Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Crisis Core copyright Squaresoft/Square-enix.
When my hearing returned to me, I heard the sound of a sword being quickly pulled out of a metal sheath. I jumped back and saw that it was, in fact, a sword. A sword cane? Looks like I'm not the only person toying around. I had to be on my guard; I may be augmented but I don't know what kind of surprises Aerith might have in store.
"I never thought I would actually need a sword cane until today." Aerith said with a smile. I have beaten Sephiroth before; I didn't have his sword at the time. This shouldn't be too hard; she is more used to unarmed and staff combat. I charged my sword with lightning and moved forward to attack; she blocked my slash and it was her sword this time that drained the lightning out of my sword. So that is how she is able to absorb elements; that sword. Elemental materia make contact with the staff and get absorbed through it into the blade. "So this is how you've been able to absorb the elements. I was beginning to think you were an alien or an android or something." I said while we were in the face off. She glared at me and quickly twisted her sword; I lost my grip on mine and it clattered across the ground several feet away from me.
"Sephiroth was not the only sword hero Shinra had. I may not be as experienced, but I damn sure will put up a good fight. Your strength means nothing if you don't truly know how to use it." Aerith said before she ran at me again. I stomped the ground and cloaked; the miniature shockwave of my stomp created a distraction and allowed me to dive out of the way without her adjusting her plan of attack.
"Enough with the cheap parlor tricks. Get your sword and we will fight like the officers we were trained to be. You may be considered dead by Shinra, but you were considered an officer first; fight like one." Aerith demanded. I picked up my sword; no sooner than I had stood up with it, she was already on the offensive again. I slashed at her and she didn't look like she was going to block it. My sword went right through her like a chef's knife through a bell pepper; the image of her body dissipated into vapor. I am so dead. I remember this and I don't like where this is going. I narrowly dodged Aerith's ambush from behind. She appeared in front of me and I threw a lightning bolt at her; another direct hit on a vapor phantom.
"I thought you said we were going to fight like officers." I taunted.
"Yeah, I just thought I would have some fun." Aerith laughed. She appeared a few feet in front of me and assumed a defensive stance.
"Ready when you are." She called. I have no choice but to defeat her; it is the only way to stop this madness.
**** Elsewhere in the building, Saxon's POV ****
Hearing panicked screams and frantic shuffling of feet, followed by the sound of falling paperwork had worn down my second to last nerve half an hour ago.
"What the hell are we even doing here? I haven't seen Zack since the bollocks at the chopper, and I haven't seen one bloody Shinra soldier so far. What does he need us for anyway?" I protested allowed; Fyoderova was the only one around to hear me, unfortunately. She may have started talking more, but I still doubt she holds any real opinion on anything. I don't expect her to hold one on this either, but at least she listens more than these pencil pusher sods.
"Freeze! Identify yourselves! This is a restricted area!" a commanding voice called behind me, followed by a burst of silenced gunfire and a body falling to the floor.
"You wanted bloody Shinra soldier? Look behind you." Fyoderova said in an almost flirty tone. Leave it to her to flirt using bloodshed. Why do I always have to attract the crazy ones? There was another burst of gunfire followed almost immediately by Fyoderova's lips locking with mine.
"This reminds me of the job I did for Namir at Sarif Industries." Fyoderova mumbled. When I felt her tongue on mine, I pushed her away and reminded her of our mission.
"Have you gone mad? We are on a mission." I reminded her of the task at hand.
"You said yourself we don't know what we are looking for. We haven't heard from him since we got here; he would have called us by now if he needed any help. I think we were just insurance." Fyoderova had a good point; we haven't heard from him since we saw him on the helicopter.
"Yeah, you're right. This mission is going nowhere." I agreed; if he really needed our help, he would have called by now.
"So what now? We don't really have a way to get home except for walking." I asked; if we were abandoning the mission, what was she planning to do after we left the building?
"Who says we have to go anywhere?" she winked at me as she asked; as if on cue, I heard several gunshots go over my head.
"They do." I pointed at the group of Shinra soldiers coming through the door. When I turned back around to face her, she was gone. I heard the familiar sound of the Typhoon followed by the volley of explosions thundering through the usually quiet office air.
"I think I found what we are looking for." Fyoderova pointed at a staircase. It was worth a try so I decided to follow her. After going up multiple flights of stairs, we found an assault rifle lying near the landing to the next floor.
"We are getting very close. Guns don't grow on stairs." Fyoderova commented.
"The phrase is 'don't grow on trees'." I informed her.
"I was, how you say, 'freestyling'." Fyoderova giggled; this caught me off guard since I have never even seen her smile before today. When we walked up the stairs to the next room, we saw that the door had already been kicked in; there was a giant hole in the floor just past the door frame. It was completely dark inside; the smell of a massive fire would choke the breath out of any normal man. I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye; when I turned to look, I got pulled inside the room.
"No one is here. But at the same time, we are technically behind enemy lines. When is the last time you let your sense of adventure take the wheel?" I heard Fyoderova's voice from somewhere but I couldn't see anything; she must have pulled me into one of the rooms and closed the door. I turned on my night vision and saw Fyoderova's combat gear in a pile on the floor.
"What are you waiting for? You're the only guest in this party." She asked in a flirty tone; I turned to where I heard her voice come from and saw all that there is to see of Yelena Fyoderova.
"You're crazy in the coconut. What are-" She silenced my protest by locking her lips with mine. My hands slowly slid down her back; memories of that night in London flooded into my mind. This is far from a five-star hotel, but I feel the same as I did then. I did not push her away this time when I felt her tongue meet mine. I felt her hand blindly grope around and open my zipper. My hands started to wander across her body as she slowly took care of my pants. She started slowly sliding down my body when I heard Cissnei's voice.
"Zack! Jensen! Anyone in here? You better come out!" Cissnei demanded. For whatever reason, Fyoderova and I thought she was talking to us, so we scrambled out of the room to meet her.
"Cissnei! What are you doing here?" I asked; I had a bad feeling about her coming to find us.
"I was looking for- Oh! Eep!" Cissnei squeaked and turned the brightest shade of red I have ever seen on a human. I wonder what's gotten into her all of a sudden. I thought for a few seconds until it hit me. I was standing at full attention and my pants were still in the barracks; Fyoderova wasn't wearing more than a blush and an embarrassed smile either. I dashed back inside and got dressed.
"I…" I began to say something but my words failed me.
"This never happened. We never speak of this." I awkwardly stuttered out. There was no way I could explain this; worst part was I couldn't apologize because I was not sorry at all. Even though we got interrupted this time, I would almost say it felt better than in the hotel.
"I think Zack is upstairs. The sign told us the Director's office is on the next floor." I tried to change the subject like nothing happened. I wanted to move, but I felt like I was suddenly paralyzed; no one else moved so I assumed they felt the same. We just stood there and stared at each other; an awkward silence settled into the room.
**** Zack's POV ****
I don't know how she did it, but she was almost every bit as good as Sephiroth with a sword. She had nowhere near the experience he had, but she had his mastery and grace. She slashed at me again; it was too late to block with my sword so I did the best I could with my free hand.
"You might have Sephiroth's skill, but you don't quite have his strength; there is no way I could block his attack like this even with my augmentations." I pointed out. I stomped the ground and jumped back; this building must be built to withstand the apocalypse. Aerith jumped at me again and attacked me with the sheath of her sword; without thinking I blocked it, and realized my mistake one second too late. I felt her sword pierce through me and the hilt bump into my chest.
"Overconfidence will destroy you." Aerith said in the same cold tone that Sephiroth used when he told me that.
"Danger: Guardian FX unit critically damaged. TTL: two minutes." A voice inside my head warned.
"ZACK! NO!" I heard Cissnei scream in terror when she saw me. I hate it when Jensen is right.
"Shit! We're too late!" I heard Saxon's voice come through the door, right behind Cissnei. Aerith pulled her sword out of me and I collapsed on the ground.
"You're dead! You hear me?" Saxon growled.
"My fight is not with you. My fight is over." Aerith said calmly. I heard something light and metallic fall on the ground.
"Cissnei, Get down!" Saxon shouted. There was a blinding flash of light followed by a loud explosion; followed by a blanket of tiny needles that skewed your perception of colors.
"Damn, I can see fuck-all right now." Saxon cursed; Aerith had thrown a flash bang and an E.M.P. grenade to cover her escape.
"She's gone." Fyoderova was the first to regain sight.
"That means this isn't over yet." Saxon grumbled.
"Zack! Don't you dare leave me!" Cissnei gave me a glaring but loving look.
"I… I don't have much time left. I want you to know…that I've had a crush on you since we met. That crush turned into full-blown love after that infolink call when I first came to Sarif Industries. I'm sorry I'm only telling you this now." I wheezed out.
"Don't talk like that! We saved you once, we can save you again. Just hold on." Cissnei assured me.
"TTL: 45 seconds." The voice in my head disagreed with Cissnei. She pulled out her cell phone and called Jensen.
"Jensen, I need you to call a medic to Shinra HQ. Zack is secure but he is in critical condition." She explained the situation.
"Just hang on, Zack, everything will be alright." Cissnei said calmly.
"TTL: 30 seconds." The voice in my head must really have it in for Cissnei; it has countered her every statement since it first popped up.
"If you weren't fucking around, maybe we could have saved him." Cissnei cursed at Saxon and Fyoderova; I had a sneaking suspicion that she meant that in the literal sense and that made me smile in amusement.
"Zack was the one that ran off ahead of us; we were just catching up." Fyoderova said in her defense.
"It wasn't Zack you were catching up on. I was even more behind than you were." Cissnei said accusingly; my suspicions were confirmed and this amused me even more.
"Arguing won't do us any good now. There is no blame to be passed around here; just a stroke of bad luck." Saxon tried to restore order and calm Cissnei down.
"I'm sure there was a-… never mind. I'm not going to say what I was going to say next." Cissnei stopped herself mid-sentence.
"Energy reserve depleted. Shutting down." the voice spoke to me one last time; everything went black a few seconds later.
**** Cissnei's POV ****
I got Saxon to help me carry Zack to the helipad; I couldn't carry him all the way by myself.
"Why didn't you tell me you all were going here?" I asked him; I felt like they deliberately hid this from me.
"Zack wanted to hide this mission from you. Just come back when he was finished here. Feel like the hero." Saxon explained.
"We tried to stop him, we really did. He just would not let this go." Saxon added.
"I..." Fyoderova began to say something but quickly changed her mind.
"What is it?" I asked her; the speed with which she changed her mind made me suspicious.
"It's nothing." She mumbled while avoiding eye contact.
"You can tell me. I... I promise I won't get mad." I assured her; I'm a horrible person for making promises I might not be able to keep.
"You shouldn't make promises that you aren't certain you can keep." She said cryptically.
"Well, come on, I want to know." I persisted. Fyoderova sighed.
"I... I made out with Zack on the way to the helipad. It was my last attempt to try to convince him to stay." Fyoderova admitted; I wasn't sure how to take this or what to say. I didn't get mad immediately so that's good, maybe. I really don't know what to say about this.
"how-" I began to ask but she cut me off.
"I did use tongue and I actually got him to grab my ass; but that's as far as I went." She answered my question without me asking.
"Shut up, Saxon, I already know you are coming up with a wisecrack." she added. The helicopter arrived a few minutes later; the flight back was filled with awkward silence. When we got back to Sarif HQ, Saxon helped me carry Zack to the operating room; at least to the waiting room anyway. The Chief Surgeon came out and wheeled him into the room. A few minutes later he came out of the room and sat down next to me.
"I... I'm sorry. Zack has been dead for almost forty five minutes. He was gone before we even had a chance." The Chief Surgeon sighed; this easily must be the hardest part of his job.
"If I knew it was going to turn out like this, I would have told you so that we could have stopped Zack. I have no idea how we would have, but we could have figured something out. How about I make it up to you over beer and conversation?" she offered.
"Yeah, that sounds nice." I agreed; it would a good chance to unwind and forget about everything for a while.
"I'm out of beer. Liquor ok? It technically Saxon's, but he hasn't been drinking in I don't know how long." She explained.
"Yeah, just whatever will help me forget for a while." I sighed. I must have gotten more than I bargained for with that statement because after the first glass that she brought me, I was already having trouble sitting up. Fyoderova brought me another glass but I only finished half of it before I fell over from my sitting position; I felt like I was very gently pulled to fall over onto her.
"Oh, someone is getting friendly." she teased; I blushed and tried to get up, but I couldn't make myself move more than an inch. I felt her hands gently slide down my body; my face felt like it was burning. If I die somehow right now, I would be lying if I said I didn't die happy. I was numb to everything and there was another human being caressing me in my final moments. She turned my head towards her and kissed me; I felt her tongue slide past my lips and blacked out.
When I woke up, I felt kind of cold. Am I dead? I don't really feel anything. I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of Fyoderova's apartment. Nope, I'm still here. Why am I cold? Its summer. The air conditioner turned on and I quickly realized I was naked.
"Good morning. You slept like typical Russian husband." Fyoderova said as she walked by to go make breakfast.
"Where are my clothes?" I asked; I felt my face get really hot.
"You decided you didn't need them last night; they are next to the foot of coffee table." She said with a smile.
"Don't worry, I didn't do anything you wouldn't enjoy" she added in a flirty tone; I've never blushed so hard in my life.
"I'm…I'm sorry…I haven't really drank liquor before." I stuttered out; my mind was filled with lewd images of Fyoderova. What happened last night? Why do I feel so attracted to her?
"Oh, don't worry about it. I enjoyed myself. You kept calling me Zack. Other than that, I had fun." Fyoderova giggled. I felt like I had nothing to live for now that Zack was gone; but at the same time, I felt like I had gained a new friend. I guess I can hold off on going back to Shinra for a while. This seems fine for now.