Chapter 35: The Pillar

Frantic, Tifa searched the jostling cab of the speeding truck and then the glove compartment.

"No cell phone – "

And Tifa hadn't bothered to replace hers yet. Cloud hadn't had one since she'd found him. Aerith never carried one. Why were they all technophopic?!

Cloud took a turn so sharply that the truck pitched to the side and Tifa caught herself up against Aerith. Her wide eyes met her friend's wide eyes and the terror had nothing to do with Cloud's driving.

"God," Tifa managed to choke and that single word was every single screamed prayer she couldn't think to put together. Aerith's hands closed like steel over hers and the pain felt good.

Why had they taken so long in the church? Why hadn't they picked the flowers and gone straight home? Senseless questions but they tore at Tifa's mind with sharp claws.

Oh God. They were going to kill everyone in Sector Seven.

Oh. God.

It penetrated slower than the terror for her own personal loves.

Barrett. Dad. Leon, Cid, Shera. Johnny. Biggs, Amy, Wedge, Marcus… That little old lady that lived two doors down and always clicked her tongue disapprovingly at Tifa. The shopkeeper that always let her take the bruised fruit for free. The children Marlene and Denzel played with.

The entire population of the Plate above them…

How could anyone do that? It was two reactors. A measly two. Repairable damage. Who thought that was more important than hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent lives? What kind of monster - ?

All those lives –

They passed the last dead zone between Sectors Six and Seven.

The truck spun to a stop next to the gates that marked the start of the stairs that wound up the pillar. Cloud's face was controlled as he turned his head and met Tifa's eyes for a brief second.

"Get the kids and get out," his voice was flat. "Don't stop for anyone. Just get out of Sector Seven."

Before she could even blink, much less respond, he was gone. The gates were no barrier against his sword. Tifa turned and looked at Aerith. Met her friend's huge green eyes.

"You heard him," she said, surprised by how steady her voice was. "Go get the kids and get out. I'm counting on you."

"Tifa!" her friend yelled it as Tifa jolted out the still open door but Tifa was already running for the stairs. Stop them. Someone had to stop them. All those people –

It did occur to her that she wasn't necessarily going to be any help. Cloud was a SOLDIER – or something close enough as far as she could tell. Tifa had used up almost all of the materia with the monster practice. What exactly she was going to be able to do to help she couldn't guess. But – all those people – just getting ready for bed. Little children being tucked in by their parents. Did they remember to kiss them good night? Or did they think they'd be able to do that the next night? Were a husband and wife arguing over something stupid – thinking they would make it up tomorrow? How many people were closing their eyes and sighing – thinking of dreams and what they had to do tomorrow?

How many sweethearts were holding off telling the one that they loved that they loved them – thinking they'd have tomorrow to try again?

Turning a corner on the steps she saw the stolen truck zipping away, deeper into Sector Seven –

and it occurred to her that instead of running away from destruction, all three of them hadn't even thought otherwise when they'd run toward it.

There was a word for people like that, Tifa's mind calmly told her.

Crazies.

And then she heard the sounds of gunfire and her mind shut up. Tifa slowed her mad ascent, though with the noise of the fight she wasn't sure anyone would have noticed her footsteps anyway. Coming cautiously around the corner she saw black suits. Turks. For the first time Tifa felt the anger rise in her chest and focus behind her eyes.

Whatever Cloud was – the black suits were the monsters.

Somewhere beyond them, where the gunfire was being concentrated, she saw a swirl of black and gold with a silver oversized sword. And beyond that? If she remembered from her trip down – there was a computer terminal. Guessing – Tifa figured that was probably where someone needed to be to stop what was happening. The two black suits in front of her were laying down fire at Cloud's blurred form and Tifa forgot to be afraid.

They were trying to kill everything in this world that mattered to her.

Her eyes narrowed down to angry black glints and her brows sank low. Moving on instinct she charged up the stairs behind the Turks. Her approach caught them by surprise – they'd probably thought if reinforcements were coming they would have come at the same time Cloud did, not realizing how fast he moved when he ran. Face tight, Tifa came up on two of them just as they were turning. The cocky looking kid with the crazy hair got an elbow to his nose and then Tifa was dropping as the longhaired blond brought her gun around and sweeping the woman's feet out from under her. The blond tipped but caught at her balance and didn't go down. Tifa, still down on the ground, locked her fingers under the woman's off balance foot and lifted, fueled by anger and adrenaline. The blond went up – and over the railing without a scream, long hair like a streaming banner. Tifa didn't even feel a twinge and was already spinning to drive her fist into the kidneys of the kid with the wild hair before he could recover. She put her entire shoulder behind it and imagined her fist driving right through him and out the other side. He doubled up with a cry of pain and his gun went spinning. Tifa gave him a blow to the chin that knocked him down the stairs. Raising her head, Tifa saw Cloud dealing with his own, much more numerous, group of Turks. For just a second – their eyes met.

"One flight up!" he yelled, eyes determined and she nodded. Stooping down to catch up the fallen gun, she darted for the next set of stairs, trusting Cloud to make sure no one stopped her.

No one did.

Most of the Turks had apparently come down a level to deal with Cloud but there was one still standing at the top of the steps as guard. Some slick suit with his greased hair down over one of his eyes. Bastard! He raised his gun and Tifa flung the one she'd caught up, aiming for his head. He raised an arm to block it and she was in the air when he looked again, full sole of her boot catching him in the face. She all but used him as a step as she vaulted past and kept going.

Try doing that in a mini-skirt, Rita!

She saw the terminal ahead. And saw a familiar neon red head bent over it.

"Reno!"

He turned his head and for a second his ice blue eyes held both relief and pain.

"Back off, babe," he warned, not moving away from the terminal. "I like you but business is business."

"Marlene and Denzel are at home," it tore out of her, raw and vulnerable and hopeless. Not what she'd choose to give an enemy but she couldn't stop the cry. Reno turned back to the terminal and his shoulders hunched inward, but he didn't stop what he was doing. Tifa charged him, intent on knocking him bodily away from the terminal if she had to send both of them over the edge to join the blond on the ground stories below. Halfway across the platform however, another body impacted with hers and both of them flew off sideways to bounce painfully against the concrete and metal.

Tifa twisted away from the grasping hands and rolled herself out of a dangerously close pin down hold. Lurching to her feet, ears ringing, she raised the back of a fist to rub at her bottom lip where it had knocked against her teeth. Narrowed eyes finding –

"Rude?"

He slowly rose to his own feet and shook his immaculately bald head. His usual sunglasses were gone and there was a cut from where they must have broken against his face when they'd rolled. He raised gloved fists and dropped into a crouch that mimicked Tifa's. But the look in his eyes –

"Don't," his soft voice was low and soft in its dead seriousness. "Tifa. You can't stop this."

She had liked him! It was a hard kick of inexplicable betrayal. She'd felt like he was a mutual friend in the face of Reno's chipper insanity, an ally. How many dry looks had they shared in the past few years over the top of Reno's head?

"You're trying to kill my family!" she yelled it at him, frustrated by how pointless this all was. By how blind they were – and how without mercy. The dark man's eyes reflected that he realized it – and it pained him. But being pained wasn't enough if you weren't going to stop the cause of it and you could. With a cry of fury, Tifa drove herself forward and with single-minded concentration, she called up her last active materia. She jerked her fist and pulled lightening from the sky to pulse down through the tall, dark skinned man. Instinct took over then and she raised a forearm just as a baton came whistling down. Reno! She thought she heard the bone crack a little at the blow and it made her whole arm go numb. He hadn't activated the shock though and so she dropped under it and swept out with her leg, impacting with Reno's ankles. He fell and they both rolled. Rude was back up and moving in as well. Tifa's eyes flew to the terminal and the hopelessness washed over her in a terrible wave. She couldn't take on a Turk, much less two – not without the surprise element that had gotten her this far -

Denzel.

Marlene.

Dad.

Cold fury washed up through her and she threw herself into the attack, muscles burning, lungs on fire, arm numb even as she used it to block blows. Better to die – better to kill – than to lose. Not when her family was counting on her.

Rude was holding his blows, trying not to hurt her. Just trying to subdue her instead. As soon as she realized it, she concentrated on Reno. Who wasn't holding his blows – but also wasn't as skilled as Rude was at hand to hand. Reno relied on his electric baton and tended to swing it hard and wide. Tifa moved in under the swing and battered him with a quick series of blows to the stomach. She already knew they wore protective gear below the waist. Reno had let that slip once. She spun out and lashed a leg out at Rude to keep him from closing in. He was trying to grapple her and she couldn't allow herself to be immobilized. And then, out of the corner of her eyes –

Sunshine!

"Cloud!" The name burst out of her and it held all the power, the relief, the joy and the grateful emotion her raw cry of earlier had contained. Rude got in a blow but Tifa let herself fall backward so the impact didn't shatter her.

And then the sky really did light up into blinding brilliance.

For just a second, Tifa thought Rude's blow had caught her harder than she'd realized but then she heard the sound of rotor blades. A helicopter. She wanted to shield her eyes with an arm from the blinding light and battering wind of its blades – except that would leave her open to attack so instead she staggered back and squinted her eyes. In the white light, something – someone – dropped from the open door, falling toward Cloud. And then she felt something jab her into her side. Her eyes widened even as the volts of electric screamed through her body. The last thing she heard as she fell into Rude's waiting arms was Reno's quiet, surprisingly subdued:

"Sorry, Teef."

Her world went uncontrollably white and painful. And then black and there was nothing else.