Sorry this took so long to update. I had half the chapter written and then I just froze and couldn't finish it. I tried to go back and see what was wrong because it wasn't writers block, but I couldn't find anything wrong with the chapter I had started writing. Two days later and I come back to it and reread what I have written and I finally found the problem! The plot when in the opposite direction from what I wanted but the events were there, just a few tweaks and some correction on how things played out and the rest of the chapter flowed from my hands and now we have the chapter ready to read and for you all to enjoy!

Chapter 5

Cloud ran as fast as he could down the dark mountain path, his blade singing through the air and cutting through the enemy troops on his mountain. He was a golden blur for how fast he was moving, but he always found himself having to stop to jump out of the way of a blade or block bullets from one side or another. His foes either had great prediction, or they were enhanced and with next level equipment. That didn't stop him from killing them all though.

He didn't recognize the outfits they were wearing or the symbol they had on their chest, didn't even care to stop and take a closer look at the men attacking him, all he saw was the bastards that had chased and hurt his friend and he wanted them dead. By the time he reached the base of the mountain, he was covered head to toe in his foes blood.

Though what he saw when he reached the final ledge was enough to bring him to a stop. A small town had sprung up at the base of the mountain, but it had been set on fire and was burning to the ground. Hordes of the same enemies that had attacked him were surrounding four men, all covered in ash and blood. A quick scan of the burning town showed smaller skirmishes that were quickly being settled in the enemy armies favor. Cloud started moving again, odds were not in favor of the three, no matter who they were. It was still dark out, dawn was over an hour away, but Cloud had a feeling that there were so many more foes than he could see. Cloud blanked his mind, placed himself into the mind of a battle-hardened warrior, and then leapt off the ledge into the masses below him, his blade swinging before he even hit the ground, bodies falling around him, blood falling and making the already slippery mud even harder to fight in, but Cloud didn't notice any of it. These bastards hurt Zack and his friends, none were going to escape his wrath.

Cloud fought like death, the enemies he had jumped into had scrambled in shock and they were the first to fall to his blade, the next wave fell, then the next, until he had cleared half of his side of the battle field, but the enemies seemed to always replenish and keep coming from the sides. He didn't bother looking at the three behind him, he could feel the heat of the Firagas being cast, the sound of a blade deflecting bullets, and the sound of bodies hitting the ground. They were doing fine.

'Kill all of them, Golden One,' a voice rang through his head, soft and melodic, tempting Cloud into voice made him squeeze his eyes shut and try to block it out. 'Kill everyone who dared hurt our family.'

Cloud opened his eyes again, something inside him pleased to see that the army had moved to try and kill him while he was distracted. It was that foreign and unknown pleasure that let him smile, for his blue eyes to sparkle with pure gold flecks with the thrill of the kill, for him to fall into the rhythm of killing the men before him. Cloud could hear their screams as if they were farther away, saw the unknown uniforms of the men who hurt Zack blurring around the edges, and he saw unusual darkness slowly creeping into his sight.

'These men deserve to die, ' The voice called out again, stronger and closer this time. 'Allow me to take over and show them what it means to hurt our beloved family.'

Then Cloud felt himself slipping into the darkness, his body never stopping in the deadly dance he had weaved, something inside him made him feel alive while slaughtering the army before him, in saving the few SOLDIERs and Shinra troops still alive in the town.

Cloud tried to remind himself that he was stronger than Jenova and Sephiroth when they were actively trying to take over his mind, that he could stay in charge of his own body and not let them win, but he kept falling deeper into the darkness taking over his mind.

'You think of me like that parasite?' Came the voice again, followed by a laugh so male and so very different then Cloud had ever heard. 'Sleep, Golden One. When you wake I will have cleaned up the nuisances that have hurt our family.'

Before Cloud could fight harder, he found himself falling into the darkness fully, his eyes meeting the pure brilliant gold pair as someone who looked like Cloud in everything but eyes passed him and took over his body, forcing Cloud into slumber at the back of his mind.

FINAL FANTASY 7

Sephiroth panted as he struggled to keep up with the ever increasing army. It seemed like for every one he cut down, five more took their comrades place. Even Genesis was running low on fumes, having used materia to save injured SOLDIERs and troopers, to burn the enemy, to freeze them, call upon Summons, and heal them when a bullet slipped past the defence or a sword landed a hit they couldn't afford.

He couldn't blame them though, they must have been fighting for at least a solid day now with no rest or chance to had been attacked an hour before dusk and Sepiroth knew he saw the sun set and rise while fighting, and the fact that the sky was dark again, with the sky slowly lighting up again, let him know that they had been fighting much longer than any of his men should have. Not even in the Wutai war had he been forced to fight for days on end without rest, and he was the strongest of them all.

But the only thing they had to show for all their efforts were the dead bodies on the ground, and though those had to be somewhere in the hundreds by now, the lifestream taking the enemies bodies just a little slower then they were killed, they were losing ground to the seemingly endless army attacking them. They were blocked in the town they had been trying to build, and every time Sephiroth cut down more enemies and saw one of his men, he also saw those that had taken longer to be taken fading into the lifestream like all creatures eventually did. So many needless deaths all because these bastards never stopped coming in hordes too big for the men to handle.

"Seph," Angeal called out from behind him. "Someone is cutting down part of the army between us and the mountain quickly. I don't know who it is, but if we can get closer to the mountain, we can use it as an advantage to get some kind of advantage over the enemies!"

Sephiroth glanced behind him to take stock of how Genesis, Angeal, and the SOLDIER second class, Kunsel were holding on. If they should push to the mountains or try to hold their ground and get to somewhere else. One look at Genesis was all Sephiroth needed to make the decision for them. Genesis, weakened by constant non stop materia use and the physical strength needed to lift his sword in his constantly weakening body, was only standing because Kunsel was holding him up, but Kunsel wasn't faring any better then Genesis was. They needed the retreat, the hope for a place to keep the army from them long enough for them both to recover and join the fight, if not retreat into the mountains and try to escape the endless army around them.

"We're moving to the mountain," Sephiroth called out, trying to make his voice carry enough for any survivors to hear, while also telling the enemy their plans, a risky but necessary move. "Proceed to the mountains and protect those unable to fight!"

Sephiroth heard Angeal sigh in relief, then the groan from Genesis as he and Kunsel moved to follow Angeal, who had taken point towards the mountain, Seph following behind them, both of them still fighting the never ending army that seemed to swarm them.

Sephiroth and Angeal worked hard to cut open a path to the mountain, all while protecting the two SOLDIERs unable to fight because of exhaustion. They were starting to get too overwhelmed, where Sephiroth found himself having to fight with Genesis' rapier along with his Masamune to keep up with all the swords and bullets flying by his head and swinging at his vitals, when all the enemies around them fell to the ground dead and standing in their place was a blood covered male with bright livid golden eyes dragging along two overly large swords.

"Zack's friends?" The male asked, his face breaking into a smile, his arms twitching, the swords moving with each erratic twitch, as if he was trying to hold himself back from killing them.

"Yes," Sephiroth said, gripping both swords tighter in his hands, ready to defend against the male if he attacked them. The almost unheard sound of leather creaking was the only indication that Angeal was also ready to fight this man between them and the mountain. "The four of us are Zack's friends, as are everyone else wearing attire like this."

The male smiled and rocked back on his heels, his eyes showing patient amusement, as if Sephiroth had just told him something he already knew. He looked back at the army standing back from them, by orders or fear Sephiroth didn't know, though with the bodies on the ground wearing the unknown enemies attire, Sephiroth had to guess it was fear keeping them back. "Follow me."

Sephiroth shared a look with Angeal and silently asked if they should follow the man before them. He was covered in blood and this could be a trap, but he had cut down too many of the other side for him to be one of their allies. Sephiroth could only hope that this man was here to help them and not kill them.

After looking the others over, Angeal met Sephiroth's eyes again and firmly nodded.

They followed the blood covered to a mountain pass and up to a ledge overlooking the entire town, the man effortlessly bouncing between leading them and killing everyone who got within ten feet of them. Silently Sephiroth was relieved to no longer be fighting, his entire body was sore and his muscles hurt. Then Sephiroth felt his stomach drop to his feet and his heart stop beating.

In the light of the rising sun, Sepiroth finally saw the scale of the army they were facing. The army was massive, so much bigger than he even thought, he could see them extending at least two miles beyond the town in a black blob, and that was after they had spent at least a day fighting them and cutting down their numbers. The sight was heart shattering and the soft whine from Genesis and Kunsel as they fell to the ground, along with the even softer curse from Angeal let him know that even his men were coming to realize the same thing as him.

"We won't be able to win," Sephiroth muttered, he was already feeling despair. "We can't fight an army like this."

The man looked at Sephiroth and frowned, his head tilted slightly to the side, before he started giggling. "I can eliminate them all for you, but you have to make a deal with me."

Sephiroth looked at the male, then the army gathering into the town and destroying what they had worked so hard for, destroying the life they were trying to build outside Shinra. He turned back to look at the male, covered in blood and eyes a vivid golden color, his gaze psychotic and singing with bloodlust, but Sephiroth also saw something else in those eyes. The male had that look in his eyes only when looking at Sephiroth, and something in Sephiroth screamed that he knew this man, but at the same time didn't. "What's the deal?"

"Seph you can't-" Angeal started, only to fall silent when the man turned his eyes to stare him down. The eyes had turned cold, his gaze piercing Angeal as if his gaze could kill.

"You become mine," The male said, turning back to look him in the eyes, the gaze softening back into that unknown emotion. "You become my lover and my mate, and I will kill everything that has destroyed what is rightfully yours and bring all of your men back to life."

Angeal sputtered behind him as Sephiroth ran the deal through his head. "Seph the guy is crazy. If we couldn't stop them on our own then why would he be able to?"

Sephiroth knew for a fact that the man had single handedly cleared part of the army and got them to the mountain in half the time it had taken to take thirty steps on their own. Something inside him wanted to listen to the man, to take his deal, that it would be okay and they would all be safe once again, but another half that Sephiroth had never heard before sang of betrayal and how the man would kill them all and not save anyone. His hand grasped the pale pink materia he had kept around his neck, and willed his mind to think clearly.

'You should accept his offer, ' a soft voice rang out, and Sephiroth knew it was in his head. 'He would never hurt you unless you asked to be hurt or threatened the rest of his family and actually followed through with killing them. He is the only one able to save your people. When he comes back around again, accept his offer. It's an eternal deal on both ends. He will protect you and all you love, and all you have to do in return is love him sexually, physically, and mentally.'

Sephiroth knew it was advice to him, even if it was from a female in the future. His mind made up, he opened his eyes to see the male eyeing the materia he was grasping with curiosity.

"It's a deal," Sephiroth stated, gaining the males attention back to himself and not his materia. "I will be your lover if you kill them all and save my men."

Even with Angeal's weakly sputtered protest, Sephiroth knew in that moment that he would never have said no. This was a small price to pay for the men loyal to him, to give them the lives they wanted with their families and to return their lives back to the peace they had worked so hard to achieve.

The man smiled brightly, his blood covered features twisting with the insanity in his eyes as he twirled his swords around and turned them into one giant sword almost like Angeal's buster sword. "I can have them all wiped out faster than you can say your name." And with a final twirl of the sword, the unknown man was facing the army slowly advancing on them, looking out over the expanse of land below them, his sword planted tip first into the ground. Wind whipped through the land, making bend under the pressure, Sephiroth's hair flying around and almost choking him, and then the air stilled and the sudden surge of power caused Angeal and Sephiroth both to fall to their knees. When Sephiroth finally managed to lift his head and look at the male, he saw the figure of a man he had left Shinra to find. The wind had either been so strong it had blown all the blood off of him, which Sephiroth distinctly remembered was not really possible, or the man had used the blood covering him for something before him, but the man standing at the epicenter of all the power pinning him and the others in place, was devoid of all blood and was glowing with a pure gold light, enhanced by the sun rising before him.

The world had gone quiet, nothing moved, they didn't dare to breath. The ground below the man's feet was turning blood red, pooling around him and running over the edge of the cliff. Then the crack as loud as lightning rang out and following it, was a summon Sephiroth had never seen before. One after the other, knights appeared to slash down the enemies of their summoner, each one with a unique ability or weapon, each one devastating the army below them. Sephiroth watched in utter awe at the carnage they brought to the army and absolutely no one of the opposing army was alive by the time the man finally opened his eyes and held out his hand, a red summon materia materializing in his outstretched palm.

Sephiroth and Angeal looked on with awe as what seemed to be dozens of Phoenix's emerged from the sky and rained down feathers, each one hitting one of his fallen men and the ground where his men had already disappeared to the lifestream, while not a single feather hit one of the enemies. They watched in awe as the men started waking up and moving, as the men they saw go to the lifestream returned in small bursts of green, until every person they lived with in the town was back and quickly putting themselves to work putting out the remaining fires and tending to the wounded who hadn't died to the armies attack.

It was awe inspiring and terrifying.

"Holy hell…" Angeal whispered. "Who the hell are you?"

The man laughed and looked back at Angeal, his eyes dancing with amusement. "I am the Master of the Summons according to the older books from the times of the Ancients, but I have no set name. Don't worry, no one is ever going to be able to call forth summons to devastate on such a large scale like me. But you can refer to me as you would my host."

Sephiroth felt a cold chill settle on him, and he realized he was afraid. For the first time in a long time, Sephiroth was terrified of someone other than Hojo. And this person had only helped him and hadn't stabbed him or broken some part of his body to see how fast he healed the wounds.

"Now you have to keep your end of the deal." The man said, before turning and walking up into the mountains. 'Cloud.' Sephiroth's mind finally supplied him. "I will be back for you, dearest Sephiroth. But for now, I have an injured family member to take care of."

Sephiroth and Angeal watched where Cloud had disappeared to, each one fearing that he would change his mind and return to drag Sephiroth off.

"We need to get back down to the town," Angeal said softly, breaking the silence that had settled over them. "Figure out who was too far gone to save and how bad everyone else is."

Sephiroth nodded numbly, following Angeal, who held Genesis bridal style. Sephiroth shifted so he had the second curled in his arms, to make the trip back down easier on both the exhausted men.

'The hell have I done?' Seph thought numbly, another cold chill falling over him.

FINAL FANTASY 7

"What the hell did I do?!" Was the panicked cry Zack awoke to. "I didn't mean for this to happen! Why won't you get out of my head already?!"

Blinking his eyes open and looking around, Zack was greeted with the sight of a highly distressed and pacing blond chocobo.

"Spike?" He managed to croak out, his throat incredibly dry.

Cloud's head whipped to face him so fast Zack was sure he had whiplash, before dashing out of the room only to return with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. Throwing the pills on the dresser he had been pacing in front of, Cloud moved over to Zack and helped him sit up and drink the water in the glass.

"How are you feeling, Zack?" Cloud asked softly, looking him over for any signs of injury.

"I feel like I got hit by an airship," Zack groaned out. "But I'm slowly feeling better, so my muscles must still feel sore."

"Good," Cloud sighed out. "I was worried when you hadn't woken for a week, but I guess you're just taking the slow recovery option."

Zack choked on air. "A week?! What happened to the town?! To my friends?!"

"I helped them all," Cloud said, his head tilted, a hint of something wrong in his eyes. "I saved all your friends by becoming a puppet again."

"Becoming a puppet?" Zack asked, searching Cloud's eyes for answers. His bright blue eyes had gained golden specks in them, and looked as if someone else was watching the world through them as well. "What the hell happened?"

Cloud sighed and stood, moving to start pacing again, his eyes shooting to the bottle of pills on the dresser then to Zack again. "Contrary to what a lot of people believe, I do not enjoy killing people and I never will. I despise taking others lives, for even having the power to decide if that person is going to die by my hand or later by something else. That being said, something in me stirred alive when you passed out, something I have always felt under my skin since I was born in this timeline. I just never tried to touch it, to bother it. And when I left Nibelheim, the pressure it was exerting on me finally faded into almost nothing, in fact it basically slipped my mind that something was wrong with me. I just assumed it was Jenova reaching out to me since Sephiroth wasn't around, since it is entirely possible that Gaia forgot to 'clean' me before sending me back. Which she did, since at the age of ten I was already showing clear signs of being Mako enhanced and by the time I reached the SOLDIER exams, I could probably wipe the floor with you easily, but get my ass kicked by Angeal without him even trying."

Zack blinked in shock, his brain lazily telling him that Cloud was nervous as all hell and he was rambling again because his mind was racing and he was starting to panic.

Cloud looked back at Zack, the raw fear in his eyes had almost hidden the wrongness of Cloud's eyes. "I saw what that thing did, heard what it said, and I remember what it felt as it ripped into the army attacking your little town. When it finally let me have control again, I spent hours hurling and sobbing, which is how Tifa and Aerith found me when they returned with Rain around noon the same day it single handedly exterminated the entire army that had attacked you all."

Zack, against what his body was telling him, stood up with a harsh reality check that even healed he still hurt like a bitch. He knew Cloud was still talking, but he couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't stand to hear the way he kept hearing another voice just under Cloud's when he focused on it, couldn't stand the way Cloud's eyes didn't look like the bright blues of his best friend.

When Cloud realized Zack wasn't in bed anymore, he had already been wrapped in Zacks strong arms with his head pressed against Zack's shoulder. Cloud closed his mouth and pulled away a bit from Zack's shoulder, to pull broken fabric strands from his mouth, then placed his head back on Zack's shoulder, his own arms moving to hug Zack back.

When Zack finally let Cloud shift away from him, it wasn't far and Cloud was instantly back in Zack's arms as Zack dragged them both into the bed he had woken up in. Cloud didn't fight him, and the silent shakes let Zack know just how badly Cloud was shaken by whatever happened while he was out. But the best thing to do with Cloud was to let him open up to you when he was ready and to just hold him and comfort him until he was.

Zack didn't know how long they laid there, Cloud silently crying in his arms until exhaustion dragged him into a dreamless slumber, but it was long enough for Aerith to walk into the room carrying a tray with food.

"Dinner," Aerith explained, placing the food on the dresser. She eyed the bottle of pills on the dresser with hate, before turning around and moving to sit beside Zack's head on the bed, her hand falling to stroke Cloud's hair while he slept, her eyes watching them both softly. "Make sure you both eat, and if you're still hungry I'll be more than happy to make you both more food."

"Thanks, Aer," Zack responded, he tightened his grip on Cloud slightly before relaxing again. "Do you know what happened?"

Aerith sighed, her eyes turning sad. "I do, and I might as well tell you everything I learned when I went down to the town to heal Genesis and Angeal. Cloud can fill in missing details on what happened when he wakes up. But from what I learned, Angeal and Sephiroth were the only two fighting when Cloud showed up. Of course they didn't know it was him since he was covered in blood and his eyes were pure gold in color."

Aerith glanced back at the pill bottle on the dresser next to the food. "He cut down the army attacking them with his blade split and formed into the two largest combinations he has, all while laughing and smiling like the fight was just entertainment, that the men he was killing were nothing more than toys he was breaking for fun. When he got them to a cliff overlooking the town, Sephiroth admitted to feeling despair and hopelessness when he saw the mass numbers of the army that never stopped attacking them, of course the amount was who was left after the fighting had gone on for so very long and then Cloud going insane in the town."

"Angeal asked who he was, meaning it in a 'what the hell are you' way and Angeal and Sephiroth both agree that Cloud called himself the Master of The Summons, after performing a feat that should be impossible. All to fulfill his side of the deal he had struck with Sephiroth. They wouldn't tell me what Sephiroth's side of the deal was, but apparently Cloud's part was to completely wipe the army off of Gaia and bring all of Sephiroth's men back to life."

"Even if Cloud could be Seph with his eyes closed," Zack started, looking right into Aerith's eyes, pinning her in place with his gaze alone. "He never would have been able to kill the entire opposing army and bring all of the men who died back to life. It would take too long."

"But he did it," Aerith whispered, her head lowering, her eyes locked with Zack's. "He summoned the Knights of the Round to kill the entire army, but their radius of attack couldn't reach as far as they did. Then he materialized a Phoenix summon materia from nothing and called dozens of Phoenixes to come from the sky and revive every single person who died during that battle, something Phoenixes shouldn't be able to do."

"Sorry to interrupt your private time," Came the cold voice from the doorway, making both Aerith and Zack snap towards the sudden voice. Leaning against the doorway, red clock wrapped around his body, red eyes watching them, was Vincent. "But what you described is possible to do with summons. But Chaos only knows one person, rather one entity that has ever managed to pull that kind of power from the summons without burning themselves to ashes."

"Who?" Aerith asked softly, her voice trembling slightly. Zack couldn't tell if it was because she was still recovering from Vincent's sudden appearance or from the knowledge that summons could be used in such a destructive and really broken way.

"Chaos only knows his title, as he never gave his name to anyone and was for all intents and purposes an orphan without a home and just wandered the land," Vincent began, eyes moving to watch Cloud. "He became so powerful that he broke the cycle of life and death and turned himself into an immortal demon king. He was worshipped and revered by the Ancients, he was considered the closest thing to a god, and they were scared of him. Chaos was wandering Gaia at this time as was the Goddess Minerva, and through careful planning and catching him off guard, they both managed to seal the man away in Gaia's core, or in the center of the lifestream where no one could touch him. Before Minerva put the final seal in place, she called him her son, and told him she was sorry he had to be locked away for eternity."

Vincent looked at Zack and Aerith, somehow managing to look them both dead in the eyes at the same time as he said his final piece and left the room, leaving them both reeling with what he had told them.

"His full title is Demon King Strife, Master of the Summons, and the Lost God of the Ancients."