Author's Note: Alright. I don't know if anyone even remembers this thing was going to happen, but here it is. Finally, the crossover I almost forgot about. Remember my old stories "I Want to Live" and "The Crying Game?" Both of which were going to be part of a Final Fantasy VII/X/Cowboy Bebop crossover? Yeah, this is that. Explanations will be given somewhere down the line. Title change. I don't know if I mentioned it was going to be called "Sinning in the Dark," but it's a shit title, so I pitched it.

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In Stride: Chapter I

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He'd been born Mick Artillery Kanzen, in the Mideel City Hospital, at eight-o-three A.M., twenty-six years and some days ago. Many say it was the middle name, so strangely picked by his mother, that tied him so tightly to the lifestyle. A lot had happened since that day, though. His mother was gone, his hometown almost turned inside-out, and his name had gone with all of his past acquaintances. Now he was --

"Reno, we got another one!"

And he'd watched Meteor go down.

It had been an overnight process, that. Holy had summoned forth the Lifestream and, in a battle that he'd never forget, completely obliterated the hulk that had been sent for the purpose of destroying the Planet. He and his comrades had, after vacating all important executives remaining from the ShinRa Building, watched this from the safety of the nearby mountain range.

Afterward, construction on Neo-Midgar, led by Scarlet Chassity, was immediate and swift. In the week since the great Sephiroth incident, much cleanup had been done and a few sectors repaired. With nowhere else to go, the residents were more than happy to help build their homes from scratch again. The Turks, now under Rude's command, had been put on beach patrol.

The job description was something like this: Any floating debris, except the case of A, that looks useful should be brought to Scarlet immediately. Any random, dead body, except in the case of B, should be tossed onto the corpse fire. Any random, living body, except in the case of C should be moved to the ShinRa Hospital Wing immediately. A included any AVALANCHE weaponry, which was brought to the armory for replication. B included any AVALANCHE member, as the Highwind had gone down with Meteor, who would be crucified on ten foot poles along the shoreline. C included any AVALANCHE member, who was then to be terminated into B.

Reno hated this job, minus the fact they got sand-safe wheels on their cars for this.

Not many knew it, but the sight of someone actually dying made him ill, which was why he'd never killed anyone. He'd set them up for someone else's taking, but never his own. He didn't mind corpses or near-dead bodies, just the actual dying state.

"Come on, Re! You might wanna see this one!"

Reno, puffing a much-needed cigarette, gave an affirmative reply into his radio, checked Elena's current position, and hauled himself into his vehicle. Following the guidance system, he glimpsed three bloated, deceased AVALANCHE members already strung onto their poles: Cloud Strife, Barret Wallace, and Cid Highwind. His best friend, Rude, was currently trying to figure out how to get the mangled remains of Red XIII into position.

He came over the hill and saw her standing by a lump of red half out of the water, clothing washing back and forth as the waves came in. He knew who it was before he parked and got out of his car. He took a few steps toward the fallen body of Vincent Valentine, drew back briefly, and then knelt next to him. Violently rolling him over, Reno found one eye was open, the other pierced with a small metal rod. More of those decorated the front of his body at various depths, and his golden claw was completely gone, leaving just the stump it had been connected to and his other hand, Death Penalty still gripped in it.

"Is he dead?" Elena asked, though she didn't sound too concerned.

Reno waved his hand in front of the man's eyes, but it was useless. He hadn't expected a reaction and he didn't get one. "He's dead," the redhead replied, then called to Rude for help moving him to a pole.

The job was absolutely gruesome, even boringly so at times. They found about twenty survivors a day. In the morning they would find a whole heap of them and then the day would go slowly until they were let off duty at dark. Then they drank away the past day until they'd had their fill, then the day would repeat when the sun came up.

Rude had been maybe twenty feet from his companions when, suddenly, he jerked and dropped Vincent. It wouldn't have been so strange had he not backed away a step or two, as the bald man was not one to back down from a challenge. Even more surprising was when he took off his sunglasses, as if he finally needed a better look at something. Elena and Reno hurried over to his side, looking down at the body in front of him.

After a few moments of nothing out of Rude, Elena started, "What's your pr --"

"Shh!" It was Reno's harsh sound, and it was he who bent down to look Vincent in the face. "He's saying something."

It took her a second to understand, then it was Elena's turn to look away, shivering from a sudden chill. "Oh, Holy, Holy, Holy. . .he's still alive, isn't he?" Her stomach wasn't as shaky as Reno's, but it was still just the fact that he was so close to the end and he still insisted on fighting, metal rods and all.

Vincent Valentine was, indeed, alive, and something told him he was the only one. He didn't care whether he lived or died now; Lucrecia had been avenged, Hojo would kill no more, and his body was at its last few threads anyway. He murmured, "I know you. . .Turks. . .new Turks. . .how weak. . .thinking this can kill a Turk. . .should shoot you now. . .bad Turks you are. . .no rods can kill me. . .I'm eternal. . .left eye won't focus. . .heh, right eye's all blank. . .I remember the crash. . .been floating for a few days. . .damn you, Hojo. . .making me so durable. . ." With that, his voice fell silent and his consciousness slipped away, right eyelid trying to close over that rod.

The blonde of the group had walked away some time ago, and Reno only stood up once he was sure Vincent was out for the time being. Rude had his gun drawn, but his partner pushed it away. "No, Rude. You know the code. No Turk will kill another Turk, present or past. Valentine. . .he was one of the best, and you know he only opposed ShinRa to take out Hojo, the one we all wanted at. I'll take him to the hospital and explain."

Rude looked him in the eyes, and the redhead realized he'd never seen them before. They were nothing short of what he'd figured; steely grey as dangerous as the storm clouds they looked like, small pupils that seemed to make a bead on his forehead. But the sunglasses went back on, Rude nodded shortly, and Reno was left with a cigarette and an unconscious, dying man whose right eye blazed right through him.

He shivered before dragging Vincent to the car, putting him onto the tarp in the back seat, and getting into his own seat.

He briefly wondered just what had brought all this about, this life he was living. It had probably all stemmed from Rufus' death. Rufus ShinRa. . .there was a kid with his finger on the pulse. He would have never done something as sadistic as Scarlet was doing now, he decided as he passed between two giant poles. The parts left of Red XIII were going up now, Rude doing this with a disturbingly intense concentration on his face.

Reno looked away. No, Rufus would have let nature run its course, cleaned up the bodies when they had all floated to the shore, and kept on with how the company was running, AVALANCHE and Sephiroth be damned. Then again, maybe that's what had gotten him killed: waiting until the last minute to do something about an immediate threat.

"Stupid kids," Reno muttered dishonestly, turning on the radio and trying not to think about anything until Vincent Valentine was out of his back seat.

-

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So it was half an hour later that he allowed himself to really think as he drove back to the beach. The hospital had been skeptical at first, saying that, Turk or not, he had fought against the company and would surely do it again if left alive. Reno had finally talked them into holding him for at least one night, until he could talk to Scarlet, and watched him for twenty minutes to see if there was any way he could pull into a better condition.

It looked like Vincent Valentine would be back on his feet in no time.

He phone began to ring and he picked it up, reading Elena's number on the caller ID. Looking at the clock in the dashboard, he realized they'd been off for three minutes, so he answered. "Yeah, Laney, what's happenin'?"

She sounded like she was in a better mood than she had been when Vincent Valentine's corpse had begun speaking. "Hey, Re. Rude and I are gonna go get a few drinks at Pablo's. You wanna meet us there? I'll grab you a burger if you just wanna stay home."

Reno smirked. He really appreciated Elena when they weren't on a job. When that happened, she wouldn't shut up and once in a while just botched the entire thing. But outside of the office, she was one of the nicest people you could know; if you couldn't make it to a meetup, she would brief you later. If you were sick, she'd come over and cook for you, even clean the kitchen after she was done. "Nah, I'll make it. I'm just a couple blocks away right now, actually."

"Alright," she chirped. "See you there."

Pablo's was perhaps the safest place to be in Midgar, no matter what kind of establishment you were looking for. No one had a grudge against Pablo, a war veteran who'd lost both of his legs between an armored jeep and a communication tower. He'd signed on as a pacifist, therefore a medic, and it was a good thing the drivers were on his side. He wheeled himself around his high-class, family restaraunt and bar and shook hands with everyone, delivered orders himself, but wasn't afraid to tell someone to get out.

No one had ever taken a shot at Pablo. He was just one hell of a guy, and one of the few who gladly talked to Turks.

In ten minutes, the redhead was sitting at a table centerpieced by a mug of Midgar's best. Elena had already changed out of her work clothes -- apparently, after Reno left, she slipped and fell onto a new body, ruining her pants -- but Rude wore bloodstains like badges of honor.

The talk started small, as it always did, but slowly built up until they got on the topic of that morning's discovery. It should be noted that when something of that magnitude is found and treated as it was, the company refused to be involved, just because it might be bad for their reputation. Reno knew that, and knew that the Turks would have to take responsibility for Vincent, as they certainly couldn't let him just wander around the city in that condition.

No, he reconsidered. He knew that he himself would be taking the fall for this one. Rude had wanted to blow him away, and Elena probably wouldn't mind that either. He was just about to say so when Rude himself cut in with, "He'll stay in some vacated SOLDIER barracks. That way we can watch him and we'll all be around in case some post-traumatic stress starts to show through. Someone like Valentine is someone you don't want to come down with shell-shock. In the case that he does. . ."

The redhead nodded. "We kill him. Definitely."

A tense few moments passed. Elena was picking apart and onion ring and trying to keep herself out of this testosterone-fueled argument, as subtle as it was, but silences were the hardest thing for her to shut up during. "Why can't we just play it by ear, guys? If something happens, we deal with it then. If he's fine, then we'll have been bitching for noth --"

The big, bald man suddenly stood up, threw his portion of the bill on the table, and walked out of Pablo's without so much as an audible motive.

Reno sighed and grinned slightly. "You're still a rookie at heart, eh, kid?" When he saw how confused she really was, he explained. "Rude doesn't play things by ear anymore, not since Tseng died. That was his plan. He radioed us on his way there, scrapped everything we had set up, and said to just see how it went once he was at the temple." She glanced down as he added, "And we never heard from him again."

They raised their glasses and bowed their heads, as had become custom for every mention of their commander. It was the one sign of respect for the job they had left. All they could do was hope Tseng would pull some of that divine intervention stuff he'd seemed capable of even in life when it was time to pull out of ShinRa for good.

The woman between them was the next to stand up, giving him a quick hug before explaining: "My washer's bouncing all over the basement, and the repairman said he'd be there in about half an hour from now. You wanna come over, hang out for the night? I'm outta booze, but it doesn't look like your night's too full."

He feinged hurt. "And just who says I don't have a giant party to go to tonight?"

"Hey, hey." She held up her hands. "You can go to all the parties you want to. I was just offering a night with the boring rookie after a day of cleaning up bodies."

They paused, and then he cracked a smile. "So you're admitting you're still a rookie?"

Reno hadn't been tickled in a good six years.

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A few miles away, on the same stretch of beach they'd been combing some two hours before, something was wrong. A school of small fish suddenly scattered, surprised their snack had just begun thrashing wildly and screaming. They would regroup a while later and get a look of unified "What the hell?" before high-tailing it to deeper, safer water.

Their meal, however, was all alone. She realized this upon thrusting her head out of the water and taking in all the air she could. This was particularly difficult considering the path of weeds she had been held underwater by, the exact thing that had kept the sharp-eyed Turks from noticing her. She ran her fingers through her hair, noticing it was down; next to her arms, with small pieces of skin missing from the fish; next to her outfit, which was in particularly bad shape; after seeing she was in no immediate danger, she pull the seaweed from her face and took in that air again.

It was a sensory overload.

The smell of ocean, the sound of a city, the feel of the water trying to pull her back underneath, the taste of seawater in her mouth, the sight of. . .lights.

Huge, glittering lights by the thousands. Stars overhead, none of the constellations looking familiar to her in the least. Strange, machina beasts running back and forth with lights on the front. Giant, gravity-testing buildings, looking nothing like any design she'd ever seen. Glass, lights, stone, metal, all of it in a giant pillar of technology.

Her mind finally caught up and she nearly surrendered herself to the ocean again.

It must have happened to her, what had happened to the young boy. Sin must have moved her forward in time, to a more advanced. . .Luca? No, she thought quickly, it must be Sanubia, what with all this machina and possibly Al Bhed architecture. This must be a future Sanubia Desert, and Home must've been resettled closer to the coast for a better defense.

Her mind buffered again.

She was still in a different time. She paused, falling and crawling slowly toward drier land, and tried to retrace her most recent memories. She'd been. . .fighting Sin. Something had happened, and she'd tried to stop it. Suddenly she was heading toward the Farplane, but at the last second. . .

Something else surfaced in her mind and she collapsed on the sand, not caring that she'd dragged a lot of seaweed with her.

She was alone.

For the first time she could remember in a long time, she was absolutely alone. It had happened to Tidus, so it was entirely possibly it might happen to her. Sin -- Jecht -- Seymour -- whatever it had been at the time had transported her thousands of years into the future out of spite, one last moment of darkness before the end. And now that Sin was defeated for good. . .that meant there was no getting her back to where she'd come from.

Her last hope was that the Al Bhed had heard of Tidus' story through the years and would understand what must've happened to her. Closing her eyes and only hoping she might die by sunrise, she suddenly wished she had her Moomba doll for a much different reason than usual.