easypromises | Blame Time Compression And Aerith: Seifer Nonsense

Blame Time Compression And Aerith: Seifer Nonsense

It had been a few days since Cloud had gotten the message about a strange figure seen in the ruins of Midgar, even Fenris could only go so fast across an entire continent and he'd been on the far side of things.

He'd have normally let Reeve and the others handle it, weird shit out of Midgar was a WRO Problem. However between the weird hiccup with time materia, a bout of very vivid deja vu and the mention of whomever (or whatever) it was wearing a long coat and having an odd sword... Cloud wasn't leaving any chances.

So it was that the rumble of Fenrir's engine made it's way to the Old Church, it was the safest spot to make camp for anyone who could manage to get to it and the cleared area around it often used for such by those brave or desperate enough to venture in to the ruins for scrap.

The sun was starting to set, crimson throwing shadows from behind the towering hub of what had been a metropolis.

"Hopefully nothing." Cloud muttered to himself, swinging off the bike and stretching before squinting out at the ruins. Maybe he'd spot something quickly and be done.

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The world was ruined. Somehow this wasn’t a shock to Seifer. Something had gone… weird. His memories weren’t exactly the clearest in this. He remembered grabbing someone, Rinoa probably. Throwing her to… No, that wasn’t right. His head had hurt so much, and things had gone melty and then here he was.

The end of the world as he knew it. Ruins everywhere, not a single person, and monsters.

Really, Seifer was lucky. Sure his coat was in tatters and he didn’t have food and water on him, but Hyperion was there, and that was something. So he’d managed to get to the best shelter he could find. The place wasn’t like just about any other structure he’d ever seen (because in a world where the most common religion agreed that people had ‘killed’ god a long time ago who bothers to have churches), but it was shelter. More than that, there had been water.

The water had done wonders for clearing his head. If he didn’t know any better he’d say it was a pool made of potion, because his aches and pains had cleared up too.

And then, just as he’s gotten to the point of desperate enough to strike out to try and find food, there’s a noise. An engine. Seifer goes stiff. He grabs his gunblade and sneaks toward the door, staying low to keep in cover. Something is changing, and he doesn’t intend to be caught further off guard than he already was.

Cloud's movements are practiced and easy as he opens a compartment and pulls out a pack that looks to be some sort of camping or traveling gear before closing it back up with a dull click. He settled the swords on his back before striding towards the church door, pausing a moment and dropping his hand to the sword at the feeling of some sort of presence pinging against his enhanced senses.

"Hey, not looking to start anything." he speaks up, gaze on a swivel for movement. "This place is protected though if you're wanting to be stupid."

Seifer watches, carefully hidden, barely even has his eyes over the edge of a busted out window in hopes of seeing what’s coming. And a small guy with multiple swords was definitely not it. More than that, he wasn’t expecting the guy to react to him being there. Maybe Seifer hadn’t taken a lot of stealth classes at Garden, but he knew what the fuck he was doing.

Maybe the guy’s junctioned or something, probably with Siren, for how sharp his senses are. Note to self, fucking paramagic is still rampant in the apocalypse apparently.

Still, Seifer isn’t going to buy that someone that heavily armed isn’t going to start shit. And ‘this place is protected’ is likely just the shrimp trying to say ‘I’ll throw you out’ or some shit. Like Seifer’s scared of that. It took three people, loaded up with GFs and magic, to take him down. No way he and Hyperion, even undernourished as he was, couldn’t take anything that came his way.

So he shifted his grip on the weapon and waited.

Cloud's senses aren't as keenly tuned as others, he can't pinpoint where the presence is or where he's really being watched from only that there are eyes on him.

He gives another few minutes for a response before sighing and tromping towards the doors of the church, if there was anyone there they'd either show up or they wouldn't and if it was some monster then the water and flowers would keep most of the little ones away for the most part.

He stepped to the door, hesitating a moment before shouldering in through the wooden door. "Hey. Just here for a bit to check on something." he says quietly to the... flowers and pool of water? Maybe the slab of a sword stuck upright deep in the wood and earth at the far end of the large room? Not the lurking presence certainly, there was too much of a soft familiarity to his tone.

There's a short window with things like this. For moving to catch someone off guard. Seifer was damn good at exploiting those sorts of things. He lunges forward, swinging around so that the blade of his gunblade can come up to about where the guy's neck should be. A threat without making it a real and full fight.

"Who are you?" he hisses

Off guard yes, but it's clear from the flat look of annoyance that the short blond isn't threatened by the gunblade pointed at his throat. Face to face it's obvious that he's even shorter than Squall, and there's an odd light to his eyes as they flick from Sefier's blade to his coat to his face. There's no sign of any recognition though, to this guy the scarred face in front of him is a stranger.

"The one who got called because they didn't know if you were a threat or just lost." He answered, "You DEEPGROUND?"

Oh come on, just because he doesn't look healthy doesn't mean this asshole gets to act like the blade isn't threatening. He can't help his disdainful sneer. He doesn't like being underestimated at all.

"Pretty clearly not underground, what with the blade to your neck," Seifer points out. "And that isn't a fucking answer and you know it."

He can just hear Tifa chiding him about manners... and responding to threats appropriately.

"It's the one you're getting until you put the blade down, you probably just got exposed to too much mako from the ruins." He sighed, "Nothing some food and a couple days of rest won't fix."

He at least sort of managed the manners.

It's weird though, not being even a little recognized. Sure most people didn't know his name but he was a frequent enough face to those who regularly poked around the ruins as well as in Edge.

What's mako? Probably some terrible chemical. But no, he's not lowering his blade. Not at this moment.

"Or you can just give me whatever food you've got on you, and leave. Seems like that would work just fine for me."

"Half and a ride to town in the morning. Hot shower in it for you." Cloud counter-offered. "It's a two day walk from here to Edge even if you know the way through the, and there's been Morbol sightings that haven't been dealt with yet."

Juvenile Morbol, but still a concern to be dealt with by someone paid to do so by Reeve or as an exercise for the members of DEEPGROUND who'd ended up joining the WRO.

Hot shower. Fuck now isn't that the most useful thing that someone could bribe him with. Food he can probably manage on his own with time and determination. But a shower? When was the last time he'd had a shower? Too long ago he thinks. Though a two day trip has him grimacing.

"Morbol?" What in Hyne's damned name was that? He'd never heard of something like that. Makes sense if he's lost in time or the world's been ruined.

But wouldn't language have shifted then? What in the world is going on?

Cloud tilted his head, stepping back away from the blade. "Malboro? Depends on... regional accent." he explained, "Big enough to eat a chocobo whole, tentacles with eyes on them, spew stink out of their mouths bad enough to knock out a behemoth."

There'd been a few variations in more backwater areas he'd made deliveries to at least. "Thankfully no tonberries out this way at least."

"I can handle Malboros," Seifer says dismissively. He knows how to do that.

But the food... The shower... Well, those he could get behind. He sighs. And doesn't make some bullshit up about being good with Tonberries. He didn't have Diablos right now.

"And why would you help me? Beyond the threat?"

"...Midgar's a ruin, not going to just leave you to die." He shrugged, "Not after racing across the continent to track you down, it'd've been a waste of time if I didn't help at least get you to Edge."

Tifa would never let him hear the end of it, especially with how young the guy looked.

"Cloud."

Midgar? Clearly a new city that sprung up. Or an ancient one. This whole thing is hurting his head.

"Yeah, it's cloudy. What of it?"

Why is the guy changing the subject?

"....It's my name. You asked."

Cloud gestures towards a spot past Seifer, head tilting before he starts to move to get past him and properly in to the building.

"Food's just traveling stuff, nothing hot but the apples are fresh."

Cloud? What sort of name is that? Well, he supposed he did know someone named Squall, so...

At last Seifer lowers the blade. Just enough to let the guy by. Doesn't mean he's putting it down enough to leave himself unarmed.

"I've lived on MREs before. Don't care if it's travel or not."

There's a soft huff of what might be a laugh at the thought of living on MREs, and a shake of Cloud's head at it. He dropped his bag down, squatting to open it up and toss an apple towards Seifer. "Catch."

It's a little wonky looking, imperfect and red-yellow with a small bruise on it from being carried around but still good. Cloud grabs a second and shoves it in his mouth to bite and hold on to while he pulls a couple paper-wrapped packets out. There's the clink of glass or crystal of some sort from the bag as well as he rummages.

"Injuries?"

Of course he catches the apple. One handed even. He lost his holster for Hyperion a while ago.

"Nothing that will hold me back," Seifer says immediately. He's injured, he's tired, but he's not going to let that stop him.

"Not what I asked."

Cloud's standing again, swinging his own blade from off his back and resting it carefully against the wood of a convenient pew. The wood creaks a little, settling under the weight of the blade. He stays standing, taking his time to eat his apple.

"There's potions and elixers in the bag. Help yourself."

That's definitely a heavy looking weapon. Almost stupidly heavy. No one could properly use a thing like that. But if someone's offering a potion, of course he's going to help himself. The apple goes into his pocket as he moves to get the bag. Of course he pulls out a full elixir (that of course goes into his coat) and a pair of potions.

The first potion is immediately downed, and the rest... The rest waits.

"What are you going here anyway, Cloud."

"Like I said. Got a call and came to check it out. Reports of a guy in a long coat with a weird sword in the ruins here. Seems like it was just you, unless you've seen someone else besides me around." He explained, "This place is... Safe. Monsters don't come in here and the water helps with injuries and certain illnesses."

He tilts his head a little, considering the taller blond. "How'd you get here?"

"Haven't seen another person since I woke up here."

Which he had just taken as 'of course, I helped destroy the world, it makes sense I should be punished by being alone'. This, though, was not what he'd expected.

As for how? Well, he didn't have an answer for that.

"...woke up here?" Cloud blinked, a frown between his brows as he puzzled at it.

"Where were you before?"

See, isn't that a dangerous question? How was he supposed to explain?

Oh right.

"Not here."

Because Seifer can be a bit of an ass.

Cloud just sort of nodded at that, he understood not wanting to talk about something.

"I can get you a place to stay. Depends on what you want to put up with until you figure things out."

The guy doesn't seem like some sort of drunk, and there's a non-zero chance he was in some sort of experiment tank that finally gave out and let him free. Cloud would let Reeve or someone from the Turks handle digging in to things any further.

Put up with? Man, he's put up with a lot of stuff before. He can probably do it again.

"Except I've got to walk a few days to get there, huh?"

Or ride that fucking thing out there the guy CLAIMED was a motorcycle and was actually too large to fucking exist.

"Or I give you a ride." Cloud repeated, "You're not... in a dire enough condition to call a helicopter in. I'm a good driver, even if we get attacked, and Fenrir can outpace most monsters."

He shrugged. "Or you can walk, yeah."

What the fuck is a helicopter?

"That thing looks like it would fall over at a stiff breeze."

That actually got a snort of a laugh out of Cloud and a shake of his head. "No, that'd be a Hardy Daytona. Things can't take a hit."

There was a groan of metal and concrete giving way in the distance, and a ground shaking crash as part of the ruins fell a few sectors over after the years of weathering, abandonment, and destruction finally won. There was a slight ripple in the water from the vibration of it.

"... probably just that part of the plate in Sector Three finally falling."

The thing looks like a fucking monster. But who is Seifer to judge? It looked more stable than the Galbadian bikes at least.

"Fucking hell, how can you just take that in stride?"

"Midgar's been collapsing for about three years now, between Meteor and DEEPGROUND..." he shrugged, "There's a reason everyone who could moved to either Junon or Edge. There's no real rebuilding Midgar after everything and the structures of it aren't... being maintained."

Midgar? Meteor? Seifer looks genuinely lost and chooses to cover it by taking out his apple and taking a large bite of it. Can't talk about how confusing this all is if you've got your mouth full. Not and be polite.

Not that he often wanted to be polite, mind you. But his eyebrows are raised, as if to say 'tell me more'

Cloud just unwrapped one of the paper packages, splitting apart whatever was inside and offering over the choice of halves of... cheese.

"I'm not a structural engineer, that's Reeve." he shrugged, "He's the one to talk to about it, I'm just a delivery guy."

Cheese? Just fucking chunks of cheese? Is this a damn cartoon?

"Delivery guys don't move like you," Seifer counters, will all of the assurance of a trained mercenary.

No it's a guy who eats on the road most of the time and chunks of things to just shove in his mouth are efficient.

He just shrugged at that, "It's what I do most of the time these days."

Okay, that's a fair point, but he doesn't like it at all.

"Why would you do that?" he asks, frowning. "Deliveries as opposed to whatever you acutally do."

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Blame Time Compression And Aerith: Seifer Nonsense

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shhh regional accent is why there's 146 different spellings for it and not because I forgot

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