Twilight Perfected Chapter 12: I've got high heel stilettos and I'm kicking in doors, and kissing your ass ain't what my lipstick's for.

General Sephiroth had faced and defeated ninjas, samurai, summons, monsters, robots, dragons, public safety personnel, SOLDIERs, and now a house.

He was just glad that Genesis wasn't around to deliver some pithy quip or worse yet, an ancient prophecy from Loveless. Sephiroth was fairly sure he'd heard the entire piece recited to him enough times to have memorized it, but knowing his luck, there was probably some stanza nested in its apocrypha about the brave hero doing battle with a residential evil.

He could only hope that he was able to accomplish this mission without Aerith telling Tifa about the fight, or at the very least without Tifa telling Kadaj about it; Kadaj's complete ignorance of the event was his only hope for not having to recount it in second-by-second detail.

For the moment, Sephiroth was back in the relative safety of Madame M's massage parlor while she finished negotiating with a small army of tailors, aesthetiscians, and, for all he knew, caterers.

"Sephiroth… I have an idea." Aerith announced.

She'd been kind enough to seat herself at the exact opposite side of the parlor's sole couch so that he could have his personal space. He was thankful for that, but he suspected he would not be for whatever idea had just occurred to her.

"Tifa will be one possible bride for Don Corneo, and I'm going to be the second. He likes to have three girls though, so all this is going to be for nothing if he picks the third girl."

"…" He could see where this was going, but had no intention of encouraging her.

"So what if you… were that third girl?"

"…." Sephiroth stood firm.

"Come on Sephiroth, did my silver knight really come all this way just to leave me on my own just when things are getting truly dangerous? Besides, you already fought a house, is this really so much to ask?"

"….." He wasn't saying a word until she gave up on this absurd notion.

"Your dress has arrived." Madam M announced as she entered the store.

That news only made Aerith's smile grow broader.

"So, Madam M, I had this crazy idea that I thought you could help me with..." Having failed to convince Sephiroth, Aerith now turned her attention to the masseuse.

"I think you're crazy enough already just for wanting to be in a room with Don Corneo."

"Since you owe me and Sephiroth a favor, do you think that we could possibly get us an extra dress, and maybe a few other things? Do you think we could find something fancy in Sephiroth's size?"

"No."

Madame M put her foot down without a moment's hesitation, and Sephiroth was tempted to announce that the favor she owed him was now paid in full.

"But maybe if we…." Aerith pleaded.

"No! Being part of the Trio means that I know Don Corneo's tastes, and one of said tastes is that he's very particular about his bride's height. He likes to be able to look them in the eye, or failing that the breasts. Even if I did everything I could possibly do, Don Corneo would need a step ladder."

Aerith snapped her fingers in displeasure.

"Well there goes that plan… but maybe instead we could…."

"Maybe you should join me in the backroom so we can start getting you ready? We still have to take care of fitting, adjustments, makeup…" Madame M cut her off again.

XXX XXX XXX

It was a good dress, all things considered.

Sephiroth wasn't sure it was worth having to fight a house for, but it was a good dress.

Lots of artfully arranged long frills, and the red color accentuated her green eyes. A plunging neckline was emphasized by a golden necklace and touches of black fabric. Her hair was now tied back by a crimson ribbon with interwoven ruby flowers, with the entire outfit rounded out by a pair of silver heels.

"So, what do you think?"

What did she expect him to say?

"The dress suits you. I can make sure Madame M lets you keep it if you want me to."

"Thanks, though now that I'm actually wearing it it… I can't stop thinking about how gaudy and impractical it is." Aerith admitted.

For some reason he couldn't quite describe Sephiroth felt a slight upward twitch in his lips.

"You were correct that going in alone leaves you needlessly exposed; I have a solution. I'll get your original dress, boots and staff from Madame M, then if you need to get my help, just whistle, as loud as you can. Do you know how to whistle?"

"Of course." Aerith hesitated a moment. "Are you sure you'll hear me from outside the mansion?"

"I'll hear."

XXX XXX XXX

Honestly, Aerith wasn't all that worried; she felt like a million gil and was wearing a dress that probably really had cost almost that much. She might not have her staff, her bangles, or any materia, but she was pretty sure she could handle anything Don Corneo or his goons threw at her.

XXX XXX XXX

An uncertain amount of time later, Aerith was forced to admit that being being lured into an isolated room and then gassed was not something she could 'handle'.

Indeed, there were very few situations that involved waking up in what could only be described as "a dungeon" which would justify a person cackling with glee over how their plan was going perfectly.

On the other hand, she was waking up, she still had her dress on, and she hadn't been chained to anything, so Don Corneo probably wasn't actually aware of her plan… he just had really disgusting ideas about what constituted a good first date.

As Aerith's head began to feel less like it was stuffed full of cotton and her eyes cleared, she tried to figure out exactly how much trouble she was in.

The first thing she noticed was that she wasn't the only occupant of the dungeon.

"Hey, can you hear me?" The other woman called out to her.

Even though she was standing only a few feet away from her, Aerith found herself struggling to get a clear image of her dungeonmate. As the fog in her head dissipated, though, details gradually came into focus: brunette, mahogany eyes, black yukata….

"Tifa… Lockhart?" Aerith gasped out awkwardly; her mouth felt like it was full of marbles.

"Uhh… yes? How do you know my name?" Tifa rather reasonably replied.

"I've been working with a friend of yours: tall, silver hair, green eyes, no sense of humor…."

"I can guess." Tifa cut her off before she needed to say anymore, her lips twitching upwards in a slight smile.

"So he's okay?" Another voice abruptly joined the conversation.

Aerith blinked a few more times and managed to rise to her feet.

Turning her head in the other voice's direction she beheld a wiry girl with silver hair and green eyes; she might not have been as tall as Sephiroth, but there could be no doubt she was the tallest of three.

She was wearing a sleek black dress with silver accents that seemed to be cut in exactly the right style to compliment her slender figure by suggesting at curves rather than revealing them.

All of those facts fell by the wayside a moment later though when Aerith noticed something else….

The silver haired girl had a yellow flower in her hair.

The exact same yellow flower that she'd given to Sephiroth when they'd first met in Sector One.

"Wait a moment… you're Sephiroth's brother!" Aerith gasped in shock.

"Yeah, I'm Kadaj…." He pouted awkwardly a twisting a strand of silver hair in a black opera glove. "What gave it away?"

"I sold him that flower; when I asked him about what he'd done with it, he told me he gave it to his brother."

Kadaj's pout melted into an exultant grin as he rejoiced with an energetic elbow pump.

"So you only realized because of stuff completely outside my control. Yes, nailed it!"

"Wow, Tifa we had the exact same idea! Sephiroth was a total stick in the mud about it though." Aerith couldn't help but giggle as she sized up Kadaj.

"Actually… it was Kadaj's idea." Tifa admitted, blushing slightly.

"I didn't want Tifa putting herself in danger while I sat around and did nothing!" Kadaj interjected with a smile.

Sephiroth had said that his younger brother was a romantic...

"I'd really like to get to know both of you better, but we also have to figure out a way to get out of here. Sephiroth said that if I got in trouble I should whistle really loudly, but down here I'm not sure even he would be able to hear." Aerith sighed looking at how thick the walls were… and wishing she also didn't notice the manacles and… other things cluttering up the room.

"We can't leave just yet."

"Yeah, we're on an important mission for…. important people." Kadaj's vainly tried to dance around the topic.

"You're both in Avalanche." Sometimes the only way to break the ice was with a sledgehammer.

Kadaj and Tifa's eyes both instantly decided that they had to be somewhere other than meeting Aerith's gaze.

When they ran out of other things to look at Kadaj's eye were sullen with shame while Tifa's were pointedly accusatory.

"What makes you say that?"

"I live in Sector Five. There were a lot of broadcasts of your attack on the reactor."

Yet again two sets of eyes found the room's disturbing implements irresistibly interesting.

"Oh, that, right." Tifa coughed after finishing another inspection of the room.

Strangely, none of the broadcasts had actually included so much as a flicker of silver hair, but then, she already knew Sephiroth had been there...

"Well since Sephiroth already trusts you, and he's not exactly a soft sell, I suppose there's no harm in filling you in.

"After the Sector Five reactor job, some guys came around looking for a friend of mine with only one arm."

"Who Tifa beat the crap out of. Then they bought everyone a round of drinks. I got lemonade!"

"I asked some questions and found out they were working for Don Corneo. They wouldn't tell me why he was so interested, though." Tifa continued, ignoring the interruption.

"Well I mean, he's a crime lord, and you're…. sorta kinda criminals; maybe he thought you'd want to buy something illegal from him?"

"Trade negotiations don't start with his goons leaning on my customers. Which is why we decided that Avalanche needs to know exactly why Don Corneo is so interested in us all of a sudden. I figured that the best way to do it would be to ask him… just another night of getting leered at for tips, y'know?

"As pretty as Tifa is though, she's only one woman, so I offered to help. Besides, I'd never ridden in a carriage before!"

Aerith grinned back at him.

"This is perfect, then! If we're all in on it, he literally has to pick one of us!"

Tifa began to chew on her lip as she looked Aerith up and down again.

"Avalanche is here to help the people of Midgar, not to exploit them like Shinra. I'm not sure I can really accept..."

"If you're trying to give me the brushoff, Sephiroth already tried it, about half a dozen times, I'm still here." Aerith cut her off.

"Welcome to Avalanche!" Kadaj congratulated her with a hug that was so exuberant Aerith could feel her ribs protesting at the pressure and lungs complaining from lack of air.

For all their visual similarities, she could see very little of the brothers in each other. For that matter, Sephiroth had been in the public eye for years; why had his brother never been so much as mentioned?

"That, that might be taking it a bit too far." Aerith blushed as she struggled to catch her breath once Kadaj's crushing embrace finally concluded.

"I'm going to help you guy get out of this mess, find out what Don Corneo wants with Avalanche, and then I can finally head home without feeling like I didn't do my part."

Aerith was too involved in this particular mess to back out now, but that didn't mean she planned to spend the rest of her life blowing up mako reactors.

To her surprise Tifa took this news with good cheer, gently resting a hand on Aerith's shoulder.

"That's fine, there are lots of people out there who support Avalanche in countless different small ways, some people leave supplies at our dead drops, others report on Shinra shifts schedules or security passwords, not everyone has to fight on the front-lines."

"Though we're totally gonna take the fight straight to Don Corneo if he tries to gas us again!"

It made Aerith feel a little bit better to know that she hadn't been the only one who'd fallen for that particular trick.

"Now ladies, listen up. I'm sure you're still feeling a bit woozy, but tonight's audition's about to begin. Head out the door to the left and up the stairs. Come on ladies, let's hustle." A voice called to them from above.

"Now ladies, listen up." A voice called to them from above. "I'm sure you're still feeling a bit woozy, but tonight's audition's about to begin. Head out the door to the left and up the stairs. Come on ladies, let's hustle."

It was show time.

XXX XXX XXX

Having grown up in Lower, Midgar Aerith knew about Don Corneo, the unofficial "king" of Wall Market, but she hadn't ever seen him in person before. She certainly hadn't expected the cartoon version of him displayed during the Corneo Cup to be such a spot on depiction. Don Corneo was indeed plump, squat, and bald except for a curl of orange blond hair.

He had the sort of eyes that Aerith associated with men her mother had told her to keep away from, his default expression an unseemly leer.

"Nice. Very nice! Whichever one shall I pick?" His voice was packed with more ooze than whatever product he used to style his hair.

Aerith kept her hands folded neatly together and looked straight ahead while keeping her expression passive, she hadn't come this far just to give the game away.

While his hands never quite actually touched her dress, the way they reached out towards her forced Aerith to fight back a series of repulsed shivers.

"My, my, such a slender thing you are, have you been eating enough?" Ironic that Don Corneo should be worried about Aerith taking in enough calories, because at that moment she felt sorely tempted to violently expel her last meal.

Apparently satisfied with bringing her to the edge of nausea without pushing her over, he now turned his lecherous gaze on Tifa.

"Oh maybe this elegant and refined creature? Is there any chance you're the descendant of nobility, my dear?" Don Corneo cooed.

"Well, my father was a mayor." Tifa admitted reluctantly.

"I knew it! There simply had to be vast tracks of land running in your family!"

Then he turned to Kadaj.

"Though how could I refuse this statuesque beauty in silver whose hair sparkles like freshly minted coins?" Don Corneo cackled to himself.

"Who to choose, who to choose, who to choose, who to choose? Truly my faithful followers have presented me with an embarrassment of riches! If the dignified duchess and my silver nightingale would join me in my most intimate quarters perhaps I can finally reach a proper conclusion. Kotch, Scotch, you and the other boys can amuse yourselves with the scarlet lady." He commanded imperiously.

Before Aerith could even sort out how to feel about that news each of Don Corneo's minions grabbed one of her shoulders and dragged her from the room.

XXX XXX XXX

That was how Aerith found herself surrounded by four men who were alternating between hooting, hollering and debating which one of them would get to "have fun" with her first.

In short, a certain florist had reached the limit of exactly how much objectification she was going to be putting up with tonight.

"Would you boys like a preview of what you can expect?" Aerith did her best approximation of a femme fatale's seductive purr.

It wasn't an especially good impression, but it could hold the attention of a handful of lowlifes for five seconds.

That was all the time she needed to produce the loudest most high pitched whistle of her life.

"The hell are you doing bitch? That hurt my ears!" Scotch complained.

With a piercing HISS-CRACK, the wall exploded inward in a shower of frosted concrete shards.

"Mine, too." Announced a dispassionate baritone.

The moment Scotch's eyes flicked away from her, Aerith kicked him as hard as she could. Before he even got a chance to cry out in pain, she started looking for a proper weapon. As luck would have it have it, the first thing to hand was a folding chair. She slammed it down over the lackey's head and then turned to see how Sephiroth was doing.

In the time it had taken her to deal with Scotch, Sephiroth defeated two of the thugs, but it seemed like in the process one of them must have gotten a lucky shot in. She couldn't think of any other reason for why he was just standing there, staring at her like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

Then she saw the last one coming up behind him with a knife.

"Sephiroth, behind y..." She began to warn him.

She needn't have bothered.

It was like watching a film with frames missing; Sephiroth's elbow collided with the thug's face without seeming to cross the intervening space. He blinked once, slowly, after the man hit the floor.

"Where did they get you?" Aerith wondered if Sephiroth might be in need of healing.

"No..." Sephiroth responded, shaking his head muzzily. "I'm fine," he clarified a moment later, in something closer to his normal clipped tones. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm good also."

There was another long awkward pause.

One of Don Corneo's men groaned.

Sephiroth literally leaped on the opportunity, pouncing on the gangster like a cat on an injured mouse, flipping him over and binding first his wrists and then his ankles with a pair of zip ties.

"Do you want your normal dress back?"

"Yes." Aerith staggered back a step as she caught the bundle.

"Do you want me to leave the room? I can ice over all the entrances to make sure you're not interrupted." He offered awkwardly.

"No, that's fine; if there's one nice thing about this creepy place its that you can always find a spot to change."

She wasn't quite sure what the original intention behind setting up so many Wutain folding screens was, but they did provide enough privacy for her needs.

When she came out from behind the screen, she found Sephiroth had kept busy by affixing zip ties to the limbs of the other unconscious thugs.

"Why are you alone in here? I thought that Don Corneo was going to select one bride from three candidates, do we need to go find Tifa or the other woman?"

"There isn't another woman in danger, Don Corneo just decided that tonight he needed to have a runoff with two of his prospective brides." Aerith huffed.

"So you're saying, when it comes to Midgar's most famous degenerate... you're just not what he's looking for?"

Aerith paused for a moment.

"I guess that is what I'm saying." She admitted, feeling her spirits lift slightly.

"If it helps, I'm sure at least one man in the room found seeing you in that dress, holding that chair, an absolutely stunning experience."

"Sephiroth, was that a joke?" Aerith began to wonder if maybe she was hallucinating; she had inhaled a lot of knockout gas fairly recently...

XXX XXX XXX

Sephiroth strode into Don Corneo's private room with his usual air of unflappable command.

He was promptly "flapped" by the sight of his brother in a dress with a knee planted firmly on Don Corneo's back pinning him to the bed.

"Kadaaajjjjj..." Sephiroth awkwardly drew out the name, uncertain what else he could say.

"Tifa, can you take over for me?" Kadaj called out to Seventh Heaven's owner, who was also still dressed for her 'interview'.

Tifa crawled onto the bed and Kadaj promptly "tagged out" with her before bouncing off the bed and jogging out of the room while the bar-owner got to work keeping the "ruler" of Wallmarket immobilized.

"Yep, just like Andrea said, he got somebody to hide our clothes for us!" His voiced carried back into the room.

Before long he zoomed back into the room dressed in his normal black outfit and headed for Sephiroth's chest like a very affectionate heat seeking missile.

"It's great to see that you're okay!" Kadaj cried out as he hugged Sephiroth. "I mean Aerith told me you were, but still, it's good to see you're okay in person!"

"This raises many question." Don Corneo coughed from his undignified position on the bed.

"Too bad, since we're gonna be the ones asking them tonight." Tifa cut him off.

Once Kadaj was done with his hug, he "tagged in" and allowed Tifa a chance to change back into her normal outfit.

With that done, the Avalanche trio plus local florist could finally get down to business.

"So, I heard that you were interested in a man with a gun for an arm…." Tifa began.

"Huh? Dunno what you're talking about."

"Kadaj, are you leaning on his back hard?"

"I could be leaning harder."

"Do it." Sephiroth, Tifa, and Aerith chorused.

A few moments later Don Corneo squealed in discomfort.

"What's the matter? I thought you were looking forward to things getting frisky between us." Tifa taunted. "So, I heard that you were interested in a man with a gun for an arm..."

"They paid me to find him!"

"Good boy, you're learning. Now, how about you stop hiding behind pronouns, and tell us exactly who 'they' are?"

"They'll kill me if I tell you!"

"I guess that does make them scarier than us, I mean we've done all this without killing anybody yet." Aerith's voice was maliciously whimsical.

"I wouldn't want to break that streak, so instead, maybe I'll just, I don't know… rip em off?" She held up an open hand and, under a grin with more teeth than mirth, slowly and deliberately clenched it into a fist.

"It was Public Safety! Heidegger! It was Heidegger!" Don Corneo instantly babbled.

"Why would that overdecorated ironmonger sub-contract his work to you?" Sephiroth scoffed.

"He needed to know what sector Avalanche was based out of."

"Because…?" Tifa let the word dangle

"Have a heart!" Don Corneo pleaded.

"You know, you really shouldn't be taking such big risks…. I mean, I'm just a local florist, but they're all hardened terrorists. So if you're making me angry right now, imagine how they must feel?"

"The correct answer is, 'furious enough to stomp on whatever left of your junk after she's done'." Tifa clarified.

"He needed to know what sector Avalanche's base was in… because that way Shinra can drop the Plate on it!"

Silence.

"We need to get out of here." Sephiroth ordered.

Kadaj leapt off of Don Corneo's back and headed towards the door.

"Funny, I was thinking the same thing." Don Corneo chuckled to himself.

Before even Sephiroth could react, Corneo reached out and yanked of the bedposts.

A massive trap door swung open and all four of them plunged downward.

XXX XXX XXX

Reeve retreated to the safety of his office.

Except, his office didn't feel safe anymore.

Previously, when he'd closed the door behind him, it was as if he was shutting out all of Shinra's insanity. It allowed him to focus in peace on numbers and spreadsheets that always seemed sane, so long as he could trick himself into not thinking about what they actually represented.

Now… now it felt like the walls were closing in on him, crushing him…. crushing him... just like the people of Sector Seven...

"Something bothering you sir?" His secretary had been in the room when Reeve first entered, but he'd been too busy having a minor panic attack to notice.

"Ms. Pans, please leave." Reeve requested, his tone polite and devoid of emotion.

She'd been with him for long enough to realized that for him, this was the equivalent of screaming expletives at the top of his lungs while swinging his pants over his head.

She departed from the room with all possible haste.

Reeve brought up a new spreadsheet.

What could Midgar expect if Shinra actually carried out "Operation Damocles" successfully?

Projected loss of life in Sector Seven of Upper Midgar: 10,000 deaths.

Projected loss of life in the Sector Seven Slums: 50,000 deaths.

Projected cost of repairs: 10,000,000,000 gil.

Projected terrorists killed: 10.

Reeve stared at the spreadsheet until he could feel his eyes starting to water.

Then he turned to the coffee mug sitting on his desk.

"be crazy, it helps."

He turned back to his spreadsheet.

"The secret to good business organization is that all employees understand there comes a time when they must be willing to lead, follow, or get out of the way..." Reeve repeated the mantra aloud, hoping it would help steady his mind.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way?

"Be crazy, it helps..."

XXX XXX XXX

Aerith slowly shook her eyes open. While she liked helping people, she really had to find a way to stop waking up with a headache and no idea where she was or how much time had passed while she'd been unconscious.

"Hey, are you okay? I can try out this new healing materia Tifa got for me, if you need it!" Kadaj's voice came from somewhere nearby.

Aerith shook her head, then took a moment and shook both of her arms, then both of her legs. Everything hurt, but the pain was dull and throbbing, that meant nothing was broken, right?

"I think I'm okay..." Aerith tried to put him at ease.

As her vision cleared she became certain that wherever she was, it wasn't the dungeon she'd wound up in after being gassed. The floor was made of concrete rather than brick, and it was more faint green than black.

Also there was the smell.

"What is that…?" Aerith gasped, making sure to breath only through her mouth.

"I think it was meant to kill us." Sephiroth answered.

Aerith turned in the direction of his voice.

He was leaning against the decapitated head of some horned monstrosity. The rest of its massive carcass lay nearby, marred by deep gashes and leaking some sort of unwholesome emerald fluid.

"That's on brand; Don Corneo certainly seems like the kind of guy who thinks size is all that matters." Aerith giggled.

Tifa snickered approvingly as she shook some of same fluid from her gloves.

"So, where exactly are we?" Aerith had a sinking feeling she already knew the answer.

"The Sector Six sewer system. Ironically, that suits our needs well enough; we should be able to get back to Sector Seven without having to worry about the wall."

"Then once we're back in Sector Seven, we'll stop Shinra from dropping the plate!" Kadaj spoke as if no other outcome was possible.

"Ready for one more adventure?" Tifa gestured towards the only obvious exit from the room.

"You three are a bad influence on this pure naive florist."

XXX XXX XXX

"Why is this place so twisty turny? It's like Shinra can't even design a sewer system without making it shittier than it needs to be!" Tifa moaned in exasperation as the group came to another dead end, leaving them with no choice but to double back.

"You… you have a lot of friends in Sector Seven don't you?" Even though they'd only recently met, Aerith could tell that something other than architectural design choices was at the root of Tifa's rage.

Crack!

Tifa's punch filled the air with dust and flecks of shattered brick.

"Honestly, not that many friends, but I know lots of people who don't deserve to be murdered because of what we're doing. If I had to narrow it down, I can't stop thinking about one innocent girl who's already lost her home to Shinra once. I won't let it happen to her a second time." As Tifa spoke, Aerith noticed flecks of mako in her eyes flaring green, the intensity of the bartender's emotions tinting her mahogany eyes hazel.

"Maybe you should try and let it go for just a few moments? Try thinking about something that makes you happy instead. After saving Sector Seven you're gonna…?" Aerith prompted.

"Tie president Shinra up, hang him from a hook and use him as my new punching bag!"

Aerith winced.

"I guess that's a step in the right direction, but I was hoping for an answer that might not involve your fists..." She tried again.

"Good point, I have been skipping leg day recently, axe kicks, crescent kicks, front kicks, side kicks, hook kicks, roundhouse kicks, instep groin kicks..." Tifa sounded more amused than angry this time, making Aerith suspect she was getting her own leg pulled.

She risked a quick glance over her shoulder, but if Sephiroth found anything amusing about this exchange he'd managed to hide it by the time she laid eyes on him.

"How about something that doesn't involve violence at all?" Aerith clarified still further.

Tifa looked around, and there was a strange flush in her face as if she was about to discuss the most embarrassing secret possible.

"I guess, if I had to pick something…. it might be kind of nice to go shopping in Upper Midgar. Since I'd be in the area anyway..." She reluctantly admitted.

Aerith planted a reassuring hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"Now you're getting into the spirit! What would you want to buy?" In the back of her mind the florist braced herself for an answer straight out of the anarchist's cookbook.

"Decorations, coasters, stuff for my bar basically. Seventh Heaven isn't much to look at, and a new coat of paint won't change that, but it's mine."

"I know a Church in Sector Five that could use a little remodeling as well, especially since there's now a Sephiroth shaped hole in the roof; would it be okay if I joined you?" Aerith encouraged her.

"Sure thing it's a date!" Tifa giggled, then she risked a glance behind her as well before lowering her voice.

"Kadaj can carry all of our stuff."

"No, Sephiroth will, he'll be our pack chocobo!"

Tifa's eyes went wide in shock and her face contorted into the awkward expression of someone desperately fighting back a fit of laughter.

"Wow. I know we met in a creepy sex dungeon so this shouldn't really be a surprise, but you are so much braver than I gave you credit for." She eventually managed to whisper back

XXX XXX XX X

The smell was starting to get to Aerith, and didn't seem likely to improve any time soon; even though the local monsters seems mostly content to keep their distance, the terrain was doing plenty to slow them down on its own.

In this particular case "the terrain" took the shape of a "pontoon bridge" which was nothing more than sheets of metal with rusty barrels attached to it for ballasts.

A unanimous decision was quickly reached to cross it one at a time.

Sephiroth went across first, his footsteps careful and precise to the point that the water didn't even ripple.

Kadaj's crossing on the other hand sent the metal sheets shaking and the water splashing in all directions. Whichever way they moved he always seemed to be bending his body in time with it, his sense of balance proving to be as unshakeable as his brother's.

Tifa's crossing fell between their two extremes, but she managed to likewise make from one side to the other without accident.

Which just left Aerith.

Now all she had to do was get across a 'bridge' barely worthy of the name that she'd just seen crossed by three people who all had a mako glow in their eyes.

Easy….

One foot in front of the other. All she had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and if she felt unsteady she'd pause for a moment to rebalance herself.

On the other side of the bridge Tifa and Kadaj were eagerly cheering her on, the former standing by the edge and the latter crouching near it, as if ready to dive in and fish her out should she fall into the… less than sanitary fluids below.

A part of Aerith wanted to ask them to be quiet so she wasn't quite so distracted.

Then all of a sudden she felt the pontoons shift beneath her weight, just as she was putting her feet down on the third section of the bridge, it slid backward slightly. There was a sound of metal on metal, and the sound of water flowing rapidly as she felt the bridge start to sink.

"Aerith!" Cried out Tifa.

"Jump!" Advised Kadaj.

There was no time to steady herself or think, only time to act on instinct. Aerith, pumped her arms, raced forward, and jumped, but the bridge was sinking even as she pushed off; she'd had to jump before she'd even reached the midpoint.

She wasn't going to make it.

She scrunched her eyes closed in anticipation; this was going to suck.

She felt a hand wrap around her wrist, and a sudden sense of movement. She opened her eyes to find that Tifa, with one hand around her wrist and the other around Kadaj's, had caught her and swung her onto the walkway before she'd even gotten her boots wet.

What are these people? What am I doing here?

She was in over her head. It was obvious, and she'd just been convincing herself that a few fights in an underground arena meant she could keep up. No more; Aerith made a promise to herself that when finally got back to her bed, she wasn't leaving it for a week...

XXX XXX XXX

"Here." Sephiroth made the prediction with well-deserved confidence.

Thanks to having a few days to refresh his mental map of Midgar and adjust it for changes over the five years he'd spent in the Lifestream, it was easy for him to simply correlate their progress through the sewer system with where they'd emerge in the slums.

In fact, they should be less than a block from Seventh Heaven once they finished climbing this ladder.

The circular metal lid made a valiant-but-futile effort to resist a shove from Sephiroth, and they were finally someplace where he wasn't afraid to breath through his nostrils again.

He took a deep, cleansing breath.

Well, that wasn't right.

There should never have been this much gunpowder in the air in Sector Seven.

Shinra's attack had already begun.

End Chapter

AN: It's time to play everyone's favorite game… exactly how tall are these people again?

Tifa's height has varied slightly, (just not anywhere near as much as Sephiroth) she's basically somewhere between 5'4" and 5'6", Aerith is 5'3" or 5'4", and Kadaj is 5'9". By comparison, Cloud is 5'7" or 5'8", while I can't find a listed height for Don Corneo but in the remake he seems to be about eye level with Cloud's neck/chin.