Final Fantasy

When two worlds collide: Chapter 5

Cloud and Tifa waited at the inn's front room while they waited for the doctor to give his verdict on Vincent's recovery. Cloud paced up and down the room, the blizzard blowing fierce in the background, a nervous glance at the clock on the wall every thirty seconds.
"For goodness sake, Cloud," Tifa said with a concerned voice, "will you stop pacing around like that? Vincent's going to be fine."
"It's not that. What concerns me is how Vincent came to be unconscious in the first place. Those wounds on the soldiers were not normal wounds."
"I know that. Maybe some strange reaction from the lifestream caused it."
"Let me tell you two reasons why you're wrong about that." Cloud remarked, turning to face Tifa. "One, as the only other person who's been in the lifestream apart from me, and got out of it alive, you should already know that the lifestream is not there to kill, but to preserve life. Two, if the lifestream did that, why would the scouting party, including Vincent, fire at a point in the wall hardly anywhere near the lifestream. Something strange is happening, and Vincent's life is in danger because of it."
"Maybe your right, but I can't understand what it could be. Sephiroth's dead, right?"
"Yes. But even he couldn't do that, even in his final form before I faced him personally in the lifestream. No, he would prefer to just chop them up with the Masamune, not slice them in half with some sort of new weapon."
"So what could it be, then?"
Cloud sat down next to Tifa, shaking his head. "I don't know."
Tifa held Cloud's hands, and rested them onto his lap. "If we can handle a danger as great as Sephiroth and Meteor, then I'm sure we could handle this one."
Cloud smiled, hoping that what Tifa said was true. "You think?"
Tifa snuggled up close to Cloud. For a while they sat in silence. Then, finally, the doctor came back from the room.
"Your friend's just woken up, albeit with a slight headache. He's lucky that he has a strong body, otherwise he wouldn't have lived at all."
Vincent followed afterwards, with his normal hand pressed against his temple. Cloud and Tifa walked up to Vincent and asked if he was alright.
"My head feels like there's a mixture of Hojo and Yuffie living in it."
Cloud smirked, but Tifa ignored the comment about Yuffie. "What happened out there, Vincent?" she asked, hoping to get some answers.
"I have no idea. We received some strange energy readings inside the crater, and when we arrived, there was this guy inside it. We called out to him, and he just suddenly started firing this beam from his hands. When we fired, he surrounded himself with this weird magical shield shaped like a triangle. I managed to jump down too get a better shot, and managed to hit him when he wasn't expecting it, but he fired at a ledge above me, and I was caught in the landslide. I must have morphed into Chaos after I was buried."
Vincent sat down, nursing his sore head. Cloud thought about Vincent's story.
"Well, at least we can guarantee that it wasn't Sephiroth who caused this. But who the hell could it be? Did you get a good look at him, Vincent?"
"He wore these strange multi-coloured robes. Not only that, but his face was painted white, with these sort of red stars around his eyes."
Don't know anyone by that description, thought Cloud.
"This is the scary part, though. When the guy was firing these beams, he wasn't wearing any sign of materia."
Cloud turned his head, surprised by Vincent's comment. "No materia?"
"None."
Tifa looked up at Cloud. "How could anyone use magic without materia?"
"Either this guy is using something else other than materia, or……he doesn't need to. We've got a problem."
"Any idea where he could be headed?"
"No. Any foot tracks would have immediately been covered up by the blizzard. We're stuck."

Kefka walked through the blizzard, showing no emotion. The snow blew down hard, but he had surrounded himself with his Delta shield, which stopped the blizzard from hitting him.
"Now then, where do I go?"
He headed through the snow, trying to get near the City of the Ancients, where Aeris was buried.

Locke struggled to hold on to Celes, keeping her warm from the blizzard that was driving down. Celes, with her eyes closed, was starting to feel ill from the cold.
Years of treasure-hunting experience in the mountains of Narshe had enabled Locke to survive blizzards, but he wasn't sure about this particular one. This one was particularly fierce, unlike any that had been heard of in Narshe. Locke started to feel that he wasn't in Narshe at all, but somewhere either uncharted, or somewhere that wasn't in his world at all. Perhaps it was an effect of the stone.
They had to find shelter, otherwise they wouldn't survive at all.
"The snow is growing less," Celes said quietly, "and the wind is quieter."
Locke gazed wearily at the flakes still falling out of the sky, but for a long time, he could see no sign of their slackening. Then suddenly, as sleep was beginning to creep over him, he was aware that the wind had indeed fallen, and the snow flakes decreased in numbers. Very slowly, a dim light began to grow from the clouds. Finally, the snow stopped altogether.
As the light grew stronger, it showed a small village. Locke peered at the village, and knew that it wasn't Narshe. There were no industrial machines, the houses looked nothing like Narshe's own. That settled it. They had been transported far away from home. Where they had arrived, he did not know.
"Celes, wake up."
He shook Celes from her sleep, and she opened her eyes.
"There's a village there. Perhaps we can get a room or find out where we are, there."
Celes smiled, but said nothing as Locke carried her down the village.

Cloud, Tifa and Vincent were silent. A new enemy had arisen, and they did not know how to fight him.
"Should we start gathering the others, Cloud?" Tifa asked.
"I'm sure we'll need to. But first we need to find out where he could be going."
Two people entered the inn, and walked up to the innkeeper. Vincent looked at the new arrivals.
"Hey Cloud, check this out."
Cloud turned his head, and looked at the man and woman. The man wore a bandanna on his head, as well as a blue jacket and a sword at his side. The woman wore a yellow dress, and her long flowing golden hair was flowing freely behind her back.
"Must have been caught in that blizzard," he said quietly as he turned his head towards Tifa, "But what kind of clothes are they wearing? They were lucky to survive wearing stuff like that."
"Hi." The man said, slightly nervous by the people here.
"Uh, hi." Said the innkeeper, also nervous from the two arrivals. "What do you want?"
"We'd like a room to stay here for the night. We haven't got much, but does this cover it?"
Vincent watched as the man pulled out the money pouch he had behind his belt, open it and put down a few shiny pieces of metal onto the counter. The innkeeper picked up one of the pieces and looked at it inquisitively.
"This is a gold piece." he said confused.
"Yeah, so?"
"We don't take GPs here. Haven't you got any Gil?"
"Gil?" The man asked, puzzled.
"Yeah, Gil. Money."
"What's a Gil?"
The innkeeper turned to Cloud. "Hey, Cloud. This guy's trying to buy a room with gold pieces."
Cloud didn't look up. "Try the Gold Saucer. It's hundreds of miles from here, but they accept them."
"Not like this one."
Cloud turned his head to see the innkeeper holding up a gold piece. He walked up to it and took it away from the innkeeper's hand. It was made out of gold, but it was not imprinted with the usual Gold Saucer mark. It had some sort of symbol on it, and was dated back to a thousand years ago.
"Are you some sort of…….treasure hunter or something?" he asked the two strangers.
"Well…..sort of." replied the woman.
"And you thought that you could pay your way with a currency that you must have found in the crater."
"Well, no. But we….."
"This type of currency hasn't been used for centuries."
"Well, is there anywhere that I can stay." asked the man, slightly worried.
"This is the only place you can stay for miles. If you haven't got any Gil, then I suggest you try your chances outside."
"Hold it." Cloud interrupted the man, pulling several notes out and placing them onto the counter. "This will pay for them."
The innkeeper looked up at the Gil that Cloud had paid, then walked off.
"Thank you." said the woman.
"Excuse me." said Cloud. "But who the hell are you?"
The couple looked at each other, puzzled.
"You come in here wearing clothes different to what we normally wear, a currency that hasn't been used for over five hundred years, with no clue about the current currency, and no idea about what's happening here. You just came from the north crater, right?"
"Well, we came from a crater, but….."
"Well, we just came back from a warzone, where our friend's soldiers was wiped out in a matter of minutes. Just who the hell are you."
"We don't know anything about this." said the woman.
"Maybe you know the man who did." said Vincent. "He wore these strange multi-coloured robes, and had white face-paint on, with red stars around his eyes."
"F….face-paint?" the woman stammered.
The man continued for her. "We only know one guy like that, and he's dead. We killed him."
"You killed him, huh? So why is he here?"
"He's here?"
Cloud eyed the man quizzically. "Who are you?"
"We'll tell you when you tell us where the hell we are."
"You're in icicle inn, in the northern part of the world."
"If our currency hasn't been used for centuries then…..we're in the future." The man's voice quieted as he said this.
"What?"
"I think I can explain everything, now that we know where we are."
Locke sat down with Celes and proceeded to tell Cloud, Tifa and Vincent what had happened thousands of years ago.

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