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 Twenty-Eight: Flouting the Rules

Reno came to in almost complete darkness and silence. It was more than a little disconcerting after having lived in a bunker full of other guys for months where it was never really quiet and the safety lights outside always gave the bunker a little light. Since he didn't have that cotton-ball feel in his mouth, he didn't think it was the aftermath of a wild night, not to mention the bed was awfully hard.

He could barely remember how he'd gotten here. His head was throbbing painfully, and all his memories were rather fuzzy. Nibel forest. Lost Cloud. Maxwell's team? No, that couldn't be right…

After several shuffling attempts at getting up from the floor, and waiting for the blood to circulate through him, Reno was able to stand and take a look around. The room looked like a jail cell—and not a cheap one. It was built completely of cinder blocks, with one lone florescent light tube under security glass in the cement ceiling. There was a grate in one corner to piss in, and a solid steel door that was probably at least a foot thick. No windows, but that was expected. There also wasn't a chair.

Reno got up to examine the room even though there didn't look to be a crack anywhere. He started with the door. There was no handle, no keyhole, and there weren't even hinges, so it didn't look like he'd be able to get out that way without a blowtorch. The light might be useful, but it would be all too easy to install an electrocution feature into that. Better not tempt fate until he knew more about what was going on.

Reno wasn't desperate yet, but he wandered over to the grate anyhow. It was new and without any rust that could make it vulnerable, and there didn't appear to be any screws or nails he could wiggle out. The thing was welded shut. He nudged it with his foot anyways, but it didn't move.

Whoever had orchestrated this little happening had money, which meant jack shit really, especially if it was who he suspected. Even if he was wrong the Reno-napping all meant the same thing: Reno was screwed.

"Cloud."

The blond woke immediately. Cloud rarely remembered dreams that weren't nightmares, but tonight, under Nibelheim's heavy tree-cover, he had an especially horrible one.

It was his last fight with Sephiroth. Even now he could hear the grinding metal and shattering debris of the architectural skeleton of Shinra Headquarters falling all around Sephiroth and him, as energy sparked and warped within the space of their blades striking. But worse was the memory, undistorted even in his dreams, of thedeadness in Sephiroth's eyes. Cloud had watched those vicious green eyes turn hazy, and in their reflection watched as he killed his hero-turned-enemy once more.

He'd never forget the emotions that flashed through him when Kadaj-as-Sephiroth made that last declaration, even as he fell to earth—just a puppet, like all the others. But one that, as promised, just kept coming back.

"It is time," Vincent said.

The ex-Turk had already put the fire out and scattered the ashes. Breakfast was rations, and they ate as they walked.

It was a cold, crisp Nibelheim morning. The sky, barely visible through the thick tree-cover, was an unforgiving, solid blue. Their breath was visible in the morning air, and the weather would probably turn snowy within a day or two. Cloud and Vincent were both silent as they marched, a familiar situation to Cloud.

The two of them were moving in the general direction of Rocket Town. Cloud needed to report in, and Vincent needed to catch up after missing twenty-five years. It was almost unspoken that they would split up now and meet later in the city.

Even located deep inside the forest, as they were, the paths would probably still have cadets on them, so it was easier to move unnoticed in the denserwoods. Both moved quietly over dead leaves and pinecones, aware that even though together they could probably take anything in this part of the mountain, discretion was always better. Cloud's mind was only absently paying attention to where they were going. He could only think about what he would say to excuse his absencewhen he reached Rocket Town. What had his team said if they had gotten there already?

Vincent, on the other hand, mulled more on what Cloud had told him. It was certainly a lot to take in, and it would take time to absorb it all. The blond had told Vincent much about Sephiroth, and about the experiments Hojo was doing orwould do. Vincent's agenda was his own, but Cloud's intentions were aligned with his for now. The ex-Turk would reserve judgment on matters of trust, but a tentative arrangement was fine. Cloud was, despite appearances, deceptively strong, and if all was true, quite the resource.

Reno flopped back down on the freezing floor, feeling rather pissed off and yet, reluctantly impressed. They'd taken just about everything from him. His shoelaces, his belt, all the safety-pins on his standard-issue uniform, even his necklace, earring, and hair tie. He hated when his hair was loose.

At least he was left with his clothes; Reno could appreciate the altruistic side of whoever had dumped him here, because they sure didn't have for them, they hadn't done a strip search. Idiots. They either wanted him to get out, or they severely underestimated him—Reno was still torn on which.

He knew the drill: capture a prisoner and leave him to brood over it for a couple of hours, maybe even days. He doesn't know who's got him, why, or what they're planning for him, and he's left alive to be tortured by 'd keep it too cold to be comfortable, have the lighting go on and off at random to disorient, and if they were particularly devious they'd have some elevator music playing.

Reno just shook his head, because half the value of that psychological bullshit was playing into it. Reno pulled his shirt off, shivering slightly at the chill in the room, before tossing it into a corner. Wrapped around his stomach and chest were two rolls of toilet paper. They were so smoothly wrapped they felt like a little fat over muscle during a pat down, and as long as Reno didn't do any back flips they wouldn't rip. He'd perfected how to roll them around his torso ages ago in the streets, where a clean roll of toilet paper was worth almost as much as a gun.

But the best thing about toilet paper? It was incredibly useful and not just for shitting.

You could write notes with it, clog a toilet or air vent, and wipe up fingerprints. If you split each piece you got double the length, and a small ball of it didn't make a half-bad fire-starter.

People didn't think about that when they were going into the woods, but Reno had learned long how to read a situation, and walking out of the bunker to a couple of choppers meant all his survival instincts kicked in. He'd only had time to yammer some excuse about the bathroom before lift off before the Third Class could herd him over. Anything up his sleeve was better than nothing, even if it was just a damn roll of toilet paper.

Unfortunately, Reno didn't have any cellmates to trade notes with, no toilet, and no blood to clean up, but toilet paper was excellent relief from boredom, and he expected to be waiting at least ten hours.

Rocket Town was fairly unchanged since the last time Cloud had been there, though a big smaller since non-Shinra people hadn't moved in yet. The rocket failure had been just in the spring of this year, so Shinra was pulling all its space operations out now. Cloud didn't want to think about how the ex-scientists and mechanics were dealing with the presence of SOLDIER in their town. There was a lot of resentment because of all the jobs lost, especially as it was the canceled Shinra-project that was going to make the town prosperous.

Vincent had disappeared not long after the town came into view as silently as a wraith. At this point the blond refused to be impressed with the man's abilities.

Cloud made the rest of the way down the mountain by himself, taking his time as he did, until he reached the entrance where he was escorted by one of the SOLDIER Thirds stationed at the front gate to the hotel-turned-command-center. He was left in a small parlor room off the side of the main lobby. There were some regulation soldiers running around, along with several cadets sprawled out along chaises and chairs in the next room. One or two raised a hand in greeting when he peeked around the jam. He didn't see any of his teammates, but he would work with the assumption they'd come in first. If his story were vague enough, it wouldn't contradict whatever they might have said.

"Cloud Strife?" The blond turned and nodded at the SOLDIER here to debrief him. The guy looked tired and more than a little bored. He'd probably heard the same variation of the same story all day. If Cloud stuck to the same script he'd be forgotten within the hour. "Please narrate for me what occurred between the landing and your arrival in Rocket Town."

Cloud sat down on the couch and started to talk. The first half was about his team and establishing their path to Rocket Town. Then he had to explain how he became separated.

"On the second day, I thought I heard noises coming from the trees on one side of the road. I went to investigate and it took longer than I thought it would. When I tried to return to the path, my teammates were gone. I figured I'd come back ahead or behind them, but when I started walking in the direction we were supposed to go in, I ran into another team. Rather than get taken out, I went into the woods."

The SOLDIER was scribbling it all down so fast Cloud was sure he wasn't taking in anything more than the bare facts. He'd probably been debriefing cadets all day, and Cloud was glad he'd waited until just before dinnertime when the end of a shift was to come in.

"I ended up cutting through the woods to get here on my own. I only ran into a couple small monsters."

The SOLDIER didn't seem to realize he'd gotten the highly edited version of the story. When the blond stopped talking and the Third finished writing, he glanced up to make sure that was it. "That all?"

"Yes."

The SOLDIER signed off on the bottom of the notes and stood up. "You'll be able to find an empty bed upstairs on the second floor. Dinner will be in half an hour in the lobby here. You'll be confined to the hotel unless under the supervision of a SOLDIER."

Cloud saluted smartly and the guy waved him off and left. The blond sighed and decided to head upstairs and see if his team had made it in yet.

Reno didn't want to speculate too much, but Cloud's words were still ringing around in his head. If blondie had left those words with him before taking off…well, it certainly gave credence to his own situation. Reno glanced at his hand again, but he'd long since rubbed them off. Good thing too, perhaps.

Reno carefully set down another origami frog, his battalion of them set up in concentric circles with him at the center. Toilet paper, though thin and easily torn, was quite foldable, even if most of the frogs fell over eventually. He wished he knew more shapes, but he couldn't quite remember the crane.

But really, this was kind of a stupid test if that was true. It was so far just wasting his time and hopefully whoever was watching in security, and if he passed Reno wasn't even sure he could ever deal with the suits.

After a nap and some time wasted blowing bubbles and popping gum—fools didn't think to look inside the folds of clothes—Reno was starting to get bored. There were only so many frog armies he could make before it got old, and by his calculations someone should be coming for him soon.

But in the mean time… How do you fold a fortuneteller again?

Vincent had visited Rocket Town before, but it hadn't been called that then. It had been Shinra's Aerospace and Technological Facility, which was fancy parlance for "off-limits to civilians". Shinra's space ambitions had been in their infancy when Vincent had been a Turk, but it looked like they'd gotten very close to achieving space flight, only to stop a the last moment. Now, the famed rocket the town had been renamed for lay off to the side in an open field, abandoned.

It had been easy to slip in behind a restaurant. The SOLDIERs watching for returning cadets were on their last shift and only guarding the main gates. In town, Vincent maintained a low profile, staying off the main streets, skimming through a newspaper left in a garbage bin, and eavesdropping on a handful of conversations. Predictably it was all about Shinra's takeover of the local hotel for the SOLDIER Exam, old anger at the company, and the General's iconic presence.

The newspaper offered a little more insight into Shinra's activities. It was mostly politics, though Vincent did not recall the President having a son, nor did he remember the war they continued to reference. Shinra had been busy while he'd been asleep.

After much wandering about, including through a veritable museum of old planes in someone's backyard, Vincent was able to find a good angle of the hotel. Inside he could make out cadets flopped backwards on couches, feet propped in the air, and on the second floor someone asleep by the open window. The third floor was quiet, but the town bar just down the road was rowdy with off-duty SOLDIERs.

The ex-Turk lingered there, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of Sephiroth. Cloud had told him what had become of Lucrecia's child, but there was a difference in seeingwith his own eyes. It was two long hours of watching cadets talk and a handful of semi-responsible drunk SOLDIERs drift back in and pass out on their beds before the Great General finally appeared.

Accompanied by a fellow SOLDIER in the largest third-floor window, Sephiroth's brilliant silver hair stood out. He had strong features, though his face belied a life of solitude and war: stoic and cold, his shoulders stiff like he too had an XO around the corner; Hojo had made the perfect SOLDIER indeed.

Something inside Vincent, the insidious little voice he'd tried to appease before when he'd laid down in that coffin, told him he should have known this was coming. He'd seen the experiments, the testing Lucrecia had undergone for "science", and it was obvious that the child would be something exceptional—different.

It hurt, he could admit it, to see what he'd tried to stop right before his eyes: Lucrecia's illness, the child that would become an experiment rather than a human… Sephiroth, from the sounds of Cloud's testimony, was not Hojo's drone, which was the only thing he could be thankful for.

The guilt came back stronger than ever. You did this to him. You failed to save either of them. Now she's dead, and he's as much a monster as you are.

He had seen enough.

Cloud walked up to the second floor of the hotel. It was quieter here, the faint voices of cadets in the lobby drifting up. He poked his head into two rooms, looking for his missing team, before someone stepped out into the hallway.

"Cloud!" The blond turned to see Aaron standing outside one of the rooms further down. "Come here! John's here too."

Cloud followed him in to see a sleeping John on one of the hotel beds. The room was a typical hotel room with two single beds, a small nightstand, and a desk in one corner. A magazine lay discarded on the floor, from Aaron most likely.

"Glad you made it," Aaron whispered, sitting down on the desk chair and indicating the bed for Cloud. "I already took a nap, but I wanted to see if there are any stragglers. We made it here in the early afternoon. Where were you? Where's Dan?"

Cloud paused to sit down, glancing over at John and then the door. "I went to Nibelheim. What about Dan?"

Aaron looked surprised at Cloud. "Didn't he go with you? That night you and him went missing. We figured he'd gone with you."

Cloud looked at Aaron hard for a couple of seconds. Dan might have tried to follow him, but Cloud was pretty sure he'd have heard him. If they thought they'd gone together though, they may not have searched as thoroughly. If Dan tried to follow and got lost… "No, he was asleep when I left."

"Shit," Aaron cursed, which was uncharacteristic of him. "We lost Reno too. Not a day after you'd left, he went to pee and never came back."

"Gone?" Cloud was rather alarmed at hearing this. Dan gone and then Reno made it seem as though they were being picked off. Was this Shinra's doing, or did whoever steal Jenova have something to do with this?But Dan?

"Did you find out what happened?" He demanded, turning back to Aaron.

"No. We ran into Maxwell's team, but he'd gone missing too. I checked with the other teams when we got here, but no one else has lost anyone like that. Just those three. SOLDIER wouldn't listen to me either."

Cloud exhaled, thinking hard. There shouldn't be anyone in the mountains except cadets and SOLDIERs. Turks were a possibility when it came to Reno, but it didn't account for Dan or Maxwell. Cloud didn't know much about Turk recruitment, but he was fairly sure those two weren't their style.

"What will we do? They fly us back to Midgar tomorrow morning, and I've heard they're only going to send one team out for the rest—and that's like, two-thirds of all the cadets who started. I hadn't realized how easy we had it until we got here and were the third group to come in—and the biggest. Dan won't last out in those woods. Especially off the trail."

Aaron's worry was obvious, but they didn't have many options. If Dan had drifted the way Cloud had gone he might hit Nibelheim if he was lucky, or at least a path around there. If not… there was a good chance he wouldn't leave. The Nibel Mountains were unforgiving, especially in winter, Cloud knew.

"If they don't show tomorrow there's nothing we can do."

The locks began to turn in the door, and Reno, who had been lounging, making his frogs fight each other out of boredom, sat up. The metal door was pushed open and a blue-suited man stood on the other side. He didn't look familiar, with a coiffed, dark hairstyle Reno would surely have remembered, but the redhead knew immediately who he was—or rather, whom he represented.

The man seemed to only react by blinking very hard at the legion of origami frogs, trying to hide his shock as best as possible.

Reno stretched as he stood, doing his best to unnerve the guy. "Ready?" he asked him with a smirk.

He'd like to say he let them put the handcuffs on before he was dragged to an interrogation room that looked exactly the same as the one from the drug-testing incident he'd been sent to. The walls were plain, no windows of course, and a steel-framed door. The only furniture was the table, nailed to a plain tile floor, and an old phone on it, along with a pad and pencil for notes.

Doing his best to unsettle the guards too, Reno happily sat himself and even slouched in the chair, being extra friendly as the Turk handcuffed him to the table. "So, are you going to at least leave me donuts this time? It's just common courtesy, man," Reno drawled. The Turk ignored him though, but Reno didn't mind. "You know, you look pretty sharp in that blue suit. They come custom?"

It earned him the tiniest of scowls, but no other visible reaction.

Firmly attached to the table, the Turk left and Reno sat in the over-air-conditioned room, humming to himself. Honestly, he was a little worried about what this was about, but he couldn't let them know that. If the Turks were involved, then the big guns would be coming soon.

And they did.

Literally.

"Tseng!" Reno called, smiling sarcastically at him because he couldn't punch the man in the face. This was his chance to get back at Tseng for that-

The phone was picked up from the table and slammed into his head, causing Reno to shout and almost fall to the floor. The handcuffs caught him though, chafing his wrists as he struggled to right himself. "What the hell?! Don't I at least get a safe-word?"

Tseng sneered at him. "Now that that's in order, tell me Reno, how badly do you want to be in SOLDIER?"

"What?" He tried to automatically touch the bruise already forming on his forehead, but his hands were caught by the cuffs.

"I don't repeat myself," Tseng said patiently.

"Well, it's way better than getting stuck kissing your ass all day," he managed to get out, if barely. Another swing of the telephone clocked Reno on the back of the head, and Planet, Tseng was a sadist.

With a pained groan, "You know I think we're bordering on abuse here, baby."

Tseng's smirk almost made Reno want to squirm. "I heard you managed to slip in gum and toilet paper into our rooms."

"I'm a ninja," Reno rolled his eyes, trying to keep his cool. He liked the Turk test even less than SOLDIER test, because at least when SOLDIER hit you they let you hit back. "Come on Tseng, enough twisted foreplay already."

Any hope of putting the Turk off balance was dashed when Tseng said, "I hope you know your buddies in Feuer Frei who make Donkey Punch are enjoying the mines."

"What the hell is Donkey Punch?" he asked around the pounding ache in his head. If Tseng gave him a concussion he was definitely going to do more than punch him the next chance he got.

"Moonshine Reno, from those gang buddies of yours."

Reno groaned. You work with one gang and they think you work with them all. What about "exclusive" and "we'll shoot you if you double-cross us" does no one get anymore?

"Don't I get a phone call or something?" Reno asked, deliberately ignoring whatever tree Tseng was barking up in favor of groaning as he rolled his head back to loll on the chair back. Reno couldn't see Tseng's face, but he sure knew what it'd look like, freaking smirking sadist.

"You may be able to dig yourself out of this if you play your cards right, Reno."

"What is this, the dog squad? I know you do 'recruitment' for SOLDIER," my ass, Reno thought, "but what? I can't get in 'cause I lived under the plate and ran with a gang? You know that everyone is. Know more if you took that stick out of your ass an-"

"Reno, Reno, Reno." Tseng's fingers ghosted over Reno's shoulder, skimmed through his loose hair, and yanked a fist full at the back of his head. Reno yelped.

"I know you've figured out what this is already. I wouldn't have chosen you if you couldn't. Right now, your survival rate's hovering under 30%—but if you play my game, you'll be a Turk. My subordinate."

Genesis frowned, staring at smoldering wreckage that definitely shouldn't have been there. Mako and other chemicals were dribbling out of pipelines, sparks were still coming off freshly cut wires, and it was still smoking. The whole thing couldn't have been more than a few hours old.

He flipped through Loveless, searching for the right passage. Jenova was a necessary component of Dr. Hollander's plan if he ever wanted to save him or Angeal. This should have been relatively simple. Go to the Nibel reactor and retrieve it. It would be right under that bastard Hojo's noise, and no one would be the wiser for at least several months before the next inspection.

"Wow…"

Genesis didn't even glance over. This… pet he'd saved had followed him all the way here. It hadn't been worth getting annoyed at, but now it was an unwelcome addition to this problem.

"What happened?"

Genesis didn't bother to answer that, instead reflecting on a passage, "Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return."

It wasn't what he was looking for, in fact, what he really needed was for someone to inform him why the reactor was gone. It was here when Hollander last checked Shinra's database. It wasn't right that it would be gone—conveniently just hours before he got here. The little town hadn't even gotten up here yet, and the damn thing was still warm.

"Huh? Um… what was it?"

Genesis whipped around to face the little cadet, annoyed now that he was unable to find the right passage in Loveless and something was asking stupid questions.

"That was my mission. Now why are you here?"

Not really expecting a good answer, the ex-SOLDIER turned away, only to turn back at the mumbled reply.

"Um, SOLDIER Exam?" The cadet looked unsure, but more eager now at Genesis' look. "Yeah, it's the SOLDIER Exam. We have to get to Rocket Town by… tomorrow. Wait! Are you going there too?"

"No," Genesis said shortly. "Who's here for the exam?"

"Well, cadets of course. Oh! And some returning soldiers too."

Genesis narrowed his eyes, his acute hearing almost catching the "eep" of the cadet.

"Which SOLDIERs?"

"Uh, oh, well, the General is here. He flew out with us. The Lieutenant-General too, and a bunch of Seconds and probably Thirds."

"Sephiroth is here?"

"Uh…I think so, yeah."

Genesis turned away from the babbling cadet to look back at the remains of the reactor. "Jenova was supposed to be here…"

Standing up, the ex-SOLDIER made one circuit around the ruins, determining that if that creature were here it was gone now, before turning back to the cadet who was still hanging around. "What?" He asked, irritated.

"Well… are you at least heading towards Rocket Town?"

Genesis rolled his eyes this time, breaking the esteemed expression his face usually settled in, and didn't answer. Before the human could even react, he took off at a sprint, weaving through trees back up the mountain, easily losing the cadet. He had to at least get a glimpse of Sephiroth. See what he was up to now that he and Angeal were gone.

"Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess / We seek it thus, and take to the sky / Ripples form on the water's surface / The wandering soul knows no rest."

Careful to move quietly through the caves, the middle-aged woman worked her way through windy corridors of natural rock, toxic wet spots of molten mako, and brilliant beams of sunlight shooting through a pock-holed roof.

The materia caves of the Nibel Mountains were not well known, even by many people of Nibelheim. The monsters that prowled between the town and the caves were often terrifying enough to frighten away most people, and only the guides ever wandered this way.

Elanor Strife was a different kind of woman. Life in the mountains with a rebellious streak wide as those mountains had taught her not to be afraid. Certainly after her lonely exile from the town's community she'd learned to be stronger still. There were very few experiences as hardening than being abandoned by the father of one's child, and then having to raise the little boy by one's in a town that didn't take kindly to strangers or single mothers. By picking her way quietly up the mountain and being extra careful if fresh tracks were about, she had managed to make this trip safely time and again.

Jewelry that used mako was rare, exquisite, and fetched a high price in the local markets. When she had the chance, Elanor made beaded jewelry from bits of hard, untainted mako found in the caves. She had taken a young Cloud here, his little plump hand in her own, when the beasts had pulled back in the early winter. She had tried to instill in her son a sense of awareness of the world, even their small corner of it. It was how, after years of hard work, she managed to send her only son all the way to Midgar for a better life.

Rounding the next corner, she could just make out the mako fountain. A true thing of beauty, it never failed to humble her, no matter how many times she came. Pure, untouched mako burbled up from it, causing mako crystals to develop to even the size of her hand. Elanor had never dared to touch it—mako poisoning was, after all, not unheard of in a reactor town—but instead moved about the edges of the pool it formed, carefully picking up the solid drops that had fallen to the side.

As she picked up the new crystallized pieces around the fountain, a soft echo bounced to her from one of the side passages. The cave was riddled with naturally forming paths, so at first she dismissed the noise. Small monsters creeped through these caves, and so long as she didn't bother them they didn't bother her.

The sound repeated though, forming slowly a steady pattern of footsteps that echoed off the walls to make it seem like a small crowd was walking around. Surprised more than afraid, Elanor Strife turned around to see human shadows on one of the walls, slowly looming larger. Had someone from the town come up here? A lost guide? Daring hunters?

As they rounded the bend, Elanor was surprised to see three people she didn't recognize and who did not seem like anyone she had ever met before. It was odd to see such a disparate group; one was only a boy, perhaps a little past than her son's age, while the other two were clearly older. The tallest looked like a formidable man, with broad shoulders and thick arms, but the one standing in the most relaxed manner…well, she wasn't sure at first glance if they were a man or a woman. All of them wore no winter clothing at all, though they were armed.

Elanor Strife had encountered a lot of things she didn't understand in her lifetime, and she tried her best to take these things in stride. She smiled tentatively.

She felt a tinge of nervousness as she made eye contact with the youngest one, but determinedly ignored the feeling, instead drawing on all her stubbornness and strength honed from years of hardship.

Strangely, all had silver hair, and as they approached it glittered and reflected the blue-green light of the mako fountain. She was reminded of her son's childhood hero, and all those clippings of the silver-haired general.

Stranger still, the youngest one walked closer to her, hand outstretched. From the look of him he was a late teen, but his eyes and manner seemed so much younger.

"Mother?"