Forward: The Fifth Act universe is the sole property of Sinnatious, who was nice enough to let me play around in it, so thank you Sin! FF7 and it's affiliated materials belong to Square Enix, of course, stingy bastards that they are. I hope you enjoy it!
Best viewed in 3/4 or 1/2 format.
Cloud was finding, in a post JENOVA world, where everything had changed so much, that there were still a number of constants that he could safely rely upon whenever all else failed. Little things, like Genesis quoting Loveless, Zack doing squats, Tseng frowning, and Sephiroth summarily annoying him, though in the latter's case, it was something of an improvement over the initial homicidal rage that Cloud had initially felt when he first encountered the silver-haired First nearly a year and a half prior. Little things, but solid things, that he could take comfort in knowing they wouldn't ever change, no matter what.
Then there were other constants that he found he could do without, if given the choice. Things like Yuffie Kisaragi's ability to summarily piss off nearly anything that had enough sentience to qualify as such, and then some. Things like the fact that Midgar Zoloms were infamous for both their tenacity and the fact that their bite could exert nearly five thousand pounds of pressure per square inch. Things like the fact that Yuffie Kisaragi had summarily pissed off a Midgar Zolom which was, at this time, doing a rather impressive job of trying to crush said Kisaragi with every one of those five thousand pounds, save for the combined efforts of he, Zack and Angeal, all of which were using their rather impressive, Mako-infused strength, to hold said Zolom's jaws open just wide enough to keep it from eating the now nine-year-old "Treasure Princess". The fact that said Zolom seemed to care not all all about their presence in it's mouth, as it tried with an unusual zeal to eat the young heir to the throne of Wutai said much about her ability to summarily agitate everything, ever.
Given the circumstances, Cloud felt that, were he not in immediate danger of being eaten, he would have given off a rather long suffering sigh and placed his face in his hands. And to think, it had been such a good day for the SOLDIER First, a day for him to relax on a simple training mission with two of the more easily bearable members of ShinRa's elite special forces unit. Granted that mission had turned into a massive clusterscrew in which the "new, experimental" prototype security mechs that had recently come out of ShinRa's Weapons and Munitions Department had malfunctioned almost as soon as they had been turned on, in which one had detonated, and the other two had tried their damnedest to kill both the SOLDIERs and the review detachment before managing to shred a tree, quite a lot of Razor Grass, some bleachers and one of the helicopters before they detonated like a couple of two ton bombs on steroids had...
You know, perhaps today wasn't such a great day after all in hindsight. Of course, it didn't help that it had been their helicopter that had been destroyed, forcing them to wait while ShinRa sent out another such vehicle while the rest of everyone else left. That delay, of course, had put them in the perfect position to rescue Yuffie, who had called Cloud on his PHS and screamed an inarticulate jumble of what he could only assume to be Wutain, mixed in with "Midgar Zolom", "Eat me", and lots of swearing. Rather common for her, Cloud could readily admit, as this particular debacle was nothing new. Especially since this was the third time it happened in the last four months, indicative of a failure on both his and her caregiver's part to ensconce some measure of self preservation in the girl.
Really, standard fair, given the fact that inbetween those incidents she had managed to agitate a family of Behemoth Kings, a bull Nibel Dragon, two packs of Malboros and what could only be described as a faceless Eldrich horror from below the surface of the Planet, all of which had been proceeded by a cocky mail to Cloud followed by a panicked call filled with inarticulately screamed Wutain curses and barely discernible Midean.
This, however, was neither here nor there, and as such, need not be mentioned again. Really. Ever. Again.
"This isn't working!" The words came from Angeal, in a very un-Angeal-like tone, but given that he was the who had two very long fangs pointed in two very unpleasant directions with him inbetween, he really couldn't be blamed.
"Hold... on! Just need it to open up a... a little bit more!" And that was Zack, who was in the middle of their little menage-a-trios, the ever optimistic.
"Yeah! Just a little more, you evil ShinRa lackeys!" Came a very tiny voice from between the creature's fangs.
"Not the time, Yuffie!" Grit Cloud as he tried to lodge the flat of First Tsurugi into the slavering jaws of the Zolom.
"But it's true! They are evil, dirty, low-down-!" Squawked the nine year old from between the massive fangs of the serpent king.
"Hey! We're- grah! -trying to help you here! A little gratitude would be-" Zack began with a strained voice, only to be cut off by a sharp kick from Angeal. The jaws jerked down half an inch from the loss of stability before the three fought to force the mouth open once more.
"Not the time, Zack!" Snapped the older man.
"But-" "But-" Both the Princess of Wutai and the youngest of the first cried out.
"Not the time!" Came the unified reply of a slowly more and more agitated Cloud, mirrored by an even more agitated sounding Angeal.
They had just barely been fast enough getting there, as by that point the Zolom had both cornered and was in the process of trying to swallow Yuffie whole. She had taken to stabbing the snake in the mouth with her shuriken, which seemed to be the only reason it hadn't clamped down on her when they arrived, and had effectively kept her alive in the process, as well as pissing the thirty meter long beast off to no end. Given that she was actually in it's mouth at the time, they had hastened to intercept the doubtlessly lethal bite from crushing her.
In hindsight, perhaps they should have just cut off it's head instead of clamoring up to it's mouth and prying it's jaws open.
"Keep pushing! It's almost open!" Cloud snapped through grit teeth, his hands wrapped around the hilt of First Tsurugi, using it as a fulcrum for all of his efforts. Inside the Zolom's mouth, he could barely hear Yuffie's whimpers, a good sign that she was still alive and not snake food, at least not yet.
"No it's not! This... is... not... working!" Angeal snapped again, through grit teeth. Could could almost hear the bones in his back start to pop with the statement, and redoubled his efforts. The mouth cracked open another inch.
A tiny hand shot out and slipped into one of the materia slots in First Tsurugi, fast as lightning. Cloud didn't even have a chance to think on it, beyond the fact that that probably wasn't a good sign, not at all.
"Yuffie...!" Was about as far as Cloud got, because in that moment three things occurred to him.
The first was that Yuffie never changed, not even in the face of being eaten alive by a giant snake. Or by being eaten alive by a giant snake in the first place.
The second, of course, was a small reflection on the nature of materia and how it never changed. Especially his materia, all of which were both natural and mastered, a potent combination even in the hands of an amateur.
The third, of course, was that the materia Yuffie had just pick-pocketed was a natural, mastered Thunder materia, and that they, all four in fact, were covered in slimy snake drool, which while not the most conductive of elements, was still about on par with little things like copper and water.
That was about as far as that thought process went, as by the time that forth thought formed, one that was somewhat along the lines of 'Oh shi-' his world went white as forty thousand volts of electricity proceeded to crawl up his legs, arms, and sword, all of which was then followed by a rather ear-splitting screech and a sudden feeling of weightlessness.
Apparently the Zolom didn't like having forty thousand volts of electrical energy pumped into it's soft, squishy parts either, and that it's initial reaction, once it stopped screaming, was to spasm violently backwards, curling in on itself at Mach Two and flinging all of them some distance into the air. In this case it was about thirty stories, which in the case of most normal humans, would be more than lethal. Even an average Third would have some issues surviving a fall like that alive, never mind a small child like Yuffie.
Luckily, however, Cloud, Zack and Angeal were all ranked Firsts, the elite of the elite, meaning that a measly thirty stories normally would be nothing, especially to them, all blooded combat veterans and masters of their chosen martial styles, several of which included an in-depth study on safely falling. Even the arguably weakest of the three, Zack, had survived a two hundred and fifty story drop from the upper plate to the lower plate some time back, and that had been about as graceful as burning zeppelin tied to a rogue Comet spell.
Of course, that had little bearing on the fact that all three had just eaten enough electricity to power four city blocks and then some before being flung wildly into the air, head over heels and thus were both twitching uncontrollably and completely disoriented. Given the fact that two of those three were strapped down with swords that weighed more than your average Midean, covered in slime that wouldn't be out of place as engine grease, and more than a bit strained from their efforts trying to save Cloud's young charge, they really weren't in a very good position to recover mid-air.
Thus, when gravity reasserted itself, it was neither kind nor forgiving.
Angeal hit the ground first, being the heaviest of the three, and when he hit, he hit with the force of a landslide and then proceeded to dig a trench almost a meter deep and twice that in length into the ground using his face. Well, that might not be totally generous, as he bounced once or twice first, the impacts jarring him enough to ruin any sense of direction he had managed to somehow retain and knock him wholly unconscious.
Then Cloud landed on him. Now, understand, Cloud, while not as heavy as Angeal, was one of those two unfortunates who had a massive hunk of razor sharp steel with him, though as a mercy, not in it's holster, but instead clutched in his hand, doubtlessly with a death grip that would impress even the Jaws of Life, one trained into him from a long history of getting smacked around while electrocuted and frozen and perhaps on fire. Monsters were varied like that, and not all of them small. That said, it was First Tsurugi that had been his ultimate downfall, as it threw his center of gravity so far off it actually went from one side of his body to the other, and thus was helpless to inch himself out of the way when he impacted Angeal back to back, his sword coming to cleave a good chuck of landscape out as it buried itself almost to the hilt on impact.
And then Zack landed on them. Luckily, Zack had managed to stay grounded during the initial shock to his system from the high level Bolt spell, as he had avoided the worst of the Zolom drool, and had managed to keep the Buster safely on his back when he was flipped, which helped him maintain his center of gravity enough to somewhat recover while in flight, enough to not put himself at risk for the fall. It also let him keep enough semblance of mind to spot Yuffie, who had also been forcefully ejected from the Zolom's mouth and was thusly flailing through the air in a very un-ninjalike manner, and barely catch her before curling around her and slamming into the other two back first. It was sheer chance that Buster neither caught them nor him in the edge, for that would have been quite unfortunate indeed. And lethal, but lets not spoil the moment.
In the end, Angeal was quite wholly out of his gourd and in need of a Phoenix Down at least, Cloud was barely conscious enough to register that he probably had a few broken ribs from Zack hitting him, and Zack was chuckling to himself at how absolutely awesome that was. Yuffie, of course, escaped completely unharmed aside from smelling like Zolom spit and having her hair 'fro'd from the static discharge of the Bolt spell.
His tune was somewhat changed when he stood up, only to find himself flying once more through the air courtesy of four tons of giant snake tail sending him another thirty stories into the air and off into the wild blue yonder, almost taking Yuffie with him, who barely managed to let go mid flight and instead went tumbling across the field.
Apparently the Zolom had recovered somewhat quicker than they had, and, understandably, it was more than a little pissed. Well, more pissed, given the whole, mouth prying incident, preceded by the stabbing, which was then preceded by whatever Yuffie had done to agitate it in the first place. So yes, pissed was more like 'mouth-frothingly mad with abject and undiluted rage and hatred of the darkest and most hellish sort', but we aren't here to play semantics.
"Hey! What the hell was that you big jerk! Why I aughtta-!" Honestly, given the whole of the situation, perhaps hurling threats and obscenities at the Zolom was not the most well thought out of plans, as far as plans went. Though, in Yuffie's case?
No, not even then.
It says something when fifteen tons of Midgar Zolom proceeds to dive at you from half a battlefield away, completely ignoring every legitimate threat in favor for the slip of a not-even-ninety-pounds small girl, regardless of the fact that it was, in fact, fifteen tons and not built for unassisted flight.
Contrary to how bad Cloud felt at that exact second, regardless of the fact that any somewhat normal person would just give up at that point and even a SOLDIER wouldn't have had more expected from them after that, the sound of Yuffie squealing in abject terror managed to pull him from 'Dazed' to 'Murderous' in a scant second.
He flew, flew, through the air towards the Zolom as it's rather massive bulk flew headfirst at Yuffie, who had curled into a ball on the ground, ripping First Tsurugi out of the earth so roughly that the ground beneath exploded from the sheer force and transversed the ten meters between the two, hard enough that in the five seconds that it took for the Zolom to coil up and dive, Cloud was simply there.
And then the Zolom simply wasn't.
With an ear-splitting crack the flat of First Tsurugi impacted the Zolom's skull, outright ejecting the fifteen metric tons of serpent away from the nine-year-old hellion so roughly and so quickly that it simply ceased to be in that location.
Cloud was done. Done. With this snake.
All of his issues seemed to be linked to the giant creatures, and it was a hungry, stupid, Planet-damned Zolom that had set all of this into motion and you know what? Cloud was Done.
It took only a moment for the Zolom to recover from the hit, as Zoloms were generally particularly hardy creatures and this one was a Bull Zolom, a Jormungandr, one of the meanest breeds of Zolom you could find in the swamps, not that you would want to, particularly, but the fact remained. It was fifteen tons and thirty meters of teeth, attitude and death that could even give a dragon a bit of pause.
As such, it did the most reasonable thing that it's abused and absolutely pissed off psyche would let it. It decided to, against all reason and instinct, turn back towards the small two legged thing that had stopped it from eating the other, infinitely more annoying, if smaller, two legged thing, and slither forward with every intent to eat them, regardless of the fact that the larger one was glowing and radiating more than a little natural energy mixed with the horrid stench of Mako and the unnerving scent of Wrong on it, with it's admittedly larger than normal piece of Sharp that pointed in it's direction.
In fact, it didn't even slow down to consider those facts, facts that would send most other creatures running the hell away as fast as they could go. No, it was a Jormungandr, and there was nothing that it knew of more terrifying than a Jormungandr anywhere. Thus, it coiled, and dived right at the two, intent to swallow them whole.
It never even had a chance to wonder just why all of that blue energy condensed upon the Sharp that the two leg had, nor why it glowed almost painfully bright, because in that second, the Zolom was bisected from tip to tip by way of a Pissed Off Cloud Strife combined with a Blade Beam Limit Break.
Cloud was pleased for all of point zero three five seconds before the sum total of thirty meters of snake innards hit him going fifty miles and hour, because for all of it's power, Blade Beam was a wave of energy, and aside from being absurdly sharp and powerful, had no actual forward momentum to it, and therefore did nothing to stop lots, and lots, and lots of guts, blood and bits of organ from covering him, Yuffie, and everything around them for twenty feet in stinking entrails.
Yeah. In hindsight today was not a good day at all.
It was thus that Cloud was found with a mostly passed out Yuffie Kisaragi flipped over his shoulder and an equally unconscious Angeal being dragged by a foot back to where their helicopter was parked, which was soon followed by a sheepish looking Zack, as he made his way back from wherever the Zolom had smacked him.
It was perhaps a mercy that Cloud was covered in snake guts, as the murky, sewage-colored blood and guts and other, far more foul forms of matter muted everything but his rather terrifying glowing blue Mako eyes. Wisely, nobody mentioned the smell.
"So what are we going to do with her?" Zack was the first to breach the subject on the way back, and Cloud just looked at him. In that moment Zack saw Death.
"Uh, right. Yeah, I got it. No problem."
Two hours later, a rather annoyed looking Cissnei found herself trudging to the door of her apartment, wearing little more than the silk nightgown she had gone to sleep in not three hours before, after getting home from a very, very long shift with Mr. Grabby, AKA Director Palmer, who had this bad habit of randomly "accidentally" feeling up anything female that came within five feet of him, be it Turk, trooper or misbegotten employee. That said, she had wanted nothing more than to come home and pass out after putting up with the man for nearly twelve hours. So of course, someone had to come bother her as soon as she managed to get comfortable.
She was planning on stabbing them with her giant shuriken when she opened the door.
But lo and behold, instead of some easily impaled underling that nobody would really care about, it was Zack Fair, who might be missed. Eventually. Maybe? Well, maybe she could get away with a citation but...
"Cissnei! Hey! Looking good!" Zack said, entirely too loud and entirely too cheery, and in that exact moment Cissnei felt the need to enact violence, and would have done so had she not found her arms full of slimy, stinky, prepubescent Wutian child.
What.
"Yeah, I know right? That's Yuffie Kisaragi. You know, Godo's kid? As in, like, the Emperor of Wutai?" Cissnei looked down and then up, before nodding dumbly. "Well, you see, I need to ask you a favor, because normally Cloud would just take her back to Wutai after saving her again but since he's covered in Zolom guts and kinda tweaked and in need of a shower he decided to take her back tomorrow but she can't stay with him because he's a guy and I'm a guy so she can't stay with me and Angeal is too and so is everyone else I know except a couple of people but I can't take her there so I took her to you." Zack said in one fell breath. Cissnei blinked dumbly.
"So yeah... mind taking her and making sure she gets cleaned up and fed and stuff? Cloud'll be by tomorrow to pick her up and take her back and I really appreciate it. Kay? Thanks, bye!" And in that second she realized just what Zack was babbling, and opened her mouth to object but he was already gone.
Gone as in he jumped over the banister and vanished into the streets below gone. It was times like these that Cissnei really regretted her decision to live in an open air apartment complex.
Cissnei looked down at the child Zack had all but shoved at her before his rather abrupt departure and sighed. She stared at it, hard, with all hope and desire that it would simply vanish. After a few moments, however, the girl was still there, staring at her with barely restrained hate, and still smelling... well, there really wasn't a word for it, but it was horrible nonetheless, and if Zack were to be believed, she was somewhat important as well, which meant Cissnei wasn't going to be getting that beauty sleep after all.
At least the day couldn't get any worse, right? Right?
Cissnei glanced down, and Yuffie was gone.
Crap.
AN: Well, that makes for the first chapter, for better or worse. It's unbeta'd, as my lovely girlfriend and significant other has been sick these last few days and I'm the impatient sort (and I can prolly go back and fix the issues it has later) so I hope it didn't come out too badly. I have some vague ideas about a general plot of course, maybe a little mayhem from all points of view and whatnot. That kind of thing. I'm also wanting to play around with non-linear story progression, so that's how I'm going to be styling the chapters for this particular work, with a variety of tones and genres mixed in for good measure. Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off.
Also, so as not to confuse, this is a standalone AU that takes place some time after the end of 'The Fifth Act', and as such isn't part of the 'After the 5th Act' timeline, nor any other piece done by that or any other author besides Sinnatious. If you haven't read the precursor story, The Fifth Act, you should go do that, though. It's an awesome read and I can't suggest it enough. It did inspire me to try my hand at the closest thing to a sequel I can muster.
That's all for now. I don't know how often I'll post for this or how long the chapters will be in the future, but I will try to be relatively consistent nonetheless. Again, thanks for reading, and I'll catch you on the flip side.
~J. Finch