JENOVA'S CHILDREN
This story is an AU(alternate universe) taking the place of the Advent Children Time Line. Everything is the same in the AC world except the following: I've changed the plot making it more sinister and the outcome is to die for. If you like the anguish, the terror, the horrors, the action, and the darkness that the FF7 world brings, you WILL like this plot. I try to stick to the world and characters as closely as I can, while improvising the events, thoughts and their actions.
THE AUTHOR SPEAKS
I am really sorry this one seems kind of mysterious. I had not meant to end the chapter with this. I wanted to keep going because it's just a bad breaking point to end with, but I didn't want to force myself to keep writing as it would of ended up as bad dribble.
Thanks to Mirrorshine & Infinite Devil Machine for the reviews.
NOTES:
"..." verbal speaking
'...' Jenova's voice in the mind.
Italics : sentences that are in Italics means they are flash backs or dreams.
Chapter Three : The Ancient Cries
The doctor had come to check on Denzel that day, relaying the news that the geostigma had become more aggressive and was spreading far more rapidly. And so that night Cloud sat on those very steps that Aerith had told him about her 'cure'. He held a half empty glass of their home brewed ale, savoring it's unique taste. It was after midnight, but he waited for Tifa to close up the bar.
The Would-be Solider studied the backlot in front of him, as he hardly looked to the sky now a days. He would never find any answers there, and so he stopped looking up. Everything was silent, just the way he liked it.
He picked up the drink, watching the stack of ice adjust itself in the glass. Aerith had went to bed early to rest up for their attempt tomorrow.
After awhile Tifa joined Cloud in the dark of night, drying her hands on a small towel and took a seat next to him. They both sat in the familiar silence, unsure why they could never quite bridge that gap between them.
"Aerith is going to try to cure Denzel of geostigma tomorrow." Cloud broke the silence with the news. There was a foreboding in his voice that wasn't ignored by Tifa's ears.
"She's going to transfer it to you...I know." The disapproval in her voice stung Cloud's heart.
"She told you..." He sounded a little betrayed.
"No. I over heard you this morning." Tifa confessed. She had been harboring the feelings all day, trying to remind herself that they weren't a real family.
"Then, you know." His voice was drowning in regret.
"Yeah. I know." The tremble in Tifa's voice indicated that she had seen the geostigma scar that marred his skin. Her emotions were so mixed up. She was angry at him, hurt by him, concerned for him.
"It's alright if you die...is that what you're thinking?" Tifa asked him bluntly and directly. Her hands, cupped her knees gripping them tighly. Cloud refused to look at her, keeping his head down, eye's currently interested in his boots.
"As I thought...that's why you took off." Everything fit together now.
"I didn't want you to watch me die." Cloud said thoughtfully, still not able to look at her.
"That's no reason to leave us like that. Without saying anything to us. You leave us for months with out calling. You think of yourself as such a burden to us. Denzel needed you, the only thing that kept him strong was you. " She didn't want to lecture him or lay on the guilt, but Cloud needed to know how his actions effected everyone.
"You don't tell us that your in trouble, or you need help. You never tell us anything." She was still fuming, her hands twisting the towel she had brought out with her.
The silence grew again as Cloud tried to find the words to speak. He was terrible at conversations, terrible at forming his thoughts into the correct words. He had no idea that he would be missed so much by them. The blond had thought everything would go about like it usually did, just without him.
"If doing this tomorrow will help you find your path..." Tifa paused resting her head in her hands. She was so tired. The brunette squeezed her maroon eyes closed. Keep it together, she scolded herself.
"...then I will stand behind your decision." She tried to keep her voice strong and firm but her womanly emotions had started to take over allowing a few tears to escape. Again the silence began to settle in, as the two of them sat barely lit by the back porch light. Tifa just couldn't keep it together anymore, and feeling it would be better to break apart in her room, she stood up and started to walk inside.
"Tifa..." Cloud spoke her name as if he wanted to tell her something. His voice caused the fighter to stop at the door. But Cloud remained mute and Tifa retreated to the safety of her room.
Cloud never ended up going to sleep, for most of the night he sat on those stairs like a fixture, thinking and wondering what would happen tomorrow. He had been brought out of his trance when the sun started to appear on the horizon, giving birth to another overcast day.
When he finally removed himself from the back lot, he walked inside to the warm bar, cleaning out the glass he had been using and placing it back where it belonged.
He was making the right decision. To even ease a little of Denzel's pain would be well worth it. With his thoughts on Denzel, he went to go check up on the boy, slowly opening the door. His mako blue eyes peered into the softly lit room and was surprised to see Aerith sitting at the chair that had become almost permanently by Denzel's bed side. Cloud silently entered the room, touching Aerith on the shoulder as not to startle her.
"He's getting worse." The Cetra looked up at Cloud, her green eyes brimming with tears.
"Then let's not wait any longer." Cloud spoke rather softly, as not to wake up the sleeping Marlene in the adjacent bed. Aerith nodded her head and Cloud sat down on Denzel's bed.
"I need to see your infected arm." Aerith spoke softly as well, not wanting to wake up the children.
Cloud again removed the single sleeve that kept the geostigma scar hidden. He offered his arm to Aerith, preparing himself for what ever might lay ahead. Her fingers gently brushed the length of his arm, until they came to a stop on his wrist. She grasped his wrist firmly and looked him in the eyes.
"Cloud. This is going to be painful. Are you sure?" She asked again, seeking Cloud's approval for the final time. Cloud only nodded, noting how cold her fingers had felt on his arm.
"Brace yourself." Aerith warned and placed her hand on the black scar on the boy's forehead. No sooner had she touched Denzel, then the pain started to set in.
Cloud felt dizzy, his eyes unable to keep focused like he had been drugged with a sedative. He could literally hear the howling pain starting to creep in closer like a freight train rocketing towards him. Aerith's grip felt like it had tightened and then all at once it hit him like a blinding light.
He choked back the sound in his throat, his flesh on fire, acid burning through his veins. Painful wasn't the word for it. Excruciating, searing, torturous pain ripped through him, and yet he still tried to remain silent. His teeth felt like they were going to shatter if he clinched them any tighter.
His chest was pumping air in and out of his lungs furiously, trying to tolerate the hellish pain. He doubled over on the bed. And then as if it couldn't get any worse, Jenova's presents invaded his mind.
He heard her voice, taunting him with a maniacal laughter. The blue flashes that had normally accompanied the infection when it spread, consumed his vision.
Sephiroth. Jenova. He saw both their faces in his mind. He could almost feel them reaching out to him, welcoming him to their existence.
The real world came crashing back in sections, his arm now feeling as if it was being torn asunder. His eyes were blazing with the blue green glow of Mako, fighting with himself to stay conscious. He caught a glimpse of his arm before he started to black out. The infection started to mass under his skin, he thought he could see it spread through his veins, making a magnificent network, branching out like a black tree just under his flesh.
He could hear a familiar voice crying in his dream. He was dreaming now, right? The last thing he remembered was trying to help Denzel. He must of passed out during the transfer. He never liked these types of events, he had been in to many weird places to write them all off as a dream. Sometimes it even blurred together and he found it hard to distinguish at times.
When his dream world came into perfect focus he was standing on the edge of a wasteland, before him the beautiful field of Aerith's flowers stretched as far as the eyes could see. Again he heard the girl crying, but couldn't locate the owner. He tried to step forward into the eternal garden, but the green fields shyed away from him.
He could hear Zack calling his name desperately in the distance. It sounded so far away. He bolted into the field, but again the paradise denied him entrance. He stopped, the trouble and confusion spilling into his eyes. His chest hurt, feeling abandoned by the warm fields.
"Child..." A different voice called out behind him. It had sounded so warm, so affectionate. He could feel the cold embracing him, soaking through his skin and to the depth of his being.
Cloud awoke to just a flat dull ache, he stared at an unfamiliar ceiling before recognizing it as his own. That was something else he didn't like, waking up in different places. It confused him too easily.
He pulled a hand to his face, running his bare fingers across his eyes. He noticed he had been stripped down to his pants, his infected arm carefully bandaged, the blackness barely bleeding through the crisp white gauze.
"Uhg." His voice was so hoarse and raw.
"Oh you're awake...I'll go get Tifa." Marlene had been coloring on the floor, her crayons scattered around like a rainbow that had fallen to pieces. The six year old got up and left, alerting Tifa that Cloud had regained consciousness.
As the girl left, the warrior took a good long deep breath and wasting no time, swung his feet over the edge of the bed and sat up. Perhaps he should of done it a little more leisurely, as the black dots threatened to consume his vision.
He placed his bare feet on the cool floor, resisting the urge to cradle his aching arm. Cloud ran his naked hand through his hair then gave it a good firm ruffle, trying to shake the feeling he had been asleep for too long.
"You finally woke up. You've been out for a week." He recognized the relief in Tifa's voice.
A week? No wonder his body ached.
Cloud closed his eyes, trying to remember the warm green fields. How he longed just to lay down in those fields and let the light embrace him.
"Wha-" His voice refused to work on command. Clearing his throat he tried again.
"What happened?" His voice was so rough.
Tifa had her arms crossed in front of her, hugging her elbows and looking over Cloud's bare chest eagerly. She could see at least 4 major scars, one she recognized to be the remains from Sephiroth's masamune during the Nibelheim event. The other three Cloud had no memory of getting, perhaps they were from the experiments that Hojo had conducted on him or perhaps he just didn't want to tell her.
"Aerith transfered most of the geostigma to you." Tifa pulled up the chair that had been placed at Cloud's desk, pushing the crayons aside with her foot. She sat down, studying her friend carefully.
"Most?" He cleared his throat again.
"She stopped because you passed out. Denzel only has a little tiny scar on his forehead, but it hasn't been effecting him. And Aerith was just a little tired. Denzel is giving her a tour of Edge right now."
That was good. At least then what they had done wasn't for nothing. He winced finally giving into the urge to favor his infected arm.
"You kept yelling in your sleep, it's probably why your throat feels like that." Tifa wanted to reach out and hug him, she wanted to reach out and slap him too, but that probably wouldn't be a good idea.
"Yelling?" He posed a question. There was a weight on his shoulders, had he been yelling out all week?
Tifa hugged her arms to her a little tighter. While he was asleep, Cloud kept yelling out, crying in pain and fear. One night he had been crying out for Zack. She could still hear his voice wailing for his friend, never before had she heard such mournful cries coming from Cloud. The barmaid had stayed by his side during that night, trying the comfort distressed unconscious warrior.
"Are you alright now?" Her desire to see him well, gathered in her voice.
He was just about to answer when the phone in his room rang. The two of them made no effort to pick it up and when it was clear that it wasn't going to stop ringing, Tifa stood abruptly, dancing her way around the chair and the broken rainbow on the floor and picked up the phone.
"Strife's Delivery Service, you name it we delive-" She paused listening to the voice over the phone.
"It's Reno." With an irritated look on her face she held out the phone to Cloud. The blond hesitated at taking the phone, then tiredly claimed the phone from her, placing it up to his ear. Tifa waited for a moment, then left the room to give Cloud privacy and the freedom to speak.
The female warrior displayed an angry stride, making her way down the stairs and back to the bar. Once there she plunged her head to the bar's countertop, folding her arms under her face. She was exhausted emotionally and physically, unable to sleep with Cloud down the hall suffering like he was and she was still confused by Aerith's return. Marlene had been avoiding Aerith the entire time, but Tifa thought it was just the shyness starting to phase in again.
She looked up from the countertop. She had more important things to do, she had a bar to run and a family to look after. The barmaid couldn't stop for a breakdown just yet.
In the middle of washing dishes, Tifa caught Cloud's form appearing from the hallway fully dressed and tightening down his pauldron on his shoulder.
"So you're going then?" Tifa didn't look up from her work, pretending to be busy. It was all she could do to keep those tormenting thoughts away.
"Mm." It was a curt nod that Cloud had given her, but it was all that was needed in an answer. She knew he would come back, with Aerith here there was no doubting that he would return.
"I'll call you." His sore throat made that sound cold and harsh, rather then the warm thought he had intended it to be. Without another second wasted, Cloud left the bar.
She could hear his motorcycle start up, the rumble of the massive Fenrir vibrated the dish water she was holding hostage in the sink. Quickly the sound retreated into the distance.
The brunette sunk to her knees in front of the sink. Was he trying to get himself killed? Did he want to go back with Aerith when it was time for her to return? She began to sob silently, hiding her face in her hands.
THE AUTHOR SPEAKS AGAIN :
Like I said. I am sorry about how this chapter ended. I'll get another chapter to you on Monday, then the next one will be on Wednesday, then Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It will give me longer to write meaningful words. Plus I need sometime to work on my cosplay.