Okay, new chapter! Not been feeling my best, but I will try my hardest to come up with a chapter for next week as well. Please R&R!
Update: Thank you, Catcrazzed, for reminding me of where Junon and Costa are on the maps!
Word count: 1,232
Chapter 3: The Prelude to Boom
Vincent watched, intrigued, as Cloud wired up the explosives that were going to blow the Nibelheim reactor sky-high. Or, at the very least, this one particular part of it.
"Where did you learn how to do this, Cloud?" Vincent wondered, though he probably already knew the answer. All Turks had at least some training in the making and dismantling of explosives. Ave Maria wasn't the best at explosives when she was a Turk, but she could definitely do something like this, and no doubt knew it well enough to pass it on.
"Ma, mostly, though Reno did teach me a few handy tricks when we worked together." Cloud said this with a smirk, neatly twisting the copper frays of two wires together. The red numbers on the timer blinked to life, the little light they gave off almost completely washed out by the light of the Mako. He tucked it neatly beneath Jenova's containment tube then stood, brushing his hands off cheerfully. "There! Now it should go off when either of us sends the message! So long as we have signal, of course."
"You don't intend to blow her up now?" Vincent wondered, tapping the glass of Jenova's housing with a clawed finger. Chaos growled at the alien woman, repeating the same intentions of "tearing is into pieces and letting the Planet have Her fun with it." Vincent ignored the demon, for the most part.
"Yeah. I want to get a few things done at Shinra before I blow up the main reason why the Mako mixes Hojo makes are able to bind to SOLDIERs' DNA. Not that I need it, of course. I just need to make sure that one of the people that's important to this endeavor is strong enough to lift his own sword and not one of those weird mutated… thingies." He waved a hand toward the blobs of flesh and mako that were once Hojo's failed experiments. The reactor was different this time around: there wasn't a plaque with Jenova's name over the door, and there weren't massive steel doors guarding Jenova's chamber. Or a room full of documents in the manor. They checked. There was only the library full of forgeries that Hojo had based his research off of. There wasn't even a speck of information about Project S.
But walking in there, in the gloom of the reactor, still brought back all sorts of foul memories for Cloud. He half-expected to see the dried pools of blood where he and Zack had lain, dying. He could remember the way Sephiroth looked when he stood before his "mother", framed by the blueish-green light of the Mako. He could almost hear the fierce shriek of metal on metal when Sephiroth had torn the idol of Jenova away to reveal her true, twisted form.
But none of that is going to happen this time around, Cloud thought firmly, zipping up his duffel-bag full of clothes and other necessities and slinging it across his back. They'd already torched Shinra Mansion; it was no doubt burning down to a black clearing of charred ground as they stood there. Not even the underground laboratories would survive a fire fueled by materia, anger, and dry wood. The only things saved from that vile place were Vincent's Quicksilver and the one original book in the whole tainted library, a copy of The History of the Ancients that had no doubt once belonged to Gast, as written by a small group of professors many decades ago. It was the only thing worth saving, and that's only because it details the powers and abilities the Ancients once had, and Aerith would no doubt be able to use that.
If, of course, she was still alive this time around. Cloud desperately hoped she was.
Vincent followed Cloud out of the Reactor and into the cool mountain air. It would take them a week to get to Midgar, first stopping at Costa de Sol, then taking ship to Junon, then riding the train the rest of the way. It was getting to Costa that was going to be the hard part: the two of them were going to take a truck to Rocket Town, but the rest of the way to Costa was going to have to be a journey on foot.
The man that was to be their driver was still packing up when Cloud and Vincent reached him, seemingly oblivious to the chaos milling around him as a result of Shinra Manor catching aflame. Not that anyone was going to put it out: it was far enough from the town that the flames would not catch any other houses, and nobody really liked that place anyway. Cloud tossed his bag behind the seat in the cab and sat on the tailgate, watching the man load boxes into the truck; he had already waved off any attempts to assist.
Vincent watched in intrigue as a young woman walked hesitantly up to Cloud. Long black hair, a gentle face, a floral-patterned dress she was clearly uncomfortable in. Cloud seemed to recognize her, because he unconsciously tensed up in her presence. They talked for a bit, and Vincent tried not to listen, but… Once a Turk, always a Turk.
"So, you're leaving?" the girl asked, her voice small but not yet under VIncent's hearing. Cloud half-smiled grimly as he answered.
"Yeah, Tifa." So Tifa was her name. "I'm leaving for Shinra. I'm gonna be a hero, just like I said I would!" Cloud's voice was filled with such fake cheer, but it seemed to convince Tifa. She threw her arms around Cloud's shoulders in a hug, and the blonde tentatively hugged back.
"Good luck, Cloud." She pulled away and looked down, bashful, before finding her confidence again. "I don't want to see you back here until you're a SOLDIER, promise?"
Cloud laughed softly, nodding.
"Promise."
...
It was a long drive to Rocket Town.
Cloud felt a little bad about sitting in the cab when Vincent had to ride in the back, especially with how cold it could get with the wind blowing, but Vincent reminded him that Chaos wouldn't let him get sick, and that Cloud was still very much human despite Gaia's gifts, so Cloud shut up about it. The road was thankfully clear of monsters, though, so the drive wasn't as long as it would have been if it wasn't.
As soon as the truck stopped in Rocket Town, Cloud and Vincent were out and heading towards the nearest supply shop. They had weapons and a few Summons Materia and a little gil, but Cloud wasn't comfortable with a gun and didn't feel like using his fists all the way to Costa de Sol, and summoning Odin or Shiva every time they had to battle would quickly become taxing. So they spent what little gil they had on a simple sword, a Blizzard1, and a Cure1. They could level them up easily on the road.
Cloud wanted to stop by Cid's house, to see if the airshipman was still working on that rocket of his, was still doing okay, but he knew that probably wouldn't be a good idea. No one knew him anymore. He had to keep reminding himself of that.
So without lingering any longer, Cloud and Vincent set off from Rocket Town towards Costa, and from there, Midgar.
