Oh I'm on a roll. Not only have I posted three in three days. I've just posted a Seifer/Squall type video on youtube. If you're interested, i'm CrystiliaAerosine there too. Modern Warfare has to be updated today.

I wanna get Cloud and Seifer back in the same room so badly. So the beginning of this story will be taking small time skips of about ten-twenty minutes between chapters.

I have to say that my explanation for Shiva's presence on both planets is kick ass. And it actually makes quite a bit of sense. Well I hope so at least. Oh and I'm naming the planet Radiant Garden because it lacks a name, and not only does Squall/Leon have KH2 connections with Radiant Garden, but I felt it was fitting because the military facilities are called Gardens. :D

Dragi - Thank you for your reviews :D! I'm glad you find it interesting so far.

Floating Garden

The rest of the meeting went smoothly with all of us agreeing that I needed to be taken on a tour of Balamb Garden. Everyone wanted to come along and this left us wandering the halls of the large floating base. The size of the ship reminds me of The Shera, Cid's prized possession, but I can already tell that, as a ship, The Shera is much more sophisticated. Already I'm figuring out that this planet is at least a couple centuries behind ours, but maybe that's a good thing. No mako pollution, plenty of vegetation, clean water, and no tyrannical leaders controlling the globe, at least not yet. They tell me that another ship like this one, Galbadia Garden is trying to take over the planet because they're being controlled by the sorceress Ultimecia. It's not surprising, but it's obviously a sore subject for the tight-knit group leading me around.

Squall has been on edge since our staring match earlier and I can't help but feel a little smug about it, probably a sign that I've been drinking with Reno too often. I halt my musing as we reach the first destination, the Headmaster's office. Squall leads us inside and there is a man sitting at a desk, reading over a long report and frowning so deeply that he must be creating wrinkles by the second.

"Cid." The man looks up as he's addressed by Squall. He scans his eyes over the group with a mixture of hope and terror that I can't explain, but, as Squall shakes his head slightly, it melts away. Finally his eyes land on me and I meet them fearlessly, and the result involves a slight cringe on his part. He stands somewhat clumsily, and extends a hand in my direction.

"I'm Cid Kramer, the Headmaster of Balamb Garden. And you would be?" I shake his hand, careful not to squeeze as it's obvious that the man could be in better physical shape. The grip was still apparently strong as Cid shakes his hand slightly when he's withdrawn it. "My, my what a strong boy." I nearly smirk at being called a boy again. With my cells I could be in my forties and still look like a twenty-one year old.

"I'm Cloud Strife, ex-SOLDIER for the ShinRa army on the planet Gaia. I was transported here by an enemy and now I need to get back," I keep the introduction short and calm, not looking to frighten the man or contradict the story I told the rest of them. If I mentioned that I was barely considered human, it could result in panic and unwillingness to help. So I figure it best to play the innocent protagonist from a neighboring world. The story was still surprising to the man as his eyebrows shot straight up.

"From another planet? What would you be doing here? How interesting." I nod at him, having predicted the shocked response. It wasn't every day that an alien came crashing down on your planet. Thank Shiva, or we'd have hundreds of Jenovas by now. Thinking of Shiva causes me to look down at my bangle wear her materia resides. The fear of not being able to use materia here causes me to send a very faint current of power to her, and I'm relieved to feel the materia grow cold in preparation for summoning. At least I have materia.

A quick jerk from Squall distracts me and I turn sharply towards him, unconsciously ready for an attack. But the boy doesn't attack; in fact he's got a strange look of concentration on his face. The group grows worried almost instantly.

"Squall? Are you alright?" It was one called Zell, with the tattoo, who spoke out first. Squall just shakes his head and raises a hand to his temple. Shiva pulses in her materia and suddenly I understand.

"You have summons here," it was a statement not a question, but somehow I still got a confused look. Maybe they're not called summons here. "Shiva, Ice Queen." That gets a response from Squall who has an unbridled look of shock on his face. So I was right.

"Yes, we call them Guardian Forces. Shiva is junctioned to me. You can summon her too?" I nod at Squall and bring a hand to my bangle. I pull her materia out of the bangle and holds it up. The entire group looks on in awe as I channel power to it, asking her not to summon with grandiose whirlwinds this time. She agrees and she is summoned only a few feet away, the Ice Queen in all her glory. Squall's eyes are wide as she appears, and Shiva looks from person to person.

Her eyes land on me first, smiling reaching out a hand. She loves to be summoned and she knows she's my favorite summon. I let her run her hand through my hair, enjoying the cool skin of the Ice Goddess.

"Hello Shiva. How have you been?" She smiles wider and presses a kiss to my hair, causing my soft hair to almost freeze.

"I've been fine, my lovely wolf. Ah!" Her eyes fall on Squall who is looking at her in confusion, more so than everyone else around him. She walks forward, forgetting about me, and pulls Squall into a hug. "My little lion!" Squall just sighs and lays his head on her breast as she strokes his hair like she did mine. I smile as his hair does freeze, snowflakes raining down on him. She stays content in petting Squall for the moment as I shrug at everyone else in the room. Her complacent nature, however, is quickly replaced with confusion. She turns back to me, still cradling Squall and looks me in the eye. "How is this possible, Fenrir?" I smile at her as she addresses me in Nibel.

"Sephiroth sent me here." The statement was concise, but it still resulted in fury erupting on the normally content face of the Ice Queen.

"Where is he? The Spawn of Jenova attempt to harm my Fenrir again? I'll show him the true wrath of Nibelheiman Goddesses." Shiva is a Goddess who was born at the peak of the Mt. Nibel, the coldest place on Gaia. They say the peak is so cold that it can freeze water into diamonds. This makes it odd that Shiva can be summoned here too.

"Shiva, with all due respect, how are you known here? I thought you were born on Gaia?" Shiva looks confused for a moment, dampening her fury.

"My wolf, I've never told you the story of how a group of Cetra fled Gaia when Jenova came to the planet? They fled here, a then-uninhabited planet, to start over. They renamed themselves the Centra and began worshipping the strongest of the Centra, a man known as Hyne, who was a powerful Sorcerer. He created life on this planet, making them the same as they were made on Gaia. They hoped to never allow Jenova the chance to come here, so they instilled the power of magic into certain families, appearing most often in women. This magic travelled through the generations, giving the people the ability to fight Jenova should she ever come, and it still lives in the Sorceresses of the planet. This magic gave the people the ability to channel me and others here from Gaia. The magic has spread so far through the population, thinning radically before reaching a stable point where most everyone has the same amount of magic, so that anyone can summon us if they junction our spirits to theirs. However this magic is detrimental to the people using it, unless they are descended from Centra, so they gave to sacrifice their memories each time they summon us. This means that over time the true magic used to summon us was forgotten, so that it was only recently rediscovered. Now only SeeDs, like my lion here, can summon us."

It's not a hard story to believe. What I know about the Cetra is enough to tell me that the story is accurate. Still it's odd to think that this planet was more or less colonized by the same people who I fight for on Gaia. Does that mean that there is a Lifestream too? It certainly explains why we're more advanced; we've had much longer to develop. But it also means that this planet is much healthier than Gaia. I shake my head and decide to think on it later. I look back to Shiva and smile.

"Thank you for the story. I'll summon you later, okay?" She smiles back and nods. I slowly bring her back into the materia as she fades away from her place holding Squall. Squall straightens up and looks back to me with a look of understanding on his face. It's reassuring to know that we're cut from the same cloth at least.