Chapter One

The stage is set

by Kal

Vincent opened his eyes and got up the bed.He was at one of the rooms of the Shinra Mansion,having moved there shortly after the fight with Sephiroth.After being inside a coffin in a wet basement for twenty years,he didn´t mind sleeping at a normal bed.He dressed and headed to the street.Today he and Cloud were going to have a business meeting with someone who wanted to hire them,and in the letter he sent it said he wanted to talk to them about the job in person.Since Cloud was without a job after the battle at the Northern Crater,he decided to be a mercenary again,and the job just came to him,maybe because defeating Sephiroth and saving the world was a good proof enough to anyone that he was the best at what he does.In ocassions,Vincent would go with him,not only to gain a little money,but also to have the excitement that he wouldn´t have any other way.He headed to the inn,now "Tifa´s Heaven on Earth" where you could have a good beer and an excelent dinner for just 200 gil.He opened the door and entered.

"Good morning.Is Cloud here yet?"

"Good morning Vincent.He must be training at the forest as usual,he should get here at any moment."

"I´ll wait for him."

Vincent took a chair and headed to the darkest corner he could find.He couldn´t explain it,but he feeled more comfortable in the dark than in the light.Maybe is a side effect of being twenty years in a coffin,he thought.

At a forest near Nibel mountains,Cloud was before a large tree,his sword resting in the floor.

"C´mon,I can do it,I have to do it."

He grabbed his sword and tried to lift it.He couldn´t .He tried again, with all the strength he was capable of.Nothing.He seated next to the sword,his Ultima Weapon,the letters in the handle laughing at him:"To the one who defeats the Ultimate Weapon." Cloud snorted.Months ago,he could swing his sword over his head as it were a stick.Now he couldn´t even lift it.He noticed it a couple of months ago,and with each day his strenght diminished.He didn´t wanted to worry Tifa,so he always got up early in the morning to train in the forest,so she couldn´t see him struggling to carry his sword.How long could he hide the truth from her?

"Maybe I need help."

Maybe it was time to ask for help.But not Tifa.He couldn´t tell her he was a weakling again.Then he thought of Vincent.He was a person he could trust wouldn´t say anything to anyone.Maybe he could have the same problems,since their powers came from Mako and Jenova cells.He reclined the sword in a tree and tied it to his back.He made an effort to get up and tried to go back at the town as quckly as he could.It was time to ask for help.

"Please,I beg you,give me another chance!"

"Is useless,Reeve,you´re finished."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!."

Reeve just watched helplesly as the nuke falled on top of his command center,the last building he had.Then the words "You lose" apeared on his computer screen.He clicked the button and appeared in a chat room.

"How could you do that?" he writed.

"Well,you´re so bad I can´t just not do it." Wood_elf writed.

"Yes I haven´t seen a worst Starcraft player in all my life." the Captain said.

"Shut up! I have a job,I can´t play all the day as you guys."

"Why don´t you just do your job instead of playing with us?"

"That´s what I´m going to do.Goodbye."

Reeve exited Battlenet and entered the company´s files.Since the Shinra was finished,he was without a job,but then he saw it as an oportunity.He gathered all the talented (and honest) people he knew from Shinra and started a new company."Reeve Responses" not only gave assesory to other companies,but also developed new technologies and products.It wasn´t a very big company,but Reeve was already a wealthy man,thanks to the hard work he and his employees did all the days.He turned his attention to his little project.Searching the missing Shinra Army was no easy task,even considering an army can´t just dissapear, but he hadn´t any success working on his own.Maybe he should talk to Cloud and the others about this,he though.Maybe a little help wouldn´t hurt.

The man descended from the car,and entered the town.It seemed almost without a change,but many people from Midgar had stablished themselves here,after the Meteor destroyed the upper plates of the city. From a ghost town,Nibelheim had become a noisy and busy town,a point of meeting to various mercancies from Wutai to Junon.He held his suitcase in his right hand and headed to the place of the meeting.In his letter, he had only said his boss wanted to hire them because of their abilities. It was not entirely false,he thought,only that maybe they wouldn´t be interested in the job.But as his boss had said "I want to do it quietly if possible,if not then we will use other ways."

The door opened at Tifa´s bar and Tifa got up to greet the costumer.He looked like a business man,if not for the black glasses,that made him look like a mafia hitman.Well,Tifa thought,a costumer is a costumer.

"Welcome,do you want a table?"

"Thanks.Yes I do.I´m waiting for two people to come here shortly. Haven´t you seen them? I expected they would be here now."

"Are you looking for Vincent and Cloud?"

"Yes,Mr.Valentine and Mr. Strife.Are they here?"

Vincent stepped out of the corner towards the visitor.

"I´m Valentine.Vincent Valentine."

"Good day Mr.Valentine.I´m Jacob Marley.I think you and Mr. Strife have received my proposition."

"Yes we have.What´s this business proposition you wanted to made?"

"I would prefer Mr. Strife accompanied us before I told you about it."

The door opened,and a very tired Cloud entered the bar.He was sweating and breathing heavily.He leaned against the wall and untied the sword.

"Cloud,are you alright?" Tifa asked.

"Yes,nothing a couple of your beers can´t solve."

"Maybe you should stop training so hard.You´re already very strong."

Cloud just smiled,thinking how "strong" he was now.Then he noticed the man and seated in a table signing them to accompany him.Vincent and Jacob seated with Cloud,and Jacob took some papers from his suitcase.

"Hello,Mr. Strife,I´m Jacob Marley,and as I was telling Mr.Valentine shortly before you arrived I,I mean,my boss wants to hire you."

"As long as it´s nothing illegal." Cloud said.

"Oh no,no! It´s something legal I assure you.I come in name of Rexcon Weapons,Inc. We want to hire you as assesors."

"But we don´t know nothing about weapons manufacturing." Vincent said.

"We now that.We basically want you to be in charge of testing the weapons in real life combat conditions.We would provide the weapons to you and you would use them in your "jobs".Of course,you will be paid a generous amount of money,and in addition to testing them,you would be required to do some secret operations for the corporation."

"What kind of secret operations?" Vincent asked.

"Simply secret." Jacob smiled."Are you interested?"

"Well,frankly,Mr. Marley,we´re not interested in that kind of job.We like being mercenaries,and we don´t like to be obliged to do "secret operations" for a company."

"We can offer you the double of the highest amount you have earned as a mercenary."

"Sorry,but our answer it´s no." Cloud finished.

"Well,in case any of you change your opinion here´s my card.Goodbye"

Jacob then exited the bar.when he was in the street,he took his cel phone and dialed a number.

"It´s Jacob.Let me talk with the General."

"Yes?"

"Sir,it´s Marley.They didn´t accepted the job.What we´ll do now?"

"Well,too bad.I guess we´ll have to get those Jenova cells in a more "direct" manner.Get back to the headquarters inmediately."

"Yes,sir." Jacob then turned off the phone and got in the car,to go out of Nibelheim.

"Well,what do you think about it,Vincent?"

"He was lying.Every word he said was a lie.His body language,his breathing...He was lying from the beginning,except when he said he sent the letter."

"What can he want with you guys?"

"I dunno.But whatever it is,is not a good thing.We better be more careful from now on."

"Well,I´ll be heading back to the mansion.I´ll see you tomorrow."

"I´ll go with you Vincent,there´s something I want to talk with him."

Vincent and Cloud got out of the bar and walked towards the mansion. Vincent saw Cloud was worried about something,and altough he had his own share of problems,it didn´t meant he couldn´t help a friend.

"Vincent,have you felt alright this past months?"
"Yes,Why do you ask?"

"Well,remember that lately I´ve been using materia more and more in the past missions we have had?"

"It seemed strange you almost didn´t used your sword.After all it´s one of the most powerful things in the planet."

"It´s because..." this wasn´t going to be easy to say "I´ve lost all my strenght.In the past months,I´ve been becoming more and more weak and now I´m not even capable of lifting it.Maybe it´s because it´s happening to the Jenova cells that gives me,you,and every member of SOLDIER it´s power.That´s because I´m asking you if you are still the same."

"Hmm.Now that you mention it,I have noticed that it takes me longer to transform into the monsters.It´s like I need to be really furious to make the change."

"So we both are losing our powers.What are we going to do?"

"I don´t mind losing the capability of changing into those beasts.But it matters to you,isn´t it?"

"Yes,it´s just I can´t deal with being weak again.What if Tifa finds out? Will she treat me the same or will she look at me with sorrow? I can´t stand the thought of it."

Vincent putted his claw in Cloud´s shoulder.

"Cloud,listen to me.Tifa loves you,and would never think less of you just because you aren´t capable of fighting like before.And remember, you even defeated Sephiroth before having the Jenova cells injected.Your strenght doesn´t comes from Mako or alien cells." Vincent then pointed to Cloud´s chest "it comes from here.Believe me,you´re the strongest person I have met,and that includes me."

"Thanks Vincent,I needed to hear that.But even so,I want to see what´s going on.Maybe it´s a symptom of something bigger."

"You´re right.Let´s go with Reeve,I think he could help us.Tomorrow we´ll go to Rocket Town and ask Cid to take us to Junon.He should tell us what´s happening to our bodies."

"Good idea.I´ll go pack right away." Cloud the turned to go to his house."And Vincent..."

"I won´t say anything to Tifa."

"Thanks."

Well,the first chapter is finished.It was about time.Now you must have all kind of questions,and I´ll try to answer some of them.

Vincent sleeping on a bed? Well,it´s because,after killing Hojo,Vincent had paid his sins,so now he thinks he can stop punishing himself so hard.It doesn´t means he has forgot what happened to Lucrecia,just that he has accepted that the guilty of all was Hojo.

"Reeve Responses"? Well,it just seemed natural that,with the fall of Shinra, Reeve would start his own company.And since it seems he build Cait Sith,it also seems natural the company would be into high technolgy.I got the name from "Ironman" comics,where good old Tony Stark (that´s Ironman to you,and,by the way looks a lot like Reeve)lost his company and started a new one called "Stark Solutions" that gives assesory to other companies.

In the next chapter:

-Has Cid married to Shera? What happened to the Highwind? and what is he doing now?

-Have you ever wondered how new materia is discovered?and by who?

-Will Sephiroth and/or Aeris come back to life?

-Who´s this "General"? And what does he want for the Jenova cells?

I´ll answer most of these questions in the next chapter.Don´t miss any of them.