The Materia Hunter: Eleventh Chapter—Blood Battered Battlefield
Author's Note: Fort Condor was my favorite out of the Huge Materia missions. My deepest apologies to you if you've been waiting. However, I'm sure the recent influx of Yuffentine stories due to Dirge of Cerberus can more than satisfy any Yuffentine cravings. –smiles- I haven't bought the game myself… first person shooters aren't really my thing, but if any of you have played it and think I should try it, I may just take you up on it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII.
Smoke rises above the rocky wall of Fort Condor, the great golden bird still resting upon its broad plateau. Vincent's hard-soled boots crunch on the graveled entrance, and he motions me to climb up the ladder first. But I shake my head violently and smirk at him, one hand on my jutted hip.
"Don't be a perv, Vinnie. I can't have you getting a sneak peek at my butt on the way up, now can I? You go first! Don't worry; your cape'll cover you." Slightly irritable from the long airship ride, I shift impatiently as he twitches slightly at my comment, and then wordlessly starts up the ladder.
"They want what they call 'Huge Materia' to collide with Meteor in hopes of destroying it. Therefore, they are collecting it from promising reactors. Fort Condor is one of their targets." Cait Sith bobs up and down enthusiastically as the sounds of some Shinra board meeting emit from his microphone. "And… North Corel. They plan to transport the Materia out via train from the Corel Reactor, and then airlift it from the station down at the other end of the Corel region. North Corel, since it has recovered around the tracks, will be decimated if the train comes through."
$#$&!!! If they... If they take Corel, there'll be nothing left of the #$&$in' nothin' they got there now! I can't let that happen, $#&# it!!! Damn jackasses aren't gonna destroy my Corel again... I gotta stop them!" Barret's enraged outburst sets our faces into a grimace.
Cid grunts lightly, withdraws his cigarette from his parted lips, then exhales a stream of smoke. "Alright. You go on to the reactor then, Barret. We'll drop ya there. I'll go too, to stop that train. And the fire-cat and Cait Sith will go along to go to Corel and get all them people away from the tracks just in case we can't stop the #$&#ing bugger. Valentine and Kisaragi. You're gonna handle Fort Condor. Kisaragi, don't get in the way. Valentine, don't let her piss her pants on the way down, 'cuz we're not stopping to letcha off, you'll just jump. Move out!!"
Stupid old man, I'M not gonna pee my pants just for a little jump. Better worry about you, though, gettin' to that age where ya gotta worry about the runs, huh? Grahr…
And so we jumped off when the ship got close enough to the ground, and here we are. Fort Condor.
"Yuffie, is there something wrong?"
I jump. "Oh!!! No!! Coming--!" I hastily scramble up the ladder.
The withered old man we had met when we first came to the fort greets us. "Hello, travelers," he says grievously, brow furrowed. "We are in a time of war. Shinra has come to take out Materia from the old reactor. But doing so will destroy the Condor and the egg that is soon to hatch. We have held them off for a short while. But our forces will not last long at all. We are depending on mercenaries, and are running out of ways to pay them. Soon they will leave, and our Condor will lay unprotected with her egg. I suggest that if you do not with to get involved with our war, please leave." With that, the old man lets out a soft sigh and buries his head in his arms. Poor guy…
"We came to bring you aid. May we help you?" Vinnie's red gaze fixes on the back of the man's head, and the man lifts himself suddenly, looking at us as if seeing us in a brand new light.
……..
ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD!!! I dash up the steps to the observation tower, overlooking a bloodied battlefield. I grimace slightly at the sweetish scent of blood— both freshly shed and dried and decaying. However, Vinnie makes no signal that he even notices the sight or the smell and approaches the worried man overlooking the battle.
"I can offer funds to provide forces enough to overcome the Shinra. However, you must allow us to take the Huge Materia once the Condor hatches." Right. Just cut to the chase, Vinnie. In the corner, I gag slightly at the odor.
"Oh, yes sir!!!!" The young man looks hugely gratified as he steps off his stool and grasps Vinnie's hand, shaking it vigorously. "We just want our Condor to hatch safely. That is the purpose of our resistance, you see?" Vinnie nods, then turns towards the door leading to that blood covered ground.
"Let's go, Yuffie."
I raise my head and nod slightly before skittering over to him, clinging closer than normal. I feel nauseous…. scared… I've never had such a huge battle before. It's like a battle back from the Wutai War, or at least how I'd imagined it. I imagined a great sea of blood and corpses, men screaming, chocobos down, and the flash of steel against steel. Then, a great silver-haired man would come sprinting through, leaving a path of clean death behind him, then a line of SOLDIERs, more blood, and the silver-haired war hero would be gone as soon as he'd come, but the battlefield would look all the more shattered for it.
Maybe this is the same. I just hope the silver-haired man doesn't appear and kill us all. I shiver slightly at the thought. Then, I find a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't be afraid." A whisper. And, strangely, somehow, I feel encouraged.
"I won't be afraid, Vinnie!" I grin up at him sunnily, and then dart forward, swiftly pulling my weapon out as I move forward from the new found power in my legs.
"Let's go!!!!"
As Vincent talks to the general of the hired army, I sit on a rock several yards down the stretch, staring at the sunset—unnervingly, the color of blood. Down near my feet, I hear sniffing. I look, and there's a dog of sorts. As I reach out to pet it…
"AAAAAAAA!!!"
The 'dog' leaps out at me, three inch fangs bared and aimed at my throat. I roll off the rock and slide down the hill on my backside, eyes squeezed shut, curled in a ball, waiting for some impact. Behind me, I hear the beast galloping down the hill, snarling. Oh, holy sporks, what the HELL is that THING??
I eventually skid to a sprawling stop, only after the beast had lost me down into a valley. Panting slightly, I inspect the wounds. Several gashes adorn my arms and legs, and I can already feel the bruising. Gawd, it hasn't even been fifteen minutes out here, and the terrain is beating me up before the enemy even does. The Shinra are manipulating monsters then, huh? Luckily, though I lost my shuriken somewhere on the hill, I managed to keep my gauntlet, which had a low-level Restore on it, and I tap out a bit of power to heal the cuts.
Something crunches behind me.
I look over my shoulder quickly, and I nearly choke on a scream.
Another monster!!! I don't even have a weapon, ohhhh, shit oh shit ohhhh shitshitshitttt, what kind of Materia do I have on… The monster growls loudly as it steps on a skull, crumbling it to bits with a great crunching sound. It isn't like the dog-beast, though; it's red and scaly on two legs with muscles and a big spiked club.
"Restore, Heal, and Sense. Oh, GAWD, how could I be so stupid??" No other choice now…. I begin to run up the hill out of the valley as fast as my legs would carry me, slipping on spilled blood, tripping over bodies and bones as the sun sets fast behind me. Hoping to encounter my shuriken somewhere on my way back up, I squint as hard as I can, trying to spot a glint of metal and Materia on the battlefield. With huge heavy tromping footsteps, the monster chases after me, undeterred by the steepness of the hill. And it's getting closer. Frantically, I push my legs to go faster. Oh gawd… This is a nightmare. A nightmare, it must be!!! In frustration and panic, I take a huge gasping breath, the air slicing through my chest like a knife on my taxed lungs. And then I scream. With every fiber and cell in my body, I scream as loud as I can, whirl around and launch myself off the hill, gravity finally on my side. My scream turns into some ferocious war-cry as I flick my gauntlet up onto my knuckle and plunge my accelerated fist into the clearly startled monster. And then…
We start tumbling back down the hill. In a great ball of limbs, we roll down the hill, adrenaline pumping through my veins, manipulating my muscles expertly to kick, punch, and otherwise damage the stunned creature. Regaining my mind, I flip the monster under me, then leap off kamikaze style onto the side of our path to grab a rock as the red beast goes tumbling out of sight. And when I have myself steadied on the rock, and when my head stops spinning, I start to laugh.
"Ahahahaha, my life really sucks, ohh, it sure does.. Someone up there must really hate my guts today. Ohohoho, yes, the only way this could get ANY flippin' worse is if—"
A snarl.
And then—a miracle!
A gunshot.
The beast falls dead.
"Yuffie!"
Sitting atop the rock like a frog, I look up at Vincent as he sprints down the hill towards me, reloading his gun with an ominous click. His eyes dart to the side for a moment and that earsplitting shot goes off again, a smaller monster-dog dropping, then falling down the hill with a painful whine. Vincent skids to a stop beside me, his face more vulnerable and wrought with some sort of anxiousness than I have ever seen. Then, he envelopes me in an awkward, uncomfortable, one-armed embrace, my eyes round and wide as dinner plates, and my hands instinctively pressed up against his shoulders to get free. What is this… I must be dreaming.
"Argh..! Vinnie, down boy! Down!!"
He lets go and steps back a ways, looking thoroughly startled/disgusted with himself. I laugh at him.
"Kekekeke, Vinnie thinks I'm sexyy—"
"Quit that. We have work to do," he says clearly, unusually cold, as he turns around and starts back up the hill.
I blink slowly, trotting along mechanically. Now that I think about it, he's been oddly out of character lately. I was almost going to say he was downright friendly…
"Vinnie, what's eating you?"
He gives me a sharp glare. "Don't call me that," he snaps. "Leave me alone. We're here for a reason, and you need to take it seriously."
What the hell…
"Gawd, Vinnie. Something's not eating you after all. Something crawled up into your ass and died. Thanks for comin' to my rescue, but I can take care of myself from now on." And, in a huff, I start sprinting up the hill, leaving him behind me, an ache becoming evident in my tired legs. Teach him not to treat a girl like that… meesh, no wonder that Lucrecia lady dumped him. Hojo might just have a better personality for all I know. Speaking of Hojo, I wonder if one of Vincent's inner demon thingies is a girl. That'd explain a whooooleee lot. Especially if that demon was pregnant. With quintuplets. That must be it. As my mind strays to the various reasons of Vinnie's very moody, pregnant lady-like behavior, the sun disappears just beyond the horizon, leaving a distant orange glow behind. I wonder if they're expecting us to fight after nightfall…
Three hours later…
"Ooof, dammit, this thing is HEAVY!!" I whine as I drag a Fire Catapult up into a nook behind a small pile of rubble. The strategy was to position the Fire Catapults where there was scrap metal and leftover remains of armor lying around, so that when the ammo exploded it'd supposedly blow up the metal and create shrapnel. Sounds more like "suicide" to me, but what the crap ever, it's not gonna be my eyes getting gouged out, and the Fire Catapults don't last long enough or have enough power behind them to really explode a hunk of sheet metal. Melt it slightly? Yes. Send bits of it flying at opposition? No. But the surrounding junk still made a fairly good hiding place, so I set the catapult and trot back over to the arsenal where I'm promptly directed over to a Tristoner, at least thrice the size (and weight) of the previous Fire Catapult. I sigh.
"Where do you want it?" I grumble to the foreman, currently unwrapping extra ammunition. With a grunt, he points down the hill.
"Go down yonder a bit, and when you get to the first fork in the path about halfway down, set the thing up on the mouth of one side of the fork, then come back up and I'll have another ready for you to take down to the other side."
I walk over to the weapon gingerly and test its weight. Can't move it. I shoot a glare at the foreman, who, I gleefully note, is wearing a Carbon Bangle with a third level Lightning linked with a second level All Materia in its slots.
"Can I at least get a hand? I can't shove this thing two inches, much less control it halfway down the freaking mountain!!"
He scowls at me, then appears to spot someone coming up the hill and waves to them. "Yo, come help get this Tristoner down to the fork!! Girl can't do it by herself!" he shouts, a mocking tone in his voice that makes me flare up inside.
I glare at him harder for making it sound like I'm a wimp. Bet he couldn't even do it alone. Note to self: steal foreman's Materia after getting Tristoners down hill. Absentmindedly, I pick up one side of the weapon, the help getting the other side. Hehehehe. Spike can't miss what he's never had, right? So that Materia's gonna be MINE!
Taking teeny steps to avoid slipping and taking a tumble (I've had enough of that, bleargh), we work our way down to the fork. Darkness has completely fallen, and I can barely see my way, but dim lights set up here and there and the occasional blast from the many scattered Fire Catapults allow us to find the path despite the night. A Catapult hurls a large stone onto the path, dangerously close, jarring me from my thoughts. Okay. Sure. It's nice to make it hard for the Shinra thingies coming up. But is it nice to make it hard for the good guys goin' down? The foreman's face pops into my mind, cackling. Never mind. Rhetorical question. And I'm tired. And hungry. I want hot dogs and chili and s'mores. Then, a sleeping bag and a warm, quiet night. Not this yucky battlefield with dudes running you over, yelling like the world is ending and people barking orders as Vinnie feeds them cash over their shoulder. Speaking of Vinnie…. I wonder where he went. I'm not that mad anymore, but didn't have to bite my head off… I wonder if he's still on his mood swing. Maybe he's running around in circles laughing his head off somewhere, or curled up in an especially shadowy spot contemplating death… or having massive grape jelly mixed with horseradish cravings… or wondering why he keeps throwing up every morning followed "what is the meaning of life?"….. Okay, so I'm still bitter about how he's been acting and am seriously hoping to Leviathan that he's not pregnant with the love children of millenia-old demons living inside of him. But, seriously, where did he go?
"Hmm.. How much farther is it!!" I shout over to the guy carrying the other end of the Tristoner.
"About fifty yards.." A familiar voice.
My eyebrows raise. "Vinnie?"
"Yes?"
"ARGH!"
"There's no need to shout…"
"VINNIE, YOU JERKHEAD!! WHY ARE YOU SUCH AN ASS???"
A silence, and I feel the Tristoner shift a bit. "That's a terribly open ended question." He says shortly. I feel smoke drifting dangerously out of my ears.
"You didn't witness the earlier commotion?" he asks quickly, not giving me a chance to pierce through one of the Tristoner's sidebars with my fingernails and then proceed to grab him by the hair and eat his head.
"No…" I seethe, teeth clenched, "did you have those quintuplets then?"
He just ignores my question.
"I… transformed shortly after you'd left running to the top. I am glad you ran when you did, for it had been tearing at the bindings for several hours and would not be held back. I was beginning to lose myself, trying to suppress the demon, and whichever emotion rose to the top first is the one that surfaced at that time."
"Bubble-head."
"……"
"Don't "……" me, Vinnie. You DID just say something about "rising to the top" and "surfacing", so I'm going to add "popped in the head…", and therefore, you are a can of soda."
Wordless, he lets down his end of the Tristoner, and we drag it into the right side of the fork. As he busies himself pulling back the catch lever, I survey him quietly. Wonder what happened, really. It seems weird for him to just randomly transform, unprovoked. It'd explain the moodiness, I guess. But it's still weird. And I'm still mad at him! Hmph! Vinnie steps back from the Tristoner, staring at it. Then, suddenly, it heaves forward and spits out three sizeable boulders.
"Someone will have to be stationed here to reload this," notes Vinnie, leaning up against the cliff wall separating the path. I glare at him. How can he act so nonchalant? He hasn't even apologized to me yet. If doesn't apologize in the next five minutes, I'm gonna scream! And blackmail him. Somehow. There's that neat new computer program… I think it's called "Photostore", or something…? I dunno, but you can screw around with pictures in it.. Maybe I'll lop off Vinnie's head and attach it to a Cactuar body. Then, make a sign with it that reads, "Vinnie, the Magical Singing Cactuar!" in big, green, thorny letters. And put his PHS number under it. Then, start posting it on every building from Wutai to Mideel… hehehehehe….
"Yuffie?"
"Eeeh?" I glance up at Vinnie, maybe just a little too evilly.
"There is more work to do."
"Vinnie….. you would make an awesome Cactuar.. If the program lets me, I may even give you a giant, decorated sombrero."
"……?"
"Mwahahaha… nothing, oh dearest Vinnie, nothing at all…"
"I apologize for the earlier bitter treatment."
I freeze. The little Vinnie-Cactuar chibis wearing sombreros and dancing in my head all squeak simultaneously and leap out my ears with a soft "poof" sound, despite my desperate attempts to save them. I sigh.
"'S okay, Vinnie, I understand. Why'd you transform?"
He starts walking up the path, and I trot to catch up to his long strides. "Don't know," he finally replies, evidently determined to scrub the grime off his boot tops by staring at them. "Weakness."
The walk back up is silent. But after bringing down the second Tristoner, the foreman waves us away, telling us to camp out somewhere. "A new battalion arrived a few minutes ago," he'd told us energetically. I noticed his gauntlet had gone. Damn. And then, he'd pointed over to a safe spot near a ridge overhang and told us to camp out for the night. Finally. Sleep. Food. And it's way past overdue, too, considering that we're paying for all these troops.. Man, my legs are killing me….
As Vinnie starts a fire, I haphazardly throw together a Tent, crudely pounding stakes into the ground with the accuracy of a blind, deaf chipmunk. Lucky I didn't crack my thumb open. But tiredness seduces me to my knees, lower and lower by the minute, and as my eyelids droop, Vincent swims into my fogging vision, and I'm thinking something like, "if thass 'tiredness', and he's seducin' me, I say 'tiredness' is winning cuz 'tiredness' is pretty hot damn sexy…"
However, the tranquil calm of sleep barely lasts. As I sit up from my lovely, lumpy spot, jumbled up in a pile of blankets and crap, I try to figure out how I woke up. Then, I notice it.
FOOD! Yum!!!
I wince as I shift to leap up as something hard digs into my right buttock. Leaning over to the left and feeling around underneath me, my fingers latch onto a buckle. I look down. And yes, you probably know what I'm sitting on! Don't you? DON'T YOUU??
It's Vincent'sssssss-------
PANTS!!!!
…………….
Ah, sorry, just messin' around, it's Vincent's cape, no worries. Hehehe. I crawl over to the fire where Vinnie appears to be poking something with a stick in the fire. I peer over his shoulder. And, much to my surprise, I see two potato chili dogs wrapped in foil sitting right on the edge of the flames, Vinnie prodding each of them and rolling them over with his Golden Cooking Rod Of Prosperity (the stick). Mmm… I sure do love chili dogs…. Yum yum…. wait.
Where the HELL did he get—
1-- Potatoes.
2-- Hot dogs.
3-- Chili.
4-- Foil.
"Uhhhh, Vinnie?" I tap his shoulder gingerly, just in case he hadn't noticed my chin hovering two inches above it in witness to Vinnie's Hot Dog Materialization Voo Doo Magic. "Where'd you get those?"
He doesn't move. But since he doesn't have his nasty heavy red cloak on, at least I can see his lips move when he speaks….
"They are from the elder as thanks for our help."
Not even WANTING to contemplate how that old man got his hands on two chili potato dogs out here in the middle of freaking nowhere, I decide to settle for the fact that we at least have something yummy to eat. Gawd, they smell like HEAVEN, baby! Reminds me of that Gold Saucer trip where Vinnie choked on his. Or not.
Absentmindly, I let my eyes wander shamelessly over Vincent's un-cloaked person. He's so purty.. wait, slow down, since when is "purty" a Vinnie adjective? Hot? Maybe. Sexy? Maybe. Purty? Ew. Gross. Ness. He's kinda cool looking, I guess… His face doesn't show much of anything, whether or not it has a neck brace-like collar drawn around it.. Ya know, we've really been through a lot together… And even if he's a creepy vamp with red eyes and a freaky claw, he's actually sorta grown on me, I admit. I'd even say we're friends. I wonder if he considers me a friend, too?
"Hey, Vinnie?" I murmur, shifting closer just a hair.
"?"
"Are we friends?"
I know, "sap sap", "goo goo", "fluff fluff", "barf barf", right? A girl's gotta speak her mind sometime, though! And the only way I'm going to be okay with thinking he's a sexy man-beast is if we're friends. Ha.
"I… don't know."
I twitch slightly, shifting uncomfortably. "You're my friend, you know…." I say warily, peeking up at him through my eyelashes. "If you ever need anything, I'll be here for ya, okay?"
For a moment, he looks oddly terrified. (Maybe the idea of being friends with me is scary, who knows… I'd be scared, too… mweeheheeee..) Then, he looks me straight in the eye, and a jolt runs down my spine, sending a slight shiver through me. He doesn't blink. Neither do I. Staring contest, eh?? Bring it ON!
"You need to reconsider your choice in friends, Yuffie."
My mouth drops open, and I stare at him for a moment, dumbfounded. Then, I slowly raise my hands to his shoulders and let them rest there as my jaw silently closes, and I can feel my eyes turning sad. He doesn't look away. I don't look away. My hands remain on his shoulders, our bodies so close, the fire suddenly so warm…. and I close the gap between us…
"VINNIE, YOU ASSHOLE!!!" I scream, rapidly flinging him back and forth, hands clutching his shoulders like talons. "You don't get it! You're my friend! No matter what! I don't care if you want to marinate in misery or turn into demons or wear retarded looking capes, hell, I wouldn't care if you took me up on that Cactuar and sombrero look, because you're Vinnie, and Vinnie's my friend!!!"
"…sorry….." Vinnie says lamely, caught off-guard quite obviously and at an evident loss for words. (not that he really has many anyhow…) The PHS starts ringing loudly behind me, making me jump in surprise, bursting the bubble of discomfort wrought on Vinnie's tense form. Quickly, his composure returns, the tension releasing like water from a gaping hole in the fish tank. The PHS continues to ring.
"Are you going to get that, Vinnie?" I grumble, miffed at the interruption. I don't care. Whatever the crap he says, Vinnie is my nice, normal, human friend, and he's going to sit with me at breakfast after all of this and laugh about how STUPID he was...
Even though the PHS is nearer to me, Vinnie gets up anyway and retrieves it from the ground behind me, answering it with the press of a button. Dull-sounding as ever, he speaks into the receiver.
"Valentine speaking."
Honestly, who calls this late? I dig an ancient, orange polka-dotted watch out of my pocket, its face decorated with a long out of date cartoon character. I don't know how it still works, but it does…. This thing is probably older than VINNIE.
11:30 PM.
People used to call my dad a lot, asking various favors, wanting audiences with him, or for him to train them, etc.. etc…. After a particularly phone-happy day/night, he ripped the cables out and threw the entire apparatus, little table included, into the backyard in a fit of anger. Without opening the door. It took forever to get that wall replaced… We never had a phone again…
"Understood."
With a soft "beep", Vincent ended the call.
"Who was that?" I ask.
"Cid. They have successfully secured the Huge Materia at Corel."
"Guess that sorta leaves things up to us, huh? The heat is on, Vinnie, the heat is on!"
"It will be concluded shortly… hopefully by daybreak the Shinra line will have faltered."
"Nifty. Now, where were we?"
"…………"
"Oh yeah."
I lean in closer, my hands creeping back up to Vinnie's shoulders. I feel his internal struggle… fight, flee, or endure? No matter, I win at all three..nyeh heh heh…
The heat is on, Vinnie…
"VINNIE, YOU ASSHOLE!! "…sorry…" DOESN'T CUT IT!!!!" Shake, shake, rattle, rattle.
His face suddenly gets hard and serious again, and he raises his own hands to grip my shoulders. I freeze.
"Then what do you want me to say, Yuffie?" he hisses, voice barely below a snarl. Whoa, he's snapping… like a twig…
I say nothing, just staring at his face, his eyebrows contracted, eyes narrowed, glittering blood red beneath heavy lashes. Strange. A long time ago, I would have peed my pants if I'd been in this situation. But I'm not scared of Vinnie. I don't think he's really that angry… probably because HE was the one who floundered when I just asked him if he considered me a friend…
I scowl.
"I want you to tell me what you really think, Vincent Valentine. You don't talk to others very often. But that means you probably NEVER shut up inside. Talking to someone else is much better than only talking to yourself. So talk to me, dammit, and start off by telling me what you think of me!"
Not to sound self-centered, of course.
Surprisingly, he doesn't let the silence hang like he normally does.
"Why." Not a question. Just a word. A command if you will. Why, why what, Vinnie Valentine? Why am I talking to you like a silly person? Why am I still here? Why do I want you to talk to me, why are you my friend? Why do I think you're a sexy mess of vampish hotness? Why.. pray tell, do I find myself actually, really falling in love with you, despite your constant display of doom and depression?
Gawd, if I knew the answer to half those questions, I'd tell you.
"Vinnie, I—"
He doesn't blink, doesn't let his eyes stray, steady red swirling like poison…
"you…. You…."
"Asshole?" he suggests.
"No!" I screech, breaking out of "fluffy, lost in your eyes, sing me a song.." mode. "No, not "asshole". I want you to talk to me, Vinnie. For.. for yourself, and because I worry about you." I blush. "Because we're friends," I add quickly.
"I talk to you a lot, Yuffie."
I just stare at him. "Not enough, you don't, Vinnie. You told me your story, but otherwise, we might as well be strangers."
"You don't talk to me, either."
Uhhh…. Has he IGNORED me since we MET? I've talked almost NONSTOP since then.
"What the hell are you TALKING about, Vinnie? I NEVER shut up! And I'm not ashamed to say it, either!"
"You're trying to get me to tell you the things I keep innermost… however, you have never done it yourself."
"Are you telling me that you think I'm hiding things from you, Vinnie? I swear, I didn't steal the foreman's Materia. It was gone befor- oh, no, wait a sec, I wasn't planning to steal it. In fact, did he have Materia? Really? Hey, wait, what foreman? I don't know any foreman…" I laugh nervously.
"You hide a lot of things."
I pout. "Fine. Be that way. So let's play a game."
"A.. game?"
"Yeah! Truth or Dare."
Again, I'm so sorry if you had been waiting. I swear that this story will come to a conclusion. Even if it takes me a century to do it. I'm also sorry that the writing isn't so good. I'm still in essay mode since I've been writing essays for AP Lang lately, and feel this innate need to justify every little thing I say, so it's probably terribly rambling. But I also wanted to try and speed up the Yuffentine aspect of the story. I hope it's not a terrible transition. In some stories, Yuffie falls in love with Vincent in the same paragraph in which she meets him, Vincent falls for her a paragraph later, and they're making out crazily by the end of the chapter. I really, really, really am dreading having to figure out how to make Yuffie and Vincent interact so that they do end up as a couple-like thing, but realistically so. I'm scared I've quite already crossed the line between "realistic" and "completely unbelievable" already, though, so it might not matter.. They need to be the closest of friends, first. Then, they can inch closer… and my computer and I will both have seizures when they TOUCH, and voila! Yuffentine! Maybe this is why I'm so terrible with boys…. Ahahahahaha..