The 3 of them scan the room, tightening the grip on their weapons, sweat running down Barrett's brow. The Shinra forces moving closer into AVALANCE ever so slowly to surround the group even more.
Debris comes blasting in from one of the western walls knocking a group of nearby soldiers, crushing a couple of them as the stone falls victim to gravity once more, the men screaming in pain as they attempt to escape their new found prison.
Cloud dashes forward through during the confusion cutting another two men down kicking on of the bodies into a group rushing towards him. Barrett picks up Aerith shooting down a couple more men before blasting another pillar down cutting more Shinra soldiers taking Aerith to safety. Some of the second class soldiers break up from the fighting to follow pursuit of Aerith to use her against the others as a hostage. Both Tifa and Cloud spot the men after her, Cloud starts cutting his way through the armed forces to make his way to her but seemingly the whole army attack him causing him to take cover. Tifa on the overhand takes down an oncoming Shinra solider as she dodges an attack from another, fluidly sweeping the legs from under him as he attempts to recover his footing. She continues on towards Aerith and Barrett, who are under heavy fire from a nearby force, she's vaults over one of the fallen pillars kicking a nearby enemy in the skull knocking him out instantly.
Cloud completely surrounded a squadron of soldiers wielding swords themselves. He knows he could easily take out these men on their own given the time to do so, but he hasn't got the luxury of being patient. Before he knew it two of the men that had surrounded him had coordinated an attack on Cloud, he was able to dodge one of the attacks but he wasn't as fortunate with the other as it made contact with his left arm causing him to stumble for a moment with the newly formed gash gushing with blood.
Still surrounded with 4 of the Shinra soldiers, Cloud pulls himself up briefly looking down upon his wound, he steadies himself as he focuses his breathing rate "this doesn't end here" Cloud whispers to himself. In one fluid motion Cloud cut one of the soldiers down and propelled himself up the air crashing down into the other 3 men throwing them in each direction. He placed his sword on his back and made his way to re-join Tifa.
There were 3 enemies left, whom were all firing at Barrett and Aerith. They had little to no cover left. Tifa was still too far away to distract the soldiers and Cloud was even further back… Barrett had no option but to dash out towards them, outrunning the change of fire from the Shinra forces. He shoulder barrages on of the men into a nearby wall and grabs the man next to him launching him towards the last remaining member, shooting at them as they fell to the ground.
The 3 of them out of breath, laid across the hall floor heavily panting and sweating from their close quarter combats. Aerith emerging from her hiding place unscathed slowly taking in the horror of all the men scattered across the floor, no sign of movement from any of them. She instead focused on those that had fought to save her, rushing towards their company. Aerith had spotted Cloud's as he gripped it tightly with the blood still dripping out of his skin. She took out her staff and knelt before Cloud "Let me see it Cloud, I can help" Using the Materia cure to heal the wound and stopping the bleeding, turning her attention to the others, asking if they were hurt in anyway.
Both Tifa and Barrett quickly declined the offer ensuring Aerith that they were fine and didn't need to use any healing magic on them. They sat there taking in what had happened and going over the plan and where to go from here now Shinra knew that rebels were at their new reactor, going over possible tactics and routes until Aerith piped up. "All these men had families, families who counted on them for an income and now most of them are either too injured to work or gone…" There was a moment of silence.
It was Barrett who spoke first, "They all chose to be here today, they all knew what they signed up for. They decided to work with a company like Shinra, what else would they expect when they joined the soldier force…right Cloud?" Cloud stretched his arms above his head "Well I never experienced failure before, so I wouldn't know" Cloud shrugged. "HA, modest as always Cloud, well we are paying you enough so there better not be any failure today or else you'll have to." Barrett started punching the air towards Cloud. Aerith was still unsure if they were doing the right thing "It's just some of them might not have had a choice, they need money to survive and maybe Shinra was their only choice" Tifa headed off towards the reactor's main core "If you don't like it Aerith, you shouldn't have come, besides this is for the greater good, this is to save the planet. We need to do something. We can't do this peacefully."
Cloud and Barrett followed behind her; Aerith paused for a moment to think about the mission, but decided to continue for now atleast jogging to catch up to the others. AVALANCE was headed to the main reactor core, their goal was to plant the rest of the explosives there to cause a complete collapse of the Mako reactor before it even started mining.