Hey again, everyone! I haven't updated for ages, so I hope you enjoy. R&R too, by the way!!
Disclaimers: Not mine… the demon's personalities are *technically* mine, though…
Rated PG for swearing. Duh!
"But we can't go without them!!" Yuffie wailed.
"Yeah, foo!" Barret added from his vantage spot under the table. "Cloud our leader!"
Cid, Vincent and the Turks all shrugged. "So?" Barret's loyalty wasn't even amusing anymore.
Reno glanced around the room. "Hey, where's Reeve's little cat-thingy?"
Everyone looked around. Most of them hadn't even noticed that the small and incredibly annoying moogle and cat weren't there.
"Where's Reeve?" Tseng asked curiously.
"Oh, I threw him out the window!" Yuffie told Reno.
"You WHAT!?" Tseng screamed, beginning to hyperventilate.
Elena patted Tseng's arm. "Not Reeve, idiot- er, Sir." Tseng stopped hyperventilating with a sigh.
"Say," Cid drawled. "Are we gonna kill off these things or what?"
There was a moments silence.
"No." Rude said.
"Yeah! After all, they're your demons, you take care of them!" Reno added smugly. He strode over and sat in a chair in defiance. "I ain't going anywhere!"
"Oh well," Vincent said with a shrug. "Chaos likes human flesh to eat."
"Wh-what?"
"Vinnie!" Yuffie scolded. "That's a terrible thing to say!"
"Don't call him that." Cid said, lighting up a cigarette. "We're gonna find Cloud and Tifa, whatever they're doin', and go stop those demons." He looked at the Turks, who had tuned out from the impromptu speech. "You can do whatever you want, just stay outa our way."
"Oh. I'm terrified." Tseng deadpanned.
"Hey, you gotta problem with me!?" Cid yelled, holding up his fists. He'd never liked the Turks, so this was the perfect opportunity to knock 'em down good. "You with me Barret?"
"DAMN STRAIGHT!" Barret banged his head on the top of the table on his way to the surface. "Yo' doin' down, FOO!"
Rude yawned.
Although the sight of two fighting men, who had already kicked their asses a few times before, the Turks were generally unamused.
"Okay then, I go to the left and you go-"
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Barret yelled his usual war-cry, charging. Cid just groaned.
Vincent made his way to the coffee machine, hearing his 'friends' fight the Turks, but paying no attention.
***
Yuffie, meanwhile, had gone to find Tifa and Cloud, no doubt to pester them as she always did. She reached the changerooms, but stopped and wrinkled her nose at the weird smells emaciating from inside.
"Do I really wanna go in here?" she asked herself, and, pondering for a moment, reached into her black-hole-to-infinitytm , where all the heroes kept all their junk and materia, and brought out a camera. With a patented evil grin, she entered the changeroom, camera held ready...
"OMNISLASH!!!!"
"Oh shit Cloud, what'd ya do that for?" Yuffie gurgled as she collapsed and died.
Cloud tied his pants back on, and looked out to see who he'd cut to pieces. "Oh. Oops."
"Cloud, what happened?" Tifa asked, turning the cold water off. She came into the tiled bathroom. "Great, you killed Yuffie!"
Cloud wasn't sure if Tifa was being sarcastic, and scratched his head. "I didn't mean it."
Tifa's eyes opened wider all of a sudden. "That's evidence!" she gasped. "We have to hide it away somewhere!" Thinking ahead in a situation like this was one of the better parts of Tifa's personality... (That wasn't anatomy, by the way).
"Oh. Um..." Cloud thought, with his trademark shrug.
While Cloud thought, Tifa dragged Yuffie's blood soaked body into an empty cubicle. "There. I'm sure if I put the 'occupied' sign on, people will respect that." She went back over to Cloud. "It's okay, you don't have to think anymore."
Cloud grinned. "Great! Oh, my shoelace is untied." He bent over to tie it up. He then saw the pool of dark red blood staining the tiles. "Ah. Tifa, come and look at this."
"Hmm, we'll have to hide that too." Tifa mused, glancing around for a sponge. Seeing none, she advanced on Cloud.
***
The room was almost destroyed. Other than the coffee machine and a single couch, bullet holes, and various fire burns left their remains. Cid, Barret and the Turks had gotten bored of their little fight, and, now, fully cured, were clustering around the coffee machine.
"Say," Reno said. "I wonder what those demons are up to."
"Probably killing all the staff." Vincent replied.
"Oh. Okay." Reno nodded, lazing back on the couch.
"I wonder if Reeve's up there..." Elena mused. Tseng began to look apprehensive again.
Barret was drinking his fifth or sixth cup of coffee. Boredom really hits some people hard, and Barret was one of these people. Still, a caffeine high is entertaining enough... "Man, I really wanna play truth or dare. Any of you heard of dat game?" he asked the group excitedly.
"Go away old man." Cid grumbled.
"I HATE YOU!" Barret sniffed, and ran away.
"What just happened?" Vincent asked.
"Oh, nothing." Cid replied casually.
"Hi guys!" Tifa beamed, her and Cloud just entering the room. "Hey, this place is a mess!"
"Have you found Vincent's demons yet?" Cloud asked, going back into hero mode.
"Nope." Cid replied. "But it's not like we've looked."
"That's terrible!" Tifa's eye began to twitch. "While we were busy-"
Everyone finally noticed Cloud; or, more specifically, his new red hair.
"Hey Spike, that's the colour of my hair!" Reno yelled, leaping to his feet.
"OH, it's not permanent." Cloud ran his hand through his spikes, glanced at his hand, and hurried wiped the 'excess red dye' on his pants. "It's...."
"Cute, isn't it!" Tifa finished. "So, hey, let's go kill some demon!"
Reno slouched on the couch again. "Spike wants to be like me so much he's even taking my hair colour," he complained to Rude, who nodded from behind his shades.
"He makes it look better than you, Reno." Elena giggled, but faced the wrath of a jealous Tifa.
"ARE YOU MAKING MOVES ON MY CLOUD?!" she demanded furiously. "DIE BITCH! FINAL HEAVEN!!"
Explosions abound. Suffice to say, Elena was very much dead before she hit the ground.
"Oh, well done." Tseng scowled. "Does anyone have a phoenix down?"
Everyone, other than Tifa, who was still sulking, checked in their hole-to-infinitytm pockets.
"Nope."
"Shit, Tifa, you sure are a bitch after you have sex-" Cid began, but stopped as Tifa tightened her grip around his neck. "Urg-nev-er-mind..."
"You want a cup of tea Tifa?" Vincent inquired with a smirk.
Cid looked terrified. "$*- #@..."
The three remaining Turks looked on with a sort of morbid curiosity.
"Is she always like that?" Rude asked Cloud.
Cloud nodded. "I dunno. She's always nice to me..."
"I wonder why?" Reno sniggered, and cringed when Tifa turned her head his way. "Uh, hey, where's that fat man gotten to?"
"Palmer?" Cloud scratched his head. "I thought-"
"No. The guy on your team." Reno rolled his eyes.
"Barret."
Tifa released Cid, who fell to the ground, gasping for air. "I dunno Reno. Did you make him angry?"
"Yeah!" Cloud exclaimed, confused. "Where is Barret?"
"Where's Yuffie?" Vincent asked.
"Where's Cait Sith?" Cloud asked.
"Where's Red XIII?" Cid asked. Well gasped, rather.
"Can't you keep track of your own team?" Tseng asked with an eyebrow raised.
"Shut up, or I'll kill you..." Tifa hissed, and then turned a sunny smile to the others. "Don't worry about Yuffie, she can take care of herself. The others can too."
"I don't think that cat-dog-thing's been around for a while now..." Cid mused, chewing idly on his cigarette.
"We ran out of food one day." Vincent said. "You and Barret got the munchies."
Reno burst out laughing. "You ate Red?" He exclaimed. "That's like...me eating Rude or something!"
Tifa and Cloud thought back. Cid stopped chewing on his cigarette, and began turning a slight green colour.
Rude looked warily at his friend. "Don't get any ideas." He said flatly.
"I sure don't remember that." Cloud said faintly. "I'm sure I would remember eating Red. Right?"
"Cait Sith thought it would be funny if he didn't tell you." Vincent continued. "It's Reeve's warped sense of humour."
"DON'T PAY OUT REEVE!" Tseng yelled.
Tifa and Cloud looked at him in confusion. "Turks..." Cloud shrugged.
The three Turks glared at them.
"Hey, shouldn't we be fighting them demons?" Cid interjected.
They all nodded, after pondering it for a moment or two.
"Geez, I still can't believe you ate your mutt-pal," Reno was still sniggering to himself. The group was heading up the stairs, the remaining AVALANCHE members keeping a look out for Yuffie and Barret. Well, Tifa and Cloud weren't really looking for Yuffie, but they acted like they were.
"Can you shut the %&^ up about that." Cid muttered, feeling the teeniest bit guilty over that issue.
"And you think we've got problems," Reno continued with an evil grin. "You ATE one of your team! That's just the-"
"$*^&^$*^&!!!!!" Cid snapped, and grabbed the skinny Turks, hurling him back the way they came.
"AHHHHHH!" Reno wailed, arms flailing desperately for a hand hold as he flew through the air. His landing spot wasn't the hard staircase, however.
"FOO!"
He'd crashed into Barret, who'd been going in that direction as well. The momentum caused both of them to continue in direction Reno was previously going in.
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
*Thud*
The remaining team watched the pair vanish from sight. Rude's expression darkened behind his shades, and he advanced on Cid. Cid took a step back.
"Great, now you got Rude mad." Tseng rolled his eyes, and watched impassively as Rude picked up Cid, and threw him over the staircase.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........."
The little spiralling spec that was Cid hit the ground with a *splat*. Rude hadn't changed expressions once. Cloud and Tifa, on the other hand, looked horrified.
"You killed Cid!" Tifa gasped.
"You..." Cloud began, but couldn't think of a proper insult to hurl at the tall Turk. "..."
"Like you wouldn't have done that eventually." Vincent said with a shrug. "Now, can we keep going?"
They walked on, leaving their comrades dead or severely injured along the way. There were 5 left.
"I think we're getting closer," Tseng said. "Can you hear that noise upstairs?"
They listened. And, sure enough, there were sounds of crashing and screaming from above them. They quickened the pace slightly.
"How can you hear so good?" Tifa asked curiously, having realised that she could barely hear any sounds at all, and wouldn't have noticed them at all if Tseng hadn't spoken of them.
"You get used to that sound, working here." He replied simply.
"Oh..." Tifa frowned. "That's awful sad."
Tseng rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
They walked on. Uncomfortable in the uneasy silence, Cloud began humming quietly to himself. But soon, he could barely hear himself over the crashes from above them.
They finally reached the right floor, level 66. The place had been reduced to piles of smouldering rubble, pieces of furniture, and smoking walls.
Cloud sighed in relief. "Finally!" he stopped and looked at his companions. "Now what?" he asked.
The strange, but unsurprising thing was, that no one had actually thought of a suitable way to get rid of four helldemons, which happened to be close personal acquaintances with Vincent.
Sure, going up the stairs was easy, with the exception they left most of their team dead behind them, but now what?
"Cloud, go in there and kill them." Tseng said.
"..." Rude supported his boss with his usual eloquence.
"No! They're Vincent's demons!" Tifa retorted, looking shocked and appalled at the direct approach. "We can negotiate... something."
"Like what?" Tseng sneered, and took on a high-pitched female voice. "'Oh please great but insane demons, please let us have our building! Let's be good friends! You can come over to tea next Friday, and we can have cake!'"
Tifa's eye began to twitch again. Cloud, recognizing a prelude to extreme violence on her part, backed away a few steps.
Vincent ignored all of them, and went to find his demons.
***
They'd been having a pretty nice time. But, as the four had found out when they arrived, smashing through the 70th floor windows, the place was pretty much abandoned.
"Typical!" Hellmasker had snorted, and they had trashed the place. In defiance, of course.
But, it got boring after a while, so they decided to just take a level, and wait for Vincent to find them. Which he would, they knew. But while they waited, they'd found all sorts of strange things...
Which is how Vincent found them.
"Hey."
"Hey, Vince, my main man!" Chaos greeted with a grin. Well, a hell-beast version of a grin.
"We've been waiting for you."
"Waiting all day..." Hellmasker added. "This place sucks ass anyways."
Vincent really couldn't find an appropriate thing to say, so he just looked at them.
"Yeah, we should've come on a Monday," Death Gigas pondered. "Places like these are always busy on Mondays."
"And how would you know that?" Chaos asked. "It's not like any of us have seen an office on a Monday morning,"
"Or any other day!" Galien chipped in.
"Waste of time..." Hellmasker grumbled.
"...Are you done?" Vincent finally spoke.
The beasts looked at their human.
"What the fuck are we going to do about this?" Chaos finally demanded. His wings expanded outwards, and he flapped them freely. "Are you just going to let us go, or what?"
"..."
Hellmasker groaned loudly. "Yeah, that's great, Vince," he complained. "Leave all the thinking to us, as usual."
Vincent rolled his eyes. Gingerly, he sat on a chair with all four legs. The only chair in the room with all four legs intact. "I can't help you. Do what you wish."
"You're gonna be different without us," Death Gigas warned.
"No limit break? Yes, I know." Vincent replied. That was okay, there wasn't much fighting these days...
"We're practically part of your personality," Gigas continued, sparks beginning to fly, showing the beast's internal struggle.
"What are we gonna do, now you've kicked us out?" Galien, who had been silent until now, put in his two cents.
"Just leave large towns alone," Vincent advised. "Unless... you want to go back... inside?"
The four paused in thought.
"No," Chaos finally said. "I think we'll manage on our own."
As if coming to an unseen agreement, the four beasts leapt down from their various positions in the room.
"We'll come visit some time!" Hellmasker called sarcastically, the beasts tearing holes in the steel walls, and diving out. Their wings spread out, and they soared in unison across the setting sun, until they slowly faded from sight.
It was so pathetically touching, Vincent felt like vomiting.
But, he didn't. Instead, he found the others still arguing about the plan.
"They've gone," he said.
They turned to him in surprise.
"Did you kill them?" Tifa asked suspiciously.
"No."
"..."
"Shut up, Rude."
***
They gathered up their dead team mates, Tifa carefully checking the halls before taking Yuffie's body from the bathroom.
Tseng watched impassively as they went. Then he went to look for Reeve.
"Well, hey, that was pretty fucked up!" Cid exclaimed brightly when they resurrected him.
It was a sombre trip back to Costa De Sol. When they arrived, Yuffie chucked the book in the garbage, and Tifa made some tea.
The TV went on, and Cid and Barret immediately began to argue over the channels.
Cloud gave a musing sigh. He was glad everything was back to normal, relatively. Vincent was missing his limit beasts, and Cid would avoid cups of tea for at least a month, but other than that...
Something Tseng had said earlier had pressed on the top of his head. He'd been brought back to life, right? Well, why can't that be done for someone else? He wanted to see Aeris, so couldn't he just bring her back to life?
It sounded like a plan.
"Okay guys, listen up!" he stood suddenly in the living room.
Cait Sith, Yuffie and Cid immediately turned their ears towards the ceiling.
"Oh ha ha," Cloud said sarcastically in response. "Anyways, I think it's time for a holiday."
"But Cloud, Costa De Sol is a holiday resort," Vincent pointed out.
"That's true..." Cloud trailed off for a moment while he thought. "Just think of it as a holiday from a holiday."
"
Where should we go, Cloud?" Tifa asked, steaming cups of tea in both hands. She had a broad smile. "I heard Icicle In-"
"Wutai's a cheap tourist joint," Cait Sith sniggered. Yuffie's eyes bugged out of her head.
"IT IS NOT!!!"
While Cait Sith and Yuffie began a furious discussion on the faults of Wutai, Cloud said,
"We're going fishing in Mideel."
There was a moments silence, broken by the sounds of fists hitting moogle.
"Mideel?!" Tifa echoed. "Like where the lifestream is?"
"I ain't seen no &^^*$# fish down there," Cid snorted smoke.
"Jes plenty o' dead people." Barret added.
"Like AERIS!" Tifa finished. Then she turned accusingly at Cloud. "Why didn't you just say that?" she demanded angrily.
Cid looked uneasily at the steaming fluid sitting precariously in those spillable teacups. "%&^, get that %#$& away from me," he muttered.
"There's plenty of other people we can resurrect at the same time..." Cloud said.
"Oh yeah?" Tifa jutted her jaw out aggressively. "Like who?"
"Like...." Cloud thought for what seemed like an awfully long time. "Like Johnny! I bet you sure miss that guy!"
"Johnny's not dead." Tifa said flatly.
"Jesus Tifa, you're soundin' like you don't want Aeris around," Cid commented, and
instinctively held his hands out in surrender.
He had a good point though.
"Of COURSE I want to see Aeris, she's my friend!"
Cloud relaxed. "Okay, let's go!"
As usual, it was easier said than done. Cait and Yuffie were at all out war on the sofa, it took Vincent and Barret to pry Yuffie's hands off Cait's throat. Then Tifa decided she would pack a lunch for everyone. Meat or salad? With Barret's chronic indecision syndrome, he couldn't make up his mind. Then Cid ran out of cigarettes. Cloud wasn't game to ask him to fly, or even breathe without them for a change.
When they finally got started, the Highwind finally getting off the ground, Cait threw Yuffie's shoe overboard.
***
Mideel was a relatively quiet town. Well, until AVALANCHE turned up. As soon as the Highwind landed, Barret was striding around swearing, "I don't see no damn fish!"
Yuffie and Cait Sith were still fighting about Wutai's tourism problem, and Cloud was almost falling over from the amount of Phoenix Downs he was carrying.
"I hope you didn't pay for those," Tifa remarked, as they made their way to the pulsing lifestream.
"I wonder why no one fixed this place up," Vincent commented.
"Who's gonna %&#$^ pay for it?"
Cloud leaned over the side of the cliff, carefully dropped a Phoenix Down into the lifestream.
"How will the lifestream know that it's Aeris we're after?"
Barret was having a quiet snooze under a tree, Cid having a smoke beside him. At least some people were enjoying themselves. On the other hand, Cloud was growing increasingly frustrated.
"Nothing's happening!" He yelled at nothing in particular.
Tifa didn't look too disappointed. "Try another one," she suggested.
Cloud threw the next one it. "Aeris Gainsborough!" he yelled into the bright green murk.
"Wutai is ugly!" Cait Sith was singing, dancing around on his moogle. "Ugly like you!"
Yuffie launched herself at the annoying little toy. "You little &^%&%"
"You look like a gerbil!" Cait added, laughing hysterically while trying to avoid Yuffie's clawed fingers.
Vincent snorted.
Yuffie whirled to yell at him too. "SHUT UP!" She hit Cait upside the head. "YEAH! You're
just a dumb stuffed animal! Nyuk nyuk-"
Cait Sith winced. "Ouch." At the continuous noise of Yuffie's nasal laughed, he whipped out his megaphone and boomed, "WILL YOU SHUT UP!!!" Directly in her face.
The gust of air caught her off guard, and she toppled into Cloud, before flopping onto the ground.
Cloud was knocked to the side, sending hundreds of Phoenix Downs floating into the air.... where they drifted down into the lifestream.
"Great. Now look what you've &#$@ Done," Cid remarked.
Tifa ignored the pandemonium around her, and looked into the lifestream. 'What a pity,' she thought with a grin. 'Nothing happened.'
She patted Cloud on the arm, with the sincerity of a dog about to steal your lunch. "Sorry Cloud. It didn't work."
A slow, uneasy silence settled on the group.
Cloud looked down for a moment. Then, with a touch of sadness in his mako eyes, he said, "Let's go home."
"HEY! How 'bout that lunch, foo!" Barret protested. "I hungry!"
"Eat on the plane, you fat pig." Cait Sith poked him as he hopped past.
Barret's face darkened and he charged after the very disagreeable robot. "Why you-"
Cloud cast a single look over the lifestream, before walking with Tifa back onto the Highwind, which took off, leaving an empty space behind.
Minutes later, the lifestream began to bubble and churn....
That's not the end guys, can you tell? Heehee, I'll *try* to write some more, but then again... ^_^*.
Leave a review as ya go, more reviews, the more Yumiko writes...
Serious! Bye now!