Cloud, Gordon, and the rest of the party we're currently making their way through a forest, they had passed by Fort Condor earlier and although Gordon had wanted to stop by to help the troops stationed their Cloud objected and they continued.

And Gordon already knew they would be coming back later on.

"Junon Harbor can't be far now, let's keep moving." Cloud said.

They were nearly out of the forest, but just as they were about to reach the exit, a ninja came down from one of the trees and stood before the party.

She had black hair and wore a green sleeveless top, she also had a white headband on, she carried with her what looked like a large 4 sided shuriken.

"You guys look like you got some good Materia on you! I'll be taking all of it!" She exclaimed.

"Gordon, Tifa, you're with me, the rest of you hang back." Cloud said.

The rest of the party obliged and let Cloud, Tifa, and Gordon step forward, all getting ready to fight.

"Heh, you'll regret not taking me seriously!" The ninja shouted.

She then threw kunai at the trio hoping to catch them off guard. Cloud and Tifa were able to dodge but Gordon wasn't as fast, the kunai hit him straight in the chest but thanks to his HEV suit it bounced off of it.

Tifa then ran straight up to the ninja hoping to land a punch on her, but the ninja was fast enough to dodge it, unfortunately for the ninja Tifa anticipated the dodge and was rounding to hit her with her left, but the ninja was able to block it just in time. The force of Tifa's punch sent the ninja flying backwards but she was able to land on her feet, shaken.

Before the ninja could perform her next attack Cloud was coming up on her left ready to attack with his buster sword. The ninja was about to dodge again but unfortunately she didn't notice Gordon coming up on her right.

"GOTCHA!" Gordon shouted, winding up to hit her with his gatling gun.

The ninja tried to turn around to block it but it was too late, Gordon connected with his gatling gun swing and the ninja was sent flying backwards, colliding with a nearby tree. The ninja fell to the ground, still conscious but clearly in pain.

"Right" Cloud said, putting away his buster sword, "That takes care of that, let's keep moving."

"Wait," said Gordon, "Maybe we should-"

"One more," The ninja said, getting up and getting back into a battle stance.

"Let's go one more round!"

"I'm not interested." Cloud replied.

"Why?" The ninja asked, "Afraid you'll lose?"

"Yeah, totally afraid." Cloud said sarcastically, although the ninja seemingly did not pick up on it.

"Ha! I figured you'd be with my skills!" The ninja shouted back, "Well I'm gonna leave now, if you ever wanna go at it again you know where to find me!"

The ninja then turned around and more or less was limping away from the party, she then turned around to face them.

"I mean it! I'm leaving now!" The ninja shouted.

"Wait!" Gordon shouted. This earned a look from Cloud.

"It's like you said, we need all the help we can get." Gordon said to Cloud.

"Ah ha! I knew you needed my help!" The ninja said, now limping her wait to the party, clearly still feeling the effects from Gordon's blow.

"I've made up my mind, I'll come with you!" The ninja said.

"Cool." Cloud said, he then turned around and began walking in the other direction, along with the rest of the party.

"W-Wait! I haven't even told you my name!" said the ninja, trailing behind.

"I'm Yuffie! Yuffie Kisaragi!"

"Right, looks like we're here." said Barret, as the party entered a small run down town.

"What happened to this place?" Aerith asked, as the party walked through the town.

"No idea, but right now-" Cloud said, looking up at the city above, "We need to find a way to get up there's, let's ask around and see if we can find a way up."

"Hey Cloud, mind if I head to the store and grab some more Materia?" said Gordon,

"Figured since we have gil to spare."

"That's fine." said Cloud

"I'll go with him." Tifa said, "I figured since you're not that familiar with Materia I could help you find the right ones."

"Yeah sure that's fine." Gordon replied, as both him and Tifa headed to the store they passed while entering town.

'Good, this is my chance to find out more about him and what he knows.' Tifa thought.

As Gordon and Tifa entered the store, they were greeted by the store owner who looked up at them as they were entering, and looked back down at what he was reading.

"Yeah, what can I do for you?" The store owner asked.

"Uhhhh we'd like to buy some Materia." said Gordon.

"Alright, here's what we have." The store owner said, pulling out a case and opening it. The interior contained various orbs, some green and some blue, along with some that were purple.

"Right, since your fire Materia has leveled up during our past few encounters, I'd suggest going with this." Tifa said, picking out a Barrier Materia.

"That armor may be sturdy, but it'll only get you so far."

"Got it." said Gordon, "I think this'll work too."

Gordon picked out another green orb, this one was Thunder, Tifa nodded.

"So Gordon, where are you from?" She asked.

"Oh uh, I'm from New Mexico." Gordon said.

"New Mexico? Never heard of it." She said.

"It's uh, a faraway country, you probably wouldn't have heard of it." Gordon replied.

"I see." Tifa said.

'Crap, I figured Tifa would be suspicious of me since I mentioned Cloud being with SOLDIER when we first met. Just gotta play it cool' Gordon thought.

"You said that armor you wear was also work related, what work did you do?" She asked.

"I uh, worked for a research facility in the country I'm from, I handled hazardous materials mostly and this is to help protect me from that." Gordon replied, "Don't worry, I didn't work for Shinra, I'd never work for them."

"Where did you work then?" She asked.

"I uh…"

'Shit, if I bring up anything from Half-Life is it gonna cause the AI here to freak out and cause a massive crash? Only one way to find out.' He thought.

"…worked at Black Mesa."

It took a few moments (it almost felt like forever for Gordon) before Tifa said "Never heard of it."

Gordon breathed a sigh of relief inside of his head.

'Alright, the game didn't crash and the AI didn't go apeshit, that's a plus.' He thought.

"Understandable, we got shut down by Shinra years ago, I just kept this armor as a souvenir." Gordon said.

"Right, now that we have what we need let's pay."

Tifa nodded. Along with Gordon's new Materia they got a bunch of potions and ethers too. After paying they headed for the exit.

'Right, I wasn't able to find out everything but at least I got some info. I'll have to look up what he told me later on.' Tifa thought.

Tifa and Gordon began walking back through town to regroup with Cloud and the rest, that's when they ran into Barret.

"Hey Barret." said Tifa, "Where are Cloud and the others?"

"They went down by the beach." Barret said, "I was just waiting for you guys so we could-"

Before Barret could say another word, a scream was heard in the distance.

"That sounded like it came from the beach, let's go!"

Gordon, Barret, and Tifa were all running down the stairs to the beach where they saw Cloud, Aerith, Yuffie, and Red XIII. Hovering above them was a giant fish-like monster floating in the air.

"What the hell is that!?" Barret shouted.

"Dunno, but it's gotta die!" Gordon shouted.

The trio then came up to Cloud and the rest.

"We can't reach this thing!" Cloud shouted,

"Gordon, Barret, you two fire on it and use the Materia you have! The rest of us will do the same!"

"Got it!" Barret shouted, "Fire at will Freeman!"

Without answering Gordon and Barret began opening fire upon the fish, Yuffie threw her kunai at it too. As they were doing that Red XIII used the Wind Materia he had equipped on the creature. This caused the fish to shriek in pain.

"It's weak to wind!" Red XIII shouted, "If you have wind equipped use it!"

The fish responded by unleashing a huge tidal wave in the party's direction.

"Brace!" Cloud shouted, as the tidal wave came upon the party. It knocked Gordon and Aerith back while the rest were able to hold their ground. Gordon and Aerith collided into a wall behind them.

"Aerith!" Gordon shouted, getting up and running over to Aerith to check on her.

"I'm fine.." Aerith said, coughing.

"Help Cloud and the others, I just need a second to regroup."

Gordon nodded and ran back to join the battle.

'I got new marteria, now's the time to put it to good use!'

Gordon raised his gatling gun and held up two fingers (or at least the sensation of doing it), an aura formed around him and lighting shot out of the gun, hitting the fish.

Gordon then noticed another aura formed around him, different from the one that appeared when summoning Materia.

"Huh? What's this?" Gordon said to himself.

"You have a limit break!" Tifa shouted at Gordon, dodging the fish's tail, "Use it!"

"Got it!" Gordon replied, he raised his gatling gun at the fish.

The aura around Gordon grew stronger and he noticed his gatling gun was beginning to shake. Gordon braced the gun with his other hand.

A hailstorm of bullets came out of Gordon's gun and unleashed themselves in the direction of the fish. All the bullets penetrated through the fish like Swiss cheese as Gordon's gun continued to fire.

After a few moments the firing stopped, and what was left was the fish riddled with bullet holes falling down to the ground, lifeless.

"Ow ow ow!" Gordon was shaking his gatling gun which was red hot afterwards.

'Fucking Devil Gun'

"Good job Gordon!" Aerith said, coming over to where Gordon was at.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine, nothing I haven't dealt with before. How about you? That fish decked us both into next Wednesday." Gordon said

"I'll live." She replied.

Red XIII then appeared before them.

"Good work back there." Red XIII said, "But we need your help, the little girl we met just washed up to shore and she isn't breathing."

"Oh crap." Gordon said, "Take us to her!"

Gordon and Aerith followed Red XIII to where Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, and Barret were. Cloud was kneeling over the girl unsure of what to do while Tifa and Barret stood beside.

"Is she dead?" Aerith asked.

"I don't know." Cloud replied, "She isn't breathing and I don't know what to do, should we-

"CPR." Gordon interrupted, "Do you know how to do CPR?"

"S-Somewhat." Cloud said, clearly shaken.

"Alright, I'll walk you through it if you're unsure." Gordon said, "But you need to get to it now!"

"Okay." Cloud said.

"Right, administer mouth to mouth first, do it twice." Gordon said.

Cloud complied by breathing into her mouth, then taking a deep breathing and doing it again.

"Alright, you're doing good so far." Gordon said, "Now you need to push on her chest."

"A-Alright." Cloud said.

"30 times, do it 30 times then do mouth to mouth." Gordon said.

"Got it." Cloud replied.

Cloud pushed down on her chest while counting to himself silently, while the whole party stood over him anxiously.

"21, 22, 23" he whispered to himself.

As he finished the 30th he was about to administer mouth to mouth when the girl suddenly spat out a huge portion of water.

The whole party breathed a sigh of relief as the girl regained consciousness and sat up slightly.

"What happened?" She asked.

"Pricilla!" A voice shouted in the distance.

The party looked over and saw an old man hurriedly running down the stairs and towards them.

"What happened?" The old man asked.

"A giant fish attacked us." Aerith said, pointing at the fish's corpse.

"She got caught up in it and we were able to rescue her."

"Oh thank goodness." The old man said, "I need to get her to the hospital, follow me back!"

The old man then picked up the girl and ran back up the stairs, with Cloud and the rest behind him.

They then went over to the hospital where the workers their were able to take her in. After a few minutes one of them came out to talk to them.

"She'll be okay, she just needs rest for now. After that she'll be on her way to making a full recovery." He said.

"That's a relief." The old man said. He then turned to face Cloud and the rest of the party.

"I'm sure you must all be tired, follow me back to my house."

They complied and went with the old man back to his place.

"I can't thank you enough for saving her." The old man said, as they all entered his house.

"Don't thank me." Cloud said, "Thank him."

He pointed at Gordon.

"Without him I wouldn't have known what to do."

"If that's the case, thank you young man." The old man said, going over to shake Gordon's hand (the one without the gatling gun).

"Don't mention it." Gordon said, "I'm just glad my knowledge of CPR came to good use today."

"That's good to know." The old man said, "I have beds in the back, use those to rest."

"Right," Cloud said, "We'll rest here for the night then we'll figure out how we're gonna get to the city above."

The party collectively nodded in agreement and head off to bed.

"Hey Gordon." Barret said, "you a doctor or something, you were fast on that CPR advice?"

"That I am," Gordon said, "I'm actually more of a scientist than an actual doctor, but I have knowledge of basic medical stuff"

"I see." Barret said, "Well, it's good to know for the future, let's hit the hay and I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Likewise." Gordon said, as both him and Barret went to bed.

As Tifa laid in bed, her thoughts went to what had today, and how Gordon basically saved that girl's life.

'Maybe he isn't as bad as I originally thought, but I still won't drop my suspicion of him. I wonder if he could be related to Him.' She thought, before drifting off to sleep.