Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ During Crisis ❯ One-part two: Underneath the Rotting Pizza... ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

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 DURING CRISIS 
 
Chapter One: Underneath The
Rotting Pizza- Cloud Strife and Fuyuzora Aine 
 
    Disclaimer: I
do own the characters of  FFVII nor the world they live in, nor
the original plot of the games.  I do own the original characters.
I also do not own some of the title names of the chapters as they are
the track names listed in FFVII OST. 
 
        The original characters creations
belong to me. if you’d like to use them please ask. But don’t use them
without asking first, thank you.. 
 
    Warnings: Original
Character Warnings, Major plot changes warning. This is essentially a
rewrite of sorts ( this is different from my other rewrites.) LOTS OF
CURSING, Sexual situations ( no lemons as I have no clue how to
entirely write one) plus I make a lot of parts a lot darker.  I’m
not writing every scene from the game, I’m trying to work out which
ones I can write and cut out. 
 
    I think Cloud may be extremely Out of Character, but
I always seem to think that, and am usually proven wrong. 
 
    Rating for heavy amount of cursing, violence, themes
that occur throughout FF7, and sexual themes/scenes(No lemons, I can’t
write one, so don’t ask me to write one please because I can’t.) 
 
    Pairings:
Reno/OC, Tifa/Cloud/Aerith, Vincent/OC, Cid/Shera, 
 
    Side Note
:This is the second part of chapter one.   
 
    P.O.V Warnings:
The P.O.V will switch between Cloud and the main OC.   
 
 
___________________________________________ 
 
 
 
    The wutain boy collapsed into his train seat with an
exhausted sigh. He hated the train system in the slums with an absolute
passion. He’d found out through a numerous amount of walking and
traveling that there were rarely any trains that left late for sector
six or five. In the long run he’d ended up having to walk to sector
seven  and pay to spend the night at the Inn. What had really
sucked  was that the gruff customer from the day before hadn’t
bothered to pay him, so he’d had barely enough to pay for a train
ticket and the small room he’d slept in. He’d also couldn’t find a
train that went straight to five or six, instead he was stuck on a
train that was going to sector four. He REALLY hated the Midgar train
system with an absolute loathing passion. 
 
    He felt the train groan and clink beneath his feet,
and he closed his eyes knowing that meant the train would depart from
the station soon. He’d pulled a worn green coat over his skinny arms,
and if he tried hard enough could practically curl his entire body into
the coat. he’d only need  to do that if it got really cold and the
cold actually bothered him. 
 
    “ YO!!” A man’s loud exclamation jerked the boy out
of his state with a jump. He carefully pried his hands off the edge of
the seat. He did not like being startled or surprised, people like him
weren’t supposed to be able to be surprised. “ Looks like this ain’t no
private car. So spread out.” 
 
    The mechanic just shook his head and placed it in
his hands, running smooth thin fingers through his thin still bed
ruffled hair. He hadn’t thought to bring a nessicity like a brush
through his hair, not that he would have use the nessicity anyway. He
brushed his midnight and sapphire hair down with his fingers towards
the back of his neck, in a typical boy fashion.  He felt the seat
weight shift next to him. He didn’t know why he looked up but he did
anyway. Wide , surprised mako blue eyes stared into his own equally
surprised mako blue gray eyes. He took in the large sword resting
beside the man, the long and spike gold blond locks, and the pointed
face. 
 
    “ THE KID?!” The swordsmen exclaimed, his mouth
nearly falling open in shock. 
 
    “ Mr. Spiky?” The boy asked much more calmly but
probably equally surprised. 
 
    “ What are you doing here?” They both asked each
other, the swordsmen pointing a brown gloved finger at the boy, the boy
pointing a partially black gloved finger at the swordsmen. 
 
    “ I’m trying to go home.” He said after he’d put his
hand down while the blonde seemed to shake his head and mumble
something under his breath. He was fairly sure the older man was
cursing his luck and saying something about how he was positive luck
despised his very existence. 
 
    “ Where is your home?” 
 
    “ Wutai.” 
 
    “ Where the hell in Midgar is that?” He asked with a
confused expression that made the boy want to giggle, only fifteen year
old boys did not exactly giggle so he restrained himself. Instead he
settled for raising a thin midnight eyebrow. 
 
    “ It’s not in Midgar Spike.” He decide that Mr.
Spiky was to childlike  and he wanted something simpler to call
him, so he settled for Spike. “ It’s a small island country pretty far
away from here. Shinra was at war with them for some time.” 
 
    “ You don’t live in Midgar?” 
 
    “ No I do.” He grinned when ‘Spike’ smacked his
forehead in frustration. It was pity for the rest of humanity that he
enjoyed being difficult, and that the skill was something he was a
natural at. 
 
    “ Where in Midgar do you live?” 
 
    “ A Sector..” 
 
    “ Then what god damn sector do you live in?” 
Apparently ‘Spike’ did not have much patience. 
 
    “ Six.” 
 
    “Six...what?” 
 
    “ Sector six. In the fucking scary as all bloody
damn hell place.” 
 
    “ THE what?” He was looking at him like he spoke a
complete different language. 
 
    “ The Fucking scary as All Bloody Damn Hell Place.
My special name for the special market area  I live in. I think
it’s normally called Wall Market.” 
 
    “ Why is it so scary? You didn’t seem the least bit
scared of that guy yesterday.” 
 
    “ Lecherous Crime Lord that works for Shinra,
perverts, the ...” He made a disgusted face. “ Grossness Inn...,
perverts, leches, drunks, did I mention perverts?” 
 
    “ But your..a boy, so it shouldn’t be a problem
right?” ‘Spike’ gave him an odd look, and he paled. He mentally cursed
at himself and quickly figured out a way to cover up that slip up. 
 
    “ It’s still utterly disgusting to watch, and not to
mention that I’ve lost count how many times the drunks have mistaken me
for a girl. It’s not like it’s hard.” 
 
    “ You look more like a little girl, except your
flat...” 
 
    “ Yeah...well...Your not the most manly faced guy
I’ve met either.” 
 
    “ Are you saying my face looks like a girl?” 
 
    “ If you were in a dress I’d mistake you for
one.”  The boy grinned at the glare he received. 
 
    “ You enjoy being difficult don’t you kid?” 
 
    “ Immensely.” he probably would have said more but
was interrupted when a young woman walked over to him. The mechanic
raised his eyebrows slightly at the woman that had come to address
‘Spike’. She was taller then a lot of woman he’d seen, with warm wine
colored eyes, long ebony hair, and a tight black mini-skirt and a small
white tank top. He noticed the tightness of her muscles that could only
have belong to a martial artist of some kind, her red boots were
accented with metal attached to the sides and metal knuckles covered
her hands. There was no doubt this pretty woman was a strong fighter. 
 
    “ Cloud. We need to get off the train soon, the ID
check is ..” She clapped a hand to her mouth realizing that there was
another person listening. “Well..you know..” 
 
    “ Kid. Be careful there’s going to be more trouble
soon.” ‘Spike’ said with a serious expression his face as he caught
what his friend was saying. 
 
    “ Trouble seems to follow you around Spike. She your
girlfriend? She’s really pretty and she looks really strong?”  He
asked cheerfully, with a solid grin that suggested that he did not
understand what bit of information that had been revealed. He knew
there was something more to what ‘Spike’ and his friend were doing, and
they probably had something to do with all the reactor attacks lately,
but it wasn’t like he was going to go point them out to the
authorities. 
 
    A small blush tinted the spiky haired man’s face as
he shook his head violently, spikes everywhere. He snickered at the
look of pure embarrassment on the older man’s face and couldn’t help
but enjoy his discomfort. 
 
    “ She’s a good friend, but..n-nothing like that.” 
 
    “ Sure.. Your in denial.” 
 
    “ I Am NOT!!” 
 
    “ Are to!” 
 
    “ Am not!” ‘Spike’ seemed to freeze with the
realization that he had pulled him into a very childish game, a
childish game that someone in their early twenties probably shouldn’t
have been pulled into. He glared at the young wutain boy while his
pretty friend couldn’t help but laugh. 
 
    “ Is this a friend of yours Cloud?” She asked
holding her hand in front of her mouth to stop her laughter from
spilling out, a large dark skinned man was watching the whole exchange
like he was about to crack up and he’d never let the blonde live this
down. 
 
    “ We met on the street.” Both swordsman and mechanic
responded , one with a dark look the other with a mischievous grin.
More would have been said between the four people if a strange alarm
hadn’t gone off at that moment, red lights flashing obnoxiously through
the car. The boy yelped, hands flying to cover his ears and save them
from the obnoxious sounds. He saw the blonde swordsman and his friends
move towards the door. Mako blue eyes met mako blue gray eyes for a
second in what he may have thought was worry. The boy removed a hand
and gave shrugged wave to indicate there was no reason to get caught on
his account. 
 
    He watched the three leave as quickly as they could,
and wondered if his trip home would get any stranger, he highly doubted
that. What could be stranger then someone with hair that spiky? 
 
 
___________________________________________ 
 
 
<div style="text-align: center;">    “ Are you all right? Can You hear me?" 
 
Yeah.. 
 
“ Back then, you could get by with
just skinned knee’s.” 
 
Back then? 
 
“How about now? Can you move?” 
 
What about now? 
 
“ You shouldn’t worry so much about
me anymore. You should just worry about yourself now.” 
 
I’ll try... 
 
“ Stop whining about how your trying
and actually do it lazy spike idiot. “ 
 
Huh? Kid?! 
</div>
    “ Oh it moved!!” 
 
<div style="text-align: center;">“
How about now? Why Don’t you just take it slow? Just  little by
little?” 
 
Hey! Who are you?! 
</div>
 
    “ Hello! Hello!” 
 
<div style="text-align: center;">“
Don’t give in so easily spike idiot! If you give in easily...everything
will be lost. ” 
 
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Everything will be lost? 
</div>
 
 
    “ Hello! Hello!” 
 
    Cloud opened his mako blue eyes , his entire blood
flaring with some kind of numb pain.  He winced, his muscles hurt
and his back felt like it had been through hell and back, but other
then that he felt completely fine. He blinked to clear the fuzziness
from his eyes and met  familiar emerald green eyes filled with
concern. He’d half been expecting to wake up and find that kid grinning
over him and ready to call him a complete spiky idiot. He was sure he’d
heard that kid’s voice in his head, but there’d be another one and much
gentler one. he pressed his hands to the floor and found instead of
wood or flith, clean pure grass sprouted up through his fingers. 
 
    “ Are you okay?” She asked  softly causing the
confused young man to look at her, blinking. Everything still felt very
fuzzy. “ Your in a church in Sector five. You..uh..well..” She pointed
a pale delicate finger up at the roof of the church which looked like
something had crashed into it very recently. “ came through there..” 
 
    “ It looks like something crashed into it?” He
hadn’t meant it to be a question, but he felt so dazed and out of it,
hearing things in your head wasn’t supposed to be normal..was it. 
 
    “ Yes , something did just a few minutes ago.” She
held a pretty hand in front of her mouth hiding what had to be a smile. 
 
    “ What?” 
 
    “ You.”  Cloud stared at the young woman and
looked back up. His head  seemed to clear suddenly as his
rationality and normality seemed to run back to him in the instant she
said it. He’d been with Tifa and Barret on that mission, the bombing
had been successful till ...the president showed up. Then there was
that robot... and then he’d fallen right? He wasn’t so sure, his mind
still fuzzy around that area. All he knew was that Tifa and Barret had
gotten out, that’s what mattered. Well the broken wood splinters in his
back mattered to, and falling through the roof would certainly explain
why he had wood splinters in his back. 
 
    “ Your very lucky that the flowers that grow here
broke your fall. You probably would have been severely injured without
them.” She said moving to stand up from her kneeling position. He
glanced at her light pink dress, and short red jacket, feeling even
more that he knew her from somewhere. Wait.. 
 
     FLOWERS!! 
 
    “ FLowers!! Sorry! Are these yours?” He asked
jumping to his feet with speed that a person who just feel from a
reactor bridge and through a roof should not have been able to. He
moved aside, feeling as if his attempts to not trample the bright
yellow flowers were completely unsuccessful. 
 
    “ Oh! Don’t worry.” She smiled cheerfully at him and
he felt a strange warm feeling pass through his aching body. “ The
flowers here are very resilient. You know..I’ve been told you can’t
grow such beautiful things such as grass and flowers in Midgar, but
they seem to love it here and grow just fine.” 
 
    “ Uh...” Cloud was entirely unsure what to say,
something about her just amazed him. “ Your familiar.” 
 
    “ Don’t you remember?” She asked with another heart
warming smile. 
 
    “ You were...” He’d met her before, right before the
first encounter with that mechanic kid. “ ...selling flowers right?” 
 
    “ Yes.” She clapped her hands together happily. “
Thank you again for your help, I hope you liked my flower.” 
 
    “ I gave it to someone special.” He admitted
carefully, again giving information out he never would have normally.
He was starting to forget what was normal for him...What was normal for
him? 
 
    “ Did they like it?” 
 
    “ Yeah. She said she wanted to fill her store with
flowers.” He wasn’t sure why but this seemed to please the flower girl
more then anything, and at her radiant smile a complete wave of warmth
filled his body. There was something almost stranger about this flower
girl then that weird mechanic kid. 
 
    “ Umm..” She kicked the dirt lightly with her foot,
looking suddenly shy. He was amazed how even when she kicked the dirt,
she moved with such absolute care not to harm the delicate flowers
beside her. “ Do you..by any chance have any materia?” 
 
    “ Yeah. Some. “ He rolled his shoulders into a
shrug, wondering what had inspired such a random question. “ You can
find it just about anywhere. Even stores in the worst of slums sell it.” 
 
    “ Ah!1 But mine is special, it does nothing what so
ever.” She turned away from him, looking down at her flowers happily. “
I feel safe just knowing I have it, it belonged to my mother.” 
 
    “ You...sure you know how to use it? I’ve never
heard of a useless materia before.” 
 
    “ Oh it’s not useless.”  She looked back at him
with a mysterious smile. “ I do know how to use it.” 
 
    “ Uh...” Again he was speechless, there was
something so very strange about his recent encounters with people he
hardly knew. 
 
    “ Do you feel like talking?” Emerald green stared up
suddenly into his mako blue and he nearly stumbled backwards. How’d she
move so fast? He could swear that he hadn’t seen her move. “ I feel
like talking . Do you mind?” 
 
    “ Uh...Ummm...Sure. “ He finally found some rational
thought running around the confusion he was currently calling 
brain and summoned it forth with all the strength he possessed. “
What’s your name? I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves." 
 
    “ My name is Aerith Gainsborough. I’m as you already
know a flower girl.”  She said and held out her hand. He
grasped  it gently and shook it. 
 
    “ Name’s Cloud Strife. I do a bit of everything.” 
 
    “ Your a jack of all trades then?” He got the
feeling she was teasing him, he wasn’t sure how but it was just this
feeling he got. 
 
    “ Yeah. Pretty Much.” He shrugged again, feeling
something in his back pop back into proper place. “ I do just about
everything. You know a little bit of that and a little bit of this.” He
didn’t even know what the hell he was talking about anymore. No of
course he did. He mentally told his brain to shut up and stop being
confused so he could think and hopefully act normally. It was only when
he finished the mental thought of telling his thought process to shut
up did he notice that the young woman was laughing softly. It wasn’t a
harsh sound, so he knew it wasn’t to make fun of him .. He didn’t think
it was. He could almost swear his own though process was asking him if
he thought. “ What’s so funny?” 
 
    “ Oh..it’s..” Aerith’s gentle voice suddenly trailed
off, her brilliant green eyes locked on a form ahead of them. Cloud
turned around to look what had attracted her gaze and his mako eyes
narrowed dangerously. A tall and lanky older man was leaning against
the door way to the church, an arrogant smirk plastered across his
face. Intense blue mako eyes were gazing at them with some form of
mocking amusement, red coppery strands fell over a pair of pilot
goggles pushed up against his forehead, shorter copper strands glinted
like fire in the light , the rest of his hair was long and pulled back
in a fiery copper mullet that probably at least came down to his waist.
 Two marks that could have been scars or tatoo's stood out on his
pale skin underneath his eyes. 
 
    The red haired man was clad in a white dress shirt
tucked into no extreme measures, the top few buttons were left
purposely open, and a button at the bottom as well. His navy blue
jacket was open and his blue pants bagged only slightly over his shoes.
There was defiantly something about this man Cloud did not like, just
his presence seem to him on edge. 
 
    “ Cloud?” Aerith’s soft voiced jerked him out of his
narrowed eyes stare at the redhead. “ Have you ever been a body guard
before? Can you take me home? Please?” 
 
    He knew he couldn’t say no, not with the affect she
had him, and not for the instant dislike this man invoked in him.
But  still his normality was returning, so he had the will to say. 
 
    “ Yeah. I can do it. But it’ll cost you.” It felt
very reassuring to hear himself saying something normal for him again.
She  crossed her arms for a minute, her head cocked to the side,
brown braid tumbling down against her shoulder. She looked like she was
thinking hard for a minute and then raised a finger to his face. 
 
    “ How about if I go on one date with you?” He raised
an eyebrow, giving her a slightly critical look. 
 
     “ Well...Alright.”  He turned to approach
the man , his eyes narrowing once again. He gave a quick glance back to
make sure Aerith was safely behind him and not in harm’s way.   
 
    “ I don’t know who you are..” He raised his voice so
the redhead would know that he was speaking him. He straightened his
back and actually walked over to the pathway between the broken benches. 
 
<div style="text-align: center;">  
 I know you. 
 
</div>
    Cloud shook his head suddenly, his eyes focusing on
the suit jacket carefully. He did know this person..sort of. 
 
    “ I do know you. That uniform.” He said, his strange
confusion edging it’s way into his voice. The man raised a slender
copper eyebrow at him. 
 
    “ This ones...kind of weird.” He commented dryly
towards Cloud, and the blonde felt a growl growing in his throat. If
possible his mako blue eyes narrowed more when several foot soldiers
dressed in their bulky blue uniform ran into the church. 
 
    “ SHUT UP! SHINRA SPY!” 
 
    “ Hey Reno! Want us to take him out?” One of the
foot soldiers asked the red-haired man. Reno gave a shrug, more like a
half shrug. It looked like the perfect example of someone to lazy to
fully shrug. 
 
    “ I haven’t really decided yet.” He said glancing
back out of his intense eyes. He was sure how a man who had such a
similar eye color, held so much more intensity in them then Cloud’s did
and yet still looked like the laziest human in existence. The blonde
shook his head again , now straightening his body and assuming a
guarded position. No matter how lazy this..Reno ..person looked,it
didn’t change the fact that he was wearing the uniform,however
sloppily, of a Turk. 
 
    “ Please don’t fight here!” Aerith’s sweet voice
broke through the heavy tension, causing the men to look her including
Cloud. He still kept his guard up, he didn’t trust this Reno guy in the
least. “ You’ll hurt the flowers. The exit is back here.” 
 
    Cloud shrugged and followed the flower girl through
the back door way knowing that the Turk wouldn’t be far behind
especially if they were after Aerith. He was positive they were,
but..why the hell would the Turks be after someone like Aerith? He
grabbed her hand and pulled her in another direction. 
    “ Sorry..but we don’t have time to hesitate. That
guy won’t fool around.” He whispered to her as he ran towards a ruined
stair case. “ We can escape if we can get to the whole.” 
 
    “ Thanks Cloud.” 
 
    “ You are paying me.” He muttered as the two made
their way to escape. He quickly pulled her out of harm’s way as the
sound of gun’s clicking reached his ears, he carefully pushed her in
front of him and told her to move ahead. The blonde swordsmen swung his
blade down from his back making the stray bullets reflect back towards
the soldiers. It was to his dismay to see that the Turk had expected
something and clearly had no problem letting his soldiers get hit by
their own bullets. 
 
    “ Aerith! Lets go!” He said loudly and raced after
the flower girl. She was only a little bit ahead of him, as it was
probably hard to run in such a long skirt. He could hear the footsteps
of soldiers climbing over wooden obstacles to reach him. He closed his
eyes, letting a soft green light surround his body for pressing two
fists together in front of him. 
 
    “ Lightning!” The sound of yelling came as his level
one spell hit a soldier straight on. None of his comrades stopped to
help them instead they tried to  continue for Cloud. He gestured
for Aerith to go up the next set of stairs they had come to. He braced
his feet on the ground, and returned his blade to his back. He normally
didn’t like resorting to his materia, but he didn’t want to chance the
soldiers getting with even an arm’s reach of Aerith. Once again he
reached inside the materia and pulled out the lightning spell, hearing
screams from the men. Those screams told him most defiantly his spell
had hit. 
     
He quickly put a foot on the first stair and jumped upwards, landed
squarely on his feet. He glanced around and fond Aerith by the giant
hole his impact had made in the rood. She waved to him and he carefully
made his way over to her way, adjusting his balance as he needed on the
rickety ceiling beams. 
   
 “ Ha! There looking for me again!” She giggled as she swung her
legs out on to the roof, carefully distributing her weight, and then
pushing herself onto the roof. Cloud unsteadily just jumped straight
out of the hole, his booted feet skidding slightly on the shingles of
the church roof. 
 
    “ That guy was from the Turks, there a pretty
dangerous group in Shinra.” The blonde slowly made his way over to a
high pathway that would lead them away from the church and deep into
what he thought was sector five. “ They scout for SOLDIER.” 
 
    “ That violently? You’d think they were trying to
kill someone.” Aerith exclaimed with a shake of her head watching as
below them the fiery haired Turk walked out of the church. 
 
    “ Well...they do other stuff to. Kidnapping.
Assassinations. Anything you can think of like that falls under their
unpleasant job description.” 
 
    “ I can’t tell.” The young woman shook her head,
long brown strands falling into her eyes. “ I do know that I most
certainly do not want to get caught by those people.” 
 
    “ Then we should get going.” He turned to lead the
way and hesitated. “ Aerith...why were they after you.” He was sure he
thought he saw her hesitate only a brief second, before she shook her
head with a smile. 
 
    “ I think that they think I have what it takes to be
in SOLDIER.” She said honestly  or at least she looked honest. But
he couldn’t imagine someone who seemed so pure lying, so she had to be
telling the truth. ' 
 
    “ Right. I doubt that.” He laughed when he caught
the indignant look on her face. She glared at him and put her hands on
her hips. 
 
    “ Why is that? Have you  ever been in SOLDIER
Cloud?” 
 
    “ Yeah. How could you tell?” 
 
    “ Well..your eyes have this really odd glow to them.
That Turk had the same thing right?” 
 
    “ It’s a sign that someone has been infused with a
mako, it’s a sign of SOLDIER.  I’m pretty sure the Turks are
infused with mako as well. “ he shrugged as he jumped to a steady
pillar and jumped ahead again. He couldn't help but watch amused as she
tried to do the same. She seemed to be having just a little bit of
difficulty. “ How’d you know that though?” 
 
    “ Nothing?” She shook her head and went a head of
him. 
 
    “ Nothing?” 
 
    “ That’s right. Nothing.” 
 
 
 
 
 
    
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