Disclaimer: I don't own any element of FFVII. This story is written for pleasure and not for profit.
The why of things
Chapter 8
"Abyssal purgatory"
By Lady Yomi
"Cissnei?!" Sadie couldn't contain her excitement. There, standing outside the island inn that provided a gathering place for tourists, was none other than Cissnei. The redhead smiled mischievously under her charming wide-brimmed hat, more casual and happy than she'd ever seen her before.
"Nobody calls me like that anymore," she said with a jovial laugh. "I picked a simpler name for myself."
Kunsel watched the two women embrace in a tight hug and smiled in delight. "I told you you'd be happy to see her, didn't I?"
Sadie nodded, returning his smile. "So she's the person we're here to see."
"Aha. We've kept in touch since the Zack incident happened. Cissn-" He cleared his throat when pronouncing the ex-Turk's new name: "I mean, Anna never stopped looking for the truth."
Sadie lowered her eyebrows and rubbed her forearm. "Wow, now I feel a little guilty. I thought you walked away from everything because you didn't want to hear from Avalanche anymore."
"You never sought me out," she replied with feigned sadness. "And here I was hoping to get at least one phone call."
"You said you wanted a new life!" Sadie pursed her lips as she added: "I imagined you were playing house with some wealthy chap, not playing double agent on a secluded island."
"You know how I am, tranquility isn't for me." Cissnei laughed softly, placing her hands on her hips. "But reproaches are pointless, aren't they? Friends can spend years apart without that becoming a problem. Especially when both of us were doing pretty much the same thing, just in different ways."
"The same thing?"
"Yes. We're still looking for Zack."
"Ah!" Sadie gaped an inch, closing the distance between herself and the young woman without noticing. "That's true! Although..." She took a step back, aware of her overzealousness. "Kunsel didn't want to tell me anything about what we're hoping to find here." She gave him a sidelong glance, which the Soldier answered with a nonchalant wink.
"Well, we're not a hundred percent sure of the results," Cissnei muttered, holding her chin as she explained: "I know you've been looking for him for a while, and I'd hate for you to be disappointed if we're wrong."
Sadie pouted. "You don't have to treat me like your little sister, I think I can figure out what's going on without throwing a tantrum."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh, come on!" She let out a grunt, dropping her arms close to her body. "What's all this?!"
Cissnei furrowed her eyebrows gravely and folded her arms. "You don't deal well with pressure. Remember what happened years ago; Fair backed you into a corner for a little time, and you almost put a bullet between his eyebrows."
"Oh..." She bit her lower lip. "But I was only a child then. Now I'm more than ready for unforeseen events!" She sighed, lowering her voice considerably as she added: "It wouldn't be the first time I've followed a false lead, believe me."
"Hmm..." She watched her closely. Cissnei was the person from whom Sadie learned her knowledge of body language and the ways in which it betrayed its unsuspecting speakers. She was an expert at reading others without them uttering a word.
Sadie looked uncomfortable. Her shoulders were arched toward her chest, her lips were pursed, and her forehead was tense. It was evident that she was ashamed of her past actions. But what kept bothering Cissnei was something more dangerous than her impulsiveness: her attachment to the subject to be retrieved.
"Look, Sadie." Cissnei gave her a hard-as-steel stare, the smiling face of moments ago gone as if it never existed. "We have to be prepared for worse things than a false lead. If we find him and..." She sighed, holding a hand to her temple. "If he's not well, then we won't be able to take him with us. Even if he cries out for it."
"I don't understand." Sadie shook her head in an obvious gesture of confusion. "What do you mean, if he's not well?"
"I want you to listen carefully to me." Cissnei put a hand on her shoulder, without breaking eye contact. "We suspect that Zack has been imprisoned on the island for a couple of years. Probably in the depths of an experimental research base." She frowned, unable to hide her disgust at the machinations of the company she'd learned to hate. "The site wasn't sanctioned by the International Science Research Council, so you can imagine that only a few of us know about it."
Sadie nodded inertly, still uneasy about what she'd just heard. Cissnei took a breath and continued, her voice growing deeper as she proceeded to lay out the situation: "There's no one to control the guys experimenting down there. No one. And they have access to a nearly endless Mako supply." She paused, carefully searching for the right words to say. "Do you remember... the form Angeal Hewley took before he died?"
Sadie simply nodded, staring blankly into the horrible nightmare that unfolded in front of her eyes as she recalled that tragic afternoon.
Angeal's voice echoed like a sinister whisper in the back of her mind: "Shinra's evil isn't limited to destroying the planet's natural resources as you Avalanche people think. There's something considerably darker behind the company. And my existence... is proof of that."
"Angeal didn't have to die for that!" She gritted her teeth until they chattered. The tone of her voice grew along the emotional storm raging inside her. "We could have... done something else to help him!"
Kunsel recoiled, his hand moved to the hilt of his sword on instinct and he immediately reprimanded himself. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to drop his readiness to fight. Cissnei on the other hand, didn't even blink. "There it is. You're not prepared to deal with killing Zack if it gets complicated."
"Complicated?!" Sadie seemed to run out of breath with indignation. "Don't talk to me about complicated! Maybe the Turks leave behind people who aren't easy to save, but we don't do things like that in Avalanche!"
The redhead felt the familiar feeling that burns in the middle of one's chest when offended, but she suppressed it with ease. She liked to believe that an argument wasn't won with passions, but with arguments. "Remember that I'm no longer part of that organization, Sadie. Besides, this has nothing to do with the trouble of rescuing him, but with the possible consequences of doing it." She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly to the side. "Zack wouldn't want to hurt anyone, just as Angeal didn't."
Sadie let out a distressed groan, dropping her shoulders as she stepped back, defeated. "Cissnei..." She shook her head, wiping a hand across her eyes. "I don't want the same thing to happen again."
"Then you won't be able to come with us."
Kunsel watched them anxiously, interrupting the discussion in a conciliatory tone of voice: "Doctor, I'm sure Zack will be very happy to see you again. Even if things don't go well, perhaps he could bring you some peace of mind in such a painful situation."
Sadie stared at him, more incredulous than hopeful. "It seems you didn't know him well. The last thing he'd want to see is my tricky face, believe me."
"I did know him!" The Soldier pursed his lips in a hesitant pout, but the excitement in his voice overcame the fear on his wavering face. "I may not have been so close to him as that boy from Nibelheim was, but he was still my friend! I would go against half of Shinra to help him, so you can be sure that I know who is special to him and who isn't!"
Both of them stared at him in silence, with Cissnei being the one who spoke up by stating: "Your passion is admirable, but it doesn't guarantee that Sadie won't let loose some horrible monster just because she's not tough enough to accept reality."
"That's not what this is about!" She didn't bother to contain the burning within her chest that Cissnei experienced earlier. "I made a promise to someone who's waiting for him and I'm not gonna fail her in any way! Monster, human or whatever the hell he decides to be! I'm going to kick his ass straight to stupid Midgar even if I have to deal with Bahamut itself on the way!"
Cissnei let out a weak sigh after a few moments of reflection. "Am I the only rational one on the team?"
"It takes heart to accomplish the mission!" Kunsel shouted as he pounded his chest with his clenched fist. "It doesn't hurt to be a little optimistic, Miss Anna!"
The redhead rolled her eyes, brushing a few strands of hair off her shoulder with a graceful flick of her wrist. "It's never done me any good."
"No?" The Soldier scratched the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. "Well, maybe I'll bring you a little luck this time."
"Yeah..." She glanced at him warily, annoyed to find that the helmet covering his head prevented her from reading his expression in greater detail. "It would be a nice turn of events for a change."
Sadie approached them, still upset and impatient. "Enough of this chatter, where the hell is that research base supposed to be?"
Cissnei turned her gaze back to her almost immediately, returning to her strategist role in a heartbeat (unlike Kunsel, who was still checking her with an interest he did little to hide). The former Turk nodded, pointing to a spot far offshore. "It's right there, waiting for us to pay a visit."
Sadie narrowed her eyes and Kunsel mimicked her. "I don't see anything there."
"Oh!" The woman folded her arms, twisting her lips mischievously. "You won't see it from here. The base lies beneath the waves that cover the reef." They stared at her, their faces blank with surprise, unable to assimilate the news faster than Cissnei could continue: "Don't worry, I've planned how to infiltrate that place long enough for it to be a walk in the park. Trust me."
City of Midgar. Sector 5 Slum.
Far away from there, Aerith was quietly scanning the flowers growing in the cathedral with her face tinged with worry.
The petals didn't look good at all, the color was dull and peculiar dark spots climbing up the stem were beginning to make their way to the corolla. This was repeated on each of her precious flowers and the florist swore she'd never encountered such a problem before.
A voice that sounded like her own kept telling her that something awful had escaped from the planet. A rotten being, withering everything around itself. From the flowers, to the thoughts of the beings that walked the earth.
She shook her head vigorously, clenching her fists and trying to silence the voice with all her might. But all she achieved was to get many more to join in; each one shouting that evil was near and she had to go to-
"Enough!" she declared loudly, as if commanding a small child to be silent. "This paranoia isn't healthy at all!" She opened her eyes breathlessly and found that the voices turned into an anguished murmur, full of disappointment, which was again lost in the depths of her being.
What was happening? Why were the voices coming back? She had stubbornly ignored them since she was a child, but the clamor was reaching unsuspected levels of tension.
She pressed her lips together in a line, bringing her hands to her hips when she felt that Zack's presence was closer than ever. Did his impossible proximity have something to do with the return of that annoying phenomenon that only visited her at very important moments?
"Where are you? Where?" she whispered, pacing hesitantly around the cathedral. "If you're there..." She looked up at the flared roof over her garden, afraid to raise her voice and scare off whoever was listening. "Please, give me a sign!"
At that instant the roof came crashing down with a thunderous roar. Aerith managed to escape the collapse by pure chance, for she wouldn't have been so lucky if she hadn't been making impossible wishes to an unknown God.
She thought of her luck as she stood up, coughing due to the dust raised by the debris falling from above.
"What a piece of signal to send!" she complained in a nearly childish way, grunting under her breath as she observed the disaster that her favorite place had become, when she noticed in terror that a person was lying unconscious among what was left of her flowers. "Oh, by dearest Gaia!" She rushed to the wounded man's aid, unsure whether she should take him in her arms or leave him on the ground.
She was pondering her next move when the voices cried out in unison; causing her intense dread as they repeated what every cell in her body seemed to feel, but which her rational side couldn't conceive.
"Zack?" She looked at the injured man in disbelief. His uniform, the sword he carried on his back, and that indisputable presence that flowed from his whole being! The coincidences were many, yes, but the stranger didn't physically resemble him. "It's impossible, impossible..." she muttered in a sort of trance, reaching out with her fingertips to brush the tangled golden bangs away from the unconscious man's face.
However, the impossible ceased to be impossible the moment her skin connected with his and a shiver ran through her from end to end; confirming the planet's shrill message:
In some way as singular as indecipherable, this man harbored a mysterious connection to Zack.
The rebels headed for the farthest point on the Mideel coast. Cissnei and Sadie wore a pair of neat Turk uniforms that belonged to the former.
The ex-Turk kept them in perfect condition and although Sadie's was short in the arms and legs due to the marked difference in height between the two, this was of little concern to its owner. The scientists who lived at the base below the waves weren't used to dealing with outsiders. They were so immersed in research that their spatial attention levels lacked the sharpness needed to detect details such as the wrong size of a tight-fitting uniform.
"They're too confident down there," she said to Kunsel (who wore his Soldier uniform) as they walked down the edge of the rocky slopes that bordered the beach. "They don't expect anyone to invade them so they don't even take measures to ensure the facility's safety. If we do things right we should have no problem in making them think we're on a routine mission."
The plan was orchestrated very early in the morning. The women would pretend they were bringing back a fugitive Soldier who escaped from the facility. Cissnei assured them that belonging to the Turk elite was like having VIP access to any installation of the company.
A Turk never gave explanations about their movements. They just did what they were told to do blindly without letting anyone stand in their way. Cissnei enjoyed that freedom that resembled the real thing for years. The chance to be feared, to watch everyone bow to her iron tenacity. The dread of being the new enemy to defeat reflected in the eyes of whoever dared to block her way.
But the sad truth was that she was only free if she remained faithful to Shinra. She inhabited a spacious cage, with no rules and overflowing with luxuries, but a cage nonetheless. She wanted above all else to be free; to fly wherever she pleased, slave only to her own unique will.
The times of Shinra were over for Cissnei, but she could still put her past to a worthy use. One with which she could give Zack's wings back to him, who lost them because of her past actions.
The reports she wrote during her follow-up on him in the months after Hewley's disappearance, set a significant precedent about the Soldier's abilities; one that heavily influenced his promotion to 1st Class. The overview got him shipped to Nibelheim with General Sephiroth and that deprived him of having the time his master needed to open his eyes to the truth behind Shinra.
"This is the entrance," she muttered under her breath, pointing to a vine that clung weakly to the rocky wall of a cliff that towered over the shore. Her companions looked at each other, puzzled.
Sadie was the first to speak: "It can't be that simple."
"If you were a Mideel villager, you wouldn't be looking for hidden doors among the overgrown rocks. Would you, Sadie?"
"No. No, of course not, but..." She bit her lip. "We could have done this a lot sooner!"
"No way." Cissnei examined the rock with her fingertips, pressing certain places mechanically. "Security wasn't so lax a few weeks ago. Back then two guards watched that nobody approached the area on the pretext that dangerous creatures roamed the area, but the head of the security department went on vacation to Costa del Sol." She smiled sideways. "You know how the saying goes; while the cat's away-"
"The mice will play."
"Exactly."
"I should have given you more credit, you really left no stone unturned in this." Sadie smiled not in relief, but rather in temporary satisfaction. "And what shall we do when we're inside? Kunsel doesn't look like he's coming against his will." She looked at the young man and arched her lips in a mischievous grin. "Maybe we should beat him up a bit first."
"Hey!" Kunsel placed his hands on his hips. "No one's going to believe that a Soldier would let himself be beaten by two women!"
"Ah!" Sadie's mouth dropped open an inch. "I didn't think you were so sexist!"
"B, because I'm not!" He leaned back and scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I'm just trying to be objective! The Turks are good, but the mako gives us abilities they can't have."
"Then say that a Soldier can't be beaten by two Turks, instead of two women." She folded her arms, visibly offended.
"I told you it's just a misunderstanding!" Kunsel sighed, turning in Cissnei's direction as he asked: "Cissnei, what are we going to tell them?"
Cissnei didn't look at him as she spoke, since she was concentrating on finding the slit that served as a trigger for the door to open: "You're a failed experiment that ran away from its captors and got caught halfway during his great escape. You know, just a bad reaction from mako and stress. Then you fell catatonic like all intoxicated people do and it was easy to drag you on foot with us."
"Sounds..." Kunsel took a deep breath, fully aware that this phenomenon could happen to him if his stress exceeded the recommended levels, "...very reasonable."
"That's it!" Cissnei pushed a hidden lever and the wall yielded without a sound, moving aside as an automatic door would. Inside was a bright hallway that resembled a modern hospital with spotless walls and mirrored floors.
"This place is..." Kunsel whispered in disbelief. "Real!"
They stepped cautiously inside and the door closed softly behind them. Cissnei reminded him how to act, fearful that he'd forget because of the shock. Kunsel nodded, trying to get past the lump that rose in his throat as soon as he set foot in the facility.
The three of them knew it was extremely possible they were getting closer to Zack with every step they took, and that made their hearts gallop harder than the mission's success demanded.
The interior of the room that greeted them at the end of the corridor (which descended meters and meters without needing a single staircase) was luxurious, with glowing finishes on the rounded ends of furniture so white as the walls pierced by oval windows that allowed them to view the bottom of the sea.
The reception was crowded with people (in robes so immaculate as everything around them), who went up and down without taking their eyes off their portable devices full of all kinds of information. The researchers were indifferent to anything except what concerned their tasks, just as Cissnei said.
The only one that noticed them with a friendly and curious smile was the receptionist waiting behind the main counter of the huge underwater building. The girl, with reddish-brown hair and kind eyes, waved at them. "Hey, this is the way to check-in!"
The visitors took a breath and jumped right into the wolf's mouth, praying that they wouldn't be swallowed by its jaws.
"Yes, I know. It's not my first time here." Cissnei showed off her Turk manners by casting a disdainful glance at the receptionist, who seemed strangely familiar to her. "You're a new face."
"Oh!" The girl brushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear, nodding repeatedly. "I've only been here a short time, it's true. I was transferred from the archives area." She smiled with pride. "And only two months after I started working here!"
"Ah. It must be easy to get promoted, I guess?" Cissnei tried to follow the conversation, but she noticed that Sadie turned pale and grabbed Kunsel to avoid falling backward. Cissnei pursed her lips and thought that maybe her nerves were playing a trick on her comrade, which was strange, since it wasn't the first time she'd pretended to be someone else in front of the enemy.
"It's a very closed environment, I don't think it's that easy to move up," continued the receptionist, not knowing whether to be offended or embarrassed by the newcomer's lack of manners. "I think I've earned my place."
"Yes, of course. I'll bring you a fruit basket to celebrate." Cissnei pointed to Kunsel with a sudden wave of her right hand that startled the receptionist. "This punk escaped a few days ago, we found him half-dead in Kalm's harbor."
"Oh, poor guy! Should I call a doctor?"
"No. He's a prisoner, not a patient. We have to take him back to the containers."
"Ah..." The girl looked at her personal computer's thin monitor, reading the building plans with the typical haste of a novice who wants to please. "You have to follow the corridor on the left, the one next to the window. Don't stop until you see sector's 13A entrance, the resident doctor will escort you to the containers."
"Okay, sector 13A. Roger that." Cissnei began walking as soon as she received the information, gesturing for Sadie to join her. She moved closer, keeping her eyes on the receptionist from over her shoulder, her lips parted in a distressed expression that was hard to hide.
"For Gaia's sake, Sadie," the ex-Turk murmured as they stepped into the hallway they had to follow. "What the hell happened to you back there? You looked like you'd seen the grim reaper."
"A ghost, maybe," she whispered, her voice trailing off as her face went pale as a sheet of paper. "Didn't you see her face?!"
"The receptionist?"
"No, Cissnei. Kunsel!" She grunted under her breath, shaking her head. "Of course I'm talking about the receptionist. I can't believe you didn't recognize her."
"She looked familiar, yes. Do we know her?"
"I'm not sure..." Sadie shook her head, looking at the ground as they walked. "She looked just like her, but she was definitely someone else."
Kunsel wished to say something, but kept silent to keep from breaking his facade. Cissnei was grateful for his courtesy; she already had too much trouble trying to calm her teammate for other of them to break from the plan.
"Are you sure or not? Because for not to be, you look like you're about to faint from shock."
"Well..." Sadie frowned, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. "She's the spitting image of Jessie. My comrade from Avalanche, remember her?"
Cissnei blinked repeatedly. "The girl who made bombs?"
"That's the one."
"Hell, you're right!" She massaged her temple absently. "Even I couldn't tell what happened to her and Biggs after they got arrested. How could I ever imagine that she'd be living down here?"
"But that's crazy! She'd never work for Shinra!"
"Never say never. We all have a price."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Sadie lowered her voice when Kunsel elbowed her discreetly in the ribs. "She didn't even know who we were, it can't be Jessie."
"Maybe she didn't want to expose us. Just because she was bought off doesn't mean she wants her old comrades dead, does it?"
"No, no. The Jessie I knew would never sell out her ideals for a cushy job." She pressed her lips together as she felt the pain of remembering the person who'd taught her how to operate inside Avalanche when she was a teenager. "Jessie had principles."
Cissnei released a long sigh, pausing in front of the sector 13A door. "People change, Sadie. And not everyone places as much value on promises as you do."
"I'll never accept that was the Jessie I knew. They must have... brainwashed her or something."
A woman with flowing brown hair and a kindly look rose from her desk as she saw them stop in front of the door. "Good evening, ladies. What can I do for you?"
"We were ordered to return this specimen to the tube it came out of," Cissnei stated coldly and impersonally, pointing to Kunsel (who was about to scream due to the anxiety of being silent for so long) with a shake of her head.
"Oh." The doctor's face showed no emotion, they might as well have been showing her a rock or a plant instead of a person. "I don't remember any of them escaping."
"He did it under the change of watch of the surveillance chief. The sneaky bastard thought he was smarter than normal humans."
"Ah." The doctor put a hand to her chin, looking questioningly at him. "Is he a 1st Class Soldier?"
"Nah. Just a 2nd Class who got a little lucky, but the mako must have fried his brains by now." She snapped her fingers in front of Kunsel's face, as a way of showing his alienation. "See? Fried to a crisp."
The doctor dropped her shoulders in disappointment. "Gee... I thought I might get some interesting data about his stay away from the base."
"You already have an excuse to let them sneak away, huh?" Cissnei put her hands to her hips and Sadie figured from whom she learned to lie so well. "Thanks to them continuing to sneak out I have a job, so I can turn a blind eye if you need to do any experiments."
The doctor smiled as if she were a child allowed to cheat on a school test: "You are truly kind! I'll keep you posted, of course."
Sadie looked at the badge hanging on the chest of the woman's gown. The name "Lucrecia Crescent" was engraved in gold letters on its surface.
Lucrecia walked into the site that served as storage for the test specimens, inviting them to follow her through the industrial corridors (dingy in comparison to the rest of the facility) that stretched for yards and yards of what was a huge warehouse of reactors and complex machinery that none of the visitors managed to recognize.
There were glass tanks filled with bubbling mako underneath the steel suspension bridges they crossed to move from one place to the next with ease. The murmur caused by the substance's boiling was the only thing to be heard besides the oppressive silence that enveloped everything.
As they moved deeper and deeper into the warehouse, they began to notice rusty signs hanging from the ceiling that labeled each section with an alphabet letter. Dr. Crescent explained that each of these sections housed "the subjects," arranged in alphabetical order according to the last names by which they were admitted.
Sadie's heart leaped into her chest, for they were in section "D". She opened her mouth an inch, unable to hold her breath inside her body when she noticed that the letter "F" was less than thirty meters away from them. She recited the name "Zack Fair" mindlessly, the stress made it hard for her to believe they could actually be that close to him.
It was then that they heard a groan both sudden and distressing coming from behind them, the women turned to discover that Kunsel was standing in front of the railing of the "C" section bridge, cracking the helmet he previously wore on his head between his trembling hands.
Tears of fury streamed down his reddened face as he stared at the flooded mako tubes where hundreds of humans lay in a sort of suspended animation. "What the fuck is this?!" he cried out, his voice hoarse with pain. "Why is she here?!"
Cissnei moved cautiously towards him, smiling at the doctor who was looking at her with wide eyes. "There's nothing to worry about. From time to time he regains consciousness and you have to knock him back to sleep. I'll have him back to normal in a second." She tried to move closer, but the Soldier stopped her with a glare that only those who went through the mako cell infusion were capable of displaying.
Kunsel's eyes glowed with a murderous fire as he spat out the words between sobs: "You said they only had traitors here! That Zack betrayed Shinra and that's why he was punished!"
Cissnei took a breath, trying to prevent her facade from crumbling in front of Dr. Crescent. "And that's what he did, the company was always very strict on the loyalty code required from Soldier members."
"NO!" he denied, shaking his head sharply. His gaze fell on a tank in which a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman in her fifties floated amidst a sea of wires that clung to her skin like life-thirsty leeches. "Rita Cadence, fallen in action during the Wutai war!" he repeated the words that broke his heart ten years ago. "2nd Class Soldier, buried with honors in Midgar's pantheon of heroes!"
"Your... teacher?" Cissnei muttered, completely forgetting the acting.
"WHY THE HELL IS SHE IN THAT THING?!" he shrieked, rubbing his face violently with his forearm. "She gave her life for Shinra! She died fighting like she had to! She-"
"Please, send security to sector 13A!" pleaded Dr. Crescent on her intercom. "I think something's terribly wrong with some Turks who just came in! Please!"
"Oh, by Ramuh's beard!" Cissnei looked up with more frustration than surprise and turned to the woman reluctantly. "Don't get tough now-"
Lucrecia Crescent didn't even let her turn fully around. She shot her straight in the chest with an accurate shot that missed the center by only inches to the right.
Cissnei cried out as the projectile's blast sent her spinning and tumbling behind her attacker's back.
"CISSNEI!" Kunsel's voice sounded high-pitched and desperate when he called out her name. His mind was flying a mile a minute as he tried to predict the doctor's next move.
Sadie followed the conflict from the farthest position from its center, as her overzealousness to reach the "F" section caused her to walk faster than the others. She was behind Lucrecia, so she reached inside her jacket to pull out the weapon she stored in her shoulder holsters.
"SADIE!" Cissnei's voice stopped her in her tracks. "GO GET HIM! WE CAN DO THIS!"
The defender's jaw dropped. Everything seemed to move in slow motion due to the adrenaline that ran through her from end to end, and she could swear that the doctor's long hair danced in the air like a snake ready to deliver its awaited deadly bite.
She reminded her of her own self during that afternoon when, cornered, she shot Zack without a second thought. The man who relied on her; whose freedom, dreams and honor would be at stake in her next move.
This time she wouldn't miss. No way in the world was she going to miss.
See you soon, many thanks for being on the other side!