I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of the characters.
Gaining
Cody grabbed Jessie and dove forward, avoiding their pursuer's claws by inches before rolling, setting her to her feet and resummoning his Gunblade, Roche and Cloud stepping up beside him with their own, Barret and Vincent aiming at the massive thing behind them.
"This thing doesn't know when to quit," Cody growled.
"We'll have to teach it, then," Roche said, Cloud nodding.
Their current adversary was a massive, dark-green-skinned creature with an arrow-shaped head with a long, pointed horn the same color as its body sticking forward out of the top of its head, four legs ending in wicked, light brown claws, a pair of tails originally with light brown spines running down its back and tails, and a pair of long arms extending from its back and ending with a single, massive, blade-like claw each, the claws heavily serrated. After having fought the thing three times already, they'd cut off both tails, broken its horn, and hurled it off a cliff three times. However, it refused to give up. And it was fast. Its arms moved almost too fast for Cody to react to, delivering a strike that he was barely against. Fortunately, both of the Soldiers with them had the brute strength to block the claws, so Cody's main job was damage-dealing.
"Well?" Barret shouted at the thing. "Let's go already!"
The thing shrieked at the challenge and leapt forward to land in front of them, its arms swiping forward in a pair of blurs. However, as it did, Cody fired a blast from his Gunblade behind himself, launching himself past the thing above as the two Soldiers avoided the thing, both launching themselves forward as well. They all slashed at the thing, Cody's blade reaching the thing first and splitting it along its back, intersecting a mess of other gashes it had already sustained in their previous fights, before the thing's arm swiped at him, smashing him down into the ground behind him, his Manawall barely holding. As soon as he hit, he used another blast to launch himself out of the way of the creature's foot before it could impale him with the biggest claw on it. Cloud and Roche both slashed at the creature, only for its claws to crash into their swords, hurling them both backward. Instantly, Barret opened fire, Aerith swinging her staff and sending blasts of magic energy into the creature, as Vincent charged. The creature shrieked, leaping at Vincent and striking at him with both claws, only for him to duck out of the way, his three-barreled pistol firing and blasting a gaping hole in the thing. It shrieked and spun toward him and he leapt away just before Cody launched himself under the thing, slashing its underside between its front and back sets of legs. It shrieked in agony, rearing up, only to suddenly crackle with energy, a triangular pyramid barrier made of lightning appearing around Cody, lifting him into the air before a larger one appeared around that, opposite it. Then, lightning surged inward, Cody shrieking in agony as his body contorted and spasmed, only for Aerith to blast the barrier with a lightning spell of her own, the barrier breaking apart and dropping Cody to the ground. His body glowed gold for a moment before he stood, picking up his Gunblade just as the creature shrieked and leapt at him.
"Enough," Cody snarled.
He launched himself forward, baiting the creature to slash. When it struck at him, he twisted, gritting his teeth and bracing for pain, only for Roche's blade to crash into the claw, knocking it away from Cody. Then, Cody squeezed his trigger, his blade flashing through the arm. The creature shrieked, staggering backward just as Cloud slashed, an arc of Mako Energy speeding through the air and taking two of the creature's legs off on its left side, the side with the arm remaining. It shrieked, the arm flashing back and batting Cloud backward only for the creature to spin a quarter of the way around. As it stopped, however, Vincent's gun pressed to its head before firing, blowing a hole through it. The thing shrieked, its remaining legs scrambling, struggling to retreat from them all. However, as it did, Jessie leapt onto its back, slashing its remaining arm off, then spinning and taking off the remaining legs. Then, Tifa flipped into the air over it, before drilling a glowing blue axe kick into its back just below its neck, flattening that section of its body and knocking its head off completely. As the thing collapsed, Jessie dropped off of it as Cody, Cloud, and Roche all groaned, leaning against the cliff, holding their various bruises and broken bones, and Cloud his burns. Aerith clasped her hands in prayer for a moment, her hands glowing, then raised her right hand. The light shone, and as it faded, so did their injuries.
"Wow," Cody said. "Why have you never done that before?"
"That wasn't me," Aerith said. "I just asked the Planet to heal you."
"And it might say no," Cody guessed, Aerith nodding. "Fair enough." He looked around. "So...how much further, Cloud?"
"Not far," Cloud said. "Should only be another quarter of a mile."
The others all nodded, following Cloud along the path again.
"I'm so glad we cut its tails off that last time," Jessie said.
"Agreed," Cody nodded. "I was getting really tired of that thing not even being vulnerable from behind."
Jessie nodded. "It looked like you were getting annoyed."
Cody held his arms out to the sides, allowing his tattered, bloodstained suit jacket and shirt to hang loosely from him. "Understatement."
Jessie giggled, nodding, and slipped her hand into his. Then, finally, they left the mountain behind and all climbed back onto their chocobos. Unlike the group Boco had been a part of, this group was terrified of monsters, so they'd had to walk and protect the chocobos while Boco kept them calm and stopped them from running away, Red XIII staying with them to protect them directly in case something snuck past them.
"Now where to?" Cody asked.
"North?" Aerith suggested.
Cloud hummed thoughtfully. "There isn't much to the south of here, just a peninsula. West there's a land bridge to the next continent, but that'll take forever to check." he nodded. "Yeah. Let's try North first.
They all nodded and Boco took the lead, Cody swapping his ruined suit jacket and shirt for a fresh one while they rode before Jessie leaned back against him.
Cody narrowed his eyes as he watched Rufus Shinra and Palmer walk through the town. They'd stopped at a small village called Rocket Town, and the others had all left to meet the apparent leader of the town, who everyone called "Captain" while Cody and Jessie waited at the village's tailor shop for Cody's jacket and shirt to be cleaned and repaired.
"We should deal with them while they're here," Cody said, eyes scanning the area around them for any Turks.
The pair had brought a platoon of soldiers, along with Shinra's pet bloodhound, Darkstar, who was staring at Cody and Jessie.
"Let's not start a war between Rocket Town and Shinra," Jessie said. "All of the people here technically work for Shinra. We'd end up as enemies of the whole town."
Cody sighed, nodding. "Fair enough."
"All done," the tailor said, bringing Cody's restored clothes over, along with the sets he'd cleaned for him. "It took a bit longer than I expected, since it's a Turk suit, but it's all set now."
"Thanks," Cody said, sealing the clothing in his wristband before paying the tailor.
Just then, there were several gunshots from behind the captain's house before the sound of an airplane's engine roared to life.
"This can't be good," Cody sighed.
A moment later, a large, red plane with a twin tail and propellers on the ends of the wing began to fly overhead unsteadily, all of the others clinging to the wings. Cody sighed and turned around, Jessie climbing onto his back before he summoned his gunblade, leaping into the air before beginning to use successive blasts to get into the air in front of the plane. It flew low and the captain, who'd been arguing with Rufus about Rufus taking the plane, leapt onto it, swinging himself into the pilot's seat just before Cody landed on a wing beside Cody, who caught him, then pulled Jessie off Cody's back so she could hold on to the plane instead of making it harder for Cody to cling to the plane. Just then, the Shinra troops all opened fire at the plane, and one lucky shot struck one side of the tail, blowing part of it off.
"Fuck!" the captain shouted. "We're hit! We're going down!"
"Can you make an emergency landing!?" Cloud shouted over the wind.
"We're gonna land in the water!" the captain shouted. "Grab your fuckin drawers, and don't piss in em!"
Cody braced himself, wrapping an arm over Jessie. Then, the plane began to drop hard. A few moments later, it slammed down in the water, and a spray slammed into Cody directly, hurling him backward off of the plane and knocking his mask off. He splashed down and looked around, seeing his mask sinking and dove, catching it and returning to the surface. He dumped the water out of his mask before holding it to his face and taking a breath. He kicked his legs to stay afloat as he clasped the back back into place, then began to swim after the stalled out plane. It seemed to have survived the crash fairly well, but it definitely wasn't going to be flying anywhere. As he finally reached it, Jessie and Tifa hauled him up onto it as the captain said they could do whatever they wanted with the plane.
"What are we doing with it?" Cody asked, uselessly wringing saltwater out of his jacket.
"Using it for a boat," Cloud said. "Sephiroth is across the ocean."
"Great," Cody said, glancing at Aerith, who tilted her head toward the captain. "What about you, captain?"
"Who the fuck knows," the captain said. "I'm history to Shinra, especially now, and I've accepted that." He paused. "What will all of you do?"
"We're hunting a man named Sephiroth," Cloud said.
"And another named Levi," Cody said.
"And we're trying to take down Shinra, too!" Aerith said brightly, as though she were talking about a shopping trip.
"Shit!" the captain said, jumping up. "Count me in!"
"You got a name?" Cody asked.
"Call me Cid," the captain said. "What about all of you?"
They all identified themselves, then all settled in for a long trip on their makeshift boat.
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