Author's Note: Disclaimer found below.
More thanks to all who have reviewed!
Chapter title is lyrics from the song "Bodies" by Drowning Pool.
(09: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor)
It was nearly the same routine as before to get Loz to his next shift in the Battle Arena, complete with his cursing Tifa upon waking. But he accompanied her there without incident again, and even seemed to hold himself a little straighter, less intimidated by the crowds they passed through.
Tifa didn't like that so much. She'd wanted to keep him intimidated. The sooner they could leave the Gold Saucer, the better.
She scowled every time she looked at him, remembering what he'd done - or tried to do - after the last battle shift. And then what he'd said after. I did what you wanted for hours, as though that mattered. Did he even remember that he was her hostage? She gritted her teeth, her expression so fearsome that they seemed to be given even more room by the passers by.
She sat to one side in Dio's box again, at the man's insistence. Dio seemed to rarely take his eyes from Loz, and it was starting to make Tifa uneasy.
The fights were longer this time - well, most of them were - and there were opponents that actually managed to land blows on Loz before he dispatched them. It wasn't quite as painful to watch as it had been the first day, Tifa decided; if anything, Loz appeared to be having an even better time. He seemed to be throwing in flashy moves just to hear the audience's reaction.
She wrinkled her nose as he caught an opponent's hands and flipped backward into an improbable bridge - completed by the victim - before whipping forward to throw the unsuspecting brawler across the ring. The move was inefficient and relied far too much on surprise (not to mention easily-thrown balance) in order to work. He really was just playing.
Loz was still wearing the mage's cloak from the day before - seemed proud of it, even. She remembered the warm tone he'd had when he'd told her that the Arena staff had said he'd earned it. She wondered if he'd ever earned anything before in his short life. Other than, possibly, a slap to the face, though she doubted that anyone had ever administered such and lived to tell.
With the higher-ranking competition, the earnings increased. By the middle of the shift, she had enough for a PHS and, hopefully, a chocobo to use as a pack animal. They could leave that evening if all went well.
Tifa didn't like that "if".
It was a hard decision, but there was no time to spare. "Don't let him out of your sight," Tifa told Dio as firmly as she could... which was enough to make Dio turn to look at her.
"What?"
"I'm going to get a PHS. Should only take twenty minutes or so," she explained. "Cast sleep on him if he gets out of hand. Don't hesitate."
She didn't like Dio's expression. He was smiling but his eyes were still strangely wide, even if they were focused on her instead of Loz at the moment. "There won't be a problem."
She nodded and slipped out of the box anyway. She needed to tell Vincent that she was alive as soon as she could. She just... needed to.
It would've been a different matter if Zhai or Lia had owned a PHS, but neither did. The communications devices weren't cheap, and production had slowed in the past few years. The only one Tifa could get in the market was several years old and pink, and wouldn't activate for a few hours - it had to wait for the proper satellite to pass over the area.
She literally ran back to the Battle Arena, fully expecting to hear screams and see the crowd panicked and find Loz attacking anything that moved... But her fears seemed to be groundless. Loz still fought, and Dio still watched, and nothing seemed to have changed.
Tifa bet again. More funds couldn't hurt, and her luck seemed to be holding.
When the shift ended - with Loz completely victorious again, but what had Dio expected? - Tifa stood to leave, intending to meet Loz at the Arena staging area again. Dio, however, had other plans.
"You're aware," the massive man said just as she stood, "That your, ah, hostage is now well on his way to becoming my star fighter. The managers and sponsors of the top-tier fighters will want to meet him before the next set of matches."
Tifa slowed, dread settling in the pit of her stomach. Dio had gone quite mad, hadn't he. As the man stood, she stopped, and they turned to face each other. Her expression was nothing short of suspicious. "What do you want," she said flatly, not meeting his eyes.
"I'll need both of you to accompany me for a few hours," he explained, approaching her - but then his expression faltered a little. "It's standard procedure, you know. I wouldn't insist if it weren't thatnot doing so would be quite suspicious."
"I suppose that makes sense," she acquiesced, stepping back to let Dio exit the box first. She had a bad feeling about this.
The mid-level winner's gathering took place at a spacious bar on one of the newer platforms of the Saucer. The building was at one edge, with a wide balcony overlooking the desert, the sliding metal panels of the wall currently open to the cooling evening wind. The interior was reasonably clean, considering, but still composed primarily of age-dark and occasionally rusting metal and ceiling fans that Tifa was certain were salvaged airplane propellers.
Loz was the only one of the mid-level fighters to be able to attend, and the overall winner anyway. Dio sat him near the middle of the bar, like a centerpiece, and spoke animatedly to all who wanted to know - which was nearly everyone in the crowded place - about how he'd found such a gem in his very own prison, lurking at the base of the Gold Saucer.
Tifa was left to, of all things, serve Loz. She supposed that she should be insulted that Dio was passing her off as his fighter's servant, but honestly, she was beyond caring. Besides, it kept her close to him, and kept others away.
...Close enough to smell the blood that now soaked much of his cloak...
Loz had said little, beyond greeting her after the battle and agreeing to Dio's demands. He was none too comfortable in this close a crowd with so much attention focused on him, and kept his eyes lowered and his mouth shut for the most part. It wasn't as though they really had any talking to do at all, the way Dio was going.
Tifa could be thankful for that, at least.
She was stationed behind the bar, facing Loz and the rest of the room; to either side of her were a few of the bar's regular bartenders. Dio knew her history well, Tifa thought ruefully.
She winced as a young man at the far end of the bar dropped a bottle he'd been trying to twirl. Amateurs.
But Loz had flinched as well; the crowd had him on edge. Tifa wondered how long Dio could keep up his patter - how long it would be before someone got close and started to prod at the Phoenix King and ask the wrong questions. The idea of coming to this gathering was quite possibly worse than that of coming to the Gold Saucer at all.
"Hey, you both look so glum people think something's wrong," Dio hissed, leaning toward them on Loz's right. "Get him a drink or something and smile, will you?"
Tifa bared her teeth in a gesture that could not easily be mistaken for a smile, but Loz spoke up quietly. "Don' drink."
Dio made a snorting sound and moved off to talk to someone else.
"You don't drink?" Tifa echoed, half in actual disbelief and half in desperation to ease the situation somehow.
Loz shrugged, barely glancing up at her. "Tastes awful. 'Sides, metabolism burns right through it."
"Huh." Somehow, she wasn't entirely surprised. "Well, they're gonna think it's weird if you don't have anything here. Gimme a minute."
She turned away from him for a few minutes, locating a glass and several bottles behind the bar. It wasn't the brightest thing to do, Tifa was certain, but the motions were comforting in their familiarity.
With laced fingers she stretched her arms, palms outward, and got to work. Two shots' worth from one bottle, one from another, dash of this, splash of that, pour over ice. The bottles whirled in her hands in a complex pattern, almost like juggling.
By the end of the sequence, she really was smiling slightly.
"Try that," she said, pushing the completed drink toward Loz. He reached out for it almost hesitantly.
"You're good," the young man that had dropped a bottle said, moving closer. "Where'd you train?"
7th Heaven, Midgar Slums, Sector Seven - back when it existed... "Mideel."
"Mideel?" Another of the bartenders asked. "Hey, do you know Garibo-"
"It was a long time ago." Tifa cut the girl off, the smile disappearing already.
"S'good," Loz mumbled, glancing up at her with a little surprise as he took a few sips.
Tifa shrugged. Great, now she was the center of attention; that was marginally better than Loz being the center, but she couldn't deal with it much better. "I'll be right back," she mumbled, keeping her eyes down but for a pleading glance to Dio as she made a beeline for the near-empty balcony.
She took a few deep breaths as soon as she was alone. There were a few others on the balcony, but they were at the far end, and she could see Loz from here, so it'd be safe, right?
She looked up at the clear, starry sky for a moment, but had to close her eyes. She remembered sitting on the water tower in Nibelheim with Cloud, looking at the thousands of stars overhead, and wishing on every single one. She'd dragged a promise out of Cloud, that he'd come rescue her when she needed to be rescued.
That had all turned out rather well, now, hadn't it.
She took a few more deep breaths and drew the PHS from her pocket, checking for signal. It seemed to have one now. Good, at least something was going right.
She flicked the device open and dialed Vincent's number. It had taken some convincing to get him to carry a PHS, but they were rather necessary at this point.
She heard a click on the third ring and whispered quickly, voice low, "Vincent?"
"Tifa," Vincent's deep voice responded with uncharacteristic speed, her name escaping as a sigh. "You survived. Where are you?"
It wasn't like him to state the obvious like that. It dawned on her that he really must have been worried. "We're at the Gold Saucer."
"We?" There was silence for another moment. "He's with you."
She sifted uncomfortably, her eyes on the metal panels that composed the floor of the balcony. "I... I was going to just kill him," she murmured, almost to herself. "But... but the voice in my head, the one that sounds like Cloud... it told me to keep him alive. Vincent, I really think I'm..."
She swallowed hard. I'm losing it. I can't do this.
The silence went on for longer this time. "You have to listen to that voice," Vincent said softly. And then, more strongly, "We'll come for you."
"No," Tifa said quickly, though her throat felt painfully tight. "No, we're going to leave on foot. Tomorrow, if at all possible. Meet us in Costa del Sol?"
"Are you certain?"
There was a sudden sound from the bar, and Tifa turned quickly, realizing with horror that she'd forgotten to pay attention to Loz. He was standing and facing the rest of the room, his chair knocked over, and there was someone lying at his feet. He stepped over the person, and she couldn't tell if the red on the victim's body was his own blood or leavings from Loz's still-damp cloak.
"Gotta go," she said quickly, and closed the PHS and shoved it back into her pocket as she moved forward. The weakness of a moment before was gone, buried again, her eyes cold and harsh and resolute. "Hey!"
And then someone reached out as though to touch Loz's shoulder, and he caught the hand and pushed it backward with a sudden snap, and there was nothing she could do. People were moving quickly now, some toward the person on the floor, some toward the howling man bending with the twist of his arm still driven by Loz's hand. Tifa recognized Loz's shift in stance, the way his eyes darted about - he could see nothing but targets. Whatever the first victim had said or done, he'd brought out that aspect in Loz that simply wanted to kill, all reason left behind.
It was the first shift in the Arena all over again, all at once. Two others tried to grab Loz's arms, and they were down before Tifa could cross the distance - one flung into the crowd and one kicked into a table. The throng of people were yelling and murmuring - not as terrified as they should be yet, because some fighters just berserked now and then. Some were surging toward the doors and others were taking fighting stances and approaching. Those advancing were far from weak - Dio's personal guard, other guards, and Dio himself - but she was certain that they wouldn't be enough to subdue Loz on their own.
So Tifa rushed at him.
He heard her footsteps and turned toward her, his eyes strangely blank but his grin manic. He brought his left fist around and into a swift uppercut just as she reached him.
She stopped short on her toes and bent backward, head tilted back, and she felt the movement of air in his fist's wake as it skimmed up past her without contacting. She didn't bother to try to correct her balance, only bent back further, flipping backward and lashing out at him with both feet.
One booted foot caught his chin and with a grunt, he stumbled back a step, bumping into a barstool. In the next instant he'd whipped the stool around in front of himself, throwing it at her.
Tifa swatted the stool aside; the dry wood cracked and fell apart before it hit the floor. The move cost her a moment's attention and Loz dodged into her defenses, throwing another punch. She gave ground and blocked several more strikes before she found her opening.
Her hand shot out and struck his forehead flat-palmed. "Sleep!"
The spell activated. She expected him to topple to the floor...
But Loz only brought his fist around and caught her a vicious blow to the side, then another to her head that set her ears to ringing - and then he grabbed her up and threw her into the shelves of bottles lining the wall behind the bar.
She tumbled to the floor in a rain of broken glass shelving and liquor bottles, momentarily stunned. She managed to open her eyes and focus on the floor in front of her, but it seemed to sway like the deck of a ship. She had to get up. She had to move. He was sure to be coming for her...
Only he wasn't.
Tifa groggily peeked over the bar, clinging to the edge for support. No wonder Loz hadn't come after her yet - Dio himself was facing off against him, the two circling each other. She watched them exchange a few blows, dance again, and then rush at each other, grappling.
The Sleepel hadn't taken, and it had been at point-blank range. That wasn't actually possible without a counter already in effect, but Loz had no Materia or items that could do that, she'd made sure of it.
...Except for when he was in the Battle Arena when she hadn't been there, or in the staging area without her... and they'd given him the cloak before...
Loz caught hold of Dio's waist and lifted and bent backward, driving the larger man into the floor head-first before righting himself and spinning to deliver a killing stomp.
Tifa stopped thinking. She grabbed up two of the heavier bottles from the ones that hadn't broken and vaulted over the bar. If she couldn't hit him with a Sleep spell, she'd have to do this the old fashioned way.
One of Dio's guards reached Loz first, barreling into him full-tilt. The two of them stumbled off; Loz swept the man aside like a rag-doll, only to have two others join in. He slammed them together, flipped forward to rid himself of a third man that had latched onto his neck from behind, and was knocked aside again by another.
Nobody was using a single spell against him. They knew. Dio had let them all know except for her. They'd given him a Barrier Materia or something, and he'd used it, cast Reflect on himself. What had they expected?
If she hadn't been wearing a Headband wrapped around her wrist, the Sleepel probably would've put her right down.
She moved in, attacking and using the bottles as small clubs. He blocked the first four blows, but she was driving him back...
He suddenly whirled and ran for the wall, took a few clanging steps up the vertical surface, and flipped over her head. She felt his hands catch her shoulders - and the room spun as she was lifted and flung backward over his head, toward the balcony.
She righted herself in the air and landed in a crouch, skidding backward before running straight at him again; he'd landed standing with his back to her and was beginning to turn. She could just see his eye shrouded in red-gelled swept-forward hair as he moved to look over his shoulder at her, and she could tell that he was still grinning.
She couldn't let up. She couldn't give him time to turn -
- So she threw one of the bottles as hard as she could.
The green glass bottle spun through the air end-over-end cracked into the back of his head. The bottle didn't break until it hit the floor.
She saw him jolt with the impact and halted herself. For a moment he simply stood, head turned a little more away so that she couldn't see his face, one hand rising to reach for his head.
Then he fell to his knees, and then flopped forward face-down on the floor, unconscious.
Tifa let the other bottle slip from her hand, shaking a little even as she straightened. She swallowed once before managing to speak. "All right, who the hell give him Materia?!" She shouted to the room at large, turning to glare. Her empty hands formed fists.
"He won it," Dio said simply, watching her from where he sat at a table, surrounded by guards. As soon as she'd stepped in he'd gotten out of range and had simply watched. "What did you give him?"
It took her half a slack-jawed second to realize what he meant. "Oh for crying out loud, it was just fruit juice!" She stormed toward Dio, not even sure what she was going to do to him, if anything. This was insane. Dio was insane. She had what she'd come for and it was beyond time to leave. "I want a chocobo to carry him, and one for supplies, and we're leaving right now." Her voice was low, meant for Dio, but sharp.
She couldn't immobilize him with magic any more - couldn't even strip that Materia out of him while he was using it. She'd have to bind him up physically again and figure out how to control him better later...
"I can't let you do that." Dio stood, an attending medic - when had he summoned them? - having cast Cure on him. "Tomorrow, after he's completed the top-level battles, then you can go. But the fights are already scheduled now. It's just business."
Tifa stared at the hulking man, mouth hanging open in horror. He reallywas gone. "Please, Dio, after what you've just seen -"
Dio only turned away, to one of his guards. "Lock her up. Release her when the top-tier fights are done tomorrow."
Tifa's eyes flew wide. "No, wait, Dio! You can't -"
One of the guards came nearer and raised his hand, casting something. She hoped it was a Sleep spell. If it was sleep she could fall and pretend and -
It wasn't Sleep. It was Petrify, and she had nothing to guard against it.
Disclaimer:The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.
