The Price of Vengeance, [Invite]

[Cloud Strife]

The rocky lands outside of Radiant Garden's main settlement were the perfect place to be alone with one's thoughts. Sitting sideways atop Fenrir, he stared down at his hands, flexing his fingers slightly and frowning. He was reflecting on how the day had gone. Trying to cope with what was happening. Trying to find a way to make things right. Being a leader was never something he was go great at. sure, he could keep a cool head under pressure, he would even stoop to ridiculous levels. Even going so far as dressing like a girl. At this thought, he shook his head slowly and sighed. Even that pig Don Corneo was dead now. It was hard to think of the scum of the Planet being wiped out along with everyone else. Everyone had been purged in the destruction of Gaia. The good people, the bad people, every single monster, every shred of material. If anything had lived, it was long dead in the cold vacuum of space. A slow, heavy sigh passed Cloud's lips, as though he might be releasing the weight from his heart and the non-existant weight from his shoulders. "Just one thing after the other..." he thought to himself with a frown, bringing a hand up to his head and rubbing his fingers along his scalp slowly. His feathery blond hair fell into place slowly after his fingers had slid through it.

Slowly, his head tilted back, staring up at the ceiling and feeling his heart sink once more as the stars came into view. They became a sparkling in his deep blue orbs and he clenched his hands into fists slowly. Those stars reminded him of one thing...that his world had been one of them at some point. Cloud scowled softly and shook his head slowly. "I'll do something...I swear...even if I die in the process.." he said quietly in the process. He could bear the souls of Aerith and Zack, he had even accepted their forgiveness for his inability to act. An alternate version of Aerith even still lived on Radiant Garden, though he had failed to state the fact that she resembled someone he had cared about...and let die. He wondered if there was a different "version" of Zack out there somewhere...or even of himself. That made the death of any individual seem so...trivial. Why did it matter if one person died, when an alternate version of themselves lived somewhere out in the universe. Then again...that other version of the person wouldn't retain the memories of the other, so they could influence the lives of those around them in different ways. But when he had seen Radiant Garden's Aerith...he couldn't believe his eyes. He had to do a multi-take when it came to getting used to the idea of being around her again.

Gaia's Aerith had touched his heart in ways that he thought could not be touched. She had touched all of their lives. For a girl who had grown up in the Slums, they had been shown that she was more than just a poor girl. She grew and sold flowers, offering them to the people of the Slums for nothing but a gil. A gil was cheap, something people stepped on in a daily walk down the street. That was something he liked about her, she was willing to spread joy amongst those who sought joy through gambling, prostitution, and drinking. She did not give into the easier ways of making money, hell...she wasn't even selling flowers for money. "She just...wanted to make people happy..." Cloud thought, allowing a little bit of a smile to tug at the corners of his lips. Radiant Garden's Aerith was the same...but she was not the same Aerith he knew. His lips went back into a neutral line and he brought his arms up to cross over his chest. Slowly, he laid back upon the sleek frame of Fenrir, staring up at the sky and propping his feet up on the back of the vehicle.

He was running through his mind how he was going to defeat the evil god...the one who had destroyed Gaia. A gravely serious expression came across his face and he brought his hands back to rest behind his head. To kill a God...he would have to resort to extreme measures...measures that he had turned to in the past. Measures that he wanted nothing to do with anymore...but they resulted in giving him power. Power to defeat almost anything that stood in his path. His hands clenched into fists and he narrowed his eyes up at the sky. He could feel it surrounding his heart, waiting for him to dig in and infest him again. Biding its time until his negative emotions became too much and he could be possessed by it once more. At this rate...he wasn't going to let it take over...he was going to give into it. Despite how much he hated it. Despite how much he wanted it to be destroyed, to be released from his body...he couldn't help but feel like he would need it in the fight against Necron. "I don't want to...but I might have to resort to it..." Cloud narrowed his eyes in thought and squeezed his fists so tightly that the leather of his gloves squeaked. His knuckles and finger bones popped slightly from the pressure applied to them.

"The Darkness might be the only way to take it down..."

He was ready for it this time.

He had his friends. They were the Light that would lead him from the Darkness.
---
Words: 925
Experience: 925

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Tears were something Yuffie felt entitled to. She was just a kid afterall. The pain of losing everything she knew was an ache in her chest. Even as those few tears she allowed herself had rolled down the girls cheeks she knew. They were pointless tears. It seemed so surreal to think of the Planet as destroyed. The people she loved were gone. Her friends, her father, everyone was gone. She was the white rose of Wutai, the worlds greatest Ninja, and still she couldn't do anything for them. It made the throbbing pain so much worse. To feel helpless as she knew they'd felt pain, and had perished in such an ugly way... Her fists clenched as she closed her eyes, blinking free tears from her lashes.

Too many sacrifices had been made already. After everything they'd all been through, losing Aerith, fighting Sephiroth, the planet's last line of defense from meteor... The others probably assumed Yuffie would be only concerned with the materia that had perished. But the materia could go to hell for all she cared. It would be useless now anyway. She gathered, well okay stole, materia to restore Wutai to it's former glory. It was for her homeland, which didn't exist anymore. As far as she knew the only materia that existed was her own and her friends. But she just didn't care. In the long run what did the small orbs matter? Now they were just remnants of their homeland, the only trace of the planet left. Would they even still work properly?

Her eyes closed as she thought back to her precious friends. She could only imagine the pain Cloud would be feeling right now. He'd lost so much already and now this. This had to be taking a toll on the stoic Soldier. It would be hard for Tifa too. Not only had she lost everything she knew, but the Gods proved how merciless they were when they robbed her of her sight. It was too cruel. Hadn't it been enough? What did they fail to do? Nothing. They had done everything they could possibly do. Aerith had died for that planet. The ninja wasn't extremely close to the Ancient, but it was still a heavy loss. It didn't matter that there was another Aerith in this world. One who looked and acted the same. They'd lose Aerith for the sake of the Planet. They'd put their lives on the line numerous times for that worlds sake. No one told them they had too. It was just something they knew they would have to do. And they did. What else could be expected if them? It wasn't enough to have bled for the world they lived on. To have mourned the lose of a dear ally. Not to this sick depravity. Those last tears were wiped away furiously.

Crying was useless now. No more. She couldn't let this hold her back. She was the one looked to for cheerful, blatant optimism. Where was that confident grin? She sighed, opening her eyes to stare at the castle of Hollow Bastion. She wouldn't let her friends down. Cloud and Tifa needed her optimism and confidence for the days ahead. The people of Wutai would want her to honor their memories, and live her life. Like hell she would let some wanna be God ruin everything she had worked for. This hellspawn thought it would get away with destroying the planet they worked so hard to save? It had another thing coming. It messed with the wrong group of people, but that damned beast made the mistake of not killing them all. It was time to show this thing who it was dealing with. "The White Rose of Wutai will avenge her people." And not just the people of Wutai. But all of them. All the people of the lost Planet. She swore it.

Walking on outskirts of the city proved to be the best way to get away from everyone. No doubt she would find the person she was looking for on this rocky horizon. Cloud would be here. And she knew he would frown at her arrival, but the usually cheerful girl also knew that he would recognize her ability to help. He was planning something, that was for sure. And she wanted in on whatever it was. A small smirk tugged at her lips as she recognized a silhoutte in the distance.That would be Cloud. With a determined face she began to approach the group's leader. "Hey!" She called out to him, unsure if he would hear her from the vast distance between them. He was deep in thought anyway. Probably contemplating what move the group would make to destroy this Necron. "Hey Spike!"

~
Word count: 792
EXP: 792

[Vincent Valentine]

That. He never expected that. He never expected to be swept up from the land he had called him and dumped...wherever this was. Necron, the powerful entity swept the world into darkness, smothered it, choked it and devoured it. It's jagged teeth, ragged, dripping blood, secreting black opened wide and tore chunks from Gaia. Vincent could still hear the screaming ringing tinny in his ears. It was so sudden that no one stood a chance. The world which housed the white trees, glowing bright and leafless smooth bark, the Ancient City, the Forgotten Forest was gone. That was a shame. Vincent had liked the secluded, secret tranquillity of the City of the Ancients. That place had been a reflection, a glimpse of a world long lost. It too had become crumpled, faded and wrecked by, perhaps, more insidious means. Time dictated all things must change, and move on. Nercon had succeeded where Jenova and Sephiroth had failed. Time dictated it was time for Gaia to end.

To be honest, it had long since been an uphill battle for the Planet. Ever since Jenova the planet had been on borrowed time. Jenova had come to wipe out the planet and had succeeded in severely damaging the population of the original inhabitants, the Cetra, whose combined power had been unable to destroy her (or perhaps, they had made the ethical decision not to). And years later, the decaying relic that was the ancient alien was discovered and given new life through the injections of her DNA. And she began to warp whatever life she had been allowed to infect. She eroded wills and festered deep within their hearts, staining them with her inky black. her prodigal son, for all intents and purposes, Sephiroth was her most effective tool. Where Jenova failed herself she almost succeeded on numerous occasions through the mako enhanced soldier - the man Vincent would have taken for a son even though vile Hojo was his father. That didn't matter because he was her son, and that was all that matters.

But she had rejected him for that vile cretin. And he had tried to be OK with it. He had done his duty, stuck around. Jenova had probably thought it her duty to destroy Gaia, just as Necron did. It was gone now, ash and dust just floating around space. Or it was a blackened, scorched empty husk billowing in the wind. He knew Cloud would be feeling terrible. He would be taking it hard. Cloud had been forced to save the world, and now it had become a kind of duty for him. When you spend so much time working, fighting, struggling for a world that had treated you so cruelly at times, it stuck with you. Cloud had never wanted power, nor that kind of responsibility but he had been given it nonetheless. He wore the colours of responsibility well. Power did suit him, but then power always suited those best who did not wish to wield it. He would be feeling Gaia's loss the hardest of all of them. He had battled so hard so often that it was no surprise he would be despairing. They had all thought the greatest threat was Jenova when Necron smashed all of those conceptions into smithereens. He had sacrificed more than any of them.

Vincent was worried about Cloud. He knew the young man struggled with himself, peace, serenity, that over all calm that allowed others to accept the things they couldn't change. Cloud battled with himself every second of the day. The moments where he found his light, his pure strength were few and far between. Those glimmering moments were Cloud's strongest and he shone the brightest of them all. The young victim of Hojo's atrocities didn't find it easy to get that light, and he always lost it quicker than he took to find it. Vincent was worried about him. The others, they were tougher than Cloud. They found it easier, not to move on exactly, but not to become so heavily weighed down by regret or guilt. Sometimes that light, that fight and power just wasn't enough. Sometimes there wasn't anything you could do and there was no shame in that. Vincent knew Cloud wouldn't think so. He would be replaying it over ad over until it became irremovably seared into his memory to be replayed as though anything could be done. Perhaps Vincent's assessment of Cloud was wrong, though that was doubtful. Cloud always did take the world's troubles onto his shoulders as though they were his alone to bear. Guilt, did not suit his personality. He was so determined to keep it with him.

This world he did not recognise. It was not unlike the quieter villages of the world he had just been mysteriously, violently, ejected from. The brightly coloured houses, the bright sky...it looked pretty quiet here. Vincent shifted back from Galiant Beast, whom he had instinctively morphed into. When he assessed there was no danger, none imminent anyway, He became human again, swathed in red, eyes sharp, gun on his hip. He shifted into Crimson Mist to travel faster when he spotted Yuffie approach Cloud. [b]"You shouldn't think like that,"[b] Vincent said, when he saw Cloud's heavy heart. Vincent, unlike his friends, didn't feel much over the death of Gaia.

But then, he had lost everything a long time ago.

words: 900
exp total: 900

[Cloud Strife]

He had known the pain of guilt, he had suffered it for years. That moment when his very being had been separated from Zack's that had burned itself into his mind. That moment when he had plunged into the Lifestream and emerged as himself rather than a warped version of Zack.... he felt the weight of everything that had happened all at once. Zack, Aerith, they had died because of his inability to act. Perhaps it wasn't his fault, maybe he was in a state where it had been pointless to act on his own accord. When he had been with Zack as he died, he had been so infected with Mako poisoning that he was almost like a mindless zombie. The SOLDIER had had to carry him everywhere until that last stand. In Zack's final moments, he had entrusted Cloud with his legacy...had shoved that Buster Sword into his hands and told him to live for him. In his warped state of mind, he had taken on Zack's personality, in a way. It took plunging right back into the Lifestream to snap him out of it. It had taken Tifa, the girl that he loved, to drag him from the depths of his own mind. There were times when he felt like such a burden but he truly didn't want to be.

No, it wasn't his fault that Zack and Aerith had died. So why did he feel guilty? Because he felt that he was weak. Nobody could have seen Sephiroth drop down from the ceiling. Nobody could have stopped all of the bullets that riddled Zack's body. Had he intervened, he, himself, may have died in the process. What good would he have done then? But...Necron... this situation felt different somehow. He knew he was strong. Cloud knew for a fact that the devastation that had destroyed Gaia now was something that he had to carry. He didn't care if the monster had come on his birthday. Damn his birthday. He didn't care about it, now all it would mean to him was the anniversary of Gaia's destruction. No longer would it bring any kind of happiness to him. His face tightened into a scowl and he blew out a sigh, shaking his head slowly as he heard footsteps, turning his head to see Yuffie. He softly blinked as he looked at her when she greeted him, he only nodded in her direction. "Yuffie..." he murmured softly.

Yuffie... there were many times when she had gotten on his nerves. But she had protected the Planet just as he had. Her hometown was gone, Wutai destroyed by the people. Her father was more than likely dead, counted as one of the many casualties, it seemed. He frowned as he looked at her. "Yuffie...I'm--" he started to say he was sorry. Apologizing for something that he, perhaps, had no control over? It didn't matter. He was more or less interrupted by a deep voice piercing the silent night. Cloud's eyes widened and he stood up, turning to face the figure clad in crimson.

"Vincent...! You're alright!" Cloud said, the smallest hint of a smile gracing his features. Vincent was fine...so did that mean everyone else would be fine? "Have you seen anyone else?" Cloud asked, tilting his head slightly.

He expected the answer to be "no". He tried to be optimistic, he really did, but there was only so much that he could do to quell the pain that was racking his body. Cloud, himself, was a merciful man, but his mind was not merciful to himself. It subjected him time and time again to the feelings that he held. Maybe he did take too much on his own shoulders. He didn't want anyone else to be burdened...he didn't want anyone else to feel as though they were in pain. Burden was something troubling to deal with, always weighing you down...always making you feel like you could no longer bear it. Cloud was used to it, the feeling of being shoved into the dirt time after time. And time after time, picking himself back up. Cloud stared at Vincent for a moment, as though feeling like he might disappear, that he was an illusion placed there to trick his eyes. To give him even the faintest glimmer of hope. "I doubt you know what I'm thinking..." the swordsman said, frowning slightly as he moved to the edge of the cliff where Fenrir was parked, his arms crossing over his chest.

"I'm thinking...that I need to get stronger..." Cloud started, eyes staring into the horizon, as though it might have some kind of answer for him. As though it might tell him what to do. "To do so... I might have to resort to something I used a long time ago. Back when I was really lost in this world." Cloud said, staring out still and narrowing his eyes.

"The Darkness is a powerful tool but..." he turned slowly to look at his two friends, first Vincent, then Yuffie. "It's risky and easy to lose yourself to it. I'm gonna try to use it again. to make myself stronger for the coming fight because...I don't think my strength is enough." Cloud said, his lips tightening into a neutral line as he looked up at the starry sky. It felt emptier without Gaia being lit up there. He didn't know where it once sat...all he knew was that there was a missing star up there. All he knew was that he wanted the power to bring it back to life.
---
Words: 922
Experience: 1847

[Vincent Valentine]

Death came to all of those who lived. all of those, bar Vincent. He was doomed, or graced if that was your view, to live forever. His life stretched eternally before him, spiralling down into the deepest depths, and up into the lofty heavens. Time was said to have no meaning for the eternal but time moved on for everyone else too. The immortal were few in the world and they had not the luxury to control the events. It was the mortals, whose lives were fleeting and actions great, that decided the path of the world. What direction its people should take, whether they live or die, that fight and fire belonged to them. The threat of death was theirs to answer but if an immortal were to assist then they had to work to the time scale of a mortal one. Short, quick, fast and efficient one had to work when working to a time scale. Everything was an a timer, the fluids almost at boiling point and one had to scrabble to stop it from flowing over.


Vincent didn't have to worry about a planet full of people who may or may not be about to die at any moment. The planet was long gone. He did not hope to recover it from whatever shreds Necron had deigned to tear it into. He did not feel grieve for the loss of so many. As of yet, despite the fact only Cloud and Yuffie were here, he did not mourn for the others. He felt concerned, yes, but he did not worry for them. Cid, Tifa, Nanaki, Barrett, Marlene, Denzel, Cait and Reeve were all strong people who would undoubtedly survive this ordeal. They rolled with each blow and for those which hit them, they recovered with a strength that would scare the greatest of enemies. They would fight together, using each other's strength to find themselves bonding greatly and winning. If they should have perished in that black storm, then vincent would be saddened by their loss. And he feared what it would do to Cloud. Strongest in physical strength, his emotional prowess was fragile and delicate. His confidence was often shattered by his own insecurities rather than the words or actions of others. He feared not for Yuffie's reaction: she was young, and she would be devastated but she did not have Cloud's innate sorrow.

Vincent shook his head. He had indeed seen no one else. But then, Cloud hadn't really expected him to have done so. Vincent lived a mostly reclusive life, surrounding himself with solitude and the vast quiet of an open space. There was barely a day where he spent the night inside the confines of a room. He was not claustrophobic. He did not fear small spaces nor their constraints. He did not fear the pressing dark and the hopeless despair which often came paired with it. He simply found he preferred sleeping high in trees, or under them. They reminded him of that picnic long ago, the one where he fell asleep and was awoken by his charge, his asset, his love: Lucrecia. "I haven't seen any of them in some time," Vincent replied. "Save Yuffie," Of course of course. They were both spear heading the Espionage Unit of the WRO. Surely Cloud knew of his involvement? One would think.

Now Vincent was disappointed. He had thought more of Cloud than the man was giving him credit for. To turn to the Darkness, the darkness that had forced him to attack Aerith and hand over the black material to Sephiroth. Cloud was susceptible to it. He feared Cloud would fall. "If you do this, there may be no coming back," Vincent warned. "You will be no better than those you wage war with. It is not darkness that gives you unbeatable strength Cloud, it is Light. With it you are unstoppable," Vincent said in a bland expressionless tone but Vincent never said anything unless he believed it to be true. Not to a friend. "If you do this, do not expect me to stand with you," Vincent said. He would not watch Cloud perish in this way. And if he did not he still did not believe the young man would ever be the same again. Vincent hard darkness, he lived with it, he used it but that was not his choice. His darkness was forced upon him and he could not be free of it. And he had changed, perhaps because if it. Vincent was not the man he used to be.

"Standing with darkness will only make it easier for them to corrupt you,"

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total: 1675