Chapter Thirty-Three:
A/N: This another chapter that features a FFVII character, only in a pivotal role. I swear, this thing could go on forever. Meh, in the later chapters you find out what happens to Zell and Rinoa, and Tessa gets a possible love interest (or two...)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Towel-drying her hair, she stepped out of the bathroom into Adette's room. There was a closet across the room from the foot of the bed full of clothes that she could wear. Tessa threw her towel onto the pile of clothes that still reeked of sewer before kicking it under the bed. Never before had she hoped that out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality would work in her favour.
She opened the closet, which had a full-length mirror on the sliding door, and found that it was a walk-in. Tessa stepped inside and felt the clothes. Even though she couldn't see them, she knew that they were all silk dresses, not a pair of blue jean pants in sight. Grumbling, she pulled a dress off the rack and tossed it onto the bed.
Another flame appeared in her hand. How many Fire spells she had left was no longer a concern of Tessa's, she just wanted to know what she would be wearing for the time being.
The dress was indeed silk, a slinky black number. She extinguished the fire and picked up the dress, moving over to the window. She dressed by the streetlights, barely able to see what she was doing.
When she finished, Tessa felt as out of place as a Jelly-Eye in Fire Cavern. She could feel the air on her cleavage, since there was a large V-shaped slit in the front that led down to just above her navel. There hadn't been a pair of boots in the closet, and she didn't want to put hers on until they had aired out, so she slipped on a pair of high heels. Certain her feet were going to snap in half if she took even one wrong step, Tessa wobbled to the door, trying to keep from tripping over the long hem of the skirt, which fell all around her feet and had a train of several feet.
She didn't have her gloves on, but Tessa couldn't feel the metal of the doorknob as she turned it. It had escaped her attention as she dressed, but the sleeves of the dress, although they were a few inches too long, had what seemed to be gloves sewn onto the ends. They were like pantyhose for her arms and hands.
Her trip down the hall was marred by more than one tumble, until she began using the wall beside her as support. Her silk-covered hands hit the pictures and she felt the oil rub off on them, but she didn't much care.
Eventually she reached a set of stairs and her hand grabbed for a railing. Her sweaty palms easily consumed the slick wood as she pulled herself along the floor and to the top of the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, a small group of people gathered around a flashlight, heavily immersed in conversation. Tessa immediately recognized Liana and Holt, but she didn't see Macone in the gathering.
"I think we can use her," Tessa heard Holt say. "She fought off those things, and even beat the crap out of Macone."
"All she did was punch him," Liana countered. "Besides, didn't you have to save her down in the sewers? She may be an asset, but we shouldn't blow it out of proportion."
Another woman, someone Tessa hadn't yet met, spoke up. "How do we know she'll agree?"
"Agree to what?" Tessa inquired as she made her way down the stairs. Her voice was filled with anger. She wondered just what they had been planning to have her do, or do to her. "What do you freaks want me to do? I'm not some dog you can order around. Now come on, out with it."
The handful of people stared at Tessa as she slowly made her way down the stairs. It was a large staircase, so halfway down Tessa made a loud grunting noise and raised her skirt. She took off one shoe and threw it over the railing, where it clattered on the floor. Before the first shoe had even finished echoing, the second was over the railing and on its way to the floor as well.
"I said, 'What are you stupid bitches plotting'?" Tessa screamed at the silent figures below. "I want to know now!"
Everyone stared at Tessa in shock, and she had no idea why. It couldn't have been the dress, because, as she passed a mirror, Tessa noticed how ill fitting the dress was. It didn't compliment her body at all.
"What are you wearing?" Holt asked in a whisper that Tessa could barely hear. His eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped further with every stop Tessa made.
"What does it matter?" Tessa asked defensively. "Do you have a problem with it?"
"You're wearing the Sorceress's dress," Liana said. Her ancient face seemed to wrinkle even more out of worry.
"Big fucking deal," Tessa retorted, unaware of just how big a deal it was to the Galbadians below. "Now what the hell were you people wanting me to do?"
The other woman, the one Tessa hadn't yet met, spoke up. "We were wondering if you could help us."
"How the hell should I know if you don't fucking tell me what to do?" Tessa asked angrily and irritably. "I swear you people are so goddamn stupid! It's no wonder you let those things take over."
"We couldn't fight back," Holt said sadly. "The military is still in Midgar, and our local police force is dead. There was nothing we could do. The only other survivors we know about are at General Caraway's mansion, but we don't think they know about us."
"You're still not telling me what you want me to do," Tessa said as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
Tessa used her teeth to tear a hole in the fabric that acted as a glove on her right hand. After she finished tearing it off, the redhead lit another small Fire spell and burned off the fabric around her left hand without burning herself.
"How did you do that?" the still unnamed woman asked Tessa. "I mean, the fire and all."
"I learned how to specify where my magic goes," Tessa bragged. For the first time in a long time, a smile crept onto her lips. "They taught me how to do that back at Garden."
"You're from Balamb Garden?" Holt asked with wide eyes. "But your accent is so…"
"Junonian?" Tessa answered, completing his sentence. "What does it matter? I'm here, aren't I? Now tell me your fucking plan already. You're starting to piss me off again!"
"We want to try the sewers again, see if we can get out of here," Holt said. "If we stay here any longer, those things will get in and kill us all."
"Look," Tessa said as though she were speaking to unruly children, "the sewers are unsafe. I almost died in them, and I'm a trained fighter. Besides, there're monsters in there, as well as Rots."
"Rots?" Liana asked.
"I thought I'd already explained this," Tessa said angrily, her angry face almost magnified by the flickering light in her right hand. "The Rots are the people outside. I'm pretty sure they're dead, but I'm not confident enough to stake my life on it."
"Too late for that," a voice said from behind Tessa. She turned around and saw Macone at the top of the stairs. He wore a smug grin on his face and clapped slightly as he walked down to the rest of the people. "We're dead anyway."
"Maybe not," Holt said angrily. He turned to Tessa and rubbed his left wrist. "I saw you Summon that giant bird earlier. Maybe we can ride on it."
"That won't work," the woman Tessa didn't know said. "You can't actually touch a Summoned monster."
"Who the hell are you?" Tessa asked the woman. "And you clearly don't know anything. The person a GF is junctioned to can touch the GF, but only that person. I could easily ride out of here, but I can't leave Adette behind."
"Who?" Macone asked.
"Her friend," Liana said as she stamped her cane on the marble floor. "The one in the bedroom."
"Shut up, I want to hear her, not you two," Tessa yelled. Then she rounded back on the other woman. "So, just who the hell are you, anyway?"
"Tifa Lockhart," she said as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You know, fought Sephiroth and all?"
"Yeah right," Tessa said with a laugh. "And I'm to believe that why?"
"Because my friend Barret and I met here with a group of SeeDs. We fell under siege in a restaurant on the other side of town. I'm the only one that made it out," she said with a sniff. "Barret said that since Jessie was a SeeD…"
"Do you expect me to believe this?" Tessa said with a raised eyebrow. "You are not Tifa Lockhart, okay? And unless you can prove it, I won't believe it."
"I don't know why I care," the woman claiming to be Tifa said, "but if this isn't proof, I don't know what is."
She reached into a pocket and pulled out a yellow rock, a command Materia. It glowed brighter than any other that Tessa had seen in her life, even summoning Materia.
"What is that?" Liana asked out of bewilderment.
"It's a Master Materia," the woman explained. "With it I can use all of the command abilities, like Sense and Morph."
"You really…" Tessa said in astonishment as she stepped back, tripping over the bottommost step of the stairwell. "It just isn't possible!"
Tifa threw her hair back and laughed. "Little Miss tougher-than-thou finally sees the error of her ways?"
After a few seconds of incoherent muttering, Tessa stood up and puffed out her chest. "If you've had that all this time, why haven't you done anything to get out of here?"
"It's command Materia," Tifa said with a shrug. "What can you do with it?"