Author's Note: So I gave myself a ton of Zerith feels today. I'm not even sorry. Funny thing is, those have nothing to do with this chapter. Because this has Zack feels, but not Zerith feels. (I feel a bit bad for Cloud...) Anyway, I'm gonna cut of my ramble before I begin. Enjoy!
Olympus Coliseum: Cloud, Age 17
"So how does a star shard work?" Cloud asked, curious.
"Um," Zack said. "Well, mostly I just wish to be somewhere, or with someone, and I'm there. But sometimes, the star shard takes me somewhere else instead. It never is anywhere random though, there's always something for me to do when I arrive." He laughed. "I suppose the star shard just knows where I need to be."
"Cool," Cloud said.
"Yeah," Zack agreed. "It's pretty nifty."
"So how did you end up on the World I ended up on?"
"Well, I wanted to be somewhere I was needed. Then I found you. So…"
"Huh."
"Like I said, nifty."
Cloud almost smiled. "So where are we going now?"
Zack thought about this for a moment. "I don't know. I hadn't really had anywhere in mind. I figured I'd just keep doing what I was doing, going places that I'm needed. Or, rather, that we're needed."
"What are we needed for?"
"Usually Heartless extermination."
Cloud remembered how the Heartless never attacked when he was wandering in darkness. But they did used to attack Nibelheim. And they'd attack him when he was on the road.
"Do you have anywhere you want to go?" Zack asked.
Cloud shook his head. "Places, I s'pose."
Zack laughed. He dug the star shard out of his pocket. "Well, 'places' we shall go."
He tossed the star shard up in the air and caught it with one hand, while simultaneously placing his other hand on Cloud's shoulder. Cloud felt a tug and suddenly, he and Zack were bouncing around again.
He couldn't really tell where they had been spat out. His entire brain felt like it was spinning. The last time Zack had used the star shard, Cloud had chalked the effects up to being tired and hungry, now that he was neither, it must actually just be what star shards feel like.
Suddenly, he was on the ground.
"Oof," he groaned.
Zack offered out a hand. "I promise," he said, a smile twitching at his lips. "It gets better."
"It better," Cloud muttered.
He was overwhelmed with a feeling of darkness and he cringed. He knew it was useless to draw his sword. He just had to wait for the feelings to go away… he squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to cry out. He didn't want to draw attention to himself. The feeling encompassed his entire being, tying his stomach up in knots, making his heart flip over and over, he heard screaming but no one was actually screaming.
"Whoa!" Zack's voice pierced through the darkness. "You okay, buddy?"
Cloud shook his head to clear it. The feeling was gone. The day was bright and sunny. Nothing seemed amiss.
"Yeah," he said gruffly.
Zack didn't look like he believed him, but he didn't press the issue.
"So where are we?" Cloud asked to change the subject.
Zack took a look around and swore.
"What is it?" Cloud asked, now thoroughly confused.
"Why Olympus Coliseum?" Zack asked, his voice strangled. "Why here? What could I possibly need to do that's here?"
Cloud backed away. He couldn't decide if Zack was angry, or some other form of upset.
"You stupid little piece of gummi block!" Zack continued, holding up the star shard. "Why would you bring me here? Why would you ever bring me back here?"
He looked like he was about to throw it. Deciding that might be a bad idea, Cloud moved to stop him. He caught Zack's wrist right before he was going to slam the star shard into the ground. Zack's grip around the star shard loosened, but it didn't fall. Cloud looked Zack in the eye.
"Obviously you don't want to be here," Cloud said. "But I think throwing the star shard is probably a bad idea if we ever want to leave. Besides, you just said that star shards bring us places that we need to be. From the sounds of it, whether you like it or not, you're supposed to be here."
There were tears in Zack's eyes. He pulled away from Cloud and pocketed the star shard. He took a strangled breath that sounded like he was fighting the urge to sob. Cloud wasn't really sure what had just happened, but whatever it was, it wasn't good.
"If you don't mind me asking," he said quietly. "Why don't you want to be here?"
"This…" Zack started, his voice quiet. "This is where I lost my friend to the darkness. It's all Shinra's fault, too!" By the end, his voice was much louder, like he was cursing Shinra to the ends of the Worlds.
"What does Shinra have to do with this?" Cloud asked, frowning.
"They experimented on him! When he was too young to know the difference. They made him the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon. But it came at a cost. His body started degrading. And though he did better than some of the other experiments, his body still started to fail him. And because his body started to fail, the darkness was able to get in and take over."
Cloud didn't know what to say.
"I had to fight him," Zack said, continuing on anyway. "I had to put him out of his misery. I fought him… and I killed him…"
His voice caught on the word 'killed', but that was, without a doubt, the word that he said.
Cloud was now very glad he didn't get involved with SOLDIER. Tifa was right. Shinra had problems.
"We can leave," Cloud said quietly, not knowing what else to say.
Zack shook his head. He took a second to compose himself. "No," he insisted. "That would be dishonorable. I'm supposed to be here, I might as well figure out why. Running away from the past isn't going to help me."
Cloud would certainly love to run from his past, from that darkness that was haunting him, but he wasn't sure how to even try.
Zack started walking in the direction of a very large building. Cloud followed him. He decided it would be best to keep quiet. This place obviously made Zack on-edge, and Cloud didn't want to make it worse. He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to lose a friend like that. He assumed it was a close friend of Zack's that that had happened to. It had to be, since Zack was so upset about it. Cloud didn't have any close friends. And the thought of darkness affecting Tifa, the closest thing he had to a close friend, was completely laughable. Cloud knew that the darkness worked in interesting ways, but it wouldn't—it couldn't—touch Tifa.
There was a goat-man who greeted them. Cloud had to hide his shock and tried not to stare at him. Considering Zack didn't find this odd at all (probably because he did know the guy) Cloud tried to keep his face passive. Thankfully, the goat-man was too busy talking up his own storm to notice quiet Cloud standing there.
Cloud was brought out of his thoughts when the goat-man (his name was Phil) lead Zack and Cloud over to a trophy board.
"Hey," Zack exclaimed. "That's my sword."
"Yeah, uh, you left it here. I hung it up as a memento…" Phil said, scratching his head. There was some awkward tension in the air and Cloud figured it probably had something to do with Zack's friend.
Cloud studied the sword. It had certainly been well-kept. It was probably polished regularly. It was a simple sword, about the same issue as Cloud's own sword—in fact, Cloud would bet that Zack got it from Midgar.
"I want to make that a memorial," Zack said.
"Sure thing, kid," Phil said. "Whatever you want."
Zack took the sword down and started heading through a doorway.
"What are you doing?" Phil exclaimed. "You can't make it a memorial in the arena!"
Zack didn't listen.
Cloud followed Zack, not wanting to have to try and explain whatever it was that Zack was doing. Especially because Cloud had no idea.
They walked into an arena. It was very large and completely empty, save for one person and a ton of crates. The person was a very well-built guy probably not too much older than Cloud and Zack.
"Hello, Herc," Zack said.
"Hey! Zack! How's it… how's it going?"
"It's going," Zack replied. "I want to make a memorial out of this sword."
"Okay," Herc (was that his name?) said. "Where at?"
"I was thinking up at the top of the stands," Zack said. "Maybe…" he pointed. "Over there."
"Uh, is Phil okay with that?"
"Probably not," Zack said. "But, I really think it'll be better up there than hanging on your trophy board. Especially because you'll eventually want to put other trophies there."
"This is true," Herc said, scratching the back of his neck. "Well, go ahead then. Can I do anything to help?"
"Can you remove the back couple of seats?" Zack asked.
Cloud raised an eyebrow. Zack must be crazy. Those seats were made out of solid stone. There was no way…
"Sure thing, give me ten minutes?"
Zack nodded. "Sure."
Herc went up into the stands and Cloud was completely shocked when he actually started removing the seats.
"Does he have super human strength or something?" Cloud asked. "Because those are solid stone, right?
Zack jumped. "Whoa! Sorry! I forgot you were there… I just got caught up in making Angeal a memorial. A standing one, anyway, since I'm his living one. What did you ask?"
Cloud wasn't sure what Zack meant by 'living memorial', and he thought about asking about that, but he figured he better reiterate his first question.
"Oh, yeah," Zack said, as if it were nothing. "That's Hercules for you. I should have introduced you two. I used to train with Hercules. Well, sort of."
It would seem that Zack had a rather large history with this World.
Just then, Hercules came back. Three rows of two or three seats were missing up in the back; they were completely gone.
"Have at it," Hercules said. "Anything else I can do?"
"Nah, I'll take it from here," Zack said. He started running up the seats.
"I don't think we've met," Hercules said, turning to Cloud. "My name's Hercules, my friends call me Herc."
"Hello," Cloud said. "My name's Cloud."
"You, uh, a friend of Zack's?"
"I'm not really sure," Cloud said. "I've only known him for a couple of days. We're mostly just travelling buddies."
"Trying to become heroes together?" Hercules asked.
Cloud shrugged. "I'm not trying to become a hero. Zack might be though."
"He was the last time I saw him. Well, more or less."
Hercules frowned and Cloud sighed. Angeal again.
"What happened the last time Zack was here?" he asked, keeping his voice hushed. "Zack hasn't said too much about it."
"Phil shoved Zack through the games, it's an event we have going on here, maybe you'll see someday. But anyway, so Zack is doing the games and he gets to the last round and there's an intruder—who turns out to be Zack's friend. He helps Zack get rid of the Heartless…"
"Heartless?" Cloud asked.
"Yeah, you fight Heartless in the games," Hercules said nonchalantly. "So he helps Zack get rid of the Heartless, and then it got all weird. He told Zack that he had to fight him, there was something about degradation, and darkness. There was definitely darkness. There was nothing Phil or I could do. You can't interfere when the game barrier is up. It was brutal. Phil and I didn't want to watch, but we couldn't turn away, either. When it was all over, Phil went over to see how Zack was, but Zack just ran away. We haven't seen him since. Not till today, that is."
"Oh."
Hercules' story wasn't much more informative than Zack's, but it did give him a bit of a clearer picture. Zack wasn't kidding when he said he would do anything to stop the darkness from affecting Cloud. It made Cloud feel a little better, almost. There might be an end to the darkness that was haunting him.
Cloud looked over to see what Zack was doing. Zack had driven the sword into the ground and was roping it off so that no one would interfere. He came back down to where Cloud and Hercules were standing.
"Do you think we could get a plaque there?" he asked. "Saying something along the lines of 'this is where a hero started the next adventure'?"
"Sure thing," Hercules said.
Zack looked back over at the sword. "Those wings," he whispered. "I want them too."
