Kamikaze Moogle

Disclaimer: I do not, nor do I claim to, own anything with reference to Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, or anything having to do with all those folks. Lah dee dah. And, props to FaithfulFeather for feeding my inspiration while I wrote this first chapter.

Chapter One

Thorn blinked her eyes slowly, her breathing equally sedate. The plain black text against the white toolbar of her laptop informing her that it was no longer late, but early. Her tired brain urged her to close the white iBook, to turn off the surgically white light overhead and remove the rounded rectangle glasses perched on her nose. Her sleep-deprived brain urged her to let go of the white and fall happily into the black.

Yet there was a sort of awake calm about her at the same time. Some mad combination of the knowledge that she was the only one within her hearing or sight awake other than her best friend, and that she, Thorn, had surpassed the night into the dark-held day; a combination of that knowledge and artificially-alert senses kept her attentive, her myopic eyes using their aids effectively in order to decipher the small text on the computer screen into words comprehendible by her young mind. Thorn looked away from the screen for a moment, sparing a second to reach out with her right hand to clasp nimble fingers about a crinkly yellow Nestle bag. Shaking a few semi-sweet chocolate chips into her left hand, Thorn tipped her head back, popping back the tiny opieds like pills to fuel her campaign against the armies of fatigue and exhaustion (which might as well have been the same thing, it mattered little.)

With the intent of wiping any microscopic trace of the fast-melting chocolate that might have been left on her palms, Thorn wiped her extremities on the knees of her dark green cargo pants, pushing up her glasses by the small section holding together both lenses with her middle finger, then allowing her hands to resume their place at the keyboard, typing away without having to consciously consult her memory as to where each letter went. As she finished her sentence, Thorn found herself craving that prized, tiny green object. Lifting herself from the white sheets of the bed she, two laptops and a best friend shared, Thorn crossed the room where a black sweatshirt lay crumpled on the floor. Rummaging through the kangaroo pocket, small pale scars flashed against tan skin as Thorn's hands disappeared into the extensive folds of her uncle's sweatshirt, until finally (after a second or two) her fingers closed around it. Drawing it out into the surgical illumination of the room, Thorn's left hand thumb slid over the metal wheel swiftly, pressing down on the red button in that closest instant. A burst of thin, gas-fed fire poured forth from the metal head of the lighter, disappearing as Thorn lost interest and stopped holding down the necessary gas-provider.

The need to pee drove Thorn to her feet once more, glancing over at the girl on the bed, maneuvering a black laptop momentarily before walking silently through the door. The darkness of the hallway was absolute, a thin line of yellow giving Thorn some hint as to where everything was. After she had reached the stairs however, only her feet told her where she was going. Making out shapes in the dark once the light had disappeared was nearly impossible. In fact, Thorn wondered whether what she thought she saw was the frame of the bathroom door or merely swirling blackness before her eyes after the stairwell. Once stairs had separated Thorn from the one room in which light still held, the house seemed to grow in size, dark mirages convulsing and swirling before her. The house seemed derelict now, and would have disturbed Thorn if she had not had the mindset to remember quite plainly that she was here with Lily.

A minute or so later Thorn was back on the bed, her eyes staring in a manner appearing much more forlorn than was truthfully reflected in Thorn's psyche. She popped a few more chocolate chips into her mouth, chewing the soft morsels pensively. Suddenly, there was a small jerk. Thorn's brown eyes locked onto the blue-gray ones of Lily. There was another jerk, bigger this time, then quiet. Thorn and Lily shared a look for a moment, then looked into the distance through the window with concern.

"Lil…" said Thorn, in a voice tugged on by the roughness of dissolved, cheap chocolate and tiredness, deeper and more hoarse than normal. "That's the second in two days…" Lily said nothing, her eyes not returning to her friend as though she was waiting for anything more. When nothing else happened, she looked back at Thorn.

"Yeah…and you know what that means…" Lily's face held no expression to clue Thorn in as to what she was talking about—other than, of course, what everyone said these days: 'the big one's coming.'

"Hmm?" Thorn replied.

"The apocalypse." The utter deadpan nature of the way this line was delivered made it amusing. Thorn's face split into a grin and she chuckled slightly as she rolled her eyes.

"Well, at least that was original," she said, drawing her umber eyes back down from the ceiling. They lapsed into silence once more, each making a shoddy half-job at trying to write something decent and find any interesting fan fiction online at the same time.

Within about ten minutes, the words, "Hey, I think I found something," emitted from Lily. "This thing is SOOOOO cute! Chicken, you have to read this!" Without even bothering to think twice about the use of her nickname, Thorn nodded and replied.

"Send it to me."

"Mkay." Thorn opened a new window in the Safari browser she had been examining, clicking through various windows on until she reached her own page.

New messages!read a vermillion link halfway down, which Thorn clicked, eyes trailing over the familiar anime drawing of an innocent-looking chibi child with a bloody club held behind its back that was Lily's icon. Clicking on the linked subject of the message, Thorn copy-pasted the link inside and eyed the 'new blood' of a fan fic as it loaded. Thorn was halfway through reading the first lines when a definite jolt ran through the house, a more violent earthquake than before, and closer to the previous one than either Thorn or Lily cared to note.

However, unlike previous tremors, this one did not subside. Another jolt followed, then a terrible shaking, making the bed the two girls rested on quiver viciously.

"Holy shit, what the fuck?" said Thorn sharply, her protective, motherly instincts toward her laptop kicking in as her hands closed the computer sharply and tucked it into her arms.

"This is insane—Chicken, doorways!" Lily said over the growing roar of quaking earth. Thorn picked up her leather fingerless gloves reflexively (one's brain does not always operate plainly when the entire house was shaking) and set down her laptop on the floor as she and Lily both went to Lily's doorway hugging the frame for support.

"This is crazy! We haven't had an earthquake like this in a mother-fucking century!" cried Thorn.

"Some night for my mom and dad to leave us alone," said Lily in a dry tone as the lights went out abruptly, leaving them in the swirling, shaking darkness. Thorn did not answer as the shaking continued, books falling from their haphazard piles with resounding thunks. In that moment the blackness all around them seemed to convulse, then shift, and before either knew what was happening, flashes of streaming green filled their surroundings, interspersed with the new darkness that had replaced the shaking one from before. Thorn's eyes squeezed shut, blotting out the glare of pale green.

And all at once, it stopped.

Thorn's umber eyes opened slowly, their first concern immediately known as her gaze jumped to Lily, who remained by her side.

"Hey, Chicken, y'okay?" The words from the older girl satisfied Thorn's desire to be sure Lily was all right.

"Yeah, fine…what the fuck?" The words jumped from her mouth almost in reflex, as though anything that happened now would be met with that profane response. For now that Thorn had allowed her attention to move to other things not associated with Lily, she realized that they were no longer in Lily's house at all. They were outside in an area densely forested, with a night (or day?) sky overhead barely visible, and from what Thorn's adjusting eyes could see, terrain covered in shrubs and of an extremely uneven nature.

"Jesus Christ, where are we?" said Lily, straightening from her previously hunched position and looking around as well. The two shared a glance, and conveyed through this meeting of the eyes was the thought, Who the hell knows…

At that moment, however, the silence that had before only been broken by the words of two confused teenagers was interrupted by something else, as well. More voices, coincidentally, low and vague to the ear. Then a rich, crackling noise, followed by a flickering of light in the distance that Thorn felt sure must be fire.

"Hear that?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Maybe someone'll know what the hell's going on."

"Let's go."

The two made their way closer to the unknown source of light, stumbling every so often over shrubs or unexpected variations in the level of the ground. In time, they drew near to a clearing, easily identifiable at this point as the location from which the fire came. Glances between the teenaged females became frequent as they drew closer.

Without warning, cold steel pressed against Thorn's temple, and another look in the direction of Lily showed the flash of a sword directed only too easily in place to make a deathblow. However, the movements of the assaulting personages had been too fast for either teenager to even see who is was that was threatening them. Thorn's heart rate picked up; waiting for the directions she knew were coming from whoever held a gun to her head.

"What are you doing here?" The voice that spoke was deep and rather hoarse, as though the man using it had only just begun to be used to speaking again after a long quiet. For some reason Thorn felt that she had heard it somewhere before. "And be careful how you answer."

Thorn gulped, her tongue running over her lips and her eyes jumping to her friend again. Be careful how you answer. The only answer available to them would sound just as though they were lying, and the impression of deceit would definitely not be beneficial to the situation. Thorn took it upon herself to speak first.

"We…don't know," she said, going on quickly. "We were in her house," she tilted her head in Lily's direction. Thorn found that as her head moved, the steel of the gun went with her, following closely as though in reminder of what was at stake. "Then there was an earthquake—a big one, and we ended up here."

"We don't know what happened," Lily chimed in. "We saw light and heard voices, so we came closer. We didn't mean to intrude…" While they had been making their rather pathetic attempts at convincing the two that they were not good candidates for death, others had come into the trees from the clearing. The flickering light of the nearby fire through their faces into dim relief, features barely visible. Thorn could not see whoever was still holding a gun very diligently to her head, so she stared at them.

Two females, both dark-haired, though one was visibly older and more mature in all proportions of the body. It took Thorn a moment before the young otaku realized whom she was staring at. Tifa and Yuffie? The thought arced through her mind like an arrow, trailing disbelief and further confusion and doubt. But there could be no denying it: these two women looked exactly like every picture of the Final Fantasy 7 characters she had ever seen. Thorn wondered if this thought had come to Lily as well, and her brown eyes flitted to her fellow fan girl's face. A slight flicker of recognition played in Lily's eyes as she looked at the women, and Thorn was sure that her thoughts had been the same. Also, perhaps it was only the darkness, but there seemed to be a barely-noticeable, ultra-smooth edge on them, reminiscent of the animated luster of CGI.

If her mind was not playing a very convincing and severe trick on her, then the man holding the gun to her head must be—

"Cloud, Vincent, what are you doing? Those two are only kids." The calm voice of the woman who Thorn now knew must be Tifa broke the second-long silence that had allowed for several minutes of thought.

"VINNY. You psychopath! You're pointing a gun at a little kid's friggin' head! And Cloud, what the hell? You look like you're seriously about to slit a teenager's throat with that steel block you call a sword! " Yuffie spoke next, hopping into the air with indignation. Thorn felt rather miffed at being called a little kid (she was, after all, fourteen) but was never the less grateful for the intervention.

—Vincent Valentine.

Thorn could literally feel the fierce glare coming from the man behind and to the left of her burning into her head, eyes that she now knew were scarlet piercing through her like knives. She wanted to say something else, but the feeling that a bullet was about to enter her skull just to simplify things kept her silent.

She could easily see that there was no longer a blade pressing threateningly against Lily's throat. Why do I get the suspicious, moody bastard who'd prefer to blow my head off with Death Penalty or Cerberus or whatever stupid, cryptically-named gun this guy has now? Fuck… After a few more moments, however, Thorn felt the steel—which had just begun to lose its cold feel after being pressed against her temple for a while—leave her skin.

Letting out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, Thorn turned to look her assailant in the face, chocolate eyes meeting crimson ones obstinately. As though mildly surprised by the look on her face, Vincent raised an eyebrow.

"So," said Tifa, breaking the silence once more, "you say there was an earthquake where you were before you came here." Her tone was understanding edged by curiosity. "Then you were just transported here? Any idea how?" Thorn shook her head, while Lily uttered a 'no' in reply. The busty woman frowned in thought. Thorn could hear her murmur, "That's strange…" No shit, Tifa, Thorn thought ruefully, crossing her arms, gloved hands shocking skin with just how cold leather could become.

"What're your names, anyhow?" asked Yuffie. "I'm Yuffie Kisaragi, the most awesome person you'll ever meet and incredible ninja-goddess!" Her constant enthusiasm almost made Thorn smile, and would have were it not for the strange nature of the situation.

"I'm Thorn," Thorn replied at once, "or Crypte, if you're into last names."

"Lily Rimler," her comrade stated simply. Thorn felt like she and her friend were time bombs, waiting to go off into hyper-fan girl spazztime at the fact that both Vincent Valentine and Cloud Strife were standing mere feet away from them as soon as the risk of being shot or beheaded was no longer quite so prominent.

"And yours?" Thorn's eyebrows rose in spite of herself at Lily's words, an expression she wiped from her face quickly. As there was no way to prove that the four Square Enix characters were, in fact, from a video game at the present time, the best plan of action would be to play normal and act as though neither of them spent their days obsessing over them.

"Tifa Lockheart."

"As you know, I'm Yuffie!"

"Cloud Strife."

"…Vincent Valentine…"

"Um, I know you guys think we're all dissolute and intruder-ly, but could we get a little closer to the fire, please? It's cold here…" As Thorn spoke she shivered slightly, running her hands over her bare arms in an effort to chase the cold from them. When the earthquake had hit, Thorn had, obviously, not known that she was about to be thrust through time, space, and apparently reality, into a cold, dark forest that seemed to feature no other human life than that which stood around her, and was therefore not dressed for the outside weather. A black wifebeater hardly guarded against cold.

She saw Tifa send Cloud a look that said quite plainly, Don't you even. After a moment, Cloud spoke.

"All right." They moved into the clearing and toward the fire at the center of it. Vincent sat down alone in one place while Tifa, Cloud, and Yuffie sat within a somewhat close viscinity to each other, while Thorn and Lily sat down together apart from the other four. Thorn could feel the others watching her and Lily with eyes full of curiosity and mistrust. From what she could tell, no one but the four AVALANCHE members was around within miles and miles, which would certainly make Thorn's and Lily's appearances odd to them.

"It's late," said Tifa, "even 'intruders' need sleep. How's about a little shut-eye?" There were grunts of assent and a few nods, but as the eyes of Vincent and Cloud slid over the pair of teenagers, both knew that no one, not even Tifa, who had been kind and inviting, would be sleeping soundly tonight…

When dawn pierced the sky, Thorn knew that she must look terrible. Lily and Thorn had not been able to talk to one another about what had happened without the others knowing, or at least arousing further suspicion, which was not what they needed right now. Nevertheless they had spent the night staring at each other, making faces at one another that passed the same message all the time: OMIGOD IT'S VINNY AND CLOUD AND FUCKING SHIT THEY'RE HOT BUT WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE OMIGOD OMIGOD.

Thorn looked at the four Square Enix characters. Yuffie looked hyper as ever, no visible change to her psyche in the face of strangers showing up in a place where there didn't appear to be a town for many miles. Tifa looked a little tired, but well dispositioned anyway. Cloud looked rather irritable, and the glance he sent Thorn made her sure that there was going to be interrogation done today. Vincent, well, he looked like Vincent: imperturbable in absolute. No particular expression colored his aristocratic features, merely the dark, gothic overtone that black hair, crimson eyes and skin like alabaster afforded a man.

Thorn looked at Lily. She had not yet opened her eyes; she was the type of person who needed her sleep, no matter what awaited her when she did open those blue-gray eyes of hers.

---

Cloud Strife watched the two teenagers carefully, as though expecting them to leap into full attack any minute now. Then again, perhaps he was merely being paranoid—one of them wasn't even awake yet, and the other girl looked smart enough to know how stupid it would be to take on four opponents who were all older and—if her strength matched her size—stronger than she.

The blonde swordsman finished waking himself up, staring into the deadened ashes of last night's fire before rising to his feet. The teenaged brunette was watching him, he could see, apparently waiting for something. She did not look surprised when he walked over to her. Cloud looked down at the tanned face, the wary brown eyes setting the tone for the rest of her features.

"You said your name is Thorn." The sentence was not said like a question, but the girl nodded anyway. Cloud was already about five inches taller than Thorn when they were both standing, but when she sat in his presence he seemed to tower over her—though not as much, Cloud reflected, as would the 6' Vincent—inordinately. She seemed to notice this as well, for she stood, shoving her gloved hands into her pockets as she went.

"So. Cloud. You have questions, I guess." Her words had an oddly resigned air that Cloud did not fully understand. Annoyed, maybe (if Thorn was not feeling grateful that she was still alive.) Curious, afraid, all of these feelings that might have shown themselves in the young teen would have been easily explained in Cloud's mind. But resignation? Wasn't she a little young to be resigned?

"How old are you? Both of you," he said, azure eyes flitting to Lily's sleeping form.

"Fourteen," said Thorn, seemingly in reference to herself. "She's fifteen."

"And your home?" Cloud watched Thorn's face as she paused, her brown eyes growing faintly distant for a moment before she answered.

"Somewhere far away… Don't know how we're gonna get back."

"Where?"

"You wouldn't've heard of it."

"Try me."

"Oakland." Cloud paused.

"All right then." Cloud thought of what to ask next. This approach of mapping out Thorn's character was not going particularly well. All he had learned thus far was that he was speaking to a rather cynical-sounding fourteen-year-old who lived in some God-forsaken place that he had never even heard of called Oakland. Before he had the opportunity to speak, however, Thorn did.

"So. Does everyone who pops up get this penetrating shpeel of questions before being admitted to the presence of the great members of Avalanche?" The manner in which she said this surprised Cloud, and he quirked a brow in an expression borrowed from Vincent.

"No. Only the teenaged ones who come wandering through the trees in the night," he replied. He found a strange kind of satisfaction when Thorn chose to say nothing to this, looking rather defeated. At that moment, the other girl on the ground stirred, her body turning and her eyelids rising to reveal tired eyes.

"Well then," said Thorn, her eyes guarded in such a way that Cloud could not tell even a vague idea of what was going through her mind. "I suppose now is as good a time as any to get going. We're obviously not wanted here, and it's going to be Hell getting home. May as well start now." Cloud's eyebrows drew together as Thorn looked down at her slowly waking friend, and said, "Hey, Lil? You 'wake?" Lily grunted and rubbed her eyes.

"You can't mean to travel on foot to God-knows-where without any food carried in your stomach or otherwise," said Cloud incredulously.

"Well, are you going to give us food? I bet you've got all your provisions carefully measured out for the trip." Cloud said nothing, and fought the urge to look at his feet. This was true, and he had not expected the close-enough-to child to think this way. Thorn seemed to take his silence as an affirmative, for she said, "There. So what's left to do?" Glancing at her friend, who was beginning to rise, she said, "Guess we're takin' off, Lil." Lily's eyes trailed over Cloud, Vincent, Yuffie and Tifa (all of whom were now paying close attention) and nodded.

Thorn began to walk away from the blonde swordsman. However, he caught her by the wrist before he knew what he was doing. Cloud's gloved fingers tightened into a grip that was sure not to be painful, but that which would not be easily thrown off by the fourteen-year-old.

"Let go," Thorn said, looking from Cloud's hand to his eyes, a true frown taking up residence on her face. When Cloud did not, she placed a hand on his and made an attempt at prying it off. This made no difference, however.

"If you leave on your own now, you're most likely going to die of starvation wandering around the woods in circles." Cloud did not let go. "You can't go anywhere yet."

Thorn's eyes lowered to the ground for a moment, and she seemed to bristle with fury. When she next spoke, it was in a voice that Cloud knew did not belong to her. She looked up at Cloud, the umber of her almond-shaped eyes convulsing, bleeding poison blue and green as Thorn's pupils quivered, then turned into slits.

"I said, let me go, puppet," she hissed vehemently, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Cloud was so shocked at what he saw and heard that his grip on her early forearm loosened, and she snatched back her limb. The AVALANCHE member stared into the poisoned eyes, the same as those of a twice-defeated foe, marveling at the word puppet.

Tifa and Yuffie's mouths had both dropped open in disbelief. Vincent had been watching with one hand on his holstered weapon, and was now beginning to draw it out for the second time since meeting the two girls. Thorn blinked, the blue and green draining from her eyes, leaving only brown in their places, pupils returning to normal. For a moment Cloud said nothing, still shocked at having seen the venomous mako eyes of Sephiroth in a teenaged girl.

---

Thorn blinked, and looked at the others around her. Cloud had released his grip on her, which she was thankful for, but he was now eyeing her with a sort of dumbstruck horror. As she looked at the other AVALANCHE members, she saw that Tifa and Yuffie were staring with what looked like fear. What disturbed her even more was the sight of Vincent holstering his gun, and the shadow of recognition in his eyes. Why had he had it out in the first place? Why had she not noticed? Why was everyone staring at her as though she had pulled a gun and waved it around in Cloud's goddamn face? Turning to her friend, she saw Lily looking at her with a kind of fascinated confusion.

When did I become so intimidating? Jesus… she thought, confused now.

"Um… guys? Someone talk to me. I feel like some kind of new exhibit at a museum with all of you staring at me like that." Vincent seemed like the first to recover from the shocked silence, for which Thorn was grateful so that she didn't have to look at the expression on Cloud's face any longer. He looked as though he were feeling terrified, murderous and uncertain all at once.

"Thorn. You and Lily will stay. You will not move." It was an order, and in all the confusion being produced by her brain, Thorn heard that order, and nothing in her being wanted to disobey it in this moment. She nodded wordlessly, staring intently at Vincent as he turned his attention to Cloud.

"Strife." Cloud's last name was spoken curtly, and Thorn was forced to look into his cerulean eyes as he looked at her for another moment, then wrenched his cold gaze away from her and turned away, walking off a short ways where Vincent already waited to speak with him, a mere glance bringing the two women.

---

The four AVALANCHE members drew together, Cloud sending glances over his shoulder at Thorn all the while. Even Yuffie knew that this was a very serious moment.

"Cloud, stop that," said Tifa shakily, with regards to the looks Cloud was sending the teenager.

"You all saw—"

"We do not necessarily know what it means."

"I know exactly what it means. She's like them: Kadaj and the others."

"No, she is not, Cloud," Vincent said in an almost reprimanding tone of voice. "First and foremost, whatever it is that we saw was momentary, fading almost immediately. She also," and here Vincent spared a glance at the confused girl, "appears not to know what she has displayed."

"All we can do is keep her for now," said Tifa. "Until we know more." Her face was worried, and her eyes flitted from Thorn to Cloud and back several times. Cloud glared at them all, but the most potent glare was reserved for Thorn.

"No one says a word," said Vincent, staring hard at Cloud. They all nodded, and Yuffie bit her lip. Whatever was said there, even Tifa had a cold, detached look for Thorn when they returned to the main part of the clearing.

"All right, who's hungry?" said Tifa without another word on what had just happened. "Lily—good, you're really awake now. Breakfast?"