‘Nanananana!!!’ shouted Cid Highwind from across the field. In his left hand he held a small model of his former plane, the Tiny Bronco, and in his right hand he held a model of the Highwind. To Tifa, it seemed as if he was re-enacting a dogfight, although with Cid’s mind it could have been anything.
‘Yes! And the Highwind has crashed into the Tiny bronco, causing an enormous explosion high above in the sky!!!’
‘What the Ifrit?’ Tifa wondered. She was becoming increasingly concerned with Cid’s mental health, all he seemed to have been doing for the last hour or so was crashing two model planes together and yelling “nanananana” at the top of his voice. Still, he still spoke in his old ‘salt-of-the-earth’ way of speaking that everyone, ahem, admired.
Anyway, two days ago Cid had sent a message to all the members of their original party, Cloud, Barret, Yuffie and Red XIII, as well as herself, to come as quickly as they could to Rocket town. He had also tried to get a message to Reeves, but as he was no longer a member of the Shinra he had trouble finding him. Cait Sith had broke down, and so he had no way of finding him unless he bumped into him on the street, which was unlikely.
One year ago Reeves had been reported dead on the news, but the day after he turned up at Clouds house, his clothes torn and with a large scar across his left cheek. Cloud had taken him in and helped him recover, and also learned more news of the reformation of Shinra, but before Reeves was back to full health he just mysteriously disappeared one night, and had never been seen since. Tifa had noticed something strange in his eyes, as if he was scared of something, but he never spoke of it nor made any comment about anything wrong with him. He never even told anyone why he appeared at Clouds door that day, or why he was battered and bruised. Ever since Cloud had sworn to find him, and so Tifa guessed he had some clue or something as to where he was, and so that was why he was now late for Cid’s announcement.
Red XIII was sitting in Cids house with Barret, talking about things Tifa could only guess at, and Yuffie was in a barn just behind her, jumping off of things, or somersaulting, or backflipping around the place by the sound of it. She could hear the occasional ‘oof!’ and a large pile of dust coming out of the barn’s door, or the splintering of wood, followed shortly by a ‘hiy-ya!’. And finally, Vincent phoned on the PHS about an hour ago saying he’d be a bit late, but he didn’t give a reason. Tifa turned her attention to the field again, and just behind where Cid was standing he had built an enormous hangar, made entirely of metal from around the town that was just cluttering up the place, and the immense doors were shut and locked with three heavy padlocks. The citizens of the town were very pleased with Cid, for he had tidied up the entire town of rubbish making his creation, and whether he meant to help or not was left for Tifa’s mind to guess. Cid placed his models carefully on the stool sitting just behind him, and casually strolled over to her. A cigarette was hanging limply from his dry lips, smoke drifting up from the lit end and small pieces occasionally falling slowly to the ground.
‘Cid, have you tried getting hold of Cloud again?’ questioned Tifa.
‘Sorry…’ replied Cid, taking the stump of a cigarette out of his mouth and tossing it to the patchy grass. It glowed dimly before Cid landed his heavy boot on it and put it out. He turned his foot to the side and brought it back slowly, taking up some of the turf from the floor.
‘Ahh…’ he sighed. He fumbled around in his inside pocket and brought out a crumpled packet of cigarettes. Along the side of the packet Tifa could vaguely make out the words “Shinra Brand X”, with the words “Can be hazardous to your health” printed smaller underneath them.
Cid pulled out a narrow cigarette and placed it between his lips before placing the packet back inside his jacket. Out of his trouser pocket he pulled a small lighter, in the shape of a rocket ship, and lit the cigarette.
Tifa put her hands on her hips and frowned at Cid.
‘They’ll kill you, you know…’
Cid breathed out a mouthful of smoke and sighed.
‘That’s the third time you’ve said that in an hour…’
He put the cigarette back in his mouth and slowly walked over to the barn where Yuffie was jumping around. He walked up to the wooden door and leant up against it, taking his PHS out of his outside jacket pocket. It was scratched and quite a few bits of it had been taped together, but it worked perfectly. Cid extended the aerial and quickly tapped a number into the keypad. He waited for a moment, and his face turned into a frown when it beeped and went silent.
‘That’s strange, no answer…’ he mumbled.
‘Where could he be…?’ thought Tifa, worriedly.

Huh? This room had a familiar smell, but something seemed, well, odd.
Where am I? This chair felt weird as well, almost as if it was used for restraining people.
But that would be stupid, right? I mean, why would I be tied up in a darkened room that felt somehow familiar?
‘Right, let’s go.’
The lights flickered on, filling the previously dark room with a dim yellow light, and Cloud blinked quickly, having been in pitch-blackness for the last three days. When he had got used to the light, he slowly began to turn his head.
‘Ow.’ Something clicked in his collarbone and his head would turn no further.
‘Ah, Mr. Strife, welcome to my humble home.’ Cloud grunted and looked in the direction of the speaker, and spat on the floor at his feet.
‘Well, that’s not a very nice way to treat one’s home, is it now? Anyway, I trust Heidegger treated you well? He’s not one to mishandle the Presidents guests, although Scarlet does have a tendency to cause unnecessary pain at every given opportunity.’
‘So I found out…’ mumbled Cloud under his breath, trying to reach his ribcage, where Scarlet had ‘caused unnecessary pain’ to it, but his hands were bound behind the chair.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘I guess you’re the new President of Shinra are you? Or what’s left of it might I add, but I suppose you’re going to rebuild it, or begin a new venture, or maybe even try to take back the fabled ‘Promised Land’?’.
The President turned around and faced the wall, hands behind his back.
‘The Promised Land exists, there’s no denying it, and don’t think I don’t know about your previous ‘venture’, as you so plainly put it, and I know you’ve been there before, and seen the infinite wonders it holds. I know all about you Cloud Strife, your whole life, maybe even more than you do, and I know how and what you think, and that is why I have brought you here.
But what is the Promised Land? A place where Neo Midgar could be built, a place of Mako, not just any amount of Mako, but the largest deposit of it on the entire planet. That was Rufus’ vision and his father before him, but of course there was those of us that didn’t take everything for face value, and instead delved more deeply into the heart and soul of something to get what’s really important, and that’s why I’m here today, not that fool Rufus.
Do you know what I’m talking about, Cloud Strife? Of course you do, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Not Mako, not anything Rufus believed in, but something else altogether; and that is why I brought you here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘You don’t know who I am? I, my friend, am the President of Shinra Inc!’
‘I know that, but Rufus had no son, so who are you exactly?’
‘Ah, my name you mean. But that would be impossible, because if I were to tell you that I would have to kill you, and we don’t want that just quite yet do we?’
Cloud broke out into a cold sweat, as Heidegger walked into the room brandishing a mean-looking burning rod of metal.
‘What the…?’
‘I believe you’ve already met Heidegger before, but I doubt you know about his skills in torturing. He’s actually very good, you know.’
‘Brilliant…’
‘Now, I really need to know the whereabouts of Sephiroth’s death. It’s a valuable part of my research, and it would be a shame to ruin that lovely skin of yours.’
‘What research, what do you want with me?!’
‘Shh, shh, I’m sure Heidegger will bring your memory back, sooner or later.’
Heidegger gave one of his horselaughs, before being abruptly silenced by the President.
‘Now Cloud,’ said Heidegger, ‘let’s begin, shall we?’

All alone, outside the thirty-eighth floor of the Shinra Building, in the dim daylight, was a man, hanging from a window ledge. He was clad all in black, with a hood drawn over his face, concealing it in darkness, and two holsters hanging from the belt on his side. He looked to the left of himself, and with one smooth motion flung himself over and clung to an out jutting pipe. His hands slipped for a second, but with precision timing and an overdose of luck he dropped into the air vent below him and landed noiselessly on the steel floor. With a quick turn he was facing the right way, and after checking his watch he was away. He sped along the vents with inhuman speed, turning every now and again, or stopping to check his watch again. Sweat poured from his head as he bounded untroubled down the steel corridors, although he was beginning to slow down now, and after what seemed like an eternity he stopped.
‘Ten-fifteen, on the dot.’ He muttered under his breath, as he banged his arm along each side of the air vent. Eventually he found what he was looking for and punched a loose piece of metal through, landing with a clutter on the floor far below. The man poked his head out, worked something out in his head, and then head first he dived out of the vent, spinning clockwise in mid air for a second, and landed on both feet perfectly on the tiled ground below him.
Without saying a word he strode over to the far door and tested it. It was locked. He pulled out a small card from his inside pocket and tried to open it with that, but to no avail. Picking the lock was no use either, as was trying to force it open.
‘Hmm…’ he wondered, stroking his chin. At last, a thought came to his head, and he whipped a pistol from the holster on the left side of his belt and put three bullets into it. The gun wasn’t silenced, and as soon as the first bullet was fired, the alarms came on, as did the sprinkler systems.
He didn’t say a word as he stepped, soaking wet, into the room beyond. His feet squelched noisily as he strided across the hallway, and, unknown to him, towards the guards sleeping quarters.
As he made his way across the hall, a faint sound in the room he had just passed made him stop. He turned, and put his ear up against the wall to see what it was.
‘The thirty-first floor? But that isn’t the Presidents floor…’
‘No, it’s been changed, see. It’s now the interrogation room.’
‘Oh, I see…’
A scraping of chairs was heard, and footsteps coming towards the door. The man stepped back, and quickly looked around the room. On the far wall was a bench, with some old cushions scattered along it, and an old plant pot set upon a table next to it. He walked over to the bench and picked up two cushions. Then, he walked over to the door again and waited.
Eventually the two men who had been in there walked out, chatting. When they spotted the man he chucked a cushion to each of them and called ‘Catch!’
Each of them caught the cushions against their chests, and were about to speak, when he pulled out two pistols and pressed them against the cushions, and then pulled the triggers. Silently the two guards dropped to the floor, blood smeared across the cushions and the front of their bodies. The man wiped the barrel of his gun, and walked over to the elevator at the far end of the hall.
‘Thirty-one…’ he muttered as he tapped the floor number into the keypad, and leant against the back of the elevator as it descended seven floors. It stopped with a ‘ping!’ and the doors slid open.
‘Hey’ went a chorus of voices, as well as the sounds of many guns loading. The man stepped coolly out of the elevator, throwing back his hood and outstretching his arms. His long, black hair tumbled down over his face, and his boots padded softly on the ground, leaving a faint trail of water where he stepped. The guards in the room froze for a second, and before he had even spoke a word a great cry arose, and they fell over each other and tripped over furniture in a desperate attempt to get away from him.
His black cloak swept around his body now as he strode through the room, unhindered by the guards, who were now all busy hiding under tables and the like. Murmuring could be heard around the room, saying things like ‘It’s him, the one they warned us about!’ and ‘He’s the devil himself!’. He seemed to take no notice of this however, and walked through the room until he reached the door.
‘H-hey, st-stop right there…’
He stopped, admittedly surprised that a Shinra guard would stand up to him, and turned to face his opponent.
‘Do you know who I am…?’ he asked, quietly. The guards face dripped with sweat, and his gun was shaking madly.
‘Erm, erm, yes, s-sir…’ he stuttered.
‘Then you know what I can do…’
‘Er, y-yeah…’
The guard toppled to the ground, a smoking hole in his forehead. This filled the rest of the room with more morale, as more guards climbed up and aimed their Weapons at the intruder, intent on killing him.
‘Here we go…’ he muttered under his breath. He whipped his second pistol out of his holster and fired into the air, before rolling sideways across the room. A few bullets hit the wall where he had just been, but it was mostly panic fire, as now the guards couldn’t see him.
Two guards dropped to the floor, three bullets in each of their backs, and the man dropped from the ceiling. One of the guards tried to call out some commands for the rest to follow, but few took heed of them, most trying to locate their enemy on their own instead.
‘Unite and you will be strong, but divide and you shall be conquered.’ whispered the man’s voice from somewhere. Most of the guards stopped in their tracks, but a couple of them screamed as a bullet was put into each of their foreheads.
Now, he stepped into plain view of everyone, walking towards them slowly, with a pistol in each hand. He started to fire, taking a few guards down, but then they began to retaliate. Every person in the room fired at him, and after about twenty seconds a tall column of smoke surrounded where his body lay, riddled with holes.
‘He’s dead!’ called someone, and they ran to his body, Weapons now at their sides.
As they stood there in a circle examining the body, it rose up from the ground and spun once in the air, before landing on his feet once again, this time behind the circle of men.
‘You think your weapons can kill me?’ he cried, before firing into the crowd, until his gun barrels were empty.
‘Damn, out…’ he muttered. Quick as lightning, he dived into the crowd and pulled a machine gun out of one of the guards’ unsuspecting arms. A quick hail of machine gun fire was enough to make the guards that were left alive disperse.
Then, in a miraculous display of skill, he ran towards the wall, up the wall, and did a backflip across the room, while still firing the gun at anyone who moved, and landed again, even before a single bullet case had hit the floor. After this, only two men were alive, both of whom dropped their guns and fell to their knees, pleading for their lives. The man walked up to each of them, and continued by putting a bullet through each of their heads, splattering blood up each wall. The bodies fell lifelessly to the blood-soaked ground, a face of pure horror still on each of their faces.
‘Hojo, why…’ said the man, as he picked two guns up off of the floor and loaded each of them. He slung them both over his shoulder and dropped to his knees. He pulled a piece of paper out of the inside of his cloak, and in his own blood wrote:

The last trace of Hojo, wiped from the face of the planet. Guess who?

He pinned the note to a guard’s chest, and walked out of the room.

‘Don’t fight it Cloud, you know it can all end if you tell me.’ hissed Heidegger. Cloud spat at his feet and coughed up more blood, as the poker was inserted into his chest.
‘Heidegger!’ called the President as he walked into the interrogation room.
‘Yes Sir?’
‘There was an awful noise coming from the far room, could you go and check it out for me?’
‘But Sir, I’m almost there…’
‘Do it, or you’ll suffer the same.’
Heidegger placed the poker in a rack next to where Cloud was tied up, and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘So, Cloud,’ began the President, ‘you won’t co-operate? That’s a shame, because I was so looking forward to letting you go, but now…’
Cloud hurled himself forward, and he and the chair fell to the ground, knocking the President over and also knocking the rack with the poker in to the floor. Cloud knocked his head against the corner of the nearby table, and fell unconscious.
‘Hey!’ called the President, but was cut short by Heidegger running into the room, panting.
‘Sir, Sir! They’re all dead, every one of them! Sir?’ He ran over to where the President was pulling himself up off of the floor, and he kicked Cloud twice in the ribs.
‘Urghhh…’ he moaned, blood seeping into his shirt and the leg of the chair digging into his spine.
‘What do you mean they’re all dead?!’ the President cried, grabbing Heidegger by the collar.
‘And, and there was this note…’ He handed him the note that was left there, and after reading it, the President turned a ghostly white.
‘He’s here…’
Suddenly, a window shattered in the room, and the man dropped in with a pistol in each hand. He fired two bullets at Heidegger and the President, making them dive for cover. With a smile he walked over to Cloud, inside laughing at the cowardice of the President and his right-hand man, and untied his ropes, slung him over his shoulder, and walked over to the other window.
‘Hey, that’s, that’s…’ called Heidegger, holding a book over his head for protection.
‘Yes, it’s me.’ said the man, turning around and drawing back his cloak again, ‘It is I, Vincent Valentine.’
Then, he was gone. He had dived from the window and fell from the thirty-first floor of the Shinra building. He dropped into darkness, and Heidegger stared from up above.
‘He’s dead, sir, he’s dived from here, surely he must be dead!’
‘No,’ began the President, ‘he won’t die, not until he’s completed what he set out to do. Besides, you know who he is, how he was made. He won’t die…’
‘But sir, what did that letter mean? To wipe the last trace of Hojo from the planet, because Hojo’s lab is still here…’
The President looked up suddenly.
‘He’s going to blow up the building!’

Vincent looked at the Shinra building far away, now just a ruined wreck amidst a field of fire, gone, forever.
He turned and ran, with Cloud over his shoulder.

But, but that was a long time ago. A memory. A distant past.
Yeah, I guess so, but it was important.
I know, I know, but I’m scared.
Why didn’t you tell them? You never told anyone before because you didn’t know anyone, but now…
I, I guess I should have huh?
Well, there’s time now…
But what’s the point?
Oh come on, you saw how he was, he’s lost it. You never know, you might actually be able to help him.
How?
I don’t know… But you never know until you try.
Do you think so?
Try it.
I’ve never felt this way before, that is, apart from that time I was in the Lifestream…
So how do you think he feels. He lives in the city he had grown to hate, and he can’t say a word. He’s gone mad, the Mako did it to him.
I fought it. Why couldn’t he?
You had Tifa. He had no support, no one to help him, no one to get him through. Hojo’s experiments warped him, changed him into something he shouldn’t have become.
Was I stronger?
Maybe…but again you had friends with you. You were his only friend, no, the only person he knew…you had gone when it happened.
Was it my fault…?
Question yourself, find the answers, find out what you need to know.
What does that mean?
Go to Midgar.
What?
Go to Midgar.
But, but it was destroyed…Holy…Meteor…
Yes, but he might still be there.
Do you think?
Unless you look, it will be forever on your mind.
Thanks…

‘He’s waking up…’
‘Hello, hello.’
Huh?
‘Hello, hello.’
Cloud awoke with a shudder. Cold water had been passed down his lips, he could taste it.
‘Where am I?’
A familiar face greeted him, his long black hair tumbling down over his dusty face. Vincent placed a bandage over Clouds arm, and wrapped it around twice, sealing it with a small knot.
‘You’re safe now…’
Cloud tried to lift his head, but as he did the world spun and he felt dizzy. He passed out for a second, and awoke again with the same shudder.
‘Get some rest’ said Vincent.
Cloud lay back again, and gazed up into the afternoon sky. The sun would have once shone across the horizon, long ago, but now all he could see was the dark sky above him. It made him feel cold, even in these warm afternoons, well, as warm as the planet got to now. He shuddered again.
‘Where am I…’ he whispered out, not caring if anyone heard it or not.
‘You’ll find out later, but you need sleep.’ replied Vincent.
Cloud searched the back of his mind, trying to find out what he was doing here, what was happening. He remembered the incident in the Shinra Building, but after that, and why Vincent was here, he didn’t know.
Vincent sat down on the grass, and pulled out a bottle on a strap from underneath his cloak. He took a long sip from it, and replaced the lid. He gasped, and lay back on the grass, also staring up into the sky. He saw what Cloud had seen, the dust up in the sky, the eternal darkness, the shadows, and how they were lay in it.
‘Ah…’
Cloud shuddered again, and this time Vincent noticed. He picked him up, carefully, and lay him down again in the sunlight.
There they sat for an hour, and at last, out of a deep sleep, Cloud awoke. He sat right up, and called out to Vincent.
‘We have to go to Midgar!’
Vincent woke up at Clouds shouting, and turned to him.
‘What?’
‘We have to go to Midgar!’
‘Why?’
‘I, I need to help him…’
‘What are you talking about?’
Cloud stood up. His body hurt a little from the torture, but Vincent had bandaged him up and tended to his wounds. Plus, he had had a lot of sleep.
Vincent stood up now as well, and walked over to Cloud.
‘But Cid needs to see you, he’s been waiting for you for two days.’
‘I, I have to Vincent. This is something I should have done a long time ago.’
Cloud looked around. His sword had gone, the Shinra must have it.
Damn.
Vincent went to put his hand on Clouds shoulder, but it was to late. Cloud had begun to run away.
‘Cloud!’ he shouted.
Cloud may have been injured, but he definitely wanted to get to Midgar as soon as possible, he was running at an amazing speed. Vincent gathered all his things off of the floor into his sack, but by the time he had turned around again, Cloud was out of site.
‘Damn…’
He swept back his hair, and considered what to do next. He had to go to Cid, he decided. Maybe now that they knew where Cloud was he would be easier to find. Yeah, that was it. They’d take the Highwind and go to Midgar, pick up Cloud and maybe then they could get on with whatever Cid wanted to show them.
He began to make his way towards the sea. Maybe he could catch a boat, or maybe hitch a ride on a plane, or something. Even though Vincent seemed to know what he was doing, a bead of sweat ran down his forehead anyway.

‘What? I don’t….oh, ok.’ Cid placed the PHS back on the table and walked over to the group.
‘Something’s happened. Something bad.’
Tifa pushed herself up from her chair and put her fists firmly on the table.
‘What do you mean something bad’s happened?’ Her voice was in a serious tone, her face in an eager expression.
‘Well,’ Cid started, ‘Vincent found him, he didn’t say where, but now he’s gone again.’
‘That damn spiky-ass…’ Barret muttered under his breath. Cid walked over to the window and stared outside. A deep fog had descended over Rocket Town.
‘If only the Highwind was ready…’ he mumbled.
A couple of days ago the Highwind had been under attack by Shinra Troops again, and in an attempt to save it, Cid had tried to fly it out of the town, and off to somewhere where it would be safe. A while after he had left the town, strange flying ships surrounded the Highwind, and as a result it was hit by gunfire from the ships. It fell from the sky, and miraculously didn’t crash into the ground, instead landing in the forest nearby. Cid had stayed there for the rest of that day and the rest of that night whilst the Shinra troops searched for him. When they gave up, he got the rest of the men from Rocket Town and with some quick thinking he came up with something to drag the Highwind back to town. He and the men made a crane-like machine, and used that to transport the Highwind back. The ships that attacked had never been seen before, and haven’t been seen since, although a couple of Shinra troopers have been spotted searching the surrounding area.
‘Cid…’ Cid turned around to continue talking to his friends.
‘Well, Vincent mentioned that Cloud said he wanted to go to Midgar for some reason, so I guess our best bet is to go there…but how we get there, I don’t know.’
The room fell silent for a moment, before Red XIII spoke up with an idea.
‘I believe the only way over is to take a ship, but as they have been blockaded off by Shinra troops…’
‘Wait, think about it!’ interrupted Barret. ‘We took that submarine from the underwater reactor two years ago. What did we do with it?’. He looked around the room, but saw nothing but blank voices. Cid scratched his head, and thought about it for a second, before slamming his hand on the table and exclaiming ‘The caves!’
‘Caves?’ questioned Tifa.
‘Yeah, there’s some caves near to the shore, slightly underwater. No one knows about them, but I accidentally found them.’
‘How did you accidentally find a cave?’
‘Oh, I er…crashed a plane into there…’
‘Oh, ok….’
‘Anyway, we can take that over there. The Shinra will never see us. That is, if we stay below the surface.’
So, the party gathered all their belongings together and went to the secret caves Cid had told them about. Sure enough, there it was, the white paint of the submarine chipped in places from various torpedo hits, but apart from that it was virtually intact. That was, of course, apart from the gaping hole in the right side.
‘Oh no!’ moaned Tifa as she noticed it. The sub had sunk towards the bottom of the cave, and various sea creatures had made their homes inside. As soon as Cid spotted it he dived into the water and waded over to the sub, and inspected it carefully.
‘This was, this was made by a creature…’ He looked around slowly, checking every corner of the cave. As he did so he made his way back over to where everyone else was, but it was too late.
Out of the murky water a shape arose, extremely large, and made its way up onto the shore where Tifa, Barret, Red XIII and Yuffie were standing. Cid scrambled up the rocks at the side and picked his home-made spear up off of the floor where he had left it to stop it from getting wet.
‘A, A, Admantoise!!!’ yelled Yuffie, grabbing The Conformer off of her side.
‘Ha, it thinks it can take us on?’ chuckled Barret, as he walked towards it. Cid came over behind it, and was about to call out to Tifa and Red XIII, when Shinra troops came down into the cave as well.
‘What the…?’ The troops made short work of the Admantoise, taking it down with continuous firing of their guns, and before the party could figure out what was going on, a tight circle of men was made around them.
‘What’s going on? This is madness!’ called Red XIII to them.
‘Quiet!’ shouted the only man dressed in a red uniform, the leader obviously. ‘You are to be taken to Midgar, where your crimes are to be assessed.’
‘Crimes!?’ Barret exclaimed. He lifted his gun-arm up, but was quickly knocked to the floor by several Shinra soldiers. The leader walked over to the wall of the cave and turned around.
‘You forget what you have done? Why, the worst terrorist act imaginable. The destruction of the Shinra Building.’
‘What?!’
‘I don’t know what you had to do with it exactly, but we are under strict orders to take you away for execution.’
‘Orders?! From who?’
‘Aha, that would be telling. You will soon find out anyway, just before the end of your miserable lives…’ Barret attempted to lunge for him, but was taken down again by the soldiers.
‘Use the sleeping gas, I can’t be doing with him all the way to Midgar. I’ll get a headache.’
The soldiers each put on a gas mask, and carried out the leaders orders with their guns. A quick spray of the sleeping gas was all that was needed to put each of them into a deep, deep sleep…

Alpha will arise.
Omega will arise.
Their powers will be enough to match even that of The Knights of the Round. They will be taken from whence they came, and placed on the planet where chaos will arise. The Lifestream will overflow, and I, I will rise once again, but not in the puny human form I once was, but as a presence, a presence to rule over all…
But, I must bide my time. Alpha and Omega have yet to be awakened by the inferior one, and to do so he must find the last materia. The white Materia. In the Lost City it resides, suspended in time, until it is needed once again, and at that time it will be mine.
I will be unstoppable.

‘I, I’m sorry…’ Cloud sat at the side of the pipe, head in hands. The man who had lived there for so long just stared back, not saying a word. Cloud lifted his head up, and stared back into his eyes.
‘Zack…’ His head sank back into his hands again. ‘I didn’t know. How could I? You, you died, didn’t you?’
The man turned his head to the left, and gazed at the line of trophies adorning the shelf above his head, each one of them coated in a thick layer of dust from years of just sitting there. Cloud stood up and went over to the shelf, and wiped the dust from one of them.
‘SOLDIER, 1st Class…’ he said. He placed the trophy back on the shelf, and turned to the man.
‘I’m gonna get you out of here. I’m gonna get you better again. Just come with me.’ The man blinked very slowly, and stared outside of the pipe. He had not been out of this place for seven years, not after it had happened. He sat there and thought.
‘Please…’ urged Cloud. The man turned to Cloud, and nodded in agreement. He stood up, and shakily walked out of the pie where he had spent so many of his days. As he walked out into the grim darkness of the night, he breathed in air, clean air. The pipe he had lived in had used to be an old sewage pipe, used to get rid of the sectors waste, and after it had been blocked off years ago, that was when he had moved in.
‘Zack!’ shouted Cloud. Zack had tumbled to the floor, probably because he hadn’t walked for over seven years. He had to get used to it again. Cloud picked him up, dusted him down and sat him up against a wall.
‘What are we gonna do…?’
Zack stared blankly out into the distance, oblivious to the outside world. Cloud looked at him and sighed. What had the Shinra done? They were monsters, just like everyone has always said. But he was going to show them, he was going to cure Zack, and then take on the Shinra once and for all, or what was left of it.
‘Lets get going…’ He picked Zack up ad put him over his shoulder. He was light, strangely enough. Probably the effects of the Mako.
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult…’
Cloud took Zack out of Midgar, and crossed the fields across to Kalm, where he had made a reservation at the Inn. They slept there that night, and the day after Cloud went to see if there was anyone in the town who could help them get to Rocket Town. At last he found the old man who had requested Cloud and his friends find the Earth Harp, the Guidebook and the Desert Rose. He was sitting in an old rocking chair by the fire, happily smoking away on a pipe. As Cloud entered the room the man turned his head, and nodded.
‘Ay, that young lad there looks very ill, that he does.’
Cloud gently placed Zack down on a sofa nearest to the door and walked over to him.
‘I’m ever so sorry to intrude like this, but….’ He was cut off as the man got up from his chair and put his finger to Cloud’s lips.
‘Shh…’ he whispered. He picked up a cane off of the floor and hobbled over to the side of the room. A small wooden box lay on the windowsill, locked with a small, brown rusty lock. He leant his cane up against the wall and fumbled around on the inside of his jacket, and revealed a small key on an old piece of rope. He placed the key inside the lock and turned it with a ‘click’.
Zack mumbled and turned around on the sofa. He had fallen asleep.
‘Poor Zack…’ Cloud said under his breath. His mind went back to that time in the Lifestream, where he could of, he hated to even think of it, died. He still didn’t understand how he had got out, he vaguely remembered the Doctors discussing it at the hospital.
‘It’s too bad…’ they said. ‘I’ve never seen someone with a condition as bad as this. It’s amazing how he’s even alive at the moment’.
But that was then, and this was now. The only thing that mattered was Zack, and of course the problem of finding a way across to the other side of the world.
‘You know, there’s and old buggy out back. I’ll let you have it, if you do something for me first.’ Said the old man. He had sat back down in his chair, and in his withered hands he held a short piece of chain, with two keys dangling off of the end.
‘What?’
‘A buggy. You can use it to get to Junon if you like. But as I said, you’ve got to do something for me first.’
‘What kind of a thing…?’
‘Oh, it’s very simple really. Basically, there’s one more item I need before I can go on my travels…’
‘You haven’t gone yet?’
‘No, and I’m a bit, well, embarrassed shall we say about asking anyone else…’
‘So what is this item?’
The old man reached underneath of his chair, and pulled out a large map, rolled up and tied with string. He pulled the string off and unrolled it on the floor. It was a map of the world.
‘I need something known as ‘The Compass of all Knowledge’. I believe a man in Midgar owns it, although something happened to him a couple of years ago that made the Compass a little bit harder to acquire.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Well, he attacked the President whilst he was doing a routine inspection of each Sector, something he gave up on after this particular incident, and no one knows why. He was seized and was held in the Shinra building’s prisons, where he would eventually be taken away from and put into the one near Corel. Anyways, something happened to him that night that changed his life for the worst. Some say it was an accident, others the act of Hojo. But whatever happened, it wasn’t pretty.’
‘What happened?’
‘The morning after, there was blood everywhere and all the guards were dead.’
‘Sounds familiar…’
‘No one knows what happened to him, but the next time he was seen he had changed, he looked like some sort of monster. A powerful killing machine...'
So, whereabouts is this guy, or whatever you want to call him?’
‘Hold on, there’s more. They say there were more captives in the prison that night, and they were maybe the only people in the top section of the building that survived that night. Oh, and I think that was the night the President was killed as well… and when Rufus took over.’
‘No…’
‘What’s the matter?’
Cloud backed off towards the wall, and as he knocked into it he slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor. The old man stared in confusion at what Cloud was doing, he thought he had scared him or something. Cloud frowned, and looked at the old man.
‘But, Jenova…and Sephiroth…was it all a dream? Or did Jenova come from somewhere else?’
‘Excuse me?’
Cloud came back to his senses, and told the man to forget it.
‘So, er, as I was saying…’ the old man continued, ‘this man resides in a place in Midgar I believe you have never been to.’
‘Excuse me’ said Cloud, ‘but I was a member of the Shinra once, and I know Midgar like the back of my hand. Just tell me where he is and I’ll go get this Compass for you.’
‘Sector 1A.’
‘Huh?’
‘A secret area, made when the Shinra thought they could do more than was feasibly possible at the time. It was shut down when it became impossible to run any longer. No one knows about it, bar a select few, making it the perfect hiding place for those who need to hide.’
‘Sector 1A…’
The old man got up and walked over to a door on the other side of the room. With a gentle push it swung open, revealing a room within. The room contained beds, and a table, and a small writing desk. It looked very cosy, and a small lamp was glowing gently on the side, making shadows dance across the ceiling.
‘Here, you can stay here for the night. I’ll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow.’
The land was covered in a veil of darkness. Cloud yawned.
I guess I am tired after all.
Cloud thanked the old man for his hospitality and put Zack into one of the beds, before lying down on the other one.
He had fallen asleep even before his head had touched the pillow.

To Day Two
To Main Menu