Update from the author: Hey, tis I once again! The amazing Rutilus! ^^;;; Sorry for taking so long to update, i probably will take a while to update the chapter after this, too, because...life is pretty hectic right now.

I only got about 3/4 of the chapter done so far, but here is like half of the total chapter, (since posting all i have would stop in a random spot X_X) hope you enjoy :)

Btw, i LOVE ALL OF YOU who are favoriting/subscribing/commenting!! XD i feel so loved! last time i checked i had over 700 views!!! XD

Music:

Jenni: "They're Going To Take Me Away" after I finally stopped headbanging to Shannon's "Sandstorm" XD

Darkness...so much of it, I feel overwhelmed by its presence...I can't remember how I got here, or where I am in the first place, but I feel so empty right now...

Strangely, even though this place is nothing but a black vastness, devoid of any light, I am able to see my own body easily. Standing up from the ground that matches the sky in appearance, enough that I question whether the ability to stand on a solid flat surface truly means that a floor exists, or if I'm just losing my mind, I glance down at my arms and legs to find that my wounds are non-existent, and this puzzles me greatly. Then I remember the fight with the Shin-Ra guards - and Marlene. The poor kid probably thinks I am a frightening boogey monster now, and will never look at me the same way again. And to think that I almost turned on her, the only one I have met so far who has treated me like a normal person, and I betray her trust by letting Chaos scare her - and much worse could have happened.

I shudder at the thought, and nervously glance around. This place is so empty, and cold. I begin to notice tendrils of fog drifting lazily across the undetectable ground.

Did I die earlier? Is this hell? Because this certainly is not a friendly afterlife...not that I expected fluffy clouds and cherubs with harps...come to think of it, this doesn't resemble any of my guesses on what hell would look like, either. Perhaps limbo? This thought causes me to snort with dry humor. It would make sense. After all, I lost my faith in being a true Christian about two years ago, and now would technically be more truthful in describing myself as agnostic - something created existence, but I sure haven't met them, and I can't accept any of the stories I have heard since childhood with complete and devoted faith anymore, not when innocent, kind-heared atheist friends of mine would supposedly be goiing to hell. And now...what with me being infused with this demon...I wonder if it is possible for me to even be accepted into heaven or whatever its equivalent is. Let alone be able to die.

I notice that a rim of orange glowing light is at the horizon now, in all directions. I'm beginning to doubt that this world is a limbo one, but have no idea where the hell else this could be. Curious, I head towards the light, eventually running as my fear of the unknown increases, my stride oddly noiseless, and the only sound I can hear is my own uneven breathing.

The glow gets brighter as I approach, flickering tendrils dancing from it. My thoughts return to the small battle; why would the soldiers have been after Marlene? I knew they wanted me for more gruesome testing...Gawd, I don't even want to think about it. Hojo was probably furious that I had escaped and thinks that torture would be a good punishment...That didn't make sense, though; if he wanted his hypothesis to be accurate - me to fight with Vincent Valentine due to that whole "only one Chaos at a time" notion (and him obviously win, I'm sure of that) or make babies for him to test on as lab rats (christ that man is sick,) then that would involve contact between me and Vincent, which couldn't happen if I was trapped in his laboratory. Unless Hojo had decided to delay his hypothesis and just torment me.

I growl in-between pants, quickening my pace, and as I have discovered now that the light source I am running toward is fire, (and still don't know why I am trying to reach it, but this seems very important suddenly,) the orange tendrils lick up higher into the blackness, growing slightly bigger.

I try to think like a scientist to sort this out - I am still unsure how he already had his whole plan setup to inject Chaos into me before I had even seen this creep, but the idea that makes the most sense is that he already had this plan beforehand, and I just happened to fit the puzzle nicely, being a homeless, naive girl and a Vincent fan already. I also have had a pretty strange life - nothing I could compare with this, and definitely not as rough as Valentine's, but for someone my age, I have already known more about hardship than most people I know my age. Immediately, several unbidden images fly into memory - I shake my head. No. Focus, no dwelling.

My close friends have wondered why I am still a nice, friendly person, not an insane one. Let's just say I had very...strict...parents.

Perhaps having Chaos in my head will just push me over the edge now.

This thought is absolutely frightening to me. And I've been trying to avoid it for the past three days now. Is that how much time has even passed? I'm not sure. On the one hand, it seems like I'm living a nightmare, that I will wake in my dorm room and attend a math course tomorrow that I forgot to study for. And on the other, so much has happened in this short time frame, that I marvel at the simplicity of my life of about a week ago - I mean, months ago...since I've been sleeping. I keep forgetting that. Maybe I haven't gone through enough to be at Vincent's level of darkness, so Hojo wants to fix that. Like HELL am I letting that happen...His ego-ridden hide can rot in a nice little fire pit before I get anywhere near him again.

Surprised, I suddenly find myself face to face with the orange flaming boundary, the fire now a little taller than I. When the hell did I get here?

The fire looks strange - almost reflective, like the surface of an automobile.

Despite my fear, I slowly peer closer at the flame, jumping back with shock as a pale, smirking face emerges - an exact copy of my own, albeit blue-tinted.

Smug golden irises lock with frightened red ones.

As Chaos steps toward me, the flames roar with a flare for a moment as her body crosses through, and the ground near the light appears like red dust and pebbles.

I step back instinctively as the demon approaches. "Where is the place?" I demand to know, my voice wavering.

"I should think it would be obvious, Allens, that this is your own mind." Chaos' voice is deeper than mine, sarcasm dripping from her words.

It is highly unnerving to be staring into a demonic version of your own face. Especially one mocking you.

I can't help but wonder - is Chaos going to be killing me inside my own head!?!?!

Damn cool voice, though, my dumb random side offers.

I wonder if Chaos can read my mind, since she's part of my mind.

The demon's gaze is scary, to say the least, boring right through me. Oh wait a second. That's right, that's what I looked like earlier...Shit...

The golden orbs narrow, "If you are going to ask for my assistance in your pathetic battles, then I will require...payment." Chaos carelessly extends and flexes claws on one arm to make the point.

What kind of payment!?!?! KILLING!?!?!? NO FUCKING WAY!

Chaos smirks again, taking another menacing step forward, "Yes, I can hear your thoughts. And if you have a problem with this arrangement, host, we can settle this right now - "

Oh God. A challenge? As in me fight my own demon while in my head and then lose, die, and turn into Chaos permanently!?!?! Or something!?

"That's what I thought...And you will not interfere next time, or I will take the child," Chaos looks just that much more smug now.

For the first time in this conversation, I allow the outburst to jump out, as stupid as I am, "I am NOT going to kill people! Especially not a child! Are you insane!?"

A strange sly grin appears on Chaos's face. "Would you be willing to put your own life at risk then?"

How the hell did Vincent deal with this crap?

Damn, why couldn't this just be easy and my demon just be a weird ally of sorts with me?

Chaos looks highly amused, "Foolish child...so naive..." Gruesome pictures of the soldiers from the night I escaped Hojo flash by, and now a new one - Marlene.

Blood running down her neck, a slash across her arm, her eyes frozen wide even in death -

Something snaps in me then, "GO TO FUCKING HELL!" I shriek with horror, falling to my knees.

"Unfortunately, for the both of us, I am unable to do so. I would gladly leave your pathetic body if I had the means, human. Regardless of this, there will be payment." The first part was sarcastic, the last threatening.

Looking back on this moment, I am ashamed that I let my tongue run unchecked, but at the moment I was desperate.

"Why can't it be a cow or something instead!?!" I pleaded, but no sooner had the words left my mouth did I realize my mistake.

The demon sneers down at my broken form. "Done."

Snow flakes began to softly flutter down from the dark grey enormous cloud that had recently migrated to cover the entire visible sky, at least from the perspective of the figure leaning motionless against the side of a stone wall of one of the many abandoned buildings of the ghostown Nibelheim. The man had been waiting patiently for hours, remaining nearly as perfectly solid as the building he rested against, and under the cover of blackness, even his bright blood-red cloak was hard to observe from the shadowy place he chose to wait. A faint whirring sound of a helicopter approaching from the distance caused the ever-alert gunslinger to perk his head up sharply, then slowly emerge from his position into the wide open and uncared for road. The helicopter was marked with the Shinra logo, and as it came closer, the propeller's noise growing painfully louder in volume, one of the occupants flicked on the bright spotlight. Vincent Valentine tensed his body in preparation for a spring as the rickety wood and rope ladder unfolded swiftly and neared his position. For safety precautions, the copter would not land; with an agile leap, Vincent grasped the dangling ladder with his gauntlet at about ten feet off of the ground. The occupants did not wait for him to climb up before the hovering aircraft sped quickly out of the town.

The gunslinger calmly climbed into the backseat of the helicopter behind the cockpit as though this was merely another one of his usual daily activities before he was presented with a loud and enthusiastic greeting from the pilot.

"Yo, Vampy! My man! Nice jump!" Reno shot him a thumbs up with a mischievous grin.

Vincent gave the annoying redhead a tired stare. "Was that really necessary?"

Reno shrugged, "Sorry about the ladder, yo, it's kinda busted and should go down more than that, but I didn't wanna bust this buddy," he patted the steering wheel with his other hand, "'round the close buildings by flying' too low, ya know?"

Vincent sighed, then acknowledged Rude's presence with a courteous nod. He much preferred Rude's company; the man was more stoic and silent like him.

All of a sudden a carefree tune began playing, and a goofy-sounding voice began singing quite loudly along with children's voices, causing Vincent to scowl and Reno to have a heart attack.

"WHAT the ba-Jesus fuckin' HELL!?!" For a moment, the copter's flight pattern swerved violently, and thus Rude's coffee spilled all over the co-pilot side of the cockpit ("Fuck!").

Vincent impassively pulled a cellphone from his pocket and answered it, Reno and even Rude staring with dumbstruck open mouths.

"Hello Cloud," Vincent managed evenly, before being cut off by Reno's outburst, "...WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A MR. CHOCOBO THE BLUE BIRD RINGTONE!?!?!"

Cloud, on the other end, made a small noise in surprise, whatever he was about to say evaporating for a moment.

Vincent cleared his throat, "Please inform Tifa that the next time I see her she resets Marlene's previous ringtone supplements."

Cloud rolled his eyes with a sheepish smile, knowing full too well that Marlene was probably advised by certain others to give the Chocobo head the Chocobo ringtone.

"Will do, Vincent. I'm assuming your ride came alright?"

Vincent grunted in response, then, "I was unable to do little more than frighten off this Remnant character, but I believe that this is a female, and the same one that I mentioned to you before in the Midgar square."

"The one flying on the rooftops?" Cloud sighed, thoroughly sick of any one who had silver hair at this point.

"...yes..." Vincent hesitated, wondering if he should mention to Cloud his concern about the other companion who had been with the Remnant. For some reason, about a week after the battle against the three Remnants several months ago, Chaos had started acting up. Vincent had been planning on abandoning AVALANCHE and living on his own again, since there was no more need for him to hang around with the group, but when his most powerful demon began giving him strong signals that something was wrong, he had decided it would be best to wait things out a little longer, in case danger was just around the corner again. Until three days ago, however, nothing new had occurred, and Vincent had begun to doubt his previous feelings - but Chaos started hissing in his mind, and so the gunslinger went to go visit Midgar and check on Cloud and Tifa and whoever else of the group had lingered.

Once he had gotten to the crowded streets, (which were very uncomfortable to the anti-social man) he suddenly got strong vibes from Chaos, and spotted the shock of silver hair. But the demon, strangely, was more interested in the woman dressed in red and black who was walking with the Remnant.

His other three demons sensed an inhuman presence about this girl as well, a mixture of hostility and curiousity from Chaos in particular.

A combination of battle instinct and influence from his inner occupants convinced the gunslinger to pursue the two, but his presence appeared to have been noticed by the object of Chaos's main attention, as she suddenly dragged her Remnant companion to run off. After dealing with the stampede of the panicking mob that suddenly formed after the silver-haired woman threatened a random nearby person with her sword, Vincent realized with agonizing dismay that he had lost the pair for the moment. Patiently, he waited for the crowd's panic to subside, and continued to search for any sign of either mysterious woman. A mere few minutes later, he found them.

But what would confuse the gunslinger the most, was witnessing the Remnant's sudden attack on her ally. He first spotted them flying out of one of the taller apartment complexes, the Remnant sprouting a large black wing as they made their perilous descent.

Why?

Were they both evil, and having a fight over power?

That seemed to be the impression that Chaos was radiating, but it didn't seem quite right.

"Hey, Vincent? You still there?" Vincent snapped out of his memory, and apologized quickly to Cloud, who had been trying to get his attention for a while.

"It's alright Vincent, but, um, we kinda have a problem down here at the bar..."

"What's going on?"

"Tifa wanted to call you earlier, but she forgot to ask Marlene to write down your number, so she told me as soon as I got here. There's...someone here you might recognize. She - "

Vincent knew immediately it was the non-Remnant individual. Regardless of the fact that he was being given a friendly ride by Reno and Rude back to Seventh Heaven, things could quickly become ugly if the Turks discovered a Shinra test escapee and took to questioning them before AVALANCHE.

"Cloud, I will speak with you later about this privately." Immediately, Reno and Rude turned to glance at him with slight suspicion.

"Oh, sorry. Forgot about your, uh, company. I'll see you soon then?"

"Wait!" Reno's outburst caught Vincent by surprise, but he quickly schooled his expression to render his calm mask, expecting Reno to ask about details.

Not.

"Can you send a message for me, Vamp?" And without waiting for a reply, Reno shouted, "I LOVE YOU! CAN WE MEET FOR ANOTHER CHOCOLATE AND MATERIA DATE SWEETIE!?"

Vincent's mask of coolness vanished, his jaw slack and left eye twitching. Cloud remained very silent on the other end of the line. Rude slowly lowered his sunglasses off of his nose and stared with an almost identical expression to that of Vincent's.

Reno immediately flushed almost as red as his hair, especially in the ears, and stammered, looking around wildly,"WHAT? Is there a fucking problem with the idea of me and Yuffie dating?"

Immediately the tension in the room phased out and Rude and Cloud began laughing to tears, Vincent allowing himself a small chuckle.

"WHAT!? WHAT THE FUCK IS SO FUNNY!?!?!"

"...ooookay." Gasped Cloud after regaining his breath of relief.

"Right," Vincent smirked.

"Later."

Beep. Click.

Vincent sighed.

He would have the Turks drop him off at the edge of Midgar, under the guise of it not being a good idea for some Turks and AVALANCHE to be seen being too close if their superiors had a problem with it. Reno was only too glad to do so, as long as Vincent was his "delivery boy", and dropped off a package for him.

"...why don't you ask Cloud?"

"You're right here, so you can do it, Vamps."

Vincent gritted his teeth at the annoying nickname. Yes, Yuffie and Reno were definitely a compatible pair. Both loud. Both wild (sometimes due to alcohol). Both defying social structure. And both extremely annoying.

After he was dropped off at the edge of the city, the gunslinger began his walk to Seventh Heaven to meet and...interrogate this stranger.

Tifa bit her lip as she closed the door to Denzel's room, pondering over the night's events. Marlene had seemed oddly quiet, and had hesitated by Yuffie's room, where the strange guest was resting, as though she was worried about her, but then hurried quickly to a very surprised Denzel's room and hugged him tightly, refusing to leave him. Denzel and Marlene ended up falling asleep together, the two little friends looking very adorable.

It had been quite a struggle to get the skinny woman up the stairs, because she began to thrash around rather violently in what seemed to be a nightmare, which Yuffie found out the hard way, being on the side that apparently had a claw arm like Vincent's. Cloud was due back any minute, and had seemed extremely worried when she described the appearance of their unconscious visitor, even when she mentioned that she had saved Marlene. Yuffie was keeping an eye on her, to see if she woke up or improved in condition, and at Cloud's request, had brought her shuriken as a precaution, though Tifa found this highly absurd. Why would they need to be afraid of this kid who barely managed to stay alive long enough for a child to run in the bar?

Then again, why would an average person being wearing a gauntlet? And why did Cloud seem concerned? And Marlene was usually not so...un-Marlene.

She noticed Yuffie's head pop out from her room down the hall with a frown, beckoning her over.

TIfa crept in silently, noting the gauntlet had been removed by a certain expert ninja's skills and placed on the opposite side of the room of this..."Jenni" girl, as Marlene had mentioned. "Anything new yet?" She whispered to her tomboy-ish friend.

Yuffie didn't bother to whisper, being Yuffie, but looked slightly disturbed. "Nope, just talking in her sleep now, and its damn creeping me out. Something about killing people." She shuddered, "Took that bugger off so she won't scratch me anymore." Yuffie growled, rubbing her arm. Being a ninja was handy; quick reflexes saved you from the most random of attacks.

Tifa stared suddenly at the woman laying on Yuffie's bed. "Yuffie. I thought she was bleeding."

Yuffie blinked, "Uh, yeah?"

Tifa shook her head in amazement. "Her left shoulder, it's almost completely healed..."

Yuffie paused, then grinned, "She must be special like Vinny or Cloud or something then. That would explain the Shinra dudes being stupid fuckers!"

Tifa sighed before giving an exasperated smile at the loud ninja, "Yuffie, I agree with you, but must you swear with the kids right down the hall?"

Yuffie chuckled, "Aw, come on Boobs, I don't swear half as much as Cid. But maybe I should, it would be funny to teach Denzel to be more rude!"

The martial artist threw one of Yuffie's extra black pillows at her.

"Go to fucking hell..." came an anguished sob from the bed, causing both quiet giggles to cease immediately.

Tifa breathed, "I think I'll go call Cloud, and see how far he is."

Yuffie moaned, "Thanks alot, leave me here with the creepy person." Tifa gave her a sympathetic smile before leaving the room.

Almost as soon as Tifa had gone down the stairs, the door to the bar opened, revealing a frazzled Cloud.

"Are you alright? Where is she? And Marlene?" He asked with worry, closing the door quickly.

"I'm fine, Cloud, really, just was worrying about you. Our guest is resting in Yuffie's room and seems to be having a bad nightmare still, and Marlene's sleeping in Denzel's room."

Cloud raised an eyebrow at this last part, but smiled faintly, then frowned with seriousness again. "Alright, well, Vincent is on his way as soon as he can, the Turks are dropping him off at the edge of town." Tifa chuckled at the idea of the stoic gunman contending with Reno's attitude.

Cloud hesitated at the stairs before he went up to check on things, turning back to Tifa. "He's been acting kinda off a little lately, did you notice?"

Tifa frowned, "Who? Vincent?"

Cloud nodded solemnly.

"I'm afraid I didn't, but then I haven't been talking to him lately, you have, so you probably have a better judgement than I. Why? Do you know?"

Cloud shook his head. "I'm assuming his demons are bothering him again. It's the only reason for him to have been acting so...even more distant than usual."

Cloud sighed, then climbed the stairs to have a look at the situation, Tifa following close behind.

They were both shocked to find Yuffie clutching her stomach and laughing her head off. "Hahaha, oh you two just missed it, she was talking about COWS! Ahahaha..."

Cloud stared with mild disbelief, took one glance at the exhausted, sleeping, relatively harmless-looking stranger, and shook his head. "Let me know when she wakes up, Yuffie," he said with slight relief before leaving the room to retire to the sofa. And the TV and the food that was calling to his grumbling stomach from the fridge.

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A/N: XD dont forget to comment, please! :)