Barret swore to himself. "I'm not a %)###(% nursemaid! Why the #(( am I-"

"Barret!" He turned to see Tifa at the door, holding a small bowl of clean water. "It's not his fault he's unconcious; he's obviously been through a lot." She walked over, dipped the small towel in her bowl and replaced it on the young boy's head. She then reached up and rubbed her forehead.

"Yo, you havin' those headaches still?"

"Yeah. I think there just stress though." She dropped her hand to brush away a strand of deep violet hair from the boy's face. "I hope our patient wakes up soon."

As if her words were magic, the young boy on the bed immediatly began to stir. He turned restlessly for a while, tossing the towel from his forehead, scrunching his face up as if in pain. Then suddenly his eyes opened and he jerked as if to sit up, but then fell back down again. Wide, frightened eyes darted back and forth between Tifa's and Barret's faces before he licked dry chapped lips and spoke. "P-please help me! I need-I need AVALANCHE!"

The ragged figure had cleaned up to something recognizable. A young man, maybe an inch above Tifa's height if he had been standing, very pale and very thin. They had bandaged his cuts and bruises, and said bandages faded into his skin. He had unusual coloring, deep violet hair (natural, as far as they could tell) and bright violet eyes. Not Mako tinged either, instead only a few shades lighter than his hair. Currently he was still wrapped in a blanket on the bed in Tifa's guest room, surrounded by Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Reeve and Nanaki (it wasn't that big a room so everyone else had to wait outside). The man opened his mouth to start his story, but then was distracted when Nanaki jumped onto a chair to be at eye level with everyone. "You're a Felix Sapiens! I didn't think there were any outside of the camps!"

That caused raised eyebrows. "Not only do you know what I am, you know of more of my kind? I thought I was the last one left?" Nanaki asked.

The patient flushed. "I'm sorry. Maybe I should start at the beginning; it also deals with a community of your folk."

"My name is Renmaru and I'm a Cetra-"

"WHAT!?!" If the first statement had generated raised eyebrows, the second sent everyone into full shock mode.

"You're a-"

"But I thought that Aeris-"

"This is !-"

"All the Cetra are-"

"SHUT UP!" Cloud bellowed. "You can't be a Cetra. Aeris was the last one and she's DEAD!"

"I don't know this Aeris, but I am a Cetra and certainly not the last one-at least I hope not. That's what I'm here for, to prevent the extermination of everyone in the camps!"

"We're sorry" This was Tifa, the peacemaker. "Your statement just surprised us. We didn't think there were any Ancients remaining. Please continue your story."

"I don't know why you humans always refer to us as Ancients." Renmaru muttered. "Anyway, like I was saying my name is Renmaru and I'm a Cetra. All my life I've been locked up in a research facility-slash-internment camp thing set up by the head of Shinra R&D, Simon Hojo. The lab is designed to study non-human sentients, and holds two communities of 'specimens': Felix sapiens and Saurus homosimilaris. Unfortunately something happened, it must have been four or five years ago and funding was suddenly cut from the facility. The scientists there continued their work, though, until about a month ago. Then one of the Shinra executives showed up, and they started to 'clean-up' the camp. They're systemically starting to kill off everyone there. The two communities planned together and managed to send to get a number of people out. We had heard about AVALANCHE from some of the scientists working there and we knew that you were somehow involved in what happened to Shinra. Whoever got out was supposed to make their way to you and beg for your help to rescue us."

"Of course we'll help." This was Tifa. Nanaki concurred. "I've always wanted to meet more of my species, and we can't allow Shinra to indesciminately slaughter."

"I'm curious about one thing. Who was the executive who ordered the mass extermination?" asked Reeve.

"I don't know her name. But she's tall, blonde, rather um-" Renmaru made an hourglass shape with his hands and blushed again. "She wears red clothes, not a lot of them though."

"Scarlet"

"Well &#, what are we waitin' for then?"

"I'm not so sure about this."

"Cloud!" "Strife!"

"Please" Wide violet eyes turned to the spiky-haired leader. "Please, AVALANCHE is our only hope."

Cloud stalled, considered, then looked around at the expressions that surrounded him. They ranged from pleading (Renmaru) to downright furious (Tifa). "Oh, I guess."

"How . . . enthusiastic of you." The members of AVALANCHE gave him looks, indicating that the issue of is refusal would be brought up later.