Just as the title says, this is a drabble for Scarlet from Final Fantasy VII.
It's supposed to take place mid-Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-.
I don't own the characters in here, so don't sue me.
On another note, hopefully this will let you all know I'm not dead. ; I'll be getting back to work on my Some Kind of Monster fic, soon. I promise.
Happy holidays and a happy new year, to everyone.
Scarlet Drabble
To survive in the ShinRa Company, you had to climb your way to the top. You had to dig your nails into the skin of your opponent and throw them off the sixty-fourth floor of the building to assure yourself of your position within the company. When everything revolved around gil, you had to make sure you were the one who could make the company the most gil in the cheapest and most efficient ways. Scarlet was one of those women who could lie her way to the top, but make sure that everything was done with a tight budget in mind. At this point in the race, she was assuredthe position of Head of Weapons Development.
As always, she was attired in her revealing red dress, shoes that matched, and her blonde hair in the same style as it always was. Whenever she walked through the halls of the ShinRa building, her heels clicked relentless on the ground. Anyone who was familiar with the sound knew when she was coming down the halls, and to her pleasure, a good number of people avoided contact with her out of fear. She got what she wanted – she alwaysgot what she wanted, whether it was an increase in her budget or a better office for herself.
She was headed directly to President ShinRa's office – the presidential office with a perfect view of the city below the building. The blonde woman watched as people walked by her, keeping their gazes down. When she made it to the elevator, she pressed the 'up' button, and slid her identification card through the card reader and input her destination into the keypad. She turned and faced the glass wall of the elevator, looking outside it to the city. Crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes darted from one sector to another, admiring the city's layout.
Another minute passed as she stared out the window until a soft 'ping' resonated, symbolizing she had reached her destination. Giving a final glance to the city, she stepped out of the elevator and swiftly made her way to the Presidential Office, knocking lightly on the door. When the gruff, but familiar, 'come in' sounded, she opened the door and stepped toward the center of the room, offering the President a smile. The man sat with a cigar hanging out of his mouth, making a gesture for the woman to have a seat next to a suited man – a man she didn't recognize. She quirked a brow and hesitantly took a seat next to him.
"Scarlet. This is Mister Kramer." The President introduced, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his desk while he removed the cigar from his mouth. "He's introduced a new idea to me, one that could save us millions of gil on your current systems."
"Millions?" Scarlet asked, furrowing her brow as she looked toward the man sitting next to her. "Oh, how glorious." She hissed, glancing back toward the President, who happened to be taking another long drag of his cigar. "I'd love to know what these ideasentail." She mumbled, pursing her crimson lips as her gaze slowly traveled back to the mysterious man.
The man shuddered at Scarlet's glare before he began to stutter and introduce his ideas of a new mako-retrieval system, suggesting different sources of power and how to apply to weapons without the process of wasting gil on manufacturing weapons, manufacturing materia, and draining mako. A way of recycling, he continued to call it.
"Looks to me like your position might be threatened, Scarlet." The President chuckled, smirking as he looked over the blonde woman. She didn't speak. Instead, she sat in her own rage and seethed in silence.
"Allow me to point out the flaws in your system." Scarlet growled, glancing back to the suited man, biting her tongue before she spoke. "We already recycle weapons. The materia must t be manufactured, or else it will affect the weapons, and the SOLDIERs. Sir," she mumbled, focusing her gaze on the President, offering a risen brow in concern. "It would cost more to tend to the affects it will have on the SOLDIERs and the fix the problems with the weapons. Instead of saving millions, it seems to me that you would be losing millions more. Our system," she hissed, glancing back to the man, "is perfectly fine."
The President sat in silence for a moment as Scarlet leaned back in her chair, feeling proud of herself for her quick retorts. Certainly, she extended the truth a little bit, but there was no way the President would know. After a few more minutes of careful calculation, the President sided with Scarlet and dismissed the two of them, warning Mister Kramer not to waste his time with any more foolish ideas. Scarlet smirked to herself and left the office, offering the President a gentle wave as she closed the door behind herself.
The man she'd been arguing with quickly left in another direction as she approached the elevator. As it arrived, she stepped in and returned to a lower floor. There was a sense of pride within her that almost shined as she strutted through the halls. She made her way to the Head of Urban Development's office, and pushed the door open, with no courtesy of knocking. She looked around until she spotted the man in his suit, hunched over his desk and working relentlessly on something. He was obviously too focused to even recognize that his door had been opened.
"Tuesti." She growled, banging her fist against the wall and looking at the man with a harsh scowl across her face. When he finally registered that she was in the room, he spun around and rose a brow at her.
"Oh … Scarlet. What a surprise." He mumbled, allowing a small smile to flick on to his face.
"Enough of the phony pleasantries." Scarlet immediately commented, stepping toward him with her arms crossed. "Did you put that man up to trying to threaten my position?" She muttered, leaning toward the seated man and narrowing her eyes. "The way he spoke made me think of you."
"Put who up to what, Scarlet? I haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about." He mused, smiling again and standing up as she continued to enter his personal space. "If you would be so kind as to let yourself out, I have a handful of work to catch up on."
Scarlet quirked her mouth in disappointment as the man almost ushered her out of his office. "Believe me, Tuesti, if I so much as catch a whiffof you trying to take my position away from me, I will have your head." Storming out of his office, with no regard to close the door, the woman made her way back into the hallways and toward an 'employee only' lounge room. She had the clearance to go in, and she swiped her card and entered the room, closing the door behind her. Approaching the countertop along the wall, the woman took an empty cup and turned on the coffee machine, waiting as it started up and began to steam.
She rose a brow as she heard the door being activated, watching it slide open as the card was registered. A man in a dark blue suit entered the room, and Scarlet offered the man with short black hair a smile as he came in. "Well, well – hello, Turk." She mumbled, watching as the man gave her a nod and strode passed her, obviously with a destination in mind. "Tell me something." She immediately spoke up, crossing her arms over her chest again and tapping her foot lightly on the tile. "Are you reallyfrom Wutai?"
As if he were insulted, the man looked to her and rose a brow in curiosity. "Yes." He answered quickly.
"Why do you work for ShinRa, then?" She asked, smirking and watching as he rummaged around, looking for something. "We are at war with Wutai, are we not? Sephiroth - the great hero of the Wutai war – slaughtered countless men and women in Wutai. Doesn't that just … make you angry?" She asked, waiting for some sort of response from him. She was hoping for some rage fueled response, anything that wasn't an expectedresponse.
"My reasons are my own. How I feel is none of your concern, Miss Scarlet." He commented before finally finding the folder he'd been looking for and walking by her once again, in order to leave the room. "It's not a good idea to pry into people's lives, you know." He commented, shaking his head slightly and leaving the room.
She waved him off as he left, and turned her attention back to the coffee machine. She placed her cup underneath the little nozzle and pressed the button, watching as hot coffee was poured into her cup. Smiling, she let go of the button, pulled the cup away, and brought the cup to her lips. She sipped from the cup for a moment as she took a seat on one of the few couches in the room. She crossed one leg over the other as she sat down, staring at the empty wall across from her. She lightly tapped her foot in the air, allowing countless thoughts to run through her head.
She had been devising the perfect way to keep her little secret, between her and the President, hidden from people – people like the prying Reeve Tuesti. He always knew more than he let on. DeepGround was bound to be discovered by him sooner or later – and she had absolutely no way to defend herself in the situation that mako flow to Reactor Zero, and she would need Tuesti's help in reconfiguring the delivery of mako.
Just as she let out a heavy sigh, she heard the door to the lounge register another executive's card. She pursed her lips in consideration and sat up, glancing over her shoulder to see who was entering the room. As the blonde man came in to view, Scarlet rolled her blue eyes in response. "Good day, Director." She mumbled unenthusiastically, shaking her head and sipping from her coffee cup. She hated Lazard Deusericus with some sort of passion. The root of her hate was nowhere to be found, all she knew was that she hated everythingabout the man.
She didn't watch him as he made coffee, she ignored his greeting, and she didn't look at him as he made his way to another couch in the room. "Don't you have SOLDIERs to be watching over?" She asked, quirking her mouth in displeasure.
"I don't watchthem, Scarlet." He retorted, lacking just as much enthusiasm as she did. "I deploy them and make sure they get their jobs done. If they need me, they know how to reach me."
Scarlet rolled her eyes and lolled her head back slightly, glaring up at the ceiling. It could have been anyone else that decided to step into the lounge today, but no, it had to be Lazard Deusericus. She remained silent, unwilling to start some conversation between herself and the other blonde in the room. It wasn't until he spoke up, that her attention was drawn away from the ceiling.
"I heard you almost lost your position today." He commented nonchalantly, sipping from his own coffee and keeping his gaze away from her.
Though he wasn't looking at her, Scarlet's gaze was drawn directly to him. "How did you hear about that?" She asked, quirking her mouth and tightly squeezing the handle of her cup. "Youput that fellow up to it, didn't you?" She growled, barring her teeth momentarily while she focused her glare on him.
"Hm?" Lazard mumbled, shrugging slightly and shaking his head. "I'm not that pathetic, Scarlet. You don't need me to help you lose your job. No, I heard it from Reeve."
"Oh, glorious." She hissed, releasing her tensed fingers on the handle, and bringing it back up to her lips. "That fool must gossip with the entire building, then."
"Not the entire building." He smirked slightly, "Just me."
"Well, Director, I have things to do." Scarlet commented, rising from her position on the couch and making her way to the counter top holding the coffee machine.
"You mean you're actually going to do some work? I'm impressed."
"That's enough out of you." She growled, sliding her cup on to the table and stepping through the sliding door. Without sparing another breath for him, the woman headed directly for the elevator, pressing the 'up' button, and heading back to her own office, one more floor upwards. The elevator took less than a minute, and she was promptly delivered to her floor. She stepped off the elevator and made a b-line for her office. She swiped her ID card through the reader and was permitted entry to the room.
She let out a long sigh as she made her way back inside, and glanced around the room, quirking her mouth in a subtle displeasure. She took a seat and placed her card on her desk. She leaned forward on her elbows and propped her chin up with her hands. Gently tapping a nail against her pale cheek, the woman stared, mindlessly, at the wall. Just because some stuck-up brat thought he could take her position didn't mean she was going to sit around and be upset over it all day. People would come, and people would go. One way or another, she was going to end up on top.
It didn't take her too long to recognize it, but the company thrived off people like her. So long as the President remained in power, the company would go unchanging for a very long time.