Written and Inspired by Fox (Matt Laskowski)
Supported, Co-Inspired, Edited and Slightly, Slightly Written by the R.Enforcer (The Other Guy)
(Character bios will be inserted in the next update, as to reduce your confusion.)
CHAPTER 1
Croto sat inside the meeting room, watching a single screen. The screen was a bad black and white surveillance monitor with bad scan lines, a fuzzy picture, and was connected to a spy camera that put the picture completely out of proportion. But he didn't need any visual reference; he just needed to hear what was going on. It had taken him months to get the camera set up in a place that no one would see it. He had to specially program a Security Droid to fly into the room and place the camera. The information that he was recording was vital to the very faction that he is leader of... He needed information from one of the most top-secret, grand-daddy-of-all information-laced places on the planet. He could only get such prior data from one place... One place called... Proto's Bar & Grill…
He could tell that the person at the bar stand was Rank Archer, stumbling about himself over a seventh mug of beer. He was usually not known to drink this much, but 'some days do have their exceptions.' Rank had been bragging about his past deeds and missions that, in his current state, sounded pretty amazing. Unfortunately, the only people at the Bar & Grill at this time that were paying the drunk mercenary any attention were the robotic bartender and John 'The Lawman' Sectier. The bartender, who was trying to stay a safe distance away, listened because it was his job. Sectier listened because it was better than getting stinking drunk by himself after a big job. And it took a lot of whiskey for his 7'1" self to get truly drunk, so he'd be listening for a loooooong time.
"I can... can tell you that I'm... I saved a whooooooole planet." He managed to say while waving his hand in several random directions.
Sectier sipped at his whiskey, and asked with total unimpressedness, "What planet?"
Rank paused for deep thought, going down to the very deepest areas of his mind to try and dig up the answer somewhere in the far depths in his... um, brain. "Uh... I, I dunno... It was jus' called a... uh... the Planet..."
"...And you went there and saved it?" Sectier was at this point questioning the validity of his drinking companion's claim that he was sane.
"As far... As far as I know... Yeah, su-re."
"So that made you famous around those parts?"
"Um... Yuh-Uh huh. Now here- lemme get' ya another..." and Rank passed out facedown on the table. Sectier sighed, shook his head disdainfully, and propped Rank on his shoulder. Rank had drank a wee bit too much tonight, so he'd have a helluva hangover the next morning.
'Damn
. Of all the times he has to pass out, it's before the point of drunkenness where I won't remember anything the next morning...' Sectier sighed again, bid the robotic bartender, who was trying to get as close to the back wall as possible, goodbye, and carried the soon-to-be-violently-sick Rank Archer into the men's bathroom, which Proto had aptly marked 'The Guy's Puking Room.' It was where the both of them would be staying for the next twenty or so hours...- - - - - - - - - - - -
Croto continued to watch them through the camera to try and make sense of what he had just heard... meanwhile disregarding the muffled sounds of the retching mercenary...
Meantime, on the other side of the meeting room, Jenna sat with her arms folded across the table and her head down. It appeared she was sleeping, but that was just a very clever ruse to get Croto to leave her alone for the time being. That way, she could just think to herself. There were many other rooms in the C. Force Headquarters. However, most of them had a tendency to be occupied by at least one person. There was the Training Room. Balin liked to spar. There was the Kitchen. George loved to eat. There was ever her own room. Jessie would sit there, wanting to talk to her for whatever reason. On the other hand, Jenna didn't like to spar too much, Jenna never ever would binge like George did, and talks with Jenna's sister, while fulfilling, were sometimes rather mundane. No, there were times when she preferred to think to herself. This was one of those times.
'My head hurts
. I need a painkiller or something... And I thought school was bad. Summer's even worse. I thought I could get away from all of those jerks during this time of year, but noooo. They decide to come by and egg the HQ. Sure, the security drones found a real timekiller in shooting the eggs in midair, chasing them through Foxton, and trying to blow up their convertible, but I would've felt better about this whole thing if I was doling out the revenge. Whatever those security drones did to them they deserved, but something I could've done might've been a lot more fitting. What would I have done, anyways? ...I would've stopped time, brought them to the most crowded area in all of Foxton, pulled down their pants, continue the normal flow of time, and let the world laugh at whatever stupid underwear those dorks were wearing. Teach them to try and soil my home. I can think of so many other things to do to those jerks when they least suspect it. I could cut off their cable in the middle of their long-awaited sports event, I could divert all of the cold water into the hot water pipes while they're taking a shower, I could cut off their electricity while-'"That's IT!" Croto yelled in the middle of the meeting room.
Jenna looked up to Croto, hiding the fact that her mind had just pumped out five scenarios in which Croto would suffer dearly for ever breaking the blessed and relaxing silence that had filled the meeting room. "What? What did you do now?"
"We are going on our next mission! Jenna, go get everyone else!"
"What's the mission, first of all?"
"I don't exactly know yet..."
"Then what are you planning to do?"
"Go to a different dimension, save a planet or something... Gain some fame and get our name around, you know?"
There was then a short pause.
"Uh... Croto?" Jenna asked, to break the silence.
"Mmmm-yes?"
"We, uh... We don't have interdimensional travel technology..."
Croto paused for a few more seconds, turned away from Jenna, let off a puff of smoke from his head from a brief over-heat, then calmly turned back around. "All right... WHY was I not informed of this beforehand?"
"You're the leader, Croto. You should've known."
"Well..." Croto thought hard for a minute, "Well we can use Proto's interdimensional stuff!"
"And you think Proto will really let you?"
"Well... With a bribe or five, yeah, I think so. Now go gather up everybody and tell them to meet at the hangar of Aviation."
Jenna sighed, slowly stood up and reluctantly did as she was told. Why, oh why couldn't the world just leave her alone for an hour? An odd sound came from the surveillance monitor. It wasn't a unique sound, but it was enough to capture Jenna's attention. She approached it, and stared at the monitor for a few seconds.
'Was Croto staring at a bar for the last three-and-a-quarter hours? Robotic bartender, must be Proto's
... What's that sound?' She continued investigating, until her eyes fell upon the men's bathroom. She could barely make out the letting under the word 'MEN''The
... Puking... Room...? Gross!' Her face contorted in disgust as she covered her ears, and she quickly left the meeting room, temporarily forgetting the fact that the surveillance equipment had a 'mute' switch on it.Croto stood before the front door of The R. Force's HQ. There really wasn't anything much to it on the outside... You just have this small building with a normal everyday front door. Croto raised his hand to push the small button next to the door. He hesitated to push it. He feared and dreaded that the day when he needed to ask the R. Force for help would come eventually. With as much dignity he had, he slowly forced himself to hit the small button. He then heard a nice chime from inside. Immediately, from the excruciatingly small speaker next to the door, a voice boomed that could knock a person over saying...
"What... do YOU want?" The voice was that of Proto, leader of the R. Force and general enemy of Croto.
Croto gathered up his thoughts, and simply said, "...I want to go somewhere."
"What? You idiot, you know we're not a travel agency!"
"No, I mean I want to go to a different dimension."
"I can't let you do that."
"Why not? It'll get US away from YOU."
Proto paused for a minute. "That does sound tempting... NO."
"What?! You'll get rewards! We'll pay you back!"
"No."
"Pleaaaase?!!!"
"Ye-No."
Suddenly Roter wheeled past Croto, with Jenna following. Roter knocked on the door. "Hey Proto, we need to go to another dimension, let us in" Roter said.
"Sure thing! Just a moment." Said Proto, just to spit Croto. After a second, the door shot open and Roter and Jenna went inside. Croto tried to follow, but the door slammed in his face.
"What? Hey! How come they got to enter?" asked Croto.
"Because they're authorized by the Interdimensional Council."
"And THAT matters???"
"YES. Get yourself authorized 'yeah right,' and I might consider letting you enter. Now go away, I've had enough of you."
"Wait a minute! Jenna, Roter! Do something! You have to get him to let us go!!!"
Jenna's voice came over the speaker, "Do we always have to do everything?"
"Um, well... Yeah, I guess so."
Within a few seconds, Croto was hovering across from Proto, who was lounging on a big comfy office chair with his feet on the desk in front of him. Why a robot who did not have an outer-shell that could feel anything would want a big comfy office chair was unknown; it was probably just to show off his wealth and power.
"Remind me again why I'm letting you do this?" Proto had always been considerably irked at Croto for 'following in his footsteps,' but he would tolerate Croto's annoying presence. For now.
"Because." Croto was also considerably irked at Proto. He was always off, gallivanting around the galaxy, saving people, getting rewards, and acting like a total snob towards the 'lower' C. Force.
"Is that it?"
"Looks like it."
"Righty. Are there any conditions to this?"
"None that I can think of."
"Well, then I'll make some."
"...I should be worried, right?"
"Dang straight."
"..."
After a few moments of pondering, Proto came up with a good idea. "I know. Every night for the next five weeks, you come over here, and I'll blast you."
"You'll what?"
"You heard me. You come over here, and I'll shoot at you. You'll be target practice for the next five weeks."
"Not a chance."
Proto slid off his office chair, and slowly began to advance towards Croto. "Well, I didn't make it five months, did I?!"
Croto began to reach for his gun. "No, you didn't, but it's still not an agreeable proposition!!"
"Oh really?" Proto raised his fists.
"Yeah!" Croto did likewise.
"You wanna make somethin' of it?!?"
"You betcha!!!" They got in each others faces, and continued their petty bickering. Punches were ready to be thrown when Kathryn stepped into the room.
"Boys, boys! Hey! Get along now or I may be forced to hurt one of you." She added an extra edge to her voice for added effect.
Both Proto and Croto managed to peel away from each other, glare venomously at Kathryn, and say, in unison, "Oh, REALLY?!"
Kathryn took this with a grain of salt. "Yes, really!"
"Okay." Proto backed off.
"Fine with me." Croto also backed off. As he made his way to leave the room, he whispered to Kathryn, "I order you to hurt him first." He then let out a triumphant war cry, and tackled Proto. Needless to say, poor Kathryn was forced to take action...
Hours passed. Everything was prepped. Most of the C. Force had boarded the UltraShip, the R-850's, and Aurora Fighter, and the GAV were placed in the docking bay, and everyone had made dang sure that Proto and Croto stayed outside a 75-foot radius from each other.
Proto paced in his conference room, all alone. He couldn't help but snicker to himself. "I love that this ship only needs one person to fly it. That way, no one else needs to know, and no one will point fingers towards me when the C. Force mysteriously disappears..." It was strange that he was talking to himself, be he saw it as a God-given right when you had got to tell somebody something but don't have anybody worthwhile to tell it to. And, if he went out to the bridge, he'd be surrounded by people he might just consider 'not worthy of his time.' Sure, he felt all high and mighty when it came to the C. Force...
"Hey! I heard that!" Croto had in some unholy manner found ways to listen and shout through the bulkheads.
Proto had had enough. He wheeled right over to the conference room's sliding doors, and into the bridge. On the far side stood Croto. They glared at each other with equal intensity, and equal fury.
Ceige, who had been just lounging on Proto's command chair, staring at the viewscreen filled with a great shot of the surface of Earth, shook his head. They had all questioned Croto's sanity, not to mention his cooling system, when he had decided to take this mission for what seemed to be no logical reason at all, but now this? It was a known fact that very little good could come out of this. For one, Proto and Croto didn't have the usual cuss-out matches that two people who absolutely hated each other would. That was perhaps the only good thing. They would instead have combination staring-quickdraw contests, where they would stare at each other for extended periods of time ranging in hours, then randomly pull out their guns and start shooting. However, Croto usually wasn't very lucky with that last quickdraw part... Good things weren't necessarily good things if they were overshadowed by really, really bad things, were they?
Just then, both Proto and Croto reached for their guns and pulled them out lightning-quick.
Jace looked up from comic book, then called out, "Hey Croto!"
Croto glared at Jace. "WHAT?!" Then there was the sound of one big unload of laser fire.
Jace's eyes widened. "Nevermind." He looked back to his comic book.
Proto holstered his gun. "Well, dang. I just had that cleaned up." Where Croto had stood there was now one big scorch mark. Imbedded in the bulkhead where the scorch mark was centered was Croto. He slowly peeled himself out of the bulkhead, and proceeded to fall face-first onto the ground. An impression of Croto's back was left on the bulkhead.
Proto, on the other hand, considered it another trophy of a victory over his eternal nemesis. "Well, that's going in my room when I get back home." Proto snickered. He suddenly seemed to lose interest, then called out to seemingly nobody, "Everything ready?"
In response, another voice that came from nobody answered, "Yes Captain Proto, Overseer of the Milky Way Galaxy, Protector of the Earthen-Bound Species, and All-Around Good Guy." Both Ceige and Jace, the only two on the bridge at the moment other than the two robots, looked questioningly at Proto.
He returned the look. "So? I like having the computer give me a pat on the back once in a while. When nobody important is around, that is."
Ceige raised an eyebrow. "Nobody important?"
"Yep." He began to move towards Ceige. Ceige sensed something bad was about to happen, and jumped out of the command chair. In a way, he was right; something bad was about to happen. Proto was assuming command.
"Alright. Ready I.D. Gate Drive!" he commanded the invisible computer voice.
"Readying..." There was a pause. "Ready for interdimensional travel."
"Set dimensional coordinates for 6568.95!"
"Coordinates set."
"Activate drive and proceed with interdimensional travel!"
"Activating." Proto leaned forward, and looked earnestly at the viewscreen. The view that had shown Earth was now showing a picture that seemed to be destabilizing. Within a few seconds, the distortions had disappeared, but so had Earth. In its place was another ball of rock covered mostly with water and lessly with green. Sure, the entire process hadn't been a great show of lighting effects, but it did what it was supposed to.
"That it?" Proto asked, not shifting his gaze.
Croto tried to look up a little. "How should I know?"
Proto glanced to Croto, then back to the viewscreen. He flipped open the command console that was hidden in one of his chair's armrests, then typed in a few commands. The picture on the viewscreen zoomed in several times, eventually settling on a large city with pillars of green energy shooting out of random places. It was odd that the place was surrounded by barren rock, but he wasn't one to say what was strange. Laying back, he asked, "Izzat where you wanna go?" After a few seconds of gazing, one of the eight giant pylons at the edge of the city blew up.
"...Yes," Croto moaned.
"Thought so."
Within a span of no more than fifteen minutes, the UltraShip hung ominously over the dark-looking city. Everyone was in the docking bay, manning their own little ship. Proto, who was going to give a few final words to whom he was sure he was sending off to their imminent doom, was also there.
"Try not to get yourselves killed. Ruins the whole competition thing," Proto said. He turned around to leave, but then added, "By the way, you bring back what you took here, and nothing more. No pets, no artifacts, nothing."
"And why would that be?" Croto asked spitefully.
"Because, if I recall correctly, last time that was done we almost caused a plague that had the potential to either wipe out the human race or genetically mutate them into giant malevolent beings bent on killing and blood and destruction and all that other wonderful stuff you see in cheap B-movies."
Croto, not the least bit crestfallen, said, "Oh."
"Now that's done with, bon voyagē!" Proto shouted. He wheeled over to a control panel, and typed in a command. The docking bay doors opened soon after, and the group of two ships flew out of the docking bay, and descended down to the ugly city below. As s
Kathryn suddenly seemed to realize something. She banged her head against the joystick, causing a minor bit of jerky flying from the Aurora, and groaned. She turned on the comm. system. "Croto?"
The speaker on the control panel crackled. "Yes?"
"Did Proto give us any means whatsoever of returning home when we're done here?"
"Um, now that you mention it, no. Why?" Kathryn groaned again, but made sure not to hit her head against the joystick.
It was night, currently. They couldn't guess how late it was, but it was dark enough. Before them stood a massive structure. It was a huge building with a disc like platform built around its midsection. There were eight smaller, but well-sized, structures surrounding the perimeter of the 'plate.' Well, seven, as one had been blown to smithereens not too long ago. Large spotlights surrounded shooting beams into the sky.
Everyone began to exit the GAV to get a good glimpse at the city.
Within seconds of seeing the city, everyone unanimously agreed that the city was huge, and they should probably go check the place out.
"Hey, uh, guys? Anyone know why there's a city out in the middle of nowhere with no roads or whatever leading to it?" asked Jace. No one responded to his question. Instead, everyone just stared at the city. There wasn't anything like this on Earth... well, because no one was crazy enough to try and build something like this.
"Well, what're we waiting for? Let's get going!" said Croto, and got back into the GAV. Everyone else did the same, keeping their gaze fixed on the city. Inside, Croto whapped Ceige on the head and yelled, "Yah! Drive! Mush!" with several other words that could give a person the hint to go forward. Kathryn still flew the Aurora Fighter at a low altitude with the GAV. As they got closer, the technological marvel of a city began to look dark and evil in some ways, with the plate hanging ominously above them.
"Hey, look at that! There's a wall surrounding the city! Oh, too bad, let's turn back now, okay???" said George, backpedaling to the very back of the GAV.
"No, we're going in. We just have to hover over the wall. Easy as that..."
Once they were over the City line, Kathryn shut down the systems to the Aurora and turned on it's security mode. She opened the cockpit windshield and hopped out, landing next to the opposite side of the GAV "So we have to stay at this place for a while?"
Croto poked his head around. "Yep! This'll be fun, eh?"
Everyone sighed in disappointment, and started to walk toward the city entrance... or what they guessed to be the entrance. There were just piles of junk heaped up on both sides on paths and streets that led through more junk and scattered buildings that looked to have to no real purpose but stand there and look ugly. They all could see nothing above them. The natural light was blocked by massive 'plate' that surrounded one massive pillar in the cities center. The only light came from spotlights and fixtures attached to the plate's bottom.
"It doesn't look like there's anything really all that wrong here--Let's go back now, okay?" George said, and started to slink off in the other direction.
Roter grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and yanked him back. "No, you don't! You're staying with us. Believe it or not, you'll be safer with us, dufus."
George reluctantly followed them. "Ohhh all right..." He then pointed to Roter. "But I still need to eat somewhere!"
Jenna turned around. "But didn't you just eat on the UltraShip?"
George shook his head. "The stupid food machines took my money..."
"George, you didn't have to put money in the machines to get food!"
"Oh! So that explains why it said it had something stuck in it when I forced my money down it's money insert."
Roter smacked the top of his head. "George, you twit, that's where the food came out!"
The 'conversation' suddenly ended when everyone heard a barrage of gunfire. Everyone quickly ran towards the sound to see what was going on. There was a group of people surrounding a fence blocking off an entrance to a very tall metal structure with a platform at the top. Next to it was an even taller cement pillar connected to the plate above, holding it up in place.
Everyone stood and watched the gunfight from below, wondering what's going on. Suddenly, Ceige said, "Hey, uh, don't you think we should go help them out or something?"
Kathryn reached inside her jacket and pulled out her gun. "I'm up for it. C'mon let's go!"
Croto suddenly yelled out, "No, wait!"
Everyone except George turned around to see what he wanted. "What?!"
"Are you sure that it's a real good idea to do that? I mean, what if those guys are terrorists or something? It wouldn't be good if you helped..." Suddenly a bullet zipped by Croto's head, missing by millimeters, almost cutting one of his antennas off. Croto then turned to an angry look, and pointed toward the pillar. "That's it! Go and wipe them out!!!"
Everyone agreed, except George who was avoiding the whole situation, and ran off toward the entrance. Croto and George just watched from a safe distance. From behind them, three more people showed up; one guy and two girls. The guy looked remarkably like Jace, blonde hair, and blue eyes, though Jace hair was more combed back than this guy's. One of the girls wore a pink dress, red vest, had long brown hair, and green eyes. The other girl had long dark brown hair, amber eyes, a white tank top, and mini-skirt.
The guy who looked like Jace turned and looked at George. He suddenly looked surprised and pointed at him, "Wedge?! What are you doing here?"
George, puzzled, replied, "What're you talkin' about? Who's Wedge?"
Suddenly there was a loud thump and a cloud of dust kicked up next to Croto. Croto looked down and waited for the cloud to settle. Laying face down in the dirt was someone who, conveniently, looked like George.
Everyone's face suddenly became really surprised, and a little shocked. Croto still looked down at the George look-alike. "I take it, by this guy's bad taste in looks, this would be who you're looking for." He then looked up to the three. "Who're you people?"
The three of them ran over to Wedge, pasted on the ground, answering on the way...
"Cloud."
"Tifa."
"Aeris."
It took the three of them to pick Wedge up from his crater. Wedge suddenly coughed, slowly stood up, and brushed himself off. He shook his head, and then hit it to knock some sense into himself. "Whew! That was a rush!" he said, and looked at the three around them. "What? Why're all a'yer faces stuck?"
Tifa grabbed him by the shoulders and looked at him directly. "Wedge, you just fell two-hundred feet! And you can just get up and walk away from it like THAT?"
Wedge shrugged. "Yeah, those extra pounds I've put on my stomach really act as a front air bag from stuff like that. Funny, huh? But I suggest you guys better get goin' up there. Barret is really gonna need your help."
"Barret is already up there?" asked Tifa.
Wedge nodded. "Yep. Biggs and Jessie are still up there too, but I don't know what they're doing."
Tifa thought for a second, then looked up at the pillar. She then turned to Aeris. "Okay, listen. Down that way is a place called the '7th Heaven' Bar. In there you'll find a little girl named Marlene. Bring her somewhere safe just in case anything happens. Okay?"
Aeris nodded. "Right." She began to run off, "Good luck!"
As the group reached the entrance to the pillar, Jace stopped and asked someone what was going on. The person answered, "They're attacking the pillar. And if they destroy it," the guy pointed upward, "That thing is gonna come crashing down on us."
Jace turned back to everyone else. "Uh, guys? We'd uh... we'd better hurry up, or the ceiling's gonna come crashin' down on us."
No one looked surprised. "When'd ya figure that out?" asked Kathryn.
Jace just scratched the back of his head, "Uh... Well, it wasn't that obvious..."
And so they all ran madly toward the winding staircase that led to the platform high above. They could see and hear gunfire coming from up above. Everyone pulled out their weapons and got ready.
Kathryn using her laser canons from her arm, Ceige wielding an Energy Canon, Jessie wielding an Energy Blade, and Jace carrying his own modified rapid-fire laser gun. Jenna and Balin stayed behind to help anybody that was wounded along the way. As the first four climbed the stairs, Balin generously carried someone he'd found hanging over the railing on the first of stairs. Jenna followed him down. The man told them his name was Biggs, and said, "Don't worry about me, just save the pillar." But Balin still lugged him down the stairs anyway. As he made toward the fence, two people ran through.
"Biggs!" one of them called out. Biggs, slung over Balin's shoulder, raised his head and said, "Oh, Cloud, Tifa! Am I glad to see you! You guys gotta hurry to the top quick, or else."
Cloud scratched his head, then turned to Balin. "Uh," he said, "Who're you, and what're doing with Biggs?"
Balin answered, "I'm Balin, and I'm taking him to safety."
"Biggs, how badly injured are you?"
Jenna stepped forward. "Don't worry, I'll take care of him."
"So you're good guys then?" asked Tifa.
"Yes. We're members of an anti-terrorism strike faction called The C. Force. Four of our collogues are already up there. So you'd better hurry."
They both acknowledged, and ran past them up the stairs.
Kathryn, Ceige, Jace, and Jessie still ran up the staircase to the platform. As they got closer, they could tell that the gunfire was really only from one person... shooting madly at a few helicopters dropping soldiers around the area. They reached the platform at the very top of the structure. Jace turned to look down at the people below.
"Good job! You're doin' great!" he heard Croto yell from far below.
The second they reached the top, the man that was shooting uncontrollably turned his aim toward Kathryn and the others. The man was about 6'1", dark skin, and had a machine gun where his right fist was supposed to be. Kathryn replied by aiming her arm (consisting of two laser canons and one tech-ion canon,) at him as well.
"Hey now, watch where you point that thing..." Kathryn was suddenly cut off by receiving several shots to the chest. Everyone else quickly dove out of the way. The impact threw Kathryn straight on her back. She laid there, dazed. The man quickly took out more of the incoming soldiers then turned his aim back to her and the others. Ceige and Jace had already gotten up and put their aim towards the man. Jessie crawled over to see if Kathryn was alright.
"Do you work for Shinra?!" the man yelled.
"Oh, yeah! Shoot first, ask questions later, real good strategy!" Jace yelled back.
"I said do ya work for Shinra??!!"
"What the hell are you talikin' about?! What's Shinra?!"
The man pointed angrily toward the helicopters. "THAT'S SHINRA!!!"
"Well what're you then?!" asked Ceige.
"You tell me first!" the man replied.
Suddenly two people showed up behind them. The three were too busy screaming at each other to notice. The two ran up to them, one of them a bargirl, and one who looked like... well, looked like Jace.
"Barret, what're you doing?! These people are here to help us!" one of them yelled.
Barret looked toward them, "What?! You sure, Tifa?!"
Ceige noticed her presence, and immediately dropped what he was doing to stare. Though they were in the middle of a battle that could decide the fate of several hundred lives, Ceige called out, "Hey pretty lady, can I have your phone number?!" The bargirl, naturally, ignored Ceige like the drunks that came to her bar and left him with his mouth hanging agape.
As Jenna stayed behind to heal Biggs with her powers, Balin climbed the 250 stairs to the top of the platform. When he was about 2/3 of the way there, he came across somebody else who was slumped against the railing. As it turned out, her name was Jessie. She had been shot through the stomach, most likely by one of the soldiers that were being dropped off. So Balin picked her up, and also generously carried her down to safety. Who said chivalry is dead?
Everything had gotten situated. Cloud and Tifa quickly convinced to Barret that The C. Force was here to help them. Luckily, Kathryn was wearing body armor, and was back on her feet within minutes. Since now was not a good time to explain all of this now, they would wait until after to straighten more out.
Everyone waited for the helicopter to make another run to drop more soldiers off. It instead hovered to a stop, and someone jumped out. The person was wearing a blue suit, with red scruffy hair. Everyone paused for a minute to see who it was. He turned around to reveal himself. (No surprise there...)
"Oh look." He said. "If it isn't the..." he stopped for minute to think, "Uh... well, I can't think of a good insult right now..."
"Who're you?" asked Cloud.
"I'm Reno, a member of the Shinra Turks." He then turned away and smacked his forehead, "I'm not supposed to tell them that..." he said to himself then turned back around. "Anyway," he walked up to a computer console in the middle of the platform. "Once I push this button..." he pushed it, then turned back to everyone else. "Good job! Mission complete! I just armed a bomb that could explode at any moment!" he cheered.
Suddenly out of nowhere, Roter rocketed up from the ground and set himself down next to the computer console.
"I wouldn't try disarming that bomb," said Reno, "Your inexperience could cause it to..."
Roter suddenly pushed a combination of several buttons. He then turned to Reno. "Bad job!" said Roter. "Mission failed for you! Luckily I could hear everything you were saying from down there, so it looks like you'll have to try some other day, Rhino!"
Reno suddenly looked very furious. "What?! Shinra told me that bomb was failsafe!" Reno reached into his jacket and pulled out an electro-prod. "Well, at least I can take all of you down with me!" Reno rushed toward Ceige, who was still distracted with Tifa, and gave him a good smack to the chest. Ceige fell to the ground, feeling the after-effects of receiving a whole bunch of volts traveling through his heart and lungs.
"Serves you right!" called Tifa.
Kathryn ran up to Reno at lighting speed, and mortally punched him to the stomach. He keeled over, dropping his electro-prod, and Kathryn jabbed her knee directly into his face. Reno flipped onto his back, dazed looking up at the ceiling of the plate.
Tifa couldn't help but laugh, "And you're supposed to be some kind of master at fighting or something? Looks like you have to go back to school and get up to an F+!"
Reno staggered to his feet. He put his hand to his face. His nose and lips were bleeding. Reno limped to the edge of the platform, and climbed up on top of it.
Suddenly, Balin arrived at the top of the platform, with his sword drawn, looking ready to kill somebody. But, since he was very exhausted, he simply dropped to the floor for rest. Several group members looked back at him just to wonder, 'Okay, that was pointless...'
Kathryn aimed her arm at Reno. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.
"The hell with you people, I'm leaving!" he yelled. Before jumping off the railing to the helicopter waiting for him, he tripped on his shoelace and fell down all they way screaming, "Auntie Emmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!"
There was somebody else on the helicopter as well. He had the same suit as Reno, so he must be a bad guy as well. "Well, well," he said, "Look what the cat dragged in? Sure, you people were successful this time..."
Barret cut him off by yelling, "Shut yo' damn mouth!" and he began shooting wildly at him... all his shots missing.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. You might hurt or little guest." He said, and there beside him on the floor of the helicopter was Aeris.
She reached out to Tifa, and said, "Don't worry! She's safe!"
The other Turk then slapped her face. "Be quiet!" he demanded. Quickly regaining his composure, he looked back to the group. "Unfortunately for you people, the show will still be starting in a few moments. Remember, Shinra always installs a backup! Enjoy!" And the helicopter flew off out of sight.
"What does he mean by 'the show?'" asked Cloud.
Suddenly an explosion went off in back of the main support pillar. Slabs of it started to break off, and crash down far below. "Ohhhhhh no. No, no, NO, NO, NO!!" yelled Barret. "Do not tell me this is happening!!!"
The Sector 7 plate began to break loose, and slowly jerk downward. Suddenly the entire pillar exploded and the plate section began to fall, spelling imminent doom for them all. Then Jessie decided to take action. For the first time, she decided to use her most powerful magic attack. One she named 'Ground Zero.'
Some sensed what was coming, but everyone backed off, and Jessie quickly gained energy. The plate was getting closer. Jessie then released all of the energy at one time in one massive column of fire and energy. The column of pure destruction hit the Sector 7 plate, and immediately blew it into pieces. The column widened, blowing the entire Sector 7 plate shards away into nothing but dust and smoke. From below, it seemed as if there was a massive windstorm, and the area grew brighter as the plate was blown away, and from the growing column of fire. On the platform, everyone stood perfectly fine inside the fire and energy. Jessie could make it so her spells can only attack and destroy certain things, so it can hurt some and leave someone else next to them perfectly fine. The released energy she gave off quickly died, and retreated back to her fire crystal.
...Everyone stood in astonishment.
Jessie fell to her knees, due to exhaustion from releasing such a massive spell. Everyone else down below couldn't help but cheer that they were still alive.
Later, everyone gathered at the '7th Heaven Bar' to talk and straighten out everything. Jessie, the other Jessie, Kathryn, and Wedge sat at the table near the entrance. Ceige, Balin, Biggs, and George sat at the bar table. Barret and Cloud sat on the pool table. Jenna and Jace leaned against the pinball machine while Croto leaned against the wall in the far corner.
"So what's the story here?" asked Cloud.
Kathryn looked around the room and waited for someone to answer. No one volunteered, so once again, she had to do the explaining. "Alright... Here it is..." she started. "We came from a planet called Earth. On Earth, we're from a place called Foxton, California, in the United States of America. There, we are a well-known anti-terrorism faction called The C. Force. Our basic job is to protect the Galaxy. But, our oh-so intelligent leader," she glared toward Croto, "Decided to come here and drag us along for god-knows-why..."
Ceige raised his mug of beer, "Yeah! We aren't even supposed to be here!"
Everyone turned their attention back to Kathryn. "And, well... Here we are now."
"Awright, so lemme get this straight here...You guy's came from some otha world or somethin' to come and help us out?" asked Barret.
"We didn't come here to help you out specifically. We came here to help out the entire planet." Said Croto.
"Well, that's what we're fighting for, too. We formed a group called AVALANCHE. We're fighting to save the Planet from the Shinra company. "
Kathryn shrugged again. "And... what's so bad about this 'Shinra' company?"
"They're slowly killing the planet..." said Wedge grimly.
"How can a corporation kill a planet?" asked Jenna.
Cloud decided to answer this one. "Okay. This planet is full of this energy called 'Mako.' This energy is what keeps the planet alive. This city..."
"Yeah," Croto suddenly interrupted, "What City is this?"
"M I D G A R, okay? As I was saying, this city uses Mako reactors to pull and absorb Mako energy from the planet and convert into usable commercial energy. Shinra would rather kill the planet to make a profit than keep it alive for everybody's sake."
There was a pause after that.
"That's a real problem, isn't it?" Jenna muttered. She raised her head, "That must be why all of the land is dead around Midgar..."
"Right, because the Mako energy has been sucked dry around here..." finished Cloud.
"Oh, I get it now..." said Jessie, (the C. Force member, if you're too lazy to keep track.)
Cloud looked up at her. "Oh, uh, Jessie," Both Jessie's looked at him, "What?" they both asked. Cloud shook his head. "No, no. The new Jessie. I wanna know something..." He paused, as if pondering the implications of asking this question, then asked, "What did you do to the Sector 7 plate?"
"I completely obliterated it," answered Jessie, smiling.
Tifa looked at her in disbelief. "But there were people up there!" Jessie dropped her smile.
Barret quickly interrupted, before any harm could be done. "Doubt it, ev'rybody up there was a back-up Shinra worker. Someone they could put in rotation if somebody got fired. The Shinra pro'bly evacuated 'em to save their potential employees." Jessie's smile somewhat returned, disturbed that she had nearly killed hundreds of people without a second thought, but relieved that she, in fact, hadn't harmed a soul. Well, maybe she killed a few bugs. And maybe a few, poor, innocent kitties that were abandoned on the street and had no idea what was going on.
'Suddenly, poof! The ground's gone, and they're falling, and burning, and dy
... What am I doing to myself?! Stop thinking like that! You don't even like cats! Vicious little furballs from Hell... Send the little demons back where they belong! That's the stuff! Jessie Merane Donsnow at her finest! ...Okay, maybe killing cats can't be considered my finest, but it's a start!'Croto, his naturally insensitive self, crossed his arms and glared at Jessie. "See what you did? You nearly killed a buncha people! And that wouldn't of been good for our reputation!" Everyone was tempted to either hit him or smack him upside the head or shoot him, except for George, who was momentarily distracted by something shiny.
"You a real jerk, you know that?" Barret seemed to be the only one brave/foolish enough to say anything to Croto, for most of them knew about Croto's ridiculously large, multi-barreled, high-yield gun.
Croto attempted a remark only he would consider pithy and clever, but Ceige, Kathryn, Jace, and Jessie all replied in surround sound, "He knows, we've told him."
Cloud shook his head. "Never mind robo-boy being a jerk." Barret snorted. Croto glared at the both of them. "There's a larger problem than his ego; we need to get Aeris back. Naturally, she's probably being kept in the Shinra building."
"So we probably need to bust in there and take her back, meanwhile taking down large amounts of security?" Kathryn was obviously eager for action.
"That's right," answered Cloud.
"Good." Kathryn turned to Ceige. "Ceige, what's your input on this?"
Unfortunately for himself, Ceige had been staring at Tifa for the past half-hour, trying to think up of good pick-up lines. He soon noticed that everyone, including Kathryn and, even worse, Tifa, was staring at him. "Whatever you said is fine with me," he answered blankly.
"Good! Then you scout ahead, take out all the security, lead the way to Aeris, and we'll be trailing you by several floors," Kathryn stood up, and advanced towards Ceige.
"That's what you said?! I thought it was something like..."
"Well, it wasn't, but you already agreed, so GET GOING!" She forcefully grabbed Ceige by the collar of his shirt and the seat of his pants, brought him to the entrance of Seventh Heaven, and gave him a good ole' heave-ho out the doors. She turned to the rest, who were either mildly astonished or trying to contain their laughter.
She brushed her hands off, smiled, and said, "I love my job."
Croto didn't like this one bit. But he kept his face blank, exited the bar, and dragged Ceige back in by his collar, muttering something that distinctly sounded like "Get back in here..."
Cloud clapped his hands. "C'mon, let's get serious here! We need to figure out a way to get up to the top of the plate, and into the Shinra building."
"Can't we use the trains?" asked Biggs.
"I doubt it. The train probly' went down wit' the Sector seven plate. And I wouldn't wanna go through all that security..." said Barret. Jessie of AVALANCE nervously tugged at her collar, remembering that the I.D. Scan problem had been her fault.
There was a bit of silence after that. Jenna was the only one really thinking hard. She then got an idea. She stepped forward and pointed out the door. "I know!" she said, "We can use the GAV to get up on top!"
Everyone who was not in the C. Force looked at her as if they wanted more information. "Okay... What's a GAV?" asked Cloud.
"It stands for Ground Attack/Armored vehicle. The 'A' stands for two things, really. It's basically a tank with six wheels and hover capabilities."
All of the AVALANCHE members looked interested. "Really?" asked Biggs, "What else you guys got?"
"Uhhhh... We have one Aurora Jet Fighter, two R-850 Scout vehicles, a stock load of weapons..." answered Jenna.
Barret grinned. "Uh, could you guys... Help us out wit' any a that stuff?" he asked.
Croto was about to answer, but Kathryn cut him off. "Sure. We have nothing else better to do." She looked toward Croto with a clenched fist in sight. "Isn't that right, Croto?"
Croto hesitantly agreed after Kathryn raised a second fist. "Uh... Um... So uh, when'll we be going?" said Croto.
Barret scratched his head. "Uh, well, now souns' good I guess..."
Kathryn stood up and clapped her hands, eager to go. "Right, Jace, you lead everyone to the G.A.V..."
Cloud leaned over to Barret, and whispered, "You must wonder why she's not the leader of that group..."
Barret replied, "Cuz' that droid's too much of a jerk to let go o' the reins, I guess.""
Kathryn still went on..."Jenna and me will get to our R-850's and take the highway up to the plate. Ceige, you fly the GAV up to the top of the plate."
Cloud leaned over to Barret again, whispering, "She's quick, huh?"
Before Barret could reply Kathryn answered, "Yes, I am." And she continued talking about the plan. Ceige was still stuck staring at Tifa in his own world, and tuned out of reality. So he basically heard a whole jumble of 'Blah, blah. Blah,' and then, "Ceige, go do your part!" from Kathryn.
Ceige snapped back into reality, "Huh?" he quickly acted as if he heard everything, just to keep from being yelled at from Kathryn. "Oh-oh yeah. Sure. I'll get right on it..."
"Do you even remember what I said?"
Ceige nodded, "Of course! When do I ever forget stuff like that?"
Kathryn sighed, then looked at him, "I can think of many occasions... from just today." She turned back to everyone else. "Oh well, let's just get going." Everyone got up all at one time and walked toward the door.
Jace lead the group, heading toward the GAV. Kathryn and Jenna took a different route to where they hid their R-850's.
Ceige quickly caught up with Roter and asked him, "Uh, Roter... What am I supposed to be doing again?"
"Lemme see... You're supposed to get Kathryn some coffee, then do what she told you earlier.'
"That being..."
"Remember when she told you to go and disable all of the security ahead?" asked Roter. Ceige nodded. "Well, she really meant it. Go on. You'll probably sacrifice yourself for the good of this planet, but eh. Tough."
"But aren't we just rescuing some girl?"
"Yeah, but saving a single life, no matter how insignificant it could possibly be, is still for the good of this planet. So get going." And Roter pointed off in any general direction for him to go. Ceige started to walk off, when he suddenly realized...
He turned around, "Heyyyy.... Kathryn doesn't drink coffee..."
Roter turned to Ceige, who was a few hundred feet away, "Good for you! You figured it out, brainiac. See? Even robots can be cruel."
"So... Do I still have to go do that other stuff? Or were you kidding about that, too?"
"Yep."
"To which part?"
Roter put an 'evil-smile' look in his eye. "Both."
Ceige stopped walking for a minute. "Why am I being dragged around by you and Kathryn?"
"It's your punishment."
"For what?!"
"Not paying attention to what you're really supposed to do."
"And that would be..."
"Following us."
"Is that it?"
"Nope."
"Then what?!"
"Go and scout ahead by taking all the security out."
"I'm supposed to do that?"
"I just told you to."
"Then what?"
"Follow us when we get to you." Roter threw Ceige an extra gun, then waved bye. "Enjoy!"
"Wait, weren't you joking about that?"
"Good job! You caught on again."
"So..."
"Get going." Roter pointed off in the same direction. So Ceige continued on, with his head down and looking very pitiful.
Barret stopped walking. Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie also stopped. "What?" asked Wedge.
Barret turned around and pointed toward the three of them. "I wan' you three to stay behin' an' watch ova' Midgar."
"What? How can we watch over the entire city?!" asked Jessie.
"Jus' do it."
Biggs scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, I thought you said we were all screw-ups, and we can't do anything right."
"Well, you can prove that you all ain't screw ups by guardin' the area!"
"Really?" they all asked.
"Yes, now go!" Wedge was the only one without enough sense to actually salute him. Barret pointed off in some direction, "Make AVALANCE proud!"
"Yes sir!" answered Biggs and Jessie, but Wedge somehow managed to get in a "Yes ma'am!" all three of the calls in unison. Barret glanced oddly at Wedge, and suppressed his need to ask Wedge whether or not his mom had dropped him on his head when he was little.
"Move out!" Barret again pointed to that same random direction, and the three hapless members of AVALANCE went out on their own quest of sorts, which will be profiled in the up-and-coming fanfic "That's No Fun, The Plate Fell Right Over!" (Alrighty, we're just joking on that one, let's just say that they stumbled into an ambush, where Biggs and Wedge were killed, again, and Jessie was sent of to some sort of detention center. Again, we're joking. They watch over Midgar, and get into random craziness. There, you happy now?)
Kathryn and Jenna came to the spot where they hid their R-850's. The ships didn't have security systems like the Aurora and GAV did, so Kathryn and Jenna had to cover them with a few pieces of junk to blend them in. R-850 scout vehicles are sporty little motorcycle-like things. Well, without the wheels... They can hold two people at max, and use 'Repulsor Lift' Engines, which create a force between the R-850 and the ground, making it float. That means it's able to travel at max speeds of around 260 m.p.h.
When they got them out of the carefully constructed trash heaps, they hopped on theirs, and activated the repulsor engines. The engines rotors slowly began to spin, and eventually got the R-850's a few feet off the ground. The engines were very quiet, so they were good vehicles to get to the Shinra building without really being noticed. After the engines were on full, they sped off down the alleyways until they found an out-of-the-way on-ramp leading to Midgar's highway system.
On the way, Jenna spotted someone trudging along with a gait that screamed, 'dead man walking.'
As she got closer, it turned out to be Ceige.
"What're you doing way out here?" she asked. Ceige didn't even look up. He could tell it was Jenna, but he remained looking very pitiful. " I'm doing what Roter and," he pointed to Kathryn, "she told me to do." He added a certain bitterness to the word 'she,' like one would if a commanding officer just handed them a letter that notified them of a beloved pet's death, and then laughed in your face merely to spite you.
"What would that be?"
"I have to go scout ahead, take out all the security, and clear a path for you guys."
Jenna thought back for a moment. "And... How are you going to get up there?" she asked.
Ceige pointed to the on-ramp. "I'm gonna walk on the highway."
"Uh, Ceige, do you really think that's a safe idea?"
"So? What's the worst that could happen? Get hit by a car? Swept away by a street cleaner? I might lose my life, but hey, I got that free..." Ceige still stood there, wallowing in his own self-pity, just waiting for someone to say something, or for a car to come by and smash him, whichever came first.
"Okay, look." Said Jenna, "If you really are that desperate, I'll give you a ride. Come on, hop on."
Ceige lifted his head. "Really?! Thanks!" he said and quickly climbed on to the back seat of her R-850. Kathryn was already waiting at the on-ramp for Jenna. She quickly turned around and headed to follow. They traveled up the highway, to the top of the Midgar plate, getting a nice view of the unpleasant slums below. They were filthy even from their view through the gaping hole that used to be the Sector 7 Plate. Useless buildings and exceptionally large piles of junk dotted the view, only making a few good buildings obvious. Regrettably, most of the good buildings were in Sector 6's Wall Market. The Honeybee Inn and Don Corneo's Mansion was visible from their view.
Cloud viewed the mansion contemptuously from the GAV "Hey, Croto..."
"What?"
"You have a rocket launcher or a bazooka or anything else that fires long-range projectile explosives?"
"Of course, why?"
"I want to blow up that mansion down there."
"Blow up a mansion?"
"Yeah. Let's just say I had a bad experience there."
Croto looked from Cloud, then forward again, then back to Cloud. "Alright. There's one in the compartment under your seat. You know how to aim and fire it?"
"I was a SOLDIER. Yes, I know how to fire a rocket launcher." He reached under his seat, and grabbed the large box. He opened it, finding the rocket launcher, and moved to the very back of the small GAV cockpit. Cloud pulled the lever marked "OPEN DOOR," waited for the door to open, then carefully began to aim the rocket launcher. He was moving, but that meant nothing; the launcher locked onto Cloud's target, and he fired off a missile. It spiraled back down to Sector 6, and Cloud put down the launcher. He smiled and did the first half of his victory pose as Don Corneo's Mansion went up into a ball of fire barely audible from their distance away.
"Take that, slimeball!" Cloud taunted. Had Tifa known what he was doing, she would probably have given him a big hug, but she thought he was just randomly going nuts again, firing off a rocket launcher down into the slums for no good reason. At this new train of thought, Tifa merely shrugged. It was best to just let him run things like that through, lest his target be a certain bar in Sector 7 Slums. Why he might even consider doing that remained a mystery, but she had faith that her little bar wouldn't be a smoldering pile of ashes and remains of drunks when she got back. Everyone else on the GAV feigned disinterest also. On the other hand, Ceige, Jenna, and Kathryn were silently mystified by the missile that came shooting out of the back of the GAV.
He turned back to Croto, with a humungous smile on his face. "You got anything with more firepower? I wanna destroy what's left of the rubble." Croto glanced back at Cloud, wondering if he should trust the ex-SOLDIER with something that could blow up a small block.
Thankfully, the drive to the Shinra building wasn't too long, and they got there somewhat quickly, with no more random madness ensuing. The Highway didn't lead directly to the Shinra building, but the highway did just pass by it. The highway also had very little traffic right now, too. So the GAV and the R-850's were able to slow down and hover over the guardrail, and float down to Shinra building parking lot. Croto looked out of the windshield and toward a post near them on the parking lot
"Remember, we're parked under Section 'Rufus Shinra,' Row E." he said, and opened the door for everyone to get out. Kathryn, Ceige, and Jenna got off their R-850's and docked them on the side of the GAV for safekeeping. Croto stood before the ragtag group and did a headcount. 'Jessie, Jenna, Kathryn, Ceige, Tifa, Jace, Cloud... wait, that's the other way around, Cloud, Jace, Barret, Roter, George...'
"Where's George?" Croto asked. Everybody began to look around aimlessly, searching for George. Then something occurred to Roter; he opened the back hatch that Cloud had previously opened, and he looked back inside the GAV. Sure enough, there was George, holding on to his seat for dear life.
"Found 'im..." Roter looked back into the GAV. "What are you doing in there?"
"I don't wanna go, and nothing you can do will make me," George answered bluntly. Though he was trembling like an itty-bitty woodland creature, the look on his face remained solid.
"Not even if we..." Roter considered finishing with 'point a gun to your head,' but then it occurred to him how good this was. George was a natural luck charm. A luck charm that only brought luck of the negative kind. Croto looked inside, sighed in disgust, hovered inside the GAV, rummaged through another one of the compartments under the seats, and took out something that slightly resembled the Jaws of Life. It was labeled 'Use in case George shows signs of extreme cowardice.' Croto looked ready to hover inside the GAV to pry George loose, when Roter raised a hand to stop him.
"It's not worth it," he answered solemnly. Croto glanced to George, shrugged, and put the device back where he had found it.
Before Roter closed the GAV's hatch, Croto called to George, "Don't mess with any of the systems. If I find that any of the settings are changed when we get back, I'm gonna use that thing!" George refused to respond, and he merely waited until the GAV hatch closed before releasing his iron grip on the seat.
Meantime, the remaining group of eleven walked through the parking lot, receiving numerous stares from the multiple Shinra employees who were either coming or going to work. One, who foolishly thought they were power-walking for no good reason, decided to join them.
"Nice weather, eh?" he asked the group. The eleven of them stopped in their tracks, and slowly turn to glare at the Shinra employee. Instead of giving him a collective tongue-lashing about how he's working for a company that's slowly killing the world, they make their incredible array of weaponry visible. He got the hint, and ran back to his car. Only when he started to drive away did he begin to scream.
The eleven of them now stood in front of the Shinra building, which looked a lot bigger than what they had seen when standing at their parking spot.
"How large exactly was that parking lot?" asked Jace.
"I think it covers a quarter of the plate," answered Roter.
"No, seriously," said Jace. Roter didn't confirm that he was indeed serious.
"So? The parkin' lot's pretty big, let's bust in already!" Barret cried triumphantly, raising his gun-arm, and sauntering to the Shinra Building. Croto, Jessie, and Kathryn made a move to follow.
"No way!" Tifa grabbed Barret by the shoulder. "We can't just break in and blow out cover! We have to do this silently."
"Who says we have to?" Croto retorted. "We can do this just as easily if we break in!"
"Not with your guns blazing you're not. We'd have an army of Shinra soldiers on us!" Kathryn snapped. The idea of breaking in through the front door had at first been very appealing, but she liked covert ops then beating the crud out of the enemy a lot more than just plain beating the crud out of the enemy.
Tifa suddenly turned to Cloud. "Cloud, what do you think? Should we break in through the front or find some other way in?"
"And since when did we trust him to make the judgment calls?!" Croto snapped right back. Tifa looked at him, obviously very annoyed, and adjusted her gloves. Croto abruptly found himself lying on the asphalt, looking up to the starry sky, knowing he would probably have several red marks shaped like fists on his face if he were human.
Cloud was tempted to kick Croto's prone form for that remark, but resisted the temptation, and said, "Okay... We'll have one group find an alternate way in..." Tifa nodded in approval. "...and another that will go in the front." Barret snorted.
"Who wants to go in the front with Barret?" Croto (after slowly getting up), Jessie, Jace, and Balin went over to Barret, Jace and Balin because they were sure it would take a shorter amount of time to break in than to find an alternate entrance.
"And who wants to go with Tifa?" Roter, Kathryn, Jenna, and Ceige went over to Tifa. However, Ceige felt a gun point to his back, and he quickly jumped over to Barret's group.
Cloud nodded, glad they could organize so quickly, though he neglected to regard Ceige's sudden change in mind. "Fine. I'll go with Tifa, because she has fewer with her. Oh, and, Barret?" Barret looked to him appraisingly. "Try to go in like a NORMAL person, not one intent to storm the place." He quickly added, "I'm not so sure that's possible for you, Croto." Croto glared at him.
So the group of eleven split up into a group of five and a group of six, and went on their separate ways.
Tifa, Cloud, Kathryn, Jenna, and Roter searched the side of the Shinra Building for something useful. "There has to be something, a secret entrance, and unguarded window, a fire escape, something..." Tifa rattled off the list of possible entrances. Suddenly, Roter pointed to a doorway in the side of the building. "Well, look at that. A stairway. That looks harmless enough."
So they all go inside. Inside they find a winding staircase that seems to have no end. "Whoa..." said Cloud, "Spit from up there and it could crack the concrete..."
"Well, looks like we have to go up..." said Kathryn, and began to climb them. Tifa, Cloud and Jenna shortly followed.
Jenna stopped, and turned back at Roter, who was still at the bottom "How're you gonna get up?" she asked.
Roter waved his hand, as to say 'never mind about me,' and he said, "I'll find another way up. You're already behind."
Jenna nodded, and began to run up the steps to catch up.
"So what floor are we going to?" asked Kathryn.
"Sixty." answered Cloud.
"Well, it can't be that hard," said Tifa.
Not more than five minutes later, everyone was already getting tired, except Kathryn, of running up staircase after staircase... and listening to Jenna's constant complaining. Kathryn was the furthest one ahead. She had to wait from time to time for everyone else to catch up when she was too far ahead. Jenna kept complaining about the how tiring this is, and how she should've gone with Barret, and how, "I mean, sure I'm perfectly fit, but really, would anyone wanna climb a hundred and twenty sets of stairs?!"
Both Cloud and Tifa looked down at Jenna from the next flight of stairs, and said, in marvelous unison, "Do you ever shut up?! We're almost halfway through! Can you just please shut up for the rest of the way?!!"
When they got halfway, they all almost collapsed from climbing, so far, sixty flights of stairs.
"Okay, that's it." Said Jenna. "I'm goin' back down. See all you later." So she started to go back down.
"But you'll have to climb down just as far to get to the bottom!" Tifa called after her.
Jenna looked back up. "At least gravity won't be working against me. I'm going back down!"
"Fine! I'll go on ahead," snapped Tifa. She continued up the stairs. Cloud, Jenna, and Kathryn stared up at her. Tifa, wondering why no one was following her lead, turned around, looked back down at them, and put her hands on her hips.
"What are you waiting for? Come on!" She called to them. A smile slowly began to spread across Cloud's face.
Kathryn shifted her gaze from side-to-side, and smiled likewise, beginning to sing, "I see London, I see France..."
Tifa realized exactly what she meant, and crossed her legs. "Yah! Cloud, you go up first!"
Cloud laughed. "I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out. Good thing that Ceige guy's not here, or he'd start drooling." Jenna shook her head, smiled, then continued back down. Tifa, though embarrassed, was slightly crestfallen, because Cloud hadn't given her any compliments, just a cruddy Ceige reference. She liked him, she really did. Actually, it went beyond merely liking. Oh, why couldn't he see how much she...
"Hey, Tifa," Tifa snapped out of it, and looked behind her. Kathryn stood on the flight of steps above her. "I think it's safe. No one can see under your skirt from up here. Stop daydreaming." Tifa uncrossed her legs, sighed in disappointment, and diligently followed.
Barret and his crew of five stood on the first floor of the Shinra Building. This was unbelievable. They had come in, looking to take the elevators up, when the unexpected happened. They were stopped by someone with much more power and authority than they would probably ever wield. This person held the fate of the world in their hands, a silent gatekeeper who decided who would go and who wouldn't. This gatekeeper of sorts was currently evaluating them, deciding whether or not this group of six was worthy of her time, or the company's time, for that matter. They had been stopped by...
"Do you have an appointment?"
...a receptionist, of all things...
Balin began to sweat profusely. Never in his life had he ever felt so helpless. There was this girl, barely past her teenage years, sitting at a desk, asking them if they were allowed in with that one question. In the good old medieval days, he would've just threatened her with his sword or paid her off with a few pieces of silver. But he had no silver. And, if he dared pull out his sword, twenty-or-so Shinra troops would be on him like... like... aw, crud. He'd never been good at analogies, anyways.
Barret's face twitched, and he remained... "..." ...well, silent. He felt hopeless too, but, then again, he had the element of surprise. He raised his gun-arm, shot of some twenty shots, and bellowed, "Awright, dat's it! Ev'rybody out!!!" The receptionist did as she was told, and quickly ran out, not screaming, but rather muttering something about never working for her uncle's company again. Following her lead were all of the executives, as well as the soldiers, who were just as surprised as the executives, and momentarily forgot they had guns and were wearing Shinra MP uniforms. One hapless employee tried running upstairs, but about seven bullets striking at his feet turned him around, and made him tear to the entrance of the Shinra Building.
"That was easier than I thought..." Barret sighed in relief, and lower his smoking gun-arm.
"Aw, phooey." Croto looked down to the floor. "I never got to shoot anybody."
"Don't worry, Croto." Ceige smiled broadly, and patted Croto's shoulder. "We'll let you shoot them next time."
Croto raised his head. "Even the office workers?"
"No, Croto. Those are innocent civilians who have nothing to do with what we're doing here." Ceige paused, considering things. "Well, they do work for a company that is slowly sucking the life out of this planet, so I guess they're involved indirectly..."
"So they're potential targets?" Croto asked.
After a moment of pondering, Ceige opened his mouth to respond. He was instead cut off by Jessie's short and trite answer. "No."
"At least I get the soldiers," Croto mused to himself.
"HEY! Back to the matter at hand..." Barret subsequently reminded them of what they were here, and ran into the elevator. He was followed by Jace, Balin, Jessie, Ceige, and Croto, and the elevator, which oddly enough had the floor selection somewhere off to the side of the glass tubing instead of next to the elevator door where it would have usually been, began to go up to the fifty-ninth floor. Uneventfully, after the elevator doors closed, the elevator music came on. It reminded most of them of Kenny G's bass saxophone work back home.
None of them liked it.
"I think they know we're here," said Balin.
"Why?" asked Jessie.
"Because they're slowly trying to drive us mad with this horrible noise," Balin answered grimly. "Centuries and centuries have passed since my time, and this is the 'improvement' from the basic lyre, flute, drums, and tambourine band? I still remain confused why you say your 'music' is such a step ahead."
"Because we have synthesizers," Croto quipped.
"But you still haven't eliminated the 'bad musician, bad music' factor," Balin calmly answered back.
"That's because there will always be bad music." Croto suddenly felt compelled to reach for his gun. "The problem is that there's always somebody to listen to it. It's that 'If a tree falls in a forest, does anybody care?' thing." He pulled out his gun swiftly, aimed carefully, and blasted out the speaker from whence the horrible music emanated. Applause went around. Croto bowed hastily.
Jenna continued making her way down the staircase. She had her head lowered, and didn't noticed Roter softly and silently land in front of her. Until she saw the large set of wheels from her viewpoint. She looked up, and there he was.
"How'd you get up the stairs?" she asked nonchalantly. This didn't strike her as odd; Roter was full of surprises.
"I used my jetpack." He had that 'evil grin' look in his eye again. "Want a ride?"
Jenna smiled evilly, her eyes narrowing. "Sure..."
Kathryn trudged up the flights of steps, practically carrying Cloud and Tifa. Something about not being able to get a wink of sleep for somewhere ranging around twenty-six hours was obviously beginning to get to them, though the had the near-perfect chance to sleep in the GAV But no, Cloud was randomly firing off a rocket launcher, and Tifa was silently questioning Cloud's sanity. So the two of them had nearly collapsed, exhausted from their trip up the flight of stairs. Cloud and Tifa had slept recently, but it was hard trying to get to sleep on a sheet-metal floor. It had been made even worse when Barret threatened them because he wanted Marlene to sleep in the only bed in Seventh Heaven.
Suddenly Roter shot up from below, perfectly flying to avoid the stairs. Piggybacking on Roter was Jenna, who waved evilly as they passed. All three of them looked up as she shot past.
After a moment of standing there in silence, Tifa spoke up. "You know, for a sixteen-year-old, she's getting really easy to hate."
"Try living with her," added Kathryn. "You'll definitely realize how true that is." Without another word, Kathryn continued carrying Cloud and Tifa on their way up to the 59th floor of the ominous, dreadful, and needlessly tall Shinra Building.
Once she reached the top, she dropped Cloud an Tifa on the ground, and walked up to Jenna and Roter at the top of the stairway. "Oh sure," she said, "You take the easy way..." Kathryn then pointed to Cloud and Tifa, "Look what I had drag all the way up!"
Cloud raised his hand from his face-down position on the floor. "Don't refer to us as 'what,' refer to us as 'who'!" They both slowly began to stand up. On the wall behind Jenna was a large red painted '59.' Cloud walked over to the railing and looked down the seemingly bottomless stair well. He smiled, then turned around to everyone else.
"Ya' know," he said, "I'm never gonna get the chance to do this again, so..." he turned around and spit over the edge. He then listened carefully counting, "1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10.... 11.... 12.... 13.... 14.... 15..." there was then a somewhat loud wet thump. "Whoa, that was a lot longer than I thought."
Tifa shook her head disapprovingly. She thought he was different from all the other boys, but nooooo...
During the period of silence everyone could hear a whole bunch of noise coming from the other side.
"What do you think that is?" asked Jenna.
"Well, find out." Kathryn answered. So she did. She walked over to the door and slowly opened it. Outside was the 59th floor. It had polished floors with white walls, and a few elevators on the other side, maybe a good sixty feet away. The elevators were being guarded by two Shinra soldiers. Other Shinra soldiers were running down the room and scurrying down fancy looking flights of stairs to the floors below. Jenna thought she'd step out to have a closer look. The second she did that, one Shinra soldier coming from a service elevator ran straight into her, knocking her down.
The soldier looked down at her. "You!" the soldier yelled. Jenna looked up at him expecting him to take her prisoner or something. "Do you know where the intruders are?!" he demanded, looking very confused. "I kinda lost track of em' and I've been ordered to search the building... but that'd take hours. You know where they went?" the soldier asked.
Jenna looked very relieved. She stood up and pointed into the stairwell. "They went in there." She calmly answered.
The soldier gave a small bow for thanks, and ran through the half-open door into the stairwell. Once he did that, she heard one massive collective thump, and a thud of a person hitting the ground. The soldier's gun flew out of the door. The two soldiers guarding the elevator noticed this, and they walked toward Jenna. Jenna slowly backpedaled until she was against the wall.
"What's your clearance code?" one of them asked. "I've never seen you around here before."
Jenna smiled, and shrugged. "Uh... I'm new here."
"Then show us your I.D. card." The second soldier asked.
Jenna acted along and reached into her pocket. She looked around as if she misplaced it. "Huh, I must've left it in one of the rooms..." she said.
One of the soldiers got a closer look at her. "You look kind of young to be a member of Shinra..."
The other soldier leaned over and whispered, "I think she's one of those trespassers..." he reached into the bag on his belt and took out a pair of handcuffs. "For the time being, you are under arrest until identified, and after that, you'll be under arrest even longer."
Jenna smiled again, and put her hands on her crystal pendant. "Well, that's in your opinion, anyways..." she then closed her eyes for a second. She slowly opened them and her pendant, and eyes began to glow at an extreme level. Both of the soldiers began to back off from sheer fright. Kathryn, Cloud, and Tifa watched from the partially open door.
"Uh! Sir, what should we do?!" one of the soldiers asked.
"Uh-uh-uhh, shoot it!" the two soldiers pulled out their machine guns and aimed them at her. They aimed as best as they could, due to their incessant trembling. Jenna removed her grip from the pendant, and it immediately emitted a blinding flash. After the flash, a shock wave was released, and time, as she knows it, stopped.
This is a useful little thing Jenna learned from some time back. She has the ability to stop or slow time. She could go forward or back through time, but she needs much more experience to do that. Jenna walked up to the two soldiers and moved them so they were both parallel to the floor, about 4 feet up. She then walked over and grabbed the rifle on the floor. She then decided to put time back in motion again. Both of the Shinra soldiers fell flat on their faces, and when they were trying to get back up, Jenna took the rifle and whammed both soldiers over the head with it. They both fell to the floor unconscious.
Cloud, Tifa, Roter, and Kathryn then walked out. Cloud looked at the two pathetic soldiers lying dazed on the ground. "Uh... Okay, now you're starting to creep me out." Cloud said. "How did you just do that?"
Jenna smiled, also looking down at the two. "I can stop or slow time. If I stop time, you won't be able to notice anything I do. It's really useful in situations like that."
Tifa just remained silent, just wanting to keep what happened a mystery.
Kathryn came up and shook her head. "Yeah, when you have her around the H.Q. all the time you get to learn not to tease her or anything. Sure you may be fine one second, but you could find yourself out in the middle of nowhere with a hammer over your head the next."
Jenna looked to Kathryn with an evil smile. "That's right. You should know that off hand..."
The elevator at the end of the room opened, and everyone looked toward it. Out of it came Barret, Croto, Ceige, Jace, Balin, and Jessie.
"What?! How did all of you get up here so quick?!" asked Croto with his gun still drawn.
"What? What took you guys so long to up here?" asked Kathryn.
"Well... See, the elevator stopped every fifteen floors to conveniently let armed soldiers on..."
Cloud stepped forward, "Who cares who got here first, we're all here, so let's go the next floor."
So they did. They all walked up the fancy-looking flight of stairs to see what the next floor had in stall for them. It was... a lounge. A few fast-food stores were along the wall with seats and...
"Whoa! Lookit' that! A real tree in Midgar! Though I'd neva' see one again!" said Barret. There was, in fact, one large tree in the rooms center. It wasn't really a thrilling sight, but a rare one in the city of Midgar. Before they could even walk around, some employee came running up to them holding a clearance card.
"Oh! Are you guys the repairmen????" he asked.
Everyone exchanged glances. Cloud, who was at the front of the group, answered, "Uh, Yeah... We are."
The man shoved the card in his face. "Take this, Please! You gotta fix that bathroom upstairs, cuz' I really gotta go!"
Cloud smiled, "Yeah... Uh, sure..." Cloud turned around, and so did everyone else. They wall walked back to the stairwell, keeping completely silent, and went inside.
Once they were in, "Oh man... He thinks we're repairmen? How degrading..." said Kathryn.
"I guess Shinra's security systems only work if people want them to..." said Cloud, inserting the card to gain access to the next floor. They proceeded up the stairwell, entered the next floor, and didn't see much. There were just three doors, and a hallway in between the two doors that were farther apart.
Cloud considered his options, then put his right hand over his eyes, then began a game of 'eeny-meenie-minee-moe...' pointing to one of the three doors with each word. With the final 'you,' he pointed to the first door. Barret was so tempted to whack Cloud upside the head with his gun-arm. Cloud, followed by the large group, approached the door, and knocked.
The door opened, and out peered an old, balding man. "Hello."
"Er, hello," answered Cloud, acting as the spokesman for the group.
"I'm Mayor Domino, mayor of Midgar." He paused. "...Well, I'm not really mayor, since the President holds more power than me. I just keep track of Shinra records." Everybody was confused now. Why in the world would this guy entrust him with his identity when he didn't even know them. "I betcha wanna get to the next floor, dontcha?"
"Ah, well, yeah..." Cloud scratched the back of his head.
"Well, that's okay. To tell you the truth, I don't like President Shinra, too much, either." Cloud was about to say that they hadn't even indicated that they disliked the President. "So, I'm going to give you my Keycard to Floor 63, but only when you guess what my secret password is!"
Cloud's face soured. "What are our choices?"
Mayor Domino began to count off his fingers. "You can choose 'KING,' 'ORBS,' 'HOJO,' 'MAKO'..."
In the meantime, Ceige and Barret had been plotting silently to themselves. Miraculously, they had the same idea, and approached at the exact same time. "'Scuze us, but we'll handle this..." Barret said, pulling Cloud out of the way so he and Barret could step into the mayor's office. Once Ceige and Barret entered, Barret grabbed the mayor by his collar.
"You might wanna turn away for this..." Ceige said, and he closed the door to the mayor's office. So, the group of nine, Cloud, Tifa, Croto, Roter, Jessie, Jenna, Jace, Kathryn, and Balin, stood outside the door to the mayor's office. All of them jumped slightly when they heard the beginnings of a prolonged scream emanate from within the office. That was the mayor screaming. The scream lasted for several earsplitting seconds, and after it ended, the door to the mayor's office opened again, and out came Barret and Ceige.
"Pardon my asking, but..." Roter shifted uncomfortably. "...exactly what did you do to him in there?"
Ceige and Barret looked at each other, grinned widely, then looked back to the group of nine. "We rewired his T.V. a little, and made him part of the circuit." Ceige smugly crossed his arms.
"The man's got a very, very sad tolerance for pain," Barret snickered.
"You... you made him... but how?" Jenna stammered.
Ceige looked at her dourly. "Now, really. It was an evil thing to do, but..." Sudden understanding filled him. "Ohhhh, you must be wondering exactly where his positive and negative ends were, right?" The group of nine nodded simultaneously. "Well, positive was his right hand, and negative was his left hand."
Barret smiled smugly at all of them. "You should all be ashamed of yerselves, thinking we did something' dirty." They all recoiled out of embarrassment, looking to the floor ashamedly.
"And we also squeezed a few other goodies out of him, like a few Potions, an Elixir, some pendant, and this shiny little blue marble." Ceige dug into his pocket, pulled out the Elemental Materia, and earnestly flipped it to Tifa. She caught it, and glanced oddly at him.
Luckily for Ceige, Cloud didn't seem to notice. "Let's go, we can't stay here all day (to carefully pick up our self-dignity...)."
"What did you say?" asked Jace.
"Er, nothing," Cloud smiled widely and falsely, scratching the back of his head. They began to head upstairs, with Ceige intrepidly following Tifa, until Kathryn power-walked beside him and elbowed him in the gut.
"Trying to score brownie points?" she asked.
"You betcha," Ceige croaked. And they all went to the next floor. Strangely, the next floor seemed to be composed of a staircase up, a staircase down, an open door, and a control panel.
Jenna instinctively went to the control panel, and began to examine it. "Trade coupons for items or reset... I guess someone's already been here. Better reset it." She did so, but didn't know that Croto had intrepidly decided to go through the door, oblivious of the fact that there might be many, many security measures awaiting him. He found that it was nothing more that a hallway that had several doors. He attempted to open the one at the end of the hallway, but didn't succeed. He turned to leave, and saw that the door he had come through was closed. Croto didn't move. He just stared at the closed door knowing that he was stuck.
"Uh... guys? Roter? Jenna? Anybody...?" he said.
Cloud was getting impatient. "We don't have time for this." Everyone shrugged, and followed him up the staricase.
The next floor was a staff work-out room. There were some weights, tread-mills, and other things. Cloud, in need of a little rest from climbing the stairs, turned and faced the group. "Alright, we'll take a short break here. I need it. You guys can go do what you want."
"Aren't the Shinra soldiers looking for us?" asked Jenna.
Cloud shrugged. "The soldiers can't gain access up here. They don't have the high-level keycards."
Jenna nodded and walked into another room. Everyone went off in other directions also. Jessie and Jenna wandered into the locker room and thought they might snoop around in the lockers. There turned out to be nothing at all useful in them, except for one that Jessie opened. She pulled out a Megaphone, with etching on the side that said, 'HP SHOUT.'
She turned to her younger sister and held it up. "What would someone be doing with this?"
Jenna simply shrugged. "I dunno."
Jessie looked around, and grinned slyly. "Well, since nobody's using it..."
Jenna closed a locker. "You're going to borrow it, right?"
"Yup." Jessie nodded, still smiling. "We oughta do this more often."
Back in the lobby part of the exercise room, Jace became the first to realize... "Hey, where's Croto?" Suddenly the floor bursted open with an explosion, and through it came Croto. He looked just the slightest bit angry. "I...AM... GOING TO HURT whoever LOCKED me down there."
Everyone looked innocent and backed away from Croto. They all gave out cries of 'Wasn't me!' or a form of the like.
Croto returned to his semi-normal state. "Just as I thought..."
'Now let's see,' thought George, wandering around the G.A.V. 'Which button is it to activate the comm. link?' It was so nice in the G.A.V. All peaceful and secure. He knew he was safe unless... He walked up to the windshield and saw a mob of Shinra soldiers running his way, holding their machine guns over their heads and yelling. George suddenly panicked and hit a random button to see if it'd do anything. Nothing happened. Most of the soldiers lined up and readied their guns.
'Ohhhhhhhh no
...' he thought, and randomly pulled another lever down. The soldiers then received the order to fire. A spray of bullets came flying at him, but when they were about the hit the GAV, they ricocheted off, leaving a mint-green glow around the areas they should've hit.'Hah! I activated the reflector shields!'
None of the Shinra soldiers every saw anything like that before, nor were they ever told what to do in case something like that occurred. So their first instinct was to... "RUN FOR IT!!!" the soldier leader cried out madly running back to the Shinra building to take refuge. The soldiers all followed yelling the same thing. Except for one.
He stood there, dumbfounded slightly, not knowing what to make of bullets ricocheting off of invisible walls of energy. So he pulled out a grenade, ripped the pin out with his teeth, paused for a second, lobbed it at the GAV, and ducked for cover
'Dufus!'
George thought it would bounce. Instead, it blew up right before making contact with the shields. The explosion rocked the GAV, and George was haplessly thrown to his back. His mind currently drawing a complete blank due to the fact that he had almost needed a new change of shorts, George skittered (or did something to the like, considering his slight weight problem) to his feet, and cautiously peered over one of the seats to see if the Shinra guard was still there.Sure enough, he was standing out there, still gazing at the technological marvel that was the GAV. After a few seconds, he shrugged, turned on his heel, and marched back to the Shinra Building, all by himself.
The group decided to take onto the idea that Croto had. Why use the keycards? They simply took Croto's gun, and carved holes in the ceiling at a remote place on the next floor. This saved them some major time for resting on the job. Everyone now stood in the hallway before a bathroom. The main conference room was just a ways away, and a meeting was about to begin. Cloud poked his head inside the bathroom to see if there was anything useful. The stalls had signs saying 'Out of Order.' He looked more toward the ceiling, and saw a ventilation shaft.
Cloud turned back and whispered, "I'm gonna go spy on the meeting. I just have to go up into that ventilation system to get over the conference room and listen in. Anyone coming with me?"
Tifa, Barret, and Jace stepped up. "I'll go."
"That shaft is really big enough for all of you?" asked Kathryn. Cloud took a second look into the vent. It was much smaller than he last remembered, which wasn't long ago, it's just that all those Mako treatment required for SOLDIER would temporarily turn his brain into something that could be remotely considered Swiss cheese. However, considering there is no Sweden on his Planet, it would have to be considered something else that had lots of holes in it. Let's say a fishing net, shall we?
He came back pointing to Jace. "On second thought, Jace, you come." Tifa tried hard not to stamp her foot in annoyance.
Cloud and Jace both jumped into the ventilation shaft and crawled to a grate in the floor. They both looked through it and saw that a meeting was about to begin.
"So what are we listening in on this for?" whispered Jace.
"We have to find out what Shinra is planning." Cloud answered. Jace nodded, and they looked through the gate.
Below, the doors to the meeting room flung open and all of the Shinra staff walked through. They all sat down at their seats, and placed their suitcases on the table all at one time. The president, a short, chubby man with blonde hair and mustache, took a seat at the very head of the table.
Jace looked toward Cloud, "That's the prez?"
He whispered. "Yeah, kinda fat for a president, I guess..."
The president looked around the room. The staff said nothing. They just sat as still as possible. The president cleared his throat to give everyone the hint he was waiting.
No one replied. The president then did the next worse thing. He cleared his throat. "...Ahem."
Reeve knew it was his job to speak, and the damage cost from the disappearance of the Sector 7 Plate would probably create quite a few problems for him. But he still slowly stood up and took his papers from his suitcase.
"President Shinra, uh, sir? W-well, the damage cost for the disappearance of the Sector 7 Plate... ranges n-near the um..."
"Don't bother to tell me, we're not rebuilding Sector 7." The president replied. Reeve sat back down, relieved that he didn't have to recite the excruciatingly long number.
But then he stood back up in protest. "What? Why aren't we rebuilding? The people who were evacuated from the plate need a place to live! What're we going to do, make them live on the streets for the rest of their lives?"
The boss stayed silent for a moment. Then simply said, "They're expendable." Reeve sat back down, silently fuming to himself.
"Whoa, what a jerk," said Jace.
"Yeah, ignore the lives of thousands just to save a buck...."
"Several million bucks," Jace corrected. Cloud glared at him. Jace decided to keep his trap shut for the time being.
Palmer threw himself on the table, "Yay! Now we can put all that extra money towards the Space Program!"
The president pushed Palmer off and said, "No, we're not going to do that either."
Palmer slumped back in his chair. "Awww..."
The prez gave Palmer a nasty glare before continuing. "We did not succeed in destroying AVALANCE. But we shouldn't put much worrying into them, nor should we let them get in our..."
"Hey, uh, Prez?" asked Reno.
"..." He fought the urge to push the little red button on one of his armrests that would signal several security guards to raid the room, drag Reno out, and have him severely beaten with electro-prods. "Yes, what is it?" He hated being interrupted, and he hated being called 'Prez'...
"I found out that it's not just AVALANCE anymore. Some other people joined them. Some group called The C. Force. I mean, look at what they did to me!"
"Now Reno, you can't blame your action of falling off the platform and breaking your leg on some imaginary 'C. Force' whatever it is... You just have to deal with your mistakes on your own." said Tseng, standing in the corner.
"No, really! It's a group of six or seven people! And just one of em' beat me up good."
"He's talking about you guys?" asked Cloud.
"Yep." Jace smiled widely, resembling the expression of a total idiot.
Reno slowly looked up toward the ceiling. He saw Cloud and Jace. Reno suddenly screamed and ran out of the room. Several seconds of confused silence folowed.
"What was that about?" asked Scarlet.
Tseng shrugged. "He's Reno. What else would I expect from him?"
Under his breath, Heidegger muttered, "Needs to cut back on the beer..."
The meeting went on for several more minutes. Outside of the bathroom, everyone guessed it was a wonder that no one had found it strange that a large group of people were standing in front of the bathroom door. But just as no one found that it was strange, they didn't put much thought into worrying.
The president ended the meeting and everyone left the room. Cloud and Jace crawled back trough the air duct and climbed down into the bathroom. They came back out and everyone turned to ask what happened.
Cloud simply said, "I'll tell you later..."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
And, even though the chapter's probably not halfway done, that's all for now. Of course, more will come soon/in due time.
Anthing and Everything that is/a part of The C. Force or Foxton, California are copyrighted to Matt Laskowski and cannot be copied in any way without proper notification. The C Force (c) by Matt Laskowski 7/26/2001
The characters 'Proto,' 'Rank Archer,' 'John 'Lawman' Sectier,' and 'Rhade' (don't worry, you'll find out who he is soon enough...), the location 'Proto's Bar & Grill,' and the spacecraft 'UltraShip,' are all fictional, and are copyrighted by **** ******* (just try and guess my real name; betcha can't), and WILL NOT be used without proper permission/authorization.
Any people, places, and events that are related to Final Fantasy VII are copyrighted by Squaresoft and any of their respective owners. But you knew that already, didn't you?