Hawke held a finger to her lips. The other two smugglers stood unmoving in the shadow of the Shinra checkpoint. Floodlights cut harsh lines on the cracked pavement.

The three troopers inside the control booth chattered happily about a chocobo race, their voices drifting out through an open window. Hawke leaned back against the booth's outer wall and narrowed her eyes.

It was a sturdy wall of reinforced cinder block. Her breath slowed and her magic sank through the concrete, the iron supports, the insulation, and into the booth.

The voices slowed and then stopped. The knuckles of the smuggler closest to Hawke were turning white around the sack he held. The woman behind him was biting her lip.

Hawke cast again, electricity burning through her veins and sinking into the booth. There was a pop, a BANG, and the flood lights died in bursts of sparks.

Hawke grinned at her companions. "That's your cue."

They rushed out from behind the building, hauling their loads, and leapt the checkpoint's barrier. Hawke brought up the rear, staff in hand.

The troopers in the booth were sleeping peacefully in the dark. Hawke wished them a restful night.

Past the checkpoint they walked through the winding streets of the slums and arrived at the back door of a clinic. The two other smugglers, nurses by day, unlocked the door while Hawke stood guard.

Shinra had tightened security under the plate and raised the prices across the board, making some things all but impossible to legally get a hold of. They said it was a security measure in face of the recent terrorist activity, which was a charming way of saying 'we're punishing you for complaining'.

The nurses hid the insulin and painkillers inside. Hawke had already taken her heavily discounted pay in a couple of health potions so she didn't hang around to risk drawing attention. She twirled her staff and wandered home.

She hadn't heard from Genesis since he left for a mission a few days ago. It wasn't an unusual silence, presumably he was occupied by secret Shinra business. She texted him the filthiest limerick she could think of and hoped he got a laugh out of it when he finished up.

She went to bed and slept peacefully, undisturbed by dreams.

She went about her week. The supplies for the market stall were reaching their end, but there were always more smuggling jobs around the place. Aerith had learned enough magic that their 'training' consisted mostly of experimentation and discussion now, and they spent long hours talking in the church. The Fade had been quiet recently, so they practiced their dreaming too. She told Aerith off for not taking Spirits' seriously enough.

A few more days passed. Genesis didn't reply. Must have been some serious secret Shinra business.

Hawke bought a trumpet. She thought she might learn to play but the neighbour who lived downstairs threatened to burn the house down if she didn't stop, so she sold it again.

Ettie messaged her the next day, to her endless surprise and they went and got a coffee together at some snobbish place up plate. The weather was bright if cold. A chill wind swept through Midgar, moving all the rubbish around.

The city held a protest. Shinra crushed a protest.

Hawke and Aerith met at the church in the afternoon. Zack dropped Aerith off. He looked like a kicked puppy as he gave her a hug at the door, picking her up off her feet momentarily.

"What's with him?" Hawke asked, locking the door after he'd left.

Aerith shrugged, a puzzled frown on her forehead. locking the door after he was gone. "He's worried about his teacher."

"Angeal? What's wrong with him?"

"Classified," she said with a wink and a stage whisper. "He's away, I think. Or missing? I'm not sure. Maybe he's ghosting him."

Hawke snorted a laugh. She swung her staff off her back and started tracing glyphs onto the floorboards. "Genesis is away too. It was the same mission, I thought."

"Huh. I hope they're alright."

"They're big boys, I'm sure they're fine."

"I guess so. Zack was really worried."

Hawke shrugged. She'd seen what Genesis was capable of. She remembered him slicing through a VR dragon's spine like butter, and couldn't help a smile.

Aerith broke into a grin at the sight. "Speaking of Genesis, how was the opera?"

"It wasn't an opera."

"Was it good?" she asked, with suspicious innocence. "Was it exciting?" She waggled her eyebrows. "Was it… satisfying?"

"The acting was a little obvious."

Aerith threw a leaf at her. "You're no fun."

Hawke laughed. "It was satisfying, actually, though not as scandalous as you're implying." She sobered. "But I've been meaning to ask: how's your healing magic coming along?" If Genesis and Angeal were on a serious mission then she'd likely be called on for healing afterwards. She was all too aware of the limitations of her skill.

Aerith tilted her head. "It's great, why?"

"You can do things I can't. I wonder if…" Could a Cetra heal the Blight? It was too much to hope for, but may as well try. It was an unfair burden to put on someone so young, but she wouldn't do her the disservice of pretending not to see her growing skill.

Aerith's brow furrowed. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing. Not with me at least, but I might need your help with something soon."

"Anything."

A smirk tugged at Hawke's mouth. "Don't say that, you don't know what I'm going to ask for yet."

"When you're done being mysterious then, you can ask again."

That agreed on, they got to work on their glyph work and parted after the light outside had faded.

"I'll see you at the market tomorrow!" Aerith called, waving over her shoulder.

Aerith was not at the market.

Hawke set up by herself, and figured she would arrive in time to make the money. Customers arrived and the morning sped by, and still there was no sign of her. Hawke frowned and checked her phone. Aerith hadn't even texted. Unusual for her. The Turk who usually spied on them showed up but got bored and wandered off.

The market was slow and business middling that day. Aerith was better liked by the customers and the produce was starting to look a bit sad.

She had resolved to pack up early when her phone rang.

"Hello Hawke, it's me," Elmyra said. Her voice was steady, with just the hint of a tremor running through it. "Uh, would you mind coming over? As soon as you can. I'm sure it's nothing serious, but I would appreciate your… expertise. Please."

Hawke's spine snapped straight. "I'll be right over." She knew better than to ask out in public.

She closed the stall and walked with painful, forced normalcy to the Gainsborough house. Elymra was too rational and experienced to panic over little things. Hawke liked to think she was too. She could think of a great many things that could have gone wrong. The Turks were behaving normally and that was her only solace.

She knocked on the door and Elmyra let her in with a tight smile.

"What's-" Hawke started as soon as the door was shut.

"She isn't waking up. I don't know why."

Her jaw clenched. "Let me see."

Elmyra led her up the stairs. "I can't take her to the hospital. She doesn't have an ID, and the Turks… Her temperature is fine. She was fine last night, everything about her is fine."

The house was too bright and cheery, as always, and Elmyra opened the door to Aerith's room. She was lying in bed, curling locks of hair falling across her face and healthy colour in her cheeks. There was a single white lily sticking out of a green filled pot on the windowsill above her head.

Hawke crossed the room, knelt, and put a hand on her forehead.

"What's wrong with her?" Elmyra asked, her face pinched.

"She went to sleep last night, same as normal?"

"Yes."

Hawke scowled. She sank her magic into her, looking for something to heal, but there was nothing. Nothing wrong, and nobody home.

"She's still in the Fade," she muttered. Same as so many other Mages she had seen. Sometimes they never woke up again. Sometimes the one who woke up wasn't the one who had gone to sleep.

Aerith's chest rose and fell steadily. Her eyes didn't move under her eyelids, she was more than just dreaming.

"What does that mean?" Elmyra asked.

"She's caught on something in the Lifestream."

Elmyra paled. "What?" she rasped.

Hawke realised a second too late what that implied. She held up her hand. "It's alright." No, it wasn't. She rose. "I'm going to go get her."

"How are you going to do that?"

Hawke pursed her lips. She was no Fade shaper, or powerful elder mage like Marethari, she couldn't just enter the Fade at will. She really only had the one option.

She went back to the spare room where she first woke up on this strange world, made herself comfortable on the bed, and she went to sleep.

She couldn't sleep for an hour or so. She lay awake, her eyes closed against the sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the curtains, and wondered what could have happened. She remembered Feynriel, the only other Dreamer she'd ever met before Aerith, and the dreams he was plagued with. Spirits loved Dreamers, loved their strength, their potential. Most dreamers were overwhelmed and died in their sleep before adulthood.

It had been a day and a night since Aerith had last woken. That was still within safe timing. More than three days and her body would start to atrophy and waste away. Then it wouldn't matter whether or not she escaped the spirits: there would be nothing left of her in the physical world to wake up.

Hawke opened her eyes in the Fade.

Her little campfire on the cliffside burned low. She looked out across the plains of the lower islands but couldn't see any telltale signs.

She drew her staff, put her head down, and went hunting. Aerith's house was empty, and so was the church. Spirits that normally danced happily and tried to play games with Hawke ducked out of her way. She knew full well how strongly she must have been projecting intent upon the Fade, that naive young wisps that hadn't yet learned to fend for themselves sensed she was dangerous.

She questioned those who had grown faster. The spirit of Reflection did not know where she was. The spirit of Loss knew she was missing. The spirit of Pride was nowhere to be found.

She searched far and wide, but for all her resolve to discover Aerith, she found nothing. Genesis' mansion was empty. A curious web of tangled, modern bridges hung around one side of the city, but they were all empty. The city itself showed no sign of life.

Hawke stood on a small, high island and clenched her jaw.

"I know where the young mage is," an unfamiliar voice called from behind her.

She turned and saw Rebellion, wearing the face of Tseng of the Turks. He was tall and thin, with Wutaian features and black hair pulled back into a ponytail. It was a better imitation than the last time she had seen this particular spirit attempt it.

"Where is she?"

"She went looking for your missing soldiers…" he said, wistful, and not quite convincingly human. "Perhaps she found them."

Missing soldiers? Her brow lowered. Genesis and Angeal leapt to her mind. She hadn't known they were missing, but the spirit could have just as easily been planting fears to exploit as giving her information.

"Where?" she asked.

"You must give me something first."

She smiled and narrowed her eyes. "And what is it you want?"

"You have known me for years." Rebellion drifted closer. "I demand a memory in return for my knowledge."

"I see." Hawke nodded. "And if I refuse?"

"Then I will give you nothing."

She hummed. Then she lifted her staff and hit him with three lightning bolts in the chest.

He recoiled, but she chased him down, sweeping his legs out from under him. She didn't know how Tseng fought so neither did the spirit, he threw a gout of flame at her from the ground. She called up a flat barrier. Flames poured off the edges on all sides. She forced the barrier forwards and bludgeoned Rebellion with it, crushing the false face and choking the flames.

He collapsed backwards. She swung her staff and tucked the blade under its throat.

The spirit froze. She leaned down.

"There's your memory," she hissed.

Rebellion smiled up at her. "The trade is complete."

She stepped back and let him up. He adjusted Tseng's form, straightening his tie and shortening the length of his face. He looked entirely too satisfied with her refusal to be cowed. He turned to a pathway leading off into the depths of the Fade.

"This way."


The night before, Aerith had wandered the Fade with a frown on her face.

Zack said Angeal was missing. Well, wherever he was, he still had to sleep.

She had a hunch. She knew the Fade, the Lifestream, wasn't simply a place she went to when she dreamed, it was the substance of the Planet itself. It was life. And that meant even non-mages like Angeal were connected to it.

And what was a Cetra for, if not listening to the Lifestream?

She had thought it over with great conviction at dinner time and while getting ready to go to bed. Then she sat up in the Fade and wasn't entirely sure how to transform that conviction into results.

She tried praying. it didn't produce any results down in the plains. She looked up at the giant copper statue of a slave weeping into his hands and nailed into the cliff overhead, and figured the atmosphere wasn't really conducive to it. She wandered up into the city and climbed the tallest tower she dared.

She knelt and prayed again.

Where was Angeal? Was he hurt? Was he still separate from the Lifestream?

The viscous substance of the Lifestream flowed around her. The tower hummed with life and the very air seemed to glow.

No answers came to her. She blew a lock of her fringe out of her eyes.

"I know where they are," a familiar voice called.

She looked over her shoulder, eyes narrowed at the speaker.

Tseng stood, his hands clasped behind his back and a placid expression on his face. Rebellion, she recalled, being particularly nasty with its choice of face. It wasn't quite right, but she supposed the spirit was young.

"They?" she asked.

"Your missing soldiers. Genesis and Angeal."

She stood. So both of them were missing.

"They're in the Fade?"

Rebellion nodded.

"Where are they?"

"Trapped in an ancient net," he said.

"Ancient, as in, ancient ancient?"

He smiled at her. Maybe it wasn't such a bad imitation afterall. She'd been looking for that face over her shoulder her whole life, she resented how comforting he was now. "Yes. Ancient ancient."

"Where is it?"

"You must give me something first," he said.

"Oh, don't be like that." She pouted at him. "I don't have anything."

"Then I will not help you."

She huffed. It didn't usually work on the real Tseng either. She changed track.

"I am an Ancient, you know. Isn't helping me payment enough? Surely it's your duty to lead me."

He smiled placidly.

"What do you want?" she groused.

"I require a memory."

"What for?"

He drifted closer. "To remember."

She pursed her lips, not liking the request. "A memory of what?"

"Myself. Rebellion." He tilted his head. His dark eyes were reprimanding. "We are not strangers, you and I."

No, they weren't. She'd known him so long she couldn't remember not knowing him. Couldn't remember a time she hadn't looked out of her window and seen him lingering in the shadow of a house across the road. Sometimes he would look up and nod at her. She would poke her tongue out at him when she was little. Then she started flipping him the bird. He would smile back, stiff and professional. She got the impression he enjoyed it though.

So she stopped reacting. She knew he was there, but she didn't need to look. Didn't grace him with the look she knew he liked. Didn't acknowledge him and the walls he put up around her life.

He had gotten more obvious in his hiding spots after that. She told him off for it.

The spirit gave her the exact same smile Tseng had given her that day. She thought maybe she hated him. She didn't know what she would do if he ever left. He was like Shinra in that regard.

"A memory of Rebellion?" she asked. She chewed the inside of her cheek. She didn't want to share a memory of Tseng with the spirit, that would please it far too much.

She thought of a night out under the stars, leaning against the warm body of a chocobo. Her closest friend next to her, as she looked at the dark shadow Midgar cast against the stars. She remembered feeling wild and powerful, and bold enough to break the chains that defined her whole life.

The moment she steeled herself to being the last child of the planet, and resolved to tear Shinra down. Hawke sleepily looked up at her from under yellow feathers and agreed to help.

She breathed out. "There."

Rebellion smiled, and he didn't look anything like Tseng.

The memory slipped from her mind.

"Wait!" She panicked, realising what it had done.

She knew they had ridden home on chocobos, they spent the night in the wilderness, and she had taken the third watch. She scoured her mind for what had happened that night, but she just, she didn't know. Had she done anything? Spoken to anyone? What did the stars look like?

Rebellion stood taller, stronger, smarter. "The trade is complete."

Fear gripped her like it never had in the Lifestream. The spirit knew her in a way she didn't even know herself now. She swallowed thickly and felt her cheeks grow warm. She felt violated.

The spirit turned from her.

"This way," he said, and walked down the steps of the tower.

She didn't want to follow him. A breath hissed in through her lips. The trade was done, and there was no undoing it, she couldn't miss out on her end now. She wasn't weak and she wasn't afraid, she told herself.

She straightened her shoulders and followed at a distance. Tseng's dress shoes tapped against the stone.

The surroundings changed. They left Midgar behind, and crossed whole continents of the Fade. She felt like they walked for an eternity, and that it would go faster if she put her head down and concentrated on just arriving. She couldn't bring herself to take her eyes off of Tseng's straight back.

Empty stretches of clay passed them by. Shifting barren lands occupied by nothing but occasional black holes of Mako reactors.

The mages and spirits living in Midgar had terraformed it, and it felt lived in like a warm and messy kitchen. The emptiness of lands untouched by spirits or dreamers was shocking. She had forgotten how different the unshaped Fade used to feel.

It was a relief when something different arrived on the horizon.

Rebellion raised a hand at it. "The soldiers are trapped within."

It was a palace, surrounded by thick forest, and it was bursting with life. Spirits roamed and gave shape and texture to the Lifestream, magic streaming every which way.

All of it was encased in a giant bubble. It looked like a barrier spell, but on a magnitude that defied reason. It was the size of the Fade City in Midgar.

The palace inside it was only a fraction of the size of the city, a solitary palace in the middle of dense green. It's seashell shape was similar, but it was solid and glowing with life. Her stomach quailed at the sight of so many spirits.

They stopped at the very edge of the bubble. The line of trees started on the other side. She had never seen so many before. Somehow it had never occurred to her how dark it was inside a forest. A shapeless spirit she couldn't name flittered overhead, bright streaks of orange dripping from its edges.

Rebellion watched her quietly.

"Will you rescue your friends?"

"How do I even know they're in there?" she asked, even though she knew it was far too late to be questioning the spirit's intentions.

He shook his head. "I am not Deception."

She faced the wall that only her people could have made. She straightened her shoulders.

She walked into the bubble.


A/N: Sorry for the shorter chapter this week, guys, it's been a tough one. Thanks for reading! Reviews are all welcome.

Next Time: Temptations