or "Cloud's Big Surprise" A Final Fantasy VII Alterniverse Fanfiction by The Cloaked Ghost
Final Fantasy VII, Tifa, Cloud, Barret, and all other characters are copyright and trademark of Squaresoft. Don't sue! :) Note: I'm using the original spellings in here. (i.e. Aeris -> Aerith) I like 'em better. Alright, let me set the record straight. Things get weird in here. Very weird. Kiddies, you might want to turn back now. No, no.. Make that, Kiddies below 18, I require you to turn back now. Tifa stood in front of her bedroom full-length mirror. Cloud was finally coming home today, after years away from her, bounty-hunting, building the new world, while she had kept New Nibelhiem in order. Looking at her new form, she couldn't help but marvel at how much she'd changed over the last few years. She posed, jutting her chest forward, in a sexy, suggestive stance. JEMS, it was all the fault of JEMS. Staring at the reflection in the mirror, she thought back to how her world had changed. Five Years Ago... Tifa held Cloud closely. Sephiroth was dead. Meteor was gone. The planet was slowly healing. Peace at last. They stood at the edge of the airfield in Junon, staring out over the ocean as the sun slowly sunk behind them. The moon, no longer blood-red from Meteor's fiery approach, preached the purity of this new age. As the moon rose, and dusk fell, Cloud had turned to her, and breathed what she had longed to hear for so many years. In two days the entire cadre had gathered at the Villa Cloud, to witness what they had known inevitable, and only as a matter of time. Now the time had come. At that day, five years ago, Tifa was wed to Cloud. The blessings heaped on them by everyone, the kind words from Cid, the flowers from Marlene, even Vincent's unusually warm and kind manner, it had all meant nothing. Tifa would not have cared if all those nice things had existed, for now she had everything she wanted since childhood: Cloud. Her life seemed complete. They had sold the Villa and used the money to rebuild Nibelhiem, three miles to the south of the original site, dubbing the little mock-village New Nibelhiem. However, at great cost, they had Tifa's original house restored and moved to the new site. At first, settlement had been slow, so they had the town to themselves, and enjoyed all sorts of illicit activities in between the constant upkeep and attention the maintenance of an entire town demanded. The occasional monster wandered near, but it was nothing the two couldn't handle quite easily. After a few weeks, word caught on of the fertile land around the town, and several farmers moved in, followed by the merchants, servicemen, and families. But the town remained small, for there was no real reason for industry to move in, and so it became almost a small trading stopover for travelers, but little more. Three months after they had founded New Nibelhiem, Cloud had told her he was leaving. There were calls for elite soldiers and bounty-hunters from the New Planetary Confederation, they paid well, and Cloud, despite the fortune accumulated from his adventures, needed a steady source of income if he were to father a family, which he truly intended to. The night before he left, she and Cloud had gotten together in their bedroom one last time. Cloud had grinned at her and joked about trying to start the family early. Tifa had only smiled and brushed it off. But that night, her life would be changed forever in a way she had never imagined. Cloud left the next day, and life had returned to normal. The New Planetary Confederation passed a mandate requiring all towns to switch from Mako to electric power, as the confrontation with Meteor had drained the planet more than anyone had thought. The changeover, while rapid, was by no means painless. Tifa had had to spend much of their money replacing light fixtures, rewiring, and replacing all their appliances. Cloud had begun sending gil back to her, along with pictures of him on the job, arresting criminals, hunting down the last monsters and mutants generated during the Old Age, as it was referred to, and always with a little love note. After the cables had been set up, and New Nibelhiem was wired into the communications network spreading across the face of the planet, she enjoyed weekly calls from Cloud. He regaled her with his tales of the world, and she kept him informed in the business in New Nibelhiem. Needless to say, he often had more to say than she did. And time passed enjoyably. Four Years Ago... Tifa had begun feeling sick to her stomach in the morning. Cloud had gotten excited the first week it had happened, thinking she had a delayed pregnancy. A short visit to the new doctor in town, Jyingu, had struck that down. He had given her some basic antacid medication, which did work for a few hours, but after that the pain and nausea returned. Dr. Jyingu was baffled, Cloud was worried, but Tifa had urged him to continue working. A recent rash of monsters had invaded from the north, and Tifa, though crippled by nearly constant burning sensations in her middle, had valiantly fought them off. The government had given her a Good Samaritan medal, then pushed her away. In a few weeks, the pain was unbearable, and Tifa was bedridden, barely containing howls of agony as she felt her insides caught in an unspeakable conflagration. Cloud, at that point, rushed to New Nibelhiem, only to find his beloved wife pale, sweating, and tearing chunks out of her mattress as the pain ate at her body. The next day, she was racked with fever and refused to eat, falling almost entirely unconscious to escape the pain. Cloud stayed by her side for hours at a time, leaving only to bring her water, to sleep, or to bring her food, which she valiantly refused. In days, she had wasted away from the strong, muscular, voluptuous girl he had married to a shivering, sheet-white skeleton. A week after her husband returned, Tifa slipped deeply into a malnourished coma. Dr. Jyingu gave her a ten- percent chance of survival, consoling Cloud in the best way he could, but foretelling that she would thin to nothing and die within the week. That night, Cloud had flung himself over the skin-covered bones that lay in bed and cried. He had focussed his thoughts on her, almost willing her to gain weight, to live again. He had lost Aerith, and he was certain he would lose her if not for a miracle. As his eyes were wrenched shut, wet with salty tears, the Jenoba cells in his body pulsed. From an outside point of view, he would have glowed, passing the glow to the nearly-gone figure under him. But he felt nothing but a slight tingle under a mountain of despair. Cloud cried himself to sleep for the first time that night, falling to the floor beside the bed. The next morning, Cloud awoke in a puddle of his own sweat and tears. But what he heard lifted his heart. Looking up, he saw his wife, moaning and squirming, with color in her cheeks, and mumbling his name. His heart soared. His prayers had been answered, Tifa was recovering. Later that day, she had opened her eyes to discover him standing over her, squeezing her hand tightly, kissing it, and staring down at her face. She tried to move, but had wasted so far as to be able to just wriggle her leg. She managed a smile, mouthed his name, and fell asleep again. In a few days, she was conscious as normal, but still bedridden and weak. Dr. Jyingu had proclaimed it a miracle, as had Cloud, who remained with her for all her waking hours. He read to her from the newspapers, fed her soups, and kept her company during her recovery. In a week, she had regained some mass, no longer a half-living skeleton, but still unhealthily thin. She could manage to walk downstairs, but required Cloud's assistance to get back up. She spent her days on the new couch, or in bed, or slowly exercising her slowly regenerating muscles back to tone. Cloud had to return to his job with the NPC two weeks later, but by then she was nearing her former shape. Given, she was still weaker and much slimmer when he left, but he bade her well and promised to call every few days. He had kept the promise until assured the next month, when she was back in shape and actively fending off the odd monster or two that wandered too near New Nibelhiem. The calls, now expensive due to the new installation of VidComms, were cut back to every weekend, and now that Tifa's recovery was complete, Cloud had gotten wrapped up more and more in his job. Tifa, more and more it seemed to her, was his weekly sponge for stories and news bits. Less and less did she get to chip in a word on New Nibelhiem's events or her own stabilization. Four months later, she began to lapse out of the stable diet Dr. Jyingu had told her to follow. He almost agreed when she returned to her own eating habits, but warned her at the first signs of illness to return strictly to it. Tifa smiled. She had not delved deep into the culinary arts before, favoring the martial instead, but saw cause now to take it up. She felt a new attraction to the kitchen, reasoning that it would be necessary when she mothered Cloud's children. That week, she was eager to share her new hobby with Cloud. As usual, the VidComm rang late on Saturday afternoon. Tifa looked up from a tomato sauce she was preparing, walked over to the unit, then received the call, allowing Cloud's face to appear on the monitor. He had been in Junon again, a dark tan belying that he had been on beach patrol again, probably hunting down the Sealings that had recently appeared there. "Hello, Tee-chan, my love... I had such an interesting.." Cloud greeted her. "Oh, Cloud! It's wonderful! I never realized how good cooking can make you feel." Tifa was glowing, proud that she had advanced so far in her hobby in a week. "Wonderful, but there was the big jellyfish, y'know, heading for Junon the other day, so me an' a few other Elites got sent.." "I hope you're coming home soon! I'll just have to cook you a tasty meal! When ya coming home, Cloud?" Tifa gushed. Cloud stared into the screen. "You feelin' okay, love?" Tifa nodded. "Really! It's fun! When ya coming home to me?" Cloud smiled an enigmatic smile. "Sometime, Tee-chan. I gotta work, ya know. Anyway, the thing comes rolling towards us..." Tifa sank into a trance, thinking of all the tasty and wonderful things she would cook when he came home as Cloud rattled off the tales of his accomplishments that week. "... So, Tee-chan, I'll talk to you next week, okay? Love you.." Cloud disappeared from the screen. Tifa, grinning from ear to ear, walked back to the stove, where her tomato sauce bubbled and sputtered. She tasted it. Superb. A few weeks later, Tifa began to notice her back was aching by the end of the day. She massaged it thoroughly, but soon noticed her back wasn't the problem. Her bust was. By this time, she noticed the tight shirts, sweaters, and halter tops she wore were becoming stretched and thin in the chest. Her hands, and a measuring tape, confirmed it. Her breasts were slowly growing, dragging her back forward, straining her muscles. Dr. Jyingu took a blood sample, but nothing showed up, passing it off as nothing more than an anomaly. Three weeks, and four inches, later her breasts ceased to grow. And each week, as she tried to report her bodily augmentation to Cloud, was passed off and ignored by a man immersed in his work. She decided that she wouldn't try anymore, that he wasn't interested in her changes, and listened dully each week to the boring battle stories Cloud recounted for her. She found joy in her cooking, becoming a master of spices and seasoning, waiting for the day Cloud would return.
"JEMS : Tifa's Awakening P.1" is © its
creator, The Cloaked Ghost. |