Well, welcome to the new story. This has actually been bouncing around in my head for a while now, and I'm happy I'm far enough ahead in Mage's Pride to actually begin working on this. Updates will be on Thursdays, every week, excluding weeks I forget or am too tired/sick/behind to update on time.

Please read and review!

Word count: 1331

Trigger warnings: Some harsh language.

Chapter 1: Awake

Vincent was awakened by a rather abrupt series of knocks on the lid of his coffin.

The first set he wrote of as things falling from the ceiling: in an old building like Nibelheim's Shinra Manor, that wasn't really an uncommon thing.

The second set he wrote off as monsters, possibly the small, bomb-shaped ones he remembered from when he was an active Turk at the manor.

The third set was accompanied by a very snappish, "Would you wake the fuck up already?!" And Vincent couldn't really write that one off.

"Seriously, Vincent Valentine," the voice continued. "I don't have that much time in here, so the sooner you wake your ass up the better." The speaker sounded childish, but eerily familiar, like the younger, male version of someone Vincent once knew.

And hoped to Gaia wasn't still alive. That woman was terrifying.

"Whoever you are, leave me be," Vincent commanded, closing his eyes and hoping to lapse back into whatever sleep he'd been in for the past Gaia-knows how long. There was a stretch of some-what silence, filled with the sounds of someone (or something) rooting around, accompanied by a number of crashes, before the speaker was back.

"Vincent, I'm not even kidding. Ma will beat my ass for being home late to dinner,- on stew night, no less- then beat your ass for making me late. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd rather go to bed tonight free of any maternal-rage-induced injuries." There was a joking lilt to the voice, but at the same time, Vincent knew the speaker was being serious.

So, after a moment's consideration, Vincent blew off the lid to his coffin, sending it flying across the room and startling whoever had woken him.

A boy with almost golden blonde hair stared up at him from where he had landed on the ground in his shock, vibrant blue eyes blinking rapidly. Vincent tucked his face into the collar of his cloak and resisted the urge to smirk.

"Was that even necessary?" The blonde grumbled after a moment, picking himself up off the dirty floor and dusting himself off. His rhetorical question was followed by a number of curses and what sounded like, "Oh, Ma's gonna kill me now." Vincent was almost impressed by the child's litany of words to use to describe one's highly unlikely origins.

"It's sounds to me like your mother wasn't to fond of the idea of you coming up here to… er… fetch me?" Vincent wondered, lifting himself from the coffin. The kid snorted, shaking his head in a way that made his blonde spikes bounce comically.

"Nope!" He proclaimed happily. "Not in the slightest. But she promised that if I could make it to the manor, wake you up, and be back down to the house with you in tow in under two hours, she wouldn't say a word about it ever again. The name's Cloud, by the way. I keep forgetting people don't know me anymore."

"Cloud," Vincent parroted, a bit confused, following the boy out of the manor through one of the service tunnels that ran underneath. There were a few monsters, nothing that Cloud couldn't take out with a few deft shots before Vincent could even draw his gun properly.

Vincent was beginning to believe Cloud truly did have training from someone, and his style with a gun unrefined and looking like that of one far more comfortable with a sword but was also pointing towards someone Vincent sincerely hoped wasn't it.

They were reaching the end of the tunnel, a bit of the pale mountain light- that mostly came from sunlight reflecting off of snow- finally reaching Vincent for the first time in two decades, when the ex-Turk asked, "And if you couldn't make it back in two hours?"

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck bashfully.

"Well, let's just say I'd probably never hear the end of it."

They made it to Cloud's house with three minutes and forty-five seconds to spare. A new record for Cloud, personally, considering everything he had to do up there. But he wasn't really too concerned with setting any personal records at the time.

Cloud hesitated for the slightest of moments, bracing himself for the Hel that was likely to be unleashed upon him, before he pushed open the door to the tiny Strife Family abode and stepped inside, not even sparing a backwards glance to make sure that Vincent was following.

The inside of the house was wonderfully warm: a fire burning in its place, rugs covering near every inch of floor, overflowing bookshelves lining almost all the wallspace. It wasn't a large house by any means,- it was but three main rooms on the ground floor and a loft above where Cloud and his mother slept- but it was enough for the two of them.

Marian Strife sat calmly in her rocking chair before the fire, back to the door and knitting. Cloud didn't even try to sneak past her. It wouldn't do much good; he'd tested that already.

"I'm back, Ma."

There was a shift in the woman's golden head that told Cloud she had acknowledged him, but the rocking of her chair didn't even stutter, nor did the clickity-clack of her bone knitting needles.

"And Vincent's with me?" Cloud tried. The rocking of Mrs. Strife's chair finally came to a halt. She placed her knitting in the basket beside her calmly and stood.

Vincent felt his breath catch in his throat when the woman turned around. Oh, shit. It was her. Or, at the very least someone who was an exact replica of her.

Ave Maria, the finest Turk ever to live, the only Turk to up and vanish without a single trace of where she had gone; and not for the lack of seeking her out on Shinra's part. She'd been Legend's former partner and one of the few who knew every secret that Shinra had to hide at the time- and almost no doubt knew all of the companies current skeletons. Of course they had tried- and failed rather thoroughly- to find her and bring her back.

But she had been gone, without even a trace of her left in any archive or book or register. Just a ghost of a memory in the minds of the few people who'd had the luxury of working with her and an urban legend of her lingering behind to frighten young Turks. A legend of a woman so fierce she'd brought President Shinra himself to his knees, back when President Shinra was still a warrior of a man building a budding company. A legend of a woman that made even the strongest fear the slightest mention of the name Ave Maria, that scared younger Turks from ever taking upon themselves such a weighty title.

A legend of a powerful woman. A legend of an executioner.

But there she stood, in all her 5'1, sand-colored skin, blonde-haired glory, blue eyes sparking like twin sapphires.

"Hello, Valentine." Calm. Collected. A bit hoarse, but probably from raising the little blonde devil that was likely her kid. Said little demon that was standing just as serenely at her shoulder, her spitting image if he only had the bust and lengthy hair.

Vincent couldn't tell if he was frightened or giddy, though neither emotion showed.

"Hello, Maria."

Calm. Collected. Cool. Just the greeting of two Turks (ex-Turks) at the dawn of something greater. It happened all the time, often without either party knowing. But both of them knew this time. It was as though they could feel it; the Fate's converging in that tiny house in the tiny reactor town of Nibelheim.

The greeting of two Turks at the dawn of something greater. Together with the boy who was the past-present-future, they would change the world. The last time, Nibelheim was the beginning of the end.

This time, NIbelheim would only be the end of the beginning.