A Final Fantasy 7 fanfiction by MoJo
It had been many months since the planet had been saved. Those known as AVALANCHE had been scattered through the winds of the planet. Here, a tale of how they were brought together once more in an effort to restore the balance to the planet.
Chapter Two
‘You have such beautiful eyes…’ She began, touching the corner of his eye. She kissed him gently as his fingers slipped around her waist, he held her as close as he could to his body, fearing their parting. She returned his embrace, stroking his cheek and tracing her fingers down his smooth neck. He placed his hands on her face and tilted her head up towards him, their lips meeting for the first time.
Their tongues intertwining, each kiss deeper than the one before. Suddenly she felt herself being pulled away; she struggled to hold on to her love, her fingers reaching out for one last time…she began to cry out his name, no sound emerged from her lips…then there was nothing but darkness surrounding her once again. Heion awoke; she was alone in the room where she had been sleeping. The room was dark, she turned and looked at the clock by the bedside, ‘3:25 am.’ She snuggled further under the blanket and stared blankly at the ceiling, until her eyes closed again…
'Tifa? Hey wake up,’ Cloud nudged Tifa in the stomach.
‘What is it? Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep…’
‘I was wondering’ Cloud began ‘Maybe Heion to should go to Vincent’s place, it’s well hidden …’
‘Cloud…HOW SELF-CENTERED ARE YOU! My god if Aeris was here I would gladly let her have you!’
‘…I was thinking about her you know, what if those men find her?’
‘Why do you care all of sudden Cloud? I don’t think we should be thinking about that right now. First we have to concentrate on getting Heion better before she goes anywhere. Besides I don’t think Vincent would appreciate us dumping her on him…’
Cloud sighed in response and turned to go back to sleep.
‘Hi Heion, you been asleep for almost a week, are you feeling any better?’
Tifa asked as Heion walked into the living room and simply nodded in reply. She was wearing a pair of Tifa’s black shorts and one of Cloud’s t-shirts that Tifa managed to pry away from him. Heion noticed Vincent sitting in the corner of the room, adjusting his metal claw…it intrigued her, had he designed it as some sort of protection for himself…or was it something more sinister…like herself, an experiment gone wrong perhaps. Looking at his face, suddenly something triggered in the back of her mind and she quickly turned away and sat facing the open window, taking in the dusk air that followed through the city. Vincent aware that Heion had glanced at him watches her out of the corner of his eye. He notices the cuts and gashes on her forearms, neck and face…she had one scar that passed over her parched lips…Suddenly his train of thought was distracted.
‘Hey, guys. I just got a message from Cid. He says he will be stopping by in a couple of days.’
‘That’s great Cloud, he can meet our new friend Heion…’ to which Cloud rolled his eyes in response.
Heion began to cough violently once more; she clasped her hands over her mouth preparing for the worst. The coughing stopped, Heion looked horrified at her left arm, which was now shaking uncontrollably. It seemed to pass over all over her body, the pain burned through her veins; as she began to choke on her own blood. Falling to the floor, Tifa ran to her side ‘Vincent quick! Get some of that medicine!’ Vincent leapt into action, grabbing the medicine from the kitchen. Heion was still shaking and becoming more disorientated by the second. Her vision blurred, slowly becoming darker…she could only faintly see Tifa holding the medicine to her mouth…then she was alone in the darkness again, and all she could do was scream.
A sudden crash came from outside of Cloud and Tifa’s apartment. ‘What the hell was that?’ Cloud yelled over Heion’s screams.
‘Cloud, go and check who’s out there, I can’t leave Heion like this…’ Tifa struggled to hold Heion to the ground as Vincent placed a cloth in her mouth to prevent her from biting her tongue. ‘I never seen anything like this before, even the remedy doesn’t seem to work now. We may have to take her to Ethan…’ Vincent remarked raising his voice slightly.
‘Ethan?’ Tifa questioned.
'He was a Doctor, I met him while I was travelling back through Bone Village a few months ago…’ Suddenly they heard another loud bang from outside. ‘Will you be alright here with Heion?’ Tifa nodded, as Heion seemed to settle down. ‘I will go and see if Cloud needs any assistance.’
As Vincent cautiously descended down the escape stairway, he saw Cloud lying unconscious on the ground. His eyes then shifted and focused on the four men surrounding cloud, one of them appeared to be calling someone. Two of them seemed to be very badly injured from Cloud’s sword; they were all wearing black suits…Vincent could sense their movements as took the safety off death penalty; he aimed for the one holding a PHS. As he squeezed the trigger the shot rang out loudly, the other men pulled their hand guns from their holsters, eyes darting around frantically they took cover and tried to establish were the shot had come from. Vincent had achieved a clean shot to the head; the body fell to the ground with a thud. ‘What do you want here?’ Vincent asked solemnly.
The three remaining to men emerged from their hiding place, one covering each other from attack. Suddenly one of them stepped in to a light where Vincent could see his face clearly. ‘We are here to retrieve a severely ill patient who has escape from our facilities…’
‘Somehow…’Vincent interrupted before cocking his gun, ‘I do not believe that is the whole truth…’ He stared at the men menacingly leaping down from the fire escape and standing beside Cloud.
Cloud began to come around. ‘What the hell happened?’ He spoke before turning to Vincent and whispering. ‘I think you had better take Heion somewhere safer.’ He scratched his head wound. ‘They caught me off guard.’
Vincent aimed the gun at the man closest to him. ‘What is your mission and who are you working for?’
The man laughed. ‘Now why would we tell you that?’ Suddenly Tifa appeared behind the men covering the front man, grabbing them both she knocked their head together fiercely. ‘Now it’s us three against you. Tell us who sent you!’ Tifa demanded angrily. Vincent seized the man by his collar and placed Death Penalty into the flesh of his neck.
Tifa then spoke in a composed tone. ‘ I think it in your best interests to tell us, Vincent rarely gets angry but when he does, I don’t think you will want to be around…’ Tifa spoke, as her and cloud took the weapons of the two unconscious men and began closing in on the last one standing.
‘All right…I’ll tell you all I can, just don’t kill me! This job isn’t worth dieing for!’ The man shouted as sweat droplet began dripping down the side of his face. ‘The mission was to retrieve the project and take it back to a drop of point where another team would take her to the base…’
‘Where is this ‘base’?’ Cloud asked raising his sword over his shoulder.
‘How should I know! Our job was to take her to the drop of point, we weren’t told any more than that.’
‘Then where is the drop of point?’
‘Junon harbour.’
‘Ok, so we know where you were planning taking her…but who sent you?’ Tifa stepped closer.
‘The only person that knows is our boss, the head of NEOU.’
‘Ok, guess my next set of questions?’ Tifa raised her fist.
‘Ok OK! Our boss is called Sabian…’
‘What else? Who or what is NEOU?’ Vincent stated digging his gun further into his neck
‘Calm down! Ahh…NEOU is made up of remaining Turks, Shinra SOLIDERS and mercenaries…’
‘There were more Turks than just Reno, Elena, Tseng, and Rude?’ Cloud enquired.
‘When I was in the Turks, there were eight at one time…’
‘So why didn’t you tell us this earlier Vincent?’ Tifa asked quite bewildered.
‘No one asked…and things may have changed since my day...’
‘Are you going to let me go now! I’m no threat to you!’ As the man squirmed to attempt to loosen Vincent’s grip, a small device fell from his pocket.
‘What is this?’ Cloud asked as he picked the device from damp ground.
‘It’s an…umm…’ Vincent squeezed the trigger slightly, ‘All right! It’s a device we use on our projects so that they are unable to attack. Most of the more aggressive cases have chips placed inside their brain so we can control them. It paralyses them…’ Vincent then looked at Tifa who sighed nodded. ‘How long does it last for? Answer me.’
‘Maybe a couple of hours, depending on how strong the subject is…’
‘…You, I thought I told you to leave me alone…’ A voice suddenly came out from the shadows.
‘What…’ the man looked in the direction of the voice. ‘You shouldn’t be standing! The device was on the highest frequency possible without doing permanent damage!!!’
‘Heion, I really think you should go back inside…’
‘Tifa, I understand you concern but I can’t…now while he is here.’ Heion stared threateningly at the man. ‘Vincent, Would you please let him go. I don’t think he will bother me again.’ Vincent looked once more at the man before obliging.
‘Don’t ever come back here,’ Cloud eyed the man who stumbled to his feet.
‘We wouldn’t want to have to kill you.’ Tifa finished his sentence. Heion stood silently under the fire escape, not looking as the man stood up.
‘Don’t worry I won’t…’ the man began to walk away, as he quickened his pace he heard a faint sound of a gun shell dropping to the floor, he turned only to see Heion standing there with Sniper CR in her hand.
‘No. I don’t think you will be coming back here either.’ Within spilt second the shot rang out from the gun, another body lay dead on the ground.
‘Heion! What the hell was that for.’ Tifa shouted as she approached Heion from where she was standing next to Cloud.
‘…Are those two men still alive?’
‘Yes, they are. And you are not going to kill them! You will just end up drawing more attention to yourself!’
‘The more I kill, the less people they will have to come after me. I thought that was obvious.’ Vincent stood in front of Heion preventing her from getting a clear shot at the two men lying on the ground. ‘Vincent…get out of the way, I don’t want to have to hurt you.’ She looked at Vincent’s eyes and then turned away. ‘Why are you being such a fool? They will only send more of them to hunt me down. If we kill them they won’t be able to tell anyone about me…’
‘This is not the best course of action.’ Vincent replied in a deep and solemn tone.
‘Then what would you suggest?’ She came closer to Vincent, until they where almost touching.
‘I think it would be best if you were to leave here. If you follow me they will not find you.’ He then grabbed Heion’s left arm and began to remove sniper CR from her grasp. Heion loosened her grip on the gun, as she felt Vincent’s warm fingers wrap around her hand.
‘Well I’m glad that’s sorted out. What shall we do with these two, they are pretty badly wounded.’ Tifa walked over to the two men and felt their pulse.
‘I think we have done more than our fair share of killing…take them to the outskirts of the city; remove all of their items and materia. If they value their lives, they won’t come back.’ Vincent spoke as he placed sniper CR into its holster.
‘Tifa and I will go; you take Heion to your place. Cid will be here in a few days, I’ll tell him to call us as soon as he arrives. The meeting place will be the section 3, the day and time can be decided later.’ Cloud and Tifa picked the two wounded men on the floor and carried them over to their pick-up-truck.
‘Well…where to Vincent?’ Heion spoke as she flicked a strand of hair from the side of her face as Cloud and Tifa sped off into the distance.
‘…’ Vincent turned and proceeded to walk at a quickening pace into the shadows with Heion closely following behind.
Vincent and Heion walked silently through the winding streets until they came to a dead end.
‘So where now…*cough*’ Heion began wheezing and had to steady her self against Vincent’s back, much to his surprise. ‘Oh…sorry’ Heion said quietly as she removed her hand from his shoulder.
‘…’ Vincent pushed aside a loose brick to reveal a hidden doorway reaching into the depths of the city.
'…*Blink* did you just find this place…?’ Heion began shocked as she walked down the stairs.
‘This used to be an Turk base when Shinra was just becoming a mega corporation.’
‘When Shinra was ‘becoming’ a mega corporation?’
‘Humph………it sounds odd…doesn’t it?’ Vincent continued down the spiralled staircase. Until they came to another steal door.
‘…How cou…’
‘Stand back.’ Vincent said as he placed his palm over a green hand shape.
The door unlocked and Vincent entered the lair followed by Heion who began coughing again.
‘Vincent? Do you have any of that remedy left?’ Vincent pulled the remaining remedy from his pocket and threw it to Heion.
‘Use it wisely.’ Vincent remarked before stepping into his bedroom and shutting the door.
‘Cloud, I think one of them is waking up…’ Tifa stated loudly with a sigh.
‘Well, just thump them on the head again… I don’t think there is much of a brain in there to damage so he won’t miss anything.’ Cloud shouted as the truck tossed from side to side over the rocky mountainous terrain.
‘Your one to talk, Cloud’ Tifa joked before she punched the stirring assassin in the head. ‘So how are you coping with your travel sickness Cloud?’
‘Since I’m driving, it doesn’t really bother me.’ Cloud glanced at Tifa and saw she was moving closer to him. ‘…As long as I can concentrate on something else, I’m fine.’
Tifa smiled coyly at cloud as she flicked a strand of his hair from the side of his face.
Blushing slightly, Cloud tried to change the subject. ‘Sooo…how far out do you think is safe? I don’t want to have to waste my time dealing with these two if we happen to meet up again…’ Cloud stated as the truck came on to more stable ground.
‘Maybe a few more miles, I doubt they would want to pick another fight with us so soon…if we do encounter these assassins or whomever they claim to be again, they will be more equipped and their will be a heck of a lot more of them…’
Suddenly the truck was flipped over by an unknown force, Tifa, Cloud and the two assassins were thrown around inside the truck violently until it came to a stand still.
‘Agh…What the hell was that!’ Tifa exclaimed. ‘Cloud! CLOUD! Are you ok?’ she shouted as she tried to pull herself from the wrecked vehicle.
‘Yeh, I’m ok…. can’t say the same for the truck…or those two guys.’ Cloud began as he pulled Tifa from the wreckage. ‘It’s totalled…ahh man! Now we’re gunna have to walk all the way back to Midgar!’ Cloud whined.
Tifa placed her hand over Clouds mouth. ‘Shhh! Do you hear that? Tifa whispered.
‘Mo m mnm’t’ came Clouds muffled reply.
‘What?’ Tifa slowly removed her hand from his mouth. ‘Listen…I can hear something moving…over there…near the truck…’
Cloud moved closer to where the sound was coming from. ‘Hum…hey! Did u just see something move?’ Cloud removed Ultimate Weapon from its sheath.
Just as Cloud spoke the ground began to shake, small cracks formed in front of Cloud and Tifa. Earth slid down the cracks as they became wider and wider, with a sudden burst of energy a colossal demon appeared before them.