If Elena had been worried about Tseng before, she thought she might actually have a nervous breakdown on her hands now. He had that perfectly cold look on his face that he did right before he indulged in some violence, which she really wanted that to happen just not right now. Just not 'til they found Aerith anyway.

She took a few steps closer, not quite putting her body between Tseng and the raving scientist, doing her very best smile-and-nod routine that she'd perfected as a kid when her grandpa was spouting off about the 'spies from the Republic who were planting bugs in his apartment.'

"So Aerith is like super special right, how special is she?" Elena said, watching as Tseng's fists uncoiled slightly, and she really wondered if he even knew he'd done it. It was really spooky seeing him losing it. There were betting pools about what would make Tseng go from detached to destruction and she didn't like seeing it as much as they joked around about it.

"She's perfect, Jenova can't possibly reject her." Hojo nodded almost violently, then did that creepy little head thing that made it look like he was receiving messages from some goddess - and maybe he was, he seemed to be that kind of mental, and that was definitely the kind of thing that made people turn into serial killers.

"That means you don't have to hurt her though, right?" she coaxed, hoping to Tseng's god that he'd agree, "not like the other ones that didn't make it?"

"Oh no no of course not, Jenova is pleased…" Hojo gave another of those too big nods. "The treatment is working, Jenova's cells are integrating well with the Ancient's, that didn't happen at all with the inferior specimens I tried with before. No, they were too weak, I supposed I should have been looking for someone like Ifalna, rather than like Lucrecia, but it's all the same in the end anyway, isn't it. I was guided this time! Sephiroth must have led her to me. Jenova will have her new world - have her revenge against the Cetra who tried to destroy the destroyer - no no, of course they could never, Mother, no and you can have whatever you want now. Aerith will become a fine incubator…"

For a moment, Elena thought she might genuinely have to grab Tseng and hold him back, but he controlled himself just barely. She could practically hear him grinding his teeth.

"So you, uh, you didn't get with Aerith yourself though, right? I mean you gotta wait for Sephiroth to get back so he can, uh," Elena tried not to cringe as she said it, managing to just look interested and eager to understand more, "mate with her and stuff, how does that work anyway with him… gone and all?" He seemed to eat up the positive attention, and he was calming down a little, that old condescension she'd heard about making him lean forward and take on a lecturing tone.

"Of course I haven't copulated with the Ancient," Hojo said, sounding as though he thought Elena were stupid, "my DNA isn't at all suitable, I don't have the gene sequencing equipment I had when I created Sephiroth. Lucrecia and I filtered out all of the imperfections in our cells before combining them. It wouldn't do for our specimen to have poor eyesight for example, he had to be perfect of course."

Elena breathed a sigh of relief that she turned into a whistle. "Wow, that's a lot of work, I bet you could use some of that equipment in your old lab though, right?" She definitely had his attention there as he laser focused on her. "We can totally do that, like right away if you want.

"That would be… yes, that would be preferable, why didn't I think of it the moment you arrived?" Hojo hopped to his feet, hands slapping together loudly in the quiet room, palms rubbing together with a nails-on-chalkboard scraping sound. "If I had everything I needed I could build a temporary vessel for Sephiroth to manifest through…."

Hojo turned and focused on Tseng again with a nasty little smile spreading over his face. "You'll do, I think, Turks live and die for the company - you can't be any more useful to the whole world itself than to become a vessel for HIS will. And with my lab… with my lab I can be certain she'll have a few litters at a time."

"Cool, cool, cool." Elena clapped her own hands, getting Hojo's attention off of Tseng and back to herself. "So you show me where she is and Tseng can call a chopper to pick us all up and we'll get right to it. Right, boss? You ready for your uh…"

"His ascendance!" Hojo tossed his head back and cackled. "Resplendent, apothic! Yes, Mother, a fantastic idea, venias, venias!"

The madman spun on his heels and crouched down, grabbing bags and boxes from beneath the bed and flinging them across the room. Elena dodged a plastic grocery bag full of books that scattered across the floor when it split open. The bed's feet made a shrieking sound as he dragged it across the concrete floor, revealing a metal hatchway with bits of torn rags stuffed in around the gaps. That was where the reek of shit was coming from, the smell getting worse when he wrenched it open and began to climb down.

Elena pushed in front of Tseng as Hojo disappeared down the hole. "Okay great, hey Tseng how about that chopper?" she asked loudly, then quieter, "and you know, a medical team and the dog and I've got this, okay?"

It shouldn't have really worked. Tseng really should have ordered her to stay back and be the one to call for backup, he should have been the one rushing to Aerith's rescue, but even cracking under pressure the leader of the Turks was logical and pragmatic enough to know that he was compromised.

He gave a brief nod, pulling out his PHS and typing in a number with his thumb. Someday she'd figure out how he memorized everything - she'd talk him into teaching her while Aerith was getting better. They'd put her with Zack and that cadet and Valentine - who was as much bodyguard as he was a patient himself. All of the people Tseng had secret places in his heart for all in one place where he could watch over them, it was a damned good idea if Elena said so herself.

She climbed down the ladder, giving Tseng one last, serious look, and slid the rest of the way down with her shoes on either side. It looked the same here as it had behind the pharmacy, a deep tunnel that echoed as they began to head off to the right. The foul water rushed by faster than it had two days ago, the rain outside making its level rise, sending more and more of it hurtling through the system that she hoped wouldn't get overwhelmed. They really, really, didn't need some kind of fucked up flood of sewage in the slums and an outbreak of something like cholera or dysentery on top of everything else.

Her fingers found the little emergency tracker attached to her belt buckle and felt it give as she pushed hard to make it turn on - wouldn't want it activating on accident when she was just changing her clothes. It didn't make any sound, and obviously a flashing button would be a huge giveaway, so she had to just trust it would lead them to her location when she got there.

Hojo swayed as he walked, like he was drunk on his own supposed brilliance, muttering and hissing to himself about this Jenova person, and Sephiroth, and how he'd make Elena into a backup 'Cetra' by fusing her DNA with Aerith's, as if she wasn't there listening to him at all. Or maybe he knew it and just didn't care - as far as he was concerned, she knew, the Turks were disposable fodder for his experiments just the same as everyone else. It wasn't like he hadn't done it before.

A set of keys rattled as Hojo pulled them from the pocket of his lab coat as they reached a door with a faded Shinra logo, the design slightly different than the one they had now - extra lines around the outside and the lettering sort of bubbly and rounded instead of flat and smooth. Emma would have called it 'unrefined' or something probably.

She expected the door to creak, the hinges looked old and rusted enough, but it swung open silently - like it had been recently oiled or…

She followed him through and took a very quick glance over her shoulder… Or the door was only made to look decrepit. The inside was clean and white - the paint was only a bit faded, and the poster about 'correct lab safety procedures' tacked up in the middle of it was peeling a bit.

Elena felt kind of vindicated in a very resentful and petty way for just a brief second - she had found Hojo's secret hidden lab before Emma could. It felt pretty good, and she let herself have the minor pleasure of it. The lab was old, clearly, and probably so out of date the tech was nearly useless, but not enough that Hojo hadn't made use of everything it had.

He snatched a pair of latex gloves from a box on to the wall outside of a door with a white board affixed to it. The words 'Induction 01' were scrawled in black marker, five boxes sketched beneath it, the first two of them crossed off with words that looked like they were written in Old Juno. Completely incomprehensible to her - like the stuff he kept muttering under his breath. She'd get a picture of it when she was done, so they could translate it in case it was important to figure out what he'd done to poor Aerith.

As she trailed behind the mad scientist, the materia in her bracer hummed against her forearm. Elena might not be 'compromised' the way Tseng was, but she was pissed when she saw Aerith lying on her back on a metal table, restraints wrapped around her wrists and ankles. It looked like something out of a horror movie and not a hospital, giving Elena a bit of what she had to call cognitive dissonance - the rest of the lab really did look like a hospital, and it even smelled like one with no sewer stink leaking in here.

But that was absolutely nothing like a hospital bed.

The things around the metal table were recognizably medical devices, and Elena really wanted to rip the needles dripping unknown things into Aerith's veins. One was clear, and Elena prayed it was just saline. Mako was not healthy to get through an IV, and she definitely knew whatever that opaque black nastiness was some kind of horrific.

She knew how to get them unhooked safely, obviously, she could do it with one hand and her teeth if it was in her own arm, getting it out of Aerith would be easy-peasy… if she knew whether stopping it right where it was wouldn't do more damage. She didn't know whether they were the kind of things that would be dangerous to stop cold-turkey. She really, really hoped whoever came with the med-team would know what they were doing.

Hojo fiddled with a tray off in a corner, muttering to himself - or maybe to 'Jenova' since he kept stopping and starting like he was listening to someone else talking. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and she shivered. The world was a weird fucking place, it really was. What if he really did hear some kind of… thing… talking to him?

It didn't matter in the end, because Elena had some hard limits and needles were one of them. Professor Creepy turned around with a syringe in one hand and a rubber tourniquet in the other, grinning and ordering her to sit down and let him get some blood work.

Elena drew down on him and shot the motherfucker's left knee out. He gasped as he dropped to the ground, a spray of blood arcing across the floor and quickly spreading to stain his green scrubs red. She flipped open her PHS and hit the speed-dial with her thumb, keeping the gun aimed at Hojo who was eerily quiet as he bled everywhere.

"I've got her," she said, not letting Tseng get a word in, "get the med team down here cause I have no idea what he's got her hooked up to." She snapped the phone closed and shoved it back in her pocket, the split second she'd looked away enough time for Hojo to produce a small pistol and aim it in her direction.

Her Materia pulsed against her wrist and a circle of purple light flared out in front of her, twisting and slamming down on top of the scientist as she darted out of the way. He shouted then, a guttural sound of pain as the spell pinned him down and put pressure on his wounded knee. Blood gushed out around the injury, and Elena kicked the pistol into the far corner of the room, and stomped on the syringe too just in case, then snatched up the strip of yellow rubber off the floor where Hojo had dropped it.

The Gravity spell felt weird on her hands as she forced them beneath Hojo's thigh - like a jet of cold water pushing down hard. She was the one controlling it though, and it didn't have enough power over her to keep her from wrapping the tourniquet above the knee and tying it in place. As much as she wanted to fuck him up more, he had to stay alive if they wanted to get any answers out of him about what he'd done to Aerith.

She dropped the Gravity, and Hojo tried to surge up at her, fingers hooked into claws as though he had fingernails long enough to do anything with. The Gravity Materia pulsed warm this time, and he properly howled as she hit him with a Demi. It did the trick as he slumped back again, his head thumping on the ground in a way that would have made her wince if she gave a fuck about it.

Rushing around him to get to the table, she may or may not have stepped on one of his hands. Aerith's eyes were open, so wide and terrified that Elena could see the white all the way around the iris. Her already green eyes had a sickly tint to them, and Elena squinted up at the Mako in the bag attached to her left hand. That shit burned like acid, Elena knew, but she also fucking knew that just taking Aerith off it would be bad - that was what had happened to that Strife kid, apparently. They'd got him out of the tube and then med-evac'd him out without getting more into him on the way. Withdrawal was just as dangerous, if not more, than an overdose.

"Hey babe, I've got you!" Elena brushed a strand of sweaty hair off of Aerith's forehead. "I'm gonna run and get the door so Tseng can get here with the good docs, okay?"

"Don't, don't leave!" Aerith's voice was thin and high with panic. The computer monitoring her pulse shot up as she twisted her head to look at where Hojo lay seemingly unconscious on the floor, and honestly, Elena totally got it.

"Okay, I'm not going anywhere." She grabbed her PHS again and hit redial, and Tseng's voice sounded hollow and echoing in the tunnel when he answered, sounding more anxious instead of less. "Hey so I was gonna come open the door but I can't do that, so just follow my tracker to a rusted looking door on the right wall, two turns down the way you're coming. It's disguised and actually solid as fuck so you might need to C-4 it. C'mon, blowing it up will make you feel better. You can shoot out Hojo's other knee even when you get here."

"Noted," Tseng said, and then the call cut out.

"Welp, he's definitely super happy you're okay, but maybe pissed that I got to shoot him first!" Elena really felt like shit when she had to keep Aerith from ripping the needles out herself. "Gotta wait for the docs, I know it sucks and I'm so fucking sorry but I can't let you end up like that kid with Zack."

"Cloud." Aerith nodded faintly, and then she looked like she might just well faint in general.

"You want some water, babe?" Elena asked, running her hand through Aerith's hair like she had a minute ago, the other woman nearly melting into a comforting touch when everything had been so fucking awful the last two days.

She made a little negative humming sound. "Hmmnn, don't trust it. Don't trust anything down here."

"Alright," Elena agreed, "then we'll get some when we get back up top, you're a lot smarter than me."

That made Aerith almost crack a smile, but it was a really sad one. "Experience."

The door on the outside of the lab exploded, making both of them flinch. Elena draped herself over Aerith instinctively, the table rocking slightly with her added weight on top and the way the ground shook underneath them. Dust that was hopefully not mixed with asbestos fluttered down from the ceiling to coat everything in a gray film. Everything after that happened really fast. She let Tseng take her place holding onto Aerith's hand and got out of the way of the absolute swarm of doctors.

The new Science head came in a lot slower, her cane tapping on the floor as she steadied herself. She hadn't quite had time to get used to the fancy prosthetic legs yet. Elena wondered if she could get away with hitting Hojo with another Demi as the actually good doctor got Aerith rapidly unhooked from the black stuff that she had bagged and tagged. Doc Rayleigh was a woman of few words, or maybe she was super self controlled when she wanted to say a lot more - probably for opsec, Mako and shit fell under company secrets after all, and the med team wasn't from that department…

Rude tossed her a pair of handcuffs when he and Reno, and Darkstar, joined the party. Darkstar growled at Hojo, nose scenting the air like she smelled something far more disgusting than the sewer they'd just ran through.

Doctor Rayleigh looked down at Hojo like he was some kind of insect to be studied, her scarred lips in a hard line and her eyes cold as ice. Good, it was about time Hojo got a taste of his own medicine.

epilogue

The medical ward in Shinra Tower had state of the art equipment and luxuries that only the wealthiest in Midgar could ever have expected to find. It wouldn't do for the elite of the Shinra Corporation to settle for anything less than plush comfort when it came to hospital beds, Banoran cotton sheets, and blankets periodically changed out with ones warm from the heater made especially for that purpose.

Zack was resting his forehead against Aerith's, her hands curled tight around one of his as he whispered quietly to her while she wept. He raised his head and wiped gently at her cheeks with a soft, wet cloth. Cleaning the faintly green tears from her cheeks that left reddened trails of chemical burns wherever they touched. It would take weeks to undo the damage that had taken only two days to inflict, and that was merely the Mako.

Professor Rayleigh was still trying to determine what to do about the 'irresponsible level' of J-Cells that Hojo had introduced into Aerith's system. She had said that ordinarily, the substance was measured in micrograms, as a catalyst for a SOLDIER's first enhancement regimen, and given in even smaller doses at second and first level. Aerith had been given an entire platoon's worth, and the bag of fluid she had been hooked up to was more than the program had ever used since its inception.

They still did not know what Hojo had been trying to do with it, unable to get anything resembling sense or rational methodology from him since he'd been put in a cell and then in a straight-jacket.

Tseng stood against the wall of the crowded hospital room, hands folded neatly in front of him, and felt like he could breathe for the first time in days, or months… or perhaps fifteen years. There was no more Hojo, barely a Shinra corporation the way things were trending towards a functioning government with laws that every citizen, from Rufus on down, were beholden to. No one to order Tseng to do… anything he didn't agree to do beforehand, and free to exercise what few morals he'd held fast to.

"She's still in me," Aerith whispered, and Tseng pulled his lips against his teeth in a hidden grimace.

He needed to arrange for a psychological examination, and a therapist. It seemed that the two days she had spent in Hojo's custody had been long enough for him to convince her that his delusion was truth. Tseng did not at all like to consider any of it as factual… Better, for now, to treat the symptoms they could do something to alleviate.

The people he cared about, dearly so even if they didn't know it, were safe. Or as safe as someone who spent their lives in espionage and occasional assassination could be - or as a SOLDIER, or as the last living Ancient. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, breathing slow and easy for one hundred and eight heartbeats.

His eyes opened to find Aerith's on him, over Zack's head as he lay half in her lap in a loose embrace. Her hand shook slightly as she ran it over his hair, and her faintly glowing gaze flicked down at her boyfriend and back up. There was a weight to that look, something deeper in the mouthed words of thanks on trembling lips.

Tseng nodded and pushed himself away from the wall to get back to work.