Blind SOLDIER
By BlueFox

DO NOT COPY MY STORIES!!

If anyone wants to post my stories anywhere else, please just ASK and then give me credit for writing it. PM with any requests.

Intro: I'm baaaack! And I just suffered a humiliating defeat from an enemy called the Sootie in Star Ocean 3's Maze of Tribulations, and therefore, since I do NOT want to redo Level 5 of the Maze again, I decided to update this story. Yay!

Disclaimer: Hmmm…do I own Final Fantasy VII? :opens wallet and watches moths fly out: Well, I think that answers THAT question…

Part II
Chapter Eight
"The Tower my sole guide"

Zack pointed to the sky. "We wait for nightfall," he told her. "Security will be lighter then, and that's when we'll bust in!" he declared.

Barret grinned broadly and clapped him hard on the back, almost knocking him over. "Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"


The door slid open and the brown-haired receptionist was jolted out of her half doze. She glanced at her computer clock and saw that it was nearing midnight. Who would be here at this time of night? she groggily thought as she looked up. Standing there was a familiar face. "Zack?" She blinked quite few times before noticing the two people behind him. She stood. "Zack." The ex-SOLDIER looked at her and smiled.

"Hey Shelley, how are ya?" he asked her as if it was just yesterday he had seen her, and not five or so years before. Shelley crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

"Excuse me!" she told him in a no-nonsense tone, and he looked a bit startled. "If your friends don't have an appointment, they'll just have to…"

Barret shoved Zack roughly out of the way and leveled his gun arm at Shelley. "Don't need no appointment…" he told her dangerously. A small bead of sweat crept down the side of her face. Barret turned to the group of workers who stood near the elevators, petrified. He set his gun on them. "This is a 'mergency!" he yelled. "Anyone who don't wanna get their faces bashed in better git outta the way!"

Chaos immediately erupted in the lobby as the workers stumbled all over to get away from the man with the gun arm. "Yaagghh!" a woman screamed.

"Who do they think they are?" demanded a man.

"Y-You don't think that's AVALANCHE?" cried another.

Two Grenade Combatants ran down the stairs from the second floor. "Intruders! Seize them!" one yelled. Before they could get close enough, Zack incinerated them with a well-timed Fire3-All combo and their burned bodies slumped over, unconscious.

"Let's go to the top!" yelled Barret, running for the stairs. Tifa and Zack glanced at each other, shrugged a little, and followed their teammate to the elevator. Once inside, Barret pushed the button for the 59th floor. Zack was oddly quiet, and Tifa gave him a concerned look.

"What's wrong?"

Zack sighed and ran a hand through his black hair. "I didn't want to start a ruckus till we saved Cloud and Aeris." He sighed again. "I should have known that was impossible though…"

"Heh, heh, heh," Barret chuckled.

"What is it?" Zack's voice on a slightly higher pitch as he rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. "You're givin' me the willies."

"So there are times when even you fight for other people." Barret shook his head as though in disbelief. "I am impressed."

Zack flashed him a sparkling smile. "I aim to please."

Barret rubbed the back of his head. "Y'know, I ain't so good at sayin' this, but… Sorry…for lotsa things." Zack clapped him on shoulder, and then the elevator dinged and the doors opened for them on the 59th floor.

When they walked out, however, there were the clicks of guns as more Grenade Combatants had been waiting. Zack threw Tifa onto the ground beneath him and used Ultima to shield them both from the bullets the Grenade Combatants shot at them. When the shooting paused long enough for them to reload, Barret mowed down about three of the opposition as Zack effortlessly cut down the other two. After nudging the last one he had killed with a grimace, Zack kneeled down and took away his Keycard 60.

"This'll give us access to level 60. We'll have to nab a Keycard 61 from someone up there to get privileges higher up. Come on." He swiped the card through the keypad beside the elevator the guards had been assigned to and the doors opened with a ding and they clambered inside. A short time later, they came out on the 60th floor and immediately ducked to the office on their left.

Barret stood at the window by the door. "Lookit that, all them guards is runnin' around," he mumbled. He turned to Zack. "Zack, you go on ahead and signal us when it's safe to come." Zack, being the great ex-SOLDIER he was, easily got them to the other side without any of them being seen. Once the door was safely closed behind them, Barret pumped his fist into the air. "Okay! We're gonna rock!"

Tifa glanced at the door to make sure no one was coming inside. "Remember, we're here to save Aeris and Cloud."

"Hell, I know that!"

With a sigh, Zack led them up to the next level, where the trio pretended to be repairmen to get a free Keycard 62 for the next level. There, they had to find out the password for the Mayor to get Keycard 63. Since they got it on the first try, they also got an Elemental materia, which Zack outfitted into Tifa's armor so she had an immunity to Fire attacks, then proceeded to the 64th floor.

"Yo, Zack," Barret asked when they came out to the gym-like area of the 64th, "why'd we skip 63?"

"Trust me when I say that Aeris and Cloud aren't on that floor," was all Zack said. Tifa accepted it as Zack led them up the next set of stairs to the 65th floor. After they found all of the pieces of the Midgar model and the Keycard 66, they went up to the last floor, the sixty-sixth.

Immediately, Zack recognized this floor and knew that the conference room's doors were locked and barred tightly so there could be no eavesdroppers (it should be said that Zack was the reason they did that in the first place) but he knew of another way to check. He walked across the floor toward the bathroom area, with Barret and Tifa keeping a respected distance away from him to not bring up suspicion, and opened the stall door.

"Um, Zack?" Tifa hesitantly began. He looked back at her and she got a brush of pink across her face as she glanced up at him. "Wh-What are you doing?"

"Yeah man!" Barret said from behind her. "This's no time to take a tinkle!"

A pink dust settled on Zack's face as he shook his head. "I'm not here to do that!" he denied. "Just follow me." He stood on the toilet and reached up, pulled the large vent cage down and putting it on the toilet tank's cover. Then he jump up and grabbed the hole in the ceiling, and pulled himself up into it. He headed for the other vent and turned to wait for Barret and Tifa, who came in a few moments after he did. They settled around the other ceiling vent, directly over the conference room, where said conference was taking place.

"Geez!" Barret whispered to his comrades. "That's a lotta suits!" Zack put his finger to his mouth in a motion for him to shut the hell up, which Barret complied to, and they all looked down to watch.

In the Conference Room…

Reeve stood up and faced the President. "We have the damage estimates for Sector 7," he began. "Considering those factories we already set up and all the investments, the cost to rebuild Sector 7 is…"

The President held up a hand to silence Reeve. "We're not rebuilding," he said.

Reeve face-vaulted. "What?" he asked in slight shock.

The President lowered his hand. "We're leaving Sector 7 as it is," he continued, "and restarting the Neo-Midgar plan."

"…Then the two Ancients?" Reeve asked.

"The Promised Land will soon be ours," the President said, a greedy look in his eye. "I want you to raise the Mako rates 15 percent in every area."

Palmer began to jumped up and down in his too-tight brown suit. "Rate hike! Rate hike! Tra, la, la!" he said in a singsong voice. "And please include our Space Program in the budget!"

The President looked at the balding man. "Reeve and Scarlet will divide the extra income from the rate increase," he said calmly.

Palmer stopped bouncing and bowed his head. "Oh man!"

Reeve leaned forward on the table, eyes serious. "Sir." The President looked over at him. "If you raise the rates, the people will lose confidence…"

The President waved it off. "It'll be all right. The ignorant citizens won't lose confidence, they'll trust Shinra Inc. even more," he assured the other man.

"Ha ha ha!" Heidegger laughed. "After all, we're the ones who saved Sector 7 from AVALANCHE!" he declared.

In the Vent…

Zack had gone numb for a moment. He knew Aeris was an Ancient, but Cloud, too? Is that why Hojo had wanted him in the first place? Is that why he tortured the blond more than him? He clenched his fist and allowed a soft growl to come through his throat and felt Tifa's reassuring hand on his arm as Barret said, "That dirty shit," after Heidegger made his statement.

"Speak of the devil," Zack muttered as the oily-haired scientists walked onto the scene, his hands behind his back, his forehead bulging as always.

Below…

"Hojo," the President greeted. "How are they?"

Hojo pushed his glasses up on his forehead and turned away. "As specimens, they are inferior to the two I have had before," he began. "I'm still in the process of comparing them to the two SOLDIERs from a year ago, Zack Fair and Cloud Strife. For now, the difference between the blond from then and now is 18 percent."

The President folded his fingers together, then jumped at the sudden thump that was heard somewhere above them. He glanced around, but when he didn't see anything, looked at Hojo. "How long will the research take?" he questioned.

Hojo put his hand to his chin as he did the math. "Probably 120 years," he finally stated, shaking his head. "It's probably impossible to finish in our life time, or in the lifetime of the specimens too, for that matter. That's why we're thinking of breeding them. Then we could create one that could withstand out research for a long time."

"What about the Promised Land? Won't I hinder our plans?"

Hojo turned away from the President. "That's what I need to plan. The mother is strong…and yet has her weaknesses." With that, he made his leave. The President stood and looked at the others who had joined them.

"That concludes our meeting," he told them, and one by one, they all left. Scarlet was the last one. She paused in the doorway and turned around.

"Something stinks," she muttered, before exiting.

In the Vent…

Zack was still fuming. Out of a bout of rage, he had punched the vent, which had caused the thump in the conference room moments before. "The sadistic bastard…he's got his hands on Cloud again." He punched the vent again. "Dammit!"

"Zack, calm down!" Barret berated him.

Tifa put her hands over his fist. "Please."

Zack's shoulders slumped. "And I spent that whole year…just to get him out… Urrgh!" He slammed his head into the vent wall before taking a deep breath and looking into the worried faces of his friends. He shook his head. "Come on, let's follow them."

They exited the duct and headed back over to the stairs, staying far behind Hojo, who seemed to be meandering all over the floor. Zack glared holes into the scientist's back. "Damn you to hell, Hojo…" he muttered, his fists clenching so tight, he could hear the leather strain. He loosened them as they proceeded up to the stairs.

They watched Hojo head for the other side of the 67th floor. Barret looked at Zack. "I remembered him," Barret said. "That Hojo guy. He's in charge of the Shinra's Science Department. Zack, don't you know him?"

Zack's eyes narrowed dangerously and Tifa shot Barret a nasty look. "Oh yeah, I know him. He made me and Cloud into experiments for his own sick and twisted enjoyment before I broke out and met you."

Barret suddenly looked uncomfortable and Tifa put her hand on Zack's arm in what she hoped was a reassuring way. He glanced at her and smiled before leading them toward the direction Hojo had gone in. They hadn't even noticed he had stopped until they saw him in front of a glass container. Thinking quickly, they ducked behind another holding case out of the way as one of Hojo's assistants approached him. "Is this today's specimen?" he asked.

Hojo looked at the assistant. "Yes. We're starting right away. Raise it to the upper level." As the assistant went to the workstation to type in the command, Hojo stroked the glass affectionately. "My precious specimen," he murmured, before walking to the elevator.

Tifa was the first to come out of their hiding spot. She approached the container and saw inside of it a red beast with a flaming tail dozing. She put her hand on the glass. "Precious specimen…?" she murmured, before turning to Barret and Zack, who had also come out of the hiding spot. "Is it going to be used for a biological experiment?"

Neither Zack nor Barret answered her verbally. Barret shrugged, and Zack was looking at a different tank altogether. He noticed the label on the top. "Jenova…" he mumbled.


Sephiroth turned to Cloud from the entrance to Nibelheim. "It's been a while since you've been back to your hometown right?" he asked. "How does it feel? I don't have a hometown of my own so I wouldn't know…"

Zack scratched his head as Cloud meekly ducked away. "Eh. What about your parents?" the SOLDIER asked.

Sephiroth turned his eyes to his friend. "My mother's name is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me and my father…" He began to laugh. "He he ha ha. What am I talking about…? Well let's go."

With that, he turned and started to walk into Nibelheim. Zack braced his hands on his hips. "Your mother's name is Jenova? Hmm?"

Zack looked up at the door at the top of the stairs as Sephiroth began searching for the problems in the reactor. "JENOVA." He headed up the stairs in curiosity. "That's weird." He tried the door, but it wouldn't open. "The lock won't open…" And then suddenly, it clicked in his brain. "Jenova?!" He jumped away from the door as if he had been burned.

Zack came out of his daze to find himself on Tifa's lap, her worried face swimming in and out of focus. Apparently, from the looks of it, he had passed out on her. She helped him sit up and he held his head in his hands. "Jenova… Sephiroth's… So…they've brought it here," he mumbled brokenly, shaking his head.

"Zack, be strong!" Tifa encouraged, running her hands up and down his back soothingly.

He looked at them. "Did you see it?" he asked, gesturing toward the tank.

Barret looked over. "See what?"

Zack looked closer and saw the body inside shift. "It's moving… …still alive?" he mumbled.

Barret peered over his shoulder and took a huge step backward, his eyes wide. "Where's its fucking head?" he yelled. Zack and Tifa made gestures telling him to keep it down. Barret shook his head. "This whole thing's stupid. Let's keep goin'."


End: OMG, that was a short chapter. Compared to the rest of this fic, anyway. Shocking, isn't it? Things to look forward to next chapter: Red XIII comes onto the scene. Attempt at the rescue, take 1. And it's the second to last chapter, guys!

So, review you worm babies you! :D