Final Fantasy VII 100 Word Challenge

Title: The Obvious Solution
Characters:  Cloud and Zack
Team: SOLDIER
Rating:  PG
Word Count: 100

Zack ruffled his hair, and for the first time in forever Cloud managed to focus. Forcing his limbs to comply, he reached out and caught his friend's forearm.  Familiar eyes filled with shock and elation as Zack's gaze met his.

“Cloud?”

Speaking was difficult.  “Zack,” he answered, “wait.”

Zack glanced away, picking out movement among the rocks.  “Can't.  Gotta make a stand, Cloud.”

Determined, Cloud tugged a bit of fluff from under his pauldron, and clumsily pushed it into the same position on his friend.

Phoenix down. Insurance. 

"Now," he said.

Grinning, Zack nodded, suddenly feeling almost invincible.  "Good thinking."



Title: A Little Less Anxious
Characters/Pairing:  Cloud/Tifa
Team: SOLDIER
Rating:  PG
Word Count: 100

Tifa nervously crossed and uncrossed her legs.  “Cloud? I..." hesitating, she let her voice trail off as she bit her lip.  Then her chin firmed with decision, and she leaned in to brush his mouth with hers.  “I really like you, Cloud,” she whispered.  When he remained silent, she blushed and pulled back in disappointment. 

A moment later he was kissing her – a real kiss, not just the faint skimming of lips she'd initiated.  “I don't think 'like' is the right word,” he murmured, once their heavy breathing filled the gondola.

Tifa nodded, before sealing her mouth to his again.

Title: Say Yes to the Dress
Pairing/Characters: Cloud, Aeris, Tifa
Team: Avalanche
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Author's Note: Playing around in sekrit!girl!Cloud'verse again, first explored here.

Cloud had known it was a bad idea even before Aeris got that devilish twinkle in her eye, but she'd been focused on rescuing Tifa from Don Corneo. Now, wearing the first (and last, she swore) dress of her life and standing before her childhood friend, Cloud had never more wanted to sink into the floor.

With the truth out, Cloud expected anger, outright rejection. She didn't expect Tifa's slow, appreciative grin. "You look fantastic, Cloud," she purred.

"That's what I told her!" Aeris put in, and the two exchanged grins.

Cloud groaned. "I never should have introduced you two."






Title: Ghost in the Machine
Pairing/Characters: Cloud, Sephiroth
Team: Avalanche
Rating: G
Word Count: 100

Four years after the explosion, the Gongagan air still smelled like scorched metal and mako. Cloud put his head in his hands and breathed in the barren taint of it.

I attacked Aeris. Aeris is gone.

He felt rather than saw the presence of his constant shadow beside him. "It wasn't you," Sephiroth's ghost murmured, casting an insubstantial hand over Cloud's knee. "You know that."

Cloud shuddered. "I'm staying right here. Where I can't hurt anyone else."

"Cloud, no." Sephiroth leaned against him, hair falling like spidersilk over them both. "I feel my not-self near her. She's in terrible danger."

Due to illness and being massively swamped with homework, I am going to let the Fix it/Retcon prompt run one more week.

Enjoy the extension! I'll get the points tallied and the new prompt up on the 12th.

Note: Apparently my brain didn't pick up on the "Fix-It" part of the prompt for four of these. But they're retcons, at least! ...don't hurt me?

Title: Coup de Gras
Characters: Cloud, Sephiroth
Team: SOLDIER
Word Count: 100
Warning: Character Death

( Cut for character death )



Title: Fallen Angel
Characters: Cloud, Sephiroth
Team: SOLDIER
Word Count: 100
Warning: Character Death

( Also cut for character death! Not the same character. )



Title: Promises
Characters: Zack, Cloud
Team: SOLDIER
Word Count: 100

Zack coughed out mako as he propped himself up on the floor of the lab, trying to remember what had just happened. He shook his head in and then looked up to Cloud’s tank.

The kid was as unresponsive as ever, and Zack hauled himself up to start toward Cloud’s tank to let him out too.

Footsteps and yelling voices jerked him to a halt, and he looked over his shoulder toward the door. Too close. If he wanted to get out, he had to go now.

Agonized eyes looked to Cloud.

“I’ll come back! I promise!”



Title: Successful Experiment
Characters: Zack, Cloud
Team: SOLDIER
Word Count: 100

Cloud was way too quiet, even if it was useful when they were on the run and trying to get away from the troops hunting them. The Turks hunting them even, and wasn’t that a kick to the gut? Not that he hadn’t expected it.

But Cloud was too quiet, and his hair was too pale, and his eyes looked like they’d absorbed the mako because they were way too green.

Suddenly Cloud stirred listlessly, and Zack focused on him like a hunter.

“Seph…iroth. Master…” His voice was dazed and dreamy, responding to an unheard Call.



Title: We Are- Ow!
Characters: Genesis, Zack
Team: SOLDIER
Word Count: 100

“We are…monsters.” Genesis spread his arm out to the side, echoing the dark, demonic sweep of wing that marked him as violently Other. Not even Angeal’s ever-optimistic puppy could spin this a better way.

Which was why he was taken by surprise when said puppy moved forward far too fast and delivered a rather impressive right hook to his jaw.

“Don’t say that! You’re not! You’re coming back with me, and we’re going to fix you!”

Genesis could only stare in stunned confusion as he was lifted over an armored shoulder and carted away.

Title: Cloud's Last Order
Pairing/Characters: Sephiroth, Zack, Cloud
Team: Avalanche
Rating: G
Word Count: 100

"Leave," the General ordered, heavy with fatigue. Zack reluctantly turned to leave Sephiroth to his solitude and his endless journals. He was almost out the door before he realized Cloud wasn't with him.

"No sir," the blond was saying- stubborn to the core.

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed dangerously. "That was an order, cadet."

Cloud only flinched a fraction. "I know. I'll accept any punishment you want. Just-" He leaned forward, one hand outstretched, just shy of touching the general's own. "You shouldn't be alone right now," he pleaded.

Without a word, Sephiroth allowed Cloud to take the journal from his hand.





Title: Oread
Pairing/Characters: Vincent, Sephiroth
Team: Avalanche
Rating: G
Word Count: 100

Despite its harshness, Mount Nibel had sheltered them both, taught them lessons they needed. For Vincent, who longed for the safety of a coffin and the solace of his nightmares, he learned that living in the world was a greater penance than withdrawing from it. As for the fey child he'd stolen and raised as his own- what lessons he'd learned from the mountain, Vincent had no way of knowing.

"Father," said Sephiroth, slipping his little hand into Vincent's claw without fear. "It's time to leave the mountain."

Though he feared, Vincent allowed the wild, wise boy to lead him.





Title: On That Day, Five Years Ago
Pairing/Characters: Cloud, Tifa
Team: Avalanche
Rating: G
Word Count: 100

"Tifa," Cloud whispered, gripping the edge of the bed. "You almost died that day. Your memory- is probably messed up. That's why you don't remember me being there."

Tifa shook her head. "I don't know, Cloud. I remember a lot of things clearly." She placed a hand over her hidden scar. "Do you remember- at all- a Soldier named Zack?"

Outside, the Kalm night was breathlessly silent. Cloud rocked back, glowing eyes shut tight. "Zack. Zack? I... know that name. Somehow. -Why can't I remember?"

"Don't force it." Tifa caught his hand. "We'll figure it out together. Little by little."





Title: Guardian Angel
Pairing/Characters: Aeris/Zack
Team: Avalanche
Rating: G
Word Count: 100

Aeris fell into the Ancients' crystal heart- and into a pair of warm arms holding her tight before she could be swept away. "Zack," she breathed.

"Hey." Rough with emotion, the voice of Zack's shade sounded all too real. "Sorry about this."

"You idiot." Aeris watched her tears crystallize and spiral away into the Lifestream. "If I'd known Mom's materia would bring you back, I would have prayed to it before."

"Well, it's not quite like that. I'm still dead. By the way, on the count of three, dodge. One, two-"

Aeris snapped back to reality- and evaded her death.

Title: Martial Law
Characters/Pairings: Tifa, Scarlet
Team: Avalanche
Word Count: 100
Author's Notes: MARTIAL ARTIST GODDAMIT.

( Cut for one minor swearword. )




Title: Family Ties
Characters/Pairings: Cloud, Rufus
Team: Avalanche
Word Count: 100
Author's Notes: It's an idea that's been bugging me for a while. How much of Sephiroth's madness was Jenova's influence? How much of his will was his own? Can I get away with Sephiroth coming back from the dead as many times as the canon did?


"...I don't believe you."

Cloud eyed Rufus warily, but the other man's visible agitation seemed worryingly genuine. "Whether you believe me or not is immaterial now. You stopped him before-"

"No thanks to you," Cloud growled.

"-And we have to hope that you can again," Rufus finished, audibly tense. "When Jenova's head fell into the Nibelheim reactor with Sephiroth, it used his DNA to create a new vessel, one it could control completely."

"Everything after the Crater...that was all another clone?"

"An extension of Jenova's will," Rufus said quietly. "We now believe that the original has resurfaced. In Nibelheim."




Title: Major Pandemonium
Characters/Pairings: Sephiroth, Zack, Angeal, Genesis
Team: Avalanche
Word Count: 100
Author's Notes: I would have liked Genesis and Angeal so much more if they hadn't been shoehorned in that high up the ranks. ;P Project G never happened, la la la!

"-have just as much talent as he does, and what does it get me?"

Sephiroth paused at the noise, set his pen gently down on his desk, and made a strategic retreat over to his office window.

"Nothing, that's what! I get a pathetic commission and a pathetic rank-"

"Major is hardly pathetic, Gen-"

"-and Hojo's prettyboy Soldier gets made General when he hadn't been in Wutai a week! I mean it, Angeal, I'm going in there and giving him a piece of my mind-"

"Genesis, this is the third time this week..."

Sephiroth winced and shimmied down the drainpipe.

Title: Glint of Light
Author: jlsigman
Team: Avalanche
Word count: 100

“Cloud!”

“Stop it!!”

The horrified shouts of his friends broke through Cloud's mental fog. “Ugh... what are you making me do?” He looked down at Aerith, who was still smiling at him. He couldn't kill her!

A glint of light reflected into his eyes, and without thinking he reacted, diving forward and moving Aerith out of the spot she had been praying in for so long. A heartbeat later Sephiroth's sword sank halfway to the hilt in the floor.

“SEPHIROTH!” Cloud roared, and quickly moved to finish what he started in Nibelheim, all those years ago.

Title: Hidey-hole
Author: jlsigman
Team: SOLDIER
Word count: 100

There had been a moment when Zack was really worried, right after he had grabbed Cloud and jumped from the truck. But the wasteland outside of Midgar was full of canyons and pocketed with crevices, and he found a nice deep hidey-hole before the copters got close enough to see anything.

As much as Zack wanted Cloud to wake up, he was glad that the young man was silent when the troops marched by.

After nightfall, Zack waited hours after he last heard any sounds of pursuit. When he was convinced there was none, they continued on. Aerith was waiting.

Seems everyone likes to masturbate in one way or another! All teams tied this week with 10 points!! I guess they will have to find a way to share the trophy this week.

This week's prompt is #118 - Fix It/Retcon

Sometimes canon doesn't always allow for happy endings and sometimes they just get it plain wrong. Does your vision of events differ from Squeenix? Do you think you could have written better? Well now is your chance!

Keep Nibelheim in tact! Keep Sector 7 from dropping! Relegate chocobos to the stuff of nightmares! Kill off Hojo early on! Let Avalanche succeed in their efforts! Remove Genesis from play entirely! Keep Zack alive! Make geostigma even nastier!

Whatever you think was written poorly, fix it! Whatever you felt should have been done different, retcon it! Squeenix be damned!!

The catch: you only have 100 words.