Chapter 14

Cid was cussing up a storm, unlike even Cid had ever done. Vincent sighed, suddenly quite tired. Barret was wondering why Cid was cussing like that, and if he might possibly be possessed.

"Man, shut up! What the hell's up wit' you any damn way?" Barret was saying. Vincent silently got up from his seat, ignoring his two other companions, and slowly stumbled his way to the men's room to make sure that Cloud wasn't in fact experiencing a not-too-surprisingly serious case of alcohol poisoning. Thankfully, this wasn't the case, although there would no doubt be a serious hangover for him to reckon with in the morning. Vincent found Cloud expelling the alcohol from his system rather violently in the first stall of the men's room. Vincent slumped against the wall next to him, patiently waiting for the spikey haired warrior to bring his face out of the toilet bowel. After what seemed like hours, Cloud did just that, resting his head on the toilet seat, muttering, 'Oh, man..."

"You okay?" Vincent asked dumbly, attempting to bring Cloud's heavy head from the not so sanitary toilet seat. Cloud's head just fell like a lead weight back onto the toilet face, with thump that made Vincent cringe. Cloud however, didn't seem to feel it much.

"I'm awlright, man." Cloud managed. "Don't ya' worry 'bout a thing, Vin, mah man." Cloud raised one hand, and clumsily searched for Vincent's shoulder to pat reassuredly. When he couldn't find it, he settled for awkwardly patting Vincent's face instead, much to Vincent's dismay. Then Cloud's hand fell back to his side, like a limp noodle. Again Vincent attempted to bring poor Cloud's face from the public toilet seat.

"Holy, shit! He's dead!" Cid's shrill voice echoed off the tiles in the bathroom. Vincent jumped like he had just been electrocuted, and Cloud's face smacked back to the toilet bowel with a resounding thump that joined the echoes of Cid's loud voice.

"Ouch." Cloud had felt that one.

"Man, he ain't dead. He just tired, thas' all," Barret concluded. The two had finally realized that Vincent was no longer at the bar stool with them anymore, and that Cloud was probably not going to come out of that bathroom without a lot of help.

Vincent rolled his eyes. "He's not tired, and he's not dead. He's completely tanked," he corrected indignantly. "Now, will you two help me get his face offa' that toilet?"

The three men stumbled towards Cloud and clumsily placed their hands around Cloud's hair, neck, and face, and pulled his head not too gently away from the seat. It was at that moment that Cloud decided it was time to purge his system of the alcohol once more. All in all, it was not a pretty picture.

"Blllaaahhhhrrrggg!"

"Oh, shit."

"Oh, shit!"

"Oh, shi't!"

And so Cloud found his face back in the toilet, this time a little too close to its contents for comfort, and Cid, upon seeing what Cloud had drank and eaten that night come back up, made a mad dash for the sink, as though his body just remembered the amount of alcohol that was coursing through it. Barret was cussing up a storm and yelling about how "damn disgustin'" the whole scene was, before he found his own head in the sink, rejecting the night's festivities. Vincent rubbed his forehead, which was plagued with an acute ache. His stomach, somehow, was fine. He decided in his drunken haze, that the only possible explanation for it was the fact that he had four demons in his body helping him absorb the alcohol.

"Thanks guys," he mumbled to his demons, patting his stomach in an odd show of appreciation.

When all was over, Vincent sat silently against the wall. This was all a bad idea, he decided. Cid would never allow him to live this one down. 'Figures that my idea would end up with four grown men being harmed in some way,' he thought to himself gloomily. 'Why not just beat the truth out of Cloud? Hell, what's the point in beating around the bush when disaster is completely inevitable? What's the point to anything, while we're at it?!'

Anger began to build up within Vincent, setting his blood boiling, like a volcano ready to rain terror down upon everything in its path. Violence, anger, resentment, bitterness, sadness, and desperation whirled violently together, like a storm ready to rip the earth apart. Chaos was coming...

With an inhuman roar, Chaos burst through the walls of Vincent's psyche. He possessed his body, transformed the seemingly frail man into a beast that hell itself couldn't spawn. He stood there, in all of his terrifying presence and then...

He belched. What was he doing in this bathroom? Why had Vincent summoned him? And why did he feel so...weird? And dear God, what was that awful smell?

Chaos stood awkwardly in the men's room of the Gold Saucer, feeling incredibly out of place in a room decorated with chocobos and bright bands of color. He scratched the back of his neck confused. Where were the monsters to fight? And just what had Vincent ingested that made him feel like the room was slightly spinning?

Finally, he noticed a man with whom he had fought along side on the battle field. Ah, that incredibly strong young fighter with the huge blade. Yes, he remembered that one. Only this time he wasn't slaying some horrible beast with the greatest of ease. This time his face was down in toilet bowl, and he seemed to be...sleeping?

He glanced to the sinks and recognized two other fighters. One was the slightly insane man that smoked a lot and occasionally fought with a mop for some odd reason, and the other was the burly man with the machine gun hand and the permanent scowl. They appeared to be asleep too, on the floor, snoring peacefully.

Chaos sighed. 'Humans,' he thought. 'No matter how long I inhabit one's body, they will never make the slightest bit of sense to me.'

Chaos stumbled towards the men, and hoisted Cloud out of the toilet and onto his back. He picked up Barret and Cid, tucked them under each of his arms like two large sacks of potatoes, and staggered to the door.

As Chaos stumbled out into the bar, heads, of course, turned. Silence settled over the entire pub as the people stared in absolute horror of the beast that stood before them. Chaos glanced around the room, feeling even more out of place than he had in the brightly decorated bathroom. Slowly, he took a step forward...and stopped, as a man suddenly screamed,

"Dear god, we're all dead!" The entire room erupted in a chorus of screams, and complete anarchy ensued. People started to run here and there, knocking each other to the floor, begging Chaos to please, please, not kill them. Tables tipped over, people trampled one another, women screamed, men cried, and the phrase, 'I don't want to die!' echoed throughout the pub.

Chaos rolled his eyes, and calmly stepped through the sea of people, wondering all the while how his host, Vincent, ever put up with anyone. 'No wonder he stayed in a coffin for 30 years,' he thought. He shook his head. 'Humans,' he thought disgustedly as he stepped through the door.

Meanwhile, back at the Highwind...

Tifa stumbled groggily out of her sleeping quarters to the kitchen. She was thirsty, and wondered if there was any milk in Cid's fridge that hadn't long passed the expiration date. Yawning, she pulled the door to the refrigerator open, and was relieved to see that someone (Vincent) had graciously bought new groceries, and thrown out whatever it was that Cid had been incubating in the refrigerator. She poured herself a glass of milk, and glanced up at the clock on the wall. 2:34 in the morning. It certainly was late...or early, depending on how you looked at it. She wondered if the boys were still out doing whatever it was that they were doing. Cloud had informed her that they were going to enjoy a night out with just the boys, and Tifa was glad to see that Vincent was a part of that group as well. 'Perhaps Cid is having a positive effect on him,' Tifa mused. 'He seems to be more social lately. It's a good thing to see.' She smiled and put the carton of milk back in the fridge.

Suddenly, she heard a horrible crash coming from the bridge of the Highwind. It sounded like someone was trying to force their way through the door...but, who? Tifa gasped as the thought of Sephiroth entered her mind. Her memory flashed images of the silver haired swordsman through her mind's eye: what she had seen him do on that ship, what she had seen him do in Nibelheim. All those people...dead at the hands of a single man....

Tifa closed her eyes tightly, and she took a few deep breaths. This was no time to panic. She needed to be strong for the sake of her companions, for the sake of everyone on the Highwind. She took another deep breath. She needed to find a pair of her fighting gloves, and she had to do it quick. She wasn't sure how much time she had wasted trying to calm her nerves, but she was silently cursing herself for it now. As quickly as she could, using her martial arts training to her benefit, she glided noiselessly through the halls of the airship, and back into her sleeping quarters. She didn't bother closing the door: there was too much of a risk of noise. Besides, one thing she had learned and trained herself to do, was to not hide. Closed-in places meant vulnerability if the enemy did find you. She left the door open, and her ears strained to hear anyone approaching her door. There was another loud bang from the bridge of the highwind, followed by footsteps. It was inside now.

Tifa shuddered, as she struggled to stay focused. Where had she put those damned gloves? Her hands fumbled through her things. Dammit, she was too nervous. Where had she put those gloves?

Suddenly, she remembered something Cid had done in the past when he had misplaced his spear. (How Cid had managed to misplace a spear taller than he was, Tifa would never understand.) He had grabbed an old mop from the Highwind, and started to wield it as though it were a deadly weapon out on the battlefield. He had looked ridiculous, and had gotten a fair share of laughs, but still, it had been surprisingly effective. Tifa darted from her room and down the hall to a storage closet. The mop had to be in there, and she was running out of time. The footsteps were slow, but definitely getting closer. She needed a weapon, and quick.

Luckily, Tifa found her hand on the door knob of the closet rather quickly. She opened the door, and there in the closet, bathed in moonlight, shining like excalibur, sat the mop. She ran her hand up the handle as though admiring a blade forged by a legendary swordsmith, exclusively for her, and no other warrior dared touch it. It was a lover to her, and any who stole it away would have to face her wrath. For this battle it was hers, and hers alone, this deadly, beautiful, powerful....mop. Tifa sighed as she unceremoniously tugged the cleaning utensil from the closet. Who was she kidding? She was doomed.