I love you guys. I juss hope FanFiction is done being a bitch for a while. Dammit, I gotta get a better connection than a 56k. //_-*
I shall remain calm. I shall not scream. I shall not lose my temper. All the hell with it—I DON"T OWN IT! SQUARESOFT DOES! IF YOU NEED ME TO TELL YOU THAT AGAIN, I SHALL SMASH YOUR COMPUTER INTO LITTLE PIECES AND GIVE IT TO YOU INTREVENOUSLY! Okay, I feel better now.
~*~
Yuffie woke up, feeling dizzy, her vision fuzzy, and her limbs slow to respond to her commands to move them. Her arms felt like lead as she brought her hands up to rub her eyes in an attempt to clear her vision. It didn't work. She tried to move, only to realize that she was strapped to a beam or a pole sticking up from the ground.
"She's awake," a serpent-like voice hissed. It was close—so close that she could feel its' breath on her. A blurred, flesh-toned shape hovered over her head.
"So she is." The voice was distinctly female. Yuffie was relieved to see that, as far as she could tell, there were no Unknowns around. Another shape appeared behind the first.
"Strong thing for her size. She should have been asleep another few hours," the second one commented. This one was clearly male. "But then again, she looks so heavily drugged… why hasn't she fallen back asleep? Look at her—she can't even keep her eyes open."
"Discord, behave," the woman snapped. "Once we're back in the bastion walls we can interrogate her. That is—once we're back in the bastion walls and she's recovered from the drugs."
The man, called Discord, snorted and muttered something, walking away with heavy steps. The woman's lighter steps followed. Since she couldn't see very well, Yuffie had to rely on her other senses. The place she was in smelled like a hospital room, and she heard the bumbling about of a ship crew. Other than that, nothing else was going on.
Where the hell am I and how the fuck did I get here? She wondered, irritated. She looked toward a light, but it seared her eyes—they were sensitive!—and she looked away, blinking away tears since her arms were too heavy to lift. Bad idea to look at the light like that. She kept dozing and losing all perception of time until she was jolted and the vessel came to a rough halt. More blurred shapes headed her way. She wanted to run, to scream, but she could hardly move. The pole she was strapped to was lifted from the floor and she was carried to the gates of a heavy fortress. Or at least, that's what she could make out. Her vision hadn't cleared completely.
Someone cut the leather strap the held her to the pole; she fell to the ground in a heap and twisted to get on her back and out of an uncomfortable position.
"Discord, pick her up," the female voice said. A pair of icy cold hands lifted her up by the arms. He had an overpowering smell of dead, rotting flesh about him. It made Yuffie feel ill. Using what little strength she had, she twisted, trying to free herself.
"Lemmie go… come on, lemmie go…" she groaned. She hung limply by her arms, head hanging.
"She's still not over the drugs," he said to his partner. "We should wait."
"It does not matter," she answered, coming closer. "We don't need her physicality. Just for her to talk." She got very close to Yuffie, but her face didn't become any clearer. She had a musky, mildew-ish smell, one that made her gag. "Girl, what's your name?"
Her head lolled forward. She struggled to pick it back up again. "I—I don't—remember…" it was partially true. For a fleeting instant after she had woken up, she had forgotten everything about herself, only to have it return in a rush. She had gotten the sensation that someone had poured cold water onto her head.
"Memory must be damaged. Dammit, Disarray, I told you we were using too much! Now she won't be of any use to us!" He threw her to the ground. She managed to twist herself so she landed on her back, not her face.
"Calm yourself. She'll return in time." The female, called Disarray, looked down at Yuffie. "But until then, keep her under guard. Put a harness on her. We don't need her running away."
Yuffie was roughly picked up and forced to walk on jellied legs a long distance, where someone tore Clouds' overlarge shirt off of her and fastened a leather harness around her upper body. It looped around her neck and middle-back. The straps met in the center at the front at a small metal disc, no bigger than a large coin. The large shirt was replaced and she was thrown into a dark cell with stone walls and a stone floor.
That was weird, she thought absently. Her limbs still felt rubbery. She had no idea where she was, how she had gotten there, and what had happened to everyone else, but she was determined to find a way out of her current situation. She had to start by ridding her body of the drugs. The cell was dark, and her vision was still blurred. She groped around for something to hold onto. A ledge worked just fine. She pulled herself to her feet and fell, smashing her chin on the ledge.
Get up, Yuffie, she told herself. Get up. If you ever want to get out of here, you have to walk first. Growling, she pulled herself upright and stayed upright. She took a shaky step forward, still holding the ledge. Walking made her knees weak—twice she fell and had to start again. More times than not, her legs gave out beneath her, but she pulled herself up and forced herself to walk.
Once she had mastered the skill of clumsy, drugged stumbling, she felt along the walls, memorizing the layout of the small cell. She smashed her shins on a bench that she assumed she would have to use for a bed. The harness disc dug into her skin just above her breasts. She scratched at it, and was delivered a nasty shock to her fingers. She yelped and put them in her mouth. She cautiously and softly touched it with her other hand and was shocked again, though not as badly.
A frown etched itself into her face. She stumbled to the door and looked out the barred window. She could vaguely make out severely blurred, shapeless masses moving back and forth. She couldn't see them well, but she felt them, like a nauseous feeling in her stomach. She swallowed hard: her cell was guarded by Unknowns. Big ones, too, from what she could tell.
Not good. Really, really not good. I have to get out of here. But how? She shivered, getting cold as night approached. She curled herself up on the bench and fell asleep.
"Leon, you can't go out there!" Aerith protested as she followed the enraged man around. Leon was gathering as many potions as he could find and carry, as well as anything else useful that would fit in his clothes.
"Why not?" He growled.
"Because it isn't safe. You don't know where they took Yuffie, and you don't even know what took her. No one does!" She bumped into him as he stopped unexpectedly. The girl turned to Cloud, who was standing nearby, but hadn't said anything. "Cloud, you tell him!"
"Tell him what?" He asked in a low voice, though it wasn't really a question. "It's his choice whether he wants to go after Yuffie or not. I'd understand if he did go, though." He looked from Leon to Aerith. "I did some pretty stupid things to get back to you."
"So it's settled, then," Leon said.
"No!" Aerith had tears on her cheeks. "You can't risk this—it's way too dangerous! Please, think."
"I am," Leon said as he made his way to the door of the Accessory Shop where they were gathered. "Just not with my head." Without another word, he left, running to the doors of the world. He looked at them, not knowing what would happen in a Gummi ship, but he would rather take the chance and die, rather than live knowing that Yuffie was still in danger.
The ship did fine for some of the voyage. It wasn't until he reached what appeared to be a huge Warp Hole that it began acting up. Just before the ship was sucked into the hole, everything went dead, and he went spiraling into space.
~*~
Woohoo, another chapter is up! I gotta take a shower, but when I'm all squeakitty clean, I'll come back and start on chapter four! With luck, I can finish it and have it up tomorrow morning!