It all changed when there was not one, but two Cloud Strifes.
Sure, no one knew it at first, but there was something odd with the Strife twins. Even as they grew, there was a look in at least one of their eyes that said they knew far more than they should. It was never the same twin either. Sometimes it was both, world-weary exhaustion staring out hauntingly from baby blue eyes. Other times, it was only one or the other, and one rare time both were as bright and happy as the clear sky above, even if they both seemed a little confused. But everyone in Nibelheim knew something was weird with the boys, those identical twins, who seemed to swap personalities more often than they ate, the scrawny little buggers. And they really were buggers, too. Cirrus and Cumulus, or just Cloud since no one could tell the two apart (not even themselves), were mischief incarnate.
No one really knew which of the twins had first started it, it was impossible to tell them apart after all. One day one of the pair had begun a discussion with his brother over, of all things, memories. For some reason the other knew things the first one didn't, and vice versa, and this was positively bizarre to them both for some reason. The conversation escalated into an argument, and the famous Strife rivalry was born.
The other children and villagers tried, they really did, to understand what was going on. They even went as far to ask the dishonourable Ms. Strife, the unwed mother of the pair, if she had any idea what was going on with the two. Her answer solved nothing to them, only making matters worse.
"The boys, they believe... well, what happens when you split one into two?"
And so the village watched and worried and prayed, hoping for the boys to settle their argument while their village was still a nice and quiet little nowhere in the mountains. Alas, the ball had been put in motion, going downhill no less, and if anything it only ever escalated.
The twins didn't argue as much after a while, no. Not verbally. But they still fought, for they were constantly training their bodies, exercising and working out where other kids would play games. They would exchange a look, and then they'd be brawling. Other children had at first teased the two as freaks, but that soon changed when the boys proved that they had more than enough power to beat the ever-loving stuffing out of each other, much less any poor bystanders foolish enough to stick around. One time the Briar boy had been unfortunate (and stupid) enough to anger both boys at once; the resulting mess had forever deterred bullies since.
Still, there were breaks from the chaos. Sometimes the one would have innocent, happy eyes, while the other gazed at the water tower with eyes too old and burdened for his age. Far, far too old. It made old man Andrews shudder with sorrow, seeing those eyes. Those were eyes that had seen death in his arms, and no one could ever figure out who had died. It seemed, at times, that hope itself had been the victim.
After a while, though, this phenomenon wasn't as interesting as the two's constant battles. Time passed, the twins grew. Before anyone knew it, the pair was getting into trouble that not even their mother could have predicted. And no one was particularly happy about it.
Breaking into the old mansion.
Burning down the rope bridge in the mountains.
Jumping into and vandalizing the water tower.
Make no mistake about it, the Strife twins were a terror. The once dishonourable Ms. Strife, however, was not made even more dishonourable for her sons' acts because she was the only one capable of stopping them. The two would tear up the town square, dash across the rooftops, and make general monsters of themselves (the town baker even swore he saw them riding a dragon once), and the only way the chaos would end was when her imperious voice cut through the thick of the fighting and stop the two dead. No one knew how she did it, but that woman could make the terrible twins run for cover faster than a mouse from a twenty foot flaming cat. Not that anyone had particularly seen a twenty foot flaming cat chasing a mouse, but it couldn't possibly be faster than those Strifes.
That's about when the twins found materia.
Things only ever got worse as the two aged. The mansion was half burned down, the bridge destroyed again just two weeks after someone repaired it, and all sorts of other monstrous acts. They even went swimming in the water tower for a second time. Their fights got more and more intense until even the mayor had to admit defeat. The poor man was forced to ask the pair, ask, not demand, that they stop their fights. Both had simply looked at him, looked at each other, and then spoken up.
"Terribly sorry!"
"Didn't realize we were being so rude."
"We'll spar elsewhere, don't worry!"
And that's what made them even worse, those two. Not only were they shaking up everyone's lives in the most menacing ways, they were doing it politely. Zangan couldn't help but remark on why they referred to it as sparring, but he was too busy training the Lockheart heir to defend herself from the ruffians to really ponder on it too much. More days passed, the pair grew some more, and eventually even they seemed to wonder how their atrocious habit of fighting each other became such an everyday occurrence. One or the other was often found sitting ponderously, alone, and the little Briar boy (still stupid, but at least a little more subtle about it) had managed to snatch a soft-spoken sentence.
"There's something missing... What am I forgetting?"
That one sparked some controversy. But thankfully the boys had stopped, for the most part, being terrors in the middle of town. They at least kept it to the outskirts and the mountains where the explosions and shouting could be relatively ignored. They were rarely ever seen about the town, but when seen the townspeople did have to admit they were growing up two fine strong boys, if still somewhat completely insane. Not that this would ever be admitted to in polite company, of course, so naturally everyone was in agreement that the two were nutters of the fruitiest kind. But at least they were polite about it. Right?
When the twins were roughly twelve years old, the Nibelheim reactor blew up.
Everyone suspected who had done it. There was no evidence, but you didn't need evidence to know. Those innocent blue eyes weren't innocent at all, and it was only more incriminating since those two never looked innocent. Nonetheless, no one was seriously inconvenienced from the incident, that reactor hadn't been reliable from the start after all, so everyone agreed that it must simply have been a malfunction in the machinery. It was a much safer option to admit to, after all. Especially since Shinra, understandably upset at their property being destroyed, was sending an investigative team. No one told the twins. They didn't need to know. If they stayed out of sight, good. If they admitted to it when the villagers were sufficiently dumb, stupid, and innocent enough looking, all the better! Even if Shinra thought them idiotic bystanders, it'd be better than Shinra wanting them dead for being involved.
And so the SOLDIERs arrived.
Cloud knew he was weird. He knew it from the moment he was cohesive enough to remember his own thoughts. There was something about him he knew no one else had, something no one else could do.
He could remember the future.
He was a pair. There was one, Cumulus, and another, Cirrus, but he didn't know which was which. The pair was a single being in two bodies, that was something they'd pondered and decided on long ago. But the problem was that the one unit wanted to be cohesive. In two bodies, it just couldn't do that. The memories wanted to stick together, and the time he was in just wanted to be correct to itself. He was supposed to be a young mountain hick with barely any education, and half the time he was. In parts. Then there were the times the future was all together in one body, one Cloud with all too much disaster in his life. Memories would jump from one body to the other, and his personality would flit around with them. Sometimes he was his whole self from the remembered future, that horrible thing that didn't bear thinking about, and sometimes he was who he was supposed to be, a nervous, innocent, naive little sweetheart of a boy with confidence issues. Sometimes those two were completely separate, and sometimes those bits and pieces were scattered betwixt the two.
Was he supposed to be one mind in one body? But you couldn't change the past, and what should have been one and one had become two and multiple halves. Bits, bobs, himself in two forms. To say it was confusing was an understatement. But, perhaps, it was also a buffer. He knew he wanted to change that horrible 'it' that was the remembered future, but had he only been the personality from the future he would have undoubtedly done something rash. Case in point, the first break-in his two selves had organized into the Shinra mansions. That didn't get past the foyer. If it wasn't sneezing himself silly, it was laughing himself silly. Dorky faces, seriously? What kind of a name was that? But nonetheless, the monsters hadn't taken well to the taunting laughter and promptly chased his miserable little behinds out of the mansion.
Cloud probably should have been more mature than that, considering his memories, but really. He wasn't even half his previous age yet! Screw being mature!
He'd redoubled his training after that. Heaven knew if it would ever be enough. The villagers seemed to think the twins were fighting themselves, but the truth was that he was just training. Not his fault that his best sparring partner was himself. Easy way to beat out his flaws was to, well, beat out his flaws, quite literally.
However, at twelve years past his birthing date, one (or two) Cloud Strife(s) had had enough. That bitch in the reactor was going down. He hadn't been training with materia for nothing. Nor had he broken into the mansion again or nearly drowned (twice) in that bloody water tower for nothing. Phoenix and Odin were his, and he was going to have a party at her placed where any uninvited guests were going to be given a one-way ticket to somewhere a little too toasty for comfort. And guess who wasn't invited.
Everything went surprisingly spiffy. Without Sephiroth there to help disguise her presence from the lifestream, he could practically see the Jade WEAPON (one he'd thankfully never had to see face to face before himself) appear out of nowhere and swarm her burnt remains deep in the mako under the reactor. Surprisingly, no earthquakes, which was quite an accomplishment for something with wings nearly as wide as the Shinra tower was tall.
He figured his job mostly done at that point. Vincent hadn't woken up, sadly. He'd slammed his coffin shut in Cloud's face (and Cloud didn't blame him, who'd seriously believe a kid blabbering about the future) and that was the end of that. But at least he'd burned the library down (hard copies? What hard copies? Hojo was going to have a fit!). Yeah, the problem of Mako reactors was going to be a right nuisance, but at least the planet, and himself, had a little more time to deal with the issue. Deepground, well, screw that for now. It might not even be in the planning stages yet for all he knew.
He finally had some breathing space to himself, and he was going to take it.
In that manner, it was incredibly shocking for the not-quite-yet seasoned warrior when a group of Shinra soldiers, SOLDIERs and scientists walked jauntily into the town like they owned the place. Well, okay, they pretty much did, but still! Cloud grumbled under his breath from his hidden perch on a rooftop.
"Jerks. What brought them here!?"
"Uh, we blew up the reactor? Idiot."
"Well no duh."
Talking to yourself didn't even begin to cover the conversations the twins had with themselves. More than once they'd confused the daylights out of anyone unfortunate enough to overhear. But there was one major advantage, and that was that they very often knew exactly what the other was thinking because they were the other. It was, to say the least, quite convenient.
"...hey..."
An idea was born. Cloud part one grinned.
"We gonna screw with them?"
Cloud part two looked over. He also grinned. "Yup."
"Okay Seph, tell me again. Why did we have to come to this dump of a town again?"
Genesis was in a bad mood. Again. Oh, this was going to be fun. Sephiroth looked over, in all his black and silver glory, and tried his best to placate his companion, "Because someone needs to protect the scientists in case whatever, or whoever, caused the reactor to blow didn't do so accidentally."
"Pffft," huffed the redhead, "why not just send regular soldiers?"
"They did." Sephiroth pointed.
Genesis scowled. "Let me rephrase. Why did they not send just regular soldiers?"
Sephiroth thought for a moment, "Well, presumably because regular soldiers would have trouble with the dragons rumoured to inhabit the area."
"Dragons? As if, those things don't exist."
"Then explain Bahamut."
The two young adults bickered and flung mild, sophisticated insults at each other as they lazily supervised the operation. Mostly it was just interviewing townspeople who spoke with wide-eyed, dull admiration for Shinra and all its wonderful employees, etcetera, etcetera. Really, the pair would have wondered severely about the town's general IQ if not for the gleam of cunning the villagers would shoot at each other when they thought no one was looking. Obviously they thought they were hiding something, but it remained to be seen if that was actually anything important.
Nonetheless, there were enough townsfolk that the SOLDIER duo figured it'd be a lot easier to just join in and speed up the process (heaven knew, both Hojo and Hollander were having a fit about the reactor for some reason, and making them wait any longer would only make it worse). Unfortunately even this town had at least one TV and the townsfolk would fawn over the pair's accomplishments rather than tell them anything useful other than "that old thing wasn't working right anyways." Sadly though, Sephiroth's accomplishments were far more publicized that Genesis', so the redhead ended up in a jealous rage that was not a rage at all, no, just a simmering, mild, totally innocent mood swing, of course! As Genesis put it, anyways. Sephiroth simply figured he probably didn't know enough of social norms and let him do what he willed. It must have been a typical societal interaction, right? Meh.
The pair split up, trying to find someone who might know more about the incident. It turned out to be a bad move.
Without knowing it, both men found a boy, the same one, at the same time, in two different locations.
"Hello mister. What's up?"
Sephiroth cocked his head in confusion. Perhaps it was a riddle? Or was it that 'slang' Angeal's new apprentice was constantly using? Undoubtedly the latter, but he didn't know how to respond either way due to context, so..
"The sun?"
The blonde snorted. "Hee hee, I suppose so! Hey! I know what's up! Catch me if you can!"
That got the silverette's attention. Oh, so maybe he knew what had happened at the reactor? Perfect! He was a first class SOLDIER, mako enhancements and everything, so if anyone could catch a blonde preteen it was him.
He had completely forgotten about home-field advantage.
Next thing he knew, in trying to dumb down his abilities enough to not hurt the boy, he had almost lost him a total of three times. Deciding that maybe holding back wasn't such a good idea when the boy knew exactly which fences to slide under when he himself was too tall to do anything but run straight into them, Sephiroth pulled out all the stops and sprinted after the little blond.
Genesis had apparently done the same. Needless to say, the resulting collision was spectacular for everyone except those involved in it. Thankfully, the spectators were limited to the two shockingly similar boys now laughing at their plight nearby. The SOLDIER duo, in somewhat compromising conditions, both paused at seeing the twins (seriously, when was the last time you ever saw identical twins?) before struggling to extricate themselves from the pile of swords, hair and leather that two of Shinra's best had become at the behest of a pair of lookalike mountain twerps. Sadly, said twerps were not stupid and had quickly vacated the area. Shortly thereafter the SOLDIERs had done their best to find them, but to no avail.
"Bloody little blackguards! Mongrels!"
Genesis was swearing up a storm. Sephiroth was very nearly tempted to follow his friend's example, but managed to hold his composure when he saw the mayor. To his credit, Mayor Lockheart gave the world's finest SOLDIERs a brief glance, noting their dishevelled appearance, before sighing loudly and shaking his head.
"I take it you've met the Strife twins?"
Genesis stopped cussing, looking oddly at the mayor. "Are they really named that?"
"Yes."
"How appropriate."
"You totally saw that, didn't you?" Cloud one laughed.
"I did! I did! Whoo haa haa hoo! Maybe Sephiroth ain't so bad if he can look that goofy!"
"Ahaa haa haa! Maybe next time we should try static electricity!"
"Sephiroth with a static afro, aah haa haa haa haaaa!"
Cloud was, currently, doing the world best impression of a man about to lose his posterior due to laughter, and was succeeding admirably. Both of him were rolling around in the town outskirts hidden in the bushes by the Shinra manor, all the while gasping for breath while trying not to go blue in the face.
"But seriously," Cloud one began, "You can't tell me Sephiroth didn't deserve that."
"Well, technically he didn't. He really didn't do anything yet. And wasn't it Jenova in the northern crater? It was still funny though."
"Did you forget? Sephiroth was in the northern crater too!"
"Well no duh I forgot, you know how it is."
For some reason, whenever the two got into an argument, their emotions rose unnaturally fast. The normally calm, stoic, deadbeat Cloud Strife turned into an absolute emotional maniac whenever he started fighting himself. Maybe there was some really deep meaning behind that, but for now all Cloud knew is that he was getting really pissed off at himself. The two began arguing over whether or not that prank had really been deserved, and before they each knew it the practice sticks had been whipped out and the materia spells were flying. They hadn't exactly promised to keep their little spats out of town, and before they knew it the other was in full on kick-the-scrawny-bugger's-backside mode. Unfortunately, said scrawny bugger was the other version of himself.
Needless to say, things got interesting quickly.
Phoenix and Odin were called out, the pair duelling each other viciously because even they couldn't tell their summoners apart and it was much easier to fight the other big summon than try to figure out which ball of dust, limbs and blonde hair was the brat that had summoned them. Before long the twins were rolling in the dirt and grappling with each other for a superiority that would never happen. They toppled down the hill, past some fences and continued bashing each other' brains in far into the village. Grunts and cries of anger followed the pair through the town, the duel occasionally breaking up into a contest into who could do the fanciest jump-off-the-wall-and-into-your-opponent's-face manoeuvre. Both were quite evenly matched in that regards.
The twins were once again wrestling on the ground when a SOLDIER-issue boot thumped on the ground.
"Found you!" cackled Genesis.
The fight stopped immediately. Dust floated comically down as the two stared the one Genesis Rhapsodos. Another voice piped up from behind them.
"Oh, what do we have here?"
"I daresay a pair of pranksters who are much in need of a spanking! Shall I do the honours, or shall you?"
"I wonder which they would prefer?"
Much to their horror, both Clouds had scrapped their way right between the two men about whom they'd been arguing shortly before, and it seemed that they were wondering aloud about who was going to thrash the delinquent boys first. The two looked at each other, around at the thin street they'd landed themselves in, and then at the two SOLDIERs surrounding them.
As far as Cloud one and two were concerned, the redhead seemed the safer option than the future-complete-psycopath-with-silver-hair. So, in tandem with that decision, they pointed in Genesis' direction.
This, as it turned out, was what was commonly referred to as a 'grave miscalculation'.
Sephiroth may have been a psychopath in their future, but at the moment the only actual crazies in the immediate area were themselves and the redhead. He glared at the two, raised his hands, and summoned some fireballs ripe for the throwing.
He was also a pyromaniac, apparently.
"You have three seconds you crazy little twats. Three. Seconds."
It turned out you could scream like a girl and run in approximately zero-point-five.
Genesis was a horrible liar and began chasing them the moment their backs were turned, red leather duster rippling out behind him dramatically as he began the extremely dignified act of shrieking profanities and death threats while chasing a pair of kids throughout the town. The townsfolk simply looked on in relief, thankful that they'd mostly stayed inside and away from the antics of the terrible twins.
For their own part, the Strife boys had managed to put just enough distance between themselves and the screaming human flamethrower to duck into an alleyway and take a little known shortcut (through several backyards, mind you) to the relative safety of the decrepit Shinra manor. Unfortunately, Genesis was stubborn as an ox, and if they didn't find somewhere really good to hide in there, they knew the redhead would find their footprints soon enough and track them down. Without further ado, they ducked up the stairs, down into the basement, and dodged past the bizarre monsters just quick enough to throw open Vincent's coffin and fling themselves into it. There was a small "Oof!" before the pair fell quiet. For about three seconds.
"Okay, I know you're me and I'm you, but maybe that was a totally stupid idea! You idiot!"
"Me, an idiot! You are, you mean! You're the one of us that actually voiced the plan!"
"As if we weren't both thinking it!"
"If he finds us in here we are so boned! They're not supposed to know about the basement!"
"So why the heck did we run down here!?"
"Why did we? I don't know! Figure it out yourself!"
"What do you think I'm trying to do!?"
"A-hem."
The strife twins both stopped, looking over at the red-clad figure nearby. Somehow, in some way, they had woken Vincent up with their racket (although honestly, leaping onto him probably hadn't helped matters much). He was laid down, cloak fluttering in an absent breeze, giving the two an evil glare as his claws clicked together in anticipation of a well-deserved punishment. Golden eyes met sapphire blue.
Oh wait. That wasn't Vincent.
"I was rather enjoying that nap," Chaos growled, "and you two just so happened to wake me from it. Now tell me, why did you feel that was necessary?"
Neither Cloud said anything. That would have been tantamount to suicide, and an excruciatingly painful one. Not that jumping into a coffin with an undead ex-turk running around with a triple-barrelled hand cannon and demonic multiple personality disorder issues wasn't suicidal, but at least the turk could be reasoned with. Chaos, well, not so much. He had that name for a reason.
For the second time that day, Cloud was convinced they were going to suffer an untimely demise.
"I believe three seconds is more than sufficient. In fact, I'll only give you one. Sound fun?"
Cloud was pretty sure he broke a few speed records after hearing that sentence.
Genesis had just enough time to blink before the Shinra mansion exploded in front of him.
Two screaming boys belted out into the open, blue bloody murder wailing from their lips as a demon from hell (probably a relative for all he knew) flapped its broad red wings as it gleefully chased them. The redhead stopped dead, his brain practically overloading while it tried to determine the plausibility of what was happening before him. He was pretty sure it'd settled on 'he must be dreaming' because there was no way in Gaia's green earth a gold and red demon was chasing two identical twins around in circles in a small mountain town within the ashes of an abandoned mansion, which was, interestingly enough, currently either aflame or floating in dusty little bits throughout the sky. He blinked, shook his head, blinked again, pinched himself, and gazed stupidly at what was going on in front of him.
"Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess...?"
Genesis snapped back to attention. There, quoting his favourite (it was not an obsession, thank-you-very-much!) play was sure to bring him back to reality. It did. He began to wonder if that was really the best thing or not, because that meant the carnage going on in front of him was actually real and was not, sadly, just some wacky dream brought on by too much of the puppy's homemade cooking. Crazy Gongagans. Although, really, he was pretty sure these Nibelheimers had him beat in the nutso department, and that was saying something.
Sephiroth stepped up beside him, "Am I really seeing this?"
Genesis turned to him sadly. "I believe we are, friend."
Chaos, obviously toying with his shrieking prey, swooped down and batted his wings at them, bowling over the one and making the other jump with a yelp away from the following claws.
"I, ah, I believe there is more than we bargained for in this town."
"Obviously."
"CLOUD CIRRUS CUMULUS STRIFE!"
Both Sephiroth and Genesis turned just in time to see a woman with wild golden hair stomp into the clearing, a righteous fury upon her face. Little did they know that, in one timeline, she had been just as sweet as her son, if not a little more tough for having lived raising a bastard son in the middle of a small town from nowhere. In this timeline, however, that bastard son was just an outright bastard times two. She wasn't the type of woman to back down, however, and had grown just as strong as the boys she'd raised.
That, it seemed, was apparent enough by the way her sons froze like deer in the headlights even while a demon hovered nearby. Said demon also froze, perching on a blackened pillar nearby.
"You boys have five minutes to explain why you've been terrorizing the town with your summons and your fighting, and why you've been doing it on the exact same day the nice men from Shinra have come to investigate the reactor explosion!"
Silence.
"You have no explanation, do you?!"
Both boys looked meekly at each other. One muttered below his breath, "I don't remember her being like this before..."
"Like we remember bleep all about that."
Ms. Strife crossed her arms, glared down at her boys, and growled. "Boys...!"
They looked at each other again, looked at her, glanced back at the smoking mess they'd found themselves in, and promptly ran for their dear lives with the toughest mother this side of the planet hollering at their heels.
"I do believe they are about to be grounded for the rest of their lives," Genesis mumbled. Sephiroth nodded.
"Indubitably," came a smooth voice. The SOLDIERs turned to look at the ghastly silhouette of the demon behind them, who managed to somehow stand on a broken, mouldy and burnt pillar of a decrepit old mansion and still make it look intimidating. "Now I do believe Minerva wouldn't have been happy if I had really killed those boys. Mind you it was fun playing with them... but I do believe she would have no such restrictions about you. Shall we begin?"
Genesis' eyebrows shot up at the mention of the goddess, whereas Sephiroth just sighed and drew his sword. "I doubt we have much choice here."
"Of course not! That would be boring."
The next thing they knew the turk-turned-WEAPON had launched himself at the pair and the fight was on.
By the time backup had arrived in the form of a hastily called Zack and Angeal, the fight had pretty much wound down.
Throughout the duel some interesting life-changing tidbits had come from the demon concerning Sephiroth's past. These were suitably filed away for later before he threw spells back in the demon's face in retaliation. Genesis had torched whatever had survived the initial burnings due to his wide spell ranges, and Sephiroth had promptly cut down the rest of the scenery thereafter. Chaos, upon seeing the two new SOLDIERs arrive on the scene, finally gave up the ghost. He cackled about the fact that they couldn't fly yet (an odd thing to say, to be sure) before flapping off and crowing something about how the four-eyes was about to get his dues all too soon. Genesis quickly radioed his superiors about the direction the demon had taken before turning to his childhood friend and huffing loudly.
"I take it I missed something rather interesting?" Angeal mused.
"Understatement."
As the trio debriefed, Angeal couldn't help but notice his protege's wide eyed surveillance of the place. He chalked it up to the puppy's curiosity, and left it alone as he talked to his comrades. Shortly thereafter the group walked back to town, eager to finish the ungodly day and get back to comfortable Midgar. Comfortable, and most importantly sane, Midgar. However, before they could speak with the rest of the Shinra team, they were intercepted. Ms. Strife, followed by her two meek looking boys, appeared near the fringes of town.
"Hello sirs. My apologies, but I believe my sons have something rather important to say." She gave them both a pointed look, the pair not looking back at her directly but rather at the ground as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.
"Uh, we're ahem, we're sorry."
"Yeah, uh, we're really sorry?"
"And...?" Ms. Strife glowered, the two sparing a glance at her before flinching away.
"We'd, uh, we'd like to..."
"We'd like to make it up to you. If we could."
"Right," said their mother, before looking over at the SOLDIERs. "My sincere apologies for my boy's behaviour, but as they said they'd like to make it up to you. Is there anything we can do?"
"Why yes there is, in fact," Genesis began. He sauntered up to the pair, his gaze making them shrink into themselves, "You have Phoenix. Do you have any idea how long I've been searching for that summon?! The bird of flame, so incredibly rare, and you two brats had it all along! And come to think of it, Odin too, yes? How did two twerps get a hold of something like two summons? Never mind. I think I'll be confiscating those, they're far too dangerous in your hands obviously."
The boys wailed, quietly of course. Still not looking up, they unwillingly handed over two of the rarest materia in the whole Nibel mountain range, their mother nodding in approval at the decision. Genesis looked incredibly pleased with himself, like the cat that got the mouse. A flaming cat at that.
A snort echoed from behind him.
All in attendance turned to look at one Zachary Fair, who was holding his mouth with one hand and pointing with the other. The Clouds looked up, then winced, as if reliving something painful. Zack, however, was too busy trying not to burst into peals of laughter.
"Whatever is the matter?" Angeal enquired. Zack just looked at him, looked back at the twins, and grinned.
"There's two of him."
Angeal raised an eyebrow.
"There's two of him! Oh boy! Buah ha ha ha ha ha haaaaah!" Zack gave up on restraining his laughter, holding his sides and doubling over in glee. The twins just looked disgruntled and grumpy while everyone else stared at each other and shrugged their shoulders with bewildered expressions. Angeal just sighed. He was used to his puppy's bi-polar nature by now. One moment he'd be a playful and happy lunatic, the next a serious soldier with the weight of some great secret on his shoulders. He never did understand it.
"Okay okay, whoo, let's not get ahead of myself. Whoo hoo, okay... breathe... snrk-!" Zack giggled again, then grinned at the Strife twins. "Okay, I gotta test something here. Okay. The Honeybee dress incident!"
Sephiroth, later, would swear he'd not laughed at what came next. No one had ever seen anyone go so red so fast, and having two twins doing it in a synchronized fashion was immensely funny. It didn't help that it was an alarmingly nice match to the coat Genesis was currently wearing. Angeal looked at Ms. Strife, who just shook her head in confusion.
"Both of them!? Both of them! Woo haaa haa haah haa hooo hoo! Oh this is too good! Oh boy, oh man! Ahahahahahahaa!"
"Zack you jerk! You, you, you..! Who else! Who else came back!?"
Well, as if the afternoon couldn't get weirder, apparently Angeal's protege and the troublemaker had met before. The conversation veered way beyond what anyone but the conversees would understand.
"Flower girl and crazy demon guy, that's about it I think. And you. But you... pfffft-!"
One of the Clouds went utterly red with rage, or redder at least, while the other stuttered and flailed. Both seemed to come to an unspoken conclusion when their gazes met, because the next thing anyone knew one third class SOLDIER in training was getting pounced on by two very pissed off chocobos. The tussle went rolling through the town, Ms. Strife growling about their bad behaviour and everyone else scratching their heads at the ruckus emanating from the dustball of chocobo-headed death and screaming puppy.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, one golden goddess of Gaia was watching the proceedings smugly, dusting her hands off in triumph.
"Well, Cloud, when you tell me to 'do your worst', you had better believe I'll deliver!"
Just because she was saving people from a horrible future didn't mean she wasn't allowed to have a little fun with it, after all.