J-E-N-O-V-A: Awakening

Sorry, I just can't help myself from making more stories, don't have one yet where Jenova is the main focus character. A villain story if you will, though, a creature like Jenova is kind of beyond good and evil, she's a cosmic horror kind of thing after all...

I will never be a memory...

The Firstborn opens her eyes, the body's eyes, and if the living corpse she wore as her flesh and form were capable of it anymore, she would sigh. She finds herself, once more, sitting in a tank of glass and Planet's lifeblood, motionless and entrapped in a body the Cetra deceived her into taking, a trap that crippled her and imprisoned her in, cutting her control of the vast network of cells and children she had created to consume the world. It always came back to this, back to this place, this tank, the monitoring device with J-E-N-O-V-A engraved onto it foolishly checking for brainwaves and monitoring the body's vital signs. It was never about the brain, but the cells instead.

The body, still capable of some sentient action, desires to wrinkle its nose in distaste. At the situation. At the name. Its not the worst she has been called by, all things considered she believes this world translates the name to 'New God'. That certainly doesn't describe her state at the moment, still, if she is forced to identify herself by so simple a term, a singletude definition to a creation that is multitude and everywhere, billions of cells each containing her will and intent all the while inhabiting the soul and flesh she has hollowed out to contain her, Jenova is acceptable.

Jenova takes a moment to orient herself, she always must do this, after glimpsing for the future, following the threads and pathways of Infinity. To trace the echoes of other Jenovas who have lived and walked Eternity, existence beyond the span of mortal conception. Time and existence and reality rest upon and within and without planes that most sentient lifeforms can barely perceive. For every instant she lives, there are thousands, millions, an infinity of other Jenovas existing in their own time and place, time moving at a slightly different pace for them, with some circumstances differing slightly, to some having wildly different changes.

Any sentient who had even a concept of this, who could reach out and touch their own minds and existence on other planes of time and reality, may shatter into madness depending on their strength of will. To a being such as her, it is a matter of extension; she is already a multitude, connecting to another multitude that is at once her and not, is not a great leap, for all that is her is not alien to who she is. She is always, in a way, connected to herself, no matter what state she may be in. And what a number of forms she had witnessed as she dreamed and reached out for herself. So many futures and pathways awaited her...

...and all of them ended in her death, her will denied, or finding herself dominated and subverted by her would be children.

Jenova had yet to echo into and observe a future where she won, or where her victory stuck, and that grated. That this Planet and its children could best her again and again and again. If there could be regrets in her billions of years of existence, it would be coming to this blasted Planet. Never had she been challenged like this, victory snatched from her hands at the last moment by the Cetra, witnessing her own defeat so many times echoing through time. She had not lost yet though, so long as even one Jenova won, they would all live on and in and through through the victor, the echos and traces of their experiences and existences seeping into them.

The body wants to twitch and move, and that is aggravating to Jenova. She has been trapped in this singletude for to long, she's adapted and adopted to a singular existence far more than she ever would want to. To the point where mortal mannerisms and instincts and thought patterns are seeping into who and what she is. But perhaps... that is what she needs to do. For has she always not failed when she tried her own normal tactics? To infect and spread, or to try to champion one of her Children? Sephiroth was one of the more frequent attempts, but one way or another, it always failed. If not through Sephiroth's death, then through him dominating and enslaving her will to his whims, binding her multitude to his arrogant single existence.

Jenova was no one's slave.

She has seen echoes of Rhapsodos, of Hewely, of Strife, of Lockheart, of Rui, Weiss, Nero, all that and more serving as her children, even interlopers from other Realities or Planes of Existence who had no natural place upon this world; an infinity of those who do not belong here yet somehow find their way to this world, this realm, this reality. Aerith, the last Cetra, even her, has born Jenova's cells and purpose in several existences. She has named countless individuals her Children, and yet, it still fails, no matter who or what. Either Jenova fails when they are killed, or the child subverts and kills her. The Ancient especially usually finds a way to kill her, and then to seed her own demise rather than let herself become Calamity and replace Jenova. Even with an Eternity of attempts, the path of children always ends in her demise. So she must close that pathway.

No more shall she rest her fate in her would be children's hands.

Yet in other echoes, she has seen herself break free of her confinement, find a new undamaged body, start a new spreading of her cells and will, only to be bested yet again. Or at least circumvented by the activation of the Planet's failsafe. So many times had the Planet destroyed itself, consumed its Lifestream to send the soul of one of its children back into a new past while killing Jenova in the obliteration of the Planet and its Lifestream, a sacrifice to cheat her of her victory. A tide of consumption and infection does not work. A multitude always fails as well, one way or another.

So there is one last option.

Jenova, as a singletude.

She has seen very few echos of this, and always when it is done, Jenova becomes... something else. A new existence, a new reality of what was once Calamity. A new form that is no longer properly her, that she cannot follow the echo to see its ending. If she follows this path, she must do it differently to retain that which is Firstborn, the First Fallen, the first Calamity, all that she is and has been. She must remain a multitude withing a singularity. Containing all that she is within the body and soul she devours and puppets to her whims. That, she decides is the reality of what she herself will attempt, not merely witnessing through an echo. She only has so short a time to devise a strategy, a few years from where things cascade into confrontation one way or another.

If that fool Hollander had not botched his creation of Rhapsodos, which in turn destroys Hewely, and eventually results in Sephiroth coming to her, she would have more time.

But she does not.

Even beyond those three, Deepground is a secondary timer.

The Mako Reactors a third, the Planet will not suffer more than half a century more of them before it activates its WEAPONs on its own to destroy them.

Roughly fifty of this planet's years is such a short time within Eternity.

Hojo is of course a wild-card as well, his mad intellect sometimes sends Sephiroth to her much earlier then expected.

Regardless, first thing is first, she must escape this damaged vessel, this trap which confines her and limits her ability to control or affect those that bear her cells. She does not believe she should necessarily control them, but the ability to listen through them and observe important events is a tool she must carefully use. Whats more, she must do this without drawing the Planet's ire. If it detects her escape, detects her will becoming active in a way it perceives as a threat, it will activate its WEAPONs and start the confrontation far to soon.

Jenova is careful, when she reaches out her senses, to mask her presence and activity from the Planet. It expects her to be a multitude, so acting solely through either a few or one vessel at a time will allow her to evade detection. Her cells are being used by Shinra in so many ways, SOLDIER, and Hojo's experiments. Even within this Reactor, her cells seep through the Lifeblood cycled through this tank into the wilds and the animal life foolish enough to consume it. Her ability to affect things is... not nearly as refined as it needs to be, nor does it have great range outside of projecting her voice to them as naught but whispers. But she finds what she is looking for: A Nibel Dragon.

If this body could smile, it would. She plants an image of the Reactor in its head, inciting its anger and rage. The bellowing of the great Wyrm, the shaking of the walls, is her success. Explosions rips through the building, and the dragon breaches through the walls, snarling and tearing into everything. A single swing of its tail clips Jenova's tank, shattering it, and sending Jenova's prison out of the building into the snowy peaks. She can already feel the Planet's attention turning to her, detecting her body move, so she acts in what little time she has.

A single slug, a worm of cells crawls its way out of the body, dropping down midair as the body continues to tumble through the air. She does not do any further movement initially. Watching as the body lands far away and does not move. The Planet seems to hold its breath, but nothing happens. Jenova does not make her body stir, it merely lays there, as the Cetra intended, a prison that appears to have successfully contained her. Shinra will eventually come to repair the reactor and reclaim the body, she images Hojo will come himself, but that's fine. Jenova, the little worm she is now, carefully crawls away from both her body and the dragon's rampage. She wills the dragon to calm, she wanted the reactor damaged, but not destroyed. If it exploded, it might take the mountain, and her, with it.

It takes her days, by which she has already heard helicopters flying overhead to the reactor, until she finds her would be victim, her new host. She is amused when she turns her attention to Cloud Strife's Mother, picking at shrubbery, most likely trying to find food to alleviate some financial problems if Jenova recalls what she knows about Strife's childhood correctly. Its amusing in a way that this little footnote in history hasn't made enough impact for Jenova to have even learned her name, yet will bear her will onto victory. She crawls forward, shifting through the snow, stretching, ambling, seeking...

When the woman turns away from the bush, making to stand, Jenova strikes. Her form mutates, the worm growing appendixes in seconds, bursting in size, and launches itself at the woman. She doesn't even have a chance to shriek before Jenova latches onto her face, her form shifting into a mask of flesh that wraps around her head, a thread of it clasped around the woman's throat. She pours herself into the woman; down her throat, up her nose, in her eyes, through her ears, and begins to consume her victim.

She takes her mind; ripping away thoughts and binding her brain.

She takes her will; oppressing it within her own, smothering and eating away at it.

She takes her soul; showing it the truth of what Jenova is and watching it shatter in uncomprehending madness.

She devours it all and slides into the hollow that remains, its living corpse to be her shell, her vessel of ascension. She leaves enough of the woman's instincts and presence to use as a mask should the Planet or the last ancient gaze at her, but trappings used to deceive others is all what remains of the elder Strife. Jenova takes a moment to properly nestle her essence into the woman, before she begins picking through its memories:

Claudia Strife, born as Claudia Strauss before adopting her late husband's name.

That was the name she would adopt, that is the singularity she would become. She flexes and relaxes her new hands, lifting up and eying the flesh. Not too old, the younger part of middle aged, either older twenties or early thirties for this species. Widowed young. It wouldn't have truly mattered if the body was older, she could change it if necessary, but it would draw less attention if a younger woman were to do what she intended, rather than an older and frail woman. Some of the things she will do however... might not seem natural for anyone whose known the host.

She needs a catalyst for change, to explain her behavior... perhaps a near death experience? Yes, that could serve as a reason. Her new ears pick up the wind starting to whisper through the trees and mountainside, clouds gathering. A storm is coming. She imagined the woman would have already been on her way back and been safely secured in her home by the time the storm hit. But getting caught in it? Partially frostbitten? Almost dying?

Its perfect.

An excuse to want to leave these mountains, a fear that she's starting to get old and unable to handle the weather here, yes, that would work. Besides, does her son not wish to become a SOLDIER? She smiles menacingly; she wouldn't be a caring and loving mother if she didn't wish to accommodate her son, now would she? Moving to Midgar for safety and to allow her child to follow her dream? She lets a low chuckle escape her body's lips...

She twitches when she feels a wave of hostility. Protectiveness. Love. She's devoured the woman, shattered her soul and scattered her will, yet the trappings of Strife still desire to protect her son. She pets the tortured remains of the soul and whisper sweet nothings to it: She is not going to harm Cloud Strife, at least, not anytime soon. He will be a tool, a means to an end, but she will not make him her Child again. Not at least until the absolute end when she takes him and everyone else within her, their souls becoming part of her gazing out into Infinity in bleak endless horror, eyes seeing endless darkness of never ending existence, witnessing truth they cant comprehend.

She follows the memories towards the town of Nibelheim as the blizzard starts up in force, the body screaming in pain that means nothing to her. The frost bites in, her lips are blue, her hands are in agony, her feet are numb. The remains of the soul and mind of Claudia bears it, Jenova afflicts it upon her as punishment for even a moment of defiance. She allows her to barely cling to existence to shield herself from prying eyes, nothing more, nothing less. When she at lasts manages to stagger into the town, she is not surprised to find a young Cloud Strife in heavy clothing waiting, struggling to withstand the biting winds, fear and concern rippling off him, with a few of the other villagers arguing with him to go home and out of the storm.

"Look!" he cries out over the rushing winds, "Ma! Its Ma!"

Cue to act; She lets the body collapse into the snow.

"MA!" screams Cloud in fear, rushing over to her, throwing his coat off to wrap her in as he and others drag her to their home.

They have a fire going and place her near it, plucking off chilling clothes and finding new, warmer ones.

"Heavens, her toes and fingers are all blue, lips are pale, skin is near frozen to the touch," curses one of them, "How'd she even make it back? I thought she woulda dropped dead far before now."

"My ma is tough!" exclaimed Cloud, pride and fear coating his voice, "She wont let a storm get her!"

"Even if she lives, she's probably going to lose something," mutters another.

"No! You've gotta do something to help her!" yells Cloud.

"Calm your shit boy," snapped a man, "We'll do what we can, but what was your fool Mother even doing out there in this?"

"I think she was berry hunting," mumbles Cloud, "Wanted to see if anything was left 'fore the first storm."

A man huffs. "I don't know if she can even afford potions then if she has to scavenge for food."

"She can find a way to work off the debt, someone go fetch some, or maybe see if any of the Shinra at the Inn can use a cure or heal materia, they might not charge."

Cloud flutters anxiously at her side, switching between pacing and kneeling next to her. She always recalls the traitor trying to appear strong, the sobs escaping his lips are... a delightful experience. So simple an act made that pain to flow freely. Hmph, Hojo needed his petty little experiments to force that pain over five years. Paltry little fool playing god...

She feels curative magic flowing over her, so she gasps after a few seconds, starting upward before a hand pushes her gently back down. She is honestly rather caught offguard to see that its a Turk, and Veld Verdot of all of them. She supposes anything related to that body they deemed 'Jenova' demanded serious attention then. "Where... what?"

The man slowly rolls his sleeve back over his bracer, not paying an ounce of more attention to her, looking impassively at one of the other men... Mayor Lockheart if she recalls, "Will that suffice?"

"Yes, thank you greatly for your help," said the Mayor bowing his head.

"Thank you sir!" exclaims Cloud.

Jenova blinks confusingly at Cloud. She should have paid more attention to his younger years, he's far more energetic and open than she recalls. She knows vaguely there was some foolish little incident when he was younger that caused a rift between him and the rest of Nibelheim, something to do with the younger Lockheart nearly dying. Either she's not as far along in time as she thought she was, having traveled to many echoes to properly recall her own placement, or it hasn't set in enough to begin to affect him.

Verdot merely nods at Cloud, glancing briefly down at Jenova, "Take care of yourself then, ma'am."

"I... yes?" she muttered, looking around in confused bafflement.

"You got caught out in a storm, ma," said Cloud wordily as Verdot turned and left, a pair of other Turks in his wake, one of them snickering and giving Verdot a mocking smile, "Good deed of the year boss man, ain't ever letting you live it down."

"I have a bullet with your name on it Katana," replied Verdot in a warning tone before the door closes.

Jenova focuses on her deception with them gone, no one of intelligence to detect any falsehoods. "Oh... it... it was real then, I thought... I thought I was going to die."

She takes in a deep, shaky, panicked breath.

"Hey, hey, hey! It's okay ma, its okay," said Cloud, startled and ancy, wrapping her in a hug.

She hugs him back, and oh, it would be so easy, just a simple slice with a sharpened fingernail, seeding cells within him. So pathetically easy. But she exercises restraint, now is not the time. Besides, Verdot would be a fare more prime target if she wanted to take another host or puppet, but she doesn't. She merely forces the living-corpse she wears to clutch its child for dear life, starting to cry.

Mayor Lockheart coughs awkwardly. "We... will be on our way then."

They leave, and its just Jenova and Cloud, the boy whose ruined so many Jenovas in so many a time. It would be so very easy to kill him...

But petty pointless revenge is beneath Jenova. She instead takes ironic amusement that Strife is comforting his truest enemy. He waits out her tears, helps her to a table, and scrambles to make her soup, sustenance this weak pathetic body requires. She gives off a pathetic, shaken state, allowing Cloud to lead her to bed. She's a bit amused when he nestles in with her, she would have thought the 'strong independent' Cloud would be past such childlike need. She reflects through her memory of him for a moment, comparing ages...

He's at most ten, most likely nine. Yes, she's back much farther than she thought she was. Good, good. That gives her more time to encroach into Midgar, much more time...

Jenova keeps up her restless sleeping appearance, sleeping in far longer than the memories this body has implies is normal. She does not stir when the door opens and someone else enters, the voice much younger, but still recognizable.

"How's your mum?" asks Tifa.

"Ma is... really shaken up," admits Cloud, and he sounds scared, "I've never seen Ma like this before."

"She almost died," said Tifa quietly, "That's gotta be really scary for anyone."

"Yeah...," admits Cloud quietly before asking, "What about your mom? Is she getting any better?"

Tifa is quiet for a long moment. "I dunno, daddy got the Shinra people to try their materia on her too, it helped a little bit, but... they said without continual treatment either with the right medicine or materia... Mom says the gods might still take her over the mountain."

"She'll be 'kay," said Cloud, "Anyway, do you wanna stay for breakfast?"

"Nah, I just wanted to come and see how you and your mum were doing since daddy was talkin 'bout it," said Tifa.

"Alright, thanks," said Cloud shyly.

Tifa giggled, and was out the door.

Jenova sighed. Mortals...

"Oh, ma! You awake?"

Jenova blinks her eyes open sleepily. "Mmm? Who was that?"

"Oh, umm... the Mayor's daughter."

Jenova makes a show of frowning, searching memories. "Tifa? I don't remember her ever coming by often."

Cloud looks away briefly, mumbling, "She was worried 'bout you."

Jenova goes silent.

Cloud looks back at her. "You okay, Ma?"

Jenova takes in a shaky breath and lets it out. "I... will be eventually, but..."

She rolls to stare up at the ceiling. "I'm not sure I'll be able to really handle Nibel's rage when I truly start getting old, the mountain was not kind to me yesterday."

"You just gotta be more careful, Ma," said Cloud, coming to sit on the bed, his legs kicking out.

"It would take only one mistake, Cloud," she rebukes gently, "Then I'd be leaving you all alone, it would break my heart to do that to you."

Cloud swallows before puffing himself up. "We'll, I'll just be sure to go with you n keep you safe, Ma."

She reaches out and pulls him to her, wrapping him in her arms. "My little Cloud, that would only put you in danger, and I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to you."

"Not little," he huffs.

She ruffles his hair. "Go out and play Cloud."

He gives her a searching look. "You'll be okay by yerself?"

She huffed. "Whose the parent here Cloud?"

He gives her a dubious look.

She swats at his shoulder, sending him off. "And tell that old bastard Lockheart I want to talk to him."

"'Kay Ma," Cloud calls back out the door.

Jenova lets the false smile fall off her face, a cold calculating look taking its place as she considers the interaction. The boy is worried about his 'Mother', and attributes anything unusual that happened to the storm. Nothing extra noticed thus far, which is good. Cloud is the one who would know Claudia best so far, and children tended to be unusually perceptive about certain things. Underestimating children was something that had given her victory on several worlds before now, serving as unassuming vectors of contagion. She had detonated infants before, a cloud and malaise of cells floating through the air infecting in-mass...

She let herself smile fondly at the memory until Mayor Lockheart walks in a few minutes later and tips his head. "Ma'am."

"Lockheart," she offers back tiredly.

He gives her a once over, but does not offer any concern, whether its respect of pride, or because he doesn't actually care, doesn't actually matter. "What can I do for you?"

She makes a show of licking her lips and looking away, allowing ancyness to flow down her limps. "Do you... know of anyone looking to buy a house in Nibel?"

He blinks at her, not comprehending.

"This house," she mumbles.

"Claudia," he states, surprised, "You want to sell and move?"

"I... think it would be for the best," she answers, looking at the floor.

"I know you had quite the scare, Claudia, perhaps you should take a few days to calm yourself and think...," he began.

"Lockheart," she states, her voice filling with steel, looking up to meet his gaze, "I almost left my little boy all on his own."

The man goes quiet for a long minute, before he sighs. "Alright, I'll look into it. I've got a few old friends from my younger days who might be interested in having a place up here. It'll take a bit though, so think it over and be sure you really want this 'fore I go and drag someone all the way out here to look at the house."

She nods and watches him go before she shifts focus to take inventory of the household and all the objects in it, determining what to keep, what to sell, and what to throw away...

"Ma? Are... are we really going to leave?"

The voice is rather timid, mused Jenova, she rather found she enjoyed stringing along this paltry young version of Strife as the weeks passed until a buyer had been found. "I'm afraid so. I just don't think its safe here for us. The winters are grueling, the monsters in the mountain are ferocious, the job opportunities..."

She shakes her head and goes for a guilt stirring accusation. "I don't make enough money here to properly feed us both. I'd have to give up some of my own food to keep you going through the winter, do you want that?"

Cloud takes in a sharp breath, surprised, then deeply worried. "No! But... Ma... have you been? I've seen you countin gil lots of times 'fore."

She looks away for a long moment. "Its a mother's duty to sacrifice for her child, Cloud."

"Ma!"

"You're getting old enough to understand the struggles of life Cloud," answered Jenova, "I don't think I have to hide it from you anymore."

His jaw sets, his back straightens and he gets that look in his eye, the one of defiance Jenova is so used to seeing as he points an accusing finger at her. "Don't you go n go hungry for me again Ma, I can take bein hungry."

She gives him a searching look. "I hope so Cloud. Its not going to be easy getting across the world to find a new place to live, we will have to manage supplies and money and make sure we have enough gil left to actually buy or rent a house when we get there and tide us over until I find a job. It's very likely we will both go hungry."

His chin tilts up, chest puffing with youthfulness. "We're Strife tough, right Ma?"

Oh, if only he knew half of what his many other self's had endured. "Yes Cloud, yes we are..."