Chapter I
A Trap?
Cloud Strife was riding Fenrir to the address of a very well paid delivery. When he arrived at the rundown grey house in a very decrepit street, he hopped off Fenrir. He could smell way more than he wanted to believe me. He'd been in this neighbourhood like what, two minutes? And already he could feel the filth all around him, like a greasy aura of slime. He shuddered inwardly and approached the black, peeling-paint door and smelled rotting wood and was that fish? "Hello?" Cloud called out anxiously. The eerie silence chilled him to the bone. As an afterthought, he opened Fenrir's sword compartment and grabbed his faithful Buster Sword. Just in case.
Cloud knocked on the door and ended up with paint-dust on his black, leather gloves. Then, at the top of his lungs he yelled "Strife Delivery Service" at the busted windows on the top floor. "No answer, that's strange." he muttered under his breath. He tried the door and it opened easily. He walked into the house and noticed the unpainted, unpapered walls, covered with dry moss and shiny, white slime (could it be fish-oil). Cloud also noticed the bare, wooden floor which was rotting, and live with termites. The stink of damp, decay, neglect, and rotting fish lay heavy on the air. Cloud went dizzy for a moment, overpowered by the various stenches, which, in his opinion, should never mix, under any circumstances. He quickly pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket (the silk kind) and tied it round his face, looking like a gangster.
Cloud began to search for anyone who could have placed the order (five-hundred gunblades of various models. There were Wind-Whistlers, Midnight Storms, Deathstrikes, Multi-blows, Omnikills, you name it, and it was in there somewhere). Cloud began his search in the 2nd room, an equally disgusting place, though less puketacular. He went out to Fenrir and unloaded the gunblades, wondering what was going on when all of a sudden a Sephiroth- worshiper dressed as Yazoo complete down to the last detail, including the long, platinum-blonde hair jumped out of the smashed, top-floor window on the left, picked up an Omnikill which is basically five gunblades in one and started firing at Cloud; who used his Mako-reflexes to dodge into the 2nd room without getting hit once (good thing too, as Omnikill gunblades have acid-coated bullets that start reacting when they hit the air. Melting the flesh they hit before exploding, so the gunblade isn't given away by the bullets it uses).
When the Yazoo impersonator stopped firing to reload, Cloud picked up Buster Sword and attacked, only to be blocked by the centre sword-part, causing the surrounding four gunblades of the Omnikill to vibrate ominously. That was when Cloud realised that he was only reloading the centre the other parts could still fire! Well, you don't have to be a super-genius to work out what happened next: four acid-coated-time-bomb-bullets hit Cloud in a neat row along the chest area. He was lucky enough for them to be cut off from oxygen, so, they wouldn't explode, but they were still melting him from the inside-out. He half-ran half-crawled up the stairs and reached another semi-dilapidated room and activated the special transmitter that Vincent had given him for his 26th birthday. The Yazoo impersonator came up the stairs to find Cloud half dead and utterly exhausted on the floor. He started shooting and Cloud blocked the bullets with Buster Sword when 'Yazoo' (or Biggles the fish-monger (that explains a lot)) paused to reload all his gun-parts, Cloud split Buster Sword into the five mini-swords and threw them all at the Omnikill in small hopes of breaking it, only for them to be blocked by the sword-parts. This left Cloud defenceless against further assault. Senior Psycho-pants (guess who that is) started shooting again "slightly more luck again, please, Aeris" Cloud thought in a silent prayer, hoping against hope she could hear him. I don't know if she heard him or not but the rotting floor caved in beneath Cloud, covering him in heavy debris he was currently to weak to move. However, this made him harder to shoot at.
Biggles/Yazoo/SP-P moved closer to the hole and pointed the mega-gunblade at Cloud's half covered head when SMASH! Vincent Valentine came through the window, sending it from broken to non-existent and opened unrelenting fire from Death Penalty, leaving Long-named-one as a crumpled heap against the wall. Half of operation Cloud-not-in-the-clouds was done; Vincent soared through the hole in the floor and dug Cloud out of the rubble. "Thanks." Cloud murmured before collapsing, unconscious into his hero's arms. Quickly and carefully Vincent carried Cloud out of the now-collapsing building and to a car out-front where Tifa Lockhart was waiting. He put Cloud in the back seat, strapped him in and sat next to him "Drive." Vincent said in his monotone growl.