Core Temperature

Disclaimer: Since it's the first chapter, I'll do a real disclaimer thingy. I don't own or claim to own the characters that rightfully belong to Square-Enix, Square-Soft, and whatever else they may be called.

Note: I...uhm...accidentally erased this the first time around with chapter 2. So I'm re-writing it. Hopefully I'll remember enough of it to have it at least a little bit as good as it was at first. Stupid me didn't make a hand-written copy. cries

Chapter 1:

"Sir Auron?" Yuna walked carefully toward the dark man situated on the cliff. This was the direction he'd gone off in, surely it was Auron there, but...why wasn't he responding? She continued toward him and called again his name. Again, he didn't respond.

"Yuna?"

The summoner turned at the voice behind her and saw Auron walking toward her. "Sir Auron...s..?" Her head turned this way and that between the two "Aurons."

The Auron who was walking toward her shook his head and drew his sword, letting it ring in its arrival. The man on the cliff turned abruptly as he sensed his danger and in a flash his hand was drawing a tri-barreled gun from its holster. Yuna's mind was made up about the identities at that moment. The real Auron would never carry forbidden machina, and this one really looked nothing like Sir Auron, aside from his manner of dress.

He wore all red and black, even in his hair and eyes. His left arm was a gold colored metal gauntlet; the same metal made up his shoes. The stranger's hair was jet black, though it shown blue in certain light, and too long to be Auron's; and Auron was far more tan than this new person. He had his gun leveled on Auron, and Auron had the Masamune's tip at the stranger's throat. "Who are you?" the stranger blurted out lowly.

Auron's eyes narrowed in wrath. "We ask the questions. Who are you?"

"Where am I?" he persisted, breaking Auron's patience. His gun was flipped from his hand with a twitch of Auron's sword; it clattered of to the left. The stranger was then moved by Auron to the face of another cliff which he hit with a pained grunt. "Where am I?" he asked again...

But was cut of by Auron. "Who are you?"

The pale man narrowed his eyes and considered his reply. "A nightmare."

"Really," Auron said skeptically. Even as he said so he began to see the intruder's red cloak morph into a purple color and become more like a pelt, while the air seemed to thicken with the mans wrath. Just as soon as Auron noticed though, the scene disappeared.

"Really," the man assured him.

"Sir Auron?" Yuna got closer to the two warring persons.

"You thought this was me?" the older guardian asked.

Yuna nodded. "From the back...and in the shadow," she looked toward the shadows at the edge of the cliff cast from the rock face the intruder was pinned against. "Sir Auron...?"

"Why are you here?" Auron asked the man.

He ground his teeth together before answering. "I'm trying to figure that out myself." When Auron showed no sign of moving, the stranger slipped a hand to the wall and pushed, shouldering Auron roughly out of the way and sending him staggering back a few feet. He then faced Yuna and the group of people massed behind her. "Who are you?"

"Yuna..." a lady in a dark fur dress leaned forward and spoke into Yuna's ear. "I don't think he means any harm. In fact...he seems scared out of his wits."

The summoner nodded. "Why don't we sit," she motioned to the camp site that was not too far away, "there, and discus everything more comfortably?"

The dark man was still defensive. "And my gun?" he looked to Yuna.

Auron didn't wait for her to speak and instead took charge. "You will get it back if we find you can be trusted." With that he slung his sword onto his back and walked to the camp.

"First things first: who are you?" After they had all returned to the camp site they had given the stranger their names. It was Wakka who spoke now as they all situated themselves on logs which served as seats around an ash pit from a burned out fire. The man's gun lay on a round of wood in the center of the ashes, unloaded.

The man, who was sitting by himself on a log, face half-way covered by the lip of his cloak, closed his eyes before answering. "My name is Vincent Valentine," he went on with facts he thought mattered to those assembled before him. "...ex-Turk of Shinra Company, who's head is...was located on the upper plate of Midgar."

Tidus, who was sitting beside Wakka, leaned forward a bit. "Midgar?"

"Midgar," Vincent repeated, nodding. "I live there now, though I spent years dreaming in Nibelheim." By the tone of his voice, the others could tell he had bad memories.

"Hm," Auron started. "Must have been some dream. There are no places by the names of Midgar or Nibelheim, not in Spira."

Vincent closed his eyes again as his brows came together in thought. "...Spira...?"

Tidus spoke up. "Maybe he's like me: from Spira's past?"

Auron shook his head, silencing any other notions. "How did you get here, then?"

Vincent shook his head, not realizing Auron had just done so. "I don't know."

"Tell us what you do know," Auron demanded.

Vincent bowed his head slightly, covering more of his face, then lifted it again and began. "I've spent the last three months searching for a woman, Harper. She was taken by a group of three who planned to recreate the man who tried to kill the planet. Finally I did find her, in the Forgotten Capitol..." he gave a curt laugh that the others didn't understand. "It took just a bit of convincing, but I got her to come back home with me. We lived with six other people in Midgar, in the slums under the plate. Sector 7." Vincent paused, feeling his voice was about to break with the emotion he felt for the end of this particular story. "When we got back, everyone was overjoyed, even the man who owned the airship I took without asking so I could search. For a while, everything was fine. Life returned to the way it had been. Harper went back to her job in the shop attached to the house, and some of the time the others and I would go off on a trip we were sent on by some city who needed something killed..." he closed his eyes against the burning in his eyes. Vincent Valentine, ex-Turk, was not going to let these people, these absolute strangers, see him cry.

"But it didn't stay that way," Lulu assumed.

Vincent took a deep breath and went on. "No." His crimson eyes met Auron's brown ones. "We had been home for six weeks before the unexpected happened..." His emotion reached the point that could free one of his monsters if he let it, but he didn't, grinding his teeth again to keep them in. It created a pause during which Yuna thought he wasn't going to continue. Feeling that he had better finish before they all got up and left, he jerked his head up abruptly and went on. "That's when they came back. The three," his stone gaze was fixed on Yuna, demanding her attention. "...who took her in the first place. They came back in the middle of the night. Cloud, Harper and I were just about to go to bed, in fact, she already had just walked down the hall. There was a struggle, that I could tell, but in the end they won...and I was unable to do a thing."

"Do..." Yuna seemed genuinely concerned. "Do you know anything about where they went?"

Vincent laughed and smiled sarcastically. "No. No I don't... they left a note... 'We have come to dispose of our sister.'" He recited.

There was a long silence. Vincent emptied his mind and with it, his emotions and simply watched the others as they sat, watching him. Wakka even was going to say something, but withheld. Yuna sat across from him, beside Auron, measuring him with her eyes before she stood and walked toward him, pausing at the wood in the ashes. "Vincent." He looked up at her. "I hope you're able to find her." Bending at her knees, she picked up his gun and its ammunition and handed it to him. "Why don't you get some rest?"

Vincent took his gun and loaded it, nodding. "Thank you." He looked around for a shady place to rest.

"Tidus?" Yuna turned and Tidusjumped up. "Would find a good place for Vincent?"

"Yep! This way!" Tidus sprinted toward Vincent and grabbed him by his wrist, pulling him toward the cluster of tents to the left of the campfire. "Here ya go... eh...Hold on a sec!" He spun to face the still gathered people and sought out Kimahri. "Hey!"Tidus stood on his toes and waved an arm in the air. "Kimahri! Can Vincent use your tent?"

The Ronso replied with a nod before he walked away.

"Hm... I didn't think he would... he must like you!" he assured a silent Vincent, who didn't really care where he slept. He grabbed the tent flap and held it open for him to go inside, but before he could, he laid a hand on his shoulder. "You know..." he trailed off and looked in Yuna's direction. "Yuna will probably ask you to become a guardian." When Vincent just stared at her she realized something. "I know you don't know what that is... but be sure that she'll explain it all to you if she does ask!" With that, he slipped behind him and propelled him into the tent.

Note: Well finally! Took me forever and it's not as long as it was...but oh well. At least it exists huh?