Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Hateful Transformation ❯ Prolouge ( Prologue )

Hateful Transformation

Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Cloud. However, this particular plot is all mine. ^_^

~*Five days after the ending of FFVII*~

"I can't believe it's already been five days, can you Cloud?" Tifa Lockheart, a twenty-year-old member of the group AVALANCHE, said to her boyfriend, Cloud Strife.

In reply, Cloud gave her a weak smile, and said nothing. To him, those last five days felt like a decade. He no longer was the leader of their little group, as he had been during the whole `Search for Sephiroth' time. Now all they were doing was cleaning up Midgar, and a few grassy areas that surrounded it.

During these times, there were rarely any words spoken. This led to plenty of time for personal thought, something that Cloud really didn't like. It was so easy to get pessimistic. Instead of thinking of the recent times, him defeating Sephiroth one-on-one, him getting along with Tifa, and so on, he thought of Aeris. The flower girl that prayed for Holy, the girl that, overall, helped them keep going during their whole journey. Cloud couldn't help but feel upset over it every so often. Still, he had Tifa, and she was still with him. He knew she would never leave his side…

"Get your sorry asses moving!" Shouted Barret Wallace, whom was at the moment, the leader of the little group that consisted of the surviving Midgarians, and the tiny AVALANCHE group. He was the man that first created AVALANCHE, out of his deep hatred for Shinra.

"Cloud? Are you okay? You look like you're depressed." Tifa asked him, a caring tone in her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little bored. Kind of getting tired from all this lifting and stuff too." Cloud said, in the most cheerful voice he could muster at that moment. He flashed her another smile, putting a little more effort into it this time.

Tifa smiled back at him. "Well, we'll be done soon enough, I suppose. What are you planning to do after Midgar gets completed?"

"I was planning to go with you. Where, I don't know. Any ideas?" Cloud answered, then lifted up a humungous chunk of metal that had the Shinra logo on it. Barret had ordered them to throw away any items that showed the logo, out of spite, mainly. Cloud, though he really didn't care about some random scrap of metal, agreed to do so.

"I was thinking about Costa Del Sol. I don't really want to go back to Nibelheim, since, well, you know." Tifa said quietly, a look of sorrow entering her eyes. Cloud knew perfectly well why too. Tifa's life had never been easy. Her mother had died when she was very young, and she had seen her father's corpse brutally mutilated by Sephiroth.

Cloud occasionally wondered how different life would be if Sephiroth had never gone insane. To begin with, Tifa's father would probably still be alive. Aeris would be alive and well too, after all, before her death, she had been in perfect health. However, he would have never met Aeris. Or Barret, Cid…. Or any of them. Even though it was mainly pain and misery that he had went through because of the former General Sephiroth, there were some good things.

"Yeah, Costa Del Sol would be terrific," Cloud finally told her. "A place where you always seem to forget horrible things. I still have that villa under my name too, I think. Heh, with that villa, we could practically let our whole gang stay with us!" He laughed, a laugh without much humor.

Tifa sighed. "Yeah… I guess…" She muttered, so Cloud could barely hear her. That laugh sounded awfully familiar… Yet so different… she couldn't quite place it. She swore that she had heard it before….

Suddenly, Vincent yelled behind them. "Cloud! Duck!" He cried, his voice unusually loud. Cloud turned, and saw a gigantic pillar coming at him.
He screamed, and attempted to jump onto the top of it; since there was no way he could dodge it. Luckily, he managed to grasp it…

As it finally collapsed, Cloud's head rammed right into the jagged metal, knocking him out….

~~

"Cloud… Cloud…" Said a soft voice. It sounded familiar, but it couldn't be.

"Mom?" He said, his throat sore, for reasons unknown.

"Yes honey, it's me." She said lovingly.

"But you're…" Cloud said, slowly opening his eyes. All he saw was blackness, nothing else. He couldn't see his mother. Nothing. It reminded him of the place where he had last saw Sephiroth…… the kind of place where darkness seemed to reign supreme. The only light came from above, like a heavenly light of some sort, different from the sun that surrounded the Planet, and it was very much unlike lights that came from lamps in buildings. It was a pleasant sort of light, Cloud thought.

"Where am I…?" He asked, hoping to receive some sort of answer, hoping his mother's voice wasn't a part of his imagination.

"You're in the second most purest place that exists… next to the Promised Land, as you might guess. It has no name, and no one alive, except you, knows of it." She told him, her voice making it sound like she was right beside him. He turned, but saw nothing.

"Why am I here? How do I get out?" He asked weakly, his voice squeaky. The first time he had been here, he was automatically thrown out. But this time, there was nothing that even gave a hint about finding an exit of any sort.

"I can't tell why you're here… Not that I don't mind, I like talking to you, my son. How I've missed you…" His mother told him, and for a moment, Cloud seemed to really feel her pleased presence.

"Mom, please help me. I've missed you and all, but I don't plan on living here forever, you know?" Cloud sighed, slightly unused to his mother's words, since he hadn't heard them in such a long time.

"I'm sorry, my little Cloudy, but I don't know much of this place. I wish I could help in some way, but I really can't." She said sadly.

"Nothing? At all? So I'm supposed to just lay around and do nothing?" He stopped, his voice filling with fury. "This is just… Screwed! Why?! What purpose does it serve?! Did I do something wrong?! HUH?!" He yelled, now standing, his hands now clenched in fists.

"Calm down, my Cloudy, my son, I'm sure you won't be here forever." Cloud's mother said, attempting to calm him, but failing miserably. Especially since he was beginning to think that she rested in his mind, in some weird old memory of some sort. Cloud began to downright ignore every single word she said. He sat back down, and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself down; so he could ponder all of this rationally.

A few minutes later, he crawled over to the middle of the holy light, and sat down; Indian style. He stared up at it; all anger and hatred gone.

"Mom. If you wish, you can leave. If you're really here." He paused, and looked down, suddenly feeling guilty. "I'm sorry, about my outburst. It's just… I've felt so bottled up for the last few days. All of this extra time I've had… it gives me so much more time to dwell on things. I'd much rather be busy, and not think about my life. So many things make me upset. When you died, when Tifa almost died…. When Aeris died…" He stopped, and looked back up at the light. "It's just that the bad things that happen overwrite the good. One bad thing can destroy the happiness of hundreds of good things.. Maybe it's just me, but it may be human nature, that one thing, one little tiny thing, can cause us to want to kill ourselves at times."

At this, he fell silent. He felt his mother's presence seem to float away. He mumbled a quick "Bye," He then laid down flat on his back. "For some reason, I think this has something to do with Sephiroth," He said to himself, basically picking on himself since he knew he had a tendency to blame things on his old archenemy.

A few hours later, he slowly fell asleep, the holy light still glaring over him, making it seem like his whole body was glowing.

~~

Sometime later, he woke up, still a bit drowsy, but feeling that his strength had returned.

However…

He was no longer in the depressing black room.

The first thing he noticed was that he was in some sort of bed, a queen or king sized one, by how he flopped around. (He never could stay still that long.) It was comfortable on his stomach, he thought to himself.

Now believing that the whole `dark room' thing was some sort of weird `just plain creepy' dream, he decided to sleep in some. He pictured in his mind what he thought had happened while he was knocked out:

The first thing was that everyone would simultaneously run out to check if he was all right. When they saw he was knocked out, they probably would panic. (But why, he thought, didn't they use a Phoenix Down or something?)

The second scenario was that Barret, or anyone decently strong, would lift him and carry him to the nearest newly constructed building.

The third was that they found some bed, and laid him there. He was sure that someone, probably Tifa, would come and check on him soon. Then, he would thank her graciously for all of her help.

As he smiled to himself about his `plans', he noticed something, was, well, wrong. He felt very odd. It wasn't the normal type of sickness, like the flu, but he just felt….. different? Was that the right word? He felt like he wasn't himself……… quite literally. After tossing and turning, he realized he couldn't shake the feeling off. His face flat on the pillow, he slowly opened his eyes, and forced himself to at least keep them half-open. He laid there for a moment, and then made himself get off the bed.

For some reason, he felt taller. And not just a little taller, a lot taller. It was possible to have a small growth spurt at twenty-one, just maybe, but not this much, not overnight. He shook this `height illusion' to the back of his mind.

Glancing sleepily around the room, he saw a mirror on top of an oak dresser. Telling himself that if he saw he was fine, he could sleep some more. What had made him so tired so quickly? He was fine just a few minutes ago after all…

Blundering across the room to the mirror, he no longer felt sleepy after he saw `his' reflection. Suddenly, his eyes grew wide, and he fell backwards. The reflection in the mirror showed a man he knew decently well…

A man with long silver hair, intense Mako turquoise eyes… Among other `different' things.

Cloud was no longer his usual spike headed self.

He was now his own worst enemy.

~~