Chapter 1

The Forgotten City was a lonely place.

In the distant past it was filled with life, as the ancient people known today as the Cetra lived, worked, even died there. It was a place filled with ghosts and bad memories, a crumbling ruin surrounded by ghostly translucent trees.

And that was what made it ideally suited for Vincent Valentine's purposes. The ex-Turk had no need to eat or sleep, so the barren and crumbling landscape was no trouble for him; it did, however, prevent all but the most determined of intruders from coming to his doorstep. His old friends from AVALANCHE were willing to make such a journey to visit him, but nobody else would go to such trouble to violate his privacy.

Except for Shelke.

Ever since the conclusion of the Omega incident, the girl had done her best to stick by him. Considering she was totally alone in the world, with neither her fellow SOLDIERs or her sister around to comfort her, her need for companionship was obvious. And he was the only person she knew.

However, ten years of rough treatment as a Deep Ground SOLDIER had taken their toll on her young body; she was forced to stay in Edge as WRO scientists did their best to wean her from her physical dependence on mako baths. She was making progress, but it was slow going, and Vincent couldn't shake the impression after multiple phone calls that he wasn't being told about something. Still, he was secretly a little pleased with the news that she was up to taking airship rides; that meant that she could come see him. Something about her youth and ties to Lucrecia stirred a long-dormant paternal instinct in him.

He often climbed a tree to listen to the messages on his cell-phone, a bad habit he picked up from Cloud's own poor cell-phone etiquette. Sitting in the boughs of a massive translucent oak, he could watch the sky as he went through the tedious chore of sifting through tired pleasantries from his friends and job offers from total strangers. His most recent message, however, was from Shelke.

"Hi, Vincent. I've been doing a lot better lately, and the WRO doctors think I can make the trip up to see you now without having to worry about a mako bath. Captain Highwind offered to give me a lift when he does a supply run to Icicle Inn tomorrow, so I'll see you..." "How many #&ing times do I have to tell ya, it's /Cid! None of that 'Captain Highwind' $#&." "It's not very nice to talk like that in front of a lady! --Anyway, take care Vincent. See you soon."

Vincent frowned. That message was three days old...and he knew it didn't take that long to make the trip from Midgar to his home, which he was sure Shelke would have made the instant she was able to. Something wasn't right.

He didn't get any further in his train of thought before the report of a gun being fired echoed through the forest; as a former Turk, his trained ears instantly picked it out as a .45. In the distance he could see birds flying off in alarm, giving him an approximate location. Checking to make sure Cerberus was attached securely to his belt, he sprung into action...reaching the scene of the disturbance took mere seconds when one was agile enough to dash from treetop to treetop as if he were on solid ground.

What Vincent found when he got there was...unexpected, to say the least. A woman with long brown hair, wearing an unbuttoned lab-coat, was laying face-down in the dirt with a pistol a few feet away from her hand. She appeared to be unconscious. Standing over her was a man with a distinctly Wutaian appearance wearing a dark trench coat that reminded Vincent uncomfortably of Sephiroth's, over a red shirt and pants. His hair was wild and unkempt, a sort of pale brown with blond highlights...and his eyes blazed mako blue. Vincent knew straight away that he was dealing with a SOLDIER...and then he noticed something that gave him pause.

"Where did you get that?" he asked in his usual mild voice, gesturing with his clawed hand at the man's weapon...it appeared to be a katana with a rifle barrel attached to the back of the blade, and a trigger on the hilt. Vincent had seen the weapon before; it belonged to Weiss, the leader of the Deep Ground SOLDIERs, who Vincent had killed very recently. Seeing the weapon again was jarring, to say the least.

The man simply smiled, an enigmatic and eerie grin that didn't reach his eyes...Vincent recognized the look in his eyes as a predatory one, and kept a hand near Cerberus' grip just in case. "Vincent Valentine...you don't recognize me, little brother?" the man asked in a low voice, his tone at once playful and dangerous...the voice of a cat playing with a mouse. As he mouthed the words 'little brother', his pupils narrowed into vertical slits, making the comparison only more apt.

Vincent wasn't impressed with the transparent attempt at intimidation. He had dealt with many SOLDIERs before, both with and without his friends in AVALANCHE. The man's words, however, gave him pause; the only indication of his confusion was a slight arching of one raven eyebrow. "I never had a brother," Vincent replied levelly, keeping one eye on the stranger as he glanced over at the woman who was unconscious on the ground...he had a sneaking suspicion as to who it was, but kept that to himself as the stranger began to laugh.

The man's laugh was unpleasant, a gesture with every drop of good humor transferred to scorn and derision. "Of course not." The man bowed elaborately, his eyes never wavering from their target as he gave another sly grin. "That doesn't change the fact that you're my brother. We share the same...blood." The glow in the stranger's eyes turned to a brilliant flash, and Vincent suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his left arm, like someone had just driven a spike through his palm.

Looking down at his hand, Vincent could have sworn he saw black ichor dripping from between the joints of his armored gauntlet...but when he blinked his eyes there was nothing. He glared at the stranger angrily, drawing Cerberus with his left hand and aiming it at the foreign man's head. "What did you do?" Vincent's voice was low and dangerous, but this only seemed to amuse the man further.

"Just a little present, that's all, brother. I wouldn't worry about it...I would worry about the lady, though, she's not looking too good." Vincent followed the man's gaze to the woman in the lab coat...for the first time he could tell she was bleeding profusely, and it was mixing with some strange yellow substance. By the time he returned his attention to the dark stranger, a single wing had sprung from the man's left shoulder, nearly as long as he was tall and with feathers as dark as the night itself. The man smirked and gave a little wave before crouching down and launching himself into the air; he moved so quickly that Vincent couldn't even follow, the only sign that the man had even been standing there a few loose feathers drifting out of the sky.

Shaking his head in irritation at the man's goading, Vincent went over to check on the woman in the lab coat. He had a good idea of who it was, which was only confirmed when he crouched down and gently rolled the woman onto her back. One eye, purple and black clothes, a robotic left arm now cracked and oozing lubricant...it was Shalua Rui.

Shalua...what's she doing here? Wasn't she in a coma?