Chapter 4

I'm very sorry for the longer wait! Exams at school have hit full-swing. Plus I'm a very lazy person.

Disclaimer: Ohhh how I wish I actually owned Final Fantasy or its characters. But I don't.

Vincent Valentine had received the voice message two hours after it was recorded.

The usually emotionally neutral warrior had seemed quite shaken and excited over the phone, rambling on about something that sounded vaguely similar to experiments and cells. He could hardly understand what the man had said.

The only part could fully comprehend was the request to head to the Seventh Heaven to talk to him. Whatever was going on was urgent, or Cloud would have never asked anything like that of him.

They sat in the kitchen, his blond head cupped in his hands. He didn't know how to explain what he had discovered.

The black haired man waited patiently for him, and he was grateful. Both of them had been subject to similar experiments, so surely he would understand his feelings.

Finally, the blond lifted his head up and sighed.

"I went to Tseng to find out any information about the experiments that were destroyed in the attacks." He told him. Vincent nodded, signaling for him to continue. "He gave me a folder with all the stats on the different ones, and one of the projects contained all of them."

"I am assuming that the project was one of concern." Cloud nodded, sighing again.

"It was the Jenova project."

Red eyes widened. He lost his usual composure and leaned back into his chair, shaking his head. "So it's Sephiroth again."

The blond shook his head, trying to explain his theory. "I doubt it. He's under her influence, and when anything with her cells dies, she feels it. My best guess is that this is someone, or more likely, something that is trying to remove her."

Vincent thought about the facts for a few minutes, sorting through different people that would do such a thing. "There aren't many people that are still alive that would even know of the existence of Jenova, or even the story of the calamity. It is most likely that these attacks are by people who want to remove evidence of the things Shinra did. That would mean it is ex-members of the company."

Cloud had already thought of that, but something didn't make sense.

"If so, they why did they harm other people?" He asked, but the other man didn't reply. He sagged in his chair. "Vincent, every time that something has had to do with Jenova, Shinra or him, it hasn't been as simple as this." He nodded in agreement.

"I just wish that we could spend the rest of our lives without all this."

Vincent chuckled, earning a questioning look. "That would mean that it would have to be that way forever." Cloud was confused for a second, before remembering Chaos sealed inside of his friend's body.

"Well, that wouldn't be bad at all would it?"

Tifa and Yuffie came back an hour after Vincent had left.

The young ninja entered by tackling the man in the kitchen, knocking them both to the floor. She then talked to him nonstop about materia and how much of a pain in the ass he was. The poor blond was rescued by the older woman, pulling the younger off of him and pushing her out the door.

She sighed, looking at her friend. Her dark eyes furrowed as she noticed that he looked even more tired than before.

Leaning on the counter, she recounted to him what had happened after she had left.

"We went over to the west labs. The first two were clear, but the third was as we feared." Cloud became more worried as she spoke. "It was like it was at Modeoheim and Cosmo Canyon, just worse. It didn't look like people had done it. There were claw marks everywhere and huge burns. I think I was right about monsters."

He looked at the table, trying to think of a kind of monster that would go after Jenova cells.

"Tifa, did you get the codes for the destroyed specimens?" She nodded and handed him a list. His heart sank as he recognized them from the project list.

"Did you find out anything about them?"

He smiled sadly. "Yeah, and you're not going to like it." The brunette's mouth thinned as he continued.

"They all had Jenova cells."

Tifa gasped.

"Not again."

They sat at the bar, trying to absorb the information that had been brought to them.

Barret reported that the South lab was completely obliterated. He said he didn't have to check for any of the codes, there was nothing left but ash and sand.

The one in Wutai was intact, but those along the coast looked as if they had been hit by a hurricane.

In other words, whatever was after Jenova was getting the job done fast.

Denzel and Marlene were upstairs, recounting their days to each other. They had both greeted Cloud happily when they arrived, but immediately noted how stressed and concerned the rest of the household seemed.

"Hey Denzel?"

The boy looked up from the book he was reading, to stare at the girl on the bed.

"What?"

She gripped her braid lightly, fiddling with the loose ends. "Where did you and Cid go?"

"We went to Wutai and stopped at this big old lab. Then we headed back and stopped at all these things that Cid said were until recently more labs."

"Recently?" She asked, wondering if this had something to do with the tense atmosphere down the stairs. Denzel nodded, thinking the same thing. "Yeah. When we saw it, he started swearing his head off and told me that we were cutting our trip short and heading back here. But I dunno what's going on"

Marlene shrugged, not knowing either.

"I bet she'd know."

She probably did, she knew. But if she had anything to do with it, then the one that had always hurt Tifa and Cloud probably was too.

"If she does, then she'll help Cloud. She always has."

She was part of the planet, and the planet loved Cloud, right?

-To Be Continued.

Too short. Oh well. The next chapter is going to be much much longer and really start to move the story.

Thank you all for the comments and favorites!