The Calm after the Storm (working title) Chapter 7 Fandom:FFVII Rating:PG-13 Summary:Chaos has returned to the planet along with Omega, but for Vincent there are still issues to deal with left in their wake. For the rest of Gaia, there's a planet that needs to heal and rebuild. The WRO on one side, opposing factions on the other, life doesn't seem to get any smoother. Author notes:I have no idea what I'm doing with this, and it probably shows! Anyway, still unbeta'd because I don't want to bother my beta when she's got her own stuff to do, so you'll have to rely on my poor editing skills. Disclaimer:I own nothing to do with FFVII except this story idea, which Square Enix wouldn't want anyway.
The small camp reminded Yuffie of a miniature Cosmo Canyon, just with fewer steps, more trees and more humidity.
The woman they had been greeted by was quite short and didn’t look how Yuffie had imagined her. She knew it was stereotypical, but she had expected to see someone more, well, willowy and mystic looking. Even her name, Jula, seemed to be more suited to someone of taller stature. Not that Yuffie had given this a huge amount of thought, as she was still annoyed at Reno for not telling her how he'd got them into the camp to meet with Jula in the first place.
“You look very young to believe in something so life changing.” The woman said.
“I may look young, but I’m pretty mature for my age you know.” Yuffie said, the tone not complimenting the statement.
Reno groaned silently. He’d always believed Reeve to have been competent at his job, but was starting to change his mind. To him, sending Yuffie undercover was like charging Elena with top class information during her rookie days. “We’re goin’ to be married, but what with meteor and everything, we decided we didn’t wanna have children.” He hoped to rescue what credibility they had left.
“Yeah,” Yuffie chimed in. "The world's been too crazy."
Jula smiled. "It has been rather unsettling over the last quite a few years. People are responsible for so much damage to the planet. We live simply here, so as not to cause any more other than our simple needs. We have not much to offer and our followers can come and go as they like, but most chose to live here all the time. It's a close friendly community we strive to build." She led them further into the commune.
"Not much opportunity for privacy here is there?" Reno commented as they were led through the jumbled rows of shacks, some built on top of each other.
"We feel it is not needed." Jula replied. "We wish to live as one with the planet, so we use mostly natural materials so all we have used in our time here will degrade and return to the planet also." She smiled at them. "All human behaviour is natural, so we don't feel the need to hide anything we do."
Neither of them missed the meaning. Reno smirked, while Yuffie fought the urge to vomit. "I think I'm gonna like this place." He said then gently elbowed Yuffie and whispered. "Hear that, babe. You can make as much noise as you like and no one will mind."
Yuffie glared at him, which luckily, Jula took to be embarrassment at her future husband being so brazen. They were shown up some rickety stairs to a second level shack, the door ill fitting with gaps at the side. Reno had seen some badly built makeshift homes in the slums, but these probably even beat them. Jula pushed the door open to allow them to step through into a small square room. There was no flooring beyond the bare wood and in the corner there was what was presumably a bed. It looked like a large animal had died on the floor, it didn't smell much better.
Jula gestured to the living space. "There is no need for much else, we all eat together outside. Yuffie, as part of living here you will be expected to help out with the provision of food and cooking." When Yuffie nodded, she continued. "Beyond sleeping and as somewhere to be alone should you require it, there is nothing else you need this room for. But even though we do everything communally, apart from the obvious things, we do respect our individual need for space and you will not be disturbed here. There is no entering of other's rooms without permission."
"Sound's fair to me," Reno said.
"Well, I shall leave you to get settled in, we'll all be meeting to eat just after the torches are lit should you feel hungry and wish to join us."
"Thank you very much." Yuffie smiled. Jula nodded and left.
Yuffie grabbed at the fur covering the bed, wrinkling her nose up at the smell. "What'cha doin' with that?" Reno asked.
"I'm..going..to air.. it out." Yuffie said, struggling with the weight of the large pelt.
"Ahhh, who's gonna make me such a cute little wife then," Reno cooed at her mockingly.
Yuffie dropped the pelt and walked purposefully toward Reno. Stopping right in front of him, she jabbed a finger at his face. "If you think for one minute you're going to spend the time here making my life a living hell, you can think again, mister." She kept her voiced a lowered hiss. "I will hurt you."
Reno laughed. "Nah, I gotta job to do. I'm only gonna make your life hell half the time."
Yuffie stamped on his foot, hoisted the pelt up and shuffled through the door with it to air it out.
Later that evening after members of the commune had been introduced and they'd all eaten, Yuffie and Reno left the large camp and walked into the woods to talk. "Did you notice that Evans guy? I've got a feelin' he's the one to look out for," Reno said.
"What makes you so sure?" Yuffie challenged, deliberately being difficult.
"When you've been in this game as long as I have, squirt, you know a thing or two about people."
Yuffie kicked his shin. "Don't call me squirt."
Reno just rolled his eyes and carried on walking.
"So, you gonna tell me how you got us in here then?" Yuffie continued.
"I just met up with one of the people from the commune and we were invited to stay."
"That's all it took!" Yuffie said, incredulous it would be that easy and more at annoyance at Reno for acting previously like he'd done something clever.
He smirked at her. "What'ya think it'd take. It's a bunch of peace lovin' nutjobs that want to join the planet. Security's not high on their list of priorities you know."
Yuffie glared. "How long are we going to be here, any ideas?"
"As long as it takes. I'll try and get in with Evans. You talk to the women, see if any of them know anything, but ..." He paused and looked at her. "try to be subtle about it."
Yuffie was about to retort until she noticed that they were approaching the camp again. She reluctantly took Reno's arm and strolled back to the group they'd left.
* * *
It was still not as adequate for the job as he would like, but Cid had fashioned a detector that had a greater range than the smaller hand helds. He'd also set a couple of his crew; gifted engineers both of them, to work on a larger version that could be tied into, and work from the ship. They had flown back over the Wutain continent now further to the west.
A chime let Cid know someone was at his door. The door slid open allowing Vincent to enter the room. "Ana's had a look at the aerial pictures, she's narrowed it down to two possible places."
"That's good. Saves us having to traipse around for weeks for nothing." He put the screwdriver he had in his hand on the workbench. "You heard from that girl of yours?"
"Shelk? She's keeping an eye on things at Reeve's end. With Rufus possibly trying to come to obvious power again, she's concerned about her future."
"Ain't we all. Does Cloud and the others even know anything about all this?" Cid asked.
"I believe not. Reeve probably feels letting them know about Rufus at the moment would be unwise. I'm inclined to agree with him."
"Heh, you're probably right. Too many people are still sore." Cid grabbed the detectors and put them into a backpack. "What about you?"
Vincent looked thoughtful. "I have no love for Shinra, but my need for vengeance died with Hojo. You?"
"Same boat really. Personally, I'm more interested in if the WRO get together a space programme before I'm too damn old to get up there any more. Rufus fucked up my plans once, I'm not exactly happy about the idea that he could do it again."
They left the room, grabbing the maps that Ana had pinpointed the two locations on and left the airship.
They started their search slightly to the south of where the mountain range separated the south from the north of the continent. They used chocobo's to get to the great valley, made camp and scoured the area on foot and on chocobo. The men took it in turns to keep look out while on foot. Though monsters were scarce, the cliff faces still provided nesting grounds for thunderbirds and the bugs in the region were poisonous. More than once Vincent had to fire warning shots at overly curious thunderbirds hoping to get an easy meal.
By the end of the day, though they had not found what they were looking for, they had started to get stronger readings. Cid sat outside the tent lighting up and relaxing. "Well, at least we know that we're not too far from it. Knowin' what direction to go in should make for easy work this time."
Vincent nodded. "Once we've found this one I will return to Edge." He didn't elaborate on why.
Cid was more surprised that Vincent had actually said what he was doing. That there was a lack of explanation was the least unusual thing about it. "Do what you've gotta do."
After Cid had disappeared into the tent, Vincent lay outside looking into the sky. There was no cloud cover making all the stars visible. He stayed and slept outside the tent that night.
A squawk from a distressed chocobo, sickening crunching noises and the tent suddenly being violently swung about did more that wake Cid up. Caught up in shredded tent, contents of which flying everywhere. He couldn't tell which way was up or down, but he didn't really care as trying not to get hurt seemed more important. The tent was shook again, this time enough that Cid could get most of his body free and almost wished he hadn't as a large mouth loomed toward him. Gunshots rang out sparing Cid all but the stench as the adamantaimai roared in anger at the interruption and pain.
"What the hell! I thought those things never left the beach!" Cid yelled, trying to untangle himself from the remains of the tent material as it was dragged along the ground. Vincent in response, jumped to the side of the creature, aiming more shots to distract it to buy Cid time. Cutting through the twisted material from his ankle with a pocket knife, Cid jumped to his feet running to where his spear had been dropped among the tent's wreckage. Running back he leapt onto the adamantaimai's back, driving his spear into the base of its skull. A few shots more from Vincent and it skidded to a halt, collapsing and flinging Cid forward to the ground heavily.
Cid groaned, laying there on his back, the sun directly in his eyes. A shadow blocked the sun from view suddenly. Vincent held out a hand to help the captain up, which he gratefully took. "I'm too old for this shit," he griped as he was hauled to his feet.
Cid looked back at the adamantaimai, it was clearly dying, but not any time immediately. "We should end its suffering." Vincent said quietly next to him.
"If you've got any suggestions, I'm listening. My spear's not going to go through that thick hide enough to make it quick."
Vincent stepped forward, Cid could see a small materia in his hand. The beast shuddered as the lightening spell hit it, slumping fully as the charge dissipated from its body. "Not the most humane means, but the quickest."
There wasn't much to salvage from the mess the adamantaimai had left, and after a search, they managed to find the remaining chocobo.
"I'll have to reimburse Ester for the lost one when we get back," Cid said. "Only problem is, one chocobo can't carry the both of us for long, we've not much in the way of supplies and on foot it's going to take days to get back to the airship as my phone's broken and we've still got this power generator to find."