Prologue

It began one fateful evening, as Cloud stood looking over Edge. The sun casting the world a brilliant golden hue as monsters bayed in the distance.

Everything was better now. Edge bigger, the world greener. But most importantly, his friends turned family alive and well, with him still after 20 long years. Though he had stopped aging long ago.

He tried not to let that get to him too much, as he watched Tifa and the children get older. The others, as well.

Only Vincent and Shelke seemed to stay as young as him. A small peace, in the otherwise turmoil thoughts as Cid and the others got weaker before his eyes.

But he moved on. Tried not to think about it too much as the days ticked past, years, as the world continued to heal. At least on the surface.

Reeve and the people from Cosmo Canyon had both mentioned it was only skin deep though. The damage Jenova dealt a heavy blow, tainting the Lifestream even now as the Planet fought on.

But the choice to keep helping the fight alongside the others was taken from Cloud that day.

Pain was all he could remember whenever he thought back to it. Excruciating pain, so vast and absolute within and around him that he blacked out during the first Jump. And several more Jump's after that before he finally got used to it enough to stay awake through the process.

His life depended on it, after all.

Cloud's second Jump brought him to the conclusion he was being pulled into alternate versions of his world, for reasons unknown.

Around the 5th Jump, he came to realize he couldn't control it, no matter how hard he tried. It didn't stop, didn't go back to his world. Only forward. Continuous, constant. The only rest that he found during the peaceful worlds, if he was lucky enough to Jump to one between the more dangerous versions.

Something he never thought possible. The fact an alternate version of his own world could possibly be worse.

But he soon learned. The life and death battles he would suddenly be thrust into against alternate Sephiroth's, among other things, showing him such. The way the worlds could alter drastically compared to his own leaving him reeling at the sheer difference among them. Some with nothing in common with his own world at all.

Yet Cloud still tried. Still hoped, to return to his own. Desperately looking for answers between the times he would jump, as he could never predict when it would happen from one to the other.

It was his 47th Jump when it happened. Another world different from his own but holding answers he had started to give up on. A world of ruin, and new dangers. One he later came to know about in more detail.

This is where his story truly began once more, after leaving that fated cliffside all those years ago.

The story of an Alternate Fate, of Beginnings, where none had traveled before him.

The story, of Betrayal.