Chapter VIII: Family values
Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit
Vincent was pretty much divine with his guns and Cloud was quickly becoming at least saintly, Elfé noticed as she watched them practising again. She was feeling warm and nostalgic, Cloud bringing memories of her own childhood to her mind, practising all she was worth and waiting impatiently to become old enough to participate on the missions, the sting when sweat trickled into her eyes and the warm, content feeling at her stomach when her instructor had praised her, the smell of sword oil when she had been given a very fine bottle of sword oil for her first katana as a birthday gift, a very fine variety also judged by the delicate green and red wax seal on it and the handwritten Wutaiian calligraphy on the label which suggested it was made by Ninja Monks in a mountain monastery somewhere Eastern Wutai. She had given Cloud gun oil when he had turned thirteen, a very fine variety from Rocket Town, and Cloud's grin had been blinding.
"So we got the hard drive back, but only after we had hammered the safety deposit box from the wall with mallets and the crime scene was a complete screw-up. We had been told to make it look like "an unrelated accident", thank you very much Elfé, but despite the earthquake we had to pretend the place had been attacked by fricking Armored Golems. Attacked by bleeding Armored Golems right in the middle of a famfritdamn Junon! Might as well not have bothered, since the Evil Bitch also known as Scarlet didn't believe it. Top that!" Barrett challenged and took a long swig from his mug. He and Sears were playing The Worst Mission Ever again. Juvalos pushed against her leg affectionately and she bent to pick him up, scratching behind one black ear and the caracal purred contently.
None of the really bad missions were ever mentioned, of course. Not the ones you came back from with only half your men or less and nausea roiling at the bottom of your stomach. The stories you told were those where you lost, or occasionally succeeded, in as embarrassing way as possible.
"That's easy," Sears countered confidently. "Two years before you joined the bandwagon. You remember that one, Elfé? You were in that wannabe-underground Pussy Moogle Cabaret with me and you actually laughed at me." She tried to keep from laughing, she really tried. She didn't quite manage and Sears gleamed for managing to cheer his often solemn and melancholic leader to the point of laughter. Then Elfé felt bad again thinking how he loved her. Contrary the popular opinion she wasn't oblivious of Sears' feelings, she just wasn't in a position to do a thing about it. Sears wasn't the one she loved. The world was unfair like that, no matter how true or pure your love no one was guaranteed to love you back.
"If it's the reconnaissance mission you're talking about, yes, it was pretty hilarious," she murmured, hoping she had a mug too so she could hide her face behind it, but was forced to make do with rubbing her cheek against Juvalos' soft, red fur. She wondered what Sears was drinking; it smelt a little like the rosehip-raspberry tea she liked, but drowned in alcohol.
"Pussy Moogle Cabaret is a club for deranged, or was it decadent, rich men that wanted some exotic entertainment in Midgar without needing to go underplate for it. Palmer goes there and I spent the entire mission dressed in drag singing onstage." With ukulele, Elfé added in her mind. It had been rather disturbing place, since Sears' performance had been of the mildest variety. Barrett's eyes bulged and he spat the beer from his mouth, couching and laughing convulsively at the same time. Elfé had to laugh too, she remembered the slinky red dress full of sequins and the high headdress made of rose chocobo feathers and rich orange artificial flowers. When she had seen him in it the first time she had laughed so hard her stomach had cramped.
"You must be kidding me." Barrett's voice was shaking with repressed laughter and reluctant awe. Sears seemed to be taking it all with good grace, only slight tint of red covered his face and his voice was more than slightly tinted with self-effacing amusement.
"I wish. At least I got my pink moogle mascot out of it." It was hanging in his keychain as they spoke, a small plastic thing with huge blue eyes dangling and dangling around.
"Man, Sears, no offence, but you would make the ugliest girl ever and you can't sing worth a shit. I have heard." The things they did for their cause, Elfé thought. Sears hadn't been the only one undercover in that club, though luckily her rather plain looks had protected her from becoming a performing artist.
"That was the point, they wanted something artistically macabre, whatever they meant with it," Sears said dryly. "Not the ugliest, though. Female Palmer would be even uglier." Barrett shuddered at the mental picture. Elfé turned to watch Vincent and Cloud again, but there wasn't much shooting any more; they had obviously managed to thoroughly distract the budding sharpshooter. She offered the boy's father an apologizing smile and Vincent nodded to her and made Cloud pick the riffle up again. Again much like her instructor had been. Little ruthlessness was a good thing when it came to teaching people stay alive and much ruthlessness was even better. Cloud gave his father a dirty look, but pushed his fair, unruly locks from his eyes and reloaded, then hitting the red heart-shaped bull's-eye on the target cardboard swordsman with ease. The riffle was quite so ridiculously big compared to the boy anymore, but the way he handled the recoil was still impressing.
"Tell me that someone took pictures of Pretty Woman Sears." Thee dark-skinned gunner's eyes had a dangerous glint. Juvalos jumped down from her arms and sauntered towards Cloud, undoubtably to beg treats the boy had just as undoubtably hidden into his pockets.
"If they did, I'll be forced to kill them." Barrett laughed at the threat with booming cough, his huge chest lending it force like an echo chamber. That laugh made her feel like family, the same way Sears grumbling about crazy vampire ex-Turks and threatening Hákon with kitchen knife if he dared to try and touch his stir-fry, Hákon being able to burn water, Cloud being so serious about making them proud and having a crush mile wide on Piekna, Jessie kicking Ciddi's ass for making off with her favorite wrench and Fuhito friendly bickering with Verhandi about something she would have needed a dictionary to understand did. Family had very little to do with genetics. If only she could know for sure what Fuhito thought of her.
It was a family that didn't appreciate attempts to protect them at her own expense, she thought when she felt the icy shiver going up and down his spine again despite the sun on her face and the long-sleeved shirt. She hadn't wanted to bother Fuhito with it, but maybe she really was becoming sick. It surprised her; Zirconiade was supposed to see to it that nothing short of bubonic plague would get through her immune system. He was busy today, but she would go to him tomorrow. She felt her cheeks warm with blood when she thought of him in his white labcoat, his refined features and civilized accent. If only she knew what Fuhito thought of her. Well, it was several more hours until nighfall so maybe she could join the next round of Sears and Barrett's game, she should just go get something to warm and spicy and alcoholic her when the sun went down. Hot liquor with apple-cinnamon syrup would warm her up inside and laughing would distract her.
"You should have seen Elfé as a waitress, though. She had this tiny, black miniskirt and fishnet stockings…"
Veld was off-duty. Even Turks had to relax at times and no one was expected to bring their work home with them, carry it in their mind twenty four hours a day seven days a week. During their time off, the only responsibilities required of them were the ones they chose to take themselves. Most of his Turks took full advantage of this with gusto and liquor, the most notable exception being his second in command Tseng, and Veld knew he was driving them hard, but at times like this he couldn't bring himself to even pretend he cared, for he drove himself harder than any his subordinate. He would not allow Kalm to happen again, not that there was much point worrying about that anymore. Maybe his daughter wasn't dead, but she was doing her best to make sure she might as well have been.
Did she really hate him so much that she had to try and ruin Shin-Ra to get even? Maybe he deserved it, he thought when he remembered Fiona's burnt body, recognizable only because of the wedding ring, gold and diamonds against charred black and stench of burnt flesh. If Felicia had seen her what was left of her mother, had breathjed that stench, maybe she had every right in the world to try and avenge her.
Veld, with his self-imposed iron control, was exempt from this unofficial rule. He had learned the hard way what could happen if you let your control slip even for a second. He wondered if he would ever be given the order to go after his daughter with lethal intent and what he would do about it. Irritation was breaking through his discipline, a slow boiling frustration. He didn't know what he was doing anymore and he loathed being out of control, he didn't know what was happening to the world.
Vincent Valentine was supposed to have died in Nibelheim. Yet he walked on this Planet, under his daughter's command, in Cosmo Canyon which he only knew about courtesy of Project Cait Sith, recently renamed as Juvalos. It was beginning to seem like he wasn't a grandfather after all, but Vincent was definitely a father and that made the situation practically the same. The Turks were primarily loyal to the Turks to their own above all. Vincent had been his personage. That practically made Cloud his nephew.
How by Hel's name was Vincent Valentine alive and why wasn't he back to him? Where had the man been? Gods help him if this was because he had fallen in love with a terrorist without telling Veld first, because the man would need it. He could always shoot the man and take Cloud into the Turk program in his memory.
Catalysis: the process in which the rate of a chemical reaction was increased by means of a chemical substance known as a catalyst. Unlike other reagents that participated in the chemical reaction, a catalyst was not consumed and so might participate in multiple chemical transformations, although in practice catalysts were secondary processes. Fuhito was holding the life of a woman who loved him in his hands. A catalyst worked by providing an alternative reaction pathway to the reaction product. The rate of the reaction was increased as this alternative route had lower activation energy.
Gently turning around the tube he had managed to buy from the black market in his fine fingers, Fuhito watched the slight light play across its curved edge, tilting it again. Beneath that slight glass shine, there was thick darkness rippling with the slightest hint of colour, the sample almost liquid. He had no real ties to humanity, Fuhito mused. Why should he have any? What had humanity ever done for him? He had been given plenty of things he didn't want, at the cost of the one thing he yearned with desperation but couldn't have. He could be the most energy-conserving person in existence and still he would make no difference. Humanity was a cancer. He wanted nothing to do with humanity. What was love worth anyway? An abstract concept, love was deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person and it wasn't something he had in him to give, even to the Planet. His guilt was so deep he at times almost resented the Planet for shouldering him with the truth, but only almost.
Dark, dirty blue Materia, tainted Support Materia to go along with the Ultimate Summon and no time for Verhandi Valentine to save her leader. Slowly the blood-covered trigger was beginning to pull.
