Disclaimer: All Final Fantasy 7 characters, places and things all belong to Squaresoft. I own none of it. This fanfic is for fun and enjoyment of others and myself. I don't make any money from it.
This is a Final Fantasy 7 Alternate fanfic. In this story Cloud and Zack are both Mercenaries. However the timeline is also changed sorta. Zack and Cloud are both Scavengers with tragic pasts willing to sell their swords for money. Tifa is still a member of Avalanche and Aeris is a wandering spirit constantly running from her pursuers. If you're interested, Please read. If you hated it then let me know and I'll either try to make it better or take it off completely. Thanks for reading.
SHARDS COLLIDE
CHAPTER 1
The storm raged relentlessly over the town of Kalm. So much so that every citizen in the town stayed indoors. Clearly it was a day in which not even the sturdiest of men would dare venture out. Yet, amidst the onrush of wind and rain one lone figure traveled desperately into the town seeking solace. The local bar, as always, was the only place that would stay open amidst the havoc in the skies. The figure quickly made for the brightly lit, tavern as fast as humanly possible.
The stranger was wearing a heavy brown cloak that covered head to toe. However, once inside, the unexpected visitor removed the hood revealing that it was indeed a female under those thick garments.
Roughly pulling the hood away from her face, letting her brown hair fall about her shoulders, the woman looked around in confusion, noticing that all eyes where on here. This greatly unnerved her and so she quickly turned away and made for one of the few empty tables left in the slightly crowded establishment.
Seating herself in the farthest table possible, the woman folded her hands together, trying to warm herself up from the freezing rain, which previously assaulted her outside. A barmaid was soon by her side.
"Hello." The woman said in a mock – friendly voice. "Is there anything I can get for you this evening?"
The woman noticed the tension in the barmaid's voice and so she tried her best to sound civil when she replied.
"Could I just get a warm cup of soup please?"
The barmaid nodded her head and began to walk off.
"I- I'm really sorry to trouble you like this." The Woman added in, timidly. "There was just no other place to go."
The barmaid regarded the woman strangely for a while then smiled softly. "It's no problem at all. Don't worry about it. Everyone's just shocked that someone was actually walking out in that raging storm outside. They're probably thinking that either you're one extremely brave woman or just some unfortunate soul unlucky enough to be punished with this horrid weather."
The woman seemed more at ease after that and smiled slightly. "Thank you." She said quietly.
The barmaid nodded crisply. "My name's Jessie. I'll have your soup out in no time at all." With that she was off.
The woman let out a soft sigh and lowered her head to the table in exhaustion.
"Hiya toots."
The woman cringed as she noticed the voice was right up to her ear. She shot her head from the comforting pillow of her arms and stared wide eyed at the man who was now sitting two inches from her face.
"C- can I help you?" The woman asked in a shaky voice.
"Yeah. You must'a been pretty brave to be face'n dat storm outside all by your lonesome. So tell me toots, what business do ya got hanging out in weather dat bad?"
The woman was now becoming extremely nervous. "I'm ju – just a traveler. I don't really have much of a story. I just came here because this was the closest town in sight."
Inwardly, the woman was slightly proud of herself. At least that wasn't a total lie she told him.
"I don't believe you toots." The man roughly grabbed her wrist. "Now I want the truth. Why was you wanderin outside in dat storm? You got to be one of dem people everybody's talking about!"
The woman began shaking and she quickly got up from her seat. Suddenly, she wanted to be very far away from this man. "I'm a- afraid I d- don't know what you're talking about sir."
"Didn't I just tell you not to lie to me!" The thug seethed, shaking her roughly to emphasis he meant business. "You're one of dem aint ya's? One of dem what-cha-ma-call-its! SOLDIERS! Special freaks that them Shinra's got working for em."
"No! You've got it all wrong! I'm not!"
The thug roughly shook her again. "Didn't I just tell you not to lie to me?" He raised his had preparing to strike the woman. "You can't fool me! I'll expose you for the fake you are!" The Thug was just about to strike when-
"Billy! Stop that right now! Just what in the hell do you think you're doing! Let go of my customer right now!"
Billy glared at Jessie as she approached them. "Stay out of this Jessie. This don't involve you. Let me do what I gotta do or you're gonna get hurt!"
Jessie continued to walk towards them, unheeded by the burly man's threats. "Billy either you stop right now or I'll have no choice but to have to ask you to leave. And even you wouldn't want to put up with the thunderstorm outside."
In response, Billy suddenly pulled his hand away from the woman and roughly shoved Jessie into one of the nearby tables. "I warned ya Jessie."
The woman let out a sharp gasp as she saw her barmaid friend tumble onto the floor, knocking over several chairs in the process.
"Jessie!"
The thug swung back around and gripped the woman's shoulders roughly. "Now, as for you toots. You ain't goin nowhere! Not until you answer my questions!"
"Let go of me!"
"Shut up!" The man raised his hand preparing the strike her but at the last minute she pulled out of the way and bumped into somebody else.
"Excuse me." She said, absent mindedly as she tried to scurry further away from her attacker. The man she bumped into didn't move at all. He simply stood there staring at her. The woman caught his eyes and stared back at him in return. He was, by no means, bad to look at. He had a mess of spiky blond hair and deep blue eyes. Like her, he also wore a cloak but his was a dark, onyx color instead of her brown colored one. The woman realized that she was staring at him and quickly cast her eyes downward.
"I- I'm sorry" she muttered timidly.
The man did not reply. He regarded her for a few more moments then trained his eyes on the man who was assaulting her.
Billy saw the blond man staring at him and became angry. "What are you looking at? You gonna get out of the way or do I have to rough you up too?"
This drew the attention of yet another cloaked man. This man was standing a few feet away from the blond man and he wore a similar onyx colored cloak. However, the woman noticed that his appearance was different. Although the two looked similar enough to be siblings, this new man had a main of Black spiky hair instead of blond. And they were accompanied by a set of dark brown, eyes. Unlike the blond, this man's spiky hair was longer and came down his back with a few vacant strands falling over his eyes. There was no denying, he too was very handsome looking. However, he didn't have the same serious tone in his eyes that the blond did. Given, there was something of a dangerous glint there but he seemed to have more of a free spirited demeanor then the other man.
The black haired man walked over to the blond and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey Cloud, if you're gonna do this then try not to make as much of a mess as you did last time ok?"
The woman gaped in shock. "Last time…?"
The black haired man looked over towards her, as if for the first time, and shot her a quick wink. "It's a long story. Don't worry about it."
The woman sighed in exasperation. 'This guy must be one of those ladies man types.'
Billy slammed the table in fury. "Are you looking for a fight you blond haired punk?"
Cloud shrugged lightly and gave a faint smile. "If that's the way you want it then fine. Cause I'll tell you this right now, it sickens me to see men attacking women. If you so much a lay a hand on her, I'll beat the living $hit out of you. Is that understood?"
A couple people in the background chuckled. After only a few moments, they had attracted a fairly big crowd. Feeling as if his pride were on the line, the man scrounged up his face in anger and charged at Cloud. "Why you!"
He swung wildly and Cloud easily ducked up under the blow. In the blink of an eye, Cloud rose back up with a powerful upper cut to the face. Then he linked it together with a follow up round house kick across the jaw. The man fell flat on the ground, completely out cold.
Apparently he had friends, because in no time a group of thugs emerged amidst the crowd and came charging in towards Cloud. Cloud smirked and met the challenge as the men flanked his position. They all struck at once. Cloud easily bobbed and weaved through all their attacks.
While the fighting was going on, the woman watched in horror, fearful for the safety of her blond haired protector. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Black haired main leaning back against the counter watching the scene of destruction with an amused smile on his face. The woman furiously turned towards him.
"Are you just going to sit there? That's your friend right? Why aren't you helping him?"
This only seemed to amuse the man more and much to the woman's discomfort he chuckled softly. "Cloud's not the one that needs the help here miss. Just relax and enjoy the show."
The woman glared at him skeptically for a few moments the slowly followed suit.
It was as the black haired man said. Cloud easily dodged all of their attacks. One man came in with a right hook. Cloud swung left then brought his leg in for a hard roundhouse kick. The man slammed into the side of the wall and fell out. Immediately after, three other men came in to take his place. Cloud defeated them just as easily. One got a swift kick to the gut. Another received a hard upper cut. And the last one earned a few jabs to the chest and a swift kick to the face for good measure. Within a matter of minutes, they were all laid out on the floor, either unconscious or in too much pain to get back up. Jessie just looked on in mortification as she surveyed the damage done two her bar. The brawl had destroyed four tables and eight chairs, not to mention the cracks in the wall and the spilt beer lying around everywhere.
Cloud slouched over into a chair, exhausted from his recent fight. Just then, the burly man shot back up to his feet holding a dagger and charging towards Cloud.
The woman was horrified. "Cloud look out!" She screamed.
At the last second, Cloud turned around and saw his attacker. It was too late for him to do anything but watch as the man closed the distance.
Suddenly, their was a bright flash of silver and all of a sudden, the man's dagger was lying on the floor, broken in two halves. The burly man gulped as he found a huge, double handed broad sword positioned at his throat.
The woman blinked rapidly, trying to figure out what just happened. Two seconds ago, the black haired man was leaning casually next to her with amusement dancing in his eyes. Now he was standing directly in front of the attacker with a huge broadsword in his hands. The look in his eyes was terrifying. There was so much cold emotion there, it was hard for the woman to believe that only a few seconds ago he was the same man who had such a cheery expression on his face.
The black haired man slowly pressed the blade up to the thug's throat, causing the man to sweat profusely. "Now correct me if I'm wrong." He said in an offhanded manner. "But I do believe that was a knife you were planning to use on my partner here. Now I'm all for good bloody fights and all that but that was just plain dirty."
The thug gulped again in response. The Black haired man pressed the sword further up to the man's throat. A dangerous smile played on his lips. "That was a very bad thing you did." He said softly. "Now I want you to apologize to my good old friend Cloud here. Cause otherwise I'm going to have to cut you. Now I don't think either of us want's that, am I right?"
The man nodded slowly.
"Good. Now what is the magic word?"
"I'm s-sorry." The man said, now sweating even more profusely.
"That's a good boy. Now that wasn't so hard was it?"
The man shook his head as far as he could.
The black haired man smile cheekily then with the swiftness of the wind he pulled his sword away from the man's throat and rammed the hilt into his gut. The thug promptly keeled over and fell to the floor, unconscious yet again.
The black haired man turned to Cloud good-naturedly and held his hand out. "You ok partner?"
Cloud reluctantly took his hand and rose up to his feet. "Yeah I'm ok… Thanks for the save Zack. I guess I still have a lot to learn about the art of fighting huh?"
Zack chuckled as a response and patted Cloud's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. We live and learn right? You're just lucky I was there to watch your back!"
"Yeah." Cloud muttered. "I owe you one."
"Uhh excuse me?" the woman interrupted timidly.
Both men trained their eyes on the woman who had been the object of the whole conflict from the beginning.
"What can we do for you beautiful?" Zack asked with a smile on his face.
The woman blushed slightly. "Well… how did you learn to fight like that? I've never seen anyone fight the way he did" she said, pointing towards Cloud. "And I've never seen anyone move as fast as you. Did you both have special training or something?"
Cloud narrowed his eyes and grumbled something inarticulate while Zack simply laughed merrily. "Us? Special training? Hell no! We're just Mercenaries with a lot of experience under our belts."
The woman's eyes glittered with interest. "Really? You're both mercenaries? Wow! I've never met mercenaries before!"
"Well now you have" Cloud replied bluntly. He then turned and gripped Zack's shoulder tightly. "We'd better get out of here Zack. We don't want to cause any more trouble then we already have."
Zack looked around at the mess that had been made in the previously clean establishment and nodded his head enthusiastically. "Yeah you're right Cloud." He sheathed his broadsword into the hilt that was strapped to his back then turned and walked towards Jessie who was still in shock over the mess the two mercenaries had created in the bar.
"Here." Zack said, tossing her a bag of gil. "This should take care of the damages. Sorry about the ruckus. No worries right?"
Jessie mutely looked at all the gil Zack had given her then back up at him and nodded her head slowly.
"Good" Zack then turned around facing the woman once again. "As for you, this really isn't the type of scene you should be hanging out in. Why don't you stick around with us until the rain lets up?"
The woman was shocked beyond belief. "You really mean that?" She asked in bewilderment.
"Sure!" Zack smiled. Cloud simply cupped his face in his hands in exasperation.
"Zack do you know what you're doing? We're running low on gil as it is. And you're suggesting we divide it even further by adding a third member to our party?"
Zack dismissed Cloud's comment with a wave of his hand. "Ahh don't worry about it Cloud. We'll find another job opportunity soon. Then we'll be raking in some decent gil again. Besides, this lady strikes me as the type who has a streak of good luck about her. We stick with her and we'll be rolling in the dough!"
Cloud let out an annoyed sigh. "Fine! Whatever but she just better not slow us down."
Zack ignored the comment and turned towards the woman once more. "Well lets get going eh? By the way what's your name?"
The woman smile brightly. "It's Aeris. Aeris Gainsbourough."
:::::::::::To Be Continued::::::::::::
Authors note:
Thanks for reading. Please stay tuned for the next chapter.-Cordis