Final Fantasy VII: 15 - Hats
This sequel to this. I hope I explained enough of the references to Pokemorph culture that it's not too confusing to someone who doesn't know the verse.
Title: I Find Your Lack of Paranoia Disturbing
Author/Artist: purplekitte
Pairing: Cloud, Zack/Sephiroth/Aeris
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII, crossover with Pokemon (Pokemorphs universe)
Theme: Jamie's list, 15 Hats
Ratings/Warnings: PG, kidnapping and little violence off-stage
Cloud hugged his knees up to his chin and willed his stomach under control.
Oh, the possibility of getting caught had always been there, but he’d always been able to pass and his mother had instilled in him a strong sense of paranoia. His hair covered all sign of his ears and his tail was so used to being squished inside his clothes he didn’t notice it anymore.
Despite his hair being sufficient, Cloud felt naked without his sweatshirt as if he’d been stripped completely. No Pokémorph was ever without hooded clothing, even those with hair or a hat. Well, maybe those few whose mutations didn’t include ears, but it seemed like such a universal paranoia of the culture. Not that he’d ever met another morph other than his mother, but he’d heard stories.
They had him in handcuffs of some kind of plastic. Not like they were going to identify him as an unregistered morph and then put an electric type in stainless steel.
The truck he was in the back of stopped abruptly, throwing him just a little and cutting the metal into his wrists. They were probably at the Team Rocket base. Cloud had lost track of distance, but he could pretend there had been a rockslide here in the mountains and he would be presented with an opportunity for escape.
There were a few muffled voices outside and thuds and fumbling with the back door of the truck. The man who opened it was in a black-and-red uniform, which Cloud thought indicated a high rank in the organization. He wasn’t one of the ones he remembered from earlier but it wasn’t surprising there were more of them. What was surprising was that he wore his orange Arcanine ears poking out from his spiky black hair and his pants and shirt were cut to accommodate his long tail and furry tuffs just above his ankles and wrists.
Oh, everyone always used the phrase that being a Pokémorph was a catch-22 of either having to work for Team Rocket and be on the run from the police or being on the run from the authorities and organized crime. It had just not occurred to him the freedom of not hiding a criminal might have. His uniform didn’t even have a hood.
He undid his handcuffs with a quick “Come on.” Was he that unintimidating? There were probably a dozen reasons not to, most of them leading to him getting shot, but he was going to go down like a real Pikachu. His mother would have been horrified to learn he had been practicing, even more so than she must have felt about him running away from home to become a Pokémon trainer, but he had. Reaching for the crackle of electricity inside his chest, his body shook with the Thundershock.
The Arcanine morph twitched with the attack, but didn’t go down. That’s that, Cloud thought. But the Rocket reacted, instead of with anger or violence, by yelling, “I told you we should dump the uniforms, Seph.”
“Then we’d hardly have been able to pull rank to get close and we’d have a different battle on our hands,” a male voice replied.
A woman stepped around the truck and into view. She wore no uniform, but pink, a lot of pink. Cloud’s brain started up again with the realization that maybe they weren’t Team Rocket.
“Hey, hey, jail break, kid. It’ll be a while before they notice the truck never arrived, but we should be making tracks.”
His rescuers, whoever they were, naturally assumed he would be going with them. He would, but that was beside the point. “W-wait… my Pokémon.”
“You were a trainer? Where--”
“This one.” Another man came into view, this one with long silver hair, cat-slit green eyes, and a long, thick purple tail. His uniform, at least, had a hooded cloak, though he had no idea what Pokémon he was. He tossed the Pokéball to Cloud.
Cloud instantly instinctively opened it to make sure Daring was alright. Yeah, it was dorky for a Pikachu Pokémorph to have a Pikachu, but it was true what they said about morphs being better able to understand Pokémon naturally, much better than humans, with almost complete fluency with their own species.
“H-how did you know…?”
“It was the only apricorn-made Pokéball,” the man--Seph?--explained.
Cloud blushed. In a small mountain town like Nibelheim mass-produced mechanical Pokéballs would never replace the old ways.
“So, what are you? A Jolteon?” At Cloud and Daring’s identical looks he correct himself. “A Pikachu. A Pikachu, right?”
“Go on ahead,” the silver-haired man ordered. “I’ll catch up when I’ve evaluated the equipment.”
The other man saluted automatically but casually. Cloud wondered how anyone expected to catch up to an Arcanine. Well, he’d be going slowly with him and the woman along, but it still sounded like an oxymoron.
The two morphs were more giggly than militaristic as they scampered along with a lack of caution that suggested they were only going to a very temporary hideout.
They were practically running uphill, holding hands. Cloud was only able to follow because of a lifetime in mountains craggier than this. A slight slip by one of them had them laughing even harder and the woman took the opportunity to pull the man aside for a kiss.
If they shouldn’t have been able to breathe, Cloud couldn’t. Pokémorphs never, ever kissed. It was just a rule as deep as hats, even in specific situations when there was no danger. Like two late-term AIDS patients having sex with each other, two people with the same clearly visible condition could not infect each other, it didn’t matter.
Cloud hopped up boulders and swung himself over ledgers with a mixture of skill and disregard for his safety. He squeaked and nearly fell when the silver-haired man appeared in front of and above him. He flailed but threw his body weight forward at the solid rock. Breathing deeply, he swung his legs over.
The man reached down to help the woman up, the other man pushing her up from beneath. He pulled her not just onto the ledge but into his arms and kissed her thoroughly.
Cloud did the eat-his-own-tongue thing again at the idea of morphs and his small town sensibilities immediately labeled the woman as some sort of prostitute. Trying to justify it, he immediately turned to Pokémon behavior as a guide to Pokémorphs. If she had been a flying type, which she clearly was not, then it would have been biologically natural for her to seek out multiple consorts for her eggs or some other species with strong gender differentiation and a clearly stronger female, like some bug types. Well, maybe a very powerful Pokémon would attract multiple consorts, regardless of type. Pokémon followed power more overtly than humans did and everyone always thought of morphs as bestial.
If prostitution, or some obscure species that practical polyandry, existed as a concept to Cloud, nothing prepared him for Seph also giving the black-haired man a hand up and kissing him just as completely.
His body finally squeaked and gasped up air, before the two men broke. The Arcanine noticed him again.
“We’re not quite sure what to do with you. The people we’ve picked up before have been little kids, so we took them home.”
People. Morphs. He missed the next bit, then jumped when he realized everyone was staring at him and tried to remember what he had been asked. Something… about where he wanted to go.
Where did he want to go? A ride to Ecruteak would be nice, but he wouldn’t want to trouble them with just that when he could walk. Then he’d go to the gum, assuming he didn’t end up in a cell, anyone’s. The life of a morph was the same thing over and over. What future was there? If he were brave he could be a hero and a militant and fight Team Rocket and its SOLDIERs like these people.
“Do you want to?” asked the woman brightly.
“Huh?”
“Do you want to fight Team Rocket?”
She was a psychic type too, must be. She was looking at him expectantly, the silver-haired man was looking at him measuringly, and the other man looked with puppy-dog confusion between the three of them.
“Pika!” Daring announced and it was true that Pokémorphs could understand Pokémon much better than your average human.
“Great!” said the dark-haired man who had evidentially figured out what was going on, slapping Cloud energetically on the back. “Welcome to… uh, not SOLDIER.”
Title: I Find Your Lack of Paranoia Disturbing
Author/Artist: purplekitte
Pairing: Cloud, Zack/Sephiroth/Aeris
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII, crossover with Pokemon (Pokemorphs universe)
Theme: Jamie's list, 15 Hats
Ratings/Warnings: PG, kidnapping and little violence off-stage
Cloud hugged his knees up to his chin and willed his stomach under control.
Oh, the possibility of getting caught had always been there, but he’d always been able to pass and his mother had instilled in him a strong sense of paranoia. His hair covered all sign of his ears and his tail was so used to being squished inside his clothes he didn’t notice it anymore.
Despite his hair being sufficient, Cloud felt naked without his sweatshirt as if he’d been stripped completely. No Pokémorph was ever without hooded clothing, even those with hair or a hat. Well, maybe those few whose mutations didn’t include ears, but it seemed like such a universal paranoia of the culture. Not that he’d ever met another morph other than his mother, but he’d heard stories.
They had him in handcuffs of some kind of plastic. Not like they were going to identify him as an unregistered morph and then put an electric type in stainless steel.
The truck he was in the back of stopped abruptly, throwing him just a little and cutting the metal into his wrists. They were probably at the Team Rocket base. Cloud had lost track of distance, but he could pretend there had been a rockslide here in the mountains and he would be presented with an opportunity for escape.
There were a few muffled voices outside and thuds and fumbling with the back door of the truck. The man who opened it was in a black-and-red uniform, which Cloud thought indicated a high rank in the organization. He wasn’t one of the ones he remembered from earlier but it wasn’t surprising there were more of them. What was surprising was that he wore his orange Arcanine ears poking out from his spiky black hair and his pants and shirt were cut to accommodate his long tail and furry tuffs just above his ankles and wrists.
Oh, everyone always used the phrase that being a Pokémorph was a catch-22 of either having to work for Team Rocket and be on the run from the police or being on the run from the authorities and organized crime. It had just not occurred to him the freedom of not hiding a criminal might have. His uniform didn’t even have a hood.
He undid his handcuffs with a quick “Come on.” Was he that unintimidating? There were probably a dozen reasons not to, most of them leading to him getting shot, but he was going to go down like a real Pikachu. His mother would have been horrified to learn he had been practicing, even more so than she must have felt about him running away from home to become a Pokémon trainer, but he had. Reaching for the crackle of electricity inside his chest, his body shook with the Thundershock.
The Arcanine morph twitched with the attack, but didn’t go down. That’s that, Cloud thought. But the Rocket reacted, instead of with anger or violence, by yelling, “I told you we should dump the uniforms, Seph.”
“Then we’d hardly have been able to pull rank to get close and we’d have a different battle on our hands,” a male voice replied.
A woman stepped around the truck and into view. She wore no uniform, but pink, a lot of pink. Cloud’s brain started up again with the realization that maybe they weren’t Team Rocket.
“Hey, hey, jail break, kid. It’ll be a while before they notice the truck never arrived, but we should be making tracks.”
His rescuers, whoever they were, naturally assumed he would be going with them. He would, but that was beside the point. “W-wait… my Pokémon.”
“You were a trainer? Where--”
“This one.” Another man came into view, this one with long silver hair, cat-slit green eyes, and a long, thick purple tail. His uniform, at least, had a hooded cloak, though he had no idea what Pokémon he was. He tossed the Pokéball to Cloud.
Cloud instantly instinctively opened it to make sure Daring was alright. Yeah, it was dorky for a Pikachu Pokémorph to have a Pikachu, but it was true what they said about morphs being better able to understand Pokémon naturally, much better than humans, with almost complete fluency with their own species.
“H-how did you know…?”
“It was the only apricorn-made Pokéball,” the man--Seph?--explained.
Cloud blushed. In a small mountain town like Nibelheim mass-produced mechanical Pokéballs would never replace the old ways.
“So, what are you? A Jolteon?” At Cloud and Daring’s identical looks he correct himself. “A Pikachu. A Pikachu, right?”
“Go on ahead,” the silver-haired man ordered. “I’ll catch up when I’ve evaluated the equipment.”
The other man saluted automatically but casually. Cloud wondered how anyone expected to catch up to an Arcanine. Well, he’d be going slowly with him and the woman along, but it still sounded like an oxymoron.
The two morphs were more giggly than militaristic as they scampered along with a lack of caution that suggested they were only going to a very temporary hideout.
They were practically running uphill, holding hands. Cloud was only able to follow because of a lifetime in mountains craggier than this. A slight slip by one of them had them laughing even harder and the woman took the opportunity to pull the man aside for a kiss.
If they shouldn’t have been able to breathe, Cloud couldn’t. Pokémorphs never, ever kissed. It was just a rule as deep as hats, even in specific situations when there was no danger. Like two late-term AIDS patients having sex with each other, two people with the same clearly visible condition could not infect each other, it didn’t matter.
Cloud hopped up boulders and swung himself over ledgers with a mixture of skill and disregard for his safety. He squeaked and nearly fell when the silver-haired man appeared in front of and above him. He flailed but threw his body weight forward at the solid rock. Breathing deeply, he swung his legs over.
The man reached down to help the woman up, the other man pushing her up from beneath. He pulled her not just onto the ledge but into his arms and kissed her thoroughly.
Cloud did the eat-his-own-tongue thing again at the idea of morphs and his small town sensibilities immediately labeled the woman as some sort of prostitute. Trying to justify it, he immediately turned to Pokémon behavior as a guide to Pokémorphs. If she had been a flying type, which she clearly was not, then it would have been biologically natural for her to seek out multiple consorts for her eggs or some other species with strong gender differentiation and a clearly stronger female, like some bug types. Well, maybe a very powerful Pokémon would attract multiple consorts, regardless of type. Pokémon followed power more overtly than humans did and everyone always thought of morphs as bestial.
If prostitution, or some obscure species that practical polyandry, existed as a concept to Cloud, nothing prepared him for Seph also giving the black-haired man a hand up and kissing him just as completely.
His body finally squeaked and gasped up air, before the two men broke. The Arcanine noticed him again.
“We’re not quite sure what to do with you. The people we’ve picked up before have been little kids, so we took them home.”
People. Morphs. He missed the next bit, then jumped when he realized everyone was staring at him and tried to remember what he had been asked. Something… about where he wanted to go.
Where did he want to go? A ride to Ecruteak would be nice, but he wouldn’t want to trouble them with just that when he could walk. Then he’d go to the gum, assuming he didn’t end up in a cell, anyone’s. The life of a morph was the same thing over and over. What future was there? If he were brave he could be a hero and a militant and fight Team Rocket and its SOLDIERs like these people.
“Do you want to?” asked the woman brightly.
“Huh?”
“Do you want to fight Team Rocket?”
She was a psychic type too, must be. She was looking at him expectantly, the silver-haired man was looking at him measuringly, and the other man looked with puppy-dog confusion between the three of them.
“Pika!” Daring announced and it was true that Pokémorphs could understand Pokémon much better than your average human.
“Great!” said the dark-haired man who had evidentially figured out what was going on, slapping Cloud energetically on the back. “Welcome to… uh, not SOLDIER.”