Happy Hump Day yet again dear readers! (Or y'know, those imaginary readers that I make up in my head to justify posting this) Who knows, I could be talking completely to myself, which would make me crazy. But if I'm talking to myself that means nobody is reading this which would make me crazy but then nobody would know I was crazy because if anyone did read this it would mean I was talking to them which would mean I'm not crazy!

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Sorry, it's been a long silly day. Yayyyy half days and panic attacks! Woo! Though I'll refrain from ranting about my week unless people really want to know (In which case you should, y'know, leave a comment telling me so! Please?)

GOODNESS. Anyways, enough of my begging, in this chapter (Slightly longer you will notice!) We introduce dear Taffy into the roleplay, adding a good sized chunk to the roleplay. This will be all the people we will ever have on this roleplay, though the length will still vary because some of us were forced to post (*cough*) while others let there muses run wild for oh, six pages and it ends up being a competition to see who can post the most. UGH.

Fun times! But without further ado, chapter (22! It rhymes. :3) 4!

Disclaimersmadoodle: I do not feel the need to write this nonsense out anymore because it's late and I want to sleep, though I will apologize for typos and language. Sorry. ('Cept not really)

:]

SARARARARRARA: has a loverly bunch of coconuts~

As soon as Ari was down in the streets she realized she had no idea which way Sora was. When she had been up on the roof tops she had spotted Sora easily through the winding, labyrinth like streets. Streets like a maze, and laced with bag guys. Bad guys with guns and evil doggies. That had nearly killed her several times. She came to a dead stop, looking all around her with wide emerald eyes. There she was, being Ari. Standing in the middle of a wide, unprotected street, with plenty of alleys and places to snipe her from. How many times was she going to almost die today? And she had left behind the person who had saved her multiple times and was incredibly yummy.

"Something is seriously wrong with me!" she wailed, turning down a random alley, preferring the tight space to the wide open area. She followed the twisting alleys at a dead run for awhile, until they deposited her unmercifully in a big ass clearing. She slowed her pace to an ambling walk until she was in the middle, climbing an iron structure until she could look around the abandoned plaza.

It was all quiet, and then she noticed the dull humming in the background becoming a dull roar. She looked up curiously, and her eyes widened again as a giant ship came flying into the airspace above the plaza. Her jaw dropped as it paused, circled, and focused on her. She mouthed an 'Oh shitballs' as the guns adjusted their focus to her. Little, old, unprotected, idiotic Ari. Something in the guns clicked, and she voiced her opinion on the situation.

"SHIT!" she screeched, sliding down the structure, scraping herself up along the way. But a few cuts and bruises were nothing when she heard the machine guns go off in the exact spot she had been standing dumbfounded just earlier. She stumbled and ran away to the nearest alley she could see, feeling a breeze from where the chopping blades keeping the iron contraption a float switched to follow her escape route.

"Why're you all so intent on killing meee?" she wailed to no one in particular, feeling her feet were not moving as fast as she needed. "Dear Santa WHYY?"

Taffy: iz blue [da ba dee da ba die] Let's take a break from this violence shall we? :]

Throughout all this violence, running like hell, meeting hot guys and who knows what other nonsense, the final member of our quirky trio sat in her room, drawing on a pad of paper with carefully controlled strokes. Midori was the artist of the group; as well as helping to make (and quite often sampling) the cakes that Sora and Ari made, she sold her art on the streets to fund their living quarters. Along with an easy way to make a nice bit of money, drawing helped Midori to calm down and cleanse herself of the stress of daily life. She was also listening to radio--a little background music seemed to enhance her ability further. The newest song had just reached its chorus when the loud explosion mentioned in previous posts suddenly rocked the world, making it shake back and forth and at the same time causing a long, black gash to appear on the paper as Midori's hand slipped on her drawing.

She stared at the picture, eyes growing wide as they beheld the horror of her ruined art, which she had taken the last hour and a half to draw, and it wasn't even finished yet. Before she had time to worry about it too much, however, a loud "Shit!" echoed up to her from downstairs. Midori looked up. She knew that voice; that was a Sora shit. Her eyes focused, the first thing they found being the window.

"It's raining men, hallelujah it's rainin' men!"

And there they were; human figures were falling from the sky. A sense of unreality struck Midori at that moment, and time seemed to slow, the song from the radio repeating itself in her head as men continued to fall from the sky. What an odd sensation.

Another rumble shook the house, bringing Midori back to her senses. Shoving her art off her lap and onto her bed, she lurched across the room, stumbling because A) the rumbling and shaking hadn't stopped and B) there was stuff strewn across the floor. Mostly clothes, books, and random crap that they hadn't yet bothered to keep off the floor, for who could predict a freak earthquake that would prove their room to be a death trap? (Alright, now I'm just rambling.)

Reaching the open door in a matter of seconds, Midori threw herself down the stairs so fast she was in danger of falling down them. Unfortunately, in the time it took for all of this to transpire, Sora had caught the cake and was already running out of the door.

"Sora!" Midori called, dashing to the glass front of the bakery. By now the mini earthquake or whatever it was had stopped, and she could see clearly. Although that didn't really help, as what she saw next didn't make much sense. A black-clad figure rushed past her as she opened the door, chasing after a lunatic on a motorcycle that was racing down the street faster, she was sure, than the speed limit allowed. Only one lunatic would jack a motorcycle like that. "Sora!" Midori screamed, taking several quick steps out of the bakery, but both the motorcycle and its pursuer had disappeared down the street.

Only then did Midori notice the flames engulfing the city of Edge on yonder horizon. Her eyes rounded to the size of moons. "Ari," she whispered.

It seemed like luck decided to shine on her for once, because only seconds after she had uttered the name of one of her best friends, two people darted past. Out of desperation she called out to them, hoping that they were friendly and that they could help her. "Hey! Are you--?"

Before she even finished the sentence, the redhead stopped dead and whirled around. The brown-skinned man, who had been running a few paces behind him, jerked to a stop--unfortunately his face met the redhead's arm, which had flew out when he spun to face Midori. She winced as the two body parts made contact, resulting in a loud CRACK as the redhead's companion's glasses broke.

"What?" the redhead called, meeting her gaze with vivid green eyes.

Now, Midori had always been more level-headed than her friends. She tended to be the smart one in any given situation, whereas Sora and Ari always seemed to be on the alert for guys. However, at that particular moment, the only word that ran through Midori's mind as the redhead turned to face her was "hot".

Then she realized that both of them were staring at her. The ball was in her court again. "Um…are you going…over that way?" Midori asked, gesturing in the vague direction of Edge and all its flaming glory.

At that moment, the motorcycle that Sora was riding decided to crash into Mr Wall with a resounding ka-THUNK, which echoed its way through the empty street to the spot where Midori and the two strangers happened to be standing. The redhead whipped around, then shot back at Midori, "Yeah, we're going that way," before taking off again.

After a short second, Midori raced after him. "Then I'm coming with you!" she cried, quickly catching up to the redhead's side. He glanced at her like she was crazy, but an explosion sounded from the direction they were running and he refrained from commenting.

The very special squral: Hahaha! This is amusing

As they reached the heap of steaming dead motorcycle through the fog, Cloud's throat constricted into a very dry swallow. It really looked worse than it was, but when analyzing the internal damage you could tell that something very vital in the engine was busted. External damage included scraped paint, broken/bent mirror, and the nose of the bike had a dent in it from where it collided with the wall, which also looked like it had suffered.

Cloud ran a hand absently through his spiky blond hair, heaving a pent up sigh. At least the bike could be fixed in a reasonably short period of time. He'd built the outer bike out of a super strong alloy and bullet proof metal; but apparently even bullet proof metal couldn't stop this crazy chick. He wasn't as angry with her as he'd thought he was. Under the freckles, the pale skin, the evil-mischievous smile, the pixie-like features and the wide childish dark silver eyes of this strange little… Stranger, he found a certain familiarity that was comforting and yet painful at the same time. No not angry, but now he had a burning curiosity as to know why she had stolen the bike in the first place.

He quickly released her hand, realizing that on the short trek to the wreckage, his fingers had slid from wrapped her wrist to wound tightly around her small hand. This just made things more awkward, for Cloud wasn't good at starting up conversations, or holding them for that matter. He avoided direct eye contact (even though it was hard not to stare; he knew she was staring at his eye color), shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat before managing "I'm Cloud." And he cleared his throat again after these two simple words, which he couldn't even say without having his voice crack.

"I'm Sora!" She said, bursting into loud giggles followed by a snort and more wild giggles. Cloud raised an eyebrow at her, not really understanding all of the laughter. "Sora…." He addressed her, letting her name roll off his tongue before continuing, "Why did you take the bike?"

She stopped fidgeting with her unruly hair abruptly, and smiled, capturing his eyes with her own, the second time she'd done that. It sent his spine tingling and left a strange skip in his heart beat. "I came here on a rescue mission to get my friend Ari. And I needed the bike," She paused thoughtfully "I would've given it back! Just… I've never controlled a motorcycle before."

Cloud could feel his jaw dropping slightly, staring at her stupidly. She could have died in that crash, and she would have done it to save a friend. Sounded very familiar to something Aerith would have done. They were so alike, and this is when Cloud came to the conclusion that he couldn't just leave this kid alone like he had planned on.

"I don't have the money to fix this" Sora blurted, gesturing at the bike.

"Could you work it off?" Cloud questioned quietly. Sora glared at him and took a step back "Whoa, whoa, whoa buddy, I don't deal in that kind of 'work'."

It took poor little Cloud a second to see where the conversation miscommunication took place. Heat crept under his collar and over his cheeks. "I-I meant work for me to pay off the bike" He mumbled lowly, tucking his chin into his high coat collar while looking down and to the side, a nervous habit he'd picked up from Vincent. This still couldn't hide the coloring in his cheeks.

"OH!" She said brightly, "What would you want me to do?"

It took Cloud another few awkward moments to compose himself (the silly boy) before answering, "I'm the leader of an anti crime organization called avalanche. So you'd be serving as a temporary member until the bike gets paid off. What abilities do you have?"

Sora looked pensive, "Well, I can bake, and heal really well, and my main weapons are my knowledge of pressure points and my glaive. What do you do in Avalan"- She was cut off by the not so distant sounds of rapid machine gun fire and screams that echoed towards them, the last of which sounded like "SANTA, WHY?!"

Cloud pulled out his ginourmous sword and began running when he realized that Sora wasn't holding anything. Sora blinked at him, shouting innocently, "I forgot my weapon at the bakery. I can go run and get it if you like!"

Cloud looked up, eyes narrowing, threw a glance at her, and grabbed Sora's hand again before darting in the direction of the war like sounds, to make sure she was with him. So very much like Aerith. Same weapon, same talent, same tendencies. Why thought Cloud as they ran, Why is it that the Universe always likes kicking me in the nuts. Repetitively.

A/N: I have decided to include anyone who reviews in later chapters if they wish, and all who review will be thanks the chapter after they review. Yeahhh, I'm normally not this incredibly needy but I want reviews and awful lot! I don't need them to continue posting obviously so yeah, but I still hope someone out there is enjoying this, if just a little bit!!

~Eloquent