Chapter 7: Breaching the Nexus
The center of the web loomed before them, towering above the trio of stalwart rebels. It towered above them, an ivory pillar lit by thousands of yellow lights as Shinra workers buzzed about, performing their tasks within the headquarters of their corporation. It wasn't a straight and tall tower, but rather tapered, its base wide and cylindrical, with a smaller pair of towers reaching up to either side of the structure, locations where garrisons of Shinra soldiers could rush out to defend the main tower against any outside threat. These dome-like defense towers barely reached above the fifth level of the main tower, their bases located far below, on the central plate many hundreds of feet beneath where Squall, Quistis, and Zell stood.
The Shinra Tower itself was held up on a pede stal far above the majority of the city of Midgar, surrounded by massive pipes and an ever-rising wall of greenish-white Mako energy, seeming to be immolated in the very energy that it hoped to reap. Halfway up the structure was another defensive point, a massive horizontal cylinder where there was housed the Midgar air force and helicopter units, ready to launch at a word from the President. The building seemed to curve around this massive military hangar and rise above, widening to the upper floors, where Shinra's most secret reasearch was conducted, most guarded records were kept, and highest-ranking personnel lived and worked to expand their empire.
"Wow," Zell muttered, shaking his head as he looked up at the tower. "Never thought I'd be here, taking it to the enemy."
"Squall," Quistis stated as the ex-SeeD stepped forward purposefully. "You know no one's ever done something like this before."
"Walking face-first into enemy headquarters with an army of guards and war machines on either side waiting to pounce on our heads?" Zell replied. "Hell no. No one's that stupid, except us."
"And that's why its going to work," Squall replied, striding forward toward the front entrance.
"We go in hard and fast," the ex-SeeD stated as he advanced. "There should be an elevator at the back. We take it up, then ditch it and climb up the shaft to the sixtieth floor. Once there we'll need special clearance to access the upper floors beyond Level Sixty. We'll have to move forward one step at a time from there onward."
"You've been here before, haven't you?" Zell asked, and Squall nodded.
"This is where SeeD is trained," he replied. "I never went beyond Level Sixty, though, so I'm not sure what to expect. But we should have a few minutes before the guards respond on the ground floor. Those garrisons were established to defend against external attack, not to secure the building from intruders already inside the perimeter. Shinra hasn't set up protocols for pursuing and clearing enemies inside the building itself because they know security's good enough to keep out any rabble and that their reputation would stop anyone with half a brain from trying to break in in the first place."
"Pretty arrogant," Zell muttered, and Squall nodded.
"They've never seriously considered a small-scale attack by a skilled foe," Squall added. "They never considered anyone who opposed them to be skilled in the first place."
Squall stopped outside the doors and glanced back to his group. Quistis nodded, and Zell gave a thumbs-up and a cocky grin. Squall turned to the doors and slid them open, stepping into the main lobby of the Shinra Building.
The lobby was massive, the ceiling towering above them. The huge room consisted of three floors, each level connected by wide, sweeping staircases, and the floors featured various models and makes of vehicles and other products that Shinra produced. Holographic signs were scattered around the lobby, along with dozens of civilians perusing the displayed wares or going about other business. Outnumbering the many civilians, however, were two entire platoons of Shinra soldiers, numbering over eighty men, patrolling the lobby.
"Excuse me," the receptionist at the desk near the entrance said, looking up. "I'll need to know your names and see your IDs before-"
"No time, lady!" Zell replied, pulling a pair of grenades from inside his jacket. "This is an emergency! Get down, the party's starting!" Beside him, Squall and Quistis had drawn their own grenades. Four pins popped from the explosives as Zell tossed his pair and Quistis and Squall hurled heir own, the small explosives flying in the thickest concentrations of patrolling guards. The blue-clad men had barely begun to respond to the sudden disturbance when the bombs detonated, blasting the soldiers apart and scattering those who remained intact.
The lobby was filled with screams, both from the frightened civilians and the wounded and dying soldiers. Men raised their weapons as civilians scattered in abject terror. In the confusion of the sudden attack, Squall, Zell, and Quistis broke to the right, toward one of the staircases leading up. They dashed up even as the surviving soldiers from the ground floor rushed to the scene and the entrance, not spotting the trio of teenagers in the confusion.
The three intruders managed to reach he top of the first staircase before trouble found them. A pair of Shinra soldiers rushed to meet them between the first and second staircases, while another squad standing at the center of the second floor rushed to back them up.
The Revolver was in Squall's hands in an instant as the two nearer soldiers brandished tonfas for close-quarters combat and adavnced. Squall deflected the first strike from one of the soldiers, and rolled with his parry, spinning around the initial soldier and avoiding the second man's tonfa swing. The ex-SeeD's left hand drew one of his knives and drove it into the neck of the first soldier, and while the second turned toward Squall to strike him again, Zell came up beside the man and smashed his faceplate in with a single roundhouse punch.
The initial pair of soldiers were dead, but the squad that remained now had clear shots at the pair, or they would have if Quistis hadn't been covering Squall and Zell. Her bracelet on her left hand flared green, and a shimmering blue-white mass of pure cold gathered in her hand and lanced out at the lead soldiers. Two were blasted off their feet, frozen almost instantly by the cold magic, and the remainder were momentarily stunned by the blast. Even as they were readjusting their aim, however, a grenade from Zell landed in their midst and detonated, shredding the squadron of men.
The trio bounded up the second flight of stairs, moving halfway up the flight before the last of the dead men had even stopped rolling away from the blast. However, up above another threat loomed, a pair of humanoid suits of armor, about seven feet tall. They were heavy powered armors, painted red and black, housing a single soldier within, and featured a pair of machineguns, one mounted on each arm.
The heavy armors leveled their machineguns at the pair, but Squall snapped up a hand, lightning erupting from his fingers and striking the armors, forking between them and sending both weapons back a step. Zell leaped past Squall, running up ahead and jumping into the air to plant two feet against one of the weapons, buckling its outer plate armor inward and throwing it backward to crash against one of the walls. The other armor spun toward him, swinging its left arm like a club in a strike that would crush a man's skull inward.
Squall ducked low as gunfire stitched the wall above himself and Quistis, two Shinra soldiers on the upper floor firing at the intruders. Behind him, Quistis responded with another blast of frigid energy, which took one man off his feet and sent the other ducking for cover. Squall rushed ahead, toward the armor that Zell had kicked aside, which was rising shakily.
Zell caught the clubbing arm from his foe across his head, but shook it off, his ki shielding his body from injury. The brawler countered by grabbing the striking arm and wrenching it out wide, then hooking the other arm between the suited soldier's legs. With a slight grunt, Zell lifted the man up and hurled him clear off the top level, armor and all, to crash heavily and painfully below. Behind him, Squall had reached the prone armor and thrust his gunblade hard, the powerful weapon punching through the armor and into the soldier inside. Squall squeezed the weapon's trigger, slagging the armor and finishing off the man inside.
Zell ducked as the remaining soldier on the upper floor opened fire with his rifle, but the barrage was cut short by a whipping rante blade that sliced into and severed the man's right arm. The assault rifle, clenched in the soldier's right hand fell away as the man screamed in sudden searing pain, a cry that turned into a gurgle as Qusitis' rante snapped back, taking the man's throat and sending him spinning to the floor.
"Elevator!" Squall shouted, pointing to a row of elevator doors at the back of the third level. The trio dashed for them, Squall reaching the doors first and hitting the call button. The elevator door opened immediately, and the pair leaped in. Squall shut the doors and hit the button for the fifty-ninth floor, the highest floor this elevator would ascend to. Not pausing, he scanned the roof ceiling of the car and saw an access panel above. Zell and Quistis tracked where he was looking, and the brawler, being directly under the panel, jumped straight up, smashing the top of his head against the panel and knocking it free. He leaped up again, catching the lip of the opening, and halued himself up. Qusitis was next, Squall helping her up, and then he ascended as well, climbing through the hole.
"Now what?" Zell asked, looking up at the passing walls of the elevator shaft. He had easily enough figured out what Squall had wanted inside, but now he wasn't sure where the ex-SeeD was going.
"We wait," Squall answered, taking out the bomb Zone had given them. He affixed a proximity detonater to the bomb and armed it, then dropped it into the elevator car below. He then drew his gunblade again, and waited for several long seconds, before the elevator suddenly screeched to a halt. The ex-SeeD was moving instantly, leaping up on the cable the elevator hung from and scrambling up it to the floor just above where they'd stopped. Then, like in the elevator in Mako Reactor One, he thrust his gunblade into the closed doors above them and fired a blast, blowing the doors open. Quistis and Zell were right behind him, climbing after the ex-SeeD as he jumped into the empty hallway beyond. They joined him a moment later, and within a couple of seconds the elevator that they had been riding began descending, doubtless back to the lobby where a small army of Shinra soldiers waited
"I don't think the reception will be very pleasant," Quistis commented as the explosive-rigged car descended.
"Now what?" Zell asked again. Squall pointed to another door, this one alongside the bank of elevators on this floor. They rushed over to it, the door revealing a long stairwell rising directly above them.
"Now what?" Zell asked for the third time, drawing a slightly annoyed glance from Squall, before he started up the stairs.
"W-wait!" the brawler cried as Quistis followed. "We're going up this whole flight of stairs?"
"That's the plan," Squall called, already two levels above the martial artist. Zell whined but started after them, shaking his head.
Five minutes later, Zell was wheezing as he rounded the last flight of stairs, shaking his head. Just ahead of him, Quistis was also breathing hard, but she had kept a good pace with Squall, who was stopping at the top of the stairs at the fifty-ninth floor, the ex-SeeD not even breathing hard. The others reached the top, Zell stopping to bend over, resting his hands on his knees.
"What the hell did they feed you in SeeD?" Zell demanded. Squall didn't answer, instead peeking outside the door, before coming back in.
"There's three heavy armors waiting outside," he reported. "They're standing at the only elevators giving access to the upper levels. One of them should have a keycard to access the next level. We'll need specific cards to access specific levels. One may give us access to Sixty, but not to Sixty-One."
"Gotcha," Zell replied. "Let's hurry up and kick some ass!" Beside him, Quistis uncoiled her whip and nodded.
"There's no cover between here and them," Squall added. "So we'll need to be quick. Quistis, cover us." She nodded again, moving beside him. Squall drew the Revolver, and looked outside once more. Aside from the three men in heavy armor in front of the elevators, no one else was on this relatively sparse floor. In fact, the floor itself was little more than a security checkpoint, though the lack of security bothered Squall. Had they not been alerted up here yet? He certainly would have set more guards here, at the very least regular soldiers if not heavy armor troopers or SeeDs.
Then again, the garrison below was probably just now being scrambled, he knew, but it would only be a matter of time before security forces would start sweeping the floors below. They would have to move quickly and get into these "secure" levels fast and undetected.
"On my mark," Squall whispered, and beside him, his comrades tensed.
"Mark!" he hissed, and Quistis spun out, electricity exploding from her hands as her wrist flared green. Squall and Zell burst out as well, charging across the intervening twenty or so feet between their hiding place and the guards. The men were startled by the sudden assault, then hurled backwards as the electrical magic impacted hard with their armors. They did not fall, instead stepping back, their armors taking the damage well.
Zell hurled himself forward, leaping into the air with both feet leading in a repeat of his attack below. He smashed hard into one of the reeling armored soldiers, blasting the man off his feet and hurling him across the room to crash heavily into the wall beside the elevator. Beside the brawler, Squall rushed forward, his gunblade rising up. The ex-SeeD punched out with all his power, his blade blasting through the metal armor but stopped before it could dig deeply into the man beneath. Squall didn't fire a shot from his blade, however, instead spinning around, wrenching his weapon out and sending the armored soldier spinning forward, the front of his armor partially ripped open.
Zell was upon his foe in an instant, leaping atop the armor and grabbing the front of the helmet, one hand on the armored faceplate, the other where the helmet met the rest of the armor suit. He grunted, pulling his hands in opposite directions as he focused his ki, and the brawler felt the plate seperate from the main body, the metal bending upward to expose the stunned face of the Shinra soldier within. Zell stood up on the armor's chest, and sent his foot slamming down into the soldier's face with an atypically sadistic smile.
Squall came out of his spin with a leap toward the remaining armored soldier, his gunblade low to the floor. The recovering Shinra trooper turned to face Squall, but did not manage to raise his weapons in time as the ex-SeeD closed in, gunblade slicing up and parting the armor plate. Squall pulled the trigger on his gunblade, and the Revolver spat a blast of energy that tore apart the man inside.
The last armored soldier had recovered from the shock and the sudden attack, and found himself facing Squall as the ex-SeeD cut down his comrade. The man scowled, then smiled grimly, ignoring the pain in his sliced chest as he began to raise is weapons. Then he was suddenly wrenched around as a chain ensnared his arm, and the man found himself facing Quistis even as her left wrist flared with magic once more. A blast of frigid air struck the soldier, cutting through the rent plate of his armor like a knife and snuffing out his life force. The frozen armor and the man within toppled to the floor.
The sentry elimination had been quick, less than three seconds from the first blast to the last stroke, and no one had sounded an alert. That was the way Squall liked it. He found an access card on the body of the central soldier who Quistis had finished, and with it they boarded the elevator to the sixtieth floor.
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"Two platoons-worth dead," Rude reported, listening over the radio. "And two additional squads were shredded on the fourth floor when we redirected the elevator. Some type of explosive in the car."
Tseng nodded at the report, then turned to President Shinra, who was standing behind his desk, head in the palm of his hand.
"Well?" Shinra demanded. "Where are they?"
"Sir," the Turk chief stated, turning toward the President, "with the exception of the destroyed elevator, we have no further idea where they may have gone, except that they are coming up."
"Up here?" the President asked, coming forward in his chair.
"Doubtless they are heading for the secured floors above Fifty-Nine," Tseng confirmed with a nod.
"Yeah," added Reno, leaning against one of the pillars of the President's office, an unlit cigarette poking out of his mouth.
"I know Squall," the Turk added, flicking out his baton and extending it. "He's in charge, I don't doubt it. And he's heading up here."
"The damn traitor should be dead!" the president protested, and Tseng shrugged.
"He's alive," the Turk chief replied. "Nothing much we can do about it, except killing him here."
"There is an entire batallion of Shinra soldiers here," Shinra stated, sitting back. "There's no way they'll survive against that many of our men, led by an ex-SeeD or not."
"Nah," Reno agreed with a nod. "No way. But . . ." The Turk activated his rod, electricity sparking, and lit the tip of his cigarette with it. " . . . they won't need to fight the garrison. Their objective is up here, on the secured floors."
"What objective?" Shinra asked, his voice starting to show signs of nervousness. "Me? They want to kill me?"
"If Dincht is with 'em, hell yeah," Reno replied with a shrug. "But coming after you is probably secondary to the real objective."
"The Ancient," Rude added, and Reno nodded.
"Squall's here for her, first and foremost," Reno stated, stepping forward off the pillar. "So, we give her to him." The President balked.
"We just . . . " Shinra waved his hand in the air, as if throwing a meaningless trinket away. "Give her away? After we've been searching for her for twelve years?"
"Never said that," Reno replied. "But I did say we let him get to her."
"Minimize security on the upper floors," Tseng added, nodding. "Let Leonhart get up to where we're keeping her."
"Then, BAM!" Reno added with a smile. "Once we've got him on that floor, we just swoop in for the kill."
"Relocate all the troops to the sixty-ninth," Tseng added. Rude nodded and hopped on it, talking over the radio. "We carry out normal operations. Tell everyone that the situation is resolved and carry on as normal. Leonhart will move through the upper floors thinking he's safe."
"And we capture him as he goes for the Ancient," Shinra stated with a nod. "Good plan. I'll leave building security in your capable hands, Tseng. There's a short meeting I need to attend with the department heads, Odine, and Hojo." With assenting nods and salutes from the Turks, Shinra rose and strode off, descending the staircase to the sixty-nith floor.
"Hojo?" Reno asked, spitting the name out. "That sick bastard." None of the others disagreed.
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While Zell's most obivous skill was his high-degree of martial arts expertise, the brawler was known for having other specialties, one of which was machines. He'd always loved machinery, and had studied mechanics while learning how to channel his ki as well. Thus, he seemed quite natural when checking the damaged door lock on the sixty-first floor of the Shinra building, a level which was essentially a huge lounge and bar.
"S'cuse me," asked one of the couple dozen or so office workers unwinding on this floor, one who had noticed Zell's checking of the door. "Are you with the maintenance division?"
Zell glanced up, smiled, and nodded, straightening.
"Yup," he replied. "Off the clock right now, but one of my buddies told me to have a look at this busted door up here while I was dropping by. This thing needs some work."
"I know," the suit replied, shaking his head. "Things are always breaking down around here."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go punch in in a bit and check the upper doors too, no telling what's wrong up there. The big-wigs upstairs will be pissed if their perfect security isn't in tip-top shape, and I'm not gonna have my head on a stake if it isn't."
"I know what you mean!" the worker replied, nodding.
"Need to get my card too, that new guy borrowed it and he hasn't returned it either," Zell added, and the worker shrugged, pulling his card out of his pocket.
"Just between you and me," the man said, holding the card out to Zell. "Better not waste any time and get to the repairs ASAP, especially with that meeting up there that's going down soon. You can borrow mine, just drop it off at my office on the sixty-sixth. My office number's on the card."
"Thanks, man!" Zell replied, taking the card. "I'll handle it."
A moment later, Zell was back inside the inner stairwell that ran along the upper floors, a passage that the intruders had only discovered after dodging a set of sentries on Level Sixty. Squall and Quistis waited inside as Zell grinned, holding up the card.
"Sixty-Six?" Squall asked, thinking. "That's one of the administration levels, and where the boardroom is at."
"The guy I got this from said there's a meeting going on," Zell replied, and Squall nodded.
"If its an executive meeting, then there's probably some useful information we can get from there," Quistis said, and Squall nodded in agreement.
"There's a ventilation shaft that overlooks the boardroom," Squall stated, running the maps of the building through his head again. "Easiest place to access them is from the bathroom."
"Glad to have someone who knows the terrain," Zell commented as they ascended the stairwell.
"We'll listen in on the meeting," Squall explained as they went up. "Then we head for the sixty-seventh floor. That's where the holding cells are, as well as some of the upper labs. That's probably where they're holding Rinoa." The others nodded, and soon they reached the sixty-sixth floor. Squall swiped the card in the reader, and the door hissed open. Squall stepped out silently, checking the hallway. There was no movement and no one in sight, and he waved the others forward.
Silently, Squall led the group through the hallways, always pausing at each intersection to check for any civilians or soldiers moving around. Aside from the occassional secretary carrying files, however, most of the people on this floor stayed in their offices as the remains of AVALANCHE moved about. Within a matter of minutes, the group had located the bathroom, and Squall moved immediately into one of the stalls, hopping up onto the toilet and reaching up to a ventilation shaft directly overhead. He popped it open and climbed in, Quistis following and Zell bringing up the rear, closing the stall and locking it.
The shaft was cold, and the metal colder, but the trio made no notice of it, excepting a quiet "Brr!" from Zell. They crawled forward for a long minute, until another they reached another grating, which overlooked a finely appointed chamber, consisting of plush red carpets, paneled mohagany walls, and the top five Shinra executives seated at a long table. Squall nodded as he recognized each man and the one woman.
"Heidegger, the bearded one" he whispered as the others moved up next to him, looking down into the boardroom below as the Shinra executives took their seats. "Head of 'Peace Presevation'. Actually the head of Shinra's military." He nodded to a white-haired, blubbery man taking a seat farthest from Shinra.
"That's Palmer, head of the Space Program, based out in Rocket Town on the western continent," Squall continued. He then nodded to the only woman in the room, a blonde woman with a enviable bust size, rolling hips, and long legs that her expensive red dress made no effort to hide.
"Scarlet, head of Weapons Development," Squall stated. Zell scowled.
"Heard of her," he muttered darkly. "Textbook definition of a slut."
"The company motocycle," Squall added, a faint scowl of his own spreading across his face. "Most of the men in the building have taken her for a ride, including about half the group in that room. And that is Adam Reeve," Squall finished, nodding to a cleanly dressed man with thick, long black hair, a goatee, and a blue suit.
"I've heard of him too," Quistis whispered. "One of the few decent men in the upper ranks of the company. He's head of Urban Planning, right?" Squall nodded.
"The preliminary estimates are coming in now," Reeve stated calmly, handing each of his peers and the President a copy of some statistical figures. "Damages in Sector Seven, totaled from all of the civilian losses, destroyed buildings, and the new factories we were investing in, not to mention Mako production cuts and military personnel that were lost in the battle, totals at over ten billion gil." There were grim nods from everyone, except Shinra, who simply put the paper down after a quick glance, and lit one of his ever-present cigars.
"Estimates on the cost of rebuilding are much higher, in the high-"
"We're not rebuilding," Shinra stated, puffing his cigar.
"But, sir, I think-" Reeve began, but Shinra cut him off.
"Sector Seven is staying as is as a reminder to those who would oppose us," Shinra replied. "Furthermore, I see no reason to waste money on rebuilding at this time."
"Waste?" Reeve replied, and Shinra nodded.
"Midgar is no longer essential," Shinra replied evenly. He smiled faintly as whispers filled the room.
"The Neo-Midgar plan is being restarted as of the end of his meeting," he proclaimed, and that turned the whispers into gasps.
"Then . . . the Ancients?" Scarlet asked, and Shinra nodded.
"Yes," he stated. "Tseng and the Turks captured our long-lost subject and she is even now in the labs of our esteemed scientists. With the implementation of the plan we will need additional funds. Raise the mako rates by fifteen percent in all sectors, as well as all the cities and towns that are using our reactors."
"Whoo!" Palmer cried in joy, hopping up and down. "Mr. President, please divert some of that delicious rate hike to the Space Program!"
"No," Shinra replied evenly, puffing his cigar. "You're making a fool out of yourself, Palmer, and your Space Program is steadily deteriorating into a project better belonging to Weapon Development or Peace Preservation. Therefore, Heidegger and Scarlet will divide the added revenue from the rate hike. We need the new weapons brought online soon if Wutai decides to cause anymore trouble."
"Aw, man," Palmer muttered, sinking back into his seat.
"Sir, won't a rate hike cause the people to lose confidence?" Reeve asked dubiously, and Shinra shook his head.
"On the contrary," Shinra stated. "We will instead simply spread the word that the funds are needed as part of the relief effort in response to the Sector Seven tragedy, and as part of our expansion policies to further enrich our customers and citizens. The ignorant people will come to trust us even more, even as we rake in the gil."
"After all," Heidegger added with a bellowing laugh, "We're the ones who saved Sector Seven from AVALANCHE!"
"I'm gonna punt his head off the top of this bulding," Zell muttered before Quistis shushed him.
"And now, the men who will be working with our dear specimen," Shinra added, nodding toward the far end of the room. "Doctors Odine and Hojo, please?"
Through a set of unseen doors, a pair of men entered, one a tall, thin, oily figure with thin, scraggly black hair and a white lab coat. The other was small, almost a midget, and clad in unconventional clothing, consisting of purple robe and a strange, flaring red and white striped collar, above which was a round head with tightly pulled back black hair and perpetually squinting eyes. While the smaller man, Doctor Odine, seemed quite goofy and animated, the taller man radiated an aura that instantly put off the three intruders in the shaft, even at this distance. Doctor Akira Hojo seemed to simply exude sheer wrongness, as if by his very nature he violated some sacred law.
"How goes the testing?" Shinra asked. Hojo rested his chin in his hand as if considering something, his eyes flashing behind his thin spectacles. Odine, however, spoke immediately.
"Az a zpecimen," the small man began, bobbing his head and speaking through a strange, thick accent. "She iz inferior to her mother, largely. Ze differences so var are genetic in nature, az her blood iz not entirely pure . . . though her Ancient nature in and of itzelf is zuperior to mere human genetic structure, and zerefore partially ovevvidez ze impuritiez in her DNA."
"We estimate that the difference to be about eighteen percent," Hojo added quietly, his voice quiet but somehow disturbing, as if through it he was transmitting the sheer otherness of his mind. It was the voice of a madman, but not the wild, cackling kind, instead the one of a quiet insanity that nonetheless made itself known almost as blatantly as that of the louder kind.
"How long will the research take?" Shinra asked, and Hojo shrugged.
"Complete research into all aspects of her nature will take about a hundred and twenty years," he stated matter of factly. "However, practical gains, like completely gathering the data for the Neo-Midgar plan, will take upwards of two to three years, though we predict initial gains within the first few months. However, complete research is an impossibility in our lifetime, or that of the specimen."
"Hojo haz zuggezted breeding her wiz a lifeform zat can live longer," Odine added. "Ve have recently come into pozzezion of one zuch creature."
"What about the Promised Land?" Shinra asked.
"We need to plan something out," Hojo replied. "Like a said, however, we should begin to make progress within the next few months, even with just the data we've received from the tests over the last few hours."
"Very well, then," Shinra stated. "We don't want to hold up the work on the project. I want all department heads to be preparing for the Neo-Midgar operation. Heidegger, get your military forces mobilized in preparation for taking new territory and warding off any threat from Wutai. Scarlet, I want you to pursue any new avenues in weapons development. Reeve, continue recovery efforts in Sector Seven. And Palmer . . . expect further budget cuts. That is all. Dismissed."
The group of Shinra executives rose from their seats and began to leave, and the trio of intruders took their leave as well, crawling back through the shaft to the bathroom.
"We'll have to follow Hojo and Odine," Squall stated as they entered the bathroom once more. "If I remember corectly, his lab is just above this floor."
"We don't have a keycard for that level," Quistis stated, but Squall shook his head.
"Hojo's never been known to be particularly stringent about his security measures," the ex-SeeD stated. "He usually left his doors unlocked when I was here, and he doesn't look like he's changed much. As long as we stay close behind those two, we should be able to slip into their labs."
Zell and Quistis nodded, trusting in Squall's judgement, and they left the bathroom moments later. They moved through the hallways quickly, retracing their route, and soon Squall had them near the stairwell once more, just as Odine and Hojo walked by and entered the stairwell. Squall gave them a few seconds of lead before he followed, climbing up after the pair to the next floor. As the ex-SeeD had expected, they had left the door to level Sixty-Seven unlocked, and AVALANCHE entered the lab and prison level.
"The prison sector should be north of here," Squall stated as they moved silently through the labs, passing several large monitoring stations and computer rooms. After a couple of minutes Squall located a hallway leading toward the prison and led the way. They rounded a bend to find a hallway featuring a series of sliding metal doors, all featuring barred windows. A quick check, however, showed that none of the prison cells was inhabited.
"Probably took her to one of the upper levels," Zell commented, and Squall nodded, doubling back on their original route. They continued checking the labs, before finally spotting the tail end of Odine's collar poking around a corner as the tiny doctor waddled into a specimen storage area. The three intruders followed the not-so-good doctor, into a room strewn with crates and boxes, dominated by a huge, low dome-like structure with a single door on the side, from which glowed a pink light. Beyond the dome, Hojo and Odine stood beside a huge glass tube, within which was some kind of fire-red, quadrapedal creature. Squall, Zell, and Quistis took some cover behind the haphazardly-placed boxes and tuned their ears into the conversation between the scientists.
"Ah, ze zpecimen iz ready?" Odine asked, and Hojo nodded.
"We're begining right away," he stated. "We'll move it to the upper level where the other specimen waits, then we'll begin the process." With that, the two scientists turned and boarded a nearby elevator on the north side of the room, which ascended to the next floor. Once the coast was clear, the group stood, Zell and Quistis edging closer to the glass tube, while Squall glanced toward the dome, a strange curiousity surrounding him. He stepped toward the dome.
"What is this?" Quistis asked as she approached the tube. Within the cell lay a powerful-looking creature, its short fur a deep crimson along its back, lightening to a fiery yellow-orange along its belly. Physically, it was built much like a combination of both a fluid hunting cat and a powerfully built wolf, with a long, whip-like tail whose end glowed like a burning brand. Tattoos adorned its left flank, along both its fore and rear legs, and a large black "XIII" was located on its left shoulder. A black mane ran down from the top of its head down its back, sticking up like a short mowhawk, with much longer strands of fur rising over and around the creature's head, some dropping down in front of its face. The creature must have been sleeping, but as they approached it stirred, turning its head to look their way, and they noticed one eye was partially closed by a scar. The other, however, was wide open, showing a fiercely burning red eye that regarded them with a strange intelligence.
The beast regarded them with open hostility for a moment, before seeming to recognize they meant no threat, upon which it relaxed. That relaxation ended an instant later as the glass tube suddenly began rising. The beast jumped to its feet, looking around the small cell as it rose into the ceiling.
"Squall!" Zell called, turning around, only to see Squall was not looking at them, but was instead stepping toward the dome slowly and deliberately, his eyes unfocused. Quistis and Zell rushed over to him as he peered through the pink-glowing window into the dome.
It was suspended in stasis, a hanging figured standing straight and tall, unmoving within its pink prison. Squall gasped as he saw it, partially in recognition, and partially in pain as he felt a wave of sheer, unyielding malice sweep through him. The thing within posessed a woman's shape, a curvecous figure that would have set off any man, except for the smooth, blotched skin, grayish flesh that shone a dull pink in the light of the stasis dome. Squall winced as he focused on the frozen creature, the directionless hate in his mind expanding and spreading, and evil force that the thing within was exuding, even while frozen and inert. Pain rippled through his mind as he stared at it, hot spikes of fury and suffering and agony and madness.
He could stand it no longer and began to back away, shaking his head as the pain and rage and unrelenting destructive desires began to dissipate. The ex-SeeD took another step back, his legs suddenly stumbling, and he fell back, to be caught by Quistis. He looked up into her blue eyes and shook his head at her confused expression, stammering out one word from his shaking lips.
"Jenova," he whispered, eyes flicking back to the dome. Zell, who stood beside it, frowned, peeking in, before turning back, seeming more confused than disturbed.
"What?" he asked. "I don't get it, the damn thing in there doesn't even have a head!" Squall shook his head, his mind recovering from the shock of seeing the creature inside the dome once more.
"Sephiroth's Jenova," he whispered, getting his feet back under him as Quistis guided him back up. "So, they brought . . . it here?"
"What is that thing?" Quistis asked, but Squall shook his head.
"The mission," Squall muttered. "It was what made me leave Shinra."
"That headless freak in there?" Zell asked, hooking a finger over his shoulder. "Look, man, pull yourself together. We've all seen some freaky shit in here. We can chat about your mission later, but right now we gota grab Rinoa and run. Hear me!"
"Yeah," Squall replied with a nod, almost fully recovered from the surprising encounter. "Quistis, thanks."
"Don't mention it," she replied. "We should be able to get up using that elevator that Hojo and Odine took."
They quickly boarded the small elevator and rode it up to the next floor, which, it turned out, was the only floor it went to anyway. It ascended to a wide chamber, a single huge laboratory, overlooked by a catwalk spanning the chamber. The eastern and northern sections of the lab were elevated, overlooking a large glass specimen cell on the western end. Hojo and Odine, along with a group of technicians, stood on the eastern end of the chamber, the techs preparing for the coming experiment while Odine and Hojo surveyed their subject.
"Rinoa!" Squall shouted, seeing her within the cell, slumped on the floor. She looked up at her name being shouted, and everyone's attention was suddenly riveted on the trio of intruders coming out of the northern elevator.
"Is that her name?" Hojo asked, seeming nonchalant, which was far from the shocked and startled reactions from both the high-strung Odine and the technicians.
"Open that door!" Zell demanded, moving forward. "Let Rinoa go!"
"Oh, we can't have that," Hojo replied evenly. "Outsiders coming to take our precious specimens? No, no."
"You don't have a choice in the matter," Squall replied, drawing his gunblade, which caused the excitable Odine to yelp and scurry away. Hojo stood unfazed, looking upon Squall as a parent would upon a recalcitrant child.
"Tell me, boy, do you think there's any way to stop this experiemnt?" he answered. "The breeding will begin soon, whether I am alive or dead, but you won't be opening that cell without me or Odine. Only we can operate the controls in the control rooms."
"Well, maybe we can convince you two to help us out," Zell replied, popping his knuckles. "I know a few tricks."
"How barbaric," Hojo relied, sounding bored. "But, if you insist, well, I'm sure that Odine, being himself, has already called for the guards." Hojo smiled as, even then, a gasp of surprise could be heard inside the cell. Everyone looked that way to see the fire-red beast rising into Rinoa's chamber. The creature looked at her once, and growled, stalking around Rinoa as she stood slowly, the beast's tail flicking anxiously.
"Ah, yes, the breeding should begin soon," Hojo commented, nodding, his words drawing shocked expressions from the intruders.
"You sick son of a bitch!" Zell exclaimed. "You're actually going to try to breed them like that?"
"Put a male animal and a female animal in the same cage," Hojo answered, as if it were simple logic. "Wait a while. Simple enough for even you to understand, my impulsive friend."
Squall shook his head at Hojo's blatant insanity to even think that Rinoa and the beast inside the tube would, or even could mate, and ran across the lab, where the creature seemed to be moving more aggressively toward Rinoa. She backed up, against the glass wall, and the creature began to advance, baring its fangs.
"What do you think you can do?" Hojo asked nonchalantly as Squall neared the cell. "That's unbreakable glass, not even you can breach it."
"No," Squall answered, instead shifting to the side, launching a knife at a pipe along the wall, one marked as containing liquid nitrogen. The frozen fluid exploded outward, striking the tank's northern wall and cooling the air inside, turning it into a thick white fog. At the same time, it froze the tank's glass wall, weakening it to the point where a single swipe of Squall's gunblade shattered the glass and ice coating the outside.
The cold air billowed out, followed an instant later by a red form, the creature leaping clear of its cage and hitting the floor. It pivoted once, spinning toward Hojo, and pounced on the scientist with such fluidity and grace as to seem like crimson-colored water. Hojo finally did let out a yelp of surprise as its claws dug into his chest and its jaws closed around his blocking forearm as the scrawny scientist tried to force it off of him.
Squall paid him no mind, as another figure burst from the billowing fog. Rinoa leaped out of her cell, directly at Squall, who blinked in surprise as she pulled him into a tight hug. Finally, after a long second, he reciprocated, squeezing back, but only for a moment, as klaxons suddenly sounded throughout the lab. Technicians scattered, and the creature chewing on Hojo looked up, retracting its claws and letting go of the scientist's arm. The creature's ears twitched as the bloodied Hojo scrambled away, and it looked to the four humans, its good eye flicking over all of them as its mouth opened.
"Guards are approaching," a voice said quietly and camly, and it took a long moment for anyone to realize who had spoken. As Hojo scrambled out the door of the lab, the beast turned toward them, and it spoke.
"There is a signifigant number," it stated, gesturing back over its shoulder with its head. "We will need to work together to eliminate them all."
"It talked?" Quistis gasped, her confusion matching that of the others. The red-coated creature nodded, an oddly humanlike gesture.
"We can speak as much as you wish later, miss," it replied. "But for now, we must survive. They will be here within moments."
"Right," Squall replied. He was still somewhat off-balance, but he thought back to briefings he'd received about a species of great beasts that possessed human-like or superior intelligence. An unusual ally, but considering the situation, he wasn't picky.
Especially when two dozen and more Shinra soldiers clad in the red uniforms of a response unit burst in through a door on the east side of the room, rifles raised.
The group scattered, splitting apart. Squall pushed Rinoa back behind the ruined glass cell, knowing that she was unarmed and without materia, weakening her. Zell moved to the left, along with Quistis, her wrist flaring with magic as she called energy forth. The red-coated beast simply vanished, a sudden spring that took it out of sight and had those soldiers aiming at it gasping in surprise.
Squall charged right into the middle of the Shinra force, leaping forward with sudden ferocity and landing in the middle of the group, his gunblade spinning around in a wide arcing chop that tore into one man's chest and sliced the arm off a second. He whipped around, blade slicing again and cleaving the head from another man's shoulders, his blue eyes burning with an intense fire. The ex-SeeD realized that in the current situation, only sheer speed and ferocity would overwhelm this numerically superior foe, so when his blade swept low after slicing through a fourth man's torso, Squall charged forward, smashing his shoulder into one man and hurling him back into another, before whipping around with a wide cleave that chopped into yet another soldier, tearing him apart with a blast of the gunblade. Crimson fountains flew as he weaved and struck.
Soldiers fell back from the devastating assault, and Zell and Quistis struck at them, hard. Quistis' whip bit into one man's throat before snapping out and taking another soldier around the arm, the sickle blade wrapping round and slicing it cleanly off. The man scramed in pain, until Zell, who had crushed another soldier's ribcage with a single devastating uppercut, spun toward him and hit him with a roundhouse kick, hurling him into a cluster of other soldiers, taking them all down. Zell barrled into the remander, fists flailing and hurling enemy soldiers around the chamber with crushed torsos, skulls, and limbs. A barrage of ice smashed into another group of soldiers, laying them low, and Quistis' whip chased yet another soldier who had survived the blast, digging into his chest and biting into his heart.
However, the true deciding factor came not from Squall's ferocity or the tag-teaming of Quistis and Zell, but in the fiery beast, who dropped into the middle of the remainder of the soldiers from the catwalk above. One man managed to let out a cry of surprise as the creature pounced on him, then leaped away. The man fell back, a geyser of blood coming from either side of his neck, where the creature 's razor-sharp claws had torn it with incredible speed. It spun around in mid-air, lashing out with all four legs, the forelegs slicing into a soldier's chest as it neared, the rear legs tearing into his neck as it passed. The whip-like tail coiled around another soldier's rifle seemingly of its own accord and tore it free of the man's grasp. The beast then landed on a fourth soldier, bearing him down with its weight, its maw jabbing down like a striking snake before it leaped straight up, spouting blood chasing it in its flight.
The tail snapped again, smashing into another soldier's faceplate hard enough to throw him back with all its deceptive strength, and the beast flipped over as it went up, paws slapping against the underside of the catwalk. It kicked off, propelling itself into another set of soldiers. It bounced away an instant later, claws and fangs freshly painted red, the fallen men clutching at their torn throats as they writhed on the floor.
It skittered low suddenly, diving between the legs of several soldiers, the men howling as claws and teeth lashed out anew, biting into their hamstrings. Two men were tripped up by the striking tail, and one made it to the floor with a ripped throat. The other found the creature on its back, claws digging into his uniform as its powerful jaws grasped his neck. Then, the beast twisted, and the man's vertebrae shattered like glass under the powerful neck muscles of the hunting creature.
Several soldiers fled from the beast as it leaped away again, cleaving through soldiers like a scythe through a field of grass. Those men who fled the monster's wrath found themselves being sliced open as Squall finished the last of the soldiers who would stand against his ferocity, the ex-SeeD smashing into them, gunblade cleaving, each slice accompanied by a river of blood.
The last soldier who had not fled found himself struck down by a gunblade slicing into his gut while the crimson-coated beast leaped past, tearing out his throat with one paw. Zell's final opponent slid to the floor, face shattered by another punch, and the brawler surveyed the carnage.
In less than a minute, twenty-seven Shinra soldiers had been cut, beaten, blasted, and shredded, all of them lying in pools of spreading crimson.
"That's the last of 'em," Zell stated, and Squall nodded.
"Its safe, Rinoa," he called, and she emerged from behind her cover, looking over the pile of twisted, torn corpses without a word.
"We'd better get out of this building," Quistis stated. "We were lucky this time." Squall nodded again, glancing back to the crimson beast.
"You're coming with us, I'm guessing?' he asked, and the creature nodded. "What's your name?"
"The one called Hojo reffered to me as 'Red XIII,'" he replied, the creature's calm words a startling contrast from the ferocious beast that had shredded so many soldiers. "That name means nothing to me, however. You may call me what you wish."
"We'll stick with that name," Squall replied. It suited him, really considering his coloration . . . and the lake of blood and gore he had left.
"What exactly are you?" Zell asked, and Red turned, sizing him up.
"An informed question," he replied. "And difficult to answer. I am what you see, that much is certain. However, explanations may wait, as we must escape from this building first." Red turned is gaze upon the group, settling on Rinoa.
"My apologies," he stated, and she nodded. "I merely had to distract Hojo until your friend noticed the nitrogen pipes." Squall blinked in surprise. How had Red known that he would aim for the pipes, even when he didn't even know they were there?
Perhaps saying that Red was at a human level of intelligence was a disservice.
"The nearest elevator is on Sixty-Six," Squall stated after a moment. "We'll need to head there. The stairwells should provide enough cover for our escape." The others nodded, and Red steped forward, toward the door the soldiers had come through.
"I'll lead the way," he stated, and bounded through. Zell and Quistis followed, and Squall glanced back to Rinoa, who hesitated. he thought for an instant that she was perhaps put off by the carnage, but when her eyes met his, he saw she was actually happy.
Then, to his surprise, she hugged him again.
"I knew you'd come for me," she whispered, pulling tightly. Squall answered more quickly this time, hugging her as well, before releasing her.
"We'll have time to throw a party later," Squall stated. "Let's escape first." She nodded, and together, they turned to leave.
-----------------------
"Ouch," Reno muttered, chuckling. "Guess Hojo got his desserts."
"This is no time for joking," Tseng replied, hand resting on the handle of the sheathed katana by his side. "Twenty-seven men are dead in there." He scowled as he looked at the feed from Hojo's lab.
"That's expected when dealing with someone like that bunch," Reno replied. "Good news is, they'll be feeling all high and mighty when they get on that elevator. And as we all know-"
"- feeling superior will breed carelessness, and that is when we hit them," Rude finished, sliding his brass knuckles onto his hands. "Fujin, Raijin, ready?"
"AFFIRMATIVE," Fujin replied, and her brother nodded, easily twirling his bo staff.
"Ready to rock, ya know!"
"They're getting on the elevator now," Tseng stated, looking back across Level Sixty-Nine and the hundred and more soldiers ready, hiding behind every conceivable bit of cover they could find. "Redirecting . . . now. All troops, stand by. Gas troopers, safeties off."
The soldiers stood tensed, excepting Reno, who leaned against the wall beside the elevator, puffing his cigarette. The seconds ticked by, and suddenly, the doors released a cheery "bing!" and slid open.
"Fire!" Tseng shouted, and a quartet of gas canisters shot into the elevator beyond, accompanied by shouts or surpise and anger. Immediately, a crimson-furred form sailed out of the elevator, landing lightly, and then Red XIII was blasted off his feet as Reno, still leaning against the wall, bull's-eyed him with an electrical shock from his rod. Squall and Zell burst out next, coughing, Squall brandishing his gunblade until Reno casually jabbed him with the tip of the weapon, sending a shock through the ex-SeeD's body, causing him to drop his gunblade. Tseng stepped forward and grabbed Squall, pulling him to the side and slamming him face-first into the wall beside the elevator, before drawing his katana and letting the tip rest against the back of Squall's neck.
Zell was swatted aside by a powerful swing from Raijin, and he rolled away along the floor. Instantly a dozen and more Shinra soldiers fell upon him, beating him with tonfas and rifle-butts.
Quistis stumbled out next, Quistis pulling her whip out, which was then knocked from her grasp as Fujin struck hard with one of her chakram, the bladed ring taking the whip from her hands and pinning it against the wall a mere foot from where Reno stood. Reno almost lazily pointed his weapon at the back of her head, and she froze, before slowly raising her hands, knowing they were caught.
Rinoa was last, and was worst effected by the gas, coughing badly as Rude stepped behind her. He put a foot against the back of one of her knees and pushed her down to the floor, before producing a pair of handcuffs.
Reno finally moved away from the wall, drawing his own cuffs and walking over to Quistis, pulling her hands behind her back.
"Y'know, babe," he commented as he restrained her. "This ain't the first time I've slapped handcuffs on a woman, and it wasn't just for law enforcement reasons." Rude finished restraining Rinoa, while Tseng took Squall's bracer, stripping him of his Guardian Forces, before smashing the butt of his katana against the back of the ex-SeeD's head. Squall's head snapped forward, and he stumbled, before turning back toward Tseng, anger in his shimmering blue eyes.
Then Squall fell unceremoniously to the floor, passing out, while Shinra soldiers restrained Red XIII and continued beating and kicking on Zell, even after he had been smashed into submission.
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Squall came to shortly afterward, head swimming again. He hadn't been able to get much bearings on his surroundings when hands hoisted him up and dragged him out of whatever room he was in. For a moment he tried fighting them, until he realized he couldn't, as his hands were manacled behind his back. His head was still swimming as he was pushedup a flight of stairs, but it took several long moments before he was able to get his bearings and see his surroundings.
By that time, he realized where they were taking him: Shinra's office.
Beside him, hands bound by heavy-duty chains, the kind used on huge monsters, Zell looked battered and bruised, as if a couple of ogres had used him as a punching bag for an hour or two. Squall also spotted Quistis, and behind them, Red XIII, legs and neck chained, a loose muzzle over his mouth to keep his teeth at bay, and his powerful tail tied back on itself with a zip-tie.
Somewhere along the line the Shinra soldiers had been replaced by Turks, with the five who had jumped them outside the elevator escorting the quartet up into Shinra's domain. They strode up into the office, which was surprisingly spartan in its design, being mostly a huge, wide chamber with a single massive desk, which seemed more of a control panel and monitoring station. Behind this sat Shinra, his face lit by the dozens of monitors as he puffed another cigar. Finally, the head of Shinra looked up, smiling at his prisoners.
Zell spat a stream of blood in response.
"Where is Rinoa?" Squall demanded immediately.
"In a safe place," Shinra replied, rounding his desk, puffing his cigar the whole way. "As the last surviving Ancient, we have to take good care of her."
"Ancient," Red XIII muttered through his muzzle. "You mean the Cetra?" Shinra nodded.
"They lived thousands of years ago," he stated, then sighed, almost regretfully. "But now they are lost to us. Just a forgotten page in history."
"So, that girl was a Cetra," Red mused, and Shinra nodded.
"The Ancients, or Cetra, or whatever you want to call them," Shinra replied, taking another draw on his cigar. "They will lead us to the 'Promised Land.' I'm expecting a lot out of her."
"The 'Promised Land?'" Red asked. "That's just a legend . . . ."
"Even so," Shinra replied, grinning, "Its too tempting. The 'Promised Land' is supposed to be fertile, incredibly fertile, abundant with life and vitality. And if that's true-"
"Mako," Zell spat and Shinra's smile widened.
"Indeed. Our costly Mako reactors may actually be unnecassary. The abundant Mako will simply flow out on its own. And there is where Neo-Midgar will be built. Shinra's new glory . . . ."
"Bullshit!" Zell replied, shaking his head. "No way! You're chasing a dream!" Shinra replied with a bark of laughter and another small cloud of smoke wafted from his cigar.
"All you need to make your dreams come true nowadays is money and power," he replied. "Now, I believe this meeting is ended. I'm a busy man."
"Like hell!" Zell replied, even as the Turks stepped forward and began pushing the prisoners toward the stairs. Rude and Raijin hooked their arms underneath Zell's and pulled him away. He fought back, thrashing madly.
"Get back here, you filthy slob! I gotta lot to say to you!" Zell continued shouting and fighting, even as the two Turks dragged him down the stairs and out of Shinra's sight. He watched the brawler leave, a smug smile on the executive's face.
"If there's anything else," he stated calmly, even with the prisoners long out of hearing range. "Talk with my secretary.
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They dumped them in a pair of cells on the Sixty-Seventh floor. Zell was put in the same room as Red XIII, and Quistis ended up with Squall. Pretty much from the instant that the door slid shut, Squall was checking their room for anything particularly useful. In that regard, he was out of luck, as, aside from a bunk cot on one wall and a toilet, there was nothing of any use in the cell, not even a blanket. The toilet didn't even have any screws he could remove, allowing him to pull it up. Somone had been thorough with their designing of the prison cells.
"So that's it?" Quistis asked as he finished his inspection, and Squall nodded. She sighed and sat down on the lower bunk, settling back.
"I didn't think it would end like this," she commented with a shake of her head.
"Its not over yet," Squall replied definitively. "We'll get our chance to escape."
"You think so?" Squall nodded again, settling against a wall.
"We'd better rest up," he stated. "We want to be alert for when our chance comes."
" . . . Squall?" a voice came faintly from behind where Squall had sat, and he looked up.
"Rinoa?" he called. "You're in there too?"
"Yeah," she replied. "I'm not surprised they isolated me from everyone."
"Don't worry," he called. "I'll get you out."
"Well, you are my bodyguard, right?" she replied with a giggle. "You still haven't collected your pay yet, either."
"Pay?" he asked. "Oh, the date, right."
"Date?" Qusitis asked, arching her eyebrow in surprise. "I thought such concepts were beyond you, Squall."
"Quistis is in there too?" Rinoa asked.
"Yeah," Squall replied. "Zell and Red are in the next cell down."
"Hmm." Rinoa didn't say anything else for a bit, and they waited in silence. Well, they would have if they hadn't heard Zell ranting in the next room about how he was going to pay back Shinra.
"Like hell I'm letting them get to the 'Promised Land,'" he proclaimed, and Squall had no difficulty imagining him throwing punches at his shadow while doing this. "If they get there, they'll suck up all that Mako and make the planet even weaker. Hell no! I can't let that happen, not while I can still fight. They can lock me up, but I'll just kick every wall in and beat their asses! Can't nothing hold back my ki, or what my grandpa taught me! Me, and Squall, and Quistis, and Xu, and Watts and Zone, and even Rinoa! We're gonna rise up and smash these bastards into the dust! What about you?"
Apparently, he was addressing Red, but the crimson-furred creature didn't reply. In fact, from the sounds of heavy, regular breathing, Red XIII was asleep.
"Man, for something so weird, you sure are boring," Zell complained, and Squall heard him slump to the floor.
"Rinoa," Quistis called a moment later, standing up off the bed. "Tell me something."
"Hm?" she replied.
"Does the 'Promised Land' really exist?"
"I don't know," Rinoa honestly replied. "All I know is . . . the Cetra were born from the planet, speak with the planet, and can unlock the planet. And then, the Cetra will return to the 'Promised Land.' A place that promises supreme happiness."
"What does that mean?" Quistis asked.
"I don't know," Rinoa replied. "Its more than words, but . . . I don't know."
"Speak with the planet?" Squall asked. "What do you mean?"
"Its hard to describe to an outsider," Rinoa replied uneasily.
"What does it say?' Quistis asked next.
"Its noisy," Rinoa replied. "Full of people. I can't hear much of what they are saying. The only place I could really hear it was either at home or at the church. My mother kept saying it wasn't safe here in Midgar . . . that is, my real mother."
Squall heard Rinoa sitting down on the bunk.
"She said some day I would get out of Midgar," Rinoa added. "She said I would speak to the planet somewhere safe, and there . . . I would find my own 'Promised Land' . . . ."
Rinoa trailed off, leaving Squall with a lot more questions than answers. After a moment, he shook his head. He knew right now that there was only one real question in need of answering. How the hell would they get out of here?
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First off, this chapter was...bloody. Blame it on Hellsing, I was watching that anime just a while ago. Though the sheer bloodiness comes out even moreso in the next chapter...
And now...for breaking news! Shout-outs have returned! Yes! Review my fic, and I will answer questions, make comments, and generally communicate with my loyal readers in the next chapter. So, without further ado, the first shout-outs for Bittersweet Synthesis. I'm only hitting the more recent reviews, as many questions asked by those have already been answered by the story and my comments. If you want a shout out, send me a new review! If you have the time, of course.
OniRazz: To answer your question about Synthesis, three of the characters from FFVII will be present, as will Sephiroth, Jenova, Shinra, the Turks, etc.
Daniel Wesley Rydall: Ah, I like your reviews. Detailed. I like Xu myself, she gives me a lot of leeway on her style and approach. Unfortunately, she won't be making too huge an appearance in this story. About Quistis' use of the whip, I agree that I didn't flesh that out properly and state how secure the whip was around the pipe. I was in a bit of a hurry to get done with a part that was really hard to properly write. Also, about Zell and Zone, I didn't have Zell pull him back, but rather try to drag Zell backward. He didn't exactly suceed at stopping Zell, though he could have maybe lifted him up slightly. Thanks for telling me about that.
Angel-Broken-Sorrow: I always look forward to your reviews, actually. My consistent reviewer! I cut out the cross-dresisng scene because...well, I didn't like it, and while Cloud might have settled for it, I think Squall would never have even considered it. XD Iyt could have been worse, I could have followed Peter Marcroft's strategy and have Squall disguise himself as a pimp! And yeah, Wedge dies along with the other two AVALANCHE members in FFVII.
Cloud-Strife-2004: Actually,t he idea to place FFVII characters into FFVIII was bouncing around in my head for a while, and the notion is appealing, though i'd rather get done with all the projects I'm working on now! XD One thing i decided for certian is that Cid will replace Cid, if you get my meaning. Doing something like that is inherently difficult, as the world of FFVII will readily accept FFVIII characters in these roles, but the same can't be said the other way around without drastic changes to the storyline, thus making Which is part of the fun. Glad to see I've inspired you. Good luck, write well, and never, ever give in.
Prodigy: THE MAN! An interesting idea...I like it, actually. And never fear, Sephiroth will be here. Hey, that rhymes.