Midgar Region: Mountains\
After
leaving the W.R.O. HQ, Daisy drove them to the mountains to seek refuge. They abandoned Daisy’s car at the base of the
mountain, hidden among the trees, and made camp in a small cave halfway
up. There, Yuffie fell asleep against
the cavern wall while Daisy kept a fatigued watch.
The W.R.O.
knew their faces and would follow them.
They would capture them, too, and while Daisy felt sure that Reeve would
make some effort to help, she also knew that even he couldn’t protect them from
what they did. All actions have reactions,
and she felt certain that this time, it wouldn’t end in their favor.
After
Yuffie woke up, she let Daisy sleep, and she paced the cavern mouth as the sun
set. Stretching her legs and nibbling on
the rations they brought, Yuffie sat down at the edge of the cliff and stared
out into the distance. The air was clear
there and cool, but they had brought blankets and other survival gear with
them.
She pulled
out the thumb drive and put it into her bracer, pulling up the holographic
interface and digging through the data.
The files were each encrypted, but Shelke gave them a program of some
sort specially designed to break the encryption. It took time to dig through the code, but
once she was in, she had an entirely new world opened up to her.
Daisy woke
up around midnight and found Yuffie still working, pouring over the data. They had been partners for years, hunting for
materia together side-by-side, and she had never seen Yuffie so focused
before. Sometimes, like back at the HQ,
Daisy would get glimpses of the woman Yuffie must have been during the Jenova
War, though, and in those moments, it was hard to imagine she could be anyone
else.
The cool
air left them shivering, so Daisy made a quick fire and led Yuffie over to
it. The younger woman hardly refused to
look up from her bracer. Another hour
passed, and Daisy made them food on the fire.
The W.R.O. hadn’t pursued them yet, or at least they hadn’t found them
yet. After they ate, Daisy took to
cleaning her gun by the firelight.
They slept and
started early the next morning, and Yuffie hardly spoke. Daisy went for a hike to stretch her legs and
came back to find Yuffie pacing. They
stopped in the cavern mouth together and faced each other.
“Done?”
Yuffie gave
a nod. She stood with her hands on her
hips, but she didn’t stand for long.
Something compelled her to pace again, to keep moving.
“And? Please, tell me you found something. Tell me we didn’t make an enemy of the
world’s government for nothing.”
“Found a
lot of stuff. A lot of secrets.” She shook her head. “These bastards. There’s so much, Dais, so many secrets, so
many lies hidden from view, even from us.
Even from me. Shinra did
experiments, a lot of them, a lot we don’t know about, with Mako, with people,
with materia, and they hid it anywhere that had shadows deep enough to keep
people from seeing. And the W.R.O.
knows. All of it. And they’re hiding it.”
“What are
you talking about?”
“The files
that Reed was looking at were about something called Project D. We couldn’t get everything before the
sentries stopped us, but we did get a location.” Yuffie tapped a few keys onto her bracer and
pulled up a map of the world. She closed
distance between them and pointed to a blank area in the middle of the
ocean. “Here.”
“What’s
there?”
Yuffie took
a deep breath. “Materia, which is what
the Emerald Lotus is after, right? But
not any materia. Materia made from
people, made with human lives. Grown
inside of them, feeding on them. Killing
them.”
Daisy
paused, and then took a deep breath. She
held it inside of her until her thoughts settled and then exhaled. “Okay.
That’s...Wow. And the W.R.O. knows?”
“They’re
keeping it. All of it. Powered and running.”
“Are they
still running the experiments?”
“That’s
what we need to find out.”
Daisy shook
her head and paced a small circle. She
then went to gathering her things.
“We’ll need a boat, then.”
Yuffie
sighed. “A boat.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re
right.” Yuffie gathered her things, too. She slipped her shuriken into place on her
back. “I just wish you weren’t.”
Off-Shore W.R.O. Facility\
They found
a boat and take it out to sea, riding the shifting waters out to nowhere. On the way, Yuffie held the side of the boat,
vomiting whenever the urge would strike her, and she let Daisy lead the
charge. Periodically, she would comment
how she can’t wait to make it to dry land or, in lieu of that, something solid.
The
facility appeared in the distance. To
the casual observer, it looked like an old Shinra power plant. The sea air has oxidized the outer shell,
leaving much of the platform dusted with a rusty outer coating. It was stable, though, holding against large,
crashing waves. No one would suspect it
was anything more than a vestige of the past, except there were few birds there
and even the fish seemed to stay away.
Boats were docked to one side when the duo arrived.
They
approached without notice, killing the engines once they were close enough and
gliding forward. As soon as they could,
they climbed onto the hard asphalt of the facility and sought refuge behind a
few large, rusted transport canisters.
Yuffie rested her back against it and took deep breaths as she tried to
settle her stomach. Daisy peeked around
the sides.
“It’s empty.”
Daisy said. She drew her guns and set
the safety off on both, just in case, and she leaned back to look at
Yuffie. “Where is everyone?”
Yuffie
shrugged and sat up. She leaned
around. The facility looked Shinra in
origin but there were upgrades made.
They were shoddy at best, but they were enough to keep someone from
looking deeper. It was adapted into an
oil platform, like the one Barret worked on, but none of it looked real up
close. The machine was largely inert
and, from what Yuffie could tell, potentially hollow.
“I don’t
like this.”
Yuffie
caught sight of something in the distance and squinted, and then she shuffled
back into hiding. She drew her shuriken and took a deep breath, and she pulled
Daisy with her and held her fingers to her lips. Then, she pointed around. Daisy peeked and squinted, too.
“What am I
looking at?”
“At the
blood,” Yuffie said. “They’re under
attack.”
“Lotus.”
“Exactly.”
Yuffie stood and rounded the steel crate.
“Come on, we have to hurry.”
Daisy
followed close, across the hot asphalt of the facility, and came to a stop
behind her. They peeked around another
crate and found three Lotus soldiers standing together with W.R.O. soldiers tied
up between them. The W.R.O. were
breathing shallowly, bloodied at the mouth and some unconscious. Two Lotus, one a stout female and the other a
slight male, stood nearby, talking as they kept watch, assault rifles
ready. The third was busy binding the
remaining W.R.O. soldiers.
“Guard
duty,” said the female soldier. She shook
her head and adjusted the shoulder strap of her rifle. “I mean, come on. What’re we guarding for? We’ve already cleaned up.” She looked at the slight male beside
her. “Think what I said got back to the
commander?”
Slight
shrugged, one hand on his hip. “Might
have, but that doesn’t explain why I was put here with you. Anyways, she’s not in charge here. It’s Hollis and that other guy. Commander is just following orders, I think.”
Stout pursed
her lips. “I’m not so sure they’re that
hands on. Hollis doesn’t seem to care
about anything but breaking stuff, and the other guy is...always distracted.”
“Wait a
minute,” said the Lotus binding the guard, standing and glaring over at the
two. “Wait a damn minute here! Are you
telling me we got this posting cause you were mouthing off about the
commander?”
Stout rolled
her eyes. “I didn’t say anything much, I
just said...”
While they
talked, Yuffie stalked a wide circle around them, using various machinery to
keep her presence hidden. Daisy positioned
herself behind them, pistols ready, and watched for Yuffie’s movement. Before the woman could finish her sentence,
Yuffie charged, closing distance and landing a kick to Slight’s chest, knocking
him to the ground while the other two scrambled to respond.
Stout
reacted quickly, stepping in and taking a wide swing. Yuffide ducked under, using Stout’s momentum
to flip her through the air and bring her down prone, on her back. Meanwhile, Bindings stood, gun drawn, but she
only just had it level by the time Yuffie yanked it from her hands and
disassemble it before her. Then, Yuffie
danced around her, twisting her around and throwing her face-first into a
nearby wall.
While
Bindings fell, Stout and Slight stood and readied weapons. Stout had a dagger, while Slight brandished
brass knuckles. They closed in on
Yuffie, who met them part way, crouched low and moving quickly. She kneed Stout in the gut and kicked her
away before turning to Slight and elbowing him in the face.
Then, she
turned to Stout and smiled. “You’re
tougher than your friends. Or, at least,
you’re still standing, but that won’t last long. Because I’m...”
“The Great
Ninja Yuffie. We know.”
Yuffie
frowned. “You know, it just sounds silly
when you say it.”
“I’m not
afraid of you.” Stout readied her knife,
pointed the gleaming tip toward Yuffie’s heart.
“None of us are. We know what
kind of hero you are. The one who stands
on the sidelines while your friends do all the real work.”
Yuffie’s
frown deepened. She popped her knuckles,
one-by-one. “You know, I was kind of
starting to like you.”
“Glad I
could change your mind.”
Yuffie
closed distance again, moving in close as Stout made quick jabs that didn’t
land. They moved together, Stout
retreating into a canister behind her and going stiff as Yuffie moved in to
knee her in the gut. The blow was
surprisingly strong and left her kneeling.
She reached down for a small knife, which gleamed as she drew it, and
was about to make another assault when she felt cold steel to her crown. She looked up to find Yuffie, arms crossed,
and frowning at Daisy.
“I had
this.”
“I’m sure,”
Daisy said, cocking her gun for dramatic effect. “But I’m tired of watching you scuffle, and
we have a job to do.”
Yuffie
sighed and shrugged, looking at Stout as if to say, “What can you do?” Then, she kneeled down and looked Stout in
the eyes. She took the knife from her
and tossed it aside. “So, you going to
talk now?” Stout spit into her face, and
Yuffie grimaced. She gave a look at Daisy, who was chuckling to herself, and
then kicked Stout hard across the face.
“Yuffie!” Daisy sighed, put the safety on her gun. “We’re not going to get information from her
now.”
“Yeah,
yeah,” Yuffie said, wiping her face clean.
She kneeled down and started undressing Stout.
“Um. What’re you doing?”
“Getting
something better than information from her,” she said, and she looked toward
the other two. “I’m sure one of those
will fit you, too.”
Daisy
looked between them. She frowned. “No.
We’re not.”
“We are,”
Yuffie said, as she carefully pulled Stout from her pants. “Infiltration is key in these sorts of
situations. Subterfuge. It’s all part of being a great ninja.”
“Yeah,
well, I’m not a great ninja.” Daisy
grimaced as she went to the other woman and started undressing her. She pinched her nose and gagged. “This thing smells awful.”
“You think
that’s bad. Just imagine how sticky
it’ll be in there. I don’t think they
have much time to bathe between the terrorism and bombings, do you?” Yuffie stepped into Stout’s pants and found
they fit her well, so long as she keeps her own clothes on underneath. She looked over at Daisy, who was still
struggling to get the other woman out of her clothes in tacit disapproval. “Come on, hurry it up, will you?”
“I really
don’t like this idea.”
“I know, and
I don’t care. Now, strip.”
-Disc One-
After
changing, Yuffie and Daisy discussed how to proceed. They regard both the benefit and danger of
freeing the W.R.O. soldiers, especially after their own troubles with the
organization, and decided to leave them tied up. Before going, Yuffie stowed her weapon in a
nearby crate while Daisy bound the Lotus soldiers left beside the W.R.O.
soldiers they had just captured.
The surface
of the facility was mostly empty, save for the soldiers already captured. It took them nearly thirty minutes to find
anymore Lotus and, those they found were entirely at ease. Yuffie understood. The facility itself was remote enough so as
not to draw much attention it wasn’t already due, and it wasn’t due much
attention at all, except by people already distracted interested in it.
Yuffie and
Daisy approached the Lotus from the front, Yuffie making eye contact, waving
when necessary, and Daisy staring fixedly at the ground. These soldiers were clustered around the
central elevator, a large, open platform that led into the deeper parts of the
facility. A few others were busy
cataloging and organizing materia before loading it onto a few helicopters that
sat nearby. From where they were it
difficult to see the sky anymore. The platform
was open, but stacked rectangular shipping containers bordered them on all
sides.
They
stepped onto the elevator, and the Lotus guarding it waited as more people
piled on. Then, she hit the switch and
floor lurched. The machine whined to life
as they started their descent, and soon Yuffie couldn’t see the sky at all
unless she looked directly up, and even that was narrowing to a dot.
A few
minutes of steel and concrete opened up to a thick glass tubing. Yuffie approached the wall and stared out at
the ocean floor, which was lit up by enormous lights. There was a facility below, domed in glass
and set with concrete. She could see
small, green shapes working among glittering rows of materia.
“Pretty
amazing, huh,” said a Lotus from her side.
He was a man, judging from the sound of his voice, and short and thin
from the look of him. He carried an
assault rifle under his arm, safety on, and when he caught her staring, she
could hear a smile in his voice as he said his name. “Garrett.”
He held out his hand.
Yuffie
shook his hand and said, “Yu. You new?”
“Oh. Yeah.
Just joined up in the Midgar recruitment. What he said really got to me, you know? You?”
“Same.” Yuffie looked around and leaned in. She touched his shoulder for good measure,
and she knew for certain he was smiling after.
“Listen, don’t tell anyone, but all of this is kind of a blur for me,
you know? Think you could remind me what
the mission is exactly?”
Garrett
laughed and adjusted his rifle strap.
She thought he might also be flexing, too. “Of course.
It is all a bit hectic, isn’t it?
Right now, we’re here gathering up all the materia. Once we have it catalogued and everything,
we’ll redistribute it where it’s needed.”
“All of the
materia?”
“Mostly the
cure.”
“And what
about the rest?”
He
shrugged. “I don’t know. Keep it for the war with the W.R.O. Whatever
we do with it, I’m sure it’ll be better than letting the government horde all
of it.”
Yuffie
nodded silently and stared out into the water.
The Emerald Lotus, to her, seemed a lot like the W.R.O., just on a
different side. Both of them were so
busy reminding everyone how they weren’t the other guy, how they weren’t
Shinra, that they didn’t have the time to actually help people. Perhaps there were good ideas at the start,
but anywhere she looks, Yuffie can’t even see them.
The
elevator continued its long crawl.
Somewhere away from her, Daisy was being chatted up by a female Lotus
and looked extremely nervous, but Yuffie trusted her not to ruin the charade. The elevator lurched to a stop, and Yuffie
fell into Garrett’s chest, and she made like she was blushing underneath mask.
“Careful,”
he said, helping her to settle herself.
She thanked him.
“Um, hey, I
have another question.”
“Shoot.”
“Um, who
exactly is in charge of this operation again?”
This time
Garrett paused. She couldn’t see him
behind his mask, but she was sure he wasn’t just checking her out anymore. Another group of Lotus soldiers were
watching, not just her, but Daisy as well.
“Yu, wasn’t
it? Mind telling me when you joined?”
“Actually,
I do,” she said, and she saw him fingering his gun. “Man. I was hoping we could do this easy.”
The
elevator groaned to a stop and powered down, and as the door opened there were
two Lotus soldiers left standing with five bodies scattered around them. Daisy checked her guns before holstering them
again, and then she followed Yuffie off of the elevator. The two of them found shelter behind one of
the waiting materia carts and stole glances out at the underwater facility.
On the
surface, the facility looked to be just like an oil rig or otherwise a Shinra
Mako plant. Below, it was clearly
something else. Old Shinra machinery,
oiled and fitted back into operation, lined a bare concrete floor. An underground vault was set in the center, where
Lotus soldiers were fetching fresh, untested materia. It all looked like an old Shinra research
facility, save for the W.R.O. emblems on the walls.
The domed
ceiling was made of reinforced glass and, from the ocean floor, the lights
outside hardly seemed to display anything above the darkened waters. A whale drifted by, its blue-grey skin
shining in the light, and suddenly Yuffie felt very small. She swallowed and breathed, and she checked
her surroundings again, searching the Lotus for faces she recalled, but she found
no one.
Most of the
soldiers she could see were busy sorting the materia by type and effect. They were taking notes and then loading it
into carts, which they wheeled close by and left for the people to take up the
elevator. From what she could see, none
of them noticed the absence of movement from the elevator. More were working inside of the vault, which was
dug into the center of the floor.
Two Lotus
broke from the rest to roll a cart of materia over. Yuffie leaned back into hiding and looked at
Daisy, who nodded, and then they parted.
Yuffie worked a small arc around the room, keeping to carts and machines
for cover, while Daisy retreated back and to the side. When the two Lotus were in range the duo
quickly subdued them.
Both Lotus
were men, one tall and thin and the other of more average height and
build. They went down hard and were
quickly dragged over to where the elevator sat, unused. Average was unconscious but tall and thin
managed to stay awake, though judging from the way he moved, he was dazed. Yuffie took a gun from Daisy and struck him
across the cheek before putting the barrel to his skull.
“I won’t
tell you not to scream, but I’m sure you’ve already figured out who I am and
you know that it won’t help you. It’ll
just get you dead.”
“Actually,”
Tall said, his voice strained by the pressure Yuffie placed on his throat with
her foot, “I have no idea who you are, but I highly doubt you can stop everyone
here on your own.”
“Doesn’t
know who I am.” Yuffie glanced back at
Daisy, laughed, and she kicked him across the face hard enough to knock him to
the ground. Then, she pinned his head to
the floor and removed her mask. “Then
take a nice, long look, buddy, and tell me if you can figure it out.”
He stared at
her best he could, blood running from his nose and lips and pooling in his mask. After a long, considerate pause, he said,
“No. Not really.”
“No? Not really?
What do you mean,” Yuffie was about to kick him again when Daisy dragged
her away and replaced her. She had her
other gun ready and pressed it to his skull in Yuffie’s place.
“It doesn’t
matter if you know us, and it doesn’t matter if we can stop everyone here. We can stop you, right here, right now, with
one bullet. Do you understand?”
Tall
swallowed the blood in his mouth and nodded slowly. Behind Daisy, Yuffie sulked.
“Answer our
questions, and we’ll leave you unconscious and go on our way. Do you understand that?”
Another
nod.
“Good. Then, tell us what you’re doing here.”
“Looking
for materia. We’re always looking for
materia.”
“Why?”
His eyes
darted between them. Yuffie had stopped
pouting and was now leaning forward, staring him in the eyes. She was more threatening when she was quiet,
he decided, and he looked back at Daisy and then at the gun. “I don’t know,” he
said, “We want to redistribute it, Lotus says, but we don’t know what he does
with it once he gets it.”
“Then why
help him,” Yuffie asked, arms crossed now as she stared down at him.
“Because
it’s better than the W.R.O. hording it.”
Yuffie
groaned, and Daisy held her hand up and pressed the gun more firmly to his
forehead. “And why are you looking for
materia here?”
“Don’t
know. They didn’t say.”
Yuffie
rolled her eyes. “Of course, they
didn’t.”
“Next, who
is in charge of this operation?”
“There’s
three of them, though she seems to be taking orders from the big guy, Hollis,
and the traitor.”
“She,”
Yuffie said, but she was drowned out by Daisy now.
“The
traitor? Who is the traitor?” She cocked her gun. “Is it him?”
“I don’t
know his name,” Tall whined quietly, eyes closed and shoulders shaking “He—he worked undercover until recently and
helped Hollis escape.”
“Oliver,”
Daisy said, and she leaned back. She
looked at Yuffie. “He’s here.”
“I
know.” Yuffie leaned down and looked
Tall in the eyes again. “Anything else?”
The man
stared at her. “You’re her, aren’t
you? Yuffie.”
“About damn
time.”
“Hollis is
waiting for you. It’s all he’s been
talking about.” The man grinned. “He wants to fight you, to kill...” And Daisy silenced him with a swift stroke of
her pistol. He fell unconscious in his
own blood as the two women stood straight.
Yuffie slipped her mask back on and returned Daisy’s gun to her.
“Wonder
what he was going to say,” Yuffie said, fastening the mask.
“We both
know what he was going to say, and we don’t need to hear it.” Daisy looked back, across the room, to where
the Lotus were working. “They’re in the
vault. Both of them.”
“All three
of them,” Yuffie said. “And that’s where
we’re going. Whatever they’re looking
for will be in there, if it’s here at all.”
“Yuffie?”
“Yeah?”
“When we
find Oliver...Let me handle him.
Please.”
Yuffie
looked at Daisy, found her shaking, full of frailty and venom. She knew the danger of trusting it to her,
the potential failure, or worse, but she also knew the danger Hollis would pose
alone. The options were few, so she
nodded, and she said, “Fine, just be careful.”
And then, Yuffie led the charge.
-Disc One-
After
leaving the elevator platform, Yuffie and Daisy hugged the shadows. Though dressed in Lotus uniforms, neither of
them felt confident as they approached.
Oliver alone knew them well enough to point them out in a crowd, dressed
even as they were, and the last thing they needed was to be surrounded by
enemies with three of the top Lotus warriors there to contend with.
They moved
in close, Yuffie leading and Daisy following.
Lines of machines made neat rows within the facility floor, some used to
examine materia, others for experimentation.
It would take a lifetime for Yuffie to understand each little instrument’s
exact function, but they were large and bulky, and that made them good for
hiding.
She moved
lightly, her footfalls making almost no sound.
At the edge of the vault, they found that they could peak inside. From their vantage point it was hard to see
clearly, but the vault itself was large, with plenty inside. Hollis stood in the center, pacing around
with a bored smirk, towering over everyone around him. The walls glittered with racks of materia,
only a quarter of which had been removed so far.
Yuffie
motioned for Daisy to watch the door and waited for the other woman to nod and
draw her weapons before moving on. A
deep breath, and Yuffie did what she did best.
She charged forward, moving silently as she went, and took a handful of
materia from the nearby cart on the way.
Then, she leaped into the room, a fire materia in hand, and set it off
with a flash of flame and a curtain of smoke surrounding her. The Lotus grunts inside were incapacitated
before she landed. Those outside were
funneled as they approach, and she handled them with a few fingers of lightning
left in her wake.
Oliver
turned as the smoke cleared, baton ready and sparking. He pointed it at her and lunged, and she
danced around it, throwing him into a wall, dislodging materia on impact. He glared across the room at her. “Yuffie!”
“Traitor.” She covered her mouth. “Sorry, wait, did I get that wrong? Your name wasn’t traitor...It was…Oh, man,
this is so embarrassing. I can’t
remember your name, and traitor just seems to fit you so well.”
Hollis
laughed from the center of the room and watched the two with his arms
crossed. He didn’t look bored any longer.
Oliver
turned his glare on the big man briefly.
“You shouldn’t have followed,” he said, the Lotus soldiers on the ground
stirring around them, shaking their heads and nursing their wounds. They start to draw their weapons as they
stand, and Oliver releases the trigger on his baton. The hum of electricity fades. “Let us go, Yuffie. Even you can’t win against all of us.”
“You don’t
know that.” She looked around the room
and removed her mask, and then she smiled.
“Looking at you skinny things, I think I could break a few bones before
you even landed a single hit.”
“Yuffie.”
“Actually,
I think she’s right,” Hollis said. He
moved forward now, pushing his way through the soldiers, knocking two to the
ground as he passed. “She could handle
you lot with no problem, but she won’t get the chance.” He grinned at her. “We have catching up to do, little girl.”
Yuffie
palmed her materia.
“You go on
ahead and take the kids with you,” Hollis said to Oliver. “They’ll only get in the way.”
“We still
have work to do,” Oliver said.
“Maybe, but
if she’s here then the W.R.O. ain’t far behind.”
“Hollis?”
“Go. I won’t tell you again. You and the grunts will get caught up in
this, and I ain’t holding back this time.”
His grin broadened, showing more of his sharp, animal-like teeth. “That’s right, girly. Even your chesty little friend didn’t win
outright. It was all part of the plan.”
“Color me
impressed,” Yuffie said flatly. “Oliver,
listen to the man. He’s about twice as
tall as you and three times as wide.
Besides, you’ve got an old friend waiting for you outside, and she’s
just dying for a reunion.”
Oliver
looked toward the vault entrance.
“Daisy.”
“That’s the
one. I’ll catch up with you two later,
after I’ve kicked sideburns here from one side of the facility to the other.”
Hollis
laughed and popped his big knuckles. “I’d
like to see you try, girly.”
-Disc One-
Yuffie came
hurtling from the vault and hit a nearby table as she landed. The steel folded underneath her and slid away
as she rolled in the opposite direction, sliding to a stop a few feet
away. Daisy stared from her hiding spot
behind one of the different steel instruments, guns still trained on the vault
entrance. In a loud whisper, she called,
“Yuffie? You okay?”
Yuffie
groaned in response. “Fine. Hollis is
mine. Oliver. Goons.
You.” She picked herself up off
the ground, clutching a cure materia to her chest as she moved. Once the pain in her back was eased enough to
free her movement, she dropped the materia beside her and charged forward, hopping
over a materia cart on the way.
Hollis
appeared from the vault, grinning at her approach. He had his jacket off now, exposing a beefy,
tan chest thick with dark hair. Dropping
it beside him, he sunk down into a boxing stance, hands up and feet
moving. Behind him, Oliver led a group
of Lotus soldiers out under a hail of gunfire.
Before
reaching Hollis, Yuffie hurled a ball of flame toward his face. He punched it out of the air, collapsing it
into a cloud of smoke and cinders.
Yuffie leaped into this cloud, twirling as she went, and landed what she
felt was a solid kick to his chin. He
met this by taking her by the leg and hurling her across the room again. This time, Yuffie managed to land on her
feet, but she dropped her materia in the effort of regaining her balance and
then scrambled into the shadow of a nearby machine for cover.
The gunfire
quieted as the elevator came to life across the room. Yuffie could imagine Daisy following them up,
either by stairs or climbing. Below the
roar of the gears, she could hear Hollis’ heavy footsteps, bending the metal
with each stomp. He stalked the aisles,
tossing carts and tables as he went.
“Hiding? And here I thought you
were the Great Ninja Yuffie, hero of the Jenova War, Conqueror of the Five Gods
of the Pagoda!” He laughed as he peeked
around one corner and then crushed a steel panel in his bare hands. “Guess you’re like every other Wutai rat
there is. All you can do is run.”
Yuffie fixed
her eyes on the floor and moved from spot-to-spot. She kept her distance and used his voice and
footfalls to track him. Slowly and carefully,
she closed distance on him, always keeping at his back wherever he went. Each of his movements grew more violent, and
each of her movements grew more precise in turn. She couldn’t beat him in a straight-out
fight, and she knew that.
Soon
materia carts were shattering against walls.
Steel panels and electric circuits were parted and exposed, sparking in
his hands as he roared in growing frustration.
From the corner of her eye, Yuffie spied his large shadow spread by bare
lights across the floor, and she made her approach. The attack would be swift and, hopefully,
finished before he could react.
She had to
leap to reach him and conjured ice to her palm as she did. It shattered across his neck. Even through the ice, she could feel the
stone-sturdiness of his muscles, but she could also see the damage done. He fell to a knee and let out a growl while
she flipped over him and struck him again, this time kicking him in the chin as
she rolled away and back into hiding.
He followed
her in a daze, swinging wildly and clearing the floor with his big hands. Whole instruments, bolted to the ground, were
razed and cast aside. A haze of electric
smoke filled the air. Yuffie darted away from him and came to a stop, breathing
shallowly as she did. Her lungs hurt,
and her limbs were going numb, but she couldn’t let him hear her. One hit from him and it could all be over.
He was
stronger than she remembered or perhaps had been holding back the first time. Their last battle played out in her
head. Whatever else he was, Hollis had
her in raw physical strength and, that last attack proved to her that, while
she can hurt him, she didn’t have the time to whittle away his defenses. Daisy was skilled, but she was also
outnumbered, which meant Yuffie had to work fast.
She thought
of Tifa now, thought of how even if Hollis had faked his defeat, Tifa was still
the best example she had on how to defeat him.
In combat, Tifa was quick and powerful, and that latter aspect gave her
an advantage Yuffie needed. What Yuffie
had now against Hollis was materia, but once the jammer came into play the
battle would be lost in an instant.
Which meant she had to take him down before that happened.
Ultimately,
she had to end it with a deathblow—a single, powerful strike. Before that, she would have to weaken him
just enough to fracture his base. He
stopped her by flexing his muscles last time.
She had to keep him from being able to do even that. She didn’t have time for a battle of
attrition, but she felt certain she could drop his defenses just long enough to
land a single, fatal strike
Scooping up
a few more materia, she attuned them to her body and pocketed another for later
use, and then she returned to the chase.
Hollis had moved halfway around the room, searching the far corners
where she had been hiding. He had done
well in clearing everything as he went, reducing her hiding places to folded
steel panels and sizzling wires.
Her
approach was a slow, wide spiral. With
the area he had cleared out she would be exposed longer with each passing,
which gave him time to counterattack, but she still had the advantage of speed
and stealth. So, she took a deep breath
and charged, and he caught her in his periphery.
Yuffie
leaped again and hurled a block of ice toward him. He punched through it in a spray of frost and
followed that initial blow with another punch to her gut. Yuffie grunted, spittle flying from her lips
as the air was knocked from her, and then she was weightless. The ice materia left her hands, but she held
tightly to the other materia she had ready.
Focusing on it, she sent an arc of electricity from her palms and into
his big, chisel chested.
She dropped
the materia when she landed and slid to a stop.
Her limbs felt weak and tired.
Her stomach throbbed. She
coughed, hard, and kept coughing until she could breathe again. Across the room, Hollis was up and stampeding
toward her. She scrambled to her feet
and slipped away, darting between machines before he could reach her.
He came to
a stop where she had been and roared.
“Hit and run,” he said, turning slowly and staring out at what was left
of the room. Then, ripping a computer
from the ground, he tossed it into the wall as he screamed again. “You can’t be beat in a fair fight, so you
play these little games. Run and hide
and shoot me with materia. Think you’re
clever?” He paused long enough to reach
into his pocket and produced the jammer, which he clicked on. The materia in her hands went inert. “Now, what will you do with your tricks
stolen from you?”
Yuffie came
to a stop in the corner across the room and held there, breathing slowly
through the burning in her stomach. He
was working slowly at clearing the room again, barking insults as he went. The names he called her would have been
enough to bring her right back to him if she wasn’t nearly in tears from their
last confrontation.
With the
jammer in play, he was right about one thing: she couldn’t win. In fact, she wasn’t even a threat. Above, she imagined Daisy pinned down from
enemy fire, taking careful shots and shielding her eyes from the sun as she
lined up. The Lotus would be escaping
already or otherwise holding the landing platforms for Hollis’ return. They might have even taken W.R.O. hostages. Yuffie had to win, and that meant one thing.
Yuffie had
to steal the jammer.
Another
deep breath, and she pushed herself to kneeling. The room drifted slowly in her vision and,
even without the draw of the materia taxing her, Yuffie was running on
fumes. The blow to her gut had left her
winded, and she felt like it would take a week to catch her breath. Whatever
she did, the battle was coming to an end, and she still had the surface to deal
with.
She checked
her last four materia and the held four materia tightly in her hands and took
the deepest, quietest breath she could, and then she closed her eyes and centered
herself. She put herself passed the
pain, passed the fear, and she thought only of one thing—the final charge.
Yuffie
approached again, moving cautiously. He
was moving toward her this time, sweeping his way through, dislodging
everything in his path. She kept her
eyes fixed on him this time, not trusting her other senses to get her through. Pain was distracting her, pulling her away
whenever she gave it the chance. Then,
he was before her, back turned as he tossed away a table and shouted another
obscenity.
He stomped
forward, toward something else, and she moved.
Her legs locked briefly, fingers aching, breath caught in her
throat. She felt sick and afraid, and
her stomach ached in phantom pain, but she caught him by surprise, and she got
her hands on the jammer and just got it free from his grip before he noticed
her. He turned about and brought his
fist down on her, and the flooring dented, screws rising from the foundation as
Yuffie leaped away from him.
Flash! The air hardened around him, a sheet of ice
holding him to the floor. He grunted and
flexed, the frost fracturing around his torso as he pulled himself free, but
not in time. Yuffie had already
discarded ice and pressed two materia into his flesh. The poison burned as it seeped into his skin,
dulling his senses and slowing his reactions.
Confusion knocked him off balance as the world swirled around him.
She dropped
those two and clutched her last materia—purple in color—tightly in her
hand. This one didn’t draw on her, but
she drew on it, feeling the raw, elemental strength of the ancients flowing
through her, imbuing her with the vigor needed.
She planted her feet, bowing the steel as she did, and she put
everything she had into this final strike—the deathblow.
Hollis
didn’t have time to meet her; he couldn’t even see her, but he felt her tiny
fist drive into his chest and the bones fractures in response. He didn’t fly but stumbled back a few feet
before collapsing into unconsciousness.
Yuffie stood over him, just as breathless as he was, but she considering
standing the real victory.
Frost clung
to his face, knotting his sideburns.
Poison left his skin discolored, his veins throbbing and pulsing as it
spread through him, and she could only imagines the things he would see if he were
conscious, but he wasn’t. She put her
foot on his big, beefy chest, and she smiled, and then she laughed.
Her legs
quaked, and she stumbled back into a nearby cart, holding it for support. More deep breaths, and she steadied
herself. Then, she looked over at the
jammer before pocketing it for later use.
This battle was won, but a war was being waged above.
She started
toward the elevator.
