The New Pope Has Not Been Chosen

[05.01.01] » by Very Metal

Disclaimer : All FF7 characters and sundry are property of Square. The spirit of the first two lines belongs to Joseph Heller.

I : The First Temptation Of Aeris

It was love at first sight.

The first time Aeris saw Jessie she fell madly in love with her.

"It seems to me that your philosophy is a little skewed... can I buy you another drink?" the reverend said, leaning across the smoky table and resting her chin in one hand. Jessie leaned back, her hands braced against the edge of the dirty wood, nervously watching Cloud at the bar. There was a lot of filth here, Aeris realised; she had realised it ever since Cloud introduced her to the bar with the words:

"This place is famous, you know?" That had doomed it from the start for her. She had looked across at him desperately looking across at her and realised that his tiny heart, bless him, was filled with the slums' unanswerable answer to joy. There was a childish pride there; nothing malicious, Aeris realised with disdain, but rather a sincere and innocent sense of involvement in something worthwhile. Once again Cloud was marching to the kitchen and presenting his mother with a crude crayon scrawl on greasy paper; pointing at the tortured pastel blobs and intoning: "that's daddy," point point point, "that's you, mummy," jab jab jab, "that's daddy's other girlfriend," poke poke poke, "and that's the touching priest." Aeris regarded him for a second: yes, Cloud did look the type. Her sympathy went out to the people who subsequently found themselves the more dead for having met him. To be killed by a great man was something, one could almost take comfort in that, were it not for the fact they clearly could not; but to be wiped out of existence by this: almost too shallow to stand, wholly lacking the usual essential ballast of sin, doubt, terror and guilt that forced one to stand taller than the rest... Some of the most eternally hopeless characters made their claim to fame by being killed by the right person; usually God, but by this... it was on the same level as tripping on the bathroom rug and drowning in your toilet bowl.

Aeris sighed and continued looking at the girl, letting her hand creep forward across the tabletop, smiling slightly. "Are you sure you wouldn't like me to get you another drink?" The inside had been much like she had expected it, and she hadn't expected much from a building that bled neon from every rotting pore and wore an oversized roof like a boozed-up idiot wore a lampshade. "It seems to me you're attacking the wrong people," Aeris went on, "if you really want to stop these... reactors then you shouldn't go for the people that own them," and as for the company, Aeris realised why she had taken up the weapon of the disciplined orator: the machine gun nest pulpit. The things were always made of and draped with something respectively substantial and symbolic enough to stop both bullets and critics cold, and in case that should fail the tip of the ceremonial cross proved excellent as the stand for any heavy weapon of choice - within reason, of course: no autocannons or anything ridiculous. For a while now Aeris had been giving serious thought to upgrading from the simple lectern to a full raised and enclosed armoured pulpit; her mere impression on entering the Seventh levelofHelleaven was sufficient to advance these plans into immediate and dire consideration, until she saw Jessie.

"This must be the brains of the operation," Aeris said hopefully, stepping forward and putting out her hand.

"Err, no, that'll be Barret," the wonderful girl had replied, alive with modesty.

"This is Aeris, I brought her here... or rather--" Cloud had got as far as explaining before a third woman, their gender appearing as if they were going out of fashion, came crashing through towards the legate's Mister First.

"The owners of your reactors are invariably rich, powerful..." Her Holiness ran her fingers quickly up onto Jessie's wrist, seizing it, tearing the girl's attention away from the bar and its immediate patrons, "no, ..." she turned her head quickly, cursing. "Cloud!" she shouted. The sap was leaning across the bar, nursing a drink and listening endlessly to what looked like suggestive banter from the barmaid. Even a glance showed he was too close for Aeris' comfort, although that wasn't entirely his fault. "Cloud!" she hissed again. He turned slowly, so did the girl, reminding her of why she had once imagined that a motorised armoured pulpit would be a good idea, as would a shotgun with three barrels (she needed to write this down, scrabbling with her free hand for something to score the surface of the table with). First the roof would have to be repaired, of course, although she wasn't sure why: it wasn't as if rain was a problem. The people she served were so poor they couldn't afford rain.

"Quickly, what's--" she tilted her head back, rolling her eyes to the girl behind her, "--name?"

"Huh?"

"Her name," Aeris hissed.

"Whose name?"

"The girl's name!"

"Tifa," Cloud said brightly, turning to the barmaid.

"No, the real girl!"

"What! What did you say?" the third woman stammered.

"Oh Hell... the poor! The weak and feeble ones who I subject myself to!" Aeris realised suddenly, swiveling back on her seat to face the girl. "I've got something to finish," she said, standing up, "I'll buy you that drink when I get back."

"Cloud, what did she just say?" Tifa shouted at him, leaning further across the bar and grabbing his shirt. "Where did you find her anyway?"

"Come on, Cloud," the reverend stated, walking over to him and snatching the back of his collar, "or I'll dock your pay."

"Pay! What the Hell's going on here? Cloud, what's she talking about?"

"Aeris, I..." she could hear him about to decline her. He feared some things more than money.

"Awwwww, Cloud," Aeris threw her arms around his neck and leaned against him, grinning in Tifa's disbelieving face, "but you promised! You wouldn't leave me now, would you? Not when I need you most... I helped you out," she purred in his ear. "Just one last thing, one last loose end to tie up..." she gently bit his earlobe. Cloud screamed, flinging himself free of the two women and flattening himself against the wall.

"Okay, just this!" he exclaimed, rubbing his ear furiously with the back of his hand. Aeris smiled in satisfaction, planting one hand on the counter and pointing to the door with the other.

"Wait out there, I'll be along."

Cloud walked to the door, Aeris' gaze moving slowly to meet Tifa's. He paused there for a second, looking back. "Out!" Aeris ordered quickly. The door flapped and he was gone.

"Just who the Hell do you think you--" Tifa began.

"Look," Aeris interrupted, "let's face facts; he's not really worth fighting over, is he?" Tifa said nothing. "Nothing personal... Tifa, but he's working for me now. I haven't paid him three thousand gil for nothing; Hell, I haven't paid him three thousand gil at all. Not yet, anyway," she added quickly, testing the other woman, "I'll pay him when he's finished his work for me; his current work for me. Then it's up to him if he likes my wages again in future, okay?" Aeris smiled viciously, clattering a pittance down onto the counter and following Cloud out, winking at Jessie as she went.

Tifa looked down at the dull coins in disbelief for a second before snatching them up in her hand and throwing them against the closing door, shouting: "I don't want your sympathy!"

II : My Baby

"Aeris," Cloud sighed and tapped his boot against the wooden steps, watching it intently to avoid her eyes. "What's this all about."

"Just a little unfinished business back at the church," she replied, walking past him. "There's a body we need to get rid of, one way or the other."

"A body? What kind of body?" Cloud asked, panicking.

"A dead one."

"But why do we have to go back? What's wrong with it?" Cloud continued, looking longingly back at the bar.

"Oh no!" she warned him, grabbing his wrist and leading him away from the Seventh Heaven, shaking her head. "No you don't! Go running out on your generous saviour for some two-bit barmaid?"

"But it's not like that, we're childhood friends," Cloud whined, being dragged along. "We haven't seen each other--"

"Since you were children. Yes, I gathered; the way you were fawning over each other like that. You can catch up on sinful, hateful, regretful old times in a while, reprobate, once we've sorted this corpse out. No doubt the Turks will be along sometime soon, I haven't seen their well-dressed selves for a while, and I can't have them finding him in the back."

"The Turks? What have they got to do with this?" Aeris drew to a stop in the artificial shadow of a heaped mound of refuse, letting Cloud's arm drop to his side.

"You tell me; I think they're out to get me to join them, or to kill me, something along those lines. Either way it involves me, I think," she shrugged, "anyway, we've got to get to the body before they do."

"Why? If they already want you then what difference does it make?"

"Because, Cloud, if they find a cold body snugly wrapped in a Shinra uniform in the back of my church then it won't take long for the real police to open an investigation and for the continuation of my very necessary religious services to become... problematic," Aeris looked over across the slums, trying to picture Reno and his typical entourage strolling into the aisle and looking around for her. "Speaking of which, that girl's name... the one back at the bar..."

"The one you were talking to?"

Aeris nodded, smiling. "Her."

"It's Jessie, I'm pretty sure."

"Pretty sure?" Aeris asked suddenly, surging forward and grabbing Cloud's collar with both hands, bringing his face next to hers and turning it; scrutinising it with one widened, maddened eye, "but you're sure, Cloud. Aren't you? Her name is Jessie."

"Yes ye-es!" Cloud yelled, drawing looks from the few passers-by, clawing at Aeris until she dropped him and he staggered back, straightening his top. "It's Jessie, I'm sure." Aeris smiled and dusted her hands off in satisfaction, miles away as Cloud continued to explain: "the big one's name is Barret, his daughter's Marlene. Wedge is the fat one, and Jessie's boyfriend is Biggs."

"Perfect," Aeris spun her staff in her hands, striking it down against the earth like the metal peg-leg of God, speaking only to herself as she dreamed of what would finish off her evening in classic style. A good distance away Reno would have to be approaching her church, flanked by his usual quota of guards. Then he would have to press his way into the aisle, and, finding no sign of her make his way to the back, prompting cries of "Hey Reno, you just stepped on them!", "They're all ruined!" and the timeless comedy classic: "You're gonna catch holy hell!" Upon seeing the uprooted, slightly wilting legs in the back Reno would have to go over to inspect, his face wrinkling up in distaste, calling the troops after him; one of them taking up the shovel she left hidden in plain sight and asking if they should dig it up. Reno would reply "You can if you want, now stay here until I send someone," making his way out as one of the soldiers will take up the shovel again and start to dig the body out. Being met with cries of "you sick bastard!" and "you'll get us in trouble!" he'll stop, swing the spade over his shoulder and before long he'll notice the moss-covered nosecone of a rocket on which his associate will be sitting, waving the man away and peering up the strange shape. Now, if Aeris was really lucky, and that soldier was really stupid (and nobody ever lost money overestimating the inherent stupidity of man) then he'll try and dislodge the rust and grime and lichen with the blade of the tool, scraping at it, and, finding it caked on, lose patience and swing the face of the spade against the tip of the cone in one colossal, furious arc. Ending in...

The horizon lit up in a silent ball of fire. Aeris half-turned, watching the orange and black balloon mushroom soundlessly upwards. Something crashed into the heap of metal behind her, closely followed by a loud hiss streaking past her right ear. Wincing as the sound of the detonation boomed out to meet them, the noise echoing against the plate to give the effect of a dozen loud, descending explosions rapidly rolling away, she walked to Cloud, pushing three thousand gil in notes into his numb, frozen fingers. She waited until the noise had subsided and the wreckage from the blast was raining down around them before she spoke.

A good distance away Reno had just approached the church, flanked by his usual quota of guards. He had pressed his way into the aisle, and, finding no sign of Aeris had made his way to the back, prompting cries of "Hey Reno, you just stepped on them!", "They're all ruined!" and the timeless comedy classic: "What the Hell's that banging?" He had turned around, pointing out the fact he wasn't even standing on the flowerbed yet to three men who were no longer there; opening his mouth into a silent O and leveling his finger at the space they had occupied so that whatever confused deity had seen the sincerity of his contempt for them in his face earlier would now see the sincerity of his puzzlement in his newly-adopted hand gesture and magic the men back. It worked, in a way. There was another metallic report from the back room. Reno walked over the flowers, his feet falling automatically into the patches of trampled stalks before he knew what he was doing. He stopped at the edge of the door, listening to the voices on the other side, peering around and seeing a figure swinging a spade at an immense, dull spear of rusted metal, recognising the half-covered writing that spanned the exposed length and hinted "don't strike me repeatedly with spade as I am feeling rather sensitive right now, I can't stop thinking about my parents, they're not really getting along that well." The figure he was watching stopped as a second approached it, clad in a filthy red uniform, saying in a scratchy, hoarse voice: "give it here" and snatching the spade away. It drew the tool around itself like a watch spring, the rocket penning "no, please, I'm just a pawn" along its frame as it braced itself. Reno threw himself back down the aisle, imagining escaping his wedding to spur him on, hurtling out the open doors and landing six feet clear of the steps, the bride's family still close behind, possibly wielding... no no, he didn't have time for this, he decided, tearing off down the valley of the shadow of filth before the explosion ripped him off his feet, consuming the bride's family in its spasm and ploughing him, burning, exultant and free, into the dirt as half a world away Cid woke in a cold sweat, clawing his way bolt upright in his bed, his face wet with tears, his dry and trembling lips working mutely in his moment of blinding clarity: "my baby."

"Come on. Let's go back." Aeris had to admit it wasn't quite perfect, but it certainly worked. She had been dithering, up until now, that is; made unsure by the general filthiness of Cloud's companions, and positively distracted by Jessie. Now things were much clearer, her boats having been burned, or more correctly: dragged from the beach, dismantled, moved inland, turned into a church, left for several centuries and then smashed-into by a rocket with a personality disorder which was then detonated by a congenital idiot with a spade. Turning to follow Cloud her eye was caught by a peculiar object travelling directly over her: dark and yet flashing yellow in places with ragged flames, a tail of smoke following it. As it arced down before her she was struck by an image of what it was and started running: an image of perfection turned bad and falling from Heaven like summer lightning. Cloud panicked, clapped his hands over the back of his head and ran after her.

III : Convince The Liberals "It's O.K."

Something had put a black gap in the Seventh Heaven's toothy neon grin. Probably it was the same thing that was gathering the stuttering, waxing and waxy crescent-crowd by the time Aeris arrived with Cloud. Briefly she wondered if all the fuss was simply that the filth-merchants had realised the same painfully famous architect that had designed the winged bar was responsible for the rest of the prevailing local accommodation: already arranging pebbles at the age of three, painting them by four, drunk on her father's confidence-expanding liquor by twelve and the master of any number of confusing, utterly hollow, build-by-small-numbers projects held together by their own blinding exterior lighting, gallons of fluorescent paint liberally applied to every surface and the legions of mindless drones that lined up to donate their bodies to hold the crumbling edifice upright by fifteen: "so what does it all mean?", "oh no, I forgot; but making all this art was a lot of fun!"

"How do you light your own back on fire, daddy?" Marlene asked, kicking her heels over the side of the bar and watching the burning body. The torso was buried in the smashed pinball table, the machine pinging endlessly to it, happily proclaiming "BIG WINNER!" across the display: his parents were happily married unlike that pariah of an aborted rocket. The shame! Meanwhile the legs had trapped Biggs underneath them, his face being lightly roasted by the flames licking across the red uniform's back.

"Did we blow another reactor?" Tifa asked suddenly, running to the door and having it slam open, failing to connect with her face but still knocking her flying into nearest table as Aeris barged in.

"Hey, watch my food!" Wedge shouted, scooping the plates towards him as Tifa collapsed into the table. "You'll spill it. More gravy!"

"What? Another one?" she asked, seeing the table collapse noisily. Her eyes flickered up to the pinball-wizard corpse and the tight knot of people standing around it. "Jessie! Jessie!" she cried out in relief, running over to the girl.

"Biggs! Biggs!" Jessie cried out to the trapped man, trying to beat the flames out.

"Get it off! Get it off!" Biggs shouted. "Hey, big winner!" he noticed, looking at the pinball machine, "ow! I mean, get it off!"

"More butter for my steak!" Wedge roared out from his corner.

"Ow. Ow," the corpse replied unenthusiastically as Jessie continued to thrash it. Aeris seized the rag from her hand and peered down at Jessie's slim fingers.

"You'll burn yourself, here, let me," she said, tying a heavy knot in the oily material and bringing it down hard against the smouldering back. It was a theologian's dream turned nightmare, Aeris reflected, helping Jessie roll the body onto the floor; finally she no longer had to beat the living with the bones of the dead, the dead would do the job themselves. Unfortunately it was this troublingly mobile cadaver that had returned: a living unliving dead undying problem that would have to be sacrificed to slick the wheels of her divine progress a little. "You again," she stated, seeing the skinless face peering up at her.

"You know this?" she believed Barret to have replied.

"I'd know that toothsome, lipless grin anywhere," she smiled, leaning down and pinching the raw, bloodied cheek muscle between her thumb and forefinger, tearing a wet hunk off as she did. "Ugh. He was in better shape the last time I saw him."

"Ow," the body replied. "I missed you too."

"What do you mean?" Tifa asked.

"When I was burying him; just after I punched him against the wall of the church and drove the corner of the spade hard between his ribs, forcing it up into his heart... on purpose, of course," she replied, looking up and wiping her fingers off on her dress.

"Yeah, about that whole incide--" the body began.

"Quiet you!" Aeris snapped, stamping on its face. She looked up at Jessie, embarrassed, as the girl tended to Biggs. "Sorry, I've never had this happen to me before," her eyes narrowed, "wait a minute... who's he?"

"Wait, you killed him? But he's a special combatant," Barret asked, deep in thought, nudging the body's arm with the tip of his boot as Tifa began to rifle through its pockets.

"Um, I'm not blind, I see you stealing that," it mumbled from underneath Aeris' foot as the barmaid stood up again, empty handed.

"Check if he's got any food on 'im," Wedge shouted through a crammed mouth. "A sandwich, anything..."

"You're a natural," Aeris told her quickly, unsurprised, giving the body another quick jab with her boot, turning to Barret, "yes, and he got in my way, unfortunately for him. It was very upsetting, I didn't even have time to plan his death," she lamented, focusing back on Jessie for an instant. Her eyes wandered to the injured Biggs, then down to the strewn floor, alighting upon a bent, rusty nail (aha! finally!) "Aha! Finally!" she proclaimed, picking it up and tipping the table she and Jessie had been sitting at a moment ago back onto its legs.

"Aaah! My leg!" Biggs cried out as the table edge struck him squarely on the blade of his shin.

"Sorry," Aeris laughed softly and began scrawling on the wooden surface with the nail's point.

"Say... That's pretty impressive... er... how about you come and work for us, eh? ..." Barret looked across at Cloud, who was at the bar with Tifa, and in the process of burying himself in drink. "Damn," he hissed.

"What is it, papa?" Marlene asked.

"Hey! Spiky ass!"

Cloud lolled his head over to face the man. "What?"

"Quickly, what's--" he tilted his head back, rolling her eyes to the girl behind her, "--name?"

"Huh?"

"Her name," Barret hissed.

"It's Marlene, isn't it, honey?" Tifa said warmly, leaning forward and pinching the girl's arm.

"Yeah, papa," Marlene giggled, looking up at him as her face hardened, "why don't you know my name?"

"You don't know her name?" the unmoving Wedge in the corner suddenly piped up. "Do you know where the doughnuts 've gone?"

"What's that?" Jessie asked, looking up from Biggs.

"Barret, he doesn't know his own daughter's name!" Cloud exclaimed, jumping off his stool and backing away from the man. "What kind of a monster wouldn't know that?"

"My leg, I think it's broken," an ashen-faced Biggs admitted suddenly to Jessie. "I'll never dance again!" he began sobbing.

"You inhuman bastard!" Wedge stood up, screaming at Barret, his glass in his hand. "There's no lard in my beer!"

"Ow. Ow. I think the table's resting on my... Ow."

"Quiet you!" Aeris gave the body a quick kick, "I can't write if you keep moving."

"Papa, why do you hate me?" Marlene sniffed, peering up at Barret through inexorably widening, tear-filled eyes big enough to eat hearts whole.

"Marlene, I don't hate you!" the man replied, growing desperate, going to take the girl in his arms.

"Oh no you don't, you bastard!" Tifa exclaimed, snatching the girl off the counter and into her arms, retreating to the far wall, one hand stroking the child's hair.

"What's that?" Aeris said absent-mindedly, not looking up from her scrawling.

"My God! He was trying to punch his daughter!" Cloud cried out in disbelief.

"Punch his own daughter?" Jessie said, standing up, her hand dropping from Biggs'. "You were trying to do that, Barret? ... Wait a second, you've never danced before in your life, Biggs, what are you talking about?"

"No, I was only going to pick her up--"

"And drop her," Tifa screamed, "on her head!" squeezing the child in her arms, whispering in her ear. "Don't listen, honey; don't listen to that bastard!"

Marlene looked up at her. "Tifa, what's a bastard?"

"Damn, that's cold, Barret!" Wedge yelled, furious, "like this ham. Get the drawn butter, quick!"

"Look, I was jus--" Barret explained, walking around the bar, knocking over a bottle as he went. It burst on the floor noisily. There was a scream.

"Stop him, Cloud! He's trying to kill me!" Tifa screamed.

"Look out, he's throwing bottles!" Jessie shouted, "watch your eyes, he's a killer!"

"My love, how can we dance away now?" Biggs wailed. "We can't even crab-walk out of danger!"

"Get out of this bar, Barret!" Wedge raised his voice, not looking up from his plate, "but throw one this way as you go, will you?"

"Get the Hell out of my bar!" Tifa shouted, dumping Marlene behind her and taking up a bottle before smashing it on the counter, brandishing the jagged circle at Barret. He staggered back, trembling, tripping over Biggs' outstretched leg and falling into Aeris' table. Biggs' screamed in pain, Aeris jumped up, seizing her staff and glaring at the man.

"Ahhh, he attacked me!" Biggs wailed, his hands clutching his thigh, his eyes rolling back in their sockets.

"Attacked you?" Jessie asked, aghast.

"He's attacking us! Kill him!" Aeris shouted, bringing her staff down hard on the struggling man's chest. He looked like a beetle turned onto its back, writhing furiously. His chest gave a hollow crack with the impact, his hand reaching across it as Jessie swung her foot up in the man's face, knocking him back. He flipped over and began crawling towards the door, bottles bursting around him as they were thrown from the bar. A chair bounced off his back and smashed against the doorframe as he crawled out, scrambling to his feet with Aeris and Jessie storming after him. Aeris watched, her heart swelling with pride, as Jessie cracked him over the skull with a broken chair leg; Barret staggered down the steps into the reduced crowd, a look of utter bewilderment on his face as Tifa came bursting after them, holding a bottle which she promptly threw into the man's face. It shattered in a spray of alcohol; Barret's hands clapped themselves to his face as he screamed, blinded and agonised, and blundered off through the slums.

"There we are..." Aeris said, smiling across at Jessie and patting her on the back. The girl smiled back, satisfied. "Won't be seeing much of him for a while, we'll be safe now." A thought popped into her head, and she ran back into the bar, checking Jessie was still outside as she approached the pale form of Biggs. Bracing her hand against his forehead and lifting his face up to look into hers she smiled at him, balling her other hand into a fist and swinging it into his face. His head bounced against the wall noisily and lolled onto his chest.

"What happened?" Jessie asked, running in. Aeris smiled back at her, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"I gave him something to take his mind off his leg," she reassured the girl. "He'll dance yet." Jessie beamed at her.

"Thankyou... Aeris," she replied, her voice barely a whisper. Aeris felt her heart swell, her mind racing as she clapped her hands together and sat down across the table from the girl again.

"About that drink..."

"Where's papa?" Marlene said, peering around from behind the bar. Tifa ran back to the child, sweeping the broken glass noisily off the counter before picking Jessie up and sitting her down on the surface.

"Papa is an evil, evil man who you can never see again!" Tifa smiled, "now how about a lollipop?"

"Yay! Thankyou, Tifa!" Marlene smiled, grabbing the sweet.

"Aww, spilled my drink!" Cloud whined, looking down at the pooling alcohol. Tifa shuffled him another smeared, half-full glass.

"Mmm, wonder what that was all about?" Wedge asked his heaped plate, spitting out food and carving himself another thick slice of pork, drizzling gravy and butter over it and snaffling it down in short order.

"Ow. Ow, the alcohol stings," the body murmured from under the table. Aeris kicked it in the ribs, hearing them crack. "Ow."

"I'm trying to talk to Jessie," she told it, returning to the violently alluring terrorist and propping her chin in the palm of one hand again. "I'm sorry. Anyway, as I was saying, and especially now your butcher of a leader's been shown for what he is... tell me Jessie, what is it you do?"

"Me, oh, I make the bombs. I like that kinda stuff. Bombs and monitors... flashy stuff," finally! virtue twinned with divine vice: Aeris nodded and leaned further across the table, trying to push the body out of the way with her feet without betraying herself. Jessie might have had just the germ of sin in her needed to make her truly great, Aeris realised, sinking further into a smile.

"Bombs you say? I'll bet you're good with your hands. And to think, you fight so beautifully... I'd love to fight alongside you again."

Jessie nodded thoughtfully, looking away over Aeris' shoulder. "But what are we going to do now Barret's gone?"

"It's clear the man was a maniac," Aeris said reassuringly, letting her hand creep over the back of Jessie's, "who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people."

Jessie looked at her, frowning. "You really think so?"

"Of course," Aeris promised, squeezing the girl's hand. "I saw it with my own eyes; the way he used terror to control you all and make you go along with his schemes."

"But isn't saving the planet the right thing to do?"

"Of course it is, but he was going about it the wrong way, endangering as many lives as he could in the process. Even yours, Jessie, and I'd hate to think of anyone endangering your life," she slipped her foot out of her boot and tapped the girl on the shin with her toe, making her start and stare back with wide eyes. Aeris sat back in her seat, letting Jessie's hand go. "I mean, if you could have your way then you'd save the planet without killing anyone or risking yourself, wouldn't you?"

"I guess so, yeah," Jessie replied, less sure of herself with Aeris' foot travelling up and down her leg.

"Look, can you forget her for a second so we can talk?" the body said. Aeris' head shot under the table, glaring at it.

"Look, pal, you're very lucky to be alive - if indeed you aren't - so don't push it!" she hissed, jabbing it in one glassy eye so the organ popped weakly and its thick red contents came bubbling out down the side of its face. Rearing up over the table once again she was about to seize Jessie's wrist when she remembered her bloody finger and looked around desperately for something to wipe it on, not wanting to crudely smear her clothes any more in front of the girl.

"Ow."

"There's no shame in it," she continued, slipping her foot back into its boot and walking to the bar, her finger held high like a red exclamation mark, "there's no sense in dying if it can be avoided, except in the case of some people." Aeris picked up an alcohol-soaked rag and wiped her hand on it, scrubbing out the troublesome corpse while in the next instant somewhere across the stacked and seething houses the famous architect, deep inside her ten-month hiatus of slowly solidifying sculpted flesh and atrophied minds, cried out against her corruption of a single drop of sweet, distorting alcohol; realising for a second there was no future for her. "Hell, even you might have a purpose," Aeris looked over at Tifa for a second, "can you fight?"

"I'm as much a part of this as any of them," she replied, wrongfooted for as long as it took the reverend to reply, watching her first stalk around the table and drape her arms over Jessie's shoulders. Jessie sat upright, rigid, her hands frozen at the edge of the table.

"Me and Jessie have been thinking," Aeris began, shifting her eyes to meet the girl's fear-swollen pupils before looking back at Cloud and Tifa. "About what we're going to do to keep our new, humane little business afloat: no more murdering for us, not now we've cut out the black and murderous heart. No, we've thought up a way to save the planet and save... real lives," her head turned to whisper in Jessie's ear. "Haven't we?"

"We have?" the girl replied, gulping.

"Awww, you've forgotten already?" Aeris pouted, her finger gliding over Jessie's chin, turning her face, inexorably drawing it closer. She grinned as Jessie quickly looked back down at the table, blinking and mumbling sheepishly to herself before standing up and ruffling the girl's hair fondly with one hand. "Here, there was a lot going on."

Aeris turned to face the counter again, leaning on her back heel and folding her arms she intoned: "who thought it would be a good idea to attack Shinra and its reactors? Put your hands up, no, seriously, even you, Cloud, you can have an opinion this once, if it's the right one," she laughed. Cloud scowled and put his hands up with everyone else. "An innocent mistake," she said, looking down at Jessie, arms still sewn to her front, "but can you see the problem now? Reactors are invariably large, expensive items, invariably owned by larger, more expensive companies, which are in turn invariably run by the largest, most expensive men; men who have built their continued prosperity on the belief that their very grave investments will function unmolested by likes of us, and who can employ vast percentages of their net income in the form of men with guns to ensure these investments remain as such. What your previous, infanticidal leader," she patted Marlene on her head, "failed to realise is that the reactors are symptoms of the wider problem, not causes of it: the reactors are run by businesses, not charities, and what are businesses established to make, Cloud?" Cloud stared back at her pointing finger, mute. "Tifa!" she accused.

"...Money," Tifa said after a moment's hesitation.

"Exactly. Profit! And how can they justify the expense of building and maintaining and guarding their immense, complicated reactors?" she didn't risk it again, "because they know they know Mako sells, no matter if it's kicking the stool out from under people they'll still buy it. And who are the most numerous band of people who use Mako? I'll give you a hint, they're not the rich."

"What? The poor?" Tifa answered, unable to stop herself. "But..."

"Yes!" Aeris exclaimed, interrupting Tifa. "The most numerous, and, paradoxically, the least powerful. The ones who on aggregate drain the most reactor output, yet the ones least recognised by Shinra and its police: the worthless and the hopeless self-obsessed consumers of the planet who will do anything but get out from under the rich! They are the true source of the problem: kill the poor and Shinra collapses in a week! The planet is saved! A galaxy of sinners achieve the most shallow shores of Hell; more meaning found in their deaths at our most bloodless and holy hands than could ever be scraped together in their whole pitiful existence." Silence had descended. Six pairs of eyes stared intently at her, unsure of themselves or anything any more. Behind drooping eyelids one more pair slept soundly.

"But that's insane..." Tifa said finally. "That's barbaric."

"Not at all," Aeris grinned, "we'll give them a while, say, twenty-four hours to buck their ideas up and stop being poor, and those that continue to refuse to do their bit for the good of the planet after then we kill, how's that?" She could see brains working inside heads, chewing over the logic, weighing carefully. "And remember, these aren't people like you or me, or even Jessie here," she encouraged, squeezing Jessie's shoulder, "Hell, they're not even technically people, it's misleading to let that word be associated with them. These are the persistent and malicious suitors of abject poverty, with no higher aims than to know where the next bowl of filth to feed their dozens of thieving, murdering children is coming from. A bowl of filth they'll take from your pocket! Creatures who are so lazy that they can't be bothered to eat, and starve to death in their scores! Barbaric, you say? Give them a day, let the humans among them pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get bank accounts and jobs in middle-management; and for the reprobate, who would choose to deny the creation of immense arms factories for underpaid workers through their continued existence, let them be anathema!" She smiled sincerely: "trust me, I'm a priest."

"Well... in that case..." Tifa thought for a second. "Doesn't that seem fair?" turning to Cloud and nodding, almost sure of herself.

"It's common sense," Aeris explained. "Of course it's fair!"

"Oh, yeah," Cloud said eventually, being stared at by the two women, "that'll work."

Finally Aeris turned to Jessie.

"I am going to build such a bomb!" the girl said excitedly, jumping up.

"Damn, this deserves a feast!" Wedge cried out.

"Someone wake Biggs up," Cloud said, looking down into his glass and throwing its contents into the sleeping man's face. He woke up with a start, sitting forward in his seat and being heaved out of it by Jessie as she dragged him into a shambolic dance through the crowded room.

"Have you heard?" she told him, beaming, "we're going to kill the poor!"

"Ahhh! My leg! My leg!" Biggs roared, trying to hop onto his good one and push himself away from Jessie, finding his arms pinned to his side by her and his other leg shattered as well. "Ahhh! The other one! The other one!"

"Kill the poor!" Marlene giggled, clapping her hands. "Kill kill kill kill kill the poor!"

Tifa reached over and gave the child a hug. "That's the idea, honey!"

"Whose idea was that?" Biggs wailed, clawing at Jessie's shoulders to take the weight off his snapped limbs. Nobody answered him as Jessie turned to Aeris and asked:

"Who's going to lead us though?"

Aeris settled herself back against the bar, grinning as she watched Biggs fall away from Jessie, tears streaming from his eyes, his face set in the rictus of agony before stating: "the new Pope has not been chosen."

*****

Author's Note : Aeris Gainsborough will return in The Pope Must Die! - Day Of The Neutron Bomb.