Midnight. A junkyard. It was known as the Train Graveyard.
Mako Reactor 1 loomed at the other end of the abandoned railyard, low-key and out of the public eye. Unlike the other Reactors that powered certain parts of the city, this Reactor was special—it powered Shinra Headquarters. The sabotage team slipped toward it like shadows in the null of thick night.
Cloud, Tifa, and Barret's gang ran through the railyard, stopping with backs to hollowed train cars to scan the perimeter. Something wasn't right. A horrible feeling in Cloud's gut made him wretch.
"Wait," he grabbed Barret's shoulder. "Something's wrong."
"You jus' trippin' Mo, let's go."
They rushed forward on soft feet. One hundred meters from the unguarded entrance, someone's foot tripped a wire, and spotlights beamed on them. They froze as Shinra guards deactivated their stealth camo and opened fire on the gang.
Cloud leapt forward, whirling his big Buster Sword to block the bulletspray.
"Go!" he shouted, and they rushed toward the Reactor entrance, way ahead of him. Bullets pelted against his tungsten blade, until all noise stopped, and Cloud heard his heartbeat in his ears. In a flash, the world turned red.
GO!
A voice. In his head. Echoing like reverb.
RUN CLOUD!
He let his Buster Sword down. Bullets flew all around him, pelting the ground at his feet, kicking up bits of sand and pebbles onto his black fatigues. The world around him shone in a red matte, and in front of him he saw the sixteen year old blonde boy from the brothel, dragging a young man with black hair. Cloud couldn't see the face, obscured in a fog of reminiscence, but one thing stuck out at him…the Buster Sword on the man's back.
Words, from before.
WAKE UP!
"Cloud! Wake up!" Tifa yelled from the Reactor entrance, and Cloud snapped to. He ran back toward them with sentries in hot pursuit. Rushing up the stairs where Barret laid down suppression fire from his arm-cannon, Cloud barreled into the entry bay before stumbling. His sword, it was insanely heavy. Cloud felt someone's bodyweight resting in full on his shoulders…like he'd been carrying someone.
"Cloud, catch!"
Jessie threw him a satchel charge. Cloud caught it and raced up the stairs toward the Reactor core. Bullets pelted the inside pipelines, flaring alarm sirens and flashing strobe lights like a dangerous dance hall. He ran over the catwalk suspended across the endless Reactor neck that spanned down past the planet's outer layer. He'd have to set the charge by the core, and then they could run.
But something went wrong. Biggs took a bullet to the head, which dropped him flat on his back still firing up at the ceiling. The lead-splatter caused a generator platform to break loose, which careened down to crush Jessie…and her trigger switch.
Cloud heard a beeping click in the bag, and threw it away in a flash. Too late. It exploded over the catwalk, bashing him over the edge of the railing to fall down the Reactor neck.
"CLOUD!" Tifa yelled too late as he fell helpless and alone.
He tumbled over and over in terror, falling in the darkness. But then, something clicked from his SOLDIER training. He flipped to his stomach and extended his arms in an aerodynamic fan. A slow-count back from ten helped him keep time. Slow and yet all too fast, his mental clarity stabilized as he sliced through the Reactor neck all the way down toward an eerie green glow from the Mako chamber. Cloud fell out the shoot into a colossal open chasm, and that's when he saw it.
The Fal'Cie.
The massive geothermic crystal hovered in a catalytic stasis, shedding electrons onto the oozing green liquid that flowed straight from the planet's mantle. One hundred airships wouldn't equal the crystal's sheer mass, a hyperlithic holy entity.
Cloud fell toward it, finding himself engulfed in a radiant beam of straylight, and his descent came to a screeching halt. The crystal held him suspended in space, scanned him with a warm ray of light, and deemed him worthy. A soft emblazoning brushed his arm, then sheer fire burned him. Cloud screamed as a flowing brand was seared onto his forearm like a laser, and then felt himself hurled back up the way he'd come.
The crystal shot him back out through the Reactor neck, up through the core chamber, and out into the sky. His descent overshot the Plate, wide and far down toward the reaches of lowcity, careening toward the ever-present clutches of death.
.
[Received Crystal Sword]