Hellsing Fan Fiction / GetBackers Fan Fiction / Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Heaven's Open ❯ Variable ( Chapter 1 )

Goo's Note- This is my first crossover, and it's certainly a big one. Also, as it's already AU, I freely mix anime and manga elements of the two anime involved in this, and maybe even flat-out fudge some things. Crossovers are hard, people. Just smile and nod, okay? Anyway, hope you all enjoy this!

Oh, and quick note about names: I will not participate in the Integral vs. Integra, Kadsuki vs. Kazuki, or Paul vs. Pore argument. If I use a spelling you don't or the official releases don't use, don't let it bother you, especially since for two of those I can find official sources that support my spelling. The last one I know is wrong, but it's a force of habit. Anyone who starts a debate over Aeris vs. Aerith just needs a life.

Disclaimer- I only own what I assure you are throwaway OCs (so don't get too attached to them). Everything else in this story are the property of their respective owners, too numerous to name in a disclaimer that is just serving to cover my ass legally.

Heaven's Open

By A Guy Named Goo

Beta'd by Rook

Chapter One: Variable

In the very heart of the enigmatic Babylon City there existed a certain room. This room was mostly unremarkable in decor: blinding, sterile white. Silver and white rolling chairs. Living "Gods" who wore all white as an homage to their own greatness. The single remarkable feature of this white room was the solid wall of monitors, connected to dozens of buttons, switches, and keyboards. Some of the monitors were switched off. Others were emitting only static to the frustrated viewers that were examining them. Some emitted grainy, black-and-white pictures, seeming so as not to clash with the decor of the room.

Some could say this was the hub of Babylon City, the heart of it, where life began and ended by the push of a button. White doors extended to the various veins and arteries that supported the mythical area, and humans flowed in and out like stray blood cells. In actuality, this room was Babylon City itself, where only reality survived and the illusions ended. It was from here that the whims of these fickle human deities took shape in various ways throughout the structure of Mugenjyou.

At least, until recently, when their most valuable playground became inaccessible suddenly. And within this white room, with it's white people stained only by it's impure purpose for existing, attempts to reconnect with what had been lost were continuing around the clock. And at last, this obsessive desire to take what they had lost, like spoiled children fighting to reclaim a toy that had been given to someone more deserving, had paid off.

"I think I'm in," one of the white figures said from his place at a console, which was projecting rows of white code on a black monitor. Torrential clicking that sounded like a hailstorm of Biblical proportions beating on a steel roof ceased, and at least a dozen other white figures singled out the one who had disrupted them, silently urging him to elaborate. He didn't need a vocal acknowledgement, anyway. "A hole in the system. It seems to be a fluke, and I don't think it will last very long."

"So exploit it," another white figure ordered. She stood from her console, approaching the monitor with the streaming code.

"I am trying," was the flat response, gloved fingers flying across a pristine white keyboard. "I can't do much. The system's protections and firewalls won't let me reroute information or delete anything. It won't let me introduce new programs, either. About the only thing I can do is add new lines of code. That will introduce a new variable, and there's no telling that what will result in."

"Try it," the other ordered, as if she had authority over her fellow "God". But a murmur rippled throughout the room to reveal that this was popular consensus. The Gods had spoken.

Sighing, the human God's deft fingers flew over the keyboard, creating chaos as was the Gods' wont...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Reeve flipped up the headset that gave him direct communication to AVALANCHE. They were all currently staying the night at Gold Saucer in their search for the Keystone, and he knew that the most important part of his job was yet to come. Sighing heavily and wondering when his job description had been changed to include "espionage puppeteering", he put Cait Sith in "idle" mode and stood up. He'd been sitting at his desk for hours, giving life to the machine at the seeming expense of his own, and if he didn't stretch his legs and take care of a few personal matters he was liable to snap and go on a shooting spree. Although if he were any other Shinra executive, such a massacre would be a surprise to no one.

Stepping out of the office, he looked at his secretary's conspicuously empty desk. Either she assumed he wouldn't notice if she called it an early day, or she had coincidentally decided to take a break at the same time. Reeve decided to give her the benefit of a doubt, just this once. Now wasn't the time to try to find a new secretary, after all. Stepping out into the hall and past the offices of the other executives, he made a brief stop in the executive washroom before continuing to the break room.

Had his desire for coffee and anything to eat, even a day old donut, not given him superhuman patience, Reeve would have turned around as soon as he heard a familiar guttural laugh coming from within the room. Steeling himself to keep from doing something drastic, he pushed the door open and strode in as if he were unconcerned with the conversation taking place between Heidegger and Scarlet. Apparently it worked: they didn't give Reeve a second glance as he walked up to the coffee maker to fix himself a cup.

"There's probably just an open mako pipe or something in the water," Scarlet said dismissively, a hint of a smile from whatever joke they had been sharing still tingeing her lips as she idly stirred the cup of coffee in her hand. "Or just your average slum-dwelling crazies trying to cause a commotion. Kya haa haa!"

Reeve didn't see why that was funny. Then again, in the past, any time he had laughed at the same time as either of his fellow executives had probably been purely coincidental. But at the mention of the people of the slums, he decided to listen anyway, opening a packet of sugar to put in his coffee.

"Most likely. How else can you explain why no one in Sector 8 is seeing anything?" Heidegger said, turning around to look at Reeve as if just noticing he was there. "You can send someone to Sector 6 and see what this is all about, right? It's your job, after all."

"See what what's all about?" Reeve asked, diverting all of his attention to Heidegger as he stirred his coffee.

"Oh, that's right: you've been locked in your office for days. We all thought you'd hung yourself! Gwa haa haa!" Heidegger said jovially. Noticing Reeve wasn't laughing, he recomposed himself and continued. "A bunch of people in Sector 6 are rambling on about Sector 7 being back. They said they've even stepped into it. But no one in Sector 8 sees anything."

"Sector 7?! Is it possible anything could be left?!" Reeve cried, sloshing his cup of coffee over on the counter.

"No," Scarlet said flatly. "And that's why you need to go and see what's going on before this erupts into a big deal."

"Right, sure," Reeve said with a nod, grabbing a donut and leaving with his cup of coffee.

In Gold Saucer, someone had overheard the exclamation over the microphone that Reeve had forgotten to switch off...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Red team, closing in," the female agent reported, her gun containing its blessed bullets already aimed and ready to fire, prayer beads wrapped securely around her hand. She looked back at the dozen or so agents that made up her team, waiting for confirmation from the other team. "Green team, this is red team. We're closing in. Do you hear me?" She waited for a moment. A few of the other agents started to leave their battle stances, but an insistent wave from their leader brought them back into position. "Green team, are you there?!"

"Captain, look!" an agent shouted, pointing with his gun at the door next to him. Paper scrolls containing sacred spells used for warding off evil plastered the window of the empty office, but the black ink was barely visible around the crimson stain that seemed to radiate from the center of the collection of papers.

The young priestess swallowed. She'd been told to expect the worst when she had been training at the shrine, but she'd never actually expected to use the full extent of that training. Now here she was, a captain of the elite Susano Kyoudan, and she was on the verge of falling apart. She was hardly worthy of being called a leader.

Summoning up every once of courage she had, she stepped forward to the door. She lowered her gun for the moment, the others following suit, understanding what was going on. There wasn't enough time for the full misogi ritual, but they needed to invoke the kami before stepping forward. Standing as straight as possible with a small space between her legs, she placed her left hand on her hip, index and middle figure extended. The other agents also followed suit.

"Kunitoko-tachi-no-Mikoto!" the captain cried, making a sweeping motion with her right hand. She moved her left foot forward, then placed it back next to her right.

"Yie!" the agents shouted, repeating the gesture.

"Sarutahiko-no-Okami!" The captain repeated the gesture she had before.

"Yie!" Again, the agents copied her.

"Kokuryu-no-Okami!"

"Yie!"

Having invoked the Earthly kami, the kami of guidance, and the kami of water, life, and ki, the agents had properly removed the impurities of their souls and opened themselves to accept the powers of the kami as their own. They were now ready to confront the evil behind the door. Beads still wrapped around her hand, the captain removed another ward from her pocket and lifted her gun into position, kicking the door in.

"Oh God," the captain cried, suddenly looking very ill and almost dropping her gun. Although there seemed to be no readily apparently threat, the scene inside the abandoned office could only be described as a bloodbath: corpses with their necks torn out littered the floor, some with scrolls still clinging to their bloody fingertips, others with beads wrapped around their hands. Stay body parts were scattered about, as were loose beads. The captain noted these as a potential hazard as she sloughed through the blood on the floor. All of the corpses were wearing black uniforms similar to her own, complete with helmets with manjis in the center and silver-lined utility vests. And they all wore green armbands bearing the Susano Kyoudan insignia, similar to her own red one.

"Captain?" someone asked softly behind her.

The priestess swallowed back the tears she longed to shed for her fallen comrades. Their job wasn't over. "They're going to rise. Get ready," she instructed the men behind her. They all raised their weapons and wards in response. She listened for the first signs of movement from the dead bodies, ignoring the clicking of prayer beads against guns from behind her.

Finally, the first corpse tried to stand itself up stiffly, difficult considering it only had one arm and the fingers of the other had dissolved from contact with a ward. The captain fired, the large gun packing quite a kick but not enough of one to cause the young woman to lose ground, and the ghoul fell apart before her eyes. As if that were the signal they were waiting for, gunfire filled the room, agents falling back to reload as the ones behind them took over in a practiced manner that prevented any mishaps such as shooting one's own teammates.

The gunfire ended, leaving nothing but the remains of the ghouls and those who hadn't been able to rise in such a fashion. Breathing deeply, prepared to shoot anything that made like it even wanted to move, the captain backed away slowly, causing her teammates to do the same.

"All of green team is gone," she said softly, her voice a mixture of awe and fear. "We...we can't go on like this..."

"Captain?" the agent behind her asked gently.

"Fall back!" she suddenly snapped, angry faced stained by bitter tears turning to face the other agents.

"But captain, we haven't isolated the source. It'll strike again," another agent said.

"Do you want to end up like green team?!" she cried out angrily. Her words must have had the bite she was going for: several of the men shifted uncomfortably where they stood. "I thought not! We need to get more men! We're not ready for anything like this! So fall back!"

Wiping tears from her eyes only to feel more spill hotly down her cheeks, she stomped past the other agents, who fell into step behind her, ready to obey her orders.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Although it was very late at night in Japan, in London it was approaching noon when an urgent phone call came in. And it was fortunate that the call was so urgent: Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, trapped under the mountain of paperwork covering everything from the weapons budget to agent death reports, would very likely have killed whoever interrupted her as lack of sleep, a steady diet of tea and barely-touched scones, and the beginnings of a hellacious migraine all conspired to make one very unhappy and unpleasant knight.

"Hello?" Integral asked, grabbing the phone on the first ring. She tried her best to sound professional, but all things considered, whoever it was should be glad they hadn't been answered by a sharp "what do you want?!".

"Hello, could I please speak with Sir Integral Hellsing?" a man's voice asked in very broken English, his pronounced accent marking that he was of some Asian nationality.

"Speaking," Integral said, reaching for the box of cigars on her desk. There was no way she could maintain some semblance of professional courtesy without a tobacco fix.

"This is Funakoshi Hideo of Susano Kyoudan. I was informed that you are the leader of Hellsing Organization," the man continued in his halting English.

Integral paused in lighting her cigar, raising an eyebrow. When she'd first taken over Hellsing Organization from her father, she'd been briefed on similar organizations to her own throughout the world, including which ones were rivals and which ones were allies. The Shinto organization, Susano Kyoudan, had maintained an alliance with Hellsing more or less since the end of World War II, although she had yet to meet the current leader.

"I am," Integral confirmed, finally getting the cigar lit and taking an appreciative drag. She switched to speaking Japanese, deciding rusty as her Japanese was, it was probably better than this man's English. "Is there any particular reason for calling me?"

"I am truly sorry for having to bother you," Hideo started, taking the hint from her language switch. "I would not have called if it were not an emergency. But my predecessor listed you as our most reliable ally, and I was unsure of who to call in this situation."

"Go on," Integral continued. Although she had known that Hellsing was allied with Susano, she had no idea they were apparently close enough allies that they felt they should call them first.

"Our problem is that lately there has been a marked increase in Japan in vampires and, as a result, ghouls. Although one of our agents found what appeared to be a kind of computer microchip in the remains of a vampire that he had destroyed, we have been unable to find any more clues to the source of the sudden rise in vampire activity," Hideo explained. "Susano has always been a small organization, because until recently we haven't had to worry about such a wide scale vampire infestation, but now at least 70% of our men have been killed. Just last night, an entire unit was decimated and its partner unit was powerless to help. Until we can acquire and train more agents, we humbly request your assistance in this matter. We know that you have your own cases to deal with, but any help you may be able to offer..."

"Computer microchip?" Integral asked, eyes wide. She rested her cigar in the ashtray on her desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a folder and a pen. She opened the folder, circling Japan on the small, black and white world map on the first page.

"Yes. Is this somehow important?" Hideo asked, suddenly sounding alarmed.

Integral was quiet for a moment, digesting this information. This was the first lead they had received regarding the origin of the FREAK chips in weeks, but with the Wild Geese out on assignment, and none of her other men capable of undertaking a mission like this, that meant...

"I'll be there within the next twenty four hours," she promised, although the tone of her voice made it obvious she wasn't excited about the prospect of traveling to Japan.

"You? As in you personally?" The shock in the Shinto priest's voice was apparent.

"And some agents," Integral confirmed. Ignoring the lit cigar burning in the ashtray, she took a blank piece of paper from the corner of her desk and began jotting down a list of things she would have to do, and fast, before leaving. This included making transcontinental travel arrangements for two vampires, something easier said than done.

"Thank you very much, Sir Hellsing-san! We greatly appreciate your kindness and cooperation on this matter!" Hideo said thankfully.

There was no "kindness" involved in her rushing to Japan on a moment's notice, and as such she ignored the exclamation of gratitude. "Just be prepared for our arrival." She hung up the phone before the other organization leader could say anything else and picked up her neglected cigar.

Right on cue, the door to her office opened and Walter peered in. "Sir Integral, is there anything I can get for you? Some lunch perhaps?"

"No thank you, Walter," Integral said, tapping her pen against the list she had just written. As he stepped in to take away the remains of her breakfast, she leaned forward, removing her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Tell me, Walter, have you ever been to Japan?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"What the hell are you talkin' about?!" Barret cried, glaring down at the limp machine. "Whaddya mean somethin' could be left in Sector Seven?!"

As Reeve took control of Cait Sith once more, he had the panicked revelation that his microphone had been on the entire time. Which meant, of course, Barret had heard the better part of the conversation in the break room. Opening communication with the camera in the cat puppet's eyes, the monitor looked like it was caught in a hurricane. It didn't take him long to realize that Cait Sith was being shaken vigorously.

"Hey, watch it!" Reeve said, adopting Cait Sith's voice and demeanor. "You break me you bought me!"

The camera stopped shaking, but a loud "thump" signaled the large man hadn't stopped his assault on the mechanical mog. "You gonna tell me what the hell's goin' on here?"

Nervous laughter, more characteristic of the Cait Sith character but with sentiment shared by Reeve. "I'm a machine. When I shut down to save energy sometimes I pick up stray radio signals. Heh heh." Back at Shinra, Reeve was feeling rather proud of that answer. Even if the look on Barret's face said he wasn't buying it.

"You know somethin' about Sector 7!" Barret accused, but he backed away from the robot. He aimed his gun arm at it, incorrectly at the mog portion instead of the cat. "So spill it!"

"What the hell's goin' on in here?" Cid growled, stomping into the lobby, ever-present cigarette dangling from his lips. "God dammit, some of us trying to get some fuckin' sleep!"

"This damn puppet knows somethin' about Sector 7!" Barret snapped back, not to be out-growled by the irritable pilot.

"That's lovely. Now put it fuckin' sock in it!" Cid ordered, dropping ashes on the threadbare carpet of the "haunted" hotel.

Tifa stepped out of a room, looking over the railing at the scene below. Her hair was sleep-tousled, her and eyes weren't completely open yet. "Barret? Cid? What's the problem?"

"This asshole here has decide he's gonna make a racket loud enough to wake the God damn dead!" Cid exclaimed, pointing at Barret accusingly. Barret still had his gun arm trained on Cait Sith, but his glare had been averted to the other man.

"Shut up! I'm trying to sleep!" a high-pitched, feminine voice shouted from one of the rooms. No one acknowledged Yuffie's objection, although as it was seemingly popular consensus it didn't matter.

"Barret, what's the matter?" Tifa tried again, deciding that she was going to get no where if she asked the half-asleep pilot.

"This damn...machine says that part of Sector 7 might have made it through the plate fallin'!" Barret exclaimed, turning to face Cait Sith again.

"Oh boy..." Cait Sith said in exasperation. "Look, I- I mean, the people in the mixed signal- said that it was just a rumor, and it probably wasn't true. No offense, but the people of the Midgar slums aren't always the most reliable of informants."

"Yeah, well, 'just a rumor's' better'n nothin'!" Barret argued.

Red XIII appeared from another room, having overheard much of the conversation. He stretched out his long body, trying to wake himself up. "You're not suggesting we go back to Midgar, are you?"

The door to the hotel opened, and Cloud and Aeris stepped in. Everyone who was out in the lobby turned to face the couple, causing them to look rather flustered. In the sudden quiet, Yuffie and Vincent seemed to have given up any pretense of sleeping and had also stepped out onto the small landing as well.

"Please tell me you weren't all waiting for us," Aeris said, blushing deeply.

"We're having a small crisis here. Don't worry about it," Tifa said gently, although anyone in the room could tell that she was concealing something in her voice (perhaps jealousy?).

"Don't worry about it?!" Barret howled. "Sector 7 could still be standin'! Biggs, Wedge, Jessie- they could be in there, hurtin', dyin', waitin' for me to save them!"

"What about Sector 7?" Cloud asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's just a rumor!" Cait Sith cried again. "It's a really stupid rumor! Forget about it!"

"I'm afraid I have to agree," Vincent said. Yuffie jumped, having not noticed he'd been standing behind her, and muttered something unflattering. "If we had more time, I would agree that we should go. But sadly, we don't. Sephiroth is on his way to retrieve the Black Materia as we speak."

"He's right," Cloud agreed. "Look, Barret, I'd be all for running to Midgar to take a look, but Sephiroth will have gotten the Black Materia and summoned Meteor by the time we finish."

"So we get that first an' we take it with us!" Barret cried out desperately. He looked around, seeing he wasn't being met with agreement. "God dammit, I'm goin'! You all can go off to stop Sephiroth or whatever, but I got friends who need me!"

Barret stepped toward the door to the hotel, obviously no longer concerned with the valid objections of his comrades. Tifa bit her lip, looked around, then stepped forward. "Wait. I...I'll come with you. I was in the original AVALANCHE. I should probably come and help if I can."

Tifa climbed down the stairs to join Barret at the doorway. Cloud appeared to be deep in thought next to the doorway, causing Tifa to stop in front of him. "Cloud? Are you all right?"

Cloud looked at Aeris for a moment, then back at Tifa. "We'll be there in a bit. Just...we gotta head Sephiroth off."

Tifa nodded, then left the hotel with Barret. Aeris looked up at Cloud's still-upset face. "Cloud, are you sure you're all right?"

Cloud shook his head. "No. Because I just got the weirdest feeling that Sephiroth's changed course, and he's going that way now, too..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In a large, dark room, illuminated only by the dim glow of many monitors, Sakura sat serenely in front of on the most important of these, keyboard within reach as she analyzed the strings of code. Behind her, sleeping peacefully, was the still form of MakubeX. The woman turned to give the boy a maternal look of concern, wondering idly when the last time he had slept so soundly had been. She was loathe to bring the moment to and end.

But as she turned her attention back to the monitor, she gasped. If ever there was anything that warranted the teenage genius's attention, this was certainly it. Sakura typed furiously, trying to remedy the problem on her own, but it became readily apparent to her that with her limited expertise there was nothing she could do about this particular problem.

"MakubeX," she said, softly but urgently. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly. "MakubeX!"

MakubeX sat up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and facing Sakura's clearly worried face. "Sakura? What's the matter?"

"MakubeX, take a look at this," she said, gesturing to the monitor. MakubeX slid up to the monitor, examining it as she had instructed. A few moments later, he gasped, his fingers moving with lightning speed over the keyboard.

"Sakura, how long has this been going on?" he asked, not angrily, but urgently.

"I don't know. I just saw it. Can you fix it?" Sakura asked him, hope tingeing her usually melancholy voice.

MakubeX's fingers sailed over the keyboard. "I don't know. I don't even know how it happened in the first place." He stopped for a moment, examining the monitor.

"What exactly is happening?" Sakura asked, sitting on her knees next to him in her normal position.

"This variable is exploiting the already unstable fabric of Mugenjyou. Essentially, it's torn a fabric in our reality. And opened the doorway to another..."

End of Chapter One

Cue Goo's Stupidity- Next Chapter of Heaven's Open: Contact. Look forward to it!