~~~~Lightning's POV~~~~

Once everyone was awake, we decided as a group that we had spent enough time puttering around Vallis Media and wanted to continue. Our destination was Oerba, Fang and Vanille's home village but they told us it would be a long and difficult trip. The first area we had to cross was the Archylte Steppe, a sprawling plain that connected to many other regions.

The moment we set foot on the plain, I hated it. There was no shelter, barely any cover, and a lot of very hostile looking creatures. Not to mention the tremors running through the ground every ten or so seconds. I asked Vanille about it, because Fang was up with Sephiroth about twenty paces ahead of the rest of us, and the redhead pointed out Titan. I felt my breath catch and my heart stop for moment when I saw the mountainous fal'Cie and as long as he is way the hell over there, I feel marginally safer.

When we stopped for a break at about midday, I saw that Snow, Sazh and Hope had removed their coats but Sephiroth, Angeal, and Zack looked quite alright with this painfully hot weather. Makes me realize how much of Cocoon is controlled, even the weather is manipulated by the fal'Cie to help their... What was that word Sephiroth used? … Cattle, that was it. The fal'Cie of Cocoon manipulated the weather to help their cattle live better.

"How can you wear that?" Snow asked Sephiroth as he flopped down onto the grass.

"Midgar was in a very warm part of the world," Sephiroth explained.

"Don't forget the random storms," Angeal said with a chuckle.

"So we heard Sephiroth's story, what about yours?" Vanille asked Angeal.

"Yeah, tell us about Banora," Sazh slipped in.

Angeal started to tell us about his and Genesis' life in the small village and we continued on through the plains. Listening to Angeal's story made me fully realize just how different we all are, and yet, we all ended up here together. Almost like it was all destined to happen. We had only been walking for an hour when something completely unexpected happened.

Within minutes, the sky had clouded over and with a crack of thunder torrents it began to pour. As much as I hated rain, this was not bad. Annoying, but not bad. It was a wonderful relief from the heat and was pretty warm so we just trudged through it. As it got later in the day, the rain got colder and we started to look for some shelter. All we found was a small out cropping of rock of a demolished hill but it was far better than nothing. We got a fire going and Sephiroth taught us how to use our l'Cie magic to pull the water out of our clothes.

In the morning the sun was out and the awful heat was back. We continued on, dealing the occasional Gorgonopsid pack, as Fang called them, when they attacked us. Eventually we had to go through a canyon, which I really did not to go anywhere near. Fang and Vanille assured us that it was a river with a bridge across it when they lived in Oerba, but I guess things really do change over five hundred years. Since the bridge had undoubtedly collapsed a long time ago, we had to take an obscure and dangerous path down into the canyon. Zack sarcastically pointed out the creek that was still flowing in the very bottom of the canyon.

"So how do we get out?" Snow asked Fang when we reached the other side. I looked both directions and saw no obvious way out.

"We climb," Zack stated as if was it was painfully obvious.

"Or we use our Eidolons," Fang more than suggested.

"I already tried summoning Valkyrie," Aerith said.

"It didn't work?" Snow asked.

"No it worked perfectly, that's why Aerith is up there and not down here with us," Zack said with a laugh.

"Oh shut up, Zack," Snow replied with a laugh. I'm not surprised those two became friends so fast.

"This is no laughing matter," Sephiroth stated "If we can't summon the Eidolons, that means there is something powerful preventing it."

"Like a fal'Cie," Sazh commented.

"Let's look for a way out," Angeal said before starting to walk away.

"And stay on guard," I commanded. I've felt like I'm being watched the whole time we've down here.

We had only been walking for five minutes when we were stopped once again.

"Uh guys," Hope said to get our attention "I saw something over there. By that rock."

I started to walk over to the rock Hope pointed out but before I got too far away from the group something else happened.

"Look out!" Vanille shouted. I spun around just in time to see Sazh barely dodge a large black creature that kind of looked like a undead Gorgonopsid.

"Behind you!" Hope shouted at me. I threw myself to the side and saw another creature run past me but felt something tear into my side, then I saw the thing on the end of its tail and knew what had got me. I cast a cure spell and got to my feet.

In about twenty seconds, there was about fifteen of these creatures on us. They were amazingly fast and had surprising reflexes for beasts. Fang, Sephiroth, Angeal, Snow, Zack and myself were in a circle around the others.

"What are these things?" Snow shouted.

"I have no idea!" Fang shouted back.

One of the creatures charged at me and I flipped Blaze Edge into gun mode and took a shot. The shot would have tore right through the beasts skull but it just turned into black mist and the shot passed through it before it reformed into the beast and kept charging at me. I was stunned by what just happened which allowed the thing to knock me down and bite down onto my leg. I know I howled in pain and it started to drag me away.

A fire spell hit it but it just turned into the mist, which moved away, and when it reformed it rejoined the pack circling us. Strong hands lifted me onto my feet and I saw Angeal a moment later. He pretty much carried me back to the group and healed my leg.

As we rained bullets and spells onto the beasts, they just kept turning into the mist and reforming unharmed. Most of us started to take a beating from the weird mist beasts but Angeal, Zack and Sephiroth were fighting hard and had not been scratched yet.

A blue streak crossed my vision and I watched it slam into Angeal, who took flight and crashed through one of the rock pillars of the canyon. The hairs on my neck stood up and I ducked low just as a sword passed over me. I cartwheeled and came up with a slash but met nothing. Something slammed into my back but I was able to recover midair and land on my feet, and not a moment later I had to block a sword from taking my head off my shoulders.

The sword fight I had gotten into was easily the fastest I had ever been in, about as fast as Sephiroth but he had said he was holding back. I had no time to think, I was fighting on pure instinct and did not even know what I was fighting. All I know is I have to keep that sword away from me. My arms are starting to burn from how fast I have to move, my lungs hurt from breathing, my legs are killing me from walking so much today, and my back is bruised from that hit I took. So just like with Sephiroth, I lost. My opponent grabbed my coat and held his sword against my throat, after knocking my weapon out of my hand of course.

I took the chance to examine my opponent and first saw the silver hair and bright green eyes with slit pupils and one thing jumped into my mind. The part of Sephiroth's story about his Remnants, as he called them. I looked around and saw another silver haired man, he had short hair, standing over Angeal, Snow, and Fang, and another silver haired man with long hair, pointing a gun at Vanille, Aerith and Hope. That's when I noticed all three of them were left handed like Sephiroth and the black creatures were surrounding Sephiroth, Zack, and Sazh.

"I will admit that you all fight well," I looked towards the voice and saw Yaag Rosch, I was both shocked and not surprised "Release them," He commanded.

We were released and the black mist creatures turned into mist and vanished. The silver haired man that was close to me had an insane smile on his face and a look of madness in his eyes. Steel scraping steel got my attention and I saw Yaag slowly pulling his sword out of its sheath.

"Now Sephiroth, this will be a simple duel between you and I. I've always wanted to see you fight," Rosch said calmly. It was hard to not notice that Rosch's sword was drastically shorter than Sephiroth's.

After just a couple of minutes of insanely fast fighting, Rosch raised his hand to stop the fight.

"You truly are an amazing warrior, Sephiroth," Rosch slid his sword back into its sheath before talking again "Now unlike those three, I am reasonable. Give me the Black Materia and all of you will live."

"No," Sephiroth said calmly.

"One more warning. Give me the Black Materia or I kill these three," Rosch motioned to Aerith, Vanille, and Sazh.

"Three lives is better than millions," Sephiroth replied.

"What?" We all shouted back.

"Sephiroth, you have just killed three more innocent people," Rosch lifted his arm, to cast some magic I assume.

Out of nowhere a large red symbol with a lot of circles and writing appeared on the ground under all of us. The four silver haired men looked around before countless bolts of red lightning struck them. Right after the lighting, ice pelted them which exploded when they were hit, then a whirlwind of fire roared to life around us, only hitting the four men. When the fire died down, the four silver haired men were breathing heavy and looked like they had taken a beating. Rosch started to stand and those of us that could, started throwing healing spells to everyone.

"Leave now," Rosch commanded and the three from Sephiroth's story faded into black mist before vanishing completely. He drew his sword again and two black feathered wings erupted from his back "I don't know which of you did that, but now you all die."

What I can only describe as liquid darkness appeared at four points around Rosch and he looked at them with the confusion clear on his face.

~~~~Unknown POV~~~~

I had watched the battle from afar and could not let it continue. I summoned the darkness to four points around the silver haired man with wings. I drew my sword as I stepped into the opening by me and summoned my power to increase my speed. I commanded the darkness to open at threw myself at the man.

My sword tore through him as I passed him by at a blinding speed. I came out of the adjacent opening at the same speed and slashed him again. As I repeated the process time and time again, never coming out of the same opening twice in a row, the look of fear on the winged man grew more and more evident. The looks of confusion on the faces of Sephiroth and his companions faces were priceless. To end the attacks, I wrapped the darkness around the winged man and pulled him in while I was still inside it as well.

I forced all my power into me and felt myself change into the great steel form I had taken once before. I crushed him, slashed him, froze, electrified, burned, smashed, and threw him out of the darkness. I saw him vanish out of cowardice and let myself go back to my regular form.

Drawing my sword again, I rushed out of the darkness and right at Sephiroth. He blocked my slash, as I expected he would, and tried to counter attack. Easily, I dodged the slash and heard the Masamune sing through the air as it passed close to my face. Using my wing to propel myself around him I tried to take him down but he got away from it. Our blades sang through the air for several minutes but I eventually emerged victorious. Sephiroth was laying on the ground, Masamune under my boot, and Rapier pointed at his throat.

"Finally I beat you," I chuckled at him "Granted I have the unfair advantage of Jenova cells, Mako enhancement, my original cells, and your cells."

"Genesis?" Sephiroth whispered as he looked me up and down. I guess my current appearance is a bit of a surprise.

"Is it really you?" Angeal asked slowly as he walked towards me.

I had a suspicion that simple words would not be enough so I pulled my copy of LOVELESS out of my coat, let it fall open to the page with my beloved poem, and took out the photograph that was my bookmark. The photograph is the only picture with Sephiroth, Angeal and myself. It was taken about a month before Angeal took Zack under his wing. Carefully I handed the creased, and lightly damaged picture to Angeal and a moment after examining the picture, he threw his arms around me. After a few, rather uncomfortable, seconds Angeal let me go and gave back the photo, which I replaced in my book and slipped it back into my coat.

"What happened to you?" Angeal asked me again, while obviously examining my outfit.

"Deepground," I answered plain and simple.

"Deepground?" Sephiroth shot back "The medical division of SOLDIER?"

"Allow me to explain," So I started to explain what Deepground really was and what it became. I also let them know about what happened a year after Sephiroth's 'rebirth' in the Midgar ruins "Which reminds me," I made a small spot of darkness appear and forced it to slowly slide out the Buster Sword.

"Is that..." Angeal was stunned.

"There was only ever one, Angeal," I handed him the massive sword, handle first and the looks on the strangers faces were mildly amusing. My dark haired friend carefully looked over the blade several times, sliding his hand over it to check for any damage "I retrieved it before the battle between Deepground and the WRO. Sadly your church and memorial were demolished in the battle," I told the women in the pink dress.

"Genesis... How are you here?" the Puppy asked me "All of us were brought here by the lifestream because we were dead."

"After you defeated me in the Banora caves, Pup, I met an amazing being."

"Who?" The short red head girl asked me with intrigue.

"Lady Minerva, the goddess spoken of in LOVELESS," I made sure to pay the utmost respect when stating her name.

"Minerva? Don't sound that special," The women in blue chuckled and I shot a glare at her, stopping that insulting tone.

"Lady Minerva is Gran Pulse, she is Gaia, she is the lifestream, the source of and the return point of all life."

"That doesn't explain how you got here," Sephiroth rudely stated.

"She brought me here just as she brought all of you," I was indicating Sephiroth, Angeal, Aerith, and the Pup.

"But why?" Angeal asked but by his tone, I could tell he had a hunch and was thinking he was right.

"As you all most likely guessed by those that attacked you, Jenova is on Cocoon," most of them looked taken aback.

"You serious?" the dark skinned man shouted.

"Indeed. The Jenova on Gaia was all that was left of that body, or host really."

"What do you mean host?" The dark skinned man asked me.

"I mean that was not her. She possessed and changed it which she could do to anyone if she so desired. In fact, those brands are the one thing that is protecting you from Jenova's influence."

"How do you know that?" The woman in blue asked me. So instead of explaining things again, I undid the leather straps holding my jacket closed, slipped it off my shoulders, and pulled my dark shirt off my left shoulder, revealing to them the white mark of Minerva, which I just noticed was on the woman in blue's right shoulder.

"This is the mark of Minerva, the emblem of the lifestream guardians, defenders of the world."

~~~~Jenova's POV~~~~

I let go of Yaag and he crumpled to the floor and took several deep breaths. Crushing his throat would have been easy, along with any other form of death I could imagine for him but death in any from would be too merciful for him. He boldly got to his feet and dared to look me in the eye as he straightened his uniform.

"Now, tell me why you failed," I politely commanded.

"We were ambushed by Genesis," As hard as he tried to hide it, I could tell he was afraid of what I might do next.

"Genesis defeated you? He has nowhere near the potential of Sephiroth."

"I am not sure, mother. Somehow he has much more power than before, but I highly doubt he even begins to rival you," Yaag is trying to flatter me to lessen his punishment, how cute.

"You're right. It was wrong of me to send my pathetic sons to accomplish such an simple task. Keep things under control here, I'm going to finish the mission you failed. Then I will deal with all of you," When I looked between Yaag, Yazoo, Loz, and Kadaj, they flinched, which is a good thing. They know better than to act tough with me.

~~~~Aerith's POV~~~~

It took a while but Genesis convinced us to use his darkness, as he called, to get out of the canyon. As we were going through it, I could hear voices, lots of voices, and they sounded like they were suffering. I wanted to get out the darkness as fast as I could and when we were out, Genesis told us we were only in there for a few moments. The Cocoon people looked just as surprised as me at hearing that.

"So tell me about these, Tsviets," Sephiroth told Genesis as he waited for the rest of us to recover from that darkness.

"There were five of them. The headed Deepground and were as dangerous, if not more, as us when we worked for Shinra," Angeal stood up as Genesis spoke.

"Really now?" Angeal said, I could tell he didn't believe Genesis.

Genesis told us about the Tsviets, how they were made, and a bunch of other stuff that was just scary. I focused on the beautiful world around us and tried my hardest to tune out Genesis. We ran into some creatures, and some ran into us, but nothing was difficult with so many powerful people. Eventually we stopped and started trying to decide on a place to make camp.

"What's that?" Vanille asked all of us. She was looking up at Cocoon so I turned around to look at it as well and saw a light blinking and was getting bigger.

I heard weapons getting ready so I charged a fire spell just to be sure. The light seemed to be closer really fast and I was getting nervous. The ground suddenly trembled but no else seemed to have noticed it and I started to hear panicked voices. I knew exactly what was coming and I really wanted to run.

"We need to go!" I shouted at everyone, making most of them turn to me.

"No use," Genesis calmly said back "She already knows where we are."

The light slammed into the ground in front of us and the ground shaking made me fall down. Vanille helped me up and I saw right there where the light landed was Jenova in her disguise. Even though the ground was cracked and broken and there was a whole bunch of dust in the air, Jenova was still perfectly clean. The smile she had on her face was a whole new kind of evil in my opinion.

"Nabaat?" Sazh was surprised, again. Jenova chuckled softly.

"You could say that. But I prefer my Cetra name, Jenova," Her hair straightened out and turned silver, her eyes turned bright red, her skin became very pale, and her six black feathered wings appeared.

"Wow, you two really are related," Fang joked at Sephiroth. Jenova sent a glare at her but didn't do anything, surprisingly.

"Odin!" Lightning shouted. I watched her throw her Eidolith into the air but it suddenly flew over to Jenova and she looked at the crystal.

"I won't have anything like that from you," Jenova said with a smile as she dropped the crystal beside her. And then she just wasn't there anymore.

An explosion in the middle of our group threw us all to the ground, injuring most, possibly, all of us. I sat up and saw Jenova in the middle of us, standing over Sephiroth and Genesis. I wanted to use a healing spell but I could not get the magic to work, as if Jenova had blocked it somehow.

"Know what's funny, Sephiroth?" I think I heard Sephiroth growl at Jenova "Aerith knew I was here the whole time. She is a Cetra after all," She laughed as she walked away from Sephiroth, to Hope "Hope, I was hoping you were okay," that was a confusing thing to hear "You know, once this is all over and done with, you will be the greatest of my children," What? Hope is another one of her children? No, that's not true. Jenova is a liar "All of this, the purge, the branding, your mother dying, Cocoon itself, all carefully designed and planned, by me, to ensure my perfect son could grow up to be a very powerful being, just like me."

"What?" Hope asked in disbelief.

"I handcrafted you from the DNA of Sephiroth, Angeal, Genesis, and myself. You have all of their strengths, none of their weaknesses, a mind as strong as mine, and power within the same borders as mine," Jenova actually looked like she was being honest, which scared me.

"Don't listen to her! She's a liar!" Zack shouted. I saw Jenova's eyes flash red and Zack screamed in pain.

"I didn't ask you to speak, Zack."

Sephiroth and Genesis stood up behind Jenova and got ready to attack. Sephiroth put his hand on the guard of his sword and pulled out the Black Materia, Jenova spun around the moment it was free. Sephiroth tossed it to Genesis just as Jenova lunged at him. Jenova's hand landed on Sephiroth's head and Genesis pushed the materia into his arm. For some reason, Sephiroth fell to the ground without doing anything and strange symbols appeared around Genesis' left arm. Jenova lunged at him and a giant black beam, came out of Genesis' arm. When the black beam went away, Jenova was gone and I felt my magic rush back into me and I wasn't so sore. So I got back to my feet, everyone else did the same.

"That was a good idea Sephiroth," Genesis said cheerfully as he pulled the black materia out of his arm "Sephiroth?" we all saw Sephiroth still lying on the ground, barely moving "Sephiroth!" Genesis bent down to him and rolled him onto his back.

I got closer to Sephiroth and saw that his eyes were wide open and gray instead of bright green. Vanille, Angeal, and me started to cast every kind of healing spell we knew and look all over him for an injury. A long time later, could have been anywhere between five and thirty minutes, later we agreed on something.

"He is perfectly fine," Angeal said in a depressed way.

"What? Look at his eyes! That is not healthy!" Fang shouted.

"Physically, there is nothing wrong," Angeal replied calmly.

"Jenova attacked his mind," Genesis commented "She knows it would be pointless to attack his body because of our healers, so she attacked the truly dangerous part of him. His seemingly invincible mind."

"What do we do to help him?" Lightning asked, she sounded... odd.

"I haven't the slightest idea if there is anything that can be done," Genesis responded.

"Do any of you think it's true?" Hope asked, he was really close to but behind me so I jumped when he said that "What Jenova said about me."

"Hope," Angeal went over to him, bent to one knee and put a hand on his shoulder "Jenova is a liar. If she didn't enjoy causing misery so much, she would have killed us all the moment she appeared."

"That's not what I asked, Angeal," Hope sounded ready to cry "What if it is true? None of you would know then. Did all those people die because of me?" Hope started to cry "I'm the reason my mom died? That all of you were made l'Cie? All of this is my fault. I'm a monster like the rest of them," I saw Hope's l'Cie brand start to glow and Angeal started to move back because he saw it too.

"Hey now," Genesis sounded offended. Obviously he couldn't see Hope's glowing brand because Angeal was in his way.

"Fang, go move Sephiroth," Lightning commanded.

Huge white symbols appeared around Hope and an instant later, a massive robotic thing was standing there. It was gold and white, had a crown, its arms and chest were gigantic, and compared to the rest of it, it's legs were very small. This looked like it would be a very hard battle. On the bright side, Hope's Eidolon will be very strong.

Wow, a lot happened in that chapter. Next chapter will be very interesting though, so sit tight.

Not much else to say other than, let me know about any errors, if you have any questions, and most of all, please leave a review.