Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Prophetic Fulfillment ❯ The Forgotten ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter 3
The Forgotton

"So what is this power, anyway? I doubt I can fly and I don't see through your shirt so it's obvious that x-ray vision is definitely not a Mage Warrior skill." Reno

I'm so tired,I can't sleep.
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep.
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word.
We are screaming inside, we can't be heard.

I will remember you...
Will you remember me?

"I Will Remember You."
Sarah McLachlan

"I take it this is your secret shortcut to Cosmo Canyon?"

After a torturous night of confusion, restlessness and finally sleeping pills, Reno gave up on trying to find answers to the questions that were currently holding up residence in his mind. And, while on any other occasion he would have certainly turned to the bottle for his own version of liquid truth, he found that a little... impossible.

Not that Gen was against drinking. She just forbade it as a means for escape. Self righteous in Reno's book, but he had nowhere to go and he had been tired. A warm bed sounded much more cozy then pasing out in the wilderness again. And thus Reno found himself following the girl on her new quest -- something about scrolls and magic and heritage and all of that other crap that Reno really didn't care much about. That didn't stop him from being intrigued, however. The memories had poured in, gushing forth at random intervals, confusing him but giving him hints as to the reality of his situation.

Dusty sandstone walls surrounded the trail, blocking the ocean view that he would have born witness to, should they have taken the "scenic route" -- the true trail to Cosmo Canyon - they're destination. But Gen had said that her way was quicker and Reno had a feeling that over the course of years, Gen had become even more stubborn and more set in her ways.

Though they had been travelling for an hour -- going from the desert, to a grassy field and finally this rock-ridden trail. This high rock-ridden trail. Reno had never been too fond of heights, disliking helicopter rides, skyscrapers, and Da Chao. He got over it over the years, but riding a strange chocobo on this windy path made the fear blossom back into existence. He hadn't been too fond of chocobos either. They were never fond of him and often knocked him off. These two little facts made him even more uneasy, but Gen had assured him that Shaniyah was a good bird. She still hadn't let him down and for that he fed her extra greens. Looking at Kieran, the other gold chocobo, he snorted. Which of her birds wasn't prize winning? Wasn't... perfect?

Gen turned to him, her violet eyes covered by goggles once more -- she had explained something about her eyes being sensetive, taking in too much light because of the color of them... or something. When Gen started getting technical, Reno started mentally shutting down. Her voice cut through the red-head's brooding. "We're almost there. Don't worry... we're going in the right direction."

"Oh... okay."

Reno could have said something snappy or sarcastic, something to fire back of the slight hint of defensiveness in Gen's voice, but he wasn't in the most argumentative of moods. So many... thoughts were swirling through his head. Memories and facts and fictions and lies and truths... So his parents weren't his parents? They were dead... and his childhood, that was fake too... And he wasn't really born in the lower sectors of Midgar... He was Cosmanii?

And what was this about a Chosen One?

Reno didn't like any of it. As nice as the thought seemed, he didn't care to have a fake childhood, even if his so called "fake" one was shitty. He didn't want to think that all of his childhood up until his preteens was fake. He didn't want to wonder about all of the blood-tests and physical examinations and "Mako" treatments that Professor Hojo had done on him... He squinted, his mind mulling over everything, realizing that Rude had visited the good doctor far less than he had.

Please tell me this is all a nightmare. That I got so fucking sloshed that I am really out of it now...

Most of all, he didn't even want to fathom what all of this about a Chosen One was. Reno, formerly of the Turks was not a saviour and never would be one. He was... a perverted, alcoholic asshole, currently with one too many screws loose. There was no way...

So entranced by his thoughts, he barely noticed the familiarity of the path as the beaten trail merged with the highway, leading to the front gate of Cosmo Canyon. Gen stopped in front of him, almost causing Shaniyah to bump into Kieran's tail-feathers. But Shaniyah was a good chocobo...

"Mistress Atlantis?" A young woman in her twenties walked up to Genesis, greeting her spear in hand.

"Yes, please call me Gen. I was here earlier, but I don't think we've met. I'm here to look over the scrolls again."

"Sure thing! I'm Ania, by the way." She smiled, then noticed the sullen man behind Gen. "And I see you've brought a guest with you. How delightful!"

"Yes, we're looking over them together. He's a bit curious about them as well."

"Isn't everybody?" Still smiling, Ania opened the inner gate, motioning for the pair to enter. "I'll tell Nanaki you've arrived. You know where to pen the chocobos."

Gen hopped off of her bird, grabbed her bag and led Kieran into the canyon, followed by Reno who hastily did the same. This was the first chocobo he had ridden successfully and he had a feeling that his lack of knowledge in this sort of thing made him look like a total idiot. This suspicion was furthered by Ania's girlish giggle at watching Reno nearly trip over a dangling stirrup. He glared at her halfway threateningly and followed the woman into the small town.

He found Gen standing beside a small, newly constructed chocobo pen, Kieran now within its confines. Penning up Shaniyah, he stared at her, watching her raven hair wafting in the breeze as she calmly surveyed the land. Reno had never been to the Canyon, never felt the need to visit. But now... staring at the reddish sandstone walls, the oranges and yellows of a reflecting sunset... he had to admit just how beautiful it was. Stunning.

He exited the pen, walking toward the girl.

"Does any of this seem familiar to you?" She turned to him, staring at him quizzically as she removed the goggles and placed them in her bag.

"I don't see why it should... I've never been..." He trailed off, remembering that he should recognize it. Knowing that he was letting her down and for some off the wall reason, feeling bad about this. Still, he had to admit that something itched in the back of his mind. Something about this place illicited something. He just wasn't sure what.

Gen sighed and looked away, staring up at the top-most part of the Canyon city. "I'll explain everything in a moment... I need to go say hello to Nanaki."

"Nanaki?" Reno cocked an eyebrow. Somehow that sounded familiar. But he had never met a man by that name before.

She smiled. "Haven't you heard of him? He's famous and now he's training to be the elder... to take his grandfather's place."

Reno rubbed his chin thoughtfull, feeling ignorant but not really caring all too much. None of that explained why the name sounded so familiar.

"Genesis!"

"Nanaki!"

Looking up, two things startled Reno. First and foremost this Nanaki wasn't a man at all, but a large, red lion like creature running over on all fours. This Nanaki was large and well muscled, decked out in golden shackle bracelets around his ankles and feathers in his slowly developing mane. On the tip of his tail perched a reddish flame, blazing of its own accord. Almost as striking as his flaming tail was the creature's eye -- golden, the matching eye replaced by a large scar. And then there was the other thing that startled Reno, making him back up and nearly trip on the pebbled surface of the canyon grounds.

A huge tattoo lay upon his back leg. The number XIII.

Holy Shit...

Yes, Nanaki was also, and more commonly known as Red XIII. And Red XIII had a beef with Shinra. A big one. Reno wanted nothing more than to find a hole to crawl into and hide. But Reno hadn't really had the best of luck lately.

"YOU?!" The creature snarled, animal like despite the intelligence that glimmered in his yellow eye.

"Uhm... hi?" Reno smiled politely, a hand up in a small wave. He backed up again. Reno had heard of the bite of Red XIII -- the many things it could tear apart and break.... he just didn't want to experience it.

"...You... know him?" Gen looked between the two with the utmost of confusion.

"Of course I know him! How... Why would you bring him here? The atrocities that he's committed! He's the worst kind of scum! This man defiles the sacred grounds of Cosmo Canyon."

Reno hated this self righteous crap. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the pompous creature before him and suddenly he was rejuvenated with courage. "I was doing my job."

"Your job cost thousands of people their lives and decimated entire species."

He couldn't say anything to that, and instead dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands... backed up against a figurative wall. Nanaki snorted and turned away, his claws unsheathed in anger. He turned to Gen.

"Nanaki... this is a long story... A long and very strange one. See... Reno was a friend of mine when I was younger. He's one of the last Mage Warriors."

Nanaki laughed. "You're kidding me, right? That's impossible. Mage warriors are linked to the planet in such a way that one would never work... work for Shinra! That's ridiculous."

"I'm working on an explanation."

Nanaki walked away, moving back toward his grandfather's study. "It better be a good one! Mage Warrior? Him? Hah! Next you are going to say that you think he's the Chosen One!"

Gen looked away, embarrassed and halfway amused. Reno thrust his hands into his suit pocket, looking toward the Candle, sparkling in the light of the rising moon. "Score one for the furball," his voice rasped.

Gen took a sip of her martini and looked up icily to the doorway of the pub. She was alone in that building now, the bartender leaving her to her own devices as he went for an evening walk. For some reason the people of the Canyon were very polite and very trusting. Gen liked them, but knew that she could never trust people quite like they did... Being raised in the town made little difference. The world was just too harsh.

And Reno was late.

Figures...

After a few more sips, the door opened, blowing a cool breeze in, followed by the bartender and a jauntily walking Reno. He stopped the bartender, ordered a drink and then pulled a seat across from the girl. He smiled devilishly. "Martini, eh? Wouldn't've expected ya to order that."

She flashed a look of annoyance in her violet eyes. "You're twenty minutes late. I've already had two of these and a mint julep."

"Sorry babe."

She glared at him

. "I mean Miss Atlantis. Jeez... don't bite my head off... It's bad enough your good friend Meow Mix wants to do that for you..."

Gen turned back to look at the door, forcing down the smirk that threatened to invade her face.

His alcohol arrived at he took a sip of the amber liquid. "See. I'm not that bad. So... You were going to talk about stuff with me? He took a swig.

She stirred the drink... "Where do I begin..."

"How 'bout this place? Why should it be familiar? I'm getting these memories back kinda slow... We lived here, eh?"

She thought a moment, picking out the best way to explain thousands of years of history in the least amount of words. "See... my family and yours lived here. Our people are kind of scattered around the world right now. Some live in Icicle Village, some in Wutai. You can find them if you really look... We used to have our own village, back a few hundred years ago during another world crisis, but from what I've heard it was destroyed. The artistic renderings though..." She paused, staring down at her drink. "I wish I could have seen it when it really existed."

Reno hated to sound like an idiot, but the question still nagged him. "What crisis?"

Gen laughed. "Guess you didn't pay attention in school. World of Balance, World of Ruin ring a bell?" Reno didn't say anything so Gen continued. "There was this woman by the name of Terra. She was half human, half Esper.

Reno stared at her, confused.

"An Esper... it's a summon, really. Espers are guardian entities. They aren't human and rarely come onto our plane of existence. When we use a summoning materia, we are calling upon the power of the Esper to help us in battle and thus they lend us their strength. Espers are with us but at the same time are rarely physically near us. Terra was the daughter of the legendary Esper Maduin who fell in love with a human woman who had somehow managed to find her way into the Esper plane of existence... Terra was quite a special, powerful woman and some believe that she may be one of the first ancestors of the Cetra."

Reno nodded and took another sip from his drink. "Go on."

"Anyway -- the crisis. There was this man in a position of great power, and he was intent on stealing the power of the Espers for his own gain. The thing with borrowing Esper power is that it can't be used for evil -- They are guardians of the planet and thus will never turn against it. This man, this Kefka wanted to rule the world and he needed their power to do it. Much of this history is hazy at best... And I'm getting really sidetracked. Anyway, Thamasa was a small town of Mage Warriors -- human guardians of the planet. When Kefka gained control of the world and of the Espers it tore the world apart, creating the World of Ruin and destroying Thamasa. Even after Balance was restored they couldn't reinstate it. And so our kind drifted off... moving whereever they could. Over time many of our kind intermarried and much of our natural powers were lost."

"So wait... how much Mage Warrior is in you?" Reno stared at her, questioning.

"I'm not one hundred percent. My great grandparents on both sides were half. I still retain most of the powers however."

"What about me?" It pained him, having to ask this question of someone else. And though he had his doubts, he still desperately wanted to know. Just in case this was true at all.

"I'm having Nanaki look into the Charlemagne family records which were entombed within the chamber where we found the scrolls. I believe you may be fully Mage. A rarity. It only makes me even more curious how much power you must have... when you realize it all."

"So what is this power, anyway?" He had to admit that this was the one area he didn't have a problem with. Powers were always nifty, weren't they? "I doubt I can fly and I don't see through your shirt so it's obvious that x-ray vision is definitely not a Mage Warrior skill."

Gen rolled her eyes. "There are many, but there are three that tend to be universal. We have inherent magical abilities, meaning that we can cast a spell regaurdless of junctioned materia. Further, we can create our own spells, either through imagination or spell mixing. All we have to do is think of it, speak the incantation and its done. The magic is within us. Secondly, we have heightened senses -- Everything is stronger and clearer to us. Thirdly, we can, in some instances, hear the voice of the planet."

And suddenly everything made sense.

"Reno?"

"Ever since I was in the desert..." His voice was soft, hidden under his breath.

"What? What since the desert?" She looked at him pleading, wanting to know what he was thinking about.

"When I was in the desert I heard something -- a shreik. And it hurt. When I came too, I was at your place and everything was different."

"Different?"

"Different, but yet so... right." He closed his eyes, remembering the day before. "I could... smell the peppermint in your tea, the bananas in your kitchen, your shampoo... I could hear birds rustling in trees outside. I could see in the dark. I could... fuck... it makes sense." He stood up, the chair falling against the table behind him as he went to exit the bar.

"Reno?!" She followed him and grabbed his arm.

"Don't you get it? I don't want any of this. None of it. It can't be me." He almost looked frantic. Terrified, like a small child lost in the woods.

"Even Aeris was a poor flower girl in the slums..."

He snorted and looked to the tile beneath his feet, remembering everything he had pondered earlier at the gates. "...And I heard the planet... it took me away... showed me why my senses were fucked up. Why I can't remember anything." He sat down on another chair and raked his hand through crimson strands of hair.

"That vision?" She blinked. He wouldn't tell her about it, getting downright snappish when she insisted.

"A young boy..." He gripped the side of the table and gritted his teeth as new information filtered its way into his brain. "Just moved to Mideel... only to be... taken."

"...What?" No... This... couldn't be the way it had happened to him. But she had a feeling that it was going to get worse.

"Professor Hojo. And he poked and he prodded and he fucked with my DNA." He scratched idly at his left forearm, knowing the scars from countless injections lay underneath the fabric. "And every year I would get a new injection."

A flash of that vision again.

The professor's voice.

"Suppressors."

"Suppressors... to counteract my... powers?" He leaned his forehead against a hand. Gen stared at him aghast. She didn't think that such a thing could exist.

"What happened to your parents?" The question sounded stupid to her ears. It was obvious what had happened.

"They tried to bust me out, but died."

She looked away. "I'm sorry."

Reno laughed, the sound harsh like sandpaper. "It's okay. I don't remember them. But... I think I was really close to my mom."

They were silent a moment, neither knowing what to say to the other. Reno had just divulged so much and yet his explanation was still hole ridden. Still...

"It makes sense."

Reno was silent, taking in what Gen had just said, knowing he had been thinking that same small sentence. The one that seemed to seal his fate.

"I had no idea... I just remember your parents moving out. I think you were eight. Ramuh... I didn't even know where you moved, so I could never write to you or beg to visit." She smiled, remembering herself, pigtails and bows. "I cried for days... you were my only friend."

Reno smiled as the same bit of memory flashed within his mind. A young Genesis. Even then she had that crazy hair color.

"We have a lot of catching up to do."

And suddenly that smile was on his face full blast. He grinned. "Catching up, eh? Of what sort?"

Gen threw a napkin at him. "I take it back anything nice I said about you. Charlemagne, you are incorrigible."

"I try."

And she knew he did. She could see, in the inner depths of his eyes, his torturous pain. The fear and confusion. And yet he masked it, hid it under a cheap, perverted laugh. He most definitely did try and it was obvious that his facade always succeeded.

A/N : Hey cool! I wrote some more! Haha!