Prologue

"To each his own," the old saying went, and certainly each did have their own. Cloud had his Sephiroth, Squall his Ultemicia, and Zidane his Kuja. However, each was not as alone as they seemed do be. A great force linked them, the very force that allowed for the compression of time.

Time compression was not, as Odine had first guessed, the true will of Ultimecia. Rather, it was an experiment created by her master that only she was capable of doing. As the experiment was successful, her death was not wasted. Rather, as time seperated, the worlds became one. Three worlds literally collided, each fusing together to create a new world.

Yet, in what seemed like no time at all, adjustments were made, and the new world became suitable, almost fitting. SOLDIER took its place as the greatest warriors of the new world, ready to fight whenever the need arose, and they were master Materia users. SeeD became known as the world's mercenary force, one that was highly sought after, as they were able to use magic and summons without the use of Materia. Similar reasons brought the Black Mages to fame.

In all of the excitement of making the new world work, however, no one even suspected that this was part of a much larger plan until the worlds had begun working in harmony with each other.

Chapter 1

Squall looked out over the rising gunblade specialists, each practicing with a partner at the moment, waiting for the class to end. He took particular notice of an 'enthusiastic' young student, Rakunya. While Rakunya's face showed no sign of it, Squall knew that he desired nothing more than to become the next gunblade specialist, and at the rate he was going, he was likely to succeed. He had more determination in this field than anything Squall had ever seen before.

Rakunya would, perhaps, already be a gunblade specialist, but he was unable to take the SeeD test with his apparent weapon of choice. At the time, Squall, Rakunya's advisor, had encouraged his original line of thought, and as such, Rakunya performed two SeeD tests, one right after the other, specializing him in both shotguns and katanas. At first, Squall assumed that the gunblade was simply the next logical choice. In time, however, it became apparent that Rakunya had wanted the gunblade from the beginning.

Squall looked at his pupil with a hint of fondness. He was reminded so much of himself when he spoke with the boy that it was uncanny, although Squall didn't remember having his fingers in so many pots. Rakunya seemed connected to people all throughout the world, and while that seemed like a good thing in this now merged world, it made Squall uneasy. The taste of power could always corrupt his 'pupil', and he didn't want that to happen. They had indeed become good friends, and losing any of his friends…

His train of thought was interrupted by the noise of several surprised students and Rakunya rushing to his desk. "Squall…I mean, Professor Leonhart," Rakunya said hurriedly. His face was no longer emotionless; rather, it now held an expression of fear, amazement, and eagerness. Some may have found it comical.

"What's going on, Rakunya?" Squall said calmly, despite the fact that he realized that some danger was certainly approaching. Had it been something trivial, Rakunya probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all.

"There's an attack on the Garden, sir!" he said just as quickly as before.

"What?" Squall was in shock.

"That's the trouble, sir. I'm not sure what exactly it is. I've Scanned it already for you…does the name Jenova mean anything to you?"

Squall shook his head. "Not a thing," he admitted. "Are you sure that you've never seen this thing before? It's not just an ordinary monster?"

"I've never seen anything like it," he reassured Squall. "It's…I can't even begin to describe it. It's deformed, whatever it is, much like the zombie Gerogero…but Scan doesn't mention it being a zombie."

Squall nodded. "You want to be a gunblade specialist, right?"

"Sir, is this the most appropriate…"

"Your test," Squall continued just as nonchalantly, "is to do battle with this Jenova."

"Are you sure?"

"You are my only pupil that is ready, Rakunya. Go and fight with Jenova. Your ultimate goal is destroy it, but I don't expect you to be able to do it alone. I'll send reinforcements shortly, but there's no telling just how long it will take for them to arrive. Good luck."

Rakunya didn't need to be told twice. He rushed out of the Garden and drew his gunblade, though when he saw the deformed beast, he began to wish he'd brought his katana set. This Jenova loomed above him like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was at least as menacing as a T-Rexaur, and no shorter than an Iron Giant. He questioned his ability to defeat it, but he knew that Squall was counting on him.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though Jenova was expecting retaliation. The moment he arrived on the scene, it fired a very powerful laser at him. He knew that there was indeed little he could do to stop it, so, thinking fast, he fired a quick Fira spell at the beast. This did little to it, however, and the beast hardly seemed shaken. He tried the use of his gunblade, but this creature was holding up well to his physical attacks. I've relied on magic for too long, he thought. No wonder my physical attacks are worthless.

Fortunately, his first reinforcement showed up, and he was quite surprised to see how powerful of an ally he was sent. Selphie, to his surprise, was also not able to hurt it much with her physical attacks, and she too was greeted with a laser. "This is insane!" she said. "What was Squall thinking when he made this your test? He should be out here fighting!"

An idea suddenly struck him. "Selphie! Cast Wall!"

"What's the point?" she asked. "It's not attacking much!"

"Trust me! This was Squall's test for me, and now I know why!"

She did as he asked, and Rakunya pointed his gunblade at Jenova. "This ends," he said. He could see the energy from Selphie's Wall spell focus around the tip. He leapt into the air and, squeezing the trigger, slashed at Jenova. The result was amazing; all of the protective energy from the Wall spell was thrust at Jenova in a great destructive blast. Jenova disappeared.

Selphie stared at him in awe as he landed on the ground. "How did you do that?" she managed.

"I've been taken Limit classes from Midgar, remember? That's one of my newest additions; I can take any protective or curative magic and turn it against my enemies…it only seems to work with a gunblade."

"If you can use curative magic…"

"I'm fresh out of Cura, and I couldn't draw anything from Jenova."

Selphie patted him on the back. "Well, congratulations on your next endorsement! Oh, and don't feel bad about not being able to draw anything, I couldn't either. I couldn't even tell what kind of magic it had."

"Squall should've sent Irvine, he'd have known."

"Squall knew better than to send Irvine," Selphie said fiercely. She turned away, tears coming to her eyes.

"I see," Rakunya said. "Another big fight?"

Selphie shook her head. She stood there for a moment, then ran over and hugged Rakunya tightly, sobbing. "We broke up," she cried.

"Poor Selphie," he said, hugging her back. He knew how much Irvine had meant to her and how hard this break up was going to be. "What happened?"

She let go and wiped the tears away. "Don't worry about it," she said, trying hard to sound happy again. "It's nothing."

"Are you sure?" he asked, hurt that she didn't trust him. "I'm here if you need someone to talk to."

"I know, I know," she said. "Maybe some other time, though. I'd better go let Squall know how things went. Bye!" She waved at him, then rushed off.

"Bye," he said quietly, waving back.

So much was happening that wasn't right. The worlds had merged, Selphie and Irvine broke up, and now Jenova shows up outside of Balamb Garden? What was going on? This latest fiasco seemed as impossible as the first. After all, Jenova had only been recorded once as having shown up without Sephiroth's presence. Had he been at the Garden?

He reached up and grabbed the hand that was hovering near his hidden bangle. "You can't get to it," he said. "It's beneath my SeeD uniform."

"What do you need SeeD training for, anyway?" he was asked.

He turned around and smiled at his good friend Yuffie. "Only SeeD uses gunblades, and those happen to be my weapon of choice. How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to see you beat Jenova," she said. "Cloud was right, your new Limit Break is quite impressive." She moved up next to him, then gave him an odd look. "How do you balance all of your duties? SeeD, AVALANCHE, your feelings for Selphie…"

"Selphie and I are friends, nothing more," he assured her.

"Yeah, right," Yuffie laughed. "And I wasn't just trying to steal your Materia."

"You weren't," he said, a smirk on his face. "You were trying to hold my hand."

"What?"

"Yeah," he continued. "That's why you picked up on my conversation with Selphie. You're jealous!"

"No way!" she said. "You're twisting my words!"

"I know," he laughed. "It's a lot of fun."

She hit him playfully on the arm. "Hey, do I ever even get to see your Materia?"

He laughed. "All right, I'll show you."

He pulled up the sleeve of his SeeD uniform and revealed a bangle of sorts; Yuffie wasn't quite sure of the type and suspected that it may have been issued to him by SeeD and modified for Materia. One piece in particular caught her eye, and as good of friends as they were, she couldn't resist reaching for it.

"You like it?" he asked, indicating the shiny red Materia. "It's a one of a kind. Nobody else seems to be able to use it. Care to see what it does?"

Yuffie nodded as if in a daze.

Cloud took another sip of his coffee. "I don't have all day, Squall. Yes, it was tragic that your Garden was attacked, but what am I supposed to do about it?"

"Nothing," Squall said. "I was just hoping that you knew something about the creature that attacked us. Its name was Jenova…does that mean anything to you?"

Cloud almost dropped his coffee in surprise. The beauty of the town of Balamb seemed somehow diminished by this revelation. "Jenova?" he whispered.

"Then perhaps you could fill us in on some details?"

Cloud set down his coffee mug and leaned slightly forward. He knew that the residents of Balamb were unfamiliar with Jenova, but he still wanted to air on the safe side of caution. "Are you sure?"

"Quite. We scanned the beast the moment it was spotted. We've also received reports of one appearing in Wutai and Alexandria."

Cloud leaned back, taken aback by the news. One Jenova had been bad enough, but three? "Excuse me a brief moment, Squall."

He stood up and went to the street just outside the coffee shop. How could Jenova have appeared? Why did it appear here, in this beautiful landscape? What business did it have attacking Garden?

He transmitted a message to Cid, telling him to check out the Wutai area for any signs of 'unusual activity'. He refused to say Jenova just yet, not until he knew for sure.

He went back in and sat down across from Squall. "What would you like to know?"

"I'd like something to go off of," he said honestly. "What is it and why was it after Garden?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer your second question," Cloud told him. "As for the first…

"Jenova is a being that is well over 2000 years old. It was originally believed to be an Ancient, but we later discovered that Jenova was what caused their death. A former Shinra scientist, Hojo, used cells from Jenova in experiments. One such experiment produced Sephiroth, whom I've already told you about." Cloud neglected to mention that he, too, was an experiment.

"Then…Sephiroth is alive?"

Cloud shook his head. "That's impossible. We killed him. Of course, I thought that Jenova was dead, too." Cloud shook his head. "No, I'm sure Sephiroth is dead. Is there anything else, because if not, I have a political meeting with your father."

Squall raised an eyebrow. "The head of a terrorist group meeting with the president of Esthar?"

"Yes," Cloud said, standing up. "It would seem that Esthar and the Shinra are on the verge of war…again. I'm going to see how much he has to do with it and try to work out peaceful negotiations."

"Good luck," Squall said, shaking Cloud's hand. "And thank you for your help."