Chapter 10: Preparing For The Unknown
"You two cadets can go on inside first," Zack said with a big smile as he gestured for them to go through the open elevator doors first. "After all, this is you two's first official mission given to you, and it was ordered to you by none other than Director Lazard himself. It's only fair that you both get to go into the elevator that will take you to the destination first. I can't think of any other way to celebrate this momentous occasion given the circumstances."
"You always find a way to celebrate something great, even in the darkest of times, don't you Zack?" Cloud asked as he shook his head in amazement before following his mentor's gesture and entering the elevator first. "It's just like the time a month ago when it was my birthday. I still can't believe that you actually came up with a legitimate excuse just so you could get me out of class, take me for a night out in the city of Midgar, and take me to a fancy restaurant to eat; and it was all for the sake of giving me "the most unforgettable birthday,' as you so put it then."
"Well, it was unforgettable, wasn't it?" the SOLDIER asked, still sporting his huge grin, as he ushered Adeus to go in next.
"I'll admit, it definitely was one of the best birthday celebrations I ever had in my life," the blond admitted as he felt his lips curving into a grin. "However, I still don't understand how you also managed to bring Adeus along with us, as well. How did you manage to get two cadets like us out of class, out of the base, and show us a great night out in the city giving us fear of repercussion from our superiors?"
"I am quite curious as to how you managed to pull all that off," Adeus replied just as Zack himself entered the elevator and pressed a button that would allow them to go up to the 60th floor. "I know that you are a 1st Class SOLDIER with some authority, but I don't think that you really have that much on you to be allowing us out of the base at a restricted time."
"Let's just say that I have my ways of doing things," the raven spiky haired teen replied with a coy grin plastered onto his face as they felt the elevator start its slow ascension. "Actually, if you must know, I had Angeal in on it so that he could cover us by saying I was giving you some personal one-on-one SOLDIER training in the Midgar Slums, if anyone were to ask where we were and what we were doing. Thank Gaia I knew someone like him; otherwise, I don't think that I would have been able to get you two out of the building, much less pull you out of your classes."
"Remind me to never listen to this puppy whenever he decides to pull his silver tongue act," the blond teased as he gave a happy huff of his breath.
"As long as you do the same for me," the long haired cadet answered with a smirk and a roll of his eyes.
"Oh, that was a low blow, you guys," Zack whined as he feigned injury at the use of his nickname and how they were teasing him, all while using his infamous kicked puppy expression.
"See, doesn't he look like such an adorable puppy?" Cloud teased in a baby tone as he playfully patted and rubbed the sulking SOLDIER's spiky head while standing on the tips of his toes to perform the action better on the taller teen.
"I'm amazed at how he always manages to pull off that puppy look," Adeus said with great amusement as he watched the antics of his two good friends from the sidelines. "I swear, that's one thing that'll never forget as long as I live."
"Alright, alright!" the SOLDIER exclaimed as he playfully swatted away the offending hand from his head, but still managing to keep a playful tone in his words. "Stop going on about how cute I look as a puppy. So it just happened to be one of the things I used to persuade Angeal to cover for us while we were out for your birthday, Cloud. It's not like I do it all the time."
"Are you sure about that?" both cadets asked at the same time with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
"A-anyway," Zack stuttered as he attempted to shift the conversation down a new and somewhat less embarrassing path, "we're almost at the 60th floor. Make sure you don't let your guard down once we get out of this room. Remember, anything can happen at any moment."
"I think we kind of figured that out for ourselves a few minutes ago already," Cloud replied just as they felt the elevator lurch to a stop.
"Let's just hope nothing crazy is going on inside the security office up here," Adeus stated, the room quickly losing the cheery atmosphere from earlier as the doors opened and revealed the entire floor to the trio.
"Then on my count, we move out of here and see for ourselves, alright? Ready and…, go!"
At the word "Go!", the trio stormed out of the elevator as best as they could without bumping into each other on the way out and had their respective weapons at the ready; the two cadets reverting back to their guns for the time being and the SOLDIER using his sword. Fortunately, all this flashiness was unnecessary because once they were able to get a good look, they saw that everything up here was practically as normal is it could be. The floors were immaculate and clean of any pools of blood or dead corpses; not a single sign of a monster roaming around the room was present; and the entire floor was practically just one big, wide-open space, so it was practically impossible for any of them to have missed anything out of the ordinary, which there was not.
"Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise," Zack murmured as he kept his cautious side up. "There's nothing up here. That's a first."
"I don't think there's even a security guard up here," Cloud added as he let his gaze wander towards a room that was off to the side a bit with a window that allowed clear view to the inside. "That room over there looks pretty empty."
From the window, they were able to see almost everything inside the somewhat small room. Multiple television screens were situated along the left side wall and they were each showing something different; probably views from different cameras situated throughout the building. On the other side of the room was a small table filled with papers and various other junk. They had two cheap regular plastic chairs, each one on either side of the round table, with a few loose sheets of paper on or hanging on the edge of it and threatening to flutter towards the ground.
"Well, that means that they either ran away or decided to take a long break before all this crazy stuff happened and never came back," the SOLDIER attempted a joke. "Judging by how messy it looks in there, I'm willing to bet on my first choice. Anyway, that's the security room that we need to go to. Once we get those specialized badges from in there, we'll be free to roam around the entire building without worrying about being killed by those machines. That'll be one less hassle off of our minds."
"I still can't believe that the Shinra Company actually created security robots that can't even tell the difference between friend and foe," Adeus said in slight disbelief as he and Cloud followed Zack's lead and went towards the security room. "It sounds pretty stupid if you ask me."
"Yeah, well, President Shinra didn't want to waste too much money on creating the security protocol," the raven spiky haired teen explained as he opened the door and allowed for the two cadets to enter the room first after making sure that everything was safe inside. "Once he saw the bill and the slight defect that was on them, he told the head of security to come up with a cheap, yet effective, way to dodge around the problem. That's how they came up with the idea of using the specialized badges."
"The president sounds like a cheap man," the blond replied as he helped to close the door as soon as his mentor entered. "Who would care about money when it comes to something like their personal safety?"
"Politicians and insanely rich people, that's who," the long haired cadet answered with a sarcastic bite. "As long as they can find a way to save a buck, everything else is practically not as important, including their own lives."
"That's almost exactly what I was thinking, Adeus," Zack agreed with him as he began to rummage through the desk drawers and the tabletops. "God, where did those security people put those things? Could you guys help me look for them? They look kind of like buttons that you just pin onto your shirt."
Suddenly, Zack felt his phone vibrating and momentarily stopped his search so he could answer the phone. Once he had it on, he situated it so it would stay between his shoulder and jaw line while he continued to search the area.
"Zack speaking," the SOLDIER greeted whoever it was on the other side of the line. "Who is it?"
"It's Tseng," the person on the other side of the line introduced himself as the Turk leader. "I'm calling in to request a status report from you."
"Oh, hi Tseng!" he greeted cheerfully as he continued to look for the badges with the help of the cadets, who really did not know what to look for, despite hearing such a vague description of the item in question. "Everything's as great as it could be right now. We got the emergency system up and running and the director is as good as safe, thanks to the efforts of me and my two cadets. He should be evacuating the building along with your Turk buddy, Vincent, right now if they hadn't already made it out."
"That's good to hear," the Turk leader replied. "I hope that you also received my orders from him and are right now acting upon them."
"Don't worry, I'm on it. I'm just right now up in the security room in the 60th floor looking for a few badges so we don't end up being creamed by the security robots that'll come into play soon."
"I was just about to suggest that to you if you were not already doing so. I suspect, then, that Director Lazard told you about them?"
"How'd you know that? Did Vincent go ahead and call you before you contacted me?"
"No, nothing like that. I just figured that the director reminded you about those buttons rather than you remembering them for yourself. It seems that my hunch there was correct.
"Anyway," the Turk immediately changed subjects, sensing that Zack was about to make a retort, which he was not too far off on that guess either, "did I hear you correctly earlier when you said that you were currently trying to locate 'a few badges,' as you so put it?"
"Uh, I think that's what I said," Zack answered as he stopped his search for a moment, his Mako-enhanced ears picking up on the sound of a vibrating phone coming from one of his cadet's pockets. Turning around to see them, he saw Cloud digging into his pocket for the device. "I'm not sure if I already told you, but I have two cadets, Cloud and Adeus, here with me. They're the ones I've been training these past couple of months. You know, the ones I told you were making the greatest progress you've ever seen before?"
"Oh, them," Tseng replied in realization. "The ones that I just happened to have stumbled upon during their sparing session with you last week, right?"
"The exact same pair," the SOLDIER said proudly as he saw the blond put his own cell phone on his ear and started to listen to whoever it was that was calling him while Adeus was half-looking for the badges while listening to the new conversation. "They really can fend for themselves in here, you know that?"
"Judging by how they managed to actually put you on the ropes for a couple of minutes before you got the best of them, I say they're more than adequate to do that. Anyway, I was just calling to check up on your status."
"As I said earlier, everything's as good as it could be for now. I still don't understand why you need to have me save Professor Hojo from this hellhole. I mean, isn't it easier to just have him die, along with his creepiness, and find a new head of science man to replace him?"
"Unfortunately, and I use that term loosely, we can't let that happen. I don't believe Vincent told you a lot about why we need him alive, so I'll go ahead and tell you a bit more. While I do agree that the professor is a bit interesting at times, we believe that he happens to have some sensitive information he has not recorded anywhere except in his own head. It's too important for it to just die along with the professor himself. That's why we need him alive, so we can extract the information from him."
"Yeah, I found them!" Zack yelled happily as he held a small handful of metal badges in his free hand up in the air, effectively startling both of the cadets in the room and quite possibly even Tseng himself. "Oh, sorry guys," he added sheepishly.
"Learn to control your impulses better, Zack," the Turk scolded him like a mother did to her son as he gave an annoyed sigh. "Honestly, you're a teenager who's about to enter adulthood in another year or so; not some immature child who's about to enter his teenage years."
"I said I was sorry," the teen whined as he gave a puppy dog look directed at Tseng, forgetting that he could not see it and was instead laughed at by Cloud and Adeus. "Anyway, what kind of important information does Hojo have that you would need me to suffer his…eccentric personage just so I can rescue him?"
"I already told you; he has some important information on him that needs to be figured out before he dies. As to what the contents of the information are, I'm afraid I cannot indulge you. Depending on how your rescue mission goes, though, I might change my mind on that."
"Well, I guess I'll just have to give it my all then, right?"
"As you should, even if you didn't have incentive from me. I'll be there in less than an hour, so keep your guard up until I get there. A couple more of my men said that they're about a quarter of an hour away from the Shinra building. I'll direct them straight to the 67th floor and higher in order to back you up should you need it once they arrive. I wish the best of luck to you and your cadets."
"Thanks. You be careful, too."
"As I always am."
With that slight overconfident remark, Tseng hung up his side of the line at the same time Zack hung up his. With a sigh, he put his phone back into his pocket and held onto the badges into his other, ready to put his on and give the others to Cloud and Adeus.
"Yes, sir," he heard Cloud answer, turning his head to see who he was addressing. It was then he remembered that the blonde's phone vibrated sometime during his discussion with the Turk.
"Who're you talking to?" the SOLDIER asked as he pointed to the phone.
"Angeal," the blond simply replied as he tried to listen to what was being said on his phone.
"It's Angeal? Let me talk to him, Cloud! Come on, please?"
"If you don't try to throw me the puppy dog look, then I'll give it to you."
"Alright, I won't. Now will you just gimme the phone?"
"Ever the pushy one, aren't you Zack?" Adeus asked as he simply chose to roll his eyes and shake his head.
Ignoring the comment aimed at him, Zack eagerly took the phone from Cloud's hand and placed it onto his ear.
"Ever the impatient one, aren't you Zack?" he immediately heard his mentor say to him teasingly, repeating almost every word the long haired cadet said just a moment ago. "Not only are you a restless puppy, but you're also an impatient one. What an interesting combination we have there."
"Are you alright, Angeal?" the teen immediately started to bombard the older SOLDIER with questions, practically ignoring everything he had just heard. "Are you hurt? What happened to the cadets that were with you? What did you do to the monster? Where are you now?"
"If you would slow down for just a minute, maybe I'll be able to give you an answer," Angeal said, his voice still carrying amusement. "First of all, I'm perfectly fine with no harm done to me, so you can relax. Secondly, the cadets that were with me managed to make it out safely. However, I handed them off to a Turk member who I just happened to run into in the elevator while he was directing Director Lazard out of the building."
"You ran into Vincent and the director?"
"Assuming that Vincent was the Turk's name, then yes. During the time I was sending the cadets I had found hiding in various parts of the 45th floor through the elevator, the director told me that you would be up in the 60th floor security room. Apparently, he said that Tseng gave you a mission with Lazard also issuing a mission order of the same caliber to Cloud and Adeus. Quite a rare treat for them, even though the circumstances for such an honor could've been better.
"As with the monster that was lurking outside of the room I was in when I last called you, everything turned out fine. Thanks to your warning, I was able to make sure that whatever it was that was on the other side of the door didn't hear a single thing on my side. After a few minutes, it passed by and I along with the hiding cadets made our way out. Thankfully, we did not run into the creature; otherwise, it would have been trouble.
"And as for where I am right now…," Angeal continued before letting a long pause make itself known on his side of the phone.
"Angeal?" Zack called out in confusion as he raised an eyebrow. "You still here with me?"
Just then, the door to the security room opened, causing the young SOLDIER to suddenly turn around and see who it was that was barging into the room. Who he saw there completely surprised him, for he was not expecting it.
"…I'm right here in the security room with you," the older SOLDIER finished his sentence as he shut his cell phone and placed it into his pocket. "And as you can now see for yourself, I am completely unharmed without a single scratch on me."
"What the?!" the raven spiky haired teen exclaimed while Cloud and Adeus just looked on as if nothing interesting was going on. "What are you doing up here, Angeal?"
"Probably for the same reasons as to why you're up here," the young SOLDIER's mentor replied. "To get a badge so I can help you look for Professor Hojo without having to conduct battle with the company's guard system."
"How'd you know what we were going to be doing?"
"Did you forget already? I was talking to Cloud while you were busy discussing whatever it was you were talking about with Tseng. And before you even ask, I got Cloud's number when I had your phone in my possession earlier. I wanted to make sure I had a way to keep in contact with you even while you were on your own phone. Seems as though that extra precaution worked out."
"You were snooping around in my phone earlier?" Zack asked as he tossed Cloud's phone back to him, the blond catching it mid-air without any problems. "You know that you could have just simply asked me for his number if you really needed it."
"I wasn't sure at the time if you were even going to be at the assembly room then," Angeal explained as he gave a small shrug. "I just went ahead and looked for the number in case I didn't get a chance to ask you."
"Yeah, but what if I had my entire life story recorded into it and you just happened to see it?"
"Then I would simply say that you were being too careless in placing such sensitive information into a device most commonly lost among people."
"Uh, sorry for disturbing you two's…pleasant conversation," Adeus cautiously interrupted, using the term "pleasant" loosely, "but shouldn't we be talking about more important things? I mean, all of us did come up here so we could find a way to traverse this building, didn't we?"
"Yes, I'm sorry for straying off topic," the older SOLDIER apologized. "I called earlier to see how the three of you were fairing. When I heard from Cloud where you were and what you were planning to do, I came up here so I could see if I could offer any assistance."
"Well, I guess we could use some help right now," Zack said as he threw a badge at his mentor, who caught it effortlessly, while pinning his own onto the front of his sleeveless turtleneck shirt. "After all, Vincent said he was going to help us in our search, but who knows how long it's going to take for him to get up here? That and we have to search three whole floors just to look for the professor."
"According to what Cloud said, he should be situated somewhere between the 67th and 69th floors."
"That's where the Turk advised us to search before he left with Director Lazard," the blond nodded as he pinned on his badge. "From what I heard, that was where Professor Hojo's labs were located."
"It would make sense for us to find him on one of those floors," Angeal speculated as he looked out the office window for no apparent reason. "After all, I can't think of anywhere else the eccentric professor might be at during a time like this. He always dotes on his experiments and works and places them above his very life, thus making it hard for us to evacuate him, even during regular evacuation drills."
"So what do you think our plan of action should be, sir?" Adeus asked as he, too, decided to take a look outside the room. "Just as a matter of opinion, do you think we should split up once we get to the higher floors?"
"The possibility seems rather high of that happening," the older SOLDIER answered as Cloud and Zack just stood around with their arms loosely crossed, not sure of what they should be doing at the time. "However, I don't think that we should jump that far into the plan just yet. Until we have to cross that bridge, we should stick together from here on out. I feel that it would be safer if we did so."
"I'd rather we stick together, too," Zack agreed with his mentor. "In case we ever run into another one of those monsters that Cloud, Adeus, and I saw in the director's floor, I think we'd stand an even better chance with four people. Plus, it'd be safer that way for all of us."
"My thoughts exactly, pup," the man replied with a small grin. "Besides, it would be good if the four of us also kept our eyes open for Sephiroth while we're looking for Hojo, too. I haven't been able to get into contact with him ever since this whole incident came about."
"Even you haven't heard from him?" the young SOLDIER asked with a raised eyebrow. "But, I'm sure you've been calling him, right? If not me, then shouldn't he pick up his cell if the call's coming from you?"
"I would think so. We are good friends, after all."
"Is it possible that he left for a mission before everything started to go crazy here?" Cloud suggested as he took a seat on one of the plastic chairs, feeling that it was going to be a short while before they were on the move again. "Does he usually pick up when he's out on the field?"
"He normally does," Angeal answered as he fixed his gaze onto the blond. "Besides, this isn't a matter of whether or not he's out on a mission. I talked to him a few minutes before I went to the assembly and he said that he had no missions assigned to him tonight. Knowing him, he should still be in this building, trying to help the others escape. And no, he's not dead. I, and I'm sure you as well, Zack, know that it'll take more than a monster invasion like this to kill him."
"That's right," Zack nodded in agreement. "He's even better than you are in sword fighting. If he can take care of you during training, then I'm sure almost nothing can ever take him down, especially something like this."
"So the question now is, 'Where is he?'" Adeus said thoughtfully as he decided to check his gun's condition. "What is he doing in the building right now; and why is he seemingly refusing to answer any calls directed to him?"
"Maybe his phone's just dead," the blond suggested as he began to dig into the small pack of spare ammo that had been hanging on Zack's back, long forgotten during the entire hectic ordeal between their time from the armory to now. "It's not that big of a stretch for that to happen, right?"
"I really doubt it," the spiky haired SOLDIER said as he took the pack off his shoulder and placed it on the table. "Sephiroth's the kind of guy who likes to take certain precautions. That being said, he always has two phones on him, no matter where he is. He says his backup one is always off unless his main one runs out of juice or gets broken. You did try calling both of his numbers, right Angeal?"
"His main one is not dead and his backup is off," the older SOLDIER answered bluntly. "I don't know what's going on through his mind, but he might be doing something very important in here if he's not answering. It's really not like him to ignore my calls to him."
"Hey Adeus, you need a spare clip or two?" Cloud called out to his cadet friend who was still by the window.
"Sure, go ahead and throw a couple to me," he answered as a couple of ammo clips came flying towards him, both of them caught with both hands. He then continued on while placing his spare into his pocket and replacing his empty cartridge, "Well, let's just hope that he's in the middle of something really important and he's not a zombie. That would be bad."
"I know," the blond agreed as he discarded his empty clip and replaced it with a new one. "From what I've heard of him, General Sephiroth is one of the greatest SOLDIERs to have ever been enlisted in the Shinra Army's history. They say he's like a demon on the battlefield."
"Oh, he definitely is," Zack confirmed as he re-shouldered the pack once he saw the cadet finished rummaging through it. "Once you actually see him in battle, you'll figure out that nobody else even has a chance to compare with him."
"Well, demon of the battlefield or not, he's going to have some trouble all on his own in here," Angeal stated as he looked out the window again, this time his eyes seemingly staring at something. "Especially since he doesn't have one of these badges on him. Take a look outside and you'll see what I mean."
Doing as the older SOLDIER told them to do, the three teens looked outside the window, trying to see what they were supposed to see. They did not have to look very hard, though. Outside of the security room, the group saw a couple of sections of the walls opening up and revealing hidden areas that were well-disguised. From them a few machines made themselves known, all of them of differing sizes and sporting machine guns on their metallic arms. On certain parts of their metal bodies, the words "Shinra Electric Company Eradication Protocol" was branded onto them, overlapping a design symbol of the corporation itself.
"Looks like the security system's in play now," Zack said with a small sigh. "Hopefully, these things can help take care of some of the monsters in here and make things easier for us."
"And what happens if they can't, Zack?" Cloud asked, sounding not as optimistic as his mentor.
"Then that'll be all the more reason for us to hurry up and find Professor Hojo and get him out of here," Angeal answered as he made his way towards the door. "Let's hurry up and find him before things get worse."
"As if things could possibly even get any worse than they are now," Adeus replied with a sigh as the three teens followed the older SOLDIER's movements and situated themselves behind the door leading to the outside, waiting for him to open it and officially start with their rescue mission.