Chapter 9
The Rush
Just as the words had left Tifa's chapped, bleeding lips, Cloud was thrown on top of her, leaving them both in an awkward heap on the plush carpet beneath. Aeris, also on the floor, sheathed her knife quickly and tried to stand.
"I'll ride it-" she began, only for the floor to suddenly give way, causing all three to shoot down into a large, nearly vertical chute, that rapidly transported the three hooker-look-a-likes into the sewer below. After about ten seconds of fun, exciting sliding that caused both Cloud and Tifa to shout ecstatically they landed on the hard, soggy stonework that cushioned there floor much less than they would have hoped.
Standing up quickly and drawing his sword from apparently nowhere (let's leave that part to the imagination), Cloud virtually ignored the crumpled heaps that were Tifa and Aeris and started to attack the giant monster that suddenly appeared from nowhere. As Cloud struck the vile beast, which stood at least ten feet tall, had blue, purply skin stretched across huge, pulsating muscles, his aggressive demeanour enhanced by the chains shackled across his large wrists. But this was no time to oogle, Cloud knew, as suddenly a huge tidal wave of raw sewage came out of nowhere to cover them all in its vileness. They all suffered a loss in stamina, especially the angry beast that did not seem to regret this rather suicidal turn. Aeris and Tifa had now entered the fray, their four eyes fixed angrily on Cloud, his abrupt ignorance of their well-being not appreciated one bit.
"I bet if Barret were here you'd grab his-" Aeris began, her staff in hand, only to be knocked down viciously by a strong uppercut executed beautifully by the staggering beast.
"Nice one!" Cloud was heard to remark, embellishing in Aeris's pain. He had not forgotten her cruelty. Unfortunately the monster was not wont to side with the blonde ex-SOLDIER, and also launched several Bio spells at him, poisoning him outright and causing him to vomit all over Tifa.
"Ew!" TIfa screamed, as she quickly went into her Limit Break and bit the shit out of the large, heaving monster that towered them all. Her rapid kicks and punches freed her of the bile that encroached her style, and she somersaulted back in line with grace, a lit cigarette clenched between her teeth as she flashed a wicked smile at her party members. The smirk was wiped off face with a kick to the chops from the now pissed off monster.
"Oh, man!" Cloud giggled hysterically, simultaneously vomiting and crapping due to the effects of the poisoning. Thank God he was wearing the hooker getup. Aeris suddenly took her magic pose and let out an Ice 2 spell, nearly decimating the beast entirely. One final blow from Cloud's Climhazzard was all that was needed to send the enemy to the other side, and some nice stat growths sweetened the deal. Checking his materia as he bathed himself in the sewer water, TIfa and Aeris both changed down to their nothings and proceeded to don their usual outfits. Cloud did not look in their directions, tempted by their wisened bodies not in the slightest.
"I would have just let that monster kill you, Cloud." Aeris spat venomously. "You blew my chance to get to meet the president. If you had just cushioned up a bit to the Don then..."
"Oh, leave it out!" Cloud cried, waving his hands hysterically at the vile woman. "All you've done is ordered me about on some psychotic rampage to get to the top of the drug rings around here, and you know what?" he continued, his finger pointed at her face, one eye enlargened and focused upon the ugly features that adorned her surly expression. "I'm going to help you, just so you leave me the fuck alone!" he ended with a yell. He pushed her aside as he pulled up his SOLDIER trousers and zipped them shut. Tifa followed on after him, a horny expression on her sullen face. Aeris, content for the moment, realised that if she could just be patient a bit longer then she could maybe meet the president that this Cloud guy was so interested in meeting. Aeris did not really care about his motives, for she was consumed by her own greed in achieving her ambition. She knew one thing though, and that was that she would have to dispose of Cloud just before meeting the head of Shinra. After what Cloud had demonstrated with his willingness to seduce and bed Don Corneo, he was not to be trusted; the President was a big temptation, and maybe the blonde tart would want a share, too?
All three ambled through the cold, damp sewers, occassionally beating to death a stray monster in their selfish efforts to empower themselves, with nary a second thought or consideration for the considerable damaging effect they were purposely having upon the ecosystem in the sewers. Ghosts fell at their weapons, poofing into smoke that Aeris tried unashamedly to inhale for the high, by crawling on the shitty floor and breathing wildly as the ghosts' remains returned to oblivion. Tifa said nothing as she staggered through the dark, squidgey sewage beneath her booted feet; she was on her fifth vodka - bottle, that is.
Eventually, after much awkward silence, they reached the exit to the absolutely filthy, stinking sewers, whose smell would haunt them all for the next few years. Aeris and Tifa ran out first, inhaling the fresh air of a decrepit trashdump, piled high with old trains and radioactive barrels spilled over raw sewage pumped up from the sewers they had exited.
"Thank the Goddess." Tifa moaned, as she leant up against a nearby abandoned train and lit a joint, another bottle of vodka in her hand, nearly empty. She fell to the floor in a slump, landing softly on a trash bag full of medical waste such as used diapers and thrown out semen samples held in used condoms. Cloud ignored her and looked for a way out, as Aeris ran excitedly into a nearby train and screamed insanely as the train burst into life. The blonde ex-SOLDIER knew that having the train in her possession could never be of good consequence, so hastily aboarbed, ready to drag her out, when suddenly the engine roared immensly, sending vibrations through the concrete floor beneath. Tifa purred in delight as the vibrations mellowed her out, the bin bag emptying its contents on her as she sank deeper into it.
"Get on, bitch!" Aeris shrieked, poking her head out the window and dragging Tifa in through the carriage window by her hair. Tifa was so drunk and stoned that it neither hurt nor bothered her, and was content to lie in a heap on the floor covered with her own vomit and bile that really was just neat regurgitated vodka.
Cloud lay also in a heap on the ground, beaten silly by a manic Aeris, who wanted nothing more than to take control of another thing, as she had done with Cloud, and countless other people before. Ignored memories of a family member danced their way in and out of her mind's eye, the images of a young boy with a train set, sitting down on a dusty, carpeted floor in a candlelit room... but these images were quickly dispelled with a shake of her head. She continued on her mission to control the train, and fortunately for her it was still on rails. Without any regard for consequence, she pushed the accelerator up as far as it would go and screamed as she flew backward onto Cloud, the train advancing rapidly toward the current, existing train station a few hundred metres away! A few seconds of loud noises and further excitement passed as the three valiant fighters were rushed along with the old train, its journey unimpeded by brick wall and people; screams of innocents being crushed until the trains echoed throughout the carriage as Cloud stood up from his beaten heap and ran over to the front of the speeding train. Just as he reached the front the train went head first into a set of stairs that served as the entrance to the current train platform where a train was currently departing. Everyone aboard the train was killed instantly as the stray beaten-up carriage of death crashed loudly into it, its violent explosion sending corpses flying hither and tither. Cloud, Aeris and Tifa had been catapulted from the wreckage by the force of the collision, landing safely on a pile of burnt corpses that piled up outside the wreckage. Sounds of gunshots and grenades exploding averted their eyes towards the great pillar which towered above them, connecting the disgusting, polluted plate to the equally polluted Gaia below.
"Oh, no!" Tifa screamed, as she jumped up from the bodies and ran in the direction of the pillar, eager to ascend and see what was going on. She instinctively knew that Jessie, Barret, Biggs and Wedge were there - the cowardly screams emanating from dumb and dumber aided her reasoning. Cloud and Aeris followed on after, eager for some action.
Above them fighting occured, with Barret locked in battle with a helicopter that ascended high above the slums that let out occasional shots at the angry rebeller. Barret responded the language of killing with bullets, his fury aiding his stamina in battle. Below, on an inferior staircase, Jessie was having fun roughing up some flying acrobat dudes who dressed in kinky garb, equipped with urinal masks and dildos to beat rebels to death with. As she did so, a loud scream suddenly burst forth from behind her, as her teammate Wedge fell thirty thousand feet down to his death on the hard concrete ground below. Cloud, TIfa and Aeris were nearby when his body impacted the earth. His blood and guts splattered their now-dry clothes. Frustrated at being dirty again, TIfa and Cloud cursed the waste of space and continued on, Aeris left behind to pick at his corpse in the hope of a coin. She found none.
