Having walked around the other side of the conference hall, where at that very moment the entire top management of Shinra had gathered headed by the President himself, Alex finally managed to find out exactly what ingenious plan his group had used to ascend to this floor. Hearing that their entire scheme consisted of a banal penetration into the ventilation shaft through the men's toilet for the sake of eavesdropping on the meeting, Alex scratched his cheek in puzzlement.
He had naively assumed that this time they would take at least a slightly different path — for example, sneak into the ventilation through the women's toilet for variety. However, Alex himself did not particularly object to such everyday trifles moving in strict accordance with the canon.
Finding themselves by the doors of the men's toilet, the squad had to resolve an important dilemma: whether to enter there as a whole crowd or better to lie low nearby so as not to attract unnecessary attention. And before anyone managed to voice their options, Alex insistently reminded them that they had Steve in the team, who would guaranteed not attract anyone's suspicions while crawling through the narrow air ducts, as well as Yuffie, who had professionally trained to climb unnoticed into the most inaccessible places.
Noticing the slight confusion on his friends' faces, Alex quickly explained the essence: they could simply give Steve a smartphone and start a video broadcast in order to observe in real time exactly what the Shinra leadership was currently discussing.
Barely hearing Alex's plan, absolutely no one objected. Yuffie in particular — she turned out to be more glad than anyone to take on such a full-fledged spy mission. At that moment she was already fully fantasising about how deftly she would overhear a couple of the corporation's most important secrets, learn the mysteries of their secret weapons or obtain a heap of other priceless information.
Having coordinated the order of actions, Dean immediately began clearly explaining Steve's task to him, emotionally pointing a finger now at the screen of his phone, now at Yuffie, who was completely immersed in her dreams of stealing corporate secrets. The little Tonberry himself looked at Dean with an absolutely empty, glassy gaze, unhurriedly squeezing a dry piece of jerky in his tiny paws — expressing with his entire demeanour the deepest indifference to what was happening.
Meanwhile Barrett and Claudia decisively slipped inside the toilet to check whether there were any outsiders there, and if necessary to quietly drive out all the lingering visitors. While the others were entirely absorbed in implementing the eavesdropping plan, Alex carefully led Aerith and Tifa a little aside in order to sit down at the nearest table and not unnecessarily catch the eye of the rare passers-by.
"By the way, where are Jessie, Biggs and Wedge? Why didn't they come with you?" Alex asked with lively interest, swaggeringly settling onto the soft leather sofa, although deep down he already perfectly guessed the true reason.
"We jointly decided that someone needed to stay behind and directly handle the evacuation of the children as soon as we pull them out of the laboratory," Tifa spoke, settling on the sofa to Alex's right.
"And who was the author of such a wonderful proposal?" Alex inquired, casting a cheerful, understanding glance at Aerith, who was sitting down on the opposite side from him.
"That was me! I simply thought it would be maximally correct that way. After all, too many unforeseen things are happening around, and who knows what might happen," Aerith answered with a sly smile on her lips, looking at Alex with such a cunning gaze as if she had known from the very beginning that he himself had intended to pull something similar.
"I am fully confident that they will handle everything excellently. They only need to lead the children out of the Shinra building by the same route through which we ourselves arrived here, and everything will be perfectly fine," Tifa added, affirmatively nodding her head, unsuccessfully trying to rid herself of the strange pressing feeling under her ribs — as though something extremely unpleasant was about to happen very soon.
Noticing the barely perceptible wariness in Tifa's eyes, Alex did not voice the fact that the biggest and stinkiest portion of shit still had not fallen onto the fan — although it would happen very soon. Aerith also perfectly saw this latent anxiety in her friend's eyes, therefore with a warm smile she gently patted Tifa on the hand, wordlessly making it clear that they would definitely handle everything. Tifa smiled gratefully in response to such support and decided for safety's sake to change the subject while the others were entirely absorbed in the process of penetrating the ventilation shaft through the men's toilet.
Turning to Alex, she simply could not help inquiring what had happened to him on the lower floors and exactly what he had been busy with all this time. Even Aerith perked up, turned to Alex and, absolutely not hiding her burning interest, stared intently straight into his eyes.
Hearing this straightforward question, Alex embarrassedly scratched his cheek, wondering exactly which words he should choose. He clearly did not want to describe in all the bloody details that wild massacre he had arranged in the elevator lobby, and that picturesque trail of mutilated corpses left on the stair landings while he was climbing upward.
Noticing this shifting gaze, Aerith slightly narrowed her eyes, instantly seeing through that Alex was hiding something from them. In her eyes playful sparks of curiosity immediately flared up. Aerith began insistently and rhythmically poking her finger straight into Alex's cheek, loudly reminding how strongly they had worried about him when he was left one-on-one with the problems below. Tifa only affirmatively nodded, confirming that she too had been unable to find a place for herself while he was dealing with his affairs.
"All right-all right, I'll tell everything! I simply gave a thrashing to the suddenly barging psychos from Deepground. And then strolled a little around the Shinra headquarters. Arranged a small diversion in the SOLDIER barracks. And along the way dropped into Tseng's office to officially demand payment for my hard labours. And after that I came here, and we met with you," Alex began justifying himself with a sigh, carefully omitting the details about sprinkling the SOLDIER underwear with hot pepper powder and the brazen extortion of money from Rufus through Tseng.
"And why did you demand some payment specifically from Tseng? I can still understand the diversion — in case we are noticed during the escape. But what does payment for your services have to do with it at all?" Tifa asked with slight doubt in her voice, puzzledly tilting her head to the side and peering into Alex's face.
"Because Rufus passionately yearns to unleash a full-scale coup in Shinra with my hands. And his beloved daddy has a rather dangerous secret army of bio-idiots hidden right under Midgar. And among them there is a six of the most psycho Tsviets. Or rather, now already a four — two of them, to their own sorrowful misfortune, tried to hinder me from climbing upward," Alex answered in an extremely calm tone, simultaneously pulling his smartphone from his pocket in order to connect to the broadcast when right above their heads there rang out a characteristic rustle — Steve and Yuffie had successfully crawled through the ventilation duct.
"And what exactly did you demand as modest compensation for your labours?" Aerith spoke in an exaggeratedly important tone, perfectly understanding that the question about the mountain of corpses that was on the tip of her tongue was better not voiced right now, for the answer to it already lay on the surface.
"The rarest Red Materia that Rufus has stashed in his stores. Or, at worst, he will have to shell out exactly 158 million gil," Alex answered with a slight shrug of his shoulders and finally connected to Dean's phone, checking whether Steve and Yuffie had gotten lost in the winding ventilation shaft.
Hearing the colossal sum of gil that Alex without a twinge of conscience had demanded for his hard labours, Tifa could not restrain herself and went into a convulsive cough, simply choking on her saliva from extreme surprise. Aerith, having heard such a figure, with excitement raised her hands and began enthusiastically bending her fingers, calculating how many incredible things could be bought with this money and what a luxurious house with a huge garden for flowers could be built on it.
Muttering under her breath and on the go enumerating an endless list of things, Aerith quickly realised: even if she bought the house of her dreams and lived there together with Alex, surrounded by a sea of different flowers, they would still have a simply merciless mountain of gil left.
Casting a quick glance at the daydreaming Aerith who was rapturously whispering about a spacious mansion in the middle of an endless flower field, Alex turned to Tifa, who still could not stop coughing. Carefully stroking Tifa's back to help her catch her breath, Alex with an ironic smirk reminded her how much he was generally accustomed to taking for solving problems of such scale.
Hearing this reminder, Tifa took a deep breath, embarrassedly recalling his previous words that for work he took exclusively the rarest artefacts whose real value was not subject to calculation at all.
Quietly sighing, Tifa forced out a warm smile and noted that with such a fantastic quantity of gil one could easily restore from scratch all the Sector Seven Slums, turning them into a beautiful, safe place to live. Hearing these words, Alex was not in the least surprised — Tifa remained true to herself and even in such a wild situation first of all thought about others.
Quietly chuckling, Alex playfully poked a finger right into her little nose, reminding that first they needed to deal with the current deadly problems, and only a little later would they begin to indulge in large-scale dreams.
"Oh, it seems our scouts have already reached the place… Ugh, there he is. Hojo!" Aerith spoke up, pointing a finger at the bright screen of Alex's smartphone, and immediately grimaced with disgust when the professor's face appeared in close-up in the frame.
"Yep… At the very first glance at that mug I got an irresistible desire to punch him," Alex affirmatively nodded, adjusting the phone so that both Tifa and Aerith could observe as conveniently as possible.
"It's still too early…" Aerith answered quietly and meaningfully, lightly poking Alex in the thigh with her finger.
"Yeah, I know, I've already managed to verify it on my own hide," Alex answered, slightly rolling his eyes, and playfully pushed Aerith back with his hip.
"What does 'too early' mean?" Tifa asked puzzledly, catching the strange subtext in Aerith's words.
"All questions later! Right now all attention on the broadcast — perhaps right now we will hear something really useful. For example, where exactly they are holding the kidnapped children," Alex spoke in an extremely calm and businesslike tone, lightning-fast changing the topic of conversation in order to avoid answers that clearly should not have sounded at the given moment.
Looking at Alex, Tifa decided that for now it really was better not to fixate on his strange conversation with Aerith and the mysterious words that it was "still early" for them to act. Turning her head toward the glowing smartphone screen, Tifa moved a little closer to Alex and more comfortably propped herself on his shoulder. Aerith also moved closer to Alex and tightly hugged his arm — not only because she desperately wanted to be as close to him as possible, but also for the elementary sense of safety.
For the very presence of Hojo, even if broadcast through the small phone display, caused her a sticky feeling of anxiety and latent fear. She better than anyone present understood how extremely mad this man was and what wild excesses he was capable of going to for the sake of his monstrous experiments. Aerith clearly realised: if not for President Shinra's passionate desire to find the Promised Land, her life within the laboratory walls could have turned out far more nightmarishly.
Sensing Aerith's hidden worry, Alex lightly poked a finger into her thigh, gently making it clear that he was nearby and everything would be perfectly fine. Feeling this simple sign of support, Aerith instantly relaxed, slightly narrowed her eyes and began carefully observing the broadcast from the conference hall.
Sensing that Aerith's emotions had finally settled, Alex slightly increased the volume on the smartphone in order to hear the details of the conversation better. And the moment he did so, from the speaker burst the panicked, squealing voice of Palmer, who in all the horrific colours was trying to describe to his colleagues his recent meeting with Sephira.
Tifa had no idea whom this frightened fat man was babbling about at all, but she clearly discerned the bright red mark on his nape — as though something extremely sharp had been jabbed into his head with full force. She simply could not help asking about this, puzzledly poking a finger right at the phone screen.
With all his strength trying not to burst into loud laughter again from the fresh memories, Alex briefly explained to the girls exactly what had happened by the doors a couple of minutes before their arrival on the floor. Hearing the details of the fiasco with Scarlet's dress and the sharp heel, Tifa only quietly pressed her lips together at such an absurd and wild coincidence of circumstances, while Aerith completely buried her nose in Alex's shoulder, shaking with silent laughter.
Cheerfully chuckling together with them, Alex returned to listening to the airwaves at the exact moment when Reeve Tuesti once again tried to push through a large-scale project for the restoration of the destroyed Slums. However he did not manage to reach even the middle of his report — the other directors instantly interrupted him, not allowing him to properly clarify even the basic part of the plan.
"Fortunately Barrett doesn't hear any of this right now… I'm afraid he would already have burst in there with furious shouts and the sole desire — to strangle this entire top with his own hands," Tifa said with a sigh, listening to how the Shinra directors were not even intending to think about rescuing the affected people.
"It's understandable. They first destroyed your home to the ground, and now pretend as though nothing terrible happened. And the fact that a heap of people were left without a roof over their heads is no problem for them at all," Alex affirmatively nodded, casting a short glance toward the men's toilet where at that moment Barrett, Dean and Claudia were lying low.
Tifa only quietly nodded her head and returned to watching the broadcast, hoping finally to hear what they had climbed up here for at all. Barely had Scarlet and Heidegger once again sharply reined in Reeve for his "stupid and irrational" care for the Slums residents when the hitherto silent President Shinra unhurriedly brought an expensive cigar to his lips. Taking a drag, he authoritatively reminded Reeve that as soon as the Ancient was in their hands, their grandiose Neo-Midgar project would be realised right on the territory of the fairy-tale Promised Land.
At these pompous words Aerith only quietly snorted: no "Promised Land" in the corporation's understanding existed at all. She had known this for certain since early childhood, when her mother told her the ancient legends. The Promised Land is not a specific piece of land with rich Mako deposits at all, but the entire Planet Gaia, where absolutely every corner is capable of becoming a true home for all living things. Hearing President Shinra's confident speech, Tifa turned to Alex and Aerith, unable to restrain herself from the logical question of whether the Promised Land actually existed.
Alex and Aerith synchronously shook their heads, and Aerith softly added that absolutely every person or beast born already from the first breath lives on this very Promised Land. Having received such a poetic answer, Tifa slowly nodded and turned back to the screen. By this moment President Shinra had finished colourfully describing his ambitions for building a Mako megapolis and handed the floor to Hojo. Beginning to speak, the professor immediately announced that absolutely everything was proceeding in strict accordance with his schedule.
But he had not managed to finish the first thought when he casually transitioned to the question that interested him most of all — exactly what characteristics the offspring obtained from crossing Alex and Aerith would possess. At these shocking words a thick blush instantly appeared on Aerith's cheeks. She dryly coughed into her little fist, with all her strength trying to throw out of her head the vivid thoughts that had involuntarily flared up in her mind.
Tifa also did her utmost to pretend as though she had not heard these wild phrases, and embarrassedly turned away, burning with red cheeks. Seeing the girls' reaction, Alex only quietly sighed, considering it his duty to remind them that Hojo remained a complete mad bastard, and hypothetical children for him were nothing more than convenient material for laboratory research.
"I don't want to shatter your exaggerated and illusory fantasies about children, but simply remember whose exact mug just uttered these words," Alex added in a calm, grounding tone, poking a finger at the screen of his phone right into Hojo's physiognomy.
"I know! But that doesn't prevent thinking about the future at all… Am I right, Tifa?" Aerith answered, embarrassedly coughing into her little fist, and pleadingly looked at her friend in search of support.
"I completely agree with you! Besides, no one is forcing us to do this right now at all…" Tifa blurted out on emotion in an embarrassed tone, not even noticing how cruelly she had misspoken.
"Us?!" Alex slightly raised an eyebrow with irony, staring at Tifa, and her face at that same instant flared up even stronger, becoming a shade redder.
"I meant — you! More precisely, I meant the two of you! And in general… Well, for children to appear, first a second half must appear… Then dates, romance, a wedding, a shared home, and only then children! A-a-and… Well… It's not at all necessary that the children be specifically between the two of you! Maybe… Maybe an ordinary girl would also be quite suitable!" Tifa began panickedly and in one breath justifying herself, herself not noticing how with each new phrase she more and more revealed her true thoughts.
Tifa realised too late that in a surge of emotion she had said far too much of what she had intended to keep in the strictest secrecy. Realising how rashly she had blurted out the extra, Tifa covered her flaming face with her palms and emitted a long, dejected groan of sorrow — as though her entire habitual life at that very second had irrevocably come to an end.
Seeing her friend's catastrophic state, Aerith mischievously laughed and pulled Alex by the sleeve toward herself, making it clear that she wanted to switch places with him. Feeling himself insistently pulled to the side, Alex turned to Aerith, not properly understanding what exactly she was after.
Meeting his gaze, Aerith with a smile playfully raised a thumbs-up — meaning, leave everything to me, I'll handle everything in the best way. Seeing the frank "gremlin" gleam in Aerith's eyes, Alex could not help expressing vague doubts, but decided for now not to burden his head with this. Having switched places with her, he returned to watching the broadcast.
Having sat down tightly against Tifa, Aerith immediately began enthusiastically whispering something to her right into her ear. Hearing the revelations sounding nearby, Tifa first frankly shuddered, and then slowly raised her head with an absolutely stunned face — as though she had just heard something so shocking that she simply had no words for an answer.
Seeing that her provocative idea had succeeded splendidly, Aerith continued with excitement to implement her plan, not even attempting to hide the mischievous gleam in her eyes. Not listening in on the girls' secret conversations, Alex continued to follow the course of the meeting.
His eyelid twitched several times nervously when the mad details of Hojo's plan for the artificial recreation of the Ancient population reached him. Listening to this nonsense of a psychopath detached from reality, Alex simply could not help thinking that his one little princess alone would have been more than enough to leave of the entire enormous Midgar only a level scorched earth.
And even if Hojo by some miracle tried to cross paths with his daughters, Alex himself would not even have to interfere: his wives would personally and extremely graphically explain to the mad scientist what happens to those who risk meddling with the Voldigoad family.
Immersing himself in such thoughts, Alex caught only the very last words of President Shinra, who unconditionally approved Hojo's initiative for breeding Ancients and promised to allocate even more resources under this project. Seeing that the tedious and exhausting top meeting had finally come to an end, Alex wearily rubbed his eyes and hid the smartphone back in his pocket.
"Excellent, this shit has finally ended. Now we have a wonderful chance to corner this bastard," Alex said loudly enough to distract Aerith and Tifa from their secret whispering.
"Do you think he'll voluntarily tell us everything?" Tifa asked, frowning, with all her strength trying to keep herself in hand despite the still flaming cheeks after the conversation with Aerith.
"If he doesn't want to talk nicely — we'll quickly force him," Dean spoke, exiting the men's toilet together with the rest of the group and carelessly holding Steve by the hood like a plush toy.
"I'm personally all for it! I hope no one objects if I break a couple of bones for this psycho?" Barrett growled, with a distinct crack stretching his neck, and with the desire to beat someone up with full force struck his fist against his broad palm.
"Actually, it's always better to start with the fingers. After such a layout absolutely everyone becomes incredibly talkative," Alex answered in an everyday tone, rising from the leather sofa and carelessly tossing onto the seat the black jacket stolen from Reeve's office.
In response to Alex's harsh proposal Barrett broke into an even wider and more bloodthirsty grin, temptingly cracking his fingers — with his entire demeanour demonstrating that he was not at all against testing right now the maximum compression strength of his cybernetic arm. Absolutely no one from the group objected to beating the needed information out of Hojo by force. Claudia in particular, for whom the mere mention of this mad professor caused a sharp pulsing pain in the head and a burning, almost uncontrollable desire to finish him off instantly.
Rolling up the sleeves of his strict black shirt, Alex calmly noted that they should wait a little in cover until President Shinra and the other directors finally left the floor. He had not managed to take even a few steps forward when Yuffie nimbly jumped up to the very corner in order to personally scout the situation in the lobby. Pressed against the wall, the group carefully listened to Yuffie's half-whisper quietly commenting who of the leadership had already left for the elevators and who was still lingering.
Standing a little aside shoulder to shoulder with Dean, Alex quietly explained to him that Hojo under any circumstances must not die today. The moment these words sounded, Dean stared at Alex with such a wild facial expression as though the latter had in all seriousness uttered nonsensical stupidity. Wearily sighing, Alex briefly described to him what had happened a couple of minutes before their arrival — when he himself had sincerely tried to tear out Hojo's spine, and how a cloud of Gray Whisperers had instantly spilled out of the walls, ready to protect the professor to the death with their chests.
"Are you saying this in all seriousness right now?! So we can't off this bastard at all?! From what the fuck are we obligated to leave alive a bastard who sleeps and dreams of dissecting your girlfriend?!" Dean flared up with open irritation, looking at Alex as at a madman.
"Because the cause-and-effect connection is still rather firmly sitting in its place. That's why," Alex answered, slightly rolling his eyes, and poked a finger precisely into Dean's chest.
"What the fuck is sitting in its place?! What kind of bullshit is this that I'm hearing for the first time?!" Dean asked, twisting his face from sincere bewilderment, and annoyedly waved away Alex's finger that had poked into his chest.
"Fuck! Do you remember that completely absurd joke of Balthazar and Cass with the 'Titanic'?" Alex asked, emotionally gesturing with his hand, trying to pick for Dean the most accessible explanation.
"Is that when old Cass with his buddy Balthazar didn't let the 'Titanic' sink, because of which no one died? And then some whore with golden threads began systematically snipping all the descendants of those survivors?" Dean asked, crossing his arms on his chest, frantically fishing from the depths of memory the vague recollections of many years ago.
"That was Norn. But yes, you remembered the essence absolutely correctly. Only here everything is far more serious. Until a new direction of fate is formed, we are forced to move along the original channel. Even if the path itself has already critically deviated, and the bowstring is stretched to the limit. And now we have exactly two options left: either erase Hojo from reality completely, or wait for the right moment, and only then arrange for him an unforgettable anal carnival on a rusty wheel," Alex said, simultaneously pulling an ordinary office rubber band from his pocket in order to graphically demonstrate to Dean the processes taking place.
"So if right now I want to shove the barrel of my pistol into this bastard's ass and stuff him with lead so that he later shits bullets until the next century — these Gray Fart-Whisperers will immediately crawl out, fuck everyone and save this idiot?!" Dean thoughtfully expressed, took the rubber band from Alex's hands and with a crack tore it with two fingers.
"Exactly so. Therefore for now we'll limit ourselves only to a light thrashing and a couple of broken bones," Alex nodded, squeezing the torn rubber band between his fingers and instantly returning it to its original intact form.
Observing how Alex swaggeringly stretched the whole rubber band between his fingers, Dean irritably snorted and with a light click raised his fingers. At that same second the rubber band in Alex's hands instantly flared with dense black flame and in a fraction of an instant crumbled onto the floor as weightless ash.
Noticing exactly what Dean had pulled off, Alex from sincere surprise raised an eyebrow high — he clearly had not expected that his friend had already learned to perform such dashing tricks using the destructive power of Amara. Seeing Alex's stunned physiognomy, Dean proudly snorted, not forgetting with a grin to note that he too had not sat idle after that wild beating in the Red City which he had had to endure completely against his will.
Quietly chuckling, Alex made a smooth gesture with his fingers as if still holding the stretched rubber band, and the tips of his nails flared with bright transparent-bluish light. Right before Dean's eyes the rubber band destroyed a moment ago in a fraction of a second rolled time backward, fully returning to its original intact form, and Alex as if nothing had happened continued to stretch it.
Grinning, Alex in a cheerful tone reminded Dean that they were not breaking Fate at the root at all, but only carefully directing it onto a completely new path. In response to these philosophical inquiries Dean only spat out his habitual succinct phrase about exactly what he thought of Fate and to which specific address it should go.
Having gotten carried away with the skirmish with Dean, they did not even notice how the remaining directors finally left the floor, and Professor Hojo last of all exited the conference hall, still insanely muttering under his breath his mad concepts. Alex paid attention to this only when Tifa quietly poked a finger into his back, attracting attention to herself.
Turning their heads, Alex and Dean managed to notice how Hojo was just leaving the lobby. Clearly understanding that this psycho was now heading straight for his laboratory, Alex immediately tore from the spot and ran forward in order to intercept him before the armoured doors closed.
Seeing that Alex at full speed had dashed into the corridor, the entire remaining group did not waste a single second and instantly rushed after him. Reaching the massive sliding doors, Alex on the run waved Tseng's keycard in front of the scanner and jumped out onto the wide balcony leading to the escalators. Looking around, he spotted Hojo: the professor had already applied his pass, opened the doors into his laboratory complex and was fully preparing to step across the threshold.
"Oi, cunt! Turn around!" Alex loudly barked, with an ominous look heading in broad strides toward Hojo.
"Hmm…" Hojo only puzzledly hummed, hearing the insolent shout behind his back and slowly turning his head.
Turning back, Hojo saw the outlines of a painfully familiar face that he so passionately yearned to behold within the walls of his laboratory. Hojo's lips instantly spread into an ugly grin of genuine ecstasy — his genius prediction had come true, and the one he so needed had himself voluntarily come right into his hands.
Immersing himself in his own madness from thoughts of the forthcoming sadistic experiments on Alex, Hojo completely forgot that before him stood a man who not long ago had broadcast throughout all of Midgar how with bare hands he crushed combat robots into crumbs.
With a wide smile on his lips Alex in several measured steps caught up with Hojo and, without uttering a single word, with full force slammed a kick precisely into his chest, forcing him to tumble head over heels inside the premises. Hojo did not even manage to realise what had happened: a dull suppressed groan escaped from his throat, and he with a swing slammed back-first into the opposite metal wall.
Alex had to apply colossal internal efforts in order to calculate the blow and not accidentally turn Hojo into a bloody mist, but only solidly send him into a deep knockout. Staring at the sprawled and unconscious carcass, Alex sarcastically smiled: since the Gray Whisperers still had not crawled out of the cracks, it meant he was acting within strictly permissible Canon frameworks.
The others managed to jump out onto the balcony after Alex at the exact epic moment when he heartily walloped the bastard Hojo with a kick to the sternum. Seeing how the professor flew backward like a rag doll, Aerith with a sincere smile excitedly clenched her little fists behind her back — she herself desperately wanted to pull something similar.
Holding the heavy door for the others, Alex hurried them with a hand gesture in order to manage to jump inside before random witnesses noticed them. Having run into the open doorway of the laboratory, the entire group with undisguised interest stared at the unconscious Hojo lying by the wall with a distinct dirty sneaker print on his snow-white coat.
"Great kick, kid! I myself would have taken enormous pleasure in doing the same. But I'm afraid I would have accidentally killed this bastard on the spot. Just look how skinny he is… I'd accidentally snap him like a dry match," Barrett spat with deep disgust, lightly kicking Hojo in the leg.
"I tried with all my strength not to accidentally finish him off. And believe me, that was damned hard," Alex answered with a grin, swaggeringly pulling a thin cigar from the back pocket of his jeans.
"In any case it's still early to kill him. First we'll find out where exactly this psychopath is holding the kidnapped children, and only then will he become finally useless," Claudia said, strictly folding her arms on her chest and looking at Hojo from above with contempt.
"But first we need to somehow wake him up. I don't think our mad bastard is capable of constructive dialogue in such a switched-off state," Dean added with a predatory grin, playfully cracking his knuckles and clearly intending to deliver a couple of invigorating blows to Hojo's jaw for a quicker awakening.
"I can help! I already have excellent experience in the matter of quickly waking people up," Aerith volunteered in a cheerful tone, rhythmically tapping the toe of her boot on the metal floor.
"I'm afraid after your signature kick he will only shamelessly squeal like a slaughtered pig and definitely won't be tuned for a normal dialogue," Alex said in a soft, affectionate tone, tenderly stroking Aerith's silky hair.
"Oh, I can help with that! Somewhere I definitely had one cool thing that helps wake up excellently… So, where is it… I one hundred percent took it with me!" Yuffie spoke, cheerfully jumping in place, and began excitedly rummaging in her capacious belt bag in search of the needed item.
To be continued...
(Right, Hojo has been nabbed, so I can move on to the plot points I actually needed. Namely, the arrival of Valerie and her group, rescuing the orphans, and dropping a few hints for Alex that'll start getting under his skin. And plenty more. Damn, why is it so hard to cram all that into a single chapter? It feels like the universe is just messing with me. It sucks. Oh well—screw it; I'm sticking to my planned outline. Besides, where else are you going to find an author who posts chapters this long every single day? You ought to be kissing my feet. Exactly. Now, time for a beer and some *Resident Evil*. Peace, love, and—if you need to make the person you're talking to shut up—just kick them right in the chest. Don't actually do that, though; I'm kidding.)
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