Its seems that the recent ruckus caused by the group hasn't disturbed the upper floor one bit. I would have thought so, cause the sound of gun fire and an explouding missle are hard to miss.
"Ryan, how did you know about the elevator?" Cloud asks, a little suspicious.
"Lucky guess, besides, I wanted the stairs because I perferred walking, and the walk up was very enjoyable." I flat out lied to him. It was more like :the flight up, but lets not piss of the man with the 200 pound sword. I practiced cure on everyone, and we picked up the elevator key one of the guards dropped. "Ready for an elevator ride?" I asked smiling.
Cloud bursts out, "I swear Ryan, if there are any more guards waiting in the elevator, I'll throw you threw it, then you will need to learn how to fly!"
"I already know." I said to him. He just stood there, trying to think of something to say.
"Yo Cloud, you have been shot down by a 16 year old." Barret said slightly laughing.
"Enough boys, we got to get going." Tifa jumped in. We all nodded and walked into the elevator. While riding up, I seen all of the eastern half of midgar, whith the sun going down, signaling nightfall. The elevator stopped and we exited, looking around. There were several guards, each walking around, trying to make sre no intruders come by. Along with that there were a series of pillars leading to the next level up. Cloud directed us on when to go, keeping a watch for the enemy, after a few minutes, we all got across safely and started to walk up the stairs.
The next floor was filled with people, and trying to go up higher was completely useless without a keycard, we were going to mingle, and see if we could swipe one. Many of the workers wouldn't come near me, because the idea of coming near a lupine was proposterous, at least to them.
Tifa was taking a breather at one pf the many benches, and checked her gear. She seemed a little upset about something, though we all were when Aeris was taken, so she has her reasons.
Barret had as much linguistic communicational abilities with the workers on this floor as Riker, so he couldn't help our cause.
Cloud, though, managed to fool a worker, making it look like we were the cleaning crew and gave him the keycard to the next floor.
We continued up these stairs and entered a library. We walked around for a good while, trying to find the person who runs this floor. We ran apon a soilder and was ready to attack.
"If your here to see the Mayor, he's through that door over there." The soilder said pointing.
"Uhh thanks." I responded. We entered the tiny crowded office, to be greeted with a slightly wicked smile.
"Hello there children, now what do you need." the slightly fat man asks.
"The keycard to get through the door upstairs. We're cleaning people, and we.."Cloud starts but is intrupted by the mayor.
"I know who you are, and personally, I hate the shinra too, they gave me this position for in case something happens, the uppers have someone to take the blame." He says.
"Harsh, so will you help us." I ask.
"On one condition, you play my little game."
"We have no time for yer bull, just give us the card." Barret speaks in a rather angry tone.
"Maybe security would like to come." The mayor says slyly.
"I'll play your game." I say, figuring that I already know what to do. "so what do I do?" I ask to not sound suspicious.
"Just figure out the riddles of the library,get me the answer, and good luck." He smiles.
I start to walk past the first door checking the number, and writing it down with a pen and a piece of paper he let me use. The others just sat there and waited as I quickly breezed through and got down all the information. :This is a piece of cake when you've done it many times.: I thought to myself recording the last letter. I walk into the office with a smile on my face. "MAKO."
"YES ,yes yes yes yes, I love that name, oh beuitiful mako, you make the world go round." The mayor started to blabber on and on. I was ready to shoot him, but seriously, who wouldn't be. "Here is the key card. The minds of the youth are truly a brilliant thing. For getting it on your first try, I want to give you my special materia." He handed me a blue elemental materia orb. "Stick it to the uppers."
We went up the stairs to the next level. Tifa started, "I personally think he was mental."
"Damn straight." Barret exclaimed.
"No kidding, say Cloud?" I asked. "Does my arm have the capibilities to use this materia with something else?" I finished. He stopped and checked out the slots on my arm.
"see the grove connecting the two slots, this will allow you to put the elemental in one slot, a magic materia in the other, and your weapon will have the attribute of the magic materia. If it was the bangle, than your defence against that certian element would increase, you understand?" He stopped and waited for a reply.
"Yeah, I think." I had fire and bolt in my arm, cure and ice in the bangle. I took fire out of my arm and replaced it with the elemental materia. I immidiately felt a surge of electricity go through my arm. It kinda felt good in some weird way.
The next floor was filled with doors, and a computer.
Cloud says, "lets go, this is a waste of our time."
"I'm good with puzzles, let me do it." I beg.
"Five minutes." He says he'll give me. 3 minutes later...
"Star pendant, four slots, and an all materia, what a jackpot." I smile as they look at me with amazement.
"Damn, that was fast, any chance you want to share some of that?" Barret asks. I throw him the all materia, figuring I have another. I placed the pendant around my neck and equiped the four slots. Fire, Ice, cure, and a sence that I picked up way earlier in the beginning of my journey. I was officially happy, and cloud was officialy pissed at how cocky I was becoming.
"You had a run of good luck, thats it. Don't let it get to your head." He said in that low mean voice. I just tuned it out as we started up the stairs again, this time into a gym and recreational facility. The keycard we had covered the next floor up.
I took a breif nap at the beds to give myself a quick energy boost. Riker slept at the floor in the front of the bed that was there, Cloud and Barret also took a break, by pumping iron. Tifa was on one of the treadmills. I guess them not noing were avalanche, were more than welcome to have us here, as long as we had a bit of cash in our pockets.
Rest time was over as we headed into the stairwell to go to the next floor. Another keycard was needed and this floor had to be the one that had it. It was large, and in the center, was the model of Midgar. This floor was different though, because there were guard robots everywhere, and I don't think that being sneaky would help.
I was right, two moth slashers came waltzing by as if they owned the place and spotted us trying to get to another room.
"I'll take the ugly one!" I said as I ran towards the machine with the spinning spiky things that looked leally ticked off. He held his spinning spikes out at me in an attempt to cut me down. It failed horribly as the blades came into contact with my arm and dented them in. "Damn, this armor plating really is good. I held it there as Riker came from behind me. I lowered to let Riker jump of my back. He understood and went off straight towards the head. "Piercing fang" The enlarged teeth went straight through and damaged it badly. It started to flail around and knocked me back, cutting me in the process. I armed myself with the shotgun and fired. The combination with the elemental sent electricly chargedd bullets straight towards it. Apon impact, it short circuted, causing it to fall to pieces. Across the room, heavy sword impacts and gun fire also ceased as barret was in the back, Cloud was on top of the robot with the buster sword sticking straight through, and Tifa finished off her beat rush combo, which included the sumersalt. It was all good, and This was looking like it was are day,
"Damnit, this stupid chest won't open." Barret said, trying to open a chest.
"Neither will this one." Tifa said in disapointment.
"What the hell are we supposed to do here?" Cloud asked, with his buster sword out, ready to smash the box he was at.
"Just try all of them, one of them have to open up." I added, trying at a box. Hey, I didn't remember everything. We all furiously searched until we found one open.
"I think these go to the modle thing in the middle of the room. Barret said, looking quite puzzeled at the piece. He took it and placed in in the model, at that moment, another chest had popped open.
"Hey look, more pieces." Tifa said as she placed them into the model.
Ten minutes trying to find out which chest opened, we got to the last one, which contained a keycard to the next level.
"Ha, some puzzle master." Cloud insulted.
"yeah I know."I replied, while trying to make it look like I wasn't taking it seriously.:Won't shoot him, Won't shoot him.:
We had reached an exectuive lever where there was a meating going on.
Cloud spoke up. "We have to find out whats going on." He led us into a bathroom where he had seen a vent. He climbed in and helped everyone up.
"I'll stay guard, make sure no one comes." I say. I already know what their talking about so it won't matter to me. Another ten minutes later, sitting on the jon makeing it look like i needed to e there, they had come down, really nervous and ticked.
"Come on, we had got to save Aeris." Cloud runs ahead and we all follow him up to the next level. There was a man in a white lab coat with long dark hair, and very pale skin, but that was from the back. Cloud said we have to follow him. We had until he stopped at a door with a red lion type thingy that looked really mad. Red XII, Another fellow that joins us after we save Aeris. While listening to the scientist babble on about his preacious experiment, Cloud went and took a look into a tank, and almost looked like he was going to have a epileptical fit. Barret followed with the comment...
"Damn, where's its F#$king head!" I had to take a look, and I have regretted it ever sence. It looked like it had eyeballs on top where its head should be. It had pure pink skin everywhere I could see. There was also what looked like a pink slime oozing off of it. The scientist had left by now, not knowing we where here.
"Oh SHIT!" I said, looking at it. I read the name on top of it, Jenova.
Cloud spoke quietly"Jenova, thay must mean..Sephiroth was near."
(This chapter has a good feel to it for some reason. I tried to not make it boring, because during this part in the game, I often pass out due to wxtream boredom, so enjoy.)
