Author's Note:

Reno: Whee! I'm gonna be rich!

Reeve: I still make more money than you.

Reno: Stupid corporate executive.

Reeve: That, and I say the disclaimer. That brings in twice your pay.

Reno: Really? Tyramir doesn't own the rights to Final Fantasy! ... wait. That was a trick, wasn't it?

Reeve: Yep.

Chapter Twelve

Madman Haunting

Reeve's mind was racing at hyper velocity as he stared at his own body on the ground, trapped within a furry toy of his own creation. What was going on? How was this possible? Why was he in the Cait Sith doll, and not in his own body, controlling the machine mentally from distance? And why the heck had 'Aeris' been his password?

But with the flood of his old memories come back to him, Reeve remembered changing the old password to 'Aeris' after her death. He had always toiled and sacrificed of himself working for Shinra, trying to change the company from within. He had always seen himself as some sort of martyr, determined to save the world at expense to his own soul. And after Aeris' death, he had seen in her a kindred spirit -- someone willing to give their all for something greater than them. And as a silly way of honouring her, to make sure he always remembered her, he had changed his password to her name.

He almost laughed, bordering on the edge of hysterics. Remembering her. Up until just now, that had been an impossibility, parts of his own mind robbed from him. But now they were back, and he was going to make the most use of that.

He answered the password question. Now, on to more important matters. Why was he in the Cait Sith doll, and how could he get back into his own body?

Moving proved a great trial. He was used to being a bipedal human, not a bipedal cat. The tail was forever getting in the way, but it helped him keep his balance. Not just helped him, he quickly found that he depended on it. After falling a few times on his way across the room to check his own body, he growled in frustration. There had to be a better way to do this.

And then he realized that there was.

Turning to face one of the giant mog counterparts, he shouted at it, "Hey! You! Get over here and pick me up!"

The mog, programmed to recognize the voice of Cait Sith and respond to its commands, instantly came to life, stretched its arms out as if awakening from a deep slumber, and slowly made its way to the small cat. Cait crossed his arms and tapped his foot irritably, and then growled. He was already beginning to think of himself as 'Cait Sith' and not 'Reeve.'

He had to fix this. Fast.

The mog stpped in front of him, and picking the cat up, placed him on its own back, where he clung. Cait looked around, and saw a megaphone tied around the mog's neck. Undoing the clasp, Cait raised the megaphone to his lips and said, "All right, take us to that computer! And move faster!"

He regretted the command immediately, remembering how tempermental the mog could be when it came to commands. It tended to listen to them to the letter. The mog bolted for the computer, moving at an astonishing speed, and Cait nearly fell of, barely managing to hold on.

"Slower!" But by the time he managed to say the command, the mog had already stopped in front of the computer, eagerly awaiting new instructions. "Big lummox."

Hopping down from his counterpart, Cait landed on the chair in front of the computer. He had to stand on it just to reach the keyboard. He let out a small, cat-like growl of frustration. Typing in a diagnostic check of the implant, Cait rolled his eyes when he found out that everything was supposedly normal about it.

"Yeah. Right."

He pondered for a minute, thinking about what possibly have gone wrong. If the diagnostic said the implant was fine, then it should be working perfectly. After all, he had made it himself along with...

"Oh no."

That was probably the problem. The diagnostic system itself. He hadn't programmed or designed that at all. That had been the project sent to the Shinra science department. So, had they somehow botched the job and made a non-functioning diagnostic and repair system? Not likely, but it seemed the only possibility.

He didn't bother with queries or a diagnostic check on the diagnostic system. If something was wrong with it that not even the greatest minds in Shinra could have discovered, then the program itself wasn't going to know it was broken. He delved right into the system, bringing up the original source coding and began reading it. The task seemed like a long and tedious one, but much to his own amazement, while in his normal body, Reeve could be distracted from the task, or miss little things. While in a computerized one, despite having a human mind running it, he found that he not only had a phenomanal reading speed, but could take in every little detail and commit it to memory with ease, able to recall it at any moment. What would normally take Reeve days or perhaps even weeks took Cait Sith only a matter of minutes. He felt rather proud of himself on some level, even though this discovery was completely unanticipated.

There it was, in the middle of the source coding, the problem to this currect nightmare. Someone had deliberately not only disabled the diagnostic system, but put a stack of hidden coding into it, layers beneath the original, hiding away like some malignant tumor. But it was encrypted, all of it. He couldn't make out any of it, except that it was running under the program name 'hbackup.'

"Meh," Cait Sith said as he tapped in a few keys and ran the program. What could it hurt to actually see what the program was doing?

A video screen came up, and on it was a weasely looking face, complete with glasses, and long black hair that was tied back. Cait made out a small squeek as he recognized the man on the video.

"Hojo!"

The man smiled, and said, "It's good to see you, too, Reeve. Or should I say 'Cait Sith'?"

"You bastard! Give me back my body!"

A disdainful look came over the scientist's face. "Do you really think you're talking to me, Reeve? This is a recording. But you've probably resorted to name calling and childish demands by now. Expected, just like I predicted events. If you're seeing this, then the lesser of the two outcomes has occurred. I am dead, and my son did not achieve his dream. His shadow defeated him. Unfortunate, but as I said, expected.

"You see, I've predicted events through various insights. My own genius, for one, that of Professor Gast, even Lucrecia to some extent. But mostly through a careful analysis of events of the past, through the knowledge the Ancient Ifalna gave us. We mused about it, and decided that one day, Jenova would return, either by her own will, or by that of someone else. And if she did, she would set about to somehow infect various people with her influence, and then gather them in some sort of Reunion. Once that happened, it would be a matter of Jenova choosing a champion for her. I decided to help the process and give her such a champion, my own son. I knew Sephiroth would attempt to wound the Planet so that he could gather in the Lifestream and take on its power, as had happened in the past. But I also knew that others would try to stop him. Rufus Shinra, Cloud Strife. One or the other. Perhaps both. So, I decided to give Sephiroth a burst of power that would make it impossible to stop him. But before I did, I ensured that my two backup plans were in place. The first was a genetic cloning of myself into Vincent Valentine. I released a chemical into the air that would slowly bring about my genetically encoded DNA and personality into his system. At which point, it would be a battle in his own mind between myself and him. While I'm certain that Valentine lost that battle, I ensured a secondary protocol. If I did not enter in a certain password into the Cait Sith diagnostic program, a hidden code would activate, and disrupt any diagnostic and repair checks that you would activate. Instead of repairing the Cait Sith doll, or your implant in the event that either were damaged, it would turn the relay system in your brain into a type of modem. Instead of allowing you to control the robot from great distances through mental commands, your implant would instead transfer your own conciousness into the doll.

"I found the idea greatly amusing. Not because I have any malice towards you, Reeve, despite the fact that I am certain you've betrayed Shinra and helped aid my own death. But there was a more... well, I would think you'd consider it 'malevolent' idea in mind. You see, the modem works two ways. While it's transferred you into the Cait Sith doll..." A grin split Hojo's face, and his eyes took on a burning cast.

"Oh no," Cait said, spinning around.

Reeve, or what used to be Reeve, his own body, was standing up, hands clasped behind his back, staring at Cait Sith. He had a condescending look on his face, as if he were the greatest man that had ever lived.

"Yes, Cait. As you can see, I've won. I live again. In you," Hojo said through Reeve's lips. His hands unclasped, and he flexed his fingers in front of him, testing them. "It worked better than expected. I retain all knowledge of myself and amazingly, a fair amount of information about you. I thought that when you would transfer from this body, you would take everything about you with you. But apparently not. I retain most of your memory as well, which makes for a perfect opportunity. You see, now that I'm you, and you're Cait Sith, I can now take your place, and prepare for Jenova's next attempt to take the Planet."

Cait Sith spat, "You're full of it, Hojo. You're trying to act like you're so intelligent. 'I predicted this, aren't I so smart?' All you predicted was that either you would win or lose, that either Sephiroth would win or lose. Anyone could have seen that one coming. So what if you planned for it? You're not nearly as smart as you think. You're just insane."

Hojo's new face contored in anger. "Perhaps... but I've still beaten you."

Hojo's hand reached out, as if to grab Cait Sith, but the cat was expecting it. When the fingers came close, Cait bit into them, then hit the man in his body with his microphone on the arm. Hojo let out a small yell, and staggered back.

"Fighting back against the inevitable? Admirable, but foolish. Computer. Delete all files under the heading of 'hbackup', authorization Hojo, password 'sacred.' That covers my tracks, now to deal with you." Hojo shouted, "Guards!"

The doors opened up, and the two men stationed outside ran in, holding machine guns aloft, looking for the source of the problem. Hojo pointed towards the Cait Sith doll, and said "The robot's gone berserk! Destroy it!"

Dodging with the agility of the cat that he now looked like, Cait scampered away, avoiding the barrage of machine gun fire.

"Oh sure, pull lackeys into this! Fine. Let's see how you like it!" He turned to the mog, then lifted his microphone and yelled, "Hey, stupid! Beat up those two guards and make a distraction for me while I get the hell out of here! Oh, and break his arms! And legs, too!" He pointed directly at Hojo. "That's your primary!"

Don't want to kill my old body. Need to get it back somehow. And I need out of here before more guards show up.

He turned, immediately running away from the confrontations, comforted by the screams of pain coming from Hojo. Finding a ventilation shaft, he pried open the cover, hopped inside, and shut it behind him.

Author's Note:

As Search For the Promised One's villain was Sephiroth's mother, Lucrecia, Promised Empire's is Sephiroth's father, Hojo. Woo. Now we have something resembling a plot line! Now I might be able to figure out what to do with this, heh. Next up should be Rufus, then Barret.