Sincerely not wishing for them to run into serious problems ahead of time through the fault of one excessively eccentric and noisy idiot, Valerie, Angel and Heather dashed headlong in pursuit of Nobukatsu, who had decided to subject himself to severe punishment and climb to the sixty-second floor exclusively in a handstand. Running out into the spacious main lobby of the Shinra headquarters, the girls swept the space with a quick glance in search of the fleeing guy.
While they were looking around, Heather could not restrain herself and quietly whistled in mild surprise. Honestly speaking, she still had not fully gotten used to such insane scales and had seen far too few worlds for such fantastical decorations to become commonplace for her.
Looking around, Heather suddenly pulled out her smartphone and decided to take a couple of memorable selfies against the background of a massive exhibition stand with old retro cars so that in the future she could definitely show them to her father. In general she had never lied to her father about exactly where she was going — she simply confessed to him about her interdimensional escapes exclusively when she was already physically in another world, so that Harry would elementary have no opportunity to reach her. Having finished snapping the shots, Heather heard herself being loudly called and sharply raised her head.
Noticing Angel standing on the stair landing, who was gesturing for her to hurry, Heather instantly put the phone into her pocket and hurried to her friends. Running up the steps, Heather caught up with the others at the exact moment when Angel touched the sensor panel for reading keycards with her finger, unlocking the glass doors leading into the elevator lobby.
Finding themselves inside the spacious elevator lobby, the girls froze, stunned as they surveyed the completely wrecked walls, the cracked ceiling and the floor strewn with fragments. And right in the epicentre of all this destruction lay a massive beheaded corpse of a man, from whose torn chest stuck out a large-calibre machine gun from a combat helicopter.
"You can immediately see the signature style of big brother," Valerie said with a light, satisfied smirk, carefully stepping around the wide pool of blood that had managed to accumulate under Azul's mutilated body.
"Only why is there… well, so suspiciously little corpses and blood here, considering all these large-scale destructions?" Heather drawled with noticeable doubt in her voice, looking around and recalling from her own experience exactly how Alex usually acted in such situations.
"Most likely this is the neat work of Zhang Ya… Listen, are we going to take this gun with us or leave it for the local rats?" Angel inquired reasonably with a shrug, pointing a finger at the massive barrel of the machine gun stuck dead in Azul's sternum.
"I think… Yes, we should grab it. Becca and Moira would definitely start grumbling if we didn't bring them this. I'm sure they would definitely want to personally feel how exactly the local technological idiots managed to modify such army weaponry… Nobukatsu, stop running on your hands, better do something useful and grab this machine gun," Valerie answered, slightly tilting her head to the side, and with a lazy motion of her chin pointed Nobukatsu at Azul's corpse.
"Awesome! This thing looks quite weighty and brutal. This machine gun will be perfect for my strength training today!" Nobukatsu enthusiastically roared, flying up to the body from a run and seizing with a firm grip both hands the handles of the machine gun sticking out of the chest.
Without any particular problems yanking the heavy machine gun out of the defeated Azul's chest, Nobukatsu first disgustedly shook the shreds of blood from the barrel, after which he assessed the overall mass of the weapon. Sensing that the weight was ideal for strength loads, Nobukatsu immediately began cheerfully squatting with it as if in his hands was an expensive sports barbell and not a deadly army machine gun.
Casting a tired glance at Nobukatsu, who continued to squat and fully shout his favourite slogan about the Power of Youth, Valerie turned to Angel and asked her to try calling a surviving elevator for them.
Thoughtfully looking around, Angel lightly touched the call sensor panel with her finger — her left hand instantly covered itself with a soft bluish glow after she put her unique Siren abilities into play. Having scanned and restored the operation of the elevator's electronic systems, Angel turned to Valerie and Heather, pointing with her hand at the only surviving lift that was located right behind them.
In the next instant from somewhere in the shaft rang out a dull melodic signal of the cabin's arrival on the floor. But the moment the massive elevator doors began to open, an unpleasant screech of a jammed mechanism spread through the lobby. Staring at the metal panels strongly bent inward, Angel confidently pointed at them with her finger.
At that same second right between the jammed doors a tiny sphere of pure energy flared up, which at the very first contact with the iron instantly disintegrated it into atoms. Barely had the obstacle blocking the passage disappeared when Valerie and Heather stepped first into the spacious cabin.
Following them entered Angel and Nobukatsu, who even inside the elevator did not stop performing his exhausting strength exercises for a fraction of a second. Finding themselves inside, Angel again touched the wall control panel, and the cabin smoothly went upward — despite the fact that there were no longer any protective doors on the opening.
"I still can't get used to your amazing abilities, Angel. Actually I only knew about sirens from school fairy tales and textbooks. There they were described as dangerous sea monsters who with their enchanted singing lured trusting travellers to certain death in the water," Heather spoke with a soft smile, casting a short glance at her friend standing nearby.
"Oh, don't you go telling me about any monsters here… Who's the one who constantly lives in her own shadow? Maybe I should thoroughly refresh your memory about that?" Angel parried with a light, mischievous laugh, casting a meaningful glance at Heather and then shifting her eyes to the dark silhouette at her feet.
"Hey! Don't you dare remind me about that! Agree, it's not every day you find out that entire colonies of nightmare creatures live in your own shadow. I almost had a full-blown heart attack then when that damn Pyramid Head crawled right out from under my feet! Alex didn't even bother to warn me about this 'little thing'. Before I naively thought that only Alessa was capable of such tricks," Heather indignantly protested, angrily poking a finger in the area of her own shadow where for a moment dozens of ominous red eyes flared up and immediately went out.
"Well, you and Alessa are essentially twins, even if born in a strange way. So it's quite logical that you also have access to these shadow things. Didn't Alex explain all this to you when he performed the separation procedure?" Valerie drawled lazily, leaning her back against the metal wall of the elevator, folding her arms on her chest and casting an extremely interested glance at Heather.
"Please, let's not raise this topic again… I've already repeated a hundred times: no, Alex didn't say a single word about this to me! All I got from him as a farewell was the phrase: 'Heather, now you are absolutely free, enjoy your ordinary human life'. And not a single damn word about monsters nesting in my shadow! He of course helped me invaluably, but that doesn't mean at all that I don't want to strangle him with my own hands right now for such a surprise," Heather spat in an irritated tone, fiercely clenching her hands as if she were already mentally strangling someone.
"Well… The situation is of course sad. But right now I'm more interested in a completely different question. If Alex essentially became Alessa's biological father, and you are Alessa's twin… Then what are you to Alex himself?" Angel said puzzledly, quietly coughing into her fist, calmly shoving her hands into the pockets of her sports jacket and looking at Heather as if she already had a ready answer to this family puzzle.
"Um… Honestly, I have no idea. Niece?.. Or maybe adoptive daughter?.. Hmm… Listen, this is really some very strange and uncomfortable question," Heather muttered, blinking in surprise, frantically trying to figure out exactly what place she now occupied in their insane family tree.
"And why the hell did you even voice that? Now I'm also insanely interested! And is there even some normal name for this type of tangled kinship relations?" Valerie exhaled loudly, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, and began frantically reflecting in search of at least some logic.
Just one tricky question forced Angel, Valerie and Heather to freeze for a moment and exchange completely confused glances in which genuine research interest and a wild desire to get to the truth at all costs brightly burned.
Deeply immersed in intellectual reflections, the three girls even stopped paying any attention at all to Nobukatsu, who continued to fiercely engage in his invariable strength training, using the heavy army machine gun as an improvised barbell.
The rapidly ascending elevator cabin quickly filled with dense silence, diluted only by the monotonous hum of floors flying past and the cheerful shouts of Nobukatsu, who invariably yelled about the Power of Youth with every new deep squat.
Thoughtfully scratching her cheek, Heather raised her index finger upward and already opened her mouth, sincerely believing that she had finally found the ideal answer to this tangled question about her family status in relation to Alex. However, realising how absurd it would sound out loud, she quickly shut her mouth and disappointedly lowered her hand.
Valerie in search of the truth went even further and right on the move dashed off a long message into the common family messenger, desperately hoping that someone from the older girls would be able to untangle this knot. Valerie particularly counted on the erudition of the Red and White Queens, who by definition were carriers of colossal arrays of ancient and modern knowledge.
Angel meanwhile in parallel engaged her unique Siren abilities, connecting through internal channels to the city data transmission networks in order to extract the answer from the databases in no time. And while the girls were entirely absorbed in solving this most important, in their opinion, family puzzle, the elevator cabin softly reached the 59th floor and smoothly stopped.
Hearing the characteristic sound signal, Heather, Valerie and Angel synchronously shifted their gazes to the silently sliding elevator doors and unanimously nodded, unanimously deciding that they would definitely return to this question tormenting their souls the moment they dealt with all current affairs in the Shinra headquarters. Exiting the spacious cabin onto the floor, Valerie immediately turned to Angel, inquiring where exactly they should move further in order to break through to the sixty-second level as quickly as possible.
"This way. The needed escalators are on the opposite side of this wing. This way we can run to the spacious library that Mayor Domino is entirely in charge of the fastest," Angel confidently explained, leading the entire company after herself and easily unlocking the locked glass automatic doors.
"Stop… The mayor of the city personally manages the library? So what is he in the end — a full-fledged mayor or an ordinary librarian?" Heather inquired with a fair share of scepticism in her voice, passing through the opened panels after Angel.
"For the local naive residents of this city he is the mayor, and in practice — a typical old man without real levers of power… For such a phenomenon there seems to be even a special word," Valerie answered with a sarcastic smirk, stepping onto the moving escalator belt.
"You wouldn't happen to mean 'mascot', would you?" Heather guessed, raising her gaze to Valerie and lightly resting her hands on the plastic railings.
"Exactly. Did you not even bother to read the analytical documents about this world issued before the mission?" Valerie clarified with a smile, casting a light glance over her shoulder at her as she approached the transition to the next lift.
"Not really… I got absorbed in the description of Materia. I was insanely interested to find out what these magical spheres even are. Damn, I'm seriously thinking of grabbing a couple of pieces for myself as a souvenir," Heather answered with a shrug, on the move demonstrating the screen of her smartphone where a detailed reference article about the properties of Materia was fully displayed.
"By the way, I'm also terribly curious to study this very Materia and understand how exactly it will interact with my own Siren power," Angel supported the conversation thoughtfully nodding, lazily moving her fingers and slightly engaging hidden energy waves.
"To hell with your Materia! My personal Power of Youth — that is absolute and unbreakable power!" Nobukatsu shouted over the hum of the escalator at the top of his voice, continuing to honestly work on squats with his weighty trophy machine gun.
"No one asked you here at all, you walking muscular head," Valerie tossed, heavily sighing and rolling her eyes to the ceiling, bestowing upon Nobukatsu a maximally empty and indifferent gaze.
In response to these digs Nobukatsu proudly straightened to his full height, effectively tensing the muscles on his arms and with his entire demeanour demonstrating that the unique techniques of his great spiritual mentor Might Guy were unconditionally the best and most reliable weapon for absolutely any life situation.
Having taken the reasonable decision to no longer pay attention to Nobukatsu so as not to once again listen to fiery tirades about how amazing and unbreakable the Power of Youth was, Valerie shifted her gaze to Heather and Angel in order to discuss the details of their numerous side affairs that they would have to deal with immediately after they helped with the rescue of the kidnapped children.
Hearing these words, Heather immediately opened the official Guild application on her smartphone in order to carefully review exactly which assignments had come to their squad for this outing. With a light motion leaning closer, Angel relaxed and propped her elbow on Heather's shoulder and began aloud enumerating the fixed requests: starting from the banal extraction of rare types of Materia and ending with searches for exotic edible ingredients for the elite restaurant of Erina and Alice Nakiri.
And Angel had not managed to read even the first half of the list when new notifications instantly rained onto the screen: from wholesale purchase of local alcohol, souvenirs and rare books to large-scale collection of analytical data about the local fauna.
Not having finished reading this endless list to the end, Angel raised an impressed gaze to Valerie and stated that for the fulfilment of all these numerous hobby-requests they would clearly have to linger in this world for a long time. Valerie in response to these words only mischievously smiled: after all, for them this would become yet another exciting adventure, while poor Alex would again have to save an entire world from catastrophe alone.
Heather and Angel exchanged glances and cheerfully shrugged their shoulders, considering that setting out on yet another carefree journey through such a spacious world was simply an excellent idea. After all, they did not need to frantically worry about the fact that the end was about to come for this planet — for that was Alex's habitual professional work. Having finally decided on the nearest plans, they at last reached the sixty-second floor, gracefully stepped off the escalator and stopped right in front of the massive doors leading into the spacious library.
"Well then, let's go see what interesting friends my big brother has managed to acquire in this world. I really hope they turn out not too boring," Valerie said with a cheerful smirk, examining the wooden doors of the library.
"Listen, has anyone ever told you that you sometimes talk and dress exactly like Alex?" Heather asked with a chuckle, surveying Valerie with an attentive gaze from head to the very boots.
"They say it constantly! He's my brother, so I don't see any problems in that at all," Valerie answered in a completely carefree tone, with a smile throwing her hands behind her head and turning her head to Heather.
"And is that exactly the reason you with particular cynicism brush off absolutely every guy who tries to hit on you and get acquainted?" Angel asked, sarcastically bursting into laughter, and playfully punched Valerie in the shoulder with her fist.
"They're all just the rarest pompous idiots! The last one, I remember, was some self-enamoured prince and turned out to be the most pretentious asshole of all the assholes I've ever met… Damn, what the hell was his name even?" Valerie drawled with a shrug and thoughtfully began stroking her chin, frantically trying to recall the name of yet another unsuccessful suitor.
Having decided not to clutter her head with stupid attempts to recall the name of yet another pompous idiot who had decided to hit on her, Valerie slightly leaned over the railings and looked upward, peering into the floor landings. The moment she looked out beyond the barrier, from the side of the sixty-fourth floor came a distinctly familiar voice, immediately followed by the ringing sound of a crushing impact. Hearing this emotional cry, Heather and Angel also curiously leaned over the railings and caught the echo of a multitude of steps rapidly moving across the upper level.
Perfectly understanding exactly what was happening upstairs right now, the girls quietly and mischievously laughed. It became obvious that they had arrived at the most ideal time — exactly at the moment when Alex had caught up with and finally seized by the throat that very bastard who had organised the kidnapping of the innocent children.
Exchanging understanding glances with warm smiles on their lips, Angel, Valerie and Heather decided to meet Jessie, Biggs and Wedge as soon as possible in order to fully prepare for the large-scale evacuation of the children that was supposed to begin in the very near future. Not wishing to waste precious time on empty conversations any longer, the girls purposefully headed toward the massive doors of the library.
Before finally leaving the landing, Valerie cast a last warm glance upward and sincerely smiled. She instantly recalled the personal message that Alex had recently sent her with an insistent request to look after Jessie, Biggs and Wedge.
For these three were being tried with all their might to be killed by the Gray Whisperers in order to forcibly restore the original, canonical path of this universe. Valerie herself perfectly understood what a shitty and cruel thing predetermined Fate could be — she had already managed to see with her own eyes that heavy and dark path that Vincent had walked in another timeline of her native world.
"Don't worry, bro. We'll definitely protect your new friends," Valerie said quietly with a confident smile before stepping into the opening and following Heather, Angel and Nobukatsu.
At that very same time Alex was in a long closed corridor that led straight to the first level of Hojo's underground laboratory. Right now absolutely all his attention was fixed on Yuffie, who with excitement was rummaging in her capacious belt bag, frantically searching for some potent means capable of instantly bringing any knocked-out person to their senses.
In parallel with her searches Dean and Barrett in one voice proposed the simplest and time-tested method: a couple more times with full force smash the head of the unconscious Hojo in order to finally wake this mad idiot who had decided to kidnap the innocent children.
And, strangely enough, together with them this harsh idea was sincerely supported by Aerith. Despite all her natural kindness, she was quite ready with full force to land a blow on Hojo right in the most dangerous and painful place for any man, sacredly believing that such a shock method would definitely wake anyone. Tifa preferred to trust Yuffie's means — she considered that first Hojo should clearly tell where exactly the kidnapped children were, and only then with this madman one could do whatever the soul desired.
Observing this chaotic consultation, Claudia only dryly proposed sending a strong discharge through Hojo's body via Lightning Materia — she was sincerely certain that this sadist regularly performed exactly the same procedures on his unfortunate test subjects.
Surveying the entire company with a thoughtful gaze, Alex heard a short sound notification signal on his smartphone and pulled it from the pocket of his jeans. On the screen an operational message from Valerie was displayed: they had successfully met Jessie, Biggs and Wedge on the sixty-second floor and were already fully ready to move out when the evacuation of the children began.
Quickly typing a short reply text, Alex thought that it was indeed time to forcibly wake Hojo already so as not to waste precious time. And the moment this thought flashed through his head, Yuffie victoriously felt the needed vial and triumphantly raised it above her head.
In her hand she was squeezing a small glass flask with transparent liquid. Sarcastically smiling, Yuffie uncorked the stopper — and into the noses of everyone present instantly struck such a wild and sharp smell resembling super-concentrated ammonia that the entire group synchronously stepped back a step, convulsively pinching their noses with their hands.
Quietly chuckling at their reaction, Yuffie deftly squatted next to the unconscious Hojo lying there and brought the open flask right up to his nostrils. The moment Hojo took only one deep breath of this potent mixture, his eyes suddenly widely opened, and he went into a wrenching, loud cough.
Somehow coughing and wiping away tears, Hojo raised a cloudy gaze and saw before him a squad of people looking at him far from with the kindest intentions. However his feverish gaze immediately slid past the others and instantly bored into Aerith and Alex standing side by side.
"Wonderful… So wonderful! So it wasn't my imagination after all. You yourselves personally came into my hands… Oh, my dear Aerith! I have told you more than once: you will very soon run to me yourself. One only needed to create for this the right and inevitable pretext. And you even brought me the Anomaly herself! Excellent, simply excellent… How fascinating this is!" Hojo spoke, spreading into a repulsive, slimy smile, staring with scientific lust straight into Aerith's eyes.
"Stop spewing your nauseating nonsense, you bastard! Spill it immediately, where did you take the kidnapped children?!" Barrett barked in a tone irritated to the limit, immediately seizing Hojo with one hand by the collar of the laboratory coat and easily lifting him to the level of his own eyes.
"Children?.. Ah, yes. These little worthless creatures from the Slums dump… I somehow already managed to completely forget about this insignificant expendable biomaterial," Hojo drawled in an absolutely indifferent tone, not even paying attention to the fact that his legs were dangling in the air and not touching the floor.
"They are not some 'biomaterial' for you at all!" Aerith shouted angrily, tightly clenching her fists and looking at Hojo with blazing hatred.
"Oh, you even know how to truly get angry? This is truly amazing… For when your dear mother Ifalna was dying before your eyes, you were only capable of pitifully crying. What has so radically changed in your organism? How insanely interesting… Allow me right now to carefully open your cranial box and personally look at these processes!" Hojo spoke with mad excitement, slightly tilting his head to the side, shifting his gaze to Aerith as if he saw before him only yet another fresh material for his sadistic research.
Hearing the name of her deceased mother, Aerith's eyes instantly filled with heavy redness — the long-standing, unhealing feeling of deep grief again flared up inside her with new force. Despite the fact that she perfectly knew: Ifalna had safely returned to the Lifestream and merged with it forever, this in no way cancelled the tragic fact that she had left life forever.
Seeing the undisguised sorrow and pain in Aerith's eyes, Hojo suddenly burst into a deafening, triumphant laughter. For this was exactly what he had tirelessly striven for — to break Aerith morally in order to turn her into an obedient, initiative-less marionette for his refined experiments.
Listening to the wild laughter of this mad sadist, absolutely everyone in the squad reacted the same way — with a furious flash of rage in their eyes. Gritting his teeth from the burning anger, Barrett clenched his gigantic fist until it cracked, already preparing in a clear form to remind the bastard Hojo in what a pitiful situation he was currently in, and that he should answer strictly to the questions posed.
However before Barrett's fist with full force smashed into Hojo's contorted mug, Alex stopped it with an iron grip. He looked at the mad scientist with a completely empty gaze expressing not a single emotion. Reining in the enraged Barrett, Alex cast a short glance at Dean, wordlessly making him understand: it was time to resort to their long-standing, time-tested method.
Nodding his head with a maximally grim facial expression, Dean loudly cracked his neck and unhurriedly approached closer. He organically could not stand such psycho bastards and right now with enormous pleasure was ready to put into practice all those specific interrogation skills that he had perfectly mastered over forty long years of stay in Hell.
Unceremoniously pushing Barrett aside, Alex immediately seized the still laughing Hojo and without unnecessary words toppled him right onto the metal floor. Dean approached tightly, with one sharp sweep tore the glasses from his face and with steel fingers seized right onto the edges of Hojo's eye sockets, forcing his eyelids to open as widely as possible by force.
Squatting next to the helplessly lying professor, Alex unhurriedly pulled an elegant fountain pen from his inner pocket. Seeing exactly what process Alex and Dean were embarking on, none of those present even stirred to stop them. Tifa and Yuffie only silently turned to the wall, preferring to pretend as if they noticed absolutely nothing in order not to intervene once again.
Barrett only frowned his brows even more strongly and sternly crossed his arms on his chest, with his entire demeanour making it clear that if anything he would without hesitation help — even if it came to the most refined tortures. Claudia calmly stood right in front of Tifa, reliably covering her with herself and not allowing her to turn back when the first screams inevitably began to ring out in the corridor.
"Do you know what the key difference is between all such bastards like you?" Alex asked in a deceptively calm, even tone, looking straight into Hojo's dilated pupils, lazily spinning the sharp fountain pen right in front of his fixed eyes.
"Ho-ho! You've truly intrigued me… Well come on then, lay out your authoritative opinion, Anomaly! I'll listen with the greatest pleasure," Hojo spoke with a venomous smile, absolutely not paying attention to the fact that his eyelids were being held by force.
"This difference does not exist. You are all absolutely the same. One only needs to press a little, and you always sing like sweet little things… Well, and now let's begin the bargaining. What exactly are you ready to lose right now? Eyes? Fingers? Ears? Or maybe something significantly greater? How about personally experiencing on your own hide what it's like to find yourself locked in an absolutely paralysed body, without the slightest possibility of moving or making sounds? Around there will be only impenetrable darkness and an endless, maddening stream of thoughts," Alex spoke in a soft, almost lulling tone, slowly bringing the steel tip of the fountain pen right up against Hojo's left pupil.
"What a truly wonderful and rich choice! Hmm… I'm even at a loss. Every option sounds so tempting… And how about my counter-proposal? If anything at all happens to me right now… Those very helpless orphans who are so dear to our young Ancient will instantly disappear. And neither she nor any of you will ever see them again absolutely. How do you like my counter-proposal?" Hojo answered in a cheerful tone, surveying the entire company with his repulsive, triumphant gaze and graphically demonstrating that he too knew how to play such psychological games.
"The slippery bastard still decided to play with hostages… Don't worry, we've already gone through this shit hundreds of times. Every second complete bastard loves to pull such a trick. Well then, we'll play strictly by your rules and see whether you yourself can survive after your vaunted tricks," Dean spoke in an icy tone, seizing Hojo by his greasy hair and with force pulling his head back, forcing the mad professor to look straight into his eyes.
In response to these severe threats Hojo smiled even more arrogantly and venomously, with his entire demeanour showing that under no circumstances should he be put in the same row with other petty scum. Sarcastically chuckling, Hojo shifted his triumphant gaze to Aerith — he knew far too well on whom exactly one should press in this motley group in order to guaranteed obtain the desired result.
Opening his mouth, Hojo addressed Aerith directly, with mockery asking her whether she was really ready right now to make a fatal bet on the fact that absolutely nothing would happen to the kidnapped orphans — for he personally under no circumstances promised that even a single one of these children would survive the present day at all.
Hearing these nightmarish words, Aerith clenched her fists even more strongly, feeling how inside her with new force rose a suffocating wave of panic and sticky anxiety. Perfectly knowing from her own sorrowful experience to what most extreme and mad atrocities Hojo was capable, Aerith looked at Alex with a pleading gaze full of pain, literally wordlessly begging him not to do anything with him.
When this desperate request from Aerith sounded, Dean and Barrett almost synchronously, in one voice barked that complete bastards like Hojo categorically could not be believed under any circumstances — such scum never in their lives kept their word. Claudia also worriedly turned to Aerith, firmly reminding that one should not blindly believe a single word flying out of this sadist's mouth.
Seeing what confusion and disagreements were beginning in the group, Hojo burst into an even louder, pealing laughter, with particular cynicism calling on all those present right now to check in practice whether he was lying or not — not forgetting at the same time to mockingly add that he personally did not vouch for the subsequent pitiful consequences.
Heaving a heavy sigh, Alex looked at Aerith, who continued to continuously look at him with deep pleading in her eyes. He understood far too well what hell was going on in her head right now, and how strongly she had again begun to blame exclusively herself for what had happened to the unfortunate children.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Alex with a dead iron grip seized Hojo by the lower part of the face, forcing the madman to shut up instantly and with the last of his strength trying to restrain himself so as not to crush the hell out of this repulsive bastard's mouth right on the spot. Perfectly knowing that the kidnapped children would guaranteed live to a ripe old age, Alex at the same time clearly understood: even if he voiced this truth out loud, in the current tense situation absolutely no one except Dean would believe him.
Slowly rising from the squat and still forcefully holding Hojo by the face so that he would no longer babble anything unnecessary, Alex finally realised that any empty words would not help at all right now — until they with their own hands physically rescued the children. Feeling a dull headache from the necessity of again playing by the stupid established rules for this world, Alex slightly squeezed his fingers on Hojo's face — so that a distinct, light crunch of bones passed through the corridor.
"Barrett, hold this bastard for now until we get right to his main laboratory. If he tries to pull even some minor trick — break his spine without conversation," Alex spoke in an irritated, stretched-to-the-limit tone, disgustedly tossing Hojo right into Barrett's hands so as not to finally crush this madman's skull.
"Damn… I categorically don't like this shitty idea! But if this scum starts even kicking — I don't answer for myself or for the integrity of his bones at all," Barrett spat in a grim, furious tone, seizing Hojo by the collar of the coat in a death grip and forcefully shaking him.
"Believe me, far from only you don't like all this shit. But the choice we have right now, to put it mildly, is not particularly large," Dean intervened with a cold, grim expression on his face, with difficulty suppressing the irresistible desire right now to smash a boot with a swing precisely into Hojo's smiling mug.
To be continued...
(Well, I managed to convey just how truly insane Hojo is—in case you didn't know. That bastard is genuinely unhinged, and he couldn't give a damn about threats. After all, he views everyone around him as unevolved imbeciles. Up next is Hojo's lab, followed by some shit that leads to even more shit. Oh, and the appearance of Nanaki—or Red XIII. As for the crossovers with Valerie's group, those will happen at other points. And after Midgar, just as I promised, another character will show up to back up the team: Sammy. Maybe someone else, too. Now, time to eat and rest. Peace, love, and—what makes you think we see the same shade of red? Just because it was given that name?)
Early access to chapters on my patreon: p*treon.com/GreedHunter