Second Iteration

Cloud had only very recently learned that his red-eyed mentor was not, in fact, male. He could not even claim the credit for discovering Vincent's gender himself; the blond would still have been in the dark had Chaos not outright told him that the former Turk was a woman.

"Vincent forgets," The quasi-summon had said, eyes glowing a uniform and brilliant gold, "that actual gender is relevant to most people. She was born female but her father raised her to be a man so she naturally acts the part. The deception is neither deliberate nor personal, little chocobo, so do not dwell on it. This is how she is and she knows no other way; such a contradictory vessel."

Getting his head around the truth that Vincent Valentine, former Turk, mentor and friend was actually female made his brain ache for a few days but Cloud adapted. It also explained the ex-Turk's near obsession with Sephiroth: the blond knew his own mother would have been similarly determined to get him back if he had ever been abducted, if less well-equipped for eventualities than Vincent was.

Part of the puzzle that was obscuring Vincent's gender were the red-eyed avatar's metamorphoses. Chaos was weird, overpowered and sort-of bearable despite his habit of talking in riddles and the fact he liked to tease. The herald of OMEGA never raised a hand to Cloud, preferring to treat the blond boy like a younger brother: Cloud was someone to prod, torment and bedevil but never outright harm. The blue-eyed teen found the being utterly infuriating most of the time, yet the strange creature had told him a great many interesting and occasionally useful things over the years.

Death Gigas on the the hand was just dumb; thicker than a meter of concrete. When it emerged Cloud just had to stay behind it and watch the Gigas-like monstrosity with its metal attachments plough through the enemy with fists and occasional electrical bursts. It was like a chronically stupid Frankenstein's monster and impossible to interact with.

The Galian beast on the other hand Cloud had seen much more of. It looked like a bipedal Behemoth without the spikes on the tail and had clearly defined pack instincts, so whenever it emerged Cloud just made sure not to threaten it while it made mincemeat of today's enemies. After the fight Cloud would put his weapons away while it watched, then the Galian Beast would treat him the same way the boy had seen Nibel wolves treating their cubs. Getting carted off to a cave or forest clearing like an errant kitten was humiliating but oddly reassuring at the same time, as it told him that Vincent -on some level- considered him family.

That in itself should have told Cloud that Vincent was female -Galian Beast certainly had all the appropriate maternal instincts for its species- but he'd never considered the possibility at all. The former Turk just acted like a guy.

The last manifestation, Hellmasker, was just terrifying. Whenever it started to emerge Cloud would grab the chocobos and flee the fight, not stopping until he was well out of sight. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the screams to stop and fret about what happened until Vincent tracked him down so they could move on.

That had only happened twice, but twice was two times too many. Chaos was unpredictability incarnate but even he was better than Hellmasker.


Cloud eventually tired of just lounging around and walked over to the edge of the cliff so he could look down over Midgar's upper plate, the ShinRa building sticking up in the middle like the axle of a wheel. In the past three years he'd been absolutely everywhere on the planet including Wutai -Vincent had briefly encountered Sephiroth but the older teen had been called back to Midgar for his promotion soon after- Mideel and even as far north as Icicle inn. They'd caught a wonderful chocobo during that particular trip and Cloud's black chocobo Dash was now the proud father of a cute little golden chocobo chick that was safe and happy back at the Chocobo Farm with its mother. Choco Billy positively worshipped the cute gold ball of fluff and had agreed to enter it in the Golden Saucer chocobo races on their behalf, for a modest fee of course. His sister Chole would be riding little Sunshine as soon as he was old enough since she was small and light enough to be a good jockey and the woman was looking forward to it. An all-expenses-paid trip to Golden Saucer was nothing to sniff at.

Other than keeping an eye on Sunshine as he grew up, Cloud had nothing specific he wanted to do in the next five months until the autumn SOLDIER recruitment when he intended to become a cadet. He knew he could make the cut in the exams the year after: he was very fit for his age, well-educated in tactics and strategy and very, very good with Materia. His only problem would be avoiding conscription into the Turks. He had all the skills Turks looked for in new recruits and more -he was a quick study and Vincent had been a fantastic Turk- but Cloud needed to get into SOLDIER. Not for the mako, the glory or anything like on the propaganda posters; he was doing this for Vincent and Sephiroth.

In the past years, both in Nibelhein and on the road, Cluod had learnt a lot about Sephiroth. First by reading the lab notes on the horrific suffering a young 'Specimen S' had been put through, then from the reports hacked from the ShinRa database on the performance of SOLDIER first-class Sephiroth. The chilly teen Cloud had seen between the lines was totally isolated, idolised by his juniors, envied by his peers and expected to be perfect by his superiors. He had no real friends, no-one he could rely on to just be there for him. Cloud knew how awful that was -he'd been alone until he found Vincent- and wanted to help.

Besides, perfection was impossible to attain: Vincent had taught him that early on and the lesson was an important one. Cloud knew it was a lesson Sephiroth needed to take to heart before the man snapped.

Cloud's driving ambition was to become Sephiroth's friend and share with him all the fun things in life that the Silver General had missed, from chocobo riding to watching butterflies and toasting marshmallows over a fire. Vincent was Sephiroth's mother as well as Cloud's mentor and father-figure -which sounded really strange even though it was the truth- so Cloud intended to become a little brother to the man feared as 'the Demon of Wutai'. It was a fairly ridiculous ambition, one that all but required he get into SOLDIER since that was Sephiroth's peer group. Once inside SOLDIER Cloud would have the chance to interact with Sephiroth more often and -hopefully- make friends. Even if Sephiroth never trusted Cloud enough to be friendly, the blond had decided that he would be the General's friend no matter what.

The blond had read the science reports: Sephiroth was two-thirds Vincent, one-third Lucretia Crescent, had Grimoire Valentine's Y-chromosome -they'd only discovered recently that Hojo hadn't used his own- and had been raised in a science lab. The silver-haired SOLDIER was much, much more closed off than Vincent and likely had severe trust issues, but reading between the lines Cloud saw a caring person with a dry sense on humour peeking through the icy façade.

Cloud liked a challenge; Vincent said it was part of what made him unsuitable for the Turks, along with his emotional honesty and inability to tell an outright lie, though he could misdirect with the best of them. Making friends with the icy, paranoid Hero of Wutai was exactly the kind of challenge Cloud liked: massive personal risks, not too much outright physical danger and a life-changing prize to be won at the end. Besides, being friends with Sephiroth meant he'd never lack for future challenges as well as gain him a comrade for life; trouble followed the General around like a devoted puppy, mainly in the form of the Science Department and Hojo.

Cloud sighed, flicking open his PHS. Vincent still hadn't called. The blond really hoped his mentor's meeting with her son was going okay. Considering it had taken the better part of five years for her to finally admit to him that she was his mother, the possibilities for things going wrong were, well, pretty much endless. Especially when all the science stuff and the JENOVA mess was taken into account.

Not to mention Deepground and AVALANCHE.


An iteration is a mathematical trick where, when f(x)=y, you take y and substitute for x to get a new answer then repeat. Supercomputers can plot out millions of iterations to create very pretty designs on charts that look like ferns and other natural patterns.

What does Cloud want? Now you know. No hero worship this time around, thank Gaia.