Merc For Hire (Final Fantasy VII)

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Sky’s eyes slowly opened to the sound of walking above her. “Geez… Whoever’s walking up there must really love waking people up…”

Sky rubbed her eyes groggily and almost rolled off the couch that she was laying on, but luckily saved herself from making contact with the floor. Planting her boots on the ground, she stood up and stretched her arms while yawning. Grabbing her hair band from the table beside her, she tied her hair into her ponytail that has a little chunk of hair over the front of her left shoulder, covering her iron shoulder pad that had a small crack down the center and was scratched from years of usage. She then grabbed her gray leather fingerless gloves and put them on. The pinball machine was down at her level. She figured that Tifa must have pulled the lever again so that Sky could use it to get back up to the main floor of the bar.

Sky sighed to herself and walked over to the pinball machine and stepped up on the platform in front of it. Pulling the lever, she was elevated up to the main floor of the bar. Tifa and Cloud greeted her along with other people that she had no idea who they were. She blinked a few times and turned over to a short tan skinned girl with white hair that faded to cyan. She had honey yellow eyes and she was wearing a green dress. Her white face markings were familiar. Her and the girl stared at each other in disbelief. The honey eyed girl ran up to Sky and wrapped her arms around her in a tight embrace. 

“Sky! I missed you so much!” The girl smiled.

“Uh… Moeka? You’re kinda cutting off my circulation here.” Sky replied.

The girl named Moeka released her grasp on Sky as she put her hand on the back of her neck and laughed in embarrassment. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“You’re excused this time.” The blonde replied before patting Moeka’s snowy hair. “By the way, nice nose ring.” Sky gestured towards Moeka’s golden nose ring.

Moeka laughed and replied, “Thanks! Love your ear piercings.”

Sky smiled softly at the girl. Moeka returned the smile and walked away towards a man with red hair who had his back turned to them all. Moeka lightly punched him in the back and smiled, “You gonna say ‘hi’ to Sky or not?”

The man turned to Moeka, half of his face was visible to Sky from the profile. His eyes were a blue-green color and he had a red tattoo that read ‘AVALANCHE’ on the right side of his face underneath his eye. He had a cigarette in his mouth and he looked at Moeka with a somewhat annoyed expression. The man looked so familiar… but Sky couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was extremely hard to tell, but he had a red bandana in his hair. To Sky, it looked like a part of his actual hair.

The red haired man turned and looked at Sky and smirked. “Nice to see ya, Dynamite.”

Sky knew this teasing nickname, and now she knew who she was looking at. She immediately groaned. “Not you, Kade…”

Kade laughed jokingly, “Whaaat? You don’t like having your former boyfriend around?”

The other people that were sitting at tables stared at Kade in confusion and disbelief. Sky hadn’t even noticed the people sitting there until one of them, a man with dark hair that is tied back by a red bandana similar to Kade, spoke up in disbelief, “Former what!? How—!? How is this even possible!? You of all people!?”

Kade takes a drag from his cigarette. “Chill out, Biggs. It’s no big deal.”

Sky balled her hand up into a fist like she was about to sock Kade off his barstool. Kade laughed in response as Moeka just stood there with her mouth hanging open in confusion.

“Anyways… Hey, Tifa, could I get another screwdriver?” Sky looked over at Tifa as she sat down at the counter. Tifa nodded in response and grabbed some ingredients from underneath the counter.