'The two of you have a falling out because you push her too hard and you propose to her? In a bathroom?' Fangs eyebrows had risen up her face so far they had vanished behind her brunette bangs.
They were down at the beachpromenade next to the guardian corps station, Sephiroth and her, to catch themselves a little bit of fresh air and the silver haired first class leaning beside her against one of the stone pillars that marked the path looked frustrated, utterly devastated actually.
'You said she needed more. That she needed some kind of proof.' he said. His voice was brittle, thin.
Fang had never heard him sound so weak, so vulnerable, so helpless.
'I told you to write a poem...' she said somewhat defiantly looking at him carefully.
The man beside her, he only shrugged his shoulders, let them droop defeatedly.
'You are a lost cause. Both of you.' Fang announced somewhat irritatedly.
'But really... A bathroom?' raising her brows at him again she made to stare at him expectantly.
Why would somebody be as dense as to propose in a bathroom?
There probably was no more unappropriate place to do that in the world.
'Yeah, well, no... not exactly, but yes, in a way...' the silver haired general stammered studying the palm trees that spread out in front of him.
'How romantic...' Oerba Yun Fang could only roll her eyes.
'Well I wouldn't say yes either if I were proposed to in a bathroom.' she said to emphasize her point.
The silver haired first class, he only looked at her in torment.
Considering Lightning he wouldn't have minded being asked wading hipdeep in the Midgar sewers.
What did it even matter?
'She hates me.' he finally managed to choke out.
Suddenly his lips were trembling, his mako eyes looked glassy and there was a tiny single tear making it's way down his cheek.
'She was the only person I ever truly cared about. The only one I ever loved, the only one who could even remotely understand and I… I've lost her.' he disclosed in a tortured whisper.
The man beside her giving a tiny uncharacteristic whimper, Oerba Yun Fang found him swallowing hard.
Suddenly the dam was breaking.
More and more tears began rolling down his face.
The once strong proud war hero, he didn't even bother to wipe them away.
Oerba Yun Fang felt her heart reach out for him.
'She hates me.' Sephiroth managed again through a bought of stifled sobs.
Suddenly he felt so infinitely weak, so volnurable. Broken. Done.
He couldn't remember the last time he had lost his nerve like that, the last time he had shed a tear. The last time he had been this weak.
He must have been still a child.
It had to be because of the mako withdrawal. It just had to.
'She doesn't.' Fang assured him as she gently touched his shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting way.
'I can tell.'
It made the silver haired first class look up at her doubtingly.
'The way she looks at me, as thought she's planning to stab me, strangle me, burn me every time our eyes meet... That woman hates me with a vengeance.' she explained reassuringly.
'She wouldn't do any of that if you meant nothing to her. Why would she?' she added at an afterthought.
It made the silver haired man shake his head.
'It doesn´t matter either way. I don´t think she heard. She bolted on me again...'
Finally reaching up to wipe away his tears, it was getting himself together that the silver haired first class made to regain his composure.
The woman in the blue sari like dress only stared.
'Argh... What is it with the two of you?! I´m not getting shit here!' she exclaimed irritatedly.
How could two grown up people could mess up so infuriatingly?!
'Yeah... I know... Me neither.' the general replied with a frustrated sigh.
'As I said, I think she hates me.'
'No, no, no, you idiot! She doesn´t.' Fang cut in … . '
'She followed us back to the inn, right. She´s jealous as shit. She loves you , I think it must be something else.' she mused.
'She´s scared of you. Scared of talking to you...' she deduced correctly.
'What exactly did you do to her the last time you two talked?'
'Nothing... I don´t know... Tell her I love her? And that I want to be with her?' the silver haired first class replied completely startled.
Of course she wasn't scared of him. Preposturous. How could she?
All he'd done there was declare his love for her.
'Hm. Now that sounds really scary...' the brunette female gave a dry soft chuckle.
'I don´t know what´s wrong with this chick, I really don´t, but whatever it is it´s gotta be something deep.'
Time went onwards and so did their lives.
Almost two weeks had passed since Claire Farron had escaped her former mentor through her parent´s bathroom window.
Two weeks she had spent evading the general at all costs.
Two weeks of dealing with accusing mako green glances whenever she found herself unfortunate enough to meet him in the guardian corps station entrance hall where she still visited from time to time, even despite her suspension.
Two fucking weeks she hadn´t brought herself to speak to him. To appologize. To make up. To whatever.
Two weeks she had stayed in Bodhum despite her plans of leaving.
And she was feeling miserable.
The guilt was killing her inside.
She knew she had been running away again. Had been planning to run away even further.
To a new city, a new country, a new life.
And she knew that it had been stupid.
She should have tried to set things straight right there, shouldn´t she?
He had come to talk to her after all...
Yes... He had come to her while she´d been sleeping in her bed without any warning whatsoever...
Still... He´d come.
And Serah was right.
She couldn´t keep the baby from him forever. Couldn't keep it from anyone.
Taking a closer look at her reflection in the mirror of her bedroom Lightning could already see it. The faintest hint of a baby bump.
She knew it wasn´t very noticeable yet. You wouldn´t even see it if you didn´t know what you were looking for. But she could see it. Plain as day.
Where there´d once been only tight firm muscle, a tiny bulge was starting to form.
And there were her boobs.
They were nothing to joke about.
They had grown at least two sizes in the past few weeks, and were sore as hell, sometimes hurting to a point where she found herself restricted in her movements.
It was kind of fortunate she´d been suspended from duty after all.
Oh how much she hated that whole pregnancy thing already...
It was a fucking nightmare.
Would she ever wake up from it?
Lightning didn´t know.
All she knew was that her mood was growing worse and worse with every single day.
And with her bad mood came the tears.
Tears she shed alone, hiding away in her bedroom.
She´d kind of abandoned her comrades some time ago. Now she´d begun avoiding Serah too. She just couldn´t bring herself to look into her eyes anymore.
She had noone to confide in these days.
Noone to share her pain with.
Noone to comfort her.
And so she swallowed it.
Like she had always done.
Like the first class SOLDIER, like the monster, that she had come to be.
It was one of those nights again. Claire Farron was lying in her bed staring at the ceiling. Serah and Snow were still in the living room watching TV.
An action movie.
She heard the voices of the actors and the gunshots as if they were standing right beside her.
What was she going to do?
Sure. She had considered running away. Again and again. But she hadn´t seriously considered it, or had she? She had never come further then that day when she'd run down the street with her rucksack strapped to her back where she'd run straight into Zack. No. It had been weeks since that thought had fist come to her. Weeks she´d been spending in her room. Wallowing in self-pity. And it didn´t do her any good.
At least running away would mean doing something. Sephiroth had suspended her from work. And somehow the whole baby thing had created a cliff between her and Serah too. With both her old comrades and her family suddenly strangely out of reach, Lightning didn´t feel as attached to Bodhum as she once had felt.
Suddenly she was feeling alone. More alone than she had ever felt even in SOLDIER. Suddenly she felt stranded in the middle of all her friends and family, felt a stranger.
Maybe running away wasn´t such a bad idea after all. She could start over. Start a new life. Just like she´d done when she´d joined Shin-Ra. Another city. Another country. A whole new world of possibilies.
But there was always that tiny voice in her head that reminded her that there were things she couldn´t run from. Things she couldn´t leave behind however much she tried to. Things that would eventually pull her back to this. Back to him.
Jenova...
A sudden noise like breaking glass from downstairs instantly wiped every thought of leaving from her mind.
The unexpected interruption bringing her back to the present, Lightning felt herself jolt upright in her bed the second it was followed by another.
Those noises weren´t coming from the TV, where they?!
They were followed by her sister´s stifled scream.
What the fuck was going on?! Where there burglars in the house?!
Claire Farron was up on her feet in no time.
Throwing her dressing gown over her pyjamas she picked up Blaze Edge from where it rested next to her closet and threw open the door.
She was only half way down the stairs when she heard Serah scream again and Snow Villiers course in shock and it was just a second later that she was attacked by two dogsters coming up at her.
Pregnant or not. They were no match for her of course.
'Serah!' Lightning cried as she rushed down the stairs and into the living room which was already infested by monsters.
Serah and Snow rescuing themselves to the backrest of the couch, the pink haired female found her sister´s husband in desperate attempt of keeping the dogsters at bay with the TV remote control. Her little sister trying to hide behind him, the burly blonde man was shielding her with his body, wielding the device like a sword.
'Don´t move!' Lightning ordered as she brought Blaze Edge into gun mode.
A handfull of casings cluttered to the ground a few moments later and so did the dogsters.
'What the fuck happened?' the pink haired first class asked as she checked on all the dogsters in turn to make sure they were dead for good.
'I don´t know! We were just sitting there watching TV when suddenly there came those beasts blasting through the windows.' Snow explained, mouth hanging open slightly, eyes bulging.
'Serah are you alright?!'
Helping her sister down from the couch, Lightning quickly scanned the area for beasts again.
There were no more of them in sight but she could see the hole in the class fronts to the porch where they had forced their way in.
It was weird. Sure, there were a lot of those things out there these days. And they were agressive too. Roaming the forests and sometimes the more secluded streets. But this? Never had she heard of a dogster actually breaking into a house to attack people.
'I´m not really sure... I...'
It was the last thing Serah said before she tumbled to the ground.
'Serah!' Snow and Lightning both exclaimed together.
Hurrying over to where her little sister had fallen to her knees, Lightning instantly noticed the younger woman´s pale complexion, the prespiration on her face, the way she held her calf, as if it was hurting her badly.
'My leg...' Serah cried through heavy panting.
'Let me see!'
Forcing her sister´s hand away, the pink haired soldier pushed up her pants to expose a gaping bite wound.
Shit!
'Oh no! Serah! SERAH! She´s hurt! SERAH!' Snow Villiers screamed, helplessly clutching his head like the useless idiot he was.
'We need to compress her leg! The poison is going to spread!' Lightning observed calmly.
'Poison?!' the blonde man echoed, mouth hanging open stupidly.
'Snow! I need something to turn into a tourniquet!' the pink haired woman yelled.
'Tourniquet. Sure. Just a moment...'
Running around the room like crazy, muttering to himself under his breath, Snow didn´t seem to come up with something until Lightning threw him a stern gaze.
'Snow! Your belt!'
The stupid oaf of a man ridding himself of the fancy accesoire, Lightning began to tightly wrap it around her sister´s leg.
'It hurts... Hurts so much...' Serah stammered tearfully.
'Don´t worry. You´ll be fine.' The pink haired soldier tried to reassure her. Tried to reassure herself.
A sudden noise outside making her look up, Lightning found herself on her feet and Blaze Edge in her hand in absolutely no time.
'Make sure to get her to a doctor. Now.' she ordered before she stepped into the clear fresh night breeze.
There were more of those vile things out there and she needed to get rid of them. Needed to clear a path for Serah and Snow to reach the car.
Hearing shouts and weird noises from the distance, Lightning wondered how many of them were out there exactly.
Dogsters usually hunted in packs of three or four, maybe five. Never had she heard of packs banding together. What was going on?
She was barely five meters down the front lawn when she was attacked again.
Her opponents were down before she´d even had the time to count them, but a closer look at their corpses made the blood in her veins run cold.
They were dogsters again. Sure. But they looked different. Bigger, stronger, more mutated. There were numerous extra legs sticking out of their bellies at weird angles and one of them was sprouting extra heads.
Ugh.
The satanic things were radiating a stomach turning stench Lightning was sure had nothing to do with her pregnancy symptoms.
'Are you coming?!'
It was Snow´s voice that registered somewhere at the back of her head, the sound of an engine roaring to life. Still. She was standing, staring at the dogsters.
'Lightning?!'
'No.' The pink haired warrior decided.
'No. Go on without me.'
She waved the blonde man´s offer away with a slender pale hand. She might be able to use a belt as a tourniquet, but she definitely was no doctor. Now that they had reached the car there was nothing she could do to help Serah and her sister wasn´t that severely injured that she couldn't leave her side. Surely Serah was not going to die. Snow would bring her to a doctor and she would be fine. There was nothing more she could do for her. She could do something about the dogsters though. And suspended or not, she wasn´t planning on sitting around in a hospital waiting room while those beasts were out there roaming the streets of her hometown. And there was something else.
Something about this was fishy. Really was. This banding together of dogster packs... It had to be investigated.
Snow´s truck taking down the road at full speed, Lightning took a few moments to watch it´s taillights vanish behind the next bend before falling into a sprint, she hurried into the direction of the main street.
Making down the drive that lead to the main street wasn´t easy. Jumping at her from inside bushes or behind tight corners, Claire Farron encountered more and more of her weird enemies, every single one she saw uglier and more degenerated than the last.
Most of them had extra heads or legs or tails sticking out at weird angles and some of them had even shed their disgusting dirty fur for weird glittering scales. Most of them had extra fangs and claws like razors too. But not all their latest additions seemed to be of use. There were those with legs sticking out there bodies the wrong way alltogether so they could only move at a desperate sluggish crawl. More dragging themselves on their bellies really. And there were those which´s heads were facing the wrong way, eyes turned upwards to the sky, beasts running around the street blind, crushing into cars and walls and trees and howling madly upon impact.
Creepy wicked things.
Watching them was making Lightning´s stomach turn. She wasn´t sure whether she killed them because of them being threats or rather out of mercy. Maybe a little bit of both.
Where had those poor things come from?
One thing was for sure. They weren´t creatures of Etro.
It was when Lightning reached the main street that the sirens started.
An eerie high pitched sound, splitting the night like a desperate scream.
It made goosebumps appear all over her skin. Never had a sound like that had been heard in Bodhum before.
It was creepy. Really.
But it wasn´t until she rounded the next bend that she stopped dead in her tracks, that she felt the blood in her veins turn to ice.
There was another dogster. If it could still be called that. It was bigger and heavier than any she had ever seen. And it was more monsterous too.
It´s muscular back reaching up to her forehead, it´s four heads sprouting ugly extra fangs and eyes, it was dining on what Lightning recognized as a lump of meat. A lump of meat with clothes on.
The ice in her veins turning to acid, Lightning watched it from a distance, contemplated what to do.
The thing seemed heavy. And quite strong.
She could just run for it. With that thing distracted she could just slip past easily. She was sure. But that would mean the thing would still be running free. Ready to cause more casualties.
What was wrong with her? Why was she even considering this? Back in her time in SOLDIER she would have attacked without a second thought, guns blazing. But now...
Was this her hormones´ talking again?!
She couldn´t explain it even to herself, but somehow, somewhow that vile thing was giving her the creeps.
She was about to turn on her heals and bolt when the thing infront her stirred. Four ugly heads turning into her direction, seventeen bulging red eyes fixed her with a dangerous predator stare. For a short moment Lightning thought she saw intelligence shine in those slightly slit pupils, a weird kind of understanding and then- WHHHAAAAMM!
Suddenly a truck burst out of nowhere, blazing white headlights blinding her senseless, there was the unexpected screeching of tires and a low heavy thud as the satanic creature was thrown in the air.
'Hey, what are you doing?! Get out of the way!'
It were Maqui and Gadhot yelling at her from the truck´s wide windows, but Claire Farron didn´t care. She was already on top of the fallen dogster, Blaze Edge´s blade buried deep in the vile thing´s innards.
'What the fuck is this?' The pink haired female heard one of the men exclaim in wonder and the door of the truck close shut as the two of them came to investigate.
'I have absolutely no idea guys.' Lightning managed behind gritted teeth.
'But whatever they are they are getting more and more dangerous. This time someone has been killed I fear.' she added at an afterthought, pointing back to the spot where she had seen the `lump of meat´.
'Yeah. I know.' Gadhot replied gravely. 'We must have passed a dozen corpses on our way up here. Lebreau actually stayed behind to see whether there´s still someone to be helped.'
'It´s getting worse in the city center?!' Lightning asked somewhat taken aback. Somehow she wouldn´t have thought possible an attack as big as this.
The two men only gave grave confirmatory nods.
Not wasting any precious time, the pink haired female took off at a sprint.
Suspended or not. She had to reach the guardian corps station. Fast.
Maqui and Gadhot were right.
The closer she came to the center of the city the worse it became.
More and more monsters. More and more victims.
It took her more than an hour to reach the guardian corps station. Staggering into the plaza infront of the building in nothing but her night clothes, Lightning found Genesis, Zack, Angeal, Cloud, Yuj and Fang stacking monster carcasses into neat heaps.
Their clothes were dirty, drenched in monster juices just like her´s and the expressions they wore on their faces were grim.
Kneeling down next to one of the dead beasts Lightning slowly examined the filthy creature´s scaly hide.
There was something weird about the ugly creature. Something she hadn´t noticed about the dogsters before. A strange feeling of connection. Almost like a pull. Seeing the things lying infront of her, broken, dead, she felt a kind of loss. Felt pity almost.
Suddenly she realized someone was missing.
Where was Sephiroth?!
'Where is he?' she demanded, not looking into Fang´s direction even once.
It was Angeal who met her gaze, gesturing with his head into the direction of the beach.
General Sephiroth Crescent was kneeling in blood drenched soggy sand, his body half hunched over the form of yet another of the vile things that had attacked that night.
He was surrounded by heaps of dead monsters, dogsters and things even Zack and Cloud hadn´t found a name for, but this one, this one was different.
Two ugly heads with six eyes, half of them blind, it´s misbuilt chest was still heaving, the three crooked legs still flailing helplessly.
Yes.
This one was still alive.
It was injured though, and badly so. Far too weak to do much harm. It had stopped snapping it´s teeth at the silver haired first class the second he touched it´s scaly hide.
It was only a lucky coincidence that made him find this one alive. Alive but in a state to be exermined.
He knew it was an opportunity. Still, he wished he hadn´t found it in the first place, knew his worst suspicions were confirmed the second that he touched the monster´s smooth hot hide.
It was weird.
The familiar feeling that it gave him. Felt like he´d known the thing forever. Felt like home.
Letting his ungloved fingers trail the dogster´s oily scales, he carefully let his hand settle on the place where Masamune had carved a deep long gash into it´s side.
'Please let me be wrong.' the silver haired man whispered in his head as he slowly closed his eyes, took a steady calming breath.
'Please just let me be wrong.'
Concentrating on the gaping wound, the silver haired man let the power of his jenova cells do it´s magic, like he had done with Lightning quite several times before.
The thing beneath him giving a violent jerk, General Sephiroth Crescent opened his eyes to freshly kneaded skin. A healthy unscathed dogster, with nothing but a scar.
Giving a devastated sigh, he drove Masamune home without batting an eyelid.
It was shortly after midnight that Claire Farron made her way down to the beach.
Following the trail of dead monsters she found her silver haired first class general down by the shore kneeling beside an especially huge one.
The man she´d known as her mentor dressed in nothing but a grey shirt and a pair of pyjamapants, he sat there on the gorund pensively cleaning the blade of his Masamune on one of his shirt sleeves.
Inching closer Lightning realized he wasn´t wearing any shoes. Realized she wasn´t either.
Something about him was off though, was different.
Something that had nothing to do with sweatpants or shirts or missing shoes.
'The sea is quiet tonight, don´t you think?' he suddenly said out of nowhere.
It made Lightning stop in her tracks, made her turn to look at the sea, startled.
He was right.
It was.
But why did he bother? Why did he bring it up?
Slowly making her way closer, letting her eyes trail over the man´s hunching figure, Lightning realized she´d never seen the general in nightclothes before. Well.
That innocent grey shirt, despite blood drenshed, it made him look so human, almost harmless.
'It´s the calm before the storm.' the general said pensively.
Suddenly he looked so infinitely tired.
Lightning knew what he was talking about. They all knew. Knew with evry fiber of their beings.
The whole thing with the monsters and everything. They could feel it. All of them. Had felt it for quiet some time now.
The dogsters had grown more monstrous. They had come to attack the city. Lots of them. Something had to happen. And soon.
Inching closer to the man on the ground, Claire Farron took a seat right next to him, did so very quietly.
The general´s head briefly turned to look at her, deep mako green eyes studying her intently.
'We´re going to the heart of the forest. Only the five of us.' he suddenly announced, expression grave.
'Consider your suspension lifted.'
Only the five of them.
He didn´t need to get specific. Lightning unerstood him anyway. It included him, her, Genesis, Zack and Angeal.
Nobody else. Not even Fang or Cloud. No more casualties.
'The heart of the forest?' she asked somewhat bewildered.
The man beside her only gave a nod. Then turned to stare at her again. Mako green eyes piercing her´s probingly.
The impenetrable killer mask was back on. And she had no idea what was going on behind his marble features.
'It´s about time.'