Disclaimer: I in no way own any portion of the Final Fantasy franchise except the spiffy stuff I've purchased and the Squall plushie I snuggle with regularity. I also don't own any song by Linkin Park, especially not 'Shadow of the Day' which provides not only the chapter titles for this story but also the inspiration for this fic in its entirety. Please don't sue – I'm simply an E6 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.
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Chapter 7
Complex Beginnings
The panicked phone calls have been pouring in to my office lately.
I have to find whoever it was who dared to plug the banshee back in and strangle that guy. I threw the phone in the trash for a reason, damn it all. At least Eden's simply lounging and laughing at my disgruntled attitude today instead of pounding my brain into pudding with her rage – after yesterday's hellish experience and the dream that woke me this morning, I am relishing the break.
But that phone… I guess I can't avoid it forever – it's my job, after all, to answer the calls of the desperate and destitute and see what services I'd be willing to provide them and how much I can wring from their purses for said services. And to answer the calls of SeeD personnel calling in with reports, seeking advice or clarification on mission parameters and the like. And to ensure that every dignitary that calls this place gets 'voice time' (can't very well call it face time, as there's no video-feed unless we're talking to Esthar's president – and be damned if I'm going to let him know we've developed that technology, too. Laguna would never let me have a moment's peace if he could see that my 'important work' is often origami or waste-bin basketball with denied client requests and SeeD applications from less than qualified personnel).
Winhill can sink into a hole right now for all I care. In the grander scheme of priorities, their abducted cattle, mysteriously appearing head-statues and now crop circles and randomly deposited characters crafted of stone and in a language no one can read happens to be ranking right alongside with 'we should probably order more cheese-stuffed corn dogs' and 'we're almost out of Rinoa's favorite brand of toilet paper.'
No, there are things that are much, much more important.
The first month after Eden slammed that ruby dragon back onto our planet had passed without much incident. Only that continued green column pouring down onto our planet, a trickle of alien energy coloring Obel Lake, had stood out as different than every other eventful summoning we'd experienced with her. I'd thought nothing of it.
Then the earthquake hit this morning immediately after I'd awakened.
It was centered in Obel Lake. Galbadia's geological experts had managed to pinpoint it to that region, discovering a fault that had never before existed there. A fault caused by a catastrophic collision with the planet, they were quick to surmise.
They had their suspicions that the fault was not a natural formation of the planet – after all, it had no borders or connections with the continental plates that drift over the world's magma sphere. The crust had been irrevocably damaged by some alien force and now surged spasmodically. The scientific community was predicting doom and gloom over the airwaves, professing that meters installed around the continent spoke of coming aftershocks of enormous magnitude being very probable in the near future, the new fault apparently being horribly instable and liable to destroy us all at any given moment.
It made me a bit ill to realize that I was very well the cause of this. But still, why had this particular attack of Eden's developed a new fault when no other ever had – why was this attack terminated with a different result than the fifty billion ruby dragons Eden had buried to their necks in the soil of the Island Closest to Hell? Why would a new crack in the planet's crust result in huge, world-devastating earthquakes? That made no sense to me. I couldn't think that the new faults were, well, at fault. No pun intended. I suspected it was something a bit deeper and grander than the simple appearance of a new fissure in the planet.
Galbadia's scientific society and I disagreed on that thought – they were determined to prove their conclusion to be true. They were vigorously investigating, taking seismic readings in the region and drilling to take samples of earth, trying to determine why this phenomena took place.
Ethar's gathering of scientists had devised a theory that the earthquakes were not due to the physical damage the crust had accrued, but rather related to the energy waves that still seeped into Obel Lake's wound. Satellite-monitoring of the Galbadian landscape had apparently picked up energy surges, sudden shifts in the planet's magnetic field and an abrupt expulsion of energy that was very similar in nature to that which forms the draw-points SeeDs utilize for their spells. They attributed a buildup of the energy Guardian Forces strip from the planet itself to utilize as spells at the site of the collision lead to a critical mass of said energy, turbulent and explosive. And they report that it still is bursting in waves, apparently building up and relieving itself, causing all the recent seismic activity and the day's follow-up quakes that are rattling the world and splashing water onto Garden's distended bottom levels as we rest in-port.
If only I could get Esthar and Galbadia to communicate with one another to figure out the truth, but that feat is far beyond my (or even Laguna's) power. The distrust between the two nations continues to this day, harsh memories of Adel's reign, national rebuttal and war stain the minds of all who have enough years in their lives to remember it. Tense truce was maintained only due to distance and reluctant trade through Fisherman's Horizon, both nations' long memories keeping true peace at bay.
Plus the movement of Lunatic Pandora to Tears' Point by the Knight of the Sorceress, the very woman who overtook Galbadia's capital with the approval and rapt adoration of its people, only served to harden the already embittered Estharian attitude towards the people they'd oppressed and slaughtered during the years preceding my birth.
But back to the theories. A buildup of energy, perhaps to counteract the energy that still rained upon us from space? Maybe a surge of energy to the location of the collision?
Something in my heart didn't agree with either of those determinations.
I discussed this phenomenon at length with Nida. While always a quiet background performer, he did astonishingly well during training, showing an understanding of vague scientific theories that I always immediately flushed from my head in favor of strategy and Guardian Force handling, for gunblade techniques and battle tactics. Hence why he's granted every liberty possible with the Garden's operations, his surprisingly quick mastery of the art of piloting her and his rapidly growing expertise with troubleshooting her quirks and mechanical errors making him indispensable and marking him as one of my best and brightest.
I guess I can say that I finally completely understand why he also was chosen to be SeeD during our test. While he didn't go through the chaos and prove himself in battle as Selphie, Zell and I did with our fatefully bad decision to chase after Seifer and attempt to wrangle him away from his romantic dreams of graduating due to heroics, Nida was more than deserving of the honor of succeeding in his goals.
He explained that, given what the Esthar scientists had sent to us, that it appeared the alien energy stream was reactive with our world. A difference in the photon strength something. Like I understand. Nida surmised quite off the cuff that the collision of matter with Obel Lake that I confessed to (he understands that he's not to reveal that fact to anyone under pain of death, and accepts that condition with an understanding smile), the planet's energy stream that bubbles to the surface in draw-points that the Guardian Forces drag spells from was forced to the point of the incidental contact. He spun theories about the alien photons being of high enough energy to react in the nuclear fields surrounding the nuclei of our planet's wounded crust and bubbling draw-point, the incident particles that churn in the energy spurts that we use for supplying ourselves with magic and in fact define what type of magic that energy spurt can become, causing those photons to undergo energy to mass conversion and spit out a bunch of photons and electrons. And apparently those two particles can't exist in the same place, so they collide and explode violently, emitting more photons as the masses are converted back into energy (that whole energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only change states thing that I vaguely recall learning about eons ago and immediately dumping for more useful information).
Yeah, my head's spinning just trying to read what I've written.
Nida explained that the huge number of these tiny conversions and explosions have been building up a critical mass of energy right underneath the newest cracks in the planet's crust. And that once the amount of energy there superceded the planet's ability to contain it, it viciously burst free, shaking the entire world's surface as it did.
Sounds reasonable to me. I'm debating whether or not I should give him a mission – go be a voice of fucking knowledge and reason and be a good ambassadorial spirit between the two rivaling nations that flank our island home, and pummel sense and wisdom into them. Maybe if they combined forces and Nida joined them, they'd devise an answer I can actually understand, and more importantly develop a solution that the world could work to either stop this phenomena from occurring and prevent it from occurring again, or at least lessen its impact on our planet.
The head of Dollet's National Bureau of Intelligence called my office today. The panicked call I couldn't make heads or tails of yesterday when Eden was caving my skull in wasn't overly important, they informed me; the feared espionage threat the representative whose name I can't even recall thanks to yesterday's painful migraines had cried at me about was a non-issue. Rather, they were having more serious problems – the small coastal nation was suffering from massive rolling power outages resulting from the horrible earthquake that struck the world this morning, and Galbadia's geological society predicting aftershocks of like strength had the people in a panic. The following waves of aftershocks were inciting riots and power failures throughout the land, bringing commerce within the tiny nation to its knees. Knowing that Balamb Garden had ears open to every scientific community on the planet (most especially the voice of the reclusive nation of Esthar with their supremely advanced technology and scientific proficiency), they were interested in convincing me to either divulge information or give them contacts they could seek such from concerning the origin of the quake. They were also requesting we roll Garden to supply them with a stable source of backup power to their nation, our self-contained power supplies being more than capable of carrying a large city along with every load Balamb's Garden can run simultaneously.
I feel for them. Really. My heart plummeted when they told me of the panic in the streets, the deaths at the hospital when power was lost to life support systems before their backup generators could be brought on the line, the terror of orphaned children as they sat in frigid shelters buried in darkness. But really? What can I do about it? Rolling Garden's a bit unreasonable, considering everything else in the world that's going on – plus with other nations requesting the same, showing favoritism isn't something I wish to divulge in.
I gave them the number to Odine's Laboratory's receptionist. I didn't know what they could garner from the accented crazed old koot, but even with his creepy proclivities he is the most knowledgeable man I know. If anyone could bury their heads in theories that make sense if you have a doctorate in everything that could be considered science, it'd be the ruffled maniac of Esthar.
Plus that guy could probably give them instructions on how to build a powerful electrical generator from Pop-Tarts and dreams. Needless to say, if the wily bastard was willing to speak to them, he'd provide infinitely more assistance than I ever could.
Centra's request for mountain-range scouting was revised today – it became a request to stave off the Cactaur invasion that was taking place, three small communities having already been overrun and evacuated. To make matters even more complicated, the sandworms that normally kept themselves near the mountains and centered on Centra's fragmented remains have been jolted out of their normal environments, fleeing the devastating earthquake that nearly leveled the central remaining mass of the continent and are now making the lives of those who live in the villages already suffering from the odd Cactaur influx absolutely miserable, eating their livestock and their children. They'd been wanting mountain scouting to determine if the aggravating worms were still residing so close to human population centers as they once were – the rise of sandworms in the centers of small desert villas confirmed that well enough without our assistance.
They also requested we roll Garden to assist them, wishing for sandworm free shelter for families and livestock. I politely declined that request. However, I did draft a contract for them and emailed it away for their perusal and signature of approval and acceptance of the price I'm going to charge posthaste, volunteering our services in the form of a full contingent of SeeD (nine, to be exact) to assist them in repelling the Cactaurs and the sandworm invasion.
Balamb Garden was rocked by some pretty powerful waves, sending requisition requests for Dramamine into my inbox from Medical. Fortunately, being a waterborne vessel these days, we weren't hit nearly as hard as the island itself – a portion of old downtown Balamb City was flattened, the tiny adobe houses not built to withstand the roaring earthquake nor the abnormally huge waves that rocketed over our coast immediately following the end of the rattling.
Zell doesn't need to know yet that his mother's been displaced and his room is now a pile of rubble. All he's been informed of is that she is indeed safe, currently residing with her sister and brother-in-law in the northwest suburbs that rest outside of Balamb City's massive walls. He's also been informed that I do in fact have a fair number of SeeD cadets roving that area, ensuring that the monsters of the island don't come close to those suburban paradises as they have in other nations. I don't need him any more distracted than he already is, considering the instant manning-hit we're going to take here with the number of SeeDs I'm projecting I'm going to be sending out to assist the world in dealing with their ill-preparedness; I'm going to need him focused and alert, ready to assist me at a moment's notice with whatever comes up when most of my force is gone.
After all, he's one of the most reliable friends I've got. I need to keep him that way for the moment.
Trabia Garden itself actually contacted me this morning, inquiring about working with us and Galbadia Garden's remaining administration and skilled laborers – they needed a lot more manpower than they had to not only continue work on their Garden's reconstruction efforts, but to clear the new debris that had so littered their site that it was nigh on impossible to work. They also requested we roll Garden to their location to perhaps provide assistance from our machine shop on board, as their own, while sufficient, wasn't projected to keep up with the work load that would be requested of it.
They sent me photos of what had occurred, pictorial evidence of destruction that nearly floored me.
The quake that rocked the world caused avalanches and rockslides throughout the mountainous valley that surrounded the Trabia Garden site as I'd expected. What I hadn't expected to see what the largest of the mountains spewing molten magma into the air, plumes of black smoke blacking out the sun and rivers of fire snaking over snow and bathing in sheets of impenetrable steam.
Trabia Garden assured me that they had successfully evacuated the area, and that the lava flow, while impressive, wasn't threatening any nearby settlements. The insanely cold winter temperatures of the northernmost continent of the world was slowing the threat of the magma wall that poured its way slowly over the landscape. Even as we were conversing, Trabia Garden's Headmaster assured me that the towers of lava spewing from the tops of the mountains were much lower than they were, more blackened smoke and less fiery rain filling the sky than a mere hour ago.
I may have to have a talk with Shiva and convince her to junction and cooperate with someone. Her might in the winter of the north could aid them in suppressing the threat that still fell from the heavens and protect not only my people that would travel to provide aid but also all who dwelled in the region.
I thought about contacting the Shumi and seeing is they had felt any ill effects from the earthquake. After all, they were about as far as any civilized region is stationed from the epicenter of the planet's surge. They may not have had much, if any, damage.
Then again, being underground and covered by a dome of glass and steel, they may very well all be dead. An entire civilization and race completely wiped off the face of the planet by an earthquake no one could have predicted.
Perhaps when I gather my team to go to Trabia Garden, I'll task them with touching bases with the Shumi village. After all, I don't really have a reliable telephone number with them.
I guaranteed Trabia Garden that I would have a group of four mechanics, three electricians and at least ten good laborers heading out at the end of the week, unfortunately without Balamb's Garden itself. It would decimate our core engineering group here at Balamb, but we are in far less mortal danger than our sister academy to the north.
Pondering over whether or not to call Galbadia Garden and inform them of Trabia's state, I decided that I'd leave such a task to Trabia. It wasn't really my business, and they were capable of taking care of that themselves. Plus Galbadia Garden would likely respond more energetically from a call directly from the victims rather than a relayed message from potentially the safest and most unaffected place on the planet.
Esthar still hasn't derived anything new about the energy stream that's pouring onto our planet. After sending spectral analyses, wave comparisons and the like to us, they veritably shrugged their shoulders and said 'beats me.' All we can determine is that the energy stream from space carries in it odd incident particles the like of which we've never seen on this planet and organic material that is so alien in nature they can't begin to find a comparison sample in their vast databases.
They've also been bemused by the fact that their computational abilities and analyses have been hard hit by the earthquake, their backup generators giving them enough power for lights, vital backup and necessary electric-grid loading but not much else. My answers will apparently have to wait until the Esthar Utilities Union can be motivated to get their power supplies back up and the lights back on throughout the capital city.
Esthar's northern regions had called with issues – apparently the monstrous residents of the Grandidi Forest have been shaken from their territories and are fleeing into the deserts, the recent activity of the planet that was raising unmitigated chaos in the huge mountain ranges forcing them to clash with the villages that struggled for survival in the harsh Estharian sands. The thick black smoke from Trabia's newly erupted volcanic chain was crushing the forest, pushing heat and magma fury into its winter-dried mass and lighting much of it on fire.
Chocobo sightings have been skyrocketing in Northern Esthar as they flee the fires that ravage their sanctuaries, the rare creatures feral and wild and rampaging without mercy. Fortunately, the birds have been aiding the villages of the north desert, their notorious lack of love for monsters bringing bloody clashes and wild battles to the sands.
The Lunatic Pandora Laboratory has been populated by the villagers from the surrounding area. Structurally intact and quite safe from monstrous invasion simply owing to its nearly impenetrable construction, it's become an odd haven for those displaced by the rolling waves of creatures that pour from the Grandidi Forest's burning expanse.
They request SeeD personnel to turn back the enormous waves of monsters that are plaguing them and the Garden's presence to provide safe haven if the Laboratory itself were to fall under attack. I unfortunately had to tell them that we'd withhold consideration of their request until the fires in the Grandidi Forest could be squelched – there was no point in trying to drive away a monstrous wave if the region we'd drive them to was more dangerous and less desirable than the desert we'd be attempting to clear of their presence. No monster in its right mind would run into a fire from a SeeD. Plus rolling out the Garden as a backup to an already viable shelter? I think not – there's other locales that need it more, and I can't bend to them, either.
Delling is requesting my presence – apparently General Caraway, concerned about the welfare of his daughter with the plague of chaos that's descended upon us, feels that summoning me to discuss SeeD involvement with rescue and aid efforts throughout the world and offering a press conference organized by himself to give us a positive boost in reputation by displaying our humanitarian nature is the best way to calm his worries. Sheah, awesome excuse there, General.
I do have a sinking suspicion that Cid's going to force me to go along with it, even though he's been silent and hiding from reality during the rest of this wretched cacophony of events. Always leaving me with the hard decisions and the headaches.
Can't fault him – if I had a dependable lackey that would do everything to my satisfaction, I'd hide under my desk from the world, too.
Fisherman's Horizon gave us a courtesy call, not bothering to request aid from our already overreaching and overburdened efforts – they simply felt the need to inform us that with their fishbowl city having been buried under a tidal wave initiated by the world-shaking quake that rattled our planet, they'd be entirely unavailable to help us with any services Balamb Garden's mechanical construct required for quite some time. I gave them our condolences, giving them the symbolic offer for aid should they decide that repairs to their tiny independent community were truly beyond their capabilities. Not like we'd be able to do much, but one has to play the game. Or so I'm told.
If I do roll the Garden to any location, it's going to be Fisherman's Horizon. After all, they've assisted us greatly in the past – it's only right that we return the favor. Plus they were polite enough not to request our rapid response. We'll see where they're sitting in a week or so, then stroll over and offer our aid, provided I have enough people onboard to even get this behemoth moving and provide any real assistance to the dreamers' city.
Finally, Timber.
The news reports I saw today over the course of my brief lunch break confirmed what I'd heard from the ambassador I've been in contact with – the monsters Rinoa and I had faced off with in the Obel Lake region had fled that district, leaving the sanctity of the forests to plunder the outstretching villages that housed most of Timber's scattered population.
Most of the Timber territory is ravaged, villages razed to the ground and those settlements' occupants eaten or simply slaughtered. T-Rexaurs are being sighted banding together like enormous ravenous wolves, forming the most dangerous packs the planet had ever seen. Dragons are darkening the already blackened sky with their massive leathery wings. A malboro has been reported by TNN, Timber News Network, to be establishing a hive a mere twenty miles outside of Timber's capital.
The capital itself has nearly been decimated by the violent shattering shudder the planet had unleashed this morning. Only a few buildings remain standing, their walls cracked and strained as they stand in silent testimony to the horror that has taken place at their feet. The huge television tower toppled, crushing everything around it with rubble and dust. Hundred upon hundreds are missing, hundreds more confirmed dead as people dig through the rubble searching for loved ones.
Anger and rage are roaring from the survivors, people screaming for the newly established independent government of Timber to aid them. To provide for them. To give them shelter, to promise food, to hand them an allotment of hope in the face of disaster and despair. The Forest Owls have been mentioned in the news once more, apparently taking the government they'd help establish to task.
Riots are rampaging through the country, driven by fear of monsters, fear of earthquakes and fear of the still unexplained phenomenon that rained the water of Obel Lake over most of the countryside. People are degenerating into wild animals, looting prominent and merciless, everyone upholding the ideal of 'each man for himself' as they ravaged their neighbor to assure their survival.
And among the chaos, buried in the agony, I heard the words of Timber's ambassador ring in my ear as I had him on the phone.
There's someone taking advantage of all of this. Someone scouring the decimated countryside, someone who burns all in its path if they please it. Villages monsters had circumvented were lit in hellish flames, every man, woman and child who'd made their residence there slaughtered like livestock. Mercilessly cut down as they attempted to flee, sliced to ribbons as they attempted to fight.
What scant video footage could be drawn from the satellites and spy cameras of both the Galbadian and Estharian governments by my people down in Intel didn't show me much beyond what I had been told. Indeed, all it revealed was confirmation; confirmation, and profession that this mad character had been at its game for longer than the Timber government was aware, sightings being found over the course of nearly a full month preceding this day.
Indeed, the first video evidence we found of this individual started a mere three days after I'd summoned Eden and the green energy stream had begun to snake onto our world.
A rampaging menace with a horribly long sword, walking with ease and confidence through village after village, assessing every person it met before cutting them down and leaving fiery destruction in its wake.
Perhaps returning to Timber is in order.
Rinoa understandably wants to come with me, her concern for me and my desire to plunge into the investigation of what I may very well have brought to our world, to see and summarily suppress whatever wretch was taking advantage of the chaos I had drawn to us to kill and terrorize overriding her sorrow over the massive setbacks we'd just suffered with wedding preparations. She keeps attempting to sooth my anxiety, her presence in my mind attempting to drag my focus away from my possible role in all that's happening right now. While I'm grateful for her touch upon my frazzled nerves, I do wish she'd stop trying to convince me that the truth I'm coming to realize isn't truth at all.
I think, underneath all of her concerns for me, she also wanted to see if that dratted chapel is still standing and if any restaurants are still going to be operational. And, likely, to ensure the Forest Owls are truly alright, even though thoughts of them directed towards her don't draw any panic – I'm willing to bet they've been in contact with her while I've been working my rear off in my office. I wonder if Zone's stomach is killing him right now.
I… want to forget all of this is happening. But I can't. I can't allow myself that easy road. Hence why every detail of today is getting logged in my journal, permanently recorded for review.
I can't let myself forget what I have gone through today as a result of the planet's surges. I can't let myself forget the panic and the calls of the day, the chaos of the world or the turmoil that dances through every nation on our world.
If all that's occurring there stems from my summoning of Eden, I need to remember it, to mourn my decision, and ultimately to rectify it.
Cloud sighed as he stared at his newly unwrapped Meal Ready to Eat.
"I'm entirely convinced that enchiladas aren't food men are supposed to live on," he grumbled, his voice laced with exhaustion, frustration and a touch of amusement. He'd been eating the MRE packet food for six days now since he'd met the tall, lank man named Irvine Kinneas, and had been given enchiladas four times. A solid third of his meals since that day made up of a pasty mess that supposedly incorporated a creature known as 'chicken' and was surprisingly digestible if not very appetizing.
"Well, you know the consequences for not eating it," his guard stated, his voice bored as he flipped the page in the magazine he was reading that morning.
"Of course," the blond huffed quietly. "Otherwise I wouldn't touch this crap. It smells worse than the protein shakes they sold in Wall Market."
"Where?" the young guard asked, quirking a brow as he looked over the top of his reading material, expression nearly bordering on interested.
"Nowhere you'd know," Cloud dismissed with a shrug. "Just like every other place I've mentioned to you guys."
A soft hum of acknowledgement slipped from the teenager with his dark colored skin, tightly cropped black hair and mouse-brown eyes as he returned to reading, taking only the barest moment to unconsciously smooth a wrinkle in his perfect uniform.
Cloud groaned as he lifted his odd utensil (he'd learned just two days ago that it was something called a 'spork,' an intriguing combination between a fork and a spoon) and slowly turned it, watching the congealed mash that supposedly was a corn flat-bread type of material wrapped around a poultry-type bird with an odd cheese-product, some variety of granular starch product and flecks of something red plop off of said utensil to splatter with the remaining mash that rested within its brown plastic tray. Scowling at the paste his stomach was already crying about, he scooped a bit of the fallen mass onto his spork and placed it between his lips, his tongue sobbing as the blandly flavored mess mixed with his saliva. With a magnificent amount of effort he gulped it down.
Upon looking in his tray, he nearly whimpered. One scoop down. From past experience, he knew he had fifteen more to go.
But the enchilada would always be the first to go. The coffee packet, bitter and stale and always lukewarm at best with the included heating element's limited capacity to warm water in the resealing packet meant for his heated beverage, was always more flavorful than the mess that was the focal point of the meal. The crackers were tasteless and chewy but not too overly offensive. The odd purple cereal (it was supposed to taste like grapes) was always his desert, the messy concoction ultimately delicious compared to the rest. The remainder of the water in his canteen was always thirstily gulped down before he had to hand his emptied trays and his water vessel back to the guard outside of the bars and their invisible electric force field.
He didn't dare skip a meal, no matter how revolting it was. Cloud had wisely deduced that, being held captive by a military force, they'd not hesitate to break him down to the barest necessities for human survival – a meal every three weeks and a drink of water every two days – if he were to reject their 'humane' treatment of his imprisoned self. While he didn't envision himself remaining a peaceful and compliant prisoner in such a harsh prison, incarcerated for reasons he was certain were overblown to the point of ridiculousness simply to keep him in place for observation as a supposed scientific oddity in whatever parts he'd found himself in, he also didn't want to make his stay in the brig of the Garden that held him any less comfortable than it already was.
The guards, with the exception of the evening guard who had pulled duty for the first five days of his prison-stint, were dull as a box of rocks.
The loud girl with her flipped hair that Cloud could assign the name of Selphie Tilmit to these days thanks to his ability to recall details in cross-talk had swept in time and time again, her questions always harsh and laced with threats promising pain if she didn't hear what she wanted. Cloud nearly found himself grateful for the force field that stood between them, keeping her from mangling him as apparently every answer he gave her, despite them being entirely true, was not to her satisfaction.
He couldn't help that she had no clue where any location on the Planet was. He couldn't help that she had no idea what the sordid gathering known as the Turks were. And he certainly couldn't help that she had no knowledge whatsoever about mako, materia, or any other basic commodity Cloud had ever run across, had experience with, or seen in his life.
He personally was of the opinion that she wore her big boots owing to lacking knowledge about the fine art of tying shoelaces.
But that Irvine Kinneas didn't know any of that information either, despite that man's great patience, ability to listen and assimilate knowledge from his surroundings and remarkably deep intellectual prowess Cloud had decided he must possess to be as reasonable as he was. That confused Cloud greatly – how could anyone not know of Midgar? Of Meteor?
Why did they not comprehend his awestruck recollections of Meteor and Holy battering Midgar into the ground, and instead gave him patronizing looks while calmly professing that Meteor and Holy are spells that can be gathered by any SeeD wishing to risk life and limb on one of the two most dangerous islands in the world? As far as Cloud was concerned, it either colored his captors as lunatics who had no clue about the functioning of the real world and the spells contained therein, or it spoke of possible changes in his circumstances he couldn't begin to reasonably believe.
Still, the place he was held in was foreign enough that it had taken him considerable amounts of time and focus to learn anything concerning his locale. After all, his shattered memories never gave him any glimpse of circular lobbies with large elevators in their centers and enormous pools with odd fish fountains lining them, a room large enough to denote the place he was in was enormous and would therefore be an giant landmark, known throughout his world of small villages and insignificant structures. If he had ever had the opportunity to come across a building as large as he suspected he was in, he was convinced he'd have at least vague recollections of seeing it.
He wasn't completely clueless, though – despite the fact that what he'd learned confused him even more than he'd initially been, he was slowly but surely learning about his situation.
At least after nearly two weeks of incarceration, Cloud had managed to wrangle a few bits of information, both from guards and the patient man in his chaps and black hat.
He knew that 'Garden' in this area was a term used to reference the military institution he was currently on. He also knew that 'SeeD' referred to the people in the Garden, apparently all mercenaries trained in an academic setting onboard the mobile base.
Cloud also had, in fact, learned that it was mobile. It had tilted a bit while he was attempting to get to sleep, nearly flinging him off of his bench – when he'd asked if they'd been hit by an earthquake, the guard had laughed at him and told him that likely whoever was piloting the garden while something called a Nida was off the watch had probably just nudged the control rudder a bit too hard.
While he was initially marveled with what he had learned through careful observation, his mind befuddled and bemused concerning the strange environs he was observing and the odd fact that he'd never before run across such an odd establishment or vehicle in his travels, he was also befit with sorrow.
He missed his home.
He missed Tifa.
He missed his family.
At that moment, he even missed Reno – at least the painfully obtuse and obnoxious maniac would be able to provide him with a means to return to Seventh Heaven and to Tifa's arms.
He also missed the oddly peaceful sleep he'd been having before Reno had convinced him to make that fateful plunge into North Crater. Ever since he'd awakened from his painful encounter with the blond martial artist, Cloud had once again been plagued by sickly green coloration with jumbled babble he couldn't understand infesting his senses in his nightmares. The vague sense that something was here, that something tethered to him was following him, grated on his nerves and raised flickers of caution and pain along his nerves.
While more distant than it had ever been back at his home, the alien sensation of Jenova's foreign presence in his body and mind had made itself known once again. And while it was so slim and faint that Cloud could very nearly bring himself to ignore it, the fact that it had risen once again after those six days of peace and departure from that horrifying normalcy he'd had bequeathed on him by the experiments he'd suffered through grated on his waking nerves.
Swallowing another bite of bland mush, Cloud repressed the sigh that threatened to escape him. He couldn't help but dream of Tifa's cooking as he helped himself to his wretchedly flavorless paste, remembering her hamburgers and fries, her steaks and mashed potatoes, her turkey sandwiches even. He was fairly certain he'd risk death by electrocution and charge that force field that backed the thick steel bars he was trapped behind if one of Tifa's specialty pancake plates, dripping with peach syrup and complete with bacon, was set upon the guard table.
Still, he ate without any further audible complaints. He didn't truly wish to test the patience of anyone in the establishment he was being held.
After all, he'd nearly killed one of them. That simple fact still sat heavily upon his mind and sickened his heart.
Granted the man he'd nearly permanently put down had been trying to do the same to him, but he wouldn't excuse himself for the nearly fatal result of their conflict. The opponent he'd come so close to murdering was nothing but a teenaged boy.
He had already violently stirred the proverbial waters he was floating in. He didn't wish to stir them any further.
Without prompting or care, he finished the remainder of his meal and soon set the emptied tray and his drained canteen by the bars of his cell. A mere moment was spent in relieving himself before he turned his back on his guard, granting himself at least the illusion of privacy in which to change the thin boxer shorts he was provided with every morning.
Once his discarded underwear from the day prior was added to the pile of refuse at the bars of his cell, Cloud retreated back to the bench that served as his bed and sat down, his movements still slightly stiffened by the lingering whispers of pain but no longer debilitated.
The guard had barely swept his tray away and reactivated the force field that stood between himself and Cloud before a loud buzz interrupted the peaceful and silent atmosphere.
Cloud arched a brow. "Was I supposed to get questioned again this morning?" he quietly muttered.
"Not that I was made aware of," his guard grumbled before dropping his gathered waste into the empty cardboard box that now made its home next to the water cooler.
The buzzer sounded again, eliciting a curse and a mutter for whoever was on the other side of the door to hold their chocobos from the guard as he walked without haste to the door. As click after click reverberated through the small pair of rooms, Cloud sat back down on his bench, smoothing his boxer shorts as he did so.
As the door swung open, the tall form of Irvine Kinneas filled the doorway and huffed at the teenager before him. "'bout time you got this thing open,"
With a sigh, the young guard blithely murmured an apology – then he instantly sprung to attention, offering a salute to the hallway behind the man with his hat and soft-looking trench coat. "Sir!" he instantly blurted.
Rolling his eyes, Irvine walked into the room and seated himself in the guard's vacated chair. "Now why don't'cha make some accommodations for the guy you've been makin' wait out in the hallway? Otherwise spoken as move out of his way, then vacate the premises?"
"Yes sir," the youth quietly stated, his head bowing sheepishly as his dark colored cheeks darkened further. Backing away from the doorway, he gestured lamely with a hand, indicating that the person waiting in the hallway was free to enter.
Cloud's eyes widened as he watched the newest stranger in the conglomeration of people he'd met in the last few days walk in.
He was certainly the least physically imposing of the bunch.
Unlike most of the men Cloud had seen enter the brig complex, this person wasn't overly tall. Considerably shorter than Irvine, the man stood perhaps only an inch or two taller than Cloud himself. He was thin in stature, perhaps a bit unnaturally so, with slim and long fingers and surprisingly fragile-looking features. Dark brunet hair fell limply around large eyes that flatly observed the world from hollow sockets, the skin around them bruised from sleepless nights, worry, or a culmination of the two. A vicious scar slipped between those tired orbs, brilliant against his placid and delicate face.
His skin was pale, almost papery, as if bereft of the sun's kiss for years – to Cloud's eyes, it was the skin of the sickly and infirm, stretched over taunt muscles and a wiry frame that whispered of strength hidden deep within the relatively scrawny figure he beheld. His stride was anything but firm and strong, rather wavering and cautious.
He wasn't in any uniform as the guards consistently were – however, Cloud didn't let that simple observation impact his opinion of the man for a moment. After all, the guard who was rapidly stepping outside of the door and closing it behind himself had addressed the man as 'Sir,' indicating he was indeed someone in that youth's chain of command.
Rather than any uniform, he was in simple black sweats and a white t-shirt. Bandages raced up thin arms, tightly wound and secured, their white coloration clean and unmarred. Every time that white t-shirt shifted, Cloud could garner a quick glance of similar wrappings around the young man's abdomen, those stained with light yellow seepage.
Everything about the man's stance suggested pain and weariness, from the position he took when he stood before Cloud's cell to the flickering flashes of agony across his face and the draining of the faint color that Cloud hadn't initially realized was actually staining his skin with every light wince.
But the eyes that shone at Cloud, gunmetal storms with flickers of blue flecks scattered among the gray and rimmed with brilliant silver, were anything but wavering and cautious as his stance and stride were – those eyes were sharp, crystalline and clear, and cool as they focused on Cloud with a surprisingly firm stare. They revealed nothing of what was going through the youth's skull, icy irises reflecting any and all thoughts inward even as they scattered any attempts to garner knowledge from their frozen surfaces. Any pain that he might have been experiencing was lost to those eyes, their focus strictly being on the prisoner before them.
"This is him?" the youth suddenly asked.
Cloud felt his heart stop for a moment as he heard his voice, staring even as he gulped.
He'd not expected such a smooth, deep and unintentionally sultry voice.
"Sure is, Squall," Irvine responded from his seat, tilting his hat over his eyes to hide his facial expression.
Humming softly, the youth frowned, his gunmetal eyes narrowing slightly. "He isn't the one."
"Come again?" Irvine asked, tilting his head up and peering towards both the man he'd identified as 'Squall' and Cloud.
Frowning, the man before Cloud's cell turned to Irvine and gestured with a finger. "Give me the stuff, will you?"
Grumbling, Irvine dug through his trench coat's inner pockets. "Sure, but you mind repeatin' that? I thought I heard you say that this isn't the guy."
"That's precisely what I said."
Irvine huffed as he handed a folded up piece of paper and a pen to the young man. "But his blood matched, Squall."
"I don't care."
Rolling his eyes, the auburn-haired man settled back onto his seat. "Fine, fine."
Turning towards Cloud, the young man signed. "So you're Cloud Strife?"
Cloud blinked a few times before he realized that he was indeed being addressed. "Yeah," he replied with a gulp to swallow his anxiety.
Internally pondering why he was so nervous talking to the newest stranger he'd had the opportunity to speak to, Cloud roughly shook his head to rattle his sense back into place within his skull. "Sorry," he modified a second later. "Can I ask who-"
"Squall Leonhart," the man instantly interrupted as he unfolded his paper. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"
Frowning, Cloud shrugged. "Sure. But you should talk with Irvine first – he and a girl named Selphie have already been asking me a lot."
"I know. They've already given me their reports."
Cloud silenced himself, his eyes widening slightly.
'They've already given me their reports.'
This youth was someone to which those two were responsible.
Cloud was shaken right out of his pondering as long fingers pressed the button that disengaged the force field and that piece of paper Squall's long fingers had been unfolding was thrust between the bars. "Mind looking at that?" Squall inquired, his voice soft yet stern, the very tone of it implying that his statement was no question but rather an order.
Nodding, Cloud lifted the paper and stared at it. As both of his brows lifted, he was startled as a pen thrust itself right in front of his nose.
"Will you label it for me?"
Taking the pen, Cloud ignored the brusque nature of Squall's demand and instead stared at the paper.
He turned it once, then twice, and finally a third time. Frowning, he tapped the pen against it even as he sat on the ground and pondered it.
"This is… accurate?" he questioned softly.
Squall simply nodded. "Please label it," he added a moment later.
Cloud frowned as he stared at the paper. Then he tenuously put the nib of the pen in his hand against it and began to write.
Midgar.
Edge.
Bone Village.
Icicle Inn.
Chocobo Sage.
Gongaga.
Neibelheim.
Rocket Town.
North Crater.
Kalm.
Chocobo Farm.
Frowning, he began to draw, adding Wutai and labeling it. Then with a sigh he scratched out the superfluous islands the paper was littered with. He scribbled out the entire edge of a continent, adding in landmasses he knew were in fact there, and labeled Miedel and the Temple of the Ancients.
Cloud felt a nervous wave of doubt race through him as he stared at the map he'd just labeled, looking like a rather pitiful rendition of the worldwide road map he kept in Fenrir's massive storage vaults.
Nothing about that map was correct.
Noting really matched up.
Squall's thin hand slipped between the bars. "Can I take a look?"
Handing the map back with a shake of his head, Cloud suppressed a sigh.
The young man only allowed one eyebrow to cock as he looked the map over. "Thought so. Explains what we've found out so far." He then tossed the map and pen to Irvine, who caught them without effort despite not bothering to look in Squall's direction.
"So…" Cloud helplessly began, his brain whirling around what he'd just learned.
That was an accurate world map, according to Squall. A blank one, but one whose continents and islands were accurately placed.
It was a world map that Cloud had zero familiarity with. The continent masses were in the wrong places. Islands existed where no island should exist. Land was missing.
He was either having the most remarkably realistic hallucination he'd ever had the opportunity to experience, or the impossible had occurred and he was as far from his home as he could possibly be.
"So your story that you gave to Irvine is true. Got caught in a flare of energy on your planet, and got whisked to this world," Squall bluntly questioned, his face registering no hint of surprise.
Cloud remained seated on the floor, too dizzy with shock to rise from his cool metal seating surface. "But… this can't be…."
Shrugging calmly, Squall sighed and looked over at Irvine. "Not like this is the first time we've met an extraterrestrial. I can't believe you and Selphie didn't consider that probability."
"Oh, c'mon Squall! It's not like he's blue and three feet tall," Irvine bit back. "How were we supposed to know? He looks as human as anyone else!"
"Sure does. Guess we're not the only humans in the universe, then," Squall remarked with a calm, bland tone before turning back to Cloud. "Given that, I need to ask you a few questions."
"Go ahead," Cloud weakly remarked, his mind still reeling from the new revelations he was being bombarded with.
"On your world, is everyone like you?"
Oh his world… Squall was implying Cloud was an alien. It was remarkable, hilariously odd and yet unsettling simultaneously.
All Cloud could think of for the moment was Jenova – the alien creature that came to his world, threatening to destroy it.
And now, he was an alien invader of a world.
"Cloud?" Squall asked, his eyes narrowing and his brow furrowing.
Shaking himself out of his own thoughts, Cloud sighed. "Sorry," he offered, his voice shy and quiet. "No. Not everyone's like me."
"Clarify," Squall requested.
"I… was experimented on when I was younger. Infused with mako and… other cellular material."
"Were you unique?" Squall questioned, his facial expression relaxing slightly.
"Not really," Cloud supplied with a sigh. "Mako infusion was done on all SOLDIERs. And the other cellular material… was… someone else's."
Irvine groaned from his seat. "And there's the link. Why both blood samples are so damned similar."
"Gotta ask the right questions, Irvine," Squall said with a bored expression taking his eyes. "So it wasn't you in Timber. Just someone who underwent the same experience as you."
"Please, I have no idea what happened in this place called 'Timber,'" Cloud supplied, hoping that Squall at least would fill him in unlike Irvine and Selphie when presented with similar questioning.
"Just ran into another person with your molecular oddities," Squall stated with a grunt before looking at Irvine. "Now we know something of what we're after. Get the tapes from Security. Selphie can run the information from medical through the Garden main – we can get an idea of his capacities."
Staring, Cloud blinked. "Whose capacities? The guy you ran into?"
"Sure," Squall vaguely supplied with a shrug.
"If you give me more details, maybe I can help," Cloud replied.
"Sorry. I'm pretty sure we can cover this."
"But-"
Squall sharply interrupted, "Don't forget you're a prisoner of this Garden. Despite the facts that you weren't present at Timber and your lacking knowledge or intent to break onto Garden, you have attained unauthorized entry to this premises and placed one of my SeeD personnel out of commission."
Cloud instantly fell silent.
Turning back towards Cloud for a moment, Squall focused on him with strained, tired gunmetal eyes that left the blond speechless. "I don't know why you'd want to assist us. But… thank you."
Cloud's eyes widened as he stared at the brunet.
Something had stirred in his mind and his heart, overriding the quiet nonsense that Jenova's alien presence always buzzed in the background.
He felt strong, powerful sensations that he was fairly certain weren't his own.
Loneliness.
Sadness.
Tiredness.
Pain.
Doubt.
Emptiness.
And most of all, hopelessness.
Before he could open his lips, before his brain could formulate any questions or statements, the brunet sighed and turned from Cloud, his frame sagging as if weighted by the world itself as he walked to Irvine's side. "Let's go," he softly ordered.
The lank man rose from his seat with a grunt and tilted his hat back to its proper position on his head. "Sure thing, Squall," he supplied. "Just… didn't expect that angle. Only aliens we've ever dealt with are the PuPu."
"Maybe there's a relation with all of this and Winhill after all," Squall muttered.
"Oh, come off it. You know that's just those little blue bastards trying to bilk us for more elixirs," Irvine snorted even as the pair wandered into the hallway and ignored the guard who snappily saluted and gave a greeting of 'Commander' and 'Instructor Kinneas' to them while they passed.
Stepping in with a sigh, the guard shut the door once more, his shoulders slumping as relaxation washed over him. Cloud could easily determine the source of his stress – no infantryman was ever at ease when their commanding officer came through, even on a casual stroll.
Looking towards the door, Cloud frowned as he felt those sensations that had bombarded him slowly fade, still lingering and present but hardly overpowering, foreign but not at all menacing as Jenova's presence always had been.
Instead of worrisome and oppressive as the alien's fire in his veins and the controlling grip on his mind had been, the emotive feelings that were hardly his own seemed to sit in his heart just as naturally as his own sensations, demanding nothing but attaining his attention and desire to attend to them all the same.
Something stirred within him, buried deep in his heart and his head. He knew something complicated had just begun.
If only he could figure out exactly what it was.
-to be continued-