"I'm afraid I'm not surprised to hear that Cloud has gone missing," Vincent commented quietly as they climbed the stairs leading to the door of one of the Healin buildings. "I would like to say that it's a surprise, but…"

"What do you mean?" Denzel replied, pausing mid-step.

The ex-Turk didn't stop. "Inside." He pulled up the metal handle and pushed in the door; it wasn't locked.

Beyond, in the dim interior of the room, were a man and a woman, each occupying one of several wicker chairs that had been arranged haphazardly about a small glass table. The furniture looked at odds with the blank, almost oppressive walls of the meeting room, and Denzel was hard put not to shudder.

Red growled. Cait muttered in a low voice, "Ah. You."

The two occupants were wearing identical, dark-blue suits, clean-cut, although the man's jacket was open at the front and the top buttons on his shirt were undone messily. Both of them had grey hair, but their faces were as hard as iron and Denzel didn't doubt that they were competent and formidable fighters. He also couldn't help but notice that the man's hair—which was shot through with streaks of red—was nearly as spiky as Cloud's. He seemed vaguely familiar, for some reason, but the woman didn't raise any sense of familiarity at all.

The man noticed Denzel's gaze, however, and quipped, "I'd run at you with my nightstick, too, but that'd be a bit unfair—what with you having no sword and all. Unless you use that rifle in melee?"

Huh? Denzel blinked in confusion, and then noticed that everyone else looked confused, too—even the unknown woman, who arched an eyebrow in unspoken question.

That got her a look and a shrug. "The president wanted to get a look at spikey's abilities."

Comprehension flooded the woman's expression. "Didn't he just lock you outside when you tried to charge him?"

"You tried to attack him? He told me you'd asked him to do you a favour," Vincent suddenly put in, and Denzel frowned. Did everyone understand what was going on but him?

He glanced at the faces of his other companions. Okay, maybe not.

The suited man chuckled. "Hey, Elena, we're confusing the kids and the grandpas," he said, grinning, and gave a weird sort of seated bow. "Come in, come in," he gestured genially. "Not going to bite. Not even going to try and hit you with my nightstick—already told you that—well, not that I'd tell you if I actually was going to try and hit you with it."

"Reno and Elena of the Turks," Cait Sith said with a sigh, padding over to hop up onto one of the wicker chairs. "I really should've known—though, Vincent, I thought you kept better company than this." The toy cat frowned disapprovingly, and Vincent made a small motion that might have been a shrug.

"Hey, hey," Reno protested, while Denzel struggled to place the names. He knew who the Turks were, of course—Tifa might not like to talk about the Quest, much, but he hadgarnered some information about it over the years, and the Turk organization was studied in schools these days, anyway—but he couldn't recall the exact names, except…maybe flashes of faces, red hair and some bald guy…

"Where are Rude and Tseng?" growled Red. "Or do you shuffle about now?"

The Turks' expressions closed off as if they'd had mental doors slammed in their faces.

"Rude's missing," Elena said stiffly. "Tseng died five years ago."

"The information that the Shinra Corporation has been able to dig up points to a larger puzzle that I've been pursuing for some time," Vincent murmured quickly, beckoning the group inside and shutting the door with a heavy thud. "I don't believe it's any coincidence that Cloud's gone missing now."

"He's missing?" Elena asked sharply, sharing a worried look with Reno. "I thought he was pinned down in Midgar."

"He left to go to Edge once, already," Vincent said logically. "It is hardly beneficial to his health to do so, but he's never been one to look after himself. There's also the possibility he may have discovered some way to lessen the damage that he is subjected to…"

"Vincent," Red rumbled, "You told them about Cloud?"

Reno snorted. "Of course he told us about Cloud. If you haven't noticed, Cloud's a kinda important guy. Right now, could be real important."

Marlene threw up her hands in exasperation. "Will you stop dancing about being cryptic and start talking strait? Why're you here, why're you involved, and what's going on with Cloud?"

Vincent, Elena, and Reno shared a look. Maybe it's a Turk thing, Denzel thought.

"The Shinra Corporation, as part of its efforts to atone for past deeds," began Elena suddenly, "takes it upon itself to investigate…suspicious circumstances. In particular we focus upon events that seem related to things that we may have wrought—it would not do to be slaying the demons of others while allowing our own to run free. Of late, we have seen a disturbing pattern of events…organized chaos. I'm sure you've all noticed how it has affected travel over the past few years, but more recently it's grown more concentrated in urban areas as well…weakening the government, instilling fear into the populace…" she directed these last comments at Cait, and the robot's eyes widened.

"I've seen it too," it muttered.

Vincent nodded. "My own eyes and ears keep track of such things as well. In particular, recent activity at the Northern Crater has had me concerned. I don't have the manpower to have it investigated, however, so I called it to the attention of the Turks. They went to investigate…and, well…"

"Got caught," said Reno, looking subdued. "Rude got taken—I didn't have a chance. Whoever is up there, they've put up a barrier like that one that Sephiroth did. Then, that the exact same day, Spikey Strife leaves Midgar for the first time in fifteen years. Twelve days later he vanishes. Given what Vincent's said Cloud's going through, it's a bit much of a coincidence."

"You think that someone's running around trying to do—something—that has to do with Jenova?" Denzel asked, wishing that this had also been covered in school. Jenova had been a taboo topic, growing up; he'd only known what it was because Tifa had lectured Marlene quite firmly to never, ever bring it up again after she'd mentioned it at dinner. Denzel had been included in that lecture, even though he'd felt it wasn't necessary; seeing the way Cloud and Tifa both froze at mention of the word was more than enough.

"It seems most likely," Vincent confirmed. "I fear they may also be doing something to the planet itself—for the church to react to Cloud in such a fashion…"

Everyone else except the Turks winced.

"Church?" Reno leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

"Cloud tried to open the door to Aeris' church yesterday," Denzel said quietly. "It destroyed his left arm…dissolved it, burned it away, we're not sure."

Reno whistled, and for a moment he looked genuinely concerned. "Shit. You sure that he's gone, and not just dead?"

"He is Cloud," Red rumbled softly.

"He could be difficult to locate," Elena murmured. "If he has no reason to venture near human populations…"

"That would limit him to traveling on foot," Vincent disagreed, shaking his head. "It's more likely he would take Fenrir, in which case he'll need fuel—I'll call the others later and ask them to confirm whether or not Fenrir's gone as well. But locating Cloud is not our primary concern."

"No," nodded the female Turk. "The Northern Crater is."

"Alright," said Marlene quietly. "So what do you know?"

"Not much," Elena admitted. "We've managed to locate several suspicious complexes elsewhere that may be linked, but…it's been impossible for us to get inside undetected. With the shield now up over the North Crater, however, it's been decided that we no longer have the luxury of time. Unfortunately it's taken us longer than anticipated to call up and organize the necessary forces—our company no longer has the power that it used to hold."

"Personally, I think we just oughtta locate Cloud and point him at them," Reno muttered. "Always worked before…"

"Cloud's in no condition to fight," Vincent murmured, shaking his head. "He's a wreck."

Denzel winced; it was a harsh assessment, but he couldn't deny the truth of it—and that was without seeing how Cloud was with one less arm…Denzel could only imagine.

"I could pull some people from the WRO," Cait said abruptly. "We're stretched thin, even considering how far back we've pulled our borders, but…"

"It would be appreciated," Elena nodded, pulling a map from the inside pocket of her suit's coat and spreading it on the table. It showed the main continent, all the way up to the frozen north; several places were circled with red ink. "We'll be hitting these positions with our own strike forces, but backup would be welcome; we've very little intel about what's inside. That's where you come in." She nodded to the non-Turks.

"You want us to join those groups?" Denzel asked sharply.

"As 'shock troops', yeah," Reno nodded, leaning back in his chair so that the wicker creaked. "If you haven't noticed, me 'n' Elena are kinda getting on in years. Not so much up to the fighting anymore, more with the orderin' others around. But you three," he nodded at Vincent, Red, and Cait, "don't have that issue, and Vincent's vouched for you two." He flicked his fingers at Denzel and Marlene.

Denzel nodded slowly. In his years of wandering the world he'd gotten into more than his fair share of trouble—well, that wasn't quite true. Everyone who was any sort of traveler ran into trouble these days; with the fall of Shinra and the lack of elite SOLDIERs to keep the monster population down, trouble was everywhere. The WRO could only manage to keep monsters from the cities…and apparently, thanks to whatever force was behind this, that was now starting to fail as well.

But even before now, times had been hard. It wasn't just monsters he'd fought; outside of the cities, there were plenty of people who thought that the strong should rule and the weak should submit, and Denzel had needed to prove his own strength—or defend those who couldn't—on more than one occasion. Marlene, he knew, had traveled just as much as he had; while he didn't really know how she had fared, she was still alive, and that meant she had to have won quite a few fights, too.

There were four red circles on the map; Denzel stared at them. They were all out in the middle of nowhere, spread apart from one another, and he had to give the Turks some credit: it couldn't have been easy to find those places. "Do we split up, or do we all go to one?"

"That depends on how quickly you can learn to use these," Vincent said, dipping his hand into his cloak and tossing several coloured orbs at Denzel and Marlene.

Denzel caught his out of reflex, feeling his breath catch in his throat; he looked up reflexively. "Materia is banned," he said, raising an eyebrow. "By not only the WRO, but Shinra, Wutai, and every independent city on the continent. It's supposed to harm the planet."

"You really think it's going to be that bad?" Cait asked quietly, looking at Vincent. "I had to fight a long time to get materia banned. Not many people were happy about it."

It was Elena who answered. "We don't know what we're going up against. That's the problem—it's a powerful enough organization that they've managed to hide from both our network and Vincent's. We can only guess it'll be bad—and if they're into the Northern Crater, they probably won't have any qualms about using materia for themselves."

"Materia use takes from the planet, yes, but not much," Vincent explained quietly. "One person using it once in a while won't tip the balance—although many people using it will. That's the reason for the ban: to ensure companies don't start using it large-scale like Shinra used to do. Our need for materia, however, is far more urgent."

"I see," Denzel nodded, turning over the orbs that he'd caught; green, and blue.

"We'll have your weapons modified so that they fit them," Elena said, tilting her head. "It shouldn't take long. We can also get you some light armour with materia-slots in it. Walking into this unprotected wouldn't be wise."

"When do we go?" Red asked.

"Tomorrow," Reno said, smirking slightly as Marlene and Denzel gaped at him. "Learn fast," he added.

---

With the help of the phonebook, finding a doctor is much easier than he had expected. The book is evenly divided into sections based on each doctor's specialty—and, sure enough, there are several pages filled with ads for various clinics that are dedicated to prosthetics.

Edge really has grown.

In the end he just picks the one he's closest to, and takes off on Fenrir. It's not a long drive, but he nearly gets lost several times—Edge is structured much differently than Midgar was. This city has grown out, instead of in and up. Still, he makes it, and is soon parking the bike in front of an impressive, white-walled building with clear glass doors.

He winces. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. The white brings back…not memories, but recovered recollections; vague realizations and imaginings that he had discovered—much to his disappointment…

Gritting his teeth, he enters the building.

The inside is much like the outside; clean, white, sterile. There's a small waiting-room, about a quarter-full of people; some are clearly missing limbs, while others appear to be wearing prosthetics; he can tell from the way their lifestream seems shunted, diluted in what would otherwise appear to be a normal arm or leg. Still, the fact that part of their lifestream does extend to the fake limbs is impressive; he wonders what the doctors have designed, to make it so. Extra nerve control, maybe?

He gets a lot of stares. The amount of stress in their lifestreams' spike, and it presses against him like a wall. He hardens the shield.

Ignoring them—albeit with some difficulty—he walks over to the receptionist's desk; the young woman sitting behind it looks at him askance.

What, does no one wear swords anymore?

"Um—can I help you, sir?" she asks dubiously. Her lifestream coils about in fear.

"The doctors here work with prosthetics?" he asks, struggling to keep an icy note out of his voice. This place sets his teeth on edge; it's really not difficult to maintain his shield of rage, here.

"Um, yes, sir, but you'll need to make an appointment—we're, uh, quite busy, really—"

He glances at the unfilled waiting room.

"We've lost several doctors to competing clinics," the receptionist explains quickly.

"When could I get an appointment?"

The woman looks down and flips through a book with names and times written in it, before looking back up and smiling nervously. "Well, ah, we're all booked up until next week, but perhaps—"

"Do these competing clinics have shorter wait-times?" he interrupts.

She looks offended. "Well, maybe, I wouldn't know—you can't tell with those second-rate places."

"Thanks for your time," he tells her, and walks out.

When he reaches Fenrir he stops, and suddenly has to control his breathing. Emotion pours over him—fear, guilt, regret…shame…it's enough to make his shield waver, even with his sword to bolster it, and he rasps out, "No…"

It stabilizes.

Time to find another pay phone, he thinks grimly.

It doesn't take long; pay phones seem to be all over the city. This time, instead of noting one address, he just tears out the section that lists the clinics and takes it with him as he hunts down the next closest one. Again, he nearly gets lost. The most straight-forward route that he can puzzle out takes him into a darker part of the city, where the buildings are more run-down and the people don't have cars…and kids are clustered around corners, some keeping watch while the others sleep in the streets.

He can recall carrying packages of food to give to kids like these, once, but he doesn't have any now. He didn't bother packing up the supplies his friends gave him when he left Midgar; all he's got is what he originally had, a few changes of clothes, his swords, potions, gil…Kadaj's katana. No food.

No materia, either. Stupid…

He avoids that thought and continues on his way, passing back into a better-looking part of the city, pulling up to another white building, passing through another set of glass doors. This place is busy; people in white lab coats are bustling through the reception room, calling names and talking to the two receptionists that sit behind the desk, going from one door to another. He has to try hard to not shudder.

The coat-wearers give him a wide berth, for some reason, as he walks over to speak to one of the receptionists—a young man, thin-faced and harried-looking. "Put your name on the list and sit down," he is told before he even opens his mouth, as the man shoves two clipboards toward him without looking up­. One is a list full of names and times, and he frowns; it looks like the earliest spot on the list is an hour and a half from now.

At least it's today, he thinks, unclipping the pen and jotting his name down in the earliest available spot before handing the clipboard back to the receptionist. The other clipboard has several forms attached to it, and he glances at the waiting room. It's not someplace that he particularly wants to be sitting for the next hour and a half, so he heads toward the door. He can fill out forms outside just as well as he can inside, after all.

Apparently the people who run this place have a different viewpoint, because as he pushes open the glass door he's interrupted by a lab-coat-wearer, who tells him, "Sir, I'm sorry, but if you're going to leave we'd really like the clipboard back—"

"I'm just going outside to wait," he retorts patiently, turning to look at the young man accosting him. "I've put my name on the list for half an hour from now; I'm not going anywhere."

"Uh—oookay," is the response he gets, as the young man backs away slowly. "Um—you, uh, do that."

Huh?

He frowns. Okay, so he knows he probably sounded pissed off when he said that, and he's carrying a big huge sword, but that reaction was a bit much. He turns to look at his reflection in the glass of the door.

Oh.

His eyes are glowing. How long have they been doing that? It's been ages since his eyes glowed…they began to fade right after he first defeated Sephiroth.

There's no way to tell. It doesn't look like they're glowing bright enough to illuminate anything—not in the bright lights of this room, or the sunny day outside, at least, although he supposes that it would be a different story if it were pitch-black. He shrugs, and goes outside to sit on Fenrir and fill in forms.

---

Much to Denzel's surprise, it turned out to be quite easy to use materia, especially with it slaved right to his rifle. It was also a huge rush.

"Careful," Vincent said dryly as Denzel incinerated another tree with a single shot. "The aim is not to set the forest on fire."

"I don't even need ammunition with this," he muttered, grinning.

"It's a convenience, yes."

"Vincent—" a thought occurred to Denzel, and he turned to look at the older man, suddenly worried. "Tifa once said that you had to practice with materia to get really good with it. If I can do this so easily," he gestured at the line of blackened tree stumps, which were interspersed with shards of frozen bark, "how can a small group of us hope to stand up to a base full of people who might have materia?"

Vincent shook his head. "It's the materia itself that grows, not the user. The materia that I've given you and Marlene has already been mastered—you only need to learn how to use it properly. Hence," he looked back at the trees, "practice."

Denzel took a deep breath. "Right."

He was about to try burning down another tree—much to his dismay, he was finding it was harder to aim his modified rifle; the weight was subtly different—when a ring tone split the air, peeling off metallic sounds of victory. Denzel blinked; it certainly wasn't his phone, and Marlene, Red, and Cait were a fair ways off, the latter two teaching Marlene as Vincent was teaching him.

With great surprise, he watched Vincent pull out a cell phone from somewhere under his cloak.

"That's your ring tone?" Denzel asked incredulously.

Vincent just gave him a blank stare, and flipped the phone open; Denzel could faintly make out the sounds of someone talking on the other side.

"I see," murmured Vincent after some time. "Alright. Yes. Keep an eye on him, please?"

He snapped the phone closed, calm and poised as if nothing had happened.

"Who was that?" Denzel asked suspiciously.

"One of my eyes," Vincent said in a low voice. "Cloud's been spotted—in Edge."

Denzel blinked. "But…he can't get near people."

"Apparently he can now," Vincent shrugged. "My contact said Cloud was acting oddly, but I'm not sure whether or not that means he was acting out of character, or just being himself. It was mentioned, however, that his eyes were glowing…and he was carrying his sword."

"His eyes were glowing." Denzel let out a low whistle. "Wow. What does that mean? What's he doing in Edge, anyway?"

"Apparently, getting a new arm," Vincent said dryly.

---

"Fuck!" Cloud yelped, jerking upright as a giggling Marlene and a grinning Denzel poured a bucket of ice-cold water over him, soaking not only him but the floor as well, and covering it with slippery ice cubes. Denzel goggled; he'd never heard Cloud curse before. For a moment both he and Marlene poised to run—but then Cloud slumped back into the puddle, throwing his arms across his eyes.

"Cloud," remonstrated Red XIII from a few feet away—the ice water had been his idea—"Don't swear around the children."

Cloud groaned and muttered something unintelligible.

"You shouldn't sleep on the floor, Cloud," Marlene giggled, pushing around an ice-cube with her toe.

"Oh, you!" came a voice from behind them, and the guilty trio—not that Red looked guilty—turned to see an wan, green, irritated-looking Tifa standing behind them, one hand on her hip, the other holding a bottle of aspirin—extra-strength. "Clean this up—now!"

"Tifa, stop talking so loud," Yuffie mumbled from the other side of the bar. All of the adults, it seemed to Denzel, had woken up looking ill and disgruntled. Even Vincent had seemed paler than normal—before he'd disappeared. They'd all gotten up, though, after Red XIII had given the two children permission to wake up their elders however they wanted—not that they'd done much to anyone else. They were too leery of Tifa's hung-over ire. But Cloud had been stubborn in rousing from unconsciousness.

"Adults sure are grouchy after getting drunk," Denzel whispered to Marlene, as they turned, disappointed, to start collecting dishtowels for the floor.

"At least none of them threw up," Red mumbled, to which Marlene had the best reply: "Ewwww!"

"Marlene," came a hoarse voice from beneath Cloud's arms, "Please…talk lower?"

"Huh?" Marlene asked innocently, her high-pitched voice clearly audible throughout the entire bar. Nearly every adult groaned; Tifa passed out the aspirin.

"I was rather worried after you downed that third bottle of absinthe," Red told Cloud, who was still lying in the puddle of ice-water.

There was a pause, then—"I did what?"

"You drank three bottles of this really disgusting green stuff that looked like it was glowing!" Marlene chirped helpfully, generating another collective groan. "And then you started going on about how some girl loved you."

Cloud removed his hands from over his eyes, wincing, and blinked in her direction.

"Marlene!" Tifa ordered tiredly, sounding like she was gritting her teeth, "I need you to go to the grocers across the street and see if they have any more aspirin. There's money upstairs. Denzel, the floor!"

"Aww!" Pouting, Marlene left, and Denzel forlornly watched her go. Now who was he going to make fun of the adults with?