Crossover Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Path of Chaos: Ascension of Supremacy ❯ Chapter 9a ( Chapter 20 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

PATH OF CHAOS: ASCENSION OF SUPREMACY

- By Lord Rance

Disclaimer: Seriously, I don't own any of the anime characters that appear in this entire fanfic, otherwise I'll just make sure you'll know if I do make new characters.

Author Notes: Hmm... Arc 1's done. Almost. Sorry, cut off point... originally Chapter 9 is one big chapter. But it got TOO big to stay as one.

For rather important keypoints for this chapter, read what I wrote at the bottom. Waaay bottom. The label 'IMPORTANT NOTES' might help.

By the way, pardon me if I and my prereaders missed some misspelled words in the fic. I upgraded my OS to WinXP, and sadly I got the no-Office copy, meaning, I have no spell check. I'll try to do a spell check on the edit page of FF dot net instead, but don't get your hopes up too much.

Warning about the bit of violence in some parts. Take note that the violence level would pick up real quick as Ranma gets flung deeper into everything.

I would like to thank Cory D. Rose and St Longinus for pre-reading this stuff. Many thanks to HolyKnight70, Norethfir, Valor Phoenix, SSJ Guyver and Silver Bullet for exchanging ideas with me, as well as semi-prereading. Special thanks to Backslash, who's been my best friend for, heck, years. Anyway, he's a cartoon, comics and anime otaku as much as I am. Kudos to you, my friend!

To my significant other, Lady Ayame... this is for us!

Ancient Language (used by gods and goddesses, Ancient Gods): "-Ranma-"

Thoughts: ((Ranma))

Telepathy: "((Ranma))", ""((Ranma))""

English/Chinese/Other languages specified: ""Ranma""

Electronic Communications: ("Ranma"), (""Ranma"")

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CHAPTER 9A - THE UNIVERSE OF ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES, INTRO...

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In Heaven, Kami-sama's office...

The Lord of All, Deus, was currently nursing his aching head as he stared at the mess known as his computer.

Just a few moments ago, a message came into the Yggdrasil system that went straight to his terminal. It was from Hild's office, and it wasn't a good news. It was one of the worst...

Hild has left Nifelheim completely. She even went as far as shutting down her own terminal and switched Nifelheim into the back-up system from the Yggdrasil network.

As of the moment, the residents that occupied Nifelheim still had no idea what happened. They lived on with their lives, without knowing that their leader has left them.

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Darkness...

Somehow this all felt familiar to him, but...

Why was he here? What happened to him? He felt his body lying on a hardened surface, and for some reason he was aching all over. Were his eyes closed? He opened them, and immediately closed them again as the harsh glare from the sun blinded him momentarily.

After a moment he tried again and opened his eyes. Sure enough, this time his eyes quickly adjusted to the light. It seemed that he was out of it for a long time, and who were those people looking at him from that cliff?

Cliff? He blinked when he looked around him. No, not a cliff... he was in the middle of a large crater on the ground. Did he do this? What happened to him? Why was everything in his mind all fuzzy-like? Why can't he remember...?

"A-Are you okay down there?" An elderly woman called out to him from the... surface, ignoring her companions' as they hushed her to silence.

He groaned slightly as he sat up, surprised that his body's pain was already almost gone. The pain he felt earlier was only a faint ache as of the moment. Looking up towards the old woman who asked him the question, he answered, "I'm okay. But can I ask you something?"

"What is it, child?" The elderly woman flashed him a hesitant smile.

((Child?)) He thought to himself as he looked down. ((Well I'll be damned, I am a kid. But why do I think like... anyway, better ignore that for now.)) Looking up once again, he asked, "What happened to me, and where am I?"

The people that circled around the outer ridges of the crater he made looked at him incredulously.

The old woman frowned slightly. "You don't remember? We were quite surprised when a small shooting star suddenly plummeted into the ground without any warning. Imagine our surprise when we saw a little boy in the crater!"

"I don't remember..." The boy sighed sorrowfully, carefully standing up shakily with his weakened legs. He stood up wobbly at first, but after a few moments he got used to it and finally hopped a little to test his feet. Suddenly, his eyes widened when he realized something. "No... I can't even remember my name!"

"Amnesia..." The old woman said loud enough to be heard by everyone.

"Oh great. I'm in the middle of nowhere without any memories whatsoever. Just peachy." The boy half-whined as he smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. For some reason, he felt that whining was not... manly. But he mentally shrugged the feeling off as a fluke. "Good thing I still remember how to talk and stuff..." the boy added wryly.

The old woman giggled. "Well child, we could just listen in to any gossip about any lost boys reported from the other towns. Meanwhile, you can stay here as long as you want. The town may not look like much, but you'd definitely be fed here. Of course, you should work as well for your food."

The boy, who's age was about seven years of age, was about to turn down the offer when his stomach growled loudly, causing him to duck his head slightly in embarrassment. With a slightly somber voice, he replied, "I think I'll take you up to that offer, ma'am."

The kindly old woman smiled as she clapped her hands once, but then adopted a contemplating look as she asked, "By the way, what should we call you? We can't call you 'Boy' forever, you know."

The boy snorted. "Of course not. Hmmm... maybe... Zack will do."

"Huh? Why Zack?" A younger man on the other side of the crater asked.

Zack shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno... probably because this situation 'sucks'... get it?"

The people around the area groaned in disgust.

"Bad pun, kid... a really bad pun." The old man beside the old woman shook his head.

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In short, Zack Gray was taken into the quaint village called Gongaga. He tried to leave a few times earlier, but he eventually relented when he learned that the couple who took care of him were barren and unable to have their own child. Zack stopped trying to run after he learned that small tidbit from the village mayor. He hid his... unusual body appendages, such as the long and thick red furry tail that ended up wrapped around his waist most of the time, and his weird eyes as well. Good thing he found those weird black glasses thingie in the pockets of his tattered clothes.

For the next few years, Zack helped in toiling the ground and planting seeds that would be harvested in the near future as food. He also helped in gathering important stuff that could be scavenged from the nearby junkyard with a large metal satellite dish that was half-buried in the rubble.

There was a time in his life that was so important, his legendary meeting with his 'partner', Mew. Mew was, simply put, a flying pink cat. Although, she doesn't talk really well, since all that she can say was 'Mew' most of the time. Most of the people in the village knew though, that Zack and Mew shared a bond at a telepathic level.

Zack was around ten years of age when he chanced upon an ailing Mew, while he was out hunting in the forest near Gongaga. Mew was being attacked by a large wolf, one that was easily dispatched by Zack. Speaking of fighting, Zack discovered that he was able to pull some things out of nowhere, but one particular item that stuck out from the rest was this freakingishly long katana that was almost three times his height.

He would've looked so cool as he wove the sword expertly, with little signs of difficulty in handling it. For some reason, Zack felt the sword was like a part of him. He managed to pull out Mew from the tight situation with the help of his intimidating weapon. He even thought up of a name for it... Masamune...

After nursing the pink flying kitty back to good health, she stuck with him like glue. She was apparently a telepathic being called Pokemon... not that he knew anything about it. Other than the mewling sound she made when she tried to talk, she made no other noise. Her name came from the sounds she made, Mew, and she was quite talented. Not only can she actually 'talk' with him through his mind, Mew has these weird attacks that she used to defend herself. She can also transform into various forms, such as other animals she has seen, and some other type of forms she has before she came to this world. One of her most valuable powers was her ability to become invisible at will, as to which Zack found to be really cool.

She explained how she came to the predicament she was in when Zack found her, and she has no idea how to go back to her world, nor does she ever wanted to.

Mew was rarely seen by other people, occasionally popping out only to rest her powers or when Zack was out with her hunting in the forest. Otherwise, she remained hidden, as she hung on Zack's back like a baby.

Zack learned later that the Shin-Ra Corporation, a group responsible for scientific research breakthroughs and the advanced technology that was scattered all over the world, had built that tower.

It was when he was physically around nine years of age that his life underwent a whirlwind of change, when a couple of newcomers entered their small and quaint town. They were a pair of worn out travelers, both female. One of which was an adult, while the other was a girl that seemed to be a bit younger than he was.

The elder of Gongaga welcomed the pair wholeheartedly. Such is the pride of the village, whose main principle was to welcome everyone from all walks of life with open arms into the village.

Zack learned that the older woman's name was Elmyra Gainsborough, and the young girl was Aerith Gainsborough. They were offered rooms in the quaint inn the village has inside it, one which Elmyra happily took.

A day after the family of two arrived in the village, they finally managed to settle down into the routine. Elmyra has taken a job of toiling in the fields, as well as washing clothes for the workers of the village. The young girl, Aerith, usually stayed close to her adult companion. The day after though, Elmyra pushed the small girl to play outside, with the other kids from the village.

It was a bit later that Zack learned the true nature of their relationship. Aerith was somewhat an orphan, and was given to Elmyra's care by a dying woman named Ifalna.

Zack and Aerith's first meeting was... a rather very meaningful one for the both of them...

"Look! It's the new girl!" A boy Zack knew pointed at the seemingly jumpy girl who stayed near the garden of the hotel. He and the rest of the children played tag amongst themselves. Zack, however, boredly watched the group of children from his perch on one of the trees in the middle of the town. He glanced towards the direction where the boy pointed.

"Leave her alone... she's kinda weird! She talks to the plants and stuff!" A girl said conspiratorially as she pulled the rest of her companions into the game.

Zack snorted as he leapt down the tree he was on. He quickly shot down the kids' invitation to their game. He'd rather do chores than to play with them. He's too fast and strong for anyone anyway, so why bother? Mew agreed with him wholeheartedly, not that she usually disagreed with him. He glanced back once again towards where Aerith was sitting with her lonesome, tending the flowers with great care.

The girl was a few inches short of his height. Her hair was light brown in color, and its length reached her posterior. There was a ribbon somewhere, which had a bright white gem in the middle of the red thread that held the ribbon together. She wore a modest pink dress, and her forehead was covered with a matching light pink bandanna.

With a shrug, the young boy strutted to where the girl was, and leaned unto the simple wooden fence that protected the flower bed from stray animals. Mew was invisible as she floated just above the side of his head. The smaller girl hasn't noticed Zack's presence yet.

Zack noticed the change in the vibrancy of the flowers from two days ago, when they were already on the verge of wilting. He smelled the soft and tantalizing aroma coming from the flowers and couldn't help but comment, "Hmmm... nice flowers..."

Aerith squeaked in fright as she stood and turned around, eyeing Zack with her wide bluish eyes. She hadn't noticed the boy's presence, and she was wary of the dark glasses that stared right back at her.

The boy has a bigger build than the rest of the boys in the village, but she knew that he was only a few years older than her. He wore a dark vest and dark pants over his tight-fitting body suit, which was tied by a red sash at the midsection. His hair was spiky and unruly, and was raven-black in color, and his eyes were covered by a pair of dark sunglasses. His hands were covered by a pair of white fingerless gloves, and his forehead was covered with a simple dark red bandanna. His arms had prominent black bracers, and around his neck was a solid black choker. She flinched back when the boy bent down and caressed the flowers she was weeding a while ago.

The boy ignored her flinch as he said, "These flowers were dying a few days ago, but now they're alive again. You and your mom took care of them really well!"

The brown haired girl straightened up a bit, her face showing a small expression of shock on it. Hesitantly, she replied, "T-Thank y-you..."

"Zack..." The boy said, looking up to the girl's blue eyes, "My name's Zack Gray."

"Uhmm..." The girl whispered, stuttering, "I-I'm... A-Aerith G-Gainsborough..."

The older boy nodded, "Uh-huh... I know. Heard about it from the kids around. They say some things about you, like how you're weird and all that." Zack took note of the noticeable slumping of the girl's shoulders, and he knew its cause.

He quickly but smoothly amended, "Not that I listen to them, of course..." It was true. He never did listen to them.

"They used to say that about me some time ago..." Zack smirked at the memories of those kids who used to pick on him a whole while back. They were a bit of grown-ups now, but they used to 'try' and kick him around back when he was new to the village. Of course, because of his unusual strength, he took care of that pretty nicely by grinding a few stones into dust.

The girl, Aerith, remained silent, as she watched the plants intently.

"Heh... you have nice healing powers... without the aid of a Materia to do it, too!" Zack chuckled.

"P-Please..." Aerith whispered urgently, fidgeting as she continued, "Not so loud..."

Zack cocked his head to one side, eyeing Aerith incredulously, "You shouldn't be ashamed of that! I mean, at least your ability can help people..." He lifted one of his fists to his face, continuing, "I can only destroy with these fists. I don't even understand how I got to be this strong."

When the girl didn't say anything, he rambled on, "You shouldn't be afraid of your gifts."

"Bad men..." Aerith began, "Bad men hurt my real mommy and daddy and me. The man in the white coat... he hurt my daddy real bad. Then... he had me and momma trapped in his lab... then his tests... we escaped though. Momma got really weak after the experiments, but she was able to give me to Elmyra-mama."

((Oh... so that's it...)) Zack thought sadly. He had a brief pang of memory that featured a scene of him fighting faceless people. He tried to reason with them, but he was ignored and was attacked relentlessly. His vision ended with that.

Shaking himself out of those thoughts, he patted the girl's head lightly, almost making Aerith leap out of the way. "Don't worry 'bout it..." he muttered, "I won't let anything happen to you."

"But..." Aerith began, "But... you might get hurt!"

Zack gave her a lopsided grin, "I can take care of myself, don't worry."

Aerith saw the determination in the boy's facial features. She could feel a great sense of... something when she's with him.

Zack suddenly straightened his posture as an expression of determination shadowed his features. "Wanna see something weird?"

Without waiting for a response, Zack quickly unwrapped the red sash over his waist and glanced at the wide-eyed Aerith with a grin. He sent his tail flapping in front of the girl, which caused her to gasp and squeal slightly in surprise.

"Heh... now you understand that your secret ain't that weird compared to mine..." Zack stated as he waited for the girl to respond. And boy, what a response.

"T-Tail!" Aerith whispered. Instead of backing away in fear, she reached up to Zack's appendage and stroked it lightly, "Soft... and warm!"

The young boy grinned. "Pretty cool, huh?" he shivered slightly at Aerith's touch. When she saw this, she got nervous and she retracted her hands primly in front of her.

"S-Sorry..." Aerith said softly as her face burned with her embarrassment.

Zack shook his head as he replaced the red sash to cover his tail, "Don't worry 'bout it. It's kinda sensitive... in fact, it felt rather good when you stroke it like that." When he finished tying the sash, he continued, "Now do you understand? Don't worry 'bout what other people say. I don't mind it when they do it with me."

Aerith looked up to Zack, her eyes shone with unshed tears, "Thank you, Zack..."

"It's just fair..." The boy said airily, "Since I know your secret, that you'd know my secret too. Besides, it feels pretty good knowing that someone else knows my secret, someone I trust..."

Aerith blushed harder at this, "But... we just met..."

Zack shrugged, "Yes, but it doesn't mean I trust you any less. I can't explain it but... we have a connection."

What can she say about that? She could only nod as she ducked her head lower.

Zack smiled softly. "Oh, and Aerith... I want you to meet someone..."

And here, Aerith met Mew. This was the start of a beautiful relationship.

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After that, for so many months, Zack and Aerith has been together. Usually, they sat in the middle of the flower bed outside the village, just gazing at the clouds in the sky. Mew chose these times to appear without any fear, and has bonded with Aerith quite well. Surprisingly, Mew talked to Aerith telepathically just as much as she did with her 'master' Zack. The two humans and their mutual usually invisible friend became quite inseparable, which caused Zack's guardians and Aerith's lone 'parent' to smile when they see the two together.

The kind brown-haired girl was still subjected to being avoided by the other kids of the village, but she wasn't as concerned about it as she had been before. Now, Zack usually stayed by her side, as well as Mew. She felt that she doesn't need anything more...

Until one day, when Zack and the other kids decided to get out of the village to find some big-paying jobs. The village suffered a food shortage, and for them to receive some help from Midgar, they needed some money to compensate. To Aerith's and Elmyra's dismay, the kids that went out of the village were found by Shin-Ra. After being offered by high-paying jobs, they had no choice but to apply. Zack was fifteen years of age at the time. Aerith was placated a bit however when Mew vowed to her that she will look after their beloved Zack.

There were actually seven kids who had gone into Shin-Ra, and only one of them managed to come back after two years. Now around twenty-one years of age (at least, since he was found) Zack returned to the village for the first time since his enlistment, with Mew on tow.

Aerith was waiting for them, since Zack's letter has arrived for her that stated the date of their return. He was a whole lot taller, and he still had his dark-tinted glasses around his eyes. Aerith had already seen his weird eyes, and while she wasn't bothered by them, the public might think otherwise. Besides, it was like a secret thing for the both of them. When she finally saw him walking through the gates, she abandoned any form of decency as she ran into his arms. She dismissed the cold feel of his armor given to him as standard issue by Shin-Ra for their soldiers, as well as the pair of big swords strapped on his back.

One she recognized was Zack's personal sword, one that was seldom seen by anyone. The beautiful katana has a very long blade, at least the same height as Zack. The blade in itself was mysterious, the dark color it emitted seemed to suck out the light around it. The mysterious Masamune, the sword that has been with Zack ever since he awoke in this world. He had no idea where he got it, but it appeared whenever he wanted to. Sometimes, he just let it out beside his other blade.

Zack's other sword was of a different design. This one was made by Zack himself, his first smith job. It was still extremely large for a normal man or woman to wield, but Zack has always been strong. This blade was called the Buster Sword. Compared to the Masamune, the Buster Sword was shorter. But its blade was wider than any other sword available in the world. It was one of the reasons why its weight was ludicrous, and as of present only Zack was able to use it effectively.

Aerith's ruminations were halted when she felt Mew's mental tug in her mind that she was nearby as well, and gave a silent nod in acknowledgement.

"I missed you SO much..." Aerith whispered into Zack's ear, as she tried to crush him within her embrace. It was a futile effort, as her arms just barely managed to encircle her boyfriend's torso.

After that searing kiss she gave him during her thirteenth birthday, she pretty much staked her claim on the young man. Not that Zack complained or anything. It DID escalate her isolation from the rest of her should-be peer group in the village though, especially from the ladies...

Zack had a LOT of lady admirers. Go figure.

Zack let the young girl hug him. She grew up into quite a woman in his eyes. Her body was now more pronounced as her curves showed with her semi-tight outfit. Her forehead was wrapped in a pink bandanna, which contrasted his own black bandanna. It was around five months after they first met that she entrusted her secrets to him, as he did with his own secrets to her. Weird enough, she had a trio of gems on her forehead like him, but it was much more of a dark purple in color. It was a mystery that neither of them had answered as of yet. "I missed you too, Aerith... and damn, you grew up pretty well..." he whispered with a lot of emotions laced in his hoarse voice.

It would seem that she almost forgot that there were other people waiting for their loved ones that hung around the gates, and were currently watching them with amusement. It was no secret that the quiet and timid young girl who arrived all those years ago was literally joined to the hip with Zack. The other teenagers of the village may have accepted most of Aerith's strange quirks and powers, but she was attached only to Zack.

The female teenager blushed hotly. "Speak for yourself..." her voice was muffled against his chest, "You've grown as well..."

"Mew!" The pink floating cat finally materialized right just beside Aerith's face, her tail curled with glee. The platinum brown-haired girl smiled against Zack's chest as she absently reached her right hand to where she thought was Mew's position. She brushed upon Mew's head, much to the delight of Zack's partner. She cupped her hand towards the approximate area where the invisible Mew floated and whispered something that Zack wasn't able to catch. For some reason, Mew's link with him in his mind grew agitated for a moment, before it cut itself off. He also felt Mew's presence in the area fade as well.

"What the... Mew?" Zack asked in confusion as he tried to scan for his partner, but to no avail.

Aerith grabbed his hand and caught his attention. "It's all right, I just sent her somewhere. I wanted her to leave us alone for a few hours."

The newly recruited SOLDIER for Shin-Ra cocked his head to one side. "Huh? What for?" he scratched his head for a moment.

The brown haired girl just smiled at his question, with no reply from her lips. Instead, she pulled Zack's hand into her own as she raced out of the crowded gates of Gongaga.

Aerith surprised the homecoming soldier when she pulled him towards somewhere like he weighed nothing. Zack wasn't able to do anything but follow like a leashed doggie. When Zack finally got his bearings in check, he found that Aerith had dragged him to her home, one of which she gleefully informed him of Auntie Elmyra's sudden trip to the planting fields on the other side of the village for the whole day. This, of course, effectively meant that they were left alone, unchecked.

Zack big sweated when Aerith giggled evilly, which was totally out of character for the gentle girl. He was not able to do anything more as she pulled him into the house. He did try to point out that he needed to say hello to his adopted parents first, but Aerith mentioned that they had given her the go signal of taking Zack home first.

No Mew, no parent, just the two of them in the house...

The events that followed was a consummation of love between them, with Zack albeit reluctant in the beginning. An application of Aerith's special puppy dog face totally demolished Zack's self control.

It was a... VERY passionate night for them. It would seem that the neighbors had the foreknowledge of buying earplugs for that night. It was probably because of the determined look Aerith had on her face when she was purchasing all those scented candles from the village curio shop.

Ah, young love.

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Zack spent the whole two weeks of his vacation with Aerith as much as he can. Although sometimes, he helped with some of the work left undone in the village as well. He also participated in a few hunting parties, and went home with his shares of the game. His adoptive parents were very understandable when he spent much of his time with Aerith and Elmyra Gainsborough.

Mew reappeared the day after the first night Zack came back to Gongaga. It was when Aerith gleefully accosted Zack's person. The psychic pink feline has detected what Aerith had wanted with Zack that day, and was a bit reluctant in leaving her master alone with the brown haired girl. But the emotions she felt from the girl were so genuine that she felt she just had to give Aerith the chance. Well, Mew did leave Zack's thoughts alone well enough as well as physically, but the emotions Zack had at the time were still... quite strong for Mew to feel them even far away. Although there was this small tinge of emotion wherein Zack wondered where Mew was, and that brought a warm feeling into Mew's heart. She vowed she would cuddle into her master to death when he and Aerith finished with their time. After all, Zack and Aerith owed her a lot for giving them time alone.

Cuddles were a necessity for someone like her.

Mew helped with the chores to move things along... but was out of sight from most of the villagers. The only ones who knew about her existence aside from her master were Elmyra, Zack's foster parents and Aerith. Not that the psychic feline worried about it. She disliked people who stared after her in the world she came from, after all. That has never changed. She will only show herself to people she trusted. And she LOVED her master, a LOT. Proxy to that, she cared for Aerith, as well as Zack's parents and Elmyra.

Zack's free time was spent mostly on training. He won't let his skills degrade when he's idle, after all. But sometimes Aerith would be able to get a jump on him before he trained. When she did, well...

Zack's skills were still a mystery, even for him. At the course of the time he spent in the wilderness during the training for SOLDIER, some weird powers emerged from him. Even his 'limit break' were different from the others. He also discovered that he has an aptitude to learn fighting skills at an alarming rate. He learned advanced sword fighting techniques in less than a week.

Magic, for some reason, went horribly wrong around Zack as far as anyone could tell. Not in the sense that Zack was a failure in activating magic, it's just that whenever he fired off spells from Materia, the power of the spell was usually double or triple its normal intensity. If Zack fired off a Fire spell, it erupted as a massive Inferno.

He did have an affinity in Summons. Summoning consisted of high-leveled demons called out to deliver much more powerful spells. They were usually given to higher-ranking SOLDIER members, but Zack's superiors were impressed enough to give him one of his own even at his low rank.

Zack received his first Summon Materia, Shiva. Usually, Summons were very hard to control. They gave out tests to their 'wielders', often gave their would-be users a very hard time. But for some reason, Zack successfully called out Shiva, and was even able to flash freeze an entire forest in his first attempt. It would seem that Shiva liked him, a LOT.

Because of Zack's overwhelming success, he was immediately bumped up a notch in the SOLDIER rankings. He can now command a small platoon of SOLDIER, but he still has to be supervised by a superior officer. It was then that he met with Sephiroth.

Zack told Aerith of his experiences while in SOLDIER, and the young woman listened intently. He recollected the times he accompanied Sephiroth in various missions, at first as bodyguard, but then as his status was lifted up in the ranks he soon became a permanent member of the silver haired man's team.

Sephiroth was an enigma. He was never seen associating with others, aside from the missions assigned to the team. Nevertheless, Zack took it in stride, and has taken it upon himself to be the jester of the team. The other generic SOLDIER members in the small platoon were quite leery of being close to Sephiroth, but Zack was an exact opposite.

As the months passed, Sephiroth did open up a few times to him. The silver haired man commented once that Zack was too loud, but it was obvious even to Zack that Sephiroth has a minuscule smile on his face when he said so. Sephiroth even had his own version of the Masamune forged after Zack showed it to him. He was intrigued as to why Zack wanted to wield such an unorthodox blade and wanted to test it out himself. Zack just figured that it would be the sign of their friendship.

After a few more months of monster-slaying missions, another SOLDIER hopeful was added in the team. Although it wasn't really necessary for the higher ranked members such as Zack to know their names, he still took the time to grill the new recruit. The newcomer's name was Cloud Strife, a native from a town called Nibelheim.

Cloud was a shy boy, around two years younger than Zack was. He has blonde hair with dark blue eyes, and quite inexperienced in battles. Sephiroth gave the task of training the new recruit to Zack, which the latter gleefully taken up upon. At first, Cloud fumbled with the guns issued for the recruits, but he learned quickly. Especially since he has to learn how to defend himself during the missions. The wild monsters around the lands of Terra weren't merciful to newbies.

For Cloud, Zack was some sort of a mentor. The blonde haired boy was awed at Zack's skills in fighting, especially wielding the Buster Sword. When he was allowed to hold it, Cloud found out just how hard it was to even lift the sword. The blade was very heavy, and it gave Cloud an idea how powerful Zack was. From then on, he decided to devote his time on his training, to become worthy of being Zack's pupil in the art of swordsmanship.

A few days before Zack's time off from SOLDIER, Cloud was already able to swing the Buster Sword, albeit sluggishly.

All the while, Mew stayed invisible by Zack's side. No one was able to detect or see her, and she protected her master by becoming the eyes behind his back. Zack was thankful for her help during those close calls in some missions. She saved his life more than once.

When Zack finished his story, Aerith had a proud look on her face. The man with spiky raven hair was enthralled at Aerith's seemingly glowing visage, which allowed her to drag him into 'their room' for a bout of loving once again.

Not that Zack complained about it much.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

As Zack's vacation time ticked away, the village prospered slowly, especially with the ever-growing reputation of Zack by being one of those chosen few who passed SOLDIER.

For Zack and Aerith, the two-week vacation given to Zack passed by a bit too quickly. When it ended, it was time for Zack to return to Midgar for his missions once again.

"When will you get another vacation?" Aerith asked softly as she cuddled into Zack's side. The couple sat in the middle of a grassy hill at night as they watched the stars. It was a cloudless night, and the stars were like a carpet of glitter thrown haphazardly into the sky.

The scene was so beautiful and romantic.

Zack shook his head from the clouds as he thought of a response for Aerith's question, "I... I'm not sure. Probably in a year or so..."

Aerith absently bobbed her head as much as she could while she lay cuddled into Zack's chest. "Zi (Aerith's nickname for Zack), how's life in Midgar anyway? Is it good in there?"

The young man raked his hand into his spiky black hair. His hair was currently out of its customary low ponytail that held it in place at his back. It's now fanned out and stuck in different angles, not so much unlike a porcupine's. "Why do you ask all of the sudden?"

"Well..." Aerith hemmed as she traced her index finger along Zack's chest, "Mama was thinking of transferring there. More opportunities, I guess. Can't blame her for that."

"Ah..." Zack noised, "Well, it's... noisy. Industrial. Totally different from Gongaga. Lots of seedy characters too... are you sure you wanna transfer there?"

Aerith nodded slightly. "It's not that I dislike this village. Gongaga has become quite a home for me, and the people are great. But mama's getting too old for fieldwork. I hear it's easy to get jobs in Midgar, even for someone as inexperienced as me. And besides..." she lifted her face and stared into Zack's blue eyes with yellow pupils, "It gets me closer to you."

The young man fell silent at THAT. What can one say to something as emotional as that statement anyhow?

The young brown haired girl in his arms fell silent as they spent their last night together for a while cuddling and staring at the night sky.

As scheduled, the morning after that romantic night came as a temporary parting for the lovers. Twenty-one year old Zack Gray gazed longingly into the eyes of twenty year old Aerith Gainsborough, surrounded by the Gongaga villagers who opted to say at least their own farewells to the boy who they adopted a few years back. They all stood at the opening of the rural village as they waited for the Shin-Ra escorts who were supposed to pick Zack up.

Aerith clutched at the soft deep purple outfit that covered Zack's chest, afraid of letting him go. But she knew she must, since somehow, in someway, she had dreams of this event. It was necessary for Zack to leave the village, since he has something to do for this world. When Aerith turned six years of age, she started hearing voices in her head. Her true mother, Ifalna, told her that it was normal. The voices were from the Planet itself, the planet's energy source, the Life Stream. Such were the fates of those who were born out of the Ancients' blood, at least that's how this world viewed them as such. The Ancients were actually Spiritualist Masters from the old pre-apocalyptic world that Terra, the current form of the planet, was formed from. At least, that's the information passed down from the previous 'Ancients' who came and went before them.

The girl's expressive blue eyes gazed intently into Zack's dark glasses-covered ones and felt a warm presence that enveloped her from behind. Aerith instinctively knew that it was the ever-compassionate partner of her loved one, Mew, who was doing her best to comfort Aerith's distress on the current matter. Mew sent empathic waves that told Aerith Zack would be watched over. The brown haired girl's distress was lightened a bit because of Mew's efforts.

In the middle of the noisy crowd were Zack and Aerith, who hugged one another tightly. They stayed that way until the sound of chocobos was finally heard from outside the village. Sure enough, five yellow giant birds emerged from the horizon, one of them carried no one on its back. The others were 'driven' by Shin-Ra soldiers who wore those generic blue uniforms. Zack finally let Aerith go from the embrace when the entourage stopped just right before they entered the village. The soldiers got down from their mounts and saluted towards Zack's direction. The spiky haired man nodded his head to them and signaled to wait.

Zack wordlessly gave Aerith another meaningful kiss, one which needed no words to explain its worth. With one final "See you folks again...", he turned and faced his escorts. He mounted the last rider less chocobo and rode with the entourage out of Gongaga's territory.

He was eighteen years of age, at least to his perceived count of his supposed years in this world, when he left Gongaga once again.

It only took two days to reach Midgar, the world's foremost capital of industry. Machines and tall buildings greeted the travelers, but it was what Zack expected all along. Amongst the bustling activity of technology, there were a lot of seedy places that made Midgar a place for commerce as well as a dangerous place. After Zack entered the gates with his escorts, it was only a few minutes of walking to reach their destination: the huge building of the Shin-Ra Corporation, which housed the President of the company himself.

Zack never did like working under the fat guy, but President Shin-Ra was his boss. He suspected that even Sephiroth shared some of his sentiments regarding their mutual boss, but seemed to be a bit more... discreet in showing them. Nevertheless, here he was... as he stood in front of the huge doors that led into President Shin-Ra's inner sanctum.

Zack knocked forcefully and stood back as he waited. He didn't have to do so for long; the irritating whiney voice of President Shin-Ra gave his permission for the long spiky raven-haired young man to enter the Head's Office. The young man grumbled to himself as he purposely pushed the doors inward, which revealed a lavish room filled with various priceless objects and whatnot. Some of them were items which Zack acquired in those missions assigned to him and his team. He bit back a curse as he entered the room.

"Well, well... if it isn't my good soldier Zack! Did you enjoy your vacation, boy?" The President prattled as he sat behind the huge oak desk on the other side of the room. Typical of him, Zack mused to himself, that the President wore that dark suit fitted for a fat... err... big boned body. Complete with red tie and gold cuff links. Irritating, really.

"I enjoyed it very much, sir..." Zack bowed a bit in mock respect, not that the president of the company noticed.

President Shin-Ra nodded dubiously. "That's good, that's good. So, are you ready to go back to work?" Not waiting for a response, he continued, "We've been having some problems with a terrorist group known as AVALANCHE. They've been bombing some of our facilities, particularly in Sector 7. When you went to your vacation, we've been having a much harder time controlling the situation. And Sephiroth didn't want to do that dirty work." The last sentence was muttered, but it was heard by Zack's sensitive hearing. Zack didn't comment on that one.

"I'll have to send you to check up on an incident near Wu-Tai, but you're going to be in a different team..." President Shin-Ra intoned, as he huffed on the cigar he had lit a short while ago, "Sephiroth took your original team to Junon. They found a weird Materia underwater. So I'll have to give you a temporary team for this mission. Don't worry, it's only for today."

Zack nodded, "Who will be on my team for this mission?"

The president grinned, "A four-man team will be following your orders this time around. I think you met them before... Tseng, Rude, Elena and Reno, can you step into the office please?"

Zack growled inwardly as the president mentioned those names. The foursome wasn't a welcomed thought to him. Reno was a loud-mouthed jerk, always brought danger to whatever team he was on. Rude was silent and brooding. Elena was a love-sick blonde who was fascinated towards the group's private 'boss'. And their leader, Tseng...

The Turks. A semi-competent team formed a few years after Zack was accepted into the elite SOLDIER group, they were usually stationed with President Shin-Ra's son, Rufus.

Zack and Tseng were at odds with one another. A few years back, the foursome decided to accompany Zack in one of his yearly vacations in Gongaga. Tseng was totally infatuated with Aerith's beauty. Even with the young woman's status as 'taken', the jerk in a suit ignored it. He actively pursued Zack's girlfriend, and Zack didn't appreciate it. The friction between the two was palpable.

The huge doors that adorned the President's office banged open once again, and the four aforementioned individuals strutted into the room. The tension in the air thickened immensely, and the newcomers immediately noticed it. The dark long haired man's brow, who was at the lead of the group dressed in a dark suit complete with tie, ticked when he spied upon Zack, who has his back turned against them.

"Ah! Here they are now!" The President crowed gaily, as he gestured for the newly arrived subordinates to come nearer to his table. Tseng sighed and approached hesitantly, followed by his 'team'.

While Tseng kept his mouth shut, Reno just couldn't help himself. "Well, if it isn't shades guy. Still haven't removed your dark glasses? What's with you? Blind or something?" The young man commented cockily, his dark red hair was wild and free.

"Reno..." Elena, the blonde short haired girl near Tseng dressed in a suit as well, hissed in warning to her companion.

The bald dark skinned man named Rude stood behind the small crowd and stayed silent as he watched the events in front of him.

Zack also heard the telltale hissing of his invisible partner, Mew, who tried to control her temper by nibbling on her tail. The pink psychic cat has been set on a slow burn ever since Zack and Mew entered the city of Midgar. For some reason, Mew expressed her distaste of the city quite candidly, not that Zack totally disagreed with her on the subject. True, Midgar was probably the center of commerce for the world as of date, but it was also the birthplace of extreme corruption.

The young man with long spiky raven hair never told anyone, but his feelings about his employers' actions regarding how they gathered materia was simply atrocious. Nevermind the fact that the act itself degraded Nature to a dangerous degree, but the human lives affected by the change in Nature was unacceptable. Still, for now, he will try and do what he's being told. But soon though...

Zack blinked when he felt Mew's invisible tail whap him gently at the back of his head. He found that everyone in the room stared at him, especially Reno, who looked at him expectantly.

"Sorry, were you saying something?" Zack opted the most obvious but insulting comment he could garner, the dubious act.

Reno's face immediately blushed hard in anger, as he crouched to jump on the seemingly nonchalant spiky-haired swordsman. But a dark-skinned hand grasped his shoulder firmly, which effectively stopped his forward momentum. Reno glanced up to glare into Rude's sunglasses-covered eyes.

"Why the hell are you stopping me?" Reno hissed.

Rude remained silent as he shook his head solidly.

Tseng's brow raised as Zack yawned widely, his arms stretched to his sides. "By the way, Zack..." the smartly-dressed man began, "How's your... vacation?" ((Or, how's Aerith?)) Tseng thought to himself as he smirked when Zack's body tensed at his question. One could very well hear Tseng's true question, and Zack disliked it a lot.

Zack's red sash twitched rather wildly, although he was later going to be thankful that nobody noticed it. His red tail has been quite a mystery to him, thanks to the amnesia he garnered when he appeared all those years ago in Gongaga, he wasn't able to know WHY he had the tail to begin with. At first he counted it off as a different race of humans in this world, but after his diverse travels while in Sephiroth's group he found no clues as to who or what he was. But his doubts on his origins were laid to rest when he found that Aerith didn't mind his unrecovered past memories.

But it's probably because Aerith just LOVED his tail.

As soon as Tseng's true query became obvious to him, Zack's body relaxed simultaneously. He continued his interrupted yawn and replied coyly, "Not that it's any of your business, but it went well..." He saw Tseng's debilitating smirk and couldn't help but add, "Aerith had a big surprise waiting for me when I got to the village. It was... enlightening." It was now Zack's turn to grin at the immediate scowl that appeared on Tseng's face.

Elena had barely managed to hold Tseng back as the long haired man started his advance on the smirking swordsman when Zack snorted and patted his clothes down. Without even looking at the 'Tseng Groupie', he stated, "Enough talking. We've got a mission to do."

Zack wordlessly turned and walked out of President Shin-Ra's office, with the agitated group following at his heels.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

It was quite a definite improvement from chocobo riding, as their hovercraft leisurely passed along the lands of the northern continent. Their destination was a dense forest just near the village of Wu-Tai. Nevertheless, the easy ride wasn't as peaceful as Zack would've hoped.

"So, why are you in this mission anyway? We really don't need someone as weak as you to finish this..." Reno commented lazily as he sneered towards Zack's direction. Tseng watched the proceedings as he sat across from Zack, Elena was fiddling with her phone, and Rude... who knows what he's staring at?

The swordsman shrugged nonchalantly, readjusting the black sunglasses he had on his face to cover his eyes. "The President made it so. Don't look at me." ((It's not like I wanted to be with you freaks in the first place...)) Zack thought to himself as he heard Mew's giggles in his mind.

Reno scoffed imperiously. "You're probably kicked off of Sephiroth's team, ain'tcha?"

Zack sniffed irritably. Okay, no more mister nice guy. "Or, it could be that the President didn't trust you losers enough to do the job right. I remember that incident years ago, ya know. Heard you four managed to botch up an important mission that the corporation's timetable has been compromised in a relatively obvious manner. Nice going, by the way."

"It was an accident!" Reno growled out as he clenched his fists tightly.

"So you say..." Zack shot back.

Before Reno tried to strangle the man in front of him, Elena intervened, "So, what is our mission this time?"

"Hmmm..." Zack noised as he adopted a thinker's pose, "You know, I didn't really ask. We'll find out about it when we get there, I guess."

Now it was Reno who held back the fuming Elena as Zack continued to ponder on their mission.

In short, the whole trip consisted of Elena and Reno trying to kill Zack in alternate turns, Rude was contented with his ominous silence and Tseng trying to rile up the 'leader' of the mission, a fact that still irked the long haired man. Much to their irritation, their efforts just went by Zack who didn't even bat them an eyelash. Actually, Zack concentrated on his mind speak with his invisible pink cat, who floated around his general vicinity lazily as she chattered some nonsense about her dislike on this said mission.

The group arrived at the forest west of Wu-Tai without 'much' trouble. At first glance, it seemed like a normal forest, but when they got inside...

"DAMMIT! This stinks!" Reno growled to himself as he tried to untangle himself from the webbing a monster spider caught him with. He turned to the side and saw Rude silently brushing off the rocks that a rock-elemental monster managed to smack him with. Elena was furiously hacking the vines that caught her and Tseng off-guard. And Zack? Well...

Zack had a huge grin on his face, his Buster Sword unsheathed in his grip while he surveyed the surroundings for more monsters to fight. He was... untouched by the attacks directed at him by the monsters, much to his companions' ire. When he discovered that the ambush was done, he sighed forlornly for a moment before grinning up a storm once again and said, "That... was fun! So many strong monsters to fight here! Man, I should've found 'bout this place a long time ago, maybe Sephiroth and me would've had some training done in this forest!"

Tseng grunted as he landed on the ground, after Elena managed to free him from the vines that trapped him. He patted himself down and glared at the grinning Zack and growled, "How can you be happy when it seems like every monster in this forest is out to get us?!"

Zack merely scoffed and buffed his humongous sword as he replied, "Hey, it's not my fault you prissy rich people can't hack it. If you wanna back out, the hovercraft is still outside the forest. You just have to walk back and wait there until I find out what's causing this sudden monster outbreak. Or... have you forgotten our mission already?"

The long haired man in the dark suit merely scowled and turned in a huff, "Hmph. And let you hog all the glory? Let's go then!" and walked off with a slightly bristled Elena, trailed by the cursing Reno and the STILL silent Rude.

"Man, what crawled up his butt and died?" Zack muttered to himself as he went after them. After all, can't have his companions die for some stupid reason now, right?

For the next few hours of the daylight, the group encountered countless more ambushes from the forest monsters. It didn't amuse Tseng and his 'posse' that the monsters seemed to grow even stronger after each encounter. Well, it amused Zack though, something which Tseng still cannot understand. The swordsman was a fighting machine, and seemed to possess unlimited amount of energy. Not only was Zack able to kill three thirds of all the monsters that attacked them, he was also able to guffaw right in the middle of the fight. Tseng had to hand it to his rival, though. He never did see such superb fighting skills from anyone he has encountered before in his life. Zack's every movement was poetry in motion, his sword strikes were fluid and flawless even with the ridiculously massive sword he wielded.

"Oh come on guys, lighten up! Am I the only one who thinks this is fun?!" Zack asked them rhetorically as he punched a huge monster plant that tried to petrify him. Simply put, the plant got a hole on its body and dissolved into nothing. His invisible companion, Mew, has been warning him in advance of the enemies that would attack from behind. Not that Zack really needed it, but he felt a lot more secure that Mew was around him. In fact, Mew already fried some small grunts earlier with her own arsenal of abilities.

Rude only grunted as several wolves attacked him in a pack manner as a response to Zack's query.

Reno hissed, "Shut up, you asshole!" as he felt razor leaves prick his skin from his plant opponent.

"If we survive this, I might just kill you..." Tseng said heatedly as he threw another fireball on the gigantic bats that seemed to take pleasure in poisoning him.

Elena declined to comment, as she was busy healing injuries as well as the abnormal status the freakish monsters gave her comrades. Except for Zack of course, not that he needed it anyway.

Zack just sighed as he hacked at the giant bat that has been hovering over his head absently. As usual, his teammates were still easily-irritated uptights. But damn, were they all PMS-ing or something?

After countless hours of monster-slaying, the group finally reached an old beaten-down temple in the middle of the forest. Its presence within the thick woods provided sparks of suspicion already. Tseng took Elena and Reno to check around the perimeter for traps, while Zack and Rude opted to inspect the temple's outside walls for clues.

Zack felt a strange feeling wash over him as he gazed at the ruins. Something hidden in the middle of the ruins seemed to be calling out to him. Also, monsters seemed to be curiously absent around the temple ground perimeter. He and Rude managed to find three hulking figures that stood at the temple's entrance though, and Zack figured they're stone golems of some sort.

"Hmmm... damn... huge statues, they are..." Zack remarked as he regarded the stone golems with a wary eye. At the back of his head, he could hear Mew's warnings about some weird readings from these supposedly inanimate objects.

"Hmn..." Rude nodded resolutely. He actually respected Zack and his exploits, especially the fact that the swordsman wasn't your typical sword fighter. Rude has seen Zack's fighting level at hand to hand, and was inclined to allow himself to be subjected under his teachings. But of course, he has his friends to think about as well. So, in truth he was in a dilemma how to handle the situation. But he will not stoop as low as how Reno would at trying to goad Zack, and petty rivalries has no meaning to him. Zack is a strong fighter, that's all there is to it for Rude.

The said swordsman shot a meaningful look towards Rude, who faced him in turn and gave him the same look as well. Black sunglasses stared at black sunglasses, as they communicated a silent message to each other how dire their situation was at the moment. Both of them knew something weird was going on at the temple, and the three statues were contributing to that level of weird.

After a few more precious moments of silence, Zack finally uttered, "I guess it ain't gonna go too well if we just rush headlong into this, don'cha think?"

Rude gave him a contemplative glance and nodded an affirmative.

The unvoiced leader of the group grunted as he gestured for the dark skinned hairless man in a suit to follow him, but before they could even complete their turn, the ground rumbled ominously underneath them. They gave each other another contemplative stare, before they turned back to the entrance of the temple, hoping against hope that they won't find what they thought would be there.

Only to get their hopes dashed when they saw their other three teammates currently trying to gain access into the enclosed ruins. Not only that, but they both realized something amiss with the statues.

All three statues were now in a different position than when they first saw them. Which added to their ever growing dread about their current situation.

"... I have to say, Rude, you have... stupid teammates..." Zack deadpanned.

"Hnn..." Rude had to agree with him there.

"But of course, us being the good guys, we have'ta make sure they don't die, ne?" Zack said in resignation as he swung the Buster Blade twice in front of him, "One of these days, their antics are gonna have themselves and you killed. Anyway, right now, did you know that there's this strange tune that popped up in my head? Something like a boss music or something..."

Rude just raised an eyebrow at him.

Zack nodded at him. "Seriously. If the situation ain't so serious right now, I'd hum it just to annoy Tseng."

The dark-skinned man's lips twitched. He had to admit, that would be an amusing sight to see.

The ground shook once more, but this time, the telltale sound of rocks crunching against one another prompted the two to gaze once again at the entrance of the temple. It would seem that Tseng, Reno and Elena finally discovered that those statues aren't just statues anymore.

"Stone golems..." Zack informed Rude, who readjusted his gloves in preparation for a long fight, "And apparently, guardians of the temple. How cliche. Nevertheless, effective. I mean, look, the sheer amount of terror on the faces of those three is so obvious now. I think Elena's just about to cry."

Rude just huffed in annoyance as he inclined his head towards the incoming battle sharply. Zack got the message, sighed boredly, and ventured into the battle alongside Rude.

For some reason, the three stone golems seemed to have frozen in their tracks, and then turned to focus on the newly arrived duo. More in particular, they concentrated on Zack. The swordsman wove around the strikes the gargantuan monoliths threw at him like a slithering snake. The temple grounds shook as each hit from the golems' gigantic stone weapons smashed against the ground, and small craters formed out of them.

Rude began pummeling one golem's leg, intent on taking it down piece by piece. So far, he has little success, but it did let up on Zack for a while to concentrate on him. With a small smirk etched on his face, Rude continued his assault on the statue and dodged the power blows meant to flatten him.

Elena fired off some shots from the gun she had been carrying on her person for such occasion, while Tseng continued to activate the fire materia he had in his possession and released several fireballs unto one stone giant's back. Some pieces of the golem's back broke off, which showered the area with dust and small rocks.

Even with everyone attacking the three guardians, it seemed that the attacks were concentrated mainly on Zack. Something in which the swordsman was irritated on. He dodged another huge fist and slashed at the giant's arm with his sword's blunt edge. The golem roared as its arm cracked a bit from the blow, but retaliated with another punch from its other hand. Zack dodged that as well. He didn't anticipate however another huge fist that came from another one of the statues. When he finally did see the attack, he raised his hand in a desperate attempt to stop it.

"Oh, this is so not cool..." The swordsman uttered morosely.

A large explosion erupted when the fist met Zack's arms, in which dust encompassed the area.

Rude, Tseng, Reno and Elena backed away from the dirt cloud that appeared from the point of contact and watched in trepidation for anything that moved. Rude hoped that Zack managed to evade the hit somehow, while the others wondered when their sights will clear up. When the dust did clear up, they were surprised. For one, there was now only TWO stone golems left. The other one was in pieces on the ground, with Zack's Buster Sword stuck in the middle of the debris on the ground.

Speaking of Zack... the Turks had another sharp intake of breath when they saw what happened to him. He survived the attack, apparently, and was now pushing back on a stone golem's fist with his two hands, while he dangled upon his red sash that was tied up on a jagged piece of rock that was torn off from the second golem when it attacked a while ago. His two feet were braced on the same rock that his sash was tied on.

The sash... when did he have the time to tie that sash to that rock face anyway?

"This... this is so crappy..." Zack whispered to himself as he sighed in relief. A few more seconds and he would've been pancaked! Bad thing to happen to him, because it will hurt a lot! He stretched his leg and shifted it to a better bracing position. Perfect! And if he could only move his tail... oh dear god, no... his tail...

Right in the middle of his life and death struggle, Zack tilted his head backwards and looked. Sure enough, there was his tail, exposed. Apparently it helped his balance as he kept the fist of the stone golem back from crushing him. In the process, his tail must've involuntarily moved by itself to compensate.

Oh dear... a problem... hmmm... he will need good excuse for this...

Tseng smirked slightly at the sight of his rival, who hung unto the stone on what seemed to be a red sash, "Well, it seems that you're in luck, Zack. If your belt wasn't caught on that piece of rock, you would've fallen off that precarious position you're in, right?"

Zack blinked underneath his dark-tinted glasses. So they think it's still a sash, huh? Better not let them think otherwise. He was slightly ill that he had to thank Tseng's stupid conclusion that led him to keep his secret a little bit longer. "It isn't luck, Tseng. I actually swung my sash to that direction on purpose..." his response made the other man's smirk die a painful death, something in which he relished on.

"Well, stop playing around with acrobatics so that we can finish this mission then, idiot!" Tseng growled out.

Zack's mind suddenly narrowed his thoughts into a few things, as he mentally discarded the other information that flowed into his mind at the moment. One, he was still holding back the massive fist that threatened to squish him flat. Second, the Turks except Rude were getting to be really annoying. And third, his fighting skills were being dissed by a whiney rich pansy called Tseng.

This was definitely NOT his day.

The swordsman growled as his eyes slowly glowed gold behind his glasses, while the gems on his forehead flashed angrily in response to his mood as well. It was good that a black headband was tied around his head to cover those gems, or else he would've given the Turks a magnificent light display. Zack immediately snapped into full battle mode, all traces of mirth emotionally and physically from earlier were erased.

To the Turks, it seemed as if Zack stopped moving altogether. Even the last two stone guardians of the temple they wanted to get into had paused in their efforts to crush the man. It seemed that they too felt the ominous atmosphere that had enveloped the entire area.

Soon, Zack moved at last, but only to pull back one hand from its previous position. Without much of a change in his facial expression, Zack allowed it to become a fist, and smashed it nonchalantly into the massive stone hand that wanted to crush him. To everyone's surprise, Zack's much smaller fist managed to break through the stone golem's own fist. The giant roared as its hand crumbled into smaller pieces.

Tseng actually allowed a small strangled noise escape his constricted throat as he saw what Zack had done. They had been fighting those golems for a long time now, and the swordsman dealt this much damage to them with one punch? Was this for real?

The same question ran through the others' minds, but Rude's thoughts ran into another path. He wanted to know if Zack could teach him how to do that.

But Zack wasn't paying attention to the Turks anymore. No, all he saw was his enemies right now, and the fact that they tried to kill him. No, that wouldn't do at all, something in which he was about to remedy soon.

A slight kick to the stone arm that he had his feet braced on shattered the other stone golem's arm. Unsurprisingly, it screeched like the first one. It remained frozen on its position as Zack used the force of his kick and flipped over the two giants. He landed at a small clearing a few feet from the battle site and made a show of tying his 'sash' around his waist once more. No expression can be seen on his face, which was especially accented by his dark tinted glasses.

As the Turks except Rude made some derogative comments about the feat, Zack just ignored them completely and concentrated on the two stone golems that seemed to have snapped out of their stupors. The two struggled to their feet, each with one arm lost that dangled uselessly on their sides.

Nobody had the time to ponder though as Zack's body suddenly flared out a silver glow. To the Turks, though normally they have seen some people emit energy when releasing spells or their limit breaks, this event however was quite different. While other people just flare their energy for short bursts at a time, Zack's aura was a continuous stream of power that washed over the area like the wind.

A VERY strong wind.

So strong that in fact, the Turks had to brace their footing properly to keep themselves rooted on their positions as they watched the battle unfold. They can also see that, even with his sunglasses, Zack's eyes turned into an ominous golden glow.

"Annoying pests..." An ominous growl was heard from Zack, in a tone that had the Turks blinking at the animalistic intensity of it.

Suddenly, a flash of bright light exploded from Zack, which struck the giant golems in front of him. The entire area's visibility became unbearable once again, and the Turks had to cover their eyes from the harsh glare. They heard the death cries of their enemies as well as the crumbling rocks that fell everywhere. The shockwave of the explosion succeeded in knocking them down to the ground.

"What the hell...!" Reno shouted above the noise as he tried to process what he witnessed a while ago.

"Zack, you asshole....!!" Tseng groaned as he picked himself up from the ground.

Rude calmly swiped the small rocks and dust stuck on his outfit.

"Oh my god... look!" Elena squeaked as she lifted a shaky finger towards the site.

Four pairs of eyes swiveled to where the blonde-haired girl pointed. The dust finally settled, and they saw Zack standing atop a large mound of broken earth. The swordsman was glaring towards the general area where the stone golems were before, the glow around his body never fading a bit. But the one thing the Turks were looking at was the red sash from before. It was now swinging wildly behind him. There was no doubt that this thing was no cloth, since it was whipping about in a hypnotic pattern that seemed to convey Zack's feelings at the moment.

Agitated. That's what Zack was feeling at the moment. With the incompetence and whining of his temporary teammates, coupled with the near death experiences he encountered a while ago, he was feeling rather irritated. His mind was shrouded in anger and fury, that his actions became automatic. He didn't even acknowledge the strange power that flowed through and about his body at the time, only that he used it to demolish his enemies.

His mind still in battle mode, Zack heard a strangled gasp behind him. He turned his head over his shoulder and glared towards the Turks at the corners of his eyes. The glasses he concealed his unusual eyes with were still in place, but they still glowed bright gold, a fact that wasn't lost to the recipients of the look. Not only that, but the headband he has never been seen without it was burned off, which now exposed the tri-colored gems glowing with their respective colors. The sight was horribly beautiful, ironically.

"Witnesses..." Zack hissed as he fully turned towards them. While Tseng, Reno and Elena were petrified by the glare from earlier, Rude was made of a much sterner stuff. The dark-skinned Turk immediately fell into a stance, ready to defend his teammates.

The berserk swordsman took one step forward, and froze on the spot. They could see his body shaking slightly as Zack fell to his knees. The swordsman clutched at his head with his gloved hands as he gasped for air. The aura receded into his form once again and the glow of his eyes disappeared. The gems on his forehead became dormant once more.

"Gah... wh-what... what... ugh..." Zack struggled to say as he held a shaky hand in front of his face, "What... wh-what happened?" he whispered urgently.

"Y-You!!" Zack's head snapped towards the scared cry of Elena, who pointed her finger at him, "W-What... what was t-that?! W-What are you?!"

The prone swordsman shook his head rapidly, his eyes wide behind the sunglasses, "I-I... I d-don't know! I..."

A solution presented itself. While generally absurd, the idea voiced by the least expected person to do so brought about the tense end to the subject for the time being. "Limit Break..." was all Rude said, but it effectively finished the argument at the moment.

The rest of the Turks eyed Zack warily, but Rude paid no heed of them as he came over at the swordsman and helped him to his feet. The dark-skinned bald man even took the effort of dragging Zack's sword, which has been thrown somewhere a few feet away while in battle, and handed it to the other, who looked up to him gratefully. Rude then gestured towards the now opened entrance into the old temple, probably opened after the three guardian golems' defeats. Zack nodded at him in response and re-holstered the Buster Blade on his back, and carefully avoided making eye contact with the rest of the Turks. Rude followed Zack fearlessly, and paused only to give Tseng and the others a meaningful glare.

Tseng, Reno and Elena looked at each other in askance, but the silent command from the normally stoic Rude demanded nothing but silence from them. It also forced them to follow the duo deeper into the temple, but it was clear that the event cannot be forgotten anytime soon.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

The temple was deceptively huge inside, and the group found that out the hard way. Thousands of traps littered all over the place, as well as those high leveled monsters. Some of them were never seen outside of the temple, but sure enough they were here. There were lots of secret passages as well, and the whole temple seemed to have become one giant maze of monsters and traps.

It annoyed the Turks.

Zack enjoyed himself.

Zack already blocked out the events that happened outside of the temple, and just concentrated on keeping his companions alive. He did, however, terrify Tseng, Reno and Elena into keeping the phenomenon to themselves. It involved growling, some rope, a ledge, and a seemingly endless pit.

Don't ask.

Rude really doesn't care much about what happened from earlier. He just carried on with Zack as before, which was not much.

The other Turks were, as Zack muttered to Rude earlier, bad luck. Apparently, most of the traps were triggered by them. Elena had triggered the knock-out gas from earlier, which brought Tseng and Reno down with her for a few minutes. Zack and Rude sweatdropped at that, and they did wonder why they haven't gotten anything on them yet.

After the three 'jinxes' awoke, Tseng triggered a trap door, which opened a large section of the floor underneath the three. If not for Tseng's presence of mind to hang unto the edge of the pit, Elena wouldn't have been able to grab Tseng around his waist, and in turn Reno who grabbed Elena by her pants' waist. Again, Zack and Rude had to sweatdrop as they watched the bizarre scene on the safer grounds they were on at the moment. Tseng was screaming about Elena's grip on his groin, and Elena was literally driving her stiletto high heels into Reno's head for pulling her pants down, which was around her ankles at the moment. Who knew Elena wore neon orange undies anyway? It glowed in the slight darkness of the pit, too...

There were a lot of other instances where these three triggered a few more traps, which earned them exasperated groans from the two males who haven't been caught in a trap yet.

In any case, the group finally reached the bottom-most cavern; it was huge, large stalactites and stalagmites decorated the ceiling and the floor. The walls seemed to have an eerie glow with the phosphorus that coated them. The huge room was circular in shape, and right at the middle of it was a large pedestal. A large crystal was innocently held on top of the pedestal.

"Looks suspicious..." Zack muttered loudly as he surveyed the place. It seemed safe at first glance, but looks can be deceiving. The presence of traps on the upper floors proved that fact.

"Dark, spacious, gloomy, ominous... damn, signs of a death trap..." the swordsman continued as he focused his stare on the pedestal. He blinked behind his sunglasses when he failed to hear any sarcastic comments from his 'teammates'. He turned his head idly to the side and watched the Turks at the corners of his eyes. They stood behind him, apparently in awe at the stone on the pedestal. Zack resisted the urge to sigh and shake his head. They were materialistic, as much as most of everyone else in this world. It was a normal reaction.

Of course, Zack's teammates may be gawking at the size of the said stone, but what Zack was partially impressed about the matter was the amount of power emanating from the stone. He wasn't about to tell anyone about it, but Zack was already able to get a similar stone of the same size somewhere down south of the continent. It was the Master Magic materia. When he acquired it, his other magic materia were absorbed into the larger gem. For some reason, it embedded itself into the Masamune, the gem appeared just a few centimeters above the hilt.

Zack shook his head out of musings and cautiously stepped towards the pedestal, his eyes alert for any traps that could potentially endanger them. He was followed by an equally cautious Rude, a wary Tseng, a spaced-out Elena, and a red-faced Reno. Why was Reno red-faced? Well, he was still thinking about Elena's underwear from earlier. And also, Elena's magnificent slap on his face still had the flaming hand imprint.

The swordsman snorted, after he made sure there were no other traps capable of entrapping his teammates. He gestured for those behind him to halt their advance, partly because they triggered the most unusual traps of the temple in the first place. Jinxes, all of them... well, probably not Rude, but the others... hoo boy.

Zack continued his advance towards the pedestal unhindered. He hovered in front of it, a bit hesitant, and reached for the orb that was presented. When he finally touched the large gem, he felt the power that emanated from it. He was quite surprised when he felt the Shin Masamune materialize at his side, floating with unknown power. The menacing silver glow of his sword matched with those of the orb. Zack ignored the Turks' shouted warnings and fed his own energies into the orb. The light pulsed from the gemstone, which was in perfect synchronization with the Shin Masamune.

With a flash of power, the glowing orb exploded in energy sparks, which were sucked into the Shin Masamune without pause. After the light died down, there was now two gems displayed a few inches from his sword's hilt. The Shin Masamune's silver glow abated as the fusion became complete. Zack stared at the sword in awe as he grasped its hilt. The power he felt from it... was immense. Not only that, it would seem that the new additional materia that chose him as its owner seemed to be... a Master Summon?

For the materia to become as it was right now, it would've taken it years to form. He idly wondered how long it took for the Master Summon to gather its energies. Zack also felt his minor summon materia in his pocket disappearing, in which he knew they must've combined with the Master Summon.

Cool...

Zack blinked when he felt a menacing aura behind him. He turned slowly, and saw Tseng's harsh glare boring into him.

"What?" The swordsman asked dubiously as he banished the Shin Masamune into nothing once again. He still doesn't know where it went when he does it, but as long as it appeared when he needed it, he won't care.

Tseng's nostrils flared as he raised a fist towards him, "That Materia is Shin-Ra property, soldier! You should return it, NOW!"

Zack shrugged as he started walking past the stunned group and said, "I can't. The Shin Masamune doesn't give up whatever it assimilates into itself for anyone, not even me. Besides, blame the materia too, since it chose me as its master."

"You asshole!" Reno grunted as he grabbed Zack's shoulder before the swordsman could get past the group, "That was our mission! It ain't yours!"

"Tell that to the materia..." Zack muttered as he glanced at the hand clamped down on him. With a negligent flick of his hand, he swept it off him and continued, only to find himself blocked by the blonde haired only-female member of the Turks, Elena.

"Give the materia to us now, Zack..." Elena growled out as she pulled her gun from its holster, "This is considered treason against Shin-Ra. Give it to us now or we will have to hurt you."

Rude just stood on the side, uncertain of what he should do.

Zack's eyes flashed gold as he faced them halfway, "Bring it on, maggots..." he said snidely.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

At the same time, back in Midgar...

The mother-daughter pair who knew Zack up to a personal level walked into their new home. Sure, it was in the Slums Section of the city, but it was their home for now. Besides, the daughter doesn't really care too much. As long as she was close to Zack, the house is of no consequence.

Elmyra and Aerith, two of those people who were forever etched in Zack's heart, gleefully decorated their house. Aerith was singing the new song she thought up of as she fixed the pastel orange curtains she put at the living room window. She idly watched as people around the city went by the window as well, and took note of the different individuals that sauntered up the streets. It was then that she noticed the city had no trees whatsoever, which created an aura of sadness and distress.

"Such a sad city..." Aerith blinked her blue-gray eyes as she spied upon the broken down church just across the block. She promised herself that she will visit the place later.

The brown haired girl paused in her work as a thought suddenly came into her mind, "Flowers..." she muttered to herself, a small smile slowly growing on her face, "I'll grow some flowers and sell them. They should liven the city a bit..."

Aerith sighed as she smoothed the curtains she was arranging, "I wonder how Zack's doing... I hope he got the letter I sent him."

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

Back to the forest near Wu-Tai, inside the newly discovered Temple...

Zack just holstered the Buster Blade on his back once again. Tseng lay unconscious on the wall near the doors that led into the huge room, Reno was face down in a crater near Zack's feet, and Elena dangled at the collar of her suit while in the swordsman's grip, clearly unconscious as well. Rude on the other hand clutched at his right arm a few feet away from Zack, his black sunglasses broken at his feet.

"Are you going to try again, Rude? Or do I have to knock you unconscious like these guys?" Zack asked curiously as he put Elena down gently.

Rude grunted as he fell on one knee, as he tried to stave off his wounded arm's bleeding. Blood pooled at his feet as his lifeblood flowed continuously from the glancing blow of the Buster Blade. The dark-skinned man shook his head and bowed, a sign of his defeat to his opponent.

Zack nodded sharply as he pulled several healing potions from his belt pouch and gripped the bottles between his fingers. He glanced at them for a second before he tossed the bottles to the bleeding Turk. "I'm going out first. I don't think your friends are gonna be happy seeing me when they regain consciousness..." he sighed as he rubbed his temples, "Damn... I'm fighting instinctively. Can't even control my own body when I'm like that. Tell them I'm sorry for the wounds I gave you."

Without waiting for a response, Zack turned his back to the Turks and waved absently. His long spiky black hair swirled with the wind as he walked out of the hallway.

As the young swordsman continued his way out of the room, he was at a dilemma. What happened to him in there? Why was there so much battle lust in his mind when he fought in the temple? He was actually looking for a fight... what the heck's wrong with him? But the power he felt while he was fighting... it was... soothing. It seemed to him like it was supposed to be that way. But how? And why?

He shook his head as he noticed he was already near the exit of the temple. There were no monster attacks after the materia was pulled from the pedestal. It was probably the stone that attracted and empowered the monsters in the temple. Frankly, Zack felt that the mission was a huge waste of time, except the rare materia's discovery. Well, it's also a cool thing that it chose him as its master.

Now, if he could only understand what was happening with his abrupt personality changes...

Zack breathed in deep as the sunlight hit his face. He just got out of the temple ahead of the Turks, and it was probably for everyone's good. He still doesn't know how to explain this to his superiors, particularly, the dreaded Doctor Hojo. The swordsman's gaze narrowed at the thought of the man. Doctor Hojo was never an honest man to begin with, and he seemed rather insane in his experiments. The doctor never bothered with things such as human rights and stuff, just as long as his experiments got done.

Weird man, that doctor. Zack would be happier if he won't be the target of Doctor Hojo's experiments. No thank you. He'd rather spend several months in the deepest pits of the Slums of Midgar rather than spend a minute in Doctor Hojo's presence. The man was extremely screwed up, everyone in the Shin-Ra Corporation knew of this fact, and they also shared the same sentiments he had on the doctor. Even Sephiroth wanted nothing to do with the doctor, but was sometimes forced to have his check-ups done by the madman. Zack knew that Sephiroth inwardly dreaded those upcoming scheduled checks.

There were rumors of Doctor Hojo that he has a secret lab somewhere, but Zack never bothered to try and find it. Although according to the rumors, the doctor has been involved in a lot of... inhumane experiments that violated a lot of laws. But being an employee of Shin-Ra has given Doctor Hojo a lot of lee ways, and if Zack read this right, Shin-Ra may also be indirectly involved in the experiments.

Which was exactly why Zack didn't want anything to do with the crazy doctor. He met the man a few times before, and it was never pleasant. The manic look in Hojo's eyes were not a sight to behold, and it was as if he itched into taking Zack into his laboratory to be examined. The swordsman was quite thankful that his medical check-ups were done by a different doctor. A local but respected doctor from Midgar, near Sector 7. The Corporation first demanded his cooperation on the matter, but a timely intervention from Sephiroth as well as a show of their swords put the matter to rest. Since then, his medical records were taken by Zack personally and handed to whatever medical staff was present in the Shin-Ra Headquarter's private hospital.

Zack blinked as he found himself standing in front of the hovercraft, the same one he and the Turks used to reach this place. He has half the mind of taking the hovercraft and leave those irritating pests in this place... well, except Rude. But alas, he cursed his innate sense of honor. He wouldn't begrudge the injured Turks of their only way for salvation from this place. Too bad the monsters in the area disappeared when the stone was gone from the temple. Karmic justice would've been interesting.

He decided to leave the hovercraft for the Turks' to use and sprinted towards the Midgar capital. Not really his cup of tea quite frankly, but he needed a good run after the strange things that happened to him in that place. He felt Mew comfort him in his mind as the floating cat materialized beside him. It was pretty cool that Mew was able to keep up with him, even while levitating.

Hmmm... just a few more days away from Midgar anyway...

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

Well, at least Zack got back to Midgar way ahead of the Turks, even with the hovercraft at their disposal. He was currently strolling, yes... strolling, along the streets of the Slums. Sleazy bars, factory smoke, brothels... you name it, this place has it. Illegal contraband were widespread here, and even Shin-Ra soldiers were afraid of walking these streets. But Zack wasn't a normal soldier.

The swordsman lazily tripped a robber who was just about to jump him. Zack didn't even twitch when the poor robber flew into the dumpsters of the alley on the OTHER SIDE of the wide road. Even with the spectacle, people in the Slums just shrugged it off as part of the normalcy in the place. He wasn't complaining.

He was about to sit on the newly opened noodles cart he has spotted a few weeks back when he spotted a very familiar lock of long brown hair that just entered the broken down church of the place. Zack heard Mew chattering in his head excitedly, something about a very familiar presence around the vicinity.

Zack basically ignored the Ramen Stand owner's frantic cries as he stumbled out of the cart. He quickly sped into the direction of the old church, where he last saw the familiar brown hair.

Could it be? Was she in here already?

As the abandoned church slowly came into view, Zack slowed his pace into a slight walk. He was immersed in deep thought. If this woman was who he thinks she was, then why has she come too early? And for that matter, wasn't she aware how dangerous Midgar was for someone like her? Someone with her unique abilities would attract a large amount of attention from the Shin-Ra scientists, especially... Doctor Hojo.

Zack already figured out that Aerith was somehow a part of the doctor's past, like some distant experiment who escaped his grasps. Zack has heard about it from the doctor's insane rantings during the slow days in the Corporation, and it was then that he made the connection. Work be damned, but if Hojo even tried to touch one hair on Aerith, Zack would raze the Shin-Ra Corporation to the ground.

The man with long spiky raven hair blinked behind his dark tinted glasses when he found himself standing in front of the broken down church. Those men, women and children who walked the streets behind him whispered at the seemingly crazy fool who stood dumbly in front of the ruined building. Zack fought off the blush that threatened to devour his face as he mustered enough dignity to step forward and enter the ruin. He noticed that his hand shook a little when he was about to push the old wooden doors at the entrance of the church. He was nervous... weird.

He shook off the unnerving feelings he felt at the moment and pushed the doors inward. The sight that greeted him robbed the man of his breath for a moment.

Well, there were broken down chairs lined up at the sides, and it was really dusty inside, but those weren't what caught his attention. Just in front of the half-demolished marble altar at the other end of the aisle, there was a patch of flowers that grew even in the most desolate area of Midgar. And in the middle of the small field of flowers, his beloved Aerith was happily watering them down with a worn pail. It did not help his awe that there was a hole on the roof that allowed a few rays of sunshine on the exact same area where the patch of flowers grew. The sight was, in his opinion, simply magnificent.

It was understandable then, when the woman who literally took Zack's breath away has long stopped watering the flowers when she noticed of another person's presence in the building, and was quite elated to find her love staring at her in awe. Aerith already squealed his name and hugged the still immobile man in her embrace, but there was still no reaction from him.

"Zack? ZACK! Are you okay?" Aerith's blue-gray eyes looked Zack over. So far, he was a bit dirty, probably just got back from a mission, no noticeable wounds, so what was the problem?

"H-haa....." Zack sighed as he slowly got his breath back. He finally noticed Aerith's arms around him, which literally had him melting in his embrace. "A-Aerith...?" Zack asked softly, his arms slowly returning the intimate contact.

The brown haired girl nodded to his chest, "Yes... but what happened to you? Are you hurt? I thought you've become mute when you didn't say anything a while ago..."

The raven-haired man chuckled nervously. "N-No... it's just that... when I saw you in here... I was... caught up in the moment. I mean, the scene... with you... with the flowers... the sunlight basking you... it was beautiful..."

Now, it was Aerith's turn to be awestruck as she blushed deeply. "A-aaahh... s-so that was i-it..."

"Hmmm..." Zack acknowledged her as he held the girl. The two stayed that way for a while, basking in each others' presences for the moment.

Zack finally broke the silence, carefully laced his words with both a bit of urgency as well as fondness, "What in the hells were you thinking, woman? Coming to this wretched place... Midgar is no place for someone as wonderful as you!"

Aerith was too used on how Zack handled his emotional outbursts, and just snuggled closer, "I know... but I can't be away from you, idiot. I love you, and I want us together."

"But this place..." The man almost whined, Aerith took note not to laugh at the tone, "This place is hell! Full of murder, dark secrets... and... Shin-Ra!"

"But you're here. I don't care for anything else..." The girl whispered into his ear.

Zack sighed sadly, but at the same time he smiled slightly as well, "Stupid girl... you'll be the death of me someday."

"Ah..." Aerith replied impishly, "But you love me anyway."

The swordsman snorted as he tightened his hold on the beautiful girl and said, "Of course."

"Meewww..." A forgotten pink floating cat sounded piteously behind them, which caused both Zack and Aerith to laugh.

"Of course I haven't forgotten about our little Mew!" Aerith continued to giggle as she opened one arm towards Mew, "Now come on in here and join us!"

Zack's partner meowed once more as she gleefully darted between the two lovebirds.

They continued to chat about anything they could think off until the sun has long set in the horizon, which prompted Aerith to take Zack back home with her. It was a wonderful reunion (and painful because Elmyra was too enthusiastic of her hug on Zack) between the three, err... four of them. Including Mew of course.

Zack stayed with the small family for three days, until he deemed it time to return to Shin-Ra Corporation for his mission report. And, he also wanted to see if the Turks managed to make it back into Midgar safe and sound as well.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

In the Shin-Ra Building, Midgar Branch...

Zack found himself in the President Shin-Ra's office once more. He spent a few days with Aerith and Elmyra, and he has no regrets over it. But apparently, the management doesn't appreciate his... tardiness.

Add to the fact that his so-called teammates were able to return to Midgar only a few hours ago, still wounded from their encounter on that fateful day of the mission. With the outcome of the journey, Zack knew that he would receive a long tongue-lashing from the big-assed president of the company he worked for.

True to his premonition, Zack watched boredly as the president ranted behind the boss' big desk. The president waved his hands in the air as he did so, and spit flew out of his mouth from his yelling. Zack was quite thankful that he was way out of range from the yucky projectiles.

Sephiroth sat on the couch situated on one side of the office as he watched the proceedings without an expression on his face. He did, however, have a slight grin directed towards Zack, one which was returned albeit briefly.

The Turks stood on the president's side. Tseng had a smug grin on his face while he huffed on a cigarette. Elena stood poised as she glared at the swordsman. Reno had a scowl on his face, probably still sore at the utter loss they had received from the man being berated. Rude was as stoic as ever. It would've been an impressive sight if the Turks hadn't sported the various injuries they received from Zack in the form of casts and bandages.

"... and furthermore, you were supposed to report here immediately after you arrived in Midgar! And where were you?! Probably gallivanting with some whore!" The President shouted as he banged his fist against his desk once more. He quickly shut up however, when Zack's hand slammed against the front part of the desk. The Turks bristled at the reaction, while Sephiroth's brow just quirked upwards.

"What I do after the mission is NONE of your concern, SIR." Zack's cold voice echoed in the spacious office. "I returned from this mission earlier than the deadline you yourself set on us, so I decided to get some relaxation from my free days. What I do on those days is, guess what, none of your concern, SIR. Furthermore, those idiots you call your elite Turks haven't done much in this mission. All they brought me was a huge burden. Had to save them a lot of times too. And for what? They turned on ME afterwards."

President Shin-Ra bristled in his seat as his eyes glared daggers into Zack's shades-covered ones, "H-How DARE you, subordinate! How dare you speak to me---"

"Let's get one thing straight, SIR..." Zack cut him off as he leaned closer towards the now sweating president, "You may be the one giving me the checks, but that's besides the point. The one who can give me orders is my superior officer, or have you forgotten? I'm in the military. And don't give me crap about you civilians having the higher power whatsoever. Besides, the mission's done. Get over it."

"You took the Materia, Zack. It should be Shin-Ra's propert---" Tseng tried to defend his boss, but was once again cut off.

"I don't give a hoot what you think, girly-boy..." Zack's unnerving stare turned to the leader of the Turks, "The Materia, while a material thing, is still semi-sentient. It's already proven in the labs, remember? It didn't choose you, it chose ME. I can't do anything about that. But if you're so adamant in taking it from me, then challenge me in a one-on-one combat. I'm sure my superior officer would enjoy that, ne Sephiroth?"

The aforementioned man snorted from his couch as the silver haired man named Sephiroth shifted his copy of Zack's Masamune from one shoulder to another, "Why not? It has been a boring week. Besides, it would be a real treat for the soldiers to watch a lackey getting beaten up by you."

The black-haired swordsman grinned as he readjusted the black headband around his forehead, "Well, there ya have it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd rather watch the soldiers drink themselves to death in the bar rather than listen to all of your whiney excuses. Toodles!"

While his statement had the president sputter some indignation, Zack swirled on his spot gracefully and exited the office with a flourish. The huge doors shut themselves closed after Zack passed through them.

A tense silence remained in the president's office, which was broken when the obese chairman of the board shouted, "SEPHIROTH!!! Did you hear what that runt told me?! The nerve of him! He's being insubordinate! I want him punished, you hear me?! PUNISHED!"

"Whatever... just remember, he's one of our best men. So you can't punish him too badly..." The silver haired man muttered as he stood from his seat. Sephiroth threw a sharp glance towards the Turks while the president continued his ranting, which made the Shin-Ra 'Elite' shiver slightly. He did not bother saying anything as he turned his back from his 'superior' and left the office with as much dignity as Zack did earlier. This brought about another bout of indignation from President Shin-Ra. But now, his targets were those who were left in the room, meaning, the Turks.

Sephiroth exhaled loudly as he exited the room. He was thankful that he left the loudmouth executive before the fat man continued any more of his monologue. Irritating bastard, that's what the president was in Sephiroth's eyes. He was about to turn on a corner when he almost ran into Zack, who was leaning on the wall.

"So..." Zack began, as he uncrossed his arms and stood from his position, "What did the bastard say?"

Sephiroth grunted, "You really like to live dangerously, do you?"

The raven-haired man shrugged. "I don't sit well with those incompetent leader types. And that guy is on top of the current list."

Zack's superior shook his head slightly and said, "It may be so, but you shouldn't antagonize those who pay your allowances in their faces."

Zack nodded solemnly. "Ah, so I should antagonize them behind their backs like you do, right?"

"Stupid idiot..." Sephiroth said quietly, but the words held no heat in them. "Anyway, I was told to punish you, severely." Without saying another word, Sephiroth held out a hand and smacked Zack at the back of his head, which elicited a loud yelp from the other man.

"Ouch! That hurt you moron!" Zack hissed as he rubbed his head.

Sephiroth inclined his head. "Good to know you can still feel that blow. Now that you've been sufficiently 'punished', let's just get out of this place. This building... it irritates me for some reason."

As the duo entered the elevator, a soft mumble was heard that said, "Hmph... you're just a big softie..." and another loud smack echoed in the empty hallways after the elevator doors shut.

Little did Zack know that within a few more days, everything between him and Sephiroth will change drastically.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

A few days later, Zack and Sephiroth were practicing sword techniques when all of the sudden, the silver haired man fell to his knees and screamed bloody murder.

Zack immediately went to his friend's side and was at a loss at what to do. "Sephiroth? What's the matter man? Hey, you okay?" He was about to touch the other man's shoulder when all of the sudden, Sephiroth growled and slapped his hand away harshly.

"Get your filthy hands away from me, insect!" The man grunted out as he clutched at his head. His aquamarine eyes were sharp and unforgiving as they stared at Zack.

"What the hell's wrong with you?!" Zack asked impatiently as he glared at his companion. He just wanted to help, after all, no need to bite his head off because of it!

"Ugh..." Sephiroth shook his head, "Reunion... the Reunion with Mother is... soon... ugh..."

Zack was confused at the statement. "What the heck are you talking about Sephiroth?"

"Wh-wha... ugh..." The silver haired man groaned as he convulsed on the ground.

The raven haired man grimaced. Sephiroth's his friend, and he wasn't about to abandon the guy to his torture. Also, Zack felt that there was something wrong with how his friend acted a while ago. It was in Sephiroth's eyes that Zack saw the illusion of whatever it was that possessed his friend. He was about to pick the silver haired man up when the doors of the training room opened violently.

Zack watched warily as a group of doctors went inside the room without waiting for an approval from him. His eyes narrowed when he found the leader of the little group. ((Doctor Hojo)) Zack thought to himself angrily.

"We will take it from here, soldier." Doctor Hojo's raspy voice echoed inside the large training room, as the doctor gestured for his companions to take Sephiroth's inert form.

Zack immediately stepped in front of his unconscious friend. "What is this? Why all this attention? What's wrong with him?"

Doctor Hojo lifted his glasses up the bridge of his nose with an index finger and replied, "That, is actually none of your concern. I am Sephiroth's personal physician, so it is my duty to ensure his... well-being."

((Right, and I'm actually an alien...)) Zack thought to himself sarcastically. Vocally, he said, "I think I have a right to know what's been going on. Why did he lash out like that?" ((What the hell did you do to him you freak?))

Doctor Hojo's face almost split with the gruesome grin on it. "I told you, that's none of your business. Now, let us do our work or Sephiroth may end up dying, and it's because you've been delaying us!"

Without any solid proof of deceit, Zack had no choice but to back off and watch as the medical team took Sephiroth and placed him on a stretched. The doctors filed out of the room with the SOLDIER's leader in tow. Doctor Hojo threw Zack a mocking grin before he went out of the room as well.

Zack could still remember that horrible laughter...

It was a week after that incident when Zack met up with Sephiroth once again. Much to the raven-haired man's dismay, his friend was back to being cold and ruthless, not much of a difference if you were one of the normal soldiers, but now even he was subjected to the silver-haired man's ruthlessness. Not that he minded, but it was as if their friendship was back to square one. At most, Sephiroth now treated Zack like one of the soldiers.

The swordsman was now more wary of Doctor Hojo than ever. What did that doctor do to his friend? Sephiroth's eyes were now somewhat glassy, and often times Zack found him muttering to himself something about 'Mother' and 'Reunion'. But the most important thing Zack took note of was the one word that he actually did not know about.

JENOVA.

Sephiroth's musings consisted of JENOVA, and his mother. But as far as Zack knew of Sephiroth's past, the silver-haired man has no mother. At least, that's what he's been told. Sephiroth once confessed to Zack during a drinking binge, a rare spectacle in itself, that he was a test tube baby. Created out of the lab. Again, so he was told.

The same lab that Doctor Hojo ran.

Zack now has a lot of the puzzle pieces, and slowly the picture was coming to focus. He knew that the doctor has something to do with everything that Sephiroth's been going through, and his friend's abrupt change in behavior.

Now, more than ever, Zack vowed to find out more about this JENOVA, and what this could mean if Sephiroth did find it.

The elite soldier shook himself out of his memories and reminded himself that he's in the middle of a routine inspection of the SOLDIER candidates ranks. He spared a glance towards Cloud, who stood in attention as Zack continued on with the inspection.

The small but elite group received a mission. Something about investigating a certain town named Nibelheim. Zack narrowed his brows a bit, and remembered that Cloud came from the town. ((Ah, so that's why he's so uptight lately. I wonder how long it's been since he went back home for a vacation?)) Zack wondered to himself.

"Are you done with the inspection?" Sephiroth's cold voice cut into Zack's thoughts.

The raven-haired man nodded mutely.

The group leader swiftly turned his back from them, his silver hair fluttered in the wind when he did, "Then let's not waste time. The sooner we get to Nibelheim, the faster we finish this mission."

As Zack watched his changed friend walk away, he muttered, "What? No 'Let us do our best, men!' speech? How boring." Nevertheless, the man snorted as he nodded to the men as a signal to depart, and followed Sephiroth into the vehicle they will use as transport.

In no time at all, the whole entourage arrived in Nibelheim with little to no problems whatsoever. There was the occasional monster battles which blocked the road earlier. Okay, so it wasn't as smooth sailing as it looked. Only Zack seemed to have enjoyed himself so far, and the time they weren't fighting he spent sleeping. He played a mental game of Shogi with his partner Mew, who sat on his shoulder while still in her invisible mode. Who knew where she got all that energy to maintain it for such a long time, but Zack didn't bother her about it. As long as Mew's happy, he's happy.

Zack was awakened by a soldier, who told him they have arrived at their destination. The other men in the vehicle were already out and inspecting the town. The soldier who woke him up turned out to be no other than Cloud, and Zack was a bit amused at the stressed expression on the blonde's face.

"You know, one should be a bit more excited returning to his home town, Cloud. It's as if you don't want to return here..." Zack mused to his subordinate as he donned the Buster Sword once again.

The blonde shook his head quickly and said, "It's not that, sir. It's just that... it's been a long time... and... well..."

Zack snorted loudly as both men walked out of the vehicle, "It's a girl, isn't it?"

Cloud blinked. "W-Wha?! Where did you get that idea, sir?!" he said hurriedly.

The raven-haired man chuckled as he took the view of the village in appreciation. "Relax. It's not as if you made a promise to her or something and that now you think you broke it..." ((Hmmm... this town ain't half-bad. Kinda reminds me of Gongaga. A few technological advancements, but still has its rustic view. I like it...)) he added to himself. Zack stopped when he noticed his companion has halted in his tracks.

"Oi, what's wrong with you, Cloud?" Zack asked with an eyebrow raised.

The blonde-haired subordinate sighed and slumped his shoulders forwards. "I dunno. I mean, I promised her I'll come back as a member of the elite SOLDIER, but... as you can see..."

"Lemme guess. You're ashamed to show your face to her since you haven't made SOLDIER..." Zack mused and watched as Cloud nodded his head meekly, "Well, lemme be the first to tell you, that's bullshit."

"But sir!" Cloud said pathetically, "I'm no SOLDIER. I'm just..."

"A grunt. Well, so what?" Zack rolled his eyes behind his shades, "At least you have a job. And besides, you can always try at becoming SOLDIER again. But you didn't. I wondered about it, but now I know why."

"Sir..." The blonde began, but was cut off by his superior.

"Don't put yourself down too much, Cloud. Everybody fails one time or another. True strength can be seen of a person who falls and stands to try once again..." Zack looked at Cloud intently, who fidgeted under his gaze, "Try taking the SOLDIER test again, Cloud. Stop moping around just because you failed the first time. Stop wallowing in the mud of failure and stand up with your own two feet. Get your ass in gear and DO IT. Understand?"

Cloud had no choice but to agree with it. He WAS actually thinking of trying again but... he hesitated a few times in the last few months. He was still sore at his first failure. But his superior officer's unwavering voice seemed to be the kick he needed to follow through with his dream.

Zack finally decided to relent on his erstwhile subordinate and student. He was leaning forward towards Cloud in a menacingly looming manner, so he slowly back away and nodded, satisfied that he was able to spur Cloud a bit to pursue his dream.

"Good..." the raven-haired man said as he flipped an errant strand of hair on his face, "Now, let's go before 'his bitchiness' becomes angry at us dawdling around."

"Yes sir!" The subordinate answered enthusiastically as Cloud put on his complete uniform, as well as his helmet.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

There was nothing more amusing at the moment for Zack than to watch the events displayed right in front of him. A while earlier he was introduced to the guides of the town, the Lockhart family. The patriarch of the family, a somehow tall, slightly pudgy man of his late 50s proudly introduced his 'heir' of some sorts to the family business. Actually, Zack thought that this heir of this man was his only child. Anyway, as it turned out, it was a girl.

Long, sleek black hair that reached up to her waist, reddish brown eyes, height that reached up to his chest, her... hmmm this was a teenager? Her... assets... were a lot bigger than what Zack was accustomed to. This girl was younger than Zack, probably a year or two. She had a wide-brimmed hat on her head, and she was... energetic.

AND, she was staring at him like he's some prized meat. Zack sweatdropped at the look that was directed at him.

"Hi there!" The succu-- err, the GIRL 'bounced' in front of them. Sephiroth was, unsurprisingly, nonchalant about it. The girl's father was smiling widely, proud of his daughter. And Cloud... what the? He's... projecting some weird vibes. ((It's a good thing I'm the only one who noticed it...)) Zack noted to himself.

Mew suddenly whispered in his mind, something about being HER. Now what could that be about... oh... OH! OHO! Such an interesting turn of events... a drama unfolded right in front of him and he almost missed it!

Zack was brought out of his musings when he felt someone pulled on his tight-fit shirt. He looked down and saw the girl, well, actually, EVERYONE stared at him in confusion. And then Zack finally realized that he must've been carried away.

"Err... what was it again?" Zack asked nervously as he scratched the back of his head. Everyone except Sephiroth sweatdropped.

The girl recovered her vigor and said, "I said my name's Tifa Lockhart, your guide for the rest of your stay. Your other companion already introduced himself, but you were lost in your thoughts so much that I had to get your attention."

"Oh..." Zack shrugged slightly, "My name's Zack. Nice ta meet'cha."

Tifa nodded happily. "Great! Now we're friends!" she crowed as she bowed down to her waist. Zack big sweated when he felt Cloud's glare at the back of his head.

The girl pouted cutely as she stared at Sephiroth's composed face and said, "You're kinda cute, but you're also scary-looking."

"Ahem, well..." Zack fervently tried to shake the feel of his subordinate's glare, "Let's just begin the tour then! Err... hey. Can you stand still for a moment? You're making me dizzy."

The girl grinned sheepishly as she stopped fluttering around the room. "Sorry!" she chirped, "I got too excited. It's seldom that we get to guide high-profile people like you!"

Zack turned to his side and looked at Cloud pleadingly.

The subordinate blinked underneath his mask as he shrugged slightly. But he buckled under Zack's gaze, "Err... better stay close to us then, ma'am. There might be strong monsters in there."

The girl was about to retort, but Zack beat her to it. "Then it's settled!" Zack grinned evilly, and Cloud felt an impending doom coming to take his moderately wonderful life...

"YOU take care of her, kiddo!" Zack smirked triumphantly as he swerved Tifa towards the uniformed Cloud's direction, who was to dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events to even complain about the situation. Cloud got no choice but to catch Tifa and watched as his mentor, Zack, trotted away from them. It still bothered Cloud that Zack threw the patented 'I-have-a-plan' smirk at him. The blonde blinked when he suddenly realized that he has an armful of the busty young girl he had a crush on since he was a child, and said girl now threw a right hook towards his face.

WHAM!

Whoa. Good thing normal soldiers of Shin-Ra wore those helmets. Who knew how much pain Cloud would be in if he got that punch at full blast? Although, now he has to have it changed, because the fist imprint was not fashionable for a mask.

Well, Cloud let Tifa go when he stumbled back from the blow. Which led to the girl falling unto her shapely bum and got her to curse everything in existence, especially that soldier who dropped her.

Sephiroth just shook his head and went ahead. Zack on the other hand had stopped fleeing once Tifa lost interest on him. He did however see the spectacular right hook the girl threw at Cloud.

((Ah, young love...)) Zack thought to himself as he watched, from a distance, as Tifa screamed profanities at Cloud. This girl was probably the one Cloud was talking about earlier, and it was probably a good thing that Cloud's face was covered by the helmet.

The raven-haired swordsman winced when he saw Cloud got kicked at the shin by Tifa, before the girl stormed off after Sephiroth. ((I wonder... what would happen if I tell the girl that the soldier she's bullying is her childhood friend? Ohhh.... such fun this is! Oh yes indeed!)) Zack grinned to himself as he too turned to follow where the small group has gone.

Sephiroth, as always, led the group of four people as Tifa introduced them to Nibelheim's sites. Tifa's father has gone somewhere else, probably another part of town where another group of tourists arrived. Anyway, Zack was half-heartedly listening to the younger girl's descriptions regarding the view, while it was Cloud who fervently paid full attention to her.

Mount Nibel, in Zack's opinion, was a let-down. Not that it was a small mountain to begin with, but with that much build-up from before, he was expecting a whole lot from it. Although, there were some good points. Even when the mountain was already touched by Shin-Ra's technology, there were still various parts of the mountain virtually unscathed. Shin-Ra built a massive Mako Reactor in this area, and Zack surmised that Mount Nibel teemed with Mako energy. Which also meant that the mountain has lots of materia in it.

Zack kicked a small rock absently and stared at the stalactites in one of Mount Nibel's caves. In the middle of the room, a relatively small-sized materia was formed atop a natural rock formation eroded by years of confinement. Tifa pointed out the fact very proudly, while Sephiroth explained the long and winding process of materia formation from solidified Mako energy. In other words, the raven-haired elite was very bored.

Low level monsters ran rampant along the slopes of the mountain, but they were dispatched easily. No challenge for Zack whatsoever, so one could definitely understand why he's this way at the moment.

So bored. Though the occasional 'couple-like' banters between Cloud and Tifa were pretty interesting at some points.

Thankfully, the group finally reached the heart of the mountain's interior, where the ruined Mako Reactor resided. But Tifa that the day's tour was pretty much over, and that they would continue on the next day. Zack, with all his boredom, agreed too easily, while Cloud followed Tifa like a lost puppy. Sephiroth, though, paused at the entranceway into the Reactor Core itself as the rest of the group turned to leave.

Zack noticed his superior has fallen behind. "Sephiroth... the tour's over for today. I think it's gonna be nighttime, and we don't want to get stranded in the middle of an unknown territory at night. We will start earlier tomorrow so that we'll be able to explore that place, so don't worry."

"I am not worried..." Sephiroth mused distractedly as he soon turned and followed the rest of the group out of the mountain.

They were met by Tifa's father at the foot of Mount Nibel, who led them back into Nibelheim Mansion to spend the night. Sephiroth wordlessly entered the mansion without waiting for the others. Tifa opted to stay in her own house and went with her father. Zack and Cloud were the only ones left outside the mansion proper.

"Hey kid, you came from this village too, right?" Zack asked his companion as he stared at the blood red sky.

Cloud grunted an affirmative.

The raven-haired swordsman turned his gaze towards the blonde and said, "Why don't you visit your home? Your mother must be worried 'bout you, ya know."

Cloud bristled at this. "I can't. I'm not a SOLDIER..."

Zack snorted as he crossed his arms across his chest. "Kid, she won't care whether you're in SOLDIER or not. All she'll care about is that her child is alive and well. You're an idiot to think otherwise."

Eventually, Cloud was convinced by Zack to go home for the night, his own home, in this hometown of his called Nibelheim.

After seeing his subordinate walk back into the town, the amnesiac warrior entered the mansion and went into his room. Zack lay on his bed, but was pretty much awake.

After a few hours into the night, Zack heard a door open slightly outside his own room. The swordsman quickly donned his clothes and silently slipped outside his room. He found Sephiroth gazing outside the Mansion's balcony, in such deep and intense introspection. The view overlooked the Nibelheim town, as well as Mount Nibel. Zack decided to just let the silver-haired man be, and went back into his room as silently as he did slipping outside of it a while ago. He never noticed Sephiroth's expressionless face turning into a malicious sneer...

Heat was the first thing that greeted Zack in the morning. As he blearily opened his eyes, he was surprised to see the red hot flames howling along the walls of the room he was staying in. Most of the furniture in the room were already burned badly, especially the curtains, which caused him to jump out of his already smoldering bed in alarm. Zack dashed out of the burning room, basically ignoring the scorched door as he mowed it down with his strength. Of course, the whole place was ablaze as well.

Zack made his way to the stairs that led downstairs, and met up with a frantic Cloud wearing his own regular soldier uniform. Without exchanging much words, they quickly paved a way for each other downstairs, where they managed to witness their silver-haired superior stabbing Tifa's father with his long katana. Tifa, unfortunately, witnessed the entire thing at the door of the burning mansion, wherein her only path to her dying father was barred by the long searing fires that licked the rest of the area.

In their haste, Zack and Cloud had forgone the stairwell path and jumped directly into the area where Tifa was. Zack called out to Sephiroth, but he was ignored by the silver-haired man as the latter turned and vanished into the flames.

With the embers of the fire weakening slightly, Tifa braved the flames and went to her father, followed by the two Shin-Ra operatives. It was too late, her father has departed from this life, and her heart-wrenching sobs chorused with the roar of the fire. Zack quickly turned to his subordinate and ordered Cloud to find other survivors in the town proper. The blond underneath the headgear was hesitant in leaving a distraught Tifa, but Zack assured him that the raven-haired man will take care of her. With that said, Cloud quickly left the burning mansion and went into the Nibelheim town itself.

When Zack turned to the brown haired girl from Nibelheim, Tifa had already pulled off Sephiroth's sword from her father's corpse, and was now running outside of the mansion as well. So the Shin-Ra SOLDIER member ran outside as well, and just followed the grief-stricken girl's path. Both of them were further horrified, however, when they saw that even the whole town of Nibelheim was burning in the huge fiery mess. Zack did notice that Tifa was making her way towards Mount Nibel blindly, and the ruined Mako Reactor in particular. Still, Zack didn't let up in tailing the girl. He surmised that he'll probably find Sephiroth inside the reactor anyway.

Everywhere they turned, the same burning scene met their sights. This fueled their rage as they ran towards Mt. Nibel. When they reached the place, they paused momentarily at the door where they had stopped yesterday from entering into.

Tifa and Zack, however, stiffened when they finally laid eyes upon the inside of the reactor room. It was, by far, the most different in all of the other reactors they have ever encountered. Usually, the series of Mako gathering machinery that Shin-Ra installed in strategic parts of the world were generally the same in design. But this one was... so much unlike the others...

"What the hell is this..." Zack muttered to himself as he stared at the rows of 'pods' that lined up inside the innermost sanctum of the reactor itself. He ignored the black haired girl who wore that ridiculous straw hat for now, who stood rigid at the sight, and continued to inspect the pods. He was also able to ignore the imposing figure of their real purpose in the reactor, in favor of these... things around the area. Sephiroth just stood at the top of the long flight of stairs that led towards the inner reactor proper, apparently in a deep trance himself. Tifa shook in silent rage when she saw the silver-haired man, but she held herself back a bit when she saw Zack's unusual reaction.

Zack peered into one of the capsules, and a rather deformed face of... something... greeted him, which caused him to recoil back in shock. "What the hell is this?!" he finally bellowed.

He quickly looked into another pod, and saw something vaguely the same. As well as the next pod, and the next, and the next...

"Experiments..." The swordsman simmered as he whispered, loud enough to be heard by anyone inside the silent hall. He saw Sephiroth twitch at his words.

Sephiroth finally spoke, and rested his hand on one of the pods in front of him. "JENOVA..." he murmured to himself, clearly out of his wits at the sudden turn of events. "I finally found... Mother..."

Zack growled, "What do you mean, Sephiroth?! Do you know who did this?!" In a sudden terrifying thought, he added, "Do you have something to do with these... abominations?!"

"Abominations...?" Sephiroth breathed as he glared at Zack coldly, "These... are HER children, mortal!"

Taken aback by his friend's sudden one-eighty turn of emotions, Zack regained his footing and asked, "What... what the hell's the matter with you, Sephiroth?!"

"Nothing is wrong with me..." Sephiroth smirked absently as he turned his back towards his former friend negligently, "I just found what I was searching for so long..." The silver-haired man noticed Tifa inching towards one of the pods in place at the lowest level of the room, "Stand back! You don't deserve to gaze towards them!"

Tifa's eyes blazed as she clutched at the sword in her hands. "You... you bastard! You killed my father, you murderer! Not only that... the village..."

Sephiroth's cold aquamarine eyes stared at the doors in front of him. "Humans... they do not matter to me. I am superior to all of you."

The long-haired buxom girl screamed. Before Zack knew it, Tifa was already running towards Sephiroth with the fake Masamune in her hands, poised for a strike on Sephiroth's back. The silver-haired man just turned and caught Tifa's hand before the blade even touched his skin and took back his sword without a word.

Zack shouted, "Shit! Tifa!" and ascended the steps himself, unsheathing the Buster Sword as Tifa flew back from Sephiroth's near-fatal sword slash. The raven-haired man barely caught the unconscious girl before she seriously injured herself from the high fall, and carefully set her down leaning unto one of the pods. Then Zack himself charged Sephiroth, but the latter was ready for this. Partly from the terrain advantage, Sephiroth quickly slapped the heavier Buster Sword without too much trouble, and landed a slash across Zack's chest.

Zack grunted as Sephiroth kicked his body away, and landed heavily on the one of the pods at the lower level of the stairs. His dark-tinted glasses flew back and clattered on the floor a few feet away from where his sword landed.

"Ugh... Sephiroth..." He grunted as he struggled to right himself. He saw a blurred image of Sephiroth looking at him passively from atop of the steps.

Sephiroth sniffed imperiously as he turned his back to him. "Hmph. Typical of humans. If you play with fire, you get burned, so they say..." he trailed off.

"Sephiroth!!!" Zack screamed, unknowing that his scream was in stereo with the soldier at the doors.

Cloud just came from his inspection of the town. In short, Nibelheim was burned to the ground. Even his house wasn't spared, especially Cloud's mother. The blonde had no time to grieve as he turned his head from his destroyed house and tried to find other survivors. Most of the townspeople had slash marks on them made by a very long blade. Even those other soldiers who escorted their entourage were killed by a sword.

Seeing that there was nothing else he could do, Cloud went on to find Sephiroth. The last logical place Cloud thought the silver-haired man would be in was the Mount Nibel Mako Reactor core room. It was then that he witnessed Zack being thrown back from Sephiroth when he entered the room with the strange looking contraptions.

It was when Cloud noticed Tifa's condition.

The blonde removed his helmet and threw it on the ground as he quickly made his way towards the wounded girl. He was thankful that she was still alive, only unconscious. He brushed his hand on Tifa's cheek and remembered his promise. His promise to protect Tifa when she needed him. He was assaulted by memories of their childhood, as well as that accident on the bridge that changed the two's relationship.

Cloud stood resolutely and glanced around. He saw Zack's struggling form on the pod, as well as the Buster Sword on the ground. He quickly went to Zack and carefully brought the man down from the uncomfortable position he was on before. Cloud gasped when he saw Zack's face.

Instead of the whites in the eyes, blue-grey color greeted him. Even Zack's pupils were highly unusual, which were glowing golden at the moment.

"Hooo... so you're not human as well, Zack?" Sephiroth whispered to Zack as he stared back with his own blue-green eyes.

"B-Being human... is a r-relative t-term..." Zack gasped as blood spilled from his mouth. He gripped at Sephiroth's sword arm tighter, which caused the other man to wince slightly. "Wake u-up, S-Sephiroth. This i-is n-not y-you..."

Sephiroth snorted as he pushed his subordinate back violently. "Wake up?" he asked in amusement, as he cocked his right leg back, "I am already awake, after such a long time..." Having said that, Sephiroth kicked Zack, sword and all, down the stairs.

Cloud bore witness to all of these, and watched in horror as his friend and mentor was impaled by his own friend in a vital area. He saw that Zack landed hard on top of one of the pods after Sephiroth kicked him away without remorse. Already, the pod on which Zack landed on was already coated with the man's blood.

He immediately lifted Tifa's unmoving body and cradled her against him. Cloud ran towards where Zack fell, and saw that the man was still trying to stand.

"Z-Zack!" Cloud asked in trepidation. The sword strike was fatal, but the raven haired man was still able to move. He watched as Zack reached for his sword, but it was enough.

"Stop moving! You're hurt bad!" Cloud hissed as he used his foot to stop Zack's hand from grasping the Buster Blade. When the wounded officer looked up to the blonde, he breathed in sharply.

For as long as he could remember, Cloud knew that nobody has ever seen Zack's eyes. They were always covered by those dark-tinted glasses that Zack never seemed to run out of. Now he saw it clearly, how unearthly those eyes were.

The raven-haired swordsman huffed as he sat up gingerly. His abdomen hurt like hell, and it was only his sheer will that he was able to do so. Zack saw it clearly, his friend has that manic look in his eyes. Ironically, it reminded Zack of Doctor Hojo's own manic glee whenever the doctor had acquired new... specimens. Nevertheless, he needed to stop Sephiroth. Whatever Sephiroth was after, it wouldn't be all that good. And his target must be behind the doors on top of those stairs.

Zack could hear Cloud's voice from somewhere, but he concentrated on numbing the pain he felt around his chest. As he reached for his sword, he found his hand blocked by a black boot. Zack looked up and saw Cloud leaning down to him. He also spied upon Tifa's unconscious form. Damn, she was wounded by Sephiroth as well. Zack could see that his subordinate has a panicked look on his now unmasked face.

"Huh?" Zack asked dubiously as he leaned back to the pod he landed on. He abandoned his attempts to wield his sword, if only to recover some energy to do so a little later.

Cloud's worried face appeared in front of him. "I said, stop moving dammit!" The blonde told him sternly.

"... can't do that..." Zack grimaced as he felt his body slowly forcing itself to heal the fatal wound, "... need to stop... Sephiroth..."

"Why did this happen?! Why did the boss do all these?!" Cloud asked frantically.

Zack shook his head slowly as he took deep, labored breaths, "I... I dunno. But it all started... a few days ago."

His eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at his blonde subordinate, "Cloud... you... you need to stop... Sephiroth."

The blonde soldier was taken aback. He wasn't even a good fighter yet, and to face the leader of the group at his current level would be suicide. "But sir... I'm not strong enough!"

"Cloud..." Zack rasped as he clutched at his aching wound tighter, "Something's... something's gonna happen... and Sephiroth is in the middle... of it. I... I was taken by surprise. I... I thought I could get to him... before he goes crazy. Seems like... I failed..." He paused momentarily to let the fresh bouts of pain washed all over his body, "Someone... needs... to stop him..." Already, Zack's vision was dimming as his body was automatically shutting itself down to heal faster, "That... that stupid jerk... who needs... enemies when... you have... friends... like... him..." His eyes finally closed in exhaustion. He heard Cloud from somewhere while he was in the state of near total unconsciousness. Something about a solemn vow, probably for that poor girl caught in the crossfire, and the telltale sound of the Buster Sword being picked up from the ground.

If Zack had enough strength, he would've patted the boy on the head for facing this trial bravely. But he can't, not at the moment. Zack just hoped Cloud would survive long enough for him to recover and continue teaching the younger man. Cloud has potential.

Oh well, those were the breaks... he could already hear Mew and Aerith's really long sermon about this later...

Zack was just thankful that he can't really concentrate on Mew's frantic mental calls in his mind right now.

He knew he's gonna get it from the women (Aerith, Elmyra, his adoptive mother, Mew...) of his life soon. Ah, blissful unconsciousness was never this sweet before...

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

For Zack, one of the worst views he could have when he woke up was being inside a VAT enriched human-sized capsule. Sadly, his day got worse when he recognized that he was inside one AND was in Doctor Hojo's laboratory.

Zack felt like crap, which was an understatement. The liquid inside the capsule he was in was thankfully breathable. He reached out and touched the small circular window in front of him. The memories he had before he went unconscious was not pleasant at all. His wound was obviously healed, due to the fact that he trusted his own body's functions.

He decided that his extended stay inside this capsule was enough, so he cocked back a hand and smashed it through the glass window, which caused the liquid to spill outside. Zack followed this with a kick to the metal door.

The swordsman found himself nearly naked; only his boxers seemed to be the only thing that covered his privates and his black bandanna around his forehead as he coughed out the liquid from his lungs. The VAT treatment tasted dreadful, and it was an experience he wouldn't want to repeat anytime soon. While he scuffled along the dark, damp office, he spied upon some documents that lay messily amongst the papers on the lone table in the room.

Experiments? Mako Radiation Therapy? JENOVA cell infusion? Was that what was done to his body? And yet, Zack felt no different. Ah, no reaction to the JENOVA cells... a failed infusion. Again, Zack had to thank his unusual metabolism, which seemed to have saved him a lot of trouble. Not only that, but it seemed that Doctor Hojo has kept him in this lab for at least five years. A really long time, but... what's this? Another test subject?

Cloud Strife. Oh no...

Quickly, Zack stumbled towards the other pod near his and found that it was true. That Cloud was the other test subject mentioned in the documents. And unlike him, Cloud was prone to the effects of the Mako infusion. Not only that, Cloud's body was modified horrifically.

The changes in Zack's friend's body were pretty obvious. The few scars around a few choice joints proved that Cloud has been reattached with a few limbs or so, Zack's not really sure, but it might be the case.

The raven-haired swordsman shook himself out of his stupor as he pressed the button that he surmised would open the pod. A while later, a damp Cloud was lying on the ground next to the pod. Zack was quite alarmed when he found his friend nearly immobile, with a few twitches here and there. Not only that, but it was also revealed that Cloud was overdosed with Mako energy. A thin trail of light green liquid dripped from the blonde's mouth as Zack pulled his insensate friend into a sitting position.

"Cloud?" Zack asked worriedly, patting his blonde subordinate on the cheeks, "You in there, kiddo?"

Cloud's head snapped up, but his eyes were glassy. "Guuuwaaahhh?" the blonde noised as his head fell to one side limply.

"Damn...." the dark-haired man growled, "He must be near brain-dead coz of this stuff... gotta get him outta here, quick..." he eyed the pod in disdain as he lifted his companion's arm over his shoulders.

"MEW!!" A pink blur encompassed Zack's vision for a moment before he was forced to grunt as he felt something impact against his stomach. It was a good thing that he's got a firm hold of Cloud's unresponsive body, else he would've accidentally dropped the poor guy on the cold flooring of the lab. After he got his breath back, Zack found his erstwhile pink-furred partner Mew, who was usually invisible unless in front of Aerith or if they were alone. In their mental link, Mew spewed a lot of nonsense and garbled figures. But Zack felt the overwhelming feeling of longing from the floating pink cat. He felt a bit ashamed, and mentally soothed Mew with his apologies and reassurances that he will be with her forever.

"So... I've been in that crap for over two weeks now, huh?" Zack mused audibly as he pulled Cloud along with him towards the laboratory's exit. After Mew finally allowed Zack to move again, the trio... well, duo and an unconscious cargo... continued their trek to escape the daunting prison of sorts. They found themselves in the ruins of the mansion located in Nibelheim, the very same place where the disaster with Sephiroth occurred.

"I have a bad feeling about what they did to us in there..." Zack said seriously as Mew threw him a worried look, "But I've got no time to deal with it for now. Cloud's pretty much in a coma, and he takes full priority as of this time."

Zack managed to hitch-hike on a farmer's truck with Cloud in tow. Mew was of great help, as she helped lessen the blonde's weight load on her master/partner.

Meanwhile, back in the facility... the escape has been discovered. Alarms blared angrily all over the laboratory, and soldiers congregated to initiate their mission. Doctor Hojo surmised that since both experiments were great failures, he wanted them destroyed to remove the evidence of his banned research. It was too bad though... the black-haired warrior did have some interesting samples in his blood that the doctor cannot use correctly.

All the while, Zack was telling the insensate Cloud of his past exploits, even his first meeting with his beloved. He ignored the blonde man's soft groans as he unraveled his life over to his only friend left, who probably won't understand any of his ramblings, but the piece of mind Zack would feel after this would be worth it.

"We're gonna be mercenaries, Cloud..." Zack intoned as he stared over the darkening horizon as the drone of the truck's engine went on, "We're gonna be helping people in need... and also beat a lotta monsters and get stronger..."

The now self-proclaimed private mercenary droned on, "And then I'll introduce you to Aerith and Elmyra... then I'll help you get that girl you liked so much... I hope she survived though... well..."

Anyway, Zack noticed that their ride was finally a few kilometers away from Midgar itself. Thank the powers that be for that, now he felt a bit better being further away from the city. He did feel a pang of regret when he remembered Aerith and Elmyra, but just decided to call later to inform them of his status when they arrive at a town or something.

Alas, his plans were meant to be foiled. Mew alerted him of pursuers from Shin-Ra Corporation.

A truckload of fully armed Shin-Ra squad was visible from the far side of the road, and it didn't help that it was coming close. Zack figured that it would've been easy for him to beat all the soldiers up by himself, but with the current status of his body as well as his friend's condition...

Zack opted another way, that was, to escape. He draped Cloud over his shoulder as he leapt out of the truck they hitch-hiked on. Mew monitored their pursuers' movements as they ran towards a meadow. Zack cursed when he saw the open area, since it was tactically unsound for them to be exposed while being hunted. Too bad they had no other choice but to cover the distance to the other side of the clearing anyway.

Of course, safety was just beyond those clump of trees over to the other side of the dangerously exposed open meadow. Sigh, why do these things happen to Zack in the first place?

BANG!

A whizz in the air followed by a soft thud beside him proved that they was about to be reached by the soldiers. He ran even faster as he readjusted Cloud on his shoulder, not that he can do anything else. His usual potent energy was in overtime trying to fix his body, his breath has been ragged because of his tired state, his friend was totally incoherent from Mako overdose... such odds were sadly normal occurance for him.

WHIZZ... THUD!!

Okay, so it wasn't everyday that his own former employers hunted him down with extreme prejudice.

RATATATATATA... THUD, THUD, THUD... PING!!

Gatling guns, huh? Not good for Zack, especially with the extra weight... not good at all... but nevertheless, they're already near the other side of the clearing. He could already see a bit of salvation in the small foliage... oh, wait...

"DAMN IT!" Zack cursed loudly as he slid into an abrupt halt. Just a few feet in front of him was a VERY deep ravine.

"Mew... mew!" The pink cat flitted all over the place to find another way for them to escape, but alas, no such luck.

The raven-haired man shook his head as he put Cloud down gently. "It's not your fault, Mew..." he sighed sadly, "You better go invisible. I'd rather have you safe out there than be captured as well..."

Mew faded from view, but her presence never left the area. She was adamant that she would protect her master, but...

Zack grimaced as he slowly released the Buster Blade from the clamps that secured it upon his back. He still felt his immense weakness, and he knew it was going to affect his fighting in a bit. He idly noticed that Cloud's image shimmered for a bit, before it became... 'part' of the background. He can't explain it, but somehow Cloud's inert form was... ignored by his mind for the time being. Probably the effect of Mew's skill, so he tried not to think about it too much. Besides, he has a lot more things to think about.

Maybe it has something to do with the guns aimed towards his direction.

There were some points in Zack's life that everything around him slowed down dramatically into a severe slow motion playback. Right now, it was Mew's first time to experience this phenomenon, and it was probably her greatest nightmare to date.

The image of the guns that blazed bullets into Mew's master's body burned in her mind as she screamed both vocally and mentally. She was about to drop the slight distorted illusion on Cloud and help Zack but she heard her master's tired but urgent voice in their mind-link.

"((D-Don't move, M-Mew!))" Zack's voice came to Mew telepathically, "((J-Just... just k-keep protecting C-Cloud... I... I'll h-handle t-this...))"

Before Mew could even retort back, Zack forcibly cut their connection. Unknown to the pink critter, Zack has given deep thought on the situation. He uncharacteristically flinched when those bullets were shot at him, which resulted to his heavily wounded state at the moment. Even if he would be able to heal these wounds without much trouble normally, in this case he was stuck with a rather terribly weaker constitution due to that mysterious event in Doctor Hojo's laboratory. He wasn't able to pull enough energy to heal quicker, but he was able to keep himself alive even when some of the bullets did hit a few crucial points in his body. He wasn't also able to do anything when the force of the shots pushed him over the ravine.

Right now, he was falling deeper into the dark crack on the earth. When he will hit the bottom, he wasn't really sure. But he did realize that due to his mental connection with Mew, the pain he would feel when he hits rock bottom would resonate through their link, and into Mew. He didn't want Mew to feel the incoming pain, so after he warned her of not helping him and keeping the illusion on Cloud's unconscious body in the meantime, he cut off their connection.

Satisfied of the situation, Zack waited for the inevitable; the fall should end soon enough, and the pain will start. He just hoped that he would survive the impact, and he also wished that Cloud would survive without him for a while as well.

Ironically, the last thought in Zack's mind was... the short flash of memory that he should be able to get out of this mess by flying, but...

How can he fly, ne? He doesn't have wings...

Right...

CRACK!! RUMBLE!!

Blissful darkness... finally...

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

Pain. That's the first feeling he had since he awoken... or something. Nope. Wrong, he's not awake yet. He felt himself drifting in the darkness once again, and it seemed like he was used to this situation.

Weird, really.

He could still feel the pinpricks of pain that lanced from the bullet wounds all over his body, but somehow the pain was starting to ebb away into nothing. The mind-splitting headache that pummeled his head right now, that's another story. But he could still see nothing... nothing at all. In fact, he had no idea if his eyes were opened or closed in the first place.

FLASH

A memory flashed in front of him. He was in some sort of a highly advanced place, surrounded by women. But his attention was trained unto a few females only, namely a light-green haired girl with dark skin, a pale girl with light-cyan hair and red eyes, a girl with dark purple hair and purple eyes, a tall woman with long light blue hair and blue eyes...

Huh... it seemed like he knew these people somehow...

FLASH

""If you think you can kiss me and run like that, you have another thing coming!!!"" The purple haired girl with purple eyes screamed at him as she leapt to his direction, then...

Raven... her name was Raven...

FLASH

"I felt so lonely. For thousands of years, I've been left dormant, until Fei and the others found me. I'm deeply grateful to them for that." The girl with dark skin and light green haired told him at one time...

Emeralda...

FLASH

""I will come with them, of course. I will follow Master Ranma where ever he may go."" The woman with light blue hair and red eyes hugged him into her bosom...

Lea... Ihadurca...

FLASH

The blond haired woman almost choked, as she felt tears course down her cheeks. Ignoring the warm pelts of salty liquid flowing down freely on her face, she whispered vehemently, "-You are very precious to me, Chaos. I love you very much.-"

Hild... my dear Hild...

FLASH

The cyan-haired girl gasped and stepped back, her face lighting up much to her companion's shock. The girl with red eyes reared back and bowed to the waist, declaring, "Kami-sama! I finally found you!"

Vanilla...

FLASH

The teal haired woman blinked as she looked down to the child in her arms, who looked back at her with those slitted blue eyes with curiosity. "I forgot to tell you..." she almost whispered, "You... we... the last time we... we did... IT... I got... well, PREGNANT... and..."

Ryoko... and my... daughter... Ranko...

FLASH

A name... he was... Chaos? No... that one was the old him... the other...

Master Ranma? Lord Ranma? Ranma-sama? Ranma...

Ranma... his name... is Ranma... Saotome.

Son of the goddess Tokimi and the Saiyajin Elite Nasu...

The Trinity... the Choushin... Choushin...

"Choushin..." Zack, rather, Ranma muttered to himself as he watched the myriad of memories that swirled around him. Instead of being confused though, his mind felt being slowly completed... like an unfinished puzzle...

"I remember..." The raven-haired man whispered to himself in awe. "I remember... and WHAT THE HECK HAVE I BEEN DOING THESE PAST FEW YEARS?!"

The Darkness seemed amused at his outburst, but it receded once again like it had in the past...

Ranma gasped as he took a sharp intake of breath, as he found himself buried in a massive rock landslide.

"Ugh... THE HELL! Now I'm under a pile of dirt!" Ranma grumbled loudly as he thrust his right hand upwards. The obsidian-colored bracer on his arm made a sharp metallic noise when it hit the hard rock. The landslide seemed to be deeper than it looked, since his hand never felt the slight freedom of being waved in rock-less space. With a sudden revelation, Ranma remembered his skills... and almost smacked himself silly for even forgetting he had them in the first place for two decades or so.

Total recall and all, Ranma deadpanned to himself, "How I managed to survive all these years must be luck... OH CRAP!" Another memory surfaced as he phased out of the rubble, "Aerith... I... oh... drat... I mean... I BOINKED ANOTHER WOMAN! Ryoko's gonna kill me! And Lea! And Raven! And Emeralda! And Vanilla!"

When Ranma finally navigated out of the predicament he was in, he floated on top of the rocky ruin as he gazed at the semi-darkness of the ravine. "I'm a dead man..." he groaned as his mind betrayed him by raunchy thoughts about his present lover, "Very VERY dead man..."

"MEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!" A rampaging pink ball of fur barreled into Ranma's torso. The man grunted as he struggled to maintain his floating position after he caught the highly emotional partner slash pet of his.

"Mew..." Ranma winced guiltily as he spied upon the glistening tears in Mew's eyes before she smashed into him. He also felt the immense relief and emotional outburst within their newly opened mind link. "Damn, Mew... I'm so so sorry for making you worry, really..." he said weakly as he caressed the pokemon's pink head lovingly.

A long silence followed the tearful reunion, only marred by Mew's occasional sniffs and hiccups.

Ranma did have one last thing to say though. "Damn... not only am I gonna be killed by the girls, but Rin-Ohki's gonna blast me to kingdom come..."

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

A few thousand light years away from Earth, or Gaia...

A large dark shadow passed by the seventh moon of the fifth planet in the Dirgas System, at least sixteen light years away from the Solar System. When the Dirgas System's giant red dwarf-type star's rays finally hit the shadow, it was revealed that it was silver in color. Its body was crystalline in nature, and spike-like structures jutted out of its body. Six of these spikes pointed backwards, three on each of its side. Another trio of the spikes, which were much shorter than the rest of the spikes, pointed out front. The front spikes were curiously arranged in an inverted triangular position if the whole thing was looked at from the front...

In short, the shadow was actually a silver ship. However, with the way it lazed in a continuous orbit around the natural satellite, it was dormant.

However, when Ranma recovered his memories light years away from the location of the silver ship, it suddenly flared an ominous glow in the middle of the dark space that surrounded it. A large dark purple gem at the top of the ship shone brightly when the whole thing 'activated'.

Inside the ship, various crystalline objects lit up momentarily. A large semi-transparent screen became visible at the front most area of what seemed to be the ship's bridge. The entire area's lighting was turned on, and an image of a silver-furred animal which seemed to be a cross between a cat and rabbit was shown. The silver animal was... sleeping at the moment, complete with a speech balloon with 'Zzzz' in it. The speech balloon popped all of the sudden, and the animal awoke.

"Miyaaaaahhh..." The animal yawned sleepily as it took stock of its surroundings, before it realized something and perked up. Its ears suddenly snapped upwards as it started concentrating.

More crystals lit up when the animal started concentrating. Various parts of the ship started reactivating as well. The progress report of the ship's activation went on for a few minutes, until it finally reached the final phase of its activation.

Reawakening the persons in Cold Sleep.

It would seem that the ship had been dormant for at least twenty years, Earth time. All these years, the inhabitants of the ship remained in cold sleep because they were waiting for someone.

With the ship's reactivation, it would entail that the person the inhabitants of the ship was found once again.

On the semi-transparent screen on the bridge's front area, amongst the activation protocols and ship's recovery status was a certain phrase that seemed to be the most important.

MENTAL LINK RE-ESTABLISHED, U.P.S. (Universal Positioning System) ENGAGED.

"Miyaah!" The ship seemed to squeal as it informed its 'crew' about the new situation.

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

Back on Gaia...

"I just KNEW my life sucks, big time..." Ranma muttered to himself as he stared at the spot where Cloud was supposed to be.

After Ranma and Mew managed to pull themselves out of their funk, they flew up and out of the ravine. They both wanted to check on Cloud, who was left on the edge with Ranma's discarded Buster Sword. The dark-haired man remembered that he dropped the sword when he was shot a few days ago. Speaking of which, he just found out from Mew that he was unconscious for nearly three days. It took that long to get his healing abilities up to par.

"Mew, are you sure Cloud was here before you left him?" He asked his companion as he toed the depression on the grass. Nope, no Cloud here.

The floating pink kitty threw Ranma a deadpan look. "Mew...!"

Ranma gave Mew his own deadpan look, his tail waved agitatedly behind him. "Right... but he's not here, ne? Hmmm... then maybe he recovered while you were looking for me, stood up on his own, took my sword then went on ahead to ride towards the sunset, ne?"

Mew closed her eyes and gave a solemn nod. "Meeeww..."

"Whatever... we'll just have to find him, ne?" Ranma huffed impatiently.

With that said, the duo flew out of the area.

"And while we look for the idiot, we'll gather information about this... JENOVA... that Sephiroth's blabbering about..." Ranma spat the name like a curse, "Meaning... we'll be going undercover and target Doctor Hojo. Seems that guy has most of the info at hand."

Mew nodded slightly in ascent to Ranma's statement as they flew on.

Time passed by quickly, and Ranma eventually found Cloud's whereabouts. The raven-haired former elite soldier discovered Cloud DID manage to recover from being near brain-dead, but there was something... off about the blonde.

One glaring reason was that Cloud Strife hunkered all over the place and dragged the Buster Sword in his person like he owned it. Also, Cloud became a mercenary, just like how Zack envisioned their future to be. Ranma was suddenly struck of the notion that somehow, during the time Cloud was incoherent, the blonde absorbed whatever Zack, or Ranma, told the young man during their travels. It was like Cloud imprinted upon what Zack told him.

Well, no matter. Ranma was kinda glad Cloud found something to do, even if it seemed like the blonde mercenary was clearly a fragmented soul. Ranma decided he would have to look into that later, after his thorough investigation of Doctor Hojo. He even held off visiting Aerith and Elmyra in Midgar, since he feared that Shin-Ra might get wind of his survival and target those people close to him.

Zack, who now went by the name of Ranma as it was his original name, was now twenty-three years of age. He continued to slowly age his body as to how it would've looked at the age, and he didn't want to screw up the timeline even more by changing things too much. So he opted to follow through his current aging style.

Of course, he still transformed into his much smaller form, if only to use it to gather intel from various villages, particularly Midgar and Junon. He ran across Cloud every now and then, and even saw how his beloved Aerith met up with Cloud. She got involved in the scheme of things, and Ranma vehemently protected her as much as he can behind the scenes. Sadly, he decided not to reveal his existence as of yet, since he still has no idea how to explain to Aerith his recovered memories, as well as his predicament with the other women in his life. Too complicated, he surmised.

One good thing did come out of the situation. Ranma got wind that he never did transform into female throughout his life as Zack, and it made him wonder how that came to be. He remembered how Washuu explained his body's attributes to him. She even made fun of him about it. So he dedicated some of his time trying to discover how he managed to fend of the transformation process of his Jusenkyo curse while on his surveillance mission.

Ranma discovered the trigger by accident, actually. It was also the time he almost got himself caught by the Shin-Ra soldiers stationed in Junon. A routine 'puppy-dog-in-chibi-form' almost got him shot on the spot if it weren't for the fact that the soldier Ranma was needling some info from turned his back on the little pigtailed raven-haired boy who hugged a stuffed pink cat. The Junon Shin-Ra base of operations was surrounded by a large mass of water, the sea actually, and it was inevitable that one errant wave hit poor little Ranma. Out of desperation, since the soldier was about to drive Ranma off as he turned towards the boy again, the former amnesiac literally forced his body to turn back to male. Ranma didn't actually expect the process to work but, surprisingly, he got off the tight situation when he DID turn back to male. More like shifted, actually.

It was the start of the three month vigorous training that even got Mew quite frustrated. For those three months, Ranma never let up on the training. At first, his transformations came sporadically, which irritated him to no end. But as it went on, he slowly got the hang of it. The secret lay on his age shifting, just as Washuu hinted to him years ago. It took Ranma to manipulate his body's cellular structure, which made easy thanks to the Masu traits he had, and pushed his body to shift into the other form it was familiar with, which was his female form. It was easier for Ranma to transform back to male, because it was his body's 'default' form. Going female took a bit of concentration for him, since it's his body's secondary form.

It was like a marble in a pinball machine, with the machine tilted to the right side. While it would be possible to push the ball towards the higher left side, it would be easier for the ball to go towards the right. But it doesn't mean that it can't go to the left at all. It's just a little more... difficult. And requires more force.

The same thing applied to his so-called 'curse'. Ever since his body re-acquired its ability to manipulate its structure, a foremost Masu ability, it was like he was given an option. While it would always be a male form his body would prefer, he has the option to turn female. And with his 'curse', this ability to shift forms came easier for Ranma than other Masu, if they were any left aside from Ryoko.

The Masu were really of a great race, but in truth, they were one of the most simple organisms in the universe. They could manipulate their body structure easily, most similar to bacteria and other one-celled organisms, which were the first of the building-blocks of life. They have abnormally high life energy output, as well as assimilating abilities. They were also of a Hive collective mind-types, but some were able to evolve out of the loop and gained their own 'colony'. Rumors had it that they 'reproduce' asexually, some even surmised they reproduce by cell division.

Who knows? They're just rumors.

Anyway, Ranma's highly modified body has all of the Masu abilities, probably even more so than the normal Masu. It was because of his Masu abilities that Ranma was able to gain full control of his curse, even if he did learn about it so late. Washuu would laugh at his absent-mindedness...

Maybe, there were some more ways to control his curse, but Ranma found THIS way. And he stuck with it.

Back to Ranma's current journey... he was still quite dissatisfied with the results of his search for the truth.

But he did come up with a suitable explanation for this world... this Earth... Gaia...

Gaia has its moments, for a post-apocalyptic renamed from the old Earth... but it's full of crap. Seriously. He finally found who or what JENOVA was all about, and quite frankly, Ranma was a bit queasy at the thought. After all, he did remember certain parts of Washuu's lecture about the history of Earth for the five thousand years he was imprisoned in limbo. After he connected the dots between Washuu's info regarding Earth's five millennia history and how JENOVA was found, things became contingent with one another.

The earliest possible historic records Ranma was able to garner about JENOVA branched off from the beings known as Angels, a term Ranma remembered that Washuu has mentioned when she informed him of this universe's history. If these old historical texts were true, then JENOVA was a remnant of the ancient pre-apocalyptic past. A ghost of a previous experiment, one who the texts revealed to have been led by Ikari Gendo.

Ranma did find something very interesting... the fact that Sephiroth was actually Doctor Hojo and some woman named Lucrecia's son. Sephiroth was in contact with JENOVA since he was still a developing fetus inside Lucrecia's womb. Sadly, due to Professor Gast and Doctor Hojo's experimentations for uses of the JENOVA Cells, they injected samples into Lucrecia's womb. Sephiroth wasn't the only one who suffered Hojo's madness; Ranma's investigation garnered more than ten more people experimented on by Hojo's project. The prognosis he found about the extent of damage Doctor Hojo's experiments amassed were pretty much disturbing, and Ranma wondered how much more damage the crazy doctor caused.

He also found some records of a race of people called 'Ancients', also called 'Cetra', who were part of Doctor Hojo's sick fascination regarding their skills. They were said to be in-tuned with the Planet or something. To Ranma, it sounded like those high-leveled ki manipulators and monks from his time. He wasn't sure. Whoever they were, Doctor Hojo seemed to have gathered quite a number of their people, and of course, experimented on them. Most of the Cetra died out, but some thrived in hiding. A former researcher from Doctor Hojo's team, Doctor Gast, seemed to have gotten fed up with the inhumane practices of his fellow doctors in the team and left the project. But Doctor Gast also took with him a female Cetra.

Both were rumored to have a daughter and died. But the daughter's whereabouts...

Ranma was quite surprised when he found the girl's identity.

Aerith.

Not only that, but the one who instigated Project JENOVA was none other than Aerith's blood-father himself, Doctor Gast. Though... unlike Hojo, Gast became mortified with his involvement in the project and ran.

Well, that just sucked, right? Now, Ranma was doubly incensed in seeing to Aerith's protection. And the unresolved relationship... or something. Gah. Ranma never even had a decent relationship yet, and most of the girls he was involved with were... unusual to say the least. With all of his memories of Zack intact, he remembered each and every intimate situation he and Aerith found themselves in. The memories still made Ranma shiver in longing. He found that he does feel strong emotions for Aerith, just as strong as his emotions were for the other women in his life.

Women whom Ranma wished would find him soon.

And the Masamune... it has changed so much. It has absorbed both Master Summon Materia and Master Magic Materia, which gave it complete command over divine monster summons and various aspects of magic spells, especially the all-powerful Revival Spell.

Yup. Ranma discovered loads of reasons for him to put a stop to Doctor Hojo's plans, consequently, Sephiroth's as well.

The man with the newly restored pigtail-styled hair was currently atop the Golden Saucer's ferris wheel. The attraction was put to a halt for the time being, after an incident in Management took place a few moments ago. He has heard that Cloud's party, Aerith included, took off to investigate a lead towards Icicle Inn for Aerith's origins. The group were a few steps behind Ranma's gathered information.

Cloud managed to recruit a few capable people for his journey...

Tifa Lockhart, the girl which Ranma remembered from Nibelheim when he was still amnesiac. She now wore a simple white shirt that hugged her figure, her legs were covered with shorts held by a jumper. Her hands were covered with gloves, which blatantly indicated her grappling and martial arts oriented style of fighting.

Barret Wallace, the man with a gun-arm as a right hand, member of the resistance group called AVALANCHE. His daughter, Marlene, lived with him in Midgar. He was a big burly man with dark skin, his mustache and beard were cropped short to the skin.

Cid Highwind, mechanic extraordinaire and a great spear-user. He has goggles around his dirty white hair. He was dressed in blue pants and blue jacket, which covered the white shirt he had inside.

Vincent Valentine, one of Doctor Hojo's earlier experiments turned bad and was left dormant in the Nibelheim Mansion. He wore a tattered red cape, something which he wasn't able to change anymore since he woke up from his 'sleep'. The red cape was loosely wrapped around his face to cover them, coupled with the bandanna around his forehead.

Red XIII, or Nanaki as his true name denotes, a large dog-tiger hybrid from Cosmo Canyon, captured by Doctor Hojo for experimentation only to be rescued by Cloud's party. 'Red' was because of the color of his fur, while the 'XIII' was his specimen number, courtesy of the mad doctor. He took the name as a nickname, but his real name says otherwise.

Yuffie Kisaragi, materia hunter and elite ninja from Wu-Tai, daughter of the village's leader Godo. She doesn't wear the typical ninja outfit, and was quite... small for her age. Petite, some may call it. She loved collecting materia, very enthusiastic too, something which brought much trouble to her as well as her companions.

Cait Sith, the feline doll mecha that originated from Shin-Ra, controlled by a Shin-Ra operative named Reeves, used to spy on the group at first, but as the secrets started to be uncovered it joined anyway.

Of course, his beloved Aerith Gainsborough, whom Ranma vowed to meet soon enough.

Ranma frowned in contemplation as he gazed at the darkening sky beyond the horizon. The sounds from Golden Saucer was calming for him, except for the cheesy background music. The chocobo racing was pretty cool though. Mew on the other hand just floated around him, pretty much excited at the pretty lights from the amusement park below them.

"Mew?" An inquisitive noise called Ranma's attention from the horizon to his side, where Mew stared at him with her head cocked slightly to one side.

The raven-haired man nodded slightly as he pushed the bridge of his dark-tinted sunglasses up the ridge of his nose, "I know... it's time to meet Aerith again, ne?"

The pink psychic feline tilted her head in agreement.

Ranma sighed agitatedly and said, "I just knew you'd say that..."

The bandanna around Ranma's head was curiously absent ever since he recovered his memories, and now the tri-colored gems in an inverted triangle that decorated his forehead glowed brightly. This was synchronized with Ranma's eyes, which blazed with power as well. An explosion of ki-feathers from his back formed his own version of the Light Hawk Wings.

Ranma flapped the wings experimentally as he muttered, "Been almost two decades... no wonder my back hurts a lot these days. Sheesh..." his red tail wove sharply from side to side.

He glanced off to the side and FELT the awestruck feeling that emanated from her current partner, "I know... it's cool, isn't it? Anyway... it's time to go fix this mess..."

With a final glance at the dark orange horizon, Ranma's wings wrapped around him and Mew, and dissipated into motes of light. They left no trace of their presence in the area...

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

To Be Continued...

O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW:

"As punishment... I was reborn as a mortal. I was punished because I recovered my memories of mother!"

"Aerith? Are you and Zack... you know?"

"Soon, Ranko-chan, you will see your father soon..."

"Uhh..." The girl was still very nervous, who looked at anywhere but him, "Well... to tell you the truth... I'm pregnant."

"WHAT ARE YOU, NOT-SO-HUMAN? SOMETHING OLD... AND HAS MUCH POWER WITHIN THAT BAG OF FLESH OF YOURS. WHY HIDE IN THAT CONTAINER?"

"These so-called 'scum' are the ones who should exist in this world. True, they might be traitorous to the other, but this is their own existence to live in. Besides, even with all the darkness in this world, there are always those who wanted nothing more than to live their lives peacefully with one another."

AUTHOR RANTS:

Ahem. Yes. Here we are. After a long absence, I'm back.

My absence has nothing to do with writer's block. In fact, quite the opposite. I got so engrossed in writing this chapter that it became too long to send in one go. And it's not finished yet.

So I decided to cut it relatively in half and send the first part of Arc 1's ending.

Oh, and probably me playing games factored into the semi-slow production as well.

I also tried to keep the Final Fantasy 7 events as canon as I can. Although, being in Zack's point of view most of the time, that's near impossible. Especially since Zack's actually Ranma (to anyone who hasn't figured THAT one out yet). Hence, I reviewed my FF7 knowledge and researched it before I went on with this chapter.

Out Of Character flames are totally ignored. Come on, Zack is not really Zack, so I'm bound to have some leeway with how I write my modified Zack. Besides, if I stick to the canon, then why the heck would I write a FANFIC anyway?

FANFICs are based on the fanfic writers' own disgressions regarding how they want their own stories to go along.

Remember folks, while I tried to keep some major key events synchronized with the game itself, some events are modified, changed or removed for the benefit of my plot.

To those interested, the crossovers for this chapter are:

- Ranma 1/2 (Of course! Ranma is always there!)
- Evangelion Cameos
- Final Fantasy 7 galore
- Teen Titans (Raven)
- Evil Zone (Ihadurca)
- Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki!
- Ah! My Goddess!
- Pokemon (Mew)
- Xenogears (Emeralda)
- Galaxy Angels (Vanilla Ash)

Again, someone asked me for this. I hope this will help some who had trouble understanding where is where and when is when.

1. HOME DIMENSION

The Universe where Ranma came from. Volume 1 - 38 of the manga happened. It's a sort of continuation from the Canon, but of course some information has been revealed into light to suit my needs.

2. FUTURE HOME DIMENSION

Ranma reached this dimension when Happosai threw the artifact at him during the prologue. This is approximately 700 years ahead of the Home Dimension timeline. Earth has experienced a death and rebirth, via Evangelion's plot. Dragonball Z Universe emerged in the end, where Ranma has finally popped out. This was where Ranma's true heritage reawakened. This is the timeline that went on AFTER Ranma disappeared, but since he appeared, everything in the Home Dimension's future splintered. Sailor Pluto, eat your heart out!

3. PAST HOME DIMENSION - DIMENSION B

This Universe was reached when Ranma used the splintered Nanban Mirror. This WAS the past of the Home Dimension, until Ranma got into it. Upon appearing into the timeline, it has veered off its course towards the intended Home Dimension Timeline, creating a new path in itself. This will give Sailor Pluto all the migraine she needs. This was supposed to be approximately 500 years into the past, during the time of Yosho's time on Earth (Tenchi Muyo) and the time of the youkai, Sengoku Jidai (Inuyasha).

4. FUTURE DIMENSION B

An accident caused by Washuu's invention entrapped Ranma in a null vortex, which acted somewhat like 'cold sleep', except that Ranma's sense of time inside the vortex slowed to approximately 97.35 percent of 'real time'. Normally, nothing survives inside the null vortex, but Ranma is Ranma. Ryoko, in her throes of despair, had herself locked in her own Cold Sleep after 10 years of searching for Ranma all over the universe. The incident catapulted Ranma approximately 5000 years into the future of Dimension B, the splintered timeline. Earth suffered into its deterioration, with constant strife and war battering the planet. It turns out that the Earth was under the siege of Kagato, who was under the guise of one of the bigwigs in the Earth's government. He manipulated events to totally dominate the world. Ayeka, Tenchi and Yosho were killed, their essences entrapped inside a special container that was later developed into an effective power source. Sasami fled, to parts unknown to anyone. Without Ryoko to help Tenchi defend Earth, the Juraians were easily beaten. Ryoko, still in cold sleep, was easily taken and converted into 'energy' by Kagato, and was transformed into a power source similar to the fates of the Juraians.

The Planet Zi, Planet Terra-Two, Solaris Planet (tentative name made by the Solarians when they took control of the land) are few of the worlds Ranma encountered in this dimension. And certainly not the last.

5. SLAYERS UNIVERSE

Mentioned a few times, here resides one of those who bore the gems of Higher Power, but still doesn't know about it. Go figure.

But as time went on, it was revealed that another one who bore the gems of power was Luna Inverse.

6. DC UNIVERSE

An offshoot from the Future Dimension B, when Ranma visited one of the planets inside a magnetic storm in order to search for Hibiki Tokai. The planet he landed on was Planet Zi, and he was unwittingly submitted into a war that he didn't want. When he neared the Zoid Eve, a power source for Planet Zi's Zoids, he was pulled out from Dimension B into THIS dimension. Later on, Ranma found out that it wasn't the Zoid Eve's fault, but a failed summoning experiment of the Universe's resident villain, Slade.

There ya go! Enjoy!

IMPORTANT NOTES:

To clarify things, the planet Final Fantasy 7 used was called Gaia. Dunno if it is really Earth in general, but I did it like that anyway.

In my fic, Gaia is a post-apocalytpic Earth. This is the Earth in the Vandread episode, which just got freed from being 'mechanical' in nature after Kagato went after the Vandread home world. This planet is also after the 'Third Impact' from Evangelion happened. This Earth is located in Future Dimension B. After Ranma and Kagato's battle in the Vandread home world, he got sucked in a wormhole that led him to Gaia.

How? Well... Kagato planned to go back to Earth to regroup, but got killed anyway. Instead of Kagato getting sucked into the wormhole, Ranma did. Due to the massive power loss Ranma experienced from his previous battle, he wasn't able to stop his decent when he got caught in the Earth, rather, Gaia's gravity. Hence, his not-so-gentle crash landing.

So kiddies, Ranma is STILL in the Vandread Universe, just in a different place.

Ja ne.

- Lord Rance

In case you need my email for some reason at all, here: lord_rance at yahoo dot com

For those who will send flames, well, I'll just douse it with my trusty bucket of cold water!

"I swear!! This ain't what it looks like!!!" - Ranma Saotome