Cloud awoke quickly, he could sense something was off and he certainly didn't seem to be where he had been when he fell asleep after seeing Reno to the door of Seventh Heaven. He kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed as he used his hearing and sense of smell to take in his surroundings. The air was crisp with the scent of a fire burning. He was warm but the air held a chill that e remembered from his childhood. But how did someone move him from Edge to Nibelheim without him waking? Drugs didn't stay in his system any more thanks to Hojo; he was all but immune to make poisoning anymore, thanks to the lifestream. He could be knocked out by a hard enough blow to the head but he wouldn't have stayed under long enough to make it back to his hometown.
He refrained from tensing as he sensed another person walking closer to him. He took in their scent as they laid their hand on his forehead as if taking his temperature. For a moment he was still with shock. That scent of grease and oil and, oddly enough, sugar was one he only ever smelled around his mother. Cloud couldn't help but wonder if he had slipped into another delusion.
"Oh Cloudy, I wish you'd wake up my little chickabo." His mother's soft tone rang in his head and he couldn't stop the tears from forming in his eyes and falling down his cheeks. "Cloud?"
He opened his eyes, afraid that he was trapped in another delusion but not caring if he got to see his mother one more time. "Mama." He voice came out sounding thin and wispy, as if he had just spent the last few weeks sick. With a start he also realized that he sounded as he did before hitting puberty. "What happened?" he asked this more to himself then this vision of his mother but she answered him anyways.
"Oh sweety, I'm not really sure. A couple of weeks ago you came home covered in Mako. I've thanked Minerva every day that you managed to make it home. One of those freak storms blew through town not an hour later. If the Mako poisoning wouldn't have killed you the snowstorm would have. You've been in and out since and the healer in town didn't think you'd survive anyways. He said it would've been a mercy to simply put you down as if you were some dog! I sure showed him and the mayor what for when they suggested it again last week. Well ha! You sure showed them didn't you."
Cloud couldn't help but smile as his mother rambled. Oh Gaia, how he had missed her. He always blamed himself for her death, feeling that if he was stronger, or better, that she and all the people of his hometown wouldn't have died to be replaced by brain washed Shinra flunkies.
"I'm okay now mama. What day is it?"
"Well you missed bringing in the New Year by two days. Happy εуλ 1999."
OoOoO
It took a while but after recovering from his 'mako poisoning' Cloud eventually came to the conclusion that he was indeed in the past, and in his 13 year old body. Needless to say the savior of the world was not a very happy chocobo. On the other hand he had noticed that he seemed to be going through a quickened maturity process and he could only hope that it was thanks to the planet. After all, there wasn't much he could do to keep certain events from happening in the adolescent body he awoke with. Actually he was surprised he had been able to do anything in his 16 year old body!
OoOoO
A few months had passed since he awoke in this new time and he had already formulated a plan. He couldn't go back to Midgar and try for SOLIDER. If he was anywhere close to Hojo then he was sure that the mad scientist would end up dead regardless of the consequences.
Since he had awoken Cloud had made routine trips into the mountains surrounding his home town for training. He had noticed that he was improving quicker than he expected and soon he would be able to put some of his plans in motion. First he had to find out who else was brought back. He already knew Tifa hadn't been. And he wasn't counting on Vincent having been brought back but that wouldn't keep him from waking the man up before he did something about all of the files in the Shinra mansion. After that was done he planned on making sure as few as possible of his friends were brought into the whole take-Shinra-down-before-they-make-Sephiroth-insane-and-help-lead-us-to-the-end-of -the-Planets-lifespan. He knew he needed to take out Hojo and see if Jenova was already at the reactor. If she was he would take care of her right after he awoke Vincent. Hopefully he'd have the ex-Turks help. Then he'd make his way to Midgar and find a way to get rid of Doctor Creepy without having to join Shinra, or least without joining SOILDER. He knew that he may have to join Shinra as a low level worker in order to get close enough to implement a few of his plans. Many of his strategies were centered on causing the least amount of fall out. He would need to make it look natural.
He also had plans to keep Sephiroth, Angeal and Genesis from going mad. If he was able to give them the information they needed before their situation was past the point of no return then maybe the two wouldn't desert Sephiroth.
When he first set up his plans he realized that he had spent more time around his pseudo-brother Reno then he had thought, considering all of the plans he had laid sounded awful Turk-like. Cloud couldn't help but slap his face with his palm as he thought of how Reno would react to his plans/thoughts. The blonde would never live it down and Reno would crow about how he successfully turned a SOILDER (even if he never was one) into a Turk.
oOoOo
As Cloud once more headed back to his mother's house he couldn't help but marvel at the Planet's apparent plan. He may not have awoken with his full strength in this time but the more he worked the more of his strength came back. He estimated that he was back to about seventy five percent. When you consider what his seventy five percent was compared to others, which put him at about a third class SOILDER's level. Cloud guessed that with another two months or so he'd be back to his normal level.
He had been in the past now for four months and he was almost to where he felt he needed to be in order to start his plans. He wanted to be at a high enough level that if he was met with extra resistance at any point he had enough strength to at least attempt to blast his way out of any situation.
As he got closer to home he noticed a few extra tracks in the snow, that still stubborn fell in the mountains, but didn't think any more of it considering most of the townspeople came and bought his mother's baked goods from time to time. They always had to point out how much of a service they were doing for the Strife's as they did this, which often caused Cloud to give them his best glare which now sent them running.
As he walked into the house the first thing he did was lean his standard broadsword (oh how he missed his fusion blade) next to the door and hung his coat on the rack. "Mom! I'm home." He knew she had probably heard him come in but it was still polite.
"Come to the kitchen Cloud! We have guests. They say they're friends of yours?" Emma Strife hollered out to her son.
Cloud couldn't help but wonder who they were as he had no friends in town. Then his eyes widened, could it be?
He rounded the doorway to the kitchen and saw three pairs of eyes looking at him, one blue and the other two were different shades of green.
"Yo."
And there is Chapter Two. So as you can tell this won't be a Cloud/Reno fic but Reno sure as hell isn't going to let just anyone court his brother either. I will not be posting the pairing until later but yes, it is another male (I did warn you it was going to be slash).
Also, I am looking for a beta, hopefully for all my stories. I want one who is willing to bug me until I get stories done and chapters sent. If you are interested drop me a pm.
I know my chapters are short but if I tried to push past my usual range of 1-2k words then I probably wouldn't post anything. I would loss interest if I didn't have people telling me what they think.
Please read and review.
