A/N: Okay, this is my first fanfic! The very beginning got deleted, so here is a QUICK INTRO THAT EVERYONE SHOULD READ! Laaien (who fights with an axe) is a bad mouthed, incredibly beautiful woman with major mental issues. Sandra (who fights with metal claws and poison) is the more quiet and thoughtful of the two, but gets depressed and tends to isolate herself. These two escaped from the Turks after realizing they'd been doing the wrong thing for years, and in their flight meet up with Cloud and Crew at Aeris' church. There's a battle where Laaien and Sandra join them against the Shinra, and they decide to continue in their journey together.A few days later around Kalmthey run into a chocobo trainer and archer, Chitori (called Chi), who also joins them after Cloud saves her life. She donates her chocobos to the cause, and they begin their journey!
This scene starts when they're trying to figure out chocobo arrangements...and it seems Laaien has to ride with Cid. She isn't too happy about it.
Chapter 1
Laaien's eyes widened. "HELL no. I'd rather walk. Better yet, YOU can walk." She glared at Cid.
"You wouldn't leave me out alone, walking, only to be eaten by the Midgar Zolom while you and the rest of the crew make it safely across..."
"Of COURSE I would. Don't get my hopes up when you say you'll be eaten." Laaien's eyes twitched.
Cid put one hand on his waist, which made him look ridiculously gay.
"Quitcherbitchin', lady, 'cause you're stuck with me, no matter what." At that, Cloud walked in, followed by Barret on an unusually large Chocobo.
"Laaien, I see you're awake," he said to her, though looking at Cid holding their Chocobo by its reins, "And I suppose Cid's told you you'll be sharing a Chocobo with him..."
"I AM NOT BITCHING!" Laaien yelled. "And if I DO bitch, it's because I have good reason." Cid seemed to shrink as Laaien yelled at him. Cloud calmly observed their continuing feud.
"Er... If you two could stop arguing for one second and just deal with the fact you have to share a chocobo we could be well on our way..." Chi shook her head.
"You two, now look what you've done!" she gestured at the quivering chocobo. "You know, that's the one you were going to share." Laaien glared at Chi this time.
"Well, you know that poor chocobo has never had anything as foul as Cid's ass on it before..." she muttered. Cid glared at Laaien, wishing he could come up with an equally rude comeback, but instead he, with Chi's help, mounted the chocobo.
Cloud looked at Laaien and sighed, "Get on, Laaien; we don't have much time to spare. God knows the world could end while we're waiting for you to make peace with Cid, so just deal with it. Next time we'll find you a more suitable riding partner." He shook his head, not understanding why the redhead needed to argue with Cid about everything.
That day the team was able to travel through the marshes and up to the Mythril Mines, where they set up camp. It was late at night but everyone seemed a bit restless, discussing their past, and finding out that they all had one thing in common: hate for the Shinra.
Chi was tending to the chocobos as Cloud was ranting about future plans about overthrowing the Shinra and stopping Sephiroth before he went too far. Almost everyone pitched in their two cents. Everyone other than Laaien, who was peacefully sleeping with her head in Cid's lap.
The pilot only seemed content about it, and occasionally stroked her hair while smoking his sixteenth fag of the day. Laaien half smiled, then opened her eyes. The smile vanished instantly, and her eyes widened.
"HOLY SHIT, YOU FUCKING PERV!" She scrambled away. Chi smiled.
"Your window of opportunity has vanished, Cid." Someone snickered, and Laaien rolled her eyes. While most of the group exploded in roaring laughter, Sandra just smiled to herself, and Red, who had been resting his head on her lap, though consciously, looked up at the scene Laaien made.
He then went back and purred softly, "I don't see why you humans need to resort to profanity, or make a sick joke out of everything."
The blonde ex-Turk just shrugged, "Not all of us are like that."
Chi and Laaien sat quietly just inside the mine discussing battle tactics. Cid sat down by Laaien, and she stood up.
"I'm going back to the rest, to sleep...by myself." she added, looking down her nose at Cid. She stepped into the shadows, and suddenly a dark figure came up behind her and held a gun to her head.
"Nobody make a sound..." it ordered, twisting Laaien's arm almost out of its socket.
Sandra, who was still awake, and staring at the diminishing flames from the shadows, heard the voice, and followed it instinctively. Her eyes, accustomed to the darkness, saw a figure by Laaien. She quietly snuck up to the opponent and swiftly disarmed them. Whoever it was that grabbed Laaien now tackled Sandra and latched onto her.
"How DARE you?" a shrill woman's voice yelled out as Sandra felt her hair being pulled... painfully.
Laaien's injured shoulder knocked painfully against Cid, and her face turned ashen as she bit back the pain.
"Always me..." She muttered as she slid to the ground; Cid was too shocked to do much. Chi reached for her bow and arrows. As Laaien fell to the ground Cid quickly went down on his knees, and hoisted her unconscious self up next to him, stroking her red hair.
He whispered to her, "It's gonna be cool, it's all gonna be so cool, bitch..." His voice was shaking with tension and fear. Sandra struggled to get her obnoxious opponent off of her, and cast a quick fire spell back into the flames to get more light in order to see who the hell the mystery woman was.
As the flames lit up, vague feminine features in a familiar Turk uniform lit up. She was slender, with short blonde hair.
"All right missy, nobody messes with the Turks!" her piercing grey eyes thinned.
Chi took careful aim at the woman's head, and prepared to loose the arrow. Just as she was about let the arrow fly something banged into her leg, and the arrow simply grazed the woman's cheek.
"That could have been her throat..." She looked down to see what had knocked into her. This seemed to scare the woman off, for she suddenly turned and ran. Everyone was too shocked to do anything.
Laaien sputtered awake in the wake of the phoenix down. "You know, I am fucking tired of this happening. I am cursed. Really, I think I am..." She struggled to her feet, and the few people who saw her face were startled to see tears running from her eyes. She headed away from them, her shoulder setting her off balance a bit.
Cid reached out trying to stop her, hoping to give her the comfort she needed, but Sandra held him back.
"Let her go, it's best to leave her alone when she's like this." Cid leaned back and grunted, taking the pack of cigarettes from his goggles and lighting up.
Laaien avoided Cid all day, which annoyed him, and prompted-"How is Laaien like a chocobo?" Which, though a rhetorical question, Laaien answered.
"Because I have a long neck, big front, and like to be ridden by two people at once?" she said sarcastically, which managed to shut him up for the moment.
Chi fell over laughing.
Red XIII, yet again was displeased by the redhead's sick humor, and as he was about to make a comment to Sandra, who seemed to keep him good company, he sniffed the air suspiciously.His ears twitched.
"Someone's coming..." he let out a low growl.
Cloud quickly unsheathed his sword, braced for attack, though his preparations proved quite useless as three Turks, two men and a woman who they recognized from last night, walked out onto a ledge from a tunnel on one of the higher levels of the mine.
The tall, bald man up front spoke wearing a smile on his long face, "Laaien...Sandra...so sorry to see you've left the Shinra only to team up with these losers..."
Laaien's nose flared. "I have my own ideas who the losers are here. And only one of them is in this group." Cid had a suspicious feeling she was talking about him. Chitori took out her bow and nocked an arrow, though she kept it pointed at the ground.
Sandra glared at the bald man, "Nice to see you too, Rude... Tseng... and whoever the hell your new bitch is." For the first time since quitting the Shinra she slid on her steel claws.
"That's ELENA, miz Wolverine!" the woman with short blonde hair called out to her, "And if you don't mind, I'd like my gun back." she scowled.
The other man in the group stepped forward, "Keep your personal issues out of the way, Elena. Let me and Rude show you how it's done. Now you two," he pointed to Sandra and Laaien, "You two know too much to be with Avalanche, it's too risky for the Shinra, I'm afraid we'll have to execute you..." With that, he and Rude pulled out machine guns and fired away at the ex-Turks.
Cid jumped forward, and knocked Laaien to the ground, out of harm's way. Laaien tried to push him off, and she realized that it was far easier then it would have been if Cid was consciously on top of her. His face was oddly slack, and the cigarette fell out of his mouth. That was a definite sign that something was wrong.
All of this happened in the space of a few seconds, and she stood up, scared; not for herself, but for Cid. This was an interesting change of events, and she used her good shoulder to hoist her axe off of her back.
They kept shooting, though it seemed as though they were slowing down, waiting for the dust they had stirred up to settle to see if they were dead yet. Laaien choked slightly on the dust, and she heard people around her doing the same.
Sandra was barely able to dodge the shots as Rude started firing at her, she jumped out of the way and under the ledge on which they stood for protection. Barret started unloading his gun-arm at the Turks at almost the same time that they tried to ice Sandra and Laaien.
Cloud, Red, and Aeris began casting spells to drive the Turks away considering none of them had long-range weapons. Elena was the first to run, while Rude and his partner stayed and fought with magick after they were out of ammo.
Sandra was able to crawl out from under the ledge and cast a few Bio spells on them before they decided that fighting was futile and Avalanche would not give up. The Turks left without a word.
Chitori shook her head. "And they thought we were losers..." She walked around, picking up the remaining useable arrows, several of which were bloodstained. She cleaned them carefully on some moss and replaced them in her quiver. Aeris had gone to check on Cid and Laaien. Chi joined her.
"I can't believe he took that for you after the way you treated him."
"I don't believe it either," Laaien answered, her voice choked. "He's not a complete motherfucker after all." From her, it was extravagant praise.
Eventually, the whole group gathered around theonly major casualtyof the day as he lay with theAncient by his side trying to heal the bullet wound.
Barret shook his head, "That damn mofo! I'd neva' have expected 'im to do such a thing."
Sandra sat down next to Laaien, "Hey, you all right after that?"
Laaien looked at Sandra as though she was in shock. "Honestly...I don't know." Chi looked up.
"He'll live," she said.Laaien shook her head.
"Damn..." she muttered under her breath, though halfheartedly.
Sandra chuckled quietly, "You know, you can't be too hard on him after he risked his life saving yours..."
"I know, I know..." Laaien burst into tears. "Why was he so stupid...to take the bullet for me?"
"Your charm," Chi answered absent mindedly. "Pure charm..."
Sandra shook her head, "He obviously digs you!" She lightly shook Laaien, "Love makes people do stupid things..." She sighed.
Cid suddenly stirred awake, the first thing he noticed was how much colder he was, "Holy SHIT!" he exclaimed sitting up, and breathing sharply, "I'm still alive?..." he looked down, "why the FUCK am I shirtless!"
Red XIII covered his head with his paws, lying on the ground. "Could you keep it down?" he growled, "I was trying to get some rest..."
"You were shot in the side," Aeris responded patronizingly. "Now be good and lie down again...you can't just go running off right after you wake up from being shot. Despite what some people may tell you."
Laaien threw herself on Cid, sobbing. "Nobody's ever done that for me before!" Someone snorted.
Cid coughed, in pain, surprised, and most of all happy to have Laaien finally appreciate him.
"I must be dead... or delirious..." he muttered to himself. Laaien slapped his face.
"Better?" she asked.Aeris sighed.
Cid came back to his senses, "Thanks, bitch." he grinned, showing off teeth yellowed from years of smoking. Laaien wrinkled her nose.
"Pleasant. Really pleasant."
