Disclaimer: I own NOTHING but the storyline. No characters, nothing. Square-enix owns them.

A/N: Mind you, it's third person so you're supposed to know what everyone is thinking (in this case Tifa and Vincent).


CHAPTER SEBEN: The Flight

-Esther Group-

With no trouble, the flight to Esther would take three hours. So far, they had been in the air for just over an hour. Tifa had been practicing aiming the entire time-With the safety on of course. Their airship was Ragnarok so Tifa and Vincent were on a lower level for practice. Tifa had begun firing blank shots at an imaginary target-Vincent's cloak- and according to the cloak's owner, she was doing very well.

"You're learning fast." Tifa looked at him and lowered her gun. "Squall wanted me to let you know that you can get a weapon made for yourself. A hand crafted gun with your own engravings and coloring on them." She blinked at the new information.

"You mean a 'One of a Kind' type of gun?" He nodded. "What kind of gun do you think I should get made?"

"You can have a single gun with additions to it. My Cerberus has a rifle addition, a shotgun addition, a machine gun addition and, before we left, a magnum addition. If you get a gun like my Cerberus, I would recommend the same additions minus the machine gun addition." When he finished speaking, she looked at his Cerberus. He knew her unanswered question, took it from its holster, and handed it to her, the safety turned off. She held it and aimed at his cloak and let off a shotgun bullet, switched to the rifle and shot at the same spot, and finally switched to the magnum and let off a last shot. Satisfied, she switched the safety back on and handed it back to him.

"The feel of the Cerberus is too heavy. Is there any way to get a lighter gun with the same additions?" She asked. He nodded.

"Specializations are in a wide variety. Whatever you want, they can do it." She smiled slightly and leaned against the wall next to the stoic man.

'So. You want a gun like Valentine's? Seems a little fishy.' Zenelda spoke up. She'd been quiet recently.

'What do you mean? I'm comfortable with a gun, so maybe it's a good idea for me to get a gun suited for me..' Tifa replied.

'You just want to be near him now that you are similar to him.'

'Shut up.'

'Just admit it.'

'I said shut up!' Tifa did her best to control her outer expressions. Vincent however, saw a vein in her cheek twitch in an annoyed way and continued watching her.

'Something with her is different.' Vincent wondered if Chaos would reply.

'Took you this long to catch on to that?' Chaos immediately replied.

'What do you mean?' Vincent questioned.

'She's been different since the first attack why do you think that is?' Vincent felt the demon smirk.

'Different? Her healing pattern was fast a month ago. What does that mean to me?'

'Your guess is as good as ours, Valentine.' Vincent's eyes widened. The female voice came out of nowhere. 'You haven't met me yet, but you will very soon.' He felt her presence disappear and looked at Tifa. He had heard both her and another female voice.

"I'm going to go sit with Rinoa. We have about an hour left of the flight. I want to be ready to fight when we get there." He nodded and watched her take the elevator up to the bridge. Once she was gone, he looked at the nearby clock. They had just over an hour and twenty minutes before their arrival to Esther.

-Timber Team-

"Everybody hang on to something!" Cid's voice rang out loud and clear as Selphie dodged airstrikes aimed for them. Cloud and Irvine clung to their chairs as the airship moved from side to side, up and down. They went into a barrel roll and Cloud nearly lost his lunch.

"OH MY GOD!" Selphie's shriek was drowned out by the explosion of an engine. The airship descended in a ball of fire and smoke. The flaming airship crashed in an explosion of debris and wood.

The airship's passengers were found unconscious and bleeding to death by two men. Without a word, the two men carefully carried the four bleeding warriors to their hideout.

It didn't take long for the two men to dress the warriors' wounds and get them to separate beds to heal in. One man looked at the other and clenched his stomach while his companion sighed and went to call the only person he knew who could help them.

-Deiling Team-

They landed in Deiling City. The streets were full of terror and chaos. There were fires in the streets and the buildings had screaming erupting from their windows. Soldiers were everywhere. They were breaking windows, beating innocent people and burning their homes, and leaving dead bodies in the streets or hanging them from lamp posts. It was a horrible sight.

Yuffie and Quistis immediately looked at each other at the horrible sights they were seeing. How could these soldiers do this to the people they were supposed to be protecting?

"Those jerks! Let's get 'em guys!" Yuffie screeched and jumped out of the air ship. Her motion sickness had disappeared when she saw the massacre taking place.

Quistis, Zell and Reno followed her and were immediately attacked by Galbadia soldiers. The soldiers were weak and immediately defeated. Quistis put a comm link in her ear and the others followed suit. "Split up and find any survivors and get them to a safe place. If you come across any soldiers, take them out. Now if you come across Gonza Loda, Sephiroth or Ultimecia be wary. The only one we know the strength of is Ultimecia." Zell nodded and attached the comm like to his ear while Yuffie and Reno did the same.

Once they were ready to go, they split up and took off in different directions. Quistis knew something was wrong. If any of their enemies found them split up, they would be in for some real trouble. Quistis watched the rest of her team disappear into the streets. Finding the safe place was her job and the three knew it. If Yuffie was anything like Selphie, the child would be tough enough to knock away anything in her path. Yuffie was two years younger than Selphie and the rest, but she knew the child would fight for her and her friends' lives.

-Esther Team-

The Ragnarok landed smoothly outside of Esther. Tifa and Vincent looked amazed at the computerized city. Everything was run by computers and futuristic objects like teleporters. When they entered the city, however, there was stillness in the air. It was like a ghost town. Walking into the marketplace-like area and seeing no one around made chills go up Tifa and Rinoa's spine. Vincent looked around for any sign of movement. Anything that could tell them what had happened and why the city was completely silent. Squall looked at the three of them and handed them all comm links.

"If you find anything at all that will give us any sort of hint, let me know immediately. Something isn't right. I can feel it." They all put their comm links in their ears and split off into groups of two: Tifa with Vincent and Squall with Rinoa. Tifa and Vincent took out their guns and made their way to the left while Squall and Rinoa went right. They found nothing in their paths. Not even an animal. Vincent looked at his companion and stopped walking. She immediately noticed this and turned to look at him.

"Vincent? What's wrong?" She stopped walking and turned around to completely look at him. "Vince?"

"Are you hiding something, Tifa?" He asked, getting straight to the point. She blinked at the sudden statement.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, Vincent. I'm not hiding anything." She put a hand over her healing arm and watched him. 'Does he know?'

"You look like you're hiding something." He closed his eyes and waited for a comment from chaos, but got nothing. "Show me your arm." He opened his eyes and waited for her to unwrap it for him to look at. It was strange. The wound looked like it was nearly gone. He narrowed his eyes at the healing wound and then looked at her. "Tifa. What's going on?"

"Nothing! It's healing normally." She responded, trying to look like she wasn't lying to him.

"You broke your arm not even a week ago. It shouldn't be this healed so quickly." He looked her straight in the eye. "Tell me the truth, Tifa. You can trust me."

'He's giving me that scary look. Whenever he gives me that look I can't lie to him…' She felt Zenelda roll her eyes. 'Weak.' 'Maybe I am, but he can see right through this lie…' 'Want me to take over?' 'No. I'll just tell him the truth.' 'Fine. It would've been better if you'd transformed during a fight.''Why? It's be more shocking that way.' 'Exactly.' Tifa cleared her throat and blinked at him. "I can trust you." Vincent waited with bated breath for her to continue. She swallowed and looked up at him. "I saw Chaos in a dream a few days after we got here."

"Chaos?" This visibly surprised him. "What did he say?"

"He said something is going to happen. Something horrible." Vincent put a hand on her shoulder.

"What's going to happen, Tifa?"

"One of our friends is going to die…" This was a total lie. That wasn't even close to what he had told her. He had told her about Zenelda. That's all it had been.

Her words had shocked him. Someone close to them would die? Why would Chaos say something that dreadful? "That won't happen, Tifa. It was only a dream." He saw her look up at him and blink slowly. When did her eyes become so beautiful?

At that moment, she looked behind him and immediately shot at something behind him. He flipped around and went to kill the monsters that were attacking them, but they were already dead. He looked at Tifa again. Her reflexes were astounding! "He's here." She told him, her eyes closed in concentration.

When he was about to ask her who she meant, she shoved him to the side as a sudden blast of light illuminated the area and when he looked at the spot they had been, there was a blackened hole in the wall. He looked at the owner of the attack and gritted his teeth.

"Sephiroth!" the silver-haired warrior smirked at them.

"Looks like we meet once more, Valentine. Lockhart." He said with a smooth voice. "Where is Dear Strife? I was looking forward to wiping this town with his blood." That was sick. Typical.

"We will not lose to you, Sephiroth!" Tifa growled, her eyes changing color for a split second. Unbeknownst to the madman, Rinoa and Squall were sneaking around the corner. It was time for their battle to begin.


A/N: Kinda long this time. I decided to drop my English 113 class so I now have free time to write. To hell with writing a 3-4 page paper on a two page story. That seems so unbelievably dumb if you ask me. I didn't need the class for my Business in the Medical Profession major anyway. =P

Please and thanks for any reviews!(I'd like to get more than one this time…It feels useless to write when I only get one review).

TifaV.