Me: Just so you know, there are going to be pairings in this story.
Sera: Us with them?
Me: No way! All of the guys are too old for us…:sighs: the pairings that I'll try to use are: Cid/Shera, Yuffie/Vincent (heart), Cloud/Tifa, and maybe a little Cloud/Aeris.
Sera:shakes head: You freak, no one really cares…
Me:whaps Sera over the head: Ok, two things. One, I only own Sera and Sam, and two, I recently read a series of books (His Dark Materials) and I found Sera's complete first name in all three of them! You can imagine our surprise.
Sera:mutters: So there are more people like Reader…
Me: No, just more people who think kinda like me. Anyways, enjoy the chappie!
"I'm, home mom. This is Cloud, Sera and Sam. He's my bodyguard." Aeris introduced the teenage girls and the blonde man.
"Bodyguard…? You mean you were followed again!? Are you all right!?
You're not hurt, are you!?" Elmyra asked, worried.
"I'm all right. I had Cloud with me." Sam muttered something about helping out with Sera, but the adults seemed to possess selective hearing.
"Thank you, Cloud." Elmyra bowed.
"So what are you going to do now?" Aeris asked Cloud. Sam raised an eyebrow at Sera and the brunette held a similar expression.
"…Is Sector 7 far from here? I want to go to Tifa's bar." Cloud stated.
"Is Tifa…a girl?"
"Yeah." Both of the teenagers scoffed at the same time. At the looks from the older people, they merely smiled. Aeris continued her questioning warily.
"A girl…friend?"
"Girlfriend? Yeah, that's right." Sam shook her head. Oh how surprised she would be to hear that from you, Cloudy boy. The curly-haired teenager thought while smirking.
"Oh, how nice…Well, that's nice. Let's see, Sector 7? I'll show you the
way." Aeris said after a couple of seconds of hesitation.
"You gotta be kidding. Why do you want to put yourself in danger again?" Cloud's expression shifted slightly to that of concern.
"I'm used to it." She replied simply.
"Used to it!? ……Well, don't know…getting help from a girl…" At this comment, both Sera and Sam glared as well as Aeris.
"A girl!! What do you mean by that!? You expect me to just sit by and
listen, after hearing you say something like that!? Mom! I'm taking Cloud and the others to Sector 7. I'll be back in a while." Elmyra looked shocked for a second.
"But dear…I give up. You never listen once you've made up your mind. But
if you must go, why don't you go tomorrow? It's getting late now." Looking out the window did little good, but everyone agreed with Aeris' mom.
"Yeah, you're right, mom."
"Aeris please go and make the bed in the guest room for the young man, and a place to sleep for the girls in your room." The green-eyed woman nodded and ran upstairs.
"Ma'am if it's alright, could Sera and I eat something?" Sam asked politely. "We haven't eaten since this morning." Sera nodded in agreement.
"Certainly. Help yourself." Elmyra smiled. The teenagers then rushed to the kitchen and fixed themselves three sandwiches each. After their 'meal', the two of them went upstairs after Cloud and settled themselves in Aeris' room.
"So tired…" Sam yawned. "Wake me up when Aeris does, ok?" Sera's questioning look prompted an answer from the gypsy-like girl. "Aeris is going to follow Cloud. Just wait until she leaves for a final time." She then fell asleep, too tired to answer any of Sera's other questions.
"Well, well, well…what have we here?" A male voice called out. Sam's eyes opened to a nearly blindingly white room with a couple of chairs in the middle of it. A figure veiled in shadows (even though it made very little sense) except for a pair of golden colored eyes was seated in one of them. "Please sit down, Sam. I'm not going to hurt you." It was then that Sam recognized the voice. It had only been about two days, but it seemed like weeks had past.
"Ethan, right?" The figure nodded. "What's with having a body now? And why only show me your eyes?" Ethan chuckled a little before answering.
"Relax, I'm only here to tell you a few things before you wake up." He indicated towards the chair and Sam sat down. "You both are progressing through the game slowly, but that is to be expected."
"Listen, I only have so much time to remember what's going to happen before it does. Plus, I haven't exactly played the beginning of the game in a while." Sam complained.
"Well, we'll remedy that. I'm certain you found the significance of your Limit Break and outfit?" The curly-haired girl nodded. "Because we can't exactly have you telling the whole world that it's a video game, my friends and I have set it up so that you can see into the future for brief periods of time. They'll usually come to you in your Limit Breaks, but sometimes you will see the visions in your dreams and randomly during your journey. You'll know the difference between them, I assure you." Ethan explained.
"Ok, but just one question…what do you mean by 'we'? You keep mentioning that you're not working alone." He sighed.
"I'll explain my work to you later, but right now our time is up and you are about to awaken. Remember, only talk about things from your world and our conversation with Sera in absolute privacy or code. We don't need to have mass hysteria in this world before Meteor..." Before she could ask anything else, Sam woke up to a slight jolt in her arm.
"Ow! Sera that hurt!" The newly awakened Sam whispered harshly while sitting up and rubbing her arm.
"Sorry! But Aeris hasn't come back for about 3 minutes, and you were as hard to wake up as ever!" Sera's now-grey eyes were flashing with anxiety, sheepishness, and a hint of mischievousness at the same time. She had taken off her cap, her now-grey hair shining gold in the streetlight coming through the window. "Plus, I turned Wind so I had to do something and—hey, what's with that look? Your eye's kinda twitchy…"
"Just pray that we never run into a cactaur or a tonberry(sp? On both) when we reach the wilderness and you're on a Wind day." Sam whispered after she had sighed, feeling tired even though she had slept already. "Now let's jump out the window and follow those two before it's too late…" She then broke into a fit of giggles as she thought about what the next part was. Sera tilted her head curiously. "You'll see…now let's go!" Sam stood up and shoved the window open. The grey-haired girl merely tucked her hair back into her cap before positioning herself on the windowsill.
"I'll jump first." Sera volunteered. "That way, if you miss I'll be able to catch you with a strong wind."
"Thanks. You're helping my self esteem so much." The grey-eyed girl smiled brightly before pushing off of the windowsill. She landed gently on the ground and motioned for Sam to follow. The gypsy-like girl jumped without a moment's hesitation and landed next to Sera in about the same manner. "Not bad for jumping out of a two story window, eh?" Sam joked before running in the direction of the street. Once there, she quickly turned left and continued running until she reached the area that was before the playground. Sera rushed past using her 'new' speed and slammed into Cloud, nearly knocking her skullcap off.
"Ow! That hurt!" Sera rubbed her nose while Sam stopped next to her. At the adults' confused looks, the trenchcoat-wearing girl stated, "You didn't think that you would leave us, did you?" Before either one of them could answer, a couple of thugs sprang out of the shadows. (This didn't happen in the game, just so you know…)
"Hand over all the gil and nobody gets hurt." One of the thugs demanded while brandishing a knife. His partner also took out a bad-looking knife. With a glance to each other, Sam took out her whips and Sera started to twirl her index finger in the air. Cloud had already taken out his sword and Aeris held her rod as dangerously as possible. The two thugs laughed heartily. Sera sported a dangerous glint in her eyes as the air surrounding her finger moved faster than it should have. Sam took the initiative and let loose both of her whips at the same time. The thug she hit howled in pain and took a stab at her. The curly-haired girl dodged easily. Cloud attacked the other thug, and Aeris hit the first one in the gut. By this time, Sera had whipped up a whirlwind the size of herself. She threw it at the two men, adding an extra spin to cause more damage. They both fainted on the spot. The teenagers cheered, then looked at the incredulous adults.
"Well? Aren't you happy that we came?" Sam asked.
"How did you get grey hair?" Aeris blurted. The 15-year-old girls blinked, then looked at each other. Sera's cap had fallen off when she had created the whirlwind, showing her grey hair with hard-to-see blonde highlights to the world.
"Oops." They both said at the same time. Sam looked very sheepish.
"Uh, I can explain…but now's not a good time…maybe if we reach an inn? Sera, do you have an extra cap?" The elemental controller nodded.
"I always do." She dug through her bag and pulled out a similar cap to the one she had on earlier. Sera then tucked her hair into it. Cloud had then regained his stoicism and moved foreword to the next area. Aeris glanced at the teenagers in wonder, but then followed the blonde. The teenagers shrugged and followed her into a large playground.
"The gate to Sector 7's in there." It seemed that Aeris was over her surprise.
"Thanks. I guess this is goodbye. You gonna be all right going home?" Cloud replied.
"Oh no! What ever will I do!? …Isn't that what you want me to say? Take
me to Sector 7? I could do that. But won't I be in your way?" Aeris looked a little worried.
"What do you mean in the way?"
"Nothing! Can we take a break? I can't believe it's still here. Cloud,
over here!" Ignoring the girls yet again, the adults sat on top of the slide. Sam shrugged and sat down on a swing before starting to swing herself on it. Sera leaned against a pole connecting to the swingset and conjured a small ball of lightning, watching the electricity move and change constantly. Suddenly, the gate opened and a cart carrying Tifa headed towards what Sam knew as Wall Market. She jumped at the highest point of her swing and landed safely with help from her friend.
"Huh? Hey, back there…Tifa!?" Cloud shouted.
"That girl in the cart was Tifa? Where was she going? She looked kind of
odd…" Aeris ran off in the direction of Wall Street, with Sera and Sam following her.
"Wait! I'll go on alone!! You go on home!!" Cloud's shouts were ignored as the three girls entered what seemed like the sleaziest part of Midgar. Hookers were next to bar doors, waiting for clients and dangerous-looking men eyed the girls as they headed to an item shop. Cloud caught up to the three of them and Aeris explained where they were.
"This place is scary in a lot of ways. Especially for a girl. So we've
got to find Tifa fast." Sera and Sam gulped while Cloud nodded.
"Hey, why don't we check out that brightly lit up area?" Sera suggested and pointed in the general direction that she was talking about. "After we get potions and stuff, of course. You never know when we'll need them." Cloud agreed and the foursome went inside the item shop. A few minutes later, with their supplies, they headed to where Sera had suggested. The area happened to be the Honey Bee Inn. Cloud talked to a manager-looking man while Aeris, Sam and Sera just looked around. The lights then distorted in Sam's vision and showed something very different. She saw herself and Sera using the wind to enter Don Corneo's mansion through a window. The vision then shifted to the two of them fighting off guys to help Tifa. It shifted again to Aeris being chased by a guy and Sera making him trip before he could catch her. The vision, which Sam knew was of the future, ended abruptly when Sera sent yet another small shock to her friend's upper arm.
"Ow!" Sam rubbed her arm for the second time that day and glared. Sera merely shrugged and gave a bright smile. Aeris giggled at the friends' interaction and Cloud came back to the three of them.
"Tifa is at some guy's mansion. Let's head over there." Without waiting for an answer, the blonde man headed back to where Wall Market was with the girls following him. At the market, he turned north and started running in that direction. A few minutes later, the group found themselves in front of a large mansion. Sam shivered a little; trying not to think of what Don Corneo did to his 'brides'. Cloud then talked to the man guarding the door.
"This is Don Corneo's mansion. He's a big shot here in Wall Market. Listen,
the Don's not interested in men. So just get the hell outta here. Hey, any you
got another cute one with you!" The group moved a little bit away from the man and started to discuss the situation.
"Hey, this looks like the Don's mansion. I'll go take a look. I'll tell Tifa about you." Sam nodded, Sera looked nervously around, and Cloud's eyes widened.
"No!! You can't!!"
"Why?"
"You DO know…what kind of…place this is, don't you?" Cloud asked, looking a little worried.
"Then what am I supposed to do? You want to go in with me?"
"Well being a man, that'll be pretty hard. Besides if I bust in there, it'll cause too much commotion. But, I just can't let you go in alone… Oh, man…first…we need to find out if Tifa's alright… What's so funny Aeris? Sam?" Aeris and Sam had started giggling, and Sera did too after a second of figuring out why.
"Cloud, why don't you dress up like a girl? It's the only way." By now, the youngest members of the group had burst out laughing for a second before Cloud's look quieted them down a little.
"WHAT!?" He yelled.
"Just wait. I've got a cute friend I want to bring." The pink-wearing girl told the man.
"Aeris! I can't…" Cloud's face had turned a bright shade of red, causing the teenagers to have yet another fit of giggles.
"You are worried about Tifa, aren't you? Then come on, hurry!" Aeris ran in the direction of Wall Market and the others followed. While running, Sera looked to her friend.
"So that's why you were giggling at Aeris' house." Sam merely nodded, thinking of a way to explain Sera's powers and a way to convince Cloud to get the 'supplies' that he would need for Don Corneo's mansion.
Me: Heh, I almost feel sorry for the poor guy…
Sera: Almost…:giggles:
Me: Have a happy late Thanksgiving!
Sera:looks at calendar: The next significant event is Reader's 16th birthday.
Me: I can't wait!
Everyone else:sweatdrops:
Me: This is the end of the double update. Please review!!