A/n just barley missing my mark, had a bit of block and could only write this today, its a bit smaller than the other chappa so i feel a little sad, but hopefully it does well enough.
Ch 13
"God I'm still limping, what the fuck." I complained while we were exiting the ship.
"Nathan whats wrong?" Aeris said.
"You cast cure on me four times and it still hurts to put my full weight on my leg. How does that work?"
"Nathan cure isn't an all life saving solution. In all honesty its just was quick injury fix until you are able to get serious medical treatment. Much like a broken bone, you still need a splint and proper care, just casting cure makes it heal at an abnormal part of your arm and can make it useless." We were just getting off the ship now. The tropical sun hitting my face hard. I'm still pissed, apparently there are a lot more limitations than what the game lets on.
"Damn its hot." Barret said when we all got to the docks, now fully in the hot suns rays.
"But I sure feel better saying goodbye to that sailor suit. Now be sure to mingle with these folk, so we don't look suspicious."
"Aww to bad, I liked Barrets sailor suit he looked so cute." Aeris pouted.
"What do you mean 'cute'?"
"Barret why don't you use the suit as a pair of pajamas?" Tifa added, trying not to laugh.
"What? Cloud are they serious?" Cloud seemed to contemplate.
"Awww you look like a bear wearing a marshmallow." I couldn't hold my laughter in any longer, Cloud suddenly going from serious face to that was to much. "HAHAAHAHAAH..OH GOD...I can...I CAN'T breath...!" I fell onto the dock, the sudden impact on my still sore leg sobered me up quick.
"Yeah you better quit laughing, these happen to be the most comfortable. So shud'up!"
"Nathan just don't do to much with that leg for about an hour, it will feel better then." Aeris told me, I nodded.
"Could we please hurry, this heat is drying my nose." Red said while panting.
"Yeah mine too!" I gave Yuffie an odd look. "Alright everyone, we'll take a break and then head out. Don't wander to far off." Cloud said.
"I'll wander where ever I damn want!" Barret ran of with Red following, mumbling something about laying somewhere cool.
"Don't look for me." Yuffie ran off as well.
"Later guys, I haven't eaten all day." I limped off into the resort town. After a while I started using Fusion as a cane which helped a lot. I eventually got into the bar and felt a little out of place. Almost everyone was well tanned and wearing some sort of swim trunks or bikini. And there I was standing with a ruined shirt and pants with one leg that went only passed my knee. I got into one of the bar chairs and just relaxed before the owner came up.
"You look pretty roughed up."
"I feel it too." "Nothing a drink and laying down on the beach wouldn't cure, Costa Del Sol does wonders to stress, so what will you have?"
"What is pretty good right now?"
"Right now a Sex on the beach is the most popular drink."
...
"Do you card?"
"Every now and again yes."
"How old do I look to you?"
"...twenty two. I'm usually spot on when it comes to peoples ages, let me guess your older."
...Sigh...
"Just get me a Cola, I don't want to argue this right now." As tempting as getting drunk sounds it will not help my leg. But god these people are making this too easy for me to exploit them. I'm surprised every bar is so lenient on drinking ages...but we live in a world where fourteen year old's are recruited into the army so I must be the only sane person left on the planet, and I ain't even from here...
"I'm sorry a what?"
"Cola?"
"I have never heard of that. What do you mix?"
….Don't you dare tell me...
"I'm sure you have, its a soda...the best soda there is..." I hissed.
"Like I said, never heard of it." I immediately got up and walked out the bar. Once I was out outside I felt like venting.
"BULLSHIT! There is no way in hell Cola isn't here! Its the most popular drink around and now it suddenly doesn't exist?"
"Nathan are you okay?" I turned to see Red hit a ball with his tail.
"No, No, I just found out one of the greatest beverages of all time isn't sold here...or anywhere for that matter...I am just...peachy." I smiled, not really caring if it was crooked or not.
"You were yelling about a drink not being sold?" He asked.
"You would never understand...no one will." I walked off, I might as well get food inside me...and maybe a more even tan, this farmers tan doesn't really seem all that cool now...In fact I'll go by a tube, enjoy floating in the ocean soaking up the sun...not drinking and Coke...contemplating how life could exist now...
ATE
"What a long boat ride that was." A large man said as he exited the ship. Followed by Rufus who had a look of slight annoyance on his face.
"Good work everyone."
"Gya, ha, ha! Hurry up with that!" Heidegger yelled.
Two sailors started working on the Shinra company helicopter. "Its good we've had in increase in importation, more income for us, gya hahahahah."
"You know, I heard Sephiroth was abord the ship." Rufus stated, cutting off Heidiggers laugh.
"...Yes."
"As well as Cloud and the others." He turned and glared at the fat man.
"...Yes."
"They all slipped through, you screwed up this time Heidegger." The man looked down at the ground.
"I am ashamed of myself."
"Is that all you can do? Give one word answers and apologize for everything?" Rufus scolded the man until a sailor came up.
"Ready for departure sir!"
"Do something, I'm expecting results." Rufus walked to the helicopter and boarded it. Shortly after leaving the port he began thinking.
"The pompous idiot let them all get through...AVALANCHE is clever...if only there was a way to track them without knowing." Right then Rufus' phone had rung. He opened it and looked it was from the Urban development department.
"Reeve, you know it is hard to get a good signal while I'm on a helicopter."
"Yes but I wanted to let you know I finished looking at the phone." Rufus relaxed. Some good news today then.
"Anything of interest."
"Besides the technology behind it I found quite a few pictures."
"Interesting, I will have to take a look at them when I arrive at my fathers mountain home."
"The one near Gold Saucer?"
"Yes." Being the president of a world renowned company gave the old president a lot of ways to spend his money, one of which was multiple homes on continents giving him access to almost every type of vacation possible, the villa in Costa Del Sol was just one of many of these vacation homes he had the pleasure of being in.
"Then I will be able to get you the information within a days time."
"Are you already in the area?"
"No I will be sending Cait Sith in."
"The robotic cat?" Rufus knew of Reeve's pet project, as well as his "special" ability to control it which was one of the reasons he was hired by his father.
"Yes I finally perfected him. He can defend himself now, so I can ship him out and then have him meet you." Hearing this Rufus came up with something, although it was a long shot he couldn't waste the opportunity.
"How well can it fight?"
"With the addition of the moogle robot he can use materia as well as megaphones to amplify sounds to painful levels."
"How well can you control it?"
"Its second nature, he has a complete personality of his own, and with the new Mako engine inside him he can last quite a while and don't I won't to worry about him cutting off our connection."
"Reeve, you may have just solved a dilemma. I will call you when I reach my destination, send Cait Sith at the Gold Saucer, I have a plan." Rufus, happy with the idea he had took out the MP3 and started to enjoy some music.
(Elsewhere)
Cloud was enjoying the break as well as everyone else. After the confrontation on the boat he realized that Jenova was more dangerous since the years had passed. He had wonder onto the beach, not really wanting a tan or anything. But the sound of the waves helped him think. He noticed however both Tifa and Aeris with distraught looks on their faces.
"Whats wrong?"
"Oh Cloud..." Aeris said. Looking back.
"Cloud...look at that." Cloud looked over and saw multiple women laying around pampering somebody, in reality he never would have minded, but the man they were pampering caught his attention.
"Is that Hojo?" He said disbelievingly.
"Go over and talk to him. He might know where Sephiroth is." Cloud took Tifa's advice and tried to get the scientists attention. However he didn't seem to pay attention so he had to think of something else.
"God what do you want?" Asked one of the woman.
"I want to talk with that man." Cloud said irritated. She gave him a look before talking to Hojo.
"Professor Hojo, this scary man say he wants to talk to you." She said.
"I'm busy right now."
"To bad, now talk." Cloud said.
"Alright. You sure are loud." He looked over and seemed to study Cloud before a smile came on his face.
"Long time no see Cloud."
"Hojo."
"What are you doing here?" Tifa asked.
"Sometimes you just gotta do something like this." Hojo said relaxing back into his chair.
"What are you trying to pull?" Cloud couldn't believe Hojo was there for down time. He knew the man would never just stop working.
"It should be obvious, I'm getting a tan."
"Enough games, answer me!" Hojo shrugged off the yell.
"It seems we are after the same goal."
"You mean Sephiroth?"
"Did you see him!" Tifa questioned.
"I see...interesting." He said now standing up.
"What?"
"Nothing, I'm just remembering a certain hypothesis." He then eyed Cloud.
"Tell me, have you ever had the feeling someone is calling you? Or you should visit someplace?"
"I'll go anywhere Sephiroth is at." Cloud stated. Which only seemed to amuse Hojo.
"To beat him and end all this."
"I see...this could be interesting. Were you in SOLDIER?...hehehehe. Would you like to be my guinea pig?" Cloud started reaching behind his back. "Are you going to draw your sword?" Hojo said with a toothy grin.
"Stop Cloud, I know how you feel, but you mustn't" Cloud looked back at Tifa and then around the beach. He shouldered his weapon only to hear Hojo laugh at him and walk towards Aeris.
"Aren't you the Ancient?"
"I am Aeris, the least you can do is remember my name." She said angrily.
"I want you to tell me something Hojo, I know I am an Ancient? My mother told me so."
"Your mother? Oh you mean Ifalna. How is she."
"You didn't know? She died!" Aeris was shocked he didn't know that after all this time he didn't know her mother was dead., especially since he was the one who caused it. He frowned.
"I see."
"Hojo." She started. "Is Jenova an Ancient? Is Sephiroth an Ancient? Do we have the same blood?" He was ignoring her, he would mumble something about a reunion and other topics.
"He's no use." Cloud said.
"He's mumbling, he's hiding something." Tifa accused.
"He said something about heading west." Aeris said.
"Lets go." Cloud said, but before they could leave he called them out.
"Hold on."
"What do you want?"
"I have a question of my own."
"That being?"
"Where is that boy?" Cloud was confused.
"Who."
"The one who saw Jenova leave, where is he?" Cloud realized he was talking about Nathan.
"What do you want with Nathan?" Tifa asked.
"I simply wished to ask him questions, perhaps make a few experiments." Hojo said with a sinister glint in his eye.
"If you think we'd let you continue on another one of us then your wrong."
"You don't even know who the boy is do you?" Hojo said.
"What he could hold, what he could possibly make him another scientific breakthrough..."
"That's enough." Cloud wouldn't hear it. Fine then, however I will be curious as to how you will react to what he is..hehehehe." Hojo laid back down onto his chair. Cloud and the rest of the group left to go back into town. Cloud started wondering though. He knew Hojo had an obsession with his work, and often his experiments when they came out the way they did. He remembered that more often than any SOLDIER Sephiroth had check ups with the man. And considering how he had an interest with Aeris he had to ask why he was now interested in Nathan.
Maybe Nathan had more of a connection to Shinra than anyone thought. From what he had said he also had a brother who was in the Shinra navy and his father worked in weapons manufacturing. He had a weapon that could have only been made in Shinra since it was near impossible for regular weapon makers to combine materia without proper equipment, and he never could forgot about Nathans unusual powers with materia.
"Hey guys whats up?" Cloud looked and saw said man using his sword as a cane to get on the beach.
"Nathan what are you doing here?"
"I came to get me some sun and maybe chill in the water."
"Sorry Nathan but everyone is going to the in, we won't be able to stay long." Cloud said. After what just happened he wouldn't let Nathan anywhere near Hojo.
"But...I just got an inner-tube with my share of gil..."
"Sorry but we have to hurry. Come on Nate." Nate reluctantly followed them off the beach and to the inn. Cloud was reliveved. Until he sorted things out he didn't want Nate to be close to anyone in Shinra.
(a few minutes later)
Man no drinks, no swimming, and the food at the inn was bland as hell. Everything about today has sucked.
"Well you can put your weight on it now, but running might not be a good idea until another day passes." Aeris said.
"I still don't see why I can't go swimming." It was a little odd when Cloud told everyone to meet up here. Aeris seemed to try to think of an answer before I sighed.
"I guess its for my own good. He knows more about injury's than me." Aeris relaxed at my answer and went to her bed. In fact the only people here who weren't in a downer kind of mood were Red, Barret, and Yuffie. The latter of the three seeming to bounce up and down.
"Whats so exciting.?"
"I got a ton of new materia." oh god.
"You stole it all didn't you?"
"What? How could you think that?" I pointed to the slot that used to house my fire.
"You gave it to me."
"Temporarily, and I want it back."
"To bad, and I got all these because the seller gave me a great deal." I sighed. She probably threatened the guy...or wined for to long.
"Okay everyone, we're heading west." Cloud said with everyone gathering.
"Hojo happen to give us some information on where Sephiroth is heading and we are going to keep following him."
"Any particular reason why we are here then?" I asked.
"Since we have had multiple run ins with powerful and large monsters I wanted to give everyone a role in battle."
"A what?" Barret said.
"I'm guessing your going to play to everyone's strengths so we all complement each other." I said.
"Right, so everyone pool in your materia." Before she could argue I snatched Yuffie's new materia and threw it into the pile. Besides purple and red we had two lightnings, fires, and one ice. Two cures, one heal, revive, seal, enemy skill, steal, sense, throw, unused poison and earth, three all materias and one elemental. "And not one has leveled up." I said out loud.
"The lightning and fire you had are pretty close." Cloud said.
"So how are we doin this?" Barret asked.
"We'll distribute the materia among everyone to make sure we are a well balanced enough team." He picked up the steal, sense, and long range. "I'm the most well rounded person here, so I will take these since I will have a better use for them. Now Tifa..."
For about an hour Cloud organized how we all got our materia, Barret complained at one point about only getting earth and ice but I explained to him he was a brawn kind of guy, so magic would only be used to give a small edge. Since we only had so much materia the two who drew short stick were Red and Yuffie, the ladder only got the lower level fire and throw and through while the former had poison, elemental, and seal. I was happy receiving my almost leveled up lightning and fire materia and rubbed it in Yuffie's whining face with glee, Tifa and Aeris were basically the healers of our group taking the cure.
"Alright everyone. Get some sleep, we're heading out tomorrow." Cloud said. Everyone left to their corresponding rooms, I bunked with Cloud so I just had to roll over. "Hey, thanks for helping with organizing." I looked back.
"You did most the talking, I just chimed in."
"But you made good choices. Like giving Aeris the enemy skill. Now why did you do it"
"She has the best magic power out of us but we made her a supporter with Tifa with cure and heal, enemy skill will give her an offensive edge."
"See, your smarter than you act Nate." I grunted and closed my eyes.
"But I disagree on one thing."
"What?"
"You have a more powerful magic ability than Aeris, you cast spells and never seem to tire out."
"So?"
"I'm just thinking how you could get that kind of power." I opened one eye and saw him looking at the ground.
"Something wrong?"
"Nathan, have you ever been to Shinra before you met us?" I sat up and thought my answer carefully.
"No, that was the first time I had ever been to Midgar for me, I had never been to their headquarters until I tagged along with you."
"Did you know Hojo?"
"I never met him until then either." I sat on the edge of my bed.
"Whats with this Cloud."
"I'm...wondering about the Zolom battle, you completely changed in a split second and you have these ability's..." I got his reasoning, my curiosity would get eaten at if I had to keep that a secret and not know what it is.
"I told you I snapped."
"What do you mean by snapped?" he sounded accusatory.
"Cloud, sometimes people can't handle things, I know I never could handle having to take a Zolom on my own, so I let my body take over." tried to word it the experience the best I could.
"You were a completely different person though." I scratched my head. But an idea came in that fit the situation perfectly.
"You know I know a similar situations, you see...sometimes the only way to escape pain is to go somewhere where your mind can accept it, and it copes with it the best it can after that." He seemed to mole my words over.
"You have another personality?" I scoffed, though he was right on the nail I didn't want to hear it.
"You make it sound like I'm crazy."
"Don't forget I have experience in this Nathan." He said sternly, I conceded the argument.
"Sometimes Cloud a person can't take pain or traumatic events, I happen to know a few comics where this happened and the people made a whole new person inside themselves just to find away to stop the pain."After that he started at me fore a few minutes before he muttered good night. My omitted lies being enough. I laid down and started to sleep. Thinking about why he would ask me now about what my involvement was with Shinra.
ATE "We must rest."
"No, we can continue longer."
"Mother you are still healing, you must stop and fully regenerate." Sephiroth stopped and sat down on a nearby rock. Jenova deciding to lay on the ground and hold its half of an arm.
"To think they destroyed me so easily." Jenova hissed. Since the growth of her head she had started to talk vocally instead of telepathically. He face exactly as it was five years ago.
"They used strategy, they lacked strength. It is nothing to concern yourself with mother."
"They will still be an annoyance my son."
"I can simply kill them if you wish mother."
"No, the puppet still has use." Sephiroth nodded. Not willing to argue with his mother.
"And if you killed them then I won't get to see his progress." Sephiroth looked at his mother.
"You mean the man who effectively won the battle on the ship?" Jenova cringed for only a second before putting on a calm facade.
"He has grown, I can tell."
"Why do you have an interest in him mother? He is a lowly human just like the rest."
"You might not understand my son, but he is like me."
"I highly doubt a man you nearly killed is like you mother." He deapanned.
"Patience Sephiroth, he will become powerful enough, and when he does he will be useful to us." "How can you be so sure?" "It will be just like that scientists theory of Reunion, he and I are too alike, he will come to us because of what is inside him as well as the puppet...you will see soon."
A/N Alright so ext time we are on our way to corel, now I will be opening up my first poll. because I can't decide weather Nathan should get out of being caught and thrown in prison or get stuck with the group. not this will be the week after nexts chappa. So i will make about four choices or less about how it should go. and since its turkey week I will definatly be on time for next weeks chap, till next time audience.