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All Roads Lead to Midgar	By : Jdee Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 959 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all is characters obviously do not belong to me. They are (c) to Square Enix. I do this for fun and for the fact I freaken love the fandom. So yeah IF I could make money from this I would but I don't...

Chapter List
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Author's Note: Just to you know I have several fics and art pieces in the works I can NOT nor EVER control which way my inspiration flows... so updates will vary between it all. I apologise in advance. I was supposed to work on No Stars in Midgar instead I did a prologue for this and an extra chapter and a half >.>; NOT WHAT I WANTED TO DO -.- I hate you brain hate joooooo!
Prologue

It was the only painting in the room that was covered by glass. Cloud just sat there he was staring at it, trying to take in the details. Lately his recollection skills had slowly been letting him down.
The sound of the television in the background, playing out some banter between two guys in a diner booth.
“Strike one pal! I'm happily married.”

“Call it a two base hit, you're not married, you used to be. But it wasn't happy by far.”
Cloud felt the hand grab his and he looked down at Denzel, the boy looked down, he seemed terrified. “It's just a standard one hour chat Denzel, nothing to be worried about.” Cloud soothed.

Though he understood the kids pain, a standard check up back in his infantry days could go on for hours. Filled with several blood tests while listening to the guy in the next room over scream in pain when he reacted badly to the Mako infusions.
Cloud looked to the painting again.

The old ShinRa Headquarters in Midgar before Sephiroth, the building was lit up at night, in the foreground was the overpasses that lead into the city, the sign on the road leading up to the city center read 'All Roads lead to Midgar'.

The painting probably had some obscure name like 'synopsis of darkness's rebirth' or some weird crap like that.

“Denzel.” The female doctor called out.

Cloud saw Denzel stand up. The boy looked like he was going to bolt. He squeezed Denzel's hand.

“Did you want me to come in with you?” Cloud offered.

Denzel shook his head and smiled. “I'll be okay. You'll be here when I get out right?”

“Of course.” Cloud replied.
The kid was thirteen now, it had been a good two years since the Hojo possessed Weiss and Deepground, and nothing had seemed quieter.

Denzel was adjusting to school well, and Cloud knew the kid was attached to him, the same way back in the day he had become attached to Zack.

It was weird how the world moved in a full circle. But unlike Zack, he wasn't planning on dying, at least not until he was sure Denzel was happy and unhaunted.
There were still nights where Cloud woke up to Denzel shouting out in his nightmares.

Cloud just hoped he was helping. He looked away from the painting finally. Nicely painted he admitted that, but he did not want to see that logo staring him in the face ever again.
Cloud lent back against the wall he looked up at the ceiling, a standard one hour shrink check up, he had no idea why he even agreed to bring Denzel here.

The school thought the kid wasn't opening up enough and needed to get it off his chest before he blew up at school.

'I should be the one in there not him.' Cloud thought solemnly.

The amount of crap he'd been through and suffered, if they knew they'd probably take Denzel away from him and call him an unfit father figure.

“Mr Strife.” The receptionist called out interrupting his mental thought pattern.

Cloud looked over. “Yes?”

She held up the phone. “You have a call.”

Cloud blinked and he flipped out his cellphone it was turned on, he raised a brow and walked to the reception. He took the phone nodding his thanks.

The only one who knew where he was at this moment was Tifa and she would have called his cell.

“Hello?” He asked.

Cloud's eyes went to the giant digital clock behind the receptionist taking in the time.
02:02PM
The voice was hoarse croaked, like it was dying. “uugh.”

“Hey are you okay?” Cloud asked the voice. “Do you need help?”

“Planet-in-danger-change-its-fate...”

Cloud felt his skin crawl and he could feel it, he looked back to the waiting room the painting on the wall how could he have missed that detail. He had memorised that entire picture.

The mako tubes from the reactors. They were gone.

It was pure raw lifestream energy flowing directly into the ShinRa HQ. From where he stood it looked like it was still moving pulsating directly into the building.
~*~*~*~
After the appointment Cloud had Denzel back at Seventh Heaven and he was packing, he had to investigate this. After the phonecall he had asked to use the phone he had called Reeve, and gotten the WRO leader to use his pull to trace the call. But it was the location of the call that had him worried. He hadn't been back there in a while. He was sure the phones weren't even working nothing was working there.

He was heading to ShinRa Head Quarters in the center of Midgar. Like that picture itself had shown him something was amiss.
The building was long since dead, half destroyed thanks to the various circumstances over the years. Weapon, himself, Sephiroth, Deep Ground.

Cloud looked to Tifa as she stood in the doorway and smiled at him.

“Drive carefully okay?”

“I'll be fine.” Cloud nodded at her pulling his goggles down over his eyes he started the bike up. “Let me know if anything strange happens while I'm gone.”

Tifa nodded. “I'll call you, just answer please.”

“I promise.” Cloud tore off on the bike.
Tifa bit her bottom lip before she looked up at the sky. She raised a brow as a wave of green flowed over the planet, something was indeed happening again.

She looked to the remains of Midgar in the distance and she saw the swirl of the green through the sky.
~*~*~*~
It was only a half an hour ride on his bike jumping over debris, dodging road blocks and avoiding head on collisions with upturned roads.

But he had made it and driven the bike right into the reception area.

The smell of concrete, the dust, debris made him almost sneeze.

That logo behind the reception stared him down.

“'Tch.” he hated seeing that logo everywhere despite Rufus swearing he was going to help change.

But everyone hated ShinRa no one would give Rufus or the Turks the time of day.

Cloud was sure he had seen a flyer pass his desk wanting to hire him in a hit on Rufus, from some anti-ShinRa group. He'd thrown it out.
Letting out a breath Cloud pulled his goggles up off his head and he blinked sitting on Fenrir, it was like he was watching Zack's ghost leaning against the reception talking to a woman, it was like no time had passed at all, like there was something keeping the echoes of the past to this place.

Cloud moved from the bike and he walked up to the reception and he leaned over it, sure enough there was a phone off the hook. Cloud look at the dust disturbed on the phone like someone had picked it up to make a call.

Picking it up Cloud placed it to his ear, there wasn't a single dial tone and he set it down.
A small amount of rubble tumbled over the edge from one of the higher levels. It clattered to the ground behind him, bouncing for a bit. The noise echoing through the abandoned building.

Cloud moved from the reception and he walked to the center of the reception looking up to see if he could see anything, anyone.
Cupping his hands in a megaphone he called out.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

Cloud moved to the side as more rubble fell over the edge then he saw it a figure lean over the railing and look down at him before running off.

“Hey! Are you the one who called me?” Cloud moved to Fenrir.

Cloud drew his sword before looking up and then pushing off his feet he propelled himself up to the floor where he had seen the figure, Cloud grabbed onto the railing and flipped on to the level.
Cloud stopped and he saw the displays of vehicles before he saw the shadow dart into the hall and Cloud ran after it.

“Hey wait!” He did not like being run around, he wanted to know what was going on.

Cloud stopped as the figure ran up to the glass and it dived through. Cloud waited for the shatter, but it never came. The glass didn't break but the figure passed through it as if it was transparent.

“What's going on?” He asked the silent room.
Cloud saw another shadow dart down towards part of the destroyed building.

“Really now I don't have time to play.” He growled frustrated at these 'ghosts'.

Cloud ran towards it. He raced outside sword drawn and looked at the stairs rolling up toward the next level.

It was un-naturally dark. Foreboding he could feel it.
Cloud took off up the steps two at a time bounding up to the next level.

He came to a halt seeing he was in the remainders of ShinRa's destroyed lab. Cloud walked through the lab across the test floor where years before Zack had stood facing against Hojo's experimented on monsters.

Cloud looked to the side and he saw it the shadow figure was crouched over, another larger, rounder figure comforting it, rubbing it's back. They were black all over and dripping with what he could only gather was Geostigma. But that was impossible. Geostigma had been cured and those who hadn't were in treated facilities to ease the masses.

Both turned to look at him and Cloud saw the ooze forming off their bodies dripping to the ground like black blood.

It oozed from their bodies and leaked from all their facial orifices in long gooped tar like strands.

Cloud felt his nose twitch, he could smell it from where he stood. It was definitely Geostigma.
A flash of brilliant green light made him cover his eyes for a moment. Before he looked back at them. There it was, he hadn't seen it since the remnants. The life stream.

It circled them several times before it retreated. It couldn't take them, Cloud felt that.

It had tried to take these... things into its form of paradise. But they were beyond help and decomposing beyond death.

The mouth of one opened in a disjointed fashion before it let out a screech at him, then the other one stood up off the ground and it was an unnatural movement as it's arms lifted and it began to walk towards him. Like something out of one of Denzel's favorite zombie movies.

Cloud dropped into a stance his hand on the hilt of his sword.
The other figure moved behind it and Cloud stood his ground, the first one lunged at him and Cloud easily cleaved it in two before kicking the bottom half away from torso and it fell to the ground in two parts. Then the face became clear, the black oozing off the face as the body lay there. It's face revealed for Cloud to see who he had carved in half.

Cloud felt his heart slam against his chest in shock.

“President Shinra.”
The dead president Sephiroth impaled. It was impossible. It had to be. He was dead.

Well he was certainly dead now.

He nearly dropped his sword before the other figure charged at him and Cloud ducked the clumsy fist and he spun behind the figure ramming the sword through the stomach and tearing upwards through the body. The Geostigma exploded from the inside out. Cloud shielded himself quickly as he rolled out of the way.

Cloud saw the face as the body hit the ground. The black blood pumping out into the ground.

“Scarlet.” Cloud looked round. “I always did wonder what happened to you.” He mused. He was sure she had survived everything and remained in hiding. But he didn't really know.

She was dead now. The question was why were they both here?
Cloud moved back down the stairs quickly and into the building.
Each step was echoed as he walked. He became aware of his phone warbling out the assigned ringtone for Seventh Heaven's landline.

Cloud flipped it open. “Tifa is everything alright?”

“Yeah it's okay here, but I just got a really disjointed phonecall from Reno. He said something about Heidegger trying to kill them.” Tifa remarked.

Cloud stopped and he looked round the room he was in. He had hit the 1st Class offices. “I was just attacked by President Shinra and Scarlet.”

“Are you okay?” Tifa asked. He could hear her obvious concern.

“I'm fine. Tifa make sure you keep Denzel and Marlene safe I'm going to finish up here then I'll be right back.” Cloud stated.

“Okay... becareful.” Tifa replied.

“Will do.” Cloud flipped the phone closed.
He started walking through the building. He was listening for any sounds or movement but it was silent save for the glow of the lifestream guiding his path, dashing in front of him.

“Okay okay I get the picture.” Cloud sighed following the green light as it weaved its way to outside level 49 training room.

Cloud stopped when the open space area to the right seemed to have a glow filtering from it. Moving into the area. Cloud heard a shuffle behind him and he froze for the moment.

'Don't you dare be another one of those things.' He thought.
Cloud turned round looking over his shoulder slowly and then he saw it, the silhouette of Zack just standing there arms crossed looking up at the ceiling or where it had once been.

“Man you and Sephiroth really did a number on this place after weapon huh?” Zack's arms dropped to his side and he turned round looking at Cloud before smiling.

“Z-Zack... Did you make that-?” Cloud began.

“zombie president? Nah. If I did would you think I'm even more awesome?”

Cloud shook his head. “Not that the phone-?”

“Call? Nah I can't call.” His hand swiped through a chair moving through the object. “That was someone higher up than me.” He pointed up. “I'm just the messenger. They think you'll listen better if it comes from my mouth.”

Cloud looked up seeing the lifestream floating above the building. “What's going on?”

“The lifestream is dying Cloud, soon everything that's up there will be down here. I don't know about you but that's a lot of dead people coming back.”

“Will you-?” Cloud had hoped he didn't sound to hopeful.

Zack lowered his head. “Yeah but I won't be who you remember.” He sighed. “The problem with this is, without the lifestream to balance our true souls out, we would be dark... unnatural. I-I don't want that... I don't want to have any part of me hurting you anymore.”
Cloud froze. “Anymore?”

Zack walked up to him. “I hurt you in the process Cloud. I put to much pressure on you. I'm sorry.”

“Zack.” Cloud moved his hand through the centre of Zack's body or lack there of and pulled it out looking up at him.

“The phone call was the planet's messenger reaching out to you. They think only you can help.” Zack explained. “The president and Scarlet were suppose to get this energy stash they had hidden in here somewhere. But they were gone to long, what you saw. Is what happens to the dead when out of the lifestream to long. So I can't hang around I apologise I'd love to do coffee and catch up but that has gotta wait.”

Cloud looked at Zack. “But Tifa, Denzel I can't-”

“Nothing will happen to them if you get this right.” Zack smiled. “I know you can do it.”

“I'm not so sure...” Cloud frowned.

“It never hurts to try.” Zack looked up at the sky above them he watched the lifestream. “You gotta do this Cloudy or when we all get evicted from above, me Angeal, Aerith. We will become like the president and Scarlet.” He swallowed and let out a shuddering breath. “Mindless, hungry clinging to the base instincts of kill and devour.”

Cloud let out a defeated breath he'd always had a problem saying no to Zack.

“What do I have to do?” He asked.

“You need to find out what the president did with the access energy he drained from the lifestream-” Zack began.
Cloud saw Zack grab his own arm and look at it strangely.

“What energy?” Cloud asked.

“Pure energy. Pure untainted energy stored inside this building... somewhere. All the souls who have been sent down to let it out never returned.”

“ Heidegger.” Cloud realized. “So they sent the president because time is short?”

Zack squeezed his arm. “Yeah limited window and all.”

“I'll call Rufus-” Cloud interrupted.

Zack shook his head. “This is above Rufus like Deepground. You have to go back and infiltrate ShinRa find out where it's stored get back here and release it back into the lifestream. It will heal the planet that energy is from before Seph tainted the lifestream with Geostigma.”
Cloud felt Zack's hand grab his arm, as he staggered for the moment. The ghost of his friend looked at his hand. Cloud felt the pressure of Zack's hand. Zack was shaking he could feel the tremble.

The shock on Zack's face, it was something Cloud hadn't seen in a long time. It was the expression of actual physical pain.

“Zack...”

He saw it then under Zack's arm black blood oozing from under the fingertips of his gloves.

“Cloud, I have to go...”
Cloud grabbed Zack on the arm. “I'll do it. Just tell me where to go.”

Zack shook his head. “We don't know that's why you have to infiltrate ShinRa. With your skill... You'll make it this time. You'll make first in no time.”

Cloud felt Zack's hand slide up his arm and held onto his shoulder.

Cloud watched Zack drop to one knee and he let out a cry his arm turning black, the veins beginning to bulge. The blood rolling down his arm in thick clumps of black.

“Zack! I'll do it!” Cloud's hand moved to Zack's arm trying to put pressure on where the black blood was oozing from. “Just ghost out of here or whatever.”

“I gotta send you there. Myself.”

Zack let go of his own arm before moving his hand to the side of Cloud's face. The stigma had touched him again and he hoped it didn't infect the living as fast as it seemed to infect the dead.

“I'll send you there now... but please be careful.” Zack whispered.

Cloud then felt the shock go through his skull and he fell back in the same time he heard Zack collapse to the ground in an agonising scream.

“Good luck!” A familiar female voice chirped as Cloud felt the breeze of the healing wave wash over him as everything went black.
Zack lay on his side looking to where Cloud had been moments ago, nothing remained just the scuff marks of his boots.

Zack rolled onto his back and he could feel the air enter his lungs as his body was given life. He had seen it from above as it infected the former President. It had brought him to life then devoured him.

“Zack!” He heard the clump of boots and he rolled onto his side.

He saw the knee drop in front of his face. He looked up at Angeal.

“You always did talk to much kid. C'mon I'm going to get you back up there.” Angeal spoke.

Zack shook his head. “No.”

“Stubborn kid.” Angeal reached for him and Zack shrank back.

“Don't touch me!” Zack almost shrieked and scuttled back across the floor.

He lifted his hand from his arm and looked at Angeal. The black had spread more. It oozed from his arm to a pool of black on the floor, the veins in his arm pulsated black as it began to spread faster.

“Go. Get out of here Angeal.” Zack shot him a look. “I can't go up there like this I'd rather die before I infect her or the lifestream.”
Angeal felt his fist clench by his side. “Damnit Zack. Always risking your life for that kid.”

Zack just let out a dry laugh. “He's my friend. Of course.”

Angeal felt the gentle breeze behind him, followed by the gentle hand touched his arm. The young woman in pink stepped round him.

He saw Zack looked up at Aerith. “No, what are you two? Stupid? Go!” He tried to wave them off.

“You're breathing again.” Aerith smiled.

Her hand ghosted across Zack's forehead and he sucked in a breath.

Angeal looked at her. “You're not-” He knew he didn't need to say more. It was obvious now what she would do.

“He can't return up there not like this. But if I send him back with Cloud he can heal there.” She looked at Angeal.

“What? No don't waste your strength.” Zack protested.

Angeal sighed. “I don't know Zack is terrible at keeping secrets. If past me can't get it out of him Sephiroth would for sure. We'd both know something was wrong with him.”
Zack looked at Angeal and frowned. “Gee thanks Angeal.” He drawled.

“It's true.” Angeal stated. "If you act like you do now back then I'll know something is up."

Aerith touched Zack's infected arm and he felt the gust of the healing wind.

“Cloud needs a guardian Angel. You also deserve a second chance. But don't come looking for me I won't exist there.”

Zack blinked looking at her. “You won't exist. But-”

“I can help from here. So just try not to give yourself away to much. Watch out for Cloud remind him of his mission to save this planet.”

Zack looked from Aerith to Angeal. “You're not giving me a choice here are you?”

“Zombie or a second chance. If I were you I'd go for the second chance.” Angeal grinned. “Try not to chance to much okay?”

Zack felt Aerith's hand move over his eyes and then there was just darkness.
~*~To Be Continued...~*~
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All Roads Lead to Midgar