Disclaimer:Something I forgot to mention before, I definitely do not own Final Fantasy. I only own my OC.

Edited: 3/16

Chapter 2: Questions


...

Questions.

All I had were questions, and lots of them.

"Ok, you have my attention now" I said with my small voice resounding into the vast emptiness. I once again found myself in the strange landscape of my first dream, only now, the ground reflected the stormy skies above me. The Goddess Minerva stood as she had before, in the same awe inspiring yet intimidating manner; her entire being seeming to radiate a sense of terrifying power and wisdom.

"How old am I?"

"Seven" a voice whispered.

"Okay...Where am I?" I questioned timidly.

The Goddess just held her gaze and nodded her head slightly as if to confirm what in my mind I already knew. I had somehow ended up on Gaia; a planet that existed only in a game that I dearly loved.

"There is no way—that's not possible!" I stuttered, sharply turning away from her gaze. The dark skies rumbled with thunder in response. I found myself staring at the reflection on the ground below my feet; it echoed back the image of a child. I looked deeply into my reflection's crimson stained eyes.

I didn't know what had happened to me or why I was even there to begin with.

Seeing a slight shift in the corner of my vision, I brought my focus back to the Goddess. My eyes slowly widened as she moved to speak: "You are here to aid my children, to protect them and to help vanquish the calamity from the skies."

Calamity from the skies? Did she… mean Jenova?

"Wait a second, how do I get home first? I can't just up and leave my other life behind; I have a lot on my plate as it is."

"Fulfill your task and you will find your home."

"How?" I snapped nervously. "And by myself? Everything I already know about this world already happened, there's nothing I can do! And it was a story for Pete's sake! I'm not the hero!"

She was only giving me vague answers.

Taking a deep breath, I ran my hand through my hair and let out a shaky laugh. This whole entire situation was just messed up. In fact, something like this shouldn't have even had the slightest possibility of happening in the first place, yet there I was in the middle of it and I didn't know what to do.

What good could I even do?

The silence answered back to my questions as the Goddess remained waiting patiently for me to calm down.

"It didn't happen yet, did it?" I asked tentatively.

"To find the answer to all of your questions, live this life. Learn to belong here. You will know what to do." She spoke with a voice as gentle as the wind.

Hearing those words sparked hope inside of me. I just had to finish the task. 'This could be…exciting' I mused. Bringing my attention back to the goddess once more, my eyes were filled with a new spark. I started to say something back to her when, all of a sudden, she began to fade into nothingness.

"Wait!" I cried. "Am I to do this all alone? I'm powerless!" I cried desperately. She was leaving me to my own devices.

Giving me one last glance, she spoke her last words: "Fear not, you will find that you are not alone and that you are not as powerless as you think." With that she vanished, taking the plane of existence with her. I was cast back into darkness, left with more questions than ever before.

"Now go forth! Awaken!" a voice boomed.


...

The air was...warm and even a little humid. The first thought in my mind was of the beach I used to visit with my family when I was younger; we hadn't gone in years since the economy had gone sour. It felt nice and almost relaxing with the sweet smell of apples from earlier.

My eyes slowly opened to see a wooden beamed ceiling above. The walls around it were plastered white, like an old cottage. The Sunlight faintly flickered through the opening of a small window, giving the ceiling and the walls a soft, golden glow. I would have actually thought that I was at the beach, had I not remembered what had just happened to me.

Where on Gaia did I end up?

The Goddess had been way too vague.

And why in the world was I stuck in the body of a seven year old?

'I guess the only thing I can do is focus on that task…But where to begin?' I wondered. I couldn't think clearly; in addition to fatigue, my thoughts were being drowned out by the ridiculously loud hum of insects outside. I groaned shifting my position in the small straw bed I was in. Wherever I had ended up, it certainly wasn't Midgar. Judging by the air and by the few wood furnishings around, I had ended up in some small, poor, rural village.

I needed to look around; the sooner I found out where and when I was, the better.

Rolling over slightly, I began to try and push myself up into a sitting position, causing the small bed to creak a little at my movement. My arms started to shake under the strain, but I was determined to sit up. That was when a voice stopped me.

"Wait just a minute, dear! You shouldn't be moving too quickly after what you've been through" the voice said. I glanced over to my left. The voice belonged to that of a middle-aged woman with long, dirty blonde hair pulled into a messy bun and warm brown eyes. She stepped through the doorway to the room, walking closer to my bedside.

"You're probably wondering where you are and how you got here" she said grabbing a little washcloth and dabbing it on my forehead. "Isn't that right, little one?"

I nodded my head slightly. She helped me sit up and even propped a pillow up under my back for support.

"You are in a town called Banora."

'Banora?' I thought, ' Wasn't that the home to Zack Fair's teacher, Angeal Hewley? And not just him, but Genesis Rhapsodos too…' My mind quickly flipped through the information I had and I had sinking feeling in my stomach; I was in a place that was doomed to be massacred by a crazy, rogue First Class. Great. And even worse, I'd only read about that game he was in. For all I knew, he could show up the day after tomorrow or in a month.

On the bright side it at least narrowed down when I was in the story.

Not seeing my frown, the lady continued.

"Do you remember what town you're from?" She said softly.

I thought for a moment. Where could I say I was from? I had the vaguest sense that if I picked some random place I knew of on Gaia that I could be caught lying. "I don't remember" I smartly replied.

"Do you remember who your family was?"

"I don't know."

"Your name?"

"It's…" I thought for a moment. "It's Sibyl. Sibyl Lasko."

I saw no harm in giving my full name; it wasn't like Shinra would imprison a little seven year old for not being registered in their systems anyways. And giving up my own name in place of another wasn't something that appealed to me; my name was the only name I would respond to.

"Hmm" she mumbled. "Wait here just one second dearie, I'll be back" she announced before leaving the small room and shutting the door behind her. I couldn't help but think that that whole exchange had been awkward. She didn't have any idea how to treat a child, did she? And I couldn't tell whether the sympathy in her voice was real or not.

I then faintly heard a muffled conversation from the next room over. Leaning forward a bit, I strained my ears to listen. Surprisingly, I could distinguish a few words.

"The gir….Lasko….Doesn't know….." the lady's voice uttered out.

A second, much lower voice chimed in "…town flooded…..mako poiso….won't tell…"

From what I could make out, what they said was interesting. They seemed to think that I was from some town that flooded. When? They also mentioned…mako poisoning? Then it clicked: That was odd glowing, green water I nearly drowned in. That might explain why I had been in so much pain. It had to have made me comatose for a while. The question was, how long?

Then again, who were the people that rescued me?

I knew for certain it hadn't been the lady.

The door opened again, breaking me from my thoughts. The lady returned with an older looking gentleman with greying hair leading. Stopping beside the bed where I was, the man introduced himself "My name is Ale Kallas, and this," he said gesturing to my blonde caretaker, "Is my wife Agatha. Now-"

"But you can call me Auntie, if you like! I should've introduced myself when you got up, sorry" the lady jumped in. I gave her a weak smile in response.

The man cleared his throat before continuing. "Given the circumstances, we have decided that you will be under our care for the time being." I tilted my head in confusion. I was curious. What circumstances? Seeing the confusion in my eyes, Agatha offered an answer.

"There was a flash flood a few days ago and you were found in the water…" she trailed off, unsure of how to continue. She didn't know how to explain a disaster to a little kid. Hell, I gave her points for trying.

"Oh" I simply responded. The tension in her eyes seemed to melt away. I guess she was relieved I understood. That or she wouldn't have to explain any further. "How long was I out for?" I inquired.

"About four days," Ale responded. "You were very sick." Looking at his wife he mumbled "And we nearly thought you had mako poisoning."

"Mako poisoning?" I feigned ignorance.

"How to put this…Mako is a substance that looks like green water. Being exposed to big amounts of it at a time could be really bad for a person. It would be impossible to say how long it would take to recover from it. It also affects eye color, normally turning it blue" Agatha supplied.

I nodded my head in understanding.

I had discovered my eyes had become reddish. That was good; not your normal sign for the presence of mako. I also managed to recover from it; another good sign. And whatever trace of mako there was on me when I was found was probably washed away by the stream. 'Good. That should keep me out of the creep's line of sight.' I silently shuttered thinking about what a certain mad scientist would do to me if he found me.

"Oh, such a bright young thing!" Agatha squealed in delight.

Adjusting to living here was going to be…interesting to say the least.


...

After Ale and Agatha had finished talking and giving me food, they left me in the small room with Agatha giving me strict instructions to remain in bed.

I hated it. I wanted desperately to get up and explore my surroundings, yet my body was still feeling the effects of the mako. My newly appointed guardians didn't know that however. They thought it was just a side-effect of my mysterious sickness brought on by exposure to the elements.

My muscles ached as if I'd run a marathon.

So I was stuck in bed in what guessed I could call my new room. Now that I was fully awake and able to see properly, I found myself sitting up and staring out the little window to my right. So this was Banora? It looked exactly as it had in the game, but it wasn't as quiet and empty as before; there were still people in it.

That Idea brought me to my next train of thought: How long did I have until Banora's people were killed by Genesis and the village itself was blown to smithereens by Shinra? I had to get up and start finding out when I was in Gaia's timeline, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get back home.

The goddess had basically implied that I could get home by helping her world, right? All I had to do was go along with the task at hand. Somewhere inside of me, I was torn between uncertainty and, oddly enough, excitement.

Rather than fighting my muscles at the moment, however, I decided it was best to follow Agatha's orders; I needed to rest up in order to be able to start up. I began to stretch out my muscles despite the pain in order relieve some tension. I fully intended to be up and walking by tomorrow.

Unaware about how tired I was, I ended up quickly falling asleep despite the fact that it was still daylight out.


...

I was woken up by a strange noise with the moon hanging in the night sky.

I recognized it as the whispering I heard in the cave. Struggling at first, I managed to slide myself out of the bed and onto the floor. Using the bed frame as a support, I painstakingly pulled myself into a standing position, nearly stubbing my foot in the process against the cold stone floor; the world was a lot bigger than it should have been to me and everything just felt wrong. Taking a few steps forward, my legs wobbled slightly.

My mind was used to a different height-a different body. It would take a while for me to readjust to walking normally again.

Finding balance, I tottered a few steps over to where my clothes laid folded on a wooden stool. Reaching for my shorts, I felt a small lump in one of its pockets. Reaching my small hand in the opening, I grabbed for the small stone; I had nearly forgotten about it. It seemed as though Agatha didn't notice it either when she dried my clothes for me.

My fingers brushed across its smooth surface and I pulled it out. I once again found my hand warmed at its touch. Ever so slowly, the whispering stopped once more. I brought it closer to my eyes to study it. I concluded that it had to be materia; it was a dark-green colored, glassy looking stone about the size of a golf ball.

But why did I hear the whispering?

I was now confused as hell. I certainly wasn't an ancient, but I could find no other explanations as to why I could hear it. Was it supposed to be a sign from the planet? Shaking my head in irritation, I started making my way back towards my bed with the material still clenched tightly in my hand. I was going to keep it close by me from now on. After all, it would mean some protection in a world filled with monsters, both human and not.

I stopped short of my bed for a moment upon seeing a small, antique mirror that was mounted on the wall. I approached it and stood on the tip of my toes to see into it. Seeing my reflection, I couldn't help but be a little horrified and then irritated by what I saw.

My skin had paled from its usual fair color, probably because I had been out longer than I thought. And my hair was absolutely atrocious; it was still long, but it looked abnormally spikey as if it had been jolted by static electricity. Describing myself as a porcupine would have been an understatement.

After fully taking in my reflection, I realized something else too. Combined with my crimson eyes, I looked almost like a miniature version of Vincent Valentine.

"That won't do," I quietly groaned rubbing my eyes.

I stepped away from the mirror and returned to my bed, shoving my pillow on the top of my head. I was too tired to think of anything else at the moment. First thing in the morning though, I knew I was chopping off my hair and getting some sunlight.


...

The morning after I first woke up, Agatha had found me a black shirt that actually fit for me to wear along with the khaki shorts I had. Struggling to move, she had to help me up and even had to help me get dressed; it was embarrassing.

I had never felt so weak before.

Agatha adjusted the shirt slightly with the help of a little sewing kit to better fit my now scrawny frame. Agatha had even commented on my opinion, saying that I would have to eat more food.

Immediately after she had left the room to grab some things to remedy my crazy hair, I tied it up in a tight ponytail leaving bangs to frame my face. Rather carelessly I then grabbed a pair of scissors out of her sewing kit left on the nightstand and snipped my ponytail off. Looking in at the little mirror, I approved of my hairstyle. It was a little short and boyish, but it looked much better from the spikey mess it was before.

Let's just say that when Agatha came back she was devastated when she saw what I had done. Ale's lip only twitched in response when he poked his head in the door to see what all the fuss was about. After some more fussing and a few corrections done to my hair, Agatha took me out into town to show me around.

Out in town I didn't see anything or anyone that could tip off where I was in time; I wasn't able to much exploring to find out because "aunt" Agatha planned on keeping me on a tight schedule for the first few days to introducing me to my new surroundings. I soon discovered that Banora was a lot bigger than I thought it would've been and that it had houses spread out among the surrounding hills.

Before I knew it, almost a week had passed, my health had improved and I slowly began adjusting to my new life. I was able to walk on my own again, not having to rely on Agatha or Ale for support; I could even walk longer distances without collapsing. My body was still on its way to regaining muscle though and it would take much longer before I would be back to normal, so to speak.

The town of Banora turned out to be a quaint little place too; it was really peaceful, almost like the countryside town that I originally grew up in. Despite the humidity, the air smelled juicy and sweet, much like the apples it relied on as a profitable crop. The only thing different was the presence of palm trees and the strangely shaped, overarching Banora white apple trees; I still couldn't believe that those trees were real and that was probably the only thing keeping the homesickness at bay.

It had captured my curiosity and egged on the growing feeling of excitement in my mind.

The people I was introduced to were also as seasoned as the land; they were pleasant and nice. It was on one of the last outings Agatha took me on that I also met the mayor of Banora. He was one of Genesis' parents, but that meeting revealed nothing because of how swamped with work the mayor was. I didn't see the auburn-haired guy anywhere. The only other people I had seen were the few other adults in Banora and the small kids with who I started going to a little schoolhouse with.

That's right; Agatha dropped me into a classroom with other little kids the day after I could walk by myself. The first thought registering in my head had been how much of a joke it was; a college level student being dropped into kindergarten basically.

It was after the first day that I realized something; I had no clue how to interact with my peers who were physically the same age as me. The other children could sense it too, that I was somehow different from them. They didn't say much too me, in fact they rarely said anything at all. And I didn't mind it...at first. There was already a gap between myself and this world; it reminded me that I was an outcast, that I had another task that I needed to do.

I found that being in the classroom held little interest for me. The only subject I briefly paid attention to was geography; other than that the teacher taught relatively the same material I had learned growing up, albeit overly simple. It was easy for me to garner praise from the teacher and my guardians couldn't be happier that they had a little prodigy on their hands.

After three days of being led around and being put through school again, I was finally free; Ale and Agatha saw fit to give me some freedom with my condition having improved.

Stepping out of the little concrete schoolhouse, I fiddled with the strap of my little bag. As soon as the teacher had dismissed the class, the other children ran off, some heading home and others going off to play with each other; they wore cheerful smiles on their faces, sending shouts of goodbyes to the ones they called friends. Me however, I stood out. I lingered for a moment in the shadow of the building, merely observing the others before finally making a move.

With an excited, childish smile plastered on my face, I started heading towards a more secluded space away from the other kids playing in around the area; I wouldn't be expected back home till sunset.

It was the perfect time to try out the materia.


...

An old, abandoned factory building sat all alone on the outskirts of Banora underneath a ridge. Its brick walls looked inviting enough, and I slipped into the quiet, empty building without a second thought.

I now stood on the old wooden floors a good distance away from the entrance and closer to some old crates. Pulling out the materia and rolling it in my hands, I felt its familiar warmth spreading through my fingers. It had to be a fire materia; that would explain the warmth I felt emanating from it.

I wondered how I could get it to work.

Standing tall and holding it out in front of me, I aimed the materia at a nearby crate and focused my thoughts on it to do something.

Nothing happened.

Did I have to say something out loud?

"Um…Fire?"

All of a sudden the materia seemed to backfire, exploding in my hands. I instantly dropped it. "Shit!"

After jumping around and waving my hand around, I realized something. I couldn't feel any pain from a burn. Looking in my hand, I saw that it was completely unscathed. "Huh. I guess a materia backfiring doesn't hurt the caster…" I mumbled in conclusion.

How convenient.

Once again picking up the materia, I firmly directed it at the crate again. Concentrating, I confidently shouted out this time "Fire!" The warmth in my hand spread through my body. Then, a small fire ball seemed to appear out of nowhere, missing the crate and hitting the brick wall of the factory.

"It worked. I missed but it worked!" I cried, pumping my fists in the air. Calming down, I analyzed the wall; the fireball left behind a massive scorch mark. Absolutely no embers remained behind though, not even to burn the floor. Awed at that discovery, I raised the material again, preparing to cast again. That was when I was hit suddenly by a wave of fatigue.

My hand fidgeted a little, showing me how tired I actually was. Sighing, I lowered my hand; I wasn't fully recovered yet. Perhaps that was the reason why I suddenly felt so exhausted. The only thing left to do was to go home and come back tomorrow.

And just as I was about to turn around to leave the old building, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

Snap!

Turning my head sharply over to the crates, I could make out some sort noise that sounded like someone stepping on wood; there was something there, but the only thing I could think of was a monster. If that was the case, I was in deep trouble.

Snap!

Fully facing the crates, I rapidly began questioning my options. Stay and fight it and risk dying or flee from it? The noise seemed to get louder. It was coming closer and I wasn't ready to face a monster yet, not by a long shot. Shakily holding out the materia in front of me, I hastily voiced my thoughts "I guess there's not much choice." I wouldn't be able to run anyways; I still wasn't in fully recovered. It never registered in my mind that it was possible to run into monsters in the new world I was in.

I began to open my mouth, "Fi—"

"What are you doing?"

"Eeeeeep!" I flinched, jumping from my stance. Quickly regaining my composure, I glanced back over to the crates. They were pushed out of the way as a short figure emerged from behind them. In a flash, he appeared right in front of my face, covering the distance between the crates and myself in the blink of an eye.

"Is—is that a materia?" The kid said, abruptly snatching it away from my hands.

"Hey! Give it back!" I protested, reaching my hands out to grab it back from my assailant.

"How do you have this? Don't you know how dangerous it is to mess around with this? You don't even know what this is, do you?!" He said accusingly.

How wonderful. Here I was, an adult being scolded by a child. In hindsight, yes it may have been a horrible idea for me to go to an abandoned building and even worse to play with fire inside of it, but I couldn't care less. I just wanted some place to be out of sight and alone to practice magic.

I opened my mouth to retort back when I found myself focusing my eyes on the kid in front of me. Two things caused alarm bells to go off in my head: blue eyes and auburn hair.

I found myself staring up at the face of a very young Genesis Rhapsodos.


Author's Note: Sib has finally found Genesis! I've finally got the ball rolling for the story! This was a really long chapter to write and I tried to make sure that there weren't too many errors here and there. Please feel free to leave any reviews or comments to let me know how I'm doing. I'd appreciate any constructive criticism to help with my writing!