Disclaimer: Because now I need a new Disclaimer... I'm getting tired of the old one. Uh Final Fantasy Comtemplation goes to our favorite Square Enix... Uh However I do Own our Evie and things and stuff about her. I don't even own the Plot, because it's Crisis Core's plot. Like seriously. I suck.
You know, and I realize now that I seem to neglect you guys. I do a Chapter and take forever to put it up. I forget all the time. Such is that of someone who has a busy life... Sort of. It feels like forever since I last got a review. I miss the fuzzy feeling I get from them. So I made sure to make this Chapter a priority for you. I'm almost done with the next one too. I'm pretty sure in the next Chapter or two we should have some more Evie and Zack action. Plus our favorite Chocobo! he joins in a lot too. Bonding is nice.
Words: 3,030
Walking to the entrance showed how quaint the place really was. There was a little wooden gate leading us into the center of the town which happened to be a tall water tower. I noticed then as we stood there how everyone was standing. The cadets leaned casually to the side while Zack stood straight up legs apart a bit farther than shoulder width. Sephiroth stood tall with his feet shoulder width apart. I returned my attention to the town before Sephiroth spoke up.
"So how does it feel? To be home after all this time?"One of the two Cadets shook his head a bit. I assumed that was Cloud. I stopped wondering how Sephiroth knew this was Cloud's hometown. "I have no Hometown. I wouldn't know." I peered at him intently. It always felt nice hearing I wasn't the only one without a hometown. My gaze was cut off as I heard Zack talk. Zack was looking at me but talking to Sephiroth.
"Uh… what about family?" he questioned tearing his gaze away. I figured he must have talked to Cloud when we had stopped for a rest and insisted on walking away from him so furiously. Sephiroth turned around to answer this.
"My mother's name is Jenova. She died shortly after I was born. My father…" he didn't continue but began to laugh. "Why am I talking about this? Come on, let's go." Sephiroth and the two others walked into town, I noticed now that one of the original three was missing. I looked around to see if I could see him, but I didn't… Maybe he was the Driver… Zack and I discussed the news of Sephiroth's mother. He hadn't told me much we mutually didn't talk of our parents having no recollection of ours.
"Sephiroth's mother's name is Jenova?" I shrugged hopelessly.
"He never talked about his mother with me before. We mutually don't talk about that stuff. It's upsetting. But I don't know about you but Jenova is a really awkward name…" I finished oddly before we walked into the town some. As we walked through it I tried to wonder what it felt like to have a hometown. Some place that I could always go back to no matter what. I pictured a hometown to be a pleasant place that was perfect in all aspects but that's just my imagination. Surprisingly I still had one. Zack moved to talk to the infantryman. I could tell which one was cloud the Moment they walked into town with Sephiroth. I recognized the one on the right as Cloud, his strut was what made me realize it.
"Lookout duty is so boring…" the one of the left said to Zack as he went to talk to him. I stood just behind the two near Cloud so I could watch.
"You're bored, huh? You want to practice the usual?" Zack asked with a huge grin on his face. I tilted my head, not liking the look on his face.
"Practice… Oh, the posing. SOLDIER members must be conscious of their public image, right?" Zack nodded and I smashed my hand against my forehead again. "How does it go again? Like this?"
"Right, Watch Evie." Zack turned to me and I glared at him a hand on my hip my shoulders pulled back to make my stance taller. My right hand twitched to pull my sword off and start smashing it into his head. "See. But look at yours! It's quite the improvement."
"I don't have any particular desire to join SOLDIER…" Zack said nothing but marched over to Cloud proudly. I stared at the infantryman as he kept watch. Cloud wasn't in the mood to say much and he had orders from Sephiroth to follow, so Zack just kind of dragged me along with him as he explored the center of the town quickly. On his stroll we met a boy who started talking to us.
Due to the fact I didn't like children as was I only paid him little attention. He told us how we looked weird and how the town was used to weird things because they had Seven Wonders… or something crazy like that. Zack gave me the gist of the conversation and asked if I'd tag along with him. I agreed of course. I hid a small smile as we moved towards Sephiroth.
We saw Sephiroth standing in front of what looked like a small hotel or rental place we were to stay in during our visit. Zack moved closer to him than I did. As we stood there silent for a moment I heard footsteps behind us, they were light and didn't seem to be coming in fast, so it was someone who wasn't trying to kill us. Sephiroth in turn was walking towards the door to our temporary home and then the footsteps stopped behind us and the person said something. It was a girl.
"Are you the SOLDIER people who've come to investigate?" The three of us heard the voice but didn't turn around until we saw Sephiroth acknowledge the voice. Then Zack turned and lastly I did.
The owner was extremely pretty. At least in my eyes. She was a decent height with long legs and long dark brown hair. Her eyes were warm and light brown, but she wore a hat… a big brown hat. It made me want to chuckle a little bit. Going on a guess, she seemed around me and Zack's age, but sometimes I forget how old I really am. She seemed closer to Cloud in age actually. Her skin was pale, paler than me and Zack but it was obvious she tanned better than Sephy. Then there were her clothes. Her clothes nearly made my Jaw drop in surprise. She was wear a skirt of the same color as her hat; it was a short skirt that did little to cover her body. Going up more her stomach was showing and she had on a short shirt with a little brown jacket. Her clothes did little to hide her body. But he body was well formed she had a slender body with a chest similar in size to my own.
"I'm Zack and this is Evie, we're with SOLDIER." I lifted my hand up next to my head in a greeting. She nodded. "1st Class, mind you 1st Class!"
"Huh." I continued my analyzing of her.
My choppy middle length hairstyle contrasted to her long almost singular length hair. She was feminine in the most prominent of ways. And seeing someone dressed with as little clothing as her with a body like hers made me feel bulky and huge next to her. Thinking about it the only difference was that my body had more muscles. I was built for battle, and holding Harpenger was never an easy task for me…until recently of course. Then there was my tan complexion in comparison to her. Zack and I had the same tan complexion since we had vacation together.
"What do you mean, "Huh?"
"Are there a lot of SOLDIER 1st Classes?" Thinking about it now there weren't many and sending the top three was a bad idea, but I guess Shinra knew what they were doing. She looked at the three of us curiously.
"Nope, we're a small, elite group." She glanced at me specifically in wonder.
"They only sent three?"
"Yeah, Evie, Sephiroth and me." Zack said glancing back to look at us.
"Uh-huh…" she looked at the ground slowly and I took a moment to do a closer inspection. I found that my hands were noticeably larger than her small and gentle ones. My hands were bulky and good for fighting. Despite my powerful and ever reliable body there was something about her combination of good looks and body blessings that made me rather self conscious around her. She said nothing and soon walked away. I took a deep breath but she turned to say something but decided instead to not say anything and ran off.
"You alright?" I faced Zack and he was gazing into my eyes waiting for me to answer.
"Yeah… it's just weird," I mumbled. Zack walked to me and put a gloved hand out to touch my elbow. The contact made me flinch and snap my eyes to his.
"You're lying Evie. Tell me." I smiled to myself at how he still knew me so well. We weren't best friends for nothing.
"It's weird and a bit hard to explain Zack. I don't know she feels… almost intimidating in my opinion," I mumbled gently looking in the direction she left in to avoid eye contact with his wide curious blue eyes. I could see his eyebrows furrow in confusion.
"How so?"
"I told you it was weird Zack," I whispered almost too quietly. "Her looks I've never seen someone as…as…" Zack's eyebrows rose in question and his hand gripped my elbow a little tighter, knowing that then I would have taken a chance to run from him.
"Gentle? Small? Delicate?" he offered as help but I shook my head at him saying no to each answer as it came.
"I'd go with pretty." Zack gave me a skeptical look.
He shook his head a bit first, "What are you getting at?"
"Aw jeez do you really have to ask me about it now Zack?" Zack's face fell oddly and a look of realization crossed it. Like he knew what was going on, but he never said anything to me. His shoulders fell and he let go of my elbow. "She intimidates me with how… pretty she is.
He paused for a moment and waited thinking slowly, "What's wrong with the way you look?"
"I never said there was anything wrong with the way I look. She's different than other pretty girls I've met Zack, it's hard to explain." He didn't push the subject anymore and just gave me a reassuring smile. I stared at him even as he turned away and his dashing good looks made me smile.
We glanced over at Sephiroth but Zack decided instead of talking to him, to find out about this first wonder. He climbed the water tower and I stood at the bottom waiting for the verdict. A small red ball fell from above me. I caught it and looked at it in my hand. It was a red materia; I smirked knowing already what went on. Further examination showed that it was actually a summon. Zack jumped down next to me, his boots making a thunking sound.
"Aw what? Not enough power to make a crater?" He rolled his eyes at me but smiled anyways. We used to have little contests with each other to see who could land from somewhere and make the best crater, or who could jump from the ground and make the best one. We liked showing off back then.
The town was small and there really was little to nothing to do in the town, so we went back to Sephiroth who glanced at us before turning around to speak to us. "We depart for the reactor at dawn. Make sure you two get plenty of sleep. Only one of you needs to keep watch. Makes sure you get some rest as well." The other cadets walked up nearby us. "Ah that's right… you have permission to go visit family and friends, if you so wish." Sephiroth walked inside the Inn without another word.
We exchanged glances and we looked to see a cameraman. I tried to not look him in the eye too much as Zack talked to him. He started talking about how he wanted a picture of Sephiroth fighting a monster. Zack offered to let him take a picture of him, but he rudely declined. He walked away after that fortunately never noticing me. I locked eyes with Zack and we walked over to Cloud who was wearing his helmet.
"Why are you wearing the helmet?
"It's… personal." He said back softly.
"Weirdo." Zack said before I turned to walk away. Exploring the town didn't turn out to hot. There wasn't much to explore. Unlike Midgar it was a lot smaller, I remember it took my at least a week after joining SOLDIER to search through all of Midgar. It took me less than ten minutes to browse through the area. I glanced around the town absentmindedly. It almost seemed familiar in a way.
I looked at the sky, it was still good into the day and I still had a lot of time to do things before I had to go to bed. I sat on the floor randomly and stared at that blue sky. I pulled out my phone after getting a beep. It was an email from Cloud. Thanking me. I realized then that I hadn't touched my phone in what seemed forever. As I did I found that old video of Sephiroth apologizing to Zack. Thinking on it now, Sephiroth seemed a bit stricter in general lately. He always acted the same around me though. His favorite hobby truly was to get me flustered. As far as I knew he loved doing that far more than his job. I was a special case I assumed.
I ran through my contacts, most of the people in it I haven't talked to since I started talking to Zack again. I sighed but didn't remove any of them. I ran through my pictures. Pictures of better times. I looked so different now compared to then. My face wasn't so round and pudgy anymore. My hair was longer and was in my face more, my eyes seemed a lot brighter now. I smiled at old pictures of myself. Standing next to Sephiroth in the old days, I was much shorter. I had grown a lot in the past two years. I used to be at least a whole foot shorter than Sephiroth and Genesis. I myself was near the bottom of Sephiroth's chin. Zack reached up to at least his eyebrows. Meaning he was barely a few inches taller than me. Sephiroth was around six feet and three inches. Leaving me at around five feet and eleven inches at best.
I couldn't help but to smile. I had always wanted to be tall. But as a young girl I never grew too much, so I assumed my genetically enhanced body was the reason for my superior height to almost all women.
I sighed and stood up from the dirt ground and dusted myself off. I thought about taking some of my armor off and remembered that we're here because it might have something to do with Hollander and Genesis. I sighed curious as to how the sleeping arrangements would go. I gazed down towards my jet black combat boots. The silver zipper shining back up at me as I thumped back to the inn. I clambered up the stairs to walk into a room. There were two beds to my right and a table and a bookshelf. I sighed this couldn't be for all of us. I turned around and Sephiroth saw me.
"There are a couple more rooms you can choose from. I booked the inn. You can have a room of your own, or you may share it." He said nothing as he turned around and stared out the window absentmindedly. I walked into another room and walked back out. I could have my own room, I could share with Sephiroth, or I could share with Zack. But Zack might want to share with Cloud… I sighed and claimed a room as my own. I left some of my armor in the inn and walked out again. I browsed through the town again finding a mirror. I took a moment to size myself up and stretch a bit.
My muscles almost rippled in the mirror as I stretched. My arm muscles were strong and sturdy, and so was most of my body, but when I stopped stretching and relaxed… I looked normal. Pulling my arm back pretending I was going to get my sword my muscles tensed for the weight, but when nothing came they relaxed. I used a broad sword so I was bound to have some muscles. Genesis and Sephiroth had small light swords and therefore didn't have the amount of muscles Angeal and Zack had. No normal man could pick my sword up, it was too heavy. But it wasn't too heavy that I was bulging like Zack with Muscles. Thinking about Zack I thought about him shirtless and toned. His skin a golden brown color that made my head go dizzy and my stomach flutter. Then his smile, which had showed itself less frequently than it used to. Zack used to have a smile plastered on his ace all the time… but not anymore. It was a rare thing, even for me now.
I took a deep breath and ran my fingers through my black tresses. It was past shoulder length at its longest length; I smirked a bit and walked out of the store deciding not to worry about my looks too much. Zack cared about me all the same, SOLDIER or no. I found him by the water tower on my way over to the inn.
"Hey Zack?" I asked gently, the light was fading slowly behind us.
"Yeah, what's up?"I bit my lips gently.
"You would still care about me the same way even if I wasn't a SOLDIER right? Like if we had met some other way you know?" he paused to think about it and my jaw dropped in offense and I hit him on the arm playfully. He laughed at me as my face flushed bit. He was taking up on the SOLDIER 1st Class favorite hobby. Oh geez… stab me now.