Chapter Seven

A/N: First scene taken from my original version, cuz it already kicked ass

Cloud steadied his entire form, both hands reached low towards the ground and his back arched backwards, filling with energy. His eyes were closed tight and his thin lips mumbled words he himself didn't know. He could feel it all.

The soft soil beneath his bare feet with blades of grass emerging from between his toes. The shrubs nearby blooming with such beauty, their multi-colored buds poking out as a bee landed on the edge of a deep violet flower near by. Daisies were blowing in the cool, refreshing wind. And between the mighty giant trees raised around him, he could sense the rays of the warm sun gliding through the canopy's top. They brushed his tanned skin with their gaze.

The soft vibrations warned his toes of Seko walking lightly behind his still form. The bird was beginning to chirp but Cloud just barely raised one hand, warning it not to.

Nearby the trickle of a stream could be heard, the blue tears dripping over pebbles into the most beautiful pond. Inside fish were swimming about, frogs leaping across lily pads dotting one end. An even larger waterfall, at least fifteen feet high, was letting the gushing water explode onto the still form of the pond. This warned Cloud what was happening. A still pond with gushing water and leaping frogs?

His eyes snapped opened and his sword flashed neatly into the air. The silver-flashing blade created a sonic boom, and the image Cloud had seen with his mind shattered like a glass image. His blue eyes were calm and steady, observing with his unfaithful as ever eyes.

What truly lay before him was what he had seen for the past several hours. Redwood trees with perfectly straight and unmarked bark ran up on all sides of him, the branches breaking off at the hundred-foot mark with the illuminating green leaves that never fell.

To his side was dull, murky green shrubbery that always ran along the sides of the maze, clearly saying to not cross over. And that was what it was. A maze. There were turns, dead-ends, but so far no end was found.

Sweeping his spiky hair from his eyes with one hand, Cloud quickly placed his sword into its place and began walking. And tripped over a rock. That was another thing. His unfaithful eyes disappointed him again; it was dark. Not dark on the shrubbery and the trees, though. They created their own magical light with some sort of energy. But the path in the middle sucked the light from any source.

"ARGH! Seko, lead the way." As Seko led him he began wondering just how strong his Minds Eye was. He had never used it before. He could already feel the presence of others, but recently he'd begun to see the point of it. Eyes were unreliable, and scarcely admitted the truth. The mind though, could see a true image.

But that was hard still in this forest. It continuously made its own images, for some reason trying to trap Cloud. Whoever dominated this land was obviously a superior mage.

After only twenty minutes of taking lefts and rights, being led by the chocobo, Cloud saw a leaf fall. "Not again..." he groaned, bored with the ease of seeing an image being created before him.

But then another fell. Then another. Then they all fell. Hundreds of thousands of leaves fell from their places in the branches, sprouting new ones before Cloud could see what they held. And that first leaf that had fallen did something miraculous.

It sprouted eyes. Then legs, and its leaf half broke into two, forming wings as a stinger shot out.

"Oh shit."

Once again spinning his sword from his current place, he began to charge his energy. His materia may have been taken - but Cloud was smart. He knew every living being creates his own source of energy that can be manipulated. Some fighters learned how to use 'limit breaks' when this energy had grown to raw hate and anger, but Cloud had learned to use this form of attack with neither emotion.

After all, emotions were for weaklings.

"HAH! SOOONIC BOOM!" A silver line flashed. About ten seconds later the first line of the trees all around him, packed into walls from their closeness, all slanted one way and began to descend. "SEKO! GO!" Seko jumped off to a start and the ex-ShinRa soldier and crisis killer only just dove onto him. The leaves finally reached them, and chaos came with them.

A needle dug into Clouds arm and he realized just how large of a threat these little guys were. Most dull knives couldn't pierce the skin of a warrior such as himself. It had been one of the effects from the mako poisoning; though he himself had never been in SOLDIER he had been infected with the mako energy. Most SOLDIER units had skin so tough it was tough to break through; it had become more of a hide than skin.

Growling, his sword began to glow again as he moved onto his knees, only just holding onto the incredibly fast chocobo. The tip began to form a ball and the sword slowly sunk into a shadowed color. Violet strips began dotting the edges as flames of the same color suddenly lashed from the buster sword, illuminating the shadow blade in the darkness. "APOCOLYPSE BREAK!" His hand moved in slow motion as it ripped through time and space, disfiguring itself from the Planet and existence itself as it dug into a power far deeper. His eyes melted into violet and a great BOOM! sounded.

And then, the bee-like leaves fell. And an echoing laugh surrounded the forest, strangely akin to Clouds. ...Only... more evil... more insane... But there was mistaking it - the voice had undoubtedly belonged to Cloud.

*

Over the next hours Tifa didn't learn too much from the child; she was too busy answering the many questions he pestered her about. He wanted to know news about a great many things going on in the outside that did not make sense to Tifa at all.

He asked about where she came from, and if they all looked like him and his sister there. But more than anything, the teenager had been interested in weapons and fighting.

This had somehow led to the topic of a war that took place in the town hundreds of years ago. She herself had never heard of it, and was bewildered by the things he mentioned.

"You're kidding!" Ken exclaimed loudly as they walked another random path. "You've NEVER heard of The Great War? Sheesh, you been living under a rock or something? Well, anyway, we here in Alore used to dwell in towns all 'round this town. Our country was much larger than Junon's or Wutai's, and our army was unbeatable.

"Then one day a messenger came to our King - we had kings 'n' queens back then, y'see - sayin' that some official was dead, or somethin' of the sort. Junon had been blamed for it, and before you know it a huge war was happenin'! Hundreds of chocobo's marched out with their owners, all suited in armor!"

Tifa was obviously suprised by the chocobo's, and she grinned awkwardly. "Ken, chocobo's haven't been used in a war for at least a thousand years!" The teenager bit his lip for a few seconds, before faking a smile.

"Well, I heard it was jes a few hundred years ago. So, anyway, how good of a fighter are you?" Everyone whom had seen Tifa by now could see she was obviously a fighter - even in a wheelchair she seemed to move with some kind of cocky stride, and she was always alert. The gloves kind of hinted at it too.

"I'm good enough. Why do you enjoy fighting so much?"

Ken shrugged, his eyes distant. "I don't know how to explain it, y'know? 'S like... 'S like I get myself so excited, I jes can't help myself! I gotta release all that energy somehow, and the pleasure after having spent all that energy is great!" Tifa slightly blushed at this; it sounded as if Ken had been describing something else to her.

"Yeah, I think I get what you mean. My friend... My friend Cloud liked fighting a lot. He always wanted to be some kind of hero, a big baddy everyone knew. In the end he was a hero, but he sort of disappeared." Seeing her downcast eyes, Ken could tell this was a sore spot and let it be, though he wanted to ask about Cloud.

After a few minutes of walking - and rolling along was Tifa - he finally decided to talk about something again. "What about magic? How do you folks use that?"

"Simple. Materia, the same way anyone would." Kens eyes turned to her own quizzically, and she felt that feeling again. It was the one she felt when there was something so different about everyone here, like they weren't even from this planet. She shook her head soundly. "You know what Elemental Energy is, yeah? Well, the Elemental Energy is formed into these neat little stones, called materia.

"The knowledge of the Ancients is kind of placed inside the stones." The memory of Sephiroth explaining it suddenly flashed in her mind, causing Tifa to momentarily hesitate. "It was done so humans can only use what they would be permitted. If you find a fire materia, for example, you will probably only be able to light candles and do small fireballs at first. But as you train it, your mind expands, absorbing the knowledge the Ancients left in the stone.

"After a while you develop your own sense of techniques, and learn to manipulate Elemental Energy with the materia. Once you have mastered the art of several materia, and you find a rare materia called Huge Materia, something new happens. The Huge Materia was like a blank CD - you got computers here, right? - while the regular materia is a floppy disc. Materia can only hold one piece of information, which you must learn to control yourself.

"Huge Materia, on the other hand, is huge amounts of information available to you. With it you could even control Elemental Energy in its rawest form, though people who can do that are rare. It's pretty amazing. You wanna know more?" Ken nodded energetically.

"Okay, well... You see, there's more than one kind of materia. The yellow ones - I think some people call it command or something - increase your physical abilities. These more than likely were not intentionally left by the Ancients, since they have no knowledge what-so-ever. This may increase your speed, your strength, even weird things like your ability to steal.

"Red materia, summon materia, is difficult to use. I myself could never learn how to use it. You see, you have to set up a bond with the beasts, which are connected, to you by the stones, and you have to free them from their world in a complex way. Only people with traits of a psychic can do this.

"Most of the other materia is pretty basic, but I can tell you more anytime you want."

Ken nodded, as if he were considering something major. Slowly he looked up to Tifa, before deciding to ask her what had been gnawing on his mind. "What about my magic?"

Tifa blinked, confused. "What magic?"

"I'll show you... Come here; not many people can do this, that's why nobody else has done it to ya yet." Tifa slowly wheeled herself towards Ken, and his chocolate eyes stared at her, slightly misty.

He waved a hand in front of her eyes, and she could feel a deep relaxation fall over her. Panting, she became a bit nervous as to what the boy was going to do to her. She could feel his hands pass over her legs, slowly tracing up and down them.

When the fighter gathered the courage to open her eyes and see what was happening, she was met with a beautiful sight. Ken's eyes were closed, and he was smiling as his hands traced her legs. Some sort of invisible energy seemed to be flowing through him, into her legs. Until at last he looked on the brink of exhaustion, where he fell over.

Tifa had been far too bewildered to notice what he was doing. The whole world was suddenly looked at with a different perspective. The suns rays cutting through the leaves, the bushes so delicately placed, each and every single bud of every color.

At last she remembered Ken, and became aware of him laying against her wheelchair. Without thinking twice about it she jumped from it, picking him up. Considering what she did once he was propped up, she felt a bit frightened. "Ken... How did you do that?"

He smiled, this one a tired expression that looked worn far too frequently. "My magic... It's done through the power of emotions. I drew the healing power for you from my own happiness. If I wanted fire I'd concentrate on hate or somethin' bad."

Tifa stared at him with a sidelong glance, considering what this could mean. It definitely had possibilities.

*

At times battle could be a glorious thing. It would be the force to show that humans could prevail, through violence, loyalty, and in the most extreme circumstances love.

This was most definitely not one of those times.

When one must fight against the land they live on, destroy the beasts they have learned to cope with, it becomes a nasty, vile thing to be despised. Yet in this case, it really had not been working that way; the monsters were making a joke out of the human forces.

ShinRa was the only force who guarded the town, and they were not only beaten in numbers, but they had little strength. ShinRa soldiers were men with guns.

The enemy seemed to be made up of eight foot long, five feet tall wolves with stamina that could not be surpassed, a hide that was invincible against bullets, and teeth that could crush metal. Aside from these, there were goblins of equal strength unusual to their kind, strange creatures from the forests, and one or two dragons had made a special appearance.

All in all, Cid was disappointed to see this as the battle. He'd been hoping to see men with high hopes, fighting with all means possible. That had always been the battle he had seen. Here, though, were men running away, far too frightened by the enemies bullet-proof hide to fight. It was despicable and made Cid wonder where all the war-hardened soldiers from the Wutai War had gone.

Still, it didn't make much of a difference to him. He emerged from the steel barrier spinning his lance as it drank the blood from the first wolf in sight. The hide had indeed been tougher than expected, but the cut was clean for the most part.

Ducking under a paw, he spun as he drew the lance from his crouched position and speared the wolf. It fought on, not yet wishing to admit death was in its presence. Cid kicked it once, though, and it finally stopped moving.

Running between the blue uniformed men he swiped his lance once he emerged to the front line of attack, flames licking the lance and growing out, spreading to the lines of wolves. By the looks of it there weren't that many monsters here yet, only a few thousand or so. They could take them...

One of the younger men - he couldn't have been older than fifteen, Cid noted with dismay - was screaming for SOLDIER again and again, until at last a wolf bit through his middle, carrying on in its jump forcing the boys body to explode in blood. Cid's eye twitched but he didn't hesitate in sending his lance through the monstrosities head. Retrieving the lance the pilot began to charge a spell, seeing no other way out of the battle.

He began to feel the surroundings, search them for an element that would be easy to tap into yet extremely powerful at the same time. This was the way one became familiar with their surroundings, and it almost made Cid lose his lunch. The hills, normally so beautiful and alive were losing their energy, splattered with the blood of hundreds of victims. In between flatter areas of the hills there was a pond of blood, already about an inch deep.

The air smelled with a horrible, rotting aroma, forcing the mind to other thoughts than the surroundings. Cid fought this smell and continued to find a good element that would suit this situation. Normally he would have used ultima, but that required a large amount of raw emotion. The soldiers around him felt a mixture of different things, so they were no help, and the monsters seemed almost empty, devoid of all emotion.

The 'friction' and heat built up between the opposing sides made fire a good choice, but there was so much heat it was likely Cid would drain himself, making him tired and weak.

Seeing no alternative he drew the heat to him, his body becoming warmer and bustling with energy, until at last he couldn't take it. A mighty roar made it's presence, and only after a few seconds did Cid realize it was him. He kept his eyes closed, but could still feel the destruction as tornadoes of fire engulfed the enemy.

It had weakened him far too much, and he could feel his head getting woozy. His eyes widened in shock, glancing at his two hands that were now stained with blood. He wiped them away on the grass, but as he turned them over to his palms he could still see them covered in the fresh, sticky blood.

Perhaps he had been hallucinating, but it didn't make any difference. This battle has only just begun... he laughed to himself.

*

The Guardian strained her muscles, pulling her body a few feet higher of the mountain. Already she was dangling about four hundred feet off the mountain, but it wouldn't be much longer until she was home.

Heaving herself over the edge, she lay staring up at darkening sky. "I-I r-r-really need to move..." Smiling to herself she tore the mask off, letting her dark brown hair fall in dangerous daggers around her naturally tanned face. It matched her brown eyes that were so young and energetic.

Yuffie took the mask and managed to pull herself to her feet, walking over to the cave entrance where she now lived.

Upon returning to Wutai she realized how she simply couldn't live an every day, normal life like most people did. Yuffie lived for adventure, not for peace and organization. So she lived in a cave and created a story about the Guardian that everyone could believe.

Not that it really mattered, she just didn't want people to know their beloved Yuffie Kisaragi had returned. In many ways, she had not.

"Knock knock, pretty lady."

"Reeve." Yuffie scowled.

"I knew I had recognized those beautiful brown eyes from somewhere." It was official - Yuffie was now pissed.

Authors Notes: ACK! Sorry! It was just the last two scenes that I never could write, because I kept getting back into HP fics (last year I went through a huge phase).

Anyway... Anyone willing to be a beta reader or anything, plz tell me! All I want is someone to read the chapters and tell me if anythign doesn't make sense, so I can fix it up.

Plz R+R, yada yada yada, CYaz