Man, do I hate this chapter…
Backstabbing and Inconsiderate
Chase blinked his eyes. Tifa smiled, she was amused at the fact the Chase, without his glasses, can blink his eyes an uncountable number of times in a minute. The glasses in question where on top of Tifa's head. The cruise was coming to an end and she didn't want it to. A few more minutes and off they went to go explore the world. She'll miss Yuffie and the comforts of a bed and real food.
But she loved being with Chase. Tifa wondered how he felt. Normally, it was masked under the sunglasses he wore and the diction of his speech. He slowly started opening up.
Together, they leaned against the balcony to see the view of the upcoming landmass with the city built by the clear waters. Yuffie was busy trying to pack her things into the one suitcase she had. Tifa almost had the same problem, luckily she purchased another bag. Chase on the other hand still had that one duffel that somehow kept everything he had in it and still looked like it could fit some more.
"Chase?" Tifa asked, looking up into his eyes. She had grown to accept them. A few days of staring at them without their shield made them comforting portals into Chase's mind. "Have you decided where would our next destination be?"
"I think it would be preferable if we just went to Northern Corel after Costa del Sol. It would be the next stop and make things easier in the journey," Chase smiled and looked down at her. Something that caught her off guard, he never did that. "Maybe, we could go to the Golden Saucer?"
"That'd be nice Chase," Tifa answered. Did she really want to continue going after a relationship with him? Right now she did.
A bright light flashed, Chase turned away and shut his eyes and Tifa looked toward where it came from. Yuffie stood there with a camera in her hand and shaking a Polaroid picture.
"Yuffie, what the…"
"You guys look so good together. I just had to immortalize that," Yuffie said. She stop shaking the picture and looked at it, "Perfect."
Yuffie smiled and looked at the picture a little while longer. Chase rubbed his eyes and squinted through half-closed eyes. Yuffie handed him the picture, "Something to remember this cruise by."
Chase snatched the picture and tucked it away in his jacket. Chase kept rubbing his eyes and held them shut.
"Is something wrong Chase?" Tifa asked
Chase shook his head and took a deep breath. He slowly opened his bloodshot eyes and smiled at her.
The cruise came to a stop and everyone started to disembark. A lot of people were a little disgruntled with all the chaos of getting off of the ship but it wasn't too bad. Chase persuaded the girls to stay on the boat until most of the crowds have already passed.
Tifa stood next to the exit as more people went down the ramp. Chase stood beside her with his arms crossed. His sheathed swords hung menacing on his wait. Something seemed off with Chase that day. He was more tensed and edgy.
As the last of the people walked down the ramp to get off the ship, Tifa and Yuffie started to walk down before Chase. They made it to the bottom first and Chase was still near the top. Chase walked in a slow pace, almost as he regretted the cruise being over. As he finally reached the bottom, Tifa looked at him puzzled.
"Is something wrong Chase?" Tifa asked. A black helicopter flew overhead and went off inland.
"Yeah, there is," he replied.
"What is it? You know you can tell me anything Chase," Tifa said.
Yuffie was getting bored of those two. Tifa was talking about how the all-of-a-sudden-emo-Chase could tell her anything. It was nothing more than some sappy scene in a chick flick. And how Yuffie hated chick flicks.
"Hurry up!" Yuffie said to them. She walked closer to Tifa; "You guys take way too long to do anything."
Chase unsheathed his cobalt sword and pointed it to the girls. The look in his eyes was unmistakably filled with sorrow.
"Chase?" Tifa asked.
"Sleep…" Chase murmured.
Tifa's and Yuffie's eyes suddenly became heavy. The two were hit with drowsiness and welcomed the peaceful darkness.
( . ) -----------\
Tifa woke up, still feeling the effects of the Sleep spell. She looked around to find herself with her old friends. Barret, Cid, Vincent, Red XIII, Reeve, and Yuffie were in there with her too. She was in a cell that could be described as nothing more than sterile. White floors, walls, ceiling, and lights. To keep anyone from escaping, the door of the cell was made of some type of glass that could never be broken. The cell itself was in a room that looked like it was just there for people to stare at animals.
"Where am I?" Tifa asked softly.
"Hell, we don't know," Barret said. "All I know is that were caught like rats in a trap."
"I don't get it," Tifa said.
"You and Yuffie came in here, knocked out. They placed you in here with all of us. They also took yo weapons," Barret said.
"They?"
"ShinRa," Cid answered this time. "Apparently they've been after us for a while. Damn shits."
( . ) -----------\
Chase walked down the hall. He held his head low. "So this is how that mission ends. Me finally capturing both Ms. Lockhart and Ms. Kisaragi and heading back to my office to type a report on the trip. Perfect," Chase thought.
He turned left and stood in front of a door labeled "S.S." Chase turned the knob and entered the office of one of the only people he would consider a friend.
"Hello Stephen," Chase said as he entered.
A tan skinned man sat behind a desk littered with papers. Piles of letters sat atop and towered over the man's dirty blond hair. He looked up from the paperwork, "Chase, you know that ever since ShinRa reformed itself, I was given a high position. Meaning you have to knock, alright?"
Chase gave a small chuckle, "You know why I came. You already know that I arrived on ShinRa Hawk 4 so you must've seen this coming."
"Lost your glasses," Stephen said.
"Your point?"
"I think that was bound to happen, you did take the longest to gather enough data and to capture the AVALANCHE team," Stephen said as he started to look under his desk. "I think he went somewhere."
An orange cat jumped down from a shelf and landed on a stack. It toppled over and papers scattered everywhere. Chase grabbed the cat and held it in his right arm, "Guess not, I'll help out."
"No, just go Chase. You have a report to type up," Stephen said.
Chase nodded and exited the office. As he walked down the white halls, Reno and Rude were coming from the other way.
"Hey, look its Chase. How you been buddy?" Reno asked, stopping so they could chat.
"I'm doing alright. Just got Pancakes back from Stephen," Chase said. "Rude, think you could lend me a pair?"
Rude stared at him through his midnight sunglasses, "Your usually more careful with your glasses." He reached into his suit and pulled out an identical pair of sunglasses like the ones he wore and handed them to Chase, "You owe me."
"I got it, see you guys later," Chase said continuing his path toward his office. After a few more turns and talks with other ShinRa employees, he found his office. Chase closed the door behind him and let Pancakes loose in the office. No lights were on and that was the way Chase liked it, dark.
It was larger than his friend's even though he was nowhere near as important. There was a mahogany desk in the middle facing him with the chair ready to be sat on. A computer monitor sat on the desk. Other than that, the office was plain. The move to the new ShinRa headquarters and being sent out on a mission didn't give Chase enough time to decorate.
Not that he was going to anyways.
He sighed and sat on the black, leather chair. His duffel lay on the floor next to the table. He picked it up and zipped it open. He took out the notebook and the laptop and placed them on the desk. He reached into his jacket and placed the photo face down on all the notes. Immediately he turned on the computer.
The monitor lit up the office with its soft light. Chase started up his typing program and began to type feverishly. Within a few minutes, he was already proofreading his first draft of Yuffie's report. Happy with what he wrote, he clicked on print and started on Tifa's.
Chase hesitated at first but he paid no heed and started to type. Pancakes jumped onto the desk and prowled on top of it. Chase stopped for a moment when he came to the cruise portion. After a tensed moment, he continued.
Pancakes walked on top of Chase's notes. He leaped away, spreading the notes all over the place for the second time that day.
"Pancakes," Chase said disappointed as he bent down to pick up the fallen papers. Pancakes came from the darkness and sat on one of the papers. "Get off," Chase said as he yanked it from under his cat. He turned it over and looked at it. The picture Yuffie had taken. Why didn't he realize that that was it? Studying the photograph, he couldn't help but notice the subtle happiness on his face.
And on hers.
Chase swiveled in his chair and closed the document, not saving the report. He took a blank sheet from the printer. He found a pen on his desk and scribble something down. He gathered up the other report and exited his office.
"To hell with this," Chase said.
Two hours later, Tifa found that she really couldn't believe all that happened. Chase betrayed her.
"I guess its true, you cant judge a book by its cover," Tifa said to herself.
"What Tif?" Yuffie asked.
"Nothing," Tifa responded.
The door to the room slid opened and in walked in a young man in a white lad coat. He had with him some other people dressed in the same coat.
"So everyone's awake? Good," he said with a mocking smile.
"What the hell is going on?" Barret demanded.
"I need your services. It's the least you can do after you basically brought down ShinRa from the mighty company it was to the petty sliver of its shadow it is now."
"How about telling us your name," Cid asked.
"I'm Jonathan, successor of Hojo," he said.
"And what the hell do you want?" Barret asked again in his booming voice.
"I organized the kidnapping of all of you to bring you here at our headquarters at Gaea's Cliff, but before we captured you, we needed a little information. That's why you all were just recently captured. Its all for science, you see Hojo and Gast were men of science and had brilliant minds. But they never progressed far ever since their little experiment. They created the perfect SOLDIER yet they didn't continue their research, just more Jenova this and Jenova that.
"I intend to create the next generation of SOLDIERs but I needed a few test subjects first. This is where you come in. Why not use the people who defeated the strongest SOLDIER of them all? I think I have finally been able to dupliate the process that lead to the success of my first neo-SOLDIER, and I plan on testing it out of you first."
"So your saying that one has already been created?" Vincent asked in his monotonous voice.
"You catch on fast Turk. Yes, there was my first experiment. Since there were no more Jenova cells to create SOLDIERs, I had to replace that missing substance with another. Mako energy was used already in the first process but I upped the dosage. I had created the perfect SOLDIER whose real strength comes from his materia, not just from muscles."
"I know for a fact that SOLDIER already had better mental and physical prowess already. You did nothing new," Vincent said.
"Your wrong, think how only SOLDIERs can just create ice and hurl it an enemy. That's all they could in the long run. An ice materia has so much potential to it yet we can only use it to do nothing more than cool off a drink? No, my SOLDIER can do so much more. Of course, there was a bit of an adverse effect. The effects also progressively became worse with each test subject. For the first, it was nothing more than his eyes becoming photosensitive but with each failure, it was all death. No need t worry though because I'm pretty sure every step of the process has been detailed so now death is no longer an issue.
"I believe that two of you already know him. Chase Sable is my Materia SOLDIER," Jonathan revealed.
"So Chase was against us all along," Tifa said. His sunglasses still lay on her head. She ripped them off and threw them down onto the floor.
A smirk appeared on Jonathan's face. Suddenly, his face became filled with question and rage, "Those are his glasses, why would you have them?" He asked himself, staring at Tifa. "Give me Chase's report on Tifa Lockhart."
His assistant looked through folders and handed him a single sheet of paper.
"What the hell is this? This shouldn't even be considered a paragraph! I need to see Chase now!" Jonathan yelled at his cohorts. He quickly exited the room along with the other scientist.
A few more minutes passed before the door opened again. Tifa instantly recognized the white jacket and black glasses. Chase stood in the doorway; his attention was focused on the captives.
A/N: Want to know what Chase wrote? Just read the summary for the story cause that's what it is. Hopefully you guys don't hate Chase too much, but then again he did just became the bad guy. Ah, who cares, just review.