I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of the characters.

Test Run

Cody remained silent as they rode the train. They were riding toward whatever mission they were doing, and Cody had, as of yet, been told nothing but to follow them and keep quiet. They promised to get him better clothes before the mission so he wouldn't stand out too much on the surface, but aside from that, they'd told him nothing.

"So, your name's Cody, right?" the girl with the armor asked.

"Yeah," Cody nodded. "Cody Black."

"Sounds made up," Barret, the giant black man with a gun for an arm, grunted.

Good guess, Cody thought.

"I'm Jessie," the girl in armor introduced herself. "I have a good feeling about you."

"Well, he is good with his sword," Tifa said.

"That too," Jessie said. "That's not what I meant, though. I meant he looks trustworthy." She looked back at Cody, head tilting to the side slightly, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "It's your eyes. They're really expressive."

Cody's eyes, which had been staring disinterestedly out the window, flicked to her again.

"Even wearing a mask, your eyes speak loud enough for your entire expression," Jessie said.

Cody's eyes widened instantly and he sucked in a breath as an image of Cissnei dying in his arms flashed through his head. He felt his eyes beginning to burn and stood with a muttered "Whatever," and walked over to where he could lean against the wall and stare out the window, facing away from them so they wouldn't see his tears. He swallowed hard. It was a coincidence. Just like finding a person and poster both who called AVALANCHE a better path. Coincidence.

"Time to get ready," Barret said, standing and heading for the back of the train, away from Cody. "You can talk about his pretty blue eyes after the mission."

"They're green, actually," Jessie corrected him, Barret simply grunting as he and Tifa left the train car.

Cody pulled his goggles down over his eyes, tugging the sleeves of his new, faded, dirty, grey jacket down over his watch and wrist bands to keep them catching the light, his brown steel-toed boots nearly silent as he walked toward the two Shinra guards. His jeans hissed slightly as they brushed against his boots when he walked, but the guards were busy discussing what they'd be eating when they got off post, one suggesting ordering pizza, and the other saying he was in the mood for pasta. Cody still had no idea what the mission was, but he had been partnered with Jessie for it, and she said that after he silently "took care of" these two guards, he'd know it within two minutes. Jessie peeked her head around a corner up ahead and gave him a thumbs up, neither guard noticing, so Cody moved in instantly. He introduced himself with a reverse chop to one's throat, crushing his windpipe and making him drop his gun and clutch at his throat. Then, before the other could shout or try to fight, Cody shoved his left hand under the back of his helmet and grabbed him over the mouth with his right, his left hand held thumb-down, then twisted sharply, breaking the soldier's neck so hard his face was backward and sending the helmet spinning into the air. He caught the soldier as he fell, then caught the helmet in his left hand and put it on the soldier's head, quickly dragging the pair to a nearby blue bench, sitting them so they were leaning against each other. The man whose windpipe he had crushed grabbed his arm, eyes wide with fear and tears running down his face, his helmet having been knocked off when he initially collapsed.

"Sorry about this," Cody said. "It's not personal, but I can't have you two interfering. I'll make sure your bodies are found though."

The soldier's eyes widened a little more but his arm fell before his eyes rolled back into his head slightly as he finally lost consciousness. Cody put his helmet back on him just as Jessie reached him.

"What the hell!?" Jessie hissed. "You were supposed to knock them out! Not kill them!"

"I was told to, and I quote, 'Take care of them,' end quote," Cody said. "They're taken care of." He snapped the other soldier's head the rest of the way around and pulled his green neckerchief up to hide his twisted neck. "Now we have about two hours before their reinforcements arrive."

"How do you know that?" Jessie asked suspiciously.

"There's a rotation roster in the guardhouse over there," Cody said, jabbing his thumb toward the guardhouse he'd passed where he'd seen the rotation times. "The next rotation's at midnight."

Jessie sighed and nodded, holding up a radio. "Barret, things almost went sideways over here and we had to kill the guards instead of knocking them out. We've got two hours before the next rotation."

"Shit," Barret said. "Alright. Better get moving then. If we miss that window, we'll be in for a world of trouble."

Jessie put the radio away as Cody set one of the two dropped guns in one of the soldiers' laps, resting one of their hands on it, keeping the other gun and one of the soldiers' spare mags.

"You didn't have to cover for me," Cody said. "I can handle being yelled at."

"But you don't need to," Jessie said. "I still think you're trustworthy. We just should have been clearer about what we wanted."

Cody shook his head. "Whatever. Come on. We have some mysterious and unknown mission to complete, right?"

Jessie nodded and turned, walking around a corner in the street. When Cody followed, he stopped, staring at the Shinra munitions depot up ahead. he cursed under his breath and jogged to catch up to her. "We're raiding a Shinra munitions depot?"

"That's right," Jessie nodded. "I need to stock up on a blasting agent."

Cody sighed, running a hand over his forehead before nodding. "Alright."

"What?" Jessie asked.

"There's a lot of cameras in there," Cody said.

"Well, yes," Jessie said. "But they should all be down before the raid starts. Biggs and Wedge are supposed to turn the power off."

"They'd better," Cody grumbled.

"What's it matter?" Jessie asked. "You're always wearing that mask anyway."

Cody was silent for a moment before sighing. "The mask has basically become my face for facial recognition. I can't take it off, ever."

"Why?" Jessie asked.

Again Cody remained silent, this time because they had reached their waiting position, and he was to busy checking to see if the power was out to answer. "I'm allergic to oxygen. Not badly, but enough that I can't breathe without an altitude mask to restrict how much air I can breath per inhale, which limits the amount of oxygen I'm exposed to, which keeps me alive."

"And why would it be bad if a camera say your face and recognized you by your mask?" Jessie asked.

Just then, there was a loud electric hum that faded after a second and the depot's lights went out.

"Time to go," Cody said. "Ask me again after, if Barret lets me join, and I'll tell you."

Jessie nodded and they sprinted across the lot around the depot, reaching a door that would normally be magnetically locked. Cody carefully pulled it open and looked inside, seeing no one. He and Jessie slipped inside and silently made their way into the building. There were a few guards standing around, but they were all busy messing with the fuses and relay boxes to try and get the power back on. Jessie and Cody snuck to a crate with a sign warning of explosive contents and Cody boosted Jessie up onto the top of the open crate, then hid behind it. He kept a careful eye on the guards in the room, but when they got tired of trying to get the power on, they decided to play cards by flashlight instead.

"Is it clear?" Jessie's voice hissed.

"Stay low and don't let your armor drag," Cody said.

She boosted herself up over the wall and swung around, then as she moved to drop, Cody's hands gripped her waist, easing her to the floor silently, only to hiss out a curse and yank her back behind the crate with him just before the flashlight beam swept lazily past as a guard checked for intruders half-heartedly. Jessie turned around, smiling playfully.

"Smooth," she whispered, smiling. "You found a good excuse to get to hold me."

"Well, with a face like that, how could I resist?" he replied.

Her face lit up with an excited, playful glint, but before she could say anything else, a door off to one side slid open, an officer, denoted by his red pauldrons, neckerchief, and the red markings on his helmet, walked in with a guard dog at his side. He headed toward the guard who were already up and walking around with the flashlight, one of them shining it toward the officer to hide him shoving the entire deck of cards into his pocket. However, the dog was sniffing the ground and heading for Jessie and Cody. Cody swore silently and raised his stolen gun, only for Jessie to tug his hand. He followed her quickly, hearing a growl behind him, but before the dog or any of the guards could look for them, they reached a grate in the floor leading to a storm drain that was just beg enough for them to slide down, hopefully.

"These usually narrow out further down like funnels," Cody hissed.

"Do you have a better idea besides shooting out way out and alerting the entire Shinra army?" Jessie asked.

Cody glanced back at the dog, who was sniffing around the explosives crate, then at the drain and growled in annoyance, lifting the grate up and climbing in, holding his feet against the top to press his back into the bottom and hold himself in place. "I'll go first to make sure it doesn't narrow out. Wait five seconds, get in, close the gate quietly, and follow."

Jessie nodded and Cody dropped his feet, streaking away down the slick, permanently wet metal like a slide. The storm drain began to narrow quickly, but before it could get too small, he slid out the end of it, crashing to the ground in a round room that was blessedly free of storm water, besides a layer of mud on the ground. Cody groaned, having landed on his back, and lay there, trying to regain his breath, only for Jessie to shoot out of the drain a couple seconds later and land heavily on top of him, knocking what little air he had left out of him, leaving his head spinning. He ripped his mask off gasping for breath several times before putting it back on, the spots that were spinning in his vision slowly fading.

"Are you alright?" Jessie asked, watching him worriedly.

"I'm great," Cody wheezed sarcastically. "What would I not be great for? I'm muddy, in pain, and got used as a landing pad."

Jessie snorted and stood, offering her hand. "Let's go. We need to find a way out of here."

Cody accepted her help up and they headed into one of the tunnels, following it to a ways until they found an access point to the surface. They climbed up it, coming out of it in an empty parking lot a couple blocks from the station. Jessie radioed that they would meet up with the others at the station and she and Cody left, Cody using a Water materia on the way to clean most of the water off his back, then a Wind materia to dry himself most of the way. When they reached the train station, they sat together on one of the benches.

"Can you tell me now?" Jessie asked.

"No," Cody said under his breath, keeping his head down to hide his face from the cameras, his hair mostly hiding the strap of his mask. "Too many eyes."

Jessie glanced around, seeing at three cameras at first glance and nodded. "Alright."

After a few more minutes, Tifa and the other three arrived just as the train rolled into the station, heading for the slums. They all got on and spread out among two train cars as they waited for their stop.

"What the hell happened?" Barret demanded. "We weren't supposed to kill anyone! Now Shinra's going to know something happened!"

"He didn't have a choice," Jessie said.

"Oh, so it actually was you," Barret growled, turning on Cody fully.

"Yes but it was my fault," Jessie said. "I stuck my head out when the Shinra troops were only a few feet away from me and they were about to shoot me for being in a restricted area. If Cody hadn't killed them, they'd have killed me and blown the entire operation."

Barret grumbled for a moment before grunted. "Fine. But from now on, you're going to follow our rules to the letter."

"What rules?" Cody asked. "I didn't even know where we were going, or why, until after I killed those two guards."

"He's got a point, Barret," Tifa said. "Just try to avoid killing from now on, alright?"

"Sure," Cody said. "That all?"

"Yeah," Barret grumbled. "I'm done with you. Get out. We'll find you for the next mission when we're ready."

Cody nodded and left, Jessie joining him after a couple of minutes.

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