Redemption
A Final Fantasy 7/ Lord of the Rings crossover
By: Lazeralk
Standard disclaimers apply.
Once again, ("blah") denotes things said in Sindarin. 'Blah' is the Advents and Cloud sharing thoughts.
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Cloud pushed on the double doors leading into the heart of the Hornburg, Aragorn on his heels as they both walked briskly into the room. The King of Rohan was holding council with the remains of the Fellowship, the twins, the Advents and several important looking Rohiric soldiers.
"We have a slight problem." Said Cloud. The three silver haired SOLDIERS raised their eyes to meet his but said nothing, seeking their answers mentally instead.
'What kind of problem?' came Kadaj's voice in his mind.
"An army marches towards us, not to Edoras, but here, to Helm's Deep." Said Aragorn to King Théoden, exhaustion and stress weighing down his shoulders.
"My Cure failed." Said Cloud, arms crossed over his chest. His three brothers nodded and looked troubled, their thought like quicksilver as they debated back and forth between themselves as to the cause of such a thing.
'Is your Restore broken?' asked Loz.
"What?" asked Legolas, clearly not understanding how the two were related.
"No." answered Cloud aloud, causing several of the burly and fully armed Rohiric soldiers to eye him strangely.
"How many?" barked Théoden, scowling at him but otherwise ignoring the blonde outlander.
"Ten thousand, at least." Answered Aragorn, eyes flicking between the King and what was now clearly a separate conversation about something he didn't quite comprehend. Cloud nodded to Kadaj, though the youngest hadn't actually said anything, and Aragorn, who was standing close to the blonde's side yelped and dodged out of the way as a glowing bolt of blue light shot out of Kadaj's hand and flew towards Cloud. The blond suddenly had a sword between himself and the bolt, which crashed into the metal and dissipated with a slight fizz.
"Well. That's not good." Loz casually observed, moving to examine the pristine surface of Cloud's massive sword. "Not even a scorch mark."
"No, it is not good at all. Aerith! What's going on with our materia?" asked Cloud in a slightly raised voice. The scent of flowers suddenly flooded the room causing several men and elves to look about in a slightly bewildered fashion.
"What is materia?" asked a sweetly feminine and entirely disembodied voice. Elrohir stood up a little straighter, but his was the calmest reaction of all them save the Advents and Cloud himself. The others drew weapons and looked about wildly. Gimli shouted for the newcomer to show themselves as he hefted his great ax. The silver haired SOLDIERS and Cloud calmly ignored them, though Cloud flicked his eyes at Elrohir in quick thanks when the elf settled the others down and began to explain quietly off to the side.
"Materia is…" began Cloud.
"Lifestream." Finished Kadaj grimly, understanding dawning on him.
"There is no Lifestream here." Said Yazoo, also understanding the significance of the connection.
"Exactly." Said Aerith softly. "Materia is crystallized Lifestream, a physical manifestation of the cycle of life and death. Materia pulls upon the power of the Lifestream around it, but there is no Lifestream here. No power to pull upon. All your materia has is the tiny bit of pure Lifestream it is made of." Explained the Cetra.
"All of our materia is pretty much useless now isn't it?" said Loz, then he moved over towards one of the long tables at the center of the room and began to pull the slightly glowing orbs out of his skin. Yazoo sighed but joined him, also pulling the materia out of the slots in his guns.
"They are a bit more faint aren't they?" said Kadaj to Cloud, adding his own materia to the pile. Cloud nodded, having noticed before that the glow from within the materia did seem to be dimmer than before. He grimaced as he too, parted with his materia. He didn't actually need it per say, but he was so use to battling with it that he knew he's struggle a little to not reach for it reflexively in a combat situation. He rolled his fully mastered Restore in his palm before setting it down with no small amount of disappointment. He'd been counting on that to keep the number of casualties to a minimum in the upcoming battle. He'd seen the oncoming army as he and Aragorn had passed it on their way back to Helm's Deep and he knew that even adding his brothers' and his own strength to the effort, there would be many deaths. He closed his eyes against the familiar pain of helplessness; there had been so many children and old men in the long trail of civilians that they'd escorted from Edoras. He knew many of those children and old men would be asked to fight, and he knew there was only so much he could do to keep them alive.
"Now what?" asked Loz, eyes dancing over the bright collection of multi-colored orbs.
"What are these things?" demanded Théoden as he strode up to the four outlanders. Cloud gazed at him impassively, but didn't answer him. Elrohir stepped between them, with a disapproving look for Cloud. The elf had done what he could to impress upon his charges that there was a certain amount of respect to be given to the King of Rohan, but it hadn't helped much. Cloud was uncomfortable in any sort of social situation and his three brothers seemed to have inherited Sephiroth's tiger like confidence. Yazoo had glared at the elf during one such reprimanding and had coldly said: "We bow to no one."
"These are things that allow them to mimic a wizard's powers." The elf explained to the king in a sort of placating tone, knowing that the SOLDIERS wouldn't give the king they had no respect for an explanation.
"Aerith, can you send these back to Seventh Heaven? We can't use them, but maybe the others can." Said Cloud, watching Elrohir's expression of mild disappointment from behind his usual stoic mask. He genuinely liked the elf, but some of his rules made no sense to Cloud.
"Certainly Cloud. I also have a few messages to pass along from the others." Replied Aerith, the soft scent of her flowers growing stronger with her amusement. The pile of Materia glowed brightly, looking for a moment as they should have, before they vanished from the table top, leaving only a swirling green mist that quickly dissipated.
"Oh?" asked Cloud, closing his eyes and relaxing his shoulders, hoping to find that in-between place where Aerith could lean against his back. He felt her bow brush against his exposed shoulder and smiled softly.
"Denzel says that he's still holding you to your word. Tifa says to be careful, and would like to know if your brothers prefer to share a room or if they'd like their own. Yuffie would like her materia back. Vincent says to tell you that he now has a phone and wants to know if you've found an answer yet. Cid says that Fenrir is fine and some other things I'd rather not repeat. Marlene wants to know when you're coming home and Barrett…also said some things I'd rather not repeat, but I think the gist of it was that he wished you luck and hopes for your safe return. Reno said to bring him back a souvenir and…well, I don't think Rude actually said anything now that I think about it. Rufus Shin-Ra said that he had something for you when you get back, and to please stop by to pick it up." Aerith recited dutifully.
"Rooms?" asked Yazoo, a slightly suspicious tilt to his voice. He rocked back on his heels, widening his stance defensively as he glared at Cloud.
"Well of course we'd live with Ni-san once we get back Aniki." Snapped Kadaj to Yazoo, frustration on his face. Yazoo glowered back at him, saying nothing, but Cloud could tell by the way his shoulders kept tensing up that the two of them were still arguing silently between them. Loz anxiously looked between them and then scrambled to approach Cloud.
"Ne Ni-san, if we live with you when we get back, that means we'll be living with Tifa too right? She's the one I played with in the church right?" Asked Loz, glancing back at his still feuding brothers to see if his attempted distraction was having any effect.
Cloud nodded, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning. Cloud struggled with himself for a moment before deciding to try something he'd never done with anyone besides Zack and Tifa.
"I still have to pay you back for that you know. And Tifa will want a rematch when we get back; it should be more even now that you don't have your pile bunker anymore." He teased gently, smiling slightly and hoping Loz wouldn't take it as an actual challenge.
"Seriously? I could totally fight her again! She was really cute!" Said Loz excitedly, bouncing on the balls on his feet. The look that Yazoo gave him was positively poisonous.
"No. I absolutely forbid it." He said in a slow, dangerous, drawl.
"Cute?" said Cloud, looking like someone had just hit him over the head with Buster Sword.
"She was the long haired chick with the nice rack right?" asked Kadaj absently, having turned away for Yazoo to gaze out the window and only listening to their conversation with half an ear. In his mind the issue was already settled and discussing it further was a waste of time. They'd be living with Cloud and that meant living with Tifa, which he could deal with because she was important to his Ni-san. He'd seen her from afar when they were spying on their only blonde brother and when she'd helped Cloud defeat Bahamut, so he didn't have a very comprehensive understanding of her, but Loz had said she was decent fighter, despite not having much in the way of Mako.
"What?" barked Cloud in surprise, physically recoiling from his youngest brother. He wasn't sure if he was more surprised his youngest and therefore, in his mind at least, most innocent brother had even noticed her…uh…assets, or that he'd had the audacity to even say such a thing.
"Oh yeah." Confirmed Loz with a leer on his face. Yazoo hooked a leg behind his older brother's knee and slammed him into the ground with a look of utter revulsion on his face. Loz allowed himself to be thrown, smiling childishly. He'd successfully stopped Yazoo and Kadaj from fighting, a little pain was a small price to pay.
"I said that I absolutely forbid it! Stop thinking about her!" growled Yazoo, looking for all the world like a cat that had had its fur rubbed the wrong way. He planted a foot in the middle of his older and now giggling brother's back and shoved him back down.
"Alright, that's enough. She's one of my oldest and dearest friends and I will thoroughly kick all of your asses for messing with her." Said Cloud with a scowl. Kadaj's estimation of Tifa went up a few notches and he mentally added her to the inner circle of his growing family. He'd do whatever it took to make sure Cloud stayed with them, even if he had to accept every one of Cloud's friends into his closely guarded family.
"If you are all quite finished, we do have the defenses to prepare. In case you've forgotten, we do have an army of orcs and fouler things descending upon us with the sole purpose of destroying us utterly." Snapped Elrohir in a tone that in anyone else would have been mildly sarcastic, but for him was an outright reprimand.
Cloud had the decency to look a little embarrassed. Loz looked alarmed and hurried to apologize for their inattention and offered to help where ever he could. Yazoo snorted in disgust and pointedly turned away from the annoyed looking assembly of men elves and a single dwarf. Kadaj gazed out the window with wistful look and ignored them all, before he agilely leapt out the window without a word.
'Where are you going?' whispered Cloud to Kadaj, an unconcerned glance at the window his only outward indication that he'd seen the youngest Advent seemingly leap to his death.
'Come out and see. I think it's time we taught you how to Summon and control the Lurkers.' Said Kadaj. Cloud shrugged and turned on his heel, calmly walking out the still gaping double doors at a leisurely pace. He didn't react at all when his two other brothers fell into step behind him, after all, Kadaj had said 'we'.
0o0o0
End part 17
To the multiple people who wanted to see Bahamut absolutely thrash the orc army: erm, sorry? Not going to happen. All the summons come from the Lifestream and are only summoned through materia. No materia has enough power to actually contain a summons, especially a god summons like Bahamut. So even if I didn't account for all of their materia failing on them due to lack of Lifestream, they still wouldn't have been able to summon anything. Now a few of their advantages, like being able to heal people or boost their speed with materia, are gone. This evens out the playing field a little, as I don't want the FF7 people to be obnoxiously overpowered garystues. The only powers they will have will be strictly cannon, I promise.
To the person who asked if middle-earth has phoenixes or even legends of phoenixes: eh, I don't know actually. I'm just going to say that they do and wave my creative license card at this one. If anyone actually knows the answer to this, feel free to shout it out.
Yeah, so sorry for the short chapter, but on the bright side, all the set up is now done. I hope, the muse isn't talking, but I think we can start the fighting and killing soon. Right? Muse? We can start the war now right?