Summary:

She never thought the day would come when she would meet death, so when those bastards came for her charges she found herself fighting with all her might, even invoking a power she swore she would never use around people. But even that was proven to be not enough to kill her attackers. As the blades slid into her body she thought one last time of her brother and mother, and the promise she would never be able to keep now.

She wasn't ready for death, but she had accepted that her end was near. Except her eyes opened again. She was still alive, and she was in a place she didn't know existed. The darkness covered everything, and the only light point was the little girl that she was hired to protect, everything else was gray blimps that could have been friend or foe.

As the shadows crushed the glass tank in their rage, they screamed to feel the young girl, to give her back what was forced on them, and Rosamond didn't fight. She embraced the girl and let the shadows pump emotion through them both, leaving them both sobbing for what has happened to the other.

DOC: TIMS

Hey everyone! I am trying out a new style of writing for this one. It's not something I have ever really done before, telling a story through one person's point of view with events and other things being brought up through notes or other little outsiders inserts.

For a little background, our OC is named Rosamond Strife and she is Cloud's adopted older sister. She is fighting her own power so she hardly notices things around her unless she needs to see them, so she is basically wandering through a gray world with the inhabitants all blobs she doesn't recognize or see any difference in unless she needs to work for those people as a bodyguard or something. This is why her chapters have barely any detail because it is told from her point of view, she doesn't see the detail, she doesn't see anything but gray. But she's not blind!

On that happy note! I hope everyone enjoys this new story and I can't wait to hear what you all think about how I'm approaching this so far. It's not into the events of Deepground just yet, but I will be right in the action further into the chapters!

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or Dirge of Cerberus. I don't own either the rights or the games. This is all being written by reading timelines of events, characters bios, watching people play through DOC on YouTube, and my own little twists and flair to make my OC fit into this universe flawlessly.

ENJOY!

DOC: TIMS

Chapter 1: The job that changed it all

When she was born, she never thought of herself as special. She was just another girl in the small village hidden in the Nibel Mountains and forgotten by the rest of Gaia. It wasn't until her first hunting trip, that she realized she was extraordinary. Her talents, her ability to control the shadows around her, allowed her to survive a run-in with a nesting female Nibel Dragon while the rest of her party was killed.

She was special in ways that no one understood. And that specialness got her chased out of her home and exiled from the only life she knew. She was only eight at the time. She wandered the Nibel mountains until she stumbled into a group of people, people so much different then she had ever known, and they took her back to their homes, to Nibelhiem.

She was taken in by a kind family, a young couple who had always wanted a child but the couple was having trouble conceiving. They viewed her as a blessing and gave her the name Rosamond. And when the first starving dragon came to town and attacked, she was the first to rush the massive beast, one of the shadow blades she had crafted in her hands. She didn't kill it, but she did drive it away. The villagers named her the guardian of the village, Nibelhiem's Guardian Angel. But something kept calling out to her, telling her to go further out, to leave Nibelheim. She was happy, but she wasn't content.

Two years later, Cloud Strife was born and she was taken with the small baby her adopted parents had shown her. A month later and her adopted father died upon the mountains while hunting. Her heart stung, but she vowed to never let her family suffer another loss again. She was only ten when the man she had learned the true meaning of family had died.

Cloud was five when she finally followed the tug and left Nibelheim. She kept the family name she was given and she moved on, heading out into the world beyond the mountains, her life beginning to change drastically. She had left Cloud telling him to be strong for their rapidly weakening mother, that she would return with medicine or a better doctor to help her, and Cloud smiled at her and challenged her to a stick fight, as a way to test both if they were ready to part from the other. She won, but she was proud. Cloud would be able to take good care of their mother until she returned.

DOC: TIMS

June 20, 1999

Mom,

I know I told you in the last letter that I was doing fine and you didn't have to worry about me, but you really don't have to send me any money. I move around too much to have a reliable address and you'd be wasting your money sending it to me. Use it for yourself and Cloud. I promise, once my job stabilizes I will be the one sending you money.

I miss you both. And I know I should come see you and Cloud, but work is still too crazy. I'm doing really well with my job, a lot of people are coming to me for help with all kinds of things. But the better I do with every job, the more people search me out, and the more people who search for my services the more money I earn, but I'm still working way too much to come see you both.

I know you and Cloud are doing well, I do still receive your letters when I'm visiting towns, and I'm friends with the trading company that does business up in Nibelheim, so I'm hoping they give you good discounts on the medicine I get them to bring to you. I have to pay for the medicine, but since I'm still slammed with work I can't bring it to you myself, so I'm sorry you have to pick up the amount I can't pay.

I know you don't want to hear this in one of my letters mom, but I just want you to know that if something ever happens to me, everything I have managed to save up goes straight to you and Cloud. It's not a lot right now, but after my next few jobs, I should have more. I'm not planning on anything happening to me, I did promise to watch over you and Cloud until I'm old and the gray hair is from age and not because of dye, but my job takes me on dangerous paths. Monsters run rampant where I work, and while I can take care of myself and beat a few monsters, more always seem to keep popping up.

I don't want to scare you, though I'm probably doing a bad job at that right now, but the monster population is getting so much worse and Shinra isn't doing anything to make any of the roads they don't use or any of the towns not allied to them any safer.

I'm probably going to have to open the business to include the title Monster Slayer if nothing changes anytime soon. Then I know you're going to always be worrying about me. I'm sorry.

Tell Cloud I love him. I'll try to visit as soon as things start to calm down some. Promise.

Love you!

DOC: TIMS

Date: January 9, 2000

Name: Shalua Rui

Reason for protection request: My sister and I are being targeted by Shinra and we need help finding a safe place to hide from them. I'm requesting your assistance because you are known to be the only one able to outsmart and outmatch the Turks and the soldiers. You are also well known for not giving away any information about your clients unless given permission to talk about them. Please. We need help!

Amount willing to pay: I don't have much on me, but it is all yours if you help.

(Amount waiting for job completion: 1,000,000 Gil)

The job request form was interesting enough for the request. She had never taken on a job that had people actively being chased by Shinra. It seemed interesting. But the money amount. That had to be false. There was no way a woman the same age as her younger brother had that kind of money, not legally anyway. And if it was because of this money that Shinra was after them, then she had a duty to hand them over to the Turks.

Sure getting them away and to a safe place would be easy and wouldn't even put a dent in her savings, but she didn't like helping people who were breaking laws. It was against her principles, and besides, Shinra loved to pay her for bringing in dangerous criminals and terrorists. But at the same time, if she sided with the criminals and terrorists, Shinra never saw even a glimpse in a camera of them while she was on a job of protecting them.

"What could Shinra possibly want with two little girls?"

She frowned and then flipped herself upright, quickly untying the rope around her ankles. She dropped gracefully to the floor and stretched her sore muscles.

"Well, now that my workout is done," she looked back down at the request form. "Able to pay or not, these girls have no black marks in their history. I don't doubt for a second Shinra is trying to gain something from one of them, something not even I could find. What do you think, Zario?"

A low growl answered her.

She hummed as she folded the paper up and pushed it into her back pocket. "Guess your right. Only one way to find out. Sticking to my shadow or are you going to stick to the other shadows?"

The darkness behind her shifted and grew bigger, only to dim as her shadow became inky black.

"My shadow it is then," she laughed. "Well then, time to go meet our new clients and let them know I've accepted their request."

As she left the workout room and entered the shop portion of her home, her eyes caught the hand-drawn childish picture framed on her desk, the only spot of color in the gray typical store space. It was a picture of a tall woman with blonde hair, a small boy with blonde spikes on his head, and a medium-sized female with gray hair, though it was hard to tell what they were actually because it was stick figures in triangle dresses. They were standing by a small house with a chimney and the woods behind it. She smiled as she picked it up. She remembered when Cloud and her had drawn this together, mom sitting at the table drawing with them. Mom had made the same picture, but hers was more detailed and was still pinned on the kitchen door, it also had actual people and not stick figures.

"I should go back and see how mom's doing after this job," she sighed. A softer rumble answered her. "Yeah. They would freak out at seeing me now, wouldn't they? I left nine years ago as a fifteen-year-old still struggling to control the shadows that threaten to take over every day, and now I'm twenty-four and am now in full control of the shadows that dance violently around me."

She sighed again and carefully pulled the picture from the frame, folding it up and placing it into her shadow, where she felt the claws scrape across her hand before gently taking the picture from her. She didn't even bother tending to her bleeding hand as she moved to leave the building, only pulled a red cloth from one of the pockets on her jacket, and wiped the blood from her hand. It had already healed.

DOC: TIMS

January 12, 2000

Mom,

I haven't gotten any letters in the mail from you yet, so they are probably stuck somewhere. Monster nests have been popping up everywhere, and while Shinra finally started doing something about it last month, it's already much too late. Unless they want to send one of their precious squads of SOLDIERs out to clean out the dozens of dens everywhere over here, I'm going to be stuck going into the woods to clear out dens, mountains to kill flocks, and even take a dive into the ocean and rivers to clear those out of monsters as well. Life has gotten harder over here.

I have another job lined up, a bodyguard detail to help two orphans find a safer place to live. I've seen them around and they seem like good girls. I'm going to help them. It's kinda my fault anyway that they are orphans. If I had just been faster clearing out the monsters near where they lived then maybe their parents would still be alive.

I know you would tell me to not blame myself for this, but I can't help it. These girls don't deserve to be alone like this. I'm twenty-four now. If I can't find a family to take them in, then I might just adopt them myself. The oldest one is Cloud's age, looks just as stubborn as him as well. The younger one is nine, or about to turn nine. I think I could be a good guardian to them. But there will be others who will be better than me, so I'll try to find them first.

I have more money then I needed to buy myself a small place, and killing monsters is actually quite profitable, if you know how to harvest the monster properly to get the materials that blacksmiths need to make weapons and armor, and the poison glands to help the alchemists make antidotes for the various poisons. So I'm sending you the extra. Don't worry about the amount. I'm making more faster than I can spend it, so this small amount is nothing.

Tell Cloud I love him! And that I don't write him letters because last time I did he sent me one back telling me never to write to him again unless I had a date that I would be coming home. Oh! Tell Cloud I also perfected my motorcycle and once I get done with this job I'm going to take a break and come visit! I'll give you both a ride on it. And I'll spend a month with you guys before coming back to work.

Don't worry about the business, I have employees that I hired to help me out, so taking a break like they have all told me I should do will please them. They were the ones that told me to take a three-month-long vacation to make up for the nine years that I have been working non-stop. So if anything you should be thanking them for being reliable and dependent employees. If they weren't I wouldn't even be able to think about taking a break!

Well, after I send this letter I'm going to take my last job before my break. I shouldn't be any longer than a month, but I'm not sure how much time this job is going to really take. I'll be by before Cloud's birthday though! I promise you that!

Love you, Mom!

(Attached is a small pouch with 600,000 Gil and two materia. A note at the bottom reads, "The materia are a baby Cure and a baby Fire. A late birthday present for Cloud since work was too hectic for me to send anything for his 13th birthday. Happy birthday buddy!")

DOC: TIMS

The sun was reaching its peak in the cloudless sky by the time she caught sight of Shalua Rui. She looked just like the files had said she would, shoulder-length red hair, slightly tanned, and wearing some good awful purple button-up shirt. Though as she approached the girl, she slowed her stroll to watch her surroundings. This girl was wanted by Shinra after all, she was bound to be followed by the Turks, even now when she thought she had probably outrun them long enough to get help. And sure enough, a few recognizable people were watching her charge, one of them making his way slowly over to them as she looked around.

"Shalua Rui?" She asked as she approached casually. She watched emotionless as the teen jumped and turned to face her, pushing a younger girl behind her. The younger girl, Shelke she presumed, looked almost like her sister, short red hair that was in slight disarray, wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt and a slightly darker blue skirt that ended just below her knees.

She couldn't help the almost silent snort when she saw Shalua was wearing what was probably supposed to be an equally horrible purple miniskirt, on an older woman. The belt holding it up and against her waist made her look like she was wearing ripped up curtain drapes. Not a good look on a young woman.

"Who are you?" Shalua asked, her right hand twitching towards her left side.

"I'm Rosamond, the mercenary you asked to protect you," She said, rolling her neck. Eyes were snapping to her, and she couldn't help the satisfied smirk that graced her face. "You wanted to get away from Shinra, yes?"

"Y-yes," Shalua replied, her mouth opening to say more.

"Well standing in a very public place where you can't see your enemies unless you have a trained eye," she said calmly, her hand flicking out towards where someone was making a beeline towards them. "Makes my job harder. Did you know you had at least five Turks watching you?"

Shalua stiffened and looked around rapidly, her eyes seeming to scan every one to find the Turks. Rosamond watched Shalua eyes widened as she looked at the man who had frozen stiff, his body turning black before her eyes.

"Don't worry," Rosamond said lazily, glancing at the man quickly turning darker than the inky darkness of the abyss. The black looked nice against the constant gray that this stupid town was. "He won't die. Though when they release him he's going to wish he had been killed. Now follow me. Or you can kiss your freedom goodbye."

She didn't wait for Shalua or Shelke to give her confirmation that they would follow, she just strolled right on by and kept walking casually to where her favorite vehicle was parked just outside the town she lived in.

This would be her last mission on this continent for a while. She missed her family and was more than ready to just go back to the other continent and visit her mom and brother. This one last job then she could take her break.

"So how do you feel about off-road driving?"

She was grinning as she heard the very loud gasps as they turned the corner to reveal her monster ride. The motorcycle was hand-built, the frame was bulky but sleek, and the motor was of her own design. This baby ran faster than every other vehicle she had ever encountered. If only she could make it so that it could run across the ocean instead of having to transport it across the ocean with a boat.

"Gonna have to squeeze into the seat attachment, girls. I don't ride with people behind me."

She laughed as she shot off like a bullet, the girls in the sidecar screaming at the sudden speed. She couldn't fault them, she screamed as well when she first drove her monstrous motorbike, except back then it was more screaming as she crashed into the rocks and trees and even into the river as she tested and created her perfect bike.

Cloud would enjoy this. Maybe she should build Cloud a second bike just like hers for him. An approving roar answered her thoughts, and she laughed again. A bike to make mom have a heart attack would be the perfect fourteenth birthday present for her younger brother!

DOC: TIMS

Located on the counter of the Mercenary Guild, addressed to V, sits a note, written and sealed by the owner herself. The contents are never disclosed to anyone but the Turk who opens it. And he burns it before anyone else can ever read it. He knows the owner well enough to know that if she left a note behind to be found by him, she felt something bad was about to happen. Her gut instinct was never wrong after all.

As he walked out of the building, he couldn't help but frown. She predicted her own death, told him to wait a month, unless word got to him sooner, then to send all the money she had amassed to her mother and brother and to let her second in command know that he was now the owner of the business. It couldn't be helped. If she wasn't back behind that counter or sending him another note before the month was up, he would do as she asked.

"She would have made a wonderful Turk." Was what he muttered looking back over the building again, before leaving to go about the rest of his business.

DOC: TIMS

Rosamond had grown attached to the young girls remarkably quickly over the two weeks they had been traveling together. She almost wished she hadn't gotten them so close to their destination already. Another three days and they would be in the one place Shinra couldn't touch them. And not for a lack of trying either.

The island they were currently heading for was rumored to hold the Temple of the Ancients, but only a select few were ever able to enter the woods that covered almost the entire island. She had heard rumors about it, and for the two young girls, it was probably the only place they could ever escape to.

The island had a certain power to it that seemed to hide it from those who sought to cause harm, even if they didn't mean it towards the forest itself but someone who had managed to get inside it. It was the perfect place for them to hide in, though she would be unable to follow them, she had done her best in those two weeks to teach them how to care for themselves while they were in the woods. It was hard work making sure the two girls were prepared, especially since she had to teach them how to fight properly, so if they ever were attacked within the forest they would be able to protect themselves.

She didn't want to even think about what would happen if she couldn't get these girls into the woods. Zario was growling and shifting more and more each day as something dangerous kept getting closer to them. She hoped V had gotten her message, whatever was following them was really bad news. She could feel the end coming for her like the danger was death itself. She regretted not being able to follow through with her promise to her mom. Hopefully, her bike would be safe enough for Cloud to receive it when everything was sent to them.

"Miss Rosa," a young voice rang out, snapping her from her thoughts. "Are you okay? You've been staring into space for a while now. If Shalua didn't come back when she did, our food would have been turned to ash."

"Sorry," she shook her head. "It's nothing. Is the food burned too much to eat or is it still salvageable?"

"It was still savable," Shalua said. "We already ate. You've been staring into space for a long time."

She blinked, looked down at the plate in her lap, and sighed. She waved away the rest of their questions as she ate her cold food and then sent them off to sleep. They had to leave early in the morning, so she was going to let them sleep as much as they could.

She yawned halfway through her night watch shift and leaned against the rock behind her to try to keep herself awake. It was a losing battle as her eyes got heavier and her body slowly stopped responding to her.

'Your distraction will cost your life.'

Rosamond jolted awake, her hidden blade slicing through flesh to douse her in blood. She took a moment to blink the blood from her eyes and then she was jumping over the body that had fallen before her and was slashing another attacker through the neck, her blades glistening with blood as she danced between the bodies of the troopers that had managed to sneak up on her.

Their gray bodies hit the ground, painted only by the blood gushing from the life-ending wounds. Even dancing between weapons and dead bodies, Rosamond still frowned and wondered, not for the first time, if something was wrong with her eyes because people shouldn't be as gray as these people were, even in death.

She knew now why she was so tired as a scared trooper tried to cast sleep on her again. Zario didn't like that much, and the man found himself screaming as the giant shadow wolf leaped out of nowhere and ripped his throat out. She heard Shalua and Shelke whimpering and whispering in the only tent they had as she laid waste to the troopers that were foolish enough to attack her.

Only when the last trooper fell lifeless to her feet, did she pull Zario back into her shadow and try to wipe the blood off her face. She knew it wouldn't matter, Shalua and Shelke were going to see the carnage anyway when they left the tent, but if she could make herself less blood-covered maybe they wouldn't be as terrified of her.

Rosamond stopped and looked down at her black outfit, covered in blood with shadows dancing around her feet. Since when did she want people to not be terrified of her? All of her charges were terrified of her, and she never minded. Why these girls?

Then she felt it, that unmistakable tug of something reaching out for her, and she whipped around to find the person who had just tried to mix materia and control her, only to find herself staring at Shelke, and finally, everything made sense. She knew exactly why Shinra was after the sisters, why they were after Shelke. And if Shelke Rui wasn't a nine-year-old girl, Rosamond would have cut her down where she stood, just like she had to the last person with this ability who had tried to control her every thought and emotion.

Shelke was special, born with a rare ability that let her touch the minds of others and so much more. Shelke's ability could be turned into a weapon for Shinra to control, to make more weapons out of, to take over more of the planet. Shelke was too young to have proper control of her ability, Shinra was probably going to use that to their advantage.

She realized that Shelke would never be safe anywhere she went. Shinra could be patient and wait for her to come out of the woods and back where they could get her, or they would work on breaking the seal on the woods, the very seal that she was relying on to protect the girls.

Rosamond felt sick. And for the next two days, that feeling never went away. Not even after she bathed before going to buy a suitable boat to make it to the beach she knew was on the island, not even after they set sail. It was this hypersensitivity that probably saved Shalua from a fate worse than death, as she felt the air turn and the water change slightly darker, and then Shalua was thrown onto the island, disappearing into the trees, as her and Shelke were caged and electrocuted until they couldn't stay conscious anymore.

Her last thought before she couldn't think any more was that she should have thrown the girls at the same time.

DOC: TIMS

February 12, 2000

Dear Mrs. Strife,

I regret to inform you that your daughter, Rosamond Strife, was killed while on the job. I personally knew her and I know she was a good person. Good and smart. She never took a job she wasn't at least ninety-nine percent sure she could complete. I know I will not have the answers you are looking for about how your daughter died, and I am so very sorry. I wish I could do more for you and your son in your time of grief, then just give you your daughter's things. I understand how hard it is to lose a child.

Sent with this letter is everything she asked me to send to you. She asked that I make sure your medicine continues to reach you, and I will do exactly that. Your medicine is now going to be delivered to you by one of my own personal men or me myself. You will never have to pay another Gil for your medicine.

(Ink splatters on the page as if someone broke a pen over it.)

I have just been informed that my men have found the reason for your daughter's death. She was killed in an explosion that was from a bomb planted in the vehicle she was using. They have identified that the bomb was timer-based and was placed into the vehicle right after purchase while the dealer was cleaning it where she couldn't see it.

(There is a line of black scratch marks so heavy and dark it must be covering mistakes or failed starts to the next line.) This sickens me, the lies they have blatantly told me. I know what vehicle your daughter was in. I saw the scene of the accident. And I know for a fact that your daughter did not explode. The foolish police don't seem even like they would look into this further and are actually trying to cover this up as a suicide.

I know this is not something you should tell someone in a letter to tell them their child is dead, but you deserve the truth. Someone targeted your daughter and from the looks of the scene they tried to kidnap her, but when she proved too difficult to take down, they killed her and everyone she was with to leave no witnesses.

I'm so very sorry.

DOAR

V.

(There was a box sent with this letter. It contained unsent letters, documents that prove ownership of a house in Costa Del Sol that was to be put under the name of Cloud Strife if something were to happen to Rosamond Strife, a beautifully crafted sword made of black metal with the words 'Guardian Blade' etched into the base of the blade itself, and multiple pouches of Gil totaling 10,000,000,000. A note is found at the bottom of the box. The note reads "I'm sorry I never got to come back home even for an hour to see you both. I never forgot you even if my letters were erratic. I love you both. I bought a house for us, it's in the nicer part of Costa Del Sol, where we can be warm and have lots of shade because you'd burn easily in the sun after all that time in the mountains. You don't have to move into it. It's all paid for in full already, and if you aren't ready to leave the mountain yet, I have a man ready to take over all the places I own. He will make sure the house doesn't go unused, and if you ever do want to move in, he will make sure it's clean and ready for you and Cloud. I know you probably will hide this from Cloud, but the sword is his. I made it by hand for his 14th birthday and I just got finished making it. I have a job to clear out the mountain tunnel that Shinra uses as an express train way next week so my December is ending in a cold dark tunnel in a mountain. I didn't plan on dying mom. I just made so many enemies while doing the jobs I've never told you about. I only wanted you to be proud of me. So I never told you about the dark side of my job. If you want to know what I did, ask V. He will be around at least once to help you and Cloud. He promised me he would, and nothing is going to make him break his promise to me, not even death. I love you Mom, and I'm sorry I died before you. And I love you too Cloud. I know the letters I never sent make SOLDIER look bad, but if you really want to join them, I wish you luck. Training for them is brutal and you will have to suck up your pride and change your attitude if you find yourself falling behind the rest of your peers. Try not to give Mom too much to worry about. SOLDIER isn't going anywhere. I love you, Cloud.")