Chapter Two: The War Begins
Revision 2.1, (6-15-2004)
"The bomb's set. We've got ten minutes to get out of here," Cloud said as he turned around to face Jess and Berett.
Berett sighed in relief and nodded, a small smile on his face. Jess was about to lead the way back from where they had come when she stopped, and looked around in alarm. "Did you hear that?"
"Aw, don't tell me you're hearin' things too!" Berett retorted back, annoyed.
"No, I heard it too," Cloud vouched. "We are not alone...."
Suddenly, several alarms sounded from various speakers installed about the area, filling the room with the incoherent sum of several klaxons and red lights flashing wildly.
"Damn, you blew it, didn't ya!?" Berett immediately yelled to Cloud in the lack of any obvious culprit responsible for the alarm.
"Berett, up there!!" Jess shouted, pointing up. Surprised, Berett whirled around as something descended into view. As Berett looked up and tried to make out what it was, a large metal pincer, covered in what looked like six-inch thick, blood-red armor, descended from the darkness and clamped itself down upon the left rail of the catwalk they had entered from. Its complement soon followed, clamping itself down on the other side of the catwalk's structure. In but a short moment a second pair of identical legs followed, then a fifth and six leg completed the set as a large ruby monstrosity lowered itself down to their level. The gigantic metal weapon must have been twelve feet tall, equally wide, and fifteen feet long, as it sized up its three morsel-sized opponents through two pairs of emerald-green optical sensors. It opened what looked like a mouth, a set of mechanical pincers with sawtooth edges that could shear through a car in a single nip. As the full size of the beast sank slowly into view, two shoulder-mounted cannons swung themselves forwards, tipped in a ring of muzzles that could spew showers of bullets and shrapnel like a miniature pair of tornadoes throwing fenceposts for bullets. Following behind this monstrosity they could just make out a large multi-segmented and heavily armored tail of such strength that it could clear a small forest, this tipped in a titanic, five-foot crystalline spike that could skewer the rebels like mere kabobs. Emblazoned with a blue split diamond logo across its forehead -- the mark of the Rin Sha military, in fact -- this crimson killer opened its metal maw and unleashed an ear-splitting mechanical roar in their direction.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?" Exclaimed Berett at the sight of this titan carefully balancing itself upon a catwalk too thin for it to otherwise stand upon.
Recognition of the monster's identity hit Cloud like a lightning bolt, for this was no mere standard sentry poising itself between them and their exit. This gigantic weapon was military grade, a titanic scorpion with a sting so venomous that it could kill heavily armored tanks with a single stab. Nine and a half minutes on the bomb, there was only one way out of this predicament and that was to fight!
Jess grabbed a laser rifle from its sling around her neck, Cloud drew his weapon, and Berett braced himself, hitting a switch and sliding back the metal shell of his right foreleg to reveal... not a foot, but a high-caliber laser cannon installed long ago. Berett flicked the safeties off and in a moment their desparate stand was on.
Berett did not wait to find out who would attack first, as he fired a short volley of laser fire from his foreleg cannon into the beast. Unfortunately his laser blasts seemed to merely bounce off of the beast's reflective armor plating, leaving little more than a warm spot or two on its armor. Jess would have offered cover fire, but she too was armed only with a laser weapon, and hers would have no better chance of success than Berett's.
Cloud shook his head. Attacking blindly would only hasten their own demise; they needed a plan -- more so, they needed a weak point to strike. Gripping the handle of his unorthodox weapon between his teeth, Cloud glared at the monster and spotted a possibility, a hope for victory: Large and formidable as the behemoth was, it was much too large for the catwalk it had perched itself on. If the machine had no real weaknesses, thank the Rainbow that the battlefield itself offered one to their cause. "Let's take out the rails! Cover me!"
Cloud rushed forward, carrying his blade with him as Berett and Jess unleashed a volley of laser fire into the creature's 'eyes', hoping that somehow they could blind it to Cloud's misdirected assault. Immediately the machine reacted to this offensive and the barrels on its two rifles began spinning in preparations for firing. Cloud rushed underneath the beast, pursued by an invisible stream of two laser designators and thereafter, shortly, a hailstorm of lead.
The machine seemed to know that they stood no chance in a fair fight. It could have easily killed Jess or Berett with those guns -- but it didn't. It was only toying with them.
Cloud took a slice at one of the railings underneath the beast's legs as he passed underneath its belly, but caused no real effect aside from putting a scratch in the metal. Berett and Jess continued their laser fire, Jess concentrating her fire to converge upon the behemoth in the same spot as Berett's own shots, focusing on one of the creature's eye sensors. Maybe, just maybe they could knock out one of the sensors, even if it alone was insufficient to impair the robot's ability to fight.
Glass melted and cracked as Jess's plan bore fruit. Berett noticed this too, and paused to precharge his laser to maximum caliber as Jess continued laying down fire. The machine didn't seem to even notice that it was losing sight in one of four eyes, and it began taking one careful step at a time towards Jess and Berett.
Cloud attacked again, trying again to focus on the railings. He had nearly sliced through on his last attack, so repeating his movements might succeed in its objective. Rushing underneath Cloud sliced again at the railings, breaking one strut and weakening two more, and a small burst of sparks ignited from the intense grating of metal-on-metal contact.
The machine halted its approach, as if realizing that its left-side footing was now unstable, with only one explanation. Cloud sensed danger and escaped to safety as the machine lifted up one of its legs and then pierced it completely through where Cloud had previously stood. Judging by the three-foot hole it tore in the catwalk, a blow like that would have killed him. The machine then speared through again with its rear legs as if unaware that its prey had escaped, but it succeeded in enlarging the breach to a nearly gaping size of eight feet.
Cloud forced himself skywards with his wings, preparing for an aerial assault. Immediately after disembarking from the ground Cloud began to focus his thoughts on one of two emerald gems inset into compartments on his blade. One of the gems answered to his thoughts and began to glow, green first, then followed by red. Cloud's blade itself began to glow brightly in resonance to his thoughts as he climaxed his jump and began descending upon the monster beneath him.
Cloud landed upon the back of the metal behemoth as his glowing blade seared open a hole in its armor, then impaled itself through the turret mount of the beast's right shoulder cannon. The machine paused for a moment as the injury erupted with a pillar of summoned flame. The flames themselves did little damage to the creature's armor, but in lieu of actual damage, something far more sinister triggered. Popping sounds ignited from the rifle and dimples appeared in its armor as the cannon's chain-fed ammunitions cache exploded prematurely into life. From one single attack, one of the beast's weapons was now destroying itself from the inside out!
Cloud dismounted from the beast, jumping and gliding towards Berett and Jess as the behemoth's damaged cannon forcefully ripped itself from its chassis in an explosion and ejected towards the safety of the glowing abyss beneath them. The beast now let out another loud, mechanical roar, as if in pain. How could creatures so minute, so harmless, find a way to cause so much damage?
The creature fixated its gaze straight at Cloud for retaliation. Its tail lashed upwards, curving over its back and revealing the large crystalline spike on the end, which soon began to glow in a bright sapphire hue. Berett and Jess resumed their shooting at the creature's eyes, and in a little while they were answered with the sound of the glass shield cracking and shattering.
Cloud was the first to sense danger. "Stop!! It's charging up its laser cannon -- we've got to scram, now!"
"What?" Berett shouted back as he continued his bombardment.
"There's no time! That energy cannon'll take out this whole platform!!!"
Suddenly Berett noticed a thin stream of light, a target designator, pointing his direction from the tip of the tail. Finally two and two clicked in the earth pony's shaved head; quickly he sheathed the metal leg casing back over his laser cannon and threw a comment to Jess. "You heard the flyer! We move out, now!"
Cloud led the way underneath the beast first, jumping over the sizable hole it had created in the catwalk. "There's a gap here, you'll have to jump!"
Berett stood back to his feet and began galloping beneath the creature's belly, and Jess followed. The behemoth, sensing its prey escaping, unleashed a belated, yet massive burst from its tail cannon. It raked the energy beam across the platform and monitor station, searing it into two and allowing caustic fumes to escape from the station's conduits.
Fortunately, it had somehow missed hitting their bomb in the process. Unfortunately, despite the sheer power of the blast, Cloud suspected that it had only unleashed a partial blast, and that the true caliber of its tail cannon was far greater than that.
The catwalk it was now standing on dipped and sagged suddenly as Berett jumped clear. Jess jumped, but too soon, landing with bad footing and falling to her stomach. Berett kept running, unaware of her sudden predicament as the machine reasserted its position. The prey now behind the hunter, it moved forwards to the sheared platform, and with legs clamped carefully on to the weakened rails of the larger surface it began to turn around.
"Help!" Jess cried aloud. "My leg's caught!"
Berett heard the cry and looked back to find Cloud rushing over to Jess's side, and the creature returning its gaze onto them. Carefully but quickly as could prove safe, Cloud grabbed Jess's rear leg and pulled it back into the gap, so as to free it from the jagged metal edges it had become ensnared in. "Okay, let's move!"
Jess soon found safe metal grating for her four feet to stand on, and quickly she resumed a fleeing gallop. Berett and Jess ran ahead, but again Cloud sensed danger. There was a straight line to the stairs leading upwards, and the monstrous weapon had a clear line of fire for any of them. We need a diversion, Cloud thought. He focused his thoughts on the second of the gems stored in his blade, the gem flaring brightly in green, then in white and blue light and energy. In another moment, a blade of electricity summoned itself to life, leaping from Cloud's weapon instantaneously through the air and grappling into the machine's head. The force of this attack knocked Cloud backwards about two feet, and with that momentum he rolled over, around, and then ran. If luck was still with them, that electrical attack would immobilize their foe long enough for them to get out of here.
But luck is fickle, and chooses when to offer its aid. Cloud's electrical attack found the monstrosity's external armor plating to be highly conductive, and through such material it dissipated into the surrounding environment. The bolt failed to encounter any of the machine's vital internal circuitry, and via the path of least resistance it rendered itself useless.
There was no time to create a follow-up attack as Cloud quickly caught up with Jess and Berett near the stairs leading upwards. "Damn, can anything stop that thing?"
"That's a MILITARY weapon!" Cloud shouted. "The Rin Sha are already here!"
"NO WAY!?" Berett yelled. "We gotta blow this joint now!"
"Hurry!" Jess shouted as she ran up the stairs, willing away the limp in her hind leg as she forced herself upwards. Berett followed closely behind and Cloud was about to do so when he looked back and spotted an empty platform far behind them.
Where was the monster?
Cloud dispelled the worry from his mind and raced up the stairs, catching up to Jess and Berett in the process. They followed it up to the second flight; they would shortly arrive at the plumbing that led further upwards and outwards. Jess ran ahead onto the slippery piping, but unwary of her own footing she stumbled and fell. Bruised but otherwise uninjured from this mishap she scrambled to get any semblance of decent footing as Berett waited impatiently.
"Berett, we've got a problem," Cloud stated. "I lost sight of it. It could be anywhere!"
And soon, the sounds of metal impaling itself against metal announced the location of their foe, as the titan entered into view. Berett saw it first. "Oh hell, there it is!"
Berett ducked into the piping as Cloud whirled around. Cloud could not believe what he was seeing: There the beast was, but not standing on a platform or walkway this time; rather, using the powerful claws on its six legs, it had spiked itself across the wall like a spider, and now it was preparing for another attack.
Cloud dived into the hallway of pipes, losing his own footing as well but relieved in the fact that many of the nearby conduits would form a barrier against its attacks, if only for a few precious moments.
Their efforts were rewarded, ironically, by a beam of superheated energy raking itself across their previous position, eradicating the stairs that led back down. As Cloud scrambled to catch up to his comrades, he heard the machine's multi-barreled cannon whirring to life in preparations for a shower of hot lead.
Suddenly the conduits obstructing their view of the gigantic metal scorpion behind them erupted in explosions of shrapnel and various, possibly caustic fluids. Jess screamed in horror as the shrapnel flew across from one side to the other. The enemy was firing at whom it could not see, with a complete disregard for how much damage it would cause to the Refractor's internals in the process. Military machine or not, it seemed to be as dedicated to the destruction of this Refractor as the three rebels themselves were.
Everyone hit the floor as the air above them filled with flying lead, metal debris, and various gases and chemicals now mixing into the room to create a truly unhealthy odor. Berett glanced back and nodded, then began crawling clumsily on his stomach across the pipes. Jess and Cloud followed as the conduits nearby buckled and shattered from sustained gunfire. If they could afford to stand up and look out they would have a nearly unobstructed view of the machine chasing them, but for that there was neither time nor wisdom to do so.
The gunfire ceased as they neared the maintenance door that would serve as their exit. Cautiously Jess forced herself to stand up and withdrew the ID card she had purloined earlier, sliding it through the door's lock and granting them access back into the Refractor's sublevels. She opened the door.
To their relief, they saw only one Rin Sha security guard, lying harmlessly on the floor, ahead of them. But the relief did not last long. Blood on the floor indicated that the fallen guard was now dead. The other two had survived, and most likely, summoned reinforcements to stop them.
Jess led the way ahead as they reached the zigzagging stairs that would lead them back to the elevator they had previously descended down. Upwards one way, then the next they ascended as quick as they could, still wary of an unstoppable killer somewhere in this Refractor searching single-mindedly for them.
In another minute they reached the top of the staircase. Across from them lay the elevator they needed; the trio galloped over and Jess hit the button to summon the elevator. But to their dismay, the elevator was absent from this floor. It had been sent back to the top, and it would be a good minute before it would return here.
And they would have other problems to deal with in the meantime.
Sounds of titanic metal bolts sliding back filled the room as two warning lights flashed on next to the large doorway on one side of the room. And there was one fearful guess about who, or what, was waiting on the other side.
Immediately the trio scattered from the open area of the elevator across the room, not waiting to see exactly what fate presented itself as the giant vehicle doorway began lifting itself open. They ran behind the only piece of cover this room offered: the large, metal crane turret long since used for construction, and just in time, as a shower of lead transformed the floor by the elevator into a bed of jagged edges and metal spikes.
It was here that their battle should conclude, one way or another. The semi-familiar sounds of metal walking upon metal filled the room, and through the framing of their cover they identified the crimson scorpion entering the room, its faceplate damaged and righthand cannon completely dismembered, but still lethally armed with its remaining weapons. It scanned the area with its sensors as it walked over the spiked and shredded metal bits it had created with its gunfire.
Then, perhaps by thermal vision it spotted them hiding behind the crane and rushed their position. Berett and Jess immediately evaded to one side, while Cloud jumped high into the air, ascending to the control pit of the crane with his wings. The creature bit down on the ten-inch-thick metal framing supporting the crane and snapped it like a twig, as it grappled on to the framing with its two front legs to crush the structure.
Cloud struggled to climb atop the crane as the machine forced its weight against the turret, and the crane station itself began to bend backwards. He had only one shot at this, and maybe, just maybe he could pull it off. Focusing his thoughts on the green gems situated in his blade, Cloud jumped into the air as the behemoth toppled the crane in the room, smashing the location that they had only moments earlier taken cover behind and further mangling the crane's metal with its own weight. Only an open battlefield remained of this room, and nothing could provide cover from the weapon's attacks.
With his combat weapon glowing red in the power of flame, Cloud landed right on the machine from above. His heated blade melted itself through the titan's thick armor plating, penetrating through the turret joint on its remaining, left-side arm cannon. Cloud pulled his blade free in an explosion of fiery energy that did little damage aside from igniting the beast's remaining ammunitions cache. Cloud backflipped and glided away as the machine's own bullets destroyed and dismembered its remaining arm cannon.
And maybe, just maybe, struck one of its internal circuits in the process. The machine seemed dazed, unsure of what to do now that only one of its primary weapons remained. It raised its tail forwards in their direction, and the trio knew there was nowhere safe they could run to.
Suddenly a chime from behind them signalled salvation, and the three rebels dedicated themselves to a triple assault on the now-opening elevator. As the damaged monstrosity slowly advanced in their direction, the three fled in a beeline to their exit. Moments later they were all in, and Jess literally smashed the button for ground level. The last they would see of their enemy was it charging for their position as the elevator began ascending.
As if to say goodbye, there was a final quake as the machine penetrated its maw through the elevator, only to discover an empty shaft behind the doors. Theirs was neither a large victory nor the end of the battle. But at least, for now, they were safe.
With about a minute or so left to wait until the top floor, Jess sat down and addressed the injuries she had sustained. Her rear leg had been sliced when it became caught on the floor of the catwalk, and it was still bleeding. Jess removed the cloth she wore around her head and wrapped it around her injured leg to serve as a makeshift bandage. It did not quell the pain, but at least it would help stave off further bleeding.
"How much time do we have?" Berett asked.
"I don't know...," Cloud said. "I wasn't counting."
Jess looked at her watch and read the time. "With all that has happened, I'd wager we spent about five minutes down there...."
"Biggs and Wedge better have that exit secured...," Berett muttered as he opened up his laser cannon and exchanged its nearly depleted energy cell for a fresh one from an adjacent storage compartment on the weapon.
Jess and Cloud nodded silently. "The military's here," Cloud muttered. "We'll be lucky if Biggs and Wedge are even still alive."
"Hey!" Berett snapped back. "It's glass-half-full time! They'll be okay!"
Cloud shook his head. Then the elevator chimed, indicating their destination floor. The doors opened to reveal Biggs and Wedge nearby, hiding on the edge of the hallway intersection, laser guns armed and heated up. Many burn marks decorated the floor and walls of the intersection as Wedge peeked around and fired a high-power blast from his rifle, only to turn back as a hail of laser fire filled the hallway in response.
"What the...," Berett gasped as the three of them disembarked from the elevator to rejoin their comrades.
"Good, you're safe!" Biggs shouted, relieved to see their comrades back from an ordeal, bruised and injured but thankfully, alive. "The military came in and rushed the front office. We're pinned down! We sealed the ends of this hall shut, but they're going to burn through any minute now. If this keeps up, we won't be able to reach the exit!" Biggs pointed to a door just across the intersection, a sign on which indicated it was a set of stairs to the other levels. "Those stairs lead to the upper level and from there it's a relatively clean shot to our exit. But we have to cross the line of fire to do that...."
"We can't jus' sit here and do nothing!" Berett shouted. "There's only a few minutes left on the bomb!"
"Yeah," Biggs concurred. "We've got an idea, but we didn't want to risk it until you got back...." Biggs withdrew a red stick of explosive from the string about his neck, and in another second inserted and lit a fuse. He threw it into the intersection, and it bounced off of the walls and rolled down the hallway some distance.
"Grenade!!" Echoed many a shout from their foes. The petite explosive detonated in a cloud of smoke that filled the entire hallway. "Now!!!" Biggs shouted.
Cloud ran first, jumping and somersaulting into the door to the staircase, impacting hooves first and breaking it free of its latch as it swung open. Berett and Jess immediately pursued after, followed soon by Wedge and Biggs, who took advantage of the chaos to prep, light, and toss another grenade down the hallway towards their numerous enlisted opponents.
An explosion from the projectile rocked the hallway as they ran up the stairs to the second level. Cloud burst the bidirectional door open forcefully, opening up to a large room, which, judging by all the tables and seats occupying this large, white-tiled fifty-by-fifty area, was an employee caféteria. At both sides rested doors leading to other rooms, and at the opposite end was one of the fire-escape doors to this complex.
Just fifty more feet to the exit. Only fifty more feet.... With only that on his mind Cloud dashed out of the stairs first. Numerous shouts from both sides indicated that their enemy had set up an ambush here, and erupting from the doors on both sides came approximately twelve soldiers, all armed with rifles. Cloud skidded to a stop.
Damn, how could he have done something so stupid?
Cloud carefully sheathed his weapon in a gesture that would allow him to live longer. Soon the soldiers were approaching him, unaware that the other four comrades were formulating a plan of action.
A small stick of smoking red paper, no bigger than a cigar, bounced into the room and past Cloud's feet, catching his interest.
"GRENADE!!" The soldiers shouted as they jumped away, knocking tables over in the process to serve as makeshift shields. Cloud paused a split-second before the situation clicked: that thing would explode! Quickly then, Cloud jumped behind one of the tables, catching it with his rear feet and knocking it over to provide cover.
The grenade exploded, sending small seats flying and overturning whatever tables still stood on their own feet. And the battle was on.
Quickly Jess and Berett jumped through the doorway from the staircase, diving under the smoke of the explosive directly to safety behind two of the overturned tables. The smoke had barely any chance to clear up when Wedge, hiding back in the stairwell, discerned their first enemy and fired a burst from his rifle, lethally aimed at whatever soldier had been foolish enough to poke his head up from a safe, covered position.
Laser fire then filled the caféteria, most of it blindly impacting against the walls or the overturned tables covering the combatants.
"We don't have time for this!" Berett shouted as he sniped a supercharged laser blast towards an enemy peeking out from behind his cover. Wedge and Jess filled in by trading shots with their foes as Biggs scanned the makeshift arena for an attack of his own. Cloud, meanwhile, could almost sense his nearest opponent just on the other side. All he needed to attack with was some cover....
Biggs lobbed another stick of explosive into the fray. Unfortunately it fell short of his intended target and landed near Berett. Berett spotted the danger, then very quckly picked it up and tossed it again, lest it explode while in his posession. Panicked shouts of their enemy soldiers filled the clouded air as the explosive detonated almost upon impact in their midst, filling the room in another burst of flame and cloud of smoke.
Cloud leaped from behind his cover, through the smoke-laden air, landing in the midst of several panicked soldiers as he drew his blade and spun around in a circle, slicing at their armor and knocking them all back before lunging upon one to incapacitate the foe. Two others were knocked out into the open and shot down with laser fire from Berett, Jess, and Wedge.
With the smoke cover trying to dissolve, Cloud set himself on the other soldiers in the room, catching them by surprise and knocking them out into the open, to be picked off by laser fire before they could recover. A handful more of soldiers were soon dispatched as Cloud and the comrades cleared the area, and the rest retreated for their lives and reinforcements.
"Let's move!!" Berett shouted, motioning back to his two comrades still in the back row. Biggs and Wedge responded by galloping forwards into the now devastated caféteria, with Jess and Berett to cover their backs. In a few more moments they bounded across the obstacles of overturned, charred tables and thrown seats towards the fire-escape door on the other side.
Predictably, one hoof on the latch and alarms sounded from the emergency door while the five comrades burst out onto an escape catwalk surrounding the complex. Shortly off in the distance they spotted sirens and lights, accompanied by many dozens of military personnel outside. And in another moment they found a spotlight from a waiting chopper affixing itself to their position.
There was no surrender, no negotiations, no time to argue, and no time left on the bomb as a meager detonation from deep within the complex shook the entire structure. The five assailants quickly fled acoss the fire-escape catwalk, with Biggs leading the way, despite vain shouts from the chopper's loudspeaker for them to stand still and surrender. Above such barked orders, as well as threats of opening fire on them, the shadows between buildings offered them safe haven from the spotlight of corrupt justice, and they cleared the fence right in time to buy front-row tickets to all hell being unleashed from the bowels of the Refractor.
Then, like an exploding volcano, the Refractor complex disintegrated in a titanic plume of fire and light that even through the City's persistent smog could be seen from the opposite end of town. Shockwaves ensued from the blast at several levels, shattering windows and overturning vehicles in the whole Eighth District. In another moment, the entire Eighth District ceased to compete against the towering inferno, and acquiesced into blackout. The City's power grid failed to compensate, and toppling like a stack of dominoes went the power in each District, one by one, until the mammoth explosion above was the sole, uncontested source of light in the City. What a show! Even the massive building in the City's center, a mammoth headquarters as large as the shimmering explosion now occuring, ceased operation as it stood in awe of the luminescent, rainbow-colored smoke and light emanating from the northern end of the District.
Victory belonged to the rebels this night.
But their war had just begun.
Author's Notes:
What do you think? My main objective when I reworked this chapter was to portray the sense of danger and the need for escape that drives the rebels during this sequence. This is compounded by the presence of the Rin Sha military, summoned to the complex in order to stop them. From the start to the finish this turned out to be one very tense, very action-oriented chapter.
FF7 players might have noticed the small analogy to Ruby Weapon, considered the most difficult of FF7 bosses, in the form of the 'ruby' colored scorpion, which is itself a military 'weapon'. Just as the (new) markings identify the scorpion as a military creation, this crimson killer is no pushover!
Throughout each revision of the escape sequence, the battle against the crimson scorpion steadily became more climactic: The original draft was little more than Cloud and Berett alone facing off against the beast, with Berett largely staying put and offering cover fire while Cloud spent his time attacking the machine's legs and doing the real damage. The original sequence ended with Cloud and Berett escaping on the catwalk, and then Cloud severing it, causing the scorpion's weight to topple the path and sending the beast down into the glowing depths of the Refractor's bowels.
The second version of the scorpion fight was a little longer and played out differently. Halfway through the fight, when the scorpion charges its tail cannon, Cloud and Berett evacuated underneath it. But the scorpion caught up to them when shortly as they reached the stairs, and Cloud finished the job by blinding its eyesensors, and then weakening the catwalk upon which it stood, again sending it down into the depths of the Refractor.
And now there is this version, which breaks virtually every 'rule' about typical FF game combat. Aside from Cloud scoring critical hits against its arm cannons, the scorpion takes virtually no damage, and the rebels are forced to flee for their lives. True to FF7, Jess's foot becomes stuck in the metal grating as they try to escape and Cloud has to free her. From that point they are chased not by random sentries or patrols but by the same robot they failed to finish off. And the entire escape from the ground levels, with the Rin Sha military having pinned them down, is completely new, as is the city-wide blackout it caused.
That said, I think this chapter works very well as an action piece, and as a grandiose way to kick off the beginning of the story. Of course, there will be more action-packed sequences down the road in later chapters; but now, since the rebels are safe, it's time to take a good breather. Chapter Three covers the aftermath of the Refractor's explosion, Cloud's chance encounter with a flower seller, and the escape on the train.
Disclaimer:
Final Fantasy 7, its original characters, and its original plot are, of course, productions of Squaresoft Inc. (now Square Enix, LLC). And My Little Pony is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc.