(Fixed the lack of horizontal rulers. I inserted them in Officeorg but I did not realize they were not appearing on the site.)
Chapter 5: Six Degrees Of Separation
S.O.L.D.I.E.R
BLOOD BOUND
I
In a silent forsaken place of the earth where the land is dead of any vegetation and the sun beats down on the earth relentlessly. The only living thing that is of the human sort is a single man.
His beast of a motor bike hums to a halt. Before he dismounts the metal beast he stares down at the land stretching below the hill.
He takes a portable camera from a pouch strapped to the side of his bike and aims it at the landscape with one eye looking through the viewing lens. With a mechanical snapping sound he knows the image was captured. Not long after this is a cloudy image slid out from a slot at the bottom of the camera. He takes it and waves it about giving it time for the image to cure into the exact replica of what he stares at scrutinizing still. When the man holds up the image he sees the same meadow that lies before him now which lifts something inside his person. It gives him a sense of relief which he cherishes no matter how momentary the feeling is. He tucks the image away into a buttoned up pouch that is slung around his shoulder gently before a sound originating from his right pocket steals his attention.
A cellular phone begins to chime and vibrate suddenly though he refuses to answer. He takes in the scenery of the wild vegetation before him allowing the phone to take a message before giving the call any more attention.
A mechanical female voice chimes, "You have voice mail."
With a few key strokes of the mobile phones buttons he playback the message.
"Cloud... This is Tifa if you don't recognize my voice. I know you're busy being alone and-... I'm sorry I didn't mean. Just there is a man here looking for you. I told him that you would be back tomorrow but he said he would wait outside for you. There's something different about him Cloud. Please get here a soon as you can. And.. Well, Um Cloud I thi-"
The phone beeps again notifying him that it took the liberty to cut the woman's message short since she talked longer than it was willing to record for. He has had numerous messages from her the past four weeks. None he ever replied too for the reason that he believes she's been with a man of late. Despite her being nothing more than a friend he still did not feel like being around even more so when finding this out.
With a sudden roaring outburst the metal beast awakens again with all pistons fired up. Cloud does a complete 360 degree that kicks up a impressive cloud of dust before bursting towards a small blotch in the distance that would be the metropolis of Edge where he will find Tifa.
The city bustles with activity as the daily life of a society built of men and women who want only a better life than the previous years have given them. Rusted cars drive between roads flanked with towering gray buildings. The aching creaks of construction to expand on this metropolis can be heard in the faint distance and world weary people walk to and fro all in a hurry to go no where.
In this thriving society a quaint two story structure stands as a home for its inhabitants and a bar known to be the home for a business known as the strife delivery service. A young man willing to make the more dangerous deliveries that standard ones would not even consider.
The owner of the bar, a woman with long dark hair, a elegant face and shapely body that does more than it's share of attracting patrons. With her is a young boy and together they go about trying to live about their lives as normally as possible like so many others. Burying so much pain like so many others beneath weary smiles.
"Denzel I don't have time to make sure you finish your work. I have to work so stop putting it off and go back into your room and finish that school work."
The woman scolds as a mother would scold her child. The boy rebelliously lets out a heavy sigh and drags himself heavily back upstairs.
"I'm sorry sir. How can I help you? Do you need to schedule a delivery? this week we are having a special-" She stops once she notices that the man she is speaking to seems to have his attention divided between the business at hand and to a shady man outside.
"You know maybe another time. I have to go."
The would be customer turns his back on her and walks out while avoiding a tall figure who has stood outside her business the past four hours or so. This is the last straw for Tifa. He has disrupted her day far to much already.
She storms outside furiously and burns a hostile stare into her trespasser. He is a tall one. A little over six feet if she is to guess. He wears a tattered brown cloak with odd protrusions lumping from under it. The cloak looks as if it could have once of been some type of cover at one time that was torn and made into what it is now. The hood covers his head and blacks out his face in an eery fashion partially due to the dreary over cast they are having today.
"You need to go. You can't stand outside like this all day. You scare my customers and it's creepy. Cloud is not here so come back tomorrow!"
The cloaked man is slow to respond to her orders but does answer eventually in a low and airy voice.
"Who are you to Cloud? A girlfriend? Or maybe by some chance his wife, a mistress even? No I doubt that. Cloud is not the type. If you are not someone who he is responsible for then you have no right asking what I want with Cloud do you?"
She is taken back by how he responds not expecting anything so blunt. She starts to wonder even more so what his intentions might be or if he means Cloud harm of any sort. She can not help worry about him still even despite what is between them as of now.
"I am going to have to ask you to leave right now."
"No. I can not do as you ask."
A tense silence passes which even bypasses and onlookers seem to pick on. She didn't ask for this but she is being given little choice now. The sun is covered with a thicket of dark clouds and the temperature drops dramatically as if the weather was in tune with the situation.
Tifa strikes the man in the face with a swift jab. Though his head flings to the side because of her fist she seems to be the one that blunted most of the pain. By flicking her wrist and rubbing the raw knuckles she manages to to ease the pain. At one time her knuckles would have been un-phased by such things but times change.
She advances on him a second time. Instead of an attack she tares the hood that he hides his form from view so she might have an understanding what she is against.
The man looks directly at her unflinching at being revealed. A black crimson head with firey red dread locks that resemble flames and a grinning set of long barred teeth in his mouth. The eyes are the most disturbing part of this creature now that she notices bright yellow pupils that burn in the sockets and pitch black whites.
It removes the rest of the cloak to reveal blood red full bodied modern armor encases his body totally.
Tifa studies the man to attempt to discern if it is indeed a man in some type of armor or some kind of creature inside some kind of man like form.
"What you expected?" He asks with a wide deivious grin.
"No." She responds while sinking into a comfortable martial arts stance.
Tifa makes three attempts to have her fists make contact but each consecutive strike is deflected with his own hand movements with too much ease. On her seventh strike which she does not hold back on in terms of speed he barely manages to intercept with his palm.
"You fight well." Tifa's opponent compliments while gripping her fist in his own cold clawed hands that prick her skin slightly.
She spins to try a round housed kick to his temple but it is avoided entirely. Within the split second she looses visibility of him he disappears.
Tifa spins in place nervously. It is quickly becoming painfully obvious that she is far outclassed in this fight which puts her on edge.
"I mean you no harm."
"Then why don't you leave?" She retorts with a strong feeling of anger in her tone.
"I can not." Still he remains calm.
Tifa lunges for him with a powerful leap forward and grabs a handful of the flaming hair. Tifa shoves one knee into his forehead as she spins in a aerial summer sault then kicks with both feet into his chest before landing. Tifa studiously watches him fall back into a brick wall. He has let his guard down she determines so she follows in pursuit.
A strike with all the speed and power her body can manage produces only a fist indentation into the side of a brick building.
Tifa watches helplessly now that the man fell below her fist. All she can do is brace for the inevitable. It feels as if a train is being shoved into her when he rams her with his shoulder and bulk between her Diaphragm. Tifa's feet launch from the ground un-volunteering in such a fashion she feels like a rag doll while her body flails about five times her height from the ground and at least twelve back wards till falling helplessly onto the hood of a parked vehicle.
Tifa cringes as she sits up on the hood. The man stomps and jerks his body into a stiff posture that has a layer of dust rise off his armor. "Woman I think of myself to be fair but if you continue to attack me I will have to subdue you."
"Tifa!" Densiel yelps.
She looks up at the boy watching from the door way "Go back inside!" She screams.
A sound that is faint at first but quickly increases into a roaring engine that blazes to a halt. It forces the man to back away or be hit by the speeding vehicle when it threatens to run him over.
"Whats going on?" The soft spoken blond asks as he dismounts his steel steed known as "Fenrir".
Tifa accepts clouds helping hand by ceasing his extended hand when offered. She is pulled up up from the car hood then turns to face her would be rescuer.
"Is someone nearly getting killed what it takes to get you to visit every now and then Cloud?"
Cloud does not respond to her sarcasim. In-fact that same line is what started a blazing argument between them and had him ride off again.
"Are you always this heroic?"
Cloud looking very unamused by the question turns to the owner of the pronunciation voice and scales whatever it is that stands before him crucially.
"What do you want?"
"I came to warn you of someone who is out to kill all that are like you and me."
"Is that all you wanted to say?"
"In short. Yes."
Cloud nods and draws a over sized single edged sword that resembles a giant crude butcher knife. He dashes forward with sword held ready in hand. The massive power of his swing that is intended to land strait into the intruders crown is caught between two palms pressing on either side of the flats on the blade a breath before his skull would have been wedged in half.
"You're quick." Says Cloud
Cloud pressures to free the blade from his hold but finds his opponent difficult to over power in strength. Cloud detaches the blade's lock as the weapon is comprised of many smaller blades and Cloud can pull a single smaller weapon from the great sword. Cloud's opponent draws the remainder of his sword into his own hand and they Both back away from one another mutually to leave a cautious amount of space between them both.
"Cloud!"
Tifa hurries forward to assist him now that question who is the stronger fighter between Cloud and the unwelcomed visitor is uncertain. Her help is refused almost angrily by Cloud with a simple hand gesture.
"I always told you that a man should be proficient in his hands first and a tool second. I have the bigger stick now."
Clouds expression tenses at the words but strangely he lets down his guard simultaneously.
"Baldur." He says with a acidic hiss.
"I was not going to harm the Woman Cloud. Though she is quiet resilient as she is strong."
The other man Cloud identified as Baldur throws the second half of the blade back to him and Cloud catches it in mid twirl.
"If that is all you wanted to say," Cloud snaps the two parts of the blade together then slides it back into the primitive leather straps at his back. "Then thanks. I'll watch my back."
At that Cloud grabs a hold of the Fenrir to walk it into the garage at the side of Tifa's bar.
Tifa looks back at this man named Baldur and watches him as he removes the thing she mistook as his actual head.
She takes a gasp of air once she sees the face of the man underneath. She recognizes him from someone long ago. His short crop cut hazel hair, sharp hard eyes, the long tight handsome face. The hair at the bottom of his chin is new to her though.
She rarely saw him at their village since he was always away by the time she came of age. Though she believes that this man is Clouds elder brother.
"And it is very nice to see you again Tifa. I apologies if I hurt you."
Chapter 2: Comming soon
The Executioners
"To purge this world of our own kind and their offspring is not a choice. It's duty."