Okay, part of this is going to be familiar, and part of it is going to be drastically different. Once upon a time I played Final Fantasy XII and became so entranced by the story that I had to add to it. I had to include one of my long-running characters into the story.

Well, that story was A Traveler in a Strange World.

I began working on rewrites of some of the chapters, adding material to them and developing them further in terms of actual game dialogue, but that fizzled around Chapter 5 or so, and I'm still not happy about the ending. Be aware that when the time comes, that part will be drastically different.

Recently, though, I discovered elements of her backstory that I had not known at the time I wrote Traveler and I found a fanfic here that turned all the things I had written on its collective ear. It's a What If situation too priceless not to explore.

So I'm giving up on rewriting the original A Traveler in a Strange World. Instead I'm going with a reset on it. A new story, new elements, some familiar, some not, and more firmly crossed with her backstory . . . which happens to be in Final Fantasy VII. The story which inspired the change is called The SOLDIER of Ivalice. It is well worth the read, trust me. Oh, and I'm shortening some of the chapters, splitting them up so I don't quite know how long this is going to go.

Enjoy, and as always, I live for reader response.

Reset: A Traveler in a Strange World

Final Fantasy XII Crossover Fanfiction

By Maracae Grizzley

Chapter One

The phone rang in Tifa's bar on the outskirts of Edge. Now that Geostigma was all but gone, the WRO had turned its efforts to rebuilding the cities which had been decimated by the destruction. The population loss, though, would be generations in repairing but at least, with efforts to find cleaner magical-electrical sources, the Planet would find ways to heal itself.

The phone rang again.

Tifa started to walk upstairs to answer it when the ringing abruptly cut off and a man's voice, low and still, spoke. "Strife Delivery Service, Cloud speaking."

She nodded to herself, so Cloud had gotten the phone this time. At least he was home today. They had all been kept very busy lately with some of the travel and delivery opportunities which had presented themselves following the defeat of Kadaj. They needed the money, goodness knows everyone had problems making a living these days, but sometimes it was difficult for all of them when he was gone so often.

At least he had started coming back to them when the delivery was done, unlike when he had Geostigma.

Tifa wondered who was calling them and walked into the office to see Cloud standing by the desk, his face bloodless and white, his eyes wide and staring at nothing. He stood completely still. Tifa started to ask him something when the phone, which was still in his hand and was still raised to his ear, dropped to the ground with a loud clatter. Cloud didn't try to pick it up again. He turned and ran for the door downstairs.

"Cloud!" Tifa called after him, "What is it? Who called?"

"No time," he called back, "it's Maracae. She's dying." His words were cut off as he ran outside and she heard the roar of an engine, Fenrir, Cloud's motorcycle, fill the air.

Tifa remembered Maracae from their journey two years before. Like Cloud, she had claimed to be former SOLDIER, and like Cloud that claim was somewhat inaccurate. Maracae wasn't SOLDIER because she was something else entirely, even though she'd grown up around SOLDIER and Shin-Ra and the scientists responsible for creating Sephiroth and Genesis.

Avalanche knew the truth about Maracae, and why she alone of all of them could use magic without materia. Maracae had come from another world before being born in their own. She had come to Midgar under her own power and had caused herself to be physically born through a woman of their world. Through Lucrecia Crescent.

Maracae was Sephiroth's kid sister, and she was one of them, one of Avalanche. She'd stood against her brother and with Cloud, to defeat the One-Winged Angel and Meteor.

Fenrir roared again as Cloud raced away from the bar in a desperate run to save the life of a friend. He had failed to save Aerith two years before; he couldn't fail Maracae, too.

---

It's said that a person's life flashes before their eyes as they are dying.

All Maracae could think was that it wasn't fair. But then, since when had her life been fair?

And goodness knew she'd had the chance to do more living and see more places and do more things than anyone she had known back when she had been merely mortal and a different person entirely. She'd had so many names over the centuries that some of them she had even forgotten, Alais, Sakura, Goldeneyes, Genevion, Maracae, and lately, simply Mara.

The Lord had dealt bitterly with her, indeed.

She fell to the ground, all strength gone from her legs and coughed weakly. Standing above her was a twisted abomination of a humanoid wolf with ebony black fur, streaked by white across his brow. Two great black wings sprung from his back, wings that made her think for a moment of a different brother entirely, and her own blood covered his hands.

He was her brother, this demonic creature who would be her death. Wolf Eyes Dreamsail, the scourge of his family, the Corrupter and the Hunter, bound to destroy those tied to him by blood, was going to be the one to finally kill the last Motherborn Shard, Goldeneyes Dreamsail herself.

He howled in a brief flare of grim delight as he prepared to take the final blow.

Maracae flinched away from him, curling her broken and bloody body around itself. She had no defenses left. She was dying, and no one knew where she was. No one knew how to find her or where she had gone. There was no one who would know enough to mourn her. She would simply vanish and not reappear.

It would be months or even years before her sisters would even wonder what happened.

She'd just wanted to get away for a couple days, clear her head as it was. She had been going home to Avalanche, hoping that they would accept her back for a while. She should have been paying attention, or Wolf Eyes wouldn't have caught her unawares, wouldn't have had the chance to seal her powers so that she couldn't fight back against him.

It wasn't fair. But nothing ever was.

And then, as if to only make it worse, she heard the roar of a motorcycle engine gunning towards them.

---

Cloud didn't know what the creature was, but it stood on legs like a man, and had a pair of great black-feathered wings spread from its back, and it stood above a broken form covered in blood, a form with blonde hair with a streak of white shining in the sunlight.

He only saw it for a moment before it struck down at Maracae and there was a flash of light and he was alone on what had just been a battlefield. He jumped off Fenrir, letting the motorcycle skid off to the side, and landed beside where Maracae had been not a moment earlier. Her blood was still soaking into the earth.

He touched the red-drenched mud for a moment and then clenched his fist and punched the blameless earth in frustration and grief over his failure. He had failed her. Yet again he had failed the ones he cared about.

There was a ringing at his side and he grimaced in pain, the tears stinging his eyes as he reached for his PHS cell phone. He flipped it open and brought it to his ear with a smooth, practiced motion. "I was too late." Oh, how the words killed him.

She's not dead. The voice was the same as before. It wasn't Tifa, as he had thought, it was the mysterious caller who had called to warn him about the threat to Maracae in the first place. She survived. I need your help if we are to send aid to her.

He nodded shortly. "What do you need?"

Bring Zack's sword to the old Church. I'll meet you there. He heard a click and the phone was silent.

Cloud stood and walked to retrieve Fenrir. He had to retrieve the Buster Sword from where he had left it as a memorial to a better SOLDIER than he.

---

The old church still stood in what was still abandoned Midgar.

Well, abandoned except for stragglers and those damaged by experiments by madmen scientists like Hojo had been. Shinra's secrets were still finding their way to the light of day, even after two years.

Cloud left Fenrir at the doors and walked in to see a woman standing at the edge of the hole in the floorboards, looking down into the Holy-tinted water that had been their salvation from Geostigma.

Her hair was long, and reddish-blond, and he could see a streak of white running through her hair. She wore a white blouse with a short, green, patchwork leather vest, brown leggings, brown leather moccasin boots, and a red sash. She had a string of beads strung around one wrist like a series of bracelets.

He walked up, carrying the weather-worn Buster Sword, and set it point down, between them. "I'm here."

She turned to look at him and he realized that her ears were pointed, and that her brilliant green eyes glowed almost exactly like his did. "That you are. My thanks, Cloud."

"What are we doing?" He had to ask. "How is this going to help Maracae?"

She didn't answer him directly. She reached and took his hand and gently pulled off the glove he wore, showing him the scar upon his palm. "Blood magic is old magic. The resonances that are carried by the exchange of blood are profound, and surpass almost anything developed since then. It's why the basic rituals are the same from world to world, culture to culture. The three of you are bound by the most ancient and powerful of magics. Friendship, and a promise that no matter where you go, you will always find each other." She looked up from his hand to meet his eyes. "I cannot send you, but I can send him." She paused. "If he is willing."

Cloud's eyes widened in surprise. "You can do that?"

She nodded. "It is a simple matter to weave a thread back onto the Loom. But he must be willing. He is content to be with her again, no matter the circumstances of their separation or their reunion Beyond. I will coerce no one." She sighed. "Step back from the sword."

Cloud took a step back, leaving the sword standing on the wooden planks of the floor, with only his hand to steady it. He felt something wrap itself around the sword and he pulled his hand back only to see the sword remain steady. He took another step and the Buster Sword began to glow slightly, the weathering repairing itself, the steel brightening back to a new shine. The only thing which did not change were the three gashes across the front of it, like the scraping of claws across the steel.

The girl lifted her hands and the sword floated through the air until it hovered above the water. As Cloud watched the light grew brighter and he saw a form appear on the other side of the sword from them. By then the light was so bright that it was painful to look on, and it made his eyes water, but he didn't look away. He couldn't. He saw the shadow of what could be dark hair, but it was too unclear to be certain.

The form reached a hand out to take the Buster Sword by the handle, and then both vanished.

The girl fell to her knees in sudden exhaustion and Cloud rushed to her side. "Are you alright?"

She nodded. "Yes. It will be alright, now. Somehow . . . somehow he'll find his way back to Maracae. He can go places we cannot right now."

Cloud nodded. "Do you need my help?"

She shook her head. "No. I need to warn the rest of us. Wolf Eyes will not take kindly to losing his prey, but he must lose this one. We need the hope she will one day carry."

"I will find my way to her someday, too."

The girl smiled. "As you wish. I shall see it arranged." She stood, then, and Cloud stood with her. "Go home to your family. Things will work out. You will see."

Cloud nodded and turned to leave. She could tell him anything she wanted. He still blamed himself for failing to save Maracae when he had the chance. The girl stayed behind, looking out at the water long after he was gone.