I've been slacking lately, work and all.
The PHS rang tenaciously annoyingly, and the pain in President Shinra's throbbing temples was magnified. Sometimes, the president figured, he should have never had the Science department invent the little buggers. But sometimes,the President thought satisfyingly seeing who exactly was calling him, being able to be reached anywhere was a very nice merit. "Is it done?"
"Of course, Mr. President. The ambush was executed perfectly; we have detected them in the tunnels below sector 3."
Shinra raised his cup of coffee to his lips and sipped a healthy amount of the invigorating brown liquid. "Schedule me a helicopter then, Tseng. I want to applaud them for giving me this sort of trouble."
"But of course, Mr. President. Anything else?"
The President scratched his chin, musing at how two extra martinis could lead to another two extra martinis and a hangover in the morning. He replied with another set of orders. "Yes, Tseng. Send Candice over – I need to appear immaculate in the latest news conference, where I will declare the jovial news of having found out that the terrorist attacks are now done for…" A pause, then…
"Of course, Mr. President."
Gordon Shinra flicked the PHS shut, before releasing the chuckle he had been holding back. A chuckle that came out as sinister laughing. "And that, gentlemen…" he declared to an invisible crowd, "…is how you do business."
The train sped through, the rails screaming under the force of its passing. The sound echoed through the dark walls around them, barely illuminated by the security lights. Finally, six wagons later and a blow of the train's horn, the trio of the Avalanche members found its peace in the gritty corridors. Silence ensued, with Squall gently placing Rinoa on the ground who, even after a whole minute of Squall's 'miracle' had passed, was still gaping. "H-how? How did you…?" She turned to look at where the train used to be, and then pointed at where Squall was still floating with a delicate finger. In Squall's opinion, she was starting to turn from amusing to annoying, but instead of telling that in the barwoman's face, he instead dispelled the Float and landed on the ground with a small grunt.
…She was still staring.
"Holy Chocobo!" Was the loud exclamation that tore through the walls, accompanied by Irvine's footing. "How in a Girl Next Door rare issue did you do that?" The cowboy was grinning wildly, and his eyes glistened with what seemed to be amazement. He looked like a child being told that his birthday had come earlier this year.
Squall fixed his jacket to fit better on him with a jolt of his hands, and waited ten whole seconds before he decided that the two rebels would not stop grinning before he told them. "It's called Draw," he admitted, "and it's the sole reason of my casting spells with no Materia." He huffed, distancing himself from the others' close proximity. He had felt strange, being surrounded by such exuberance.
"Draw, huh? Can you tell us more?" Irvine asked. Rinoa simply nodded her approval of the question.
Squall sighed and rubbed his chin; on one hand, he wanted to get the show along, and on the other hand, these two would not leave him alone until "I'll show you. It'll be easier to understand." Once more, the ex-SeeD closed his eyes and reached at his surroundings with his Eldritch. It was like seeing the world with your eyes, yet not. It was like exploring with your hands, yet without the sense of feel.
Squallreachedfor the bright green Materia hatched inside the Valliant's hold. He felt the slight warmth it radiated, and recognized it as a low-power Materia which kept the spell of Fire. Thrusting his right hand to the front, towards where he 'saw' the bright flame's spark, he grasped at the fire mentally and then willed it to materialize, to form in a small ball in his palm. Swiftly, before something could interrupt the careful channeling he shared with the Materia's energy, Squall pulled his hand back and turned it to aim the wall behind him. The fireball was released along with a jet of green energy and slammed on the rough concrete, where its heat was dissipated with a hiss and a scorch mark on the wall. To Squall, the whole process had taken about two minutes of thought.In reality, it had taken no more than five seconds.
Before either Irvine or Rinoa could get started, he turned to look at them with his neutral expression. "They taught me that in SeeD. In a way, you reach out for the raw magical energies your surroundings possess and use them to cast a spell. It's more complex than that, but we really don't have the time for more." Despite the protests the ex-SeeD's posture was giving off, Rinoa asked away.
"So that's why the Irvine's Materia gave off that bright flash and those lights left it to appear in your hand? Because you Drew at them?"
"Exactly, although I am still using my own magical energy to cast spells, not the source's, meaning that I can't go on forever. Earlier, I used a Float spell from a nearby source I managed to locate on the ceiling. Usually, only Materia hold offensive spells, while the random ones scattered around carry passive spells."
"Wait a minute… A Float from a source you managedto locate? As in, found by luck?" Rinoa yelled. Squall, being his aloof self, simply nodded. The barwoman could not suppress the shudder that crept from her spine to her neck in the thought of the Gunblade wielder not finding such a crafty spell.
"Anything else?" Squall asked, pointing at the right side of the tunnel – towards where they should be headed at.
Irvine nodded and held his rifle tightly. "Yeah. Teach me how to use thisDrawof yours."
Squall shook his head. "It can't be taught. You are either born with this ability, like the mythical Sorceresses, or granted it through various means."
Irvine threw what Squall saw as 'temper tantrums'. "What the fuck are you talking about? You ain't no Sorceress, so the first choice is out of the window. So, what means were used for you to…?"
Squall glared at Irvine and cut him off. "None of your business." He promptly turned his back at the sniper and walked away, drawing his weapon of choice as he did so.
"Where are you going?" Irvine yelled after him.
"To the Mako reactor."
Rinoa fell into step behind Squall. "Why don't you want to talk about this, Squall?" She asked with a smile. Perhaps she could convince him to think otherwise…?
"Because I'm being paid to do a job, and that's it." Squall replied as Irvine grudgingly followed the two down the corridor. Deciding to lighten off the mood before he lost himself in thoughts, Squall said "if you continue, I might have to change my salary by the hour…" The Avalanche members following him made such faces that the ex-SeeD wished for a camera. It was not like it mattered, though. He would have to settle with photographic memory.
The trio walked down the railed halls, their senses on the ready in the case of –yet another- incoming train. They were walking fast, already four minutes behind schedule, and Irvine and Squall kept their weapons out. Rinoa was lagging behind Squall, keeping her arms crossed in front of her chest. "You seem cold, honey. Want my coat?" The cowboy asked, but the barwoman smiled and shook her head.
"Nah, I'll pass. The heavy coat is more of your style anyway."
Irvine chuckled softly, laughter that did not reach his serious eyes, and tapped his hat twice with two fingers. "True, it'd be injustice for someone as cute as you to wear colors not suiting you." Rinoa stuck her tongue out at him. This time his soft chuckle's euphoria was reflected in his eyes.
"Irvine." The aloof mercenary called back. "They are waiting for us." He pointed in the area more than three hundred feet away from them, illuminated crimson with the faint light the security lights shed into it. Four Shinra guards were patrolling leisurely, two of them sporting handguns and a single grenade while the rest kept heavy automatic weapons.
"Damn. What do we do now? Fighting them in such a close ground just isn't an option." Irvine turned to look at Squall, the ex-SeeD once more being all they had.
Squall leaned on one of the walls and crossed his arms, careful to keep the Gunblade's exploding tip away from him. He turned to look at the barwoman with a somewhat amused gaze. "Remember when you claimed that this was not a game for you?"
The two Avalanche members looked at each other, then turned to the ex-SeeD and nodded. "Yes?" Rinoa asked tentatively.
"Well, I'm afraid it's time to start proving it, Rinoa." Squall's azure gaze promised Rinoa that she was not going to like the plan he had formed…
"Hey, Johnson, the coffee you bought me tastes like crap." One of the guards called, tossing the offensive carton cup further away in the corridor.
'Johnson' laughed. "Who said anything about me buying you coffee?" The first guard gagged, and the other three laughed at his demise. "I'm just kidding man, sorry. But honestly, what did you expect from such a hellhole like Sector Three?"
"They don't even have proper coffee? Where the hell did you buy it from, the slums?" The guard accused.
"I might have…"
The guard felt like tossing himself on the laser grid. "Oh man…"
"Excuse me?" A feminine voice called, causing all four guards to turn on their heels with weapons on the ready, much to their credit. "I fell from the train with the terrorists inside in a blind panic, could you take me to Sector Three?"
The guards relaxed visibly upon seeing the speaker. They saw a young woman who had raven-black hair, sparkling black eyes and creamy skin. Their eyes fell on her lithe but well-muscled body, her inviting lips and long legs that their male part wished that would cling around their waist. "Er…" Johnson managed to mutter, "hi there!"
"Hi!" She beamed back. "Well? Could you take me…" One of the guards gulped heavily, "…upstairs?" And then the abyss fell upon the guards, scattering them away like a house inside a tornado.
A streak of lightning crushed upon one of the guards with the automatic rifles with a happy, chirping sound that told nothing compared to the man's agonized screams. The second guard cursed with carrying a rifle looked down to see a CD-sized hole in his chest. He coughed blood and started his descend on the floor. The two others holding handguns raised them again in order to shoot, but the girl was faster than them. She pulled out her weapon of choice, a petite handgun that could be hidden in the folds of her shawl, and shot the left one in the shoulder. He fell down amongst a shower of blood, where he lay screaming.
The final guard would not return at his home that day, as a dark visage charged at him, sparks following at his wake as his Gunblade scarred the ground in his dash. He reached the guard, and he tried to aim with despair tearing at him, Squall cleaved at him from downwards, jumping as he did so. The result was a man most bloody that fell on the cold floor missing an arm and most of his torso. Rinoa gagged and turned away. "I'm going to be sick…"
Squall quickly approached the lone survivor of the group of guards and stepped onto his wound with an iron-toed boot. "The control center will contact you soon. You'll respond quickly and professionally, or broken bones and a permanently useless arm won't be your biggest problem. Do you understand me?"
Under Squall's heavy stomp, Johnson squeaked with a weak "yes!" The adrenaline in his body was all the kept him awake, and he felt like fainting any moment. Squall stepped off him and glanced back. He saw Irvine pulling Rinoa's hair back as she vomited in a corner. He shook his head, but did not comment on it otherwise. His attention was drawn back on the man, or rather, the man's radio.
"Answer the radio, and you had better remember our deal."
Out of fear alone, the man reached for the radio and pressed the button for 'receive'. A man's voice hummed through the speaker. "Come in, 316."
With strain in his voice, Johnson replied. "Th-this is 316, over."
"Everything alright, 316?" the man on the other side asked with curiosity etched on his voice.
"Not really…"
"What's going on?"
Johnson released a shaky breath and responded. "The guys tossed laxative in my coffee, over. Otherwise, it's all good."
"Stupid sons of bitches. Copy that, 316. Over and out." Johnson released the radio from his grasp, and it clattered on the floor.
Squall knelt next to the fallen guard. "What does 316 stand for?"
"Sector 3, group 16."
"Thanks." Squall offered, getting up and kicking at the man's shoulder with all his might –which, as he was junctioned, was much more than a normal man's- making Johnson scream in pain and faint. "We're done here, let's go."
Irvine turned his attention from Rinoa. "She's quite sick man, it's her first close-up with deaders. Scout ahead, we'll be there in three minutes tops."
"…Fine." The trio got separated as Squall did as he was told.
The mercenary walked softly, his own steps barely reaching his ears as the distance he was supposed to cover ended; he was in front of the laser grid that served as the world's greatest train stopper.
The tunnel which Squall had followed ended abruptly after a corner. A gigantic arch hugged the tunnel walls, and from top to bottom for every five centimeters, thick green beams of compressed light shot across its length and prevented everything from passing through. And it did so quite lethally, judging on the cut in half rat. The poor thing was probably trying to pass through the beams as they had been activated. Squall focused his attention to the side of the wall, specifically on a metal plate latched on the left wall ten feet away from the archway. The ex-SeeD grunted in disapproval as he saw that the trap that Shinra had lay upon them had taken care of the tunnel they were supposed to use as well.
Too bad they had not taken into account that a junctioned individual was among the rebels.
Squall placed his jacket and Gunblade away and knelt in front of the metal. Touching the ground, he concentrated upon the energy flux that was constantly being weaved underneath him and mentally pulled at it. He was rewarded with a flash of brilliant green as the force that he had just Drawn was absorbed by his enhanced body. Forcing that new energy into his muscles, Squall felt his muscles bulge and his arms jolted slightly under their newfound strength.
Squall pulled his arms back and shot them through the metallic plate, its density giving away under the force and the speed at which it was applied. Grasping forcefully onto the plate, Squall pulled back and tore the plate out of the wall with a cry of metal and triumph. It was done, as he tossed the metal on the rails behind him. Squall brought his arm and wiped sweat he had not realized was there, as he heard footsteps from the right.
Not taking his chances, he grasped the hilt of the Revolver as Irvine and Rinoa came into view. "Are you alright?" Squall asked the barwoman, who nodded.
"She's a little green – both in experience and in color, I'm afraid." Irvine said good-naturedly. "But she'll manage, she's a strong lady."
Squall nodded, before donning back his jacket and sheathing his weapon. "Let's go." As the ex-SeeD shoved himself into the now cleared, smaller tunnel that would lead them to the outer side of the plate and then to the Reactor, Rinoa groaned. "He's a machine."
Irvine nodded and helped her follow Squall. "A machine I'm glad we have on our side."
Xu unconsciously bit on her nails as she waited for Irvine, Squall and Rinoa to join her. Her paranoia was amplified under the fact that she was waiting alone in a completely dark tunnel, with only a glow-in-dark pen. The same that she had used to mark her passage through the tunnels she had taken so that her teammates could follow safely. She swore, if she everfound the one that had uploaded the map into the mainframe…
"Careful, it's slippery." Xu snapped in attention as she heard the voice, distorted with echoing and the humidity in the air.
"Shit!"She hissed under her breath, drawing her handgun from the holster in the back of her waist. She had known that Shinra guards made patrols down there, but it was one thing to stand and hope that you wouldn't have to face them and another to actually have them walk up on you. Something that meant that she had to taken action. She inhaled deeply and then waited in the almost complete darkness. The others were approaching, she could hear.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Another asked, his voice brought to Xu much sooner than the first one had reached her.
"Yes."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because…" It was the first guard that had answered, pausing to emasculate the relaxation in the air. Xu tensed – the man was really close. She would have to shoot soon or face some major troubles along the road. With steady hands, she prepared to pull the trigger when a firm arm grasped both her wrists as she held her weapon ready and another tore the handgun from her fingers. With reflexes one could expect from the hacker's thin form, she shot her leg up but found herself recognizing the 'guard' in front of her…
"Squall?"
The man in question delivered Xu her weapon and lit up a small flashlight that he had in his jacket's inside pocket. From behind him, Irvine chuckled as he served to lighten the mood. "The one and only. Together with Irvine and Rinoa, he will save the world!"
"Not amusing." Squall jabbed as he turned to look at Xu. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. A little startled, but alright – I could have shot you, you know." She scolded the heedless mercenary, who shrugged the ordeal off with his usual aloofness.
"Whatever. Can you lead us through?"
Around Squall, all three Avalanche members sighed at what they should have learned to accept as typical of Squall. Xu gestured with an arm half-heartedly "Sure, follow me…" As they walked towards where Zone and Watts waited for them, Xu started explaining what had happened while they were away. "So after you three jumped off, me and the boys knocked some punks out and shoved them in the toilets skin-naked; we had taken their clothes. By the time Shinra actually managed to stop the train and start searching, I had managed to alter those guys' IDs and place our pictures over them – thank God that the alarm had already been triggered, otherwise the databases would've figured that lil'trick out before I could even blink. Sorry about the IDs failing in the first place, by the way. It's my fault."
"Don't worry about it, honey." Irvine comforted her, patting her gently on the shoulder. "You're one, and they're fifty fuckers crammed up trying to figure a way to outmaneuver you. It's more than okay. I know you won't let it happen again."
She beamed at him, and continued on as they came to a u-turn in the corridor. "Thanks. Anyhow, as I was saying, Zone has taken it up to him to secure the escape route, as usual. On the other hand, Watts has –yet again- managed to disguise himself as the overly polite, upcoming Shinra grunt and is probably hacking into the Reactor's computer's as we're talking. By the time we reach the hatch, its locks will be deactivated."
"Kick-ass." Irvine exclaimed, grinning. "Avalanche Shinra 1-0." Rinoa and Xu smiled along, the satisfaction Irvine resonated affecting them.
"Oops, here we are." Xu said as they reached a small hatch entrance, sealed shut with an electronic lock. As Xu knelt next to it, she entered a code in the small keypad and the hatch swung open. "Ladies first?" She asked, turning to look up at the rest of her group.
"For certain!" Irvine exclaimed. Both Xu and Rinoa rolled their eyes.
"Lecherous pervert…" They whispered simultaneously as Rinoa followed Xu into the dark passage.
The four united into a hanging platform about sixty feet long and ten feet wide, which lead to a case of stairs and then into the Reactor's bowels. "We're close," Irvine warned, "be careful – keep your weapons on the ready!" The others nodded and followed the cowboy as he treaded carefully among the machinery leading to the main pumps, where the Planet's life force was being treated and refined into Shinra's precious energy source named Mako.
Reactor 3 was an exact replica of the 1st one, from the ladders to the same sickness Mako radiated, to the same exact machines. As they reached the final corridor leading to the main pump, Irvine scratched the back of his scalp and looked around. "No guards? What the fuck?"
"Yeah, with the mayhem we caused yesterday, I'd have thought Shinra would be more careful with their playthings." Xu agreed.
"No matter." Irvine shook his head. "Squall and Rinoa, move ahead and place the bomb. Configure it for fifteen minutes, more than enough to get out of the hellhole this place'll become. Xu, contact Zone and have the escape route ready. I'll stick around and keep watch."
"Alright, good luck!" Xu said as she ran along a corridor to the left. Squall nodded and took the explosive device Irvine had produced from his coat and joined Rinoa, who had walked up ahead. Together, they walked in silence, the only sound accompanying them being their breaths and footsteps. Squall's footsteps suddenly reached his ears like throbbing bangs. His breath was drawn inside heavily, almost achingly. Dizziness obscured his vision as he firmly grasped the railing with his free hand and grunted as immense pressure pounded his head right behind his forehead.
"Squall?" Rinoa had stopped walking and had approached him, holding out a delicate arm to grace his arm. "Squall? Are you alright?" She asked again when he did not respond, and yelped when the mercenary fell flat on his face for no apparent reason. "Squall!" His name reached Squall faintly, covered by the deep sounds of his heartbeat. Was this yet another dream like the one he had about the Wutai wars earlier? He looked around him and to his surprise, his body obeyed his will.
Instead of a tropical forest, Squall found himself walking down a Mako reactor's corridors. This one had to have been a previous version of the ones Midgar used, since the machines and setting Squall had encountered so far was primitive at least when compared to the ones powering the sectors.
Squall entered the room before the reactor's 'heart', the place that contained all the delicate machinery. It was plain and existed only as a means of intuiting direction. Yet, instead of walking through the room, Squall paused and gazed at the figure kneeled in the middle of the room. She was a girl Squall did not know, he realized with a startle, yet she was familiar in a sense Squall could not put his finger around. She was younger than he was for two or three years. She had curly brown hair that framed her head and bounced up at her neckline. She was gazing at a body in front of her with emerald eyes and was grasping its hand with her petite arms that matched the rest of her also small frame. She was cute in an immature way, yet as Squall saw her he realized that she was torn inside; tears fell from her eyes and she was biting her lower lip to prevent the sobs from escaping. She was dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a tee-shirt, and wore a trucker's hat atop her head.
"Daddy?" She choked out, her grasp tightening around the body's hand. The man was literally sliced in half, his legs and bowels spread unnaturally on the room's floor. She shook her head, and tears fell on the floor. She closed her eyes and held the hand closer to her torso. "Sephiroth did this to you, didn't he?" Squall followed her suddenly snapped open gaze towards an immense katanathat lay on the floor not more than a foot away. "Sephiroth, Shinra, SeeD! I hate them all! They'll pay for what they did to you, daddy!" With insanity wracked all over her features, the girl grasped the katana,which was two feet longer than she was tall, reaching seven feet in length, and run through the door leading to the reactor beyond.
Squall rushed in pursuit, and then stepped through the dream/vision and into reality with a gasp. "Are you okay?" Rinoa asked from above, and he shook his head. She kept a steadying arm on his shoulder.
"…I'm fine. It was probably the Mako fumes affecting me more than they should. Let's plant the bomb and be done with it." He found no reason to share that insane piece with her. It was not a matter of trust, but the usual bottling up. Why should he bother her with his problems? She had not bothered him with her own yet.
"Alright, then let's go." Squall approached the main machine and planted the bomb, configuring the timer for fifteen minutes. Soon they were running to the exit, Rinoa first and then Squall following. When they reached Irvine he kept in suit, and by the time they were out in the hanging bridge where Zone and Xu were supposed to wait for them, a replica bridge to the one in reactor one.
And then they realized that it was one of the cases that were rewarded with a 'shit hit the fan situation'. A squad of Shinra soldiers aimed every individual weapon of theirs at the Avalanche members. Even though all three of them had readied their Materia and weapons, it seemed too much like a lost battle with the entire bridge crammed up with shoulders waltzing in from both entrances.
Squall glanced at Rinoa, who was staring at someone among the troops. A man in red, who had dyed blonde hair and a thick mustache. A fat man who once ordered Squall.
Shinra.
He stood amongst the soldiers like a holy man along his disciples, leaning on his cane with the confidence only a man on the top of the world could emanate. Shinra glared at the two Avalanche members with less respect than he would show at mud on his ten-thousand-Gil shoes. Then he looked at Squall, and his face brightened with barely constrained fury. "Leonheart.I should have known it was you, even though the list of candidates was high and mighty."
"Hello, Shinra." Squall spat back, grasping the Revolver more firmly. "I can say that the animosity is mutual."
"I'm ashamed to once have called you a SeeD, Leonheart. I really am. Instead of knowing your place and dying in the hills outside Midgar you have instead banded with common low-lives, hoping to become yet another Sephiroth – as if something like that is possible."
"Sephiroth?"Squall growled, but Shinra waved a hand dismissively.
"He is irrelevant now, is he not? So please indulge me traitor, what is the name of your merry coterie?"
Irvine took the initiative and attention of a dozen automatic weapons. "Avalanche,you fat fuck! And don't you forget it!"
Gordon Shinra scratched his chubby chin in contemplation. "Avalanche, as in 'topple the Shinra off its throne', hmm? Cute, but I have heard of heavy metal bands with more influencing names. I have to admit that you are lacking a lot concerning publicity."
"Go to hell, Shinra, you murdering piece of trash!" Irvine spat, but instead of showing being insulted, Shinra chuckled.
"Murdering?" He asked. "Au contraire, I recall that you slew quite the innocents to get to your purpose and assault my integrity as the most respected person in Midgar. Did you even honor the men you killed? Did you even learn their names? Of course you did not; it would hunt you in the night, would make you toss and turn in your baby bed."
Rinoa lowered her head in shame, but if anything, Irvine seemed to be even more furious. "You're sucking the life off the planet! Murdering it so you can get money! Tell me, you greedy asshole, what are your Gil gonna do when you'll be on a barren wasteland?!" If Valiant was made of a lesser material, it would have bend under the strain the cowboy put upon it. Irvine's leather gloves were wrenched as he glared at Shinra, his words passionate and corrupt with anger. "Don't you fucking dare turn this on us! We only did what he had to do in order to save the world you're trying to destroy!"
Shinra sighed and shook his head. "Such passionate words. It's truly a shame that they are distorted with curses and threats. You are boring me and, alas, I have a plane to catch; my escort waits." With asnap of his fingers, the Shinra troops made way to a mechanical monstrosity. It was a GIM52A, an android eight foot tall composed of mechanical limbs of little delicacy, high tech circuits and all sorts of fatal weaponry. It was painted in a bright red color, possessed four amber tinted eyes that allowed it to aim with the three firearms it had at its disposal, and its exoskeleton would resemble that of a man in full body suit weren't it for the machineguns attached on the top side of his forearms, as well as the incredibly powerful multi-barreled machinegun mounted on its shoulder, which could load bullets from a highly stocked part on his torso. As a plus, the GIM52A possessed strength unseen even in a junctioned SeeD, ex or not.
Seeing movement from the soldiers, who were hurrying to the exits, Squall turned to his comrades. "They're locking us in – we need to deal with the android before the bomb blows up. Be on your guard."
Rinoa turned to Irvine. "How much time?" The cowboy looked at his watch as the stage was set, and the only ones remaining were the trio of Avalanche members and the android, who remained standing on the middle of the T-junctioned bridge. He looked grim as he gave the barwoman an answer.
"Three minutes."
Squall cocked his unique weapon, the Gunblade, awake and shot forward headfirst. Fast strides covered the distance between him and the GIM52A and the Revolver leapt forward into a jab at the machine's torso. The attack was parried effortlessly by the android's left robotic arm, and then its other arm covered its head to protect it from Squall's second, wide arcing strike. One of its eyes, composed of miniature cameras, detected Squall's open side, and exploited it perfectly. It's arm shot forward faster than the –normal- eye could see, but that was not the case with Squall; he parried with a twirling blade and stepped back five feet.
"Irvine! Don't let it aim with its weapons!" The ex-SeeD called to his comrades as the Revolver intercepted three more strikes. "Take down its eyes!" He sliced at the retracting arm, but the exoskeleton served as a shield against the cleaving. Irvine took the directions at heart as he motioned Rinoa at the retreating soldiers.
"Don't let them seal those gates!" He warned before dropping on one knee and readying Valiant for one bold aimed shot.
Rinoa nodded, her posture firm. "Got it!" She reassured both him and herself, and then run towards the fight between Squall and the Android.
Squall was working the Revolver furiously, parrying when needed and taking any chance he could find. The android swung its metallic fist at the ex-SeeD's head, but he ducked just in time – the blow was at his cascading hair. The Revolver shot at the beast's waist, but with uncanny reflexes the machine shot back. It hissedas it readied its machinegun at the running Rinoa, who screamed and cover her face. Squall intervened with help from Irvine – the ex-SeeD sliced at the GIM52A's torso, pulling the trigger as he did so, while the Valliant's triumphant shot struck at the machine's shoulder. It took a step back to regain its balance and sent its fist at Squall's head.
Squall hit the floor in a roll, tumbling forward and once again closing the distance. From fifty feet behind him, Irvine shouted at Rinoa to go on and prepared another shot. The Revolver slashed at the machine, striking its parrying wrist and blasting it apart with kinetic energy. Not losing a step in his dance of death, he shot the Revolver up with insane momentum and then chopped down with his enhanced strength. The android cried out in false pain as lost its limb. It did not have time to roar in defiance and counterattack as Irvine shot at its face once more, the hard exoskeleton taking the rifle's full strength and giving way to its destructive force; the android had lost an eye, but it was still deadly.
Rinoa managed to run past it and towards the retreating soldiers and Shinra, the latter still walking calmly as he passed the hissing, closing gates. She raised her handgun to shoot at him and end all their troubles but as she realized that she could not do it deep down in her gut, the doors slammed shut. No time for tears, Rin, her father's voice echoing in her imagination, as she turned on her heel and run to the other side of the bridge, hoping to catch the soldiers flat-footed and prevent their denying them an exit.
Squall hopped back and avoided the frenzied android's strikes, wondering for a moment how could a machine show such lust for combat. He did not allow the dark thoughts to faze him as he spun, the Revolver shooting at the android's throat. It crunched through metal with tremendous strength, decapitating the android and sending its head over the edge, to the slums below. Irvine joined the ex-SeeD, huffing as the adrenaline levels fell. "Hope it doesn't fall on anyone's head." He commented, but Squall did not answer. Instead, he run past the GIM52A, which was twitching like an ant in its death roes, and towards Rinoa.
She had succeeded, shooting blindly through at the gaping opening. The soldiers, sensing that getting shot was not a part of their contract, had run off. She beamed at the two men running her way, when the bomb detonated from deep in the Reactor's bowels, causing her to fall on her butt. Squall pushed Irvine forward, feeling that they had lost precious time. He did not want to re-experience the events from last night, when they had almost been burned alive. The cowboy tumbled forward, past the gate, and Squall prepared to dive after him as…
The wall directly opposite of the bridge's point on which Squall was standing exploded, white-hot flames destroying it entirely. With a groan of frustration, Squall struck his still unsheathed Gunblade at the remains of the bridge, where he laid hanging.
"Squall!" Irvine shouted. "Hold on! We'll haul you up!"
"Run!" Was Squall's retort as yet another explosion tore at the Reactor, wrenching the Revolver from where it had struck and sending Squall to the eternal darkness of the slums thousands of feet below. The last thing he saw before the darkness claimed him was Rinoa hanging from the platform and trying to reach from him. Squall closed his eyes gratefully and succumbed to his doomed fall…
"Are you okay?" Squall blinked his glowing blue eyes, confused at the question. Was he hearing things? Was he not supposed to be dead? Was this it? As if to add insult to injury, the voice returned stronger. "Are you alright?"
Squall still knew darkness, but it was more welcome now, less cold and more enveloping. "…I think so. Where am I?"
"Don't worry about that, just focus on staying alive. You can't always escape such situations with only scraped knees like back then, you know?"
"Back then?" Squall asked. "What do you mean?"
The familiar voice shrugged his question off. "Forget about that, can you get up?"
"I…" Squall started, as he felt his arm twitch. "I could try, I guess…"
"Alright then. Good luck."
"What? Wait. What the hell are you-"
"-talking about?"
He ached horribly. Every joint, every muscle, and every single move he did hurt him. He grunted as bright light tore at the domain of darkness that had settled upon his sight, and was grateful when a shade reentered his point of view and shielded him from the sun. Looking through his eyelashes, Squall looked at the face of a woman he remembered from his dreams. She was smiling brightly, more like grinning, as she held the sides of his face with her thin arms. "You're looking good for a person who made the world's greatest freefall, little brother." She greeted, and finally Squall blinked and settled his eyes on the woman he had saved from the thugs after his first mission with Avalanche.
A woman he had known from before, but was realizing that just now. A woman he used to adore and care for, a woman he had nicknamed "…Sis?"
If at all possible, the woman's grin widened even more. "Squall!" She cried with exuberance consuming her carefree, melodic voice as she pulled him abruptly into a firm hug. His senses were enveloped with her bodily warmth as she held him close, and his mind was hazed with the pain he still felt and surprise.
"Elle… Ellone, it's you." The name rolled of his tongue strangely, unaccustomed with the syllables. "It's really you." He found himself holding her close; he was incapable of believing that he had finally found her.
Ellone pulled back, her short brown hair waving and intermingling with Squall's. "Of course it's me!" She hugged him again, and kissed him on the cheek before resting her chin on his shoulder. His arms never stopped hugging her as his sore eyes took in his surroundings. He was in a church of Hyne. It was very high, with the roof – that was currently sporting a Squall-sized hole - easily twenty-five feet above him. On the ground he noticed seven rows of flowers that stretched from the edge of the flower bed he and Ellone sat on back towards the open entrance. Bright light penetrated his eyes, dazzled he forced himself to look above and saw a magnificent piece of architecture. The window was about nine feet deep and three feet wide. The glass was intertwined with pieces of meticulously crafted wires, and he was taken aback by the sheer beauty of it. For the glass had been colored in numerous different places and had a psychedelic effect as the street lights behind it shone through. "Wh-what happened?" He stammered. "Where am I?"
She released him and sat next to him, straightening her long skirt as she did so. "You're in a church in the Sector 3 slums. You crashed onto the roof and it collapsed under your weight and fall, sending you through. I think that it was the flower bed that saved you and destiny that brought you to me, Squall."
He got up, looking at her in amazement, before glancing around at the church. It was beautiful and aristocratic, but the most breathtaking sight – besides Ellone being there – were the flowers. They were incredibly healthy and pure, which was weird by all standards. Nothing grew in the slums; every piece of flora in Midgar was either a carefully grown plant in an expensive laboratory ora carnivorous mutation.
He felt the pain reside as the Guardian Forces inside him lived up to their body. His back, bruised from the fall, started repairing itself. His ribs and spine mended slowly as restorative forces took care of him. "Ellone." He felt a smile grace his features for the first time in… a long time.
"Still can't believe it's me, huh?" She smiled at him. "Me neither. And to think that our paths first crossed back in Sector One…" She chuckled as she straightened a broken flower, and then shrugged. "Well, I didn't have any chances to look at you then, and I had to take ten minutes of my time to simply gaze at you until I was certain it was you. You've grown beautifully, Squall."
Squall configured his junctions justto refuse his cheeks to blush. "I see that even optimistic Ellone has taken herself up to Midgar's challenges." He changed the subject as he saw a bracer in Ellone's left arm, from where twin emerald Materia shone.
"I got them yesterday as I left Sector One. They cost a lot, but I guess that a girl's got to protect herself." She replied playfully. "I also have another one, but it's just not working."
"Maybe you don't know how to use it?" Squall said, shrugging.
She shook her head as she also got to her feet. Her delicate arm went up to catch a small necklace around her neck. From it she picked a small ring, into which was grafted a crystalline Materia. "No, I do. It just doesn't do anything. I have it from, you know. Back then." Squall frowned. There was this mysterious 'back then' that he could not quite place his finger on. The ominous trail of thoughts dispersed as Ellone caught his attention once more. "So, what have you been up to?"
"…I became a jack of trades, a mercenary." He replied honestly.
She frowned in distaste. "A mercenary? Squall, you are destined to do so much better." She grinned. "How come you followed this line of work?"
"I only learned how to fight in my life, Ellone. That's my specialty. The only thing that SeeD taught me to do." He offered, gesturing vaguely with his arms.
"Sans the glowing eyes, hmm?" Ellone asked, but Squall did not reply. His attention was taken by the red haired man who had just walked in the church from the main entrance. He wore a black suit, and underneath his open jacket was revealed an unbuttoned white shirt. Green eyes shone with confidence as he snapped his fingers at a rhythm only he could listen to. Sunglasses were perched on his forehead, and his red hair was bright and long to his waist, caught in a loose braid.
The man grinned, revealing pearly teeth and snapped his fingers a last time. "Fuck me." He yelled as he laid eyes upon Ellone. He turned to look at Squall, who had stepped between Ellone and the man protectively. He was holding his left arm towards the man, ready to conjure magic on his side, while he had risen the right one to ward his sister from danger. "Fuck me sideways.I thought you were dead, Leonheart." The man was brash and rude, yet emanated an aura of confidence, the same aura one could find only in seasoned warriors. And Squall knew from experience that the man in front of him was not just experienced when it came to fighting. The man was deadly.
And Squall did not have the Revolver with him. He wondered briefly where it had fallen, but brushed that thought to the back of his mind. "Reno." He greeted back, his blue eyes glowing dangerously. Reno was a member of the Turks, Shinra's personal squad of assassins. Squall knew from experience that these men and women had only one creed; do whatever the boss says and keep your nose clean about it.
"Well I'll be damned!" Reno cackled with glee. "We follow one lead towards the person we're looking for and not only is our Intel right, for once, but we also find a man who's supposed to have died – again – about thirty minutes ago. This time I'm definitely up for a promotion."
From behind him, Ellone grasped his shoulder. "Squall, they're here for me! You need to help me!" She whispered in his ear.
The ex-SeeD nodded in confirmation. Now that he had found her, he would protect her to his death – even if she had not asked him. He glared at Reno, who snapped his fingers once, then twice. As if on queue, three Shinra guards, clad in the typical blue suit with the armored pads, rushed in. Each of them was carrying an MP5, and they waited for their leader to order them around. "Alright Squall; I'll toss you a deal." Reno shouted. "You go wherever and disappear as you leave the girl to us, or this gets nasty."
"I'll cut you a better one." Squall retorted. "How about you go play hide and go fuck yourself?"
Reno's eyes turned into thin lines as he produced a Stunner from his jacket. Stunners were a powerful piece of technology, used for dealing with enemies with the same tenderness a minefield showed to someone who did nottread lightly. It extended to form a crackling with electricity three foot long rod, and Reno started twirling it with deadly proficiency between his fingers. "Tsk, man. I thought you knew better than that. Now we have to go and drag you through the path most bloody." The soldiers around the Turk readied their guns, but Reno protested. "Use your globs. A hair ruffled onto the girl's head and Hojo will turn you into something drawn from a horror film."
As the trio of soldiers marched forward, producing melee weapons, Ellone pulled at Squall's jacket as the ex-SeeD prepared to conjure a magical ball of energy. "Not here!" She shouted. "You'll ruin the flowers! Come on, follow me!" She then proceeded to running towards the door next to the altar, which was leading to the rest of the church, dragging a disgruntled Squall with her.
Reno murmured something under his breath and followed them. As he reached the door Squall and Ellone had just ran through, he turned to look at the soldiers stare at him. "What the fuck are you waiting, a sugar cube for a job well done? After them!"
And there you have it. Another fine (not that fine in my opinion, but I did rather well in any case) addition to Crossing Over. Over and out.
