Re: Back To Life

It was late into the day before either Cloud or Tifa twitched, and another hour after that before Cloud rose into semi-awareness. The first thing he noticed was that his body basically refused to move. Any slight attempt at movement woke some bruise somewhere, the right side of his face in particular gave him problems. Barret had better have a damn good reason for doing that. Who was it again who locked himself and Tifa in a closet for too long?

Cloud rested for an indeterminate time, listening to the house creak, listening to small gusts of wind blow past the window, listening to Tifa breathing. He stretched and sat up with a groan, then glanced to his left at Tifa's clock. It was almost 4 in the afternoon.

Cloud smiled and stretched his arms high above his head, "Good sleep," he dropped his arms to his sides and stood up. Tifa grumbled and rolled over, but made no other sign of disturbance. Cloud leaned down and kissed her temple before leaving the room.

"Hey! Look who's alive!" Barret said with a laugh when Cloud wandered into the main bar area, "Oh, there's some things I need to show you," he started.

Cloud waved a hand in semi-acknowledgement before going to the kitchen fridge and grabbing some leftovers. He looked at the opaque tupperware and decided against it. He tossed the moldy food into the trash and searched for better options.

"Ugh," Cloud made a face, "Nasty," he opened a package of meat and gagged before tossing it. He reached his hand into the fridge, scowled, and shut the door resolutely, "Don't eat anything out of that. The power's been cut."

Barret made a face, "Eugh. Nasty. But the fridge isn't the only thing in rough shape, Spike."

Cloud looked around the building and saw for the first time what poor condition it was in. The pantry was empty (and now that he thought about it, the fridge had been scarcely stocked, too), there was damage to the walls, as if someone or a group of people with heavy weapons had used the bar as a hideout at some point while the city was empty. A line of bullet holes were in the wall near the staircase, and one of the front windows was broken. The more Cloud looked, the more ticked off he became: picked locks, stolen items, damaged property, broken doors. Barret looked with Cloud to find all of the damage done to the establishment, and the list was extensive. Cloud stomped outside to look at the faces of nearby buildings and found them to be in the same shape as the Seventh Heaven. Obviously, not everyone had fled the city.

Cloud sighed. Things could just never be simple, could they?

Denzel came outside and stood next to Cloud, "It's bad everywhere. One of my friends told me that the people who didn't leave the city were crooks and criminals and that they set up a bunch of gangs."

Cloud sighed and rubbed the back of his head, "Right. Denzel, I don't want you hanging out outside until this gets cleared up," he thumped the boy on the back toward the house, "Can you let Marlene know?"

Denzel nodded, "Yeah!" and ran inside.

Cloud sighed and leaned against the side of the building, guessing at the cost to repair the damage already done to his home.

"Hey!"

Cloud looked up at a kid down the street. The teen pointed and sneered.

"If you know what's good for you, you'd stay inside! This is Black Bullet turf now!"

Cloud's eyebrows lowered, "Hmph."

Little punk.

The adolescent scowled and advanced on Cloud, "I said-"

"I heard you."

The kid paused, then growled and drew a gun, "You're askin' for it, loser."

Cloud jumped toward the newbie fighter and had him in a sound wrist lock before the surprise had even cleared from his face. The wannabe thug leaned with his trapped wrist and dropped the gun, "Owowow! Dickwad, let me go!"

Cloud put more torque on the kid's wrist, silencing him. He waited a moment before speaking. To let the lesson sink in. The kid fell over, but Cloud dropped to a knee and kept the lock.

Cloud started cooly, "Go back to your 'Black Bullets' and let the leader know that this area is off-limits."

Barret ran outside, "Cloud, what's goin'-…Who's the kid?"

"He's my new best friend," Cloud increased pressure on the boy's wrist. The kid made a noise and tried in vain to wiggle loose, "Says he's a member of the 'Black Bullets'. Take the gun," Cloud gestured to the dropped weapon. Barret scooped it up and Cloud yanked the owner to his feet before shoving him away.

The kid snarled and Barret laughed, "You really wanna pick this fight, you little brat?"

Knowing that he was severely outmatched, the kid backed away a few paces and ran.

Cloud shook his head and went inside. Barret followed shortly after.

The men sat at a table. Cloud groaned, "It'll cost a fortune to get everything back up to standards. Tifa's gonna have a cow when she sees all this."

"That another of your country sayin's, 'Let's mosey'?"

Cloud punched Barret in the arm.

An outraged yelp echoed down from the second floor. This was closely followed by footsteps running downstairs. Tifa burst into the room and looked at Cloud and Barret, "What the hell happened here?!"

Cloud stood, "Gangs took root in the city when everyone left. The one that claimed our area call themselves the Black Bullets. I chased one of them off a bit ago."

Tifa looked ticked, "I didn't help save the world for the third damn time to come back and have my house claimed by a bunch of street trash!" she stomped out the door, Cloud presumed, to find and punish the gang leader. Cloud chased after her and brought her back inside.

"Tifa, not even you could take on an entire gang by yourself," he reasoned as he worked his way back inside. He had the thrashing martial artist's arms pinned to her sides in a tight hug. Tifa stomped Cloud's foot on accident (?) and Cloud made a silent thank you for steel-toed boots and for the three inches he had on Tifa.

"Then come with me," she shot back over her shoulder, "We need to get rid of them, Cloud. Marlene and Denzel are in danger as long as these Blood Bullets or whatever are hanging around."

"Do you even know where they are?" Cloud asked. Tifa paused, then slumped in defeat. Cloud released her and she sat and fumed at the bar. Cloud tried to hide a smile as he gave Tifa a one armed hug. He knew that this was serious, but he never won arguments against her. Cloud saw Barret clap silently out of Tifa's line of sight.

Shelke walked in the door, "I informed Reeve Tutsei of the gang infestation. He will deploy W.R.O. troops to provide back-up to the existing police force."

Cloud, Tifa, and Barret blinked. They had forgotten about Shelke.

Tifa was the first to recover. Quite calmly, she replied, "Thank you, Shelke. That helps a lot. Now, this might not be the right time, but can you explain to me how you're nineteen? I'm confused on that."

Cloud and Barret looked at Tifa with their mouths hanging slightly open. How the hell had…? They looked at each other and sighed. Women.

"I was taken by Deepground at age nine because they saw special talent in me. I was then altered with mako energy to enhance my mental power and to increase the physical strength of my body. However, this stopped my aging process. I also need daily treatments of mako energy to stay alive. Does that sufficiently answer all of your questions?"

Tifa was shocked, "I'm so sorry, Shelke."

Shelke shook her head, "I did not give any information I did not want to. Reeve also said I should let you know about my dependency on mako energy. He believes that you can help me 'stay on top of it'."

Tifa blinked, "Yeah, of course. What do you need?"

"Condensed mako energy still in liquid form. It is similar, I suppose, to a diabetic's insulin shot."

"Well, that shouldn't be too hard," Barret mused.

Cloud nodded, "There's probably a bunch left in Midgar's reactors."

"Are you okay for today, or do we need to get some?" Tifa asked.

"I have enough to last me the next three weeks," Shelke replied cooly.

Tifa nodded, "Then can you help us around the house? As you can see, it was abused while we were gone."

Shelke nodded, "What do you need assistance with?"

There was a thunk at the door, then a rock broke the other front window. Cloud glanced over at Tifa. She stood and walked outside. He glanced at Barret, who drew a finger across his throat.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Cloud grabbed his sword and went outside.

Barret looked at Shelke, "You wanna watch a show? It'll be good."

"A show? I do not understand."

Barret nudged the girl over near a window, "Just watch, and learn never to make Tifa angry."

Shelke raised an eyebrow, then turned and looked out the window as gunfire started ringing.

Outside, Cloud ran in front of Tifa and blocked the gunfire with his Fusion Sword while Tifa ran straight toward the group of Black Bullets.

The pair got to the group, Tifa slipped under Cloud's arm and bulldozed the first gang member to the ground before slamming the back of her fist into her second victim's nose. Aiming not to kill, both she and Cloud dispensed of the ten 18-27 year olds. The group lay in pain or unconscious in minutes. Cloud searched their faces for the kid that came earlier. Once found, Cloud yanked him to his feet.

"Is he the one that came earlier?" Tifa asked.

Cloud nodded. Barret approached laughing, "Was that a good sparring session, you two?"

Tifa nodded and smiled, "Now we have helpers to fix the house. Can you get some materials for repairs while I keep an eye on them?"

An hour later, Tifa was happily supervising the reconstruction of her house. The eight conscious gang members were easy to keep control of after their lesson. Cloud kept an eye on the second floor and made sure that Marlene and Denzel went undisturbed in their room. Barret stayed with Tifa downstairs to intimidate and Shelke was with Cloud. A few hours later, the angry group took their last buddy who hadn't woken up and left. Cloud, Tifa, and Barret waved bye and assured the group that there would be repercussions if they tattled to their leader.

Once out of sight, Tifa turned to Cloud, "You put the tracking button with them?"

Cloud nodded. They weren't going to look for the group themselves, but the information would doubtless be useful to Reeve and the police.