Happy Friday! I hope you all have had a good, safe week.
As always, thank you for your reviews, follows, and favorites! This story looks like it's going to be a long one, so seeing that people are actually enjoying it give me to motivation to keep going :)
Enjoy the chapter!
Cloud's breathing was ragged as he slashed at the Scorpion Sentinel, and the sound of metal slamming against metal resounded through the reactor's core. It echoed in his head. Ricocheted within the confines of his mind and reverberated through him, a steady rhythm punctuated by gunshots, the sentinel's harsh clanging, the platform rattling beneath him with every desperate, frantic step. A part of him knew that Barret was nearby and was fighting. Sometimes he even heard the Avalanche leader's sharp laugh every time he managed a particularly good shot, but it was just… noise. Noise that twisted and knotted inside Cloud's head. Trembled down his spine. Shook him to his core.
But they were almost there. They were almost done, because the Scorpion Sentinel was looking pretty ragged; its metal plating was riddled with cuts and bullet holes, and entire pieces had been ripped off to revel the tangled wire mesh beneath. Some of the wires had sparked and ignited, and now flames licked the side of the sentinel and snaked up its legs, spitting out both smoke and sparks that mingled with the bullets that the sentinel seemed to continuously launch. Somewhere within the chaos, Cloud had settled into a rhythm, or a dance: stab, parry, twist, shoot, then repeat, until the world was a fire-soaked blur of gray and red around him. He became something of a machine. An automation. The very thing they were trying so hard to kill.
And seeing a brief opening, Cloud crouched before launching himself forward. He became a mere blur against the ground, and the sentinel was too slow to react - far too slow - and he landed a series of clean hits against one of its legs. The blows rang true with a clean, hollow sound that set his teeth on edge, and the leg's armor plating bent, cracked, then finally crumpled beneath its own weight.
With a harsh screech, the Scorpion Sentinel collapsed.
The entire platform rattled and groaned when the sentinel fell heavily on its side, and for a single, gut-wrenching moment, Cloud was afraid that the platform would collapse. That it was would break and he would fall into the mako pool beneath him, into that thick, green, bubbling sludge, unable to stop or save himself. And he knew what would happen next. He knew that the mako would be thick and warm the moment he splashed into it, but then after a few seconds, his skin would begin to tingle as the mako burned off the first layer of his skin. Then if he didn't get out fast enough, his fingers and toes would go numb and the numbness would creep up his limbs like spiders, like ants, sapping him of strength, until he'd eventually go limp and sink beneath the surface.
And then he would inhale the mako, and it would be like inhaling tar. First it would burn his lips. Then his throat. Then fill his lungs, choking him of air, robbing him of any hope to gain another breath. Then he would sink to the bottom of the mako pool... and the reactor's engine would suck him right back up.
Cloud inhaled a shuddering breath.
Nearby, Barret leveled his gun at the downed Scorpion Sentinel. Light began to gather at its tip, and when the light grew nearly blinding in intensity, he let the overcharged shot go with a wild cry. The bullet, if the glowing, pulsing orb could be called as such, slammed into the downed sentinel before cutting straight through, leaving a fist-sized hole in its wake.
The damage was impressive, and Barret let out a whoop. "That that, you automated asshole!"
"You could do that the whole time?" Cloud asked, righting his blade. His voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, but he couldn't tell if it was because he was speaking quietly or because his head felt fuzzy, like it had been stuffed with cotton. Maybe both.
Barret shot him a wild, cocky grin. "It takes time to charge!" he shot back, and then he was back to firing regular bullets at the downed Scorpion Sentinel. Each staggered blast lit up his face with blinding light. "But goddamn, I killed the bastard! I'm the best!"
Cloud turned back to the sentinel, his eyes narrowed, the sea-glass irises bright despite the heavy smoke beginning to choke the cavern. The sentinel certainly looked dead. Or at least, it was certainly dying. Its five remaining legs twitched helplessly at its side, much like an oversized, overturned beetle, and its barbed tail rippled against the ground in sporadic, twitching movements. The wires that had torn free in Barret's shot now spit and sprayed sparks onto the ground, and Cloud could hear them hiss when they touched the mako swirling beneath the platform.
But Cloud wasn't looking at the mako; or at least, he was trying his damnest not to. His gaze was instead pinned on the sentinel's eye, which had begun to flicker between soft green and blazing red... before going utterly dark. After a few beats and nothing changed, Cloud felt himself relax a fraction. "I think it's dead."
Barret laughed, a crazy sound. "I told ya so! I told ya! See?" He grinned at Cloud, wide and feral. "I'm the best! And don't you forget it!"
Barret's loud voice grated against Cloud's sensitive ears and scraped the inside of his mind, and he winced from the assault. "What you are is loud," he muttered as he rubbed the side of his head, as if to massage the harsh noise out of him. "Aren't you ever... quiet?"
"Hell nah! I got things to say, and I mean to say it!"
"You really don't need to," Cloud muttered, but his attention was suddenly snagged by something else. There was a faint beeping sound coming from somewhere nearby, and while it was nearly too quiet for him to hear, it was slowly growing in intensity. It took him another moment to realize that the beeping sound was coming from the Scorpion Sentinel, and now that mech had become the focal point of his attention, he noticed that the sentinel was acting... strangely.
Cloud's grip tightened on his gunblade sentinel's body began to vibrate. The beeping morphed into a clanging, one that continued to grow with intensity.
Barret took a step towards the machine. "Hell nah," he said. "It can't be! I put a massive hole in it! So why's it suddenly moving, huh?"
"It... It doesn't matter." Cloud's luminous eyes flicked from the timer to the sentinel, then back again. "Let's go. The timer's ticking."
Barret's expression hardened. "Right," he said, and began jogging back to the platform's ladder.
Cloud moved to follow when, without warning, the sentinel's tail suddenly jolted upright. He spun around as blue light began to gather at the tail's barb, and his breath caught in his throat. He knew that light, knew it from distant, ragged memory, and his voice was hoarse as he shouted, "Duck!"
Barret hit the deck without even turning around, and there was another thud as Cloud did the same. And not a moment too soon; the light at the barb's tip sharply focussed before it shot out a beam... one that went wild. Barret loudly cursed as the laser streaked above him before pivoting in a harsh V shape, then tore through the reactor's engine, destroying it. Mako fumes, tinged green from its sheer concentration, immediately erupted from the damaged mechanics while the laser continued along the walls then up to the roof, tearing the wall and snapping pipes all the while. Flames trailed behind it as pipes were cut and electrical wires were torn.
When the sentinel's laser weakened and died completely, Cloud allowed himself to minutely lift up his head up off the floor... and his eyes widened. Long, chared streaks criss-crossed the walls and ceiling. Some of the platforms that had been unfortunate enough to be in its way had been torn neatly in half, and the jagged, white-hot edges dripped molten metal on whatever was unfortunate to be below it.
"Goddamn," Barret murmured at his side. He coughed on the smoke. "I hate that stupid thing."
Cloud wordlessly agreed, only to suddenly jolt when the damaged engine unexpectedly ignited for a second time. But instead of blasting smoke and steam, it exploded with fire - a fire that had combusted from stray sparks and liquid mako. "Shit!" Barret shouted as the deafening blast rattled the cavern, and when Cloud blinked open his eyes next, the air was dark with smoke and heavy with the taste of metal and acid, an effect made only more potent by the small explosions that rippled up and down the sentinel's body.
And the sentinel was moving.
Cloud's eyes flared as his hold tightened on the hilt of his gunblade. It's alive, he realized, and the thought filled him with cold dread. They didn't have time to fight the sentinel some more. In fact, they were rapidly running out of time, and his eyes flicked to Barret. Should I tell him to... to run? he wondered, his mind struggling to find the words, to align them in the correct order. And... And I can meet up... meet up later? But Tifa...
"You go ahead," Barret suddenly said. "Meet up with Jessie and get her out of here." He took a step closer to the sentinel as it struggled to stand, its legs wobbling beneath it. Its joints creaked and groaned with every shaky step. "I'll hold off the sentinel."
Cloud blinked, and it took him a moment to process what Barret was saying. But when it did... "No," he said, his voice firm. "I'll... I'll stay."
"Merc, I thought I told you that I paid you to boss you around," Barret told him, but then lips twitched into a sharp smile. An unexpected smile, one that had Cloud frowning. "'Sides, I promised Tifa somethin'."
Cloud's frown deepened. A promise... now that meant something to him. "Promised?" he echoed, just as the sentinel stood fully upright. He tensed as it lifted its arms, the automatic machine guns whirring to life within their thick barrels... when an arm suddenly snapped off, unable to take the strain. It hit the ground with a heavy thud and the sentinel teetered over, suddenly off-balanced, only to immediately applied more weight to the opposite legs. But the weight proved too great, far too great, and with an ear-splitting crack, the legs broke completely. It was a clean break, right through the joints, and the Scorpion Sentinel wavered unsteadily on its feet.
So Cloud lifted his gun and shot one of them, directly at one of its damaged joints.
The joint promptly snapped, and with a harsh grinding noise, the sentinel slammed into the railing before falling into the mako reactor below.
And exploded.
Green fire ballooned into the air, a fire so potent of mako that it burned Cloud's eyes and throat, and he coughed as he stumbling backwards. He heard, as if from a great distance, Barret's sharp-tongued cursing, and the world swaying nauseatingly around him...
... and then he was staring through a glass wall, one that was curved around him like a jar, and there was something staring in at him. No - not something. Someone. Someone with a greasy salt-and-pepper hair and a hooked nose, and he was smiling. He always seemed to be smiling...
"Now, Sample C, no more setbacks. No more failures," the man was saying. "I have high expectations for you, but we can't have you vomiting with every injection. Understand? Unless you want Sample Z to take your dose for you..."
... and Cloud slammed a hand against his mouth, hard enough to bruise his lips as his stomach twisted and rolled. What... What was that? he wondered, wide-eyed. I don't...
"Hot damn," Barret whistled as he watched the fire roll and mushroom straight to the ceiling. "That's a helluva nice sound! Serves that stupid piece of shit robot right, too! Asshole!" he called down to its rapidly sinking form. "Now stay dead!"
Cloud squeezed his eyes shut. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Every faint breath tasted heavily of mako, and he was going to be sick. But he couldn't be sick. He couldn't, because bad things would happen, and -
"Hey, SOLDIER-boy, you good?" Barret had moved to his side at some point, and actually looked... concerned. Not at all like he had back in the bar. Or anytime during the mission. Or... ever. "You ain't freakin' out again, are ya?"
"Not... freaking out." Cloud lowered his hand; his stomach still rolled, but he had a distraction now, something else to hold on to. He had to focus on something else. Had to think about something else. "The… The mako," he finally managed. "It's... a lot."
Barret made a noise of agreement. "Yeah, I get that. Makes me feel sick too. So let's get the hell out of here, yeah?" He glanced back to the engine, his jaw clenched. "I dunno how long that timer has been going," he continued, turning back to Cloud, "but I'm sure as hell not gonna… Shit, your eyes!"
Cloud blinked at him, startled by his tone. "What's - What's wrong with them?"
"They're... they're like, slitted." Barret made a face. "Shit. That normal? That a SOLDIER thing?"
Slitted? Cloud's memory tumbled backwards, back to a silver-haired SOLDIER with bright green, slitted eyes, and he shivered. "Must be the... the mako."
"Huh." Barret looked at him a second longer, then his eyes widened. "Damn! Never mind your freaky SOLDIER shit, we ain't got the time! This place gonna blow!" What that, he turned and began running towards the ladder – but not before double checking that Cloud was following, too. "Wedge should be covering our way out!"
Cloud nodded, even though Barret had his back turned and couldn't see. The world was a swaying blur around him; all he could think about, all he could sense, was how strong the mako tasted on his tongue. How sharp it smelled. How humid it was. Not to mention that his eyes were slitted...
No, he told himself as his stomach rolled again. Don't think... think about that. Focus. Everything's... okay.
Barret had begun to climb the ladder first, and was now shambling up the rungs with a shocking amount of speed. "Go go go!" he shouted as he continued to climb. "We gotta move!"
Firelight stained the walls a flickering red, and heat warmed Cloud's back as he hurried up the ladder. Out. He wanted out. He wanted out desperately, and it struck him as to just how familiar that feeling was. Shockingly familiar, and he stretched his hand out to grab another rung of the ladder...
...and then a door was suddenly being pulled out of his hands, and he looked up, blinking in confusion, and found himself staring into a pair of very startled, very blue eyes...
...and Cloud gasped, his hands slipping on the ladder.
Zack?
Barret leaned over the railing. "Merc!" he shouted. "Don't you dare fall on me! Tifa will beat my ass!"
Cloud blinked the sweat out of his eyes. Shit. He strengthened his grip on his ladder and continued to climb, his breaths short and panicked. "Fine," he said, even as he wondered, The hell is... going on? Ever since he entered the reactor, it's been nothing but hallucination after hallucination, and now they were blending together, the line between the present and the past becoming blurred, and he was slowly becoming unsure of what side he was standing on. Even thinking was becoming more and more difficult, and his mind was stumbling over the words, over their meaning. Am I... He thickly swallowed. Am I going... going crazy?
The thought paled him.
"You good?" Barret asked when he reached the top. He laughed, but it sounded strained. "Damn, you nearly ate shit! Thought I'd hafta fish you outta the reactor for a second there!"
Cloud clenched his hands into fists to hide their trembling. "I'm... fine."
"Fine, huh? Is that the only thing you know how'ta say?!"
Cloud glared at him.
"Okay, okay. Yeesh." Barret began heading towards the next ladder. "Just tryin'a lighten the mood."
Cloud didn't want to lighten the mood, he just wanted to be back at Tifa's apartment. Where she would be. Where nothing smelled or tasted like mako. Where it was safe. "Time?"
"Dunno," Barret said as he grabbed the ladder with his good arm. "Ten minutes, maybe?"
Cloud squinted at the platform above them. "Shit."
"Shit," Barret agreed, and the two of them began to climb.
"You guys finally made it!" Jessie called the moment they reached the top. She ran towards them, grinning. "I saw the battle – very badass! You showed that thing who's boss!"
Barret grinned as they highfived. "Hell yeah!"
"And Cloud, good job too," Jessie said as he hurried to his side. He had been gazing down to the mangled engine below them, but her upbeat voice had him turning towards her, surprised. "I saw how you shot the mech at the end there so it would fall into the mako. Very cool."
It took a moment for her words to pierce the fog in his mind, but when it did, his lips twitched into a smile. "Thanks."
Jessie beamed.
"Quit jabberin' and let's hurry the hell up!" Barret shouted at the two of them. He was already running up the flight of stairs, retracing the steps they took to enter the reactor. "Biggs and Wedge are waitin' for us!"
"Yes, sir!" Jessie quipped and, with one last grin at Cloud, hurried to follow.
Cloud took a step forward, but something above them caught his eye. He jerked his head up just in time to see a thick metal pipe, one of many that had been hit by the Scorpion Sentinel's chaotic final attack, groan and dip. Then, with a final crack, a segment broke off the main body and began to fall, heavy and graceless, before slamming onto the very platform they were standing on... and then snapping it in half.
The ground shuddered once before giving out, and Cloud's stomach clawed into his throat as his body suddenly lifted, weightless. His eyes flared and he looked down, down to the mako pool bubbling far beneath him, and he recoiled in absolute rejection. He would not fall into the mako, would not drown in it, and in his desperation, he slammed his feet on the falling platform and launched himself into the air. His goal was a small pipe that had ran above the platform, but he hadn't been certain he'd make it until his fingers coiled around its warm metal.
He dangled there for a moment, breathing heavily as his legs swaying beneath him, his heart hammering in his chest. That was... close. Lifting his head, and trying to calm his sparking nerves, he slowly exhaled before to swinging back to the intact platform.
"You're alive!" Jessie said the moment his feet touched the platform. Her leg was pinned by a slab of stone that had fallen from the ceiling, and Cloud hurried to her and helped lift it off of her. "Thank god," she continued as she wiggled herself free, seemingly uncaring that she had been pinned beneath a ton of concrete just a second ago. "I thought for sure you were dead."
"Me too," Cloud admitted, but his gaze hadn't moved from his ankle. "You... You okay?"
"Ah, yeah. No worries." She rubbed her ankle; or rather, the metal bracer that had protected it. The metal was scraped, the worst of it was dented. But it was intact. "Better now that you're here," she added with a wink.
Jessie was particularly good at winks, and Cloud did his best to ignore it. "You can walk?" he asked, and vaguely gestured towards her ankle.
"Definitely," she promised. "Don't worry about me. Besides, if I couldn't walk, you'd be the first to know."
Cloud frowned. Why would I...
"Hey!" Barret shouted. He waved at them from the platform above; somehow, he had gotten separated when the platform had broken. "You guys good!?"
"Barret!" Jessie called, her expression breaking out in a smile. "Yeah, we're good! You?"
"Hell yeah I'm okay! Nothin' can take me out. But anyway! We'll link up over there!" Barret pointed to a door opposite of the one they entered from, as their original entrance had been blocked off by falling debris. "SOLDIER-boy, you look after Jessie!"
Cloud nodded, not entirely trusting his voice.
"Let's hurry," Jessie told him. Cloud was content to follow her; he didn't trust his own senses, not with him seeing things, and simply listened to her as she continued, "This route should lead us straight to Barret." She slid down a ladder, Cloud right behind her. "Well…" She began to run across a thin maintenance platform, one that hugged the inner walls of the reactor. "Probably!"
"Probably?" Cloud echoed. The mako taste didn't seem as strong anymore, but he couldn't tell if it was because the air was clearing or if he was just getting used to it.
"Well… most likely!" Jessie bit her lip as she jumped off the maintenance platform to another level, then began climbing a ladder to a far larger platform above them. "Just… don't look behind you! We have to move! We gotta go! Because we - we don't want to be still here when it goes off!"
Somewhere between one platform to the next, one rumbling explosion to the other, it occurred to Cloud that Jessie was freaking out. And that maybe he should say something about it. Try to make her feel better. But he wasn't good at making people feel better, or comforting, or... anything like that.
"Are you… okay?" he eventually settled on when they reached the larger platform.
Jessie ran towards the next ladder without bothering to glance back at him, which had him deflating slightly. "Yes! Sorry! When I'm stressed, I talk! It keeps me focussed! I'll freak out if I don't talk!"
The exact opposite was true for him, but... "You do you," he replied.
"I will! Now lets go!" She hurried up the ladder, at times skipping entire rungs. "We're running out of time!"
At the top of the ladder was Barret, and his expression broke out into a grin when he noticed Jessie and Cloud rushing towards him. "You made it!" he shouted. Several infantrymen were lying unconscious on the ground around him, along with a few downed Monodrives – several that immediately disintegrated the moment Cloud's gaze landed on them. "And took your damn sweet time, too! I had'ta kill these things off all by myself! And that was supposed'ta be your job, merc!"
Cloud shrugged.
"But anyway! Let's getta move on!" Barret was already running towards the opposite door, his footsteps heavy against the metal floor. "Times a'wastin'! Only six more minutes!"
Jessie squeaked. "Six minutes?"
"My bad," Cloud muttered.
"My bad?" Jessie shot him an aghast look, even as she ran. "What do you mean, my bad?"
Heat touched Cloud's cheeks, and he again shrugged.
They continued to run through the hallway until they reached another room – a mech storage area. The Sweepers, which bulky mechs that breathed fire from their piston-like appendages, were neatly parked along the walls. All of the lights were shut off. Not even the emergency lighting flickered along the floor, and the place felt eerily quite and empty. Like, at any moment, the Sweepers could all turn on and shoot them dead in seconds.
The thought set Cloud's teeth on edge as he followed Barret through the room, and his hand never strayed far from his gunblade.
"Biggs must've shut the place down while we were in the reactor," Barret mused as they turned the corner.
"Thank god." Jessie shot the mechs a worried glance. "Fighting one would be the last thing we need right now!"
Cloud wordlessly agreed, and only minutely relaxed when they exited the mech containment center and were hurrying through another warehouse – this one stacked with boxes. Like the mech facility, this one was similarly empty and dark.
"This strike you as kinda creepy?" Barret asked as they began ran up the staircase, their footsteps strikingly loud in the otherwise silent room. "I mean, there're no Monodrives, no soliders, no nothin'."
"I hope this is Biggs' work," Jessie said, in a tone that indicated that she didn't believe that at all. "Cloud, you think Biggs did this?"
Cloud shrugged.
Barret shot him a look as they rounded the corner and entered another room. "Have you gone mute, SOLDIER-boy?" This room looked like the security bay, and the rectangle-shaped cell was divided by a cracked glass pane. One half was full of monitoring equipment with lots of unlit buttons, while the other half was devoid of any decoration. There was an elevator at the far end of the room. "Hit your word quota for th' day something?"
"No," Cloud deadpanned.
Jessie hit the up button on the elevator, and bounced on the balls of her feet as she waited for it. "How much more time do we have left?"
"Eh, five minutes?" Barret said. They piled inside the elevators the moment the doors slid open, and soon they were slowly rattle upwards.
Cloud leaned against the wall, grateful for the brief rest. "More like one," he muttered.
Jessie looked at him, wide-eyed. "One?!" Her voice was high-pitched. "Are you shitting me right now?"
In a different part of Midgar, on the highest level of Shinra Headquarters, the President ordered the destruction of Mako Reactor One.
During the elevator's upward struggle, Barret had begun to pace the elevator doors, rapidly becoming more and more impatient. "Shit!" he finally shouted, causing Jessie to jump. "Can't this thing go any fa -"
A sudden explosion, far more powerful than any prior, shook the elevator. The elevator rocked back and forth as the lights flickered, threatening to die and bask them all in darkness, and the metal walls groaned with the force of the blast. Red sparks rained to the floor. Barret cursed again as he threw his arms out, trying to regain his balance, as Jessie clung to the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, muttering something under her breath, but the words were drowned out as an alarm began to blare. Seconds later the elevator went dark, only for the emergency lights to flicker on moments later and bask the room in pulsing red.
"Ah, no, no, no!" Barret turned to the display screen, wide-eyed, only to sharply exhale when he noticed that the up arrow continued to flash. His hand tightened into a fist. "Come on, come on, come on!"
"Think we're gonna make it?" Jessie murmured.
Cloud had nearly fallen over from the blast, but a quick hand splayed against elevator wall managed to keep him upright. He blinked away the stars in his eyes, and managed a small smile at her, hoping to be reassuring. "Yeah."
"How do you know?" Jessie's eyes were wide, the white of her sclera clearly visible. "It's just that, like, the explosion was way stronger than the bomb should have been, so -"
"It'll be... It'll be okay," Cloud interrupted. "We're fine."
"An' besides, we're almost at the exit," Barret added, sparing him from saying anything else. The red lights highlighted the sharp edges of his face. "And then we'll meet up with Biggs and Wedge, so don't you worry, Jess. SOLDIER-boy here is right. We're just fine."
Jessie managed a small smile. "Right. Sorry. I panicked." She humorlessly chuckled as she leaned against the wall, her gaze pinned to the floor. "The shaking elevator got to me. You know… small, enclosed spaces that can easily combust just... aren't my favorite."
"Me neither," Cloud murmured.
Barret shot him an odd look just as the doors slid open, revealing another room – one that was empty, with the exception of another door. It appeared to be locked by a computer terminal, and Jessie hurried to the computer beside the door and began to type. Her typing wasn't as fast as Biggs, but even so, her fingers were a blur against the monitor.
"Just gotta do what Biggs said," she was mumbling to herself. "Just gotta do it like this, and this, and… and there!" Jessie grinned as the doors slid open, just as the room was once again rocked by a heavy explosion. "That worked! I can't believe that worked!"
Barret patted her on the back, grinning even as he walked past her. "I can," he said, just as the ground shuddered with another blast.
Everyone stumbled backwards at the floor's harsh shuddering, but it wasn't the explosion that left Cloud dazed. The moment the doors had slid open, the harsh scent of mako hit Cloud like a truck. Like a bullet to the chest, and he had nearly stumbled backwards at the sheer intensity of it, at his body's sharp recoil. The doors led to the maintenance platforms that spiderwebbed over the main reactor cavern, and now they were overwhelmed with smoke and fumes from the burning engine. The smoke was so thick that Cloud couldn't even see the far wall, and the walls that he could see were overwhelmed with green flame.
But if he wanted to get out of here, he knew that he had to walk through that.
The thought filled him with dread.
"Damn!" Barret shouted once the worst of the shaking had subsided. "Let's go, people! We don't have a lot of time here!"
"I don't think we have any time!" Jessie cried as she followed Barret out the door.
Barret turned back to the main group. "Hold your breath in the smoke!"
"Yes, sir!" came Jessie's immediate reply, and the two of them disappeared into the churning black.
Cloud was the last to enter, and inhaled as lightly as possible before walking through the smoke. His lips felt sticky from the humidity and his eyes burned as squinted through the thick haze, haze that was rapidly shifting from a dark gray to almost green as the mako in his eyes flared. Maybe they had become slitted as well...
Suddenly he heard a loud gasp. "Made it!" Barret shouted from somewhere in the gloom.
Barret didn't sound very far away either, which sparked a bit of hope in Cloud. Already his lungs were burning - he should have taken a deeper breath - but then he was stepping out of the smoke as well, his eyes bloodshot and blinking.
A hand suddenly grabbed his arm. "Got you!" Jessie said, coughing somewhat. Cloud glanced at her; her cheeks were dark with soot, and her eyes were bloodshot as well, but then her expression shifted. "Cloud, your eyes..."
"Mako," Cloud immediately replied.
Jessie let his arm go, blinking. "R - Right."
"Shit, let's go!" Barret shouted at them. He waved them down the wide corridor he had entered, and his sunglasses reflected the green flames behind them. "We ain't got the time!"
"Right behind you!" Jessie said, already running towards him.
Cloud, after shaking his head as if to clear it, quickly followed.
Another explosion rang out behind them, and basked the world in green.
Heidegger stared at the computer monitors, stunned. Not only had the sewer rats defeated the Scorpion Sentinel, but they had even managed to escape. He didn't know how they did it. Didn't know how they had disabled the various defense systems, didn't know why the various shock troopers hadn't deployed, didn't know why the Sweeper's offensive system hadn't been initiated. But because of those series of failures, the sewer rats had escaped. All of them.
And then the bomb had detonated. It hadn't been a little explosion, either. Oh, no. It had been furious, a sparking inferno that had clawed out of the reactor's main cavern, cut its way through the ceiling, and then spilled into the atmosphere above and rained chaos onto the city below.
Absolute chaos.
Heidegger pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing his bad luck, when the phone suddenly rang. He was tempted to ignore it. Tempted to let it ring into oblivion, but he glanced at the caller ID anyway, just to be safe.
His blood immediately ran cold, and he quickly picked up the phone. "Sir."
"Heidegger," President Shinra said in greeting. "Do you know why I'm calling you?"
Heidegger's dark gaze flicked to the computer screens. "Yes."
"Good. Then that will save us some time." A pause. "That reactor is a monument to your failure tonight, and Shinra does not tolerate failure." Another pause, a lengthier one, and within it Heidegger could hear everything that the President didn't say. Didn't have to say. "Rebuilding Mako Reactor One will come out of your department's budget," President Shinra continued. "Understand?"
Heidegger clenched his jaw. "I understand."
Another lengthy silence followed. "Perhaps we can turn this into an opportunity," the President finally said. "Something that Shinra can build off of."
"An opportunity, sir?" Heidegger repeated, but the screen had already gone black.
And he stared at the phone long after the President had hung up.
The upper Sector Eight train station was surprisingly crowded. There were far more people than Zack had been expecting, but it didn't necessarily bother him. He enjoyed the business. The chaos of the city. It was easy to get lost in, to get swept away by the otherness of it all, and let himself get taken up by the city's twisting, turbulent emotions.
But he couldn't afford to get lost in the Midgar's undercurrent tonight. Not at all. He had a job to do; a mission of sorts. Somewhere in Sector Eight was Aerith, selling her flowers like she had promised, and her words once again bounced around in his head:
I have a feeling that something big is going to happen there.
The memory made him scowl as he flicked his bright eyes across the train station, but he quickly moved on when he didn't spot his favorite flower girl. Soon his footsteps echoed down the station's stairs and onto the bustling street below, where the roads were lit gold by streetlights. Cheerful neon signs advertised shops, restaurants, hotels, and theaters. He ignored all of it, and it passed by as a colorful blur.
Where is she, he thought as his gaze flitted from street corner to street corner, from crowd to crowd, from sign to sign. A strange sense of urgency propelled his steps, made him move a little quicker than the crowd, but he forced himself to slow. To blend in. He was near Shinra Headquarters after all, and he wouldn't say he was paranoid, exactly, but he didn't want to attract attention from anyone right now.
No - the moment the thought crossed his mind, he took it right back. He wasn't just a little paranoid. He was paranoid as all hell, and he found himself searching for more than just Aerith in the crowd. More than once, someone wearing a white trench coat made his breath catch.
Everything is fine, he told himself as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Calm down. No one's out to get you.
A blatant lie, because he wouldn't be in this situation if that were true.
His muscles tensed further as his bright gaze scanned the top of the crowd; as he was a bit on the tall side, he had no trouble seeing in all directions. It comforted him a bit, but what comforted him more was that there seemed to be more people than usual. It helped him blend in. Many were dressed exceptionally nicely, and some even held small pamplets - almost as if they had come from a play.
His suspicions were immediately confirmed when his eyes flicked to one of the nearby theaters. Loveless was written across its front in bright, pink neon, and his gaze followed the sign's bold curves before flitting away. Let's hope that Aerith's 'something big' is just a Loveless performance or something, he thought dryly. Or just Tseng being super pissed that I left without saying anything. He grimaced. Again.
But the moment the thought passed his mind, a huge explosion rattled the city.
Zack's eyes widened even as his SOLDIER training kicked in, instinctual, and he bent his knees and braced himself as the shockwave tore through the streets. Glass pelted the road as windows were blown out. Buildings swayed as the Sector Eight plate groaned beneath them, the thick metal base creaking from the strain, and the world was bathed in green. A startlingly familiar shade of green, and he was turning to the reactor just to see the last of the explosion claw out of the Sector One Reactor with striking emerald flames and thick, black smoke.
Holy shit. Zack's mind flashing back to his conversation with Reno and Rude in the car. Back then, he had told Reno and Rude that blowing up the reactor was a suicide mission. That it was impossible. But Avalanche really did it, he thought, lips parted in shock. He slowly stood to his full height even as fires, ignited by sparks from the carnage, roared around him and stained his stricken expression with shades of red. Car alarms blared. People were screaming. Someone was crying, hit from above by falling concrete. Yet the reactor continued to spit out flames, uncaring of what happened beneath it, and the flames scraped against the sky itself.
The smell of the explosion hit him next. It had been a long time since he had smelled the harsh scent metal and ozone, had tasted that metallic, heady, sharply sweet flavor. But he could recognize it from anywhere. Mako, he realized, his hand pressed against his mouth and nose. And not just any mako, either. Not at all. This was the scent of concentrated mako, fresh and raw, the sort that had been recently dredged out of the Planet instead of the refined, processed sort that powered the city. He knew the difference. After all, Hojo had preferred his mako raw. It was… purer, that way. The results were more immediate.
Zack gagged, unable to help himself, and images flickered across his eyes. They were old memories, memories better left forgotten, memories that had his fingers tapping invisible walls and his lips soundlessly sounding out a familiar name. For a moment, he had almost lost himself in them. Had almost let the haunted recollections grab him with its claws and drag him down, until he would become buried by it, until he thought that he would never be able to breathe again.
Then he remembered Aerith. Remembered her smile. Her words, once a theory, now a premonition:
Something big may happen there.
And it was sure as hell not a Loveless play.
"Shit," he gasped as the fires roared around him. God, he was so stupid. He should have seen this coming. Should have connected the dots, but it was too late for that now. Screams surrounded him, cars were on fire, children were crying. At one point of his life, he might have tried to save them. He might have tried to help them all, even though he knew that there were too many, even though he knew that he couldn't help them all.
But that time had long since passed, and in the time since, he had come to learn that he was only one person. That he only had two hands - two small, tiny hands that could barely hold on to the two people he cared about the most. One of the two had gone missing in Midgar. And the other was here, alone, possibly hurt from the explosion. What if she got away from him too?
Zack sucked in breath and pivoted on his heel, not even glancing towards the other people on the street. Where is she? his thoughts pounded as he sprinted through the strets, his luminous gaze scanning the roads, the broken shops, the cracked concrete, the streetlights that had snapped in half. Aerith was around here somewhere, and he knew that she would be close, near the taller buildings in the city's center instead of the smaller homes that ran along the plates edges. After all, the taller buildings would block out more of the sky, and she didn't like the sky. She was afraid of it, and he knew because during their entire conversation in the church, she hadn't looked up towards the broken rafters to the blue sky peaking above it. Not even once.
He had a feeling that she would like it even less after this.
His throat constricted, but he was unsure whether it was from his growing anxiety or the harsh taste of mako in the air. Not that it really mattered. He tore through the roads, his bright eyes flicking from smoldering building to crumbling rooftops to the people, some shell-shocked as they stood upright and watched the green flames plume over the city, some lying in the road unmoving.
He grit his teeth and tore his gaze away, his heart a harsh staccato beating against his ribcage.
He would find her. He had to, because there was just... just no other option. Anything else besides finding her safe and sound was unacceptable, because he couldn't lose he too. He couldn't. Not now. Not after he had lost so much. Losing her was... was an impossibility. It couldn't happen, because if the impossible did happen, and he did find her but she was hurt and dead or something... he wasn't sure that he could survive it.
In fact, he knew he wouldn't.
But all he could do right now was run.
Tseng leaned against the wall, his dark gaze pinned on the world outside of the window. Instead of seeing a patchwork of quiet city streets beneath him, he saw chaos, terror, and the occasional death. If he dragged his eyes upward, he saw that the stars were not blocked out by the perpetual haze that lingered in Midgar's atmosphere, but instead had been choked out by green-tinged smoke and flames. Flames that, even now, billowed out the destroyed Mako Reactor One.
It was an impressive thing to look at. It even stirred some sort of emotion in his chest, a rare thing indeed, though he wasn't entirely sure what emotion it was. All he recgonized was a tight sort of feeling in his chest. Like his clothes were a size too small, though he knew that they were tailored to his exact proportions, and the distance, dancing fire reflected in his dark eyes when he gazed out the window once again. He could almost see faces within the shifting flames. Tormented faces with drooping eyes and yawning, unearthly screams that he could not hear, but could all too easily imagine.
His arms tightened across his chest. And whose fault is that? his thoughts accused. The answer came easily enough: It was the Turks fault, and therefore, his error. His sin. I failed, he knew because despite Avalanche being the Turk's mission, they had managed to blow up a reactor against all odds And not just a little explosion either, which their intelligence had predicted. It had been a massive explosion. The bomb must have been either extraordinarily powerful – which was doubtful, considering the shopping list Fair had put together from the receipts – or the size of a truck, which was equally unlikely.
Not that it mattered anymore. In the end, the bomb had been planted, and it had gone off in the worst possible way. He could see the debris raining onto Sector Eight and One, could see smoldering fragments of the reactor smash through roofs and light the buildings on fire. The destruction was almost… impressive, in a terrible sort of way, and Tseng was no stranger to war or chaos. But it was one thing to see it happen on during missions. It was quite another to have it happen at home.
Tseng exhaled, faint and light, and his breath fogged the window. The Turks failed, his mind repeated. I failed. Their informal motto was that no mission was impossible for the Turks, and now he had the urge to ament that - that anything was possible, really, because they were only people, and people could make fatal miscalculations. He had even known about the reactor bombing mission ahead of time, and he still was unable to put a stop to it.
Of course, one could argue that Shinra itself seemed to be conspiring against them. Heidegger in particular, the department head of Public Security, actively worked against the Turks and withheld vital information, and even the President, who owned the Turks directly, provided little to no aid on the political side. One could argue further that it almost looked like the Turks were being set up to fail. In fact, it appeared to be almost likely.
But Tseng tried not to entertain those thoughts. It was not fitting of the Turks, and especially not for him.
His phone suddenly began buzzing in his pocket, distracting him, and his eyes flicked to the screen before answering.
"Vice-President," he said in greeting.
"I told you before, Tseng. In private, just Rufus is fine."
"My apologies."
"Forgotten." A pause, one punctuated by the deep breathing of a Shinra mutt - undoubtedly Rufus' trusted companion, Darkstar. "I trust that you've already noticed Mako Reactor One?"
Tseng's expression hardened, and he glanced back to the window. "Yes."
"Avalanche put on quite a show for us," Rufus said humorlessly.
But Tseng wasn't interested in small talk. "What are our orders, sir?"
"Ah, yes. Orders." Rufus murmured something to Darkstar, who whined in reply. "This is my order, so listen carefully." Tseng involuntarily straightened, then: "Do nothing."
Tseng didn't consider himself easily surprised, but this had him blinking at the wall. "I'm sorry?"
"Do nothing about Avalanche, Tseng," Rufus continued, "and order the rest of your Turks to do the same. This failure rests on Heidegger's shoulders, and it is Heidegger's responsibility to clean it up." A pause followed, and Rufus must have noticed Tseng's silent question, because he continued, "Heidegger failed to alert the Turks the moment the Avalanche members had infiltrated the reactor, and then failed to capture them before and after they had planted the bomb."
Tseng closed his eyes, a headache threatening to pulse between his eyes.
"In light of that development, the President sees this failure belonging solely to Heidegger. Therefore," Rufus added, his tone brightening a fraction, "we will do nothing and let the head of Public Security implode on his own. Then it'll be our… chance. Do you understand?"
Tseng could hear the smile, the smirk, in Rufus' tone, and he didn't need the Vice-President of Shinra to explain what this so-called chance was. He already knew what Rufus wanted. What Rufus wanted more than anything.
He turned back to the window, at the city burning beneath him. Do nothing, Rufus had ordered.
"I understand," Tseng said.
"Good." Tseng could hear typing on the other end of the receiver, then Rugus continued, "I'm sent you an image from Mako Reactor One's security cameras. It includes two men from Avalanche, both of whom took out a Scorpion Sentinel."
Tseng briefly glanced at his phone, confirming that the message was received. The Scorpion Sentinel… That had been one of Hojo's creations, and had gifted the concept to Heidegger in return for use of his infantrymen for... experimentation. It was something of an open secret amongst the higher brass.
"Impressive," Tseng finally said. "Though I don't understand..."
"Heidegger believes that one of them is a runaway SOLDIER," Rufus interrupted, "and while that would usually fall under the jurisdiction of Public Security, the President decided that the Turks would handle the job instead due to that department's… recent failures."
But Tseng's attention had snagged at the word SOLDIER. And a runaway SOLDIER at that... His lips twitched into a frown. It couldn't have been Fair, as he was safely in Turk hands. Strife was also crossed off the list, as the man was neither a SOLDIER nor fit to perform any sort of strenuous activities due to his advanced mako poisoning.
But then... who?
"I'll take a look," Tseng promised.
"Do that," Rufus replied. "We can't have another repeat Sephiroth episode. Rebuilding one backwater town was enough; we can't afford to do another." Tseng privately knew that there wasn't a thing Shinra couldn't afford, but wisely refrained from commenting. "Alert me with any updates."
"Of course, Rufus."
With that, the two hung up and Tseng was immediately opening the message Rufus had sent.
What he saw made his eyes widen. The photo was grainy and clogged with smoke and condensation, but the two men frozen within the image were clearly defined. The first, a dark-skinned male with a large build and a grafted gunarm, was someone Tseng recognized from the Turks' Likely Suspect list. As for the other…
Strife?
Tseng squinted at the photograph. But that's... that's not possible. Yet there Cloud Strife was in the security image, defying him. The same Cloud Strife that had been the mako-poisoned, confused, frail infantryman that, according to Fair's report, had been in and out of a coma-like state for nearly five years. The same Cloud Strife that Cissnei had to drag into her helicopter because he was too weak to walk and couldn't understand what was happening anyway. The same Cloud Strife that had, against all odds, run out of the hospital despite being in a delirious daze.
It was that Cloud Strife that was pointing a blade at the Scorpion Sentinel, and he had apparently done quite a bit of damage to the Scorpion Sentinel as well. Long, streaking cuts criss-crossed the sentinel's metal plating, and one of its legs looked as if it had been hacked off with the edge of a blade. A blade that Strife appeared to be holding quite tightly in the image.
Tseng's lips twitched into a smirk. I might have underestimated him, he thought, and to say that he was surprised was an understatement. He was stunned speechless, and not only because Strife was up and walking again. He was stunned because apparently Strife feeling well enough to join Avalanche, the eco-terrorist group that had been plaguing both Shinra, and go around Midgar blowing up reactors.
... Damn. Tseng's eyes flicked across the scene; from the other man that was howling at the sentinel, to Cloud, his body twisted mid-air as he jumped over a barrage of bullets, to the sentinel itself. How did Strife even come in contact with Avalanche? And how did this occur so quickly - it hadn't even been a week since Strife had escaped the hospital.
But then Tseng noticed Cloud's eyes.
They were a startling shade of green, a far more potent shade than any 'natural' SOLDIER - if there was such a thing. But that's not what made Tseng pause.
Strife's eyes were also slitted.
In fact, his eyes looked eerily similar to Sephiroth's, and the room seemed to chill several degrees.
Tseng pinched the bridge of his nose as the full reality of the situation began to sink in. As his mind began to wrap up the pieces that had rapidly begun to unravel, and to sort it neatly in his mind. To summarize, not only was Cloud working for Avalanche – which was now Heidegger's mission, Tseng reminded himself – but if Rufus had access to this screenshot, then undoubtedly Heidegger did as well. i
And if Heidegger knows about it…
That meant all those of equal stature to Heidegger, such the other executives of Shinra, also had access to the image. That included Scarlet. Reeve Tuesti. Palmer.
… Hojo.
"Kuso," Tseng quietly cursed, the strain causing him to slip back into his native tongue. This was just about the worst-case scenario for both Strife and Fair. Their existence was supposed to be a secret within the Turks, but now... now that time had passed. The secret was out, and if it wasn't out yet, it would be soon. Because the moment Hojo realized that Strife was alive, Tseng had no doubt that the mad scientist would easily connect to dots. He would know that Fair had survived the infantry attack as well... and Tseng wasn't so much of an optimist as to believe that Hojo wouldn't want the his old experiments back.
Tseng slowly exhaled. But we haven't arrived at that conclusion yet, he reminded himself. There was still time to salvage the situation. Still enough time to avoid a catastrophe.
So he immediately began to flick through his Turk contacts. Cissnei was currently on the Wutai mission, so he mentally marked her off of the list. Elena was too new and couldn't be trusted to handle a case as sensitive as this one, so she was out, and Tseng himself was far too noticeable - if he disappeared for hours at a time, it would be noted. Which left Reno and Rude.
Rude picked up the phone before the second ring. "Sir?"
"Rude, I have new orders for you and Reno," Tseng began, not being one for niceties. "Find Zack, and be discrete about it. He should be in the Turk lodging area."
"And where should we take him?"
"The Sector Six slums." Tseng closed his eyes, mentally flicking through a map of Midgar. "Wall Market. I trust you know where that is."
Wall Market was the dark shadow of the city, and thrived on a rich supply of coin, debauchery, and pleasure. Anything could be found there at a price, especially if it was illegal. Even Shinra's police had learned to stay well away from it, which meant that it was the perfect place to hide someone that didn't want to be found.
An offended huff echoed through the speaker. "Reno does."
Tseng could here Reno's indignant shout, but ignored it. "Good. Have Zack lodge there for a few days, as the upper plates will not be safe for him going forward. We may have to extend his stay going forward."
"Does this have anything to do with the reactor bombing?"
"Yes." Tseng glanced back at the window, to the green smoke clawing its way to the upper atmosphere. "Strife was involved in the bombing," - Rude made a surprised sound, "-and the security footage will soon be circulating among the Shinra executives. It won't take Hojo long to connect Strife to Fair, and Fair cannot be anywhere near Shinra Headquarters when that happens."
"What are we gonna do about Strife?" Reno asked, his voice muffled. "Find 'im?"
"Strife will have to make do on his own."
"Huh?"
"We are secretly sheltering Fair, and that places us in a very precarious position – one that we cannot risk for a single infantryman."
"Zack's gonna be pissed," Reno pointed out. "You know that, right?"
"I'm aware."
"No, like, he's gonna be super pissed, like you -"
"We understand," Rude suddenly cut in, much to Reno's outrage."We'll go collect Zack and bring him to Wall Market."
"See that you do," Tseng said. "And if you do happen run into Strife, do not engage. He's currently considered a threat."
"That scrawny guy?" Reno said, having to shout to make his voice heard through the phone. "He ain't a threat to anyone. I could take him."
"That 'scrawny guy' took out the Scorpion Sentinel stationed at Mako Reactor One," Tseng stated.
His words had an immediate effect. There was a lengthy pause, then Reno murmured, "No fuckin' way."
"Are you certain?" Rude added.
Tseng didn't even bother answering that question. "Collect Fair and take him to Wall Market," Tseng repeated. "Get it done by tonight."
"Yes, sir," the two Turks said in unison.
With that, the call ended and Tseng sighed before leaning against the wall, his back to the window… and the carnage rolling beyond its glass.
"Damn," he murmured.
He couldn't remember the last time he had ever felt so tired.
Yeah, Cloud's really going through it in these chapters... mako poisoning is no joke. Also, Zack is back! I know I'm the author and this is entirely my fault, but I missed him in the last chapter lol
But anyway, things are beginning to pick up speed on the Shinra side! Admittedly, I'm straying from the canon a bit here (well, more than I already have lol) because in the canon story, Heidegger is the one who - on the President's orders - destroyed Mako Reactor One. I changed that simply because I think it'll be interesting to have some more drama in the Shinra hierarchy. Plus it'll be fun to write.
Anyway, the next chapter will be posted on Friday, June 17th! I haven't even started writing it yet, but according to my chapter outline, it's going to be a long one... longer than usual anyway. Why do I do this to myself?
Until next Friday: Stay well, stay safe, and I wish you all the best :)
~ By the way, visit my profile if you'd like to learn more about my original book series :) Genres are LitRPG and Fantasy.
