Tseng stood patiently outside of the large metal door that barred the way into the docks, waiting for Vincent to come and open the door for them. His mind kept whispering dark thoughts, the words of suspicion kept echoing in his head. The words kept repeating over and over again that something bad might have happened to his hero and he was to blame for it.

What if Vincent had been taken captive again? He might be facing the entire SHADOW Shinra army own his own, without help or aid. then the quiet man might fall. Who knew what kind of army was waiting on the other side of the door and he had just allowed him to walk right into it without so much as a whimper of protest from anyone.

Had they all been a bit to eager to see the man in action without really asking if he was up for the challenge? He had been quiet, all through the city until Louisa had started questioning him about his past and why hadn't he allowed the proper authorities to handle the Shinra and Sephiroth and he had almost bit her head off when he had spoken that last statement...

You thought wrong...was that some form of secret code that Vincent was really saying that he wasn't up for it...what exactly did he mean by it. The normally quiet voice had been raised to something more of a growl, was Chaos making it's feelings known as well?

Tseng had only been half listening to the conversation that had went on between the two yet something had obviously been said. He'd find out in a few hours, once the man was safely back in the rebel base.

"How long has it been since Vincent left us?" he asked quietly, trying to break out of the self imposed doubt he had placed himself into.

The guide looked at this watch, understanding the feeling of tension and nerves that had suddenly struck the second leader of the rebels. Tseng had wanted everything to be perfect for Vincent returning, yet everything seemed to be going wrong.

"About twenty minutes," the guide replied, jumping slightly when Tseng span round.

The second in command ran his hand vigorously through his hair, unable to stand around for longer than a second before getting the urge to move. He had to do something or he would end up tearing his hair out. The waiting had him concerned, Vincent seemed so confident about going out on his own and opening the door for them...perhaps he should have taken someone with him.

It's all very well thinking that now, he thought bitterly, but how does that help Vincent right now?

Adrian stepped forward, his hair flat agaisnt his skull as he rubbed the base of his neck. He could see the worry eating at the young leader and he found it pretty unsettling. The small group didn't need the man breaking into a panic attack, what happened to the normally cool man who scared the living daylights out of people?

"I'm sure he's okay, I mean, he's Vincent Valentine," Adrian tried to sooth, "I doubt it's anything he can't handle."

Louisa shook her head and let out a small laugh. The action earned her the attention of both Tseng and the young tech from the lab to look at her as though she was insane. She raised and eyebrow, were they really that naive?

"Vincent is over seven hundred years old...he's been a winged monster for most of that and has been one of Professor Horton's pet projects for a couple of years. The man is not fit for doing anything," she pointed out, someone had to be the voice of reason, the men were allowing there personal hero worship to cloud what little judgement they had.

Tseng shook his head, "I'm going after him. You two stay here with Dominic."

Dominic raised an eyebrow, I'm stuck babysitting?

He threw the two scientists an odd look, he hated babysitting. Shinra workers and city plate dwellers always seemed to have such a one sided outlook to life and it was always their way which was a better way of living. Adrian wasn't that bad but he hadn't seen the horrors that the SHADOW Shinra had to offer.

"Cheers..." he muttered under his breath, avoiding the daggers that Louisa threw his way by looking away and avoiding eye contact.

Inside the dock....

He landed with a sudden painful, bonebreaking impact against the solid concrete ground and he could have sworn that his already battered body was giving him new pain signals to the tips of his hair. He knew what pain was but this...this was more of a mental hurt.

He had been at this woman's wedding, he had given her away to Cloud. Did this mean nothing to her or had the person involved in bringing her back from the dead, wipe clean any form of memory from her?

A hand roughly grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back up with a renewed passion. Vincent couldn't help but to allow a small whimper escape his lips, his demons all screaming to be freed, to protect him.

No...he thought as he fought back painful tears, no...you all stay back. I will not...t..turn on my friends.

Hellmasker screamed the loudest of the three demons present. It's masked face inches away from the surface as it tried to break free but without Vincent's permission, it was resigned to watch and feel the pain that was being inflicted.

They are trying to kill you! What part of this are you not getting?! You idiot! Hellmasker would have screamed this to Vincent's face but all it could do was insult him from afar, watching and feeling every blow.

The large form of Gigas seemed to have trouble holding back it's normally hidden feelings from the rest, screaming along side the rest. It knew that it could swipe away all the enemies standing before it and escape with nearly all bones intact. What it didn't understand was why Vincent was so reluctant to summon them.

The master was being attacked by an enemy who wanted him dead. There was nothing to think about, no reason to hold back from protecting himself. His attacker certainly wasn't holding back, Gigas would have given anything to wipe the blank look from his master's former friend.

Jenova crossed her arms, enjoying the scene. Tifa was making short work of breaking the former AVALANCHE and planet protector. In a few minutes, the man would be begging to tell them where the rebel base was.

Should she allow Aeris the chance to show him how powerful she had become? Show him that he was no longer part of this world and that he was obsolete and useless? To show him that he was nothing more than a forgotten memory and that not even his so called friends recalled him.

Jenova had taken over the will of the three heroes currently standing with her. Three mindless dolls who would do anything for her and serve the SHADOW Shinra without question. It wasn't Horton who controlled Jenova, she would never be tamed. Not by a mere human...something low on her scale of evolution.

After she destroyed the resistence of this world, she would claim rightful ownership. Nothing would stop her goal, until then, she would need to play the mindless warrior. For a time at least.

"Tell me where the rebels hide and I will make your death painless," she calmly ordered, enjoying the pain that Tifa was inflicting on Vincent.

That was a lie, she wasn't about to let the man get a quick and painless death. Horton wanted to have his fun with him but not until she had hers. She would break the man, then do the same to her fellow warriors. Cloud, Tifa and the Cetra girl, they wouldn't live to see the new world of chaos she had planned to create.

The incoming boat's fog horn blared loudly, announcing it's arrival. Jenova caught the brief look of horror on Vincent's now bruising and bleeding face. Someone or something of importance was arriving and he didn't want them to be seen by her.

"You," she grabbed Cloud by the shoulder, catching the man off guard.

Cloud blinked as he followed his commander. She was getting far to much enjoyment out of this. She was just supposed to get the information out of Vincent and then take him back to the headquarters for Master Horton to do whatever he had planned Why was she getting her kicks while he was left with nothing but an empty sick feeling at the base of his stomach?.

"Is there a problem?" Jenova turned partly round, she waited patiently at the edge of the dock. In a few minutes, she would board the ship and get the incoming rebels.

Cloud raised his head and gave the arriving boat a long stare. Was there a problem? He couldn't discern if there was or wasn't. His mind told him there wasn't but his heart...his soul kept telling him to wake up.

"No...no problem," Cloud whispered to the wind.

WAKE UP!! a child like voice screamed at him as he stepped beside Jenova.

Damn! Where's it's head?! a deep voice echoed in the darkness of his mind, this whole thing is stupid!

He grabbed his head, trying to block out all the words and thoughts that kept spilling through. Why was this happening to him? Who was doing this? Were the rebels using some form of gas?

No, if they were, then the others would be affected and not just him. If it wasn't gas, then what was it?

You mean only a failure made it here? the voice sounded so similiar to Horton's, a failure? What did he mean by that?

Sephiroth's alter ego...who was Sephiroth?

"Wake up," Jenova ordered him, "When we get on the boat. Take no prisoners."

Boat

Yuffie watched as Cid crouched down beside a large crate. She could almost hear the curses that were probably floating around in the man's mind. Sephiroth knelt near him, his green eyes focused on the dock and the strange woman who was standing at the end of it.

This is so messed up, she thought, we saved the planet once and now we have to go and do it again. This isn't fair! Why couldn't they have left it the way it was? It was fine!

"Yuffie!" Cid whispered, "You see the size of the damn army they got waiting for us?"

The ninja peeked over the top of the crate she was hiding behind, her eyes widened. It wasn't so much the size of it that bothered her. It was the fact that she kept getting the feeling of overkill. A whole platoon just for a few people. It was like killing a fly with a bazooka.

"If they suspect that terrorists are anywhere," Sephiroth kept the same whisper as Cid, "the Shinra sends out everything they've got. It just wastes tax payers money but it makes the public feel better."

Red XIII shook his head, "We are not dealing with the Shinra you knew. The president isn't the one who is running the city. It's someone else who pulls the strings."

"How do you know that?" Cid gave the lion a quick glance, wishing he hadn't as his world span round for a long second.

His head hurt but the feeling quickly passed, he put it down to the fact that he hadn't eaten and that he was still feeling the effects of the mako. A small part of him forever wishing that this was just a really bad dream and that he would wake up to find Shera snoring next to him.

"We have people who work in the SHADOW Shinra headquarters. They tell us that the president is not a violent man," Red stated, "He wants this to be resolved and is quite willing to sit down at a table and negotiate with us."

"What's stopping him?" Yuffie asked, if this planet had a chance of settling down in peace, why weren't they jumping at it with both hands?

Red XIII narrowed his good eye, "A man called Horton. Horton has a twisted sense of reality and that comes across in his work."

Why have I got a sinking feeling that Horton isn't Head of Public relations? Cid pressed agaisnt the crate harder, his heartbeat thundering in his chest.

Sephiroth sighed. Nothing it seemed had changed since his death. The young Cetra girl he had killed, had gave her life for nothing. Everything that AVALANCHE had stood for, all they believed in was wasted and frittered away.

The boat slowly pulled to a stop. All on the now silent deck held thier breaths, waiting for the footsteps of the awaiting army to board her. Cid and Sephiroth both wondering if they would send the entire troup on or send a scout first.

On the boat's deck...a few minutes later

Jenova pointed to the place where Cloud was to go and check. Her eyes taking in everything that moved. The rain making the deck slippy and dark Would the rebels really try to fight their way out or would they just roll over when they saw that they were heavily outmatched?

Cloud walked slowly, watching the waves as they crashed gently onto the dock wall and the boat's hull. He kept going over and over the thoughts and voices in his head, trying to figure who was saying them and why they were being said.

Why did he get a sick feeling whenever Horton touched him and why did he have the sudden urge to rip the commander's head clean off her shoulders whenever she spoke to him or even came near him? Something wasn't quite right.

He got these weird feeling of...what he could only describe as fondness whenever he was with his two female comrades. He felt more for the slighter taller chocolate eyed warrior who was in the process of beating up Vincent Valentine.

The name...Vincent Valentine, that made him stop to think as well. He knew the name but not the face. It wasn't just because Horton wanted him dead, it was like he actually knew him. Knew him from some distant past.

I was formerly in the administrative research department otherwise known as the Turks, Vincent's voice filled his mind, If I go with you, will I met Hojo?

We're after Sephiroth and Rufus so...his own voice again, speaking to Vincent like he was a friend and not the bitter enemy that Horton had been proclaiming him as.

Don't be so stupid, a reasonable voice chided him, how the hell would you know him?

He stopped as he thought over that, I don't know. I feel like I should but...something is stopping me.

"Cloud?!" a surprised voice pulled him from his thoughts, "Shit...is that you?!"

Cloud...? My name is...name is Cloud? Cloud frowned at that, he didn't have a name.

Cloud? a voice laughed, Oh excuse me. It's just that you never had a name.

Cloud turned round, looking to see the owner of the voice that had named him. He didn't have a number, he had a name. His name was Cloud. He took the time to think of his last name, if he had a first then he would have a second.

The name kept running through his mind, skipping like a broken record. All the voices in his head crashing and spilling over into one another, making it so that he had trouble trying to figure out who was saying what and what they were trying to say.

He felt a pair of hands grab and pull him back. One hand went over his mouth to stop him from crying out to his commander while the other held him tightly to his captor.

"Shit Spike," the voice whispered into his ear, "Don't say a damn word."

Cloud blinked, that was one of the voices he had heard back in the headquarters. The one that had stated 'maybe aint none of us will come back.'

The hand moved from his mouth, allowing him the chance to ask some of the questions that were screaming in his mind.

"Who am I?" he whispered to the man behind him.

The man seemed to take a long second before even daring to take a breath, "It's Cloud, Cloud Strife."

The confusion in the voice was clear but Cloud Strife didn't notice it. Satisfied that he had been given a name but not enough to forget why he was here or all the others questions that still burned.

Cloud turned round as the grip around him was released. Another blonde stood infront of him, sky blue glowing eyes locked onto his own. A mixture of relief and utter confusion on his face. The look was the same one that Vincent had given him and the female warriors back on the dock.

Like he knew who he was.

"Where's Vincent?" the older blonde placed a friendly hand on his shoulder and he didn't get the feeling he got when Horton did that.

No cold chills or sick feeling when Jenova had grabbed him by the scruff and had hauled him onto the boat. More friendship, like the men should be like this. A deep trust filled him but it was hard to fight the orders Horton had gave him...kill the rebels.

"Vin...Vincent...he's at the dock," Cloud couldn't pull his eyes from the man infront of him, his mind was slowly sending out the same message as his heart and soul.

"Anyone else?" a man with silver hair entered into his line of vision, his green eyes wide but so famaliar.

"No...no one," Cloud shook his head.

The man with the green eyes looked doubtful, looking over to the now drenched dock. Cloud was lying but Sephiroth knew that he wouldn't of even realised it. Jenova had this amazing skill of blurring the lines between truth and fiction. Made paranoia almost normal.

"Any of Jenova's goons?" Cid wiped rain from his face, his face kept twitching from the releived smile to a confused one, could the fact that Cloud was alive mean that this was some form of a joke? That it wasn't real and that Shera may...that she may even be alive.

Again, Cloud shook his head. The young man not knowing he was lying.

"It's pointless asking him anything at this time," the silver haired man walked over to Cloud, "If he knew who I was, then I wouldn't be standing here, captain."

Captain? Cloud frowned at the rank, he...knew someone who was a captain.

"Are you the captain?" the former 1st class SOLDIER asked.

The captain gave him a funny look, "Yeah...everyone in Rocket town calls me that but the name's Cid. You know that."

Cloud took a deep breath, something strange was going on. Names, faces, voices kept floating near the surface but everytime he tried to grab hold of one of them, it was taken from him. Something was not willing to let him know the truth.

A young woman peeked from behind a crate, "Guys, if we're finished playing twenty questions, I suggest we find a way off of this boat. Jenova wouldn't of just him him aboard, it'd be too risky."

The silver haired man nodded, "I think we should make our exit as quietly as possible."

A female voice entered the conversation, one Sephiroth had hoped never to hear again. The coldness and cruelty of her voice stopping him from making a move.

"It's a little to late for that don't you think?" the woman laughed, "Good work, private."

Cid stepped back a little, "And who the hell are you?"

The woman moved towards Sephiroth, enjoying the look of paralyzing fear in the emerald green eyes. She lazily trailed her hand up his forearm, noticing the shivers that ran through the limb.

"It's Jenova. I'm surprised that you have forgotten that captain," Jenova stopped her torment of the silver haired being and moved onto her next target which was the blonde captain.

"Stop right there," a gentle voice could be heard above them, "Stop or I will shoot."