Northern Mountain. The stage for the final confrontation between Cloud and Sephiroth. But what if instead of Cloud and Sephiroth, it was Cloudia and Sephirah? Cloudia's Final Battle Final Fantasy VII By Shinieris

Cloud Strife- Cloudia Strife
Tifa Lockhart- Tifen Lockhart
Aerith Gainsborough- Aeric Gainsborough
Barett Wallaca - Baretta Wallace
Cid Highwind - Cidney Highwind
Yuffie Kisaragi - Yugi Kisaragi
Sephiroth - Sephirah

"Is everyone ready?" Cloudia asked the group. Her massive golden sword, the Ultima Weapon, lay snug in its sheath on her back. Its handle jutting out a head higher than the top of her head.

"Cloudia," Tifen placed a hand on Cloudia's shoulder as he said, "You don't have to do this."

Cloudia regarded Tifen with a somber expression. Tifen Lockhart was a childhood friend of Cloudia, who grew up with her in the village of Nibelheim. When she was nine, she followed Tifen to Mt. Nibel, a treacherous mountain range near Nibelheim in hope of reuniting Tifen with his recently-deceased mother. That he fell from the rickety bridge was not Cloudia's fault, yet Cloudia felt responsible for it anyhow, for not stopping him when she could. Five years later, Cloudia left Nibelheim to join SOLDIER, yet never actually making the cut. It was two years after that they met again, in that disasterous mission to investigate a faulty Mako Reactor.

That was the time when Sephirah went insane. That was when Sephirah slaughtered everyone and torched the village to the ground. That was when Sephirah almost killed Tifen. That was when Sephirah wounded Zack. That was when Cloudia stabbed Sephirah in the heart with Zack's Buster Sword. That was when Cloudia threw Sephirah into the Mako pit. What happened next, was all a jumble of confusion inside Cloudia's mind. Exactly how or when Tifen ended up joining AVALANCHE, a group of freedom fighters opposing Shinra Corp, she couldn't tell for sure.

Tifen recruited Cloudia as a mercenary on a mission of sabotage against one of Shinra's Mako Reactors in the Midgard area. Following that, she signed up for another mission which went wrong from the start. All through this, Cloudia acted cold and aloof, distancing herself from Tifen. Tifen thought she had forgotten him, but he was wrong. Cloudia never forgotten Tifen, she was simply too ashamed of what she had become.

"No, it's fine," Cloudia shook her head, "I need to do this. I need to see this through."

Tifen sighed.

"Alright, that's my girl! Give her hell!" Yugi said as he twirled his massive shuriken in the air.

Yugi Kisaragi was a materia thief, though he enjoyed giving himself fancy honoraries like "Great Ninja Yugi". Yugi was cocky and obnoxious, but his skills with his large shuriken was second to none. They met him in a forest, challenging them to a fight again and again. After defeating him several times, he eventually joined the party. Cloudia had a suspicion that he had an ulterior motive, which involved stealing their materias. Although he did steal their materia in his homeland of Wutai, he eventually gave it back and rejoined the group. Yugi had been a valuable member since then.

"Settle down, numbskull. Fucking little boys need to keep quiet," Cidney said as she sharpened the tip of her Venus Gospel, a long, unwieldy spear with massive damage potential.

"Sexist! Sexist!" Yugi yelled at Cidney.

Cidney was a pilot, meant to fly Shinra's first ever space rocket. A problem in her past forced her to abandon that aspiration and from then on, had been a pain in the ass for everyone. She was foul-mouthed, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and she verbally abused her roommate Shera and blamed her for destroying her dream. Despite all that, Cidney had a kind and caring heart. She did after all, saved Shera, at the expense of her dream of going to space. Now her dream was partially realized, as she did go to space and she commanded the airship Highwind, which she designed herself before Shinra rudely confiscated it from her.

"If everyone's done bonding, can we please get to the matter at hand?" Red XIII growled.

Cloudia never really knew what the feline-like creature was. Was he a dog, a lion without hair, a wolf or something else? She knew that his species once existed in Cosmo Canyon and that he would live long after all of them were dead of old age. Other than that, Cloudia was as clueless as the others of what he was. The group had adopted the 'don't ask, don't bother' attitude when it came to determining what Red XIII was. All they knew, was that Red XIII was their friend and comrade. That was all that mattered.

"Oh come on, man. Sephirah can wait. This is the first and only entertainment I've had since my imprisonment," Cait Sith chuckled as he sat on the head of his large robotic moogle.

Cait Sith was a curiousity. This robotic cat with a crown on his head and wielding a megaphone was once a spy for Shinra, one that Shinra used to track and sabotage their group's efforts. After many battles, Cait Sith switched sides. Cloudia still never met the person behind the catlike plush toy, but she trusted him completely. Cait Sith, or the person behind him, cared as much for the planet as they did.

"WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE BE SERIOUS? We need to move quickly or who knows what Sephirah will do!" Baretta, a black woman with a gun grafted into her right arm yelled as she fired her gun-arm to the air.

Yugi squealed as pieces of rock fell onto his head.

Baretta was once the leader of the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, created to stop Shinra's exploitation of the Planet. She had since handed over leadership of the group to Cloudia. She was brash, short-tempered and prone to recklessness, but she would go out of her way to save her friends no matter where they were.

"Baretta's right," Cloudia agreed, "We should get going."

"You sure about this? This is the point of no return," Tifen asked for the final time.

"Yes, I'm sure," Cloudia said as she looked at everyone, "Alright, everyone, let's mosey!"

"Damn! Again!" Cidney complained, "Stop sayin' it like a wimp! Can't you say 'Move Out' or somethin'?"

Cloudia scratched the back of her head sheepishly, before she said, "Move out!"

Everyone nodded an affirmative.

Suddenly they heard rumbling sounds all around them.

"What's that?" Barretta asked.

"Listen to the footsteps..." Red XIII said as he looked at the approaching enemies.

Cidney cursed, "Fuck! They're coming out in full force!"

"Cloudia, you go first!" Baretta advised.

Cloudia shook her head. "I'm fighting here too!"

Baretta yelled as she did the final checks on her gun-arm, "Shu'up! It will do us no good wit' everyone back here!"

"Baretta's right!" Cidney agreed, "You take two of us with you and go first. The rest'll catch up to you later."

"Is this like a practice run before the real thing?" Tifen asked

"Yeah, a major practice run," Cait Sith commented.

"Heh heh, I'm fine with that," Yugi said. At least it's better than facing Sephirah down there. Heh heh.

A rumble above them put them all to silence. "They're coming! They're already on the floor above us!"

"Cloudia! Hurry up and make up your mind!" Baretta yelled.

Cloudia looked at Cidney and at her long spear and wondered how Cidney would fight inside a cramped cave. Cloudia looked at Red XIII and although his size would get him through tough spots, his power was greatest under the open sky. She looked at Tifen. Although Tifen was a great brawler, Tifen's damage potential was low and personally, Cloudia would've preferred to keep Tifen away from Sephirah. Cait Sith was a nice person and since he was a robot, he wouldn't feel any pain. But Cait Sith was remote-controlled, what if something happened that cut off his signal during battle? Yugi was young and brash, true, but he was highly mobile and his Great Shuriken Conformer work as both melee and long range weapon. Cloudia looked at Baretta and her gun-arm and made up her mind.

"Baretta and Yugi will accompany me down the caves," Cloudia said. Nothing else needed to be said.

"Oh yeah! Let's kick Sephirah's butt!" Baretta whooped.

"Hell yeah! I knew you would recognize my skills," Yugi said with his nose as high as the ceiling. Aw, damn it!

"All of you!" Cloudia said as she waved at the them, "Later!"

"Yeah, later!" Cait Sith said.

"Be safe, Cloudia," Tifen said as Cloudia, Baretta and Yugi jumped down onto a floating rock below them.

Half an hour later, the big woman huffed, out of breath. "Huff, huff. For all this magic... huff... the planet can't even... huff huff... make an elevator."

"Heh heh, your fault for not exercising, big girl. Don't blame the planet," Yugi taunted.

They had been jumping down floating rocks since they parted ways with the others half an hour ago. In a way, Cloudia agreed with Baretta. For all its power, the planet could have at least made some stairs. All these jumping made Cloudia's belly ache. She had to be content that least they didn't have to climb anything.

"If this goes on, I think by the time we meet Sephirah, I will be 40 pounds lighter," Baretta commented as she attempted to catch her breath.

"Aw, come on!" Yugi slapped the tired woman on the back, causing her to choke on air, saying, "Is that so bad?"

"Heads up, we got company!" Cloudia warned as she grabbed the handle of her Ultima Weapon as a lumbering blue giant dropped down in front of them wielding a massive thick sword.

The Iron Man roared as he charged forward towards the party. Cloudia jumped to the side to avoid its rampage. Yugi leaped upwards, ending up with his feet on the Iron Man's head before jumping down to the ground. Baretta clumsily evaded the Iron Man's rush. Cloudia gave the Iron Man a slash on its back as Yugi assisted with his Conformer. Baretta peppered the Iron Man's face with bullets, making it hard for it to see the attacks. Suddenly it roared and the party could sense that its power was boosted somewhat. Yugi fired Bolt2 on it, achieving no result as the creature's body was very resistant towards elemental magic. The Iron Man swung its massive sword downward against Cloudia who barely escaped the attack, causing the sword to strike the hard ground and showering Cloudia with rock fragments. The Iron Man then swung his massive sword in a 360 degrees arc, forcing all of them to jump away from it and scattering them far from each other. It then made a dash for Yugi, who threw his Conformer at its face while rolling to his left as the massive sword smashed down on the place he was standing. Suddenly Cloudia heard a great boom as the giant's head disappeared.

"That's for... huff huff... disturbing my break... huff huff... dumbass," Baretta said with the smoking barrel of her gun-arm pointed towards the back of the Iron Man.

The Iron Man dropped to the ground.

"Good job," Cloudia said as she got up on her feet, "Let's hope that's the last we see of his kind."

That wasn't the last time they saw its kind. They fought two more Iron Men after that. Cloudia dispatched both of them, the lesson from the first Iron Man still fresh in her mind. Yugi complained that he didn't kill even one.

They finally reached a platform at the bottom of the crater, when Cloudia asked, "Where are we?"

A deafening sound alerted them to danger as Yugi asked, "What? What?"

A woman whose lower body ended in a ball which floated in the air, with two tentacles that moved independently of each other appeared out of nowhere. It was bigger than a man and it was approaching quickly.

"Jenova?" Cloudia asked to no one in particular. "It's coming!"

"Watch my Gauntlet!" Yugi cried as he threw a large bomb towards Jenova, causing a lot of damage to the main body and the tentacles.

"My turn!" Baretta cried as she pressed some buttons on her gun-arm and a laser beam fired from the sky, hitting the ground in front of them and Jenova with it.

"Did you both have to use your limit breaks so easily?" Cloudia complained as she went forward and with her Ultima Weapon, cut Jenova's body four consecutive times without giving her time to fight back.

Suddenly, they heard a ticking sound, which grew louder and louder.

"It's a bomb! Somebody kill her!" Cloudia exclaimed as all three of them piled on the enemy. They managed to kill her with little time to spare, deactivating the Ultima bomb at the very last minute.

"That was easy," Baretta commented in the aftermath.

"Try to avoid wasting your limit breaks, will you?" Cloudia said as a high pitched sound echoed inside their heads and the blocks that made up the platform under their feet dropped down into the lifestream of flew away, plunging them into the maelstrom of glowing pure Mako energy.

When Cloudia woke, she was floating in a place of absolute darkness.

Li...ght...

A light.

Is this...

Is this light... Holy?

"Oww... damn man!" Baretta cursed as Cloudia fell on top of her.

"Baretta?!" Cloudia exclaimed. She looked around and saw her party and the friends they left in the caves sprawled around a massive glowing structure. He looked down and saw that the structure and its satellite rocks floated above the expansive sea of lifestream.

Baretta moaned in pain before she realized her surrounding. "What... So everyone's together again?"

A pulse of energy washed over them, originating from the structure. They were caught off guard when that same energy lifted them into the air, floating in the air a short distance from the structure and its floating satellites.

A flash!

And another!

And a woman, tall with her long, silvery white hair dancing in the wind appeared from the glowing center of the structure. She wielded in her hand a long katana, a weapon that was pretty much her symbol as well as her companion. It was Masamune.

"...Sephirah?"

Another pulse! They were thrown back a little but slowly gravitated back towards the structure.

Baretta moaned in her helplessness. "Ugh...! Is this... the true power of Sephirah?"

"My body... my body... I can't control my body! Uurgh!" Cidney cried.

The floated a little closer towards Sephirah and the structure, but suddenly, another wave of energy exploded from Sephirah, beating them away without them being able to do anything about it.

Red XIII roared in pain. "My front legs... my hind legs... my tail's about to tear off!"

"This is definitely not good. He's way out of our league!" Cait Sith complained, despite being unable to feel pain.

"I don't know if I can go on..." Yugi said, his face starting to lose colour.

Another flash!

"Cloudia... Cloudia..." Tifen called.

To Cloudia, Tifen's voice sounded a million miles away. Cloudia groaned in pain.

Another flash!

"... there..." Cloudia pointed at the structure. "It's... there..."

"Cloudia?" Tifen asked.

"Holy... holy..." Cloudia pointed to the glowing part of the structure. "The Holy is shining..."

Holy. The materia that Aeric tried to use to protect the planet from Meteor. The same materia that he said was useless. The same materia that Sephirah considered a threat. The reason why Sephirah killed Aeric.

"Holy is shining..." Cloud remarked, "Aeric's prayer is shining...!"

Tifen nodded in pain. "Holy... Aeric..."

"It's not over yet... This isn't the end yet!!" Cloudia whimpered, "Let's go, everyone...!"

With a single mind, they floated closer towards Sephirah. A flash forced them away.

"Aeric is here..." Tifen said with gritted teeth, "... everyone is here... Cloudia is here with us! There's still so many things to do. I'm not giving up!!"

"Aeric's memories... Our memories... We came... to tell you... our memories... Come Planet! Show us your answer!" Cloudia cried, "And Sephirah!! To the settling of everything!!"

Suddenly everything swirled around them, and Sephirah's control over their bodies was broken. The Planet has answered. They must fight. They must defeat Sephirah!

When the swirling motion around them settled, they found their feet on the ground and in front of them was a large, monstrous version of Sephirah. The main body, shaped to look like Sephirah was massive, with a glowing core at the bottom and another Sephirah fused to the top of it's head. It had wings for hands and from the tips of its feathers, magic of many types glowed.

"Watch my Landscaper!" Yugi cried as he punched the ground, causing pieces of rock to fly towards this bizarre form of Sephirah, wounding everything in its path.

Tifen rushed forward, punched its main body with his Beat Rush, then Somersaulted in the air while kicking the enemy upwards. Then he performed Meteodrive, picking up the massive body of Bizarro-Sephirah in a vertical suplex before slamming it into the ground. Then with Meteor Strike, he picked up the enemy, spinning it around and jumped high into the air before flinging it downwards dealing a lot of damage to the monstrous creature.

Red XIII howled, forcing the power his spirit and his memory of the Cosmo Canyon into his mouth. Within seconds, a ball of plasma grew in front of his open maw and with a roar, he launched it at Bizarro-Sephirah, putting its whole body in flames.

The party's morale raised, when they saw the head portion of the monster slumped lifeless.

Cait Sith cast Barrier, a magical forcefield that lessened physical damage on all of the. In the meantime, Baretta cast MBarrier, which reduced the damage from magic attacks on the whole team. They expected the monster to retaliate after losing one of its limbs. They were surprised that instead of attacking, the main body used Bizarro Energy, that revived the dead head portion.

Cidney then threw 600,000 Gil coins at the enemy, dealing massive materialistic damage that killed the left wing and right wings at the same time. Cloudia wondered whose money Cidney just wasted. She was fine with whatever methods Cidney used to defeat their enemy, as long as those Gil coins weren't from Cloudia's personal stash.

Cloudia then summoned the thirteen Knights of the Round with her Ultimate End command using the Knights of the Round materia. In short order, one knight attacked the enemy with a long sword. The second knight attacked with a lance. The third knight attacked with a rod and cast a Fire magic. The fourth knight attacked with a mace. The fifth knight attacked with a long sword. The sixth knight attacked with a long sword. The seventh knight cast a Blizzard magic with his wand. The eight knight attacked with a trident. The ninth knight cast Comet on it using its staff. The tenth knight attacked with a naginata. The eleventh knight attacked with a battle axe. The twelfth knight attacked with a sword and finally, the thirteenth knight attacked with Excalibur.

As if losing its strength, the Bizarro-Sephirah started to tilt to its right. In just seconds, its whole body fell backwards as it turned to dust. The team took that opportunity to catch their breaths.

"Not sure if I've ever told you this, but whenever I summon Knights of the Round, I always feel bad for the enemy," Cloudia commented.

Tifen chuckled, but didn't say anything else.

"Did we win?" Yugi asked before he felt a tremor under his feet. "Guess not."

Their surrounding swirled again and they came to a space with no sky nor ground, yet they could walk on the air as if it was solid. In front of them stood a more bizarre form of Sephirah. She regained her human face, but instead of legs, she now had six white wings, three on each side. Instead of a right arm, she now had a black wing in its place. Around her head, was a glow that reminded Cloud of stories about angels, except that this was no angel. Angel-Sephirah was the harbinger of doom for the Planet.

The party quickly cast Barrier and MBarrier on each other as Sephirah prepared a magic spell. Sephirah cast Wall on herself, to protect against the team's physical attacks. Cloudia launched herself forward, attempting to have the first strike before the Wall spell completed, but without luck as the spell blocked most of Cloudia's blow.

Then unexpectedly, Sephirah cast Shadow Flare and engulfed Cloudia in it before it exploded. When Cloudia emerged, she was glad that she was protected by MBarrier. Otherwise it would hurt real bad.

In retaliation, Cloudia leaped ahead while Yugi cast DeSpell on Sephirah, depriving her of her Wall spell. Without the Wall spell, Cloudia's consecutive attacks scored full hits on each blow. Baretta meanwhile prepared her limit break, Catastrophe while Cloudia's taking Sephirah's attention. When Cloudia finally broke free, Baretta jumped to the sky, firing her gun-arm downward towards Sephirah, hitting her with ten consecutive shots.

Feeling the pressure, Sephirah attacked Yugi with her right wing, before taking off to the sky.

"Coward! Coward!" Yugi yelled when he realized that Sephirah had gone beyond the range of his weapon.

"Heh, now you understand why I'm the most valuable member in the team, huh?" Baretta bragged as she fired shots after shots at the airborne Sephirah.

"Yes, you're a real awesome gal, Baretta," Cloudia said sarcastically as she summoned Ramuh, who used his staff to cast Judgement Bolts against Sephirah. Then she summoned Odin, who launched his Gunge Lance towards Sephirah, dealing maximum damage against the massive abomination.

Yugi then summoned Bahamut ZERO, the ultimate type of Bahamut and the strongest imaginable. It flew through space and then launched Tera Flare, a beam of energy that pierced through the ozone layer and the atmosphere, dealing massive damage towards Sephirah.

Sephirah retaliated with Pale Horse, which did little damage to Cloudia, who had MBarrier on.

Then Cait Sith, ever the gambler, turned his slot machine. On the slot machine, the symbols of a face, a heart and a moogle appeared. With that, Cait Sith summoned a Fat Flying Chocobo that hit Sephirah with its equally gigantic body, causing a damage 4 times Cait Sith's normally wimpy damage.

Baretta attacked the airborne Sephirah with her gun-arm again, hitting Sephirah huge body each time. In anger, Sephirah summoned a comet from beyond the Solar System. The comet hit Pluto, destroying it completely. It destroyed the asteroid rings around Saturn. Punched through Jupiter, causing the core to destabilize and explode until it reached the Sun. Once it hit the sun, it created a chain reaction that caused it to go Supernova. As the Sun went Supernova, it destroyed Mercury, Venus and when it reached the Earth, it engulfed Sephirah and bathing the party in the harmful unfiltered rays of the Sun, causing small damage which equaled the damage of commercial tanning beds.

"Is it just me, or does it feel like we're more powerful than all the planets combined?" Tifen remarked.

"Don't ask, don't care. Magic doesn't have to make sense," Cloudia replied as she activated her limit break, Omnislash and slashed at Sephirah fifteen times.

At the end of her attack, Cloudia fell back, as Sephirah's body disintegrated into dust, little by little. Eventually disappearing completely without a single trace. The party looked around as they fell back into the cave.

"I think we won," Tifen claimed.

"Should be, my body's sore all over," Baretta complained.

Suddenly Cloudia heard a giggle.

"Cloudia? What's wrong?" Tifen asked.

The pain was unbearable, Cloudia fell to her knees. "She's still here. She's laughing..." Cloudia said before she felt such pain that separated her mind and her body.

It felt like a dream to Cloudia. She was floating inside the lifestream, or a form of lifestream. It carried her forward through the wormhole-like passage in a bubble, slowly at first, before it picked up speed. By the time Cloudia regained consciousness, she was at the end of her journey. She looked to the front and saw Sephirah, in her original, beautiful form at the end of the tunnel.

"Hello, sister," Sephirah said so suddenly, it caught Cloudia off guard.

"Sephirah? Is it really you?" Cloudia asked as she took hesitant steps forward.

"Of course. Who do you think you have been fighting all these time?" Sephirah said with a giggle.

"Sephirah, please tell me you're sane again. Please tell me you will stop."

"That, I cannot do. You see, we are on opposite sides. I want to use this planet like Mother originally intended. You on the other hand, want to protect this planet. It's inevitable that we'd fight each other."

"Sephirah, let's just stop. We'll find a way for you to redeem yourself. You can make amends. We can fix this world."

Sephirah suddenly laughed out loud, causing Cloudia to instinctively raise her Ultima Weapon. Sephirah made a sinister smile at Cloudia as she said, "I will fix this world of course! But I will fix it my way! Now, I ask you for the last time, will you join me, little sister?"

"Never!" Cloudia said, deciding that there was no longer any way to save Sephirah.

"Then die! I do not need a puppet who won't listen to me!" Sephirah cried as she dashed forward, Masamune pointed straight forward.

Cloudia, in a bid of desperation, summoned the last of her strength and met Sephirath's sword with her own. Cloudia performed Omnislash, attacking Sephirah with fifteen slashes from the front, sides, rear and finally, from above. Sephirah fell to her knees, her head bloody and her strength, that which once slaughtered hundreds with her own hands gave way. She gurgled blood as Cloudia's sword, the Ultima Weapon was buried to the hilt inside her breast.

Cloudia grabbed Sephirah's body as she fell. She supported Sephirah's head with her left arm as she said, "You, why did you still wish to fight? You knew you wouldn't win. I knew my first blow already defeated you, but I couldn't stop Omnislash!"

Sephirah's hand, the only part of her body that could still move, caressed Cloudia's face. "Sweet, beautiful Cloudia. Please, don't cry. We are enemies, if you didn't strike me, I would've struck you. If that had happened, it would've been you lying here and you will not be able to save your precious Planet."

"It doesn't have to end this way."

"Yes, that was why I wanted you to join me. You are, after all, the closest to me in every way. It no longer matters, I've lost this round," Sephirah closed her eyes as her hand dropped and her body started cracking and disintegrating.

"You will always be in my memories, Sephirah," Cloudia said as she kissed Sephirah's temple.

"You still don't get it, Cloudia. I will never be just a memory."

Sephirah's voice echoed in the darkness of the sanctuary. Cloudia whispered, as if wanting to tell Sephirah herself, "I will wait for you. And when you return, I will defeat you again, sister.

*As always, please do leave your comments and feedbacks. Praises helps me feel good about myself. Constructive criticisms helps me get better.
**If anyone's interested, Square-Enix launched a remake of FFVII. Although I think they're lazy bastards for making 'remake' synonymous with 'remastered', at least I can finally play FFVII on my Windows 7 64Bit computer now.
***Hm, for some reason, this isn't listed as a one shot, standalone story.