Monday

by La Cidiana

*~*~*

Summary: A pilot goes a little off the edge at the mention of a certain battle, a man in black makes strange meetings in the streets of Midgar, and a few bounty hunters bite off a bit more than they can chew... *Chapter 2 is UP!!!!*

*~*~*

A/N: Okay. So many people have asked me to continue this that even though it's been dead for EXACTLY 364 days today....

I think I'll revive this baby. ^_^ I still like the plot that I came up for it, and some of the scenes just won't leave my mind.... So here I am!!! The first halves of most of the scenes were done a looong time ago, but a lot of it has been overhauled and revamped, so..... Yeah. :D Hope I didn't forget any little plot mechanics and then screw the whole thing over later. XD;;;;

Even though this fic is that old, I'm still extremely fond of the plot I had figured out, just because of its twistedness.

So here it is..... Albeit with some errors that have inevitably been missed in my rush to post this up before it's been a year to the day....

As always, try your best to enjoy. ^_^

*~*`*

Chapter 2: Wind and Drizzle

*~*~*

In memories of a woman once young...

The girl insisted that she was seven and three-quarters, even though it was June while her birthday was in May. She was a wild little child if there ever was one; instead of pink dresses and plastic jewelry, she preferred dirty overalls and dragon action figures that would bite off the heads of Barbie dolls that her mother had given up on long ago. She was a lot like her mother, in fact--physically, at least--with her soft brown hair and equally innocent smile, and her quiet voice that only turned loud when she was playing war with the boys down the street.

She had her father's eyes, though. Deep, charcoal-grey ones that shone with intense brightness beyond their years despite their dependence on glasses to see near or far.

She loved her glasses, though.

They made her look like her daddy.

Her father was a busy man, but he never seemed to be too booked up with research and daily experiments to spend some time with her, even if it was usually down in the basement-turned-laboratory in his family's small house. There, the bold, rambunctious child would suddenly be silenced by her awe of all the miracles her father was working by the light of his desk lamps and fluorescent bulbs. Concoctions were always bubbling, and cells in petri dishes were always being cultured some way or another while he worked and hummed a tune that had been familiar to her since she was an infant. Later, much later, she would realize that those had been the best years of her life, just before the catastrophe that ruined all of it.

The arrival had been pending for weeks from what she overheard from her mother and father's discussions. Whatever "pending" meant, it must have been bad for Daddy because every day he seemed more stressed---he looked just a little bit more disheveled every time he walked out of the basement, and he spent just a minute less time with her every day, and finally, it got to the point where the girl would curl up on the couch just in front of the basement door with a book and fall asleep before her father had even finished working. And she prided herself in being able to stay up past bedtime, too....

Mommy didn't seem to worried. Whenever the girl tugged at her bathrobe in the morning and looked up with wide eyes to ask why Daddy was spending so much time downstairs, she would kneel down and calmly explain that her father was just getting ready for the big meeting, and once the President had come and gone through their town, he'd be back to his old self again.

"The President...?" The girl whispered before breaking into a huge grin. "Like the guy who runs the SOLDIERs..... Oh, can I be a SOLDIER someday? Please, Mommy, can I?!?"

"If you really want to, Cherlita," her mother pronounced the pet name with a strong Spanish accent as she ruffled her daughter's hair affectionately. She gave a sad sigh. "Though I don't think your father would approve of it...."

"Whyyyyy?!" The girl whined disappointedly as she lowered her chin as pathetically as she could manage. "What's dad got against all those fighterin' people, anyway----they're so coooool!!!!"

"Your uncle...." Her mother started but then trailed off. She shook her head. "I'll tell you when you're ol---"

"Lu!!!!" Daddy's frustrated voice came from far down in the basement. "I need you to look at something!"

"Coming, Edward!" Mommy called back in the strained-but-patient voice that she used when she knew she only had to put up with something for so long. She stood up and gave one more encouraging look towards the girl before making a beeline for the basement door.

*~*~*

Two Months Ago

Cid and Vincent never spoke of the occurrences that had taken place on that day when they had gone down into the bowels of the Earth and defeated a god. It was a silent pact between men, never acknowledged, but never broken. Cloud was quiet about it as well, shaken by the fact that he had actually died and had stayed dead for more than thirty minutes in that "god forsaken hellhole," as he referred to it as. However, after the same amount of time spent listening to Yuffie's pleading and prodding in addition to a couple glasses of "Tifa's Special" at the Seventh 2 Heaven--(Cid grumbled that it sounded like some kind of toilet cleaner whenever he walked in)--he began divulging facts to the young ninja one chilly autumn night.

Cid didn't seem to notice what Cloud was talking about at first; he was absentmindedly holding his tall one to his thin lips and sipping it, the nectar slipping down his tar-stained throat and temporarily numbing his normally irritable mood as he stared blankly at something or other on the wall next to the shelf where all the hard stuff was kept. What was it, again....? Oh, right. Tifa had told everyone the story a few nights ago. It was a plaque of recognition to some dame from The Historical Society, though it was too worn-out to read anything at first glance. Cloud had given it to her as a small child when her family moved into their house in Nibelheim. Cloud himself couldn't remember anything about it, which had earned him a smack over the head with Tifa's palm, but apparently, his mother found it lying around in a box somewhere; it had probably belonged to one of the previous owners of the house. Tifa had kept it all these years--even saved it in the fire that had destroyed the town--because it had been a rather sweet gift from the start, and besides, it was pleasing to the eye and made the bar actually look slightly professional.

Women... Cid grumbled to himself as he continued to stare at the gold-plated object. Don't even know where the damn thing came from, but they keep it 'cause it looks nice, anyway.... I swear, they're so shallow about their shit sometimes...

Speaking of shallow, his tankard was almost empty. He looked down at it for a moment before giving out a mix of a grunt and a sigh and sliding it down the counter towards Tifa. He leaned backwards on his barstool, clamping his gloved hands on the edge of the counter and stretching his arms as Tifa looked towards him. "You're tryin' to cheat me outta a hangover. Gimme a damn refill."

Tifa blinked a second and then laughed. "Yeah, sure thing, Cid." As she turned away towards the beer dispenser, Cid felt a strange presence make its way towards him from the darker corner of the bar. He closed his eyes and cricked his neck, still stretching.

"What d'you want, Vincent?"

The caped man watched the pilot's attempts at loosening muscles for a few moments before he slipped into the barstool next to Cid, farthest from the rest of the taverngoers, his long cape rustling about his legs as he did so. He looked into Cid's face with his narrowed, crimson eyes, shadowed by his red bandana and unruly black hair. "I strongly advise you to miss your hangover this time."

"Eh?" Cid opened an eye incredulously and cricked his neck again before leaning forward and hunching over the counter once more. He nodded towards Tifa as she came around with his refilled tankard and slid his gloved hand into its handle before facing Vincent. "Why the hell would I want to do that?" He grinned in the manner of one about to go off the "semi-sober" edge into "tipsy." "I get to yell at all you fuckers 'cause I've got a headache the size of Emerald Weapon and no one ever stops me 'cause everyone knows it's suicide to mess with Cap'n Cid when he's got a hangover. Heh-hah!" He beat his right fist against his chest once in a macho-man manner before leaning his head back and taking a needlessly long swig of sweetwater for show.

Vincent stared emotionlessly as the vulgar pilot, who, without his goggles and jacket, looked very much like a nobody macho loser getting his daily dose of drunkenness at the town pub.

"You can't hold your tongue when you drink," he stated simply.

"Yeah?" Cid gave out a loud breath of alcohol-tainted air before he turned towards Vincent, the grin gone and replaced by a slightly annoyed frown. "So, when do I hold the damn thing?"

"No, Cid," Vincent's voice remained as toneless as ever as he stared him down. "I mean that when you're drunk, you'll answer anyone who asks you questions and make as many additions to conversations as your muddled mind can possibly achieve."

"And I give a shit.... why?" Cid looked away, thinking detachedly to himself that it was fucking unfair how Vincent always won staring contests.

"You lose your normal level of observancy as well, as dangerously low as it usually is," Vincent finally moved his eyes away from Cid's stubble-covered face towards the area of the bar where four people, including Yuffie and Tifa, were crowding around Cloud as he laughed loudly. "You haven't noticed what our little Wutaian friend has been up to..... And...." He arched an eyebrow. "She's done a surprisingly good job at finally breaking down Cloud's refusal to talk, if I do say so myself."

"Huh?" Cid began to feel the effects of his careless alcohol consumption as he slowly spun his barstool in the direction of Vincent's gaze. He was met with a laughing Cloud, who looked slightly red in the face as he pounded one fist on the counter.

"So then... we go down and beat Bizarro Sephiroth, right? And we think we've done the impossible, right---I mean---beat the guy? Then all of a sudden, everything's crumbling down and WHAM. There he is again, this time as some angel with one wing.... and more powerful than ever, lemme tell you that much...."

As Cloud paused to take a swig of his drink, Tifa leaned forward closer, her eyes wide. Yuffie was paying close attention as well, but every so often, she'd try to steal glances at Vincent and Cid and turn away when they stared back.

"You had to fight him again? Tifa stared. No one had really gotten the full scope on the story, so it wasn't as if she should have already known.

"Sure did!" Cloud nodded vigorously. Cid noted that the other blonde acted somewhat like a puppy when he was drunk. "He attacked us, I think....? Felt like he'd blown up the universe or something, y'know...?"

"No, we don't know," Yuffie sighed in annoyance. She grinned and her eyes narrowed. "So? Then what happened, huh?"

"Then...." Cloud blinked in confusion and smiled in embarrassment as he scratched his head. "I dunno, it gets kinda fuzzy after that.... I think I fought him again...?"

"He only appeared twice, Cloud," Vincent said before Cid had a chance to warn him not to draw attention. "You must've imagined the other time when you were.... unconscious."

Cid's fears were proven right when Yuffie bounded over eagerly, hopping up onto one of the barstools. "But you guys remember, right? I mean, you didn't let that Sephy-roff push you around, did you?!" When Cid and Vincent looked back at her blankly, she continued. "I mean, you did the WHOFF--" she slapped a hand into the air "---and the WHAMMO BING-BANG."

"Yuffie, it would help if you spoke in a discernible form of English...." Vincent responded dryly. Cid remained silent, his eyes hovering far away as he sipped halfheartedly at his drink.

Yuffie did a pout/frown and put her fists down on the counter as she shot the red-caped man an impudent glare. "I mean.... even though you guys are old, you can still kick ass, right?!"

"I'm not old..." Cid muttered almost inaudibly, his eyes now focused on the aforementioned wall ornament. He tried to make out the date with his beer-blurred eyes. Something like thirty years ago, maybe...? Dammit, the thing had probably been around longer than he had..... Or not....

Yuffie seemed to have keen ears as she rolled her eyes in response to what Cid had said. "You are too, but that's not my point!" Unexpectedly, she jumped up on the counter and sat on her knees with her arms folded. Cid was vaguely surprised that Tifa didn't stop her nor admonish her, but maybe the broad was just as curious about the whole Sephiroth fiasco as the ninja was. "I mean, Vincent----!" She pointed a finger accusatorially at the pale man. "You're always secretive about everything, but you!!!" She switched over to Cid. "I dunno why you're bein' so damn weird about it!"

Aw, fuck.

His head shrank down into his shoulders somewhat when he felt everyone's eyes turned on him.

Smooth goin', Vince.

Real smooth.

He made a clumsy attempt at clearing his throat and instead found himself hacking on the few droplets of his drink that were clinging to his windpipe, along with Vincent trying to help by patting his back in an almost comically mechanical manner.

"Ya ain't doin' no good wit' that...." Cid grumbled slightly drunkenly, waving Vincent off and trying to look towards the side of the bar that was empty. However, he was only met with Yuffie's face as she shifted her position on the counter and leaned in towards him.

"So, how'd ya guys take him out, huh?" When Cid responded with only widening his eyes and leaning back to try to avoid the random bits of spittle flying out of Yuffie's excitedly chattering mouth, she grinned widely. "Ooohhh.... I'll bet you used tons of materia ya haven't told me about yet 'cause yer afraid I'm gonna steal it, huh?! Like summons an' elements an' all that good stuff----"

"No," Cid said in a low, ambigiously-toned voice. "We didn't use nothin'." He slowly eased off of his barstool and slumped over as he staggered for a second and then took a few steps away. He roughly pushed past Vincent, giving the hint that either he was angry with the red-caped man or was more drunk than he had previously let off. "Now leave me alone, dammit...."

Tifa, albeit being just as curious as the others, pulled herself away from the red-faced Cloud for a moment to look sternly at the ninja girl. "Yuffie, I don't think they don't want to talk about it...." The stern look turned into a scowl. "And get off my counter! I don't know where your shoes've been!"

"Well, I believe that---" Vincent began.

"DAMN STRAIGHT I don't!" Cid yelled suddenly at a decibel level that only the Highwind's captain could achieve.

"But----!" Yuffie interjected, leaping off the counter and shooting Tifa a glare and a pleading look simultaneously. "Cid's just being-----stupid!!!!"

"Whuzzah goin' on--confuzzed?" Cloud blinked blankly, more wasted than everyone else in the bar combined.

"Just...." Tifa looked blankly to Cloud before whipping up another drink for him at lightning speeds and patting him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it." She put her hands on her hips and began storming towards the three bar offenders, stepping out from behind the counter. "Can't you three ever get along?"

"She's the one whithuh pie hole probellum!" Cid pointed a finger at the younger girl as he explained himself. To everyone's utter surprise, the Captain almost sounded like he was on the verge of being hysterical. "Shit! Cantcha people just takea hint an' leavehme the fuck alone?!?"

Tifa seemed to forget about making the teammates cooperate and now turned her attention to the pilot instead. "Cid...." She arched a brown eyebrow. "You really should calm down...."

"Calm down....? I'm perfectly calm, dammit!!!!" Cid shouted, banging a fist down on one of the bar's rickety tables and causing it to topple over. In the brief, stunned silence that followed, Vincent took a wise decision and slinked off into the shadows where no one would pay attention to him.

"Cid...." Tifa cleared her throat, approaching the angered captain with tentative steps. If anything, it was pretty damn stupid to get between a drunk Cid and his tantrums, but Tifa wasn't going to let anything tear apart her new bar, be it AVALANCHE member or not. "I'm not taking sides or anything, but.... Really..." She shook her head in admonition. "What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

Cid paused, swaying a little before turning around and walking towards the door. He hesitated as he got to it, one gloved hand on the frame. Although his face was hidden, the tension in the rest of his body was visible.

"Jus'..... nothing."

And then, he walked outside into the chilly autumn air and was gone. The non-AVALANCHE members went back to their drinking and the rest stood in silence for a little while.

"You think we should go after him...?" Tifa asked more herself than anyone else, a little regretful that she'd let him storm out like that.

"Naahhhh," Yuffie grumbled, her shoulders hunched over as she made for one of the booths. She'd lost her enthusiasm in bugging the hell out of people for the moment. "He'll show up sooner or later.... he always does."

"He left his jacket," Vincent murmured, pulling the article of clothing gingerly from where it hung on the coathanger onto his claw. He glanced at the tag for several long moments, "'Geleia Outfitters'...." and then put it back. "Interesting."

Cloud burped.

*~*~*

Cid didn't show up all the next day or the day after that. The people who had been in the bar when he walked out were a little worried----besides Yuffie who didn't want to admit it and Vincent who keeping even more to himself than usual and Cloud who had been the victim of the second worst hangover in Greater-Midgar-Area history the next morning. So really, the only worried one was Tifa, but she was concerned enough to make up for the rest of them.

It was all right, though, because as soon as she managed to drag Cloud out of bed and make him and herself search for the pilot, they didn't have too much trouble finding him sitting against a boulder in a grassy field near the town with a pale face and chattering teeth.

"Stupid good fer nothin's," he grumbled, snatching his jacket from a bewildered Cloud without a word of thanks. The former AVALANCHE leader and his girl could only look on blankly as the pilot swore several times in tempo with the stomping of his feet and put a hand to his forehead. "Fuckin' hangover...."

Apparently, Cid's had taken first place.

*~*~*

Today

It would have almost been Christmas if people had known what it was anymore.

Thick layers of soot-tinged snow lined the streets of Midgar, leaving the half-legal stores and slum-quality housing under a blanket of dirty white and charcoal gray ice. Not much had changed during the first year of "freedom" from Shin-Ra's oppressive rule. The mass of rubble at the center of Midgar that had once been the Shin-Ra HQ had slowly dwindled, of course, partially due to a couple of naive, unsuccessful cleanup attempts, and mostly due to the homeless families who rummaged through the ruins from day to day for materials to build their shacks with, and sometimes the occasional fountain pen or gold watch that could be pawned in Wall Market for less money than they were worth.

If anything, it was the only truly good thing that had come from the corporation's fall, at least in the eyes of the local commerce and slum populace. "Even though we were starving, at least Shin-Ra gave us some power to cook our food with," had quickly become the most repeated sentence in all of the remaining sectors. "AVALANCHE has promised us everything but given us nothing," had become the second.

A man named Den who stood on a street corner in Wall Market was responsible for spreading some of these dissenting opinions, and even moreso the acts of protest and vandalism that had been recently breaking out in the city. Ironically enough, he was one of the more well-off of Midgar's inhabitants, able to afford the cost of printing out countless flyers and the cost of all the spray cans he incidentally distributed. What he really did do for a living was anyone's guess; all anyone ever saw him do was sleep, drink, and stand on one of the corners all day, shouting to the crowds.

One such of these days was going on as normally as it possibly could, some people cheering him on as they passed, and others, (usually the better-clothed ones), giving him sneers of disgust.

Then he saw the man in black.

He walked no different than anyone else; his clothing wasn't exceptionally bizarre. Just a worn-out but cozy looking jacket with a large hood and black pants to match. His blonde hair, a little on the dirty side, (though Den wasn't sure if that was due to pigmentation or to hygiene), was short in the back and longish in the front, combed over the right side of his face, masking nearly all of it. A strange style, to be sure, but pretty conservative compared to the way other kids were spiking it these days... In any case, the hood wasn't pulled over the man's head, so Den guessed the man in black couldn't be on too much shady business as he stopped at the dissenter's stand and looked up towards the treasoner.

"Hello," he said in cultured, if somewhat raspy voice.

"And a hello back to you!" Den responded with a smile. He hopped down off of his bucket-turned-soapbox, all the while handing out slips of green paper to any hands that would take them while the connected brain wasn't paying attention. "Anything I can do for you?"

"Not really...." The man responded, the one eye not covered by his hair roaming over the table covered with free Anti-AVALANCHE bumper stickers and posters that Den had set up. Now that he'd gotten a good earful of him, the stand-keeper guessed that the man in black was probably getting over a bad case of strep throat. "I was wondering, though...." He looked up towards Den with a surprisingly intense stare emanating from his blue eye. "You're Anti-AVALANCHE.... but are you Pro-Shin-Ra?"

Den had gotten that question quite a few times before, so he was more than prepared to answer. "Well!" He laughed, grabbing another stack of flyers from the table (these were pink) as soon as the ones in his hands had run out. "I'm Pro-Anythin' that doesn't involve shutting down reactors and causing hungry families to go onto the street!"

"Huh," the man in black responded, raising a single black-gloved hand as if to scratch his turtleneck-covered throat but then bringing it back down again before he could complete the motion. He leaned in a little closer and said in a quieter tone. "You wouldn't happen to be friendly with any of their supporters, then, would you?"

That one wasn't asked as often, but it definitely wasn't new. You had to be careful around this place---near the remains of Sector 7---where most people were even more strongly Anti-Shin-Ra than they were against AVALANCHE, so Den shrugged cluelessly even as he gave a very detailed answer.

"A few ex-Shin-Ra employees live in the apartment complex in Sector 5, if that's what you mean.... If you're looking for actual followers, though, you're gonna need to go to--"

"What about archives?" The man interrupted.

"Eh?" Den blinked.

"Archives---old files----profiles-----that sort of thing," the man in black said quickly, almost impatiently. "Do you know if any of them survived?"

Den was getting a little impatient himself; it was hard to hand out papers and have a meaningful conversation at the same time. "Listen---I dunno nothing about a secret archivin' place, all right?!" Stupid book worm, taking up his time. "Now I gotta get back to work..... I've got things to do, people to convert." He turned away. "Later."

"Sure," the man in black answered calmly, cooly, as he turned away. "Later."

It was a few seconds of looking off somewhere else before Den simultaneously remembered something and felt a little guilty for turning away someone so soon. "Hey!" He turned back in the direction of the other. "There's this place in Sec...tor....."

But he trailed off as he realized the man in black had already melded into the crowd.


*~*~*

Two years from today

"He's on his way." Jergo's grin spread from the corners of his lips to his large ears as he drew one of his calloused fingers through the long, greasy brown hair that draped off of his skull in strands. He sauntered over to the dirt-layered table that his comrades were sitting at--one of the most motley bunch of crooked-teethed slum-trash that had ever come out of Midgar. Jergo fell back into his seat when he reached the congregation, feeling rather important as the men returned his grin and began dividing the sum of the bounty on their man's head--five-hundred thousand fat gil, more than any of the reasonable bounties ever commissioned and low enough to actually be a valid one.

"I get at least a hundred... no, a hundred-fifty," the one called Fang declared, slamming down the blade of his dented dagger into the wooden slats of the table to emphasize his point, so to speak. "I did the borin' parts.... y'know, the research an' all that crap."

"Heh-heh..." One of the more streetwise men added his two cents as he raised his head from his drink and shook it in half-disbelief. "Amazin' how those AVALANCHE bastards'll let slum kids starve by the day and still manage to give out their bank accounts to get the man who killed one of their own. Jus' amazin'."

"And an ex-Shin-Ra to boot, now that's the clincher!" Jergo nodded, taking a toothpick from one of his less mud-soaked pockets and commencing in cleaning out the little bits of grime and half-corroded starch that sat in the cracks between his teeth. "Imagine what they'd pay to get a man if he took that barhouse whore of theirs, eh? Heh-heh...."

"Nah, they've got good reason to make a big show of gettin' this murderer fella," countered Fang. "The fish he hooked was a big one.... the kind people remember the name of, y'know? The ex-Shin-Ras tell me he was a legend back in his day.... and then there was this kind of shit about somethin' happenin' to the body..." He casually glanced around the table, checking to see that his audience was watching attentively before taking a long draught of his drink and bringing it back down to the table. "Plus, the killer was one of 'em. So he's not only a murderer--he's a traitor too, and..." He glanced around again, this time letting his eyes rest on the seat at the table that had been filled until about a week earlier. "....No one likes traitors."

There was a creak of the greasy spoon's doors as they were pushed open, and everyone in the small, dingy establishment looked up and then away again, diverting their eyes in the struggle to stay as unsuspicious as possible while keeping the newcomer in their peripheral vision.

He was tall for people around here, the ones whose sun had for many years been blocked by the giant tin can lid in the sky and who never had a chance to grow much more than five-foot seven. His long, thick black hair was ruffled with the strange wind that seemed to blow stubbornly through the bar doors from the city that shouldn't have had weather, as did the clothes he wore: black shoes too dark to make out, brown trousers faded in creases from overuse, a tan, collared shirt that had probably once been white during its lifetime, and a rather drab blue trenchcoat that reached down to his knees and covered the back of his neck. His face was as mysterious as his garb; his visage was pale with dark shadows thrown upon it by the bangs that fell over his face while his eyes were completely eclipsed by a pair of dark, black-tinted sunglasses perched upon the bridge of an unobtrusive nose. There was something majestic about him that couldn't quite be placed--something more than human about the casual way he held his head high and the slow, steady footsteps that boasted of a strange sort of grace that shouldn't have fit his stature, his feet making nary a sound as they barely touched the old wooden boards of the floor in his smooth strides.

He sauntered to the counter at the front of the greasy spoon, settling down leisurely in one of the barstools. He raised one of his black-gloved hands--the left one--and lightly knocked upon the counter in front of him, attracting the attention of the greasy spoon's only employee, an old man by the name of Johnson with wrinkles and bushy grey eyebrows who had run the greasy spoon for as long as its patrons could remember. He walked over towards the newcomer a bit warily, speaking in a rather burly tone; this one looked like he could mean trouble, with the way all those bounty hunters were crowded onto his tables like sardines in a tin can. "Whaddya want?"

It was uncertain if the newcomer glanced towards Johnson or not from behind his shades, but whatever the case, he smiled mysteriously, reaching down into one of his interior coat pockets with his right hand and bringing out a pack of brand-new SAUROS cigarettes. He brought them to his mouth and bit down on the end of one, pulling the rest away with the pack and pocketing them again.

He turned towards Johnson, courteously brushing a handful of his dark bangs out of his face, revealing thin, black eyebrows currently helping his smile become a smirk. "Just a light, old man." He said through his clenched teeth. "You got any?"

His voice was quiet, well-cultured, almost gentle, as if the newcomer hadn't spoken in a long time and was only now breaking in his vocal chords. The tone of his words was completely different, however; it was reckless, and would have probably been loud had the man's voice not completely contrasted it.

Johnson turned away from the newcomer, shrugging as he held a dirty plate in his hand and wiped it thoroughly with an old rag . "Lights? I dunno. Depends on if you're gonna pay for anything else."

"Well, then..." The newcomer chuckled. "I don't feel like getting drunk, and since everyone here is drinking instead of eating, I'm guessing the food isn't very good..." The smile turned mysterious again. "But I've been told you've got some information I need, and I suppose that's something worth paying for..."

"Heh. Sounds fair enough." This sort of thing wasn't new to Johnson, as he put down the plate and fished in one of his greasy apron pockets for a dented lighter. He brought it out, clicking the flame on. The newcomer nodded gratefully, leaning his head forward towards it and sighing in relief as a trail of smoke began to drift up towards the ceiling from his cancer stick. He leaned back as far as he could while sitting on the barstool, taking a long, much-needed drag.

He blew it all out, in a smooth, fluid motion, grasping the cigarette in his hand and pulling it away from his mouth, gasping quietly once, twice, as a man in desert half-mad with thirst might do after taking a long draught of water.

".....Damn," he finally said after a few moments of inhaling and exhaling the smoke-filled air, "I needed that."

"Glad to help ya," Johnson returned with a rather curt smile. "Now you just need to buy somethin'. And down payment first--I don't trust any man who would look for their info in a run-down dump like this."

The newcomer's voice turned a bit cynical as he faced Johnson once more. "Yeah... I figured as much." He paused for a moment, reaching into the same pocket he was keeping his smokes in and extruded a handful of rather shiny, rather heavy, rather genuine gold pieces. He deposited one of them into Johnson's waiting hand. The old bartender smiled and closed his wrinkled fingers around it. Yeah... It felt real, all right.

"All right, then," Johnson let out a long, tired sigh, leaning back against the wall opposite the counter. "What d'ya need to know?"

"Nothing extremely eventful..." The newcomer turned away, staring up towards something on the right wall of the greasy spoon as he took another long drag on his cig. He finally turned back towards the bartender. "That's kind of a strange place to be hanging up a license to practice medicine in this sector, don't you think?"

"What? That ol' thing?" Johnson laughed out loud, shaking his head as he realized that the newcomer was talking about the old, yellowed frame that hung from a nail on the wall which housed an even older, more yellow piece of official-looking parchment. "Hah! That expired years ago. I dunno why I even have it up... Prob'ly 'cause it actually looks like a license to sell alcohol, eh? Hah-hah-hah..."

"Hm," the newcomer gave a short laugh as his hidden eyes wandered back towards the frame, his brows furrowed in thought. "Well..." he said slowly, "how long's it been void?"

"Hm, uh, let's see..." Johnson got an expression on his face similar to that of the newcomer, one of trying to remember something forgotten as he vacantly looked up towards the ceiling of the greasy spoon. "It must have been, eh... twenty years since I've practiced, I think...?"

The newcomer didn't budge his gaze from its view of the frame and the document within for at least a minute as he sat like a petrified raven upon the stool, unmoving save for the noxious essence of the cigarette that hung about his head like a displaced, discolored halo. Finally, with a subtle hint of hopeless frustration lacing his voice, he turned back towards Johnson and uttered quietly: "So?"

"So what?" Johnson arched an eyebrow in puzzlement not only at the word but at the sudden omnipotent presence of the man who had spoken it. He couldn't help but glance over the newcomer's shoulder at the rest of the people in the greasy spoon, just to make sure they hadn't faded into nothing.

"Why'd you stop?"

However, Johnson didn't have a chance to respond, because at that moment, Jergo broke the aura by uttering a low "enough with this!" as he and his crew stood up from their seats and walked quickly over to where the newcomer was seated.

"Looks like I'll be keepin' this," the bartender muttered to himself as he slunk away with the single gold piece, leaving the newcomer to whirl around on his barstool in time to find himself staring down the barrels of several large guns.

"Um," he said slowly, carefully, looking towards the one in the center who seemed to be the leader. As the aforementioned bounty hunter jerked his pistol twice towards the ceiling, the hunted swiftly brought both of his hands up into the air, using one to adjust his sunglasses before covering the total distance. "....Shit?"

"Vincent Valentine...." Jergo said in his slick-as-oil voice, savoring every consonant and vowel as they rolled off his bitter tongue. He smirked. "Most wanted man in recent memory..... You've got alotta nerve, comin' inta one of the biggest hunter hangouts in Midgar...."

At the sound of the "B.H." words, most of the other patrons who had until now just been part of the scenery seemed to rise to their feet in unison and clock their own respective firearms.

"Either that, or you're pretty damn stupid," Jergo continued, the smirk disappearing momentarily as the bounty gave a blank look that soon turned into an angry one.

"He never warned...." Vincent trailed off and turned his head away slightly, his eyes probably annoyed and frustrated from behind his shades. "That arrogant ass.... Always trying to be the hero...."

"A partner, eh....?" The observant Fang deduced excitedly, turning his head towards Jergo. "They never mentioned 'at in the papers..... 'Ey, boss, why don't we wait for 'im...? If we bag double, we get double!"

"We don't have any damn time for any of that!" Jergo retorted, eyes still fixed on Vincent. He took a step forward, eyes narrowed. "Valentine, we're takin' ya in for murder!"

"You're not even going to repeat his name?" Vincent arched an eyebrow. "Everyone does---like some clichéd movie over and over again-----you people are all so alike it's sickening as hell! Like some broken record or something! I mean, you've got the impatient leader---" he nodded towards Jergo "---the eager, yet-too-ambitious-second-in-command who's gonna eventually backstab his chief just for power---" one at Fang "------and, look!" He motioned towards the hunters behind them, causing Jergo and his main men to take their eyes off of their capture and look back towards his subordinates for a moment. "You've even got the disposable henchmen who apparently have no family, no friends, and who don't really have anyone to give a damn if they get shot in the head!!!"

They blankly looked on as a loud bang rang through the greasy spoon and one of the aforementioned men fell to the ground, a badly bleeding hole in the middle of his forehead.

"And you all fall for that one.... all of you," Vincent sighed, shaking his head sadly as everyone whirled around to see him blow the smoke off the top of the gun that was now held in his right hand. There was a matching one in his left, too, though that one didn't appear as if it had been recently fired. "Pretty fucking pathetic...."

At the same moment, the sound of a motor was heard, and everyone, including Vincent, looked in the same direction again as a motorcycle came crashing through the front door.

There was a brief pause and then it was madness.

Rounds of shots rang out as Jergo lunged for Vincent, but was quickly thrown off by a kick to the stomach as the hunted leaped backwards onto the counter with almost inhuman agility, using the force of the motion to propel him once more from the counter to the ceiling, where he jammed his right hand through the wood of the roof, his glove torn by splinters and a gold-plated something exposed. He swung down, changing his angle in midair to dodge an oncoming bullet and landing off-balanced, (but on two feet, miraculously), next to the vehicle that had just burst in.

"Shit!!!" He yelled, both guns blazing madly as he regained his equilibrium and climbed quickly onto the back of the motorcycle. As soon as he had locked his boots into the metal protectors just in front of the back wheel, the tires squealed and they began to flee like bats out of hell. "Took ya long enough!"

"It's my job," the driver shrugged nonchalantly, both of their coats and Vincent's hair flying in the windstream as they hit the road and gained true speed. The partner leaned forward, gloved hands gripping the wheel as he lowered his helmeted chin. "By the way, it's extremely unsafe to ride this thing facing in that direction----you should at least consider wearing safety gear, you know...."

"Kinda busy," Vincent grunted as he continued to shoot at the hunters. From his viewpoint, he was able to see a few of them run out and board their own modes of transportation----what exactly, he could not tell, because just then they made a sharp turn down the next street in between two high buildings. "And it looks like we're gonna have company..."

"And look at yourself---calling all of them clichéd," the driver somehow managed to give a faint shake of the head, "while you're the one completing acts of near gravatationally-impossible acrobatics just before inexplicably riding backwards on a motorcycle while shooting at them, not to mention using the two most-repeated lines in every action movie ever-written while we somehow manage to talk through all of this chaos----I'll bet those glasses of yours haven't even moved through all this!"

"Shut up," the passenger grumbled, regaining his badass-mutha attitude as he picked off one of the henchmen from the overfull truck that was now following them. He grinned and remembered the cigarette that was still in his mouth, realizing that it had been extinguished from all the movement. He spat it out onto the asphalt, ducking as his fire was returned and then giving back some of his own.

"They're aiming for me, not you....." He muttered. He glanced backwards far enough to see where they were heading.

"El!" He shouted. "Turn down that alley!"

"Oh, well, that's a surprise," the driver returned, although the wheels screeched once more as they turned down the narrow strip between two especially tall apartment complexes. "What are you planning, now....?"

"Another incredible feat," Vincent said, this time without a grin as he carefully stood up on the speeding cycle and secured both of his guns into their holsters. "Anything I can grab onto?"

"Grab-----on?" The driver sped up a tad after finding that the pavement in the alleyway was smooth enough to push sixty on. "There are a few flights of stairs coming off the side of the next buil---" as soon as he realized what his passenger was planning on doing, his voice rose from within his helmet. "Christ, are you insane?!"

"Probably," Vincent answered calmly as he braced himself for a hard impact---or quick fall---as he saw the rusted metal of the apartment's fire escape pass above them. He gritted his teeth and crouched, readying his legs like coiled springs. "Wish me luck!"

He leapt almost immediately, arms outstretched, and almost as suddenly, he saw one of the bars coming towards him and opened his fists....

"Ungh!" He grunted, grimacing and gasping at the same time as he found himself hanging off of the railing with one very sore hand and a loudly screeching claw.

"Gloves... were new..." He said with an unusually squeaky voice as he wondered how many pairs he'd gone through during the past few months.... He slowly dragged himself over the railing and gave out a few heavy breaths when he dumped himself onto the stairs of the first flight. He closed his eyes as he leaned forward and found himself instinctively pulling out one of his guns and reloading it. He raised a lid and noticed in dismay that the leather of his gloves was tattered, revealing the pale fingers of his right and the gold of his left that was exposed down to his wrist. He flexed the metallic fingers and scowled.

"God damn it!" He growled, setting his gun in the fingers of the unnatural appendage and holding his head with the hand of flesh. "How the hell am I gonna get home now?!"

Hopefully, Elliot would actually follow through and come back for him this time....

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard the motor of an approaching van and the distant yell of a "THERE 'E IS!!!!" He leapt to his feet and began running up the stairs with the speed and heightened agility of a mouse being chased by two dozen cats---though he felt more like a Jerry than a Mrs. Frisby at the moment, even with the angry buzz of a bullet flying by his ear and ricocheting off of the brick building instead. His boots pounded on the metal of the steps to the rhythm of his hard breathing---three flights, two flights---and when he heard the van stop, he knew it wasn't a good thing; on the contrary, he would have the hunter's cronies following him up the stairs now.

Forget insane---this was fucking ludicrous!!! He didn't even have enough time to give return fire, but luckily, the steps he was climbing on seemed to shield him from most of the shots. All he had to worry about was getting to the top... and getting off again....

"God, he's a fast one!" He heard from below him. Just a couple more stairways.... just a couple...

"He was one of those AVALANCHE people---he managed to kill one of those AVALANCHE people, so whaddya expect?!"

Vincent suddenly stumbled forward, swearing under his breath before staggering back up and making it to the rooftop. The fall hadn't hindered his progress much, but it had lost him enough time that he now felt as if his followers were snapping at his heels. He ran to the opposite side of the roof, looking over the edge and quietly berating himself for not realizing fully that everything that comes up must go down....

"VALENTINE!!!!" He heard a loud shout from behind him. He whirled around, gun cocked, but he wasn't the lucky one this time as a shot exploded next to his claw, catching him off guard and sending his gun into the air----and over the rooftop railing. He reached under his coat with his flesh hand, but before he could get a good grip on his matching firearm, he found himself smiling weakly with his arms raised. No way was he messing with bounty hunter calvary that had guns that size....

The leader of the bunch was breathing hard, a glock raised in one hand while he kept the other on his knee. He kept his eyes on Vincent, albeit blearily and heaved in-between his words. "Are.... are ya blind.... or just plain stupid?!" A gasp. "We gotcha surrounded!"

Vincent was already making mental calculations, trying to figure out an escape plan.... he took a few steps in reverse so that his back was touching the railing. He was glad that most of Midgar's plates had been taken down-----this would be harder if it was dark......

".....Dead or.... alive..... the bounty's..... still supposed to.... stand!" The hunter winced at a pain in his abdomen as he watched his meal ticket put his hands higher in the air.

"Well," the man replied slowly, looking towards the evening sky with eyes that must have been horribly distant behind those shades. A sad look crossed his face. "You're outta luck.... I'm neither."

The hunters could only look on in disbelief as the wind howled softly and Vincent Valentine fell backwards from the top of the building with arms outstretched and a smile on his face.