Disclaimer: All characters herein, with the exception of "Mike The Mugger" and Lavantos, are property of SquareSoft (Now Square-Enix) and belong to the Final Fantasy series respectively. Relevant story base is also belonging to said group.

Thoughts and images tore through Sephiroth's mind. For the first time in decades something had caught him off-guard.

"Cloud, you don't need to pretend to be angry, or sad, because cloud you are… (My puppet)"

Clouds eyes, my clone brother, filled with hatred. His heart lay wounded at my hands. All of Jenova's power combined couldn't have stopped the burning in my eyes. My eyes?

"Aeris will never breathe again. She'll never laugh again, or cry." Clouds voice cracking.

Why is this happening? Sorrow? Hatred? I see it in his eyes, and now I feel it as well. What is happening here?

….It doesn't matter…

It doesn't matter. Right?

…only the Promised Land matters…

Only the Promised Land matters.

Sephiroth was pulled up through the glass observatory.

From that night on, the artificial ancient, rolled the same questions over and over in his head. His chance at godhood had passed. He now floated gracefully in the pulse of the Life Stream, where his thoughts could haunt him further. Now there was something missing, the second voice…telling him what to do….so lost.

The course of time seemed absent in this place. Sephiroth's memories were fading rapidly. He knew that soon he would be recycled into the living world again. His former life would be forgotten forever. Where are you?

What had become of him that he died? He remembered that he was an Angel, before he died. An Angel, a Saint. What had become of Cloud? Cloud? Who was that? They looked so much alike aside from the hair. Where they brothers?

"Brother..."

It was growing closer, the light. It felt so warm and inviting. He felt at home in this stream of Mako. Ah, bliss…

Sephiroth stared up at the cavern ceiling from the warm rocky shoreline on his back on his back. He had floated up through a wellspring in the cavern which was connected to the life stream. Desperately he had tried sitting up or even just turning his head, but his body simply wouldn't respond. He felt like a turtle stuck upside down on its back. The cave was dank and poorly lit by oil fed wall lamps. Its smell was that of death, something which stirred his insides to boiling. Suddenly he remembered war: the flashing of red gradient on steel, blade and shrapnel. Then visions of the ruthless slaughter of a valley town. A blade tore through a young woman's chest, her emerald eyes went dull and her beautiful lifeless form slumped to the ground.

…Aeris

Hours past in the dark depressing cave before any sign of life (or undead) could be detected. He heard the sound of heavy unnatural stomps, like that of a large reptile. A wraith mounted on its drake towered over Sephiroth eerily. It reached out a skeletal hand and dropped a small white feather (phoenix down) on his forehead. His entire body convulsed and he drew in a deep involuntary breath. Feeling returned to his limbs, he stumbled to his feet and shot the specter a heated stare. The specter no longer seemed to see him, however, and flew off on his drake to unreachable darkness.

Seph wrenched his arm out of an enormous spider web. A warriors dead and rotting corpse stared at him accusingly, tangled inside the web. This poor soul had been torn apart from the neck down, Seph didn't want to stick around to meet whatever had done it but the body still had more equipment to salvage and he was in no position to be passing it up ; unarmed and with no materia. He snatched the one-time adventurer's long sword and rucksack, and then quickly rolled away from the web just avoiding his second death as a giant arachnid pounced at him from its web grated trap-door. He brought the slightly rusted blade down swiftly, smashing the abomination and leaving it one leg lighter. The barely-stunned monster spat a cluster of contact poison- instantly defected by a spinning blade. Through the spider web encrusted sword Seph noticed something to the weapons usefulness, a small red gem attached at the pommel.

Fire Materia!

He smiled and pointed the weapon, which was now dripping poison, at the offending creature. The cave was light by a bright flash, and the smell of roasting spider followed.

A cool draft brushed through the cave. Seph turned to the direction of the wind. He was close to the caves exit finally! Crossing a narrow rock-bridge Seph viewed what appeared to be Life Stream wells hardening. At last the cave mouth opened before him and with it came a beautiful starlight sky. He had escaped death.

"Ha!" Seph spoke while looking at his rejuvenated arms.

Seph stretched his arms out to there fullest extent…and his wings ….he had no wings, but he still felt like he could fly. He stood at the foot of the river like canyon mouth. The sky pulsated in the cool night air. And that statue…Seph thought stands a sentinel to this cave.

Why is the wolf statue guarding this cave?

He scaled the rocky wall nimbly. Making eyes at the statue, he could tell something wasn't right. It was a large muscular wolf, with the canyon tribe headdress. The back of this fearsome warrior was stuck with enchanted arrows. This is no statue; it's a petrified pack leader.

Seph reached into his rucksack and managed to locate a bottle of universal solvent (soft). He opened the top and –

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Spoke a low gravely voice from behind Seph.

With blinding speed a great black wolf swatted Sephiroth away from the statue. The potion shattered at the base of the statue…

"You humans think you can just desecrate whatever you lay eyes upon? Seto has done his share of suffering, he has earned his rest." Spoke the wolf again, scanning Seph with one open eye (the other shut tightly).

The black wolf was a Cosmo Canyon Tribelander, no doubt. He wore a leaders feather headdress pulled back, and donned many battle scars on his face and back. One of the creature's eyes was shut tight – contorting its face painfully.

"I'm not here to argue with your ways chief tribelander." Seph stated calmly.

"You smell like shinra, that mako- blood on earth smell. Have I seen you before?" The wolf raised its nose and sniffed intently.

"Damn, the potion! You foolish human!" Raved the dark creature.

It was to late though; the spilt potion had already worked its magic on the once-petrified Seto. The beast awoke with a roar that shook Cosmo Canyon to its mountainous roots.

The local Jazz club in Junon Harbor buzzed with the sounds of the night life. Inside a saxophone is humming lightly above the smoky room. There are three people in black business suites downing shots at the bar while a third, a young woman, fixes her hair impatiently. A tall man with metal knuckle gloves is passed out - sitting up. The man next to him, slightly shorter with short brown spiked hair grabs a waitress's butt as she scuttles by. The third person at the bar, young, beautiful and blonde, rocked off her stool and punched the man in the face.

"Jesus, Elena do you got ants in your pants or something?" The brown haired man managed to cough after sitting back up in his stool.

"Reno, suck a lemon." The woman barked.

"You even drink anything?" Reno proded.

"Some."

"Come on, drink up, I'm paying! Jeez!"

A rugged looking oriental with long greasy frayed black hair and a gotee strided powerfully through the club up to the bar area. He is also dressed in a black suit, a large silver auto-loader hangs at his side shamelessly, in its leather sheath.

"Tseng, sir" Elena stood abruptly and saluted.

"Are you all done wasting my time now?" Tseng growled.

"We have new orders?" Questioned the bald man.

"Rude, get your drunken ass in the chopper."Tseng snapped.

"The rest of you...move it!" Elena chirped in.

On the way out the waitress stopped Reno. She is held the bill up in his face.

"She's paying" Reno smirked, pointing to Elena.

"...Bastard."Elena swore coldly.

The four Turks strut down to the Junon shipping docks. Foot soldiers marched in formation down the street. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, their footsteps echoed like gunfire on the paved streets.

So many practice drills Tseng thought.
Wutai doesn?t stand a chance.

"What's the word from HQ?" breached Reno, over the whirling chopper blades.

"One of our patrols near Gongaga caught sight of a Wutanese spy. I believe she may have fled to Cosmo Canyon." Tseng replied.

"There's a network of tunnels in those mountains, right?" said Elena.

"Yes, we have our work cut out for us."