Merging Journeys

Started: February 19, 1999

Finished: May 1, 1999

A sudden presence jolted through his mind, causing him to open his eyes and narrow them at nothing in particular. *He* was nearing. The one that had defeated Sephiroth was approaching, and fast. Gripping Masamune in his right hand, Cero rose from where he had been sitting in the office of the President. In the surrounding darkness, the silver-haired man started towards the door. He would greet Cloud Strife . . . with a blade through the stomach; much like Sephiroth had done with Aeris Gainsborough.

"You feel him, don't you?" came a soft inquiry.

Cero stopped and turned towards the voice. The person that had spoken stood in front of the black desk in the back of the large office. "You feel him as well," he stated bluntly. "The Jenova within you not only makes you `immortal`, as you have said, but also allows you to sense the presence of another Jenova bearer."

He could feel the President of Shinra Incorporated smirk. "How incredibly wise you are," he remarked, leaning against the desk. "You read me as if I were an open book, and yet do not understand anything." His laugh was cold and mirthless. "I am part of something even greater than you. You are nothing compared to myself."

The taller man took a threatening step forward. "Watch your tongue," he growled, "or you just might lose it."

"A petty threat," the president said nonchalantly. "Nothing you do can harm me." Cero continued glaring at the man before him. "Stay here, Cero. Veraldei will be able handle him for the time being."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I know more than I should know," replied the president. "I know when I will die, when you will die, and times beyond that." There was a pause. "I even know who will kill you."

Cero glared at the president. "Shut up. . ."

The president shrugged. "Very well. But even now that you know that you will die, you cannot prevent it; no one can change fate. Don't you feel utterly helpless?"

Cero just continued to glare at the man shrouded in darkness.

"Wow. . . So much Materia. . ." Yuffie Kisaragi grinned as she showed Red XIII the handful of Magic Materia she had gotten from the soldiers they had defeated.

Red XIII rolled his good eye. "I do not quite see why you must drool every time you see more Materia," he sighed. He looked the Magic Materia over and shook his head. "They're not new in any way, and they aren't even mastered."

"It's still Materia!" pouted Yuffie. "Can I help it if I like any kind of Materia?"

The red-furred creature mumbled under his breath, "You should be able to." That said, he walked off to where the others were gathered. Yuffie sighed, shoved the Materia in her bag, then hurried after him.

". . . We're surrounded up and down," Cloud Strife was saying. "That means, whether we go on or retreat, we're going to run into Shinra soldiers. We'll keep moving up; I want to find out just what Veraldei's planning this time."

"They've rigged the !$@!*^ elevators, Cloud!" Cid Highwind reported, stepping away from the nearby elevators. "The moment somebody presses those @*(%$ buttons, the whole damn @*(%@!% thing's gonna explode."

Cloud frowned. "Isn't there anyway to disarm it, Cid?" he asked.

"Not from this side," replied Cid. "We'd have to drop down the elevator shaft and get into the elevator from the other side to take out the damn bomb."

The young leader cursed and turned to face Rufus Shinra. "Is there any other way up?" he asked.

"Not to my knowledge," admitted Rufus. "I think my father was too afraid that the regular workers would discover the passages."

Tseng shook his head and stepped forward. "President Shinra put one passage on this floor," he said. "It was meant only as an emergency exit, so it may not be accessible from the outside. We could try forcing it open, though."

"Where's this passage, Tseng?" Tifa Lockheart queried.

"Follow me, everyone; I'll show you," Tseng Lander replied, gesturing for them to follow him towards one of the stores on the floor. The abandoned store was filled with items ranging from Phoenix Downs to Elixers. Yuffie took it upon herself to grab quite a few Elixers and stuff them into her pack as Tseng searched the walls, knocking the wall in different places to check if it was hollow anywhere. It took a few minutes for him to find the passage. "Here. It's right here," he said, stepping away and pointing at one part of the wall.

Barret Wallace took this as his cue, lumbering forth and busting the wall in to reveal a dark, but wide, passage that led upward with a flight of stairs. "More @&*^@!$*&^ stairs!?" the black man growled, his eyes widening considerably. "&%*(#$@*^&@*$@ !!!!!"

Cait Sith chuckled and bounded up to Barret. "If it makes you feel any better, these stairs don't go up half as high as the other one did," the cat said. "They go up eighteen stories higher!"

If Cid, Cloud, Rufus, and Vincent hadn't been there to restrain Barret, Reeve would have had to make a Cait Sith 3.

His voice had sounded clearly over the intercom. "All Shinra executives to the briefing room." Veraldei. What could he want now?

Straightening his tie in front of the mirror, Reeve glanced over at Zesah. "Will you be all right here?" he asked.

*I will survive. You should stay wary, however; I feel that horrible things shall soon come.* The mutated phoenix waddled back and forth on Reeve's bed. *Do not forget the Legacy Materia.*

Reeve smiled grimly as he took the Materia out of his pants pocket. "How can I?" he muttered. Striding to his dresser, he pulled out a Shinra Alpha bangle, which was already equipped with Restore, All, Ice, Enemy Skill, and (irony of all ironies) Phoenix Materia. He attached the Legacy Materia to the band before slipping it over his left wrist, tucking it away from sight; the other executives' suspicion would rise if they saw him with the band.

*Stay wary, Reeve,* repeated the bird as Reeve exited his quarters.

"I wish I could see where I was going," Tifa whispered as she followed Cloud and Rufus up the staircase. Forced to climb the stairs one at a time, the group's moving ability was limited.

"Funny; I can see clearly," Rufus muttered in front of her. His and Cloud's eyes seemed to glow even more fiercely than before in the darkness.

"It's the Mako eyes," Cloud explained. The glowing Ultima Weapon, on his back, was the one thing that distinguished him from Rufus in the darkness.

"Stop talking and start moving!" growled Cid from behind Tifa. "We're dying back here!"

Vincent, who had been the first to climb up, appeared from the shadows. His glimmering red eyes scanned over the struggling party below him. "We haven't much further to climb," he remarked. "There's a door at the end of the stairs, but it's rusted shut."

"Damn," Cloud hissed, "and it's too narrow to pull out our weapons or cast magic without obliterating us. What do we do now?"

Aeris Gainsborough looked at Tseng and nudged him. "If it's safe on the other side of the door, we can try something, Tseng."

"Like what?" Tseng queried. Yuffie stared at him for a moment, then realized he must be talking to Aeris again. Shuddering at the thought of talking to the dead in such a way, she managed a small step backwards.

"If we're able to will ourselves to disappear the way we do, it might be possible to materialize while we're not touching," explained Aeris. "It's a wild shot, I know, but we're kinda desperate."

Tseng sighed, then nodded, watching Aeris walk through the other members of AVALANCHE and disappear from sight in the shadows. He suddenly heard a voice in the back of his head. *Can you hear me, Tseng?* It was clearly Aeris' voice. *I'm on the other side of the door now; there's no one around. We're on the floor just below the science department floor.*

*Then the executive meeting hall is on this floor, too,* Tseng thought, sending his thoughts to Aeris. Surprisingly, the power was easy to execute. He wondered what other type of "surprises" were in store for him and Aeris. *Are you ready, Aeris?*

*Yes,* Aeris affirmed, nodding slightly even though she knew no one could see her in her spirit form.

The next thing Yuffie realized, Tseng had faded away from sight. She let out a strangled gasp and jumped backwards, bumping into a surprised Barret. "What the @*%# is your problem??" he hissed, quite angry that he was forced into this confined area -- Yuffie's little bump just made his mood worse.

"H-- He disappeared," Yuffie whimpered. "He disappeared without warning!" It took all her strength to not faint then and there. Although she had been with AVALANCHE for a while now and had survived through confrontations with Turks, Sephiroth, and Weapons, she couldn't get used to the thought that two of her former enemies were now allies, one of which was linked to a dead ally.

"Well, 'dat's just @*%^$# fantastic," the muscular black man ground out.

Meanwhile, Aeris was busy prying the hidden door open with the Nova Guardian. Tseng stepped through and past his comrades, making his way through the darkness to Aeris' side of the door. "Do you need help, Aeris?" he asked.

"I can . . . do this. . .!" Aeris managed, pulling at the edges of the hidden door again. After several more futile attempts, she handed the staff to Tseng. "Okay, give it a shot. . . You probably won't do much better than me, though."

Tseng smiled wryly and rematerialized, feeling at edges of door carefully. After he was sure exactly where the door was, he stepped back and rammed the door with his shoulder. Almost instantly, the door fell off its well-hidden hinges and fell open.

Aeris looked at his blankly for a moment. ". . . . Showoff," she muttered. Tseng blinked at her in surprise, then smiled when she started giggling. "C'mon, let's go get the others!"

Tseng stepped into back into the hidden staircase and looked down into the darkness. "Cloud? Are you guys still down there?" he queried, trying to keep his voice quiet.

"Tseng?" There were echoing steps up the stairs, then Cloud's familiar face. "Tseng. . . What'd you do?" He looked at the remains of the hidden door and frowned. "Did you do that?"

Rufus chuckled behind Cloud. "Do you even have to ask of our new Cetra?" he queried.

Cloud smirked, then nodded at the silent Tseng as he emerged from the dark stairs, followed by Vincent, Rufus, Tifa, and the rest. Yuffie coughed as she came out. "Ugh," she muttered. "I think I've had enough stairs for a while."

After a few moments of stretching their limbs, the group prepared for their next move. Vincent poked his head out into the hallway and took a quick look around. "It's clear," he stated to his companions, stepping completely into the corridor.

"So what are we going to do, Cloud?" Tifa asked as they stood in the hallway.

"We'll capture all the executives," replied Cloud. "We need to find out what Veraldei's up to with that rocket in Rocket Town and the satellite in Wutai."

"Don't forget that they're rebuilding the Sister Ray," added Cid, lighting another cigarette; the others had complained so much about his smoking on the stairs that he had to put it out.

Cloud nodded at that, then added, "And we need to find out what happened to Rufus."

Barret decided to open his mouth again. "Why would we wanna do 'dat?" he snapped. He received about half a dozen dirty looks for that, but no one opened their mouth to reprimand him.

"Let's just get going," Cloud sighed, heading down the hall a bit. "We'll check the meeting room first; if they're there, that'll save us a lot of time hunting them down."

They remained as silent as they could be for a group their size, rounding the corner and standing quietly at the front of the meeting room. "Okay. . ." Yuffie bit her lip and scratched the back of her head. "What do we do now?"

"Umm. . ." Cloud frowned. He hadn't thought about that. If the executives *were* in there, they'd catch them off-guard. If they weren't . . . they'd look like fools. "We'll just all rush in at the count of three. All right?"

"Great plan, oh mighty leader," Rufus sighed, a tone of sarcasm apparent in his voice.

"Oh, shut up," Cloud murmured, his voice nearing a whine. He inhaled sharply, then began. "One. . . Two. . ."

Andrew Veraldei straightened the stack of papers in his hands and he cleared his throat, gazing evenly at his executives. "This meeting is ove--" He was interrupted by the sound of the door breaking open, admitting a large group of weapon-wielding AVALANCHE members. In the lead were two young men that were identical in almost every way.

"What?!" gasped Heidegger, rising abruptly and staring at the group.

"All right, Veraldei!" Cloud shouted out. "We're here to get some answers!"

Veraldei rose slowly and calmly, his face an unreadable mask as he looked them over. "Well, well," he started, looking at AVALANCHE. "It's the rebels. . ."

Reeve stared at his comrades in shock. "C-- Cloud!? What the--?" His eyes widened when a familiar black-haired man made his way to Cloud and his look-alike's side. "Tseng?!?"

Scarlet snapped her gaze on Reeve. "So, there's been a rat in our midst," she hissed, grabbing Reeve with amazing agility and holding him with unbelievable strength. The next thing anyone knew, she was holding a knife to Reeve's neck. Cait Sith yelped and began shouting out at Scarlet while the others gasped.

"Shit!!!" cursed Cid, his Venus Gospel still held in an attack stance. "Let him go, you @*%$#%&# bitch!!"

Reeve gritted his teeth under Scarlet's grip and quietly thanked God he had worn the Shinra Alpha bangle. He swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the Legacy Materia's power. "Flashbomb!"

Scarlet frowned when he suddenly shouted up, her eyes slitting when she realized she could hear a humming sound somewhere close. It continued to get louder, up to the point where she realized at it was coming from her captive. A white light enveloped the room, followed by an explosion that made the Head of Weapon Development cry out. When the light died down, Scarlet was on the ground, rubbing her eyes. Reeve stood closer to his friends than before, his heart racing.

"Gya ha ha! Don't think you'll catch us that easily!" Heidegger produced a grenade, which he threw into the back wall of the meeting hall. The explosion stopped the group for a moment, which was enough time for Heidegger to scoop up Scarlet and follow Veraldei out of the room.

"Meet us on the top floor, AVALANCHE!" Veraldei called out before he was out of earshot. "We'll settle this there!"

There was an uncomfortable silence among the members of AVALANCHE after that. It was broken by Palmer, who walked up to them slowly. "What the *heck* is going on here?" he queried.

". . . They will be here soon."

Cero glanced at the President's sitting form, then glared ahead. "Remember that I owe you nothing," he hissed. "You did not even lift a finger to see me created."

There was a smirk on the President's face. "I didn't have to; you were already created," he stated cryptically.

Cero frowned and continued to glare into the darkness around him.

". . . And that's what's been going on," Cloud finally finished, taking a deep breath once he was done explaining the whole situation.

"Tseng's . . . a . . . Cetra? He's linked to Aeris??" Reeve stared at his former Turk, then grinned. "Elena will be thrilled to hear you're alive." Tseng blinked in confusion, earning himself a giggle from Aeris.

Palmer stared at Rufus for a long moment. He was having a hard time believing that this man that looked almost exactly like Cloud Strife was actually the former president of Shinra Incorporated. "Ummm. . . Hey-hey, President Rufus?" he queried.

Rufus scratched the back of his head in much the same way Cloud usually did. "It's just Rufus, Palmer," he said. He unsheathed Ragnarok and looked at Cloud. "We'd better get going before Veraldei decides to do something."

"You're right," agreed the ex-mercenary, waving to the other rebels. "Let's mosey, everyone!" There was an audible sound as Cid slapped his forehead. ". . . Er, I mean, let's go!"

Now joined by Reeve and Palmer, the group headed up the building. No soldiers tried to approach a group their size, so their way was basically clear. They stopped in Hojo's lab for a brief moment, Red XIII sniffing the air carefully. "This place reeks of many different scents of people," he remarked. He raised his eye to Cloud. "The dominant scents seem to be yours, Cloud, and Hojo, Veraldei, and Rufus'."

"What other different scents do you smell, Nanaki?" queried Tseng.

"I smell a scent familiar to Rufus'," remarked Red. "It doesn't seem to belong, though. I believe it would be Zack's scent. There is also the smell of Heidegger and Scarlet."

"Anything else?" Cloud whispered, almost dreading Red XIII's reply.

"There is a faint scent that smells like. . ." Red stopped and looked worriedly at his comrades. "It smells like Sephiroth."

Veraldei stepped into the office of the President, Scarlet and Heidegger flanking him. "They're coming," he panted, clearly out of breath from the run up.

"That's good to hear," chuckled the President, standing up. "And where is Hojo?"

"I don't know, Mr. President," Veraldei admitted. "He didn't even come to the meeting."

"Hmm. . ." The lavender-haired vice president could almost see the President shrug. "We will wait for the rebels, then. . . I'm sorry to say, however, that you've outlived your usefulness, Veraldei." There was a gleam of something in the darkness.

"W-- what?" For the first time in his life, Veraldei's voice cracked in fear.

An explosion sounded as a gun went off.

"What was that!?" Everyone turned to Yuffie. "There was a gunshot!"

"Damn," muttered Cid. "That Veraldei's starting the fun before we've even gotten up there! Let's hurry up!"

They ran from Hojo's lab and up the stairs, into the room just below the president's office. The team split into two as they climbed the curving staircases, joining at the top only to be met by darkness. "What 'da hell is 'dis!?" demanded Barret, trying to grow accustom to the darkness around them.

"Welcome, AVALANCHE." Surprisingly, the voice did not belong to Veraldei. It belonged to Scarlet. "We've all been waiting." To one side of the room, a light turned on. It revealed Scarlet, standing over Veraldei's prone form. The Vice President was unconscious, his breathing labored. A bullet had torn through his right shoulder; the pain must have driven him from consciousness.

"Are you ready for the greatest test of your existence?" Another light flickered on the other side of the room, opposite to where Scarlet was. Heidegger looked at them, his eyes glimmering with a strange intelligence that didn't befit the man.

A third light came to life, this one revealing a man that immediately sent a sizzling feeling down Cloud's spine. "Seph--!" He stopped himself, shaking his head. This man wasn't Sephiroth. He was slightly shorter and had dark blue Mako eyes. 'Those are . . . Zack's eyes,' Cloud found himself thinking. He swallowed hard, however, when he noticed the way the man that resembled Sephiroth held himself. It was identical to his own.

"Do you like the ending product of Project Ultimatum?" came a third voice -- a man's voice. "I think it has come out a success; the best qualities of four of the best specimens in the world. This product is named Cero." A laugh, sadistic and low. "I am the President of Shinra Incorporated, members of AVALANCHE."

There was a bright glare as all the lights suddenly came on, raising gasps from the heroes as they rubbed their eyes. Rufus blinked and looked at the President, who was nonchalantly striding past Cero. He gaped, his heart almost stopping. The President wore an impeccable suit of white, complete with trenchcoat. He wore black gloves and a black turtleneck, and brown boots adorned his feet. A shudder ran down his spine as the man ran a hand through his blond hair, his ice blue eyes glimmering. A smirk worked its way up the President's face.

Rufus Shinra found himself staring at himself, the President of Shinra Incorporated.

Any questions, people? ^_^ E-mail me and wait for the next chapter!! *grins evilly*

On to Chapter 13.

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