Heres chapter six! Enjoy!

Fenrir pulled on his master's jacket, warking hungrily. Flint cocked on eye open, breathing a sigh and getting to his feet.

The bird imitated him, shaking the snow from its feathers and sniffing at Flint's pocket.

Flint yawned, sticking his hand under his armpit to warm it, the other in the empty pocket, only to find a few morsels of grain entwined in pocket lint.

"Sorry Fenrir, that's all I've got." He said apologetically, patting the neglected Chocobo.

Nonetheless, with a small sigh, Fenrir gobbled the remnants, making odd clicking noises as he spit out the bits of lint.

"That's m'boy." Flint said, patting the bird as it nuzzled his arm.

Flint bent down beside him, looking at the bloodied feet that belonged to the animal. "Oh Fen, I'm sorry. I shoulda done this last night."

Fenrir looked at him through half lidded eyes, yawning and giving him a forgiving wark. Unusually sincere for a Chocobo, but then again, Flint reasoned, Fenrir was not a 'usual' Chocobo.

He looked at the animal, who had begun to preen, picking bits of twigs and ice out of his feathers, and smiled.

Fenrir looked up at him, cocking his head and looking as if he were trying to smile in return.

Flint thought back to when he'd first received the Chocobo. His father had been a big time Chocobo Racer, and had bred Fenrir from the best.

He had grown to love the bird, so his father gave it to him as a birthday present.

They had lived wealthily for a time, until his father had bet everything, including the estate, and lost it all.

They were forced to sell their share of the Chocobo stables, which meant Fenrir was part of the deal.

Flint had refused, running away with the bird and joining SOLDIER, recruiting Fenrir as a Messenger Bird, and himself as his rider.

That had been until Hojo had found him, asking him to attain the precious cargo that had been until now, one of the most protected objects on all of Gaia.

Flint told Hojo there was no way of attaining it, since it was under such strict guard, but he'd then been un aware of the connections Hojo had within SOLDIER, as well as a small group of

assassins, much like the Turks, called The Crimson Band that had helped him on his way to attaining Hojo's demand.

Knowing of his hate for Cloud, Hojo had used Flint's resentment against him, and had used him to capture the boy.

Flint doing his part by quitting SOLDIER and helping the Crimson Band act as a group of enemy spies, murdering everyone in the camp and injuring Cloud thoroughly enough to be taken

elsewhere for hospitalization.

He sighed. "If I'd known what Hojo was going to do to Cloud, I wouldn't have helped him you know."

He said to the Chocobo, who warked in reply.

He sighed, frustrated, and set about making a fire. Once he'd gotten it going, he took a small bowl from his pack, filling it with snow, and putting it on the fire to boil.

He tore strips from his shirt, and soaked them in the steaming water, gently rubbing them on Fenrir's legs and feet, cleaning the dried blood and mud from their surface.

The Chocobo sighed in pleasure, letting out a wark and a low whistle.

"I'm sorry boy." He said as he finished, but the Chocobo just made an odd noise in its throat, nudging him playfully.

If Flint hadn't known better, he could have sworn the thing was laughing at him.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Cloud awoke to a green landscape. The room spun lazily before him, and everything was cast in a green light.

He could hear something beeping quite ferociously beside him, and could tell he was hooked up to dozens of machines.

He winced internally as he was reminded of the pain, which had been numbed to a dull throb, still there nonetheless.

He tried to sit up, but his chest was numb, as were all the muscles inside it. In fact, he was unable to move at all.

Only his eyelids were able to open and close, and that alone was a feat.

Where am I? A hospital?

With great strain, he managed to role his eyes around the room, and was able to see vaguely his surroundings.

Ugly machines surrounded him, flashing and beeping at various intervals, wires and plugs all leading to him.

If he could just tilt his head enough to see his body... He forced his eyes to look as far down as they would go, but pain enveloped his head, and he became dizzy.

"That is not wise, Mr. Strife." A voice said quietly.

Cloud rolled his eyes over to the door, seeing a man in a long white lab coat.

He came into the light, pulling off his surgical mask to reveal his face.

Cloud recognized the 'doctor' from the infirmary tent at the camp, but something else came to him when seeing his face-

He had seen this man before...

______

Cloud looked up nervously at the sign in front of him. MAKO INJECTIONS it read.

He paled, watching as they wheeled out another SOLDIER in a stretcher.

Whether he'd passed out, or was dead, Cloud couldn't tell. This was one of many previous patients, all baring the same expression.

One of complete pallor and shock, their dead eyes pure green, a sign of mako running through their veins.

Strife, Cloud

A man called out, and he stood, walking over to the doorway. A raven-haired man gave him a reassuring smile and a pat on the back before he walked in. Cloud froze, seeing the face of Zack Fair

smiling down at him.

Cloud gawked stupidly at the older SOLDIER he had heard so much about, and smiled uncertainly in return before scrambling into the room.

"Ahh, so this is the Strife boy." The man mused, as Cloud sat down in the chair.

The chair remindedhim of the dentist's in Nibelheim.

He hated the dentist.

The man who stood before him wore a long white lab coat and glasses over his hooked nose. He peered bemusedly over the glasses.

"So Strife, why did you join SOLDIER?" Cloud shrugged, not answering, watching nervously as another masked doctor began taking his pulse.

The man gave a low chuckle, latching metal bands over Cloud's wrists and legs.

"What are those for?"

"I'll answer your question, if you'll answer mine." He said, his eyes flashing over the small spectacles that sat mockingly on the curved bridge of his nose.

"I joined SOLDIER because... um..." Cloud paused, lowering his eyes. "I wanted to be like Sephiroth..." he muttered.

The man in the lab coat chuckled.

"I answered yours." Cloud said.

"Well Mr. Strife, we don't want you to thrash around during your injection. It's a little different than everyone else's. And I think it might sting a little."

He said, pulling out a long tube and a syringe from the pocket of his lab coat. Cloud's eyes widened,

"What-"

he was cut off as the doctor stabbed a thick

florescent tube into his arm.

The room was filled with screaming...

Okay, if you're wondering how glasses can sit 'mockingly' on someone's nose, don't ask, just pretend they can okay! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I did not abuse poor Fenrir in this one, but aided him, to make up for the abuse in earlier chapters. I apologize, once again for the shortness :) I hope this one cleared it up a little more... I probably should've spaced it out a bit more, but I'll try in the next chapter,

Thanks for reading,

Lucifer