Yet another oneshot that could open a larger story someday, though I'm really wondering why the hell nobody's thought of this yet. I mean, it's so freaking obvious. Isn't it?
---
Step by step.
That's the way it worked best.
That's the _only_ way it worked.
He knew this much.
You had to take things one step at a time, break bigger problems into smaller ones.
Break the world apart and you could rule it.
Or so he supposed. He'd never had any particular ambition other than the one he'd lost his life for, after all, and power of that sort was definitely not it.
For one thing, the paperwork would undoubtedly be a killer, and if there was one thing you learned as you worked your way up from grunt trooper it was that paperwork was to be avoided at all costs.
One of the few things about that time in his life that he remembered without any residual regret.
And so he trudged on, step after step, day after day. Slow, steady, eyes squinting against the sands as the wind nipped and occasionally tore at the ragged cloth he had for a cloak.
It wasn't much, but it helped keep the grains off, and in the long run you took any help you could get.
Any eventual pursuit, if there'd been such in the first place, had long since given up. After all, without food, almost without water, and trudging through the desert of sand and stone without as much as a pause for the past ... was it a week, or had it been more?
Regardless, it was impossible.
For a human.
Something he wasn't certain he'd ever been, to tell the truth.
Not that he cared.
Despite the confusion, despite the chaos, there was one thing he'd carried with him out of the whole thing. He was himself, and nobody else. The mannerisms that had once been his friend and comrade's own had been adapted, changed, built upon and integrated. His own had grown along with those.
Though life, it seemed, had a way of being annoyingly repetitive in some ways.
Behind him, and possibly in front of him as well - they had means that didn't require them to make treks in conditions like this at their disposal, after all, and he'd seen some of them hovering in the sky some ways off from where he'd awakened.
And a most disturbing awakening it had been.
Bakind in the sun, spitting and coughing sand that he was almost waist deep in, a few hundred meters from the second largest crater he'd ever seen.
Which was saying something, considering that the first largest had been caused by a huge chunk of celestial rock taking a bite out of the landscape.
Plus, he had no idea where the hell he was.
Oh, he knew who he was, and memories were still present without more of that annoying spottiness that had been plaguing him over the course of the past months to a year.
The problem with that being it didn't make any damn sense.
Still, he'd had no time to do anything but make tracks away from the major military presence - because that was never a good thing, in his opinion.
So here he was, taking it step by step, slogging through sand and wind, over sand and stone ...
...
Boots, damn near worn down by the abuse he'd heaped upon them over those past months and the more recent trek, scraped against actual floor - stone slabs scuffed with repeated use.
It brought his mind out of the state of near-meditation he'd put it in for this little forced march.
The first thing he noticed was that the place didn't look at all like any of the cities he'd seen before. Not outside of a history book, at least. It was large, though certainly not the largest he'd ever seen, but it made up for that in style. Sprawl it did, but it was no ugly behemoth that had been heaped upon again and again in an effort of create more space in already cramped conditions.
"You there! Halt!"
The second was the presence of soldiers. It made him quirk an eyebrow, though ... no familiarity in this, save for that old, half-remembered dream. Armor that had been considered archaic decades, if not centuries ago - heavy plate, full helmets - how curious.
"State your name and business!"
The voice was severe, the bearing even more so, and he reflected upon just how he must look. Possibly, the hilt jutting above one shoulder had something to do with that as well.
"Ah, there might be a bit of a problem with that. See, I ... think I took a knock on the head a few days back, and I'm a little lost," he said, scratching the back of his neck in embarassment and trying to appear harmless. He was far from it, but for some reason he was really good at making the pretense.
Several exchanges later, and a bit of palm-greasing by virtue of a gem or two he kept in reserve for unexpected expenditures where money would be awkward, and he was within the city.
Rabanastre, the capital of the Kingdom of Dalmasca, under occupation by the Archadian Empire as a result of what he garnered had been a recent conflict.
Well, if that wasn't fortunate, he didn't know what fortune was. After all, it made his introduction a lucky break.
Soldiers of fortune came and went to and from such areas regularly - that was the same anywhere you cared to check.
And he'd been a soldier of fortune before, in more ways than one really.
The other thing, though.
The same, yet so different from his half-forgotten dream.
Last time he'd been cast into the very life of the planet, and come out in a place called Ivalice.
Last he recalled before waking up with his face in the sand, he'd been charging _that man_ within that very same Lifestream ... and now he'd ended up in a place they called Ivalice again.
Though the two namesakes had, from what he could see, little in common.
That was alright, though.
The days may pass and places may change, but it was the same old shit all over again.
And he'd make it through this. That, at least, he was confident in.
Because, if nothing else, Cloud Strife was a survivor.
---
Vaan is ... tolerable, most of the time. Certainly, Tidus was more annoying. But he's still a brat. And Cloud's been to Ivalice before, so hey, why not? Yeah, it was another Ivalice, or an earlier Ivalice, or whatever ... eh. Same difference.
I'd originally considered Vincent, but Cloud just fit better, what with the Ivalice connection, so there.
As for the timeline of VII, Advent Children never happened, and neither did Dirge. Cloud got snatched after his trouncing of Sephiroth in the Lifestream at the end of VII, a few things went in a non-canon way during the course of the story - for one thing, I'm amused at the concept of Cloud/Yuffie (justification - Aeris sees someone else in who he is, Tifa for all their past history is much in the same boat. Yuffie just sees him. It fits the character I want to impart on this version of the guy, and they'd make good friends if nothing else).
Also, monsters are very wary around the guy, and the first time he meets a Viera she's going to screech and scramble her way back as fast as she can because of what she senses from him - drawing some parallels between Mist and Mako. Opening the chance to draw more between Magicite/Nethicite and Materia.
-Griever
---
Step by step.
That's the way it worked best.
That's the _only_ way it worked.
He knew this much.
You had to take things one step at a time, break bigger problems into smaller ones.
Break the world apart and you could rule it.
Or so he supposed. He'd never had any particular ambition other than the one he'd lost his life for, after all, and power of that sort was definitely not it.
For one thing, the paperwork would undoubtedly be a killer, and if there was one thing you learned as you worked your way up from grunt trooper it was that paperwork was to be avoided at all costs.
One of the few things about that time in his life that he remembered without any residual regret.
And so he trudged on, step after step, day after day. Slow, steady, eyes squinting against the sands as the wind nipped and occasionally tore at the ragged cloth he had for a cloak.
It wasn't much, but it helped keep the grains off, and in the long run you took any help you could get.
Any eventual pursuit, if there'd been such in the first place, had long since given up. After all, without food, almost without water, and trudging through the desert of sand and stone without as much as a pause for the past ... was it a week, or had it been more?
Regardless, it was impossible.
For a human.
Something he wasn't certain he'd ever been, to tell the truth.
Not that he cared.
Despite the confusion, despite the chaos, there was one thing he'd carried with him out of the whole thing. He was himself, and nobody else. The mannerisms that had once been his friend and comrade's own had been adapted, changed, built upon and integrated. His own had grown along with those.
Though life, it seemed, had a way of being annoyingly repetitive in some ways.
Behind him, and possibly in front of him as well - they had means that didn't require them to make treks in conditions like this at their disposal, after all, and he'd seen some of them hovering in the sky some ways off from where he'd awakened.
And a most disturbing awakening it had been.
Bakind in the sun, spitting and coughing sand that he was almost waist deep in, a few hundred meters from the second largest crater he'd ever seen.
Which was saying something, considering that the first largest had been caused by a huge chunk of celestial rock taking a bite out of the landscape.
Plus, he had no idea where the hell he was.
Oh, he knew who he was, and memories were still present without more of that annoying spottiness that had been plaguing him over the course of the past months to a year.
The problem with that being it didn't make any damn sense.
Still, he'd had no time to do anything but make tracks away from the major military presence - because that was never a good thing, in his opinion.
So here he was, taking it step by step, slogging through sand and wind, over sand and stone ...
...
Boots, damn near worn down by the abuse he'd heaped upon them over those past months and the more recent trek, scraped against actual floor - stone slabs scuffed with repeated use.
It brought his mind out of the state of near-meditation he'd put it in for this little forced march.
The first thing he noticed was that the place didn't look at all like any of the cities he'd seen before. Not outside of a history book, at least. It was large, though certainly not the largest he'd ever seen, but it made up for that in style. Sprawl it did, but it was no ugly behemoth that had been heaped upon again and again in an effort of create more space in already cramped conditions.
"You there! Halt!"
The second was the presence of soldiers. It made him quirk an eyebrow, though ... no familiarity in this, save for that old, half-remembered dream. Armor that had been considered archaic decades, if not centuries ago - heavy plate, full helmets - how curious.
"State your name and business!"
The voice was severe, the bearing even more so, and he reflected upon just how he must look. Possibly, the hilt jutting above one shoulder had something to do with that as well.
"Ah, there might be a bit of a problem with that. See, I ... think I took a knock on the head a few days back, and I'm a little lost," he said, scratching the back of his neck in embarassment and trying to appear harmless. He was far from it, but for some reason he was really good at making the pretense.
Several exchanges later, and a bit of palm-greasing by virtue of a gem or two he kept in reserve for unexpected expenditures where money would be awkward, and he was within the city.
Rabanastre, the capital of the Kingdom of Dalmasca, under occupation by the Archadian Empire as a result of what he garnered had been a recent conflict.
Well, if that wasn't fortunate, he didn't know what fortune was. After all, it made his introduction a lucky break.
Soldiers of fortune came and went to and from such areas regularly - that was the same anywhere you cared to check.
And he'd been a soldier of fortune before, in more ways than one really.
The other thing, though.
The same, yet so different from his half-forgotten dream.
Last time he'd been cast into the very life of the planet, and come out in a place called Ivalice.
Last he recalled before waking up with his face in the sand, he'd been charging _that man_ within that very same Lifestream ... and now he'd ended up in a place they called Ivalice again.
Though the two namesakes had, from what he could see, little in common.
That was alright, though.
The days may pass and places may change, but it was the same old shit all over again.
And he'd make it through this. That, at least, he was confident in.
Because, if nothing else, Cloud Strife was a survivor.
---
Vaan is ... tolerable, most of the time. Certainly, Tidus was more annoying. But he's still a brat. And Cloud's been to Ivalice before, so hey, why not? Yeah, it was another Ivalice, or an earlier Ivalice, or whatever ... eh. Same difference.
I'd originally considered Vincent, but Cloud just fit better, what with the Ivalice connection, so there.
As for the timeline of VII, Advent Children never happened, and neither did Dirge. Cloud got snatched after his trouncing of Sephiroth in the Lifestream at the end of VII, a few things went in a non-canon way during the course of the story - for one thing, I'm amused at the concept of Cloud/Yuffie (justification - Aeris sees someone else in who he is, Tifa for all their past history is much in the same boat. Yuffie just sees him. It fits the character I want to impart on this version of the guy, and they'd make good friends if nothing else).
Also, monsters are very wary around the guy, and the first time he meets a Viera she's going to screech and scramble her way back as fast as she can because of what she senses from him - drawing some parallels between Mist and Mako. Opening the chance to draw more between Magicite/Nethicite and Materia.
-Griever
