This is a more serious fic, but I'll try to include humor. Well, actually,
humor will probably welcome itself in whether I want it to or not. This
also takes place ten years after the game. There will be no connection to
Advent Children, as I have yet, of course, to watch it. So anyway, enjoy
and expect more chapters.
*FF7 and all its characters are not c/o of me, Sephrina is c/o of me
though.
The sun rose high above Midgar as Cloud opened his eyes, his vision focusing on the brunette beside him. She was already awake and looking out their bedroom window. "What are you looking at?" Cloud sat up. Tifa turned her eyes to him and smiled. "Just admiring her garden. I can't believe it still blooms every year." Tifa said. "We never take care of it." Cloud got out of bed and walked to the closet. He searched through the closet and pulled out a suit. "You know," He said, "it still feels weird wearing these." He eyed the suit. "Well that's what you get for taking over Shinra." Tifa said, pulling herself out of bed. It was true; Cloud had taken over Shinra, after his final battle with Sephiroth. Tifa walked over to him. "How long will you be in Nibleheim?" Cloud look back at her. "It shouldn't be too long. I just have to give the mansion a look over before it's torn down." "And that'll be the last thing you have to clean up from Shinra?" "Yeah." Cloud kissed her cheek. "I have to get ready and be on my way." "I'll pack your suitcase." Tifa said as she watched her husband walk to the bathroom.
The plane hadn't been too long, but after the landing Cloud and six other men, five soldiers and scientist, still had to travel an hour or two to Nibleheim. All the way memories of trips there with Avalanche, that night he told Tifa he was leaving, and Sephiroth, who had once been his hero, raced through his head. One of the soldiers touched his shoulder. "Sir, we're here." Cloud look out of the truck's window at the small town, with the mansion getting bigger as they got closer. The sun had starting setting as the truck came to a stop in front the inn. "No time to bother with the mansion tonight. We'll go early tomorrow morning." With that said the seven men checked into the inn for the night. Cloud's room was shared only with the scientist. "Do you think we'll find another important there? It has been empty for so long." Cloud looked at his roommate. "I don't know. I think the most we'll find is old reports about the Sephiroth Project." The scientist nodded his head. "Well, see you in the a.m., Sir." "Goodnight." Cloud turned in his bed and shut his eyes.
"Cloud." He opened his eyes and sat up. It was still dark, and the woman said his name again. Cloud searched for the voice, which continued to call him. Looking up, he saw it. A delicate hand, reaching down to him in the darkness. He reached towards her...
"Sir?" Cloud opened his eyes. It was morning. "Time to go now." Cloud got up and dressed. He stepped outside of his room, where everyone was waiting on him. After a bit of breakfast, they headed to the mansion. It didn't look much different to him, save for more dust. One of the soldiers walked up to him. "Should we split up?" Cloud nodded his head. "No, the west side shouldn't be hard to go through, as with most of the east. We'll look through the first floor, and then head upstairs." After hours of looking through the rooms, searching for nothing, they came to the end of the east side, with one more room to go. One be one they filed in, Cloud in the lead. Through the sitting area first, then to the bedroom. The men looked around while Cloud walked up to the round, stone wall. "This way." Cloud opened the wall; the other men stepped curiously behind him. They headed slowly down the wooded planks, for fear that the age of the wood and the weight of the men would cause them to break. Then down the corridor to the doors. Cloud remembered Vincent. After the final battle Vincent had left the group without a final notice. Knowing that none of them knew where he went, Cloud opened the door to his left. It was a small, bare room, with Vincent's empty casket in the center.
"Wonder who that was for?" One of the soldiers said. "It was Vincent's." Without explaining Cloud opened the only other door. This room too was just how Cloud had remembered, except with more dust than before. The men walked in and looked around. Stacks and stacks of books were piled on the floor, leaving the shelves empty in most places. The desks were still at either end of the room. Cloud glanced at the one with testing tubes and vials, and walked across to the other. He and the other men glanced at the titles. Most of the books were about the Sephiroth Project, others about the human body and chemicals. Cloud walked behind the desk and looked at untouched books on the shelf. Biology, The Human Brain, The Scientific Method, Project SR Ultimate. "What?" Cloud mouthed to himself, reaching for the book. As he pulled it off the shelf, a click was heard in the room. The six men looked up at him. Cloud looked at the shelf, and back towards the men. Their curiosity peaked; they walked over to him and looked at the shelf, then at the book. Cloud opened it. "It's blank, empty on all pages." Cloud looked at the men and set the book on the table. He turned back to the shelf, placing his hands on it. He looked up and down it, then walked to one side and gave it a push. Nothing happened. Stepping back, he looked at it once more, then walked to the other side and gave that a push. The shelf moved slightly. Pushing harder, Cloud managed to create a small opening, with the other end of the shelf sticking out. "Somebody help me." The nearest soldier walked beside him and helped him pushed. The shelf moved easier this time, and the two men moved it a full 90 degrees. Everyone peered into the hole. The room it led to was black, with a small bit of light coming from the floor along the opposite wall. "Is there a light switch anywhere?" The scientist asked. Cloud and the soldier felt along the walls in the opening. "I think I found it." The soldier said, flipping a rather large switch up. The room was flooded with florescent lighting. The men all walked in with amazement. It was a hidden Shinra laboratory. In the center of the wall where they had seen some light earlier, a large, round thing was covered by black fabric. The wall itself seemed to be made of nothing but monitors. Cloud turned a full circle to look at the lab. To his left was a metal closet, beside the covered object. Along the next wall were two, long tables, each full of bottles, vials, tubes, liquids, pens, paper, and all the like. Set on that wall was a large chalk board. Nothing was on it, so Cloud continued to look. On the wall where the entrance were books and tapes filling multiple shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling, with a large ladder attached to reach all levels of the shelves. Cloud looked on. The next wall was empty, but there were electronic equipment for recording and viewing the tapes most likely. Finally, on the opposite side of the covered object was a single metal desk, with a computer and several journals. "Wow, would you get a load of this place?" One soldier said. "I wondered who used it?" The scientist asked. Cloud turned his attention back to the shelves. He walked up to the ladder and climbed up three or four shelves. He looked around. This side had all of the tapes, and it looked like there were hundreds and hundreds of them. "They all say Project SR Ultimate on them." Cloud told the others. "Slide me to the other side." A soldier walked up and carefully wheeled the ladder to the books. "What do they say?" Another soldier piped up. Cloud looked. "They say the same thing, all of them." Cloud climbed to the top and pushed himself to the furthest corner, passing more Project SR Ultimate's. He looked down at the others. "I guess this is the beginning, so let's see what the project is." He quickly grabbed six books and tossed them down, without giving them a second glace. Then he grabbed the next one and set himself against the ladder. He flipped through the book first, to be sure it wasn't blank like the other one, then he turned to the first page. "This looks like it's about the equipment in here." Cloud said looking through the book. "Yeah, mines the same." A soldier said. "Sir?" Cloud looked down at the soldier furthest from him. "Who's Aerith Gainsborough?" Cloud looked puzzled for a moment, and then remembered that Shinra wanted to kidnap her, as she was the last Ancient. Putting his book back on the shelf, Cloud climbed down the ladder and took the soldier's book. Cloud flipped through the book, and found nothing but information about Aerith, right down to her blood type. He flipped towards the middle of the book and read journal entries. "The Ancient is in our hands once more, but I'm sure she'll figure out how to escape again. Hopefully we'll have her here a little longer than last time." Cloud turned a few pages and read on, everyone listened closely. "The Ancient, as I know escaped again, but two of the Turks brought her back this morning. This time we have double her dose of sleeping gas, so she'll be out long enough for some more testing and samples. We'll be taking some more blood samples, and this time we take her eggs. The whole process would be a lot easier if she would cooperate like the Seph – Clone does." A soldier walked up to Cloud and handed over his book. "This one is about the Seph – Clone," He's voice dyed down. "But..." Cloud looked in the beginning of that book. "...I didn't know you were a, a clone." Cloud remand silent for a moment's time, and spoke up. "I was tested on, like the other Shinra Soldiers at that time," He started. "but Hojo didn't create me like he did most of the other clones. I really just had the Mako injections." Cloud flipped through the book. "What's it say?" The scientist looked of his shoulder, and Cloud spoke up. "The Seph – Clone is working out nicely, I don't know what it is, but he seems different some how. It must have been the Mako I gave him, but it shouldn't have affected him any different. Maybe it's the influence that Sephiroth has on him." Cloud paused, and then continued. "Sephiroth, so far my greatest creation, and now he will have a companion. Someone as powerful as he. With the genes of the Ancient and the Seph – Clone, Project SR will be more powerful. SR will be powerful, SR will be ultimate, the only indestructible being alive. It will be my greatest creation." Cloud handed the books to the man closest to him, and shot up the ladder. He then pushed himself along the shelves and began looking for the first tape. "Project SR Ultimate 10, 9 ...5, 1!" Cloud came down the ladder and headed start for the electronic equipment. "Can any of you work with this?" The scientist walked up and took the tape. With the help of a soldier, they put it in the VCR and turned it on. The wall of monitors flicked on and off, save for one screen. They all walked up to that screen and watched. The screen created snow, then faded out and back in. Hojo was in the center of the screen, adjusting something on it. He stepped back. "Now to start the documentation of my project." Hojo grabbed a clipboard off of the desk and stood full body center on the screen. He flipped through the pages on the clip board before beginning. "My greatest invention starts today, at 10:00 a.m. I have collected all of the samples I need from the Ancient and the Seph – Clone. By mixing the samples with the proper ingredients from my lab, I will create a genetically enhanced being. The being will develop physically over a course of three or four weeks, but it will take years for it to fully develop mentally." Hojo turned and walked to a large tank full of a transparent liquid. "My creation will develop here, and will remain in this tank for at least ten to twenty years. It will probably take ten to fifty years at most," Hojo picked up a tube from a table in front of the tank. "as my embryo has already started to develop in the few hours that it has been created." Hojo smiled and looked at the camera. "I will have no way to tell what gender will be the outcome, but every minute of its life will be captured on cameras that will be monitoring it day and night. This will be a most powerful project. It will be another Seph." The screen blacked out and went to snow. The men looked at the tank, and cautiously circled it. Cloud walked up to it, and grabbed a hold of the black cloth. He started to pull on it slowly, and then with a sudden urge, he pulled at it hard. The black fabric fell heavy to the floor, and everyone looked inside the tank at a rather beautiful creature.
Thanks for reading my fic! Please do a review, so I know how I'm doing. I hope to post the second chapter soon! Thanks again!
The sun rose high above Midgar as Cloud opened his eyes, his vision focusing on the brunette beside him. She was already awake and looking out their bedroom window. "What are you looking at?" Cloud sat up. Tifa turned her eyes to him and smiled. "Just admiring her garden. I can't believe it still blooms every year." Tifa said. "We never take care of it." Cloud got out of bed and walked to the closet. He searched through the closet and pulled out a suit. "You know," He said, "it still feels weird wearing these." He eyed the suit. "Well that's what you get for taking over Shinra." Tifa said, pulling herself out of bed. It was true; Cloud had taken over Shinra, after his final battle with Sephiroth. Tifa walked over to him. "How long will you be in Nibleheim?" Cloud look back at her. "It shouldn't be too long. I just have to give the mansion a look over before it's torn down." "And that'll be the last thing you have to clean up from Shinra?" "Yeah." Cloud kissed her cheek. "I have to get ready and be on my way." "I'll pack your suitcase." Tifa said as she watched her husband walk to the bathroom.
The plane hadn't been too long, but after the landing Cloud and six other men, five soldiers and scientist, still had to travel an hour or two to Nibleheim. All the way memories of trips there with Avalanche, that night he told Tifa he was leaving, and Sephiroth, who had once been his hero, raced through his head. One of the soldiers touched his shoulder. "Sir, we're here." Cloud look out of the truck's window at the small town, with the mansion getting bigger as they got closer. The sun had starting setting as the truck came to a stop in front the inn. "No time to bother with the mansion tonight. We'll go early tomorrow morning." With that said the seven men checked into the inn for the night. Cloud's room was shared only with the scientist. "Do you think we'll find another important there? It has been empty for so long." Cloud looked at his roommate. "I don't know. I think the most we'll find is old reports about the Sephiroth Project." The scientist nodded his head. "Well, see you in the a.m., Sir." "Goodnight." Cloud turned in his bed and shut his eyes.
"Cloud." He opened his eyes and sat up. It was still dark, and the woman said his name again. Cloud searched for the voice, which continued to call him. Looking up, he saw it. A delicate hand, reaching down to him in the darkness. He reached towards her...
"Sir?" Cloud opened his eyes. It was morning. "Time to go now." Cloud got up and dressed. He stepped outside of his room, where everyone was waiting on him. After a bit of breakfast, they headed to the mansion. It didn't look much different to him, save for more dust. One of the soldiers walked up to him. "Should we split up?" Cloud nodded his head. "No, the west side shouldn't be hard to go through, as with most of the east. We'll look through the first floor, and then head upstairs." After hours of looking through the rooms, searching for nothing, they came to the end of the east side, with one more room to go. One be one they filed in, Cloud in the lead. Through the sitting area first, then to the bedroom. The men looked around while Cloud walked up to the round, stone wall. "This way." Cloud opened the wall; the other men stepped curiously behind him. They headed slowly down the wooded planks, for fear that the age of the wood and the weight of the men would cause them to break. Then down the corridor to the doors. Cloud remembered Vincent. After the final battle Vincent had left the group without a final notice. Knowing that none of them knew where he went, Cloud opened the door to his left. It was a small, bare room, with Vincent's empty casket in the center.
"Wonder who that was for?" One of the soldiers said. "It was Vincent's." Without explaining Cloud opened the only other door. This room too was just how Cloud had remembered, except with more dust than before. The men walked in and looked around. Stacks and stacks of books were piled on the floor, leaving the shelves empty in most places. The desks were still at either end of the room. Cloud glanced at the one with testing tubes and vials, and walked across to the other. He and the other men glanced at the titles. Most of the books were about the Sephiroth Project, others about the human body and chemicals. Cloud walked behind the desk and looked at untouched books on the shelf. Biology, The Human Brain, The Scientific Method, Project SR Ultimate. "What?" Cloud mouthed to himself, reaching for the book. As he pulled it off the shelf, a click was heard in the room. The six men looked up at him. Cloud looked at the shelf, and back towards the men. Their curiosity peaked; they walked over to him and looked at the shelf, then at the book. Cloud opened it. "It's blank, empty on all pages." Cloud looked at the men and set the book on the table. He turned back to the shelf, placing his hands on it. He looked up and down it, then walked to one side and gave it a push. Nothing happened. Stepping back, he looked at it once more, then walked to the other side and gave that a push. The shelf moved slightly. Pushing harder, Cloud managed to create a small opening, with the other end of the shelf sticking out. "Somebody help me." The nearest soldier walked beside him and helped him pushed. The shelf moved easier this time, and the two men moved it a full 90 degrees. Everyone peered into the hole. The room it led to was black, with a small bit of light coming from the floor along the opposite wall. "Is there a light switch anywhere?" The scientist asked. Cloud and the soldier felt along the walls in the opening. "I think I found it." The soldier said, flipping a rather large switch up. The room was flooded with florescent lighting. The men all walked in with amazement. It was a hidden Shinra laboratory. In the center of the wall where they had seen some light earlier, a large, round thing was covered by black fabric. The wall itself seemed to be made of nothing but monitors. Cloud turned a full circle to look at the lab. To his left was a metal closet, beside the covered object. Along the next wall were two, long tables, each full of bottles, vials, tubes, liquids, pens, paper, and all the like. Set on that wall was a large chalk board. Nothing was on it, so Cloud continued to look. On the wall where the entrance were books and tapes filling multiple shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling, with a large ladder attached to reach all levels of the shelves. Cloud looked on. The next wall was empty, but there were electronic equipment for recording and viewing the tapes most likely. Finally, on the opposite side of the covered object was a single metal desk, with a computer and several journals. "Wow, would you get a load of this place?" One soldier said. "I wondered who used it?" The scientist asked. Cloud turned his attention back to the shelves. He walked up to the ladder and climbed up three or four shelves. He looked around. This side had all of the tapes, and it looked like there were hundreds and hundreds of them. "They all say Project SR Ultimate on them." Cloud told the others. "Slide me to the other side." A soldier walked up and carefully wheeled the ladder to the books. "What do they say?" Another soldier piped up. Cloud looked. "They say the same thing, all of them." Cloud climbed to the top and pushed himself to the furthest corner, passing more Project SR Ultimate's. He looked down at the others. "I guess this is the beginning, so let's see what the project is." He quickly grabbed six books and tossed them down, without giving them a second glace. Then he grabbed the next one and set himself against the ladder. He flipped through the book first, to be sure it wasn't blank like the other one, then he turned to the first page. "This looks like it's about the equipment in here." Cloud said looking through the book. "Yeah, mines the same." A soldier said. "Sir?" Cloud looked down at the soldier furthest from him. "Who's Aerith Gainsborough?" Cloud looked puzzled for a moment, and then remembered that Shinra wanted to kidnap her, as she was the last Ancient. Putting his book back on the shelf, Cloud climbed down the ladder and took the soldier's book. Cloud flipped through the book, and found nothing but information about Aerith, right down to her blood type. He flipped towards the middle of the book and read journal entries. "The Ancient is in our hands once more, but I'm sure she'll figure out how to escape again. Hopefully we'll have her here a little longer than last time." Cloud turned a few pages and read on, everyone listened closely. "The Ancient, as I know escaped again, but two of the Turks brought her back this morning. This time we have double her dose of sleeping gas, so she'll be out long enough for some more testing and samples. We'll be taking some more blood samples, and this time we take her eggs. The whole process would be a lot easier if she would cooperate like the Seph – Clone does." A soldier walked up to Cloud and handed over his book. "This one is about the Seph – Clone," He's voice dyed down. "But..." Cloud looked in the beginning of that book. "...I didn't know you were a, a clone." Cloud remand silent for a moment's time, and spoke up. "I was tested on, like the other Shinra Soldiers at that time," He started. "but Hojo didn't create me like he did most of the other clones. I really just had the Mako injections." Cloud flipped through the book. "What's it say?" The scientist looked of his shoulder, and Cloud spoke up. "The Seph – Clone is working out nicely, I don't know what it is, but he seems different some how. It must have been the Mako I gave him, but it shouldn't have affected him any different. Maybe it's the influence that Sephiroth has on him." Cloud paused, and then continued. "Sephiroth, so far my greatest creation, and now he will have a companion. Someone as powerful as he. With the genes of the Ancient and the Seph – Clone, Project SR will be more powerful. SR will be powerful, SR will be ultimate, the only indestructible being alive. It will be my greatest creation." Cloud handed the books to the man closest to him, and shot up the ladder. He then pushed himself along the shelves and began looking for the first tape. "Project SR Ultimate 10, 9 ...5, 1!" Cloud came down the ladder and headed start for the electronic equipment. "Can any of you work with this?" The scientist walked up and took the tape. With the help of a soldier, they put it in the VCR and turned it on. The wall of monitors flicked on and off, save for one screen. They all walked up to that screen and watched. The screen created snow, then faded out and back in. Hojo was in the center of the screen, adjusting something on it. He stepped back. "Now to start the documentation of my project." Hojo grabbed a clipboard off of the desk and stood full body center on the screen. He flipped through the pages on the clip board before beginning. "My greatest invention starts today, at 10:00 a.m. I have collected all of the samples I need from the Ancient and the Seph – Clone. By mixing the samples with the proper ingredients from my lab, I will create a genetically enhanced being. The being will develop physically over a course of three or four weeks, but it will take years for it to fully develop mentally." Hojo turned and walked to a large tank full of a transparent liquid. "My creation will develop here, and will remain in this tank for at least ten to twenty years. It will probably take ten to fifty years at most," Hojo picked up a tube from a table in front of the tank. "as my embryo has already started to develop in the few hours that it has been created." Hojo smiled and looked at the camera. "I will have no way to tell what gender will be the outcome, but every minute of its life will be captured on cameras that will be monitoring it day and night. This will be a most powerful project. It will be another Seph." The screen blacked out and went to snow. The men looked at the tank, and cautiously circled it. Cloud walked up to it, and grabbed a hold of the black cloth. He started to pull on it slowly, and then with a sudden urge, he pulled at it hard. The black fabric fell heavy to the floor, and everyone looked inside the tank at a rather beautiful creature.
Thanks for reading my fic! Please do a review, so I know how I'm doing. I hope to post the second chapter soon! Thanks again!