chapter 11. In which you can read my attempt at a battle scene... :sigh:

Oh, and Crescent-Wish... here be Cloti! Just a bit :)

-o-

Part 11 : Saving the World, continued

"Hey, I wouldn't call this a crisis!"

Tifa and Cloud walked along briskly and without talking much. Their footsteps echoed a bit, but were solid enough. Tifa's left hand trailed along with wall, marking a pink splodge here and there. Her arm was aching a bit from holding it up so long, but she wasn't about to complain to Cloud. Still, wouldn't it be so ironic if I couldn't actually hit the damn monster because my arm gave out...?

"Cloud?"

"Yeah...?"

Um... what now...? "Oh.. nothing."

"...OK."

They walked on.

"Tifa..." Cloud began.

"Mmm?"

"...nothing..."

They walked on.

"Cloud-" "Tifa-" they said at the same time.

"Um..."

"Er..."

"Oh... £&( it. Sorry, Tif. I just... kinda... suck at this whole... conversation... thing..."

"'S OK. Me too, seems like."

"I'm a lot better on the phone."

"Yeah, me too."

"And then I get really bad in crisis situations."

"Yeah. But, hey, I wouldn't call this a crisis!"

"Suppose we've had worse..." Cloud demurred.

"Way worse. This'll be a breeze, right?"

"Yeah," Cloud said, all spike-haired-cool again. "No problem at all. We'll just walk through this thing. ...Just - pretend we're both dazzlingly witty wonders as well, and we're sorted."

Tifa felt all warm and glowy inside.

"Sure thing."

She smiled, and impulsively slipped her hand into Cloud's. He squeezed it, and they practically skipped onwards.

And then the PHS rang.

They stopped dead for a second before Cloud's hand flew to his pocket.

"What's happened?" he said immediately.

"Yellow dots, now!" barked the voice of Barret.

"What - but yellow's Yuffie and-"

"Yeah, I know! They just phoned. They're the ones who've found it! Come on, get yer asses moving!"

Barret had hung up.

"Yellow?"

Cloud nodded, and they ran back the way they'd come.

-o-

"Why me why me WHY ME?"

"Concentrate, Yuffie!" Vincent yelled back, taking careful aim with the Death Penalty.

"I AM concentrating! The shouting helps, OK?"

The 'Don't get into a fight if you can possibly help it' idea had not worked out. Or, rather it had - they'd tried to help it - they'd just failed, so they were in a fight.

A big, scary fight.

With a very big and definitely scary monster with No Discernable Weakness.

Yuffie caught her Conformer neatly, only to be knocked aside by a huge - well, it was possibly a foreleg. She caught herself before her head got too damaged. Made it to her feet again seeing stars and chocobos.

"ALRIGHT, NOW YOU'VE REALLY DONE IT!" she shrieked. "ALL CREATION!"

There was a mushrooming of ultra-violet, and the monster staggered, twisted... and almost fell, one of its limbs going limp and staying that way.

"Yes!" Vincent cheered, twirling his gun around in celebration.

"Thank you, thank you...! Now stop showing off and get fighting!"

"Yes, Sir... " Vincent almost grinned in spite of himself. Then: "OW! Oh my- what WAS that?"

"Uh... AAah!" Yuffie managed, tripping backwards as she too was hit by the blast of green energy shot from the beast.

"It's got Ultima?" Vincent gasped, agog, when he could speak.

"Looks like it... D'you think we made it angry or something?"

"Well, maybe it -" he spun sideways to a avoid a claw "objects to having a leg blown off!"

The attacks were getting even more ferocious - and with the addition of magic, Yuffie started to panic.

"We need the others! Where ARE they? OW! - Should I try the PHS again?"

"How exactly would you do that? Don't worry - they'll be here!" In his head, Vincent was chanting in a very undignified and childish way: Come on, please come on, hurry up...

"Only I really REALLY don't think we can keep this up!"

Vincent fired and dodged, reloaded, dodged, fired again... "Don't say that! Just CONCENTRATE, OK?" Dodge, reload, trip, fire, reload...

"I AM!" she screamed, and to prove the point, added: "ULTIMA!"

Another green burst of light... And another extraneous part of the monster flopped limply.

"...Hey, it worked?" said Yuffie, mildly surprised. "Right! I'll"

"YUFFIE!"

Yuffie rolled automatically to the side, winded, unable to speak.

The monster turned and rushed in to strike again for the kill.

And Vincent felt the energy rush through him, and had just time before it overtook him to say: "Oh no you DON'T!"

And Chaos roared.

-o-

"How much... further?" Barret panted, sprinting to keep up with Nanaki.

"I think we're nearly there..."

"It's not... fair... You've got... four legs!"

"Well what about ME?" moaned Cait Sith, as his moogle bounced awkwardly along at high speed.

"Yer not really here!"

"True, true, you do have a point there... As Reeve I could be sitting on a sofa eating caviar for all you know..."

Barret growled in frustration. "Ugh..." he said, "stop being so damn... annoying!"

"Me, annoying?"

"You two, shut up!" interrupted Red suddenly. "We're here! It's right around this corner!"

"How can you tell that?"

There was the very loud sound of more feral screeches and yells.

"Ah. Right then... Monster, you gonna DIE!"

They charged forward.

"We're here!" proclaimed Cait. "Yuffie! Vince- ah, Chaos. Right... Nice to see ya! We're here!"

"You're here you're here you're here!" screamed Yuffie, dancing on the spot, and then having to move very quickly to a different spot for fear of being killed.

It hadn't taken her too long to recover from the last powerful blow, but it had added a huge great bruise to her as-yet-uninjured side, and she felt like she wanted to limp on both legs at once.

"Try Ultima!" she yelled to the new arrivals. "I think it works - yiiikes - but I think my magic's down... I'm t-too tired..."

Nanaki shot a quick concerned glance at the girl before yelling out the spell. Just how long had they been fighting alone?

Huge claws slashed through the air, missing Barret by inches. He retaliated with a barrage of heavy fire. Red flipped forwards to slam into the back of the monster's head, temporarily dazing it. Cait took the opportunity to try Ultima again and Yuffie threw her weapon with all her might. All the while, the cave echoed to the battle cries and fierce attacks of Chaos...

Another part of the Thing relinquished its strength.

And - finally - Cloud and Tifa, and Cid and Shera arrived.

"Hi!" shouted Cloud, unreasonably chipper, "What we miss?"

"Try Ultima..." Yuffie said tiredly to Tifa, ignoring Cloud.

"Yuffie, are you alright? You look really beat up!"

Yuffie shook her head briefly and leapt sideways, a little slower off the mark than usual. "Just concentrate on the fight, OK?"

"Right..."

It was the extra strength they needed. Here, in the enclosed cave where there was nowhere to run, the monster's speed was next to useless. They had it trapped.

Cloud's sword flashed down. Cid drove his spear in straight after it.

And Chaos struck again and again, oblivious to pain, uncaring as he flew straight at the beast's face.

Final Heaven knocked the thing to the ground...

Then Shera fired a final shot with deadly accuracy.

And it was all over. A pyre of dying red embers, and the monster flashed out of existence or vision.

-o-

Wings receded and Yuffie collapsed next to Vincent: just a torn and bloody man in ruined clothes, breathing faintly.

"Hey... We did it! Us! Actually... did it!" She felt way too tired to put much exclamation into the exclamation marks. "Eh, Vin-cent?"

"..."

"Vincent?"

"I. . . ..."

"VINCENT!"

She did the Glare on him as she clumsily sat up, fiddled with her armlet; felt the Cure orb under her fingers. I'm too tired to do this! she thought, knowing before she mumbled "cure!" that it wasn't going to work. She turned the Glare to the materia. "Come on!" she yelled. "CURE, damn you!"

Feeble light appeared around Vincent at the same time as Yuffie felt like she was falling further into the ground. "...ugh..." she said vaguely.

Vincent stirred. "Lucrecia-..." he breathed.

"Oh man, not that..." Yuffie flicked hair out of her eyes and focused on the green orb again. "CURE!"

"Lu-"

"It's Yuffie. Yuffie, OK! Gawd, don't go and lose your memory as well..." She pinned him down with the waning power of her Glare. "CURE!"

"Gah... Yuffie... thanks... I'm - I think I'll be fine now." He spoke more steadily, somehow the single thought fixed in his mind was that he had to reassure the girl somehow, "-you don't have to-"

"C-CURE!"

"Yuffie?" It was Tifa, walking shakily towards them, Cloud behind her. "Yuffie, what are you doing?"

The girl grinned weirdly. "Curing Vincent, ...'sit look like? 'Scuse, Tif... go away. C-cure!"

"Yuffie stop! You can't keep that up! Look, I'll do it-"

"Go away, Tifa!"

"Yuffie - why?"

"Yuffie, I'm fine now," said Vincent, sitting up with an effort, but managing it. "I'm - fine. Yuffie, stop."

"Heh... I'm fine too..." Yuffie said, and promptly fainted.

-o-

A/N: Heey, guys! (This story is actually... growing old and grey now my goodness... 2002? 2001? I could check, but I'm lazy.)

Beware of plus de silliness and even a bit o' fluff in the next chapter! Then again, I read it to my brother and he didn't find it too objectionable...

Yes, the next chapter is the last chapter. :dramatic music cue: It's nearly over. BIG thanks go to everyone who's ever given me a review (or feedback in any other way... you know who you are!) Thank you thank you thank you... :sniffs: I'm getting a bit sentimental... And ending all my sentences with ellipses...

I think when I started writing or at least started finishing this, I had some duplicit aim of writing both something really silly and light and also making it into some sort of epic that would garner reviews by the hundred. Hmm. Well, I've slightly gone awry there!

Anyway, now... while I don't want to post the last chapter and receive not a single sausage of feedback, I just... hope I make someone smile with this. Whatever small way I can bring happiness to the world, I'm up for it!