Author's Notes: So you may notice the different summaries in both my profile and the one in the story...you know? That 255 character limit stuff? If you haven't noticed already, I've been changing them from time to time because I sure as hell am not satisfied with them. Please bare with me everyone. Until I get the summary that doesn't make me cringe, it is going to change and change and change.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Final Fantasy franchise and am not making a profit out of this literary work.

Chapter One

Looking back on it, Cloud thought as he gracefully decapitated a mother dragon, he supposed that Aerith had something to do with his current circumstance. He waited in baited silence as the large and scaly body crumpled to the ground, rumbling the earth with its weight. Cleaning his one handed sword (because the local blacksmith did not have anything remotely resembling his beloved First Tsurugi) on what little available grass he found innocently sitting a couple of feet away from the nest, Cloud added to that earlier thought that maybe it hadn't just been Aerith's scheming mind that landed his arse in this place. Maybe it had been Zack who'd given her the incentive.

The warrior shook his head and sheathed his sword. Yes. It would be just like Zack to throw a curve ball at him and directly hit him in between the eyes…which was exactly the feeling he'd gotten when he learned of his current predicament. Concentrating easily, he sent a hi-level fire spell at the nest filled eggs and mercilessly killed the yet-to-be monsters.

And what really was this predicament that had him killing monsters from time to time?

"These horns will fetch for a nice price," the young boy behind him said as he crouched on the ground in front of the dragon's head, "I'm pretty sure the apothecary will pay a lot for the teeth too. All in all, it was a successful hunt Master Erik."

The older male turned around and faced a fifteen year old boy who had a mop of spiky blond hair (he tried not to grin as he imagined the kid trying to comb his hair in to submission for an hour before giving up and restarting the ritual the next day) and cerulean blue eyes that glistened with excitement. His weapon of choice was the same one handed sword strapped to his back and two knives sheathed on the sides of each of his thighs. Wearing a shirt (of a blue color he had been informed earlier) that was two sizes too big and pants ("…Are those green pants?" "They're tan Master Erik.") that looked like they had seen better days, the youth smiled respectfully at him and then proceeded gut the dragon's head for all it was worth.

The young one's name was Cloud Strife and he, the master, was named Erik Grants (he'd managed to inconspicuously glance at a bottle of Erik's Mayonnaise and Grants Oats when he first introduced himself) even though he had the mind and the spirit of an older Cloud Strife.

He had no idea how it happened. One second he was being shot several times on the chest and he had fallen in to Aerith's small pond…and then the next he was waking up bloody in one of the caves at Mt. Nibel with a broken sword lying next to him and the body of a young dragon on his other side.

He'd been very confused to be waking up in such a place and in such a way because he didn't think that the afterlife would be so shocking (in a negative way) but all of that had been thrown aside once he saw his reflection on the cave wall that was so smooth and shiny from the mako that it acted like a fun house mirror. Still, fun house mirror or not, he had seen enough of himself to make him back away and slam in to the opposite wall. Wide eyed and traumatized, Cloud had stared at the disfigured reflection of a man with short neat dark brown hair and gray color blind eyes.

He had at first thought that maybe he was unconscious with his body strapped to the bed with a life support beside him giving that ominous beeping sound. And that all of this was a bizarre dream he would soon wake from. That thought was immediately dismissed when he slapped himself so hard that he almost saw stars. With the pain of a stinging cheek, he was forced to realize three things. Yes, he looked different. No, he was not dreaming. And yes, he was indeed color blind.

The moment that he'd ingrained those three facts in to his thick skull, he'd slowly made his way to the town of Nibelheim where he was treated to another shocking moment.

Cloud, no Erik, walked away from his protégé and menacingly stood guard over their kill. His mind wandered to the past and he pondered on how his poor heart had been able to handle so many traumatic events in one day.

Once he'd reached Nibelheim, he'd been greeted with enmity and suspicious stares. He attributed the former unwelcome eyes to the fact that Nibelheimers despised outsiders. The latter was probably because his clothes had dry dragon blood on them.

The hostility was not what made him stare at the people with a frown however. It was the fact that every one of those pairs of eyes belonged to people he knew before Nibelheim burned to the ground. The stares had all belonged to the original village occupants. He'd spent two hours wandering the small village in a daze, looking for the telltale signs of his Nibelheim. The scratches on the walls, the unfixed roof tiles, the barely noticeable writings on the wood of the water tower…all of it were there. And so, he had accepted (with much difficulty he might add) that miraculously he was back in the original Nibelheim.

"Don't forget the eyeballs," Erik reminded as he dusted himself and pulled out his revolver. He took careful aim and shot once but there were two gunshots that echoed throughout the area. The bullets held true as they hit their mark: one on the head and one on the heart of a Nibel Wolf that was racing towards them. The canine didn't have the time to let out a whimper before it fell and skidded along the rough path. It stopped a little ways away from the boy Cloud and as testament to how used to it the kid was, the blond only paused a moment in his scavenging, taking in to account the extra gil to be had to when they sold the wolf before continuing his work.

Erik let a tiny bit of pride well up inside of him. When he had been at that age, even though he had spent a magnitude of his time in these mountains, he still squeaked whenever something startled him.

The sound of cloth swishing in the wind drew Erik's attention to the shadows on the left. There the red eyed gunman, Vincent, ominously stood with his arms crossed on his chest, his sniper rifle menacingly sheathed to his side, and his calm gaze focused on the horizon.

"Nice shot," Erik said in acknowledgement. He received a quiet nod from the taciturn man for his trouble.

Ah Vincent Valentine. He was the only man in existence who knew of Erik's double life. Once Erik had adjusted to the idea that he was somehow back in the past (he had kindly been informed of the date by a discarded newspaper that looked like it been stepped on) and in another person's body (a normal human body, he added silently), he had gone to the manor and shook Vincent awake with his revelations.

The gunman didn't judge him as Erik knew he wouldn't and had even believed him. He thought now that it might have been because the former Turk possessed a strong sixth sense that told him to trust in Erik's story.

Together, they had torched all the books in the library and obtained a copy of all the information on the single computer there via Vincent hacking in to the mainframe before that too joined the flames. They didn't burn down the manor for fear of alerting Hojo of their activities but they did scavenge the whole place and kept all the necessary items (potions, ethers, first aid kits, blankets, etc.) they found for themselves.

The first few nights had been spent sleeping in one of the manor's guest rooms (even if they detested the place) and luckily for Erik, they had found a couple of old clothes that he could 'borrow'. They had relied on Vincent's fire power for a while since Erik wasn't that much of a help with monster hunting with only his bare hands (he didn't have mako anymore to pack his punches with and the monsters here were strong enough to withstand a normal human's strength and then there was the fact that he wasn't a martial artist expert like Tifa had been or was going to be). It took the two of them three weeks before they had sold enough monster parts to the village blacksmith that they could afford some kind of weapon for Erik; a one handed sword.

This one handed sword, he thought to himself as he tapped the black worn hilt of his Hrist. One of these days, when they had money to spare, he was going to get Hrist a new covering for her hilt. He nodded absentmindedly. He had no doubt that she would really like that.

A couple of days after that, the two had gained a reputation in Nibelheim as monster hunters and the villagers, though reluctantly, started to hire them for monster extermination jobs. The money wasn't all that good because of the bias the people gave the two of them but the body parts they were able to sell in both Nibelheim and Rocket Town (Rocket Town more frequently as the prices there were a lot higher) kept them both alive and covered. Most of the time, they ignored the need for new items in favor of saving whatever money they could for the trip to Midgar.

Trusting the gunman to keep watch for him, Erik started for the fallen Nibel Wolf and began tying it up to take it and gut it in town (many don't realize it but the meat of Nibel Wolves was delicious and the seamstress bought the pelt for a medium amount of gil) while Cloud struggled with the large horns of the dragon. Erik sliced the wolf's neck and let it bleed out.

Over by the shadows, Vincent kept his vigil watch and left the two alone to deal with the messy part of their jobs. Erik personally thought that Vincent had a secret abhorrence with getting messy and the like (the ex-Turk had never looked battle worn even in the future) but he would never really voice that thought out loud lest he wanted the risk of getting a bullet stuck in his kneecap. Vincent was so very sensitive about those types of issues.

"Finally," Cloud said as he wiped away the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The boy stared at the cut off horns with something akin to relief before he took out his knife and started cutting out the fangs of the large head.

"I think we're done for the day," Erik announced a couple of minutes later as he double checked the bound carcass before he straightened and looked at his protégé. Cloud was cleaning his knives on the same grass Erik had used earlier. The kid nodded absently and stood up. Quickly, he gathered his spoils and placed them securely in his bag (the eyeballs having been placed in a jar before being stuffed with the rest of the body parts they had collected) before he walked towards his master.

Cloud didn't need to look at Vincent to know that the other man had already disappeared in to the shadows. Usually, these home bound hikes consisted of only him and Erik. And so, grabbing a handful of rope each, the two males started dragging the body of a Nibel Wolf down the mountain in relative ease, knowing that the third member of their party was keeping a vigilant scout for them.

"Let's switch baggage Master Erik," Cloud said suddenly and just as unexpectedly, had Erik wearing his backpack full of war spoils. Erik watched in bemusement as a fifteen year old confidently carried the body of a Nibel Wolf across his shoulders like it didn't weigh thirty pounds or more. Erik ran a hand through his brown hair before following his charge to the village.

It was happening more often lately. Cloud would offer to take as much weight off of Erik whenever he saw the opportunity to. At first, the seasoned warrior only thought of it as his student trying to subtly tell him that he was very much capable of hard labor even if he was only fifteen and had a slender body. Erik was prepared to give his young protégé a much more arduous work out plan in response but he didn't go through with it. Covertly, Erik placed a hand over his heart before shaking his head and placing the said hand over the hilt of his sword, a calming gesture, and readying himself in case some monsters got through to Vincent's defense.

In all the seven years that he had been training Cloud, Erik watched him grow up in to a young respectable and understanding man. He had the skill and the knowledge to survive in the world outside of Nibelheim but his confidence in himself had never been developed. He supposed being in a village that treated him as a pariah for having no father, and having a mother that believed in the old gods rather than the Nibelheim superstitions and had an odd sense of what reality was could be attributed to that. Add the fact that Cloud was always with Erik and Vincent, two suspicious outsiders that rarely spoke to anyone, simply further fueled flames of their displeasure.

As such, no matter what Cloud was able to accomplish, he still thought little of it and it was with this realization that Erik understood that Cloud was not trying to tell him that he was 'man enough' to handle more work.

Cloud was simply trying to ease Erik's own work.

And how the hell Cloud managed to figure out or observe the fact that Erik's own body was starting to weaken with old age was a mystery all of its own. He'd never been that observant when he was a kid. Then again, he had never been trained for seven years by an ex-Turk and a mysterious swordsman.

He felt a small fond smile form on his lips that was directed at his student as they reached the village and headed straight for the blacksmith to sell their spoils. Cloud was a sweet kid, Erik thought and then had to wonder if a thought like that from him made him a narcissist. He shook his head, flinging the thoughts away easily and concentrated on the task at hand.

He could hear the faint sound of metal clashing against metal and he reasoned that they would be dealing with the son this time rather than the reasonable (as reasonable as people in Nibelheim could be with them anyway) father. And he was right. There at the end of the store behind the counter was a tall man who easily dwarfed both mentor and student. He grunted in welcome and glared at them with his brown eyes and steely blade that he was polishing. Beside Erik, Cloud looked like he wanted to say something, probably the fact that the store keeper was polishing the blade incorrectly and was risking cutting himself but then smartly decided to keep his mouth shut.

For his part, Erik could never quite fathom out why the town blacksmith could not get his own son to learn how to handle swords properly. It was really difficult to not learn something when you were being exposed to it everyday after all. With a barely inaudible grunt, Erik started laying down the items they wanted to sell while ignoring the abhorrence in the dark eyes that was trying to set him aflame by sheer force of will.

Several dealings in the past had made both student and mentor able to withstand the cold eyes that followed them as they presented the materials they had obtained. Once they'd acquired their pay, they went to the apothecary but not before they dropped off and sold the Nibel Wolf at the Inn.

He let Cloud handle haggling with the healer and store keeper. In the whole village, this old woman was the only one who did not resent the young Strife for his lineage. For that Erik was thankful and he often gave her whatever food he could spare. Once Cloud had left the store, the old woman gave him a meaningful look. Erik answered with a smile and told her that he would come by for his order later. With a nod, the warrior left the store as well.

The sun was already setting, Erik noted as he studied the darkening shade of the sky. Off to his side, he heard Cloud stretching. Off to his other side, he saw Vincent carrying what he supposed would be their dinner for tonight. With a grin, Cloud jogged over to his taciturn teacher (Vincent was the one who took over Cloud's academics) and grabbed the vegetables and whatever meat they had managed to buy this time. Vincent perked a brow and looked at Cloud in silent inquiry.

"Mom said to not let you two go back to your cabin without eating dinner," he said. His eyes glittered in amusement as he took a couple of steps away from the two formidable men to no doubt get him out of harms way, "She said that the two of you were getting thinner so you two better not skimp."

Cloud had the temerity to wait for Erik to subtly cringe and for Vincent's other eyebrow to migrate to his hairline. With a small nervous laugh, he backed away some more just in case one of his two masters decided to pounce on the chance to give him a pop quiz on his academics as revenge. Hel knew that he got enough of those with his regular days of schooling with Vincent.

"And Master Erik?"

Surprised by the sudden change from audacity to meekness, Erik stared Cloud. His gray eyes were connected with Cloud's blue ones and he raised a brow, slightly tilting his head to the side in question.

"Something wrong?"

"Ah," Cloud stuttered before shaking his head, "N-Nothing…just…please take care of yourself." He rushed out the final words before he nodded to them in respect and started walking back to his house.

"Did you say something to him?" Vincent questioned as he stepped in to the fading light of the day and watched Cloud until his blond hair disappeared in to the Strife residence. Erik sighed beside him before shaking his head.

"No…but I have a feeling that he knows anyway."

"It wouldn't surprise me if he did," was Vincent's only comment to that and was Erik hallucinating or was there a hint of pride in those words? Cloud had been curious, and eager to learn as a kid but it was Vincent who had tempered that raw craving in to ravenous hunger for knowledge that he could only gain through being patient and observing others.

"There's no need for him to worry about how sick I am," Erik said as he turned away from the setting sun and started to enter the apothecary once again, "We have a few months after his birthday to make our move. Until then, we'll just have to strengthen Cloud as much as we can in case something goes wrong."

Vincent didn't reply and let Erik pick up his order from the village healer. He stared at the Strife residence with lips formed in to a strained line. The turning point was fast approaching and the dark haired gunman felt an anticipating chill race along his spine.

There were two more weeks before Cloud's sixteenth birthday.

Vincent sighed as he turned away from the sun and entered the apothecary to help Erik replenish their medical supplies

The boy was planning on enlisting to become a SOLDIER. It was painfully obvious to both Vincent and Erik even after all the training that the dark haired gunman had given him in concealing his emotions. Even after Erik had managed to talk Cloud out of joining the Shinra ranks at a young age of fourteen, the want was still there. How Erik had managed to do it, Vincent still didn't know. The name Cloud was synonymous to stubbornness. It was a fact of the world kind of like how the answer to one plus one was two.

One of these days he was going to get the answer out of Erik whether it be by gunpoint or blackmail…both of which he was quite skilled in doing.

It was only a couple of hours after their private celebration of his birthday that Cloud Strife's life came to a screeching halt. Cloud did not know as to whether it was a blessing or a curse when his mother had sent him to the inn's store to buy a bag of flour for the cookies she wanted to bake. Erik and Vincent followed him outside and the three parted ways, the swordsman heading to the apothecary (for what Cloud didn't know but his gut was telling him it was a check up of sorts and his stomach tightened at the thought that his master needed a check up) and the gunman walking towards the item shop to get some more meat for dinner since all of them would be staying for the night.

Now Cloud watched in horror as the fire licked up his home, the bag of flour resting on the dusty ground, forgotten.

"Mother!" Cloud yelled over the roaring flames as he pushed past panicking individuals and ran for his house that was already starting to cave in from the fire. He was only a few feet away when he felt an arm snake around his waist and hold him back. He squirmed, yelled, and tried to dislodge the hold that was keeping him from saving his mother. His panic had overridden his mind that he almost didn't hear the words the stranger was saying.

"Cloud! She's gone! She's gone!"

He had only managed to understand the last word but it was enough. He had stopped struggling, tears continuously streaming down his pale and smudged cheeks. The man, Cloud dimly thought that it was Erik, let him go as soon as he had calmed down. There was a flutter of something red – not fire red not fire not fire – to his right and he reasoned in his hollow mind that it must be Vincent.

He heard the echoing shots of guns before he turned and saw that the monsters were still around, still running in every direction, still ripping apart flesh and killing the villagers. He didn't know how his hand found the hilt of his sword. He didn't even remember moving but somehow, he was suddenly hacking through tightly corded muscles, feathers that were sharp enough to cut him, scaled skin...

"To the left Cloud!"

He turned automatically and impaled the sharp point of his blade to the right eye of the monster before it took a chunk right out of his side. With a snarl, he ripped his blade away and started slicing through whatever bastard looked like it wasn't human.

Beside him, he could hear Erik going through his own share of beasts while behind them Vincent was killing off whatever he could and injuring whatever he couldn't. He caught someone fleeing and he narrowed his eyes as he decapitated a Valron that was flying too low. There was a flash of brown and Wutaian features and Cloud knew that it was Zangan. He had someone in his arms – probably Tifa – and it was all Cloud could do to yell at him to just stop for a moment and help other people.

He felt someone grab his shoulder and pretty soon Erik was pushing him in the direction of the mountain. He wanted to yell at his master, to turn around and face the flames because he could still hear the screams but then he caught a glance at the remains of the village - flaming houses, bodies littering the ground while the monsters feasted on their kills, children still alive and being torn apart by Nibel Wolves – and he realized what Zangan saw before he did.

It was over. They had lost.

Gritting his teeth, Cloud finally allowed Erik to push him towards the mountain where they were very familiar with the terrain and where they wouldn't be sitting ducks. He didn't see the arrival of a truck filled with Shin-Ra troops or that two of these soldiers were more important and skilled than the regular troopers.

Erik and Vincent however, did. The two shared a look before a subtle nod from Erik sent the three of them scurrying for the mountain.

Neither of them noticed the fact that two pairs of eyes, one glowing incandescently green and the other sharp combination of violet and blue, followed their forms before the screams ofmonsters being slaughtered echoed throughout the night.

Upon reaching the cabin, Erik had to stop and clutch at his heart which was abnormally beating faster than it should have been given the current situation. His two companions stopped and Cloud came to his side and placed on muscled arm over his shoulders before he started leading Erik back to the cabin. Vincent and Erik shared a look before the gunman subtly nodded and turned around.

"Cloud, there's an underground passage in the cabin. Erik will lead the way. I'll see if I can find Zangan and Tifa or anyone else," Vincent said before he ran back towards town, not giving the sixteen year old a chance to argue.

"Let's go Cloud," Erik said, his voice a little strained.

The young man nodded and quickly, they managed to grab whatever essentials they could before they headed off down the ladder underneath a trap door. Erik, Cloud noticed, had grabbed a small brown leather bound book first before he quickly stuffed it in a bag with the rest of their supplies. He felt his stomach knot as he saw his sword master place a couple of medicine that wasn't related to treating wounds in to the bag as well.

He had only suspected that Erik was sick but the drugs made the theory a fact.

He'd lost his mother. He didn't want to lose Erik as well.

Get a hold of yourself! Now isn't the time!

Cloud clenched his fists as he followed meekly after his master, his eyes wandering around the dark cave, only illuminated by the lantern the man leading him was holding, but ultimately returned to the broad back of the older man.

"Shouldn't we…wait for Master Vincent?" Cloud asked as he trudged along the dirty cave, occasionally looking back to make certain that they weren't being followed by monsters.

"Vincent will be fine Cloud," Erik answered, glancing back to his protégé before turning his attention to the path so as not to trip. It was much more difficult to navigate in the dark now that he didn't have his mako eyes, "He's been through worse."

What's worse than this?

It was all Cloud could do not to ask. By experience, he knew that both men did not like to talk about their pasts and although it hurt him to know that they couldn't yet trust him in such a manner, he respected their privacy.

As if reading his thoughts however, Erik started to talk.

"I once had a hero," he started and waited till Cloud's initial surprise faded away before continuing, "He was amazing. He could take down entire legions of monsters and command armies and lead them to victory despite the odds. To me, he was the greatest person to ever live."

Cloud stayed quiet, knowing that this was a rare event and that if he disrupted it, it would never be fulfilled to the end.

"I learned the way of the sword because of him. I wanted to be just like him…or at least worthy enough to stand by his side," their footsteps echoed throughout the stalactite cave but Erik's soft voice simply faded, never returning, "I met him a couple of times when I was a trainee…he and another."

Erik stopped talking as they reached the end of the cave. Blinded at first by the light, slowly the two adjusted and only then did Erik turned the lamp off. The afternoon sun beat harshly upon the two men as the winds threatened to blow them away. They were at the side of Mt. Nibel, nearly all the way to the other side. Cloud pretended to be fascinated by the snow covered pine trees but his gaze kept going back to his master's form, wanting to hear more of his story to both know the other more and to block out his own story from his mind.

"Those two were magnificent together," Erik started again as he started walking down the path that he and Vincent had traversed only a number of times, "Two great swords being wielded in two different ways but no less graceful and deadly. I realized then that I could never be like my hero or even be as good as that other person. I was a failure as a trainee," he felt himself smirk as Cloud delivered a disbelieving look in his direction, "It's the truth. I was clumsy and I couldn't hold a sword properly. I took too long to make my next move and…well let's just say that I was everything that a sword master wouldn't want in a trainee."

"But you made it. You're really good at the sword now."

"Only because of experience."

That was somewhat the truth, Erik thought as he remembered that the only reason he had been able to be as good with a sword as he is now was because Zack's memories had been entwined with his own.

The two of them calmly made it down the mountain in silence after that and Cloud was mentally cursing himself for having interrupted. He knew what would happen and he still opened his mouth. If he could, he would have kicked himself.

"I killed my hero when he went insane and started killing all the people in my village."

Cloud's eyes widened as his gaze locked on to his master's back. He stumbled on the snowy ground before he caught himself and walked faster to keep up with Erik's longer strides.

"And that other person," Erik's voice seemed to crack and Cloud wanted to reach out to him, to tell him to stop if he didn't want to talk about but then he remembered that this was Erik who was talking. Erik did not talk unless he wanted to talk. And so, Cloud remained silent, brows furrowing in to a worried frown.

"That other person sacrificed himself to make sure that I lived."

Cloud watched as Erik's shoulders hunched up, easily recognizing the move as someone who was taking a deep breath. The younger man didn't know he was holding his own until Erik's shoulders relaxed. Quietly, he let his own breath go. There was silence in between them, Cloud thinking of what to say in the aftermath and Erik lost in his own memories of the past.

"You know…that person? He must have loved you a lot to give you his life," Cloud said and bit his bottom lip, not knowing if that was the right thing to say or not. He'd never had that much practice with conversation since no one in town truly wanted to talk to him. His mother and him didn't relate all that well and Vincent had never been talkative. It was Erik that Cloud often found himself having a conversation with most of the time but none of their talks had ever been this serious.

"…I suppose you're right," Erik said as he looked back over his shoulder and gave Cloud a small smile of thanks. The blond smiled back, relaxing at the fact that he had somehow managed to ease the older man's burdens.

"You just remember that even if someone seems like they're invincible and that nothing in the world could ever break them," he said as he ducked underneath a branch and then entered the grassier area that would lead to the next town, "Remember that they are only human and that underneath that strength is a person."

It was probably the most profound words of wisdom that Erik had ever imparted to Cloud and the blond placed the words in his heart and mind, vowing to never repeat his mentor's mistake.

As his two companions made their way to the next town, Vincent steadfastly avoided the monsters that were lurking near the reactor. He had absolutely no intention of going back to Nibelheim and Erik knew it. Their first and foremost priority was to kill Jenova and although neither Erik nor Vincent had foreseen a monster attack or for the Shin-Ra troops to arrive a couple of months early, it did not change the fact that Jenova was the bigger problem.

Vincent and Erik had never ventured forth in to or near the reactor until a couple of days ago to set the explosives what with Erik wanting to take precautions. The other man had theorized that while Jenova might not recognize his body, she might recognize his soul. When Vincent pointed out that Jenova probably did not remember him since they had never truly met in this timeline, Erik simply replied with 'my mind is here. What's to say that hers isn't?'

That won the argument quickly and Vincent was beginning to believe that Erik had made the correct choice. Perhaps Jenova remembered too and that she had sensed Erik's ill intentions towards her and had made her move early in the game. The dark haired man shook his head as he jumped from one ledge on to the next, keeping his landing quiet. Below him, a Nibel Wolf was eating the remains of a mountain goat. Ignoring the stench of blood that called out to his inner demons, Vincent crept as near as he dared to the reactor.

There were hundreds of them. Vincent's red eyes narrowed as he gazed down at the different monsters that had gathered around and inside the reactor, his grip on his gun tightening with tension. He wouldn't be able to get inside and deliver a bullet in between Jenova's eyes (he wanted to make sure that the monster would truly die) without dying in the process. He could call up Chaos to deal with the small fry but that would leave him weakened and barely conscious to do the deed, get out, and blow the place up just to be sure.

Vincent looked back, checking to see if any monster was trying to sneak up on him. When the coast was clear, he rummaged through his pocket and grabbed the detonator carefully sealed in a small box to prevent accidental pressing. He placed the small black box on the ground and unceremoniously opened it. Inside, strapped to the bottom of the small container, was a tiny black gadget with a red button and an equally red blinking light an inch above the button.

Vincent glanced to the reactor and pressed the button.

Inside the mako reactor, several planted bombs with the same blinking red light emitted consecutive 'beeping' noise before exploded; blowing up whatever monster was near them as well as the whole power plant.

From his vantage point, Vincent watched as the reactor erupted in to flames and fall apart from the inside out. Several monsters ran away from the site, their self-preservation instincts overriding whatever control Jenova had on them, and coincidently started running in his direction. Silently cursing that he couldn't find a better point where he could have simply waited out the stampede, Vincent turned away and quickly jumped from ledge to ledge, silently ending up in the materia cave that Erik had first found himself to be in.

Gun and claw ready, Vincent crept along the cave and quickly emerged on the other side. Glancing back to make sure he wasn't being followed, the gunman looked around to make certain that he wouldn't be ambushed before he jumped down to the other side of the mountain, knowing that he wouldn't have the chance to give a second check on Jenova's status.

His experiences as a Turk had killed off any optimistic thinking in his personality and he had no reason to believe that Jenova would easily die from an explosion. Hopefully, them torching all the books about the experiments on Sephiroth would be enough for the general to keep his mind from being overtaken by Jenova if the monster was still alive.

Everything they had done would have been for naught if it wasn't.

Walking down the mountain, Vincent turned and looked back, apprehension coating his body even though his face showed his regular impassivity. He would have to check back later once the monster activity has returned to somewhat normal levels. Until then, he would have to camp out on the trees.

Vincent bent his knees and jump, stealthily landing on the branch of a large pine tree and sat down, leaning his back against the cold and rough trunk. Silently, he prayed to the Planet that the monsters would distract Sephiroth enough that he would place their extermination as the highest priority rather than investigating the explosion at the reactor.

Author's Notes: And there you have it, chapter one complete. I sent it to my betas and I read it a couple of times too just to make sure that my 'materia' was spelled as is and not 'material' since word likes to correct me without my knowledge. I hope you guys enjoy it and hopefully there aren't any grammatical errors anymore. Have a good day everyone!