Chapter Two

Shards of truth

Everywhere was bright.
Everywhere you looked, you would find the same pale green light. At the Lifestream, altough the vital energy was used to create more life, the personalities, the consciences remained, until moving...forward. They looked like the bodies they had formerly inhabited, maybe in an unconscious effort of trying to linger on their former lives. But, it doesn´t mattered how hard you wished, you only could go one way. Two of them were arguing.
"Aeris, you know it´s impossible! No one can go back, no matter how hard you try."
"But I MUST go back! You and me know that my friends will need me. Have you forgotten what we saw?"
"It´s just one of millions of possibilities, of futures! I told you this before you asked The Conscience."
The Conscience. Aeris remembered how, upon her arrival, her mother had explained to her everything she had only guessed until then. The Conscience could be called the soul of the Planet. It was alive, and, contrary to what anybody believed, it didn´t reacted on instinct like an animal, it was aware of every posible treat to its safety and it manipulated the events so the treats would never come true. That was until Jenova came. An entity so powerful, the Planet had to use direct action, namely, the Weapons. They were used only as a last resoure, since unleashing them meant a great expense of spirit energy. But Jenova, sensing their power, interfered with the bond the Weapons had with the Planet, transforming them in mindless destruction agents. But thanks to the efforts of Avalanche, they were destroyed, along with Jenova. The Conscience decided to spare the human race, since Jenova was the treat to it, and it were humans who defeated it.
"But what if this comes true!? I just don´t want to stay here while what we saw becomes a reality."
"Aeris, there´s no way we can tell that for sure. And even if it became true, you can´t go back,you only can retard it. You will eventually go with me and the others into the Promised Land."
"Then I just accept it?"
"As hard as it may be...yes."
Aeris turned away from her mother. She remembered when she arrived where The Conscience is. She was an Ancient,and that meant The Conscience would treat her with certain deference. She only asked to see what would the future would bring to her friends. The Conscience then showed her images of the near future, how they defeated Sephiroth, and how Holy stopped the Meteor from destroying all life. Then, it showed her the far future.
It was her worst nightmare. The earth was burned by the energies unleashed against it, death and destruction everywhere. Then she saw her friends, Cloud,Tifa,Cid... all of them lying in the ground, without life. And above them, the monster responsible for all of this. She ran away from those visions of death, crying for her friends. Since then, she had decided something. She had to go back.
"I can´t. They are my friends, there must be something I can do."
Ifalna saw how decided her daughter was. She had the look of someone who wouldn´t stop against anything to accomplish her goals.
"Maybe there is a way."

Cloud and Vincent started their journey to Rocket Town. Cloud was carrying his Murasame, the lighter of his swords altough not the most powerful. Vincent had his Outsider strapped to his belt,since he liked traveling light,and his Death Penalty, altough powerful, was very hard to carry with comfort, and this was just going to be an easy travel. Both of them were riding black chocoboes. Since they had almost no use for the gold one since defeating Sephiroth, they leaved it at the Chocobo Farm, as a gift for the help they had gotten there. The last they had heard it was that ChocoBill was breeding it, and selling the new gold chocobos for big amounts of gil to rich people and racers. Since then, the chocobo races were more exciting than ever.
"We should arrive in five hours at this rate." Vincent said.
"Yes.Hope Cid isn´t very busy. Wonder if he is building another rocket?"
"I don´t know, we haven´t kept on touch lately, but it seems he found the Tiny Bronco ad fixed it, so I guess he will give us a ride to Junon."

A fist smashed the clock, the beeping it made silenced. Then Cid turned around to sleep a bit more.
"Good morning Captain!"
Shera entered the room and opened the curtains. The light entered trough the window and fell in the bed. A handful of curses were heard.
"C´mon Cid, it´s time to wake up! It´s nine o´clock already."
"Dammit woman! When will you understand that for me, any hour before eleven it´s too early!?"
"C´mon Cid, today it´s your date with the guy who says that he wants to fund the new rocket."
"Why didn´t you wake me earlier!!? He will be here at ten! I have to bath and eat breakfast and arrange the schematics!"
Cid ran to the bathroom,and a string of curses were heard as he noticed he had opened the cold water. Shera just sighed, even after all those years , he was the same. No, she corrected, he was more kind to her, since he discovered the malfunction on tank no.8. Since his return from the Northern Crater, he had apologized to her repeteadly. But he wouldn´t tell her what she wanted to hear more than anything.
He hadn´t told her he loved her.
It could be guessed in the way he looked at her, how he talked to her. Sometimes, when they were alone, he seemed like he would take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her, but at the last minute he would hesitate and would get away from her. "Why?" Shera asked herself. She didn´t knew the answer but maybe it was her fault, maybe he was unsure of himself, or maybe...
"Shera, where´re my clothes?"
She stopped thinking and came back to the real world, telling herself she would talk with him later.
"It´s in the closet. It´s near your sweaters."
Shera then went to the kitchen. Cid then got out dressed in his usual clothes. Shera just saw at him and let escape a sigh.
"What? What´s wrong?"
"Well, I though you would dress in a more formal way to meet with the man who wants to fund the rocket. You don´t want to make a wrong impression on him, do you?"
"Ah, dammit, I won´t dress in one of them monkey suits. And I feel more comfortable this way."
"At least use a lab coat to make yourself look more like a scientist instead of a mechanic."
"Hell, I´ll dress the way I want, and if he just sees my appearance and doesn´t listen to me, he can go with his funds to other part."
"Cid, he is the only one who has expressed any interest in funding a new rocket. Or do you have the money to make a rocket by yourself?"
Cid mumbled. He was rich, richer than a normal person because he had sold a good deal of his share of materia, but to build a rocket you needed a lot of money. After a couple of weeks seeking funds in his own,he saw that companies weren´t too interested in space exploration, or the ones who did, didn´t had enough money to fund it. Until three weeks ago, when Cid got a letter from a man telling him he would be glad to talk to him about the rocket. He said his client was very interested in that project, and would like to talk with him about it.
"Maybe you´re right. I´ll use the goddamn lab coat."

An hour later, Jacob entered Cid´s house. Shera greeted him and told him Cid would be there shortly. Then Cid appeared, with the lab coat on. It was one of Shera´s, the biggest he had found, and even so he felt like any sudden movement would rip it. He invited Jacob to seat and took out his schematics. He spent the next half hour talking about the new rocket and answering the questions of Jacob. Then Jacob raised his hand to stop Cid´s exposition.
"Well, Mr. Highwind,you have convinced me. I´m sure my client will be more than willing to fund this project. But we want to know something."
"Of course, ask about anything."
"Well, we expect that you will develop new technology exclusively for this project, and we want to have the rights to commercialize it."
"Are you saying that anything we invent for the rocket will be automatically yours?" Shera asked.
"Well, yes. We are going to spend a lot of money in this, and we want to take out of this as much profit we can."
Cid frowned. He remembered how the first rocket got built by Shinra, and when he acted to save Shera,they said it wouldn´t be "profitable" to prepare another launch. Finally, the rocket only lifted off because of the Meteor. Cid didn´t want to pass all that again, just because someone said it was more interested in the profits that anything else.
"Well, Mr.Highwind, do you accept?"
"Frankly, Mr.Marley, I don´t like the idea of your client using our technology to make money."
"I knew you would said that, so I bring here a contract that will make everyone participating in the project have a good share of the utilities coming from the comercialization of anything you develop."
Cid stared with his mouth open. This was better than he tought! A new rocket and a good incoming of money from it! Shera touched him to make him react and then Cid took a pen.
"Where do I sign?"
"Right here please."
Maybe it was fate, or just luck, but before Cid signed, he saw in the upper part of the contract, in big black bold letters the name of the company "Rexcon Weapons".
"Wait a goddamn minute! Are you working for a weapons company!?"
"Well, altough our company has also interests in construction and pharmaceuticals, the weapons manufacturing is still the biggest of our interests."
Cid just got past Jacob and opened the door.
"I don´t want anything to do with death dealers like you and your company! And I´ll be damned if I let any of you money mongers get close to MY rocket! Get out of here now!"
"Well, Mr.Highwind, if you change your mind, you can call me, here´s my card."
Jacob took his briefcase and got out of Cid´s house.

Joshua took a long look at his surroundings. The church seemed like new, after his followers cleaned and repaired it. It was located in the former sector 5 of Midgar. A year had passed since he apeared in Midgar, healing the wounded and organizing the people. Now, Midgar looked better than when Meteor almost crushed it, the plates having dissapeared, letting the people see the sky whenever they wanted. The slums now looked more like a well organized city, clean and peaceful, everybody busy, since Joshua allowed companies establish there, but with the condition they weren´t weapons or chemicals companies. A young blond woman went towards him.
"Joshua! It´time for your preach, what are you doing here?"
Joshua turned around to see the woman.Her name was Julia, and he remembered she was in a very bad shape when he found her. A huge piece of debris had fell on top of her, and all under her neck was crushed. When he arrived to where she was, she couldn´t breath. He kneeled and used his power to cure her. Since then she had become one of his most loyal followers.
"I was thinking. We have done so much thanks to everyone´s work."
"Yes, but it´s almost time for your preaching, the people it´s coming."
Joshua then walked towards a podium with microphone. He touched it to see if the speakers were on and saw how the people filled the church. Everyone wanted to come to hear him, and those who couldn´t get in heard him through speakers colocated in the outside.
Joshua waited until the last person had entered and then began.
"My dear friends, today, as always, we are here to thank a higher power from saving us from the disaster and death. That power prevented the Meteor called by the forces of evil from killing us and destroying our planet. That same power makes possible to everyone of us to be, and makes everything come to life. And that power just aks to us to take care of its creation. So when the time comes, we will be ascended to the place that is rigthfully ours, as the true heirs of this planet, and then we will be truly in our promised land."
Joshua stopped to see the reaction on everyones faces. All the eyes were fixed on him. He took a breath and continued.
"So again I tell to you, be prepared, because soon the time will come when we will have to reclaim what it´s rigthfully ours from those who don´t want to see the truth. They were given the same chances that you, to come to us and accompany us, but they prefer to be stuck in their evil ways. Don´t forget my words, and be ever vigilant of those who don´t want to hear the words of the Mother."
Joshua then signed and a chorus began to sing, he smiled. Everything was going as planned.

Now it´s time to answer some of your questions:
Yes, Aeris is going to come back, but not in the way you expect it. Let´s just say that she will have to rely on an old nemesis.
What happened to the other characters? Well, if you´re a Barret/Yuffie/Nanaki(Red XIII)/Turks fan, then be patient. They will appear,alright,just wait to next chapter.
Who is behind Rexcon Weapons? Why is he so interested in our heroes? What can I expect from this fanfic? Let´s just say that a lot of old questions will be answered and new ones will pop up along with new friends and dangers.
In the next chapter (maybe): -I said that I would answer the question on how new materia is discovered, and I will answer it. -What happened to Yuffie? What does she have to do with Cloud and Vincent´s journey? Is she still a materia "hunter"? -The return of the man everybody loves to hate! It´s still as ugly as usual and more devious than ever! Who is he? Well, read the next chapter to find out, if you haven´t guessed.