Saving Midgar
For mintbanana in Genesis Awards Winter Gift Exchange.
Cloud sifted through the smog over Midgar, dangling from a patched parachute and evading scant debris shaken loose from Diamond WEAPON's assault. Suddenly chaos had clawed its way atop the plate. As Cloud descended, he saw red-dressed men scrambling and the sparks of ATM machines. The tint of mako exhaust created a false atmosphere to blot out Meteor's eternal sunset and keep Midgar's top plate in the dark.
"Heidegger is after you all," Cait Sith said behind Cloud. "That's why it's dangerous out there. Let's go underground."
Cloud nodded and followed Mog's lead down the alley.
He stepped in the glass of an abandoned cologne bottle as he headed to rejoin AVALANCHE. The after effects of Rufus' cutting the power—or so Cait Sith reported—and the barrage at the pinnacle of Midgar continued to wage war in place of WEAPON. Parts of skyscrapers continued to fracture and fall into the streets as the rich world barricaded itself inside, and SOLDIER began its march.
Damage from WEAPON's assault had remained mostly controlled, as it had targeted the 70th floor, and few shots had strayed. Cloud would estimate above plate civilian casualties below thirty—most members of Shinra's management staff—which did not even grace the feet of the numbers that may result from prolonged power deprivation to the slums of Sector 8 and whatever else Hojo might do.
Yet people living above the plate had never seen anything like it. Cloud remembered what that felt like, and the recollection nearly covered Midgar in snow.
A crash shook a small space of top plate cobbles behind him, and Cloud rounded.
A man roared, clutching at his thigh, where it disappeared under a chunk of scaffolding, about six times his size. It had likely been split off by a stray beam from Diamond Weapon and slowly losing hold to the rest of the Park 8 Apartments. Cloud took a closer look and noticed the familiar violet jump suit of a SOLDIER First Class.
"Cloud?" Cait Sith called from down the dark alleyway.
It would seem the rest of the stretch was safe. The rest of the members of AVALANCHE simply could not hear the SOLDIER…
Cloud chanced a look back to the SOLDIER clutching legs trapped under debris. Still there. Cloud rubbed his eyes with his fists, but nothing changed; the SOLDIER remained propped against Park 6 Apartments, squeezing his thigh and breathing heavily through his helmet. He didn't want to scream again, Cloud knew, just in case he had not been seen.
It did not matter one way or the other, Cloud realized. If he got any closer, the SOLDIER would raise his gun—if he had one—and fire. If he did not have a gun, Cloud would probably have to kill him anyway. He was a SOLDIER, and that meant something. It used to mean something to Cloud.
Cloud kept his eye on the blood pooling from the man's thigh, barely registering in the dim alley. He could still hear the wheezing when he made his way to AVALANCHE.
Tifa stood over the hatch to the subway tunnels, staring across at Cid and waiting.
What we did in Midgar can't be forgotten no matter what the reason. Right? We haven't forgotten, right?
She caught his eye. While Red XIII scratched behind his ear, Barret fiddled with a barrel on his gun arm, and Yuffie fist-pumped the air, Tifa smiled and kept her arms straight at her side as if she had left her worries on the Highwind.
…Cloud?
Cloud glanced back down the alleyway again. The shadows had hardened, and he could not see through them, but he swore he could still spot the massive piece of debris denting the road and the leg of the SOLDIER in between. He would not even have lingered on a lone, trapped SOLDIER if not for Tifa's speech to Barret and Cait Sith on The Highwind.
When Cloud reached the group and spoke to Cid and Red XIII, he turned back to Tifa, her smile had flattened, and her shoulders hiked just under her cheeks.
A question. The way it had been a question in the bar under The Plate. In The Lifestream. On The Highwind.
"This is where we go in." Mog reached down to the hatch covering the Subway tunnels. The warped steel rattled on the ground once he threw it open. "Please. Hurry to the Mako Canon."
They all stared at Cloud, waiting for him to go first. So he nodded.
He tried to put on a reassuring grin that didn't belong to Zack—he secretly hoped he did not look like he was going to eat his own chin.
Without a word, he started down another ladder to another set of cold tunnels where mako-bred monsters prowled.
"Let's get this done."
At least that part was still easy.
Water hissed through the split side of the train tunnel in Sector 8. Tifa's ankles still jarred from the parachute landing, but she ran ahead of Cloud and Barret, spitting sewage as she passed through the spray. She tore her hair from her eyes, and looked back, choking.
"All right, Tifa?" Barret asked.
She nodded, glanced reflexively at Cloud—who again had nothing to say about her chosen direction—and kept running.
"There has to be a way to the canon around here somewhere." Cloud did not make eye contact.
The tunnels still vibrated from the impact of Diamond's assault. Cait Sith explained that some power lines had taken permanent damage when Rufus redirected all power to the Sister Ray, and much of the energy would not return until they dealt with the Hojo situation.
Every once in a while, the light flickered. Tifa would shiver, expecting a train to whip by, taking her right side with it, until she remembered that they had shut down all transportation between sectors.
That did not explain the personnel scrambling to find an exit, the mako-powered Shadow Makers twitching static. At least the reserve power supply left the lights on. For the most part.
A wave of four mechanics tottered by, not even acknowledging them. One of them had a wide girth with a tool belt that appeared to be holding his gut in. A loose green hammer nearly flung itself after Tfia. She thought him lucky it had not accidentally hit Barret.
Barret raised his gun arm and fired after the Shadow Maker hopping after the mechanics on its levered foot. The machine burst apart, pieces skittering against the tunnel walls, the smell of mako steam mingling with the taste of sewage from the burst pipes.
"They better get theyselves outta' this fucking place."
Tifa glanced at Cloud again. He avoided her eyes, so she looked back at the mechanic who had lost a hammer.
He looked like Wedge.
The three kept running down the tunnel, Barret swearing and cursing, lamenting the fact that no one knew exactly where to find Hojo or The Sister Ray. As Tifa approached another fork in the road, she followed the metal bracers on the walls down either side and into the dark.
"Which way, Cloud?"
He did not say a word and headed left.
Tifa could not blame him. The Planet had fought back with WEAPON. In a way, The Planet had answered Sephiroth. In a way, this was Nibelheim, only bigger.
In a way, they were on the wrong side.
It did not help that Diamond WEAPON had silver plating.
Just as Tifa realized this, she saw tiny eyes, shining against the dim tunnel lights. At least a handful. Eyes rarely caught light that effectively, so Tifa would bet many more of them had buried themselves at the left branch of the tunnel. Tifa caught herself strongly wishing Cloud had chosen to head right instead.
So she wouldn't have to see it.
The loud whirring and clicking of Crazy Saws followed them down the tunnel. Barret fired, but Tifa did not look back to see if the group of mechanics had made it to safety. When he swore, she guessed they had not.
Tifa tried to avoid thoughts like "It's just like Shinra to let their roboguards loose with civilians still in the tunnels," but they came anyway. She remembered being naïve and still having the right to think that way. Someone had screwed up, she knew. Someone had let the Crazy Saws and the Shadow Makers and the Turks loose for hunting AVALANCHE, but had forgotten to order evacuation when the mechanics went to the tunnels to repair the walls and the electronics.
She remembered when she would have said "Shinra wanted them to die too."
Tifa had been an idiot.
When Cloud wavered before her, no doubt seeing the same sets of eyes Tifa saw, his pace slowed, and Tifa barreled forward, nearly tripping on the track rail as she ran around him. About a score of them, she guessed when the shadows began to move. They did not act like SOLDIER or even infantry. Tifa saw do rags, wrenches, canteens, and more mechanics stashed against a grating.
Tifa turned her back to them, but Cloud refused to do the same. She saw him watching them out the corner of his eye, gripping the handle of his sword and controlling his breathing.
Barret ran after Cloud and Tifa. "What's wrong wit' you," he complained. "You leave me for the fuckin' Shinra tea kettles?"
The whirring of more Crazy Saws and the thud of hopping Shadow Makers followed Barret. Tifa could smell the metal shaving off against the hard ground and the subway rail. Maybe the mechanics behind her would have had a chance if they had stayed put and waited for the power to come back, for rescue parties to come, or Heidegger to call off the search of AVALANCHE at the end.
Like that would happen, another Tifa remarked.
She wondered which was the naïve one.
Either way, it didn't matter. She, Cloud, and Barret had alerted the automated security. They would keep coming until they eliminated the troubling terrorist threat fixing the wiring.
Tifa had found another one of those moments. Those moments like the end of the fight over the Huge Materia where she could not justify death on a fight for The Planet—those magic words Barret pretended fixed everything. As usual, Tifa looked to Cloud.
As usual, he said nothing. He hefted his large sword and sliced along the waist of a Crazy Saw, narrowly avoiding the rotating spiked ball at its base.
Barret fired at another one, locating the control panel which the group had deduced resided in the "chest" area of the robot. The two started to run back toward the fork in the tunnel. Tifa stayed behind at the dead end with the mechanics, waiting for them to notice.
They did not, naturally, but for once, Tifa could not let Cloud's silence on the situation reign. "We're not leaving them here."
Barret froze first. He turned to look at Tifa, slack-jawed. Cloud slowed, his head fell forward into his hands, and Tifa saw his back hunch in defeat. "We don't have time for this," he said.
"We need to make time." Tifa glanced over her shoulder to make sure none of the mechanics had raised one of the wrenches in her direction. Some of them had armed themselves, but she hoped they had just gotten prepared in case a few robots managed to slip through.
"The Sister Ray is bigger than this." Cloud turned around and kept his face straight. Tifa could still seem him floundering in his leader shoes, the way he had been since she had pulled him out of The Lifestream.
"Why?"
Barret snorted. "'Ya mean why? Damn whackjob scientist gonna' take out the whole motherfuckin' project."
Tifa crossed her arms. "So?"
"So?"
"You heard Bugenhagen," Tifa said. "None of this matters when Holy comes."
"You don't know that." Barret quivered in his skin. His arms crossed defiantly.
Cloud still did not turn around to face her. He kept staring down the tunnel, looking for Shinra's battle appliances. "Sephiroth."
"Huh?" Barret spread his arms. "What choo sayin'?"
"Hojo is sending the power of Sister Ray to Sephiroth."
"That isn't—"
Shots from the automatics attached to more Crazy Saws interrupted Tifa. Barret and Cloud both threw themselves, face first into the dirt. Tifa followed, but the robots had not made it close enough for their range to reach her or the mechanics in the back.
Barret returned fire. Tifa could not see the Crazy Saws at the end of the tunnel yet, but she suspected he could at least make something out.
Tifa cleared her throat. "Sephiroth is still Sephiroth. At this point, it doesn't matter if he has the power of Midgar. He has The
Lifestream gathered at Northern Crater and Jenova."
The Crazy Saws had made their way up the tunnel enough for Tifa to rush forward after them, under the cover of Barret's fire. She used her ankle as a spring and kicked one of them in the chest. The crunch of flimsy aluminum sounded as she almost lodged her boot in the control panel. She lost her balance and sliced her calf on one of the rotating spikes as she landed.
Luckily, the robot had fallen back after the kick. Cloud dispatched the second. No one even bothered to ask her if she was okay. This was part of the job. So, apparently, was gambling high stakes.
Tifa looked down the tunnel at the eyes blinking back at her. She had not even been able to make out a single face yet. She imagined them covered in grease, afraid, gripping their wrenches and wondering if they could take out the terrorists without any casualties.
"We came back to save the people of Midgar." Tifa reached into her pack for a potion. "I'm staying."
Maybe part of him felt bitter. Maybe part of him just didn't care anymore. He admired the sort of selfishness he had told himself he would not allow since, ironically, Tifa had made the speech on The Highwind before the parachute in. He wouldn't tell her that. He would not smile. He would not even glance at Barret, as tempting as his assuredly amusing reaction might seem.
Instead, he punched a number into the PHS.
"Cloud?" Vincent answered. Through the line, Cloud heard gunshot and the spinning of roulette wheels, the grating sound of Cait Sith shouting orders to a "coincidentally" deaf stuffed moogle.
"Yeah," Cloud said, "can you get our location?"
"Yes, Cloud, I can."
"Meet up for a rendezvous," Cloud said. "I think we're almost through, and I know you have a score to settle."
A pause. The urge to glance at Barret became over-powering. At this point, the once leader of AVALANCHE appeared mutinous, his chin propped high by the barrels of his gun arm. Cloud supposed he feared for his own place in the lead raiding party.
"Ten minutes." Vincent cut the line.
The flip of the PHS clicked shut just as another round of Crazy Saws careened into view.
"Cloud?"
Would she stop using his name as a question? Cloud scratched at the base of his neck and nodded. "I guess if you're staying, you better have backup. Is that all right with you, Barret?"
Barret raised an eyebrow. "Is that awright with me?" He scoffed and crossed his arms. "No, not really. It ain't, but I don't gotta' say. Seems wrong if ya' ask me. Startin' ta' wonder why we even come here."
Cloud could only come up with "To say goodbye to where we started."
It sounded stupid, even by his standards. Zack had nothing.
Tifa drained a potion, chucking the empty blue bottle at a Shadow Maker rounding the bend and knocking it on its back where it shuddered and sparked in futility. The people behind Tifa offered fragmented whispers Cloud could not make out, but they remained mostly quiet, just like the SOLDIER above the plate. Maybe silence had mercy in it.
Cloud kept time by the lifts and falls of his heavy sword, slicing through metal and feeling the frayed electricity at his nerve endings. As a boy, he always associated the shock of electricity with the purple mushroom creatures that roamed the outskirts of Nibel. Street vendors used to hunt them and serve them fried. The lingering shock on the lips made salt an afterthought.
It felt odd, revisiting his memories from Nibelheim once he had clawed his way out of the Lifestream. Mushroom caps ought to have been something wholly his own, something that reminded him of himself. Instead, they, more than Zack's memories, felt like they belonged to another person.
Tifa had asked him how he felt several times since he had left the Lifestream. What she meant was "Do you feel like you?" He had lied, but she had as well.
Before long, Vincent and Cait Sith arrived. Vincent's cape swayed limply at his back. A streak of blood rimmed his bandana. When Tifa saw him, she raised her hand as if she had the urge to wipe it away.
Cait Sith's Mog bounded behind Vincent, making more of a fuss than the whirring Crazy Saws. Cait Sith had his arms—legs?—crossed above Mog's head. He scowled down at the creature. "Can't you move it?" he demanded of it. "Vincent floats faster."
When Cait Sith saw the congregation of civilians trapped behind Tifa, Mog stopped abruptly. The cat's ears drooped under his crown. "I see."
"I thought you might," Cloud said.
Cait Sith and Tifa exchanged a nod, as if they understood something the other three couldn't, and Cloud felt the back of his neck bristle. He rolled his eyes inwardly at himself.
"Right." Cloud turned to Vincent and Barret. "Back-tracking through that tunnel, we should find Shinra's landing to the right. It'll be just the three of us. Fair?"
Vincent did not object, Cait Sith's mog bowled forward and back as the cat robot scrambled to stay atop its head, Tifa pursed her lips defiantly, and Barret waved his gun arm above his head.
"What we waitin' for, then? Let's get this over with."
About a quarter of an hour had passed since Cloud, Barret, and Vincent had retraced their steps back through the tunnel. Tifa had planted both feet to keep several yards of distance between her back and the mechanics huddled behind her. Cait Sith had ducked boldly to the back of the tunnel to greet the Midgar civilians while Tifa's boots dug half moons into a few rotting pieces of wood that lined the floor of the tunnel.
"They're happy to see us, Miss." Cait Sith bounded to perch next to her. "All things considered."
Tifa felt a dull sting between her shoulders. Of c ourse, AVALANCHE always shouldered part of the blame, even for the plate above Sector 7 falling. "I'm—I guess that's fair." Tifa swallowed the apology. She stared down the tunnel and wished more guards would come swiveling into vision. Her ears pricked for the shredding of Crazy Saws.
"They said they'd like to thank you."
Tifa stopped hammering her heel into the wood. "I'd rather not get close enough—I'd rather not even see their faces."
Cait Sith hissed and shook his head. "Ach, Miss, if you don't mind me askin', why?"
"It's just easier."
"In case they die?"
Tifa glared at the constantly smiling face of the cat doll. She suddenly wanted to punch his stitched nose in. "They won't die. Cloud's going to stop Hojo. The robots down here can barely touch us."
Cait Sith waved his paws back and forth. "I didna' mean anything by it. I swear. I can guess, can't I? Truth is, I'm not a very good fortune teller after all."
Aeris always used to indulge Cait Sith, to laugh openly and ask him for fortunes. Tifa made a point of resisting doing the same, especially after she found out who he worked for. "It's easier because I'm not down here for them," Tifa confessed. "I'm down here to prove a point."
"What point is that, Miss?"
All that is bad will disappear. That is all.
Ho Ho Hooo. I wonder which we humans are?
Cloud had listened to Bugenhagen, he had heard him, he had understood, and then he had barely paused or given it a thought before he had asked for a weapon that would mean the end of all humanity. Tifa had wondered, which did he think humans were? Which did he think she was? Which did he think he was?
Absently, Tifa peeled and unpeeled the Velcro on her left glove.
"I'm not sure."
Cait Sith grinned and waved his megaphone. "Tell me when you figure it out?"
Tifa chanced a glance down the tunnel. One woman had taken a few steps, had dared to brave the distance Tifa had set to separate the mechanics from the terrorists. The woman rubbed her palms together and pulled her hat low over her eyes. Tifa noticed she had a wide jaw before she turned back to Cait Sith.
"Don't count on it."
Cloud sprinted away from the Proud Clod as Heidegger shouted in surprise. He did not wait for Barret or Vincent as he dove under the rickety stair well and scraped his palms and knees on the granite brick road. He gritted his teeth as his eardrums absorbed the brunt of the explosion. He closed his eyes, and white bursts patterned his eyelids. The heat of the explosion burned against his back, but it felt more like High Noon in Costa del Sol than the explosion of a giant anti-weapon.
The sound of combustion whined and waned. Cloud stumbled to his feet and wiped the dirt from his knees. Scrapes stung when he gripped the hilt of his sword and checked the steel for blemishes.
"Everyone awright?" Barret called from Cloud's right. He waved his hand above his head. Vincent stood beside him, still very much coiled in on himself.
"I really didn't like those guys." Cloud sheathed his sword. The weight of it tugged at his back and righted his hunched posture.
Barret laughed. "I sure ain't gonna' cry over 'em."
Vincent stared at the flight of steps Cloud had hid under. "You think that's the way?"
"I'll call Cait Sith." Cloud reached into his pocket for his PHS and dialed the number.
"Hey, do you have our location?"
"In a minute," said the garbled voice over the phone.
Still in the tunnels, of course. Cloud pursed his lips.
"You're really close. The controls and Hojo are straight up from where you are. Any stairs?"
Cloud nodded, then frowned to himself as Barret chuckled beside him. "Yes."
"That's the one. Good luck to you, Cloud. Tifa and I wish we could join you."
Remembering Tifa's hands on her hips, the defiant cut of her jaw, Cloud was skeptical. "Any word from the others?"
"Yuffie and Cid were cross when they heard you didn't call them to the rendezvous point. They're going to try to break the surface as a vanguard with us."
When Cloud heard the news, he hoped, for a second, that his friends would survive. Once he realized that that depended entirely upon him, Vincent, and Barret—there was no way Crazy Saws could get the best of five of them—his apprehension petered out. "Tifa's idea?"
"It was kind of obvious, Boss," Cait Sith said. "In the cards, if you will, yes?"
"Fine. We'll regroup on the Highwind." Cloud flipped up the receiver and pocketed his PHS.
"What she up to, now?" Barret asked.
Vincent had already started up the stairs. Cloud motioned for Barret, and they followed.
"I'm really not sure," Cloud said. "They're trying to move them out of the tunnels."
"That seems risky for Shinra employees, don't it? I thought she was smarter'n that. This might cost us time an' manpower."
"This isn't for them," Vincent interrupted before Cloud could speak.
"Whadda' ya' mean?"
Vincent cleared his throat. "It's like Cait Sith said on The Highwind. It's simple to say 'It's for The Planet,' but unless I'm mistaken, that isn't how this started for any of you. You started to hate Shinra because they cost human lives in Corel, correct? For Tifa, it is the same, only in Nibelheim.
"Aeris made a decision to call Holy. She removed a choice for us. Everything is on the line, now, for the sake of The Planet. Even I, confronted with some of the basest of mankind in my past, am not sure that is the right decision, but now it is the only one. Tifa has to decide for herself."
Cloud paused for a moment on the stairs—not long enough for either of the other two men to notice—and found himself in Nibelheim again. He rushed through the burning houses, felt the embers flaying flesh from his cheeks. Skin melted from his palm when he tore the door to his house open, but his mother was dead. He smelled her hair burning.
Then he had thought that any man who could do that wasn't human.
Since then, he had fought the likes of Scarlet and Heidegger. More importantly, he had sunk his sword into the necks of SOLDIERs who died on orders. He had raised a sword at Aeris' back…
Sephiroth was perfectly human in Nibelheim that night.
"Stay in line!" Tifa called to the wide-jawed woman who had ventured closer to her.
It did not matter, in the grander scheme of things. She had not gotten close enough to the enemies to draw fire away from Tifa or Cid. Besides, Tifa could see her face perfectly well at that point. She had dimples and eyes that almost swallowed her forehead. Tifa had gotten a good look at most of the mechanics. One man had his arm in a sling, blood dotting the material ripped from another man's shirt. A Shadow Maker had caused the wound.
When the woman tried to get closer to Tifa, she felt just as skittish as the man with the bleeding arm.
Cid threw his spear through the neck of one of the Crazy Saws. It head toppled off, but it kept rolling toward him. He swore and stepped back as Tifa aimed a kick at its chest.
"You need better aim, Old Man," Yuffie called as one of her shuriken wrecked the panel of an uppity Shadow Maker.
Ankles still sore from the landing, from the kicking, from the walking, Tifa bent down to massage them. She forced her thumbs into her socks and kept scanning the widening tunnel for more enemies. If they followed the trail Cait Sith had tracked on Cloud's PHS, they could reroute and make their way to the plate above Sector 6. Most of the robots above the tunnels had been programmed to head to Sector 8 after one of the guards spotted Cloud and Barret.
Everything about the tunnel felt oppressive, as if the tubing bracing the walls had started to shrink in around Tifa's skull. She just wanted to get out and free herself of the mechanics she had taken under her wing. Especially that wide-jawed woman with the dimples who kept trying to get close enough to Tifa to do God knows what—maybe shoot her.
"How much further?" Tifa asked Cait Sith.
"Sick of it already, are you?" Cait Sith hopped giddily atop Mog's head.
"Really, Reeve?"
That put him in a dour mood. His ears drooped. "Not so loud."
"Why?" Yuffie punched the air. "Mechanics gonna' tell the ghost of Rufus Shinra on your stinkin' traitorous hide?"
Nanaki pounced at the last Shadow Maker, batting its cubed top like a cat with a ball of yarn. The screen face blared brightly, then flickered out as Nanaki bit into the wiring.
Cait Sith whooped. "Not much longer then. Think we can survive another wave?"
"The White Rose can sleep through another wave."
"As long as she doesn't expect Cid Highwind to pay any attention when a Crazy Saw rolls over The White Rose's tiny snoozing ass."
Cid managed to duck an "accidentally" tossed shuriken as it soared overhead.
Tifa sighed. "Thank goodness."
"E-excuse me, Miss—Lockhart?"
Tifa nearly jerked out of her skin when she realized how close the wide-jawed mechanic had gotten. They could reach out and touch each other. The tops of her forearms twitched nervously.
The mechanic chanced a smile. Her dimples drilled into her cheeks. Tifa could not help smiling back. She quickly caught herself and wiped the grin from her own face.
The mechanic frowned. "I just wanted to say that I appreciate—I mean, I don't usually associate with, you know…"
Tifa closed her eyes. "Please don't say anything else."
Yuffie weaved between them, and Tifa felt she could breathe for a second. "What's up with you, Boobs? The lady's tryin' to be polite. Of course, she shouldn't be addressin' you when Royalty is present, but—"
It took all the gumption Tifa had left, sore and tired of the tunnel, to straighten out and look the mechanic in the eyes. "She's right," Tifa said. "I thank you for the effort, but it's nothing."
With the awkward brush off, Tifa used the space Yuffie had created—the mechanic had begun inching away from The White Rose of Wutai—to rush back beside Cid. The twitching at the tops of her arms ceased. She breathed a sigh of relief.
"Anything you want to talk about?" Cid asked.
Apparently, Tifa had not chosen her walking companion judiciously enough.
"Nothing."
"Spit it out, damnit."
Tifa swallowed. "It was just so easy for Cloud to leave them behind."
"Nah." Cid reached in the strap of his goggles for a cigarette. He appeared to think better of it because his fingers strayed to his lips without one. "Cloud just makes things look easy."
"I don't think so." Tifa did not need to re-examine the encounter in the tunnels. She could not fixate on his forehead or search for his scrunched eyebrows in her memory. Tifa only had to remember the conversation with Bugenhagen, and she had her answer.
"Cloud's a different kind," Cid said. "You and I know that better than anyone else. Neither of us could do his job worth shit. He thinks of the best thing to do, and he does it. If he doesn't think too hard about the bad parts of it, that's better for him, don't you think?"
"No," Tifa chewed the top of her lip. "I don't."
Cid patted her on the back. Contact from another person always made her feel warmer, like the world wasn't as ugly and cold as Shinra wanted. She liked to think that was because Cloud had held her for a moment after Sephiroth had run her through with Masamune.
"Maybe that's what he's got you for, then," Cid said.
The last thing Cloud remembered before Hojo cast Confuse was concentrating hard on pulling energy from his Fire materia. Then he found himself turned around and swinging his sword manically at anything that stood before him. He felt flesh tearing under his blade, pulled back and drove it forward again, hacking into bone.
He knew it better than he had ever known anything before; the man under his sword deserved swift death, to never take breath again and return to The Planet where his energy could be put to better use.
A harsh thunk rang in the back of Cloud's skull. White dots fluttered across his vision, and he stumbled backward, nearly falling under the weight his own sword.
Barret's gun at his back steadied him, and the bitter liquid of Potion rolled down his throat, warming his flesh and returning strength to his knees. Cloud breathed in the sour air of Hojo's poison and coughed.
"I know Vincent needs a new cape an' all, but damn."
"Watch out for his powerful Mystify," Vincent said. He dropped an empty Megapotion. It clattered to the ground, and his face began to contort, sharpening at the nose. His back broadened suddenly, he hunched over, and long canines ripped through the smug grin on his face.
Sleek wings ripped through his back. Vincent welcomed violence. He and Chaos would get their revenge because of it.
Hojo cackled. His specimens flanked him. "Who do you want to kill, Failure? Me or the friends who put you in this impossible situation."
Cloud did not linger on Hojo's question. Vincent was fine—relatively speaking. Hojo would not be so lucky.
Hojo narrowly evaded the barrage of Barret's bullets. His floating teal specimen interceded for Cloud's sword, and he laughed harder as Chaos' talons rent across his lab coat, drawing deep gashes.
"I should thank you all," Hojo cackled. "Now I can shed this façade and accept my new self, my true self!"
The slices Chaos had drawn split wider. Blood pooled on the floor as the flesh ripped off, and purple, Jenova-like limbs stretched out.
Cloud raised his sword high before Hojo completed his transformation. He lunged forward and felt the steel bite into one of Hojo's new legs. Blood splashed to his fingers, and Cloud supposed it did not feel all that different from when he had lunged at Vincent, though the haze of confusion obscured memory.
Hojo lurched backward and spat poison. The liquid landed behind Cloud when he dodged. He heard Barret swear and chanced a glance over his shoulder to see him rubbing at his eyes and spitting up blood.
Yet the lure of revenge, the need to settle the score for Hojo's experiments, pulled him away from Barret's difficulty quickly. He concentrated again on the fire materia embedded in the hilt of his sword. Fire licked across the blade and caught the dry flesh of the monster.
Only Hojo wasn't a monster. He was a man, and that made it easy. Cloud had killed men before.
Hojo howled in agony. Chaos, looping overhead, dove and raked his claws across Hojo's neck.
Again, Hojo's flesh began to bubble and mutate. This time, it started to shrink. Cloud pulled back his sword in an instant, afraid the shrinking would take his weapon with it.
Below them, the ground began to shake. The platform rose around Cloud.
"It's a face," Chaos roared from above. "You're caught in its mouth." A loud laugh. "It'll be an extra treat to watch you swallowed whole, Strife."
Cloud leapt backward, rolling in time to see Hojo's new form. A man's torso floated above ground. A tail coiled below the waist, in place of legs. Yellow eyes flared, and Cloud swallowed. His hands shook so hard with rage that he thought, perhaps, Hojo had used the Mystify again.
But Cloud wasn't confused. He just wanted Hojo dead.
"Look out, Spike," Barret called.
Cloud looked back again to see Barret gripping the top of his gun arm as a large sphere of energy gathered at its end: roiling fire and flashing sparks.
Cloud rolled to the side as Barret set the energy free. Then he sprang to his feet and dove in after, swinging his sword. A gust of wind from the flapping of wings tickled the hairs at the back of his neck. Chaos dove in with him.
A strange sense of clarity passes over a person when he dives in for a kill. It isn't a sense of purpose so much as a mirror. In that instant, as Cloud swung his blade toward Hojo's stomach, hacking away at the remnants of flesh after Barret's gunfire, he saw himself better than he had when Tifa guided him through the Lifestream.
He wasn't Cloud or Zack anymore. It bothered him a little, but not enough to slow down.
Especially not enough to miss.
Cait Sith guided the remains of the party to the base of Sister Ray's control panel. He had received a call shortly after they had emerged from the tunnels, and the Shinra mechanics had scattered.
Cloud had done it. He had stopped Hojo, and Shinra Electric Power had fallen.
Just like that.
Tifa didn't feel anything when she heard the news, but she felt the soft glow of top plate lamps on her cheek and a sense of warmth in her stomach as she watched the wide-jawed mechanic gunning for Jack's 24/7 Diner.
She felt it again when Cloud descended the last flight of stairs, grinning, and oblivious of the dried blood on his clavicle. They exchanged a nod and followed Cid as he called the Highwind.
He wasn't Cloud or Zack anymore, but if they lived through WEAPON, Sephiroth, Meteor, and Holy, she would find him again.
Please review.