PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE

"Let's see…what's this? Two newly arrived from Midgar?"

 A man picked up a report attached on the operation table of two newly arrived bodies.

"Hm…cause of death…both of them have serious wound caused by slashing…murder weapon…two swords been found on the place of incident…ah! Here it is!…families of victims…none…but someone claimed to be the first victim's fiancee…blah…blah…blah…I bet this is a typical sword fight." The man said.

The man reattached the report back onto the operation table. He walked back to his chair in a corner of the room.

"Man! Why should I take this jobs? Everyday I have to look at death people and this place is going to bore me the death! I should have been a security guard or something!" the man complaint.

Obviously, this man is a mortuary staff and he wasn't very happy with his job. Suddenly, the alarm on his watch went off.

"Yeah! Midnight snack time!" The man jumped off from his chair and walked towards the kitchen.

"Let's see…what should I have?" The man was slowly browsing through the fast food vending machine outside of the room.

"I think I will have a tuna sandwich." The man inserted some gil into the vending machine and wait for his sandwich to come out.

Suddenly he heard footsteps. At first he ignored it but then he realize something was wrong. The footsteps came form inside of the room.

Being quite scared, he left his sandwich on the vending machine. He slowly approach the door of the room. When he gets closer, he suddenly heard some shouts and the sound of swords clashing. He just froze at his current position. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise and then he was struck by a strong gush of force. He couldn't resist it and he past out.

"What the hell happened?" The man moaned when he was regaining consciousness.

He stood up. Then he started remembering what had happened. There was strange sound coming from the room and then he was knocked out. Still not being fully conscious, he slowly entered the room.

When he entered the room, he was stunned. Everything was in a terrible mess. There are papers scattered all over the place and all the furniture was destroyed. But only one thing that made his mouth wide open. The two newly arrived bodies were gone.

CHAPTER 1

"Oh, I need a break."

Inside a basement of an old house, a young girl moaned while stretching her arms and legs. This girl has long brown hair, deep green emerald eyes and had a real beautiful face. She was nobody other than the ancient that had been revived into a totally new body-Aeris.

Three days had past since Cloud's death. Although it was only three days, the Avalanche didn't take it very well and it seemed like three months to them. After that incident, Aeris went to Icicle Inn to understand more about her race and the rest of the team continued their lives in Kalm.

Aeris got up from her seat and went to fetch her coat. It was winter here in icicle inn and that makes this place even colder. After Aeris put on her coat, she headed straight to the bar.

"Anything strong, lady?" asked the bartender.

"No thanks. Just give me a hot cocoa." Aeris replied.

The bartender turned and made a hot chocolate for her. After he finished, he put it in front of Aeris.

"Here is your hot cocoa." the bartender said.

"Seldom see someone as good looking as you in this place. The last cute one I saw was Professor Gast's wife." The bartender continued.

"She's my mother." Aeris replied.

"Oh! So you are Professor Gast's daughter! My! I never know he had a daughter! He had disappeared many years ago. So how is both of them now?"

"They…past away when I was a child." Aeris replied sadly.

"I…I am so sorry. Uh…Um…do you have a boyfriend?" the bartender tried to change the subject.

"What makes you think I have a boyfriend?" Aeris asked curiously.

"Well, cute girls like you should have one by now." The bartender answered.

Aeris kept quiet for a moment like she was deciding what to tell the bartender.

"Actually I loved someone before. But since I just walked into his life, I turned his life upside down. For me, he gave up his wedding and I felt really bad for that. Um, I gotta go, here is the gil and bye." Aeris took out some gil for her pocket and left the bar.

The bartender watched as Aeris left. He couldn't believe that this girl had such a tragic background. After Aeris was out of the bar, he continued serving the other patrons.

"Papa!"

A little girl was running toward a strong man with a gunarm. This man was really big in size and looked real fierce. But deep inside of him, he was a good friend and a caring father. He is one of the warrior that once defeated Sephiroth and saved the world-Barret.

"Come here, Marlene! Whatcha learn at school today?" Barret asked his daughter while putting her on his shoulder.

"Our art teacher taught us how to draw clouds today!" Marlene replied happily.

Barret was stunned by the mention of the word clouds. This word seems to have a real big impact on him.

"What's wrong papa?" Marlene asked her father.

"Nothin's wrong. Just thought of someone else only. We are late for dinner today, I'm gonna getcha home quick or auntie Tifa will be mad." Barret replied and started his journey home.

When Barret reach the inn where they lived, suddenly he heard something crashed in the inn. He put Marlene down and rushed into the inn to see what happened. All he saw was Tifa picking up smattering of a plate.

"Tiff, ya sure ya alright? That the third time today." Barret walked towards Tifa to help her.

"I'm alright. I was just…nevermind, those are just excuses." Tifa replied.

"I know this is real tough for ya but ya gotta get on withcha live. You can't be like this everyday!" Barret consoled.

"I know. Just give me a little time, just a little more time…" Tifa said and walked toward the kitchen.

Barret shook his head and walked towards the dinning room. Only Yuffie was there.

"Where the hell is everybody?" Barret asked Yuffie with a loud voice.

"Okay, let's see, Tifa was in the kitchen, Red said he went to the library and won't be back by dinner, Cid is killing himself with alcohol in the bar, Cait Sith is staring his poker cards in his room, and Vincent is nowhere." Yuffie answered.

"What's tha hell wrong with everybody?! People die everyday! It isn't the end of the world after Spiky Head's death!" Soon after Barret shouted they heard a crying sound from the kitchen.

"Look what you done! Do you know how hard is it to make her stop crying?" Yuffie scolded and walk into the kitchen condoling Tifa.

Barret felt real bad for what he had done. He walked lifeless up to his room and straight away lay down on his bed. He kept thinking about the team, they were once so happy but now, everybody was devastated by the impact of Cloud's death. There was nothing he could do other then waiting for time to past.

"I really missed that spiky headed guy." Barret said to himself.

In a desert somewhere north of the Gold Saucer, there was three people that were riding chocobos moved slowly across the horizon. There were four chocobos all together, three of them was mounted by three people in black suit while the other one had a big cargo on it.

"That's all for today. We're getting setting camp here." one of the riders said.

"What? Camp here? Are you insane?! I thought we should only stop when we get out of this desert!" a female rider replied.

"We can't. The wind is getting stronger and we might get lost." The rider said again.

"No we are not. We are gonna get out here as fast as possible or not we will be eaten up by huge worms." The female rider said again.

"The hell I care with huge worms. I could have easily killed it with my nightstaff." The rider shot back.

"Your nightstaff? Oh please…it just makes pretty fireworks, that all." the female rider said.

"Hey, you can insult me but don't insult my nightstaff!" the rider scold.

"I am not insulting your nightstaff, I am just telling what it really does." The female rider said.

"Why you %(&%% little schoolgirl!"

"You red haired (%^&%(!"

Few years ago, there were a number of elite secret agents working for the Shira called the turks. These agents are very well trained and they job is to protect and assist the president. Among these agents there are only four of them that confronted with the top Shira enemy- Avalanche. These agent are nobody than the infamous Tseng, Reno, Rude and Elena. But not long after they confronted the Avalanche, Sephiroth killed their leader Tseng. At the fall of Shinra, the other three disappeared and nobody knew about their whereabouts.

Now, these three riders are actually the once infamous turks. After the fall of Shinra, they lost their job and became mercenaries for hire. But they were no longer as efficient as before. Now, Reno and Elena would quarrel for any little thing while Rude just stay still and watch. They are no longer the turks Shinra once admire. They are just escorts of a piece of cargo that has to be delivered to Junon.

"You $*(^$^)!!!!!"

"You ^%(%(&(*!!!!!"

"Would you two just shut up!"

At last, Rude shouted out. Elena and Reno looked at Rude with surprise. Rude usually is the most quiet among them and they didn't expect him to shout out like that.

"That's better. Where is all that turk spirit we once have?" Rude continued.

"We are not turks anymore. Now we are just a bunch of mercenaries that would take any job for thee sake of money. Shinra is gone, Rude. We no longer need to worry getting fired because we did stupid little things." Elena replied.

"Well as long as we are still together I don't want anything as stupid as this to happen again. Though we are not working for Shinra we are still turk and I want you two to stop arguing over stupid things! Is that clear?!" Rude scolded.

Reno and Elena kept quiet at once. They can't believe the always-quiet Rude could say something that could get their attention and made them shut up. Thing had really changed a lot since the Shinra day.

"Sorry Rude. I didn't actually want to break up our friendship. So why don't you help me to get the tent ready?" Reno jumped down from his Chocobo and reach for his folded tent in his backpack.

"What? I thought we are gonna get out here as fast as possible!" Elena said with surprise.

"No we are not." Reno replied.

"Yes we are." Elena shot back.

"No! We are not!"

"Yes! We are!"

"Oh man! Not again…" Rude said while shaking his head.

Suddenly they heard loud rumble coming from beneath their feet. Their chocobos went wild and in a sudden, a huge worm emerged from the earth nearby them.

"Uh…I take back everything I said just now." Reno said.

"Good idea." Elena replied and quickly took off into the vast desert.