Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1.  The Beginning.

“In the history of the world there have been many stories… So many versions of events that coalesce together to create the ultimate tale of fire, destruction… calamity.  But you… my estranged piece will serve as a safeguard to a possible future… If… Hmm… But what to do with the other…?”

Hojo walked in small semi circles around the large fluid filled tubes in the basement of the Shinra Mansion, a hidden laboratory that served as the focus of his operations following the mental collapse of his prized SOLDIER Sephiroth, the destruction of a nearby town and the two minor creatures responsible for his untimely end. 

The middle-aged man walked in slow steps, his back arched over from a life huddled over research dishes and computers.  His long black slicked hair was telling of how long he’d been working and considering a future alternative for the plans he’d constructed several years prior.  By all accounts, his very life was in danger due to the notion posited that Sephiroth, having joined the lifestream, could seek his revenge on the man who lied to him about his mother. 

“More SOLDIERs will be needed… The old ways are adequate, but none can compare… unless the means by which he was created could be reproduced… but it would…” Hojo continued to speak to himself.  There was no-one else awake or even on site in the Mansion for him to speak to, he just enjoyed combing through the ideas with himself.

He pressed one of the buttons on a console at the far side of the tubes, the body inside was a comatose blonde former Shinra security grunt who, from the security footage, was able to kill Sephiroth.  A mako powered drone assisted the Professor with the handling of the body.  Positioning it squarely on a laboratory table in the same room. 

Hojo moved over to one of the desks and opened a small white container.  In the instant he did, a sudden combination of the pressure and gases in the container with the refrigeration technology implemented in it spoke to a cold storage device for the small vial of liquid, blue Mako.  The makings of a new kind of materia, he had been promised by Scarlet. 

“With purest and most powerful of liquid Mako… combined with the biological samples obtained from the Ancient… Blessed Ifalna… if only you could see what you have become.” Hojo shook a small tube of red viscous liquid and in a moment placed the two vials in a combiner device at the foot of the lab table where the Shinra grunt now laid, naked and unconscious. 

“Scouring for a more suitable body type would be incongruous… No no no… This will have to do…” Hojo continued to mutter as a small tube connected to the combination device began to whir and a slow stream of purple liquid, the combination of the two, headed towards a sharp repeating needle used for marking subjects.  It had so far been used to mark Reunion samples with numbers to measure susceptibility to Jenova’s influence and now…

“A genius born in the wrong age, with mediocre tools and technology, and an artist as well… who would have considered.” He circled around to a small stool that swung with his body towards the comatose young male specimen on the table.  He pulled the tattoo needle slack and began a work from his own mind onto the canvas of the young person’s being. 

A small pattern just above the subject’s smooth crotch between his naval, the mako and the cells would inspire cellular change in the subject, to such a degree that his entire internal and external biology would shift drastically…

He watched the subject wince in his comatose state, clearly the application of pain was still impactful for this creature. 

“A new kind of SOLDIER… I am a genius…” Hojo said, finishing the last touches with the last drops of fluid that fed inside the skin of this grunt.  He saw the low glow of the mako worming its way into his system, through the blood vessels and into the organs. 

“Place it back in the tube… Alert me when physiological change is complete…” Hojo stood, not even opting to wipe the pooling blood at the needle marks from the subject’s skin, just remarking on the sudden workings of the specimen. 

‘Of Course… Professor.’ – A heavy mechanical voice sounded as the drone replaced itself under the form of the specimen, carrying it carefully by the arms and releasing it to the tall glass tube that slowly refilled with mako, healing fluid and a slow recombination of medical goods. 

Professor’s Log… X/X/20XX

“It’s been three months since the introduction of what I am affectionately referring as Goddess Cells to the subject… While the computer was instructed to alert me when physiological change was complete, I can see from the security feeds that this process has not yet completed.  While primary and secondary physical sexual characteristics have indeed been altered as well as causing the subject to age closer to peak breeding age… I worry that the internal changes may represent an issue to the reproduction and improvement upon of my one greatest creations: Sephiroth…”

A ring of alarm bells surrounded Hojo as he wrote in the private library that was at one point pillaged and lived in by Sephiroth.  He’d kept journals after reading the collected works of his predecessor once again, looking for inspiration from a lesser mind, not for answers. 

Hojo stood and paced quickly towards the lab room at the far end of the corridor.  The alarms were sounding due to an unexpected occurrence.  He’d finally adapted… She was ready. 

“Rise, Sophia…” Hojo spoke the words directly into the ear of the laid out woman on the table before him.  For the most part, her body frame hadn’t changed, she’d adapted a skinnier waist, more spacious hips.  The tattoo just above the crotch had remained and the colour shone brightly.  One observation that Hojo had made about the form now that he could feel her form was that the tattoo remained constantly warmer than the rest of her body.  She had long silver and blonde hair, the former spikiness had been dampened by the fluids and pulled down by the length.  Her face was more feminine, skinnier with a small button like nose and lips plumper than his darling Lucrecia’s. 

He'd chosen to name her for one of a trio of deities in an old legend found in the library of his predecessor.  A Goddess, named Sophia, was part of a triumvirate of Cetra that helped cultivate the world for life. 

As she opened her eyes, Hojo watched as the colour had adapted almost perfectly to adopt the same hue as the tattoo on her belly. 

“WHOA! Where the fuck am I?!” She recoiled, turning on the table and leaping away with a silent step to the cold stone floors of the laboratory.  She reached for her throat, surprised and shocked by the sounds that rose from her throat. 

“Restrain her please…” Hojo said, disappointment lurking in his eyes that she wouldn’t just remain still for his examination of this beautiful new form.  A drone immediately flew from the computer above and gripped the arms of the woman in its metal vice grips.  She resisted, pulling the drone from the air and slamming it into the ground.  Another descended, reinforced by a second drone that collected her feet, pulling her up into the air and replacing her down onto the medical table, they remained there to hold her in place while Hojo began collecting a series of small devices for collections. 

“Prof… Professor Hojo!? Where the fuck am I? Why am I…?” She tried to reconcile her previous life with this new amalgamation of his works that she had become. 

“Silence… Sophia.  I must collect the samples to assess your viability…” Hojo spoke in cold tones that did not set her at ease. 

“WHO THE FUCK IS SOPHIA!?  My name is Cloud Strife… I’m Shinra security… What the fuck did you do to me you sadistic freak!?” She yelled at the top of her voice, the questions carrying less curiosity and just general outrage. 

“Why… You are.  You… your form, is the perfection of my work… the next stage of my projects to bring the Ancient’s back to the world…” He spoke the words to her, ensured of her inability to escape knowing the drones would assess changes in her physique and strategies for how to subdue… for a while. 

“No… no no no… I’m not… I’m a man! I was born a man… How the fuck… Where’s my dick gone!?” Sophia continued to yell and scream in shock and terror at the transformation as she looked down at her morphed form, the heavy perky breasts acting as a wall to the sight of a flat emptiness where his manhood once stood. 

“You’re a man? Hmm… I am a Professor, young lady. I don’t think Men have one of these…” Hojo said, taking one of his sample collection sticks and swabbing the inside of a small fleshy parting between her legs.  The discomfort struck immediately as she felt the sensation of something… entering her there for the first time. 

“This doesn’t make sense… you can’t do this… This isn’t possible…” Sophia continued to deny the evidence before her as she felt the red hot flush of blood reach her face as she experienced the breeze of cold air over her free and exposed nipples. 

“With the blood of the Ancients… Anything is possible.  All it took was some… creativity.  I am a genius after all…” Hojo laughed as he placed the containers of small sample swabs into their tubes and began to collect blood samples through a trio of small needles all vacuum sealed and collecting her blood for analysis.

“This isn’t happening… this isn’t… this can’t be… What happened… The blood of the Ancients… Oh my god! Where’s Sephiroth! Is Tifa okay?!” She began to tense, her body becoming less malleable and more intense with anger and rage as the recollection of her former body’s memories came to the surface. 

“The Great Sephiroth… is no more.  The last personification of my life’s work destroyed in a desperate act of vengeance for pitiful small creatures of Nibelheim.  You… will be the future.  In your new form, Sophia, you will birth the world a new Hero… one more powerful… All it will take… Hmm… The President should issue me with a list of suitable candidates for your insemination… SOLDIERs… First Class if possible.  With no more Genesis or Angeal samples… Hmm…” Hojo’s mind was quickly distracted but Sophia laid there contemplating the thoughts he uttered.  He meant for her to carry a child… that would become the next Sephiroth?!?. 

“You… you can’t… I’m a man… I can’t have a child… I don’t have a…” Sophia struggled, her velvet voice passing over the head of the mumbling scientist as a small dose of clear blue liquid was injected into her neck and within a few seconds, her eyes became heavy and the noise and whirring of the sample machines, the grip of the drones all ceased. 

“… Blood of the Ancients… in my veins…”

A sharp black crackle formed the thought over Cloud’s memories. 

“…You… my village! You killed my…”

The words he said cried out in a fit of rage, carrying the heavy metal blade of his friend.

“… My reunion…”

A soft, sincere sounding feminine voice carried over the memories, the black crackles and static of the moments clearing so much as to free the voice from the control of the chaos.  It wasn’t familiar but it was kind, it almost reminded Cloud of his home, his mother. 
It didn’t last, however, the feeling of home.  In an instant, the cold metal of the medical table, the sensations of this new form… pulled Her back into existence.

“Welcome, SOLDIER.  You have been given an assignment to complete my orders without question and I will expect full cooperation without delay… Is that understood?” Another man stood at the doorway.  This one wasn’t bloodied or injured, remained silent and stood between the two guards.  Sophia didn’t recognise the uniform of these strange guards.  They wore black armour but the same design of helmet as she had worn. 

“What… are your orders? Professor.” He spoke and the sly demonic voice interfered with Sophia’s ears.  Half of the words he uttered were deep, guttural and tense but the others seemed to glide from the tongue of the man with near cat like smoothness.

“Breed with this woman…” Hojo pointed to Sophia lying naked on the medical table, he kicked himself away from his position, opting instead to move to a small array of security footage recording cameras that detected heat levels in her body and other such metrics. 

“Sir? Is she a prisoner? Has she consented?” The deep guttural voice penetrated her ears, the concern for her wellbeing warmed her for a moment but in the next, she felt the footsteps of large black boots arrive behind her head as one of the guards placed a blindfold over her eyes. 

“Those are my orders… SOLDIER.  Carry them out.” Hojo said without even looking his direction.  Sophia heard the next few footsteps arrive down near her feet. 

With a quick mechanical whir, the medical bed lowered and tilted so that her head was raised above the rest of her body, laid out horizontally.  She was blinded by the cloth wrapped around her eyes but her hearing brought the sound of an unzipping, followed the sudden arrival of warm large muscular hands around her ankles. 

“No… Please…” She said.  Hoping to appeal to the humanity of this SOLDIER.  He did hesitate… for a moment.  She felt her ankles lifted as they rested on the coarse vest shoulders of the man.  She felt his arms radiating heat to the sides of her head. 

“Please… don’t do this…” She appealed again.  The man contemplated for a moment before opting instead to pull the blindfold fabric down to her mouth.  Gagging her but revealing his face. 

Sophia wanted to scream, to mumble her nonconsent to the man as she felt the hot meat of his manhood reach the tender flesh of her new vagina.  The green of his mako eyes was the first sight she saw as her eyes adjusted to the sensation. 

‘So this is what has become of you… Cloud…’ The soft satin but devilish voice of Sephiroth ran through her ears.  Before she could adjust, she found her eyes resting on the vest covered skinny torso of Sephiroth as he manipulated his manhood towards her vagina, pressing the tip against the flesh before jarringly and suddenly putting it inside.  The sensation was not like anything else she’d ever felt.  The pain of his entry and the sudden burst of pleasure mixed with the violation she felt from pleading with this man to cease, to not obey the orders of a mad man. 

The cameras locked on as the SOLDIER penetrated the specimen.  Hojo watched with great enthusiasm the heat levels rising and falling in different areas of the woman he’d created to be the next host to a SOLDIER like Sephiroth.  The SOLDIER himself was a tall, muscular man, top heavy with pec muscles and thick arms but tall white spiked hair.  He’d come recommended by the President as one of three more powerful and obedient samples they had at their disposal.  His concentration of Jenova’s cells was high, only beaten by two others who were still living. 

Sophia watched as the man who she could swear she saw in her memories falling into the green mako of the lifestream penetrated her very being.  She felt his manhood’s flesh run deeper and deeper inside of her with every thrust.  She couldn’t understand how Sephiroth was here… Was he really here? Was her mind playing tricks on her? But this felt so real, she could feel the long silver of his hair cascade over her breasts and tickle them as his thrusting became more frequent. 

‘I saw the way you looked at me… At Zack… The way we were real men.  SOLDIERS.  You’re not like us Cloud… you’re beneath us… This is your proper place… Accept your fate…’

The words of the evil monster that destroyed Cloud’s home and hurt Tifa… and Zack… he was running her through.  The flesh of his cock pulsing with heat, the blood circulation strong and the girth rubbing the fleshy walls of her insides with a voracity that spoke to the animalistic breeding Hojo wanted from him. 

“Good… Yes Good… Deeper.  We need the chance of impregnation to be as high as possible…” Hojo mumbled and the SOLDIER seemed to oblige, pulling himself deeper inside Sophia while her arms were bound by the metal restraints of the bed. 

The drops of sweat fell onto her body, the body currently writhing in pleasure.  The heat of the tattoo warming her crotch and pulsing with a radiating heat that seemed to ease his access. 

“Fuck… Fuck… Fuck…!” He said repeatedly.  She didn’t seem to be able to hear it.  Her face was gagged and her eyes rest on the face of this man like he was her mortal enemy.  Not that Hojo would give a fuck.  This was all in the name of his scientific dream. 

‘I took away your life, Cloud.  Accept this new one… become just like Her.  Accept this was who you were meant to be… Bear my seed…’

Sephiroth’s words pulled violence and sickness to her mind, she wanted to vomit if there was anything she could.  With a quick flurry of thrusts, the ordeal came to an end, the smiling Sephiroth she saw pulled himself away after the bursts of hot fluid ran inside her.  The sensation continuing to be… terrifying.  This shouldn’t be possible… This couldn’t actually result in a pregnancy… could it?

“Thank you, SOLDIER.  Please remain in the facility for one more day to ensure the best chance for insemination during ovulation.  We will be calling on you tomorrow to repeat this exercise.” Hojo said, a semi-erection running down his grey trouser leg as the man who’d carried out the deed pulled his trousers back up around himself. 

“Sir… Something’s happening…” One of the Black Armoured grunts bellowed and all in the room stood at attention to observe.  A thin black cloud of mist seemed to rise from the tattoo on the woman’s belly, it smelled vile, of old and stagnant water.  She began convulsing, her entire body writhing in agony and torment. 

“Fascinating… she’s rejecting the Jenova cells in the male’s semen.” Hojo commented while stroking his chin and watching the readings of heat radiating from her crotch tattoo as it slowly burnt out the evil miasma in the fluid running through her insides.   

“Is there something more I can do?” The SOLDIER asked. 

“No, while your eagerness is appreciated Loz… This just means she has a resistance to the cells inside you that make you superior to your colleagues… As though her own biology is overpowering the Jenova cells in your DNA.” Hojo commented, realising the possibilities that could occur giving one of the three Sephiroth clones the opportunity to breed with any kind of… Ancient DNA. 

In a dark instant, the eyes of Sophia went purest and deepest black, only a small pin sized purple star lighting amidst the darkness.  The lights flashed once for half a second and in that moment… she vanished from the shackles and table, a small globule of white fluid, the only remains of her presence. 

“FIND HER! NOW!” Hojo shouted, the most emotion anyone in Shinra had ever heard from the man.  Clearly fascinated and hoping to continue his observations of the woman as whatever this change was… happened. 

The two guards followed the instructions, searching the room with flashlights on their rifles.  Loz, pulled a metal fist weapon to his right hand, with a squeeze a short bar fell over the knuckles with two metal spikes that sparkled to life with electricity. 

The two guards slammed the door shut to the laboratory.  Ideally keeping her contained in this space, the physical limitations of the form must be considered but at the same time it was impossible to think how she could have escaped the restraints. 

The two guards moved into one of the other rooms attached to this one, one led the investigation, finding the tall fluid filled tube with another specimen, a black spiky haired male, the lid was slightly ajar.  In the moment, a quick sharp guttural grunt sounded behind him, the sound of a monster, he thought, as he looked behind himself to see no other guard but the clatter of his colleagues rifle, the light still lit as it laid on the ground. 

“Sir… Perhaps we should alert… NOOOOOOO!” The second guard tried to shout through to Hojo, still seated at his spot and watching the falling frame of Sophia on the night vision cameras focused on the other room.  His head tilted, curiosity beginning to peak. 

“Fascinating…” He said, watching as the woman pulled the flailing armoured man towards her maw and with a snap and horrifying roar, seemingly consumed the man’s head and neck.  She’d done this with the other guard, storing it in the ceiling, held in place by strange magical tethers that wrapped around it with black smoke. 

Loz watched the doorway, holding his fist weapon in front of him, he’d watched the flailing body of a Shinra guard pulled from the ground as his weapon fell below him with a quick clatter. 

“She’s consuming flesh… dormant Jenova activation must be driven by the intensity of the Mako in the branding… Hmm…” Hojo continued to comment as he watched the woman skitter over the ceiling of the lab room towards the camera, pulling it loose and throwing it to the ground.  Hojo switched inputs but in the moment, he watched as he naked form crawled towards the lit doorway of the room he remained in. 

“Sir… Perhaps we should get you out of here? The President requires you to continue your work?” Loz asked, his attention focused on the doorway as he watched the slender pink blood covered fingers wrap around the doorway’s upper section. 

“Thirty-Six…” Hojo said with confidence as he remained seated on his small metal stool.  Loz looked at him confused and worried as another hand arrived.  The black cold eyes of the woman arriving with the falling blonde and silver hair through the doorway, her blood filled mouth telling of the decapitation she’d just inflicted.    

“Ten… Fifty-Nine…” Hojo spoke a few more numbers.  Loz stood there, continuing to ready himself to fight this creature the man behind him had just order him to breed with. 

“Sir!” Loz yelled as Sophia arrived in the room, her naked body twisting and contorting as it arrived back in the light, dripping red with the blood of her kills.  She leapt from the wall with a force that almost blew Loz from his feet, he thrust his fist forward ready to meet the face of his foe. 

“Ninety-Seven…” The last number Hojo spoke pulled the woman who was flying towards Loz straight into the ground and brought her to an unconscious state. 

“Safeguards are always necessary when programming… Why can’t the lab specimens simply accept my genius wisdom… Obedience is never guaranteed.” Hojo bickered with himself before standing at the seat. 

“Please place her in the specimen jar over there. She’ll regain consciousness in twenty-four hours when I expect you to perform the same exercise here again… Is that clear?” Hojo barked annoyedly.  Loz affirmed with a nod, picking up the naked woman from the cold metal and stone infused floor towards the tall tube at the far side of this one room.  Above the top rim of this tube was a newly engraved metal plaque with the name of the Specimen engraved in bold, thick letters, Sophia. 

At one point, this jar had seemingly been connected to the one in the other room, Loz assumed in that case that the other specimen… wasn’t needed. 

Hojo spoke into the small black microphone on his lapel again…

“Two security forces are down in the laboratory.  Please provide more for my security as soon as possible.”

“Of Course, Professor.  We’ll double the guard for tomorrow’s experiment. Will you be requiring another SOLDIER?” A gruff, gravelly voice arose from the device at the computer in Hojo’s lab as he made his way out of the room towards the library once again. 

“This one is adequate, provided he performs as well tomorrow… He should be rewarded for his contributions to my work.” Hojo replied with a tall smile on his face as he turned back to watch the naked form of his latest masterpiece rise with the liquid in the tank.  Her breasts remaining perky, the heat of the tattoo at her belly bubbling with heat and the remaining viscera around her mouth from the security floating to the surface. 

As Sophia’s last moments of cogency fell before falling to a deep slumber and sleep she saw the body of the vile creature that had violated her being.  His body lurching against the tall glass material of the tube she rested in. 

‘Sweet dreams... Cloud…’

Chapter Text

Chapter 2.

Professor’s Log… X/X/20XX

First exercise proceeded as expected, Subject Sophia has been replaced in containment with round the clock security to assess her danger to myself, the greatest mind of the age… No other mind could possibly have conceived this notion, to unmake a lesser creature from the strands of genetics and rebuild it as something better… I’m almost excited at the notion Sophia will be the greatest scientific advancement since the arrival of Jenova herself… The possibilities are endless now.  Introduction of Sophia Cells to SOLDIERs could lend new possibilities… Once the current experiments have been completed with the aid of the white haired breeding ape… We can move on to the real science… Ah my Sophia, what a Mother you will make to the flocks of the chosen.

Sophia awoke in the large glass cylinder in the laboratory as the fluid began to drain, the fluid was designed in a way that regardless of the subject inside, their body would be provided with oxygen, removing the necessity of awkward tubing for breathing and feeding. 

“Rise… My Sophia.  I have some tests to conduct… If you don’t acquiesce, I’ll be forced to call on the drones…” Professor Hojo lumbered his way into the room once more, he watched as the black slick hair of the man wrapped loosely down his shoulders as his hunched back seemed to carry him further forward. 

“Fuck you! You had a man rape me! I was violated for your sick twisted experiments!” She screamed inside the tube, the voice was carried outwards but not a single one of the renewed black armoured security officers flinched at the implication of this man’s work.  Clearly all of them were implicit… Willing. 

“Science places demands on all of us my dear… Advancements now dependent on your willingness to accept your new role rest on your… beautifully sculptured shoulders.” Hojo said while sitting calmly at the computer bank across the main room from her. 

“What the fuck are you trying to do… There’s no way I can get pregnant! I’m a man!” Sophia argued, bashing against the thick glass of the tank, this mention of her change in sex and gender brought about a few looks from the guards, their eyes drawn to the primary sexual characteristic still on show. 

“Nothing is beyond a man of my intelligence, dear Sophia.  Your current ovulation cycle will end in approximately twelve hours and we will need to be more prepared at your next ovulation with more specimens, if this one does not succeed…” Hojo said, looking up at the monitor that still showed the event from the previous day; the tall SOLDIER with white spiked hair and his forced entry and breeding of Sophia. 

“You can’t… You can’t want to make another Him…” Sophia stammered the question.  Recalling her own experiences of the previous day, she overlayed the form of the man Hojo had ordered to breed with her with the form of Sephiroth, the man she’d killed in a previous life.  While she was more explicitly confused about the nature of Sephiroth being the potential father, all Hojo could consider were the previous measures taken to create a creature like Sephiroth. 

“I don’t want another Sephiroth, my Dear.  I want the true heirs to this planet’s destiny to bow in honour of my greatness.  You are the culmination of the greatest advancement in Shinra’s history… by my guidance of course.  You will be the one to lead us to the Promised Land… A land where bounteous mako energy will provide for every one of my experiments as I feed the fossilized biological matter of the Ancients into others… But the work must start somewhere… If you produce even one or two progeny… scientific testing can increase the probability of genetic compatibility with others, other sentient species…” Hojo spoke his speech to her directly before quickly becoming enraptured in a dream of his own success, feeding into this own personal egotistical journey to becoming some lauded scientist for saving the Ancient people.  Their combined knowledge and arcane mastery… he’d assumed, would lead to his ascension and unlock secrets of creation. 

“You’re a fucking psychopath…” Sophia told him, the look of disgust and horror written clearly on her face as the single tear fell from the illuminated purple eye. 

“SOLDIER Loz, report to the laboratory…” Hojo beckoned the operative to the laboratory through a small microphone in his lapel.  On one of the monitors of the computers in front of him, a wide framed man dressed with a black leather vest top and black fabric trousers stood and headed to the rich, engraved wooden door to his room. 

“If he… You know what’ll happen…” Sophia said, the faint recollection of the previous exercise fresh in her own mind as she struggled to understand how she consumed the helmets, flesh and skulls of two men the day before. 

“This is why I am the genius, my dear.  I know it’ll happen… I seek to understand how I can use the creature you became to create others with more voracious and vicious appetites than the darkest abominations in those pitiful reactor chambers.  I want to see you produce progeny that would exceed even Jenova’s offspring…” Hojo smiled and faced her one last time before pressing a button on the computer, a quick whir of air cycled through the mechanism and the pressure window of the glass released allowed the chamber to open.  A small set of stairs emerged from below the chamber, she took a few steps forward, proceeding down them. 

Sophia sat perched on the medical table, she watched in confusion as the man who Hojo had summoned was not Sephiroth. 

“Who…” She started to question, but as she did a thin crackle of black static faded her vision.  She clutched her head in pain as her mind tried to rationalise the dissonance. 

As she looked back up, the figure in the doorway had increased in height by a foot… His hair had continued to fall almost to just behind his rear, it was long a shimmering silver.  His eyes were bright green and held thing black pupils reminiscent of a cat.  He wore a black leather vest, emblazoned with the Shinra logo. 

As he closed the distance between her and himself, she knew resisting wouldn’t get her anywhere.  Inside her, Cloud railed against the silence, pleading with himself to move, to run, to fight and die… Sophia could not allow this man back inside of her again… But she had no choice…

“Soldier… You understand the exercise should be carried out under the same conditions as yesterday… You’ll find her a more… compliant specimen this time.” Hojo spoke but as he addressed the tall monster that stood staring at her, a thin crackle of static white noise permeated her ears. 

“Understood, Professor…” The deep voice of the SOLDIER resounded the metal laboratory table the two would use to create this… offspring. 

With a quick flick of a control, the medical table lowered itself again and the SOLDIER approached his prey.  She did not look him in the eye.  Her eyes retreated from his face as often as they could.  She didn’t tremble in fear, only anger, as her fist clenched so hard her sharp nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms drawing blood. 

“I’ll make this quick…” He told her.  She didn’t seem to hear it, nor did she really care.  With a quick motion, he gripped her legs as they hung over the side of the medical table, he split them, placing himself between.  He pulled the zip of his trousers to the bottom and pulled them around his thighs, freeing his throbbing, heated manhood. 

Sophia had seemingly gone catatonic, neglecting to acknowledge any kind of sensory information.  While this was startling for Hojo, considering the fight she put up yesterday to the penetration, this time she simply seemed to accept it.  He smiled as he thought for a moment… he could do this.  He could control her, manipulate her, the strongest creature in all this world…

As Loz, pulled himself closer, Sophia found herself on her back beneath the man, his hands planted themselves at either side of her head, giving him the most leverage to continually pump himself inside of her. 

Another tear rolled from the luminescent purple eyes of her face as she felt the soft tug of her newly lengthened hair pull under her flesh. 

She felt the flesh of his cock rub against the exposed vagina between her legs once more.  As the heated tip began to find purchase, she looked up to see the figure entering her once more. 

“What’s the matter Cloud? Isn’t this where you always wanted to be? The way you talked none stop about how hard you wanted to be in SOLDIER, What you would do to get in… I saw the thoughts in your mind… You knew I’m a better man than you ever could be.  This is your rightful place… to accept my seed and bear my child… You were never anything to this world, more than the vessel for my greatness to succeed.  You’re a pitiful creature… you’re a whore… Accept my seed… Cloud.  Enjoy this… Once Hojo is done with you… this is all you’ll be… A breeding farm for more and more… of me.”

The smooth, sly and evil voice of Sephiroth ran through her skull as she watched the man who burnt her village, killed her mother, killed Tifa… Run her through with his cock.  In one movement she felt the pain and subtle pleasure of being penetrated as the man continued his rhythmic thrusting.  He never stopped staring her in the eyes.    

“Excellent… Deeper… We need to maximise chances of insemination! Deeper I said!” Hojo barked from the side of the room.  The four security operatives around the room trying hard to stay focused while hearing the grunting moans of Loz, the large white haired SOLDIER as he bred the Professor’s specimen on a cold metal table.  She never made a noise, she never flinched more than a small pained twitch in her face as he entered her. 

Loz confirmed and obliged, pulling her legs around himself and pulling himself inside her deeper, the repeating thrusts of his cock running through her form. 

To the side, Hojo could be seen stroking his own manhood as the semi-erect Professor ran a finger up and down the outline of his own cock. 

Sophia struggled to reconcile the words of the monster inside her now.  She couldn’t understand how this was happening. 

‘That is not Sephiroth.  This is a remnant… a clone, created by Shinra…’

A smooth feminine voice coursed through her mind.  As Sophia’s head fell backwards on the table while the SOLDIER ran her through, she looked and saw the frame of a tall brunette woman standing at the doorway.  She reminded her of Sephiroth, two flowing whisps of hair at either side of her face that fell over her eyes.  She wore a torn red flowery blouse with a stained with dirt and grime long white skirt.  She had kind green eyes that met Sophia’s.  In the moment, Sophia felt another stream of tears emerge from her own eyes as the woman she’d seen instilled some kind of peace inside her.

‘Hojo cannot succeed… not because you can’t bear a child… but because you are stronger than the strongest of his creations.  The poison that plagues the planet… The poison all of these men carry… You are the panacea.’

She continued to speak but Sophia still struggled to understand who this woman was… how she was able to talk to her.  Was she really here? Was she a hallucination? There was a familiarity to her, something about her seemed… so close. 

Sophia blinked as the tears welled in her eyes.  The operatives around the room seemed to stir… confused by her state of mind.  Hojo was not affected in the slightest and continued watching a thermal image that showed the activity inside the woman’s vagina, the running flesh and heat of the man’s cock running further and further into her. 

She looked Loz in the face for the first time, seeing him, the real him.  Not the monster she’d known… As his arms dripped with sweat and his body trembled, she felt the sudden bursts of fluid build up around his penetrating member.  She didn’t seem to care… She simply placed a hand on the man’s chest as he remained there tense and worn from the act.  With a slow but sure motion, she rested her fingers against the leather of his vest and a dim glow of light permeated his chest.  For a moment, the security operatives all pulled the safeties on their rifles and aimed them at the woman.  The SOLDIER raised a fist, signalling them to hold their fire. 

He felt the radiance and the warming heat from her palm as the light coursed through his chest.  To those viewing from a metre away, the light seemed to push dark globules of viscera through the fabric of his vest into the air which dissipated in a burst of smoke. 

Hojo, for his part, had not turned around but had stopped caressing himself. 

Loz was confused, he didn’t understand what this woman was doing to him, if this was some retaliation for what he’d done to her… or… Whatever it was, she was seemingly just as confused as he was, unaware that she had this power or that she was willing to use it. 

As the white light dimmed, Loz fell backwards, his still cum-dripping cock shrivelling as it exited Sophia.  Her hand remained in place for a moment. 

“Are… are you alright sir?” One of the security asked Loz, a tremble in his voice as he recalled the sight of the blood and viscera that was cleaned out from her the day before. 

“Professor…? What did she…?” He turned to Hojo and began to ask the question.  In the moment though, Sophia began to tense, a small convulsion in her abdomen.  The tattoo on her belly began to burn, similar to the day before with the same black smoke that had just burnt from the back of Loz.  She writhed and flailed her hands clenched as fists as her eyes slammed shut. 

“Secure her! Close that door!” Loz issued the orders and the security officers reraised their guns in her direction, small beams of red light flowing and landing on her sweating, smooth skin. 

As the soldiers followed his orders, Hojo continued to observe the interaction on his monitor. 

“Fascinating… it’s as though she… Hmm…” He muttered to himself, idle musings and theorising that should probably be done in a safer place. 

“Professor!? Perhaps you should retreat…” Loz issued while reaching for the metal knuckle weapon on the desk behind him.  With a button pressed on the handle, the electrifying metal became charged as he positioned himself between her and Hojo. 

“In my moment of triumph? Are you mad you belligerent ape!?” Hojo began to laugh manically as he finally turned on his spinning stool to watch as the raised thighs and waist of the woman burnt the remaining black miasma that had been pumped inside of her away. 

Sophia slunk to the metal table, her whole body going limp and pale.  Her chest stopped beating, her lungs stopped acting. 

“DO NOT LET HER DIE!” Hojo fell over his own feet towards her as he watched her breathing stop.  Her eyes opened once more and the light still shone inside of them.  He was confused… He rested his head against her chest, the ample breasts providing a comfortable position but one that allowed him to hear for a heartbeat. 

“You two, contact medical at Shinra HQ in Midgar…” Loz issued further orders but found himself cut off… One of the two he’d ordered repeatedly pressed a switch to allow him out of the room.  As part of a ridiculous set of security protocols… the only person who could contact the outside of this room while it was locked down… was Hojo himself.  The operative opened the door in a moment… the quiet whooshing of cold air preceding a bellowing shout from Hojo. 

“No! You fools! Don’t open the door!”

A cold breeze flowed into the room.  The long invasive light fixtures flashed twice before turning off all together, save for the flashlights of the operatives and the faint dim glow of the elevator at the far end of the corridor back up into the mansion. 

A thin dark frame rose from the floor before the closer pair of guards, in a sharp turn they seemingly responded to a strange dark sensation… that they were being watched.  The guard tried desperately to close the main doorway from the far side of it.  His colleague hammered the buttons and turned to raise his gun and flashlight at the medical table where he hoped to see the still unconscious body of the woman lying there… she was nowhere to be seen. 

At the far end of the room, one of the operatives guns fell to the floor with a quick clatter, no other noise indicated anything had happened to him.  In another few moments, Loz watched as the other operative standing guard at that side, investigating his friend’s disappearance vanished into the pitch black of the doorway leading to the other specimen jar. 

“Professor… either leave or say the numbers…” Loz whispered, hoping for whatever it was worth that Hojo was at least cogent enough to realised that this was a disaster if a creature like this got free. 

On the other side of the dark doorway, a loud wet crunch could be heard… it repeated and, in a few moments, a heavy thud resounded at the base of the doorway.  A dismembered human corpse, half of the armour torn from its body and the rest shattered with clawing marks. 

“Thirty-six…” Hojo started saying, hoping this would result in the same shutdown of systems in the subject.  Regardless, he began to back up slowly away from the dark chamber as the second corpse of the new security officers fell halfway through the door, the thick red viscous blood pouring into the metal grating and solid rock. 

“Ten…” Hojo continued but before he could say the last set… a shadow emerged, the bright purple eyes of his specimen in the darkness bolted towards him.  In that instant, he saw his own death, the science he’d accomplished, the creatures he’d manufactured… the work he’d left unfinished.  But it was not to be… All he found was a stabbing pain in his throat… He felt the blood begin to flow through a small gash in his neck.  Not at an artery but enough to take him by surprise and forget himself. One by one, he felt a new gash open in his neck, never severe enough to be life threatening… but shocking enough to leave him gasping and screaming silently for release from the pain.   

With a few more moves, Loz repositioned himself, pulling the shocked and gasping form of Hojo back into the room, positioning himself between Hojo and the monster. 

He watched as she plunged a sharp pale claw into one of the agent’s chests, ripping through his armour like paper and emerging the far side covered with blood and gore and viscera… The officer on the far side screamed and panicked, he dropped his rifle and began to flee for the elevator at the end of the corridor. 

Loz felt that he should act… but he felt conflicted in some way, he didn’t know how to act against her as she pulled her clawed and blood covered hand back through the man she’d just murdered and walked through the doorway, the faint silhouette of her naked body shining against the dim lights from outside the laboratory.

“Sir… the numbers? What are they?” Loz asked, patting Hojo on the shoulder and hoping he’d recovered enough to maybe write them out on a small piece of equipment or a lab readout, Hojo simply sat there curled in a ball with his hand held against the wound in his neck.  “Sir!” He shook Hojo on the spot but the Professor simply sat there… failing to comprehend the task he was asked by this belligerent ape.

“Please! Somebody! HELP ME!” A harrowing cry from down the corridor.  The sound of armoured gloves clashing with the metal door of the elevator.  “Please… I didn’t do anything… I didn’t know what they’d do… please… please!” An even more harrowing display that preceded the guttural and visceral sound of a muffled scream.  The tearing of skin, flesh and the pouring of blood from the inside of the body… Loz need only see the other guards to imagine what had just happened out there.    

The quiet followed.  The lights were restored just in time for the sound of the elevator to signal its arrival on this level.  A set of blood covered footprints tracked from the room in the back of the laboratory towards the exit door.  A thin stream of blood pooling at the entry way which dragged slowly up the corridor to the elevator.  As Loz followed this trail of viscera, he saw the corpse of the man who tried to flee, his head was missing and his body was ripped in two down the middle, the sternum and the backbone splayed from each other and pulled apart into a wide angled fountain of pouring blood and flowing viscera. 

Hojo stood quickly, holding himself level on the stool and pulling himself against the desk with the myriad computer screens.  He watched as the naked form of his latest creation paced quickly through the Shinra mansion at ground level.  Any other staff seemed shocked by her appearance and decided the safer course was to flee the strange naked woman drenched in blood, viscera and guts clinging to her razor sharp nails.  She picked up a deserted lab coat from one of the smaller debating room dinner tables near the lobby, pulling it over her naked form and starting to run…

As she fell out of sight of the last camera, Hojo sighed and laughed… Blood spurted from his throat and open mouth as he threw his head back in laughter, maniacally praising the hilarity of what had just occurred.  Loz stood there, pale and confused and watching as the corpses of those other soldiers continued to bleed from the open wounds where their heads once resided.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3.

Professor’s Log… X/X/20XX

The fruits of my genius are once more taking root in far fields, spreading seeds of chaos for the future wheresoever they stand.  The Clone sent by Shinra collapsed following a commendation for his actions at the laboratory.  His brethren watched as he disintegrated into small white flakes of dust and ash, the concentration of Jenova cells in those three will always be… unsustainable. 

After testing its remains, I found the Clone was devoid of the cells which were his focused characteristic.  While the husks remained at a cellular level, it seems Sophia has the capacity to neutralise the Jenova cells of any living being.  I assumed from her reaction to the sample provided by the clone that she was in some way allergic to the presence of Jenova tainted biological material, but having a second dose seemed to have triggered a more… cogent and cognitive response.  I can only surmise that the devolution into monster was a violent reaction to the presence and eradication of Jenova cells inside the form of an Ancient… What I would give to see her beautiful cervix as it expelled the cells.  The thought of it drives me close to madness. 

I have advised President Shinra, the Turks and Public Security to arrest Sophia but kept the realities of her powers to myself.  Her presence in this world may prove cataclysmic to the future of the SOLDIER Program, as well as the Reunion.  While I would envy the chance to observe a clash between a reconstituted Ancient and Jenova… if the President found out that she could make his army impotent… My head would surely be the first served. 

I must carry on my work from the Shinra Tower in Midgar, while the noise and busy nature of the Tower leaves nowhere for quiet contemplation… it does provide an exceptional sample of specimens for further experiments.  I still have the biological data from her and a man of my intelligence should take no time in deciphering the limits and constraints of her new form.  I had sought to create the next, most superhuman of monsters but for the moment I must settle with the genetic abominations waiting for experimentation in my lab here. 

Rest assured, my darling… I will find you again. 

“SIR! We found him!” A soldier hammered the glass of the tank and then the control panel to the side, watching as the naked man inside continued to breath.  The long spiking black hair draped around his shoulders as the specimen container opened, releasing the fluid and his body to the cold metal and stone flooring. 

As Zack became aware of his immediate surroundings slowly but surely, his eyes opened slightly to see the white medical helmets of Shinra’s emergency care teams.  He felt a sharp pull in his arm as he felt a needle enter his body and saw a small vial of blood filling from the syringe. 

“Zack? Can you hear me?” A stern but friendly voice asked him.  He tried to reply but no words could escape his mouth.  One of the medics wrapped a towel over him, calling for a stretcher to carry him from the building laboratory which he was quickly lifted onto. 

‘You’ve gotta wake up…’ Zack heard a woman speaking… an impossibility that he knew whose voice it was… she couldn’t be here. 

“Where’s… Cloud…?” Zack pulled the words from his chest, the hearty and forced tones rising through the shock of being pulled from the tank.  His eyes were drawn to the horrific red paintjob of the lab room he was being pulled from and looked to the other side to see the specimen tank at the far side of the room.  He read the words on the tank and was immediately reminded of the room he and Sephiroth had found at the Nibelheim reactor. 

“Zack!? It’s Tseng… Tell me… What’s the last thing you remember?” The friendly Turk at his side said once again, his own longer black hair tied in a long pony tail behind his head.  His fair complexion and bindi had remained the same. 

“I… I remember… Sephi… roth…” He said slowly fading back to unconsciousness, his eyes were slowly hiding behind heavy eyelids before his mind darted to a waking state. 

“I… I followed Sephiroth.  After he killed… Oh god…” Zack sat up, holding the towel over his lower half and sitting up on the stretcher.  Two of the medics stood back at the request of Tseng and gave them the room. 

“You’ve… You’ve been here for five years? We had you as Missing in Action after everything went down with Angeal and Genesis.” Tseng explained through a few moments what had happened in the immediate aftermath of the Nibelheim reactor massacre and the repercussions. 

“But… Where’s Cloud? Cloud Strife? I… I saw him here. The blonde Shinra Security I was sent to Nibelheim with?” Zack tried to wrack his brain to remember the exact moment but every moment of lucidity in the tank seemed to blur into one.  Tseng seemed not to know the name but having it explained who precisely he was looking for… something came to mind. 

“You were the only one here Zack.  One of Hojo’s experiments got loose and… well.” He told Zack, aiming his gloved finger at the wall where thick splatters of blood coated the wall and several of the large metal crates. 

“Wait… Was Hojo experimenting on me?” Zack asked, clearly perturbed by the implication that Professor Hojo had kept him locked in a specimen jar and experimented on him for all of this time, since the incident at Nibelheim. 

“Hojo claims he was trying to make you more powerful of a SOLDIER to become a replacement for Sephiroth, he claimed you consented.  From what we’ve seen on his experiments however…” Tseng tried to continue but was quickly interrupted by the piercing sound of screams from one of the monitors on a computer in the room adjacent. 

“Please don’t do this…” A woman’s voice emanated from the monitor which was being studied by two additional black suited agents of Tseng’s.  He didn’t recognise the woman, she was beautiful, naked with long flowing hair.  She was bound to a table, a large black leather clad man clambering on top of her. 

“Who…?” Zack asked, clearly under the impression that these two, Reno and Rude, might have a better idea of what was going on in the footage. 

“Glad to see you on your feet big guy… Not sure.  Most of the footage is corrupted.  From the context here… Hojo’s breeding a SOLDIER with… well… her, and…” Reno addressed Zack as he stood behind his chair, one hand on the comfortable padding of the headrest.  Rude looked at him and gave him a solemn nod of affirmation. 

“She is… Sophia, from the footage we’d estimate she’s early twenties… she is the Experiment that escaped… Killing six of Hojo’s personal security at the time and… about a week later… him.” Reno pointed towards the large white haired male in the frame, the most coverage of the image forming around his face as the camera focused on his face, his hands resting to the sides of her head while he pumped his waist in her direction. 

“I’ve gotta go find her… She’s the only link we have to… whoa…” Zack said, feeling his usual burning fire in motivation but falling short for a moment of light-headedness, a sharp white flash of light startling him. 

“WE will find her.  The President’s issued a warrant to all… she’s public enemy number one… You need to rest up, once you’re back up to strength…” Tseng said, placing a hand on Zack’s bare shoulder. 

“I am still a SOLDIER, right? I’ve been resting for five years apparently, I’m ready to get back into it.”  Zack said with a smile and his trademark cockiness returning slowly but surely. 

“Sir… I think this… uh… I think something might be wrong with his sample.” One of the medics interjected, handing a tablet to Tseng and showing a readout of the sample taken when Zack was ejected from the tank. 

“How… is this possible? Maybe we should get you back to Headquarters, Zack.” Tseng said, scrolling through the runs of tests the medic had done, even going so far as to triple up on the test to make sure the results were accurate. 

“I’ve been floating in a tank for years bro… Whatever’s wrong will work itself out.” Zack started pulling himself into position and suddenly began jumping on the spot, the looseness of the towel not concerning him in the slightest. 

“According to this… You have no Jenova Cells in your blood. Wait…” Tseng showed the tablet to him, looking carefully at the sky blue of his eyes and still seeing the mako green glow about them. 

“Wait…” Zack said, testing his own strength for a moment as he pulled a large pile of heavy metal crates filled with paperwork, discarded test tubes and other assorted lab equipment and pulled it from the ground with ease. 

“But… I thought it was only the Jenova cells that made SOLDIERs stronger? How’s he still…?” Reno asked, his envy showing more and more. 

“That’s why we should bring you back to Headquarters Zack… Maybe Hojo can…” Tseng stopped talking, took a look around the room and shook his head.  “No.  If anything, this is part of the experiment that Hojo was performing.  Take a few hours to rest up, you’re coming with us, I’m not risking putting you back in Hojo’s hands.”

Reno and Rude agreed with a hearty nod, the medics nodded as well, clearly more interested in helping the charismatic SOLDIER hero than the creepy psychotic professor who’d seemingly been experimenting on, not just him.

‘Protect your Honour… as SOLDIER.’ The words found him as he contemplated the life that was taken away when he joined the organisation, the cost of it.  He’d not really considered what it had cost him until he’d… fallen in love.  A life of power in exchange for a normal life.  It wasn’t a tough price to pay at the time.  Now he wasn’t sure if he’d make the same decision again. 

“Okay Sophia, time to find out who you are…” Zack said, his fist rising upwards and falling to point at the large glass capsule at the far end of the room.  The engraved metal lettering on the sign telling of just how much Hojo had focused his work with this woman. 

Meanwhile, on the road...  

‘How the fuck did I do that…?’

‘That wasn’t you.’

‘But I can feel them… I can taste the bones still…’

‘It was a product of the experiment… You are not that monster…’

‘How could you possibly know that?’

‘I can see the kindness of your heart… You were a good person before what he did to you.’

‘I… They never trained us for… This is too much…’

Sophia turned to see the tall beautiful brunette woman walking at her side, the fringes of her hair covering her eyes for a few moments at a time but she caught sight of the bright enrapturing green eyes she looked forwards with.  As she did, she caught herself looking back forwards a tear falling from her eye to the roadside path she walked on.   

‘I know you’re scared, you’re hurt… I’ll help you. A long time ago, I was scared and hurt… just like you.  I escaped… just like you.  I can help you… Cloud, as you come to terms with this new… You’

‘Who are you, please…?’

‘I’m who you need…’

Sophia asked but watched as she merrily hopped in quick steps ahead of her, vanishing into the air as a truck slowed to a crawl alongside the dishevelled woman wearing only a lab coat, stolen in her escape.   

“Holy shit darlin’… you look like you’ve been through hell.” An older man, long white whisping hair shooting from his balding head in three directions leant across the cabin to talk to Sophia as she stopped on the spot. 

“I… Uh…” She responded, not knowing what to say, never having been in this situation before. 

“Hop in… I’ll get you to the Saucer and we’ll get you looked after there…” The older man said, pulling the metal handle of the truck’s passenger side door and swinging it open for her. 

“I’m not… I don’t…” She said, recalling the last few interactions with people in general… she was a little more afraid of what might happen if she… turned again.

“I’m not gonna hurt ya darlin’… Swear on my grandkids…” He placed a hand over his heart.  Sophia looked in the back of the pickup truck and saw a pair of small children playing with small bright yellow and white fluffy chirping creatures.   

She obliged, taking a few more steps into the truck, being careful not to catch the long flowing silver and blonde hair against the door. 

“Name’s Bill…” He said as she closed the door and plugged the seatbelt into its slot.  He offered his hand and she took it, shaking it once as he replaced his feet on the accelerator pedal. 

“Sophia…” she said, still unsure how to react to being called it.  The sudden shift in mannerisms as she felt at ease with the man brought so much tension out of her body. 

Bill smiled, replacing his hands on the steering wheel.  Sophia looked out the back window and saw the two smiling faces of the children, a boy and a girl playing with small chicks. 

‘You’re not going to hurt them.  You’re safe…’

The guiding spirit’s voice echoed through her mind as Sophia leant her face against the window, falling asleep slowly and surely, after days of walking none stop… she needed the rest.  It’d been… so long since she could rest. 

Sophia sat in the supposedly haunted hotel room, having been ferried here by a small helpful cat creature which acted as a host at the Gold Saucer. 

She’d been left alone for the moment but there were rumours the Director of the Park was looking for her. 

‘My name was Ifalna. I… was part of what people of this time call the Ancients, we called ourselves, the Cetra. A long time ago, I escaped Shinra after years of experiments performed on myself… and my daughter, carried out in the hopes that we would lead them to the Promised Land.  During the escape, however, I was injured and I…’

Ifalna, the long haired brunette ghostly apparition who haunted Sophia since the laboratory told her story.

“But… if you… Then how am I seeing you? Hearing you?” Sophia asked, clearly inexperienced in matters that would allow someone to commune with the dead.  Especially since relying on her own memories as Cloud yielded next to nothing about the Ancients except the propaganda that Shinra liked to release as their next great step…

‘I’m not sure… When I returned to the planet, my body was… taken by Hojo.  I believe this… form you’ve been given is, in essence, an artificial Cetra.  Perhaps because you were transformed using my essence, you are able to communicate with my spirit through the lifestream.’

Ifalna continued, confused in herself as to how she had been able to assist in any ways during the escape.  Her ability to advise, inform and appear at will was startling to Sophia. 

“An artificial Ancient? Sephiroth… said he was the last Ancient.  That his mother was Jenova… an Ancient… That the planet was his birthright… that’s why he went fucking crazy…” Sophia recalled as much as she could from her time with Sephiroth and Zack in Nibelheim reactor. 

‘The man you know as Sephiroth is not an Ancient, he was created using the biological data of an ancient extraterrestrial.  Shinra, Hojo in particular, seem not to acknowledge the difference between my people and Her.  The force he calls upon, SOLDIER, are all infected with her essence in order to make them stronger, but it exacts a heavy price.  She seeks to be made whole… Once she is…’

Ifalna started, looking down at the carpeted floors as a robotic Tonberry hoover whirred under Sophia’s feet. 

*KNOCK KNOCK*

A light clatter against the door startled her and in the instant she blinked in response, the ghostly apparition she was talking to vanished. 

Sophia stood acclimating to the tall gown like dress she was lent by one of the staff members, at the request of the cat host, once the medics had seen to her as she entered the Gold Saucer with Bill and his grandchildren.   

Her long silver and blonde hair was tied into a long braid behind her head. The gown she wore was long and tight to the frame of her body.  It was made of a silver fabric and was split at the thigh of her right leg.  She hadn’t come to terms with the complete transformation yet and seeing this woman standing in the mirror was… jarring.  Not to mention the lingerie which was leant her, she was certainly not… expecting to feel quite so… supported. 

“Miss Sophia? I have Director Dio to see you… Is that okay?” The receptionist from the hotel lobby asked through the door.  He spoke loudly but not too loud as to disturb the other guests. 

“Hmm… Yeah, I guess.” She responded, unlocking the door from the inside and opening it gently. The faint creak and hollow ghostly laughter from the automated systems startling her again. 

The man on the other side was a large muscular older man, his eyes showed wrinkling laughter lines and his hair spoke to a stressful job, light scatterings of grey across an otherwise thick black mane.  His moustache was much the same, black haired and curled at the edges but littered with a few greys. 

As her eyes cast downwards from his forlorn face, she realised he wasn’t wearing anything bar a bright red cape, clasped at the neck by a golden chain, and a pair of red briefs.  He was quite hairy across his chest, his arms and his legs.  He was clearly proud of his form and showed it of wherever he went but it wasn’t just for his own ego.  It was as a kind of advertisement to what he’d built himself up to. 

“Miss Sophia? My name is Dio, I am the director and owner of the Gold Saucer.  I wanted to have a quick chat… if you don’t mind.” He looked down at her.  It was such a strange experience to be looked down on, Cloud wasn’t exactly tall but as Sophia… men just felt more… imposing. 

“Of course…” She welcomed him in, unsure of where exactly he could sit if he wanted to.  He did exactly that, taking a seat on a small two seater couch which he, as expected, took up the entirety of. She sat opposite him on a small wooden armchair that creaked like old floorboards but was clearly being very well maintained. 

“I’ll cut straight to the matter Miss.  Upon your entry into the park, with my good friend Bill, our facial recognition software sent a flag to my office on the grounds that you are subject to a… bounty, by Shinra.” Dio said forthrightly, not giving her a moment to come to terms with the robust man sat in her hotel room. He steepled his hands and on the occasional moment, would raise them, almost pointing them towards her in gestures. 

“… Are you going to turn me over?” She replied, convinced that if he was going to, he would already have.

“No… Ma’am… I am not.  I’ve seen a fair amount of those bounty requests over the years for criminals, lost rich kids… even Vice President Rufus’ own puppy. But I ain’t ever seen a bounty for someone for being a Threat to Shinra Order.” Dio continued, clasping his hands and reclining in the seat, crossing one of his muscular legs over the other.  He wore large red and gold boots, the size of them… They must have been at least twice the size of the cat host who ushered her in on her arrival. 

‘He’s being genuine.  You can trust him…’

Ifalna’s voice echoed in her ears, there was no sign of her but she was making her advice known. 

“I’m not a threat to you or your park sir… I promise.” Sophia told the large man, he nodded, smiled and sat forward again.  He tapped a few times into a watch he had around his wrist.  A large projected image appeared from like a screenless display. 

The image he showed was part of the security footage from the mansion, a still of her walking through the mansion with blood dripping from her mouth and hands, her eyes still darkest black with the pinhole of lighter colouring. 

“You promise? Convince me.  What led you to being this woman in the picture here… I’ll grant you some omissions if you don’t want to divulge the entire story… but I expect the truths you’re willing to share.” Dio contested, leaning forwards in his seat again and almost whispering to her to tell him. 

“I… I was the subject of an experiment… by Professor Hojo… I was kept a prisoner in his lab since Nibelheim was destroyed…” She said, remembering the cold, metal table beneath her exposed flesh.  The complete lack of humanity from the man on the far side of her specimen jar.  “… I’m not wholly sure of the details of why or how… But something… He had a man… and… I…” She said, catching herself with a knot in her throat as the memory of an enemy force himself inside of her.

“Ah… I think I understand… You’re not the first of his experiments to come to light… The man won’t stop his own pursuit of science… regardless of the casualties.  The bounty does implicate you in the death of a SOLDIER.  You must be rather powerful to accomplish something like that…?” Dio looked somber at the notion that he was asking a woman to recall one of the most heinous acts she’d ever experienced. 

“No… No… I didn’t…” She started. 

‘The remnant… The clone.  He is of Sephiroth…’

Ifalna’s voice revealed a moment in her mind.  The darkness following their embrace leaving his body before she began to convulse… and turn. 

“I didn’t mean to…” She said, realising that whatever she had done to him had only affected him after she’d escaped.  She recalled for a moment the darkness surrounding the memories of her escape, but she knew he was left alive. 

“The circumstances of his death were kept from the report, all it said was that he was First Class.  Like I said… that takes a special kind of power to…” He continued, only stopping at the moment he realised a tear was falling from her bright luminescent purple glowing eyes. 

“I don’t know how it happened… All I have is flashes of… blood… wanting to be free… I thought I felt… something from one of the other subjects.  Then all I saw was the sun… Walking until… Bill…” She recalled the moment she became aware.  She’d been walking for a long time before the man had stopped in the pickup truck and offered her a lift. 

“You don’t have to go any further my dear.  I have connections in Shinra.  I’ll do some digging and try to get to the root of the matter with the Nibelheim Shinra Mansion.” Dio offered a knowing smile as he placed his hands on his thighs and stood upright.  He didn’t approach her and didn’t try to offer a handshake.  He wanted to maintain a respectful distance, knowing her struggles. 

“There was… someone.  I don’t suppose you can tell me… or if you can find out if they’re okay…”  She asked, hoping for more information on her friend, Cloud’s friend, Tifa.

“I would… advise caution.  Shinra has gone to great lengths to bury what happened in Nibelheim.  Were you from there? Is that how Hojo got his hands on you for his experiments?” Dio asked, taking a step towards the door before the thought hit him that she might have been a survivor. 

“Yeah… sort of… I’ve got some memory of how it happened… but I… hmm… maybe not.” She said, resigning to the realisation that she’d only been saved as Cloud with Zack because of Hojo’s intervention.  If Tifa had been with them, she’d probably have suffered a far worse fate in that madman’s hands. 

“You’ll have to tell me that story, if you’re okay with that.  All I knew was the town was destroyed in a freak accident, something to do with the reactor and then quickly reconstructed five years ago and staffed with Shinra personnel.  I… helped allocate staff to appropriate roles before my departure from the company.” Dio admitted, remembering his own version of the events but never having the information on what exactly had happened.  Only that Shinra wanted to hide the truth. 

“Of course.  Wait… Five years!?” The realisation only just colliding with her mind, she’d been a prisoner of Hojo’s for years and only now…

“I’ll make the park’s services available to you Miss Sophia, if there is anything you need while you are here… I hope you take advantage of these services.  After five years at the hands of that… monster.  I would like you to regain some normality… I’ll have one of my Hosts standby.” Dio pressed another set of buttons into a wrist mounted computer watch he wore. 

“Wait… why? Why are you helping me? If you’re Shinra then…” She asked, only now realising that he admitted to being a Shinra manager for that particular event. 

“The Company and myself separated a long time ago Miss.  We have an accord… but that does not extend to allowing Hojo to play his sick and twisted games.” Dio bowed with one hand over his chest, the swooshing of his cape was impressive, as he turned back towards the door and turning the wooden handle. 

‘Say thank you.’

Ifalna laughed in her mind and Sophia obliged, a smile was brought to his face as he turned back and nodded in her direction before stepping out and closing the door behind himself. 

‘You seemed lost in his cape, I just wanted to make sure…’

Ifalna now set herself down visibly on the large two seater in front of Sophia, she curled her legs up in her long white rose covered skirt and bare feet, resting her head on her hand and smiling to her.

“How… How did I kill the SOLDIER?” Sophia asked.  She was a little more horrified that she was capable.  Especially after so long in the tank and remembering impaling Sephiroth with the buster sword wasn’t an easy feat.  It almost killed her as well. 

‘Darling… it wasn’t your fault.  You… We, are blessed with an evolution of the Cetra curative and white magics.  I told you… you were the panacea to this sickness… The Jenova cells in all of these SOLDIERs.  I believe… you cured the man of these cells… but as he was a clone of the man you know as Sephiroth… they were all that kept him… him.’

Ifalna spoke, seeming lost in thought over a few points but she seemed to be telling the truth.  Not that Sophia would know otherwise from the hallucination of the dead woman whose genetics she was remade from. 

“How did you know… that he was a clone of Sephiroth?” Sophia asked, the recollection of Sephiroth’s face, his manhood being positioned against her body. “If you… How could you know that?”

‘I exist as part of the lifestream, when people rejoin the lifestream themselves we can communicate, share our knowledge that we gain from our lives.  Long or short, we all have experiences to share.  One… was a woman who was experimented on herself by Hojo.  But she was willing… Her name was Lucrecia.  She… rejoined the planet after her son was born, she was told not keep away from him, to let him grow under the misinformation that his mother was someone else.  Hojo… he took samples from the child, his goal was to replicate the success without the need for… biological vessels.  Three… she said were created.  That’s how I know.’

Ifalna recalled her conversation inside the planet with this Lucrecia after her death, the cogs turned in Sophia’s mind. 

“Lucrecia… she was Sephiroth’s mother?” Sophia asked, her mouth agape with wonder at how this network of lives lost in the planet would be able to benefit her in her current predicament. 

‘This is why what you had to do was not your fault.  You’re not in control of this power yet, to cleanse the shadow and sickness from people.  But we can learn together? To scour this sickness from the planet?’

Ifalna leant forwards herself now, a smile on her face and a forming plan in her mind.  She looked so wholesome and kind… Whatever was left of Cloud in Sophia’s mind was screaming in fits of paranoia that this woman could be some kind of… parasite, but Sophia just simply could not believe that. 

“How? Please tell me I don’t have to fuck them to take the cells out of them? I don’t want to go on a murderspree every time…” Sophia smiled, laughing at the idea but suddenly aware that she’d just joked about fucking every single person infected with Jenova cells… every single SOLDIER she knew of included. 

‘No… There are simpler means.  Perhaps… we should take a walk.  I’ve seen this place in the memories of countless others who lived to see this place… I’d enjoy seeing it…’

Ifalna looked outside of the window across the room, the white curtains shaped to represent a ghostly figure.

“I can’t just talk to myself out there wandering around the place… people are gonna think I’m crazy.”  Sophia joked, realising that it must have been strange for anyone walking past to hear her seemingly talking to herself about these strange things. 

‘You can just think it to yourself.  Like a prayer, that’s how my daughter does it.  I imagine it’ll work for you too…’ Ifalna smiled, remembering her daughter, the few moments they shared both listening and speaking to the planet. 

‘Like a prayer…’ Sophia thought, the tone of her newly feminine voice still catching her off guard.  She hadn’t really given much thought to the fact that her entire being was changed, even the voice inside her own head.  Her inner monologue was entirely changed. 

‘Just like a prayer… Let’s go!’ She smiled and stood, the silence of her footsteps was ominous, but Sophia simply acknowledged that she really did just want to walk with her, even if she didn’t need to. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 4.

Professor’s Log… X/X/20XX

Too much time has passed.  My genius has gone unregarded in the face of a threat beyond the President’s understanding.  The foolish self-absorbed sycophant can’t see beyond his overzealous ambition of finding his ‘Promised Land’ as though that is at stake. 

If Sophia truly has the power to undo my life’s work then her creation is nothing more than a misstep in what will undoubtedly be a glorious life of scientific advancement.  I have tasked the remaining clones to retrieve her for me. The longer she remains at large in the world, the more risk she poses to the entire Reunion Project.  My own hubris left me vulnerable to the notion of birthing something far stronger than Sephiroth… or Jenova.  I suppose my brilliance was bound to exceed my own, exceptional, foresight at somepoint.

If I can continue testing, forcing the breeding process using other SOLDIERs, I could inject Jenova cells into the foetus, bypassing the Mother and her defence mechanism.  A fascinating hypothesis… as expected from myself.  But it will all be for naught if she is not returned.  I shall only hope that the clones can succeed, driven by revenge as they are.  Perhaps more experimentation would be necessary with them… to evolve them from their stunted developmental stage into beings of true glory. 

Back in the Gold Saucer.

Sophia walked by herself, seemingly taking in the sights of the bright colours, technological marvels and happy children running circles around a large moogle mascot looking plushy. 

“Well hello there again lassie.  You’re lookin’ a mighty sign better than when ol’ Bill brought you up here…” A small fluffy cat creature approached her, it ran along the low wall railings.  It stopped on the spot and stood there, the white gloves and boots adorning the creature with a red cape, reminiscent of Dio.  Something felt strange about the creature however, this world was full of marvelous and horrifying creatures but a speaking cat… was something different. 

“You’re the host who brought me in? I’m so sorry… My memory has been all over the place since…” Sophia apologised, holding a hand to her chest and bowing slightly in an apologetic gesture.

“Nawt to worry about.  Weren’ae any time for real introductions.  This darling feline form is known around the park as Cait Sith… My employer Director Dio has requested that I be your first point of contact for any issues you might encounter in the park, any questions you might require answers to and to be your own personal chaperone, if required…” Cait Sith, the small cat, spoke in kind mannerisms, bounding and waving and smiling. 

“Sophia.  I’m not sure I require a chaperone at present.  I’m just kind of… acclimating to the place.” She took her hand from her chest and continued where she started, leaning over the high railings and watching the events below and all around.  The crowds moving between the gates seemed to remind her of soldiers in her former Shinra days, but with more enthusiasm. 

“That’s perfectly understandable, all I’ll ask is that you keep this… on your person at all times, in case of emergencies… and the like.” Cait Sith smiled, pulling a collar from around his neck, it was a similar design to the watch Dio wore.  Sophia took it calmly from the small creatures paw and equipped it in a similar fashion to Dio. 

“This will also allow you entry to all amusements if ye feel like indulgin’.  Whatever it takes for you to feel welcome and safe.  If there’s anything else, don’t hesitate to call… take care meow…” Cait Sith continued stroking his on floppy ears with his paw as he started off again on all fours back down the railings. 

‘You saw it, yes?’

Ifalna returned, the spectre at her side as she leant over, fiddling with the catches on the watch device to make sure it was secure. 

‘Saw what? There was something… absent about him. I assumed it was some kind of magical little creature Dio had cornered like a Bomb or a Tonberry to work here… but it felt… kind of empty.’

Sophia responded, remembering the mannerisms of the cat like it was a real life living thing but the more she considered, it kind of felt more like a machine. 

‘Cetra can feel the planet in every life form, we are all of the planet and will return to her.  If you concentrate, you’ll see. You didn’t see the energy in the cat because it’s not a living creature.  It’s a decoy, a piloted automaton, presumably piloted by someone working at this park.’

Ifalna continued, prompting Sophia to reach out into the crowds of people and see as she saw the waving boundless lights of people below and all around her. 

‘HELP ME!’

‘STOP IT! IT HURTS!”

‘FUCK NO… NO MORE… PLEASE!’

‘PLEASE SOMEONE! STOP IT!

‘I DON’T WANT IT TO HURT ANYMORE, PLEASE… PLEASE…’

The screams, wails and horrifying pleas filled her mind in an instant, overflowing and overwhelming her.  As she brought herself back to the real world, the voices became silent, muted almost.  She knelt down and sat with her back to the wall with tears forming in her eyes. 

‘I’m so sorry you heard that… I honestly didn’t know if you would.  What you heard was the crying out of the planet, the lifestream itself.  Shinra are using the lifestream as a fuel.  Burning lives and souls away like gas or coal.  They don’t understand.  They don’t hear the voice of the planet… Only we can.  Only the Cetra.’

Ifalna leant down in her incorporeal state, seemingly pulling her towards her in a holding embrace.  As she explained the voices vanished entirely.  She’d heard from others in Shinra, when she was Cloud, that there were planetologist terrorists that sought to stop Shinra.  They were even supposedly allied with Wutai during the war.  All of it to stop the pumping of Mako, the lifestream, into their cars, reactors and power stations. She hadn’t considered for a moment that they were right… but hearing the cries, the pain and sorrow… How could she not. 

‘We can’t stop Shinra… The people here… Dio! They’re all enjoying themselves while the planet is… oh my god I can’t even…’

Sophia thought to herself and the thought only brought another set of tears to her mind. 

‘Dio knows.  Shinra knows what they are doing but they believed that we, me and my daughter could lead them to their Promised Land.  A land where the lifestream bursts with life and joy and all of their woes will be gone.  Now… I worry that’s what Hojo believes you can do for them.  But you can feel it for yourself… can’t you?’

Ifalna asked the question.  Sophia already knew the answer. 

“It’s not real…” She said out loud. 

“What’s not real? Are you okay?” A friendly voice called over, the quick approaching footsteps sounding against the metal constructed floors. 

Sophia stood, wiping her eyes with her hands and turning away from the approaching stranger. 

“Are you okay? You looked like you were… going through it for a moment there…?” The woman behind her asked, clearly aware of the distress she was going through but trying to be respectful of her distance. 

“I’m… fine.  Just…” Sophia tried but the words failed to reach her voice.  Ifalna’s spectre had vanished and all that remained was the quiet once again. 

“Just breathe… There someone here with you? Boyfriend? Husband?” She asked, standing carefully behind Sophia not to approach, not wanting to overstep. 

“What? No… no… I’m alone.  Just was a little… overwhelmed for a moment…” She made sure the tears from her eyes were dried with her hands.  She turned and faced the kind investigator behind her.  She was a beautiful woman, long brown hair tied behind her head in a pony tail, she wore a casual hoody, blue with a silver vest underneath.  The words emblazoned on the vest clearly repping some kind of band with long green cargo trousers. 

“Yeah… This whole place can feel like that sometimes.  I’ve been here for a few years now and I’m still in awe when I stand at the bottom and look up to see how tall the whole thing is… even getting up to the roof and looking down.  Seeing the scale of the whole thing… Still fills me with wonder.  It’s an engineering marvel…” The kind stranger continued, trying her hardest to relate. 

“You work here?” Sophia asked, trying to take her mind of the almost panic attack at her previous realisation.

“Yeah! I’m one of the stagehands that keeps the stage working over at the Event Square.  You should come by… We’ve got Loveless on for the next ever…” She said with a kind smile, replacing her hands in the pockets of her hoody and swinging her weight forward and backwards as she stepped finally towards the railing at the wall Sophia was leaning against. 

“I... uh… only just got here. I’m afraid I don’t know where anything is around here…” She responded to the kind stranger. 

“No problemo! Uhhh… You like Chocobos? There’s a square where you can bet on races down there…” As the stranger began to rattle off the different sections, Sophia started to see more of her slender frame beneath the open hoody.  Confused about her own mind and sexuality… She shook her head and continued to pay attention.

“Jessie! Honey! Your Dad’s not feeling well… We’ll see you back at the hotel…” An middle aged woman called over, interrupting the stranger’s induction into the whole place as she reached the different squares. 

“Okie Dokie, Mom! I’ll see you later!” Jessie shouted back as she watched her parents, her lively mom seemingly helping an ailing husband back along the platforms that took them back to the hotels.

“Sorry about that… My parents are here visiting and I was just showing them around too.” Jessie told her, returning back to the railing and pointing out the different sections. 

“I’m Sophia… If I’m keeping you from your parents, don’t let me…” She tried to reason, giving her the new name and not wanting to be rude, if her parents were only here for a visit, maybe it would be better for her to spend time with them. 

“Oh no…. I totally forgot to introduce myself.  So… Jessie, as you heard.” The pair shook hands. Sophia noticed her right hand wore a thin metal armband, a red bandana seemed to be tied around her wrist.  “They’re here for another few days, plus my dad’s been… nevermind… let’s just say I could do with some time away from them for a bit…” Jessie continued, her expression turning downwards as she noted her dad’s illness.

“Course… I’m glad for the company.  What’s wrong with him? If you don’t mind me asking.” Sophia did just that and watched as Jessie shook her head and turned to her. 

“Mako poisoning.  Shinra’s been hammering guys at the reactors in Midgar for a while now.  Mom tells me over and over again that he’ll be okay… but… I’ve worked here for three years.  This is the first time they’ve come to visit… They’re not telling me the truth.” She continued, clutching the metal armband on her wrist and wringing her hands with thoughts she didn’t want to say out loud. 

“I’m so sorry… I knew a few guys who had the same thing…” Sophia took Jessie’s hand in hers and held it firmly as a gesture of support.  Her own mind returning to the stories she was told as Cloud about SOLDIERs who were saturated with Mako to make them stronger.  Just like she had been with the tattoo…

“So… On to something else eh? What’s your story? What brings you to the Saucer?” Jessie smiled, trying to press the conversation on to a more… amenable topic. 

“Oh… I…” She was stumped.  She didn’t want to go into the horrific detail about the experiments and assault.  The escape and murder. 

‘You could help him…’

Ifalna’s voice floated through her mind, Sophia was confused but assumed she was referring to Jessie’s dad. 

‘How?’

She responded in her mind, her curiosity peaking as Jessie stood there, hand held in hers for the moment and waiting for the story to unfold. 

Ifalna’s memories seemed to open for a moment inside Sophia’s mind, the genetic memories unlocking abilities that she referred to earlier.  Cetra’s white magic. 

“Earth to Sophia? You in there?” Jessie’s voice carried through the thoughts and memories being shown.  Of healing magics being used without materia…

“Can I… I know this is going to sound fucking weird… but… can I meet your Dad?” Sophia said, trying her hardest not to overreact to the idea that she could use this new form for good and not murder people with it. 

“Er… Sure…” Jessie responded, pulling back from the railing but keeping her hand clutching Sophia’s as the two moved back towards the hotels slowly. 

The walk over wasn’t exactly silent.  Jessie was still confused by the request and Sophia was just as mortified by what Jessie had assumed she meant by the request. 

Jessie knocked on the door twice, calling for her Mom who swiftly answered the door to the voice of their loved daughter and a stranger. 

“Jessie… Your dad’s sleeping.  Who’s your friend?” Jessie’s mom stepped out of the doorway wearing the same clothes she’d seen her wearing a few minutes prior.  She looked like Jessie, the same brown hair and brown eyes. 

“I’m really sorry to bother you with this Miss… but Jessie told me about your husband’s… condition.  I think I can help…” Sophia interjected as Jessie seemed to struggle to explain what they were doing there.  She didn’t know herself and was simply along for the ride. 

“Jessie… Why are you telling strangers about your father’s condition.  It’s already hard enough without…” Her mom continued, understandably annoyed and frustrated. 

“Mom, I swear… She… really means it.  I think she can… I believe her.” Jessie interrupted her mother’s condemnation.  She obliged, opening the door and allowing Sophia in.  She believed her daughter.  Regardless of anything else, she did that. 

In the room were two beds.  One large double, meant for couples, as well as a white sterile looking hospital bed with a sleeping man occupying it.  He had a long plastic tubing feeding in a clear liquid into his arm.  He looked dishevelled, distraught and tired.  A heart rate monitor attached to the bed beeped every few moments and showed his vitals for his wife.  Clearly some extra level of care was given to the man.  Perhaps Dio was aware of his condition. 

Sophia approached and was met by the clutching hand of Jessie’s mother. 

“Please… He’s suffered enough…” She told her, releasing her arm as Sophia continued towards the sleeping man. 

‘His body has been oversaturated by a condensed and processed mako… You can hear the planet, I believe you can help channel it.  Albeit, to a lesser extent than my predecessors.’

Ifalna’s voice echoed through her mind, she didn’t appear but Sophia took a few more steps forward, resting her hand on the man’s raggedly breathing chest, listening to the coarseness in his lungs. 

In an instant, she felt the pulsing lifestream flowing through the man.  A natural rhythm of energy that flowed through his body, as well as a stagnation to it.  A heavier, more dull form was being channelled alongside the natural ebbs and flows.  With a few movements of her fingers, she began to feel the stagnant, heavy mako pull from the man’s body in light green whisps.  With dancing fingers she continued in small actions to pull the dark mako from the man’s body.  Jessie approached at a safe distance and watched as she performed this process in awe. 

As the last of the improper energy was pulled from the man, Sophia closed her eyes and began to try to contain the energy into a shape before her.  A sphere formed between her hands and the man’s clothed chest. 

A few moments of movement later, a small green orb sat on the man’s chest.  Jessie and her mother watched and waited as the man began breathing full, deep breaths, the materia she had formed fell from the hospital bed from his body, landing on the ground with a solid thunk but not shattering.  Materia had always been durable.  Seeing it like this… knowing she’d pulled it as a sickness from this man… Was beyond anything Cloud had ever seen at Shinra. 

As the man’s eyes began to open, he was met by the closed eyes, the blonde and silver locks of hair cascading down behind this woman standing over him. 

“Holy shit… DAD!” Jessie and her mother ran over as Sophia opened her own eyes, the bright purple luminescent energies in her eyes dulling for a moment as she stumbled backwards. 

‘Got it in one… You’re a natural.’

Ifalna spoke again, she hadn’t appeared but her words of encouragement meant the world to her.  Knowing that she could use this new form that had been forced onto her by a mad scientist.  She was so relieved that she could use it for good.  To help. 

“Jessie-Bear!” The man said with a full breathy voice as he clutched his daughter with both arms as she embraced him too.  Her mother too, leant on the bed and hugged the pair of them.  “What the hell… happened…?” He asked.  No-one answered, until Sophia. 

“You should be better now… Mr Raspberry…” She said, not quite coming to terms with how she did it.  The man simply smiled and nodded.  A welling of tears turning into sobs of happiness from the full family, Sophia opted to turn for the door and walk out to process what she had just done. 

‘Is that how the Cetra did it? Your people… twist the lifestream into materia?’

Sophia asked, trying to remember the lessons from school and basic training on how to use materia as she was training to become an infantry in the army. 

‘Not… normally.  Most materia is naturally formed in areas where dense bursts of the lifestream emerge from the surface.  You’ve seen them… I’m sure.  But this… was more to cure sickness when one of our own people suffered… You did well.  I’m proud of you…’

Ifalna’s form didn’t appear but as Sophia leant against the wooden railings of the haunted hotel’s upper floors, a few more floors to the elevator ride up than her own room, she smiled so wide she realised it was the first time she’d smiled, or even felt like she had something to smile about for a long time. 

“Soph?” Jessie’s voice arrived behind her with the low clatter of the wooden door.  She had red and puffy eyes and was still partially sobbing but smiling.  She held the green orb in her hand. 

“I… I’ll be honest, I didn’t know if that would work… but if it did… It was worth trying.” Sophia told her as she felt the sudden embrace of Jessie’s arms around her body in a tight hug. 

“I don’t know how you did it… But, oh my god, thank you… thank you…” Jessie’s tears could be felt against her neck. She reciprocated the hug and clutched her tightly.  She felt the sudden uncomfortable experience of a single tear drop down her semi exposed cleavage that emerged from the top of the tight silver dress and recoiled, flinching slightly. 

“I’m just happy I could help…” Sophia smiled as Jessie released her from her grip, offering the materia in her hand. 

“Please, it feels weird having it considering… Can you… Wait here for a sec?” Jessie said, placing the materia in Sophia’s hand and releasing it.  It was a fair request.  It must be a little strange knowing that this stone is what made her father terminally sick. 

Sophia obliged, nodding kindly and watching as Jessie ran back into the hotel room, emerging quickly again a few moments later. 

“Come with me, please.” She told her and Sophia obliged, allowing her hand to be taken by Jessie as the pair arrived back at the elevator, heading down for the lobby.

The convoy of trucks drove down the tarmacked streets towards Corel, an older mining town.  Zack was still coming to terms with the loss of his death sentence, the Jenova cells, which made him a SOLDIER.  While a Shinra infantryman drove the truck at maximum speeds to reach the town as ordered, Zack sat contemplating while Reno slept on the wooden bench across from him in the back of the truck.

“I just wanted to do good, to live a life that had a purpose and a meaning… Being a SOLDIER gave me that, serving with Angeal… inheriting his legacy… it’s all I ever wanted.  But now… I have a chance to live a normal life? What am I supposed to do with it?” Zack pondered, bouncing questions from the unconscious red-head Turk snoring noisily across the vehicle from him. 

“You know you don’t have to stop being a Soldier just because you aren’t a SOLDIER, right?” Tseng’s charismatic tones and sage sounding advice came running through a small window in the back of the front cabin. He had been set on riding up front with the driver. 

“Maybe… I want to though.  I don’t know…” Zack said, standing in the moving truck and scratching his black spikey hair.  Among the myriad possessions back in the Mansion, Zack retrieved the buster sword given to him by his mentor Angeal, carrying on a legacy that he believed in. 

“You even know what you’d do? Back in civilian life?” Reno awoke, his eyes remaining on the canvased roof of the truck’s cargo containment. 

“Not really… After everything with Hojo, Angeal and Sephiroth… I don’t know if I want to stay with Shinra. Maybe I’ll just go back home to Gongaga and… live happily ever after?” Zack smiled, leaning over and carrying on the conversation with Reno before he turned up from his laid back position to recline on the bench as Zack remained commenced pacing around the few feet of space there was in the back of this truck. 

“I don’t think any of us would blame you… Whatever Hojo was doing in that Lab… You weren’t the main captive.  Whoever she is… That’s the worry.  It’s almost like he started with you… but then just cast you off…” Reno said, putting his foot in his mouth metaphorically and recoiling as Tseng scowled at him. 

“I just don’t know who she is… I want to know what happened to Cloud… I just need to know that he’s okay.  It can’t have been easy for him, watching his hometown burn… and then Sephiroth…” Zack recalled the fires that blazed around Nibelheim, the climb up to the mountain reactor where they’d found the remains of Jenova, the alien sample Hojo was using to create monstrosities by saturating bodies with mako energy and Jenova cells.  He found it so… unsettling that the only thing that separated his own state from the ones in those tanks… was just how much of that Jenova was used in SOLDIERs.

“According to records, Cloud Strife was killed in the incident… we had no evidence to the contrary until your testimony.  But are you sure… Really sure that he was there with you…?” Tseng asked the question the Turks had been tiptoeing around since finding out the killed in action status of the young Shinra infantryman sent with Zack. 

“You guys have the really unredacted files, I forget just how few of those actually go around at Shinra.  You think I’m losing it? That I just wish Cloud had survived?” Zack asked, stopping pacing for a moment before falling into a quick set of squats, as though trying to take his body out of the equation as he considered what they asked. 

“There were only two tanks there Zack, yours and whoever this Sophia is.  I hate to be the one to say it… but maybe your friend is…” Reno continued, trying to remain tactful but that was never his strongest suit.     

“Gods… Shit… What about the… personal request? Is she still okay?” Zack darted his eyes to Tseng through the window, sitting in the cabin of the truck. 

“She’s…” Tseng started but was quickly interrupted by a sudden break in the convoy’s movement. 

Tseng looked out of the front of their truck, distracted from the question and focused once more on the mission at large.  The crew he was in charge with, the mission they were given was to locate the young woman who’d escaped Hojo’s custody and retrieve her for questioning.  They didn’t know the circumstances but… they weren’t the only ones heading for the Gold Saucer access at Corel. 

A pair of smooth, black metal motorbikes ridden by two men, clad in black leather suits had activated some kind of device that stunned the convoy’s trucks and took the opportunity to drive by the trucks and smoothly cut the rubber of the tires. 

“Who the hell were those guys supposed to be!?” Zack leapt from the back of the truck, swinging himself to the roof of it and pulling the buster blade with himself, ready to defend. 

“They’re SOLDIERs.  The kind even we aren’t supposed to bother…” Reno said, his face peering out from the rear of the truck. 

Zack looked out to the dust being kicked up by the pair of bikes heading straight for Corel with heaviness in his chest as he watched them vanish into the horizon, knowing there was nothing he could do for the moment. 

“This is my favourite spot in the Saucer…” Jessie said, her arms crossed and legs swinging from the roof of the Gold Saucer’s top most section, watching the show of lights and theatre of virtual reality displays bounce around below and around the pair of them. 

Sophia was concerned, clearly, by the fact they were sitting with no guard rails on top of one of the largest structures she’d ever seen. 

The pair had retreated up here through a service elevator that was marked as being used only by employees.  Jessie had access simply because of who she was and brought Sophia up as her guest, much to the humour of one of the patrolling security officers that monitored the elevators. 

“It’s a hell of a view…” She told Jessie, looking down and watching holographic depictions of eikons dancing together in the sky above one of the parks’ attractions.  She looked down and it was plain to see the sheer terror in her face at what could be a very dangerous and sudden end. 

“I don’t know how you did what you did… I don’t know why you did it.  But I really don’t think I can put into words just how much you’ve helped my family in one act…” Jessie said, reaching over and gripping the hand of the mystical woman who’d pulled her father’s sickness from him.  She was trying to distract her from the terror she felt as she slowly backed away to the more stable white marble like flooring that roofed the highest levels. 

“I…” Sophia started, a sudden white flash shining across her vision.  It was startling and intense but over so quickly it was almost imperceptible.  “You don’t need a reason to help people.” She said, a smile on her face as she remembered one of her favourite quotes from when she was a child back in Nibelheim.  She reciprocated the hand clutch, smiling at the beaming Jessie. 

“You just… you’re so out of place here.  You’re beautiful… you’ve got these magical abilities that defy belief.  I just don’t understand how you… exist, you’re like a dream.” Jessie rattled off the speech she’d been rehearsing in her head, tumbling over the few moments when she revealed her own latent attractions to Sophia. 

“I don’t really know myself.  I… I only woke up from a long sleep two weeks ago.  Since then, my mind has been swimming with who I am.  The powers I have, I shouldn’t.  But I have them… When I first… It wasn’t a gift.  It felt like a nightmare that I had no hope of outrunning.” Sophia carried on the conversation, unsure of how to reveal her former identity to this strange new friend she’d made. 

“You’re the woman who saved my Dad… What you did down there was a gift, one that we can never repay.” Jessie said, her head leaning closer to Sophia’s.  Sophia felt the breathing of the young woman on her skin, the closeness was strange.  Cloud had never really been with anyone before… Not really.  Not someone he was romantically interested in.  As Sophia… her only experiences were forced on her as part of a scientific experiment. 

As Jessie’s lips arrived at hers, she felt her eyes close as the emotions built up from the night seemed to all arrive in one tender moment between the two. 

The bright lights of the illuminations and fireworks cast a romantic setting over the moment.  Unbeknownst to her, however, a slow stream of tears had begun to fall from her eyes.  Jessie pulled back, concerned. 

“What’s wrong?” She asked her, pulling the red bandana from her wristband and offering it to the crying woman.  She accepted it, mopping a few of the tears away, unsure herself why they were happening. 

“I don’t think you’ll believe me if I tell you…” Sophia laughed a small choke in her throat catching her off guard. 

“Try me…” Jessie responded, pulling herself back in, away from the edge and turned to face her new friend. 

“I… I’m not…” Sophia started, but in a moment, a small shockwave hit the Gold Saucer, a slight tremble went through the building and in a few moments later, a tall red pillar of light erupted into black smoke across the night sky from the North.  A large explosion rocked the tower one more time, Jessie clutched Sophia’s hand as the pair reached for the roof access door to steady themselves. 

“What the fuck was that!?” Jessie asked, pulling herself up and Sophia with her and looking again out to the sight of the explosion rising in a fiery ball towards the stars in the nights’ sky.  A cacophony of screaming loudly echoing into the night as all the amusements and entertainment of the Saucer had fallen silent. 

As the pair began their descent through the access stairway they watched as a window that followed the full length of the staircase showed a billowing dust cloud rising and moving towards the towering structure they stood atop.  Something, or someone, was coming for them. 

Zack and the Turks arrived on foot in Corel shortly after the battle had begun.  A citizen’s militia had assembled to combat a pair of confrontational and combative young men on motorbikes that had arrived and demanded access to the sky trolley with fire and metal.  Being so late in the evening, the force of the town tried to reason and were met with a flurry of bullets and magic.

“More Shinra fucks! Ain’t you guys done enough for one day!?” A large dark-skinned man shouted from behind a dilapidated and out of use pickup truck.  As Zack approached, he drew his sword, not to attack but to block the fire. 

“We’re not here to hurt you… We’re after the two guys…” He tried to shout but the noise and shouts of the man, followed by the rallying cries of his fellows drowned out the attempt at reason. 

Zack peaked out from behind cover to see two men, the large dark-skinned man seemingly carried a large machine gun where his right arm should have been… The second was a muscular lighter skinned man, who confusingly enough had a similar rifling looking gun mounted on his left arm.  The pair seemed to nod to each other before the latter of the pair retreated back into the town. 

“WE DON’T MEAN ANY HARM!” Tseng shouted as he crouched behind cover on the opposite side of the dirt trail leading into the town. 

“I’m damn fuckin’ sure! I’m sure neither of your fuckin’ SOLDIER boys who came through demanding we let ‘em on the trolley meant no harm neither!” The guarding blockade of a human being, left alone to defend this avenue from intruders shouted in response. 

“How much ammo can an arm hold?” Zack asked rhetorically as both Reno and Rude slid in beside them to join the fray, having caught up, protecting the truck convoy while they replaced the damaged tires of their vehicles. 

“On my word… You go.  Reno, you and Rude circle around the rear of the town, try to flank.” Tseng issued his orders but Zack interjected by gripping hold of Rude’s arm.

“We can’t kill these people… They’re just defending themselves.  Let me go alone…” Zack asked, looking Tseng in the eyes with his usual naïve and hopeful optimism that used to win out regardless. 

“You take one shot… We’re opening up on him…” Tseng responded and Zack smiled. Tseng knew the kind of man that Zack had been, the upbeat and personable man who wanted to help whenever he had the chance to. The duo watched as Zack prepared himself, holding the sword to his head and saying a small prayer to himself, his mantra. 

“I’M COMING OUT BUDDY! WE JUST WANNA TALK…” Zack said, raising his sword and arm and listening carefully as the machine gun fire stopped for a brief moment. 

The large man looked conflicted, but their inaction seemed to sway him that they weren’t there to cause another fight. 

“You try anythin’…” He said, a Corel tinge to his accent and gravelly tone that spoke to a lifetime working in the coal mines the town was made famous for. 

Zack walked carefully to a mid point between their cover and the large truck the man used for his own cover.  Planting his sword by the tip into the ground below and leaning on it with a smile on his face. 

The large man approached, emptying bullet casings from his arm and slotting another ribbon of rounds into the contraption wrapped around his arm, just below the elbow. 

“We’re chasing the guys that just came through here… We’re not with them… I’m Zack…” He introduced himself as the large man with a machine gun arm cocked his arm once more and spun the chamber. 

“Barret… They never asked, they just walked in like they owned the place.  Same as all Shinra do round here’…” Barret replied, eyeing up the crouching Turks with suspicion. 

“I remember this place.  You guys are the biggest coal miners on the continent… I’ve been out of the loop, what happened here?” Zack tried to remain an amicable negotiator but remained aware that moving south quickly, were his new most hated people. 

“Barrett! Dyne’s chasing after ‘em.  Fire’s are out in the town centre but… we lost the Doc…” A tall woman with skin similar to Barrett’s approached from behind, her face covered in ash and smoke as she ran up without fear of the stranger he was speaking to. 

“God… fuckin’ damnit… Shinra strikes again… You wanna fuckin’ clue to our history with your guys… This…!”  Barret spun the barrel of his gun-arm once more, the dark shades he wore concealing a crack in his voice at the loss of a clear dear friend. 

“I’m sorry… I’ve been… out of action for five years.  I had no idea…” Zack spoke from his heart and placed his hand over it, bowing in apology to the tall imposing figure. 

“You’re a SOLDIER too… Aint’cha?” Barret replied catching the sight of a dim green glow around the colours of Zack’s eyes.  He nodded in reply. 

“And these guys… I need to stop them… so please… I promise, I’ll make them pay…” He said, fire in his eyes and a fist held towards Barret as the woman clung on to his gun arm, gently tugging him away, clearly afraid to lose her significant other. 

“Fine… But your guys stay here, help fix the hurt those two done…” Barret spoke, looking at his partner and placing his hand on hers.  “Myrna… Can he borrow your bike sweetie-bird…?” Barret asked kindly, looking at his wife, the bright golden rings on their fingers catching the light of the fire. 

“That’s fine by me… Lead the way Myrna!” Zack said with gusto but maintained a respectful distance from the couple. 

“Make sure you look in on Marlene on the way… She’s scared Barret…” Myrna began to walk down the road to a collection of tarp covered motorbikes the people must have used to travel around the immediate area.  Zack followed and shouted the message back to his compatriots. 

“We’ll follow as soon as we can… Go careful!” Tseng shouted, standing on the spot as Barret approached him, pulling the shades from his eyes and looking the director of the Turks up and down. 

Zack replaced the sword on his back and once he was handed the keys to the bike, revved the engine. 

“Doc fixed his arm… His and Dyne’s.  You promised you’ll make those guys pay… If you don’t, Barret gonna be pissed.  So will I… Soldier boy.  Don’t let us down…” Myrna spoke her last piece to Zack as he pulled a covering set of goggles from the handlebars and placed them over his face.  He simply nodded, understanding then that there was deeper meaning to these people that Shinra held, some hurt that left this place scarred and this event only served to open and rub salt in old wounds. 

“Sir! We’ve got two incoming at high speeds! Facial recognition puts them as SOLDIERs… No class designation…” Cait Sith’s feline form bounded over the desks as those working in the busy offices of the Gold Saucer assembled to try assess the damage and alert security personnel to the immediate combat they might be about to face. 

Jessie arrived with Sophia in tow, their descent from the roof having taken up a lot more time than planned when they found out the elevators were shut down following the tremor. 

As she walked into the boardroom that was acting as a makeshift situation room, Dio was stood at the window watching as the approaching clouds of dust and sand rose, closing the distance over the sand beneath. 

“Lock down the lower levels… Restrict access to the upper levels to park personnel only and have all guests secured.  We have measures in place for natural disasters… We should use them.” Dio continued, swiping his cape as he turned away from the window. 

“Ah… Miss Raspberry.  If you can assist in the repairs, the infrastructure of the tower has blocked access to the Battle Square, please.” He spoke to her directly and she nodded, turning away and nodding to Sophia before she began moving towards wherever she was needed. 

“Lassie… Maybe you’d best take a seat up here… Looks like shit stirred trouble is following at almost a hundred miles an hour…” Cait Sith continued, pawing at a small holographic display. 

“I agree… I believe the best place for you right now is with us while we assess our options.” Dio concurred, noting and making it plain that he looked at the small electronic device she wore, given to her by Cait Sith. 

“But there must be something I can do to help… I can fight!” She argued, not wanting anyone to suffer for her sake.

“Miss… I hope it doesn’t come to that… I’m trying to get the President to call off these hounds but he’s claiming no knowledge of their presence here.” Dio replied, holding a hand out in a gesture to try placate her.  To calm her down. 

‘Its Hojo… He’s using the grief of their brother…’

Ifalna’s thoughts ran through her mind.

‘What do I do? How can I stop them?’

Sophia thought in reply, images burst into her mind, knowledge which was being imparted in like manner to how she learnt to pull the tainted mako from Jessie’s father, only now seemingly using the energy she possessed to channel spells… Where she’d once been under the impression that materia was necessary to carry out such spells… She simply knew how to do without. 

‘I’ll help, as much as I can…’

Ifalna’s spirit seemed to hold her in an embrace from behind as she released all these talents into her mind.  White Magics. 

“Do you have magical weaponry around here?” Sophia asked Dio, hoping that something to channel the magic would be present.

“Not here. Weapons are stored in the back rooms of the Battle Square, Cait will lead you down there. I’m sure something down there will… help.  I’d hoped this day would never come… this is a place of pleasure and leisure and happiness.  Not a warzone…” Dio begrudged the present moment, clearly distraught by the encroaching enemy.  Cait Sith hopped from the raised desk and moved quickly towards the doorway. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 5.

Sophia and Cait descended the central walkway through the tower, running through the emergency access areas of the Gold Saucer.  As they arrived at the large metal gateway that connected the staff area to the Battle Square, they found Jessie working on the large metal doorway, the sounds of dozens of trapped guests on the other side pleading for release. 

As Jessie worked her engineering magic, the large metal doors opened allowing emergency access to the semi-connected disc structure attached to the large tower. 

A few dozen people fled the area, Cait Sith using a megaphone he carried around to relay the instructions to flee to the designated areas. 

As she stepped through the depleting crowd, Sophia saw the gathered men, women and children who were injured by falling pieces of debris.  This area had been badly damaged by the tremor.  Sections of the metal roofing and concrete walls had broken apart from the continued strikes against the foundations. 

Sophia leant down, channelling a burst of magic to one of the wounded staff members.  Closing her eyes and digging deep into the knowledge that was shared with her, Jessie watched from a distance as a wound on the staff member’s arm sealed itself closed.  Again reminded of the magical powers this woman seemed to possess, without the need for Materia. 

She moved on to the next suffering individual as medics arrived wearing emergency services colours.  They watched as this strange woman seemingly moved from patient to patient casting healing magics. 

“We should be movin’ on lassie… They’ll be here any moment.” Cait placed a gloved hand on her arm. 

“There’s so many that need help… I…” She said, looking down the darkened corridor as the lights flashed overhead. 

“You’ve done good.  We’ve got emergency medics here now to take care of the rest, let’s get you where you need to be right now.” Cait continued, releasing the begloved paw from her arm and starting to walk down the corridor.  She rose and followed the small cat puppet. 

As the pair arrived in the former glory of the Battle Square they were met with a series of desks, staff members working at each one to answer any concerns the guests of the park had and relaying their concerns wherever they needed to be.  A large central foyer greeted them, collections of debris and shattered windows from around the chamber cracked under Sophia’s soft shoes. 

“This way…” Cait pointed out a staff entry only door at the back side of the desks.  As a protocol for the park, no weapons were realistically allowed in the entertainment areas, as a result anyone with the capacity to would turn them in on entry and they’d be stored here, separate from those weapons used by competitors in the actual Battle Square events. 

Sophia arrived seeing the cacophony of weaponry lining the walls, from machine guns to pistols, longswords to knuckledusters.  There were no rods that she had seen in the vision granted to her by Ifalna but there was something that would work, a pair of enchanted bangles that she could wear on each wrist that helped to channel ambient magical power from her body into the spells she could cast, materia slots were available but she didn’t have use for them.  They were designed, as it showed, for more defensive applications.  She walked through, collected the bangles, equipping them to herself and her eyes caught sight of a large black blade adorning the walls.  It was about the same size as Zack’s that she remembered using to kill Sephiroth. 

“Think that one might be a bit big for you lassie…” Cait Sith smiled, looking up at the sword and then back at Sophia, realising the weapon was pretty much taller than she was. 

“Just reminded me of a friend…” She said, turning away and running back through the corridor filled with suffering guests. 

“I understand that son… but until I can trust that you and yours are not here for the same reason, you’re not getting access…” Dio argued with the Turk leader on the far end of a communications line.  Tseng was currently working with his team on repairing immediate damage, putting out fires and rescuing civilians from damaged structures. 

“One of my associates is giving chase to the two men responsible.  He can stop them… But when he arrives he needs access that only you can provide him…” Tseng tried to be a voice of reason with screams of agony and pain surrounding him through the communications. 

“And when I do… How long will it be before your target is escorted out by you and yours…?” Dio responded, feeling a sudden and unexpected second tremor in the base of the Gold Saucer’s tower. 

“Sir… The two SOLDIERs have blasted their way through the secondary entry way.  A trolley is coming as well… reinforcements from Corel…” A second assistant told him, relaying the information taken from the still functioning cameras that linked the trolley system in Corel to the Gold Saucer.

“I’m sorry son… I can’t risk you’re here to do exactly the same thing to her… No more harm will come to that girl.” Dio said, hammering the close connection button on his console.  “Have security teams repair the entry ways…” Dio continued giving his instructions. 

Dio watched as a third motorbike approached the tower. 

“Sir one of the lower access hatches in Old Town opened automatically…” The assistant continued to relay further bad news to the already stressed park Director. 

“Who…?” He began to ask but watched as the third motorbike headed exactly for the small entry way gate that lead into the Old Town below the Gold Saucer.  So called as a former residential area, the ruins of Old Corel, it was more recently renovated at Dio’s behest to be a high quality residential area for those who lived and worked in the Saucer. 

Sophia and Cait Sith continued running back down the corridor towards the main tower strut that would be the first point of access for anyone who entered the Saucer.  In a strange moment of delay, Cait Sith stopped dead in the hallway, standing on both feet but simply halted, no expression on his face or any activity. 

“Cait…? Cait Sith?” Sophia stopped with him, leaning down to his level and prodding the small feline model.  She moved it, placing it sat down to the side of a corridor leading to the main lobby area so no-one would accidentally hurt it and pressed on ahead, to the sound of fire and explosions that sent further shockwaves through the tower and Saucer sections. 

Zack rode his motorbike down the assigned route his own communications device pressed against his ear, he heard the relayed instructions from Tseng.  While he didn’t appreciate the subterfuge that went into it, he knew it was relatively necessary. 

“We’ll be there as soon as we can… the trolley’s being sent back down now…” Tseng told him, assured that the remaining members of the Corel Militia, lead by Barret and Myrna would have everything handled.  They’d been appreciative of the assistance for the time being. 

“God shit!” Zack cried out, swerving the bike into the white concrete construction in front of him as he passed into the garage structure at the base of the tower.  In front of him was a tall stranger, long white hair covered half of his face.  He had green eyes, wore a simple black leather trench coat into a pair of black leather biker trousers and heavy black boots.  He was armed with a blade that he held with the handle of a pistol, he raised it as Zack as he swerved and fired a flurry of rounds into the bike.  Zack pulled his buster sword from his back and blocked a few of the bullets before leaping from the seat and landing before the strange man with his sword raised. 

At the far side of the garage was service elevator that connected to the trolley system, evidently, Dyne and those that followed him here had seen the damage done to the base of the tower and decided to try follow the footsteps of the intruders. 

“Hold it right there jackass!” Dyne called as he stepped out from the lift, flanked by two men.  His left hand raised as the rifling on his prosthesis began to spin. 

“Hmm…” The stranger said, flipping for a moment behind a large red vehicle that took up several parking spaces in the garage.

A barrage of bullets collided with the side of the vehicle tearing inch wide holes in the side of solid steel engineering. 

In retaliation, the stranger burned with a strange white and black aura and with a single kick sent the vehicle flying at the group of me.  Dyne blasted the large people carrier, the resulting explosion sending a shockwave through him and his men.  Zack shielded his eyes and saw the stranger stood, his pistol aiming over the laying unconscious forms of Dyne’s men.  A single shot, one was dead.  Zack began to run.  Another single shot, the second was dead.  As he arrived at Dyne, he plunged the blade of his weapon into the spinning rifling of the man’s gun arm.  Sparks were sent flying in all directions and in a single burst of magical energy sent down his arm into his weapon, the stranger exploded the mechanical workings of Dyne’s arm.  Shrapnel and spent bullet casings flew in all directions, Zack covered his face with the large width of the buster blade. 

“You’d better kill me boy… Else I’ll come back with a bigger fuckin’ gun and tear that piddly pea-shooter into your asshole…” Dyne mocked the man standing over him, the barrel of his gunblade aimed directly at his head. 

In the moment he began to pull the trigger back, he heard the approaching Zack and swung his blade back between him and the former SOLDIER. 

“Go! Get out of here!” Zack called out, swinging his large buster blade with finesse and strength as Dyne pulled himself to his feet, the shattered mechanism of his gun arm seemingly irreparably damaged and moving back towards the service elevator with a nod to his saviour. 

“You’re different…” The stranger said with a faint smile forming on his lips.  The blood stains mixing into the white of his hair from his two kills so far as he pulled a clip from the gunblade and replaced it with one from his back pocket. 

“Still a better SOLDIER than you… What? You’re just doing this all out of vengeance for your brother!? I understand that but this is too far… We’re supposed to have more honour than this!” Zack called out, raising the sword aloft and resting it over his shoulder, behind his head. 

“Mother’s gift is what makes SOLDIERs, you were never one of us… Only a pretender.  The Professor understands… he knows we are the future and together we will make more… More brethren for our family…” The stranger rambled, ranted and raved but he’d told him something. 

“Hojo sent you!? What does he want with Sophia!?” Zack asked, pulling the sword from his back and aiming the sharp tip at his quarry as he paced back and forth pulling his gunblade to his side. 

“The Professor knows that we are the future of this planet, he knows we can breed, reproduce Mother’s legacy through the Ancient Pretender...  Our reunion… One by one we will rejoin into Mother’s embrace and lead this world on its destructive path through the cosmos… Our brother will be there too…” The stranger continued, Zack trying to piece it together moment by moment proved a little stressful for him. 

“You’re just talking a whole mess of garbage… I guess we’ll just have to ask the Professor when we see him.” Zack said, darting forward with the tip of his blade scratching the ground of the garage, sparks flying in its wake. 

The stranger darted just as quickly towards him, a blast from his gunblade propelling himself forwards and clashing his blade with Zack’s.  A flurry of dancing strikes from him were blocked by the large blade, with deceptively quick movements Zack brought the blade up and around himself, swinging and bringing the full weight of the weapon to bear. 

The first real test of his strength since losing the Jenova cells from his body, whether or not he was still strong enough to bear the legacy Angeal left him, and he was holding his own and even catching the flesh of the stranger with a few blows. 

“Yazoo… I have her… come to me.” A voice resounded through a small black device in the coat of the stranger, his name revealed to Zack. 

“Child of Angeal… Do not follow, only your death awaits.” Yazoo spoke, sending a upward spiral attack through his gun blade and sending a barrage of bullets at the man before vanishing in an explosion erupting from one of the nearby cars. 

“Oh no you don’t…” Zack called out, rushing forwards in the only available direction and giving chase. 

Further inside the tower, Sophia had come face to face with the third member of this group, he was shorter than Loz was.  His hair was almost a bob cut around his head that cut off just below the shoulders.  He was skinny but had the muscle to swing his weapon with finesse and dexterity.  He was armed with a katana, where she initially saw one blade coming from the hilt, on a reflection she saw the second running parallel. 

“You… You are the one who killed our Brother!?” The young white haired man almost screamed as he burst into manic laughter.

Sophia stood, confusedly staring at the manically laughing strange being before her. 

“Loz… was a tool used by Hojo.  He forced himself on me at his behest… I only did what I had to, in order to protect myself…” Sophia called back, remembering the frame of the man but remembering the hallucination that was dispelled by Ifalna.  Remembering just how real it felt when he was inside her.  How much he felt like Sephiroth…

“Loz!? Of the three of us… Loz was the weakest but he’s not the brother I mean…” the Stranger continued, pausing his laughter with disturbing accuracy and returning to a stone faced judgement. 

“Who…!?” She responded, she remembered what Ifalna had said.  They were clones… of Him.

“Mother’s chosen son… You… in your weakness, your feeble mind ready to shatter like a puppet cut from its strings… You killed the Mighty Sephiroth…” The stranger revealed his connection as Sophia had figured it out. 

“He destroyed my home… He killed my Mother… He was a mad dog that needed to be put down and I did it!” She called back to him, remembering the flames of Nibelheim as she reached with her former forms hands towards her childhood home.  Cloud having to watch the fire engulf the building he’d been in only hours earlier, talking to his mother. 

At the rear of the room, Jessie was crouched with Cait Sith, listening to the entire ordeal and conversation.  While they lacked the context of Cloud in this situation, they heard how she was sexually assaulted at Hojo’s request.  The man behind Cait Sith’s eyes shedding a tear.  She moved off towards a concealed elevator access as the fires continued to rise around the makeshift arena Sophia and this stranger stared at each other in. Cait Sith followed Jessie, the expression on the cat’s face dour and sad. 

“Tiny playthings in our Mother’s grand lifetime.  Mother’s cells will spread throughout every living being in this world and all will obey her divine will! Then our Brother will return! He will claim his vengeance against you, Ancient Whore! You will serve as his concubine as we ride the stars in search for a new home…” The strange new creature seemed to call out, a faint glimmer of the cats looking eyes in his.  She recognised them, she’d seem them in Sephiroth. 

“Jenova is a sickness, she’s not divine! I’m the cure.” Sophia shouted back to the delusional creature.  Raising the palms of her hands towards the strange man as he held his hands aloft in praise to whatever deity he was calling to. 

From behind him, another arrived, this one just as slender but his hair was drenched in blood and he held a gunblade aloft, aiming at her. 

“Kadaj! Take her!” The other man cried out. 

“Yazoo! Cover the door!” Kadaj, the deranged man called back to his brother.  He stopped on the spot and aimed his gun at the door he’d just run through, in a moment… a familiar face struck her sight. 

“Our dance wasn’t over asshole!” Zack said, holding his blade towards the gunblade aiming creature.  He glanced the once at Sophia, seeing her ready to fight against the other. 

Kadaj started making steps towards her, readying his double bladed katana and vanishing in a flash towards her. 

With a sharp metal clash, she deflected the metal of his katana, channelling a spell in her other hand, she projected Kadaj back, a slowness to his movements.  She pulled another hand towards herself and thrust an energy towards him, in one he was crouched in a nearby planter, unable to move.  Everything about him seemed to pause, Stop. 

“Brother!” Yazoo screamed out, watching as the Ancient witch moved towards his brother.  He fired a fusillade of bullets at Zack, trying to close the distance between him and Kadaj. 

“Oh no you don’t!” Zack gave chase, swiping with his heavy blade and forcing the confrontation with the younger of the two. 

Sophia closed the distance between herself and Kadaj, walking carefully and removing the blade from his grip. 

She placed a hand on the crouched man’s back and in one swift burst of magical energy, the black miasma she knew and feared flowed from the young swordsman’s body upwards and outwards.

“NO, BROTHER!” Yazoo, distractedly fought back against the ongoing assault of Zack. 

In a strange turn, the black miasma fell back inwards on the black leather clothes Kadaj wore, seeping back into his skin as his body regained its mobility. 

“I will not let you take Mother’s gift from me!” Kadaj stood, landing a rising punch on Sophia’s chest and sending his backwards.  He stood… menace in his eyes and katana raised, back in his hand.  The image of it burning trauma in her mind.  Cloud’s memories boiled inside her mind as she saw Kadaj turn on his heels and walk towards the battle behind him.  Her mind flashed with black static, her mind swimming with pain and horror, the flames of Nibelheim licking her recoiled body. 

“Sephiroth…!?” She said out loud, pulling the eyes of Zack and Yazoo to the walking menace. 

‘It’s not him… Only an echo of the man.  You are stronger than him… You can do this…’

Ifalna’s voice carried over her and cleared the static from her mind.  The spectre falling down and placing a ghostly hand on hers.  A tear falling to the debris littered floor. 

Yazoo and Zack recommenced their fight, a renewed vigour and strength in his attacks that sent Zack flying with every strike. 

Sophia rose to her feet, raising her palm to the retreating katana wielding spectre of her enemy.  In a white energy blast, she sent a force against Kadaj.  Slowly but surely, his steps became heavier and he reached into his open leather coat with his free hand.  A black leather glove he wore emerged, dripping with red blood.  As he turned back towards her, she watched as his flesh seemed to cover with thin open wounds that seeped with blood. 

“Spectacular… Dia.” Kadaj uttered, returning his focus to the spell caster and leaping into the sky above her, plunging his katana down with both hands, the foul blood he wept from every wound falling like rain before her. 

Sophia stood resolute, aiming both palms towards the encroaching enemy and casting a wide white shield between herself and the foe.  The force of his attack was sent back against him, projecting his frame and weapon back into the sky and the heavy thud of his body against the floor pulled the attention of Yazoo who retreated quickly from the fight to his brother’s side.  The thin black miasma of his evil pulled from his body with the blood.  Regrettably this time, flowing towards her, the witch who pulled his Mother’s gift from him by force. 

“You can’t… it’s all that we are!” Yazoo shouted, watching as Sophia fought off the black smoke like energy, not wanting to experience the horrors of that power again. 

“Sophia! Stop!” Zack called out, in an instant, the black miasma seeped into her body and pulled her to the ground.  A violent whirlwind began spinning around her, sharp shards of glass, brickwork and concrete flew in all directions, sending a gust in all directions.  Planters and trees in the lobby fell, flying to the outer walls of the building.  Zack plunged his buster blade into the ground, keeping himself steady against the oncoming storm.  Yazoo gripped his brother’s body as it bled out on the ground, along with his gunblade. 

As the storm began to calm, a thick black oozing force seemed to form from the back of her body, the shimmering silver dress she wore tore revealing the flesh below, the bright purple glow of the tattoo at her belly simmering and scorching the flesh around it. 

Her body was revealed, the black thong she wore beneath the dress, matched the curling bra cups that contained her ample, heavy breasts.  The fabric of the dress fell to the ground below, shredded into small pieces, the watch she was given by Cait Sith disintegrating into a thousand small pieces of technology. 

“SOPHIA!” Zack shouted, hoping his voice would carry through the storm to reach her.  Her eyes were purest darkness with small pinprick sized dots of high energy purple energy erupting from her. 

The bursting ooze from her body seemed separate but it formed into the shape of a large serpent, the main form of it coalescing into the flesh, scales and white of its sharp fangs.  Two dark eyes in each socket as the maw of the snake opened wide, bellowing a loud and roaring cry that made the tower itself tremble.  Each floor above was connected by tower spanning bridges that also served to provide access for guests.  One such bridge fell behind Sophia as her feet planted themselves in the ground. 

As Kadaj’s breathing slowed to a halt, his heart stopped beating.  With a single tear of anger and rage, Yazoo held the gunblade aloft, sending a charge of magical energy into the barrel and firing one shot, the energy of the magic rebounded upwards and the face of the terrible serpent turned quickly towards the attacked.  In one fell stroke, the snake gripped the clone’s body on its fang.  The white enamel piercing the black leather through and ripping the flesh of the attacker. 

“Let me be your liberator…” Sophia’s voice echoed with a malice and terror throughout the tower as the serpent erupting from her back held the clone aloft.  His body dripping with blood and agony rising violently from his throat. 

The thin black smoke miasma fell from his body and dissipated into the air around them, seeming to burn away like nothing. 

As the last of his life fell from the man’s wounds, the snake began to dissolve.  The material it was formed from disconnecting from its host. 

“Sophia! Stop!” Zack cried out, hoping to give chase as he watched the serpent creature she commanded collapse into nonexistence, the corpses of Kadaj and Yazoo lying on the floor, turning slowly white and pale and collapsing into flakes of ash and dust.  All that remained were their leather garbs and weapons. 

He watched as her eyes returned to white and luminescent purple colour returned, a stream of tears erupting from her eyes. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t want this to happen…” She cried.  Zack carefully approaching her, leaving the buster blade planted firmly in the concrete behind him. 

“I believe that… Look… I want to help you.  I just need to know… who are you? How do you have this… power?” Zack asked, taking a few slow steps to try close the distance between him and her. 

“You… you don’t know… Oh my god, of course you don’t… why would you…” She laughed to herself through a snot filled nose as she quietly sobbed in the centre of what was once a violent storm.  Her body again exposed wearing the lingerie provided for her that was assessed the best support for her. 

“You… You cured me, back in the Shinra Mansion right?” He asked, stopping as she appeared to grow in distress and frustration. 

“I… I did…? After the… After Loz…” She responded, recalling the violent outburst that followed the large man’s assault of her, when she retreated into the darkness of that other room and pulled the Jenova cells from Zack quickly, while Hojo will have been distracted by her…

“We saw… You weren’t in control… Just like this…” Zack confidently stated, hoping it to be true and remembering the footage, watching the third of these clones force himself on her while she remained shackled to a medical table, while Hojo prodded and provoked him to continue. 

“It’s Jenova… the cells.  If I absorb them… the darkness takes over… for a short time… I think.” She continued, looking down at her body as she realised the blood from the serpents fangs had carried down her arm, falling from her hands to the ground below. 

“We want to help… You can come with us…?” Zack spoke calmly and kindly, just as she knew he would.  She knew him, a long time ago.  It felt like a different life then.  When Cloud and Zack walked into the town Nibelheim. 

She watched with suspicion and disappointment as a startling thought ran through her mind with the appearance of three suited compatriots.  Tseng, Reno and Rude assembled in the doorway Yazoo and Zack had originally emerged from, they looked around the horror around them, the blood stains filling the cracks and crevices of the floor.  The ash and dust of their quarry flying away with the breeze they brought with them. 

Reno held a gun aloft, aiming it at Sophia. 

“I believe you want to help.  But I don’t believe them…” She said, turning away from him as he stood barely two metres away from her. 

“You… you remind me of someone… Who are you…?” Zack called, hoping to stop her in her tracks.  He thought about her mannerisms, the look in her eyes.  The body he thought he knew for a brief moment in her movements. 

“I…” She said, watching as now Tseng, Reno and Rude walked threateningly and slowly towards Zack’s back.  Still out of earshot.  “I… just wanted to be like you.” She said, sending her arm flying upwards and emitting a small ball of energy that brought a tower spanning bridge from the level above collapsing through the building, blocking his path to reach her, the rubble created a tall wall.  She hated having to destroy part of the park. Hoping that Dio would forgive her. 

As Zack moved to give chase, Tseng’s orders bellowed from behind him. 

“It… can’t be… Cloud?”

Zack muttered in utter disbelief, shocked by the notion.  He kept the idea and thought to himself, unsure how it would sound.  He simply remembered hearing all the time how Cloud wanted to be in SOLDIER, wanted to fight alongside himself and Sephiroth.  But… that was very definitely a woman that he saw, that he spoke to…

Leaving the recoiling and flinching Turks and her old friend behind with the biggest clue she could give to her old identity, hoping it would reach him didn’t hurt the most.  What hurt the most was having to experience the darkness of Jenova take over her body once more. 

“Well that’s certainly a look!” Jessie said, pulling her to one of the only service elevators still in working order. 

Sophia looked down as the heavy metal grates shut over the doorway, the whole area behind her covered in smoke. 

“Not my choice… but good to know you approve.” Sophia laughed for a brief moment as Jessie’s eyes rested for a few seconds on the heaving breasts she carried in the fancily detailed bra. 

“Listen… I wanted to apologise… I… I heard… what happened…” Jessie started, maintaining a respectful distance while they continued their discussion. 

“I wanted to tell you… It’s just not an easy thing to talk about… And fuck, I have no idea how I’d even start explaining this…” Sophia gestured to her entire body, standing with her hand on her hip as she realised just how cold she was with the adrenaline wearing off. 

“You don’t have to. I’m just sorry I… I was emotional and thought I owed you for what you did for my Dad… Listen, Cait’s got a bike down in the garage, you need to run, we’ll hold up the Turks.” Jessie said, pulling her hoody from her body and wrapping it around Sophia’s shoulders, arriving almost a few feet away from her face. 

“You don’t owe me anything.  I’ve not been… Maybe with a bit more time we can go get drinks or something… At least do something without war arriving five minutes later…” She replied, thinking about maybe testing out her sexuality with women again if she returns to the Saucer.

“We should! We’ll get some friends together and go out drinking! You can do all the cheesy tourist shit next time!” Jessie gripped the sleeves of the hoody and bounced slightly happily thinking about the next time they’d see each other. 

“You and booze sounds like a dangerous combination… I’m in.” She replied, smiling but forlornly thinking about whether or not there would be a next time. 

A brief silence between the pair followed as Jessie stood relatively close to her, the wide metal grates of the service elevator revealing the destruction, the bullet damage and still burning vehicle kicked and destroyed in the fight against Yazoo. 

“Any idea where you’ll go?” Jessie asked her, curious about the next step.  If there even was a next step.  It was simply too dangerous for her to remain here, if Hojo had access to any further weapons or agents as powerful or dangerous as the Sephiroth clones then the people wouldn’t be safe. 

“No clue…” She replied, before Cait Sith could interject.  The small feline sat perched on the bike seat waiting. 

“Lassies!  Over here…” He shouted over. 

“You’re looking a lot more lively now… what happened to you?” Sophia asked, recalling leaving the small puppet seated in the corridor. 

“Oh… that… er… Well.  I owe you a really big apology lassie.  I… I let the Turks in, you might have noticed that this form isn’t exactly… really real…” He told her, hoping the response wouldn’t be too visceral.  “The person I am behind this cat, I had a duty to let them in… I had no idea what Shinra had done to you.  If I had known, I’d have done a lot more obfuscation…” He continued in his apologetic tone, even going so far as to remove the small gold grown that she thought was attached to the puppet and holding it in his hands like a hat. 

“You’re Shinra…? Are you a spy?” Jessie asked the small cat who looked at her with the same sad expression. 

“No! Well… I wasn’t meant to be… I was meant to be a clandestine link for Dio back to Shinra, to backdoor information that might be relevant to their relative interests.  I… had to…” He paced the motorbike’s handlebars with his dainty little footsteps. 

“You told them I was here…” Sophia said, a disappointed but understanding look forming on her face. 

“…And somehow Hojo found out too… sending in those two violent soggy bogs…” Cait relayed the truth, it wasn’t too worrisome considering but it was disappointing to her that the small creature ratted her out. 

“Are you going to tell Dio?” Jessie asked, wanting to make sure his efforts to repair and fix the damage caused by the attack would follow through. 

“I will.  I’ll own up to my actions.  He knows my role in this park was never going to be entirely… honest.  But this… goes beyond that.” Cait Sith, if he had the capacity to, seemed to look around and would be about to cry. 

“I trust you… You have my forgiveness little cat. Don’t worry.” Sophia leant over and said with a smile. 

A brief moment of sentimentality later, a ring came through to Jessie, a small headset she wore in her ear. 

“It’s Dio… Wants to talk to you.” Jessie took the ear mounted device from her own head and handed it to Sophia.  She took Cait by the sides and lowered him to the ground level.  Watching as the puppet ran on all fours towards the cargo lift. 

“Miss Sophia.  I trust Miss Raspberry and yourself made it to the garage in one piece.  The Turks are finding work arounds through the Tower and will be down there momentarily.  My final piece of guidance is this… I have purchased a villa for you with an ally of mine.  Drive to Costa Del Sol… you’ll be safe there for a time… I’ve agreed to go with the Turks, to submit evidence to the President regarding Hojo’s aggressive actions.  This should buy you some time to disappear from their priority list.  In the interests of brevity, I ask that you hand the device back to Jessie and make haste in your escape.  I do so hope to see you enjoy the park again… I’m sorry your stay was less than ideal.  Godspeed, Miss Sophia.”

The message from Dio ended with a click, she didn’t get to reply or say thank you for the assistance.  The man had really helped since her arrival here with Bill. 

“Tell him thank you, please.” Sophia said, mounting the motorbike with her exposed legs and placing a helmet over her head, the long spilling blonde and silver hair spiralling down her back. 

Jessie simply nodded, taking the headpiece back and replacing it on her ear.  She watched in mournful silence as Sophia turned the bike around, on the spot, quickly and revved the engines loud, in an instant… she was gone into the horizon, heading for the beach resort town of Costa Del Sol. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 6.

Professor’s Log X/X/20XX

The attempt to retrieve the specimen has failed and cost the Reunion Project two more clones of the Mighty Sephiroth.  That I be subject to the bureaucracy that binds lesser men is infantile when my mind is capable of solving the greatest problems of our world.  That my fate would be waylaid by the meddling of a simple infantryman from Nibelheim.  Admittedly turning him into a woman and having SOLDIERs breed with him… had unpredictable and extraneous variables. 

Director Dio, the traitor turned bodybuilding theme park owner is coming to testify to my involvement with the attack on his amusement park.  While the President and Security Director Heidegger stand beside me on my efforts to produce stronger soldiers for their forces and more destructive means for their violent delights, sycophantic dissenters like Reeve and Scarlet seem only too enthused by the idea of my displacement. 

I will explain my efforts to the simpletons and they should understand my plan to create even stronger SOLDIERs, while attempting to keep the real project regarding the Goddess Cells a secret.  If the Reunion would ever proceed… I cannot allow them to know the truth about the Goddess’ true abilities.  Those morally immovable high horse residing children would have my work destroyed for the methods but will steal the credit should it go well…

No matter… The introduction of greater quantities of the Jenova cells will allow more SOLDIERs into production, increasing ever higher in quality until I can produce one… just one… who can place a child in that whore’s belly… Then I will have everything I need…

Zack recovered from the ordeal at the tower fairly quickly, the Turks had struggled with the fire containment after the explosions due to the amounts of coal dust in the air around the town.  Dio had issued a decree that should the residents of the town require it, they would be able to recover in makeshift hostels set up inside the Gold Saucer.  The entire adventure had even inspired him to commission a Spa Square, to allow park attendants a piece of quiet to enjoy away from their troubles. 

“First time back in Midgar since the Genesis shit… you gonna be okay?” Reno asked him, the pair sitting opposite one another in the heavy transport helicopter.  Dio sat to one side, his arms folded and eyes closed, seemingly meditating. 

“Still the same city from what Tseng’s told me.  Wouldn’t mind making a trip down to Sector Five though… when I get chance.” Zack told him, recalling the last time he’d made it to see Aerith and how emotionally distraught he was at the time.  It’d be nice to catch up, after all this time. 

Reno nodded, understanding that surely Zack would have someone from his past that he wanted to see again.  Maybe one or two. 

As the helicopter came in to land at the Shinra Headquarters Tower, a small gathering welcoming committee was there to meet them.  The President and his small council of Director Staffers were there, Dio finally opened his eyes as he felt the descent begin. 

It had been a week since the attack on the Saucer and generally avoiding the bad press came easier to Shinra when they were able to construct a valid reason, there was no real reason for them to attack a theme park, no threat they could use to justify this, hence, they wanted it to disappear quickly. 

“Even Hojo is waiting there…” Dio said, his eyes locked on the slouching Professor he’d come to indict for the crimes perpetrated against his park. 

“We’ll place him under arrest when we land and keep him under our surveillance until the hearing is done.” Tseng addressed the large man, still wearing the same outfit he had at the park.  The long red cape wrapping around his robust and very toned muscly body.  A twitch of his moustache caught Zack’s eye. 

“I understand.” Dio replied, stone faced and not willing to explain his distress further.

As the rotors began to slow, one of the ground staff opened the Helicopter sliding doors.  First to hop out was the tall Rude, whom Dio had been able to spend some time with training once repairs at the Saucer had been underway.  Dio followed him, Zack maintained the rear guard as the last out of the helicopter and scowled at Hojo as he disembarked.  Once this team was leaving, the helicopter quickly made its exit, heading for a nearby refuelling depot.

“President.” Dio said, offering his hand to President Shinra as a show of respect.

“Director…” The President responded, taking the hand and shaking it, a thick cigar resting between his two fingers of his other hand.  He brought it up to his mouth, puffed on it the once and exhaled from his nostrils.  The older man was troubled by the arrival of a former colleague it seemed. 

Tseng and the Turks disembarked as well.  Tseng offered a bow to the President, he seemed apologetic but at the same time, he had carried out his own personal investigation as per his instructions. 

Reno and Rude approached the slouching and glowering Professor who stood down the line, past Directors Palmer and Scarlet. 

“Professor, we’re placing you under arrest for the act of orchestrating violence against a peaceful neighbour, as well as the kidnap and experimentation of Shinra personnel.  We will escort you… to a secure facility.” Reno said the words, clearly having had to rehearse what he would say when faced with the opportunity to arrest someone this high up in Shinra’s organisational chain. Scarlet beamed with delight of course. 

“I hope to have this resolved as soon as possible.  The Professor has a lot of work to continue once this… unfortunate event has been resolved.” President Shinra exclaimed, clearly protesting the arrest of one of his greatest assets. 

Dio nodded and agreed. 

As the large pair of older gentlemen turned and headed towards the large glass engulfed room that was the President’s office Zack looked down into the city, hoping to be able to look under the plate to see the Undercity. 

“You are SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair!?” Heidegger barked and bellowed, approaching the man with gusto and a wide, almost distressed grin over his face. 

“Yes sir…” Zack stood at attention, recognising the Director of Security. 

“I’m told you were listed as Missing in Action for five years and now wish to leave the service!?” Heidegger’s billowing question almost blew the buster blade wielding man from the helipad. 

“That’s correct Sir.  I’m resigning.” Zack still stood to attention, clearly honouring the superiors in his distinct field but remembered how much Tseng hated this guy back when he was placed in charge of the Turks. 

“Understood Mr Fair… And you will be returning to… where again!?” Heidegger grinned almost like he was in pain trying to make this conversation. 

“Oh… Gongaga… I have business to attend to in the city in the meanwhile which I’m planning to see to as soon as possible.” Zack responded, pointing his thumb to himself as he remembered his hometown fondly. 

“Hmm… It will be a shame to lose a valuable member of the military to this theatre.  But we cannot keep you… Carry on Mr Fair.” Heidegger let out a hearty chortle and walked away planting a heavy pat on Zack’s shoulder that almost sent him flying from the helipad into the city below. 

As Zack arrived in the President’s office he found a large gathering of people waiting for him.  Dio gripped the boy by the arm and held him close while reporters and news agencies requested photographs for their publications. 

“I dislike the methods you used to get in to my tower… but you did help stop the maniacs.  If you are in need of employment, please do consider the Gold Saucer.  We’d be delighted to have you.” Dio muttered under his breath, carrying the smile for the cameras with a practiced ease while Zack stood there shocked and aghast. 

“Thank you sir… I’ll think about it…” He told him, pulling a similar smile from somewhere in his mind.

He nodded to the large musclebound man and watched as he walked away with the gaggling pack of media representatives. 

“I… I heard it was you!! Holy shit Zack!” A skinny man, dressed in a red commander’s uniform approached him, wrapping his arms around Zack with ease.

Zack thought for a moment, knowing he recognised the voice but unable to place it. 

“No… Kunsel!?” He asked, watching as the commander removed his three laser eyed helmet and tucked it under his arm.  Zack reciprocated the hug and tightly gripped the old friend, lifting him from the ground. 

“They told me a SOLDIER with a buster sword was coming back with the Turks… I had no idea.” Kunsel said, able to catch his breath finally. 

“Er… yeah.  Sent off for the mission with… you know who and wind up coming back five years later.  It’s so strange… for me it’s barely been a few weeks…” Zack smiled and beamed for a long time seeing his old friend again. 

“Yeah… When we heard about Nibelheim… I’m sorry man. Cloud was a good guy…” Kunsel said, remembering his friend, the Shinra infantryman who accompanied Zack and Sephiroth on that mission. 

“Listen… I’ve got to run, we’ll catch up on what’s happened the last few years when I get back yeah?” Zack smiled, hoping to change the subject but happy to see his friend.  He simply had someone else to check in with. 

“Need a ride?” Kunsel stopped him, offering to take him wherever he might need to be. 

“You sure? You’re not here in an official thing?” Zack asked, looking at the commander’s uniform and assuming he was there in some official capacity while the congregation of people met behind him, debriefing on the events that had transpired at the Saucer the week prior. 

Aboard a small private helicopter Kunsel had access to, he and Zack talked, he told him almost everything, detailing more about the run up to when he could remember. 

“That’s fuckin’ crazy man! All we got told was that Sephiroth was killed by insurgents… Then the whole shit happened with Nibelheim to make it look like the town was rebuilt by the residents and… Fuck… Cloud… I had no idea he… Cloud killed Sephiroth… I just…” Kunsel remarked, manoeuvring the helicopter he piloted with ease below the plate of Midgar and headed for a small wooden house in the slums, surrounded by beautiful flowers, the last known residence for one Aerith Gainsborough. 

“He saved my life man.  Now I’ve got to pay it back…” Zack said, remembering the truth. 

“How so?” Kunsel asked, clearly lacking context. 

“I got a gift… A chance to live a normal life. He gave me that and I owe him to live that life…” Zack told him, smiling and remembering the small blonde spikey haired nervous guy who threw up on the troop carrier when the road back home got choppy. 

“Fair enough… So, this girl… she your normal life? That why you’re so quick to get back to her?” He asked Zack, not sure about the logic but going with it.  He knew better than to try convince this guy that his life in SOLDIER wasn’t necessarily over, if he didn’t want it to be. 

“It’s been five years.  I just want to see if she’s okay.” Zack responded, able to see the large house at the edge of the Sector Five slums, a large pond and dotted with multicoloured flowers. 

As Zack hopped out the helicopter he waved off Kunsel who, with his duty of delivering the aspiring romantic, retreated back to wherever he had to with the helicopter. 

Zack knocked twice on the glass windows inlaid on the door excitedly and watched a frame of a woman approached. 

“Zack…?” Her mother answered the door.  The older woman walked to and opened the door with ease, wiping her hands on a tea towel hanging from the pocket of her apron. 

“Elmyra, it’s been a while… Happy to see you’re okay.” He said with glee, reaching out and hugging the mother of the girl he fell in love with five years ago after falling into the Sector Five slums. 

“I’m… I’m fine… they told us you were…” She seemed stunned by the revelation that this man still lived, after being told by Shinra that he was missing in action following an incident.  She likely lived in hope that he wouldn’t return, knowing that Aerith really did love him too and was utterly distraught at the news. 

“Yeah… prisoner to an insane mad scientist.  Don’t suppose…?” Zack just casually dropped where he had been for the long time in between his last visit while peering over the greying head of the woman.

“Oh… Of course, she’s… Are you still a SOLDIER?” She asked him hoping that the answer might reveal just how likely he was to stay and love her daughter, having left abruptly last time following the death of his mentor… She didn’t want him to play on his daughter’s emotions. 

“Technically… No.  I resigned today…” Zack smiled, about to drop to his knees and beg her to tell him where she was. 

He was so close to his answer, making sure she was okay after all this time. 

“Okay.  She’s at a bar called the Seventh Heaven in Sector Seven.  She’s friends with the owner and helps out there.” Elmyra said, a sly smile on her face as she knew just how much he wanted to get back to her. 

“Thank you, thank you thank you thank you…” He said, leaping on the spot and running in the direction, any direction, however he was horribly unsure where Sector Seven was from here. He turned back and without asking saw as Elmyra had remained on the doorstep. 

“Train station.  Next one to Seven should be there soon.” She waved him off and watched as the bounding happy puppylike mannerisms of Zack only became more and more sweet. 

Zack arrived at the large wooden building with a sign above identifying this place as the Seventh Heaven.  A small set of wooden steps led up to the saloon doors, as Zack made his way up, he struggled to stop his hand from shaking. He caught sight of her through the open doorway.  The night had barely begun and a few regulars were already set up at the bar.  He loved how she looked.  The long brunette hair cascading down her back.  The red leather jacket she wore hanging on a coat rack in the back.  She wore a long pink flowing dress and danced around the room with trays of glasses being taken back to the bar or having just been washed up. 

‘Go on… You’ve earned your happy ending.’

Zack heard the words but he was so unsure how he heard them.  He heard Cloud’s push and took it in his stride. 

As the doors creaked open, she faced the rear of the bar.  Another woman worked in the room behind it, doing her best to make a meal for one of the customers.  A litany of meal options lined one of the boards that hung above the bar.  The woman in the back room had long and darker hair than Aerith but she moved around with the grace of a dancer but the defined muscles of an experienced fighter.  He thought something was familiar about her but couldn’t quite place it. 

“Be with you in a sec…” Aerith said, hearing the presence of a new customer as she pulled a glass bottle from the bar, popping the metal cap from the top and turning. 

“Hi… I’m back…” He said, smile on his face wider than should be possible. 

She stood in complete silence, if he didn’t know any better, he’d guess that she couldn’t believe it.  He wasn’t sure he did either.  For some reason fate had managed to bring them together again and given him another chance for happiness. 

“Got the eggs and bacon for Wedge here and the sausage sandwich for Biggs?” The woman walking from the kitchen in the back room wore a small white linen apron.  She walked in carrying two plates with hot food.  She stopped on the spot, looking at the man in the doorway as though she’d seen a ghost.  

Tifa placed the plates on the bar, nowhere near the two customers, who at this point also turned to see who was so intoxicating for them to look at. 

Tifa ran over and jumped to hug the man she thought for sure was dead, Aerith approached too and as Tifa released her grip, Aerith hugged him like she would never let him go again. 

“I knew you’d come back to me…” She sobbed quietly into his chest, the wet patches of her tears invisible in the black cotton vest top he wore. 

He reached his arms around her and clutched her just as tight, planting a quick kiss on her head, seeing the ribbon he bought her still tying her hair up. 

“I came back.” He said, tears welling in his own eyes as Tifa stood her hands clasped over her face trying her hardest not to cry too. 

About half an hour of tender moments later, Tifa returned behind the bar, allowing Aerith to take a moment to sit with her love and find out what had happened to him. 

Tifa poured another drink for one of the two men at the bar and walked over to the conversing couple. 

“…I can’t believe it… She’s an Ancient?” Aerith said, flabbergasted and shocked to her core by the revelation that the woman she’d heard about on the news as being a prisoner and most wanted by Shinra… was an Ancient.  While she’d never actively discussed her heritage with either Zack or Tifa, the notion that she wasn’t alone in being one was… staggering. 

“Yeah… Honestly… you should have seen the way she took out two professional SOLDIERs like they were nothing.  She’s… powerful.” Zack commented, taking another sip of the beer he’d been handed while the two chatted. 

“I know I’m interrupting the reunion… but Zack, I need to ask…” Tifa approached, placing another glass bottle down in front of the man, her eyes telling him all he needed to know about the question she wanted to ask. 

The dilemma he felt in his mind was trying to explain, even to himself how he knew that Sophia, the woman he’d been chasing with the Turks was Cloud… somehow transformed into a being of beauty and terrible power.  Or… what he considered the kinder option, which is what he chose. 

“Cloud… He followed me up to the Reactor.  All I get is glimpses, flashes of the Reactor…” Zack started, hoping that she might even be able to fill in some of the gaps.  Even he was convinced that she must have perished with the town.  “I remember… I saw Sephiroth slice you… You fell from the top of the stairs.  I thought for sure you were dead…” Zack recalled, watching as she charged at the man lauded as the greatest SOLDIER with his own katana as revenge for her town, her father… everyone she knew and loved. 

“I remember… I remember someone. I guess I thought it was you but…” Tifa interjected, recalling being moved from her position halfway down the stairs as her wound in her chest almost killed her. 

“I didn’t… I went straight for Sephiroth… like I say, I thought you were a goner.  Cloud… he followed me up there.  After I… I failed to take him down, Sephiroth, Cloud must’ve…” Zack struggled to recall anything past the point he knew he met what should have been his end against his former hero. 

“He came back for me… to save me, when I was in trouble…” Tifa said, her lip quivering and tears welling in her eyes.  She was recalling a memory, something personal between the two of them, she retreated back in to the kitchen, the two regulars continued to sit where they had been chatting. 

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…” Zack apologised to Aerith who placed a kind hand on his shoulder and ran her finger over the long black spikes of his hair that cascaded around his head. 

“She thought she was the only one.  Her mentor, he rescued her from the reactor while searching for other survivors.  After she found out her dad… Cloud’s mom… She couldn’t face it, decided to leave Nibelheim and set up here.” Aerith clarified, Zack sort of remembered the large fighter in the town a long time ago. 

“So how’d you end up working here too?” He asked her, wondering how she started so far adrift from the garden with her mom.  He noticed a small vase on the bar with a bright yellow flower inside.  The same flowers as she grew in the church where they first met. 

“There was a newspaper I saw from five years ago in a collection my Mom had in the house.  I knew Tifa from the Neighbourhood Watch and… Well I recognised her in the picture, standing next to you… We bonded.  She’s my best friend.” Aerith confided.  While it was strange that the two might not have met had they not had a fondness for keeping their homes safe from the monsters.  They both had the capacity and willingness to fight to keep others safe too.  Their shared commitment seemingly bringing two unlikely souls together. 

“I’m sorry I came back alone.” Zack told her, holding her hand tightly.  “You’d have really liked Cloud.” 

“More than you? Probably.” Aerith joked, finding the humour in having her loved one returned to her. 

After a short while, the two regulars, Biggs and Wedge stumbled from the bar.  Tifa remained after closing time as she lived upstairs and Aerith was welcome to stay whenever she didn’t want to make the journey back to Sector Five. 

“Do you have any idea what you’ll do? Not a lot of ex-SOLDIERs out there.” Tifa asked the man as she cleaned beer glasses that had piled up over the last few hours. 

“I’ve got no clue.  Shinra told me I’ve got five years of back pay coming to me…” Zack recalled a final conversation he had with one of the staffers at the building before he left.  Along with a generous settlement payment for any harm done by the Professor during his time under his… care. 

“Did you want to go home? Gongaga?” Aerith asked, hoping that he’d choose to stay with her, now they were reunited. 

“I don’t know yet… Yes. But maybe not permanently. I just want to see my parents again.” Zack said remembering his home through the Gongaga Jungle, the old reactor that was quickly overtaken by nature even before he’d left. 

“You’re always welcome here.  Could always use another sword arm in the Neighbourhood Watch.” Tifa commented, hoping that her attempt to bring him closer to home would help Aerith’s peace of mind. 

Zack considered, it wasn’t exactly a pressing issue that he had to solve right now.  He had a rather sizeable payment coming his way that would keep him comfortable for a long time.  He just still couldn’t come to terms with being able to live his new life while Cloud was out there… Sophia was out there all alone. 

“You’re also welcome to stay here tonight.  Just no funny business yeah? I like my sleep.” Tifa pointed at the two amorous lovebirds who’d been holding hands the entire night. 

“I’d like that.” Zack responded, Aerith smiled but she hadn’t really stopped smiling the entire time she’d had him back in her arms. 

Late into the night, Zack was passed out in the bed, a large double in the spare room Tifa had available for Aerith.  He snored loudly and she rose quietly.  She moved silently through the building before arriving at the balcony door that looked out onto a small planter that lined the window, a small gathering of roses and other flowers grew from the planters.  She looked up to the stars for a moment, clasping her hands.  Her hair rained loose around her neck as she wore a loose pink nightdress. 

‘Mom…? Is she an Ancient too?’

Aerith asked, praying to her mother in the lifestream for an answer, vindication and relief that she might not be the only one. 

‘In a different way, my sweet.  Fate has chosen another willing to sacrifice all they are to save just because it is the right thing to do.’

Ifalna’s spectral appearance stood besides her daughter, as the two stood together she felt her mother’s presence by her side and smiled. 

‘This doesn’t seem fair… She has to suffer for me to…’

Aerith thought, praying to her mother to hear her again. 

‘She chooses to.  Cloud might not have when he first awoke in his new form but now… Sophia is a symbol, a sign to others who will protect this world and She can change your fate.  You know that’s what he would want.  He’d pay this price. You’re not the only one willing to sacrifice, my darling.’

Ifalna’s spirit remained beside her for a moment to whisper into her daughter’s ears as she stroked the petals of the flowers on the balcony. 

‘I’m just sorry for Tifa.  She loves him, she...’

Aerith responded to the faint whispers of her mother as they rose into the stars, opening her eyes, her hands feeling the tender petals of the flowers in their beds. 

‘Not all tales in our world have happy endings, my love.  You know this more than most.  Go back to sleep with the love of your life.’  

Chapter Text

Chapter 7.

Three Months Later…

“We’re live with the latest and final stages into the trial of one of Shinra’s leading scientists and the man lauded as the father of the modern SOLDIER corp.  The trial has seen various twists and turns following the attack Professor Hojo, allegedly, orchestrated against the Gold Saucer theme park for unknown reasons.  His misuse of Shinra forces against a place of leisure and joy seem to paint the picture of a genius psychopath.  Were it not for the actions of a mysterious woman, fighting alongside Former SOLDIER Zack Fair, the park would certainly have seen its end.  Park Director Dio, had this to say on the matter following the continuing testimony of the Corel Miner’s Guild Leader Barret Wallace…”

The TV turned to play some more lighthearted entertainment, tuning into a different station.  The bar itself was lightly packed, dark red wood lined the floors with a descending staircase that led straight to the beach.  The light grey stone walkways and segway travel lanes shared with rented bicycles made the streets of Costa Del Sol all the more exotic to the reclining Sophia, who against her own judgement and by the advice of the town’s mayor and friend to Dio, was taking a moment to enjoy the sunshine.  

She reclined on a light wooden sunlounger under a multicoloured parasol.  She wore a black and white striped bikini bra and bottom while wrapping her waist in a sheer but still concealing skirt while she moved around.  She wore dark sunglasses and had a tall glass of something fruity and delicious by her side on a wooden standing table.

She watched as a collection of people her own age bounded about the sand, falling and laughing while playing beach volleyball. 

She’d finally been able to learn how to surf, which is something she’d always wanted to do as Cloud.  There was a little… upset in her mentality as she found herself becoming somewhat attracted to the handsome surf coach Treno.  He was sun-kissed, handsome and tall.  He was an older man but not uncomfortably old.  While she knew for a fact her sexuality had shifted due to her new form… it was still taking a while to adjust to the idea that she imagined him naked the following night.  She’d kept her distance since getting the hang of the activity but on the odd occasion the pair crossed paths, they smiled at one another.    

“Miss Sophia?” The tall red headed assistant to the mayor appeared by her side. 

“Told you Johnny, just call me Sophia… Don’t need to be formal…” She responded.  She’d had trouble at first rationalising that this hyperactive young adult was from Midgar, finding his way all the way out here for the joy of working at the sun blessed land that seemed so alien in the world she knew. 

“Sorry Soph, Mayor Leo is asking for you, says they found another one wandering the countryside, he’s been taken to the villa.” Johnny told her, she immediately knew business would come first in her mind.  Wrapping herself in the sheer silken skirt around her waist and picking up her defensive bangles that she had come to enjoy the feel of the security and safety she felt, not that it hurt that they looked rather fashionable. 

She could always tell, walking through the town that had become her home for the last three months, when she was being admired by the local townspeople.  While she wasn’t used to being the centre of attention, she found the anonymity and surprising lack of recognisability enjoyable.  No-one really knew her, except those that needed to. 

As she and Johnny walked up the cobble streets towards the Villa at the top of a slight hill, she could feel Johnny’s eyes on her rear as she walked ahead of him.  She’d grown used to it, however she still couldn’t quite understand why she got all the attention when there were hundreds of other beautiful women out on the beach with her. 

They reached the villa, knocking at the heavy wooden doors below the arching stone walkways leading in to the back of the house.  The door was answered by a casually dressed medic, a doctor who had arrived from the rebuilt Nibelheim at the behest of Leo, the town’s mayor and former Shinra General. 

He welcomed the pair in, leading them towards the outside patio courtyard only accessible through the house.  It was central to the design, with it’s own pool and granite and slate flooring lining the walkways. 

“You didn’t have to come so quickly… You know these cases aren’t urgent Sophie…” He told her, ushering the bikini clad woman through the large glass and wooden doors.  She’d adopted a few variations of the name, while she didn’t enjoy the idea of being known as the creation of Hojo by that given name… she enjoyed the meaning behind it.  Relating it more to the ‘wisdom’ of the Cetra. 

“You know me Pilo, if I’m needed, I’m here.” She responded, looking tentatively at the tall male figure seated on a small patio chair in the courtyard.  This wasn’t the first of these men to arrive at the Villa that she had taken care of and based on the numbering, there were many more out there.  A wing of the house had been converted into a makeshift hospital, with many medical beds lying with expensive medical equipment attached to each one.  Each bed was occupied by a gasping and groaning man, wheezing… dying. 

“General.” She addressed the tall slender but muscular man standing at ease in the courtyard over the stranger, his thinning white haired beard spoke of his age but his defiance in the face of an aging body was worn in a shortening mohawk hairstyle he’d adopted during a war some time ago. 

“One of the chocobo trainers found him while exercising the birds.  He’s exactly the same… catatonic and non-responsive.” Leo turned on the spot and addressed Sophia with respect and dignity. 

She looked at the man, his feet coarse and bloody.  He’d walked for miles and miles on bare feet with no care for his own well-being. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything for days, or even weeks. 

“This is no way to live… Why do this? What compelled someone to do this to these men?” Leo railed against the sheer disgusting display of disregard for human decency.  But they both knew who was to blame as Sophia caressed the still heated tattoo in her belly, peaking out from above the top of the bikini bottoms she wore. 

“Hojo doesn’t care about anything but his own ends.  I was in a tank for five years before he found a use for me, I don’t even want to think how many other people he’s used simply because he had a hypothesis to test…” Sophia responded, realising she was stroking the heated area above her crotch with her thumb and pulling her hand away. 

“Sick psychopath… Hope they hang him everything he’s done…” Leo continued his aggressive rant while Sophia knelt beside the seated, groaning man in the patio chair. 

“There a bed available? I’d prefer to do this while he’s laid down.  Depending on the saturation and quantity of Jenova cells, this could…” She told the medic Pilo and Johnny who carefully pulled the black cloaked individual from the seat and walked him slowly to one of the medical bays. 

“I know I shouldn’t ask… But you’re not… infected by this stuff too are you? You said you were experimented on as well?” Leo asked, while he had an inkling from Dio about her situation, he had erred on the side of caution and not delved too deeply into this woman’s history. 

“No… he tried but the results were… violent.  Of course his method of introducing them to my body was… more physical.” She relayed, recalling the assault. 

“Understood, I’ll speak no more of it.  I simply wanted to ask if you might…” He continued, looking apologetically with a sad expression into her face as she watched the man taken away mumble and groan. 

“I have no Jenova cells in me.  Whatever Hojo did to me made me immune… hence my ability to help these people.” She continued the conversation while walking slowly after them. 

The medical beds were occupied by mostly sleeping individuals, all were pale and sickly.  Each of them had the black cloak around them removed, showing the extent of their exhaustion, fragility and wear.  Each bore a tattoo on their body in some place.  While hers was unique to her situation, she recognised some of the design inlaid in the symbols that accompanied the numbers.  While the more frequent numbering of the men they’d encountered remained in the double digits, there was one in the last week with a three digit, implying the existence of almost a hundred of these men. 

As they laid this new arrival in the bed, he mumbled and muttered the same few words as the others. 

“Jenova… Reunion… Sephiroth… Mother…”

While in the past the wing of the villa had been filled by these moans as the medics, nurses and professionals tended to their care.  It wasn’t until Sophia discovered they were all carrying a small amount of Jenova’s sickness inside them that she decided that she wanted to be of better use. 

“Easy… Breath easy.” She said, placing a hand on the weary chest of the new arrival, the tenderness she did so with always warranted a quiet moment from any of others who watched. 

Sophia closed her eyes and in a few smooth movements began to pull her fingers and her hand from the chest of the man. As she did, a few whisps of black miasma linked her fingers to the body of the man, appearing ethereally as she began to pull and then rest her hand on the man’s chest again, pulling more and more viscous miasma from the chest. 

His body recoiled, flinched and began to convulse slightly, his body turning to a violet shade as his dependency on the cells became clear.  His life depended on these cells to continue, but they were also keeping him sick.  They drove his entire body with one goal in mind.  Hojo’s Reunion Project. 

Since hearing the lamenting and deranged cries of Kadaj and Yazoo, she’d become engrossed in the study of what Jenova cells did in the body, hence the connection to the medics and professionals General Leo had called for from Nibelheim, where the ruins of the mansion had remained ruins since the incident.  Even so, more and more of these men found themselves congregating in the town, around the old water tower in the centre and shifting lazily towards the mansion. 

Sophia continued to pull her hand from the chest of the man, the convulsions settling as a small ball of black miasma formed under her palm.  As the cells disconnected from the man’s body, his entire form seemed to relax, the medics and Johnny watched as the medical equipment showed his vital stats returning to normal.

Sophia opened her eyes and observed the swirling, violent ball of energy she’d pulled from the body of this man, using the talents she’d learnt and honed over these months to try to ease the suffering of those affected by Hojo.  She placed her other hand over the floating orb of foul putrescence and with one light glowing flash, the cells burned into nothing but smoke. 

“I’ll never not be amazed when you do that…” Johnny said, an amazed smile stretching his lips upwards on his face. 

“What number was he?” She responded, faintly amazed herself at the healing potential of her magic.  She observed as Johnny revealed the shoulder of them man’s body.

“Says number Eleven. But for you, this is your twenty-first…” Johnny counted in his mind, recalling the first time he saw this beauty walk around the wing contemplating to herself how she could help.  She always told them she didn’t need a reason to, she just wanted to, because it was in her power to do so. 

“More are out there, wandering, trying to find the bigger pieces of her. I thought she was kept in the Tower at Shinra… how are they wandering so far out here?” She asked the General who watched as the once violently writhing man in the medical bed laid peacefully to sleep.  His skin was pale and gaunt and his breathing still ragged after everything he’d suffered. All the General hoped he could do for these men was to provide them a place to die in peace. 

“Who knows.  Maybe if it’s not physically possible for them to return to Jenova…” Leo interjected, hoping to gain a better answer from one of the others around. 

“No sir… We’ve seen some of the lower numbers, the older experiments… they just try to swim.  I can’t even imagine how many would have tried… and failed.” Johnny answered his bosses’ concern with a disheartening observation, an inestimable number of these men would have tried so desperately to make it back to Jenova. 

“Help who we can, mourn those we cannot.” Sophia chimed in, forlornly looking around the room.  She seemed so out of place surrounded by these men in their open summery linen shirts, their bright coloured shorts and jackets.  But they all listened to her, hearkened to her.  Had some belief in her. 

“Oh, we also had a message from Cosmo Canyon for you…” Johnny darted off as the group disassembled naturally returning to their other duties.  Johnny remained with Sophia, handing her a small envelope addressed to her. 

“Great… Thank you Johnny… I think I’ll head down to the bar, get some lunch…” She took the envelope with care and waved off Johnny as she turned and walked back towards the main entry way into the house.  She looked back to see the new arrival wheezing, supported by an oxygen mask. 

“Mother…” Was all he could utter now. 

Sophia returned to the bar she was laid out in front of an hour prior, still upset thinking about how many others of these black cloaked men might still be out there, victims of Hojo’s sick game. 

She ordered another tall fruity drink in a cylinder glass, a small mulitcoloured parasol planted with a piece of fruit jabbed on to the end.  As she sipped it, holding the letter carefully, she looked around and saw she had caught the attention of a group of older men at the far end of the bar, their glances revealing where exactly they were looking at her body. 

She opened the envelope carefully, the immediate dripping of darker red sand from the canyon calling onto the glass and metal rimmed table. 

“Dear Sophia,
                                I am pleased and delighted by your interest in planetology, my colleagues and myself would be delighted to host you at Cosmo Canyon to discuss your proposal.    

We share your continued concerns about the state of the lifestream and the planet and the consumption of it by the Shinra Electric Power Company. 

At your request, we have sent similar invitations to others we believe would provide valuable insight and information regarding your enquiries and have received promising responses. 

We would like to extend this invitation to you, to join us at Cosmo Canyon for a joint summit where we will discuss actions we believe would benefit the world at large. 

Dictated not written.

Yours faithfully, Dr. Geisel Bugenhagen.

Sophia read the letter a few times, noticing the messiness of the handwriting at a few moments, along with what appeared to be paw prints in the corner as a result of some spilled ink. 

She took a few more sips of the drink she’d ordered and felt the swimming effect of the alcohol bring a smile to her face as she reread the letter one more time. 

‘This is the happiest I’ve seen you… forever.’

Ifalna’s voice resided inside her mind, the kind motherly energy resting in a spectral form leaning against the table. 

‘I asked this Dr of Planetology at Cosmo Canyon to discuss the lifestream and all the shit happening out here… This guy Bugenhagen was a Shinra Professor who disagreed with the extraction of Mako and basically made it his goal to stop its misuse.  If there’s any place to build a movement, some way to peacefully stop Shinra from using Mako energy… It’s there.’

Sophia responded, a smile on her face as she thought through her response to the spectral woman who had essentially guided her down this path. 

‘You mean to go through with it then…’

Ifalna had watched as Sophia had formulated a plan, a means to use her new talents and skills for the benefit of everyone, not just those affected by Hojo’s mad science. 

‘I have to do something.  I can’t just watch and wait while that monsters plan becomes fulfilled…’

Sophia responded, draining the drink then indicating to the bartender for a repeat of the same one.

‘You are doing enough.  Each one of those men up there are going to die peacefully because they’re not driven to rejoin with Jenova.  Each one of those cells you destroy… Is one less stain on the lifestream.’

Ifalna continued but it was confusing.  While Sophia had been relatively relaxing for the most part at Costa Del Sol, enjoying her time here… Ifalna had become more distant, as though she didn’t feel like she needed to advise as much anymore. 

“Buy you a drink, pretty lady?” One of the three older men approached her table, the spectre of Ifalna vanishing in one blink of the eye, replaced by the large broad frame and sun-tanned skin of a middle aged man on holiday.  The other two remaining at the bar watched with bated breath as they believed their friend was working his magic. 

“Sorry, not my type.” She responded as the second tall fruity cocktail arrived at her table. 

“You’re mine though… the name’s Butch… you’ll love how it feels when you scream it later baby…” He continued, trying his hardest to pull a stool back from the other side of the table but held in place by her leg wrapped into the leg. 

“You’re not my type.  Please don’t…” She continued, sipping the drink and pulling the attention of a group of people at one of the larger tables next to hers. 

“Alright… No need for a scene…” he muttered, leaving the stool where it sat and reaching over, twisting the paper of the letter in front of her so he could read it.  She wrestled the letter back on the table. 

“You’re one of those Avalanche nutjobs… Planetology freaks…” The man said, spitting at her feet, the phlegmy liquid landing just short of her toes in the sandals. 

“Alright guy… time to move on…” The bartender reapproached the table, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder who immediately turned and pulled it from him.  He turned back to Sophia, red faced and full of anger. 

“She’s one of those psycho bitches that wants to take everyone back to the stone age! I work at Shinra, I’ve seen what Avalanche is doing to the reactors, the picket lines and protests… It won’t be long before one of you blows yourself up to…” He ranted, raved and called out as loudly as he could.  Causing a commotion that he had initially wanted to avoid.  Sophia stood on the spot, picking up the glass with her drink and the letter, proceeding to wipe the red sand and dust from the table she’d once sat calmly at. 

She approached the ranting man while his back was turned to her, as he continued to address the room, most of whom didn’t want to have to listen to this.  Sophia looked at the man as she passed him, her eyes glowing the same purple luminescence.  She simply spoke one word and carried on down the red hardwood stairs to the same sun lounger she had laid in before.

“Silence…”

As if in the same instant, the man’s voice fell silent, he moved his lips, his tongue as though he was but no sound, no cry or scream would rise from his throat.  A useful white magic she’d used to prevent spell casting enemies in the past… now used simply to shut up some ranting idiot. 

The bartender, a tall slender man, about her age brought her another drink while she was still sipping the dripping liquid from the small wooden umbrella impaled fruit.  He wore a bright yellow polo shirt and black shorts. He had the sun kissed skin of a man who had lived and worked here for years with the small badge attached to his shirt to symbolise it, engraved with the words “Manager.”

“Strand… Sent me a letter.  He’s feeling much better.” He said, standing over her as she crossed her legs, reclining and watching the beach calmly. 

“Just happy to help Bilal.  You know me.” She responded, looking up and catching his eyes as he pulled his front rimmed hat down to protect his eyes from the sun. 

“Come on… you know it’s more than that Sophie… If we told you everyone out here had some kind of mako sickness you’d be going round each one, pulling a materia’s worth from them all and giving them a better life.  You’re practically a saint…” He commented, leaning down in the sand by her side and talking to her directly without the sun’s interference. 

“It’s not enough… There’s so many out there that need help and I… I can’t…” She sat up, stammering over her words as she felt a burn in the tattoo singe her flesh again, worried for the safety of this man beside her, she had no reason to be.  She hadn’t taken any of the Jenova cells inside her but… she still almost panicked. 

“You can’t help them all.  It’s impossible and no-one should ask that of you…” Bilal continued, crossing his legs in the sand and beginning to play with it through his fingers as he watched the people move past like she did. 

“No-one had to ask…” Sophia uttered, remembering her mantra and trying to resist saying it for him again.  He’d heard it before after she excised the mako poisoning from his brother, it was almost two months ago and she only met him by chance, he was wheelchair bound and slowly losing control of more of his body as time passed.

He stood, leaving her be for now and placing the newly filled drink on the wooden table at her side before patting her shoulder in the lounger and heading back up to work. 

After another hour of lounging in the sun, she retired to the small villa she was given by Dio. It had heavy security, provided by Leo but she encouraged him to be a little more relaxed with her, she knew at this point that she could defend herself but she wasn’t sure to what extent. 

She turned on the TV and prepared a meal for herself, something simple as per usual and watched the news covering the day’s events of Hojo’s trial before switching to something lighthearted and wholesome.  As time had gone on, she found herself liking more and more romantic shows and productions.  While Cloud’s influence still remained and she enjoyed the epic adventures and action stories… she couldn’t seem to tear herself away from a soap opera about lovers Cecil and Rosa. 

“Today saw the shocking events, perhaps the most shocking since the trial commenced a hundred days ago.  Footage has come to light, provided by an anonymous source, of the person Hojo claims he was trying to apprehend by sending the SOLDIERs in to the Gold Saucer.  While he continues to denounce their methods, he claims they were warranted as this experimental subject demonstrated.  We must warn you, the following footage shows scenes of violence…”

The news organisation that covered the event was independent, following the clear bias shown by Shinra’s own news network, it was decided that only independent media should cover the events. 

The footage they showed was exactly what she feared, well… almost.  While the footage was shown from the back, the main body shown was shown from the rear.  The footage unfortunately clearly showed the aftermath of Kadaj’s Jenova infected miasma penetrating her being, and the resultant monster erupting from her back, the serpent lunging at Yazoo as he knelt down by his brother.  The screams, and the words she uttered as she did it. 

“Let me be your liberator…”

Those words penetrated the darkness, a multilayered statement of intent against any who attacked her while she used the darkness of Jenova against others.  The footage stopped there.

“These shocking scenes were produced in the case for Hojo’s defence, stating his actions were only necessary due to lack of foresight and security around a subject that he claims… could be the end of us all.”

As she watched the footage, she was reminded of the events at the mansion, the darkness she absorbed after Loz forced himself on her.  The decapitations of the guards, the brutal violence she used against Hojo to stop him from preventing her escape. 

‘He says his actions were necessary, we know yours were too… If you go through with this plan and go to Cosmo Canyon… There’s not a word that monster could say to protect himself.’

Ifalna’s voice ran through her mind, no spectral image this time and in a moment she felt her presence leave the space.  Fleeting. 

A few moments later, a quick set of knocks at the wooden door sounded and she rose to answer it.  A digital camera showed the presence of the bartender Bilal.  She opened the door and he stood there, tension and worry in his expression. 

“Is it you?” All he asked for the brief moment, his face contorting into strange worry and concern. 

“Bilal…” She responded but he retreated for the moment, scared as she raised a hand for herself, as a simple gesture. 

“I saw the bracelets… the ones you always wear… I saw them on the news…” He returned to the step before the door, no longer as terrified by her as she placed the hand on her chest, just above her heart. 

“Yes.  I’m the one they were looking for… But it was only because Hojo experimented on me… I ran…” She continued, trying to reassure him that she wasn’t the monster the footage showed. 

“But you… you cured my brother… How? You do all you do without materia…” He pulled his arms around himself as the cold of the desert air hit him with a breeze.

“Come in… please… I’ll explain.” He considered running on the spot but remembered everything else he knew about this woman he was so concerned was going to tear him to ribbons of flesh and blood and did as she asked. 

She ran him a tall glass of water to drink and he guzzled it down, he was catching his breath as it became clear he’d run straight here from the bar. 

“What are you? Some kind of science experiment?” He asked her, assured that she wasn’t a SOLDIER from her eyes.  She sat in front of him with a loose buttoned down shirt that showed she was still wearing the bikini top under and wore the skirt from earlier as a loose wrapped shawl around her legs and waist. 

“Yes.  Hojo experimented on me… I’m… I’m an Ancient.” She told him, the half truth of her own condition being easier to explain than her status as former Shinra Infantryman Cloud Strife. 

“An Ancient… the stewards of the planet that Shinra say are who will lead us to the Promised Land?”  The man asked quickly, remembering anything he’d learnt from school about who the Ancient’s were and who they were to Shinra. 

She nodded. 

“In a way… Hojo is trying to… capture me, because he has a goal of… of breeding a new kind of SOLDIER.  One half Ancient… another half, something else.  I escaped because he forced a SOLDIER to…” She continued her tale and he recoiled in horror at the notion that she was forced in any way by Hojo. 

“That’s sick… And then going so far as to attack a theme park to get you back!” He almost shouted as the outrage hit his mind.  “So… You’re not just… a weird goo snake that’ll eat me…”. 

“Gods no… that kind of reaction only happens if I absorb a kind of evil energy from someone.  The SOLDIERs sent after me were highly concentrated with this energy and when I accidentally absorbed from one of them… You saw…” She told him the truth in that matter, the truth of Jenova cells wasn’t something that was widely known to the general public and it was always amazing how people seemed to disregard it as a conspiracy that there was more at work to the creation of SOLDIERs than simply blasting well trained men with Mako energy. 

“So it’s… like an allergic reaction to whatever makes these guys strong and powerful?” Bilal continued asking his questions, clearly put more at ease by the idea that this wasn’t a permanent affliction for her. 

“Pretty much… And that’s what I’m doing for those guys up at the Mayor’s villa.  They’re all infected with this shit that’s killing them and driving them to walk until their… I can help… so I do. The shit at the Saucer… I can’t control it, but I avoid it.  I don’t go out looking for that to happen.  I’m not a monster…” She tried to continue reasoning with the man she had grown fond of while here.  Maybe it was just the fact he provided her with booze and intervened when the jackass at the bar but she didn’t want this guy to think she was a monster. 

“That’s why you’re going to Cosmo Canyon? Those planetology guys… they’re right!?” Bilal looked almost outraged again by the idea that all that mako energy, everything the Mayor had done to try making the town less reliant on it was all because of this. 

“We’re making a forum… a summit, to try convince Shinra to stop burning the spirit of the planet.  I’m going to out everything, all the dirty secrets… Hojo is a monster and what’s going on in that trial is not even a tenth of the shit that creep has done… It’ll be on them to decide, but it’s the people I’m appealing to. If it comes to it…” She detailed the plan, hoping that by appealing to the people, to Shinra to stop the extraction and use of Mako, the planet’s energy and lifeforce and the source of life and rebirth of this planet… It had to come to an end. 

Sophia moved to seat herself in front of Bilal, clasping his hands in hers while pleading with him in hope that he understands her. 

“Shinra won’t agree to that… You’ll be starting a war.” Bilal said, raising his eyes to meet hers.  The luminescent purple glow almost hypnotising him. 

“May I…?” She inquired, hoping he’d accept.  As he nodded, she let herself hear the voices of the planet and through their connection, try to let him in to it. 

“GODS PLEASE, HAVE MERCY!”

“STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF…”

“IT HURTS, WHY DOES IT HURT SO!”

“STOP IT… STOP IT… STOP IT…”

As Bilal pulled himself away the voices stopped but it took a few more moments for Sophia to become cogent once again. 

“What the fuck was that…?” He almost shouted watching as tears welled in her eyes and fell slowly down her smooth cheeks.

“That was the voices of the planet… They’re in pain… every single day, every minute and hour.  While Mako is being pulled and extracted and refined… The spirit of the planet is depleting.  It won’t be long before…” She said, catching a knot in her throat as she wiped the tears from her eyes. 

“You… You hear that… all the time?” He grew concerned.

“There’s no-one else listening… I won’t let them suffer in silence… Not anymore.” Sophia said proudly, catching sight of Ifalna’s spectre in the shade through one of the windows out into the town. 

“How do you do this? How do you do all of this alone?” His concerns grew, seeing the would be saviour of the entire planet forced to defend herself because he barged in, ready to accuse her of being some kind of monster. 

“Because it’s the right thing to do.  Doesn’t matter if I’m alone or not… I’ll still do it, it’s who I am now.” Sophia smiled, standing and releasing the hands of the man and turning slightly to go seat herself back on the three seater couch she’d just left.

She felt a sudden tug at her hand, looking down and finding his hands clasping her wrist, his head bowing and resting on her hand.  As he looked up and stood he placed his hands around her perfect cheeks and planted a kiss softly against her lips. 

She pulled back for a moment but she felt it, a spark, a momentarily burn of pleasure that called for more and reciprocated, placing her plump lips against his and opening her mouth to let their tongues entwine.  She felt her hands wrap around his neck and leapt with her legs, wrapping them around his waist as he slowly span on the spot, pulling himself back and landing on the large couch with this beautiful woman, legs splayed mounting him. 

He kissed down her neck and she boiled with pleasure at the touch, his hands wrapping around her waist and cupping her rotund rear, massaging it and caressing the flesh.  She reached her hands down, unbuttoning the last clasp and pulling the open shirt from her body.  His face planted between the cups of her bikini, tenderly kissing the flesh, leaving his lips there to feel her heart beating strongly, quickly.  Her moans of pleasure drove him to continue, she felt his pleasure rise as a hardening meaty shaft rose in his black linen shorts.  She rose on the spot on her knees, loosening the wrapped skirt from her body and pulling his shorts down to reveal the piece of him she felt. 

“You don’t… You don’t have to… if you… don’t want to…” He told her, recalling how she was assaulted by Hojo’s forces as part of his experiments and not wanting to pressure her into something she didn’t want to do. 

“I want to…” She said, her lips resting on his again as she began to feel the flushed and hot manhood with her fingers, rubbing it up and down and feeling more and more blood rush to it. 

His hands rested on her clinched waist, the tenderness of his fingers finding the heated tattoo on her belly and caressing it.  What made her… a Her.

She pulled the fleshy stack up wards with her hands, untying the clinging bikini bottom’s ribbons at the sides and exposing the red fleshy lips, already moistening at the kisses of this man’s lips, his hands and feeling his touch. 

With a nervous smile, she fed the tip of the manhood closer until finally, it connected.  The elation and ecstasy she felt as he rose inside of her was unlike anything she’d ever experienced as Cloud, or as the subject of Hojo’s experiment.  There was no violation, no forced entry, no sterile conditions and watching guards.  There was only her and him, interlocked in a precious and tender moment. 

She felt her head fall back to look to the sky as Bilal began thrusting himself upwards inside of her, the random movements finding spots of pure pleasure inside her body that sent shivers and moments of pure joy shocking around her entire being. 

This display of amorous activity carried on for a few minutes, the sweat dripping from her being onto him as she rotated her hips the deeper he found himself inside of her.  The rotations created new exciting sensations that drove her to new levels of pleasure. 

His fingers rested on her exposed rear cheeks, finding purchase in the crevice and pulling the mounted woman down onto his manhood as he thrust, a practiced hand but not an unwelcome one. 

As she felt the twitching flesh of Bilal inside her began to engorge more with heat, she felt the electricity surge around her whole body as she felt the sudden, repeated burst of thick viscous liquid shoot from Bilal’s manhood inside of her.  She rested for a moment, enjoying the ecstasy and electric sensations shooting around every cell of her body before planting her lips on his and kissing him tenderly.  The two remained in this position, breathing deeply and exasperatedly. 

“That was… not like anything I’ve ever felt…” Sophia said, her lips resting as her hands clutched the man’s face. 

“Me neither… That was… other worldly…” He replied, feeling his retreating cock curl fall slightly from the thin lips of this woman’s vagina, the dripping result falling to flesh of his lap. 

The two decided then and there to call a night for their activities, she pulled the man to her bed and they rest there cuddling.  He laid behind her, his manhood continually poking her in the rear which was met with a few laughs in a half-conscious state.  She felt his hands reaching around her chest, caressing the soft heavy flesh of her breasts and the tenderness of her nipples. 

In the darkness of the bedroom, Sophia woke up and saw the moon still hanging in the sky, the rays of silver falling through the loose slats of the windows left cracked because of the heat and smell of sweat seeping into the sheets. 

Something felt off, her weight was imbalanced.  The darkness of the room was engulfing and scary.  As she approached the bathroom and hit the switch to turn on the light, she was met by the sight of a ghost, terror filling her being.  She watched in the mirror as the person looking back at her was her old blonde haired spikey self, Cloud Strife.  He looked pale, sweaty and clammy, like he was about to be violently sick.  In one, Sophia matched the emotions but looked down, seeing the absence of her breasts and feeling between her crotch found the same old dick she had before the transformation. 

“What the fuck is happening…?” She heard Cloud’s voice ask as she thought the words into existence. 

A knock hit the door, she assumed it was going to be Bilal, confused about the voice of some other man in the house.  She opened the door, convinced that she might be able to explain this to him… But as she did, she was met by the tall, overbearing and menacing visage.  The long silver white hair billowing straight down his back, the bare chest and leading down to an exposed, long and semi erect cock met her eyes. 

“You know you want it… Cloud.” Sephiroth’s sly and disgustingly smooth tones slithered into her ears. 

“This can’t be real… This can’t be…” She repeated, hearing the voice of Cloud again and again as she repeated it. 

She felt her body pulled by the tight ass cheeks into Sephiroth, feeling his throbbing cock against her flesh again made her recoil and turn away, closing her eyes. 

“There’s no fighting it… You belong to me.” His voice continued as she felt the legs of her old self raised while Sephiroth forced her on top of a cabinet top in the bathroom.  The tip of his manhood circling the tight hole of her rear.  She opened her eyes and saw the cats eyes he carried in fields of glowing green.  She cast her eyes down, seeing the bulging belly below, pregnancy, immediate and terrifying, but nowhere for it to go…

She screamed and in a shocking moment of terror woke and sat up straight, her breasts pulling from the covers of the bed. Bilal besides her waking as well as she did. 

She curled up into a ball, seated on the bed.  He didn’t know what to do, she just quietly sobbed, mumbling and muttering. 

“It wasn’t real… He’s not here… It’s not real… He’s not real…” Sophia continued to mumble under her breath while tears streamed down her face, the latent trauma and phantom piercing manhood still violating her, the feeling of the nightmare lasting. 

“It’s just us…” Bilal affirmed for her, his kind sunkissed expression greeting her as she raised her face to meet his eyes.

“Can you… open the door to the bathroom…?” She asked him, looking at the wooden bathroom door, the thin slats cutting cooling breezes into the room. 

“Of course…” He told her, rising from the bed, naked. She watched him walk, the tightness of his ass cheeks reaffirming to her that she was indeed awake.  She felt the pleasure again for a moment, her sanity returning. 

As he reached the doorway, he turned the small handle and opened it.

“Careful!” Sophia cried out, a paranoid notion that hiding behind the door would be the menacing cat eyed murderer… Despite the affirmations and knowing he was dead… Her mind still told her…

“There’s no-one there.  It’s only us…” He responded, walking back to the bed and kneeling besides the curled up woman as she dried the last of her tears on the sheets. 

Bilal sat upright, his back against the headboard, padded and comfortable fabrics greeting his lean muscular back.  In his lap, Sophia’s head snoozed, feeling safe and secure with him.  He fell asleep shortly after, stroking her long beautiful hair and doing his best to keep her safe, to make her feel safe. 

Sophia woke up, feeling emotionally distraught the night before but for the moment feeling refreshed and reinvigorated.  Her body hadn’t quite acclimated to feeling the joy of sex again, this was the first time she’d had sex, aside from at the Shinra Mansion. 

She felt her head resting on the heated flesh of her lover, the bartender whose concern for her wellbeing brought him to her home in the dead of night.  She lifted the covers to make sure and found her external physique very definitely female as she admired her own breasts for a moment.  She felt the man beneath her stir, his throbbing manhood pulsing with blood as the morning rush she remembered the feeling of morning wood. 

Very carefully, she pulled the covers from his lap, revealing the manhood that gave her one of the most ethereal and pleasurable experiences of her life. Before leaving for Nibelheim with Zack and Sephiroth, what she was about to do would have seemed unthinkable.  As Cloud, she’d never had a single attraction to a cock, seeing them frequently during basic training and in the showers after missions.  She’d had plenty of opportunity to try one too.  But slipping her head onto the tip, licking around the foreskin and feeling the taste of sweat and ejaculates fill her nostrils… How could she possibly resist. 

“Good morning to you too…” She heard behind her head, a soft hand caressing the flesh of her back and another rubbing his own eyes to remove the sleep. 

She just continued, running her lips up and down around the shaft and enjoying the tastes, the textures, feeling the twists and turns of the veins running down it and finding the full length running into her throat, feeling a small tickle from the tip at the back of her mouth. 

“Holy… fuck…” She heard, Bilal clearly enjoying this as much as she did, the cock grew harder and wider as it became more engorged with pulsing heat. 

She didn’t increase the pace, she just took her time, running her lips and tongue against the different tastes and textures of the flesh before she felt the balls under it twitch slightly and he jerked upwards once.  A quick burst, followed by two more.  She felt the liquid hit the back of her throat, running down quickly.  As she pulled her lips away, she licked the manhood clean, revelling in the taste running over her tongue. 

The pair remained in bed for a little while longer, simply enjoying the peace and quiet of the early morning after. An hour after waking up, Bilal decided to get up and get dressed, another half hour after that, he was actually able to leave the bed.

Sophia stayed, curling in the sheets and closing her eyes again.  The horror of the nightmare that cursed the best night of her female life so far haunting her. 

“So I had an idea…” Bilal interjected, sitting on the end of the bed as he pulled his heavy boots on, tying the laces in quick succession and leaning back to talk to her. 

“Do tell…” she said, finding the energy to speak but feeling her neck muscles tense from the repeated movements. 

“I have a friend who runs deliveries for me, flies a plane to and from here and there… I can ask him to get you to Cosmo Canyon? It won’t be for another week or so, he runs shit out of Rocket Town but he’s a friend of the Mayor’s from his army days…” Balal mentioned this once or twice in the weeks after her arrival, she’d met him, incidentally.  A pilot by the name of Cid.  He was the one who flew his brother over from Midgar as a passenger. 

“Cid… You know he couldn’t keep his eyes off my tits the entire time we talked in your bar right?” She responded, knowing that he might just have been impressed by her physique. 

“He’s married okay… Besides who could blame him.  I don’t think I’ve seen you not wear a bikini while you’ve been here…” Bilal joked and she rose to slap his arm playfully. 

“I’m happy making this a one night stand if you want to keep digging a hole…” She smiled, poking her tongue out at him. 

“Seriously… You know he’d take you there if you wanted him to.” Bilal leant back laying his head on the bed and finding her fingers playing with the black locks of his hair, one shoe half on, the other laid at the foot of the bed. 

“I just want to make sure nothing turns up after the news last night… If you recognised the bangles, maybe one of the tourists or any of the Shinra holiday guys might phone it in…” She recalled her interaction with man the night before in the bar.  There were always more Shinra middle managers here than any other holiday destination in this world.  Mostly because there wasn’t really much to see in this world.  Of the available destinations, it was only really cabin trips to somewhere like Kalm or Mideel or the high energy of the Gold Saucer.  Costa Del Sol is the place with the best travel links to the rest of the world and it’s nonstop sunshine.

“I think the fact that I was the only one battering down your door last night means you’re okay.” Bilal said entirely deadpan to her as he looked at her expression sink into a childish laugh. 

“Fair point, but all the same.  There’s the few patients at the villa I want to check on.  They don’t deserve to suffer alone…” She proclaimed for the sake of her own mentality.  “But, yeah… a week should be enough time.  When he’s here, I’ll ask…”

“Such a saint…” Bilal said mirthfully as he rose back to a seated position.  “I’ve never seen a saint cum before… pretty fantastic experience…” He said, jolting himself from the bed.  She playfully through a pillow at the man, it colliding with his leg and almost tripping him upright. 

“You’re on thin ice Barkeep! Next time I’ll bite it off!” She shouted, pulling the sheets to her chest and wrapping them around herself as she stood in the doorway, watching him leave for work in the same clothes he arrived in the night before. 

Sophia spun on the spot for the moment, becoming entangled in the bedsheets and falling back into bed.  She wasn’t expected anywhere for a good few hours so wanted to get a few more hours sleep… She still needed to process the nightmare… Feeling herself and Sephiroth in that close embrace, her returned to Cloud’s body and pregnant!?  It might take a short while to remove the image from her brain.  The feelings of Bilal inside of her though… she wanted to remember those, for a long long time. 

Aerith and Tifa watched the news play out.  The footage of the mystery woman, the Ancient whom Zack was tasked with following as his final mission as a SOLDIER, erupted into a large black serpent creature.  Aerith could feel the malice and evil in the creature, the incarnation of power being subverted and corrupted.  Was she capable of acts like this?

“Oh my god… There’s Zack…!” Tifa said, gripping her face in horror as she saw in the corner of the grainy footage, taken entirely behind Sophia’s back caught the image of Zack, planting his sword in the ground and weathering the storm as it began to swirl around his target. 

“Looks like he held his own though!” Wedge, the more rotund of the regulars chimed in, having become fast friends with the easily likeable Zack, at least once he had agreed to lend his sword to the Neighbourhood Watch and kept most of the monsters in Sectors Four through Seven clear. 

“No kidding, the guy’s tough as nails.  It’d take a lot more than one deranged witch to take him down… you’d need a whole army!” Biggs, the skinnier of the two regulars was also a teacher at the orphanage just down the road from Aerith’s house in Sector Five.  His drive to keep those kids safe led to him joining the watch and meeting his current friends. 

“I’ll be back in a bit…” Aerith told Tifa, heading out the front door for a breath of fresh air.  Zack was out hunting monsters again inside city limits.  He’d become one of the most reliable slayers of problem creatures in the city, the ex-SOLDIER with a heart of gold.  Regardless, Aerith continued to worry for him, even knowing how powerful he really was, even without the Jenova cells.

‘She turned into a monster…’

Aerith thought, her hands clenched as in a flash, the spectre of her mother appeared beside her, seated at one of the outdoors tables.  She remained standing, pacing and breathing angrily. 

‘She’s not a monster… her body reacts against the Jenova Cells, it’s a defence mechanism that’s seemingly evolved from our people’s conflict with the Calamity.’

Ifalna stated with certainty, her own expertise entirely hinging on the fact that she is the closest thing to an expert of the Cetra that Aerith could communicate with now. 

‘She can’t control it.  You told me she wanted to cure those two not impale them on a giant snake fang!’

People passing by saw Aerith flustered and pacing aggressively but thought nothing of it.  She was a quirky woman but she didn’t care what others thought of her eccentricities. 

‘No.  She can’t. But she needs this power to be able to burn out the sickness in the lifestream.  She’s doing something that none of our people could ever have done… In every version of this tale that you’ve seen, has Cloud ever come this close to destroying Sephiroth so utterly without your sacrifice… or Zacks? Or Tifas?’

Ifalna argued in the devil’s corner, for every point her daughter made that Sophia, and Cloud, were fighting a battle they couldn’t walk away from… Ifalna was always going to provide a reason why this was necessary. 

‘But it’s not fair… Cloud… he didn’t ask for this, he didn’t volunteer, this was forced on him.  We robbed him of a life…’

Aerith constantly argued against the plan.  No matter what the cost of it was, it always came back to someone not having the life they should have had. 

‘You know that he would have though… It’s in his nature.  It’s in Hers.’

Ifalna vanished in the blink of an eye as Aerith sat, her feet tapping against the wooden raised platform drinking area around the front of the Seventh Heaven.  She sat, her hands resting in her thick brown hair, her fingers stroking the small white materia she was always meant to have. 

“Something wrong flower?” Zack’s voice could be heard, usually after the arrival of his motorbike but this time the distraction of the moment caused her to completely zone out and not hear the approaching love of her life, even as he pulled the heavy helmet from his head and greeted her once more. 

“Oh nothing.  Just existential dread and moral quandaries, the usual… how was your day!?” She joked and he laughed.  He didn’t know why she said these things only that she enjoyed finding the brighter things to talk about with him.  

As she took him by the arm and followed him through the saloon doors to the bar, he regaled her with the story of his adventure for the day.  She looked forward at the empty stool at the bar, Tifa leaning in front of it.  She saw him for a moment, sitting there, holding her hand, before reality just had kick her back into this moment once more. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight.

Professor’s Log X/X/20XX

The trial continues, this pointless display and theatre of misguided simpletons has dragged on so long the trail on my sweet Sophia will be nonexistent by now, I will need all the tools I once had at my disposal to find her…

My Reunion Project is being circumvented by puny playthings dancing to the tunes of over sensitive weaklings.  What is a few people in the grand scheme of cosmic and scientific greatness! Why do none of these idiotic creatures understand what is about to happen if that waste of genetic beauty is allowed to succeed!

The President will need me.  They all will.  My genius has been underappreciated long enough… they’ll see.  They need me. 

“Sophie… Fourteen is…” Johnny leant in to the small side room where Sophia was sitting, reading a book by Dr Bugenhagen in preparation for her journey to Cosmo Canyon, an observatory and place of learning for all who want to know the truth about the Planet’s origins and the original stewards of the planet, the Cetra.  In this particular book, Bugenhagen talked about the calamitous almost extinction of the Cetra people after a meteor struck the planet.  Based on what she’d been told by one of the assistants here dealing with the problem of Jenova’s virulence, Jenova arrived in that meteor and began corrupting life inside the lifestream.  Her influence reached down so deeply into the world that lifeforms began to join the circle, giving rise to demons and foul creatures that fed more violently on the wildlife that had survived.  The Cetra stemmed the damage but for the most part, the ecosystem was corrupted and needed extreme action to purge it.

She rose from the arm chair at the news Johnny had brought her.  One of the nurses by the bedside of the sickly patient looked worried and the medic Pilo was adjusting one of the tubes that connected the patient’s body to a medication. 

She leant at the bedside of the man, one of the experiment subjects of Hojo’s and clutched his hand, feeling the cold and seeing the pale, empty expression on his body they seemed to know he wouldn’t last much longer.  The purpose of this hospice care was to ensure that these patients did not suffer the anguish of Jenova’s Reunion for the sake of Hojo’s experiments.  The man stirred, his breathing was constantly raspy and he struggled to stay conscious for more than a few minutes at a time. 

“Mother…” he asked, it was the only word instilled in these people’s minds, the fervent desire to return to Jenova. 

His eyes were milky white, he’d lost his sight a few days after the Jenova cells were removed. 

Pilo and the nurse never knew what to say in this situation, the man was simply asking for a kindness.  One that Sophia never thought she’d be expected to respond to. 

“Go to Sleep” Sophia said kindly, channelling her white magic through the bangles, she watched as a slight smile formed on his face, the presence of someone, anyone at his end, even if he was almost deluded into thinking that this was his mother. 

As the group split following the equipment attached to man reading no activity in his heart, Pilo the medic followed Sophia into the room where she’d left her book on the table.

“You guys are going to be okay without me while this Cosmo Canyon thing is happening right?” She asked, turning on the spot and watching as the medic still struggled to come to terms with the sheer amount of lives lost to this madness.

“Yeah, of course. We can keep them comfortable and if any happen to wander in or around the town we’ll keep ‘em cared for till you get back.” Pilo said, a half-smile on his face, not quite sure if she would be coming back. 

“I have a last little gift for you…” She said, pulling a pair of small green orbs from the pockets of her long jacket. 

“Materia?” He responded, taking them in each hand and looking her worriedly in the eyes.

“This one’s curative… but it’s got a bit extra to it. There’s a spell of my own making in there… Medica, it sort of clouds the area around the cast with healing magics.  The other… Sleep. For the end…” She pointed to each of the materia in turn, noting the small whisp of white energies that seemed to run smoothly with the green magic contained within. 

“How did you…?” The confused man continued asking, confused, he gratefully accepted the gifts, knowing they were spells she herself had been using to help but these could never be quite as effective as what she did for these people. 

“Cetra… It’s taken me a little while but I can… I can channel the lifestream into these… They might be perfect for a first attempt but I’m just happy they’re not empty.” She responded, smiling back to the man as she packed away the book into a small satchel bag she kept with her, pulling over her shoulder. 

“This is incredible… Unbelievable…” The medic leaned in and hugged the woman gently.  “You’ve made such a difference to these people’s lives… We didn’t deserve you.” He told her, half mumbling under his breath while he hugged her tightly. 

“You’ll be okay Pilo.  Now if you want to convince your husband to give me the recipe for that chilli we had… that’d also make it worth it.” She laughed, recalling the time she had run into Pilo and his husband at the bar.  He worked in the kitchens with Bilal and had a secretive recipe for a famous dish. 

“Think even that’s a bit of an ask… I’ll let you know.” He joked back to her, even he and all his powers as the spouse hadn’t managed to convince him to share it. 

She pulled herself away heading for the main entry way.  Cid, the pilot, would be here in an hour to take a set delivery and she was going with it. 

“You know you have done real good here… don’t you? I’ll miss having you around.” General Leo called over, he’d begun to move a little more stilted as time went on but he was still just as loquacious as ever when it came to telling her how well she was doing. 

“I’m coming back… why does everyone think I’m not coming back?” She responded, offering a hand for a handshake, but the classy gentleman he was reached down, took it in his hand and raised it to his lips. 

“Bigger fish to fry… But I do want you to have this… A kind of incentive for you to come back after saving the world from Shinra and all that…” The older moustached man dropped her hand carefully, the greyed mohawk still standing as ever on end. 

As he clasped her hand she felt something small and metal being handed to her. 

“The Villa’s yours… When you come back for it.” He said, looking at the largest villa in town, he’d built it decades ago, the solid construction and perfect space for him as he established himself as Mayor of the town. 

“I can’t… Dio already…” She tried to argue, not to refuse the kind gift but she was already gifted a place to live in this town that already felt like too much. 

“It’s yours, young lady… When you come back for it.” He repeated, the smile on his face telling that he did believe she would come back.  How could she not… the villa was gorgeous. 

She nodded, placing the key in the satchel bag and heading down the long stone staircase to the cobbled path.  She watched in awe as the red cargo plane she knew to be Cid landed on the water with minimal splash. 

There was no sign of Bilal however, even as she passed the open entry ways of the bar and the same sun lounger she claimed as hers when someone told her to find time to relax.  It’d taken some time to be comfortable enough to lay there in a bikini but once she had, she knew why people told her to. 

Sophia walked carefully towards the piers, hoping for no last minute interruptions of emergencies that would pull her away from this. 

A few moments of waiting let her take a moment to look around the town she’d called a safe haven for the longest time she’d been able to.  Going from Nibelheim as a child to the military dream of joining SOLDIER to becoming a beautiful beach babe? Cloud would never have believed this was where his future led. 

“Offloadin’ the essentials for our boy then we’ll be headin’ out!” The coarse and rugged pilot shouted as the plane’s passenger side doorway swung open, the pontoons on either side of the plane held it on the water’s surface but every time she was sure he’d fall straight down in to the sea. 

“Sounds good…” She said, casting her eyes back towards the bar and still having no sign of him. 

“Well knock me down and call me Daisy… there’s no way!” Cid called as he walked past her. 

“No way what?” She asked, surprise rocking her face into a smile. 

“You and Bilal… I can see it plain as day lil’ lady… you’re hoping for a last minute smooch.  If he don’t turn up I’ll take it…” Cid joked, planting boxes and crates on the cobbled rocks with a small loading trolley. 

“No… we…” She tried to refute it but knew in a moment this was all the proof he needed. 

“Boy was sweet on ya’ when you turned up… Of course if he didn’t, I would surely have shot my shot…” Cid continued to offload the cargo one crate at a time to several handlers all waiting for them.  Staff from the various hotels and goods stores waited for their materials and supplies which he brought from further afield thanks to his ‘Tiny Bronco’. 

“Careful Cid, keep talking like that and we’re gonna have a bumpy flight…” She joked with him, surely he’d appreciate it. 

“Oh I’m countin’ on it! Cosmo Canyon ain’t far but I reckon we can getcha in the mile high club before landing!” He approached, lighting a cigarette from a pack he wore in his blue denim jacket.  Cid was an older guy but he was younger than he looked.  He had shorter blonde hair and a chiselled jaw that always wore the stubble proudly.  He was rugged, cantankerous and rude… But he had a good heart.  He was a former Shinra pilot back in his day and resigned in protest once General Leo and Dio had as well.  Whatever it was that drove them from the company… it had far reaches into the depths of their employee pool. 

“Mind?” She asked, offering two fingers as he smoked one of his cigarettes, he always had one behind his ear but he never lit it.  She was sure that it was the same one that was there the last time Cid made his deliveries. 

He offered her the cigarette and she took it in one, one puff after another. 

“Didn’t think you’d be the type…” He questioned the decision to give her one but knew that she’s a big girl.  She knows herself. 

“Used to… Second I got out of home I picked it up… Mom did it too, some reason it reminded me of home…” Sophia commented, tapping the cigarette ash from the butt of the filter.  “… Almost started to think of this place as home.  A far cry from Nibelheim… to be sure.”

“Give him until you finish that one?  Can always go holler at ‘im to get his ass down here…” Cid smiled smugly. 

“It’s okay… Maybe something’s got him too busy.  Maybe just didn’t want to watch me leave.” Sophia said with a sad half smile, like she wanted to play it off as a joke but was disappointed he hadn’t made an appearance. 

She walked up the long plank like ramp that led into the plane.  Cid wolf whistled as she did.

“Lucky for me, I could watch you go all day…” Cid laughed and she smiled too, liking his chances of copping a feel while she sat bored in the passenger seat. 

Cid pulled the door up and dismantled the walkway, keeping an eye out for that last minute romantic gesture that just simply never arrived.  He moved swiftly into the cockpit and began flick buttons in the overhead console, the multi engine craft began to whir back into life and noise.

“Sure you don’t wanna wait a little longer… Canyon ain’t goin’ nowhere…” Cid turned in his seat, a plush and comfortable looking but worn and rugged chair that suited him as a pilot and a person. 

“I’ll see him when I get back.” She responded, twirling a small green materia ball between her fingers that she had hoped to give to him.  A warding materia, protection against the things she feared would come for him. 

“Right you are Missy, off we go then…” Cid flicked the last few levers into place of the craft and the plane began to move quicker than she had expected from such an older looking craft. 

As they watched the plane run quickly down the bay area before pulling up into the sky, Johnny and Pilo arrived at the Mayor’s residence where they had been sent to quickly investigate where Bilal was and why he wouldn’t have said goodbye to her.   

Johnny shook his head with a dour expression cast over his face. 

“How?” Leo asked and Pilo answered.    

“Interrogation.  Must have snuck past the town security net during the outage last night.  He was already cold sir…”

Leo looked up to watch the Tiny Bronco depart from view into the blue skies. 

“Find out who did this… This has the Turks written all over it…” Leo almost close to barked the order, his frustration and disappointment only matched by his sadness that Bilal was dead…

“It wasn’t the Turks…” Pilo interjected, assured in the statement.  Leo looked at him expectantly.

“Who? More SOLDIERs?” Leo continued asking hoping that the eventuality wouldn’t arise that he would have to defend his town from the same violence Dio had to endure. 

Pilo and Johnny both shook their heads and looked behind them where a third man was bringing the perpetrator as slowly as they could muster.  Behind the two men was a standing cloaked man.  He mumbled the same words as the others, he bore a tattoo on his arm like the others but his white hands were engulfed in blood. 

“Reunion… Mother… Sephiroth…”

Three days pass with no news.  The news networks all reporting the case against Hojo have all gone silent, not a single outlet was talking about it and everything had seemingly returned to a state of status quo.  Director Heidegger was excited about opening a new military base just outside of Kalm, Director Scarlet was seen marketing a new offensive materia to those wishing to ‘defend themselves’. 

Aerith and Zack both refused to stop pacing around the bar.  No matter what Tifa said or did, all she could do was watch as this precious couple couldn’t stop pacing around worrying about what this meant. 

“They were supposed to announce the verdict a week ago… what the hell’s got them stalled? Have they just postponed it? Did something happen that’s more important?” Zack continued asking questions and received no answers.  The other few people in the room, Biggs and Wedge simply nodded along, assuming the questions were rhetorical. 

A blustering gale arrived just outside, blowing a storm of dust inside through the saloon doors. 

Zack shielded Aerith in the instant he saw it was Shinra, at the pilot seat was Tseng, leader of the Turks.  Aerith shrieked quietly and moved swiftly behind the bar, where Tifa was pulling on a pair of gloves, armed with materia designed to help her body move faster and hit harder. 

Zack clutched the hilt of the Buster sword laid at the doorway, watching carefully as the black suited man, ever sharply dressed pushed through the saloon doors and looked solemnly at Zack. 

“You look like you’re doing good, maybe… put down the sword though…” Tseng asked in his usual dull and deadpan voice.  He was alone, but behind him Zack could see the usual duo, Reno and Rude standing outside the centre fuselage of the craft with the doors open. 

“Not every day you guys drop in… Wasn’t sure what to think.” Zack responded, lowering the buster sword as Tifa stood ready to pounce from behind the bar to strike, Zack raised a hand and she relaxed but still ready if needed. 

“Aerith, you can relax, please, I’m not here for you.  We need Zack…” Tseng spoke in the direction of seemingly no-one but as Tifa looked carefully, he saw her taking cover behind the bar before slowly rising, a long magical staff in her hands, ready to cast in her own defence. 

“Why me? This have anything to do with the complete blackout of that psychopaths trial?” Zack continued, annoyed and frustratedly while hoping that his friend would at least be able to tell him the truth. 

“There’s been a development and your insight has been requested by the President, please…” Tseng stood to one side, his gloved hand leaning the saloon doors open as if ushering him to the helicopter. 

“No!” Aerith darted out from the bar, gripping her loves hand and pleading.  “I don’t want you to…”

“You’re not going to lose him again Aerith… I promise you.” Tseng bowed, holding one hand to his heart and offering a consolatory promise, this was however, the first time he’d made a promise to her in all this time. 

“Anything happens to him… I will come for him…” Aerith spoke and poison seemed to spit from her lips like vengeance for a crime not yet committed, something she wanted to avenge. 

“I’ll be okay.  I came back once.  I can do that again… No doubt.” Zack clutched Aerith’s hand, placing his lips on her forehead as she stood clasping his gloved hand, the large metal wrists he wore providing a good handle for her to keep hold of. 

Zack let go, marching from the bar entrance towards the shining lights of the helicopter, ushered into the passenger seats by Reno and Rude as Tseng followed behind him, moving towards the front of the craft.  A small ring crowd had gathered to see what was happening.  A few murmurs of discontent with Zack being taken, a few others with questions just like his. 

“You going to tell me what this is about?” Zack half-shouted over the noise of the rising engine revs, the whirling of the blades above blowing pressure from his ears as the metal case he rode in began to rise into the sky above the bar. 

“It’s Sophia, she’s resurfaced finally.  She’s issued a Planetology manifesto and called for Shinra to cease all harvesting of Mako energy… to turn off the reactors and leave the Lifestream alone.  She’s called for nothing but peaceful actions… Calling on everyone with a bone to pick with Shinra to side with the Ancients… Her people.  The President doesn’t know what to think of it but until she’s dealt with… Hojo’s his number one man… He’s all but declared war against her at Hojo’s word. I need… to try finding a diplomatic option for him… You know Sophia… you are the best equipped to help us find negotiable terms…” Tseng held the microphone to his mouth, relaying the recent developments.  Zack wondered why he was being called on to assist.  What insight was he supposed to offer that might be helpful? He looked at both Reno and Rude with a dumbfounded and awestruck expression on his face.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine.

“I issue this declaration on behalf of my people.  Your history would call us Ancients, but we call ourselves the Cetra.  We were the stewards of this planet and were tasked with protecting the cycle of death and rebirth governed by the Lifestream that runs throughout our world. 

“Because of a calamity which befell this planet millennia ago, the Cetra have since become endangered, more so, because of the actions of the Shinra Electric Power Company’s ever ambitious greed and gluttony which drives them to hunt those who have the ability to hear the planet’s cries for help and salvation.  They believe that I can lead them to the Promised Land, an aether rich utopia which exists somewhere in this world.  They are wrong.  The Promised Land exists but it is the world we currently reside with, the Lifestream, bounteous and ever giving is what Shinra dreams of possessing, pilfering and pillaging.  They’ve grown rich and powerful due to the apathy which comes with a comfortable life.  They power your homes, your cars, the very lights you see above you in the Undercity and the street lamps you pass on the Plates. 

“If the people of the Shinra Electric Power Company do not cease the plunder of the Lifestream, I call upon the people of Midgar and this world to plead with me, lend your voice to mine and convince them to end this… violation of the Spirit of our World.”

The footage stopped playing there as Heidegger hit pause on the broadcast, the woman in the broadcast was tall, had long blonde and silvery hair tied into a thick braid running down her back, she wore a poncho like overall wearing a black bra underneath and spoke into the camera with an unpractised ease and heartfelt request.  The conference room usually held the senior council, the Directors and the leader of the Turks.  However, on this occasion, Director Reeve Tuesti was not.  He had always been singled out for his implacability and moral code when it came to the decisions the others made for the sake of Midgar and he always swore to try his hardest to make life better for the citizens in his care.  His absence in this particular meeting, was not noticed by the remaining directors, all of whom voiced their opinions on this declaration. 

“She can’t be an Ancient.  Professor Gast and Hojo took care of the last of them correct?” Director Palmer of Aerospace exploration science voiced his objections, referring to the incident more than twenty years prior that placed Hojo as the foremost scientist at Shinra’s Headquarters. 

“To our, considerable, knowledge… There is one other, a half breed but still one that possesses the blood.  The Turks have kept her under surveillance for the last decade.  She is unlikely to be a threat to our current objectives.” Hojo chimed in.  He was seated the closest to the President on his right hand. 

President Shinra looked over to Tseng, the leader of the Turks as he stood at ease in the corner of the room who nodded in affirmation.  Tseng noted a small rustle in the plant at the other far corner of the room, assuming it to be a breeze of air through the ventilation system and watched as the plants shifted with it. 

“She was the subject of your study at Shinra Mansion, correct? Remind me of the goal of the studies there…” Shinra asked the scowling Professor, only to happy to be free of his house arrest as the current events shaped the moment. 

“I was attempting to create another breed of SOLDIER.  She would be mother to a new kind of Super-SOLDIER, not unlike Sephiroth, but far more powerful… During the experiment, there were… complications and she escaped…” Hojo conveniently leaving out the transformation of a Shinra employee into an Ancient using the biological material of the mother of the so called ‘half-breed’. 

“So she’s a victim of Hojo’s rape fantasies who’s out for vengeance… Remind me why we got you off your trial again?” Scarlet chimed in, a reckless scowl on her own face as she knows exactly what Hojo is like with the treatment of women in his experiments. 

“She was unwilling… Science demands sacrifices of us all.” Hojo smiled, gazing over his glasses at Scarlet and finding his eyes drawn to her robust cleavage. 

“Enough… Heidegger, what are our options…?” Shinra addressed the large grey and green trenchcoat wearing consigliere to his left. 

“Send in the troops.  Execute her and all of those Planetology hippies for incitement of violence against the Company. We have the strength in this situation.” Heidegger barked and billowed in his usual fashion.  His greyed beard and black hair shaking with every heavy chortle the man uttered. 

“I would prefer her alive… If we are to deal with the aftermath then we must find proof she was lying about the Promised Land.  If I am able to produce viable progeny from her, they would be far more malleable…” Hojo interjected rubbing the thinning hair on his chin, directly above the reddened scars that still had not fully healed over from Sophia’s assault. 

“Agreed.  Take her alive.  Have a team on standby to bring in this other one Tseng.  In case she doesn’t cooperate we may require the additional leverage.” Shinra didn’t turn to issue the order, Tseng could barely see the heavy white moustache across the President’s face as he heard the order.  Tseng stood awestruck by the order.

“Sir… I must protest…” Tseng contested but was quickly interrupted by the President himself raising his hand. 

“If you do not carry out the order I shall order Heidegger to do it and he shall be a lot less kind with his methods.  Make your choice, Director.”  He continued to address the orders in front of him, refusing to turn to make them known eye to eye. 

“Understood sir…” Tseng recoiled, withdrawing into the corner of the room once more to a quiet chortle from Heidegger.

“Scarlet… Do we have defensive contingencies in place in case Rioting begins? If Reeve cannot be here to voice his objections, you can speak plainly.” Shinra raised an open gesturing hand to the only woman at the table, he always spoke more fairly to her. 

“Martial Law, claim it’s for their own good… We also have demolitions set to separate individual sectors of the Undercity, we have machina and internal robotic garrisons making ready to fortify the city against any actions from without or within… they outnumber the population ten to one at this stage.” Scarlet offered her suggestions, including measures she took without the express permission of this particular council. 

“Have troops prepared to drop the plates if necessary.  If you can have your department prepare falsified evidence that Avalanche carried out the demolitions as part of her insanity… it might drive a few of her sympathisers back into our loving arms…” Heidegger slammed a hand on the table and laughed at the idea as he offered it.  Scarlet nodded and let out a strange chuckle herself. 

“Sir, we have our former SOLDIER Zack Fair here as well… we still have an opportunity to offer a diplomatic negotiation to her, hear what he has to say about her… perhaps he can offer some insight.” Tseng added as Palmer began to stand, making ready to waddle away in his stained and mustard coloured suit. 

“Hmpf…” Palmer grunted as he turned back towards the table to see what the President’s decree on that notion was. 

“She has declared war Director, I will not negotiate with terrorists…” Shinra spoke and the rest answered with cheers and hollering cries of support.  Hojo remained seated, however, a smile forming on his face as he watched Tseng’s expression fall. 

Zack remained seated in the small area just outside the conference room, his buster sword leant on the couch beside him, drawing a few confused looks and earning him a little space. 

He watched as the myriad directors of Shinra walked from the Conference room, accompanied by the Professor Hojo himself.  Tseng walked at the rear, looking dejected and down heartened. 

“Tseng!? What happened? What’s the plan?” Zack asked, his worry and concern showing more and more as he reached out to his friend. 

“The President is maintaining his course, against my objections.  I would advise… Zack, that you return to Aerith and keep her safe.  If things don’t go his way… The President is hoping she can be leverage against Sophia.” Tseng walked and talked him back over to the couches.  As the pair saw the other Directors disperse to their relevant areas the noise around the floor became more chaotic and manic.  Tseng followed something with his eyes though as a strange small ball seemed to move past the doorway of the conference room towards them, moving under the couch and almost bumping the sharp steel of Zack’s buster sword as it moved. 

“What…?” Zack followed Tseng’s eyes and found the same thing, gripping the handle of the sword on instinct but his friend held him back, placing an arm in front of him and allowing it move on its course. 

“Holy shit… Sir! Look!” An assistant cried out to her boss as one display suddenly became every screen in the building.  An empty desk but one Tseng recognised. 

“Zack… come with me…” He said, darting forwards and moving in the same path as the small object the pair of them had just noticed.  “Reno, Rude… Converge on my position please… Bring any assistance you can.” Tseng called down the small headpiece he wore in his ear and received the affirmatives from the other end.  The screens still simply showed the empty desk, a picture on the wall showed a small child, a girl playing a black and white cat, a collection of a few certificates from various institutions. 

Zack and Tseng sprinted down the long black marble looking corridor, the lights almost trembling as their inlaid neon bulbs shook in their fixtures.

“Greetings… My name is Reeve Tuesti, Director of Urban Planning and Infrastructure…”

A middle aged man sat in the centre of the screens, his hair was dishevelled and greying, his eyes carried bags from the sleepless nights of stress he experienced in his work. 

“Get this sycophantic traitor off the screens right now!” The loud billowing voice of Heidegger down the corridor could be heard from another floor, the marshalling of troops approaching in the staircases. 

Tseng threw a small series of metal disks at the walls of the corridor as he ran, Zack watched as each sent out a trip line laser that triggered the device when broken.  As they arrived at the corner office Reeve resided in, they were met by the intersecting corridors.  Running from the far side was the dynamic Turk duo, Reno and Rude, followed by a series of blue armoured Shinra troopers, armed with machine guns and all confused by the presence of the Turks. 

“… I appear before you with news to share.  A few moments ago a meeting was held at the highest levels of Shinra’s headquarters.  Directors of various departments discussed the means by which they would answer the protests requested by the woman known as Sophia, an Ancient, and her request that Shinra cease the harvesting of Mako energies.  They answered…” Reeve continued speaking, the soldiers stood confused, wondering what their orders were supposed to be as the message played throughout the floor’s speakers.  As Zack looked through the plain glass windows that lined the sides of the doorway, he saw the broadcast was live, Reeve sat there with a few others watching him. 

Reeve reached over on his desk and pressed a few buttons on his computer.  A few moments later, a small black and white cat mascot hopped up onto the desk.  It wore a bright gold crown and red fuzzy shoes, along with white fluffy gloves.  It handed him a small data drive, which Reeve plugged in. 

What followed was the recording of the meeting that had just taken place.  He allowed the recording to play out. 

As the troopers watched in shock as their employers and bosses discussed the heinous actions they would take to maintain their power and order over the City of Midgar.  The muttering started among them. 

A few moments passed as the footage played but Zack and Tseng listened carefully to the noise that pierced the silence.  From the lower floors, man shaped machines marched up through each level of the Tower, each armed with assault rifles and magitech weaponry as appropriate for Scarlet’s department. 

Zack pulled the buster sword from his back, looking back at Tseng as he pulled his pistol from the holster in his suit jacket pocket.  The blue armoured troopers being pushed back forcefully by the machina, forming ranks with Reno and Rude. 

“Shinra has no place for traitors… fire…” Scarlet’s voice resounded through the machina’s head pieces, each raised their rifles. 

With only a few moments before the bullets would start flying, Zack raised his sword, facing the slots just above the hilt and saluting just as Angeal had.  “Protect your Honour… as SOLDIER.” Zack exclaimed, readying himself for the fight. 

The bullets began to ring out, Zack pulled the blade into a defensive position as the machina began marching down the corridor Tseng had armed with tripmines, the small explosions set off with a burst of fire and dust, annihilating the legs of the machine soldiers.  Behind them, Reno and Rude rushed into the fray, protecting the Shinra troopers who provided covering fire. 

“The fighting has begun… I implore all those who see the heinous and vile leadership for what it is… what I was complicit in. I can no longer remain silent.  I stand with the Ancient, Sophia.”

Reeves words resonated with the sound of gunfire, the metal swings of Zack’s blade acting in defence of the Director, the shattering of glass as the windows erupted from the explosions of rockets, explosive rounds and magic being utilised by the machine soldiers. 

Floor by floor, the Shinra troopers realised the truth and took up arms in defence of those who also sided with the Ancient. The upper floors where loyalty was practically guaranteed by outright fear of reprisal or death, the employees continued working to stop the broadcast from inside their own tower.  Scarlet hurled abuse and cursed the machina soldiers as they marched through the building up and down.  She watched them in the streets of Midgar, colliding with men and women and anyone who was marching in groups against the tower in peaceful protests, demanding the surrender of the President. 

“Perhaps we should consider evacuating you sir…” Heidegger said, watching as in all directions… there were people marching in protest. 

“This is the Corel Miners Guild.  We stand with the Ancient.” Barret’s voice resounded over the speakers as he communicated with Reeve, a channel being established to voice those joining the cause. 

“This is the Gold Saucer and Foreign Merchants Guild… We stand with Sophia.” Dio’s voice, the muscle bound cape wearing hero lent his voice. 

‘This is Peter Raspberry of the Shinra Regional Administrative Offices, we stand with Director Tuesti and the Ancient.’

‘This is Godo Kurasagi of Wutai, in the interests of protecting the planet… we stand with the Ancient.’

‘This is the Undercity’s Neighbourhood Watch… we stand with the Ancient.’

One by one, allies from the world over voiced their support and denounced the Shinra Corporation’s leadership, until finally, the star of the hour. 

“This is Sophia, I am proud to stand with Director Tuesti and who would join us…”

Zack’s smile was unmistakable as he plunged his long blade into another machina trooper, the bullets continually flowing from the rifles of never ending robotic troops, they never halted, never stopped.  One by one the blue armourer Shinra troopers fell down the other corridor as they provided fire, Reno and Rude took the blow of a few rounds but still rose to fight back against the increasing forces. 

Tseng reached up to his ear, pressing the small communicative device and tapping it. 

“This is Director Tseng, leader of the Turks… Please, evacuate the Tower… Carry the wounded and leave the fighting to those who are able.  I plead with all the men and women of Shinra to help in this effort… We, the Turks, stand with…” The line cut as Zack watched a lone round pass his blade, the loudspeakers went silent with his request.  Zack watched as the bullet penetrated into Tseng’s chest, the imminent blood spiraling outwards around the bullet as the Director fell slowly to the floor.   

“TSENG!” Reeve and Zack called out at the same moment.  Reeve watched before bolting to the office door, beseeching the others in there to carry him from the battle.   

“SIR, NO!” Reno and Rude called out, retreating as far as they could, pulling those remaining troopers back to defend the office. 

Throughout the building, the security forces waited with bated breath for the last words, but really, they all knew what he was going to say.  They began to evacuate the employees, the office workers and administrators.  Those in the streets came under fire from the machina, explosions and sirens began to call through the air. 

In the Sector Seven slums, Aerith was administering aid to the wounded as they arrived at the Bar.  Tifa was battling those machine troops being ordered to the plate controls, alongside Biggs and Wedge. 

Aerith heard the response through the screen cut off as more and more voices echoed around her for help.  She felt the cold and horrifying moment and clutched her mouth as tears began to rain from her eyes.  For how threatened she had been by Tseng in the past, he had done his utmost to keep her and her adoptive mother safe, in every version of her story.  This… she’d never felt before. 

“Mister President! I must insist!” Heidegger called to his charge. 

“And go where… She has the whole world on her side…” President Shinra tapped the tip of his cigar and watched the ashes fall to the carpeted floor of his secured office. 

“Scarlet!” Heidegger shouted, seeing the woman also staring in disbelief at the immovable President, so unwilling to even try. 

“Make them pay for every inch… until the last.” Shinra said and watched as Scarlet looked in disgust.  Both she and Heidegger knew the battle was lost, even the President did.  Hojo remained in the corner on a couch seemingly losing his grip on reality as he ranted, rambled and raved to himself. 

“My genius… This is all wrong… This cannot be happening… So long… My darling Sophia…” Hojo muttered, trying to consider different ways that this could resolve itself that he might be left in control of his precious samples.  He began to consider whether his work might continue, at least in some capacity if he were to surrender himself to his Sophia, that she might let him live long enough to utter the correct code to shut her down once more. 

*BANG*

Hojo’s head erupted from a sudden shocking impact.  The few remaining employees that stayed seated flew into a state of terror and panic, jumping from the few remaining workspaces littered around the console dominated office.  Heidegger stood, his mouth open, in shock as he watched the standing president, one of his hand’s raised and his infamous golden pistol, the barrel still smoking, clutching the trigger. 

“I will not allow the Ancient to have the secrets he possessed…” President Shinra spoke in cold, harsh tones.  Heidegger watched the closest security cameras and watched as a squad of red armoured troopers led by a Second Class SOLDIER sprinted quickly up the stairs leading to this office.  Shinra circled back around to his seat, picking the cigar from the small ashtray he kept on his desk and returning it to his mouth.

“Perhaps… we should…?” Scarlet said, gesturing to the door at the side of the room that led out to the helipad.  One vehicle remaining and reserved for the President’s personal use.  The President who now sat firmly in his seat, a golden pistol in one hand and a cigar clutched between two fingers.  Repeating clashes sounded on the metal access door at the far side of the room, the troops were coming. 

“Fuck this… We should go find Rufus… He might still have an ounce of sense left in him…” Heidegger said, throwing down the large mobile tablet he held in his hand to monitor troop movements and direct them where necessary which suddenly became a lot less useful or informative. 

He moved in long strides as Scarlet kicked off her red shining heels, clutching the bottom of her dress and running across the smooth floor, the pair made it to the helicopter just as Kunsel and the remaining executive troops burst through the door to find President Shinra sitting with a wide smug grin on his face. 

“President Shinra, Sir…” Kunsel called as he approached, his own pistol in hand and flanked by almost a dozen friends and colleagues. 

“Taken out by some cocksucking Ancient whore…” Shinra laughed to himself, pulling the pistol to the side of his head and smiling as he pulled the rigid trigger, a casing flying from the barrel and his body tilting with the executive chair to the floor.  The blood coalesced, feeding into the cracks below the desk and running out towards the approaching SOLDIER.     

“Fuck me… You, get the machina troops offline right now!” Kunsel issued his orders, his priority was to prevent any further loss of life.  He looked around the room.  No-one was left, those who had remained loyal to the man used their executive privileges to escape using either his personal helicopter or the lift down to the parking garage. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 10.

“We honour those who gave their lives in pursuit of a brighter future, not just for ourselves but for the entire Planet.”

Reeve’s speech was forever reminding of the loss of his friend.  Once the battle at the tower had been resolved and all remaining sources of violence dealt with, Sophia arranged travel with Dr Bugenhagen of Cosmo Canyon.  The good doctor arrived with her while floating on a mysterious orb shaped transportation device.  Accompanying him was a four legged beast with a burning tail.  He had dim red fur and bore a scar across his eye.  What made him in particular sympathetic to Sophia’s cause was that he too bore the mark made as an experiment of Hojo. 

Zack was waiting in the now refurbished Presidential Office, a larger table with several desks surrounding it at a distance was put in place.  A week had passed and most were still feeling the horror of the battle in their hearts, the loss of friends, colleagues and loved ones. 

As Sophia arrived she looked around, watching as the gathered officials shook in their formal attire.  She was wearing a similar tight dress, the purple luminescence of her eyes complimented by accessories she didn’t really consider wearing before.  She kept the bangles, a tied red bandana around her right one, the warding materia in the other. 

Sophia approached Zack holding her hand out to greet him with a handshake.  He reached around with both hands and gave her the biggest hug he could muster.  He never revealed he knew who she really was, feeling it was better that she remain who she was now, but he couldn’t help but consider a few japes and jokes. 

“Very dignified, Zack…” She said as he let her down to the floor. 

“Just happy we’re finally on the same side, ma’am… again…” He responded, placing a hand on his heart and bowing his head in respect of her new position.  She smiled as she knew that he was aware of the truth, she hadn’t made it too clear before but she hoped he’d understand that Cloud’s desire to be just like Zack… well.  It hadn’t taken long for others to become convinced of her status as the last surviving Ancient and her pleas to the people were only more convincing when the apparently dozens of mako overexposed individuals came forth in her support.    

Reeve stood alongside with the welcoming committee, the interim Director of what remains of the Shinra organisational structure, his goal to repair the damage done by his predecessors and make up for his past inactions.       

“So shall I address you as Director or Cait?” Sophia joked, clutching Reeve in a tight embrace as he leant in for a handshake of his own. 

“Reeve will be perfectly fine, madame.” As the two separated into a handshake he bowed as well. 

Among the others assembled were the new leading council assigned because of their expertise and experience.  General Leo, the Mayor of Costa Del Sol would oversee the dissolution or conversion of the Military, with the aid of Barret Wallace of Corel.  Offers of introduction had been made to the Leader of the Wutai people.  Bugenhagen took a place as science chief as the people of Midgar worked with the planetologists to find other ways of powering the city, the current weaning of the people from the abundance of Mako was slow but it was working, the more people were willing to try alternatives. 

Sophia walked around and others of the group took their own spots.  There was no head of the table, there was no starring role for any one of them to play.  A round table was established, each offering their own solutions to problems posed by the others. 

“Shall we begin?” Reeve stated to the gathered crowd, a press event for the moment as historically this was a new form of government for the people of this planet. 

The gathered officials laughed and signed in proclamations, decrees that they hoped the people of Midgar would follow and support.  While there were some objections to Sophia’s role in government due to her history and controversy, the sympathy she had garnered had more than matched it. 

Once this inaugural session had come to a close, a further gathering of people in one of the lower floors had assembled made up of loved ones and family of those in attendance. Sophia joined Zach, full of smiles and happiness but accompanied by terror as the elevator doors opened smoothly and on the other side was a young woman whose likeness to Ifalna sent a chill down her spine and right through her rotund rear. 

Zack embraced her, hugging her and holding her hand brought her over to the almost panic state overtaken woman Sophia. 

“Ma’am… This is Aerith.  My fiancé and love of my life.  I wouldn’t have made it back to her without your escape from Hojo’s lab at Nibelheim.” Zack introduced the woman, her hair was startlingly similar, her face and eyes were exact.  The woman looked at her with eyes that looked on the verge of tears and reached out quickly to wrap her arms around her neck and pulled herself in for a hug. 

“Thank you… Thank you…” She repeated.  Sophia understood this display of affection as an appreciation of helping her and Zack be reunited. 

“You’re welcome… Aerith…” She reciprocated the hug, comforting the woman as she felt the tears run into her back. 

“Babe… You okay?” Zack asked, seeing his fiancé in distress and concern mounting in his heart. 

As Aerith pulled away, one of the other guests approached.  She was dressed in a tight pinstripe suit with her long dark brunette hair tied back as it always was.

“Oh god Aerith… what’s wrong…?” this new woman asked, holding her friend as she quietly sobbed to herself, the only words Sophia could make out being “Thank you.” She shared a look with Zack before turning to see the face of Aerith’s friend. 

“TIFA!?” She almost screamed with a smile rising over her plump red stained lips.  Cloud’s childhood friend and woman he thought had died from her injuries sustained at the Nibelheim reactor stood before him, she was okay… she was alive.

“Yes…?” She looked at the stranger, she was confused and understandably.  Zack looked mortified as he understood… she wouldn’t know her. 

“I…” Sophia stopped herself, remembering herself.  Who she was and who she wasn’t.  Could she reveal herself to her? Would she understand?

Aerith continued to sob quietly to herself, holding a hand over her mouth as she tried to stem the noise coming from her. 

Tifa turned back to her friend, hugging her tightly and moving off.  Leaving Zack and Sophia alone to speak privately. 

“She… She’s…” Sophia muttered to herself, the ecstasy of seeing her friend alive and well crossed with the knowledge that she has no idea who… she used to be. 

“She’s okay… I was surprised too.  When I went back to find Aerith, she and Tifa work in the same bar. Small world…Right?” Zack smiled at her, placing a hand gently on her back as she watched the woman she loved in a former life walk away… healthy and okay. 

“Aerith? What’s wrong? What happened with that woman?” Tifa asked, fully unexpecting to get an answer but hoping all the same.  She and Aerith had retreated down one of the administrative corridors that surrounded the foyer area the meet and greet was being held and took a seat on one of the plush black leather couches. 

“She… She’s…” Aerith considered but the spectre of her mother sat with her as Tifa knelt in front of her.  “She looks just like my mother did…” Aerith lied.  She had admitted to Tifa through their friendship that Elmyra had adopted her as a child but had never talked about her mother the Ancient before.  Tifa still had no idea of Aerith’s lineage by fate’s design. 

“Oh… Oh honey I’m sorry.  For a minute I thought she’d said something and I was going to kick her ass… Ancient or no…” Aerith knew she was dead serious as Tifa said it but held her hand to tell her not to. 

Ifalna’s spirit looked at her and with a ghostly hand caressed her daughters face and wiped a tear from her cheek, all it appeared to Tifa was a trick of the light. 

“You should go back… I’ll be fine, I just needed a minute.” Aerith smiled her usual smile, tilted her head and her hair flung with it.  She patted down the poofy pink and red dress she wore to formal occasions and remained seated for the moment.  Tifa stood, making sure her friend was okay and returned to the function.  She wanted to know how this strange Ancient woman who ‘looked like Aerith’s mom’ knew her name. 

“Zack she’s just sat back there.  She’s okay now, just needs a second…” Tifa told her friend’s fiancé and he turned from Sophia and walked away.  Turning back only for a moment to nod to her as she was left alone with Tifa. 

“Is she okay?” Sophia asked, concern for the woman who looked like her spiritual guide through this adventure. 

“She’s fine.  You just remind her of someone is all and it hit her hard.” Tifa commented, grasping at a pair of drinks from one of the passing waiters and handing one to this sort of stranger. 

“Yeah… I had the same feeling.  Like I knew her from somewhere as well…” Sophia replied, thinking about the connection and realising… it’d been a long time since she’d heard from Ifalna herself. 

“Speaking off…” Tifa started, gulping down the tall champagne glass and replacing it on a table that they’d moved over to at Tifa’s request.  “You knew my name… but we’ve never met.  I think I’d remember…” She enquired, just like Sophia knew she would. 

“Oh I uh…” Sophia fumbled and quickly took the full glass of champagne in a gulp as well, almost close to trembling. 

“Zack told me you escaped from the mansion at Nibelheim after the town burnt down… Did you live there before?” Tifa continued her line of questioning based on information that Zack had given her. 

“Oh… Yeah, of course.  I’d barely moved in when it had all happened but I remember meeting a guy called Brian… He had a daughter, she looked just like you do.  I was nervous to say hello… Me and my mom were new around and…” Sophia tried to consider ways to hint to Cloud’s childhood friend who she was and what that might mean.  But it felt better in her mind to… allow her to believe the lie.  Cloud died.  It was only a half lie… But she was Sophia now. 

“Madame… We have a request from Dr Bugenhagen… he’s asking for you…” An assistant approached and from the side Tifa watched as the two black suit wearing men followed the Ancient from the room.  She recognised them from the helicopter which escorted Zack away before…

“Clear it up?” Zack and Aerith arrived to ask her, trying to gauge whether or not Cloud had revealed the truth. 

“She used to live in Nibelheim… I just… I could have sworn… She talks just like…” Tifa started the thought but quickly cut it off, it was next to impossible to believe that she could be Cloud.  She was very definitely a woman and… Cloud was not an Ancient. 

Zack looked at Aerith and caught her eyes looking off in the distance with a sorrowful look. 

“Ah! Sophia!” The floating orb mounted older man descended on his transport from on high as she entered the dark, sterile and metal chamber that once served as Hojo’s primary laboratory.  At the centre of the room was a tall glass encasement with a metal plague engraved with the name of its occupant.  The desiccated and decrepit form inside bringing back haunting trauma from the last time she saw it.  Saw Her. 

“Jenova…” Sophia commented, her heart beating a thousand times a moment.

A small group of Planetologist scientists accompanied Bugenhagen here.  The elders of their group, they felt they had the best insight into how they might assist Sophia in her main objective with this particular… specimen of Hojo’s. 

“Indeed, we have two things to share… One, we have prepared a device to enhance what the late Professor called the Reunion Theory.  In one burst, all those pour souls who are infected by this monstrosities cells will converge here, where you shall be waiting to remove the taint from their souls.” Bugenhagen showed her the small device that would be placed on the tank, feeding a small tube in and sampling the DNA of the alien calamity to broadcast a kind of call and respond function.  She’d hoped from her time at the Villa in Costa Del Sol that they would come if they knew where to go. 

“Excellent… And yes, I’ll make preparations to heal all who arrive.  Have transports been prepared to ferry those who arrive at coastal areas?” Sophia asked, remembering the horrific stories she’d heard from Johnny. 

“Indeed, boats and cargo airplanes stand ready to bring over as many as they can.  While we cannot guarantee the removal of all the cells from living creatures in this world… We must then consider how to remove the stain of those that rejoined the lifestream itself…” Bugenhagen continued, his insight being invaluable as the most experienced scientist in the area and more learned scholar on the cosmos, the lifestream included. 

“And the second thing…?” Sophia drew his attention to the next item on the agenda. 

“Ah… we found… this…” His tentative answer and handing of the envelope sent chills and terror streaming down her face, the clutching at her heart as she saw it addressed to her was… mortifying.  Some kind of contingency in place by Hojo… she thought. 

“Tha… Thank you.  Dr… I’ll…” She stammered, stuttered and struggled to get the words out as she span the envelope in her hands nervously. 

“Whatever this letter says… Madame… It is the words of a dead man… He cannot harm you anymore.  Hojo cannot harm you.” Geisel continued his explanation as he placed a calming hand on her shoulder before floating off again on his magical orb.  She was very envious of it and hoped when she reached a higher age that she would also be able to have one. 

Sophia retreated into the large office space at the far side of the room.  The consoles were laid out exactly the same as they had been in the mansion, even a medical bed or examination station in the centre of the room sent her brain back into the cellar of that building. 

She sat at his desk. 

She sat in his chair.

She opened the envelope and, in a moment, read the words she could hear in his voice, the voice that haunts her;

‘My darling Sophia,

                                                If you are reading this then you have returned to your true home, as I knew you eventually would.

For everyone of my failures, as you were, there was a success that outshone it.  My genius was limited by the disappointments that I begot.  You, and one other, are the product of my genius that I can without a doubt share that I am most pleased with. 

Enclosed is a data disk.  On it is a complete record of our first real encounter, while I could easily say that it was a bright moment in my life… to this moment the scars of the wound you inflicted hurt, seep and bleed. 

The truth I now leave you with is one I am elated to share and while I am loathe to miss the joyous moment itself… I’m afraid I must.

The tattoo I engraved into your skin was composed of the genetic material of the Ancients, you are the purest form of an extinct race, my darling.  While the tattoo blessed your form with that of my design, it also inlaid an arcane seal, a small contribution by my lesser, Scarlet. The tattoo burns… does it not? You can feel it… More than it did when you first awoke in this form.

Beneath it, your reconstituted divine form gave enough space to bear a child, which was the sole design you were created, but it wasn’t until the first burst of ejaculate from the SOLDIER ape Loz that it really began to glow, activated.  While your body unexpectedly burnt the abundant Jenova cells from your own form… all that needed to plant and take root was one small fragment of DNA from the original to create the life I designed you would carry. 

Even now I know you will be questioning my word.  You’re in a laboratory where I bred subjects of different races to better understand the powers of combining them… Unless my office has been ransacked, a small testing kit will be present in one of the upper draws of the right hand cabinet.  See for yourself the conclusive proof, the data drive contains every aspect of the precious moment when the tattoo activated and created the perfect environment for raising a foetus. 

You must have encountered one or two of my subjects bearing the cells of Jenova… After you cleansed them of their driving desire for the reunion… what was it they called you?  

While you might have won this battle, my sweet, my genius cannot be denied.  From beyond the depths of death I have inlaid the seeds for the birth of a new breed of Ancient… Distilled to the purest form in the alembic of your womb.  There is no undoing what has been done.  If you attempt to tamper with the life growing inside of you, the tattoo will magnetise bursts of Jenova tainted mako energy from anyone around you directly through your body, ensuring your destruction and that of those you love.  You would become a monster… as well as a mother. 

You will birth the son of Sephiroth and my grandchild shall be the greatest scientific marvel, the world has ever known, the progeny of two ancient and powerful divinities. 

I named you for the greatest of the Ancient’s at the art of cultivation. 

My Goddess…

My Sophia…

Sophia placed the envelope and letter down, looking at the desk she found the small data drive that had fallen silently from the letter.  Tears streamed down her face as she knew the truth.  He was successful.  He’d won. 

Her heart sunk into the world itself, unable to pull back into her body.  A console rested at the centre of the desk with a small input for these data drives and with one hand trembling she input the drive.  It opened up on the screen with windows offering prompts for downloading updates on various programmes the Professor used.  In a central window, a video played, alongside it three different perspectives with different lens configurations were set up.  Heat sensors, x rays and biometric readings watched as the diffusion of miasma post Loz’s forced entry, a small targeted scan showed the remaining fluid as it coarsed through her body and remained there.  A faint energy reading from the tattoo on her belly read the temperature increase then and there.  He was right. 

As a clone of Sephiroth he was created from the DNA of the man she killed in her former life.  This was why she hallucinated him… This is why he’s plagued her nightmares.  She carried his child…

Bugenhagen’s grandson, the red beast Nanaki slid past the office door and watched as the woman sunk into a despair. 

“Is something wrong Cetra?” He asked her, his deep and powerful voice always surprising her.  He refused to address her as her given name as he placed a reverential amount of importance on her role as a Cetra.

Sophia was startled from her forlorn reverie. 

“Oh… no nothing…” She stuttered, stammered and wiped the tears from her face.  She pulled the drive from the computer and clutched it tightly. 

“Grandfather says the device to issue the calling to the remaining specimens will be ready tomorrow… He recommends you rest, you will need your strength in the days to come…” Nanaki uttered, moving forwards in the office and sniffing at the woman.  It was endearing how he came across as such an enlightened warrior but at the same time enjoyed being treated like a pet. 

“Wonderful news, Nanaki.  Thank you for bringing it to me.  If you’ll excuse me, I agree… I should be retiring.” Sophia moved with grace towards the doorway, the small silver piece of technology clutched so tightly in her hand she didn’t know which would break first. 

‘Ifalna… you must have known… You must have…’

Sophia thought to herself as she left the laboratory with a quick pace and arrived in an elevator that waited to take her to a residential floor that was set up for temporary use by the visiting dignitaries.  She was alone in the space, nothing but mirrors in the walls surrounding her. 

There was no response from the spectral ancient who had guided her this far.  Sophia moved quicker and quicker, accidentally bumping into others who resided on this level and apologising as she moved in a haze of anxiety and panic and feeling the bile and drink she’d had at the reception rising in her throat. 

She pushed the black metal doorway open and closed it shut with one hand, more forcefully than she had intended and moved straight to the bathroom at the rear of the space.  She wretched once, then twice… then vomited all over the toilet in the pristine black marble and quartz engraved bathroom. 

‘Answer me… please…’

She pleaded while mopping the last bits of bile and food from the corners of her mouth. 

“Answer me!” A loud call erupted from her lips, double toned and angrier than she had intended.  There was no response.  Barely even silence as she could tell. 

“Ifalna! Answer me! Why didn’t you tell me!?” With a guttural insistence, she called out to the bedroom as she walked to it, fumbling the small silver device to the floor and watching as a small circling wind began to form around her, the blinds over the windows began to clatter, the bedding began to billow. 

A slow clattering of hands began hammering on the door to her room, frightened men and women calling to see what was wrong. 

The storm without began to pick up speed, blustering and blazing with red sparks of heat. 

All of it paused… In an instant.  Time seemed to sit at a still in the centre of this developing storm. 

‘I didn’t know…’

Ifalna spoke softly and sadly, her voice falling onto her as she found Sophia curled on the floor, her nails digging into the black shining floor.  She held her, pulled her into herself in a hug.  The most tangible and real moment they’d shared and it was out of rage and anger and sorrow. 

“How could not know…? Hojo must have rejoined the lifestream… I thought all spirits shared their knowledge with one another in there…?” Sophia pulled herself up, the calming people outside subsided by a pair of voices pushing to the front and knocking calmly on the black metal door. 

‘There’s something wrong with the lifestream.  More than it being drained and depleted… the lifestream itself is infected by the evil putrescent spirit of Jenova… Until recently… He was hidden by it.  He’s been able to act through proxies, those who carry her cells and move them as his own… He’s… killed through them.  It won’t be long before those who have returned to the planet make Him strong enough to return… That’s why I’ve been absent from you, my dear.  I’ve been trying to block the flow of corruption to His seat here but…’

Ifalna’s tone and entire spectral demeanour seemed somewhat tired and ragged, a dullness to the bright green light of her eyes became clear. 

“Please… No…” Sophia spoke as the realisation hit her, there was only one who could have possibly had the strength to act through Jenova’s infected. 

‘There is only one way… now… You have your time to cleanse those living with this affliction, many of whom might still survive… But once they are.  I will ask that you willingly submit yourself to the Lifestream… Bringing your purity and light to the Planet will burn out the remaining sickness of the world.  It will end him…’

Ifalna finally revealed the reason she’d orchestrated this with the Whispers of Fate.  The reason she and Aerith had disagreed on the plan.  Why Aerith was so heartbroken that Cloud was the one who had to pay this price, why he and Tifa couldn’t be together in this version of their story. 

“You’re asking me to die… So that he can never return? Are you certain? Wholly and undeniably, unquestionably certain?” Sophia stemmed the tears as she heard the plan in its finality.  This was the purpose of her existence.  With one life she stopped Sephiroth from being reunited with his Mother.  With another, she could wipe his stain from the spirit of the world she’d grown to care for, as any other Cetra. 

From outside the room, Zack and Aerith moved through the crowd, their attention drawn from down the corridor where they were invited to stay.  Aerith in particular responded to the name of her mother as it was being flung in a fit of rage.  Aerith held her hand to the door mechanism and with a short burst of quiet magic, opened the door and stepped inside alone.  She saw the storm, frozen in a moment with the woman she knew as both Cloud and Sophia curled, lamenting. 

She never interfered with the moment, she could see the spirit of her mother in there with her.  Ifalna was taking the moment to help Sophia at this critical moment in her destiny. 

As she stepped through, the doorway locked itself, leaving only Aerith and Sophia in the room.  As the storm began to slowly fall to the floor, the curtains and blinds in the space lowered back to their natural positions. 

Sophia looked up and saw Aerith standing over her.  She knelt down and hugged her tightly. 

“I’m so so… sorry… Cloud.” Aerith spoke, the name of Sophia’s former self.  It was devastating for her to realise, to recall what Ifalna had told her all that time ago.  She’d escaped from Shinra… with her…

“You’re Ifalna’s daughter…” Sophia said, tears once again falling from her luminescent purple eyes.  Aerith nodded, tears welling in her own.

The two locked in an embrace, their hug lasting long enough for Zack to peak through the windows lining the sides of the doorways as the blinds had calmed from the storm. 

“Okay guys… shows over… She’s okay… move along” Zack called, ushering the waiting crowd as they worried for the safety and health of the Ancient they called their leader, their saviour. 

As both Aerith and Sophia held each other, neither of them could feel the presence of Ifalna anymore.  She’d left them to have their moment to reconnect and listen. 

Zack and Aerith sat on one of the couches in what formed a sort of living room and seating space around a tv on a small dark wood cabinet, the three of them had ordered some burgers from whatever room service was being provided and were enjoying them as tensions fell and emotions continued to level out. 

She hadn’t told them, or anyone else, that she was pregnant.  Ifalna had only found out from Sophia herself, despite having been present from the moment it’d happened. 

“You do look so like her…” Sophia said, smiling at Aerith.  “I mean… obviously you know that cause you can commune with her as well… But… It’s incredible how I didn’t see it before…”

“You have basically just overthrown the most powerful corporation in the world and established a new government… I think you’re allowed to miss one or two things.” Zack interjected, trying to make her feel a little easier about the mistake. 

“So… She told you the plan?” Aerith asked.  Zack was still unaware at this point because as Aerith herself was still unsure… He was the only person left that could convince her that she needed to stop it. 

“Yep… Piece by piece my entire existence is explained.  I’ll be ready though… The black cloaks should start arriving by the ferry from Costa Del Sol as soon as tomorrow…” Sophia commented, feeling her life run closer and closer to its end with every minute, and Aerith knew it too. 

“We don’t know how many there are in total… We’re still trying to comb through the numbers to see how many specimens Hojo recorded but…” Zack continued, trying to impress upon the two that there was always some extra time for themselves. 

“I’ll know… When the last one is cleansed.  I won’t feel her here anymore…” Sophia said, holding a hand to her heart and feeling the beating muscle pulse quicker than it had ever done for Cloud.

“Well all SOLDIERs will at least be accounted for… mostly.  We still have Heideggers logs on how many were created and how long ago… I’m having Kunsel dig through the ranks to see how many of them might be M.I.A.” Zack added again, continuing to feel the tension in the room as both Aerith and Sophia knew something that he didn’t and wanted to provide some kind of distraction. 

“I… I think I’m going to turn in… Aerith can I just… ask you something… alone?” Sophia turned to young woman, her pink bow in her hair carrying a small ball again catching Sophia’s eye but not wanting to ask about it. 

Zack kissed his fiancé and turned towards the door, looking slightly dejected but still smiled to know he was useful and loved. 

“Not the sad puppy eyes Zack… It’s just… girl talk.” Sophia added, wanting to dispel the notion that it was about him. 

Zack simply nodded and headed out of the room.  Once he was out of there he let out a soft chuckle that could be heard through the door.  “Girl Talk… Nice one…”

“How did you know my name…?” Sophia asked, hoping it wouldn’t come across as an invasion but still a warranted question to ask. 

“My Mom… Told me.  She told me she found a path that was left uncharted in the rivers of fate… She… Told me that Cloud was the only one who could… walk this path.  This was the only way to ensure… Sephiroth’s complete destruction… No Rebirths, No Reunions.  No more Remakes… This is the last time we…” Aerith started to spill too much of her own personal tale, her quest to find a way… to do all of this, again and again. 

“Fate? Your mother can control it? Did she make me… this?” Sophia sat up, the very idea that the woman who’d been guiding her all this time might be responsible was… not unheard of but still unexpected. 

“No… No.  Please don’t blame her… All she ever talked about was how proud of you she was for going through this… No-one else could have… Not even me.” Aerith faced the floor as she realised the lie.  All of this was possible but there was no stopping the attempts made by the others in the Lifestream to find a course of events that allowed her and Zack to remain together, happy and alive.  A happily ever after. 

“Can you… Do something for me? I… I can hear the screams, the calls for mercy… But there’s only ever been one voice in the lifestream I could pick out among the many… You can do more than that, right?” Sophia asked and Aerith nodded, she clutched her hands together and closed her eyes. 

“Just tell me who… If they’ve rejoined the planet… You know they’re…” Aerith stuttered for the moment as she realised this might end poorly.

“I know… But there was a sinking feeling I had when your Mom told me that Sephiroth had killed through his proxies… I think I know why someone didn’t say goodbye to me… now.  His name was Bilal Chandra, he was a bar owner in Costa Del Sol…” Sophia clarified and recalled the horrific feeling she had in her chest when she was told that people had died because of Sephiroth’s influence, working through those people she’d helped to cure. 

“Oh… I’m sorry…” Aerith answered, it seemed it took her no time at all to find the spirit, the voice inside the Lifestream for her and Sophia had to admit she was jealous. 

“That’s… That’s okay.  He… was a good man.” Sophia responded, knowing now in her heart that he was gone, he hadn’t just forgotten her or left her alone for leaving for Cosmo Canyon when she did. 

Aerith unclasped her hands from her prayer and reached out, holding Sophia’s hand in hers. 

“You’re not alone in this… We’ll be by your side, until the end.” Aerith smiled, she had such a wonderful smile, the wide grin and soft features.  Sophia thought to herself and knew she wouldn't be.  In the end. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 11.  The End

As the week commenced… they started arriving.  Once Bugenhagen’s device was activated, the black cloaked test subjects that Hojo dispersed around the world to test the Reunion abilities of Jenova were all returning to the tower.  One by one, Sophia would stand before them like a strange religious ritual and pull the darkness of the alien miasma straight from their bodies.  Some of the most recent infections were still survivable and what remained of Shinra’s medical teams, assisted by Pilo’s expertise soon had them in physical therapy for their injuries and traumas sustained while out roaming in the world. 

Cargo containers full of the men were shipped by ferry across the waters and people of all walks of life would be found shepherding the infected to the Tower where she was waiting to take it all away. 

For three days and three nights, she stayed working the magics gifted to her with this body by Hojo.  It was at this point, almost three and a half months into her pregnancy that she started to realise she was showing and did the utmost to hide the fact. 

If it weren’t for Zack and Aerith’s interventions at critical moments, she would probably have insisted on staying and waiting in the large glass enclosed Shinra lobby while every single one of them was cured of this malfeasance.  Tifa and the Neighbourhood watch were assisting inside the city proper.  Every so often, another black cloak would wander through the sewers under Sector Six or come falling over one of the walls that led out into the area surrounding Midgar.  These were the people she, Biggs and Wedge would ferry onto the train that ran throughout the city which arrived quickly for these men to seek assistance.

Only as the arrivals neared their end and the assembled ranks of SOLDIER submitted to her healing as well was the trial over. 

So far as anyone was concerned, Sophia slept for two days straight and had fallen into the bed after being carried there like she was drunk beyond belief. 

“It has been an unprecedented scene here at the Former Shinra Tower where Leader of the Planetology Summit has successfully set out to complete her task… While some remained sceptical that her powers were even necessary, the release of the files from Professor Hojo’s laboratory and his Reunion Project have since removed any doubts.  While recovery has not been possible for all of the victims of Hojo’s brutal experiments… the mercy here is that they are no longer in pain…”

The TV showed the reporter standing outside the former Shinra headquarters while Tifa watched from the bar.  She stood there reminiscing, as she was without much more to do.  The busyness of the last week and a bit had brought her a little low and she wanted to find a way to be more active and productive as Zack and Aerith had been for Sophia.  The postal worker arrived, carrying the usual packages and letters addressed to the business owner.  There was one, however, that peaked her interest. 

Sophia laid in her bed exhausted. She’d been tired out and having to repeatedly channel magic to cure the afflicted, as well as the SOLDIERs, had really pulled her energy low, too low.    

She still found time to request that members of the Round Table include her in decisions made for the future of Midgar.  Beside her at this point was Park Director Dio who had produced the idea to place solar panels and charging bays in the desert surrounding the Gold Saucer.  There were other suggestions for replanting gardens to grow crops on rooftops in the city and convert largely unused areas of Sector Eight into a scientific park where engineers and scientists from all over the world might be able to pool their resources and ideas to better their future.  Scientists from Rocket town were delighted by the notion as their town had laid dormant for a long time since the abandonment of the space programme. 

“How’s… Jessie?” Sophia asked, her eyes feeling heavy and worn again. 

“She’s well. She asks when you’re coming back to visit.  She’s taken to the stage rather well.” Dio continued with a heavy hand resting on his chest as he felt the small amount of tension in the momentary relationship the two seemed to share. 

“Tell her… I’ll be there as soon as I can…” Sophia began to drift off to sleep once more but memories of Jessie pulled her back at the idea that she didn’t want to leave her without saying anything. 

“She knows.  You rest, young miss.  We’ll take it from there.” Dio said, moving his hand and holding it against her shoulder as he watched her fall to sleep in front of his eyes and smiled as the noise of her snoring quietly escaped into the room. 

By the door, Aerith and Zack waited patiently.  Aerith knew but hadn’t told Zack and had simply asked him to guard the door when she went inside. 

“Dear Tifa…

                                By now, you should be back at the bar where Zack tells me you’ve made a great name for yourself.  The ‘Cosmo Canyon’ is a personal favourite of his and says no-one will ever be able to compete with you for best bartender in Midgar.”

‘It’s time… my darling.’

Ifalna’s voice pulled over Sophia as she woke one more time to find Aerith holding her hand, clasping with a somber smile and tears welling in her eyes. 

‘We would’ve made an awesome team… You, me and Zack…’

Sophia’s words reached Aerith in her mind, her eyes were shut and her mouth remained shut.  Zack watched through the window as the slow moving breaths began to slow even further.  The breasts of her chest rising and falling with such shallowness… He knew what was happening and while he wanted to run in and try to stop it however he could… There was never anything he could have done to prevent it. 

With a slow and peaceful end, Sophia began to form thousands of small green and purple luminescent bulbs of light that floated softly into the air.  It was quiet, silent and beautiful. 

“Remember when we were little, and you were always after me to make friends with the other kids… We were next door neighbours and you were the only friend I wanted.  As we grew up a bit… I wanted to be more than your friend, but I never knew how to tell you.  How could I? There was every chance you would have kicked me in the stomach and never talked to me again…”

Sophia’s eyes woke inside a large translucent stream of green light.  She felt herself refreshed and empowered and rejuvenated by the brightness she felt on her body.  There was no floor below her, nowhere for her feet to plant to maintain her balance, only emptiness in space and more and more of this long river of green light.  She recognised it, at last, as the lifestream. 

She felt through the rivers of mako energy into planet as deeply as it could delve and found the bounteous and wonderful emotions of all who’s arrived before and all who would come after.  She could hear the cries of Aerith as she lamented the passing of her friend.  She felt the sorrow of her friend Zack as he comforted his fiancé. 

Reaching into the planet’s skin, she found a place where the muscles and flesh of the planet was bruised and swelling with vile putrescent odours.  A place far to the north of the world.  It was there she found Him, encased in a large cocoon of ice and materia.  His body was half absorbed by the crystal with roots of trees growing through his body.  The long white and silver hair stayed suspended as it flew behind his head.  One by one she felt his calls, echoing with not just his voice but with Jenova’s as well.  Somewhere along their path, he’d managed to manipulate the Jenova cells to his will, Sophia questioned whether or not this made him more powerful than Jenova, or her… that while she could only destroy them, pulling them from the host creature… He could exert control. 

Sophia looked down into the planet and felt the cries echo upwards at this point.  As she watched the man she knew she’d stabbed with Zack’s buster sword in another life, she watched as he seemed to lose pieces of himself inside the Lifestream and with every drop a new blackened and infected strand of the light formed and flowed into the great well. 

“I wanted to ask you out so many times when we were younger… And then I left to try join SOLDIER and failed… I was so embarrassed that I just didn’t even write home or call or anything… It wasn’t until Zack and Sephiroth were sent on a mission to our home that I thought I might be forced to face you… Knowing that I could never be the Hero you wanted me to be.  I promised… and I knew I’d failed you.”

Sophia reached out through the planet, as hard as she could.  Reaching into the depths of knowledge and emotion she could feel and traced along the flesh of the planet to find the other bruises.  Anywhere else that felt… wrong.  It was almost like finding a broken bone or a splinter beneath the skin.  Anything off… was Him.  In one move she locked on to every piece of the Lifestream that felt infected by Jenova’s taint and piece by piece began to excise the skin of it’s existence from her world.  This… triggered the defence.  She felt in her mind, the eyes of the beast encased in Crystal open as it became aware of her presence.  A thousand dark floating creatures began to flood her very being.  They were hollow creatures, manifested as only dark cloaks around energy that she couldn’t perceive.  Every one of them that touched her… seemed to inflict one more wound into her flesh. They bit her, they slashed her, they gnawed and cracked themselves against her body. 

Slowly but surely, piece by bloody piece they were tearing her incorporeal form to shreds while she pulled Sephiroth, Jenova and all their darkness from the spirit of this world. 

“So when I tell you this, I hope it doesn’t cause you to worry.  I found you, injured after Sephiroth hurt you. I watched Zack fly down the metal stairs back through the reactor.  I was sure he was dead.  I hated myself for failing to save you… for not being strong enough to save you.  I thought that if I’d just been more like Zack, been better, faster or stronger, like him that I could… I could have been the Hero you wanted me to be.  That you deserved.”

Sophia turned her attention back to the crystal enclosed creature, his blank cats eyes layers with green and gold and dark magical power.  He was immobile, impotent but still boiled with rage and rancour at the pain of his removal.    

‘You will never be rid of me… I exist in the hearts of men this world over.  There will always be another man like Shinra, who will lead them to their ends willingly…’

Sephiroth’s voice, overlayering the sharp screaming cries of Jenova as she was burnt slowly from the Lifestream echoed all around her. 

The black ghosts at his command were tearing her piece by piece apart.  She felt no pain from any of it.  She felt her arms dissipate as they faded away in small bursts of green and purple light to join the river flowing all around her. 

‘There might be… But you will never Be again.  I am Sophia, Goddess.  There is no more harm you can do… To me or any of them…”

Sophia thought the words in her mind and felt as they reached their target.  She watched as the being encased in crystal began to burn in red and black cinders into ash and dust.  She watched as the many screaming guises of Jenova called out for Reunion.  She watched as there was nothing left of the man who plagued her. 

In the moment where she was free of him.  She felt her mind clear as she sank into the river, welcomed as an honoured guest. 

“When I saw you at the Party after we got rid of Shinra, I was… ecstatic.  I thought for sure that you were dead and gone and I fought in your memory against the horrors of Sephiroth that plagued my memories.  I’d resigned myself to the failure I felt as a… as a man, a friend, a neighbour… That I couldn’t save you.  Before I knew what I had to do to change the world for the better I wanted to tell you… But there was no way I could explain how I felt in a form that I could never explain.”

With her duty done and form resigned to the Lifestream, renewed and bursting with vitality.  She’d joined the chorus of song and glory that would run through the world, bringing new life and civilisations to a once hopeless and desolate place.  She’d hoped that she had changed things for the better, that one life helped was enough at least.  It wasn’t until she felt the sorrow from the many still living, the sadness and grief that was felt for her passing that she realised just how many lives she had touched.  It was bittersweet and perfect. 

“By the time you reach this letter… I’ll be gone.  I just wanted to write this letter to you… The woman I loved, the woman I mourned and fought for until death would come for me.  The reason I killed Sephiroth in that reactor… I love you.  I will always love you. 

Cloud. And Sophia.

Tifa dropped the letter to the bar.

And turned to the TV once again as a red bar tracked along the bottom of the screen.

‘We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming with a breaking announcement from The Round Table… We are… being made aware… We are sorry to report the death of Sophia… Last of the Ancients… Liberator…”