Wutai Hive Room 8:26
The curious transition between sleep and conciousness ended and Godo found himself in the room with several others.
Groaning, he sat up and looked around him. A small girl lay whimpering to his left and a few meters away a man and woman lay on the floor unmoving.
Godo’s first reaction was one of disbelief: he had felt himself die. He had heard his own screams as he was ripped apart by Jenova. He had lain in his own blood as his life had seeped from him.
Godo realised that he was naked. In embaressment  he shifted away, but stopped when he noticed that everyone in the room was without clothes. Relaxing slightly, he turned his attenition to the girl crying. He approached her tentatively and put a comforting arm around her.
“My name is Godo.” he said softly. “What’s yours?”
She shied away from his touch, but looked up. She stroked strands of hair from her face before answering. She looked barely twelve.
“P-P-Priscilla.” she answered. “Are you from Wutai?”
He nodded. “Yes. What about you?”
“I live in Junon.”
Their conversation was cut short by the stirring of the man and woman in the corner. The woman yelped when she saw the Godo and moved into the corner.
“Who are you?” she cried.
The man swept back his long, black hair.
“Shera, do not worry. It is me. Vincent.”
Her eyes widened. “Vincent! But you were...”
“Dead. I know. Seemingly, it would appear that I have been brought to life.”
There was a pause as he sighed. “Again.”
Shera laughed nervously. “They just keep bringing you back, eh?”
“Quite.”
He turned, making no attmept to hide himself from the others. “And you are?”
“Godo. Yuffie Kisaragi’s father.”
“Ah.”
“What do you mean ‘ah’?”
“I am starting to see a pattern. You were dead also?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And Priscilla, I know you perished.”
“I died too!” called Shera from the corner.
“Mmm. Well, I think this is part of Sephiroth’s game.” concluded Vincent. “He is probably trying to get at Cloud and the others by bringing us back to barter with.”
Partly right. But then again, partly wrong.
Everyone in the room span round immeadiatly. Vincent, however, stayed totally still.
“Curious, Sephiroth. You have a direct synaptic link to our brains, I assume?”
Priscilla started to cry. Shera ran over the room to comfort her.
Such nerve, Vincent.
“What do you hope to accomplish by this, Sephiroth?” shouted Godo. “After you infect the whole human race, then they will rot and die, and you’ll be alone with Jenova.”
This is where the villain usually divulges his plan of world domination, am I correct?
Shera laughed. “Oh, Sephiroth, you hope to strike fear in to a young child and an ageing woman?”
There was a pause as Sephiroth said nothing, momentarily speechless. He had not expected the humans to put up so much resilience. He had planned for them to be screaming in terror by now.
Why dear Shera, I should expect you are dying to know why I brought you back from the Lifestream.
“Not really.” she retorted. “Just how.”
Very well. I shall tell you both how, and why. You see, Shera, there are certain concentrations of Jenova around the planet, within which flows a Lifestream. A Jenova Lifestream, if you care to call it that. When my hybrids tore apart your worthless bodies, I simply sent you to the Jenova Lifestream and had you revived from there.
“But how did you regenrate our bodies?” Vincent asked.
Vincent, for someone with such intelligence you are remarkably slow. These are not your original bodies. Just bits and pieces that we could find from your graves. The rest is a different material altogether. It is constructed of Jenova tissue in it’s purest and most potent form.
Priscilla cried out again. Even Vincent looked down in disgust at himself. He wondered which parts where real and which were not.
Sephiroth smiled. The fear was beginning to grip them.
Yes, Vincent. Jenova tissue. It looks normal, doesn’t it? But within hours it will begin to change, and you with it.
Vincent stood firm. “I will not co-operate.”
Ah, but you will. And with eagerness. The Jenova inside you will take control and help me in wiping out the ones you love.
The bombshell hit. Godo shouted out loud in rage and thumped the wall with his fist.
Shera, you will kill Cid Highwind. Godo, you will, as I promised, slaughter your daughter. Priscilla, you will kill Reeve.
Priscilla looked up in horror. “Reeve?”
Ah, yes. Don’t think I don’t know about the evenings you spent by the shore. About how he wanted to adopt you and call you his own. How you were to live with him in Rocket Town.
The hopeless situation finally got to Priscilla. She broke down on the floor.
“Don’t hurt Reeve!” she screamed. “I won’t do it! I’ll never hurt Reeve!”
Did you know, Priscilla, that he never told anyone about you? That he never said a word to the others and never shed a tear when he saw your body?
“No!” she sobbed hysterically. “Reeve loves me. He wanted to adopt me!”
Sephiroth said nothing.
And Vincent. I must admit, that I was quite perplexed at first. You love no one. And then I delved a little deeper...
“Lucrecia...” whispered Vincent.
Yes. Lucrecia. My, what a tragic story. Instead of you bringing about her demise, you shall kill those annoying Turks that you used to work with. The problem with Lucrecia was that she was already dead by my own sword.
“What?” he choked. “She was your mother!”
Sephiroth’s anger resonated through the mind link. Vincent cringed.
NO! I WAS NEVER HER SON! JENOVA IS MY ONLY TRUE MOTHER! SHE ALONE REACHED OUT AND HELPED ME!
Godo shook his head. “Helped you? She made you a monster.”
Say what you will! She embraced me as a son. And I will help bring about her Rebirth...
Vincent broke out of his daze. “Rebirth?”
Ahhh. Vincent, I have given away too much in my rage. Yes, the Rebirth of Jenova. The coming of the Apocalypse and the day of Final Judgement. My mother will descend from her grave in the ground and reign supreme over the Planet. Me and Jenova will become gods destined to rule the heavens-
“And you need to infect humans for this to happen?” interrupted Vincent.
Each hybrid is a concentration of Jenova. A temple. A fulcrum of power. Once I have enough of these ‘temples’ I will summon her remains and the Apocalypse will begin.
Vincent laughed. “But, Sephiroth. Surely you know that the Prophecy of Jenova’s Rebirth states that the Apocalypse will be the final battle between good and evil? Or, to put it simply, between the Lifestream and your mother?”
And how would you know that?
“As a Turk it was my task to hunt down the last Ancient that would lead us to the Promised Land. I had to spend days reading the prophecy’s of the Cetra.”
And your point?
“My point is: What if the Lifestream wins?”
It will not.
“How do you know that?” asked Godo.
I know. Jenova will be victorious.
“No, Sephiroth.” said Godo, smiling. “Love will win over Hate.”
And how do you know?
Vincent cut in and saved the faltering Godo. “Because Cloud will stop you. And if not, then Aeris will stop you. You can’t win, Sephiroth. She did it before, you know.”
But this time we will crush her.
“What makes you think that your mother will let you ‘rule’ beside her once you have revived her?” said Shera.
There was a pause.
She would not do such a thing. She is my mother.
“So you say. But Jenova hides something from you, Sephiroth. Something which you would rather not see.”
There was another long silence.
I don’t have time for your endless questions. He started to disengage the link.
“We will never kill the ones we love!” called Godo.
Sephiroth stopped and answered him.
You will. I can guarantee it.

-
Unnamed Forest 12:20
“Stop!” shouted Cid. The order was repeated down the line until the party gradually ground to a halt.
“We’re going to camp here tonight.” he shouted, taking the small, roll up tent from his back and placing it on the ground. “Be ready by seven tomorrow or we’ll leave without ya.”
Yuffie wandered wearily up to him. “Cid, do I really have to go on guard duty tonight? I’m sooo tired.”
He shook his head. “Yuffie, what’s up with you? You’re twenty-one, you should be fit! You can barely keep up with us as it is and it’s only been a month!”
She moaned quietly but said nothing. Suddenly, Elena rushed up from behind to support her.
“Yuffie, are you Ok?”
“Need... sleep...”
Elena looked at her sympathetcally. “Alright then, you go to sleep, and I’ll take the watch.”
Yuffie mumbled a thanks and stepped in to her tent. She fell asleep almost immeadiatly.
Cid regarded Elena with surprise. “That was a nice thing to do.”
Elena blushed. “Coming from you, Cid, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He nodded. “Yeah. This is going to be a problem, though. If Yuffie can’t keep up...”
“It’s not her fault!” said Elena defensively.
“Woah!” Cid cried, a little shocked. “Woah. I only meant that if she can’t keep up, then she’ll keep the rest of us from gettin’ anywhere.”
“Give her some slack, Cid!”
“Why?” he said angrily. “She’s no different from the rest of us-”
“Yes she is!” interrupted Elena
“In what way?”
“I... I can’t tell you, Cid. It’s not my place to say.”
He gave her a menacing look and stormed in to his tent.
She groaned silently. In two days she had had less than four hours sleep and she could barely keep her eyes open.
Oh, well. She would just have to try.
If she had known what was to happen, she might have tried harder.

-
Camp, Unnamed Forest 1:30
Elena fell asleep just over an hour after she set up guard.
While she lay snoring softly against a tree, three stealthy figures slowly converged upon her.
Not even Reno, who stayed awake uneasily in his tent, heard her muffled cries as they thumped her over the head with a large rock.
The figures moved up to the next tent and slowly opened the zip. One of them stole inside and came out several minutes later with another unconcious Elite.
The original four that had captured Elena stepped back and melted away in to the shadows.

-
Anthony woke.
Yawning, he got up and started to open the zip on his tent.
Something opened it first.
Vaguely, he remembered the thick hand reaching in and grabbing him by the throat. Wrenching free, he shouted an alarm before a thick stick hit him on the back of the neck and he collapsed on the floor.
As he lay dazed on the ground, he had the vague sensation that he was being hoisted up on someone’s shoulder and carried off deep in to the woods.

-
There was instant uproar as the camp erupted in to absolute chaos. Elites came pouring out of their tents to find Anthony being dragged hastily back to the foliage. Some grabbed for their rifles, only to find that they had gone. Vanished along with Anthony in to the undergrowth.
Reno brought out his torch and spun it around in a smooth 360-degree turn.
Nothing.
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” shouted Cid.
“Someone came and took Anthony. Jarvis Hessien is gone too.”
“You’re tellin’ me that someone took two of our best Elites without anyone noticing?!” bellowed Cid in a rage. “Where the hell is Elena! She was supposed to be on guard!”
Rude ran off to check. He came back, his face white.
“She’s gone.”
“Where?”
“How the hell should I know? The same place Anthony and Jarvis went.”
Cid considered this for a moment.
He had no time to issue any orders. At that precise moment a thousand rocks hurtled through the air.
The Elites fell to the ground one by one.

-
Reno ran into the woods, furious with himself for letting Elena take the watch.
What was he thinking? He knew how tired she was.
Running past the barrage of stones, he glanced back to see Cid and the Elites desperatly running the same way he was. It was no good, though. They were trapped in a tight circle.
Reno was not one to give up though. He didn’t care if he died. He just wanted to take a few of the bastards with him.
A human-shaped figure looked at him with surprise and swung a fist at him as he burst through the cover of plants he had been using. His reactions and stance was poor. Reno twisted to doge the man’s punch and replied with a neck-breaking uppercut to the chin. There was a sickening crack and the man fell to the floor, dead.
There was a shout from the left and another man came into sight. He gasped and brandished his fists.
“Ah.” said Reno, recognising the way he held his hands. “You were taught by Zangan? I know a girl who was his pupil. But she’s... incatacipated at the moment.” He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Wow. That’s a big word.”
The man grunted and spun his leg round in a full roundhouse. Ducking with ease, Reno smiled as he started to hook away the legs of his target.
Unfortunatly, he didn’t notice the man slam down his fist in a quick move which left Reno with a badly bleeding jaw.
Jumping away, Reno touched his nose delicatly. “Owww.” he moaned. “I was planning on leaving you alive, but now I guess you’ll have to die like that man there.”
Smiling, the other manlunged forward, catching Reno off-guard. Or so he thought. With a quick move of his leg, Reno rammed his kneecap as hard as he could into the man’s testicles. A strangled cry of anguish the man collapsed to the ground, his face ashen and tears in his eyes.
Reno nodded frankly. “Yes, in case you ask. I do play dirty.”
Knowing he was about to die, the man stumbled to his feet and managed to move slowly away. Reno looked at him with a smirk before running off into woods.
“I’m lettin’ you go this time.” he called. “But next time I might break a few legs.”
He had not gone ten meters before a well-placed stone hit him sharply on the bridge of the nose. Crumpling to the floor, Reno muttered happily to himself as he lay in the mud.
“Well, I got one of them, and the other is not having children anytime soon.”
Another stone hit him on the temple and he blacked out.

-
Fort Condor 3:44
The thoughts in her head coalesced into a line of thought and she came to.
Her skin was itching like hell.
“Drink this.” said a voice.
Something was pressed to her lips and the sweet liquid slid past her parched lips.
“Who... are... you?” she croaked.
Her vision cleared as the liquid flushed out her system. Nicholas stood before her, the nasty purple gash sweeping down his neck and to his shoulder.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Lousy. And you?”
“About as good as I look.”
Smiling, Tifa took his hand. It had been a long time since she had had any contact with a person. She pressed the hand against her face, the cold flesh cooling her tortured body.
“You don’t look bad.”
“Neither do you.”
She smiled again. She knew it was a lie, but it comforted her all the same.
“Liar.”
He said nothing. Instead, he took a damp cloth and pressed against her head.
“Is Cloud back?” she asked.
“No. He has not returned.”
She paused before asking the question she had been thinking about for a long time.
“How long have I... have I got left?”
He looked down, saddened.
“Not long. About five weeks before we have to...”
His voice broke and he started to weep softly.
“Before you have to kill me.” she finished. “I know. Nicholas?”
“Tifa?”
“Do you think I will see Cloud again?”
Again he shook his head. “Not in this life, Tifa.”
“Do you think I will see him in the Lifestream?”
He nodded. “Not in this life, Tifa. But in the next. In the next.”
“Nicholas?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
They were silent for a long time. Finally, he left the room when she fell asleep.
Outside, dawn was breaking.

-
Wutai Hive Room 3:49
Priscilla sat hunched up in the corner, shivering.
Over the past few hours Vincent had seen the others begin to change, their bodies twisting, their minds warping.
He went over to Priscilla to try and calm her down.
“GETTTT AWAYYY!” she screamed suddenly. Her face lifted to reveal a fourth eye growing on her cheek. Purple veins were already spreading through her body.
“Gett offf herr, Vincentt!” screeched Shera. She ran over and cradled Priscilla sympathetically. “Stttop itt! Noww!”
Vincent looked at Shera. She was trying to hold out against the cancer, but it was no good.
“Strange,” muttered Vincetn to himself. “Why is it that I do not change and yet the others are already mutating?”
Godo stood up, trembling.
“V-V-Vincenttt.” he choked out. “Kill mee. Please...”
“No,” said Vincent, shaking his head. “If I even tried to touch you we’d be put into separate cells.”
Godo stood there, stricken, then nodded and went back to the wall.
“I won’t kill my Yuffie.” he repeated over and over to himself. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”
Vincent sighed and looked at his skin again. There was still no apparant change.
“Why does it not affect me?”
On the other side of the cell walls, Sephiroth was struggling to answer the same question.

-
“Why does it not affect him?” he roared, slamming a fist down onto the chair.
The synaptic link snaked down from the ceiling again and connected to his brain.
Why is he resistant to the Cancer? Are you telling me the ultimate evil cannot bring a mere man to his knees?
The Jenova answered him simply and sharply. He is not a ‘mere man’. He was killed and then surgically reinhanced by Proffesor Gast.
And that is what is keeping him alive?
Yes. The nanomachines that were used to reconstruct him anatomically are still present in his blood stream. When we fused his body to the Jenova tissue, these nanomachines activated and are destroying the Cancer as it lays dormant. There is no way to combat this. The Cancer is designed to specifically corrupt biological cells, not mechanical ones. I doubt that we will be able to turn him.
Sephiroth was perplexed. Why did Gast create him?
It is possible that Gast knew of the coming Viral Apocalypse. He may have designed Vincent as a human who could withstand the Cancer.
Sephiroth was afraid now. Could the nanomachines be made into a vaccine? A counter-virus?
There was a short pause. We do not believe so. The nanomachines are not reproducing, and could not be harvested in sufficient quantites to produce an effective vaccine. The nanomachines are also extremly complicated: Proffesor Gast was a master of bio-chemistry. It is very unlikely that anyone will discover how to make the nanomachines for at least ten to fifteen years. Evidently, the Proffessor misjudged your return, thinking it would be many years from now.
Sephiroth sighed with relief as the synaptic link disengaged. For a brief moment he had been extremly worried. Vincent could have ruined everything.
As such, he was easily dealt with.
“Kill him.” he ordered.

To Chapter 3