A/N: Well. I've not written a story in years, and here I am, doing two epics at once. I apologise. This thing is long and probably full of errors. If you do find any, tell me and I'll fix them right away.
Please note: I'd like to hope that, although this story is set during the events of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core and Before Crisis, you won't need to play them (I've never played them myself). I'm hoping I do a good enough job of allowing people who have never played a single Final Fantasy game to be drawn into the action and the story and the characters.
I also won't be using a single OC (except for really minor background characters): every major player, and most minor players, are characters from various Final Fantasy games. There will be no Disney characters in this story however (simply because I can't bring myself to put childhood icons into such a dark, gritty world. Nor could I find a place where they would fit). I'm sure that will bum out every single one of you, but it can't be helped, I'm sorry.
Warnings: This story is going to be dark. Like, really dark. So there will be dark themes, including, but not limited to: child abuse, sexual assault (including of underage characters), rape (including of underage characters), character death (minor and major), racism, sexism, homophobia, heavy language, thoughts of suicides and other issues dealing with suicide and sex between various characters (it won't be descriptive, unless I choose to upload it on another sight) including characters who are underage.
Pairings: Pairings won't be arriving until (much) later in the game, but they include RikuSora, AxelRoxas, LeonCloud, ZackCloud, SnowSerah, ZackAerith, DemyxZexion and a few possible others, although I'm not sure what yet.
Chapter One
"The Fates Are Cruel."
Nibelheim was poison.
Many would tell you that the picturesque village was a wonderful place: somewhere children could be raised without the harsh criticisms of those sorry folk crushed together under the Midgar Plates; somewhere families could breathe in fresh, crisp, mountain air, instead of the Mako-diluted sludge that blanketed Midgar and its surrounding areas in an inescapable layer of pollution; somewhere any person, regardless of their roots, could live and find easy acceptance.
The Strife family had never found this to be the case: or at least, since the death of her husband, Claudia Strife had never found this to be the case. Upon her arrival in the village slightly over fourteen years ago, with a tiny daughter clinging to either hand, her stomach swollen with the signs of her late-stage pregnancy, Mayor Lockhart himself had greeted her at the village's entrance, a smile on his face.
After exchanging pleasantries, and being glared at by Claudia's eldest when the man attempted to tickle her under the chin, the Mayor had shown Claudia and her children to their new house, a lovely two-storey affair with enough bedrooms for herself, her girls, and the baby on the way.
It was the words the Mayor had said whilst he was leaving that should have clued the young mother into just how wrong Nibelheim was.
"We're simply honoured to have the wife of an esteemed member of the Shinra elite within our humble village."
Maybe, if her youngest daughter hadn't chosen that moment to knock a vase of flowers off the table despite the fact that they had only been in the house two minutes, she would have looked deeper into that sentence as her husband often told her to.
However, with nothing more than a distracted "The honour's all ours," to Mayor Lockhart, she found her attention quickly diverted to cleaning up the shards of the vase before one of her girls hurt themselves.
Months later, after the pregnancy, where the poor woman had been shocked at not one, but two babies more than she had planned for, Claudia had finally accepted Nibelheim as an absolutely perfect place to raise her children, and the locals were quick to help her get the supplies she needed with the arrival of three new babies instead of one.
Her husband had only seen the triplets once before he died a month after their birth.
The circumstances surrounding his death had been nothing new: on a routine expedition to the continent of Wutai, his squad of soldiers had been attacked and brutally slaughtered, leaving no survivors.
This had been done just as the war with Wutai had begun, so Shinra had insisted at every press conference that they really couldn't be held to account for the loss of over fifty lives.
The only thing that Shinra had sent back that had belonged to her beloved husband was a bloodied uniform and an equally bloodied picture that he had been clutching as he died: a picture of Claudia, one baby in her arms, a small, content smile on her face, whilst her daughters stood on either side of her, each holding a baby of their own, their small brows furrowed in concentration.
Claudia had been devastated. She was sure that the only reason she hadn't fallen into despair had been her babies: her only joys left in life, gazing up at her with their matching blue eyes as she read the official letter from the Shinra company, impersonally informing her of the death of her husband, how they were very sorry for her loss, how the compensation she received would keep her going until she managed to find herself a job.
Claudia had not cried until she had put the children to bed that night, and even then she had only done it at midnight, when she knew her children were all sleeping, as she curled up under the covers and mourned her loss as quietly as possible, the letter from Shinra a scrunched up ball in her fist.
The very next day, the attitudes of the adults in the quaint village had made a sharp U-turn. As soon as Claudia, head held high, had stepped out of her door during the early hours of the morning, intent on finding a job to support her children, the scant number of people shuffling around the town square had diverted their attention from her, with one of the younger men even shooting her a disgusted glare.
The widow had misinterpreted the looks and the avoidance as the villagers simply being awkward over what to say to her in response to the news of her husband's death. It had been, after all, at the insistence of Shinra, a widely televised event.
Claudia's shock after the owner of the small, local inn had snidely informed her that he had no jobs for 'widow whores' did not actually hit her full force at first. She simply believed that she had misheard him, aqua eyes wide.
When he had repeated his word, Claudia had left the shop with her mind empty of any thoughts.
It was then she had noticed what the expressions on the villagers faces had actually meant, but, instead of being hurt or upset, she had found herself gripped by a sudden panic: she certainly did not have enough money to move, and with the triplets so young, she wasn't sure if she wanted to make the journey across monster-infested Gaia anyway; and she may not manage to find any sort of work that would allow her to have her babies near her so she could look after them whilst the girls were at school.
The urge to cry swept through her with all the force of a Lightning Materia, and the blonde felt her knees start to shake.
She hurried to her house, flinging herself through the front door, pressing her back against it to close it behind her.
As she stood in the entrance to her house, she breathed, long and deep, the sounds of shuffling on the stairs diverting her attention from the green carpeted floor she had been staring at.
Her eldest was standing there, peering between the wooden rungs of the banister to look at her mama, tiny face full of worry.
Catching her daughter's eyes, Claudia Strife decided something: she would not cry over this village, she would not let it beat her, and she would definitely not let her children see her break.
Striding to the stairs, forcing a smile onto her face (that became more natural when she saw her daughter smile hesitantly back), Claudia grasped her little girl's hand.
"Let's go see if the babies are up, okay Claire?"
Claire simply smiled wider, and nodded.
It hadn't been easy the next couple of years, but Claudia had eventually been offered a job by Zangan.
The man was a martial arts instructor, who travelled the world, teaching children. He was an older man, with greying hair and light beard, but he was still tall and broad, with an attractive, lined face.
Although he only stayed in Nibelheim for a week every month, every time he arrived, he offered young Claudia a job, assisting him with looking after the children, who hadn't yet grown to despise her and her family.
Zangan always gave her far more money than he possibly should have: always enough to last for the month until he arrived again.
He had even started teaching Claire for no extra charge, simply laughing when Claudia had tried to object, stating, "Claudia. The only people that pay me for teaching their children self-defence are those with more money than sense. I tell them I do it free-of-charge, and yet they insist, seeming to think that if they give me money I'll favour their children over the others, which is certainly not the case."
Whatever the truth of the matter was, Claire got her free training, and quickly grew to be the best in the class at the tender age of nine, as she studied with a fierce determination.
When Zangan had took her aside and informed her that there was no more he could teach her, she had glared.
He had then asked her a simple question.
"What is it that you fight for Claire?"
"My family."
Zangan had been surprised at the swiftness of her answer and the conviction in her eyes as she had said this, but he had simply offered her a nod, before sending her on her way.
Claire had taken to her job as defender of her younger siblings with a vigour not many possessed.
Every time her little sister, who hadn't been interested in studying martial arts, but rather, in painting and singing and playing dress up, came to her crying, with her hair pulled free of its cute braids for the day and her knees and palms skinned from being shoved to the ground by brittle, bitter children who had learned from an early age from their brittle, bitter parents, Claire would immediately stop whatever she had been doing, and find the culprit.
The bullying would always lessen after she had dealt with them.
Claire remembered clearly Master Zangan's rules about martial arts: that it was only to be used in self-defence and never for revenge. But Claire didn't care. If rotten children were going to hurt her siblings, she sure as hell was going to hurt them back, honour and rules and traditions be damned.
Since her father's death, Claire had been something of a support for her mama, even without her mama realising it. When her little sister got a bit uppity, Claire would take her for a walk on the outskirts of the village, where the fields were like a green canvas splattered with bright spots of colour. The oldest Strife sibling would amuse herself with simply watching her little sister laugh in delight as she ran through the flowers and made lovely little flower crowns, which Claire would always wear with no complaint, until they died and she had to throw it away.
Many a child had been on the receiving end of her fists and feet whilst she was sporting a bright pink flower wreath on her head.
Claire had also made it a habit to help her mama when she was dealing with the triplets. Whilst Claudia was nursing two of them, Claire would lie on her stomach on the rug of the sitting room, in front of the fire, amusing the third baby. Often she would tickle their little feet or blow air bubbles on their pudgy bellies.
Sometimes, she would simply hold her tiny sibling close and listen to her sister read a little to them from whatever book she had on hand at the time.
Claire's favourite stories involved tales of great heroes who had vanquished terrible monsters, whilst her sister's favourite stories were all about true love and noble ladies.
Occasionally, when their mother was nursing, she would interrupt the minor squabbling of her daughters with a tale of her own.
They always involved noble ladies who were themselves the great heroes, who fought their way to freedom from towers and the hold of evil witches, before finding their own true love.
Claire and her sister quickly decided these were their favourite stories, and would amuse themselves for hours coming up with new tales about beautiful, delicate ladies who had been locked in a monster's dungeon and who, through their own strength of will, escaped all by themselves.
Claire had never hated her father until she was ten. She knew it wasn't his fault that he had joined the planet before the triplets' had even turned one; that it wasn't his fault that he would never see his second youngest daughter paint her first masterpiece; that he would never see the triplets learn to walk, or speak, or run; that he would never see Claire become a little warrior.
But when the youngest of all of her siblings had found her sitting in front of the house, where she would often busy herself glaring at the other villagers, tears in his large blue eyes and a bruise on his round little cheek, Claire had loathed him; loathed him for leaving his family behind to deal with a village of monsters when she remembered his final words to her being, "Papa's fighting the monsters for you. Nothing can hurt you now."
The child who had hurt her three year old brother, a boy who was the same age as her, and far bigger, had been so messed up by what she had done to him, that the villagers had thought a monster was prowling too close to Nibelheim. The boy who she had hurt so badly he had a permanent limp from that day on, did not correct them.
The tiny flame of anger Claire had had inside of her since the first time her little sister had come to her sobbing had blazed into an inferno so all-encompassing that the little ten year old knew she had lost something of herself that day.
Something important to her; something fundamental.
But she comforted herself with the thought that it would allow her to keep her family safe.
And that's all she needed.
Claire had taken to teaching her youngest brother a little bit of martial arts around the back of her house when her mama was out shopping. He had come to her when he was five and begged her.
And so she had.
But she had sworn to herself that she would only teach her siblings if they asked, because she didn't want them to feel as though they had to bear the burden that she herself did.
On the rare days where Claire did not have someone to beat up and when her mother had taken her siblings out to the fields herself, Claire would break away from them and go into Shinra Mansion.
The mansion was a huge building, and it stuck out like a sore thumb in the village of Nibelheim, with its small, stonework houses and bright colours. The front of the mansion was rather well preserved, with the paint still strong in colour, and the windows unbroken, despite the layer of dust coating them from the inside.
Inside the mansion was a different story.
The massive entrance hall was dark, the huge, curling staircase leading to the second floor missing its banister, the floor littered with so many holes that if one wasn't careful they could easily break an ankle. The wallpaper on the walls was peeling back to expose the yellowing wood beneath. Paintings had fallen to the floor, and the air was stale.
The feeling of being watched caused a sensation of cold fingers trailing up your spine as soon as you stepped foot through the front doors.
Which is exactly why Claire was in the mansion in the first place.
To train.
Claire learned quickly not to wander too far into the mansion.
The monsters in the entrance were tough, but not too hard.
The monsters on the second floor had nearly decapitated her when she'd wandered up there for a look.
So Claire stuck to the first floor, and built up her strength.
By the time Claire was fourteen, she had managed to explore the entire mansion (that she knew of).
Now, it was time to check out the safe.
Over her years of fighting in the mansion, Claire had discovered, carved into various location throughout the dilapidated place, a code.
She had puzzled over it, before she had discovered the safe, tucked into a back room on the second floor.
But something had told her not to open the thing until she had trained to the best of her capabilities.
Finally, however she was ready.
The monster that had been in the safe was massive, half purple, half red, with an ugly glare on its face.
Half way through the fight, Claire, bloody and bruised, was surprised at the sight of the thing…. morphing. Its skin seemed to bulge, cracks appearing in its tough hide in a vein like pattern, before the purple skin seemed to spread to the red half.
In moments, the entire creature's body was purple, and Claire took a small, involuntary step back.
The thing rushed at her.
Claire would never be able to tell anyone how she had survived the fight, but, as she slammed her fists straight through the creature's eyes, green blood splattering her face and chest, she could only smirk as it slumped to the floor, battered and very much dead.
She approached the safe, eyes narrowing in on what was hidden at the bottom, her right foot dragging behind her, and her left arm limp at her side.
There was a dark purple book, with the words 'Cosmo Memory' scrawled across the front in penmanship that gave off the vibe the writer had been rushed. When she attempted to pick it up, she froze, shaking her head.
This wasn't for her.
Her eyes flickered to the item next to the book.
A key.
Again, she passed over it. There were many secrets to this mansion, but she wasn't interested in discovering any more than she already had.
Finally, she saw it, tucked in the back corner.
It was a crystal ball, glowing red with an inner light.
With trembling fingers, she picked it up.
As her fingers touched the crystal, her mind stopped.
She was floating in a void, her eyes wide but unable to see anything.
There was the sudden sound of a child's laughter, and Claire felt something grasp her left hand, but when she looked down, there was nothing there.
She looked around trying to see something, anything, when her attention was caught by a patch of the nothing shifting.
She wanted to go toward it, but she was unable to move her limbs, as though she had been paralysed. Only her head and eyes were free to look around.
A booming voice, that seemed to become the nothingness around her, startled her.
"You have fought well. You will make an excellent warrior."
The voice seemed ancient, a culmination of millions of voices and languages on top of one another, some whispering, some screaming; some young, some old; some male, some female.
Claire narrowed her eyes, but before she could say anything, the voice spoke again.
"I am a Summon Materia. The mighty Odin. I choose you as my warrior."
Claire, eyes wide, nodded.
Blinking, Claire looked around herself.
She was still in the mansion, and a quick look at the watch on her wrist (that had a thick smear of green and red blood covering it) told her that no time had passed.
With a start, she realised that she was still clutching the ball of materia in her fist, the thing tingling her palm with the natural energy contained within it.
Standing up, she started to make her way to the door of the room she was in, before she froze.
She turned back, and shut the safe behind herself.
Claire didn't realise her arm and leg were functioning fine.
Claire got caught by Mayor Lockhart's daughter as she was leaving the mansion. The little girl, only a few months younger than her brothers, and the same age of seven years old, stared at her bloody form with critical eyes.
Claire stared back at her, expression carefully blank as she waited for the girl to move out of the way of the gate she was trying to get through before some stupid adult caught her.
Finally, Tifa Lockhart stepped back, but not before saying, with a tiny, gentle smile on her pretty face, "There's a small spring further into the mountains where you can wash off all that blood so no one sees you."
Claire, offering the little girl nothing more than a nod, made her way deeper into the mountains.
The only person Claire showed her new materia, her crystallised ball of magic to, was her youngest brother who, under her tutelage, had become almost as good at martial arts as her. A few lessons from Zangan, and he would be ready to start training in the mansion too.
His large, electric blue eyes widened as Claire held the red crystal out to him, and his little mouth dropped open as he poked it.
"Is that materia?" he questioned, and Claire gave him a critical once over. "I learnt about it from reading the books I snuck out of classrooms for the older pupils."
Claire, after a moment of thought, told him that it was materia, a Summon Materia to be exact.
If possible, his eyes widened even further.
"Claire, do you know how rare those are?" with a shake of Claire's head to show she didn't, the tiny seven year old launched into a brief explanation. "Well, obviously you know that materia is the crystallised form of Mako. But in the book I read, it said that, where most materia is artificially created by Shinra, some materia occurs naturally within Mako Springs, places where the Lifestream has leaked through cracks in the Planet to the surface. The process of the Mako hardening into a materia crystal takes thousands of years, but it's believed by most scientists that Summon Materia has entrapped the souls of some of Gaia's most powerful warriors within it, if not the Gods of the Planet themselves. Due to that, Summon Materia probably takes hundreds of thousands of years to form, rather than just thousands."
Claire leant against the wall of the back of her house as her youngest sibling rambled on about different types of materia and their properties and how they could drain the body.
He really was incredibly smart for such a tiny boy.
Claire's fifteenth birthday passed without much fanfare, as she had always hated large parties. The family simply sat in the sitting room like old times, and regaled each other with tales they had made up.
As always, mama's were all about heroes and families and being strong for those who need you.
Claire's sister's story was about a young woman who had overcome years of harsh treatment at the hands of the terrible people in the town she lived in, who had then found her true love after battling a dragon.
The oldest of the triplets, in a quiet voice, told his siblings and mama a story about a boy who grew up to be one of the strongest and most loved warriors in the land after years of abuse at the hands of his peers.
The middle triplet told a story about a boy who, after years of hatred, had finally made friends who loved him and his family.
The youngest Strife sibling talked about a powerful woman, who protected all those around her with little reward for herself, other than the happiness of those she loved.
In bed that night, Claire came to a decision.
She had had enough.
It was four in the morning when Claire finished writing her letter and crept down the stairs. She stuffed some food into her backpack from the kitchen, and then moved to the front door, sliding on her knee high boots before she laced them up tightly, expression heavy.
She was startled by the sound of someone on the stairs behind her.
Whirling around, she caught sight of her sister staring at her, a hesitant smile on her face.
"You're going out to train, right?" her tone implied that she knew this wasn't the case.
Claire turned back to face the front door, her hand closing around the handle.
"No."
"Oh," there was silence from her sister's end for a while, before she cleared her throat. Claire could hear the forced smile in her voice, "We won't see you again for a while, will we?"
Claire shook her head.
"Oh."
Claire made to move forward, when more shuffling from the stairs caught her attention.
"Sis?" Claire threw a look over her shoulder at the whispered plea, catching sight of her youngest sibling standing on the stairs beside his sister. She didn't have a chance to say anything before he was scurrying down the stairs and racing towards his eldest sister. "I'll miss you."
Claire turned, kneeling down to catch her youngest sibling in a hug. Over his thin, shaking shoulder, she caught sight of her sister covering her eyes with trembling hands.
"I'll miss you too. But, I want you to do something for me, okay?" The tiny boy looked up at her with watery blue eyes, before he nodded his head rapidly
"Yes. Yes! I'll do it."
Claire smiled sadly at her youngest sibling, always so eager to please her. "Look after your brothers and sister for me, alright Roxas?"
Without a moment's pause, he nodded again, and Claire caught sight of the tear tracks on his flushed, round cheeks.
She squished his chubby little face between her palms, before standing up, hiking her bag further up her shoulder to catch it before it slipped.
As she opened the door, she heard the two chorus, "I love you, Claire."
She paused for a second, before she spoke to them again.
"It's Lightning."
The door closed behind Lightning with a muffled thump, and Serah and Roxas hugged each other tightly as they fought back tears.
By the time their mama had gathered up the supplies needed to go after her oldest daughter, it was too late. The letter had arrived from Shinra, informing Claudia that her daughter, one 'Lighting Farron' had been accepted in the ranks of the Shinra army, and they were grateful to the Strife family for their continued support of the Shinra Corporation.
Why Claire had chosen to change her name was something that Claudia knew the answer to, but wanted to pretend she didn't: it hurt her that her eldest daughter resented her father so much that she felt the need to change her name to the one her mother had wanted to name her before she had decided her husband's choice was probably the better. That she had went from Strife, to Claudia's maiden name 'Farron' was a blow that Claudia could barely handle.
But the Strife matriarch comforted herself with the knowledge that, as corrupted as Shinra was, Claire- well, Lightning now- could definitely take care of herself, and Shinra would keep her fed and pay her when she started moving up in rank.
Claudia knew it was a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. Lightning may have thought that she was keeping it a good secret, but Claudia knew her children better than they did themselves, and she had quickly realised that the reason Lightning did not join the family on their excursions to the fields was because she was prowling the Shinra Mansion for monsters.
But Claudia also knew that her daughter could tell when something was too much, so she had been content to let her eldest train.
However, despite how well Claudia knew her children, she didn't notice the restlessness in Serah until it was too late.
Sometimes, Serah hated herself.
She had been the baby for six years until her siblings had come along, and she had hoped that, with their arrival, it was a label she could shake. But as soon as the triplets had grown into toddlers, she had, again, found herself being babied by both her mama and Lightning.
Serah supposed it had to do with the fact that, whilst Lightning was learning how to defend herself from things five times her size, Serah was sitting in her room, surrounded by babbling toddlers whom she was lending her dolls to (Serah had never seemed to care when her younger siblings had started chewing on their heads rather than playing with them, or, when they were a little older, had started cutting their hair into much shorter styles, with the idea that ladies couldn't go on an adventure with long hair).
She had always been firm in her belief that she didn't need to know martial arts, and nor did she want to. And, after Lightning had went after the first girl to push her down, she knew that she didn't need martial arts. Lightning would protect her when her papa couldn't.
For years, their lives had been great (or, as great as life could be when an entire village hated you because you were supposed to bring recognition to it before your father died in a massacre) and Serah had been happy. Sure, she couldn't defend her youngest siblings when they came running home, in tears, due to the latest bullying incident, but she could clean and bandage their wounds and give them the cuddles and kisses better that Lightning often felt uncomfortable with.
But, a few weeks after the triplets' third birthday, the bullying had lessened greatly following an incident with a boy being transported to Midgar for medical treatment due to an animal attack.
The purple bruise on little Roxas' cheek had told Serah the truth of the matter, but she didn't care.
Serah may not have been so accepting of Lightning hurting people for Serah's sake, but the younger of the sisters believed, much like Lightning, that if you hurt her little brothers, then whatever punishment Lightning dished out was only fair.
But, after the village had gotten wind of the fact that Lightning had left, the bullying returned with a vengeance.
Mostly, the boys were content to ignore Serah, as they probably saw her as nothing more than a gentle female, and Serah didn't care one iota about the spiteful things the girls of the village threw her way.
All she cared about was the fact that her little brothers were getting hurt, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Sure, little Roxas tried, but he was only eight, and he didn't have the foreboding presence that Lightning had practically worn like a second skin.
So Serah did the only thing she could: she went into her room, and dug through the trunk at the end of her bed: the only place she had requested her siblings not touch, and so far, they had respected her wishes.
Buried at the bottom was a small collection of crystal's, all of them glowing a hypnotising dark green colour.
What very few people knew about Serah was that she was, underneath her layers of frills and cuteness, rather manipulative. Sure, the extent of it was that she would often willingly take the fall when one of her siblings snuck a cookie fresh from the oven, simply because she knew that she could always talk her mother out of scolding her, but, back when she had lived in Midgar, at the tender age of six, she had done something that many people would be horrified to hear.
She had conned someone out of three pieces of Offensive Magic Materia.
Serah had been well known in Midgar, where her family, at the time, had lived on top of the Plates, and many people knew that she was the daughter of a high-ranking Shinra official.
So she had used that to her advantage.
When wandering through the markets with her mama, she had noticed a large, fancy shop: the type that was all metal, and automatic doors, and air-conditioning. But what had drawn her to it, was the sight of hundreds of little glowing orbs twinkling at her from behind the reinforced windows.
She had wandered in, slipping out of her mama's sight, mind set on getting one, despite the fact that she had no gil on her. But they were just so pretty that she had to have them, even though she didn't know what they were exactly, or what they did.
The man behind the counter had been talking to a woman about the pros and cons of purchasing an Exit Materia, which allowed the bearer to quickly flee from battle, by transporting them a mile away, compared to purchasing a materia orb with offensive properties, if you simply wanted to travel to Gongaga to visit your nephew, when his attention was captured by the tiny, pink-haired girl walking through the doors.
"Excuse me," he had said to the woman he had been talking to, who, also noticing the little girl, simply smiled and nodded. He peered over the counter at her as she walked straight up to it and gazed up at him, an adorable little smile on her lips.
"Why, hello there little lady. Welcome to Marvin's Materia. Where's mama Strife, huh?"
Serah shrugged, toeing the ground with her pink shoe, "Mama's shopping for food. I'm here for papa. He told me I had to keep it secret from mama!" Marvin raised an eyebrow at the little girl, sharing a confused look with the woman he had been talking to.
"Your papa sent you here?"
"Yes, sir!"
"What for sweetie?" Marvin was looking more confused by the minute, his eyebrows rising.
Serah, who had caught enough of the conversation between the owner and his customer, gave Marvin a gap-toothed grin, "Materia!"
Marvin's jaw dropped.
"Your daddy sent you to get materia for him?" he seemed to immediately believe the little girl, simply finding fault with the fact that a man would ask his barely-out-of-her-toddler-years daughter to fetch it for him.
The woman looked just as flabbergasted.
"Well, yeah. He said he wanted a fire, lightning and ice!" Serah may have only gone in wanting one, but feeling the energy radiating off the orbs, and seeing their beautiful glowing light up close had made her a little greedy.
Marvin opened his mouth to make an objection, but the woman cut him off. "Come on Marvin. You might as well. She can't use them unless she slots them into a weapon or a piece of armour, so it's fine. Wouldn't want to let such a cute little girl get in trouble with her father." The underlying message in the woman's tone of voice was clear: 'wouldn't want you to get in trouble with a Shinra operative.'
With a sigh, Marvin turned to the shelves, picking out the three requested materia.
"Shinra operatives get starter materia free," he recited, and Serah's eyes widened at her good luck. She offered the man another blinding grin.
"Thank you mister!" Serah had cheered, a wave of pride sweeping through her, before stuffing the orbs into the pockets of her cardigan and skipping out the door, leaving a flustered Marvin and a confused shopper behind.
She had joined up with her mother, who hadn't been worried that she had disappeared, as the area they lived in was incredibly friendly, and Serah had probably just got caught up chatting with a friend.
Serah had stopped being proud of herself when she overheard her mother talking to her father about the price of materia, but she had been too frightened to come clean.
Her papa had found out eventually, when Marvin had asked him how the materia his little girl had got for him was doing when he'd next went in. Her father had paid the man, telling him that there had been a mixup: he hadn't asked his daughter to get it for him, but rather, he had asked her if she wanted to come along and get it with him. Marvin had laughed at that, a load lifted from his shoulders.
That night, Serah had had a long talk with her papa about when it was appropriate to manipulate someone the way she had (her father always claimed that there was a time and a place for everything and manipulation was no exception). But he had let her keep the materia since, as far as he was concerned, she had earned it. And it wasn't like she could actually use it in the first place.
Serah smiled fondly at the memory of the entire event, before pulling the materia from her trunk, and standing up to make her way to the room her brothers shared room.
With a gentle knock, Serah pushed the door open.
Roxas was lying sprawled on his bed, a book about something that Serah would no doubt find boring clutched in his hands.
The large cut on his cheek made her smile transform into a pained, angry frown.
The other two were nowhere to be seen.
Roxas noticed her only when she was right beside his head, and he blinked, before setting his book down and smiling gently.
"Hey, Serah," he said as he pushed himself up on his elbows, crossing his legs under himself as he gazed at her curiously.
"Hey, Rox. I got you something," she smiled when his eyes lit up in interest. "Zangan gave you some armour during your last lesson, didn't he?"
Her question obviously threw Roxas, and he looked confused, wondering what that had to do with his gift. "Yeah. Three iron bangles. Why?" Serah smiled, knowing enough about the different types of armour to remember that an iron bangle had one materia slot.
"Because of this," she said, before she pulled out the Offensive Magic Materia orbs.
Roxas' eyes widened in excitement, and his gaze flickered up to her.
"Where did you…?" he stopped when he saw Serah shaking her head, and simply glanced back at the materia.
"There's one for you, Sora and Cloud, so you can protect yourselves, and each other," Serah muttered, before placing them on the bed, and lifting up one of the orbs. She handed it to Roxas.
Roxas didn't say anything in regards to Serah's comment, choosing instead to focus his attention on the orb that she was giving him, his electric blue eyes staring intently at the crystal. As soon as it made contact with his palm, a light, pleasant tingling began in his hand.
Serah grinned at him as he looked up at her curiously, but it was a grin filled with pain.
"Lightning."
Roxas, after a moment of silent contemplation, nodded.
Cloud Strife could never be sure why, exactly, he got the worst of the abuse that Nibelheim had to dish out. He supposed it could be his personality: where Serah was sweet and Sora was friendly and Roxas was kind, Cloud was just… Cloud.
He was shy and stammering, flighty and nervous, withdrawn and quiet. He was the prime target for bullies everywhere, but, he supposed, if he could take the attention away from his older sister and younger brothers by directing it towards himself, he could comfort himself with the fact that at least that meant he was good for something.
But with every day that went by, Cloud missed Lightning more and more. Cloud and Lightning had often been the two who would be sitting quietly on the side-lines, simply enjoying one another's presence whilst the other three would be playing hide and seek in the village outskirts.
And, although neither of them had ever told their siblings, Lightning had always hugged Cloud better after a scuffle with one of the other children. Although Lightning hated physical affection, if it had meant cheering up Cloud, she would hug him for hours. Their other siblings hated hugs after a beating: it had made them feel patronised.
But Cloud had always felt safe in his eldest sister's arms, as though the world was a far less scary place as long as she was there to protect him.
But she had left, and all Cloud wanted was to see her again.
Just to have one more hug, where Lightning would bury her face in his soft, golden hair and whisper, "Big sis is fighting the monsters for you. Nothing can hurt you now."
He had Serah to do the same thing for him now, but, as much as he loved her, he knew that she couldn't protect him in the same way Lightning had.
Which is why Cloud was shocked when it was Serah who offered him the ability to protect himself the way Lightning had.
He was sitting on a boulder in one of the fields when he heard Serah clear her throat from behind him. Smiling down at her, he beckoned her up.
Serah clambered up beside him, sitting gingerly on the cold, dirty boulder.
"I've got something for you," Serah said after a few minutes of silence, where they had both been simply watching the brightly coloured flowers sway in the gentle summer breeze.
"Hm?" Cloud responded, looking up at her.
Serah dug her hands into the pockets of her light orange, flared skirt, digging out an iron bangle, and a softly glowing orb.
Cloud's icy blue eyes widened in shock.
"Truthfully," he heard her say, "the bangle is from Roxas. The materia's from me."
Cloud had nothing to say.
For so many years, he had been incapable of defending himself from the abuse he received, but here Serah was, giving him a way to protect both himself and his siblings.
Unexpectedly, he wrapped his small arms around the taller of the two Strife children, and Serah simply smiled softly, patting his thin back.
After a few seconds, Cloud pulled back, and Serah, without another word, pressed the orb into his hand.
A light chill travelled through his palm, and Cloud squeezed his hand around the materia crystal tighter.
"Ice."
Cloud heard his sister's word, and smiled.
Sora tried so incredibly hard to solve the disputes in Nibelheim with words, but sometimes, that wasn't enough.
Sora had been the only one of the Strife children to make friends with any of the people in his village: namely one Tifa Lockhart and a small number of her friends, as she had been one of the only locals who actively tried to stop the bullying the Strife siblings faced.
But Sora had found that, although Tifa was actually very anti-violence, she would not hesitate to hit somebody who she saw bullying one of the Strife children- and she would hit them hard.
Sometimes, Sora wished he was strong like Tifa, so he could take care of anyone bullying his siblings. Sora himself rarely got hurt, but that just made him feel guilty when his siblings did.
But most of the time, Sora wished he could be strong like Lightning, because then he wouldn't need to protect his siblings: everyone would know not to mess with them, because if you did, Sora would mess with you right back.
As it were, however, Sora only had friendly words for the other children of Nibelheim and, since he was only eight and not quite versed in the art of manipulating people who hated him, he found that his words didn't always work.
He was sitting just at the foot of Mt. Nibel, legs hanging over a gorge as he stared thoughtfully into the darkness beneath him.
Serah settling down beside him didn't garner a reaction from him, until she lightly nudged him with her shoulder.
The small boy looked up at her, smiling widely.
"Hey sis! What's up? You're… okay, right?" Sora's words, which had started off happy, trailed off with a tone of nervous apprehension.
Serah nodded, smiling at him.
"I got you something."
Sora's face immediately lit up, and he jumped up from where he was sitting on the lip of the gorge and moved back, looking excited.
"Really? What is it?"
Serah stood up too, moving back from the large drop, and smiled at her little brother's enthusiasm.
"Here," she said simply, pulling the glowing orb out of her pocket, along with the bangle from Roxas.
Sora grasped the bangle first, his blazing blue eyes jumping from the iron in his hand to his sister in confusion, "Isn't this Roxas'? Why'd he give it to me? And what would I want with a stone?"
Serah simply giggled, before holding the 'stone' out further so Sora could grasp it.
"It's not a stone," she laughed, just as Sora plucked it from her hand, "it's materia."
Sora heard her words just as a gentle warmth spread through his palm, and his eyes widened, and then narrowed, before widening again as he smiled hugely.
Finally, something that would give him strength.
It may not be the same strength as Tifa or Lightning, but, if he trained properly, it would be his own strength.
And maybe that was better.
Sora's eyes looked up at his sister, passion burning in their depths.
"Fire."
Sora grinned.
Roxas supposed that she should have seen it coming.
Although he was the youngest of the Strife siblings, he had always been the most observant of the lot of them.
And admittedly, he had noticed the signs: he'd simply preferred to play them off as something else.
But Serah's sudden urge to go for walks deeper into Mt. Nibel than they were meant to go, her sudden increase in fights, the angry glower that seemed to be permanently etched into her usually smiling face, all pointed to one thing.
Serah had had enough.
The night after Serah's fifteenth birthday, Roxas had known.
He had crept out of bed at three in the morning, trailed down the stairs, and caught Serah just as she was coming out of the kitchen.
Her pink hair was tied up in a high ponytail to keep her hair off her face, and her usual dresses and skirts had been replaced by an old training suit that Lightning had left behind.
Serah froze, blue eyes widening.
Roxas had simply smiled sadly.
"I suppose you're following Lightning?"
After a minute of silence, Serah had nodded, eyes watering.
Roxas looked down, before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around his sister's waist.
"How are you getting there?" his voice was muffled, his face pressed into his sisters stomach.
Serah gripped him tightly before answering, "The guy who delivers food here offered me a lift to Midgar."
There was a short moment of silence, and then, "I don't want to become as strong as Lightning," Serah explained quickly, "I just want to help mama out with money. I just want to become strong enough."
Roxas pulled back, studying his sister critically. "What is strong enough?"
Serah pursed her lips. "We'll see, won't we?"
Roxas simply nodded in acquiescence.
"I'll miss you," he muttered after a short pause.
"I know. I'll miss you too." Serah paused to give him a kiss on the forehead, before turning and walking to the front door. "Protect your older brothers, okay?"
Serah shot him one last look, before she stepped over the threshold, into the outside world.
The door closed behind Serah with a muffled thump, and Roxas hugged himself tightly as he fought back tears.
Nibelheim, Roxas decided, was poison.
A/N: I WROTE IT ALL IN ONE SITTING. I was slightly drunk when I started, and by the time I was finished, I was fucking sober again Jesus H. Christ.
Anyway, we won't be getting Lightning and Serah's P.O.V (well, sorta) for a long, long time.
And in the next chapter, we'll be moving on to ACTUAL PLOT and not just backstory YAY!