Since M.G. brought up this similarity, I would like to apologize for making the ending of the previous chapter remind people of the shooting that happened at the premier of The Dark Knight Rises. That tragedy did not cross my mind at all when I was making that part, so it was purely a coincidence. It was only after what M.G. said did I realize the similarity. I have no intentions whatsoever to offend anyone.
Due to work, updates may become slower than usual, but I will still try my best to update within ten days.
Chapter 3
The Saver
It went without saying that the shocking event at the movie theater made the headlines the next day. Cloud, Barret, and Tifa were together at the latter's bar, watching the news being broadcasted on a television. The news mentioned that the man calling himself the Saver ran before the police arrived, and the latter were unable to track him down, as he ran into the alleyways. The darkness of the night only made it harder to do so.
"How terrible… It's not very far from here either…" said Tifa after seeing the news report.
"That guy's asking for a fight! What a ridiculously ironic name! The Saver? More like the Killer!" said Barret in anger. "If I ever run into him, I'm going to show him what a real saver should be like!"
"There's really been a rise on self-righteous people with mental issues around these days…" said Cloud. "Is this like some kind of disease spreading or what?"
"Ever since that guy named Pompus Rath shocked the world with his action of seriously threatening a company for what he believes are faulty business decisions, it's been like this," Tifa reminded him. "I guess people are starting to think that this is a good idea if they want to enforce better business decisions… I'm just glad I don't have such customers here…"
"Let them try messing with this place! Anyone who dares lay a hand on anything related to my friend is going to wish they were never born!" said Barret.
Shortly after saying that, the news reporter received a sudden new news. "We have just received a report that the Saver is seen in Wall Department Store, causing chaos and destroying everything he deems terrible!"
"Wow… He sure acts fast… Causing trouble yesterday night and showing up again in broad daylight at a department store…" said Tifa after hearing the news. "Let's hope they get him this time and without any casualties happening…"
Cloud noticed a shocked and nervous look on Barret's face. He was about to ask him what was wrong when the latter said, "Marlene went to that store before I came here! She said she was going to buy her friend a birthday present! That Saver guy is there! My daughter is in trouble! I must go and save her at once!"
"Calm down, Barret! Wall Department Store is a large place, so what are the chances of them being in the same area?" Cloud told him. "I'm sure Marlene should be safe so long as she…" Barret got up and zoomed out of the place before Cloud could finish speaking, however. "Isn't in the same area as him…"
"I think you better go with him," Tifa told him. "It's nice and all that he's showing concern for his daughter, but it's best to be on the safe side to make sure that he doesn't do anything rash…"
Wall Department Store was one of Midgar's most popular stores. Despite not being the grandest of all department stores, it had a large amount of merchandises, most of which were low in price. The service was good as well.
However, none of those were of any concern currently, because the Saver had arrived at the place to "save" people from the horrors of what he believed were terrible merchandises and services.
He was currently at a video game store, destroying games he didn't like. "Such games should not exist! People should never be exposed to such terrible games!" he loudly said as he grabbed and threw every single copy of Metroid: Other M onto the floor. Pointing his machine game at the pile of games, he pulled the trigger and riddled them with holes.
He then turned to a cabinet that had copies of Paper Mario: Sticker Star and proceeded to throw every single one of them onto the floor before shooting them as well.
He then saw a scared man holding a copy of Sonic: Lost World in his hand, so he reached his hand to him and said, "Give me that game so I can destroy it! Sonic: Lost World is a massive disappointment that must not exist or be played with! Give it to me now so that you may be spared of such atrocity!"
"But my son begged me to buy this game for him! He really wants to play it!" the man told him.
"Your son is walking down a path filled with darkness and all kinds of horror! There is still chance for him to be saved without him throwing away his life, so you must hand it over to me now if you want him to be spared of playing that atrocious game!" the Saver said to him in an overdramatic manner. "Think of your son! As a father, can you bear the thought of him playing a terrible game that will disappoint him greatly?!"
"That's enough! You have gone too far!" shouted an angry voice of a child all of sudden. The Saver and those present turned to a young girl with dark brown hair and a pigtail wearing a pink dress that had a yellowish-orange ribbon at the front—Marlene. With a fearless attitude, she said to him, "Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you should force other people to hate it as well! Even more than that, you shouldn't go around destroying things you don't like in such a drastic way! People have the right to enjoy whatever they want, and you do not have the right to force them to dislike what you don't like!
"You don't look like you're saving anyone at all! You're being a nuisance and scaring the lights out of people with your actions!"
"You are still young, so you do not know the horrors I have witnessed!" the Saver told her. "Sitting through terrible movies, playing horrible video games, eating disgusting food! I've suffered them all! Because I know very well the pain of those things, I cannot bring myself to let other people suffer the same fate, so I must stop them from making those mistakes!"
"It's not like doing those things will kill them, so why are you so concerned about this?" Marlene asked him. "You're exaggerating things, and you're only making yourself look like you're crazy in doing so!"
Seeing how a little girl was standing up against the Saver, most of the others decided that they should be brave like her and speak up against him.
"That little girl is right! You're not saving anybody or anything at all!"
"We have the right to enjoy whatever we want! Why must we listen to you?!"
"You're crazy! You'll never be able to convince anyone like that!"
After listening to what everyone was shouting at him for a while, the Saver fired his gun at the ceiling, causing everyone to get down in shock. "I am the Saver, and my job is to save everyone from experiencing terrible things!" he said out loud. "Why won't you let me save you? Do you insist on making yourself suffer by experience everything that is bad? If I have to, I will put an end to all your lives in order to keep you from doing those things! Such is a blessing, as you will be freed from the horrors this world has to offer and enjoy the wonders of afterlife!"
"The only person here going to afterlife is you!" shouted an angry voice all of a sudden. All eyes turned to an angry black man with a Mohawk charging into the scene and throwing a punch at the Saver's face to send him backwards.
"Daddy!" Marlene exclaimed in surprise upon seeing Barret, who ran to her to give her a great big hug.
"My daughter! Are you all right? Did that terrible man hurt you?" he desperately asked her.
Cloud then walked up to them and said, "She seems to be all right. You can calm down now, can you?" He then turned to see the Saver slowly getting back up from getting punched into a cabinet of games. "All right, what's with you? Going around shooting people in order to stop them from enjoying what they want? You're out of your mind…"
"The people need to be saved! I am saving their lives from all that is terrible! I have no choice but to put them down when they refused to listen to me! Dying is a much better option than exposing yourself to terrible things!" the Saver told him.
"The only terrible thing people are being exposed to now is a madman like you," Cloud told him. "I pity you to the point I don't really want to give you a beating, so how about you just surrender yourself? You'll definitely save the lives of many if you hand yourself over to the police or the mental asylum, as they will no longer be killed by you."
"The world needs saving, and I am the one who will do this! I must save everyone from the horrors of bad movies…" said the Saver, but Barret interrupted him.
"You are the real horror around here! I'm going to teach you a lesson for trying to hurt my daughter!" Barret angrily said to him. He changed his steel hand into a gun and aimed at him, but Cloud stopped him from shooting.
"There's no need to waste bullets on the likes of him," Cloud told him.
"People like you are obstruction to the path of being saved! I must eliminate such people in order to save the lives of many! Begone for the sake of others!" the Saver said before firing from his gun at Cloud and Barret.
Acting quick, Cloud pulled his Buster Sword in front of himself to block the incoming bullets. "You still think someone like him isn't worth getting filled with bullets?" Barret asked Cloud before stepping out from behind him to fire from his gun-arm at the Saver.
The Saver ran to the side fast and got behind a game cabinet. He looked out from it a bit to fire his gun at the duo, but they got out of the way. Meanwhile, everyone else ran for his or her lives.
Barret fired at the Saver, who got behind the cabinet again for protection. When he tried running away from behind that cabinet, Cloud got in front of him. He tried to shoot the swordsman, but the latter grabbed his gun and forcefully tilted it upwards so that the bullets were fired at the ceiling. He then pulled the gun out of his hand before grabbing him by the collar.
The Saver struggled against his hand and then kicked him hard in one knee to make him drop him. The Saver then tried to kick Cloud, but the latter caught his foot and then pulled it up to make him fall on his back. He then pointed his sword at the Saver's neck to keep him from getting back up. "Give it up," he told him.
The Saver slowly nodded, and then Cloud moved his sword away to let him stand up. The Saver stood up with arms raised into the air, but then he jumped back and took out a grenade from his pocket, much to shock of everyone. "If any of you try to do anything funny, I will detonate this thing!" he said.
"You don't want to do this," Cloud said to him. "You're going to get yourself killed!"
"This world is filled with too much despair and disappointment, so I don't mind!" said the Saver. "If left with no choice, I will choose to save myself from this world through death as well! If I can take out several people in doing so, then I cannot be any happier, as I will die knowing that I have freed people from their sufferings in doing so!"
"You're out of your mind! The only way people can be saved is if people like you are behind bars or dead!" Barret angrily said to him. "You better not pull that pin, or else you're going to get it!"
"Then don't make me! Allow me to continue doing what must be done in order to save people!" the Saver told him while moving back from him.
"You mean by destroying everything you don't like? Why would we let you do that?" Barret angrily asked him.
"Because it is the only way for people to be saved! I cannot allow anyone to be exposed to the horrors of terrible products! I must save them!" the Saver told him.
Barret and Cloud glared at the Saver, wondering what their next step of action should be. Suddenly, they noticed someone or something zipping past the Saver at a speed so fast that it could only be seen as a blur. They noticed that the grenade was replaced with a plush toy of a Moogle as well.
Seeing this, they moved closer to the Saver, who was still unaware of this. "Don't come any closer, or else I will pull the pin for real!" he said.
"I wouldn't mind," said Cloud.
"You're making me do this!" said the Saver loudly, and then he pulled off the red circle at the top of the Moogle doll's head. That was when he realized he was no longer holding a grenade in his hand.
"Looking for this?" asked a woman's voice. They turned to the side and saw Yuffie sitting on top of a game cabinet, tossing the grenade up and down in her hand constantly.
"Good going, girl!" Barret said to her.
Before the Saver could do anything else, Cloud rushed at him and swung the flat part of his blade at him to knock him back through the air. He crashed into a game cabinet containing a large amount of Sonic the Hedgehog games. Most of the game discs fell onto him as a result and partially buried him.
"That should do," said Cloud while putting away his Buster Sword.
Prisons weren't the nicest of places to be, especially if it was full of messed up people.
Members of the True Fans, after their defeat in the hands of the Smashers, were locked up in such a place. Not all of them were brought here, as some were taken to mental asylums instead, since their behaviors made them more of mentally ill people rather than actual criminals.
Pompus Rath was not one of those people, however. Tests showed that he was perfectly sane. He was simply filled with rage and hate.
As he sat in his prison sulking and cursing the world outside in his heart, Star Wolf made their appearance at the prison. Wearing the mysterious metal ring over their heads, the mercenary team sneaked into the prison grounds by parachuting down there from their Wolfens, which then flew away using autopilot.
Other than wearing the rings over their heads, they also wore pitch black jumpsuits so that they could blend into the darkness. The team of three carefully and quietly made their way into the prison building, taking out some guard using chloroform and harmless techniques that made them faint.
After several minutes of sneaking around the place and obtaining information on who was imprisoned in which cell, the team headed for a room containing several cell rooms, most of which were containing inmates they were told to free by Nerdro. "Remember the plan," Wolf told his teammates. "We'll free as many people as possible in order to cause chaos in this place so that we can easily escape. Make sure to let the people we are freeing know first so that they will follow us."
They headed for specific cell rooms and look into it. Panther looked into one of the cells, and when the inmate inside saw him, he was shocked and moved to the back of his room. "What… What are you?! Some kind of demon?!" he asked.
"Demon? How I wish I resembled something more fabulous…" grumbled the panther under his breath.
Indeed, the metal ring Nerdro gave them was an optical camouflage that altered their appearances drastically so that people would not be able to see who they really were. Panther took the form of a black-skinned demonic ox with glowing red eyes, Wolf took the form of a brown-skinned goblin-like creature, and Leon took the form of a skeletal reptilian creature.
"Fear not, for I am here to let you out. You must follow me and my teammates if you wish to see freedom, so make sure that you do not mess up anything," Panther told him. He then used a specially-made key he and his teammates created and brought along to open the prison door.
Star Wolf busied themselves freeing the people Nerdro told them to, the last one being Rompus Rath.
"What is the meaning of this?" Rath asked them.
"Someone wanted you people out of prison, so follow us and we will get you out of here," Wolf told the freed inmates.
"Hey! Who are you people?!" shouted a guard who entered the place all of a sudden.
Seeing this, Leon took out his beam gun and fired a shot that killed the guard. Star Wolf then hurriedly freed the remaining inmates from their prisons. Once those inmates were out, they immediately ran around like crazy, enjoying their freedom. More and more inmates were freed, and the place soon fell into chaos.
A guard hurriedly pressed a button used for emergency situations on the wall to alert everyone in the prison of what was happening.
The escaped inmates ran all around the place, beating up guards and trying to get whatever weapon they could get their hands on and also freeing as many inmates as they could.
While the chaos was happening, Star Wolf led the inmates they freed down a path they planned out beforehand. Their escape wasn't exactly the smoothest, however, as guards appeared to stop them. The group fought their way through the place until they finally got out of the prison building.
Running towards a wall, Wolf took out a disk-shaped object and threw it at the former. The object exploded upon hitting the wall and created a hole. On the other side of the hole was a container truck.
Unfortunately, not everyone the team was told to free made it outside, as some of them either got lost in the chaos or were caught by guards before they could escape. In the end, only two managed to make it out with Star Wolf—Rath and I am Life.
After getting into the back of the truck, the driver, a person clad head to toe in black, drove off fast before guards arrived.
TO BE CONTINUED
Trivia:
1. Wall Department Store is named after Wall Market from FFVII.
