The rebar staff whistled through the air as it impacted hard against the corner of the body of the Hell House, a monster in the shape of an ordinary house. Right now, it was in the normal house form, which looked like a nice little house with a red roof. Peaceful, almost. It was anything but that. I knew exactly what it was when I saw it while traveling through Sector 5. I knew as soon as I saw it, it in turn had seen me. There is no escaping a Hell House. They were the biggest nightmare of the slums.
I retreated a few steps, spinning the rebar with me as I went. I couldn't afford to let up on an enemy like this. Two bolt spells shot forward from the tip of my gloved hand, the materia crystals embedded in the back of it glowing a bright green. I felt my mind weaken as the spells fired, blowing massive chunks out of the side of the house. Robotic legs shifted out from under it as it grew in height. Arms popped out of the windows and a turret came out the door. As it transformed like goddamn Optimus Prime, it fired missiles at me. The attack was so sudden, I couldn't dodge. As I tried to leap away, the missiles hit the ground at my feet, exploding and causing an eruption of dirt and mayhem.
Heat seared my skin and the force tossed me away like a ragdoll. I'm no stranger to pain, though. Something like this isn't enough to end me, though my clothes were cut and dirty now. I rolled with the fall, catching the end of the rebar on the floor and pushing, using it to lift me up to my feet even faster than I would normally. I lifted the bar between me and the house, just in time for it to try to eat me. It had a fucking mouth. What the fuck. The door turned into more than just a canon. Fuck SHINRA. Seriously.
The teeth of the Hell House clamped down on the rebar, saving me for a few seconds longer. I looked into the void inside this mechanical monstrosity. I lifted my gloved left hand, and fired bolt after bolt. I must have used a quarter of my mana. "DIE YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" I screamed as I unleashed electrical death upon this nightmare. The lights inside it dimmed, the mouth closed on the rebar, snapping it in half. The Hell House died, 200 gil falling from it as it did. I clutched my bounty tightly to me as I scooted back, having fallen to the floor. I survived. I lost my weapon, but I was okay.
It was getting way too dangerous to travel alone. It seemed like every week more and more monsters were showing up. If it wasn't a Hell House, these mutant blue dogs would show up. If not them, more of those retarded looking evil red hedgehog things would appear. The Midgar Slums were becoming dangerous. I wasn't the only one worried. I kept overhearing people in Wall Market murmuring about security and stuff. I stood up, taking a deep breath. Something needed to be done. All these extra monsters showing up had a common source. I already knew who was responsible. I knew, Tifa knew, Barret knew… Everyone in the Slums knew who was to blame. I was getting sick and tired of SHINRA. I knew the people down here were too. I needed to find Biggs and Wedge soon and convince them to join us. I had no clue where to look, to be honest.
In the meantime, all I could do was train and run my shop. I began the slow trek back to Sector 7. I wanted to fight now. All my life, I never really had a cause to rally around. I'm sure if China invaded the US and we had to fight, I'd be just like this. I felt motivated by something bigger than myself. It was crazy. On my way back, I encountered a few more monsters. Fire spells, Ice and Bolt took care of them all. Overall, other than that Hell House, the path into Sector 7 was uneventful.
Once back in my home area, I made my way to the weapon shop. There were a lot of interesting people upstairs here, but I was never very social. I didn't need to learn about using items anyway. No, I was here for a reason. "Hey Fisck," I shouted on my way in, "Is it here yet?" Fisk was the man running the weapon store here in the sector. He was a gruff man, but fair all around. I had put in an order some time back for a new weapon from him. The rebar was good and all, but it couldn't hold any materia and the glove I made wasn't very good. It was falling apart already, even though I made it last week. It wasn't designed to hold materia and my alterations pushed the fabric to the limits.
"Yeah yeah, I have it right here. It finally came in yesterday." Fisck replied in his deep grumbling voice. He reached down under his table and pulled out a long staff made of polished steel. Alongside of it were several grooves for materia. "The new gloves also came in. Thick leather with a wide cuff. They looked suspiciously like Toan's gloves from Dark Cloud. Square didn't own Level 5, so what the hell was this about? Oh well, they were a lot higher quality than what I had. Maybe I would order more gloves to alter in the future. Good armor would sell well in these trying times. There was always time to earn a profit.
"Thanks," was my only reply. I took my stuff, having already paid in advance, and left. I had no more business there, and I had plenty to do. I went home with my loot, and entered my house. Placing the staff against the wall and the gloves at my table, I got ready to work. You see, lately I've taken to artificing. I've found and bought items with materia slots, and studied how that worked. Through trial and error and many destroyed items and weapons, I've figured it out. There are tiny channels through every item. These channels tunnel through the item in question and connect to these grooves in the item where you place the materia. The slots need to be adjusted often to account for changes in your materia. The crystals start out small, and grow larger each level. Mastered materia are the big ones you see in Advent Children. The level one materia rest in the middle of the palm of your hand. Larger than a marble, but not by much. I don't know if that's how the game itself had it, but it seems to be true here anyway. As the materia ages and gains experience, the memories in it grow too. That's my best guess for it, anyway.
Still, materia slots are grooves carved carefully into items. There are special ways to carve these grooves, and you can do it differently for different kinds of materia slots. At different spots on these grooves are holes that lead all the way through the items. Magic is channeled through these tunnels into the materia. It allows a direct connection with the user, allowing you to activate the materia even if it isn't in your direct hand. You'd think these holes in items would cause structural damage, but the reverse is actually the case. Innate magic surging from you to the item reinforces it and gives it special properties depending on how well made the holes are. Cheaply made magic tunnels will provide minimal effects and might even lower some stats.
I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm getting pretty good at this. I've always been steady with my hands. Setting the grooves and tunnels in my new gloves is slow, methodical work, but I eventually get it done. It takes specially prepared drills and the like to do this right. The gloves, after I'm done, can hold two materia in each glove. The materia slots are connected too. So, by equipping these gloves, I get two sets of connected materia slots, for 4 slots total.
This counts as an accessory. I've tried putting on bangles with my old gloves, and the items don't interact well. Two different pulls on your mana from similar sources just doesn't work. It'd have to be an accessory and a weapon, no more than that. The cool thing about these gloves is that I can make more. The gloves, before changing them, would have cost me 200 gil. I can buy them in bulk and get 50 gloves for 8000 gil. Each modified glove could sell for 2000 gil. It's a damn good accessory that also protects the wearer. The innate effect of the materia slots gives it a boost to your physical defense capabilities. All in all, it'd be a good way to make money. SHINRA doesn't care about who sells what after all. They don't care about anything in the slums. That's why people can get items above this damn pizza, and sell it down here to people like me, who then sell it to the masses. If SHINRA cared, there'd be no Wall Market.
I changed my clothes to fit the gloves better. Brown shirt, black pants, brown shoes and now brown gloves. I looked boring, but functional. No gold claws or red capes here. Shit, that's another thing on the to-do list. Vincent. I can't save everyone, though. I'll try my best, but I don't know when Zack and Cloud get here. All I know is that Tifa finds him at the train station. It makes me feel like a failure, but I'll be more of a help figuring things out here.