Chapter 6: the beach
Sephiroth and Vincent got up as the sun rose above the trees tops, turning the campsite a light green as the light shone through the leaves. No one had tried to rob them again during the night, so Cloud had had plenty of time to get their things together and was ready to set off as soon as the tents were packed away.
Sephiroth stretched out and yawned, he liked camping out, yeah he liked comfy beds and having a proper roof over his head, but nothing compared to a night out under the stars. He looked over at Cloud and Vincent, they had already taken the other two tents down and everything was packed away. They went over to start on his tent as he moved closer to the fire and picked up a hot cup of coffee that Cloud had left out for him. 'Wow, Cloud makes a good cup of coffee, I'm surprised.' He grinned.
Thirty minutes later:
Sephiroth, Cloud and Vincent were hovering over Midgar in the helicopter, trying to find a safe place to land, near to where the life stream had subsided near to the centre of the city. "Over there" Cloud said as he pointed to a wide road that had once been busy and full of cars, but now was empty and had large chunks of it ripped out. Vincent easily landed the helicopter, Sephiroth and the two teens jumped out and made their way to the giant crater left behind by the life stream and meteor colliding.
After about ten minutes they found the edge of the giant hole, it looked about 4 kilometres in diameter and most of the surrounding buildings were nothing but a pile of rubble. For some reason the air started to smell of salt, as they got closer to the site of impact. They slowly made their way to the edge and looked down, instead of an impossibly long drop down, like the one the in Northern Crater, the drop ended after about 10 meters, the ground was a soft yellow-gold colour. "What the hell is that?" Asked Sephiroth after watching the yellow stuff glisten.
"I don't know" Answered Cloud
"I'd say that looks like a sandy beach down there." Said Vincent
"A beach?" Cloud repeated
"Yes" Vincent nodded
"How could there be a beach here?"
"Maybe when meteor and holy met, the ground around was reduced to sand due to the sheer power they unleashed."
"But that sand is yellow, if it was buildings and roads wouldn't it be grey, black and brown?"
"I suppose"
"Quite you two, I hear voices" Sephiroth said harshly.
Sure enough after a few seconds of listening intently, two voices could be heard, a male and a female, they had very strange accents; Vincent had never heard it before. He looked around, 'where were they coming from?'
"Down there!" whispered Cloud looking at the sand beneath them.
They looked down, and saw two people talking beneath them, from a bird's eye view
"…told you to ask her out! Now that Garden's back to normal she can't refuse!"
"I dunno…"
"Come on! What do you have to loose?"
"Do you really think she'd say yes?"
"Of course, who could say no to you, Stev?"
The two people then hugged and sat down on the sand, about 5 metres in front of and 10 meters below, the onlookers.
"What do you think they meant when they said that their garden was back to normal, boss?" Cloud whispered.
"I don't know." Sephiroth whispered back, "Maybe their house was destroyed by meteor."
"But then shouldn't they have said that their house was back to normal, not the garden?" Cloud asked confused
Sephiroth didn't answer as the watched the two people, who seemed to be gazing at the other end of the cavern. He looked over to where he guessed they were looking; it was just another rounded wall of the chasm…
"Cloud, get down there, find out what they're doing, bring one back who looks like they know what's going on. You can kill the other, but don't let them escape." Cloud nodded and looked at the 10-meter drop; he had fallen further before, chuckled as he recalled the fall from a reactor's raised pathway to a flowerbed in a run-down church. He stepped up right to the edge of the ledge that he was on, and jumped.
After he had fallen about 5 meters, he felt a warm sensation that started at his toes, ran through his entire body, finishing at his head, it only lasted a fraction of a second as he fell. It seemed as through he had fallen through some sort of barrier, it threw him off balance and when he landed he fell to his knees. 'Dammit, if my ribs weren't broken before they are now.' He stood up gasping for breath, the broken ribs hadn't pierced a lung…yet, he had to be careful, Cloud was thankful for the pain reducing properties of Jenova and Mako. The man and women that had been sat on the sand hadn't heard Cloud land, and so were still sat down, not facing him. It seemed as though the sand was actually a beach, it went on in front of him for as long as he could see, to the right was the sea and the left was lush, green grass, with an empty road running through it, behind him the beach also carried on as far as he could see. 'Where am I?' He glanced upwards from where he had fallen, Cloud could see the ruins of Midgar above him, Sephiroth and Vincent were looking down, it seemed as through a large window had been cut out of the sky, or that he was looking at the Planet's biggest TV. 'What is this place? I don't recognise it from when I travelled with AVALANCHE.' He looked at Sephiroth, he was pointing at the couple and making stabbing notions with his other arm. Cloud grinned, he didn't know what was going on, but he had a job to do.
"Do you think that Commander Squall is going to marry Sorceress Rinoa now that Ultimecia is dead?" Kea asked Stev
"I don't know, but its not got anything to do with us has it?"
"I suppose not, but they make such a good couple."
"Do you never stop your match making, Kea?" The man laughed
"Not until everyone is in love with someone else, we've had too much heartache in the last year and a half, everyone needs love!"
Cloud walked up behind the couple, they were only kids on second glace, about 18, a few years older than Yuffie. He gave them a lopsided grin; when they noticed him they would probably think that they were older than him. He coughed to get their attention, both teenagers jumped up and spun around, 'good reflexes' he noted. Cloud saw that they were both wearing similar clothes; it was probably a uniform of some sort, black pants or skirt, and a black jacket with gold edging. Both teens looked like fighters, old before their years, Cloud wondered briefly if he looked like that.
Upon seeing him, the boy and girl smiled, "What are you doing out her kid? Shouldn't you be at home with your folks?" the girl, Kea, Cloud guessed, said. So he looked like a harmless little boy did he?
"I don't know, I think I'm lost." Cloud said trying to look innocent, big blue eyes and spiky blonde hair easily made his look harmless, he stood in "That cocky little way of his" as Tifa had once put it and scratched his head in a confused way.
"Where do you live?"
"Erm, I used to live in Midgar, but my family was killed by Meteor, and somehow I ended up here." He lied "Where am I?"
The other two looked at each other, confusion plastered on their faces, Midgar? Meteor?
"We've never heard of Midgar, is that a village near here? How did a meteor destroy a village without us hearing about it? This is a beach near Balamb."
Cloud tried not to look shocked, but failed, 'how could they not know about Midgar or meteor? Do they live under a rock or something?' Cloud glanced upward, while Sephiroth and Vincent looked down at him, the ruins of a once great city surrounding them.
"No, Midgar was the place where most of the Mako reactors on Planet were."
"What are Mako reactors?"
"Look I don't have time for your games." Cloud said as he pulled Ultima Weapon off his back, "Places to see and people to go, or is that the other way around?"
Kea and Stev looked at each other. 'What is he talking about?' Kea thought. The kid looked about their age, maybe younger, but he defiantly wasn't a SeeD, or even someone training to be one, but that sword of his was HUGE! Kea didn't recognise the make of it, but it was defiantly some sort of broadsword. She was surprised that the guy could even stand up with the thing, it looked really heavy. The boy looked up into the sky again, Kea looked up too, 'what does he keep looking at?' there was nothing to see but a few whips of clouds. The blonde teenager lifted up his sword and got into a fighting stance, she could tell where this was going; the lad had no chance against a couple of SeeDs like them. Kea took out a whip, while Stev unclipped a short sword from his belt. She didn't want to beat up the little kid; he was kind of short and really cute, he had a few muscles too, which probably meant trained a bit with the sword he held 'I wonder where he came from, and where he got such a strange sword. His accent is weird, just like his hair!' She felt inside of herself with her mind to see how many Cures she had stocked, 56, 'plenty'.
Cloud cast Shield on himself and on the girl, women tended to know more than men because they liked to talk about what was happening around them, Yuffie and Tifa had never shut up once they got going. Which meant that he'd kill the other one, Stev, and take the girl prisoner.
Kea saw the blonde fighter glow slightly as he quickly cast some sort of magic on himself and her; she felt a shield surrounding her body. It was protect and shell, but they felt…different, more powerful but still strange, they weren't like they were supposed to be. Kea frowned at the blonde, what was he doing?
Cloud couldn't be bothered with a drawn out fight, plus his ribs hurt when he moved much, so simply cast Leviathan on the two. The giant sea serpent appeared and blasted both of teens with a tidal wave of water. The boy was blown out to sea, whilst the girl had the MBarrier part of Shield reduced to nothing.
"I didn't know that Leviathan was so strong, and you two were so weak! What am I suppose to tell Sephiroth, I don't know if he's dead or not." Cloud said to himself, surprised the teens' strength, or rather lack of. "Sleep!" He cast at the remaining teen when she turned to the sea to see where her partner had gone; she collapsed onto the floor unconscious. Cloud scooped her up and carried her over to where Sephiroth and Vincent waited above him in the strange window-thing in the sky.
They had managed to find a length of rope that reached down to where Cloud stood, he threw the girl over his shoulder and started the painful and slow climb up the rope. His ribs burned in his chest as he climbed up, after about half way he felt the strange, yet warm feeling spread through his body, it was defiantly as though he was passing through some sort of barrier.
He finally reached the top where Sephiroth and Vincent helped him get over the edge of the crater and place the girl on the ground.
"There is a huge beach down there, its hot, though like Costa del Sol hot. I didn't see any signs of civilisation apart from a long road, that although was well kept, had no vehicles on it." Cloud reported to Sephiroth "Neither teenager knew where Midgar was, or at least pretended that they didn't. They also didn't know what I saw talking about when I mentioned Meteor and Mako reactors."
Sephiroth looked down at the girl and then back at the part of the beach that they could see. "Bugenhagen wrote something like this is his diary shortly before he died; he theorised that the power of Meteor and Holy colliding could cause a rift in space and time, although he said that the probability of this occurring was about 1 million to 1, there was always a chance of it happening. He didn't really explain how this could occur; apart from it being something to do with the huge amount of power gathered here, I don't believe that he really knew what he was talking about. I imagine that this is what has happened."
"You mean that that is another planet in space?" Cloud pointed at down at the beach "Then why do I understand what they're saying? Shouldn't they be talking another language? Why do they look like us?"
Sephiroth shrugged, "I do not know, maybe it is another planet, maybe its our planet in the future or in its past, maybe it is another dimension. Bugenhagen was not clear on what exactly it was, he only wrote that it could happen, and what it could be."
"Well, that explains their strange clothes and accent."
"Indeed"