DEMON ISSUES
By : Albedosreqium / Soyna
Setting: During the game.
Rating, Genre and Warnings: M, because Hell Masker's idea of fun is pretty gruesome so I am bumping up the rating. Humour. Swearing. Mention of experiments gone awry.
Characters: Nanaki's POV, but it has everyone from the AVALANCE party.
Disclaimer: All related Final Fantasy names and characters are copyrighted by the almighty Square Enix©. I do not profit from this endeavour.
Summary and Additional Information:
First Place Prize for the contest that I ran that encouraged the torture/pleasure of Reno.
She wanted a playful demons one-shot.
Demon ideas of playful are a little strange.
Vincent's demons have some issues and are a lot more playful than demons should be.
The first time Vincent transformed into the violet-haired dog-thing, Nanaki had not been all that surprised really. Vincent always had an off smell to him as they travelled.
Nanaki had written off the smell to the fact that the man had been imprisoned by Hojo in that coffin for thirty plus years, hadn't had a proper shower, had been surrounded by lab experiments and didn't have a change of clothes.
He was proven wrong when Vincent was gravely injured in battle. Nanaki had tried to activate the cure spell but Vincent's figure started to glow a strange red that was usually the sign of a limit break. The smell of past lab experiments rose to his nose and suddenly Vincent was no longer in the battle.
It was a little startling to see the large behemoth-type creature appear and tear apart the monster that had injured its host. The battle was quickly won after the appearance of the demon which sat down in the blood and bones and began to lick its paws clean.
Everyone else was too stunned to respond to the sight, but Nanaki had seen stranger beasts in his time and believed he had encountered similar monsters and demons in the labs. "Well, Vincent, I think you should step out of the blood before you try to clean yourself."
The creature looked up at him with its large red tongue lolling out of its mouth. It raised itself out of the mess that it created, grabbing a leg bone that was once part of the monster it had just ripped apart. It walked up to him and dropped the bone in front of him before licking his nose in a quite undignified manner.
He rubbed his paw over his nose and shook his head. "That is hardly appropriate!" Nanaki snarled. He could hear Yuffie giggling behind him. He heard someone else snort but he glared back over at the other members of the group, and they all looked greatly amused by the scene.
"It's not a laughing matter," Nanaki said and looked back at the purple beast that had its head tilted, looking like a giant puppy. "You need to learn to behave when you are in this form. You can't just go around and lick noses like that." He found himself brushing his nose again with his paw.
Vincent's alternate form had bad breath and he could smell the blood and whatever else he had eaten on his nose. It was rather disgusting.
The purple beast was surrounded by red smoke and then Vincent appeared.
"Aw," Yuffie said. He turned to see her holding a stick that she must have pulled off a near by tree. "I wanted to see if you played fetch for me too."
Nanaki rubbed his nose again and glared at the young ninja.
Vincent cleared his throat. "Galian has a playful nature at times," he said simply as he hid his face in his cloak, "especially after he has eaten."
Nanaki shook his head and grumbled as Vincent walked away. He had no desire to be a play thing of a demon, even if he was friendly to them.
"Let's do that again. I want to play with the puppy!" Yuffie yelled and bounded after Vincent.
Nanaki would have rolled his eyes at the behaviour, but then children were that way. It took Vincent shooting at Yuffie's feet to get her to shut up. Vincent swore at her and told her that in no uncertain terms that Galian didn't want to play fetch.
That statement wasn't exactly true.
Another day and another battle brought on the appearance of Galian. Vincent had been careful, Nanaki noted, not to get injured to bring about the appearance of the monster the resided inside him.
They were fighting a Desert Sahagin that was particularly tough. The Scan materia told them that they were fighting a level twenty, but the monster was not going down. The defence was much higher than it should have been.
Cid was getting particularly pissed off. "Someone cast some damn Ice on that thing!" he yelled as he twirled his spear. Nanaki didn't have Ice handy, as he had equipped Water earlier, and that wasn't going to do them any good against the monster.
"Use your Fire!" Vincent yelled in response.
"It's not doin' shit," Cid bellowed. Nanaki was going to point out that it was doing a little damage. More than their weapons were against the Sahagin, anyway.
"I got it covered!" Yuffie yelled and started to cast Ice but it missed the monster as it lunged with its large spear at Cid. Cid was able to block the attack, their spears clashed; sparks went flying as it made a weird noise that could have been a growl.
The monster won the clash. Cid's spear went flying and Nanaki had to dodge to prevent the spear from going right through him. When he turned back to the fight he saw that it was over. Vincent's alternate form was there sitting on a headless body of the former troublesome monster.
Cid was on the ground, a hand on his chest and breathing heavily. "Well, fuck!" Cid said breathlessly as he scrambled back from the corpse.
"That was rather invigorating," Nanaki said as he went to pick up Cid's spear in his mouth to bring it back to the Captain. Galian dropped the head that was in his mouth to the ground and came rushing at him.
He was a little startled by the action when Galian grabbed onto the spear with its mouth.
Nanaki spoke around the spear, "What are you doing?"
Galian growled and tugged. Nanaki growled back and pulled, gripping the spear tighter into his jaw. He had to dig into the damp ground to prevent himself from being pulled.
"Let go!" Nanaki mumbled around the spear and gave a mighty pull to try to free the weapon from the demon's mouth. Galian growled and pulled harder. He narrowed his eye and bunched his shoulders to counteract Galian's action. It was starting to hurt his jaw, and he was going to tell him to let go again when Galian shook his head.
He yipped as it tore out of his mouth and Galian gained control of his spear. "What is the meaning of …" Nanaki started and then was silenced as Galian bounded over to where Cid had just stood up and looked like he was having trouble catching his breath.
Galian dropped the spear in front of him, sat down on his haunches and wagged his tail.
Cid blinked and looked down at the demon as he pushed the weapon towards him with his nose. Cid slowly bent down, and the speed of his tail increased as Cid picked it up.
"Thanks," Cid said a bit hesitantly.
"Hey!" Yuffie yelled and held her shuriken up. "Do you want to play fetch with me, Vincent?"
Galian growled at her and his purple fur raised on his hackles. He then turned back to Cid, who had his eyebrows lost in his hair line with shock.
"So, should I throw it, or somethin'?" he said, looking quite confused.
It was then that Galian turned back into Vincent. Vincent stood there looking at the shocked Cid for a moment, before he mumbled and walked away from the scene.
"Aw," Yuffie whined, "I wanna play with the puppy."
Cid turned and glared at the young ninja. "Shut yer yap, kid!" he said and stalked off in the other direction.
It was all a very confusing situation with Galian, but they had gotten used to the demon appearing and gotten used to handling him.
Nanaki tried not to fight alongside Vincent after that, as Galian thought of him as a playmate and he did not appreciate being trounced by the very large demon. Vincent was always apologetic afterwards, but he didn't seem to have control when the other form appeared.
They got into a routine with that and Nanaki was glad.
He did not think that Hojo had placed other demons inside of the poor man.
It was another battle when he appeared. The smell of his limit break was different and it startled him. They were fighting those pesky Turks; the one with the red hair and the one with no hair. Reno lunged at Vincent with his EMR while he was doing the change. He expected to see Vincent go down but the creature that showed himself did not seem to be bothered at all by the electric shock that he was receiving.
The large monster was quite a sight. He was twice as large as Vincent and made a loud grunting sound as he grabbed the EMR and the Turk's hand.
The redhead had a very colourful vocabulary as he dangled there, sparking off the rod and getting no effect on Vincent's persona. The demon made another grunt and then effortlessly threw the small man into the bigger one and sent them skidding quite far across the ground.
Vincent's new persona still had the EMR in his hand and seem quite fascinated with it. Cloud yelled at Vincent to stop as it placed the EMR in its mouth and started to chew on it. It sparked and sputtered, and the demon seemed to be enjoying it.
Nanaki swore the teeth were glowing.
"Fuck this, yo," was the statement made by the redheaded Turk. The other man grabbed him by the collar and they ran for it.
With the adversaries gone they could focus on Vincent … or rather the new demon that had presented itself.
It was still chewing on the EMR, lighting up its teeth with sparks coming off the bolts on its neck. Cloud approached the monster. "Vincent?" he said carefully. "I don't know if that's good for your teeth."
The green zombie-type creature grunted again. He didn't think this persona could talk either but it looked down at Cloud, who looked torn between running and fighting. They were used to dealing with Galian. This one was a whole new monster … excuse the pun.
The rod sparked one last time and the demon grimaced and bit down harder on it, but no response.
"Vincent? Can you come back now?" Cloud said with a worried voice. The demon spat out the broken weapon and made a sound that resembled something to the extent that it was still hungry.
"I think yah should back off there, Cloud," Cid said as he started to back away from the scene.
Cloud didn't get a chance.
Despite the large nature of this persona, it was quick. It had its large hand around Cloud's waist and had lifted him. Nanaki prepared to attack but he didn't want to hurt Cloud.
Suddenly Cloud was laughing and wiggling as he was being jostled back and forth. It didn't seem that the new creature was hurting Cloud but searching for something. It was a strange sound to hear from the normally stoic man. He would have never guessed that Cloud was extremely ticklish. Cloud's uncontrollable laughter and his words begging Vincent to stop went unheeded until the demon found what it was looking for. It plucked a small green orb from Cloud's buckle and gurgled with glee.
It let Cloud go and left their gasping, flushed, and breathless leader on the ground as it popped the Lightening materia into its mouth and chewed contently.
"Well that was fuckin' different," Cid said as he pulled out a cigarette and had a large smile on his face. "Heya, sparky, do ya think we can have Vincent back?"
It grunted, looked at Cid briefly with its bright yellow eyes, blinked slowly and sniffed the air around him. It grunted again, seeming to decide that Cid was not worth its while or didn't have what it wanted before it turned to Yuffie, who was standing there like a slack-jawed idiot. It reached out quickly to her and grabbed her arm. She screamed loudly, kicked and hit the arm that held her high up in the air.
He thought of running to the ninja's aid but Cid's laughter stopped him. The demon reached for her bag, tore it from around her shoulder and then tossed her aside into a nearby bramble bush. The large demon opened the bag and materia spread across the ground.
Cid stopped laughing as they watched the demon pop a few more of the green orbs into its mouth. They watched the magic crackle as its chewing slowed and Vincent reappeared, looking confused as he spit out the materia into his hand.
Vincent didn't offer an explanation as he looked at Cloud, who had regained his footing but was still looking flushed and a little out of breath.
Yuffie crawled out of the bush. "What the hell was that about?" she yelled and stalked forward.
Cid was the one that grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to a stop before she could reach the scattered materia. "We need ta have a chat about yer thievin' habit."
Yuffie huffed, "Those are legally mine!"
Nanaki would beg to differ. "I was looking for that comb!" He saw his missing weapon among the various other contents of her bag.
Vincent looked over to Cloud, lowered his head in the hood of his cloak, mumbled an apology and started to walk away from them. Cid was busy cursing out Yuffie. Cloud looked confused and was trying to gain his dignity back as he straightened his clothes. Nanaki noticed that Tifa and Aerith were still watching with great amusement over the whole situation.
Vincent arrived back at the camp before nightfall. He sat silently beside Cloud and apologized again.
"How many of them there demons do ya have inside of ya?" Cid asked bluntly.
Vincent shrugged. "A few more."
Nanaki sniffed at Vincent as he smelled more there than the two of the demons that they encountered, but he didn't know what the others were. There was one smell that he didn't know, so there had to be at least one more inside him.
"So we have a puppy and a thing that eats electricity to deal with," Yuffie said. "That's a start. You can't have too many more in there."
"We just have to be a little more prepared," Cloud said and made sure he kept his distance from Vincent.
And they tried to be more careful. Every time that Vincent had a limit break they gave him room to let the demon do its work and waited until he transformed back before they approached him. They weren't too worried about Galian, but they didn't want to have Gigas eat any more of the mastered materia.
But they had gotten complacent. They were battling a rather bothersome monster — Materia Keeper — that was draining their energy and magic. They were all low on energy as the monster did not seem like it was slowing down.
Nanaki was finding it rather hard to keep up as he slashed at the creature.
They were going to have to retreat and Cloud yelled for them to back off as soon as he thought it.
But Vincent's aura already was changing and the retreat was halted. He swore he heard Cid yell at him not to turn into Galian but Nanaki was positive that Vincent didn't have much control over which demon came out. Nanaki felt that it wasn't one that they had seen before and he had a very strong urge to run. The smell was different than the other two demons that they had encountered in the past and it was a rather unpleasant one at that.
He yelled out a warning to Cloud but he seemed to sense it as well.
The demon that presented itself was different than the others. It was large and it seemed to seep silence as it stood in front of the pissed-off monster, who even seemed hesitant to attack. The weapon that it wielded was strange and Nanaki had not seen anything like it in the past. It raised its hand with the blade that had small knives on the end in a slow and almost disjointed fashion. Its face was hidden by a mask but the malice and hatred in the shining white eyes was more than enough to tell him that this was a side of Vincent that one didn't want to mess with.
The monster decided that it didn't like the new member that it was battling and lunged forward. The weapon screeched as the smaller blades started to move and it filled the cave with an unholy mechanical racket. The demon that was moving disjointedly before was now graceful as it lunged to attack the bothersome monster.
Blood was splaying across the mask of the creature as it continued the assault on the monster that was trying to run away.
Vincent's persona wasn't going to let it. It moved forward with stunning grace and carved up the monster with great accuracy as it got the saw blade in the joints and started to take it apart all by itself; limb by limb and joint by joint.
Nanaki watched, a little shocked at how complete and clean the cuts were. They were used to Galian ripping off a leg and trying to share it with them, but this demon seemed to enjoy the fact that he was shredding the monster, and didn't seem that there was any other purpose behind the actions but to dismember.
The monster did not last much longer but the new demon didn't seem to mind that it was already dead as it continued to cut. The cave was thick with the sounds of the blade and there was nothing else as they watched until there was nothing but butchered parts left.
Everyone else was standing back. Aeirth had her face buried into Cloud's side. Tifa was looking a little green as she stood beside Barret who had a sneer of disgust on his face. Cid and Cloud just looked like they were too shocked to react.
Nanaki sighed heavily as it seemed he was the one that was going to have to call Vincent back out of this form. He cleared his throat and called to Vincent and tried not to sound scared.
The blade stopped making its horrendous noise and there was only silence as the expressionless face turned towards him. He tried not to look nervous as he cleared his throat again, as it felt like his tongue was caught there. "It's quite dead now."
Vincent's demon stooped and walked forward a few steps with a gait that did not have the grace it had when it was killing. It tilted its head and flung its arms wide, and Nanaki had no idea what it was trying to say with that gesture.
"Is Vincent in there?"
The whites of its eyes glowed and the saw started again. Nanaki scurried backwards as it swung the saw and turned its back on him. He didn't stop backing up until he bumped into something. When he turned around he saw that it was Cloud.
Cloud visibly swallowed. "Just let him finish dismembering it and then we will have Vincent back."
"And how do you know that?" Barret grumbled as they watched more of the dead monster parts come in contact with the rotating saw.
"It's just making sure that it's completely dismembered so that it doesn't pull itself back together," Cloud said, "Like 'It' did."
They watched as the demon finished the job and the cave floor was red with the dead monster's blood. After it shut off the saw, it made sure that each part was separated and not touching each other as it moved around the mess, kicking each part to ensure that there was separation.
Nanaki really wanted out of the cave. The smell of the dead creature's blood was terrible and the silence that the demon seemed to create after the saw was off was nearly painful. It was almost as if water was afraid to drip down the walls.
"Vincent?" he bravely said as he walked forward, trying not to get blood on his paws. He didn't like to lick his paws clean of blood. It was not a good taste to have linger in his mouth when the water supply was low.
The demon turned to him and threw his arms wide again.
"It's wonderful. We were wondering if you would like to go now," Nanaki said.
The monster turned back, seemingly admiring the mess, before the figure of Vincent stood there. He kept his back to them and his shoulder's slumped beneath his heavy cape.
"Vincent?" Nanaki said as he walked beside the man and looked up at him. The bottom half of his face was completely hidden by his cape and he could see that Vincent closed his eyes to the sight in front of him.
"I thought I had him hidden," Vincent whispered. His briefly opened to glimpse the pieces that were once a living creature before closing them again.
"You knew he was in you?" Nanaki asked.
Vincent nodded. "I thought I had him buried deep enough so that he would never come out again. I was wrong." Vincent took a deep breath and walked away from him, past the group. Eyes followed him as he walked further down the cave; his brass shoes slipped on a smear of blood as he walked.
"Fucking hell, that's the most gruesome thing that I've ever seen," Cid said as he started to follow after Vincent.
Cloud was the only one that didn't seem disturbed. Tifa wrapped her hand around his arm as though she were trying to wake him from a trance. He blinked a few times as if he was trying to clear his vision. "I've seen worse," Cloud whispered under his breath as he started to walk as well.
Nanaki had to admit … he had seen some gruesome stuff as well. It wasn't nearly as hard to take when it was only a monster and not one's family.
Vincent promised that he would try to keep Hellmasker from appearing during his limit breaks. "I don't like him because he always gets carried away with his carving."
"Carving?" Aerith said in her innocent way. She was a nice girl, but way too innocent to be traveling with them. He worried about her at times. Nanaki leaned against her as she spoke and he got rewarded with a scratch behind his ears.
"He carves. That … mess," Vincent paused and took a deep breath, "was what it considers a masterpiece."
They sat in silence for a bit before Yuffie huffed an answer, "Next time, we'll find him a tree."
Nanaki looked at Vincent. The man had many different smells but there was still one more that wasn't explained. "You have another one in there, don't you?"
Vincent nodded.
"What does he do? Does the other one dance?" Yuffie blurted and Barret cuffed the back of her head and told her to shut up. They did that a lot when he thought back on it.
Vincent looked down at his clawed hand and flexed the fingers. "Whatever he wants," was the answer that finally escaped his lips.
Nanaki was worried about Vincent after that. He was more silent and a lot more careful in battle. He stayed further back than he did before. He was afraid to get hurt to draw out one of his inner forms.
No one seemed to be any more afraid of him than before. Cid kept encouraging Vincent to let his 'other personalities' out as it would be 'good for the up-tight prick to get the stick out of his ass'.
Cloud said it better. "They are part of you and you shouldn't have to hide those pieces, even if they aren't all that pleasant." Of course, Cloud understood what it was like to have different personalities inside of him which helped guide him.
As they traveled and fought, the demons appearing would often help the group more than hinder as Vincent seemed to have greater control over who and when they appeared.
Nanaki still didn't like it when Galian would come out as he would try to play with him as if he were a common dog, and that just was not right. If one gave Death Gigas a couple bolts of lightning, he would calm down right away. Hellmasker needed to finish his artwork and be given praise. No one wanted to hurt the demon's ego and have him start on a new piece of work.
It was when dealing with the mako-poisoned Cloud and the loss of Aeirth that the last demon rose out of Vincent. Cid had taken control of being the leader of the small group while Tifa tried to help Cloud heal.
They were constantly being swarmed by monsters that seemed to understand tactics. The small, vibrantly coloured flying bird-rodents were not at all pleasant to deal with. They would swoop down, bite, and cause a status effect before they would retreat.
They seemed to be waiting for their supplies to run out as they kept them trapped in the woods.
Cid looked at their supplies and placed a hand on his head. "We need to get the fuck out of here."
"That is an understatement," Vincent grumbled as he shot one of them out of the sky, but three more took its place and they did the familiar battle dance.
Nanaki licked the wound on his leg. "We need to get up high into their nest to get the leader of the pack."
"That is a great idea."
The voice that spoke was deeper than he was used to hearing from Vincent. He looked up to see that it was no longer the gunslinger but a very scary-looking purple-red demon with large wings standing there. He was still holding Vincent's gun in one of his large hands. This demon was larger and more imposing than any of the other demons and his vast wing span made an impressive sight.
Cid had already staggered back with a series of curses at the manifestation of this new form.
Chaos smelled of Gaia and it seemed odd smell for a demon to have.
Before Nanaki could respond to the statement he was grabbed by the demon and lifted off the ground. The demon wasn't hurting him though. "You," it said simply in a voice that didn't really seem to be coming from the air but inside of his head. "You can flush it out."
He didn't have time to ask what Chaos was talking about when he was promptly lifted in the air by its great wings and lifted above the trees. He was quite ashamed to admit that he yelped like a young pup.
Cid quickly vanished from his view as he was lifted and carried a short distance into the sky. Nanaki was not sure Chaos knew where he was going and what he was doing as he was thrown into a mess of branches and vines at the top of a tree.
He had no choice but to navigate through them and did indeed find the source of the bird-like monsters, and the mother of them all was not pleased with the disruption of her nest. He had to cast a few Fires to ensure that he wasn't eaten alive by the multitude of monsters.
This was not how he planned to die.
Those was when Cid crashed through the branches — with a series of curses that were crasser than he had ever heard before — and helped him fight the monsters. Chaos seemed to be randomly shooting the little ones but was mostly focused on the largest of the group, which appeared to be the mother that they had pissed off by Nanaki setting fire on everything around them.
Chaos didn't really seem interested in them at all but was interested when he was able to fight the monster that flew out of the trees to protect her children.
Cid and Nanaki could only watch as Chaos killed all the monsters in the area with ease of precision, flying in and out of the trees before he got bored and stood in front of them.
"I'm not a projectile," Cid growled as Chaos folded his wings. Nanaki was about to say the same protest, as he did not like to be thrown into a den of monsters, but the demon's cold smile stopped him and he felt the urge to hide behind Cid.
"I use what tools are handy," Chaos said as he looked down at the Captain.
"Are ya' callin' me a tool?" Cid said and glared up at the demon. Nanaki wanted to warn him that it may not be a good idea to upset this persona.
The demon ignored the comment and rolled its great shoulders before it shrank into the form of Vincent. Nanaki gave out a puff of breath. He was grateful the demon was gone and finally housed back in his host.
Cid was still angry though. He swung his spear and pointed it at Vincent's nose. "Yer demons are rude and need a damn lesson in manners."
One of Vincent's eyebrows rose as Cid twirled his staff behind his back and started to struggle to get out of the trees, calling at them to follow but looking determined to leave the forest.
Nanaki walked beside Vincent and looked up at him. There was a look on the gunslinger's face that he couldn't place. They followed behind Cid as they finally got out of the forest. Cid turned back and cursed at Vincent again for his demon's actions, complaining about his shoulder and other pulled muscles that were too crude to mention.
"Whose idea was it to throw us into the nest?" Nanaki asked as they walked on further. The demon did not appear until he had made the suggestion that they needed to get up high and Nanaki was curious.
"What do you mean?" Vincent asked.
"Was that the demon's idea or yours?" Nanaki pressed and he saw a devious smirk briefly cross his face.
"It got us through the battle, did it not?" Vincent said and started to walk a little quicker toward Cid.
Nanaki let him escape his questioning. He shook his head and kept on walking. He had to agree with Cid's earlier assessment.
Vincent's demons did need to learn some manners but he was certain that Vincent did nothing to discourage the thoughts from the last battle. Nanaki was wondering how much the demons affect the normally quiet man that was now walking beside a cursing Cid.
Nanaki decided that he was going to have to keep a better eye on Vincent and determine which of his habits were really caused by the demons, or from his own personality.
It would be interesting to see which of the personality quirks were actually demon problems or the ex-Turk.