It took me too long to figure out that my VPN was what was keeping me out of my account and, well, you've waited more than long enough. It was an ugly year, here's to hoping next one is better. Merry Christmas, happy holidays or just Happy December 25th. *Correction* Minor edits have now been added.
Also, there will be a VERY short Shards of Green chapter to go with this.
Chapter 36 The Execution
Tifa drifted. Her whole being felt heavy as if sinking in thick tar. Awareness drifted in and out and sometimes she felt a sense of movement, a hint of conversation, but nothing seemed to pass the strange haze over her mind. Vague thoughts and memories came to mind and then vanished like shadows in a dream. The half remembered faces of her childhood playmates. The near forgotten musk of her mother's favorite perfume.
Unbidden, her memories turned to her reunion with Cloud and Zack five years after Nibelheim's destruction. Zack's distinctive black hair and buster sword caught her attention first. But then her gaze latched on blond spikes and a face she wished to see so desperately at her lowest point in the Nibel reactor that pain convinced her she hallucinated his presence. She still felt bad for breaking Zack's nose but, well, her emotions ran high after the memories he invoked and she didn't know the grueling exercises he was forcing on Cloud were part of his recovery from Mako poisoning.
Her face scrunched in a confused scowl. Something about Cloud and Zack niggled in the back of her mind, but she couldn't seem to grasp what it was. The thought and vague feeling of unease fluttered tantalizingly closer and then out of her reach like smoke through her fingers. The smoke circled her, growing thicker by the moment. Her throat burned and she coughed once, twice and instead of things growing darker with the smoke, it grew brighter.
From one moment to the next, she was awake.
Lethargy kept her eyelids closed and when her brain cleared enough to work past her body's aches she still kept her eyes shut. Her breath rasped in her painfully dry throat, and heat blazed against her face but no scent of smoke lingered around her. It took longer than she would care to admit for her to realize the brilliance and warmth on her face wasn't from a fire. She gingerly cracked her eyes open, hissing at the surgical lights shining down on her. Squinting against the radiance, she squirmed on the stiff pallet trying to roll away from the radiance.
"Careful," Barret's voice rumbled on her left side. "You've been out a long time. Let me help ya'." His footsteps circled the bed and then his large hand slid behind her shoulders, propping her up.
Her head spun with the sudden change in elevation and she clutched the sheets beneath her before slowly trying to open her eyes again. It took several blinks for her vision to clear, though the view was hardly interesting. Gingerly rubbing her dry throat she looked around the small, stripped-down room. The only furniture aside from the examination table beneath her was a small waiting room bench bolted to the floor beneath some shuttered windows. Opposite of the shutters was a thick metal door with a forbidding red panel over the lock. Unfortunately none of these observations cleared her confusion.
A clear plastic cup with a neon pink straw appeared in front of her and Barret murmured, "You've gotta' drink. I imagine your throat's dry and hurtin' after all you went through."
For one delirious moment, she forgot what a straw or water was and what she was supposed to do with them. Comprehension returned gradually and she drank, first hesitantly, and then with growing enthusiasm as the liquid soothed the burn and diluted the strange, plasticky taste in the back of her throat. She drank until the last droplets gurgled in the straw and Barret pulled them away. While he turned to set them on a tray near the head of her hospital pallet, the disoriented young woman croaked, "Where are we? What happened?"
She slid to the edge of the bed and Barret returned to her side, letting her brace her hands on his firm shoulders while she slid off the medical table. With his large hand on her back he guided her to the bench beneath the shutters. The short distance tired her, but she could feel the movement bringing life back to her heavy limbs. A hazy part of her brain noticed a thin blanket and flat pillow on one end of the bench.
Her eyes widened in dismay but the large man's response to her earlier questions forestalled her protest. "It's a bit confusin'," he admitted, waving what remained of his right arm. Tifa hissed, her fingers curling around the edge of the bench. The lack of the Mircrolaser on his arm seemed to highlight the truncation of the limb.
Catching the direction of her gaze he sighed again and huffed, "Yeah, that's part of it too. Tell me what you remember and I'll fill in what I know."
Tifa tilted her head back against the metal shutters and stared blankly up at the off-white drop-ceiling panels. "I remember… the crater. Cloud…" She jerked upright and squawked, "Cloud put me to sleep!"
Barret sighed heavily and nodded, waving his hand for her to continue.
She scowled at him but when he didn't relent, she pouted and gazed into the distance, trying to fight through her sleep-muddled memories. "It's a bit fuzzy after that. We… we were captured?" she trailed off hesitantly, half stating, half questioning her memory of the event.
He nodded and prompted, "An' after that?"
"We took off in the helicopters and…" Her eyes flew open and she made an abortive attempt to push herself to her feet. "The crater! Cloud!" Her arms trembled and she slumped back on the bench, her whiskey colored eyes turned apprehensively to Barret and her lower lip trembled.
He winced and then shook his head slowly, "'Fraid I don't know anythin' about what happened to him or Zack. Heck, I don't even know 'bout the others!" Spying her horrified look he waved his arm frantically and soothed, "It's nothin' that bad! Judgin' by how pissed some of the Turks were, the others got away with that airship Cid's been whinin' about since Rocket Town."
Tifa went limp, resting her head against Barret's massive shoulder, relieved at the small piece of hopeful news. "How long have I been out?" she asked, flexing her fingers and legs, trying to work out the strange lethargy and stiffness plaguing her.
"Near as I can tell, it's been a week," Barret replied. "I ain't got much in the way of news here, being a prisoner and all. They took my Microlaser," he waved his stump, "And your gloves, all our materia. Heh, they were scared of ya' since ya' fight with your hands so they put ya' under. I'm not sure why they finally decided ta' let ya' wake up but it's a damn relief ta' have someone other than Reno to chat with."
Rolling her shoulders and stretching her legs out and back Tifa looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. "You've been talking to Reno?" she asked incredulously.
Barret scowled and folded his arms defensively. "Ain't much to do in here, and much as I like ya' Teef, starin' at ya' while you're sleepin' ain't only creepy, it's damn borin'."
She snorted, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, "So what did you talk about?"
"Eh, mostly he whined about losin' the Highwind and the crazy fight Rufus is puttin' up against those huge monsters we saw at the crater. You might not have seen them when you got knocked out…" He trailed off and peered into her eyes to see if she remembered them.
Tifa's face scrunched up and she paused in massaging the feeling back into her arm. "I think I remember. Were those the Weapon things Aerith's mom talked about?"
Barret shrugged. "The hell if I know, but if they ain't, everyone's callin' them by the wrong name. Reno says Rufus's been fightin' 'em since we left the crater."
"Reno sure gave you a lot of information," Tifa mused, shaking her head.
"Eh, he said he was bored and everyone else knew the gossip. 'Liked gettin' my reaction' he said,'' Barret rolled his eyes. "That or Rude was tired of listenin' to him whine about crashin' a chopper trying to get through the barrier over the Northern Crater."
"What?" Tifa yelped, whipping to face the man so quickly a few of her vertebrae cracked in protest. "What do you mean, 'barrier'?"
The large man shuffled nervously on the bench and rubbed his hand over the stubble on the back of his head. "In the time it took to get Rufus to safety, lock us up, and head back, some kinda' barrier formed over the crater. Not sure where it came from, but they're blamin' Sephiroth. Nothin' can get in, and like I said, Reno crashed a chopper tryin'."
Tifa slumped back against the wall, her mind whirling over Barret's revelations. The silence stretched for several moments before she sat back up and in a voice filled with trepidation she asked, "And the Black Materia?"
Barret's shoulders hunched and instead of verbally replying, he stood and pressed a button on the wall. A mechanism in the ceiling sputtered to life and the metal shutters behind her shrieked and moaned spooling up into the frame. The clinic flooded with a lurid crimson light.
Tifa turned, kneeling on the bench to look out over the ocean. A massive meteor hung out over the water like a flaming moon. The actual moon appeared minuscule and dull in comparison. Her jaw dropped and she stared numbly at the meteor before sinking down on her heels. "Is it the end then? Do we just… give up?" she whispered, her eyes burning with the threat of imminent tears.
"I dunno…" Barret sighed, shaking his head.
The panel lock on the door buzzed and turned green before the portal opened and Rufus Shinra strolled inside. He tilted his head to the side, carefully looking Tifa up and down before humming, "You know, I honestly thought Cloud would have come to rescue you by now. I must say I'm quite disappointed. Not nearly as disappointed as Professor Hojo of course-"
Tifa jumped to her feet, only the most minor of trembles in her stance. She hissed, "I'm not letting that psycho anywhere near Cloud."
Rufus brushed an errant reddish blond lock out of his face and shrugged, "I hardly care what Hojo's plans with Strife or Fair are. Something about their connection to Sephiroth." His eyes flicked to the spectacle of the meteor outside the window and a bitter note entered his voice, "Of course now that Meteor has been summoned, it's not like it really matters. Everything is as good as over now."
The faintest hint of a pout curled on his lower lip before he wrenched his attention back to the pair and continued, "Since Cloud and your friends failed to show up and… other sources seem to have left you bereft, certain parties are clamoring to put the pair of you to other uses."
Heidegger ambled through the open door, a wide grin flashing through his bushy black beard. "President, all the preparations are ready for the public executions!" he announced loudly, shooting a pointed look at Tifa and Barret.
"Execution?!" Barret yelped and then growled, "Ya' already said everythin's good as over. What the hell do ya' gain in killin' us?"
Rufus picked an imaginary piece of lint from the shoulder of his immaculate white long coat and drawled, "It has been my experience that the majority of people are ignorant. Ignorant people are only appeased in a crisis when they think the culprits are being punished." He tilted his head to the pair before drawling, "Executing you won't really help anything, but they'll feel better."
When the rotund man eagerly stepped forward, Rufus' lip curled with distaste and he started for the door. He paused on the threshold and smirked over his shoulder at them. "If it's any consolation, we're all going to die, you're just finishing first."
Barret snarled and lunged for the man's back, but a contingent of guards blocked his path. Heidegger beamed at the pair, and crowed, "Marvelous. Let's tie them up and take them down to the execution chamber Scarlet prepared." Once their arms were secured, he puffed up his barrel chest and strutted from the room.
Barret's curses and protests barely registered in Tifa's mind while she docilely followed her escort. They traveled down metal and concrete stairs, through mildew infested passageways and past an ostentatious gold statue. Her mind traversed dark paths while her body moved like an automaton.
Cloud was gone. Zack was gone. Meteor was coming.
Someone pushed her from behind and she stumbled forward but didn't otherwise react.
There was no way anyone could survive the Meteorfall.
The second push came from in front and she staggered back, landing on a cold, metal chair.
She was going to die anyway. What did it matter if it was just a little sooner?
The crack of a palm across her cheek wrenched Tifa from her stupor. Scarlet's steel-gray eyes glared down at her from under perfectly trimmed golden eyebrows. "Humph, it's about time you woke up! I was afraid I would have to execute someone who was already dead."
Scarlet stood straight and smoothed the lines of her crimson dress with her palms before swaying out of the room, her heels clicking loudly against the concrete floor. "Do be a darling and make a good show out of this." She tossed back before slipping from the room.
With her head bowed under the dissipating cobwebs of despair, Tifa almost missed the faint tinkle of the handcuff key falling at her feet.
"They just put Tifa in the execution chamber!" a club member with curly black hair shrieked toward Kunsel with one hand over the mouthpiece of her PHS. "I thought you said everything was going to be okay! Where is the distraction you planned?"
Unruffled, Kunsel remained in his vigil at the windows. A few other members shifted nervously and one young man murmured, "Should we call Valentine?"
Kunsel shook his head and finally spoke. "No, the distraction is here." He raised his arm and pointed out to sea. Several miles out, the surface bulged at the passing of something beneath the waves. Moments later, a metallic blue dorsal fin several stories tall breached the surface of the water and rapidly sped for Junon.
"You'd better call it in, Miles. In case the watchman hasn't noticed it yet," the blond said mildly over his shoulder.
"Yessir!" Miles saluted and scooped his soldier helmet off the table before rushing out the door.
"Has anyone told you your ability is terrifying?" Vanessa asked in a flat voice, her fingers flying over her PHS to send out notifications to the message board.
He didn't respond, but she could see the corners of his mouth curling up in amusement.
Barret struggled against the trio of guards holding him down in the press conference chamber. One enterprising reporter babbled to his audience while his cameraman tried to get a good shot of the furious one-armed man's outburst. Folding chairs skidded across the floor and people scattered from their seats to avoid flailing limbs. Only the loud retort of a pistol cut through the screaming chaos.
Scarlet casually blew on the barrel of her gun and smirked benignly at the enraged man. "Now, now, no need to be impatient. Your turn will come soon enough. The execution is about to begin," she announced to the wide eyed audience.
Junon's earsplitting alarm interrupted her next words. Red lights strobed wildly and a man's voice sounded over the intercom, "Emergency. Emergency. A Weapon is approaching Junon. All personnel report to your battle stations!"
For one frozen second, no one in the chamber moved. Then a woman in the press audience shrieked, "Weapon? Run for your lives!" She launched from her folding chair and crawled across other members of the press and morbidly curious elite to flee the room. The woman's panic served as the catalyst to send the other civilians and reporters into a frenzy. Folding chairs screeched and clattered across the tiles, thrown out of the way at their passage.
The guards restraining Barret released him and sprinted from the chamber to attend to more important duties. A short, rotund man approached Scarlet and thrust a microphone in her face while a young woman pointed a camera at the board-member. "Ms. Scarlet, how do you feel about this development?"
The blond blinked down at the man and shot a suspicious look at the camera woman. "You're awfully brave to have stuck around. As for how I feel?" She paused to cackle. "An audience is unimportant. Despite the uproar, everything is going exactly to plan. All we-" She trailed off and slumped to the floor, her gaze unfocused and a faint aquamarine aurora surrounding her. The camera woman threw aside her camera and it burst apart revealing an empty cardboard box. She pulled a fuzzy extension off her boom mic revealing Aerith's Lorekeeper. The fat man whipped off his disguise and Cait Sith bounced over to Barret to release the man's ropes.
"Aerith? Cait Sith?" Barret gaped at the pair. "Wha- How did ya' get in here?"
"Kunsel," Aerith replied, with a short shrug.
A deep thrumming ran from the ground, threatening to knock them from their feet. Despite being deep inside the base, they could hear the eardrum shattering shriek of rusted metal shifting after long periods of remaining stationary when the Junon shutters rose to protect the buildings. Then a deeper hum surrounded them before the explosive discharge of the Junon cannon. "Did they get it?" Aerith asked Cait Sith.
The robotic feline stiffened as if listening and then flinched hissing, "Nay," mere moments before the whole base shook with the colossal Weapon's impact. Inside the gas chamber Tifa yelped, the blow activated the chamber and the gas tanks started blowing their contents into her face.
Aerith hopped over Scarlet's legs and tugged on the door to the gas chamber. The keypad blazed a warning red. She shook her head and muttered, "I know he said we couldn't get in there, but it was worth a shot."
Louder she shouted through the door, "Don't worry about the gas, Vincent and Yuffie traded the canisters for plain oxygen. Kunsel said he left an escape route for you and that you should get as high as you can after you break free."
"Okay," Tifa replied shakily through the thick metal.
The large man relaxed visibly at Aerith's reassurance and he shot Scarlet and then Cait Sith a wary look, "Ain't she your coworker? What'll happen if she reports ya'?"
Cait Sith scratched the back of his head and laughed, "What will she report? I don't look like this in real life and only the Turks know of my involvement with you." He waved his arm and headed for the door, Aerith close behind.
"Come on Barret," she called over her shoulder, "we need to meet up with the others at the airstrip. Cid's going to be coming in hot after they fired that cannon."
Barret shot one last lingering look at the execution chamber and then followed Aerith and Cait Sith through the facility. "I'd wondered how he was going to pull off having the cannon fire," Cait Sith mused as he ran, his robotic body entirely unwinded from the rapid pace. "I find it rather terrifying how well this plan of his is coming together."
"And the fact that his 'distraction' is Weapon attacking!" Aerith puffed while she scrambled up yet another staircase. The trip through the facility was unnerving. While emergency lights flashed and sirens echoed in disjointed tones from each speaker, the most disconcerting thing about the trip was the reactions of the personnel of the base.
Most of the soldiers were too busy laying down heavy fire on the visible azure fins of the attacking weapon. The rest either ignored them or waved them on their way. Despite the noise and chaos, several turned from their stations to snap pictures of them with cameras or their PHS and the one or two who looked like they were going to stop them were either ordered to stand down or talked down by their comrades.
"This is damn creepy," Barret muttered after one sergeant had the audacity to blow him a kiss.
With her share of shouted declarations of love and even proposals, Aerith giggled helplessly. Facing no resistance at all, they soon reached the Junon airstrip just as the Highwind roared down from above. Yuffie bounced happily from behind some nearby cargo, waved at the trio, and scampered up the ladder. Seconds later, a thick coil of rope and harness dropped from the airship's deck. Vincent wordlessly returned Barret's confiscated belongings before he moved to help Aerith secure Cait Sith in the rope harness. Barret gratefully reattached his Microlaser, retrieved his Dragon Armlet and materia before he boarded the ship.
Heartbeat still racing at the gas scare, Tifa looked down at the key near her feet. "Kunsel left me an escape huh?" She slid as far off the seat as she could with her arms bound and reached for the key with her feet. "I wish. He'd left. It. Closer!" she grunted with the strain, the manacles on her arms digging into her skin while the toe of her shoe scraped ineffectually against the key. The patterned sheet metal flooring caught the serrated teeth of the key just enough that her touches threatened to send it farther away.
As she strained and stretched, the bruises on her arms giving way to cuts from the sharp edges of her shackles, the sound of heavy artillery penetrated the walls of the execution chamber. A particularly violent blow against the building jostled the key just enough so the young woman could slide it closer and return to a more comfortable position. Perspiration dotted her face and she stared blankly down at the key at her feet while she caught her breath.
"Now what?" she muttered, pushing the taunting piece of metal around between her shoes, unable to leverage it between the two. She dropped it twice before giving up on that, the fall nearly skittering it out of reach once more. "Ugh, okay looks like I'm going to owe Yuffie an apology," she huffed, kicking off her shoes and then pulling the sock from her right foot.
The young ninja had a rather irritating habit of being too lazy to bend down to pick things off the floor when they stayed at inns or houses. Instead she'd pick the object up with her toes, something Tifa found repulsive and Aerith found unladylike. In this instance though… Without the smooth, inflexible surface of her shoes to get in the way, she easily grasped the offending piece of metal with her toes.
Years of martial arts training would have made lifting something pinned between her shoes up a reality. Pinched between her toes, it was as simple as crossing her leg and bending down. For one moment she paused, face close enough to the bottom of her foot that her breath feathered across the arch and whimpered once before plucking the key from her toes with her lips and getting to work on freeing her arms.
Within a few minutes, she had her arms freed and her shoes and socks back in place. Internally shuddering about the unhygienic escape method, she shut off the gas and tugged on the door. "Now what?" she asked herself. "How am I supposed to get higher? Am I supposed to climb the girders?" The lighting in the execution chamber wasn't the best but she didn't see any openings the feline portion of Cait Sith could fit through, much less herself.
As if summoned by her thoughts, an incandescent beam of light tore through the ceiling, leaving a sizable gash in the outer wall. "Okay, climbing it is."
Outside the door, Scarlet awakened and shouted, "What was that? Someone open this door!"
One final retort of the Junon Canon shook the base followed by the sound of displaced water and cheers. Gingerly skirting the still hot edges of the gash in the structure, she peered out and saw the headless Weapon half submerged in the shallows. Its poisonous yellow blood eddied and swirled in the fitfully churning waves. "You terrify me, but I'm grateful for your role in my escape," she said quietly to the massive corpse and then climbed outside.
Even in later years, long after the stress of the situation had faded, Tifa refused to talk about her escape. The walls of the facility were slick with spray from the Weapon's initial battering and years of mildew. More than once her grip slipped and she worried she wouldn't make it. Would this be how she got back to Cloud? Dying to meet him in the Lifestream? She dangled several yards above the butt of the Junon Canon, the claws of depression slackening her grip.
She let go. The wind rushed past her with ever increasing speed, all she had to do was turn just right and she'd plunge hundreds of feet to the churning waters below.
But she didn't.
Years of martial arts instinct and disgust at the utter waste she momentarily contemplated pulled her body into a momentum bleeding tumble when she landed. It still hurt though, and she hissed at the new set of contusions and bruises. She just wanted to lay here and let the pain ebb for a few minutes. Nearby, an access door opened and Scarlet's distinctive voice cried, "There she is! After her!"
Allowing herself one self-pitying whimper, Tifa staggered to her feet and ran past the chambers of the massive cannon. Dodging by pistons bigger than her bar in Midgar and onto the still hot barrel of the cannon.
"There's nowhere for you to go!" Scarlet cried from behind her. Tifa ran three more yards and then stopped, shoulders slumping and then turned to face her pursuers. The cold sea breeze whipped her hair but the scent of the ocean couldn't penetrate the overpowering mako scent of the Weapon below.
Despite the fact that the barrel of the cannon was over twelve feet wide in diameter, Scarlet carefully made her way to Tifa. She waved the pair of infantrymen to wait a good distance away, "Don't come until I order you forward. This is a battle between women." When they reluctantly stopped and saluted, she continued forward alone.
"I imagine you thought you were going to escape!" Scarlet shouted and then laughed, one hand raised to her mouth, the other braced on her cocked hip. "Don't try jumping off now, if you don't die hitting the water, you'll splatter on the remains of the Weapon below."
Tifa scowled, widening her stance and clenching her fists. Scarlet strutted closer, a strange smile on her face and in a quieter voice whispered, "Hon, I know quite well you could beat me Black and blue, but that just wouldn't go well with my Golden hair." She winked and Tifa gaped at the older woman, her clenched fists relaxing in shock. "I have to admit I was a little worried that Wilkes dropped the key too far away for you to reach but the Leader assured us you'd be fine. Now I'd love to chat, but the cameras are still running, let's give 'em a show while we wait for your slow poke buddies to get here."
Shaking off her shock, Tifa nodded and obligingly turned her cheek when Scarlet "slapped" her and telegraphed her moves so the woman could be "slapped" in return. Due to the rough winds from so high up the guards were too far back to realize none of the blows actually struck.
They took turns for a few rounds until Scarlet hissed, "They're coming, start moving faster so I can act defeated."
"Alright, you asked for it!" she shouted for the benefit of the soldiers a distance away. Redoubling her speed, soon Scarlet couldn't get any "hits" in between "recovering" from the previous blow.
"Make this one real," Scarlet ordered, "They'll be suspicious if I'm unmarked." When Tifa hesitated, Scarlet smirked and suggested, "Call it revenge for the slap in the execution chamber."
"I needed that though," Tifa protested, keeping up with the fake slaps.
"And I need this. I can't keep helping if I come under suspicion," the older woman insisted.
Steeling herself, Tifa's palm cracked soundly on Scarlet's cheek and the older woman collapsed, clutching her face. "Don't just stand there you idiots! Get her!"
Tifa whirled and dashed for the end of the cannon. She could hear the tromp of boots behind her, but over that, she heard the propellers of the stolen Highwind. Barret stood on the deck, coils of rope in his arms.
"Jump Teef!" he shouted, throwing the rope over the railing. A few guns from Junon started firing at the airship, if they stayed in one place they'd be shot down.
Tifa jumped, hands reaching out for the rope dancing in the combined turbulence of the sea wind and the airship's propellers. For one moment she hung in the air, the rope dancing just out of reach as the arc of her flight took a downturn. Then a subtle eddy blew it towards her and she clutched the rope tightly ignoring the burning pain from the friction of the fibers digging into her gloveless palms.
The Highwind pulled away, Junon and Scarlet diminishing from view. Tifa hung from the rope hundreds of feet in the air, her exhaustion making itself known. Barret and Vincent carefully reeled the rope in and helped pull the young woman to safety.
As soon as she was completely over the rails, Tifa collapsed onto the deck. Her limbs trembled from the stress and exertion of the last two hours while her brain reeled over how quickly things had happened. Red XIII padded up to her and curled around her shoulders. "I fear the perils of her endeavors are sending her into shock. One of you please convey her to the conference room," he rumbled after sensing the tremors running through the young woman's body.
Vincent crouched and carefully tilted Tifa's face up with three fingers under her chin. The man's glimmering crimson eyes flicked over her pale lips, slightly unfocused eyes, and the sheen of perspiration on her skin. "He's right," the former Turk murmured. "It's best if we fully debrief below." In one fluid move, he stood with the young woman cradled in his arms. "Barret, please help bring Yuffie down."
Barret turned his attention from Tifa and Vincent to where the Wutain princess weakly gagged over the railing. He whipped his head back to the cloaked man but he'd already vanished inside with Red XIII. "Damn it, Vincent. That's messed up," he grumbled and shook his fist at the empty portal.
Author's Note: In case anyone wonders why Barret and Tifa don't know about what happened to the others, only Cloud was in the central chamber and heard the announcement that the Highwind had been stolen.
It occurs to me that Tifa getting into a slap-fight with Scarlet is a lot like an MMA fighter getting angry at someone and thumb wrestling it out.
It seems a little counter-intuitive for what started as a crack fic to patch up so many plot holes, but here we are!