Spoiled Yet Selfless
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy characters are owned by Squaresoft and not by me yadda, yadda, yadda. I you are reading this, then I pity you.
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The visions came, colorless, fast, and sharp as if she had eyes of an eagle.
FLASH!
Four chocobos crossing the ocean…
FLASH!
An airship descending into the crater…
FLASH!
She slid down the mountainside into the misty abyss, the people watched as she went…
FLASH!
She ands the four others dropped in front of a doorway, and she turned and began talking to someone that stood outside what she was seeing…
FLASH!
A battle erupted, a stuffed moogle came up behind a man in a cloak, knocking him to the ground…
FLASH!
She stood in front of a large crystal, its glow caused the room to seem endless, she reached out to touch it…
FLASH!
She sat up, and instantly looked around. When she realized that the room she was in was an inn bedroom, Aeris tried to calm her rapid heart. This had been the fourth time she had these sort of 'dreams', if you could call them that. They weren't dreams at all, however, but 'instructions' that her Overlord sent to tell her of her objectives. It was how she was always a step ahead of Cloud and his group…
Cloud…Her hand clenched the bed sheet absentmindedly, her teeth ground against each other. How dare he tell her no?!
I offered him paradise! An eternity with me! And he turns me down!
She felt the anger rise in her like a thermal of hot air.
Zack… That traitor!! It's his fault!!! Cloud was his friend! And he fed them all of those lies…. Just wait until I get my hands on him… I've been waiting to try out my new blades…
It took a moment before those words actually settled in her mind. And when they did, she felt ashamed.
What am I doing…? I… I've never thought things like this before… And Zack, he's just misguided as well….
"AAAAAGH!!!!"
The pain, just like at Corel. It attacked in waves, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. It felt like the nerves in her body where white hot and full of static.
Why does this keep happening to me…?!
It stopped a moment later, and she feel to her knees, winded. Her body trembled, and it wasn't from the short breaths she was taking.
Listen to your heart, child, remember how you used to felt.
"Ugh… Shut UP!" She clapped her hands over her ears. "When will you learn, you accursed being, that you don't control my life anymore!"
She stood up, grabbed her only belonging in her room, her dual swords, and stomped out of the room.
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Lodia took in a deep breath, a nearly choked on the salty air. She shook her head, and stared out into the sea…
Flashback
Rocket Town was finally coming into sight. Lodia couldn't have been more thankful to see it. For one thing, she was dead tired, and for another, she wasn't exactly found of the Jenovains.
Their Mistress stopped and turned to face the 11 that had wandered behind them. They stopped as well, arcing in front of her, grunting, an odd green mist escaping from their mouths. For those who had armor (which Avian had gotten them before they left the mountains), the metal clanged noisily in the wind. Aeris began to speak; her voice had a sharpness Lodia hadn't heard before.
"Continue to the crater. When you reach there, I want you four," she looked at four armorless creatures," to station yourselvess around the outer edge of the crater. Then you and you," she pointed to one of the two creatures decked in normal armor, and at one of the two creatures who wore sashes, bangles, and other kinds of accessories," to be halfway down one of the paths, and you and you," she pointed down the other two, "to be down the other path. Finally, you and you," Lodia turned to set her eyes on the largest of them all, almost invisible under the armor and weaponry it had, and then looked at the one next to it, smaller, thinner, who wore leathery clothes and had a black cloak. It had a bow in its hand, "to find the crystal and stand guard outside the room. As for you," she turned to another of the cloth less Jenovains, "find a man clothes in black, with a long swords and silver hair. Kill him." The creature roared, its scream loud and deafening, and ran off back the way they had come. She turned to the others. "Go."
The creatures, turned to the ocean, grunting continuously. Lodia watched, wondering what would happen next, how they intended to cross the gigantic ocean. The beasts neared the water, undaunted by the crashes of the freezing waves, and, without flinching, walked straight into the water. One by one, they disappeared from view, until the last one was gone.
/Flashback
Lodia gazed down, the footprints from the beast still there. She sighed, not sure how she should feel.
"Hey."
She looked up, smiling at Ranez, who wrapped an arm around her waist. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep well."
"Bad dreams?"
She barked a laugh out. "Ha, ha. Funny."
He frowned. "Do you miss dreaming?"
She looked back at the ocean. "Maybe. I don't know. I guess I do, but it won't matter once this is over. All of our dreams, well, our dreams from before, will have come true."
He held her closer. "Care to share those dreams? You used to before, but now I can't remember them."
"I was hoping you would, because neither can I."
An awkward silence rose between them, then…
"If you could dream again, what would they be of?"
She thought hard and long. "I guess…. To be how things were.. Before the Overlord saved us… Before Wutai had ever been attacked by Midgar." She held her hand up to her heart, as if to feel an imaginary scar. "I can still remember the pain, and it keeps feeling like everyday it hurts a little more…"
"You, too?" Ranez turned to her, then wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. "Don't worry, it's almost over. Just wait a little longer. He'll make it all right, and we'll live like we used to…."
She nodded, fighting the tears that threatened to spill.
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The water rippled as the Highwind passed overhead. The control room was mostly quiet, even though there were two more people on it that before. Sephiroth and Zack whispered to each other, their conversation inaudible under the screeching of machinery in the other room. Both Red and Vincent were silent. Cait and Yuffie were arguing while Barret was about three feet away ready to kill them both. Cid stood over the pilot's shoulder, giving him a hard time as usual. Just like old times.
Cloud shook his heads. He didn't want to, couldn't afford to think of old times. Everything led back to her…
Instead, he walked over to Tifa, who stood next to the glass, watching the waves before.
She looked at him, smiling. "How are you doing?"
He shrugged. "Fine I guess."
She gazed back out. "You're taking this a lot better than before."
"Before?" He looked at her, truly confused. She nodded.
"I don't' mean to rub it in, but you had her, and you lost her, again."
The was a silence as he thought about this, then she muttered quickly, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."
He shook his head. "No, you're right. It is like before… But…" He crossed hit arms and looked down, thinking. "I guess, what's different this time around is that, well, there still might be a way to help her." She nodded, and Cloud, unsure of what to say, left to see Cid. Tifa gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
Please Aeris…. I've broken his heart too many times… Don't be like me, come back to us.. to him…
She tried to control her emotions; she didn't want everyone asking her questions-
And without any sign of warning, the whole airship shuddered, everyone falling over as it tipped.
"What the hell was dat!?" Barret cursed, pulling himself off a whining Yuffie ("You idiot! You nearly flattened me!").
"%#&%," Cid shouted, looking at the controls. "The hell could it be? There ain't %$% out there!"
The airship tipped again, this time everyone managed to grab hold of something, minus Yuffie, who fell again ("God I'm gonna be sick!"), and pulled herself to her feet, running out into the engine room.
"What's going on!?" cried Tifa, as Vincent pulled Cait's mog to its feet.
"Not a %$&& clue! There isn't a cloud for miles!" Cd started, checking more gauges.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
"%$$# What now!?"
"Wait…" Cait started. "That sounded like Yuffie!"
"Cid! Get the ship under control!" Cloud shouted, then ran out, everyone else following him.
"Alright, you $%#%&$, let's do this!" Cid ordered as they got to work.
Cloud ran onto the catwalk just in time to see his golden chocobo hit whatever it was that was attacking it into the wall, the force causing the ship to tip again. Barret grabbed Cloud to keep him from falling over, Red and Cait crouched low to avoid tripping, and Vincent and Sephiroth, who had just entered, leaned onto the wall. Tifa, due to her smaller size, slipped, and would have fallen off into the machinery below hadn't Zack reached out to grab her by the waist.
"Thanks.." She huffed, glancing at the rotating gears below.
"It would've been one hell of a mess to clean," Zack grimaced. They looked up to see what was causing the problem.
"How the hell did it follow us here!?" Barret yelled as they gazed at the Jenovain which had gotten to its feet, growling as it looked at them all, Cloud ran forwards so that they could all get off the catwalk. The creature roared, the room shaking with its voice, and it charged at Sephiroth. Having no time to unsheathe his weapon, he grabbed it, deflecting the blows from the creature's claws with the sheath. Tifa ran to calm the chocobo, leading it back to the stables. Cloud looked to Zack, who nodded, and the two ran to help Sephiroth. Vincent and Barret ran to grab Yuffie, who was in shock. Cait went after Tifa.
Sephiroth knocked the creature away, dodging as it attacked again. He put quite a bit of distance between it and himself, where Zack and Cloud ran to join him.
"How could it have tracked us down!?" growled Cloud as he readied his Ultima Weapon.
"The humanity in them it gone; they're only Mako and Jenova cells now…" hissed Sephiroth. The creature jumped, but Sephiroth side-stepped, giving Zack time to slash forward, the creature ducked, however, and as Zack was almost on top of him, it grabbed him and threw the poor young man over tis shoulder at Cloud. Cloud sweatdropped as Zack came flying at him (Zack: "WooooOOOHAAHHHH!!") and dropped his sword, trying to catch him. He failed miserably as Zack nailed him in the chest, knocking him to the ground as well as the wind out of him. Zack got up, grinning apologetically.
"Sorry, man," he said, offering a hand.
"Yeah, yeah… Just lay off the steroids, alright?" Cloud grinned as Zack smirked at the joke.
"Well, as much as I'd rather wait to see the expressions on your faces when I'm properly beheaded, would you guys care to help?" Sephiroth said calmly as he parried another blow. Cloud grabbed his sword and ran forward, and as the monster jumped back to avoid the Masamune's sharp edge, he aimed a horizontal slice. He caught the monster across the arm, a deep gash that made its arm unusable. It roared in pain, and Sephiroth used the opportunity to run it through with his sword. It screamed again, Zack and Cloud wincing from the sound, and pulled itself free of Sephiroth's grasp, the Masamune embedded in its chest. It then backhanded Sephiroth, and limped over to the fallen man, stepping on him with on foot at his chest to hold him down, its clawed hand ready to kill. Zack wasted no time, grabbing out a fire materia and concentrating.
"FIRE 3!!!"
More screams. It pulled off the silver-haired man, roaring as it tried to put the fire out. It twitched, and fell to the ground, sputtering before it died. Zack breathed slowly before he walked over to pull Sephiroth up. "Damn, that thing wouldn't leave you alone."
He nodded, ripping his sword out of the corpse. "Ten more of these to go. Aeris must be making her run at the Crater now. We must hurry." The other men nodded, when Cid decided to run in.
"Did you find out what was-" he stopped, gaping at the monster. "How the hell did that piece of $#% get onto my baby?! And is that where that smell was coming from?! Hey!" He stuck is head into the control room. "New kid! Get in here and clean this up! It's bad enough with Yuffie's barfing!"
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Wolfwood11: Lol, I already sent you the email, so you already know.
K, I officially have the couples planned! And other than C/A, I'm not giving any more words on this topic. It's half the plot!
Ask me questions if you're confused on what's happening. Even the small things. I need to get stuff explained, and its hard when I know the answers, but aren't sure if they're getting to you.
A little action here, more thoughts. I want to build up the characters. There'll be lots of fighting next chapter!
Gonna be in Yosemite for a week, so it'll be a while til I update. I wasn't planning on updating, since no one was reviewing, but you all have Wolf Wood to thank for that. :/ Come on ppl, I don't set my standards THAT high, lol.