So, I've wanted to write this for while a while, but I have never played Dissidia or Dissidia 012 before. All my knowledge comes from cutscene movies and wikis. However, I do know Crisis Core fairly well, although time in the lab is a mystery to all of us…So while I will do my best to stick with facts, please forgive me for my ignorance in Dissidia 012 and the creative liberties I take to fill in what I don't know or understand. When it comes to Duodecim, I'm almost in the dark as much as Cloud here…
Dedicated to Ryma.
Cloud's head roughly jerked from the basin of water. He could feel the tight grip on his hair pulling him back further while he sputtered and struggled to give his air-starved lungs relief.
"Leave him alone!" Zack's voice sounded distant in his water-logged ears. "Can't you see you're drowning him?"
Cloud coughed for a moment before feeling the hand on his head shoving him forward and downward. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he was unable to brace himself and therefore found his face submerged in the water once more. Zack's antagonistic words and pleas were drowned out along with the sounds of his heart monitor bleeping and Hojo's directions. He didn't know if this was punishment for his failure to perform as well has he had done the previous day or if this was another way of pushing his limits till they could be reduced to little notes and numbers on Hojo's clipboard. Whatever it was, Cloud was having a hard time breathing. In his head, he counted five times being forced to hold his breath underwater till he nearly passed out. They measured his oxygen levels with their geeky monitors hooked up to his body, but Cloud began to wonder if they even paid attention to how little breath he grabbed between dunks. Right then he had only been submerged twenty seconds and he was already feeling faint.
Black spots danced in his eyes and he opened his mouth, unable to stop himself from taking a desperate swallow of water although begging for air. At that moment his head rose again and was yanked back till the roots of his hair began to tear out. Angered, Cloud threw his head back all the way, smacking the guard in the nose, surprising the man more than hurting him, and thereby knocking the grip on his hair loose. Cloud crumpled to the floor, his forehead catching the table in front of him due to unbalance. Cloud bent over on his knees coughing and gasping, the water burning in his throat as it came out; if he could have cried in pain, he would have.
"Spike?!" The water in Cloud's ears still clogged the sound, but Zack's panic made it through somehow. He couldn't answer, however, and continued spitting up water near the feet of the disgusted guard. The said guard threw a punch to Cloud's head, snapping it downward and sending a shock through his neck. Cloud kept his head ducked since he expected more hits; but instead, Hojo's face suddenly appeared in front of his own. Cloud choked on his breath in an involuntary gasp.
"You're growing weaker." Hojo observed disdainfully.
"Yeah, and whose fault is that?" Zack shouted across the room bitterly.
Hojo spared him a glance before motioning the guard to remove him from one of the twin tubes and take him from the room. Cloud tried to watch Zack as he left, hoping it would calm himself, because it was so hard not to get creeped out with Hojo breathing on him. Zack gave him a reassuring stare in return and managed a scarring glare at the greasy mannered "scientist" before the guard pushed him out of the room. Hojo turned his attention back to Cloud who still had water spilling from his lower lip.
"You are getting too weak to use," Hojo continued from before. "You may yet be of value to me, but if your performance doesn't keep up, someone," Hojo's eyes trailed to the door Zack had barely exited, "is going to pay." Cloud's eyes widened in understanding. Hojo never made a threat he didn't follow through. "Do we understand each other?" the question was rhetorical, but Cloud nodded.
"That goes for compliance as well," Hojo stood and the guard hauled Cloud's shuddering body to its feet. Hojo's eyes grazed over Cloud, checking his physique while scrawny assistants began to free Cloud from the wires and tubes inserted into and tacked onto his arms and chest. He kept his body taut and his gaze unwaveringly hostile, though the image was shattered by the way his lungs were still heaving for oxygen. Once everything was removed, Hojo nodded for him to be taken away.
Cloud hadn't yet managed how to distinguish one boring hallway from the next, but he knew enough about the cells in the hallways to know he would be returning to his and Zack's. It brought a small comfort knowing he wasn't alone down there. In the past, he had heard the groans and screams of other prisoners from other cells, but he had never seen them. All he knew was that they lay behind solid panels and thick stone walls like him and Zack. That was all he needed to know. The screams were enough to give him nightmares; he didn't need faces surfacing in his sleep too.
But lately it was getting quieter. They were getting called in for tests more regularly than before, and Cloud couldn't convince himself it was because they were more interesting than the rest – although that might be true. No, the quiet felt not undisturbed or submissive, but rather…empty. Like those other people – if they had been people – just weren't there anymore.
Goosebumps rose on his arms as he passed the other cells, presumably empty. The silence from those closed-off rooms scared him, and, when his thoughts dwelled on it too long, saddened him. Another reason giving credence to his assumption was the two guards stationed outside their cell door. True, Zack gave everyone trouble, and he was a SOLDIER, but surely that was not the only reason for the added security. Zack told him not to think about it so much, but in their world stripped of information what else could he think about?
Marched straight to the door, Cloud waited for the code to be punched in. He begged Zack would be waiting on the inside and not gone off for more tests. Though he didn't want to answer to Zack's concerned gaze, Cloud needed him there just to know he wasn't alone. He felt strangely light-headed, and the nausea in his stomach from earlier that day had returned. Something wasn't right with him, and Cloud needed Zack around to snap him out of it if Jenova came around looking for a fight.
The metal panel slid open and Cloud passed between the two stationed guards. The darkness of the cell welcomed him and the cold walls stretched out toward him till they hit his wet head and neck and drew a chattering shiver from his teeth. Cloud looked around anxiously.
"Zack?"
A grunt originated from the bathroom nook and Zack's head popped out, smile stretching not quite ear to ear. "Hey, Spike." He noticed Cloud trembling. Tossing him their only hand towel – a grimy one at that – he ordered, "Dry yourself off. You look like a chocobo chick climbed out of a puddle. I'll be out in a minute."
Cloud scooped up the cloth from where it had fallen on the floor and scrubbed at his hair. Inside the bathroom, Zack's muttered curses about mako clinging to skin bounced off the walls and echoed into the main room. Cloud's feet led him to his cot where he sat down dejectedly, towel limp in his idle hands. Hojo did not make empty threats, and if he wanted to keep Zack from more punishment than he gave himself, it lay on Cloud to exceed his aptitude and push himself harder than ever before.
Except…he couldn't do it.
He already gave his all just to avoid punishment himself, although that didn't seem to be enough.
I could help you, a serpentine, and much too familiar female voice intruded his thoughts.
"Shut up," Cloud snapped aloud. Zack's talking tendencies must have been rubbing off on him, but hearing his own voice helped him distinguish which thoughts were his own and which were Jenova's.
"Didja say something, Spikey?" Zack questioned from the bathroom.
Cloud shook his head, though upon realizing Zack couldn't see the gesture, he called out softly, "No." Zack didn't need to know. There was nothing he could do about it anyway.
Presently Zack emerged from the confines of the bathroom and slumped on his cot across the room from Cloud. They sat in uncharacteristic silence, Cloud lost in trying to understand where the "off" feeling residing in his gut had come from and Zack watching Cloud to determine his state of mind. Zack finally broke the air with the classic question:
"How are you feeling?"
Cloud shrugged and raised a limp hand to shake out the remaining water droplets sliding down his spikes and slipping under the neck of his t-shirt.
Zack tried to pry it from him. "It's not Jenova is it?" Cloud blinked and wiped a few wet lines on his neck dry with the towel so Zack went on. "I hate to admit this, but…Hojo's right, for once. You are doing worse than normal. You okay?"
No.
But Cloud didn't say it. "Just tired, I guess." He dropped the hand towel to the floor, letting the dirty fabric pile in a crumpled mess at his feet. Moving slowly, Cloud twisted around and got under the worn blanket lying tangled on his cot.
"You sure that's all?" Zack tried one last time.
Cloud had a headache, and his stomach felt like it was feeding on itself to curb the gnawing pain of starvation, but for now, he just wanted to be left alone. "Yeah, just tired."
Trying a different angle, Zack asked, "You gonna wait up for dinner?"
Cloud was really hungry, but his eyelids were already drooping over mako-bright irises. "No," his voice barely broke a whisper.
A pause, then, "I'm worried about you, buddy."
Cloud turned over to face the wall. The ever-grey, totally thought absorbing wall. He raised his voice slightly so Zack could hear him, muttering a soft, "I know" before closing his eyes and praying for relief from the endless torment. He was so tired of fighting. Never a break from it, and his will to survive waning the longer he fought. And end to the fighting. That was what he wanted. An end…
The heat burned from outside his closed eyes. The cell's ever present chill was gone, replaced with a scouring heat all around him like he stood in the heart of a bonfire. Confused, he opened his eyes.
A startled gasp caught in his throat. All around him, spurts of lava rose from around the platforms he and others stood on. Where was he?
More importantly, who was he?
He spared a moment to glance over himself, trying to attach some identity to his appearance. Bone white boots, plain black pants. His eyes wandered further upward, the part of his mind not preoccupied with trying to remember who he was keenly aware of the stares he was receiving from the others around him. A simple belt, a protective vest, a bulky shoulder guard on his left shoulder, and a vaguely familiar sword gripped in one gloved hand. Bringing a hand up, he felt the soft tips of hair sticking straight in the air. Oh no. He had a Mohawk?! No, his hair was sticking up all over the place, not just in the middle. So he was someone with permanent bad-hair-day. That, he could handle. The blond strands seemed to part off into spikes, and he was able to see some for himself as his bangs were long enough to reach his nose.
Spike.
Spikey.
Something in his memory stirred at the word. Was that his name? No, not quite. It felt comfortable, familiar even, but that couldn't be his name.
His name still a mystery, he looked past the bangs hanging loosely in front of his face and started to examine the rest of the…people gathered around on the purple rock-face. There had to be at least a dozen of them all together.
Each was unquestionably unique, based solely on appearance, and the diverse facial expressions suggested much more than their armor could show. Their armor or their lack of it… One slender face stood out among all others. Immediately he was assaulted by a pressure behind his eyes as he stared into the glowing green of the other's eyes. Something was familiar about that face and the long silver tendrils of hair nearly sweeping the ground. He knew he knew this man. More than that: he knew he hated him. But why? Who was this man? And back to that persistent question: who was he?
As if by answer, a deep voice rippled through the air. "Welcome, warrior of Chaos." He looked to the source and found himself restraining his every instinct to back-step into the lava. The creature sitting on the horribly majestic throne was more demon then human. With pale yellow skin and skulls seemingly tattooed onto it, the monster gave the appearance of death, but with horns, two pairs of arms, leathery wings, and a tail, he gave the impression of dissonance personified.
What had he said?
"Welcome, warrior of Chaos."
The monster is Chaos.
His eyes flicked back to the stolid man with those glowing green slits. He had seen those eyes before too.
And I am his warrior, like those gathered here.
No, that was not right.
Staring into those green eyes, a surge of anger flooded him. He knew who he was, and that was the one thing nobody would take from him.
I am subject to no one. My name is Cloud Strife.
Cloud gasped heavily as he woke. His body shook from cold and fear. In the back of his mind he knew he had dreamed, but the harder he tried to remember, the less he wanted to remember.
Panting and disconcerted, Cloud tried to regain his sense of self. Closing his eyes, he wished it all away. Suddenly Sephiroth's eyes burned like phosphene under his closed eyelids, breaking through the barrier he had set around his mind to protect him from fear. A startled cry escaped his throat, and he scrambled for the bathroom. Turning on the sink, Cloud cupped his hands under the water. The cold water met his face seconds later, waking him up entirely and washing the green eyes from his memory. The water ran unhindered down the drain while Cloud stood there, hands on each side of the porcelain sink holding him up shakily. He felt like crying, but he didn't know why. Nightmares didn't do this to him, at least not normal nightmares. But then, since when did he have a dismissible nightmare since coming to Hojo's freak lab?
"You okay, Spike?" Zack came around the corner, a slight yawn covering the worry in his voice.
"Yeah," but Cloud shook his head in contradiction of himself. "Just had a crazy dream." He reached to shut off the water.
"Huh," Zack leaned back against the doorframe. "Like suddenly finding yourself in a city full of rabid fangirls, and you're the center of attraction?" Cloud's look asked him if he was serious, and Zack snorted softly. "I'm just kidding."
Cloud shook his head and pushed past him. Zack followed and got back on his own cot when he saw Cloud getting settled on his own.
"You gonna be able to get back to sleep, kid?" Zack asked softly.
Cloud frowned at his remark, but nodded. "Yeah." He lay silently for a few minutes with his eyes closed. Presently Zack's snoring filled the room, but Cloud remained awake, unable to sleep after such a vivid yet unrecallable dream.
Thoughts? Praise? Criticism? Suggestions?
If there's anything you want to see here, I'm open to suggestions as my chapter outlines are not inflexible. However, that does not mean they will appear.
-Dante