Standard disclaimers apply.

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WHEN YOU WISH UPON A MATERIA
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CHAPTER TWO

Staying inconspicuous in the Shinra Military Barracks, as Cloud was soon to find out (again), was not going to be as easy as he had imagined it to be.

Problem one.

Cloud had the build of a young adult.

If his highly unreliable memory was to be trusted, Cloud was supposed to be fifteen to sixteen in this current time period. And that meant he was probably supposed to be shorter, since boys tended to shoot up at around their late teens.

Then again he had no idea how tall he was when he was really fifteen. Curse you, Hojo.

As his bunkmates had not noticed anything amiss when he finally emerged from the bunk toilet he had been hogging to communicate with the future in privacy, he had the impression that perhaps he was not too far off from his actual teen height after all.

That somehow made him slightly peeved.

Of course, he reasoned that it could be because his bunkmates were apparently having mass diarrhea and they were not exactly paying attention to minor things like... height.

One could always hope, Cloud sighed.

Problem two.

Cloud was way, way stronger than his sixteen year old self was supposed to be.

He could only hope very hard that there was not going to be any real life training this week. The next time he had some privacy to himself, he was going to need to ask Vincent for help on how he could pretend like he didn't know the flat side of a sword from the sharp.

Anything else... he would just have to improvise.

Problem three, the biggest problem of it all.

Cloud had glowing, Mako eyes.

This was going to be impossible to hide. He was going to have to need to either wear his helmet or cover his eyes with his hair all the time and look on the floor when he walked. And /those/ were certainly not the best of ideas. What was he going to do during classes and combat training? He could not possibly wear his helmet or look at the floor /all/ the time, anyway. What if instructors needed his attention? What if his bunkmates wanted to talk? What if he had to do night patrol? What if a SOLDIER noticed him? Worse yet - what if someone from the Science Department noticed him?!

Cloud buried his head in his hands and sighed.

This was going to be a long one week.

The materia on his necklace glowed, indicating that someone from the future was attempting to communicate with him. Glancing around quickly, Cloud saw that his bunkmates had finished their business with the toilet while he tortured his mind with how he was to survive this whole trip back in time intact and were now ambling around aimlessly. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he vamoosed into the solitary stall and slammed the door shut behind him, earning him a few gnarled complaining from the bunkmates who were standing nearby. Now, however, was not the time to be concerned about another person's sensitive eardrums.

"Cloud," Vincent said without preamble the moment Cloud activated the materia and projected him on the wall. "Something's wrong with Leviathan."

Cloud resisted thunking his head against the wall. "Define 'wrong'," he asked in resignation.

Vincent considered it for a while. "It's not moving," he eventually said.

"Poke it with your claw?" Cloud suggested.

"Already tried that. Still not moving." Vincent shook his head sadly.

Cloud did not know whether he was gaping at the fact Vincent had really tried poking at the summon creature with his claw, or that Leviathan was not moving despite that. Collecting his jaw, he said, "Maybe it's just tired. Let it alone for a while and it should be all right."

Vincent tilted his head to a side. "But it didn't move even when I gave your younger self a little smack on the cheek. It's usually so protective of you that I can't stand within two metres of you without getting hissed at."

Now that Vincent mentioned it, the situation did indeed seem strange. For Leviathan, at least.

Cloud was, however, more concerned about something else. "You smacked me?!"

"Technically I was shaking up your younger self," Vincent clarified. "But yes, I had to smack you around a bit to try to get Leviathan to act. However, it has remained silent and unmoving the whole time, and we are a little concerned."

A sudden, dreadful possibility crept into Cloud's mind, and he gulped quietly. "Could it be... dead?"

Vincent frowned. "I don't know if summon creatures can die, but we have checked the thing for vital signs and it is by all counts still clinically alive. It appears to be in a deep slumber, but we do not know what put it in such a state and whether it will awaken from its sleep at all."

It was Cloud's turn to frown. He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, as long as it's still alive, I guess all you can do is to keep observing it. More importantly, I need your help on something else."

Vincent raised an eyebrow. "You need help in pretending to be a sixteen year old again." He guessed, accurately.

"Yes," Cloud sighed. "I don't really remember how I was like at sixteen."

"Oh," Vincent was slightly taken aback. He had nearly forgotten about Cloud's twisted teenage life. It all seemed so minute in their long, epic journey together. Not knowing what best to say, he let the silence stretch.

"Actually, nevermind that," Cloud shook his head. He pointed to his eyes and continued, "I'll figure out a way to act sixteen. But this I really need help with."

Vincent squinted. "Your Mako eyes," he concluded.

Cloud nodded. "It's going to be a bit hard to stare at the ground all the time."

The older man leaned slightly backwards and folded his arms across his chest. He looked to a side in contemplation. "Confu," he said, after a long pause.

"Confu?"

"Yes," Vincent dug into his materia pouch and took out a small green shard. "You need to constantly cast Confu on anybody who looks at you. Since Confu is fundamentally a spell of illusion, you'll need to make it so that the other party sees what you want them to see. This will rely heavily on your control of the spell as well as your imagination," he flicked the materia and it touched the invisible barrier that separated past from future. After a short while, the materia emerged from the area Vincent was being projected on, much to Cloud's bewilderment. He opened his palms and caught the materia before it fell to the ground. "That is a shard of a Mystify materia. It'll look less suspicious than if I gave you another full materia, since you already have one around your neck."

"Wait," Cloud put a hand up. "Before you proceed... how is it that you are able to pass me things through the communication channel?"

"Well Cloud," Vincent smiled, and he definitely looked amused, "the fact that we are communicating means that there is some form of input and output going to and fro us. It would take a bit of genius to twist that channel so that tangible things can be transmitted as well, but apparently Professor Odine possesses that genius and has applied it to good use."

Cloud goggled. "Does that mean I can actually go back through this communication window anytime I wanted?"

"No," Vincent shook his head. "Odine has yet to find the formula for real-time transmission of large bodies of objects. For some reason, it currently only works on materia. The Planet could be involved, who knows," the man shrugged. "But I hope that what I have given you is enough to tide you through the week."

The blond stared at the shard for a while. Then, he carefully removed the jewel on his earring and placed the shard into the hollow space it freed up. He quickly tried doing as Vincent told, conjuring up to the best of his remembrance an image of his teenaged self - untainted by Mako then, and casting that illusion on himself by way of the Confu spell.

"The shard I gave you has very little powers compared to the actual materia," Vincent was saying, as Cloud concentrated on tying up the loose ends of the spell, "but it should be enough to hoodwink the other people in the Training Centre. Hmm. Good job," Vincent complimented, when the illusion spell wrapped itself around Cloud and a younger looking Cloud with normal looking eyes now stood before him. "If you can fool even me, nobody in the past should be able to figure you out."

"I hope so," Cloud muttered. He put a hand on his forehead. "I feel really out of sorts here."

Vincent smiled lightly. "Everything will be fine, Cloud," he said sincerely.

"You really think so?" Cloud stared at his closest companion with wide, questioning eyes. "It's so weird. How did I ever get talked into this?" He breathed in deeply. "I mean, really! The past!!" He shook his head and his features twisted as he tried to reason with himself in his mind. "...why do I suddenly have a bad feeling about this."

This time, Vincent laughed out loud. "Cloud," he said, "why do you worry so much? Keep your head low and the week will just fly by. Granted, you got sent back to the wrong stream of time, but the principle of the matter hasn't changed, has it? Concentrate on your mission, Cloud," the older man's eyes twinkled with something akin to amused exasperation.

"I don't know, Vincent," Cloud ran a hand through his head. "...what if I do something wrong?" He lifted his lowered eyes to look at his friend seriously in the eye. "...what if I... changed history?"

Vincent looked long and hard at his younger friend. "Do you want to?"

"No! I mean... yes, well I... used to think..." Cloud squeezed his eyes shut, breathed in, held his breath, then sighed loudly. He peeked up at Vincent from beneath his eyelashes. "...I don't know."

"That is a decision you might or might not eventually have to make, Cloud," Vincent said in a non-commital manner. "But in the meantime, I suggest you tackle one problem at a time." Previously stiff with attention, the man now relaxed and took on a more casual, relaxed pose. "This materia you have with you, you do not need to always project it on a surface to communicate with us. We'll leave that option for when we need to pass little things to each other, won't we?"

"You mean there's another way to use this materia?" Cloud asked.

"Certainly," Vincent nodded. "Deactivate the materia and try to access the spell on the second level," he nodded towards Cloud with his chin.

Quickly, Cloud did as told. The spell on the second level of the materia was also a communication spell, he found out. A communication spell that transmitted Vincent's voice directly to his mind, and his back.

'Can you hear me, Cloud?' Vincent asked.

'...Are we really doing what I think we're doing?'

'Well, what do you think we're doing?'

'I think we are talking to each other in our heads like a couple of madmen.'

'Correction - you are talking to me in your head like a madman. I am speaking out loud like a perfectly sane and normal human being into the machine's mouthpiece. Any other questions about the technicalities of this spell before we proceed?'

'...no, sir.'

Cloud could hear Vincent chortling lightly to himself in his head, and he had to bite his lips to prevent the pout that was threatening to show.

'Remember that Odine said this materia is something like our eye to the past?' Vincent eventually asked.

'Yes, I was wondering about that too,' Cloud replied. 'Does it mean you can actually--' He was interrupted by loud banging on the door. "Cloud get your arse outta that stall! We gotta go for that test!" '--...see what's going on in the past where I am? Through the materia and all that?' "Cloud! Come on! You know that rule about collective responsbility! If you're late we're all gonna be punished!" Cloud's head swirled a little as he tried to figure out who he was supposed to talk to and what he was supposed to say out loud and what he was not.

'Not really, Cloud,' Vincent's amused voice cut in through the loud shouting and door banging. 'I can not only see what the materia sees, I can also hear things. Much like watching a show. Very entertaining, I might add. And you really should answer your poor friend out there.'

Cloud growled. "I'll get you for this later, you know," he grumbled out loud.

"Get me for what? Get outta there before we break in, dude!" The impatient bunkmate gave the door one last bang.

"All right, all right! Leave the poor, innocent door alone!" Cloud grabbed the doorknob and turned. He pushed the door out, accidentally hitting the bunkmate who was standing outside and sending him flying halfway across the room with his superstrength.

"Oh crap," Cloud froze. He ran over to his fainted bunkmate and slapped him on his cheeks a couple of times. "Wake up, wake up... err... whatever your name was. Wake up!"

'You could just call him Bunkmate1 until you figure out what his real name is without arousing needless suspicion,' Vincent cut in smoothly.

'Nobody asked you! Shut up!'

"Whoa, what's going on here?" The other two bunkmates who were standing outside the room walked in to investigate the commotion and now hovered around at the entrance, goggle-eyed.

"Err... aah... ugh..." Cloud's eyes darted all over the room, trying to find something he could use as an excuse to explain the situation. And he could hear Vincent laughing in his head. 'Seriously, shut up, Vincent!' He thought-growled.

'You can just terminate the spell to get me out of your head, you know,' the older man sounded far too amused.

'What? No! I need your Turk brains here. Find me a plausible excuse by the split second! Quick!'

'Say he tripped on something on the floor, then.'

"He, ah, tripped on..." Cloud made a grab at the nearest thing lying on the floor. Which was a piece of uneaten cheese. "...the cheese! Yes, the cheese!" Cloud waved The Cheese around frantically. "Who left the cheese here, anyway? How dangerous! Look at what you've done!"

The two bunkmates by the door stared at Cloud.

"Well, whatever," one of them eventually found his voice. "But we're still gonna be late at this rate. Who's gonna cart that joker to the test centre?" He scratched his head.

"Oh, I've got him," Cloud heaved the man - who was bigger, by the way - over his shoulder and breezed towards the exit of the room. Noticing his two bunkmates still staring at him, he shrugged and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Cloud..." his bunkmate frowned at him. "...when did you get so strong?"

'Cloud, really, stop digging your grave any deeper than you have to,' Vincent tsked.

Cloud made a mental face at his friend. "I had exercise and a good diet," was his nonsensical reply to his bunkmates. He kept a straight face.

"What kind of diet?" The other bunkmate asked, as the four of them - one on Cloud's shoulder - trotted onwards to wherever their destination was supposed to be.

"Cheese," Cloud lifted his free hand, which was still holding the cheese.

"Cheese," repeated his bunkmates.

"Ugh-huh," Cloud nodded. He slowed down. "On second thoughts, this guy is too heavy and I don't think I can handle him after all... umm... help?" He lowered Bunkmate1 onto the floor and tried to sound as feeble as he could.

'Nice save, Cloud.'

'Vincent...'

'All right. I shall merely observe. Carry on.'

"Hah! I knew it!" The bigger of the two bunkmates still conscious, whom we shall call Bunkmate2, reached over and hoised one of Bunkmate1's hand over his shoulder. "Trying to one-up us in front of the SOLDIER, huh? Gotta hand it to ya, Cloud," he shook his head, and his tone was amiable despite what his words otherwise implied.

"Wouldn't dare to think about it," Cloud held both hands up. He noticed he still held the cheese and quickly he threw it onto the floor. "SOLDIER?" He blinked, remembering what his bunkmate had just mentioned.

"Yeah, for the test!" Bunkmate3 quipped, and he was obviously excited. "We've been looking forward to this all week! I totally cannot wait to see what my reading will be!" He danced forward and disappeared around a left turn. On the wall behind the junction, there was a signboard. Pointing towards the left, was a sign that read 'Test Centre'.

"...reading?" A sense of foreboding took root in the depths of Cloud's soul as he stepped nearer and nearer to the junction. When he took the same left turn his bunkmate earlier had, what he saw made him hold his breath.

There was a short line of other cadets, waiting to go into a brightly lit room. Beyond the clear glass doors of that room, Cloud could see a machine, a couple of military men in SOLDIER uniforms and some other men in white lab coats. One by one, the cadets were ushered towards the machine, where the men in white lab coats attached them to some wires, punched some buttons and took down some readings.

'Vincent!' Cloud mind-hollered. 'SOLDIERs!! Scientists!!'

Even Vincent knew when it was inappropriate to make a joke about something. 'Relax, Cloud. Relax. I don't see Hojo. This has to be just a normal, run-of-the-mill test.'

'But Vincent... I'm not. Normal, that is.' His eyes were already darting around furtively. 'I have to get out of here.'

'No, you don't need to draw attention to yourself by missing some routine test,' Vincent asserted firmly. 'Calm down and just take the test. They probably just want to do some readings. Heartbeat, blood pressure, the standard medical stuff.'

'I hope...' Cloud gulped as a boy who had just finished his test stumbled out of the room looking slightly dazed. The boy continued to walk down the corridor, and Cloud's eyes followed him until he was out of sight.

"What, nervous?" Bunkmate2 elbowed Cloud in the ribs and giggled skittishly. "Well, so am I." He whispered. "I mean, what if I get a bad reading? They'll probably take me off the list for failing something so simple!"

Cloud nodded slowly. The line began to inch forward and he noticed to his utter dismay that although he was the last of his bunk in the line, it would only be a short while before he had to step into that room and do whatever 'tests' those men in white had in store for him. "Umm..." he glanced quickly at Bunkmate2, who was in front of him. "...what test, actually?"

His bunkmate frowned at him. "You know? The test we've been talking about for ages? The one you couldn't wait to take because you needed this to be good to let you have a better chance to get into the SOLDIER program?"

"R...ight," Cloud nodded, putting on a serious look on his face. Up in front, he saw that Bunkmate2 was already stepping into the room. Bunkmate3 had dumped the fainted Bunkmate1 somewhere against the wall and a few medical staff on hand were trying to resuscitate him. Getting his mind back on track, Cloud continued, "Right. Yes. I can't fail this very important test. But I... err... I didn't prepare for it! Any... last minute tips?"

Bunkmate3 laughed out loud. He slapped Cloud on his back, even as Bunkmate2 stumbled out of the test room and the scientist called out for the next person to come in. "You're a funny one, Cloud," the boy was saying, shaking his finger at the blond. "It's the test we have to see how much MP we have, remember? Ain't no tips that's gonna make us better. MP's an inherent thing that doesn't change overnight, ya know." With that, Bunkmate3 walked into the room and sat on the machine as instructed.

Cloud's thoughts descended into poignant silence.

Over on the other side, he could hear Vincent's thoughts doing the same.

'This is not going to end well.'

'...I am afraid I agree,' Vincent replied, after a long pause. 'But from what I observe, this machine measures up to a scale of 999. If you hit that amount, which I am very sure you will, who will believe it? They will just assume it to be a freak accident, and by the time they finish filing all the paperwork for you to do a rescan on another machine, I'm sure I can wrestle something out of Odine that will help you with this predicament,' he finished, sagely.

"Next!" The scientist in the room shouted, and Cloud stiffened.

'Here goes nothing,' he walked into the room and sat on the machine as gestured.

The scientist expertly attached a few wires to Cloud's head and wrists. "Remember to breath and just relax, okay?" The man said in a bored tone, like he was saying this for the thousandth time. Which he probably was. Cloud nodded meekly. He closed his eyes and tried to will his MP to go down. "This'll be over in a second," the scientist was saying, as he flicked a button. He readied a pen and turned to look at the meter. "Your reading is..."

The machine exploded unceremoniously.

Cloud immediately pulled away from the seat and dove away to safety. Fortunately, it was the inside of the machine that had exploded first. That meant the seat had been relatively safe, until after Cloud had left it, as the flames from the explosion now licked at the apparatus, slowly consuming it whole. The blond stood at a corner of the room, staring at the burning machine with his mouth open. All around him, there was chaos of the highest order as the staff frantically tried to put out the fire. Most of the cadets, however, were staring in amazement at the equipment, much like how Cloud was.

'I just destroyed a 999 upper limit MP measuring machine,' Cloud was gaping even in his mind.

'You've destroyed machines that could measure more than that before, so I'm not really surprised here,' Vincent shrugged. How Cloud was able to tell Vincent was shrugging through their mind-link, he had no idea.

'Vincent, what should I do now?' Cloud was too busy being distraught at how to salvage the situation to bother with Vincent's wisecracks. 'What do I tell them? Will blaming this on bad design work? I mean, they've tested so many people, right? It's probably due for a breakdown this week, right?' He paused when he noticed he was talking to himself. 'Vincent?' He glanced up at the ceiling, pretending he could see his friend there.

The silence in his mind continued for a short while. Then there was static, and what sounded like the microphone on Vincent's side being hit. After enduring some more loud noises, Cloud finally heard Vincent's voice again. 'I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news while you're trying to sort your past life out, Cloud, but Leviathan... I don't know what's happening. It's turning translucent.'

'Translucent?' Cloud blinked, staring at a particular spot on the ceiling. All around him, everybody continued on in a frenzy. 'And why is that a bad thing? Maybe it's going back to its dimension?'

'I certainly hope so, Cloud, but it isn't turning translucent in the same way the summons do when they return, and that is what's bothering me. In fact, it appears to be... fading in and out of visibility every now and then... oh. It's awake. What is it doing, professor? ...Hmm. That doesn't look very promising.'

'What? What's happening?' Cloud cocked his head to a side, imagining it might help him understand the situation going on at the future better.

'Cloud,' Vincent sounded stressed, 'Leviathan just disappeared.'

'Disappeared?' Cloud repeated with disbelief.

'To be a little more specific,' Vincent elaborated. 'Leviathan woke up for a while just now. It started flying around in circles and... a portal opened. Leviathan dived into the portal and vanished into thin air.'

The frown in Cloud's brow was so deep, it could put Cosmo Canyon to shame. 'Doesn't it need to be around me to hang out in our world? Maybe it really just went back home?'

'That is what we hope has happened. However the circumstances surrounding its disappearance are rather alarming, so we must be prepared for any possibility.'

'I guess,' Cloud shook his head. Someone shouted across the room loudly, jolting his mind back to the present. 'But what do I do with THIS?' He spread his arms slightly to indicate the burning machine in front of him.

'Fetch a pail?'

'Very funny, ha-ha. I meant what should I say to explain?' Cloud could hear a sudden commotion from outside the test centre room he was in. He ignored it, attributing it to be part of the pandemonium that was ensuing.

'Why bother? Just pretend you don't know anything. It should be fine. We'll get you a device that can fool these measurer machines soon.'

The commotion outside was getting louder. 'I'm really counting on you for this, Vinc--' The thought broke off and Vincent could hear Cloud shouting out loud. He noticed via the images the materia was transmitting that Cloud was turning towards a different direction. He suddenly understood the reason for Cloud's abrupt cutoff. "...are you seeing this, Vincent?"

'Yes. Yes I am, Cloud.'

"Please tell me you can explain this," the blond was so distracted that he forgot that he was not supposed to be saying all these things out loud. He was edging towards the exit of the test centre as he pleaded. Edging away from the creature that had appeared magically through the solid walls of the room.

'I did mention that Leviathan went through a portal and vanished somewhere.'

'You failed to mention that Leviathan went back in time,' Cloud's hand found the frame of the room door. '...to the same place I'm in.'

'We weren't very sure about its destination at that point of time. Now, however, we certainly are.'

The king of the waters emerged completely through the walls and hissed loudly, triumphantly. The spray of water that issued out from its mouth promptly doused the room entirely and put out the fire that was there. After the loud hiss, Leviathan turned its attention towards Cloud. A spark of what looked like joy ignited within the creature's eyes. It began to glide through the air to where Cloud stood, rooted to the spot.

'I don't think this is a good time for you to be demonstrating to the masses that you have Leviathan the summon creature under your complete control.'

'What should I do then?!'

'First things first, Cloud. Turn around and run. Like mad.'

Cloud turned around and ran. Like mad.

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21 nov 2007
tougenkyou . net / xd