The Phantom and the Firecat
Chapter one: Romanian Castle for lease, needs temporary housekeeper until previous owner pulls himself back together and gets stake out of chest.
Reno, and Rude looked every inch like successful business men as they got out of their chocobo drawn carriage, and with good reason: they were. In the rapidly growing city of Midgar, the two had made names for themselves in different businesses, but hit it off quickly once they met. Reno happened to be in charge of "Arrow Smiths" a company that specialized in fletchers at first but now also employed people who made all kinds of weapons. Rude was in charge of a construction company which was largely credited for laying one out of every 20 bricks in Midgar.
Their similar interests had brought them together, along with their similar ages, both of them were now 32 (or said they were) and had realized the importance of actually getting around to spending their money before they died and had to leave it to their relatives (who hadn't done ANYTHING to earn it, the lazy slobs) not to mention earning some good respect which would go a long way to helping them meet women who they might marry.
Of course, Rude would probably have more success at this than Reno, as Reno had leaned out the side of the carriage and given a wolf whistle to every woman he found attractive on the way there. When they had put their heads together, purchasing the Midgar Central Opera House (or MCOH) had seemed like a great idea. Classy, inexpensive, useable as a tax write off, and it wasn't like they had to ever actually attend any of their new business productions. Besides, Reno had raised the point that "Do you like opera? Because I own a place where we can see one!" would prove a good way to start any conversation with a woman.
While neither of them happened to know the slightest thing about running an Opera house, they had done some intensive research beforehand. Mainly, research that said that the opera house was currently owned by a man who had made his fortune as, well, a soldier of fortune. Figuring out that a less cultured profession could hardly exist, clearly this opera was already in the nature of running itself. It ran itself, and their research had shown that it made money.
Places that ran themselves and made money were always a good investment. At least that was what they were both thinking to themselves as they started to enter the building. This theory was slightly dented by the man who met them as they entered. He was wearing a beat up green outfit, with his long orange hair tied back in a series of braids. "Are you two the new vic.. I mean, owners?"
Reno took a long moment to straighten his blue coat as Rude did the same. "Yes, I am Reno, and this is Mr. Rude and you are?" At hearing his affirmative, (Rude had agreed ahead of time to let Reno do the talking (however wise (or unwise) this was)) the man instantly grabbed their hands and began to vigorously pump them up and down without any of his prior formality.
"So good to have you here, I don't know if I could have lasted another week! My name is Bernadette, Pip Bernadette, and I'm going back to mercenary work, at least in that profession people only shoot at you!" The two businessmen looked at each other, they had worked together for two years, long enough to communicate things to each other, and this one was plainly obvious.
It was like when you were at a ribbon cutting ceremony, and after you cut the ribbon the entire building fell down. This was not a good sign. Something very odd was going on here for a place that was solidly in the black and supposedly managed itself. Once Pip finally managed to stop shaking their hands he began to look around in his jacket turning out his pockets as he did so.
"I'll find the deed for you, I know I have it on me, just give me a moment... What he pulled out did not look like the deed. It looked like a letter, and apparently the seal was a sight to behold. For some reason Pip gave out a scream of fright and ran down the street without a single glance backwards as he went. Rude watched him go and stroked his chin. "What could make a sensible man do such a thing?"
While Rude was surprised, Reno was simply pissed off. "Yeah, I mean he just ran off without giving us the deed, the chiseller!" This was something of a standard conversation between the two of them, and Rude bent down to pick up the letter. It's seal bore a picture of an elaborate tree, and with a small knife he kept on him at all times, he sliced the letter open. He unfurled it and read what it said to his partner. "Dear Mr. Bernadette... It's been profitable, and I wish you only the best. Still, I would have expected you to run all potential buyers past ME! As for the new managers, PTO."
Rude flipped over the letter and continued to read. "To the new 'owners': welcome to my opera house. Please, do tread lightly as I have the greatest desire to keep it in a state of good repair and performing works of the utmost quality. I hope Mr. Bernadette explained things to you, but if he failed to do so, the duty, like most important ones, falls to me. In the soul of wit, I shall be brief.
As long as you do not set foot where you have not been invited, leave my traditional 50,000 gil salary in box five every month (which is, of course, to be left empty during every production so I may observe performances), we shall get along quite well. If you need further clarification see, Ms. Kantar, for whose services, if you are anything like Mr. Bernadette, you will be extremely grateful. Yours sincerely, OG."
Rude and Reno looked at each other, there was something very odd going on here, and they would get to the bottom of it, if they had to take this opera house apart brick by brick then put it back together. The hell if Reno was going to give up money for no good reason!
It had been easy to find Ms. Kantar; she had spotted them wandering around and called them over. She looked to be between 40 and 50 yeas old, with graying brown hair parted by a streak of pure white. Her age showed in her face, but Reno knew something else the moment he saw her.
His Don Juan-Dar, was telling him that if she had been 10 or so years younger he would have already have been hitting on her. Sadly she wasn't, so Reno acquiesced and simply showed her the respect due to a woman who you were paying to make you money. "Ms. Kantar I presume?" Ms. Kantar looked up from the group of women who she had been overseeing.
"You're the new owners, then? I prefer to be referred to as 'Mirri' by the way. Forgive an old lady her eccentricities, but it makes me feel younger." Reno just shrugged, he didn't have the most experience with women who were older than him, so he followed the rule of thumb for dealing with women who he expected to spend more than a few weeks with. Go along with the request, however absurd, till it was over.
"Okay then Mirri, my name is Reno, can you explain this?" Reno held up the letter for Mirri to read, and she took it. After a while she looked up and smiled a smile at him that he didn't like. He wasn't supposed to be smiled at like that, it was the way you smiled at someone when they were getting the short end of the stick. "OG: It stands for Opera Ghost. He lives in here." Reno looked at her and waited to see her laugh or do something to prove that she was joking.
Nothing came, so there was only one thing Reno could do. "Oh my God! Our opera house is possessed, Rude, we need an old priest, and a young priest!" No sooner had Rude turned than had Mirri amended her words. "Not that kind of ghost. He's more like the Janitor, in the sense that he's everywhere if you aren't looking for him, nowhere if you are, and he has ways of making his desires known." "The janitor?" Reno was perplexed, but he quickly realized that he preferred confusion to knowledge. "That's right, the Janitor, nobody even cares enough about me to call me by my name."
Reno spun around, and was amazed that a man who was so tall could move so silently. He towered over Reno's 5'8 by the better part of a foot. He looked down at Reno, with a chin that looked like its owner needed to spend a bit more time shaving, or do so with more care. "Oh, what do you do here, sir?" The man was leaning on a long mop, which had apparently seen a few too many years of use.
"It's my job to keep this place in a fine state of repair." Reno looked around, and he silently wondered if the Janitor did any actual work. Then he turned back around to face Mirri. "So, pray tell, what exactly happens if I should say, refuse to leave my money waiting around for some random guy to come and take it?"
Mirri shrugged, and gave Reno that annoying smile again. "It's impossible to tell, this opera house can be a very risky place; things can go wrong at a moment's notice. You have until the end of the month before you decide to pay up, so maybe what you'll see will help you make up your mind." Even as Mirri spoke, a young girl dashed into the room. She was a brunette, with reddish-brown eyes, and she had "vast tracks of land" as Reno's father had described such traits.
Even as Reno planned exactly what compliment to give the girl, the praise died on his lips as Mirri spoke. "This is my ward Tifa, her father left her with me to teach her how to make her way in the world." The way that Mirri said "ward" Reno instantly pull back from the girl mentally and almost do so physically as well. You just plain didn't hit on some people. "Now then, what is it Tifa?"
Tifa, appeared on the edge of panic as she answered. "It's horrible, the one of the backdrops has fallen on Scarlet!"
Reno scratched his chin wondering what exactly he had just bought himself into, and clearly Rude was thinking the same time. "Scarlet?" Mirri took a moment to ruffle Tifa's hair playfully before she turned to Reno. "Don't worry about it Tifa, I'll take care of this. As for your two concerns, Scarlet is our star performer if she's seriously hurt I'll need to take some drastic actions."
Reno and Rude, looked at each other. "What, are we gonna do about this? " Rude shrugged helplessly. "I'd say the same thing that that Pip guy did, unload it." Reno was tempted to slap Rude. "Of course that's what we're gonna do! We've got a ghost that's cutting out of our pay check, a star who can't perform, we're gonna need to find the first idiot we can unload this place on, then we buy an operahouse that doesn't need an exorcist!"
Sadly, while Reno and Rude were making plans to flee the theater, and possibly the city, just to escape the stigma of this idiotic purchase, Mirri busted them stone cold. She walked into the room, flanked by two younger women. One of them had a figure that doubtlessly someone could have found pleasing, Reno just wasn't that person. Her otherwise attractive appearance reeked of effort, the filmy red garments, the lack of a bra accompanying said garments, it was like he was being bludgeoned over the head with the woman's sexuality.
There was nothing wrong with getting that from a girl he'd be banging for one night and tossing her out the morning after stuffing money into her panties, (assuming he wasn't keeping them for a trophy of his victory), but it was a little offputting in someone who was technically one of his employees. The limp she was walking with was a turn off, too.
The other girl, smaller overall (though they were about the same height) fell smack dab in the middle of 'easy on the eyes' without anything more needing to be said. Mirri glared briefly at the managers, then took a moment to introduce her companions. "This on my right (the braless wonder) is Scarlet, our normal star performer. Following the latest in a long string of accidents to which she has fallen victim, she has refused to sing, and is only here now because I promised her she could be theatrically offended at you over the whole situation. I lied." As Scarlet was about to protest, Mirri turned to her and raised her left hand, placing it alongside her own face with her fingertips at eye level. Scarlet paled, then fled. Mirri resumed her introduction; "this on my left is Aeris Gaste. With your permission, I'd like to have her play the lead. Let her sing for you, she has been trained by... a master."
The tone that Mirri used was one Reno familiar with. It was the tone of a woman who was making a suggestion that wasn't really a suggestion; anyone who could use that tone so well would have made an excellent mother in Reno's book. "Of course!" Reno and Rude nodded stupidly as they prepared to sit down and delay their departure from this black hole from which no sane man seemed to escape.
It was unclear how much of Aeris' voice could be credited to her mysterious tutor, and how much was just innate talent. However, to those with Reno and Rude's level of cultural awareness, it was a non-issue. They didn't know, nor did they need to know, why she sounded good, it was enough that she did. "Good" being a masterful understatement- Aeris had a light, clear voice that was pleasantly devoid of Scarlet's penchant for shrillness(to which many of the opera employees attributed her string of accidents- clearly the Ghost was a music lover)
After having heard the girl sing, Reno and Rude pounded each other on the back and jumped up and down in a way that, knowing them to be middle aged businessmen with no immediate prospects for getting laid, could only mean one thing: they were going to be making a lot of money. "Did you hear that girl's voice?" "We're going to make millions of gil! Mirri does all the work, and we get all the cash!"
"I told you this place was a good buy." "We can be accredited for being the people who discovered a new opera sensation!" In all this merry making, neither Rude now Reno took time to wonder about the Opera Ghost, as least not until the facts hit them right on the head. Not surprisingly this happened about the same time as the sandbags did.
FN: The Firecat and Sephiroth clone writing and editing team is back in action! This fic is more or less going to be the opposite of Twilight Perfection where in you had FF7's plot but with most of the protagonists played by OCs. Here you'll have a plot which has more or less nothing to do with FF7 but only a few OCs and only in the minor parts. In the next chapter expect Viscount Strife to show up and find out that he's got his work cut out for him if want to woo the opera houses lastest star. The former owner of the opera house belongs to Kohta Hirano. The Janitor belongs to Bill Lawrence. Mirri belongs to me, or maybe I belong to her, who cares?
OWAN: Mirri's name will continue to change with every incarnation, if only to avoid the temptation of fourth-wall breaking.