Title- Duty
Chapter 4
Author- Malu (
Series- Final Fantasy 7
********************
Disclaimers- See chapter 1
********************
Author's notes- It's an AU Fic, also see author's notes on chapter 1. Ages: Sephiroth 19 and Aeris 16. Thoughts are between parenthesis and in italics. If your going to post this fic in your page delete the parenthesis and leave thoughts in italics.
********************
"No, no, no, no, no!"
Reno was having a ball. "Come on! You know you can't refuse a mission."
"Isn't this the Turks' job?"
"Yes, sadly we have another more important assignment. Besides, you know the only one allowed inside Don Corneo's mansion are girls."
"Yes, but why do I have to dress up like this. I could get pneumonia wearing this thing, besides what about Elena? She's a Turk."
"Elena isn't a very good spy, she tends to babble too much. Besides she could never pull it off, you on the other side will look lovely."
"Shut up. Where did you find those clothes? They look like something Scarlet would wear."
"Yes, well I'm sure they'll look better on you than they look on her."
"I'm NOT going outside looking like this. You can almost see EVERYTHING!"
"I know."
Aeris' head came from behind the changing curtain and she threw a combat boot at Reno, who barely dodged it. Sephiroth was looking at the whole scene quite amused. Aeris was in a changing booth trying on clothes for an undercover mission. Don Corneo is the owner of the Honey Bee Inn. They were assigned to go to the Honey Bee Inn and Corneo's Mansion. Aeris was going pose as one of Corneo's girls, while Sephiroth was going to infiltrate the mansion and destroy all of Corneo's files. Neither Aeris nor Sephiroth knew why they were sent on such an unimportant mission. Corneo was influential in the slums, but not enough to be dangerous to Shinra; he was just an owner of a brothel and head of some gangs.
"Why did you pick me? Even if Elena couldn't do this, there are a lot of girls who could."
"Oh, but your perfect for this, no one would suspect you to be a spy."
"If someone here saw me dressed like that my professional image would be ruined. Sephiroth, could you please lend me your jacket?"
Sephiroth was wearing black pants, a black button down shirt, his black boots and a black leather coat. He took off his coat and gave it to Aeris. A few minutes later she came out of the changing booth. You couldn't see her dress because of the coat, which reached to mid-thigh, obviously too large for her, still it showed off her legs and her black high heels. Reno was leering in a very inelegant way, while Sephiroth looked away quickly.
Aeris was furious at Reno. "Reno, get that look off your face and leave."
Reno didn't move an inch. "Don't tell me you'll wear that coat over your dress, that is just a waste."
Aeris glared at him. "Get lost, Reno."
Sephiroth had enough. "I think it's time to go. Aeris, let's go."
They got to the gate of the Wall Market without any problems. Aeris wasn't too thrilled. "Well the moment I've been dreading has come." She took off his coat and gave it back to him. Sephiroth was speechless. Aeris was wearing a short black dress that was laced in the back, showing off her figure, her legs and her entire back. Still she didn't look like she was one of the Honey Bee Inn's girls; her eyes gave her away. Her face was red and she looked nervous, she was mortified. Sephiroth quickly looked away, not wanting to be caught staring.
Aeris wanted to just disappear into thin air, she hoped that the earth would just swallow her. "I must look like a hooker."
Sephiroth saw the expression on her face and felt sorry for her. "Do you want my coat back?"
She smiled at him. "Thanks, but it would ruin the disguise. Now let's get this over with." She took Sephiroth's arm in her own and got very close to him. Sephiroth was very uncomfortable with their closeness, and so was Aeris. "You know this is only to be in character." Sephiroth nodded.
They got to the Honey Bee Inn in a few minutes, but had to deal with a few bums and drunks that were along the way. When they reached the front door the bouncer let them through after Sephiroth paid for a room. The room was tastelessly decorated to look Wutaian. There was a king-sized bed with black satin sheets and a hot tub. Aeris sat up in the bed. Sephiroth just stood in the middle of the room. Aeris looked around. "Sephiroth sit down, we'll be here a while." Sephiroth sat down in the opposite side of the bed, leaving as much space between them as possible.
A boring hour later they prepared to leave. Sephiroth would leave and Aeris would speak with the other girls in the inn. Every new girl was sent to Corneo. Aeris was going to enter Corneo's Mansion and create a diversion when she got to Corneo's room, giving Sephiroth enough time to get in, get to the basement where Corneo kept his files, destroy them and get out.
Sephiroth left and Aeris went in girls' changing room. The girls were talking about something when she came in, they stopped talking until Aeris introduced herself. They continued talking about some disappearances that have been happening lately, it seemed that some of Corneo's girls have been disappearing and no one knew what happened to them. They changed the subject and started talking gossiping, when they found out who Aeris was with, they started asking a lot of questions, they didn't know who was Sephiroth, but they had seen him and they thought he was cute. Aeris told them she had just met him. She was saved from further questioning when one of Corneo's men came to take the new girls to Corneo's mansion. Since she was the only one she went alone.
When she reached the entrance of the mansion she saw Sephiroth hiding in a dark corner. She went in and another of Corneo's men took her to Corneo's office. She looked at her surroundings. This room defies bad taste. She only had to wait two minutes for Don Corneo to come. He was fat and ugly…very ugly. Aeris tried to smile, but it came out very fake. Don Corneo was ogling her in a very disgusting way.
He was the first one to speak. "What's your name babe?"
Aeris faked another smile. "My name's Lily." This is going to take a while…
Sephiroth was outside, hiding in the shadows, thinking of how to get in. I could have done this alone. Reno knows that. This is such an easy mission, why did they send two SOLDIERs to take care of this, even a low level one could take care of this. Reno is up to something
There was a commotion and the guards ran inside. Sephiroth crept in. Before he could get to files he heard what seemed like fighting. He got to Corneo's office and didn't see Aeris. Corneo and his men were huddled around what looked like an open trap door. He heard a monster growling and Aeris casting a summon spell. The sound came from under the floor.
Corneo was mad, "She's going to kill it. Quick, kill her."
Sephiroth cast a Bolt 3 spell and Corneo and his men fell unconscious. He jumped down the trap door and found himself in a sewer, Aeris fighting a huge green monster, the monster was dying. They finished it off.
Sephiroth looked at the monster; it didn't look like any monster he's seen in Midgar or any place else. It looked like a mutation of different monsters. "What happened?"
"I followed them in and when I walked towards Corneo the trap door opened and I fell here. This monster attacked me and I fought it."
They looked around the sewers, there were bodies scattered around. They seemed to be girls from the Honey Bee Inn. Sephiroth counted at least 10 bodies.
Aeris was confused, this didn't look like something people like Don Corneo would do, it was too complicated. "Why would he keep this monster? And for that matter where could he get a monster like this one? This monster couldn't have been a simple mutation."
"I don't think he's smart enough to pull this off alone. Someone must be working with him, someone with a lot of available resources. And I bet we can find the name of this mystery person in Corneo's files." They climbed up the trap door's chute and found Corneo and his men still unconscious. They disarmed them and threw them down the chute. They got to the basement.
Sephiroth started looking at some of the files. Aeris didn't know what to look for. "Um, which are the records that Shinra wants us to get?"
"They told me to destroy them all"
" Oh…" She started to search the files. Looks like Shinra has something to hide. I bet it has to do with the monster. Maybe someone from Shinra was the one who helped Corneo or maybe even made the monster.
Aeris started to giggle and laugh looking at one of the files. Sephiroth went to see what was so funny. " What's so funny?" Aeris showed him a photo. It was Shinra entering the Honey Bee Inn with Scarlet.
Sephiroth arched his eyebrow. "I'm sure that's not what Shinra sent us for."
"Look at this, there's more."
"I don't think this is a good time…"
"Just see them, it'll only take a minute."
Sephiroth glanced at the pictures with Aeris. There were some other photos of Shinra with Scarlet. Then they looked at pictures of Heidegger with a girl. Aeris was looking at another photo and suddenly turned green. She looked sick.
"Are you okay?"
Aeris didn't look at him, she just gave him the photo. Sephiroth looked at her and also turned green. It was a picture of Hojo with a girl wearing a leather corset. " I did not need to see that. Let's just…" He dropped the photo on the table and continued searching through the files.
Sephiroth stopped looking and called Aeris. Sephiroth was looking at some documents. He gave them to Aeris. "These files are scientific data about the monster. It seems we were correct, the monster was created in a lab, but these papers say that the monster was created with high amounts of Mako. The only place you could get the kind of technology to make this kind of experiment is in Shinra."
Aeris read the files. "Looks like someone from Shinra made it and it couldn't be just anyone, only someone with advanced knowledge of Mako and bioengineering could make a monster like that. That narrows it down to some of Shinra's top scientists."
Sephiroth was deep in thought. It's him. "Aeris, we were ordered to destroy these files. That's exactly what we're going to do."
"But this documents are proof that someone in Shinra Inc. is doing very dangerous research behind the company's back."
"Probably, or maybe not. I'm sure Shinra has an idea of whom it is and even if he didn't it would be suicide to come forward with an accusation before getting enough proof and knowing exactly who it is. This person could be very powerful. We need to be careful."
Aeris was uneasy about it. "You do have a point, besides there is a good chance that the person that sent us here could very well be our mystery person and not Shinra. We're ordered to destroy them. But still we can't just leave it at that."
Sephiroth just took the most important files and burned the rest. "Mission completed. We can head back to Headquarters. We destroyed all of the files."
Aeris understood immediately. "Understood."
They left the Wall Market and Sephiroth gave Aeris his coat again and made their way to the Shinra Building. When they got there they went to Sephiroth's office. Before they could even sit down there was a knock at the door; it was Zack. Sephiroth let him in. Sephiroth sat behind his desk and Aeris sat on a chair. He was grinning. "So what were you two up two?" Both Sephiroth and Aeris groaned and sank in their chairs.
*************************
Author's notes-This chapter was very difficult to finish. It's crap. I thought about doing the cross-dressing thing, but I know Sephiroth wouldn't do a thing like that. The next chapter, I hope will be finished faster, but with college starting soon so it'll be unlikely. +_+ In reality I write faster, but I tent to dwell on things and I'm never satisfied with my work so I scrap it and try again until I got it right, but it takes forever and even with the finished product I'm not completely satisfied. So tell me what you think, it means a lot to me.