Ooh, things get serious...! Well, sort of.


Part 9 : Our Monster

"Let's MOSEY!"

Tifa looked around.

"...Well, where'd it GO?"

"In the trees maybe?-"

"-It'd cut half of 'em down..."

"Maybe it's behind those hill or something..."

They stood scratching their heads outside the Highwind. It shouldn't possible to lose a twenty foot tall monster, but they'd done it.

"Or maybe it dug a biiiiig tunnel and -"

"OK, guys!" said Cloud, "Let's get organized!"

"Who made you leader?" muttered Barret. "Nah, I don't have any objections... I just wondered..."

"Thanks... Look, if we divide into 4 groups-"

"Ooh! I pick Vincent. I wanna have The Claw protectin' me!"

"Well, I pick Cid so I can make sure he doesn't kill himself."

Tifa and Cloud looked at each other. "Cloud?"

"Sure," Cloud shrugged.

"Well, ain't that wonderful." Barret looked around at Red and Cait Sith. "I get the Shinra puppet -"

"Put the past behind you, Barret..." sighed Red.

"-an' the young politician-philosopher. Great."

"You don't like us?" Cait looked almost comically dismayed and even his moogle contrived to look upset.

"Ahem!" said Cloud. "We can't waste time here! It's gotta be somewhere around here. If we all try to somehow drive it -"

"Yeah right, just drive a &ing twenty foot monster around..." muttered Barret.

"If we try to get it to the centre of this valley, we should be able to all fight it together. OK? Right! Let's-,"

"Don't you dare..." growled Barret.

"Let's MOSEY!" Instinctively he hi-fived Tifa and they ran off.

"Damn pair of lovebirds..." muttered Cid. "C'mon Shera."

"Can you run in that thing?" asked Yuffie, dubiously eying Vincent's cloak.

"Yes! Well, sort of..."

"I'll race you then! We gotta get round to the other side of this hill, OK?" She sprinted off.

"Urgh..." said Vincent, starting after her. "Whose bright idea was this?"

Red looked around at his group. "How about we start from this side of the valley?" he suggested, diplomatically.

"OK," said Barret grudgingly. "Sounds good."

Cait Sith jumped up and down on his Moogle. "Alright! Come on guys, we got us a monster to fight!"


"Have we..." Tifa puffed as she and Cloud trudged across the side of the hill. "Given any... thought... to how we're actually meant to... fight this... thing...?"

"Not... really... Only, maybe we could - THERE IT IS!"

"Where?" But she'd seen it by then. And she could see Yuffie and Vincent streaking towards it at something way past full speed. "Come on Cloud, let's GO!"

They ran. Twenty seconds later, they heard Cid and Shera running from behind them. Then Red, Barret and Cait came variously running and sort of bouncing. Cloud's original plan was... sort of... working. They had the Thing backed onto the steep vine-covered rockface of some sort of hill.

"Long range weapons and magic ONLY!" Cloud yelled. "Don't anyone get too close to it!"

"Like we were going too..." Yuffie muttered as she took aim and threw the Conformer straight at the Purple-Clawed-Thing's - head...?

The weapon made contact and spun back towards her again, hardly inflicting any visible damage - and she barely had time to catch it before she had to duck under the fierce claw slash the Thing retaliated with. This Thing could take more than ten feet in a stride, she realised, dismayed. Trouble.

"Little help here?" she shouted as Cloud and others got there.

Vincent was firing as fast as he could, but it didn't seem to be doing a huge amount of damage either, and he kept having to run around to to the other side to avoid getting his head rather irreparably removed from the rest of his body.

Cloud charged in, sword flashing, straight for the monster's back.

"What was that about long range, Cloud?"

He ignored her. "Just try to keep it busy on your side too!"

"Sure..."

"Someone sense for its weak points!" yelled Cid.

Cait Sith bounded forward and focused for a second. "It doesn't have any!" he yelled back helpfully.

Tifa decided to try any old magic. "Ice3!" It sent the beast wheeling towards her, roaring in fury, and she rolled breathlessly out of the way as Barret's gunfire arrived to distract the monster's attention from the other side. It was so fast as well as vicious, that was the problem... That and the fact it had no ascertainable weaknes... HOW are we meant to keep this up?

A fierce howl from Red, and the sky was suddenly covered with bright stars. The huge blast of magic that shot down with his limit break at least gave them a few seconds to catch their breath -

And the Thing actually staggered under the power as Red jumped back. Then -

"What the (?" yelled Cid -

It careered straight for the ivy wall - and pushed through it, into the hill itself.

"Caves?" cried Shera in astonishment as they all ran after it.

They passed right into the hill, stood for a second in a large dark cave, hearing huge footsteps echoing to deafening levels - the floor shook - then the walls shook too -

"Uh, guys!" yelled Cait Sith, as the first rocks started to fall.

"Get away from the entrance!" Cloud shouted, staring up at it for a second.

They all piled against each other, further into the cave. Rocks shifted and fell and fell and covered the entrance. The daylight disappeared. There was silence.

Tifa opened her eyes.

No entrance. Nothing. Just... a new rock wall.

"...Everyone OK?" asked Shera.

"Yeah..."

"Ugh... yep..."

Tifa nodded before realising that wasn't very noticable in the pitch darkness. "Yeah."

"Get away from the entrance?" said Yuffie bitterly. "What a smart idea. We're stuck in here now you realise?"

"Shera!" Cid barked, "See any way to bust us outta this?"

Shera felt along the fallen rock. Near completely packed solid. "I don't see anything..." she muttered. "No... even if I had a load of explosives I doubt I could manage it without sending the whole thing crashing down... I'm no expert with munitions, and what we need is an expert. And a lot of explosives."

"What we £&ing need is Jessie," said Barret quietly, and kicked despondently at the rock wall.

"And a lot of explosives," added Yuffie.

"She was never without 'em," he responded petulantly.

Yuffie turned to where she guessed Cloud was and Glared in that direction. "So whaddya we do? Oh Great Leader? Cloud?"

"I'm thinking!" he snapped.

"Cloud..."

"Hey, Tif," he said, sounding like he was forcing a smile.

She walked slowly over the way his voice had come from.

We're gonna be OK, Cloud? Aren't we? She nearly said it out loud. Just what they needed. Yeah, Tif, you just sit there and be useless, Cloud'll make it all better, won't he? She was mocking herself. He was no more a saviour-knight-in-shining-armour than she was. None of them were exactly born heroes... A lot more words came to mind. Things to say. Things to tell him. Confessions, questions, meaningful, important... Cloud, I... or Aeris... or - nothing. Nothing she'd ever actually say. She just shook her head and no one saw.

"I don't believe this," said Yuffie, flatly. "I mean, I - I can't believe this is really happening."

"Yeah, well, it is." Barret kicked the wall again, hard, but only acheived extreme pain in his foot. "DAMN!" he yelled.

"Uh... not meaning to scare anyone, but we should probably keep the noise down," said Red quietly. "We don't want anything else to collapse... And... maybe just - try to... save your breath..." He trailed off, miserably.

"We gonna run out of air?" asked Yuffie, voice now completely dulled.

Barret cursed something inaudibly under his breath. "Rather be squashed by a damn rock," he said.

"Where is everyone?" came the voice of Cait Sith from... somewhere. "Anyone gotta Fire with them? Yuffie?"

"No," said Vincent quickly. "Fire will use up the oxygen."

"Oh man..." Yuffie's voice from somewhere, very small and tight.

"It's OK, Yuffie."

She didn't feel exactly able to believe him. "Vincent, are we gonna-"

"Yuffie, where are you?"

"Here..."

Vincent made his way over to her, crawling so he could use his hands to feel his way on the rough floor. "That you?" he asked, putting his arm around someone.

"That's me," she sniffed.

"It's OK," he said again.

"That's an incredibly big lie, Vincent Valentine."

"..."

"Thanks." She sniffed again. "No, OK, I'm OK, I'm good... Let's just concentrate on thinking of some way out."

They thought.

Cid hit the new rock wall a couple times with his spear. Barret, not to be outdone, fired off a couple rounds with his gun-arm. This acheived nothing except for one bullet to hit Cait Sith's moogle on the rebound.

"Hey!" he protested, "Mind where yer pointing that thing!"

A few more bullets clinked to the floor and then there was silence again.

Yuffie broke it helpfully with: "It's just I can so easily imagine all these monsters coming and eating us..."

"Ugh... don't!" cried Tifa

"Hey, wait a minute! We are so stupid!" It was Cait Sith's voice again, sounding much more usually chirpy and chipper.

"Huh?"

"Why did we come in here in the first place? We were chasing that thing! And I don't think anything but the entrance collapsed, and it can't have got out-"

"So there must be more to this cave than this little bit!"

"Unless it's sitting right next to us," said Tifa.

"Yeah, and not attacking?" responded Yuffie, sounding much happier.

"Good point."

"OK!" said Cloud, taking some sort of command again, "So... everyone grab someone else -"

"I got The Claw!" Yuffie yelled, grabbing it.

"-and we'll try going this way..."

They formed a long line, moving forward slowly.

"I wish there was more light... Maybe we should light a fire..."

"No... not unless we really need to."

"Man, we need one of them stupid Tonberries..."

"No! Don't even mention them!"

"Ew, but what if there are all these monsters crawling around here?"

"Well, we hope there's at least one."

"We hope?"

"Well... sorta..."

"Shut the £& up, y'all."

"Shut up yourself!"