Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sand Trap

"Hey! Gaia to Cloud! Come in, Cloud!"

Cloud blinked as Yuffie's face came into focus surrounded by blazing white sunlight.

"Ugh. Definitely not heaven." Cloud covered his eyes with his hand.

"Gee. Glad to see you, too."

Cloud sat up once he was sure Yuffie wasn't in the way. "Where are we?"

"A desert prison," Cait said. His moogle looked just a little worse for the trip down. "Corel Prison..."

"A desert prison?" Cloud said. It seemed strange, he could still feel the slight weight of his sword on his back. Apparently Dio didn't care if his prisoners were armed.

Cait nodded, his ears drooped. "Yup, a natural prison in the middle of the desert surrounded entirely by quicksand. I heard that once you get in, you never get out. But, there was one special exception..."

When Cait trailed off, Cloud looked up. Cait was looking at something to his right. Cloud turned and saw Barret standing near a chain-link fence, a body at his feet.

Yuffie saw him, too. "Hey! Barret!" She waved her arms over her head.

They all ran toward him but Barret backed away toward a gate.

"Stay back! This's something I gotta deal with." Barret turned away, his shoulders slumped. "Jes' leave me alone..." He ran off, leaving Cloud and Yuffie to wonder what to do.

Cait wiped nonexistent sweat from his brow. "Whew! That's one of your friends? He sure looks dangerous..."

"He's acting really weird." Yuffie set her hands on her hips. "Hey, you don't think... Cloud?"

Cloud was examining the body by the fence. "This one's been shot too..." He stood up and strode after Barret.

Yuffie stood for a while looking between Cloud and the dead body. She didn't particularly want to go after Barret, but she didn't like the idea of staying around a corpse either.

She turned around at a shuffling noise behind her. A man wandered into the fenced in area looking glassy and disoriented. Until he saw Yuffie, then he grinned showing brown stained teeth.

Yuffie and Cait ran after Cloud. The strange, and possibly intoxicated, man followed them. Thankfully, Cloud was easy to spot with that hair of his. He was talking to a man near a defaced billboard, probably about how to get out of there since as they got closer Yuffie heard the man say, "the best thing is

to stay out of the desert entirely."

"Thanks, anyway," Cloud said. He turned and nodded to Yuffie. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine! I think it's great that we're stuck in some hell hole with murderers and crazy stalkers."

"Crazy stalkers?" Cloud looked over Yuffie's head and saw the man following her. His eyes narrowed as he put an arm protectively around Yuffie's shoulders. "Come on. Cait, can you ask around for any more information on this place?"

"Sure thing, by what are you going to do?"

"Find Barret."

Cloud lead Yuffie into the shadows of a nearby building, keeping himself between her and the stalker. Cait wobbled in the other direction. As expected, the stalker followed Cloud and Yuffie.

"Hmph. Dude's definitely psycho if he thinks he stands a chance against the great ninja Yuffie Kisaragi." She peered around Cloud's shoulder.

Cloud gently pushed her forward. "Weren't you running from him?"

"Only because I didn't want to give those wackos upstairs a real reason for keeping me down here! I could so take that guy on! It wouldn't even be a real fight, just BAM and he's down!"

For a second, Yuffie almost thought she heard Cloud chuckle, but when she looked at his face he looked as stoic as ever.

They continued to duck from one ruined structure to another, never quite losing their tail. Soon they met up with Cait near a run-down blue trailer.

"There ye are." Cait waved to them. "I've got good news and bad news. Good news is there is a way out, by winning a chocobo race. The bad news is we have to get permission from the boss to try."

Cloud glanced over his shoulder so he could be sure he was standing between the stalker and Yuffie. "Then we talk to the boss and convince him to let us. What's the problem?"

Cait's ears drooped. "No one would tell me who the boss is."

"Oh that's just great." Yuffie threw her hands in the air and stomped her foot. "How much you want to bet this 'boss' doesn't even exist? They probably just tell that to newcomers to get their hopes up."

"Maybe." Cloud's eyes drifted to the one intact house in the area. The place might have been cosy once upon a time. "Let's go."

The door they found lead into what had once been a modest parlor with a couch covered in soot and animal droppings. A faded floral pattern peeked through in patches.

What Cloud focused on, however, stood near a cracked window on the opposite end of the room. Or, rather, who Cloud focused on.

Barret glared daggers at them. "Didn't I tell you not to come here!" He raised his gun arm.

Cait flew into a panic. "Ju... just hold on for a second! We just want to talk! You'll understand if you just hear us out!"

Cloud pushed Cait and Yuffie closer to the door, even though he could see Barret wasn't aiming for them. Moments later Barret fired into the couch. The man who'd been stalking Yuffie collapsed out of his hiding place, a knife laying limp in his hand.

"Didn't want none of ya to get involved," Barret said, turning his back on the scene.

Yuffie yelp as the door behind her burst open. Zack, Kunsel, Aerith, Tifa, and Red tumbled into the room.

"You sound like Zack and Cloud!" Aerith said, pointing a delicate finger at Barret. "'...It's too dangerous, I can't let you get involved...' blah, blah, blah..."

Zack looked ready to protest that characterization when Tifa continued Aerith's line of thought. "Yeah. We're already involved in this."

"How did you get here?" Cloud said.

"We got arrested," Kunsel said. "Dio is very thorough. Since we all came in as a group he had us rounded up and sent down here together."

"Anyway," Zack said, "we're here whether you like it or not."

Barret's shoulders slumped even further. "You guys..."

Red stepped forward, his head down. "I heard that the murders at the Battle Arena were done by a man with a gun-arm. ...Was that you?"

Barret shook his head. "There's another... another man that got a gun grafted inta one of his arms... It was four years ago..." He heaved a sigh. "That day when Corel burned and I let Dyne fall. From then on, I couldn't use my right arm no more... I was depressed for a while."

"I can image," Kunsel muttered low enough so Barret couldn't hear.

"But then I threw away my artificial arm and got this gun grafted in." Barret straightened and looked at what was left of his right arm. "Got a new right arm to get revenge on ShinRa, who took everything away... Back then, I heard the doc say there was another man who got the same operation as me. But, his was the left arm..."

Aerith's expression softened during the story. "Dyne's injury was the same as yours, right?"

"Yeah, that's right." Tifa nodded. "He was deceived by ShinRa too. He'll probably join us to fight against ShinRa."

Barret looked down at the ground. "...wouldn't bet on it. I gotta 'pologize to Dyne before I can rest in peace. An' that's why, I gotta go alone."

"So, just do whatever you want, is that what you want to hear?" Zack crossed his arms over his chest. "Not happening. I'm not going to just sit by and watch you die."

Aerith gave Barret a small smile. "That's right. You were going to save the planet, weren't you?"

"You certainly won't be much use to the planet dead," Kunsel added.

Tifa walked up to Barret. "Yeah. I know, Barret, I'm not so different from you."

"None of us are," Cloud said, his voice quieter than usual. "We've all lost something precious."

"Now that that's settled..." Kunsel pointed at Cait. "What's that?"

"Hmph!" Cait stood on his moogle's head, looking comically defiant. "I'm not a 'what' I'm a 'who.' My body might be a stuffed toy but there's still only one me."

Zack frowned. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Uh... Perhaps. I work as a fortune teller at the Gold Saucer, or, at least, I did."

"That couldn't be it, I've never been to the Gold Saucer before today." Zack shrugged. "Oh well, never mind. We should probably focus on finding Dyne."

"Barret should take someone he trusts, as well as someone who won't send Dyne running for the hills. Which I guess leaves us three out." Kunsel pointed to himself, Zack, and Cloud.

"Hrm, well, no offense, but outta all of ya, I'd say I trust Tifa the most. But I ain't lettin' her get involved."

Tifa frowned. "Barret, you know I can take care of myself. This can't be more dangerous than what we're already doing."

Barret sighed, his gaze falling to the floor. "Figured you'd say something like that. Still'd rather not get any of ya mixed up in my problem."

"Like we told you, we're already involved. So I'm going to help."

"Then I'm coming too." Cloud stepped next to Tifa, his arms crossed and his eyes daring anyone to tell him he couldn't.

Kunsel took the dare. "Cloud, remember what I said about not scaring him off?"

"If Tifa's going, I'm going."

Kunsel had to resist the urge to insist that neither of them were going. The argumentative nature of this merry band was starting to rub off on him. "Fine. At least Cloud's the least likely to be identified as a SOLDIER as long as he's out of uniform and doesn't get close enough for Dyne to get a good look at his eyes."

"Good thing we still have our stuff, then." Zack nodded to the bag slung over Kunsel's shoulder.

"Yeah," Kunsel said, "I guess Dio isn't too picky about that sort of thing since there's no way out of here."

"Ah, but there is." Cait's permanent smile widened. "But we can discuss that after we find Barret's friend. So, where do we start lookin'?"

Cloud rested his chin on his right fist while his left hand held his elbow. He closed his eyes before saying, "Cait, while you were gathering information, did you see anyone with a gun-arm?"

Cait shook his head. "Nope, and I think something like that would be hard to miss."

"I didn't see anyone like that, either." Cloud opened his eyes.

"He's got to be somewhere," Zack said. "You probably just missed him. You weren't here that much longer than us."

"Hey!" Everyone turned to look at Yuffie. She'd been so uncharacteristically quiet that most of them forgot she was there. "Maybe he's not in the actual prison. When we were dropped here I noticed a big junk yard a little ways north."

Kunsel nodded. "That's a good thought, though I wonder why he'd be here at all. Obviously he wasn't caught or there'd be no reason for us to be here."

Yuffie waved her pointer finger side to side. "Where better to hide a criminal than among other criminals? He probably knows the area really well, too, since he managed to get up and down so easily."

"All right!" Zack pumped a fist in the air. "The rest of us will stay here and see about finding a way out."

*7*7*

The junkyard apparently doubled as a death trap. Besides the badly malfunctioning bullmotors that attacked anything that moved, they had to deal with things that walked on stump-like legs and sported nasty, thick spider legs up its torso, getting bigger as they reached its shoulders and a hideous, malformed neck ending in a skeletal head. Barret called them death claws. They were native to the region, but were usually found deep in the mountains. These looked like they had been mutated by mako radiation.

Whether they were or not, of the things that lurked in the junkyard, the death claws were certainly the most dangerous.

Tifa found this out the hard way when she tried a spin kick on one only to get caught in a spiny embrace. She didn't hear Cloud or Barret scream her name as she pulled herself free. Finally, she fell to the ground and heard them. She tried to wave them off as they ran to her side, except she couldn't move.

"Got her wit' paralysis," Barret said. "Gotta wait for it to wear off, but we can at least heal her first."

Cloud didn't say anything. Assured that Tifa wasn't in immediate danger he turn to face the monster. Blue flames erupted down his arms and over his sword before he vanished. Moments later he reappeared, shooting through the death claw from above. Standing between the fallen halves, he spun his sword over his head before reattaching it to the magnet on his back.

"How is she?" Cloud finally spoke as he turned back to Barret and Tifa.

"She'll be fine in a bit. Jes' gotta wait 'til she can move again."

Cloud sighed and slumped against a pile of flattened cars, his head on his knees. "Good."

"Maybe I should be askin' if you're okay."

"I'm fine." Cloud stood. "We should move her somewhere less exposed."

Barret nodded and carefully scooped Tifa into his left arm with her legs hanging over his right. As they moved into the shadow of an overhanging sheet of corrugated steel Cloud thought he heard gunshots further on. Probably more of the bullmotors, though it didn't sound quite right.

A low moan snapped Cloud out of his surveillance.

"Tifa!" Cloud grabbed her shoulders. He wanted to hold her, keep her safe.

"Ah! Cloud, that hurts."

He let go like he'd been holding hot coals. For a moment he looked at his hands, then he let his hands fall to his side while his eyes stayed gazing at nothing. "Can you move?"

"Yeah." Tifa slid to her feet. Her legs still felt tingly, but they supported her weight.

Cloud nodded. "Then we should get moving." He drew his sword as he left the shadow of the junk pile.


I still haven't quite decided if Corel Prison is the original Corel town or if it's just a place in the general area of Corel. There are certain inconsistencies that crop up with either interpretation. Also, there's no indication that I know of for just how long the Gold Saucer has been open. I'm assuming more than four years considering the rather battered look it has. Though the whole world has a battered look except parts of the ShinRa Building. Anyway, Barret's story gets told and I try to figure out how to maintain balance with all these characters. I don't want to neglect anyone.