Comments | damned: Night 49: Home World

zack_fair in damned

Night 49: Home World - Gaia

May 17, 2010 00:31

[From here.]Upon stepping through the door, Zack had suddenly felt kind of dizzy, almost like the floor was falling out on him. He didn't know what that was about, but he didn't even get the chance to try and come up with a reason for it, since the next thing he knew he was being overwhelmed by a whole new set of sensations. First of all, he was ( Read more... )

wolverine, yuffie, zack, cloud, tifa

Leave a comment

Back to all threads

thatdamnedninja May 17 2010, 08:00:04 UTC

Stepping through a doorway wasn't supposed to feel like this, like the world was going topsy-turvy; like they were stuck in a spin-cycle on the highest settling. The disorientation was like a smack in the gut, but it didn't hold a candle to what came next.

The rollicking, rickety jerks and judders were easily enough to send Yuffie stumbling, careening off to the side. She compensated automatically, pushing herself into a clumy, off-balance movement that was half a roll and half a handspring. It righted her, but it didn't steady her, not until the fingers of both hands closed convulsively against a familiar metal railing.

That was when it clicked. That was when she realized why she was so damn off-balance, not just because oh Leviathan she was on an airship, she was on the Highwind-but also because her hands were empty. Both of them. Her shuriken was familiar weight on her back, and her clothes-she hadn't worn these clothes since that time, since that night, and she hadn't felt like this since then, either. Yuffie might not have ( ... )

notthistrain May 22 2010, 03:32:33 UTC

"I still have it." Cloud smiled back at Zack a bit sadly, then gestured at the sword on his friend's back. "Well, unless that's it there, of course. I guess when I first found something else I could wield just as well, I used that as an excuse to tuck it away somewhere safe for the time being ( ... )

zack_fair May 22 2010, 04:36:35 UTC

Even though Zack would have liked the idea of Cloud using the sword, if only because it was a memento of sorts, he was still glad that his friend had done what he could to keep it safe. And he hadn't forgotten about it, which was the important thing. Zack ran his hand down the blade of the Buster sword, feeling out every imperfection and remembering both the good and bad he'd done with it. It was nice to have it again, and he calmly returned it to its place on his back before glancing to Cloud. "Thanks for taking care of it for me ( ... )

thatdamnedninja May 22 2010, 05:29:16 UTC

"Nobody," Yuffie confirmed. "No people, no bodies. There's-I don't get it, Cloud. How can there just be nothing?"

Unless it was some kind of illusion, like the tricks Sephiroth had played back during the Jenova War. The young ninja shuddered, spooked enough to stand, still and stiff, for one long moment. She hated illusions. Hated having her perceptions messed with. It… It didn't scare her, not exactly; not in any sense that left her an incapacitated wreck, but gawd, it sucked!

Zack was moving now, yelling out into the village. His voice echoed, piercing enough that somebody should have heard and come out to investigate. When nobody did, Yuffie snapped back into action. She aimed a cocky, confident 'we can deal with this!' grin up at Cloud before dashing for the water tank in the center of town. It barely took a second to scale, and while the view was capped by the tops of the buildings and the outer walls, it made for a handy vantage point ( ... )

notthistrain May 22 2010, 10:31:12 UTC

Cloud watched Yuffie go and return, frowning the entire time. "I don't like this at all," he muttered when she was back. They were both thinking along the same lines when it came to this being an illusion. But if it was an illusion, then why leave the chocobo on the airship and just make it empty of people? Wouldn't it be empty of every living thing? Or would that just be to drive the point across that something had specifically abducted everything human?

"It's just like everyone vanished, huh? Do you think Landel had anything to do with it?" And were they really back at all? It felt like they were. Cloud could practically feel the lifestream - not on nearly the same level as Aerith, of course, but this was his world, and not the world the Institute belonged in. So what had happened?

He sighed. What did he want to do? "I say we do one more sweep of the town. I doubt we'll find anything, but it cant hurt to check all the buildings just to make sure. Yuffie, do you remember where Marlene and Elmyra were staying? If you ( ... )

zack_fair May 23 2010, 08:48:43 UTC

Watching Yuffie run her way up that structure did take him by surprise just a bit. Zack remembered the way the girl had managed to outrun him and snatch things from right under his nose when she'd been just a kid, and she'd clearly developed her agility and nimbleness as she'd aged. The bottom line, though, was that there was no one around, and not even any obvious signs of their disappearance. As if they'd never existed in the first place, but that just couldn't be possible ( ... )

thatdamnedninja May 23 2010, 22:40:04 UTC

"That's a-" Oh, man. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

What was a Tonberry doing way out here?! They usually hung out down in the crater, except for the bunch they had tucked away in Battle Square. Yuffie stared at it. Just. Stared. She'd never, ever seen one this far south, in so populated an area. "This is crazy," she said. "This? Is totally, totally crazy."

It was staring right back at them, or so Yuffie thought. Beady golden eyes all fixed and judging and geez, this was the last thing they needed! Martin Landel was a son of a bitch. A real, huge, massive, undeniable and incurable son. Of. A. Bitch ( ... )

notthistrain May 24 2010, 00:52:48 UTC

"Wonder how it got here?" Cloud was already approaching the creature, sword drawn and with a hard frown on his face. What was a Tonberry doing in this neck of the woods? Zack was right - they were limited to caves. More specifically, they could only be found in the Northern Crater as far as he was aware. That begged the question of how one had managed to come this far, crossing the ocean and everything ( ... )

zack_fair May 24 2010, 05:52:32 UTC

Oh, so Cloud wanted to take center stage? Zack shot his friend a cocky grin, but listened to what he said nonetheless. Still, he wasn't about to wait for the thing to come to them. Really, Tonberries would have been cute in a weird way if their knives didn't hurt so damn much. But after having to run through caves packed full of the things, Zack couldn't say there was any love lost between them ( ... )

thatdamnedninja May 24 2010, 21:05:38 UTC

Zack really wasn't used to fighting in teams of three, was he?

What a dumbass! Why couldn't he have stopped to think, hey, there's a chick here who uses a great big shuriken; might not be a good idea to practically sit on the target? Yes? No?

Ugh. SOLDIERs were the definition of bull-headed enthusiasm. Um, that was-some of them. A bunch. Tons, actually, since, hey; they were hopped up on soul juice and dead alien, so why the hell not? It pissed Yuffie off, always had and probably always would. She indulged herself with a roll of the eyes and a stormy expression, before quickly changing gears. Bitch later, kill stuff now. She'd just have to work around Mr. Bigshot over there.

Yuffie wasn't gonna waste any time; the quicker they got this over with, the quicker they could start figuring out what was going on. The shuriken was off her back and slicing through the air within seconds, carving a wide arc around Zack and the Tonberry. She was aiming to give Zack a little bit of a hand, knock the Tonberry forward from behind, and-yes! There ( ... )

notthistrain May 25 2010, 05:47:51 UTC

...Right. Zack wasn't used to fighting with them. Even if there was a time difference, Yuffie knew how to handle a three-man team. His other friend must not have had to team up much at all while working with SOLDIER. The perks of being a 1st class operative. He'd only had a team when the job was a big one, and even then he hadn't seen him coordinate much with them ( ... )

zack_fair May 25 2010, 07:30:16 UTC

The shuriken came in with pretty perfect timing. Zack might not have been used to it if he hadn't fought with Cissnei a few times, but in this case he was just glad that he had a few helping hands for this. It sometimes took a while to take a Tonberry down, but with them ganging up on it like this, the thing would be a goner in no time.

Yuffie's attack had made for the perfect opening to slash at the thing again again, but before Zack could do that, Cloud swept in with a pretty impressive assault of his own. Zack paused for a moment (this was a Tonberry, after all -- he wasn't too worried about the thing's agility) to send his friend a wide, cocky grin. "All right!" he exclaimed. "You've totally got it now." It really made him glad to see how far Cloud had come, and Zack found himself further exhilarated by having this chance to fight alongside the other man. With all of their mako-induced strength untouched, at that ( ... )

thatdamnedninja May 25 2010, 19:50:10 UTC

Tonberries were notorious across the world. Yeah, they were slow. Real slow. And that, well, that was hella handy. While they plodded along, measuring and meticulous and murderous, its prey, if smart enough and experienced enough, would have time enough to dispatch it. But, since there's always a but, that pro came with a boatload of cons.

The real problem with Tonberries was that they didn't have to get right up close to hurt you. Kill you, yeah; that big ol' butcher knife didn't exactly have a whole lot of range, and hell if she'd ever seen one of them actually throw something.

When Tonberries went to hurt someone-

Yuffie caught the shuriken on the backswing, even as she ran up to join her teammates. She dodged around to the other side, skidding to a stop when she'd found a space. But it was too late.

Before she had a chance the lash out and finish it, the Tonberry, injured and angry, was already unleashing its attack. There was a nickname that went with it, and lore; about how Everybody's Grudge was a person's choices coming ( ... )

notthistrain May 25 2010, 22:19:30 UTC

Cloud saw the Tonberry moving. He wasn't sure if he'd be fast enough to intercept it with his blade, but since when had he been limited to physical attacks? He recalled what materia he'd had equipped on him when he'd been taken, and as far as he knew he should still have those equipped on him now.

The blond didn't take the time to glance at his wrist to double-check. There wasn't really time to do anything but take the matter on faith. There should have been a mastered lightning materia there, and while a summoning spell might have been the better answer, he wanted something that was guaranteed to hit quickly. Simple was better when you weren't certain that world mechanics were still going to work as they should.

"Heads up!" was about all the warning he gave Zack before the high-level Thunder spell connected. It shouldn't do the other man any harm, but it wouldn't hurt to stay back from an electrical charge that strong. They were trying to keep the other ex-SOLDIER from harm, anyway.

zack_fair May 26 2010, 07:48:44 UTC

Seeing how Zack had run around in his fair share of caves and had been forced to deal with fighting multiple Tonberries at once, he knew what they were capable of. While the attack was called Karma as far as he was aware, what he knew about it was 1) that it came out of nowhere, and 2) that it hurt a lot. In fact, he thought he was kind of crazy for the idea, but he was pretty sure it'd come to hurt more and more as time had gone by ( ... )

thatdamnedninja May 27 2010, 18:25:20 UTC

When Yuffie heard Cloud's warning, she got the hell out of dodge. No way was she sticking around to get zapped by a high level Thunder, nuh uh, not happening. A quick backwards handspring was enough to take her out of the spell's range.

The Tonberry wasn't so lucky.

Lantern and the knife still clutched tight in its hands, it finally went down for the dirt nap. Serves it right, too! Yuffie thought. She didn't care that it was stuck all the way out here, far away from its home; it'd attacked them. Monsters were monsters. Vicious, and nine times outta ten, just asking for a major butt-kicking.

Yuffie planted a hand-the one not occupied by a giant shuriken-on her hip. "So much for that," she said, not even out of breath. So much for exercise. So much for a toughie. In a way, it was almost disappointing. Except, oh yeah, the thing'd got Zack. Oops. Yuffie looked around at the guy quickly. SOLDIER or not, an attack from a Tonberry had to hurt. "You're not gonna curl up and cry on us, are ya?" she asked, blasé but without bite. If it ( ... )

Back to all threads