Yazoo squeezed his eyes shut for a moment then acted like he never noticed her touching his chest. As he picked up his speed he felt Wicked's starting to clutch tighter around his waist. He reached down and pinched her arm slightly, which made her loosen up. They started approaching Midgar so Yazoo let up on the gas. Pulling into the city he saw Kadaj flip in the air from one rooftop to the next going towards home with Loz and Sephiroth close behind him. Yazoo leaned into the sharp corner following after them. A few sharper turns later they arrived back home.
"You shouldn't have run off like that last night" Yazoo got off and started walking towards the door then looked back, "even with your instincts pulling you onward." Wicked's gaze shot up, how did he know about the reason why she had to go? Yazoo could tell she was surprised to hear him say that. "I told you…you don't have your freedom any more."
"How did you know about…?" Wicked started to ask
"Your instincts? I've studied your kind before." Yazoo turned and kept walking up the steps. "It was very interesting." Wicked blushed then slapped her self lightly.
"Stop being flattered you fool!" She followed him inside. As she walked in the door slammed shut behind her and some one fairly heavy grabbed her around her shoulders and covered her mouth with a firm grip. She thrashed around trying to break free but the more she struggled the stronger the man's grip became until he was squeezing her skull so hard she went light headed and she stopped, she closed her eyes to rest.
"You got her?" Wicked opened her eyes quickly to see a young man dressed in black leather with his hands behind his back looking at her with an evil grin on his pale face that was half way hidden behind his colorless hair as he nodded and continued, "Good!" He turned to leave then waved his hand for her captor to follow, "Let's get this over with already." Wicked shut her eyes and cursed his very name to the lifestream as she uttered it with bitterness and hate in her thoughts. "Kadaj!" Once again she struggled around trying to get unbounded but failed as she was dragged to the back of the house. Kadaj kept walking until he reached the back door and went out side to what looked like a cellar door; clasping the door handle he pulled it open. Her captor dragged her over to the open door and threw her in with all his strength, causing her to bump against the wall further back and she blacked out. When she became conscious again…maybe after an hour or two, she felt a hand rubbing her back gently and she felt drowsy, even dazed as she laid there. This continued for a moment or two then it stopped and she tried to get up. A hand pressed down lightly on her head as she struggled to push her self to her feet and she collapsed on the floor again, when she had collapsed she realized where she way laying wasn't even dirt. It was crystal, blue like the kind she'd seen when she was younger and she journeyed through the water element caverns, like the ones she was trained in to use her powers. The crystals glowed dimly. She once again started forcing her self up but was lightly pushed down again onto the floor.
"You don't have to get up yet. Rest. You're going to need all the strength you can get now." Wicked thought she recognized the calm, monotone voice and flipped onto her back only to be proven wrong.
"Kadaj?" He just looked at her then smiled.
"You where expecting Yazoo."
"More or less." She said pushing her self up again.
"I hear that you don't like us around your little planet here…I'm sorry we disturbed you, we didn't mean to upset your instincts." Wicked jerked her head up and almost slapped Kadaj.
"Damn right I don't like you here at all! Who told you that, your mother made of worthless liquid?" Kadaj eyes contracted and he slapped her hard, as she rubbed her cheek he placed his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back then grabbed her chin and pushed her to look him in his eyes.
"Bad girl. You should be more respectful of some one who in one minute could destroy your entire existence."
"I could say 'take your own medicine pal' 'cause I could kill you way faster than you could me!" Kadaj let go of her face and pinched her shoulder right at the base of her neck and didn't let up, Wicked squeezed her eyes shut then cringed and moaned as she started kneeling onto the ground, then Kadaj relaxed his grip slightly and smiled evilly. "Like I said…bad girl." Wicked opened her eyes half way since she was still hissing from the power of his grip. She gritted her teeth and glared at Kadaj with burning eyes. Kadaj got uncomfortably close to Wicked's face, "This would be easier if you surrendered, and we might even let you join the family if we trusted you enough." Wicked softened her face and looked up at him like a child. Even though Wicked was still mad at Kadaj, he had pricked the wanting area of her heart, her desire for a real family started to eat away her sense of duty. Kadaj could see he was getting her attention with that last one and backed away letting her go. "That's right. My brothers and I are not the only ones in this family of ours ether. Others have joined since Mother started it long ago with Sephiroth. We could use some one like you, you'd be extremely valuable to us." Kadaj's words kept chipping away her calluses around her heart; he was saying that she would actually be wanted for the first time in her life. Already she wanted to accept his invitation to join but deep in her mind she thought she saw what he was doing.
"I'm not being fooled into your little scheme Kadaj! I will beg for death before any one tames me!"
"But don't you see? These humans have already tamed you and your kind from being violent. Look at your great history, way before you even started to consider protecting this planet you fought against the people in it. Then when you DID start protecting it you thought about what you were doing and so the humans took advantage of you during that time of uncertainty. When they told you that what you where doing was destroying the planet you stopped fighting and then after a few years they MADE you protect THEM as well!" Wicked looked away, Kadaj placed his hand on her jaw and tenderly pushed her to look back at him then held her face gently. "We can change all that. You don't have to be lonely any more." Wicked twitched, "Yes I know. You're lonely here aren't you? I know. It hurts doesn't it? I can identify with that too." Wicked's eyes started to fill with tears; Kadaj was cutting her deep into where it hurt the worst. Kadaj had a sympathetic appearance on his face as she fought against her self. Kadaj whispered loud enough to hear him. "You don't have to fight any more. I understand you." He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. Wicked closed her eyes and a tear fell from her right eye, she pulled away and walked over to the other side. Covering her face with her hands she tried to fight her tears off again. She felt his arm wrap around her shoulder and his hand grab her and turn her around then wrapping his other arm around her he pulled her close into a warm embrace, he held her head close and laid his cheek on her as she started to quiver from her sadness.
Yazoo came downstairs and found them there.
"Kadaj. What re you doing?" He whispered, Kadaj looked up.
"Shhh!" Yazoo looked at Wicked and saw her starting to cry.
"Oh, never mind." Yazoo started walking up again,
"Yazoo!" Kadaj whispered back at him. "Get back here! She's your responsibility remember?"
"Oh and you don't care about her?" Yazoo walked back, "Fine. I should be the one taking care of her then!" Kadaj glared at Yazoo
"I never said that!"
"Maybe not out loud but I can tell you're thinking it!" Kadaj looked back at Wicked then glared back out of the corner of his eye at Yazoo.
"Okay, I'll do it this time."
"No. You don't even want to be down here so go back up!" Yazoo pushed Kadaj off; Wicked looked up at him then looked to the ground. Yazoo pushed her chine up and looked into her pearly-purple eyes, that lightness came back into his stomach again as he looked at her. Kadaj smiled then walked back up. Yazoo glanced back at him then looked back to Wicked. Grabbing her wrist he pulled her to another door. "We can go back this way too." Wicked started to think about the warnings that Vincent had said earlier. She didn't care any more; every thing Vincent had said about them being bad didn't matter any more. As she followed Yazoo up she kept thinking about what Kadaj said. She pinched her eyes shut as she thought about it, "Family! Somewhere I can belong!" She didn't care about the cost, not any more; she only cared about what she'd gain from it. She thought back to a few moments ago when Kadaj held her, she thought back to when she awoke resting in Yazoo's arms, she even thought about the night before that and how Kadaj and the rest seemed to work like a team. "Somewhere! Somewhere I can belong just for one moment! That's all I want! One moment, jus one!" her heart was breaking by this point. Yazoo looked back unsure of why she wasn't looking to good then saw a tear fall to the floor.
Wicked's thoughts kept playing what Kadaj had said over and over again, "You don't have to be lonely any more." Wicked had so many people pushing her away that she didn't even think about how she felt inside from it all. Now she looked deep within and saw her heart breaking and bleeding from all the wounds people had given her when they rejected her. She wasn't watching where she was going so when Yazoo stopped she bummed into him and fell down, Yazoo looked down and half smiled at her then opened a door.
"Okay, we'll try this again like Kadaj asked." Yazoo looked back at Wicked who had just gotten back up from the floor. "This is where you'll stay." He said unemotionally as he started to walk off.
"What did he mean by 'family'?" Wicked asked, Yazoo stopped and turned around.
"What?"
"He said something about a family you guys had." Wicked looked up with pleading eyes.
"The Advent stream. That's the only place I could tell you fully about it. But for now Kadaj said you should get some rest." Yazoo walked off. Wicked walked into the room, it was covered in what looked like silver glass. Almost everything had engravings of nature, and celtic knots in it to tell a story, Wicked guessed it was the story of Jenova but didn't try and find out. She was dead tired and wanted to sleep; crawling into the silky bed she laid her head down to sleep.
Yazoo got back down stairs,
"She won't be there when I go back." He stated as he entered the room where Kadaj, Loz, and Sephiroth where. Sephiroth and Loz were leaning up against wall opposite of each other while Kadaj was sitting down reading; they looked up when their brother came in.
"What are you talking about?" Kadaj placed a bookmaker where he was reading and shut the book. "I don't think you're looking at this correctly, she wants something and we can give it to her."
"By means of Geostigma." Yazoo said looking away, "I know, I know, I should have done it last night when she was asleep." Kadaj laughed and shook his head.
"No, I think it's better that we did it this way."
"What? You mean when you had Loz slam the door when she got in and had Sephiroth run up and grab her from behind so she couldn't move?" Yazoo shook his head, "No, that was the wrong way to go, we should have gotten her down there another way."
"You said so your self you couldn't do it, not to her at lest, what's wrong with doing this my way when you can't do it at all?" Yazoo took a deep breath before he answered.
"Kadaj, I respect you as the leader…but this is one of those times I'm going to ask you to put that aside. From now on we do it my way okay? Since I know more about her instincts then you that makes sense right?"
"Yes you may know all about the instincts and the nature of her kind" Yazoo gave Kadaj a puzzled look as he continued "but that's her kind, what do you know about her heart Yazoo? Just because you may know about my goal in life and what makes me tick doesn't necessarily mean you know enough about me to really penetrate me personally. I will say you can at lest know how to stop me but that's it. Unless you can reach me on a personal level you won't get anywhere. Make sense? I've at lest gotten to know a little bit about her. But from what I've seen so far you haven't even tried to get to know her as her. There's more to her than what she is you know. There's also WHO she is." Yazoo turned away.
"Fine. What do you know about her other than she's a Darklord with Water Master powers?"
"I know she feels threatened, lonely, angry, insecure, and frighten of us. That's at lest a start and I think I touched her torn up area of her heart with what I already know." Yazoo looked at him in disbelief
"How did you find all that out?" Kadaj smiled,
"I watched the way she acted. And with what I did down stairs I think I've gotten her fixed in between her feelings and her duty. She can't stand up much longer if she's divided against her self."
"And? What makes you so sure that she'll even think about join up with us?" Kadaj shrugged.
"The same way I knew that Rufus was lying about Mother when he said he dropped her from the helicopter, the same way I knew that traitor brother would come after the children when we took them, the same way I knew while I was hanging off a ledge after Cloud kicked me that if I threw Mother's cells in the air he'd cut the box open, and the same way I know that this plan of ours is going to work. I have a premonition for it." Yazoo closed his eyes; he knew he wasn't winning the battle so he walked off.
"Fine, but at lest let me know before you interfere with her again at lest kay?"
Yazoo walked back up stairs to get something, and to get away from Kadaj, then saw that Wicked's room door was open.
"Ah-ha! I knew we couldn't trust her!" Yazoo crept in but found her asleep, with her body carelessly flopped on the bed under the covers as she breathed slowly and deeply. "I guess I was wrong…Damn it! I guess I should go." But for some reason, Yazoo was mesmerized by her slumber and he just stood there a while, watching her. As he stood there he realized. Something was different about her; not just that she was a human or Darklord there was something attractive about her. He didn't know what but he was going to find out as soon as she woke up, but for now he was just going to stand there and figure it out. He was so busy earlier with be annoyed by her and enjoying aggravating her that he hadn't taken the time to really look at her. Her features where very smooth, nothing was hard about her face at all. Her black silver streaked hair had fallen across her closed eyes, he thought she was very pleasant to look at because of her soft, flowing features after a while. Yazoo took off one of his gloves as he walked up closer to her; he sat down beside her and softly touched her face. The skin under his fingers was soft and gentle. He moved his hand to her hair, it felt like silk. As he rubbed her hair it shined with every stroke. "What is it about this girl?" He thought, trying to once again reason through it all. There was something deep inside him that was going on as he watched her and it made him nervous because he didn't understand it so he couldn't rationalize it in his mind. He had heard of matters of the heart with no explanation but this was the first time he had felt one and it bugged him. He moved his hand to her arm, the skin was also soft and gentle like her face yet it was also a little bit muscular. Wicked moaned once he touched her arm so he got up and left putting his glove back on. "What's goin' on Yazoo?" He asked him self as he walked out from the room and down the hall. All the logic in the world couldn't seem to answer his question. Round and round he chased after the thought trying to understand it all, but still couldn't comprehend it. After a while Yazoo shrugged it off as some Death Trooper hypnotizing spell to get him off guard. Death Troopers where born with life stream material elements in their cells so that they could create enough energy to change forms and stay inner-connected with each other and the planet core. What was happening to him could just be one of her tactics to get away. Yazoo pulled his mind onto more important things.
Wicked slowly opened her tired eyes into the afternoon sun, she tried to remember what she was doing here. "Oh yeah, I'm here to stop Kadaj." She looked to the door, "I'm doing a hell of a job huh?" She said sarcastically. Sitting up and rubbing her eyes she looked around then got out. She had taken her shorts off and when she looked around for them they where gone! "Oh my god! I can't walk around like this!" Spotting a closet she ran over then opened it up quickly and found at lest something there. "From what this looks like I might as well have asked Kadaj for something to wear." She said as she pulled it out, still, reluctantly, she put it on any way and zipped it up two inches below her collarbone intersection. She looked out of the room and looked down the hall on both sides, then she made a dash for the wall just stairs. She hid behind the wall and glimpsed around the corner. No one was in the room at the bottom that she could see or hear and no one was around the stairs at all, she heard distant voices in the backroom however. "Okay" she pulled back behind the wall and leaned flat up against it, "take in a deep breath, look again, let it out…run!" She bolted down the stairs and into the next room. Taking in a few more deep breaths she sighted her pistol on the table and smiled, "Bingo!" she whispered as she walked over and reached for it, but as she picked it up and checked for ammo a bullet suddenly came flying in and shot the gun out of her hand then something sounded like some one blowing of their gun muzzle,
"Ah, no…I don't think so princess." That infuriating monotone voice sounded from the room where the shot was fired. She whipped around and glared at Yazoo who was sitting in a chair in the next room.
"Grr! Give me my freedom!"
"Okay, just leave your gun here…you can always get another one right?"
"That gun! Cost me all the money I had along with the ammunition I got for it! I'm not simply leaving it behind!"
"Then if you have no money how are you going to eat or find shelter?" Yazoo asked as he got up and walked in. He didn't really care about the answer he just was trying to keep her from going.
"No of your business!" She snapped.
"Ah don't bite me." He said softly. She glared all the more. "Why do you even need it?"
"Why do you need yours? I can ask the same thing!"
"Yes but the difference is that I can explain mine, I have it because I'm constantly in combat positions or constantly in dangers that warrant it now…you still have yet answered my question." Wicked turned away,
"I don't need to answer you!"
"Well then, if you don't…I won't let you leave with your gun." Then he shot passed her head as she reached down for her pistol again.
"What in hell is going in…?" Kadaj started as he came in but stopped seeing Wicked standing there reaching for her gun. "Oh, you're up now. Good."
"Yes and now I'm leaving!" Kadaj raised his eyebrow, then he smiled and continued,
"Fine by me. But at lest give me back my cloths first."
"Huh?" Kadaj pointed at the outfit she was dressed in,
"That, as in what you're wearing, is mine." Yazoo started to laugh at her, as she turned red. Kadaj smiled then walked out of the room as Wicked looked up at Yazoo and glared again. "Talk to her Yazoo. I want her and you to be friends." Yazoo looked back at Kadaj as he went around the corner and glowered at him. He put his gun back under his belt,
"Well Wicked, let's talk." Wicked looked puzzled,
"About what?" Yazoo looked up at her,
"About you. What else?"