DISCLAIMER:I do not own the plotline or any of the characters in this story. I do not claim any form of copywrite etc on this piece of work.
Chapter 2: BOOM!
They landed heavily on the floor below. Shards of metal flew here and there as the missiles hit the stairs and exploded, causing one or two of the stairs to be blown off.
"Shit man, whatcha do that for?!" Cloud gave Barret a look of incredulity, 'you're joking, right?'. They hid under the stairs a little longer. 'These machines can stand up to physical attacks' Cloud was lost in thought 'so straight forward attacks are out of the question' The heavy 'clunk clunk' of metal on concrete echoed closer and closer. Barret looked over to his hired help. He looked calm, how could he look so calm!
"Hey!" he shouted "What are you doing?!" Cloud remained silent. Annoyed, Barret stood up once again. He took a step forward but Cloud grabbed the back of his trouser leg.
"You're attacks aren't working" he said calmly; simply; bluntly but never once taking his eyes off of the floor. "We have to come up with a different approach" Crestfallen, Barret crouched back down.
"Ok, got any bright ideas, Spiky?" although he was making a joke his tone of voice suggested he was sulking slightly. Cloud glanced back at Barret. Truthfully he couldn't think of a thing, but he wasn't about to tell him that. It was taking a long time for the machines to come to them, something wasn't right. 'Wait a minute…' 'CRASH!' another explosion came from behind them, the machines had changed course, they were attacking from behind.
"Shit" Cloud muttered to himself once again, as he and Barret swiftly got out of the way. Both men were caught in the aftermath of the explosion and the force sent them flying forward. They landed heavily.
"Damn man!" Barret was cursing. But cursing at what? The machines? Himself? Maybe both maybe neither.
"Have ya got an idea yet?!" he shouted over to Cloud. The answer was still no. he looked around about himself. There was nothing really around about that could help. Over the ringing in his ears and the noise from the blast, he heard the sound of glass on concrete. He looked to his side. A small smile played on his lips 'How could I have forgotten that?' next to him sat two glowing green orbs. Materia. He equipped both. He could feel the power coursing through him.
"Barret!" he shouted "Move!" concentrating, he stretched his right arm out in front of him. Realising what was about to happen Barret quickly got out of the way. A charge left Cloud's arm. It raced forward faster than what the eye could follow, faster than what the machines could follow. It hit one of the machines. Slowly it stopped its advance. Smoke started bellowing out of the back and a small explosion signified that it had short circuited and, inevitably, blown up. 'Jackpot' this worked. Cloud hoped there weren't too many of these. Using materia was difficult, it caused a lot of strain on both the body and the mind. Even just using the spell Bolt took its toll on him. The second machine fired again. As both men were separated, it fired only at Barret. Again he moved quickly out of the way. Cloud once again concentrated and repeated that which he had done before. The same happened again, it stopped dead, appeared to shudder slightly as its system shut down, and blew up. A cloud of smoke escaped from the body. These machines appeared not to like having several thousand volts sent through its system.
Barret seemed to have taken more damage during that encounter as he was patching himself up. He glanced over at Cloud. Cloud seemed paler than before, his breathing seemed heavier
"Hey man, you ok?!" Barret shouted over to him. Cloud didn't say anything, didn't even look over.
"Yo Spiky! I'm talkin' t' you!" Cloud took a deep breath and steadied himself. He glared back at Barret, icy blue eyes sharply piercing Barret more than what his sword could have done at that moment. A small, quick nod of the head signified to keep moving. They moved swiftly past the now smouldering piles of metal and through the door at the bottom of the stairs.
They entered a room. There was nothing in it other than a set of ladders fixed to a pipe that lead down to the level below. Jessie was waiting for them there. Hopping across a small gap in the floor, they met up with her.
"It's down this way." she pointed down the steps. All three made their way down. At the bottom their feet made contact with a large metal pipe. The area was dimmer than above, there weren't many lights on these lower levels it seemed. At the end of the pipe there was a platform.
"I'll wait here" Jessie said "the rest is up to you" Barret nodded. Both men continued on. Another set of steps led down to yet another pipe and after this, one last set of steps leading to the bottom most level of the reactor. Upon reaching the ground the men checked their equipment. 'Just in case'. Everything was in order. Calmly they made their way along the walkway. It was practically silent. The only sound that could be heard, other than the humming of the reactor, was the noise their boots made as they hit the ground. The silence, the sheer emptiness of the area was ominous, something was up.
"Keep your guard up." Cloud said to Barret in a hushed voice
"Yeah, like ya need t' tell me that." Barret replied. A few feet a head of them was the reactor. A mass of pipes and cables appeared to spew out of the back of a large red compressor. A little ways in front of the compressor, something shiny caught Cloud's eye. Another piece of materia.
"Interesting..." he said to himself "Curative materia, could be useful" he slid the restore materia into his pocket.
"You set the bomb" Barret said to Cloud when they were standing in front of the compressor.
"Shouldn't you do it?" Cloud asked calmly, never once taking his eyes off of the compressor.
"NO! I gotta make sure you don't pull anything, damnit!". Cloud sighed and shook his head. He held out his hand for the bomb. He attached the bomb with no great difficulty. He was about to set off the timer when a mechanical voice said
"That is as far as you go!". Above them was a large machine made from red, orange and yellow metal. It was about ten foot tall and shaped like a scorpion.
"Great, just perfect." Cloud said sarcastically. Another machine that was all they needed. Cloud still had his materia equipped from the last fight. He really didn't want to have to be using it again so soon. He still felt mentally drained. The mechanical scorpion jumped down from its hiding spot and landed a little ways in front of them. The space was very limited and so it was balanced precariously on the barriers that lined the walkway. 'Perhaps we could get it to fall into the Mako' this was the first thing that ran through Cloud's mind. The Guard Scorpion launched itself at the men. As quickly as the machine was coming to them, the men dashed underneath and got out to the walkway.
"Damnit" Cloud hissed under his breath. Things did not look good. First off they had now lost their advantage. The machine had taken over the larger area of their current battle ground, forcing them onto the thinner walkway. Secondly the machine was no longer teetering dangerously close to the edge making it somewhat impossible to knock it into the Mako below.
"We'll have to use the materia again" Cloud said quietly to Barret who was standing directly in front of him. Barret remained silent, but nodded to signify that he had heard. Barret knew that this would leave Cloud slightly more vulnerable as he needed time to prepare the attack. He would have to draw the machines attention to himself, this much he knew. That itself, however, was much easier said than done. This enemy wasn't the same as the others. This was an elite guard. It was probably programmed to be smarter than the other grunts. Barret went at the machine with all that he had. Firing off round after round from his gun hand. He paid careful attention to the little bar on the gun. This little bar was special. It told him when his gun was charged enough to dish out a much more powerful blow than what the normal bullets could handle.
Cloud had to concentrate, he knew he had to concentrate. But the fact that the Guard Scorpion kept firing at him made this all the more difficult. The huge machine began its attack once again. It climbed up onto the banister and, with about the same amount of balance than that of a cat, tore forward aiming directly at Cloud. Cloud had no where to go. There was no where to go either side of him and going under the machine was no longer an option as its large laser ended tail was blocking the way. All the while Barret had still been firing at the machine. The gauge on his gun had been steadily growing all the while. It had now reached the top.
Holding his gun arm steady he took aim on the back of the machine. He held down a button, a large blast began formulating at the end. He had his target in sight. Releasing the button, the blast left the end of the gun. It struck the machine causing it to stumble slightly, also causing it to halt its attack. It raised its laser ended tail
"Don't attack it whilst its tail is up!" Cloud shouted. He saw this as a perfect chance to run underneath the overbearing piece of metal. He was midway beneath the creature before he realised that the giant tail had begun to swing back underneath. It caught him by surprise . Before he could even dodge, the spike at the end caught him just at the bottom of his rib cage. He let out a small cry of pain, but that was all that he was going to give. The spike hadn't gone too deep. It was deep enough, however, to have broken the ribs though, deep enough for it to bleed heavily and freely. He fell to his knees, one hand still clutching the swords handle for balance the other pressed on the wound. The broken ribs made it hard to breathe, the rapid loss of blood was making his vision blurry.
Barret had noticed what had happened. He would have laughed at his hired help's incompetence, at the fact he had been hit, had it not been so severe. He knew he would regale the tale with his team mates at a later date, if he lived, but now was not the time. He began his barrage on the machine once again. The bullets struck the machine but seemed to be doing very little damage. He was at least drawing the things attention away from Cloud once again. He was giving the wounded man time to regain his composure and, hopefully, time to draw up the power needed to use the materia. Cloud was beginning to feel dizzy, he was wasting to much time, too much blood had been lost already and there was still an enemy to be beaten. He stood up, using his sword too keep him balanced, he breathed deeply; outstretched his arm once again and began focusing solely on the spell Bolt. It wasn't long before the magical lightning erupted from his hand. It hit the machine dead on, freezing the creature in its tracks. He wasn't sure that one strike would be enough.
But it was, the machine must have taken much more damage from Barret's attacks than was originally believed. The machine suddenly shuddered to a stop. Small explosions came from inside the creature's body. And then it froze. Barret edged slowly away from the machine. He was unsure if it really had malfunctioned, and if so, would it blow up then and there? Cloud collapsed. The loss of blood had been too much. He wasn't unconscious, that is to say he hadn't lost consciousness yet, but he was incredibly light headed. He groaned out loud, he no longer cared who heard him, he had been the idiot, he had been the one to get caught out by the machine and now the fact that he was weakened and in such a sorry state made him feel all the more idiotic.
"Hey man, you don' look so good" Barret had made his way over, he obviously deemed it safe to pass the smouldering heap that caused this mess. 'No shit, genius' Cloud mentally insulted the man who hired him. He hadn't the strength to say it out loud. Hadn't the strength to do anything really. He blacked out.
Barret walked back to the compressor and started the bomb. Ten minutes should be enough to get both him and Cloud out of this reactor he thought. He quickly walked back over to the injured man and, carefully, lifted him into his arms. Barret couldn't help but notice that he was much lighter than expected. He also grabbed the overly large sword before he went.