A spiky haired blond young man stands, facing off with an other young man, this one wearing a brown trench coat and long brown hair. Both of them holding battle worn swords. Neither of them move, staring straight into each other’s eyes until the one wearing the trench speaks: "You know this is a mistake, you know you can't win this."
"Don’t be so sure about that," replies the spike headed swordsman.
"Let’s just get this over with," suggests the first man.
The other just smiles in agreement and in a matter of seconds the two men charge each other, weapons raised over head with shouts of madness. Soon the sound of metal clanging echoed throughout the grassy field. At first, neither man seemed to be gaining any ground over the other, but that soon changed. While the spike haired man fought with the conviction and methods of a lunatic, the other had considerably more experience on his side. After a series of easily parried swings, the trench coated warrior began his own offensive, swinging all his might into the weapon of his opponent. An especially hard blow nearly knocked the spiky one over, regaining his balance only to see the bright silver colored sword approaching his face rapidly. He had no chance to move before the blunt side of the blade gives him a nice fat mark on his cheek. The force of the blow sends him to the ground.
"Goddammit, do you always have to use the flat side of that?" questioned the looser of the challenge.
"Sorry Calvin, but you know I don’t want to hurt ya’. Anyway, why do you always insist on this, I mean we lost track of the score a few months ago." Responded his victor, reaching out a hand to help his friend up.
"No Smiley, YOU lost track of the score because you were behind." Calvin returned.
"Yeah right, I was over seven hundred points over you and you know it! Now give me back my sword, you know that’s not your best weapon, and besides you scare me with that." says a smiling Smiley.
"Na, I think I’ll hold on to it for a while. Hey, if I’m starting to scare you that means I’m getting better, right?"
"Wrong, it means I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself. Oh, fine, let’s just get out of here, our job is finished. It shouldn’t be long until the next jump." Smiley says while walking off into the distance. "And try not to forget your stuff this time."
Calvin grudgingly walks over to a large green duffel bag, hoists it over his shoulder and wonders why he chose to use something this big to haul his gear in. Smiley only uses a back pack, though it does weigh more. Smiley also had numerous sheaths and holsters for his weapons, which makes sense because he carries most of them, letting Calvin only hold what the younger spikier traveler asks for, one at a time. Calvin can’t complain, first because he didn’t want to, secondly, he agreed to these terms when he joined Smiley about a year ago. The promise of a never ending adventure was too alluring, especially when it provided a chance to learn more about what may have happened to him in the past. A year had gone by, a countless number of (what seems to be) inter dimensional jumps had been made, and no leads other than the scattered memories brought to life by certain objects. He remembers plenty from his childhood, as much as anyone would that is. He could probably recognize any of his friends or family members if he saw them, but couldn’t describe any of them. The question is how he found himself in the situation that Smiley found him: completely lost, grizzled, and frozen within an inch of his life. Smiley was supportive throughout the entire adventure, though he never gave his own reason for this trip.
"If memory serves me right, we just wait a while and should find ourselves in Elsewhere-ville in about a little while. I walk just because I don’t feel like waiting." Smiley comments after a few moments of hiking. And soon enough, a few minutes later the scenery turned into a bright white void.
"You never did tell me about why or how you do this." replies Calvin.
Smiley looks up, sighs and responds, “All I know is I feel as if a part of me is missing, and I want to find it. How these jumps take place must have something to do with a wish I made years ago.”
“What was that?” Calvin asks.
“Long story, don’t feel like it right now. We’re coming to the end." says Smiley as the white light begins to fade around them. "Oh God, not again..."
“W-What..?” asks Calvin with a concerned waiver in his voice.
“Look down...” Smiley says with a grunt.
Below them was a thick marsh swamp, but it’s about fifteen feet down. With a quick look to each other, both begin to scream as they fall to the watery landscape. They land safely with a cross between a splash and a splat, but embed themselves into the muck to about their hips.
“Sick.” “Yuck.” “Gadzukes, man.” are a few of the (more appropriate) comments while the pair try to get themselves unstuck. It takes about ten minutes.
“Nice place, this seems to be,” comments Smiley.
“It’s about to get even nicer, look at the welcoming committee,” answers Calvin with a gesture towards a giant snake slithering in their direction.
Pieces of the once great city of Midgar can still be heard falling in a great clang as they settle from the storms brought by Meteor. How long sense it has been is nearly impossible to tell. For Cloud and many of the others, days and weeks seem to blur into each other. The best guess is around four months. Most of the adventurers have gone their separate ways, while others have decided to stay in Kalm with Elmyra and Marleen. Yuffie gather all the materia she could before heading back to her hometown of Wutai. Cid returned to Rocket Town as soon as his wounds healed and the Highwind repaired to design more aircraft, spend time with Shera, and in his spare time, another space craft. Red XII left almost immediately to study the effects of the Lifestream on Meteor and surrounding area. Vincent mumbled something about wasting to much time (or something about his sins, no one could really tell) and disappeared without a trace. Barret would have left Kalm, but procrastination always seems to get the best of him. Cait Sith decided to use his stuffed animal appearance to help soothe some of the mental wounds caused by the destruction of Midgar, Meteor, or miscellaneous accidents, and has thus become a valuable addition to the local hospitals. Tifa serves at a local bar, and is planning to open her own “Tifa’s (something) Heaven”. Mostly, everyone has become productive since the fall of Shin-Ra...
“...’cept Cloud,” Tifa says to Shera over the PHS, “At first he seemed fine, as if everything could finally be normal. The voice that he had been hearing was gone completely, his headaches never returned, though he was, and kinda’ still is, depressed at times.”
“I can imagine, he lost quite a bit. All of you lost something, Aeris was a great contribution to the group, the world in that fact. Even I almost lost someone and I wasn’t even with you. Thinking of losses, how is Barret holding up, he seemed to have lost quite a bit over the last year with Dyne, Biggs and the rest of AVALANCHE.” Shera tries to change the subject, knowing Tifa to be a bit touchy about Cloud and Aeris.
“Barret is, well, Barret. He swear a lot, gets into an occasional fight, and every now and then goes to the ruins of Midgar to make sure Shinra’s dead and put a to few extra bullet holes in the walls. Every now and then he’ll come back saying that he saw something move, but never leaves it alone long enough to find out what it is; shoot first, think later, as I said: Barret is Barret.
Seeing this as a break from where the conversation was heading, Tifa asks about some nasty rumors she heard in the bar, “By the way, what’s this I hear about somebody making a bunch of mechanical monsters around Rocket town?”
Rather stunned by the question, Shera hesitates to answer, “I don’t know about monsters, but Cid has been using some of the creatures he met on your adventure to design a new line of crafts, and I must say some of them are quite aerodynamic.”
Satisfied to put that rumor to rest, Tifa just laughs “I should have known Cid would be behind it, just seems like him. Do any of them fly?”
“I wouldn’t know, Cid is too busy designing them to do a proper test fly. I’m not a pilot, though he does seem okay with me checking them for any flaws. I still can’t believe he said those three little words to me...”
Tifa giggles and asks playfully, “What?”
Shera answers with a sigh “Take your time...”
“Wow, that is a surprise! Well, I have to be going, tell Cid I said hello and not to scare anyone with his planes.”
“I’ll do that. Say hi to everyone over there for me. Nice talking to you again.”
“No problem, and it was nice talking to you, too.”
“Take care of yourself.” .....Click.
Tifa takes a deep breath to clear her mind, then walks over to Cloud’s room, which she still can’t decide if is a large weapon rack, a great place to get rid of a hangover, or just a hopeless mess. She slowly cracks the door open, takes a look around, then opens it completely. On one side of the room hangs the few sword that Cloud did not sell off: the Ultimate Weapon for obvious reasons, the Apocalypse for quick Materia growth (which is very profitable now that Shin-Ra is no longer making any), the Organics because of its unique design, the Nail Bat, and the Buster Sword. On another side of the room is a stand holding Cloud’s favorite Materias. The third side of the room held a pile of seemingly random junk, items he couldn’t get rid of (who in their right mind would take something called “deadly waste”?), souvenirs from various stops along the trip, possibly a bean bag chair, and the junk pile from that brief period when Cloud went on a recycling trip. Which, by the way, lasted about three days. In the last corner of the room was Cloud’s bed, made only once, with Cloud spread across it. He went along with Barret on his last meaningless road trip to Midgar. Actually it more like to any pub that would let them in, get into as many bar fights as humanly possible in the shortest amount of time, and manage to make it back in as few pieces as fate would allow. Boys will be boys I guess, Tifa reminds herself. Cloud moans, turns himself over. Seeing Tifa looking over him, he smiles, lets his head thud against the end of the bed.
“Rough day?” Tifa asks.
“Not really.” Cloud responds “Don’t worry, we didn’t send anyone to the hospital this time. At least I don’t think we did. Barret... Man can that guy hold alcohol!”
“Cloud, I’m worried about you-”
“Oh, man. I already got this speech from one of the barmaids. I know I haven’t done much lately, but what can I do?”
“You can start by letting go of what you can’t change. You know, start over.”
“Ya’ know, I actually though about that. And I think I finally found out what I have to do.” Cloud declares as he gets up. “It’s time to get rid of this damn curse that been haunting me for a long time now.”
With that, he takes the Buster Sword from its holder and heads out. Tifa, knowing that once Cloud has his mind set on doing something he does it, lets him pass only with a few words of concern. He ignores most of them, but does reassure her with “If I’m not back this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on, ‘cause nothing really matters.” Very reassuring. He rushes through the front door, nearly trampling Barret on the way out.
“Hey, Cloud... what’s gone up his spiky butt?” Barret asks turning to Tifa.
Tifa simply shakes her head and replies “I’m not sure. Hey, can you do me a favor? Follow him, don’t let him know I sent you, but please make sure he’s okay.”
Barret answers “Sure, wanted to see him anyway. Oh, yeah how’s Marleen been doin’ lately, with school commin’ up?”
“Oh, Marleen’s so excited about it, a little nervous too, but what little girl wouldn’t be about her first day of school? She’s almost ready, but has requested that the two of us take her on the first day.”
“Why does she want us to go with her?”
“Oh, be real, Barret! Every little kid wants their daddy to bring them to the new school.”
“I know that, but why you too?
“Not sure.”
And with that Barret leaves, following the disgruntled Cloud east. Tifa can only hope that Cloud knows what he is doing and pray for the best.