She looked into the green glow of the mako, green like the first tiny leaves of her seedlings, green like the Lifestream, green like materia, green like magic. Mako filled this city, this city that was once several cities, or so her adopted mother told her. The city fed on it, sucked it up with the eight reactors on the edge of the wheel-shaped city, like some massive tic sucking on a vein.
The blood that fed the city was mako, the Lifestream concentrated and thickened. In its natural state, Lifestream was flowing and ephemeral, like a breeze made visible. In the Mako form it was the consistency of pudding, or glue, or congealing blood. It flooded this city so completely that it sometimes popped up in gutters, sinks, and puddles.
Even in this perverted form, it was still Lifestream, life's blood, and it spoke to her, even here in the gutter. It spoke to her in more than words, and only to her as far as she knew: voices from the future, voices from the past, voices from the here and now. Most often her mother spoke to her, her real mother, whom she barely remembered in physical life. Her mother gave her advice, warnings for the future, stories from the past. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of what she thought was her father, too. Sometimes she would hear people she never met, ancient and wise, young and foolish, good and evil. She tried not to listen to the more malicious voices (her mother had warned her against that). Sometimes she got lost in the lives of butterflies, or trees, and her mother would gently call her back, tell her to go back to the present world, and not to waste her own, precious, borrowed piece of the Lifestream.
All the voices together made up the voice of the Planet, a vast collective consciousness, nigh indestructible, nigh incomprehensible. Tonight she looked through the eyes of the planet for a very simple purpose: to see the stars. She couldn't see them with her own eyes, not with the bright lights of the upper city and the violent glow of vaporized Mako which spurted out of the reactors. She saw the stars now as no other mortal saw them. She saw their planets circling about them. She saw how they looked when they were first formed, how they would look on the verge of death. The constellations shifted and danced. The arm of the galaxy spun into nothingness.
You must go back, child.
It was not words, but an idea that formed in her mind of its own accord. It was the voice of the Planet, clearer than it had ever been to her before. And it did not merely speak, but spoke to her.
I am threatened, child. We are all threatened.
That frightened her. What could threaten the entire planet, the vast living consciousness that she had lived in and been guided by her entire life?
Do not worry, child. And suddenly, she didn't. You can make it better, if you are willing. And you are willing. She smiled. It would be okay, and she would be important. But you must go, child.
She pulled away from the little spurting fountain of Mako, gathered up her basket of flowers and her staff, and stepped out of the alleyway into the busy street, her feet walking, her mind floating. She enjoyed the clack of her shoes on the concrete, the sound of traffic, people's voices, and the rumble of the elevated train rolling around the central pillar to the plate above.
That train carried a routine shipment to the Shinra Number one Mako Reactor. Workers would unload empty barrels to be filled with worn out parts, engine gunk, and over-used and volatile Mako. They would then roll the previous week's garbage onto the train to be disposed of elsewhere. The train would also carry the next shift of guards, not simple security guards, but members of Shinra's own army, more powerful than any nation's.
The train would arrive. The night shift would exit the train, the day shift would board. The whole process would take less than ten minutes.
Or at least, that's how it had taken place for years before.
The train rolled into the grubby little station. Two red uniformed Shinra officers waited on the platform to receive it. The train's wheels squealed to a halt on the tracks. The men waited about thirty seconds. No one exited the train. No doors opened. The junior of the two men turned to his commanding officer.
"Sir, should we--?"
He never finished his question, because a bullet had ripped through his brain, splattering it on the concrete wall behind him.
The remaining officer turned, horrified, to look for an attacker. There was none to be seen. A passenger door opened and a slight young woman stepped out, dressed in jeans and a green t-shirt under dinted and scuffed chest and shoulder armor. At the same time a tan and rough-looking man jumped from the top of a freight car. In his panic, the officer forgot the pistol at his side and charged toward him, but he was held off by the woman, who planted a side thrust kick into his midsection. He went flying, hit his head on a steel ladder attached to one of the train cars, and crumpled.
Another door opened and another assailant stepped out, a man, squat, fat, and completely unremarkable except for being armed to the teeth, a bandolier of grenades across his chest and a belt of ammunition strung across his belly, for the machine gun cradled in his arms. He scanned the scene then followed his comrades, who were already hurrying for the entrance to the reactor.
Out of the door the woman had entered from came another attacker, a bear of a man, hugely tall, broad, and burly. He was dark-skinned and bare-chested except for a small (relative to the man) utility vest. He would have been remarkable merely for his size, but it did not end there. His left arm was covered with intricately patterned black tattoos, just a few shades darker than his skin. His right arm was similarly patterned, until it ended, just below the elbow. In place of forearm and hand there was an enormous, six-barreled machine gun.
The giant gestured over his shoulder with the gun arm, shouted "C'mon, newcomer! Follow me!" and ran after the others.
A last man leapt down from atop a boxcar. He was at first glance unremarkable, but at second glance very remarkable indeed. He was dressed in dusty purple. His arms were bare. His oversized belt bore an odd insignia. He was armored, but only partially and haphazardly, with spiked plate on his left shoulder, a bracer of some dark and heavy metal, thick leather gloves and heavy boots. He was of average height, fit and wiry, but not imposing. His hair was blonde and spiky, his eyes an electric blue that glowed faintly in the dim light. He would have been handsome, boyish even, but there was a promise of danger about him, heightened by the eyes and the enormous sword he carried on his back. The blade was at least a foot wide, and was as long, from point to pommel, as the man was tall. It was held to his back by a complex sheath of black leather straps. He carried it as if it weighed nothing.
Two blue clad guards, their faces obscured by helmets, hoods, and goggles came running down a nearby set of concrete stairs.
The swordsman stretched his arms out in front of him, fingers splayed. A green glow emanated from one of two perfectly round green stones embedded in his blade, forming a circle around him. Lightening arced from the swordsman to the first of the guards, who fell instantly, his helmet clattering on the concrete. The man unsheathed his enormous sword and swung it deftly, almost casually, as it were made of cardboard, and cleaved the second guard in two near the waist.
Not pausing to consider the carnage he had caused, the swordsman hurried around the corner after the other assailants, who he found, all but the bear-man, congregated in front of a corrugated steel door. The only woman in the party was trying to open it. She held a screwdriver in her mouth and fiddled with the ripped open console beside the door.
"You used to be in SOLDIER alright!" said one of the men. He was leaning casually against a wall. His unkempt dark hair was held back by a red bandanna. He sounded genuinely impressed, but his dark eyes were narrowed in suspicion. "Not everyday you find one in a group like AVALANCHE."
The woman turned suddenly and snatched the screwdriver from her mouth. "SOLDIER!? Aren't they the enemy? What's he doing with us?"
The man held up a hand. "Hold it, Jesse. Ex-SOLDIER. He quit them and now is one of us." He looked at the swordsman is if daring him to say differently. "I didn't catch your name…?"
The blonde man looked reluctant to give it, but after a pause, said "Cloud Strife."
"Cloud, eh? I'm Biggs Darklighter, our guard here is Wedge Antilles and this is—"
"I don't care what your names are. Once this job's over, I'm outta here."
Biggs looked at him with disgust and opened his mouth to say something, but then jerked toward his weapon as he heard heavy footfalls approaching.
"It's okay, it's Barret!" called the fat man, who had been standing guard.
"The hell you doin'!?" The bear-man shouted.
"Barret, you almost gave us a—" Biggs started.
"I thought I told you never to move in a group!"
"Wasn't much place to go! This door's in the way." Biggs jerked his head at it.
"You the only hope for the planet and can't open a damn door?!" Barrett roared.
"I'm working on it!" Jesse yelled as she twisted two wires together. The door shuddered, then screeched as it slid open. The reactor could be seen through it, looming above a few shabby outbuildings. It 's metallic surface sloped upwards , illuminated and turned green by the mako vapor which burst from it's top.
"Our target is the north mako reactor. We meet on the bridge in front of it. Go!" Barret commanded.
Biggs, Wedge, and Jesse ran through. Cloud made a move to go as well, but was blocked by the burly black man.
"Ex-SOLDIER, huh?" Barret frowned down at him. "I don't care what Tifa says. I don't trust ya!" He said, then turned and ran after the others.
Cloud stared up at the bulk of the reactor. He wasn't being paid enough for this. No amount of money would have been worth messing with Shinra. Still, he had other reasons. He put a hand to the hilt of his sword and ran after, through a maze of alleys and outbuildings. He followed the assailants through a non-descript door. Beyond was the bridge. It was about ten feet wide and its floor was a thin metal grating. There was a gap in the plate that held the upper city here, so that one could see through to the shanty town some two hundred feet below. The bridge was in a T-shape, one end led to more outbuildings and the other straight into the reactor. It shook slightly under the pounding of the assailant's feet.
Cloud was slightly behind now. The others met together briefly, then moved towards the reactor, all but Wedge, who crouched near the railing.
"I'll secure the escape passage." Wedge called. "You concentrate on the mission, Cloud!"
But then two guards came running from the opposite side of the bridge, accompanied by a small robot that looked something like a video camera mounted on a pogo stick. The guards opened fire. Cloud drew his sword, planted it into the metal grating and hid behind it like a shield. Bullets ricocheted off of it. Wedge adjusted the red baseball cap he wore backwards on his head, then grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it. The robot shot a blue laser which narrowly missed Wedge and melted a hole in the railing beside him. Then the grenade exploded between it and one of the guards, ripping a hole in the metal grating, smashing the robot against a railing and throwing the guard over the edge. The bridge shuddered with the explosion, and the other guard fought to remain on his feet. Cloud pulled his sword out of the metal with a screech. The guard had just regained his balance when Cloud slashed him open from shoulder to hip.
"Ha ha!" Wedge laughed, surprising Cloud. "Not bad!" He grinned wildly. "We're really gonna blow this huge furnace up! This'll be something to see! You go on, Cloud, I'll hold 'em off if there are any more!"
"Right!" Cloud called over his shoulder as he ran for the reactor entrance. "But no more grenades! This bridge isn't that stable!"
Cloud entered the reactor through its black and yellow striped doorway. Beyond was a narrow hall where Barret, Jesse, and Biggs were waiting.
"Yo! This your first time in a reactor?" Barret asked.
"No." I wish. Cloud thought. How could it be? "After all, I did work for Shinra."
Barret stared down at Cloud. "The planet's full of Mako energy. People here use it every day."
Cloud shrugged. He didn't like where this was going.
"It's the life-blood of this planet!" Barret said passionately. "But Shinra keeps sucking the blood out with these weird machines!" He hit the wall with his gun-arm for emphasis.
"I'm not here for a lecture. Let's just hurry." Cloud said.
Barret clenched his one fist and scowled at him. "That's it, you're coming with me from now on."
There was a slight pause. Biggs and Jesse stared between Cloud and Barret. Cloud sighed. "So we are going in?" He asked.
Biggs moved to the console by another metallic sliding door.
"Yeah, Biggs and I have got the codes for these doors." Jesse said.
There was a sound like a large spring being sprung. "Code deciphered." Biggs said cheerily, and with a flourish of his hand, the door opened. The four entered a small room. The door closed behind them. There was another door, identical to the last one. Jesse punched in the code for this one. "Think how many people risked their lives, just for these codes." Biggs said as he looked Cloud in the face. Cloud fought the urge to roll his eyes.
There was another sound like a huge spring, and this door opened to reveal the door to an elevator. Jesse pressed the button to call it. The door slid shut behind them. Biggs stayed behind and waved at them as it closed. All according to plan.
"Little by little the reactors'll drain out all the life." Barret said with great seriousness as they walked forward. "And that'll be that."
Cloud shrugged again. "It's not my problem."
Barret stared at him in disbelief. "The Planet's dyin', Cloud!"
Cloud turned away from him. "The only thing I care about is finishing this job before security and the roboguards come."
The three entered the elevator, which slowly made its way downwards. They exited in silence, following Jesse around a large round contraption, down a set of metal stairs and through another yellow and black striped doorway. They climbed up another short flight of stairs. There was a gap in the walkway. Jesse jumped it, then told the two men to be careful as they made the jump, too. Jesse led them down a ladder, then crouched on a piece of scaffolding.
"Okay, I'll stand guard here. You two will go down this ladder, climb over those pipes down to that long ladder on the wall. That walkway down there should lead you right to the heart of the reactor." She looked at Barret. "You've got it?"
Barret pulled a square device about the size of his hand out of a pocket in his utility vest. Jesse nodded and smiled at Cloud. "Be careful, you two."
Cloud and Barret made their way about two stories down the ladder, Barret with some difficulty having only one hand. He swore as he banged his shins against a rung. The ladder ended at yet another metal walkway, this one over a vast reservoir of mako. It glowed a creepy green which overpowered the dim artificial lighting. Falling from the walkway would mean almost certain death.
Cloud and Barret's footsteps echoed against the far away walls and ceiling. Clank. Clank. Clank-clank. Clank. Clack. Cloud paused the see what he had stepped on. He picked up his boot and smiled. Where he had stepped there was a crystalline, green orb embedded in a gap in the metal grating. It was about the size of a shooter marble, and almost identical to the two stones embedded in his blade. Materia were pretty common in mako reactors, but they were valuable nonetheless, treasures in this trash heap. Cloud bent to pry it loose. Barret, who had gotten several steps ahead of him, yelled back.
"The hell you doing!? I thought you were in a big damn hurry to get out of here!"
"Materia," Cloud answered "Catch!"
Barret caught the green orb just before it would have hit him squarely in the nose. He scowled, but pocketed it, then moved to the end of the walkway. This was their destination, the heart of the reactor, a series of valves and contraptions which neither man understood, whose function was to convert the mako into electricity. An explosion here would take out the entire structure, and probably about a city block around it as well. Barret forgot his annoyance with Cloud with his excitement.
"When we blow this place, this ain't gonna be nothin' more than a hunka junk," he said with a grin. He took the device Jessie gave him out of his pocket, but then hesitated.
"Cloud, you set the bomb," he said.
"Shouldn't you do it?"
" Jus' do it!" Barret said. "I gotta watch to make sure you don't pull nothin.'"
"Fine, be my guest," Cloud replied, taking the device. He stepped forward and attached it to a valve.
"Watch out! This isn't just a reactor!"
"What!?" Cloud jerked to look behind him. The voice definitely hadn't been Barret's, but Barret was the only one there.
"What's wrong?" asked the gunner.
Cloud shook his head. "It's nothing… sorry." He keyed the sequence to arm the bomb.
Almost immediately an alarm sounded, accompanied by a horrible clanking and a strange mechanical whir. Barret whirled around, gun arm ready, finding no target, but Cloud, who remembered fighting the ninjas of Wutai, knew…
"ABOVE!"
Nested in the rafters above them was a red, six-legged robot. Its shape was a mixture of crab, with two cannons in the place of claws, and scorpion, with a wickedly pointed twitching tail. It was more than three times the size of both men put together.
Just as Barret registered the thing it dropped. The gunner rolled and barely avoided being squashed by it. Cloud quite calmly stepped out of the way. Not bothering to unsheathe his sword, Cloud stretched his hands out in front of him as a green glow emanated from him. A bolt of lightening arced from him to the robot, which convulsed when struck, but seemed otherwise un-phased by the spell. Cloud made a slight "tch" sound, then drew his sword before him in a ready stance. The robot cast a yellowish green light around the area. The light fell upon Cloud, and the robot turned the barrel of one of its cannon-claws upon him, but just then Barret opened fire. A bullet hit the cannon arm aimed at Cloud's head, knocking the shot wide. Barret roared in tandem with his gunarm, continuing to fire. Cloud looked for some weak point in the thing that he could damage with his sword. The visual sensors, maybe? The yellowish green light swept towards Barret. Cloud hefted his sword above his head, jumped, and brought down the full force of his strength and weight in a meat-cleaver like motion, tearing a gap in the armored "head" of the robot and breaking the pincer-like apparatus from which the light came, but not before it could lock on to Barret's location. The robot swept its scorpion-like tail around to strike him. Barret saw, and tried to shift out of the way, but a little too late as the sharp stinger drew across his chest and right arm—his gun arm. Barret howled in pain, but, still bleeding, supported the gun arm with his left and re-opened fire. Cloud drew back, maybe with the new gap in its armor the bolt spell would be more effective. He sheathed his sword and splayed his fingers in front of him, but as the green glow began around him he stopped short. The scorpion had arced its tail above itself, and that meant…
"Barret! Stop! If you attack while its tail's up it'll counterattack with its laser!"
The gunner seemed to have listened, because he stopped firing. Cloud waited, hand on the hilt of his sword, ready and tense. The robot was still. Cloud felt a strange warmth behind him. He turned his head to look at Barret and his eyes grew round. An orange fireball was growing before the barrels of Barret's
gun arm. Cloud had no idea how the man was doing it, to his knowledge Barret had no materia. It grew to the size of a beach ball, then Barret unleashed it. It exploded on the head of the scorpion. Cloud smelled the acrid scent of too-hot electronics, but other than melting some of its casing, the fireball seemed to have done little damage.
Cloud tackled Barret, and just in time, because the robot fired a powerful laser out of its tail, cutting an arc in the metal walkway where the two men had stood seconds before.
The robot lowered its tail. Barret climbed to his feet. From the floor, Cloud began another bolt spell. Electricity arced from him to the robot. This time, either because of the damage Cloud's sword and Barret's fireball had done to the robot's armor, or simply because it had taken too much damage from Barret's barrage of bullets, the spell had the intended effect. The robot shuddered, convulsed, attempted to advance on them, and then collapsed, dead.
Barret started to pump his gun-arm up and down in celebration, but winced when he remembered his wound. He took a small vial of pale blue, milky colored fluid from a vest pocket, uncorked it and gulped it down. A few seconds and the gashes on his arm and chest began to knit themselves back together.
"We need to get the hell out of here," he said.
"No kidding, that bomb was set to go off in ten minutes, and that was before our fight with this thing."
Without another word, the two men ran for the ladder. Barret went first, pulling himself up several rungs at a time in a strange monkey-like motion with his single but very strong arm. Cloud followed in the more traditional hand over hand manner, only slightly slower. The two scrambled over the pipes and scaffolding they had come by, but when they reached the gap in the walkway they heard a shout over the howl of the alarms.
"Barret! Cloud! Help!"
It was Jessie. She was kneeling on the scaffolding a little above them. They had passed right by her in their hurry to get out.
"Jesse!" Barret yelled back. "C'mon, hurry, this place is about to blow!"
"I can't." She sounded miserable, and a little embarrassed. "My foot is stuck."
"Go on, Barret," Cloud said. "I'll get her."
Barret nodded and headed onward. Cloud climbed back to Jesse, whose eyes were wide and scared. Her right foot was jammed in a gap in the scaffolding. Cloud knelt and grabbed her ankle. The two worked together to pull her foot out, with no success.
"You're going to have to take off the shoe," Cloud said urgently.
Jessie unlaced her boot, and together they wiggled her foot out of it.
"Thanks, Cloud," Jessie said earnestly as he helped her up.
The two ran for the exit. They met Biggs and Barret by the security doors. Without a word, Jessie and Biggs re-entered the codes to open them. The group ran from the reactor, Jessie kicking off her other shoe as they went. Just as they met Wedge on the walkway in front of it, they heard the initial explosion. Not pausing to admire their handiwork, Cloud Strife and AVALANCHE fled to avoid the chain reaction.
A/N: So, how'd I do? This is the first fan-fiction I've ever posted. Encouragement and constructive criticism are very welcome.
There are lots of reasons I'm doing this. Mostly, I've never seen an FFVII novelization finished. The story is truly awesome, and it would cool to have a complete one around to show friends who don't play video games or who can't take the now funny looking graphics. Also, all of the partial novelizations I've seen do something I disapprove of, leave out something or change something I liked, didn't see a character the same way I did, or didn't add on to something I think it would have been nice to. So I'm doing it my way. Also, I'm thinking about writing an original work and I want to see if I'm any good at this writing thing. No promises I'll finish this, it's a truly massive undertaking, but I'll try.