Warnings: Violence, angst, OC
Author Notes:
Well, we here at my computer desk are proud to announce a temporary title for this fic that might stay or might go, depending on how I feel about it.
Perpetual Manipulation
Yey.
Chapter Two
It was one of those days. The kind of day that made you really wish you hadn't helped save the world from a giant meteor. Yet for some odd reason, at the time it had seemed to be a pretty good idea. That was, of course, before Tifa Lockheart had learned about these kinds of particular days.
'If I had known back then that these shitty days were going to take over just as soon as Sephiroth was defeated,' she proclaimed silently to herself, 'I would've said 'the world's better off with you' and left him alone to rot in that crater.'
Sighing and strumming her fingers quietly on the wooden desk she leaned against, Tifa stared out a window of the new 7th Heaven she had built; only this doubled as both an inn and an orphanage. After the battle with Sephiroth and all the Weapons, there had been many children left without homes. Plus, there was a new disease spreading around called GeoStigma.
GeoStigma was mostly found in children, though some adults did pop up with a case of it as well. The disease was non-contagious, and apparently caused by Makou and the Lifestream, though it had never been heard of before Sephiroth had been killed. It was mostly found in children, though adults could contract it as well. The disease mostly affected one area of the body, and caused severe pain and ultimately death, as well as mental weakness.
Tifa shuddered, feeling a cold chill go through her as she thought of how many children she had in the orphanage with that disease. Whenever she thought of the dreaded GeoStigma, it made her feel a chill that made her wonder if she could ever feel happy again; if the sun would ever be able to cut through the thick layers of ice and thaw her frozen skin.
Shaking her head and breaking free of her depressing thoughts, the woman turned to go into the back and watch the children. Marlene was supposed to be watching the other children while Tifa was taking a bit of a break, but Marlene was a young girl too, and bound to be tempted into merely playing around with the children instead of just supervising them. Not that Tifa blamed her for it, but the 7th Heaven really needed some extra help. With Barrett out looking for a better energy source to replace Makou , the woman was on her own in protecting the little ones.
"Tifa! Tifa! Come have a look-see at what we found!" exclaimed Denzel. He was one of the orphans, no older than Marlene, but the others looked towards him as something of a leader. His brown hair was cut short; his bangs hanging just a little lower than his green eyes.
Smiling and turning away from the window, Tifa bent down, her hands resting on her knees. "What did you all find Denzel?"
"Just come see, we don't have time to idle chit-chat." With that said, the young boy ran off, covering his mouth with a fist as he coughed. Tifa stood back up, looking at Denzel's retreating back with a kind of sorrow. He was one of the unfortunate children from the slums of old Midgar, and had GeoStigma. All though it hurt her to know that he would someday lose his sanity to the ravaging of the disease; she was almost glad that he only had GeoStigma. At least with that they didn't have to worry about it being spread very easily.
Throwing herself out of her deep thoughts once again, Tifa walked towards the back and past the bed rooms, wondering what the children had found. She hoped it wasn't something dangerous, but got her fighting gloves on just in case. The last time the children had 'found' something, they'd stumbled into a monster's nest.
"What did you-" She stopped short in her question as she walked out the back door, staring down at a blood-soaked figure laying face-down on the ground. Recovering from her shock, she ran over to the body, shooing the children away from it and resting her fore finger and middle finger on the person's neck. There was a pulse, but it was faint.
"Kids, go inside. Denzel and Marlene, go get some help. Maybe the pub will have some people willing to help," Tifa ordered, rolling the person onto his back. Her arm was underneath him and she was preparing to lift him up. Stopping with a jolt once again, she stared down at the man in her arms, flipping him over again so she could see his back. Her eyes widened with surprise as she saw a pair of mutilated wings resting lifelessly against his back.
Flipping him back over, she scooped his body into her arms and carried him quickly inside, fearing that whatever had attacked him might come back to finish what it had started. Hurrying past the confused huddle of children, she took him into her room, laying him belly-down on her bed. Shaking slightly, she reached her hands out and took hold of each wing, spreading them out to their full span to see what damage there was.
"Oh my god . . ." she whispered hoarsely, looking at the poor battered things. Many of the feathers were torn or missing, and broken fragments of bones jutted out in different areas. Whatever had got him got him good.
"Tifa! I got some people from the pub-"
"Go get the doctor, and tell Denzel to run to the material store and ask to borrow some cure materia," Tifa cut Marlene off, not wanting her to the bloody mess that this man had become.
Standing still and listening as Marlene's foot steps became fainter, Tifa dropped the wings, bringing her hands up in front of her palm-up and staring transfixed at the blood that stained them. Even with everything she had gone through in fighting Sephiroth, nothing had seemed so horrible; such destruction that seemed based on letting the person live in suffering and pain instead of just killing them off.
Coming back to her senses, Tifa walked over to her closet, opening the wooden doors and grabbing a bag that was filled with glittering stones. She quickly and unerringly threw the bag open, hardly spending a second on the locking mechanism she had placed on it to keep the children from messing with anything it in. The top of the bag out of the way, she began to dig through the contents, finally coming back with a green orb and a satisfied look on her face.
Sliding the mastered Cure materia into a slot on her armlet, she turned to face the man-bird again. Without even thinking about it, she cast Curaga on the man, only to hear a groan of pain. She gasped as she realized she had just cured all of his broken bones the way they were, probably doing more damage to him than his initial wounds had.
Knowing that she had messed up big time, she slowly inched towards the man, looking at the bones which were now sealed in his flesh. She poked one of them, snapping her hand back quickly as she heard an immediate yelp of pain come from the poor man. Groaning and laying her open palm against her forehead, she wondered what on Earth she had gotten into.
She stayed like that for a few minutes, standing silently and listening the moans of the man on the bed. Only when Marlene and Denzel came rushing in with the doctor at their heels and materia gleaming in their hands did she move, dropping her own hand down and turning to look at them.
"Marlene, Denzel, thank you for all your help. Go try and calm the other children down. Tell them not to worry about Mr. Birdy," she commanded, waiting until the two ran out before she addressed the doctor. "The kids found this man outside on the ground, his . . . well, I guess wings, were badly damaged, almost ripped entirely to pieces . . ." Tifa looked down at the wounded man in apology, "I tried to cure him, but I forgot that his bones . . . were sticking out. . and. . well, you see what happened." She waved her hand towards 'Mr. Birdy', then looked back to the doctor.
"Your healing certainly did a number on him . . ." The doctor stated as he moved closer to examine his patient. Pulling rubber gloves on, he leaned closer to the wings of the man, staring down at them intensely through his spectacles. A frown had made its way to his face and he rubbing his chin before reaching down to touch part of the wing.
"Ahhhh! Fucker!" the man screamed, trying to roll onto his back to escape the prodding hands of the doctor.
"Now now, no need for foul language."
Tifa stared at the two, watching as the doctor tried to restrain the poor wounded man only to get slapped by a broken wing. She winced, wondering which of the two in front of her it had hurt more. From the stunned look on the doctor's face and the more pain-filled expression of the winged man, she could easily guess that it hadn't quite had the effect the attacker had wanted.
Sighing, Tifa turned to head out the door, only to find it blocked by the staring faces of children. She frowned, walking towards them and began to usher them out, looking for Marlene and Denzel in the crowd.
"Where are Marlene and Denzel?" She asked one of the children once they got back into the main room of the orphanage.
"Well, they weren't gonna let us watch, so we locked 'em out," The little girl informed, her face glowing with pride. "See? Isn't that what we're supposed to do if we're in trouble?"
Sighing and shaking her head, Tifa crouched down to talk to the little girl, ruffling the child's hair a little bit. "Only with strangers, honey. Now, you go on with your friends and I'll go get Marlene and Denzel, but no more locking other children out, got it?"
"Got it!" She assured, grinning and running off to play with the others.
Massaging her temples with her right middle finger and thumb, she turned back to go in and help the doctor. However, when she tried to go back in, the doctor merely told her that she should go and get the assistants. Nodding slightly, she told all the children to behave and then went into the kitchen, taking a few Aspirin before heading out to track down the doctor's assistants.
In the days since Meteor's almost complete destruction of Midgar, Kalm had grown into a rather large and busy city. Being so close to the ruins had once been a draw for tourists, causing the city to begin expanding rapidly. But now that Midgar was repaired and even now being expanded, the rush the city had had just a year ago was dying down, the tourists were leaving to see Midgar closer, leaving only the ones who had decided to reside in the city. Of course, there were still many Inns, as many people were still stopping in to rest before making the rest of the trek to Midgar.
Thinking of Midgar, Tifa glared and looked up at the sky. The clouds around Kalm had begun to darken and covered parts of the sky. The area of Midgar's pollution had spread to this city. You could still see the sun, and the dark clouds weren't completely obscuring the view of the blue sky, but she could tell that in a few months this place would be looking much like Midgar.
Sighing, she looked back to the orphanage, wondering how she would be able to afford moving all those children to a better place. Not only that, but Barrett had gone out a few weeks ago to try and find Cloud. He was thinking of attempting to rebel against Shin-Ra again.
Without even thinking about where she was going at all, Tifa arrived at the doctor's office. For a moment she wondered why she'd never bothered to learn his name, but then passed it off as her just being egotistical and thinking that she didn't need any healers. This episode had certainly gotten rid of that feeling. Before she could even push the wooden doors they opened, revealing a young red-haired woman.
"Oh, hello. You're Tifa Lockheart, right? The woman who runs the orphanage?" The woman asked as she moved out of the way, her left arm sticking out to keep the door from shutting.
"Yes, that's me," Tifa replied with a nod and a smile. She stepped through the door, watching as the woman closed it and locked it.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you. You almost never come to the doctor, and the children only do for their shots. But they usually come with Barret . . ." The woman gasped, her hands moving up to her face. "Is Barret hurt?"
"No, he's all right, just away looking for something, but there is another person wounded severely at my orphanage. The doctor sent me to get his assistants."
The woman looked away, a small glare on her face. "It's good that Barrett is all right . . . The assistants you're talking about must be Eeron and Tiela. You can sit down where ever you'd like while I go get them." With a bow, the red-haired woman left the room.
Instead of sitting down like the woman had offered, Tifa opted to pace back and forth, looking out the large glass windows and stare aimlessly at the city around her. For a moment, she suddenly wondered why she had left the safety of her friends and decided to live here in Kalm. If she had decided to live with Cid and Shera in Rocket Town, Cid would've known what to do in this situation. Or she and Barret could've moved to Corel. Surely Marlene would like to be in the place her daddy was born.
But then she did remember why she had come here. She had remembered how scary it was when she had lost her mother; how alone she had felt when her father had been taken away from her. Tifa had thought of all the children who might have survived the attack of Meteor and had seen their parents killed. She had come here for them, had used a small bit of her money to buy the orphanage and repair it t living conditions.
Now, the children were like a family to her. Amiable to everyone after the fight against Sephiroth, Tifa had been quick to make friends, and now knew basically everyone, save the doctor. After she had met Hojo, doctors had been people to watch out for. Even though she knew Hojo had been a scientist, he had worn clothes so similar to a doctor's when they'd had to fight him . . .
She shuddered at the memory of the malformed Hojo, poisoning her friends and the one-time love of her life. A bitter laugh slipped out. One-time love? She didn't think she would ever get over what she had tried to have with Cloud, but in the end, he couldn't get Aerith out of his head. At least, she thought it was Aerith he loved. Towards the end, she had never been certain.
But one thing was for sure; he didn't love her.
"Miss? You wanted to see us?" a masculine voice called from behind her, shaking her out of her depressing thoughts. Forcing a light smile to her face she turned around.
"You're the doctor's assistants, right?" Tifa looked them over. The dark haired girl was about her own height with a slim body, though it was easy for Tifa to tell the woman wasn't much of a fighter. The girl, Tifa assumed was the one named Tiela, had her hair pulled up in a bun, her bangs pushed to the sides of her face and her sideburns hanging just a little bit past her chin. She was wearing a blue skirt that went to her knees, a matching blazer, and a dress shirt of a lighter blue underneath that.
Eeron, the boy, was about the same height as Cloud. He had a mop of messy red hair that made him looked as if he had just crawled out of bed. As if trying to catch people off-guard with his hair, his face was surprisingly professional-looking. He was wearing long black dress pants and a white shirt, his hands in his pockets.
"Yeah, that'd be us," piped the girl, smiling pleasantly and waving. "I'm Tiela and this is Eeron. Pleasure to meet ya!"
Tifa smiled, reminded of Yuffie slightly in the girl in front of her. "It's nice to be you as well, but I'm afraid that I'm here for something a bit more serious."
"Please just ignore her," Eeron said, stepping in-between the two women, "she can be a little excitable."
"Don't worry, she's fine. Reminds me of one of my friends actually . . ." She smiled again, watching a Tiela made a face at Eeron's back. Tifa frowned slightly, a little worried. Would that girl be good enough to help the doctor?
"Right. Anyway, Miss Mizaki said that the doctor wanted to see us."
Brought back from her worries of Tiela, she remembered the poor boy she had hurt. "Oh yes, he's working on a patient at my orphanage."
He nodded, "Right, let's go."
All playfulness gone, Tiela looked at Eeron. They both nodded to each other and ran off towards the 7th Heaven. Caught off-guard, Tifa ran after them a second later. For doctors, they ran pretty fast, but Tifa was a trained warrior and quickly got in pace with them.
The trio soon reached the 7th Heaven, all of them going straight to the room where the bird man was. They could just follow the sounds of the poor man moaning. As Tifa tried to walk in behind the two assistants, Tiela turned around and put her hand out to stop her.
"You wait out here with the children. This room is now doctors only."
Before she could protest, the door had shut in Tifa's face. Deciding that her children would probably want an explanation, she walked into the main bedroom where the children were. Smiling comfortingly she sat down on one of the beds, patting her laps. Immediately the children ran over to her, jumping on the bed, on her lap, or sitting down on the floor or adjacent beds.
"Who would like to hear a story?" Tifa asked, her voice becoming mischievous. Many of the children cheered at her question. "Ooh, I don't think you do!" The cheer got louder, the children happy to have someone to comfort them. Laughing, Tifa picked up a stack of books from of the bedside tables.
Opening the first book, she began to read, showing the pictures to the children after she was done with each page. It would be a long wait, and Tifa know that she needed this distraction as much as the children.
OOOOO
"All right, tell me again, why we can't just take the ship back over there, like normal people?" Ian asked for about the hundredth time that morning. Cloud sighed, running a hand through his hair. This man was getting rather troublesome to be around.
"Look, I practically destroyed Shin-Ra once; I broke in to Shin-Ra; I've killed their SOLDIERs, destroyed their reactors-"
"Okay okay! I get what you've done, but what does that have to do with the ship?"
The blond turned around, his blue eyes blazing with anger. "I don't need to run into anymore Shin-Ra employees, and your employers definitely don't need to know you're with me. Got it?"
A look of dawning came over Ian's face. "Oh. Good point. But, uh, how are we gonna get across the ocean then?" As if to answer his question, the duo came upon chocobo tracks in the grass. Cloud smirked, reaching into a bag he had tied to his hip. After a few moments of digging, he pulled out some greens. "You've gotta be kidding me! We're taking one of these birds across the sea?" He waved his hand out at the birds. "Seriously, how likely is it that there's gonna be one Gold Chocobo in that bunch-"
"Choco, come here now!" Cloud called out, holding the greens in his hand. A large bird with golden feathers came at his call.
"Kwee!" Grinning, Cloud tossed Choco the greens before turning around to smirk at Ian. The black-haired man merely rolled his eyes, walking over to marvel at the Gold Chocobo. He'd never seen one outside of the Chocobo Races.
"Well . . . That's mighty impressive . . . Choco was it? Not a very original name . . ." Ian looked over the chocobo, examining its wings and legs before going up to look over its beak. "But then again, you were probably a bit busy with saving the world to name her well, though I can't see how you had time to breed her . . ."
The blond man shrugged, leaping onto his chocobo's back. "It took some time, but I just did it in between saving the world and destroying the Weapons." He puffed up slightly, petting his chocobo's neck.
"Yeah yeah, I've heard all about your marvelous deeds . . ." The dark haired man assured him, climbing on behind the blond. Wrapping his right arm around Cloud's waist to steady himself, he leaned down and picked up the bags full of supplies. "Are you sure we really needed all this stuff?" he asked with a grunt, pulling the top half of his body and the rest of the stuff back into a more comfortable position.
"Who's saved the world here?"
"Do you ever stop bringing that up?"
"Not if I can help it." With that, Cloud gently kicked the sides of his chocobo with his heels, being careful not to hurt her. Quickly, Choco took off, the blond on top of her taking a firm grip on the feathers on the sides of her neck, gently pulling right or left to correct her direction. Ian held the bags in his lap, both of his arms holding onto Cloud to make sure he didn't fall off.
"Why can't we just take the Highwind? I've heard that's a great airship!" yelled Ian as he tried to be heard over the rush of wind around them.
"Cid's got it!" Cloud yelled back, looking over his shoulder slightly. "He said that he wanted to keep it after all he'd been through with it!"
Nodding Ian buried his face in-between Cloud's shoulder blades, shutting his eyes and holding on for dear life. He definitely didn't like this, and since Choco was a Gold Chocobo, she went way too fast for his liking. "And I thought motorcycles were bad . . ." he muttered, his hands tightening their grip on Cloud's clothing.
Cloud looked back over his shoulder again, his eyes portraying a bit of his mind's worried state. If this was how the kid was acting on land, how well would he handle going through the water? As he thought about that, he suddenly remembered something. Cid was back in Rocket Town with Shera . . . and Rocket Town was just over the mountains!
Smiling suddenly, Cloud went back to focusing on steering Choco. He gently pulled on the feathers that were bunched up in his left hand, making the chocobo veer left until he relaxed the pull on them. Now they were heading towards the mountains.
"Things are about to get a bit bumpier, we've had a change of plans!" He yelled over his shoulder at Ian, not bothering to look back, "You gave me the great idea of going to get Cid!"
"Oh, wonderful!" Ian yelled back, nuzzling his face closer to Cloud's shirt and shutting his eyes tightly. "I'm glad I could help with our early demise!"
"We aren't gonna die on a chocobo!" The blond yelled, watching as the mountains slowly began to get bigger. They were approaching pretty fast. "They're mountain trails Choco can take, it's not like we're gonna be scaling walls here!"
"Tch, whatever," he mumbled in reply, holding on even tighter as the ground began to incline slightly. Cloud chuckled, amused at his companion. The chocobo was only going up a hill, but there was no need to tell Ian that; not yet, while it was so much fun.
As they began to go down the hill, Ian's eyes opened rather wide in surprise. They were past the mountains already? Loosening his grip on Cloud slightly, he lifted his head in time for the chocobo to start going up one of the trails on the mountain. Yelping, he buried his head back in the cloth of Cloud's shirt. The blond chuckled again, earning a punch in his side that made his laughter all the louder.
But soon enough, his amusement had come to an end. Ian had calmed down after a while and had (thankfully) let go of his shirt. The dark haired man was taking an active interest in their surroundings, and was blissfully quiet. Cloud looked around as well, but he was looking for things that might pose a threat to them.
So far, there was nothing out of the ordinary. He was looking around all sides, trying to make out distinct shapes in the mountainous area that surrounded them. Everything appeared as it should. The blond looked back on the path; there was no one following them and he couldn't even see end of the trail anymore. They were probably about half way through the mountains.
Choco was beginning to slow down. She had been walking for most of the path and now was close to coming to a stop. Seeing a place where the path they were on converged with another path going perpendicular to theirs, Cloud decided that would be a good enough place to stop. He made Choco go to the right, stopping her at the cross the two intersecting paths made.
Turning around and grabbing the bags from Ian's lap he jumped off Choco's back, landing lightly on his feet just to the side of the large bird. Ian soon followed, landing a bit less gracefully than Cloud. The dark haired man was obviously glad to be off the bird, as he began to walk around looking for a good place to flop down.
Cloud took Choco off the trail, leading her to a nearby stream. That was another one of the reasons Cloud had chosen this spot as a good place to rest. If they just used the things around them, their rations could be spared for another time. Of course, he didn't think they would really need all the rations; once they were out of the mountains Choco would be able to cross the fields to Rocket Town quickly.
He glanced over at Ian, wondering how he was faring after the trek atop Choco through the mountains. The young man had pulled out his laptop and was working on something; probably reporting back to his superiors on how he was doing on tracking down the clones.
Yawning, Cloud leaned back, enjoying the peace and quiet that the mountain environment offered. Although he had liked it in Coast del Sol, the joy he was feeling in traveling again was an obvious sign that he wasn't quite ready to settle down and live in one spot yet. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. They had been on the path for a few hours now; he wasn't sure if they would be able to make it to Cid's house before nightfall.
A sound from the other path made Cloud's eyes snap open. Ian had heard it too, as he was now staring down the path the noise had come from. It sounded like someone was coming . . .
AAAAA
Shorter than I had thought it would turn out, but oh well. ;
