Disclaimer: I got Dissidia for my birthday. It made me wanna work on some of my FFVII stuff again. It all needs a revamp, but I'm startin' with this one and Mako Dreams 'cause I'd gotten really into them at one point. Also, I know Tifa's crazy OOC in the beginning here; bear with me, it'll get explained eventually.

Dark Embrace

Prologue

I slammed into the wall, my head flying back to bounce off the slick surface, black spots bursting in my vision. I sprang back to my feet, shook my head with an angry growl, and lunged at my opponent. I caught him with a flying tackle and pinned him to the ground, panting, baring my teeth and hovering with them poised just over his throat. The wolf, one of Sephiroth's, growled, and I tried to keep calm. If I won, the pack was likely to keep my food from me for a week or so until Tifa noticed. If I lost, the alpha would beat me. Great choices, aren't they.

I'm not particularly fond of living with a pack of werewolves, but in the Citadel, to live alone is to sign a death warrant. Tifa's pack may not like me, but it's in their own best interests to keep me alive. Maybe not perfectly healthy- when you're half-starved, you'll take down anyone for food- but alive. The ten-count ended and I released the wolf with one last warning growl. I limped cautiously out of the arena into the back, where I could pause to lick my wounds before I had to report to Tifa.

I was pretty battered. While everyone in the Citadel lives in a group- the wolves in their packs, the vampires in their seethes, the kitsune in their tribes, and so on- only the wolves are allowed to fight as a group. The wolf I had taken out was the last of a group of four.

I leaned against the stone wall and shut my eyes briefly. I heard her feet on the stones in front of me, but I didn't look up.

A hand slapped across my face and I straightened slowly.

"You acknowledge your Alpha. You know that."

I opened my eyes and glared at Tifa. Smirking, she fastened the leash she held to my collar. "C'mon."

In the Arena, I'm the only one allowed to wear anything around my neck. The usual regulations say that necks have to be kept bare. However, since I'm the only human fighting in the arena, I wear a spiked collar. It protects my neck and marks me as one of Tifa's pack, as I don't have the wolf-scent that would normally serve that purpose.

I would just as soon be without it. I don't care for being led through the halls on a leash or locked up at night. The only time I'm free is in the arena, and even then I still have to wear this damned collar. Tifa says it's all safety measures but somehow I don't believe her.

The other fighters are pretty bitter about my collar. They say it's not fair to let me fight with protection. They were all told by Sephiroth, who runs the Citadel, that they should be able to get a collar off a human.

Tifa threaded through the halls to her pack's area. The Citadel is huge; you can go for weeks in here without ever glimpsing the sun.

"You've done well today, Yuffie." I glanced back at her. She smiled and I shivered inwardly. "A week from today, Sephiroth wants to fight you."

Well, shit.

"I want you to win," Tifa murmured dreamily. "I want you to win and bring our pack glory."

I scoffed. "And then Sephiroth would kill us all for humiliating him, and then where would you be?"

Tifa jerked hard on the leash and I choked. "How many times do we have to tell you to be silent! You are only a half-wild human. There are no more of your kind in By av Engel, much less the Citadel. You are lucky we allow you to live! You do not have the authority to speak!"

I straightened and glared. "I'm sure there are humans in By av Engel. Maybe not in the Citadel, but outside it, for sure. Actually, didn't one of Seph's old wolves turn out to be a human, hiding here?"

Well there goes my air again. Dammit, I should learn to keep my mouth shut.

...Nah.

Tifa chose to seethe silently this time. She shoved me into my room, a small one off the pack room, and locked the door. Sitting against the back wall, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to mock her.

"And stay in there!" I yelled, in a singsong mockery of the Alpha's voice. I laughed when I heard her punch the wall, snarling.

There was nothing in my room, and I do mean nothing. Through a screen on one side was a bathroom, with a shower and sink and toilet, so that I wouldn't have any excuse to go into the larger, warmer, pack room, but that was it. Stone walls, stone floor, empty bowl that occasionally had food in it. Not at the moment, and probably not for a while, since I'd just royally pissed off the Alpha.

With nothing else to do, I curled up and went to sleep.

I have strange dreams sometimes. I don't know why. I think they have to do with wherever I lived before I came here. I don't remember, but I came to the Citadel when I was young, but not that young...so I had to have lived somewhere else first...right?

This was one of the stranger dreams. I had this dream a lot. It was the one where I was laying in a field and talking to someone while staring at the sky.

...Am I a monster?

No. You're not.

I'm not human.

Depending on your definition, none of us are.

I held out my arm and watched scales trickle down it. I glanced over into blue eyes.

The field dissolved around me, becoming stone walls, and I woke up.

"Yuffie?" I shook my head, disoriented. Someone whispered my name again.

"What d'you want?" I muttered, and looked up.

There was an angel standing in my room.

This woman had brown hair, green eyes, and unmistakable white feathery angel wings. She smiled and pulled me to my feet. "Hi. I'm Aeris."

"But...but...there aren't any angels left..." I stammered, confused.

Aeris laughed lightly, a strange musical sound. "You didn't believe your Alpha when she said you were the only human. Why would you believe there are no angels? 'By av Engel' does mean City of Angels."

"The City of Angels where demons rule..." I murmured, reciting what I had been taught as a child. Aeris laughed again.

"C'mon, I'm getting you out of here."

I blinked. "Um...why are you helping me?" I grew up in the Citadel. You do not grow up in the Citadel by trusting strangers.

Aeris shrugged as she folded her wings. They seemed to slide into her shoulders and vanish. "I'm in the habit of helping those who need it. Besides..." She looked unsure for the first time. "Cloud said he wanted me to get you out of here on this round. He said he doesn't want you facing off against Sephiroth."

I bristled. "I can handle him." Okay, so no, I couldn't. She didn't need to know that.

"I'm sure you can," the angel said wryly. "But Cloud swears you're not human, and he doesn't want Sephiroth to find out what you really are."

"...Which is?" She didn't answer me. She spread her wings again, enveloped me in them, and I had the strangest sense of falling into the sky. When we jarred to a halt and she swept back her wings, we were outside on a rooftop. The sun was setting, outlining the buildings in red and gold. I stared, breathless.

Aeris pointed towards a building far from where we stood. Gothic columns and spires arched from it. "That is the Citadel. You don't have to return there ever again, if you don't want to."

I turned to her. "So you didn't answer me. If I'm not a...a half-wild human," the words were bitter in my mouth, "what am I?"

A man's laughter made me turn back the other way. A man with insane blond hair and glowing blue eyes smiled at me.

"Cloud." Aeris sounded joyous. He waved to her, but he didn't take his eyes off me.

"You're definitely not a human. You're all wild, little Dragon."

GuardianSaiyoko: I blame this on a combination of too many werewolf books, too many vampire books, and the fact that an old friend seems to have convinced himself I'm at least half dragon if not more than that. He's a little crazy, but hey, it's fun. This can be read as either a sequel to Hurricane or as an AU, take your pick.