Cataclysm
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Author's Notes: A Tseng-centric shortfic (with a slight Tseng/Aeris twist) which takes place in Gongaga when Tseng and Scarlet inspect the ruined reactor. All feedback is appreciated. Enjoy!
-- CATACLYSM --
Soughed confusion spreading in my mind
Where are the answers, desires I can't find.
-- Unleashed Power (Cataclysm).
x-x-x
It wasn't the poor company or even the terrible devastation around them which caused the faint tremors in Tseng's usually perfect composure. The ruined reactor loomed before himself and Scarlet, the land around it scarred and littered with chunks of twisted debris, but he had seen worse. The scorched and twisted terrain only made a flicker of an impression before being stifled. The stench of the place was harder to deal with. Nothing, no pity or horror, could break through the emotional walls his line of work had demanded that he build long ago. A half-dead breeze caught his hair and ran through twisted pipes and mutilated steel, making it moan almost wearily.
The ruins made even less of an impression on Scarlet as she rushed forwards, chuckling bitterly at the waste around her. Tseng stood, watching the Head of Weapons Department rifle through the wreckage with a careful and experienced eyes, her eyes almost as alert as his to anything which held destructive potential. Unlike him, her focus on the task at hand (already boring and frustrating her) blinded her to everything else around her. She hadn't realized that the two of them weren't alone. Tseng could already see moving shadows behind the collapsed reactor core and had heard the sounds of feet scuffling and shifting the dust, and the awkward telltale sounds of three crowded bodies maneuvering around the wreckage in order to stay out of sight. So many sounds and movements had betrayed them. Strife was certainly one of them, but the other two he couldn't identify. Tseng noticed a faint shadow of a hand gripping a sword-hilt, tensed and ready to draw, as if the hiding figures knew or anticipated being caught.
Tseng deliberated action, knowing well who it was, but did nothing, not even indicating that he had noticed. Rude and Reno should have taken care of this. But with an informer already well-placed within the group, AVALANCHE's potential to be a thorn in Shinra's side was significantly decreased, though no-one would be satisfied until the group's threat was neutralized altogether. Let that be another day, he decided. There was no need to strike now. Let them hold onto their freedom for a while longer.
Scarlet walked away from the rubble with a scowl on her face. "Hmph! This isn't any good either. You only get junky materia from junky reactors."
Tseng turned a neutral gaze at her as her face twisted into a pout. In his lifetime, he had only seen one piece of materia which truly seemed to have no purpose and it hadn't come from any reactor, but he quickly pushed his considerations away from that particular road.
"This reactor's a failure," Scarlet declared, then tried on a cunning smile. "What I'm looking for is a big, large, huge materia. You seen any?"
He turned away from her and evaluated the ruins, meaning to humour her more than anything, when a light glimmering in the twisted heap of metal caught his eye. Scarlet had missed it – a small materia piece, dim but glowing. And red. Looking again, he was sure. A summon materia; not close to what Scarlet was looking for, but still very rare...and very powerful. No good for powering an ultimate weapon perhaps, but far from useless to Shinra.
About to point this out, Tseng was stopped by the small sounds of more clumsy shuffling from behind the reactor. And then the scent of flowers reached out to him. It still had the power to paralyse him. He saw the glimmering red of the summon materia again as it pierced the dark of disfigured metal shadows, and unbidden thoughts of a flower girl's smile came to mind. He looked to the three shadows, but could see nothing of her. There were no glimpses to be caught of her face. And so Tseng drew away from the metal heap and back towards Scarlet, erasing thoughts of flowers from his mind and willing evidence of shock and emotion to leave him. His foolishness would not betray her.
He gave Scarlet the blank expression so was so used to and disdainful of. "No, I haven't seen it," he said, voice flat. "I'll get on it right away."
He turned away and followed her out, offering dry responses to her talk of future weapons, his mind wandering to brighter and more hopeful places without his consent. He wondered if, when Aeris emerged from that ruined metal husk, she would notice the red light shining in the dark. If she would ever know.
The scent of flowers still teasing his senses, Tseng knew it would take the better part of the afternoon to drown it out and regain his equilibrium. He was the only one who could understand how a trace scenting of wildflowers and the memory of a smile could annihilate all the cold and disciplined walls around his heart better than any cataclysm in the outside world ever could.
-- FIN --