Disclaimer: All rights to Final Fantasy 7, all respective parties, and virtually anything I write about even remotely related to said topics are copyright of Squaresoft. : (
Final Fantasy VII
Chapter 1: Noise
Noise.
Though Midgar had been renowned for many things, from the alluring lies of opportunity and prosperity to the legendary piss stained streets, slums, and corruption that filled the city like a gas tank spewing and regurgitating its own choked filth, all the legends had been dwarfed by the constant noise the city exuded. The screams of pain, anguish, and sorrow wailed as background to the ear splitting sirens of the law of the city: an ever-present reminder of the power enforcing the chaos and perpetrators of more crimes than any mob or street gang (although those crimes were hardly in short supply as well) Throbbing about in an octave cycle, the reactors rumbled and spewed their noise, sucking Mako, causing tremors, powering weapons, and creating green infernos, all to rise the cacophony that was Midgar's inherent symphony. Every noise was indigenous to Midgar: the screams and gunfire from the slums, the moans of prostitutes and the sizzle of nightclubs. And atop the Plate, atop the pinnacle of Midgar, the rotors of choppers creating a deafening soprano accompanying the ruffling of blood money that screamed Death silently. A city of every audible, of every conceivable noise.
And to those who could hear it, the cries of the planet.
The girl winced. She glanced around, almost wishing that the sound had originated from some nearby mugging, assault, or perhaps even worse scenario. Looking back directly in to the reflection of her green eyes in the green fire that powered the building, she pondered silently for a while, and then came to an adeptly fashioned rationalization.
Not healthy to stare at Mako, she thought. Makes people hear things. And…it's not good for the flowers.
The girl rose, gathering her flowers in one arm, and strode out of the alley as nonchalantly as she consciously could. Focusing so hard on remaining unnoticed, she barely heard the noise of the Enforcer's motorcycle as it blasted by her, nearly running her down.
She sighed.
At least he didn't recognize me. I must be doing at least something right.
It was better not to be noticed, the girl mused. Girls too conspicuously careless might catch the unwanted leer of some filthy drunkard, or worse yet, a MP law Enforcer's (who were usually dead drunk anyways). She stared up at the theatre sign, 'Loveless' brilliantly standing out as the main attraction. Shifting her attention to the large green clock high above the plaza, she prepared to change her demeanor to the bright, cheery king the Plate residents, the only people who could afford to see such plays, would be receptive to. Plate residents weren't concerned with people in the slums, she knew. And they weren't allowed to, it was the idyllic, ignorant middle class that kept the mammoth Midgar running, their money was the lifeblood of tyranny. As such, they couldn't very well be allowed to sympathize with the plight of tyranny's victims.
The flower girl, in one final action of concentration, expunged the thoughts from her head. She resolved to sell each and every flower of hers to the crowd that would soon jubilantly (albeit half-drunkenly) exit—no doubting thoughts would stop her from that.
And as she waited, screwing up her resolve, she took almost no heed of the train whistle adding to the ever-present noise, though the blow of a train whistle always had struck a nostalgic chord with her. Though she could never really explain why…
* * * * *
The MPs by the cargo dock took even less heed of the train's whistle as it rumbled into the No. 1 Mako Reactors' loading dock. As the first of the guards made his way over to the doors, a clatter at the train's roof startled him. Suspecting a train rat, he began to ascend a ladder to the roof of the train. As he reached the top, however, he was greeted roughly by a large boot to his face, toppling him down the ladder. Dazed, the guard snapped his eyes open groggily just in time to view a darkly clothed, fiery-haired man flip over the side of the train, and deliver a swift flying kick to his sternum with the opposite boot, knocking him senseless.
The guard's counterpart, taken aback, hesitantly approached to attack the strange man. As he moved closer to attack, he was clobbered in the back of his head by a brusque looking brunette, her light blue eyes flashing for each consecutive blow she delivered. As the guard fell in defeat, he grasped for his comlink, and in one desperate move sounded a Red Alert to the entire facility.
Unfortunately for him, the last desperate act had not gone unseen. A stout, thick man, bringing up the rear of his two companions sighted the fallen soldier sound the Alert. Annoyed and simultaneously more than a little panicked, the thick soldier slung his assault rifle from over his back, and slammed the guard's skull into the pavement with the butt of his weapon before rushing ahead to his two comrades.
As the three intruders scampered away from the loading dock, two men brought up their rear: both catapulting over the train and landing solidly next to the two fallen guards. The first was a big, Black, muscular man in his middle thirties, looking more than perfectly comfortable in the combat that surrounded him. He wore a simple jacket; sleeves ripped to expose a flaming skull tattoo on his arm, and leaving his chest bare save for a chain of dangling dog tags and a lower armor plating concealing what would have been a conspicuously well toned and sizeable six-pack. His gruff demeanor, thick beard, low cut hairstyle, and piercing brown eyes served only to accentuate the intimidation he radiated.
But none of his trappings served to make him intimidating so much as his right hand, or rather, what had been his right hand. In place of it was a large, six barreled gatling gun. The metal was huge; its weight would have toppled any normal man. Yet he lifted it with ease, as seemingly versatile as he worked his working hand.
The man that followed seemed almost his exact antithesis. Literally vaulting with one hand from the train's roof, he stood in stark contrast. His blue rugged outfit set him apart without need for further scrutiny. Held up by a heavy leather belt and bandolier, and set with one thick shoulder plate on his left shoulder, his mere attire was imposing independently. Yet it paled in comparison to his demeanor and his weapon, respectively. For his weapon was so large, so gigantic, that it seemed too big to wield by any mortal man. It was a sword, but resembled its namesake in only the loosest sense of the word. The sword was enormous, a presence all its own. Perpendicular to the hilt, two finely carved holes held two glittering green orbs, sparkling even amongst the decrepit city. A crease along its outline separated the weapon's blade from the bulk of the saber. A veritable image of rock hardness and steel fashion, the weapon screamed power. Yet it exuded an aura that humbled: for it to be of use to one, that one first must possess the strength to wield it.
And yet the man with the sword tucked in his oversized bandolier seemed the last person able to wield such a weapon. He was smaller by far than his counterpart, standing a mere 5'7, and could almost be dubbed skinny. His fair complexion did nothing to alleviate the image, and his blond hair, wildly flailing in every direction forming haphazard spikes and floppy tendrils, was practically laughable.
But his eyes…
His eyes were a deep blue, cold and reticent. Colder still was his glare, as though it itself could diminish one and annihilate from the earth. But above all, amplifying the coldness was a piercing glow, an unnatural light the eyes gave off. The glow: the hard, piercing stare of the eyes gave intimidation far surpassing the man beside him.
The man beside him, viewing for the first time the imposing visage fully armored, seemed to acknowledge that fact. Turning to the warrior beside him, he waited as the blonde stood still, as if entranced. Finally, the bigger man spoke.
"C'mon newcomer," he rasped somewhat impatiently. "Follow me."
As the gun-armed marksman left the other fighter and disappeared, the latter began to stir just as two MPs, alerted from the adjacent corridors, charged into the loading dock and attacked.
The first guard, more headstrong than the other charged the warrior at full speed. But almost as fast as he had reached the sight of his eyes the guard stumbled and fell painfully onto the pavement, horrorstruck.
"RUN!!" he screamed, horrified. Frantically, he crawled backwards away from the figure that loomed before him.
Before he had a chance to complete his sentence, the warrior had flung himself at him with lightning speed, and brought the blunt edge of his weapon upon his back as he vaunted past him. The blow brutally incapacitated the guard instantly.
The remaining MP looked daunted, seeing his partner brought down so easily. Regaining his composure, he opened fire on the intruding sword-wielder.
Prepared, the warrior lifted his gigantic caliber sword to bear, and advanced on the MP, deflecting his shots with the sword that nearly concealed his entire frame by virtue of its mammoth size.
The guard could now see the warrior's eyes, and as his eyes met the unnatural glow of the warrior's, his gun clattered to the floor, though still half-stocked. He now was just as frightened as his partner had recently been.
"Backup!" he screamed, fumbling for his comlink. "I need backup! It's a SOLDIER!"
The MP stood now only a few feet away from the advancer and he unsheathed his nightstick, held in a defensive position as a last-ditch effort to deflect the sword.
The warrior then stopped abruptly. He waited then for several long seconds, then, quickly and decidedly, sheathed his sword. But just as the MP that stood mere feet from him relaxed his defense ever so slightly, the warrior braced his body, and as one of the orbs in his sheathed sword glowed violently, he shouted, "Bolt!"
Instantaneously, a bolt of lightning flushed downwards, electrocuting the guard as well as prompt one more hysterical scream of "SOLDIER!" from the MP that was subsequently drowned out.
"That's 'Ex-SOLDIER', MP," the Ex-SOLDIER drawled. Satisfied with his handiwork, he began to leave when something unbidden in his subconscious held him back.
Finish the job…
Why? he thought in confused response. They'll be out for hours; they're no longer a threat…
Do it…
An explosion ahead brought him from his reverie. The Ex-SOLDIER hurried ahead to the next security door.
As he turned a corner, he saw his leading three team members taking fire from three guards. Abandoning his previous finesse, he stalked up from behind the assault riflemen, and slashed violently through all of their backsides simultaneously with one horizontal blow of the razor-sharp side of his saber.
The fiery-haired man, stepping from out of cover, looked at the newly broken bodies with a stare of adulation.
"WOW!" he gasped, gaping at the three dead men, whom he promptly disarmed. He then turned to the warrior again, exclaiming, "You were in SOLDIER all right!" He smiled. "Not every day ya meet one in a group like AVALANCHE."
"SOLDIER?" his female partner exclaimed, taking a seemingly closer look at the blond-haired fighter. "Aren't they the enemy?"
"Hold it Jessie," the fire-haired man interrupted, shaking his head at her ignorance of the situation. "He WAS in SOLDIER. He quit them and now is one of us."
The Ex-SOLDIER noted he had a western drawl, not unlike himself. In fact, they all did. All except…
"Didn't catch your name…" the red haired man led on.
"Cloud Strife," the warrior spoke harshly, accentuating the 'Strife' as he said it. He certainly didn't want some redhead even skinnier than him calling him 'Cloud'.
He, however, didn't catch the hint.
"Cloud, eh?" He spoke as if he was merely remeeting an old friend. "I'm…" he started.
"I don't care what your names are," Cloud spoke in an undertone. "Once this job's over…I'm outta here."
The previously cheerful man looked genuinely hurt now.
"Biggs," he whispered anyways, slinking away as he did so.
"The hell you all doin'?!?" The voice made every body except Cloud jump and whirl about as the leader of the group approached, frustrated.
All except him, Cloud thought, finishing his almost forgotten observation. The dark man continued undaunted, despite the indifferent attitude Cloud displayed to the shouts that intimidated the others.
"I thought I told y'all never to move in a group!" he exclaimed.
Fortunately for the cowering Biggs and his larger counterpart, their brunette partner, who had been occupied with unlocking the security door, hacked it open, and effectively interrupted their leader's tirade.
After standing speechless for a moment, the leader gave a smile that he seemed incapable of producing.
"Good work, Jessie," he beamed. Turning slowly, more deliberately to the other three, he sighed. "Our target's the Number One Reactor, if you've forgotten," he growled. Then, in his usual boorish booming tone, he sounded, "Move Out!" spurring everybody but Cloud to advance through the door at once.
Cloud made an almost lackadaisical approach to the door, when the gun-arm of the leader intercepted him, blocking his way.
"Ex-SOLDIER, huh?" he said, grimacing at Cloud. "Don't trust ya!" The look on his face would have enough to send many men cowering, not to mention his own teammates.
Cloud stared back, his eyes flickering and stealing the thunder from the former's stare. "I think you're forgetting the 'Ex' in that sentence," he quipped. "Maybe it's crossed your mind that you can't afford not to trust me?"
"Barret Wallace don't trust no damn Shinra!" AVALANCHE's leader thundered furiously. In a rage, he swung his gun-arm at Cloud with all his might. It just as quickly stopped; it shuddered as Cloud easily stopped it with one motion of his hand.
Barret's eyes popped open as his body shook with the force of the swing stopped so easily by the smaller man: the man whose eyes now glared daggers into Barret's. Infuriated, Barret Wallace glared at Cloud once more, and then dashed towards the reactor once more.
Cloud followed him soon after that.
* * * * *
The cobbled entrance to the reactor was rarely used any longer, and its decrepit state showed it. It was only used to transport the heaviest of machinery from the ports of Kalm, as it was the only passageway connected to the heavy freight train's loading dock.
Hardly any security, Cloud thought. Although it hadn't been all easy: having Jessie hack undetected into the reactor's systems from a remote tap, place an order for a Makuro refining piston (whatever the hell that was), and aerially hijacking the train carrying the device from the scaffolds of the Plate high-rises, all to arrive undetected in the heart of the Number One Reactor.
Cloud suddenly felt a sharp pain rip into his back. A familiar feeling coursed through his body—he'd been shot. The guard who had hit him had now emerged from the shadows, and his mutated Shinra attack dog advanced as well.
Cloud countered twofold: he impaled the disgusting canine upon his sword as it leapt upon him, and braced his body, concentrated as much as he could with the brutal pain coursing through his frame, and uttered a forceful cry of "Ice!" bombarding the MP with a shower of Ice magic formed in sharp icicles and hail, killing him instantly.
Cloud, wincing, wrenched the bullet from his backside.
That could have killed me, he thought angrily of his vulnerability. Killed me, of course, if I hadn't been wearing my Bronze Bangle. The special armor on his wrist had prevented the bullet from completely penetrating the flesh, and the old thing showed it as it still shuddered from the deflection of such a weak attack. Cloud faintly remembered complaining about having to fork over 500 gil for such minimal protection. Now he began to consider if it had been worth it after all.
Cloud removed a small potion from a satchel at his waist, uncorked it, and poured it down his back, feeling the wound close.
The rest is always internal, he remembered, and promptly gulped down the remainder.
Feeling totally refreshed, he stepped out of the passageway and onto the catwalk leading to the reactor.
The scene before Cloud could be described as nothing less than a full-fledged war zone. Barret and the rest of the AVALANCHE team were duking it out with the squadrons of soldiers guarding the reactor, the elite plasma wielding riflemen, and the Sweeper-class Roboguard stationed at the entrance to the reactor proper. They seemed to be trouncing their opponents, but with one big exception: every lull in the battle resulted in one of the AVALANCHE members' being hit by very powerful, concentrated blasts of magic, thus incapacitating them temporarily and severely weakening the group as a whole.
Cloud had a clue, however, as to what could be doing such a thing. His eyes darted about, searching for the perpetrators. From the looks of how the magic was being focused, there were two of them. And pretty far removed from the action of the battle, right…
There.
A single drone, created for the sole purpose to attack unseen whilst its victims were distracted using magic stored and charged in its core, moved into Cloud's line of vision high above him.
Uttering a small "Bolt!" he fried the pest, and promptly scanned for the second one.
C'mon…, he thought. Drones, he spat inwardly. They were exceedingly fragile, but deadly if taken lightly.
Cloud stopped. The second drone had drifted into plain sight, nearing the battle as so to focus and increase the potency of its magic better with its sibling mech destroyed.
Cloud assessed the options to the current situation. Sure, he could easily bring it down with another Bolt spell, but he wanted to save his magic, be less wasteful with this one.
Grinning, Cloud leapt from the catwalk he stood upon, diving straight for the drone. In one quick horizontal slash, he tore it in two, a near impossible feat considering the drone's diminutive size and the seeming unwieldiness of Cloud's sword.
Still in midair, Cloud realigned himself, and landed onto the catwalk perpendicular to his former directly in front of the Sweeper Roboguard, the only remaining enemy. Bringing his sword don, he cleaved the already damaged Roboguard in two, sending an electrical bloodbath of electrical bolts and meshed wires splattering across the reactor's entrance.
Barret, dazed, stopped firing as Cloud came crashing down in a blaze to end the skirmish. Then, ignoring Cloud, he motioned for Biggs and Jessie to follow him into the reactor with a quick motion of his wrist.
As Cloud prepared to follow the group into the reactor, he saw that the last member of the party was apparently staying behind. Approaching him slowly, noting that he was almost as big as Barret was (though not nearly as muscular), Cloud groped to remember his name.
"Wedge," said the stout man, completing Cloud's silent inquiries. "Name's Wedge, if you've forgotten."
"Uh…yeah, Wedge…" Cloud said slowly. He quickly scanned his body for injuries. Finding none, he asked audibly, "Are you hurt?"
"Hurt?" Wedge said, chuckling. "No…I'm standing guard here…" he replied. He then straightened himself up as best he could, and said in the most commanding voice he could probably muster, "Concentrate on the mission, Cloud."
As Cloud turned away, Wedge exclaimed uncontrollably, "Gee, we're really gonna blow this place up!?! This'll be one BIG explosion!"
Cloud, after throwing a scornful look towards Wedge, turned away and made his way into the reactor proper.
Wallace…, he mused angrily. That overgrown grizzly didn't know how to conduct an operation. Cloud knew that he should have informed him of every aspect of the mission, rather than making him baby-sit everyone that made an odd move. It wasn't as if he cared about any of them.
Or did it?
The next security door that stood before Cloud was a piece of Shinra-grade, pure technological ingenuity. It was a set of two Mythril reinforced double doors, both of which had interlocking timed security sequences that required two reactor director's security codes to open. It was unhackable, unbreakable, and it had taken (as Barret so often reminded the Ex-SOLDIER) the lives of half the original AVALANCHE team to obtain just the two codes.
And this was only the maintenance hatch…, Cloud pondered in silent awe. Next time, we won't be able to come in this directly.
They, he corrected himself as he approached Barret, Biggs, and Jessie at the double doors. Just they.
"The hell you been!" Barret shouted at Cloud as soon as he was in earshot.
"Checking on your friend, Wedge," Cloud said calmly. "I thought he was hurt."
Barret looked at him skeptically for a moment, before changing the subject abruptly. "Yo! This your first time in a reactor?"
"Not exactly," came the reply. "I did use to work for Shinra, after all."
Barret visibly winced at the mere mention of the company, of which a near eighth of its power was being produced by the reactor they were standing in. Yet he winced even more inwardly at his inability to get a grasp on this guy's motivation or background. Only the highest ranking SOLDIERs had ever even been in a reactor core without permanent reassignment to one. Its inner workings had been and were still a closely guarded secret of the Shinra.
Not just an electric generator, that's for sure, Barret mused bitterly.
And then there were this guy's motivations. What was so damn important about the job? Not the pay, not compared to a SOLDIER's income. He was disinterested with the group, as well.
He didn't even seem to care about her much, either, he concluded. All that seemed to matter to him was this reactor, and whatever it was that was inside of it.
"This land was full of Mako energy," Barret probed, trying to get his new recruit to reveal something of his motivations. "It's the lifeblood of this planet," he continued, as if he was explaining anything that wasn't basic knowledge to anyone who didn't choose to ignore it. "But Shinra keeps sucking out the blood with these weird machines," he stated, glaring at him as he said the word 'Shinra'.
The Ex-SOLDIER showed no emotion as his former employer, company and empire alike, was spoken with such rancor. "I'm not here for a lecture," the blond-haired warrior replied contemptuously. "Let's just keep going."
The reply was not taken favorably, as the rebel leader, angered and slighted, burst out screaming again at Cloud, "The hell you think you're talkin' to?!?"
He advanced on Cloud, forcing him to back up by virtue of his sheer size alone.
"The hell you been?!?" he repeated, enraged. "Can't keep up worth shit, ya worthless bastard!" he spat once more. "Jus' hopin' yo Shinra pals would'a finished us off back at the entrance, huh?"
"You and this pathetic rebellion of yours would have been finished right then and there if I hadn't destroyed those drones. You didn't even bother to look up that Shinra stations Mono Drive drones at every reactor's entrance to keep out people like you!!" Cloud retorted with a flash of the unnatural glow in his eyes. "Hell, it's one of Shinra's protocols that actually exist on public information databases!"
Barret opened his mouth to reply, then though better of it when he glanced at Jessie, who was holding her head in shame over the technical slip-up. The others were completely caught off guard: seeing this display of emotion in someone that had so far perpetrated himself to be devoid of, incapable of, and impervious to feeling.
After a brief and awkward silence, Barret regained his composure. "That's it!" he sputtered. "You're coming with me from now on!"
Cloud nodded affirmatively; he seemed just as shocked from the audacity of his own outburst.
Biggs and Jessie, silent but relieved nonetheless to see the conflict resolved if only for a short time, began to enter the door codes.
Biggs entered the codes for the first door; his hand coded the digits swiftly and rapidly, and ended by placing his palm on the access screen with a flourish.
"Passcode One accepted," rang a metallic voice over the loudspeaker as affirmative tones dotted the first monitor. "Activation time engaged."
As Jessie stepped up to the next monitor to repeat the process, Biggs sauntered over to Cloud, holding out his hand triumphantly.
"Palm prints," he boasted, flicking his hand towards the warrior for a full view. "With the right codes, they'll get us ANYWHERE in Midgar." He lowered his voice to a whisper, and continued, "I got mine from the President himself, shook and scanned his sweaty, disgusting little hand at the Headquarters. I was disguised as a businessman, imagine that? Got that cackling Scarlet's and that guffawing Heidegger's prints too for Jessie and Wedge."
Biggs sighed. "I could've killed 'em all right then and there, y'know?" he rasped bitterly. "But I guess I didn't want to die right there, just then." The mere recollection of the close encounter seemed to weigh even heavier on Biggs' light frame. "A dirty little coward, that's all I am…" he concluded painfully.
"Life is precious," Cloud interjected, stunning Biggs yet again. "Even if you had killed them, hundreds more would have risen to take his place. You have to remember to risk your life in causes worth dying for, for something you feel won't be in vain."
Biggs nodded, seeing such a new light shed on his incident. At that moment, however, Biggs noticed a contradiction.
"But, Cloud?" Biggs inquired. "If that's the case, then…what are you risking your life for?"
"For the cause that's always worth dying for," Cloud answered matter-of-factly. "Money."
Biggs only looked on more dumbfounded at Cloud, just as Jessie unlocked the last set of doors with a final swipe of her palm prints.
"My most prized invention," Jessie giggled, waving her now-free hand at Cloud. She then skipped happily through the security door.
Cloud, who had already started to follow her, instinctively looked back at Biggs. He emphatically gave Cloud a thumbs-up. "I'm standing guard!" he shouted to him. The warrior nodded, then ran through the security door himself, Barret hot on his heels.
As Cloud approached the cargo elevator, he stopped, letting Barret go in first. Then, as Cloud prepared to follow, a golden feather, sparkling even among the night sky, floated down from the rafters of the reactor. Recognizing it at once, Cloud snatched it deftly in one hand, and tenderly proceeded to slide it into his satchel. He then grinned slightly, and strutted a bit into the cargo elevator.
* * * * *
As Jessie activated the elevator, Cloud glanced at Barret, who was visibly annoyed by his slight tardiness. Now fully recovered from Cloud's glaring retort, he probed once more into Cloud's feelings toward the reactor, not to mention vent his own frustrations with it.
"Little by little the life'll be sucked out," he spoke, abnormally loud, especially for the cramped elevator. "And that'll be that," he finished in a still louder tone.
"It's not my problem," Cloud said coldly, his old demeanor reestablished as well.
"The planet's dyin', Cloud!" Barret roared, all thoughts of probing put aside. "Don't you even care, Strife?"
"The only thing I care about is getting out of here and getting my money before security and Roboguards come," Cloud spoke even more coldly, not even deigning to glance at his employer. "Got it, Wallace?"
The reply that would be sure to follow, however, would have to wait. Before a retort could even be made, the elevator screeched and rumbled to a halt, and the double doors opened, heralding a hail of gunfire and plasma weaponry as MPs, plasma riflemen, and Sweeper Roboguards fired on the prone elevator entrance.
"Damn!" Barret cursed, escaping the elevator and strafing the guards with deadly precision and effectiveness as he scrambled for cover.
Cloud, on the other hand, after pushing Jessie into a corner of the elevator, dived directly into the fray. He swept his sword in deadly arcs, cutting down soldiers and deflecting bullets simultaneously: it appeared as though he anticipated the battle erupting all around him.
Within mere seconds it was all over. The guards had either been mowed down by the hail of Barret's gunfire or massacred by the precision of Cloud's sword. The three Sweepers had been destroyed as well, thanks to a few well placed grenades from Jessie.
"You sure can aim," Cloud commented, impressed at the sight of the totaled Roboguards.
"Aim had nothing to do with it," Jessie beamed at the Ex-SOLDIER. "It was a magnetic grenade, designed to home in on the Sweepers' unique metal casing."
Cloud was stunned. "Wow…," was all he could say, visibly even more impressed by the technical aspect of the handiwork.
"Hey, you lovebirds!" Barret yelled from below, having already descended into the depths of the reactor's core. "There ain't no time for that! C'mon!"
Jessie, blushing furiously once more, hurried after him. Cloud however, stayed behind, surveying the carnage.
The challenge had been nothing to him, a First Class SOLDIER, and yet he felt as if this, somehow, someway, had been nothing more than his first real battle, his first time to draw easy blood.
Some things never change…, he thought.
Entering the next room after descending the stairs, he was greeted by a myriad of pipes, ladders, and chains. Deftly leaping and descending to the catwalks below, he spotted Jessie whom he assumed was standing guard and waved to. At last he found himself at the base of the Number One Reactor, with none other than Barret Wallace waiting to greet him.
"Bout damn time," Barret muttered. "You're s'posed ta stick wit me!"
Cloud, stowing his retorts, strode past him into the Central Dynamo of the Reactor's core. Midway to the center, he was bombarded by an unseen assailant. He collapsed as noise after noise shattered his consciousness. The noises were not inherent even to Midgar, only similar in the cascade of pain and despair, culminating in harsh yells of one sentence:
Watch out! This isn't just a reactor!
And just as quickly as the noises had come, they went in a flash. Seconds later only Cloud remained—dazed and bewildered.
"You all right?" came Barret's voice from behind him.
"Yeah…" Cloud mumbled. Regaining his composure, he stalked up to the reactor's core, and surveyed it with an accustomed awe.
The core was a sight to even the most familiar with it. The boiling Mako below was all vented through the core, which refined it into energy. Pipes, rotors, wheels, and axles of all sorts powered the reactor, as all around the two intruders the mechanical groove worked as smoothly as a clock, centralizing its power.
Barret, observing Cloud's mesmerization, spoke up. "When we blow this, this ain't gonna be more than a hunka junk."
Cloud began to nod, but stopped short as Barret continued, "Cloud, you set the charges."
"What?" Cloud sputtered, completely and unabashedly taken by surprise. "Shouldn't you do it?" he inquired suspiciously.
"Jus' do it!" Barret cut him off, exasperated. "I gotta watch to make sure you don't pull nothin'," he explained half-heartedly.
Cloud, tired of arguing, took the charges, defeated. As he did, he spotted something behind Barret, just below the reactor core. The object was a small orb, glittering green in the pale lights of the dim core. Instinctively, he reached out for it.
But, surprisingly, Barret had seen him spot it. He lunged, snapping up the orb so quickly that Cloud's grasping fingers groped at the spot where it had been even as the triumphant leader arose. He looked up to the smirk of Barret Wallace, who was balancing the orb on his gatling gun while never taking his eyes off of the stunned Ex-SOLDIER. "Property of AVALANCHE," he spoke with an unusually haughty tone in his voice, bouncing the tiny gem into his flesh hand and pocketing the orb. "Get to work," he snapped, motioning towards the reactor.
Cloud, without hesitation, planed the charges on the center of the core's access panel.
"No!" Barret yelled, belatedly trying to stop Cloud as the explosives primed. Alarms rang throughout the core, as a metallic voice echoed high above the rising fracas, "Core Security Roboguard activated."
"Damn!" Barret roared at Cloud. "I thought you said you wuz in a reactor before!"
"I said I had been in one, Wallace, that doesn't mean I ever tried to blow one to hell before!" Cloud defended himself.
At that moment a great crash resounded through the core, and a giant robotic creature descended from its holding cell to the catwalk below as the metallic voice rang its final call before burning out:
"Security Roboguard 'Guard Scorpion' deployed."
* * * * *
The Guard Scorpion crashed down onto the catwalk, buckling its supports and sending its two targets flying. Its bright red armor shone ominously, adding to the intimidation that its massive size and scorpion like shell frame imposed.
"Visual sensors activated," came the mechanical sound from the hollows of its 'body'.
Instantaneously, sensor beams fired from two devices planted on each of its arms, their purpose being to track for intruders. They fell soon upon Cloud, who had been just struggling to his feet. He immediately was subjected to a hail of high powered bullets from the Scorpion's Assault Cannons.
The machine's bullets had too much velocity for Cloud's Bronze Bangle to take. They cut straight into Cloud's body, racking it with such force that he remained conscious with body intact due only to the last lingering effects of the Bangle.
Just as all hope seemed to be lost for the warrior, a refreshed feeling began to course its way through his body, while his wounds felt as if they were being washed away from his skin, expunging bullets as they receded. He looked up to discover that Barret was now engaging the armor-clad beast, after having treated him with two of his spare potions. Barret didn't seem to be in very good shape, however…
Barret's bullets weren't doing much visible damage to the Guard Scorpion at all. He had made minimal progress in toppling the beast, however: a well placed burst of bullets had destroyed the Scorpion's left sensor generator. Wisely, Barret now had taken cover on the Roboguard's left behind a jagged piece of metal, forcing its right sensor to flail wildly in an attempt to pin him down. Barret's energy was waning, however, and his enemy was still strong.
"Strife!" he called. "My bullets ain't no match for what the hell this is firing!" Just as he spoke, a lucky shot from the Scorpion's cannons impacted the jagged metal Barret had been using as cover. Barret avoided most of the metal as it bounced from the catwalk into the distance by the impact, but was still damaged as the metal grazed his right arm in the process.
Cloud, witnessing the blow, raised a Potion to toss to Barret when Barret held his gun-arm out in protest.
"Don't you goddamn dare use that for such a itty-bitty wound! Go!" Barret then ducked down in search for better cover to recuperate, while Cloud nodded affirmatively and prepared to charge the Guard Scorpion.
Cloud, his defense now fully regained, deflected bullets as he pushed up the catwalk to the Scorpion Roboguard. As the weapons concentrated all fire on the attacker, he sprang past them to mere inches from the mech's casing. In one fluid motion he spun to its backside, unfurled one hand, smashed his saber into the Scorpion's right leg with his other hand, and, while gripping it taut, ripped it from the leg with his other arm.
The Scorpion could not withstand this spinning tornado of an assault. It promptly buckled, wrenched, and toppled to its side, crippled.
"Careful!" Cloud bellowed to Barret as he emerged to attack the machine once more. "It's still active!"
Barret, with renewed vigor, charged towards the mechanical heap, pummeling it with a blindingly rapid rate of fire, determined to force it off of the catwalk and into the noxious green liquid below in its injured state.
As he reached the point blank range, he smashed into the Guard Scorpion with his gun-arm with strength that could only reasonably be described as superhuman. He rushed the thing again, tottering the giant towards the railing. As he prepared for an ultimate assault, however, its tail slowly began to rise even as it was bombarded; while its cannons began to retract at the same time.
Cloud, keenly observing the transpiration, thundered desperately at Barret, "Stop!"
Barret, against all of his natural instincts, stopped his final charge. He turned about slowly, yelling back. "What for?"
"Its visual sensors and turrets are offline," Cloud explained. "Only its motion sensors remain intact. If we move, it'll use all its stored power to use its devastating Tail Laser!"
Barret looked at the Roboguard mammoth again, noting its violently twitching tail and the absence of any other movement except the whir of the sound of a laser unmistakably powering up.
"If it uses that, the catwalk will be destroyed, and we'll both die!" Cloud finished.
"What do we do, then?" Barret asked. He and Cloud stood motionless in the darkness for sometime with nothing but the beeping of the primed bomb breaking the silence. Cloud's eyes then momentarily flashed, and he looked to the sky as he slowly sheathed his sword so as to be completely undetectable.
"Attack without moving," Cloud replied. Bracing his body and concentrating all his mindpower, he cried, "Bolt!", sending a lightning blast into the Scorpion's core.
"Bolt! Bolt!" Each cry heralded a focused charge of highly effective electric energy to the machine before him. The Scorpion was racked by its unseen attacker, flailing wildly to sense any detectable movement at all.
"Get ready!" Cloud called to Barret.
In one final spasm of concentration, Cloud uttered a final "Bolt!" sending down a final lightning strike and fully frying the Scorpion's mechanics. Barret, realizing what was happening, prepared to run for cover, only to find a piece of his old jagged metal cover had lodged itself in his boot. He was completely stuck.
"Barret!" Cloud cried as what was left of the Guard Scorpion Security Roboguard exploded, sending the nearby Barret flying and sprawling mere inches from Cloud's feet.
Cloud rushed to his aid and immediately checked his pulse. Still alive, he thought, smiling in spite of himself. But just barely…
Cloud almost reluctantly pulled the sparkling feather that he had obtained earlier from his satchel and laid it on Barret's chest. "This is your lucky day," Cloud muttered.
The feather shone on Barret's rippled chest brightly, radiating more and more as brilliantly colored strands of gold magic coursed through the air and into Barret's body. He convulsed, spitting up bright red blood, and looked up at Cloud—only to stagger back as Cloud smashed a potion on his head, then recovered as it healed his wounds as well as the bruise that smashing the potion had inflicted.
"That's for having me waste this on you," Cloud taunted (though only half-joking), waving the now wilted and useless feather in Barret's face.
Their expressions then changed to lighter ones. They both realized that only by working together had they survived that deadly assault. They continued to examine each other almost graciously, until a loud recurring beeping sound across the destroyed catwalk broke the silence. Barret, his senses fully regained, spoke first. "The Bomb!!!"
"We've only got ten minutes," Cloud said gravely. "And there's no extending the timer, the catwalk's been destroyed by the explosion."
Barret rose to his feet almost immediately, and then looked back at the Guard Scorpion's strewn metallic carcass of twisted parts. Searching the remnants of the Roboguard quickly, he grabbed a turret and held it above him, exclaiming triumphantly. He then strode towards the exit.
"Wha?" was all Cloud could say, bewildered.
I figured I could use this turret to enhance my gun," Barret explained as the ascended the series of chains and ladders to the entrance at the top of the shaft. "This is much more powerful than mine."
As the two climbed the final ladder frantically, Cloud gradually heard cries from below. Immediately suspecting what they were, he grabbed a nearby chain and began to rappel down into the shaft again.
Cloud scanned left and right, descending as quickly as he could. It should be right…here! Cloud sighted the platform where he had seen Jessie on his first descent. Landing with a thud, he looked up to see a fallen Jessie, her foot caught and twisted in a slew of perforated metal.
"Thought you were standing guard," he observed calmly as he slashed through the metal and wrenched her foot free.
"I was, but…" Jessie began indignantly, then blushed crimson when she met Cloud's reproving stare. "Thanks," she finished. She pulled herself to her feet, and opened her monitor to assess the bomb's countdown.
"Oh no!" she cried, aghast. "Only five minutes left until detonation!" She looked up the shaft, as it seemed to stretch for miles upward then looked sadly at her twisted ankle. "We'll never make it to the elevator in time!"
Cloud, refusing to give up after coming so far, had already strung an idea together. His eyes darted up the chain he had descended on, to the pulley above, and then to an interlocking set of weights on the pulley.
Weights that if released, would send this chain rocketing upwards…, Cloud thought.
Snatching up Jessie in his arm and grasping the chain with his free hand, Cloud concentrated on the supports for the chain. At full immersion of pure thought, Cloud bellowed "Ice!", freezing the supports.
A split second later the supports shattered, breaking free the weights at the other side of the chain.
"Hold on," Cloud commanded Jessie as they rose with the chain at a blindingly fast speed. Higher and higher they flew up, until at last they leapt at the highest tier, leaving the rest of the chain to whip, crash, and plummet down below them. The elevator was now just across from them, already halfway filled with an irritable and grumpy Barret.
"What the hell!" Barret exclaimed half-wondrously, half-impatiently as the other warrior and his all too willing rescue made their way to the elevator.
"No problem," Cloud said with uncharacteristic cheer as he stepped into the elevator. "Just what I always do."
Barret was still staring at Cloud open-mouthed as the elevator activated.
"Three minutes!" Barret yelled as the elevator opened. Jessie quickly went to work on the security door. Cracking open, the team rushed to the next security door, which Biggs handled. Cloud couldn't help but notice that Jessie had been and was continuing to stare at him all throughout that time.
As the final security door opened, Cloud took point position and headed towards the exit of the reactor proper, slicing through the last ditch defense 1st Ray automatic defense lasers with ease.
Wedge was waiting for them outside at the extraction site. Cloud, Biggs, Barret, and Wedge all dived into the doorway. Jessie, however, preoccupied with he continual staring at Cloud, tripped. Cloud, seeing this, rushed out to save her even as the final seconds ticked down on the bomb's timer.
Helping Jessie up, Cloud whispered, "Stop it!" angrily and, taking her in his arms, dived through the doorway just as the timer hit zero.
As the Sector 1 Reactor rocked and exploded furiously, its crescendo of sounds drowned out the noise of Midgar. The sound was outweighed, however, by the silent, fiery backdrop, rising and blooming into the air like so much pain that it represented.
End of Chapter 1