Hello again, everyone, I'm Mengde. Yes, it says in my profile that I'm retired, but I left an escape clause in there saying I might post one-shots! Ha! Anyway.
I was chatting with my lovely beta VulcanElf the other night. To make a long story short, I said I would accept a prompt from her for a short piece and write it - just for fun. What she gave me was a prompt for a "fill-in-the-blanks" piece - a story set during the events of the game, when the focus for the player was elsewhere. It was as follows:
"The story must feature Vincent, Yuffie, and a third party member of your choice, showing what they get up to when left behind by Cloud and the main party at the Gold Saucer. Vincent must be horrified at some point, and he must at some point also enjoy himself unexpectedly."
So, that said, here's Enchantment Night!
Enchantment Night
Written by Mengde
For VulcanElf
It was a magical night at the Gold Saucer. The moon was full, fireworks filled the air, and the staff had declared it Enchantment Night, all attractions free of charge.
Vincent Valentine did not care. He was stuck in a ghost-themed hotel with a petulant sixteen-year-old, a one-armed man, and a talking cat.
Their esteemed leader was out on a date with one of the other members of the party – Vincent had not paid attention to who it was, choosing instead to reflect on the frivolous waste of time that their continued presence here represented. He could retire to his room as some of the others had, but he didn't like to sleep, these days. Nor did he especially like to be alone, though he would never admit that to anyone.
So he sat there in the lobby of the hotel, watching Yuffie try to arm-wrestle Barret as Cait Sith cheered them on in its annoying voice.
For the fifth time, Barret made a show of letting Yuffie struggle to push his enormous arm down toward the table, a big grin on his face, before slamming her hand down, hard. "DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS?" he hooted. "DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MESS WITH THE WARRIOR?"
Vincent thought fondly about what would happen if he put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It would be so peaceful.
"Barret five, Yuffie zero," Cait Sith pronounced. "Another round? Double or nothing?"
"I'm bored of this stupid game," Yuffie said. She had been more than a little irritable since Cloud and his date had disappeared out the door. Vincent suspected she might have a crush on the blonde.
"Then pay up," Barret said. "Hundred gil."
Yuffie made a series of low noises which might have been obscenities if she hadn't been mumbling them. She tossed a bill at the big man before practically bounding out of her chair to come stand in front of Vincent.
He eyed her as she looked up at him, a perky expression on her face. This was going to be painful, he could tell.
"Vinnie," she said.
"That is not my name."
"Don't care! Take me on a date."
"No."
"Please take me on a date?"
"No."
Yuffie crossed her arms, pouting. "Why not?"
Vincent blinked, very slowly, just once.
"Oooh, what's the matter, Vincent?" Cait Sith called. "Afraid you might actually enjoy yourself for once?"
"I will ensure nobody finds your body," Vincent told the mog, his voice deadly serious.
"Fine. I didn't want to do this, but…" Yuffie stood on her tiptoes so she could whisper in Vincent's ear. "Take me out on a date, or you'll never see your Restore Materia again."
"That's ridiculous," Vincent said. "It's right – " He paused. He could have sworn he'd put it right there, in his pocket. Had he? He was almost sure of …
He looked down at Yuffie. "Where. Is. It."
"One date. Then I'll give it back to you. It'll be fun!"
"Yuffie, I have no compunctions about performing an unpleasant search of your person to get it back."
"Hey now, tiger. Dinner and a movie first. Whaddaya say?"
"No. Now give it back."
"Go out with me or you'll have to talk to Aerith if you want a Cure."
"Looks like she's got you by the short hairs, Vincent!" Cait Sith crowed. "What are you going to do now?"
Cid spoke up from the rocking chair in the corner where he'd been snoozing for the last hour. "Fer fuck's sake, Valentine, take the bitch out on a fucking date. What's the worst thing that could happen?"
"I think he just doesn't want to admit how much he wants to have hot, broody babies with me."
Barret gave a loud guffaw. "Hey now, kids. Don't make me turn the hose on ya. Clearly you need a chaperone. Let's go."
Vincent blinked again. "Did the two of you just miss the part where I said 'no' several times?"
Giving Vincent a painfully wide grin, Barret looped an arm around his shoulders. "Valentine, lemme 'splain somethin' to ya," he said. "Sometimes, you just gotta buckle down and ride it out. The girl ain't takin' no for an answer. And let's face it, you need that Materia back." He brought his face very close to Vincent's, who was already intensely uncomfortable with the situation. "And besides," Barret continued in a low voice, "if I don't get the hell out of here soon, I'm gonna stick my hand down that fuckin' cat's throat and just go crazy. And I'm not talkin' 'bout my good one."
"I have no say in this matter, do I," Vincent said. It was not a question.
"Nope." Barret stepped back. "You kids ready for a magical evenin' of excitement and fun?"
"Yay!" Yuffie laughed, looping her arm around Vincent's.
"Fuckin' wonderful," Cid said. "Get the fuck out!"
Vincent let them lead him out of the hotel. The doors closed behind him like the cell door of a prisoner on his way to the gallows.
The Gold Saucer awaited them.
"Where should we go first?" Yuffie asked, clutching Vincent's arm.
Vincent wondered if there was a square in the Gold Saucer where they performed assisted suicides.
"How 'bout Wonder Square?" Barret asked. "The games there are some good fun. You like fun as much as the next guy, right, Valentine?"
Vincent refrained from telling Barret that the only way that statement could be right was if the 'next guy' was Sephiroth. Instead, he resigned himself to his fate as Yuffie gave a delighted squeal and pulled him toward the tunnel.
One unpleasant ride later, they emerged into Wonder Square. It was full of young people queued up at the various attractions. They were cheering, hooting, and making other gratingly loud noises whenever something even remotely interesting happened. The decibel levels in the room spiked as the 3-D Battler opponent laid a young man out on his back with a devastating haymaker to his face. Vincent, his enhanced hearing letting him pick up every single individual yell, grimaced.
"Oooh! I want to play this one!" Yuffie said, staring in near-rapture at the snowboarding game.
The guy playing the game looked over his shoulder at her. "Fuck off."
"Don't feel bad, kiddo," Barret said, laying a hand on Yuffie's shoulder. "Jackass told Cloud the same thing, earlier. Who the hell knows when he's gonna leave."
"Vincent," Yuffie whined. "You're my date. Beat this guy up."
"Absolutely not."
"Fine. Barret, could you – Barret?" Yuffie stopped as she realized he was no longer standing behind her. Vincent saw him quickly enough: the big man had noticed the arm-wrestling game. Now he stood in front of it, cracking his knuckles, a big grin on his face.
Yuffie blew out a dramatic sigh. "Looks like our chaperone has abandoned us, Vinnie. Oh, the horror."
"Tragic," Vincent said. He could not have sounded less interested if he had tried.
"Win me something," Yuffie commanded him.
Vincent gave her a look of vague disgust. "Must I?"
"If you ever wanna see your Restore Materia again, yeah."
With a sigh, Vincent surveyed the room, trying to locate the game that seemed least heinous to play. He started to move toward one of the crane games – they seemed to be drawing little attention, so he could suffer his humiliation with quiet, unobserved dignity – but he felt Yuffie give another tug on his arm.
"I want you to win me that," she said, pointing at the large stuffed mog which was the prize for beating the high score on the bike racing game. It looked like a scaled-up version of Cait Sith, complete with irritating smile and a cheery thumbs-up gesture.
"If you insist," Vincent sighed. He really would have to start securing his Materia more carefully from now on.
He watched the boy currently playing the game. It seemed simple enough. And at least she hadn't asked him to play the 3-D Battler, which was right in the center of the room. When the boy finished, Vincent got on the bike. He felt like everyone was staring at him, considering that he was easily the most distinctive-looking person there – Barret included.
"Don't forget to have fun, Vinnie!" Yuffie cheered from behind him.
Vincent gave her a dark look over his shoulder.
The game began. Vincent had never played it before, but he had driven motorcycles more than once. He performed a few turns to get used to the controls, finding that he could speed up or slow down but not stop. He could make his character attack to either side by pressing a button located on the respective handlebar. He settled in for what he expected to be an easy game.
Two minutes later, when the game informed him that he had managed to score in the bottom eight percent of the leaderboard, Vincent felt his lip curl in frustration.
"Tough break there, Vinnie," Yuffie said. "Well, no big deal."
"The game cheats," Vincent said darkly. "I am clearly not meant to win." He pressed the start button on the motorcycle's dashboard.
"Vinnie?" Yuffie asked.
"I intend to win you that mog," Vincent said, grasping the handlebars again. It was a matter of pride at this point. He was not about to let some game beat him.
He did much better this time, but not better enough. The mog hung there above the game, taunting him. He pressed start again.
Vincent was sure he could do it the next time. A boy in line asked for a turn; he glared at him. The boy fled, the blood draining from his face in terror. Vincent pressed start again.
He could not recall being this irritated – well, that was not true. But he could feel his teeth grinding. He would have had it, but the game had thrown six enemies at him simultaneously. With a growl, Vincent jabbed the start button.
Relief, and an odd sense of victory, flooded him. He'd done it. As he stepped off the motorcycle controller, one of the employees flashed him a practiced smile and handed him the mog. "Congratulations, sir," the young man said. "You've set our new top score."
"Thank you," Vincent said gravely. "It was not easy." He turned around, looking for Yuffie.
Something was wrong. She was standing off in a corner by herself, staring at him. The expression on her face did not suggest she was happy.
Still, Vincent thought, she had been the one who had told him to win the mog. And he had. She had no right to complain that it had taken a few tries. He walked over to her, the mog under one arm. "I have won it for you," he said, holding it out for her to take.
Yuffie gave him a disgusted look. "I don't want your stupid mog," she said, giving it a shove. "And I sure as hell don't want to spend any more time with you." She stormed past him, stopped at the arm-wrestling game where Barret was in a close contest with a projection of a beefy-looking wrestler. Sweat was pouring off Barret and he looked like he was barely holding his own.
"Have fun, 'warrior,'" Yuffie said before she kicked him in the shin, hard. Barret let out an explosive gasp just before the game slammed his arm down hard enough to make the floor rattle. Without another word, Yuffie fled.
"Vincent, the hell did you do?" Barret demanded, hauling himself back to his feet.
Vincent looked at him, at the mog, then back to Barret.
"I have no idea," he said.
It was not hard to track Yuffie. The sight of a bemused man wandering through the Golden Saucer clutching a large stuffed mog led more than one employee to tell him in which direction his 'girlfriend' had gone.
Vincent found her in Round Square. She had just gotten onto one of the gondolas by herself. It was a short circuit, only two cars on it at a time. Before the ride could start, Vincent leapt the barrier, ignoring the protests of the employee on hand. The gondola shuddered to life just as he got into Yuffie's car.
Yuffie looked up at him. With a jolt, Vincent realized her eyes were red.
"What do you want?" Yuffie asked. "Why are you even here? You obviously don't care about me. You just feel guilty or what?"
Vincent opened his mouth to speak, then decided he felt entirely too silly while he continued to hold the large stuffed mog. He gently placed it down on the seat next to him before he spoke his mind. "Yuffie, I am not sure what I did wrong. You asked me to win you this mog, so I did. It just took me a few tries."
"Vincent, I don't actually give a crap about the stupid mog!" Yuffie said. "I only asked you to win it for me because that's what people who go out on dates at the Gold Saucer do! It didn't matter if you won or not."
Vincent blinked. "What?"
"Dammit, Vincent, I just felt like the third wheel, you know? When those two waltzed out of the hotel and left the rest of us behind like they didn't even care – ugh!" Yuffie clenched her fist. "All I wanted was not to feel that way anymore, but you couldn't even turn off your asshole mysterious cloaked badass mode long enough to realize that. You were angry at me, and then you started taking it out on the game."
Vincent shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The car reached the end of the circuit and began making its way back to the dock.
"And now you don't even have anything to say! If you weren't gonna apologize or try to make things better, Vincent, why the hell did you even follow me?"
"I –" Vincent looked away from her. "I don't know."
Yuffie gave a high-pitched shriek of what sounded like rage as she grabbed the mog and tossed it right out of their car. Vincent watched it fall until it disappeared into the midnight darkness below.
"You're an idiot, Vincent Valentine. An idiot!"
Before Vincent could say anything else, the gondola suddenly ground to a halt. A nervous-sounding voice came over the speakers. "Uh, sorry to interrupt your evening, folks, but we have to stop the ride for a bit. Minor technical problems. No biggie."
"Oh, great." Yuffie threw up her hands. "I'm stuck on a gondola with the biggest idiot in the world, and the only person I can really blame is me. How could this possibly get worse?"
"Barret is climbing out of the car across from us and onto the roof," Vincent said.
"WHAT?" Yuffie rushed to the side of the car and stuck her head out the window.
Sure enough, Barret had apparently boarded the other gondola car on their circuit. He was now on the roof, getting ready to jump across to their own car. Vincent, despite his calm analysis of the situation, was actually quite worried. What was Barret doing?
Their car rocked as Barret landed. A moment later, the big man came in through the window. "Hey, kids!" he said breathlessly.
"Barret, what the hell are you doing?" Yuffie demanded.
"Well, after you two left, I tried the arm-wrestlin' game again," Barret said. "Didn't do so well, though. The asshole playin' the snowboardin' game called me a loser, so I punched him." He grinned weakly. "Same time as a couple of security folks were walkin' by."
"You didn't," Vincent said, hoping that if he said it flatly enough it would become magically true.
"Yeah. So I chased after the two of you, tryin' to get away. I figure they'll be looking for one guy who got on the gondola by himself, not one guy who's getting' off the gondola with two other people."
"Barret, the employee at the station saw me jump the barrier to get into this car. He'll remember my face. And he'll remember that you were not with us when we first departed."
"The hell else are we gonna do then, Valentine? I ain't goin' back down to the desert! It was a huge pain in our assholes gettin' out of there the first time!"
"It's official. I hate everything right now," Yuffie said. "Things officially cannot possibly get worse."
It was then that Vincent heard the telltale creaking of strained supports from the roof above them.
"Barret," he said calmly, "how much do you weigh?"
"'S kind of a personal question, Valentine," Barret said. "Why?"
Without thinking, Vincent grabbed Yuffie and Barret by their collars with his right hand. He leapt out the window even as the supports on what had been specifically designed as a two-person car – restraints that had been further tested by Barret's rough landing – snapped. He had no way to angle his jump for the far cable car because they were leaping out of the window, not off of the roof, so he instead reached for the far cable. A moment later Vincent felt his shoulder wrench as his gauntleted fingers closed around the steel line. Their ill-fated car plummeted away from them toward the desert below.
"WearegoingtoDIE!" Yuffie shrieked, scrabbling for a grip on Vincent's right arm.
"The hell happened?" Barret bellowed, also trying his best to hold onto Vincent.
"Car… weight capacity…" Vincent grunted, his body feeling like it was trying to tear itself apart. He was strong, but he had limits.
"That's bullshit! Who the hell builds shit that cheap?"
"Have you… met… Dio?"
"Point."
Vincent strained to pull them farther up, but the effort just exhausted him and made their position more precarious. He might have been able to do it if he had the use of both his arms, but right now they were occupied with keeping the three of them from falling to their very unpleasant and messy deaths.
"Vinnie?" Yuffie said, her voice shrill. "If we're really gonna die, then I'm sorry I got mad at you and yelled at you and stuff."
"We are not going to die," Vincent groaned. "Not for a few minutes, anyway."
"That's reassurin'," Barret said.
"Accept my apology, dammit!" Yuffie snapped. "If we die without making up I'm not gonna get into Heaven."
"If we die, Valentine, I'm gonna kill ya," Barret added.
The effort of holding them up almost too much for him to bear, Vincent snarled, "This is your fault anyway! I should just drop you!"
"My fault? Valentine, if you weren't such a tight-assed son of a bitch, you wouldn'a pissed off Princess here, she wouldn'a kicked me, and I wouldn'a lost the damn game."
"Princess?" Yuffie shrieked. "I'll show you who's a princess!" She tried to kick Barret in the groin. The swinging motion only exacerbated the strain on Vincent's body.
"Yuffie," he choked out. "Can't do that."
"We're gonna die anyway, Vinnie, I might as well!"
"You crazy bitch, you ain't helpin' us out here!" Barret yelled.
"ENOUGH!"
Both Barret and Yuffie looked up at Vincent. He forced more air into his lungs with a deep breath. If they really were going to die anyway…
"Enough," he repeated. "Yuffie, I am sorry I was not a good date. I have difficulty… being a person, sometimes." He paused. "Barret, I am sorry too."
"Damn right you oughta be!"
He expected a similar retort from Yuffie, but he didn't get one. Instead, she asked him, "You really mean that?"
"Yes," Vincent said, barely able to speak for the pain now.
"Then screw dying!" Yuffie said. "I got an idea."
"I hate the sound of this already," Barret said.
"Shut up and shoot the cable!"
"There… could be… other cars," Vincent gasped.
"It's a two-car circuit and we had the only ones! Shoot the damn cable, Barret!"
"Don't have to tell me twice!" Barret angled his gun-arm up at the steel line and fired.
Vincent understood Yuffie's plan a split second before the cable snapped under Barret's assault. All the tension went right out of the line. It began to fall, arcing in a graceful parabolic curve back toward the Gold Saucer.
With a mighty effort, Vincent held onto Yuffie and Barret as they collided with the side of the structure. He gasped at the pain, but the plan had worked. Even as Vincent scrabbled with his boots for purchase, Yuffie and Barret grabbed the cable, which it was now possible for them to reach, removing the incredible strain from Vincent's body. He wrapped his right arm around the cable and just hung there for a moment, breathing hard, feeling the pounding of his heart.
"That was the craziest thing I ever done," Barret said breathlessly.
Vincent tested his grip and began to climb.
Dio had been so mortified by the cable car's faulty supports that he'd personally apologized to the three of them, promised to let the matter of the man Barret had injured slide, and offered to let them stay in the inn at Ghost Square for as long as they wanted.
None of them had been particularly enthused by the idea.
Now Vincent stood on one of the rotundas of the Gold Saucer, staring out at the night sky as the fireworks erupted all around them. He had to admit that despite the disaster the evening had been, he was glad he was still alive.
He became aware of Yuffie's approach only a moment before she sidled up to him – after all, she was a ninja. "Hey," she said.
"Hey," he replied, the greeting sounding awkward coming from him.
"Did you really mean what you said back there?" Yuffie asked. "Or were you just saying whatever you thought would make us cool before we died?"
Vincent rubbed at his eyes. "Yes, Yuffie. I meant what I said."
She grinned at him. "So. Vincent Valentine just admitted to me that he has a hard time being a person. This is some fantastic blackmail, man. What to do, what to do."
"Do whatever you want," Vincent said, pointedly looking at the sky and not at her. "Everyone knows it already."
"That doesn't matter. What matters is that you admitted it and said you're sorry for it. That's what's important." With a sigh, Yuffie nestled herself against Vincent's side, underneath his arm.
"What are you doing?" Vincent asked.
"What the hell does it look like I'm doing? I'm cuddling. We just nearly died back there, Vinnie. You don't feel like celebrating how Barret's stupidity didn't quite kill us?" As she spoke she wrapped an arm around his waist, far too casually for it to be anything but premeditated.
Well. This was going in a direction he hadn't expected.
"But," Vincent said, "Yuffie – I will be blunt. I thought you only forced me to go on this date with you because you felt like a third wheel. I thought you had a crush on Cloud."
That provoked a hearty laugh from her. "Vincent, you're still an idiot," Yuffie said. "If I had a crush on Cloud, you could bet your ass that I'd be the one on the date with him right now, not that… bimbo." She stood on her tiptoes again to plant a peck on his cheek, smiling mischievously as the color rose in his face. "Also, I was bluffing about the Restore Materia thing. I have no more idea where you left it than you do. I just saw it wasn't in your pocket. Don't you know anything about girls?"
Vincent wrapped his own arm around Yuffie's shoulders. "I suppose I do not."
Yuffie peered up at him. "Vinnie, is that a smile I see on your face?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Vincent said as flatly as he could. He didn't sound particularly genuine, even to his own ears, but he could live with that.
They watched the fireworks together, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, Vincent Valentine had fun.
Fin