I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of the characters.
Broken Road
Jessie stared at the destruction before them, covering her mouth as her eyes began to water. Cody swallowed hard as he stared at it, and about the people standing around, some in a daze, some injured, all of them terrified. What was Shinra thinking? He knew they didn't really care about people, but were they truly so cruel that they could so casually throw away thousands of lives? His eyes dropped to the ground. Of course they were. They were only concerned with reaching the Promised Land. And just by looking around he could see how little Shinra cared. He lifted his eyes again and stopped, staring at a woman with a white dress with a pale shirt, brown hair, and dirt everywhere. His eyes slowly began to widen.
"Mom!" Jessie shouted, sprinting toward the woman.
Cody's gut clenched. He had forgotten. Somehow, amid all that had happened, it had completely slipped his mind that Jessie's mother and father were in Sector Seven. All this time, Jessie had probably been dying inside with worry, and he had never even given it a thought. He jogged over, slowing to a stop just behind Jessie as her mother pulled back from the hug they'd been sharing.
"What are you doing here!?" her mother asked urgently.
"I'm so glad you're alright!" Jessie cried. "Is Dad..."
"He's okay," her mother said. "He's in a sector five hospital now. I moved him there after you stole his ID badge, before I knew it was you."
"I..." Jessie faltered, swallowing hard. "I don't..."
"I saw you on the news, Jessie!" her mother said, both lowering their voices. "You're a member of AVALANCHE. You can't be here! If you don't leave, they'll find you!"
Jessie's eyes widened before she shook her head. "I have to, Mom. I have to help save our friend. Shinra kidnapped her and is holding her at Shinra HQ."
"You can't go to Shinra HQ!" her mother gasped. "I forbid you from going! I won't have my only daughter killed! You have to go! You have to find someplace safe! You have to start a new life! Please. For me."
"Ma'am," Cody said, wrapping an arm around Jessie as he saw she was about to break. "I swear to you, I will never let anyone hurt Jessie. I'll die before I allow that to happen."
"You're...that actor," her mother frowned.
"I'm a Turk," Cody said. "Or, at least, I used to be."
"Turk?" her mother frowned. "What is that?"
"It's Shinra special forces," Cody said. "Somewhere between a normal infantryman and SOLDIER. And I will use everything I learned as a Turk to protect your daughter with my life. You have my word that nothing bad will happen to her."
Her mother watched them for a moment as Jessie stared at Cody with several emotions on her face. Finally, she sighed. "Alright. If you have to go, then you have my blessing. But you have to swear to me that you will let nothing happen to her. You have to swear to me that you'll bring my daughter back safely."
"I swear it on my life," Cody said.
"Then I leave my daughter in your hands," she said. "Please look after her." She smiled slightly. "I hope you make her as happy as I hope you can someday."
Cody blinked twice before his brow furrowed slightly, however, as he opened his mouth to ask if she meant what he thought she might, Cloud set a hand on his shoulder.
"Time to go," Cloud said. "We need to hurry."
Cody nodded and he and Jessie followed the others through the destroyed city. They ducked under a partially collapsed round building, then climbed a ladder onto a destroyed building, several flying carrot-shaped monsters with four thin arms and their body ending in a scorpion-like tail flying over from the ruin next to them, only for them to quickly kill them all. Cody grit his teeth. There were monsters in the ruin, and the wounded were just standing around waiting for a Shinra rescue team that was probably never going to come. Jessie slipped her hand into his.
"There's nothing we can do about it now," Jessie said. "We need to keep moving."
He nodded, giving her hand a light squeeze. "Why didn't you say anything? You didn't even seem worried until you saw her. You must have been terrified, so why hide that from us? From me?"
"We had more important things to deal with than me worrying about something I couldn't change," Jessie said. "Compared to saving Aerith, it wasn't that important."
Cody stopped and turned to, taking her by the shoulders and turning her toward him. "Jessie, if something's bothering you, even if it seems like something trivial, or if it can't be helped, that something is automatically more important than whatever is going on with me. I don't care if I'm dying and your back itches. That will be the most important back scratch of my life."
Jessie laughed, eyes watering. "Oh, I'm sure you'd prioritize my itchy back over a sword through your gut."
Cody smiled. "I mean it, though. No matter what's going on, I will always make time to take care of whatever's troubling you first and foremost."
Jessie smiled. "Thank you." She wiped her eyes. "I'd give you a kiss but we both still smell like sewage, and you got a big mouthful of it."
Cody grimaced. "You had to remind me." He looked after the others, who were walking across a beam up ahead. "Come on. Before they leave us behind.
Jessie nodded and they turned, jogging to catch up. They followed the others up a tall metal structure with a round metal pillar in the middle and round platforms around it, once which reminded Cody of the support pillar, the five of them climbing up several levels before killing a pair of Cerulean Drakes and heading into a destroyed office building, or maybe a parking garage. In the distance, they could see a way up to the plate. Except, it wasn't pretty. There was a largely destroyed skyscraper leaning against a destroyed crane, one of the giant ones big enough to reach over skyscrapers.
"That's what we have to climb?" Tifa asked.
"If it comes apart while we're up there," Barret said, then mimicked a scream followed by a splat sound effect.
"We've made it through worse, you know," Cloud said.
"True," Cody said. "Surviving the plate was a miracle."
"it's a miracle we haven't been killed a dozen times over by now," Barret said.
"Well, for you maybe," Cody said. "I'm just that awesome."
"True," Jessie grinned.
"Yeah, you smell pretty awesome," Barret said.
"Now see, that's just unnecessarily rude," Cody said.
"Dead end," Cloud said, stopping at a broken ledge.
Cody looked up, seeing the end of a broken section of highway above them that looked thick and sturdy enough to hold them. There were ropes hanging from the edge of it where someone, possibly a search and rescue team that was now nowhere to be found, had trusted the cracked road enough to try rappelling.
"Maybe not," Cody said, firing his grappling gun into the edge of the road above them, wrapping his arm around Jessie. "Here goes."
He retracted the cable, he and Jessie streaking upward before flipping over the edge of the road, Cody landing on his feet holding Jessie, then set her down. A moment later, Cloud and Tifa landed to their left, Cloud setting Tifa down before Barret barely cleared the edge, landing in a roll and ending up on one knee before standing.
"Too easy," Barret said as Cody walked forward along the highway tunnel they were in, sections missing from the tunnel, letting in light. "This keeps up and I'm gonna get bored."
Just then, Cody swore quietly, ducking into cover and holding a hand out, the others doing the same. Cloud looked out carefully, the two of them watching as four Helitroopers, one of them armed with a flamethrower in addition to his propeller blades and machinegun, drifted down in front of the building they were planning to climb, accompanied by a massive robot with an upside-down teardrop body with a round red eye on the front between two of the three arms evenly spaced around its body, all three of which had a minigun in place of hands and the one in back reaching down to aim under the robot, a drill on the bottom of its body, and three propellers above it.
"Kill team," Cloud said quietly.
Barret huffed. "We can take 'em."
"No," Cody said. "Not here. That machine is a Valkyrie. It's designed to be used against dozens of tanks. If we try to fight it here, this highway would collapse and we'd die. Plus, with those Helitroopers around it, we might not win."
"How do you know?" Barret asked.
"I was a Turk, remember?" Cody asked. "The only things I didn't have access to were anything classified as director-level clearance or above, or anything to do with Hojo. Weapons Development was something I had access to."
"Fair enough," Barret said. "So, what kind of weaknesses does it have?"
"Well, like any good Shinra mechanized heavy weapons platform, they could never figure out the concept of electrical insulation," Cody said. "Lightning will work well on it, but not perfectly. It'll still be dangerous."
"We'll sneak past it," Cloud said as he and Cody watched the Valkyrie and its escorts all fly away. "No reason to fight that thing if we don't have to. We need to stay on mission anyway."
"Agreed," Cody nodded.
Once the Valkyrie and Helitroopers were gone, they continued along the highway. However, not a hundred feet later, a pair of SOLDIERs stepped out from behind a massive chunk of debris. Cloud reacted first, blocking the first's slash as the second streaked past, stabbing at Cody. Cody spun, summoning his gunblade, catching it in reverse grip and deflected the blade, backpedaling away from the SOLDIER rapidly before planting his feet and flipping his gunblade around, taking a breath as he settled in to his combat stance, his gunblade held horizontally beside his head, his left shoulder turned toward his opponent. Cloud and his SOLDIER were already trading blows rapidly in a constant shower of sparks, though Cloud was rapidly overpowering his opponent. Cody could tell by the light blue uniforms that they were Third Classes like Roche, however, neither had Roche's speed or power.
His opponent lunged, slashing, and Cody deflected the blade, slashing back the other way, only for the SOLDIER to jump back. Cody pulled his trigger and launched his sword around as he leapt after the SOLDIER, slashing again. The SOLDIER blocked it, only for his sword to be knocked aside. Cody flipped his sword around, squeezing the trigger again and spun like a saw, splitting the SOLDIER's chest open several times before he collapsed. Behind Cody, Cloud ripped his sword up out of the chest of the SOLDIER he had stabbed just as a radio Cloud's opponent had dropped began to emit static.
"I said respond!" a voice said over the radio as Cloud picked it up. "Hunter two-two! Respond dammit!"
Cloud looked at them like a deer in the headlights, so Cody took the radio.
"I say again, this is Hunter two-two, any station, radio check," Cody said.
"Finally!" the voice said. "I read you, Hunter two-two. What happened?"
"Just got done putting down a few monsters," Cody said. "One of them managed to get lucky and hit the radio, over. Took a second to get it working again."
"Roger," the voice sighed. "Friggin' AVALANCHE, making us put in OT. probably cowering in the dark somewhere. If you find the shitheads, make 'em suffer. Two-three out."
The connection went dead as the other group shut their radio off a second before Barret swiped the radio, squeezing the push-to-talk button.
"Listen up!" Barret shouted. "We ain't runnin', and we ain't hidin'! Y'all don't know the meaning of sufferin', but you will!"
"The call was over," Cloud said.
Barret stared at the radio, then held it to his ear before shaking it and growling in annoyance. Finally, he smashed it on the ground with an angry shout before kicking a large rock. Tifa moved to calm him down as Cody sighed, kneeling and picking up the two SOLDIERs swords, along with one of their magnet harnesses that all SOLDIERs held their swords with. He pulled the harness on before picking up his gunblade and sealing it, putting one sword on his back and holding the other.
"What are you doing?" Cloud asked.
"Collecting," Cody said. "When we inevitably end up fighting that Valkyrie, I'm going to stick these into it as lightning rods to direct lightning spells deeper into it to do extra damage, rather than just hitting the outside and hoping it goes deep enough to do serious damage."
"That's...not a bad idea," Cloud said.
"Thank you," Cody said.
They turned, continuing along the highway. However, almost as soon as they reached the next covered section, the Valkyrie flew up from behind a bend in the road up ahead. They all ducked behind cover as it flew over them, then quickly continued, going around a U bend as the highway sloped downward, passing under itself. However, the road was shattered in front of them and there were several Shinra troops and a Helitrooper ahead of them inside a massive concrete pipeline-like structure that had fallen onto its side, also running up the inside of the building they were meaning to climb. However, they could probably get above the troops and run up the outside of the pipeline.
"Hey, why don't we use our grappling guns to get up there," Barret suggested. "Jump over all this shit and go around those guys."
"Not much choice," Cloud said.
The three of them pulled out their grappling guns, Cody wrapping an arm around Jessie with the sword not on his back held in reverse grip so he could keep the blade away from her, then fired the cables into the top of the tunnel, flying up onto it. However, almost as soon as they all landed on it, it shattered. Cody yelped, hurling his loose sword into the Helitrooper's chest before grabbing Jessie and holding her against him before bouncing off a chunk of rubble and rolling down a piece of the tunnel's roof, stopping at the bottom with Jessie lying on top of him.
"Thanks for the catch," she smiled, then sat up, drawing her gun and shooting the two Shinra officers that were moving over to arrest them, killing both.
They stood as the others, who had all ended up a little further down the pipeline from them, walked over to them, Cloud handing him his thrown sword.
"I guess everybody and their mother knows we're here now," Barret said.
"Too late for regrets," Cody said. "Come on. We should keep moving before that Valkyrie comes back."
The others nodded and they turned to leave the pipeline, only for more Shinra troops to arrive on the floor of the building ahead of them. They all sighed before Tifa, Cody, and Cloud charged, Cody casting Barrier on himself to help with bullets. Barret and Jessie opened fire on further away troops while Cloud and Cody shredded any troops they could reach and Tifa pummeled others. A Helitrooper swooped down toward Jessie, but Cody spun, holding out his right hand and sending a bolt of lightning into the Helitrooper's side, killing him and sending him crashing into one of the support columns for the highway they'd just left. The column crumbled instantly, despite the Helitrooper not hitting that hard, and the highway crumbled with it for a ways.
"That's reassuring," Cody said, then spun, slashing a nightstick aside before slashing back up the other way, splitting the troop across the chest.
A guard dog leapt at him, but he stepped aside, slashing it as it passed and killing it. They heard more troops yelling from further in and followed the makeshift trail of debris and destroyed building, killing any Shinra forces they met quickly. Finally, they reached the main section of the collapsed building they'd be climbing and found a staircase leading up into it, and a pair of SOLDIER Third Classes at the bottom, both drinking a soda. Both SOLDIERs shouted in surprise as they saw Cloud and Cody charging toward them, drawing their swords and beginning to fend them off, however, they had been off guards and both went down almost without a fight. Cody took the lead, finding it was clear at the top of the stairs. He looked around for another way up, but the rest of the stairs were completely destroyed. He did however, find a place where they could probably use their grappling guns to go up three floors using the pipeline that had collapsed into the building. The others joined him and agreed with the idea, so they headed up in the same groups as they'd been using so far. As they landed at the top, several drones flew in through the holes in the walls, and they all moved to destroy them. After a couple minutes, they were finished and began to look for another path up.
The rest of the climb up the building was fairly quick and easy. After the next grappling point, they found a relatively intact stairwell to take for a few levels, then left the building onto the roof of another, which reached over to the crane they were planning to climb. After taking several ladders, they finally reached the highest platform on the crane and Cody stepped out of the others way, turning around and staring out at the sea of shattered stone and metal that was all that remained of Sector Seven.
"Don't you ever forget this view," Barret was saying to Tifa.
"It's terrible," Jessie breathed, stepping up beside him, eyes watering. "I can see my house from here."
"I'm so sorry," Cody said, glancing over at her as she wiped her eyes.
"It's alright," Jessie smiled. "My parents are safe. That's what matters."
Cody nodded and they turned, following the others.
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