This is a story I wasn't certain I was going to be able to write. Heck, I'm still not certain I'm going to be able to write it, but I'm trying anyway. Yes, this is my goldeneyed Mary Sue running through Midgar the way she ran through Ivalice, or rather, the way she will run through Ivalice . . .
This is the story she hinted at as background, as backstory, when asked about her past in Final Fantasy XII: A Traveler in a Strange World and to a lesser extent the in-progress sequel Ivalice Returning.
I would greatly appreciate any and all comments as I am struggling with trying to put this tale into words. I could certainly use the support.
Final Fantasy VII: Beginnings
The soldier walked into the scientist's office with determination. The laboratories where the two men worked were secret, hidden in the labyrinthine chambers beneath the Manor in the rebuilt ruins of Nibelheim. The soldier didn't like having to speak to the scientist, he was a decidedly odd one to speak to, always hmming and muttering to himself, but he was a scientist, a brilliant one, and they were both employees of the great Shin-Ra Corporation.
And so, as much as he disliked the responsibility, he had to deal with the man, even though Doctor Hojo gave him the creeps.
"Doctor Hojo," he said as he entered, "I have something to report."
The doctor was looking at the shattered remains of what had been two containment units. Units which had only recently contained two experimental specimens, valuable ones at that. Their loss was not something he took lightly, even if one was a failure. "Hmm? What is it that you have to report, then?"
The soldier laid several pieces of paper on the desk which sat nearby, covered in books, some open, some just stacked one atop the other. "Our forces caught up with them just outside of Midgar. Subject A was killed, allowing Subject B to escape."
Hojo was silent for a moment before turning around to look at the soldier from behind his wire-framed glasses. "And Subject M?"
He couldn't help it. The soldier paled. "There were no survivors in the strike force which met up with them. One of them was carrying a recorder, but it was almost completely destroyed as well. We have only a small piece still intact."
He placed a disk on the desk. Hojo looked at the disk for a moment and then slid it calmly into a reading device. The screen lit up momentarily and then the picture cleared to show the chaos of a battlefield, men's voices screaming in terror. Two men were on the ground in the distance, both in SOLDIER blue, one lying prone, dying, the other kneeling next to him.
But what caught the attention was the fearsomely angelic being above them. Female, and blonde, her face caught in an expression of fury and grief, she lifted her hand and a burst of blue-white light erupted from her palm, streaking towards the camera. It struck and the screen went blank.
Hojo was silent as he pulled the disk from the reader and slid it into a protective device.
"It appears that Subject M was hiding things from me." Hojo looked at the disk in his hands for a moment. "Report to Shin-Ra that I will be sending a file to them soon." The soldier left and Hojo returned to his thoughts. It appeared that the girl might be just as valuable as his son.
---
Two former SOLDIERs staggered into the Midgar slums. At least, they looked like former SOLDIERs. They both wore the blue uniforms of the elite warriors of the Shin-Ra Corporation. One, the male, was wearing only one shoulder piece, though the other, the female, had both on. They were both blond of hair, his short and spiky, hers long and falling in waves except for the streak of white that ran through it, and they both stumbled as they walked.
It was something of an oddity to see a female SOLDIER. Shin-Ra didn't often hire women to join its military teams, but the odd one did make it through the training and the testing, so it wasn't like she would be immediately known as a single example or as a complete fraud for wearing the uniform, and for claiming the status.
They had both decided that they would be former SOLDIERs.
The male had glowing blue-green eyes like all those drenched in the magical Mako energy that Shin-Ra harvested to use for electricity to power homes and gadgets. Mako eyes, they were called, the mark of the SOLDIER. The female, though, the female was odd in that her eyes were not the glowing cyan color that his were. Her eyes were golden. Not yellow, not amber, they were the glowing color of liquid gold, shining like a new-minted coin.
Her face was pinched and painful as she helped her friend struggle to sit beside the train station near the Sector Seven slums.
"Well, Cloud," she murmured softly, "looks like we made it to Midgar, though I don't know where we'll go from here."
He met her eyes with his own, acknowledging her presence in a way that hadn't been possible not that long before. "We'll . . . be alright," he murmured, "you'll see."
She sighed. It didn't help that she was as emotionally malleable at that moment as he was. He was coming out of a very difficult poisoning. She . . . well, she had killed. And the pain of it was tearing her mind into pieces. She could not afford to go mad. She had been down that road once in her life; she was not going back there again.
She tried to stand again, but fell down beside him, all strength gone from her trembling legs. She was sinking into a full-fledged panic attack, and that wasn't going to help them at all if they were noticed.
A voice rang out, then, from across the way. "Cloud? Is that you?"
A young woman came running up to them, her long dark hair hung loose and she wore black shorts with suspenders over a white top that left her belly showing. She looked like she was the kind to defend herself, though, against unwanted attention. There was too much definition in the muscles in her arms and legs for her not to be practiced in some form of combat.
Her voice woke Cloud like nothing his friend had done. He looked up at her curiously. "Who?"
"Cloud, it's Tifa, can't you remember me?" She looked closely at him and then over at the other girl. "Who is this with you?"
The goldeneyed girl could see the instant assumption in Tifa's eyes. An assumption which was wrong, in all senses. She forced herself to her feet to meet the other girl. "I'm what you would call a war-buddy, I suppose. My name's Maracae. Cloud and me were in SOLDIER together, decided to get out together, go looking for an old childhood friend of his. Would you be the one?"
Tifa nodded, her eyes relaxing as she accepted the story. "So you made it to SOLDIER, Cloud?" She turned back to him.
Maracae could see him changing, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. Zack . . . Zack's last words to him had set this in motion. Cloud nodded, taking on some of the mannerisms she knew belonged to someone else. "Yeah, First Class, even."
Tifa looked at Maracae. "Are you . . . ?"
Maracae nodded. Might as well play this to the hilt. "Yeah, First Class too."
Cloud continued the story. "We're out, though, fed up with Shin-Ra. We're going to be mercenaries. Do the stuff others need doing, you know?"
Maracae sighed silently. It had been Zack's dream. Now . . . it belonged to Cloud, Zack's living legacy.
As it turned out, Tifa knew some people who needed help of just the sort two former SOLDIERs could provide.
