Room 512, Monday Evening
Elena
From what everyone in class had been saying, it seemed like whatever insanity was going around had hit everyone, or nearly everyone, this past weekend. Made it far less humiliating to go out in public, if other people were avoiding one another's glances.
She'd gotten off easy. Not like when she'd been a Shinra, or the time she'd just looked like one. Linda was a refreshing change.
For now, she had a report to write. One she'd promised Tseng, in exchange for him not telling Reno about her weekend. Had he been flirting with her?
All the more reason to finish the report quickly.
Ino
The nice thing about living on the same floor as someone meant that when you wandered up the stairs after them they didn't think anything of it. Especially not when Ino really had gone to her room.
Long enough to change, long enough to sit on her bed for awhile and just be glad she was herself again, long enough to force herself into thinking and to get up and dig out her notebooks with everything she knew about Gaia.
Ino pretended her hands didn't shake as she flipped through them to see what she'd written down about Jenova.
(The answer: not much.)
Then she tied her hair back--always, in battle, put it back--and went down the hall. Four doors down. It felt a lot longer. Halfway there she hesitated, almost turning back, before continuing on. In order to deal with all of this, she had to know.
Understand her fear.
The door was open a bit. Ino's foot nudged it open further as she leaned against the doorway and hoped she didn't look near as drained as she felt. Haunted, maybe.
"Hey," she said casually, "you busy?"
Elena
"Not especially," Elena said, flipping her laptop closed and nodding to the other girl. "Hanging out, ducking phone calls, the usual."
Well, 'usual' for the aftermath of a weekend where you thoroughly embarrassed yourself, but she was guessing Ino could put that much together.
"If I hit on you this weekend, you have my apologies," she added. "Although hitting on someone isn't really anything I need to apologize for, is it?"
Ino
Ino would have loved a weekend where she'd embarrassed herself over the one she'd gotten. Not even mostly for herself.
"If you'd hit on me," she said, very dryly, "I really don't think you'd have forgotten."
No, really, hitting on a blue alien in a tube was probably unforgettable.
"Can I come in?"
She'd come in anyway but really, best to be polite first. And Ino already knew that for this, they'd need the door closed to keep out squirrels.
Elena
"Sure," Elena said. She moved the laptop aside in case Ino wanted to plop down on the other side of the bed. "You can help me think up ways to tease Reno. I spent a weekend as a lesbian and he didn't get any footage."
The Linda she'd been this weekend would have facepalmed and pointed out that her sexuality wasn't a tool to be fetished by the male gaze. As much as Elena might have agreed, in principle, she was too amused by tormenting Reno to object.
It was a moot point, anyway, since there wasn't any footage. But why let a detail like that stop her?
Ino
"Did you get any footage?" she asked, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes as she stepped in and closed the door. "That's the important thing."
Ino leaned against the door. All casual except for her eyes.
"So," she said bluntly, "tell me 'bout Jenova."
Dancing around the subject was for people who a) had the patience for it, b) didn't have a headache from a head injury, and c) who hadn't spent the weekend as the evil entity they were asking about.
Besides, the last time she'd tried dancing around a subject Elena had closed up. Her reaction to a straight out question would give her information too.
Ino locked the door without taking her eyes off Elena.
Elena
The laptop dropped the rest of the way to the ground with a heavy clunk, and Elena's eyes darted up to Ino's. They were wide, and filled with an array of emotions: panic, fear, anger, and a few that were harder to identify.
If Ino wanted a reaction, she certainly succeeded.
"She's here?" Elena asked, voice thick with suppressed emotion.
Motherfucking fuck everything. If there were fucking Remnants out looking for their disembodied Mother, then Elena was catching the next plane to anyfuckingwhere else.
Ino
One of her eyebrows went up.
That was certainly a response.
"She was."
... Ino was a bad person sometimes. Not immediately reassuring someone who was as obviously freaked out as Elena was definitely one of those times.
But Elena wasn't Zack and while she felt like a bit of a heel for not clarifying anything, well, her own interests in this matter won out.
Elena
Elena's face hardened. She grabbed her phone and started punching a number in.
"I need a casualty report," she said. "Right fucking now. You want to think about getting out of here. When her freak-children start popping out of the woodwork, they'll want to know where she is. That's not a fucking conversation you want to have."
Trust her. It wasn't.
Elena had very carefully not asked where Jenova was now. The fewer people to know, the better.
Ino
"Elena."
It was something to note, really, that this was the second time she'd had to use her command voice (like a Chuunin in charge of a squad, only she wasn't going to be one of those officially for years) on her. Her voice snapped out like a whip, sharp and crisp.
And made her head ache a bit but whatever. Elena was freaking. Ino didn't need this. She just wanted answers.
"Stop."
Elena
Elena raised an eyebrow, bristling a bit at the tone. Still too much the military student not to at least pause when an order was given.
In any case, she wasn't dialing the phone any longer: she was glaring at Ino, instead.
"We don't have time," she said firmly. "Blue freak in a tube, you don't think she's all that much of a threat. Fine. She isn't the problem. It's what she makes people other people do. They'll be coming. Soon."
Ino
"Jenova's gone." Still in that crisp tone.
As if Elena were an Academy student. If nothing else, both of them understood the power of a military order.
Her voice shifted to something softer--an officer explaining something that they really wanted the cadet to understand. "She won't be making anyone do anything. No one will be coming."
And Ino, personally, thought Jenova had been plenty of a threat. Being her for a weekend had given her that much understanding.
Elena
Elena gave Ino a long, careful look. And then she set her phone down.
"Explain," she said. "Quickly."
Setting the phone down took a great deal of faith, on her part. If Ino was wrong, they were losing precious time they didn't have. So Ino would understand if the request didn't come in a properly respectful format.
Ino
Ino's arms were folded neatly over her stomach, her shoulders still resting against the door and her feet ready to move if she had to. She didn't think she would.
"Jenova was here," she said, holding up one hand to forestall any freakouts as she spoke very quickly and concisely. "You got to spend the weekend as a lesbian. Someone else got to be Jenova."
Someone else meaning her.
"Weekend's over. Jenova's gone."
Really, Ino knew that better than anyone.
Elena
Elena exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Inhaled, again, and let it out slowly.
She put one hand over her eyes, trying to ward off a nagging attempt at a headache forming.
"Okay," she said. If Ino had been a civilian, that might have been Sorry. She wasn't, so Elena figured it was understood. "How badly ... I mean, is anyone seriously hurt?"
Jenova had only had a weekend, but she'd done serious damage in less.
Ino
"Not seriously," she said, posture relaxing slightly now that Elena was less freaked. "Jenova's... people... had one person. But it most of it was mental torment."
She'd had an excellent view, after all.
Elena
Elena closed her eyes, sitting quietly for a long moment. Willing the images to go away.
"They tried to break someone," she said in a low voice. "I hope they didn't succeed."
Bile, rising in her throat. Remnants laughing. Not now, Elena.
"No permanent damage?" she asked, pleased that her voice was steadier. It wasn't the same question as last time. Not all scars were physical.
Ino
"Maybe a better understanding that being a hero doesn't mean running into danger alone."
That was a bit cruel of her, really, but Ino did think that might help. It was a good lesson to learn. Being a hero that way was stupid. Got you killed. And Jen was one of her Fandom siblings.
"They were still making snappy comebacks and witty repartee before they got out." She was carefully not saying names. "No permanent damage other than the likelihood of nightmares and avoiding a few people."
Elena
"That's getting off light," Elena said, rubbing her forehead before sitting up a little straighter. "Although 'surviving' by itself would qualify."
If Ino had seen anything, she'd understand that much.
She was still watching the other girl, trying to understand what angle she was approaching this from.
"Okay," she said finally. "What is it exactly that you want to know?"
That seemed a good place to start.
Ino
"What can you tell me?" Ino asked, sliding down the door to sit on the floor.
It was a nice floor. Very solid. Definitely not moving. Score!
"What happened to her?" There. Starting point.
Ino resisted the urge to shiver and pulled her knees up to wrap her arms around them. Door, floor, herself. Things were looking up.
Elena had information. Ino wanted it.
Elena
"It's not so much what happened to her," Elena said, pulling a pillow onto her lap and hugging it. "She was never a person. The way I understand it, she travels from planet to planet. She destroys all the life there, and then uses the empty husk as a shell to carry her to the next world. She wiped out a lot of people on Gaia thousands of years ago, but they trapped her, somehow."
She was fuzzy on those details. And skipping over the Cetra parts, just out of general secrecy.
"She was excavated a few decades back, by people who didn't know what she was or why she was trapped there."
Ino
"And then they stuck her in a tube? And used her cells?"
Ino probably should have just--not said that. It gave away the fact that she knew rather more than she was saying about some facets of Gaia.
"Do they--still have her?"
Because she was something to be feared. Even stuck in a tube.
Elena
That earned Ino a decided raise of the eyebrow.
"They did, yes," she said slowly. "But you already knew that. Why are you asking me questions if you already know the answers?"
She didn't like the obvious answer: that Ino was hoping she'd fuck up and say more than she realized.
Ino
Ino's hands clenched so tight her knuckles went white. She was not going to shiver. Her feet got pulled in a little further. It was almost uncomfortable. Almost a ball, for all that she was sitting up.
Fear was stupid. Fear kept you alive.
"Because," she said, shoulder tucking in a little, involuntarily. "Because I would give anything to have been nothing but a lesbian for the weekend."
Elena
Realization washed over Elena. And pity. And if she were to be perfectly honest, a small twinge of fear.
It was overshadowed by the other emotions, which now included a flicker of shame at not realizing sooner that the other girl was fairly traumatized, herself. It shouldn't have been a surprise. Being near Jenova did that to people. Being inside her head? Knowing the deep fucked-up thoughts and plans Jenova had swirling around?
She got up and crossed the room, sitting down on her floor near Ino. Not touching her, but nearby. She folded her legs under herself and bit her lower lip.
"Sorry," she said softly. "I ... can't even imagine ..."
To be honest, she didn't want to.
Ino
Ino didn't want to. Didn't want to deal with the fact that, with her memory, forgetting something like that had no chance of happening. A new twist to her nightmares. She remembered being alien in a way that was beyond scary.
Her eyes tracked Elena's progress across the floor then, when Elena sat down, tore her gaze away to look out over the room.
"Don't try," she said, biting her lip. "She's..."
Words failed her.
"Tell me she's gone?" A plea, now, rather than her earlier cool facade.
Elena
"She's gone," Elena said, swallowing past another flash of panic. It was safe, now. The Jenova from this weekend was nothing but a paper tiger. "She's .... it's hard to explain."
Most things with Jenova were. Maybe this was a good time to go back to that question Ino had asked.
"They didn't know what she was," she said. "The ones who found her. They thought she was part of a long-dead race, one that helped to protect the planet. Since they thought she was dead, and her race extinct, they hoped giving her cells to people would allow them to use those powers."
Hojo might have suspected, but then, Hojo was fucking crazy.
Ino
"SOLDIER members," she said softly, half to her knees. "Mako and Jenova cells. To make them stronger and the DMW to control their growth."
Zack had responded to Jenova's call. Had called her mother.
Ino felt nauseous.
They were giving Jenova the keys to her freedom and they didn't even know it.
Elena
So she knew that, already, too. Which meant she didn't need to worry quite so much about slipping and using the term ShinRa, since that was basic math from SOLDIER.
"It worked," she said, nodding. "It made them stronger, faster, more powerful. They found out later about the ... other side effects. Jenova's component strands feel a pull back toward the source. Reunion."
Kadaj had said it reverently. It had been a terrifying word. That was when she had realized what he must be. What they wanted.
That was also the point at which she had known that she would probably not survive.
Ino
Ino stared at her in horror.
"That really h-happened?"
Zack pressing his face against the tube she'd been in. Telling Alice that she, Jenova, was all that mattered.
Elena
All Elena could do was nod.
"Some ... of the SOLDIERs ..." she said, drawing each word out of herself as if they caused her pain. ".... They just snapped. And ..."
Kadaj's voice, again. Tell me where to find her. Tell me where She is. Or the other one dies.
The Remnants called her Mother.
Ino
"And wanted their mother?" Ino's laugh was treading close to 'a bit hysterical' rather than anything actually mirthful. "Z-Zack did that. Over the w-weekend."
And she hated the fact that it made her voice wobble like that.
Zack was good.
Elena
"Zack!?" Elena's mouth was wide open. "He -- for Jenova? But he -- he never --"
Zack was sane. Zack had always been sane. Zack had never answered Jenova's call. Maybe he had been too tied to the world, or too essentially good to be corrupted.
If Zack could fall ... if Zack was somehow vulnerable to it now, from direct exposure ...
Oh, fuck.
Ino
That made her feel better, oddly. Elena's being so perturbed by the very idea of Zack doing that sort of thing. Ino relaxed slightly. Some of the tension running out of her shoulders.
"He wasn't himself from the start," she said, pressing her back against the door just for the feel of something solid. "He-"
"You remember... " Stupid, right, of course she would. "The vampire Fandom. That Zack. Not... m-this one."
Mine.
Elena
Elena was too tactful to press the matter of that "m-". She had a feeling she could guess what was behind it.
"I ... ran into that one," she said, carefully. "We played cat-and-mouse. He was ..."
Frightening. Insane. The friendly puppy, now a rabid dog.
(OOC: part of the aftermath from this weekend's Jenova plot. That Ino came to visit is okay for broadcast: anything after the door is shut is NFB, please. Will be continued in comments. The door is shut and locked, so NFI except Ino's thread unless the roomie wants, since it's totes his room too umkay.)