Yazoo and Wicked started walking back into the woods behind the house; something seemed a little odd about the trees to Wicked. It wasn't until they had gotten about in the middle of the forest where it was dark enough to see what was so unusual about them. The where glowing, almost like they had a white, inner flame. But after a while Wicked wasn't paying attention to the trees,
"…So you never had a real family." Yazoo confirmed, she looked up at him then back to the ground nodding and biting her bottom lip.
"No, I never really have." She looked ahead to the end of the path "The closest I got was with my pet cats and two sisters. Let's not talk about that okay, we where talking about the Death Troopers weren't we?" Yazoo shrugged
"I've studied them before…I've never really studied the Water Masters though."
"You think that all we are worth down here on this planet is for studying? You DO sound like an alien then!"
"Hey! Watch…!"
"Why did Jenova come here any way?" She cut him off. Yazoo let out a huff and shook his head. "What? It was just a question."
"Yeah but you cut me off to ask it. Now I don't feel like answering." Wicked rolled her eyes,
"What ever alien boy." Yazoo glared at her. "Hey! You called me a tomboy princess! I can call you alien boy okay?"
"Fine. What ever makes you feel better about your self" Yazoo sighed then whispered loud enough for her to hear "tomboy princess." Wicked glared quickly but then looked ahead again, there was a moment of silence before Yazoo asked any thing else.
"Why did you attack me at the river this morning?"
"Huh? Oh, that. I wasn't attacking you! I was having fun with you! You where supposed to get all mad then I'd jump out and push you in the river telling you to cool it. You ruined all that when you got wise and caught me!"
"Sorry." Yazoo said, Wicked snickered at him. "What?" She shook her head.
"Never mind." She smiled as she whipped her hair back.
They got to a pool and Wicked kneeled down to drink, something fell from Wicked's pocket and splashed down into the pool. "Oops!"
"What?" Yazoo asked.
"Nothing, I think…" he looked confusingly at her then shrugged. After about a minute Yazoo saw his chance to get back at her for earlier that day. He took off his jacket and gloves then turned around quickly and splashed her.
"Hey!" She said irately spitting out water as she glared at Yazoo. Yazoo started snickering at her. Wicked grinned and got a huge ball of water together and dropped it on Yazoo, soaking him. Yazoo jumped up and threw more water back at her and she started getting another water ball together.
"Hey that's not fair! You can't do that!" Yazoo said,
"Why not?"
"Because I can't do that at all. So that's not fair!"
"Oh really?" She threw it at him sending him tumbling into the water; Yazoo came back to the surface and spit out the water that had come into his mouth. Wicked laughed at him back up on shore till she fell over. Yazoo glared as he thought a moment, then smiled evilly as he swam up to her; grabbing her foot he pulled her in, as she laughed then yelped as she fell in. Wicked came up spitting out water,
"Ha, ha!" Yazoo said smiling, swimming away and kicking up water in her face. Wicked swam after him giggling. Seeing her catching up to him Yazoo dived and swam downwards. Wicked didn't follow so he swam faster intending to come up and splash her again. As he got deeper he felt something flow past his arm, almost like a metal pendent. He grabbed it and swam up almost as fast as he swam down, he broke through the water and he opened his eyes. Surprisingly Wicked wasn't any where in view at the moment. Yazoo quickly looked at the object. It WAS a metal pendent, but it looked like it had some of the material in it as well. As he held it, he felt small surges of energy coming from it. He swam to shore, got out, and walked over to his jacket. Wicked came up after a bit,
"Hey. Why are you out there?"
"One moment." Yazoo said looking back at her then he turned to what he was doing. He found a small, leather cord in one of his pockets of his coat. Pulling it out he threaded it through the eye in the pendent and tied the cord together. Wicked came out and walked up behind him.
"What is it?"
"I don't know, something with material in it though." Wicked looked over his shoulder and gasped, "What?" Yazoo looked up and found his mouth an inch away from hers, she jumped back before she answered.
"Nothing, nothing."
"You know what
this thing is don't you?" Yazoo said starting to put it on.
"DON'T DO THAT!" Wicked screamed, Yazoo stopped.
"Why?" When Wicked didn't answer he continued to put it on.
"I said don't do that!"
"Give me the reason." He said as he placed it around his neck, a surge of energy rushed from the pendent into his chest like an explosion then ran through his heart and around his whole body. "Whoa. What was that?" Wicked started to turn around. Yazoo felt something like water, rushing from one end of him to the other. As he moved his arms a little trying to keep from loosing his balance he felt the watery feelings being pulled around, he closed his eyes and moved his left hand one way and the water feelings rushed over to his right side, Wicked squealed. Yazoo opened his eyes and found her lying on the ground, drenched. "What happened? You screw up on a move?" Yazoo said laughing, Wicked glared up at him.
"Do what you did again. Only keep your eyes open this time!" Yazoo moved his hand up and the water feelings rushed up to his head, as it did so Yazoo saw a collection of water rise from the pool beside them.
"Oh."
"That's what happened a moment ago!" Wicked snapped at him. Yazoo looked back and smiled sinisterly. "Oh-oh…oh my god! You would not!" She said in a shaking voice,
"So THAT'S why you didn't want me to put it on did you?" He balled his hand into a fist "NOW it's fair!" Yazoo moved his hand and sent the water away with Wicked as his target. Her eyes dilated, she yelped and ran with the large body of water casing after her. It was quite a hilarious sight and Yazoo laughed at it as she kept running. Needless to say, the water caught up with her and she was drenched again and Yazoo was laughing so hard that he fell over.
"Well, I can see you two are having fun aren't you?" A familiar voice said in the trees. Yazoo pulled him self together and looked around for where the voice was coming from. Then he saw Wicked looking up worriedly, he him self looked up into the scarlet eyes of a pissed off Vincent.
"Vincent. What are you doing here?" Wicked asked trying to sound calm.
"And I have to say Wicked, in all my years of watching Reno be an idiot you really take the cake don't you. You're some mole aren't you?"
"Mole?" Yazoo repeated looking at Wicked. "What in hell is he talking about?" Wicked shook her head then caught sight of Vincent showing her an extra gun he had under his clock. Once again independents and freedom called out to her.
"Wicked?" Yazoo repeated,
"Bye!" She said as she flipped into the air and landed beside Vincent, grabbing the gun he handed her, she shot at Yazoo who dogged it as he ran for his coat. Wicked yelled out profanities.
"You'll get him next time." Vincent said as he jumped up towards Yazoo.
"I'll kill you for this Wicked! Better yet! I'm gonna torture you!" Yazoo said as he jumped out of the way of Vincent and tried to get him on the ground so that he could get away. Wicked quickly reloaded the gun so as Vincent kicked Yazoo to one side he yelled out as he jumped away.
"Now!" Wicked took aim and fired at Yazoo's leg, this time she got him and he yelled in pain.
Yazoo only laid on the ground for a minute before he jumped up and started a hand-to-hand fighting match with Vincent on his bad leg. But Yazoo had never been told that Vincent was once part of the Turks…and that Reno was a bad example of the true strength of what a Turk could be and so Yazoo had a hard time getting him down. And even though he eventually did get him down Vincent kicked the wounded area of his leg which sent Yazoo falling down as he grabbed his leg. Wicked kept firing at him when Vincent wasn't around. Yazoo was sick and tired of dealing with that girl's endless games and attempts to get away. He was determined now more than ever to chain her to the floor so that he would have to deal with her fighting or her running away any more when they got back. He was almost at wits end, his leg was throbbing and if he didn't get it to stop soon he'd have to give in and surrender. Then he remembered something that he had seen being done. Summoning the water to his hand he brought it around his leg to heal. But that would take some time and Vincent was running back like hell fire. Yazoo tried to stay off his healing leg but had to use it some times to keep from falling and to keep Vincent from kicking it again. He decided to look like he was taking a dive and Vincent believed that he was too tired to fight any more. Vincent kick Yazoo again to one side but this time Yazoo flipped as he hit the ground and landed right beside the water, his leg hadn't fully healed but he was ready to commit power suicide by calling the waters to move into a semi ice ball. (Never done it before. Do it wrongly and you can get in serious trouble.) Pulling the water feelings inside his chest he saw the water from the pool collect in the center, shaping it into a sphere and somehow partly freezing it Yazoo raised his hand then acted like he was throwing something at Vincent and the globe went flying. Yazoo grabbed his coat then flipped into the air and landed beside Wicked. Grabbed her arm he snatch the gun out of her hand and dragged her as he ran back towards home. Even though Vincent was drenched and cold he ran after Yazoo and tried to catch up enough to grab Wicked and get her away. But luck (or even Jenova) was in Yazoo's favor as he was close enough to the house to call out to his brothers to come to arms. Kadaj came running out, two-bladed Katana in hand, flipped into the air. Landing right between Yazoo and Vincent. He laughed as he said.
"Ah Vincent. My long lost enemy of old. Let's dance shall we?" Kadaj smiled as he slashed at Vincent when he got into range. He jumped away then got out his own gun and fired at Kadaj who ducked each bullet. Next, Sephiroth came out and got behind Vincent to knock him out but he escaped that. But not when Loz came falling from the sky and landed on him and sent him crashing to the ground. Yazoo threw Wicked inside and slammed the backdoor. He grabbed her arm again and dragged her up stairs. He heaved her onto her bed as he ran in and slammed the door again.
"That wasn't a smart move on your part Wicked. Firing at me like that." Yazoo informed her as he panted. He pulled his coat back on and zipped it up, put on his gloves and leaned against the door listening. A sharp pain ran up and down Yazoo's leg and he cringed as he fell to the floor. He had re-opened the bullet wound and it was bleeding critically.
Wicked saw him falling and caught him. She also saw the blood flowing out of his leg and she picked him up, carried him over and laid him on the bed.
"You have a knife anywhere?" She asked him forgetting about her own in her boots. He pointed to the deck so she walked over and started looking around in the draws. She found a letter opener and pulled it out then warned him, "This is going to hurt." She grabbed a worthless piece of cloth and placed it under Yazoo's leg. "Roll over a little." As she cut into his calf where the bullet hole was Yazoo cringed but didn't scream. Blood spilled out from his leg as she cut in deeper trying to reach the shell. She started to feel something so she cut the hole larger around it then she grabbed something to grab the bullet and pull it out. After she got it out she summoned water into the room and formed an orb around her hand and she touched where the wound was. A soothing sentiment came over Yazoo and he felt drowsy. Wicked held her hand there for twenty minutes after of which Kadaj and the rest had come back in from their fight with Vincent. Yazoo's leg had healed but she saw he had fallen asleep so she got up and left. As she came down…she knew Kadaj and every one else was furious at her for binging Vincent back, and shooting Yazoo in his leg, AND making them fight Vincent with out help. She cringed as she got down stairs, as there was one more slam of the back door. Sneaking over to the door she spied on the men as she watched them talking.
"We can trust that girl Kadaj." Sephiroth warned placing his seven-foot long Katana on the table, "She on their side. We ether need to get the stigma in her now or we'll have to send her away." Wicked gasped, the last thing she would let them do is infected her with that stuff.
"I know, I know, but we can't just infect her nor can we simply send her away" Sephiroth huffed but Kadaj acted like he didn't hear anything, "we need her. So we have to get her to trust us first. We lose her we lose an important part of this planet's security."
"It's not like we can't find another Death Trooper Kadaj!" Sephiroth snapped as he glared at him. Kadaj sighed and clasped his hand together as he leaned back in his chair,
"Not quite Sephiroth, we can't just go and find another one just like that." The back door opened and a young girl walked in, she had virtually silver hair but there were traces of brown colors in it. Her eyes where bluish-green but basically green with cat-slits for her pupils unlike the others who had snake-slits. She was wearing a heavy black trench coat like Kadaj's.
"What's going on here Kadaj?" She asked in a soft voice as she came in, Wicked flinched. She recognized that voice.
"Hello Esakatari. We have a problem here. I think we found your Death Trooper friend but she's on traitor brother's side." Kadaj answered. Wicked moved away from the door. She didn't want to hear any more, her best friend other than Vincent and Yuffie had gone to the dark side. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall.
"No, not Esa. Why her?" Wicked whispered and moaned. Suddenly she heard some one walking towards the door and she ducked behind it. The door opened hiding her then Kadaj and Esakatari walked out along with the others.
"I hope she didn't hurt Yazoo too much." Esakatari said as she walked up the stairs.
"If they can make Esakatari this thing is so hot then what chance do I have when they brain-wash me?" After a moment of watching to make sure that they were all up stairs Wicked bolted. She found her gun and ammunition again and ran for the door with it in hand. She ran up against the door so fast that it made a thud sound.
"What was that?" Kadaj asked, Wicked loaded her gun as she heard him walking quickly towards the stairs. When she saw his face she shot at him and ran out the door. Then jumping onto Yazoo's bike she yelled,
"Freedom!" Starting the bike she kicked up dirt as she zoomed away. Wicked pulled on the gas lever so that it was almost completely against the handle trying to get away.
"Wicked! We need you!" Her sister Wild said in her head. She leaned and went to the back alleys. As she got close to an old, abandoned building she stopped and jumped off. There was a loud sound of wailing inside the basement. She ran in to see her mother who had been sick for a long time. Her two sisters, Wild and Wrath, where down there sitting beside her holding her hands, tears streaming down their faces.
"What is it…what's wrong?" Wicked asked worriedly, Wild looked up.
"She's dying…Wicked." she said. As Wicked joined her sisters she felt her mother's presence start to leave the room as she watched the old spider warrior die. Her own heart broke and she wept with her siblings, Wicked's mother freed her right hand from her sister Wrath and held to out Wicked saying in her kindhearted voice,
"My child, please, I can't stay much longer." Wicked took her sister's place beside her mother and held her hand close to her face. "Promise me you'll look after the others when you need to." Wicked kissed her hand and nodded.
"Alright mom. I love you." The old woman's eyes shut and Wicked felt her existence slip away in her hands as she said her last words.
"Me too dear. Good bye."
Yazoo sat on the bed and held his head. He was getting a headache from all this arguing, Kadaj was yelling at Sephiroth and Sephiroth was saying that Kadaj should have known better while Esakatari was butting in and saying that Kadaj was just doing his best to resolve this situation,
"Kadaj! You should have known better." "Don't yell at me! it's not my fault this happened!" "That's right Sephiroth! It wasn't completely his fault." "Shut up woman! You should have had the foresight to see this!" "And YOU should have had the insight that what I was doing was helping us and not hurting us!" "Then maybe you should have found some one we could have trusted!" "She WAS some one we could trust!" "SHUT UP WOMAN!" "Don't talk to Esa like that! And maybe you should have trusted her a little more! Then she wouldn't have…!" "Kadaj there was no way that I…!" "Sephiroth if you had just…!" "Woman if you don't shut up…!"
"Stop it!" Yazoo screamed out after a while, there was a moment of silence as he stood up. "I'm going to go out and find her. So all three of you just…shut up." Yazoo said calmly as he walked out of the room; walking down stairs he found his Velvet Nightmare lying on the table. He picked it up and checked for ammo then grabbed a few shells from the case underneath then put his gun under his belt and walked out. It was nighttime again, seems like she always was waiting until he was ready to settle down for the day to run off. He sighed and walked on following the tire tracks. As he walked he saw they weren't leading out of town but into the dark alleys instead. The rats scurried across the path as he walked, people were curled up in boxes to fight against the cold, half of them weren't even dressed enough to keep warm. As Yazoo looked around he kept seeing the tire tracks leading deeper and deeper into this black hell. After a while the tracks stopped and he found his bike, semi parked facing an open window in an old building where rats kept running in and out and a wailing voice kept screaming. Two girls came walking out of the door and Yazoo hid behind the wall he was at. The girls where also crying and they held onto each other tightly as they walked away. Yazoo came out
"Kind of lonely out here isn't it?" he nodded to himself as he looked around
"Shut up! Don't remind me!" The broken voice called out from the open window as gasps from crying followed. Yazoo knelt down and peered through the darkness to find Wicked sitting there, loading her gun with a dead body over her lap as the tears came down her face and drenched the corpse under her.
"Wicked? What in hell are you doing?" He said uninterestedly.
"I'm committing suicide what does it look like to you?" She said in a laughing voice as she closed the bullet chamber. Yazoo sighed and started to crawl in after her but she pointed the gun at him and pulled the hammer back. "Take one more step and I'll blow your head off!" She warned as he stepped in. Yazoo just stood there watching her point her gun at him,
"Go ahead, shoot me." Wicked cringed and tried to pull the trigger but couldn't,
"Ah!" She gasped then she glared at him, "I never really liked you any way!" She turned the gun around and aimed for her skull then closed her eyes. "Say good bye to Kadaj for me!" Yazoo ran up and kicked the gun out of her hands. He grabbed her wrist as she darted for the gun again.
"Let me go, let me go! This isn't your crisis so let me deal with it my way!"
"No. You're not dealing with it. You're trying to escape it." Yazoo said, Wicked stopped struggling. "Suicide it a permanent solution to a temporary problem. You're trying to escape it instead of just dealing with it. Hm…weakling." Wicked hung her head, "Now who that person over there?" Yazoo asked as he nodded curiously at the body on the floor. Wicked gasped for air again before she answered faintly.
"My mother." Yazoo turned around and looked at her as he let her go, she collapsed then fell apart on the floor as she curled up into a tight ball. He sighed as walked over, picked her up, and held her head against his chest as she cried. He didn't quite know what else to do but hold her until she stopped crying. Thoughts kept swimming through his head and he didn't see Wicked falling asleep before she started to move down. Yazoo picked her up, grabbed her gun, then found another way out. He had to wake her up so that he didn't run the risk of her falling of the bike on the way home.