Ayen
White Mage
Final Fantasy and the Crimson Vulture
Episode One
From Above
Episode One
From Above
His eyes awoken just in time to see that he was falling from the sky to an inevitable death. With nothing but air underneath his body and gravity forcefully pulling him down from a high distance he had apparently fallen from, the only thing this male had to look forward to was a swift death. Screams escaped his mouth and echoed through the air as he crashed through the ceiling of a building and as his body came to a sudden stop against the ground everything went black.
This would not be the end of him however as his eyes would open again and greeting him this time was a female, emerald green eyes staring back at him as the bangs of her long brown hair framed her face nicely side to side, a pink ribbon tying up her hair as she wore a pink dress that went down to her shins in length, fastens up in the front and is made complete with a red bolero jacket.
The kind looking young woman brought a hand to his wrist but he jumped in reaction and quickly scooted away from the lady looking up at her with fear in his eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Where am I?”
“It’s all right,” the girl answered. “Nobody is going to hurt you.”
The male looked around in what appeared to be an abandon and broken down looking church. He tilted his head back and looked up towards the hole which were created through his fall, now allowing a ray of sunlight to enter the church and bring out the beauty in the flowerbed which was now underneath him.
“My name is Aerith,” the girl continued, “you fell from the sky. Luckily my flowerbed was here to break your fall.”
The male took a look at the flowerbed beneath him before running a hand through his short blond hair. Bringing his hand down to his flat forehead, across his pointed nose as eyes of a sapphire blue looked over his hands until he finally pulled himself up to his feet and off the flowerbed.
“What’s your name?” Aerith asked.
“My name….?”
The male thought for a moment, trying to remember his name but all that came into his thoughts was a void of emptiness. No name came to mind and that scared him as he looked back to Aerith unsure of what to even say.
“What’s the matter?” asked Aerith.
“My name…. I can’t remember it. I can’t remember anything before the fall.”
“You mean you have amnesia?” Aerith asked with a frown. “We already did this plot thread in Final Fantasy VI!”
“Final Fantasy VI?” the male repeated, looking very confused.
“Never mind,” Aerith spat out quickly. “I can tell you’re not from around here. I don’t remember ever seeing that uniform before.”
The blond took a closer look at his clothes, they appeared to be a crimson red color uniform with black gloves and a pair of black combat boots. On the right shoulder of the uniform was a black emblem with a vulture on it and the words The Crimson Vulture
“The Crimson Vulture,” said the man softly.
“Does it ring any bells?”
He merely shook his head in response.
“Check your pockets,” Aerith suggested. “Maybe you can find an ID or at the very least a name tag.”
The blond male took her suggestion and began looking through all of his pockets, but much to his dismay he found nothing to identify himself with. All he could find was a couple of potions and a phoenix down. Not even a weapon.
“That’s unfortunate,” said Aerith. “Well you fell from the Sector 5 Reactor,” she continued while pointing up to the broken ceiling. “Maybe the answers to your questions are still waiting for you there. I can show you the way if you want.”
“How do you know where I fell from?”
“Call it an educated guess,” replied Aerith with a grin.
Suddenly the sounds of footsteps could be heard slowly approaching them from the entrance of the church. Both the blond and Aerith looked over to see four people walking in-between the set of pews on both sides of the room across from them. Two of them were dressed in blue sleeveless turtle neck sweaters with baggy pants and armor covering their head, chest and shoulders with leather accents holding them in place.
Leading them were two men in black suits, the first one being noticeably taller than the other, bald but with facial hair covering his chin and black sunglasses leaving a face which were already lacking in facial expression more lacking. The other suit jacket was left undone with an untuck dress shirt on underneath it. This one had a more cocky yet laid back look about him compared to the other guy. His hair was red, long and held up in a ponytail with red marks visible on his cheekbones and a pair of goggles on his forehead.
“What do you want?” asked Aerith.
“We just want to talk,” replied the red head.
“Somehow I doubt that.”
The blond could tell that Aerith was not happy at all to see them. His sapphire blue eyes looked back at the bald man as he was pulling back on his black gloves. The two men in blue ready for action as the red-head just scratched his head.
“Friend of yours?” the blond asked.
“The red-head is called Reno and the other is Rude. But I would hardly call them friends.”
“Oh sis that one hurt my feelings,” said Reno.
“It was very rude,” said Rude.
“Now you can either come quietly,” began Reno.
“Or we can drag you out,” finished Rude.
After about a brief pause the blond moved in front of Aerith and looked at the two men.
“Is that any way to treat a lady?” he asked.
Reno looked right pass the blond and over to Aerith.
“Hey sis, who is this?”
“My bodyguard,” replied Aerith.
Reno shook his head, looking towards his small group before looking back to the blond and Aerith.
“She always has a damn bodyguard,” Reno muttered.
The blond male realized he was out numbered four to one, or four to two depending on whether or not Aerith could fight. While watching Rude cracking his own knuckles he took a few steps back towards Aerith and whispered, “I don’t have a weapon.” meanwhile never keeping his eyes off the group.
“Look like we have to rough house,” said Reno.
Aerith looked at the blond before looking back to the others, getting in front of her newly declared bodyguard she spoke, “You can’t fight here! You’ll ruin the flowers.”
“You’re right we wouldn’t want to ruin the flowers,” said Reno.
“That would be rude,” said Rude.
Reno let out a small sigh as he turned to Rude and said, “You may want to lay off the puns, man.”
“What puns?” Rude asked.
The blond’s attention was drawn away from the two suits as Aerith poked his shoulder with her finger and whispered, “Follow me!”
The blond watched Aerith run off into the back of the church and quickly followed. Aerith led him to the church stairway and they climbed up one flight of steps as one of the two blue soldiers came into the room. At the top of the first flight of steps was a barrel and upon seeing it Aerith just grinned.
“When your back’s against the wall do a barrel role!”
Aerith kicked the barrel down the flight of stairs causing it to run right over the blue solider. Proud of herself Aerith resumed leading the blond up stairs while the rest of Reno’s party entered the room.
Both Aerith and the blond climbed up a ladder leading them to the roof top where more barrels could be found. With a sort of devilish grin on Aerith’s face she looked back to the blond and pointed at the barrel which was perfectly positioned to fall on top of Reno.
“Drop a barrel on his head!”
“How can we get out of here?”
“Drop a barrel on his head!”
“Aerith we need a way---!”
“Drop a barrel on his head!”
The blond merely growled before walking over to the barrel and tipping it over, however it ended up missing him by two feet. Aerith’s jaw dropped in amazement at how terrible that was considering it was aligned perfectly to hit him and he botched.
“Oh for the love of crap try harder than that!” said Aerith.
“Hey I had a rough day!”
“I’d say,” replied Aerith as she tilted over another barrel which fell on the second blue soldier which was trying to make his way up the stairs below.
“That’s two for the flower girl!”
“I wouldn’t want to rain on your parade but we do need a way out of here unless you want us to fight the other two with our bare hands.”
“Speak for yourself I have a staff.”
“How nice,” the blond said sarcastically.
“This way,” said Aerith pointing over to the large opening further down the roof.
The blond scratched his head, wondering how he could miss such an obvious opening but he dismissed the thought after hearing Reno and Rude catching up to their position. He jumped out through the opening after Aerith, finding himself on top of the church and with no time to waste he jumped off and rolled upon hitting the ground to break his fall.
“Are you crazy!?” Aerith exclaimed. “We could have jumped on top of the objects next to the church!”
“Come on!” said the blond, opening his arms wide to catch her.
Aerith shook her head and jumped down, being caught and set down by the blond as Aerith took the lead again.
“Now we need to get to Sector 7, but first we should visit the town not far off from here and buy some things,” said Aerith.
“Wait a minute,” interrupted the blond. “You said I fell from the Sector 5 Reactor. Why do we need to go all the way to Sector 7?”
“Because the Sector 5 Reactor and all others like it are heavily guarded by their sort,” replied Aerith, nodding her head to the church where Reno and them were. “You can’t just expect to walk through the front door! You need to break in and if you’re going to break in you need the best. Fortunately for you I happen to know the best but they reside at a bar in Sector 7 Slums. Now we need to get going before---!”
“Hey!”
Aerith and the blond looked up to see Reno and Rude now standing on the roof.
“---they find us,” Aerith finished.
With no barrels to save the day our two heroes looked at each other and then made a run for it! The pair nearly ran over a poor innocent bystander as they tried hard to escape the clutches of Reno and Rude which were still hot on their tail.
“How do we lose these guys?” asked the blond in the midst of their run.
“We would have lost them by now if you ha---!”
Aerith would be unable to finish her sentence however as out of nowhere a blue portal opened up right in front of Aerith’s path, sucking her into God’s know where as the blond came to a screeching halt at the display.
“What the hell….”
The male looked back to see Reno and Rude closing in. With no other alternative he looked back to the portal Aerith had gone through and jumped in, feeling himself going through what felt more like a wormhole than an actual portal, not knowing where it would lead.
To Be Continued In...
Episode Two
The Little Black Mage
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