Scarlet Starlight | By : DarthMeow504 Category: zMisplaced Stories [ADMIN use only] > Spiderman Views: 35790 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3 |
Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit fanfiction. The Marvel Universe, the DC Universe, the Image Universe, and all characters and elements thereof are copyright their respective companies. Additional disclaimers within. |
[Author's Note: This chapter features characters from and situations inspired by games in the Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger series, which are owned by Square-Enix. The characters are folded into the setting world as natives, with their backstories adjusted accordingly. The only real justification I can offer is that these are smoking hot characters I've been longtime fans of, and I hope you enjoy reading what I do with them as much as I'll enjoy writing them. In addition, Chun-Li and M.Bison/Balrog (renamed Bai Sun) are copyright Capcom and Michelle Chang is copyright Namco. The remainder of the characters in the new Fantastic Force and others such as Iron Man are copyright Marvel. I own none of them.]
Chapter 16 part 1: Fatale Fantasy
In the secret headquarters of the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, located beneath a seemingly ordinary bar in San Fransisco's famous Castro district and nearby to the even more famous Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, an important strategy meeting was taking place. It wasn't much of a base, really, and couldn't boast much if anything in the way of high-tech defenses or gimmicks, but the building and it's underground rooms had some history. In the era of Prohibition, it had served as a smuggler's den that fed contraband alcohol to the local black market, and in the Vietnam era it had done the same for the drug trade as well as served as a haven for draft dodgers, counterculture activists, and the like. During that later time, where cases of wine and casks of whiskey and other spirits had been replaced by the much less space-consuming marijuana, LSD, and other drugs, much of the former storage space had been converted to rooms for those who took haven there from government and police forces. Today, that arrangement remained though there were less than a dozen people occupying the space now. Still, as always, the place protected it's people with it's legitimate business above ground --a bar called the "7th Heaven" --and it's secret rooms below, well hidden from the prying eyes of authority.
The group of women assembled there tonight neither looked like the conventional conception of terrorist --though they'd reject that label themselves, preferring to call themselves revolutionaries or activists-- and neither did they wear uniforms or colorful costumes or possess elaborate codenamed identities like your average superhuman. Despite this, it would be a mistake to consider them either powerless or anything other than very dangerous in battle. In fact, not only did the assembled grouping hold enough power to challenge even the elite of established superteams, the plan they were discussing tonight would require them to do exactly that.
Tifa Lockheart was the established leader, though the claim could be made that her wife Aeris Gainsborough truly called all the shots. That had not always been the case, and in fact the group had been founded as a sort of one-man army by a powerful, statuestque cyborg black woman who went by the name Baretta. She had begun the fight virtually alone, after the destruction of her small mining town by the corporation they all now fought against, but things had changed since Tifa had joined. As people came and went, and especially after the arrival of Aeris, the locus of power had shifted and most if not all of the current membership were loyal to Tifa and Aeris. This grated on Baretta to an extent, and she still held technical rank as AVALANCHE's founder, but the most important fact was they were stronger now than they'd ever been and had met more and more success in their war against the Shinra corporation and their abomination, the MAKO Reactors.
And now, it seemed they were on the verge of a critical victory, or maybe a final defeat. Gambling big stakes tended to work that way. That knowledge, and the fact that they were getting a briefing based on stolen data kind of gave the feeling of the mission briefing in Star Wars right before the do or die battle against the Death Star. The fact that the whole thing felt like a trap didn't help.
And how could it not be suspicious, considering who had brought them the information? Staring at her, all Baretta could see was -his- face. Cloud Stryfe, as he called himself. The last so-called defector that had turned out to be their betrayer, and had come close to getting them all killed. Hell, for all she knew this "Lightning" could in fact be Cloud himself. After all, Baretta knew from painful personal experience that Shinra's mad scientist Hojo had the means to transform a man on a cellular level into a woman. One day, she swore, she'd make him pay. Even if she had to wait her turn in line to take her shot, he would suffer at her hands before he met hell.
The blonde-and-pink haired presumed female wasn't blind to Baretta's glare, and challenged her to speak up. And while there were any of a dozen things she could have retorted with just off the top of her head, the intimidating black cyborg woman settled instead for asking why in the hell they should trust her. She left unsaid, of course, that being unable to trust her also implied the question of why they should let her live.
The young woman sighed, and steeled herself for what was clearly not going to be a pleasant story.
"I've already told all this to Aeris, but I might as well get it out to the rest of you now." She paused, a soft shudder passing through her small frame, before she continued. "I'm sure you figured out by now, yeah I'm a clone of him. Stryfe. Hojo's most recent pet Jenova project. No, I don't know why he chose to make a female clone, but why the hell does Hojo do most of what he does? Near as I can tell it's because he fucking can."
The others absorbed this and glanced to Aeris, confirming with her that what was spoken was the truth. Aeris nodded her positive assessment, and Lightning continued her story. "The bastard hit on me I don't know how many times, and made a direct try more than once as well. I had to fight him off. Hell, I had to fight Cloud off a time or two on top of that. They treated me like meat, like Hojo couldn't make a damned fuckdoll if that's what he wanted. It wouldn't be the first time. Fuck using me for that! It's not what I was programmed for. I was trained for combat, to be a member of SOLDIER. It's bad enough that there's no telling what he might have done when he had me sedated and helpless, and I swear I would rather not know, but forcing himself on me wide awake was too much. I had to fight him off one too many times, I couldn't take it anymore. Between him and Cloud, or both, sooner or later they'd have gotten to me. I'd die first. I had to get out of there... and I did."
Aeris nodded, and prompted her. "And what about the codes?"
"As I'm sure you know pretty well, you can't just walk away from SOLDIER. I had to plan my escape, and that meant getting all the information I could to sort my options. The first thing I realized is I didn't stand much chance alone even if I made it out, they'd hunt me down. I needed allies... and well the enemy of my enemy was the only shot of finding a friend I had." she shrugged, and went on. "That decided, I knew that I'd have to have something valuable to trade for my sanctuary, so I scoured the database for all the strategically useful data I could get my hands on. Turns out, I hit the jackpot."
"Hell of a jackpot." Tifa chimed in. "Seems too good to be true."
Yuffie Kisaragi, team ninja, nodded in agreement. "I can't be the only one here who's seen Return of the Jedi, right? When your enemy dangles total victory in front of your face, it doesn't take a fish head to know it's a trap."
Aeris nodded to them both, but clearly disagreed. "Need I remind you both, the Rebels sprung the trap and won that engagement, and with it the war? Sometimes a trap can backfire."
Lightning sighed. "Look, to my knowledge the codes are legit. I admit it's possible they let me find them to bait a trap, but if so they fooled me too cuz near as I can tell it's for real."
A purple haired young woman with glasses and a handheld computer spoke up. "I've checked them out, they seem to be everything they're supposed to be. If we can get access to an internal intranet terminal, in the central server network, it should produce a resonance feedback loop that will cause every reactor connected to control to invert and implode."
Her girlfriend, a beautiful blonde renegade princess from the same middle European country not far from Doom's Latveria hugged her from behind and gently teased her. "In English, love?"
Lucca, the purple-haired geek girl, shrugged. "It means their system is walled, so you can't do anything from outside the wall. If we can get in, and use these codes, we can turn pretty much all the reactors into so much slag all at once."
The princess Nadia, who preferred to go by the psuedonym Mari, smiled at this. "That would basically bankrupt the company, wouldn't it?
Lucca shrugged. "I'm a scientist and technician, not an economist."
Tifa smiled. "It couldn't be good for them, that's for damned sure."
Baretta spoke up then. "So why in the hell does a code like that exist in the damned first place? It's like buildin' a buildin' with a fuckin' self-destruct button. It makes no sense."
Lightning answered. "Because it's to Shinra's advantage to be able to destroy a reactor remotely and relatively safely. For insurance, or to build a test project and frag it and then claim sabotage, to discredit the oposition. And then get a contract for a bigger and better one."
Mari blinked. "I think that happened in Guardia! They promised us a test unit, and then it was destroyed... it made criminals out of the people that had protested. Even when I joined the resistance nobody ever did know who'd destroyed the first one."
Lightning sighed. "I wouldn't be surprised, and I doubt you'd be the first."
Tifa nodded, and brought the conversation back on track. "So she may or may not have been allowed to steal them, but regardless they will work, which means we may very likely be walking into a trap but if we can pull it off we can deal a deathblow to our enemy and go a long damned way towards saving this planet. I'm in. Who else is with me?"
Yuffie still seemed skeptical. "You realize this could be a suicide mission? They're gonna be ready for us."
The last member of the group spoke then, a savage looking but still beautiful blonde catwoman in a rough-cut pelt bikini with a stone dagger on her hip. "Hide from predator now, starve and maybe it find you anyway. Fight now, while still strong. Win and live. Lose and die, but die anyway if not fight. Predator not care if find you sleeping or fighting, kill you anyway. Kill it first."
Tifa smiled on the fierce woman from Antarctica's hidden Savage Land, and looked to the others. "Anyone disagree with Ayla?"
The group looked to one another, finding steel-eyed determination in all but one, who sighed and relented.
Tifa nodded in satisfaction. "All right. Let's start drawing up a plan of attack."
-----
On the other side of the country, in New York City's famed Four Freedoms Plaza, another plan was being hammered out via teleconference between the headquarters of two of the world's greatest superhero teams, the Avengers and the Fantastic Force. The latter, of course, had been renamed from the original Fantastic Four to acknowledge the changing membership over the years and the expansion of the organization. As founding member the Thing once stated, it could get rather awkward to bring five or six people into the field under a name with "Four" right in the title. It also allowed them to franchise in a similar way to how the Avengers had expanded their own scope, and thus accomplish more. The organization was now a multinational, with a scientific and philanthropic policy division led by Reed Richards and dubbed the Future Foundation and a rotating membership, multi-branched group of heroes named the Fantastic Force. The original Four still held their rank as founding members, but rarely did all of them go into the field at the same time or in the same place. Reed, for one, almost never went into action himself now, devoting himself primarily to his laboratory and his work with the Future Foundation, while his wife Susan spent more time with her family and was available for missions on a limited basis only. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, spent most of his time with the gay rights heroes the Champions of Los Angeles after his emergence from the closet as bisexual, and the aforementioned Ben Grimm, the ever loving blue-eyed Thing spent most of his time between active duty missions training new and established heroes alike and serving as the "beloved Sergeant" type of the Force.
It was a subsidary concern of the Future Foundation that had prompted this meeting, and the involvement of Reed Richards himself. On the teleconference screen, Tony Stark represented the Avengers.
"In response to your question, Tony, the Shinra corporation is an independent company based in Los Angeles with primarily Japanese backing. Where it involves us is that their primary business is the licensed application of a proprietary advanced reactor technology developed by myself and the Future Foundation, with royalties paid to us directly. These ecoterrorists have targeted the company, it's reactors, and my MAKO energy invention in particular for elimination, in the insane belief that the technology is somehow killing the living spirit of planet itself."
Tony Stark, the inimitable Iron Man, nodded. "I saw that from the file. Interesting stuff. What it doesn't answer is what do you need the Avengers for? Are all your people out in space or something?"
Reed sighed. "Not at the moment, no, but we're not exactly in the active heroing business as we once were. Only one of our founding members sees the field on a consistent basis, and most of our revolving personnel are mid-tier heroes brought up through our co-sponsorship of the Initiative program. We just don't have enough solid, experienced heroes available to counter this threat and I'd greatly appreciate you lending us some manpower."
Stark nodded, but still seemed skeptical. "I understand the team isn't what it was, but a simple ecoterrorist group? A bunch of hippies? I can't imagine them being that much trouble."
Reed tried to counter the point, but Tony spoke over him. "Lure 'em in with some Hendrix, bait the trap with some granola bars and vegan hors'douvers, maybe throw a hookah in there if you really wanna go all out, and when they least expect it, hit them with the soap and fire hoses. Bam, mission accomplished. You're welcome to use that plan, by the way. Just credit me in the police report."
Richards groaned in annoyance and shook his head. "Are you finished?" After he'd endured the remaining barbed quips in the armored Avenger's arsenal, he sighed and made his counterpoint. "Appearances aside, there's nothing simple about them. When you finish reading the files I sent, you'll note that a side effect of direct exposure to MAKO energy is the unlocking of latent superhuman powers in those who possess dormant potential. Each of the main members of the group have been exposed and all of them display superhuman abilities. They don't use costumes or codenames, but they are nonetheless significant superpowered threats. File is incoming now... allow me to summarize."
As he spoke, images of the listed AVALANCHE members appeared on screen, followed by stastics and information like an FBI profile combined with an average RPG character sheet.
"Aeris Gainesborough, Canadian. The emotional and spiritual leader of the group. The true nature and extent of her powers is unknown, but she claims to be an avatar of the living planet. Has displayed earth elemental abilities and biokinesis, and is a potent healer. That ability is of particular concern, as she can revive and rejuvenate combatant team members and return them to battle."
"Ayla, no known last name, Savage Land Antarctica. Jungle primitive with big cat aspects, as well as superhuman strength and durability of at least Class 25 levels. Also is known to possess reflexes, agility, senses, and fighting instincts derived from her animal-like nature. Natural weapons of claws and teeth, and carries a stonelike dagger of remarkable material strength and cutting ability."
"Baretta Wallace, Africa. Former coal miner, heavily injured in an incident involving sabotage and insurrection by displaced miners. Rebuilt as a cyborg by unknown parties. Known to display superhuman strength, as well as built in armor and weapons. Cybernetic right arm and shoulder structure, one cybernetic eye, one cybernetic ear on same side confirmed. Presumably other implants of varying function."
"Lucca Ashtear, Kingdom of Guardia. Semi-genius inventor, multiple fields including computers, applied robotics, and weapons design. Wears a harness that translates her innate fire generation abilities into flame emitters and jetpack flight. Capable of understanding, modifying, and building technology levels beyond modern state of the art."
"Lightning, aka Claudia Stryfe, United States. Former member of Shinra elite SOLDIER security corps prior to defection. Electrical generation, which she can channel into physical feats primarily superhuman speed. Can also fire short range voltage arcs and can stun or electrocute on contact. Special weapons can turn charge into magnetic field, known to possess gauntlets, armor, and a short combat blade augmented thusly."
"Mari Icewind, aka Princess Nadia de la Guardia. Heir in exile of the small middle European kingdom which bears her family's name. Experienced guerilla fighter trained by underground resistance that once fought against invasion from Doom's Latveria. Ice generation abilities. Known to be highly strong-willed, and acts as morale support for her teammates."
"Tifa Lockehart, Canadian. Superhuman strength and durability estimated to be at least Class 25, highly skilled martial artist capable of chi manipulation techniques. Competant survivalist. Capable of fighting well above her Class level of physical power due to high level of hand to hand skill."
"Yuffie Kisaragi, Japanese-American. Daughter of Yakuza-affiliated crime family in Los Angeles area, highly trained ninja and thief. Darkforce abilities. Known to employ toxins in combat. Highly adept at infiltration and breaking and entring, including neutralizing security systems."
Tony smirked when he was finished. "Alphabetical order? Your OCD is showing. Is there a reason they're all women?"
Reed frowned. "Unknown, but theorized that it's due to the cult's belief in female diviinty as expressed in their mythical earth goddess."
Tony nodded. "Lesbians, then."
Reed sighed that annoyed sigh again. "I don't see how that's relevant."
Tony grinned and pressed the issue. "But I'm right. All female cult, led by goddess worshippers, you know they have to be having sex. That's the whole point of a cult, right? When was the last time you heard of a cult leader who wasn't tapping the membership?"
Reed frowned once again. "I suppose that is statistically likely, but I still don't see how that has any relevance --"
He was cut off once again. "Alright, we're in. Keep me posted on briefing schedule and mission time. Stark out."
-----
"All right people, it's go time. Anybody you wanna kiss goodbye, now's the time."
To Lightning's surprise, nobody took Baretta up on the offer, apparently it was a rhetorical statement. The big black woman had taken the role of sergeant, checking everything down and making sure everyone was psyched up and ready. Every group had its pre-combat rituals and superstitions, and all of them were unique. Some refused to even acnowledge that death in battle was a thing, as if speaking of it would invoke it like calling the name of a demon. Others talked like every mission was a suicide mission and nobody was coming home, steeling and desensitizing themselves to the concept by ritualizing its reference. For Lightning, the wording brought a pang that she had nobody to kiss goodbye, nobody to care if she died. She knew at least some of them had done much more than a last kiss the night before, and she had no one. She'd been born alone, from an artificial womb, and she would probably die alone. When her time came to meet the reaper, she'd be mourned no more than the tool she was.
She distracted herself from that unpleasant line of thought by doing her own pre-combat checkdown, and one glaring absence struck her. "Where's Kisaragi?"
Tifa sighed and answered. "She still thinks it's a suicide mission. Said it was nice knowing us."
Lightning was shocked. "And you let her just desert?"
Baretta gave the reply. "We ain't the Shinra, nobody's forced to do nothin'. Everybody here fights cuz they believe in the cause and the team. If you don't, and you wanna quit then quit. I ain't putting my ass on the line with anybody who's not all in."
She could almost understand that, but still it bothered her probably more than it should. "Still, how the fuck can she just abandon her people like that? Your team is your family."
Aeris sighed. "Not everyone thinks that way. Yuffie always was selfish, followed her own path... hell she joined us as a thief, trying to steal from us, and stuck around for the excitement. I guess it stopped being fun for her."
Lightning scowled. "Remind me again why I hate ninjas? Oh yeah, you just did."
Baretta cut the conversation short. "Forget her, she ain't here and we are. We're goin' in without her and we're gonna get it done without her. That means you, newb, have to pick up her slack. We clear?"
Lightning instinctively popped to attention at the barked words, and snapped out a "Sir, yes sir!" She said it without even thinking. She was too well trained not to.
The woman grinned, and as if on cue the purple haired technician Lucca pressed a button on the panel of the device they were gathered around, and with a woosh of wind and a bright flash, a column of light formed into existence like a doorway. So that was how they moved without being detected...
"Alright people, we ain't gettin' paid by the hour, let's go! New blood, you're on point, move out!"
-----
They emerged in what could easily pass as a level from the old DOOM games. It was marked as a sublevel, and the large space was ringed by catwalks and partially open and partially filled with stacked metal crates and machinery between thick supporting columns. It was rather like a warehouse, and was at least two stories in vertical height with parts of it divided by steel platforms into two levels. The open area was taller still, with a suspended chain crane from the ceiling and observation windows in the partial floor above the remainder. Partial divisions led to maintenance corridors and mechanical rooms, and all together it was more than a little like a labyrinth. The dim lighting and deep shadows certainly added to the atmosphere of a technologically-themed deathmatch arena. Except that this was real, and there would be no respawn for the fragged.
They'd emerged into the open space, the pipe and machinery lined cement ceiling far above them and the concrete floor beneath them marked black from countless forklift tires. Getting their bearings quickly, they checked themselves and fell into formation, looking to get oriented and move for their target.
Lucca spoke first. "This is storage... we'll be looking for a service elevator to the loading docks, and then move laterally to the regular elevators to continue up. There's about a hundred floors between us and where we're going."
An amplified, male voice spoke then, echoing from the walls. "Actually, ladies, you'll be going nowhere."
Halogen floodlights clanked into harsh life, revealing Shinra SOLDIER troops as well as a group of blue and silver uniformed men and women who could only be a team of supers. The troops were ringing them on the catwalks above, with more between the columns at floor level, while the superteam occupied the second level storage platform directly above and in front of them. It was a very effective ambush.
The group tensed for battle, dropping into a back to back defensive formation, as Tifa muttered to Baretta. "Well, that seals it. It's a trap."
More than one of the others snarked a thank you to some variant of 'Captain Obvious' or 'Admiral Ackbar', while the source of the male voice came into view. The design of his mechanized armor was world famous and unmistakeable, though he'd traded his normal red and gold colors for the blue and silver of the Fantastic Force to match the uniforms of the rest of the team backing him. Flanking him were two massive male figures, both instantly recognizable, and four others unknown to them, three female and one male. Worse, on the opposite catwalk were two they knew well. The first was General Bai Sun, leader of SOLDIER, a veteran of brutal Chinese campaigns prior to going mercenary and joining the Shinra and a man well known for sadistic ruthlessness and potent personal power. The other was even worse. Thin and clad in black, long silver hair matching his long silver nodachi sword, the deadly edge shining in the light to match the equally deadly glow in his eyes.
The very sight of him made Tifa's blood run cold as she unthinkingly ran fingers over an unseen scar under her shirt from a near-mortal wound from that sword, as she said his name. "Sephiroth..."
Aeris, however, was focused on the other side and in particular the large male on the other side of the armored figure from the famous blue-eyed Thing. Quietly, she muttered to no one in particular. "Is that Thor...?"
That armored figure, the renowned Iron Man, was in the middle of demanding their surrender when all were struck speechless by Aeris's sudden unconscious collapse, Tifa only barely catching her before she hit the floor. And that was when all hell broke loose.
It started with Thor's eyes growing wide at something it seemed only he could see, before rising up with hammer whirling to confront Iron Man. "This place is an abomination! Why did you not tell me what was done here?!"
The armored hero was taken aback, as his team and the Shinra forces watched the unfolding drama in shock along with the stunned AVALANCHE members who were equally confused. "What the hell, Thor? Is she controlling you? You're on our side, remember?"
Only Tifa noticed the smile on the unconscious Aeris, confirming Iron Man's suspicion of her involvement, while Thor growled in response. "Their assault on Gaia will not be tolerated. It is the judgement of the Thunder God that it be struck down." As he spoke his ominous words, the air crackled with ozone as arcs of lightning split the air around him. "Stand aside, the wrath of the gods is nigh."
In response, Iron Man powered up and floated in the air before his erstwhile teammate. "This isn't you talking, it's her... you're spouting their Gaia nonsense, snap out of it!"
Thor's eyes flashed lightning as a thunderclap punctuated his roar. "Gaia is my MOTHER, fool!"
The armored Avenger had only moments to ponder the taste of his armored boot before tasting the force of the thrown Mjolnir, smashing into his chestplate with the force of a hundred bombs and propelling him through steel crates and concrete wall alike, scattering his team as they dived out of the way. And almost as if on cue, at nearly the same moment the lighting went red and alarm klaxons began to blare, causing Bai Sun to curse in Mandarin as he and the majority of the SOLDIER troops were forced to withdraw in response to whatever emergency had set it off. Suddenly, the situation had gone from hopeless to a fighting chance.
-----
A hundred floors above, in the building's security center surrounded by the bodies of downed guards, the ninja Yuffie Kisaragi smiled at the sight of her team breaking for cover under the distraction she'd provided, as well as the other monitors showing the chaos she'd unleashed on the detention level. So far, so good. Now to move to the server level and finish the job. It was good to be the ninja.
-----
A half-floor above the action, on the steel platform overlooking the open area of the sublevel, Ben Grimm watched in dismay as the situation went from under control to chaos in mere moments.
"What a revoltin' development..."
He glanced down the path of destruction that Iron Man had been propelled down by the hammer of the now-compromised Thor, seeing no sign of light or movement that indicated the armored Avenger was still in the fight, and then to Thor himself. He glanced back just in time to see the Thunder God get blindsided by the silver-haired girly man with the sword and thus begin a furious battle that clearly was gonna keep them both occupied for a while. No help there. It was up to them.
The sight of movement drew his famous blue eyes down to their badguys, as they made a move to escape into the shadowed maze below his feet.
"After 'em!" he barked to his team, and made his way towards the rear of the level, finding a good spot and pulling up one of the steel grating sections to drop through, hoping to literally get the drop on the fleeing foe.
He had a sinking feeling that this was gonna be a long day.
-----
"Scatter! Find that elevator and report! Move fast, we got incoming hostiles!"
Baretta barked her orders to her team even as her weapon, an arm-mounted smartgun attached to her cybernetics, barked its own report. As she swept the path before them, the intelligent fire system fed fire in an intermittent, stacatto set of bursts that only triggered rounds when enemies were in the crosshairs. As Shinra uniforms splashed with shredded red and collapsed to send their weapons clatter lifelessly to the concrete floor, Baretta grinned. Not only did every bloodied drop of revenge against the hated enemy fuel her adrenaline-laced satisfaction, it served the tactical purpose of keeping her team from having to advance into the teeth of enemy fire. In moments, she'd shredded the already depleted enemy line into scattered individuals, struggling to cover and regroup. So far, so good...
...so what? They weren't dead or captured yet, but they had a long way to go before they could claim victory. And as quickly as the tide of battle had turned their way, it could turn again.
The first to come under enemy attack was Lucca, though only by moments as a swift blur cut through their ranks and struck so fast it almost seemed simulteneous even with the spacing between them. Lucca was perhaps the physically weakest of them, and as the hacker the most vital of them strategically, and she folded like a rag doll as the impact of the blow rung her helmet like a bell. Her lover Mari had been fortunate enough not to be hit, and immediately dropped into a shielding position to protect her from further attack. Two down
"I've got him!" Lightning shouted and blurred after the enemy speedster to engage him at speed. Aeris, having woken from her astral projection that had turned Thor to their side, moved to heal Lucca but was blocked by a wall of flame that sprang up between them. At almost the same time, Aeris herself came under attack from a violet laser beam that struck her and cut deep. As the earth elemental grunted in pain but healed herself, the same attacker hit her again from another angle. As her lover Tifa moved in to shield her, the erstwhile protector herself caught the brunt of a rocky fist that sent her flying into a column half the room away. As he charged her, he roared out his famous catchphrase.
"It's CLOBBERIN' TIME!"
-----
High above, it had taken only minutes for the ninja Yuffie to make her way to the server level from the nearby security monitoring room, and she was preparing to deliver the digital payload she'd been armed with. She wasn't bad with computers, but she wasn't good enough to do what needed to be done herself. Instead, she'd been given a cellphone sized micro tablet loaded with the codes and a program to implement them into the Shinra systems. All she had to do was connect it and press the button, and it would do the work.
Of course it wouldn't be allowed to be that easy.
She never saw the attacker or had warning of the attack, as an invisible force bubble encased her head and cut off her air. It seemed the enemy had their own ace in the hole, a queen to guard the proverbial king. As the famed Invisible Woman decloaked in her vision, the catchphrase of the Ghostbuster's Egon Spengler echoed in her mind.
"This is bad. This is very, very bad."
-----
Between Yuffie's conflict on the computer level and the battle in the sublevel far below, there was another battle raging in the area of the biolabs and attached detention area. Those familiar with Shinra's atrocities knew that the mad scientist Hojo kept a private lab facility inside the Shinra tower itself, a self-contained complex that took the bulk of two full floors and was tightly closed to all but authorized, cleared personnel and SOLDIER security forces. Most employees didn't have the first clue what took place on those floors and didn't want to know, and none of them had the correct card key to get the elevators to stop on that level to find out. That didn't stop the rumor mill, of course, which fueled soft whispered prayers in many of those who heard the stories as their elevator cars passed through the unlucky dead space.
Still, most of the sensible dismissed the rumors as hyperbole, and couldn't have imagined that the truth was often not only equal to but in fact worse still than the wildest rumor. Hojo and his small, personally selected science staff conducted medical and genetic experiments in that lab complex, based both on the mutagenic effects of MAKO energy and the cells of the Jenova creature recovered years prior from an alien crash site that predated human civilization. The various covert wars that SOLDIER engaged in around the globe fed a steady stream of dissidents, rebels, and political prisoners to the laboratory, where they became numbered specimens for experiments rivaling any Fourth Reich atrocity. The lucky died quickly, to be sent to vivisection tables to probe for the secrets of what went wrong, while others survived to be continuous subjects of tests and observations ranging from mild to horrifically brutal. The least lucky, and there were more than a few, were twisted into horrid, misshappen abominations. And even then, their nightmare didn't end as those who could be kept alive were kept as test subjects to test and examine the nature of their mutations. Only perfected techniques were passed onto the Bioweapons division that created and equipped the enhanced SOLDIER divisions. The numerous freakish failures that led to them were kept here.
And now they were loose.
Yuffie had worked a little computer magic of her own inspiration while in the security monitoring and command section, overriding the containment in the detention areas and unlocking every cell and holding pen. Now, Bai Sun and his SOLDIER forces were fighting a furious battle against what could only be described as a horde of enraged monsters. Much of the science staff had fallen prey to the rampaging, revenging creatures, while those who remained huddled behind the assembled SOLDIER forces for protection while the former prisoners that were still human fought a desperate defensive action against both the monsters and the Shinra forces. So far it didn't look good for anybody, as small fires filled the air with a haze of smoke and weapons fire cut the space in crisscross patterns with their percussive bursts providing a grim rhythm to the symphony of screams that echoed from the walls. Those walls were painted with the splattered blood of human and creature alike, in more colors than just red, and bodies of every description and condition littered the floors. In all, it was a scene fit for hell.
Amid the chaos and violence, two human figures from the prison section fought not just to survive, but to take revenge. Both had lost their fathers to Bai Sun's brutal campaign of atrocities, one during his time with the Chinese military and the other in his career with the Shinra. Both were half-Chinese, and fortunate that their exposure to MAKO had only ehanced them rather then devolving them into monstrous creatures as it had so many others. Both had shared a cell for longer than they had a clear idea of, not having any reliable method of keeping track of time. Both had become deeply close through their shared background as well as their shared experiences. And as much as both hated Hojo, they hated Bai Sun far more. As much as they wanted escape, they were determined that if they were to die in this hell, they would take Bai Sun screaming to the afterlife with them.
They got their chance once the battle lines broke down and the SOLDIER forces were scattered and put on the run by the attacking MAKO monsters. Refusing to cede his position, Bai Sun roared in anger and pulled a heavy machinegun from it's mount and used it like a handheld minigun, even as the remaining lab staff desperately broke for the cell blocks to seek refuge there. The two chinese women ignored them as they passed, and tried also to ignore the screams of the dying as stragglers were picked off and torn apart. Their goal was Bai Sun and only Bai Sun.
He never saw them coming, focused as he was on cutting down the enemy and cowardly underlings alike. When the ammo finally gave out, he drew a combat blade --basically a cross between a machete and a japanese sword-- from one of the nearby corpses of his men and continued to fight. The two Chinese women were able to approach him in stealth and blindside him in a moment where no monsters were near, one going high with a jumping side kick while the other went low to sweep the legs. Both attacks connected solidly, sending the blade skidding across the floor and out of reach. He regained his feet and roared his rage, cursing in Mandarin as he gave chase to the fleeing attackers. Heedless of the danger of being so obviously lured, he barrelled after them like a human bull.
The two women knew exactly where they were going. One of the "tests" Hojo liked to run was to put two or more monsters into an arena-like structure in the lab complex and force them to fight to the death, while he and his equipment observed. The force fields and heavy reinforced structures, now running on backup power after the original power loss that freed the prisoners, would keep out any others once inside, and they set the controls to allow entry but not exit for a predetermined time limit --time enough to take their revenge or die trying.
In the center of the arena, the two locked eyes on one another as they pulled close in each other's arms for a possibly final kiss.
"I love you, Michelle Chang."
"And I love you, Chun-li Xiang."
And then, there was no more time. The hiss of the automatic doors closing and sealing tight announced the arrival of their enemy. There was now no way out for him, or for them. The nickname of the structure among the inmates was brutally appropriate here --they called it the Thunderdome. It was he or they, now. Only one side would come out alive.
As they prepared to finally face their long-hated enemy, both women silently prayed to all the gods they knew that it would be them.
-----
Her name was Sharon Ventura, and she'd come a long damned way to be where she was now. For most of her life, the only luck she knew was bad luck and she'd been to hell and back with nothing but failure to show for it. But now she had her humanity back, after so long spent as a mutated monster, and new powers in the deal. She was Thunder now, a member once again of the world famous Fantastic Force, and her team was winning. Even without the Avengers assistance, they had the upper hand and were pressing their advantage.
They'd been briefed on their foe well in advance, while they were mostly unkown to their targets. They had been able to optomize their strategy to the enemy, and it was working.
Quicksilver had managed to take down one of them in his initial pass before their speedster had engaged him, and he was wearing her down. He was faster, though she seemed to be a better fighter, and he was getting the best of their combat. She had a magnetic or electrical field that reduced the impact of his blows, but his liquid metal form --Sharon wasn't the only one with recently upgraded powers-- was able to heal anything she dished out at him almost instantly and her electrical attacks did little to him at all. If things continued as they were, it ws a matter of time before her endurance failed her. Once that happened, he'd be free to resume his blitz attack against the others and it wouldn't take long to finish them after that.
She was doing quite well in her own fight against her designated foe, a feral strongwoman who seemed to have little defense at all against her electrical attacks. It was something akin to fighting a lion with an amped up taser, just keep zapping it when it tries to attack and eventually it will drop. It was amazing to Sharon that it hadn't happened yet, despite the smell of singed hair and smoke from the multiple shocks. Still, there had to be a limit to the primitive feline's endurance, and she'd hit it sooner or later. She couldn't even touch Sharon herself, so the fight was lost for her. It was only a matter of time.
The cyborg with the gun arm was pinned down and cornered by the regrouped remaining Shinra security soldiers, and wasn't going anywhere. Once her companions had fallen, any one of the team could finish her. It's not like any of them had anything to fear from bullets.
On other fronts, Lyja the Lazerfist, their Skrull member, had kept a hit and run attack going on the enemy healer and kept her from coming to the aid of her companions while her own alien physiology kept the woman from being able to turn her biokinetic abilities against her. It wasn't certain what limits she might have on her ability to heal herself and keep going, but as long as Lyja kept up the pressure and kept her from assisting the others, it was enough. They could overwhelm her with combined attacks after the others were finished.
Not too far away, Ben was dealing with their physical fighter and keeping her from shielding the healer with her body and allowing her to regain the initiative. The woman was impressive to say the least, and Sharon would love to test herself against her even if she wasn't sure she could pass muster. The woman was that damned good, and watching her fight was like poetry in motion. Still, she didn't have the raw strength Ben had and he was known for going toe to toe with monsters twice his strength and refusing to drop. In fact it was entirely possible she was doing more damage to herself than to him, and her grim look of pain every time her fists connected with his rocky hide proved she couldn't keep this up forever. The damage to her hands was adding up, and she was shifting more to kicks but they were hardly more effective. She could knock him down, but she couldn't keep him from getting right back up. He was literally grinding her down.
Finally, the last member of their group was holding down the remaining two enemy. The fire woman was also their hacker, and she'd been felled by Quicksilver's initial attack and lay still unconscious and possibly concussed. The other was their ice princess, and she was withering under the furious fiery assault of the latest person to wear the name of the Human Torch. This one, like the very first, was an android of Horton design, though this one was cast in the image of a college age female of decidedly cute countenance. Her adorable features were set in concentration and aggressive effort as she poured the heat onto her targets. The ice princess was only barely holding up it seemed, protected only by a thin aura of icy blue cast against the merciless assault of fiery fury. If those defenses faltered for even a moment, it would be over.
The downed hacker was already a victory, as they wouldn't be able to finish their computer attack without her, even if they got that far. Their invisible ace in the hole on the server level might not even be needed at all. From the looks of things here, it was as good as over.
-----
Above, a more personal battle was raging. The "Terror of Taiwan" was proving he was no soft rear-line general reliant on cannon fodder, as he fought both women simultaneously and was keeping the upper hand. Despite their skill and power, they could neither break through his defense nor completely avoid his potent offense, and both women had pulled themselves off the floor multiple times to re-engage the enemy. It was beginning to remind Chun-Li of the lightsaber duel in the otherwise offensively awful Star Wars prequel, where the evil Dark Side master easily held off two powerful Jedi and was in fact toying with them for the majority of the battle. That hadn't ended well for at least one of them, and she had a bad feeling about this fight as well. There would be no last-second Lucas-written villain collapse to save them. It was do or die.
Even as she pushed herself, desperately seeking to reverse their fortunes, she saw in his eyes the moment he decided to stop playing and bring the hammer down. Michelle was the first to fall, as Bai Sun planted a fist glowing with crackling greenish energy in her gut with devastating force, causing her to cough blood and crumple like a rag doll. His hard eyes held a sadistic laughter as he absorbed Chun-Li's furious counterassault without taking more than a single blow, a back fist to the face that only enraged him as she drew blood. The next seconds seemed impossible, as he unleashed a combination attack on her the likes of which she had never seen or even imagined possible. First, he somehow slid forward, feet forward sweeping the ground with a wedge of green glowing force like a bulldozer scoop, pitching her forward and off balance, which he capitalized on with a fist in her gut and a brutal backflip kick that caught her exposed chin perfectly and sent her bounce skidding across the floor several feet away with her head swimming in dazed agony. And as she struggled to regain her feet, he finished her with one more unbelievable attack. He took stance and concentrated for a moment, and then his whole body was sheathed in that crackling greenish energy and he literally left his feet and flew at her like a monstrous version of Superman. Both fists caught her in the gut and his momentum carried her off her feet, ending with her back slamming against the arena wall crushed between it and his fists. Dazed and gasping for breath, blood in her lungs spattering the ground as she coughed and spasmed, she struggled to regain her feet but her legs were like limp noodles and wouldn't support her weight. Even if they could, her slammed head couldn't balance her, the room spinning and swaying in her dizzyed vision. She knew death was but moments away.
And yet, he didn't finish her. Instead, he walked away from her, moving back towards... oh no. Michelle. He wanted her to watch. Panic fueled adrenaline flooded her system and righted her vision as she watched in horror at what was to come. First, he sadistically laughed at them both, dangling Michelle's stolen pendant given her by the father he murdered in front of her face, teasing her with it, and then his other fist was sheathed again in that deadly green glow as he pulled it back to smash her head in with it, to burst it like a ripe melon. Every part of Chun-Li screamed as time seemed to slow in those last awful moments.
And then something snapped in her... something awakened. Her vision was washed in blue as a sudden blinding flash distracted Bai Sun from delivering the killing blow, and by instinct she threw her fists out and poured out all the anguish and rage she felt, it manifesting in a massive blast of blinding blue-white energy like a column of pure force. It caught her hated enemy full-on, taking him off his feet and slamming him into the opposite wall with crushing force. This time, it was his turn to cough blood and gasp for breath into emptied lungs, head dazed and bleeding from where it had struck the wall. In those moments, Chun-Li was up and moving, adrenaline and the blue energy her body was sheathed in propelling her as if pain and her prior injuries didn't exist. She felt her cracked ribs grinding together in her chest even as she moved, but in a detached, painless fashion as if noting the landing of a butterfly on her arm. She seemed to cross the floor in a few near-leaping steps, the final few feet covered in a jumping side kick that caught him full in the head, staggering him as he collapsed back, the wall the only thing holding him upright as he he leaned against it. He desperately tried to counterattack, attempting that bizarre foot-scoop move again, but this time she caught him effortlessly and threw him down, his head smacking the wall with a wet thunk. Her following kick smashed it into the wall again, leaving a stain of blood as his weak attempt to regain his feet was aborted for good. His glazed eyes and the splatter of blood on the wall made it a good question whether he was in fact dead at that moment, but she didn't care. She just kept kicking, harder and faster with every passing second, pouring out years of pain and anguish and hate and rage into the body of the man she hated with every fiber of her being. Bones cracked beneath her onslaught like rotted twigs, blood and gore splashing the ground and wall beneath and behind his mangled body, and still she didn't stop. When one kick caught him square in his ruined face and carried through into the wall, bursting his head into a splash of gore and fragments of bone and brain, she didn't stop. The kicks became a blur, near a dozen strikes per second in blazing, machine gun rapid fire, crushing and mangling the body into so much unrecognizable pulp, a mash of blood and flesh and bone fragments in a uniform now holding the mass together like a blood soaked bag.
It wasn't until she collapsed to her knees, utterly spent with hot tears streaking through the splattered blood she was covered in, that her voice failed her and she finally realized she had been screaming the entire time. Her eyes widened in sickened shock at what she'd done, doubling over to puke out the acidic bile of an empty stomach, mixed with blood. She thought she might curl up and die on the spot, in sight of the ruined body of her enemy dead by her hand, when she felt soft arms wrap around her from behind and pull her into an embrace, and back from the edge of shock. Soft hands stroked her face and hair, and a soft voice reassured her again and again that it was ok, it was over. As flooded as she'd been with rage, she felt like she was even more flooded with love for the woman whose arms she was collapsed in. As the kiss met her lips, despite the horrid mess she was covered in, she swore softly to herself that she would belong to this woman for as long as she lived, and then blessed unconsciousness claimed her.
None could argue that she'd earned her rest.
-----
Above, in the server level, Yuffie was lying in wait. Racing through her options from the moment she'd seen who was attacking her, she realized that she couldn't win a straight fight against the Invisible Woman. Not that she couldn't fight without seeing her target, after all she was a ninja and blind fighting was trained into her from youth. But Sue Storm was more than simply able to turn invisible, she had potent force field abilities that Yuffie couldn't hope to penetrate. Her only hope was to catch her off guard with the field down, and the best shot of that was to lie down and play dead.
Fortunately, the same thing that saved her from the initial attack helped her to do that very effectively. One of the more interesting side phenomenon of MAKO energy was a form of crystallized energy matrix called Materia. Just like some MAKO exposed individuals gained superhuman abilities, Materia carried a power within them that could be tapped by attuned individuals. They could be added to weapons or armor to enhance or power them, or they could be used directly to summon or benefit from their abilities. Yuffie had always been fascinated by the glowing, jewel-like spheres and had in fact first joined AVALANCHE with the intention of pilfering their collection of the stuff. One of her favorites was one judged useless by most, dubbed "Underwater" and about as in demand as Aquaman in the middle of the desert. Basically, it kept the user's cells oxygenated and scrubbed of carbon without the need to breathe, and rendered them immune to changes in pressure. Using it, she could survive vaccuum or the bottom of the ocean, but mostly she liked to use it to walk through clouds of gas or smoke without ill effect.
In this case, it allowed her to shrug off the effects of having her oxygen cut off by the Invisible Woman's attack and, combined with her ninja training in controlling her body, slow her heart to near stoppage and very convincingly play dead with no breathing and no detectable pulse. Pretending a desperate choking for air, she first sank to her knees and appeared to struggle for consciousness, and then collapse entirely. She didn't resume breathing even when she felt the force field around her head that had cut off her air disappear, and she concentrated on being utterly motionless and slowing her heart to feign death. She ignored the prods and pokes as her foe checked to make sure she was down, and made sure she showed no metabolic response when she was checked for vital signs.
She grinned silently inside when Storm cried out to her god in shock at the girl's apparent death, and flopped lifelessly like a rag doll when she was flipped over and positioned for CPR. She didn't spring her trap until she felt the other woman's lips on hers to begin mouth to mouth resuscitation when to the woman's shock, she responded to the touch of lips with a deep tongue kiss, mming into it, as she pressed the needle of her knockout dart into the woman's neck artery. The stunned target barely had time to sputter her shock and surprise before the potent Materia-driven Sleep effect kicked in and she passed out. Hopping up with a grin, Yuffie couldn't help but quip to her unconscious foe that she was an excellent kisser, and that she was sorry she had to stop at foreplay, before moving on to finish her mission.
It was definitely good to be the ninja.
-----
Underground, surrounded by and covered in fire with the smell of smoke and the sound of her companions' pain in her ears and her life's love unconscious and bleeding from the scalp in her lap, Mari of Guardia's world could pass rather convincingly for a circle of hell. But Mari had seen worse. She'd survived worse. And as mistress of ice and cold, she was uniquely equipped to handle hell.
Rising to her knees and then struggling to her feet, she poured her will and determination into her power, pushing back the fiery onslaught with her own frigid aura of subzero chill. Meeting her enemy's eyes, she growled out words of challenge.
"You're not stronger than I am... or maybe you are, but not enough to matter. Because I will not lose. I can't. What are you fighting for? Because they told you to? What's actually at stake for you? Anything at all? Everyone you care about walks away from this, win or lose. We're not murderers. Me? I have everything on the line. My friends who are closer than family. My freedom. My love. My whole world! I'm fighting to save the world, and you too, and I won't let you stop me. I can't. And I won't. I. Will. NOT. Fail...!"
Her powerful words steeled her will even as it raised questions in her enemy, and with every passing moment she gained ground. First her aura of blue was merely a sphere around herself, up from a barest shell of protection, but she kept pushing, pouring everything she had into it, gritting her teeth and shouting a defiant roar. First she battled back to halfway, where the twin beams of hot and cold met between them and canceled one another out, and still she didn't stop. Moment by painful moment, she kept pushing until her opponent was battered down to a defensive sphere, and then a thin shell, and still she kept pouring it on even as her opponnent was driven first out of the air, then to her knees. With a final push, she cried out in triumphant agony as she broke through the defenses and sent her foe to the ground in chilled unconsciousness. She'd won.
Collapsing to her own knees from the strain of effort, she gasped for breath as her head swam and her body flushed and shivered from the aftereffects of so much adrenaline. She'd done it. Now, as soon as she recovered her breath and strength, she could help her teammates. Softly stroking the hair of her injured lover motivated and soothed her, helping her focus as she whispered voicelessly that it was ok, they'd won. It felt like a small eternity, but slowly her breathing calmed and her vision cleared and balance returned, and she struggled to her feet. A second wind kicked in for her and her body reawakened itself to continue the fight. She was ready.
She got the opportunity to help her team not moments later, as Lightning blurred towards her while shouting into the communicator to "freeze the floor!". Doing so immediately, she cast her icy blasts down at the concrete, covering it in moments with a slick layer of ice. Lightning blew past even as she was casting the effect, and it solidified right in time as her pursuer was caught in the patch of newly formed ice. The silvery figure skidded off his feet and out of control, and then himself froze as Mari turned her icy blasts on his hurtling form. Unable to stop or change directions or barely even slow, he slammed into a concrete column and actually shattered, looking for all the world like the frozen T-1000 from the Terminator films Expecting him to reform once thawed, Mari hit his shattered shards with an extra final blast of ice to make sure he stayed frozen and out of action for a while.
Two down.
The next to fall came thanks to Lightning being freed to assist, as she swiftly moved on the Thunder woman fighting Ayla and jumped onto her back, causing arcs and sparks as she drained electrical power from her. Normally a Lightning Materia kept her powers charged, as she could not generate her own electricity but instead only draw in and use it, but she shut off that source and pulled all the power she could from her enemy instead. That sudden draining weakened her immensely, bringing her to her knees as Lightning supplemented it with a choke hold that robbed her of oxygen as she drained her powers. Magnetically stuck to her, Thunder couldn't shake her loose or break free as her strength faded and consciousness threatened to go with it. A leaping "cat kick" --and yes, the feline called the attack-- was all it took to drop her, concussing her as the attack connected straight and true to her temple and the side of her head. She collapsed completely then, half conscious and dazed, and a simple palm strike to the back of the head by Lightning was delivered to send her into full blackout.
Moving on from her, Ayla and Lightning went after the green woman who was attacking Aeris, allowing the biokinetic geomancer to finally recover her senses, heal herself once again, and then move to Lucca and Mari to help there. Reviving Lucca first, she then gave Mari a bit of a booster to help her second wind so they could both go back into battle. They immediately realized where they could do the most good, and moved to assist Tifa.
She could certainly use the help. The rocky chest of the Thing was painted in splattered crimson from where Tifa's bloodied fists had pummeled him again and again only to have him to get up and come at her anew. She could outfight him, but his armor was making sure she hurt herself as much as him and then some. Moving to flank Tifa, Lucca and Mari nodded to one another to confirm what they both had in mind. It was a strategy they used often on armored targets, and it should work well here. It began with Lucca bearing down on him with her heat rays until he was glowing red hot, and as he roared in pain and charged them he ran straight into an icy subzero blast from Mari that cooled him far too much too fast. The sound was like thunder echoing off the concrete as his armor cracked into a shattered mess and he began to bleed from a thousand hairline cuts in the thick hide beneath. He wasn't down, he was too stubborn for that, but he was vulnerable and Tifa was ready to finish the job.
The finale attack was spectacular, as Tifa roared her pain and frustration and charged him full bore, taking him off his feet and carrying him at a full run into the open area where Thor and Sephiroth still fought, then crouching and launching them both into the air with a burst of her powerful leg muscles and a bright blue flash of ki. Inverting in mid-air into a powerful back drop, another burst of ki propelled her and him into the concrete floor with a wet and crunchy smack that reverberated from the walls. Having driven him into the floor with her shoulder and letting him take the brunt of the impact, she came up sore and hurting but the much better off of the two despite the clearly dislocated shoulder she was holding in one bloodied hand. She was a beautiful mess, but he was not getting up at all. She'd won.
Wincing in pain, she dragged herself to Aeris and the soothing blue-green glow of her healing hands, the relief so intense it almost took her off her feet. As Aeris cradled her in her arms and stroked her hair, she gave her life's love a soft kiss and rhetorically asked her how she felt. With a soft, weary smirk Tifa quipped that she'd just beat up a rock. The joking assessment wasn't far from the truth.
They were both distracted then by Ayla, who dropped the battered and unconscious form of the Skrull woman Lyja at their feet like a cat presenting a dead mouse. Aeris got a curious expression on her softly beautiful face and set Tifa on her feet before kneeling to examine the alien woman. As she ran glowing hands over her, her expression turned to fascinated awe.
"She's not from our world!" she softly exclaimed, and continued to scan her even as she stabilized her into healing unconsciousness. "I could learn so much..."
To that end, she soaked a cloth napkin from her belt gear in the Skrull woman's green blood and tucked it away to study later, and then rose to her feet to take command of the post-battle cleanup.
"Find the others and bring them to me for stabilizing, and then spread out and find that elevator."
Baretta countermanded that as she came up, tapping her earpiece. "No need, now. Just got word from Yuffie, mission accomplished."
A weary cheer was voiced from the battered team at the news, both in celebration and in relief that it was basically over. This had been a tough fight for all of them.
Aeris smirked then, and teased her statuesque cyborg teammate. "What took you so long? All you had to deal with were Shinra soldiers."
Baretta gave an annoyed but amused frown, and a shrug. "They had me pinned, they were damned good. Then they all of a sudden just collapsed at once. Don't know why."
Aeris expressed how odd and curious that was, and Tifa interrupted with a glance at the open area. "You think we should jump in and help with Sephiroth then?"
The answer to that came but moments later, as Thor roared in agony, then in rage and there was first a shattering clank of metal on metal that sent Sephiroth's sword clattering to the ground in two pieces. First the hilt and half the broken blade, and then the bloodied second half falling moments later. The air was crackling with lightning, and the thunder came as Sephiroth hurtled from the air and slammed the ground so hard it left a crater in the hardened concrete, and he was pinned helplessly as the hammer Mjolnir weighed unmovably on his broken breastbone. To finish it, lightning struck from empty air at the call of the Thunder God, lancing through the hammer and the helpless body of Sephiroth, grounding out in the now exposed steel rebar of the reinforced concrete floor. Even if it were possible to get up, pinned under Mjolnir as he was, Sephiroth would not be getting up again anytime soon. He was finished. The battle was done.
Thor landed but moments later, retrieving his hammer from atop the smoking near-corpse of his enemy, and bowed to Aeris. "Milady."
She smiled on him then, even as she healed him, and spoke softly. "I am the avatar of Gaia, and I hear Her voice. She's very proud of you, Her son."
He nodded, as he rose. "I know my mother's spirit, Her aura in you is strong. I knew you spoke truth."
She smiled deeper. "You have your father's wisdom in you, Odinson. We owe you our thanks."
Baretta seemed distracted a moment, and then interrupted. "Can you two kiss each other's asses later? That was Yuffie again, we've got a situation on the laboratory level. Everybody grab the wounded and c'mon, we'll wrap this upstairs."
-----
Aeris had ample time to heal her team and stabilize the downed superheroes during the long elevator ride up, and the strongest members were assigned to move them to the holding cells on their destination level while the others assessed the situation and devised a plan of action.
That assessment was swift, as they emerged into a scene that wouldn't look out of place in the last DOOM game, with torn apart bodies and blood and viscera painting the walls and floor and even parts of the ceiling like demonic art amid the ruins of laboratory equipment. The roars and growls of MAKO monsters, some wandering, some fighting amongst themselves, echoed off the walls. Surely, some of them lay hiding in wait, too, awaiting the arrival of fresh human prey.
As they all absorbed the grim scene, Aeris spoke to Lucca. "Take Iron Man upstairs to the server level, he should be waking up soon. Disable his weapons, keep him on a leash, but I want you to show him everything Shinra's done. Give him all the files you can get. We'll handle thinga here. Send Yuffie back down to us."
The purple haired genius girl acknowledged her orders, kissed her lover Mari goodbye, and then took the elevator onwards and upwards to complete her assigned task. Baretta then issued the next command.
"Alright people, form up! We're moving together to the holding cells, we'll drop off our prisoners and then secure the area. I want shooters on point and trail, softies on the inside, now move out!"
It ended up taking more than one trip to get every one of the enemy to the holding cells without bogging down the team too much, as they needed to fight off attacking monsters. Still, it got done, and they prepared to take the offensive. Thor smiled and said he would handle it, but several of the others said they still wanted to fight and would happily assist in doing some monster hunting. Lightning, Ayla, Mari, Baretta, and the newly-rejoined Yuffie formed up with Thor into a hunting party, while Aeris chose to sweep the area for survivors in need of assistance with Tifa guarding her.
From the looks of the place, it didn't look like they'd have much luck.
-----
Upstairs, Lucca had quietly and efficiently went about the business of disabling the offensive components of Iron Man's armor and setting it to minimum power, while allowing it to still function. When that was done, she proceded to break what security she found in the Shinra mainframe and organize the files for download, both to her personal system and Iron Man's onboard computer. Despite the amazing complexity of the work, she handled it with poise and even hummed softly as she worked. There was nothing she loved better than a good intellectual challenge, and the casualness with which Aeris had assigned her such a task was testament to the confidence her team had in her abilities. She'd never let them down before, and she didn't plan to start now.
The sound of pained groaning from her armored semi-prisoner distracted her just as she was finishing up, and alerted her that he was waking up. She smiled, and gave him a little wave as she finished setting up the file queue and set it to go.
"Good morning... I have a show for you. No, don't try to get up, you can't right now. Just watch and listen, ok?"
On the huge screen before them, images and data files and videos began displaying, in rapid fire multi-windowed avalanche of information dump. She had no doubt he could handle the speed, she herself liked to work this way and a designer of the kind of tech she found in that armor should surely be able to keep up. She was proven correct as he watched with no sign of confusion or inability to comprehend, instead frowning in concentration and soon scowling as the information sank in. When her little demonstration was over, and the machine flashed "DOWNLOAD COMPLETE" indicating that both of them now had full copies of Shinra's deepest digital secrets, she smiled and asked him what he thought.
He just sighed and growled softly. "...son of a bitch."
Mission accomplished.
-----
In the laboratory level, the grim work of searching for survivors had indeed not gone well. The bodies they found were more often than not mangled beyond description, some even partly devoured, and that was those that were intact enough to count as corpses. The rest were scattered pieces and chunks and splashes of gore. It was like walking through hell's own butcher shop. They'd almost lost hope that they'd find anyone alive at all, besides the few lab staff and SOLDIER members who had made the safety of the detention cells and sealed themselves in, when they found a pair of survivors in a most unexpected place.
The testing arena was a place of brutality where tortured creatures and human test subjects alike had fought to the death countless times, and it looked like the horrid place had held one last battle. The two survivors, both women, lay on the ground unconscious in one another's arms while their foe was barely recognizable as a human corpse. Still, the prisoner's armbands they wore proved that they were worth rescuing, and the Shinra uniform of the corpse indicated that they were on the same side.
As Aeris extended her senses to examine them, Tifa asked. "How are they?"
The healer smirked softly and quipped. "Well one of them is definitely dead. The other two are injured but alive, nothing a month in the hospital couldn't fix."
Tifa chuckled. "Definitely dead, huh? Not just mostly dead? Come on, I'm sure you could bring him back Miracle Max style right?"
Aeris blinked and actually took a good long corpse at the corpse. "Umm? There's barely more than hamburger left... I could probably pull him back together but he'd just be a meat puppet, the soul's long gone. Sometimes they stick around a while, but he'd have to have had the willpower of a god to hang with a body that mangled. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."
Tifa grinned and continued to tease her. "And what about the others, out there? Could you pull them together too?"
Aeris blinked and groaned. "Oh goddess, really? They're scattered all over and some of them is being digested in the stomachs of MAKO beasts. It'd be like putting togther a whole mess of jigsaw puzzles back together that somebody just dumped in a box. I'd be here all week."
Tifa chuckled. "Aww, but I thought you could do anything?"
Aeris sadly smiled, remembering times that her powers had failed to save people they had cared about. "I'm the avatar of a goddess, not the Goddess herself. I have limits."
Tifa softly smiled and hugged her from behind. "Not in my heart you don't. You're infinite there."
Aeris felt her knees grow momentarily weak as her heart fluttered at the romantic words, and she kissed her lover passionately before returning to her work. "I love you too, but I do have a job to do here."
Tifa nodded, but continued the distracting banter. "Is the corpse who I think it is? And are you gonna put the recruiting moves on these two when they wake up?"
Aeris grinned. "The answer is yes and of course hell yes."
Looking on the two beautiful Chinese women she would later come to know as Michelle and Chun-Li, locked as they were in their unconscious lovers embrace, Tifa smiled. She had a feeling they were going to fit in with the group just fine.
-----
An hour or two later, everything was finished and wrapped up, and they were ready to go. Iron Man would have his armor recharged in a while, and Quicksilver would thaw and reform sooner or later eventually, and one of them could come to set their teammates free. By then, AVALANCHE would be long gone. Tifa had introduced the two new women whom they'd rescued and convinced to join them, but that didn't answer everything.
Baretta wanted a report from their sweep asking if they'd found any sign of Hojo, but Tifa answered sadly that there was no sign of him or of the Jenova creature and that it seemed he'd escaped with the creature in a special escape elevator designed for the purpose. He was certainy long gone by now. He then questioned Aeris about the contingent of red-suited Shinra soldiers she seemed to have following her around like a pack of lost puppies, and she chuckled as she replied.
"They're new... meat puppets, basically, Bai Sun was controlling them subconsciously and they dropped when he died for lack of direction. They answer to me now, I figure they can do chores or something. I'm sure we'll find some use for them."
That drew a soft chorus of laughter from the assembled group, but it left one question still left unanswered in Lightning's mind.
"What happened to Yuffie ditching us? I thought she bugged out?"
Tifa softly smiled, and explained. "We still weren't quite sure of you, and even if you were on the level you could have been monitored. Yuffie was our ace in the hole, we were the diversion. We figured if you didn't know she was coming, the enemy wouldn't either."
Lightning nodded, absorbing this. "And you're sure of me now?"
Aeris smiled and answered that one. "You did your part, and we won. You're one of us now."
Baretta smiled but played gruff. "Yeah, you did alright newbie." and then she barked out. "Alright people, mission accomplished, we can't stay here forever and we got a celebration to get to at home base. Break formation and move out!"
The former Shinra SOLDIER, clone of a hated enemy, could only smile deep inside at the words of welcome. She had a home now to go to. People to belong with. A new team, and a new family. Maybe even a new love to be found, as at least one or two of the women were single and certainly all were attrractive. Maybe even the ninja, she'd come through for them after all and proved that Lightning had utterly misjudged her. As she lined up behind her to hop through the newly-opened light doorway that would transport them home, she couldn't help but notice the girl had quite the cute little ass on her. Maybe if she got lucky, she could make something happen.
The glowing doorway before her was like a portal to a new, bright future. And she was ready to leave the smoking ruins of her Shinra past behind her and leap through it.
-----
[to be continued]
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