Chapter Fifty-Five:
A/N: Life's been hard lately, so only one chapter this update. I recently graduated fromhigh school and had my grandmother's funeral today.
This is, quite possibly, the darkest and longest chapter I've written. Yet, it explains most of what's happened so far while adding new elements to this fic. Please don't hate me for how it ends.
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Tessa awoke with a jerk, a painful throbbing behind her eyes. She was blinded by a white light and held up a hand to block it. A blurriness surrounded her, and at first she feared that she was having vision problems. But as her eyes adjusted to the light, she became aware that she was encased in a large cylinder of glass. Lights were set above and below her, separated from Tessa by another layer of glass.
At first, she couldn't see anything beyond the glass. Aching with every sluggish movement, Tessa crawled across the transparent floor and pressed a hand to the curved wall to see just how solid it was. It was cool to the touch, and as she slid her hand to the floor in defeat the outside became luminous.
"Remember me?"The voice was one that Tessa had hoped had hoped to never hear again. A dark blue suit, blonde hair, and a hand encased in a glove of black leather. Elena stood just on the other side of the cylinder. Her face was twisted into a victorious sneer. Balled fists pounded the glass in triumph. "I finally have you!"
"Crazy bitch," Tessa muttered. She was surprised that she could hear the Blonde.
"What was that?" Elena asked with mock kindness. "I'm a crazy bitch, huh? Well, this 'crazy bitch' has a little present for you."
Elena raised her naked hand, snapping her fingers. The tall black man from Timber, the one with the sunglasses, strode into the room. Tessa gasped when she saw just what, or, rather, who, he had in tow.
"Let her go!" the medic demanded, ignoring hr pain as she pounded on the glass with clenched fists.
"But don't you want your present?" Elena drawled in her Junionian accent. They were speaking Galbadian, and it never occurred to Tessa as to why they weren't conversing in their native tongue. "I even wrapped it up for you."
Indeed, Adette had her hands bound behind her back and her feet were in heavy-looking metal shackles. Grey duct tap was stretched over her mouth, and her face was turned down to the floor.
"What do you want? She's never done anything to you!" Tessa screamed, clawing desperately at the glass It was one thing to and incarcerate a woman. It was another to mess with her "ex."
"So, you do like it?" Elena said cheerfully as she grabbed Adette from Rude and threw the guns expert to the floor. "It's been handled a little roughly, but it should still work."
Adette rolled off her side and onto her back, her chest heaving in the air. Tears streaked her face and it nearly broke Tessa's heart.
"This is Adette, right?" Elena asked as he kicked the girl at her feet. Adette squealed in pain and Tessa punched the glass again, her knuckles bouncing off painfully. "If I remember correctly, you two got it on a couple of times. Nice and kinky."
How did she know that? Tessa asked herself. Surprisingly, Shiva didn't answer. The girl grew worried and her hand flew to her neck, feeling only chafed skin. The collar was gone.
As if sensing the thoughts running through the trapped girl's mind, Elena reached into one of the pockets and produced the collar. Both the half heart charm and Shiva dangled in the light. Elena smirked before sticking it back into her pocket. "Anything can be a microphone, even a collar worn by a bitchy SeeD."
"Jayne?" Tessa couldn't believe that her smoking buddy was involved with Shinra.
"The woman you knew as Jayne was the first female member of SOLDIER. Unfortunately, we lost contact with her shortly after the fall of Balamb," another character in a blue suit said as he stepped into the room. Reno hadn't changed much since the incident in the alleyway back at Timber. "It's a shame, too. I would have liked to fuck her. Too damn bad she was a damn tocaro."
Elena and Reno both laughed at this, but Rude simply glared at Tessa before exiting. Then the Blonde grabbed Adette by the hair and forced the battered captive to stand. When she didn't do so fast enough, Elena drove her knee into the girl's back.
"Leave her alone!" Tessa cried. She felt utterly helpless in viewing the other girl's obvious torture. "What did she do? I'm the one who burned your fucking hand! What does s have to do with this? What do I have to do with this?"
"Tell you what," Elena said with an evil glint in her eye. "I'll answer your first question. The girl is important to you. That's why she's here. You tell me why you're here, but for every wrong guess she loses a finger."
"Elena..." Reno tried to warn, but she ignored him.
"I'm not doing that, you psychopath," Tessa screamed.
Elena laughed and pulled a switchblade out of her shirt pocket. "Wrong answer."
Adette's eyes grew wide and even the duct tape couldn't silence the scream as a digit fell to the floor. Elena held up the reddened knife and laughed. Reno grabbed his associate's shoulder in concern, but she jerked free.
"Next answer!" Elena screamed madly, waving the bloody blade in Tessa's direction.
"Stop!" Reno shouted. "You're losing it!"
"Lose what?" Elena whirled around, dragging a wincing Adette with her. "My promotion? My reputation? I already have, thanks to that bitch!"
Tessa continued to hit the glass and beg. "Let Adette go!"
"That's another wrong answer," Elena snarled. The lustrous blade thrashed once more as a thumb fell to the floor.
"Stop it!" Reno shouted again. He reached out and grabbed Elena's knife hand. In retaliation, she lashed out with her free one. It struck the shocked man, and he let go.
"We're Turks," the Blonde told her partner. Vaguely, the word flashed in Tessa's mind. Somewhere, she had heard the word before. "We never lose!"
"Fuck this," Reno muttered, skulking out of the room. He closed a door, one Tessa hadn't noticed in her fear, behind him. Only three women were left to occupy the room, as far as Tessa knew.
"Reno was right. Fuck this," Elena laughed. During the scuffle between the Blonde and her fellow Turk, Adette had fallen to the floor. Tears dripped off her face as rapidly as blood did from her hands. Elena grabbed Adette's hair and jerked her head back up. The serrated edge of the knife was held to the teenager's quivering neck. "One last guess, my lovely, caged bird."
"I don't know," Tessa sobbed. "Please don't kill her."
"I'll tell you," Elena said with another maniacal grin. The blade was pushed tightly against Adette's skin, and blood trickled down her neck as it broke. However, she was still alive. "It began with a pharmaceuticals company known as Umbrella. It was based in a remote city in the mountains around Corel. I believe it was called Raccoon City."
"It was," another woman's voice cut in. Tessa looked to the now-open door and saw a middle-aged blonde woman in a red dress that was far too young for someone her age.
"President Scarlet!" Elena gasped. "What are you doing here?"
Scarlet covered her mouth with a hand before chuckling softly. "I came to see if our escaped experiment had awoken yet."
"Experiment?" Tessa said quietly. "You experimented on me while I was unconscious?"
"No, my dear," Scarlet replied as she strode up to the containment unit. "You are the experiment. You were created here, in our labs. The first breakthrough of our post-Hojo cloning project."
"I'm a clone?"
"Yes. Because of you, we found that we could recreate those who had died, like Hojo did Sephiroth. We bought Umbrella shortly after that, and found their T-Virus research. You were infected with it to see the results it would bear, but..."
"Something went wrong," Tessa finished. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was a clone? Of whom? It didn't seem possible.
"Indeed, something went wrong."
"What was it, Madam President?" Elena asked loudly. Clearly, she did not appreciate being ignored.
"All in good time," was the answer from the president of Shinra. "There's more our two guests might want to know."
It seemed to Tessa that Blondes were inherently evil now, but she didn't voice her thoughts.
"We attempted once more to clone Sephiroth; minus the Jenova cells, of course. The results were mixed. The clone was inept when it came to physical combat, but it could wield magic with great efficiency. Oddly enough, the clone had white hair rather than grey."
The description was horribly familiar to Tessa. The word slipped out of her before she even thought to stifle it: "Hunter?"
"Is that what it calls itself?" Scarlet chimed with mock surprise. "Yes, your Hunter is the clone of Sephiroth. He's still in lockup, since we don't need him right now. He wasn't injected with the T-Virus, which is why you're here with the other clones. You're much more interesting."
"Other clones?" Tessa wasn't even processing all of the information anymore. She looked to Adette, who seemed unable, or unwilling, to make eye contact. Scarlet laughed and walked to a nearby console. Her fingers brushed over a few buttons and she pushed a lever up. There was whirring of electricity, and containment units exactly like Tessa's lit on her left and right. On the left was girl with long, brown hair that covered her face. She was naked and curled into a fetal position. To the right was a man a few years older than Tessa, also with brown hair, but he had his back to her. He also had brown hair, and was wearing a SeeD uniform.
Tessa looked down at her own attire. Gone was the flannel and jeans. Now she was wearing a Lotia Garden student uniform.
"Where did you get this? Who are they?" Tessa screamed, grabbing the front of her shirt with one hand and pointing at the unconscious people around her with the other.
Elena laughed and Scarlet smirked.
"The young man is our second clone of the late Squall Leonhart, the first is stationed at Balamb Garden. The original didn't stand a chance against two of our best Turks," Scarlet said with a chuckle. Elena smiled proudly, showing off a row of tobacco stained teeth. "And the young lady next to you is our copy of the last surviving Ancient, Aeris Gainborough."
"You're lying! You haven't even explained where you got this uniform from. I wasn't created in some lab, I grew up at Lotia Garden!" Tessa said as she cast a quick glance at a frightened Adette.
"Oh my, how do I explain this?" Scarlet said sarcastically as she pressed another series of buttons. For the length of a minute, the glass around Tessa hummed and images from her mind, her memories, appeared on the translucent walls. Dave and Liana laughed as Tessa sat next to them on a large boulder, posing as someone snapped a photo. Then a man with his face hidden in shadow was humping a screaming twelve-year-old redhead. When the real Tessa started screaming, the visions disappeared and was replaced once more with clear glass. Scarlet leered once more at Tessa before beckoning Elena to bring Adette to her.
Adette was drug across the dirt floor, by the console where Scarlet stood. The knife was still held tightly against her throat. The steel dug deeper in the girl's throat. Red lines that had been trailing down her front grew thicker and darker. Her cheeks grew wetter. She was pale, as though all of the colour had drained from her face and out with the blood. It probably had. Still, Tessa knew that the injuries weren't fatal. Yet.
"What are you going to do to her?" Tessa asked in a pleading voice as she came to the realization that her entire life had been fabricated.
"You'll see soon enough," was Scarlet's reply. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the president produced a small pocket-knife. She hacked away at Adette's filthy blouse, leaving the sharpshooter topless. Under normal circumstances, Tessa would've been awed by the sight before her. However, at that moment she was fearing for her former lover.
"Please... don't..." cried the redhead as large tears began rolling down her cheeks. Elena's grin grew terribly wide at that, and she pressed a little deeper into Adette with her own knife.
"This," Scarlet said as she pressed the edge of her small blade to Adette's temple, "represents your brain. it's the site where we drilled into you and injected the T-Virus. Upon further experimentation, we found that your learning capabilities surpassed that of all the other clones, except for Sephiroth's. We still haven't explained that one, but we soon will. We know it isn't from the T-Virus, Mako, or Jenova cells, since it wasn't injected with them. I apologize, I'm getting away from my story..."
The blade slid from Adette's temple, along the length of her face, and stopped just under one of her eyes. Adette closed both and whimpered.
"Would you like for me to explain your unique eye colour?" Even though Tessa didn't answer verbally, her hand flew to touch one of her eyelids. Scarlet noticed this and continued. "The T-Virus mutated your DNA, including the chromosome that determines eye colour. In fact, it makes all infected creature's eyes turn red by rushing blood into the irises. But your mutation is incomplete. We had wanted to study and see what else we could determine about you, but then you and the clone of Sephiroth managed to escape.
"We used external exposure to Mako to age all of our clones, which is how you were able to blend in. We used to contacts in the Garden Network to get you admitted so that we could observe your interactions with real humans, but the other clone had somehow disappeared. But when he arrived a few months after you, we knew that we had the perfect opportunity to retrieve our experiments. We had an agent watching you, but then you had to go on that precious exam of yours, so we bugged you.
"Elena had tried once, a few weeks after your arrival to retrieve you for us, but failed." Elena's face darkened at these words and she thrust back painfully against Adette, increasing the amount of blood that spilled onto her chest. "Then there were two other attempts: one at the Balamb Train Station, and then in Timber. We were going to let them believe that you chickened out and went AWOL. But you slipped through our Turks' fingers yet again, and made it to Galbadia City. We were afraid that we had lost you there. All of the other clones we injected with the T-Virus ended up as brain-dead as those creatures that had taken over the capital of Galbadia. Of course, we were the ones that started the situation in that city after they uncovered some of our cloning research in Midgar, but I'm getting off track again."
"What about the train? There were Rots on the train," Tessa choked out. She was frightened by the insane reality that they were telling her.
"They had tested a modified version of the T-Virus on our newest Turk, a young man named Emer," Elena said, speaking up again. She looked to Scarlet, who nodded her approval. "He was to wait on the train and apprehend should I..."
"Fail," Scarlet interjected when Elena couldn't finish her sentence. "You failed, and you were punished."
"Yes," Elena said angrily, and Tessa could see her grind her teeth. "He was supposed to apprehend you, but I gather he fell to the experimental new virus and became one of those things."
"What about Alex?" Tessa whispered, but the other three still heard her. Adette opened her eyes and stared at Tessa in shock. She had heard the name before, but didn't know the story behind it. Of course, it was a mistake to open her eyes, but Adette didn't know that.
"Don't you know? You're Alex," Scarlet said simply as she jabbed her small knife into Adette's eye. A piercing, haunting wail made its way through the duct tape over Adette's mouth. The guns expert twisted in her various binds as Scarlet deliberately twisted her knife around, doing as much damage as she could before withdrawing her blade. Bits of eye, blood, and other fluids came out with the knife and continued to fall down the wounded girl's face. Scarlet glared at Tessa, who vomited. She wasn't sure what disturbed her more: Scarlet's words, or her actions. Of course, the president continued to talk. "Oh, I'm so sorry, it just slipped."
"Stop! Why are you doing this to her?" Tessa cried out as though the pain and torture were her own. "She's done nothing to you. Please, just leave her alone. You can kill me if you want, just not her!"
"Haven't you been listening? You're too valuable to kill," Scarlet chuckled again. She cleaned the knife by wiping the blade on Adette's bare chest. Another life of red, outlined by gore, followed the sharp steel as it sliced through the soft flesh. "She isn't, and you need to be punished for running away. What better way to do so that by breaking your precious little toy? Besides, it wouldn't do for her to survive after hearing all of our little secrets."
"Can I kill her?" Elena asked, her voice filled with bloodlust. "All it would take it one..."
"Not yet," Scarlet said with a wave of her hand. "We still have some use for her."
"Touch her again, and I'll kill you!" Tessa screamed. Ignoring her own pain, she stood up and kicked the glass. But rather than it shattering, or even cracking, the glass stood firm and Tessa fell onto her backside. Elena laughed loudly at this, but Scarlet maintained a subdued chuckle.
"I didn't get to become president by quivering under idle threats," Scarlet boasted. She flipped the knife around so that she was holding it in a stabbing position, and then drove the knife into Adette's stomach. When blood spilled out and onto her arm, Scarlet tutted and shook the crimson liquid from her hand. "And I just got this dress dry-cleaned, too."
"You're dead!" Tessa screamed at the top of her voice. "I'm going to get out of here, and strangle the life out of you, Bitch!"
Scarlet stabbed Adette in the stomach again, and Elena laughed as the girl began to tremble from the pain and blood loss. "Haven't you figured it out by now? We own you. Nobody can stop us!"
"AVALANCHE did," Tessa countered. With her one good eye, Adette looked at Tessa. She was begging the redhead to stop, but she wouldn't. "They kicked this company's ass, and I will, too."
"Shut up!" Scarlet screamed as she drove her own knife into Adette's chest. She looked coldly at Elena with a nod. "Do it, kill her!"
Finally releasing her frustration, Elena pulled the blade as far back as she could and ripped the knife across Adette's throat. As blood flowed out of the gaping wound, Tessa's eyes met Adette's. The redhead kissed her hand and held it to the glass before whispering, "I'm sorry, but now we're both free. I love you."
Adette attempted one last shuddering breath before choking on the blood caught in her throat and falling into unconsciousness. Scarlet glared at Tessa with admiration. "You are perfect for this organization," the president said as she dropped her knife and clapped her hands, "you actually had me kill her so that she wouldn't suffer anymore. Ruthless, vicious, smart: I love those qualities in you. Yet, you also feel pity and remorse. I can tell from the look on your face. That can change, though."
"FUCK YOU!" Tessa screamed at the top of her voice. "FUCK YOU ALL!"
"Oh, darling, you're the one that's fucked now," Scarlet said. "You don't have anything left."
Tessa, even through her pain and sorrow, managed a broken smile. She took a deep breath before speaking. "Wrong. All that means is that I have nothing left to lose."
Before anymore words could be exchanged, an alarm began blaring and the two Blondes looked around the room in confusion. Scarlet looked at Tessa and strode out of the room, followed by Elena. Tessa just collapsed against the glass wall and covered her face with her hands as she cried.
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A/N: I know it doesn't answer all of your questions. (You probably went WTF when Scarlet told Tessa that she was Alex.) Yes, Adette really is dead. And she won't be brought back or cloned, not even if I do a sequel. As for the Squall back at Balamb Garden being a clone... did you really think Squall Leonhart capable of doing any of that?