A/N: Oh dear. It's been half a year. Once again, my apologies for the wait, and I hope you enjoy.

VI. (Because I hate butt-ugly perverts)

Growing up, I was not a very obedient child, and at least five hundred times a day someone was barking at me, "Shut up, Yuffie!" "Stop that, Yuffie!" "Let go of those materia, Yuffie!" "Stop eating, you damn porky pie!", among other terms of endearment. My dad, who had long realized that merely telling me to stop was futile, had resorted to threats in varying degrees of creativity. Among them was, famously, "I'm gonna sell you to the red light district if you don't stop (insert whatever horrible thing I was doing here)!" I actually even thought that was kind of cool – I mean, 'red light district' made me think of, I don't know, cool things? Laser beams? Fire-breathing dragons, maybe? Shake had pissed himself silly when I told him that I thought so, and that evening he snuck me out of the Pagoda and let me see firsthand what my father had meant.

Not that I think he'd have a chance of selling me, anyway, never mind the fact that I'm (ahem) the princess, so they'd never buy me in the first place. I can't dance to save my life; my hips are about as static as Cloud's spikes after he's just gelled them. When I wear a sexy top I resemble a twiggy tree covered in shiny plastic bags, and anyway, my hair has always been cut short for convenience. I guess I'd only attract creepy perverts thinking I was a young boy, and even that would be a stretch. That wasn't the first time I'd seen a man grope a woman, although when her robes started slipping down her shoulders Shake got a nosebleed and we had to rush back. My father's threats remained unsuccessful, but I was a little more thankful for my plush life after that. Despite the hellish training.

Tifa had told me all about Cloud's escapade in Honeybee Manor (I laughed so hard I ended up hyperventilating), but I had known about Don Corneo even before that, not only because he had shipped out a lot of our best Wutaian…um, dancers, but because his ugly mug kept cropping up in tabloids everywhere. I was traveling by then (carrying out my Big Plan, if you will), and living half the time in forests me and caves (I swear, I talked to myself for hours on end, and it didn't seem weird at the time). I had to learn about what was going on by filching papers when people weren't looking, and there was always some new scandal involving him and love or money.

Then I met him in person.

I guess meet isn't really the correct verb. It happened like this: I ended up in Midgar pretty early on after leaving Wutai – people down-on-their-luck would end up in the slums, I suppose? – and I was hanging outside the restaurants, wondering if I could risk stealing some scraps, when Corneo and his henchmen entered the area and started skirtchasing. One of them caught me warily trying to edge away and offered me a position as a houseboy for the Honeybee – someone to pass messages, get the guests their drinks, bring tea or fresh underwear, that sort of thing – totally ignoring the fact that I was in short shorts and that I had some degree of chest in my…well…chest. I made a quick and frantic exit, of course (Midgar was totally creeping me out, anyway), but not before hearing the snorting laughter, seeing the beady pig-eyes and the heaving chest that reminded me why exactly a red light district would never, in a million years, be cool.

I was thankful for exactly one thing at that moment, fenced in with Turks and perverts, and it wasn't that I had the luck to be stuck with Vincent, or that they all thought I was a boy anyway. It was that they had been using cheap sleeping gas (ninjas could tell these things, and scoffed at them – we were the prime exporters of sleeping powder, after all), so I had enough time to smash two guys headfirst into the wall and slash another across the arm. Vincent got four, I think, and Rude and Reno weren't doing badly themselves until they realized that Elena had started screaming, "Guys, a little help!" She was already halfway down the corridor, away from us, and I was still being assaulted from every direction by sweaty muscles and neon spandex. (In fairness, each sweaty, lecherous face had been properly fitted with a mask to keep out the gas, which meant they had actually planned this out. A frightening idea.)

"Elena!" Rude and Reno screamed in unison. I think I was still conscious enough to think "Aww," at this rare display of Turk camaraderie, although my swipes were starting to get sluggish. My last one merely nicked my target on the shoulder – he leered and lunged for me, and I slipped out of the way and crashed into someone who was even more unattractive.

"Hey, there's another girl," he said. Cleverly. I swung the heel of my palm at his nose and heard a satisfying crunch, although the next man coming up from behind me had already seized me by the shoulder before I could duck elsewhere.

"Boss! We've got another one!"

"No you don't," I screeched, kicking up backwards and catching him right where it hurt the most. By then my brain had gone a little fuzzy (being drugged in quick succession is hazardous to your health), and Vincent, looking impossibly paler, was shouting my name in an attempt to slap me back into consciousness. I could see some blotches of red, and I knew that was him, and I think maybe he was trying to come towards me, but the corridor was quickly turning into a strange sea of human-like shapes. I could hear the Turks, shouting as if in slow motion, and heavy breathing all around. I was still swinging the Conformer at everyone I determined to be Not Vincent, but the next time I felt pressure on my wrist my vision had started to be crowded by dancing rainbow-colored chocobos, and I knew the gas had already gotten me.

"Yuffff -" Vincent's voice, swimming through my semi-conscious, echoing like some weird overtone to the polka playing that made the chocobos dance. (Hallucinatory sleeping gas? A new commodity, perhaps?) He was outnumbered, that much I could tell, although I was much more distracted by how uncomfortably close Don Corneo's voice was when he sniggered, in slow-motion, "Oooh, feistyyy. I liiike thoooose,"

This was a heartbreakingly embarrassing way to go.

-xx-

I woke up hot and sore and seeing spots, sweaty and smelly and still – gawds – desperately needing to pee, something I had forgotten in the heat of the battle. I was tied up, wrists and ankles, but not gagged, thankfully. And I was leaning against something – someone, I realized, when I moved a little bit and that person went "Yow!"

"Elena?"

"I don't know how you know my name, missy, but I'll be damned if I'm making acquaintances with AVALANCHE."

"Well, if you'd prefer Turk Bitch, that's cool with me, too. And I'm Yuffie."

"Ninja girl."

Uh-huh. "Where are the guys?"

"Those useless dudes? I have no idea what that Big Ol Perv did with them –" we both shuddered bodily at the mention of him – "But they're not here, that's for sure. He isn't interested in guys anyway. Not even your pretty vampire friend."

"Vincent's not here?" If they'd just left him alone after beating him up (oh hell hell hell, they'd better have left his face alone), he would definitely recover in a few hours time. I felt my chest clutch. The materia – the materia had been left when I dropped it somewhere against the wall, top tied so that they wouldn't go rolling out; if he had recovered them, if Don Corneo hadn't noticed them or if he'd noticed but hadn't cared, Vincent would definitely have found them and taken them back to AVALANCHE, to Cloud and sweet Tifa and everyone else who probably utterly hated me and my guts by then, and they'd have no more reason to stay, nothing more to do with me. I was going to be abandoned and then turned into the ugliest sexy dancer in the Honeybee ever, bruised and possibly suffering kidney stones. It was a vision so horrible I felt tears coming on. And, well, the idea that I'd lost my most wonderful temporary friends forever and ever – that was a major blow, too.

"Obviously. I didn't even know sleeping gas would have an effect on him. Since he's all coffin-like."

And probably his nose is dead, I added. He had been calling my name. Would he really abandon me? "What's this they've got us tied up with?" Changing the subject was good. Crying, even if Elena couldn't see me, would just about force me to expire in shame.

"Small chains," she answered.

"Great. And we wouldn't happen to be in the local edition of the Honeybee, now, would we?"

"Your territory." I stifled at this; Wutai should have been my territory. I was still getting my ass kicked in it. "We're still in Wutai, in any case. I was out four hours, I think." Very cheap sleeping gas. "I've been waiting for you to wake up three." Me? Knocked out seven hours from cheap sleeping gas? Maybe she was twisting the facts. I coughed and hooked my fingers over the chains knotted over us, wondering if there was a way to get them undone.

"Right. So. Are we going to come up with a plan, or do you actually know how to do a belly dance?"

"Well, you know, I was thinking that if there was actually a way to get us free, I might have done it hours ago? Just for the fun of it? Duh." Carrying a conversation with someone so obviously bitter at the world made my head hurt.

"Look, I'm getting sick of your sarcasm. Do you want to become the latest addition to his whores, or don't you?" There were moments when I found I could be commanding if I wanted to be. Maybe my royal blood was good for something after all?

She heaved a sigh, and for the first time I noticed there was a tremor in her voice. "Don't, of course. I-I'm just tired, okay? Yeah. We need to get out."

I was tired as hell, too, but I didn't plan on being the useless one this time around. There was a thoughtful silence as I sifted in my head for ideas. "We could get to the door if we work together."

"By sliding on our butts?"

"Uh." If that was the only option. "Yeah."

"And then?"

"Then…" Hopefully they'd left it unlocked? Not likely, if they'd had the foresight to use chains to tie us up, but I was a big believer in possibility. Even if I had yet to work out how to open the door when my hands were tied behind my back. "We'll see when we get there."

Elena responded with a grunt that sounded somewhat approving, and so we shifted and slid and wriggled (on our butts, fine) towards the exit with what seemed like agonizing slowness. We should have spared ourselves the shame, because halfway across the room the door flung open and in stepped our gracious captor, round belly heaving as he aimed his gaze at us.

"Where to, chickies?"

I stared at him sullenly, too disgusted to reply. I was pretty certain Elena was doing the same.

"Not so talkative now? I could have sworn you were both screaming my ears off earlier. Hohi hohi!" He had to grasp his belly when he laughed, it jiggled so much it looked like an aerobic exercise in itself. He turned to one of the burly men that seemed to follow him in endless supply. "That was a good one, right?"

"Yeah, boss." They both laughed. The other cronies around guffawed politely.

"Now darlings," he continued, clutching at his side after the laughter had turned into awkward silence (so quickly, I almost felt pity for him). "I don't like hurting you. I just need you to be more – cooperative? After all, girls who fight don't get customers. Hohi, hohi, hohihi!" He paced around us, circling us in a manner more comical than menacing. "Though I must admit, either one of you are exotic enough to merit a little forgiveness. Blonde," he noted, thoughtfully, and I could imagine Elena's face crinkling with horror. "That's rare. Almost like that sweet, beautiful girl in the purple dress, weeks ago." He sighed, deep with longing. I had a fleeting vision of Cloud in drag, and snorted. At the sound, he turned his attention to me.

"And this one. Boyish. Some people like that, you know. You've also got some fine Oriental features." It might have been a complement if the speaker had been – well, anyone but Don Freakin Corneo. "Now let's just try to get along, eh? It's gonna be a while to Midgar, and I'm not even sure I want my vacation here to end yet. There might still be some pretty prizes hanging around." He leaned his face close to mine, smiling genially. I resisted the urge to spit into his eyes. Suicide was a far more graceful alternative then dying at the hands of an obese pimp.

"Let them go," he said suddenly, addressing the nearest slave. He gave a disgusting little clap-clap of his palms.

"Boss?"

"You heard me. I don't want their skin to get all raw from the chains. It's ugly."

"But – sir –" I noticed how the man had thick nail-scratches on his face; he had probably had the misfortune of handling Elena. One of his eyebrows was sporting a bruise, too. "These girls –"

"No no, don't worry. They won't fight back. Oh, I'm sure they'd love to, but the outcome wouldn't be any different. As you can see, girlies, I've got too many men for you to handle." He laughed again at his creepy pervy joke. I threw up in my mouth and had to swallow, and I could hear Elena hiss through her teeth. I half-expected him to be joking, but the idiot crony had obediently bent down and was now letting the chains clink against each other as he undid them. I began desperately trying to come up with a better plan for when my hands were free. Beating the crap out of everyone seemed out of the question, because I was so tired. The man undid our ankles first, then glanced again warily at Don Corneo, who gave a quaint little nod, before undoing the chains around our wrists.

"There. Much better. Stand up. Both you girlies." He motioned, and Elena and I were gripped from behind and forced to stand. I had no idea where we were – either I had been away from Wutai longer than I imagined, or Godo's security had gotten pitifully lax. He stepped close, closer, and I could smell his breath, icky-garlic and beer, like he'd eaten solely at the bar the past few days and had forgotten to pick his teeth. "So. Which one should I try first? I'd always sort of liked the ambiguous ones."

He was looking at me. Me? Ambiguous? Oh gawds, I was so going to knock his teeth in. He was shoving his hips forward, almost unconsciously, a repulsive motion that made my blood boil.

"But blonde. I haven't had blonde in ages." He licked his lips, directing his little hip-shoving dance to Elena now, and we had probably shuddered so much in the past ten minutes that our collective shudders could start an earthquake.

"It's so hard to choo – oo – oose!" Hips shoved at me, hips shoved at her. Hips shoved at me. Hips shoved at her. Hips shoved at me – "All right. I think this one's the way to go! Cheerful. Saucy. Exactly my type!" And the hips coming closer, closer, so horrifyingly gross that I was going to retch all over the floor. I'd seen horrifying monsters and I'd seen Sephiroth and the bright red blood of countless dead in ShinRa, in Wutai, everywhere, and still the repulsiveness of this man could get to me. I couldn't help myself. My leg kicked out before I could stop it, sailing straight into his stomach, knocking him backwards and causing him to go "D'oof!"

Elena shouted "You idiot!" but she didn't need to, really. I knew I had done the wrong thing even before we were once again tied up, taken away, and dangled from the rock face of Da Chao, were the stony floor a gazillion meters away promised a dry, crunchy death if we happened to fall.

Wait. What?

A/N: You have full permission to kill me for not getting this out sooner. x_x With any luck, I will have it finished by the end of May. Old readers, thanks as always for your patience, and new readers, hi there, hope you enjoyed the story so far! I apologize for the shift in tone with the more recent chapters - it was the two year hiatus that did it. Comments are always greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.