I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of the characters.
Drunk
The bar door opened and laughter reached him, the cheery atmosphere of the bar doing nothing to lighten his mood. he stumbled through the bar to an empty stool, dropping heavily onto it. The black-haired girl tending the bar looked over at him and frowned, quickly pouring him a shot and setting it in front of him.
"You okay?" she asked. "You look like you haven't slept in a week."
"And a half," Cody said, pulling his mask down and draining the drink before pulling the mask back up. "Anything for a broken heart?"
She nodded. "Sure."
She quickly fixed him another drink and set it down. "On the house."
"That's alright," he said. "I'm going to be drinking enough of this to fund your bar for the next year. At least until..." he pulled his mask down and drank it, setting the glass back down and pulling the mask up again, letting out the breath he'd held. "I'll pay my tab before I go, and don't worry how high it goes. I'm good for it."
She glanced at the grubby grey pants and ratty brown shirt he was wearing, before shrugging and grabbing him a bottle, setting it in front of him. "Whatever happened, she wouldn't want you to give up on life, right?"
He didn't respond, and she turned, walking away to tend to the other patrons. He took the cover off of his bottle and pulled his mask down, taking several swallows before putting the cap back on and pulling his mask up, grimacing.
Find a better life to live? he thought. You really didn't know me at all, did you? How am I supposed to live a better life if the only thing I've ever cared about isn't there?
He grimaced at his own melodramatic attitude. He took another drink, sighing into his mask, the microphone and speaker that allowed other people hear him without him having to shout switched off at the moment.
What do I do with myself now, Cissnei? he thought. If you want me to live a better life, what the hell am I supposed to do? Everything I've ever known was being a Turk and living for you. Now you're dead because I was too slow to save Zack, and the Turks probably have a standing termination order on me because of all the things they think I know. How the hell am I supposed to so anything with what's left of my life?
He took another drink just as the door burst open loudly. He turned his head slightly, looking back at the door, and saw a behemoth of a black man, built like a tank, and with a Gatling Gun for an arm walking into the bar. No one else payed him any mind, however, so Cody turned back to his alcohol.
"Tifa, we need to talk," the huge man said.
"Alright," Tifa nodded. "Excuse me. I'll be right back."
The patron she was talking to nodded and she poured him another drink before heading back into the back room of the bar. After a couple of minutes, a man stumbled up to the bar on Cody's left, clearly already drunk, and thudded his hands on it, looking around.
"Hey!" he called out. "Can I get some damn service!?"
"I'll be right out!" Tifa's voice called back.
"Here," Cody said, offering his bottle and switching on his mask's mic. "You can have some of this while you wait."
"I don't want that shit!" the man said, smacking it out of his hand, the bottle shattering on the floor.
"I was drinking that," Cody said, watching the man, feeling his buzz beginning to fade as his brain focused.
"Like I care what some bum like you was drinking!" the drunk spat. "You probably can't even afford that bottle in the first place! You're probably just gonna drink and bolt! Tifa! Where is that dumb slut? Lousy bitch. Can't even run a goddamn-"
Cody's right hand cupped the back of the man's neck as his left grabbed the man's right wrist, shoving his arm into the wrong position as he slammed the man's head down on the bar, using the man's arm as leverage to keep him there. When he spoke, his voice was icy and threatening, but also quiet, as he'd turned his mic back off and pulled his mask down "You've had enough already. You're drunk and making an ass of yourself, and now you're making me make an ass of myself. Get the hell out of the bar and sober up."
Then, he lifted the man, turning and walking him to the door before shoving the man out of it, letting him stumble and fall in the road. He turned, walking to the shattered bottle and began to pick up the pieces. As he did, Tifa knelt beside him.
"Here, let me," Tifa said.
"It's alright," Cody said. "I've got this. Can you get me another bottle and close out my tab?"
Tifa hesitated before nodding. "Alright. Sure. And...thank you for dealing with him. He isn't usually bad, but when he's drunk he's generally a handful."
"You're welcome," Cody said.
Tifa walked behind the bar, grabbing a new bottle and setting it on the counter before moving to the register. Just as she finished closing out his tab, he walked over with a napkin filled with the broken glass. She threw it away and he handed her the money he owed, plus a little extra for causing a scene, before taking his bottle and walking out. He pulled his mask down to take a drink as he walked, then pulled it back up again to breathe. However, after about his third drink in two hundred feet, he stopped as he heard someone talking nearby.
"'Walk with us down the path to the future' my ass," someone was saying as they read a Shinra propaganda poster. "Ain't no better path than joining AVALANCHE. If anyone can stop Shinra, it's them."
Cody continued to walk, pulling his mask down and taking several swallows before pulling it back up. "Dumbass doesn't know what war's really like or he wouldn't think it was such a great road."
He reached the hotel he was staying in and finished his bottle before passing out in his bed.
Cody walked out of the hotel, tugging the sleeves of his shirt down over his watch and arm bands. He passed through the slum without anyone sparing him a second glance. He brushed his messy, unkempt brown hair out of his eyes, having neglected to fix his hair after he'd showered that morning to add to his pour, permanently drunk appearance. As he walked, he glanced around for any cameras, turning his face away from them when he passed one. It was how he'd stayed hidden for so long. dress like the drunk he had become, don't look at any cameras, and don't go to the same bar twice. Except, as he walked, he found himself heading toward Seventh Heaven again. Something about that bar just seemed to draw him. Tifa was nice enough, but he really only cared about drinking until he passed out. He knew it would be a mistake too go to Seventh Heaven again. Going to the same bar more than once would give the Turks a chance to find him. And yet, he didn't bother trying to stop his feet carrying him there. However, partway there, he did stop at a notice board when he saw a piece of paper with the word "AVALANCHE" across the top. He walked over to read it and sighed.
"A better path to walk than Shinra's path of bleeding the planet dry," Cody read, sighing. "Alright. I get it. A better path. We'll see."
He sighed, continuing to Seventh Heaven and sitting down. Without even needing to ask, Tifa handed him a bottle. He thanked her and took a long drink, pulling his mask back on and looking around. honestly, the only person who he would peg as being in an anti-Shinra militant group was the black guy with the gun arm. He had no idea where to find him, though. He glanced at Tifa as he took another drink. She might know. At the very least, she probably knew how he could get in touch with the guy. He recalled the guy taking Tifa into the back room to talk to her in private. He stared at his liquor thoughtfully. Maybe shew as a member. Maybe Seventh Heaven was an AVALANCHE hideout. He snorted to himself, pulling his mask down and taking another drink. Worth a shot, at least. At worst, he'd get kicked out of the bar.
"Hey Tifa," he spoke up, Tifa walking over and smiling pleasantly. "You ever heard of a group called Avalanche?"
Tifa's eyes widened in surprise. "Well, sure. Everyone's heard of them. They're that eco-terrorist group that's trying to fight Shinra, right? Why do you ask?"
He took a drink in silence. She knew. He could read it in her body language.
"I was thinking about trying to join," he said. "I don't particularly care about stopping mako energy from being used, but I wouldn't mind taking Shinra down a couple notches. Or entirely."
Tifa eyed him suspiciously for a few minutes before nodding. "Well, Shinra's not really very popular in most of the slums. I don't know for sure, but I heard a rumor AVALANCHE sometimes meets somewhere on Scrap Boulevard, but there are a lot of monsters there."
Cody nodded, taking another drink. "Any guess what time?"
"At night, I'd assume, like most self-respecting villain groups," Tifa said.
Cody snorted and nodded, tipping his bottle back for several swallows. "I suppose I have all day to get drunk then."
Tifa gave him a concerned look but walked away to return to her job, even though there were only a handful, at best, other patrons at the bar early in the morning, and he was the only one drinking. Aside from him there was a muscularly built white guy in a green tee-shirt with jean cargo shorts reaching past his knees, a red bandanna tied around his forehead like a sweatband, black hair, and a pair of brown gloves, across from him was a fat white guy with a brown leather belt with thick suspenders, jean shorts, and a red bandanna over his black hair, and then a girl off to the side with brown hair in a ponytail, a red bandanna sweatband, a pair of green shorts with elastics at the bottoms holding them closed, brown boots with silver plating on the toes and heels, silver shin guards, a silver cuirass and pauldrons, black chainmail exposed from under the cuirass, visible above where the cuirass ended lower than he collarbones, the chainmail itself probably level with them, and below the high bottom of the cuirass, then a tight purple shirt under the chainmail with the collar reaching up her neck, brown leather gloves with a silver plate on the backs of her hands, and elbow-length, tight black sleeves extending from under the gloves. If he had to guess, she was either a monster hunter that kept the town safe, or she was with AVALANCHE. His interest in her died out within the second it took him to see what she was wearing, however, and after his two second sweeping glance of the bar, he returned to his drinking.
The gate creaked loudly as he opened it and he rolled his eyes as he heard several growls from the darkness ahead of him He sighed, swinging the gate closed again and the neighborhood watch member, who he was pretty sure wasn't AVALANCHE, locked it behind him.
"Have fun blowing off steam without a weapon," the guy said. "If you make it back alive I'll give you ten gil."
"I'll hold you to that," Cody said, walking away from the gate.
He saw a cave to the right so he walked into it, taking his gunblade out of its sealing materia once he was out of sight of the gate guard. Almost instantly, several monsters with bodies like caterpillars with circular mouths filled with pointes teeth and six long, spike-tipped feet each rushed at him from the darkness, only for him to slaughter them with his gunblade in seconds, the familiar feeling of wielding his weapon bringing him a sort of sense of calm that he probably shouldn't have in a cave filled with monsters that was almost too dark to see. He continued through the cave in silence, killing a dozen more of the creatures before stepping out of the far end of the cave and finding a group of people standing around as though waiting, apparently waiting for him. Among them were all three of the people who had been at the bar, along with the massive black man, and Tifa.
"So, this is him, huh?" the black guy grunted. "That's a fancy sword you got there."
"Thanks," Cody said, walking toward them, only for the man to aim his gun arm at him. "I'm not a threat."
"That remains to be seen," the man said. "Why should we trust you? And more importantly, why should we let you join? And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and take that mask off so we can get a good look at your face."
Cody's eyes swept over the group for a moment. Tifa was still wearing her short black skirt with black suspenders, white belly shirt over a black belly shirt, and fingerless, bicep-length black gloves with a pair of fingerless black leather gloves over them with her knuckles and the backs of her hands plated with metal and black and red armor on her left forearm complete with an elbow guard. The giant of a man who was aiming a Gatling gun at Cody's face was wearing a pair of dark green cargo pants, a black bullet proof vest under a faded brown leather jacket with the sleeves ripped off, a brown leather vambrace on his left arm with a fingerless leather glove, had a brown cloth sleeve extending from his Gatling gun up his arm to just below his shoulder, a pair of brown combat boots, and a glare that actually intimidated Cody worse than his gun. The fat guy had put on pauldrons, a bullet belt filled with shotgun shells, and had a shotgun in his hands, the muscular white guy, who was barely half the black guy's size, had a pistol on his side and a pair of magazines on suspenders on the front of his shoulders, and the girl in armor had a small submachine gun on her thigh.
"I'm going to assume that the fact that all of you are here means that you're the entirety of AVALANCHE," Cody said. "Or, at least, this cell of it, if it's got more cells. The black guy is obviously both leader and muscle for the group. Tifa's the bar owner, which I'm assuming is AVALANCHE's headquarters, or hideout. That makes you three the grunts. You all probably have your own jobs, but you're not the ones who make decisions. As for why you should hire me, that's entirely up to you. I know how to fight, I'm good at it, and I can read people easily. The big guy's got anger problems and hates to be looked down on, Tifa's calm and collected, Tubby's unquestioningly loyal but lacks confidence somewhat, the other guy is equally loyal and has a bit more confidence, and the girl is calm and confident, as well as being the only one to always be wearing armor. Mix that with the small-caliber submachine gun and I'd wager she's the explosives expert who builds all the bombs, making wearing armor more of a habit than anything."
They all looked around at each other before turning back to him.
"You some kinda spy or something?" the black guy asked.
"Or something," Cody said. "Like I said, I learned to read people really well, and I'm good at fighting, whether it's with this or a gun. If you don't want me, that's fine. I'll leave the sector and never come back, or I can keep coming to this bar so you can keep an eye on me, your call. Just let me know if you want my help or not now. If you don't, I want to get back to drinking soon."
Just then, a rabid dog barked behind Cody, charging and leaping at him, only for him to spin clockwise, slashing his sword with his right hand and splitting the dog's right side open, knocking it sideways to the ground. Two more leapt at him and he stepped to the right leaning that way and slashing in a two-handed upward, diagonal arc, splitting one of the dogs undersides open and killing it before the other turned to leap at him, only for him to lunge forward, driving his sword into its face. He ripped it back out and knelt, using the dog's side to wipe most of the blood off.
"Impressive," the black guy said. "You wouldn't happen to be a soldier, would you?"
"No," Cody said. "I just prefer using a weapon I don't have to worry about jamming in the middle of a fight. And since monsters don't shoot at me, I don't have to worry about being shot while trying to get close to them."
"Alright," the big guy said. "We'll take you on a test run. We're not telling you what we're doing ahead of time, or where. Just be at the bar tomorrow night. And make sure you're ready for a fight."
"If you say so," Cody said. "I'm going to get back to drinking now. See you tomorrow morning, Tifa."
She nodded and he turned, walking back along the side of the section of cliff the caves ran through, and killed several more monsters before storing his gunblade again before he reached the gate. He accepted his ten gil, then headed home to finish the half bottle he'd saved from earlier that day and went to bed.
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