The Warrior

By me, hahaha...err, Faerlyte

I'm not really happy with this, but...crap. I'm settling for less, how lame.

Chapter 7

A week went by and all word of the resistance had faded into nothing. Both Angeal and Sephiroth were away on missions, which, though it pained Tifa to admit, made the whole experience of SOLDIER quite boring. At least Sephiroth got her nerves working and gave her something to think about.

He was, for the meantime, out of sight and out of mind. Training with Chaka was bearing fruits. She was learning to channel her spirit through meditation – each time it became a little easier. It was only a small step towards a much larger goal, but it was still progress. Her fighting skills had improved drastically through simple tweaking.

Today was special though – special because Tifa was going out into the city for the first time since coming here. A tremble of anticipation went through her as she boarded the train and sat down in an empty seat towards the rear of the railcar.

There were only a couple of people onboard with her, all of them finely dressed in suits and ties. They were either on business elsewhere or going out to lunch.

She passed time staring out the window through her visor. It would be refreshing to get out of the uniform for a day. A leather bag sat between her legs containing a change of clothes that she had been keeping for such an occasion.

Tifa got off at Sector 5 and made for the nearest clothing store. Then she secluded herself in one of the changing rooms and stripped off the uniform. It was agreat relief to walk around without the confining body armor that compressed her figure day in and day out, and not have to hide.

No one noticed the SOLDIER that had entered the changing room and come out in black and white sneakers, leather shorts and leather top. Her hair rippled behind her as she bounded down the steps and back onto the street. The only thing that gave her away was the subtle glow in her eyes.

It was a gray day, but the freedom tasted good. She walked steadily down the sidewalk back towards the train station, a smile playing at her lips. Her gaze was on the sky when a flash of pink crossed her path.

At the last minute an alarm registered in her brain and she stopped short in time to avoid a collision. The woman gasped, one hand grasping at her chest as she stepped back

"Oh I'm sorry!" She said with a tiny frown. "I didn't see you there." A wicker basket full of flowers hung from her arm. "Would you like a flower? There 5 gil a piece."

Tifa blinked, taken aback, "Oh," she leaned over the basket hesitantly and smelled sweet earth. Her eyes softened. "Sure, I'll take three." She carefully picked out the best that she could find and handed over 15 gil. "I can't imagine there are many flowers around here."

"No." The woman was looking at her strangely, "It's a shame really."

"You must do good business." Tifa commented as she admired her purchase – not quite Nibelheim, but it was close enough.

"I make do." She smiled wanly, but her eyes, a vibrant green color, remained steadfast on hers.

Tifa ducked her head from the woman's inquiring gaze. She had a sudden desire to flee from the street. There was something odd and almost ethereal about the woman.

"I've never seen you before," She went on to say, "Are you from around here?"

Tifa shook her head adamantly, "No."

"Oh," She murmured and smiled a bright, infectious smile, "Well, thank you. Take care now,"

"Yes, you too, thanks." Tifa hastened away from the street and the pink flower girl. She was heading for the train terminal. It was scheduled to make a pass into the slums in fifteen minutes.

There were more passengers than before and fewer suits – in fact there wasn't a single suited person present that she could see. Tifa sat in the back again and leaned her head against the window frame. The train cranked into motion slowly and soon the passing buildings softened into gray, streaked with passing lights.

It had a certain mesmerizing quality to it.

Before she knew it the train was grinding to a halt and people were getting up out of their seats. She blinked, stirring herself fomr the brief doze, and trailed after them.

Tifa stepped down onto the dusty ground and gazed upwards towards the massive plate of steel above, so high above that it was hardly more than a black shadow. It sent a shiver down her spine. The earth here was barren and dry, and the air stale from stagnancy. There was no wind to speak of in this place.

She walked slowly, examining her surroundings.

Broken slabs of solid metal, rusting pipes, shredded rubber, and various broken bits were piled to either side of the path against monstrous concrete slab walls. Garbage littered the ground half buried in the dusty earth and abandoned.

There were no plants, no trees.

Graffiti sprawled across the walls of concrete and steel, children too young to be alone played in the streets in rags, and the homeless loitered in corners in ramshackle shelters of anything they could lay hands on. Their hair was matted, their faces obscured beneath layers of dirt and grease. Some of them were sickly frail.

Tifa's heart shriveled in her chest.

She kept going until she had reached what appeared to be the town proper, or at least a business area of sorts. There were streets lined with shops and gleaming neon signs. The outer buildings were run down and patched together with everything, from car doors to mud, but towards the center of activity there were sleeker strcutures and plush furnishings for the more well to do.

People laughed and talked, and their clothes didn't have as many holes or as many stains. They were flourishing despite it all. Giving in was probably the last thing on their minds.

It took several hours just to find her way through sector 5. To think that there were six other sectors that she had yet to explore was quite sobering. It might take weeks to find what she was looking for in this place.

Luck, however, was shining on her that day. She came to a playground to sit on the swing and relax for a while. It was nice to hear the laughter of children and see simple pleasure in a world gone horribly awry.

An adult's voice interrupted the cheer and she automatically craned her neck to listen.

"Just for a bit, Marlene." The man said gruffly. "We gotta be gettin' home soon."

Tifa twisted around in her swing to get a better look. The chains were taut and ready to spin her dizzy, but she waited, the toes of her shoes digging into the earth to hold steady. A tingle of apprehension trickled down the back of her neck.

It was him – the man with the gun arm.

On his good hand there clung a little girl, no more than 5 or 6 years of age. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation as they entered the playground and she set off to join the other children. The man lumbered to a spot nearby and leaned against the climbing bars with a poorly concealed sigh.

Tifa glanced towards him from the corner of her eyes. Then she picked up her feet and the world began to spin around her rapidly. Her hair sailed out around her and she grinned sheepishly. The swing gradually came to a stop and she lolled her head to the side, waiting for the ground to hold still again.

When her vision cleared she looked up to find the man watching her. She offered a neutral smile and went back to twisting her swing. Twist, twist, until it would twist no more and felt about to burst with tension. Then she let go.

It was just like back home on the swing behind her house. She doubted it was there anymore. Her sneakers dragged through the dirt as she came to a stop again with a contented sigh.

He was still watching her. This time, however, he spoke, "Ain't seen you 'round here before."

"I've never been here before." Tifa answered.

His arms were crossed over his chest and there was tension in his shoulders as he squared himself to her, "I know that glow." He said, "seen it in every SOLDIER I ever looked in the eye."

She looked away sadly. Hovering nearby was the little girl, Marlene. She was eyeballing the swing with obvious desire.

Tifa glanced beside her where the other swing should have been, but was no longer. She promptly vacated hers and made a small gesture to the girl, "Here you go." She said and walked to stand near the man with the gun arm. "You shouldn't be out here."

He scowled fiercely, "Yeah? Why not?"

She bit her lip and rested her chin in her hands as she leaned against the kiddy slide, "Because they're looking for you – I saw you, the day the reactor was blown."

That got a substantial reaction. The man took a step away from her, his legs spread as if to fight. His eyes flickered towards the child apprehensively.

"Whaddya want?" He demanded, keeping his voice low and out of ear shot.

Tifa tried to maintain a relaxed posture, though every nerve in her body was buzzing furiously, "I don't want anything. I came here to relax." She replied honestly. "I just thought you should know – it's not safe to be out and about anymore."

Marlene, who was not near as oblivious as her father would like, crept closer to the adult woman that had been using the swing. Her curiosity was piqued, not only by the strange glow of her wine colored eyes, but also because she was carrying the only flowers that Marlene had ever seen in the slums. She skirted the tense confrontation and snuck up the kiddy slide to get a closer look.

The lady was pretty. Not in a way that adults would say, but of warmth that glowed from within. She decided she would like her very much.

"Hello." A voice chirped.

Tifa straightened in surprise at the round face smiling timidly through the mouth of the moogle slide. A shackle of fear slipped away and she smiled back. "Hello there."

"Those are pretty flowers."Her little hand reached up and plucked one from Tifa's hair. She brought it to her nose then and inhaled deeply, "It smells like rain and honey!"

"Marlene!" The man chastised anxiously from behind her, "Ya know ya not supposed ta take things from people! How many time's 'ave I got ta tell ya!"

"No, no – don't worry about it." Tifa said quickly, shaking her head as she straightened from the slide and met the man's gaze. She cast a final smilel of farewell over her shoulder at the girl, "You can keep it."

Then she turned away.

"Thank you!"

Tifa waved goodbye as she left.

That night, she entered the simulator. It was late – an hour before curfew was in effect – but no one was about and the Training Room was empty. She perused the settings until she found what she was looking for.

In some ways, it made her sick because there it was on the list in bright glowing letters: Nibelheim.

Had they no shame at all? She was almost afraid to see what it looked like now, or what perversion they had put in its place.

The truth was even more ghastly than Tifa could have imagined as she stepped into an exact replica of what had been her hometown years ago. Everything, from the bricks to the shingles, was identical. She couldn't believe it – didn't want to believe it.

But it was a mere simulation. They could do anything they wanted with it, make it look like it once had, when in fact there was nothing left there but charred earth. Or so she thought.

Tifa made for her house with reluctance. She wasn't sure she wanted to see it after all this time, knowing that it could never be the same, but she wanted to face the past and try to gain some semblance of peace from it. So she pushed open the door on creaky hinges and cautiously stepped inside.

It was not the same. Something like relief swept through her and she let out a sigh. They could not have known her life that well.

She wandered upstairs and into the room that was almost, but not quite, like hers. There was the piano, more expensive than hers had been. Her fingers glided across the keys in reminiscence of what they had once played, but no more.

Then she moved onwards, out the back door. There was a trail that took off behind her house and crested a small hill on which stood an old gnarly oak tree. One branch in particular was very thick and angled perfectly for a swing. A gray, weather worn section of plywood hung from the limb on frayed gray ropes and whined as it swayed in the breeze.

Back then, it was the hot spot of all the children in town, but Tifa always had the jump on them because her house was closest.

She approached it now with reservation. The memories were ripe here, even knowing it was not real – it felt real. She sat down, winding her hands around the stiff ropes, and let the wind push her gently. Her eyes closed.

It was well past midnight when Tifa finally left the Training Room. She was in such a hurry to not get caught that she didn't notice the shadow lurking in the corner of the foyer there. It didn't move as she walked past, but watched and waited.

Then, when she had gone, he emerged, his lips twisted in a smirk. He checked his watch. When the elevator arrived he returned to his room.

Tifa hardly woke up the next morning, ostensibly because she never really slept at all. If she did, she didn't make it beyond the first rung, because her only recollection was of tossing and turning for most of the night and feeling like she wasn't really asleep, even though she knew that she had to have been at least part of the time.

Suffice to say it was a truly wretched feeling and her body just didn't want to move. She crawled out of bed with a groan, wished for the thousandth time that she hadn't gotten it into her head to attempt this harebrained scheme, and slouched off into the bathroom. It was going to take a lot of cold water in the face to wake her up this morning.

She managed something halfway to consciousness before emerging once again into the tiny confines of her room to dress for another morning of severe beat downs. Her phone promptly started ringing halfway through her morning ministration of wrenching on her under armor suit. With one leg wedged only part way down the right pant leg, she was forced to hop across the floor to reach it and almost tripped over her boots. She caught herself on the edge of the counter.

"H-hello?" Her throat was dry and cracked with the effort of speaking

"Woah," was the ingenious response, "What side of the bed did you get up on?"

Tifa stifled a yawn, "The one where you don't really sleep at all, despite trying to for most of the night."

"Ah, that one." Chaka commiserated. "I don't envy you today, but at least you didn't have Angeal banging on your door at 4:30 in the morning."

Her brow furrowed, "What for?"

"I'm being shipped out for a week," He replied, "You know what that means."

No, actually, she didn't. "Oh, do I?" She rubbed her eyes, which still didn't feel quite free of sleep, but they were clearing up.

"Your first real mission," Chaka supplied eagerly. "All by your lonesome, but don't worry, it's nothing dramatic. You'll probably get saddled with cleaning up the abandoned railway station – it's crawling with fiends, Gods know how they got there."

"Oh." Abandoned railway…she didn't remember seeing one of those the other day, but then she didn't see much beyond Sector 5, and that was in the slums. "Aren't they still searching for a secret route to the resistance?"

"Yeah, yeah, that too." He answered. "So, don't forget to mention it if you happen to find one, though I wouldn't expect to find anything there. It's pretty raunchy – not for the faint of heart at least."

Not for people from the slums, you mean… Tifa got the ominous feeling that they were still greatly underestimating the resistance force. If they weren't exercising all possibilities, there was no question they were being slack.

"So check your log. Angeal should have posted it by now." Chaka told her sternly (he fancied himself her organizer), "Take care of yourself Fry, alright? And keep practicing those techniques. It'll help with the ghouls."

He was gone before she could ask him, "What ghouls?"

Tifa glared down at the phone for a second before stuffing it roughly in her pocket. She really, really didn't like fighting alone. She really, really, really didn't like fighting in spooky abandoned railways alone.

Well, Chaka didn't know for certain where Angeal was sending her, so she could be getting all worked up for nothing.

With that in mind, Tifa took a deep calming breath, and finished getting dressed. She remembered to check her log as she was stepping into the hall. Sure enough, there was a new post

Her face fell, along with her stomach, and just about every other internal organ in her body, all the way into her suddenly lead-laden shoes.

First mission: Exterminate fiends in the abandon railways of sector 5 – meet me in my office for a quick briefing.

Angeal

So much for optimism… Tifa made the march to Angeal's office as if it were a walk to the executioner's chair. What happened to no "I" in 'team'? For all his obvious failings, the guy in the cafeteria did make a good point that First Class SOLDIER seemed to miss – it was really a lot more effective when you had a team, not to mention safer.

Tifa would be the first to agree on that point, especially now that she was faced with the task of roaming haunted corners of Midgar. They probably expected her to be all manly and tough about it. Well dammit, she wanted to bury herself under a pile of blankets and sleep in instead!

The elevator came to a stop, the doors opened, and…Sephiroth was standing there, arching that stupid silver borw of his. Tifa didn't move, but stared at him as he stared back. Her mouth opened mutely, closed with a snap, and she bowled past him with an indignant huff.

"Every time," She grumbled, unaware that his acute hearing could pick up her mutterings quite clearly as she stormed down the hall. "I swear…"

Fortunately, she had composed herself by the time she arrived at Angeal's office. He was bent over the keyboard again when she arrived and looking quite irate about it. She wondered offhandedly how soon Sephiroth would be forced to choose a new victim for the odious task of doing his paperwork.

"Ah, just a moment, Fry," Angeal said and dallied about at the computer for a few minutes. When he was finished he stood up to address her, "I trust you've read through your assignment for today?"

Tifa nodded. "Yes."

"It's fairly simple," He said, "I wanted to make sure you were familiar with the area before I sent you out."

"I'm not really," She admitted.

"Alright, here," Angeal brought up a map on his monitor and pointed to the main building, "You'll be taking the train to Sector 5. From there, head north along the main street until it comes to a T, where you should take a left. Follow that and you will eventually come to the old train terminal – most fiends will not have wandered that far, but once you go back in a few hundred yards, they'll be everywhere."

Tifa stared at the map for a moment, brooding. "Ummm," She hazarded, "so, am I supposed to kill them all, or…"

"No," He hastened, "We haven't yet come up with a suitable solution to exterminating them – they seem to come back, no matter what we do, but it does keep their numbers down so that they stay away from the populated areas of the city."

"Okay," She murmured, frowning. "Is that all?"

"Actually," Angeal straightened and a shadow cast over his face, "I have an ulterior motive in sending you there that I'd rather the high command not be in on – I'm sure you've noticed that word of the resistance has diminished quite a bit since the reactor incident last week."

She nodded.

"Well, I am firmly convinced that they do have a route into the upper city that we haven't found and that they are more than capable of handling the fiends in the abandoned railway, despite what others might believe", His jaw clenched ever so slightly, "So I'd like for you to have a look around with that particularly in mind, just in case."

"Of course." Tifa replied and tried not to sound like she'd rather be doing anything but that. All in all, she did a fairly good job, or at least he didn't seem to notice.

"It should take a few days." Angeal advised, "I'll expect a report by Friday."

"Okay."

"Well then, good luck. You're dismissed." He sat back down at his desk.

Tifa stepped out into the hall and was confronted with a not so friendly, but familiar face. She almost wished it was Sephiroth again. At least when he was sane he was reasonably well-behaved.

"Hey flower-boy," He said. Dev – that was his name.

Tifa blinked, confused. Realization dawned as she thought back to last night – she had brought the last two flowers with her. Perhaps walking through Shin-Ra HQ dressed in uniform and holding two daisies wasn't the wisest of choices, but she hadn't wanted to crush them.

What to do, what to do. A thought struck her.

"That's right," She said, "I like men too."

The SOLDIER stopped whatever he had been preparing to say and gaped at her. He recoiled as if he'd been stung, did a funky little twitch, and pointed a trembling finger at her, "Fucking homo – I knew it, stay away from me." And he ran off.

Tifa smirked dryly. She should've done that earlier – would've saved a lot of trouble.

What she never realized was that the door to Angeal's office was still open behind her.

She made a quick stop at the lockers to pick up her Sniper rifle before heading to the station to hitch a ride on the train. It was strange how differently people reacted to her now that she was in uniform. They always seemed to be watching her indirectly. For the most they gave her a wide berth and went about their business.

She just wasn't a Sephiroth cover-boy she guessed. Speaking of cover boys, there was a gigantic poster of his face on the wall at the Sector 5 station. How she hadn't noticed that before she didn't know.

There was a group of girls huddled beneath it giggling. Tifa made a face and felt the sudden urge to rip it down into confettis sized pieces. Honestly, he had long hair. What did they see in him?

A SOLDIER in blue passed her with a stoic nod. She returned the gesture and continued on. At least out here there was a small sense of camaraderie.

The abandoned railway was all the way on the other side of Sector 5, which is probably why she hadn't noticed it the day before – she hadn't gotten that far. All the lights were dead and despite there being sunlight from above, it seemed perpetually cast in shadow. Part of that was due to the arrangement of the buildings and the street, which ran directly east to west, so during most of the afternoon the sun was blocked.

All of the buildings looked to be abandoned, their windows dark, many of them broken. Shattered glass was strewn across the cobblestones and old refuse collected in the sewer drainages. In the distance something shrieked.

Tifa's grip tightened around the stock of her rifle. In all likelihood it would be useless here. There were too many obstructions, railcars scattered all over the place, and not enough open ground to get a clear shot before anything bent on her blood reached her.

She was perspiring heavily by the time she reached the first of the old trains. Her bones ached from the chill that presided over the air, as if something had sucked the life out of it. Periodically the silence was broken by a sudden crash or a sigh of wind that didn't sound quite right,

Her first scare came when something sleek and black sailed through the air in front of her and landed loudly on the top of an old tin garbage can. Tifa yelped, jumping back, and raised her fists in defense.

Nothing happened.

She blinked. It was a cat. A green-eyed, shorthaired, black cat, whose ruff was significantly raised as it stared at her with equal amounts of alarm and hostility. They maintained this stalk-still, stunned exchange for a few more seconds before Tifa could finally relax enough to chastise herself for being ridiculous.

Some SOLDIER she was turning out to be.

The cat's tail slowly lowered to a more docile position and it leapt to the ground. He sized her up slowly, as if unsure of her, and made a pass at her leg with just the faintest of contact. Then he circled around to face her, and did it again

Tifa looked down at it hopelessly. He wasn't very old so far as she could tell – not full grown. "What are you doing in a place like this?" She asked and tentatively reached down to scratch behind his ears.

He leaned into her hand with an excited purr.

"Shoo now," Tifa said and gave him a little pat on the haunch. "I've got work to do."

The can sat back, gave its paw an idle lick, and glanced up at her, as if to say, "Pardon me? I didn't hear that."

Tifa sighed and turned away. He'd get the picture once she got in a fight and there was real danger. She really didn't expect him to hang around anyway.

But as the fates would have it, her very first step the cat was bounding along at her side. "You're not going to like this." She warned. "I can't imagine ghouls have much to eat around here – I'm sure they wouldn't object to some cat."

He never even twitched. There was nothing for it. She forged ahead reluctantly and met the first resistance coming around a railcar that had been knocked on its side by who knows what.

Tifa had to take a step to the side to avoid running into the ghoul's back. A raunchy smell assaulted her nose, but the creature was too preoccupied to notic her. She landed a power shot to its spine and the creature collapsed dead before it even hit the ground.

A second ghoul charged in from the left. She fended it off with a series of punches, stepped back to catch her breath, and exhaled loudly. She coughed, covering her nose. The smell didn't improve with death.

Ghouls were wretched things with long sharp teeth and a mane of greasy black hair down the back of their necks. Their legs and arms were spindly, their bodies painfully thin. Gray, mottled skin stretched over the sharp edges of protruding bones. And their eyes were entirely mad.

It came at her again and this time she was able to finish it with a quick jab to the throat that broke its windpipe. She straightened with satisfaction, admiring her handiwork, and dusted her hands. She had to give it to Chaka – he was a good teacher. A week ago she probably would've been flailing all over the place.

Something shrieked…right behind her.

Tifa whirled around just in time to see the shadow charge and then pass through her. Her eyes opened and she couldn't see. She gasped, panic sizeing in he limbs as she staggered blindly to the side and bumped into something hard and cool. Her muscles tensed and she became very still.

Everything had some manner of chi, even the undead and supernatural. If she concentrated hard enough, she would be able to sense it. Never mind that this sort of thing was hugely advanced compared to what she was learning. This was all she had to work with.

A loud hiss emanated from behind her and she twisted around, side stepping as she did. She felt it at the last moment, reached out, and grabbed the shadow by its core as it curled around her. Her skin turned to ice, but she clenched her teeth and crushed it in her fingers. The shadow went out with a 'poof'.

Her heart was doing double time as she sank to the ground and waited for the blindness to dissipate. It took several minutes, by which time she had acquired a furry companion on her lap. His fir was surprisingly soft as she drew her fingers through it.

She set him aside then and got to her feet, rolling her shoulders in an attempt to regain some confidence. She didn't really feel it, but she was alive and it wasn't so bad. The ghouls weren't difficult foes and she would be on her toes a bit more next time she saw a shadow.

Not that they were the only things inhabiting the place. There were all manners of dark creatures lurking around here. How did they get here– that's what Tifa wanted to know. They were unnatural things that shouldn't have been able to sustain themselves, but then…she was picking up on there being a large population of rats, judging by the number of bones she was seeing.

The cat remained steadfast at her side as she roamed deeper into the abandoned station.

The area was bigger than she expected, but then Angeal had mentioned it taking several days. She hardly took three steps before something else came leaping out at her, which didn't help matters any. By mid-afternoon her nerves had become inured to the surprise attacks and she no longer levitated a foot of the ground every time something screamed.

She could deal with the screaming. The fiends here were a lot farther beneath her skill level than she thought they would be so there was nothing to be afraid of – she kept telling herself that. It was about the only pleasant surprise she got that day, aside from her furry companion.

It was the poking around into every nook and cranny that got to her. Tifa didn't like dark places a great deal and for a very practical reason; she couldn't see anything. She had to assume that Angeal expected her to check everything, from the buildings to the railcars, and even possibly the sewers themselves, in search of the resistance. She wasn't quite ready to take that initiative just yet

So far there had been no sign of them.

Every part of her was sore at the end of the day. Despite all the vigorous training, she still wasn't used to fighting for so many hours non-stop. She was also hungry. Angeal hadn't mentioned at what time she should stop, so she had made sure to keep at it until at least 7 before calling it a day.

By the time she reached the train she was so tired that she fell asleep the moment her bottom hit the cushioned seat. She awoke to the feeling of something heavy and warm draped across her legs. Her eyes opened abruptly and she glanced down in surprise.

The cat peered up at her through half lidded eyes and lazily flicked its tail.

"How did you get in?" She asked, stunned. Had she been so out of it that she hadn't notice him follow her? Surely the guard would have mentioned something about a cat jumping on the train?

His eyes had gone close again and he contently ignored her.

"I can't take you with me." Tifa protested. "I'll get in trouble."

…even if Sephiroth had his own set of pet mice running amuck in his office and no one seemed to mind. There was something to be said for being the "General". You basically got to do whatever you wanted.

Tifa was suddenly waylaid by the vision of a black cat stalking Sephiroth's mice and very quickly removed the offending party off her lap. "You have to go back home." She said.

The train came to stop outside Shin-Ra HQ. Tifa cast a beleaguered glance at the feline and got to her feet. The cat promptly jettisoned off the seat and zoomed past her. He was gone the moment the railcar's door opened.

Tifa's sighed as she stepped down onto the concrete. Three SOLDIERs were waiting to board the train, all giving her a wide birth as they passed. She didn't think to wonder at why. She was too busy looking for where the cat had gone off to, but it was nowhere to be seen.

She made one last cursory check before giving up and heading inside. It was getting along to 8 p.m., which meant that she missed dinner again. Fortunately, she'd stocked up on a few groceries during her foray into the city the other day.

When Tifa arrived at her room, there was a black cat sitting next to her door. She stopped. She stared. She blinked dazedly.

Not possible. And yet, the he was still there, peering up at her with innocent expectancy.

Tifa rubbed her eyes under the visor and blindly felt for the control panel with the opposite hand. The door slid open and the cat bounded in. She followed more slowly behind, dropping the helm to the floor as she meandered towards the bed, where the cat had already made himself at home.

"Right." She sat down for a moment and idly stroked the cat's fur. "I can see that kicking you out won't work."

How on earth was she supposed to explain this? Tifa massaged her scalp with her nails and stood up. There was a sandwich with her name on it waiting in the mini fridge – stomach first, future cat ownership later.

The key card was lying on the countertop when she retrieved her sandwich. It had been sitting there for over a week, untouched and for all practical purposes nonexistent. Her eyes lingered on thy shiny plastic surface and its professional lettering. She had not thought about it again since the day she swiped it from Hojo's office and she was reluctant to think about it now.

Thinking meant headaches because she didn't know what to do. Doing meant taking risks that she wasn't prepared to take.

Getting onto the restricted floors was one thing, but it wouldn't help her bypass the security wall that would no doubt be in place on every computer on the network. That meant Hojo's computer was out. It wouldn't help her break into individual offices either. They would all be locked and she would have nothing to show for her effort.

Everything in Shin-Ra was dependent on electricity though. That was the key. All she needed was a thorough power-outage.

Tifa took a bite of her sandwich, chewing it slowly as she lifted the thin plastic key in her hand and flipped it over. It was a basic pass card for using the elevator and nothing more. The corner of her mouth twitched in a frown – a stale victory at that. Unless she could find an office that was miraculously unlocked, it was all but useless.

Her curiosity jumped. Did Sephiroth lock his office? Judging by its common state of neglect, she wouldn't be half surprised if he didn't, but there wasn't anything of value in there. Not anything that she was looking for at least.

She tossed it back onto the counter with a sigh and finished her sandwich. Maybe after she was through with her first assignment. It wouldn't hurt to do a little snooping.

Author's Note: I think I hate it. Nothing really...happened, except for a few more character cameos. I have arbitarily inserted a cat into the story as well, because I like pets. GAAAHHH! I've been kind of busy lately. Studying ground school is somewhat mind numbing.

Please be gentle....sigh.