Cloud grimaced as he entered the lounge room following Scotch, and noticed that there were five other men inside the room as well, and knew of all of them were cronies of Corneo, he could tell by the fact that they were all giving him rather sleazy and dirty looks.
Cloud was still effectively disguised as a girl of course, and knew that so far, none of them had yet recognized him for what he really was under the dress and the wig. He still wore his regular clothes beneath the dress, and it had taken an effort to flatten his spiky blond hair under the wig, but he had just about managed it.
And then there was Cloud's sword, the Buster Sword; the expertly crafted type of sword that Shinra had often made back when they were just a weapons manufacture, and they still made them to this day so that members of SOLDIER would use them. Cloud knew that there was no way the sword would ever fit underneath his dress with his regular clothes.
So instead of being discovered with a gigantic sword in his hands, which would have given him away in less than a second flat, he had used a secret, special feature of the sword that Shinra had been able to operate on it.
With just the press of a button on the sword's hilt, the large blade completely withdrew back into the large hilt of the sword, leaving him only with the hilt to carry in his dress pocket, and if he pushed the button again, the blade would fully come back out, and he would take all these men by surprise, but for now he had to wait for the right moment to strike.
Scotch walked over to the back of the room, and stopped there, looking back at Cloud with a leer and a snicker, and the other men also stared at Cloud, as Scotch then spoke up.
"Hey guys, we've got a special guest here. Don't worry your pretty self, girl; we'll take real good care of you. This is all thanks to the big boss, Don Corneo that we get all these girls to do what we like with them. Hey, three cheers everyone, for Don Corneo, master of Wall Market!" shouted Scotch. The other men cheered back, each raising their glass of beer and drinking them down quickly. Scotch turned to face Cloud.
"Well then guys, are we all ready to show this little lady what we get up to?" asked Scotch, with a mischievous, nasty smirk that Cloud completely despised. At his words, the men had all gotten up at once, and moved creepily towards Cloud.
They all got up and moved over to Cloud with their arms outstretched, ready to rape him at any moment's notice, but the joke was on them, this wasn't just a helpless girl that they were dealing with this time, it was a man with a hidden gigantic sword, and he was reaching the end of his limits in patience and in his temper too. Cloud kept trying to move away, and was succeeding too, pushing past them and dodging them. Scotch finally noticed this, and frowned sharply.
"Now what's going on here? What's wrong, girl? You want to keep me company, instead? Are these jerks bothering you, eh? Don't worry about them, missy. I'll keep them away from ya, and I'll have ya for myself," said Scotch, grinning.
"(Alright, that's it!! I've had, I don't care anymore! I'm never putting up with this again for another minute, not with pretending to be a girl, wearing this dress and wig, and these guys all drooling at me, well NO MORE! I've had ENOUGH!)" thought Cloud, murderously enraged, as he spoke up with a large deal of forced calm.
"No way, I'm flattered and all that crap, but no thanks, I'd much rather vomit instead," said Cloud, spitefully, trying hard not to blow his cover, but he was getting very pissed off and extremely angry, his fists tightly clenched.
"What the heck…? Why the hell not then, bitch?" asked Scotch, sharply, starting to get suspicious and annoyed.
"It's because…well…I just AIN'T interested in any bunch of dirty rapist scum like YOU!!" roared Cloud, finally not able to take it anymore, as both his temper and patience completely exploded.
Cloud leaped backwards from Scotch and the others in the air, landing on a table in the middle of the room, and he then withdrew the hilt of his sword from his dress pocket, and firmly pressed the button on it.
At once, the gigantic blade sprang out from it into place, and using the blade, Cloud cut through his dress at once with sheer contempt, and sliced it right off him, revealing his regular clothes, his SOLDIER uniform, and he reached up and tossed his wig off, revealing his own spiky blond hair.
He then leaped right off the table, and slashed at it with his massive Buster sword straight across the middle of it in pure fury, and in seconds sliced it into pieces and wooden shreds as if it were just warm butter.
Some of the men took some horrified steps backwards from him, completely amazed and terrified by the sheer Mako enhanced strength of the man who had just revealed himself, to their absolute shock. Scotch gawped at Cloud, before he too seemed to explode with sheer anger.
"W-What the HELL!? A MAN!? Goddamn it, you freak!! Do you really think you can just get away with this shit, daring to humiliate us like this!? All of ya, kill him at once! Kick the crap out of him!! Kill the freak now!!" shrieked Scotch. Three men obeyed at once, and attacked Cloud. They were all armed with basic handguns, but Cloud was not concerned.
One of them quickly fired his gun at Cloud, and bullets flew towards him, but Cloud calmly held his huge sword in front of him as a shield, and just managed to block the bullets just in time with his sword, the bullets flying off the strongly crafted blade. Cloud then raised his sword, and swung it at the man, slashing right at his face and splitting it right open, blood flying everywhere as the corpse fell dead to the ground.
Horrified, the other man frantically fired his gun at Cloud, but Cloud just managed to hold his sword in front of him again, which blocked the bullets from hitting him as before. Cloud then rushed at the man, raised his sword and slashed it right through his chest, killing him instantly as the body fell hard.
The last man fired his gun, but once again, Cloud was able to deflect the bullets away from him using the strong blade of his sword. Cloud then raised his sword, and slashed it through the man's mid section, killing him instantly, and then, wiping off the bloodstains that covered his sword, Cloud spun around to face Scotch, who was looking beyond livid.
"What the damn bloody hell's the matter with you useless good for nothings, huh!? Alright then, come on over here, I'll show you losers how it's done!!" screeched Scotch, as he took out his own gun and sprang forwards to attack.
Scotch and the two other men in the room then attacked Cloud at once. Scotch quickly ran up to Cloud and then whacked him hard in the face with his gun, catching him by surprise and knocking him down to the floor, his face aching with pain, and feeling his nose bleed.
The other two men did the same thing as Scotch, and struck Cloud hard in the face with their guns before he could avoid them in time, knocking him backwards across the floor, and causing him to strike the wall hard.
Wiping some blood from his nose, Cloud quickly leaped right back up off the floor, raised his sword, and slashed it right through one of the men in a flash, killing him in one blow through the neck before he could even move an inch aside, the head flying in a trail of blood and striking the whole of the room, while the dead husk fell to the floor without sound.
Scotch then quickly fired his gun right at Cloud, twice in quick succession, many bullets firing towards Cloud, but he just managed to block all the bullets with his sword just in time, as he felt some of the bullets just whiz past him.
Cloud quickly sprang forwards as fast as he could, raised his sword at once, and slashed it straight through the other man, killing him in one blow through the chest, and then Cloud spun around and faced Scotch. The two of them were now the only two living people in the room.
Scotch fired his gun at Cloud, bullets quickly flying towards the Ex-SOLDIER. Cloud tried to leap out of the way of the line of fire, but he couldn't avoid the last few bullets in time, and he was shot in both of his arms by the bullets. Cloud fell hard to the floor, and he clutched his bullet wounds and couldn't help but yell in agony, blood starting to trail down both his arms, as pain blazed through them.
"(Ha, that shows the freak for thinking that he could just make fools of the Don and of me, and for believing that he would ever seriously have a chance of escaping here alive after his damn intrusion. Whoever this guy is, he's sure not gonna be wearing any dress no more,)" thought Scotch, with a large deal of morbid glee, as he prepared to kill Cloud right there.
Scotch smirked in clear triumph, thinking that he definitely had Cloud finished once and for all now, and aimed his gun right in the direction of Cloud's head, and was about to fire as his finger just started to squeeze the trigger, when suddenly Cloud leaped straight off the floor in a flash with warning, catching Scotch completely off guard, as Cloud had intended to do, and he raised his sword and swung it at him.
Scotch tried to jump away from Cloud in an attempt to dodge and avoid the murderous slash, but he didn't go back far enough in time, as Cloud swiftly swung his sword, which slashed straight through Scotch's arm, and sliced the whole limb right off, sending it falling to the floor, in a shower of blood.
Scotch fell to the floor, and screamed in extremely pain and agony, and was barely able to fire his gun at Cloud from his now only arm, which he did so twice. The bullets were poorly aimed this time though and all of them missed wildly, and as a result, Cloud didn't have to even move to avoid them.
Despite what he had just done to Scotch, Cloud still felt murderously enraged, his fury quickly consuming him as both his arms badly hurt and bled, and with a cry of rage and hate, he rushed forwards.
Cloud ran over to Scotch at amazingly quick speed before Scotch could even react, as Cloud leaped high in the air before him, raised his sword, and then brought his sword down on Scotch, the solid hilt of his sword striking him hard on his head and knocking him unconscious instantly, blood flowing from the stump where his arm had been, spreading across the already extremely blood stained floor.
Strangely enough, when Cloud went to strike Scotch down with his sword to finish him off, he hesitated and found to his own sheer surprise that he wasn't too bothered at all about finishing Scotch off at all, deciding to just leave him like this to serve as a big reminder for the guy in the future, so he left him unconscious, badly bleeding and wounded on the floor with only one arm left intact, and Cloud withdrew his sword into its metal locks behind his back.
With no one else left to fight past, and remembering that both Tifa and Aeris would need help, Cloud quickly left the now bloody lounge room, but he was limping, clutching his arms in agony as pain flared from the bullet wounds, leaving him in a great deal of agony from the wounds, and he knew that neither a Potion or a Cure Materia could heal them.
"HELP!!" screamed Aeris, suddenly, over from the dungeon room down the upstairs floor of the mansion, sounding both desperate and terrified, and Cloud knew at once that he needed to get to her as soon as possible.
Wasting no more time despite the intense agonizing pain that flared through his arms, Cloud quickly ran as fast as he could in his current condition down the stairs of the dungeon, although it made him wince as he did so, the sheer pain of the bullet wounds flaring up.
Kotch was chasing Aeris around the dungeon room, his arms outstretched, as Aeris kept trying to avoid him. Aeris was back in her regular clothes now, having gotten rid of her dress disguise. Evidently, like Cloud, she had also been wearing her normal clothes beneath her dress too.
"Hey, wait you! Ha, ha, ha! Come on, come on! We don't want that little body of yours to be getting all tired! Come on, just once! I won't tell anyone, I promise! I just wanted to act like I got a cute girl for once! Just once!" shouted Kotch, insistently.
Aeris ignored him though, and quickly ran over to Cloud on the stairs, noticing him there, with a big sense of relief, but Kotch still followed her up there. Mustering up all her courage, deciding it was about time that she defended herself instead of always relying on Cloud to save her, Aeris turned back and faced Kotch on the stairs.
"I'm so sorry," said Aeris, quietly, and she meant it too, but then she quickly pulled out her long and solid quarterstaff anyway, and she whacked Kotch hard across the head with it, sending him staggering backwards.
Without pausing, Aeris then struck Kotch hard across the head once again with her staff, causing him to lose his balance and send him tumbling hard down the stone stairs, crashing hard into a stone table in the middle of the dungeon, knocking him unconscious in the process, but not killing him.
Just like with before, Cloud wasn't bothered about finished Kotch off, and Aeris didn't like killing anyway, so they just left him unconscious on the dungeon floor. Both Kotch and Scotch would live through their injuries, but it would take them both a long time to recover. Cloud didn't give a damn about it either way though, and he turned to face Aeris.
"Aeris, are you alright now?" asked Cloud, looking clearly concerned. Aeris nodded in reassurance at him, but she seemed slightly irritated by what had happened back there, and she was clearly worn out too, as she panted for breath.
"I've already told you this fact loads of times, Cloud, so start listening to me for once. I'm used to danger, and I always have been, alright? However, to tell you the truth, my heart was really pounding fearfully back there. But if you take me lightly, you're going to pay for it," said Aeris, grinning slightly. Cloud looked urgent and impatient now.
"Come on Aeris, let's just stop wasting time, we've got to go help Tifa interrogate Don Corneo, remember?" reminded Cloud, sharply. Aeris nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, you're right, Cloud, we should go find and help her right now. Let's just hurry before anything bad happens to her," said Aeris.
They both started to walk onwards up the stairs, but the pains from Cloud's bullet wounds flared up intensely, and Cloud fell to his knees on the stairs in agony, clutching his arms, which still bled freely, and the sheer intense pain was getting really unbearable now. Aeris dropped to his side in concern.
"Cloud, what's wrong?" asked Aeris, clearly very worried.
"Shot…in the arms…" gasped Cloud, as pain assaulted him.
"Hold still," said Aeris, gently, as she began to pray.
While she was praying, Aeris set Cloud's head in her lap and smoothed some of the blonde hair from his face. A blue globe of energy suddenly appeared and sprung to life between her now outstretched hands, dancing between her fingers, and sending a chill through her whenever she touched the blue ball of energy.
Gently, she concentrated and willed the ball of light to expand slightly, spreading her arms slowly until it was now big enough to cover Cloud's bullet wounds several times over. Aeris closed her eyes and slowly pushed the glowing sphere of energy down into Cloud's chest, and it vanished into him.
"(One of my more unique and strange abilities, the power to heal someone even from the brink of death itself, as long as they regain consciousness. I used this on Cloud before at the church, and he'll be able to recover now too,)" thought Aeris.
Waves of biting cold shot through Cloud at once, splitting through the dark haze that had just made up his world, and snapping his eyes wide open. Cloud blinked and rubbed his eyes, then took a deep breath and glanced around, noticing suddenly that the pain from his arms were gone, and his bullets wounds were all completely healed.
"Well Cloud, you really gave it your best shot this time, I can see that, but at least you're still alive," said Aeris, smiling with a great deal of relief.
Cloud looked up at Aeris with a blank expression. It wasn't until he reached down to touch his now faded bullet wounds that he suddenly realized what she had just done. Even the bloodstains were gone.
"What…what just happened…?" asked Cloud, astounded, standing back up on the stone stairs, and staring at Aeris in sheer amazement and disbelief.
"You were hurt and wounded, Cloud. So I healed you, and helped you back to full strength again, just like I did back in the church yesterday. That's all," said Aeris, quietly, with clear modesty, and she stood back up on the stairs.
"(How can she just stand there and act as though this is all just no big deal? Just how the hell can she DO all of these things, for crying out loud? What's her secret? That's the second time she's healed me and saved my life now, and I do owe her a lot for it, but there's no way I'm not finding out about why she can do all this. After this situation with the Don is over, I'm going to find out her secret once and for all, whether or not it comes from either her, Shinra, or her mother, I will find out the reason once and for all, and that's a promise,)" thought Cloud, determinedly.
Cloud was still completely astonished that Aeris had just been able to heal him and save his life yet again, in exactly the same way that she had previously saved his life back in the church, but then with a start, he remembered that Tifa was in danger, and needed to be assisted at once.
"Come on Aeris, let's get going right now, and find Tifa before she might get in big trouble," said Cloud, urgently, and Aeris nodded at once, as they both rushed over to Don Corneo's room, without another word, quickly running towards the Don's bedroom as fast as they could, both clearly very worried for Tifa's safety, as they entered the middle room of the upstairs floor, and rushed over to the door of the Don's room.