Tifa Lockhart: Courage Under Fire by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Tifa-Lockhart-Courage-Under-Fire-1306865156#image-1

Tifa Lockhart: Courage Under Fire ANIMATION

Frost of the Fallen Star

Footfalls against grated steel usually rang with a hollow cadence, but deep within the subterranean belly of the Mount Nibel installation, Tifa Lockhart’s boots met only a suffocating silence. The air possessed a brittle quality, fracturing in her lungs like inhaled glass. This was not the familiar chill of the mountain peaks; this was an absolute absence of thermal motion, a predatory stasis. Plumes of her breath froze mid-air, drifting as glittering, microscopic diamonds. She adjusted the crimson leather of her gloves, the materia in the knuckles pulsing with a defensive warmth against the unnatural deep-freeze.

Pipes that once thrummed with liquid mako now stood as ruptured veins choked by pale, opalescent marrow. The reactor had died decades ago, but something parasitic had rooted in its corpse. Tifa navigated the labyrinth of catwalks, her ruby eyes scanning the geometric shadows. She had come tracking a rumor whispered by Shinra archivists: an atmospheric anomaly threatening to plunge the continent into an ice age, emanating from the pod where the Calamity from the Skies had slumbered.

A sound drifted up from the central shaft. It was a melody crafted from splintering glaciers and wind howling through hollow bones, yet beneath the acoustic violence lay the unmistakable tenor of a woman crying. It was a weeping so profound, so laden with cosmic sorrow and alien isolation, that it made Tifa’s pulse stutter.

"Do you hear her, pugilist?"

The voice did not echo. It slid directly into the auditory cortex, smooth as polished obsidian and dripping with a dark, intoxicating charm. Tifa dropped into a low crouch, fists raised, Zangan martial arts stances shifting instinctively as her eyes darted across the rime-encrusted machinery.

"Show yourself," Tifa demanded, her voice steady, betraying none of the creeping dread threading through her nervous system. "I didn't come to an abandoned tomb to exchange pleasantries with a ghost."

A melodic, pitying laugh cascaded through the chamber. From the abyssal darkness of the central reservoir, a manifestation began to coil upward. It was a sinuous geometry of sub-zero refraction, a draconic silhouette birthed from crystalline horror. This was the Frost Wyrm, the physical manifestation of Jenova’s lingering sorrow. Atop the serpentine neck, the ice sculpted itself into the upper torso of an impossibly beautiful, androgynous figure, a pale imitation of human perfection, its eyes burning with starlight luminescence.

"I am no ghost, flesh-bound," the Wyrm murmured. Its avatar leaned forward, the elongated neck supporting its humanoid visage bringing it level with Tifa’s catwalk. The sheer proximity radiated a cold so absolute it threatened to crystallize the blood in her veins. "I am the echo of a mother’s exile. I am the tear she shed when she realized this world would not simply open its veins to her. You possess a tragic symmetry, Tifa Lockhart. So violently sculpted, yet so remarkably fragile."

Tifa sidestepped, keeping her footwork light, analyzing the creature's center of mass. "You know my name. That implies you've been picking through memories you have no right to touch."

"I have tasted the static of the Lifestream," the Wyrm’s avatar whispered, extending a hand of faceted rime. The gesture was seductive, a beckoning into an eternal slumber. "I have felt your grief, little martial artist. The burning town. The silver-haired phantom. The crushing weight of survival. Why carry the fire of agonizing memories? Fire consumes the vessel. My mother offers the perfection of frost. Let me freeze your sorrow. Let me turn your heartbeat into an immortal monument."

The allure of the creature’s voice was a narcotic laced with oblivion. Tifa felt a lethargic sweetness blooming behind her eyes. The urge to close them, to let the exhaustion of years of fighting bleed into the white void, was terrifyingly strong. The Wyrm’s face radiated a false warmth even as the ambient temperature plummeted.

"It’s a tempting pitch," Tifa said, biting the inside of her cheek until the sharp tang of iron shocked her system back to full alertness. "But I've seen what your 'mother' considers perfection. It looks a lot like a graveyard. I prefer the heat. It lets me know I'm alive."

"Life is a chaotic spasm before the inevitable stillness," the Wyrm countered, its tone shifting from honeyed seduction to a terrifying, absolute authority. "If you will not embrace the stillness willingly, I wil
...(more at https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai).
For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)