CHAPTER 10 Disclaimer: Square Soft and lots of other people own Final Fantasy, not me.
I'm just temporarily enjoying the playground they outgrew and left behind. . . no sense in letting it go to waste!
C&C makes me happy! Thanks for reading.
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CHAPTER 10
Reno kicked at Reeve again, catching him on one of the arms crossed behind his back.
Reeve swayed and almost fell over. His eyes had been searching the crowd ever since Cloud had yelled, and finally landed on the chained figure in the back.
"Cloud. . ." His eyes widened in horror. Gods, he had been sure no one from Avalanche would be stupid enough to. . . Another kick interrupted his train of thought. Through the ringing in his ears he could hear Cloud yell again, and the nasal snickering of the red haired devil standing above him. He ignored what Reno had been saying about Cloud's advice; if there was even a grain of truth to it, it was undoubtedly a small grain.
Cloud yanked frustratedly at his bonds again, and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath, all too aware of Reno watching amused from the stage.
"Let Reeve go, Reno." Cloud's voice was calmer but pitched to carry over the entire crowd. "Let Reeve go, or this whole base is going to be a pile of scrap in a few days."
Two or three years ago, if someone had made a statement like that, there wasn't a soldier in Junon who wouldn't have laughed his or her head off before teaching the speaker a lesson about mouthing off. These days though, the listening soldiers just shifted uncomfortably.
Excluding Reno. He did laugh, and managed to sneer while doing it.
"Oooh, I'm scared. How're ya gonna manage that, blondie? Got a WEAPON up your sleeve?"
By common consent, Shinra employees did not make jokes about the planet's WEAPONS; too many of their associates had died as a result of them. Reno, naturally, ignored the said convention.
Cloud shook his head, speaking equally to Reno and the crowd now. "Something better. Sephiroth will come looking for me soon."
Reno froze.
"You killed him."
"Ask Falstor about that. There's a chunk of his base missing already from when Sephiroth came through there a week and a half ago."
"That's impossible!" Reno hissed, but made no move to shut Cloud up or continue with Reeve. "Sephiroth is dead."
"And even if he wasn't, he'd hardly be helping you," Elena snorted, forcing herself to relax despite the knot that had formed in her stomach. Not much scared Turks, as Reno's using the WEAPONS for humor showed. Sephiroth though. . . Sephiroth had killed the best of them, and made it obvious that not only had it been easy, it had been amusing. And there wasn't a Turk who believed that Avalanche could possibly have been strong enough to defeat him. The common consensus was that his mutations had eventually killed him, and Cloud just took the credit. It wasn't much of a stretch to believe that he hadn't died at all. . . Elena forced her mind away from that train of thought.
Cloud was watching her carefully. "You're right. He wouldn't come to help me. He'd come to hunt me, to take my mind and make me his slave, as Shinra intended me to be. He'd destroy everything in his path. And whatever's left," Cloud shrugged, "I'd probably destroy fighting him."
"Big words from a guy in handcuffs." Reno had lost control of his little scene, and was pissed about it. He was even more pissed about the tightness in his chest that he was damn certain wasn't fear.
Cloud stared back at him for a moment. Then he braced himself, reaching inside to open the door to knowledge that wasn't his, knowledge that had flooded his mind as he fell with the knowledge of his coming death. Knowledge of Jenova.
He wasn't sure if it was snippets of Sephiroth's memory, accompanying his plea for life, or if it came from the Jenova in his blood, freed when the Mako that had suppressed it was used up. He was rather sure that it probably wasn't a good idea to use it, but couldn't think of any other options at the moment, and wasn't willing to let Reeve suffer while he thought about it.
He brought his hands in front of him, the metal that had imprisoned him flowing liquid down his arms to drip from his fingertips. His eyes were glowing purple.
"Falstor knew," Cloud continued, deciding not to insult the Turks further by replying verbally to Reno's statement. He slowly ran his hands over each other, wiping off the remaining metal. "He knew Sephiroth lives, that he is hunting me, and he didn't tell you. And that's not the only thing he has stayed silent on. How many of you have family in Midgar? Friends, lovers? Their deaths are the price Falstor is willing to pay to gain control; will you still follow him? He has a weapon that can destroy the city in one blow, he is willing to use the threat of millions of innocent deaths to win. Is that who you want to serve?"
"Don't think that he wouldn't really use it either," Reeve added, wincing through a split lip. "At least some of you must have had family in Sector 8. I know I'm an idiot bastard who doesn't know shit about the military or about running a government, but I can't believe I'm worse than that."
There was something about the image of the Shinra president, tied up and on his knees, blood dripping down his face. Something in the ironic half smile, the brown eyes that watched the crowd or Reno steadily as he awaited his fate with dark humor. It wasn't charisma, not in the sense of the type of personality that asserts its existence; rather the opposite in fact. The knowledge of his own insignificance formed the dark humor in his eyes, and yet passion and strength flowed from him, visible in his calm intensity. It was an arresting combination, and the listeners unconsciously paid attention.
Cloud spoke. "There are three groups fighting right now: us, Falstor, and Sephiroth. You can choose to join us or Falstor, and just pray that Sephiroth doesn't win, because joining him isn't an option."
"What the fuck, you trying to get the entire complement of Junon to defect?" Reno snickered, ignoring the steadily growing unease in the crowd.
Cloud didn't answer, but just met his gaze evenly.
Rude grunted, his gun never having wavered from Cloud during the whole performance. "Proof."
Elena blinked. "That's right. Nice speech, boyo, but unless you can prove that any of that's true, it's not gonna do you any good."
"Nice trick with the handcuffs though," Reno added. He nodded. "Do him, Elena."
Before the first syllable was fully out, Elena's gun had fired, Rude's a millisecond behind her. Cloud threw himself backwards, feeling pain tear through his shoulder, and then across his hip. He yanked the door to the staircase open and hit the ground rolling, angling to use it as a shield. The original plan was to dive down the stairs, but that would mean leaving Reeve, not that there was much he could do for him at the moment. . . A sharp yell proved that Reno was taking out his frustration on the only remaining prisoner. Cloud rolled to his feet and used a pile of boxes near the door to jump to the roof of the stairwell, rolling across it as bullet shots tore small bits of gravel and tar our of the shingling to spray against him. His arm suddenly started to throb as the initial shock wore off, informing him that in no way was he rolling on it again. It didn't matter, he was almost to the far edge; he gathered his legs under him and leapt out, keeping as low as possible. The edge of the roof scraped along his thighs, and then he was belly sliding down another pile of boxes to the ground, his ribs protesting with each corner they impacted with. He lay in an ungainly pile for a second before gritting his teeth and pushing himself to his feet. There was a pile of old ship parts awaiting to be scrapped across the way, ranging from huge two story pieces of hull to motorbike sized engines and everything in between. He could lose his pursuers for at least a few minutes in there, especially if they all just rushed in without a plan, and had to be careful of friendly fire. Hopefully Reno wouldn't want to kill Reeve without an audience. . .
Up over an old pipe, behind the huge blades of a broken propeller, and in the shadow of a pile of airlocks, Cloud paused. He yanked his shirt over his head one handed, carefully pulling it down the other arm despite his hurry. It was hard to tie a bandage one handed, but he'd done it before. He held one end between his teeth and yanked as hard as he could on the other, not caring that he was effectively cutting off most of his circulation. It would stop the blood flow, keeping him from leaving a trail, and that was all that mattered. He had been wearing a thin undershirt as well, which folded up inside his pants was enough to keep the blood from his hip wound from leaking through. The bullet had just creased him there, unlike in the arm. He wondered who had been the bad shot, Elena or Rude? It didn't matter, he had to get going. He had to find a good place to hide, someway to earn back the time he had wasted tying the bandages. . .
He slithered through the old duct slowly, unwilling to risk even the slightest sound that might give his location away to the searchers he could hear all around him. Reno had sent the soldiers in the audience after him as well, from the sounds of it, and like Cloud had hoped, they were causing more trouble for each other than he could. Every now and then he could hear a spurt of rapid fire, sometimes answered, sometimes not, often followed by a spate of curse filled yelling. The pipe bent ninety degrees ahead. He poked his head around the corner slowly, and felt like cursing himself as the bright light of day stung his eyes. Staying still accomplished nothing; even if they failed to find him immediately, it would be merely a matter of time, and it certainly did nothing to help Reeve. He had to keep moving, hoping to find something, an old bomb he could set off for a distraction, a plane to escape in, maybe a soldier he could ambush and steal a uniform from. . . that was a good idea, actually. If only the junk heap wasn't so full of shadows that the glow from his eyes was so obvious. . . well, he could keep them slitted. But first to find someone he could ambush in an area hidden enough he could strip them and change without someone else stumbling in. A hidden area, no, a inaccessible area. . . Cloud frowned thoughtfully and wondered if he could pull the trick with melting metal on something slightly larger. If he could do it without touching it would be perfect, actually. . . eventually someone else would stumble into the duct. If he could somehow close it behind them. . . or even close it now, from both ends, so it would look like no one could have entered. . . No, that didn't help Reeve at all. It would have to be the uniform.
He had paused in his careful movements to think, and the heavy smell of rust clogged his throat, making the pipe seem tighter and darker. This would not be a good time to develop claustrophobia. . . He pushed the thought aside, and begin slithering towards the opening ahead. He'd have to listen very closely, and choose his time to exit when no one was around. . . There was a heavy thud above him, as if some one had jumped on top of the duct, and then a low groan as the old metal shifted to absorb the new weight. It groaned again, and creaked. The floor Cloud was laying on slowly tilted up on one side.
"Harrison, you idiot, get off of there, it's gonna fall," someone snapped.
`Yes, get off, don't make this crash, please don't make this crash down,` Cloud silently urged the man above him.
"Nah, it's perfectly safe, look at the way it's balanced. And I got a great view of the area. You're just a worrywart. See?" And the metal boomed showed as he jumped up and down. Cloud gritted his teeth and braced himself as best he could.
The great mass of metal shrieked in warning before falling off the edge of whatever it had been resting on. Cloud's only consolation was that it undoubtedly brought the idiot on top along with it.
Cloud couldn't stifle a moan as he opened his eyes again. He froze, holding his breath, but after a few moments let it out slowly. It didn't seem like anyone had heard. Fine, he still had to get going, get out of here before the still shaky pile of scrap shifted some more. . . Oh, damn, moving hurt. He was betting he had at least a few broken ribs to go along with the bullet wound now. What he wouldn't give for some healing materia. . .
"Harrison, Harrison, are you OK?" The voice from before was approaching.
"What happened?" A new voice.
"The bloody idiot was jumping around up there and set it off. I told him to be careful!"
"No sign of the criminal?"
"Nah, just that idiot."
"Fine, Baker, Croller, you go help dig him out. Manors, keep watch in case Avalanche comes through here. I'll go get the medics."
A scuffled noise. "What happened?" Another voice asked.
"Just some idiots. . . What are you all doing over here? Damn it, go back to searching, he's not here. And hurry, he could be using your distraction to escape!"
Cloud almost groaned. If he had been anywhere else, this would have been the perfect opportunity. . . He settled back into a semi comfortable position. With so many people focused on this area, the only thing he could do was wait and pray they didn't find him while getting the idiot out.
Screech. Stressed curses followed the crash of metal as another piece of the pile broke off and tumbled down.
Cloud closed his eyes. `And pray the duct doesn't fall any further,` he added, shifting so his weight lay against the wall and not his ribs.
"What the fucking. . . Goddamn fucking shithole Bloody Shinra half assed plans. . ."
Cloud's eyes shot open at the sudden string of explicative, and saw. . . nothing. The duct, which had been lit by the opening at the far end and trickles of light through rust holes, was now enveloped in darkness, only the glow from his own eyes allowing him to see the it's outlines. His first thought was that more garbage had fallen atop them, burying the duct where the light couldn't touch, and he wondered when he had fallen so deeply unconscious that he hadn't noticed. Perhaps Sephiroth?
"Bloody freaking equipment. How the hell are we supposed to get out of this death trap in the dark?" The tirade from just outside hadn't let up. There was a screech of metal. "Don't move you goddamn idiot! Wait for the lights. . ."
He hadn't been unconscious then. The lights had gone off. He wriggled slowly to the edge of the pipe and peered out, careful not to make noise, although it probably didn't matter with the way the man outside was yelling. Pure, unbroken black. Not just the lights. All the electricity on the base was out- the sound of the massive fans that aerated the hangar had ceased, and the small lights on the elevator control panel, which he should be able to see from his location, were out, and he knew those ran on a separate circuit from the main lights. Even the emergency generators had quit, apparently, for no small red lights began to glow and break the darkness.
Cloud's chest tightened with worry. If Reno thought he had planned this, that this was part of an attack by Avalanche. . . He tossed caution to the wind and rolled out of the duct, ignoring the noise he made as he began jumping and sliding down the pile, trusting that the darkness would protect him from the guns of the soldiers as they fired at the racket. The glow from his eyes was more than enough to allow his enhanced eyesight to navigate the junk pile, and in seconds he was clear, hands shooting out like projectiles against the bodies of the soldiers guarding the stairwell he had descended just a few minutes earlier. They collapsed with barely an outcry, startled into silence by the sudden eerie attack from the darkness.
The hangar was still in chaos. Cloud hung near the wall, eyes slitted to keep from being noticed, and slid silently towards the front, trying to see the stage. Finally he got a clear view. . . there was no one standing on it, but. . .
He moved closer.
There was a lump alone near the middle of the stage, where Reeve had been, the right size and shape for a human corpse.
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Inarae here again, in June of 2003, over three years since I started this and almost a year since I worked on it last. I found chapters nine and ten a few months ago, never posted, and decided to repost the entire story-I took it down after Sept. 11th- writing a story about terrorism and nuclear weapons lost all appeal to me for a long time. Looking at this story now, I still like it, but frankly it's embarrassing. The plot is strong, but unfortunately or fortunately, my writing has improved and I have to keep from wincing as I reread it. In trying to get all the characters where they need to be doing what they need to be doing for the plot to move along, I ignored a lot of description. . . this story should be three times as long as it is, I think, if it were written properly. I would greatly like to rewrite this and fix that, along with the tacky characterizations and stereotypical situations, but I think I'll try to just finish it first. It's hard to get started though. . . I doubt that I'd keep reading it through the tackiness. So I guess I'm asking if anyone reads it all the way through to here, and if this is worth continuing or if I should just start all over with the rewrite because no one will read it otherwise.
There's a couple rather large reasons why I don't just give up on this story like I do so many others. One is simply that I'd like to finish another novella. There is absolutely nothing like the feeling of finishing a couple hundred pages and liking what you've done, and it would give a huge kick to my self esteem, especially since I mainly only read fanfic novels and novellas, so I'm not a big fan of my own shorts, even though I know they're better written than the novellas. The other reason is a bit more complicated. I started playing FFVII after reading Madam Hydra's wonderful, stunning fic Conflicts of Interest at www.madamhydra.net. I later found Twig's spectacular story a href=" http://www.black-waltz.net/noiresensus/bookshelf/ff7/" A Long, Hard Road /a. I loved and love those two stories, and I wanted more. There are a lot of other good FFVII stories around, but what I wanted to read was action and plot heavy post game Sephiroth, and that's almost impossible to find- mainly because it goes against cannon, I know. So I decided I'd better write it myself. The lack of originality in this fic is frankly another embarrassment to me- I know it draws heavily on both the stories above, although I didn't consciously realize that in the beginning.? I don't think it's similar enough anyone would get upset about it, for the most part the only similarity is that Seph gets reincarnated and that he and Cloud share a connection beyond that implied in the game, but . . . (wince) Still, it's what I wanted to read, what I still want to read, and three years later, searching the net, I still can't find much more of this type of fic, so I guess I'd better finish this for my own peace of mind. Maybe I can work the kinks in it out later.
Like always, C&C appreciated, and I am planning on working more on this soon. Thanks for reading,
Inarae
ginabrae@aol.com
I'm just temporarily enjoying the playground they outgrew and left behind. . . no sense in letting it go to waste!
C&C makes me happy! Thanks for reading.
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CHAPTER 10
Reno kicked at Reeve again, catching him on one of the arms crossed behind his back.
Reeve swayed and almost fell over. His eyes had been searching the crowd ever since Cloud had yelled, and finally landed on the chained figure in the back.
"Cloud. . ." His eyes widened in horror. Gods, he had been sure no one from Avalanche would be stupid enough to. . . Another kick interrupted his train of thought. Through the ringing in his ears he could hear Cloud yell again, and the nasal snickering of the red haired devil standing above him. He ignored what Reno had been saying about Cloud's advice; if there was even a grain of truth to it, it was undoubtedly a small grain.
Cloud yanked frustratedly at his bonds again, and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath, all too aware of Reno watching amused from the stage.
"Let Reeve go, Reno." Cloud's voice was calmer but pitched to carry over the entire crowd. "Let Reeve go, or this whole base is going to be a pile of scrap in a few days."
Two or three years ago, if someone had made a statement like that, there wasn't a soldier in Junon who wouldn't have laughed his or her head off before teaching the speaker a lesson about mouthing off. These days though, the listening soldiers just shifted uncomfortably.
Excluding Reno. He did laugh, and managed to sneer while doing it.
"Oooh, I'm scared. How're ya gonna manage that, blondie? Got a WEAPON up your sleeve?"
By common consent, Shinra employees did not make jokes about the planet's WEAPONS; too many of their associates had died as a result of them. Reno, naturally, ignored the said convention.
Cloud shook his head, speaking equally to Reno and the crowd now. "Something better. Sephiroth will come looking for me soon."
Reno froze.
"You killed him."
"Ask Falstor about that. There's a chunk of his base missing already from when Sephiroth came through there a week and a half ago."
"That's impossible!" Reno hissed, but made no move to shut Cloud up or continue with Reeve. "Sephiroth is dead."
"And even if he wasn't, he'd hardly be helping you," Elena snorted, forcing herself to relax despite the knot that had formed in her stomach. Not much scared Turks, as Reno's using the WEAPONS for humor showed. Sephiroth though. . . Sephiroth had killed the best of them, and made it obvious that not only had it been easy, it had been amusing. And there wasn't a Turk who believed that Avalanche could possibly have been strong enough to defeat him. The common consensus was that his mutations had eventually killed him, and Cloud just took the credit. It wasn't much of a stretch to believe that he hadn't died at all. . . Elena forced her mind away from that train of thought.
Cloud was watching her carefully. "You're right. He wouldn't come to help me. He'd come to hunt me, to take my mind and make me his slave, as Shinra intended me to be. He'd destroy everything in his path. And whatever's left," Cloud shrugged, "I'd probably destroy fighting him."
"Big words from a guy in handcuffs." Reno had lost control of his little scene, and was pissed about it. He was even more pissed about the tightness in his chest that he was damn certain wasn't fear.
Cloud stared back at him for a moment. Then he braced himself, reaching inside to open the door to knowledge that wasn't his, knowledge that had flooded his mind as he fell with the knowledge of his coming death. Knowledge of Jenova.
He wasn't sure if it was snippets of Sephiroth's memory, accompanying his plea for life, or if it came from the Jenova in his blood, freed when the Mako that had suppressed it was used up. He was rather sure that it probably wasn't a good idea to use it, but couldn't think of any other options at the moment, and wasn't willing to let Reeve suffer while he thought about it.
He brought his hands in front of him, the metal that had imprisoned him flowing liquid down his arms to drip from his fingertips. His eyes were glowing purple.
"Falstor knew," Cloud continued, deciding not to insult the Turks further by replying verbally to Reno's statement. He slowly ran his hands over each other, wiping off the remaining metal. "He knew Sephiroth lives, that he is hunting me, and he didn't tell you. And that's not the only thing he has stayed silent on. How many of you have family in Midgar? Friends, lovers? Their deaths are the price Falstor is willing to pay to gain control; will you still follow him? He has a weapon that can destroy the city in one blow, he is willing to use the threat of millions of innocent deaths to win. Is that who you want to serve?"
"Don't think that he wouldn't really use it either," Reeve added, wincing through a split lip. "At least some of you must have had family in Sector 8. I know I'm an idiot bastard who doesn't know shit about the military or about running a government, but I can't believe I'm worse than that."
There was something about the image of the Shinra president, tied up and on his knees, blood dripping down his face. Something in the ironic half smile, the brown eyes that watched the crowd or Reno steadily as he awaited his fate with dark humor. It wasn't charisma, not in the sense of the type of personality that asserts its existence; rather the opposite in fact. The knowledge of his own insignificance formed the dark humor in his eyes, and yet passion and strength flowed from him, visible in his calm intensity. It was an arresting combination, and the listeners unconsciously paid attention.
Cloud spoke. "There are three groups fighting right now: us, Falstor, and Sephiroth. You can choose to join us or Falstor, and just pray that Sephiroth doesn't win, because joining him isn't an option."
"What the fuck, you trying to get the entire complement of Junon to defect?" Reno snickered, ignoring the steadily growing unease in the crowd.
Cloud didn't answer, but just met his gaze evenly.
Rude grunted, his gun never having wavered from Cloud during the whole performance. "Proof."
Elena blinked. "That's right. Nice speech, boyo, but unless you can prove that any of that's true, it's not gonna do you any good."
"Nice trick with the handcuffs though," Reno added. He nodded. "Do him, Elena."
Before the first syllable was fully out, Elena's gun had fired, Rude's a millisecond behind her. Cloud threw himself backwards, feeling pain tear through his shoulder, and then across his hip. He yanked the door to the staircase open and hit the ground rolling, angling to use it as a shield. The original plan was to dive down the stairs, but that would mean leaving Reeve, not that there was much he could do for him at the moment. . . A sharp yell proved that Reno was taking out his frustration on the only remaining prisoner. Cloud rolled to his feet and used a pile of boxes near the door to jump to the roof of the stairwell, rolling across it as bullet shots tore small bits of gravel and tar our of the shingling to spray against him. His arm suddenly started to throb as the initial shock wore off, informing him that in no way was he rolling on it again. It didn't matter, he was almost to the far edge; he gathered his legs under him and leapt out, keeping as low as possible. The edge of the roof scraped along his thighs, and then he was belly sliding down another pile of boxes to the ground, his ribs protesting with each corner they impacted with. He lay in an ungainly pile for a second before gritting his teeth and pushing himself to his feet. There was a pile of old ship parts awaiting to be scrapped across the way, ranging from huge two story pieces of hull to motorbike sized engines and everything in between. He could lose his pursuers for at least a few minutes in there, especially if they all just rushed in without a plan, and had to be careful of friendly fire. Hopefully Reno wouldn't want to kill Reeve without an audience. . .
Up over an old pipe, behind the huge blades of a broken propeller, and in the shadow of a pile of airlocks, Cloud paused. He yanked his shirt over his head one handed, carefully pulling it down the other arm despite his hurry. It was hard to tie a bandage one handed, but he'd done it before. He held one end between his teeth and yanked as hard as he could on the other, not caring that he was effectively cutting off most of his circulation. It would stop the blood flow, keeping him from leaving a trail, and that was all that mattered. He had been wearing a thin undershirt as well, which folded up inside his pants was enough to keep the blood from his hip wound from leaking through. The bullet had just creased him there, unlike in the arm. He wondered who had been the bad shot, Elena or Rude? It didn't matter, he had to get going. He had to find a good place to hide, someway to earn back the time he had wasted tying the bandages. . .
He slithered through the old duct slowly, unwilling to risk even the slightest sound that might give his location away to the searchers he could hear all around him. Reno had sent the soldiers in the audience after him as well, from the sounds of it, and like Cloud had hoped, they were causing more trouble for each other than he could. Every now and then he could hear a spurt of rapid fire, sometimes answered, sometimes not, often followed by a spate of curse filled yelling. The pipe bent ninety degrees ahead. He poked his head around the corner slowly, and felt like cursing himself as the bright light of day stung his eyes. Staying still accomplished nothing; even if they failed to find him immediately, it would be merely a matter of time, and it certainly did nothing to help Reeve. He had to keep moving, hoping to find something, an old bomb he could set off for a distraction, a plane to escape in, maybe a soldier he could ambush and steal a uniform from. . . that was a good idea, actually. If only the junk heap wasn't so full of shadows that the glow from his eyes was so obvious. . . well, he could keep them slitted. But first to find someone he could ambush in an area hidden enough he could strip them and change without someone else stumbling in. A hidden area, no, a inaccessible area. . . Cloud frowned thoughtfully and wondered if he could pull the trick with melting metal on something slightly larger. If he could do it without touching it would be perfect, actually. . . eventually someone else would stumble into the duct. If he could somehow close it behind them. . . or even close it now, from both ends, so it would look like no one could have entered. . . No, that didn't help Reeve at all. It would have to be the uniform.
He had paused in his careful movements to think, and the heavy smell of rust clogged his throat, making the pipe seem tighter and darker. This would not be a good time to develop claustrophobia. . . He pushed the thought aside, and begin slithering towards the opening ahead. He'd have to listen very closely, and choose his time to exit when no one was around. . . There was a heavy thud above him, as if some one had jumped on top of the duct, and then a low groan as the old metal shifted to absorb the new weight. It groaned again, and creaked. The floor Cloud was laying on slowly tilted up on one side.
"Harrison, you idiot, get off of there, it's gonna fall," someone snapped.
`Yes, get off, don't make this crash, please don't make this crash down,` Cloud silently urged the man above him.
"Nah, it's perfectly safe, look at the way it's balanced. And I got a great view of the area. You're just a worrywart. See?" And the metal boomed showed as he jumped up and down. Cloud gritted his teeth and braced himself as best he could.
The great mass of metal shrieked in warning before falling off the edge of whatever it had been resting on. Cloud's only consolation was that it undoubtedly brought the idiot on top along with it.
Cloud couldn't stifle a moan as he opened his eyes again. He froze, holding his breath, but after a few moments let it out slowly. It didn't seem like anyone had heard. Fine, he still had to get going, get out of here before the still shaky pile of scrap shifted some more. . . Oh, damn, moving hurt. He was betting he had at least a few broken ribs to go along with the bullet wound now. What he wouldn't give for some healing materia. . .
"Harrison, Harrison, are you OK?" The voice from before was approaching.
"What happened?" A new voice.
"The bloody idiot was jumping around up there and set it off. I told him to be careful!"
"No sign of the criminal?"
"Nah, just that idiot."
"Fine, Baker, Croller, you go help dig him out. Manors, keep watch in case Avalanche comes through here. I'll go get the medics."
A scuffled noise. "What happened?" Another voice asked.
"Just some idiots. . . What are you all doing over here? Damn it, go back to searching, he's not here. And hurry, he could be using your distraction to escape!"
Cloud almost groaned. If he had been anywhere else, this would have been the perfect opportunity. . . He settled back into a semi comfortable position. With so many people focused on this area, the only thing he could do was wait and pray they didn't find him while getting the idiot out.
Screech. Stressed curses followed the crash of metal as another piece of the pile broke off and tumbled down.
Cloud closed his eyes. `And pray the duct doesn't fall any further,` he added, shifting so his weight lay against the wall and not his ribs.
"What the fucking. . . Goddamn fucking shithole Bloody Shinra half assed plans. . ."
Cloud's eyes shot open at the sudden string of explicative, and saw. . . nothing. The duct, which had been lit by the opening at the far end and trickles of light through rust holes, was now enveloped in darkness, only the glow from his own eyes allowing him to see the it's outlines. His first thought was that more garbage had fallen atop them, burying the duct where the light couldn't touch, and he wondered when he had fallen so deeply unconscious that he hadn't noticed. Perhaps Sephiroth?
"Bloody freaking equipment. How the hell are we supposed to get out of this death trap in the dark?" The tirade from just outside hadn't let up. There was a screech of metal. "Don't move you goddamn idiot! Wait for the lights. . ."
He hadn't been unconscious then. The lights had gone off. He wriggled slowly to the edge of the pipe and peered out, careful not to make noise, although it probably didn't matter with the way the man outside was yelling. Pure, unbroken black. Not just the lights. All the electricity on the base was out- the sound of the massive fans that aerated the hangar had ceased, and the small lights on the elevator control panel, which he should be able to see from his location, were out, and he knew those ran on a separate circuit from the main lights. Even the emergency generators had quit, apparently, for no small red lights began to glow and break the darkness.
Cloud's chest tightened with worry. If Reno thought he had planned this, that this was part of an attack by Avalanche. . . He tossed caution to the wind and rolled out of the duct, ignoring the noise he made as he began jumping and sliding down the pile, trusting that the darkness would protect him from the guns of the soldiers as they fired at the racket. The glow from his eyes was more than enough to allow his enhanced eyesight to navigate the junk pile, and in seconds he was clear, hands shooting out like projectiles against the bodies of the soldiers guarding the stairwell he had descended just a few minutes earlier. They collapsed with barely an outcry, startled into silence by the sudden eerie attack from the darkness.
The hangar was still in chaos. Cloud hung near the wall, eyes slitted to keep from being noticed, and slid silently towards the front, trying to see the stage. Finally he got a clear view. . . there was no one standing on it, but. . .
He moved closer.
There was a lump alone near the middle of the stage, where Reeve had been, the right size and shape for a human corpse.
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Inarae here again, in June of 2003, over three years since I started this and almost a year since I worked on it last. I found chapters nine and ten a few months ago, never posted, and decided to repost the entire story-I took it down after Sept. 11th- writing a story about terrorism and nuclear weapons lost all appeal to me for a long time. Looking at this story now, I still like it, but frankly it's embarrassing. The plot is strong, but unfortunately or fortunately, my writing has improved and I have to keep from wincing as I reread it. In trying to get all the characters where they need to be doing what they need to be doing for the plot to move along, I ignored a lot of description. . . this story should be three times as long as it is, I think, if it were written properly. I would greatly like to rewrite this and fix that, along with the tacky characterizations and stereotypical situations, but I think I'll try to just finish it first. It's hard to get started though. . . I doubt that I'd keep reading it through the tackiness. So I guess I'm asking if anyone reads it all the way through to here, and if this is worth continuing or if I should just start all over with the rewrite because no one will read it otherwise.
There's a couple rather large reasons why I don't just give up on this story like I do so many others. One is simply that I'd like to finish another novella. There is absolutely nothing like the feeling of finishing a couple hundred pages and liking what you've done, and it would give a huge kick to my self esteem, especially since I mainly only read fanfic novels and novellas, so I'm not a big fan of my own shorts, even though I know they're better written than the novellas. The other reason is a bit more complicated. I started playing FFVII after reading Madam Hydra's wonderful, stunning fic Conflicts of Interest at www.madamhydra.net. I later found Twig's spectacular story a href=" http://www.black-waltz.net/noiresensus/bookshelf/ff7/" A Long, Hard Road /a. I loved and love those two stories, and I wanted more. There are a lot of other good FFVII stories around, but what I wanted to read was action and plot heavy post game Sephiroth, and that's almost impossible to find- mainly because it goes against cannon, I know. So I decided I'd better write it myself. The lack of originality in this fic is frankly another embarrassment to me- I know it draws heavily on both the stories above, although I didn't consciously realize that in the beginning.? I don't think it's similar enough anyone would get upset about it, for the most part the only similarity is that Seph gets reincarnated and that he and Cloud share a connection beyond that implied in the game, but . . . (wince) Still, it's what I wanted to read, what I still want to read, and three years later, searching the net, I still can't find much more of this type of fic, so I guess I'd better finish this for my own peace of mind. Maybe I can work the kinks in it out later.
Like always, C&C appreciated, and I am planning on working more on this soon. Thanks for reading,
Inarae
ginabrae@aol.com