Prologue ~ Some Deserve it More Than Others

The elevator stopped with a ding and flash of yellow lights, and the President boarded on the thirty-first floor.

As the empty car rose, he tapped his foot impatiently; the ride would have seemed spectacular to one experiencing it for the first time, but for the employees in the building, it was boring and unnecessarily long. The panorama of Midgar spread out beneath; a thousand small lights twinkled in the darkness below the plate, a pretty sight to those who had never been there. The President did not look at it.

Absorbed in his thoughts, he did not notice until nearly twenty minutes had passed that the elevator was still rising. He punched a button on the control panel. Nothing happened, which was not surprising, as this happened to be a nightmare. His cellphone produced nothing but static and the emergency call button seemed to be jammed. And the elevator was still rising; he could feel it moving, but the spectacular view never changed, save the great red omen in the sky, which grew, as it seemed, larger and brighter with each passing minute.

The situation could not be called good; but even alone in the elevator, he maintained his customary cool demeanor. It was only at the end of the second hour, after several attempts to force the doors and loud (but calm, well- spaced, and calculated to save strength) calls for assistance that he began to feel panic. By the sixth hour, he was exhausted and more than a bit desperate. Even the glass would not break to afford him a quick end to the dilemma. As the elevator rose steadily, he thought: I would really have expected something more dramatic... The lights began to flash, as if in respose to his thought, and the elevator ground to a halt, noisily, with a sound as if it had been wrenched from its tracks. There was a second or an hour or so of silence. Then it dropped.

The nightmare, like most, ended with a crash, a bright light, and, unlike most, a very real, bright, sharp pain.

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Yuffie leaned over the ledge. "Wow, that's a pretty deep pool... Liquid Mako. Pretty dangerous, that." She leaned a little farther. "Now if I could just reach that..." The clump of rare natural materia wobbled precariously, as did Yuffie on her ledge. "Just a little farther --"

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author's notes: My very first piece of fanfiction ever! Reviews would be greatly appreciated. However, unlike some people, I will continue writing whether you review me or not. And when you review, _don't_ be kind. I need criticism here! (Although if you just want to say "I think this is the most wonderful thing I've ever read" -- well, I guess that's fine too. Expect revisions, next chapter, and less crappy title soon.