Vincent woke up, somehow on the other side of the bed than he’d fallen asleep on. He was spooning against Cid, for warmth no doubt. Although technically Cid’s hands were behaving themselves, they were still causing trouble. Cid was cuddled up with Vincent’s metal hand in his own flesh ones and was snoring away peacefully.
Vincent sat up as much as he could manage and quietly picked up his pillow. Without another sound Vincent commenced to hit Cid with it.
"Ow! Ow! I’m up! I’m up!" Cid yelled, letting go over Vincent’s arm and shielding himself from the pillow.
"OUT!" Vincent yelled, finally dropping the pillow and pointing to the door.
"Can’t I at least have a shower first?" Cid muttered, getting out of the bed.
"No."
"Vince, what’s going on?"
"I’m still mad at you. Out. Now." Vincent was starting to get up. Cid was about to bet the left wing of the Tiny Bronco Vincent was going for the Death Penalty and started backing up to the door.
"Okay, okay."
Vincent followed him, for once not caring about his own nudity in front of someone else, and opened the door, shoving Cid through it.
"Can’t we—" The door slammed in Cid’s face, smacking him in the nose. He was pretty damn sure Vincent did that on purpose.
"HEY!"
The door opened and Cid was greeted with his underpants flying in his face. The door slammed again, this time missing his nose.
"Hi, mister!" a squeaky voice said as Cid was putting his briefs on. He nearly dropped them as he saw the young girl from the reception desk two feet away.
"Holy bloody buggering fucking hell!" Cid yelled, and yanked his briefs up.
"You!" a man, obviously the child’s father, yelled, entering the hallway. Apparently he wasn’t too keen on running a business unless someone was naked. A lot like a movie producer. "Do you have any idea how much noise you were making last night? This little girl isn’t stupid enough to believe you were moving furniture all night."
"Daddy, he got kicked out jus’ like the guy mommy was wi—"
"That’s enough—sweetheart," the girl’s father clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Hey if I knew I’d have an audience I’d have checked with the rating board," Cid said, and suddenly the floor moved. Cid landed on his ass, the girl grabbed the wall and her father was knocked backwards as the floor temporarily started a gelatin impression, then gave up, finding no one impressed with it’s actions. The floor was accompanied by a strange, distant rumbling, which was almost felt rather than heard.
"What was that?" the girl’s father asked.
The door to the room opened and suddenly Cid was peering between his scarf and his pants, which were on his head, his shirt was on his lap and he was hit in the head with his shoes.
"Go find out what that was," he heard Vincent say. "It came from the north." Then the door slammed. It was going to be one of those days.
"Daddy, are they gonna have a b—"
"Look what you did to my innocent little girl."
"Yeah, yeah, just be glad she didn’t try and help us move the furniture. No, kid, we ain’t gonna have a baby, for fucking out loud."
"Not that you weren’t doing that in the first place," the man yelled, pointing at Cid, who didn’t care. Unfortunately, it was the same hand he used to cover his daughter’s mouth.
"If they’re not gonna have a baby, did they use perfection?" the kid asked.
"Oh for—she’s only six years old! Why did you have to corrupt MY kid?"
"Daddy, it’s jus’ like you an’ mommy before she left."
………………………………………………………………………………….
After the girl decided she wasn’t going to learn any new words from Cid, he found out the real reason she was there. She told him someone dropped off his plane and then ran off, hopefully to give someone else some trouble.
"I can finally go home, I finally got my plane, and what am I doing?" Cid muttered to himself, not really looking where he was going, but that had been that way had always been when he followed Cloud in the snow. "Why can’t things blow up where it’s warm? God Vince, did you have to be such a pain in the ass?" Cid was starting to be thankful he was going numb from cold as the aftereffects of the previous night started catching up with him.
"Where the hell am I?" Cid yelled. He was in such a bad mood most of the monsters decided to wait for cheerier prey.
"There’s nothing here! Wait, what’s—oh no! No. Screw you Vince, I AM NOT GOING INTO THAT DAMN CRATER!" Cid yelled angrily and turned around, stomping back to the village. "I came out here all this way for an earthquake. I swear to fucking God, there’s nothing out—" A hand, balled up into one fist landed forcefully on Cid’s head, cutting him off and knocking him out.
………………………………………………………………………………….
"Oh… fuck… anyone get the number of that bus?" Cid muttered, sitting up in the snow. "Great, just great. Snow in my shorts, migraine the size of Gold Saucer, and my ass feels like I got reamed with a goddamn rocket."
Cid blinked his eyes opened, then started wishing he hadn’t.
Someone with long hair almost the same color as snow and a black dress was sorting through a pile of marbles. A very, very, familiar person.
Cid lifted up a finger and opened his mouth but no sound came out. His brain couldn’t think of anything that would really help the situation.
Cid stood up, to look at the person from a different angle, wanting proof that he was hallucinating, or that this was not the same person who could go through walls and had a habit of lighting entire residential areas on fire.
"Yup, I’ve gone bonkers," Cid said to himself. "I’m getting beaten up by my own hallucinations. Right, first thing I’m gonna do is get myself committed. Preferably somewhere nice and warm. Hey, wait a minute, that’s MY materia!"
"I’ll give it back," Sephiroth said, as if he were asking someone to wait while he tied his shoes.
Cid suddenly realized not only had his hallucination practically beat him up for his lunch money, but that it was bleeding all over the snow. "You’re hurt pretty bad there."
Sephiroth turned his head and glared at Cid, not impressed by Cid’s skills at deduction. "If you’re bleeding that badly, I MUST be hallucinating.
"Goddamnit, now figments of my imagination hate me!" Cid yelled.
"You spear’s over there," Sephiroth said, turning back to the materia.
"So… you gonna kill me or am I already dead?"
"What do you think."
"I think I just lost my fucking marbles," Cid said. "And you seem to be playing with them."
Sephiroth ignored him, having found the Materia he was looking for. Cid would have wandered away at this moment if the materia hadn’t been in his wallet and he really wanted both of them back.
There was a soft flash of green light and Sephiroth stretched his healed right arm and wiped blood off his face. "Better," he said. "Now, why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?" Cid asked. "Like I feel like I’m going to lose a sanity contest with a transvestite who has a Oedipus complex for an extraterrestrial? Like I just had sex with a praying mantis and I’m wondering why I haven’t been eaten? It’s just one of those days and I haven’t had a cigarette."
"This is NOT a dress!" Sephiroth yelled.
There was a very long pause as both men wondered if they had smoked something weird recently.
"I am not having this conversation," they both muttered to themselves.
Cid was the first to do anything. He spun around, grabbed his spear and bolted towards the village. He didn’t care how long it took him to get there, as long as he found a good wall to beat his head against until they locked him up or things started making sense.
After about a mile, Cid began to tire out and was reduced to a slow, very numb walk. He stopped and looked around to see if he was going in the right direction. He could finally see the village. It was less than a mile away. It was right there. He would just get in a warm plane and wait until spring to come out.
Then he heard footsteps behind him.
He turned around.
"What?" Sephiroth asked.
Cid took a deep breath. "Motherfuckinghellbitchballsucking…" Cid rattled off energy expletive he could remember, even a few Aeris had taught him in the Cetra language, repeating words when he ran out. "Okay…" Cid said, after almost half an hour. "I feel much better now."
"You found me."
"And you hit me on the head."
"I never was one for diplomacy. Either you were wondering who threw the bomb in the crater or you just won the world record for getting lost on the way to the store."
"The last thing I need is a psychopathic—bomb?"
"Someone threw a bomb down the crater. Along with something capable of killing Jenova."
"There was technology to… God-fucking-damnit! Why do I always get stuck doing things the dumb way?" Cid yelled. "Wait… this means you’re not going to kill anyone, right."
"Only the person who took my sword."
"What kind of complete lunatic would throw a bomb down the northern crater? They’d have to be so crazy it’d make you look sane."
"There is a difference between Jenova and insanity."
"Just like there’s a difference between that thing you’re wearing and a dress."
"This is a trench coat!"
"Trench coat my sore ass!" Cid yelled, and continued walking. As he got to the village, he turned back to see if he was still being stalked. No one.
"I am really starting to envy Reeve right now," Cid muttered, then stopped in his tracks.
The hotel was gone. Unless one wanted to get technical about it. In that case it wasn’t gone, but merely very flat.
The whole village was emptier than usual. There was only a mother and her two scared children watching from a distance as the authorities—minus the plant—picked through the debris.
"What the hell went on here?" Cid asked.
"Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave. We have orders to evacuate the city," one of the men replied.
"Then who are they?" Cid asked, pointing at the woman and her kids.
"The village paramedics."
"The what? Where's—"
"Sir, everyone’s left for North Corel."
"Hey, Jimmy!" His buddy yelled to him. "Looks like Rex found something! Oh my God, I think it’s alive!"
"What’d she fi—Holy shit!" the man yelled as he and Cid ran over to take a look. The dog was pulling on a bronze piece of metal, shaped like a limp arm, and struggled to tug something heavy still attached to it out of the wreckage.