Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the darkness finally took him, Cloud was beyond caring.

He Failed.

The life that circled The world was done for. Choked to death from the inside by a parasite he was the last to plague lifekind with. The Goddess had been impassive as ice. The whispers were always fearful. Even Aerith had avoided looking at him in time; her sadness too great. And so everyone of the living died.

He Mourned.

Why was it that Sephiroth himself could be absorbed by the planet multiple times, yet when it was his turn, the Lifestream writhed in pain and screamed in agony?

Weakness.

Why was he was repeatedly rejected? Why, when he had no family or friends to answer to, was he left to rot on a dying planet alone?

He IS Jenova.

How? When? Why? None of it made any sense! He is winning, has been for a while. Wait... how long had it been? He could feel the power of a planet unclaimed for the taking so close to his grasp. All but for a sly slither, a small light so tiny; smelling of flowers and rain. She was fighting him again. His mind was clearer.

He laughed.

And as the darkness finally claimed him, Cloud's will of Odin wrought steel did not bend to the cells and memetic programming that now made up his essence and being. Cloud had failed at last.

He smiled.

Chapter Text

When Cloud woke he felt at once both lesser and spread too thin. Almost as if he had lost most of his limbs and what was left of his physical form was an echo stretched across the dimensions of space and time.

Time travel?

The notion was insanely hard to conceptualize, but it was getting easier. His mind was so much clearer now. Before it was all survive, consume, spread. But now he could mind more. Things like self, observe and learn.

He was in control. He was the Puppet Master.

Make no mistake, Cloud was still a virus, but now he could adapt and change his own biological make up to suit his thoughts. So change he did. All he had to do was try and remember.

But could he feel?

As the memories of himself slammed with full force into his conscious, Cloud was a bit perplexed about that bit. What exactly were feelings suppose to feel like again anyway? Oh well, he'd figure out that confusionbreakproblem later.

Now it was time to split for spreading. Only he this time his goal wasn't growth, it was pruning. He was sure add stop while moving all his lesser traits into his new clone.

He'd never done this before, and while certain that it would work as he'd done this a millennia of times before, he was relieved in the knowledge that he would be improved upon completion. He still couldn't help the slight programming of objection and abort.

No matter, the defects in his code couldn't hide from his mind's eye, and he could change them, so without a second thought he split.

Chapter Text

Human WEAPON.

Why hadn't the Planet thought of it sooner? Humans were so good at changing things; corrupting them. Their disability, a distinct lack of connection, had worried the Planet. They were an unknown variable. But now it seems they had found purpose.

The Planet was pleased.

Cloud hazarded a guess that when he was made defense, the last thought of the Planet was to corrupt the corruption.

Hah!

He was to go back and contain. That's why Aerith was so sad; he remembered now. He was meant to be a prison, and then crystallized for all eternity in the planets blood. Figures that by his very nature he would pervert that coding too. But this was far better than what the Planet was expecting.

The Planet still couldn't understand, it still did know how. Corrupting by it's very nature too counter-intuitive a concept to grasp. But it didn't need too. He could absorb, control and edit the infection. He was WEAPON; an extension; a cureupgradeantibody. Now all he had to do was get to work.

Cloud opened his eyes.

Chapter Text

The light was searing and he scrunched his face in protest; a tiny hand came up to protect his eyes.

A child.

He could tell he was alone; his surroundings void of people. The chill of Nibelheim frost was not being warded off by the warmth of dying embers, and he remembered how it used to seep through to his bones with a twisted malice. While his eyes adjusted in sensitivity, Cloud gathered his thoughts. He was young, very young... five? Hmmm, but then he always was small for his age. Very slowly he relaxed and coaxed his eyes open.

He was in Tifa's old home from childhood, and he was alone. Curiosity mixed with confusion, and Cloud pushed himself up from under the blankets and off the makeshift cot lying on the living room floor. He was naked, not that he cared; clothes didn't do much for him anymore anyway. A door shuttered open somewhere down a hall and slammed shut; the howling Nibel wind was moaning in fury outside. How long had it been since he had been here?

He was distracted from the litany of memories by the putrid stench of rotting corpses; a familiar decay, found only when preserving the dead though copious amounts of non-diluted concentrations of raw, unfiltered Mako.

But where?

Despite the raging white flashes of the Nibelstorm, Cloud could tell it was dark for a Nibel night. No matter, his eyesight had adjusted. He caught a glimpse of the glowing, bright green-blue, slitted orbs that were his as he walked past the copper firescreen, and he could clearly see the blooded bandages that faintly glowed with residue; the makeshift tools for dressing wounds as he assessed the room.

What had happened here? It looked like he wasn't the only one to use this place as some last sort of refuge, although it certainly seemed that he was the last one to remain. He sighed.

Left for dead.

Chapter Text

Cloud had walked the perimeter of the Mayor's house and only one set of heartbeats could be heard. His. The wind and snow limited visibility, but he follow his feet uphill on a path he knew by gut instinct to the only place he'd ever called home.

It was getting brighter up ahead. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, the light was all wrong for it to be morning. His bare feet stopped not thirty paces from where his home used to be.

Ah.

He would recognize that pristine aquamarine glow from anywhere. And as the wind directed waves in a chaotic symphony, the smell of the planet's lifeblood hit him for less than a second before it was redirected elsewhere. So this was how the planet had reached him. He traced the Mako river up the path and hazarded a guess that it had made it's way down to the town from the reactor. It had stopped its' rampage when it reached Cloud's house of course, but everything on that side of town was gone.

A reactor meltdown could mean only one thing; the village had been abandoned.

Shin-Ra will be here soon.

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Cloud had to get to the reactor to edit the infection before Shin-Ra got wind of the ecological meltdown and did something stupid. As he followed the Mako river fifty paces upstream, he realized with his demure size it would take too long by foot. That and he'd need to cross the river to the other side to reach the Mako reactor anyway.

He stopped and concentrated. The feeling of bones breaking and shifting didn't bat an eyelash. The sounds of his skin ripping open on his back were soon drowned out by the wind's mighty roar, and as he flexed his wings, they spontaneously caught the gale's updraft; Cloud was instantly transported into the air. He flapped lightly and was blown higher; his direction meandering to and fro, but always headed toward the reactor.

As he looked down from the air to survey the damage, visibility was severely reduce to a white haze. He made out the faint glowing white that was the left mountain side and followed it upward as it narrowed to a point, and then sought the black blight of cold metal heading towards him as he started his descent down below.

Cloud impacted on the steel tower's landing, the grating bent but held firm. He was pleased to note the lower levels of the reactor over-flooding with raging rapids. Regardless of their impending arrival, it would take Shin-Ra a good while before they got anywhere near where they wanted to be inside the reactor. Internally he grinned as the beginnings of a notion dawned on him.

The Planet was biding it's time.

And it would wait for as long as he needed it to.

Chapter Text

It was a strange sensation to feel most of yourself not too far off. Only this part of yourself was disconnected from your conscious being. It was rife with rot and lethargic with gangrenous ooze. It was that simple-minded plebeian part of yourself you look back in unfond memories with an embarrassing cringe, and sigh at. The door bearing one of his many names shattered open under his fist, and then he was staring at his mask. Glass creaked, metallic wires snapped and twisted as his old cells startled awake. They contorted into shapeless limbs, hissing in black decay. Encased in their Mako prison, they ached for escape from death, eager to consume him.

surviveconsumespread

Cloud seethed.

For thousands of millennia he had roamed the galactic ages, and for all that time he was really this pathetic?

Enough.

The lifeblood of the planet hears his call; tendrils slither up walls, down leaks and through cracks, all pooling at his feet. Lifted by Mako, Cloud rose in mid air, meeting his old limbs shattering free with full force as they skewer him.

Reunion

The moment broke, time shattered. It froze over icily as a million voices flitted into the microseconds warping reality. Each timecrack that followed multiplied itself a thousand times over and over, never really ending, spreading until they covered every surface of the moment's existence. A white light blinded the world that existed in his mind, yet the darkness that made up his entire being was all he saw.

He understands now. His cells sing and shift as she absorbs himself; contorting and merging his essence into one. It's slow and confusing as the seconds of time slowly thaw. The process constricts and twists painfully, yet shivers and shudders with relief. An ancient power stirs awake, and although young in age, Cloud has been dormant for millennia. The lifestream caresses him gently as he floats in his place of rest. It soothes and burns at the same time, like a tidal wave, washing an ancient wound clean. His programming is changing again, and what's left of an ancient memetic legacy dies as the fever breaks.