-I'd like to start by pointing out that I'm not positive on the spelling of the name of the lady behind the waterfall, Hojo's wife, it's either Lucrecia or Lucretia, I will use the second one in the story but if that is incorrect spelling feel free to let me know.

Chapter 1

Same Dream Different

Cloud Strife was asleep, not that he knew that at this point, but he was. Cloud thought he was awake as he stood quietly on top of a ridge and looked down upon miles of empty field. The sky was a dull grey and the wind gently blew at his face, it was a calm day, weirdly calm. Cloud closed his eyes and opened them again; instead of the vast empty field he saw a large black building. His eyes narrowed.

"Well, that definitely wasn't there before," Cloud muttered. He wondered at exactly how a large black building might go about popping up out of nowhere. Cloud was about to start making his way down to check out the strange structure when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned.

"You want to know why you've never seen this place before?" asked the person behind him. It was a man Cloud didn't recognize. He was about Cloud's height but had long jet black hair, which was fitting because everything but his skin was also completely black. Including his eyes, not just the centre of his eye, his entire eye was just black.

"Who are you?" Cloud asked.

"That doesn't really matter does it?" asked the dark man in an ominous voice, the man sort of reminded him of Vincent. His sword though, that reminded him of Sephiroth. It was sheathed but its length and shape clearly resembled that of the Masamune Blade.

"I guess not," Cloud replied.

"So, do you want to know?" asked the dark man.

"Sure," Cloud replied.

The man smiled, "It's because you're dreaming."

§

Cloud awoke with a start and looked around; he was sitting in a chair. It took him a few moments to remember where he was. He was on the Highwind, he recalled talking to Cid, how long before he fell asleep he wasn't sure. The face of the dark man fluttered through his mind and disappeared.

"You're awake," Cid said walking onto the bridge of his ship.

"When did I fall asleep?" asked Cloud.

"Before or during Yuffie's explanation of why it's better to steal materia than to find it," Cid replied.

"Glad I missed it," Cloud said.

"Yeah, she wasn't too happy about it though," Cid said laughing.

"Where's everyone else?" asked Cloud.

"Tifa said she was going to find Vincent, everyone else left with Yuffie, they figured you must have had a few rough days," Cid said.

"Not really," Cloud replied, "kind of surprised I fell asleep, had a weird dream too."

"What about?" asked Cid.

"Big black building just appeared out of nowhere out in the wilderness, just like it…" Cloud was interrupted by Tifa storming on to the bridge of the Highwind.

"Cloud, Vincent found a big black building that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, neither of us has ever seen it before," Tifa said short of breath.

Cid looked at Cloud, "Weren't we just talking about this?"

Cloud nodded, "I just had a dream about a black building appearing out of nowhere, then someone tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned they asked if I wanted to know why I never noticed it before."

"Was it Aeris?" asked Tifa.

Cloud paused for a moment at the name and looked confused, "No, why?"

"Vincent had the same dream except he saw Aeris, who tapped you on the shoulder?" asked Tifa.

"I have no idea, I'd never seen the guy before," Cloud said.

"Sounds like you and Vincent had strangely similar dreams," Cid said, "and you say this building is really out there?"

Tifa nodded.

"Well, this I gotta see," Cid said, "let me get this baby in the air, tell me where to fly'er Tifa."

§

The Highwind made Tifa's trip much shorter, they were at the strange building in under a minute. Cid looked down on the building.

"It sure is there alright," Cid said, "when the hell did it get there is the question?"

"Vincent's already in there, we should make sure he's okay," Tifa said urgently.

"Vincent is a resilient guy; he'll be fine," Cloud said calmly, "Cid I want you to take the Highwind down low, low enough so Tifa and I can jump off. We don't know enough about this place and how dangerous it might be so I want your ship as far from harm as possible."

Cid nodded, "I'll be in for a quick pick up if you need it."

Cloud nodded as well and turned to Tifa, "Let's go see what Aeris wanted Vincent to see."

Tifa and Cloud waited for Cid to let them know he was as low as possible and the two of them hopped off. They immediately made for the building as the Highwind gained altitude again. Cloud drew his sword and Tifa donned her black gloves, they had no reason to think they might be attacked, but the place did look pretty suspicious. In truth they were both a little thankful for the action after how boring their life had become after Cloud had defeated Sephiroth…for the second time. They entered the building through a big door that was already ajar.

"Vincent went through the front door," Cloud muttered.

The two of them took in their surroundings; the inside was grey instead of black giving the place a very metallic look. It was as gloomy inside, however, as it looked outside. Ahead was a hallway with doors on each side.

"This all looks very Shinra," Cloud said quietly.

"Let's just find Vincent," Tifa said warily.

Cloud and Tifa both walked down the hallway, they each checked every door they passed and could find no way of opening them. None of them had doorknobs or any kind of keycard entry. They made it to the end of the hall and found yet another hallway to the left leading down to one big open door at the end. This door appeared to have a keypad for a code on the left side, or what was left of a keypad as it was a mess of wires and metal now.

"Looks like Vincent found a way to open the door," Tifa said smiling.

Cloud nodded and he and Tifa went down the hall and through the door. Inside was a massive room, a room that almost looked too big for the entire building to hold. On the walls of the room surrounding it was tubes, big tubes, Cloud recognized them and his eyes narrowed.

"They look like the kind of thing they kept Jenova in," Cloud said ominously.

"You think this is some sort of laboratory?" asked Tifa.

"I think it is much more than that," answered a gruff voice to their right. They both turned and saw Vincent standing in another door way.

"Vincent, you're okay," Tifa said smiling.

"The place is deserted; there are a lot of things left behind, though. It looks as if this was, in fact, some kind of laboratory, but not your conventional one."

"How so?" asked Cloud.

"Well, you see these tubes?" asked Vincent indicating the tubes surrounding the room. "These aren't for holding things as much as they are for…receiving things."

"Receiving?" asked Cloud putting away his sword.

"I know, it sounds strange, I read some notes of a person who worked here," Vincent said, "this was a lab that was working on a sort of…time travel."

"Really?" asked Tifa.

"The original idea was to create a machine that could send someone back in time to change things, but they quickly realized this would be a very bad idea. So they revised their idea. Instead of sending people back they found a way to get people to come forward to our time," Vincent explained.

"They found a way to resurrect people?" asked Tifa.

"In more than one way, one note provides the information that they did in fact bring back one such person that did remember dying. They mentioned that they truly did bring this person back from the dead, they also said Hojo would be pleased to hear of their developments," Vincent said. "That's the most recent document I could find."

"Hojo," Cloud muttered, "you think this place might have something to do with you Vincent?"

Vincent looked around, "What exactly was done to me I'm not even entirely clear on. They had nothing like this at the Shinra Mansion; I don't think this has anything to do with me. It may have had something to do with Sephiroth however."

"Oh no," Cloud muttered. "That's who they brought back."

Vincent smiled a bit, "That's what I thought as well. If that were true then they must have found a way to send him back. Whoever it is they did bring back must have had something to do with why there's nobody left."

"Can it still be done, the resurrecting thing I mean?" asked Tifa.

"Whatever powers this place and I assume whatever does the resurrecting is still active, I believe, because the artificial lighting is operational, there are more documents I can go through to find out more," Vincent said.

"Anything on why this place just appeared out of nowhere?" asked Cloud.

"On that, I have found nothing," Vincent said, "there's nothing in the files about the lab having any defense mechanism that makes it disappear or anything like that."

"I'm just worried about what would happen if this place disappeared again with us in it," Tifa said looking around warily.

"I don't believe Aeris would have shown me this place unless she wanted me to find something specific," Vincent said.

"I agree, but we need to talk about your dream," Cloud said.

"My dream?" asked Vincent.

"I had a similar one," Cloud replied.

Vincent looked a bit surprised, "How similar?"

"Just about everything except Aeris," Cloud said. "Someone was in her place."

Vincent nodded behind him, "There are chairs in this room maybe we should sit."

Cloud and Tifa did so, but Vincent moved around the room throwing aside files and looking over ones he hadn't read yet.

"Who replaced her?" asked Vincent as he searched through the files.

"I don't know, it was a man with black hair, about as long as Sephiroth's, he also had Sephiroth's sword. His clothing and eyes were both black, in fact the only thing that wasn't black was his skin and teeth," Cloud said.

Vincent at first didn't respond, then he lifted a piece of paper and read, "Every time we attempted to bring one back someone else would come with them."

"Bring one what back?" asked Tifa.

Vincent grabbed the brown folder the page was in and read the front, "Live Experiment number 23: the resurrection of a Cetra."

Cloud stood up, "Cetra!"

"Why were they trying to bring back Ancients?" asked Vincent.

"They do a good enough job making appearances on their own," Cloud muttered thinking of Aeris.

"Shinra was always trying to grab Aeris," Tifa said, "maybe they thought it would make more sense to try and bring back a dead one."

"Every time they tried to bring a Cetra back someone else came with them," Vincent said and looked for a moment coming up with another page. "Each different Cetra brought with them a different person, sometimes female, sometimes male. There was no discernible pattern, but these people appeared to be some kind of guardian to the Cetra."

"As if someone thought someone might try this," Cloud said, "one of these guardians got free and killed everyone."

"Where's the bodies, the blood, where is the guardian and the Cetra?" asked Vincent.

"Maybe they are long dead, maybe there was some sort of side affect of being brought back and they both died from it," Cloud said.

Vincent looked through the pages again and pulled up yet another paper and nodded, "Each of the so called guardians had one noticeable pattern of appearance. Black eyes and black attire, all white in skin colour and long black hair." Vincent paused, "all armed with identical Masamune Blades."

"The man in my dream," Cloud muttered.

"I believe that Aeris contacted me and her guardian contacted you," Vincent said. "Again the question is why?"

"It doesn't make any sense," Tifa said shaking her head.

Vincent looked up suddenly, "Hojo, they mentioned Hojo multiple times in these files."

"That's not really surprising, he was pretty high up there as far as science goes," Cloud understated.

"I need to speak with someone," Vincent said a paused a moment, he looked as if he had trouble saying the next word but managed it, "one who knew him best."

Tifa looked confused, "Rufus?"

Cloud shook his head, "Lucretia."

"You two should stay, I will return shortly, hopefully with answers," Vincent said.

"We'll call in the others while we wait," Cloud said.

Vincent nodded and moved toward the door.

Cloud stood, "Vincent, are you sure about this?"

Vincent looked over his shoulder.

"Lucretia, you two…do you want me to talk to her?" asked Cloud.

"I'll be fine," Vincent said.

"Alright," Cloud replied nodding.

"Cloud," Vincent said and stopped to think about what he was about to say.

"Yeah," he replied.

"If I told you…if I told you I could…bring her back," Vincent said, "Aeris, if I could bring her back, would you want me to?"

Cloud was silent; this wasn't exactly a question he had ever planned on answering in his life. "If she was gonna come back with a guardian that would try to kill us all, no."

It wasn't the straightest of answers, but Vincent accepted it, "Fair enough, I will return shortly."