A shrill scream pierced the air, and Moniva flinched, her eye twitching
in annoyance. The Saquri they had captured, Christy was her name, she wasn’t
sure and neither did she care. Koji was standing over the shackled Saquri
and injecting her with her cells instead of her weak sister Jenova’s. Her
delicate hands clenched into fists at the thought of how that mere mortal
had shot her. Jenova had cautioned about these mortal weapons, but she
didn’t say how much they stung. Stupid mortal. Another scream signified
that the fusion was almost complete, making an evil smirk appear on her
pale lips. Tossing back her green yellow tinted hair, Moniva walked casually
over to evil scientist, question in her beady black eyes.
“Well?” She snapped, and Koji grinned at her happily, putting
away the syringe hastily.
“It’s done! She’s under your control, madam.” Koji said, giving
a curt bow, and then scurried off to report to his employer. Moniva looked
after him in disgust, and then turned to look at her new ‘child’. Oh yes,
revenge would be so fun.
Brad groaned, rubbing the kinks from his neck. And this was only practice!
James was on some rampage or something, pushing them to their limits and
far past. All the while, Moniva, Jenova, and a warped blonde girl called
Christy were watching from the sidelines, critically observing their weakness
and strength. To top it all off, his sword arm ached from having that stupid
injection Koji had insisted they have to make them ‘stronger’.
“This is a lot harder than my sparring I had back home.” He said to
Malanda, and she nodded in agreement. It seemed that James wanted them
to be at their best, and better. Was Avalanche that dangerous to be such
a threat to Shinra, or to Jenova’s family for that matter. They were ‘all
powerful beings’, weren’t they?
“Blade and Lucy are lucky the missed out,” Malanda commented, and then
saw James yelling at Chris because he refused to spar with someone, preferring
to do everything alone. Seemed he preferred solitude a lot these days,
and he had everyone worried. “I wonder if we’re still enough to defeat
Avalanche.” Malanda pondered quietly, and Brad also wondered. He had seen
their power, as well as James had, and he had to admit that he was scared
s*** less over the thought. They weren’t any push overs like he had fought
in the past that was for sure.
“Enough chit chat! Get back to sparring!” James hollered, while Evety
groaned and resumed battle stances wearily. This was going to be a long
day…
“We need to find Christy, more than ever now!” Sephiroth said, urgency
apparent in his voice. Yuffie couldn’t place it, but she felt something
wrong about Christy’s ‘aura’ or whatever. It was… cloudy. That was the
only word she could think of that described it.
“I agree! We can’t just leave her there!” Tifa seconded, jumping up
enthusiastically, a gleam in her eyes. The room was uncharacteristically
silent when Tifa spoke up. She had been rather silent for the past couple
of days, and hearing her voice again was kind of shocking. Oh well, Reno
would pry the story out of her sooner or later about the Saquri.
“Well, any ideas where she could be?” Cloud asked, Sephiroth furrowing
his brow in concentration. It was hard to find her, but after ten minutes,
he looked relaxed.
“Midgar… in the sewer system.” Sephiroth said finally, and Yuffie jumped
up, dancing around excitedly, even if they had to go through that smelling
sewer system, she’d gladly rescue her friend.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Yuffie exclaimed happily, bouncing
out the door while the rest followed her, shaking their heads.
“Um…you think that Christy is okay?” Tifa asked, trying to get conversation
started. Ever since they had entered Midgar a couple of minutes ago, everyone
had gone deathly silent, and so had the planet. It was as if it held its
breath, and Tifa knew it wasn’t a good thing. Usually, the planet would
be noisy along with the Cetra, but it all seemed so… quiet.
“If they’ve laid a finger on her, I will personally kill them.” Sephiroth
growled, and with that tone of voice, Tifa was sure he would. The others
looked at him worriedly, while Cloud just had the same worried expression
on his face, so much so it seemed it was as green as Yuffie’s was now.
“The sewer again! I wish that Shinra would find somewhere that smells
better!” Yuffie complained, and Elena wrinkled her nose too. It seemed
as though the two were good friends now, and the girls had done some ‘bonding’
as the guys called it. Well, you would become friends with the person who
saved your life, wouldn’t you?
“Don’t complain kid, we’ve been through worse.” Reno said, trying to
be the cheerful one, since everyone else seemed earthly quiet, but found
it hard to do in the horrible conditions, not to mention the sewage that
would send him in the shower for a week before smelling remotely good again.
Reno wrinkled his nose at the mere thought.
“Reno’s right, we’ve been through worse.” Tifa echoed weakly, giving
Reno a small smile that he returned. Cloud just scowled, but quickly went
back to worrying about Christy, hoping his little sister was okay. If anything
happened to her… he wouldn’t know what to do. Soon, a dull scream echoed
in the dreary corridor, and everyone paled, recognizing it at once.
“Christy!” Sephiroth and Cloud exclaimed, quickly running through the
tunnel wall, without any thought. The wall still rippled after the two
men had disappeared, and Elena and Yuffie looked at each other in shock,
and then grinned.
“Cool!” Yuffie exclaimed, and ran through it too, dragging a confused
Elena along, the wall rippling like clear water.
“Any particular reason you waited with me babe?” Reno asked, giving
Tifa rolled her eyes, a little red.
“Yeah, I just wanted to say that I’m madly in love with you.” Tifa
said sarcastically, and Reno pouted, pretending to look disappointed and
regretful.
“Sorry babe, only interested in getting into your-“ Tifa didn’t need
to hear the rest, she just dragged him through the wall like Yuffie had
done Elena, shaking her head but smiling.
Sephiroth had only one thought that was fueling him, and that
was to save Christy. Puppet must be having similar thoughts. Maybe we do
have something in common. Christy, I hope you’re safe! Sephiroth thought,
a hand hovering over the Masamune. Bursting through the door that was emitting
the screams, Sephiroth was filled with anger and horror. Christy was strapped
to the table, a vacant look had settled in her sparkling, pretty eyes,
and what was worse was that Koji was standing over her and injected things
that brought back horrible memories into her. And her screams were the
ones filling the air. With a snarl, both him and Cloud charged forward,
impaling the mad scientist simultaneously. He lurched forward, blood dripping
from his mouth, but, and to their amazement, he just turned around and
smiled at them.
“I must say, that is a low trick to get a guy with his back turned.
No matter, I am stronger than I look.” With an evil laugh, he began to
mutate into a big purple blob.