Written by Benoit Goudreault-Emond
3. A battle is planned
Cloud, closely followed by a worried Tifa, opened the door to Barret's office in Corel. Barret, Cid, Vincent, Reeve and Nanaki were already there, and rose in greeting. They all froze in mid-movement, shocked at Cloud's appearance.
"Good lord, Spike... Have you been through the Lifestream again? You look like hell!" blurted Cid, echoing the sentiment of everyone else in the room.
Cloud waved his hand dismissively. He sat down, slowly, but one could see that he wasn't totally wasted yet. He had managed to get some sleep while riding the boat and train to Corel, although it had ended with the usual nightmare, he had somehow managed to sleep more than usual. Surprisingly, talking with Tifa had had a good effect. He felt weak, but not helpless.
"It's good to see all of you. I have not been getting much sleep lately; I'm sure Tifa told all of you about that. But I'll do my best." Then, he added, a wan smile on his lips, "I've been through worse."
"That's the spirit!" bellowed Barret. "I knew we could count on you!" Everybody sat back down.
Nanaki interrupted. "I'm glad you are willing to accompany us. Events have been taking place that are disturbing me greatly. I believe swift action is necessary."
"Come to the point, Red," growled Cid.
"Ahem. Well, when Shinra's home office was destroyed two years ago, some Shinra employees and sympathizers escaped to Junon, hoping to evade Meteor. There, they basically took over the town, placing their flunkies in place of the legitimate representatives. This was all done rather quietly. Being otherwise busy at the time, we did not notice the change.
"Well, they stayed quiet for a time. Something about a fight in their power structure. There was no known descendant to Rufus, and no clear successor, except perhaps Reeve. Needless to say, Reeve was not interested." Chuckles from Reeve. "In any case, we learned of the Shinra takeover six months ago, but decided to leave it alone. We were busy rebuilding parts of Midgar and getting as many people out as we could. I thought it would not be a big problem, since there was no clear leadership. And after all, for a time, Shinra had done good, so Reeve thought they should be given a chance.
"Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way. It appears Rufus had an illegitimate child, a daughter named Katya, who came out of hiding a couple of weeks ago. She has eliminated her competitors--in what way, I am not sure, as rumors are quite wild on that subject--and is now president of the company."
"What kind of person is she?" asked Tifa.
"Ruthless, driven... I believe all she wants is power, nothing more, nothing less," answered Nanaki. "She's very ambitious. She's ready to do anything to reach the top. I'd say she's also a bit of a megalomaniac," he concluded.
"So I guess negotiation is not possible, huh." stated Barret.
"I tried contacting her, telling her that I was willing to merge my own company, Locust Inc., with hers," said Reeve. "She just laughed, saying something about me being a cream puff," he added bitterly.
"Looks like trouble is brewing, then," concluded Cloud. "Does anybody know what she plans to do next?"
"She was sighted going towards Nibelheim," said Nanaki. "I believe she hopes to find some information on Mako extraction in the books there."
Cloud blanched. "You're saying she wants to restart the reactors?"
Nanaki nodded. "Yes. I believe she's not after the money as much as after gaining popular support. Although Locust, Inc. has been doing major research to find an alternate energy source, the fact is that they have no power right now, and a lot of towns look like they're back to the dark ages. Temporary gas and coal generators have been installed, as well as experimental MHD devices for direct extraction of energy from coal. That's why the Corel mines were reopened. However, those measures are insufficient, and the remaining citizens of Midgar are really suffering from the lack of power. If Shinra re-powers the Midgar reactors, they'll have Midgar behind them."
"Surely they can't simply turn those things on?" inquired Vincent.
"No. They'll need a major source of concentrated Mako energy, like the Huge Materia," replied Nanaki.
"Then what's the problem?" asked Barret. "We have those damn rocks, so they're screwed!"
"Then why are they moving on Nibelheim?" asked Tifa.
Nobody talked for some time. Then, Cloud got up, slowly, and said, "I guess we better find out." However, in mid-movement, he stopped, just realizing something, frowned, and demanded, "Where in the world is Yuffie?"
"Can't raise her. She's not answering her PHS," Reeve answered.
"Well, we'll have to do without her, I guess..." Barret said. "She'd just steal all our stuff, as usual," he added, unnecessarily.
With that, the crew walked out of Barret's office and set out to save the world. Again.
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Benoit Goudreault-Emond April, 9 2001