Disclaimer - I don't own Final Fantasy VII or its characters.


The World's End Part 1

'What the fucking hell?!' Someone shouted loudly in the intercom. Cloud and Moon quickly let go of each other in surprised. 'What's the fucking hell going on there?!'

The Ex-SOLDIER looked over the railing, narrowing his eyes slightly he could see more or less clearly black smokes rising and fire burning Midgar. Is JENOVA already making her move?

'Highwind! Full speed ahead!' Cloud heard Genesis ordered in the intercom.

'HEY! I'M THE CAPTAIN HERE!'

If it wasn't because of the gravity of the situation, Cloud would have laughed out loud. He quickly got over to the speaker next to the door, pressing the button which connected the speaker to the Command Deck and spoke into it: 'We have to hurry Cid! We don't know how much time we have left before JENOVA blows the whole place up!'

'YOU GUYS SHUT THE HELL UP! OR I'LL THROW ALL OF YOU OFF BOARD! I'M THE CAPTAIN HERE! SO I DECIDE WHAT TO DO!' The young blond winced at the volume of the angry voice through the intercom. Having enhanced hearing could be a problem sometimes. 'SO SHUT UP AND HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!'

As he finished that sentence, the ship shook a little before it rushed towards the flaming city. Cloud lost his balance when the airship did that, but he was quickly caught by Moon who held him close as the view of Midgar grew bigger and bigger as they approached it.

When the Highwind was hovering a feet from the ground near the main gates of Midgar, Cloud jumped over the railing, followed by Moon who flew instead, and landed gracefully on the ground. Then he looked up to see Kadaj, Vincent and Genesis jumping off the Main Deck.

'The old man's going to stay in his ship, so it'll be up and running whenever we need it.' The silver hair teen told Cloud as they were about to go through the gate.

'HEY! WAIT UP!' They heard someone shouted above them, they looked back to see a little short black hair girl jumping on the Main Deck. 'I'M COMING TOO!'

'No, Yuffie, you are going to stay there!' The blond yelled out as he pointed at the girl who looked at him in surprise, he had completely forgot that they have really met yet, but the presentation will have to wait. 'And beside, we need someone to guard the ship from the monster, good luck!'

With that Cloud and the others just ran towards the main street without looking back, even though the blond knew that the little ninja could be quite persistence sometimes, but they don't have time to argue.

'Kadaj, can you sense where JENOVA is?' The blond hair warrior asked as they turned to a narrow alley that leads to the Loveless Street.

'I could sense her, but faintly, it's like she is very far away, but close to us at the same time.' Kadaj replied as he tried to concentrate harder to locate the alien life form.

'Is she still in the Lifestreams?' Cloud asked as they ran down the stairs.

Before the silver hair teen could reply dozen of black creatures jumped out of no where, baring their fangs and claws at them. The Ex-SOLDIER's blue eyes flared up instantly, his arm outstretched as he shouted: 'Get out of my way!'

All the beasts instantly turned into ice and shattered into million of pieces. Kadaj let out a small whistle as he said: 'That's one heck of a ice spell you used Nii-san.'

That's not exactly what I expect to cast, but still it's great. Cloud thought as they reached the Loveless Street where a pack of the shadow beasts were surrounding Director Lazard and the red lion-like beast, that he knew as Nanaki or Red XIII from his future self's memories. The Ex-SOLDIER was about to lift his hand up to cast another powerful ice spell, but Moon and Genesis beat him to it, both of them summoned dozen of fireballs and incinerated the whole pack in a minute. When the flames disappeared, Cloud rushed towards the man and the beast.

'Director! Are you alright?' The blond hair swordsman asked Lazard.

'Yes, I'm fine, Strife, thanks to my feline friend here that I had freed from the lab when these monsters attacked the building.' The blond hair man gestured to the beast beside him. 'And your help of course.'

'I see.' Cloud knelt next to the red lion-like creature. 'Thank you Nanaki, are you injured?'

The beast blinked in surprised before it replied: 'I'm not injured, but how did you know my name?'

The blond hair warrior smiled as he patted the beast's head affectionately and answered: 'Let's just say that a friend of mine told me a little bit about you.'

Then he got up and asked the Director of SOLDIER: 'Sir, what did happen inside the building?'

Lazard adjusted his glasses before he said: 'Well, Sephiroth, Angeal, Zack and everyone had returned from their assignments, they were about to report to me, when suddenly these monsters came out of no where and started causing havocs both inside and outside of the building, everything is out of control. I have sent every SOLDIER I had to help the employees and the civilians. Angeal and Zack were already evacuating as much people as they could, but there isn't enough transportation to evacuate everybody or enough SOLDIERs to guard a whole group of people and lead them all the way to Kalm. Sephiroth was dispatching the monsters with some other First Classes. I decided that I should remain behind to help with the plans of evacuation, but something or someone had cut out all my communication systems.'

'Hojo?' Genesis asked.

'Either it's him or Hollander. Before the beasts attacked, the two of them are acting, let's say, strangely and they were heading to the underground basement. Anyway, after that, the monsters had reached the upper levels of the building and I was able to outrun them in the Science Department, from there I had freed Nanaki, who had in turn helped me to escape.' Lazard finished before he took noticed of the two auburn hair men. 'Genesis, your report had never mentioned that you had a twin brother.'

'Sorry, Director, we'll explain this later. For now, we have split up into two teams, one will help the evacuation of the people and the other will head for the Shinra Building. Vincent, could you go with Director Lazard and Nanaki for helping the evacuation?' Cloud asked the long raven hair man who simply nodded his head in acknowledgement. 'And the rest of us will finish up the monsters. Are there any objection?'

Everyone shook their head.

'Don't worry about the evacuation process. I had been able to contact Rufus before I got cut off. He and the Turks will be ready to evacuate us all when we had finished searching for any survivors.' Lazard said.

'Good, let's meet up here when we're finish.' With that said, the two group set off to their designated location.

When they arrived inside the Shinra building, everything was a mess, fire was all over the place, but no monsters in sight, so Kadaj asked: 'Why are they are going into the underground basement, Nii-san? I thought that everything they kept on the JENOVA project was all inside the Science Department.'

That's true... The blond thought as he pondered why the two scientists are going underground. Could JENOVA be arriving from there? Or there is something else? He got his answers from a fragment of his future self's memories; where he is surrounded by dozen of soldiers in a strange armors with a strange insignia on them. A single word echoed in his mind. Deepground.

He looked over his shoulder and asked the two auburn hair men: 'Do you think they are heading for Deepground?'

'It is possible.' Moon answered after a moment.

'Then we'll have to go down.' The young silver hair swordsman said as he released an electric shock wave towards the elevators, blowing them instantly and created a large hole on the far of the wall. 'Come on, let's go!'

Kadaj quickly jumped into the hole he had created, Cloud slowly followed the teen, but the lack of monsters in the building worried him. He couldn't figured out what JENOVA is planning, if she is going to arrive from the Mako Reactor 0 from below, then wouldn't she tried to prevent them from coming down by sending out all her horrible beasts? All in all, Cloud had a bad feeling about this as he jumped into the abyss with his Commander and his winged friend.

It took them only a few minutes to reached the Deepground base, because Kadaj was practically blowing everything that are blocking their with a single powerful thunder spell. When they finally touched the ground, they were greeted by a dozen of soldiers who pointed their rifles at them.

I thought that Deepground was a medical facility before it was turned into a lab rat territory. Cloud communicated with the two auburn hair men mentally as he slowly drew powers from his surrounding for a powerful ice spell to trap their enemies, but before he could make a move, all the soldiers fell to the floor one by one like ragged dolls. He turned around to see Moon's eyes glowing faintly orange red.

'It is both a medical facility and a lab rat territory.' Moon answered as his eyes returned to its azure blue color.'They implanted a chip into most of the brain of their "patients" to control them, I was the only one who is immune to their control and I could even destroy or disrupted the chips in the brain of others.'

'If they are control by the chip in their brains, then that means-' Kadaj began.

'Hojo would most likely be the one who is controlling them to prevent us from getting any closer to JENOVA.' Genesis finished the silver hair teen's sentence.

'We have hurry and stop JENOVA!' Cloud shouted urgently before he broke into a run towards the Mako Reator 0 and was quickly followed by his friends.

***

They didn't meet any enemies until they arrived at the gates of the Mako Reactor 0, but it surprised Cloud to see only two persons guarding the entrance, both of them were wearing the usual First Class uniform, with the insignia of Deepground instead of the SOLDIER's, one had short grey hair and the other had short black hair.

'Weiss... Nero...' The blond heard Moon whispered under his breath sadly.

Moon slowly stepped forward, his eyes glowing steadily orange red, while the two guards pulled out their swords and fell into a fighting stance. Then Moon stretched out his hand and the two men fell to their knees, groaning in immense pain.

'The pain will be over soon brothers...' The auburn hair man whispered softly as he clenched his outstretched hand into fist and both soldiers let out a loud cry.

After a moment, the black hair boy looking down at his hands and said: 'What's going on? How did-' Looking up at the four SOLDIERs. 'SOLDIERs? Why are you-'

Genesis immediately interrupted: 'There is no time for explanation. You two should get those who still might have a conscious in their mind and get as far away as you can from here, because this place is going to be destroyed soon enough.'

'But-'

'Do as they say Nero.' The grey hair boy said coldly.

'Brother?' Nero looked at his brother confused.

'If we could get away from this place, then I don't see any problem with that, it is what we wanted after all.' The grey hair soldier, presumably Weiss, said calmly as he got up.

When the black hair soldier stood up too, Moon added: 'But I want you two to make sure that you get a little girl named Shelke first before you help others.'

Shelke? Cloud thought as the image of a nine-years-old girl with short auburn hair in a Deepground suit, standing among his future teammates, appeared in his mind. So she is another friend. Guess even with the memories of my future self, they can't tell me everything, unless being trigger by a name or a word... I wonder how many things were still keep away from me.

Weiss eyed Moon suspiciously for a moment before he nodded his head, taking the hand of his brother and disappeared into a pitch black darkness that had suddenly appeared around them.

'Let's go.' Moon said and opened the large metal gates. A bright green light blinded them for a moment before it grew fainter. Cloud's eyes instantly grew wider at what stood, or rather hang, in front of him. JENOVA was floating inside by some kind of crystal cocoon with slimy-looking tentacles wrapped around it and the whole gigantic room, hanging a few feet above the mako, her single red glowing left eye stared directly at him mischievously.

Welcome home... My children... Her disembodied voice echoed in their minds.

'JENOVA.' The blond hair swordsman spat the name venomously as he placed his hand over the red hilt of First Tsurugi. Kadaj had already pulled out his tasseled double-katana, while the two auburn hair men simply stood at their place unmoved, glaring at the being in the cocoon.

My, my, my. Is that how you should treat your mother, Kadaj? The alien life form asked the silver hair youngster.

'You aren't my mother from the beginning, nor will you ever be my mother.' Kadaj replied angrily as his grip over the hilt of his katana tightens. 'Cloud is my only family and I won't let you destroy that!'

JENOVA scoffed lightly as she pointed Kadaj with her index finger, the tentacles around her immediately shot towards the katana-wielder of the group, but before they could even touch the boy, the slimy tentacles were cut into pieces by Cloud's sword.

'Oh, looks like Gaia had done quite some work while I was here. Giving you that power and strength, how does it feel like to have a new puppeteer master, puppet?' The female alien asked the blond hair Ex-SOLDIER.

Cloud lifted his sword up and pointed its tip at JENOVA as he answered sternly: 'Your mind trick won't work on me.'

Then shall I try a different approach? The humanoid alien replied before she snapped her fingers. Suddenly eyes appeared all over the tentacles around the crystal cocoon and the staring orbs shot out dozens of blue energy bullets at them, which the SOLDIERs dodged and evaded them with little difficulties. It's already too late now. Gaia will be destroyed and I will have complete control over the whole planet, so why don't you join me now while you can. After all, everything will perish and we shall all begin a new journey towards the stars.

'In-' Cloud dodged one of the attacks. 'Your-' He deflected an energy bullet with his weapon. 'DREAM!' The swordsman jumped into the air and charged towards the alien life form.

When he was about to thrust his sword into the monster's chest, some of the snakelike limbs stopped their firing and crawled around JENOVA, shielding her from the fatal attack, before they wrapped themselves around the arms and legs of the Ex-SOLDIER.

So unwise. JENOVA said as the eyes around her gathered energy for a more powerful attack, but suddenly a hurricane of black feathers swirled around them, causing the eyes to stop gathering energies. What?!

The alien stratum tried to make the eyes concentrated their gaze once more on Gaia's chosen Champion, but the feathers seemed to keep her from properly controlling them. The little distraction had given the blond hair swordsman the chance to cut off the slimy limbs and freed him from the monster's grip. When Cloud landed on the floor, he conjured three ice shards and shot them towards the tentacles that had held him captive, freezing them instantly.

JENOVA let out a horrible loud screech before she cried out. You'll pay for that! All of you die!

Suddenly, the cocoon and the mako below it started to glow brightly and everything started to tremble. Cloud put a hand up to cover his enhanced eyes from the brightness and tried to keep his balance at the same time. Is she going to self-destruct?

'Genesis! Get Cloud and Kadaj out of here!' The blond heard Moon yelled out before he felt someone pulled his arm from behind, dragging him towards the only exit of the room.

'WAIT! MOON!' Cloud shouted as he dragged by Genesis, followed closely by Kadaj went passed the slowly closing metal gates. Not wanting to leave his friend behind, the blond struggled against the hand over his arm. 'LET GO OF ME GENESIS!'

The crimson coated Commander ignored his protests and his grip on his arm didn't falter until they reached a smaller gate, where he quickly opened it before shoving the blond and the silver hair boy inside as he said: 'Keep on running till you reached an elevator and whatever happen, don't look back no matter what.'

'NO!' Cloud shouted as he lunged at the gate, which was immediately close after he and Kadaj was being shoved inside, hammering the metal frame with his fist. 'NO! GENESIS! OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW! I'M NOT LEAVING YOU BEHIND TOO! GENESIS!'

'Kadaj. Take care of Cloud.' Came the muffled reply behind the door.

'GENESIS!' The blond shouted once more before he was reluctantly dragged back by Kadaj. The ground under their feet shook violently as they stumbled forwards, fissures appeared on the walls around them and dusts fell from the ceiling.

They quickly ran to the elevator, but when they were about to open it, the ceiling above the doors cracked, forcing them to jump back a few feet from the falling pieces. Now their only way out was block by the stones.

Cloud was about to call out his power over ice to freeze the rocks before shattering them into pieces, but he stopped when the silver hair teen wrapped his arm around his waist. The blond was about to yell at his "brother", but before he could utter a single word, the teen beside him started to change; he became taller, his silver hair grew longer, his black leather clothing turned into a different style, his double-bladed katana turned into a seven-foot long katana and a black wing similar to Genesis' burst out at the right side of his back.

What the- Cloud couldn't even finish his thought as Kadaj, who is now Sephiroth, pulled him closer and flew towards the blocked passage way, blasting the obstacles and the elevator with a powerful fire spell and then they started to fly upward towards the surface through the hollow space of the elevator shaft and they only stopped when they broke out from the ground floor's elevator doors.

Landing on the broken floor, Kadaj let go of Cloud who immediately stumbled away from the silver hair swordsman and pointed at him accusingly, but the words the blond wanted to say couldn't leave his lips.

'Nii-san, you don't have to be afraid. It's still me, Kadaj.' The Sephiroth look-alike said softly, his voice was mixed of Kadaj's and Sephiroth's voice.

'Ho-how did you?' Cloud was completely at a loss for words. How could Kadaj turned into Sephiroth?! He shouldn't be able to transform like that! JENOVA shouldn't have any more powers over him!

'I don't know really why I'm able to either, but it looks like even though I had erased Him from my soul, his powers are somehow still inside my body. I guess you could call it a little power boost for emergency.' The silver hair swordsman joked, trying to lessen the tension between them. The blond calm down slightly at his words, because he knew at heart that even though Kadaj had taken another person's appearance, it's still his little impish "brother", besides the Nightmare created by JENOVA doesn't joke.

'Can you tell me what's going on? What is JENOVA doing back there?' Cloud asked in breath.

'She-RUN!' Before Cloud knew what's happening, Kadaj wrapped his arm around his waist once more and they dived straight through the large glass window next to them, throwing themselves into the open air.

A loud explosion sounded in his ears and a bright white blinding light covered his vision completely.


The next part will be update very soon. I hope you have enjoy this chapter everyone!