Start Date: September 28, 2022
Windwillow
The bolded section here is Barret's flashback to when Corel was first destroyed.
Final Fantasy VII
The Gold Saucer. It was a world-renowned hot spot for pleasure seekers far and wide to flock to. Though it resembled some sort of deranged mushroom, its many facilities offered a variety of entertainment for its customers. Add to that a transportation system designed to rattle them, and the customers were inclined to spend wildly. Cloud and his party have stopped here for some rest and relaxation. They found none. Barret went off on his own, they met a deranged cat on top of a mutant moogle, and were now accused of murdering over a dozen people. Now thrown into the ruins of Corel beneath the Gold Saucer, Barret's past takes center stage.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Beneath the Gold Saucer
Scene One
The long trip down the rabbit hole ended abruptly and unceremoniously. Cloud and his friends slid down a long, rust-caked tube not in twists and turns, but a single drop that culminated in everyone landing together in a heap on the wind beaten ground. While most of the party reacted with anger, there was a standout in the group. It shouldn't be hard to guess who.
Yuffie vaulted up from the rubble and ruins beneath her, shaking off the filth that coated her body. Quaking with anger, covered in dirt and sand, she'd had enough. "That lousy, filthy, rotten son of a bitch!" she shrieked, balling her fists and stamping her foot into a pile of trash, sending junk flying everywhere. "Just wait until I get a lawyer and sue the pants off of that speedo wearing freak! They're gonna be naming the place after me when I'm finished with them!" Yuffie screamed, mostly to herself. "I'm gonna make him regret the day he heard of the great Yuffie!"
In contrast, the rest of the team struggled to their feet and surveyed their surroundings a bit more tactfully. It was an abysmal sight: dirt and sand, steel rubble and wreckage as far as the eye could see - that was all they had to look at for miles. There were broken fences and ruined cars littering the yard they found themselves in, with only a single sign on one of the fences indicating civilization beyond it with an arrow pointing into the only refuge from the chaos around them.
"Oh, dear me!" Cait Sith wailed, wiping a fake tear from his eye. As he crawled on top of his moogle and wiped the dust from its body, he sighed and held his head, as if agonizing over a perceived injustice. "How dreadful it is! Doomed to waste away in the dark dredges of the desert... It's so cruel!" he crooned. "To be treated as such is an insult to me and all of my wonderful new friends!"
Grabbing him by the shoulders, Yuffie lifted Cait Sith off his moogle and violently shook him back and forth. "And you! I've known you for all of five minutes and I still want to throttle you!" she screamed. "Cloud says you got us in this mess in the first place, you pudgy jerk, so take your big ass megaphone and shove it up your-" Swiftly bonked by Tifa, Yuffie nursed the shiner on her head and skittered backwards. "Gawd! You guys get me in the funkiest situations!" Yuffie screeched as she balled her fists and puffed out her chest. "What is wrong with you people?!"
Cait Sith's moogle lifted up from the dirt, brushed itself off, and the wily cat crawled on top of it with a groan. Similarly the cat patted away some dust from its white belly and gave a huff. He shivered indignantly and, distraught, turned to Aerith. "Well, isn't she a character..." he moaned as he readjusted his crown. "Is she always like this or is it a special occasion, lass?"
"Oh, no, no, no, no..." tittered Aerith as she waved her hands in self defense. She'd been privy to this kind of situation before, and she knew self preservation was key. "I'm not getting involved in this. You two go ahead and do your thing, but don't hurt me in the process! If Yuffie's full steam ahead, I'm just a fly on the wall!" she chirped.
"Regardless, we're in quite the pickle..." Red XIII moaned as he shook the refuse from his lithe body. As he sat down, he spat out a piece of trash and closed his eyes in anger. "They ought to pay for this, but clearly, there's been some sort of mistake. What bothers me - other than the trip down here, of course - is Barret's contribution to the situation, if any..."
Rising from the trash, Cloud grabbed the Buster Sword from its resting place on the garbage heap and hoisted it onto the holster on his back. This was almost too much to take in all at once. "That woman said it was a man with a gun on his arm, and a dying declaration is no time to lie!" Cloud shouted. Nothing made sense except the worse case scenario. Lifting his eyes to the sky, Cloud grit his teeth and wished the world away. "What in the world did Barret land us in this time?!"
"He didn't do squat!" Tifa snarled. As she struggled to her feet, she kicked the garbage from beneath her from here to next Tuesday. She took in a deep breath, gathered herself, and turned quickly to face Cloud with a huff. Staring deep into his eyes, Tifa's resolve melted Cloud's doubts. "I don't buy it. Not for a minute! He would never do this!" she insisted. "Someone, somewhere, has to be lying!"
"Well, from where I'm sitting, lady, other than this dumbass cat he's the one who brought us here in the first place!" Yuffie yelled as she balled her fists and stuck out her chest. "That trigger happy thug just landed us in freakin' No Man's Land!" she shrieked. Tifa angrily took Yuffie by the scruff of her sweater and pulled her in close to her face. "You got something to say, Little Miss Hits-a-lot?!"
"Shut your face!" shouted Tifa, drawing Yuffie in closer. Her fierce stare quickly melted Yuffie's sudden burst of confidence. Trembling, she lifted Yuffie by the shoulders and began to shake her. "You haven't known him for as long as I have! If you'd been with him longer, then you'd know he didn't do anything!" she shouted. "Don't act like you know who Barret really is, you little punk!"
Yuffie shut her eyes tight, her grimace silencing Tifa. As she opened them, Yuffie's scowl lightened. "You don't think I know he's innocent?" she asked quietly, startling Tifa. As she shook her head, Yuffie's expression hardened. "No way he ever killed anyone without Shinra creds! So... um..." With a sigh, she pushed Tifa away from her and dusted herself off. "Maybe I overreacted a bit too much, so, y'know... Sorry, Tifa..." she muttered quietly with a bow. This seemed to be enough for Tifa, who quickly dropped the matter.
For a few moments no one spoke. The reality of the situation had set in, that they had been dropped from heaven into the bowels of hell for something they had nothing to do with. And, for that matter, that Barret had nothing to do with... Or, at least, that was the hope. Amidst the silence, Aerith loosed a gasp and pointed to the distance, where Barret stood above another corpse. He was solemn, eyes closed tight as if in prayer. Tifa quickly beat feet from where she'd argued with Yuffie, dashing towards Barret with tears in her eyes.
"Barret... Barret!" gasped Tifa, hand over her heart. "Oh, god... You're alive! You-" As she ran Tifa saw Barret's eyes slowly open and he turned to face her. A chill ran through her body as he stared back at her, silent and lifeless. Were these the eyes of a killer, or someone who'd simply given up in a hopeless predicament? Whatever it was, there was something desperately wrong. "Y-You didn't..." she rasped, her heart racing as it beat from her throat. "Please tell me you didn't..." Tifa whimpered softly.
Barret stepped back quietly, averting his eyes from Tifa's teary gaze. He darted his head back and forth between her and the corpse below him. "This ain't your business!" Barret snapped sharply, startling Tifa. "Stay out of this if you know what's good for you punks!" he shouted violently. When he stormed away through a tattered fence, Tifa ran to catch him but was caught by the arm by Cloud and restrained. Though she struggled at first, Tifa quickly gave up and began to quietly weep.
Cait Sith gave a whistle and patted his furry head with his gloved paw. "So that's your friend? Isn't he an interesting fellow!" he tittered as he adjusted his crown and brushed off his cape. "Looks a mite violent, though..." Cait Sith muttered absently. "Think he really did do the massacre?" He was quickly yanked off his moogle by Yuffie and drawn up into her glaring face.
"You!" Yuffie snarled, taking Cait Sith by the shoulders and shaking him violently back and forth. "Not only did you ruin my flawless plans at the chocobo races, now you badmouth my boy Barret?! Nuh-uh!" As stars and cuckoos circled Cait Sith's head, she plopped him down hard on top of his moogle. "Say that again and I'm gonna skin you, you little freak!" she growled. "Stupid son of a... Bah, whatever! I'm so over this!" Yuffie said, crossing her arms with a huff. Cait Sith continued to reel and then shook away the flying birds with a shudder that moved his entire body and then he stuck his tongue out at her.
After Barret walked away, Cloud released a still crying Tifa and walked towards the dead body Barret had been standing over. Leaning down, he inspected it quietly and found what he'd feared: a bullet wound. He silently closed his eyes and pounded the ground with his fist. Though he didn't shed tears, his heart broke. Red XIII strolled over to Cloud and inspected the body carefully. As he observed the wound, his eyes opened wide as he noticed something Cloud had missed. A grim smile crossed his snout and he nudged Cloud with his nose, startling him. Cloud whirled to meet him, but was shocked by the look of triumph in Red XIII's eyes.
"Now we have proof..." Red XIII muttered as he sat on his rear. When Cloud tilted his head in confusion, Red XIII closed his eyes tightly. "Proof that he's innocent. Take a look at the bullet wound... singular." Turning, Cloud examined the body one more time and found the bullet wound... a single bullet wound. As his eyes opened wide and Cloud whirled about to look at him, Red XIII proudly nodded. "Now we just need to hear the story straight from the horse's mouth..." he said softly.
Yuffie waddled towards the pair with a grimace plastered on her face. As she looked at the body, then to Cloud, then back again her head merely wobbled in confusion. Though she tried to make sense of it, she failed. "I don't get it... He's been shot, right? Ain't that proof that Barret..." Shuddering, she slapped her cheeks to beat away her doubts. "What do you mean there's proof he didn't do it?" she yelped. Trembling she pointed an accusing finger at Cloud. "C'mon, spill the beans, you guys! I don't like being kept in the dark!"
A new look of determination in his eyes, Cloud lifted himself to his feet and turned towards where Barret had gone. He silently stepped to the broken fence and kicked its gate open, gesturing for his friends to follow him. Though confused, Tifa in particular, they quickly followed. Tifa wiped the tears from her eyes and turned them to the corpse below her. Her eyes snapped wide open as she inspected the body, hand jumping to her mouth in both shock and joy. She paused a brief moment to pray before running after Cloud. He hadn't done it after all, and now she knew.
Oh, God... Thank you, God...
Scene Two
The trash heap they'd landed in used to be the town of Corel, now buried by sand, and was where the waste deposited by the Gold Saucer up above came to rest. Here, the dregs of society and the ne'er do wells cast down by Dio mingled with the remnants of a once-thriving city. In this immoral world of thieves and backstabbers, a lone order was maintained by the well-dressed Mr. Coates who resided in a shack located in the south of the complex. He alone had the power in these hellish ruins, authority granted to him by Dio to do as he pleased. Though, there was one man who exerted even more power than he did...
As the party entered the hell hole that was once Corel, they were greeted by brigands and scoundrels all around the ruined complex. Overturned cars and abandoned houses littered the landscape, all that remained of a once-proud Corel. While they walked through the streets, they all received glares and stares from the hopeless populace. In particular, there were cat calls for Tifa and Aerith. Those who tried to act on them were promptly beaten down by the target of their affection; there was no law to keep them safe from Tifa's fists and Aerith's staff. When Yuffie received none, she randomly wailed on the surrounding thugs, and Cloud and his friends were forced to drag her away from more than one spat with her arms flailing.
"These people have no talent!" barked Yuffie with her hands on her hips as she sauntered through town. Through all the brawls, she'd nearly been pickpocketed a number of times only for the thieves to leave beaten and bloodied. "And why don't these hyenas hoot at me?! I'm pretty! Why do Tifa and Aerith have to get all the attention?! These idiots clearly have no taste either! I'll show 'em all the business end of my-" Receiving another bonk from Tifa, Yuffie recoiled and bit at her. "Okay, okay! Shutting up now!" she growled.
"So far I've pulverized seventeen of these morons and they still keep coming..." Tifa growled as she put a hand to her head to stifle her migraine. "Four marriage proposals and thirteen attempted gropers later, I'm mad as hell!" She punctuated her statement as she slammed her fist into her palm, frightening away another would-be suitor. "There's no end to these perverts!" Tifa snarled before silently delivering another backhand whack to an oncoming ne'er-do-well that broke open his tooth. "And that's eighteen..." she muttered absently.
"I know, right?" chirped Aerith, casually snapping her staff open and whacking another thug in the head from behind her. As the scoundrel fell unconscious to the floor, she snapped her staff closed again and stretched her leg. "You know, I lost count a while back..." Aerith tittered. Another nearby scumbag quickly scampered away when she turned a menacing look his way before she cheerfully resumed her smile and continued walking. "I think these guys need to find girlfriends..." she giggled.
Through it all Cait Sith quietly waddled through the streets behind them. After seeing the ladies in action, he'd resolved never to insult them again. Red XIII and Cloud were used to it by now and merely kept walking, much to his fascination, and Yuffie continued to rant wildly to anyone who would listen (which, for the most part, was no one). Watching them ignore the violence unsettled him and he began to rethink his decision to follow them.
Quite the group... I guess terrorists are called terrorists for a good reason... And they are spreading terror...
While it seemed a trickle at first, the endless scoundrels slowly tapered off. Were they scared away, or was it something else? The answer came as empty ground became filled with dozens of thugs wielding daggers, guns, and spiked clubs. The sheer number of the enemies surrounding them alarmed Yuffie, who quickly ducked behind an irritated Tifa, who then bonked her on the head and dragged her back in line. Cait Sith watched as the mob continued to grow, steadily becoming more and more alarmed as a dozen multiplied into nearly a hundred bandits. Brandishing their weapons they licked their lips, watching their prey with sinister intentions and sick ideas. Even though there were so many, Tifa and Cloud seemed totally unconcerned, while Red XIII and Yuffie scrambled to safety. Finding they were totally surrounded with no avenue of escape, they settled back to back against their friends.
"Dear, dear me! How awful it is!" Cait Sith wailed, putting a hand to his furry forehead. The thugs seemed unimpressed by his theatrics and glared daggers at him. "My dear friends, is there any chance we can talk this out?" he gasped with an exaggerated expression. Seeing only weapons drawn in response, he hung his head and drew out his megaphone with a huff. "Ah, how regrettable! Allow me to voice my protests..." he sighed sadly.
Taking in a deep breath, Cait Sith shouted into the megaphone. Almost immediately, a shock wave blasted away a number of the thugs and sent them flying back. While the bandits reeled, he sharply whistled into the megaphone and cut marks riddled the enemies, slicing through their clothing and driving them backwards bloodied and wounded. In shock, Tifa slightly lowered her fists. As Cloud lifted his sword and drew it into a ready position, he shifted a suspicious glance to the Toysaurus. This character was even more unsavory than he'd thought.
"And what the heck was that?!" Cloud snarled, gripping the Buster Sword in both hands and holding it over his chest vertically. "Is that megaphone rigged with something?!" Slowly, he opened his eyes wide and his jaw dropped, having recognized a certain characteristic of the attack. "Wait a second... it's coming from a materia, isn't it?!" he shouted. "What kind of crazy-" Cait Sith hoisted his megaphone over his shoulder, nearly toppling from the weight, but gave a toothy grin and shrugged. With a smirk, Cloud drew his sword to his side and rushed towards his foes.
Scene Three
His sword lifted over his chest, Cloud swung in an arc that cut severe gashes through several enemies' chests. The remainder fired their guns at him. With a smile, he slammed his hand to the ground and a column of fire surrounded him that incinerated the bullets before they struck him. Without pause, he flipped upright and charged forward, swinging hard in a strike that broke open the ground ahead of him and sent the thugs flying before switching back to a horizontal assault.
Tifa adjusted her glove for a moment before tightening her grip. Her fingers folded one by one until her entire hand was coated in an obsidian sheen, and she charged into the melee. The foes around her, blissfully unaware of the danger, lunged forward with their weapons. One of the nearest unluckies lost several teeth to her punch, a second received a similar backhand that cracked his jaw open, and then Tifa agilely broke into a handstand while kicking away several more. When she landed, Tifa cracked a smile that made their hair stand on end before she casually strolled forward. The criminals stepped back slowly, seemingly realizing the danger they were in, before stubbornly charging her. She welcomed the attempt, and cracked her knuckles as menacingly as she had cracked her smile.
Aerith snapped her staff open and, with a single swipe, knocked three bandits away from her. Without stopping her hand became surrounded with fire and opened with her flaming palm aimed flat at the enemies in front of her. By the time the nearest understood the meaning of her gesture, he'd been thrown back in a flaming mess. The thug flailed around wildly, infecting his allies with the fire he was engulfed in. In anger, they dashed towards her and she lightly tapped her staff on her shoulder with a grin, ready to deal with them physically as well as magically.
Several gun-wielding bandits readied and opened fire at Tifa and Aerith. Before the bullets could reach them, several walls of solid earth broke open from the ground and shielded the both of them. Their attention turned to Red XIII as fire ignited his mane, before the walls shattered into projectiles that battered them away and the flame-maned beast charged towards several of them. Several of them went down in a single charge, while others were battered in his follow up attack.
Yuffie, unwilling to be left out, snatched up her shuriken from her back and hurled it at the mass of enemies ahead of her. The four-bladed weapon gashed blood from their chests, returned to her grasp, and with a second volley she slashed open the surrounding bandits like they were made of paper before again being caught between her lithe fingers. As they fell and more replaced them, Yuffie smiled and readied her weapon for her follow up.
Cait Sith hopped madly on his moogle, swaying side to side in an odd sort of victory dance. Three punks took the opportunity to charge and his jaw dropped like he was in a comic strip. He gripped his megaphone tight, took in a deep breath, and screamed into it. The resulting shock knocked one of the three into another, sending him flying backwards, and Cait Sith followed by slamming his megaphone on the third incoming bandit's head. Afterwords he was unbalanced (now physically in this case, in addition to mentally), and promptly plopped to his seat along with his moogle with a satisfied grunt as the melee raged.
A hundred dwindled rapidly to dozens, dozens to a half-dozen and quickly enough all the prowlers lay either dead or dying on the ground. Some were scorched, others sliced open, and the rest had been battered by Tifa, Aerith, and Cait Sith into an unrecognizable pulp. As the last of them fell, Cloud sheathed his Buster Sword and turned to an overexcited Cait Sith, who had begun a rather gawdy victory celebration.
"And just what kind of materia was that?!" Cloud snapped. As his sword dropped into place with a sharp click, he stormed towards the fortune teller, fists tightened, finally stopping straight in front of him face to face. "What the devil did you just do to those jokers?!" he yelled. Clearing his throat and slipping his megaphone behind his back, Cait Sith snapped to attention and saluted. His moogle comically mimicked his movements, irking Cloud.
"Echo materia, my dear sir!" Cait Sith cackled. "This rare, unusual materia generates force based on the sound blown into it, the 'it' being my megaphone. A scream becomes a cannon, a few whistles a rain of knives, and so forth. And by the way, you're wel-come!" he crooned proudly. While he continued to celebrate, the rest of the party looked on in horror at the way he was doing so. He was making moves no man could make; only an anthropomorphic cat and a mutant ogre of a moogle could dance like he was. It was disturbing enough that Tifa ending up whacking him to make him stop.
With the majority of the wounded having retreated, the party gathered together to discuss their situation. Cait Sith was, reluctantly, accepted as a fighting friend (though Yuffie continued to object until she was "corrected" by Tifa), and the topic turned into what awaited them. One of the unluckies had been caught and interrogated by Tifa, giving up the name "Mr. Coates" before falling unconscious from the wounds Tifa had inflicted on him. The poor bastard probably wouldn't wake up for a day or two, given her... well, her brutality. She wasn't in a pleasant mood, and it showed on the bandit's broken face.
As Aerith went to work mending their wounds, the discussion shifted to what would come next. "So now we have a name..." said Tifa as she stretched her leg and shook out a kink in her neck. She'd taken a few hard hits that she was still struggling to recover from, and remained sore despite Aerith's attention. "But before I relax, I want to find Barret... I've got a lot of questions that he's going to have to answer... Let's split up."
"Split up?" wondered Yuffie idly. She was busy cleaning the blood from her weapon, and had only barely been keeping up with the conversation. As she returned the shuriken to her back, she balled her fists and puffed out her chest. "Wait, hold the phone! Shouldn't we stick together in case another bunch of idiots tries to screw with us?! Y'know, strength in numbers?! I don't want to tangle with a bunch of those punks alone!" she shrieked as she flailed her arms.
Cloud shook his head, angering Yuffie. Taking no notice, he put a hand to his chin. "No, I agree. We have two objectives: talk to this Coates dude and find Barret. There are six of us, so two groups of three. That way we won't spread ourselves too thin and won't create a big enough target for the locals to narrow in on. Three of us go to Coates, the other three look for Barret."
"I'll take Coates! I can make him talk..." Tifa volunteered, cracking her knuckles and further intimidating Yuffie. "And if I'm going to have someone else... Red XIII and Cait Sith. Red for his smarts and the cat because I want to keep a close eye on him. I still don't trust the little weasel..." Tifa sent a glare at Cait Sith that spooked him stiff. "That leaves Cloud, Aerith, and Yuffie to search for Barret. We'll stay close together, though: Coates' place is a few meters away from here, so Cloud's group will take the closest houses first and work out from there."
Lifting her hand, Yuffie scowled at Tifa, receiving a stern glare in return. "Simple question! Why don't I get to pick who I work with?!" she shrieked, balling her fists and puffing out her chest. "I don't want to go looking for Barret and end up with a bullet in my head! Can't I go with you to that other freak's place?" she snarled. "I'd like to have some fun for once, you know!"
"Simple answer: you suck at negotiation," Tifa replied plainly, much to Yuffie's fury. But, grudgingly acknowledging the logic, and fearing Tifa's wrath, Yuffie shrugged and gave up. "Let's split up before anything else happens to us, 'kay?" she sighed. "And when you find Barret, I've got first crack at him. No one talks to him before me, got it?" Tifa growled intimidatingly as she cracked her knuckles. Yuffie shuddered at the mere thought of Tifa's threat and quickly clammed up.
Scene Four
The social structure of the Gold Saucer was a bit odd. Dio, its owner, managed everything in the magical mushroom itself personally, from security to event planning, in addition to deciding who to kick out of the place. It was his exclusive decision to send troublemakers down into Corel's trash heap, sometimes "deleting" entire groups of customers who wreaked a certain amount of havoc. To be fair, some of them had gravitated there on their own for various reasons, creating a lawless town that they themselves could control without society's judgment.
Unfortunately for those rogues, there was a hierarchy in the Corel Prison. Mr. Coates, a close associate and confidante of Dio managed the day to day business in the desert prison. He had control over the justice system (such as it was), managed the economy (the little that was kosher), and decided who did what, when and where they did it, and if they could do it at all. In the lawless reaches of the desert prison, however, might made right and his authority was sometimes challenged by powerful criminals. Mr. Coates was a well-dressed man in a multi-colored suit, decorated with flowers and star symbols over his uniform as if he were a mafioso with his own sense of style. His base was in an overturned truck converted into what passed as an office. Normally, he decided who would see him and when. Tifa and her group didn't grant him the option of doing so, and promptly knocked out his doormen before entering.
"I overheard the doctors and the ambulance chasers run over to the northeast, so I figured something big was up..." Coates sighed, brushing the blond pompadour from his face with a haughty sneer. "Normally we get some colorful characters, but criminals like you-" Tifa's fist blew his desk apart and Coates quickly bowed his head in surrender and turned bright green. "I mean, wonderful guests like you..." he squeaked with a jolt. "We don't get enough folks like you around here! Really, we don't!"
Adjusting her glove menacingly, Tifa's eye unconsciously twitched at Coates' turnabout. She was less than pleased at his attitude. The suit was ugly, too, which had a part in it. "Now that we've been acquainted, I have a couple questions to ask you, Mr. Coates. Namely, why the hell did we get thrown down here without a trial?" Tifa growled. As she narrowed her eyes, Coates continued to retreat. "I expect an answer," she snarled as she cracked her knuckles, "and I suggest you deliver one..."
"I-It's Dio's decision, not mine! I swear!" Coates gasped as he put his hands up in self defense. Swallowing hard, he turned his eye to Tifa's clenched fist with visible distress. When she began to crack her knuckles again, Coates shrank even more. "I mean, he must have had a reason! Not that it was mine! I mean, we can talk about this like adults, right?"
"That depends," Red XIII growled. Sitting down, he violently bared his fangs and showed Coates his potential fate. As bad as Tifa scared him, Red XIII the wild beast was even more intimidating. "Is there a way to get us out of here? If so... Tell us, and we'll do it. Anything. If you need us to beg, I'm personally willing to do so..." As he turned his head and saw Tifa's stony stare, Red XIII gulped and shook his head with a sigh. "Well, maybe not all of us will..."
Cait Sith sat on the sidelines during the "negotiations." Mostly he did so out of curiosity, but also out of self preservation. One of his primary thoughts rested on the word "negotiation" and how it wasn't actually occurring. The sheer brutality Coates was undergoing made him question who the villain was supposed to be.
Even if that little brat came along, she'd probably still be at his throat... Why not let her come along and wreak a little havoc? At least that would have been entertaining. This is just flat out cruel...
"Listen, folks!" Coates gulped hard, his pants moistening and sweat oozing from his armpits. Tifa continued to approach, frightening him even more. Putting his hands up in self defense, he slowly retreated from Tifa. "There is a way out of here! But it isn't easy... If you get nominated as a chocobo jockey up top, you're allowed to race for your freedom. All you need is the boss's permission and I can set it up for you..." he stammered.
Tifa tilted her head, partially out of confusion and partly of frustration, further frightening Coates. "Don't I have the boss by the proverbial balls here?" she growled, startling Coates as well as scaring him. "The way you say it, you're not the boss. So who is it? What do we have to do to get his permission?" Coates seemed to have a panic attack, but Tifa noticed it wasn't because of her. Narrowing her eyes, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at Coates. "The name. Now." she growled, cracking her knuckles.
Coates nervously brushed the dust from his suit, adjusted his pompadour, and shifted his eyes to Red XIII and Cait Sith in a futile attempt to beg for assistance. Receiving none, he sighed and threw up his arms in surrender. "The guy's name is Dyne..." he remarked, much to Tifa's shock. "Lunatic's been shooting up the place for the last three years... If you can get his permission, I'll make it happen..."
Stunned, Tifa backed away from Coates nervously. Initially he thought he was good with her, but when she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, he quickly reconsidered. "You said his name is Dyne?!" gasped Tifa, eyes wide. "But that must mean... But he's Barret's... Oh, boy..." As she shoved Coates back and he readjusted his tie, Tifa turned her eyes to Red XIII. Receiving a grim nod, she folded her arms over her chest with a dissatisfied huff. "This is great... just freakin' great..."
Scene Five
The first house Cloud and his team entered contained a ruined living room, a burned couch and several empty bookcases all that remained. There was no sign of anyone living, but there was something off about the place...
As she entered, Aerith quickly set herself on edge. There was something off not just with the place itself, but with its odor. "I can smell the gasoline everywhere, like someone wanted to burn it down but gave up for some reason..." she gasped, eyes darting back and forth. She further observed what looked like bullet marks in one of the portraits on the wall as if someone had emptied a pistol into it. "Someone didn't want this place to exist any more and took steps to ensure that..."
"Eww! Yuck!" Yuffie hacked as she held her nose with two fingers, wiping the snot from it with her other hand. "This place is freaking gross! Let's find somewhere else to look! I can feel some funky mojo 'round here..." she moaned. Her senses suddenly piqued and she narrowed her eyes. "And something doesn't feel right, like we aren't alone... D'ya think someone's-" To her surprise, Yuffie jolted half a foot back when she saw Barret enter from the kitchen. "Don't scare me like that, you jerk!" she shrieked as she flailed her arms.
"Didn't I tell you not to come here?!" snapped Barret, angrily tightening his fist. Eyes closed, trembling with rage, he slowly lifted his Gun-arm and aimed it towards his three friends. Cloud's fingers had barely clutched the hilt of his sword before he heard Yuffie's shriek. As Aerith ducked, Cloud felt a sudden drop in his stomach and dropped to one knee as the impact knocked the wind out of him.
To the amazement of all three of them, the couch behind them burst into fragments. Before Cloud could speak, he heard a loud thunk behind him and turned to look. He soon found a bandit with his gun drawn, a large gaping hole in his chest from where Barret had opened it up with a massive air bullet. Cloud slowly loosened his fingers and lowered his hand from his sword. Stunned and confused, he could only stare in shock at a somber Barret staring back at him.
"Damn it, man..." Barret growled, both in anger and frustration. He lowered his Gun-arm slowly and bowed his head. Aerith and Yuffie's heads jolted up to find him with his eyes closed and a lone tear dripping down his face. "I told you not to get caught up in all this mess, didn't I?!" The rest of the party rushed in, having heard the commotion, and Barret brushed the tear from his eye. "You folks don't take a clue well..." he sighed sadly.
While everyone else tried to take in the situation, Red XIII somberly bowed his head to Barret. "They said a man with a gun on his arm killed everyone..." he sighed. His head slowly lifted, a bit more hope lighting his eyes. "But it wasn't you, was it? Those wounds came from a single barreled shot, not a machine gun like yours. Adding in the name of the boss around here, and-"
"Yeah... yeah..." moaned Barret, trudging up to the remains of the couch and plopping down on his seat. "Four years ago, Sakaki got an order for two Gun-arms. One was mine, and the other one was Dyne's..." With a sigh, he lifted his head up quietly. "I still don't buy it, but he just has to be the guy..." Barret quietly paused as he took in Red XIII's words, and suddenly leapt to his feet. "Wait, he's the boss?!" he snarled. "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"We talked to a guy calling himself Mr. Coates, and he says Dyne's the one who decides who does what inside the prison..." explained Tifa sadly. "This little weasel Coates is supposed to be in charge, but he said unless we get Dyne's permission there's no way for us to leave this hell hole." As a trembling Barret clutched his Gun-arm in rage, Tifa put her hands on his shoulders. "Back at North Corel, I could tell you weren't giving us the whole story. It's time we heard it from you... all of it." she murmured softly.
Barret dropped back onto the couch with an angry grunt. After holding his aching head, he shook it and threw up his arms. "Yeah... It all started four years ago. Dyne and I had left Corel to watch another Mako reactor being built... The whole way back I got grief 'bout how they were gonna kill Corel. I tried to play devil's advocate, took the bastards' side... but..."
The trip from a distant Mako reactor took several days. Dyne and Barret had argued endlessly the entire time, from the first train ride to the final one that deposited them just before Corel would have come into view. All the way down the tracks they'd felt an odd humidity, but wrote it off as hot Autumn weather. When they heard the crackling of embers and the stench of gunpowder, however, they doubled their speed headed towards home. What they came across was a distant Corel lit aflame, fires burning and the smell of gasoline piercing the air from where they stood to the town itself. Barret was the first to jump from the tracks to get a better look, and from a distance he could hear the gunfire echo throughout the mountain. He dropped to his knees in grief and lifted his hand to the sky, infuriated.
"Those bastards lied to us!" Barret screamed, driving his right fist into the hard rock of the mountain. When he drew it back up, his knuckles were coated in dirt and blood and he could only vaguely feel his fingers. Even so, the pain didn't matter. All he felt was hatred and adrenaline. "The whole time..." he gasped, choking with anger and indignation. "The whole damn time you had it right! The whole God damn time..."
Dyne stood atop the tracks silently. He could feel the heat and smell the gunpowder, the faint stench of blood swelling in his nostrils. Unsure of his own feelings, he began to tremble uncontrollably. His wife and child were somewhere in that conflagration... And the burst of fire didn't burn half as hot as the anger he felt to Shinra. The embers flickered as his emotions turned to his friend beneath him, a faint heat growing - the red hot flames of hatred, at Barret and to himself.
"I told you, you stupid bastard!" Dyne choked, clenching his left fist hard enough to draw blood. As it oozed from between his fingers, he could feel it bleed through his glove and stain the leather. "What did I tell you?! Over and over again!" he screamed, holding his head in his hands. "How many times did I have to tell you?! We traded our coal for this... We took everything we had and threw it away because of you!"
"Dyne! Barret!"
Both men turned their attention to the oncoming village headman, the one who'd made the final decision to permit the reactor being built despite Dyne's disapproval. Covered in blood and sweat he charged down the train tracks like a drunkard, tears oozing from his eyes. How he's managed to escape boggled their minds, as he should have been a prime target.
"Protect Corel! Please! They-"
The village headman fell unceremoniously to the ground in a heap, a bullet in his brain. From behind him the two friends saw a smoking pistol, a killer red dress, and the head of Shinra's weapons development holding the murder weapon. As smoke rose from the headman's bullet wound, the assassin cracked a deranged smile and began to laugh.
"It was all because of that Shinra whore Scarlet!" Barret yelled, slamming his fist into the arm of the couch and shredding it open. "She was the one who gave the order to raze Corel... and she did it because we weren't there to stop her! That bitch didn't have the guts to look us in the eye and tell us our families were dead! And it was because of her that they were dying!" he snarled angrily. "When I saw her with that gun in her hand, I just knew she was the one who gave the order!"
All that could be felt was the fire's heat, and all that heat paled in comparison to the burning hatred in their hearts as Scarlet took her high heel and kicked the village headman from the tracks. His dead body bounced off the tracks and his still-smoking head came to rest in front of Barret, and Barret could feel that the blood that had run icily cold grow fiendishly hot, a heat that throbbed more than his labored pulse as he gnashed his teeth and drew blood from his lip.
Scarlet stared down at Barret and back towards Dyne, then back to Barret. Taking her pistol and blowing the smoke from its barrel, she trained it on Barret's head with a sinister sneer. "Your disobedience," she cackled as she cocked the barrel, "is your death sentence. You idiot hicks never saw it coming, either! Kya-ha-ha-ha!" Though she fired, Barret narrowly evaded her shot, stumbling up the tracks to join an inconsolable Dyne. A twisted smile on her face, Scarlet snapped her fingers, a sound that echoed throughout the mountain as Barret began to drag Dyne from the fray.
The snap was followed by the clicks of four rifles as four Shinra soldiers appeared from behind her with their sights trained on Dyne and Barret. A hail of gunfire followed that the two only narrowly managed to avoid. They could see the bullets strike the rails where they'd stood only moments before, and as they stumbled away Dyne's foot hit a rock and he toppled from the rails. Barret caught him with his right hand and held him firm with all his might.
"You better keep holding on to me, Dyne!" Barret shouted, trying his best to drag him back up. "Even if I lose Myrna, I ain't losing you too! Think about the two of them and hang on with all you got!" he begged, clutching his right hand with his left in a struggle for more leverage. Dyne struggled to hold on, his left arm flooded with blood and adrenaline as every ounce of strength he had was focused on his friend's grip.
"There ain't no way I'm leaving them! No way!" screamed Dyne, tears flooding his eyes. He could feel his heart throbbing, blood pulsing inside his ears. "If I lose Eleanor and Marlene, I swear I'm going with them! But I won't let them go! Not my daughter... not Marlene!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Aerith gasped as she put her hands over her mouth, unable to digest what she'd just taken in. Following a deep breath, she shook her head to clear her mind. "Marlene is Dyne's daughter?! She isn't your biological child?! That's... that's huge! What on earth happened that she ended up with you?!"
"She ain't my child by blood, but she's my daughter in every way that matters!" Barret said glumly. "Once it was all over, I was scavenging the town trying to find my wife Myrna, but then I found her..." Shutting his eyes tight, a tear dropped down Barret's cheek. "What was left of her... And just when I started thinking of joining her, I heard this noise... A baby's cry..."
"So that's it... That's what happened..." Cloud muttered quietly, mostly to himself. Now it all made sense. "You found Marlene and raised her as your own daughter. But... I get the feeling that's not the only reason you kept her in your life..." With a sigh, Barret nodded. "You also kept her to make it up to Dyne..." he rasped. "If you couldn't save him, you were determined to save her..."
"She was barely alive," said Barret softly. He turned his eyes from his Gun-arm to his real arm, remembering the pain he'd felt supporting Marlene's weight. "I had to carry her to the next town in my one good arm, but we made it to safety. That was when I swore to myself I would protect her... and that if I didn't and made her cry... Dyne would damn me forever... I just couldn't lose her, too..."
In the chaos of Corel's destruction, a tiny microcosm of the town's pain played out on the train tracks high above the town. Barret and Dyne, isolated by Shinra's weapons manufacturer Scarlet and her men, now literally clung to life on the edge of a cliff. With everything they had in them they gripped each other tightly, struggling to save the only person they had left.
Scarlet suddenly slapped one of her soldiers hard in the face, sending him flat on the ground. "Your aim is terrible!" she shouted as she gave the soldier a kick to the gut with her high heel that knocked him from the tracks. "Let me show you how it's really done, you pathetic failure!" Scarlet sneered cruelly as she cocked her weapon and trained it on Dyne and Barret.
The gunfire accelerated in intensity, bullets bouncing off the rocky mountain as it approached the two desperate men. Each shot came closer and closer, until Scarlet's well-placed bullet shot through each of their wrists. Dyne had lost his grip and the use of his left arm, and tumbled down the mountain to his presumed death. Barret's right hand had been mauled, and while he escaped with his life, when he learned Shinra's motivation for razing Corel his hatred burned hot enough to incinerate a small forest.
"For a long time... a long, long time... all I did was sulk and fester with my rage..." Barret growled. He ran his good hand over his Gun-arm and felt the cold steel brush his fingers. The hatred that had been building became even stronger and he gripped it tight enough for his fingernails to scratch the shell. "I got Sakaki to make me this little baby, but when he told he that he'd made another I just knew Dyne had survived... And it felt like I had to take his anger and make it mine, too. Like we both had to hate Shinra together as much as we did ourselves..."
"Your anger isn't so different from his..." remarked Aerith with a sigh. She knelt down by Barret and looked at him grimly, her resolve strengthened. "But I remember back at the Mines when you talked about this Sakaki guy. You said he tried to convince you not to get the Gun-arm, but all you could do was hate. So, when he said that the Gun-arm wouldn't satisfy you..."
With a grunt, Barret nodded. "Yeah, he meant that building up my hate was just gonna make me as much of a monster as the people who murdered my family. Looking back, after everything we've gone through together... I finally understand what he meant... 'Bout damn time... So, now it's all going to come to a head..." he moaned. Tightening his fist, he slammed it into the arm of the couch and ripped another chunk from it.
Folding her arms over her chest with a sigh, Tifa silently tried to assess the situation, and thought she'd come to an answer. "You both hate Shinra as much as any of us do. Do you think... do you think Dyne might join us? That we could fight Shinra together-"
"Not a chance in hell!" Barret yelled. His sudden outburst startled Tifa silent. Bowing his head, Barret closed his eyes tight. He paused, trying to convince himself he was wrong, but couldn't. "Bad as I hate 'em, he has to hate them even more. I... You know, he doesn't even know that Marlene's alive. If he doesn't know that, ain't no end to his pain. That's why I got to go settle things, just me and him..."
"You're so full of it!" shouted Cloud, stunning Barret first with surprise and then with fury. Trying his best to restrain himself, Cloud nevertheless began to tremble in anger. "Do you really think we're gonna let you go out there alone?! Pull your head out of your ass!" As Barret began to fume, Cloud grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "I've been voted the leader here. If I let you die, I could never forgive myself!" he yelled. Barret, taken aback, quietly grit his teeth. "And I won't let you die!" Cloud declared, further shocking Barret. "This isn't just your fight anymore..."
"Cloud's right!" Aerith remarked as she put her hands on her hips with a huff and a puff and stared Barret down. When he averted his eyes, she narrowed hers and stuck her face in his. "This isn't where it all ends, so don't talk out of your butt and say you're going to die alone!" she snapped angrily. "Show some faith in us and trust in your friends! We're in this together!"
As Barret began to shake, Tifa crouched down in front of him and put a tender hand on his cheek. "I want you to tell me now: Are you giving up?" she asked. Barret averted his eyes, but Tifa used her hand to bring his face back to hers. "All of us hate Shinra. Not all of us butcher a dozen innocent people. Let us help. Please. You aren't alone anymore..." With a sigh, she gave him a soft smile. "You've got friends now, dummy!" she beamed.
Barret remained silent for quite some time. Uncertain as he was, their words held some power for him. After what had happened in Corel, he'd thought he was solely responsible. But now, between Dyne's massacre and Tifa's words, Barret slowly realized that he could only find redemption and satisfaction by putting his arm to work and protect Marlene... without hate.
"You know, you act like you got something 'tween your legs even if you ain't got nothing..." Barret laughed. His grimace lingered for a moment, then shifted into a wry smile. He leaned back in what remained of the couch and a toothy grin crossed his face. "Let's talk to this joker Coates. I'll convince him to tell us where Dyne's shacked up..." he snarled. "Then, I'm going to put this whole thing to rest!"
Author's Notes
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. One of the highlights for me in this chapter was the action scene. I had a lot of fun giving each party member their own chance for some ass-kicking. Yuffie and Cait Sith had some nice scenes too, very entertaining to write. Tifa and Aerith casually kicking the asses of the punks down below might have been my favorite part, actually... Yuffie being Yuffie was good too. I love writing that girl... Showing Barret's humanity as well. For most of this I've been depicting him as a dull thug, so adding in some seriousness makes him a bit more on-point for the game character. Overwhelmed with guilt...
Cait Sith's Echo materia was based off of the Tone-Tone Fruit (or Oto-Oto-no-mi, literally Music Music Fruit) from One Piece. The ability turns the user into what is essentially a living musical instrument capable of creating music from any part of their body. The user could play their teeth like piano keys, create a trumpet from their chin, etc. I adapted it a bit, but the basic idea is the same.