Barret thanked Elmyra for her hospitality after breakfast that morning.
She thanked them and right on top of that was Cloud.
He picked up an earlier conversation that Natalie had not heard from before. Pleading with Elmyra for her permission to help Aerith.
Tifa pleaded as well.
Elmyra searched their faces, including Natalie's. 'They all agreed. Aerith needs us.' Natalie thought.
"Please-bring her back to me." Elmyra asked of them.
'Today is going to be another long day.' Natalie thought. Waking up to talk with her friends throughout the night wasn't helping her catch up on sleep.
While she pondered, Cloud promised Elmyra he would bring Aerith back home.
Marlene chose that moment to come down the stairs and run to her dad. He explained to her that he had to go stop the bad people and save the Planet. He waited until he could get her permission to leave. It was so sweet.
Natalie wanted to cry. 'At least I got to visit the church, and the flowers. Wait for me Jamie.'
Tifa and Cloud headed outside before Barret was finished saying good bye to Marlene. Natalie followed the other two outside.
Barret met them outside, swearing to payback ShinRa for what they had done.
Cloud was right on task, they were going to rescue Aerith from ShinRa HQ. Everyone agreed on that.
That's all Natalie wanted. Aerith out of that building. As much as it meant Natalie had to go back in to do it.
"I had hoped that I was never going back in there." Natalie said.
"Lee, I'm not going to ask more of you than you've already done." Barret said.
Natalie shook her head. "She needs us, all of us."
"Let's go." Cloud said, already heading down the path out of the area.
Natalie and the others quickly discovered that the city was on a high emergency alert. There were PS more often than normal, around the slums. And the entire train system was shut down.
They had no way to get topside, never mind into ShinRa HQ to help Aerith.
Cloud was the one that had an idea that Corneo was the type to know how to overcome such an obstacle.
So they made up a plan to go to wall market and drag a way topside out of Corneo.
The slums were a lawless place, the the sense of community ran strong. People took care of each other, watched out for their neighbors. But Wall Market was run by criminals.
And Corneo was the one in charge.
There was a rabble rouser stirring up anti-AVALANCHE sentiments. Tall and lean, dressed like a local, with long black hair under her hat. Attracting a crowd and stirring up trouble. She claimed AVALANCHE was funded by Wutai on their way to Wall Market. Tifa could barely hold Barret back from making a scene. But with ShinRa more active in the Slums, it was always a bad time for that sort of attention. But worse timing before they even got to HQ to help Aerith.
Natalie was glad that Barret simmered down at Tifa's urging. Natalie had been on the receiving end of a group like this, after it had turned into an angry mob. Something previous experience warned her about and got her back up. When people were frustrated and angry, when they wanted answers. And someone charismatic enough gave them an answer. And how quickly it could turn violent.
A nasty situation even if it didn't attract the attention of ShinRa's Public Security.
Natalie focused back on moving forward, towards Aerith. She wanted something to fight, to focus on. Her head space was in too bad a place for her music to sooth her.
They helped out the people that needed it on the way to Wall Market.
Including more rumors about the 'Angel of the Slums.' And other people that could use Natalie's group's help before their final push to HQ.
The whole thing combined into a confrontation of that same rabble-rouser in Aerith's church. She had stolen things from various people. They met the Angel of the Slums, her grandmother. It was a whole mess, that took meeting that 'Angel' in order to track down somebody that could help them get a way topside.
Not that Natalie needed the confirmation that Mirelle was the 'Angel' after all. With her slum-dwelling grand-daughter, Kyrie. A troublesome young woman who had been up to no good. Leaving Natalie, Cloud and everyone else up to clean her mess.
Later that day, the four of them were back in Wall Market. They crossed paths with Madam M, she called out to Cloud. Warning their group that Corneo's men were looking for a large man with a gun for an arm. And that Barret's gun arm had been spotted in Sector Five, which put Marlene and Elmyra at risk.
Natalie wanted to go forward now and help Aerith. But these goons were an immediate problem that needed an immediate answer. She kept her thoughts of Aerith to herself and was a part of the group as Cloud led the way. To going back to the other sector and make sure Marlene and Elmyra would be safe.
All four of them together easily intimidated the goons from poking around sector five any further.
Crossing back through Evergreen Park. They touched base with Wymer again, who was organizing people in that playground to search for survivors. People still needed to be dug out of the rubble, get first aid, fed, and housed. Even as Natalie and the others were dealing with more complicated problems in Aerith. The people here still had their regular lives to salvage and just live.
Even as Natalie thought of the wound in the North Crater, or closer things to home like Aerith. For the people of Midgar, and the Slums, the world moved on relatively normally. As normal as one could live, adjacent to their entire town being in ruins and trying to scrape a living out of the wreck.
After Wymer had warned Natalie and the others of trouble. They found themselves underground, back in the secret lab. With so many sinkholes, anything left inside could get out now and be a threat to everyone on that side of the city. The people surviving on the ground above were even more vulnerable to monsters than they were before. And what was in this lab was nastier than what Natalie had become used to the last two years.
People living outside, vulnerable to some of ShinRa's nastier secrets was more immediate. And the four of them were the best equipped to deal with it. While the surviving Watch members and a few volunteers patrolled the surface. They attempting to protect the other survivors as well as they could.
So back down Natalie went. After Her and the other threes made double sure that the Behemoth they cornered and killed. Hopefully that would be the last of what was in that secret lab. They went back to Wall Market. To ask the Trio for help to get topside.
Cloud was convinced that Aerith wouldn't be let go by ShinRa willingly, yet the impression that they got from Elmyra was that Aerith would be treated relatively well. Natalie was glad for the beds Elmyra had given them all the night before. As Cloud pressed on, back up to the surface and back to Wall market, as they sniffed out a way topside. The day was barely half over and they hadn't stopped yet.
At the gym in Wall Market, they found Andrea Rhodea. Natalie had never met him before. Oh she knew of them, but she had never met them face-to-face.
Andrea had an energy about them that Natalie noticed instantly. They way they moved, were dressed, the flat profile and the thin line of a goatee. She didn't find that especially appealing. Only that there was something about him that reminded her of herself.
The way they carried them self and their profile reminded her that she was glad to be herself more often since coming to the slums. It was hard to put to words. Of recognizing someone else that dressed their own way. Even if how Andrea pulled that off was a very different situation than Natalie.
Natalie had seen much of what Cloud had gotten up to in Wall Market the night before. How he had earned the respect of the Trio. This included Andrea by the way he called Cloud out in the gym.
By proximity, Tifa impressed him. Drawing her into a physical challenge. Before sending the four of them on their way to Corneo's mansion.
After Tifa soundly defeated Andrea, she ended up against the others in the gym. While they competed Andrea noticed Natalie stealing glances at him. While Tifa worked of her ball of tension.
"Like what you see?"
She blushed, "No. I mean-. I just-. Nevermind."
"You look tense, maybe you need to work something out yourself."
Natalie had no compunctions to mention her issue with a person like this. "I need to replace this chest binder soon, that's what I need." Natalie had others, but like her other clothes they were buried in rubble.
"Ah." Andrea said with understanding.
"They don't exactly sell them at every stall around here."
"Is that all?"
"Hmm."
"Are you sure you don't want to take a moment today? You look tense."
Natalie stared out the door. She started running the lyrics from 'Empty' through her mind, struggling to clear it. "That tension's something else, not my body."
"Well, this is the perfect place to work out any lingering issues between the mind and the body."
"Hmm." she tried to sound like she wasn't disagreeing.
"There are other ways to work out that tension out side of the gym-"
"Not interested." Natalie put up a hand. "I'm not a person interested in it. Never have been." The Honey Bee Inn was a bordello, even as it offered many other services for their clients to relax. Not that Natalie was against that sort of thing, she just had no interest in even being adjacent. She didn't feel comfortable being any sort of vulnerable around strangers. Even if it was just to talk. "Too many people have assumed that I'm interested in that sort of thing." She danced around the word, not wanting to say sex out loud. 'Maybe I am a bundle of nerves right now.' She thought. When she was avoiding saying even a word.
"Hmm," He let go of the pull-up stand, regarding Natalie in a way that was respectful. "You assume too much if you think that is all the Honey Bee Inn has to offer."
Natalie blushed again, "yeah, well sometimes I have to hit people over the head with that one." Natalie had always been choosy with her partners because of that. In that she had hardly had any over the years. "But I'm not interested in talking to people at the Inn either."
"Hmm, well. Be that as it may. You keep good company." He gestured to Tifa being cheered on by Cloud and Barret. She had moved onto competing with another member of the gym. "Friend of Cloud. Do you have a name?"
"Natalie." She found talking to Andrea flustering, she had almost said her old name, Natalie.
"Is that your full name, Natalie?"
"It's just Natalie." She had other names, but her current one would do. "Some people also call me 'Lee'."
"Well Lee, and friend of Cloud. Was a binder all you were after?"
Natalie swept her eyes around the gym, the members here were for their own self-improvement. Tifa needed catharsis for the tension that had burrowed into her since Tifa had been on the Reactor Five job.
Natalie could tell she was a bundle of nerves herself. But she didn't want catharsis in the Inn. Nor did she have something to prove to the people here, or to herself.
'Why am I talking to Andrea?' "I have nothing to prove to these people." She told Andrea.
"And what about yourself?"
Natalie shrugged.
"You're not exactly making this easy, Lee."
"Cloud makes breaking down walls look easy."
"Have you talked to anyone else about-"
"Not in any detail." Natalie sighed. "But since I came to live in the Slums. I can be comfortable in my own skin. But I don't need to prove anything." She didn't mention Barret, Tifa or the other's reaction. To Natalie dressing more herself, when she had gotten her first binder since being free of ShinRa. It had been awkward in that Natalie had expected more of a reaction. After two years of acceptance. She didn't know what she would have done if the other members of AVALANCHE, or her neighbors had raised an issue about Natalie's way of expressing her gender.
Andrea spoke up. "It's not always easy, being who you are where others can see."
"It's also not great to have to hide who you are for years. When the consequences from being seen are severe." Natalie meant her years in the SOLDIER program. But she wouldn't say it out loud.
"And now? Are you no longer afraid?"
Natalie shrugged again. "Not about being myself anyway." She looked back to the crowd that had assembled around Tifa and the head trainer.
"I shall return." Andrea said with drama and flair "I know just the person to talk to. Wait here."
While Natalie waited for Andrea to return, she ended up finding something to do with some of the other gym members. She made a request at a stage whisper with the head trainer. Before he picked out the sort of person Natalie was looking for.
"What? Push-ups? Against her?" He gestured to her wide and soft-looking frame.
Natalie's curves hid the muscles underneath, unless someone knew how to look at the way she moved. This gym-bro, topping her height by nearly a foot. He couldn't see it in her.
Natalie only smiled. There was always a thrill when strangers made assumptions about her, when they were wrong. She was short and round, compared to the excessively defined-body builders that had been watching Tifa.
Where they were all muscle. Natalie was fat, but her core was strong underneath.
And she had had years to modify her clothes to hid even more surprises in them for the unwary. Which included Materia, knives, body armor and a few other surprises.
She looked demurely at one of the other men that had challenged Tifa earlier. "Could you be a dear and hold my coat?"
"Sure thing-whoa!" He was momentarily surprised by the weight of the coat, though he was more than strong enough to not drop it. "What's in you're pockets, rocks?"
Natalie took off her bag, sword belt, and goggles; piling them on top of her coat. "A few things, books, armor reinforcements. You know, the usual." There were tears in the shoulder seams of her coat and over shirt. Fate seemed to want her to dump her sleeves, what with how she moved when fighting like Cloud. His sleeveless sweater made it easier. Repairing that seam was going to have to be dealt with soon.
Jules, the head trainer, only let his smile go wider at the tone to Natalie's upper body. Unlike the others, he could tell what lay underneath Natalie's fat. "You boys already know better than to judge a book by it's cover."
Her things were laid on a bench. While her and one of the regulars took their place in the boxing ring. Cloud was lifting up a corner of her coat, in curiosity.
The gesture reminded her of Genesis or Sephiroth poking through her things 'Some things never change.' Her face started to blush, at the reminder. It was a couple of push-ups into the challenge when her mind was focused on the next push up.
She remembered struggling to go past three push ups. But after the life she had had. Several more push-ups than that was easy.
In no time at all, she was standing up next to the man that she had beaten for number of push-ups.
"Ah, I can't believe I lost a-" The first man huffed and puffed, "to a-"
"To a what?" Natalie snapped at him.
"To-uh..." the guy was at a loss for words.
"To a SOLDIER." Cloud saved him. "Though that shouldn't be surprising."
Natalie stretched and flexed. Then she cracked her shoulder joints the way most people crack their knuckles. She was feeling too almost-called out to how that puffed out her feminine features. "Next."
Her shoulders quickly became sore in a way that took her back to years ago. For the next challenger, the pain built closer and closer to the screaming shoulder muscles she remembered. Bringing with it the ghosts of her past. There was always one more push-up, one more ghost, the another push-up and more pain. Her early days in basic training, when she wasn't yet a SOLDIER, but about to be one.
"I never met a woman from SOLDIER before" the next defeated challenger said.
Natalie only shrugged, despite the pain that flared up in doing it. "And you still haven't. I'm just a person." She corrected him on how to refer to her. Cloud had picked up on it faster than that when he first met Natalie. After Tifa had pointed it out to him, saving Natalie the trouble.
It had been a very long last few days, Natalie was done with feminine pronouns. At least for today.
When Jules offered his own challenge. There was only movement, no words. Natalie's pains had to be put to the background to continue. There was always another push-up.
Natalie managed to climb to her feet, victorious, without hanging onto the ropes. Though the hand she offered Jules to get back up, required she grab a rope.
"Wow, good on you Natalie." Jules congratulated her. "Cloud sure has a way with surrounding himself with-"
"Lee. And surrounds himself with what?" Natalie gave him a look.
Jules saved himself, "With worthy challengers."
"Hah," Barret said, "That's right."
Tifa only had a breathless high five. The woman was still recovering from all the pull-ups.
Cloud's reaction was the most surprising.
After Natalie clambered out of the boxing ring, he had nothing to say but he did have a fist bump. Natalie had the tiniest twitch of the corner of her mouth, while taking him up on the fist bump.
"How do you feel?" Andrea asked her. He had reappeared while Natalie was doing push-ups.
"Better."
"Good, good. Happy to help Lee, friend of Cloud." Andrea did another pull-up before continuing. "And a SOLDIER to boot. That sounds like quite a story."
"It's a long story. And not one I want to repeat. Let my push-ups speak for themselves"
"Ah, I'm sorry to have mentioned it then."
"Just don't ask me how I got these eyes."
Andrea changed the subject, "Do you dance?"
"Not in a long time." Natalie's face burned as she remembered a recent dream. About Sephiroth, before their separation. She then remembered how it had turned into a nightmare, and how it had ended. Natalie swallowed her bile while burying the memory of that nightmare.
Andrea watched what played over Natalie's face. "Well, if you wish to confront any stage fright you might have. You know where to reach me."
"Hmm, thanks. She shook out her arms, her shoulders were still crying in pain, but she could easily work through it. "After we've dealt with some things. And come back to Wall Market. Maybe I can be convinced. But no singing. I only do that for myself."
"Ah, a musician as well."
Natalie waved him off half-heartedly, she really needed a break from all that exertion. "I've heard a few song over the years."
"Well, if you do come back to Wall Market another time, I would have this dance, Lee."
"Later." She told him before joining Tifa on the bench, where they could both rest.
Andrea got back down from the pull-up machine. "I said I would be back, I do have something for you, but uh. Not on the gym floor."
Natalie came out of the gym's change room a while later. She was done testing the button on the thing Andrea had gotten for her.
She still wanted to play with the buttons in the small of her back, but this electronic chest binder would have to wait for later. There were more important things to do for now.
It was enough to know what firstly, Andrea had gotten her size right at a look. And secondly, that the binder could turn into a torso-sized sports bra, releasing it's tension with the click of a button. The fabric loosened or tensed somehow. It had something to do with a current of electricity from the buttons.
Natalie could be as flat, or supported, as she wished, without stripping bare and wrestling out of her binder. The button and battery pack was even removable. To help keep what was effectively electric underwear washed and in good working order. She had no idea how much it cost. It was only a little unfortunate to have ShinRa branding on it.
But she was grateful, both on the upgrade in the technology, and having a better replacement for her two-year old binder.
"I don't- words fail me." Natalie told Andrea, trying to thank him.
Andrea had a small smile for her before returning to the pull-up machine. "Think nothing of it, friend of Cloud."
"You can call me Lee."
They went into Corneo's mansion after a break. They place sounded empty. There was a confrontation in Corneo's room with the hatch to the sewers. But when Cloud calmed down when the man put down his gun. They talked it out.
A Corneo goon with gray hair, Lesley, had been working for the Don. He had also aided Cloud, Aerith and Tifa in confronting the Don. And fighting their way out until those three had been trapped in the sewers. Lesley also knew of a way they could get topside to help Aerith.
So back they went, with Barret and Natalie, to plow through what was under there, helping Lesley. And Lesley promised them a way out.
The slime covered walls and expansive underground tunnels struck Natalie. They were not claustrophobic, the tunnels were so tall and large. Large enough for a rampaging monsters, or even Leviathan to move around in some places. There was also the smell, it was no blood-and-bile-and-viscera on the pavement. But it reeked and stank and made Natalie want to shower and scrub down her whole body with it's cloying refuse of the sewage from the city far above them.
The group, with Lesley in the lead, snaked their way through the sewers. Helping Lesley stay alive and through the other monsters down there. Lesley knew the way. He just could not go through those dangers alone.
The monsters down below kept her from ruminating dangerously. The proximity to trouble kept her from disappearing into her thoughts too much. She had been so quiet on the ground level, there had been no distractions from what was going on inside her head.
All she could think of of the sewers was that there was some monster down here, but Aerith, Cloud and Tifa would have already handled that thing. From Lesley to the maze of tunnels it was all new to Natalie, strange and dangerous.
Lesley led them further into the sewers.
Some goblin-looking creature stole the key Lesley needed to help them. The key to the Don's extra secret hide-y hole down here. After a long chase, they had found that it wasn't a key but a necklace.
Lesley had lost someone to Corneo. So had many people, Natalie had heard of Corneo by reputation, he devoured pretty women and threw them away when he was bored. Those goons Natalie had tortured and murdered had likely inflicted worse on those women. Lesley's friend had given him back the necklace before she disappeared. Tifa told him she could still he out there.
Natalie said nothing to his former girlfriend being picked as one of the Don's brides. Cloud, Tifa and Aerith might be the only ones known to have escaped Corneo after being dropped down that trap door.
Lesley revealed the real reason he was down there. Revenge on Corneo for disappearing his girlfriend.
Cloud told Lesley that the detour was fine. As long as Lesley got them topside. They would keep helping Lesley get revenge on Corneo.
Natalie wanted to tell Lesley that revenge was not the way. But that would make her a little bit of a 'do as I say and not as I do.' After her treatment of those goons. And that he was hurting right now for what he had lost. It was not a good time for another of Natalie's bad explanations.
They found the end of their road, underground still. Natalie and the others hid while Lesley went on ahead. He talked to his boss, getting close enough to pull a gun on Corneo. Corneo was fast for the fat, creepy, perv Natalie knew Corneo to be. He held Lesley's own gun at him, telling him all about how he was hiding from ShinRa for letting Cloud and the others get away and not die in the sewers.
Cloud intervened before Corneo hurt Lesley.
Corneo got away after siccing his monster on the group. Apparently it was the monster that was waiting for anyone who had fallen down the trap door. It had lived through Cloud's first confrontation of it, worse for wear. But now there were four of them, who could more than handle the large creature. And a dozen of the little goblin-faced creatures they had come across earlier.
The sun was not even set yet and they were finally going to have a means of saving Aerith later. But the large sewer-monster had a grudge for Cloud. So Natalie was not conservative with her Mana, only stopping from summoning Leviathan at Cloud's command.
"It's weak to fire!" He told her, summoning Ifrit, the fire-based summon instead.
'Is this how Shawn felt?' she thought while figiting the larger and smaller creatures as Ifrit burned them monsters. 'Deferring command to someone younger.' She did not think she begrudged Cloud taking command of their little group. Especially when he came into a fight like this better forewarned than Natalie did. She also was not the asshole Shawn had been, he had an open grudge for Danny taking command, despite being one of the younger one's in Natalie's road trip.
She didn't have time to ruminate on her failed road trip, from years ago. While keeping her head in this fight, until only the humans were the only things moving. Ifrit was long de-summoned before the giant monster fell to the floor of Corneo's hidden vault.
Before that perv had escaped, he had called the monster something, Natalie did not care to remember, watching the corpse for movement, in case it was faking as the four of them got close to inspect it.
Thankfully this time it was really dead.
Corneo had slipped away during the fight. But they were OK, Lesley was OK. And after they had all taken an exit to the surface, Lesley gave them what they needed. Souped-up grappling guns for climbing the ruins of Sector Seven.
"You were talking a while with Andrea back there," Tifa said to Natalie. "What were you two so engrossed in?"
Natalie looked up, at the top of the barrier wall. "Just some things I've been trying to work out and let go before we leave this Sector." For the first time in years, she was wearing a well-fitting binder, feeling more herself today than she had in a long time. She was also holding onto Sephiroth the way he used to be, even if that man was long dead. "At least it's easier not to dwell, after doing so many push-ups."
"Yeah," Barret had another firm slap on Natalie's back for that, "Good to have the ol' Lee back."
She smiled even as she thought, 'I don't even know who that is. I'm just the person you think I should be, again.' But she was comfortable in her own skin, her profile was a bit smoother than it had been before she had put the electronic binder on. She was glad to both have her own body out of her way, and that Andrea had understood without having to explain the whole damn thing.
As well that Barret, Tifa and Cloud might have had a look for the change, but they took 'Lee's' profile I stride. Natalie was safe to be herself.
"Got anythin' else you wanna do? We might not get another chance" Barret warned them.
"Are we doing this or not?" Natalie asked him.
"Let's go." Cloud told them.
Barret had one more thing to say, that he had Cloud figured out, the tough-guy unfeeling persona was just an act. Tifa agreed, he was just a really nice guy on the inside.
"We're all just a tangle of masks, hiding who we really are." Lee touched her latest, white and black houndstooth, scarf around her neck. "But get to know someone well enough, and the face underneath can peek out sometimes."
After a few more words between them. They were off, up, and over the wall.
The wreckage of Sector Seven had so much to it. Survivors, monsters. ShinRa security. Even some Third class SOLDIERs, Natalie did not recognize. And a giant flying robot.
When the first fight started. Natalie was on task. She was focused, adrenalin going. She didn't need music, she just needed to survive. She just needed all four of them to survive and get to the top. They made it high enough to really see the devastation of the sector. It was so much worse than anything Natalie could have imagined. Everything was so much more than she tried to imagine. And now seeing it, the piles of rubble and damaged plate. If there were any survivors, or bodies, the four of them were too high up to see any individuals. There was just the wreckage and devastation.
Natalie thought about how close she might have come to being in there, when the plate fell.
Barret started, while they all looked on, "I guess… We'll build another bar."
"Yeah," Tifa said. "We will." she turned to Cloud, "you'll help too, won't you?"
He turned away, hiding his face until he came back with an answer. "For a price."
Natalie added "I'm gonna need a job."
"I'm hiring." Tifa told her.
They spent a little more time looking over the wreck, before moving on. Up, over, and through.
There was an incident in the final confrontation with the giant robot. Natalie was unable to help, she could only watch as Barret's grappling gun lost it's hold. Tifa was holding onto Cloud, she had her gun free for Barret to grab the end of the wire.
At the top, The three of them helped get Barret over the edge. Natalie just felt useless, she had been fine, she could only watch as they had nearly lost Barret.
Natalie was on her butt, she had yet to pick herself up after the three of them had pulled Barret over the ledge, to safety.
"Lee," Cloud told her. "Get up. You're not useless."
Natalie didn't believe him.
"You got us this far." He stalked off, wearing the mask of a hard-ass.
They were nearly at the top. The sun was finishing setting. They were on their final approach to the ShinRa building.
Now Topside, Barret wanted to go right in the front door. Natalie was fine with that plan until Cloud argued against it. Convincing the others to sneak in the parking garage.
When no wraiths appeared to interfere with that plan, Natalie found no reason to disagree.
Natalie got out of Cloud's way. She didn't want to interfere with the path they were on going forward. Especially when the wraiths didn't appear to punctuate anyone's words or intentions. Barret grumbled about getting his revenge on ShinRa. Cloud reminded him why they were there, for Aerith.
Get in, get Aerith, get out.
They were able to get on top of one of the trucks heading for the parking garage, only to get caught inside the garage and have to fight their way up to the ground floor.
Cloud figured that Aerith would be in a research facility, they just had to get a keycard and figure out what floor she was on.
"What about you Natalie? Got any keycards from yer time here?"
"That was a long time ago. I can help figure out a way up, but we need to get a keycard, or cards, here. Not that I have them anymore but even if mine still worked. The highest I'd be able to take us is not high enough to get to Aerith. I bet they've changed systems a few times over the years too.
"I thought I saw one on the reception desk." Cloud told them.
Tifa figured out a way across the lights in the lobby to get there. Once inside, she was able to disable to security barrier. As well as the floor Research and Development was on, for Aerith.
While Tifa made her way across. Natalie looked around the upper sub-floor of the lobby. She was shopping for a bike, 'always have an escape plan' she told herself. She wanted to be prepared if things still came to getting away from ShinRa HQ real fast.
Satisfied, Natalie, Barret and Cloud watched Tifa make her way across to reception, and the other three joined her as she shut down the security barrier. Natalie had something picked out for later.
They just had to get to the Sixty-fifth floor, Hojo's lab.
To no surprise to Natalie, the best the keycard could do was the fifty-ninth floor.
"See?" Natalie told Barret. "Had I kept my damn card, it still wouldn't be as useful as this one."
"Hmm."
Cloud led them to the bottom of the stairs up.
"You have got to be shittin' me." Barret said.
"No cameras." Natalie said. "Plus, nobody takes the stairs."
"Yep," Cloud agreed. "We're a lot less likely to get caught this way."
"But a lot more likely to die of boredom." Barret argued.
Tifa set the pace, all the way up. Barret argued the whole way, huffing and puffing. Cloud and Natalie kept their own pace, each trying to be a couple steps ahead of the other. But even their SOLDIER bodies had to slow down eventually.
Barret took a break for a few seconds around the forty-second floor.
Natalie decided to not talk about her history in the building. She was trying to keep herself going up the stairs like Cloud was. Talking about it for a moment would only slow them down. She tried to ignore the doors on the fortieth to fiftieth floors. Too many memories she wanted to shed and leave behind. Too many memories other people had left behind. One other person had left behind, like it had meant nothing to him.
That life was behind her now, there was only forward.
'Thanks for nothing.' Natalie thought. She just wanted to remember the good times and shed the pain. But it was a package deal, no shaking the pain.
When they were all at the top, the complaints and arguments were gone. They only took the time to recover themselves. Breathe for a few minutes. Then move on, forward and through.
They entered Skyview hall. It had been a long time since Natalie had been in the area. She had had a lot of time to study the floorplan of many of these floors to plan her eventual escape. She wasn't as familiar as she wanted to be. But she understood enough of the logic of the building to lead the way.
They passed the huge windows that allowed them a night view of the city. Barret reminded them how people let themselves be blind to the cost of all that power.
Natalie tried to not let herself enjoy the view from above. She knew she would be glad when those lights went out for good. When the Planet would leave behind Mako as an energy source.
Upon reaching reception, the holographic secretary told them to go through a tour of the floors above, one by one.
"This is too weird." Tifa asked.
"You think everything is going too well?" Cloud asked.
Natalie guffawed.
"Yeah I do. Think this is a trap?" Tifa asked.
"Then let's get this party started." Barret told them.
"We'll just smash the trap when it tries to close on us." Natalie told them.
"Hell yeah, I like the way you think, Lee!"
"Let's go." Cloud led them to the next floor.