Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII in any way. If did then I'm pretty sure the original characters this story is about would be in the game to begin with but oh well. This is my first story ever and I hope to see it through to it's end. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Anyway, let's get this party started.
Chapter 1: A Chance Encounter
In an area just north of Corel, within a difficult to access cave, was the entrance to a well hidden facility. It was quiet, almost too quiet, but for this facility in particular quiet was the normal thing. None the less a man still stood guard at the entrance. For the man standing guard here it seemed a pointless task. He was paid to stand eight hours a day and guard the door, yet for the past two weeks nothing had happened beyond being relieved by the next guard when his shift had ended. The facility itself was self-sustained and any visitor to the facility came by helicopter, landing at the facilities helipad, completely bypassing the main entrance where this man was paid to stand.
A bored sigh escaped the guard as he looked down at his gloves before running one through his spiked brown hair. He was dressed in the standard attire of a member of SOLDIER, two steel shoulder pads and a purple sleeveless turtle-neck sweater, the pair of fairly loose pants being held in place by the brown leather belt marked with the emblem of SOLDIER. Slung across his back was the standard long sword used by most SOLDIER members. The purple uniform marked him as SOLDIER Second Class, only a single rank behind the most powerful members of SOLDIER; the powerful First Class. Most humans, even those who had trained to fight for the entirety of their lives could only hope to be even half as good as a Third Class SOLDIER, let alone a Second Class.
And this Second Class SOLDIER, a man who could easily be classed as one of the strongest people in the world, was stood guarding a door in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say it left him very bored and wishing for a good old fight. After all, SOLDIER was the single best fighting force on the planet, they were elite warriors, not simple guards, but a mission is a mission.
The sudden but quiet echo of a footstep shattered his melancholic mood in an instant and had the guard standing up straight as he looked around the cave, his right hand already gripping the handle of his blade. In the shadows a man stepped forwards, he seemed rather lost in his own world as he moved in a casual manner, seemingly unknowing of his own actions.
The mysterious man continued forwards, his actions rather odd considering the numerous security cameras and laser activated trip wires the man had to have bypassed to get this far. Tensing his whole body so he could launch into action if need be the member of SOLDIER spoke up, "Halt! This is a restricted area!" The SOLDIER had to resist the urge to draw the blade across his back, orders were orders after all and the member of SOLDIER had been ordered annoyingly to detain, rather than kill intruders.
The odd intruder had messy black hair and wore dark clothes, judging by the patches of dirt and the numerous small rips the man was either a drifter or a homeless man. As far as the SOLDIER was concerned, neither a drifter nor a homeless man were welcome within this facility.
The seemingly homeless man stopped moving and stood still looking at the SOLDIER in surprise. The SOLDIER himself was surprised, 'Damn... I didn't think that'd actually work. Just who the hell is this guy?' Deciding to verbalise at least part of his thought the guard spoke up, "Who are you? Identify yourself!"
The man stared at the guard, an awkward silence echoing in the room briefly before the man titled his head in confusion, "What do you mean?"
The guard blinked a few times before shouting in frustration, "What do you mean what do I mean? Who the hell are you damn it? What's your name? Answer me!"
The homeless man frowned, "What do you mean by my... 'name?'"
"...What?" Came the deadpan response from the guard. "Seriously? You don't know what a name is, really?" The homeless man nodded slowly in response.
The guard opened his mouth to speak before closing it again to think. A second later the guard spoke a lot more calmly, "A name is, umm... A name is what people call you. That's... the best way I can say it really. My name is Josh for example. What's yours?" Pointing at the man with his free hand.
There was a painful and awkward silence as the homeless man looked at the floor with an almost forlorn expression on his face. "My... name? I... I don't have a name... people don't really call me anything..."
"...Right... OK, so you don't have a name. Sorry about that, but there's not a lot I can do about it so... let me ask you something a bit more important. Hopefully you can answer this one for me or else this friendly little chat is gonna end real fast and real ugly." Josh crossed his arms as the homeless man tilted his head in a questioning manner.
"Just how the hell did you get in here without tripping any of the alarms?" He asked sternly.
The homeless man blinked at the question from Josh. "There were... alarms? I just walked through the cave until I came across you. Is this somewhere I'm not supposed to be?" The man began looking around as if he were a lost child.
Josh frowned, 'The defence systems here are on par with the ones back at Shin-Ra HQ. Just who the hell is this guy to simply walk through them all. That's impossible.' A growl escaped from his throat as Josh spoke up angrily, "I don't believe for a second that you just walked up to here without tripping some kind of alarm, and to not even know you were doing it," swinging his fist to his side, "What trick are you trying to pull?"
"No trick, I was just having a walk, I swea-" The man's eyes widened as ducked a sudden swing from Josh's blade, "What the hell?"
Standing with his sword raised in front of him Josh tightened his grip on the handle of his blade as he prepared to swing again. "That does it! I've been itching for a fight and then you... No name, no clue and not a care in the world, well I hope no one cares about you, because you're about to not have a life either." Launching towards the man Josh brought his blade downwards towards the homeless man, the tip of the blade leaving a gash in the floor as he swiftly dashed backwards.
"You're not a very nice person are you?" The homeless man taunted lightly. This angered Josh, growling as he swung again wildly. The homeless man seemed to turn serious as he quickly ducked the swing aimed for his neck. Spinning full circle Josh swung again at the man's legs in a single fluid motion, forcing the man to jump the low swing that came mere milliseconds after the first attack. Unrelenting Josh brought his blade diagonally up quickly hoping the attack would catch the man off guard, but to no avail as he nimbly performed a backwards roll to dodge the rising swing. Before even fully coming out of his roll he was forced to cancel it by lunging to the side to dodge the fierce forward sword thrust coming his way. This game of cat and mouse continued for what felt like hours, but in reality was only mere minutes.
Josh frowned, 'He's fast. Very fast. Hell, I don't think that even some of the Firsts can dodge that quick.' Both Josh and the homeless man circled each other. 'He's moving far more fluidly as well. Not a single wasted movement. Damn, I can't let some nameless fool get the better of me!'
"Dodge this!" His blue mako affected eyes glowing briefly, Josh made a long, inhumanly quick cut in the empty space in front of him, "Air Slasher!" A crescent arc of compressed glowing silver air flew impossibly fast from Josh's blade directly towards the homeless man.
The man didn't even have to think to know that whatever was flying his way would hurt, if not kill him, instinctively jumping into the air over the flaring attack by a good ten feet. With it's intended target now rocketing skywards the flying silver projectile struck the back of the cave with such force it nearly brought the whole cave down on top of them, sending out an extremely loud explosion-like noise echoing through the cave. The homeless man grabbed onto a pipe running across the ceiling that had been dislodged from the roof as a result of Josh's missed attack, and there he hung as Josh stared up at him in surprise.
'That was one of my most powerful and fastest techniques, to dodge it just like that... And to jump that high...' Josh's eyes glowed again as his anger spiked, shouting at his opponent, striking the floor with his sword as he did so, "What the hell! How did you do that!"
Using the hand not gripping the pipe to rub the back of his head sheepishly the homeless man smiled, "Umm... How angry would you be if I said I didn't know?"
"Oh for gods sake.." Josh looked at the floor as he shook his head in disbelief, before looking up at the man hanging on the pipe by a single arm. Josh opened his mouth to speak before finding himself laughing in continued disbelief. The homeless man smiled and chuckled along with him.
Josh sighed as he stopped laughing and drew his blade up from the gash he had struck with it, "You're not normal are you?"
The man hanging from the ceiling was still laughing slightly, "Heh, no, I don't think I am."
"Well hell, a normal answer for once." A slight snicker escaping him, "You're not bad my nameless friend, and trust me it's nothing personal, but I'm afraid I've still got to kill you." His eyes hardening as the mood turned serious yet again Josh prepared to fire another of his Air Slashers towards his now dangling opponent, not thinking about the fact the ceiling would fall after doing so...
"Josh! That's enough!"
Both Josh and the nameless man looked towards the now open entrance of the facility where a man stood lit by the doorway. He was dressed in a blue suit with shoulder length black hair and a small red dot in the centre of his forehead. The man's almost expressionless face suggested that the man would take no nonsense from those he spoke to, a fact both registered immediately.
Josh blinked in surprise, "Tseng? What are you doing here?"
Tseng folded his arms, closing his eyes, "I'm the one in charge of this facility." Opening his eyes with a physically sharp stare towards Josh, "Are you not reading your mission documents again?"
Josh looked down as he shifted from foot to foot hoping Tseng wouldn't push the issue any further. Paperwork wasn't something the SOLDIER was any good at and unfortunately even the most boring missions came with even more boring paperwork.
In a moment of good fortune for Josh, Tseng decided that the more important matter was currently hanging from the ceiling. Taking a few steps forward Tseng looked up towards the hanging man before asking simply, "Do you mind coming down here please?"
Giving a quick nod to Tseng to signal his descent the man let go of the pipe and dropped to the floor almost soundlessly landing in a crouch and slowly stood to face him, all the while keeping an eye on Josh. He wasn't one that liked letting an opponent get out of his sight even for a moment.
"Don't worry, I won't bite." Josh smiled, thinking to himself that he had returned the taunt he had received earlier.
"It's the sword I'm keeping my eye on, not your teeth." The man rebutted sharply.
"Enough." Tseng was quick to stop any possibility of a continuing fight between the two. "You." Tseng pointed at the intruder. "You seriously claim to have gotten this far into this facility without even noticing the extensive security systems?" A simple nod was the only answer Tseng got from the man who was still watching Josh for movement. "Well... isn't that interesting... and you have no name, and I would assume no place to return to?" The man nodded again.
"Wait a minute, how do you know he doesn't have a name?" Josh rightfully butted in, but quickly backed down with a quick glare from Tseng.
"As soon as you began talking earlier the guys up in security called me up there, telling me you had gone mad. They said you were asking nobody what their name was, and getting quite angry over it. By the time I arrived and got a look at the monitors you were busy explaining what a name was to thin air..." Tseng looked at the intruder as if trying to read him like a book, but failing to get any information from him or his body language before continuing his explanation. "Up until the point where you engaged this man in combat, none of our sensors or cameras could see or even hear him..."
"What the hell? How is that even possible?" Josh asked in confusion.
"I'm not sure if even he knows how he was doing it, do you?" Tseng asked the intruder, who looked just as surprised as Josh at his explanation, eventually shaking his head in response.
"I see... Then would you like to work for us? You appear to have some very interesting... 'talents', ones I'm sure we could use, and it would be a shame for Josh to have to finish you off..." Tseng stated matter-of-factly.
"Hmph, you make it sound like he was winning our little fight." The man quipped brashly, making Josh throw a deadpan stare towards him "But really, you want me to work for you? Why?"
"If Josh wasn't standing guard here then you very well could have got inside this facility without even trying... That is a skill that, when refined, I would quite like to be on our side rather than wasted. Even your skills in combat appear to hold promise if you are able to hold your own against a SOLDIER." Tseng explained, getting Josh to cross his arms and pout at what he saw as an insult to his fighting skills.
The man remained silent for a few seconds, one eye always on Josh before he nodded and spoke. "Fine, it's not like I've got much else to do, I've got one condition though..."
"Which is?" Both Josh and Tseng found themselves wondering on what possible condition this strange man would state.
"I want... A name..." He answered, his eyes looking down in an almost sad manner.
Rather surprised by the man's earnest request Tseng dropped his serious expression for a moment. "Deal, from this point onwards you shall be known as- "
"Ricky." Josh simply shrugged as they both looked at him. "What? He looks like a Ricky."
Tseng threw a deadpan look at Josh, then looked back to the newly named man and continued calmly, "If you have no objections then please follow me." He turned and began to walk back towards the facility, past a few people who had come out to see what had shook the cave moments earlier.
Finally turning his attention away from Josh and looking towards Tseng through the small crowd he smirked "'Ricky', huh? Yeah, that'll do just fine..." He slowly began to follow Tseng into the facility, wary of the people now throwing him confused looks as he made his way by them.
Ricky was then promptly glomped by Josh in a playful manner, "What? Tseng, you really gotta stop taking people in man." Josh shouted towards the entrance Tseng had just disappeared through, then turning his attention to the rather unimpressed man he had just jumped on, "So I guess this makes me your superior if you're joining us? Don't worry, I'll take care of you." He smirked.
Shoving Josh's arms off of himself Ricky continued towards the facility "Hmph, trust me, you will never be superior to me. Ever." He snared as he disappeared into the doorway.
"Huh? What the hell do you mean by that? Hey!" Josh shouted as he chased him inside, leaving the confused crowd in silence, just as the cave had been less than thirty minutes ago.
And there you have it!
I like it as a very breif introduction to the vast world I hope to craft but I'll leave it to you to let me know if it's any good or not. Review and stuff and let me know about any things you like or dislike about the story or how I write, I'm not going to get better from ass kissers or flamers so tell me straight but be constructive if you can.
Anyway, it's late as hell, I've not slept all night and probably won't even after posting this, either way, I'm out.
Peace, ]-[
