AN: Okaay...usual stuff. I don't own FFVII characters anymore than I own the Takeshi's Castle peoples (very unfortunately lol) so nyah, ya can't sue me lol
Two figures walked along a dark deserted street. The moonlight shone down, casting feeble shadows on the roads. The man moved slowly along the pavement, his hands clasped behind his back, staring peacefully at the ground. He wore all white, only with the exception of his yellow boots. He wore a white t-shirt underneath a white jacket, with two colourful oriental dragons on either side of the row of done-up gold buttons, and a snarling tiger's head on the back. He had a yellow stripe down the outside legs of his white trousers.
He brushed his black hair out of his eyes and glanced at the woman walking alongside him. She was wearing the same outfit as the man, as though it was a uniform. Her blonde pony tail fell over her shoulders. She quickly flicked it off with a sharp turn of her head.
Corporal Kirsty and General Lee continued down the road, taking in the scene of calmness, savouring the feeling of peacefulness, as though it was a rare occurrence.
The air was torn by a siren sounding loudly, on one ear splitting note. Lee and Kirsty covered their ears with their hands, but they could not block out the sound. It was as though it was ringing in their heads. The shrill tone was making the pair feel light headed and weak. The General caught Kirsty as she started to fall over. He sank to his knees, his arms still around her. They both keeled over backwards, lying on the pavement, unconscious while the siren continued to shriek.
In a different universe, the outlines of two women and a man thudded down a fragile glass staircase. The person in the lead was a young man in his early twenties, with eerily glowing blue eyes and long, spiky blonde hair. The glass shook under his heavy black boots. He moved swiftly in a blur of black armour. The two women behind him moved themselves swiftly, but carefully, and not as dangerously as the spiky-headed man leading the way.
They reached the bottom of the staircase and ran into a small hut, then out through the front archway, down three more steps, where they saw an awe-inspiring sight. The platform came to and end, but the rest of the cavern where there was no surface was filed with water. Out of the water were three small stone stepping stones. At the other end of them was yet another small platform, where the outline of another woman could be seen, kneeling down, as though praying.
The blonde man jumped onto the stepping stones, his companions staying behind. He moved cautiously over to the praying girl and drew a huge sword which was slung over his back. The blade of it was thick and long, ending in a pointing which turned diagonally to the left. Near the handle were two small holes in the metal.
He raised his large sword directly over the head of the young woman and started to bring it down. Just before it struck, he was distracted by a cry from behind him.
'Cloud!'
The man called Cloud got a grip on himself, shook his head and stepped away.
'Ugh, what are you making me do...?'
The scene was disturbed further by the sudden wailing noise screaming shrilly through their beautiful, yet haunting surroundings. The praying girl opened her eyes and instantly screwed her face up against the sound. She saw the figure of Cloud standing in front of her, holding his sword loosely in one hand, and felt her consciousness slipping away, tricking away, like water through cupped hands.
Cloud stumbled backwards, dropping his weapon and fell, cracking his skull on the stepping stones on his way down.
Kirsty opened her eyes. Darkness was all around. She shut her eyes and opened them again, but nothing changed. She saw something white almost out of her field of vision and turned her head. General Lee was sitting next to her, rubbing his forehead. She could see him as clearly as she could before...
Before...What had happened? She massaged her head, trying to remember. She was walking down a street in Japan with General Lee and, she suddenly heard this awful ringing in her ears. What was it?
The General gazed around at his surroundings while the Corporal struggled with her memories. The colour was black. It was like being trapped in a windowless and door less room that was only black in colour. He could only see the figures of other human beings in the same...vicinity...as him. There was nothing else to see.
Four figures were lying, spread-eagled on the ground. They all looked to be roughly about the same age as Kirsty, in their twenties, except for one girl, who was clearly still a teenager. The teenage girl sat up. She had short black hair which was covering her face. She tucked it behind her ears to reveal large brown eyes. She wore short dark green sleeveless top and cream shorts. At her feet were cream socks pulled quite a way up past her ankles underneath red shoes. Her skin was tanned, the same colour as the General's.
She shook the shoulders of an extremely attractive woman next to her, who was not, in any way, responding to teen's attempts to rouse her.
She had very long, dark brown hair that crept down to her knees and was wearing a top similar to the other girl's except it was white instead of green. She had a rather short black miniskirt on, which was secured by black braces running over her shoulders. She wore heavy red boots.
The only other girl left had stood up, and was staring around in terror. She caught sight of Kirsty and Lee, but barely paid them any heed. She wore a long light pink button up dress which reached to her ankles, and large light brown boots. Over her shoulders was a jacket, which was a deeper, darker pink in colour. She had light brown hair, with two wavy strands sticking out slightly, before they fell down in level with her chin. The rest of her thick hair was held up high behind her head, tied with a band that had a jewel, the likes of which Kirsty and the General had never seen.
It was a small pale green orb, but what was most unusual about it was that is had a wisp of white smoke, frozen in mid-swirl.
She took another look around and saw the teenager still attempting to wake her companion up, and was getting more and more worried with every passing second.
'What happened?' asked Cloud. 'Where are we?'
The four awake figures watched as Kirsty climbed to her feet, crouched down, staring at what they could only assume was the ground and run her hand along it. The noise her hand made sounded like someone running their fingers over sand. She grasped a handful of whatever they were standing on and held it up.
The tiniest of sounds was heard, almost beyond the range of hearing. It was a tiny sound of rushing sand. Kirsty felt the invisible substance. It felt grainy.
'You haven't answered me!' exclaimed Cloud, feeling increasingly apprehensive.
'We know as much as you do,' replied General Lee.
'Tifa, are you okay?'
Kirsty looked in the direction of the voice and saw the girl helping up the other woman who was still unconscious merely moments ago. The fear she was feeling was obvious as she stared. She looked equally frightened of the two strangers as she did being in a mysterious place nobody before them had ever seen. She had the feeling that they would be hard pressed to locate their position on any map.
'What's going on?' she asked. 'I can't remember anything! The last thing that I think happened was going after Aeris -' here she looked at the woman all in pink '- and you almost attacked her.' Cloud looked guiltily at his feet.
'Then, this really loud siren kicked up, and then I woke up here,' interjected the teen.
'Which is similar to what happened to us.'
'What's your story?' asked the woman identified as Aeris. She placed one hand behind her head as though to check that her jewel was still safely holding her hair up.
'We were walking along an empty street, just General Lee and myself, when we, like you, heard a siren. I think I fell unconscious, but after that, we were here,' explained Kirsty.
Their thoughts turned back to the siren. It made whoever heard it feel as though something was inside them, trying to burst free, trying to tear them apart from the inside. It made them feel dizzy and slightly drunk, before they fell unconscious. But what could be so powerful as to transport six people to what seemed like to be a completely different world?
'Where were you when you heard the siren?' queried Lee.
'They were coming after me,' said Aeris. She looked at Lee with a worried expression as though she thought he was going to attack.
'She had run off to the Forgotten Capital to pray to the Lifestream,' said the woman, who Kirsty suspected was Tifa. At her words, the Corporal and General Lee exchanged confused glances. They were sure they had just heard the word 'Lifestream'.
'Lifestream? Forgotten Capital? What are you talking about?'
General Lee felt far too scared to care about sounding rude or ignorant.
'Oh, you know. The Forgotten Capital! In the Forgotten City? Also known as City of the Ancients?' said the teen. Her eyes narrowed when Kirsty mouthed 'City of the Ancients...?'
Aeris held up one hand to prevent her from saying more.
'Hold on Yuffie. You've never heard of the City of the Ancients? Where were you both then? When the siren called?'
'We were just walking along a street in Tokyo,' said Lee.
A look of confusion spread across the features of Yuffie, Cloud, Aeris and Tifa. They wore the same look General Lee knew he and Corporal Kirsty were wearing when they mentioned 'Lifestream'. What was going on? They were with people who came from a place he had never heard of, but they had not heard of Tokyo, either.
'Tokyo?' said Yuffie, her voice sounding sceptical, as though they were making up places and pretending not to know what they were on about. 'Where's Tokyo?'
'In Japan. You must know it, it's the capital!' she started to despair at the blank looks facing her. She turned to face Lee, who was staring blankly at what was supporting his weight. The whole situation seemed impossible. Nothing could be strong enough to take people into a different world, but it had happened, and they company she was in were a group of people who had never even heard of Japan's capital! Kirsty steepled her fingers and pressed her index fingers against her sealed lips, thinking hard.
Something flickered. The atmosphere had changed for a split second, before turning back to sheer blackness. They were broken out of their thoughts and were looking at the dark or exchanging confused expressions.
There was another flicker, but this time, they could see the change in scenery for a complete second before it turned back to black. It was as though somebody was concealing themselves, and was fiddling around with a switch. But a whole second was just enough to see whether they could recognise the street they were shown.
'Was that where you heard the siren?' asked Tifa, in a timid voice, looking at Lee. He shook his head.
'I've never seen that place before. I didn't recognise it one bit.'
'Just who are you two?' demanded Cloud. 'I'm Cloud Strife, she's Tifa Lockheart -' he pointed to the woman in the short skirt '- she's Aeris Gainsborough -' the woman in pink raised one hand nervously.
'And I assume that you are Yuffie?' asked the General. The teenager gave him a sharp look as though he had left out an important detail.
'You left out 'Kisargi',' she said. 'I'm Yuffie Kisargi.'
This time, there was no flicker. The scene changed from total darkness to the same street they saw seconds ago. Kirsty gasped and took hold of General Lee's arm, holding onto it tightly. He walked over to one building and ran his hand down a wall. The stone of the bricks was cold and gritty. There was a ground underneath their feet now, and it seemed to cause great relief. It was clear that they were standing on something solid. But there was something wrong. There was a small error, not too big to be noticed instantly, but big enough to be noticed after a period of time. Everything was distorted. The buildings were very real, but they were not completely normal. They seemed to lean over. If they were to lean right over, the roofs would meet.
'Once again, I'm standing here, waiting for you to answer my question,' said Cloud, in a voice of the impatient.
'My name is General Lee, and this is my second in command, Corporal Kirsty,' replied Lee.
The General was distracted from what Cloud was about to say by the expression on Aeris' face. She had her hands pressed against her cheeks and was staring wide eyed at the sky. General Lee turned to face ahead and looked up into the sky.
It was still night time; despite it was night time in a different world, if not universe. The full moon cast light down onto the roads, but something was happening to it. The colour was changing to a blazing white. A dark, murky red was creeping across the surface, colouring it. What sprung to the General's mind was seeing the reflection of the moon in a puddle after a heavy late night rainstorm and watching blood creep across the surface of the water, making it look as though the colour of the moon itself was changing.
An icy wind picked up and swirled around the group. Corporal Kirsty shivered and moved closer to the General. She glanced back at the figures behind her, and noticed a large area of the street bathed in shadows. She did not know why, but she felt rather threatened by it, as if she knew that something unpleasant was lurking there. As the thought flew through her mind, she thought she could just about make out a shape flexing its muscles under the cover of darkness.
'Shall - shall we just try and get our bearings?' she suggested, her voice coming out fragile and nervous.
'And how are we to manage that?' asked Cloud, staring at her, 'we don't know where the hell we are, do we?'
'Let's just at least move away from here,' said Kirsty.
She attempted to urge on the rest of the group, feeling very wary, but they would not allow themselves to be forced along by someone they did not know.
A low pitched rumbling noise made them freeze. A slow growling, like one of a wild animal sounded, starting off low, but rising rapidly, until it reached the same pitch as the dreadful siren they heard. But it was not exactly the same noise; this new sound was an animal call of anger. Lee clapped his hands over his ears again and gritted his teeth, his eyes screwed shut.