Chapter Text
Cloud came to in the snow on the slopes of Mt. Nibel, and he was grateful for that. His head was pounding, and he was pissed.
His clothing no longer fit, and his sword was far too large for him. He stared at both for a long moment because that was a more comfortable thought than looking at his hands, which were too small, too smooth, the skin too tight.
He was a child. He would have screamed had he not been on the mountain, because the snow was a hazard he did not intend to provoke. Instead, he stared for a long moment, breathing hard… and packed the fury and the confusion away for later.
There was work to be done, and if he focused on that, he could make this work. He was still enhanced—he took a moment and considered his options, took stock. He had all his gear. He had all his enhancements—he didn’t like the method, but he knicked the back of his forearm and he healed at the pace he’d grown accustomed to.
….. Well then. He could work with this then.
He cast mini on his clothes and his armor and his sword, and after a moment, he went down the mountain, in gear that fit and with a blade he could carry.
***
He hit the manor first, because he would attract attention as soon as he started trashing places, and the manor would take longer. There was nothing in the reactor that he wanted to save, after all.
He took Cosmo Memory and Odin and everything else from the safe, stepping over the corpse of the monster to do it. He was glad but surprised he had remembered the combination, but it made things easier. He could do without the key, but it was easier, much easier.
He kicked open Vincent’s coffin a moment later. “No, don’t bother with the dramatics. I’ve got all the time in the world, but no patience left, so here’s what I know and why you should listen. I know you’re Vincent Valentine. I know Hojo did this to you—I know you consider it to be fair recompence for what you failed to do, which is to say, save Lucrecia, and her son, from Hojo. I just don’t care at the moment. I know where the lady vanished to. I can help you find and kill Hojo, and I’m likely to run into the lady’s… Son. You should get out of there and join me, but not just because of that.”
“Please don’t start with the offer I can’t refuse lines, I was a Turk, I know them all.” Vincent managed, still blinking a lot, and alright, Cloud looked like a child. But he was still listening. Maybe the shock and awe approach was the best if he wanted people to take him seriously.
“No. I’m not making that kind of offer. Traveling with me is on the table. But, me not burning this manor down right now isn’t. So… I guess what I’m saying is, it would be cool if you would join me, but unless you want to die—and in spite of appearances, I think what you want is to atone—you should get out.” And he turned on his heel and left.
“Boy, wait—“ He could hear the man clambering out, presumably to catch him and demand answers, because that was fairly reasonable when a child made threats of arson—but he was not a child, he was a survivor of Hojo’s lab and the end of the world, and he knew how to use his enhancements better than this Vincent did. He remembered what he had been like, fresh from the coffin, and he had no real chance to catch up until they were outside. “This isn’t ill-advised?”
“It’s ill-advised to leave it standing. He uses this place. It’s remoteness lets him get away with things he otherwise… might not.” Because there was no real guarantee that he wouldn’t be allowed to get away with it, was there? He might not be able to do what he had done to him and Zack in Shinra Tower… but then again…
Still, the thought clearly gave Vincent some pause—he at least might have been saved with greater scrutiny. He had friends in high enough places that they might have gotten upset, had they known. He finally offered a small nod before continuing. “Shinra will come to see what has happened. They may be angry.”
“Which is why I’ll give them a show up-mountain when the time is right—to prove that the town isn’t involved.”
Vincent gave him a narrow look. “I meant that this plan constitutes danger to you.”
“What else is new? You’re not the only one who’s been through Hojo’s circus. They’d want me anyway, and I am not letting… this place already burns every night in my nightmares. The town, I mean. The Manor… I don’t usually have dreams that good.” He summoned Phoenix, then tossed Vincent Odin as the great bird dove, wings aflame. “Here.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “I have not agreed to travel with you.”
“It’s yours regardless, but summoning it’s a brute. You have the mana to deal with it. Can’t summon more than one without ‘em getting pissy about it, and I’m not giving up Phoenix. So you may as well have it at your disposal. Call it a gesture of solidarity—from one survivor to another, Hojo is a piece of work.” The great bird took another pass—the building was burning merrily now, with it’s blazing bulk between them and the town.
Vincent took the materia—a little cautiously, but that was to be expected. Weighing it in his hand, he looked closer at the form in front of him. “You… aren’t actually a child, are you?”
“Don’t know if you mean that literally or metaphorically. Either way, no. I’m twenty-fucking seven.”
“Hojo?”
“This isn’t what he was aiming for, but it certainly wouldn’t be possible without his ‘help’. And I’m taking it more personal by the second.”
Vincent considered, watching the manor burn. “Say… I was willing to join you. In the hopes of taking bloody vengeance on Hojo and learning about Lucrecia. What would your first task be for me?”
Cloud paused, blinking. He hadn’t really thought of it like that. But… he had commanded Vincent before.
“I’m going to go up the mountain and wait near the reactor. Stay near town, keep an eye on things, you were a Turk, I’m sure you can figure out when whatever forces Shinra sends to investigate arrive. Send up a fireball and change locations—I’ll start the show with a bang.”
“And if you encounter trouble?”
“I’ll be fine, just don’t get caught. I can handle myself but getting captured is a mess neither of us want.”
Vincent nodded, slowly. “I can avoid that easily enough.”
***
It was a good plan. Would have worked too.
Except for several things. First—the Shinra investigators arrived when he was halfway up the mountain. He had no idea how they had gotten there while the wreckage was still smoldering, but he could only grit his teeth and make tracks.
Burning the reactor was… less eventful than he might have liked, actually. He checked to see if she was in, of course—felt the prickling in the back of her neck, Reunion trying to happen, and… sure enough, when he stared long enough, she blinked in her tank and started to smile.
He smiled back. Enraged. “You did this to me. I’m feeling pretty good about returning the favor. It won’t kill you, I know, but it sure as shit won’t feel good. And I want you to hurt.” It wasn’t pretty, but it was honest. And… he was talking to a parasitic bacterial colony. She-It, wasn’t worthy of his pity.
He summoned Phoenix inside the reactor, and watched as it turned everything, alien parasite, monsters, the inner workings of the reactor, some of the mako in holding tanks, and when it was all far, far too far gone to be stopped, he turned his back and left, pretending he couldn’t hear the bitch’s screams.
He blamed her for not paying attention to the fact that the feeling didn’t fade—when he looked out and saw the SOLDIERs standing across the catwalk above the mako in the antechamber of the reactor as he meant to leave. Two of them, one in a modified uniform. A first then, and not a normal one. Given that they stood shoulder to shoulder, and the second had an atypical sword hilt—two swords actually, one at his waist and one at his back, that from a distance looked a lot like the Buster, probably both Firsts. No one else really got away with modifying their uniform, except that one crazy bastard on his motorcycle.
Best to just let him.
He sighed loudly, knowing he could hear him, but didn’t hear the third member of their team until he had walked out onto the catwalk to join them. Sephiroth. He had been perched above the door—dropped to standing on the catwalk behind him so he couldn’t retreat.
He was grateful, suddenly, for the fire and the sounds of destruction as the reactor slipped ever closer to catastrophic failure. They had time, to be sure, but… this meant they couldn’t hear the panic in his heartbeat. He walked midway out, splitting the distance between the danger he knew and the two dangers he didn’t, keeping his head slightly turned so he could read the shock on all their faces… and more importantly, so he could react in time if they moved. For now, shock—his appearance-- held them all paralyzed.
“You shouldn’t go in there. Unless you have a lot more than a bucket brigade, a Shiva Summon and a lot of Ice materia to back you up, it’s way past the point of no return.”
“Kid, who are you?”
He frowned at the black-haired man. Something about him… no, it wasn’t important. “I’m not a kid, I just look like one. Thank your Science Department, specifically Hojo, for that. I’m twenty seven.”
“But—” They stared. He stared back at them. The man beside the first to speak, the redhead, took pity on his friend, shook his head and stepped closer.
“Why don’t we start with names and head back to town?”
“You can have my name if you like—I’m Cloud. But I’m not going anywhere with you. My time with the Science Department wasn’t exactly willing and I’m not going back to hell just because you ask nicely. Who the hell are you? Minus the silver haired one, I know that asshole.”
That bothered the redhead, but what he said is “I’m Genesis, this is Angeal.”
“I’d say nice to meet you, but I really hope you go away and the sooner the better.”
“Let’s say we believe you—” Angeal started, clearly not—
Sephiroth finally, finally spoke. It made him straighten and reach for his sword, but they had the sense not to approach, so that was fine. “We don’t believe you, for the record, child. If Hojo had that kind of power he’d be crowing about it like Chocobo stud in rut.”
Was that… profanity? From Sephiroth? He had heard he was different before he changed but this felt extreme. Like he was actually… human. “I don’t care if any of you believe me. But this wasn’t what Hojo meant to do, and he may not have realized what happened yet. Might be you also need to be swimming in mako and alien genetics to make it work…” He shrugged. “They made a mistake, didn’t realize I kept my mako strength. That cost em.”
Sephiroth actually… sighed. Then aloud, but pitched to carry cleanly to his comrades, “Alright, that… does sound like Hojo then. Trip over something insanely valuable only to lose it because you’re an idiot? Hojo all over.”
Cloud… actually laughed. “While we’re at it, all of SOLDIER? He’s fucked you up with alien cells. Think on that later. Especially you, Sephiroth. It’s not good for mental stability, I’m afraid. They made clones of you. I had to put a number of them down.”
Sephiroth made some small noise in the back of his throat Cloud read, with surprise, as horror but not shock. Angeal, however, looked like he was a child who had been told Daddy shot Santa last year with a sawed off shotgun. “Shinra wouldn’t—”
“Oh dear gods, are you an idealist? Am I dealing with an idealist?” Cloud rubbed at his eyes until his vision flashed different colors. “I am… torn between scorn and unmitigated pity. Genesis, protect your virgin minded friend. He’s precious.”
“Don’t demean him.” Sephiroth said, and Cloud was stunned again—he sounded actually irritated.
“Let me put it this way, I really, really wish he was in a position of real power at Shinra, but where he is, it’s not good for him to think like that. Particularly with what the company will do with you all. Eh. Whatever. You’ve heard who I am and why I am. You gonna piss off or are we just gonna stand here while the reactor comes down?”
Genesis put a hand on his friend’s arm (Angeal was clearly still processing), and said, in gentle tones that sounded like they were straining his throat “Regardless, we can’t simply let you run around destroying property willy-nilly—”
“Bitch, I just told you why I’m doing this—was the torture experimentation not adequate reason? Do I need to point out that by destroying his lab in the manor and the power supply for any nearby data backups, I’ve made sure he can’t do this to anyone else?” Cloud gritted his teeth. “I’ve told you how old I really am. Make your decision and attack or don’t. I’m not coming with you peacefully. Which you should hear to mean ‘not at all’.”
“… I’m starting to feel like assisting him.” Sephiroth commented again, tone mild, and Cloud blinked, a lot, in shock. Then shook his head.
“Play mind games a different day, I’m not feeling the urge to walk along into a poorly laid trap. And I’m even less inclined to cut myself off at the knees. If I get that urge, I have a sword, I can do it with less fanfare.”
Angeal seemed to have recovered somewhat. “Okay, but… look, lets say we believe you. You still can’t wander around on your own—You look like a child, but you also have clear mako glow, enhancements… Shinra will track you easily.”
“And Hojo will only be more desperate to regain you if you really have escaped him and destroyed his research. You can’t hold out against everything he can do forever, Cloud—you need a plan.”
“So I should walk back arm in arm with Shinra’s top attack dogs—I mean retrievers—no maybe it’s attack dogs, whistling and skipping as you arrange for me to be locked up in a brand new mako tank for the rest of my days except when Hojo slabs me to cut me up? Thanks, you sound just like the guys who put us in there in the first place. Help me out here, because I had a friend sacrifice himself so I could get free of Shinra. If you want me to cooperate all that badly, give me an option that doesn’t obviously end with me naked on a table again.”
“We wouldn’t—”
“Maybe you wouldn’t. But you aren’t the chain of command, bucko.” Cloud shook himself, loosening up his muscles. “Shinra doesn’t own me because Hojo fucked me over and you don’t own me just because I look like a kid. If you think you do, I have a pointed rebuttal to make.” He pulled the sword free of it’s harness. “Let me be absolutely clear. Any of you lay a hand on me and I will hurt you badly. I will be trying to kill you.”
The redhead looked irritated now. “We’re Shinra’s top Firsts—surely you can see your odds are better trusting us than just trying to fight us all or staying in an exploding reactor!”
“It’s because you’re Shinra’s Firsts that I can do no such thing. But you’re right—time is short and frankly, I’m not confident in this body’s exact abilities anymore.”
Angeal let out a slow breath, features softening with relief as Cloud sheathed Fusion. “Thank the gods. I’m glad you’ve decided to be reasonable—”
“Oh, I doubt you’ll see it that way.” Cloud said, and hopped up on the catwalk railing. Angeal let out a strangled shout, Genesis froze, horrified, and Sephiroth—he was closer than he thought he had been, one hand outstretched. “Every other time I swam in mako, I lived. Better odds than Shinra.”
And everything happened at once. Cloud kicked backwards—because if the Planet was going to put hm in this situation, then it was going to have actually work with him, damn it, and he was gonna call that bluff, and a small explosion—a forerunner—finally, finally hit the reactor, sending debris flying and knocking Angeal and Genesis back—and Sephiroth flung himself right over the catwalk edge after him without thought, catching him up in an embrace and twisting so his back would hit the mako first.
Cloud realized he was trying to protect him half a minute after he had drawn a dagger and stabbed Sephiroth twice with it on the way down.