//:Teaser://    
    

         No matter what happens, always make a graceful, if not
    spectacular exit, I say.  Now the way I spun that bitch, Tifa, for a loop
    and then leapt off the platform, that was a bit showy, I'll admit.  But
    damned if I was gonna let Clod-boy and his friends know how much I
    was hurting.  Nope, up and over the railing I went, dropping off into
    space and trusting Tseng to be there with the chopper and sidecar. 
    Heh.  Clod-boy and his AVALANCHE buddies didn't expect that one.  It
    was worth the jump, just to see their faces when Tseng showed them
    our "special guest."  So much for trusting Clod-boy as a "bodyguard."
    
         Clod-boy?  His name's Cloud Strife, actually.  Talk about laying
    a shitload of meaning on a kid.  He lives up to both halves of his name,
    too, let me tell you.  The Strife part is obvious.  I mean, anyone who
    carries around a two-handed meat-cleaver - ahem! I mean broadsword
    - is bound to stir up a lot of shit.  And Cloud?  Well... that's another
    story, for another day.  Ask me when I'm a little less than sober, and
    maybe I'll tell you.
    
         So there we were, we had the Ancient, the Sector 7 plate
    dropped, and that should have been the end of our AVALANCHE 
    problems.  But no.... they turned up again - waltzing right in through
    the front door of Shinra Headquarters, none-the-less!  Hmm... come to
    think of it, maybe the problem there is with their name as well.  Think
    about it: dropping the plate was an awful lot like a mechanical/metal
    avalanche, wouldn't you say?  So maybe it's no big surprise that
    AVALANCHE managed to escape Shinra's avalanche.  Cloud probably
    floated them all away.  Wouldn't surprise me in the least.
    
         I'm rambling, aren't I?  And here you were probably thinkin'
    this was an action/adventure story.  Heh.  Well, problem is there ain't
    no action, and sure as hell no adventure when you're stuck in a Midgar
    hospital for days on end.  If my ideas seem a little whacked to you, blame
    it on the painkillers the damn doctors pumped into me.  They're all
    related to Hojo, I'm sure, the way they want to "test things out on you" 
    and peer at you like you're a bug under glass or somethin'.  Yeah, I 
    may be Mako-enhanced, but I'm still human, dammit!
    
         Anyway. . . .  here I lie, or sit, or lounge, all alone, while my
    partner is out kicking AVALANCHE's butt again.  Least I hope he is, cuz
    nobody's bothered to bring me a report lately.  Me - a Turk! - relying
    on Midgar TV for news.  Shit!

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07/15/99 Tavam Shaytar