"Sector Five!" Heidegger barks in Cloud's earpiece. "They're hitting Sector Five! Get down there!"
Intel hadn't come in from the Administrative Research division. A redundant security system on the Reactor had been triggered, and Cloud is racing down the highway on a company-issue motorcycle to pursue. A helicopter would be faster but it may tip-off the intruders of Cloud's arrival.
"We'll sneak up on those assholes and take 'em out!" Heidegger cackles. "Follow my instructions. I'm in the security feeds."
No screw-ups, is the impression Cloud gets from Heidegger's insistence of remaining in contact with him during the mission. He let two of them escape last time. He won't make that same mistake.
This time the MPs in the Reactor are informed of Cloud's arrival. He is to subdue the terrorists for capture, destroy them if priority one is compromised. The MPs will assist with extracting the prisoners. The Sector Five Reactor doubles as a major hub of weapons production, so Cloud knows there is no risk of Shinra imploding this one with him inside.
"One of them is heading towards the central security office," Heidegger says. "Cut him off first."
"Affirmative," Cloud says.
He pulls up to the Reactor and cuts the engine. He looks up at the massive structure as he adjusts the weight of the sword on his back. Floodlights illuminate the central pillar, showcasing billowing steam in a greenish hue against a black sky. It is an impressive feat of architecture and technology. Why would anyone want to blow one up, especially within the city limits?
He moves fast. The security room isn't far, but he's already well behind the terrorists. There's a trail of dead MPs. Cloud wishes he'd gotten here sooner. He throws open the door to the security center.
"Hello," he intimidates from the doorway and draws his sword.
A young man wearing fatigues and a red bandana is hunched over the controls. He's sweaty and frantic.
"You're too late!" the man shouts and presses the controls on a device he's holding. It's connected via a tangle of wires to the Shinra panels. The security feeds all go dark.
"That doesn't matter," Cloud says. "It's too late for you as well."
The terrorist brings his gun up and shoots. Cloud's sword deflects the bullet, but it would have been an accurate shot right at Cloud's head. The man fires several more times. Cloud advances.
"Surrender," Cloud says.
"Subdue him now!" Heidegger hisses in his ear. "I've lost visual on the others, but there was one heading towards the deliverable configuration units! You need to—"
Cloud pulls the earpiece out and throws it aside. He can't concentrate with that awful voice in his head.
"Surrender now!" he repeats to the terrorist.
"Go to hell, Shinra scum!"
Another barrage of gunfire. Cloud rushes in once the clip clicks dry. He meets the terrorist's eyes as the sword swings down. The arrogance is gone, replaced with pure fear. Cloud pulls the killing edge at the last second, smacking the broad side of the weapon against the man's skull. The man flies across the room and collapses. Unconscious. Cloud realizes he probably hit him a little too hard. He checks for a pulse and breathes out once he finds one.
He tampers with the device hooked into the security console, but it's gone dead. The battery pack is burnt-out and hot to the touch. Nothing he can do, and the wires are such a mess that it would take a qualified technician hours to repair.
He picks up the earpiece to hear Heidegger screaming at him.
"I can't repair the—" Cloud tries to report, but Heidegger isn't having it.
"I don't care about that! Get to the config units! I'm calling MPs to your location to secure the prisoner."
Cloud obeys. He waits for the MPs to march in and restrain the unconscious man, whose head and face are already swelling. Then he runs out. The configuration units are on the other side of the Reactor, near the supply intake for weaponry. This Reactor is unique from the others because of this assembly wing.
His footsteps hammer down the metal grating of the robotics storage, past massive incomplete techno-enhanced weapons. He hates these things, having been made to fight against several during his recovery. Even lifeless they look menacing.
At last he reaches the offices where the assemblies are configured from arms deliveries. At the oversized console, an overweight man in a white shirt taps away. It's the same terrorist from Sector One.
"Stop right there!" Cloud shouts across the room. It's a big open space cluttered with boxes dumped from pneumatic tubes onto conveyor belts for inspection and assignment.
He's a little out of breath as he approaches the terrorist. The overweight man turns and freezes.
"You again!?"
"Me again," Cloud agrees, steadying his sword. "Surrender now. It's over."
"N-n-no way, man. You killed my friend! You're going down."
The terrorist pulls a gun on him. In the other hand he holds out a bomb, detonator primed beneath one finger. Cloud recognizes it as a class-two explosive, or a crudely constructed copy of one. It's enough to level the entire room. The terrorist squeezes down. If the pressure is released, the bomb will explode.
"Don't be stupid," Cloud says. "I'm not here to kill you. And your friend isn't dead if you're talking about that woman you left behind in Sector One."
This has an effect as the man's expression softens.
"Jessie is... ?" Then he shakes his head. "No, you're lying! You're Shinra. I can't trust you!"
He opens fire, clutching the explosive tight.
Cloud closes the distance, taking cover behind crates of expensive electronic components as he advances. He hears tinny beeping and leaps away just as a proximity mine erupts next to him, ripping shrapnel through his ribs and shoulder. Pain registers in his brain, but adrenaline takes over, transforming it into rage.
He charges at the man, sword flashing, bullets ricocheting.
The terrorist backs away but the console is behind him and he has nowhere to go. The gun is empty, and he throws it at Cloud in desperation, struggling to retrieve the rifle on his back while holding the bomb. It's not enough.
Cloud closes the gap and cuts the rifle from its strap on the man's chest, flinging it away. Warm blood is soaking through his side, sliding down his hip. Fuck, it hurts.
"You," Cloud seethes through clenched teeth, "should not have done that."
He brings the hilt down hard on the terrorist's skull, not caring if any permanent damage is done. Just as the man falls, Cloud grabs the explosive from his hand, pressing down in the exact same spot to prevent the bomb from going off. The overweight man collapses onto him and Cloud kicks him aside, sweating from the pain branching through his abdomen.
The console, thankfully, looks untouched. What was this guy trying to do here? Cloud taps the disposal tube open and prays the explosive has a standard three-second timer. Then he holds it into a high-grade container made specifically for ammunition and releases the detonator, snapping his hand away and hitting the call button at exactly the same time. The pneumatic tube whips the box away. It will still explode in the system of course, but at least now it won't kill him.
"Report!" Heidegger makes him jump.
"Subdued," Cloud replies. He pulls bits of glass and curved metal from his side, biting his lip.
"I'll call the MPs."
"Y'know, I could really use the MPs before confronting these targets."
Heidegger laughs. "You got a mouth on you! Just shut up and do your job. I lost eyes on the last two, but no doubt they are heading to the core. Get there first."
The comm goes silent. Cloud winces. There's a shard under his ribs that he can't dig out. Blood dribbles over his gloves. He has to go on. The central core isn't far.
He walks with a limp, and his thigh is damp from blood loss, but at last he reaches the catwalk leading into the core. He pulls himself onto the rail overlooking the central platform and spots two figures running across the bridge above the cistern of Mako. One of them is the leader he engaged with in Sector One, gun-arm fully repaired and raised. The other is a woman. A strange sensation hits him.
White blots out his vision. His head swirls with dizziness. Suddenly, he's in the Reactor in Mt. Nibel. It's a similar layout except the Nibel Reactor is not as well-kept, the Mako is much further below in the well, and the central core is through another door because that was where Jenova and the Mako condensing units had been held. The woman is running across the bridge, long dark hair trailing behind her. She's crying, and she collapses next to a fallen man. She's screaming with anger and hatred. She curses Shinra. She picks up a sword. Then she walks into the core.
...Tifa...
The memory blinks away. He's back in Sector Five, clutching the rail tight. The figures are gone, and there's a black box strapped to the base of the core tower. He's too late. He struggles down the ladders to the platform and hobbles to the bomb. It's poorly constructed and easy to disarm. But he needs to catch those criminals. And from here there is only one other way they could've gone.
Scaffolding leads from the Mako pool into a utility shaft. He crawls through and finds the security doors in the maintenance rooms beyond unlocked. He's close.
He brushes off the resurgence of that particular memory. Blood loss had simply made him woozy, and he needs to finish this mission. Tifa is dead. Even if it felt like just months ago to him, it's been five years.
The utility catwalks open onto the exterior of the Reactor, splitting into two directions, and it's here where he catches up to them. Wind whips around him, and the city sprawls outward far below. The pair are at the fork, torn over which way to go. Cloud positions his sword in front of him, trying hard not to flinch from the shrapnel burying deeper with each step. He can feel sweat all over his face.
"S-Stop…" he calls out.
The leader turns, raises his gun-arm right at Cloud. But Cloud's mind is suddenly plummeting into surreality as the woman faces him. She recognizes him.
"Cloud?" she asks, her mouth a perfect oval as she speaks his name.
"'Cloud'?" The leader looks at her in disbelief. "You know this asshole?"
Cloud's eyes are locked on hers. She's older than he remembers, but it's her without a doubt. Plucked straight from his memories. Tifa. She's alive somehow. His chest hurts, and he realizes he's been holding his breath.
"I-I did," she says. "I mean, I do."
She gives Cloud a smile, and his heart skips a beat. She can't be real. But it can't be a dream.
"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me!" the leader raves. "Tifa, this is the guy I told you 'bout from Sector One."
"Stand down, Barret," Tifa says.
"We outta time. Fuck this guy, let's go!"
But Tifa is coming towards Cloud, careful like she is approaching a frightened animal.
Cloud stares at her. He barely hears his own voice speak.
"Your bomb… I disabled it. You...you failed…"
"Cloud, it's really you!" she says, and he can see happiness in her eyes. Honest happiness.
The sword lowers, but he won't let go. He's fraught with an overload of emotions.
"Tifa… You… You're alive…" He can't believe it. He tries to smile back at her.
She stands tall, demeanor shifting.
"So you're the First-Class Shinra SOLDIER tracking us," she surmises.
A childish pride fills him. He doesn't correct her.
"Y-yeah, that's right. First-class," he says.
"You need to let us pass."
Her voice is stern, commanding. Somewhere Heidegger is buzzing in his ear, but he hasn't been paying it any attention. Fragments come through.
"...asset...compromised…" Heidegger sounds muffled, like he's speaking to someone else with the comm open.
"Cloud, let us pass," Tifa insists. "I can see you're hurt. We don't want to fight."
"We ain't got time for this damn reunion," Barret bellows. "He's a distraction! Shinra troops will be here any second."
As if on cue, a siren shrieks. Cloud knows this sound, and he instantly raises his sword like a trained dog. A techno-soldier has been released. A mechanical monstrosity, one of many built in this very Reactor. It appears from below, jets blowing torrents of wind around them.
"Get behind me!" Cloud yells to her, knowing full well what this thing is. But she doesn't move, watching as it ascends.
It's a prototype air model, a fully automated weapon designed for in-flight combat against heavy armor.
The sleek green metallic body hovers at the edge of the scaffolding then descends between Cloud and Tifa. It's at least two stories tall. Cloud looks back the way he came, but the door has been sealed. A red light blinks over the keypad. He suspects the other two doors are the same since Tifa and Barret aren't running.
"I'll handle this," Cloud tells them. There is no way he's letting anything hurt Tifa now that she's come back from the dead.
"Like hell!" Tifa replies, pulling leather gloves over her fists. "Not without me."
"Are you crazy?" Barret screams, though his aim shifts to the new threat. "That SOLDIER is the enemy, too!"
"Shut up," Cloud says. Then he remembers the comm. "Heidegger, what are you doing? I'm up here, and I've got the situation under control."
No response. Cloud growls in frustration. He can't see Tifa and Barret anymore with the Airbuster Unit in the way.
"I'm watchin' you, SOLDIER boy," Barret warns Cloud.
Then it attacks. The engines whir, missiles rain down. Cloud dodges then slashes, denting the armored plating. Electricity discharges in response, jolting pain through him. He'd forgotten about that automated defense. The shock paralyzes him for a second. Then he slices again in the same spot, exposing a sliver of underlying circuitry, and retreats before countermeasures can deploy.
Lightning cracks and a bolt of yellow light splits into the machine. Barret had used a materia. The spell lights up the circuitry beneath the damaged plating, frazzling a wire.
"That's it," Cloud encourages. "Keep hitting it with Lightning."
"I know what I'm doin'!" Barret shouts with annoyance.
The Unit spins between the multiple targets, shooting missiles and arcs of electricity. Tifa gets in too close, pummeling the joints connecting one arm to its chassis, and a flamethrower sprays at her. She leaps back. Cloud casts Ice, freezing the nozzle of fuel. Steam hisses. Stun grenades spew to the ground. The trio continue the assault, striking and withdrawing in measured unison to keep the Unit bouncing between them.
The wounds in Cloud's side and shoulder are only getting worse with each hit he takes. He remembers the healing materia and draws the spell out of its depths, but it's such a young materia that he can't coax out anything more than a light refresh. He exhausts its strength without lending much more to his own.
But the Airbuster is taking heavy damage from Barret's constant stream of gunfire and Tifa's lightning-fast martial arts. The Unit evaluates the battlefield and lifts off, putting distance between it and the melee attackers. Cloud runs to Tifa and Barret. The three stand together, and the Unit's arms fly off, sailing towards them under independent propulsion.
"Stay on the main body!" Cloud tells Barret, knowing his gatling gun is the only reliable way to damage it now.
"I know, I know!" Barret roars. "Quit talkin' to me!"
Cloud stands back-to-back with Tifa, defending against the brutal swipes from the autonomous arms. He can hear her breathing, nearly feel her body heat. It's sending all sorts of reactions through him. He forces himself to focus, cutting apart one of the arms, leaving it a sputtering pile of dark metal, and then he turns to help Tifa. But she's already taken care of hers, landing a frightful kick that sends components flying. It drops off the edge of the scaffolding, scraping along the exterior of the Reactor as it goes.
Barret has filled the main chassis with bullet holes. It's leaking fluids everywhere and malfunctioning. Black smoke snakes out. The Unit is losing altitude. Something pops inside it and a fire erupts. The engines die. It collapses, inactive, and drops like a rock.
Cloud leans over the edge to confirm its demise. The prototype explodes into a fireball, sending a chain reaction of smaller collapses along sections of the Reactor below.
"No, Barret!"
Tifa stands between Cloud and Barret, who was just about to shove Cloud over the ledge, too.
"He just helped us. That means he's on our side," she says and turns to him. "Right, Cloud?"
Threat eliminated, Cloud breathes out. The agony crawling up his side is overwhelming. He feels sick.
"Are you alright?" Tifa is asking, touching his shoulder, but she seems so far away.
The doors remain sealed, he can see that from here. He's not sure he can activate the overrides in his condition. He can barely stand. Heidegger pipes up in his head.
"Yes, keep them talking a minute longer," Heidegger orders.
Cloud throws the earpiece off the edge.
"I'm fine," he tells Tifa. "You're...not dead. How did you—?"
"We do this later," Barret interjects. "C'mon, Tifa, we gotta find a way outta here. Help me with these doors. Leave SOLDIER-boy to think about what he did."
"He has a name," she responds, following.
"Not to me he don't."
Cloud wants to tell him that his friend, the woman rescued from Sector One, is alive, but a distinct sound in the sky is drawing nearer. A helicopter is approaching. Several, actually.
Black military choppers appear, floodlights hot on Tifa and Barret. The door of one slides open, and a shock of red hair in a suit points a long rifle out.
"No!" Cloud shouts, but the shots are fired.
Barret and Tifa drop. MPs descend from two other helicopters, swarming past Cloud. He is frozen, bleeding out and clinging to the railing. A rope twists from the first helicopter and the Turk who'd handled the rifle slides down, hopping next to Cloud on the catwalk and dusting off his disheveled suit. He chews on a toothpick.
"If you want something done right," Reno says with a sigh, "gotta call in the experts."
He flicks his toothpick right at Cloud's chest. Then he notices Cloud staring over at the MPs removing Tifa and Barret.
"Oh, don't worry," Reno confides. "Your new little pals aren't dead. Just asleep. And you," he pushes one finger into Cloud's shoulder, "are in big, big trouble."
He grins devilishly, then motions towards the rope.
"Well? Your ride home awaits."
Cloud can't climb though. He doesn't move. Reno calls the chopper closer and hauls Cloud aboard.
As the aircraft ascends, Cloud lays dizzy on its floor. Reno and Rude are there, but his thoughts are all with Tifa. He can't believe she would be a terrorist. It doesn't seem like her, but then again he doesn't really know her at all. He never did, if he's being honest.
At the Shinra Tower, he limps into Heidegger's office and listens to the man chastise him nonstop for twenty minutes. Cloud jeopardized the mission. He didn't fulfill his duty. They had to call in the goddamn Turks from field duty to clean up this mess. And that just gives the Administrative department more ammunition against dismantling the remnants of the SOLDIER program.
"You're decommissioned," Heidegger snarls. "Unreliable. Broken. Get out of my sight."
Cloud tastes blood in his mouth. He wheezes. "Where should I go?"
"I don't care." Then Heidegger adds dismissively, "Hojo wanted you for something. Why don't you go see him?"
Cloud obeys, dejected but oddly not caring as much as the situation should warrant.
He takes the elevator to the basement, one arm wrapped around his abdomen. It's getting difficult to keep his eyes open. The doors ping open at the bottom and he stumbles down the familiar corridor, one hand on the wall. He knocks on the glass doors of the professor's laboratory. An assistant answers, looking very frightened of Cloud's appearance.
"...the professor...wanted to see…"
He collapses before he can finish the thought.
