Meanwhile, having travelled from the Slums of Sector 7 to the upper city of Sector 8, at the area just before the Mako Reactor N01, a large metallic steam train came to a screeching halt in the Reactor's train station, and behind it stood the massive Mako Reactor N01 itself.
Pistons pumped and gases hissed from the train as it had grinded to an abrupt halt. Two Shinra platform guards in smart red uniforms stood watch at the station, watching as the train headed towards the station, expecting a dull routine of keeping a close watch on the passengers from the train.
"Reactor guard duty again…this sucks. As if anyone's gonna try to sneak into here," said the first guard, snorting, looking both sceptical and bored. The second guard nodded in clear agreement.
"Yeah, tell me about it. But that's the bosses for ya, always paranoid. Anyways, here comes the train. We just gotta make sure no unauthorised person enters the Mako Reactor. Just the employees, soldiers, and executives," said the second guard, though he looked rather bored as he said it.
The coolant systems on the train's engines and wheels quickly sprung to life, bathing the hot parts with chilly foam, filling the air with the smell of burning rubber.
The two guards at the station pinched their noses and tried to wave the nasty smell away. When the train had fully stopped, and while the guards were distracted by the smell, a man suddenly leaped straight from the top of the train, landing onto the ground of the train station, having apparently sneaked up onto the train roof, unnoticed.
He was wearing a crimson red bandana on his forehead, and he also wore a dark green shirt with dark green jeans. He had black hair that seemed very flat, and his name was Biggs. Biggs was a veteran of the Wutai Wars, and he had been an expert in demolitions, which was the role he now did for AVALANCHE.
The guards hadn't seen Biggs leap from the train roof, but they had heard the sound of Biggs landing on the station, and spun around in the direction of the sound, looking highly surprised and shocked as they spotted Biggs, realising at once that he was an unauthorised person trying to sneak into the Mako Reactor. Biggs looked back at them at the other end of the station, looking calm but deadly serious.
"(So it begins at last…the very first mission. The very first stand against the great Shinra Incorporated. After this, it's too late to back out of it…if we even survive this mission…)" thought Biggs, grimly.
Noticing Biggs, the two guards charged towards him, intending to capture him at once, but Biggs quickly spun around to face them, knowing that they would underestimate him, to their fatal downfall. Silently and effortlessly, Biggs reached out and slung one of them over his shoulder, smashing the soldier's face on to the cold platform, knocking him out cold.
Biggs kicked the guard hard in the side, sending him flying to the side of the train, and the guard fell to the ground with a loud thud after slamming off the side of the train, landing in the railroad, and he was killed instantly, due to landing in quite an odd angle.
A woman then leaped straight onto the train station from the top of the train, just like Biggs had done, having also apparently sneaked onto it unnoticed, and the woman stood beside Biggs. She had bushy brown hair and wore a bright blue shirt with dark green jeans. She wore a red bandana, and a green ribbon that tied her brown hair into a ponytail.
Her name was Jessie, and she was highly intelligent, and she was also a very quick thinker. She was also extremely experienced at computing and hacking skills, and was therefore the technical genius in the AVALANCHE rebel group.
"(I think I've organised all the settings for the bombs, codes, timers and remotes…I just hope all my calculations were correct in every detail, or we won't even stand a chance…)" thought Jessie, anxiously.
Jessie quickly spun around to face the remaining guard, who charged towards them, and she quickly grabbed him by his collar, throwing him straight over her head, and the guard was killed instantly when he hit the hard ground headfirst, and twisted his neck in the fall. Jessie spun around to face Biggs, who looked back at her.
"Did you see anymore of these guys around here in this station, Biggs?" asked Jessie, urgently, looking cautiously around the train station for any sign of attack. Biggs shook his head in response.
"No, I think that these two guys were the only ones standing guard over here. They'll be more Shinra soldiers up ahead though, as we get closer to the Mako Reactor, I'm certain about that," said Biggs.
"Still, it looks like Shinra's getting a little sloppy organising a suitable defence around here. Not that I'm complaining about it, of course. So…it looks like this is it then. The very first mission…after all those months of preparation…for this very moment," said Jessie, solemnly.
"Yeah, it does seem quite hard to believe it's finally happening after all this time, doesn't it? You nervous, Jessie?" asked Biggs, curiously.
"As nervous as hell. I'm sure we all are, but none of us are backing out now, no matter what. Shinra Incorporated have to be stopped, and if we don't do it, then who will?" said Jessie, with a shrug.
"Yeah, I guess I see your point, Jessie. But we've sure got a hell of a mountain to climb all the same," said Biggs, looking worried and grim. Jessie seemed nervous at his words and quickly changed the subject.
"Are the bombs all ready? It's your job to sort the demolitions out, after all," said Jessie. Biggs nodded, looking confident about it.
"Yeah, I've made sure all the necessary equipment was secretly ordered, and I've made sure that the bombs are all properly built and constructed. How about you, though? You're the technical expert, you got their settings all set up?" asked Biggs, curiously.
"I'm still waiting for direct orders from Barret, as to what the exact settings for the bomb's timer should be, or if it should be a remote detonation, but other than that, everything's good to go," said Jessie, confidently.
"Alright then, since this area's been cleared, I'll signal for the others," said Biggs, and he quickly signalled the inside of the train with a gesture of his arm.
The message had clearly been received, as another man jumped straight onto the train station from the top of the train, though it was with much less grace.
This man was quite fat and chubby, but still reasonably fit, and he wore a bright red cap and a cream coloured shirt with blue jeans. He had scruffy black hair under his red cap, and his name was Wedge.
Wedge knew many things about Midgar, and was a veteran in the knowledge of the dark city, having once worked at a Reactor, but had left when realising how bad to the core Shinra really was.
Right now, he was the navigator of AVALANCHE, showing their way around the Reactors. Wedge chuckled to himself as he stood watch, noticing that there were no guards left in the area of the train station.
"All clear, then? At least sneaking into the train and this station didn't take all that much effort, but I guess things are going to get a lot harder once we enter the Mako Reactor, right? Makes me nervous just thinking about it," said Wedge, looking uneasy, but he still had no intention of leaving all the same, and even if he was scared, he would still help the Planet and fight for its survival.
"Then don't think about it, because there's no backing out of this now, you know. So are Barret and the new guy coming or what?" asked Biggs, somewhat impatiently, looking back at the train for signs of movement inside it.
"Don't worry about that, they're gonna follow after us. So anyway, if we take that passage at the end of the station, it should lead to a locked gate. Beyond that is the reactor bridge, and then we're into the Reactor itself. So let's go, Barret said we have to get there right away," explained Wedge.
"Wait, didn't Barret say that we all have to go separately, and not travel as a group, so as to look less suspicious to nearby soldiers?" asked Jessie, raising an eyebrow. Biggs snorted in response.
"Oh come on, there's no time for that. We've got to all hurry and get going right now, some come on!" said Biggs, impatiently, as he then quickly ran off to the passage, with Wedge following him, and after a weary sigh and shake of her head, Jessie followed them as well.
"(Boys…they never listen to common sense at all. Always wanting to rush off into battle instead of thinking things out logically,) thought Jessie, exasperated.
Biggs, Wedge and Jessie all ran down together to the far end of the station, turning left through a passage that left the train station, and it would soon lead to the very entrance of Mako Reactor N0.1 itself. Biggs, Wedge and Jessie were all working together to complete their plan, their mission, as they were friends and allies in the same rebel group.
Just after they were out of sight, yet another man jumped onto the train station from the top of the still unmoving train, landing with a big thud on the ground of the station, leaving some cracks in the pavement of it, but the man himself was not affected in the least.
This man was massive, though not in the sense that Wedge was, as he was very muscular rather than fat, and was quite tall as well, so in appearance he seemed very imposing and threatening to most people, a fact that he often used to his advantage.
He was thirty-five years old, and he was a dark-skinned black man. He had short, black hair, and he had dark, brown eyes, which often wore a hard expression. He wore a brown, very tattered-looking jacket with dark-green jeans. But this man had no right arm at all.
Instead of a right arm, he had a large Gatling machine gun in place of it instead, grafted into the slump of his wrist, having lost the rest of his arm years ago.
Nobody knew how he had lost his arm, except for this man himself, of course, and perhaps Shinra knew as well, if they had figured out the connection between them back then. His name was Barret Wallace.
"(Damn Shinra! I've been waiting four whole years, but now it's finally about time for a little payback from those rotten bastards!)" thought Barret, furiously.
Once on the train station, Barret quickly signalled for another man to come out with his left and only hand (the other man was the last member of the team) so the man somersaulted straight from the top of the train and landed onto the station in an amazing back flip, landing just in front of Barret and not stumbling in the least.
"(Damn bigheaded cocky show off! What the hell does he think he's doing anyways, this is an important mission, not some damn ego boost!)" thought Barret, angrily.
This other man had blonde, very spiky-shaped hair that was always sticking up like that as though he made no effort to brush it down, and he wore a dark purple shirt that seemed almost dark blue, and he wore black jeans.
He had blue eyes that were always glowing brightly, and he carried a huge, wide, heavy sword as his weapon that many people would have found hard to even lift, but this man could handle it very easily, and his enormous sword could cut almost anything in two. This man's name was Cloud Strife, and he was twenty-one years old.
Cloud was an Ex-SOLDIER, which was why his eyes always glowed, since he had been infused with Mako energy just like every other SOLDIER, and he was now a mercenary, having just recently joined up with this group, having been hired to help them with this mission, but after the mission was over, he was planning to leave as soon as possible. Barret's loud, irritated words snapped Cloud out of his thoughts.
"Come on, newcomer, follow me! Hey, get off your spiky-ass and get a move on, will ya!? Ain't you ever gonna come!? We ain't got all goddamn day, ya know!" yelled Barret, impatiently, clearly agitated about something.
"Yeah, yeah, cool it. Alright already, I'm coming," said Cloud, coolly, shrugging, thinking that Barret was definitely over reacting, but Barret was still clearly irritated all the same, as he glared hard at Cloud.
"Damn show off! Just because I tell ya to come down here don't mean ya gotta somersault right off the bloody train! That's why you'll never be leader of a mission, if ya don't even take it seriously!" shouted Barret.
"I am only here to get my rightful pay for this task, and nothing else. I will do any mission by myself, without anyone else's assistance," said Cloud, coldly, his voice now icy, starting to get annoyed with Barret's clear agitation.
"Well, you're only gonna get your goddamn pay after this damn job is over and done with to my satisfaction, ya got it, dumb ass!?" shouted Barret, irritably.
Turning away, Barret quickly ran down the path out of the station leading to the Mako Reactor, in the same direction that Biggs, Wedge and Jessie had went. Cloud stared after him coldly and indifferently.
"(How did I ever get myself into this stupid mess? All this effort of blowing up a Mako Reactor and listening to that guy's rambling had better be worth the money,)" thought Cloud, irritably, as he quickly followed Barret.
Two Shinra soldiers suddenly ran from another passage, spotted Cloud and ran towards him to attack him, having apparently not noticed Barret or any of the others.
Cloud saw them coming, and he quickly came to a halt, though he looked irritated and impatient rather than being worried or nervous.
"Freeze, intruder! Do not attempt to move! Go even one inch and we will shoot you! Give it up, you're finished!" shouted one of the Shinra soldiers, in a commanding tone.
Cloud looked completely indifferent about unconcerned about the situation he currently found himself in, and he knew that these Shinra soldiers were certainly incompetent if they had just let four other rebels slip through their grasp without even noticing them.
"Hand a man a gun, and he suddenly feels invincible to everything else around him. I guess I'll have to do this the hard way then. Let me show you the error of your ways," said Cloud, coolly, and he readied his wide, massive sword in a flash as if it weighed no more than a wristwatch.
Cloud then quickly launched into attack, using his sword, and attacked one of the soldiers before the soldier could even react, slashing the sword straight through his chest and cutting right through his armour, and killing the soldier instantly in a shower of blood, as the bloody corpse fell to the ground.
Terrified, the other soldier quickly used his machine gun and fired some bullets at Cloud, but Cloud managed to hold his sword up in front of him and blocked all the bullets with it without much effort, as the guns they carried appeared not to be all that powerful, just as their armour didn't appear to be that tough, against the strength of Cloud's blade.
Cloud then attacked with his sword, slashing it through the armour and the stomach of the other soldier, killing this soldier instantly as well, with the sword slashing straight through him, cutting him in half, as the body fell in two pieces to a bloody heap on the ground. Cloud wiped the bloodstains off his sword, and then he sheathed it just as quickly as he had drawn it only moments before.
"Business as usual," said Cloud, coolly, with an indifferent and unconcerned shrug.
Ten feet in front, Barret snorted at him, having apparently stopped to watch Cloud's brief battle, and Cloud could tell that Barret was impressed, despite himself.
But that was something he knew that Barret was never going to admit to him or anyone, as Barret gave him an irritated and impatient look.
"Yeah whatever, you damn show off, now come on and just follow me!" shouted Barret, sharply, and he ran off towards the passage towards the Mako Reactor.
"(He really has some attitude problems. His manners sure need a lot of work too, or he'll never get any new recruits or members if he treats them like this. Not that I care about it though, I'm certainly not sticking around regardless,)" thought Cloud, coldly.
Cloud shrugged, and he quickly followed Barret. He quickly ran down the passage where Barret and the others had gone and he tried to catch up with them, although he soon lost sight of Barret, and just continued to run along the passage, seeing the Mako Reactor towering above the whole area, very close from where he was, and ran in the direction of it.
Cloud finally came to a locked security gate, and found Biggs, Wedge and Jessie standing outside it, trying to get it open using codes. Cloud couldn't see Barret around, and just assumed that he hadn't arrived yet and must have taken a different path.
"(So it's only these guys that are other members of AVALANCHE? Not bad fighting skills from what I've seen, but I don't think they'll stand any chance up against platoons of Shinra soldiers. Barret doesn't know what he's getting himself into by relying on only them against the whole might of Shinra Incorporated,)" thought Cloud.
Jessie knelt before the security gate, huddled over a rectangular box marked with a keypad and a digital strip that was reading out dull orange numbers and letters in lines faster than the eye could follow. Luckily, she didn't actually have to follow them, though. These were secret codes they would use to open the gates, so the group could break through into the Mako Reactor.
Wires running from the back of the box were spliced into the couplings that kept the gate locked. From her splicing box, a coiled wire attached to a simple telephone handset fed her the most important numbers and letters in slow beeps to open the locked security gate. She worked the pad accordingly, feeding it the numbers it wanted to open the gate.
There were so many things to consider. Opening the gate, she knew, was like a point of no return. Beyond this gate was possible death, only it would be up to luck and fate whose death would come, and it could very well be hers.
"(But that was always our possible fate the moment we decided to go up against the Shinra Incorporated, and there's no changing that now. Fate can sometimes be how a person chooses it to be, and that's how it will be now, we can defy Shinra Incorporated, and live on to defeat them for good,)" thought Jessie, determinedly.
Pushing aside her thoughts, she continued to work on getting the codes entered. Despite the fact that this mission was the largest, most important and most dangerous she had ever embarked on, and that opening the gates would only further ensure that she could not turn back, there was something about falling into her work that made it easier.
Following the tones of the codes running through the electrical system of the gate couplings, Jessie felt blessed peace descend upon her. It made her job much easier, focusing on electronics and technical stuff, it had always fascinated her, and it kept her from dwelling on the dangers ahead.
Wedge stood to her left, paying no particular attention to what she was doing. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, and his considerable bulk swayed with the motion. It was an irritating habit that would have driven Jessie to distraction on any normal day. But this was no normal day.
"(I've honestly never been so scared in my whole entire life…yet for some reason, I still feel compelled to go forward with this mission…and with this whole rebellion…Compelled to fight for the Planet…)" thought Wedge.
All of them were nervous, but they knew that this was what they had shed their blood, sweat, and tears for. This was their fight. They would fight for the Planet. They might even have to die for it if they weren't careful. But if they didn't fight at all, then the Planet would definitely die, and they with it, along with everyone else.
Biggs crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched Jessie keying in the code. He could easily imagine several groups of Shinra soldiers coming around the far corner, all of them armed with machine guns.
"(No way that can happen, especially so early, before we ever really make our stand against them. Even if we don't succeed, we're still gonna put up a hell of a fight to show Shinra that they're never as invincible as they would like to think,)" thought Biggs.
The Shinra soldiers, though, would see them at the gate, and immediately recognize that they were intruders. Biggs, Wedge and Jessie would be able to take many of them down, but not all of them, and eventually they would...Biggs squinted his eyes shut tightly, and forced the image away.
Wedge was looking around for enemies and being the lookout, although he seemed somewhat nervous, while Jessie was still squatting in front of the gate panel with a tool pouch, trying to disarm the security codes and open the gate. Biggs spun around in alarm when he heard Cloud running towards them, but he quickly relaxed when he saw who it was, having already been given an explanation and description about Cloud from Barret on the train.
"So then, you're the newcomer who Barret told us about, huh? Wow, looks like you used to be in SOLDIER, alright! It's not everyday that you find one in an anti-Shinra group like AVALANCHE. What a great stroke of luck for us, though. I'm glad you decided to help us after all. Well done, although I guess an Ex-SOLDIER like you has seen far more dangerous enemies," said Biggs, clearly impressed indeed with Cloud's skills, having evidently seen him fight against the two Shinra soldiers he had slaughtered earlier.
Cloud merely snorted in response, although Biggs was quite right in that regard. He had faced far more dangerous enemies than mere Shinra soldiers, and one particular enemy he had faced had been stronger beyond imagination, beyond one's wildest nightmares…
With a slight shudder, which no one else seemed to notice, to his relief, Cloud blocked out his thoughts on that subject once again, and the emotions that came with them. His composure quickly regained, Cloud looked indifferently at Biggs.
"Yeah well, don't thank me just yet. This mission is far from over. And besides, I'm not going to be around long enough to care. So don't sweat it too much," replied Cloud, coldly.
Having been listening with interest to the conversation while working intently on the codes for the gate, Jessie stopped working for a second as a thought occurred to her, as she looked up and turned around to face Biggs, with a puzzled and suspicious look on her face.
"(Wait, did Biggs just say what I think he said…? This new guy was one of our enemies? Hmmm…well, I think he's kind of cute and all, but if he's still a danger to us then there's no way we can trust him,)" thought Jessie, and then she spoke up, getting their attention.
"He's a SOLDIER? But aren't they supposed to be the enemy or something? Just what's he doing with us in AVALANCHE, then? Biggs, I thought that SOLDIER are the enemy. How come is he helping us?" asked Jessie, sharply, and glancing at Cloud with sudden suspicion.
Cloud took no notice or concern of this, not caring for their ridiculous assumptions, while Biggs hastened nervously to reply, shaking his head quickly.
"Hold it, Jessie, just relax. He was in SOLDIER, and he was indeed part of Shinra. But don't jump to conclusions. He quit them, and now he's one of us. He's on our side, and for some good money too, I hear. Nice to have an Ex-SOLDIER on our side too, it gives Shinra a taste of their own medicine, a nice bit of irony. Hey new guy, that reminds me, I didn't even catch your name. At least, I don't remember you telling us your name," said Biggs, glancing at Cloud.
Jessie turned away to concentrate on resuming her work with the locked gate and its codes, getting steadily closer to opening it. Cloud only gave Biggs a cold, icy stare. Biggs suddenly felt very open and exposed to his cold stare, but he just managed to keep his nervous smile and composure. Cloud wondered whether he should even bother to answer, either way it wouldn't make much difference, since his stay at AVALANCHE was only going to be temporary after all.
"(Does this guy even remember that I'm only a mercenary on a single job for them? It's not as if I have any loyalty or service to these rag-tag losers or to the Planet for that matter,)" thought Cloud, scornfully.
"The name's Cloud Strife," replied Cloud, flatly, to Biggs and the others, who all nodded in acknowledgement, though they looked a bit puzzled at the name. Jessie got back to opening the gate; while Wedge continued to keep an eye out around the area for any enemies nearby, as Biggs spoke up again to Cloud.
"Cloud, huh? What kind of name is that anyway? Never mind, I'm Biggs. Pleased to meet you," said Biggs, holding his hand out politely. Cloud only stared back coldly, and did not take the handshake.
"Listen up, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I don't really care much about what your names are. It can wait until after this mission is over and hopefully the robo-guards won't have come by then. Once this whole job is finished, and when you guys pay me, I'm out of here," said Cloud, sharply. Biggs lowered his hand, taken aback.
"(Well, this guy certainly doesn't seem like the friendliest person around, but then again, I would expect no less from someone who was trained by Shinra Incorporated,)" thought Biggs, and he spoke up again to the seemingly indifferent Ex-SOLDIER, trying not to feel annoyed.
"Yeah, understood. I won't even bother to say hello then, if that's what you prefer, right? Well man, that's no attitude for someone trying to help the Planet! Where do you get off to anyway, deciding to join us once, and then just vanish off into the night?" asked Biggs, frowning.
"Listen, I am a mercenary, and I will do whatever I can for money, for my own payment. For this one mission, Barret had promised me a good sum of money, so I promised him just one full service in return. I owe allegiance to no one. Is that clear enough for you?" asked Cloud, sharply.
Biggs just shrugged and turned away, understanding Cloud's reasons, but he still couldn't help but feel a little offended at his words all the same, particularly at the way they sounded to him.
Just then, Barret Wallace suddenly showed up from a passage to the right of them, bursting into the area, stopping to the side of them all, and he was in a very annoyed and determined mood.
He looked around at them all, seeing them all there in the same place, and he seemed even more irritated at this, and shook his large one remaining fist around at them in pure fury that made everyone else except Cloud uneasy, knowing this meant Barret was about to lose his temper again. Jessie shot a look at Biggs as if to say 'I told you so', before Barret started to rage at them in anger, as they had expected.
"What the hell are all of ya doing!? I thought I told ya all never to move in a group! Do you want us to be all caught in one full swoop!? I told you all, until Jessie has got the gate open, hang around somewhere else! Shit, do you not realise how suspicious we all look like this!? Jessie, how's the door along coming, girl?" asked Barret, irritably.
"I just cracked the code, now all I need to do is transfer the data of my pocket computer into the door. Just two more data figures, and then I'll be done," replied Jessie. Barret nodded, satisfied with the answer, and spoke up again, as the others, even Cloud, paid close attention.
"Good, now get on with it. You've all known that this was our target for months, and now we're finally here. So don't blow it…no, I take that back. We are going to blow it! The Reactor, that is! Anyways, our target is the Sector 1 Mako Reactor. Split up and meet on the bridge in front of it. Now all of ya listen, inside there's gonna be some patrols. Jessie, hurry up with that gate and get moving. Biggs, stand near the front and make sure that the codes for all locked doors are remembered. We need a quick getaway," explained Barret.
"Alright then, leave it to me, Barret," replied Biggs, nodding and saluting grimly to Barret. Barret nodded back at him, and turned to face Wedge, who listened intently to what he had to say.
"Wedge, we need ya to go around to the escape route and guard it. There will be three guards there, but you can handle them alone, no sweat. Then I need you to do the hard part. Crack the code for the main bridge door that opens the tunnel into Sector 8. We can't leave the way we came, or we'll be caught for sure," explained Barret.
"I understand, Barret. I'll get right on it," replied Wedge, also saluting. Barret nodded back at him as well, before he addressed as attention to the whole group, though he seemed to be trying to act as though Cloud wasn't there.
"Remember, all of ya, we can't afford any delays on the way out of here. Now all of ya get ya scrawny asses down to the Reactor, now, on the double," ordered Barret.
Barret was the leader of AVALANCHE and he always liked to boss people around, especially whenever he had a good excuse to do so. But Barret was still a very good leader, extremely strategic and cunning. Jessie quickly snipped the main wire of the gate in half, forcing it to open immediately.
"Ha, I've got it! Alright, the security gate's open. Let's get going down to the Mako Reactor," said Jessie, triumphantly. Barret nodded in response, satisfied, and quickly motioned at them all to go through the gate quickly.
Jessie had successfully got the gate open and she, Biggs and Wedge quickly ran through the gate, and this time they took different directions with different passages leading straight to the Reactor bridge, which would then lead them straight into the Mako Reactor N0.1 itself.
"Hey, come on, Barret! Hurry up!" called Wedge, looking over his shoulder, before he and the others soon went out of sight along the paths.
Barret started to follow them, but then he quickly stopped just when he was going past the gate, and he turned back to face Cloud, with a very suspicious and enraged look on his black-skinned face.
"I heard the others. A bloody Ex-SOLDIER, eh? Tifa's childhood friend or not, I don't trust ya, ya damn idiot! We got a very important job to do tonight, so if ya got any idea's about turning on us…I'm gonna be the one that wastes your ass!" shouted Barret.
To make his point more threatening, Barret raised his right arm to reveal the large machine gun that had been grafted right into the stump of his right wrist, in place of where his wrist and hand should have been.
Cloud noticed this with some surprise and wondered despite himself how Barret lost his right arm, but he was still completely unconcerned by the threat, or by the big black man that stood menacingly before him.
"Well surprise-surprise, that makes two of us. I don't trust you either to be honest, but that is irrelevant now. The sooner we'll get this whole thing over with, the happier that we'll both be. Do you honestly think that I'm going to turn on you, Barret? Is that it? I thought you were at least smarter than that," replied Cloud, coldly. Barret glared angrily at Cloud, his one fist clenched tightly and shaking with rage.
"Just be sure to do the damn mission!" snapped Barret, and he then ran quickly after Biggs, Wedge and Jessie towards the Mako Reactor, without another glance behind him, which didn't bother Cloud in the slightest.
Cloud simply ignored Barret's suspicions, not caring in the least, and he ran along the passage and followed Barret along the paths to the Reactor bridge.
"(Who does that guy think he is anyway? He's lucky that I even agreed to do the damn job, but I doubt that I'll get very much money out of it. It still better be worth it though, since this is getting really annoying,)" thought Cloud.
Cloud ran straight along the passage, turned right, went straight on, turned left and then he kept running straight on until he finally came to the bridge.
The others were already there as Barret, Jessie and Biggs turned right at the middle of the bridge and ran along the path of the bridge to the opposite end of the bridge and to the entrance of the Mako Reactor.
Wedge was standing opposite Cloud on the bridge at the escape passage, guarding it and making sure no security or enemies came through or towards it.
Three Shinra soldiers were lying dead nearby, each with noticeable gunshot wounds all over them, and with looks of shock and horror glued to their unmoving faces.
Wedge had clearly dealt with them all at once without much effort, as he didn't even have a scratch, attacking and killing them on sight before the soldiers had any chance to counter attack.
The Reactor bridge, which was at least a hundred feet above the Sector 8 upper city, led into the Mako Reactor itself, but it also branched off to the side as well, to the exit they would have to use later.
Wedge just stood in front of the large door labelled "EMERGENCY EXIT" and cast a nervous glance around the area, and then he noticed Cloud standing at the opposite end of the bridge, to the side route of where the entrance to the Mako Reactor itself was.
"Don't worry, Cloud, I'll secure the escape passage, to make sure it's safe for us to use when we have to get back out of here. I've already given the others instructions on where to go inside the Mako Reactor. Just concentrate on the mission ahead, Cloud. Run after the others, while I just keep watch over here. So, we really are going to blow up this huge furnace at last, huh? This will definitely be something to see," said Wedge, with some clear interest about the whole situation.
Cloud only nodded in response, and then he ran off and followed the others, while Wedge stayed on the bridge and secured the area, watching Cloud run off and then he went back to keeping a lookout on the bridge.
"(I wonder why he left Shinra in the first place…? And why is he so insistent on leaving after this mission anyway? Geez, the guy's a complete and total mystery,)" thought Wedge, before he shook his head clear of his thoughts and concentrated on guarding the exit on the bridge.
Cloud ran along the path, until he finally caught up with Barret, Jessie and Biggs. They were all waiting for him to arrive, and they were outside another security gate with Biggs trying to work out how to get the gate open this time, with more codes to open it. Barret spun around when he heard Cloud coming and snarled at him angrily.
"('Bout time that damn fool came, we been waiting for ages for him to drag his ass up here! Bloody Ex-SOLDIER, there's no way that asshole can be trusted so easily, there's something very suspicious about the guy,)" thought Barret, furious, as he then shouted at Cloud the very moment that he had arrived, though Cloud had already been expecting this to happen by now.
"What the hell took ya so damn long!? You think you can just take ya damn time getting here!?" shouted Barret, sharply and angrily.
"I'm just taking my time. No reason to hurry," replied Cloud, coolly, his voice icy. Barret glared murderously at him, clearing not agreeing with this statement.
"Well, that's because ya so damn slow! Now get ya damn ass over here! Biggs, hurry up and get the damn gate open!" snapped Barret, sharply.
"Yes, Barret," muttered Biggs, annoyed, as he continued to work on opening the security gate. Barret turned back to face Cloud, having calmed down slightly.
"Hey, is this ya very first time inside a Mako Reactor?" asked Barret, curiously. After a moment's thought, Cloud shook his head firmly.
"No…after all, I did work for Shinra for a fair while, you know. Everyone from Shinra sees and goes into the Mako Reactors every once in a while in their employment with them," replied Cloud.
"Don't you ever go thinking that you're so bad just because ya worked for Shinra. The Planet is full and overflowing with Mako energy. People use it here every day. But no one knows the actual substance of it. Do ya know it? Mako energy is the very life source of this Planet. But Shinra keeps sucking up all of the energy with these weird machines. With this damn hunk of scrap of a Reactor," explained Barret.
"I heard once that Mako energy and the Lifestream were the same thing, but Shinra always denied it. Listen, I've already heard about what happens to the Planet without this stuff, so you're not telling me anything I don't already know. I don't give a damn, old crap about any of this. And I'm not here for a lecture, so let's just hurry. Enough talk, let's just get a move on, so we can get out of here and go before security or the robo-guards come," said Cloud, sharply. Barret's anger flared up once again as he glared sharply at Cloud.
"Alright, that's it! You're coming with me from now on, hotshot! I've gotta keep my eye on ya in case ya do something sneaky, ya damn turncoat!" snapped Barret, angrily, his intense distrust of the Ex-SOLDIER increasing, but Cloud just looked completely indifferent and unconcerned with Barret's rather severe suspicions.
"Don't worry, Biggs and I have got the code for this door," said Jessie, reassuringly. Barret steadily calmed down once again, and continued.
"But this Reactor is damn close to a whole lot of Mako energy. Best there was when they built this thing. We bomb it, and this whole place blows sky-high," explained Barret.
"The Reactor will get hot that quickly?" asked Cloud, curiously, looking rather sceptical. At this, Biggs stopped working on opening the gate with the codes for a moment, and looked up at Cloud.
"No, of course not. This thing isn't that cheaply built. But Mako energy combining with oxygen has low activation energy, and it has a damn bad reaction. Scientists prevented us from carrying enough explosives to blow up the Reactor, both in terms of weight and cost," explained Biggs. Barret nodded as Biggs went back to opening the gate.
"What he's trying to say is that we couldn't afford enough explosives to blow up this whole Reactor directly, and it would take about two trucks to carry it in. But we've got one of the nastiest and most dangerous bombs ever known, just waiting for us. The bomb is gonna blow the main core of the Reactor. After that, the whole thing will explode," explained Barret.
"And it was all my idea, being the demolitions expert behind this group. Code deciphered," informed Biggs, as he snipped the correct wire, and finally, the gate opened.
Cloud, Barret, Jessie and Biggs walked through the gate, and then they went to the next area with another locked gate that they had to open to get to the Mako Reactor. Jessie was trying to figure out how to get the gate to open this time, with some extra codes for it. Cloud sighed and muttered something under his breath.
"What was that?" asked Barret, sharply.
"He said something about fire," informed Jessie, as she had just barely overheard what Cloud was saying, and then she turned away and carried on trying to figure out how to get the gate open. Barret stared at Cloud with a suspicious expression on his face.
"If you know something about bombs that we don't, and that we're in danger, then just tell us about it. It's your life that's at stake too, ya know," said Barret, sharply.
"I was just saying that I think you're making way too big a deal out of this whole Mako thing. The people who first figured out how fire worked probably felt the same way that you do now about Mako," said Cloud, coldly.
"Yeah, they would have. If the only way to make fire had been to use human bones as fuel. Because that's what Mako Reactors do, Cloud. They burn the future and scorn the past, all for a brighter present that's just turned out to be dark anyway," replied Barret.
"Whatever. Just give me my money when we get out of here, and you can go save the world as much as you want for all I care. Biggs, how close are the pipes to the Reactor's surface?" asked Cloud.
"About three meters, I'd say. Don't worry about it, I'm a professional when it comes to this sort of thing, and I've already studied the plans. The plans are perfect and foolproof," said Biggs, coolly.
Jessie blushed and smiled at that, while she was working at the same time. Cloud guessed that she was the one who had hacked into the Shinra computer systems to get those fully detailed plans of the Reactors. But Cloud had another concern on his mind.
"And you're going to try and do this mission with a bomb that small, with a huge, instant explosion?" asked Cloud, suspiciously. Biggs nodded confidently.
"Sure, this is the latest in explosives, more powerful than many other bombs. It'll get the job done easily," explained Biggs, calmly. But by then Barret had also realised what Cloud was concerned about, and he also turned to face Biggs, looking sharply at him.
"You are aware that Shinra made special detectors in this place to sense if anyone uses unauthorized bombs, ain't ya? At least I hope that you are," said Barret, sharply. Realising his mistake, Biggs flinched slightly and got a bit nervous.
"Hey, I'm just the demolitions guy around here, okay? All the technical stuff that goes on in this group is Jessie's job, you know," replied Biggs. Jessie stopped working for a moment, and turned to face Biggs, looking angry.
"Don't you dare try to blame this one on me! The security detectors were right on the Reactor plans that you studied, you know! Or weren't you studying the plan closely enough!?" snapped Jessie, sharply, causing Biggs to flinch slightly. Barret made frantic gestures to quieten them down.
"Hey, keep ya voices down, people. We'll just do a simple change of plan, that's all. Biggs, skip the remote detonation, just forget all about that. Once the security alarms go off, Shinra will do a signal around the whole facility. It's supposed to interfere with communications of intruders, and to keep them from setting off bombs by remote. We'll set a timer, instead. Shinra don't have any detectors for that. Jessie, assume that all the security doors between here and the exit are closed, and that ya need to decode all of the locks again. About how much time would we need?" asked Barret.
"Ten minutes," replied Jessie, as she went back to trying to get the gate open. Barret nodded in response, thinking hard, before he turned to face Cloud.
"Cloud, you must know Shinra's forces better than any of us, right? How much extra time do we need to fight our way through whatever they send out once the security alarms go off?" asked Barret.
"About two minutes," replied Cloud, shrugging.
"We practiced out the escape route back from the core, it takes eight minutes to get through. Biggs, set the timer at once. I don't want to give Shinra any chance to disarm the bomb. The timer will start about ten minutes at most after being activated," said Barret.
Biggs nodded, and took out a timer for the bomb, and programmed its settings. Cloud raised an eyebrow, looking rather sceptical at this plan.
"Only ten minutes? That's cutting it too close," warned Cloud, darkly. Jessie nodded in agreement, as she snipped the main wire to open the gate.
"Yeah, I know. Code deciphered, we can get going now guys," informed Jessie, and the gate opened.
Cloud, Barret and Jessie walked through it, while Biggs stayed behind to guard the gates and made sure that no enemy would make it past him to the inside of the Mako Reactor, as they had agreed and planned out.
"Just think of how many of our people gave and sacrificed their own lives, just for these codes…" said Biggs, thoughtfully, in wonder and awe.
"Uh, Biggs…nobody gave their lives for these codes. I just hacked into the Shinra Internet to get these," said Jessie, looking rather confused. Biggs looked sheepish.
"Oh…right. Well anyway, you guys go on ahead. I'll stay here and make sure that this section of the escape route is clear," said Biggs. Jessie and Barret both nodded in response, while Cloud simply looked impatient.
Cloud, Barret and Jessie continued along the passage and walked through a door into an elevator leading straight inside the Mako Reactor itself, while Biggs secured the gates, making sure no one enemy got in or got out.
Cloud, Barret and Jessie stood in the elevator, having just walked through the elevator door. They were planning to use this to go to the lowest floor that the elevator could go, which was where the nearest floor to the main core of Mako Reactor N0.1 was, where they could blow the whole thing up, if the planted and detonated the bomb there.
"Cloud, could you please push that button over there?" asked Jessie, pointing to a flashing yellow button to the right of the elevator.
Cloud nodded, pushed the yellow button, and the elevator began its descent down to the bottom floor of Mako Reactor N0.1, bringing them even closer towards the main core.
"This is going to be fun," muttered Cloud, sarcastically, wanting the mission to end as quickly as possible.
"You insane!? This is a mission, it ain't supposed to be fun!" said Barret, missing the sarcasm.
"I like to blow up stuff," said Cloud, shrugging, not even bothering to correct Barret, who looked furious.
"Don't ya understand anything!? You ain't just blowing stuff up, you're saving the world!" shouted Barret.
"So?" said Cloud, coldly, raising an eyebrow, not caring in the least about fighting to save the Planet.
"So!? So you are helping the world!!" roared Barret, loudly, trying to get that thought into the Ex-SOLDIER'S head, but Cloud didn't give this much regard.
"But I still have to blow up stuff anyway, right?" said Cloud, coolly, watching with satisfaction as he saw that Barret was clearly enraged by his attitude, but Barret then spoke up again, but in a tone of forced calm.
"Little by little, with enough time and after some years, all the Mako Reactors will each eventually drain up all of the Planet's very life energy, and that will be the end of all of that," said Barret, darkly.
"So? Should I care? Too bad, but I'm not interested. It's not my problem," said Cloud, indifferently, shrugging. This took both Barret and Jessie aback, not believing what he had just said, about caring so little for the Planet's survival.
"Just what the damn hell are ya talking about, ya thick dumb ass!? The whole entire Planet itself is DYING for God's sake, Cloud!!" yelled Barret, looking at Cloud with disbelief, not believing that anyone could be so cold and uncaring, and he especially couldn't believe that Tifa was friends with such a selfish guy.
After all, if Cloud didn't care about the Planet, how could he care about anything else, especially Tifa's friendship? Barret cared for the young woman very much and so did Barret's daughter, Marlene.
Tifa had been with AVALANCHE since the very beginning, and her bar at Sector 7 even houses their small Headquarters beneath the building. Cloud snapped out at Barret, driving him out of his thoughts.
"Let it die then! Just what is it that you want from me, Barret? To join your stupid little rebellion? I couldn't care less about the Planet, or about you people for that matter! The only reason I'm here is for my payment. I don't care about the Planet, I don't give a damn about it. The only thing I care about is finishing this job before security or the robo-guards come. I'm just thinking about how to get this whole mission over with as quickly and safely as possible. I don't care about anything else. And I'm only here for my money in the end, that's all," replied Cloud, sharply.
Barret was shaking in complete murderous rage and fury, and he shook his one remaining fist at Cloud, but he said nothing, and was barely restraining himself from punching Cloud hard in the face.
"(Why the hell did we have to hire this jerk anyway? It's bad enough that he's an Ex-SOLDIER, but he's a complete and utter bastard as well. Whatever Tifa sees in this guy, I'll never know, and I'll never understand why she persuaded us to have anything to do with him in the first place,)" thought Barret, angrily, to himself.
"Barret, do you have a problem?" asked Cloud, noticing Barret's clearly furious and enraged mood, though not realising the reason for it. Barret tried to calm himself down as he replied without speaking his previous thoughts.
"I just…I just dunno, man. I've just got this damn bad feeling…like something terrible is gonna happen," replied Barret, and he did indeed feel uneasy as though he suspected that something in this mission was going to go very badly wrong indeed. Cloud snorted scornfully, still looking indifferent and uncaring about it.
"Just try to ignore those feelings. I remember I would get them all the time during missions when I was in SOLDIER. You just have to learn the difference between instinct and suspicion," said Cloud, calmly.
"Yeah, whatever. Let's just get this whole thing over and done with already," said Barret, still angry and frustrated with the Ex-SOLDIER.
If the elevator hadn't have stopped right there, and if Cloud hadn't jumped off at the very last second, Barret was so angry and enraged that he might have just punched Cloud right there and whacked him hard and senseless for his selfish and uncaring attitude.
The elevator stopped, and the door opened. Cloud, Barret and Jessie walked out of the elevator and entered a big room with stairs leading down to the bottom floor.
They quickly ran down the stairs, and then opened a door at the bottom of the stairs, each of them going through it afterwards. They walked past the door, and were now walking on a catwalk in the Mako Reactor, many, many feet above the ground below.
They jumped over a hole in the middle of the passage, continued along the path towards the main Reactor core, and they climbed down a small ladder to another catwalk that went even further towards it.
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Outside, still at the Reactor bridge in front of the exit, still guarding it, Wedge crouched in the shadows of the tunnel exit, carefully watching the Reactor bridge and the tunnel at the other end through the scope of his sniper rifle, in case any enemies appeared to disrupt their means of escape, or in case the others came back.
Wedge knew that he wasn't cut out for killing, but now that the time had come where he might have to chose between fighting or dying, he felt like he might be able to kill a man. His hands nevertheless trembled, as he searched the magnified world with a single eye.
As he swept back toward the paths after the gate that they had come through to get here on the bridge, he caught sight of something. It was nothing more than a fuzzy blur when he'd moved past it, but he pulled the scope back to the left quickly, trying to find it again.
On one more pass, he caught it for an instant, and it had grown in size, which only could have meant that it was coming closer. Swallowing his anxiety, he pulled back the focus of the scope by twisting a knob at the end of it, and his view of the world of it expanded.
There, about thirty yards ahead, along the rail, a floating red orb with drooping metal tendrils bobbed slowly toward him. It was a Mono Drive, a small Shinra robot that was designed chiefly for security; it had internal sensors that could distinguish intruder from authorized personnel, and it could sound an alarm if it needed to.
Wedge knew all of that, but despite that, he did not know if it was deadly by itself, and he did not give himself the chance to find out either. He quickly pulled out a silencer pistol from his belt. Wedge snapped the silencer onto the end of the barrel, and raised the rifle.
The Mono Drive was ten yards down and closing steadily. It did not sense him yet, and for that he was lucky, and no alarms went off at all as a result. His shot was even luckier, however, as he fired the gun.
The Mono Drive's orb shattered at once, and the enemy android was knocked out right over the railing of the Reactor bridge by the sheer force of the bullet that drove and slammed right into its side.
The broken android plummeted to the city below, trailing a black, curving line of smoke behind it, before it exploded silently in mid-air. Wedge stared after it in disbelief, hardly believing the mixture of luck and skill he had just shown.
"(Wow…maybe I'm better at this whole thing than I first thought. Still though…I hope nothing too nasty shows up here, as I doubt I'll be able to handle it alone. But I'm going to guard this exit anyway, we will succeed and escape…at least I hope the others are having just as much luck as I am,)" thought Wedge, as he stood still on the Reactor bridge before the exit that would lead to safety, keeping a watchful eye out, yet also wondering intensely about how well the others were doing inside the Reactor...
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Barret and Jessie both looked down below the catwalk, and stepped backwards in shock. The big, sizzling, boiling pit of Mako at the bottom of the Reactor seemed to be a small circle from their view above.
"Holy shit! This damn thing is huge! Cloud, how deep does this thing go?" asked Barret, curiously, still amazed. Cloud also looked down at the pit, though without the same sort of surprise, as if he'd seen it before.
"The deepest Mako pits are roughly five miles deep, however we only need to travel half a mile in order to blow the place up," replied Cloud.
Cloud looked away from the deep Mako pit far below, and looked up in front of them. To his startled surprise, six Shinra soldiers were now on the catwalk, and running towards them, having spotted them.
"Heads up! Guards!" shouted Cloud, and readied his sword in a flash, as Barret and Jessie looked up to notice the Shinra soldiers coming towards them, about to attack.
Cloud quickly ran to the right and jumped down a stair set, where one of the Shinra soldiers was. Before the astonished and horrified soldier could react in time, Cloud swung his sword at him, and it slashed straight through the soldier's chest and his armour, killing him instantly, as blood flowed and flew from the fatal wound.
Barret ripped off the sleeve off his jacket, revealing his machine gun that Cloud had seen earlier, which was, of course, part of Barret's right arm.
Diving to the left, Barret suddenly shot off many rounds without pause from his machine gun-arm at the remaining five soldiers that stood there. Three of them were hit and dropped to the floor, dead, in a mere few seconds, all of them covered with bloody bullet wounds.
Jessie was getting involved too, however, as she lunged and grabbed hold of one of the last guards before he could do anything to react, and she instantly stabbed him straight in the chest with her razor-sharp knife without much effort as the knife split through the soldier's chest with ease, and then she hurled him over the side of the catwalk.
She merely watched coldly as the Shinra soldier began his descent, screaming, to the far-below Mako pit below, leaving a long thick trail of blood behind him from where the wound flowed, until he was burned to death on impact with the pit, the corpse quickly melting on contact with it.
Cloud killed the last remaining guard with a well-aimed slash across the neck, easily slashing straight through the soldier's neck and helmet, and the head (with the helmet still on) flew from the shoulders at once in a shower of blood, and the head bounced off the side of the catwalk and fell, as the soldier's dead and decapitated body fell dead to the floor, and Cloud sheathed his sword before kicking the headless body off the catwalk in revulsion, not watching as it fell to the pit and was incinerated.
Quietly, Cloud, Barret and Jessie regrouped, and carried on along the catwalk. While they were walking, Barret turned to face Jessie, thinking hard.
"Jessie, you told us before that there would be patrols, but you made no mention of them being so prepared for us," said Barret, slowly.
"I know, Barret, and I was right to tell you that. After all, that is their usual pattern," replied Jessie, casually, not noticing Barret's serious and dark expression.
At that instant, without warning, Barret snarled angrily, swivelled around, and picked Cloud up forcefully by his throat, lifting him straight off his feet, and then Barret thrust his gun-arm right under Cloud's chin, snarling menacingly.
Jessie stopped in shock and looked on, clearly startled by this sudden occurrence, and Cloud also looked shocked, and for once, alarmed, as he struggled in Barret's grip, his feet hanging in mid-air.
"Alright SOLDIER boy, tell us what the hell's happening around here!" growled Barret, menacingly. Cloud spluttered in stunned surprise, quite taken aback, but he was soon burning with intense rage.
"How the hell should I know!? They were prepared, yeah, but how the heck would I know that!?" snapped Cloud, struggling to free himself from Barret's grasp, feeling enraged enough to cleave him in two with his sword.
"Because you're a goddamn Shinra spy!" roared Barret, angrily, still keeping a tight hold and glaring murderously at Cloud, whose face was contorted with anger and with rather indignant surprise.
"A spy!? Don't be crazy! It's because of these corporate bastards that I am fighting for you! They betrayed me, and I hate them as much as you do, if not more!" snapped Cloud, spitting directly at his face in rage. Barret snarled furiously, and threw him hard to the floor in a heap, wiping the spit off his face before he glared murderously at Cloud.
"I hope for your sake that ya telling the truth, because if you ain't, then I'll blow ya sorry brains out," threatened Barret, angrily, still aiming his gun-arm at Cloud. Getting to his feet, Cloud merely snarled angrily.
"Fine, go ahead and threaten my life. Do whatever the hell you want. Just stop wasting time. They were prepared, so we fought them, and we won, that's all. Now let's get going," said Cloud, coldly.
Cloud walked on across the catwalk, and Barret followed him, still fuming, lowering his gun-arm. Jessie, who had simply been staring at both of them in shock during their argument, now snapped out of her trance and followed them.
Things soon grew tougher for the group on their way to the main core of the Mako Reactor, as suddenly the large walkways were no longer on the path, and the only way down seemed to be through walking across thin pipes that supplied the valves with steam. Barret seemed most uncomfortable about this.
"You can't be serious. Is this the only way down? By crossing a few narrow pipes by foot? This is suicide, that's what it damn well is," said Barret, disbelievingly. Cloud raised an eyebrow, and snorted.
"Well we could always jump all the way down to the bottom, but then again, it's likely that we would die in the process, or we could just politely ask the Shinra soldiers around here to allow us to use their corporate elevator, so that we can go over to the main core safely to destroy their Mako Reactor," said Cloud, sarcastically. Jessie chuckled and smiled at him, while Barret snorted scornfully.
"Alright, alright, it was a stupid thing to say, but I just don't like the look of it," said Barret, uneasily.
"And you think I do? Believe me, if there was an easier way to the main core, I'd gladly take it, but as it stands, this is our only way there without being caught," said Cloud.
Barret reluctantly agreed, and they continued on the path again. Jessie stopped and stood on a narrow catwalk just in front of Cloud and Barret.
"Just along here is the base of the Mako Reactor, the main core itself. That's where you can blow it all up. I'll wait here as a lookout, and stay here to cover your escape. It gets a lot more dangerous from here on, but it's not much further to the Reactor core now. Cloud, do you know how to get to the main core from here?" asked Jessie.
"Yeah, I have been inside a Mako Reactor before, like I said earlier," said Cloud, shrugging. Jessie nodded, walked over to the end of the catwalk, stopped there, and she looked around for any enemies, and secured the area.
Cloud and Barret walked past her, scurried down a long flight of stairs, then they crossed a platform, and then bounded down more stairs until they reached a twisting set of stairs and more ladders that ran down to a thick pipe.
Across the large but narrow pipe was a thin ladder that led down from the pipes to a long catwalk. The narrow trail hung over a bubbling, steaming pit of raw Mako energy, almost as hot as molten lava. The smell from the stuff wafted up through the entire chamber and exited through the huge hole in the ceiling, filling the once-clean air with toxins of pure Mako energy, to soon to converted into electricity.
At the end of the catwalk lay the Mako valve, the very core of the whole Mako Reactor N01 itself, which controlled the flow of Mako energy from the Planet to a degree…to be sucked up into this Mako Reactor.
This was AVALANCHE'S primary target, for their first mission, as they had carefully planned for months (without Cloud, who had signed up as a mercenary for this one mission only recently). Once this main valve was bombed and gone, the entire Mako Reactor would blow up along with it. The fact of it was that simple.
Cloud found and picked up a Restore Materia at the middle of the catwalk. Materia looks like a small, green crystal ball, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but it allows you to use certain kinds of magic.
Cloud turned his attention back to the Mako Reactor, and walked up to the main value of the Reactor core itself. Barret did the same and stood beside the main valve of the core, looking solemnly but determinedly at it.
"When this particular area blows up, with the main core of the Reactor here, this entire Mako Reactor will be nothing more than a hunk of ruins and junk. Cloud, you go ahead and set the bomb, since you're the hired mercenary dumb ass," ordered Barret, sharply.
"Shouldn't you do it?" asked Cloud, perplexed, raising an eyebrow. Barret glared hard at him, clearly both impatient and rather irritated.
"Just do it! I'm keeping my eye on you! I'm gonna watch to make sure ya don't pull nothing!" growled Barret, glaring angrily and suspiciously at Cloud.
Cloud snorted indifferently, not caring about Barret's petty suspicions. He owed allegiance to no one, not AVALANCHE, and not to Shinra Incorporated either.
"Yeah, whatever. As if I would. I may be a mercenary, and an Ex-SOLDIER for Shinra, Barret, but I'm no traitor. But fine, be my guest. Just one question, though," said Cloud.
"What?" asked Barret, sharply, his tone still edged with clear suspicion. Cloud ignored this, and instead asked about something that he had been wondering about since the mission had begun.
"This Reactor bombing is supposed to help save the Planet, right? But what about all the innocent people and civilians working and living around here? They all live close to this Reactor. If you blow this Reactor up, they'll all going to get killed in the explosion," said Cloud, wondering if Barret had taken this into account.
"You should always expect a few casualties in this war," replied Barret, flatly, much to Cloud's surprise, and slight anger flared inside him despite himself.
Barret's words sounded so heartless, and that sort of approach truly made him and his group no better than the great Shinra conglomerate that they so righteously opposed, though he knew Barret would never accept the fact.
"And what war is that…?" asked Cloud, thoroughly bewildered, now finding himself questioning Barret's sanity as well as his methods to the whole situation. Barret looked absolutely enraged, and it seemed to demand his full self to keep him from hitting Cloud.
"Wake up, ya stupid damn fool! The war to save the Planet from Shinra!" snapped Barret, angrily, clearly getting furious and impatient now.
"Then why didn't you at least just bomb this Mako Reactor when everyone's asleep, and spare them the pain of it?" asked Cloud, incredulously.
"Got a problem with this?" snarled Barret, sharply and angrily, raising his only fist threateningly. Unconcerned and not in the least bit threatened, Cloud looked back at Barret coldly, and answered calmly.
"Listen, I agree with your motives about opposing Shinra, but I'm just not too sure that you're using the right methods about this whole thing," said Cloud. Barret snarled furiously at him, thoroughly impatient and frustrated.
"Just shut the hell up, SOLDIER boy, and just set the damn bomb! You're just the hired help, it ain't up to you to question your orders! Just do your damned job, and then get your payment for it!" snapped Barret, waving his fist angrily at Cloud, who looked at him scornfully.
"Alright fine, have it your way then. Sorry I even bothered," muttered Cloud, flatly, thoroughly annoyed, but knew he had to keep quiet from now on if he wanted his full payment for this mission.
But suddenly, at that moment, something very strange came over Cloud. His vision went completely red, a loud beeping noise was screeching in his head, giving him a pounding headache, causing him to fall to his knees, clutching his head in agony, screaming in pain, and then suddenly a voice that he had never heard before in his life spoke to him from what seemed to be coming from directly inside his head.
"Wait! Wake up! Watch out! This isn't just a Mako Reactor!" warned the strange voice, though it's tone of voice sounded completely devoid of emotion whatsoever, which chilled Cloud to the bone despite himself, and it was therefore hard to recognize it at all, or what it could mean.
Then all of a sudden, the beeping abruptly stopped, the headache vanished, and his vision returned to normal. In fact, everything was normal, as if nothing had just happened. Even the pain was gone, as quickly as it had came, along with everything else.
Cloud slowly got back up to his feet, extremely bewildered and confused. What the hell had just happened there…? And why…? Barret's loud, impatient voice soon brought him out of his thoughts.
"What's wrong, Cloud? I thought ya were having a seizure or something, but then I just remembered, dumb asses don't know how to die, right?" said Barret, sarcastically.
"Huh…? No…I'm fine. What the hell…just happened?" asked Cloud, dazed and still very confused. Barret snarled angrily at him, clearly very impatient and frustrated.
"You just collapsed for no goddamn reason, that's what happened! What's the heck's wrong, Cloud!? What the hell are ya doing!? Just set the damn bomb! It ain't gonna set itself, you know! Hurry it up!" snapped Barret, sharply, impatient to get the mission over and done with.
"Yeah…sorry," said Cloud, quickly regaining his senses, though he couldn't help but still think about it. How it happened and what the message might mean…
"(What did just happen back there…? No…I can't dwell on it now, I've just got to concentrate on the mission, that's all that matters right now. It's probably nothing important anyway,") thought Cloud, indifferently.
Cloud snatched the bomb away from Barret irritably without looking at him, placed it in the middle of the Reactor's main core, and then he set the bomb to blow at ten minutes time, although it would take a while for the bomb to operate and begin its countdown, giving them enough time to escape before the Mako Reactor N01 blew up.
"Okay, it's all taken care of. The bomb's all set. Let's get going right now, before it starts," said Cloud, urgently. Barret nodded in agreement, and they both began to walk away from the main core of the Mako Reactor.
Suddenly, without warning, an alarm sounded, and it was heard from all around the Reactor, and had set off all of the other alarms too. This meant that the whole Reactor's security had just been triggered and alerted to their presence, and this meant huge trouble was in store for the two of them.
Barret halted and spun around in surprise and alarm, while Cloud also was also suddenly alert, and cursed under his breath in sheer frustration.
"Damn it, none of those security alarms should have gone off at all. Something's very wrong here," said Cloud, darkly, wondering what part of the plan had been done wrong, and dreading to think what the full extent of the security could be now that it had all been alerted.
"Heads up, here they come! Watch out!" shouted Barret, as he sprang forwards and raised his gun-arm threateningly before him at any enemy that threatened to show up, and no doubt would at any moment.
"Damn it, I was hoping we wouldn't have to deal with any of this," muttered Cloud, and readied his sword at once, preparing for a sudden enemy attack that was no doubt heading their way, straight at them.
"Yeah well, we are anyways, so keep your head straight and let's take care of this thing!" shouted Barret, as security alarms still sounded loudly around the whole area.
A large shape seemed to be coming out of the shadows, a loud clanking sound heard every time it came closer, and soon it emerged from the shadows to show itself to them, as Cloud and Barret stared at it with some surprise.
Something had come to attack them, but it wasn't a soldier, a guard or any kind of human at all. It was a huge scorpion-like red robot with four robotic legs, two robotic gun-arms and a robotic scorpion-like tail.
It had a pitch-black robotic face with two fully green eyes and it stood on all four of its robotic legs. It was obviously programmed by Shinra to destroy any rebels near the Mako Reactor's main core.
Cloud and Barret, of course, had no choice but to attack it, and they would if they had to. They had their weapons and in this world, people could use magic after they collect Materia. People could use magic as an attack against enemies and to defend themselves, but not everyone can use Magic.
It was common knowledge to anyone on this Planet that everyone had to have a certain kind of Materia in order to be able to use a certain kind of Magic (like having a Lightning Materia to use Bolt Magic). The large, red, scorpion-shaped robot began to advance down on Cloud and Barret, who both stared back at it.
"Geez, just what the hell is this damn thing anyway, and just what the hell does it do?" demanded Barret, glancing at Cloud sharply.
"Shinra call it the Guard Scorpion. It's the robo-guard of this Mako Reactor. Each Reactor has one, and they guard the main core of the place. It's the strongest opponent inside the Reactor, so they store it at its most important place. Shinra aren't exactly meant to make this easy for guys like us, after all," explained Cloud, coldly.
"Don't ya think I've figured that out by now, ya damn idiot!? Acting so goddamn big just 'cause you were with Shinra!" snapped Barret, angrily. Cloud glared at him icily, as the Guard Scorpion quickly spotted them with its sensors, and began to move towards them.
"I was answering your question, that was all. And don't start with your retarded suspicious now. In case you've forgotten, we've got to take care of this thing, and get out of here," said Cloud, sharply.
Barret bit back the maddening urge to retort back at him, and the two of them instead faced the Guard Scorpion, which slowly advanced down on them both, and it came to a halt right in front of the two warriors, who stood ready and waiting for an opening to attack, or at when to avoid one from the deadly fifteen-foot machine.
The Guard Scorpion used its search scope from its robotic eyes, and the scope locked onto Barret and confirmed him as the Guard Scorpion's target. Barret quickly realised that this meant that the next time the Guard Scorpion fired its rifle guns; it would not miss its target. And he was the target.
So Barret suddenly attacked and fired many bullets from his gun-arm, straight at the Guard Scorpion and the bullets successfully hit it, but the bullets seemed to be doing no more than bouncing off the Guard Scorpion's tough armour. Barret cursed under his breath, as he and Cloud were both forced to dodge out of the way of the rebounded bullets.
As if getting an idea from this, the Guard Scorpion opened fire with its huge guns rifles, and aimed them at Barret who stood in its line of fire. Excepting the attack before it had begun, Cloud acted quickly and hurled away a surprised Barret by the collar of his jacket just in time as bullets slammed into the floor of the bridge, leaving holes in it merely inches away from where they were now sprawled down on the bridge. Barret shoved Cloud away from him without so much as a thanks and stood back up, while Cloud, grumbling in irritation, did the same.
"SHIT!! This thing's bloody tough! We gotta find some way to punch a hole through its damn armour, so I can put the hurting on it!" shouted Barret, who was irritated with himself for not being able to react quickly enough to avoid the Guard Scorpion's attack earlier, and he had to admit grudgingly to himself that if it wasn't for Cloud, he would have been killed for sure, and that angered him even more.
"Just leave that to me, I've already got a plan to sort this thing out," replied Cloud, determined, as he glanced down at his large sword where two Materia were slotted into the side of it, one in each slot.
One of the two shining green Materia attached to a slot in Cloud's sword flared to life. Cloud hated the way it made the sword shake in its hilt. Swinging the sword in front of him, Cloud reached for the glowing Materia for the fires that burned within and grasping onto it tightly.
He swung his sword back into his magnetic locks and thrust his fists forward. Shimmering green light burst from the ground beneath his feet, an odd effect of summoning Magic from Materia, but one that always happened none the less, one that not even Shinra's brightest scientists couldn't really explain, it just happened, and the person using it would just have to accept it.
A bolt of lightning suddenly appeared out of nowhere from above them, summoned forth by the Materia as Cloud had intended, and it directly struck the Guard Scorpion hard, causing a noticeable hole in its armour as a result, and damaging its circuitry, weakening it badly. Lightning attacks were clearly the Guard Scorpion's weakness.
The Guard Scorpion seemed to be temporally paralysed by the lighting bolt, and seemed quite damaged. Barret's eyes widened in shocked surprise, and he had simply gaped as he had watched Cloud perform a lightning attack from his Materia, but now he focused his attention back to the battle.
"What in the heck was that?" gasped Barret, staring at Cloud in stunned amazement. Cloud looked back at him coolly, a little surprised and scornful towards the fact that Barret seemed to know nothing whatsoever about Materia.
"A Bolt spell. As long as you have the right Materia for it, you can summon the spell with the Materia to use it in battle at any time you choose, unless your mind is too exhausted to go through summoning up another spell after the last one. If physical attacks from guns, swords or other weapons don't work against any enemies like this, then Materia can be especially effective against them. What you've just seen is one of the more basic spells," explained Cloud.
"So…this Materia stuff is what makes all them guys at SOLDIER so powerful, huh? That sure is some handy stuff you got there. But let me show ya how we do things in AVALANCHE," said Barret, as he raised his gun-arm and carefully aimed it towards the hole in the armour that the bolt of lightning had caused.
Suddenly, snapping out of its paralysed state as if it was merely faking it, the Guard Scorpion quickly lifted its scorpion tail at once, swinging it at Barret without warning, catching him off guard again.
Barret saw it at the last moment and leapt back to avoid it, but the sharp edge of the tail sliced through the side of his face slightly before he could fully avoid it. The tail swept past and sliced into the bridge, leaving a long small hole through it, before its tail retreated behind the robot again.
Barret yelled out in pain immediately after the attack, and it felt as though the side of his face was on fire, as he stumbled backwards to the floor from the impact. He stubbornly got back up at once though, and checked the side of his face where pain flared from it, and found that there was a bloody scratch across his cheek, causing some blood to go down the side of his face, as he felt it trail down it.
Barret snarled angrily, filled with deep and murderous rage towards the Shinra-made creation, and without thinking or taking aim, he fired even more bullets at the Guard Scorpion from his gun-arm, but once again, the bullets just bounced off it with no effect.
Cloud gasped in sudden pain as one of the rebounded bullets grazed his shoulder before he could avoid it, and he fell to the bridge floor, blood starting to trail down his wounded shoulder and down his arm, as he stood back up with an effort and a flare of pain, holding his arm, and he glanced at Barret, whose face was still bleeding down the side of it.
"I hope you've got a backup plan," said Cloud, flatly, raising an eyebrow, trying not to wince as pain travelled down his shoulder to his arm. Barret just snarled furiously at him, but Cloud took no notice, and sprang into action, ignoring the pain that flared because of it.
Acting quickly, Cloud once again reached deep inside the Materia for the fires that burned within. Grasping onto them tightly, he swung his sword back into his magnetic locks and with great effort and pain this time; he thrust both his fists forward. Shimmering green light burst from the ground beneath his feet once again.
Another bolt of lighting appeared from right above the Guard Scorpion, and then struck it directly and hard, causing another noticeable hole in its armour beside the first one, and damaging its circuitry, weakening it quite badly indeed.
The Guard Scorpion used its search scope from its robotic eyes once again, and the scope locked onto Barret once again and confirmed him as the next target, and of course, would not miss in its next shot.
Aiming carefully this time, Barret quickly fired his bullets into the hole of the Guard Scorpion that the bolt of lightning had made earlier. Every bullet Barret fired managed to go inside the hole and shot the robotic insides of the Guard Scorpion, further weakening and damaging its circuitry.
Green light burst from the ground beneath Cloud's feet as another bolt of lightning appeared out of nowhere and struck the Guard Scorpion hard, causing another big hole in its armour and destroying more of its circuitry.
Clearly weakened, the Guard Scorpion suddenly swung its scorpion tail quickly at Barret. But this time, Barret was prepared for it, leaping to the side and quickly rolled out of the way along the bridge floor, as the tail shot narrowly past him and just missed, scratching another small, long hole into the bridge before withdrawing behind the machine.
Springing back up to his feet in an instant after avoiding the tail, Barret quickly lowered his gun-arm and fired more of his bullets at the Guard Scorpion into the hole within its armour, piercing and denting even more of its armour with his bullets, but the tough armour of the Guard Scorpion protected itself for the most part.
Green light burst from the ground at Cloud's feet once again as another bolt of lighting appeared from above and struck the Guard Scorpion hard, causing another big hole in its armour and destroying more of its circuitry.
The Guard Scorpion stopped for a bit and twitched violently several times, as if badly damaged, and then it managed to get moving again. It suddenly raised its scorpion tail in front of it in attacking position in a last desperate attempt to annihilate the two warriors who were gaining the upper hand on it. Cloud knew exactly what it was going to do.
"Barret, be very careful. Don't attack it at all while its tail is still up. It will counter-attack with its tail laser if there's any sign of attack against it," warned Cloud, his shoulder still hurt.
"For a dumb ass show off, ya sure know a lot about this damn thing," said Barret, sourly, glaring at him sharply and suspiciously. Cloud looked exasperated.
"That's because I was in SOLDIER, remember? So I know all about robo-guards and the security resistance expected at the Reactors. Just don't attack it, alright?" said Cloud.
"No one tells me what to do, especially not anyone who was with Shinra!" snarled Barret, angrily, the side of his face still clearly bleeding, much to his fury.
Barret suddenly fired even more of his bullets at the Guard Scorpion in a rage, but the Guard Scorpion shielded itself with its tail, so the bullets just bounced off the tail, and did not even effect it in the least.
The tip of the Guard's Scorpion's whole tail suddenly began to glow a bright blue colour and pulse with sudden energy, as Cloud's belief was soon confirmed, as the whole tail quickly glowed more brightly than ever, more and more energy being charged through it, and the Guard Scorpion suddenly fired its deadly tail laser.
Two large blue lasers fired right from its tail, one heading straight for Cloud, and the other heading straight for Barret. At once, both of them leaped backwards to avoid the impact of the deadly lasers, but couldn't escape it entirely, as the lasers struck the bridge floor only a few feet from them, where they had been previously standing.
The part of the bridge the lasers had hit exploded at once, blasting Cloud and Barret off their feet and sending them both flying off the catwalk in a trail of thick smoke, both of them burned and injured from the mere force of the explosion that the lasers caused. The whole middle part of the bridge was gone, only the edges of it remained, and there was a gigantic hole in the middle of the bridge left by the lasers.
Both Cloud and Barret managed to grab the edge (which had luckily stayed intact) of the ruined bridge just in time, both their bodies smoking, arching badly and burned by the force of the explosion, and they both looked down below them, horrified and alarmed by their situation.
About fifty feet below them was the huge pool of boiling Mako energy. It was about as hot as molten lava, and Cloud and Barret both now hung above it, badly injured from the lasers, a small trail of smoke coming from their bodies.
Both of them were holding tightly onto the bridge for their very lives, with only one hand, as the Guard Scorpion stood towering above them on the end of the bridge before the core, just before the huge hole in the middle, ready to send them to their deaths at any moment's notice.
As his shoulder still bled and blazed with pain, as burns ached across his body, Cloud suddenly felt a great surge of deep anger and murderous rage. This was all Barret's fault. If only he had listened to him, the stupid, arrogant fool!
His anger turned to hatred, and his hatred turned to rage. He suddenly leaped straight back onto the bridge just in front of the hole, and stood defiantly before the Guard Scorpion, much to both Barret, and the gigantic robot's surprise.
Letting his rage overcome him, Cloud raised his sword, and charged straight towards the Guard Scorpion at once, as he leaped high into the air before the huge robot could even react, and he swung his sword straight at the Guard Scorpion's tail, slicing the whole tail off in an instant.
The tail fell off the Guard Scorpion and exploding right beside it, which caused quite a big hole in the Guard Scorpion's side, as Cloud landed back onto the bridge, without stumbling despite his shoulder and his burns.
Now that Cloud had destroyed the Guard Scorpion's tail and badly damaged the whole thing, there was nothing much to worry about the Guard Scorpion now other than its rifle guns, even though both Cloud and Barret were clearly injured, burnt and bleeding.
Barret still managed to slowly climb his way back onto the bridge just before the hole, and stood before the Guard Scorpion, snarling in enraged anger and murderous rage that quickly consumed him like with Cloud earlier.
"Eat this, ya damn sorry excuse for a blender! Because I'm the Big Shot around here!!" roared Barret, as he quickly set his gun to charge up its energy rapidly.
Although injured, bleeding, and slightly struggling to stand up because of his burned laser wounds, Barret quickly raised his gun-arm as he charged up his gun for a moment, and then suddenly fired a big, orange ball of energy from it, heading straight for the Guard Scorpion.
The orange ball of energy hit the Guard Scorpion straight in the middle part of it, and exploded, reducing the Guard Scorpion's gun-arms, robotic eyes and legs to pieces, instantly taking all of its weapons out and meaning that the Guard Scorpion could no longer attack.
The attack also left a big hole in the middle and the sides of the Guard Scorpion, and caused some of its main circuitry to fall out of it, having been reduced to scrap metal. The Guard Scorpion twisted and twitched around a lot as if it was short-circuiting, and as if it was about to explode.
Indeed, it now looked no more than an unstable heap of scrap metal, but it was still barely able to move all the same, and it could therefore still be a problem. Cloud raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Barret, can you do that again?" asked Cloud, curiously, finding that he was somewhat impressed now by Barret's fighting techniques, despite himself, in the same way that he had impressed Barret.
"Man, just how many of those do ya think I can do? That was the big one," replied Barret, looking worn out and panting for breath from the effort of his attack.
"I was afraid of that," said Cloud, with a weary sigh.
The Guard Scorpion, although very badly damaged, barely managed to use its search scope on Cloud, and locked onto him as the target, but this was now useless as the Guard Scorpion's guns had all been destroyed by Barret's attack.
The search scope suddenly snapped right off the Guard Scorpion and smashed onto the ground, breaking to pieces. The Guard Scorpion twisted and jerked around a bit more as if it was just about to explode.
Having lost its robotic legs, arms, tail and eyes, the Guard Scorpion was in an extremely bad state, as it fell to the ground, not quite destroyed but ready to explode.
"(Time to finish this thing off. We've lost too much time fighting it already, we have got to get out of here right now,)" thought Cloud, grimly, with a sense of severe urgency.
Green light burst from the ground at Cloud's feet, as a final bolt of lighting appeared from the sky and struck the Guard Scorpion in its big holes, and completely destroying the insides of the ruined machine.
This caused the Guard Scorpion to suddenly explode from the inside, blowing the whole thing to pieces in seconds, and therefore destroying it, reducing it to nothing more than a few nuts and bolts, and other bits of metal, most of the parts falling over the edge of the ruined bridge and eventually melted in the boiling hot Mako pit far below.
Luckily, miraculously even, neither the explosion nor the battle earlier had set off the bomb at all, which was still placed firmly to the middle of the Reactor core.
Barret reached into his pocket in his jacket, and took out a Potion, drinking it down in one long gulp, fully healing the side of his face as blood abruptly stopping trailing down it and then disappeared, and his burned laser wounds were also healed instantly. He then tossed another Potion to Cloud, who caught and drank it, and the Potion fully healed his wounded shoulder, stopping its bleeding abruptly and making the blood vanish, and his burned laser wounds were also healed instantly.
Barret stood up straight on his feet, and walked over to one of the Guard Scorpion rifles that he had blown off it earlier in the battle with his gun's charged attack. He found an Assault Gun on the ground, picked it up, threw away his old Gatling Gun and attached the Assault Gun onto the Slump of his wrist in place of where the old gun had been, fitting it tightly to his arm in no time, so that it was firmly in place. Cloud watched him, surprised and mesmerized by the action.
"Now that's cool. Detachable guns," said Cloud, clearly astonished. Barret nodded and actually grinned for once, having quickly finished attaching and slotting his new gun-arm firmly into place.
"Yeah, this was the surgeons first try at making adaptable weapons to people's lost limbs, and it sure seems to have paid off big time!" declared Barret, proudly.
The bomb, still firmly placed on the Mako Reactor core, had suddenly started its countdown of ten minutes, but neither Cloud nor Barret had noticed this yet.
"Ha! Well, we ain't gonna have too much trouble from that thing anymore. Cloud, how much longer we got on that bomb now anyway?" asked Barret.
"Well, I set it for a nice long time, so I'd say the countdown will start…right about now! Come on, let's get out of here!" shouted Cloud, urgently.
"Shit! It's gonna blow! Run for it! This place is gonna blow in ten minutes! Let's get the hell out of here!" yelled Barret, clearly very alarmed.
"Ten minutes?! It took us about twice that long just to get here! Damn it!!" shouted Cloud, suddenly feeling scared for his life for the first time on the mission.
After carefully travelling across the bridge on only its edges, with the rest of the bridge destroyed with the large hole in the middle of it, Cloud and Barret quickly ran back the way they had came, as fast as they could, and faster than they had ever ran before, with a clear sense of urgency and desperation about them. They ran to the other end of the bridge and quickly climbed the ladder to the big pipe.
"We'd better hurry, there's only nine minutes left. Oh shit!" cursed Barret, as a group of seven Shinra soldiers suddenly blocked their path.
"Do not even attempt to move, terrorist scum, for you are both under arrest," said one soldier, aiming a shotgun at them, ready to pull the trigger.
Cloud snarled, reaching for another Materia attached to his sword, green light bursting from the ground beneath his feet as soon as he grasped it tightly, and the Materia glowed bright green at once, summoning forth its spell.
The other Materia was a Lightning Materia that summoned up forth bolts of lightning, but this one was an Ice Materia, summoning up long, cold and sharp icicles instead.
Before any of the Shinra soldiers could even react, several razor-sharp, freezing cold icicles appeared out of nowhere and struck each of the soldiers straight through the chest, killing each of them instantly, and sending their impaled, lifeless bodies off the pipe to the boiling Mako pit far below in deep, thick trails of blood. Barret stared in amazement, impressed.
"That Materia stuff sure comes in handy, alright! Now let's get a damn move on!" yelled Barret, urgently. Cloud nodded, and they both continued to run across the pipe, though they were still cautious not to fall off the edge of it.
They then ran to the end of the pipe, and quickly climbed up another ladder to a small path. They saw that Jessie was still there at the end of the path, but at least five Shinra soldiers were attacking her.
Jessie quickly got out her shotgun and killed most of the Shinra soldiers in one shot through the head before they could aim and fire their guns at her, their bloody corpses falling to the floor. Then there was only one Shinra soldier still left.
Jessie ran towards the Shinra soldier, quickly knocked his helmet off, and then in a flash, kicked and punched him hard in the face, as his face bled from the hits, then she picked him up by the collar of his uniform, and she tossed him off the path. He fell screaming into the boiling hot Mako pool below, and was burned alive and killed instantly.
But when she had tossed the Shinra soldier to his death, Jessie had accidentally stepped back into one of the potholes in the catwalk, and her foot was stuck in it.
Jessie struggled to free himself, but she couldn't budge, while the alarms were beeping louder than ever, and messages of caution flashed on sides across the Reactor.
The clock was ticking, and it was ticking dangerously fast.
Cloud and Barret very quickly made their way over to Jessie. Noticing them, she looked up at Cloud and Barret, while struggling to free herself.
"Looks like you sure weren't bored while we was gone," said Barret, amused, raising an eyebrow. Jessie glanced sharply at him, and she seemed rather annoyed.
"Let's just say I had a little unwanted company. Now, do you think you guys can stop chattering away, and help me get my foot unstuck, so that we can all get out of here right now?" asked Jessie, sharply.
"Are you okay?" asked Cloud, concerned. Jessie looked at him in clear surprise, her irritation gone as she noticed that Cloud had actually showed a sign of concern towards her, but she still hastened to reply.
"My foot just got stuck, that's all. I wondered why you guys were taking so long down there, until I saw this huge red scorpion-like robot in the distance, where you both were. I had thought about going down there to help you guys, but I'm relieved I didn't have to after all. Anyway, you need to help me in order for all of us to get out of here. Or we won't be able to get through those coded doors," explained Jessie.
"Alright, then I'll help you," said Cloud, with a reassuring nod, and Jessie smiled brightly, gazing happily at him as he bent down to help her, rather pleased to see a sign of concern from him, despite the current desperate situation they were in.
Cloud saw that Jessie's foot was stuck firmly in the pothole in the catwalk. He bent down, grabbed her foot, pulled firmly with both of his hands, but at the same time, he was also making sure he wasn't harming her in the process, and he managed to pull her foot out of the hole. Jessie quickly got to her feet, a big smile on her face as she looked at Cloud.
"Thanks, Cloud. Yeah, I'll be okay now," said Jessie, smiling, clearly very grateful, as she still gazed brightly at Cloud. Cloud nodded back at her, but he still looked urgent and desperate to escape.
"Alright, let's get out of here then. We've only got about seven more minutes until this whole place gets blown away," said Cloud, grimly, knowing full well that they would really have to hurry back in order to make it to safely in time, but they would, he was sure of that at the moment.
Barret nodded in agreement, but Jessie looked doubtful about something. She didn't make any move to run, as Barret soon noticed, and he stopped, and turned to face her. Cloud stopped as well, though he was very impatient and irritated, an angry expression on his face.
"(Why don't these guys move it already!? Don't they see that the whole place is gonna explode in nearly five minutes, and we're not even near the exit yet!)" thought Cloud, furiously, clearly frustrated.
"Jessie, come on," said Barret, urgently, though not quite with the same desperation as Cloud. Jessie still didn't move though, looking both horrified and thoughtful, and her fright seemed to overrule her senses for a moment.
"So terrible. That robo-guard scorpion was so terrible," said Jessie, shivering, looking thoroughly spooked. Cloud snorted in clear frustration.
"Yes, it was terrible. But we were even more terrible and smashed it to bits. Now come on," said Cloud, impatiently, trying with a huge effort to keep himself from shouting and raging at her to hurry.
"But how can we stop Shinra? They created that thing like it was nothing. And to make it guard a place they barely even care about. What about the things that they really DO care about? What do we do when we reach things that are that important to them?" asked Jessie, fearfully. Barret looked no less determined or stubborn.
"Then we'll just smash them too. AVALANCHE isn't alone in this, and you know it. It's a big world out there, and it's waking up. And when it does, Shinra will be screaming in rage, then in pain, and then finally, in fear," said Barret.
"But how can anyone stop them? Nothing can destroy the major things that they make, except for other things that they can create. How are we supposed to stand up to things like that?" asked Jessie. Cloud snorted in annoyance and scorn, this was clearly getting them nowhere.
"Come on, already. Just leave her behind to die if she won't come right now. I'm leaving here at once, with or without you lot," snarled Cloud, getting very impatient and annoyed, and he started to run off.
Barret's large and only remaining fist suddenly reached out and grabbed Cloud tightly by his collar, stopping him firmly in his tracks, and he found himself unable to move.
"(Damn selfish prick, can't he see she's just scared and needs assurance here, and instead he goes about making her feel even worse! The asshole don't give a damn 'bout no one but his own worthless self, he leave his comrades to die like a heartless coward!)" thought Barret, angrily.
Barret glared hard at him, clearly enraged, as a tear fell slowly down Jessie's cheek at what Cloud had just said, who stopped struggling to escape, looking slightly downcast but no less urgent. Barret spoke up furiously.
"SOLDIER…just let me tell you something for a moment, ya damn hotshot. I know that in SOLDIER, they teach ya to evaluate casualties by cost analysis. What's the going rate, one SOLDIER is worth eighty riflemen? So if there's a choice between losing eight hundred riflemen and eleven SOLDIERS, they write off the riflemen. Well, that's how Shinra does things. But it's not how AVALANCHE does things. If you take one step to abandon us, then you'll be dead before you can take another," warned Barret, darkly, with a menacing glare.
Cloud finally freed himself from Barret's grip but instead of running for it, he turned and walked back to Jessie, ignoring Barret, even though he knew perfectly well that what Barret had just said about Shinra's cost analysis was true.
Cloud reached out and wiped the few tears from Jessie's face, who seemed rather surprised in turn, and listened intently as Cloud spoke up, looking deadly serious.
"Listen, I spent two years in SOLDIER going through the hardest training and battles I've ever been in. And I survived it all and grew strong. If you don't give up, you'll grow to be strong, and you'll be able to take everything they throw at you. You might die, but they'll be sorry you weren't on their side. But that will never happen if you give up now. There's no time for a touching story, we just have to get out of here right now, Jessie," explained Cloud, calmly, but still with a sense of clear and intense urgency.
Understanding and reassured, Jessie nodded and smiled at Cloud, and then she quickly ran down the path that they had come in from, and Cloud and Barret followed her, running as fast as they could.
"(I guess Cloud's right…even if we don't win, we can always put up a good fight, and wound Shinra once and for all, to show that they can be beaten in the long run. But I've been so stupid to lose confidence in such a desperate situation like this…)" thought Jessie, angry and ashamed at herself, as she rushed along the path with Cloud and Barret.
They ran to the end of the small path, climbed up a small ladder, ran along the path, jumped over the hole and ran along through the door. They then ran up the big stairs until they reached the elevator. They got in quickly, and Jessie pushed the button to go back up as fast as she could.
After they had got in the elevator, Jessie (who was a little breathless and panting slightly from all that running) looked at Cloud and Barret, and she seemed rather curious about something for a moment.
"What did happen to you two back there with that big red scorpion machine, anyway?" asked Jessie, curiously. Barret didn't reply, seeming too distracted by their situation, and Cloud shook it off coldly and abruptly.
"Long story. No time to explain right now," replied Cloud, shortly and indifferently, not wanting to waste even more time, he only wanted to concentrate on escaping alive.
Jessie blinked in surprise, and she didn't ask again, seeing his point, and still feeling ashamed of herself for wasting so much time already. Cloud looked down at the timer for the bomb, then his eyes widened in horror as he saw how much time was still remaining.
"(Oh shit, shit, shit! Why the hell didn't I hurry it faster any sooner!? Heck, why the hell did I even come on this damn suicide mission!?)" thought Cloud, as composure breaking as he actually panicked.
"There's only a minute left, and its going fast!" shouted Cloud, alarmed.
"We'll never make it! There's no time!" shouted Jessie, clearly panicking, and looked hysterical with fear.
"Bullshit! There's always time! Just stop worrying about it, and run like hell!" roared Barret.
"But it looks like they've probably shut those gates again for security measures," noted Jessie, still terrified. Both Barret and Cloud cursed in frustration at this realisation.
"(Damn those Shinra! Always making my goddamn life harder for me, the bastards, well they ain't gonna get away with it, that's for damn sure!)" thought Barret, furiously.
The elevator reached the top floor, and they ran out at top speed. They ran to the first security gate before the elevator, and Jessie quickly got the gate opened. They ran to the next security gate where Biggs still was standing guard. Biggs stood in the middle of the room, four Shinra guards lying dead on the floor nearby in the area, each of them all covered with bullet wounds, and surrounded by a pool of blood.
"Biggs! Hurry it up, and get that damn security gate open now! There's only twenty five seconds left!" shouted Barret, urgently. Biggs' eyes widened in terror, and he immediately went to work at once.
"(Twenty-five seconds!? How the hell are we gonna get out of this one!? Shit, this is going to be real tight, I wished I'd delayed the bomb just a little longer,") thought Biggs, terrified, but trying desperately not to panic as he tried to get the gate open quickly.
"This is taking just too long, we're all going to die, we're going to die…" said Jessie, nervously, clearly panicking, as she counted that there were only twenty seconds left.
"I've almost got it…there! Code deciphered," said Biggs, looking scared and desperate to escape as well. Biggs quickly got the gate opened, and he, Cloud, Barret, Jessie quickly ran straight to the Reactor bridge as fast as they could, literally running for their very lives.
Wedge was waiting for them at the other end of the bridge just in front of the escape passage, and spotted them at once, calling over to them as they ran towards him.
"I heard the alarm, and realised that you guys needed help to escape! I've already broke down the escape doors, and gotten rid of all the security! It's clean sailing from here on! Come on, let's hurry! There's only fifteen seconds still left!" shouted Wedge, urgently, clearly terrified.
The others quickly ran across the long bridge towards the exit of the Mako Reactor where Wedge stood waiting, but it was still a fair distance ahead, and they had to get off the bridge before the Reactor would explode. They kept running as fast as they could and were talking at the same time, all of them terrified and alarmed.
"Come on, come on!" urged Barret, frantically.
Ten seconds left.
"Hurry! We haven't got much time!" shouted Cloud, alarmed, and for once, actually terrified.
Nine seconds left.
"A few more seconds to go!" shouted Biggs, desperately, as they were getting closer to the exit now.
Eight seconds left.
"God, please bless us," said Wedge, nervously, and shaking in fear as he stood waiting at the escape passage.
Seven seconds left.
"Wedge! Don't say such unfortunate things!" yelled Jessie, who had overheard him while still running, but she also looked very panicked.
Six seconds left.
"Okay, we're almost there! We're going to make it! Let's just get out of here now!" shouted Cloud.
Five seconds left.
Just as they were right outside the exit, Barret suddenly and accidentally tripped up Jessie on the bridge, not seeing her trying to run past him, and she fell over on the Reactor bridge, spraining her knees and legs, as she winced in pain. Hearing this, Barret stopped and spun around in horror.
"Jessie!" shouted Barret, alarmed, and was about to rush to her aid, but Jessie quickly shook her head at him, and Barret stopped abruptly, but looked desperate, finding himself forced to make a quick and terrible decision about what to do.
Four seconds left.
"Just keep going! I'll try to catch up!" shouted Jessie, though she was struggling to get to her feet.
Three seconds left.
"(Oh my god, oh my god, I'm going to die. I'm gonna get myself and everyone else blown to bits because of my crises of confidence, it's all my fault, we're all gonna die!)" thought Jessie, panicking and desperate.
But before Jessie even knew what was happening, someone suddenly and quickly pulled her to her feet. She looked up, and was surprised to see it was Cloud. He looked at her urgently, actually seeming rather concerned.
"Hold on tight to me, and don't let go. We're dashing through from here. Come on!" urged Cloud, knowing full-well that Jessie's legs were too bruised and sprained for her to run quickly enough to escape.
Two seconds left.
"Come on, Cloud, hurry it up!" yelled Barret, as he, Biggs and Wedge ran through the exit to safety, though they looked back at Cloud and Jessie, praying for them both to make it safely with them too.
One second left.
Cloud ran after them, throwing Jessie over his shoulder and running while carrying her too, running as fast as he had never ran before in his life, his heart beating rapidly in his tension, as he drew closer and closer to the exit.
Cloud ran straight through the exit to safety with Jessie safely in his grasp, in exactly the same moment the timer stopped and read 00:00.
Massive flames suddenly burst across the Reactor bridge, and reduced it to flaming dust in an instant in a massive explosion that illuminated the entire dark sky of Midgar in a bright flash of light and a massive ball of fire. The Mako Reactor exploded with great force, and a large fireball erupted into the dark sky, lighting up the whole city, and a massive shockwave shook through it.
The explosion wiped out the entire bridge, all of the passages that led to Mako Reactor N0.1, and the entire Mako Reactor N0.1 itself was completely destroyed, and reduced to burning rubble, not one bit of the Reactor was left standing or unharmed. The explosion also destroyed a large part of the Sector 8 upper city as well, nearby the Reactor, just as Cloud had predicted would happen.
The Mako Reactor N0.1 was now reduced to nothing more than burning ruins. All across the entire, vast dark city of Midgar, the explosion could be heard from anywhere, and its force could be felt too.
For miles around, even in Kalm, the small town that was a fair distance of miles away from Midgar, the explosion was seen in the horizon.
The massive fortress of steel and Mako erupted with an earth-shaking blast and a fireball that rose for miles into the sky, lighting up the perpetual night that hung over the whole dark city of Midgar.
Both the upper and lower cities of Sector 8 completely blacked out as all their electricity was gone, since there was no longer a Mako Reactor left to convert Mako energy into electricity for Sector 8, and high in the Shinra tower that loomed over Midgar…somebody was clearly not pleased.
Meanwhile, having entered the escape passage, Cloud, Barret, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie were all in a small tunnel in a sewer nearby, which had managed to stay intact as expected, as the group rested for a bit, and tried to get through a door in the sewer, which lead to the Sector 8 upper city.
Cloud, Barret, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie had all barely managed to get out of there safely, just in time, with no serious injuries, and their very first mission, it seemed, had been a complete and total success.
********************************************************************************************************
Moments before all of this, Aeris Gainsborough was still in the Sector 8 upper city, still trying to sell her flowers, but having no more luck than she did previously.
Aeris sighed in slight frustration and disappointment, but it wasn't as if she had expected anything different to happen anyway. Nothing whatsoever was going to change when she tried to sell her flowers, Aeris decided. Nothing whatsoever. Just the same old routine, again and again, and Aeris decided to leave, finally giving up any hope that anything was going to happen, that any of her flowers would be sold.
But as Aeris took a step forwards, she suddenly heard a strange sound from the Mako Reactor N0.1 that towered nearby, and as she glanced around in its direction, it suddenly blew up in a gigantic, fiery explosion, completely wiping out the houses and buildings nearby it, and sending debris and smoke flying into the air, only to rain down on the helpless Sector 8 upper city below and before it.
Aeris gasped in shock, her beautiful emerald green eyes wide with astonishment and disbelief, as she saw all that remained of the Mako Reactor N0.1 now was a smoking, flaming pile of ruins.
She gasped again when she looked up to see the Reactor debris falling and crashing down onto the city itself, propelled by the force of the explosion, flattening some other buildings and people inside them as well.
Aeris quickly leaped out the way, as a particularly large piece of debris came raining down from above her, and smashed onto the ground of the streets, mere inches away from where Aeris was now standing.
Her face now white and pale, the sort of frightened reaction a person gets when the realization of them nearly being killed, Aeris quickly decided to get moving away quickly, as more debris came flying down, barely missing her again.
Aeris quickly ran as far away from the destruction as she could, dodging and leaping out of the way of falling debris in her path that threatened to strike her, though this was no easy thing to do when you were wearing a long pink dress and carrying a basket of flowers.
Aeris quickly reached another narrow alleyway to seek cover from the devastation, and stopped within it, panting heavily, as she watched more debris smash into houses, causing destruction and utter chaos around the whole city. Aeris could do nothing but watch it all, feeling both horrified and terribly saddened, and guilt from being so helpless.
The downpour of the debris stopped after about five more seconds, but it was more than enough to destroy a large part of the upper city, and the Mako Reactor itself lay in ruins nearby, black smoke and flames rising from it, and where screams and explosions had filled the night sky moments ago, there was now only a grim, mournful silence.
A single tear slid down Aeris' cheek, but she made no effort to brush it away, and only stared in pure, heart-rending sorrow at the scene of death and destruction that lay in wake throughout nearly the whole of the Sector 8 upper city, with several people dead that she had been trying to sell flowers to only mere moments before…
Aeris stepped out of the alleyway, having escaped the chaos with her life and with even her flowers still intact, she could only walk along the ruined streets of the Sector 8 city, barely deserted other than a few survivors she could see, but thousands had to have died.
As Aeris continued along the path of devastation that lay about her in most of the city, her heart aching with pain and sorrow, she knew that she had wanted the Reactor to be stopped, but not like this…
Not to take the lives of thousands of innocent people…
Even if it had been to save the Planet's energy from being sucked up from the Reactor, this act was still completely inexcusable. Whoever did this had a lot to answer for…