Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
H'okay. Alright. I was feeling so shitty about the unexpected hiatus last time that I just got on with it, but I think I made better time this time, so a few notes to come!
1) I can't believe I've hit the one year anniversary of this fic. It was definitely not supposed to go on for this long.
2) We're heading into dangerously unbeta'd territory again, unfortunately, so I apologize. Any mistakes are purely my own, and I tend to constantly go back and fix shit that's gone wrong whenever I manage to catch it.
In more exciting news, the wonderful Filigranka was kind enough to write me some gift drabbles for the 439th anniversary of the signing of the first Warsaw Convention, and she let me kind of go wild with the prompts, and they are gorgeously angsty and AWESOME. They can be found on AO3, under the titles of Misericorde (Final Fantasy IV) and Tropes disappearing into air (Code Geass), both by Filigranka.
Part 9. Colour in Cadence
Cloud let his mouth fall open as he breathed deeply, and he winced when the movement made his jaw throb. He poked the pads of his fingers into the side of his face gingerly. His skin was filmed over with a thin, unpleasant sticky layer of condensation mixed with sweat, but he could feel the unnatural heat through the damp.
It was going to be one mother of a bruise.
He let his arm drop, his studded bracer clunking against the wooden planks under him.
It was pretty impressive, what the crew had managed to do with the mess that phoenix had made of the mast in the day the Soldiers had been off the airship.
It hadn't felt like a day. More like a whole damn year.
The hard, polished red of the wood stopped about halfway up, replaced by a paler and rougher pole bolted in place with a series of rings of scratched metal that radiated bristles of rods hammered flat into the fresh wood. It made alarming groaning noises in the heavy wind, but it held. Had held, even when the chains pinning down the sails' bars had snapped.
About half of his face decided to remind him of its displeasure at the memory.
The bird had taken a chunk out of the prow, too, and the crew must not have had enough time to fully patch it up. The holes had been mostly covered with a couple of planks of raw wood, and a carefully lashed tarp stretched over the remaining few gaps. It thumped steadily, like a rapid heartbeat, as it shuddered in the wind.
Cloud stretched out a hand, feeling the damp coarseness of one of the new planks scratch against his arm. Unfinished as it was, water had seeped into the fibres by the time they'd finally managed to burst through the thick layer of thunderheads up into a blaze of sunlight. It felt weird, the bake of heat from the sun above almost as uncomfortable as the chill of wet wood leeching body heat away. Like he was nothing but some kind of a conductor, passing the energy through him into its intended destination, like when—
Want me to take care of it?
It was fucking creepy.
Cloud squeezed his eyes shut. Not that it helped, the way the light pierced through his eyelids and made it look like the world had caught on fire, but he didn't think he could ever get up again. Even his clothes felt like they'd been poured on and then left to harden like clay, gluing him to the boards under him.
"What are you doing, kid?"
It was the ship's captain, a veteran military pilot who'd been with ShinRa before the Soldier program had even been considered. He recognized the voice because it had been shouting in his ear plenty a couple of hours ago.
"Getting a tan," Cloud said.
The captain laughed, short and hard. "I guess you Soldiers don't have to worry so much about blistering and burning. Me, I stick to the shade." By the sound of it, he was sitting down.
Cloud managed to crack an eye open. Under the wind-scored shell, the old man did look painfully pale. A northerner, like him, then.
The captain was still talking. "—not gonna lie, we wouldn't have made it otherwise. I'm glad to have you aboard."
Cloud shrugged, his armour scraping quietly over the deck. "We didn't particularly want to die in the storm, either. And it was probably my fault. With my luck, the day I get on an airship and there's no giant flaming bird trying to eat us, or no massive thunderstorm, or anything like that, I'm going to throw myself a huge party."
"I'd appreciate it if you stayed off my ship in the meantime," the old man said drily.
"Like there's some other ship willing to take us on a mission we weren't supposed to survive," Cloud said, turning his head. "Besides—" he caught sight of the florets on the man's shoulder, and he snapped his mouth shut. Shit. He struggled to pull himself to his feet. "I mean, er, Major..."
"Adler," the Major said, waving Cloud away. "Adrian Adler. At ease, Soldier Second Class Strife. You're special ops, anyway."
"Oh." Right. Cloud sat back slowly. The Soldier program had command over wartime operations. It was part of the reason why the Security department had been so pissy lately, after years of ruling Midgar. But still. Cloud glanced at Adler. "Did Director Lazard ask you to...?"
Adler scowled. "I offered." He shook his head jerkily. "Like you said, no one else wanted to take you."
"Oh."
The sails made a clanking sound, and Cloud turned to look up at the warped links of the chain trailing from one of the beams.
He'd been below decks at the time, so he hadn't seen the storm come up, but from what one of the other guys had been saying, it'd come in out of nowhere. A crew member had told him that it wasn't uncommon because of the way the ocean hit the mountains so abruptly. The Wutai called it a "divine wind," and it was one of the major reasons why the war had dragged on for so long. By the time he'd gotten up top, Cloud had slammed his head into a wall a couple of times as the ship bucked, Adler had been fighting the wheel futilely, and the chains on the main mast had been giving.
He'd managed to snag the first one somehow just as it snapped, and he'd held on relentlessly as the links slowly lost their rubber coating to start cutting into his palms. His heels had felt like they'd dug grooves into the boards while he'd screamed for the other Soldiers to get their asses over there. They'd held down the lines, the thickest chain wrapped around McPhee's waist since he'd been the biggest and Cloud had shoved him into the anchor position, until the ship's crew could knot them to other makeshift anchors with heavy ropes. It had looked like an enormous crazed spider had taken to the masts and started spinning fourteen different webs by the time they'd pinned the sails down, but it'd held somehow.
That had been about when the ship had been smashed with a spiralling gale, the wheel had spun out, and they'd started to tip and plummet.
The lurch had nearly sent him over the side, and as he clung to the rail, dry heaving because he had nothing left to regurgitate, he saw Adler sliding over the rain-slicked deck. He didn't remember the rest very clearly, just the Major's fingers clamped over an arm as Cloud snatched at the whipping wheel. The first try, one of the spokes had clocked him viciously in the jaw. He could almost feel the bruise darkening with every passing second. The second had nearly taken off a hand. Third time, he'd jammed a shoulder into a gap and shoved, feeling like he'd been dive-bombed by a behemoth, holding the thing still until he could grab it and lean his full weight into turning it while the Major had shouted things like "No, the other way, dipshit!" into his ear.
He hadn't known how Adler could tell which way was up as the man belted a flurry of instructions by his head, but then they were clear of the suffocating clouds, black sooty haze falling away below them, and a fucking roar came from the men tangled desperately into anything they could grab.
Cloud had waited until the chaos had subsided before he'd limped off, hoping that he'd just die and put himself out of his misery.
The Major had been shuffling around out of his line of sight. "Here," he said presently.
Cloud eyed the flask hovering by his elbow.
Adler grinned. "Go on, try it. My own recipe."
That didn't make it sound any better, but Cloud took the little container anyway. The fumes smelled like they could strip tar.
"It's a North Corel specialty. Made from peaches," the Major said encouragingly.
"Might have started out as peaches..." Cloud mumbled, bringing the flask up and taking a sip.
Oh god fucking damn hell—
It felt like he'd tried to snort the whole thing up his nose. As he coughed, his eyes watering furiously, he thought he could hear the old man laughing.
"Puts hair on your chest, don't it?" Adler chortled, catching the flask Cloud tossed back to him. Then the sadistic old fart lifted up the bottle to take a drag, caught sight of Cloud's face, and promptly choked.
"Sorry," Cloud said unrepentantly.
Adler just shook his head, chuckling as he pressed the smooth metal back into Cloud's hand.
There'd been other people passing by on the deck over the past hour or so, crew mostly, trotting around as they kept the ship sailing smoothly over the clouds and making sure to steer well clear of Cloud and his sour scowl as he tried to meld into the ship's boards. He hadn't been listening for the approach before—
"Sir?"
Cloud twisted to look over his shoulder, where a Third stood, outlined in a shock of sunlight. He slapped his free hand over his eyes reflexively, and he tried to place the voice.
"Timms?"
The Third snickered, dropping down into his haunches beside Cloud. "Oh. Sorry."
"You doing okay?" The light washed out the Soldier's dark hair, but he looked strangely cheerful for someone who'd gotten a hole punched through his chest. Except for the lingering tightness around his mouth that gave his skin premature creases. "That was a lot of magic all at once."
"I'll be fine." Timms hesitated for a moment. "Uh. Thank you."
Cloud waved a hand vaguely.
"I mean, the ship physic did call me a bunch of things I'd never even heard of before, and I'd thought I'd heard plenty, and then he told me I was damn lucky you overloaded that materia without blowing us both up, and that if I got out of bed before we landed, he'd skin me, but... you know. I got bored." Timms glanced over his shoulder quickly. "Please don't tell him."
Cloud opened his mouth, thought about it, and shut it again. Adler was laughing again.
"Oh yeah. Here, sir."
It took Cloud a few seconds to figure out what Timms was holding. The Wutai log they found in the base looked a lot more ratty out in full light.
"I ran it by the comms officer, and yeah, he could read it. He said it's just a journal."
Cloud dropped the pages into his lap, letting the wind flip through them.
"The grunts weren't allowed deep enough into the compound to see what was going on, but they knew that sometimes people would disappear into the deeper parts and never come back." Timms made a face when Cloud looked up. "They were even using their own people, seems like. Anyway, this guy was there until nearly the end. He wrote that he was scared. Wanted to go home."
A loose sheet suddenly whipped out from within the bound journal, and Cloud slapped it flat onto the deck before it got out of reach. When he peeled it up, the ink was damp, but legible enough. Still the mysterious squiggles, though.
"Sounds like kind of a wuss, if you ask me," Timms said. Then he shifted awkwardly, bringing a hand up to his nape.
Cloud ignored him, eyeing the sheet that had been tucked in between the pages. "This doesn't look like a journal entry," he said. "Kind of looks like a letter?"
Adler took it out of his hand. At Cloud's look, he shrugged. "I'm a bit rusty, but I learned enough to get by." He scanned the sheet. "It's to his daughter and wife. Standard pleasantries, asking after the village... They probably hadn't seen each other for a while. He's using pretty stiff language. Must not be very close. Huh."
"What?"
"This section's addressed to his kid." Adler paused, narrowing his eyes as his lips moved soundlessly through some foreign syllables. "I'm not really sure what it says," he said after a moment. "Something about a sweet smell of spring. Trapped in a long dream..."
Ice water sluiced through Cloud's veins. Dimly, distantly, he heard his breath speed up.
"Oh, I know what this is." Adler looked up, and he stopped. "You alright, Soldier? You're looking kind of grey."
He could hear them again. He could—
He—
No. They weren't real. They were the buzzing filling his ears, the clenching in his stomach, the spit choking his mouth. A whacked out dream telling him to wake up. It wasn't real. Not like this. Real like Timms's worried eyes as he leaned forward, making the wind snap at his uniform and casting a thick shadow over his arm. Real like the stench of tobacco wreathing the old man and his yellowed fingers. Real.
Cloud was sure now.
He curled in, bringing his knees up to his chest and trying to smile. "Ah. Yeah. Recent wound." It was true, anyway. His new scar felt like someone had pressed a brand into his flesh until it had started to really sizzle. He shook his head. "It'll pass. What's the letter say?"
Adler scowled at him for a while longer, but when Cloud didn't show any signs of keeling over, he continued. "It's an old Wutai myth I heard a long time ago, about Leviathan freezing an entire village when they couldn't survive a harsh winter until spring came and they thawed out. It's basically a promise that things will get better."
Cloud took the letter slowly. It was kind of funny. Whenever he tried to imagine some scared Wutai soldier writing the elaborate lines of the characters, all he could remember was the scent of fragrant wood, slivers of shavings popping as they burned, and the glint of a tiny knife in Hoffe's broad hand. He let his eyes fall shut. He didn't even know how old Hoffe's daughter was, or what she looked like, he realized.
"Was he going to send this home?"
"Probably. The address is up in this corner." Adler pointed at the page. "Never heard of the place. It must not have had any sort of tactical significance in the siege."
Cloud exhaled loudly, and he tucked the page back into the journal before snapping it shut. "Well, nothing we didn't already know." He tilted his head. "You want this, Timms? You found it."
Timms bit his lip, eyes on the dust-encrusted sheets. Then he started to stand. "No. I'll just toss it. Don't want it to look like I'm some kind of a Wutai sympathizer."
Remembering Heidegger's glittering stare, sharp like concealed glass under all that blustering horse-laughter, Cloud nodded. "Good point." He flattened his hand over the crackling paper. "You know what, I'll do it for you. I'm a bit less likely to get grilled, after everything that happened during the war."
"Uh. Yeah." When Timms smiled this time, it was the brilliant grin of someone who still bought into all the bullshit ShinRa had fed them about heroes. "Thanks."
Despite the blazing sun, the air was dry and cold this high up. Cloud blinked down at the gleaming flask still nestled in his palm. The metal was faintly warm under his skin. He brought it up to his mouth.
The liquid burned like a bitch going down, but the heat died quickly, leaving a sharper chill in its wake.
Shit.
Cloud turned around the way he'd came into the officers' cabin—Angeal would grin himself sick at the sight of him perched awkwardly in one corner of the massive room—but Robertsson smoothly planted himself in the door.
Cloud stopped. He wondered what it would to do his credibility if he forced his way out.
Yeah. No.
"You want something, Robertsson?"
The stiff douche hadn't been intimidating for a long time. He generally slouched so much that Cloud had forgotten the couple of inches the other Second had on him in height.
The officers' cabin was nestled off from the rest of the ship, where footsteps rarely thumped about overhead. The rest of the crew's quarters were clustered around the engine hub, and the passengers got packed into two flanks, where they'd get more sunlight. And the brunt of any attacks directed at the ship, but Cloud had just snorted to himself at the thought and kept quiet. This airship had spent a good chunk of its career ferrying soldiers, anyway. The brass tended to take the floating metal fortresses.
"How long has it been going on?"
Cloud felt himself tense. Shit.
After everything that happened—nearly dying, and then nearly dying again; oh, plus a side of everyone else nearly dying—Cloud had forgotten that Robertsson had been giving him the stink eye ever since that meltdown with the Wutai gunners. It wasn't as if he could have come up with a good story given notice. He'd just figured he'd lay low until the guy gave up. It had sounded like a good idea at the time. And as it happened distressingly often enough when he panicked, he opened his mouth and let the stupidity out. "Uh," he said, "you're not accusing me of cheating on you, are you? Because I didn't know that we had—"
"Cute, Strife. You know what I meant. The hallucinations. How long have they been going on?"
Shit.
Cloud stared up at Robertsson's scowl. Outside, there was a grind of the rudder, and a sudden sense of weight as the ship dipped. And instead of preparing to land like he was supposed to, he was here eyeballing Robertsson like a damn rookie. He probably couldn't lie his way out of this one, even if by some off chance he'd suddenly gained the ability to lie convincingly and not look, as that martial arts instructor back in Nibelheim who'd had it in for him had once called it, like he was expecting his pants to burst into fire at any minute. After what Robertsson saw, he couldn't just claim it was a headache or something equally transparent.
Fucking loyalty and fucking people who keep paying fucking attention to him.
Cloud let his breath slide out, and tension seemed to drip out from his fingertips. He was exhausted. And he owed Robertsson.
"Wutai," he said.
"Wutai?"
"Since I got shipped out to the war."
Robertsson was quiet for a while. His expression didn't change, but Cloud was reasonably certain that the man was surprised to get a response.
"Well," Robertsson said finally, "that was when some of your buddies started commenting that you were acting less Prozac and more like your puppy had died."
Cloud thought he probably should be offended by both those statements. "Prozac?"
"You used to be fucking bouncy, Strife."
"That doesn't mean I'm automatically— And that's not even the right drug— You know what, forget it." Robertsson started to say something, and Cloud raised his voice. "I know. I got it. I was a dumbass. Kunsel said the same thing, remember? I was fixating so much on what I did wrong, who I'd lost, that I'd forgotten what was more important." Cloud spread a hand and waved. "These people. The people who are still alive, who are relying on me to get my shit together. I've got to stop focussing in the past and do whatever I can for these guys. Because we're the ones who are still alive."
Now Robertsson really looked surprised. "That's..."
"Trite as fuck? Yeah. You know it's true, though."
Robertsson pressed his mouth into a thin line. "I was gonna say not the point—"
"What the hell, Robertsson? How is it besides the point?" Suddenly the cabin was too small. Cloud crossed the room in a couple of steps and pulled one of the stiff-backed chairs from the desk. Swinging a leg over the backrest and making sure he didn't wince at the pull on his side, he sat, draping his arms over the smooth wooden slats. "Look, I'm better now. I haven't seen anything since I've stopped stressing about what's already happened."
"You looked like you were having a seizure," Robertsson said flatly. "I had to nearly break your jaw to snap you out of it."
"That was yesterday!"
"Are you listening to yourself talk?" Robertsson snapped, his scowl pulling deep. "What are you so scared of, anyway?"
Cloud stopped breathing.
The soundproofing was pretty damn impressive for such an old ship. With the door shut and clear skies stretching outside the porthole window, he could almost pretend they were hovering motionless. Only the gentle tremors of the engine humming through the floorboards gave away their flight.
Into the silence, his first ragged exhale was loud.
"I don't know," he said softly.
Robertsson shut his eyes, visibly calming himself. "Strife," he said finally, "I haven't ratted you out, and I don't intend to. It's not my right to undermine your authority." He smiled faintly. "You're a good commander." The smile turned into a smirk when Cloud snorted loudly at that. "You'll get better, and I'll be behind you. But when we get back to Midgar, you should go talk to the med centre. Get some help. Because if you won't," the smile fell away, "I will."
Cloud laughed, a short, helpless sound.
"You can request specific doctors, you know. There's a Soldier specialist. She transferred over from the Science department when Hollander stepped down as head." Robertsson crossed his arms, a faint grimace on his face. "I wouldn't know, but some of my old unit said she's not as batty as most."
Cloud flattened his face into his arms, trying to still the jerking in his shoulders. "And when," he said, half a gasp through the giggles, "did you become such an expert on bedside manner?"
If Robertsson was going to say something, he didn't make it out. At Cloud's hip, his PHS began buzzing and rattling against the edge of his seat, seconds before it started ringing shrilly. He'd seen some of the other Soldiers pull out their systems as soon as they'd crossed out of the radio silence zone around Wutai, and once they hadn't been in danger of getting fried by lightning. Probably to reassure someone back home that they were making their way back somehow. Technically, they shouldn't have been using them for personal communications before they'd officially been dismissed, but... Cloud hadn't contacted anyone.
And he hadn't been expecting a call.
Cloud dug it out quickly, glancing down at the screen. He didn't recognize the number. Weird.
He took a long breath, trying to ignore the black look on Robertsson's face and swallow at least some of the hysteria before he flipped the lid up.
"Strife here."
"Strife, is your unit combat ready? I want you to head into sector eight as soon as you land."
Cloud froze, abruptly sombre. That had sounded like— He pulled the earpiece from his head and frowned briefly at the screen, flashing its unknown PHS number. "Sephiroth?" he said slowly.
"Yes?" came the voice from the tinny connection, crackling with distance. He thought he could hear steps coming from the other end.
Cloud looked up. Robertsson was eyeing his PHS, too, an odd look on his face.
"What is it?" the speaker said again, impatience sharpening the voice.
"Uh, nothing!" Cloud brought the device up to his ear hurriedly. "I apologize for my distraction, sir." He frowned. "Sector eight? Are we under attack?"
"Yes. Genesis copies. Search and destroy."
"Yes sir." Cloud hesitated for a moment. "I wouldn't say the men are combat ready, sir. There are wounded, and I pushed them hard through the night."
There was a pause, shot through with thin static. Over the line, there was a faint, familiar sound, like the whine of air against an edge, moments before the far louder crunch of something metallic being crushed. Whatever it had been was apparently suitably disabled, because the hollow tap of bootsteps started up again. "It should be sufficient if you go alone. Send the others back to base. According to the communication towers, you're less than an hour away from the city limits."
"Yes sir, the captain had us preparing for landing."
"Tell him to step on it."
"Yes sir," Cloud said, already moving for the cabin door.
This time, Robertsson let him pass.
The first time Cloud had seen the ShinRa main lobby, he'd been herded in through the front doors with the rest of the batch of recruits, and it had been overwhelming. He'd stared, as blatantly as he'd dared, at the stony faced guards manning the security booths, the waxy expanse of the floor, almost blinding under the faux natural lighting, and at all the people, all moving with sharp purpose in their steps. This time, by the time they'd slammed through the last door leading to the lobby—he'd taken the Soldiers in through a side entrance, down a maintenance corridor silent and dark except for the steady orange pulse of an emergency light—he stepped out into chaos.
This floor was usually occupied by civilian employees, people who spent most of their time answering calls and pushing paper. The Security department handled their protection.
A hoarse scream cut through the noise as a man in a business suit slipped in a patch of blood slowly draining into the thin gaps between the marble tiles and went down heavily. He twisted to look over his shoulder, and he screamed again, bringing his arms up in an attempt to shield himself from the sickle blade descending towards his head. When the strike never landed, it didn't register, and he was still screaming by the time Cloud had twisted his sword enough to slap the blade locked over the edge to the ground before sweeping up in a blow that ripped open the Genesis copy's ribcage.
"Oi!" He reached out and thumped a glove into the man's arm. "Get up!"
He saw a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and managed to catch another clone's attack. Metal clanged as he blocked awkwardly, and he let his broadsword flip with the force of the hit in his hands until the hilt swung around to face the clone. With a shout, Cloud thrust the pommel forward into the exposed throat, and he felt the windpipe crunch damply.
He glanced over his shoulder at the man sprawled on the ground, eyes wide and mouth frozen open as he stared up at Cloud. At the haze of green settling over his skin, Cloud knew his own eyes were probably flaring with mako.
"Move it, man!" he shouted, and the guy flinched. "Run! Go!"
As the civilian scrambled to his feet, Cloud spun into a lunge, his sword sliding into a clone's chest up to its hilt. Off to the side, he saw Timms take off a Genesis copy's helmet with a vicious uppercut before slamming both fists into the sides of the exposed temples to drop the clone.
Something clanked at his feet, the sound nearly buried by the barrage of gunfire. Cloud drew back a boot to kick it to aside, and he stiffened. Instead of the red of the clone's helmet he'd been expecting, three recessed bulbs gleamed up at him from a Security helmet like the battered headlights of a train. One was crushed inwards, at the centre of a heavy dent. Cloud glanced up over at the door, where the security sensors flanking the broken glass panes were screeching as they went berserk. Over the edge of one of the guard booths, a figure hung limply, an arm stretching down parallel to the ribbons of red painted down the chrome facing.
Cloud grimaced, turning away from the body. He slung a hand out, magic crackling on his fingertips in response to the roaring discharge of the Thundaga spell streaking through the air. The clone he hit contorted, arms bending erratically together behind his back before collapsing. A spark of electricity arced for a moment, a second before Cloud swung around to slap a thrusting blade downward just as he reached out with his other hand to clamp his fingers around the second clone's head and pushed the magic into it. Electricity sizzled, the stink of charred hair diffusing out from under the helmet.
Letting the clone sag to the ground, Cloud looked around.
There weren't that many of them left. A couple of Thirds were engaging one of the red figures that spent most of its time hastily dodging the coordinated strikes, and closer to one of the flight of stairs, he could see Robertsson straighten up, stepping away from a crumpled body, and pivot around to collect his bearings.
Cloud heard a quiet whimper, and he turned.
It was that lady that kept offering him potion samples whenever he passed through the hall. She huddled tightly against the corner where wall met floor, the sheen of tears on her cheeks. Cloud hurried over and knelt to check her over. She looked fine. More or less. Probably in shock, though.
She barely looked at him, wordlessly allowing him to draw her up to her feet.
Turning, Cloud snagged Forenz's arm where he was passing by.
"Sir?"
He pressed the woman into the Third's arms. "Get her out of here."
"Got it."
Robertsson had picked his way over the slick stone of the floors by the time Cloud glanced up again. The man slowed as he neared, taking a deep breath and nodding.
"Robertsson, I'm heading out to sector eight."
The Second's eyes flicked to him from scanning the hall, and he nodded again.
" You guys take care of clean up. Secure the entrance, alright?" Cloud said, scraping his sword clean, or at least trying to, against the wall. "Keep an eye on each other, keep an eye on the civilians, and don't try anything fancy."
"Yeah."
Cloud hesitated for a moment. The guy had been acting normal enough since Cloud had walked out on him on the ship. "I'm counting on you, Robertsson."
There was a quick grin and a grunt of acknowledgement, and Robertsson was darting past him. The Second reached out and yanked a Genesis copy away from a kid intern he'd been bearing down upon before driving a hand dagger up from under the clone's ribs.
Cloud vaulted over the falling body of the clone on his way to the smashed doors.
The sun had set sometime between landing and getting clear of the ShinRa building. It was always kind of dark in Midgar, anyway, with permanent smog colouring the sky.
Cloud flung himself flat against the rust-coloured bricks of the wall at his back as a truck whipped by, its brakes squealing, back tires fishtailing wildly, and a masked Genesis clone clawing for balance where he hunched over his weapon jabbed into the roof. With a shriek of metal, the vehicle wrapped itself around a streetlight and slammed to a halt. The jarring stop sent the clone flying into the darkness. The pole tilted slowly at first, building speed as it leaned over further and gravity clutched at it harder, until with a groan-twang of snapped wires, it toppled and showered sparks and glass pellets to the sidewalk.
There was a short scream, and a woman in a suit skirt darted away out of an alley with her hands clapped over her head and neck. Whoever had been driving the truck remained folded and unmoving against the steering wheel.
Above the patch of blackness in which the shattered streetlight used to stand, the massive "Loveless" sign hummed and spat in multicolour.
Cloud jogged over to where the clone lay in a heap against some crumbled bricks he'd probably knocked free of a wall. He glanced down at his sword, made a face at the dust that had settled into the streaks of whatever bodily fluids he hadn't been able to clean off, and used the tip to lever off the clone's helmet. From the bizarre way the head lolled back, his neck was broken.
The truck driver wasn't much better off, given the blood-smeared network of cracks in the windshield.
Letting out a frustrated growl, Cloud scanned the littered streets of the Loveless district. "What the fuck is going on here?" Reaching the truck, Cloud ducked down to peer into the driver's side window. The crushed frame of the body was mostly concentrated on the empty passenger side, but the man at the wheel was slumped unmoving over it, a black mess of mangled skin and blood dripping down a side of his forehead and blending with his short, dark hair.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
He hadn't really been expecting a response.
He hadn't been expecting the reedy pulse he felt at the man's throat either.
"Oh!" Cloud stepped back to yank at the door handle. "Hold on." It didn't budge. "Dammit." He reached in through the window and felt around the inside of the door, but it didn't even click when he finally found and fiddled with the locking mechanism. Jammed. Scowling at the bent metal, he dropped deeper into his stance to brace his boots against the asphalt, took a deep breath, and yanked. The door shuddered, flakes of paint fountaining, and then with a deafening crack, the locked frame ripped free of the rest of the body, swinging out so that Cloud had to scramble backwards to avoid getting slapped with twisted metal. The door leaned drunkenly on a hinge that Cloud had managed not to tear out with the other one.
He ducked down again. The driver was wedged pretty tightly. Slitting his eyes and turning his torso so that it was mostly his shoulder guard facing the cracked glass, he slammed upwards and out with a gloved fist. The windshield exploded outward, the clatter of falling glass battering the ridged metal of the crushed hood making him hunch down between his shoulders. When it stopped, Cloud stood slowly, shards of glass rolling and clicking down his back as they were dislodged.
Wrapping his fingers around the mostly empty frame of the windshield, Cloud started to pull.
It squealed like a pig being bled out, or a hundred nails dragging over yards of chalkboard. Gritting his teeth hard, Cloud stamped down the urge that screamed at him to let go and clap his hands over his ears, and he leaned his full weight into dragging at the metal. His arms felt like jelly, trembling as he strained, the worn leather against his palm bunching and piling against the bars as his hands started to slip. He tightened his grip as much as he could. The inside of his gloves felt clammy and slick. Slowly, screeching the whole way, the metal gave, curling up and bending in on itself as the windshield frame peeled up from the rest of the body.
As soon as the pressure had decreased enough, the driver slumped to the side and started to slide out of the truck, and Cloud swore under his breath as he hastily abandoned the pried up windshield frame, caught the limp man, and laid him as delicately as he could on the ground.
Sitting back onto his haunches and looking down at the slack face, Cloud chewed on a lip. Fuck, what now?
The man was breathing shallowly and unevenly, and Cloud hesitated for a moment before fingering his Cure. Soft green light settled over the driver's skin, glinting sharply for a moment off the ring on his left hand and making Cloud blink at the glare. Even unconscious, the man winced and his shoulders dug into the pavement for a second, but then his breathing smoothed.
"Uh, sorry," Cloud said, on the off chance that the man could hear him. "I can't chance any more magic if you've got some kind of a head wound. Your brain could scar, and yeah, it's not pretty."
No response.
"Yeah," Cloud muttered, looking up and around.
A flash of white.
"Hey!" he shouted, and the figure paused, glanced around, and began to lope over to him. As the features resolved themselves, Cloud felt his mouth tighten. It had been the white of an unbuttoned collar he saw. The red hair wasn't just reflecting fluorescent glow from the signs overhead, but actually blindingly bright. A weeping wound against the rumpled black-blue suit.
Turk.
Cloud forced his face blank, and he used his best impression of the razor-edge voice he'd heard in Angeal's orders when he expected them to be followed. "Any emergency responders in the sector?"
The guy actually laughed, the weird blue markings under his eyes creasing. "Hell no," he said loudly. "ShinRa's got no time for that, yo. HQ's under attack!"
Cloud felt his mouth twist. "Then call some! Or watch over this guy while I get a civilian doctor!"
The Turk's eyes widened. "Who, me?"
Cloud stared, unmoving as the Turk splayed out his hands.
"That ain't my job, yo!"
He pressed his teeth together. He was going to strangle that man and his fucking obnoxious verbal tic if he didn't—
"Be quiet, Reno."
Cloud let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and he forced his hands to unclench.
Tseng dipped his head, his tuft of hair bobbing slightly and pristine as always in its tie despite the thin beaded lines of sweat at his temple. "Strife."
Cloud moved to wipe at his own face where bits of gravel were trying to permanently burrow under his skin, but he dropped his hands again when he saw the grimy crust on his gloves. He hauled himself to his feet. "Tseng," he greeted.
The wall of a man standing behind Tseng, his bald head gleaming red in the neon lighting over the thick black lenses of his glasses, didn't say anything. But that didn't stop Reno from leaning in and grinning.
"Heeey! You're Cloud, yo! Super Soldier boy that hauled Tseng from a burning wreck of chopper!"
Cloud shifted his gaze from Reno's bared teeth to Tseng's blank face and then back again. "That's not what happened." It might have been a hint of exasperation he saw there.
"Put it there, yo!" the Turk said, lifting a hand as if Cloud hadn't said anything. "Name's Reno. That there's Rude, my partner, and you already know Tseng, yeah?"
It was almost reflex, the way Cloud reached up and gripped the man's hand lamely. "Uh. Great, but there's this guy—" his shot up to Reno's shoulder when his eyes widened. "—shit, watch it!"
The Genesis copy balanced for a moment on the roof of the building across the street, hands curled around the edge of the ledge, before he flung himself forward in some kind of a suicidal dive at them. The red armour caught the light, pauldrons shining with an organic glisten, a second before Cloud shoved the loud Turk down while he threw himself out of the way of the charge. He couldn't see anything but a blood-coloured blur mixed with flashes of the grain of the pavement as he hit the ground with a shoulder and rolled, an elbow knocking painfully against a curb as he went, but the clone seemed to catch himself in midair and somehow swooped.
Cloud managed to pull his head up at the rush of air tugging at the hair over his crown following the clone's passage, and he saw the figure contort, arms and legs shooting out to slow his fall as he rushed past his target.
Straight towards a woman frozen in the middle of the street.
Inhaling sharply, Cloud bunched his legs under him, preparing to launch himself into a sprint—
And he watched the woman spring up into the air, using the force of her spiralling jump to drive a massive shuriken straight through her attacker's throat with the thick, slick sound of a butcher's knife parting flesh and bone. The Genesis copy dropped like a marionette from snapped strings, thudding limply to the ground. His helmet flew off at the impact, spinning a mad top's dance over the sidewalk.
The woman had to plant a carefully polished shoe into the clone's chestplate to yank her weapon free. Then she turned towards them, a small smile touching her mouth as she walked away from the body.
Of course.
Cloud watched the woman approach dully. He'd probably used up his capacity for surprise at this point. He eyed her red hair, not quite Reno's virulent crimson, and he remembered. "You're the one who gave me that umbrella back then."
She kept up the polite little smile.
"You're a Turk, too, huh?"
The smile widened. "Cissnei," she said. An introduction.
He nodded. "Cloud."
But she just shrugged, that composed slash of a smile not slipping for a moment. "I know who you are, Soldier boy. But thanks."
Cloud cut back the first thing that wanted to come out of his mouth, and he tilted his head back to let out a long breath. The sky was murky overhead, a grey haze concentrated around a skyscraper that probably covered the spot the moon would be. "I don't know why you all keep calling me that," he said eventually, "but look. We seem to have the same objective here. We should work together. Clear the—"
"Thanks for the offer, Soldier," Reno interrupted, "but you forget." He tilted his head to meet Cloud's eyes, half a feral grin tugging at his lips as he tapped a black, gleaming rod against his shoulder. "Sector eight is Turk's turf." The stick spat a blue spark that arced menacingly for a moment over the thick tip.
Electromag, Cloud realized. Trust the Turks to get the expensive shit.
Cloud drew closer to the man as he slitted his eyes. "Well maybe," he said slowly, the words whistling a bit through his clenched jaw, "you're not doing so good of a job if you're letting people get hurt like this." He gestured, a quick, sharp jerk, toward the man lying motionless on the pavement by his wrecked truck.
Reno glared back, his mouth thin and tight.
In the distance, a siren was blaring.
"Hey," Cissnei said suddenly, appearing at their shoulders, "testosterone boys."
Reno turned his head to scowl at her, but she continued.
"A Genesis copy just went into that theatre while you were busy making eyes at each other," she said flatly.
"What?" Reno said, spinning abruptly toward the building.
"Another one just headed over the roofs toward the commercial district, so I'm going after it." Cissnei fixed them each with a hard look. "Now, if you're done with your little spat, I suggest you posture later, Reno, when Midgar isn't crawling with monsters." She snapped her wrist as she turned, the shuriken glittering along its blades before she tucked it away.
"Hey, wait!"
She was gone, ignoring Cloud's voice.
To his other side, Reno cussed, darting toward the theatre doors and disappearing into the shadows.
Cloud glanced at Tseng, and when he raised his hands, it probably looked a bit lost. "Don't Turks usually work in pairs?" he said.
Tseng shut his eyes for a moment, and there was a ghost of a sigh. "Cissnei's partner is... away."
"Mission?" A memory sparked, and Cloud narrowed his eyes. "Does it have anything to do with this big eco-terrorist group I keep hearing about?"
Absolutely nothing changed in Tseng's expression. "You know I can't share classified information, Strife."
It was about as good of an admission as he was about to get, anyway.
Cloud gnawed on the inside of his cheek, glancing first at the theatre's neon-glow Loveless sign before peering after where Cissnei had vanished around the corner.
Tseng tucked a hand into an inner pocket as he stepped closer, hesitated, and said, "I would prefer not to ask you, Strife, but compared to Cissnei, Reno is more likely to require assistance."
Cloud looked back at the theatre. "Oh," he said. He started toward it, but then stopped and turned. "Wait, about the civilian—"
Tseng was already bringing the PHS he'd pulled from his pocket up to his ear. He waved a couple of fingers at Cloud without looking around. "I've got it covered."
There was a clear colour scheme to the theatre. Red featured prominently. The seats were upholstered with some sort of smooth looking fabric Cloud didn't know the name of, and soft golden lights lined the walkways, not so much shining as diffusing in the dark. Folds of heavy red velvet dripped down the walls, sucking away whatever sounds that hadn't already been engulfed by the thick carpeting. Probably decorative. Clearly useless.
Opulence like that always made Cloud's shoulders hunch, the way it made it clear that he didn't belong.
It also looked empty.
Cloud twisted to look over his shoulder where Rude had followed him into the theatre silently. "You going after your partner?" he said, something about the deserted theatre keeping his voice low. Behind the shades, he couldn't see where the Turk was looking.
A moment later, the man made a complicated shrug.
"Right..." This was stupid, ducking every time he made a sound. Cloud cleared his throat. "He probably went after the Genesis copy. Would you check around, see if there's anyone that needs help, and get them somewhere safe while I go back up Reno?"
This time, the nod was almost instantaneous, and the tall Turk turned away. His footsteps were soundless against the thick fuzz covering the floor.
Cloud carefully did not breathe a quiet huff of relief when he was gone.
Running a couple of finger tips over the rows of polished wood edging the seats, he picked his way down the aisle toward the bare stage. It hadn't really sunk in yet. That he was back home, where the happiest people in the world lived—because if they weren't happy, why would everyone try to make it to Midgar, so they had to be—and paid shit tons of money to come sit in these fancy chairs and watch fancy actors spout poetry while wearing fancy clothes. He'd left that empty deathtrap in Wutai, left the voices that churned his thoughts to blood pudding and shouts behind, jumped off an airship blinking the grainy feeling of being awake for too long out of his eyes, and plunged right into another battle and into this empty theatre.
It was different, though. Even aside from the obvious lack of disrepair. As Cloud shuffled his way through this building, it felt alive. Like something was watching him.
"Hey, Reno?" he bellowed. "You here?" The sound crashed through the stillness and died quickly.
He didn't hear anything, not even the whisper of shifting air in this giant mute box, but something clawed up his arms and caused the hairs to stand up on his neck and just made him instinctively turn.
He didn't have enough time to yank his sword free from its sheath, so he brought up his arms instead, just barely catching the slash on the edge of his bracer in a clang that felt like it had jarred his teeth loose. Brilliant specks of light flashed in front of his eyes, either sparks sprayed up from the impact or his vision playing tricks on him as the shockwave of the blow travelled up his arms. A guttural sound forced its way past his mouth, and he pulled his other hand up wildly when he saw the clone raise his second curved dagger.
He punched out with the back of his fist, managing to catch the hilt and knock the weapon to the ground. It landed with a dull clunk that was barely audible over the sound of his own breath gushing out of his lungs when the clone brought up an armoured knee and drove it into his gut with more force than he'd thought could possibly exist.
Cloud opened his mouth, nothing but a croaking sound coming out as his legs buckled. It felt like his stomach had been caved in with a steel beam.
Ifrit's balls, he couldn't breathe.
In the haze of dancing black spots, he forced his free arm up to reach for his sword.
"Strife!" Reno's voice came from somewhere behind him. "He's coming your way! Don't let him get away!"
Cloud overbalanced when the clone pulled away, and he sagged, his mouth open and gulping ineffectively at the air. The Genesis copy's head whipped around, the helmet red as the walls, and then he was on the stage in a whirl of pounding footsteps that faded into the gloom.
Cloud swallowed a low moan, prying himself off the floor. His muscles felt like they were trying to peel themselves off his bones and his ears rang like he'd stuffed some of the tiny jangly bells in each of them. At least he could breathe without gagging now. "You know," he groused, pressing a hand against the thumping in the back of his head, "advance warning only works if it comes in advance." In the corner of his eye, he could see Reno slow down and crane his neck to look around.
"The hell, man, you lost him?"
Reno hopped a couple of rows of seats, peering into the dim wings stretching beyond the stage.
"Go fuck yourself, Reno," Cloud said through gritted teeth, using an armrest to lever himself to his feet.
"I'll take the left, yo," Reno called over his shoulder as he padded into the gloom.
It wasn't until the rich wood creaked ominously under his hand that Cloud quickly released his grip. Straightening his spine as much as he could and wincing when the discs popped loudly, Cloud flattened a palm against the smooth edge of the stage and propelled himself up, landing on his feet and taking off to the right. Even Robertsson would have been preferable, back when he'd first met the jackass.
There were things behind the stage. Mostly relics of old productions, like bits of scenery on stiff boards, piles of props... They looked oddly eerie, lying abandoned in dark corners like forgotten dead. The worst part was how much cover all the junk afforded, and it didn't help the tension in Cloud's shoulders, creeping through the grainy green-edged shadows and expecting something to jump out from behind everything.
He strained to hear anything that could be moving.
He'd almost made a full circuit of the wing before he heard it. A rustle.
Cloud's head snapped up and to the side.
He saw it a second later, the splash of red, the sheen of leather.
Tearing his sword free in a practiced movement, he crossed the distance in one long bound, planted his boots, and yanked the red figure out from behind a wall of fake shrubbery. Flipping his sword into a backhanded grip to account for the lack of clearance around him, he started to swing—
The shriek of terror stopped him, blade an inch from the cringing form.
The red leather of the coat bunched under his grasp, but the wearer was a bit shorter than he'd anticipated. That was about when he saw the other women huddled behind the old scenery, right when one of them surged up to her feet, eyes as incandescent as they could be without the artificial glow of mako, and jabbed two fingers in his direction. "What exactly do you think you're doing?" she snapped, following and pushing her face right under his nose when he hastily released the woman he'd grabbed and took a couple of steps backward.
"You're a Soldier, aren't you?" the flood of vitriol continued. "I can see your eyes shine from across the room. Is this what they teach you in Soldier camp these days? Attacking unarmed citizens that you're supposed to be protecting?" Each sharp question was accompanied by another jab of nails into his collar.
"I... uh..." Cloud glanced frantically back and forth between the spokesperson and the others still hunched in the dark. A couple of them had the gangly look of teenagers. His mouth worked uselessly. "I—what are you wearing?" he managed.
The woman frowned, looking down at herself before drawing herself up again. "This happens to be a genuine replica of Genesis's red leather coat, hand-crafted exclusively for discerning members of the Red Leather fanclub, not that you'd understand the concept of fine taste—"
She didn't seem like she was going to stop anything soon, so Cloud quickly waved his hands in defeat. "Okay okay. Okay!" He bulled through her nasty look. "Fine, fine. But if you're hiding here, you probably already know that the city is under attack, right?" There were a couple of nods. "One of the Ge—" Shit, bad idea. "—monsters is currently at large in this theatre," he corrected himself, "so I'm going to need you to evacuate until I and my colleague deal with the intruder."
Ha, they looked suitably appeased by the cop show language, even if he was laying it on kind of thick.
He lifted his arms back the direction he'd come the way he'd seen the Security department direct traffic sometimes, gesturing encouraging as the group slowly worked their way to their feet. "Head to the entrance of the theatre, please," he said in his most official voice. "If you see a big man wearing shades, he's with us, and he'll keep you safe."
He watched carefully as they filed past him, moving towards the front of the stage. "Thanks for your cooperation," he said when one of the younger girls gave him an embarrassed look.
It wasn't until they were almost around the bend that a thought struck him, and he raised his voice hurriedly. "And I'd ditch the coats for now, if I were you!"
The woman who'd yelled at him spun around with a glare and flipped him the bird a moment before she moved out of sight.
Cloud was still staring, jaw slackened, when the tap of footsteps on wood sounded from the other direction, and Reno appeared like a disembodied red gash, the way his suit blended into the darkness. The Turk made a face when he saw Cloud.
"Oh, it's a circle, huh," Reno said as he approached. "Find anything, yo? I heard shouting."
"No, just a few civilians who'd taken shelter here."
Reno let out an aggrieved sigh, bringing his hands up to drag his fingers through the fringe of red standing around his face. "How are we gonna deal with this shit, yo? I mean, it's like looking for a..." he paused, his mouth twisting, "a, a red thing in a whole bunch of other red things."
Cloud scowled at the Turk. "Well, last time he showed up," he said, "he seemed to be attracted to noise." Reno looked at him sideways, something flinty in his eyes. Cloud crossed his arms as he tilted his head up. "Isn't that your specialty, Turk?"
"Right," Reno said, turning to face him fully, "and you're not the preachy prick what can't shut up about saving every bitch you come across." He suddenly pitched his voice up an octave. "'Oh wahn-de-fuckin'-wahn! Let's help 'em all! Oh my bleedin' heart!'"
Cloud pulled his lips back over his teeth to growl. "It's my job!"
The Turk wasn't done yet, his voice rising with every second word. "You Soldiers are all the same, yo! Always so fuckin' obsessed with what you should be doin' and what people think of you that you miss everything that's actually important!"
"It's called honour, you motherfucker, and you wouldn't know it if it jumped up and bit you on the ass!"
"Of course you would know, Blondie, the way you pets sit around all day lickin' your own assholes—"
Reno whirled around, soles squeaking against the boards underfoot, bringing up his electromag rod to block the Genesis copy's charge. The force of the blow still knocked the Turk back into Cloud, sending them both reeling.
Cloud put his foot down on something that slithered under him, ripping all traction out from beneath his boot, and he went down hard.
Groaning, he pressed an unsteady hand to his head, trying to suppress the nausea pushing up at this throat. He didn't see what the thing he'd hit his head on was, but the jarring clang he'd heard meant it was either metallic or he'd cracked his skull and his ears were working about as well as the swooping blackness in his vision.
He hissed, unsure of whether his eyes were open.
"Oi, Strife, look sharp!"
Reno's voice sounded blurry, like it was coming from multiple directions at the same time. Shit, he was—
He fumbled for his sword. The comforting weight in his hands, he looked up, blinking rapidly until the black edges receded and he was looking up the length of the clone's curved dagger as it knifed down toward him.
Oh fuck—he lurched into an awkward twist away, knowing he wasn't going to be able to fully evade the slash, but—
There was a roar that could only have been designed to drag attention towards its origin, and Cloud gave himself whiplash snapping his head up to see Reno bearing down on the clone, sparking rod lifted above his head before starting its crushing descent.
His momentum bore both clone and Turk into a stand of painted scenery in a confusion of tangled limbs and flying splinters.
Struggling to his feet, Cloud skidded over to the brawlers. He had to bring up a hand to shield his face from a rogue kick, but then he reached out, snagged the back of the suit, where shards of wood were still lodged in some of the tears, and yanked. Reno reeled when Cloud pushed him off to the side, moments before he brought down his sword in a way that the tapering tip severed the clone's spine on its way to bite into the varnished planks underfoot. He stood still for a while, leaning on the pommel, his heart still hammering into his throat.
When Cloud turned away from the suddenly limp body, Reno was bent over, hands on his knees as he breathed hard.
The Turk nodded jerkily when he saw Cloud watching him, and he stood slowly, pressing a hand to his side.
"You hurt?"
Reno waved a dismissive hand, and the other one glowed green. When it subsided, he finally straightened, letting out a long sigh.
Cloud shifted, feeling awkward as hell. "Uh," he said. He stopped, and nodded. "Thanks."
Reno grinned lopsidedly. "Don't worry about it, yo. We ShinRa dogs gotta stick together, you know?"
"Dogs?" Cloud frowned. The Turk had seemed to drag out the word.
"Yeah. Ya know. Dawwwwwwgs."
Cloud snorted. "Right." He sidestepped the widening pool of blood leaking into the space under the stage. "I meant thanks for playing along."
There was a snicker. "Wasn't that hard."
Cloud knew Reno could probably see it when he rolled his eyes, but... "You meant every word, didn't you?"
Reno looked back at him dryly, hands tucked into his pockets. "Tch, so did you."
The silence stretched, stiff and muffled. Then Cloud huffed out a sharp breath. "Yeah, forget it. I know." He'd almost turned away before the Turk suddenly let out a loud sigh, bringing a hand up to scrub at the back of his head, where his red tail hung.
"The way I see it, it's bastards like this what hurt people," Reno said, his words a rush as he jerked his chin at the cooling corpse at Cloud's feet. "It's my job to get him, not to fuss around with everyone who might have gotten messed up along the way, yo."
The Turk shrugged as Cloud watched him.
"The faster I do my job, the fewer people need savin'." He made an abrupt face, swivelling away. "Shit, man, never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to explain myself to a Soldier."
Cloud felt his mouth pull into a weird smile. He hadn't thought he'd get an answer, either. Then it faded again, and he closed his eyes. "That's not good enough," he said quietly. "For me. I get what you mean, but..." He shook his head. "Yeah, it's not enough."
Reno pulled his face into a grimace. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Soldier, and all." He slouched forward, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Well? Get going, yo. Don't you have more people to save or nothin'?"
Cloud bit down on a grin. The Turk's street Midgar accent seemed to get thicker or thinner depending on what Reno felt like at the moment. "What about—"
"Oh, don't you worry about this guy." Reno nudged the body with a toe before turning to fix Cloud with a toothy grin. "This here's Turk business," he said.
Cloud snorted again.
TBC
So yeah, looks like we're puttering around in whatever passes as Cloud's version of canon CC for a chapter or two.
(Speaking of AU, ever wondered what it would be like if Cloud never joined Avalanche, and it was instead him and Zack against ShinRa/the world?
And no, Zack didn't mysteriously survive:)
Cloud bared his teeth in a grin as he sheathed the thin curve of the Yoshiyuki with a quick flourish.
"Ha!" he said. "What do you think of that, Zack? Got Palmer good, didn't I?"
There was a grunt of acknowledgement.
"Yeah, I know, but come on. Where's the challenge in gutting a loser like that?" He trotted over to the small plane resting on the turf, smelling faintly of metal and polish. "Now, how do I get this thing up and running?"
"Gahh."
"Shut up, Zack. It beats walking."
"Guuuuaaagh-gurgle."
Cloud spun around to glare. "Hey. Hey! Stop that!" He scowled at the vaguely guilty look in Zack's milky glazed eyes, globs of thick yellow fat and bleeding strips of stringy tissue already caked to the sides of his mouth. "What did I say about reducing the cholesterol in your diet?"
(Cough)