Temporal Storms

Chapter 2

Criminally Insane

"Man, it's been a while since we been here. Brings back memories," said a blond headed man who stood outside a crimson air ship.

His bangs were spiked up while the rest of his hair was brushed back. He had a large tattoo on the side of his face. He wore a red and black jacket over a black shirt. He also wore a blue pair of denim shorts and a pair of red and black sneakers.

"Yup. Heh. At least I didn't have to be in one of the cells like you guys did," said his partner with a grin.

This man wore a black cowboy hat and a brown long coat over a purple vest. He also had on a pair of brown pants and dark boots. His light brown hair was tied back in a long pony tail, with long bangs coming from under his hat on each side of his face.

"That's because you were lucky." The blond said as he rolled his eyes.

"Well, yeah I….." he started when he was cut off by someone else.

"Zell, Irvine, less chatting. Let's get this guy inside." Squall said as he walked down the ramp from the air ship.

Cloud was walking in front of him with his hands tied together. Squall was carrying his gunblade across his shoulders in case he needed to use it. The blond, Zell, nodded and headed to the front of the huge prison facility while Irvine, the light brown haired man, pulled his rifle and got in step just behind Cloud and beside Squall.

"Don't worry. This guy try anything, I'll have a bullet in his head before he can even say 'haste'." Irvine said with a smirk.

Squall didn't say anything in response as they entered the building. Inside a man dressed in a uniform and hat walked over to where they were.

"Heh. Never thought I'd see you three back in here. Too bad it's not permanent. You're lucky you all got off so easily." The man said with almost a growl.

"You're still kind of a jerk, huh?" Zell asked.

"Watch your mouth, or I'll see if I can't find a reason for you to spend the night here." The man said.

He then looked at Cloud.

"So this is the prisoner…er…patient?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Yeah. He's shown signs of being mentally ill and tried to kill Rinoa Heartilly." Squall said.

"The General's daughter? He's a mercenary then? I figured that'd make him one of your friends." The man said with a shrug. "Alright, we'll get him booked and admitted, then put him in a cell. You're going to like this, Mr. Leonheart. He's getting your old cell."

"It's not my problem." Squall responded.

Cloud looked over his shoulder at Squall.

"A word of warning. Watch that girl. She's not who you think she is. Not all the time anyway." Cloud warned in his normal tone of voice.

"Shut up." Irvine said as he pushed Cloud a little towards the man they had been talking to.

Cloud stumbled a little, but turned to watch as Irvine, Zell, and Squall left. The man now behind Cloud put a hand on his shoulder.

"We're going to have fun together, you and I." the man said with a sinister sound in his voice.

"Do we have to leave him here? The guards and all here are so…..mean!" Selphie whined.

She was the one piloting Ragnarok, their airship, back to Balamb.

"I'm not going to endanger everyone at the garden by trying to help that guy. There's obviously something very wrong with him. Mean or not, maybe the people at the prison can help him." Squall said.

"You don't believe that! You know better!" Selphie exclaimed back at him.

"We'll see how it goes. We'll come back in about a week or so and check….if it makes you feel any better." He muttered grudgingly.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Ok." Selphie said with a cheerful nod before focusing back on flying the airship.

"Maybe the guards and all there are better than they were when we were there. After all, they've got a ward for taking care of the mentally ill. I'm sure they wouldn't treat anyone too badly. What am I even worried about. I don't even like that guy. He almost killed Rinoa." Squall thought to himself as he sat down to watch out the nearest window.

Cloud didn't like the look of his "cell" as soon as he saw it. It was nothing more than a large metal box just high enough to stand up in and long enough to fit a small cot in and a hole towards one end and in the corner for a toilet. When he stepped into it, it seemed the real nightmare of the thing began. It moved. No way of knowing that it would, he staggered and fell onto the bed and against the wall. He felt what little contents he had in his stomach try to come up his throat, but he quickly swallowed it back down. He didn't know why he felt so violently ill. He'd never had motion sickness that he could remember. The motorcycle ride from midgar, the car ride from Golden Saucer, all small moving vehicles and he'd been just fine. Now he felt like all his guts were going to have a race back up his throat and out his mouth.

He dry heaved a little as drool come down the side of his mouth. He wiped it away and dug his fingers into the cot hoping and praying this would end soon. It did with an abrupt jerk that sent him against the wall at the head of the cot. He moaned and just lay there trying to regain control of himself. After a moment he slowly stood and walked to the door. There was no window there for him to look out of. In fact, there was no window in his cell at all. There was nothing to look at, just four walls, the cot, and the hole in the floor in the corner.

The guards he left him his SOLDIER uniform mostly intact excluding his metal shoulder armor and his bracers. They didn't want him to have anything that could potentially be used as a weapon. Looking back, bludgeoning the guards with those items and trying to make a run for it might have been better than being stuck in this metal box. He shook his head at that thought and sat on the cot. Nothing to do now but wait and see what they would do to him now.

Moments passed as he waited quietly. Just when he was about to stretch out on the cot, a strange crackling noise started up to his left. He looked in that direction and saw electricity crackling in the air before what looked like black feather started to appear. He stood up slowly as he watched the scene before him, and got into a stance. After a minute or two, a figure appeared. It was a tall woman with oddly styled hair sticking out and up at either side of her head. She wore a very revealing red dress that dipped in a V past her navel and opened from the bottom up to a few inches below her crotch. She had strange tattoo marks over most of her visible skin and some on her face. Her hands were covered in red and purplish gloves that ended in long cruel looking clawed fingers. Two black wings were protruding from her back and feathers lined the edges of her dress at the top.

Cloud didn't recognize this woman, but the feeling from her was the all too familiar feeling he had been getting from the woman back at the garden. He backed away a little more from her, getting a smirk out of the strange woman. Her golden eyes seemed to have a spark of delight in them like she enjoyed his discomfort.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"You tried to kill me." The woman responded.

"What?" he asked as he gave her a confused look.

"Well, not me per say. You tried to kill my host." The woman answered.

"You….this is your true form then." He said, still not moving from his spot.

"Yes. You're a little ruthless, aren't you? You almost killed an innocent woman to try and get rid of me." She said with a chuckle as she started to move towards him.

"I had no way of knowing she was innocent. I though….I thought she was dangerous. I didn't know she was being used." He growled as he started to move back from her.

"That may be true, but you're the dangerous one. It's good you are here, locked away. You won't be able to harm my host, and I can come and take what I need from you without you being able to run away." The woman said as she smirked just a little. "I plan to make sure they keep you here."

"What are you going to do?" he asked just as his back hit the wall, he'd run out of room to move in the small cell.

"You'll see." She said with a grin as she closed the short distance between them.

She grabbed his face at his jaw and pulled him close. She then began to suck out more of the power she needed from him. After a full two minutes she let go of him and he fell forwards against her. His face just inches from being in her cleavage. She stroked his hair for a moment and was silent as if thinking.

"Yes. I have plans to keep you where I need you long enough to finish what I must do." She murmured.

She then disappeared in a flurry of crackling light and black feathers, leaving Cloud to fall to the floor where he lay until later that evening when some guards delivered a small nasty looking meal.

"What's wrong with him?" one guard asked.

"Hm. Probably nothing. I heard him talking to himself while ago. This one's a real nutcase." The other shrugged as he left the tray of food at the door before closing it. "I'm not paid enough to care."

The putrid smell of the food was enough to wake Cloud up. He moved away from it on his hands and knees before sitting against the far wall. He took a few breaths before calling out to the guards trying to get their attention. No one answered for a while, and Cloud continued to sit quietly against the wall.

He was dozing some when the door opened again. A man in a white lab coat stepped in, kicking the tray of "food" under the cot as he did. The man looked at Cloud, then at his clip board.

"Mr…..Cloud Strife, my, what a strange name you have." The doctor mumbled. "Anyway, I'm the Psychiatrist here at the D-District Prison. I first need to…"

"I'm not crazy. I don't need your help with that. I need to get out of here. Just a little while ago, this woman….or witch…whatever she is, she come to my room. She's stealing energy from me. Mako energy. I need to stop her before…" Cloud began, but was this time cut off as the Psychiatrist started to chuckle.

"I see several things wrong with that statement, Mr. Strife. Nobody has been to your room except for the guards who delivered you here and then the ones who delivered your food. All of them were male. Another thing is that no one can use magic to get in here. There are barriers up that prevent people from using magic inside this facility." The Psychiatrist explained. "And last of all, this facility is beneath the ground. It sinks when there isn't anyone or anything being delivered or when there isn't anyone changing shifts."

"She was here. I saw her." Cloud said flatly. "I know what I saw."

"I'm sure you do. How long have you been seeing this woman? Is she who you thought you was going after when you tried to kill Ms. Heartilly?" the psychiatrist asked.

Cloud narrowed his eyes at the psychiatrist. The man was "playing along" just to find out how long Cloud had been hallucinating. It made Cloud angry. He took a deep breath though before slowly letting it out, then looked at the psychiatrist again.

"I haven't imagined her. She's really been here. She's been coming after me for a while now even at the garden. She's been stealing Mako energy from me to regain her strength. She said something about needing it to gain control over her host." Cloud explained slowly.

"Ms. Heartilly is her host?" the psychiatrist asked.

Cloud nodded and watched the psychiatrist as he scribbled some notes on a clip board. This was making Cloud even angrier.

"I am not crazy. This is all real. This woman is trying to do something to the world. She's trying to…compress it or something. I don't know. I just know that if you don't listen to me, we're all in a lot of danger." He said.

"I see, and getting back to Ms. Heartilly, how do you know that she's this other woman's host?" the psychiatrist asked dismissively of Cloud's warnings.

Cloud almost growled, but it turned into more of a grunt as he pushed himself up to stand. He then stalked over to the Psychiatrist who was distracted with his scribbling to see his patient walking to him. Cloud grabbed the clip board and snatched it from the psychiatrist, causing the man to gasp and look up.

"I'm warning you.." Cloud began.

"Are you threatening me?" the psychiatrist asked as he stood and backed away from Cloud.

"No. I'm trying to warn…" Cloud began, but was once more cut off.

"We can't have this aggression, Mr. Strife." He said in a warning tone.

"I'm not trying…." Cloud started to say as he moved closer to the psychiatrist to be interrupted for the last time as a needle was pushed into his neck and the contents emptied into his blood stream.

Cloud knocked the psychiatrist's hand away and yanked the needle from his neck. He then looked at the other man in surprise. The psychiatrist took the clipboard from Cloud's hand and scribbled some more on it. Cloud fell on the cot as he was starting to feel light headed and dizzy.

"We'll have to keep you on a sedative until you can learn to control your urges. We'll talk when you're more calm, Mr. Strife." The psychiatrist said as he picked the syringe up off the floor where Cloud had dropped it.

He put it in his pocket before looking at Cloud again, then turning and walking from the cell. The room was left in its silent darkness as Cloud sat on the cot, half slumped over against the wall. He felt like a zombie as he stared at the door unable to move and unable to really think at the moment. His eyes finally closed and he fell into darkness.

Everything seemed to go back to normal at the garden after Cloud had been taken away. The students didn't know anything had happened, so they continued as normal anyway. There were new nurses in the infirmary to replace the ones who had been so lax before. Squall had a mountain of paper work for various things including Cloud's imprisonment. Rinoa still did what she could to help Squall and would train from time to time with Selphie and Quistis. Everything was back to normal. That was as far as they knew. Rinoa was oddly full of energy these days and seemed to be growing stronger with her magic. Quistis and Selphie told her how amazed they were with her abilities and the control she displayed. She could only blush and thank them for their kind words. She herself didn't understand how she was getting so good, but figured it was thanks to the training. She felt great, better than ever in fact. Each morning she would wake up almost bouncing off the walls. Each night she would display a playfulness that had even Squall bewildered, but not at all displeased by it. He was use to her being active, she had just gotten more so with time he supposed.

Yes. Everything was normal at the garden and seemed to be getting better. Especially for the sorceress who lay dormant during the day inside her host, letting the woman use small portions of her stored up power she was taking from Cloud. During the nights after the host had exhausted herself with her man and had gone to sleep, the sorceress would use the energy to get back to where Cloud was. The desert prison did indeed have technology that blocked magic, but it didn't seem able to block the magic that the sorceress had gotten from Cloud. This made it easy for her to get in and out. It also made Cloud seem like a raving lunatic every time he tried to tell one of the guards or the psychiatrist about the sorceress' comings and goings. He was sedated a couple of more times after getting frustrated with the guards and the psychiatrist.

The sorceress was also making sure that Cloud was acting out as much as she could. She could delve deep into his mind and see the things even he couldn't remember. Things hidden away by the Mako and the torturous experimentation done on him by Hojo. In his dreams, whether it be at night or while he was sedated, she would give him glimpses of the horrible things done to him in the name of science. Sometimes they were so vivid it was like he was reliving them, or to him, like he was living them. Other times she would have him see glimpses of Aerith or the dark haired man from the picture Sephiroth had showed him at the crater. The man who had really been in the picture in Nibelheim. Cloud couldn't remember his name. Of course the Sorceress knew it. She wasn't about to tell him though. It made it all so much easier for people to think he was crazy when he was on the floor of his cell holding his head in agony. Things were going her way. She just had to keep it that way for a little longer. Once she had enough energy, she'd make her move.

He was in a tank full of green liquid looking out at a man with oily, stringy black hair tied back in a pony tail. The man was looking back at him with a sadistic smirk as he adjusted his glasses and said something to his lab assistant that Cloud couldn't really make out. Everything had that underwater sound to it. He was sure the liquid he was in wasn't water though, it was Mako.

Was this how he was created? Were all clones made like this?

He tried to push against the glass tank but it did him no good. He looked to his right and saw another tank with someone else in it. He squinted and tried to get a better look, but it was no good. He couldn't see the person well enough. He looked back ahead and saw the man with the stringy hair press a button. The liquid in the tank began to drain. Once it was completely empty of the liquid, Cloud found himself slumped against the side of the tank. His limbs wouldn't work for him, and even his head wanted to lull to the side.

Two lab assistants pulled him from the tank and dragged him over to a gurney. Once there they threw him on top of it before stepping aside. The man with the stringy hair walked over and began to examine Cloud closely. He adjusted his glasses and spoke to his assistants. To Cloud's surprise, he still couldn't understand them. It was almost like he was under water again. The voices were going in and out though as was his consciousness. He could see the stringy haired man and his assistants bright as day one moment, and the next he could see the guards of the D-District Pison along with the psychiatrist. This went on for a few moments, and then his weird in and out finally stopped with him back at the stringy haired man's lab.

"P….professor…..Ho…jo…" Cloud slurred out when he looked at the stringy haired man.

Prof. Hojo just grinned in a sadistic manner before talking to his assistants again. He then walked away while the two assistants moved and stripped Cloud down to his underwear as Hojo walked back over with a tray of medical instruments. He drew some blood from Cloud with a syringe and needle, then gave the sample to one of his assistants. After that he picked up a scalpel. This had Cloud's eyes going wide.

"…Jenova cells…see...the organs…" was all Cloud could make out of what Hojo was saying.

It was enough to send a chill down his spine, but the men in the room didn't seem to notice that Cloud had shivered. He watched to see if Hojo would get another syringe. The scientist would have to give him something so he wouldn't be able to feel the pain or so he assumed. He found out he was wrong on that assumption as he felt the cold metal of the scalpel bite into his skin, then slice down into flesh. Cloud gasped from the pain, but otherwise lay still. Hojo moved the scalpel from the top of Cloud's chest down almost to his navel as if he were pulling on a zipper instead of a sharp cutting tool. This action had Cloud cry out in pain, but the professor just continued his work. Hojo pulled the skin away so he could get a better look at the organs hidden within. To keep these from falling back to the sides, he used large heavy pin like tools to pin back the cut flesh. This was also painful and had Cloud screaming.

He was nearly delirious from the pain, but he knew it wasn't over. He forced himself to try and look at Hojo, but this gave him a view of his opened body and he turned his head to vomit. The professor seemed interested in watching Cloud's organs as he did this and taking inventory of everything. He murmured a few things to one of his assistance who scribbled whatever that was down on his clipboard.

Hojo then removed Cloud's gallbladder and appendix, seeing as these was organs that could be taken without it really affecting someone. Of course Cloud was reduced to screaming again from the pain of no anesthetics during these surgeries. He then did some scrapping on other organs to get some samples from them too. After, he unpinned what he had earlier pinned, then put it back where it went. He walked off murmuring to himself as an assistant pulled a cure materia from his pocket and used it to heal the incision wounds and anything else that may have been damaged during Hojo's explorations. After all, Hojo didn't want his specimens dead for his experiment. The pain didn't go away immediately, but once it did, Cloud tried to move.

Hojo was returning and talking to another assistant and didn't notice as Cloud slowly sat up. With strength he didn't think he had after that ordeal, Cloud launched himself from the gurney and slammed his fist right into Hojo's ugly face. Though as soon as his fist met skin, he saw the face change into that of the psychiatrist. He was back in the desert prison and blinked a couple of times in confusion as he looked around. He looked down to see he was still dressed and he felt no pain at all, so maybe that had been an illusion.

It didn't matter because the psychiatrist was crumpled to the floor and Cloud's cell door was wide open. He did what anyone would; he made a run for it. He ran from the cell and down a flight of stairs that led to what appeared to be a circular area. In the middle was a shaft that you could see the bottom of the prison at. He ran around the circle and come to another flight of stairs and quickly went down them. He come to another circular area identical to the last and started running around it.

Just as he was almost to the next flight of stairs, his vision started to swim and everything had an odd green hue to it. He shook his head and saw he was on the circular stairs leading down to the basement of Shinra Manor. He blinked in confusion. If he was in Shinra Manor shouldn't he be going up the stairs to get away from Hojo and not down? Was this an illusion and he was still in the prison and needed to continue down? He didn't know and his head was starting to ache. He took a breath and tried to figure out what he needed to do. Seeing as the scenery was staying the same, he turned and started running back up the stairs.

Hojo or not, Cloud wanted to get away from anyone with a lab coat as quickly as possible and he knew the basement was where the quack stayed. He continued until he was out of the corridor and into the bed room where the secret passage door led to. He was about to leave the room when two guards come in. These weren't Shinra guards though. They were D-District Prison guards. Cloud almost wanted to laugh hysterically. This was insane. Maybe he was insane after all. He didn't care though. He still wanted out of this place and he was going to regain his freedom if it meant going through these guards.

He was in no way near as good as Tifa at martial arts, but he'd picked up a little from her in their travels. He ran at them, then at the last moment, hit the floor in an attempt to sweep kick the nearest guards feet from under him. The move worked and the guard fell as Cloud jumped back to his feet and sent the heel of his hand at the bottom of the other guard's nose. This sent the bones of the guard nose up and into his brain, killing the guard instantly. Cloud started to run, but his ankle was grabbed by the first guard and thrown up to cause Cloud to trip and fall to the floor, banging his chin. He rolled over to jump up and face the guard, but before he could even get rolled over completely, the guard was on him.

The two struggled for a moment, rolling around on the floor. The guard finally ended up on top of Cloud and pinned his arms to the floor by his wrists, then headed butted Cloud hard in the face with his helmeted head. Cloud yelped as blood come from his damaged nose, but the pain only made Cloud angry and he was finally able to throw the guard off of him. Cloud moved and punched the guard a couple of times forcing him back. The guard stumbled until he fell through the door to the passage way and then fell down the shaft in the center, down to his death thirteen stories down.

Cloud blinked as he watched the man fall and saw that he was once more in the D-District Prison. He grabbed his head and stepped away from the shaft. He wanted these strange transitions to stop. He couldn't tell when or where he was and it was making escape impossible. He groaned and dropped his hands to his sides, then reached up to wipe the blood from his face where his nose was bleeding. Cursing his luck some, he turned only to have a nightstick slam against the side of his head knocking him out cold.

He awoke to find himself strapped into a strange cross shaped indention in a wall. The psychiatrist and some of the guards were walking around just under where he was strapped and talking in hushed tones. The psychiatrist looked up to see that Cloud was awake. Cloud could see a large bruise on the side of the psychiatrist's face along with some tape around the earpiece to his glasses on the same side of the face Cloud had punched.

"Mr. Strife, I'm glad to see you're awake. Today seemed like a good day to start some treatment for you." The psychiatrist explained.

"Treatment? What kind of treatment is given to someone held to a wall?" Cloud asked skeptically.

"Electroshock therapy. The machine you're in was once used for interrogations. It's been calibrated for use as a therapy tool." The psychiatrist said.

"Looks to me like you just want revenge for that bruise and broken glasses I gave you." Cloud said with an annoyed tone.

The psychiatrist gave Cloud an almost amused look before nodding some and saying, "Perhaps."

"You're a quack. You're not here to help anyone. You're only here to get a paycheck. You get some kind of thrill off of hurting others. I can see that now. You can't stand to get bested by someone else. I may be crazy, but at least I'm not a vindictive bastard." Cloud growled back.

The psychiatrist made a "humph" sound before motioning to the guards to start the "treatment".

The electricity entering his body had his muscles contracting and spasming causing him to clinch his teeth so he wouldn't cry out. As each electric shock was given at longer periods of time, they were finally able to get a strangled cry from him. Then the last shock, which seemed like the tenth, caused him to scream the entire time. What seemed like hours passed before he finally fell unconscious.

The Sorceress grinned as she stood up from where her host had been sleeping. The time to strike was now. She had just been to see Cloud and get more energy from him which was easy now that he was strapped down to his bed in his cell. His escape attempt causing the guards to not want to take any chances. After getting her fill, she had used the magic to get back to the garden and then lay down for a few moments. She wanted to make sure Squall was completely asleep. Once she was sure, she took control of her hosts body and started to change it's appearance into her own. Now with the high amount of Mako energy from Cloud, she could make this body her own. She walked over to where Squall had his gunblade leaning against a table, and picked it up. She then walked over to Squall and stood just above him.

"It's finally time for me to do what I should have from the beginning, rid myself of the SeeD that has gotten in my way." She said with a grin as she raised the gunblade over her head and started to bring it down on the head of Squall Leonheart.

Next: Chapter 3: Rescues