Final Fantasy VII
Emerald Princess of Vernea
Chapter Forty-Two
A full hour passed by before Cloud, Tifa and Cait Sith emerged at the entrance to the Battle Square. They had spent a riveting half an hour in the Wonder Square and its amazing attractions, from the virtual fighting system to a cute little game about a Mog learning to fly, which had amused Tifa to no end. They had found the others except Barret as they wandered around, but no one else came with them – they were too busy exploring on their own.
Cloud was the first to emerge from the hollowed out tunnels guarding the tubes and headed towards the stairs. The first thing he noticed as he looked around was that it was surprisingly quiet in this area of the park. He could still hear the faint sounds of music from the Wonder Square and screams from the Speed Square, but there were no sounds coming from the Battle Square.
When Tifa and Cait came out of the tunnel, Cait annoyed at the wind tunnels ruffling his fur, Cloud's gaze fell on a Shinra guard who was standing at the bottom of the stairs. His gaze was caught by the way the guard was standing unnaturally still and rigid, as though someone was behind him and holding him upright, almost like a puppet. Looking closer Cloud could see a blank expression behind the shadowed out visor, as well as the faint trickle of a red liquid at the corner of the soldier's mouth.
"!" Cloud exclaimed suddenly. The sound of his cry seemed to shake the soldier free, for he suddenly fell to his knees and collapsed face forward onto the floor, his helmet falling off his head and rolling across the floor. "Mm?"
He ran forward and knelt beside the soldier, reaching just under the rim of his helmet to feel for a pulse on the side of his neck. There was no throb, no gentle rhythm that signified blood pulsating through veins, not a single pulse. Cloud could see that the soldier's eyes were still open in an expression of total surprise.
"Dead…" Cloud whispered under his breath, fighting off the cold shiver that was threatening to run down his spine.
"What?" Tifa said. She ran beside Cloud and knelt down beside the soldier. Seeing the soldier's frozen face she reached out and gently shut the soldier's eyes, letting him sleep. Then she looked up as she saw Cloud climb to his feet and begin to run up the stairs towards the Battle Square, with one hand firmly around the handle of his sword. "Wa… wait Cloud!"
She and Cait followed Cloud up the stairs and ran inside the square. They found Cloud inside, standing in the middle of the waiting area just outside the arena. She and Cait stopped next to him, and looked around at what he was looking at.
The waiting area was filled with people, all of them lying on the ground in small pools of blood. They were sure that they were all dead, but judging from the size of the blood pools, they hadn't been dead for too long. The two receptionists were slumped over their desks, their hair strewn over their faces, their hands still grasping onto the edges of the desks in desperation. Cloud found his fists shaking almost uncontrollably, and he fought to contain them.
"Did Sephiroth do this?" he said, barely able to suppress his anger.
Before Tifa could put her hand on his shoulder Cloud dashed forward to one of the guards lying dead in the middle of the floor. Again Cloud checked for a pulse, but he knew just from looking that the guard was dead. It made him think back to the Shinra building, when all the Shinra employees lay dead on the floor.
Thinking of that made Cloud notice something he hadn't before. There were no deep-cutting sword wounds on this guard, or the one lying dead outside. There was a wound penetrating his armour, but it was too rounded, too rough to have come from a sword, even one as long and as swift as Sephiroth's. It looked more like a gunshot wound.
"No… it's not him…" Cloud confirmed, not noticing that Tifa and Cait had stepped up behind him to look at the guard. "They're all shot… Sephiroth would never use a gun…"
He stood up as Tifa knelt down to close the dead soldier's frozen eyes, lowering her head in silent prayer for another innocent life lost, although she was secretly glad that this time it wasn't Sephiroth's doing. A moment or two after she started praying, a strange noise began to sound throughout the waiting area. It sounded like a gurgle, choked with blood. Tifa jumped to her feet and spun around just in time to see one of the female receptionists shudder awake and cough. There was at least one person alive. She and Cloud ran over to her.
"Hey, what happened!" Cloud asked quickly.
The receptionist slowly turned her head and tried to look up at Cloud and Tifa. She found she could not move very much, for each breath hurt. It was no wonder, Cloud and Tifa noted as they looked down at her, for she had two very bad bullet wounds in her chest, and blood had stained half her uniform. They very much doubted that she would live for very long.
"Ugh… ugh…" the woman mumbled, hardly able to control her own voice. She coughed, and Tifa gently rubbed her back. A few specks of blood fell onto the desk before the woman was ready to speak. "A man with a gun…" she whispered, her voice coarse. "On his arm…"
Tifa jumped back, her face rapidly turning pale. "A gun on his arm?" she cried.
She turned to look at Cloud, her eyes large and fearful in denial of what she was hearing. Cloud looked back at her, his face firm. There was no doubt that they were both thinking the same thing. They knew only one man who had a gun on his arm… and that was Barret.
"Hold it right there! And stay quiet!"
Cloud and Tifa spun round to face the entrance, in time to see two guards burst into the waiting area, guns in hand, looking around at the dead lying in the room. As they saw Cait, Cloud and Tifa they cocked their guns and aimed at them, ready to fire at the slightest movement. The three did as they were told and stood frozen, not even twitching. The only one who moved was the receptionist, as her head fell back down onto the desk and she shut her eyes, unconsciousness overcoming her once more.
As they stood there, the doors opened once again and another man walked into the Battle Square. A very tall, muscular man, dressed in only a tight pair of shorts and a head of long, brushed-back black hair. Cloud recognised him, from a brief glimpse of a statue he had seen upon their arrival at the Gold Saucer. He was Dio, the owner of the Gold Saucer theme park. He certainly didn't look happy as he saw them standing there, amongst the dead. He looked around at his dead workers and the few dead customers, before settling his stern gaze on Cloud and his two friends.
"Did you guys do this?" he demanded. His voice seemed to resonate with such strength that it made Tifa and Cloud jump, although Cait remained perfectly motionless. Clearly whatever his program was, it wasn't so easily startled.
Cloud was the first to speak. "N… no," he protested. "It wasn't us!"
Dio stared back at them, and it was clear from the look on his face that he didn't believe Cloud's protest of innocence. It was also clear from the way the guards raised their guns, as though ready to fire. It was then that Cait finally jumped in realisation, and he turned to Cloud.
"Hurry and run, it's gonna get ugly!" he said. Without even a moment's hesitation the mechanical cat turned away and bounded rapidly across the floor, disappearing through the back door that led into the arena before the guards had a chance to focus their guns on him.
"H… hey!" Cloud called.
He shook his head vigorously before he spun round and grabbed Tifa's hand. He pulled her harshly towards the door where Cait had disappeared, taking their chance to escape while the guards were confused. Dio stared angrily and snapped round to face the guards.
"Hold them!" he commanded. The two soldiers saluted back at him before they ran down the steps and through the door leading into the Battle Square arena.
Cloud and Tifa followed rapidly as Cait continued to bound through the dark tunnel to the arena, pushing his counterpart Mog body as fast as it could go. Soon the dark tunnel was flooded with light as they entered the Battle Arena, and skidded to a complete stop.
They found themselves standing on a square-shaped platform in the middle of a fairly large arena. It looked surprisingly plain, with only two doors leading out – one being the one they came through, and the other at the far end, although they didn't know where that one would lead to. From what they could see though, that door was bolted shut. And with nowhere else to go, they were cornered.
"That's as far as you go," came the bold voice of Dio from the tunnel.
The three turned back as Dio entered the arena, along with the two guards. Dio looked at them for a moment before lifting one of his large hands with its thick, muscle-filled fingers, and clicked them loudly. Cait immediately jumped and turned away towards the back door and their only exit.
"Wait, listen to…" Cloud began, but Cait soon interrupted him.
"Cloud…" the cat stammered nervously.
Cloud turned around in time to see the back door unlock itself and open up to reveal another dark tunnel leading deeper into the arena. But from that tunnel came the shadow of a large robot heading towards them. It stepped out of the dark tunnel and into the light, revealing a strong metal-plated body and a set of strong, thick, robotic arms, perfectly designed for grabbing prisoners and refusing to let them go. It stamped into the arena on heavy feet and blocked the exit as Cait jumped back towards Cloud and Tifa.
Dio clicked his fingers again. The three looked up towards the viewing balcony surrounding the arena as two more doors opened and a robot stepped out of each one. The robots looked around blindly for a moment, before settling their mechanical eyes on the group in the middle of the arena. Their eyes flashed red as they locked on, before jumping down off the balcony and landing at the corners of the arena beside Dio.
Cloud, Cait and Tifa slowly began to back off to the centre of the arena, so close that their bodies pressed against one another with nowhere else to go. Tifa grasped onto Cloud's hand as the three robots then began to walk towards them, their robot arms raised up as they walked, and ready to grab them before they could attempt an escape.
"One more to go," said Dio, a superior smile on his face as he watched.
Ahead of him, Cloud was the only one left in the secret room in the centre of the Gold Saucer stem. Still caught in the guard robot's huge robotic arms, Cloud was struggling fiercely to break free as he hovered above a temporarily closed trapdoor hatch. Tifa and Cait had already gone through the trapdoor, carried down by their robot captors. Behind him Cloud heard Dio click his fingers again, signalling the robot to go ahead.
"Yes!" came the guard's reply, and through the corner of his eye Cloud saw him run over to the hatch controls, his hands about to pull the lever that would open the door and drop him through.
"Hey!" Cloud exclaimed in one more desperate attempt to get Dio to listen to him. "Pay attention!"
Dio looked at him, uncaring. "There's no need to listen," he replied simply. "Pay for your crime down below!" He waved his arm to the guard. "Do it!"
"Yes."
Cloud shook his head fiercely, unable to believe that he had somehow got caught up in this mess. Dio seemed unprepared to listen – catching them in the Battle Square at that moment was enough to convince him that they were involved, and the receptionist was in no condition to say otherwise.
Behind him the guard pulled on the lever and the hatch opened with a loud whoosh. A gust of sandy, dusty air flew up and filled the chamber, filling Cloud's throat and making it dry and painful. He had no time to cough however, for the robot then made a stomach-wrenching jump and jumped down through the trapdoor, carrying Cloud down with it.
Desert Prison
Cloud woke as a hot stab of pain shot through his eye and his throat. Instinctively he pushed himself up away from the sand and took a breath, but that just made him swallow even more sand and burned his throat even more. He rubbed his eye with one hand and held his throat with the other, a strange mixture of coughing and crying from his right eye. Only when he finished coughing up the sand did he notice the hand that was on his shoulder, and the other hand rubbing his back.
"Cloud, you all right?" came Tifa's concerned voice.
Cloud nodded briefly, still temporarily unable to talk while the burning of the hot sand in his throat calmed down. As he looked up he saw Tifa kneeling next to him, looking as concerned as she sounded. He also noted that Cait was standing nearby as well, showing that Dio didn't even care that Cait was a mechanical being. Now recovered, Cloud stood up and looked around.
The first thing he noticed was the sand. They were surrounded on all sides by vast amounts of sand, so hot that he could feel the heat even through his thickly soled boots. The sand seemed to stretch ahead of them for miles, but he could see the outline of mountains in the distance.
There were other things around him, Cloud noticed as he slowly turned around to look behind him. They were standing next to a large set of buildings, one of which had a large tube hanging down from where they had been so carelessly dropped to the bottom.
The land around them was also heavily laden with a lot of rubbish. Broken bits of metal, empty boxes and crates, anything that was of little use had been dumped in the sandy lands. Although evidence showed that some of it had been serviced for other uses, they were crude creations. Finally, a large barbed wire fence bordered the land around them, although in some area the fence had been torn away, leaving gaping holes.
"Where are we?" Cloud asked.
"A desert prison…" Cait replied. "Corel Prison…"
Cloud turned to look at him. "A desert prison?" he asked.
Cait nodded his head and motioned to the plains of sand that surrounded them on all sides, surrounding the buildings, the rubbish and beyond the fence. "Yup, a natural prison in the middle of the desert…" he explained. "Surrounded entirely by quicksand. I heard that once you get in, you never get out… But, there was one special exception…"
Cloud was about to ask what this 'special exception' was, when Tifa suddenly stood up and exclaimed loudly and pointed straight ahead of them, deeper into the so-called prison that Cait was telling them about. Cloud stood up and looked as well, and his eyes opened wide in surprise at what she had seen.
"Barret?" Tifa exclaimed.
Cait turned around and looked to where the two were pointing. Sure enough, standing just a few metres away from them and partially hidden by a pile of crates filled with trash, was Barret. He was standing with his back to them at that point, his head lowered as he looked at something on the ground. From where he was Cait could just about see the edge of his gun-arm, pointing at the floor. The cat stared, until Cloud walked past him and headed over to the dark man standing so silently away from them.
As Cloud approached, he saw what Barret was looking at. Lying at his feet was a dead man, not a Gold Saucer worker, but a simple man dressed in rather rugged clothing, thick with dirt and sand. A single bullet wound was visible in his chest, and although blood stained his shirt, there was no pool yet, so he had not been dead for very long. Cloud looked up at Barret's blank, emotionless expression.
"Barret…" he said, his voice low. "Did he really……"
Barret finally seemed to notice Cloud standing behind him and turned around. His blank expression changed a little as he saw Cloud, but Cloud couldn't make out what the expression was meant to be. Sadness, anger, and even hatred maybe – they all seemed to be fused together into one expression. Cloud took a step forward towards him, but Barret instantly stepped back, careful to avoid the dead man lying facedown behind him.
"Stay back!" Barret warned Cloud sternly before his could say anything. Cloud noticed that Barret continued to keep his one good hand on his gun-arm, as though on a constant alert for something. "This's something I gotta deal with. Jes' leave me alone."
He then turned sharply and ran off, kicking up a cloud of sand behind him as he tore off away from Cloud. He ran through the open fence ahead of him, a separate fence leading to another area of the desert prison. Cloud could do nothing but watch him, before he looked back down at the dead man. A bullet wound… could it really have been Barret?
"Whew!" came Cait's voice. Cloud looked through the corner of his eye as the cat bounded up beside him, daring to come out now that Barret was out of sight. "That's one of your friends? He sure looks dangerous…"
Cloud sighed and looked over to Tifa, who was also standing beside him. "…Barret……" she whispered softly, before looking at Cloud.
He knew what she was thinking. After all, he had been thinking the same thing. Ever since they had reached North Corel, Barret had been acting very strangely. It would have been no surprise if it was a Shinra soldier lying dead in front of them, but this was an ordinary man, an innocent who had nothing to do with the Shinra. In fact he was probably a prisoner himself, although not anymore. They had thought maybe things were getting back to normal when they arrived at Gold Saucer, but it was clear now that things were nowhere near back to normal.
After they had moved the dead man out of the way, giving him a slightly better place to rest until someone could bury him, the three made their way into the main part of the desert prison.
Corel Prison, as Cait called it, looked very much like a small open town, built in the middle of the desert at the very base of the Gold Saucer. In fact they could see the Gold Saucer stem in the very centre, surrounded by small houses that was obviously the main complex for the entire prison, and most likely the only way back up to civilisation.
There was no doubt that this town had been left in disarray for a number of years, reconstructed from whatever its citizens could find. Of course, its citizens were not ordinary people who lived there by will. They were all prisoners sent down from the Gold Saucer to spend the rest of their days in the sandy prison. They were a rough-looking bunch too – punks with multicoloured hair and many piercings, and eager eyes looking to snatch anything they could.
In fact, as Cloud and the others looked around at the prison, they began to notice just how much like a small town it really looked. The houses that were still standing were rather neatly arranged, as though they had once been part of a neatly constructed town. Originally built of wood, they noticed that they carried the remnants of burn marks, with metal reconstructing some of the houses. Corel Prison… it couldn't possibly have been the town of Corel.
A flash of movement caught their attention, and the three turned their attention to one of the abandoned houses standing nearby. They were sure they saw the door gently swing shut, and something, or someone, moving inside. They couldn't be sure whether it was Barret, but there were no other signs of him in the prison, so they headed towards the empty house.
The door creaked loudly as Cloud pushed it open, much louder than they thought it would, and they froze until the echoes faded and silence returned to the house.
The inside of the house was in just as bad condition as it was on the outside – in fact it looked like a bomb had hit it, but more likely it had been raided by thieves. Shelves were broken, tables were shattered, and the couch stood on only two left legs while the rest of it tilted to the side with a number of slash and bullet holes in it. Books and shards of glass covered the floor, cracking under their feet as they walked in. The house was also heavy with dust, dirt and sand, making Tifa's nose itch as she fought back a sneeze.
There was no sign of Barret in the house, but they weren't all too surprised. There was another door at the other end of the house, so anyone who came in could easily have gone out that way and avoided them. Yet, for a second they thought they could hear shuffling, until the sound of footsteps began to echo around them. They turned towards the second door just moments before it opened, and jumped as they saw Barret's large frame standing in its frame, his body slightly outlined by the sunlight shining in from outside.
It was clear that Barret wasn't happy to see them there. A large frown covered his face, his eyebrows drawn close together as he stared at them furiously. Yet there was something odd about his gaze, something Cloud couldn't quite place.
"Didn't I tell you not to come here?" Barret shouted. His voice echoed all the way through the empty house, the echo dull as it hit the dust and sand in the air. Before anyone could have a chance to explain, Barret suddenly raised his gun-arm and pointed it at them.
Cait jumped back fiercely, waving his little arms madly. "Ju… just hold on for a second!" the cat squealed frantically, almost dropping his megaphone in sheer panic. "We just want to talk! You'll understand if you just hear us out!"
He had barely finished his sentence when Barret suddenly opened fire, and everyone in the room flinched and shielded themselves with their arms. For a full five seconds Barret let loose a parade of bullets into the air, the chug-noise of his gun making painful sounds. After those five seconds Barret stopped and lowered his gun, his face set and level. Only when he finished did Cloud and the others lower their arms and look around bewildered, before they finally realised that Barret was not aiming at them at all.
Behind them the couch, with its new pattern of fresh bullet wounds, gave out an almighty wheeze and a pop as stale air burst out, followed by a cloud of stuffing from the inside. Cloud and Tifa turned, and a second later they saw a figure stand up from behind the couch, a number of bullet wounds in his body, before he fell onto the ground in a dead heap. It was one of the prisoners, hiding in the house. Once dead, Barret turned away from them and refused to meet their gazes.
"Didn't want none of ya to get involved…" he said simply.
"Hey, that's Cloud's line!"
Barret looked up sharply and raised his gun, almost firing again as the door behind him suddenly opened up and three figures ran into the house. He relaxed as he saw that it was only the others – Aeris, Yuffie and Red XIII. He slowly lowered his gun, looking a little ashamed at aiming at them.
"'It's too dangerous, I can't let you get involved…' blah, blah, blah…" Aeris imitated sarcastically, ignoring the gun that had been pointing her way. She winked at Cloud, who tried to look like he hadn't heard the rather accurate imitation of him.
"Yeah. We're already involved in this," said Tifa.
"We saw you and hurried here," said Aeris, answering Cloud's silent question as he looked at her and then the others. "Barret, just tell us what's going on."
Barret slowly looked from one group to the other, before he finally looked down at the ground. "You guys…" he muttered, his voice barely audible. It was clear to him that there was no way out for him now he had no choice but to tell them the whole truth about everything that was going on.
"I heard that the murders at the Battle Arena were done by a man with a gun-arm," said Red XIII. He walked past Barret and climbed up onto the old, rotting couch, settling back on his haunches in preparation for a long story. He looked at Barret through his fiery eyes. "…Was that you?"
Barret shook his head fiercely, before he sighed heavily. "There's another…" he began. "Another man that got a gun grafted into one of his arms. It was four years ago… I remember… I was on my way home after visiting a Mako Reactor being built…"
