Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no money from this work. Anything recognizable to the Final Fantasy VII series and its associated parts belongs to Square Enix and affiliated companies.

Green Dreams

Chapter Three: Finding Your Feet

Tuesday was probably one of the most dreaded days for the cadets: conditioning.

Conditioning meant running around outside, no matter the weather, doing boring, repetitive drills, and sweating your weight in water while wearing heavy uniforms. It was also the one class that could not be skipped because it meant doing the same drills alone on a Saturday.

Cloud was already dressed and awake by the time everyone else was sitting up in bed. Not only was he used to waking at dawn, but he'd had the opposite of a restful night's sleep. Dan was still considerably brighter than the rest of the boys, and practically leaped out the door while everyone else stumbled out. Reno groggily sneered at his back.

Breakfast began in almost complete silence as was the norm because no one was quite awake enough for chatter. Cloud didn't look at his food but rather at the table and chewed mechanically. He would not admit to being nervous, but he felt pressured to compete at a higher level than the cadets. More than that though, today would really let him judge what else was different. After the materia experience he was feeling wary of his own body. At sixteen he hadn't been capable of melting doors. At twenty-eight he could have with effort. This caution was probably good, he considered, and he needed to be aware of his limits, but all the logic in the world couldn't stop the butterflies in his stomach.

By the end of breakfast people looked a little more awake. They'd had their coffee and some food in their stomachs, but all it did was remind them that today was Tuesday: Hell Day. Whatever fantasy they'd entertained of sick instructors (impossible, there was always a substitute who was worse), and days off were shot as soon as the whistle blew and they started their three-mile jog.

For two and a half hours straight, the cadets ran laps and sprints with intermittent breaks for push-ups and occasionally for water. Midgar's typical haze of smoke trapped the heat of the sun in a balloon around the city, and it was oppressive.

Cloud was accustomed to running for long hours and could easily take his mind away from it and think. AVALANCHE had frequently been without transport, so running or walking for sometimes hundreds of miles was their only option, and you quickly learned the right mindset to do it.

When the instructors made them stop for their first major break for water after that warm-up jog and a few more exercises to "get their hearts pumping", which was a laughable understatement, Cloud could feel his every muscle vibrating and his clothing was soaked. Despite the fact that his body screamed for rest and water, he'd kept up with the others, though it hadn't been easy. Cloud glanced around at the other cadets; most of them had their hands on their knees, red-faced and panting, even Reno, who looked as bad as Cloud felt. This kind of physical exertion was easier for the sons of miners or the like, people who had done hard labor before coming to Shinra. Many of the city recruits though had little experience with this kind of workout.

The blond turned away from Reno as Dan came to stand next to him. They both stood, still panting lightly as their hearts slowed down. Dan gulped down a couple more mouthfuls of water before dramatically flinging himself onto the hard-packed earth next to Cloud. The blond ignored Dan's behavior and looked out across the fields instead, staring at the way the air above the ground shimmered with such intense heat.

Dan didn't seem to mind that Cloud was paying no attention to him. "Thank goodness I'll focus on materia. No running. I can be fat and lazy and still electrocute people." Dan smiled into his words as Cloud glanced back down at him, wondering if he should mention that physical strength played a part in MP. But when he did glance down, Dan's eyes were glazed over, dreaming of SOLDIER one day. Cloud was still staring at his face taken aback, aware that he had once looked and acted like that. It was like looking into the face of a naïve child.

Cloud turned away. He wasn't sure what he felt towards Dan, or even towards all these other hopeful children who were pitting all their dreams on becoming tools of Shinra. It was all worth it to them now, but they would see it all one day and know that maybe they should have just stayed home on recruitment day.

Cloud shook his head from those morbid thoughts. He was perfectly aware of this truth though, and he wasn't dropping out. For many people—his eyes flickered to Reno very briefly—this was their only way out of their life. Cloud couldn't fault them for that, or for their dreams, no matter how naïve.

Break ended at the whistle, and the boys trotted back out on to the field. They started up the second half until lunch. It was focused on upper-body training, meant to strengthen arm, shoulder, and abdominal muscles so they had greater speed and agility in combat. Cloud was particularly motivated as soon as he realized twenty push-ups were pushing his biceps' limit. Annoyed, he gritted his teeth and did the full set of thirty-five, though his arms collapsed under him as soon as he stopped. He'd never be able to hold the buster sword if he could barely manage his own weight.

When they'd finally finished the morning sets, sweaty and exhausted, the air conditioning of the main facility for lunch was greeted with as much enthusiasm as the tired cadets could muster. The cafeteria stank of their sweat and grime, but they ate without complaint and only a bare murmur of talk. Cloud could barely taste his food.

They trooped out after lunch though, marginally more energetic, and spent the rest of the day was spent in various training activities, each as tiring as the next. They did the traditional steps through tires, various lifting exercises, climbing practice, how to run through mud, anything instructors thought might be useful, painful, or humiliating to do.

By the end of the day the blond and everyone else was ready to collapse. His muscles shook under the skin like they might come loose, and he trembled from the effort to walk back to the barrack. He gathered his clothes and headed to the showers like the others. The cadets' shower room was full of steam by the time he had wobbled his way there. He was about mid-way through the line forming along the wall, and it felt good to sag against the cool tiles. This workout, though more intensive than he'd anticipated, left him feeling lax and happy. Cloud had always loved a good workout, especially one that left his muscles loose and a little adrenaline in his system. It also helped when it came to sleep.

Shinra was pretty cheap when it came to their recruits. Second Class SOLDIERs got showers in their four-man rooms, but Third Class SOLDIERs had communal showers, and the cadet's bathing rooms were like the regulation army's ones. It was two long rows of showers, never enough for everyone, with thin walls between each showerhead. The drainage system was old, so water leaked all over the floors and pooled where the tiles had been broken. There were no doors on the stalls, only thin curtains that were completely see-through and moved aside when the water hit them. Most stalls didn't even have a hook for a towel.

Mirrors were located above the sinks. Cloud avoided looking at these as he walked to the vacated shower on the end. He stripped down in the tiny cubicle, pushed his clothes into the corner, which was thankfully still dry, and turned the water up hot.

Cloud had remembered his experience the first time he showered with the other cadets—one of a handful of memories he'd managed to keep somehow. Nibelheim had been backwater compared to Midgar, and public bathing rooms had been unimaginable to a young Cloud. He had been awkward as he'd showered and changed as fast as possible, overly aware of how young and underdeveloped his body was, and how at ease the others appeared about their own. He hadn't become comfortable with it until after Nibelheim. After that it hadn't seemed so important.

Now Cloud had little care for his body beyond general health and cleanliness. Even now, he wondered just what he'd been expecting his sixteen-year old body to look like back then. Hardened muscles would form with all the training, and at this age he was a bit scrawny, but there wasn't any fat except a little on his cheeks, and he had fairly broad shoulders. More importantly, Cloud knew full well what he'd come to look like with enough work.

He still had a couple of inches to grow, and seeing his flat stomach without ridges of muscle and touching the thinness of his arms, he felt… young. And small. Cloud stood there under the water thinking about that, before reaching up to touch his unmarked left ear. Maybe getting that piercing again would make him feel older. Or even a tattoo. Being physically submerged in mako burned off tattoos, but SOLDIERs didn't actually skinny-dip in tubes of it like Cloud and Zack had been subjected to.

Cloud dropped that line of thought before it could go further. He finished his shower quickly, turned off the water, and pulled his clothes on before he left.

Back in the barracks it was quiet. The evenings were technically meant for self-improvement, but most cadets just slacked off and relaxed. Tuesdays were forever the exception though; instead of card games, parties, and loud music, nobody had the energy to do anything but sleep.

Cloud laid on his bed and felt the looseness and relaxation from the hard workout slip away bit by bit. His high from the excellent workout had temporarily blinded him to the fact that, despite being able to keep up, he was one of the people who had probably worked the hardest to make sure of that. It made him irrationally angry and frustrated at his own weakness.

He knew better than to pin his hopes too high, he had thought, but the materia burst had given him some secret hope. The disappointment was bitter. He would probably be among the sorest of the cadets tomorrow and that irked him. He wanted to move faster, to lift more, to practice with people on his level and not the cadets'.

That was the problem, he realized just as fast as he'd thought it. He wanted to be twenty-eight again with all that experience and strength. He wasn't that. He didn't have the levels, the power, the speed he'd had before. Mako and SOLDIER would give him a jumpstart, though nothing like what Hojo did. Nothing would make Hojo's invasive meddling worth it though. He would have to accept that he would grow stronger with time, but hopefully faster than before because he already had all the prior experience.

Instead of dwelling on how much he couldn't do, he tried to focus on what he could do, now that he was sixteen again. He could get drunk now—granted he didn't really like losing his inhibitions like that, but to even have the ability to get drunk was nice. Mako made it nearly impossible. He could train out old habits before they ever became muscle memory, like that forward reach he did sometimes when his opponent was smaller than him. That was a plus.

Cloud soon began to run out of pros though, and his list dwindled. He needed to sleep. The lights went out as Cloud drifted off sooner than he expected, though the other boys had turned in long before him.

That night he dreamed of vivid green again, of the tube he had lived five years of his life in. He woke early, feeling a spasm or two as he waited for dawn to break. Undiluted mako like what he had been exposed to pulsated with a steady rhythm. Hojo had called it the Planet's Heartbeat.

Wednesday began with Dan nearly falling off his bed. The brown-haired boy had always been up like a shot, but today he'd been too close to the edge of his top-bunk. He wobbled, before he found his voice and shouted in surprise, waking everyone up ten minutes before the alarm. Reno had blearily thrown some curses at him and gone back to sleep, the others following suit. This morning Dan was the second up though, Cloud had beat him by an hour.

They left for breakfast once everyone had gotten organized. Cloud had left in the middle of all the changing clothes and finding equipment, and was subsequently one of the first in line for food. He took his oatmeal and yellow apple to his seat, the same table he had sat at everyday. It was a fight with his body not to wince or move gingerly as he crossed the room to sit down. It felt like every muscle in his body had gone through a shredder. He'd done what he could in bed, relaxing and stretching, but it had only marginally helped.

The cafeteria slowly filled up as cadets from other recruitment dates shuffled in, along with the odd employee. Each recruitment day was made up of four barracks, so thirty-two boys total, but most identified themselves by bunker and not date. The eight boys in each bunker were not as close as brothers, but they did prove to prefer each other to boys in another group. In the end though, the SOLDIER Exam would pit everyone against each other—every man for himself, and Shinra out for them all.

Cloud finished breakfast on that happy note, and trooped down with the rest of the cadets to martial arts training in a nearby building. This was a favorite for many who took to the hand-to-hand style of combat. It was also the chance to beat each other up without getting yelled at.

People milled around the room before the instructors came in. As usual when left alone, the cadets broke into little groups. Cloud moved to lean against one wall, watching them. Looking at them now, huddled in groups making fun of each other made Cloud a little annoyed. It was…childish to him. He saw it now without the secret envy and curiosity to know what they were saying, but as petty and frivolous. Who cared? Professor Hojo, a couple hundred feet underground, was turning innocent boys like them into monsters for fun. He glared at the boys that glanced over to him, but otherwise didn't move.

The two instructors made their entrance and cadets scrambled into line. The gymnasium for martial arts practice was huge and gaping. The ceiling sported a number of beams and pillars stretching from end to end. SOLDIERs practiced balance at those treacherous heights sometimes to show off. More than one had fallen to a couple of broken bones. The wonders of mako spared them from what would have been a sure death or at least severe injury for the un-enhanced.

They did some warm-up laps and stretching to start off. Many cadets like Cloud were sore after all the exercise yesterday, and they could feel it through the running and stretching. Cloud rubbed his aching muscles but knew that in time the soreness would fade. "No sympathy" was almost Shinra's motto. The instructors didn't care that a cadet could hardly even sit up that morning. They had to fight or leave.

Back in the line, the instructors demonstrated the two-part kata they had been practicing for the last two weeks, one offensive one defensive. All of the steps were familiar to Cloud, though they weren't geared for weapon use so Cloud hadn't done it in maybe a decade. Bored, his attention wavered until they were split up into pairs.

Cloud ended up facing an average cadet who looked almost exactly like the typical citizen in Midgar. Cloud's memory jumped as he got a good look at his face, suddenly remembering him from the regulation army. They had lockers next to each other, and the blond could remember, to his surprise, the nametag stamped on his uniform—James Merton. He had short-cut brown hair and slightly bulkier build, along with a bigheaded expression that spelled trouble. Cloud was hardly intimidated though. He had worked with Tifa to improve his basic martial arts skills because they were lacking in comparison to his sword work. Though he didn't excel at it, Cloud could hold his ground in hand-to-hand combat if it came down to it.

There was one problem though. He could hold his ground… in the future. The blond wasn't entirely sure of where he stood in the general fighting department now. Clearly he was physically not where he used to be, but his materia use had proven to be off the charts. He had no muscle memory ingrained yet, but his brain knew what to do even though his body didn't. With practice he would hopefully be flying up the levels, though it wouldn't be good to get ahead of himself because nothing was killed faster than by cockiness. So Cloud started off with the offensive kata the instructors had been reviewing, keeping is slow to make sure he recalled it correctly and being sure to keep a steady pace and soft hits.

Clearly James wasn't a total buffoon and knew the defensive kata well, and he repelled Cloud's attacks with ease. There was an arrogant laziness to the way he did it that was aggravating. James sped up as they switched parts and he took the offensive, and Cloud matched him easily. When Cloud again took the offensive however, the blond slowed the speed back down.

In response to this, the other teen sneered at Cloud, who was concentrating so hard on controlling himself and reading his body's reactions. "Aw, come on. Make this at least a little fun for me," he drawled, not even breathing hard. A younger Cloud would've been miffed at the snub, and this older one wasn't completely immune to it either.

After the tiring exercise yesterday, and the unresolved resentment toward his sixteen-year-old body, Cloud wasn't feeling in top shape. He was frustrated, tired, a little hungry, and stressed. James smirked at Cloud as he purposefully upped the speed as the blond took the defense. Now feeling really annoyed, Cloud channeled what anger he could and broke from the repetitive kata and took a shot at the cadet's open right bicep. It connected with a smack that jerked the brown-haired boy a bit. This was the hesitation Cloud waited for and he snatched the offensive from him.

From here he maintained their original speed, but spiced up the fight. Cloud kept the kata as an outline, but alternately broke rhythm to deviate, frequently landing hits. He made sure to keep the general pattern, though in a normal fight that would be an amateur's move—a pattern was very predictable after all. But no matter where he hit James, or how quickly he moved to strike, the other cadet managed to keep up and blocked what he could, thinking fast on his feet. It became increasingly clear to Cloud that he wasn't as quick or capable as he thought. His flexibility was lacking, so he couldn't physically always connect his strikes, and his speed, which had once overwhelmed many enemies, wasn't enough to even beat a cadet.

The instructors blew the whistle and they broke apart. Both of them were breathing heavily, and the other boy was staring at Cloud with wide eyes. The blond ignored him though, consumed in self-deprecating thoughts. He had to take several deep breaths before he could unclench his fist from his pants. He shouldn't be angry. He needed to know where he was starting from, and he had that knowledge now. It was inevitable he would be far below what mentally felt like his level, but this was his level now.

They took a break, and Cloud escaped from the crowd of his classmates with his water bottle, moving to an adjacent wall. As he took a drink, he noticed that one of the instructors had pulled Reno aside for some one-on-one, which had caught the other cadets' attentions.

Reno fought the way people in the slums do: like it was the last fight of their lives. It was unrefined, dirty, and clearly a jumble of different fighting styles all mixed together with poor technique, flashy moves, and a desperate kind of speed. Reno managed to frequently drive the instructors nuts with his complete lack of technique or respect for their carefully cultivated style. Of course, that had ended up saving his life time and time again when he could do the unexpected against traditionally trained opponents. But that was only appreciated in the Turks.

This time Reno was again reluctantly fixing the position of his feet and arms. He whined the entire time and constantly complained to the annoyed instructor. Fed up with the redhead, the man leaned over Reno's front leg, appearing to fix his opposite foot. Cloud's eyes just barely caught the quick movement of the Third using his mako-enhanced speed. One second Reno was looking down deviously at the crouched Third, then he was flat on his back. The SOLDIER had yanked his foot surreptitiously back, completely throwing off Reno's balance and sprawling him on the floor.

Everyone cheered the SOLDIER, who clearly looked triumphant at having finally put Reno in his place. The redhead got up rubbing his tailbone, but didn't seemed hurt otherwise. On the contrary he gave the Third a winning smile. He seemed a good sport about it, but Cloud saw him grimace as they were sent back into pairs.

When lunch rolled around Cloud was quite hungry, but the plate of slosh in front of him hardly tempted his appetite. Cadets weren't paid, so no one had enough money to buy food for every meal of the day in Midgar, and anyone who did wasn't about to join Shinra.

Classes resumed after lunch. Though Wednesday mornings were good fun, the afternoons were more mind-numbing lectures. Battle Strategy sounded like fun if it hadn't been just arrows on a whiteboard and recaps of Shinra's glorious victory against Wutai. Instead of actually focusing, Cloud put his mind to use in other fields. He knew the date, knew when Nibelheim happened, but he had no idea what else was happening at this point in the timeline. He hadn't seen Sephiroth and hadn't seen Zack since that brief moment in the hall, and Cloud could only recall bits and pieces of important events—and many of those he hadn't actually lived through, but were Zack's.

Which brought Cloud to his most frightening lapse in memory: when had he met Zack? This was particularly worrisome as Cloud wanted to have his friend back. Zack was also the best friend of Sephiroth, or as close as could be. Not to mention it was much harder to save Zack when he didn't know what was going on with the man. They hadn't met, Cloud was sure, until training with real swords started. The wooden swords had been used in the beginning of training, and when they started practicing with the metal ones, Cloud could remember Zack.

As for Sephiroth, Cloud hadn't really had any interaction with him until the Nibelheim mission, of that he was sure. Zack had never introduced them until that point. But Sephiroth… There was something inherently wrong about everything in that man's life, something Cloud almost felt obligated to fix, especially since he knew more about it than probably anyone but Hojo. He had never blamed Sephiroth after he'd lost his mind, never abandoned the loyalty that somewhere in him was the redeemable man Cloud had always envisioned.

Yes, the chase after mad Sephiroth had been partly for revenge over the destruction of his hometown. Yes, it had been to stop Jenova. But it had also been for Sephiroth, not just saving the world and doing the right thing.

If he messed up again and failed he would be the broken-hearted kid who had his stuffed toy buried by the children in the snow again. He would be the little boy snubbed because his father left him a bastard again. He would be the teen unable to redeem himself after the bridge incident because everyone, even Tifa, would blame him again. He would be the man without his dream. Again.

But now Cloud could have more—more than he had let himself dream under the blankets as a little boy. The Planet never made things easy though, but he had a chance. The other boys were fast asleep as Cloud, inspired, slid off the bed and onto the floor of the barracks. Every drop of sweat in training was one less drop of blood in battle . Cloud put both hands flat on the floor and lifted his body up, positioning himself for press-ups. Sure, he couldn't do much now, but it would come with time.

He slept longer than the night before, though he still woke feeling trapped in a glass tube.