FN (Firecat Note): I'm glad to see that some people are actually reading my piece and liking it. If you do like it you should probably visit http/www.jamesfirecat. and http/ which detail the other adventures of James Firecat and Mirri Catwarrior, the blogspot account came first so you should visit it first, start from the first post and work your way forward.
OWAN(One-Winged-Angel Note): This is, essentially, the Firecat's take on FF7. I served in a support role, identifying and replacing unusable story elements, as well as suggesting a few of the jokes. Most of the credit still goes to the happy psycho.
Chapter three: Look out for the beautiful ones, they'll twist your head right off your neck, and laugh about it with their friends.
Mirri was willing to guess that Shinra would have her ID invalidated so that she couldn't ride through a checkpoint. Sadly Mirri was not the type to be put out by anything as simple as getting her ID invalidated. James' ID of course would still be valid, as Shinra had no idea that he even had one.
So Mirri did the exact same thing James had done with her one their ride to the sector one reactor, she hitched a ride. In this case that meant Mirri lay flat on top of the train, her blades dug into the train's metallic body. It was the kind of thing Mirri would do without a second thought if it let her beat the odds. So the end result was that James was on the inside, wishing he his place was reversed with Mirri, and Mirri was outside, quite happy with her position.
When they finally got to Sector Seven, Mirri slid down and landed next to James as he was stepping out of the train. Mirri confidently lead the way back to her house, where James collapsed totally exhausted (an incredibly rare state for him) into a chair. "Man... I can't believe Seph is... well..."
Mirri cut him off without even a flicker of hesitation. "Don't even think about it James. Trust me when I say that he's still alive. I've seen him shot, stabbed, blasted, burnt, electrocuted, and numerous other things, and come through all of them just fine. Nine lives? Try ninety. He'll be back, and he'll be carrying his sword with him. Our job isn't to go looking for him; it's to find out everything we can in his absence."
James' hat rose up slightly as his ears perked up. "I guess work is healthy for the soul, and I'm Chief Reconnaissance Officer, It's my job to find things out! So where do you want me to look?" Mirri's face slid into the confident smirk it was so used to showing. "Actually James, I'm going to have to do this one on my own."
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Get up... GET UP. GET THE HELL UP! I'M NOT THIS WEAK! I SHOULD BE OKAY! OKAY! Sephiroth forced his eyes open and found a pair of green eyes looking at him. He shook his head, and focused the world around him; the eyes didn't have any mako glow so it wasn't Mirri. "Are you okay?" The voice repeated the question a few moments later, it was clearly female Sephiroth noted.
He shook his head one last time, and the entire world finally came into focus. He was lying on something, and he managed to better define the women he was looking at. She had green eyes, and brown hair like Mirri, but their similarity ended with the color.
The green eyes where completely devoid of Mirri's familiar, maleficent glint. Also, the brown hair had a slightly reddish tint. The girl was wearing a pink dress underneath a red traveling jacket; Mirri wouldn't be caught dead in something pink, unless you counted red blood splattered on white clothing.
Sephiroth leaned backwards on his elbows starting to push himself up. "I'm fine. Just a little scratched up. Where's my sword?" The girl looked to the side of whatever Sephiroth was leaning on and nodded slightly. "It landed on the floor, you should be lucky you didn't also. If you hadn't landed in my flower bed whatever injuries you would have sustained would have been a lot worse."
Sephiroth's mind was slowly coming back into focus. But that last line made no sense. Flowers he was familiar with, and he understood the concept of a flower bed, but he was in Lower Midgar. The plate that separated Upper Midgar from Lower Midgar blocked off almost all light to Lower Midgar. Because there was no light, almost no plant life grew in Lower Midgar, and the little there was were weeds. Sephiroth forced himself to fully stand up and looked down at the floor.
He could see Masamune lying on the floor, unsheathed, but then he had his sheath strapped on his back. He picked up Masamune, returned it to its sheath. Once he had done that he allowed himself to take a look around and check his surroundings. A quick check confirmed that he was in some sort of church turned greenhouse, or at least his guess by the pews, and the multiple flowerbeds.
"I can't believe that you can use that thing. I felt it, and it felt like it must weigh around two hundred pounds." Sephiroth turned back to the girl and slowly checked his body, a couple of bruises, nothing serious. "I've always been special. I heal quickly, for one thing. Where am I?"
The girl looked Sephiroth up and down slowly as if wondering just how great an understatement he was making. "You're in the Sector Five church. You fell in through the ceiling about five minutes ago. Frankly I'm amazed you're even alive." Having Masamune's' weight on his shoulders made him feel balanced again. "Frankly I'm amazed that you can grow flowers down here. No sunlight, soil gives the word 'dirt' a bad name. Hell, just finding seeds must be a task and a half."
The girl looked him up and down, as if suddenly finding something in him that she hadn't seen or even expected before. "Excuse me. I'm Aeris Gainsborough, I sell flowers for a living. You are?" Sephiroth took a moment to do some mental calculations about how he could get back to sector seven from sector five without using a train. Eventually however he got around to answering Aeris' question. "I'm General Sephiroth, formerly of Shinra."
It was one of those moments where people were less likely to believe the truth than any lie. Aeris could believe whatever she wanted to, Sephiroth was going to walk out of this church, and the Planet help whoever got in his way. Thus it was a very unfortunately that just as he was about to slide past Aeris, the three men entered.
One wore a blue business suit, and the other two wore standard blue Shinra guard suits. The man in the blue suit, (which by the way looked like the man had not only slept in it, but eaten in it, vomited on it, and spilled beer on it while getting drunk) had red hair and sparkling green eyes. His hair was tied back in an untidy pony tail, and he had a pair of black sunglasses tilted over his hair like pilot's goggles.
He looked at the two guards, and then at Aeris and Sephiroth, his stance possibly even less formals than James'. "Hey Aeris. Boss wants you to come meet him at the office, he would have come for you himself, but he had other things to take care of." Aeris however took a step away from the man, and picked up a staff that she had balanced against one of the flower beds. "Listen, Sephiroth, I need your help, this guy is a-" Sephiroth stepped past Aeris and finished her sentence.
"Turk. Part of Shinra's research and development. Or at least that's what they call it, in actuality they're the men Shinra use whenever they need to do something truly base. Don't worry, I'll take care of them as a matter of principle. Reno, I suggest you get out of my sight now or else you'll be 'drinking' your next beer through an IV line." Reno (the red haired man in the blue suit which hadn't been cared for) shrugged as he looked Sephiroth up and down.
"Sephiroth, here I thought you where dead. While you offer an interesting proposal, I've got another one. Happy hour starts in 50 minutes. That's just enough time for me to kick your ass, drag you both back to HQ, and grab a train to Sector Six. I mean I can hardly afford to give up without trying."
A moment later Reno removed a small metallic nightstick from a hip holster and pushed a notch on it up to the "active" position. In response, electricity began to flow along it. "Fight fire with fire. Fight lightning with thunder." Sephiroth raised his hands and bolts of lightning raced from them. Both guards flew against the wall, lightning racing across their bodies.
With that Sephiroth turned back to Aeris. "Get out of here, I'll keep them busy for now." A moment later Sephiroth turned around, just as Reno rushed at him. Sephiroth twisted aside dodging the nightstick, and drew Masamune. Sadly Reno apparently knew just as well that Sephiroth did that Sephiroth couldn't block the nightstick with his blade without getting a hefty electric shock. So instead Sephiroth had to dodge to the left and right, and while he did so, he came up a plan.
He returned Masamune to its sheath, and jumped over one of the flower gardens to dodge another of Reno's strikes. Then when Reno tried to come at him around the left of the thing, Sephiroth tipped the entire container over on him. It most likely wouldn't kill him, but between struggling out of all the dirt, busting the wooden container and finally pulling himself out it would keep him busy for quite a while. He then turned and rushed through the door that Aeris had gone through, it lead to some kind of superstructure.
Struts lead everywhere, and directly in front of him, one of the struts had snapped creating a gap, and Aeris was barely hanging onto the far side. Sephiroth didn't have to ask questions, he got a running start, easily cleared the gap, and then thrust his hand towards Aeris. Aeris gratefully took it though her hands were sweaty from holding on. Sephiroth rectified that problem by letting go of her hand and grabbing her by the wrist before pulling her over his shoulder.
He then part tossed, part laid her down on the solid strut behind him as he stood up. "Thanks." Aeris gasped the word out laying flat out her chest rising up and down very quickly. Sephiroth calmly stept/leapt over her body taking a moment to scan how they could get out of this place form his current location. "Don't thank me, it was simple tactics. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Besides for the moment our paths happened to be aimed in the same direction."
Aeris caught her breath and stood back up leaning on her staff. "Well thanks all the same. My house isn't far from here would you...?" Sephiroth answered without a moment of hesitation. "I don't leave things half done. I suggest you hire a full time bodyguard, as of tomorrow morning I'm out of your life. It wouldn't even be that long, but it's too late in the day for me to head out right away." Aeris calmly stood back up, and Sephiroth continued along the scaffolding.
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"Gee Mirri, you look... different." It was the only appropriate word that came to James' mind under the circumstances. Instead of her normal bodysuit, Mirri was wearing a dress. It was black, and stopped before her knees, and only thinly covered her arms. However for some reasons she was still wearing her gloves, well James had a guess why. She was still wearing white shoes, but they where not her traditional boots, or sneakers: they where something she called "high heels" and they looked horribly uncomfortable. The new style looked okay on Mirri, but it didn't seem to fit her as well in James mind. However Mirri said that she was going to use it to do some "private research". Apparently there was some guy named Don Corneo who Shinra more or less sponsored directly to keep control of a good portion of Lower Midgar. Mirri was going to find a way to get close to him, and then make him tell her everything he knew.
That last part James understood well enough, after all he never seemed to be able to hold anything back that Mirri wanted him to tell her. Either way it was a plan that sadly meant that James couldn't stay near her during it. That is to say since James couldn't be right next to her, he would stay as close as possible in case she needed help. Granted James held that possibility as a very unlikely one.
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"You're not coming in?" Sephiroth answered with one flat glare. "No. I'm not. The less you know about me the better, Shinra is already after you for something, you don't want them wanting you to get more information on me as well." Aeris' eyes widened in surprise. "But, where are you going to sleep?"
Sephiroth waved her off with one quick hand gesture. "I'm a general, not some pampered princeling. I slept with amongst my soldiers in the dirt and blood during the war. Don't worry about where I sleep, don't worry about what I do. You have enough things to worry about, without making me one of them." Aeris looked Sephiroth up and down one last time. "You really are him aren't you?"
Sephiroth's glare could have punctured stainless steel. "Did you think I'm simply some escaped mental patient?" Aeris' face flushed slightly as she looked to the ground. "Sorry, I guess it's just natural. I mean they said that you died five years ago. I mean I could tell that you're a SOLDIER, because of your eyes. I dated a SOLDIER once but he vanished without a trace or an explanation. Well I wish you luck." Sephiroth didn't even look at Aeris, he just turned his back. "Goodbye."
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"So much for us never seeing each other again." Sephiroth growled leaning against the metallic tube that passed for a wall. "I blame you for even coming in here." Aeris smiled sweetly at both the occupants of the small "house". "It's sort of my job to look after him, so the question becomes, why are you here?"
Sephiroth looked at the other occupant of the room as well. "Your wasting your time, I've seen this before. No cure, no way to get better, just a sort of living death. I could kill him right now, and he would be in a much better place. Mako poisoning, it's the worst disease in the world." Aeris looked at the man dressed in a black cloak, and at the "8" tattooed on his hand. "I have to do what I can to help everyone."
Sephiroth took Masamune's sheath from where he had laid it down next to him when he went to sleep. "You don't have to do anything to help me. As far as you should be concerned, I don't exist. My name is anonymity, my language is silence, and the less you think you know about me the better... Goodbye again." He stood up to leave, but Aeris didn't step aside and in the small confines in the metallic tube turned home he couldn't step around her.
"If you want me to, I would be glad to show you how to get wherever you're going. You may be able to handle yourself on the streets, but how much do you know about getting around Lower Midgar?" Sephiroth scowled at Aeris. "I know a lot more then you realize. I grew up down here. I know all about getting around this place." "Oh yeah, how many years ago was that? Lower Midgar changes a lot over time, mainly as parts of it fall down."
Mirri would have been proud of the complete smugness with which that line was delivered. Sephiroth looked Aeris up and down one last time, maybe she wasn't quite as innocent as he thought. "If you're willing to go with me, you're likely to be throwing your life away. You may be skilled with that staff, but you're just human, you have no place fighting the SOLDIERS and monsters Shinra will throw at us." Aeris just smiled at her. "Well if everybody works together, everything will work out fine."
Sephiroth was tempted to push Aeris down and walk over her after that line. "I have more important things to do with my time then here arguing with you. If you insist on risking your life, then fine come along." Aeris just smiled at him.
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27 years ago the people of the small town of Corel had gathered round to witness the birth of a girl. She had been born "Mirri Lufkin" but as she had grown up she had used various other names for herself. No child like Mirri had ever been born in the town before, or at least not for a very long time, something about her was special. Even her own parents weren't quite sure of what to make of Mirri, but they loved her anyway.
Some people didn't, there were plenty of them who said that if Mirri kept on the road she was on, she would end up selling herself in some dark alleyway. Proving those people so utterly wrong was one of Mirri's greatest sources of joy. Mainly because those people had underestimated Mirri's total self respect. Mirri would flirt with a man to get something she wanted, but she never made good on her promises. Never.
Even at 27 she was still a virgin, for the simple reason that she had yet to find a man worthy enough to be equal to her. Selling herself had no appeal what so ever to Mirri, it required the women to actually pay in solid definable coin for what she got. Flirting on the other hand put the wispy promise of something definable even with a solid coin.
Of course there had been a few people who had tried to turn those wispy promises into hard currency, but that was where the other half to Mirri came into play. Despite being a flirt she would go to the mat just as hard for what she believed in as any other human being on the Planet. Suffice to say those men who thought they could force Mirri generally limped home or where never seen again. Now as she looked up at Don Corneo, she smiled invitingly.
Of course getting the huge lug's overactive reproductive system to start up was easy, and he had chosen to personally indoctrinate Mirri into his harem. Mirri was still wearing her white gloves, however. The Don of course mistook her smile of the spider inviting the fly to dinner for one offering mutual contentment. He jumped towards Mirri where she stood at the side of the bed, and received a lighting spin kick to the head. He fell backwards and Mirri instantly had blades in her gloves and pointed at the Don's throat.
"Listen you lecherous sack of lard. My name is Mirri Catwarrior, and if you think for even a moment I'm going to actually let you touch me you're dead wrong. What you are going to do is tell me everything you know about what Shinra has been doing to deal with the two recent reactor bombings. If you give me answers I like I won't hurt you. If you try to make things difficult for me, I'll make it difficult for you to ever do what you like to do to another women. Granted I'm tempted to do that as a matter of principle so I suggest you make yourself as convincing as possible right away."
The Don started babbling instantly.
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Mirri stepped out of the room and came face to face with two guards who the Don had apparently set up to make sure he wasn't distracted. Mirri smiled sweetly at them, and then easily knocked their heads together. Then she loaded blades into her gloves and descended down the stairs like Athena leaving Olympus daring anyone else to try and touch her. No one did.
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Mirri found James in the bar where he was expectantly waiting for her, he hadn't even touched the cheap beer he had ordered. He jumped to attention like a dog, his face making his inquiry quite clear. "We don't have much time James, we've got to get back to Sector Seven fast. Shinra is going to release the plate and crush the entire place just to get us and a few other malcontents. Like swatting a fly with a rocket launcher, the president never did have any sense of how to deal with a small problem in a small way. We're going to stop them, and kick the crap out of whoever is doing it at the same time."
James nodded and suddenly Mirri grabbed his ear, causing him to give pause. "What is it Mirri?" Mirri glared at James, and he instantly produced a small bag and tossed it to her. Mirri caught it gratefully. "Thanks, just give me a moment to change, I'm not running to Sector Seven in these goddamn heels."