JENOVA'S CHILDREN
This story is an AU(alternate universe) taking the place of the Advent Children Time Line. Everything is the same in the AC world except the following: I've changed the plot making it more sinister and the outcome is to die for. If you like the anguish, the terror, the horrors, the action, and the darkness that the FF7 world brings, you WILL like this plot. I try to stick to the world and characters as closely as I can, while improvising the events, thoughts and their actions.
I hope everyone will like this first chapter. I use this to write when I can't write on my original story. Fanfiction is so much easier.
NOTES:
"..." verbal speaking
'...' Jenova's voice in the mind.
Italtics : sentences that are in Italitics means they are flash backs.
Chapter One : She Awakens
'I am calling my children...come to me.'
The voice of mother resounded within the minds of those who shared her cells. Deep under the decaying Shinra Mansion, hidden away and forgotten was the scientific lab of the extraordinary minds of Shinra. There Hojo had been working on recreating Jenova, her Rebirth has he liked to call it.
Years had past since she had last awoken in the amniotic tank, her body renewed, her lungs eager to breathe the air once more. The outside of the tank began to crack and the greenish blue liquid started to leek from it. Jenova pulled against the cables that had held her in place for so long, they ripped from her flesh, clouding the liquid that surrounded her.
The thick glass of the tank cracked even more, then broke allowing the fluid to pour from it onto the dusty lab floor.
Jenova had remained with in the tank walls, a few cables that she could not reach still held her prisoner. She curled up, the cold against her skin for the first time, and she heaved the amniotic fluid from her lungs gasping like a new born for their first life giving breath.
She had been calling her Children, those who would listen, to this place for months now. Each day calling them louder as she awoke from the coma induced sleep that she had been placed in so long ago.
She could only hope that they would come.
Jenova looked up from inside the broken tank. Her eyes held that magical glow to them, and a face that still held some innocents in it.
One of them was so near, so close...
She tried to stand up with muscles that had never been used before, yet she could not.
"I must be patient..." Her own voice had startled her for she had not spoken aloud for many years.
She waited for them to come as she broke the remaining cable that kept her.
Cloud had moved into the abandoned church where he had first met her. He had been living with Tifa and several orphans. He would only be lying to himself if he said he didn't miss them.
But he was sick. Infected with Geostigma. He remembered when the scarring first appeared a month ago. He woke up from a nightmare, a nightmare that he thought he had over come.
"Sephiroth is only a memory" He told himself as he raced toward Rocket Town on Fenrir, his custom motorcycle.
But he had felt him...
...no not him...
...he had felt...
"Mother?"
His left arm screamed in pain, as more black liquid squeezed from his skin, spreading the infection. Fenrir skidded to a stop, and Cloud barely managed to keep himself and the bike from flipping end over end.
He hugged his arm, cradling to his chest protectively.
The pain had finally passed and he started to relax his arm, rubbing away the soreness with his other hand. In the distance he could see Rocket Town, but something told him to go the other way, toward his old home.
Nibelheim.
He wasn't sure why he should go that way, there was nothing there for him, but memories.
But...
Cloud started up his motorcycle again, revving the engine a few times, and lowering his goggles over his eyes.
He wasn't one for destiny, but the something kept nagging at him, pulling on the edge of his mind. And so he departed for Nibelheim. To where the nightmare began.
Jenova had sat in the tank, stretching her leg and arm muscles. She had noticed when she exerted the energy the blueish purple veins grew brighter painting her skin with a beautiful entwine-ment that looked as if she had an exotic vine under her skin.
Slowly she stood up, climbing out of the broken tank, her feet stepping on the broken glass on the floor. An exquisite feeling rushed through her, as she looked down at the small amount of blood that escaped from her cut feet, mixing and swirling with the fluid on the floor.
Pain. She knew that feeling very well, and had come to enjoy it.
She walked to a set of keycards that had been sitting on the abandoned desk. Hojo had recreated her body to use her as his personal destroyer. But he hadn't figured that she, Jenova would enter her own blank clone, allowing her to have her own free will.
But she had played along for months, following orders, allowing them to nearly complete her. And then, when the final piece was ready to be rejoined with her...Hojo was killed, and she was left incomplete.
She had awoken many times in the tank during the two years the laboratory had been abandoned, but didn't have the strength to free herself from her prison.
Jenova opened the door from the lab, as she swung the keycards around on their chain, like a child would do when lost in thought. She walked over to another door that had been locked, picking a keycard randomly and swiping it through the scanner. Luckily it opened on the first try and she stepped inside.
The room was filled with the soft blue light of cloning tanks, and floating with in the tanks were failed attempts at cloning Jenova.
Her nude form stopped at one of them, looking at the mangled flesh that had failed to form correctly, most of the clones were grotesque looking in their deformity, but still they had her cells, cells she could control.
"Even though you are failures, you can still be of use..." She pressed her hands to the glass evenly.
"Failures..." Jenova whispered, her lips brushing against the glass of the tank as she spoke. She took a step back from the tank, then retreated to the door. She wasn't sure how well this was going to work. They were failures after all. She turned to look over her shoulder as she was about to close the door.
"Time to wake up...puppets.." The malice in her voice dripped with acid, and all at once the tanks broke, letting the mutated clones to fall to the floor. Each breathing for the first time.
She closed the door behind her, letting the clones get use to the pain of life. She knew that they would eat each other, leaving only the strongest, for that was the nature of Jenova.
The ends of her lips curved into a smile, as the muted cries of the weaker ones bled past the steel door, as they were devoured. It was like a horrible music to her ears. But how beautiful survival was.
Again she pushed her mind out to those who shared her cells, she could hear all of their heart beats, like a line of percussion that beat in rhythm.
How satisfying it was to hear them all.
And the brightest and loudest beat was coming nearer to her. The faint smile that graced her lips slowly morphed into a sneer.
"Cloud..." And in an instant she understood, the faces of the dead laid out before her like a complex data base. She sifted through the memories, picking out a face, a voice, and a personality.
Cloud had been riding for some time, he had somehow managed to hear his phone ring several times, but he never picked it up. He would listen to the messages later.
He could see Nibelheim in the distance growing larger as he approached.
He didn't like to go there. He was lost with his memories.
As Cloud entered the small town he slowed down, his eyes scanning his surroundings for what had been seared into his memory.
The ground was soaked with blood and no one was spared.
"Why Sephiroth..." He allowed his voice to escape from a crack in his mouth as his eyes fell upon the severed head of a boy.
The warrior shook his head out of a pivotal point in his life. Why won't the nightmares just end, why couldn't evil just go away.
Finally he brought the massive bike to a stop. His attention caught to the eerie feeling that had brought him to this place. He looked up after putting his kickstand down and easily allow the bike to come to rest on it.
The Shinra Mansion.
He hated that place, hated the history that happened in there. The flashes of torment in his mind as he could only recall the agony he was in as Hojo preformed his experiments.
Cloud carefully picked two swords of choice, placing them in the holster he had constructed for his new weapon. He remembered bartering for the extremely complex buster sword, providing free delivery of weapons and materials to and from the weapons shop. The look of Tifa's face when he started to learn the new weapon, going out weeks at a time to fine tune his style.
He opened the decrepit door, it protested the movement in a creek that sent a shiver down Cloud's spine. What was he doing, what was he doing here? He made his way carefully through the mansion, as silent as a shadow in the house of ghosts, through the bedroom where he and Zack had stayed for the night after the black haired SOLDIER had freed them.
'Hey I found something really nice. It's a little big. But hey, don't ask for such luxurious things. Looks good on you.' Zack's voice flooded in from a memory after he had dressed Cloud in a SOLDIER uniform.
Almost dauntingly, Cloud made his way down into the basement. Many of the doors had already been unlocked from their last visit. Even though he knew it was no longer used, the panic of just being in this place fluttered in his heart periodically.
Each step brought him closer to the main lab room, to the room that held such terrifying flashes of the past. His chest rose and fell quickly, his heartbeat rapidly speeding up. He felt like a child going after the boogie man in a black closet. Slowly he peered inside the room.
His eyes squinted as he looked. The overhead lighting barely lit the decaying lab, the glow of the empty tank that Zack had once been kept in, pulsated the room in a soft blue light, making details hard to see.
As he kept looking, he took a step inside the lab. His attention caught by the shattered tank that stood next to the other one. He saw what looked like a body laying on the ground in front of the broken equipment.
Slowly he approached with caution, and the body of a nude woman was laid out before him on her side, her face in the shadows, the blue light hiding the true colors of the room. Silently he knelt down, hesitantly reaching out and touching her shoulder.
There was no response. He pulled his hand away, removing his glove and again without disturbing the body he felt for a pulse at her neck. His eyes kept shying away from the gently curving slopes of her body, soft skin illuminated by the blue glow. She was warm and had a pulse. The terrible pain of geostigma reeled through his arm. He pulled away as if he had been burned, clinching his teeth till the pain resided.
"Ugh..."
Cloud nearly jumped out of his skin as the woman groaned softly. She started to stir, her body shifted and she rolled on to her back. Yet another soft moan escaped her lips, her face now visible from the shadows.
"Aerith..." Cloud nearly refused to speak her name. This woman that laid out before him was Aerith. That innocent face he had first seen after crashing through the roof of the church was perfectly detailed. This had to be the reason he came here. This had to be the reason he was drawn here.
Quickly he covered her with a dusty lab coat, wrapping it around her. Gently he picked her up, her head resting against his chest. Memories from holding Aerith in that position flooded back, but this time he would not allow her to sink into the watery abyss. This time he would keep her safe.
After setting her down in an upstairs bedroom, Cloud reached for his phone, finding seven new messages. He hated the blasted thing, it rang to much, interrupting his thoughts, his solitude, his brooding.
His fingers ran down the list in his address book, till he found Cid's number. The annoying beep followed by authoritative voice stating the 'number you have dialed has been disconnected'. He growled in annoyance. Why couldn't he just pay the bill? The blond went back to his address book, Tifa would know how to get a hold of Cid, she kept track of everyone.
Home. It felt odd that 7th Heaven was listed under the contact name of home. His thumb wavered over the send key, the odd thought of how Tifa would react. She would get so angry when he sat in thoughtful memory of Aerith after a few glasses of their home brewed ale. It would always stop him from conversing any further, which most of the time Tifa would storm out angrily, another attempt of being a family destroyed by memories of a ghost. Cloud always apologized to her afterward and Tifa always bowed her head, accepting the apology, knowing it must be hard for the blond.
"7th Heaven! How can I help you?" Tifa's voice on the other end startled him, he hadn't been aware that he had hit the send key.
"Hello?" Tifa sung questionably into the phone.
"Tifa..." He always started out that way, unsure of what to say.
"Cloud? Are you okay?" And that is the way Tifa had always answered during his pause.
"Yes. I don't have Cid's current number." Cloud stated bluntly, yet softer then usual.
"It's been disconnected again? I'll see if I can contact him. Did you break down somewhere?"
"Yes. In Nibelheim." That answered both questions simply.
"Okay. I'll call you back to let you know what's going on, okay?" She could sense he wanted off the phone.
"Doctor..." Cloud verbally reminded himself. "I need Cid to bring a doctor with him."
"A doctor? Cloud, Are you hurt? Did you wreck?" Tifa didn't hide the concern in her voice at all.
"No..." He paused turning back to gaze at the sleeping form of Aerith.
"I'm not hurt. It's for someone else." He explained as shortly as he could.
"Okay, I'll call you right back." Tifa abruptly hung up the phone. She could hear it in his voice that he was nervous about talking to her. Why couldn't he just be normal with me, she thought before remembering that there was nothing normal about Cloud Strife.
Preparing for the on coming night, Cloud had untethered the large piece of material that hung around his waist and gently tucked Aerith under the make shift blanket, making sure she was comfortable. That is after all what he used it for. The would be SOLDIER leaned his sword up against the wall. Cloud removed his shoulder armor and leather sword holster, placing it down on the floor, then took a seat next to it, resting his back against the frame of the bed.
He let his head drift slowly backward until it too rested on the bed. There were so many things rushing through his mind, but he had done it. Two years of searching and he found her. If it was really her.
He shook the somber thought from his mind.
It had to be her.
Little did he know, those beautiful green eyes that Aerith had possessed were peeking out at him from over the make shift blanket, watching the blond slowly drift off to sleep.
The soft hint of a smile on her lips faded as the night engulfed the Shinra Mansion.
Okay Chapter two is nearly completed. Bare with me as I am a busy person. Reviews will be given a hugs and loves.