The Good Life: Showtime (ch. 103)

Tifa ducked behind cover just in time, hearing bullets whistle pass where she had been a split second earlier. The concrete barricade shuddered under the continuous impact of gunfire, sending up plumes of dust and rubble that fell on her. A hand went to a Materia in her belt, a Barrier. It wasn't quite mastered, but it was well on its way at the rate she was forced to use it. 

“Reloading. Reloading,” came a synthetic voice that was her cue to throw herself over the barricade. There, down the hall at a natural checkpoint, Tifa saw Shinra's latest toy soldiers -- humanoid machines. They weren't smart, nor were they particularly strong. Their bodies were metallic, little armor and bone thin arms and legs that could support a carried rifle and ammo, with the chest piece being cargo, the computer that operated the machines, and the battery pack. 

They were cheap and disposable machines that Shinra could produce by the hundreds as needed. Their problem solving skills were that of a three year old, just armed with guns. Their aim wasn't much better, but it didn't need to be when there were dozens of them aiming down a narrow hallway that she and her comrades were trying to push through. 

The machines, droids as some had taken to calling them, focused fire on her as she sprinted forward. The droids struggled with critical thinking, so she ran along the side of the wall to confuse their processor. Bullets still struck her, though most were lucky blind fires rather than good aim, and she felt the impacts like a heavy blow but the barrier protected her from injury. With a leap, she launched herself into the thick of the droids and lashed out with punches and kicks, nearly effortlessly shattering their cheap iron chassis and ripping apart their fragile limbs. 

Their programming changed now that she was so close, with one of the droids attempting to bear hug her, but she grabbed it and threw it into a cluster of other machines. The droid self-destructed with the impact of a hand grenade, sending hundreds of ball bearings forward that tore through its fellows. 

The droids were cheap, and Shinra treated them like they were. They used raw numbers to make up for their lack of quality, and when the enemy got close, they turned into suicide drones. 

It was an irritatingly effective tactic, because it forced people like her to fight in the thick of them because otherwise, the rest of her squad wouldn't be able to approach before reinforcements came. Because, in the end, the droids were only a stalling tactic to keep them pinned down until the dangerous enemies could arrive. 

“Fire,” Tifa said, flames licking at her fists as she triggered the Materia in her gauntlets. The heat from them scorched the cheap metal, and swept over the hall she was forcing her way through. It confused their programming long enough that those behind her could move up and deal with the strays. 

Within a minute, the hallway was clear and the rest of her cell could move up to the objective. 

“Nice going, Tifa!” Jessie, the former actor turned demolition expert for Avalanche, said with a smile and a thumbs up as she  moved forward to set the explosive against the barricade door. She pressed the explosive clay against the outline of the door before telling them to step back. With the press of a button, the seemingly impenetrable door was blasted open as the clay half melted the metal before exploding. “Whoo! That stuff really does work like he said!” 

There was no time to linger as they rushed inside, revealing what they were here for. 

Mechs. 

It had been a year since Shinra shifted its focus away from SOLDIERs and human forces, instead producing robotic soldiers. The droids that they fought were cheap and disposable. Cannon fodder for the real heavy hitters that were high.quality units. Units like the ones they were here to destroy. 

A dozen of them lined the holding bay, each one the size of a house with a tank tread lower body while the upper body was a torso. Four arms allowed for additional weapons and armor protection, with the arsenal flanking each unit with weapons varying depending on the mission. 

“Wedge!” Jessie urged Wedge, another member of their cell forward, a larger man that was on the chubby side. He nearly dropped the computer in his hands, startled out of his slack jawed awe. 

“R-right!” He yelped, heading to a command terminal to upload the virus that had been given to them. “I need… five minutes! No, three!” He warned while the rest of them turned to the lone entrance while he worked. 

It had been a year since Nibelheim… a year since nearly everyone she had ever known and loved was slaughtered by Shinra. A slaughter that was swept under the rug like it had never happened. 

It had been six months since she joined Avalanche and their mission to take down Shinra. Tifa wasn't even sure if she believed in the mission of saving the Planet and the Lifestream. But she knew that they had a common enemy, and that was enough for her. 

She grit her teeth, clenching her fists, and readied herself for Shinra to arrive. So she could unleash some of the volatile anger that burned in her chest. But, that anticipation was brought to a halt when she heard a familiar voice cackle through an intercom. 

“Guesss who?!” Jinx's voice echoed through the speakers around the warehouse, making the lot of them flinch. “That's right! Your loveable, adorable, and unstoppable benefactor is here to tell you that the mission has changed! No more demolition and self destruction codes! It's a heist, baby!”

“Ahhh…. Fuck,” Biggs, the last member of the squad, whispered under his breath. As he did so, Wedge was startled to the point he fell down when the twelve mechs began to activate -- the four arms grabbed hold of various weapons or a shield before moving forward and lining up for deployment. 

“I only need two of them, so consider the others worth bonus points!” Jinx, the infamous crime lord, continued. “Worth a big fat reward, so the more you bring home to mama? The bigger the pay day -- arms! Armor! Materia and intel! So try your best and hold on tight because I don't plan on touching the brakes!” 

“Tifa?!” Wedge looked to her with wide eyes, and she knew it was her decision. 

A heist was far more heat than they were prepared for, but as crazy as Jinx portrayed herself, there was a method to her madness. She wouldn't drop this on them if it wasn't possible for them to get the job done. And Avalanche was starving for resources -- extra funds, weapons, armor, Materia, and intel? As much as her knee jerk reaction was to deny, as the machines in Jinx's hands would only be slightly better than leaving them in Shinra's, she found herself looking back at Wedge. 

“Can we control them?” She asked sharply as the garage door started to open. A warning that they had very little time to make a decision. 

Wedge hesitated before nodding, “They have automated controls, but they also have a cockpit for direct control?” 

“We're breaking into pairs and claiming two of them,” Tifa decided as they ran forward. Her and Jessie would get into one, while Wedge and Biggs would claim another. “The guidance system will take us where we need to go. As much as I hate to say it… we need to trust Jinx on this one.” The very idea of it sounded wrong, but it's what they needed to do. 

And if things didn't go their way? They could just destroy the mechs the old fashioned way. So long as they were out of Shinra's hands, that's all they needed. 

Racing up one of the mechs, Tifa found herself seated in a cockpit with Jessie behind her. A lot of the controls were automated, leaving the targeting and arms. Behind her, Tifa heard Jessie's foot bouncing rapidly as the sounds of sirens reached them through the speakers, and as the lead mech, Tifa saw them first. 

Shinra. 

A year ago, she had never killed anyone before. She hadn't thought she was capable of killing someone. And maybe she hadn't been. But that was before she walked amongst the ashes of her home. 

The targeting system zeroed in on a response force, likely triggered from their assault on the facility. The warehouse was on the fringe of Midgar, one of the industrial areas from which the mechs were meant to be shipped elsewhere. On the screens before her, she saw a dozen helicopters and the on-site military reacting. 

She clenched her teeth and she pulled the trigger. The effect was instant -- she felt a vague recoil in the cockpit as the shoulder mounted cannon fired, hitting a helicopter center mass with enough force that it seemed to turn inside out before exploding. A small shuddering breath escaped her as she watched the helicopter fall to the ground while the others went into an attack formation. 

It wasn't the first time she had killed. She had killed with her own bare hands, which was a far cry from a simple pull of the trigger. In the six months it had been since she joined Avalanche… she had killed thirty-six people. Now? Now she had to guess, because she didn't know how many people were on that helicopter.

“They're shooting back!” Wedge cried out over the comms as the helicopters fired a barrage of missiles at the convoy of mechs that were racing towards the exit. “Oh- uh, uh- f-flares! Counter measures! Yes!” 

In response to the barrage of missiles, the unoccupied mechs fired a swarm of fairs that the missiles tracked and struck. Explosions filled the air, but they felt impossibly distant in the mech. There wasn't even a stirring inside as fire rained from the sky. It worked as a decent enough cover while Tifa looked to the entrance, seeing a blockade that was erected. Bullets bounced off the armor to little effect. 

“Tifa…?” Jessie started, sounding uncertain. 

“We don't stop,” she decided, glaring ahead at the screen, seeing a handful of the helicopters flanking out ahead of them. Those at the barricade understood that she wasn't going to stop and started to flee a few seconds before the mech smashed through the armored car like it wasn't there. All the while, she fired again at the helicopters, destroying another one and making the others flank out wider. 

They tore through the barricade, racing down a broken street as the navigation system followed the course that Jinx had uploaded. The helicopters fired upon them, their guns managing to do a little more damage but it was largely superficial. That was until another rocket barrage struck them, and while the flares went out, a missile still slipped through to strike the tank treads. 

The treads were blown out -- not to the point that it was dead in the water, but it was impossible for the mech to keep up with them. So, they cut their losses and abandoned it. 

To Tifa's relief, the moment that they were beyond the slowed mech, it self-destructed. Jinx didn't want Shinra recovering their lost property, so they had that in common. Still, it was a loss and Tifa repaid it by shooting down another helicopter, while Biggs shot down one of his own. 

The task force harried them as they headed into the red mountains outside of Midgar. They raced down narrow dusty slopes, forcing the helicopters to hover closer together and making it easier for them to shoot down. But it also made their counter measures less effective, and they lost three more mechs before the task force lost enough members that they decided to retreat. 

Tifa struggled to share the relief that the others did, shouting with victory as they managed to steal eight mechs. She slumped into her seat, still clenching her jaw hard enough that it ached, and waited for the other shoe to drop. 

They didn't have to wait long. Within an hour, the nav system guided them to a cliffside wall. At first, Tifa thought it might be a glitch but as they neared, the cliff began to open, revealing a false wall and a large hanger. Tifa found that the controls were ripped from them as the targeting system turned off while the mechs lined up along the wall. With a hiss of air, the cockpit opened up of its own volition and Tifa found herself exposed. 

She got out, alongside her squad, but the tension didn't leave her as they were surrounded. A dozen gangsters stood at the ready, armed, but their guns weren't raised. It was then that she heard the sound of a slow sarcastic clap. Her gaze darted to the source to see Jinx, the Duchess of Crime. 

Jinx reclined on a palanquin that was carried by four men -- tall, visibly well muscled, covered in oil and clad in underwear that left very little to the imagination. They all had pink hair, and tattoos under their eye that read ‘Vi.’ meanwhile, there were two scantily clad women on the palanquin, also possessing pink hair with the same tattoo as they fanned Jinx herself. 

She was a chaotic mixture of comfort clothing and formal business attire, all color coordinated by someone who was colorblind. A bright pink blouse dress shirt, a bright blue vest with flowers, snarling monkeys, and explosives stitched into it. Tight fitted pants that wouldn't look out of place on a clown, and fluffy bunny slippers with Xs over their eyes. She was smoking a pipe that released bubbles in her wake and star shaped sunglasses. 

Their meetings were brief, sparse, and to the point, but every time Tifa was astounded that the woman before her managed to take over a large portion of the organized crime in the slums of Midgar. She looked like she couldn't even dress herself.

“Eight mechs! You did better than I thought, mademoiselle,” Jinx said with an obnoxiously put on accent and muttering gibberish. Just because she could. “I thought you'd come away with six at the most! Your talent for theft is only matched by those sweater puppies you stuff in that sports bra.” Biggs made a choking sound and Tifa had to fight the flush creeping up her neck. 

“We bought access codes to the self destruction sequence,” Tifa said as the four men lowered the palanquin, letting Jinx hop off of it. “You didn't give us what we paid for.” 

“You really think a few thousand gil is going to pay for access codes?” Jinx snorted dismissively. “Try adding a couple zeroes next time. Instead, I thought I'd give you the opportunity to make some real cash while paying off the balance you owe.” Jinx said, striding closer without a care and circling Tifa like a shark. “It's tough runnin’ a resistance without resources, hm? You got any luck convincing the real Avalanche that you're worth kicking some funding to yet?” 

There was a very loud silence that answered Jinx's question all too well. The ‘real’ Avalanche hadn't acknowledged their cell yet. They didn't see them as committed, or worse, thought they were spies from Shinra. Which was the entire point of this operation -- to do enough damage that the heads of Avalanche would finally acknowledge them. 

With acknowledgment came funds. Manpower. Connections and opportunities to actually hurt Shinra. 

“No? Thought not,” Jinx said, sliding an arm over Tifa's shoulder and giving her a smile filled with teeth, “So you're stuck with me for a little longer! Don't you worry, mama's gonna treat you right! Vis!” Jinx said, snapping her fingers and the four men and two women retrieved cases from the palanquin. Tifa really had no idea what Jinx's deal was, but she was clearly projecting… something onto everyone. 

The thought was pushed away when the cases opened and she saw bundles of gil. Each case contained at least a million, and at twelve cases- 

“Eight are for you,” Jinx said, and Tifa flinched when she delivered a hard smack to her butt before sliding out of striking range with entirely too much grace. Another thing that made no sense about Jinx -- she was enhanced. She saw the same fluid grace she saw with… with Cloud. Yet she didn't have the Mako shine in her eyes. “Don't go spending it in one place… except for when you're buying from me! Tata!” She said, blowing Tifa a kiss before blowing a trail of bubbles from her pipe. 

Tifa watched her walk away, indignity welling up inside of her, but she shoved it away in favor of grabbing the cases full of millions of gil. The others followed suit and they were escorted out of the secret hanger, and granted a vehicle so they didn't need to spend the night walking back to Midgar. 

“Tifa-” Jessie started, but Tifa was already shaking her head. 

“Don't,” she sighed. “I can put up with it. So long as Jinx upholds her end of the bargain? I can handle a few wandering eyes.” 

“If you're sure…” Jessie trailed off while the boys shuffled around in the back seat. 

She was. So long as Jinx helped them in her fight against Shinra? 

There was no limit to what she would put up with. 

…

It had been pretty simple to get Tifa onto the terrorist side of things. The anger was all there. She just needed a touch and a nudge, all facilitated by Jinx of course, but before long she was dedicated to the cause. Getting her squadmates -- Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge was a bit more difficult, as I had no idea how they would have gotten converted originally. I also had no idea where Barret was, the supposed leader of the Midgar cell of Avalanche. 

But it all worked out. Tifa was managing 7th Heaven alongside Cloud's mom. She was part of Avalanche, or trying to be, leading her own cell which kept dependent on Jinx since I’d Synth'd Avalanche's top leaders years ago. In all, things were right on track for canon. 

Well, mostly. 

“Dr. Waterloo,” came a smooth, posh accent from behind, and I was well aware of Rufus Shinra’s presence behind me long before I looked over my shoulder from an experiment I was running. Rufus Shinra wore an easy smile and a stark white trench coat with entirely too many buckles that were purely for aesthetics -- he didn’t look much like his old man, favoring his mother. “I hope that I didn’t find you at a bad time?”

He asked the question like he cared if he had or not. 

Rufus Shinra was the heir to the company, and as far as heirs went, I imagine that he checked a lot of the boxes one would want when it came to passing a legacy you worked your entire life to build. Handsome? Check. Charming? Check. Intelligent? Check. Able to think on his feet and keep calm? Check. Ambitious? Check and double-check.

It was the latter that was causing a rift to take place within the company over the past few years -- a rift that I had happily exploited for my own benefit, as had most. 

Rufus Shinra was feeling redundant because of a vial in a secure case that I was carrying. He was feeling that way because he was redundant. There wasn’t much of a point passing on your company when immortality was one injection away, after all. Naturally, it was causing some friction between father and son, which seemed to be coming to a head in my laboratory.

I threw on a friendly smile, “Not at all. Just putting the finishing touches on a sample,” I said, my gaze sliding to the Turks that flanked Rufus. Reno and Rude. They were of a similar age, and as far as I was aware, the pair had been brought up to be his bodyguards. Rufus and done what he could to cultivate his own support network inside of Shinra, but the majority of it was found in the Turks. 

“The immortality serum?” Rufus questioned with undisguised interest, striding into my lab as if he owned it. Which he kinda did. “I must say, Dr. Waterloo -- when I heard of your efforts, I thought you were a snakeoil salesman. One of many that have come and gone, producing nothing of substance and stealing away in the dead of night. I never expected for you to succeed.”

One thing that Rufus didn’t have going for him was his overbearing arrogance. It came with the territory of being the heir to a company that now controlled the world. He was self assured in the kind of way that only came from everything always going his way. 

Needless to say, I didn’t care for him much. I vastly preferred his father, who’d built his evil empire from the ground up over the course of a lifetime. It really made me think about my own son -- how maybe it would be better for him if he had to earn a world rather than being granted one on a silver platter. That’s how you ended up a spoiled brat like Rufus. 

I smiled but didn’t say anything, my gaze merely shifting from Reno to Rude and then settling once more on Rufus. Rufus smiled back, and his smile didn’t come any closer to reaching his eyes than my own did. Rufus picked up on my silence, his own smile growing a fraction as he thought that I was intimidated, and that gave him the confidence to approach. 

“Is this it?” He asked, picking up a priming fluid compound for my shitty version of Compound V. It had the same blue hue, but it was intermixed with mako and Jenova cells. 

I had to produce something to justify my budget. Most of the funds went to researching Mako and Materia -- in particular, Chaos Materia. I wanted my demon transformation, but it couldn't just be any demon transformation. It had to be sufficiently cool and grandiose, which left me attempting to tame Chaos. As one would expect, that was a frustrating endeavor that I was making steady progress with. 

I had whipped up a version of Compound V based on what I recalled from the notes I had skimmed from Curie and Singed. Really wish I paid more attention then, but I got the important bits. The serum I created only preserved telomere protection of cells, so the person who took it didn't suffer from the DNA damage that came with aging. Took me all of six months to figure it out, thanks to a liberal amount of human experimentation. 

However, I dumbed down the serum -- it needed to be taken once every six months, and once a month, there were maintenance injections. Which were just a cover for me to cultivate loyalty in President Shinra and prepare him for the grand reveal that he now worked for me and my interdimensional empire. 

“You are a little young to be worried about immortality,” I remarked to Rufus as he set the vials down. 

“One is never too young to think about the future. My future, in particular,” Rufus said, circling me. “What will it look like with an immortal father, I wonder? Despite what they might say, the Shinra Electric Company has and always will be the first child he sired… and my father isn't the type to retire. Not willingly.” 

Someone is getting desperate~! “That might be true… for now.” 

“For now?” Rufus questioned, coming to a stop next to me while Reno and Rude approached and tried to lean on me from across the table. 

“He might have a change of heart in a century or two,” I pointed out. “A hundred plus years is a long time to be doing the same thing. He might want a change of pace,” I pointed out, but I knew he wouldn't be convinced. Which was fine, cuz I didn't want him to become convinced. Not when his daddy issues were such a convenient lever to get him to do what I wanted. The best part was, Rufus was the type to think it was all his own idea. 

He offered a tight smile, but the thought of waiting a century for his turn to run Shinra had his eyes silently screaming. “Perhaps,” Rufus allowed, even as his tone said ‘over my dead body.’ “But a dutiful son can't help but be worried. Nothing comes without cost- without risk. I imagine immortality would be no different." 

“You would be correct -- only the cost was offloaded to a hundred or so prisoners from the Wutai War, who all died in rather horrific agony to work out the kinks to the serum,” I pointed out. 

“Quite right,” Rufus agreed, unbothered by the remark. Reno and Rude less so with their expression betraying a quiet disgust. “Yet, have all the kinks been worked out? Is it possible that you missed one?” He said, placing a hand on my shoulder and leaning with an expression that said there was a right answer. 

It was a real struggle to not roll my eyes. Harder to not laugh dismissively. 

I didn't like Rufus. It was a personal thing -- I could accept hypocrites, even adore them. Liars, thieves, and fools were my favorite toys to play with. I didn't even mind the arrogance of someone who was a bit too big for their britches. 

But I found that I had a growing distaste for arrogant fools of Rufus’ particular variety. The ones who’d had everything served to them on a silver platter and felt entitled for more. Those who never had to try at anything because the path to success was paved for them by others. Someone who had no true ambitions or passions of their own and wanted the world to fall into their lap with a wink and a smile. 

Rufus wasn't half as clever as he thought he was. If he was, then I'd like him a great deal more -- who didn't love a tale of a conflict between father and son over a legacy and fortune? I might have even been willing to help him murder his father, just to make sure Shinra stayed mine forever more. 

But he wasn't, so I wouldn’t. 

Case and point just arrived at the doorway, “Is there an issue?” Angeal's voice carried out as he arrived, leaning on a cane. It was the one lingering reminder of how close he had come to death. 

Reno and Rude both stiffened, whipping around. I had to swallow a laugh -- they really didn't post a lookout at the door. 

“No,” Rufus said, leaning back from me. “We were just leaving,” he said, his tail tucked between his legs and leaving the room. Angeal and I watched him go, the Ex-SOLDIER giving me a questioning look. 

“Was he trying to intimidate you?” He asked, a frown tugging at his lips. 

“Poorly. I wouldn't worry much about it,” I said, perfectly aware of the bug that Reno had placed underneath my desk during their intimidation display. “Off to escort me to President Shinra?” 

Angeal nodded, “This way, Dr. Waterloo.” 

“You can just call me Law, you know. Even Sephiroth does these days,” I pointed out, grabbing the secure case filled with the shitty Compound V. 

“It would dishonor me to not pay proper respect to the one who saved my life,” Angeal replied, walking with his cane. His recovery had been swift because of his Mako enhancements. Within a month he was back on his feet, but the damage had been done. There was some permanent damage, so his fighting days were long behind him. At least in terms of high level combat. He could still take any regular human in a fight, but even a Third Class SOLDIER could beat him. 

Since then, he’d become something between a bodyguard and a gopher for President Shinra. He also mentored the remaining SOLDIERs, but their numbers were dwindling. Of the hundreds that had been made during the Wutai War, there were less than fifty left in active service. The rest were taken behind the barn when they showed signs of degeneration. 

“Hasn't stopped Zack,” I snorted. At that, Angeal's expression betrayed him. 

He caught himself, but couldn't stop from asking, “How is he? They?” 

Zack and Cloud had been deliberately kept away from Midgar. I wasn't sure what kept them away originally, or how Zack died, so I had done what I could to instead distract them. I kept them out of sight, traveling across the world, as they gathered up materials and tracked down leads. They thought they were helping stop the degeneration in SOLDIERs. In reality, they were helping me with my research. 

They had found out that there were more Summons and made sure to grab them. They also found a few of the estimated locations of the WEAPONS, which would come in handy when the Planet tried to exterminate humanity. 

“They're good,” I replied, knowing that the last excursion I sent them on took them to the middle of an active volcano. “We're making progress,” I assured him, and Angeal looked relieved as we stepped into an elevator. 

And, as the doors slid shut to deliver us to President Shinra's penthouse, Angeal made a remark. “Rufus is growing bold,” he noted. 

“Yeah…” I agreed, though a smile curled at the edges of my lips. “Things are reaching their boiling point.” 

Meaning it was finally time to set things in motion.