avatar 18
Title: Avatar 18
Author/artist: TamLin
Setting: AU
Rating: T
Summary: this was supposed to be the last chapter. Apparently - this was not the case. In the meantime, time to swing into the end game.
"This is bad."
Tifa vocalized what had been going through both of their heads since they'd realized where they were and next to her, flat against the wall and peering around the corner, Cloud grunted in response. The code that White had given her was supposed to drop them in a 'safe zone'.
Junon was pretty far from a 'safe zone' to Tifa's way of thinking.
"Maybe I got the code wrong," she whispered, still upset with herself over doing something this drastically wrong. Cloud's hand squeezed hers and he muttered:
"I doubt it," at the same time that White's voice suddenly sounded, calm and low in her ear, causing her to jump and bite back a squeaking sound of surprise.
"You recited the code correctly. The problem appears to be with Cloud."
"'Bout time you showed up," Cloud growled softly, ducking back into the shelter of the alley and edging Tifa deeper into its recess. "What's the problem?"
It was odd, after all the times of listening to other people mumble to their gamers, to be able to hear both side of the conversation and Tifa watched Cloud's face as White answered.
"Apparently you have got a virus that has managed to wrap itself around the core of your avatar. I can't tell when it was inserted but I would guess sometime during your last visit to the game with Black. Were there ever times things felt… off?"
"I spent the first half of the game acting like a decorative potted plant and the second half comatose. So yeah - maybe," Cloud wasn't being helpful but somehow Tifa wasn't surprised.
"Hey - you were a nice potted plant," Black's voice suddenly intoned. "All spiky and friendly and soft and - "
"My guess would be that it was inserted sometime during your transition from plant to vegetable," White's cool voice overrode Black's. "The point is when you reentered the game, it activated. You appear to be the open door the hackers are using to let themselves in and take things over." There was a brief pause and Tifa, still blinking in shock, expected White to apologize for his abruptness. Instead, his voice was even calmer and flatter when it came back on. "I'm sorry. I should have caught the change in the binary when I first began upgrading your avatar. It unfortunately traps your mental impulses into the game. Until I can unravel the code from your program, pulling you out would result in death."
Cloud was quiet next to her, blue eyes staring hard at the opposite wall, slim brows down. Gentle she rubbed a hand against his arm to let him know she was still there. They were in this together. He looked down at her and she already knew he was going to ask White to pull her. The look she gave him in return was deadly.
"I'm staying." She stated it clearly so that not only would he hear it but the others in the medical room would too. "Until the end."
He looked as if he was going to argue, and so she turned up the heat behind The Look. The self-same Look that had quelled a dozen elementary school rebellions. He caved faster than most five year olds.
"Okay," his hand found and covered hers on his arm. "But I want you to have a emergency exit for her, White. If things go bad and I go down, I want you to yank Tifa the second it happens."
"The second before even," White's voice was unruffled and steady again. "I can program her avatar to kick her loose if yours starts to collapse."
"No - " she started it with a shake of her head but it was Cloud's turn to fix impossible, inflexible blue eyes on her.
"That's the deal," he stated. "That's the only way I can concentrate enough on something other than you to be effective." His eyes softened and he reached up with his other hand to cup her cheek, lowering his forehead to rest it against hers. "You're PC now, sweetheart. My very own Precious Cargo."
"Precious Useful Cargo," Zack chimed in. "Swift says he's going to upgrade you into an ass kicking machine, Teef!"
"Indeed," White's dry voice sounded again. "As this is, in fact, end game, we've hacked the codes for all the upgrades to put you at peak performance. Limit breaks, materia settings, hit points."
"Leeeeeroy Jeeenkins!" came from somewhere in the background and sounded suspiciously like Barret in his more nerdy, youthful form. From the sounds of it, there were high fives being exchanged.
"Something like that," White sounded, barely, put upon. "Our friend the video game designer seems to be adding his own flares to the situation. He's quite… enthusiastic. We've disallowed the upgrade of your physical chest features, Tifa."
"Thanks?"
"You're welcome," the way he said it indicated she did, indeed, owe White a great deal of thanks for that favor. Cloud lifted his forehead from hers but kept his arms around her. His head turned to focus on the main building in Junon, set back from the canon.
"So we go in and take them down," his voice was hard. And a little bit eager.
"You go in and take them down," White agreed.
"And we take them down here!" Black was, if nothing else, easily enthused.
"We?" Cloud asked and Black reassessed.
"Well, me mostly. But Red and Jessie are coming to play backup and hump the hostages out once I start being all flashy and distracting."
Cloud didn't protest civilians getting in on the action and just grunted:
"Be careful."
Black's voice was surprisingly subdued as he answered:
"You too. I owe you a dinner once you're out of there, remember?"
"Most expensive place I can find." Gentle, Cloud pulled Tifa closer and stepped back deeper into the shadows as a group of what might have once been troopers slithered past the head of the alley. "White - crack this place and get me a way in."
"Power upgrade coming online in 3… 2… 1." Swift's voice came over the speaker for the first time and it made Tifa relax just before the vertigo hit. Cloud braced his back against the wall of the alley and Tifa braced against him as she shut her eyes and the world swayed sickeningly. After a minute it settled. Eyes still closed, she heard Cloud ask:
"Can they track that?"
"No," White's voice was sure. "We have two decoys running around with your amplified signatures. Mace is - having a hard time keeping them in character." The dry tone just hinted at all kinds of horrible things. "But she is most distracting playing them."
Somewhere in the background, a familiar voice started singing 'sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love - than the steamy hot monkey sex'. Everyone ignored it even if Tifa felt her ears starting to burn.
"Don't worry," Mace interrupted her singing now that she'd made a point. "I'm being really distracting with you two."
"That's - great, Mace," Tifa managed to choke.
"Ignore her, babe," Swift's voice came over the receiver. "It's the only way to stay sane. Okay, you can take out a concrete wall with your punch now. Go light the first few times you use it or the way it goes through things might throw you off balance. Cloud-o, you've got the shiniest blade that ever was. If you want you can chop down buildings with that thing and not worry about dislocating your shoulder in the process. Same advice as Teef. Go easy until you get the hang of it. Materia is at frying point for everything and you've got skin like Teflon. Don't go messing up my hard work by getting KO'd, okay?"
"Understood," Cloud's voice was the calm, soft tone he always used when he was settling into a fighting mind-set.
"I have your insert point," White's voice was just as calm. "End of the alley, sewer door. Go left. Expect monsters but if you keep it quiet, Mace's distractions should be enough to keep from triggering any alarms. They attack each other quite often."
"Got it. How's communication going to be?"
"No guarantees," White answered. "But I will do my best to stay with you as long as I can."
"Understood. Bastard on the top floor or the lower one?"
"Top floor. Our hacker enjoys watching."
"Yee haw!" Mace's enthusiasm was disturbing. Cloud ignored it in favor of catching Tifa's hand and starting down the alleyway, headed for the dead end at the back.
"Is Tifa rigged to extract if I go?" he asked and at White's affirmative, he nodded, letting go of her hand long enough to drop down onto his heels in front of the manhole cover, rusty and ancient looking. It looked as if it had been there forever. As if it wasn't just computer pixels inside a giant machine. Cloud's long fingers went into the grips of it and he pulled it up and aside, almost losing his balance in the process.
"Told ya," Swift snorted from the earpiece and Cloud made a noise in his throat.
"It feels like cardboard."
"It ain't. That's all you, beefman. Don't get cocky with it."
Cloud raised his eyes to her and Tifa saw all the familiar things she'd always recognized and never been able to place before she realized who he was in them. She went to her knees next to him.
"I don't do suicide missions," Cloud's voice was quiet and raw at its edges. "So we're getting out of this and when it's over I want - I want you. We'll take it as slow as you want but - I'm in this all the way, Yumi. I'm not going to lose you again."
She was trying to think of the right way to answer that. The words to say that would carry him through the battle and promise every tomorrow and then Mace's voice interrupted with:
"I'm tellin' you, hot steamy monkey sex!"
So she just reached out and caught the front of Cloud's shirt, pulling him close to kiss him hard. It was forward of her but she blamed it on the situation. Cloud didn't seem to mind at all and as soon as he got over the second or two of surprise, his response was enthusiastic. And thorough. And very, very heated. Tifa found him over her, hands on the ground on either side of her hips and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to arch closer. There was no such thing as too close, too forward, or too much. She wasn't going to lose him -
Even if she hadn't yet figured out how to save him from the virus.
They were both panting when she finally broke away and there was stunned silence on the other side of the ear pieces. For a long moment, their eyes locked and there was nothing more than what was already in them that they needed to say. Not now. Maybe, once this was all over - but for now, everything they needed was already there. Gentle, Cloud reached up and cupped her palm in his hand, the worn leather of his glove a reassuring feel. Barely, almost too small to see, his lips softened and curved at their edges.
"That's my girl," he murmured.
And then he was pulling away and disappearing down the manhole, not bothering with the metal rungs that led down into the darkness. She heard the quiet, small splash and, soft in her ear, she heard Cloud asking White:
"Little bit of NOD?"
"Done." White responded calmly and Tifa slipped her legs over the side of the hole and whispered:
"Tell him to move out of the way."
"Already done," White's voice was immensely calmly and Tifa pushed off and let herself drop, flexing her knees the way she's learned from her fighting. Her boots hit the shallow water and she hardly felt the jar of the fall. The stench was the same though. In the pitch dark, things took on a green tint and Cloud was a warm almost white green as he stepped close to her.
The monster rounding the corner was a duller green. But very visible.
It fell apart into showering chunks after one hit from her. Tifa winced in disgust and than cast a worried glance at her fist. It - hadn't felt like much of a blow at all. Next to her, Cloud gave a thoughtful grunt and then headed deeper into the tunnels.
The monsters were all like though. A single blow, a single slice from Cloud's sword and they fell apart like rotten cheese. It was almost disturbing how easy it was and yet, in a strange way, Tifa was glad for the chance to fight them. It let her get used to the new strength she had and how much impact or spin her moves now threw out. It was strange but she was glad of the chance to adjust. She and Cloud worked and moved forward in silence and in the strange green shadows, his face was set, only the slight narrowing of his blue eyes and the immobility of his lips any indication that he was in a stressful situation. Tifa kept waiting for something horrible to jump out of the shadows and cast worried glances into the darkness of the ceiling above them from time to time but nothing did. Even the monsters were random and easy to avoid. It was… too easy - and it was making her nervous.
"There," Cloud's voice was as quiet as the eerie green darkness and she stopped behind him, unable to resist the temptation to nestle just slightly against his back. There was a wide space of shallow looking water and then a single door, sealed with a round wheel that reminded Tifa of submarine doors. Across the door however, she would make out the dark shape of a body, tied spread-eagle and unmoving. From the distance, she couldn't see who it was - but her stomach took an unpleasant drop and went cold all the same.
"White?" it didn't lift above a barely there mutter and White's voice came back almost immediately in answer to Cloud's question.
"I detect no traps or alarms. Organic matter however is registering. I have no identity for the person across the room though I will note that several of the actors to be employed by the game are not yet accounted for."
"So it's either a computer generation or it just might be someone we know."
"Yes. I would proceed with caution."
Cloud didn't snort but Tifa could almost hear it all the same. He reached back and gave her hip a light squeeze. He didn't have to say 'stay close' for her to understand that either.
Slow but not unhurried, he circled the wide room, avoiding the middle entirely. Their boots made soft swishing noises in the water but the figure strapped to the door didn't move in the slightest. As they got closer, Tifa was able to pick out more details and her heart sunk.
"Biggs…" she murmured and felt Cloud's low noise of understanding. Close enough, they could see that it was indeed the last missing member of AVALANCHE. He hadn't be with them or the rest of the team when the Plate had dropped and Tifa had to guiltily admit, she hadn't really given him too much thought afterward. Now his body hung heavy and limp and she was glad of the blur the strange green lighting gave the details.
Someone with either knives or claws had gone at him. And from the looks of it, they had done so for a very long time. She had to look away as her mind tried to fill in details and her hand caught and clung to the back of Cloud's shirt. He made a soft sound in his throat, both pity and guilt. And yet he still searched the body carefully visually before he touched it.
"Don't see any traps or trip wires," he finally murmured. "Stand behind me anyway. I'm going to cut him down enough for us to get through."
She felt as if she should protest. It was the body of a companion that, whether she'd liked him or not, had gotten tangled in this mess with them and maybe, if they'd paid more attention, he wouldn't be here now. Except - except he wasn't breathing and as much as she wanted to respect him and his death - ending this sick game was more important. So she just made a soft noise and shifted behind Cloud further, hand spreading against his back. Careful, so that it would jar the body the least, he laid one hand on the body and brought the blade of his sword against the nearest wire.
And Biggs eyes snapped open in his ruined face.
Tifa had just a second to swallow a noise and then the dead man's jaw dropped open and he screamed.
It was a scream that jumped in pitch so fast it hurt and Tifa clamped her hands over her ears in instinctive defense. The scream was impossible to block out though and it climbed in pitch, inhuman and sharp as an ice pick driving through her head. In front of her Cloud stumbled backward and then his sword swung.
Biggs' body split and black pitch spilled out - and still the broken jaw screamed. Black spots danced in front of Tifa's eyes as it got higher in pitch and Cloud went to a knee in front of her. Desperate she grabbed the lolling head and it came loose when she wrenched.
She would never, in all of her life, forget the way it felt to separate bone from body as the skin and muscle tore.
With one last effort, knees already going loose and disjointed, she shoved it under the thin layer of water. For a second - it worked -
And then her eyesight went entirely black and that was all she remembered.
Author/artist: TamLin
Setting: AU
Rating: T
Summary: this was supposed to be the last chapter. Apparently - this was not the case. In the meantime, time to swing into the end game.
"This is bad."
Tifa vocalized what had been going through both of their heads since they'd realized where they were and next to her, flat against the wall and peering around the corner, Cloud grunted in response. The code that White had given her was supposed to drop them in a 'safe zone'.
Junon was pretty far from a 'safe zone' to Tifa's way of thinking.
"Maybe I got the code wrong," she whispered, still upset with herself over doing something this drastically wrong. Cloud's hand squeezed hers and he muttered:
"I doubt it," at the same time that White's voice suddenly sounded, calm and low in her ear, causing her to jump and bite back a squeaking sound of surprise.
"You recited the code correctly. The problem appears to be with Cloud."
"'Bout time you showed up," Cloud growled softly, ducking back into the shelter of the alley and edging Tifa deeper into its recess. "What's the problem?"
It was odd, after all the times of listening to other people mumble to their gamers, to be able to hear both side of the conversation and Tifa watched Cloud's face as White answered.
"Apparently you have got a virus that has managed to wrap itself around the core of your avatar. I can't tell when it was inserted but I would guess sometime during your last visit to the game with Black. Were there ever times things felt… off?"
"I spent the first half of the game acting like a decorative potted plant and the second half comatose. So yeah - maybe," Cloud wasn't being helpful but somehow Tifa wasn't surprised.
"Hey - you were a nice potted plant," Black's voice suddenly intoned. "All spiky and friendly and soft and - "
"My guess would be that it was inserted sometime during your transition from plant to vegetable," White's cool voice overrode Black's. "The point is when you reentered the game, it activated. You appear to be the open door the hackers are using to let themselves in and take things over." There was a brief pause and Tifa, still blinking in shock, expected White to apologize for his abruptness. Instead, his voice was even calmer and flatter when it came back on. "I'm sorry. I should have caught the change in the binary when I first began upgrading your avatar. It unfortunately traps your mental impulses into the game. Until I can unravel the code from your program, pulling you out would result in death."
Cloud was quiet next to her, blue eyes staring hard at the opposite wall, slim brows down. Gentle she rubbed a hand against his arm to let him know she was still there. They were in this together. He looked down at her and she already knew he was going to ask White to pull her. The look she gave him in return was deadly.
"I'm staying." She stated it clearly so that not only would he hear it but the others in the medical room would too. "Until the end."
He looked as if he was going to argue, and so she turned up the heat behind The Look. The self-same Look that had quelled a dozen elementary school rebellions. He caved faster than most five year olds.
"Okay," his hand found and covered hers on his arm. "But I want you to have a emergency exit for her, White. If things go bad and I go down, I want you to yank Tifa the second it happens."
"The second before even," White's voice was unruffled and steady again. "I can program her avatar to kick her loose if yours starts to collapse."
"No - " she started it with a shake of her head but it was Cloud's turn to fix impossible, inflexible blue eyes on her.
"That's the deal," he stated. "That's the only way I can concentrate enough on something other than you to be effective." His eyes softened and he reached up with his other hand to cup her cheek, lowering his forehead to rest it against hers. "You're PC now, sweetheart. My very own Precious Cargo."
"Precious Useful Cargo," Zack chimed in. "Swift says he's going to upgrade you into an ass kicking machine, Teef!"
"Indeed," White's dry voice sounded again. "As this is, in fact, end game, we've hacked the codes for all the upgrades to put you at peak performance. Limit breaks, materia settings, hit points."
"Leeeeeroy Jeeenkins!" came from somewhere in the background and sounded suspiciously like Barret in his more nerdy, youthful form. From the sounds of it, there were high fives being exchanged.
"Something like that," White sounded, barely, put upon. "Our friend the video game designer seems to be adding his own flares to the situation. He's quite… enthusiastic. We've disallowed the upgrade of your physical chest features, Tifa."
"Thanks?"
"You're welcome," the way he said it indicated she did, indeed, owe White a great deal of thanks for that favor. Cloud lifted his forehead from hers but kept his arms around her. His head turned to focus on the main building in Junon, set back from the canon.
"So we go in and take them down," his voice was hard. And a little bit eager.
"You go in and take them down," White agreed.
"And we take them down here!" Black was, if nothing else, easily enthused.
"We?" Cloud asked and Black reassessed.
"Well, me mostly. But Red and Jessie are coming to play backup and hump the hostages out once I start being all flashy and distracting."
Cloud didn't protest civilians getting in on the action and just grunted:
"Be careful."
Black's voice was surprisingly subdued as he answered:
"You too. I owe you a dinner once you're out of there, remember?"
"Most expensive place I can find." Gentle, Cloud pulled Tifa closer and stepped back deeper into the shadows as a group of what might have once been troopers slithered past the head of the alley. "White - crack this place and get me a way in."
"Power upgrade coming online in 3… 2… 1." Swift's voice came over the speaker for the first time and it made Tifa relax just before the vertigo hit. Cloud braced his back against the wall of the alley and Tifa braced against him as she shut her eyes and the world swayed sickeningly. After a minute it settled. Eyes still closed, she heard Cloud ask:
"Can they track that?"
"No," White's voice was sure. "We have two decoys running around with your amplified signatures. Mace is - having a hard time keeping them in character." The dry tone just hinted at all kinds of horrible things. "But she is most distracting playing them."
Somewhere in the background, a familiar voice started singing 'sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love - than the steamy hot monkey sex'. Everyone ignored it even if Tifa felt her ears starting to burn.
"Don't worry," Mace interrupted her singing now that she'd made a point. "I'm being really distracting with you two."
"That's - great, Mace," Tifa managed to choke.
"Ignore her, babe," Swift's voice came over the receiver. "It's the only way to stay sane. Okay, you can take out a concrete wall with your punch now. Go light the first few times you use it or the way it goes through things might throw you off balance. Cloud-o, you've got the shiniest blade that ever was. If you want you can chop down buildings with that thing and not worry about dislocating your shoulder in the process. Same advice as Teef. Go easy until you get the hang of it. Materia is at frying point for everything and you've got skin like Teflon. Don't go messing up my hard work by getting KO'd, okay?"
"Understood," Cloud's voice was the calm, soft tone he always used when he was settling into a fighting mind-set.
"I have your insert point," White's voice was just as calm. "End of the alley, sewer door. Go left. Expect monsters but if you keep it quiet, Mace's distractions should be enough to keep from triggering any alarms. They attack each other quite often."
"Got it. How's communication going to be?"
"No guarantees," White answered. "But I will do my best to stay with you as long as I can."
"Understood. Bastard on the top floor or the lower one?"
"Top floor. Our hacker enjoys watching."
"Yee haw!" Mace's enthusiasm was disturbing. Cloud ignored it in favor of catching Tifa's hand and starting down the alleyway, headed for the dead end at the back.
"Is Tifa rigged to extract if I go?" he asked and at White's affirmative, he nodded, letting go of her hand long enough to drop down onto his heels in front of the manhole cover, rusty and ancient looking. It looked as if it had been there forever. As if it wasn't just computer pixels inside a giant machine. Cloud's long fingers went into the grips of it and he pulled it up and aside, almost losing his balance in the process.
"Told ya," Swift snorted from the earpiece and Cloud made a noise in his throat.
"It feels like cardboard."
"It ain't. That's all you, beefman. Don't get cocky with it."
Cloud raised his eyes to her and Tifa saw all the familiar things she'd always recognized and never been able to place before she realized who he was in them. She went to her knees next to him.
"I don't do suicide missions," Cloud's voice was quiet and raw at its edges. "So we're getting out of this and when it's over I want - I want you. We'll take it as slow as you want but - I'm in this all the way, Yumi. I'm not going to lose you again."
She was trying to think of the right way to answer that. The words to say that would carry him through the battle and promise every tomorrow and then Mace's voice interrupted with:
"I'm tellin' you, hot steamy monkey sex!"
So she just reached out and caught the front of Cloud's shirt, pulling him close to kiss him hard. It was forward of her but she blamed it on the situation. Cloud didn't seem to mind at all and as soon as he got over the second or two of surprise, his response was enthusiastic. And thorough. And very, very heated. Tifa found him over her, hands on the ground on either side of her hips and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to arch closer. There was no such thing as too close, too forward, or too much. She wasn't going to lose him -
Even if she hadn't yet figured out how to save him from the virus.
They were both panting when she finally broke away and there was stunned silence on the other side of the ear pieces. For a long moment, their eyes locked and there was nothing more than what was already in them that they needed to say. Not now. Maybe, once this was all over - but for now, everything they needed was already there. Gentle, Cloud reached up and cupped her palm in his hand, the worn leather of his glove a reassuring feel. Barely, almost too small to see, his lips softened and curved at their edges.
"That's my girl," he murmured.
And then he was pulling away and disappearing down the manhole, not bothering with the metal rungs that led down into the darkness. She heard the quiet, small splash and, soft in her ear, she heard Cloud asking White:
"Little bit of NOD?"
"Done." White responded calmly and Tifa slipped her legs over the side of the hole and whispered:
"Tell him to move out of the way."
"Already done," White's voice was immensely calmly and Tifa pushed off and let herself drop, flexing her knees the way she's learned from her fighting. Her boots hit the shallow water and she hardly felt the jar of the fall. The stench was the same though. In the pitch dark, things took on a green tint and Cloud was a warm almost white green as he stepped close to her.
The monster rounding the corner was a duller green. But very visible.
It fell apart into showering chunks after one hit from her. Tifa winced in disgust and than cast a worried glance at her fist. It - hadn't felt like much of a blow at all. Next to her, Cloud gave a thoughtful grunt and then headed deeper into the tunnels.
The monsters were all like though. A single blow, a single slice from Cloud's sword and they fell apart like rotten cheese. It was almost disturbing how easy it was and yet, in a strange way, Tifa was glad for the chance to fight them. It let her get used to the new strength she had and how much impact or spin her moves now threw out. It was strange but she was glad of the chance to adjust. She and Cloud worked and moved forward in silence and in the strange green shadows, his face was set, only the slight narrowing of his blue eyes and the immobility of his lips any indication that he was in a stressful situation. Tifa kept waiting for something horrible to jump out of the shadows and cast worried glances into the darkness of the ceiling above them from time to time but nothing did. Even the monsters were random and easy to avoid. It was… too easy - and it was making her nervous.
"There," Cloud's voice was as quiet as the eerie green darkness and she stopped behind him, unable to resist the temptation to nestle just slightly against his back. There was a wide space of shallow looking water and then a single door, sealed with a round wheel that reminded Tifa of submarine doors. Across the door however, she would make out the dark shape of a body, tied spread-eagle and unmoving. From the distance, she couldn't see who it was - but her stomach took an unpleasant drop and went cold all the same.
"White?" it didn't lift above a barely there mutter and White's voice came back almost immediately in answer to Cloud's question.
"I detect no traps or alarms. Organic matter however is registering. I have no identity for the person across the room though I will note that several of the actors to be employed by the game are not yet accounted for."
"So it's either a computer generation or it just might be someone we know."
"Yes. I would proceed with caution."
Cloud didn't snort but Tifa could almost hear it all the same. He reached back and gave her hip a light squeeze. He didn't have to say 'stay close' for her to understand that either.
Slow but not unhurried, he circled the wide room, avoiding the middle entirely. Their boots made soft swishing noises in the water but the figure strapped to the door didn't move in the slightest. As they got closer, Tifa was able to pick out more details and her heart sunk.
"Biggs…" she murmured and felt Cloud's low noise of understanding. Close enough, they could see that it was indeed the last missing member of AVALANCHE. He hadn't be with them or the rest of the team when the Plate had dropped and Tifa had to guiltily admit, she hadn't really given him too much thought afterward. Now his body hung heavy and limp and she was glad of the blur the strange green lighting gave the details.
Someone with either knives or claws had gone at him. And from the looks of it, they had done so for a very long time. She had to look away as her mind tried to fill in details and her hand caught and clung to the back of Cloud's shirt. He made a soft sound in his throat, both pity and guilt. And yet he still searched the body carefully visually before he touched it.
"Don't see any traps or trip wires," he finally murmured. "Stand behind me anyway. I'm going to cut him down enough for us to get through."
She felt as if she should protest. It was the body of a companion that, whether she'd liked him or not, had gotten tangled in this mess with them and maybe, if they'd paid more attention, he wouldn't be here now. Except - except he wasn't breathing and as much as she wanted to respect him and his death - ending this sick game was more important. So she just made a soft noise and shifted behind Cloud further, hand spreading against his back. Careful, so that it would jar the body the least, he laid one hand on the body and brought the blade of his sword against the nearest wire.
And Biggs eyes snapped open in his ruined face.
Tifa had just a second to swallow a noise and then the dead man's jaw dropped open and he screamed.
It was a scream that jumped in pitch so fast it hurt and Tifa clamped her hands over her ears in instinctive defense. The scream was impossible to block out though and it climbed in pitch, inhuman and sharp as an ice pick driving through her head. In front of her Cloud stumbled backward and then his sword swung.
Biggs' body split and black pitch spilled out - and still the broken jaw screamed. Black spots danced in front of Tifa's eyes as it got higher in pitch and Cloud went to a knee in front of her. Desperate she grabbed the lolling head and it came loose when she wrenched.
She would never, in all of her life, forget the way it felt to separate bone from body as the skin and muscle tore.
With one last effort, knees already going loose and disjointed, she shoved it under the thin layer of water. For a second - it worked -
And then her eyesight went entirely black and that was all she remembered.