This one sort of bleeds into FFVII and BBS.

Chapter one:

Aerith sat under a colorful, thick quit on a big, comfy chair by a nice, roaring fire with a warm, soothing mug of chamomile tea. It was late, but perfect. The moon was high and glowing; there was a little cloud-cover, and that nice hint of lullaby-like rain to lull her to sleep. On the floor above her, the others were all settling down, too. It was curfew. Normally, she was sure they would complain, but it was Leon's rule, so fussing would not do much. Not like curfew mattered to the Heartless. It was not meant to keep people from going out at night, just from going out alone.

She took a sip of tea. The others preferred spirits to send them to sleep, when they needed it, but for her, the tea was just fine, the tea and a nice old book of spells and incantations which she would probably never be skilled enough to use, but it was nice for her to dream, and it was nice that she actually had reading material available, the others could only lay there sleepless.

She cracked the book open, and wished her quilt had sleeves. She took another sip of—

"NYEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!"

Aerith, for a very brief moment, almost spit her tea out over the old and priceless tome. No! She told herself, No you musn't do that! She managed to swallow it in one mass—more like a stone than tea—while a storm of expletives raged on above her and the screams persistently wailed outside. She set her cup down and closed her book.

"HOLY FUCKING BAHAMUT WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?" Yuffie shrieked.

"We should check it out!"

"NO!" Yuffie exclaimed, "No, no, no! I'm staying right here!"

Aerith shook like a leaf while she hop-snuck on her toes to the window, quilt wrapped tightly around her. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered out from between the curtains. The blanket fell from her shoulders and the cold made her break out in gooseflesh. She saw nothing out of the ordinary; she just heard the pounding ruckus and the ear-splitting shrieking. Lights were being lit in bedroom windows and on front porches, and doors were already opening. Someone poked their head out.

Purple light flashed in the bailey.

The head retreated. The door slammed.

Aerith looked closer. There was a crack, loud enough to shake the window pane, and she felt a pulse of static. Lightning shot out, burning craggy lines in the brick and sending little stones flying. She flung herself away from the window, a little yip escaping her throat as she tripped over her fallen quilt. Cloud and Leon were coming from down the stairs, boots half-on and jackets barely on at all, and Cid was climbing out of the basement. He was at least dressed. Aerith stepped into her boots and took a cardigan from where she had casually thrown it the day before on a chair. They straightened themselves out in chaos—buttons could always sense haste—and scrambled for their weapons as the screaming continued.

"Come on, Yuffie!"

Yuffie ran down the stairs in her over-sized nightshirt. She had put on shorts under it, but had completely forgone shoes or socks—and considering the lacing she had to do, Aerith did not blame her. "Okay, okay, I'm coming!"

"It's in the Bailey, whatever it is." Aerith explained, reaching for the door and throwing it open.

"Flashlight!" Yuffie shouted, "Flashlight!"

"Got it." Cid replied shining it in her face, "Go."

The roaring continued, and as they left the house, they could hear loud crashing and banging, like there was a full-fledged brawl going down in the bailey. The faint drizzle had begun to pick up, but it was nothing too hindering. They hurried up the stairs to the wall, and down the stairs into the bailey which was out of the faint rain, but echoing with the sounds of the fight, in the faint light of the stars and the beam of Cid's flashlight, they got as clear a view of what was going on as possible.

A clear understanding was a completely different thing.

It—regretfully, that was all Aerith could call it for the time being—could have been a Heartless, but considering it was mercilessly pounding every Heartless that came near it, that seemed unlikely. It was in the throes of an unstoppable rage, whatever it was, and it did not look remotely close to tiring out or slowing down. It barely even stood still long enough for them to get a good look at it. Not to mention it was spewing lightning around like a thundaga gone wrong and they were getting hit with second-hand destruction and Heartless while they were just trying to avoid the bolts of electricity.

One of these bolts of electricity leaped into the gunblade and into Leon's arm, igniting the powder and making it discharge dangerously close to Cloud's head. He did not flinch. The zap sent a painful jolt up his arm and forced Leon to drop the weapon. He gripped his wrist and his face contorted in pain, that was all Aerith saw before Cid's light jumped again just in time for her to see a Heartless about to swipe its claws across her face. She slapped it away, and realized with a twinge of guilt and shock that she sent it on a collision course with Yuffie, who hardly saw it coming.

In the spastic spotlight of Cid's electric torch, Aerith saw a pair of very human-like boots jump up, then it threw itself full-force against the bailey floor, knocking them all backwards into the wall and stairs. She gasped and blinked. At least the flashlight had fallen still. Her ears rang with the impact and she was winded. The onslaught had just stopped after that. Everything was dark and still and impossibly quiet.

"Is everyone—" Oh! Her chest! "Okay?"

"What was that thing?" Leon hissed, "Are there any more of them?"

The light moved, and Cid replied, "That right there is what it is."

Aerith sat up and her eyes found the light shining to the end of the bailey. Cid stood a few yards ahead of her, scratching his blond head. Yuffie was on her knees, probably glad she had put on a pair of shorts, but wishing she had shoes. Leon staggered to his feet, still trying to breathe and feeling around for his gun blade, Cloud was leaning on the Buster Sword, and he said flatly, "It's a kid."

"So it is." Cid replied.

The "kid" in question had collapsed to his knees, his arms wrapped around his head, nails clawing into his skull and fingers bunching his hair. Aerith got to her feet and hurried towards him. He was out cold, frozen catatonic; his outburst must have been a delayed reaction to being thrown through the darkness and into the Hollow Bastion. The first things she noticed were his ears, from tip to tip, they spanned even further than the breadth of his shoulders. She reached up to touch one tip, there was a slight nick about two, perhaps two and a half inches down, and a series of symbols, like an identification number—perhaps a name?—starting right next to it. The flesh itself felt somewhat like cartilage, with tiny, slightly-harder ribs suspended inside it, and a longer bone stretching though the upper edge, rather like a wing. When the light from Cid's flashlight caught it, she could see these bones faintly though the red.

Carefully, she unwound his arms from his head, she had to apply a great deal of force, everything was tensed up—his muscles had become stone. She freed him, eventually. But his hands were still stuck in that claw-like grip, and his mouth was still set in a grimace.

The others moved in, the light shown brighter, casting a clearer mold to his features. Aerith picked him up and tipped him back, cradling his shoulders in her arms, brushed the blond hair from his forehead. The stone-like coma vanished and he relaxed completely, almost melting into the ground. His head slumped back, looking at the bailey ceiling. When she moved her free hand in front of his eyes, he showed no sign of seeing it, though his eyes were fully open. They were blue. The same blue as Sora's eyes. An unnatural blue.

"I don't think he's more than seventeen." She said. She adjusted her hold on him—his head just would not support itself. She had to mind it for him, like a newborn. When he was out cold, at least, his face looked full and young, but there were two lines of blood that had trickled down from his hair, and formed a little 'v' between his eyebrows, and dirt and blood had clustered around the creases in his face, so they showed clear and clean in the beam of Cid's flashlight. But other than that, Aerith saw no trace of them, only their ghosts, like he had spent the most recent years of his life glaring and trying very hard to look older. She searched his hair and found two long gashes just above his eyes, not cracks in the skull, though, there were two small horns protruding from them.

When he breathed, it was rasping and bubbling, and little bit of blood ran from the tiny gap between his lips. Aerith forced his mouth open and saw cuts on his gums as well, the same thing had happened to his cuticles. His fingers were longer. His hands were wider.

"What are we dealing with here?"

"Maybe Merlin will know." She replied. She waved her hand over him, and the gashes knitted themselves, leaving no scars, no trace of anything, but there were old scars, cuts that had healed up ages ago into neat little white lines. There was something they had missed. Something the poor lighting had not allowed them to see. This was not the first time something like that had happened to him.

Cloud and Leon hoisted him from her lap and half-dragged him at the head of the party back to their shared house. His arms are long; his fingertips down to his knees. It was bizarre to see, he was so much shorter than Cloud and Leon, but his arms were so long. It was strange and fascinating. He was a whole other species. Merlin would be so intrigued.

She kicked something in the darkness. It bounced and abruptly discharged one round, which went sailing out the large window and did not hurt a soul, it just made everyone jump and bring a fresh storm of panic to the surface. She stooped over and tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy for her. Cid handed her the flashlight and hoisted it up himself, and they resumed walking. The boy's head moved once, but that was it. He was otherwise completely indisposed.

Climbing the stairs was awkward with his toes dragging, and the rain had started to come down a little harder when they left the bailey, it filled the fresh cracks in the walkway and made the stones slippery, and pulled the moon behind clouds, so they could hardly see, except for Cid's flashlight.

"Are we taking him to Merlin's now or are we waiting until morning?" Cloud asked.

"Now." Leon replied, shifting the boy's weight on his shoulders, "Whatever he did before—I don't want him doing it again until we have some answers."

They went past their door to Merlin's, except for Cid, who took the gun away to study it, and Yuffie who wanted to get some sleep. Leon kicked Merlin's door four times and waited for the old wizard to answer. When he did, his glasses were askew, with a thumbprint on the left lens, and his beard was tangled.

"What was that ruckus, Leon, what's going on?"

Leon nodded to the kid. Merlin adjusted his spectacles and looked him over slowly, from dragging toe to long, pointed ear, "I say!"

"We were hoping you had some answers?"

"Bring him in, bring him in!"

They dragged him inside sideways, while out of his bag of holding, Merlin found a spare cot to lay him on. Somewhat clumsily, they set him down on it, and stood back so Merlin could get a good look at him, "He's not from around here."

"Yes." Leon replied dryly.

"He's got something here." Aerith motioned Merlin over to his ear, where the markings were. Merlin stared at them, then took off his glasses and squinted, then stared through his glasses again.

"What does it say?"

"No idea." Merlin shrugged, Aerith heard the too door slam. Cloud and Leon had left to tell the block to calm down, that nothing was wrong, reassuring things like that. Merlin gave her a smile and said, "You run along now, dear, get some rest. You'll have a busy day tomorrow, showing him around."

"Why me?"

He took her by the elbow and forced her out, "You have the most trustworthy face, I'm afraid."

He was right. She was small and unassuming, a gentle creature, the kind of person strangers always asked for directions and children loved to play with. She should probably even stay, in case he woke up, but at least he did not have his gun to cause too much trouble. She looked at him—he did not look to be sleeping, he still looked to be in a faint. He was passed out completely, and that was the normal reaction to traveling through the darkness—but someone who was new at it would not come out fighting so fiercely. Perhaps he had some knowledge of the Heartless?

He did not seem like the kind of person that would hurt Merlin.

As she walked back to her house, the lights went off on the porches and upstairs, leaving only the street lamps lit. She moved quickly, to avoid the attention of the Heartless, but after the boy's display, they were probably cowering in fear. For once, Aerith felt sorry for them. She glanced back at Merlin's house, and tried to assure herself that the old man could handle whatever the boy threw at him.

As Aerith opened the door, she saw Yuffie diving for cover and Cid stepping to the side as Leon fumbled with the stranger's gun. Cloud did not move. Aerith looked at the gun, and she may have been mistaken, but she could have sworn it had changed within the past ten minutes.

"Oh." Leon said, he blinked, and adjusted his grip, pulling back on something that slid in a grove—and the entire gun changed. "Hello."

They moved in closer, Leon managed to get it to change again, and again, so that the simple side cannon—more of a blunderbuss—was back. He cycled through the forms of the gun once more, examining each one in turn, and removing the cartridges of bullets as they popped up. Cid took it away from him, and set it down at the table like a kid with a new toy, which was exactly what it was. "Go get my tools."

Leon pulled up a chair and Aerith knew any hope of light reading would be lost to boys and their toys. Yuffie came back from the basement with the tools and sat down as well, chin resting on her hands. She took one cartridge from Leon, a round one, about little larger than a baseball, with a purple ring around it, and a small gauge of screwdriver, and began to work on the little screws she could see.

"Screws recede." She said.

"Thanks." Leon replied, who looked to be having trouble with a blue-and-black cartridge of his own. He took out about two screws when the bottom blasted away from the rest, striking clean through the table and the floor, and the top popped off and bounced off the ceiling. Leon jumped back at once with a loud, "Ah."

When a few shell cases tumbled out, and one split open, and what looked like a little ball of blue lightning danced across the table. Cid lifted up the gun before the ball lightning could touch it. It eventually settled in the center of the table, and gave off a little humming noise.

"Wow!" Yuffie sat up.

"It looks like mako."

"It has to be mako." Yuffie replied.

"That ain't mako." Cid said. He nudged with his finger, and it jumped to his hand, and he drew it back abruptly, like it had shocked him, "We'd better get it in a jar or something."

Aerith got a clean glass jar from the kitchen, and used a metal spatula to sweep it all up, she set it down and screwed the lid on securely, the others went back to their tinkering. Cid dismantled the gun piece by piece with enthusiasm.

"It's mighty clever. Uses a morph gummi."

"Been a while sense we've seen one of those." Yuffie replied. She set down the ammo clip and leaned forward while Cid removed one piece after the next and revealed the little gummi center. The entire exterior was either metal or polycarbon, depending on the piece. It was an exoskeleton around a soft, moldable center, that allowed the gun to change shape so seamlessly.

"But Cid, we've never been able to get gummi to work like this with another material. It rejects almost everything."

Engines and guns could be encased in gummi, but never the other way around, not so easily, at least. Aerith circled the table to get a better look.

"They aren't attached." Cid replied, "Metal's all hinged and fitted around it."

"I see."

Leon started laying out all of the pieces in an orderly fashion, sorting out all of the freed screws according to sizes, and he broke another one of the black and blue bullets open, dropping a second little ball of blue lightning into the jar. The two danced around each other for just a second, and then they melded together, and stayed together, even when Leon shook the jar. He winced and peeled off his glove, looking at his injured hand.

A little branching Lichtenburg figure was on his palm, spreading down his wrist about two inches. It would have looked fine and completely normal despite the fact that it was a deep, muddy, blue-purple. He flexed his hand twice and seemed to deem it fine, then he reached with that hand to the purple and black cartridge Yuffie held and there was that purple light again, and an unsettling zapping sound. Leon dropped the cartridge and it popped open, and another mako-like substance bounced out, but this one seemed to behave a little bit more like a gel or a liquid.

"I don't think we should touch that."

"I'll get another jar." Aerith replied.

"Thank you."

"Oh!" Yuffie laughed in fear, "Oh, please hurry Aerith we'll be with out a table if this keeps up.!"

Aerith managed to catch it in the jar immediately after it scorched another hole in the table and went into the floor. It was like an acid. She doubted, for a moment, that the glass would be able to hold it. It filled the jar like a fluid, not persistent ball-lightning. She screwed the lid on tight and held two fingers against the side. The glass had gone quite cold. She tilted the jar from left to right. It was halfway between unrefined oil and a thin gel, so far as viscosity was concerned, but when it moved, it left no residue on the glass. She looked at the blue in her left hand, and the dark stuff in her right, and held the two jars close.

They fought like Betta fish, the blue bouncing around violently and the dark stuff pulsing wildly, the glass heated up and threatened to crack with the energy. Fearing she was about to end the world in a stupid and untimely manner, she set the two jars down, well away from any stray elbows and well away from each other on the mantle.

"Aerith get another jar!" Yuffie said, "Oh, get two."

Aerith did as she was told.

"We'll need to tell Merlin about this."

"You could just wait to talk to him. Are you sure you should be dismantling his only weapon?" Cloud asked.

"We'll have it back together by noon tomorrow." Cid replied.

"Besides, we have an entire closet of weapons."

Aerith cleared away two more versions of the stuff, red and yellow. They were both a bit like the blue—ball lightning, but the red was a bit more smoky and the yellow a bit more like fire, and both were very warm to the touch. They looked kind of interesting on the mantle; they made a good conversation ensemble—probably would have made wonderful light sources. She took the blue and moved it into the darkness of her room. It was about as strong as three candles, and produced none of the smoke. She picked up a book and discovered, quite pleasantly, that it made a very good reading light, and it was easier on the eyes to see black words against a blue page than stark black and white. With a smug smile, she returned with it to the mantle. No more squinting by a dying fire for her.

The boy must have some knowledge of them, anyone who owned and used a gun was obligated to know it inside and out, a lack of knowledge was wholly irresponsible and posed a danger to yourself and anyone you were trying to help.

She adjusted the jars to the arrangement of colors was balanced and pleasing, blue then red then yellow then purple, which would hopefully keep the eye at the center. A nice, warm-toned painting would be perfect for framing them, but, she had bigger things on her mind, like the boy. She folded up the quilt and slung it over the back of the chair. Leon and Cid were debating some function of the gun, but she knew she need to get some shut eye, because there was no guarantee that that boy would wake with the morning.

So, if he woke at two in the morning, or at six, or even at noon, she would probably need to be well-rested, "I'm going to go on and get to bed."

"I promise we'll keep it down." Cid replied.

"Night."

With a little wave to them all, Aerith closed the door behind her. She stripped off her cardigan and kicked off her shoes. She settled in under the covers, but she could still hear the others murmuring. She did not sleep for a while, perhaps she laid there for half an hour or more, but it was so early in the night still, she did not worry too much about not drifting off right away.

She did not even notice she had fallen to sleep at first—it was just another long walk in the public garden with Zack to her—where the rows of flowers stretched on forever and the sun never moved in the sky and the trees towered above the wall in a distance she would never reach. They laughed. She blushed. His fingers grazed her knuckles and he fumbled for words. They stopped, and just gazed into each other's eyes, diving into endless depths and—

"NEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!"

Rise and shine.