(Green_Pig:- Well this is chapter one, hope you like and
remember to R/R! I think I'll have to carry on with my Harry Potter fanfics
now…BTW, see if you can spot the reference to Final Fantasy the movie okies…?
hehehe)
DISCLAIMER: All characters and settings
are copyright of Squaresoft, Final Fantasy rulez! Don't sue me cuz I'm just
doing this for some fun and I gain no profit from it!
Final
Fantasy VII
Flight
to Fall
By Green_Pig
After defeating Sephiroth at the centre of the planet the
group of warriors known as AVALANCHE are journeying home to be back with their
families. Midgar is destroyed; the
lifestream and Meteor have killed everyone in the foul city down below.
All over the world, even
after maybe two or three hours since Midgar became nothing more than a pile of
scrap metal, people are throwing away everything to do with the Shinra – except
for their precious materia of course – and revising new ways to start their
lives. Although the destruction of the
richest city in the world shook the peace, people are quickly trying to forget
about it. The village of Kalm very
close by Midgar sleeps silently with troubled dreams, watching out their
windows for any survivors though they know there are none. Marlene Wallace settles down with Elmyra,
Aries' adoptive mother, and they fall asleep thinking about their loved ones
and the future.
Elmyra does not yet know
that Aries is dead and waits as patiently as she waited for her husband to
return home. Little Marlene is looking
forward to seeing her Daddy after being away from him for so long, she keeps
telling herself that he will return and has not left this world.
On the Highwind, now a
trembling wreck from the blast of the Northern Crater and the high-density
magnetic field emitted by the intense destruction of Midgar, our heroes watch
the world trundling by out of the large front window. They have witnessed the destruction of Midgar, the coming of the
life force – the lifestream – and the death of thousands. They have watched the strength of the planet,
saw how it vanquished the Shinra who were sucking out the very life of their
world ignorant of the damage they were doing, they fought against Sephiroth and
Cloud finally fitted the pieces of his puzzle into place. Tifa stands next to him with her head on his
shoulder quietly enjoying the romantic moment they have together. They have finished what they set out to do,
now what comes next? The planet is
saved, Shinra are destroyed, gone, never to return and Sephiroth has finally
returned to the planet to be reborn in another as a normal everyday
person. That is the way life goes on,
people die and their spirits and energy live again in another newborn baby, who
knows what will happen to Sephiroth's spirit?
What about Aries?
Cloud shakes his head
miserably and keeps watching the sea churning below.
"I wonder if we'll ever
meet again." He said.
"Who?" Tifa whispered
closing her eyes and leaning on him more.
"If the spirit and life
force of a person returns to the planet when they die, only to become another
person somewhere else, will that mean Aries and Sephiroth are already somewhere
in this world starting a new life? As
Ancients?" Before Tifa could answer Red XIII appeared behind them and answered
for her.
"Their spirits and life
force live again but as new things," He said mystically in his gruff catlike
voice. "Aries and Sephiroth's souls will be separated into a million particles
of lifestream energy, maybe, or most probably even the lifestream we saw
destroying Meteor and Midgar had their spirits within. They will be reborn as new and different
from what they were as you and I are so different." Cloud nodded.
"I understand. Somewhere out there are two new babies, born
exactly or very soon after Sephiroth and Aries died- "
"You are wrong again."
Red snapped. "Their souls and life force may rest in the planet for a long
time, they may return as a beast or a plant, maybe even become part of the
planet's actual life force – it's core.
There is no way of telling where they are now, or ever. I think what's best we do is find somewhere
to land and stock up on supplies, find other ways of getting back home because
I don't think the Highwind is going to last much longer…" Red lowered his voice
to a fearful whisper looking warily around at the shaking machine. Then he stalked away and settled down in the
corner with his paws over his head.
He's right, the ship is
shaking terribly from the damage, a fraction of its original size, Cid is
piloting with what's left of his crew shouting orders now and then with a good
deal of enthusiastic swearing, the Highwind – or rather the little flying
winged plane it has now become, is creaking and shakes badly when they fly
through strong wind causing everyone to freeze for a few moments holding on to
parts of the ship for life. As Cloud
watches the outside world fly past in his own tangled mess of thoughts and Tifa
leans against him with their arms wrapped around each other in silence, Cid and
the others are seriously considering taking the only remaining parachute for
themselves.
Barret is nervously
reloading his gun arm and thinking about how great it will be when he comes
home to Marlene, wherever Elmyra took her and watching over the casualties at
the back. Yuffie and Vincent have both
been poisoned and there are no more antidotes on board – most of their supplies
were lost when the ship broke up.
Yuffie is also silenced and put into Darkness while Vincent nurses his
broken deformed arm alone, they are both quickly losing more and more
health. Cait Sith is inactive, arms
down by its side and body limp and lifeless.
Reeve must either be dead or lost all his equipment to communicate via
his robot. Their magic is low; they
have no more potions or elixiers, ethers, antidotes, not much that will be of
any use. There is one X-potion
remaining on board and Cloud has it safely in his pocket.
"We can't hold this
f***ing thing anymore! It's getting harder to control her!"
"Try and land us
somewhere then!" Cloud shouted rushing round to take hold of a lever to keep the
ship steadier while Cid flapped about with the steering wheel. It is clear though that the ship is fast
losing bits and pieces. Red groaned and
slipped away on his belly to the back with the casualties.
"What's goin' on 'ere?
Can' you bloody control this thing? You're the pilot!"
"Come here and say that
to me!" Cid screamed back trying to keep hold of the wheel and attempting to
lunge at Barret.
"Captain!"
"Don't whine! Hold the
wheel you baby!"
"But there's a mountain
right ahead and we can't lift! The controls have jammed!" Cid stared right
ahead with the rest of the crew, Cloud, Tifa, Barret and even Red peeking
through his paws. Right ahead was a
mountain range and there wasn't even enough time to attempt the turn. The ship trembled and muttering the word 'shit'
Cid tried one last time to take control of the ship. Everyone including the crew left the
controls and ran to the back of the ship where everyone else was bracing
themselves for the inevitable.
The Highwind lurched one
last time and at that moment the engine cut out, Cid screamed some more bad
language and dived to the back with the rest as the ship missed the mountain
but fell straight down into a forest, breaking up and bursting into
flames. The wreckage crashed into the
trees, scraping along the branches crumbling to bits. When it finally came to a stop, flaming and smoking thick black
smoke someone dragged themselves out of a gaping hole in the ship and collapsed
out into the mud.
Red shook his fur and
staggered back up to look at the remains.
He howled weakly to the hole and after a few minutes a hand
appeared. It wore a black glove with
the fingers exposed; it was Vincent and he pulled himself up to his waist,
pulling something up with his other hand – the deformed one. Tifa came up next holding onto him and they
both climbed out, she was clutching her bloodied waist and at once out she sunk
to the ground gasping with pain.
Vincent's deformed arm was broken and usually he let no one touch it,
Red supposed that this one time was an exception being that her life had been
in danger.
"I don't know if there's
anyone else left in there. I heard
movement but Tifa was the only one I could get." Vincent mumbled to Red
stepping away to the shadows and clutching his arm. Red leapt back into the mess and found Yuffie trapped under a lot
of twisted metal and wires. The whole
thing was just a mess of sparking wires and bent metal, moving about in it was
very difficult.
Tifa fished around in
her belt and found a tiny glowing green piece of materia, the mastered cure
magic had a bright white glow at the centre that proved it, she used cure 3 and
healed her wound. The bleeding stopped
and she could now try and find Cloud.
Where was Vincent?
Red backed out dragging
Yuffie by his teeth. She was
unconscious, still alive but very weak.
Tifa knew she didn't have much magic power left, so she first checked
her over and found that she now had a broken leg as well as al the other
sicknesses.
"Yuffie! Yuffie wake
up!" There was no response. Tifa felt
around her belt again for an eye-drop.
Thankfully she found one and got rid of Yuffie's blindness, then she
used a cure to heal her leg and with very little magic left now she used that
to create a remedy and heal her of her poison.
Yuffie opened her eyes and coughed.
"Woahhhh, Where am I?"
She muttered.
"The Highwind crashed,
you're alright now so I'm leaving to help the others. Stay there!" She ran off and just as she was climbing in Cloud
poked his head over and said rather happily with a dazed look:
"Hey! Red's trying to
pull Barret out; he's trapped under lots of wreckage. Cid's nowhere to be seen."
"I saw him leap out
before we crashed!"
"Then I'll go and find
him, help Red!" Cloud got his sense back and sped off, then Barret appeared
through the hole and heaved himself out.
"Daaaamn." He gasped
cracking his knuckles and putting his gun arm back in its socket. Red leapt out.
"Cid's not here!"
"He jumped out, Cloud's
gone to find him."
"Well that's good, is
Yuffie alright?"
"I'm fine! In fact I'm
better, I'm GREAT!"
"Vincent's out, Barret,
Yuffie, Tifa, Cloud, Cid's somewhere, where's Cait Sith? It must still be
inside there."
"Don't worry about him
too much Red," Tifa said. "It's a robot so when we're sure everyone alive's
okay we can try and get him out. What
about the three remaining members of the crew?"
"They're all dead." He
said sadly, his ears flattening.
~Final Fantasy VII~
By nightfall the group
had realised that they were really stuck.
Cid was caught red handed with the parachute that they had saved, he was
told to sit away from the group and think about what he had done. Everyone were well and around a small
burning fire of sticks, Cait Sith had been retrieved and although he had a few
scratches on him, even though his fur was poking out from one or two little
rips and the giant stuffed Mog had lost an eye, at least it was out and safe
with the rest of them. Red was curled
asleep furthest from the fire and Cloud was rather shyly allowing Tifa to fall
asleep with her head in his lap. Barret
was snoring quietly for such a big man, flat out on the ground facing up to the
open stars. Yuffie had run off earlier
to catch something to eat and Vincent still hadn't shown up since he rescued
Tifa.
Cloud and Cid were the
only ones awake. They sat far from each
other looking ahead not speaking a word, not because they were angry at each
other, but because they had nothing to say and were too tired to start a
conversation.
Cid soon grunted and
mumbled some inaudible words, then hugged his small jacket closer to him. It was going to be a cold night. Cloud sighed sadly and lifted his head to
the sky, looking at the bright white stars wondering if Aries and his mother
were watching them right now. Here they
were, stranded on an island somewhere in the north without any mode of
transport or hardly any provisions left – the tents and other flammable things
had been burned to ashes, they had all nearly run out of magic completely and
their only Gold Chocobo, raised from an egg had been lost since the Highwind
broke apart in the blast from the Northern Crater.
They were completely
stranded on an island he was sure they'd never been to before, or at least, one
they didn't stay long on.
Someone stepped from the
shadows and Cloud could make out the shape of his friend Vincent. He came into the light of the fire and
settled himself down, cross-legged onto the ground opposite Cloud and
Tifa. He didn't say a word; just kept
his human hand clutched to his deformed one and his eyes cast down.
"Where have you been?"
Cloud asked gently, he knew by now that being harsh with Vincent would probably
make him even more silent and brooding.
"………"
"How's your arm? Will it
fix?" Vincent's scarlet eyes flashed up at him as if daring him to make
something of it, then shrugged and still he did not speak.
"I'm glad you got Tifa
out, thanks man."
"………" Cloud's legs were
beginning to go dead so he gently nudged Tifa until she woke then reluctantly
she pushed off and curled up in a ball next to him. With only a leather mini skirt and a small top on Cloud wondered
how it was she didn't feel the cold as much as him, his one bare shoulder with
the spike armour was already freezing.
Well, they were in the north somewhere.
"It was the least I
could do." Cloud's head shot up; surprised to hear Vincent speak.
"About what? Sorry."
"… You helped me get
revenge on Hojo a while back… It seemed only fair that I'd repay you back by
saving your girlfriend…" Cloud blushed.
"Well, er, we aren't
really a, thing… We never said."
"You should protect her…
Keep her safe and always with you…" Vincent's hollow and sad voice silenced and
he didn't say another word all night, or the next day until the group had
decided to see if they could salvage anything from the crash site.
"I found a whole pile of
items guys! I'll have 'em unless you get your butts moving quick enough!" Cid
and Red leapt up but before they could get to her, Yuffie had scooped the whole
lot in her arms and somersaulted backwards to land on a tree branch. She stood on one foot and stuck out her
tongue, pulled her eyelid down and laughed.
"NO ONE is faster than
the daughter of GODO! Namely ME!"
"Damn it girl! Get your
ass down here now!"
"I aint listening to you
old man! Come up here and get 'em for yourself!" Yuffie teased climbing higher
into the tree. Red mumbled a low growl
and shot past Cid leaping onto the tree trunk with the ease and skill of any
cat, in no time Yuffie screamed full of surprise and fell out of the tree to
land on her back, dropping the items around her. Red leapt down and made a triumphant pose.
"I was only having some
FUN! I wasn't REALLY going to pinch them!" She moaned standing to her feet and
looking around at everyone's angry expressions. It was clear they didn't think it was very funny. Vincent didn't look as though he really
cared though, as usual.
"Well now is not exactly
the time to be making jokes Yuffie." Cloud said coldly.
"Well EXCUUUSE ME!" She
folded her arms across her chest and remained obedient for the rest of the
day. What they all found at the end of
the second day was a lot of twisted and burnt metal and lots of empty potion
bottles, smashed and broken all around the site. They had been empty before but seeing them all there made the
group realise how bad their situation was.
At the campfire that night all were present and it was time to discuss
their situation, the items Yuffie had found turned out to be 26 grenades,
Cloud's old Buster sword, and one last remaining phoenix down, not much at all.
"What have you got Cid?"
Cloud said. "I mean in items." Cid reached into his trouser pockets and pulled
out a lot of strange looking things.
"Piece of string…" He
laid it out nicely smoothing down the edges before them all. "Ummm….some…thing I don't know. An old sandwich. I think." That too was
placed with as much care. "And of course, the most important thing – my fags."
He grinned laying out a packet of ten.
The group looked down at them with deep loathing.
"Is-that-all?" Barret
said slowly looking down at the measly little things.
"Yep. Sorry.
What have you got on ya?"
"Not a thang." Cait Sith
and Red also had nothing, Yuffie had to be caught and pinned down and Tifa was
very serious about the fact that Yuffie would rather have a woman search her
pockets than have men fondling about in them.
In the end, Cloud had one X-potion and three grenades, Cid had... well
nothing of use and Tifa had six Shinra dolls '12 in a set!' – no one did
know why they collected them but they all guessed it was just something to pick
up along the way with everything else.
"This doesn't make any
sense!" Cloud sighed throwing his arms up "We had loads more than this!
Where'd it all go?"
"Lost when the Highwind broke up – everything was stored
in the main storage compartment. All of
our savings, the molotov's and fire veils… everything's gone." Cid said. Cloud shook his head and piled the lot in
front of him.
"Well where shall we
keep all this stuff then?" Yuffie flinched and decided not to raise her hand.
"We can put them in… we
could, we could make some sort of chest and put it all in there." Red said
brightly. "But don't forget that tomorrow when we are all rested we can battle
with the local wildlife and gain more items – potions for example." That
comment seemed to cheer everyone up – they had forgotten the most obvious and
easiest way to get items and Gil in the world.
So on the second night at the crash site they all slept more soundly and
this time they had just managed to find one tent, which the girls had the luck
to occupy tonight. Cloud and Cid slept
on either side of the tent, Barret snoozed sitting up and Cait Sith was still
unmovable. Reeve might be dead.
Vincent never
slept. Since the day Cloud and Tifa
with Aries had opened his coffin and persuaded him to join them all he had
never shut his eyes for more than five minutes. He had slept for thirty years, full of nightmares and the
memories of his failure to protect Lucrecia from the mad wishes of Hojo, he was
afraid that if he did sleep again then the pain will come back and he'd never
be able to awaken again. It had been a
long time, journeying across the world trying to stay away from the Shinra and
find Sephiroth, in the time he had been with them he had grown in strength,
mastered the limit skill 'Chaos' and could now say that he did play a
part in the final battle for the planet.
The last battle with Jenova and Sephiroth was fought by Cloud, Yuffie
and himself – that was why she and himself were injured so badly afterwards. Although Yuffie had been saved by Tifa's
quick thinking and magic power, he had not yet managed to heal his arm, the
poison had somehow worn off him – he must have become immune to it. While his friends slept their HP and MP
restored itself but he had not slept for so long, his HP and MP was low and he
was getting more worried that one day, maybe soon, he'd sleep and then that'd
be the end of him.
He was fifty-seven. Fifty-seven, but still twenty-seven
in physical form. That was something he
could be proud of at least, when you are young, everyone wants to live forever
or at least stay looking young right into old age. He had wanted it then, now that he had it, it wasn't much fun.
There was another thing
troubling him apart from his fear of sleeping, it had been bothering him since
the death of Sephiroth, whilst still inside the northern crater. It was the love Cloud and Tifa held for each
other. He was worried because he
thought he was becoming more and more jealous of them each day. It saddened him to think that maybe he was
disgracing Lucrecia's memory by thinking about falling in love with other
women, not that he held any feelings for anyone right now. He just…
… He just wanted someone
to love him.
(Green_Pig:- AaaaawwwWW! I love Vincent so much! XD)
