belt on the waist and swollen black pants fitted nicely into small shoes that were light enough to run in.

“Tell me what you think of these strangers after you have tested their strength.”

The man in the armor merely nodded and then went into a battle stance.

“Wait, let us prepare.” Zangan had stated, before heading towards him and then asking: “Do you have materia with you?”

Taking out the items from the bag that he’d packed before leaving Nibelheim, he’d taken out all the materia he’d had and then placed it on the ground, telling the older man exactly what each of them did. The sphere’s rolled on the ground and had only been stopped by the palms of the hand. Starting from the basic color coding: green for magic, yellow for physical, blue for boosts, and red for summoning, to finishing with the abilities that the materia held, he’d recited it like the back of his hand. The older man then started picking up the following materia: Water, Sense, Speed, Stealth, and Mp Absorb before quietly walking towards the center of the throne room.

Raising the arms to the chest and then falling into a fighting stance, the older man watched the bodyguard with a careful eye before inching his foot forward. Then with a quick slash to the face, the martial-artist dodged and then countered with a slide to the foot. Goro hopped back and then turned invisible. Unsurprisingly, he’d hadn’t heard one footstep from the bodyguard when the battled continued. Wutaian ninjas had been infamous for their stealth skills after all.

Zangan almost looked like he’d been punching at air if it hadn’t been for the fact that there appeared to be a hit landed and a winded breath. The bodyguard had been pushed back and immediately became visible again, but this time he’d appeared to be casting magic. Fire came out of his hands, but before that happened water filled the throne room when Zangan cast his own spell from the materia. The fire had lunged at the tanned-man, but disappeared in smoke because the water moved to block the heat. What’s more, the water line had ended just below his neck and he’d watched the bodyguard struggle to move while Zangan lightly ran at the man and landed multiple blows as the water all but disappeared. He could see the blue light from the MP Absorb materia activating as the bodyguard had tried to vanish again - only to dodge another blow and counter with a fairly large shuriken that Zangan barely moved away from.

“Enough.” he’d heard Godo state. “Your battle tactics are creative. It pains me to admit this, but your physical skills surpass even my best bodyguard.”

“I’ve had time to train and master my own martial-arts style.”

“Come, let us talk more about what you can offer us.” Godo had said seriously as the man went back to sitting on the throne. Secretly, Cloud felt relieved and let his shoulders relax. The afternoon thereafter had been spent discussing further plans and deals. The three of them met the commanders of each respective division for Wutai’s military and started discussing what changes were to be made. Commander Shigetaka Kadekawa of the Dragon, Commander Kanzo Ito of the Crow, Commander Wu Leaf of the Moon, Doctor Kasumi Kisaragi of the Dove. The Dragon had been the front-line and command division of Wutai; Crow the special-ops, reconnaissance, intelligence, and assassination division; Moon the defense and body-guarding division; and Dove the medical division.

Finally, the new division would be called Armor, which would be jointly headed by Theodore and Cid. The two mechanics and inventors were expected to handle their scientific, electronic and mechanical engineering design, manufacturing, and implementation needs. Theodore and Cid would receive the best funding, equipment, and materials that Wutai had to offer in order to come up with ways to implement defensive solutions. That night, Cid had gotten to work on versatile battlefield radios instead of phones because of the cost of manufacturing, but he’d apparently put in voice identification and a voice-inflicted self-destruct sequence to prevent the technology from being reverse-engineered and intel from falling into enemy hands. Theodore had taken that time to develop a serum and gas, that would only affect SOLDIERS because of the mako in their veins.

He’d set Zangan aside and then started discussing the tactics and strategies that would be used in the war when the Shinra troops had pushed in. Afterward, he’d asked the man to teach him fighting stances and moves to practice while the other had been busy training the army in the art of guerrilla warfare tomorrow. The night had been spent going through the different forms in Zangan-Ryu and punching at flexible and durable wooden-straw dummies until he’d been fairly well-practiced. Practicing his sword movement forms would take an actual weapon and he’d wondered if he could get a custom made fusion sword from a weapons smith in the village, but he’d worry about remaking First Tsurugi later. Right now he’d concentrate on practicing what he’d been taught with nothing but his tiny fists and the determination to protect and achieve what had been important to him in the last timeline and the current timeline.

Chapter Text

Zangan watched as the army before them practiced the motions repeatedly and transitioned into the next defense kata that he’d taught to children all over the world. He’d first told them to fight dirty because that had been the only possible way for the small island nation to win. Then he’d told them to go for the paralysis and lethal points that he’d poorly drawn on the straw dummy.

“Shape up your forms because there is still a way to fight with your fists and utilize the environment around you to your advantage even if you have no equipment with you! Be well-equipped with materia and potions. Don’t send out the unprepared to war! If you’re alone, regroup and move as a unit but don’t cluster and maintain communication between each other. Information and discretion is key for calculated strikes!”

Then he’d headed back into the pagoda command room. where he laid out the defense plans that he and Cloud had drawn to present to the leaders of the Dragon, Crow, Moon, and Dove Divisions. According to one of the vice-commanders of Crow – Katsu Danzenma – the Shinra army had been fast advancing from the back and the front, which meant that its armies had been going for a flank and surround to choke them into submission. Dragon forces were being supported by both Crow and Moon, but they hadn’t sent out everybody because they’d needed some of their forces to defend the Wutai capital.

“I’ll start with producing the potions en-masse.” Kasumi Kisaragi - whom he assumed to be Godo Kisaragi’s wife – had told him firmly before retreating into some obscure part of the building, never to be seen as he’d further explained the rest of the plan to the other leaders.

Cloud had told him that Shinra used the Worldwide Network to communicate - that he’d set aside training to find somebody that could hack into it to disrupt the lines – and then to inform the blond of when the evacuees would be mobilizing. The spiky-haired eight-year-old had then told him that there would be a man in Cosmo Canyon that would help them when the time came and that to tell the chain-of-command to evacuate the remaining citizens to the barren land where they’d rendezvous if things had gone down. What’s more, the boy had told him to be careful of what he said around the soldiers and ninjas because there could have been Shinra spies among them.

“What are your summon and magic materia? I need a sense of your inventory.” he’d said before asking about what he’d felt had been needed: “Equip your soldiers with versatile materia and potions. Earth, Water, Barrier, Contain, Shield, MP Absorb, Time, Health Absorb, any summon and healing materia would be helpful. Each soldier and ninja should carry a potion of each type to revive and heal up.”

“Materia is not a problem for us. The materia we have in storage is plenty, but I don’t know how much we will have by the end of the war.” he’d heard the commander of Moon mention. He’d distinctly remembered that the blond-haired man with the bowl-cut and green leaf armor had been named Wu Leaf.

“We’ll start by rearranging the mountains around Wutai but not too close that it’d cause an avalanche. That will give us a better vantage point where we can see other people. Prepare for evacuation of the civilians to the other continent. Then we should dig sturdy escape tunnels. The only thing that is to be left are the Wutaian army and chain of command. Destroy all the bridges to slow the advance.”

“Roger.” the commander of the Moon forces had echoed back.

“How many civilians live in Wutai?” he’d asked the other commanders.

Kanzo Ito, of the Crow Division, if he’d been correct had responded with a curt: “About five-hundred.”

“We need about five-hundred stealth materia then to silently head to the other continent through any means necessary. Separate the groups and take different routes. Avoid Nibelheim and Rocket Town at all costs due to the environmental hazards and then tell them to rendezvous at Cosmo Canyon. It’s a long way down on the south end of the island. Across the other side of Wutai.” he’d then breathed before tracing his finger along the map and then pointing from the south end of Wutai to the location of Cosmo Canyon. “At least one person per group of twenty-five should have a radio with them and at least three battle-able people should accompany them. Take food rations and water with you. We need the bulk of recon and fighting forces to stay on the island. Place materia-infused stealth landmines when everyone has been evacuated.”

The bird-like dark-skinned commander leveled a stare at him and then promptly told him that his most suitable men would protect and guide them to the next rendezvous point. Nodding, the other man had then turned to the Vice-Commander Katsu Danzenma, listing the people that would lead each group and the people that would stay.

“Why are we even fighting this war?” Chief Petty Officer Madison Charlie had asked her superior. Of all the places to place a reactor, Shinra had to pick Wutai, an island nation on the far side of the western continent where they'd be wasting their manpower and resources fighting a war with native people over its green landscapes and abundant materia that Shinra could already harness. She didn't have to think very far to see that the mega-corporation had just been sending their forces here out of greed and that the corporate ladder had merely been irked by Godo Kisaragi's refusal to let them place a reactor. That meant it had been all but a show of power for them and the lives that went into this war didn't matter for them.

“I’m in this because I’m ordered to.”

“You and I both know that’s bullshit.” she’d said. Her rank might have been much lower than the older general, but her sharp insights into his mind knew better, for the man had been pushing the higher ups for war ever since they’d been in the academy together. It’d just been an unfortunate twist of fate that she’d been posted here with a hotheaded commander with an ego the size of Wutai island itself, but she’d been determined to do her job and ensure that the rest of the troops would make it alive with better organization.

“I don’t care what you think. I’m here to do my job like the rest of the army.” Brigadier General Nash had declared, before he let the lower-ranked officer know what he’d been thinking about: “I can’t believe that we’re forced to bring along a twelve-year old freakshow.”

“How can you be jealous of a kid being sent to war?” Charlie merely rolled her eyes and raised her eye-brow before focusing on the troops that had gathered at the encampment, moving back and forth from the beige command tents they’d temporarily set up in the middle of the large island. The many faces that she’d known since her days in the academy passed her and the realization that these people would die had been a vivid reality. She’d wanted to get rid of the images of bodies strewn and thrown in a ditch out of her mind right then and there. Although she did not have experience in large-scale warfare, at the academy she’d learned to form people into squads, effectively command and communicate with them, in order to respond against moving opponents. At least she’d had experience in dealing with other smaller threats to the company, but the others had been a different case entirely. Peacefully eating the rations and talking with each other, it’d been as if the whole situation hadn’t even been a serious matter to them. Many of the troops deployed to Wutai, had transitioned from the academy to the front-lines, but had no real hands-on experience with threats. SOLDIER had been deployed with them, but there were only a handful of them supporting the infantry and navy that’d landed, due to the scarcity of people that entered the elite unit in the first place.

“I’ve been at this longer than that upstart half-pint with no experience. This one-star general rank isn’t for nothing and I’ll get a promotion by ending this war early.” the other man had stated.

“According to our current intel, Shinra is far superior in numbers and equipment than Wutai will ever be. It’s like bullying a far weaker person with only materia to fall back on and no formal training.”

Distance from the encampment to the first pagoda had been far and according to the Shinra’s Art of War manual, the first rule of advancement had been to capture a fortress and then set a up defense perimeter until they got closer to the capital. Their troops had been in a foreign land with nothing but the basic shapes and landmarks ingrained into their heads.

“Then I’ll head to the front-lines and decimate their forces.”

“We need to gather intel before making a move.” she’d said quite irritated with the fact that the other man had been gambling with the lives of their troops for the sake of self-interest in a war that he’d all but implied that he’d started in the first place.

“What more intel do we need? Just kill a bunch of people. It’s as simple as capturing a fortress and forcing our way in with a blitzkrieg.”

She’d been thankful that whatever had been out there that the Brigadier General had then chosen to listen to her.

“I’m listening right now, but don’t think that means I like it. It’s only because I like you officer.” the older man had said impatiently, looking at her with blinking eyes and eyelashes flicking. She’d seen the other man fall into a stance with his cane held down by his two fairly large hands.

“Let me just send recon over there and see what’s up.” she’d said, fishing the phone from her jacket pocket and then speaking into the receiver: “Recon, I need intel on the pagoda up ahead. Just scout the area and tell me what their defenses and numbers are. Return with anything that you find that is of interest at a secluded area.”

Chapter Text

Burning had overwhelmed his senses when everybody around him had been dying. Dying of hunger and dying of disease and dying of wounds. Underneath the trash, he’d watched his sixteen-year old body remain unconscious and the fire nearly consume him and ashes touching his face. Nibelheim had been destroyed and all he’d wanted had been to restore it to its former state. Restore the people and structure that’d been left to die, that’d been slaughtered like cattle, and that’d been left to devastation. Before the silver-haired man burned it down, before all the other people around him had died, and before he’d been stuck in that lab being painfully experimented on. That single defining moment in his life had been what kept him going long enough to survive and seek revenge against the silver-haired man that stood before him at the top of the reactor that day. Nothing but hate had consumed him just as fuel to the fire had fanned the flames for the establishment that had been responsible for the massacre.

But then he’d watched that same image transform into a woman reaching out to him and her warm hands pulling him out of the waste. The woman hadn’t even been somebody that he’d ever seen before – her sandy blond-hair standing out among everything that had been destroyed – and just for a moment he’d felt alright.

“Who are you?” he’d heard his disembodied voice call out. He’d then reached out his hand towards her to feel her presence, but just as the image had appeared, it’d dissolved into an endless poof of black mist. Hadn’t this been a dream? Meaning that what’d been put in front of him hadn’t even been his memories and what he’d been seeing had either been the mixture of past memories or the mixture of false memories, but did that mean it’d been someone elses’ memories in there and not his own memories? It’d hadn’t been that far-fetched to imagine. When he’d been submerged in that liquid with Tifa, the memories that had passed through him had gone through his mind all at the same time and rendered him unable to tell apart which memories had been his and which memories had belonged to others. Green fluid had filled his vision as the images of everything from the dead to history had played out like a movie. It’d felt overwhelming and painful at the same time, as if his head had been split apart and then sewn back together from the pieces.

Then he opened his eyes to see that he’d woken up alone in one of the pagoda rooms in the castle, stretched out over a coffee table sporting a headache and breathing heavy with a bookcase towering over his hunched form. Sweat flowed down the side of his face and he’d slipped out from underneath the kotatsu as he’d stood up with the palms of his hands against the table. Plain white-washed walls with red wooden outlines had surrounded him as a serene feeling overcame him, the sight of the open sliding door revealing the cultivated, vibrant, and colorful garden, full of the life that he’d seen wither and die in the old timeline. Cloud had then headed straight for the bathroom on the left, not even looking behind as he’d shut door and undressed himself. After a quick shower, he’d stepped out of the bathroom, dressed up in new clothing that’d been left for him, and then combed his hair back before running a hand through it. Then he’d sat on the edge of the wooden flooring outside and thought about what he should have been looking for.

If only he’d had Vincent with him at the moment, then hacking into the Worldwide Network could’ve been an easier endeavor and their plan would go off without a hitch. Despite the long hours that the other had spent in a coffin not interacting with the outside world, the other man would surely be able to easily learn how the network, phones, and computers interconnected and worked – being fairly experienced in working with older computers for missions - which had essentially been the building blocks of the current technology. Interrupting Shinra Communication lines could help buy them enough time for a stealthy retreat while they’d fought off the rest of the army that had pushed in. But where exactly had the old raven-haired turk been all this time?

Vincent Pov

Why had Vincent exactly decided to follow a hunch made by the demon inside him? He’d like to think that because they’d shared a body, that meant that if he’d died then the demon would also die. Head to the cavern and hide behind the large rock near the middle. The demon had told him, before he’d dashed into the cave and then swiftly pressed his back against the rock. Seconds later, he’d launched into the air, the heat nearly searing the skin and the mako bursting forth from behind. Gliding down, he’d jumped from boulder to boulder till he’d seen a rocky ledge he could reach. Claws held desperately onto the edge of the cliff before he’d leveraged his body over the top of the mountain. Overlooking the barren forests below and the snow melting around him, he’d tried to find the boy that had accompanied him. From his enhanced eyesight, he’d seen a dot in the distance falling with the snow before it’d stood still and another dot moved towards the body. Spiky blond hair protruded in the distance, ensuring that it’d indeed been the boy that’d disturbed his perpetual sleep. Then he’d noticed somebody else in the vicinity on the other side of the perch he’d landed on: the body of the man that’d been his partner more than a decade ago. Veld had been like a brother to him the previous years, but time had erased that and replaced it with the feeling of a stranger. Perhaps if he’d healed the man and explained to him what had happened, he could convince him to change his mind and work with him to kill the person that’d been responsible for the tragedy that’d befallen him.

The auburn-haired and stubble-chinned man laid near the other flat ground on the other side, appearing to have his leg mangled and worn down from the blast. He’d made a running start and then leaped to the other side, digging into the rock with his brass-toed boots and his brass-mechanical arm. Then, he’d touched the man’s wrist and felt a weak pulse. From the bag that he’d carried, he’d fished out a Restore materia and cast it on the man, watching the green tendrils float around the body. Noticing the large object stuck in the other man’s heart, he’d swiftly pulled it out before the heal spell repaired the wounds. He’d heard the man stir in un-conciousness before labored breathing had reached his sensitive ears and the man in the navy-blue suit sprung up with eyes as white as snow. It’d been as if the other man had been choking because he’d heard the faint gurgling. The man had then stood up from his half-body and then leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

‘Wait’ the low voice of Chaos enforced. ‘There’s something wrong. I sense another presence entirely different from the life-stream.’

Raising Quicksilver, he’d pushed the barrel to the older man’s face and watched as the drool started to seep down the mouth. “Don’t shoot!” the other man had suddenly said, hand reaching for the barrel and against the rock, before the pupils rolled back into its normal position and dilated into murky turquoise cat-like eyes. The other man sloppily pushed the gun away. Sighing, he’d put the gun to his side, but remained alert in case the other man tried something else and flicked the safety off before focusing his attention on the man in front of him.

“Vincent? - Is that you?” the old coot had asked him wearily. “I might not be in my right mind right now, but looking at you this close it’s definitely you my old friend. You wouldn’t have had any motives in saving an old turk’s life if that hadn’t been the case.”

Vincent hadn’t responded and merely pushed for the answers that he’d been seeking: “What do you hear?”

“The voice of mother.”

“She’s not your mother.”

“Listen to your old partner for once. That entity now inside you is an alien that is one day going to destroy the planet. Not a Cetra like Shinra had assumed.”

“Mother is telling me not to listen to you.”

“I told you, she’s not your mother.”

“Then what should I do Vincent! I don’t how long I can retain my senses.” the other man had said desperately, putting a meaty-tanned hand on his shoulder. Then he’d felt the substance touching his arm – and he’d pulled back because the alien cells clashed with his experimented body so much that it’d been almost excruciating to feel the presence of Jenova.

“Fight it. It seems that you’re a carrier now. I’ll find a way for you to live without the voices in your mind. I need to know where Sujidamo Hojo is at.”

Vincent hadn’t told his old friend the fact that he’d been planning on killing the doctor once he’d been done with him, but the old turk didn’t need to know that because for all he knew he’d be turned over to the company as soon as his intentions had been known. Veld had after all been too loyal to Shinra to really help him with what he’d wanted and the good old doctor had been an essential part of the company’s well-oiled machine.

The only answer then that he’d been given after some time had been: “Deepground, but don’t expect a warm welcome for a stranger.”

Chapter Text

Cloud had walked from the pagoda to the marketplace. Bustling shops filled the area with noise, chatter, and hustling. Searching for anybody that could possibly do what he’d needed them for, he’d scanned the different stalls that had populated the area, from shopkeepers that sold food, potions, materia, weapons, armor, and clothing to the odd person selling trinkets on the side. Wutai hadn’t had the best economy in the world even back then, but hearing from the tales of the old before the war, it’d been one of the fastest developing nations with its own marketplace and a sizable army that’d been enough to hold back even Shinra. In the future – however - it’d been completely stripped of its ability to become an independent trading and military powerhouse, becoming a tourist destination that’d displaying their past glories and culture instead. With him, he’d might have carried enough gil to hire people temporarily, but it hadn’t really been enough to employ others full-time. Cloud then stopped at a stall selling something out of the ordinary for the times: it’d been the earliest version of a computer that he could think of, a rusted shell of a monitor attached directly to the keyboard that probably didn’t crunch as much numbers as its future counterpart. Settling on the pale-faced vendor with messy pink-hair, he’d promptly asked if the man had known how computers and networking had worked. “Do you know how cellphones and computers communicate?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I need a job done and I’ll pay you in gil.” Cloud had said.

“Nobody in Wutai would know what my invention does. Cellphones and computers are only used by people with connections to a company. How can you –”

“It’s the Wutaian army that’s in need of your services.”

“Depends on the job that you’re asking for.”

“I need somebody to hack into a network. I’ll even give you an old cellphone to bridge the connection and send spoof messages to disable the communication towers.”

“Keep it down, there might be people listening in. This isn’t a game young man. Do you know what you’re doing? This is the biggest mega-corporation with the only non-isolated network on the planet.” The pink-haired man hushed.

“I need it done as soon as possible. Just locate their main routing IP through your own computer and then intercept IP packets from your relay point by sending spoof packets and imitating communication.” he’d affirmed.

“This is highly classified information.” the other had merely said. “but how much are we talking about?”

“About a million gil over the next five years to build Wutai its own information system... If you want to do this the easy way, just take over other computers on the network and then flood their network main route with requests. Though it’ll give us away, it’ll buy us enough time for what we need done.”

“I must say, this is a very dangerous and life-threatening game. I’m an ex-Shinra employee that settled into Wutai about a decade ago when I’d had the sense to run.” the other man admitted. “Your face – it’s quite familiar to me. It almost reminds me of someone.”

“Are you in?”

“I need assurance that I’ll be protected while I do this for you. There’s no harm in trying, but answer this question first: what’s the name of your mother and father?”

Cloud raised an eyebrow at the question, not really getting where the other man had been coming from. “The name of my mother is Vienna Strife while I don’t even know the name of my father because he’d been absent since I’d been born.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he’d agreed to the contract just like that and then started packing the other commodity he’d been selling into cardboard boxes with foam. “I don’t know her then, but I was hoping for an entirely different answer.”

“What’s the name of the person you’d been looking for?”

“That’s really between me and the person in question.”

“We’ll head to the Pagoda of the Five Mighty Gods just outside of the village.”

“I’ll wait here, I can’t very well leave right now with my merchandise out in the open.”

“I’ll come back with someone.”

Cloud headed for the five-floor pagoda just outside of the outskirts of town, being told that it’d been where the Wutaian chain-of-command had been holding their meeting. Fifteen minutes later and he’d arrived where ninjas and soldiers alike trained with the martial-arts forms that he’d been practicing last night. Ignoring the people that’d been there, he’d strode into the building and searched for the martial-artist that’d accompanied him all the way to Wutai in the first place. Seeing people dressed in bird armor, fox armor, and leaf armor conversing next to a red wooden table with Wutai in the middle, he’d fixed a steady stare on the one person that hadn’t worn armor.

“We need to recruit somebody.” he’d said to the older man, but the other merely turned towards him and then said this: “I can’t right now, there’s a lot I need to prepare for and I need to know when you’re ready to help with the evacuation.”

“That’s the thing, the person I want to recruit can’t leave his stall yet.”

Pursing his lip, the man finally nodded before motioning for him to continue. Cloud turned around and then headed back to the village, following the off-beaten path along the streaming creek. When they’d returned to the marketplace and found the person they’d been looking for, he’d been advertising his computer as a revolutionary way to store information to a crowd, but the rest of his merchandise had been cleared and had been nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, there appeared to be nobody interested in the technology, finding it way too expensive to buy and having no need to store it in a standalone machine.

“What’s your name.”

“Call me Davos. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Zangan Strife.”

“I thought you didn’t have a father.”

“I’m adopted.” he lamely explained. “After my mother died, Zangan took me in and trained me.”

“Where did you get your computer-savy?”

“I got it from my mother.” Cloud had liked to think that fibbing had been necessary to protect themselves because he couldn’t go around revealing what he knew from the future too much. The memories of the dead had passed through him repeatedly after his fall into the mako pit. One of these memories belonged to a computer technician that had worked for Shinra for over a decade. From the memories that’d coursed through him, he’d had been able to glean information about the world wide network, the mechanics of computer networking, and the mechanics of cellphone networking, which functioned the same way that computers connected to the network did. SOLDIER, Turks, and Shinra Personnel had used the world wide network to communicate with each other while the rest of the world had been living in the dark ages where technology hadn’t been readily available to the public.

“Did your mother work for Shinra before?”

“No. She’d only been the Nibelheim physician.”

Disappointment filled the other man’s eyes as he’d quickly packed up the rest of the computer components and then heaved medium-sized boxes with his arms. The three of them arrived back at the five-floor building at around noon and then started discussing the terms of their contract. Cloud had fished out the old cellphone in his pocket that he’d found hidden in the library at the mansion, but it’d been fairly old compared to the newer model that he’d seen the auburn-haired man have in hand. Still, it should be able to connect to the world wide network. Then he’d placed it on the table for the other man to see and then started vaguely telling him what to do.

“Set up your computer here and attempt to connect to the world wide network using the IP on the phone, but keep going through the pathways to other computers in order to hide where we’re located. Then from a far away computer, infect the network with an infinite self-replicating program to jam communication lines when we’re on the move.” he’d said while he eyed the computer tech directly.

Around the table, the commanders of Dragon, Crow, Moon, and Dove chatted with each other. There’d been one person in the group that opened up about the plans that’d been made: “When will the evacuation be made?” the commander of Crow had asked, feathers ruffling as the dark-skinned man moved around and twitched in an odd way, reminiscent of the way real birds moved.

“We’ll make our move once Davos here is able to solidly hack into the network to jam it up.” Zangan had taken the time to explain.

“Affirmative.” it’d almost been as if the leader had no emotion.

“Production of Pheonix-Down, Elixir, Ether, Turbo Ether, Potion, Hi-Potion, and X-Potion is in effect. Tell the soldiers that are being mobilized to stop by the armory where somebody will hand it out.” the short-haired doctor had told them, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose while turning to converse with the commander of the Dragon, whom he’d recognized as Shigetaka Kadekawa. Another man, that’d been introduced as Isayama Nihongo, stood at his side with a pipe in his mouth looking as if he’d been completely bored. Isayama, although much older than him, blew smoke in his face.

“Watch how the pros do it. You’ll find out why I’m in charge in the field kid.” the man addressed arrogantly and proudly, flaunting that samurai sword with an absolute confidence that he’d rarely seen in others. He’d almost be offended if it weren’t for the fact that – yes – he’d been in an eight-year old body and most adults didn’t even acknowledged that he’d had things to contribute, but he’d respected that the man had been second-in-command of the Dragon and merely mentioned a sentence that probably shocked the man:

“Is that how you talk to your soldiers, that’s a little off-putting.”

“Fiesty little runt, aren’t you? Come talk to me when you get good. Don’t be arrogant.”

Cloud mentally scoffed at the irony in the statement with the way the older man seemed to conduct himself. Shigetaka, whom stopped talking to doctor Kisaragi at this point, turned to his second-in-command and reprimanded him: “We have a lot work to do and other things to focus on. Quit picking on somebody that isn’t even your size Isayama.” there’d been a mirth that he’d detected from the two that he’d felt that only he'd been able to witness, it'd been as if they’d merely been teasing each other in banter the whole time.

“Right Shigetaka.” Isayama merely said to the other. With that, the both of them continued discussing the plan of attack and then kept ordering the ninjas and samurai that’d come in, to get positioned and enact parts of the plans with a squad at the points on the map. After a few hours, both of the men had disappeared up the stairs to the second floor where he’d guessed the armory had been located. Figuring that he could use a sword, he’d followed after them at a slower pace than normal. Seeing the weapons lined up on the rack, he’d taken the biggest one he could find only to realize again that he’d been stuck in an eight-year old body while trying to lift the hilt. Not one bit fettered, he’d merely taken two of his hands and then started trying to get it down the stairs. The stares he’d gotten had been of both wonder and incredulity at some child attempting to haul a massive broad sword down the stairs. Then suddenly, the massive blade had been taken from him and he’d looked up to see the chalk-white face of one of the commanders, it’d been Katsu Danzemna – the one he’d labeled in the fox armor – helping him carry it down the stairs. The two then headed to the first floor where the other man silently hauled it for him to the training room. He’d stopped near the command table, where the computer technician had been typing and tinkering with cellphone and the keyboard incessantly. Cloud then looked over Davos’ shoulder to see whether the man had indeed been making progress on their operation. “Progress?” he’d asked the computer technician bluntly.

“I’ve got the network topology figured out. I only need to create a program that self-replicates and terminates after a couple hours.”

“Alright, I will leave this part of the plan to you.” Cloud had said, before making his way back to the training room. What had been Zack’s go-to-method of getting stronger? That’s right, it’d been doing squats repeatedly and then doing the heavy lifting, but he’d save training for his sword movements for later to account for the current state he’d been in. Meanwhile, he’d went outside and trained with the soldiers there that’d been practicing defensive martial-arts and envisioning all manner of fighting dirty. Punching and kicking the straw dummies over and over again and then going through the fighting moves, he’d succeeded in progressing at least a bit as he’d gotten used to the different forms. Even as the night fell, he’d kept practicing in the dark without seeing his target and relied on his other senses to hit his target.

Someone must have noticed him way too focused on the wood, because when he’d turned around a ninja appeared before him in a wasted puff of smoke and had merely offered him this: “Do you want to spar with me young man? Your form and other senses will improve through real practice and an objective analysis.”

Cloud had given the man an analysis of his own. Without a hint of the man's face in the dark, he couldn't really say much except the other had been covered in regular light-green Wutaian samurai armour that the others had worn with a metal plated helm. The other man had possessed lean muscles that stood out and seemed pretty light on his feet, not truly weighed down by heavy armour. No apparent weapons could be seen in the dark, but that meant the man probably had potions and materia with him then. Falling into a defensive stance, he'd closed his eyes and raised his fists with the left foot at the back. "Make your move."

Chapter Text

Chief Petty Officer Madison Charlie had been worried when she’d delicately clutched the phone with her right hand. She’d been waiting for hours on the intel that they’d needed to push forward, but hadn’t heard anything back from the recon team lately.

“Tch, all this waiting around is getting nothing done. I’m going forward with the advance with or without your permission Officer.” Brigadier General Nash had stated.

But then a beep sounded and she’d looked at the screen, mouthing the words to her superior when she’d read the message: “We’ve been here and not even one person appeared to be at the fort.”

“See? There’s nothing to worry about, the Wutaian’s don’t even know we’re here. Let’s set up the perimeter.”

“Search the fort and be on guard, let us know what you find and press the star key to let us know if something did come up but you’re too busy to answer back.” she’d said as she’d typed in those exact words.

Reluctantly, she’d nodded and then addressed the troops. “Rise and shine ladies! Stick with your squads because we’ll be heading out to the pagoda. Surround the perimeter and be on guard.”

The troops advanced and hid behind the trees as the entirety of the four battalions marched towards the fort with professional movement that they’d all been taught at the academy. Tree after tree the four-thousand something soldiers had moved forward, but some of the weaker squads had been getting picked off because her cellphone alerted her when the other phones died and when the squads couldn’t answer. Not only that, but the screams and the gunfire in the distance indicated that they’d ran into trouble. Each alert flashed on her screen just as it flashed across the other phone screens no doubt. She’d sent a message to the other phones to take their Sense materia out if the infrared sensors weren’t working and then uproot the trees with earth materia to get a clear shot and then use the sonar radars to detect what had been there. The technology that they’d brought with them would surely be of help, since it’d been designed to detect which personnel had belonged to Shinra and which personnel had ultimately belong to the other faction. Each of them had a signal that would be colored red on their radars and the enemy would be blue.

Brigadier General Nash had dashed forward with the superhuman strength of a real SOLDIER, cutting all the trees in his path as he’d charged straight to the fort and she’d ran after him with her own squad following not too far behind them. The sound of the others falling through a hole had worried her, but she needed to stick with Nash to make sure that he hadn’t been too impulsive with the lives of their troops. Their squad remained at the back with an all powerful entourage at the front, but they’d hid behind the trees as they scoped out the fort and remained alert to what had happened around them.

“They’re alert now, but I told you that we should’ve just headed here in the first place instead of waiting hours for recon.” Brigadier General Nash rubbed in, before completely destroying the front gate with the slice of his finely crafted gun-scythe. He’d shot each samurai that’d he’d seen in the face with bullets and dodged the weaker foot ninjas and samurais with ease while a few of the more able-bodied of the squad moved in with him and the others had stayed in the background to pick off the snipers, archers, and gunners on the top. Screams from behind could be heard as their snipers and gunners had seemed to be snatched up from nowhere.

“Get out of the forest the enemy is behind you! Watch your back and clear the gunners, snipers, and archers.” she’d shouted, pushing the button to her comm earpiece. Aiming, she’d pulled out the Sense materia only to find that the ninjas had used the trees as their cover under the night and started pulling the other soldiers either into holes or the trees, but why hadn’t their radars been working? It’s as if the enemy had found a way to intercept or interrupt the radars, but the only possible explanation for it would be a simultaneous low-frequency sound surrounding the area. Impossible – how could Wutai know that they’d had radars and how had they come up with a way to neutralize it in just a day? The Wutai army should’ve been surprised, but it was as if they’d already been warned, prepared, and instructed in how to deal with them.

She’d seen the people on the top of the fort using the recon team as shields and hostages. With no time to think about it – she’d charged in with Nash and her backup squad – where they’d been forced to kill their own recon team to pierce through the snipers, gunners, and archers.

“This is war! You think I care about casualties?! Fuck no.” Nash had shouted impulsively, cutting down the rest of the samurai and ninja that attempted to kill him and then when it appeared that the last of them had been killed, a boom and explosion went off. Indicating that a bomb had exploded and the ground opened up to swallow their squad whole. It’d almost burried them and burnt them to a crisp if she hadn’t pulled a shield materia that protected them all and then Nash jumped from side to side upwards only to hit a barrier and fall back down to where they’d been.

“We need to get out before they kill us. Someone get an earth materia and dig a tunnel and then make a small space for everyone to fit in.”

The soldier to her left pulled out an earth materia and dug a tunnel to their left and then forced magic upwards, leaving them with a small space to crawl up in. She’d pulled out a shield materia again and watched as the flames doused the bottom part of the tunnel. Nash slashed at the ceiling and smashed a large hole upwards for them to crawl out of, but she’d seen the grenades tossed into the hole and immediately held down the shield for them. When the gunfire died down, that’s when she knew that Nash had already taken care of their enemies and now it’d been safe to climb to the surface.

Cloud had made a sweeping kick on the bottom, with his left leg inching back before directing his kick upwards and then grabbed the ninjas arm to leverage his weight and swing the body over using his two hands, but since the other man had merely been stronger he hadn’t budged an inch, merely coiled his hand around the foot and slammed it hard into the ground. Bouncing back from the force, he’d pushed himself off the ground and fell into an offensive this time, the blood from the back of his mouth wiped off with the base of his hand. Then he’d stepped forward and speedily made small jabs and kicks. Of course – the other man had parried and countered easily – probably being the more experienced of their duo, but for a newbie he’d like to think he’d been doing pretty well.

“Hm. Good form, but it’s too practiced and too formal. You’ve got to incorporate other fighting styles to be less predictable. I noticed that you’re not really using your other senses, blindly attacking at a barely visible form with your eyes open… Let’s continue to spar with your eyes closed.”

Nodding, he’d again went into a defensive stance, listening intently for movement or vibrations in the ground. He’d felt a sharp wind coming from the left and rotated on his foot to dodge it, before a hit from the right had landed on his stomach and he’d staggered back before continuing to fight. This went on rinse and repeat for the remainder of the night until he’d been but tired. Saying his farewell to the mysterious ninja, he’d headed back into the command room where he’d intended to sleep against the wall, but had seen the inventor that they’d picked up gathering the other commanders at the table. He’d strode in just in time to see what exactly what the inventor had just discovered relating to neutralizing the mako-enhancements.

Theodore had been in the lab, experimenting on a mako-cancelling method and had succeeded by using a combination of materias to reverse the mako. Immediately, he’d went to the Wutaian command room at the first floor and had then presented his contribution to the war on the table for all to see.

“I’ve invented a method for canceling the mako effects by reversing time. It seems that since materia is made of mako, it is extremely susceptible to a reversal with a time materia that is infused with manipulate materia, gravity materia, speed materia, and seal materia. Time materia can also revert the master materia to even its base materia with the combination I’ve proposed. I just need to harness its energy and then funnel it into a vapour or liquid so its easier to use on direct contact. It should not effect people without mako-injections.”

To explain in detail would take time that he hadn’t really had, but his thought-process had been along the lines of reason. Time materia, combined with the manipulate materia and gravity materia would control the direction of the flow of time, speed would enhance the effect, and seal would make it a permanent effect.

“This should give us a large advantage then.” Zangan had said, before turning to the rest of the chain-of-command. “How long can we expect a solid product?”

“I can promise that the beta-version to be done by tomorrow, but I would need a test subject to make sure it doesn’t harm people without mako-injections and will only affect a live SOLDIER.”

“I volunteer to be a test subject. I’ve been exposed to mako through skin-contact only, but it’s still affecting me. If you put me under a microscope, then we might find something useful.” he’d said stoically to the eccentric man.

“Are you sure about this?” Theodore had asked him, but he’d known that the other man simply hadn’t really cared about the ethics of experimentation on children, seeing the same disregard in the pursuit of science that he’d seen in the greasy-haired scientist, easily seeing through the false hesitance merely by spending time with the other. The way that the other had lit up every time a possible experiment had been a testament to the similarities to the scientist. Perhaps if this were another world, then Theodore might have ended up like said scientist, but it hadn’t been because it’d ultimately been a new start for them after the past drove them to the western side of the continent and the both of them needed to adapt to the situations.

”Alright, but I will not be liable for your injuries.”

Cloud wouldn't have it any other way but maybe this time - the future would be different for the both of them - and everyone around them for the better, because he'd after all had hope for what could be changed even in this timeline.

Chapter Text

Cloud watched the inventor administer a liquid that’d been applied against his skin very lightly. Neon-green ethereal green illuminations quickly did their work, overtaking the spots that’d been affected and appearing to successfully reverse the mako laden surface within minutes. Resolutely, he’d stood up from his seat and then drank from the flask that’d been placed beside him. Finishing off the rest of the liquid, he’d then waited and paced around until the white-coated doctor had entered and given him a substance that would determine whether it’d had worked. The inventor had then headed up the stairs to the fourth floor where the lab had been located and set up for the both of Theodore and Cid.

First, he’d taken an x-ray with doctor Kisaragi supervising their little project. Normal skeletons with emaciated bones that barely looked sturdy enough had been presented in slide after slide, but what’d been noticeably out of place had been the green that branched out throughout the body. Neither reacting with much surprise nor expectation, he’d been told that the green parts on the scan represented his mako levels. Patiently, he’d waited for a few hours in all that time and thought about the distinct differences and similarities between the doctor and the ninja. Both had been the spitting image of the other, except the elder Kisaragi had been much more professional, clinical, and mature – had the gusto of experience, weariness, and wrinkles that’d the younger Kisaragi had been quite deficient in.

“How old is your daughter?” he’d suddenly asked.

“She’s a year old.” the gray-haired doctor had replied, staring at a document in her hand. “I worry for her safety with war looming over us.”

“Send her with the evacuation.”

“I’m planning it. I have somebody taking care of her right now.”

Flashbacks had overtaken his mind – and then when he’d been dying at the cruel six-foot blade stuck in his heart, he’d thought about everyone else that had died and had anguished that he had ultimately failed, defending against the endless destruction, slaughter, and illness that he’d been witnessed to. At the feet of another, he’d laid helpless when the other man pushed the blade in and more blood stained his navy-blue corduroy vest, but he’d had a responsibility to see it through to the end and had almost accepted his death when hope had left him – if it were not for the intervention of both the planet and the Cetra, then the events that’d happen would’ve been for naught. Through a gentle-guiding hand, he’d been presented with the rare opportunity influence what couldn’t be changed. This time, he’d been determined to protect what had been important to him and keep the people he’d seen die in the other timeline alive, the future being an apocalyptic prospect that he’d hadn’t really wanted to face. Ingesting the serum, he’d then paced around nervously and had thought about what purpose had led him to Wutai in the first place. To change the past in order to change the future - before other people around him had died with the violence, war, famine, and disease that pillaged the planet even if it meant being nothing but a disregarded memory – solely to ensure that other people had a better and more peaceful future for the future of humanity. Free of the ailments and mistakes of the past that had driven the planet to a dreadful tomorrow.

Hours later, when doctor Kisaragi had taken the second x-ray – he’d viewed his skeleton from afar – the green and blue substance indicating the mako and serum respectively. No trace of mako had been detected next to the blue colors that seemed to faintly line both his circulatory system and nervous system. Meaning that it had indeed not affected people without mako in their blood. What he’d found unusual, however, had been the fact that he’d been infused with enough mako to essentially be classified as a mutant, but felt weak enough that it’d hadn’t really helped him become stronger. But then – what had been deal with the mako being in his body all this time? Is it a side effect of being the only person from another time to be placed straight into the past? The more he thought about it, the more the repercussion of what that would mean had played through his mind.

Sephiroth had sliced and diced the samurai and ninja from left to right, springing out of hiding in the forest and trees. Pushing past the others based on pure strength, he’d quietly saved the remainder of his squad mates when they’d been pinned down, beheading their enemies when he’d pushed into the area. Further down the path, he’d encountered the rest of the dead soldiers that’d been killed and headed back to where his squad had waited. The Wutain’s had seemed to have three attributes that Shinra had evidently lacked: communication, teamwork, and flexibility. Even though Shinra had the military technology and military strength to overwhelm their opponents, he’d been impressed at the creativity from the samurai and ninja that had been sent to deal with them. But whatever the case, their ground forces needed to learn to adapt to the situation to get out alive and accomplish their mission. “Cover for each other and move as a unit. Protect the healer!”

Functioning as both their tank and front-line combatant, he’d pushed through the heavy fire they’d been taking and repeatedly forced air to trigger the traps with the flick of his blade and raised a bridge to clear the path for his squad. Without the influence of his mother ‘Jenova’, he’d been able to regain his sanity and assess his surroundings with a logical mind. Back at the apartment that he’d been sleeping in, he’d woken up one day to see that his person had been in the body of his twelve-year old self. That’d been quite the surprise to him, because the last memory that he possessed had been of him standing over a blond-haired swordsman with a cold stare, killing the other man without so much as a word and then the darkness of nothingness. Tempted to visit Nibelheim that day just to see whether or not that it’d been the same case for Jenova and Cloud – he’d been ironically stopped by Hojo – who’d apparently called him in for the regular mako injections that he’d been subjected to when he’d been fresh out of the experiment-tank. After the whole ordeal, he’d felt utterly ill enough to stay at his apartment talking with both Angeal and Genesis about his aforementioned visit with the old professor – but decidedly left out the part where he’d been from the future. That is - before being deployed to Wutai with a new squad under his command while Angeal and Genesis led other squads into battle. If Sephiroth had been completely honest with himself, he’d actually missed the thrill of fighting and defending against other people, being bored without the adrenaline that’d been present throughout his violent life. But the only person that he could fight on equal footing that’d still been alive in the old universe had been the blond-haired swordsman that he’d resented as being the one person alive that’d been responsible for the stasis he’d been in, it being what’d kept him from ultimately joining the lifestream and permanently joining the dead.

But he’d liked the thought that he’d had other people to fight and enjoy the camaraderie that he hadn’t felt with the majority that he’d come across for the moment, because he’d now had both Angeal and Genesis at his side at a time where the apocalypse that he’d started hadn’t even happened. Feeling that it’d been necessary to ascend the ranks again to implement the necessary changes, the silver-haired general pondered what he’d needed to do in order to produce a more favourable outcome. Simply killing Hojo, who’d been an asset to the mega-corporation would accomplish nothing, because another scientist would replace the man. The rest of the SOLDIERs that’d been subject to injections would then be left at the mercy of a war that’d just started. When he’d disembarked from the boat and then arrived at the encampment, he’d had the unfortunate of experience of meeting Brigadier General Nash, whom he’d been sure had much disdain for him judging from the petty looks and what his accute hearing had picked up on: “I can’t believe that we’re forced to bring along a twelve-year old freakshow.”

Chapter Text

Doctor Kisaragi had informed him of an anomaly that appeared to be stuck in his heart after downing the mixture and securing a third x-ray. Spherical in nature – the object looked like a materia – embedded right in the middle of the chambers and illuminated with a clear, solid-green colour. Cloud had not thought it’d even been possible to live with what he’d been taught about modern biology, but immediately he’d figured that it must have had something to do with the fact that it’d been where he’d been stabbed before he’d died. Switching focus from the white board to where a Phoenix Down, Elixer, and X-Potion had been set, he’d started placing the items in a blue rucksack that Doctor Kisaragi had generously provided.

“Can you tell what that is?” he’d asked the doctor.

“Materia, but it’s astounding that you’re even alive with that in the middle of the ventricles.” she’d said in wonder, cupping her chin with a faraway look in her black eyes, but then the doctor went back to overlooking the statistics on her clipboard.

Cloud had tried to focus his energy and mind on the object in his heart, being absolutely determined to find out what the materia could do – only to garner no response from the sphere and mentally pull out. Perhaps he’d be able to harness it for use later on when he’d been better trained, but for now he’d planned on checking back with the computer technician and programmer at the first-floor of the building.

When he’d arrived downstairs, he’d expected to see the commanders gathered around the table and the army busy running from one point to another, but all he’d seen had been Davos and Zangan quietly appearing to do their work.

“Where is everyone?” he’d asked.

“Everyone from Dragon and Crow have already been deployed and Moon is getting all the defenses set up.” the old martial-artist replied, before standing over Davos and peering into the computer screen.

“Are you ready?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Just let me know when the evacuation is ready.”

Minutes later, the radio flared up with an: “Operation Aviation is heading out.” Taking that as a sign to start hacking at the computer, the pink-haired man put his hands to the keys and manually moved into route after route on command prompt, before altogether stopping. Then the other man inserted a floppy disk into the drive and pressed a key that seemed to initiate a program that’d read across the screen.

“It’s done. I added a nice touch with hijacking the other IP in the network to hide the origin.” he’d smirked, before swiveling around to get a notepad and then facing to monitor the stats on the screen.

Leaving the other two to prepare and sort out the battle strategy, he’d opened the large red-painted and brass-plated doors to drink in the scenery: vigorous green leaves oscillated with the wind, sticking on the trees despite the cold winter approaching. All the while the remainder of the army perched themselves on the roof, pointing the rifle sights outwards in preparation for the defense. Mountains had been shifted in order to hinder Shinra’s advance and invisible landmines had been placed at the forefront, which meant that they’d be digging themselves into the land and protecting themselves in a shell.

Nostalgia ran through him when he’d stood there and watched the shadowy figures moving into the forest, viewing the memories of what Wutai would become in the future through his imagination, with but the dried and cracked earth branching into the roots and its abundant life slowly withering and dying. Wutai had truly been a nation to behold in its prime, but it’d been living on borrowed time much like the rest of the world and it’d eventually die out like the rest of them if he didn’t intervene. Grass that had danced to the tune of the wind inhabited the earth throughout the island captured his attention, reminding him that soon - it’d be a battlefield field where death and blood had been synonymous. Noon had then peered over their heads, creeping out of the smoke and watching the land like a hawk that’d been assessing its prey. It’d only seemed fitting that it would describe their situation with the invasion.

Cloud had wanted to negotiate for peace not fight a pointless war that would end with the deaths of others that’d had entirely been preventable, but here he’d been because it’d been too late and there’d been nothing he could do with the other military marching towards the village. Then he’d give Wutai the fighting chance it needed to survive as an independent nation where it’d otherwise fall and surrender. After they’d successfully repelled the assault on the island, contacting the upper-echelons of Shinra military would be their next step in diplomacy for it’d been the only chance they’d had to negotiate more cooperative and peaceful terms.

Alone on that desolate mountain, it’d made him feel utterly isolated and disconnected from the rest of the outside world, not wanting to die when he’d had such regrets that’d kept eating a him. Reminding him that if it weren’t for the intervention of Vincent Valentine, he’d have died earlier than expected and wouldn’t have even existed – Cloud had felt a newfound appreciation for the life that he’d hadn’t felt when the world had ended. Sitting here on the steps of the Five Mighty Gods alive, he’d felt at peace with just the thought that there’d been someone that cared. Zangan had become one of the only family that he’d had left after the death of the person that’d raised him not too long ago - but he hadn’t really had enough time to think about it, because as soon as that’d happened the body had vanished and the evacuation to another place had been ordered, by the very same company that’d been responsible for the explosion.

The only real home that he could return to that he’d had left had been with Zangan, but still with all that’d happened in the past he’d found the strength to move forward and cherish what had made life worth living. It’d been too early to really assess whether the two of them would permanently settle in Wutai – because the war could very well end badly for the small island nation and the two of them would be forced to do another move yet again. Cloud had needed to get to Midgar to finish the business he’d had with the old professor once the present threat had been dealt with. Standing up, he’d then headed down the stony steps and had hoped to get a glance of what’d been happening. No one would suspect such a weak-looking individual of being a threat to them and he’d rather it’d be that way considering that he’d be ignored in the fight. Under the cover of the shade in the trees, he’d wandered into the forest where he’d passed the animals hiding behind bushes and plants. Animals that’d scurried out of the path that he’d been walking on had made slight noises. But when he’d come across the large mountain in front of him, he’d pulled out a master earth materia and started focusing to create the stairs because he knew that it’d been thick and plated with metal underneath – the commanders of the division telling him as such.

Reaching the top, he’d then slid down the mountain temporarily leaving behind platforms that’d disappeared right when he’d reached the next platform until he’d landed in another forest and heard explosions, gunfire, and screams in the distance. From the great height that he’d seen above – the action had been a little over a mile. Not expecting to be able to use magic that quick and with such control – imagine his surprise when he’d been able to successfully get over the mountain. Cloud had figured that it might have had something to do with the fact that he’d had the unique experience of drawing his strength from mako and then severing his connection to the planet before being placed in a completely different timeline. Cloud had then pulled up the makeshift turtle-neck mask around his neck and moved in the direction of the war with a purpose.

Chapter Text

Feathered hawks sailed through the open air right above their squad in the forest, who’d fortunately been one of the few to reach the mountain alive that day. Sun shined into his eye and he’d briefly covered it with a graceful hand before carefully motioning for the rest of the crew to halt. There, a twig had snapped and with his deft ears, he’d caught the enemy and swiftly beheaded the ninja hiding behind one of the trees. Sephiroth had then arrived with his squad at the mountains that appeared to have spanned to the ends of the island all the way to the back. According to the map that he’d reviewed earlier in the command tent with the other squad leaders, there shouldn’t have even been a mountain here and it’d been apparent that it’d been moved along to the right of them with its edged curve visible on the left while it’d been constructed in a fairly straight line.

Explosions, gunshots, and screams had echoed not too far away from them. Steadily moving among the trees the unit had quietly headed towards their destination. Sephiroth had felt like he’d been walking on eggshells after he’d already found one of the landmines that’d caught his one squadmates unexpectedly - who’d unfortunately died before he could be healed - de-materializing in thousands of bright-green threads that’d ascended poetically into the sky. From a fair distance, he’d made out the landmine just as it exploded and determined that it’d been invisible before which meant that their foes had become creative in their attempt to kill them off. Death had been a natural part of his life before and after he’d been thrust into a different existence without warning, but he’d started feeling a connection that he hadn’t felt before and it’d slightly bothered him when the other man died so suddenly. Before that he hadn’t even bothered knowing the name of the people around him – not truly caring who the person had been – he’d just focused on getting the job done first without interacting long enough to form a relationship. The man stood out differently among the squad, being the first to introduce himself with a firm but warm hand as Ershan Gainsborough. For a few seconds, he’d just stared at the hand as if it’d been poison before coming to his senses and brushing the thought aside, because it’d been a different world hadn’t it? The other man couldn’t possibly be related to the same Cetra with the same last name could he?

“Do you have a daughter?” he’d suddenly asked the other man out of the blue.

“Nope. I have a wife back in Midgar.” the older man had told him with a leisurely smile. “Sonny, you’re young enough to be my boy, but it’s a bit embarrassing to know you’re still my superior.”

Sephiroth hadn’t responded back understanding that he’d truly been a child in the other man’s eyes and that it’d provoke feelings of jealousy among others, but he’d been wrong about what the other had meant and what had astonished him had been what the other man had said next: “You shouldn’t be fighting in a war at your age.”

Not used to other people showing concern for him, he’d been a bit taken aback at what the other man had said because it’d been indeed true that he’d been bred as a child soldier. Becoming the general of SOLDIER at such a young age, he hadn’t been destined to live out his childhood as a normal person, instead spending his days fighting and learning the art of war and science. So when said man had died, he’d truly felt something that he hadn’t in a long time – which had been a small amount of sadness. But he couldn’t afford to brood on the past that much now because he’d had other people depending on him to pull through – remembering distinctly what one of his friends had said during the war that’d affected him greatly with but one quote: “Abandoning your comrades means you’re worse than trash.”

Back then he hadn’t really thought about it, brushing it off as some unneeded sentiments that had neither been necessary to complete orders and neither been helpful towards the operation. Being the best military machine and mind that Shinra no doubt had and produced from scratch – he’d been strong enough to stand alone without weaker military support and it’d been what had made him extremely arrogant – albeit with the abilities to back it up. That’d been why he’d been so sure of himself after he’d broken his mind, because he’d in reality wanted to become the God that he’d mistakenly been led to believe in the past, but this time he’d made sure that he would neither fall into insanity nor destroy what it’d been that he’d been after. Checking the phone after the silent vibration had gone off, he’d looked at the message that he’d received pointedly: Find a way to break the mountain barrier.

Sephiroth had made a text of his own to the other squad leaders and told them exactly what he’d discovered when the landmine had exploded: The landmines are invisible. I’d try a water materia to just see the outlines and neutralize them if I were you. Then pocketing his PHS, he’d adjusted on what had been going on around him to find the other SOLDIERS attempting to do just what’d been ordered: break the barriers and find a way through mountain by hitting at it or climbing it – he’d already deduced that multiple barriers had been in their way. It’d been mainly the SOLDIERS that had been jumping upwards only to fall back down when an invisible barrier had been hit for they’d been the only ones capable of such of a feat. Then to the right of him, he’d seen a 2^nd Class SOLDER attempting a summon, its glowing red energy lines rising from the small materia that’d been released. Out of the item a Phoenix had faded into existence with the large red and yellow wings spanning over the troops. The large bird flew upwards and then breathed fire on the barriers. The barrier had indeed shattered, but the attack hadn’t actually done much other than break the barrier which had quickly been replaced with another. Flooded water had then suddenly appeared from the top and traveled down the mountain with the bird dissipating into smoke. The water had been stopped from hitting the troops on the ground when multiple barriers had been pulled out and when it’d washed away, the summons had started going out again and attempting to hit the walls. Earth materia had tried moving the chunks of the rock around and after moments had revealed metal plating embedded into the mountain, reiterating his assessment about the mountain being man-made being right. But then just as it’d been dug out, more rock moved in to fill the empty space to the metal.

Barrier after barrier, he’d kept cutting the damn things and had still gotten nowhere, seeing the wutaian ninjas above casting it over and over again. Frustrated, he’d calmed down and then kept trying to cut into the mountain only to find that it’d been way too thick for his katana and he'd wounded up sticking it into the rock to stay above. Then from the corner of his eye to the left, he’d seen the ninja give him a stoic eye before tossing a canister downwards that’d been releasing some type of gas. He’d then immediately pulled his sword out of the rock and then jumped off the mountain with his steel-toed boots, intending to assess what’d exactly it’d been from the trees. “Watch the canister, fall back into the forest a little bit!” he’d shouted from above and then used the closest tree branch to land on the ground. Sephiroth had then peered around from behind the tree and watched the other SOLDIERs painfully screeching their heads off, but when the same effect had been expected to affect the infantry-men, it’d had simply left them alone. In fact as far as he could tell it’d been the first class SOLDIERs that’d been profoundly writhing on the ground, the 2^nd and 3^rd Class SOLDIERS had merely been barely able to walk. From his place, he could see a few of the infantry-men acting as support for the fallen SOLDIERs – some of whom were their squad leaders.

Pulling out his PHS, he’d yet again texted the other squad leaders: Stay back from the mountain and watch the canisters. SOLDIERS are the only people affected. When you’re about to die, give the phone to the next person and destroy it if the next person isn’t available. Memorize and then delete the coordinates. Let’s set up camp at these coordinates: Longitude 37, Latitude -116. No doubt he’d wrinkle a few feathers in the bunch by being so brazen and blunt, but it’d been after all a war that’d required them to take extra measures. After waiting a while for new responses, he’d seen some of them roll in before he’d looked at the phone again - only to find that the screen had promptly told him he’d been disconnected. Weird, that shouldn’t have happened because Shinra’s communication lines had even been secretly built ages ago even on Wutai soil and through their satellite where it’d been isolated from the rest of the world. Placing the phone back in his pocket, he’d then went in the direction to where he’d told others to meet in order to alter their strategy. If he’d remembered correctly, the place had been some hidden cave along the shore and it’d be a perfect place to set up a new encampment.

Chapter Text

Behind the bushes, he’d hid with his head peering to where the battle had seem to have intensified. Ninjas had then dropped down with the leaves falling, picking up the infantry-men that’d blindly shot at the trees, before the bodies hit the floor like rag dolls. Moving a little closer to where the corpses had been, he’d distinctly seen the bloodied slit throats among the many that’d been there. Being a little more than disturbed because of the scene, he’d fought the urge to vomit and covered his mouth. Cloud had thought that he’d be used to the fighting and the dying soldiers, but the mangled limbs and slit throats had left a fairly strong impression on him.

But still – he’d scavenged and picked at the bodies hoping to procure something useful. From two of the soldiers that he’d taken items from – he’d found a summon materia and a shield materia that he’d then slipped into the blue rucksack, before moving on to the next set of bodies. All in all, he’d also gotten a few Hi-Potions and Elixers. Cloud had sneaked past the bodies, switching from tree to tree before seeing what’d been happening ahead. Further into the forest, there’d been gunshots and magic colliding in a flurry of gust and he’d been there just in time to peer into a set of glowing mako-green eyes.

Cloud had inched back like he’d seen a ghost and then ran the other way, dodging and weaving through the forest, but when he’d looked ahead of him he’d run into a large chest and landed back against the leaves. He’d been picked up by the scruff of his turtleneck with black-gloved hands. Staring straight into the brown hair and blue eyes of the other man, he’d felt quite intimidated because his next answer would probably determine whether or not he’d lived.

“I haven’t seen you around here before Pipsqueak.”

The large scythe on the other man’s back had been what caught his eye and he’d merely blinked in silence before squirming his way out of the grip.

“Don’t suppose you’re a wutai ninja?” he’d said almost in a menacing manner, raising the scythe just above his neck. “For a ninja you’re not very good at keeping yourself hidden.”

“No sir, I’m just the son of the local hermit that moved here not too long ago.” Putting on the most innocent and ignorant face that he could, he’d merely put on a fairly unthreatening aura that’d been as convincing as he could pull off from his base of expressions, comically shaking his head at the man profusely.

“Don’t wander around here it’s dangerous.” The man had definitely been from SOLDIER with the emblem proudly sticking out of the buckled grayish military jacket. Black knee-high boots covered the gray plain pants that the other man had worn along with a similarly colored long-coat flowing down behind the jacket and covering the arms. But with that one sentence – the burly man had turned around and then headed back into the direction of where the bullets had been flying - cutting down the trees with a confidence and force he’d seen in many of the upper-echelons of Shinra. Figuring that the other man had been important, secretly he’d pulled out a stealth materia from his rucksack and then used it to become invisible, intending on following after the SOLDIER.

When he’d headed to the field where he’d assumed the man had fought – bodies belonging both to Shinra and Wutai had stretched and sprawled to the ends of the forest, and then one by one it’d dissipated into green tendrils. Before some of the bodies could disappear, he’d seen the Shinra medics arrive and attempt to revive their own before the bodies had de-materialized, while the rest of infantry-men had guarded them. Though a few of them had been shot at while barriers had activated. The ninjas had merely procured whatever had been left by dragging the bodies on the ground deeper into the forest.

Hearing more of the fight, he pursued the direction that the SOLDIER had run towards and then came upon a clearing in the forest where he’d heard the voice of an angry woman and the SOLDIER.

“Where were you? Our troops were taking heavy-fire and you’re somewhere nobody could reach.”

“Found a chocobo.” he’d smirked, before presenting her with a beheaded wutain samurai. “These fuckers love beheading people it’s only fair to return the favour with our own tradition.”

Chocobo? That might have set him off if it weren’t for the fact he’d had to listen and get himself focused on their conversation.

“Now’s not the time to think about that Brigadier General Nash!” he’d heard the woman clearly. “The new camp is going to be set up at these coordinates.” The woman had then pulled out a PHS and held it up for the other man to see. That meant the other man had been further up the chain-of-command than most of the other people sent here, albeit with a very arrogant and bloodthirsty demeanor.

“What? The twelve-old freak said that? No way I’m going to follow a rookie.”

Wait. Nash had been talking about someone that he knew as the only distinguishable person at that age to be deployed to Wutai in the history of Gaia, which could only have been the Sephiroth.

“He’s clearly a lot more intelligent than what you give him credit for. Said that the Wutains had a new weapon in the form of gas canisters that affected only SOLDIERs. If you blindly head into battle something might happen to you.” Rushed as the information had been, it meant that they had already become aware of their mako-nullifying gas and had been planning on coming up with a counter-attack to better organizing themselves.

“We’re in this war because of your ceaseless need to start one! Go help out the rest of the platoon in order for us to get home alive!” he’d heard her argue angrily. So it’d been that guy that’d been responsible for pushing the upper-echelons of Shinra into war with Wutai. But the man couldn’t have been the only one, because he’d seen plenty of people in Shinra that’d been trigger happy.

The man then responded defensively with his hand up as if he were appeasing her: “Alright, alright. Don’t get your hair in a twist over it. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? Lives are at stake and it’s all your fault you impulsive - !”

“I’m not the only one that decided remember.”

Silence emanated within the enclosed area for a bit, before the two had started heading towards eastern side of the island - and he’d decided to follow them, hiding behind tree after tree when the fighting had died down in the background. Cloud had made it through the forest thickets that’d stood in the way with an open beach where he’d just waited to see another batch of soldiers to pass by.

Chapter Text

Sephiroth had stood there with the others gathered around in a darkened domain, the light barely flooding in and vines reaching into the lining of the uneven grey rock walls. Soldiers conversed and paced around on the sedimentary fragments that formed the base of the land which essentially had running water flowing from some unlimited source in the north. Torches had eventually been pulled out to illuminate the increasingly dimmer locations in the cavern, held by the soldiers that had populated the area.

There he’d leaned against the back in the scarcely seen corner with his palms pushing the katana into the ground, assessing the squads that had managed to travel to the assembly with a flair of seriousness. Of the teams that had been in the cavern, he’d seen the familiar faces of Angeal, Genesis, Spears, Hammer, Wilkins, Kento, Fisher, Jinxi, and Charlene, who’d all been the leaders of their respective squads. Then there’d been Nash who’d merely stared at him from afar like he’d been an alien which really hadn’t been too far from the truth, but he hadn’t cared what the other man thought regardless and merely concentrated on the more important issues he’d had to address. The Brigadier General had then went back to paying attention to the other people at the meeting.

“Listen up.” he’d started off, but then addressed the makeshift crowd with a stern stance: “Earlier today when a few of us had arrived at the mountain, gas canisters had been prepared just for the SOLDIERS in our military it’d seemed and there’d been no visible effects except for pain.”

“Who here has been effected by the gas? What can anybody tell us about it?” Angeal had suddenly interrupted and a slew of hands had shown from the spaced out squads within seconds.

“Sarge said he couldn’t even move after. He’s sitting right here.”

Cloud had gone into sneak mode as he’d crouched like a thief with a determined look. After he’d followed a few infantry-men and their squad leader to the mentioned encampment, he’d stood nearby holding onto the magic that the stealth materia afforded him until the men and women had entered the entrance of the cave. Dangerous as it might have been, he couldn’t help but head into the opening with a resolute mind to gather intel on Shinra. Cloud could not see much when he’d entered but kept moving in the direction of the sounds he’d heard, putting his palms along the jagged walls and stalactites that he’d felt. Almost blindfolded, he’d headed deeper into the cavern not knowing what he’d encounter and kept moving towards the footsteps.

Finally, he’d seen a faint light ahead of him as he’d passed the creak running next to him still invisible. At the end of the tract and the arched upper-surface, he’d seen the barely visible figures stand with torches in their hands. But from what he could assess – they’d definitely been Shinra soldiers, the generic plated navy-blue infantry and soldier uniforms unmistakable. Much later than he’d anticipated, he’d still been focusing his energy and mind on holding activating the stealth materia, figuring that it’d been impractical when he’d started feeling weaker, he’d hid behind a large rock while listening in on the conversations. Out of the mesh of people that’d been there, he’d heard the familiar chiseled-smooth baritone voice address the rest of the military forces when he’d heard that the night had fallen.

“It’s pitch-black outside. I’d had to carry Sarge all the way here.” one of the soldiers had stated to another person, who’d then responded with the following commentary: “Ain’t nothin we can do.”

Peering around the rock he’d been behind, he’d seen the silver-haired man stand there with the same emerald-cat slit eyes that stared into him when he’d been killed. Coolly addressing the other people in the room, he’d called attention to the men and motioned for them to gather.

“Listen up.” Sephiroth had started before elaborating: “Earlier today when a few of us had arrived at the mountain, gas canisters had been prepared just for the SOLDIERS in our military it’d seemed and there’d been no visible effects except for pain.”

“Who here has been effected by the gas? What can anybody tell us about it?” Cloud held a hitched breath at the man in navy-blue uniform and the metal shoulder-plate, recognizing him as the person that’d been one of the other legendary SOLDIERS. If memory had served him right, then that had been Angeal – whom had the unique experience of mentoring Zack while a commanding officer at SOLDIER.

“Sarge said he couldn’t even move after. He’s sitting right here.” an infantryman had then pointed towards a male with white hair who’d then promptly opened his eyes right in his direction but before the man could get a definitive glance, he’d sharply ducked against the rock to avoid being seen. Cloud had hoped that the other man would just pass it off as some figment of his imagination, attributing it to the gas he’d inhaled.

“I can take a shot at the damn thing.” ‘Sarge’ had stepped up and merely explained his side of the story as the rest had quietly listened: “It’s like I’ve retained everything that I’ve learned but don’t have the raw strength that I’d had back when I had my first injection.” Few of the whispers he’d heard came from the squads that had been at the back of the assembly.

“Are you saying that the gas affects merely the strength of SOLDIERs?” the silver-haired teen had asked in that smooth baritone voice he’d so often heard in the future.

“Then what do you propose we do genius?” That rough voice definitely belonged to Nash, the man he’d encountered earlier that day.

“I’m telling you aren’t I?” Sarge had replied and then promptly remained quiet when Angeal had interrupted.

“Then we need to order some masks from the company.” he’d heard some female announce. That means their gas wouldn’t be enough to slow down the military from breaking through.

“What’s the next plan then?”

“Is there a way through the mountain?”

“It’s not going to be that easy with the ninjas and samurais at the top.”

“Can’t we just use flying summons and order our helicopters to get past it?”

“They’ll shoot us down from that height and it’s the fall that will kill most of us.”

“Not if we use stealth materia on the choppers.”

“How about we wear the Wutai ninja and samurai uniforms to infiltrate them.”

Cloud had a sixth sense when it’d come to knowing what had been different from the native environment and the people – finding which people had not initially belonged. Surely he’d been confident about being able to discern Shinra soldiers from Wutai soldiers in the future. Although the idea had been a rather clever tactic straight from the Wutai guerilla warfare playbook, it’d meant that their military had been changing to accommodate Wutai strategy and meant that they’d had to figure out what to do against infiltration and assault. The stealth materia on the choppers would be the biggest problem that their engineering team had needed to counter. Cloud had heard all he’d needed to by the time the crowd had dispersed and chatted among themselves.

After about an hour, their discussion about strategy had then turned into a discussion about their personal lives that he hadn’t really wanted to hear, ranging from people that he hadn’t known to their sexual escapades to who they’d find attractive enough to fuck along with their aspirations for the future, but observing the soldiers that’d been talking with each other so casually, he’d realized that just because they’d been the opposition didn’t mean that they too hadn’t been human. Still, he’d felt sorry for the females in the vicinity that had to deal with and hear about their serious macho insinuations. The military had been sent here on a mission to capture Wutai for a mere reactor placement, but their deaths would not be worth the effort because the resistance against their invading force would no doubt fight back and both sides would actually suffer the consequences. Shinra hadn’t really cared about casualties because there’d always been another person eager to replace the old one. Wutai would get the shorter end of the stick in the war because of their lack of replacements. But that didn’t mean that each life that had participated in the war had been less than another. Sadly, the people here had been every day humans sent to war under another pretense of conquering another nation that’d been labeled and promoted as an evil lesser nation.

But just as Cloud had been about to leave – he’d accidentally kicked the rock out which had rolled from the place he’d been hiding and then all hell had broken loose as he’d stared straight at that god-aweful object for a total of three seconds – before seeing the leather steel-toed boots step into view and then looking up to find the same cat-slit aqua-green eyes that’d killed him in the future boring holes towards his own eyes.

Chapter Text

Sephiroth had been conversing with Genesis and Angeal at one point during their whole meeting, but there’d been something odd that he couldn’t quite describe. Telling him that he shouldn’t ignore his paranoid intuition. Feeling for the moment that he should search the premises, he’d then heard something that caught his attention – it’d been an inconspicuous rock that rolled out next to the large boulder situated in between the creak and the sedimentary underneath a large stalactite hanging above the upper surface. Instantly he’d went to investigate, dashing to the place it had rolled out and then stared to the left of him only to find - absolutely nothing. Eh it’d probably been some critter, he’d thought, but the more he looked at the spot that it’d rolled out from, the more carefully he examined what had been in front of him, settling on that particular location with an unusual interest.

The ground had been fairly flat with only the uneven rocks sticking out and not much back-draft from the outside had rarely reached through these parts of the cavern. So what could possibly have moved that one little rock? Staring at the location as if it were an obsession, he’d stood over the place with an irritable curiousity for a good minute or two – before forcefully slicing his sword mid-air against boulder and then watching it slide down on that same spot. Suddenly, it’d showed the ripples in the water which had become more discernible when the footsteps made repeated splashes in the direction of the cavern exit. Alarmed, Sephiroth had then taken that as a queue to pursue the intruder who had dared spied on their encampment and made an air slash that almost could’ve leveled the entire cave if it weren’t for the stalactites in the way, that’d only fallen into the water with a loud disruption. But the intruder had been light and fast on their feet and when a body had landed, it’d immediately stood up and then continued making a beeline for the opening.

Sephiroth had been determined to capture the intruder at all costs and dashed towards the running splashes as if he’d been possessed. It’d been like a game and the chase had excited a straightforward hunter such as himself. Adrenaline made his heart beat repeatedly against his chest and the body sweat from the enclosed environment had clung to him like a second skin. But it’d been reacting to what happened around him that simply made feel alive. Running towards the target, he’d pulled out an earth materia and then upended the rock to block the entrance which then promptly hit someone unfortunate enough in the face and momentarily staggered them enough to reveal their real forms. The intruder had worn a navy-blue sweater and a turtle-neck that covered the back of his neck, but what had really astounded him had been the familiar spiky-blond hair that had covered the back of the head. Rushing towards the lithe male that’d landed backwards with palms flat against the ground, he’d turned the younger man around to find the oh-so-familiar distraught face of Cloud Strife appear inches below his trajectory, complete with the look of a chocobo-caught-in-headlights. Sephiroth had then put an arm around the neck and squeezed to hold the other in place.

“What do we have here?” he’d asked in the most calm and monotone tone that he could muster. Amused, he’d decided that from that moment onward, he would act as if he actually hadn’t known the little one and probe whether this had truly been the Cloud Strife he’d encountered from the future. Though, he could already assess that the other had been experienced in the use of stealth materia and had been agile enough to dodge a rock he’d almost crushed the other with. Perhaps there’d truly been a valid explanation for why the youth had been able to escape his wrath that couldn’t really be explained through inter-dimensional time travel.

“You’re going to explain what you are doing here.” Sephiroth had said, loosening the grip on the neck.

No answer had been mentioned when the youth attempted to feebly turn invisible, but to his surprise after a few seconds his arm sleeves had caught fire and he’d been forced to let go of the throat when the body had gotten out of the grip. Then the child had merely moved the rock smoothly behind which had then hit him square in the face. Undeterred, Sephiroth simply wiped the blood from his lip with the back of the hand before swiftly slicing the rocks in front of him. The child had then made a mad dash for the outside where the lithe figure could no longer be seen, disappearing and escaping his grasp as if the other had been a phantom shadowing him at every turn. But if it’d indeed been the Cloud Strife he’d known from the future, then that would mean that the current progress that Wutai seemed to have made and the fight that they’d putting up had been because of the male that he’d just encountered. Yet he couldn’t be too sure based on the mere resemblance because the raw strength and skill he’d witnessed had certainly been lacking. Even the eyes that had the mako tint had been missing, replaced by a clear blue and a resolute steel that he’d hadn’t seen the old Cloud.

Genesis had then chosen that moment to talk to him: “What’s the matter Seph?”

“Nothing. I thought I saw an old acquaintance.” he’d said almost dismissively and then viewed the empty beach searching for signs of life. Sephiroth had then went back inside the cave with a worried feeling the whole time but buried it beneath a stoic face before he approached the middle of the cavern where the area had been split into two biomes: the stream and the land with the large stalactite in the middle. Sometime later, he’d told the rest of the squads to move their asses to the next encampment that the military would set up, putting the thought of the blond-haired youth at the back of his mind to focus on more pressing matters.

Cloud’s heart raced when he’d ran into the forest and the fireflies had floated to light the path beneath the endless trees. Stopping, he’d reached a clearing where he’d slumped against the peeling bark under the cover of the night. Then for the moment took a deep breath and thought about the other man that had wrapped a hand around his throat. Could it be the same person that he’d known in the future? The tall silver-haired teen had shown no visible nor vocal signs that he’d even remotely recognized him. But then there’d been no point in contemplating much of this because of the urgency to get back to that mountain range faster than the army could organize their forces with a better strategy. At the pagoda of the Five Mighty Gods he’d stood there admiring the Wutain structure, before opening the large doors and heading inside where he’d first checked with their resident hacker Davos about the progress of Operation Aviation.

“What’s happened since I’ve been gone?”

“I’ve been stalling the network as best as I could by inserting the program at different locations, but their computer technies are catching on. I’ve only set the communication jam for two more days, but at this rate it’ll be one day at most since I can only do so much as a single person with a program that ends its replication after initial hourly phase.”

Cloud looked over the other man’s shoulder only to see assorted popups with the images of simple black and white morphed smiley-faces displayed across the screen, being deleted at a rapid pace. That’d been interesting. He’d then headed up the stairs to the fourth floor where he’d encountered Theodore Proctor and Cid Highwind, intensely absorbed into their work before he’d called attention to them and cleared his throat for all to see.

“What is it?” Theodore had snapped with strained pink eyes. Guessing that the other man had probably been tinkering at whatever project he’d been working on with neither sleep nor break, he’d first stood in silence before laying out the ground work: “We need to modify our strategy to accommodate for the changes. They’ll probably start using gas masks to counter your new substance.”

“Then what do you propose?”

“We need a magic canceler that is portable and a mako-detector to detect devices, vehicles, and people - that are invisible.”

“That is a rather interesting. I’ll work on it right away.”

Within the next few days the war had intensified and Wutai had struggled to keep the defenses up, but had ultimately managed to stall complete domination even shooting down the few stealth helicopters that had flown in from different sides. For a while, the company had stopped sending the aerial vehicles towards the village and had resorted to other methods to get in. Then Shinra had started wearing standardized black gas masks to counter their new mako-canceling substance, but that didn’t stop them from capturing soldiers alive with sleeping gas and tranquilizers. SOLDIERs, that were once strong enough to decimate their forces in one fell had been rendered inert once the injections had started and had unfortunately been put down after information had been extracted because in war they couldn’t afford to leave people alive to bite them back at a later date, but the Wutai military had fared much better than when they’d been without these protective measures.

Final night of the intense warring period, he’d been at the frontlines in stealth materia overlooking the mountain range which had towered over the soldiers, samurais, and ninjas fighting at the bottom. Cloud had assessed that the large amount of summons that appeared coupled with the fact that no other SOLDIERs had been there save for a few meant that the other military would be attacking elsewhere. Cloud hadn’t been really been worried because mako-detectors had already been deployed for their anti-SOLDIER units patrolling the surrounding borders. Finding and ambushing the attacking squads from elsewhere would be fairly easy.

“Be on guard, the other SOLDIERs are attacking at another location from the front.” he’d said into the radio without thinking - but that had cost him dearly when a SOLDIER had managed to get on the mountain and speedily set sights on his invisible form. Standing over him with a sadistic smirk and a large axe - the SOLDIER had extended the weapon high.

Stealth materia had worn off when the SOLDIER had swung down and would have succeeded if it were not for the surprising intervention of something deep inside him which sparked and unleashed a mysterious force that had pushed the other man straight off the cliff and down the mountain below. The large amount of summons that had then appeared in a line had threatened to breach their man-made mountain: Bahamut, Ramuh, Leviathian, and Pheonix. But before his very eyes – the thirteen Knights of the Round had all materialized and then fought each of the summons that had threatened their military – even killing the remaining soldiers on the ground, repeating their slashes till there’d been few people left on the opposing side. Sitting on the mountain, he’d figured that once the fighting died down it would be a good time to contact Shinra to negotiate peaceful terms. Seeing everybody die in the old timeline had desensitized him to death, but he'd still wanted to end things without feeding other people into a grinder and without shedding needless blood for a war that'd been entirely preventable in the long run.

Chapter Text

At the young age of twenty-two - Reeve Tuesti - who’d been an early graduate of the master architectural program at Shinra University, had attained the coveted position of the Head of the Urban Development Department. After the apparent death of the Khael Graves, their lead Architect and Civil Engineer - he’d landed the job being the mere assistant to the other man with nothing but the architectural mako-reactor designs underneath his belt. Stress had unfortunately been a regular factor that came with the job, constantly designing, redesigning, drafting, and analyzing proposed structures for the other departments. Why – last weekend he’d asked the Head of the Weapons Development Department, Scarlet Ohara, to a cup of coffee at his favourite cafe located just above the plate to cope with the fast-paced environment. Complaining about the board meeting where his proposal for renovating the lower areas had been rejected because of the more capitalist-minded executives, he’d sat right across from the other woman, stirring the coffee in a mopey swirl and addressing her respectfully. Both of them had been in Shinra together since the start of their careers often passing each other the halls since their departments had been one floor apart, but rarely interacted until a month ago when their departments had been forced to work together on an architectural and engineering project involving a cannon.

Since getting to know the slightly older woman, he’d come to view her in a more understandable light than the other executives, because of her independent, intelligent, fiery, caring, and calm nature. Scarlet had been around his age when she’d landed the executive position, being rather intelligent and passionate when it came to weapons and technology design. Perhaps he’d merely been lucky to have witnessed that side of her because he’d in fact become friends with her and saw a side of her that had rarely been seen according to the rumor mill. Being born in the country-side without a silver spoon in his mouth and a drive to succeed beyond expectations, he’d been more empathetic to the poor and their conditions rather than feeding the greedy suits at the top. Asking her what she thought about the subject, she’d replied much like the others at the board meeting except with a more logical approach rather than pushing for a monetary argument: “We don’t have the resources or corporate influence to spend on anything other than Shinra with the war in Wutai and manpower significantly tied to other responsibilities like the network being down. Shinra is pouring all of its effort into countering the new anomaly and continuing its normal operations… Sorry Reeve, but I’m going to have to agree with them right now, if this were a better time I’d have really considered it.” Scarlet then sipped at her own tea with a faraway look in the direction of the street, before stating that she had more work to do and left him politely in his seat. Red dress contrasting against the sun, she’d then headed into Shinra Headquarters between the doors located on the other side of the cafe.

Reeve had then unfolded the Shinra Newspaper that he'd placed on the table earlier to see the faded picture of Sephiroth standing next to other SOLDIERS with a neutral expression. The caption underneath it read: “Sephiroth Hojo becomes the youngest SOLDIER in the history of Shinra.” Flipping to the next page, he’d seen a picture of the President with his son Rufus smiling proudly at a ribbon cutting of the newly renovated Shinra Opera House. There hadn’t really been anything of real substance being presented in the Shinra Newspaper, because all the content had merely been careful propaganda written and selected through the Public Relations Department. But there had been information he’d noticed from the little details that hadn’t been said, like the fact that Sephiroth Hojo had been actually been Sujidamo Hojo’s son. Rarely did he interact with the Head of the Science Department, but it’d often left him feeling like insects had crawled out of his skin and often left him reeling like he’d wanted to avoid interacting with the scientist. Reeve hadn’t been somebody that judged others through their outer appearances in general. From the clinical reports the scientist had read off to the rest of executives - to the way that the other man had sounded with a dry screeching - it’d not only been the appearance that’d been unsettling. The man had been a brilliant scientist no doubt, but seemed almost inhuman and clinical with the way he’d pursued science, feeling as if the other had related more to statistics than human beings. That meant that Sephiroth Hojo had probably been bred into the role since he'd been a child rather than getting to the rank without help.

Reeve stood up that day and then went to the front lobby, where he’d taken the glass elevator to the sixty-fifth floor and slid his keycard across the scanner to access the door between him and the Urban Development Department Headquarters. He’d headed into the room where the life-sized model of the city had been located, before placing his PHS on the table and viewing the beautiful imitation that had been but a mockery of the actual structure of the city. Surmising about the fact that despite designing the reactors and some of the building architectural blueprints, that he couldn’t for the life of him explore Midgar and what’d really been happening around the world. Really curious about the state of the world because of the current network jam, he’d been coup-ed up in this office designing, redesigning, drafting, and analyzing structural blueprints, unable to get to the root of the events and problems effecting the regular population. Glancing to table in the corner of the room, that’s when he’d noticed the moogle and cat stuffed toy that he’d forgotten to clean up and that he’d been given as a joke from a colleague that no longer worked at Shinra. Remembering that the older man had been a good mentor despite the quirky eccentric personality, Reeve merely frowned at the thought the man had one day all but disappeared without a trace. There could only be two conclusions then to what happened: either the man had been dead or the man had been in hiding. If that had been the case, then he couldn’t really find him or contact him nor find out if he'd been dead, because he wouldn’t know where to start in the first place and he had no way of reaching the outside world other than through rumours and the PHS. Perhaps it had been better if Reeve hadn't known, because people that asked too many questions in the company had tended to just drop off the face of the earth.