Kadai's Origin : Facing Clones

[Sechmeth]

Kadai woke up suddenly, sat up and moved over to the edge of the bed. It was still night over Paragon City. Next to him he could hear the constant breathing of his companion Ted.
He stared at the darkness in front of him for a while.
"Again?" Kadai felt a hand on his naked back. "Yes." - "This is the fifth time this week. I am starting to worry about you."
Kadai smirked tiredly. "Stop that, Teddie. Worries are not good for your work."
He heard Ted sigh. "No, seriously. What's wrong? What is it that keeps you so busy at night?"
Kadai bit his lip, thinking. He didn't want to explain it, but this time Ted would not allow any excuses. "...I think it started as you showed me the blueprints of that portal of yours.
Somehow... I think it only needs some calibrations and some changes here and there, and it might... it might... I have no clue."
He dropped his shoulders and shook his head. "It's just in my head all of the time."
He could feel Ted's look on his back.
"Did I tell you about my travels?" Ted started. "I was interested in what I am like on parallel Worlds, what happened to me there. I never found you there." The silence was deafening after his last sentence. Kadai turned around. "You think I might... not be from this planet? I thought a lot about it, not remembering anything about my past, but not even being from here..."
Ted fumbled for him and pulled him close. "I didn't mean that I think so, but it could be. If it helps you to sleep again, I can call the Underground tomorrow morning, we get you a visitors card and we let you do what you want to do and have a look for what'll happen next, okay?"
Kadai smiled. "Thank you, Teddie." - "I just cannot refuse you anything."

[Sechmeth]

The moment Kadai finally stood in front of the portal, down in the tunnels of the
Underground, his eyes beamed and he knew perfectly what he needed to do. He grinned widely.
Only an hour later he had finished the changes in the program and the structure, just how his instict had told him to do.
Ted had watched him all the time and now had a look on the first results of the acceptance tests.
"It could really work," he mumbled.
A little while later Ted pushed the power button and the portal began to set up with its violet-blue glow.
Kadai looked into the vortex infront of him, he was very excited. He peered over his
shoulder a few times to Ted, who was checking the stability of the portal, until he nodded.
"Who goes first?" Ted's voice sounded unsure, but Kadai did not hear it anymore. He was already on the other side.

[Sechmeth]

The World on the other side was green and warm. Ted had come after Kadai, bringing something like a survival kit with him, sleeping bags and theresuch.
They had walked and flown for a couple of hours now, and hadn't met anybody except for some weird looking, aggresive animals that left behind some kind of money after you had defeated them. They were finally standing on a beach, with lovely white sand and water as far as they were able to see.
"Wow, nice place for a swim!" said Kadai. He seemed to be strangely happy since they had entered this world, but Ted couldn't fight the feeling that there was something wrong with his boyfriend.
Kadai smiled widely, although he had a racing headache. When he made the first step onto the soil of this planet, a scream had exploded inside his head, a scream of a million voices, as if this whole planet was screaming. The planet was in pain and frightened, and it was because of him. It didn't want to have him here.
And he had realised it the very same moment: he was home.

[Sechmeth]

Soon they reached a friendly-looking village. The sign at the entrace identified it as
"Costa del Sol".They had found a lot of money already by defeating some monstrous animals, so they both agreed on looking for a room over night and getting some supplies.
But strangely, everybody went quiet as they entered the tavern of this small Village, and Kadai had the feeling they were all staring at him. The waitress, a small, round-looking woman with black hair came swiftly to them. Before they could open their mouth though, the lady tried to shove them out the door again with soft pushes. "I am very sorry, but We cannot serve someone like you in here." - "But we only wanted to...", Ted tried. "I am very sorry, but we can't. Please leave immediately." - "But we just..." - "Out! Please!"
Kadai looked at her intensely and spoke up "We need something to drink, please. We will take it with us, we won't stay here."
The woman shrinked under his stare and grew pale. She closed the door before their noses, opened it hastily and handed them two water bottles after some seconds, then closed the door again. They could hear the key turn in the keyhole.
Even more strange was the fact that as they walked through the streets, the whole village seemed to be abandoned.

[Sechmeth]

"Somehow we aren't welcome here," Ted said as they finally rested outside of the village, drinking their water.
Kadai shrugged. He knew it was him who wasn't welcome, they didn't have any problems with Ted. And it wasn't about hospitality. The reason was that the people here were frightened by him.

[Sechmeth]

As the night fell, they slept under open sky. The area they had been led to by the road out of Costa del Sol was sandy and grass-speckled. Ted had made a small fire, not to warm them,the night was comfy, but to keep the animals away.
Kadai listened to Teds continuous breathing as he slept, thinking about what happened during the day. His powers seemed to grow stronger with every hour that passed. The people were afraid of him. Did they know something about him? He had had no chance to ask them yet. The scream inside his head had calmed somewhat, but the headache was still there. And every time he tried to relax a bit, words formed in his mind.
"Unification..." he murmured.
Finally, it was near dawn, he fell asleep.

[Sechmeth]

The second day the surroundings had become mountainous, so they kept flying most of the time. Past midday they arrived in another village called Nibelheim. Different than in Costa del Sol, the inhabitants showed no fear of Kadai, but a distant kind of respect instead.
Kadai bought himself a cloak with a hood. He told Ted that it might be handy when people didn't get a look at him immediately and Ted agreed. He, too, had noticed the reactions on Kadai's looks. They rented a small room inside the inn over night, since Ted wanted to try to talk to the people of Nibelheim to find out the reasons for the disaffirmation of Kadai.

[Sechmeth]

Inside the small cantina of Nibelheim was an old man sitting on the bar. He eyed up Ted as he entered, but without the reluctance of the other inhabitants.Ted chose to take a seat next to him.
"Hello, sir." He gret friendly. "Hello, kid! Interesting traveling companion you have there, didn't know that they are still around." The old man sipped on his tea.
"...they?" Ted asked carefully. "Well, the clones, same as yours. Didn't know he is one, eh? It has been about a year ago, the whole village was crowded with'em. They hung around everywhere, moaning and shivering, only talking nonsense. One was in my cellar, no idea why. Some time later they all left and never came back."
Ted's mind was racing. Was Kadai really a clone?
"...Where did they go?" - "Up north, if I remember correctly. Little Tifa could have told
you more, but she left for Midgard. She was the tour guide here." - "My... companion and me would like to learn more about this. ...Do you know maybe who we could ask?" The old man scratched his head. "No idea. But perhaps you can find something in the old Shinra mansion. The clones gathered there before they left, and there is weird stuff to be found in there, or so it's said."
Ted stood up and payed the tea for the old man."Thank you, sir." - " You're welcome, kid."

[Sechmeth]

The air in the old mansion smelled rotten and of mold, the dust was laying inches thick on the floor and the furniture. At some places were signs of a battle long ago.
Ted walked slowly through the bottom floor while Kadai searched the upper one.
In one room on the right of the building was a thick brickwall and Kadai felt an air draft. He called for Ted, and together they searched the room until they found the small button, opening the door to the secret staircase behind the brickwall. The stairs went down into a deep, dark pit, but there were torches to help them on their way down. At the underground floor were a handful rooms. One of them was empty except for a wooden coffin, one was a big, packed library and the last one was a working room with a desk, chairs and paper piles.
Both of them started to look through the notices and books, finding quite a few very
interesting informations. Several hours later, they decided to discuss their findings.

[Impact]

((*grins* keep it coming Sech...I'm not very familiar with Kadai but I'm enjoying the story :) :thumbup: ))

[Sechmeth]

Ted started with his explanations. " This planet is based on some force called "life stream". The planet is full of it, but there is only a certain amount of it. When someone dies, a tree or therelike, the stream returns to the planet so that it can
be used to grow a new tree or a baby can be born. The Shinra corporation uses the life stream as a power source, not unlike electricity, but it burns away the planet's power too fast.
Another thing that I found out is that there once was a comet, which brought a lifeform called "Jenova" with it. It crashed someplace up north and the papers pointed out that there is a lot of life stream, or better yet condensed life stream, called
"Materia", which can be used for magical powers. They also used this alien life form to make some weird experiences with humans... eww."
Kadai nodded. " I found out about it, too. Five years ago something happened with a super soldier, an accident or so. They lost the head of the alien, but gained two "volunteers" for the experiments. But I also found out that the two fled as soon
as they could, but they had been held here for five years or so and one of them was shot during the escape."
Ted scratched his chin, thinking. "They have some nasty habits here, I think. I also read about a baby that was experienced with, it was born exclussively for this super soldier project by a woman called Lucretia. The father, it seems, was the scientist leading this whole crap."
Kadai scratched his head. "I really have no clue what this all might have to do with me, other than all experiments were tatooed with a number like I have."

[Sechmeth]

They bought some supplies and a map of the World in the little drug store of Nibelheim. Before they left, the old man looked for them.
"Hey kid! If you really want to go north, you need some information first! You Will need an airship to get over the icy sea and the only airship I know is the "Highwind" wich belongs to Cid who lives in Rocket Town. But he left with Tifa for Midgard. The other possibility would be a black Chocobo, but they are rare, espacially a wild one." -"Whats an Chocobo?" Ted asked. The old man blinked surprisedly and started to laugh. "Kid, you must be from really far away if you don't know what a Chocobo is. Chocobos are our riding birds. You can catch them everywhere where the grass is very high and you see their tracks."

[Sechmeth]

The two moved through the mountains, passed by a ruin of a life-stream reactor, also passed Rocket Town, though Ted would have loved to go there because you could see the the old rocket that gave the town its name from far away.
Finally they found a spot with deep green, man-tall grass and they both layed down to catch a "Chocobo".
They didn't even spot one. They had stayed hidden for hours in the deep grass, but only found huge and ugly bugs.Suddenly someone tipped Kadai on his bum. As he turned around, he looked into the face of a big, dark animal with a big beak.
"Holy...!" He freezed, but the big bird only looked down to him with its blue and friendly eyes, moved its long legs to come closer. Kadai rose slowly and the bird wooted happily and flapped with its wings.Not far away Ted's head rose from out of the grass. "What the...! What a monster!" Kadai and Ted looked at each other unsure what to do now, while the black Chocobo pecked at Kadais rear again.
"You don't happen to... have chocolate left?" Ted asked. "I might..." - "In your trousers?" Kadai finally got it. He took out the open package of M&Ms of his pocket and presented some of them to the animal in his open hand. The Chocobo wooted happily and swallowed them.

[Sechmeth]

The animal was big enough to carry both of them. With a lot of effort, they managed to climb onto its back. The Chocobo seemed to be used to be ridden. Kadai slipped forward until he sat directly behind the neck, and Ted sat down behind Kadai with his legs under the bird's wings.
"Well... Go?"
The Chocobo started, then ran in an awesome speed. Though it was really fast, it seemed to run very calmly and slowly. When they reached the shore, the bird just kept walking over the water with its big claws. It kept sprinting until they reached the northern shore, where the two finally jumped down, after which the Chocobo left them.

[Sechmeth]

Bone Yard was a sad piece of civilisation, built around the remainings of an old airship or helicopter or whatever had crashed down there ages ago. The inhabitants called themselves archeologists, digging 24 hours a day for items under the dirt. Ted and Kadai discussed and agreed not to stay here, but to go on further and cross the Sleeping Forest behind this village. One of the diggers tried to sell them a so called Luna Harp, wich was supposedly needed to enter the forest, but they chose not to.

[Sechmeth]

The Sleeping Forest was a foggy, deep green and very old forest, in which ghostly figures wandered the shadows. The scream inside Kadai's mind had diminished, but now he was hearing the wood whispering. He tried forming some explanations in his
thoughts, telling the forest that they just wanted to go through and the wood seemingly accepted it.
As they left the forest, Kadai looked back and it appeared to him as if there was a girl with long brown hair, wearing a pink dress, waving to him...

[Sechmeth]

After leaving the Sleeping Forest behind them, they soon reached another city, but it was really only a huge ruin, very old and empty. One of the buildings was completely under water. Kadai and Ted chose to stay in one of the more comfortable buildings over night. Somehow Kadai knew that this place was some kind of sacred ground, the lost capital called "Ajit" from an old race that had lived here before mankind.
They left the city early in the morning.

[Sechmeth]

The road from the ancient city led them into some kind of mace. They were hardly able to move forward, oftentimes the path was discontinuous, also a deep gap before their feet which required them to fly long parts, a difficult task since there were whirlwinds coming from every side. Sometimes they grew so strong there, that Kadai and Ted weren't able to see the path lying in front of them. Finally they left the whirlwind maze behind them, the path leading them deeper into the mountains. Here and there were ladders and pipes as they entered a huge underground area. Deeper and deeper they went, getting closer to the heart of the mountain.

[Sechmeth]

The last cave they entered was gigantic, big boulders and stones laying around everywhere. There were traces of a fight and it was very cold in here. Everything seemed to be fully covered with frozen life stream, crystals of materia reflected an eerie light. At the back wall of the cave was a man lying on the floor.
Ted created a force field around Kadai, then carefully walked closer.
The man had obviously been dead for quite a while, his corpse covered in materia which had preserved it from decay. At his feet was something that looked like a rotten head of an very ugly woman. Strangely, it was the only thing in here which wasn't covered with life stream, as if the planet refused to touch it.
The man wore a black coat, black trousers and heavy boots. He was muscular and very tall. He was holding a very long and heavy-looking katana in his right hand. On his face, framed by long, white hair, was a surprised look, a thick, dried up blood stain ran from his forehead down to his chin.
But all this wasn't the reason why Kadai had frozen in fright, feeling sick all over.
The man had Kadai's face.

[Sechmeth]

"So what are you going to do now, clone?" The voice was cold and had a certain amount of aggression in it. Kadai looked up from his dead brother-in-looks. He had not noticed that other people have entered the cave behind them. He was able to feel Ted's presence beside him, although his partner was already invisible.
The man who had spoken looked a bit familiar, was smaller than Kadai, had blonde, spiky hair and a very serious expression on his face. He was armed with a huge sword which he pointed at Kadai. Besides him there were others : two girls, one with something like an oversized ninja star, and one with long, brown hair and a very noticeable chest. An older guy with blonde hair and a spear, a creature that was looking like a hybrid between a lion and a dog with a little, animated cat doll on its back, a massive, black guy with an MG instead of his right hand and finally a creepy guy in a red cape which seemed to have a life of his own.
The supposable leader lifted his sword a bit. "Surrender!"

[Sechmeth]

Kadai counted them. He was not sure if he would be able to hold all of them at the same time, but on the other hand he was still bubbled.
"What will you do with me if I surrender?" Kadai asked. His tongue felt very heavy ,his voice had a new metallic rasp in it and didn't really sound as if it was his. He felt awfully calm.
The blonde guy looked irritated. Apparently he had not expected such a question.
Kadai, who was still kneeling on the floor next to the corpse, slowly and softly released his powers and the air became a bit colder as he called the fog to aid him. He also wove a net of gravity around his opponents, but didn't strike yet.
Kadai opened his right hand and called the huge sword of the dead man with his powers and it came to him.
The group facing him leaped forward when Kadai closed the net arount them, holding them, hanging them up in midair.
He lifted the sword in a defending pose. The red dog creature howled.

[Sechmeth]

"I don't want to hurt any of you. The hold will fall off soon, but please, I have no idea who you are or what you want from me, I didn't do anything at all here." Kadai started.
"Liar!" The blonde shouted, struggling with the air that kept him in place. "You lie, clone 27!"
"He's not." The Man wearing the red cape was still standing on the floor, the hold didn't affect him. He had a very deep voice. "Both of them aren't lying... yet." He walked slowly towards Kadai and looked at him with his dark purple eyes.
"He doesn't even live on this planet, I can feel and smell it, Cloud." He turned around, standing between Ted and Kadai and the group.
"He may be one of the clones, obviously, but he just recently arrived here. He doesn't even have Sephiroth's powers, or else he would have used fire, not air." He smiled and fangs came in sight.

[Lady Grae]

WOW is all I can say...great job - please keep up the good work

[Sechmeth]

"You're sure, Vincent?" One of the girls asked.
"Absolutely. He would have already attaked us and wouldn't have tried to defend himself... or the invisible friend of his."
The hold slowly wore off, but Vincent was able to keep his friends calm.
"You don't trust him, Cloud, but obviously someone else did, or he would have never made it through the sleeping forest." He turned towards Kadai. "She let you through, right? A girl with brown hair, pink dress."
Cloud gasped, but Kadai nodded slowly, still holding the huge sword.
"Would you care to tell me why you came here?" Vincent asked, and Kadai felt that he had to be honest, or else he would not be able to leave this place unharmed.
"I am here to find out who I am."

[Sechmeth]

As they all left, they did not look back at the corpse of Sephiroth. If they would have, they would have been able to see that it was slowly dissolving into small, shining parts of life stream, the planet taking him back finally, the glow painting a strange expression on the rotting head on the floor.

[Sechmeth]

The most part of the group still did not trust Kadai and Ted, but at least they threatening them with their weapons. The vampire guy called Vincent had talked a lot and convinced the group to take the two with them into their airship called
"Highwind" which looked like a funny mix of an helicopter, a ballon and a boat.
Vincent wanted to show them a place in Midgard, the biggest city on this planet, called the Shinra-Building. Shinra seemed to be the enterprise that was collecting the energy out of the planet's life stream as well as being the one responsible for all
those weird experiments.

[Sechmeth]

idgard looked like a flat, dirty pancake from above. They explained that it once had been two cities, one above, near the light, and one down under the earth and under the plates the upper part was built on. But when the comet was about to hit the planet, the life stream had come up and flooded the underground part of the city, causing all people to flee up to the light and build new suburbs around the original part of Midgard. It wasn't at all beautiful and Kadai felt that he missed Paragon City.

[Sechmeth]

Vincent brought them into an old part of Midgard, near an old, forgotten train station. It was a huge building he led them to, and he explained that they had to use the stairs up to the upper 90 levels of the building, because noone used life stream to power the elevators anymore.

[Sechmeth]

Finally they entered a part of the building that looked like a huge laboratory. There were signs of a fight long ago, and dried blood stains were smeared on the floor. It smelled like death in here. Vincent sat down on a crate.
"This is... was the lab of Hojo, the main scientist of Shinra Cooperation. He made a lot of strange things here and in Nibelheim, one of them being me. " He smiled sadly.
"Hojo knew that I didn't agree with some of his... experiments. One of them involved my fiancee, Lucretia, who was also a scientist of Shinra. He planned on making her pregnant to use the baby for further testings. Which he finally did, after getting me out of his way. The boy, Sephiroth, became a full success. He reacted well to the alien DNA of the creature called Jenova, and also positively to the repeated infusions with life stream. He was fast, strong, intelligent, powerful, the best soldier you could ever have. But he never met his mother Lucretia, and her heart broke as Hojo refused to let her see him. She died about two years ago."

[Sechmeth]

A shadow crossed Vincent's face. "I'm...sorry," Ted said, and Vincent smirked.
"Hojo never told him who his mother or father was. He just sent him to more and more fights and wars, until he was about 30 years old. During a mission in Nibelheim, he found out about the experiments. Sadly, he thought that the monstrous being called Jenova was his mother, causing him to go mad and starting to hate everything and everyone. On this day, he burnt down Nibelheim and killed a huge part of its inhabitants. He went up to Mount Nibel, where he tried to free the alien from the energy plant. He got hurt by two young soldiers, one of them was Cloud here, so Sephiroth chose to take the head of Jenova with him and jump into the life stream. But he had hurt the two soldiers as well and when Hojo showed up, he took them as new volunteers for his new tests, until they were able to flee. One got shot, while Cloud made it to Midgard, having big problems with his memories.
But what noone expected was that Hojo would make clones from Sephiroth, none really able to act individually. and they all went mad when finally the real Sephiroth showed up again, healed from his wounds and even more powerful than before, but even more crazy as well.He had grown a desire to became a god, using the whole life stream of this planet for this cause. He called a meteor to destroy the planet.
While the others and me tried to stop him, he oftentimes sent clones to stop us. Some of them committed suicide, some of them transformed themselves into monsters, using their all-powerful Jenova cells. But we kept fighting, and we finally took down Sephiroth at a high price."

[Sechmeth]

Kadai nodded, and absent mindedly stroked the tatoo with his number on his wrist. While Vincent talked, he had been having some strange flashbacks that proved every word as true.
"So I am one of these clones." - "Looks like it. As you see...", Vincent made a pointing gesture into the room, "some of the tanks are missing. It might as well be that there are more of you around. But you are the first one I was able to talk to seriously and you have a name. None of the others we met has been like this."
"The meteor... did it come here?" Ted asked while he examined a tank.
"Yes, it did, but the planet was able to defend itself. It used a lot of energy and life stream for that, but it worked."
"...It might be that this... energy burst of the planet took one tank, created a dimensional wormhole and got rid of the last clone before he was able to wake up?" Ted asked, and Vincent nodded. "That could well be."

[Sechmeth]

They left the planet the same day and Kadai felt glad to leave it again. The planet itself didn't want him to be there, and it didn't want him to come back. Ted and he destroyed the modifications of the portal in the Underground lab in Paragon as soon as they returned. Kadai also asked Ted to never ever talk about that trip again, unless Kadai was ready to do so himself. He felt that he had now access to parts of his mind that never were his, and he didn't want someone to know about his memories; he didn't even tell Ted about it.
Kadai didn't want to imagine what could happen if he had gone mad like the other clones, he was already crazy enough as he was now.

[Sechmeth]

:write:
Hope you all enjoyed my little story! Some of you might have recognized some pieces and I have to admit that this wasn't really all my ideas... :naughty:

So for the ones who are interested to know more about that world from wich Kadai comes : play "Final Fantasy 7" for the story before Kadai returns home, and see the movie "Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children" for the story what will happen next.

Have Fun! :lol: