Chapter One: Midgar
The world was dying, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.
To say nothing of the pollution and plastics, the fish were being hunted to extinction. The water was becoming tainting as the air was filled with smog. The fields had been overplanted and were dying, if not already dead. And all the while, the animals and birds diminished in number. The very lifeforce of the world was being drained for the sake of electricity. Human beings, meanwhile, fared no batter.
Taxes were higher than ever; inflation was skyrocketing. Nobody could buy homes, and the population was aging. No one was getting married anymore because marriage was supposed to be a pathway to respectability. And it wasn't anymore. The only form of respectability anymore was having a lot of money, and very few people had that. The only argument anyone had been able to make in favor of it was that you'd lose your friends for a higher paycheck.
Money was all that mattered anymore.
And don't even consider turning to religion. Shinra corporation had bought out all the religious leaders. These leaders had then watered down the values of their religions. And what was it for? Money?
At the same time, Shinra set up paid activists to whine endlessly about the evils of religion.
Nobility was a lie, chivalry was dead, and greed was good.
The activists were right, of course. Shinra corporation had seen to it that they were. All while funding the most radical and extreme religious pastors. Controlled opposition was great. The government was unable, if not unwilling, to rein in anything Shinra did anymore. They were practically corporate employees.
The police had been privatized and then sidelined in favor of PMC's. Most of which were owned by Shinra Corporation. A few people tried to stand up, and they were murdered, and no one stood up with them.
So religion died.
So Shinra went into the religion business. They paid people to go on TV and sneer at anyone who believed in something bigger than money. And people actually bought into it, fawning on these hacks as though they were wise men. Paying money, they did not have to have dinner with them.
And all the while, wages sank, people starved, and no one cared. Layoff, after layoff, after layoff from abusive jobs. Anytime someone complained some corporate mouthpiece. It was one that made a big deal about how the market adjusts. It wasn't their fault.
But if the market ever adjusted in favor of someone other than the corporate fatcats? Well, they'd never raise wages if it meant dying on a hill. They'd do every miserable dirty trick they could to make sure their employees couldn't put eat. And all the while, they'd give themselves vast bonuses for nothing.
Nothing.
And nothing bad ever happened to these slimeballs.
When the last tree was cut down when the last two fish had been caught when the last stream had dried up...
Then Shinra corporation would copyright a synthetic alternative and corner the market.
Not this time! This far! No farther!
THIS TIME EVERYONE DIES!
The screeching of the train to a halt might as well have been the Phantom Train itself, returned to reap the vengeance of the dead upon an irredeemable world. It bolted to a stop, and Cloud Strife leaped out. The guards never knew what hit them because he cut off their heads in a minute. Blood spewed over the cobblestones as Cloud rushed at other guards. They went for their weapons too late. He cleaved them down too before more came from behind and trailed their guns.
Then Barret Wallace, like a mountain, landed and raised his left arm, and it was a gun. A stream of lead shot from it, ripping the men to bloody chunks in an instant. Biggs also came out carrying an AK 47 while Jessie walked out with a briefcase and a pistol. Behind her came Wedge, with several briefcases. They scaled the stairs down the station and shot two more guards.
Several employees fled in terror, and they let them go as they got to the gate. Sirens could be heard as Jessie set up a bomb on the door. The brown-haired woman typed in with eyes as cold as steel. The timer was set, they stepped back and away. Then the doors were blown off, and screams were heard within.
Heading in, Barret and Biggs mowed down several people. Cloud noticed bloody smears. There had been guards there before. Heading in, he killed two more men, cleaving their skulls, and they blew open another door. Moving out, they moved out into the outside, and Cloud saw a reasonably unpolluted sky.
The sun was dawning now.
What of the dawn? It meant nothing to him at all, and they moved on without a second glance. None of the others had even looked at it. Once, dawn had been considered the great hope of men. But aside from solar power, nothing had come of that happy dream.
Solar power was considered, and then. Since you couldn't copyright the sun, not yet anyway, dismissed. Shinra much preferred to focus on destroying the planet. That way, they could monopolize the means of destruction.
Means of destruction.
There was something grimly funny about that. Once, domination of the economy had been about your ability to create. Now it was based around destroying everything and everyone who could oppose you.
There was no longer even any bad sense in it.
Shinra Corporations executives had so much money. They could lose half of it overnight and only notice if they checked their stocks. They were so obscenely rich that they could not make a penny more for the rest of their lives. And they would still be able to live in absolute luxury for the entire span!
If anything, they'd be happier because they wouldn't have as much to worry about!
You couldn't even attribute it to revenge! If President were some evil sorcerer who had lost his evil empire and was likely to be killed, it might make sense! Trying to wreck as much of your enemy's land as possible in a final act of spite was a rational form of revenge! Evil and foolish, but rational!
But this wasteland of misery and hatred wasn't benefiting anyone.
They killed a few more people on their way down. The troops here definitely hadn't fought in Wutai, and they were completely unprepared. But there weren't any new recruitment programs going on with the world conquered. So Cloud guessed that these men were from some of the other divisions.
He drew the mask off one after cutting him in half to confirm.
"What is it?" asked Barret.
"This guy was part of the group that attacked North Corel," said Cloud.
"How do you know?" asked Jessie.
"I was part of the containment division," said Cloud. "Shinra doesn't like destroying villages directly. It's messy.
"You contain the town; order them to shoot anyone who runs by. Then you firebomb the place from above. It's impersonal, and people can pretend like it's not their fault."
"You didn't shoot them, did you?" asked Wedge.
"If he had, I wouldn't be here," said Barret. "Let's just go. Biggs, Wedge, secure the exit. We'll go down the rest of the way."
Finding the elevator, they headed down, just as the map had said. It was cramped in it, and Barret leaned against the wall. Jessie was checking some of her explosives. Meanwhile, Cloud began cleaning the blood off his blade.
"...Pretty soon," said Barret. "This Mako reactor will drain up all the life on the planet. Everything will die, and that'll be it."
"Do what you want," said Cloud. "I just want to finish this job before the roboguards come."
"The planet is dying, Cloud!" said Barret.
"It's not my problem," said Cloud.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Jessie. "We're doing something about it right now?"
"Yeah, but do you think you'll be able to blow up all the Mako Reactors?" asked Cloud. "Eventually, you'll be killed off. Then Shinra will use what you're doing to justify some other get-rich-quick scheme.
"The individual isn't relevant anymore.
"You could try to recycle, but most of what you recycle goes to a landfill anyway. You could take shorter showers, but that's a drop in the bucket. You could start a garden and try to do good stewardship. But, at the rate Shinra is killing the planet, it won't matter. And if people actually start growing their own vegetables. Then Shinra will make it illegal.
"They control the farmland too."
"Yeah, probably right," said Barret. "Let's get this over with."
The door opened, and they moved out into a scene like hell itself. This place seemed written in a green light, and Cloud looked down at a vast gulf. At the very bottom, he saw a bridge and there their target. Quickly they made their way across a walkway but found a broken gap. This place obviously had not been maintained.
Cloud leaped across, followed by Barret, then Jessie, and they scaled down a ladder on a rusted pipe.
"I can't believe this," muttered Barret. "No professional would ever let a place like this rot. The place probably would have blown up without us sooner or later."
"Or they could have had a reactor leak," noted Cloud. "And given everyone cancer in sixty years."
"Well, that's alright," said Jessie. "There won't be anyone left alive by that point anyway."
Laughter because it was true.
Cloud scaled downpipes, lower and lower until at last, they came to the bridge. Moving along the walkway, Jessie began to set up the bomb. Barret kept a lookout, and above them, they heard an alert and alarm going on.
"Here it comes," said Barret.
"That's a delayed reaction," said Cloud.
"This is a civilian building, and Shinra has gotten sloppy," said Barret. "I think we killed everybody before they could set off the alarm. Might not even have a response team."
"Well, it'll be a lot harder the second time," noted Cloud.
They waited and waited, and eventually, Jessie finished the bomb.
"Okay, the timer is set to ten minutes," said Jessie. "As soon as I press it, we go."
"I'll press it," said Cloud. "You start up the ladder now; I'll be right behind you."
"No," said Barret. "Jessie, you press it; I don't trust him."
Cloud shrugged, and the timer was set.
Then they hurried on up the stairs, and Cloud remembered the escape route they'd planned. Moving up the ladders and scaling the pipes, they moved up the pipes. As they did, however, Jessie slipped and nearly fell. Cloud caught her, however, and set her up back on the right ground. As they went up the elevator, they saw helicopters flying overhead.
The Turks were they, landing. Troops moved to block their path up, but Cloud cleaved one in half, and the rest fled. Barret shot two in the back while Jessie fired at those coming down from the helicopter. A redhead and a blonde hurried into the elevator.
"Won't they disarm it?" asked Cloud.
"Nah," said Jessie. "I made that thing to be impossible to stop. You'd need to know the exact way to do it. If they try, they'll blow it early."
"More air for the rest of us, I guess," said Cloud.
As they retraced their steps, Cloud saw the trail of bloodied corpses they'd left in their wake. Then he remembered the flames of Nibelheim being consumed around him. There was Tifa kneeling over the corpse of her Father. He remembered Scarlet ordering the bombing of North Corel. That and the murder of everyone in there.
And for what?
Because Shinra wanted to pay the colonists, they imported less? Hadn't there been some sort of racial agenda?
So yeah, Cloud feels no guilt at all about what he had done.
Everyone was going to die at this rate anyway. All possible alternatives had been tried and dismissed. Shinra corporation did this stuff all the time. And the worthless citizens of this miserable city had known all of this and done nothing.
They had their chance for a straight Hero Vs. Villain conflict. And they'd looked the other way while the hero was machine-gunned and left to die in a pool of his own blood. So, the only thing left was a murderous rampage by his antihero brother. Metaphorically speaking, of course, Cloud had never met a hero.
Barret had thought this through. He'd used to design these things before his home had been blown up. It was why he'd been able to design a bomb designed to utterly annihilate this kind of reactor. It set off a chain reaction based on trademarked secret principles.
Now, did all of that mean Cloud was going to help Barret?
No, he, as a human, did not have the right to initiate the total annihilation of portions of his own species. But from a utilitarian perspective, Barret was completely in the clear. And Shinra had destroyed every ideology aside from utilitarianism.
Karma was fun, wasn't it?
Either way, they hurried out of the facility and through the escape hatch. The hatch was something that was designed in the construction of every Mako reactor. It was specifically created to act as a getaway point for workers and was welded shut when done. Wedge and Biggs had been cutting it open, and they went on through.
Jessie tripped, holding her briefcase as they did, and Cloud helped her up again. She really needed to be more careful. Hurrying through, they shut the door and pulled it closed. Wedge welded it shut by flashlight.
"Is this actually gonna help?" asked Cloud.
"Yeah," said Barret. "This place is completely sealed against Mako energies. We used them as shelters when doing work. This one was put up to separate the reactor from the main city.
"Smart move by Reeve and should keep civilian casualties to a minimum. Especially since by now they are probably forcing people off the streets."
Cloud had to admit, he was impressed.
And then the explosion happened.
It would no doubt have been impressive in a video game, but they did not have a line of sight. There was a force that shook the floor beneath their feet, and Wedge nearly fell over.
"Back, back," said Biggs suddenly.
And everyone did go back, and a moment later, the ceiling collapsed in on itself. It blew off the front part of the shelter. Then everything was quiet.
"Jessie, blow us a way out," said Barret. "That explosion has forced all the Shinra to backpedal. So, if we get out now, we can escape."
Jessie nodded.
And hurrying over to the side, she set explosives and got to work. A moment later, she hurried back, and the way was blown open. Together they rushed out into the welcome air of daylight. Such was their relief they hardly noticed the flames around them. The wreckage was all over the streets, and the stars were covered up. No bodies could be seen; in fact, nobody could be seen at all.
"Well, we're out," said Biggs.
"Don't just stand around," said Barret. "All of you split up and meet at the train station."
And they rushed off one way or the other. Cloud, for his part, decided to play it casually. He walked up the steps and along the streets in something of a daze. As far as he guessed, the other running the way they were would likely attract attention. Granted, he was probably the more formidable appearing of the group.
But if he was running, it would be an even worse giveaway. And if wasn't running, at least he might draw some off. It could get him killed, but it wasn't as though he had anything worth living for anyway.
Then he saw the girl.
She was a truly beautiful girl, clad in a pink dress with long, brown hair. Her eyes were deep, and she was coming out of an alley. Even so, she seemed very inebriated, her movements were unsteady, and she didn't seem aware of where she was.
He guessed that she had been drinking when the evacuation order was given and didn't notice. However, she didn't seem like a slum drunk material.
"What's going on?" asked the girl, voice slurred.
Cloud noticed a basket of flowers at her side. "Nothing um..."
"Yes?" said the girl.
"You don't see many flowers around here," said Cloud.
"Oh, yes," said the girl, while a car exploded a little ways off. She pulled out one. "Do you want one? They're only five gil?" Was she high?
"...Yes," said Cloud, paying for it.
"Thank you," she said before hiccuping. Then she walked off with a lurch. Cloud looked into the alley and saw several cans of beer.
There was someone destined for an early grave.
Nothing Cloud could do about that now, though, so he walked back. As he went through a plaza, he saw graffiti on the walls.
'The planet is dying, Shinra lies,' said the spraypaint.
No corpses, nothing at all. By all accounts, a very efficient evacuation had been done very quickly. Whoever had organized, it was obviously very, very good.
Then, just as he was nearing the train station, he heard a call.
Turning around, Cloud saw armed men coming toward him with raised guns.
A lot of men, actually.
With a sigh, he drew his sword and got to work. They opened fire, but he kept ahead of their guns and cleaved one in half. The next, he split lengthwise while more were coming. These Cloud did not fight; he knew better than to get surrounded. Instead, he retreated backward and found more coming from his right.
Raising a hand, he summoned a bolt of lightning in one hand and tossed it. It burned through the chest of a man and melted his skin off. Avoiding the showers of gunfire, Cloud summoned waves of ice and froze another man solid. His eyes showed signs of fear for only a moment. But more men were coming from both sides, so he retreated again.
Cloud reflected that he could run.
But then, they'd already raised their alert status as high as it could possibly go. So now AVALANCHE should focus on doing as much damage as possible. The more Shinra troops they killed, the fewer could be sent their way. It also meant they might have to draw back their forces back from other places.
So, as he found his way blocked by more soldiers, he cut them down with several strokes.
Cloud had seen what Shinra did in the places they colonized. And there had been general disarmament anyway. All of them deserved it anyway, Cloud included.
But now he was being hemmed in. Backing toward the edge of a bridge, he found himself surrounded on all sides. Men with guns upraised were around him, but they were shaking with terror. So, how many could he kill before he went down?
The correct answer was no.
Hearing a train coming beneath him, he swung his sword and knocked the blood from it. "I don't have time to waste on you."
And as the train came out from under, he leaped off the bridge and landed on it. He hardly kept his balance. However, soon they'd gone through the tunnel, and he felt the wind on his face and smiled.
Holy crap, that was awesome! That was the coolest thing he'd ever done! Yes!
Now how did he get home?