Chapter 9: Waiting
Cloud reached the elevator, and pressed the button to call it down. As he waited a blonde teen came up the corridor towards them having exited one of the other rooms there, he looked upset, but then again Cloud would be upset if he had a tattoo like that on the side of his face. The blonde teen came up behind Vincent, he wasn't looking where he was going and walked straight into the vampire wanna-be, knocking both of them over and onto the floor. Cloud burst out laughing as they tried to pick themselves up from a tangle of arms and legs.
"Sorry, man, didn't see you there." The tattooed face blonde said as he sat on Vincent's hair stopping him from being able to move his head, while his right leg pinned Vincent's head and right shoulder to the floor.
Vincent muttered something in response that made Cloud glad that the other man didn't have as good hearing as Cloud had, else a fight would have broken out there on the floor, he hadn't know that Vincent had such a…colourful vocabulary.
"Did you say something?"
"I said get the hell off my hair!" Vincent shouted, not able to get him off with one arm pinned down and the other in a sling
"Sorry" He got up off Vincent and helped the ex-Turk to his feet, then cleaned his right hand on his shorts, inspected it, then held it out to Vincent for him to shake.
Vincent rubbed his head angrily and turned his back on the teen, 'Is this whole place full of teenagers?' Cloud wondered briefly as he watched them laughing. The teen shrugged, looked at Cloud instead and held out his hand again, Cloud took it, the guy looked amazed that he had.
"Hi, I'm Zell, and you two must be the new guys that everyone's talking about. Can you tell him I'm sorry?" The tattoo man said pointing at Vincent's back
"Hi Zell, I'm Cloud and this is Vincent, I don't think he'll listen to me."
"Oh."
Cloud laughed again at the guy, he liked Zell, especially now that he had sat on Vincent and messed up his hair, Vincent was very touchy about his hair, even more so than Cloud was. The last time someone had messed it up, he had gone ballistic, then again anyone would do if you went to sleep looking like normal and then woke up with a multitude of plaits and pink beads, courtesy of Yuffie and Tifa.
"On the way here did you happen to see anyone?" Zell said suddenly changing the subject
"We met Miss Trepe and Selphie, and Squall. Why?"
"I mean when you were on your way here. I've lost the two students that I've been assigned to." He noticed Cloud's blank look and so explained "Every SeeD had a couple of students or more to keep an eye on and help train, it was Squall's idea to help the students to become as good as they can be with experts to give them personal training in pairs or small groups. When you join Garden a SeeD will be assigned to keep an eye on you, to train you, keep you outta trouble, just to be there, ya know? There are a few SeeDs without anyone assigned to them, Squall for one, Xu, Quistis and Rinoa too, they've got too much going on to train cadets properly."
Cloud nodded, 'this could be a problem when I'm carrying out the boss's mission if we're being constantly being watched over'.
"Well, if you see anyone called Kea or Stev, come tell me, 'cause I've lost them, they're new SeeDs. Quistis thinks that they've eloped, but I know them and I don't think they did. No one expects them to come back." He continued as though talking to himself.
"If we hear anything we'll tell you." Cloud said, knowing that neither would return because one was dead on Planet, and the other was drowned at sea if Leviathan hadn't killed him first. "I'm sure they're okay." Cloud struggled to keep his face looking concerned, and not pleased, especially when Vincent looked at him curiously with an eyebrow raised. The elevator pinged as it arrived, giving him a chance to turn his back on Zell as he got in, and tried to compose himself.
"So…what are you doing now?" Asked Zell as he hit the button for the ground floor
"I don't know, we've gotta hang about until 8 pm tonight to find out if we're in or not."
"Well do you wanna get something to eat? They do really good hot dogs here; if we hurry they might be serving them now. I'm going to the cafeteria anyway so you're both welcome to join me."
"Sure, but what are hot dogs?"
The trio slowly made their way to the cafeteria as Zell explained about hot dogs, but Cloud wasn't really interested once he found out that they weren't real dogs. He was itching for a fight, and wanted a go in this Training Centre that Squall had mentioned in the interview while explaining what was in Garden. As soon as they'd eaten he was going to go try the place out. They walked around the large fountain in the centre of Garden; Zell was pointed out what was down each corridor and a few people that he knew.
"That's Rinoa, she's Squall's girlfriend, and that's Quistis she's talking to, she's the one who you'd have filled in forms with. That's the library girl with a pony tail, I don't know her name…" Cloud tuned him out and looked around him, everyone here was just a kid, he saw a few adults, and some children, but most people were teenagers. It looked like the mighty SeeD force wasn't that mighty after all, 'but then again look at me, I only look like a kid too, not much older than Yuffie and what a pain in the ass she was'.
They got to the cafeteria, Cloud and Vincent sat down on a table by themselves while Zell got the food.
"What do you think of this place?" Vincent asked Cloud
Cloud frowned at him, not wanting to make small talk with the sniper, but decided to answer anyway, "I don't think that we'll have much trouble carrying out the boss's mission. Everyone is really weak here, I could take them all on." Cloud said confidently, "The strongest guy here seems to be Squall, I wanna test his skills, but the boss said we need to be careful, so I don't know how I'm going to do that without giving away my strength."
Vincent nodded, "Don't get all mad or excited and start fighting like you normally do, 'cause if they realise what we're doing they won't be happy, and they'd get suspicious if they see how strong we are."
"Think I don't know that?"
"Know what?" Asked Zell who had made his way over with the food without either of them noticing.
"Erm…know that milk chocolate is better without nuts or raisins in."
"Nah, I like fruit and nut chocolate, but its hard to get around here, you can only get it in a few places, so I'd eat what I can get." Cloud frankly couldn't care less about Zell's chocolate preferences, but at least he hadn't heard what they were talking about, for Zell's sake he better not have.
"Nice sunglasses, Cloud." Zell commented
Cloud had forgotten that they were there, "Thanks, nice...er…tattoo."
Zell grinned, "Really? Most people don't like it, Seifer used to say it looks like someone threw something at me and I forgot to wipe it off." Cloud looked at Zell's face, he could see where this Seifer guy was coming from, whoever he was, it did look like someone had thrown a handful of mud at him. It must be boring in this place if all everyone did was eat hotdogs and chocolate and comment on each other's tattoos.
1900 hours:
Cloud and Vincent had finally got away from the many people wanting to congratulate them on joining, no matter how many times Cloud had pointed out that they hadn't been told they had got in, people just assumed that they had. A few people had commented on Vincent's 'broken' arm, but had been put off from any more questions when Vincent had looked at them with his red eyes and said coldly "I don't want to talk about it".
They had reached the Training Centre; it seemed to be empty of people apart from Cloud and Vincent. Cloud sighed with relief, he was sick of the happy people in Garden, after the depressing people of Planet it just seemed wrong to have so many cheerful people, it was like some sort of creepy dream, 'maybe this is what Planet would be like is the boss had failed and been killed'. Cloud had reclaimed their packs off the blonde instructor and placed his on the floor of the Centre next to Vincent, who was sat on the floor waiting for Cloud to start practicing his sword skills while keeping an eye out for anyone who might come across them unnoticed.
Squall stood behind a tree in the Training Centre, he had heard some monsters approaching and so had decided to ambush them, but instead found the two brothers that were wanting to join, 'what were their names? Oh yeah, Cloud and Vincent Valentine.' He decided to watch them for a bit because Cloud seemed to be getting ready to practice his skills, and Squall wanted to know what he was like and how strong he really was.
Cloud handed Vincent the sunglasses, he didn't want to train with them on, as they would hinder his eyesight. Cloud blinked with the brightness of the area without the glasses on, his eyes glowed brightly with Mako as they got used to the sudden light. He swung Ultima Weapon from his back and stopped it in front of him as he got into his fighting stance when a Grat sprung out of one of the bushes. Cloud had never seen one of these monsters before, but that didn't make him hesitate when he saw it start to attack. Cloud lashed out with sword as it tried to hit him with one of its tentacles, the sword easily cut it off before it stuck him. He ran to the monster and swung his blade low, cutting off its legs on the left side, the Gnat screeched and fell onto its side. Cloud walked over to the wildly thrashing monster and plunged his sword into its chest where he guessed the heart would be. The monster stopped its thrashing and laid limply on the floor. Cloud looked around to see if it had dropped anything, and discovered some sleeping powder, he threw it over to Vincent as the monster's body slowly faded away, he had never discovered why they did that, only monster's bodies faded away, human's and animal's didn't, the world was a strange place, and the monsters here were easy to kill.
Squall closed his gaping mouth; Cloud had killed the Gnat as if it were nothing. He had never seen anyone handle one as easy as that before, baring him and his SeeD group. Cloud wasn't all he seemed to be.
Cloud turned around as he heard a noise, this time two Gnats jumped out from behind a bush, Vincent knew that Cloud could handle two of these weak monsters, so stayed put on the ground. The ex-Turk fingered the packet of sleeping powder, an idea forming in the back of his mind, he smiled and put it into his pocket, not the backpacks.
Cloud lunged at the first Gnat, before either attacked, cleanly sweeping off its head. Killing it with the one blow. He turned to the second one, as the first faded away, a stray tentacle hit Cloud in the chest, as it decided to run away rather than stay and fight. Cloud yelled in pain as it connected with his broken ribs. He fell to the ground clutching his chest, gasping in pain, while ignoring the threat above him as the Gnat realised that it could actually defeat the human and stopped its attempt to flee the battle.
Vincent jumped up and ran over to Cloud, when he realised that Cloud wasn't faking, he clawed the Gnat with his left hand, tearing through the bandages covering the claw part of his arm, and the monster's face. He leapt again at the Gnat, and tore an artery in its neck; it fell to the floor, screeching in pain and blood loss. He felt Chaos rising within him, but he pushed it ruthlessly down, now was not the time for one of his transformations.
Vincent ran over to Cloud, he was unconscious. He had no idea what was wrong with the blonde sword master. Vincent checked to see if he was breathing, he seemed to be okay, 'so why had he yelled like that when that monster hit him? I defeated it easily enough.' A man came running out from behind a tree, as Vincent leaned back from checking Cloud, it was Commander Squall. Vincent hastily hid his left arm behind his back to stop him from seeing it.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, but we need to do something. Something is really wrong."
"We need to take him to the Infirmary ASAP."
Vincent nodded and picked up Cloud, hanging him over his shoulder, hoping that it wouldn't make him worse, Squall picked up the weapons and packs and hurriedly led the way out of the Training Centre and towards the Infirmary.
Authors note:
This chapter is dedicated to all my fans, especially Langley, who keeps hassling me to write more (although he hasn't reviewed yet, hint hint hint) ^_^