Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII, and I never will *sob*

A/N: Sorry once again for the update time, but this chapter turned out to be harder to write than I thought. Anyway, I'd like to thank my only reviewer KukaruiValentine for reviewning chapter one. Anyway on with the fic I guess

Chapter Seven: A Night on the Town

Cloud ducked from the blow that was aimed at his neck. Zack threw to much strength into his last attack and was still following through even though Cloud had ducked instead of jumping back, which Zack had expected him to do. Cloud took the oppurtunity to swing his wooden blade in an upward slash. Faster than any normal person could move, Zack dodged the blow and hit Cloud across the ribs with his wooden sword. Cloud's face contorted in pain even though Zack had tried to make the blow light and Cloud fell onto his knees from the force of the hit.

Cloud stayed on his knees until he was able to get up on his own, ignoring the hand Zack offered him. Zack wasn't offended, however, as Cloud had never excepted his help after their matches. Zack put a small smile on his face as he remebered back when he and Cloud where still in the training program for SOLIDER and Cloud would always refuse help from anyone. Zack knew Cloud well enough to know that it was because he wanted to prove he was strong, just liked he always dreamed of being. Zack's smile faded as Cloud walked off to give Sephiroth his lunch and Zack remebered their situation. It was their third day in the small mountain town and ever since yesterday Sephiroth hadn't left the library or eaten any of the food Cloud and Zack brought him.

A few minutes later Cloud came back up with another tray full of food, the breakfast that Zack had tried to give to Sephiroth that morning. Neither Cloud nor Zack had any doubt that Sephiroth wasn't going to eat the last meal they had given him, but they gave it to him just in case. With their job of babysittng Sephiroth done for now, the two warriors resumed what they were doing before. After a few more sparring matches and Cloud actually winning one of them, much to Zack's suprise, they were both to exhausted to fight anymore and started to get bored since there wasn't very many other things to do. Then Zack got an idea and got an evil grin on his face. Cloud noticed this and got a bad feeling in his gut.

"Zack what are you planning?" Cloud asked his friend, alrady prepared for the worst.

"How about a night on the town?" Zack asked Cloud back with a sly grin on his face. Cloud just stared at Zack for a minuter, then finally registered what he just said.

"ARE YOU NUTS?!?" Cloud half asked, half screamed at Zack, who still had that grin on his face. "If I go into town in my MP suit, everyone going to get suspicious and I obviously can't go into town with my normal cloths cause everyone will know its me!" Cloud continued to yell at his friends seemingly stupid plan.

"You'll go in disguise" Zack said in a smooth voice, then walked up to the room where they left all their stuff and came down with a bag Cloud hadn't noticed before. From the bag Zack pulled out several items, all of them related to disguising someones apperance. Cloud stared at the items for a second before looking over at his friend with a curious expression on his face.

"You've been planning this for awhile, haven't you Zack?" Cloud asked him, and Zack just nodded his head like an excited little kid. Cloud sighed and said "Fine I'll go, since even if I said no you'd probably order to go anyway" and Zack just stared at him for a second, pretending to be hurt. Then they started to work on Cloud's disguise. When they got done, Cloud took a moment to inspect his new look. He was now wearing casual cloths, a pair of boots, blue jeans, a black T-Shirt, and a light blue jacket with a Shin-Ra logo on the back. To complete his disguise, he was wearing a hat that he and Zack somehow managed to cover his spikey hair. He also had a pair of contats in his eyes that made his eyes look like they were green instead of blue. Cloud decided not to ask Zack where he got any of this stuff.

It had taken them hours to get ready, so before they went out they took Sephiroth his dinner and, just as they had expected, brought back up his lunch, which was left untouched. Still a little worried about their commander, Cloud and Zack decided to head out now so they could relieve some of the stress of taking care of Sephiroth. As they were walking out of the mansion and Cloud was leading them to the nearest Restaraunt/Bar in the little town, Zack started to get excited.

"Were gonna have some fun tonight!" Zack said happily, then he added with a sly grin "Maybe we can pick us up some ladies". Cloud just rolled his eyes.

"Don't you have a girlfriend?" Cloud asked his friend and he noticed Zack get a annoyed look on his face.

"What, I can have a little fun can't I?" Zack asked Cloud in a tone that was on the verge of whining, "Besides it's not like I'm actually going to do anything with them, I just wanna party a little". Cloud just sighed at his friends behaviour and then they both stayed silent until they made it to the restaraunt. The first thing they noticed while walking in was everyone stop and stare at them. Then they noticed a strange person sitting near the bar that was connected to the restaurant. They decided to get a quick bite of decent food before doing anything else, but they felt kinda odd as people kept staring at them and a few people where glaring at them, like they shouldn't be there. When they got done eating, they walked over to the bar, near the strange person which they now noticed was wearing a fighting outfit and what apperared to be a red cape.

They sat next to the stranger and ordered some drinks, though Cloud had to get a milk since he was only sixteen and he noticed some of the other patrons snicker at his choice of drink. Zack having recently reached the age that he no longer needed his fake I.D. was already starting to drink his fill. Cloud took a glance at the strange old man sitting next to them with the odd outfit and gasped. He recognized the old man from some videos they had been forced to watch while learning hand to hand fighting in SOLIDER's training camp. The old man was Zanagan, one of the if not the best martial artist in the world. Cloud just stared amazed at Zanagan, trying to figure out why someone like him would be in a town like this. After a minute or so, Zanagan noticed Cloud staring.

"Can I help you?" Zanagan asked Cloud, keeping his cool instead of being angry which Cloud had expected him to be.

"Your Zanagan, right?" Cloud asked with disbelief evident in his voice.

"Yes I am" Zanagan answeared simply and, predicting Cloud's next question continued saying "I'm here to see one of my best students". Cloud noticed he said that last part with a lot of pride and decided to question him further. Before Cloud could, however, Zack walked back up to him with an embarassed expression on his face. It seemed he had walked off to talk to some ladies while Cloud was talking to Zanagan and he hadn't had much luck with them.

"Come on Cloud, let's go" Zack said, obviously not in the mood to "pary" anymore.

"You go on ahead Zack, I'll be back later" Cloud said to Zack, and Zack just shrugged and walked off. Then cloud turned back to Zanagan, intent on finding out who his student was. "So whose you student?" he asked, curious who in the little town could possibly be one of Zanagan's best students.

"A local girl by the name of Tifa" Zanagan replied and Cloud's eyes went wide with shock and suprised and he didn't know what to say.

"Tifa...Lockhart?" Cloud finally managed to say, with disbelief and suprise in his voice. It wasn't like their was anyone else in the town named Tifa, but Cloud was to suprised to think before he spoke. Zanagan noticed this and decided to figure out why Cloud seemed so suprised.

"Yes, why do you know her?" Zanagan asked him, and Cloud quickly realized his mistake in saying her full name. Cloud was silent for a few seconds until he thought of away to answear Zanagan.

"Not really, but she went with us to the reactor and I was just a little suprised to hear she was one of your students" Cloud said and then sighed with relief, thinking he was out of the situation.

"So that's why you know her full name, and why it took you a second to think of what you were going to say" Zanagan said to him with obvious disbelief in his voice. Cloud cursed to himself under his breath, then decided he shouldn't stay here much longer.

"Uh..I gotta go" Cloud said quickly and before Zanagan could say anything Cloud walked out of the bar.

Cloud was walking quickly back to the mansion, hoping not to run into anyone else on his way home. He noticed it had gotten dark out while he and Zack had been at the bar and started to think about his life. Without even realizing he walked to his favorite place to think, the well in the middle of town. Cloud was about to walk past the well when he hear someone sigh. Suprised by the noise, Cloud slowly crept up to the well so that he wouldn't suprise whoever was there and alert them to his presence. He was suprised when he noticed the person sitting on the well was none other than Tifa. She was staring at the stars and her knees up to her chest with her hands wrapped around her legs. Cloud knew he shouldn't stay there because if he did she might notice him, but for some reason he didn't want to leave either. Before he could do anything else, he felt someone's hand wrap around his mouth and he was dragged off to a nearby alley.

Cloud was thrown to the ground in the middle of the alley and couldn't see much until someone lit a lantern. Once the lantern was lit, he noticed three men in front of him, all of them were bigger than he was and they looked like they'd had a little to much to drink. Cloud also noticed that they all seemed to be from the bar he and Zack had gone to and where some of the people who were glaring at them. Also one of them seemed to have some kind of metal pipe in his hand and Cloud started to get worried, wondering how much these people were planning on hurting him. Before he could ask the obvious question of why they had dragged him here, one of them lunged forward in an attempt to punch him. The man was drunk, however, and his blow was slow so Cloud easily dodged it and quickly hit the man in the face, sending him to the ground. Taking this as his cue, the second man charged at him. These man wasn't as inhibited as the first and while Cloud was able to dodge his punch the man got out of the way of Cloud's counterattack.

The third man with the pipe took this oppurtunity to move forward and while Cloud was distracted fighting the other man, he brought the pipe down on Cloud's left shoulder. Cloud cried out in pain, then the second man that he had been fighting took this chance to knock Cloud up against one of the alley's walls and started to hit Cloud in the ribs. Cloud started to get worried as the man with the pipe walked closer to him and looked more than willing to use it on him again. Before Cloud try to do anything, someone yelling was heard.

"What are you doing?!?" yelled a female voice, and Cloud looked over to notice Tifa standing at the entrance to the alley, staring at the scene taking place. Cloud was also happy to notice that her teacher, Zanagan was standing next to her. The two men who were beating Cloud up, since the third one was still down for the count, just stopped and stared at the new arrivals without saying anything. The man that was punching Cloud backed off and Cloud started to slide down the wall, not having much strength left to stand up. Tifa quickly walked over to him while glaring at his attckers and Zanagan followed her while keeping his eyes on the two men. What happened next seemed like a blur to Cloud. As soon as Tifa started to help him up, the nearby man with the pipe muttered something under his breath that Cloud couldn't catch, then swung the pipe at him and Tifa. Zanagan moved to stop the man, but Cloud didn't think he'd make it in time and quickly pushed Tifa out of the way. The next thing Cloud knew he felt the pipe strike the side of his head, heard someone gasp and felt himself hit the ground before everything went dark...

A/N: Sorry about the time it took me to update this, but I think this turned out better becasue I took more time to think of this than I spent on my others chapters. Also until recently I wasn't sure how I wanted to do this chapter. Oh and sorry if anybody's mad about the cliffhanger, but I just can't seem to avoid doing them for the life of me. Oh while, I guess I'll just try to update sooner next time.