Ninjagirl: Okay…this will be a possible two-shot, though if it is longer it will have to be three at the most…well, here it is, my first FF7 fanfic—and please note that this is modeled after Advent Children and is set two years after Final Fantasy VII. I have the whole thing prewritten but I will change it as necessary, to make certain points clear. Now… (looks around) Hey! Where's Tifa and Cloud? Cloud was supposed to do the disclaimer…

Tifa: (walks in, chatting with Cloud) Then he said that I had—Huh? Hey, wait! I don't remember coming here!

Cloud: (rolls eyes) Of course you don't, you were too busy talking. (sees Ninjagirl) Well, I guess I have to do the disclaimer now, don't I?

Ninjagirl: Cloud!! (tries to glomp him but misses and falls facefirst onto the floor) Oww… (gets up and rubs nose) Did you have to move, Cloud?

Cloud: I knew you were gonna try to do that anyway…

Ninjagirl: (puts on innocent look) Do what?

Cloud: (rolls eyes) BlackNinjagirl does not own Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children so don't sue her or I'll have to come and kick your ass. Thank you.

Ninjagirl: (grins and glomps Cloud unexpectedly) Yay! That was a good disclaimer…

Tifa: (glares at Ninjagirl) Humph…anyway…since she's preoccupied, I guess I'll start the fanfic.

Ninjagirl: (lets go of Cloud) NO!! Gimme the damn laptop! (yanks said computer away from Tifa and starts typing) Now, on with the fanfic!!

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Two Years After The Fall Of Midgar

Part One

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Christina Wyrd was riding out on the highway on her motorcycle, loving the way the wind ruffled her long red hair and which sent her bangs flying everywhere and her long braid trailing out behind her.

She checked to see if her sword was still in the compartment on her right, which, of course, it was. The sword had been given to her by Cloud Strife, her fiancée of a little over a year now, a little while after she had met him in SOLDIER thanks to Zack Fair, who had introduced them a little while after Cloud had joined SOLDIER and who was also her best friend, and the three of them had been inseparable up until she had escaped from Shinra, Inc., and she never went anywhere without it. She never heard from Zack since then, and Cloud had told her that Zack had died trying to protect him once they had met back up thanks to Tifa Lockheart, Cloud's old childhood friend, and AVALANCHE.

The sword wasn't the only weapon in her unusual arsenal; the right compartment also held one of Yuffie Kisaragi's old shuriken and one of Vincent Valentine's old rifles, as well as one of his old pistols and a few other odds and ends. The left contained one of Aeris Gainsborough's old Materia rods complete with the Materia and more of Vincent's old guns.

She usually didn't carry around all these weapons, but the current times called for it and she had been ambushed way too many times to count since Midgar had nearly been destroyed two years ago, especially when she was on the highway heading over to visit Cloud. There was also the added gem that Shinra was slowly becoming part of all of the crime going around, and that wasn't helping either.

Damn, not now, she thought as she felt the muscles in her left leg seize up painfully and visions of her days in SOLDIER flashed before her eyes, and the combined effects of the Geostigma making her wince violently, nearly sending her bike off of the road.

After a few minutes or so, the tension and visions subsided for the most part, and she quickly righted herself, but not before she had caught a flash of motion through the right side of her goggles, which she wore to keep the dirt out of her eyes whenever she went biking.

Naturally, she looked in that direction to see a familiar flash of black on a bike similar to hers swerving back and forth on the dirt to evade and counter attacks from two silver-haired guys, also on bikes, trying (and doing a pretty good job of it) to attack him.

Recognizing him to be her fiancée, and wanting a bit of fun, she opened the compartments, pulled out her sword, and closed them back in one fluid motion, then, quickly making sure that she was the only one on that part of the highway, spun her bike around with a loud screech of tires and headed over to help him out, twirling her sword as she went.

When she had caught up to the fight, she slashed at the guys attacking Cloud.

"Hey, you assholes," she taunted, "if you wanted a fight, you should have evened up the score some."

"Christina!" she heard Cloud exclaim, sounding relieved.

She grinned. "Naturally! Who'd you expect, the Boogeyman?"

She could hear his laugh as she evaded an attack from one of the guys as well as the shadowlike wolf creatures chasing them.

"Well, if it isn't our sister," one of the guys, whom she saw had long silver hair, said to her, making her scowl.

"I am no relative of yours!" she retorted before slashing at him, which he evaded.

She saw the other one, who had short silver hair, try to slash at Cloud and blocked it, counter-slashing and making the guy glare at her.

She smirked slightly before yelling at him, "You go after him, you deal with me first."

"Ah, but Sister, he needs to be punished!" the first guy put in.

"I told you, I'm no relative of yours!" she yelled back, slashing at the both of them then speeding up to catch up with Cloud.

"Are they bothering you?" she asked him sweetly, and heard him laugh lightly.

"Not really," he replied as the two of them evaded gunshots from the guys behind them.

She shrugged. "Ah well…they need their asses kicked anyways." She grinned. "And since you're the delivery boy now, I think I should be your bodyguard."

"Ha," she heard him snort arrogantly. "You know as well as I do that I'm not your average delivery boy."

"I haven't had this much fun in ages, Cloud!"

Cloud sighed. "All right, Christina, go have your fun."

She grinned and lightly applied her brakes, making her slow down so that she was lagging slightly behind the two bikes, then released them and slashed at the two guys, who evaded and attempted to retaliate when Christina did a wheelie, evading the attacks and showing off at the same time as well as making the attacks hit the other enemy.

She saw Cloud shake his head and couldn't restrain a grin as she let her front wheel set back down and sped up again to try to catch up to Cloud but one of the creatures leapt at her, forcing her to evade.

She was caught off-guard by another one, which hit her and knocked off her biking goggles, but quickly recovered and slashed at it, making it vanish and reappear behind her. She then attempted to speed up again, just succeeding to catch up with Cloud when her leg seized up again and the visions flashed in front of her eyes.

"You too, huh?" she heard Cloud ask her as she shook her head a few times, trying to get rid of the vision problem she had at the moment thanks to the Geostigma, which was a condition that resulted from certain cells that had been injected into her leg as a result of being forced to join SOLDIER. The memories she had from those days in SOLDIER were not very pleasant, excepting the times when she had hung out with either Cloud, Zack, or both.

"I had to take them too, you know," she mumbled as the vision problem and the tension—again, for the most part—receded. "Not that I wanted to, or anything."

"I know," he replied softly so that the silver-haired guys couldn't hear. "Where is it?"

"Left leg. It hurts like hell."

"You're not kidding," he managed to mutter back before the two of them evaded another shadow-wolf and Cloud slashed it, making it vanish and reappear behind them.

Christina was about to suggest that they lose the assholes following them when the shadow-wolf creatures vanished entirely and the two guys following them turned around and headed back on their own.

"Well!" she blurted. "Nothing but coincidence."

"What? What is it?" Cloud asked her curiously.

"I was about to suggest that we lose those jackasses when they turned and left on their own."

"That is a coincidence." He looked at her. "Where were you going before you joined the fight?"

"Originally, I was going to see if you were at the usual spot—the church, of course—but then I saw you getting chased and decided that those guys needed an ass-thrashing and—well, you know the rest."

"Or at least I can guess it from there," Cloud agreed, smiling.

Christina grinned back and did another wheelie, which made Cloud roll his eyes. "You're such a showoff."

"Actually, it helps in battle, especially if the enemy is trying to hit you and you're between them. They only end up hitting each other and it's rather funny to watch," she retorted, letting her front wheel drop back down again.

Cloud smiled again and moved his bike over to hers so that they were touching, then leaned over and kissed her. "I'm so glad you're mine."

Christina grinned. "You're not the only one, hon," she said before kissing him deeper than he had kissed her, then, after breaking from the kiss, moved her bike so that it wasn't stuck to his and sped up slightly. "Race you to the church!"

"Not quite yet," Cloud interjected. "Let me check my voicemail first."

She rolled her eyes but let him anyway, and when he was done, she revved her engine, speeding up ahead of him.

"We need to stop by Shinra, Inc.'s Headquarters. Tifa's told me that Reno's called twice so I think it's urgent."

Christina scowled when she heard the name Shinra but nodded. "All right, just to see what's the matter." She looked at him. "Then we head to the church. Capish? I don't want to be in there longer than we have to. You know how I am about that place."

Cloud smiled knowingly and nodded. "All right, no longer than necessary at the Headquarters."

She sighed. "Good. That place has bad memories."

The two of them rode the rest of the way hearing nothing but the sound of the bike motors.

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They got to the Shinra, Inc. Headquarters, parked their bikes in front of the stairs—Christina holding her sword, Cloud with his on his back in the harness—and headed inside.

She scowled when she saw Reno waiting for them. "Figures."

Cloud, however, rolled his eyes and let Reno swing at him, stepping to the side at the last minute and sending him outside, then shut the door on him and locked it, which made Christina smirk.

"I was about to suggest that, actually," she told her fiancée and best friend since SOLDIER. "You beat me to the punch."

She turned to see Reno's friend Rude grinning at them and flicked her sword up so that the tip was at his throat before he had a chance to even do so much as raise an eyebrow.

"I think not," she said coolly. "You probably remember what happened last time you tried something like that, hmm?"

"Very good," a voice from nearby and which Christina had heard too many times to count said suddenly. "Exactly what I'd expect from a couple of ex-SOLDIERs."

Christina's eyes narrowed as a wheelchair was rolled into the room containing a figure covered in a white sheet.

"Rufus Shinra," she heard Cloud say and, out of the corner of her eye, saw him nod in acknowledgement, but every muscle in her body tensed and her gaze turned icy cold in seconds. She wasn't about to forget what that man's father did to her, nor will she ever forget. That man was beyond sick, and Cloud was the only one who knew the full extent of what had been done to her—he had only given the others the brief outline after they had defeated Sephiroth, not even mentioning anything about the "incident" with the former President Shinra, the one that had infuriated her to the extent that had made her escape from SOLDIER the very next day.

That had been four years ago, and she was still furious with Rufus' father for doing it, even after Sephiroth had killed him two years ago.

She could tell that Cloud had noticed her reaction, for she felt his comforting hand on her shoulder and started to relax—with the exception of her Geostigma-affected leg, which stayed slightly tensed no matter what she did—but kept her guard up in case anyone decided to attack.

"What do you want, anyway?" she asked with enough cold in her voice to let Rufus know that she meant business and that she would leave as soon as she could if it wasn't for Cloud's interest.

"I know how you are about this place, Christina --" Rufus started to say before the female warrior cut him off.

"You don't know how I feel," she said icily. "You have no idea how I feel about this place. This very building is where your father put his sick ideas into action—on me."

"I'm not my father," Rufus retorted simply.

"I know that, and believe me about being sincere when I say thank God for that. Just make sure you don't go down the same sick path he did."

She then glanced at Cloud before putting her sword back in the harness on her back, and Cloud apparently took that as a signal for him to speak for he then asked Rufus, "Who were those three men?"

Christina gave him a peculiar look. "Three? Only two were chasing us."

"There was another one on the cliff where the sword is," Cloud replied to her question, still looking at Rufus. "So?" he asked Rufus, slipping his hand off of Christina's shoulder once the said female warrior was relaxed. "Who were they? Two of them attacked me—well, us, since they attacked Christina as well once they saw her."

Christina, knowing what sword he meant—Zack's old sword which he had stuck into the ground on the edge of a small cliff just outside of Midgar as a memorial to their old friend—smiled slightly.

"Jackasses," she muttered under her breath when Cloud mentioned the three guys that they had fought not long ago, absentmindedly toying with the ring Cloud had given her as her engagement ring and which she always wore around her neck on a chain, since she didn't like wearing rings when she was using her sword—or any kind of weapon, for that matter.

"That's not helping," Cloud told her reproachfully.

Christina shrugged. "They're still jackasses. It makes me feel better calling them that anyways."

Cloud sighed and turned back to Rufus, who was looking curiously at what Christina was twirling in her fingers around her neck.

"Is that what I think it is?" the young President of Shinra, Inc. asked her.

"It's a necklace, if that's what you mean," she replied evasively. She wasn't too keen on Rufus knowing about her engagement to Cloud. As a matter of fact, she wasn't too keen on him knowing anything but what he needed to about her personal life. Her personal life was hers and she didn't want a hundred other people burdened with what she had gone through when she was in SOLDIER other than Cloud and Zack, who had been her support through almost everything in SOLDIER when she had needed it.

"No," she heard Rufus correct, "I mean on the necklace."

"Nothing that concerns you," she said icily, slipping her necklace back underneath her shirt so that Rufus did not see what was on it. "Besides, you owe us explanations."

Rufus sighed and quickly explained about what they had found, then said, "We need people like you two—the muscle."

The engaged couple exchanged looks, then Cloud asked, "What exactly do you need muscle for?"

"To get rid of the three that had attacked you—Kedaj and his brothers, Yazoo and Loz."

Christina frowned. "Kedaj…" It sounded vaguely familiar, though she couldn't place how exactly. "Where have I heard that name before?" She shrugged. "Oh well, I'll remember later."

She stared at Rufus. "Which one is which?"

Rufus smirked—at least, that's what Christina could tell from what she could see of the young President's face from under the sheet. "As far as I know, the one that has the shoulder-length silver hair is Kedaj, the one with the long silver hair is Yazoo, and the one with the short silver hair is Loz."

"And why exactly should we help you?" Cloud cut in curtly.

"Because you're our buddies," came Reno's voice from outside, and an irritated Christina kicked the door, making him shut up instantly.

"Because you both were once part of SOLDIER," Rufus replied smoothly, ignoring Reno's remark.

Christina shook her head. "I'm never going back in, never."

"Neither of us are," Cloud agreed.

"I'm not making you go back in SOLDIER," Rufus said quickly. "I want to try to make things the way they were before—with some exceptions, of course."

Christina scowled and crossed her arms. "Maybe we should leave."

Cloud, however, grabbed her arm. "We're not leaving yet."

Her eyes met his and she saw that he was slightly interested, then she nodded and he let go, though she could tell it was reluctant.

She looked back at Rufus. "Exceptions like what?"

"Shinra, Inc. would be greater than any company ever created."

"Now we leave," Cloud muttered, turning around and unlocking the door and had just opened it a few inches when he heard Christina speak, and stopped to hear what she said.

"Why did the two guys chasing us keep mentioning a 'Mother'?" she asked Rufus.

Rufus chuckled. "Because of the war, a lot of children have lost their parents, Christina. I've heard that your friend over there (AN: He means Cloud, if you didn't get that) has taken in some orphans with Geostigma. We could heal them all."

"We could rebuild Shinra," Reno exclaimed from outside.

That, in Christina's opinion, was a very bad thing to say, for after that out stormed a very angry Cloud.

"Not interested!" he yelled over his shoulder. "C'mon, Christina!"

"I'll be there in a sec," she called back, then turned to Rufus. "Listen, I consider killing your father the only good thing Sephiroth ever did. Don't make the same…mistakes that your father did, because that was the whole reason he was killed. That's all I'm suggesting."

Thus finished, she politely nodded to Rude, turned on her heel, and walked out after Cloud.

"What took you?" he asked her curiously as she got on her bike, as he was already on his, waiting.

"I gave him some advice that he likely won't ever forget," she replied as she started up her bike and revved the engine, then grinned.

"Catch me if you can!" she yelled before taking off towards Midgar, leaving him coughing in her dust.

Cloud grinned as well, then gunned the motor and took off after her. "Oh, I'll catch you, all right!"

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They got to the church and parked their bikes out front, and as they got off of them the two warriors noticed another bike parked out in front as well, one Christina vaguely recognized as they stopped to stare at it.

She poked Cloud. "Hey Cloud, does that bike look at all familiar to you?"

Cloud looked at it, then back at her. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does."

"Whose bike does it look like?"

"It looks like…" His eyes widened. "No way! That can't be! What're one of those guys doing here?"

She smirked. "Exactly my point."

Neither of them had a chance to say anything further, for at that point out walked the short silver-haired guy that had chased them not too long ago, whom Rufus had told them was Loz.

A wary Christina pulled out her sword from the harness on her back. "Go check inside," she told Cloud. "I'll deal with him."

Cloud nodded and went inside while she turned back to Loz, twirling her sword.

"So," she said to him arrogantly, "you came back for a second helping of ass-thrashing, eh?"

Loz rolled his eyes at her. "Sorry, sister, but I can't play right now," he said before getting on his bike, starting it up, and zooming off, leaving her standing there staring after his retreating figure.

"Why does he keep calling me his sister?" she asked no one in particular. "I'm not related to him."

She pondered the question until she heard Cloud's yell from inside.

"Shit," she blurted before running inside, then stopped at the door, looking around. "Cloud?"

She spotted a bit of black in the flower garden and ran over to it, stopping at the edge of the wooden floor and discovering Cloud and Tifa both passed out in the middle of the garden.

"Oh damn! Cloud! Tifa!" she yelled before running over and kneeling down next to them, then noticed the bluish liquid on Cloud's glove.

She gasped. "Oh shit, it's worse than he said!"

She straightened up and was about to go get help when her leg seized up again, more painfully than it had any other time and she winced violently, managing to restrain herself from yelling like Cloud had but ending up passing out from the pain.

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Ninjagirl: Well? What did you think of Part One? Read and Review please! (sees Sephiroth run off with her Cloud plushie) OI! Get back here with that!