A/N: Slightly shorter delayed chapter, holidays, illness and all that.

If Zidane had thought that Sector 5 had looked dilapidated, then he would have to search very hard in a thesaurus to find some way of describing the ruins of Sector 6 in a way that didn't resort to simply cursing the state of it. Even calling it a ruin was being charitable, ruins would have been impressive at some point in time if not now, Sector 6 was just... a dump. "People used to live here?" He asked, scrambling over a hill of scrap sheet metal and broken bricks.

"I think so?" Aerith responded, using her staff to help her climb up through the rusting pile, trying to not stick it in the corpse of a monster that was to the Midgar slums what a dead pigeon was to the surface. "Kinda hard to see it now but I think that's a house over there." She said, pointing at a blur of white paint concealed behind the remains of a clock tower's machinery as she reached the summit of the pile, a cracked tarmac road twisted it's way through the heaps as the three continued on their way towards the next area, if other people had braved the treacherous urban terrain then sector 7 had to have something worthwhile beyond more simple market stalls, otherwise they'd be risking getting slashed by broken chunks of metal for nothing.

As they approached, Aerith's scouting was a little off, it wasn't a house that was caught underneath a selection of various types of rust, it was too small despite being painted to look like one. The white walls and the red roof were taller than all 3 of the travellers but resembled more of a renovated shed or an up-scaled playhouse than an actual dwelling. Even if it was in remarkable condition compared to everything around. "Strange," Dagger pondered to herself "everything else here has wasted away, yet this almost shines."

"Eh, probably got fresh paint or something," Zidane dismissed, pressing a hand against the wall and hearing the slightest creak "Feels kinda wooden, like this was an old place that Midgar just built over cause they wouldn't sell up." he commented, rapping his hand on the paintwork.

"Maybe the owners are still around?" Aerith suggested, walking up to the door and putting her hands together to call out "HELLO!?" to little response except the groaning of rusted beams piled on top "Guess not." the flower seller conceded, turning back to the winding path across the sector.

Shrugging his shoulders as the ladies walked away, Zidane walked past the house without a second thought until he heard another noise, this time from inside the small building, a whirring. Not the noise of metallic decay that surrounded the whole undercity-city but a more... dedicated sound. The sound of a machine slowly coming back to life after a long time's neglect and it was happening right behind the door.

Zidane dived out of the way as the door burst off it's hinges as a massive mechanical maw snapped it's way through the new opening, metallic teeth blunting as they were crunched together "What the heck is that!?" the blond yelled out as he reached for his blades. The small house rose from the ground, shaking piles of debris off that threatened to crush them before fully revealing it's horrifying form.

Limbs extended from every other opening, windows and decorative chimneys sported arms, four mechanical legs stood on the tarmac buckling under it's own weight, a long serrated blade shot out through a wall and it's head was a disused aerial bomb with eyes and teeth. Nothing about it looked friendly, just mean and hungry.

Diving out of the way of the long blade's path as the Hell House swung itself around, Zidane tried what came naturally to the thief when dealing with houses and tried to climb the mechanical beast for a better place to stab, trying to hang off the awning of the roof so his knives could be driven down onto the top of it's head.

The first part went off fairly smoothly, the long blade required the whole house to swing around to strike making it easy enough for the genome to duck underneath and start clinging to the side of the wall. Unfortunately for Zidane, what he had thought would be a good blind spot to start his ascent was not, he had gotten in behind an outstretched arm that he had thought could only reach forward, only for it to spin around in a way no organic arm could have done in an attempt to grab and yank him off the paintwork "Whoa!" He called out, spinning himself further back along the wall to avoid being snatched up.

Dagger was no slouch on the draw either, pulling herself and Aerith away from the flailing limbs while she reached for her staff "All light fall into darkness," she chanted as the machine continued in its efforts to scrape Zidane off the side, letting the energy of her white magic flow through her before yelling out her spell "Bound Darkness! BLIND!"

Upon the completed casting a cloud of darkness descended on the metallic head of the beast, forcing it to attempt to brush away the impenetrable fog in front of it's eyes to no effect earning a smug smirk from the queen and a thumbs up from the king, letting Zidane resume his climb unimpeded. Swinging up onto the roof and dashing along the tiles, knives drawn for a fatal leap that would seal this monster's fate. The magical darkness might have impeded the Hell House's vision, but it was still lashing out unpredictably, an arm that was trying to wipe away the spell had instead smacked into Zidane mid-jump, wrapping its metal fingers around his leg and pulling him away "Zidane!" Aerith yelled as the genome was swung in the air recklessly by the monster, pulling at Dagger's arm as the Summoner closed her eyes "Come on, do something!" the flower seller demanded, waving her free hand in front of the Queen's face to no avail.

"I'm okay! I'm okay!" Zidane yelled despite mounting evidence to the contrary, the Hell House might have been blinded, but it could still feel through it's metallic limbs and had finally realised what the struggling blond in its grasp meant to it. Prey caught, ready to to be eaten. The head tilted up and opened wide revealing a set of grinding gears within the mouth to add extra terror to the jagged, partly rusted teeth "Okay, less okay."

Panicked and frustrated, Aerith desperately gripped the green orb tightly, her eyes flashed a bright green for a brief moment as she channelled as much magic as she could through the materia, letting loose a fire spell strong enough to melt through the rows of teeth and letting the molten metal fall down the mechanical monster's gullet, rapidly cooling metal sticking in between the gears, causing the Hell House to shudder, legs crumpling down as the floor hit the tarmac.

The arms were still moving and the eye slits still glowed, but the monster's grip slackened severely, allowing Zidane to slip out of it's grasp and do what he'd planned to do all along: drive his knives deep into the head of the beast, a blade for each eye. Whatever had been powering the monster had given up as the weapons pierced through bringing the Hell House to a halt "Phew, that's the end of that," he breathed, sheathing his weapons as he dropped down to the floor "Nice work with the magic, ladies." He complimented, flashing a brief smile as he turned to do what he had planned to do before the monster had shown it's true form, looking inside the house shell to see what was going on.

Panting hard, Aerith stuffed the materia back into her pocket with a faint but satisfied smile "Well I... I had to do something. Fire was all I had so that worked out well," she said, wiping away the sweat while Zidane poked around the mess that was the monster.

"Yeah that's great, now that thing knew how my tail felt when it got set on fire," The blonde said, pulling away from the wreck as he turned back to the two confidently before catching his wife's expression "Dagger? What's wrong?"

The Queen of Alexandra was looking straight down at the ground, trying to avoid Aerith's and Zidane's collective gaze as she grasped her own arms tightly "Sorry! I didn't mean it!" the flower seller squeaked, swiftly crouching down to get into Dagger's field of view and look up with her best apologetic eyes, "I'm sorry I panicked and got mad, please don't hold it against me." She begged as the Queen sighed, her shoulders slumping as she looked back up at Zidane, her eyes tinged red.

"It's not... it's not your fault Aerith..." she said, trying to comfort the spooked flower seller "It's just, I was trying but..." her voice trailed off as Zidane started to piece together what had happened when he was in the beast's clutches.

"Hey," he said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder "You haven't lost them again, it's just some... stuff that's world dependant. Like this world has different rules for black and white magic it probably has different rules for other things too," He said, attempting to reassure her "They'll be with you when we get back, promise." the genome said, patting his chest as Aerith picked herself up.

"Um... what's lost?" She asked, prompting Zidane to rush in-between the two young ladies, desperately waving his arms in an attempt to get Aerith to drop the subject.

"Doesn't matter and they're not really lost it's just a case of-"

"I can't contact my Eidolons, my summon magic cannot work." Dagger confessed, standing up straight behind Zidane, catching both of them off guard with the bluntness of it all.

"Oh," Was all Aerith could respond with, scuffing the toe of her boot into a chip in the tarmac in lieu of an actual contribution. What was she supposed to say in the face of a statement like that? "Maybe we should... just keep... just keep going. Sector 7 has to be close now." She settled for, attempting to point the group back in their original direction, resuming their journey through the Midgar slums in an awkward silence.

Back to working with the main three for now, no more cuts to the mad scientists being dicks for a good while.

Musical soundtrack:

Sector 6 Slums: Under the Rotting Pizza - FFVII OST
Fight with the Hell House: Let the battles begin - FFVII OST
After the fight/Not on track: Endless Sorrow - FFIX OST