The Truth of the Multicolored Materia

What was happening? Gohan's mind raced to keep up with what was happening. So this was Sephiroth's mother?! He couldn't fathom treating Chichi like that. What had happened between these two? A sudden tightening on Gohan's arm pulled his attention away from the reunited family.

Cloud hoped Gohan got the message. They still had a chance to get out of there, if only the boy would cast the spell!

Suppressing the urge to nod agreement to Cloud, Gohan began concentrating on the swirling light inside the crystalline marble. This had to work.

Sephiroth watched with unchanging eyes as the failed puppet disappeared with the boy and the woman. Not that it mattered. He would have what he wanted no matter what they did; he could not be stopped. Not now. The one remaining puppet had enough strength left in his nearly dead body to sustain Mother for the division. But then again, perhaps it was time to test Hojo's theories about inducing a division without a complete reunion. The hypothesis was well grounded, almost as ingenious as something Professor Ghast might have devised, Sephiroth admitted. If he'd been anyone else he would have touched the thought rather grudgingly, but he was the Great Sephiroth. He wasn't affected by such trivial emotions as pride.

*~*~*~*

Cloud surveyed his surroundings, astonished. They were in the marshes! He'd never imagined a simple Exit materia could have so much power even with a little ki charging it. But then again, he'd never imagined that Emerald could have been defeated in one blow either. Shaking his head, he pondered how a Cetra would come to learn such destructive uses for spirit energy.

"Cloud look!" Gohan shouted.

Expecting to see anything from the Midgar Zolem to Sephiroth himself, Cloud's eyes darted in the direction Gohan faced. It couldn't be!

"What timing! Cloud, it's the Highwind!" Gohan shouted, excitedly, tossing the Exit materia back to its owner. "I'll go get their attention!" The energetic boy didn't waste anytime in soaring towards the metallic air ship.

Watching the spec that was Gohan disappear towards their only hope, Cloud was caught off guard by a gentle sobbing noise. Turning towards the sound he wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad.

Lucrecia lay drenched in the stagnant water, her face streaked clean where tears washed away the muck.

What could he do? Cloud bent down and put an arm around Lucrecia's shoulders helping her up on her feet. She didn't resist, but she didn't put any effort into it either. She just didn't care one way or the other.

"I just want to die," she sobbed. Cloud's heart was torn in two. She looked so much like Aeris at times it was startling, and Cloud couldn't help but feel her pain. He'd felt that pain of abandonment himself when his father coldly walked out of his childhood leaving his mother alone to fend for herself and her son. Cloud had felt no greater pain except when Sephiroth had stolen his mother's life from him. But, those were in the past and they were behind him. He had his friends to look after him now. He had a life of his own, and, if they couldn't figure out a way to their new friends' home planet, he would have a son of his own too.

Cloud blinked. When had he come to see that spiky headed boy as a son?! Oh well, it didn't matter. The boy had a big heart. Not only that, but he was SOLDIER material and had a real head on his shoulders. The perfect son for Cloud...

Cloud decided that they had better find a way to that other world or he was going to get himself into some real trouble with thoughts like that. He didn't want to have the responsibility of being a father, not if there was the chance he might turn out like his own had. He didn't want to take the chance he might cause the kid that kind of pain. It was bad enough that he'd lost his real parents in a sense. Yeah, they had to find a way to get those guys back home.

With an absent nagging question as to what was keeping the Midgar Zolem from picking up on their footsteps, Cloud helped Lucrecia towards the place he could see the Highwind landing on the horizon. The question barely made it into his mind, as it was crowded with half-formed plans and newly forming ideas as to how they could get to another world.

*~*~*~*

Stretching, Cloud yawned as he sat up. Sleeping in the Highwind had never been pleasant, not with the way the constant unseen motion toyed with his stomach, but sleeping in the Chocobo stall was ridiculous. The ship was never meant for this many people, Cloud decided. How many had joined them since they had first set out to Nibelhiem? Four? Yeah, that was right, but one of them was not likely to go much farther. Cloud found himself hoping for Vegeta's safety before he reprimanded himself. The man was a strong warrior. If there was anyone who could get out of that situation, it was Vegeta.

Making his way to the control room, Cloud decided on a plan of action. He was certain everyone had stories to tell since they'd split up, and maybe if they put them all together, they might get a whole picture.

"Who's missing?" Cloud inquired as he entered the control room and walked up to the huge windshield. Finally, this would help his motion sickness some.

"Besides Vincent and Lucrecia, you're the last one," Cid answered, puffing away at a fresh cigarette.

Cloud nodded and turned to look around the room. What a gathering. Knowing that such a mismatched group was the stuff heroes were made out of, Cloud was forced to question the meaning of the world. Oh well, he shouldn't let his thoughts wander like that. "So how many groups were we split into back there?" He didn't even consider interrupting the two missing people. They were probably enjoying their solitude on the deck of the Highwind.

"We make one," Tifa contributed, motioning to Aeris, Gohan, and herself.

"Vegeta and myself make another," Piccolo supplied.

"An' us 'ere makes three," Barret stated, taking in Cid, Yuffie, Cait Sith, and himself with his gestures.

"So a total of four?" Cloud asked, including his own party. After a few nods, Cloud continued. "Well then we've got four stories to put together. We might as well start at the beginning." He nodded to Aeris, inviting her to begin.

"Well," Aeris started, thinking back to where her side of the story really started, "back in the City of the Ancients, I talked with my ancestors, and they warned me that something terrible was going to be born in Midgar, or that's what I think they meant."

Cloud listened intently. You usually didn't get Aeris to talk about her revelations until after the fact, and there was definitely no better source for information than them!

"Then, when Tifa, Gohan, and I were in the jungle above Midgar, we found some Ancients writing in the patterns of the shadows."

How unnerving, Cloud thought. He forced himself to push thoughts to the back of his mind until she was done telling her story so he wouldn't miss anything. That had happened one too many times in the incident two years ago, and Cloud wasn't willing to make that horrible mistake again.

"It was a riddle," Aeris continued, getting a sullen look that Tifa understood all too well. Her face was probably the same exact way. "It said that when Jenova came as the Crisis from the Sky it was to make herself 'known' and that what she did after being excavated was to make herself 'shown.' Then it said something about 'from the spirit are her evil seeds sown.'"

"The only thing we could figure that meant was that something would be born of her," Tifa added when Aeris couldn't continue.

"Which would make sense," Gohan contributed. "Since the Life Stream is the cycle of souls, the only thing it could mean for something to come from it would be to be born."

Aeris and Tifa exchanged disturbed glances. The last time they'd talked about this stuff Gohan had been silent like he'd forgotten how to talk. Where'd he get this sudden information?! It didn't add up, but then again, not much of anything added up right now.

"That it?" Cloud asked when they quit speaking. When Aeris nodded, Cloud motioned for Piccolo to go next.

"A while after you left, I began to notice irregularities in Gohan's energy. Vegeta noticed them as well and we planned to go see for ourselves what was wrong. Unfortunately, we encountered a man on our way there," Piccolo paused recalling the embarrassing event. How had someone's eyes managed to hold him like that? If he was getting that soft he deserved to get his ass whooped by Goku to get it back in gear. "There was one thing worth mentioning though. He had a piece of materia that was like nothing you told me about."

Cloud was intrigued, "What kind of materia?"

"It was larger than any of the ones you have."

Larger than a Mastered materia? It was common knowledge that materia grew not only in strength, but in size also as it gained experience. The largest ones where the ones that were almost mastered but not quite there yet. When they were mastered, they divided and that reduced the size some, but not much, "How much bigger?"

"About like this," Piccolo stated, making a fist.

A materia the size of a fist? The only ones that had ever been that size where the Black and White materia. "What color was it?"

"That's what was the odd part," Piccolo stated. "It was swirled with all of the colors you told me of."

Cloud forced his jaw to stay shut and not drop to his waist. A multicolored materia??? What could that mean?! Was it even possible?!! Glancing around the room, he hoped he was holding his expressions in reign better than most of the other people. At least he wasn't the only one surprised. "Anything else?"

"Vegeta vanished after being attacked," Piccolo could at least leave out those details and spare what was left of Vegeta's pride, "and I found myself in that cursed swamp watching a death match between Nanaki and some giant serpent. I killed the thing and we headed to a house outside the swamp where we found the Highwind."

Cloud nodded. He refrained from pondering the facts they had gathered just yet. There were still other pieces to be added to the pile before they tried to find places in the puzzle for all of them. "Next?"

"Rufus is alive," Cait Sith offered.

"What?" What was this? It was the last thing Cloud had expected to hear now.

"He managed to survive Diamond's attack and Midgar's destruction because he's been infused with Mako."

Great, just what they needed was Shinra back in the picture. That family business had brought about enough problems in its reign of terror ending two years ago.

"Well, we discovered that Sephiroth's goal is to complete the Jenova Reunion and then 'continue her lifecycle,'" Cloud offered when it was obvious Cait Sith wasn't going to go any farther. He was already starting to turn the many facts over in his head.

Two times the facts pointed to a birth and two times they pointed to Jenova's life cycle being continued. That couldn't be good at all. "It sounds to me like Jenova needs to complete her reunion in order to give birth to some monster."

"That doesn't sound too good for us," Nanaki stated.

"Not at all," Tifa agreed.

"But," Gohan started, "if you can get to her first, before she does anything, then there wouldn't be a problem would there?"

"The kid's got a point," Cid said matter-of-factly with a proud gleam in his eyes.

"But then there's Sephiroth," Aeris reminded everyone. "To get to Jenova, we'll have to go through him."

"How d'ya fight against an impossible materia?" Barret demanded, waving his arms around to emphasize his point.

"We'd have to get one just like it," Yuffie murmured with starry eyes. Cloud couldn't help but groan. That girl always had one thing on her mind, materia.

"But how do we get somethin' like that!?" Barret retorted. "Or d'ya miss th' IMPOSSIBLE part o' that!?!"

Impossible? No, it obviously wasn't impossible. Sephiroth had proved that. But how to get something like that was the question. It was almost as though...

"What's wrong with you boy?"

Gohan looked up, startled at Cid's sudden question, to realize that the man was talking to Cloud, not him.

Many colors. Many materia. Combining materia. Huge materia. Combining materia of different types? How? ... Huge materia... materia. Exit materia. Supercharged Exit materia. Gohan. Ki ... Supercharged materia. Combining materia of different types. ... ...supercharged Huge materia...?

"I think I've got it," Cloud whispered, eyes dazed as his mind raced elsewhere.

"What then?" Aeris asked anxiously, nearly jumping.

Cloud's eyes slowly came back to focus on the people that stared at him with nervous expressions. Well, they were all nervous except for Yuffie, of course, who was probably wondering how long it would be until she got to see this new ultimate materia.

"Get yo spiky ass talkin'!" Barret demanded impatiently. "We aint got forever!"

"Sorry," Cloud said, shaking his head for a moment. "Gohan, tell everyone how we escaped Midgar."

Nanaki had hoped this would come up. He had been wondering how Cloud had managed to end up in the swamp, but he'd just assumed it was Sephiroth's work. Maybe it wasn't after.

"Well, they said the Exit materia wouldn't get us out," Gohan began, motioning to Nanaki and Cloud. "They said it didn't have enough range, but then when Sephiroth appeared, Cloud and I knew we didn't have a choice."

The Exit materia? There was no way that could have worked!! Shaking his mane to relieve the eerie tingling sensation that buzzed up and down his spine, Nanaki wondered if he could have made some miscalculation.

"Cloud told me to focus my ki into the materia, that maybe that would increase it's strength," Gohan continued, feeling rather uncomfortable with all of the eyes on him. "That's pretty much it. It worked and we ended up in the swamp."

Cloud took advantage of the stunned silence to press his point, "Who had Gohan before we found him?" Cloud paused a moment. There was no need to answer the question; he knew they all knew the answer for themselves. How could they forget? "And who is teamed up with Hojo?" Another rhetorical question. Those could really drive a point home, especially when your audience was so overwhelmed. "How do you combine several materia into one? The way I see it, Sephiroth took control of Gohan's body, probably through Jenova's cells, and used his ki to supercharge a huge materia. Just think. If ki could increase a normal materia's power that much, how much could it do for a Huge materia? And what could that super powerful Huge materia then do?"

The somber silence that followed was quite satisfying to Cloud. It wasn't the extraordinarily smart people that made the leaders, it was just those who could think on their feet and weren't afraid to do something about it. Cloud had learned that lesson the hard way two years ago, but at least, thanks to Tifa, he'd learned it at all. You couldn't be afraid of yourself. You just needed to believe.

"Next stop, Cosmo Canyon."