Writing meme

[lithic_rune]

1. Give me the name of a character you know I'm familiar with. I don't necessarily have to know their canon if you know I've roleplayed with them before.

2. Give me a number between 3 and 10.

3. Give me a one sentence prompt.

Do this and I will write something for you. <3 Please put each prompt in a separate thread. That'll make it easier to keep track of which response goes to which prompt, as well as keeping track of which prompts I've filled.

Comments

[evowhisperer]

1. Danny
2. 6
3. "If he'd realized he was running away from home when he left for school that morning, he might've at least tried to pack for it."

[lithic_rune]

It started off as a normal day. Normal alarm clock going off way too early, normal scramble to eat his breakfast and grab his backpack - and, oh yeah, remember to put on pants. Normal rush to school. Normal ghost attack on the way. Normal detention for scooting into class two minutes late because of said ghost attack. The Lunch Lady even haunted the cafeteria at lunch. You couldn't get a more normal day than that.

Danny should have known it was too normal to be good.

"Danny!" Jazz's frantic voice cut into his thoughts as he, Tucker, and Sam came down the front steps of the school. Surprised, Danny looked up. What was his sister doing here?

"Danny, don't go home! The Guys in White came by and they're staking it out, and they've got a new invention to detect ghosts!"

"Oh man..." Danny groaned. Great. Perfect. This was just what he needed. NOT. "Tuck, Sam, looks like I'm hanging out with one of you." He grumbled, thinking of how hadn't shoved anything into his backpack in case he needed to run away from home, however temporarily. He didn't even have a spare toothbrush.

But the saddest thought that crossed his mind was that this was all normal, too.

[evowhisperer]

1. Cloud
2. 8
3. "It wasn't until Cloud cloud tried to hide them from Kunsel that he realized just how many of Zack's old mannerisms he had."

[lithic_rune]

Cloud didn't know what it was about Kunsel that made it so easy to relax, that made him smile so wide it was a grin that felt more natural on his face than it should have. Tifa had voiced her suspicions, but he knew it wasn't like that. The SOLDIER, one of the very few left, just felt... like an old, old friend he'd forgotten. He figured it was more the fact that they could relate over the strength and abilities they shared, and the time they'd both spent with ShinRa. Cloud may never have actually been a SOLDIER, but with what Hojo had done to him, he might as well have been, and he had served in the army.

It never occurred to him that Kunsel had his theories, too - at least, not until the day that Kunsel mentioned Zack.

"You know, I used to have a friend who did that," the other man remarked, nodding in Cloud's direction. At Cloud's questioning look, he added casually, "Squats. You know, not just for exercise, but at the drop of a hat. I swear, Zack practiced them to the point of reflex."

Zack's name brought a wash of cold that wiped the expression off of Cloud's face. Kunsel had known Zack? Stupid. He's a SOLDIER. I should have thought... He had to fight back the urge to freeze as his mind struggled to process what that meant. Nothing would give him away faster than looking like a deer caught in headlights. His hand rubbed the back of his neck. "It's a good exercise."

Kunsel just nodded pleasantly, tracking the movement of Cloud's hand with his eyes. "Yeah, that's what he used to tell me, too. Actually, you remind me of him sometimes. I couldn't pin it down before - you know, different voice, different face, different height. But turn of phrase, mannerisms, bad habits... Eventually, I realized."

"Realized?" Cloud felt something sinking in the pit of his gut. Belatedly, he snatched his hand back from his neck - a nervous habit he'd picked up from Zack.

Wait, no, damn it. Guiltily aborting that gesture was exactly something that Zack would do, too! Augh, Kunsel wasn't stupid. No wonder he'd picked up on Cloud's behavior!

Mako blue eyes fixed on him, pinning him in place. Only a glint of mischief belied Kunsel's solemn expression. "Zack, next time, just leave the disguises to Wutai. Nobody but you would wear their hair in a style anywhere near as spiky as that!"

reposting

[ghostboy]

.... Kuuuunseeeeeeeeeelll 8'( Now Cloud has to explain to him why he's not Zack and AGH MY HEART WITH THIS ONE..

[evowhisperer]

1. Kunsel
2. 9
3. "Kunsel was very good at sifting through the impossible to find the truth." Continuation of my last FFVII prompt here!

[lithic_rune]

Kunsel wasn't wrong often. Not when he'd taken the time to dig up information and observe a situation the way he had with Cloud. When he'd first met the blond, he'd known something was up. Kunsel knew every member of SOLDIER who'd joined after him, and Cloud didn't look remotely like any of them, and he was too young to have joined SOLDIER long enough before that Kunsel would never have met or even heard of him. But there was no mistaking his eyes, or the fact that he had SOLDIER strength. The few times they'd sparred, it was like fighting a First. Kunsel had had trouble just trying to keep up.

Those spars had been his first big clue. The Buster Sword, the cocky, casual stance, the way he twirled the weapon in his hand - familiarity screamed at Kunsel with his every movement. The blond even favored the blunt edge of his blade in a way that no other swordsman Kunsel had met ever did.

But there were obvious problems with the comparison that Kunsel's mind kept trying to draw. Cloud was too short, his face the wrong shape, his accent from entirely the wrong region of the Western Continent. And yet, every time Kunsel tried to discount his own crazy idea, other things kept cropping up. Cloud would say something, do something - rub his neck, crack a joke about a reactor, sometimes even just the way he grinned - that summoned the memory of Zack so effectively that Kunsel couldn't pass it off as coincidence. Not after so many times.

He'd asked around. It hadn't taken long to find a few things out, like Cloud's involvement with AVALANCHE or the fact that he'd clearly had a hand in saving the world from Sephiroth and Meteor, but what Kunsel had found really interesting was how little people actually knew about the man before he'd come to Midgar. More specifically, it was the timing of his arrival that threw up a huge red flag. It coincided almost perfectly (give or take a couple of weeks depending on who he asked) with the day there had last been confirmed contact with Zack.

Little things, big things - it all added up, and strengthening it all was the feeling he always felt around Cloud, the comfortable companionship that should have only come with being around an old friend. Kunsel didn't know how he'd done it - maybe lessons in disguise from that Wutai girl? - but somehow, some way, Zack was there and alive. The realization, once it sunk in, made something in his chest want to soar. Zack had survived! Despite all the odds, his best friend had returned!

He was already reaching out to give Zack the biggest bear hug in the world when a hitch in Cloud's breath stopped him cold. The blond stared at him, stricken. His words came out as a croak. "No. Kunsel, stop."

Kunsel faltered, caught off guard. What? His hand hovered, still outstretched.

Cloud shuddered and closed his eyes, all semblance of Zack crumbling away. "I'm not. Kunsel, I'm not." When he opened his eyes again, there was too much pain for him to hide. His expression was too broken, too lost to be a lie. The next words he spoke crushed all the hope in Kunsel's heart.

"Zack died. I'm only what he left behind."

[evowhisperer]

... and I thought the last one broke my heart.

Just. wow.

[modulatingphase]

1: Zack
2: 7
3: "The fire was as green as Aerith's eyes had been, so very long ago."

[lithic_rune]

Cloud was cold. Mako burned as it clung to Zack's skin and clothes, a fire as green as Aerith's eyes had been so very long ago, but it was the cold he felt as he touched a trembling hand to Cloud's cheek, to his throat. No pulse. No pulse.

"Cloud." He gripped the blond's shoulder and shook him, panic and desperation rising in his throat. "Cloud. Cloud! Come on, buddy, don't do this! Wake up! Dammit, wake up!" Glass crunched under his feet as he moved into a better position to undo the straps that bound Cloud to the table in the lab. He ignored it, just like he ignored the technician he'd punched when he'd broken out of the mako tube. The man was out cold, but alive, unlike-

His mind shut that thought down before it could finish. He refused to acknowledge what his hands were feeling, what his eyes were seeing. On some deeper level, he knew he couldn't deal with it here. He- They had to get out of here now. His arms hooked under Cloud, lifting him up.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Zack stilled. He knew that voice. There was no mistaking it after so many days, months, years, or however long it was that he'd been here. That voice had been there before every injection, had sneered after every test, had callously issued orders to continue experiments even when Cloud was screaming, screaming-

"Thinking of trying to escape, Specimen Z? You know I can't allow that. Specimen C was a failure, but you-"

Hojo never got to finish his sentence, because something inside of Zack snapped.

[modulatingphase]

....Enjoy my heart, Nivi. You just took it right outta me ;; Zaaaaaaacccckkk

[ghostboy]

1. Cloud
2. 7
3. "Hojo gave him a number."

[lithic_rune]

Somewhere along the way, Cloud had brokenly accepted the reality of who he was. Not Cloud, not Zack, not even human at all. He was just something Hojo had created in his lab. His memories were fake, stolen from people who had died. By all rights, he shouldn't even call himself Cloud.

He had nothing else, though. He had no other name or identity to go by. "Professor, give me a number," he pleaded. Hojo didn't do names. But even if all he had was a number, he thought he could live with it if it was his.

Hojo regarded him dismissively, one corner of his mouth curled in disgust. "A miserable failure isn't worthy of being numbered in my logs. Why should I number you?"

"You said it yourself. I'm the only one who made it." Desperation leaked into Cloud's voice. He needed an identity - something, anything to prove his life had meaning. "Please, Professor. Isn't that worth something?"

Shrewd, calculating eyes met his for a moment before Hojo finally grunted and turned away. "Very well. You are Zero."

Zero. A placeholder. A number with no value of its own. Something empty and painful opened up inside of Cloud.

Hojo had given him a number - a number that meant nothing at all.

[ghostboy]

... :(

[ghostboy]

1. Cloud
2. 7
3. "No one had ever expected that in the Sephiroth clones they would find the original."

[lithic_rune]

They'd found twelve of them so far. Fourteen known attempts to copy Sephiroth, if they counted Zack and Cloud, but Cloud was confident that there were probably more, ones they hadn't found, or other failures that Hojo had rejected without giving them a number even to mark their existence in his experiments. Cloud had met one man he suspected might be one of the latter, but despite an unexplainable urge to wear a black cloak, the shopkeeper had seemed for the most part unaffected. He was lucky. Luckier than the huddled heap Cloud was kneeling in front of now.

"Mother," the cloaked man whispered. "Mother, where did you go?"

"She's gone," Cloud said shortly. Best establish that now. "She won't be coming back." He reached out a cautious hand to touch the man's arm. Sometimes, they'd found, contact helped to anchor them in the real world. Other times though, it only set them off. He didn't know what to expect from this man, so kept ready to defend himself, the materia on his bracer warm.

The man lifted his head, bright, cat-slit eyes peering out from behind wisps of silver bangs, and Cloud's breath caught at the familiarity of that piercing, inhuman stare. "Mother, they're here again," the man murmured. "Mother, he's the one. Do you remember?"

Something shivered down Cloud's spine. Some clones barely showed any of Sephiroth's traits. This one made his memories crawl. But he wasn't attacking. Like the others, he had to be lost without Jenova's siren song. If they could help him remember even part of who he'd been before Jenova dug her claws in his head, there was a chance he could recover. After what had nearly happened to Cloud, he was determined to give the man that chance. "Come on," he said, pulling the man to his feet. A risk, but he was willing to take it. He had to ignore the way his instincts screamed when those cold green eyes met his again. Way too much like Sephiroth. Cloud took a breath and shoved the feeling back. "Whatever you remember, you can tell me on the way."

The man considered him for a moment before his attention drifted, focusing on something that likely wasn't there. Cloud took that as consent and started guiding him up the road. What number are you? he wondered silently. How many others were out there? He felt like the man was too good a copy to be one of the rejected ones. Maybe his number would give them a clue to how many more there were.

But he was wrong. Even when Cloud finally convinced the man to wash, there was no number to be found on him at all.

[ghostboy]

1. Cloud and Kunsel
2. ??? 10.
3. Could you write a sort of middle ground between the endings for Dear Kunsel that Sinnatious gave us? Something that doesn't have Kunsel die, but something with a harder ending than that he just shows up one day?

[lithic_rune]

Yeah, uh... There was no way I was going to get that written with only ten paragraphs. XD

Here you go!

[ghostboy]

1. Vin
2. 5
3. "They found the blue sage."

[lithic_rune]

"How'd you do it, Vin?"

"Eh? Do what?" The image on the screen tilted his head, and Jak spared a brief moment to be amazed that Vin could even do that when he was literally a ghost in the machine. He didn't pretend to know how things like computers even worked, but even he could tell it was an incredible feat for someone who was dead to control all all those circuits and wires and points of light on the screen.

"I mean, how'd you load your mind into the eco-grid?" he clarified. "You didn't, you know, literally attach your brain to it... right?" Now there was a disturbing image he could have done without.

Vin brightened with understanding. "Oh, that. That was easy! The eco-grid runs off of blue eco, right? Well, did you know that so do our brains? Every person has blue eco in them, hundreds of thousands of electrical impulses telling our bodies what to do. That's part of why Metal Heads think we're all tasty treats and why I am so glad I don't have a body!" The man laughed nervously, eyes darting left and right as though he was afraid he'd somehow jinxed himself with those words. "But blue eco draws blue eco to itself when it comes in close enough range. All I had to do was create an algorithm that would keep that blue eco from dispersing randomly inside the grid once it was absorbed, and viola! Here I am!"

"Wow," Jak said with a grin, impressed. "All of that knowledge and control - you should have been a Blue Eco Sage!"