"There should be some cleaning supplies in here somewhere…" Aeris rummaged through a stack of junk in the Highwind's supply closet.
"You know, Aeris," Yuffie leaned against the closet's heavy, metal door to hold it open, "I'm really glad you're helping me with cleanup duty." I can probably get her to do most of the work.
"Well, I thought it would be better for you to have some company," Aeris leaned back a moment to breath, "You seemed pretty disappointed when Cloud and the others went into Kalm and left you behind to clean the hold."
"Yeah," Yuffie said, Kalm has a pretty good materia shop… I probably could've slipped away and robbed it blind before anybody knew I was gone. Curse Cloud for being able to read my every thought! And now with Aeris here, there's no way I can slip away… She sighed… wait a minute, herthoughts continued, maybe I can lock her in this closet and run off! I could say I was going to find a key, or something.
Yuffie turned the lock on the outside of the door, "Hey Aeris, let me give you a hand." she let go of the door and shoved the brown-haired girl into the closet! "Ha ha!-oof!" As Yuffie turned to make her escape, the heavy, iron door of the closet swung shut, sweeping her into the closet with Aeris. BANG! CLICK! The door shut and locked.
"Um… oops?" Yuffie smiled weakly in the dark, imagining the enraged look on Aeris's face.
"Yuffie! What did you do that for! Get off of me!"
"Sorry, Aeris." Yuffie scrambled off the flower merchant, "Here, I'll try and turn on the light. Maybe being able to see will help us figure a way out." She clambered up a stack of tools and stood on top of an upturned bucket, searching the darkness with both hands for that little string you had to pull to make the light come on.
"Be carefull, Yuffie," Aeris warned, "That stack of things isn't very sturdy-"
Just as Aeris finished her sentence, a box of economy sized nails slipped out from the pile, causing the entire pile to collapse, avalanche style, right on top of Aeris.
"AAAGH!" Yuffie yelled. She found the string just as the bucket slipped out from under her, and held onto it as she went down. There was a bright flash, and a shower of sparks as the entire light fixture, consisting of a lightbulb and its necessary connections to the ceiling, was pulled down by its string. It crashed onto the top of the rest of the junk in the closet and shattered into a million, if not more, tiny shards of glass.
There were a few minutes of absolute silence. Yuffie was slightly stunned by the fall, and Aeris was possibly unconscious under a mound of cleaning implements.
Carefully brushing bits of glass from herself, Yuffie shifted off the middle of the pile. The jumble of stuff lifted and scattered as Aeris gasped and dug her way out. Yuffie helped shift the junk off of Aeris by shoving it into the back of the closet, where a row of janitor outfits hung from a rack.
"Well, Yuffie," Aeris's strained voice came out of the dark, "we're trapped in a supply closet without a light, half-buried in junk, and dusted with glass shards. Do you have any more bright ideas?"
"Okay, first," Yuffie started, "That was an accident. How was I supposed to know that pile of stuff would slide out from under me like that! Second, you're the one half-buried in junk. I'm still up top, thanks to that string. And third, the sparks didn't catch anything on fire, so we're still okay." She tossed the economy-sized box of nails into the back of the closet. "We'll just have to wait a few hours for the others to come back and-"
"YUFFIE!" Aeris shouted, "IF YOU DON"T GET US OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW, I'M GOING TO-"
There was a movement in the back of the closet.
Yuffie clapped her hand over where she guessed Aeris's mouth was, but she missed and got her eyes instead, "Sh! Aeris, listen!"
"Ow! Yuffie, get your hand off-" Her sentence broke off as she pushed Yuffie's hand away. Something in the back of the closet moved again, "What was that?" Aeris whispered.
"I don't know." Yuffie whispered back. She crouched near Aeris's half-buried form.
They both listened intently.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A rustling.
And then nothing
More rustling, and then a low groan. Something touched Yuffie's arm.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
Yuffie was halfway up the wall, clinging to the top of the doorframe by her fingernails, when a voice asked, "Yuffie?"
"Um, yes?" Yuffie looked down, fearful of seeing glowing red eyes, or fangs, or something, but there was nothing.
"Who else is in here?" the voice asked.
"I-I am." Aeris stammered. She was in a much worse position than Yuffie; half-buried in junk right in reach of whatever was in the back of the closet, "W-who...?"
"Vincent." Came the deep-voiced reply.
"Vincent! What the heck are you trying to do! Scare us out of our-" Yuffie lost her grip on the doorframe and crashed back down, barely missing Aeris, and landing on an ancient vacuum cleaner.
"I was not trying to scare you." Vincent replied from the back of the closet, "I was merely attempting to get some peace and quiet."
"Oh…" Yuffie mumbled.
"You didn't go to Kalm with the others?" Aeris asked.
"… I do not enjoy towns as some do." He paused, "Why are you here?"
"Cloud told me to stay behind and clean the hold," Yuffie said, "and Aeris is helping."
"No, I meant, why are you in this closet with the door closed and the light off?"
"Well, somebody," Aeris began accusingly, "managed to lock the door and close us both inside."
"Yeah…" Yuffie shifted slightly, "Say, didn't you hear all that crashing and screaming and stuff earlier?"
"Sound is quite muffled behind all these janitor outfits." Vincent explained, "I only awoke when someone started throwing things back here."
"What!" Yuffie cried, "You mean you slept through everything? Even the shower of sparks when I ripped the light out of the ceiling?"
"What!" Vincent sounded remarkably close to losing his cool. He quickly regained it, however, and clicked on a small flashlight he kept just for such an occasion.
All three of them blinked as the light from the flashlight reflected off of the million shards of glass covering the walls, door, piles of tools, and Yuffie. Aeris had some small glints in her hair, but the avalanche of stuff had shielded the rest of her.
"Hey, let me see the light," Yuffie reached for the flashlight, "I'll see if I can find something to pick the lock with."
Vincent handed her the light, and Yuffie proceeded to dig around in search of something to use as a lockpick. "Aha!" She said, and jerked a bobby pin out of Aeris's hair.
"Ow…" Aeris rubbed her head.
Yuffie shone the flashlight on the doorknob, "Now all I have to do is… hm… this might be a problem…"
"What?" Aeris tried to turn around so she could see the doorknob.
"Well… um…" Yuffie licked her lips, "It looks like there's no keyhole. I can't pick the lock."
"You're kidding, right?" Vincent said.
"Nope."
"What do we do now?" Aeris cried.
"Um," Yuffie pondered this for a moment, "does anybody want to play 'truth or dare'?"
"…Why not…" Aeris shook her head in despair.
"…" Vincent sighed. There was no way out of it, so he started, "Yuffie… truth or dare?"
"Er…" Yuffie paused, "Truth."
"What is your greatest sin?"
--------------------------------------
Six hours and twenty-three minutes later…
"For cryin' out loud," Yuffie yelled at Vincent, "STOP DARING ME TO GET US OUT OF HERE!" She snapped her head to the left and glared at Aeris. Vincent's flashlight had run out of batteries five hours ago, so she couldn't actually see Aeris, but it wasn't like she had moved at all. "Truth or dare!"
"For the hundredth time, Yuffie, I quit!" Aeris cried, "Ask Vincent!"
"Vincent, truth or dare!"
"I believe-" Vincent began.
"TRUTH OR DARE?"
"Yuffie, I think I-"
"ANSWER!"
"… if I answer will you listen?"
"NO! I mean, yes! I mean- I don't know!" Yuffie pounded her fist against the wall, "I just want to get out of this… this closet!" she almost sobbed. She turned to Aeris, "I'm sorry I tried to shove you in the closet so I could go rob Kalm's materia shop, I didn't think this would happen!"
"It's okay, Yuffie," Aeris laid a hand on the younger girl's leg. She would have preferred an arm or a shoulder, but she was still half-buried, and a leg was all she could reach, so it would have to do. She paused in her sympathy, "Wait, you tried to shove me in the closet so you could go what!"
"Look, I already said I'm sorry," Yuffie snapped, "Let's just leave it at that."
Suddenly, the sound of voices reached the three prisoner's ears.
"… did a #$$ job…. Hold doesn't look different at all!" Cid's voice was faint.
"…funny…Aeris stayed with her. I thought she might've been able to keep her on track." Cloud said.
"How long have they been here?" Yuffie cried.
"A while." Vincent replied.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING?" Yuffie shouted.
"I tried to-" Vincent started, but was shushed as Yuffie and Aeris tried to tell how close the others were.
"Nothin' can keep that doggone sneaky little ninja on track!" Barret growled.
"…I wonder where they are…" Red XIII passed by the door.
"We're in here!" Aeris shouted.
"HEEEEEELP!" Yuffie screamed, pounding on the door.
"AAAGH! YUFFIE!" Vincent and Aeris clamped their hands over their ears.
There was a knock on the door, "You all in there?" Cid asked.
"YES!" came the response. "GET US OUT!" Yuffie cried.
"$#, be patient!" The doorknob jiggled. Yuffie, Aeris, and Vincent held their breath.
"…would you look at that." They heard Cloud whistle.
"I've never seen a door that…" Tifa's voice faded out of Yuffie's hearing.
"Are you going to get us out, or what?" Yuffie shouted.
There was a pause.
"I don't know what the $!# you did to this door," Cid finally replied, "but it's $#& Welded shut! Must've been a faulty electrical wire somewhere. It'll take a few hours to cut through, even with our state-of-the-art mako blowtorch!"
"Don't use that #$ thing!" Barret bellowed, "It's suckin' out the life of the Planet!"
"It's already been sucked out!" Cid snapped, "I #!& can't put it back in! We may as well use it!"
"… are you saying that we'll be stuck in here for another few hours?..." Aeris moaned in disbelief.
"At least four, maybe five." Cid muttered, "Don't worry; we'll get you out eventually."
"Five more HOURS?" Vincent roared. As in, actually ROARED. There was more roaring, and a horrible tearing sound as Vincent transformed into Death Gigas.
Aeris screamed and ducked as Death Gigas ripped the iron door off its hinges and threw it across the Highwind. Then he tore at the doorframe until he could get out. Cloud and the others watched him race onto the deck, jump fifty feet down to the ground, and run off towards Kalm at break-neck speed. That was the last they saw of him for several days.
After the door had been torn off, Aeris and Yuffie had both spilled out onto the floor in another mini-avalanche of cleaning supplies.
"Freedom!" Yuffie cried, leaping into the air. Aeris was too happy to say anything. She just collapsed onto Cloud, sobbing with relief.
Cid surveyed the scene, including the glass-covered pile of junk that had fallen onto the floor. He strode to the pile, picked up a broom, and shoved it roughly into Yuffie's hands. Cid pointed to the mess, "This had better be #$ clean by the time we take off, or I'll lock you in that $!$ closet for another six #!#$ hours!"
Yuffie objected, "But you haven't even heard what happened!"
"I don't care what happened!" Cid shouted, "Just clean up the mess!"
Yuffie looked at the broom, and then at Cid's back as he walked to the pilot's room. The others had already gone.
"Hmph." She huffed and began to sweep, "Note to self: never include closets in my plans to steal materia…"