She knew he was wrong. There simply too many holes in his story and the simple fact the Claire and Zack had not been mentioned at all. When the story was finished, and everyone went to explore Kalm, she decided to talk to the only other witness of the Nibelheim incident. The woman was found outside the town looking at the city of Midgar just peeking over a distant hill.
"Tifa, I need to talk to you."
"Oh, Serah. What about?" Tifa said with an obviously halfhearted smile.
At that moment, Serah realized she couldn't talk to anyone about how wrong Cloud's story was. If she confronted Tifa about it, it would be revealed Serah was not who she said she was. The Nibelheim incident was classified top secret to everyone that knew about it, with the obvious exception of the survivors. But now that Serah had started she knew she had to continue but think of a way to disguise her intent.
"Cloud's story," Tifa gave her a confused look "Parts of it sounded a little... Odd," Tifa's look of confusion persisted "Like he was forgetting something or those holes in the story. Didn't those sound odd to you?"
Tifa nodded slowly and turned back to face Midgar. She knew exactly what Serah was talking about as Cloud did not mention the pink or black haired SOLDIERs. Not to mention the simple fact that she only saw Cloud in the reactor, but he was wearing a Shinra Infantry uniform.
"He was telling the truth," Tifa stated.
"You're sure?"
"I was there, Serah," Tifa nearly shouted even though she did not mean to. She reigned in her emotions before continuing "Why would we lie about the destruction of our home?" Serah nodded at Tifa's words and walked away. The brawler was not entirely sure why she had covered up the errors in Cloud's story but she was sure there was a reasonable explanation and she was going to get it out of Cloud.
As Tifa aimlessly wandered around the medieval looking town, something suddenly occurred to her. She brought up a mental image of Serah and the pink haired SOLDIER from Nibelheim and Reactor Five, to start a comparison. At that moment, Tifa wanted to slap herself for being so stupid, not to mention slap everyone else for being so blind. Serah was related to the pink haired SOLDIER member, for all they knew, Serah was a Shinra spy and feeding the tyrants information on them at that very moment. The dark haired martial artist started towards the Inn where they were all staying, but stopped dead after a few steps. Who would believe her? That question hung in Tifa's mind as she raced to think of something, any kind of solution. She decided to keep an eye on Serah, if she proved to be a spy or threat to their cause, Tifa would deal with her.
The next morning, the group assembled just outside of Kalm and were deciding on a plan of action. The best they came up with was to pursue Sephiroth but in order to do that, they had to swing by the fairly close by chocobo ranch so they would have transport across the Midgar Swamp. The beast they had rescued from Hojo's lab, said that they should split up and regroup near Junon as to avoid detection from Shinra. There had been some objections, but Red's strategy was sound. So they divided. One group was comprised of Serah, Snow, Yuj, and Lebreau. Another had Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Aerith. The last group was Gadot, Red, and Maqui.
Cloud's group left first, opting to clear the path as best they could. Six hours later, Snow's group was setting out and the blond brawler told his muscled friend to wait four or five hours before leaving Kalm and that they would clear out whatever the first group missed. Four and a half hours later, Gadot's group left Kalm.
The sound of crackling and snapping fire along with the succulent smell of well cooked meat pulled her out of her sleep. Slowly she opened her eyes and sat up but as soon as she was somewhat vertical, her head started to pound like someone was using her head to practice using a hammer. Ignoring the pain, she followed the sound and smell to several chunks of meat suspended above a fire on a makeshift spit. Behind it, on the opposite side of the fire from her, sat two people but it was too dark and the glare of the fire made it difficult for her to see what they looked like.
"Finally awake, are ya?" a heavily accented feminine voice asked. She ignored the sarcastic question and tried to stand.
Before she got too far, her head started to spin and the world suddenly lurched to one side, making her topple back down to the ground onto her stomach. Her pink hair fell across her face as she turned her head to avoid breaking her nose and her vision started to blur. She was just able to make out black hair and some kind of blue cloth before she was yanked back into the oblivion of unconsciousness.
The feeling of something hot on her stomach woke her up with a start but she regretted opening her eyes as the bright unrelenting sun blinded her. Claire slammed her eyes shut and moved to get up again, this time she succeeded, with out any sort of headache. As she climbed to her feet, she spotted where the fire had been but the two strangers were nowhere to be seen. A pair of groans from behind her got her attention and she saw Hope, her target, and Sazh, the pilot, laying on the ground just in front of a completely destroyed Cocoon shuttle. She clearly remembered the shuttle being shot out of the sky and hurtling to the ground like a meteor with a vengeance, but that's where the memory ended.
Claire studied the wreckage for a little while as Hope and Sazh got their bearings and asked the same questions about what happened and how they survived. Her analysis of the wreckage told Claire that there was no way anyone could have survived that crash. Anything short of divine intervention would not have been able to save them.
"I take it you're all better now," the accented female voice from earlier asked from behind Claire.
The three crash victims were met with the sight of two women, no older than mid-twenties, standing side by side. The taller one had tanned skin, messy black hair, a blue sari with a dark shirt underneath it, black cloth bracers, a large tattoo on her left arm, leather knee high sandals, and a double bladed red and black lance. The other woman was a redhead with a pink halter top, orange and yellow skirt, beige fur lined boots, a fur hanging from the back of her belt, three beaded necklaces, many bracelets on both arms, and long strings of beads wrapped around her. The duo reminded Claire of people from Cosmo Canyon but she still felt her hand find her weapon's hilt.
"Who are you?" Claire asked as neutrally as she could.
"Oerba Yun Fang," The woman in blue stated proudly.
"Oerba Dia Vanille," The redhead replied with a light bow.
"Okay then," Hope muttered as he scratched the back of his neck.
"Fang and Vanille work too," Fang said with a smirk "So who are you folks?"
"Hope Estheim."
"Sazh Katzroy."
"Sergeant Lightning Farron."
"If you don't mind me asking," Hope started after the introductions "Did you pull us out of the wreckage?"
"Nope," Fang answered "We were nearby and watched your airship hit the ground. Been takin' care of ya since yesterday."
"Did you see anything or anyone around here when you got here?"
"Didn't see anyone. A chocobo or two must have come by though," Vanille answered with a smile, Claire just gave her a curious expression and Vanille pulled a large white feather out of her satchel "Funny thing is, white chocobos are really rare around here."
"So what is your plan?" Fang asked the trio.
"That's a good question," Hope replied.
"Well, at least with how wrecked the shuttle is, PSICOM won't be looking for us for a long while," Sazh stated. Claire had to agree with him on that but she had no idea what to do now.
It would take days to figure out where they were, how far away the Cocoon/Shinra border was, and to reach it. Another fact she identified was, they could not go to any Cocoon port cities to travel back to Shinra territory, since they would be identified immediately upon boarding a transport. All things considered, they only had one possible route. Through the neutral area, the frozen wasteland of the northern continent. That plan of action, however, raised another issue. How would she get Hope to go with her?
"Now why would PSICOM be after such nice folks?" Fang said with a heavy sarcastic tone. Sazh and Hope looked to each other and shrugged before Claire spoke up.
"That is an excellent question," Hope pondered "We need to find a way to explain things to the Sanctum. To let them know that we are not criminals."
Claire found his words to be very strange but quickly deduced that he was most likely threatened by her. She also assumed that he thought that if he mentioned his suspicions of Claire to the others, she would kill them. Claire admitted to herself that that is what she would do, her mission was to get Hope to Shinra. The others were only needed to get her out of Cocoon. If it was needed, it would be very easy to eliminate the women and Sazh on the slopes of the northern mountains and make it look like an accident.
"We should head north," Claire commanded more than suggested.
"Why?" Sazh asked rather quickly.
"PSICOM shot us down without even trying to disable the shuttle. The Sanctum is not going to give us any mercy so we should head north so we can get into Shinra territory with minimal chance of detection."
"Now why should we go to Shinra?" Sazh asked, more than confused. Fang watched the exchange with an amused smile and Vanille just felt awkward.
"Shinra's attention is centered on Midgar, Junon, and the isolated Mako Reactors. It will be much easier to slip under their radar than the Sanctum's," Claire stated, technically betraying Shinra.
"And from there, we try to negotiate our way back into Cocoon," Hope added.
"Well if you're heading north, Oerba is a couple weeks in that direction," Fang commented "Sanctum pays us no mind as we're just a village of hunters and whatnot."
"Then that's our first stop," Claire agreed "And I assume I don't actually have to say this, but if the Sanctum catches you helping us, you'll be targets as well."
"And if I spend my life under a rock, it's not worth living," Fang laughed as she pulled her spear out of the ground and turned to leave, the redhead on her heels. As strange as her choice of words was, it made perfect sense to Claire.
Several Days Later, Near Junon
"So we're about to infiltrate Junon, Shinra's military base of a city?" Lebreau asked the large group.
"And stow away on a ship heading for Costa Del Sol?" Gadot added.
"Yes, any problems with that?" Barret threatened.
"Nope," Lebreau and Gadot said in unison, both lying and cowering from Barret.
"So how are we going to get into Junon?" Cloud asked the gun-armed man.
"Take out some soldiers, wear their uniforms?" Aerith suggested, which surprised everyone.
"That's a great idea," Tifa responded "Just a few issues though. Barret's arm, Red, and Cloud's sword."
"Oh, right," Aerith said with a light nod.
"We could wait here with Cloud's weapon and have a few of you smuggle us onto the ship," Red spoke up.
No one could think of a better plan So Cloud handed off the Buster Sword to Barret and the entire group, minus Red XIII and Barret, started towards Junon to obtain uniforms. They were hoping the plan would be go through unhitched but they were all unfortunately unaware of the parade about to start in upper Junon or that President Rufus was scheduled to cross to Costa del Sol on the ship they were planning on stowing away on.
Meanwhile in Cocoon
"Find anything?" a soldier in a white and black uniform with blue shoulders, long brown hair asked another soldier in the same outfit but with a helmet and large sword on his back.
"Just tracks. PSICOM has already been through here," the soldier with the sword replied, his voice slightly distorted by the full helmet.
"Any word on survivors of the crash?"
"Nothing so far, Officer Rygdea," as the soldier with the sword replied something caught his eye "Wait... Got some more tracks here... And they're definitely not PSICOM. They went north."
"Well we had better hurry, PSICOM is probably gonna be on their ass soon."
The two soldiers ran back to the small shuttle with a white and blue paint job with the word Cavalry painted in large letters on the side. It lifted off quickly and shot into the sky, on its way back to the mobile base of the Cavalry, the Lindblum.
Sorry for how short this is and how long it took to appear. I had terrible writers block right after the meeting with Fang and Vanille and struggled to finish the chapter. Spent a week just staring at the blank space hoping for something to appear. I will try to not take as long with the next update.
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