The Brimstone Tower
Chapter 11
A/N: Chapter was written to "Never too late", by three day's grace. Having some problem getting time to write, my schedules been turned upside down, but I plan to update again on Sunday. This marks the end of my pre-made notes, hopefully you've enjoye the story thus far... as for me, it's to the drawing board.
Shrouded in colors associated with ghosts, and milk, and other sickly looking things, he had taken his place at the helicoptor's grey tinted window. The world drifted under him, drifted by, he looked neither forward nor up, his gaze was fixed on what little bit of the groudn he coudl make past the wisps of cloud. Nod in duties direction complete, the President of Shinra Electric Power had taken his place at the window and after one look down and hadn't bothered to look up.
The wound was black on black, the color of rot with the shape of a bruise. An accident he claimed, a bad fall while in therepy. he'd had many of those. Despite the massive dose of healing materia and the rushed corrective surgeries and the best health care gil could provide his recovery hadn't been quick or painless. In the damp he'd always limp, and his balance was a bit more touchy taht it should have been in a twenty something year old...
At twenty three Rufus Shinra would be forced to learn how to walk again. For months a cane's steel grip would dig into the palm of his hand rather than the grip of a gun.
Still, such stark truths hadn't deturned him, the injuries were... inconsequencial, at least until they had been at first.
The earth was black, as black as a bruise. The rim of the world's wound was swollen, the heart stirred with that failiar, dead yellow light. In contrast the sky was that surreal blue that non-Midgarian's called "normal" or "clear". Licking at the rails of the helicoptor were lazy snakes of white. They hid thier swollen grey guts by having them face the earth, but the familiar -if aonizing- throb in Rufus' leg told him that those guts were so swollen they were ready to burst.
"Northern crater coming up, sir."
Not a nod or a blink did the President give. He could have been that pale, shell shocked, form laying on the hospital bed after his diagnosis he was so... sick looking.
"It's... It was unheard of. We've no historical documentation of anything like it. It's a sick little disease... if micro-organisms could be sadistic, this one is that."
"Considering the son, I'm not supised by that." Rufus murmurred, running one hand down his leg, the motion did nothing to sooth the fires that had wrapped around the bone and were tightening.
"Reverse osmosis, it's all I can think to call it." Catching the clueless vibe of his grim audiance the doctor dropped the jargon and the facade of profesionallism. He was a small man, pale from living in Midgar all his life, his life was defined by long hours for short pay. So long ago the man had given up a normal life for one of endless strain so he could play at being God.
The marks of his life were the pernament grey smudges around his eyes, the sunken listless quality of his eyes, and a cool air of utter indifference.
Now the mask was down, the indifference was gone and the quiet little man before them stood like a prophet of the olden tales. The ones that brought death and woe, who told tales of destruction that smothered hope.
"Osmosis is when the cell sucks down water, takes a drink, you get my drift." Arms clasped behind his back the doctor took a step back -towards the door. Fuile motion that. He was surrounded by black clad men and women, and every black clad person in that room was armed with the nastiest materia and weapons Shinra's weapon department could provide. "Now reverse osmisis, that's nasty, but throwing up always is. Basically the cell spits up what it don't want when it puts osmosis in reverse, and that's what your whole body is doing. You see, those aren't bruises boy, they're signs of rot."
Silence descended, punctured by a hiss of rage. Black eyes pressed into slits, Tseng set his hand over the gun strapped to his side.
"The rot's under the skin, you see. And like all things rotten, there's a bit of gas released, that gas goes up, pressing against a thin skin of nervvs and skin that the disease don't touch... That's what's causing the swells and brusing."
"Is there a cure?" Rufus managed to ask.
"N-"
In a motion too quick for the eye to follow the gun slid out of the holster, the trigger was pulled, and thunder of artificual birth made the ears of everyone present ring.
Well the ringing echoed in the ears of everyone living at least.
Dying in silence, the doctor's last sylible of denial was left to dribble past lips in a morass of gummy red. Having rid the world o one prophet of the twisted sort Tseng set his warm gun in it's holster. Not one of them protested, not even when the body hit the earth with a dull thump.
"No cure my ass." Reno spat, hacking a wad of spit on the carrion. "Like hell there aint!"
"Mr. President."
Shaking his head, Rufus looked up and away from the wounded rim of the crater. The vacant manner of his eyes told them all that he hadn't seen a thing for a while. Little surprise considering how the window was fogged up. Forget the end of the world, phyisical laws were still playing out to their normal fare even to the end.
"It's going to be cold in the crater. If I may I recomend a coat of sturdier stuff than you're garbed in now to ward against the chill?" The Wutia Turk asked his lord with utmost delicate-ness.
Around him the Turks were already dressed in thick furs and awkward gloves.
The world must really be ending. Rufus mused, recalling when that long ago time when his world had been ending and how the Turks had pridefully refused to cover the stark colors of thier uniforms with even one coat.
Elena had gotten frostbite for that bit of vain glory and while "cure" materia had mended the damage Tseng wasn't one to repeat mistakes.
Not even those made to maintain the company's image.
"Alright." With a sigh Rufus conceeded to the moment. "I take whatever you've got for me."
To that Tseng nodded and pulled out a coat from the top of their supplies... little surprise that. Tseng was a practical Turk, when he had descided on where they were going he had shifted thier supplies so that those that needed would be the closest items on hand.
A glance told Rufus the color and seeing the color he sighed. White, the coat, the gloves, the snow pants... Everygarment was either a pure, or an off, shade of white.
"White?" Rufus protested.
"White." Tseng confirmed. "It is, after all, your tradition is it not?"
"Whatever you say Tseng." The Shinra gave up even a token protest to his Turk's steely tone of comand.
Seeing that all was well with his world the Turk nodded, then with a faint shiver the Wutia pulled the edges of his own black fur coat and tied up some of the dangling strings with glove swollen fingers.
