CHAPTER 19

"It's started again," came an unknown voice.

"Whu?" was Zack's reply.  He was in such deep darkness that he couldn't even see himself.  Yet this did not bother him.  The creepy dingy music in his ears was kind of weird, though.

"It's up to you.  Are you up to it?"

"Uh, I don't know who you are, but bugger off!"

"...You don't seem to understand,"

"Ah, leave me alone! =P  Oh, hey, I used an emoticon!  Kewl..."

"Would you just listen to me for a second?"

"You know, for a mysterious guiding voice of unknown origins, you get real pissy, real easily.  Talk to me when you can take a joke.  I'm gonna go wake up now..."

"NO WAI-"

Zack blinked his eyes open.  He was looking at a peach-colored ceiling of a room with similarly painted walls.  The bed he was laying on was uncannily comfortable, making him regret sitting up off it, and swinging his feet onto the fine cherry wood floor.  He recognized his environment as the guest room in Aeris's house.  He stretched out and yawned for a good long several seconds before standing up and scratching himself.

Exiting the room, Zack carelessly went to make his way down the stairs, when suddenly there was a loud CREEAAAK!  He looked disdainly down at the partially popped up floorboard just as another door in the hall opened.

"Zack?  You're awake," Aeris noticed with a slight smile.  Even though her hair was a little bit of a mess, and there were hints of bags under her eyes, the young woman was still radiantly beautiful, or so Zack thought.

"Hey," Zack replied, "Uhm, were you sleeping? Sorry about that... Hey wait, what time izzit?!"

"Uuhm, it's about five-ish," Aeris estimated.

"Whadday mean?  I got here at six!"

"It's five A.M., Zack."

"Was I out that long?  What happened?"  Zack asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You passed out," Aeris told him, "And I have my suspicions about that.  Just give me a second and we'll be ahead on our way."

"Okay!" Zack said with a closed-eyed smile and nod.  Suddenly he opened his eyes again and gave Aeris a lost and confused look as she walked into the bathroom at the end of the hall.  "Uh, 'we'?  'Ahead on our way'?  Whaddya mean?"

Zack heard a faucet turn on, then Aeris proceeded to splash her face with water, rubbing her eyes.  Turning off the sink, she grabbed a brush and started putting it through her hair.  "Well, I'm going to escort you back to Sector Seven."

"You are?" Zack asked, more lost than before.

Aeris leaned her head out of the restroom and gave Zack a look he couldn't read.  "Yes, I am," she replied, and with that disappeared again.  After brushing her teeth and packing a few things into her purse, she swayed out of the bathroom, looking no worse for wear.

"Don't you wanna take a shower first?"  Zack asked.

"Took one a few hours ago," was Aeris's reply.

"You sleep in your clothes?"

"...Shut up, Zack.  We have to keep this moving!"

"What are you.."

"Nevermind!  Let's just go, okay?"

Zack thought about Aeris's current behavior.  She seemed to be in some kind of hurry, though for what reason or reasons he could not discern.  He then realized he didn't know what "discern" even meant.

A short while later, the two former lovers had made their way to the wall which separated sectors Five and Six.  After squeezing through a small hole, Zack stood upright and held out his sword.

Aeris gave him a puzzled look.

"There was this house that was giving me shit earlier," he offered as an explanation.  With that, Aeris revealed her metal rod and extended it to its full length.  Zack noticed that it was packed to its capacity with three materia gems, and smiled.  "My, someone came prepared!"

Aeris gave Zack a grin, "Speaking of which," she started as she dug through her purse, "I want you to have this."  She revealed another materia gem -this one purple-, and handed it to Zack, who placed it into his sword.

"Wait, which one is this again?" the ex-SOLDIER asked, as he was never too good with materia to begin with.  He could use spell materia pretty well, but was otherwise inept.

"It's a surprise," Aeris replied coyly, smiling a bit wickedly to herself.

After making their way across a make-shift pipe bridge over a small chasm in the broken road, the two companion's preparedness came in handy as a large house sprang up out of nowhere in front of them, shaking the ground as it landed!

"...Man, what were they smoking when they came up with this one?" Zack muttered to himself.  "Back me up!" he then yelled out to Aeris, already charging the monstrosity.  Swinging hard at nowhere in particular, Zack was pleased when a large chunk of wood got chopped off the large form before him, causing it to reel in pain.  Slashing again, Zack managed to cut deep, causing ethereal black blood to flow out of his opponent.

The house spun around, hitting Zack with its corner.  It wasn't the kind of attack the ex-SOLDIER was used to, causing him to resort to rolling with the impact when it finally hit him.  The house was rearing back to jump onto the human, when suddenly it found itself surrounded and scorched by a tower of flame!

Aeris looked at the monstrosity with cool, confident eyes as she prepared another spell.  Unfortunately, she didn't get the chance.

Leaping into the air, the house came back down between the two travelers, causing the ground to explode into flame as it touched down!  Zack and Aeris fell as they found themselves scorched by the attack, unaware of what was truly happening.

Zack had closed his eyes for only a moment, but when he reopened them, he was in for a shock.  The house had grown large metallic arms, split in half and had a gigantic scrap-metal skull.  The skull held deep shallow red eyes, black smile oozed from its gaping mouth, full of razor sharp teeth.  It raised a clawed arm to strike down at Aeris...

Zack knew he couldn't make it in time, and all he could do is sit by hopelessly while Aeris was about to be torn to shreds.

Or so he thought.

The violet orb in his sword began to glow, and suddenly the former SOLDIER found himself propelled with incredible speed beyond his will.  He then found himself stopped right in the way of the claw just before it connected!

Zack flew back and over Aeris with a yell as a bit of blood spilled from his face.  Bouncing off the ground like a flat stone skipping on water, the young fighter tried his best to stop and get back into the fight.

The creature clawed at the young woman again, who deflected the blow gingerly with her staff.  It opened the beast up for only a moment, which was all the time she needed.  "BOLT!"

Thunder and lightning rocked down from the sky, hitting the monster in a successive series of jolts while decimating the concrete below what passed for its feet.  This was more than enough to totally destroy the creature as it exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere, accompanied by a terrible blood curling scream which echoed for several seconds after the creature was dead and gone.

Zack finally got himself back up and sheathed his sword back behind himself.  He walked up to Aeris who was dusting herself off and shot her a raised eyebrow.  "You gave me a cover materia?"

"Came in handy, didn't it?" Aeris replied with a smile.

The two kept walking as they continued their conversation.

"Well, ya could of TOLD me..."  The raven haired fighter mumbled half in spite.

"You were in SOLDIER, shouldn't you of learned to identify materia with your eyes closed?" Aeris asked in an attempt to slightly humble the man next to her.

"Nope, missed class that day, too busy kicking ass," Zack quipped in return.

The former lovers made their way up onto an elevated part of the road by climbing up a rusted old crane-truck.  Zack was amused when Aeris managed to climb it and make her way up onto the road with no help from him whatsoever.  Zack had never known Aeris to be a physically strong person, though she obviously had been working out a little lately.

Eventually, the concrete street evened off and stopped, giving way to a dirt road.  After another minute of walking, they came to a very familiar playground just outside the sector seven gates.  In the middle of the dilapidated play area was a large dome-shaped white slide, which resembled some kind of animal Zack once heard of called a "Mog", and upon seeing it, a smile came to his face.  He glanced over at Aeris, who saw his reaction and blushed in return, apparently recalling the same memory he had.

"Hey," the blue-eyed young man started, "Remember that time when.."

Aeris cut him off, "We don't have time for another flashback," she said, trying to hide a smile.

Zack paused for a moment before responding.  "You're no fun," he finally lamented.  Hey eyed the slide and quickly hopped up on top of it.  He turned around and waved to his companion.  "Hi Aeeerrriiis!" Zack said quietly, pretending he was far away.  "Hey, c'mon up here for a sec," he then said with a motion of his hand.

Aeris's eyes widened a little before she turned her head away, trying to hide the slight blush she felt coming on.  A memory from a lifetime ago stirred in her mind, and she again remembered that this was not how things were supposed to be.  SHE was supposed to be on that slide, motioning to Cloud... or so she thought.  Bits of anger, frustration, confusion all started growing inside of her, all feelings she was not used to, making it all the more harder on the young flower-girl.  When life does not come through on its promises, and your supposed-to-be-dead-ex is sitting in front of you as if nothing was wrong, Aeris then wondered how in the world she was SUPPOSED to feel.

Shaking her head in a vain attempt to free herself from such ponderings, Aeris walked towards the slide and climbed up the ladder in the back, and joined Zack up on top.  Almost instantly, Zack stood up and started jumping lightly on the plastic bubble.

"I wonder how sturdy this thing is?" he mused out loud, his boots creating a rhythmic thumping against the sturdy play-plastic.

"Let's not find out," Aeris replied with a chuckle and giving Zack a humored look.  "Sit down, will you?"

"Oh, you're no fun," the young man muttered, feigning disappointment.  He let one leg kind of hang on the slide while he brought up the other to place his arm on.  "So, what've you been up to?"

"...Not a lot."

"Oh come ON, it's been five years, you have to of done SOMETHING of interest!"

"Not really," Aeris replied a bit shyly, "Just... waiting for destiny."

"Pff, sounds boring.  Beats living in a tube for five years though," Zack replied, ignoring the ambiguous mysteriousness of that last comment.

At that, Aeris gave Zack a sad look.  "You know, I always thought... I thought that you had found someone else.  I mean, I later realized that you d... er, I mean..." 

"Hm?" Zack asked, not catching the last part.

"What I meant was... No, forget it, it's nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing!" Aeris fibbed, perking up to conceal her deceit.

"So..." Zack tried after a few awkward silent moments, "What about boyfriends?  I'm sure you've had a few, right?"

"Uhm well... Not that it's your business, but... No."

"Well why the heck not?  You got body, you got style, but what ya also seem to have is some de-nial!" Zack replied, rapping out that last part.

The flower girl chuckled, shaking her head.

"Seriously, what's up?  I can't believe you didn't hook up with any-"

Zack then suddenly paused, and exaggerated a wide eyed look.

"...What?" Aeris asked after a silent moment.

"Holy shit," Zack muttered slowly, "You DID become a lesbian!" he shouted out, pointing a finger and arching back in surprise.

"AAAUUUGH, Zack, that's disgusting!"

"Hey, hey, I'm cool with it," Zack replied, holding up his hands, "Just tell me, is or was she cute?"

Aeris lowered her eyes and repressed the urge to smack the young SOLDIER with her rod upside his spiky head.  "Zack, I am NOT a lesbian..." 

"Pff, and here I thought you were open minded," Zack teased, shrugging.

Aeris gave in to her temptations a little, and bopped the brat on the side of the head lightly with her weapon.

"Ow!  That thing kinda hurts!" Zack said with a smile, rubbing the side of his head despite the lack of any real injury.  "So honestly, what's up?  You waiting for that one person or something?"

"...Sorta..."

"Well then you should go out and live a little while you're waiting for him.  I mean, I don't care if this is the guy you end up traveling the world with and dying for someday, if he's not around now or anytime soon, you should really get out there, make some dorks feel worthwhile and THEN go live happily ever-after.  I mean, all we have to live for is the present, right?"

Aeris blinked when Zack said this, and looked at him with a bit of intrigue.  "Wow, that's almost profound.  I'm afraid I don't quite agree with all of that, though."

"Oh?"

"Well, its just, when you know what the future has in store, you don't want to mess that up."

"Yeah, and how do you know?  How does anyone know?  I mean, I don't believe much in 'destiny' and stuff, I prefer to think I'm in charge of my own life."

"But what about other things that effect you?  From what others do to things that happen out of no where?  You have no control over any of that, yet it still effects your future." 

Zack was about to argue against that point, when suddenly a loud grinding noise could be heard behind the two.  Turning around, they saw the Sector Seven gates several yards away begin to open, revealing a large yellow bird-like creature drawing a cart behind it.  It came down the street a ways and turned down the dirt path to the right.  Just as it did that, two figures -females- could be seen riding inside the gold and scarlet colored wooden carriage.  One of the women Zack couldn't recognize, but the other one was definitely...

"TIFA!?" Zack yelled out, standing up.

"Well, looks like -some- things are still normal around here after all," Aeris muttered to herself.  Suddenly she brightened up.  This just might be her chance to amend things.  She leapt off the slide and ran down the street after the cart, but then stopped and turned around.  "Zack! C'mon!"

"Huh?  Why?"

"Tifa's in trouble!"

"What makes you think..."

"TRUST me!"  Aeris replied adamantly, her emerald eyes gazing at Zack with fiery intensity.

Blinking in confusion, Zack shrugged and joined Aeris in her pursuit of the cart.

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