A.N. Here's another new ff. I got the idea as I made an rpg with two friends. It's, as you can see, a VII/XIII crossover. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer – I don't own Final Fantasy

Guardians of the Planet

Chapter 1: Prolog

Cloud

It's been a while since I moved to Midgar. I was born in Nibelheim and grew up there. Cloud Strife is my name, I have blonde, spiky hair and blue eyes and the reason I moved is because...I wanted to join SOLDIER. Although since the day I joined, I was still an infantryman. But I tried hard to be a 1st Class SOLDIER. My best friend Zack was one and he told me that I'm gonna make it too, but I wasn't so sure.
In the studies I was told that I wasn't mentally capable to become a SOLDIER...This has something to do with it, because they injected Mako to SOLDIER to make them even stronger and we have to be physically and also mentally tough enough, or else we get a Mako poisoning.

That means I had to somehow be mentally stronger to be SOLDIER. But how would that work? Well, the second reason why I left Nibelheim is that I wanted to go away from there. Of course it wasn't easy to leave my mother alone there, but I couldn't stand it anymore. Everyone in my age expelled me, so I couldn't call this place my "home" anymore. Even though there was still someone I liked, but I displaced these feelings. She's never liked me anyway.

Anyway, the training here, in the Shin-Ra headquarters in sector 0, was quite exhausting. Everyone else didn't have a problem with that and I hated myself for my weakness! Zack said that this is the completely wrong way to hate myself, I couldn't help it.

But after he had told me this a thousand times, I started to listen to him and tried to straighten things out with myself. It worked pretty well even though I still had some doubts sometimes... Luckily, Zack was always there for me to help me and after another test they told me that I'm on the right way to become a SOLDIER. So I trained on and with Zacks help and I made amazing progress an even in the most dangerous missions I made a better figure than back then.

I think that I definitely would've given up, if I never met Zack. I was infinitely grateful to him and told him to pay him back for his help, but he always replied: „Nah, that's why friends are there for." The day as I finally became a SOLDIER 3rd Class was probably the happiest day of my life. Okay, 3rd Class is not THAT great, but it is the first step to become 1st Class. On that day Zack wanted to celebrate with me. Although I don't really like something like this, he insisted on it.

He even wanted to hook me up with a few girls in the bar...It didn't work out, I wasn't really interested in someone. Zack had a girlfriend at the time. He often told me about her but he never told me her name. Mostly, we were stopped at this part. All I know that she's "super cute" and has "lovely eyes". I always was half listening, as he talked about her, but I've heard that she always wears a pink ribbon on her braid. Zack gave it to her as they first met.

Anyway, since that day I often went to a mission with Zack. That was actually pretty good, the bad side was...I'm travel-sick...Zack was the only one who knew about it, but I think the others who travelled with us noticed it too. With Zack's help I made rapid progress and became soon a SOLDIER 2nd Class. The training became harder too, and I thought the training as an infantryman was tough...After a few months I finally became a SOLDIER 1st Class. Thanks to Zack again.

That was the beginning of the end. Everyone who worked for Shin-Ra saw my progress and were deeply puzzled. Especially the weird scientist Hojo. One day he wanted me to meet him in his lab to perform some tests. I thought, these are the normal tests, but I was totally wrong. These "tests" were like certain scientific experiments. He even gave me even more Mako, after which I was suffering from Mako poisoning. The President exhorted the scientists to not lay a hand on his strongest fighters, because I was bedridden for several months before I recovered.

About a year later the media told about a "Nibelheim massacre", it's also called the "Nibelheim incident". The best SOLDIER, Sephiroth, was send with 3 other SOLDIER members to Nibelheim to inspect a reactor. But then he suddenly went crazy and burned the whole village. I heard there were no survivors, so that means that Mom and Tifa...They also said that Sephiroth was killed in the reactor, which is pretty unreliable. A few years passed and I tried to accept everything, but I couldn't...and even though Zack wanted me to stay, I left SOLDIER. Not only because of these experiments, but also because of the job in general.

So I turned my back to the Shin-Ra, and continued on as a mercenary. I didn't know at the time what else to do. Zack and I met before and were still best friends. However, we met more often, as he told me that he and his girlfriend broke up. No idea who had dumped whom, but of course I took care of him. One day I woman was looking for me. She had long pink hair and had blue eyes shining just like me. I thought she was a SOLDIER, but she said she was a member of the Guardian Corps and was called Lightning.

She'd quit and sought a new job and when she heard of me, she wanted to work with me.I accepted it and so we made together multiple jobs in one day, the most dangerous together course, and earned more money than we had dreamed. We weren't really that different. We were both strong fighters, were infected with Mako and were more silent than talkative. About a year later Tifa joined us too. The one I once liked and thought was killed during the Nibelheim Incident. She said her master saved and so she moved here to Midgar. Since we three hated Shin-Ra, we became resistance fighters and called us after the group Avalanche. Our purpose was to protect the planet from the reactors and Shin-Ra, so that the planet can live a long time.

Lightning

My name is Lightning Farron. Of course, Lightning is not my real name, but I discarded my real name a long time ago. My home's called Bodhum and is a coastal city like Costa Del Sol. I lived there, since I can remember with my little sister Serah. Although I'm a few years older than her, we look so alike, that everyone mistakes us for twins. Our similarities are the pink hair color and deep blue eyes. Our characters couldn't be more different thogh. Serah was always happy and enjoyed being with people, whereas I'm serious, and was rather be alone. There were several reasons why I gave up my life in Bodhum and moved to Midgar... The first reason is because of my parents.

It was during the war, when it happened. Unfortunately, we were at the wrong time, in the wrong place. At that time I was only thirteen years old. Dad had taken an extra free day in order to do something with the family, so we drove to North Corel to the Gold Saucer. Though, we didn't know that Shin-Ra soldiers raged there. All I picked up on this situation was that a dangerous threat was there and everyone should be evacuated.

When they said that we should all be sent to Grand Pulse, we were scared. Grand Pulse was an untouched piece of land that was completely cut off from the outside world. It was a huge continent with untouched nature and beauty, that was what everyone told me, but it's also dangerous there. If you can't fight, you wouldn't survive a week there, because there were many dangerous monsters that you never get to see here around. This place was also the probably warmest and most tropical spot on the planet.

So my parents refused to come along and fled with me and Serah, but we ran into a dead end. Fortunately, my parents found a small shelter, but it fit for me and Serah, while they had to face the soldiers. When the soldiers finally caught up, they shot without hesitation at my parents. They murdered our parents in cold blood, just because they didn't want to go to Pulse. I kept shutting up Serahs eyes and ears, so that she didn't have to see or hear the horror that raged out of our hiding place. In an attempt to protect Serah, I was even smeared with a little blood. The blood of my parents...We stayed so long in this hiding place, until I was sure that the Shin-Ras soldiers moved away. Serah was now asleep peacefully, but I couldn't get these horrible images out of my head.

After some time, Serah asked me where our parents are. I told her a lie that they had to do something, and that we should enjoy ourselves in the amusement park. She believed every word and I was glad that she hadn't noticed what happened. Of course she was sad that our parents would rather do something else than be with us, but that was better than to tell her the horrible truth.

She asked me again, on the same evening, where they are and I only told her that I heard on the radio of a car accident and that a married couple was killed. This was the truth, but I told her that they'd been our parents. Although it's difficult for two children, we traveled back to Bodhum. Fortunately, friendly people took good care of us, but I didn't trust anyone there, we were really sad and realization hit us that we now had to take care of ourselves. Even though I sometimes wanted to cry like Serah, I stayed strong and comforted her. Since that day I was calling me Lightning. I thought, if I give myself a different name I would change who I am.

To protect Serah even better I broke up with school, when I was old enough and signed up in the military. They called themselves the Guardian Corps, short GC. Unlike Shin-Ras SOLDIER they fought to protect the people. My boss Lieutenant Amador took care of me and Serah since then, and treated us like his own daughters sometimes. As I learned discipline and how to fight with weapons, Serah continued on her normal live. On my twenty-first birthday, however, everything changed. Until then I didn't know that the GC and SOLDIER fought together sometimes, but as I had to tell Lt. Amador, on my first day in the GC, my reasons why I wanted to join, he tried to keep Shin-Ra away from me Serah.

To this day I am grateful to him. But Shin-Ra got a message about an exceptionally strong fighter and I was also immediately sought out. Serah was fortunately not home, so I could tell the two Turks, who were in front of my door, that I doesn't to belong to Shin-Ra. Though, they kept bothering me and told me if I wouldn't cooperate, they would proceed with harsher methods.

The only reason why I said yes was that I didn't Serah get in trouble and because they'd told me a lie. They said in Midgar are also GC members and that I would serve solely to the GC.
The second reason why I wanted to leave Bodhum freely was that I wanted to start somewhere anew.

I didn't want to live in a place that reminds me of my dead parents and Midgar seemed to be a good place to forget the past. Serah wasn't very enthusiastic at first, of course, she wanted to study after all. I told her that we both have better chances in Midgar than in Bodhum, but then she came up with the argument "And what about my friends?" around the corner, whereupon I replied that she would find new friends.

And so we moved from the beautiful coastal city in a big city. We immediately looked for a university where Serah could study and, as expected, she came on the first day with her new friend home. She called herself Oerba Dia Vanille and was similar to Serah, quite happily and cheery. So much so that it was annoying...but I tried to think more positively. On my first day I was informed that I had to go to the Shin-Ra building. I would rather eat tacks than going to their base, but I had no other choice. As I expected, but only in my hate-filled dreams, the Shin-Ra guys abducted me in a laboratory and tied my hands and foots. They asked me how I could be so stupid to fall for this cheap trick. Of course it was only a trap to get me into their hands...

These guys had captivated me so tight, that I could hardly move, and then they made room for their boss. An odd-looking scientist. On a name tag, I could saw his name, Hojo. He looked at me attentively, even groped me, before he made some tests on me.

The first were not so bad, so I almost fancied that it was just a routine check, but then it got worse. He used some instruments, which were like torture equipments, used electric shocks and even injected me Mako! In another experiment, he had to untie me and I took advantage of this opportunity and struck him instantly KO. When I broke out of the damn lab, SOLDIER tried to stop me, but I was much stronger than they and the Mako let my strength grow.

So I fled from the building and ran home. Luckily, I told them not where I lived, or they would probably harm Serah...When I got home was Serah already there. Her friend was probably already gone. She asked me how my first day was and why I'm so late back and when she saw my shining eyes, she went silent. The gleam in the eyes was a SOLDIER trademark. Without waiting for her next question, I said that the GC are working with Mako, to not cause her any worry.

Serah didn't believe me. She knew that the GC has nothing to do with Mako and wondered whether I might have joined SOLDIER. I, of course, said no and told her some excuse, how I came in contact with Mako. She still didn't believe me, but asked to no longer. One day as I walked through the town to get a new job somewhere, I kept hearing things about a mercenary who takes any job, whether hazardous or not.

Then I looked for him and wanted to join him because fighting is indeed the only thing I'm good at. The mercenary, known as Cloud Strife, accepted my help, and from then on we were partners. About a year later a girl joined us as well her names was Tifa.

Cloud and she knew each other obviously since childhood and since we all hated Shin-Ra we became resistance fighters called ourselves Avalanche. Our purpose was to protect the planet from the reactors and Shin-Ra, so that the planet can live a long time. Serah still doesn't know what I do for a living, because I just told her I quit at the GC. It's a good thing that she doesn't know it. All she knows is that I work with Cloud and Tifa, she doesn't need to know more.