Disclaimer: The characters and environments in this fic do not belong to me. If you recognize it, it doesn't belong to me. Unless, of course, it's a cliché, in which case, it is free to use. I will, however, try avoid such cliches to the best of my ability. Wish me luck!
Harry: That's easily the longest disclaimer you've made yet.
Siriusly.
Sirius: Oi!
Heh-heh. Don't sweat it, Sirius. It's not like you haven't done that joke to death yourself, you know.
Sirius: That's different. I came up with the joke, so I can use it as often as I want.
Harry: Hmph. That's something Siriusly illogical about that.
Well, Sirius is Siriusly lacking when it comes to common sense and all that.
Sirius: whimpers
Harry: It's Sirius logic.
Hermione was scouring a book from the Black library. "Here we are," she said aloud. "'Gryffindor's sword is made from goblin steel, and imbues substances that increases its strength.'" she read. "That's probably why it's so effective against those undead creatures Harry keeps encountering in there."
"Not only that," Remus remarked, "but the basilisk venom is especially deadly to all reptiles."p
"So it Harry runs into more snakes, his sword will likely stop them with one hit or so, right?" Ron reckoned.
"Probably," Hermione agreed.
"They've made it back to Sector 7, guys," Tonks observed. Everyone (par Shacklebolt, who seemed to be uninterested in watching) gathered around the couch.
"We made it! The pillar's still standing!" Tifa cried out.
"Wait!" Cloud cautioned. "Do you hear something?"
"Above us...?" Harry looked up.
"That's gun fire," Aeris said quietly.
Harry squinted his eyes. He could see several flashes (the guns firing, he reckoned) and, after a few seconds, someone seemed to tip over the railing and falls toward them. Harry recognized him as Wedge seconds before he hit the ground with a sickening thwumpth.
"Wedge!" Cloud cried, dashing over and kneeling at his side. "You all right?"
"Cloud...You remembered...my name..." the portly man breathed. "Barret's up top...help him...An' Cloud...Sorry...I wasn't...any help..."
Harry's face hardened. "I'm sorry, Wedge."
Cloud stood up. "I'm going up!" He looked at Aeris. "Aeris! You look after Wedge!"
The flower girl nodded as Tifa walked over to her. "Aeris, do me a favor. I have a bar called '7th Heaven' in this neighborhood. There's a little girl named Marlene there..."
Aeris nodded. "Don't worry. I'll get her somewhere safe."
"Thanks."
Harry turned to the gathered commoners. "It's dangerous here!" he shouted out in warning. "Everyone, get away from the pillar, quickly! Everyone get out of Sector 7!"
"Move it!" Cloud bellowed, stirring the people into action. They scattered, gathering up a few precious possessions and their families before heading toward the gate on the other side of the Train Graveyard. Harry, Cloud, and Tifa bolted toward the fence gate that guarded the stairs climbing the pillar. Cloud slashed at it once with his huge sword, and the rusted metal fell apart like so much glass. They began climbing the stairs two at a time.
They met Biggs sitting against the railing a few flights up, panting and trying to stem the flow of blood from a deep gash in his side. "Cloud..." he smirked. "So you don't care...what happens...to the...Planet?"
"You're wounded," Cloud remarked, ignoring the question.
"Hmph, so I am...Thanks, Cloud," Biggs answered. "...Don't worry about me...Barret's...fighting up there...Go help him..."
"Biggs..." Harry said.
"Go!"
"I..." Shaking his head, Harry turned and followed Tifa and Cloud up the stairs. They paused only once, fighting off a few Shinra bots that were capable of flying on helicopter blades on the end of their arms (a few Thunder's from Tifa and they were fried beyond recognition) when they next found Jesse. She, too, was wounded, but carrying several bullet holes in her torso as opposed to Biggs' large cut.
"Cloud...Harry...I'm glad...I could talk to you one last time..." she breathed, her life force fading.
It seemed that Cloud, too, saw that nothing could be done to save her. He decided to humor her, instead. "Is that so..." he said, raising an eyebrow and smirking.
"...Is that so...?" Jesse laughed weakly. "Ha...cool...as usual...ex-SOLDIER...always...I like that...in you..."
Harry braved a smile for her. "Have fun in the next great adventure for me, Jesse, will you?"
She smiled at him. "I'll...work on it..." Her eyes closed a final time, and she breathed her last.
They spared a moment in silence for their fallen comrade. "Let's go. Barret may not last too much longer on his own," Cloud said after a second.
They hurried up that last flight of stairs and found Barret pinned down, but giving much better than he seemed to have received; indeed, he didn't appear to have been hit yet, but the fallen bodies of robots and Shinra guards both littered the walkway around them.
"Tifa! Cloud! Harry! Y'all came! Be careful, they're attacking from helicopters!" the leader of AVALANCHE warned.
"Here they come!" Tifa cried out, pointing. A helicopter flies past, seemingly impervious to Barret's gun fire. Harry looked around the walkway, seeing nothing that could help, but he did see a control panel.
He motioned it to Cloud. "Is that...?"
The mercenary nodded. "Yeah, I'll bet that's their objective." Harry nodded and stepped in front of it, raising Gryffindor's Sword up to ward off anyone that came his way.
A familiar red-haired man in a dark suit dropped from the helicopter onto the walkway in front of Harry. He smirked and took a step toward Harry, carefully avoiding bullets shot by Barret, and swung a cane at him. Harry ducked, hearing the sizzling crackle of electricity, and lunged forward with the blade in his hand. The Turk stepped aside, clocking Harry on the side of the head. Harry lay stunned for a second before getting up again, but by then, it was too late.
"You're too late. Once I push this button..." Reno sneered, lowering his finger. Cloud made a wild lunge, but was too late to do anything. With a small beep, the bomb was activated.
"That's all, folks! Mission accomplished."
Tifa motioned to Cloud and Barret. "We have to disarm it! Cloud! Barret! Please!"
"I can't let you do that," the Turk shook his head. "No one gets in the way of Reno and the Turks..."
"Egotistical much?" Harry taunted, acting much braver than he certainly felt. He jumped back, avoiding the red-head's sudden, precise lunge. Cloud charged in, hacking with his huge broadsword. Reno (Harry had glimpsed a badge as he rolled away) nimbly stepped aside, avoiding the blow...only to be caught by Tifa's left jab. Before he could recover, the bartender-slash-AVALANCHE member followed up with a blindingly fast snap kick.
Reno stumbled back, only to be caught in an ice spell, courtesy of Cloud. Harry made use of his Steal Materia once more, this time pulling back with a weird bracelet that sported several runes and five Materia slots, with four paired off into two pairs of linked slots.
Reno recovered his composure, despite his bloody nose. He smirked and growled, "Let's see you break through this." He waved his rod in a triangular fashion, firing an orb of red-white light at Barret. The large, bear-like man found himself encased in a translucent, gold-colored pyramid and was utterly unable to move.
Cloud glanced at Harry. "Go back and help Barret, kid. Tifa and I will handle the Turk."
"Right," Harry acknowledged, shrinking back and allowing the two full reign at Reno. Harry dug into his pockets and pulled out a Remedy. He poured the vial's contents on the pyramid, but the transparent cage remained unaffected. To his horror, Barret's eyes began to bulge from lack of air.
Harry had a sudden flash of inspiration, remembering Reno's taunt. 'Let's see you break through this...' Harry lifted Gryffindor's Sword up above his head, and brought it crashing down on the pyramid of light. The shimmering cage shattered like glass, and Barret dropped to his knees and breathed heavily, attempting to regain the air he had been unable to access inside. He shot Harry a grateful look. The Boy-Who-Lived nodded in return.
"It's about time..." A seriously wounded Reno panted. Harry caught a glimpse of a black eye and a bloody nose, in addition to what seemed to be several open cuts, before the Turk turned, ran, and leaped off the platform, only to be caught gently by a hovering helicopter below.
Tifa dashed toward the console and began tapping buttons. "Cloud! I don't know how to stop this! Try it!"
Cloud attached his sword to his back and examined the console. "It's not a normal time bomb," he grimaced. "I doubt even Jesse could disarm it, if she were here..."
"Once the plate starts coming down, it'll be too late," Harry remarked. "We have to hurry!" As soon as Harry finished speaking, a resounding boom knocked them to their knees. Chunks of flaming steel and concrete began falling to the ground below; a few sizable boulders crashed down onto the platform around them.
Barret dashed over to the railing and grabbed a hold of a wire. "Yo! We can use this wire to get out!" Tifa quickly climbed onto Barret's lap (his huge arms held her tight against his chest). Cloud and Harry clambered up onto his shoulders and tightly gripped the wire just above Barret's fists. The pillar explodes as the quartet leapt from the railing, swinging wildly through the air and barely escaping from the falling plate into a familiar looking park. Harry's body was thrown on impact; the last thing he saw before falling unconscious was a flying bit of flaming debris as it soared in the general direction of Wall Market.
"That's...just..." For once in life, Hermione was speechless. She had thought that Voldemort exhibited inhuman levels of cruelty, but this...this ruthless, cold-hearted sacrifice of countless innocents was easily on par with the worst of the former Dark Lord's tortures, if not worse.
"I never thought I'd see the day that 'Mione was rendered speechless," Ron muttered dryly.
"This isn't a time for jokes, Ron," Ginny admonished softly.
"But still...you do realize that this is just a game, right?" the youngest male Weasley reminded them.
"Yes, but..." Remus sighed. "It still seems real, at least to Harry."
"Oh, he'll be fine. He always escaped this sort of thing before, remember?" Ron grinned. "Sure, he cuts it close most of the time, and rarely came out without getting hurt, but he still survived. If he can beat You-Know-Who," (he ignored Hermione and Ginny's scolding to call him by his proper name) "he can live through having a digital plate falling on top of him."
"The kid's gotta point," Shacklebolt said. "Harry's got a track record of surviving unsurvivable situations."
And another chapter done. W00t!
Harry: Are you sure you're not mad?
If I was, would I know it?
Sirius: He's got you there, kiddo.
