Author's Notes:

-first fic dance-

This is a tribute to my buddy, The Stained Narrator, and his first fic here, "King of Hearts, Prince of Spades". Please check it out first before reading this!

Because really, without The Stained Narrator, this would just be crack.

It was another, beautiful, swirling day in the Lifestream

Aeris was selling flowers on a fabricated street, on which many other faceless souls came and went.

Kadaj stood beaming beside her, holding out lilies to all who passed. His brothers were inside, having accepted their deaths long ago but refusing to enjoy the sublime, eternal sunshine.

Zack was off training, also having accepted his own death after seeing Cloud finally smile for him, but not seeming to acknowledge all that being deceased entailed.

Sephiroth was with him, darkness a swarming constant around his glowing form, and as he trained, he planned interesting new ways to scare the living crap out of Cloud by resurfacing in the living realm.

All was right in the world.

There was a gentle rumble from beneath Aeris' feet, and she looked around expectantly.

"What's up?" asked Kadaj brightly. "New arrival?"

"A couple. They don't seem happy about it..."

And as the pair of newly-deceased souls staggered into the street, dripping copious amounts of dark, glittering blood, it was quite easy to see why.

"Oh my! Are those the Turks?" Aeris exclaimed, recognising the red-haired man as the one who had captured her once upon a time.

"Reno and Rude. I met them before," supplied Kadaj.

"Oh my," Aeris said again, and hurried off to greet the two.

Kadaj took her fallen basket and began to rearrange the flowers atop the counter.

"What on earth happened to you boys?" cried Aeris on seeing their injuries close up. Reno's shirt was soaked red, with numerous bullet holes in it, and his face was pale under the red tattoos on his cheekbones.

Rude was in no greater shape, immaculate suit also bloodstained, one arm limp as if broken. He held his shattered sunglasses in his one, shaking good hand, and his dark eyes seemed naked without them.

"I-it was that V-Vincent, yo," spluttered Reno, phantom blood dribbling from his mouth. "He ju-just got us, we didn't d-do a damn thing..."

Aeris was stunned- she'd been paid a brief visit from Vincent a while back, after Chaos had been destroyed and there had been a slight mix-up with who went to the afterlife.

He'd seemed... alright. As alright as Vincent got, anyway.

But Aeris wasn't sure how much time had passed since then. Time in the Lifestream seemed to accelerate somewhat, possibly due to how long it had been around, and how unchangeable death was.

Anything could have happened.

"Kadaj!" she called suddenly, snapping out of her thoughts. The silver-haired boy came out to her almost instantly. "Please get your brothers and take care of these two. I have to do some investigating."

Kadaj nodded earnestly, before shouting back at the house for Loz and Yazoo and dragging off the two Turks.

"President Shinra?" Aeris asked in astonishment- the young, strawberry-blonde president had just collapsed into the realm of the dead in almost the same state as his bodyguards had been.

"Yo! Rufus!" Reno had turned at hearing Aeris' cry and made his way towards the president.

"Hey, man! You don't look so bad... but what the hell happened?"

The blonde stared blankly at Reno for a moment, before answering. "Valentine. One shot got me." He glanced around, a look of sudden wonderment and greed forming on his face. "Is this the Promised Land?"

Everyone ignored him, only Kadaj giving him a dainty smile and leading him back to the house.

Aeris interlocked her fingers and leaned her chin on them, pondering. Why would Vincent murder President Shinra and the two Turks? Unless it was some unfinished vendetta against ShinRa... but Aeris had seen Hojo wander in a while ago, muttering darkly.

Shouldn't that have been enough? Maybe she should pay Vincent a visit soon, if she could.

The heavenly apparition deal was normally reserved for near-death situations, but maybe she could get out anyway. Cetra got extra leverage, right?

She looked around at her companions. Kadaj was preparing a light dinner in the kitchen with his brothers.

Reno and Rude were comforting their stricken president, who was near tears. All three bore shimmering golden bandages on their injuries- the bleeding had stopped almost instantly upon entry to Aeris' house, but it felt strange not to cover the wounds.

Zack had come in after Kadaj had called Sephiroth, and both sat at the table. Both had greeted Aeris in their usual way- Sephiroth with a sword through the gut, Zack with a kiss on the cheek.

No one seemed to know what had happened in the living world. Zack, Sephiroth and Aeris had all instantly worried about Cloud's wellbeing, though all for different reasons.

The more Aeris thought about it, the more she fretted. She was making to leave the house and enquire about visiting when the ground gave a soft rumble beneath her feet.

"Who are you?" she asked upon seeing the dishevelled man before her. He slumped onto the pavement, one hand trying to clutch a gaping chest wound closed.

"...Aeris?" he eventually muttered, squinting at the flower girl before him.

"Do I know you?" she asked again, crouching to help the man up.

"Oh, well, yeah..." he answered, brushing flecks of blood from his face. "Reeve Tuesti." He held out a bloody hand for her to shake. "Actually, better not... I'm- I mean, I was Cait Sith... I mean, his programmer..."

Aeris was taken aback, and tried to imagine the handsome man beside her as a robotic cat.

"Alright. Nice to see you again, Cait- though I shouldn't say anything of the sort given the circumstances. What happened?"

"I was... at the desk, cleaning up... then Vincent just stormed in and pointed his gun at me... think I passed out..."

Reeve looked blankly at his bleeding chest. "Am I dead?"

"I'm sorry."

"And this is-"

"-the Lifestream."

"And-"

"No you can't have any."

Reeve shot a glare at Aeris. "What, you think I'm still some Mako-hungry ShinRa dog?"

Aeris offered him her hand, and took him back to the house. One step in, and his wounds began knitting themselves together, but Reeve was too distracted over having died to notice.

"Now," she said, sitting down once more to the table where everyone was now eating a light pasta courtesy of Kadaj, "let's revisit the events. Reno and Rude came in first, what's your story?"

Rude looked at Reno, his silence only magnified by his sudden death. "Well, uh..." began the redhead. "We were just, y'know, walking outta the Healin Lodge, right, an' Vincent just comes outta nowhere and starts shooting." Reno prodded his bandaged chest as if to prove himself.

"So I go down first, I guess, an' what happened after, Rude?"

Reno's partner shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Tried to fight back. Valentine shot my arm, then finished me off." He seemed quite stricken.

"Thank you, boys. Now, Mr Shinra?"

"Well," began the president in the tone he had once presented many speeches in. "I was inside, after Reno and Rude left. When I heard the shots from outside, I tried to make my way out, but I couldn't get down the stairs."

"Hold up, boss," Kadaj piped up suddenly. "I thought you could still walk?"

Rufus sighed wistfully. "No. That one stunt on the building cost me dearly. It undid weeks of physiotherapy." Rufus looked down at himself. "Hey. I can walk now!"

"Please continue, Mr Shinra," prompted Aeris, somewhat impatiently.

"Err, yes, well... It was maybe a few hours later when I heard Valentine return. He raised his gun, smirked at me, and then..." Rufus touched his chest mournfully. "Everything... went... black..."

The group was unmoved.

"Reeve?"

Rufus pouted to himself before continuing with his pasta.

"Uh, well, wasn't much to it. I was in WRO headquarters, just sorting out some paperwork, and Vincent stormed in, shot me, and dragged me off. I guess I... died on the way."

Aeris touched her chin thoughtfully as she processed the events.

"So we can safely assume Vincent has been finishing off the last of the ShinRa staff. So we can expect Tseng and Ms. Elena to arrive soon?"

"I don't know where they were at the time," Rufus offered. "They might have been out to dinner or something. It was getting late when it all happened."

"Well, it's just a matter of time then, isn't it," Aeris mused sadly. "What could have prompted poor Vincent to such things?"

"What the hell is this shit?!" came a loud bellow from outside, making Aeris almost miss the shiver in the ground.

"Oh. That doesn't sound like Tseng OR Elena," she fretted, followed outside by the whole crew.

"We sure are busy today, though!" she smiled, before she realised who it was making a fuss in the street.

"Barret?" she cried, running towards her former teammate.

"Aeris! What the hell, girl? What are you doing... here..."

Barret's half smiling, half disbelieving expression suddenly dropped from his face as he made the connection.

"Oh shit, I'm dead, ain't I?"

"But how? How did this happen?" Aeris demanded, shivering at the sight of her poor dead friend.

"It was that damn FREAK, Vincent!" yelled Barret, waving his arm in the air. "Hey, hang on... where'd my gun go?" Aeris ignored him as he wondered over the sudden appearance of his right arm.

He had a single, neat bullet hole in his tattered vest jacket, probably made by Vincent to scorn Barret's explosive and aimless method of firing his gun arm.

"Come inside, Barret. This is awful..." But only a second later, another of Aeris' AVALANCHE companions crashed into the celestial street.

Aeris almost broke into tears at the sight of the girl before her.

Tifa's hair was torn into ragged, bloody locks. She had numerous bullet wounds in her bare arms and her chest, her face dirty and scraped as if it had been dragged on the ground before her death.

"This is..." she murmured, propping herself up on one bleeding arm, "the Life... stream... isn't it..."

Aeris tried to compose herself for Tifa's sake, but couldn't stop the flashes of horror in her head.

"Yes, it is. Welcome. And... I'm sorry."

Tifa smiled warmly at her, even through all her obvious agony, and accepted a hand up.

"It was Vincent, right?"

Tifa didn't question Aeris' knowledge; she just nodded over her mug of fresh hot chocolate.

After seeing her hometown burn, after surviving after trying to attack the great Sephiroth, and after living in the same house as Cloud without jumping him once, Tifa was beyond questioning anything.

Except possibly why Kadaj had given her hot chocolate.

"We were in Midgar, excavating some old buildings. Vincent came out and smiled at us both, then he just raised his gun and shot Barret. Oh." She suddenly noticed her companion sitting at the table with her.

"Well, I put up more of a fight, anyway. He shot me in both shoulders, then in my chest. He was dragging me off after- it was horrible, he had me by the hair and I was face down and everything..."

Tifa shook herself angrily, before requesting a hairbrush.

"So it isn't ShinRa he was after," Aeris said quietly once Tifa had returned from the bathroom, hair neat and shining again.

"You mean he got all of you guys too?" Tifa asked incredulously. The sullen group nodded in unison.

Aeris and Tifa sunk into silence, trying to find a connection.

"He's gone mad, yo," declared Reno after five minutes of thoughtful quiet. "It was bound to happen. He's been messed up too much in his life."

"And whose fault was that?" snapped Tifa.

"Don't blame the actions of a ShinRa employee on ShinRa itself!" Rufus retorted, ruffled by the attack on his precious company.

"Like the rest of ya dumb-ass ShinRa didn't do shit!" roared Barret indignantly, waving his right arm in what was once a threatening motion.

"What did WE do?" Reno whined.

"You set that thing on us when we tried to get the heavy materia! It was horrible!" Tifa raged.

"I was acting on orders, yo!" Reno wailed, shaking his partner for back up. "And we saved that ninja chick from the Don!"

"You ShinRa guys are such DICKS!" cried Tifa angrily, flinging her arms in the air.

"Hey, hey, hang on there!" Reeve argued meekly.

"Shut up, damnit! You kidnapped Marlene!"

"That was ages ago!"

"Can all of you be quiet for a few minutes?" Aeris finally pleaded, as the quake beneath her began to subside. "There's someone coming in."

"Gawd! What the hell is going on?" Aeris recognised the high, panicky voice instantly as the young ninja of Wutai before she even got outside. Yuffie sported a hole in her floral shirt, which was dribbling blood, and a dark purple bruise on one temple.

So Vincent had knocked her out first- possibly taking pity on her for her youth. Or possibly to shut her up.

"Omigod, Aeris? Is that you?!" Yuffie sprang through the street and hugged the older woman squarely round the neck.

"Oh, hang on," the ninja faltered, looking around at the glowing, swaying and ever-changing atmosphere. "This looks like..."

"I'm sorry, Yuffie."

"For what?"

She hadn't worked it out yet, clearly.

Aeris pointed up, at herself, and then to the bullet hole in Yuffie's chest. "Oh my gawd! I'm dead?!" Aeris nodded, then repeated herself:

"I'm sorry."

"That BASTARD!" Yuffie shrieked, punching the air in fury. "That rotten bastard! He must've SHOT me!"

Aeris waited for the tantrum to subside, before putting a hand on Yuffie's shoulder and leading her inside.

"So what happened?" Kadaj asked curiously when everyone was settled.

Yuffie was still trying to adjust to seeing her dead companion, her deadliest foes, and her own dead self in the same room.

"Vincent," she started, sipping at a familiar Wutaian tea Yazoo had prepared, "totally took me off from the house at Wutai to that weirdo cave where his dead girlfriend was. Then I dunno."

Aeris began to calculate over the scarce explanation. "So we know Reeve, Tifa and Yuffie were all taken away after Vincent took care of them. So can we assume that everyone else was? Can we assume they were all taken to the same place? And if that's the case... can we assume that this all has something to do with Ms Lucrecia?"

"Everythin' about Vincent has somethin' to do with damn woman," grumbled a voice from the door.

Aeris had been so lost in thought, she had ignored the telltale quiver in the earth below.