Disclaimer: I don't own nor am I affiliated in any way with Final Fantasy or Square-Enix. Maybe if they have jobs open when I turn 18…
A/N: I am terribly sorry that I haven't updated sooner! I hope to get at least this story down to a reasonable update schedule, so I'm going to try to update this every other Saturday from here on out. Also, a HUGE thanks once again to Judanim, Spooky Fyre, Terra, and Lilly for reviewing. I read your suggestions and hope to have some of your questions answered within the next few chapters. (Note this: FF8, for all intents and purposes, still takes place after FF7, but I may bring in our SeeD friends later.)
Twin Cities: Building One's Dreams
Yuna and Tidus sat with a group of friends around the communal fire that blazed in the middle of Besaid village. With their return from their sojourn to the Zanarkand ruins completed, they were stopping in Besaid for a while to pay a visit to Wakka, Lulu, and, of course, the indefatigable Besaid Aurochs before heading back to the Celsius. The other members of the Gullwings were enjoying themselves with the other members of the village. Brother and Buddy had even started a dancing contest, much to the dismay of Paine and Shinra, the latter of whom had been dragged onto the stage multiple times only to run off in mingled stage fright and disgust.
Wakka continued to sit with his two younger friends once the festivities had reached a lull and people were beginning to head home. They had mentioned something about building something earlier on, only to laugh it off. Wakka's inner instinct warned him that they were surreptitiously skirting the issue when he attempted to query them about it. It was only now that they had begun to open up about it, since they were not in the midst of the revelry anymore.
"Look, Wakka, Shinra mentioned something before we defeated Vegnagun. He said that there was an enormous amount of energy stored on the Farplane; if we could use it, we could build a city like Zanarkand used to be!" Yuna exclaimed excitedly, searching Wakka's face for his reaction, which turned out to be a mixed one. He looked incredulous at the news, but it was obvious that he had his reservations about this project.
"You think there's enough energy in the Farplane to run a city, ya?" he replied. Tidus nodded excitedly.
"Think, Wakka! I know you still don't like machina and stuff like that, but couldn't you put that aside for a while and think about it for a while, you old man? Geez, you keep this up and you'll be worse than Auron was," he said sarcastically. Wakka rubbed tiredly at the base of his skull.
"Yeah, I guess so, but would you two stop an' think for a second?" he stared at them both with the, 'I'm older than you and I think you're jumping into this too quickly' look he gave when he doubted their motives or their knowledge of what they could bring about. "Maybe Spira's better off without any huge cities. When Zanarkand was big, so was Bevelle, and look what happened there! They pounded each other into the ground and then Sin came! What's to stop that from happenin' again?"
"Well, we don't have any power hungry summoners around just waiting to take their chance and turn themselves into enormous…things…so that they can terrorize us and do whatever they want…" Tidus kept on talking about all the reasons that it wouldn't go wrong while Yuna shook her head and addressed Wakka.
"What if we just try it, Wakka? Besides, we'll make sure nothing like that happens. What do you think now?" she asked. Wakka mulled it over for a few moments before he gave a grin and said, "A'right, fine, go do it, ya? But be careful." Yuna threw her arms around a very surprised Wakka while Tidus stopped his tirade and raised an eyebrow before mouthing, 'Awwwww' behind Yuna's back.
Not too far away, Shinra was busy repairing the Besaid commsphere that had been damaged when Jassu hit it with a blitzball. He thought about all they could do with this energy, they could change the world with it! His mind flitted over all of the ideas it was producing, getting more and more excited with each one. He finally began to mutter his thoughts aloud to himself.
"Create generators……and…maybe, yes, YES….and maybe even use it to make medicine, or enhancements, or magic and stuff….cool…..make a whole army of superpeople….that would be so awesome…."
Finishing up his work on the commsphere, Shinra headed back to the Celsius. Tomorrow they departed to assess the Farplane.
Cloud shoved open the door to 7th Heaven; Tifa followed him in.
The bar was nearly vacated, with the exception of a quartet that sat around a table in the far left corner. They laughed and conversed, tongues obviously loosened by alcohol, the remnants of several beer bottles strewn across the table. From the back, a little girl with a round, cherubic face, brown hair and eyes, and a pink dress emerged. She caught sight of Tifa and squealed in delight as she raced toward the woman.
"Daddy, look who came," she squealed to a large, brown, weather beaten and scarred man who shifted himself to look at them.
"Back already, Tifa? How'd it go?" he asked as he came toward them. Cloud looked the man up and down, suspicion etched on his already irritated and pensive looking face. The man swung the gun that had been grafted into his right arm out as he stretched with two hands for his daughter.
Cloud's reaction was instantaneous, he grabbed the hilt of his buster sword, stepping back a few paces as he looked around. "Who're you?" he snarled.
"Cloud!" Tifa cried. She came toward him, followed by the gun-arm man. "This is Barret Wallace," she continued, "He's the leader of AVALANCHE."
"PUT THAT DAMN THING DOWN!" Barret yelled. Cloud stared at Barret, aquamarine eyes blazing. It wasn't until he saw the girl bury her face in her father's shirt from fear that he finally lowered his blade. Barret began to yell at him the second he did.
"What th' hell d'ya think you're doin'! Who th' hell is this, Tifa? Don't ya dare think about hurtin' anybody in here, or I'll kill ya so fast –" he was curtailed by Tifa's scream of, "SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!"
"Barret, this is Cloud; Cloud, Barret," she introduced the two men as she calmed herself down and began to explain about Cloud's situation to Barret. "Cloud's a friend of mine from Nibelheim. He just showed up in town and I wondered if he'd be willing to join us, Barret," she dictated succinctly.
"Oh yeah? An' what makes him good enough to join us? Does he even know what we're doin'?" Barret growled while Cloud bristled.
"I know exactly what you're doin'," Cloud said as he glared back at Barret with his hackles raised, "And I think you're all a bunch of idiots for thinkin' that you could actually win against Shin-ra."
"How the hell would you know?" Barret sneered.
"Because I'm an ex-SOLDIER, first class," Cloud launched right back. Barret's face contorted into a look of pure hatred and rage, replacing the one of dislike and mockery that he had worn before. He raised his gun arm without a moment of hesitation. Cloud's reflexes caused him to unsheathe his enormous sword yet again.
"WILL YOU TWO STOP THIS FOR ONE MOMENT?" Tifa's glare could have frozen the fires of hell, and Marlene, Barret's daughter, began to cry.
"Stoooop!" she wailed. Barret shot fury laden looks at Cloud.
"Once a SOLDIER, always a SOLDIER," he managed to vocalize. "You actually think ya can trust him? He'll never be any good! Get outta here, 'fore I decide to use this!" he shot the last statement toward Cloud who stood in fury just in front of the door. Despite this, the words that escaped him next were ones that no one had expected.
"You don't trust me? Fine, that's understandable. But I said ex-Soldier: I want to stop Shin-ra as much as you do, and I could use the money. So I'm willing to work with you, but only because Tifa asked, not because I want anythin' to do with you."
Barret considered this for a few moments. It was obvious to Cloud what he was thinking: with a group as small as AVALANCHE was, they needed everyone that was willing. It was also obvious to Cloud that he thought that he was going against his better judgment when he said a few moments later, "If you're willin', then you c'n come."
With that, he stomped back – Marlene on shoulder – to the bar's other patrons. Tifa smiled gratefully at Cloud.
"Thanks," she muttered. Her grin then turned into one of malice and she said, "Come on, we'd better have a plan if we're gonna do anything. We're gonna make those bastards pay."
A/N: Thanks for reading! If you like what you see, or you don't, don't hesitate to review. Next chapter: the plot developments you've all been waiting for!