Chapter Text
Cloud didn’t like patrolling the scrap yards.
“Come on, Strife, keep up!” the other guardsman patrolling with him called out from up ahead. Cloud vaguely remembered his name was Lee. “The quicker we do this, the quicker we can leave!”
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Cloud said, not bothering to try to catch up. Lee wasn’t the worst person to be stuck on a patrol with by a long shot, but he clearly didn’t care much for Cloud beyond whether or not he did his job well enough for both of them to go home quickly.
Go in, check for any monsters causing enough problems that they’d need to be dealt with, then leave. Simple enough on paper.
It was less simple in practice. The scrap yards were like a labyrinth built entirely out of garbage.
Cloud looked up at the cliffs, looming overhead.
Midgar was built on top of steep cliffs, overlooking the sea. It was far too high up for anyone to easily climb up or down to the shoreline below; the only way down here was to go around a less steep route, through the slums.
It made the place an easy and convenient place for the people of Midgar to toss unwanted trash. It had slowly accumulated over the decades until heaps of trash built up a narrow shoreline at the foot of the cliffs, extending out into the water.
The constantly changing layout made it difficult to navigate, and an easy spot for smaller monsters to hole up in.
So no, Cloud didn’t like patrolling here much. Few people did.
“You’d think they’d have some of the royal knights clear these bigger monsters out,” Lee muttered.
“They’ll just come back,” said Cloud.
“Still, they’re a lot more trouble than either of us could hope to deal with.”
Cloud only shrugged. “Better hope we don’t find any, then.”
“Yeah. Let’s get this over with.” Lee nodded, stopping. “You sweep through that side, then. I’ll take this one.”
Cloud watched Lee walk off before he could voice any doubts about splitting up. He then suppressed a sigh. From what little interaction he’d had with Lee, Cloud didn’t think he would have listened anyway. The man was clearly more concerned with finishing early than the job itself.
Resigning himself to his task, Cloud trudged off in the other direction.
For a while, Cloud’s search was thankfully uneventful. All the better if it meant that they could leave sooner.
He walked through the maze of trash at a brisk pace, keeping an eye out for any monsters. He encountered more stray wererats than he expected, but it didn’t take much effort for Cloud to kill them.
He wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead after the tenth one, looking around the heaps of junk. Were there usually this many, or was there a nest nearby?
A clatter caught his ears, and he turned to look for the source. When nothing appeared, he quietly approached one of the piles, peering around it to look.
His hand tightened on the hilt of his weapon as he took in the sight.
That was a lot of wererats. Far too many for someone like him to deal with alone. Just his luck that he would stumble on their nest; He really wished Lee hadn’t been so eager to get this over with and run off without him.
As he stepped back to go find his partner, one wererat looked up, alert. It looked bigger and meaner than the rest. Its eyes immediately landed on him, and it gave a loud screech, drawing the rest of the wererats’ attention to him.
Cloud decided that was a good time to start running.
The place was even more difficult to navigate while Cloud was preoccupied with running, and he quickly found himself lost as he tried to shake the monsters off his trail. He picked paths at random, hoping it would help.
He should have known he wouldn’t be that lucky.
He turned another corner only to find the path abruptly ended in front of him; ocean water barred his way, lapping around the piles of debris and too deep to wade through. Cloud cursed to himself. The only escape was to jump in, or climb up.
Cloud grabbed a piece of rebar sticking out of one of the junk piles and began to climb, lifting himself just out of reach as the wererats tried to climb up after him. Once he climbed up a little further, Cloud then moved to hold on with one hand and took his standard-issue sword in the other, swiping at any wererats that came too close.
“Back off already!” he said aloud as he took another swing. Several wererats quickly met their end before they finally started to hesitate, giving Cloud an opening to climb further. Maybe he could climb over and find another path? He’d figure something out.
He heard a splash in the water nearby, but ignored it. As soon as he reached the top, he looked back to see the wererats had stopped.
The large wererat he’d seen earlier looked around, ears twitching as it sniffed the air. Then it gave another loud screech, and the wererats suddenly began to scurry off; after a few moments, they disappeared into the piles of trash, leaving Cloud alone.
Cloud frowned, lowering his weapon.
He wasn’t complaining, but that was weird. Monsters usually didn’t run off like that. Not unless they lost interest, or…
Or if there was a bigger monster nearby.
At that line of thought, Cloud quickly scrambled to climb down. He didn’t see or hear any other monsters nearby, but Cloud wasn’t willing to take his chances.
Moving as fast as he was, he didn’t see the cracked wood of one piece of scrap until it splintered under his weight. Thrown off balance, Cloud tried to grab something to stabilize himself, but the entire pile began to shift sideways, and he let out an involuntary yell of panic as he slipped and fell into the nearby water with a splash.
Cloud tried to right himself to resurface, but something heavy hit him before he could, partially pinning him under its weight. He realized some of the junk must have toppled right on top of him, and panic began to creep in as he struggled harder to free himself.
Then, the debris pinning him down suddenly lifted, and he felt a strong hand grab him by the back of his shirt, hauling him up to the water’s surface.
“That was close,” said an unfamiliar voice as Cloud coughed, catching his breath. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” he said, wiping the salt water out of his eyes so he could see. “Thanks. I can’t believe I almost got killed by garbage.”
A surprised laugh answered him. “Yeah, that would suck!”
When Cloud could finally see, violet eyes with slit pupils met his own.
Cloud froze as he took a better look at his rescuer. It wasn’t a man at all, but a mermaid. The mer had long, dark hair in a wild spiky mane, and dark blue scales covered most of his torso and arms, all the way down to his tail. His hands were currently on Cloud’s shoulders, and Cloud noticed that he had webbing between sharp clawed fingers, the same dark blue as his scales.
This had to be the bigger monster that scared those wererats off.
The mer, oblivious to his moment of panic, smiled brightly. “Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the junkyards either. I was worried for a sec when you fell, but I’m glad you’re alright!”
Cloud felt his brain short circuit.
“What?”
He finally seemed to notice how tense Cloud was and let go of him, holding up his hands. “Woah, hey, I’m not here to hurt you. Promise!”
Considering he’d just saved Cloud’s life, that wasn’t too hard to believe. But still, he had never really heard of a friendly mer. Or anything about them, really. He’d only ever heard once that they were rarely seen and considered dangerous, but this one was chatting with him like they were already friends. He didn’t seem like he was lying, either.
After a moment, Cloud relaxed slightly. “…Okay.”
The mer brightened a little. “Really? You believe me?”
Cloud frowned, confused. “Yeah?”
The mer grinned brightly. “Great! My name’s Zack!”
Cloud’s surprise only grew. That was… a shockingly normal name for a mermaid. “…Cloud.”
“Cloud, huh?” said Zack. “That’s a pretty nice name.”
“…Thanks?”
The sound of armored footsteps running caught both their ears, and Zack’s easy grin fell.
“Sounds like my cue to leave,” said Zack. He gave a lazy salute to Cloud. “See ya!”
Before Cloud could come up with a response, Zack disappeared into the water with a splash, leaving Cloud alone.
The footsteps approached a moment later, and Lee came into view.
“Strife!” Lee called out. “What the hell are you doing in there? This is no time for a swim!”
“I…” Cloud started. How could he explain what just happened? He barely knew himself. It was over so quickly, he half wondered if he had hallucinated the whole thing. But no, he was still soaked and scratched up to prove the encounter had been real. “…Sorry. A swarm of wererats got the drop on me.”
Lee sighed. “Well, shit, you had me worried it was something bigger. All this over wererats.”
Cloud couldn’t help feeling annoyed at Lee’s response, heat creeping up his face. “There were a lot of them,” he protested, swimming to the water’s edge to climb out.
“Yeah, yeah.” Lee then stepped forward to reach out a helping hand to Cloud. “We should head back. We’ve scouted enough to call it here, no point in you catching your death like this.”
“I’m fine,” Cloud insisted, reluctantly accepting the hand and letting Lee pull him up. The afternoon air was still warm enough, nothing like the coldest days in Nibelheim even with his clothes soaked through like this. It would be a miserable walk back, but he’d be fine.
“Just take the excuse, Strife,” said Lee.
Cloud resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead glancing back at the water. There was no sign of Zack.
“What’s the matter? You see something?” asked Lee.
Cloud shook his head. “Nothing,” he said curtly, turning away.