TOMB OF LIFE

TOMB OF LIFE

CHAPTER 1

Midgar – the height of activity on the planet Gaia belonged to this bustling city. The mako reactors that fueled energy throughout the city, and distributed to areas across the planet were imposing structures that could be seen from miles away.

For the moment there was quiet – The ShinRa corporation that was responsible for the productivity of mako energy had finally ceased its warring factions with other nations such as the Wutai and an Eco terrorist group known as Avalanche. President Rufus ShinRa and his father before him were able to convey an influence which affected the Gaia of today in more ways than one.

One of ShinRa's scientists a Dr. Gast had stumbled upon ancient hieroglyphics written in the caves of a well persevered geological stratum that had depicted the occurrences on other worlds similar to Gaia. Alternate realities he had called them in which most of the individuals involved were the same but the events were very different.

In one of the realities which had ended in serious tragedy that the ShinRa corp. They had been unwittingly following down the same path of which Dr. Gast seeked to alter that with the aid of President ShinRa. In this reality, the ShinRa Corp. had allowed a scientist by the name of Professor Hojo to run free and perform numerous human experiments not only on ShinRa's elite group of warriors called SOLDIER, but on other civilians as well. In that reality President ShinRa had been the one to blame for allowing the mad scientist his free will – before he died few years after Rufus was born he had put Gast in charge of translating the prediction cave wall and implementing what needed to be done through the company executives that ran ShinRa until the President's son Rufus, came of age.

Rufus had been trained to take over the reigns at a very young age. However, when he learned about Gast's discovery in that ancient cave he was completely onboard, as it was a means to prevent what could have been a terrible history making event on this world. He thought of Sephiroth who was a big part of the destruction caused in that alternate reality – the Sephiroth of today was the renowned General as he had been in that other world before being driven mad by knowledge of experiments he had undergone.

There were some things Gast had been unable to change though he knew of them first hand. The young Turk, Vincent Valentine had been mortally wounded while on a mission – his father's colleague Lucrecia Crescent had conducted the Chaos experiment to save his life. Gast reasoned that it had to be done, for Vincent was pivotal to this world of Gaia.

The Hojo of this world had been denied a position in ShinRa and later had been found dead in his apartment – supposedly it was suicide. However, without Hojo's influence on this reality they were able to stop the distribution of Jenova cells to the SOLDIERS. The stratum the calamity had been discovered in was reburied and stricken from all historical records. The elite group of SOLDIERS known as the Tsviets were never created however many of the warriors who became that group existed today as loyal members of SOLDIER except for Shelke and Rosso who never joined the program, in the first place.

Rufus stood in his office at the ShinRa head quarters in Midgar – Gast had died a year ago but had left strict instructions to continue translating the alternate reality charts for his future scientists to follow. Most of what ShinRa had to deal with today were petty drug traffickers in the slums of Midgar and some other cities – it was a far cry from the reality that had been awaiting it's destruction by a meteor. Rufus was soon interrupted from his thoughts when the head of the Turks, a slender man by the name of Tseng entered his office.

"President ShinRa," The Turk said in greeting bowing slightly. He was well groomed wearing a black suit and tie. His black hair was pulled into a short cropped pony tail. His face normally unsmiling was rather attractive – a distinct bindi adorned his forehead along with dark brows slanted over alluring silver eyes.

"Yes Tseng – what is it?" Rufus replied crossing his arms over his slender chest. His white suit complete with baggy pants and striped vest was the complete opposite of Tseng's.

"I'm afraid we might have a problem," Tseng stated.

"Go on," Rufus encouraged him.

"I got word from one of the scientists working in the predictions cave," Tseng began. "As we know, whoever wrote those predictions traveled here through a portal, one that could never be ascertained but now, the scientists believe that the portal is still there and active."

"Why would they think that?" Rufus asked.

"We found a corpse today of a creature that is not native to Gaia – it had to have come from somewhere," Tseng explained.

"By Shiva, I suppose a thorough search of the cave is in order."

"It's already underway sir – though I could use a little help from SOLDIER to speed things along."

"Granted, take Sephiroth and Genesis," Rufus stated.

Tseng nodded and bowed once more. He was impressed with Rufus's effectiveness in realizing the seriousness of the matter to send two of his best SOLDIERs. Tseng was not alarmed as yet -- he was convinced that anything which would come through that portal would have its hands full with what was waiting on the other side.

--

"Lara, transmission's poor what are we looking at?" a voice crackled through the receiver that was attached to Lara Croft's ear piece.

"Well Zip, it doesn't seem like much," Was Lara's reply as she observed the dusty cavern she was standing in. It had taken her a good two hours to make the trek there from the surface only to have it be all for nothing. This was not unusual to the seasoned explorer – Lara was used to some leads turning out to be dead ends. Disappointments never phased her thus the reason she had a fine collection of ancient artifacts at her mansion in England. To the outside world she was an adventurer and an archeologist but in truth she was a history seeker, who would collect artifacts valuable or not from the remote areas she visited. She had also been given the label of 'Tomb Raider' by those who knew she was more than met the eye.

"Uh oh, Alistair is making faces at me 'cause now he has nothing to do," Zip chuckled through the receiver.

"Oh cheer up Alistair, I'll be visiting the Spanish Galleon next and I'm sure I'll find lots for you to research there." Lara grinned swiping a lock of auburn curls out of her face.

"If you say so," Came the dejected voice of her historical researcher through the mouth piece.

Just as Lara was about to turn to leave, she suddenly felt the air turn icy cold which was odd considering she was out in the Egyptian desert and approximately 10 feet deep. The air had been dry and dusty for most of her time here but now all that had changed. She glanced around and gasped when she saw a dark manifestation begin to take shape before her. Reaching for her trusty pistols she pointed at the apparition expecting it to attack her at any moment.

Instead of becoming some dark creature the mist began to swirl and formed into a portal of some sort. "What the heck is that Lara?!" She heard the alarm in Zip's voice through the mouth piece.

"I have no idea, but I'm not sure I should stick around to find out." Suddenly she felt a strong gusting wind – dressed only in her brown shorts and a t-shirt with a cold wind beating against her mostly bare skin Lara felt chilled to the bone almost instantly. Sheathing her pistols she turned to make her way out of the cave when she suddenly lost her footing as the wind began to push her towards the swirling vortex.

"Lara watch out," she heard the muffled shouts of the men through her ear piece knowing that they could only watch, helpless to assist her in any way. Lara's hands scrabbled in the dirt trying to find some purchase where there was none. She reached for her magnetic grapple only to have it wrested from her grasp by the powerful gusting wind. Lara felt a moments panic as she realized there was no forestalling the inevitable – she let loose a low scream before she went careening into the portal which vanished once she passed the event horizon. In the cavern, the wind stopped and the air cooled.

--

"None of this makes any sense to me," Said Genesis as he observed the hieroglyphics on the cave walls.

"Only the scientists can read it – Gast could," Sephiroth replied his face suddenly guarded at the thoughts of the man who had raised him. He had known Gast was not his biological father for some time, yet the man had been so kind to him he loved him regardless. One year ago he found out that his father was a man named Vincent Valentine – they were estranged seeing as they had fought on opposite sides before the truth had been revealed.

Valentine had joined the group called Avalanche which had sought to stop the ShinRa Electric Company's power consumption by destroying Mako reactors. Eventually both groups had reached a compromise that allowed for the Mako production to continue but at a much reduced pace than before. Both men had difficulty reaching out to each other – such was their nature and personalities. Sephiroth despised the man for denying him his real father during his childhood.

Sephiroth had been given an explanation for all this, yet it didn't make him like the man anymore. Apparently, when Valentine had learned of the experiments that saved his life, he had retreated both physically and mentally inside himself. He had locked himself in a coffin inside the basement of the ShinRa mansion in Nibelheim. He had only been discovered a few years ago by Cloud Strife, a member of Avalanche while his team was on a raid of the mansion. Vincent had not known that Lucrecia was pregnant with Sephiroth – perhaps if he had things might have been different. Lucrecia had blamed herself for what happened to Vincent as well as the death of his father Grimore who been killed in an experiment gone wrong.

Even so, Sephiroth did not regret his upbringing. In his mind, Gast was still his father – Aeris still his sister and so forth. Aeris was Gast's biological daughter yet he had loved them both unconditionally. Sephiroth was unaware of the pain this estrangement caused Vincent and others were unlikely to interfere in the men's lives, as they wouldn't take such interference lightly.

"Did you ever learn how to read it?"

Sephiroth blinked as Genesis' voice invaded the path his mind had wandered. "No – I didn't. Listen I'm going to help the Turks with the search – if you want to keep looking for literature to compare to LOVELESS, be my guest." Sephiroth strode off to the sound of Genesis chuckling behind them. The red headed SOLDIER could have been an actor in another life with his penchant for quoting the popular play LOVELESS. He could be annoying at times but mostly, people just got used to him. He was a very good SOLDIER after all – one would just have to ignore his eccentricity.

As Sephiroth wandered through the twisting caverns he saw a few Turks he recognized on the way. Reno, Rude and Elena – the spiky-haired red head made a face as Sephiroth passed by thinking that the silver-haired man had not seen him. "Hard at work as usual Reno?" Sephiroth commented with a smirk.

Reno grinned sheepishly but said nothing in return allowing the General to pass by his team. He had barely walked for a few more minutes when he saw Tseng and Cissnei running towards him.

"What is it?" Sephiroth demanded.

"A portal – opened up back there!" Cissnei caught her breath while pointing behind her towards a cubicle.

"It tried to pull us in," Tseng explained.

"Stay here," Sephiroth stated and walked past them.

"Sephiroth please, you don't know what this thing is and we can't afford to lose you," Tseng pleaded.

"I'll be fine," Sephiroth called behind to them before entering the area they had run from. The room was empty except for rock formations jutting out of the walls – there was no portal that the green-eyed man could see in the dimly lighted area. He heard when Tseng and Cissnei entered behind him.

"Where did it go?" Cissnei cried out her dark brown eyes widening.

"What exactly did you see?" Sephiroth wanted to know.

"It was like swirling mist – definitely a portal and it was pulling us towards it," Tseng explained.

"Perhaps we should post guards in this room it might be the epicenter for… something," Sephiroth replied before leaving the cubicle.


Disclaimer -- Final Fantasy VII and Tomb Raider belongs to Square Enix and Eidos respectively.