- ⚔ ── 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐃 ！
❝ 𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃 𝙸 ❞ male • human • ff7 • tags: --
A few slow, sluggish blinks of mako-tinted eyes were the first sign of life in the quiet inn room Cloud had been placed into. As soon as his most base level of awareness had set in, the rest came crashing down as though a roof had collapsed on top of him. The cramped, repurposed restroom which had served as his apartment back in Sector 7 wasn't the kind of place most people would've longed to be, but there was something to be said for the comfort of familiarity - no matter how rough or run-down that familiar thing was. This place was much neater, much more comfortable-looking, but that only made it all the more unsettling. It seemed almost like it was meant to lull him into a false sense of security, to assume that this place was safe just because of its modest, warm atmosphere. The only thing that looked out of place in the room was the huge broadsword propped up against the dresser; as soon as Cloud caught sight of the blade, he sprang to recover it. It looked undamaged, and both its materia slots still glowed softly with green, appearing to not have been tampered with. Satisfied with his initial examination, Cloud hefted the sword onto his back, glad to be armed at the very least. His weapon recovered, Cloud then moved across the room towards the window, through which filtered an abundance of pale light. Pulling back the curtains, he squinted his blue-green eyes into the glare of the sun. The real sun, and a flat blue sky - confirming that he was certainly nowhere in lower Midgar anymore. Though, this didn't look like plateside either, lacking the oppressive industrial air that permeated even the upper-class districts of the city. As he was debating such, he was abruptly distracted by the announcement starting to blare through the room, coming from some sort of previously-unnoticed loudspeaker system. On one hand, it was courteous of his captors to at least offer some sort of explanation for why he was here (or why they were here, as whoever was talking over the p.a. system seemed to be addressing multiple people), but on the other hand, that wouldn't have been necessary if they hadn't essentially kidnapped him in the first place. Cloud also wasn't sure he trusted this mysterious explanation. The aspects of it weren't entirely unfamiliar to him; the 'spell' they'd alluded to sounded a bit like a summon of some sort, but he'd never heard of one that lasted for anything more than a very brief window of time, and as well they were almost exclusively reserved for very powerful entities. As far as fighting monsters went, much of lower Midgar had had problems with various mutated pests, though as far as he knew no sector's watch had ever abducted anyone to help deal with them. That seemed like a bit of an extreme option - though, maybe these people really were just that desperate. Of course, that still didn't soften Cloud's feelings towards whoever had dragged him here: after all, they weren't even offering gil or any sort of reward for the help they'd requested; it seemed more like they just expected help from their victims as a 'well-since-you're-already-here' sort of consequence to the whole situation.
That idea irritated the mercenary to no end, especially since he'd already been involved with a job back home, which he'd now been rather abruptly torn away from. Tifa and the rest of the gang might even be missing him - or worse yet, worrying about him. Though, they all knew he was more than capable of handling things on his own, as Barrett would no doubt remind them. Hopefully they wouldn't spend too much time trying to search for him or anything and just keep on without him, as he had to by himself - though that was far from a new idea to Cloud, and indeed he had always asserted that that was how he preferred things. Now that he was on his own, however, it didn't feel very gratifying. Finally, Cloud, made his way out the door and into the hallway, giving a cautious glance in both directions to look for any signs of unexpected danger. It seemed the look of the room had not deceived him, as this did indeed appear to be some sort of upscale hotel. At one end of the hall was a stairwell, which Cloud followed down to what he assumed was the ground floor. It seemed that at least a few other people had already left their own rooms and were milling about in and near what appeared to be a lobby of some sort. A very tall, metal-plated robotic-looking creature stood out in particular, though as it wasn't starting to cause havoc just yet Cloud refrained from doing anything antagonistic. Shinra had mostly used mechs as weapons, though as Cloud advanced into the lobby he could see that there was a machine behind the desk in addition to the aberrant mechanical entity he had noticed at first. Maybe robots served a different purpose here? Cloud hoped so, but if worst came to worst he wouldn't feel bad about reducing a few automatons to scrap metal. A soft sigh escaped his lips as he looked over the rest of the people in the room - all the rest of which, thankfully, appeared to be human. They probably knew no more about what was going on than he did, or at least would claim as much. He considered attempting to speak with the robotic receptionist, but that notion left him a bit uneasy. Perhaps instead he could just take up a position along the wall and eavesdrop, keeping an ear out for anything suspicious? Or, he could just leave - it didn't look like the front door was locked. Against what was arguably his better judgement, Cloud chose not to take his leave right away. Instead, he quietly brushed his way up to the wall, not sitting down but just leaning back, conveniently within earshot of anyone who approached the front desk. His spiky hair partially covering his face and eyes glittering metallic with quiet, unvented anger, Cloud hoped he struck an intimidating enough figure too keep anyone from trying to distract him.
