In all the years at ShinRa, he had never heard a silence as deep as that one. It almost seemed like everything was frozen...

A noise sounded outside the room Reno was in, startling him. He nervously stood up from his seat and walked slowly out the door and down the hallway, his journal tucked firmly who-knew-where. A loud laugh broke the silence into a thousand pieces, growing louder as footsteps drew close around the red-haired Turk. Frightened, Reno ducked into the nearest door, a Meeting Office, only to nearly run out in shock. Surrounding the round table in the center of the room weere three ShinRa Executives. But they seemingly weren't dead, as Reno had at first thought, yet... it seemed they were in a frozen state, possibly their minds thrown into a deep limbo. But the more Reno looked around the room; it looked like time had simply stopped for them...

"Very good Reno! You're not as stupid as you look." Echoed around him, the voice cunning and full of malice.

Reno emitted an unvoluntary shriek, then leapt against the wall as if it would become a shield around him, "Who the Hell are you!??!"

With a soft flutter of a long lab coat, a figure with a thick mane of dark gray hair gently fell down in front of Reno, his back facing the Turk.

Reno cursed angrily to himself, "Hojo! I never trusted you- what the hell did you do to these people?!"

A low chuckle from the scientist silenced Reno, "Hojo? That fool cannot even attempt to do this magic. I am Gershmer! The Time Wizard!" A loud cackle of laughter followed.

Reno stood, silent and shocked, then found his voice had returned to him, "You're frickin' wacked, Hojo."

The figure stopped laughing and turned around. Whatever he was was, he definetly wasn't Hojo. Or even human, for that matter. His face was entirely coal black, his cat-pupiled eyes bright gray. As his mouth twisted into a malacious grin, very cliché sharpened teeth were seen. His body was bulky, and the lab coat seemed too tight on him. His ebony arms were clawed at the end, the dagger-like nails blood-red. "Say that now, Mortal."
Reno pushed himself into the wall, his bright green eyes closed tightly. He slowly put his hands behind him and whispered one word- "Fire."

Flames instantly enveloped Gershemer, but no expected dying-screams fell to Reno's ears.

"Fool!" the flames danced away from the Immortal, as if they wouldn't come in contact with him, "I am a spirit of Magic! Wizard of Time! God or POWER! Reno- let's play a game to prove this! A game of survival!"

Reno blinked, thinking to himself, 'What. The Hell. Is going. On.' His hand shifted onto a second sphere of cool-feeling materia- Protect. And Cure was right next to it. If he couldn't hurt this freak, at least he'd be able to-

"Now now, that's not fair, a mortal playing with the gods' powers? No, no. You have to earn the right to use them, poor mortal. AH! And that leads to our game. Now, being kind as I am, I'll leave you a couple."

Reno felt his pocket grow lighter, and instantly checked to see why. He pulled out of his pocket only a few orbs of Materia- water, cure, ifrit, and a blank orb, as well as a woven little bag. Her stared at these with unbelief.

Gershemer leaned onto the table, gouging his claws into the thick wood surface, "That clear orb is a wild car for you, mortal, to make things a bit easier on you. Get it? Pick magic, summon, whatever. Mind you, maybe you pick Bahamut in one world, he'll keep that form even if you move to another."

Reno stared blankly at him, 'Other world...?' It was painful how confusing everything was.

Gershmer continued, "And in that bag are three pieces of Starstone. If you find yourself in a predicament, eat one, and you'll be thrown into a different universe. Also, if you die, one will automatically revive you, teleport you to a differrent world, then vanish. So bascially you have four lives, five if you can find the Pheonix Summon."

"Find...?" Reno whispered weakly. Everything was so overwhelming, so confusing. He slid down the wall onto the floor. What was going on??

Gersher nodded, "Yes, I've spead your materia throughout hundreds of worlds! YOU get to go find them!! And meanwhile I'll be watching your every move!" He laughed incredibly manaically, "Ciao kid!"

The wall Reno was leaning on instantly turned into a swirling black portal. Before he could react, a gust of wind shoved Reno through, threatening to rip him to threads if he held a resistance.

The last thing he heard was laughter.