They found Aerith in the Torture Chamber, running in circles from Kotch. When she saw them, she charged up the stairs, grinning like a kid in a game of Tag, dropped into a crouch, turned, and shoved Kotch full in the stomach. Kotch tumbled head over heels and landed in a heap at the bottom, giggling incoherently.
"I'm so sorry!" Aerith yelled after him. Then, brightly, she joined them with a couple of wrapped bundles in her arms. "Got them!"
Cloud took the biggest one and dropped the wrapping to the floor. Easily, he swung the huge, flat sword into the harness on his back (how he had hidden his regular clothes under the dress mystified Crystal). It looked like scrap metal hammered into shape. The asymmetrical tip led to a sharp edge on one side. Two holes were drilled into the base near the hilt. Crystal was willing to bet it weight at least half what she did.
Cloud took a deep breath as if exulting in his return to masculinity, the harness straps straining. He eyed Aerith. "You all right?"
"I told you. I'm used to danger." Aerith neatly braided her long, light brown hair, hesitated, and then smiled. "To tell you the truth, my heart was pounding."
"What are you people still doing here?" Crystal exclaimed. "I don't understand why you didn't get out while you could."
"Well . . ." Aerith tilted her head. "We have some business with the Don."
"We've gotta save Tifa," Cloud said.
Aerith's smile fell a little. "Yes, you're right. Let's hurry!"
"This way," Crystal sighed. Obviously, this was not the time for her questions. She felt like she was running in circles just like Aerith had been. She barged into the Don's empty rooms. However, Cloud, with his longer stride, reached the back room first. A wall of incense smoke and jazz music smacked Crystal in the face, but she soldiered on. The room was as tacky as the rest of the mansion, from the gigantic, canopied bed to the white tiger pelt on the floor.
"Cloud!" Tifa cried. Crystal and Aerith burst in right when Tifa leaped off the bed, narrowly avoiding Corneo's leap at her.
He bounced onto his face. When he looked up again, it was red. "What the hell? Who goes there?"
"You still don't get it do you, Don Corneo?" Tifa asked.
"Tifa! I found yours," Aerith said, and she tossed another wrapped bundle over Corneo's head, which Tifa caught. She produced a worn pair of red, fingerless gloves, padded across the knuckles, and pulled them on.
"Get what?" Corneo snarled.
"Shut up," Tifa snapped, loathing flashing from her dark eyes, bringing brilliant color to her pale cheeks. "We're asking the questions now. What did your assistants find out? Talk! If you don't tell us . . ."
Cloud moved forward. Even with his sword safely strapped to his back, there was murder in his face. He put a foot up on the bed. "I'll chop them off."
Corneo jumped and went white.
"No! Not that! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"
"So talk," Tifa said emptily.
"I made 'em find out where the man with the gun-arm was. But that's what I was ordered to do."
"By who?"
"No! If I told you that, I'd be killed!
"Talk! If you don't tell us . . ."
Aerith was in the game now. She smiled sweetly. "I'll rip them off."
"It was Heidegger of Shin-Ra!"
"The head of Public Safety Maintenance?" Cloud asked, his strange eyes holding all the focus of a hunting cat's.
"He controls the Turks," Crystal put in. "I heard it from Skotch."
Corneo goggled at her. "What do you think you're doing, helping them? Don't forget, little girl, that I own you," he spat.
He did. Hatred, hot and acidic, burned in the back of her throat. He owned what should never have been sold. Her mind. Her body. Even her ignorance. Well, not anymore, he didn't. As of today, she was declaring her freedom. She wouldn't stay. She wouldn't submit. Not anymore.
"Not anymore!" Because she knew it would upset him, she yanked open the dresser next to her and upended the drawers all over the floor. She kicked through their contents in disgust and discovered a bottle of hyper tucked away in a wad of stretched-out Honey Bee Inn bikini briefs. She stuffed the bottle and a handful of gil into her backpack. Then she dangled a pair of briefs from the tip of her finger.
Corneo went purple. "Stop! Stop it, you filthy little thief!"
"Make me!" She stuck out her tongue and snapped the briefs right into his sweaty spray-tan face.
Tifa shoved in next to Cloud and ripped the briefs away, attracting Corneo's attention. "Did you say the Shin-Ra? What are they up to? Talk! If you don't tell us, I'll smash them."
"You're serious, aren't you? I'm not fooling around here either, you know." Corneo wet his thick lips. "Shin-Ra's trying to crush a small rebel group called AVALANCHE, and they're really going to crush them. Literally. By breaking the support holding up the plate above them."
Crystal paused in her ransacking.
"Break the support?" Tifa's voice was faint.
Don Corneo's, in contrast, got very loud. "You know what's going to happen? The plate'll go ping, and everything's gonna go bam! I'm just glad their hideout's not here in Sector Six."
Everybody froze, horror overtaking each expression. "They're going to wipe out the Sector Seven Slums?"
It was all falling away again. Crystal couldn't feel her hands, her legs, the floor beneath her feet. If Shin-Ra broke the support, not only would everyone in the slums die, but everyone on top of the plate would, too.
Matt. Mom. Dad.
"Cloud, will you come with me to Sector Seven?" Tifa asked breathlessly.
"Of course, Tifa."
"I'm coming too!" Crystal said.
"Just a second!" Corneo cried.
"Shut up!" Cloud said, reaching for his sword.
Still sprawled on his bed, Corneo raised his hands. "No wait, it'll only take a second. How do you think scum like me feels when they babble on about the truth?"
"They don't know what the hell's going on," Cloud said, turning away. He herded all three girls around the bed, toward the door.
Corneo's silly, high-pitched giggle pealed out. "Close, but no cigar!"
Crystal didn't see what happened. One second, they were running across the tiger pelt, and the next, her stomach was in her mouth. She was falling in a tangle of arms, legs, and rug into blackness.