Final Fantasy VII [3rd Instalment]

Emerald Princess of Vernea

Chapter Eighteen

Navigating their way through the Underwater Reactor was an easy task, thanks to Cait. He was able to guide them through the maze of winding corridors, leading them toward the core of the reactor where the Huge Materia was supposed to be stored.

As well as being an underwater mako reactor, the building also doubled as a submarine dock. After Shinra had realised that there was an almost limitless supply of mako flowing beneath the ocean floor, the President and his executives had decided that they would build more underwater reactors. In aid of that, they had included a submarine dock into the Junon reactor's design, using it as their underwater base of operations. So far, another suitable place had not been found.

They came across their submarines on their way to the reactor core. The path on which they walked came out over the submarine dock, and so they stopped to look at them. There were two submarines in this dock; one grey and one red. The hatch on the red submarine had been left open, waiting for its consignment to be loaded. There were no soldiers about; it seemed the consignment wasn't ready yet.

Up above them there came a loud click, followed by the cringing sound of scraping metal. The group looked up as a giant crane began to move slowly across the ceiling towards a hatch at the far end of the corridor. A door stood open at the end of the walkway so, putting the crane out of their minds for now, they headed towards it.

The door took them into another corridor with a closed door at the far end. It was unlocked, so they pushed it open and went inside.

There were three soldiers in the next room, the first they had seen since entering the reactor, and so they stopped in surprise. The three soldiers were just as surprised, for all they did was stare, at Cloud in particular. The soldier closest to the group raised a trembling finger and pointed at the swordsman.

"You, you're Cloud!!" he said.

Cloud did not reply. He simply closed his fingers around the hilt of the Buster Sword. The soldier caught his meaning and stepped backwards warily. The two soldiers standing behind him, however, had recovered from their initial shock and had drawn their machine guns from their holsters.

"You are NOT getting this Huge Materia!!" one of the soldiers shouted angrily, raising his gun. The barrel loaded with a click, and his comrade did the same. The shaken soldier, after a moment's faltering due to his trembling fingers, drew his own gun.

Cloud started to unhook the Buster Sword, but was stopped when Barret stuck out his arm and brushed past him. "There ain't no room for that sword here," he said simply. Cloud stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged, releasing the sword. Barret grinned and stepped into the room, readying his gun-arm.

The sight of Barret stepping into the room, with his large, muscular frame and powerful machine-gun gun-arm, caused the soldiers' confidence to waver slightly. They shuffled backwards slightly, and their guns lowered by about half an inch. The anxious soldier at the front looked back at his companions, unsure. There was a moment's pause as the soldiers thought things over, before the soldier who had spoken out so defiantly made up his mind and raised his gun again.

Barret opened fire before the soldier could have a chance to. Unlike the others, who had been content to simply injure the soldiers or knock them unconscious, he fired with the intent to make sure they did not get up again. The bullets tore through the soldier's undefended chest, and he crumpled against the far wall.

It wasn't that Barret wanted to kill the soldier. At one time, he would have been more than happy to. He would even have revelled in it. But now was different. They were on a mission, and speed was of the essence. Here, in this cramped, confined room, there was no room to mess around trying to knock the gun from the soldier's hands. The bullets would ricochet; perhaps hit one of his friends. So ensuring that the soldier was no longer able to fire his weapon was the main priority.

At least, that was what he would tell Tifa later. Smirking, he turned to the remaining two soldiers.

The soldier at the back stared at his fallen comrade in horror. Then, with an angry cry, he raised his gun and aimed at Barret. His fingers had barely begun to squeeze the trigger before Barret opened fire once more. This time Barret did not shoot to kill, but fired at the soldier's right shoulder, shattering his collar bone. The soldier cried out in pain and slumped against the wall, clutching at his injured shoulder.

That left just one soldier to deal with. The anxious soldier stood frozen as his comrades were shot down, and now he was staring up at Barret in complete fear. Barret levelled the gun at the soldier's head, and loaded the barrel. The soldier's hands trembled. Then he threw the gun aside and bolted for the far door.

The soldier staggered as something heavy bounced off his helmet and landed in front of him. Skidding to a stop, the soldier looked down at the creature that had blocked his exit. It was Cait Sith. The cat shook his head in disappointment and waved an accusing finger at the soldier, who was backing away slowly.

"Now, let's not be having any of that, laddie," the cat said casually. "You don't want to go something silly and make us angry now, do you? Just be good and step out of the way, all right?"

The soldier must have forgotten about Barret, for he spun around to make a break for the other door. He did not get far. Cait's Mog hopped in front of him as he turned, blocking the path with its wide bulk. The Mog slammed its giant pink fists together, before swinging one at the soldier's head. The resulting smash sent the soldier flying backwards, and Cait Sith ducked as he flew overhead and slammed into the door. The soldier grunted with the impact, and then fell to the floor, limp.

The Mog jumped joyfully at its victory, throwing its fists into the air and waving them about. Cait Sith climbed up the Mog's back to his usual place on its head. After giving it a tap on the forehead to bring it back under his control, he guided it toward the door. The Mog pushed the unconscious soldier aside, dumping him unceremoniously on top of the wounded soldier, who groaned at the sudden, unwelcome weight.

The cat turned back to the door. "I did warn him not to do anything foolish," he said. The Mog pressed its fist against a button on the wall, and the door slid open. Cait stepped through and instantly froze at the sound of a machine gun barrel loading.

There were two more Shinra soldiers in the next room, drawn by the sounds of gunfire. The two soldiers had taken up positions near the door and had their machine guns ready, waiting for the rebels to come through. As the door opened and Cait stepped through, they cocked their weapons and aimed straight for the cat's head.

"So you WERE after the Huge Materia!!" shouted one of the soldiers angrily.

Cait swiftly raised his hands into the air, his whiskers trembling. The Mog copied him, lifting its heavy fists up above its head. The soldier fired a warning shot by the Mog's feet. Startled, the Mog jumped backward, and then hopped from foot to foot in fright. The soldier loaded the gun once again and then aimed, about to finish him off.

There was a flurry of movement as Yuffie darted in from the other room. She zipped past the dancing Mog and leaped at the soldier. Her Razor Ring was ready in her hands, and she swiped at the soldier just as he was about to fire. There was a loud clang as the steel blade collided with the gun frame. The blade dug in and caught on the metal, wrenching the gun out of the soldier's hands.

Yuffie continued on her spin and descended in a downward arc. With another swipe of the ring, she sliced through the side of the soldier's unguarded leg. She must have cut through a tendon, for she heard a loud 'twang', and the soldier's leg crumpled beneath him. Holding his bleeding leg, grunting with the pain, he staggered out of the way.

The other soldier ran to the door and slammed the butt of his gun against the control panel. The door began to slide shut. The Mog hopped quickly backward to avoid being crushed by the door. That done, the soldier turned back to Yuffie, took aim and fired. The ninja quickly dropped and rolled out of the way just as the shower of bullets fell down where she had stood.

Seeing the door begin to close, Cid ran forward and thrust his spear through the doorway. The door caught on the pole and shuddered. It groaned as it tried to continue forward, pressing heavily on the spear, which refused to let it go.

With the door temporarily locked in place, Cid glanced over at Cait. "Cait!" said the pilot. "Open this here door again."

Cait Sith tilted his head, confused. He was still startled by the suddenness by which events had turned. Then his mind cleared and he nodded. "Oh, right." He turned the Mog towards the button by the door, and the Mog pressed its fist against it again.

Nothing happened.

Cait stared at the control panel. The Mog pressed the button again. Still, nothing happened. The door refused to budge. The cat scratched his head thoughtfully. To his side he heard the pilot bark out his name irritably. The cat ignored Cid and leaned over to examine the control panel closely.

He saw the problem almost immediately, and he would have flushed with guilty shame if it had been possible for him to. The button was stuck, jammed in place against the wall. The Mog, overeager after its victory against the previous soldiers, had slammed its fist too hard against the panel and caused the button to jam.

Sitting up on the Mog's head, the cat shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid…" he began regretfully, knowing the pilot was not going to like his report, "…that… Well, that is to say…… The button is sort of stuck."

On the other side of the door came the sound of heavy machinegun fire, following by the whir of spinning metal. Cid peered through the gap in the doorway made by the spear, trying to spot Yuffie. Both she and the soldier were out of sight, though he could see the bullets flying across the room. He cursed vehemently.

"Well, we gotta do somethin' to help her!" he said. He bit his lip painfully. Then an idea came to him. He looked over his shoulder. "Tifa! You think you could pull this here door back open?"

Tifa cast an expert glance over the door. It was thick and made out of strong metal. A bullet would not be able to pierce it. Cloud's sword could probably slice through it, but that was not an option. She also guessed that despite its show of thickness and strength, the door was completely hollow inside. It would be heavy, but that did not worry her. She had strength of her own.

Coming to a decision, she nodded. "I'll give it a try," she said, and went over to join Cid by the door. After tugging on her leather gloves to make sure they would not slip out of place, she grabbed onto the edge of the door and began to pull.

It was certainly very heavy; heavier than she expected it to be, and at first nothing seemed to happen. Tifa braced her feet and pulled, putting every ounce of her strength into her arms. Beads of sweat formed on her brow, and she grit her teeth. The door began to creak and shudder, as though fighting against her strength. Finally the door began to move, losing its battle with the fighter. It started to slide back away from the wall, groaning in protest. Cid's spear came loose, and the moment the gap was wide enough he squeezed through into the other room.

He spotted Yuffie immediately. The ninja was on the other side of the room, cornered by the wall. She had lost her Razor Ring; the weapon was stuck tight in a crevice close to the ceiling. The soldier stood in front of her, his back to Cid. Seeing his chance, Cid hefted his spear onto his shoulder and threw it across the room.

The spear hit its mark, burying its point deep in the soldier's back. The soldier cried out and staggered, dropping his gun to the floor. His arms flailed behind him as he tried to find what hit him, but while his attention was diverted Yuffie ran forward and kicked him soundly in the head. The soldier tumbled to the floor, the spear still stuck in his back.

Yuffie looked down at the soldier, and when she saw him start to move she delivered another swift kick to his head. The soldier slumped and did not move again.

The first soldier had ducked down while his comrade had been firing, but now that the gunfire had ceased he was trying to make his way slowly towards the other door, still holding his injured leg. Cid retrieved his spear from the back of the unfortunate soldier lying at his feet, and then went over to the staggering soldier and clonked him over the head with it. The soldier dropped without much resistance.

While Yuffie recovered her Razor Ring from its resting place near the ceiling, Cid went over to the door and pushed the button on the control panel like the soldier had. The door slid open, allowing the others to enter the room. There was no time to rest, or to tend to the wounded soldiers. They had to hurry on before more soldiers arrived to slow them down.

Luck must have been on their side. The door leading out of the room took them straight to the core of the Underwater Reactor.

The core was situated in the very centre of the room. It stood apart from the rest of the machines; the machines that sucked the mako up from beneath the planet's crust. Dozens of pipes descended from those machines and into a large pool mako at the very bottom of the room. The mako was so thick and so dense it appeared not as green but as purest white. The temperature of the room fluctuated, sometimes warm and sometimes cool, though no breeze at all blew down here.

Cloud and the others came to a stop on the gridded path and looked up at the reactor core. It was quite different from the other cores they had seen. The others had been so encased in metal plating they were almost impregnable, forcing AVALANCHE to use bombs in order to destroy them.

This core was not nearly so well protected. It seemed that Shinra didn't think that much protection was needed, this far beneath the ocean. It was tall and slender, with a wide opening in the top. Red steam was billowing out from this opening, rising high before spreading out and falling back towards the pool.

The most intriguing thing about the reactor was the immense power that could be felt emanating from it. This was a familiar feeling to the others, who had come across this sensation twice before already, in both North Corel and in Fort Condor. To Cloud, this was a new feeling, but even he knew what it was without being told.

"!? The Huge Materia!" he said in awe.

A loud clanking noise drew their attention further upwards, to the ceiling. The crane that they had seen in the submarine dock was overhead, and had come to a stop just over the reactor core. There was a moment's pause, and then the metal grabber descended, going deep into the reactor core.

"Hey! A Crane Game!" said Yuffie excitedly. The ninja climbed up onto the rails and leaned over, trying to see what was happening through a glass panel in the side of the core. The red mist was thicker inside the core, and she could not see anything.

The hum from the core quietened, and the red mist steadily ceased. Yuffie jumped down off the rail and rejoined the others, who were looking up at the crane. The grabber was rising up, it emerged from inside. Resting in the grabber's metal fingers was a glass case containing the Huge Materia. This Huge Materia was slightly smaller than the other pieces they had collected, with rougher edges, like it had been crudely cut. The case rested precariously in the grabber, jumping with each movement. They all held their breath until the grabber returned to its original position and stopped, still holding the Materia.

"Damn, just missed it!" cursed Barret.

The crane gave a metallic clunk as it began to move again, heading back along the track to the hatch it had come in by. It did not take a genius to figure out what Shinra was planning now. "They're gonna take it on the submarine!" said Tifa.

"If we take a shortcut," said Red XIII, "we might just make it……"

Cloud watched the crane move slowly across the ceiling. There was no way they could jump and grab it out of the crane claw. They would risk dropping it, and the Huge Materia would fall straight into the lake of mako below and lost to them forever. He lowered his gaze to a door at the other end of the path. If the crane was indeed heading to the submarines, then they had to get there in time to intercept it. He began to run for the door, startling the others, who hesitated before following.

The door led right to the submarine docks, just as Cloud hoped it would. The red submarine lay just ahead. It seemed much larger up close than it had on the other path; in fact, its size was a little daunting. To his surprise there were no soldiers about; they were probably already in the submarine.

The only person standing on the docks was Reno. Cloud was not that surprised to see him here. After all their previous failures to secure the Huge Materia, Shinra had given up sending their ordinary soldiers and had finally sent in the Turks to get the job done. Reno had his back to Cloud, his attention fixed elsewhere.

Cloud came to a stop behind Reno. Ignoring him for the moment, Cloud looked up and scanned the ceiling, searching for the crane. "Did we make it!?"

He spotted the crane just overhead, and he felt his heart sink. The crane was just coming to a stop over the open hatch on the red submarine. As he watched, the grabbed lowered and disappeared inside the submarine, taking the Huge Materia with it. A moment later the grabber rose again, minus its cargo. The submarine's hatch creaked shut. It seemed they were just barely in time.

The others ran into the docks. As the door behind them slid shut, Reno turned his head. He sighed in annoyance. "What are you doing?" he said irritably. "Help load." He turned away again. Then he jumped, startled, and turned to face them. His eyes widened in surprise. "Cloud!?" He thought Cloud had been lost in the North Crater!

Cloud did not reply, but simply shrugged his shoulders casually. Tifa looked over at the submarine, noticing the closed hatch. "Looks like we barely made it," she said breathlessly, still worn out from her run.

Barret stepped forward and raised his gun-arm, aiming it at the sub. "We're gonna help transport the Huge Materia… Reno!" he said, flashing the Turk a wicked grin.

Cloud put out his hand, blocking Barret's gun. Reluctantly the ex-resistance leader lowered his arm, though he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the Turk. Cloud turned his attention back to Reno. "Either give it to us or else," he said to the Turk warningly. He narrowed his eyes. "…Which is it gonna be?"

Reno seemed unconcerned by Cloud's vaguely disguised threat. Sighing dramatically, he smirked and flicked back a lock of his red hair. "Unfortunately," he began, with an air of regret that was only partially genuine, "I don't have time to deal with you." The Turk nodded his head to the side.

Cloud and the others turned to where he was looking. There was a large guard robot stationed next to the sub. Yuffie's words about a crane game flashed into their minds, for the robot did look like an oversized, complicated crane game. It was known as the Carry Armour, for its primary use was to lift and transport cargo from the reactor to the docks. In true Shinra fashion, the robot had also been adapted for battle. As they watched, the robot turned and began to walk towards them.

It had two long arms built in an 'M' formation, ending in two pincer-like grabbers that opened and closed as it walked. The arms hung close to the ground but could be lifted high above its 'head' by a giant shaft, allowing it to carry even heavy cargo.

One of the robot's major weaknesses was apparent almost immediately. It plodded forward on three awkwardly built legs set at such an angle that the robot balanced perfectly when stood still, but made it unsteady when it moved. The robot compensated for this by swinging its arms back and forth as it walked, creating a counter balance when each leg was off the floor. It would have been laughable, if it weren't for the metal armour and laser rifle that had been built just above its motor. As Cloud and the others reached for their weapons, Reno's smug smile widened.

"My priority is the Huge Materia!" he said, before ducking under the robot's swinging arm and darting towards the sub.

Cloud started to give chase, but was stopped when the Carry Armour slammed its pincer-like hand down into the ground in front of him. Cloud stepped back and looked up at the robot, which was now blocking their path to the sub. A yellow light built into its face flashed brightly. Its message was clear: they would not get past without a fight.

Reaching behind him, Cloud drew the Buster Sword from its place upon his back and gripped it tightly in his hands. In all honesty, he had been nervous about fighting again. After everything that had happened, with Sephiroth and Shinra, he had wondered, briefly, if he could ever find the courage to hold a sword again. But now that he held the Buster Sword in his hands, felt its familiarity, its strength and the honour of those who wielded it before him, he felt his courage come flooding back.

He was ready.

A Note from the Authoress

My poor little notebook. It is getting so battered from being shoved in my bag every day. It's been crushed, wet, covered in chocolate, all sorts. But it's still going strong, and will be here to the end. Which is in sight now. _ Yikes.