Again we reach for the stars [P for High]

[Beaver Dude]

It had been a long journey to the surface. The few Heartless that Shera did see mostly ignored her. She froze anyways at each encounter, heart hammering away much too loudly and hatred running like a bright, hot Mako reactor. One got close enough so that an antenna tangled itself in the sleeve of her lab coat before pinging away.

For a moment Shera wanted neededhadto to see it suffer. To see it writhe and crawl and beg and diediediedie.

For a moment Shera wanted to grab its head and pull the creature apart, strand by strand until all that’d be left would be a puddle and two glowing eyes that she’d pop like soap bubbles.

The moment passed and she trekked on.

At the city gates she almost lost her nerve. Not particularly logical after having traveled so far but... but the sensor data had shown something impossible. Something literally too good to be true. She should have monitored the situation further, examined the possibility of a trap by Maleficient or some other power. She should have taken the time to build a bot and send it up, resources be damned. She should have...

Should have should have should have.

Shera, once meticulous and once hopeful (and now just desperate), watched little balls of light zoom up and around the city walls of not Hollow Bastion but Radiant Garden and thought, for no reason in particular, Cid. Maybe it was because they could fly.

After a breath, and a muttered prayer she went in.

This better not be a dream.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Marketplace had changed. They were a mish-mash of shops – some open-air stalls, some haphazard buildings with dubious structural integrity, most just a mix of the two. A precious few had windows, that made her stop, startled by her own reflection. The bandages, caked and dirty, were more like a second skin now, trailing across her arms and back, around her neck and covering half her face. No one seemed to mind. She had received more comments on her lab coat and her old boots. Someone even offered her a coat at half price. She had refused, politely.

There... there wasn’t much that identified her as ‘Shera’ anymore. Maybe...

No, no use in getting her hopes up. It had been ten years.

She spotted Aeris, first – just a familiar flash of pink and a distracted smile and then lost again to the twists and turns of the city. It could have been anyone but she held onto the image like a good luck charm: skirt, flowers, sagely smile and all. It was good to be home, good to be home to a home she could actually call home without being viciously ironic. She wondered, a little idly, at what had happened to the little flower cart she used to own.

Things were gone.

At the next corner the scientist thought she might have spotted Yuffie – but the last time she had seen Yuffie the girl had only been a head taller than her hip. Now the maybe-Yuffie was a cackling, spirited teenager. Silently, Shera wished her well and moved on.

But things could be replaced.

The fast-food and restaurant district of the Marketplace bustled. None of the stalls were manned by people Shera recognized, but the open-air pseudo-bazaar had never been Shera’s favourite place. She bought a bite to eat and asked as much as she dared. The answers she got were a bit... convoluted. Traverse Town? A different world? Keys? Locks? Child and animal (not just animal-themed) heroes? It all seemed a little farfetched. Not that the past ten years hadn’t been farfetched, but it was one thing to listen to personal experience and another to believe in rumours and hearsay.

(Still... they were back. The world was back. Shera’d be willing to believe almost anything just as long as...)

There was another question on her mind but she left it unasked, content to nibble on her samosa as she tried to spot familiar faces. Had everyone survived? Could those who had lost their hearts be, somehow, restored?

Was Cid...?

Conversation wafted by, bright and idle. People chattered and held onto each other through conversation as if they could hold their little, private traumas at bay through sheer, gritty enthusiasm. Shera wanted to do the same.

Someone said ‘Gummi Ships’ and she

wanted to cry, laugh, sigh, jump, collapse

knew.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Captain!”

[High's .Valentine.]

“Hand me the large pliers.”

“Here.”

“…”

What followed was a heated exchange—more like a fiery monologue—on the difference between pliers and wrenches, and exactly which pliers the curt mechanic used for which specific part of the ship, and for the last time, goddamit, the yellow handle pliers are for the engines, the red ones are for the wires, and those huge ones are wrenches, for Ansem’s sake. Out the door went the third engineer Cid ‘hired’ for help this month. And he didn’t even have the chance to finish his lecture. He thought he had relayed the message to the kid when he had first hired him. But it wasn’t his job. He was the mechanic and the pilot, not the secretary. At that, Cid Highwind thought about taking on a secretary next. Leon would no doubt disapprove of it though. Scaring one kind of people is enough for the committee.

Once again, silence overtook the garage. Dropping the yellow pliers that should have been red, Cid leaned heavily against the pile of crates stacked up against the corner of the gummi hanger. It’s been a long time since he managed to get away from the computer and stain his gloves with greasy engine oil. A blessing, was what it was. It seems that Cid would have probably been better off sitting in this empty hanger, crouched under unfinished skeletons of flying doodads instead of squatting in front of the computer. He didn’t miss his Restoration Committee. Especially Merlin and Yuffie. He didn’t feel awkward with the heavy tools in his hands. And lo and behold, Radiant Garden was not falling apart without him.

The Committee was probably glad to have him out of headquarter and back into his natural habitat for awhile. The man had been awfully agitated lately, and his mood was obviously affecting everyone [not to mention scaring off most of the volunteers]. Like bad voodoo, Cid’s irritation clung to the room, gripping everyone in a state of tension. They finally gathered their nerve together and booted him out of the house. And Cid was glad of it. He would now have time to make ship after ship, create new gadgets, innovate his gummis, make them durable, and aesthetically appealing, and powerful, and fuel efficient, and…

One month into his ‘vacation’ and Cid had yet to finish one ship. Forget coming up with some revolutionary design of the century that would leave behind his legacy of being the first man in space.

Cid’s frown deepened, permanently etching itself in his not so youthful face. Space.

Huffing in contempt, the pilot leaned his head back once more, running a hand across the splintery lumber of the crates. Now that got him cursing, as he snapped his hand back and studied the blotchy hand. Even the pain of having wooden fragments puncturing his palm couldn’t quite distract him from the forbidden thought his mind had began wandering over though. How inefficient of his mind. Once it settles on an idea, it’s a one way track. No backing off. Just like back then with his oh so brilliant plan. To space! How radical of him. Whoever knew that there were already people zipping back and forth in the Sea of Stars already. Damn them early birds. Bitter thoughts, bitter thoughts…regret.

Cid was having an epiphany.

Who the hell needed assistants? The last effective employee he hired decided to attempt a suicide, almost taking his heart with her. And hell, no one touches Cid and his fucked up organs. She didn’t succeed, but did effectively shatter his modern, futuristic idea of SPACE with a click of the big red button that you should never touch. And he did just as efficiently booted her out the door, in the most euphemistic, professional tone he could have mustered up after tasting victory on the tip of the tongue than having it thrown mercilessly against the wall.

Get out.

See, no cussing.

Regret? Cid was never going to admit it. Out loud. Too bad a few days after that, Radiant Garden decided to have a bout of darkness, fresh out of the other realm. Cid’s home world coughed, hacked, then caved in on itself, spitting out Cid, three kids, and his gummi ship that can enter SPACE. Victory tasted stale with three sobbing kids and no home nor assistant to cheer on unspoken efforts, sweat, and tears.

Shamefully, Cid doesn’t really remember the face of this supposedly memorable woman who had meticulously poked over his handiwork to make sure he won’t kill himself with some freak accident. The same woman gave him the safety goggles sitting atop his head, fearful of him searing out his eyes while soldering. Rather, instead of a picturesque face, to be admired every time he shuts his eyes, the man was left with a demeaning stick figure, drawn by a child, plucked from a yellowing sketchbook found in the forsaken houses of Hollow Bastion. A child’s rendition of his engineer. Blue crayon glasses, strands of brown hair, a wrench in straw-like fingers, and of course, the black outline of a lab coat.

That same picture was pinned to Cid’s wall, which was soon buried under blue plans, sketches, notices. He told himself that he didn’t really want to remember her, let alone remember her as a stick figure. The wall was cleaned off. All except for that picture.

He continued to pluck splinters from his palm, biting his tongue and squinting his blue eyes to search for the annoying little pests. Maybe going outside where there’s more light…

Damn, he really was getting old. Get up, walk towards the door, open it, step outside.

“Captain!”

Step…outside…Cid’s hand remained glued to the handle, the door jerked open. Bathed in sunlight, his blond hair glistened like a beacon as he peeked around, trying to get past the sun’s glare. Why was that name so familiar?

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

He doesn't recognize me.

That was her first thought. Prim, proper and glaringly obvious - every bit the Shera that had been left behind on a dying world, bunkering up with SOLDIERS and various other Shinra monstrosities because it really was a live-or-die situation and she had been the only one qualified enough to rig up a working cryogenesis facility with the tools at hand.

To her credit (or discredit), it was also her second, albeit in slightly more disbelieving mental tones.

Her third thought was slightly less charitable and employed vocabulary that Shera had, for good or for ill, picked up from the good ol' Captain and was slightly more in character for a woman that had just spent the last nine years either on pure adrenaline or in cold storage and had built small, slight little imaginary worlds that Cid had just rudely knocked down like a house of cards.

WHAT THE #*#@!

She *almost* socked him in the face before her life experiences, heritage, gentle upbringing, maybe-love all conspired to inform her that the proper thing a woman should do in such a situation was leak like a faucet.

Oh, and cinematics that depicted pure, pearly cascading tears from iridiescent irises? Screw you all. If she wanted big, snotty tears she gosh-well deserved them.

(In the back of her particularly well-educated brain someone was calmly noting down that today's ups and downs had contributed to the inevitable breakdown brought upon by extreme circumstances)

She had thought... she had thought... that maybe he would recognize her... maybe just a little bit.

See Cid? The labcoat? The only tech that ever wore a labcoat while-

Damnit, damnit, damnit, DAMNIT! why was she crying? He had never demonstrated anything close to caring before and just because he had given up his dream to save her life didn't mean anything, really. You're a smart girl, Shera. Wake up. The big baby SOLDIERS and the refugees need you-

"Sorry, allergies." She croaked, after a moment, taking in a deep shuddering sigh while wiping her eyes with dirty bandages. "I must," she swallowed once, almost choking on her own spit, "have got the wrong person."

"I'm, uh, looking for the captain of the guard...?" She hazarded.

She needed someone military.

Someone else.

[High's .Valentine.]

What in effing Ansem’s name is going on…?

Well, a gentleman would have said [and more concisely]: Pardon ME.

Same difference, but ah, Cid was no gentleman. Never have been and never will be, what with all that annoying chivalry hogwash and opening doors for women. They have hands, right? They can take care of themselves, right? No need to treat them like fragile objects. Cid was no knight, he knew the true

[/i] face behind the façade of delicacy and tenderness—devils, every single one of them, out to ruin you. Ahem. Back on subject.

Thing is, this is just as much of a ‘what the fuck’ moment for Cid as it is for the poor crying woman before him. More like, poor Cid. He was miraculously, so shocked that he lacked any impertinent comments. He couldn’t remember the last time he made a woman break down into tears just from staring at him. It was startling, and a bit of a blow to his perfect self image.

So he didn’t know what to do as she sobbed elegantly, beautifully…screw that. She was sniffling and moaning and squeezing big fat tears out of her eyes. Cid just wanted her to shut up. He said nothing. Neither did he do anything to comfort her. There was an instinct to slap her upside the head [lighter than usual of course] and tell her to shut the freak up ___. I’m trying to remember..

…fill in the blanks, anyone?

He knew her. Yet she was too weak, too dirty, too…unfamiliar. There was no doubt about it though, he had seen her somewhere before. No names. No mental image. It was just impossible. Science, he believed in science, not voodoo.

Allergies, what a load of bullshit. Cid snorted. Allergic to him, maybe?

Finally, something to do. He reached into his back pocked and pulled out a handkerchief, soiled in the corner by engine grease and dirt. Blue eyes glanced over the handkerchief, but not the woman, as he handed it over to her—more like forcefully shove it in front of her face. “Use it before ye flood this place,” oh…maybe a bit too harsh. Cid wrinkled his nose. “And keep it.” Blue eyes remained averted.

“There ain’t no captain,” he paused, “there ain’t no captain of the guards here. No guards.” Wait a sec…

“Guess ye can call me a guard.” There was no interest or enthusiasm in his voice. You’d think, that maybe something, after all these years of longing, that if there was the sudden chance of reuniting, it’d just click. A snap of the fingers to ignite something, anything. But there is no miracle reunion. There still will be no reunion. Took Cid nine damn years to accept it. He wasn’t about to go back on this.

Why are you such a dumbass, Cid?

“Look, woman,” Cid sighed and shifted his weight to one feet, almost tempted to grip the bridge of his nose like a certain someone, but instead, crossed his arms and growled. He refused to give the woman a good look, as tempted as he was. She appeared dingy out of the corner of his eyes, hardly the person he had been [inwardly] moping over for the last decade. “Are ye new here? Ye lost? I’ll get ye over to Leon’s and he can help ye, alright?”

Momentary hesitation...did he dare…?

“What’s yer name?”

Damn.

[Eek...sorry, I'm kinda rusty. ._. Also, Dei? If you take another month to respond to this, I'm going to castrate you. Akito would hate that, wouldn't he?][/size][/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Even through the tears Shera managed to smile just a little bit. That was her Captain: perhaps not the sharpest tack, but he wouldn’t just let himself rust away into ruin. He wouldn’t have been caught by such an obvious dissimulation, would he? Same old Captain that she knew and lo-

That she knew. Right.

That was going to take some getting used to. She killed the smile. Her smiles were never very demonstrative to begin with – big gruff Cid wouldn’t notice at all. Plus, she’d more or less hidden it behind the handkerchief that he’d given her.

Smelled like him. Smelled like home. Smelled like engine grease and tea and bad jokes.

He wouldn’t notice at all.

Right.

“Shera,” she supplied, finally getting her traitorous tears and voice under control, unable to think of a more clever anagram on the spot than her actual name. She could have used her last but…

It was funny, having forsaken her last name for so long – the name attached to the stigma of unethical academia – she was no longer willing to take it up, even as a pseudonym. Cid wouldn’t have possibly known it, she’d merely referred to herself as ‘Shera,’ honorifics be damned and he’d never been big on procedures and regulations.

Someone’s last name? Pft. If they wanted it hidden, it’d be their business.

Business. Right. She needed to prioritize. She had been so careful and meticulous once – where had that all gone? Why was she still thinking about hiding her identity? He hadn’t recognized her, how’d he recognize her name?

Who was this new Shera? And what had happened to the old?

“I’m… I’m not lost,” she paused a moment, to think, re-gather mental strength, pretend that she hadn’t just had a mental breakdown, cope just a little through the therapeutic effects of time, “I just haven’t been home for a long, long while.”

Understating things by a large margin.

“I… we… survived.” She gave Cid a hesitant smile. “We’re a handful more than a couple hundred. I’m afraid we need a bit of help setting up camp.” Long exposure to science made her attempt at bureaucracy rather simple. Just re-word a grant application a bit and: “Any help you could offer in the way as a representative of Radiant Garden would be most welcome and extraordinarily helpfu…”

[ooc: D: short, but up as promised! No castrating!]

[High's .Valentine.]

It was as if someone struck him across the head with a Leon’s gunblade. Blunt side first. At least with the sharp side, there wouldn’t have been enough time to register pain before Cid’s head was sliced cleanly off from the nose and up. No, this is a painful battering. Assaulting his senses and manliness. The back of his throat and nose burned with bile. Cid mistook it for anger. He glared accusingly at the strange woman who was not young but not old either. Weary, that’s how he could have described her. Tired and mistrustful.

“Shera,” Cid repeated absentmindedly, keeping as much distance as he can between himself and the familiarly bitter name. Shera. Huh, he had never thought of this before, but it was a wonderful name for a ship, a detailed ship with elegance and speed. A beautiful name for a punctilious woman, someone who treated her job with care, creating an art form, and conscious of observers and critiques. Deeply set blue eyes—notorious for giving off a glare with the same effect as the blunt impact of a baseball bat.—finally decided to hover over the sad, frail body. He furrowed his brows to hide the watery gelatinous marbles. For once they were eyeballs, not hard brick walls. He didn’t give her his name.

“Call me Cap’n.” Cap’n of the Guards. Captain.

How’s that for a stab? The two seemed to be playing games. Beat the heart shaped piñata, take a whack at each other! It was so obvious now though that he would have had to be blind, deaf, and retarded not to see it. He didn’t want to admit it though. Not until she showed some form of recognition that doesn’t involve crying her dog brown eyes out. The irritated pilot patted his face, wondering just how much he had changed in appearance over the past nine years. Women, why the hell are they so goddamn cruel?

“I…survived.” Forget the ‘we’. Fu.ck them, every single one of them who should have long ended up with tiny ant bodies and wiggly jigs. They were supposed to be stealing hearts. Not here tormenting the living.

“Yeah, I didn’t know anyone survived,” he answered flatly, hardly the tone for someone who had just discovered that more than a hundred people had survived the downfall of Radiant Garden. “Take me there.” Cid didn’t want to tell Leon anything yet. He didn’t take into consideration that Shera’s complexity was ashen and zombie-like, that maybe she needed some rest. Cid didn’t want to take her near his hanger. The selfish pilot didn’t feel like risking anything.

[Sorry, very rusty. D8 Feel free to jump to the scene at the castle. Don’t worry, Cid will cave in soon. XD]

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Shera felt her heart jump. Cap'n. It was the same greeting from once upon a time. The first time they had met, back when the world hadn't cracked in two. The pilot had already forgotten, surely, but Shera hadn't. Never would. Predictably, the moment of elation was short-lived.

As Cid contined to speak, callous and cold and business, Shera felt her heart break just that much more for having soared upwards. Caught in her own grief and grievances, she hadn't noticed the shadows under his eyes. Or the wrinkles of worry that crisscrossed his face - the peculiar lack of crow's feet that came from rousing laughter and hard-earned smiles. Hadn't noticed the gulf that was nine years wide and a world deep that now lay between them.

He looked healthy. Fit. Even his eyes shone. On the outside, at least. Inside though...

Shera had spent most of the past nine years asleep. There had been the staccato breaks of desperation, adrenaline and all-around panic, but it hadn't been long at all in the grand scheme of things. What had happened to Cid? Had he, no not her Cid, not her Cid had he broken? Had the gruff facade etched itself into the soul beneath - that which he pretended to be, becoming that which was?

Damnit Shera. He doesn't recognize you. Stop caring. Refugees. Need. Your. Attention.

Shera shook her head. Blew her nose into the hanky. Ignored how much it smelled like home and hope and other forgotten concepts. She needed to be strong. No more wanting to curl up and have a good wail and maybe eat four gallons of ice cream and other assorted comfort foods.

"We didn't think you would," Shera replied, tit-for-tat, her best and most professional voice suddenly toggled into the 'on' position. She returned the handkerchief - holding it out expectantly even if he'd told her to keep it. It was an unnecessary distraction in a situation of far too many of them already. "We hid ourselves from everything."

"Come. The bunker's just outside the walls."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sun and the day's excitement was making her feel faint. Not the best of combinations even without Geostigma factored in. Her head pounded, a snare drum of pain and ill-will. What had seemed so bright and benevolent on the walk into town (god it seemed like such a long time ago) was now drab and gray and-

Enough. She had a job to do.

"We went deep," she told Cid as they walked past the gates of the city and into the unknown ruins beyond. "Deep enough so that the heat of the magma could hide us. Hide our hearts. It seems to have worked." She shrugged. There was an unearthly silence as they walked past the stunted trees and the dilapidated looking outskirts that represented unclaimed territory. No Heartless showed up, thankfully.

"We also placed ourselves into cryogenic storage."

Pausing at an odd stone formation, she shuffled her hands into her lab coat pockets looking for the remote. After a moment's hesitation, clicked the appropriate sequence. Like a giant's maw, it split - revealing an entrance large enough to drive a tank through.

(A tank had drove through, once)

"Lights." She ordered. The generator coughed up the energy to sequentially turn the lights on, one after another. It was a dim wattage, but got the job done. It had once been a pristine white - with time and mildew it had soured into some odd, strange yellow. Warning signs littered the area as did dirt and dust and cobwebs.

"After you, cap'n. Lift to the bottom is at the end of the corridor."

[High's .Valentine.]

This was the mistake Shera made. If she had kept crying, turning his poor handkerchief into a dripping wad of cloth, Cid would have been broken. Cracked from the inside. He wasn’t that much of a wall in front of crying women, as annoying as they are. Fuck, he’s scared to death of them. Water drip out of their eyes and Cid splinters. It was some kind of submission magic not even Merlin has a grasp on.

But the business voice. It pissed Cid off even more than before. He was momentarily overcome by the urge to grab her and shake her until the spectacles fall off the bridge of her nose, the ponytail come flying lose, and pull her so close she can look into his blue eyes, hidden so far behind the ridge of his forehead so that it made him look like a grumpy old man that no one really understands…

Maybe then she’ll finally give in. He sure as hell wasn’t going to submit before the woman does. No. Way. All he needed was some kind of confirmation. Was it that hard? Call him by his name, ask him how he’s doing, fling herself into his arms to apologize for brutally murdering his dream like in the movies. And he’ll sigh and smack her across the head and tell her to pull her self together and laugh to his shriveled heart’s content at their stupidity…

Cid snapped to attention and took the handkerchief, stuffing it stiffly in his pocket instead of tossing it.

“I’ll follow you.”

The moment was gone.

~~~~~~~

As he followed behind Shera, familiar spear in hand, he breathed a sigh of relief. Cid was a frontal man. He doesn’t shy away from emotional problems [he doesn’t have much to begin with anyway…] and was too manly to be hiding [lies]. This, however, was something completely out of the norm. It’s not every day your dead lover ex-employee appears out of the blue alive, though a bit roughened up, whom you fired out due to some silly little accident that happened a decade ago that has been discussed way too many times in the duration of this thread [whew].

Point is, he just remembered how weak he is next to Shera. So weak what he was dreading the moment when they would have to stop and she would turn to face him and those eyes would…he didn’t want to face her. Even after a decade of believing she was dead. Let’s not forget how many years it took him to come to terms with that.

After he could finally think clearly, the situation hit Cid. There were people living. Under his feet. People he thought were long dead and gone. Cyrogenic storage. Wait, what?

“What?” Cid voiced, startled. “There’s human ice cubes under my feet?” Paired with Cid’s accent, the whole comment was just hilarious. Wait till Leon hears about this.

And then the thought of accommodating these people came to mind. They have been slow on rebuilding, and people were pouring in from all corners of the world. Radiant Garden had turned into a permanent safe house, without the dangerous factor of heartless roaming free in the streets. Where are they going to situate so many people? Food? Living space? Clothing? Necessities?

But he forgot. They were Radiant Garden’s original inhabitants. Cid was thinking of them like refugees. He glanced at Shera. They were simply coming home…If he had to give up his house for these people, he would.

He jolted when a strange looking rock opened up to the entrance of some kind of secret room. Leon and the crew would have a field day when they see this. The thick musty smell of claustrophobia hit Cid as he descended. The technology blew his mind though as voice command turned on lights to show a hallway. Staring with slacked jaw, Cid slowly walked down the hall. It was a dream. All just a fuc.king dream…

He wished.

And then he was all tingly and hyped and nervous.

“The Claymore dun reach over here, dun it?” It was a hushed question. The question of a man who knew the answer, but for once wished he was wrong. He was the one who had programmed Claymore after all. He didn’t realize he would need it in No Man’s Land. Beady yellow eyes glanced not at the two, but the one who’s heart still beat with brilliant power. They had been hungry for so long. The people living underneath were nothing but shells to them.

“Shera…” It was all he could mutter as he pushed back towards her, trying to get her to move back towards the entrance.

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Ice cubes. Shera snorted. Only Cid could turn over forty years of theory and billions of munny in frantic, last-minute, do-or-die testing into something vaguely reminiscent of an old Indie rock band. Radiant Garden Ice Cubes indeed.

Pfffffft. Shera snorted again. She turned it into a cough and then nearly found herself crying again for no reason whatsoever besides the sheer normalcy of Cid's reaction. He was armed and dangerous; she was leading him into the Shinra equivalent of a high-tech mausoleum but they may as well have been playing idle thought experiments or lamenting the quality of the latest spanner set that they'd been forced to purchase because engine four had exploded (again). It was relieving to see him wary and confused - not so jaded as to be unresponsive to everything the world threw at him. She was just a teensy-weensy bit annoyed that it had been technology and not her that had prompted the reaction but that was Cid for you.

By this point though, she was pretty much cried out and the solitary tear that trickled down her cheek and was wiped away with a lab coat sleeve could have just as easily been from the dust as it could have been from any other source. Nonetheless, it was a good thing she had told him to walk in front. Her breath hitched but she coughed it away.


"Claymores...?" Shera questioned. Her mind snapped to the glowing balls that she had seen when entering the city proper, but while they'd reminded her of Cid, that had been no reason to assume they were... whatever Cid had thought they were. By the tone of his voice they were clearly important, and while Shera was vaguely familiar with the medieval weapon and tangentially more familiar with the explosive Cid had indicated that they were mobile. Some form of robot or automaton, perhaps? "I doubt it, though it's possible."

Cid was edging backwards.

"Captain?" Shera asked, confused. "What are you...?"

[High's .Valentine.]

No. He programmed it himself. They told the citizens to never venture beyond the gates of town unless they want to come back tiny, black, and jiggly, and have the Claymore zap them on the spot. Cid didn’t have the resources to expand it beyond five feet of the town gates yet. What lies beyond remains in the hands of the heartless. Cid shouldn’t have ventured out here with just a woman in a lab coat and his spear. Should have brought Leon and the whole gang. He couldn’t protect them all himself. They would have to retreat for now. If they can.

The woman was daft. Can she not feel it? The tingling. It’s probably because Cid has been around the darkness of Heartless for so long. It gets to him every time, especially when there’s a swarm. It’s just the instinct that he was in danger. If he doesn’t do anything about it, he was going to die. At that, the adrenaline kicked in and Cid’s senses went into hyper drive. It still overwhelms him at times, to see, hear, and feel so much at the same time. To know how much you’re in. It seems that isolation from their only food source for such an extended period of time had heightened these little critter’s senses too. They must have sniffed out their hearts from miles and miles away.

But what about Shera…? He turned and raised an eyebrow at the woman. How did she manage to get out of here alive? She didn’t even have a weapon on her. Was it some kind of technology far more advanced than anything he could have scraped together with the scrap metals back in town? His eyes flitted behind her at the dark shadows approaching.

Fear made his stomach churn and his adrenalin falter. For a second, he felt as useless as he had been nine years ago, just a lump of flesh, a juvenile wooden weapon limp in his hands. A child posing. He didn’t know what to do nine years ago, on that day when he lost everything. The self-imposed gruff man had leaked out of his brains when he tossed the weapon and fled.

Cid Highwind grabbed Shera by the arm, roughly pushing her behind him and stabbed at head that was slowly ripping itself from the cement floor. It turned into dust before the whole creature could even pull itself out of the ground.

He knew what to do now.

“Shera,” the pilot called her name with all the desperation and emotion he could have muster up, all the while trying to control the fear in his voice. It came out as a husky croak. “Woman, will ye fuck.ing MOVE?!” It was hard for Shera to move when he was so frantically holding onto her. He got her back, and he didn’t want to lose her again. Shera, being the intuitive kind, could easily pick up the recognition in his voice. Nevertheless, Cid was pulling her along the path, all the while trying to rid himself of the obstacles in the way.

They were swarming. He pulled her even closer as he battled his way up, the thought of her frail womanly arm suddenly disappearing in his grasp made his heart pumped twice as fast. It was getting harder and harder to move. Cid kicked one on the head, and another appeared. One jumped at him, and he swiped it away, never letting go of her. He kept looking back, fearing the worse. One scratched him on the arm, he smashed it with his spear. The fact that they weren't paying Shera much attention wasn't registering in his mind.

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Warning klaxons thundered through the complex as the Heartless arrived.

Well. They didn't really. Thunder, that is. By the end, even Shinra didn't have enough resources to purchase a sprinkler system let alone an elaborate detection-defense mechanism complete with glowing red danger lights and a buzzing alarm.

What they did have funds for was a simple proximity alarm geared towards detecting Heartless. It was about as advanced as a tripwire and ran partially on ambient mystical energy and partially on a sonar cobbled together from a sniper rifle, three radios, someone's old saxophone and a car battery. It didn't even make noise, just send a signal off to the last line of defense.

That last line of defense consisted entirely of one stuffed doll.

v.v.v.v.v

Cait Sith woke. Yawning hugely, the automaton started hacking and coughing. Woah woah woah - when'd he get this dirty? Grumbling to himself about ignorant and ungrateful humans louts, the doll gave himself a lick and a promise that he'd bathe the dust and cobwebs out of his fur and slowly started padding towards a cryogenic tube.

Reeve had given him some very specific instructions in case there was a breech. Most of it could have been boiled down to three pithy and rather appropriate words: "We. Are. Fvcked."

But being Reeve Tuesti, the man had instead taken ten gigabytes of memory explaining the minutiae of how exactly they were going to be screwed over, and contingencies explaining how they would last until the very last moment which - according to predictions - could range anywhere between thirty seconds and forty minutes depending on what sort of Heartless were around, what their capabilities were, and how atrophied old muscles had become in the cryotubes.

One person, however, would be unaffected by cryogenic storage. One might say he was designed for it. Bossman wanted him to be the first one up. Padding in near total darkness and silence, the cat jumped onto a cryotube, obscuring the person's face. With finesse that could only come from artificial fingers, the cat tapped in a few codewords.

There was a hiss as compressed air escaped into the musty atmosphere. It was usually a slower process. This guy could take the stress though. His specs were waaaaay outside the normal. Someone had been eating his veggies and getting his Shinra surgery.

"Rise and shine! We got company!"

v.v.v.v.v

Shera had spent so long alone that the sudden physical contact was enough to freeze her. There was a deer in the headlights moment that quickly turned into a quivering rabbit moment as Cid grabbed her arm and started hauling ass.

The scientist blinked. From behind...

Damn.

Cid had really been working out. Something that might have once resembled her libido crawled pathetically out of whatever dark, dank corner she'd buried it in and it took a few moments of staccato pounding of Cid's Venus Gospel, a sudden proximity with too many of the black little roaches, and a terrified thump-thump-thump of her heart to bring her back down to earth.

They were here. They were here. The goddamn, fuc-

Focus, she ordered herself. She took stock of the situation. This didn't make sense. They had been fine - she hadn't seen a single Heartless swarm...

Shera cursed herself for her foolishness. Of course the Heartless would detect a heart as strong as Cid's. Her own was probably a weak, frail thing, hardly better than the stuff one found in the trash. The overwhelming presence of Hearts from the city itself must have masked her scent, driving nearby Heartless into a frenzy as they ignored her in favor of massing at the city limits.

But if her heart was table scraps, Cid was a four-course-meal at a five star restaurant. Quantity and quality in one convenient package.

And she'd lead them straight to not only him, but the survivors down below.

"Cid -" Shera said, undercurrents of desperation in her voice as she finally started to pull back. In her panic, she'd forgotten about the usual courtesies. "Cid - I can't leave them!"

Ngggggh. I swear this shall be finished. Editz once I get back.

[High's .Valentine.]

“YOU CAN’T GO.”

He turned and faced her. It was a stupid move, but there’s just something Shera was not getting here. F.uck the other people. Why? “I won’t let you!” It was a perfectly logical reason for the two to run. Two. Cid wasn’t about to die anytime soon. He wanted to enjoy his agitate, grumpy time with her, and demand tea, and yell at her to make a sandwich, and just…make up for his inability to preserve anything this damn beautiful.

It’s horrible that all that translated into “NOW GET YER ASS MOVIN’!” when he opened his mouth. Not like he could have spent the time to express that strange heart bursting feeling that trickles up the back of his neck and wrap its hold around his nerves. Even if he didn’t have heartless about to plunge their claws into his back, Cid wouldn’t be able to express half the things that ever crossed his mind.

Something jabbed him in the calf and he winced, kicking aside the nuisance. This really wasn’t the time to complain about Shera’s lack of compliance and hard-headedness that really can get people in trouble. But complained he did. She had ruined him twice and he wasn’t about to allow her to screw him over a third time.

“Why are ye always so damn bull-headed, heh?!” He cried at her in frustration as he again dragged her along, resisting her tugging. “Just listen to me for once, will ye?” Of course, Shera’s always right, but fu.ck that. Cid was the man here. The man will be giving instructions for now. Something struck him on his spear arm and the mechanic waved it away, followed by a swift stab. Giving himself no time to inspect the stinging wound, the mechanic continued on, venting his fury on the heartless before him.

He didn’t bother reassuring the woman the fate of those below him. Cid was now fearing the worse for the. His presence probably doomed the entire population of refugees hidden there, but as long as the two of them get out, there’s nothing Cid else care more for at the moment. Four Heartless took him by surprise when they jumped, missing his spear swipe…he shouted in panic, thinking they were going for Shera. Instead the four tackled him, almost knocking him off of his feet. Half of him sighed in relief while the other half almost went haywire with survival instincts.
Smacking two off, Cid attempted to push himself up while avoiding the claws aiming at his chest. But what about Shera? She was alone.

“SHERA?” Cid looked around in panic, unable to get up due to the amount of weight on his body. For all he knows, she was already gone.

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

Barret had never really thought of dying.

Not in any permanent way. He'd lost his arm, but even when the big ol' artery should have bled him dry, he'd never doubted it for a second that he'd get up and get going. He couldn't die. Not then, not there.

Today was different. He wasn't sure how - maybe it was the cause, maybe it was the odds - but today felt like a damn good day to die.

Now if only Marlene could see it.

"Goddamn it girl," Barret said, blood oozing from a cracked lip and a shattered leg. He could feel the little nightmares getting closer - it wouldn't be long now. Sometimes a man had to stand and fight.

Sometimes sacrifices were necessary.

"Go."

Marlene shook her head, trying to staunch the flow. Ugly-ass wound, but Marlene was too sweet and too brave to let that bother her. Barret grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, hauled her up and tried again. It'd worked when he was a kid and his pa was ordering him to do the chores.

"GO!"

Marlene Wallace planted her hands on her hips and gave him a look. If Barret had been in any other situation he would have been proud. Damn proud.

But today-

Something in the air was wrong.

He moved before he was even aware of it, dropping Marlene in a startled heap. One hand hit the ground, propelled him forward, gun-arm aiming straight ahead.

The thing was big and huge. Unbidden, an ancient legend sprung to life.

Leviathan.

v.v.v.v.v.v

Barret came to life pretty much like how a speeding truck hit the curb.

Cait Sith smacked the far wall with a yowl, landed on his feet, suddenly feline and hurting. He spat out something fizzy and electronic and blue.

Barret didn't notice.

"MARLENE, GET YERSELF OUT OF- out of..." the gunman slowed, adrenaline ebbing as he slowly realized where he was. Taking a long, slow look around the room he was confronted with a jaunty display of winking, blinking status displays and Cait's two electronic eyes. And darkness.

"Huhn."

The man finally remembered where it was he was.

"Shee-it," Barret grumbled. The stump that used to be his arm was itching for his prosthetic weaponry. He slid easily out of the cryotube and began rifling the drawers placed beneath where all weapons had been cached so as to be easily accessible. The cords in his neck stood out as the nerve endings connected. When he could speak again, he growled: "Emergency already?"

The doll shrugged. "Fortune today says-"

"Shut it with the prophecy-smophecies, kitty." Barrett grabbed the ammunition reels and fed them into his gun-arm. "Real man gotta carve his own destiny."

The usual witty rejoinder would have been on the subject of his nightmare.

But there were certain boundaries that even Cait Sith wouldn't cross.

v.v.v.v.v

Shera had nearly-almost left: if she sprinted down the corridor, she'd only need a few seconds to hit the panic button and set the contingencies get everybody up and moving. It didn't matter that there was a carpet of writhing, massing Heartless - she'd taken care of them for nigh on ten years. She owed it to them as much as to herself to get them through this safely.

But then Cid fell. And Geostigma, the damned disease, pounced.

She felt her reflexes slow, her brain grind to a halt as shock settled into her like ice through her veins, turning her body sluggish and so terribly slow.

He's down. He's dead. He's downdeaddown-

Shera couldn't decide, couldn't think - the walls of her mind were squeezing in - if she left him here, he'd die, but she'd be able to get the SOLDIERS up. They'd protect the others and then, and then-

She couldn't think. Her breath came in gasps - visions danced before her eyes.

Shit. Shitshitshit. Not now, she couldn't have another episode.

No. She wouldn't have another episode. She was calm.

She was water.

Shera took a deep breath and started yelling.

"DAMNIT CID," Shera screamed. Rage, desperation, insanity, relief. Everything and more. She wasn't going to lose them, but she wasn't going to lose him either. "GET THE FUCK UP! THEY'RE ONLY A FEW FUCKING SHADOWS!"

ooc: it appears this system works better. Will edit soon. D<[/size]

[High's .Valentine.]

Woah.

For seconds, Cid stared at Shera—or tried to—as the heartless piled upon him. The frustration, the scream, the fury, and most of the all the recognition of a woman he thought he knew so well. His blue eyes stun and sparkled.

What the fuck.

The heartless went flying. Comically thrown into the air as his blond hair peeked out of a mass of darkness. FIERY blue eyes. Cid stood up to his full height, spear in hand, his precious goggles a bit skewed, bloody, bruised, delighted.

“ONLY A FEW FUCKING SHADOWS?” His voice boomed back, irritated, but pleased. Just like always. “YOU CALL THIS A FEW FUCKING SHADOWS? ARE YOU DAFT, WOMAN?” The spearhead slammed into the face of an unexpected shadow. Another went flying as he gave it a joyful kick. The scowl continued to etched into his pale complexion.

“Spent too much time underground, huh? Forgot how to count in that smart assed brain of yours? What’ve you been doing all this time? SLEEPING? What do you think I’ve been doing, eh? I’ve BEEN SAVING THE WORLD, YOU STUBBORN OLD HEN.”

His grin couldn’t be erased.

“And dun you EVER yell at me like that. You sound like a complete IDIOT when you cuss, Shera.”

In no time, he had cleared enough of a path. It was something similar to parting the red sea, though with less religious zeal and more sweat, blood, and growl of vulgarity. He grabbed Shera’s skinny arm and pulled her deeper into the passage.

“Where the hell are your ice cubed people? And is the place they’re in safe?”

It was going to be ok. He had a dandy little cell phone. Cid glanced at his pants pocket. A hole…?

Shit, maybe no cell phone. But he’s still got a few tricks up his short sleeves. Dirty, unfair tricks. He just wasn’t sure if he could keep the large number of people, fresh out of their ice tubes safe on their journey back. Heartlesses happen to be rather quick at rejuvenating and multiplying.

[It's taken us this long to get to Reply number 13??? WE SUCK. D:]

[/blockquote]

[Beaver Dude]

[ooc: still, it's a pretty awesome thread :3

It's a wee bit more finished.]

The moment Barrett had his gun-arm on, ammo loaded and bearings set Cait Sith started hissing. Or more accurately, he started to fizz, like poor reception on a radio as Reeve's coding set to work with far too much useless dramatics.

But Barrett knew what it meant. And hodgy-podgy lameass dramatics or not, the noise was haunting. It'd been so familiar. So goddamn familiar. He primed his gun while looking back at the other cryogenic tubes.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck

[/i],' came his eloquent thoughts.

It wasn't that the Heartless were tough. They weren't. The average punk off the street was more solidly built and packed more of a wallop when waving around an antique baseball bat. Hell, a kid with armed with a wine bottle and a good dose of fear was tougher. It wasn't their numbers either, though it'd help if there weren't so freaking many of them.

They just didn't ever fucking stop[/b]. Like death from a shitshiny million paper cuts.

"Warning," the doll said, voice now completely automated. "Warning: The Heartless have now breached-"

But Barrett was already firing.

v.v.v.v.v.v

Cid was magnificent.

Shera didn't quite know how to describe it but time slowed. Cid was yelling, exploding into action and, was no doubt pissed but that light that Shera had thought gone, that spark which had made her fall in love and keep on falling in love was back. Cid the aviator, the mechanical genius, the captain, the hero was back and somewhere in the depths of her mind, Shera thought she heard a voice say: "Hell yes."

The Cid who didn't take shit from anybody and thought and dreamed and hoped was back. And was smiling. Openly and without reservation.

(Oh, and he was kicking some serious shadow butt. But pooh, that wasn't important.)

A random thought fluttered through Shera's mind and the scientist-engineer blushed. Cid had never been so beautiful as when he was bleeding, pissed and looking far-too grimy. Shera punched her libido down for the second time that day and wondered, inanely, what it said about her.

The Captain grabbed her arm and time sped all the way back up.

Drat, that blush better not be visible.

"We have to get underground," Shera said, a little breathless and not just because of the Heartless or her little display of screaming, "there's the staircase or the elevators. The 'ice-cube' people should be safe for the moment."

"Hopefully."[/blockquote][/size]