Intro: So, if you're a little slow and didn't gather from the title, this story is based around the children of FF7 characters. I'm sure you can figure out whose kids they are if you read it (if you can't figure Marlene out then I pity you, 'cause she's in the game). It is my first fanfic, so remember that before you shout things at me.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Final Fantasy VII or any of it's characters. Wish I did, but I don't.
They walked through the entrance of their new high school. It was supposed to be one of the finest in the world, but for twins Zack and Ama, it seemed like a strange and foreboding place. They were both going to be freshmen this year and they had never known a school to be this large. Zack had thick blond hair. His sister also had blond hair, but hers was much longer, almost down to her waist. They both had soft, grey eyes. They were also both wearing their school uniforms. The boys had to wear a sharp-looking navy suit with a white shirt underneath along with a pair of crisp, black pants. The girls were forced to wear a white blouse with a navy sweater over it and a black and navy plaid skirt.
As they entered the doorway they saw a registration table with a stern looking middle aged woman sitting at it.
"Zack…" Ama whispered. "This doesn't seem nearly as exciting as dad said it would…"
"Oh you'll be fine. We only need to register." Zack said. He was trying to sound confident, but he, too, wasn't sure of what to do.
They walked over to the registration table and signed their names down and looked to see their schedules and a map of the school.
"Oh! Zack and Ama?" The twins looked up to see who had called their names. They soon realized it was their friend Marlene, who was going into her junior year this year. She was tall and had short brown hair, as well as a kind and gentle face.
"Marlene!" said Ama, sounding relieved. "You don't know how good it is to see you…"
"Great to see you, too! I'm actually here on the welcoming committee, so I get to greet all the new students! It's pretty exciting! Come on! I'll show you to the common area!"
As Marlene entered the common area, both Zack and Ama were amazed by not only the size of it, but also with what it held. There were many couches as well as bookcases and other various forms of entertainment. They chose to sit down in a cluster of couches.
"It's been so fun getting to know everyone!" Marlene said in an excited tone. "I feel like I know so-"
"Hey! You give that back or else!" A shout went up from nearby.
"Oh my…trouble already? Should I do something?" Marlene seemed to fret. The feud was between a fierce-looking brown haired girl and another girl with flaming red hair and a smart-looking pair of glasses. The red-head clearly had taken something from the other girl.
The red-head just laughed. "It's mine now!"
Before anyone could react, the brown-haired girl hit her across the face so that she dropped what she was holding. It looked to be a little red ball. She quickly took it back and placed it in her pocket, like nothing had happened.
When seeing this, Marlene seemed to be horrified. "That's one I might not welcome…" she said quietly.
"Girls!" The woman who was previously at the registration desk cried out. She was obviously the principal. "Can you explain yourselves?!"
"She hit me!" The red-head said, pointing at the other girl.
"I saw that. Now what's your name?"
"Sarai." The girl replied.
"Oh yes, Sarai. Well, I would like you to know that we do not permit stealing here! Ever!" The principal replied.
"I didn't steal!" Sarai whined.
The principal ignored her. "Now, you miss, what is your name?" She looked at the other girl.
"Noel."
"Well, Noel, I would like to see you in my office after classes end. And I don't want to see this behavior anymore! Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am." Noel replied, with a tone of indifference.
"You are both free to go."
Just as the principal had dismissed the two, the bell rang.
"Well…my goodness. That was something. Anyway, it's time to go to your homeroom!"
Marlene told them. Zack and Ama actually were lucky enough to be put in the same room, so this helped them a little.
As they entered and sat down they noticed a familiar face. Noel was sitting in the desk just to the right of Ama. This girl was obviously not one to mess with, but the most striking feature about her was her eyes. They were fierce and seemed to hold a steady confidence in them.
The homeroom teacher looked to be very kind, she was still young and she addressed the class with a warm smile. "Welcome! I hope you find this school year to be a fine one! I would like you all to get to know each other, so go ahead and introduce yourself to the person next to you!"
At this Ama felt sick. She turned to Noel and introduced herself. "Hello, I'm Ama…" She said, almost expecting to get her head ripped off.
"Hello, Ama! I'm Noel. Nice to meet you!" Ama was stunned. She was being nice!
"What class do you have next?" Noel asked.
"Um…science…you?"
"Aw yeah! I'm in science, too!"
"Cool, I guess we'll go together then…"
"Sounds good. Hey, is that your brother? You guys look alike. You must be twins."
"Yep, we are. Hey, Zack, this is Noel. Noel, this is Zack." Ama introduced them and Zack spoke up.
"Haha, yeah, I know you. You're that girl who beat up that Sarai-girl!" Ama was stunned that her brother had just said this, but Noel just flushed.
"Well, it was more like I taught her a lesson. If someone stole something important from you, you would do the same, right?"
"Er…no…I don't think so…" Was Zack's reply.
Before they knew it the bell rang and everyone headed for class, and sooner than they knew, it was the end of the day and everybody gathered common room before dinner.
Ama, Zack, and Marlene gathered together in a cluster of couches, but Noel was nowhere to be found.
"Hey, guess who I made friends with, Marlene!" Ama said.
"Who?"
"Noel. You know her. From that incident this morning."
"What?! That girl?" Marlene had an expression on her face that seemed to wonder when someone was going to say "April Fools".
"She's really nice, actually." Ama said. "And she's a genius! You should have seen her in science! It was incredible!"
At that moment Sarai came over and sat down. "I hope you don't mind that I'm sitting here." She said. "Everywhere else was taken."
"You're fine." Marlene said.
Sarai looked around. "Who were you guys talking about?"
"Your best friend, Noel" Zack replied smartly.
"Ugh! That girl! I didn't even touch her and she freaked out! I would have given it back…"
A bell rang and Marlene quickly jumped up and said "Dinner!" She seemed happy for an excuse to get away from the conversation.
Everyone sat down together for dinner, including Sarai. Noel (who was being reprimanded from her actions that morning before dinner) also joined them and looked disdainfully at Sarai.
"Hey! Tomorrow's Saturday, right? We should do something!" Ama exclaimed as she was eating a salad.
Noel kept glancing sideways towards Sarai, as if warning Ama of her presence. Ama didn't notice.
"I guess we could just go exploring around the school. It sure is big enough…" Ama said to everyone.
"Sounds great!" Sarai jumped in. "Let's do it after breakfast tomorrow!"
"Yeah…sure…" said Zack, glancing at Noel. She just shrugged.
"Excuse me." A cool male voice said behind them. Sarai turned around to see another freshman with blondish-orange hair and suspicious, light blue eyes. "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. You see, I need help with…something…tomorrow and I was curious if anyone would like to help."
Sarai seemed to think this was a much better idea. "Oh! I'll help you…um…"
"Name's Aiden. Yours?" Aiden didn't seem to care much about Sarai, though. In fact, it seemed that he didn't even hear her name in the first place.
"We'll meet tomorrow after breakfast then." And with that he turned around and left.
"How weird…" Marlene said when he was out of earshot.
"You know whatever he's doing is trouble…" A voice said from the seat next to Ama, causing her to jump. She looked over to see another boy with long, shaggy, black hair and a mysterious face sitting next to her.
"Have you been here this whole time?" Ama asked, regaining her composure.
He ignored the question. "I believe he's after something."
"Right…" Zack said lazily. "Well, I'm finished eating. I'm going to hang out in the common area. See you guys later." Everyone else followed his lead and pondered over what Aiden might be planning.
"He seems like a really nice guy to me!" Sarai said.
"I dunno, he seems awfully suspicious in my opinion…" Marlene replied.
"Yeah, there's definitely something not right with him." Noel agreed.
This seemed to anger Sarai. "You're just saying that because you wished he asked you!"
Noel just rolled her eyes.
"I think whatever he wants to do is going to be wonderful!" Sarai said in a wistful sort of tone. "You just wait!"
"Yeah, we'll see…" Zack said.
That morning at breakfast everyone (excluding Sarai, who was sitting with Aiden) was talking about their plans for what to do after they ate.
"I say we go look at some of the old classrooms. There's bound to be something of interest in them." Ama suggested.
"Sounds good to me." Zack said.
"Well…I'm not sure…we could get in trouble for something like that…" Marlene added.
"Fine, you stay here, then." Zack said matter-of-factly. "Everyone else has agreed to go."
"Oh fine…I'll come with you…" She said in a hesitant voice. She reached over to read the newspaper which she received every morning.
"Oh my…" She said, scanning the front page. "Listen to this. Apparently there have been mysterious disappearances off the coast of Costa Del Sol and Junon Harbor…the cause is unknown and apparently thirty people have gone missing so far…" She looked up from her paper and added, "What in the world could be causing something like that?"
"Maybe there's some kind of rip current?" Noel guessed.
"Or maybe there's something there under the ocean…" said the same mysterious boy from dinner the other night. Ama jumped in surprise again.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"Sorry, my name's Xavier."
"Well, I'm Ama…pleasure to meet you…" she said in an unconvincing tone.
Everyone else introduced themselves to Xavier and even decided to let him join in the day's activity of searching through the old classrooms.
They went searching through various classrooms on various floors, but had not really found much of interest.
"But I found this old textbook from 1932!" Ama said suddenly as they were pondering whether or not to continue their "adventure".
"Ama, no one wants that…" Zack said to her.
"Fine then, but I don't see you with anything!"
"That's 'cause there isn't anything!"
"Okay, guys…how about one more room…" Marlene said. Everyone looked at her in surprise. She didn't like the idea of exploring classrooms in the first place.
They went up to an old classroom on the top floor. It smelled of mothballs and there was a thick coating of dust on many of the surfaces.
They went searching through various desks and drawers to see what they could find, all while coughing and sneezing terribly.
"This is the dumbest thing in history…" Zack stated.
"How would you know? You slept in history class yesterday!" Noel retorted. "Although I kind of agree…Hey, wait a minute! I think I found something here!" She held up a small gold pendant with a beautiful and spotless emerald in the center.
"Huh, wonder what that's doing here…It doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of this old room, that's for sure" Marlene said.
"I think there's more to it than we see…" Xavier added.
"Oh yeah, like what?" Zack asked him.
Xavier just shrugged and was silent.
"Right…" said Zack, "Well, then, let's just take it and find something else to do now."
"No!" shouted Marlene, "We can't take it! That would be stealing! We should just leave it here!"
"I bet no one even knows it's here" said Noel. "And besides, Xavier could be right. There could be something really interesting about it".
"Okay, fine! Take it then! But I will be no part of it" Marlene said.
Later in the day Noel decided to hide the pendant in an old sock so that no one else would find it. She thought she might examine it later if she felt like it. She couldn't imagine what might be special about it, though. It seemed ordinary enough.