The world at first was nothing but blinding painful light, interlaced with spots of black. Nothing he could do seemed to evade the light, not that he truly wanted to in the first place. It was warm and he was so fed up of being cold.

Mumbled sounds were slowly rising into discernable voices, ones he could recognize if only slightly and others he couldn't. Trying to figure out what the tone was, was at the moment, a little out of his reach. So, he settled for not trying.

The sensation of hands of varying warmth touching his chest brought him out of an increasingly pleasant numbness, part of him regretted it. He'd never feel like this again, not fully awake yet not fully out of it. Complete and utter ignorance.

He knew that when he woke up, things were going to hit that fan that Barret and Cid had been so fond of citing when things went pear shaped.

"Ifthathandgoesanylower," he slurred to one of the offending limbs as it travelled, "I'll…I'lldosomething."

The voices had now became distinct, sheer amusement taking hold of it when it answered his attempted threat.

"Like what?" the voice friendly and playful.

Throwing up on your shoes, he thought as his stomach did back flips in time with the butterflies dancing in it.

His arm felt like someone was sitting on it as he tried to raise it to his head, trying to block out enough of the light to see who was addressing him. His entire body felt like that.

"Easy, easy," a female voice called out, her hand placed gently on the limb he was trying to move.

"Iwastryingtomovethat," he slurred once again, it felt like his vocal cords were rusty, every word painful.

Like he was trying to swallow one of the Highwind's engines when they were in full blast. It didn't help that his stomach wanted to expel it's contents out with each word and breath.

"Take it easy," a second male voice advised, "You've just woken up from a really long sleep."

"Sleep?" the words made sense in some way yet, confused the hell out of him.

He hadn't been sleeping…not as far as he could tell. Not unless his life had been a series of nightmares…no, he wasn't and hadn't been sleeping.

So, if you weren't sleeping, Hellmasker said from within, where the hell where you? You haven't even told us where you went. Simply left us here to fend for ourselves.

That got a confused giggle from him. Partly because he had no clue where he had been, only that he had been away and the thought of his four demons wandering around like a lost child in his mind.

The giggle slowly built up to a rather insane laugh as from somewhere he imagined the huge form of the Death Gigas lumbering around with a small teddy bear.

"Uh…" the second male voice sounded more than a little worried, "I think he's cracked."

"This isn't good," the first male voice spoke, "Nanaki isn't going to like this."

"Well, it's not our fault!" the woman cried out.

The first male voice sounded tired, "Oh sure, so when I see Nanaki, what do I tell him? 'Oh hey, yeah…by the way, you know your friend Vincent Valentine? He's about as cracked as Humpty Dumpty was after he fell?"

"Hey, take it easy Tseng," the second male asked, "it's not like we can wander back to the lab and ask Horton what the hell he injected into Chaos. Could be a side effect of the drugs."

Master? Deep breaths, Gigas ordered patiently, In…out, in…out.

The huge demon waited until Vincent actually followed the two simple words. They had all wanted the return of the human yet none had actually figured out what the return would be like. None would of guessed that he would have mental issues.

Had that human, the one that was called Horton, drummed up memories long forgotten by the master? Ones that he needed to have buried in order to keep sane?

You've been through worse than this, Gigas breathed, far worse. Do not allow this to be your fall.

"What's he doing Tseng?" the second male asked.

"I don't know," the man called Tseng spoke, "Breathing?"

Ha! See! Knew you all were wrong! Vincent cried triumphantly at his demons, How could Tseng be alive after seven hundred years huh? Answer that! Next question please!

If it was possible, all four demons would of rolled their eyes and sighed in unison. Each one would have smacked Vincent over the head with something heavy in order to gain some sense.

Reincarnation ring any bells? Hellmasker laughed in his face, it may look like a duck and act like a duck but that doesn't mean it is a duck.

Vincent responded to that like someone who had been expecting the world only to be given a compass. His small little bit of reason fell flat on it's face.

Open your eyes and see the world that you saved, Gigas commanded, step into the light and take up your role as saviour once more.

After a lot of mental egging on from his demons, Vincent slowly opened a painful tear filled eye to the world. He was greeted with something that looked like a lamp staring him straight in the face.

At least one of his questions had been answered, now he had to figure out who was shining the horror straight in his face.

"I'm okay…" surprised at how easily the words came out separated yet he still had a real queasy feeling in the bottom of his stomach.

"Who are we speaking to?" the second male asked slowly and loudly, as if he was speaking to someone who was either deaf or slow.

Weakly, Vincent raised his hand to move the light. Only to find that someone else was going to do the honour. It took a few long seconds before his vision slowly came into perfect sight.

A pretty young woman was the first to greet his restored sight, her features amazingly similar to Tifa Lockheart. If Vincent was the man he was once, he would of hit her with a rather cheesy chat up line. One that would of made the male quota of AVALANCHE groan.

Temptation it seemed wasn't above him after all.

"I've died and gone to heaven," he smiled weakly, he could hear the mental slapping of four foreheads in the back of his mind and he slapped his own mentally.

Turk training for you…anything with a pulse, Vincent recalled a brief memory of his long past wild youth. He was something of a lady killer and he could still get the woman swooning but all ended with disappointment. He would never give them what they want.

The woman gave him a disgusted look and turned to the man called Tseng, "He's fine."

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Tseng bowed, "Though I wish it was under more pleasant circumstances."

"Don't tell me," Vincent finally raised the limb that he'd been trying, "Mad scientist has created something that is going to take over the world and possibly destroy it?"

Tseng blinked, a long blank look on his face as he regarded the answer. Something in the look told Vincent that he had struck the nail on the head.

"And that an evil organisation is threatening the safety of the planet and you want to stop it?" the last statement it seemed, had not only struck the nail on the head again but had hammered it home.

"Um…yeah, in a nutshell," Tseng ran a nervous hand through his hair, he didn't think that Vincent would have been quite up to speed with the current state of affairs.

"Nanaki seems to think that the planet is once again in crisis," Tseng knelt in front of him, "We were kinda hoping that you might know exactly who it is we're facing."

Vincent gave him a blank look, his red eyes scanning the room he was. Something wasn't sitting quite right with him, actually, a few things still weren't sitting right.

One, he was sitting yet his body was gleefully telling him otherwise and two…the second was the one that he was more concerned about.

"I have a quick question," Vincent whispered.

Tseng leaned in as far as he could, not wanting to invade the hero's personal space. He copied the tone Vincent had, keeping the whisper.

"Yes?"

"Where are my clothes?"

North……

It had been a good few hours since Nanaki had landed on the icy coldness of the snow covered northern continent. His heart missed Bone Village and the now buried Forgotten City.

What the people of this time could of learned from those ruins would only be a theory now. What little of the Cetra that survived seven hundred years ago, had either been destroyed by time or by the weapons of mass destruction that the humans had made.

Towns and cities that he had visited as a young cub no longer existed. His own home, Cosmo Canyon was but a forgotten dream. Wutai and Rocket Town lost to the sands of time.

Perhaps it would have been best had we not defeated Sephiroth. Perhaps we should of allowed the planet to die then, Nanaki thought sadly.

He followed Jaden down the snow covered path, his good eye keeping a wary eye out for any mutated monsters or fiends. He closed his eye for a second, allowing his mind to take him, if only for a brief second, back to a time when he had first travelled this land.

"Colder than my ex-girlfriend's…" the greying blonde had been elbowed in the side from a rather peeved looking Tifa, a warning glare being cast in his direction.

"Was gonna say fridge," the blonde blow into his gloved hands, trying in a vain effort to keep warm.

Cloud, leader of AVALANCHE, had smiled then, one of the rare ones since the death of Aeris. His blue eyes forever scanning the frozen land in front of the team.

"And here we all thought it was going to be something rude," Cloud joked backed.

"I'll tell ya when we aint in the company of women," Cid offered with a sly smile.

It seemed that day was one for rarities as Vincent Valentine spoke up, offering a small yet cryptic snippet into his past. One that gained him a few embarrassed looks from Tifa and a rather clueless one from Yuffie. The men smiled and shook their heads.

"If you ever get bored with the 'Mile High'," Vincent had stated as he had walked over the captain, "I'm sure there's a snow club…at least, there was."

Nanaki smiled as he had never seen Cid's eyes go as wide or as big as they did then, the man hadn't a smart comeback or remark for that one.

"Nanaki?" the voice brought him out of his reverie, "We should wait here. If anyone did survive then they would need to come through here. It is far more sheltered than any other passages and it is the most logical way."

"AVALANCHE very rarely did things the logical way," the lion offered, "We were mainly spur of the moment."

Jaden sat next to him, a friendly look on his young features.

"Tell me about AVALANCHE and those who saved the planet. What were they really like?" Jaden asked.

Nanaki shook his head, "Why do people think that AVALANCHE is everything but what is written?"

"History has them as normal people," Jaden offered, "That can't be true."

"You think that we all leapt out of some distant star somewhere and decided that we wanted to save this world? We didn't," Nanaki tilted his head to the side, "In fact, many of the reasons why we fought aren't correct."

Jaden frowned, "Sir?"

"History has it that we all had the same reason for saving it, that we had no other choice but to. That is not true, we were all given the chance to back out more than once. When Aeris died, when Cloud went missing…the night before the final battle," Nanaki found himself relieved at the chance of finally being able to explain and set some facts right about his friends.

"I fought for Cosmo Canyon, Barret for his daughter…" Nanaki gave a few examples, "We all did it for purely selfish reasons, not one of us can stand with a true heart and say that we did it purely for the planet."

"So…Cid Highwind did not steal the airship all on his own?" Jaden seemed devasted at the news that his hero's were only mortals, like him.

Nanaki frowned, "Well…yes and no. He tried to."

Jaden seemed to brighten at that, "Really? Tried to? Who stopped him?"

"Vincent and the fact that Cid had consumed in to much alcohol for him to pose any real threat to the enemy," Nanaki shared.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, he tripped over his feet and fell face first to the ground," Nanaki told truthfully, "Or rather, that is what Vincent is sticking to, however…"

Jaden was about to speak when quiet voices interrupted the conversation. The crunching of snow could be heard. Nanaki strained to hear the quiet voices yet he could smell something that smelt familiar.

Cautiously, the lion called out, knowing that it might cause more problems than good.

"Cid? Yuffie? Is that you?"

A long silence seemed to follow before words of a familiar voice spoke up.

"Damn…that you Red?"

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Okay…I tried to go for some fun then…I don't think it worked but hey, if no one likes it, I can redo it.