Three sisters, three rebels, and a dying man sat around a big, round, wooden table. The rebels were exchanging confused looks. The sisters were the source of the confusion - ever since the very audible, very peculiar sounding alarm had blasted its way down the mountains and into the cozy, little home of theirs, they had simply stared off into nothing with their heads slightly tilted. Their pupils had seem to shrink, and now they also seemed to glow a soft silverish color. Putter raised his hand and waived it a few times in front of Mindy's face. She gave no sign of acknowledgment whatsoever. The last man at the table, the dying one, stood up and pushed his chair in behind him.

"I think," He began, shooting a look at each of his three rebel companions. "It's time for us to leave."

"I think you might be right." Loeb agreed nervously eyeing down the sisters. Without any more spoken agreements, they all proceeded to politely push their chairs in - and get the HELL out of there. Cloud opened the front door - night had settled in outside now - and stepped out. Teioh was right behind him, but as his leg was crossing the threshold, he felt arms around his waist. Before he had a chance to let out a confused "What the hell?", he was flying through the air. Not flying in the sense that he had spread his wings and was gracefully gliding through the wind - more in the sense that he had been flung, and hard, by someone, and was now clumsily sailing toward a head-on collision with the wall at the opposite end of the room.

Luckily for him, Putter managed to step in the way of his unfortunate target and instead of getting a busted head, he tumbled on top of the pudgy man, sending them both plummeting to the ground. They hit and rolled backwards a bit, crashing into the kitchen counter that separated the kitchen from the dining/living room. Loud noises of pots and pans being shaken and dropped came next. When they both managed to get to their feet - after fighting with each other to get untangled - they saw Teioh's flinger standing in front of the, now-closed, door with her arms on her hips.

Cindy grinned evilly at them.

Teioh stared at her in surprise, before fast motion to his left caught his attention. He glanced over to see Loeb and the middle sister, Sandy, engaged in a sort of wrestling match. Each had one anothers arms gripped tightly, and were locked in a battle of strength which, surprisingly, seemed to be dead even. Teioh looked back at the oldest sister, who hadn't budged, then over at Putter.

Putter looked just as confused as he was, giving him a shrug and a clueless arm gesture.

CLANG.

Putter's eyes went crisscrossed, and then he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, landing with a loud bang. Teioh looked down at him, then behind where he was standing - only to see the youngest of the three sisters, Mindy, holding a giant frying pan and grinning that toothy grin of hers (which was now much more terrifying than cute). Before, Teioh had thought the girl reminded him of a cartoon, now she had just about confirmed his suspicions. Who hit people with frying pans? Cartoons, that's who.

If this girl was a cartoon character, right now she looked like one that would be at the welcoming wagon to hell. Her eyes, silver slivers, shone with pure joy as she began pacing towards Teioh, still wearing that goofy smile. He began backing up. She traced his movements, only in forward gear. She began giggling as she stepped over his fallen comrades unconscious body. Putter stirred a bit as she did. Teioh knew he would have to make a move against her soon, or she was going to lead him back-first into the wrestling match that was going on behind him.

Turns on he didn't have to.

Putter, still not all together, had enough mindset to grab the girls ankle, which cause her to look back down at him, which in turn gave Teioh the open shot he was looking for. He began to move towards the distracted cartoon-like chick, but felt something hard hit his stomach. It knocked the wind out of him and made him double up. He let out a deep cough as he closed his eyes in pain and fell to his knees. Just as he did though, the source of the pain (which had been a hard right uppercut to his gut) grabbed him by his hair and wrenched his head back. His eyes met Cindy's, who hovered above him with that same smirk from before. She thrust an elbow down at him, which seemed to fit snuggly into his right eye socket as it struck. He immediately fell backwards holding his eye, landing on his back on the floor. Before he had time to even asses the injury, he felt the tip of an iron-toed boot being launched into his stomach. He coughed again, this time there was probably some blood mixed in with it.

On the left side of the room, Loeb had managed to out-strength his competition, pinning her arms to the wall behind her. She struggled furiously, but he had his weight pushing up against her now. He was just about ready to ask her what the hell their problems were when she chucked her head at his at break-neck speed. He felt his nose crack, and almost instantly his eyes were watering and he was stumbling backwards. Stumbling backwards right into Cindy, who grabbed him by the neck and flung him onto the dining table, landing on it and tipping the whole thing over on its side.

Just as the table flipped, Mindy had launched herself onto Putters back - who had just now risen to his feet. The tiny lady wrapped her arms around his neck, and her legs around his stomach - crossing her feet in front and squeezing tightly. He put his head back and cringed in pain, but as he did that the blond sunk her teeth into his shoulder. He cried out in pain before using all his strength to fling her over the front of his shoulder. She went sailing into her oldest sister, causing her to stumble backwards while catching the blond in her arms.

Teioh, who had managed some recuperation time with Cindy going after Loeb, got to his feet and took advantage of the situation. He sent a kick hard into Mindy's back, which in turn sent Cindy (who was holding her) falling onto her ass with her sisters body on top of her. Before he could follow up the attack, Sandy had jumped over her two fallen siblings and was throwing punches and kicks at Teioh as rapidly as he had ever seen. He blocked on kick with the outside of his forearm. Another with his own leg. A three-piece punching combo came exploding at him, which he skillfully blocked with a defensive stance and some well-placed slaps. Sandy, obviously becoming frustrated, reached for a nearby pot and quickly swung it at Teioh's face all in one smooth motion. Teioh felt it graze his nose as he jolted his head back, barely in the nick of time. Just as he did that, though, she used the opportunity to land a strong, sideways kick into his gut - sending him crashing backwards much like he had just did to the other two sisters.

The other two sisters were back on their feet now, and joined their middle sibling in attack-ready positions.

Teioh and Putter exchanged tired, dreadful looks. They couldn't win this fight - the girls didn't even seem to be getting worn out, let alone hurt. Watching their third companion, Loeb, slowly crawl to his feet with the aid of the tipped table only confirmed what bad shape they were in.

Loeb stumbled over to his fellow rebels, and the lines were drawn. In the red corner; Team Rebel. In the blue corner; Team Crazy-Sisters. If there was a referee, Teioh thought he would have already called it a no contest in favor of the blue corner. But he knew they had to try. He looked back and forth between his two team mates and nodded his head, trying to fill them with some confidence. He was met with two unsure pairs of eyes - which was how he felt himself.

The sisters began stalking toward them. Almost to accentuate how dangerous they were, a loud crack of thunder came barreling in from outside, shaking up anything in the room small enough to be shook. That included Teioh's confidence.

Suddenly, Cindy - who was leading the crazed trio - stopped and gestured for the others to as well with a raise of her hand. She smirked something wicked. None of the three rebels liked it. They watched her as she seemed to be on the verge of busting out in laughter as she walked over to the fallen dining table, where she stopped and shot a look at them that made their skin crawl. They watched as her left hand slowly raised up to the light that was hanging over the remains of the table and wrapped its fingers around the knob. She shot them one last, skin-crawling, stomach-turning smile.

And then they were in darkness. Complete and total darkness. That is, except for the three pairs of silver slivers that now floated without bodies across from them. Teioh instantly realized they could probably see in the dark and what little confidence he had left, shrunk down to the size of a peanut before disappearing completely.

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Cloud stepped outside into the cold night air, that had begun to be littered with tiny drops of rain. Instantly he knew there would be a full fledged storm on it's way… it was just something in the air. He turned back - only to see the door slammed hard in his face. He instantly wrapped his hands around the knob and tried opening it, but it had been locked. He took a step back and gave it a hard kick - no dice. Another - same result. He placed the palms of his hand on the door and listened as a commotion began inside. No, not a commotion. A fight. He rapidly twisted the knob of the door again before turning to his side and ramming it with his shoulder. It hurt. Everything hurt in his condition, but this really hurt.

God damn.

He moved over to the one, sole window at the front of the house and tried peering in. All he saw was a metal slab of something, and a handful of rain drops racing down the glass. He had wondered why it'd been so dark inside, even in the daylight. Now he knew, and he felt like a fool for not picking it up sooner.

He wasn't sure if this was Shinra, the cult, or just some chicks doing, but he knew it was bad. They had to get to those mountains, and they had to get their fast. Tifa - no, Tifa and Marlene were counting on them. Maybe with their lives. They didn't have time to shit around with these people. He began to run his hands around the windows edges, hoping for a way to pop out the frame and maybe get a better look at the structure of metal inside, when he smelt it.

New and sharp, but somehow at the same time it lingered with a musty, old stench that usually only accompanied expired foods, or the rotting dead. Cheap; that was definite. Probably bought off some street-peddler in the higher class section of Midgar. Probably got told he was getting a bargain. A "Real Steal". Probably used it to cover up the true smell of him.

Pipe-swinger, in all his cheap-smelling-cologne glory. He turned around and his eyes confirmed what his mind already knew. There out in the drizzling rain and the dark blanket of the night sky stood the devil himself - a brand-new pipe at the end of one arm (Cloud had hacked the other pipe in two), and a tightly clenched fist at the end of another. His big, oversized head held a soaked mop of hair on top of it. Cloud knew it was rain, but imagined it more as sweat. Probably didn't take much to make this guy sweat buckets - he was, after all, a giant compared to regular people.

He was slowly walking toward Cloud like some lumbering monster out of a childrens story. Cloud let out a long breath and stared at the ground for a moment. He prayed his condition didn't kick up while this was going on. The last time he had encountered the pipe-swinger, he got lucky. He tricked the big goof into a clumsy move - out here in the wide-open circle of Nibelheims center, it wouldn't be that easy. He would have to out skill his opponent, not just out think.

If there was a tremor of a spasm in his body, he wished it would come out now. But it did not, and his time was running down. The man was only a few yards away from him.

He spit. A trick he picked up from Loeb, who had told him spitting helped him relax. Kind of like he was spitting out all his worries before a fight, or spitting out the bad taste of a worse situation. Cloud didn't know if it would work, but he had to try. He had to hope. He spit - and then he moved.

The pipe-swinger stopped and planted his feet at the sight of the oncoming old man - who charged at him with the ferocious intensity of a much younger one. Cloud pulled his sword out of it's sheath behind his back as he ran, yanking it out and leaping up all at the same time. He came down with the sword in a ready-to-cut position. The pipe-swinger, learning his lesson from last time - did not block the sword with a bunt-positioned pipe. Instead, he cocked it back and swung it as hard as he could, smashing into the side of the sword and steering all Clouds momentum to the left. Cloud stumbled on his feet, came to a slow stop and spun around. The pipe swinger was charging him. He prepared for a defensive counter, but his concentration was broken by an ear-deafening crack of thunder that seemed only inches away from his head. It was actually just outside town, but when you're that close - it didn't matter.

The pipe-swinger swung, and landed a blow to the side of Cloud's head. The crack of the thunder in his ear was nothing compared to the crack of the pipe into the side of his skull. He felt his whole head spin on the way to the ground. Landing on his side, his face fell into a small pool of mud that had formed from the rain. He coughed, sending a ripple through the puddles surface.

If this was Cloud from twenty years ago - hell, if it was Cloud from maybe only a few days ago - he would have been on his feet in seconds. But that Cloud had passed, so to speak, and the old man with a fatal disease couldn't help but lie there for a bit, recovering from the blow.

He placed his hands underneath his chest and had to struggle to raise himself up. His whole body pulsed in pain, even though he had only taken one blow. When his arms had fully extended, and he was ready to get to his feet, he felt the pipe-swingers boot crash into his back, sending him face-first back into the puddle beneath him. Water exploded from beneath his head as he got a mouth and nose full of muddy water.

"Not so tough now, are ya?" Pipe-swinger said cockily, hovering above him. He put his hands underneath himself again and tried pushing himself up. This time the pipe-swinger swung his foot into Cloud's side, flipping him onto his side on the ground. He let out a cough that he wasn't sure was from the kick, or the muddy water that still seemed to be floating around in his throat. "Get up." The pipe-swinger commanded. Cloud lifted himself again. Again, the man kicked him, hard enough to flip him onto his back this time.

Cloud stared up at the sky. Tiny drops of rain dotted his face as he took deep breaths. It was at that moment he realized he could not win this fight. Not in his condition. He closed his eyes and grimaced. The pipe-swingers blows hurt him. Hurt him badly. But admitting he couldn't win… that was a pain that ran much deeper than any blow he could receive. The worst part was, he knew if he died here - if he kicked the bucket on the ground of his hometown - that Tifa would inevitably suffer the same fate.

Son of a bitch.

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Teioh, Loeb and Putter stood beside each other in the blackness of the house. Six silver slivers floated closer and closer towards them.

"What the hell do we do man?" Putter asked nervously. His eyes darted back and forth between the black faces that were just barely visible from the glow of their eyes.

"Relax." Teioh said, but it didn't sound very convincing. He thought about making a move for the light or, perhaps, the door. Neither seemed reasonable due to the fact that he couldn't see where they were, and the sisters could see him.

Suddenly, the eyes (or at least what seemed like eyes) came floating at them quickly. All three rebels tried to defend themselves, but it was no use. They were all wiped out in a matter of seconds - hard blows landing in their bodies, faces, and everywhere in between.

Teioh lay on the floor as the darkness, the real darkness, swelled in his head to the size of an ocean - an ocean that he was about to drown in, and he knew his friends weren't far behind. He slipped into unconsciousness.

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The pipe-swinger began circling Cloud's beaten and bruised body on the ground, wearing a sadistic grin as he did. Cloud began to turn onto his side to get back up again, but was once more met with a hard kick into his abdomen. The kick struck him like a stone thrown in a puddle - the pain seemed to spread out from the point of impact. His whole body screamed at him. He fell over and coughed a deep, sickly-sounding cough. He felt his shoulder scrape across the dirt and rocks that made up the ground of Nibelheims town center. He felt his throat begin to dry, almost as if he was getting a cold. He felt his ear strike a particularly point rock that must have been in the perfect spot to get him. He felt it bleed. He felt his hands stiffen like they were struck with a sudden case of instant arthritis. He felt his breaths become sharper, and closer together. Most of all though, he felt the cold chill of Death's air on the back of his neck.

Looking into the sky, he wasn't sure if he was hallucinating. Was that a vulture? Some godless SOB who happened to pick the perfect spot on the perfect day, and was about to find himself one perfectly dead Cloud. No. He squinted into the dreary night sky. A rain drop fell into his eye. He blinked it away, and then he was sure of what he saw. It wasn't a vulture, but a giant, winged, monster. He shook his head and opened his eyes a little wider. It was circling his position - or maybe he was just imaging that - just above the rooftops of the Nibelheim homes. The set sun still gave off just enough light to make out its figure. Which was, in one word, terrifying. A faceless mass in the stormy sky.

Cloud laughed to himself. Maybe that was what everyone saw before they died. Maybe that was Death. Or maybe, Death was a manifestation of your lives deeds. Maybe it was a reflection on the storybook of your entire time on the planet. Maybe once, twenty years ago or so, it would have been an angel up there, waiting to take him away. Certainly not now. Certainly not after he'd turned his back on an entire planet full of needful people. That's why he laughed to himself. He found it funny. He had to.

The pipe-swinger grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him to his knees. He didn't even put up a struggle. Next, he felt his face being smashed in by the pipe-swingers knee - which sent him crumbling to the muddy ground like his soul had just been ripped out of him.

He coughed again. Definitely blood in it this time. The piper swinger strolled over to him and hovered above him with his hands on his hips. Cloud was looking up, but not at him. He still watched the menacing bird-creature in the sky, who had seemed to slow down in preparation to watch the kill. The pipe-swinger bent over and yanked Cloud's sword out of his stiff fingers. Two seconds or so after it was already gone, his fingers closed around an invisible handle, searching for their life-long friend. The pipe-swinger examined the sword. He looked it up and down. He smelt it. He played with it.

Cloud watched, and for a moment, he felt like his best friend had betrayed him. He hated how the sword instantly took to a new master so quickly. How it allowed itself to be wielded by such a piece of shit. His empty hand gripped around the invisible handle a little tighter, almost into a clenched fist. He wanted it back.

The pipe-swinger held it up and pointed to it, teasing him. "This?", his expression cold-heartedly asked. Cloud felt his arm moving up to take the sword all on its own. It moved slowly… weakly… shakily. The pipe-swinger laughed at this heartily. He held the sword, handle out first, down towards Cloud. When it was just within his reach the man quickly jerked it away and watched Cloud's arm swing and fall to the mud below. It landed with a soft plop - at which the pipe-swinger laughed again. Cloud coughed. The man held it out again. This time, Cloud was going to try to make a quick swipe at it with his other hand. Catch the bastard off guard. He waited for the perfect moment as the man slowly inched it closer and closer to him. When the perfect moment arose, it was quickly taken away.

His left arm stiffened in pain. A muscle spasm. A god damned muscle spasm, now of all times. He grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand and arched his back. These things were getting worse. Getting more painful. This one seemed to be tearing his arm right of its socket. Cloud once again found humor. One last reminder of the loser he really was. Nothing more than a confused, old, idiot, who was unlucky enough to get experimented on when he was a confused, young, idiot. And now, decades later, he would pay the price. He would pay the price for everything, and everyone.

The pipe-swinger frowned down at him. He shrugged and raised the sword.

Cloud looked up at it, but he wasn't really watching at all. He watched the creature in the sky, who suddenly took on a familiar look.

The pipe-swinger thrust the sword downwards.

The creature wasn't a creature. It was a girl. An innocent girl with big, beautiful eyes and a bigger, more beautiful smile. She held a flower in her hand.

"Cloud?"

The voice. Even as death was hurdling at him faster than a bullet, he still found the beauty in that voice.

The pipe-swinger, in a big surge of power, pierced Cloud's own sword into his stomach.

He searched for a breath, but it didn't come. He tried to blink, but his eyes didn't work anymore. He wanted to cry, but the best he would get was the trickle of rain down the side of his face. His mouth hung open, still searching for a breath, a word, anything.

"Cloud?"

Yea… I'm coming.

And then, in his head, a miracle happened. Time began to reverse. He looked down at his hands and watched as his disease finally gave up on him. He was doing it! He was getting better -and fast. His face lit up with pure awe and joy as the last of the disease passed. His trembling fingers found their way to his face. Smooth. He was young again. Not young as in his twenties, but his true age. His real age, and that was a hell of a lot better than the Sixty-something he had felt and looked before. He ran his hands through his hair. It wasn't stiff and straw-like anymore. It felt like… hair again. He tested his muscles and joints. They worked to perfection. He was better.

He felt his emotion swell like the grandest moment of a sympathy. It burst through, filling his eyes with tears. He was OK. He was going to be OK.

But then he kept feeling time reverse. He watched as the twenty years of his life he'd spent alone were washed away like dirt on a windshield. They played out in front of him like some boring old movie he'd seen a thousand times. And then suddenly, he was back. Back with everyone he knew. Everyone he cared about. He was fighting for the planet - getting rid of all the scum that inhabited it. He was a hero again.

Barret. Yuffie. Cid. Vincent. Red XIII. Cait Sith. He looked at them all like he had found a piece of his heart that'd been missing for a very long time.

Then he felt something strange in his chest. It was love. He looked at Tifa. He did love her. It took him all this time, but he finally realized it. He did. He couldn't believe what a fool he'd been. And now that he finally knew the truth, there was nothing he could do about it. He ran to her but this show didn't slow down for no one.

He watched as that time passed like seconds on a clock, and he suddenly was a teenager. A lowly foot soldier in Shinras army. A nothing again. He didn't like that. He didn't like that way it made him feel. He wanted to be back - back in love. Back where he was happy.

Almost an answer to his prayers, he was back with Tifa. But now, they were just kids in Nibelheim. Foolish kids who didn't have a clue that their lives would become so important to the planet. He saw her and wanted to run to her. Not to hold her, but to warn her - warn her not to get caught up with this Cloud guy. He's no good… he'll only break your heart later on when you need him the most.

But as he ran to her, he grew younger - and she, more distant. He was suddenly a boy again. A boy sitting at home in his bed. His mom making something in the kitchen. He looked over at her. She smiled at him and opened her arms.

He went to her, but by the time he reached her, he was a baby again and she was cradling him in her arms. He looked up at her, but she wasn't his mom anymore. He was staring up at the flower girl he would see in the sky many years later. But then again, he knew he wouldn't see anyone in the sky. Because he was a just a baby, and he knew that everything he'd seen was just a silly dream.

A silly, babies dream.

Time kept pushing back. And then it pushed back so far - it was as if he'd never been born at all.

Just a dream.

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Outside Cloud's head, an old man simply lied motionless in a puddle of mud.

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