FFVII – Part 58: Avalanche Runs Through the City

Summary: The party travels to Wutai. Yuffie, to what probably shouldn’t have been my surprise, steals all our material. Barret, Nanaki, and Cloud pursue her through Wutai. They are… unsuccessful.


The Highwind

-Cloud learned Goblin Punch from a random goblin on the way back to the ship.

-Poor Yuffie is motion sick. At least Cloud can relate.

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Outside Wutai

-My party of Barret, Cloud, and Yuffie get set down near Wutai and are almost immediately set on by Shinra guards.

-Yuffie seems eager to distance herself from us at this point. What are you up to?

-They attack us, and Yuffie runs. Wtf! Not a promising start for your tenure on Team Avalanche.

-Easy fight, but still.

-WAIT, SHE STOLE ALL OUR MATERIA??

-I’m getting sharp, painful flashbacks to FFV and FFVI. A certain character. A Lone character. A Lone, lupine character.

-We pursue.

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Wutai

-We see her immediately in town, and she runs away.

-Not in the weapon store. Not in the turtle inn either, but guess who I found?

-What are you wacky kidnappers up to anyway?

-Elena tries to get us into a death match, but Reno tells her to chill. LOL – they’re here on vacation. We let them go back to their drink.

-A townsperson who knows Yuffie (I KNEW she was from here!) says Yuffie’s always had an affinity for materia.

-She didn’t climb Da-chao, but a kid heard pounding from inside a nearby store. And I seem to remember something from my last trip to Wutai about there being a lack of materia in town. If I had to guess, I’d guess that Yuffie’s pulling a Locke: trying to find some materia that’ll help some wounded loved one.

-The chest in that store is unguarded. We open it up and get an MP Absorb materia.

-AND YUFFIE IMMEDIATELY DROPS FROM THE CEILING AND STEALS IT

-This is like that old joke where Fido thinks his name is “Bad Dog” because that’s all the owner says. My affectionate nickname for Yuffie at this point is “Get Back Here With My Stuff Yuffie.”

-A townsperson says Yuffie sometimes busts into people’s houses, and sometimes hangs out in the shadows. Well, she just hung in the shadows above us. There are three houses to check now. The grandfather/granddaughter house, the cat house, and the rich person’s house.

-LOL – she’s in the grand-family house, behind a screen.

When we see her, she sprints away.

-Not in the cat part of the cat house, and the person inside the main cat house still won’t open up.

-The guy in the weapon store is being weird. “Sorry, listen, I… no. Nothing, never mind.” ??

-We find Yuffie this time hiding in a jar outside the tavern. We trap her.

I’m thinking she’ll get away.

She says she gives up and will give us back what she took. I believe her exactly 0%.

-Huh. We start to lead her away, and two Shinra soldiers run into the tavern.

-Interesting. The Shinra soldiers say they saw “Him” here on vacation (Cloud? But we’re not on vacation… Unless they are talking to each other and referring to Reno.), and want the Turks to help. Reno refuses. Not out of some moral stand, but because he’s on vacation and he’ll be damned if he’ll cut that short.

-Elena thinks Reno’s being unprofessional. He wants his vacation time, and she wants to do the job. I love seeing this – she’s a kidnapper and has probably done awful things, but she’s a professional, dammit, and takes her job seriously!

-Elena runs off alone to help the soldiers.

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Yuffie’s Home

-It looks like I was wrong, that she will actually give up the materia.

-Her whole life, she’s been hearing about how awesome Wutai used to be, and yet now it’s just a tourist trap. They gained peace, but lost something precious. She thinks that with all her materia…

-I was sort of right. She was collecting the materia to help a loved one. The loved one is Wutai itself.

-Cloud hears this and responds by being Jerky McJerkface, High Lord of Jerkington, prince of Jerkovania.

Spikey-haired jerk in his natural habitat.

-Red at least acknowledges that Cloud was being a bag of dicks. (He says it nicer than that.)

-HAHAHAHHAA

-YUFFIE I LOVE YOU FOREVER

-She tricked Cloud. Screw it – I can own up to my mistake, because I bought that too – she tricked US. (Though I’m not sure the part about wanting to help Wutai was untrue.) He pulls the lever she says will reveal the materia, and it drops a cage down on Barret and Nanaki.

YUFFIE: “You want the materia, go find it yourself. And when you’re looking for the Materia, remember you gotta steel it.” I’m going to assume that “steel” instead of “steal” isn’t a typo, but rather a clue.

-…like two seconds later I find out it’s not a clue, but a taunt. For the steel cage we’re in.

-She runs off. Cloud frees Nanaki and Barret and we head off, once again, in pursuit of Yuffie.

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Next time: the chase continues.