Danny had to admit, going through that door in the Ghost Zone may have been the worst idea he'd ever had. It had been a realm door, he knew, which was the reason he'd investigated. But this realm... This realm was different. Danny couldn't get out of this one, hadn't found the door to get back no matter how hard he tried. And why was everything green?

AUTHORNOTE

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Danny Phantom and Final Fantasy VII.

Everyone, please enjoy!

LETTHESTORYBEGIN

Danny had to admit, going through that door in the Ghost Zone may have been the worst idea he'd ever had. It had been a realm door, he knew, which was the reason he'd investigated. He'd been exploring the Ghost Zone a lot lately, and after several mishaps with ghosts that reacted violently to his intrusion in their lairs for no reason beyond curiosity, he learned how to tell the difference between doors that lead to lairs and doors that led to realms. Realms contained their own little worlds, like vast lairs that did not have a ghost to command them. Sometimes Danny found himself back in time, sometimes in alternate dimensions, sometimes places even weirder and less comprehensible. Once Danny had found a holiday dimension, which he had visited more than once to explore after finding it with his friends once day. Major holidays were represented like Easter, Halloween, Christmas, and the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July was Danny's favorite, while he avoided Christmas and Halloween, only visiting them once each. The Grimm doors were fun too, where Danny got to visit the lands of fairy tales, experiencing them as if they were real. He had found a few of them so far.

But this realm... This realm was different. Danny couldn't get out of this one, hadn't found the door to get back no matter how hard he tried. He'd always known where the door out of a realm was, sensing it in a way similar to how he sensed ghosts, but this time he couldn't even feel it! On top of that, he'd been forced into a new body and couldn't access his powers. Where in the Ghost Zone was he?

THROUGHTHEDOOR

Everything was green. Why was everything green? It wasn't like the Ghost Zone at all, which only had its swirling green sky. In the Ghost Zone, there was color everywhere, a riot of color present in the ghosts, the doors, the objects and powers, everything. Here there was just a green light. And it burned. It was also weirdly soothing, and Danny was torn between relaxing in the peaceful feeling and twisting with pain. It resulted in a repetitive twitching that Danny could not control. When a particularly fiery wave of pain washed over him, accompanied by a surge in one of the flows of green light that came towards him, he blacked out.

He halfa woke up in a grassy field, with a light breeze tickling his skin. The green light appeared to be gone, and he no longer felt the sensation of being on fire. Even though he had no idea where he was, this was a step in the right direction. Right? Hopefully.

When he realized someone was standing in front of him, Danny stood. The figure was a woman wearing golden armor. There was this aura of power around her, something stronger than Danny had ever felt before.

You have traveled far from home. Danny jumped as the cool words slid across his mind. The woman's face hadn't moved, but it was definitely her talking to him.

"Where am I?" was his first question. This realm was unlike any other, and he needed to find out where he was if he wanted to get home.

My planet is called Gaia, she told him, with hardly even a blink.

"Planet?" A cold shiver went down Danny's back. Was he truly on a different planet? That had never happened before. This realm must be truly massive...

There was a very slight downturn at the corners of the woman's lips. The beginning of a frown. You are not in a mere realm of your planet. The door you stepped through was of a very different kind.

"I'm...not? But how do I get back home?" With her silence came a sinking feeling in Danny's stomach. "Can I get home?"

Perhaps. But you must find your own way back. Not even I can help you in this. She looked almost sad as she gazed at the lost young man in front of her.

Danny asked the next question on his mind. "Where was I before? What happened to that green light?"

That is the Lifestream. In fact, you are still there. Danny gaped at her.

"But the burning, I can't feel it!" In fact, Danny felt perfectly normal, and even rested. "Why did it burn?"

As you were, with so much of the foreign energy you call ectoplasm in your body, it was incompatible with the Lifestream. I have put your body in stasis and hidden it away so you would stay intact and alive. Danny looked at the warrior, who had gestured to him during her explanation, confusion written all over her face.

"What do you mean? I'm standing right here." Danny proceeded to poke and prod himself in different places. Nope, not intangible.

This is a dream. I called you here to speak to you before sending you out onto my planet. I cannot send you back home, but I can give you a choice. Her eyes were piercing. You may take a new form, one capable of surviving on this planet. You will keep your memories, but very likely lose all of your old abilities. You will need to learn to survive here as you search for a way home. If you do not choose this opportunity, you will remain a spirit, wandering the Lifestream instead as you search.

Well, that was no choice at all. Of course Danny didn't want to be stuck as a spirit in the Lifestream. Even if he had to take a new body, and lose all his powers, he would rather be alive in the world. He would fight his way home if he had to. The idea of staying as a ghost in this...Lifestream...just seemed so helpless.

The woman smiled at him, as if she already knew his thoughts, his motives, and approved. Your journey may be hard, but do not give up.

Danny felt himself getting sleepy. "Wait," he cried out, trying to resist even as his sight grew blurry and his eyes blinked shut. "Who are you?"

I am Minerva, the blurry golden figure said just before Danny blacked out.

THANKTHEGODDESS

When Danny next woke, he was surrounded by green. Again. But this time it was only a film of green, held in by a sheet of glass, and beyond it Danny could see a lab. It was filled with strange equipment, but there was no doubt in Danny's mind that he found himself in a laboratory. Thankfully it was empty. Automatically, Danny tried to pull on his powers to turn intangible and get out of the container of green stuff he was in. As he stumbled forward, his vision went black with pain at the sudden burn all over his body, as if he'd been showered in acid. Moments later he realized he was panting on the floor, trying to blink his eyes clear. He rolled over onto his back. The question of why using his powers had caused so much pain brought his memory back to him of the woman Minerva and their conversation. I can't use my powers like this. Turning his thoughts inward, Danny performed the mental scan he'd gotten used to doing after every ghost fight to check for injuries. He was uninjured, but Danny was alarmed to learn that he was ill. This new body of his had a disease, a deadly disease. Could he still heal himself? Would that power burn just as much? Could he even use it? Minerva had said he would probably lose his powers. His intangibility could have been a one-off. But trying was worth it, if it cured him of whatever this disease was.

He didn't even leave the floor. He just concentrated, pulling on his powers once again, this time to heal himself just as he would if he had a broken bone or lacerations and bruising. Once he set his ghost powers to the healing of his new body, he lost all control of himself as he writhed on the floor. His very blood felt molten, and if he didn't know better it would seem like he was being burned alive from the inside out. Driven mad with the pain, he didn't notice as the ectoplasm flowed through him, taking all the damaged cells that littered him like a cancer and repaired them, leaving him corruption-free in its wake.

Eventually the heat faded, and the white gained color and form and became the room once more. Feeling very weak and twitching with the shadows of pain, Danny sighed. He was free from the strange disease, very pleased despite the cost of his freedom. Then he wondered, Why did Minerva put me in this body? Looking around at the tables and equipment, Danny remembered he was in a lab, a working lab that was most definitely not abandoned, and that he should really get out of here before whoever owned the lab found him. He knew being would would be a bad thing, no matter who did the finding. Learning more about himself and this new world would have to wait.

A quick glance around the room revealed windows set high into the wall to let natural light into the laboratory. Danny immediately pushed a table over to the wall and then lifted a chair onto it to reach a window. He clambered up and undid the latch. Pushing open the window took a little strength, but it soon came free with a rain of rusty flakes. Danny crawled out and fell several feet to the ground below, landing with an oomph that left him momentarily breathless.

The boy scrambled up, brushed himself off, and ran from the building.

NOWWHEREAMI

The next three days were like a camping trip for Danny. He wandered the forest and then the hills, trying to learn what he could about the planet he was now an inhabitant of. There were monsters that wandered the land that would attack Danny if he encountered them. Luckily the weird animals were weak, because he couldn't use his powers, had no weapons, and could only rely on the strength of his fists. He wasn't sure if his new body was the origin of his higher-than-normal strength, or if it was a remnant of his original body like the lingering, albeit painful, access to his powers.

On the third day his trip was interrupted by a helicopter. He'd been wandering through another forest, looking for something to eat at the time, when the sound of rotor blades interrupted his search. He watched the helicopter fly over towards a clearing he'd passed through about half an hour ago. He'd rested there briefly to drink water from the stream that cut through it before moving on in the search of more edible fruit. All he'd eaten since escaping the lab were some weird purple apples and handfuls of berries. Danny was hungry.

But then the helicopter came back to hover over his located and Danny looked up at it with narrowed eyes, suspicious. Hovering helicopters had never been a good thing in his life, after all the times he'd been attacked by the Guys in White. He'd be truly shocked if this one was friendly. He had to get out of sight.

Danny took off, racing for the rocky area he'd seen ahead after climbing a tree to get his bearings. He heard a muffled thump a few seconds later. Did someone really just jump out of the helicopter? He didn't know anyone, himself excepted, who could do that. Maybe the people who lived on this planet were different?

He was soon among the shadowy rocks, hidden from the sight of his pursuer. The helicopter left to land nearby, which Danny chose to see as a good thing for the time being because it wasn't tracking him from the air. The thud of boots was still after him, however. Whoever was chasing him was fast, and Danny had to keep running. Silently cursing his clothes, Danny tried to shrug off his highly visible red jacket as he ran. His elbow caught and he stumbled on a rock, tripping and falling flat on his face. A man burst through the bushes, and Danny finally saw him. He scrambled up, still with an arm caught in his jacked, just as the black-haired sword-wielding man lunged for him, prey finally in sight. Danny moved at the same moment, but not quickly enough, as the tall man caught the end of his jacket. He automatically twisted out of the garment's grip and pulled his arms out of it. He hopped a step towards him and quickly shot a kick to the chest while he was distracted by the jacket, forcing the man to stagger back ward and nearly lose his balance. Danny was surprised, since he'd kicked hard enough to have at least sent the man back into that tree there, but he didn't let the show of strength halt him and he took off again. With a "Damn it, Genesis!" the chase resumed.

After another fifteen minutes of running around in circles through the area, Danny found himself caught in a dead-end after running into a fissure. He looked around the sheer walls, knowing if he didn't escape somehow in the next few seconds, the man after him would arrive and he'd be caught. If only he could fly, this would be so much easier. Wait, maybe he could fly? This was an emergency, so he might as well try to use another power. The surge of fire left him breathless, but instead of taking off, the attempted use of flight power triggered something else and a wing burst from his back. It was as white as his ghostly hair, and Danny couldn't help but stare in shock. That was the last thing he'd expected.

The black-haired man appeared at the entrance to the fissure with his discarded red jacket still in hand. Danny was shocked back to reality and the fact that he was currently trying to escape. Realizing it was now or never, Danny jumped up as he attempted to take off with the single wing. As his feet left the ground and he rose into the air, his heart lifted with the joy of freedom.

And then a hand grabbed his foot and everything came crashing back down. Danny slammed into the dirt on his face with a grunt and the wing disappeared, leaving only a few white feathers as evidence it had ever existed. The man, who had recovered better than he upon landing, jumped on top him and pinned him to the ground. For several seconds all they did was pant, recovering from the chase. Danny heard the man rustling, then heard the dialing of a cell phone. Probably calling helicopter guy...

"Yeah, I caught him. … In the fissure near the edge of the forest. … Right." Click. Danny just lay there and tried to relax. Hopefully he could recover some energy while he played possum, and then escape later when he had another opportunity. For now he had to wait, as the man still had him pinned to the ground. Danny concentrated on not inhaling dirt. With his head twisted to the side, he could sort of see the man who was practically sitting on him. He had spiky black hair and blue eyes so vibrant they appeared to be almost glowing. Actually... Were they really glowing? He was wearing black, some sort of uniform, and Danny could see the hilt of the long sword that was attacked to his back. He gave glaring his best effort while stuck in his position.

ZACKTIME

Zack ran to the opening of the fissure that led into the short cliff and found the Genesis copy cornered at the end of it, with a wing extending from his back as he prepared to fly away. While a little weird in and of itself, because Zack thought only Genesis himself had the wing, the wing was the wrong color. It was white! The copy started when he saw Zack, suddenly realizing he was there. He crouched prepared to leap into the sky, and Zack rushed forward. He couldn't let the copy escape! The Genesis copy jumped and flapped his wing. He was rising quickly into the air, but Zack jumped as high as he could, launching himself with the power of a SOLDIER, and he caught the copy's ankle in one hand.

With the copy's weight suddenly doubled with Zack dragging him down, they crashed back to the earth. The copy slammed down face first in front of Zack, apparently stunned, and the white wing disappeared. As the handful of white feathers left behind drifted down, Zack got on top of the copy to pin him down. They looked at each other silently, with the copy glaring and the SOLDIER looking down in curiosity.

Well, he caught the clone, so now he had to call Tseng. Zack pulled his PHS out of his pocket and dialed. The phone rang only once before Tseng picked up. "Have you caught the clone yet?" That was Tseng. Straight to business.

"Yeah, I caught him." Zack looked at the feathers on the ground. Why were they white?

"Good. What is your location?" Zack heard Tseng brush against leaves, rustling them in the background. He must be on his way, guessing Zack's rough position.

"In the fissure near the edge of the forest." They'd seen it during the fly over, so Tseng would know where they were.

The Turk on the other end asked for no other clarification. "I'm heading towards you. Stay where you are and do not let the clone escape."

"Right." Zack's only response was a click. Hopefully Tseng wouldn't take too long to get here. They'd raced around the large area in circles, never progressing beyond it, so it shouldn't take him long. That left Zack time to look at the copy and perhaps talk to him himself.

This copy was different from the others. Tseng had heard of the rogue copy in the area and he had been sent with Zack on the mission to track him down. For one thing, this copy looked just like Genesis. The original Genesis, and not with any of the differences or signs of degradation that the other copies and the real Genesis had. It didn't behave like the other clones he'd encountered. For one thing, he ran away when he saw Zack, and for another, he took off his coat and ran again when Zack nearly caught him instead of turning to fight.

While the clone's face looked just like Genesis's, the hair was wrong. It was a deeper red, and a little darker in color. But the eyes. The eyes were the weirdest thing. The one eye Zack could see, the one expressing a furious glare that was clear even from profile, was glowing a bright green. It was almost the color of mako, but not quite the right shade, and it burned with more intensity.

Zack opened his mouth to question the copy, but as he watched his eyes, the question was driven from his mind. The green color was cooling off. The clone's eyes were changing from the burning green they were at first to the normal mako-enhancement blue that all the SOLDIERs had. They stopped changing when they reached a strong deep blue, also a weird color because Genesis's eyes hadn't been that shade either.

They stared at each other, losing track of time, until Zack was startled away from the glare by the arrival of a certain black-haired Turk. Zack twisted around to look and saw as Tseng took in the discarded red coat abandoned behind the puppy SOLDIER who had the Genesis clone pinned. "You can get off him now," Tseng told Zack, as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.

BACKTODANNY

He felt the man shift and heard a second person walking towards him. If he moved just a little more, Danny knew he could have his chance to escape again, hopefully taking the two by surprise. "You can get off him now," he heard the newcomer say, and Danny tensed. His attacker started getting to his feet, and Danny twisted suddenly, shoving Zack violently to the side as rose to rush past the second man. He froze when he found a gun in his face, not even progressing a step. The first man recovered and looked sheepish.

Danny slowly straightened and stilled, the gun still trained on him with unerring accuracy. The gun holder tossed the pair of handcuffs to the sword-wielder and commanded him to put them on Danny. He did so quickly, with Danny's cooperation and another glare.

For a moment they all stared at each other silently. Are they from that lab I escaped? "We are going back to the helicopter," the man in the suit said after giving Danny the once-over. Whatever his reaction was, he kept it hidden. The man who'd caught him, however, was looking at Danny like he was an oddity.

"Zack," said the suit, waking the man in black back to his senses. So Zack is his name. While it did not seem helpful, Danny filed the information away in his mind so he didn't forget.

Zack jumped slightly. "Right." He grabbed Danny by the elbow and led him out of the little canyon. Danny looked back as the man in the suit, with his gun still pointed at him, picked up his discarded red jacket. This mollified Danny slightly, as he had taken the effort instead of leaving it there on the ground as he could have. Danny may have only had the thing a few days, but it was his coat.

The walk to the helicopter was long with Danny handcuffed, but at least he didn't trip. They were silent the whole way back to the clearing where the helicopter had landed. The other black haired man got in the pilot's chair of the helicopter while Zack dragged Danny into the main compartment, buckling and then locking him into his seat before buckling himself into the seat beside his.

Zack continued to peer at him and mumbled, as if talking to himself. "Why are you different?"

Thinking this was weird, because it wasn't like Danny couldn't hear him, Danny answered even though the question hadn't been directed to him. "Don't know. Why'd you attack me?" Zack gaped. He seemed completely shocked that he'd replied; spoken at all, in fact. Danny's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What?" His voice was flat with controlled anger.

"You can talk!?" The pilot, hearing this, looked back at the two of them for a second before returning his attention to the helicopter console. He was busy flying and could not afford to get distracted.

"Of course I can talk. What did you expect?" Confusion started cutting back Danny's anger.

"Well, no clone has ever been able to talk before..." Zack confessed, not really sure what to do with a clone that not only didn't attack on sight but could also talk. He didn't think any of the clones could do that.

"Clone? You think I'm a clone?" This was definitely not what Danny had expected. He had clones, sure; one named Danni had even survived and was now his self-appointed cousin and friend. But she was back in his home world, and not here. She was his clone, not the other way around. Danny's glare was erased by a more ponderous expression. Am I a clone here? I did wake up in a lab...

"Well, yeah. His clones are running around all over the place." Zack was slightly relieved to see the copy of his mentor's long time friend no longer glaring at him.

"Who am I a … clone … of?" There were more of him? Why were there so many copies of one man? Danny didn't recall seeing any more people in that lab. Now that he thought of it, though, there had been more of the cylinders that had found himself in when he woke up. The others were empty, devoid even of the green stuff, so he hadn't paid them any attention.

"You're a clone of Genesis Rhapsodos. Don't you know?" Zack wasn't sure if this was normal, a clone not knowing who he was a clone of, but this particular clone was so abnormal already that Zack didn't pursue his own question. He had so many other questions to ask.

"No," Danny replied. "Genesis Rhapsodos." The name didn't feel familiar in any way. "Who is Genesis Rhapsodos?"

"He's a SOLDIER like me," Zack informed him. "He's a commander, actually, but he went AWOL a while ago and now his clones are running around wreaking havoc. We've been looking for him." Zack frowned. Apparently this was a painful subject.

"Why did he desert?" Danny couldn't help his curiosity and continued talking to his captor.

Zack sighed. "He found out he was dying and ran away to search for a cure."

Oh. "I'm glad I'm not dying, then."

Zack looked at him sharply. "You aren't? But his disease is genetic. All his clones have it. How did you get cured? Does than mean Genesis will be fine too? Will he come back!?"

"Um..." Danny leaned away, alarmed at the sudden emotion filling the soldier. "I...uh...cured myself?"

"HOW?!" Zack's hands grabbed Danny's without warning, jerking him forward. "Please, how did you do it?! Can you do it again? Can you heal him? Can you heal Angeal too!?"

Danny blinked. Another elegant, "Um..." was his response. Then he mentally shook himself. Whoever this Angeal was, he and Genesis were obviously important to the young soldier. Close friends of his, maybe? "I don't know." He honestly had no idea, since it was his ghost powers, his foreign ghost powers at that. Would they work on someone else? He'd only ever healed himself. And now he was on a different planet with energy that disliked his so extremely it felt like he was on fire if he tried to use them.

Zack stared, eyes filled with hope, at the Genesis clone who had somehow miraculously cured himself of the degradation. His eyes were unfocused, and he was obviously thinking. "Can you try?"

The blue eyes focused back on him. The clone nodded. "I can try." And then he remembered who he was talking to. "But why would I help you after you attacked me? You said the other clones were all causing trouble, but I wasn't doing anything like that."

Zack flinched. That's right. To him, it seems like we just attacked him out of the blue. "It's because you were acting so differently. We came to investigate, and capture you if we could." Zack looked apologetic.

Danny immediately felt bad, seeing the expression on Zack's face. There was regret there, and sadness. Danny couldn't help but like the man, since his emotions seemed genuine. "I'll still try," he mumbled. Zack's face changed instantly, his face shining like a ray of sunshine. "Though I would very much like to be released..." He shook his hand cuffs.

"That's up to Tseng. Maybe after he talks to you he'll take off the handcuffs." Zack leaned back into his seat. He couldn't release the prisoner, no matter how nice this weird clone seemed. But he couldn't help but grin at the red-head's promise to try and help.

Now Danny had the other man's name. Tseng. He glanced at the pilot. He did not appear to be paying attention to them. Danny fidgeted against his restraints. He hated being bound. He couldn't even use his ghost powers to get out of it this time.

"Can I ask you another question?" Danny glanced at Zack and saw the man was looking at him again. He looked curious about something.

"Only if I can ask you one," Danny countered. This made the man laugh.

"Okay! Why do you look a little different from the other clones?" This had been nagging at Zack since he'd seen the white wing.

"What do you mean? How do I look different?" Danny, who'd never seen another clone or the man he was supposedly a clone of had no idea how his appearance might differ.

"Well," Zack explained, "your hair is a different shade of red, and your eyes are darker blue. And they turned green for a second... Why did they do that? And your wing was white. Genesis's is black." Zack just listed out all his questions, not really sure where to start.

Danny wasn't sure what to say. He knew why his eyes had turned green, but couldn't explain any of the other differences. Not that he'd tell Zack about his ghost powers. Maybe they caused the other differences too? Or maybe healing himself of that disease had done something? Danny shook his head. "I have no idea." And then the end of Zack's statement caught up in his mind. "Wait! Genesis has a wing?"

Zack looked at him like he was an idiot. "Of course he does. You have one, don't you?"

"I thought it was weird..." Danny hadn't really known why a wing appeared when he'd tried to use his ghost powers to fly, but it the man he was a clone of had one then that explained things. He must have called it out unconsciously. He was the clone of quite a strange man. "So where are we going?"

"We're going back to ShinRa to bring you in." Zack said this matter-of-factly, as if Danny should have been able to guess this information. There was a silent Where else would we be going? Implied by Zack's tone.

Too bad Danny had no idea what he was talking about. Obviously they were bringing him in for questioning, but... "What's ShinRa?"

Zack stared, dumbfounded. "You don't know ShinRa?" Danny glared at him. "Well, its the power company that runs Midgar. There are mako reactors all over the continent that were built by ShinRa, and we SOLDIERs work for them, going on different missions around the world."

"You work for a power company? And this company has an army?" What kind of power company has its own army? That didn't sound normal. "Missions like what?"

"Usually just missions to clear out monsters from neighborhoods and towns, or to go find things." Zack didn't mention the more specialized missions he'd been going on lately, like this one.

Danny sank further into his chair with a sigh, resigned. Well, he didn't actually get that far, being restrained an all, but he gave it a solid effort. I hope they aren't like they Guys in White. "Zack."

"Yeah?" He had looked out the window of the helicopter when their conversation lulled, but turned back now.

"What's mako?" Danny looked at Zack, his face covered with innocent curiosity.

If Zack hadn't been buckled into his chair, he would have fallen out of it in shock. First ShinRa, now mako? How do you not know about mako!? "Mako is the energy of the planet. ShinRa can pull it from the ground with the reactors and turn it into power for the city." It was also what made a SOLDER a SOLDIER, but Zack didn't go into that.

Danny wondered if asking about mako had been a mistake. He looked away from Zack to stare out the window. Up in the air as they were, he couldn't see anything. He let his eyes close, wondering how long it would be until they arrived at this strange ShinRa company Zack told him about. How would they interrogate him? He hoped he wouldn't be tortured.

Zack watched the clone fall asleep. At first he just seemed to be thinking, but then his head rolled to the side as a gust hit the helicopter, and Zack knew. He'd like to take a nap too. These helicopter rides got so boring. But Zack had to watch the Genesis clone and make sure he didn't attempt anything.

NAPTIMEISOVER

Danny woke with a start as they landed. He hadn't intended to fall asleep, and the helicopter chair he was restrained in certainly wasn't the most comfortable seat in the world, but he'd been tired and hungry and unable to help himself. Forcing himself to look on the bright side as the pilot Tseng got out and Zack unbuckled himself, Danny realized he was now somewhat rested. Hopefully that would help him with whatever was to come.

"Time to get out." Zack set about unlocking all the restraints (except the handcuffs) before leading Danny out of the helicopter and onto a tarmac. The bright sunlight clearly displayed the armed escort that was waiting at the door, and Zack and Danny were immediately surrounded. Ahead of them was a tower, several stories high, that Danny was being led into. No one spoke as he was taken to an elevator to a high floor, then led through hallways to a room with a table, chair, and one-way mirror.

Of course. He was about to be interrogated. Danny was chained to his chair (which was welded to the floor) and left in the room, alone with Zack once more. Zack paced nervously behind him. Danny watched his back and forth progress in the mirror on the wall opposite him.

"Hey, uh..." Zack began, suddenly realizing he didn't know what to call the clone. He abruptly lost track of his original question and asked, "What can I call you?"

Danny, feeling antagonistic now that he was chained to a chair in an interrogation room instead of buckled into a helicopter chair where he could pretend he wasn't restrained because his companion was buckled in too, replied with an irritated tone. The pacing certainly wasn't helping any. "You said I was a Genesis clone, right?"

"Yes." Zack thankfully stopped pacing. And then he started doing squats. The repetitive up and down motion was even worse.

"Call me that, then." Danny tried to ignore him but was failing spectacularly.

"But we already have a Genesis, even if he's missing right now, and we can't just call you Clone." Zack seemed genuinely concerned, even if he hadn't stopped with his nervous energy.

Danny rolled his eyes. Did he want them to know his name? Considering he was a nobody here and not even on his home planet, did he even care? Not really. No one would be able to make the connection with his original body.

Before Danny could decide whether or not to respond to that, the same man from before, Tseng, walked into the room. "Thank you Zack. That will be all for now." Dismissed, Zack left the room after a fleeting glance in the clone's direction. Tseng took a seat at the table in one of the two remaining unoccupied chairs. He started the interrogation at the beginning, with a basic, "Who are you?"

"I'm a Genesis clone; I thought you knew that." Danny tried not to fidget, but the chains were making it hard. He wanted so badly to escape.

"We did, but up until a few hours ago, you did not. I did not ask you what you are. Clearly you have some intelligence and a mind of your own. So I ask again, who are you?" Tseng's expression did not change. He stared, though, as if his piercing eyes could bore a hole to the truth.

Danny stared back. This man did not scare him, not after his fights with ghosts so powerful they could destroy the world. But was this really a fight worth picking? What harm could talking really do, when he knew nothing about the planet he'd only been on for a few days. And if he had no way of getting home right now, as Minerva had implied when telling him he'd need to find a door leading home, like it was some kind of quest, they certainly wouldn't be able to find his home either and find out any details or incriminating information about him.

With cooperation looking like the wiser course of action in the long run, Danny told the truth. "My name is Danny." Okay, it was the barest details of the truth, but still the truth.

Tseng sighed inwardly with relief. He always liked it when the people he had to interrogate were cooperative since it made his job so much easier and slightly more pleasant. "Where did you come from?"

"A lab a few days walk south of where you found me." Danny knew he'd fled north after his escape, but could give any more precise directions than that.

"Tell me more about the lab." Tseng had an idea of where it was located. There were a few innocuous warehouses that were now worth investigating in that area.

"There's not much to say. When I woke up, no one was there, so I ran for it." And he never even considered going back.

"How long were you there?" Tseng was taking notes now, even though Danny was sure they were being recorded somehow.

"I don't know. I just woke up there." He supposed the answer to that would be however long it took Minerva to put his consciousness in this new body. And how long it took him to wake up after that.

This was an unusual answer that led Tseng to believe the clone hadn't been in the lab previously. But where else would he have been? The clones had to be created somewhere, right? "Where were you the last time you were awake?"

"Some weird place called the Lifestream." Yeah, a weird place that practically set him alight with torturous pain. He hoped he never had to go back there again.

Tseng blinked once and made another note. "What were you doing before we found you?"

"Looking for food." This reminded Danny of how incredibly hungry he was. He hadn't eaten for several hours now, and hadn't had much the last time he ate.

"Anything else?" Tseng didn't believe the simple answer from the Genesis clone named Danny, though he did not appear to be lying either.

"Besides trying to figure out where I was? No." He knew he was on a different planet. That was it. He hadn't even found a town to ask. He thought he'd seen a pair of travelers in the distance one day, but lost track of them before he could try to catch up and talk to them.

"Do you know anything about Genesis or his whereabouts?" came next, to which Danny responded negatively. He'd never even heard of the guy. He promptly asked Tseng why he asked the question when he'd said only a few minutes ago that he knew that Danny hadn't even known he was a clone until Zack started talking to him. If he didn't know he was a clone, how could he be expected to know about the man he was a clone of? Really.

The interview continued with Tseng asking all manner of questions, many of which Danny could not answer because he had no idea what Tseng was talking about. No, he'd never been to a place called Wutai. No, he'd never used materia, whatever that was. No, he hadn't come in contact with any mako between the time he escaped the lab and today. No, he had no idea what an Ancient was. No, he didn't know who the lab belonged to. No this, no that, no, no, no. Until he got to this part.

"Zachary mentioned you healed yourself. How did you do it?" Honestly Tseng thought he'd lied about that to Zack. He probably still had the degradation problem shared by Genesis and all his clones, and just didn't know.

"Well..." No one had ever asked Danny to describe his ghost powers before. How did he do that? All Danny knew was that he definitely didn't want to say he had ghost powers. Perhaps if he made it as vague as possible without outright lying he could get away with that. "There's this green light." There used to be, anyway, and his powers were almost always green when he used the ones that gave of light. It was hard to tell now, with the whole preoccupied with excruciating pain thing. "And it hurts a lot."

"How does it hurt exactly?" Tseng had a suspicion about what that green light could belong to, but he couldn't jump to conclusions. "It feels like everything is on fire," Danny confessed.

Perhaps Danny had somehow learned to use mako to cure himself, if he really was cured. When getting their enhancements, SOLDIERs felt a similar sensation to the one Danny described. People who got mako poisoning felt it too. Tseng took a note of this for later consideration. "To confirm whether or not you have truly managed to cure yourself, we will do a test."

The door opened at this signal and a young man in a white lab coat walked in. In his hands he carried a tray, and on the tray was a familiar collection of equipment used for drawing blood. A blood test! Danny couldn't help but hiss at this revelation. His hands clenched, but restrained as he was, he couldn't move. He had to hold back his instinctive reaction to reach for his ghost powers because if he did that, ectoplasm could appear on his results, which would definitely be a bad thing. Unfortunately, that doctor was going to draw his blood whether he liked it or not, so he set a fierce glare on his face.

Tseng did not expect such an angry reaction from Danny, though he had to admit, the expression on Genesis's face was a familiar one. Why would this man have such dislike of a scientist? He said he did not remember anything from the lab beyond waking up there. It was curious, as he watched the clone clench its hands into fists and jerk against the restraints once. It seemed to be an automatic reaction, but reminded the man that he was chained to his chair. The fiery glare on his face startled the lab assistant, who jumped when he saw his subject's face, and flinched, setting the materials on his tray to clatter.

All three men were silent as the tray was set down on the table (out of reach and beyond kicking distance for Danny) and the lab technician quickly swabbed Danny's arm, tied on the tourniquet, and inserted the needle into his left arm. Danny blinked slowly, concentrating on breathing, and shoved down his connection to his ghost powers as far as possible. The tech drew three vials of blood and left quickly, leaving only a plain bandage as evidence of his presence. Blue eyes with fading, tightly controlled fury turned back to Tseng.

The interrogation ended shortly after that and Danny was taken to a holding cell after being taken higher up the tower. "So what happens now?" he asked Tseng.

"That will depend on the results of the blood test," Tseng told him. "If you have truly healed yourself, we will pursue that." And Danny was left to wait in his cell, alone except for the guards he knew were in the hallway. Until Zack came to visit, that is.

Danny was surprised to see him the first time he showed up, carrying a stool to plant himself in front of the cell door. Zack, on his part, had never seen Genesis look so bored. He had to remind himself that this strange clone was not Genesis himself. After some pestering, Zack had gotten Tseng to tell him the clone called himself Danny. The name sounded Gongagan, and Zack took an immediate liking to this.

Zack came to talk to Danny every day for the next three days, and Danny couldn't help but start to make friends with the eager SOLDIER. He learned a lot, including that he could also be considered a SOLDIER by default since he was the clone of one. Zack told him about mako and materia, giving Danny the common knowledge about this planet that he lacked. Zack also took it upon himself to bring lunch with his visits, and Danny was very glad to get the sandwiches.

Danny tried to find out when he would be released ("Probably after your blood tests are finished," Zack told him with a grin. He couldn't wait for proof that the clone was cured of Genesis's degradation.) and what would happen afterwards ("Maybe we can work together!" Danny wasn't so sure about that one.) but didn't learn much from questioning Zack. He was taken to the interrogation room again after three days, where Tseng was waiting with a folder containing his lab results.

Tseng, who could not completely hide the surprise in his voice, told Danny that he truly was cured and there was no danger of him degrading. Danny felt a shiver on the back of his neck like he was being watched by something dangerous as Tseng told him this, and he wondered just who was watching the interrogation this time.

Much to Danny's surprise, he was shortly offered a job.

"We are willing to let you work for us while we develop a cure from you and your samples. You will, of course, be accompanied on every mission you go on, paired with at least one SOLDIER at all times." Of course there would be restrictions; they couldn't risk him just running off. "If you do not want to do this, you will remain in your cell as we continue developing a cure." Danny did not want to be stuck in his cell any longer that he had to be, so he agreed. He was stuck either way, so he chose the option with more freedom. "Because you are already enhanced (being the clone of the famous Commander) you will be treated like a SOLDIER Third Class under probation. SOLDIER Zachary Fair and a Turk of my choosing will accompany you to all training." Danny was glad he was paired with Zack, since they were sort of friends at this point and he was also the only person Danny actually knew. All Danny knew about Tseng was the name and that he was in charge of the Turks. He wondered what Turk would be sent to watch him.

Danny spent a few more days in his cell, from which he was retrieved for short periods of time each day to do physical tests with Zack and Tseng supervising. They had to make sure he was capable of being a SOLDIER, after all. They discovered that Danny, while unfamiliar with a sword, was not new to fighting and had good instincts. Soon it was official and Danny no longer had to stay in the holding cell. He became Daniel Fenton, SOLDIER Third Class, on supervisory probation under SOLDIER First Class Zachary Fair. One meeting with Director Lazard later, he was in his new blue uniform and being stared at on the SOLDIER floor as he stood next to Zack. He had to remind himself that he was a clone of Commander Rhapsodos and of course people would stare at him. Most of the time he could forget, but one day, after going on his first mission as a second class, they had an entirely different and very good reason.

LOOKAFLASHBACK

Danny grimaced at his new purple uniform as he secured his sword in place. With his red hair, it was horrifying, but Danny absolutely hated the SOLDIER helmets and did not use one to cover his hair. The new uniform wasn't all bad, though. With it came more materia, which is what got Danny into the purple uniform in the first place. His skills were still poor with a sword, only slightly better than those of a cadet, but materia was different. Danny, used to having ghost powers and using them to shoot beams of energy or balls of ectoplasm from his fingertips, took to the little magical spheres with shocking ease, considering he hadn't even known what materia was when he first woke up.

Fire and ice were the easiest of all for him, because using the Fire materia was just like shooting balls of ectoplasm, and the Blizzard materia reminded him strongly of his ice powers. When no one seemed particularly surprised, Danny learned that the original Genesis was a master at using materia too. So Danny grabbed his new Barrier materia, given to him with his uniform, and he and Zack departed on their mission to clear some factories of monsters.

Approximately four hours later, General Sephiroth was on his way to meet Lazard when a strange sight met his eyes. He could not withhold the surprised, "Genesis?" from escaping his lips as the sight the clone with Zachary Fair met his eyes. The two had just left Lazard's office, leaving a debriefing, and the Puppy was clearly trying hard not to laugh. The Genesis clone, the only one they'd ever found that had a mind of his own and who called himself Daniel Fenton, was entirely blue from head to foot. He stopped in the corridor.

Zack and Danny both looked over at the General. Zack jumped in surprise, while Danny just gave Sephiroth an annoyed expression. That lack of fear and total absence of any adoration had always been a curious thing to Sephiroth, but he found it pleasantly convenient, even if it made it more difficult to differentiate the original and the clone in his mind. "Yes, General Sephiroth?" The clone of his old friend came to stand at attention and saluted him briefly with a blue hand.

"Why are you blue, Fenton?" Up close, Sephiroth could see a bluish paste coated the once-purple uniform and black boots, and lay thickly in the red hair, matting it into thick clumps. Most of the paste had been rubbed away from the face and arms, but Genesis's fair skin had been stained blue, and there were still scattered streaks of the stuff that they'd missed that was drying in place.

This only triggered Zack's laughter, who promptly lost it while Danny responded. "There was an incident with materia, sir." Danny tried not to glare at his superior officer, but it was difficult with Zack in an uproar at his expense behind him. It had been all Zack's fault, and Danny was determined to have his revenge for this. One of the factories they'd visited had been a clothing factory with a dye facility. While they were fighting to clear out the dye room, Zack had gotten a little too energetic with his Fira and hit one of the mixers that was still full of dye, never emptied before the factory was evacuated. The dye had been sitting there for hours, congealing, and the stray Fira hit the bottom of the mixer, bursting it. Danny had unluckily been standing next to it, and he and the monster he was fighting got covered in the thick blue dye. Even worse, there were two more factories they had to clear before returning to ShinRa headquarters, and Danny was forced to let the dye sit, unable to clean himself up. He could feel his skin getting bluer by the second.

Sephiroth was silent for a second as he decided to just request the mission report from Lazard at his meeting. He turned to walk around the pair, moving past them in long strides. "I suggest a shower, Fenton." A new wave of laughter overtook Zack, who was forced to lean against the wall, wheezing.

Danny tried, he really did, and was in the shower for over an hour trying to get all the blue off him, but his skin retained a faint blue shade that would take nearly a week to wear off. The uniform, now stuck a medium shade of cobalt, was a lost cause. Danny didn't mind that so much, because at least it wasn't purple any more. His hair, though, was the worst part. The blue dye hadn't washed out completely and his formerly red hair was now dark purple.

From that day on, he was known as Purple Genesis.

There were marked improvements in Danny's sword work that week.

NOWTHEAUTHOR

So this idea came to mind and I couldn't not write it down. It actually started as Danny becoming a Sephiroth clone, but then I remembered that Sephiroth wasn't the only one with clones. When I made him one of the Genesis copies instead, this idea really took off, because I really wasn't sure what to do with Danny as a Sephiroth clone. And that's how this came to be. As for the bit at the end, that was the result of wondering how Zack's Second Class uniform came to be blue. A little random, I know, but hopefully you found it amusing.

Got any comments? I'd love to hear any suggestions for improvement. I know this is an unusual crossover, but the game and tv show are popular enough individually.

Some people are bound to wonder why Hojo isn't in this. He wouldn't have gotten involved until later, so writing his parts just didn't fit in. Because one of his assistants takes care of the processing of the test, Hojo doesn't notice the results right away. Frankly, his ego is so large that he just doesn't care about the Genesis clone; he's far to busy with JENOVA and Sephiroth. Why bother with a copy of his rival's failed experiment? I imagine him eventually finding the results, though, and getting a lot more interested because Danny did heal himself and Hojo wonders just how a mere clone managed that. If Hollander was able to fix Genesis and Angeal, what would that mean for him? He looks into the blood samples and finds very small traces of an unusual substance. The traces are too small for analysis, but evidence leads him to believe this unknown material is what enabled the healing of the Degradation. Thus he sets his eyes on a certain clone, who isn't such a failure after all.

Angeal learns about the cured clone first, from Zack, but I'm not sure how he gets involved with the story yet. I only know that it would be happen just before or after the dye incident. Genesis himself hears about it later from Angeal.

If you have any other questions, post a review and I'll answer them if I can. Who knows, one of you just might give me an inspiring idea and the story could grow.

Oh, and how do you think Danny will get back at Zack?

INVISIBLEJEDIMASTEROUT