Over the next two weeks, life settled into an easy routine as they travelled slowly to the coast. The plan was for them to pick up a ship at one of the ports to cross the ocean before making the rest of their way to Aredthusa. Orothe had them avoid the settlements that they saw in the distance to reduce the chances of getting infected, but with the stores they already had and the abundance of game Cloud found himself better fed than he used to be back in his own time.
As they moved north, Cloud began to notice something strange. Typically he would have expected to see monsters almost everywhere, popping up with unnerving regularity precisely when you didn't want them to show, but he had seen hardly any.
The general consensus in the group as far as monsters went seemed to be: if it can be outrun, outrun it; if it can be scared off, scare it; only if it absolutely has to be fought, fight it - at least until Cloud ended up as the sole fighter in three separate skirmishes, at which point he realised the last part had changed to: if it absolutely has to be fought, send out Cloud.
I'm a mercenary again, aren't I? Funny how things come a full circle.
Their first encounter with infected Cetra came without warning in the middle of the day. Cloud had been on edge for a while before they appeared, having picked up on the chocobos' restlessness. The Cetra were equally twitchy, so when Orothe slowed his pace to match Cloud's he was almost eager to get it over with.
"Keep your hand on your sword," he warned. "Something's stalking us, and I'm almost certain it's the infected."
"How can you be sure?" Cloud asked, unhooking First Tsurugi and swinging the blade round to rest the flat wedge on his shoulder.
"The Planet is... repulsed? It's an unnatural thing, and nothing wants to be near it. For it to be so easily felt, there must be at least a small group, maybe ten, and fully possessed by the sickness."
"Right," Cloud said, thinking. "Any idea where they are?"
"Behind us, that's about all I can say," he answered with a frown.
"If we run, odds are high that they'll chase. If we pretend we haven't seen them, they'll either come out of their own accord or wait until we're asleep, depending on their intelligence. Either way we're in for a fight."
The terrain was just forested enough to provide shelter to the things stalking them, but the trees were rapidly thinning out as the five continued to travel, everyone on high alert. Cloud kept his eyes on the right of the road where the trees were still reasonably densely packed, but he could see flickers of movement all the same.
The moment they ceased to have shelter, the infected emerged to start their hunt in earnest.
It had been a while since Cloud had seen makonoids - people mutated after being subjected to immense amounts of mako - and he had hoped he never would again, but these infected Cetra were definitely triggering a few memories. They moved fast, they moved weird, and they were clawing up the earth as they raced towards the caravans.
Some had scales instead of skin, and most had odd spurs of bone on their elbows or coming out of their shoulder blades. They were a range of colours from bruise purple to swamp green, their eyes all-black with no discernable pupil or iris. Most had claws, and many bared the vicious teeth of a carnivore as they made chase. Not one of them looked identical to any of the others, but all of them carried some trace of their former humanity - a bracelet that hadn't yet fallen off, or the remnants of filthy, torn clothes clinging to their frame. Cloud would have pitied them, but he knew better than most how irretrievable their minds were.
The chocobos were running flat out, but with the weight of the caravans and the people slowing them down it was easy to see the monsters gaining on them fast.
Cloud leaned back and shouted over the noise, "Keep going!" and jumped off the back of the caravan.
The monsters could run fast, but so could he. As long as he kept them focused on him, the caravans would be safe. Unlinking one of the blades from the main body of First Tsurugi so he could dual wield, Cloud adopted a defensive stance and waited for them to come to him.
The frontrunners hit him a few seconds later, stinking and snarling as they struck. He fended them off with the sword in his left hand - they had enough intelligence to flinch, but not enough to run or stop attacking. The smell was the worst thing; necrotizing flesh and the acid reek of mako combined with the thick, sweet smell that characterised a Geostigma victim. It was practically an assault on its own.
Aiming to get things over with as soon as possible, he slashed out with his left to sever one creature's spine, the blade neatly slicing through flesh and bone as Cloud swung it around. The main blade in his right defended against another, but Cloud still had to bend his back into an aching curve to avoid a swipe from a third. Numbers were the problem; he would have to kill fast and clean to avoid being overwhelmed.
When one got too close to his side, he lashed out with a kick to put it back into his sword's range. Stepping back at the same time, he swung one blade over his head to carve it down the middle while sweeping the other back in a wide quarter-circle. Two more died, and one more lost an arm - it wasn't deterred by the missing limb, apparently unconcerned with pain, and darted forward to slash with the remaining hand only to be dispatched with a quick thrust to the torso.
Six more were about to come into range.
He looked back at the caravans, and narrowed his eyes.
One had managed to get past, ignoring him in favour of more bountiful prey. Cloud could see it running flat out, its fists pounding on the ground as it hurtled forward, getting closer and closer to the caravans. Relinking his blades, he held the complete sword parallel to the ground as he started to run.
The monsters may have Jenova's virus in them, but he had all the strength and speed of a SOLDIER.
His feet slammed against the ground, propelling him forward faster and faster and faster. The distance between him and monster vanished in moments as he went flat out to reach them.
He could hear a scream - well, more of a shrill battle cry if he was honest - from Kenhelm, who was hanging over the side of the caravan with his sword, waving it about, and a corner of his mind noted that he should really give him some lessons in how to use it.
It was over in a moment. His sword was sharp, and the monster was just a monster after all - one swipe and its torso was severed from its legs, forcing it to faceplant on the floor in a way that was almost funny. Cloud made sure it was over by stabbing his sword down and severing its head.
The remaining six were still fast approaching, so Cloud went to meet them. He had all the advantage - his speed was greater, his strength was greater, and he still had human intelligence. Moving his blade in a long sweeping arcs, the weight driving the edge through them like they paper, he rapidly dispatched the remainder. Another tried to bypass him - it died with his sword in its back.
Once life had left all of them, Cloud turned back to make his way to where the others had stopped the caravans. As he approached, Orothe called out to him.
"Wait there!"
"Are you alright?" Vahana blurted out as she jumped off the caravan, ignoring her brother. She paused a little way away, clearly wanting to check for herself that he wasn't currently bleeding out somewhere but equally obviously unwilling to get too close.
"Cloud, I'm sorry, you'll need to get clean and we'll have to burn the clothes before we can get any closer. The infection can be carried in the blood, and there's too much on your sword and on your jerkin to be safe. Have you been cut anywhere? Did they bite you at all?" Orothe asked. Although he was essentially telling him to stay away because he was unclean, Cloud could see from the aborted movements of his hands and arms that he was finding it difficult to restrain himself from checking him over, just as his sister was.
"I'm fine," he told them. "Just dirty - no cuts, bites, or even bruises. They didn't manage to land a hit on me."
"I'm glad," Vahana said, with a barely there smile that did nothing to hide her worried frown. "Go to the river, get cleaned off. We'll get a new set of clothes for you, and Orothe will bring you soap." She was clearly still upset, but Cloud just nodded.
"I'll be quick. We don't want more of them coming while you wait for me," he pointed out.
.
.
AN:/ I'm going to be doing a full rewrite soon; I'll be upping the world-building, which I thought would be the boring bit for everyone, and increasing the detail on the different civilisations and the differences between the world Cloud knows and the one he's been thrown into.
(By the way - Cetra can spontaneously get infected, or they can get infected through periods of close contact with the infected. Non-Cetra can't just develop the infection, there has to be transfer of bodily fluids or contaminated waste. This is the sort of world-building I'll be putting in the text in the rewrite, like a good author.)
Thank you for reading so far!
