THIRTY-ONE

When we stepped out of the brightly lit hallway and into the Battle Square, I stopped immediately, noticing right away how still and empty the place was. The three of us stood in the entry area, a wide triangular platform with eight exits, four opposite each other on two sides. As we looked at the third and top side, where an enclosed set of stairs covered in purple carpet rose up to a tower ringed with spotlights, Jessie gasped and her eyes widened. A Shinra soldier lay slumped against the railing, his blue uniform riddled with bullet wounds.

I hurried over, checked him, and shook my head. "Dead…"

"What's going on, Cloud?" Jessie murmured.

"Uh-oh…" Cait gulped as he and Jessie joined me. "Not good! We'd better investigate ahn see if we can find out who did this."

I nodded. "This way!"

"Right behind you!" Jessie added.

We all rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, but as soon as we entered the waiting area, we skidded to a halt. Lying sprawled on the black and white checkered floor were the bodies of half a dozen or so Shinra soldiers. Blood spattered across the tiles and the long purple carpet that stretched all the way from the exit to another, shorter set of stairs in front of the arena's entrance. More stairs, wider than the other ones, rose up on our right to Dio's showroom. Two staff members were slumped over L-shaped counters in the back of the room.

"No…" Jessie breathed.

I checked the soldiers' bodies. "They were shot, same as the one we saw outside. Definitely not Sephiroth. No way he'd ever use a gun. This was someone else. But who could it have—"

Just then, one of the clerks lifted her head. "Ohh…"

"You okay?" I asked, hurrying over.

"I… I don't know…" she said. Like the soldiers and the other clerk, she'd been shot, but somehow she was still alive. She winced. "Hurts… he just walked in and… starting shooting…"

I went behind the counter and gently eased her onto the floor into a sitting position with her back to the wall, then looked at Jessie. "See if you can help her, Jessie. Do whatever you can."

She nodded. "I'm on it."

"Who did this?" I asked the clerk while Jessie took a strong potion from her belt pouch and helped the woman drink it.

"A man… with a gun… on his arm…" the clerk answered.

Jessie stared at me in shock. "No way! He'd never…"

I had to agree, though it didn't look good for him. "I don't think he would, either. But who else has anything like that?"

"I know, but…" she began. Then she picked up a shell casing laying on the floor nearby amidst dozens of others. "Hang on… these bullets, they're not Barret's. These are something different."

"Ye sure about that, lass?" Cait asked.

Jessie gazed intently at the casing. "Positive. These are smaller and thinner, probably Stinger shells. Not the Vulcan rounds Barret uses. So it couldn't have been him. It was somebody else."

"Hold it right there!" a voice ordered from behind us.

We whirled around to see two park security officers pointing rifles at us. And standing in between them was Dio, not at all pleased by the sight around him. Just what we needed, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't think he was an unreasonable guy, though, despite being a bit odd, so I figured we could talk our way out of it and explain what we'd found out. Maybe we could help somehow.

Dio, though, wasn't having it. "We meet again, boy. I must say, this wasn't what I had in mind when I suggested you visit the arena. I hope you and your friends didn't do this terrible deed."

Jessie shook her head. "It wasn't us!"

"Maybe I was wrong…" Dio mused. "Still, you'll have to—"

"Better run!" Cait told us as he and his moogle mount bounced up the stairs to the arena entrance. "It's gettin' ugly!"

Jessie stared at him. "Cait? Where are you going!?"

"Hold them!" Dio ordered his men.

Hoping Cait had a plan, I followed him and Jessie into the arena as Dio and his guards chased after us. The arena was a large area that was more or less square, with tiered stands on each side rising above a wide platform surrounded by low stone walls. In the middle of the platform on the matching stone floor was a bright, thick red ring with the words "GATEWAY TO HEAVEN" curving around it. Iron chains hung down from the walls, and on the opposite side was another exit, probably the one the holographic enemies emerged from.

Dio pressed a control on the little pad he held, and the circle inside the ring slid open to reveal a chute. "End of the line, boy."

"Listen!" I argued. "We didn't—"

"Enough! Into the chute!" Dio ordered.

Jessie sighed. "Cloud…"

"Do it, Jessie," I told her. "We'll find a way outta this."

She nodded, then jumped into the chute after Cait. Although I was sure we could've fought our way out if we really wanted to—those park guards didn't look too formidable despite the rifles they were currently pointing at us—I didn't think it was a good idea. We hadn't killed those people, and our best shot at convincing Dio of that was to just go along with what he wanted for now until we could find a way to prove to him we were innocent. Backwards justice, to be sure, but we didn't have any other options. I only hoped he would listen.

The chute wound downward in a spiral as I jumped in, and I could barely see where I was going. I heard Jessie descending a little ahead of me, but it was so dimly lit in this place that there wasn't really any way for me to see her aside from a vague shape sliding around the curves of the chute before I did. We sped onward, the steep slope making it hard to even slow down, let alone stop, and by the way the minutes passed, I figured we were going pretty far below the park.

We finally hit bottom a short time later. I caught a glimpse of light at the end of the chute, then heard Jessie fly out first with startled shout just before I did the same, our momentum carrying us into the open as if we'd been fired from a gun. I landed barely a second after she did, the sudden impact causing both of us to gasp in surprise as I tumbled onto her back. For a moment, we just laid there in the dirt as we caught our breath and my hands instinctively found hers.

"You okay?" I asked.

Jessie chuckled. "Yeah. You know, that was actually kinda fun. Too bad the circumstances around it weren't so good. Might've been a nice ride for the park otherwise. You in one piece, merc?"

I slowly stood up. "Pretty much."

"Good. I guess we'd better have a look around, then," she suggested as I helped her to her feet. "Gotta find us some answers."

"Whoa…" I breathed, looking up.

Jessie followed my gaze. "Wow… we're under the Gold Saucer. Way under it, actually. Never realized how high up it was."

The park was laid out like the branches of some immense gold tree growing out of the dusty sands, and we were at the base of what was, in essence, its massive trunk. It rose up into the afternoon sky like a spike of molten gold, although the lowermost section, where we were, wasn't nearly as elaborate. Just large steel panels, thick rusty pipes curving up from the ground, and humming machinery.

"There ye are," a familiar voice said. We turned to see Cait ambling toward us. "Was waitin' for ye two tae show up."

"Where are we?" I asked.

He had his moogle mount gesture around him. "Corel Prison. It's a different kinda jail than most. A desert prison. No walls or guards. No need for 'em doun here, nae with how this place is."

I blinked. "A desert prison?"

"Aye," Cait said. "A natural prison right in the middle of the desert. Surrounded by quicksand. I heard that once ye get in, there's no gettin' out. At least, usually. But there might just be a way…"

Past a simple wooden fence stretched miles and miles of seemingly endless rock and sand, all the way to the mountains. They rose up in a long, jagged brown line dozens of miles to the north. Sweat beaded on my skin as the heat bore down on us, and I saw it on Jessie as well. She slid the back of her gloved hand across her forehead to wipe some of it off as her gaze drifted out over the desert.

"Whew…" she panted. "Take me outta the oven, I'm done."

I couldn't argue. "It's pretty hot here."

Jessie nodded. "Not like Costa del Sol, though. At least there was a nice ocean breeze there. Out here, it's just so dry."

"You gonna be alright?" I asked.

She smirked. "Of course, Cloud. You're with me."

"Then let's try to find some shade and figure out our next move," I decided. "I hope the others haven't been caught."

"Right, we need to—" Jessie turned around, then froze.

I blinked. "Jessie?"

She grabbed my arm and pointed. "Look!"

Following her gaze, I saw right away what had gotten her attention. It was Barret. He was standing a short distance away, his good hand on the fence as he gazed quietly out across the vast desert. He seemed lost in thought, hardly aware of anything around him. Laying near him was a body riddled with bullet wounds—one of the other inmates, from the look of it. Had Barret really killed him? I didn't know. But he was more troubled than I'd ever seen him before.

"Barret!" I called as Jessie, Cait, and I hurried over.

He waved us off. "Stay back, guys! Gotta deal with this stuff myself. Been way too damn long. So jus' lemme be…"

Then he ran off, disappearing behind the curve of the park tower's huge base. As we watched him go, I couldn't help worrying about him. What was he doing down here? And what was he trying to deal with? I wasn't sure, but I wanted to help him if I could. He was my friend, even if that fact still surprised me sometimes what with how we'd both been so wary and mistrustful of each other at first. It's funny how things can change, though. They certainly had with us.

Cait twitched his whiskers. "I know he's one of your friends, but he looks like a dangerous feller. Glad he's on our side."

"He is," Jessie insisted.

"But did he kill this guy?" I wondered, gazing at the body.

She shook her head, picking another spent bullet casing up off the ground. "No. These are more Stinger shells, Cloud. Not Vulcan rounds. So there's no way Barret did this. It was somebody else."

I let out a little sigh of relief and nodded. The last thing he needed right now was for another murder to be pinned on him. I could see the need to defend himself in a place like this, but given what we'd seen up in the Battle Square, any fighting at all probably wouldn't look good for him. So we had to find him fast. We hurried off in the direction Barret had gone, but when we rounded the bend of the tower and saw the rest of the desert prison, Jessie gasped in dismay.

"Corel… the ruins…" she breathed. "We… we're here."

Ahead of us, in the shadow of the Gold Saucer, sat the burned and blackened husks of what must've once been homes and shops. A few of them were mostly intact, but not many. The remains of old roads were broken and all but buried, and the sandy ground was littered with junk and discarded bits of garbage. A long, curving mako pipe lay across the sand rusting in the sun near a large wooden shack that served as a bar. Sitting across from it was a metal trailer that looked oddly out of place with how much cleaner it was than everything else.

I sighed. "Yeah, looks that way. What we saw in the mountains was only part of the place, I guess. You alright, Jessie?"

"I… I will be," she said. "I just didn't expect to… you know."

Cait bounced up alongside us. "I heard the park was built right on top of the ruins. It's the Gold Saucer's garbage dump—ye can see there's a big junkyard sittin' just over there a ways."

Jessie gazed at it grimly. "It's so sad, Cait. I can't even imagine what Barret's going through right now. This used to be his home, back when it was still a thriving town. Until Shinra came…"

"I get why he's a bit outta sorts, then," Cait admitted.

"How do we find him?" I asked.

Cait scratched his ear. "First, we oughta talk tae Mr. Coates. He's in charge doun here, ahn we can find him in that shiny trailer. The rest of your friends should already be doun here as well."

"What? When did they get caught?" Jessie blinked.

He went on. "Dio knows mae, ye see. Most everyone who works up at the Gold Saucer does. Great place for gathering info, ahn a character like me doesnae stand out in there tae much. Ahn he knows ye and yer friends are innocent. But we had to get ye outta sight."

I folded my arms in front of me. "Shinra's looking for us?"

"Aye," Cait nodded. "They—"

"Cloud, there you are!" a familiar voice called.

We turned to see Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, and Red hurrying toward us. They looked more or less alright, though I saw a few cuts and scratches that seemed to be recently healing. Probably from having to fight off a few of the inmates. They prowled all around this place, their eyes feral, dangerous, and hungry. I glared back at them when I noticed how they were leering eagerly at Jessie and the other girls and was glad I still had both of my weapons. All of us did, in fact.

"Tifa," I replied. "You guys okay?"

She brushed herself off and chuckled. "Yeah. Some of the prisoners tried to get a little too friendly with us when we first got here. But trust me, they won't be making that mistake again."

"Once they've recovered, that is," Aerith added.

"So who's the cat?" Yuffie wondered.

Cait bowed. "The name's Cait Sith, fortune teller extraordinaire! A pleasure to finally meet ye all! Been lookin' forward to it."

"You have?" she blinked.

"It's okay, Yuffie," Jessie assured her. "Cait's an old friend of mine. I know him from when I used to work for Shinra."

"We've been good pals for a long time," Cait added.

Tifa's eyes widened in sudden recognition. "Wait a minute… a tail, whiskers… black fur… it was you that helped us in the Shinra Building when we were trying to rescue Aerith, wasn't it?"

"Aye," Cait replied. "That was me."

She walked up to him and smiled. "Thank you. We never would've succeeded if it hadn't been for you, Cait."

Aerith's eyes brightened. "Yes, thanks so much!"

"Guess I'm not really surprised that you're the little friend who was helping them out in there," Jessie grinned. "They told me what went on that night while I was recovering. Thanks, Cait."

"Mae pleasure, ladies!" Cait laughed. "Glad to be of help! Couldn't let Aerith be Hojo's lab rat, ahn Jessica's life needed savin' as well. So we were happy to do all we could for ye. Still are, in fact."

"We?" I wondered.

Jessie turned to me. "Yeah. You see, Cait is Reeve's creation. And he uses him for gathering information and keeping up on what Rufus and the rest of the Shinra directors—Scarlet, my father, and the others—are doing. He's not told everything, so he uses Cait to find out what they're trying to keep from him. And to help us as well."

Tifa nodded. "Reeve really came through for us back in the Shinra Building. So I'll trust him. Jessie, you told us back at Aerith's house that he's like family to you, right? You two are close?"

"He's my godfather," she explained. "He and my mom actually grew up together in the slums, believe it or not. Close friends. And although my mom never got… involved… with him, she still cared for him a lot. Enough to ask him to be what he is to me after I was born. But I didn't know, not for a long time. Not until after she died."

Then I remembered something. "Cait, when we were in the Sector 7 pillar, Reno had trouble getting into the console at first. I'm guessing that was you, trying to buy us time. Am I right?"

"Aye," he said. "Wish I could've done more, though."

"You did all you could," Tifa assured him. "I saw you sitting on that bike while I was getting Biggs out, now that I think about it. You came down there with Kunsel, didn't you? To help us."

Cait twitched his whiskers. "Yep! I sure did. Ahn I'm gonna do all I can tae keep on helpin' ye. Me ahn Reeve both. It's why we worked with Dio tae get ye all doun here. Shinra's lookin' fer ye right now, especially after what happened up at the Battle Square. Heidegger's lookin' to pin it on ye ahn bring ye back to Midgar as a trophy."

"Does he now?" Jessie glared, folding her arms in front of her.

"Aye," Cait went on. "Rufus isnae tae happy with him after all of ye beat him back at Fort Condor ahn then slipped right under his nose on the cargo ship. I donnae think getting ye'll help Heidegger like he think it will, though. It'd probably just make things worse."

I thought I understood. "You told us Dio knows we're innocent. So that whole scene up there with you and him in the arena, it was just an act? To make sure Jessie and I got down here?"

"Aye," Cait nodded. "Sorry I couldnae say anythin' sooner, but Dio ahn I knew Heidegger was watchin' the security cameras by then. Had tae make him think Dio thought ye was guilty. If he believes ye're stuck doun here with no way out, he'll have tae back off ahn leave. Ahn once he does, Dio'll see that ye all are released."

Jessie frowned. "But if my father knows we're here, couldn't he just send some soldiers to try and bring us in?"

"No," Aerith shook her head. "Dio explained it to us before he had us brought here, Jessie. Corel Prison is outside Shinra's jurisdiction. So Heidegger can't touch us as long as we're here."

"But in return, Dio wants us to confront the real killer," Tifa added. "I think Barret intends to do it by himself, though. Dio seems to think he knows him, but… I don't see how he could."

Now I understood why Barret had seemed so out of sorts before. "I think he does, Tifa. We saw him just before you found us. He ran off as soon as we tried to talk to him, though."

"He went into of those ruined houses not long ago," Red said. "We saw him, too. And then we found you. Shall we go?"

We followed him across the dusty yard to a large, mostly intact old house that looked like it might've once belonged to the town's mayor in the days before the place had been wiped out. The door creaked open, and we all hurried inside. Dust was everywhere, and the wooden floor creaked under our feet. There were broken shelves, shattered glass, and burn marks on the walls. The only good thing about the place was that it was a little cooler in here than it was outside.

Barret was there, sitting on an old sofa and staring at nothing, lost in thought as if he was trying to work himself up into doing something he really didn't want to do. When we came in, he sprang to his feet and sighed. He didn't seem surprised to see us.

"Told ya not to come after me, remember?" Barret growled.

Then he raised his gun-arm. Cait backed up. "Whoa, lad! Hold on a second! We just wanna talk! Hear us out!"

I heard the girls gasp in disbelief and brace themselves, but none of us moved. I didn't think Barret would hurt us, but I wasn't sure why he was doing this, either. I knew he hadn't killed those people in the Gold Saucer or the guy by the fence. What was going on here? Before I could say anything, though, Barret suddenly opened fire.

But not at us. There was a thump and a groan from behind us, and we turned to see one of the prison inmates, a dangerous-looking brute with a knife, collapse onto the floor. He must've snuck in after us, and I saw now that he'd been about to try and grab Yuffie, who was closest to him. She moved away from the body in a hurry.

"Uh… thanks…" Yuffie shivered.

Barret lowered his arm. "Sure. Thought I was shootin' at ya, did ya? My fault, I s'pose. Sorry. I didn't want any of ya gettin' involved. What I gotta do… it's my problem. So jus' wait here."

Aerith put her hands on her hips. "Hey, that's Cloud's line!"

"It's too dangerous, I can't let you get involved," Jessie added, doing a pretty good imitation of me. "And so on…"

"But we're already involved, Barret," Tifa reminded him.

Aerith nodded. "We saw you outside and hurried over here. Barret, what's going on? Please tell us. We just wanna help."

He managed a small smile. "You guys…"

"It seems the murders in the Gold Saucer were done by a man with a gun on his arm, from what Dio's told us," Red said. "But I assume that wasn't you. He didn't seem to believe it was."

"It's not," Jessie shook her head firmly. "And I can prove it."

Barret sat down on the sofa again and sighed. "The bullets, right? I saw 'em, too. Different from mine. You see, there's another guy that had a gun grafted onto his arm. It was Dyne."

"Dyne?" I blinked. "But I thought he was dead."

"So did I, for a while. Anyway, it was four years ago. We was comin' home from checkin' out the reactor that was bein' built. You know, the one I convinced Dyne to approve. The attack, or whatever it was, went down not long after we left. I think maybe Shinra was countin' on that, now that I think about it. Gotta be why them soldiers came after us an' how they knew right where we were. Shinra needed someone to blame for the damage to the reactor, an' there we were."

I wasn't surprised. "So what happened?"

Barret went on. "Me an' Dyne were just walkin' along the tracks on Mt. Corel when the town elder, Mayne, ran up an' told us the town was bein' attacked by Shinra soldiers. There's an overlook not that far from where we were, so we hurried on over there an' saw he was right. Corel was burnin', fire an' smoke everywhere…"

"Go on," Tifa murmured, sitting next to him. "We're here."

He nodded. "Thanks, Tifa. The three of us all started runnin' down the tracks toward town, hopin' we could find survivors an' maybe save at least some of the place. Didn't get far, though. Shinra soldiers caught up to us, shot Mayne dead almost before we knew they was there. Soon as he fell, Dyne led me to a nearby ledge overlookin' a deep ravine an' a long drop. It was an old shortcut that didn't usually see much use 'cause it was so dangerous. But we didn't have no choice."

I thought I saw where this was going. "The soldiers went after you, didn't they? Chased you out onto that ridge."

"Yeah, but not jus' them," Barret said. "Scarlet was there, too."

Jessie clenched her fists at her sides. "I knew it…"

He glanced at her. "Jessie?"

"It's nothing, Barret," she insisted, but although her voice was calm, she didn't relax her fingers. "Just… bad memories."

Barret gazed knowingly at her. "I'll bet. It's okay, though. She's hurt us both really bad. I understand. An' you can tell me anythin', awright? But anyway, them soldiers fired at us but kept missin', so Scarlet took a gun herself after punchin' one of them guys out. First shots got so close that part of the ridge crumbled where they hit an' made Dyne slip. But I caught him jus' before he'd have fallen down into the ravine. I had his left arm in my right an' urged him to hang on."

Aerith sighed. "But he couldn't, could he? Not for long."

"He did at first," Barret said. "But jus' before I could pull him back up, Scarlet shot at us again. The bullets tore into both our arms, rippin' 'em up, an' I couldn't hold on no more. Dyne fell. Thought he was dead, an' what was left of my right arm hurt like hell, so I ran. Made it all the way back to town an' somehow found Marlene alive after I'd gotten my injury tended to. An' that's how I lost my arm."

"That bitch…!" Jessie spat. "All this time, I thought it was some sort of accident. But it wasn't. She did that on purpose! And after I'd warned her about how dangerous those guns—"

She stopped short, backing away from Barret in a hurry as her eyes widened, and I realized that she must've said all that without thinking, as angry as she was about Scarlet and what she'd done. What did Jessie have to do with all this, though? She turned away, not meeting Barret's soft gaze. I knew she'd worked for Scarlet, but had she been involved in what had gone down in Corel somehow? That might've explained how out of sorts she'd been lately. Barret didn't press her about her outburst, though. Instead, he just wrapped up his story.

"After that, I couldn't use my right arm. Least not the lower half or my hand. I was depressed for a while, existin' more than livin' as I took care of Marlene, but then I trashed the artificial arm I was usin' an' had this gun grafted on instead. Wanted revenge on Shinra, you see. For all they'd taken from me. Heard another guy got the same operation, only his was the left arm. Knew it had to be Dyne."

Aerith looked hopefully at him. "But Shinra hurt him just like they did you, right? Maybe he'll help us fight them."

"I'm sure he will," Tifa agreed.

"I doubt it," Barret sighed, shaking his head. "Not with all he's done here. He's the one that killed them people in the Gold Saucer. An' from what Dio told me, it ain't the first time. But even so, I gotta 'pologize to Dyne before I can move on. An' I gotta do it alone."

I folded my arms in front of me. "Not happening. I know you want me to just go along with it, but I can't. I won't tell you what you wanna hear. Because if you die, it's gonna haunt me."

"Didn't know ya cared, merc," Barret quipped.

"Too much time with you and the rest," I shrugged. "And Jessie can be damned persuasive when she wants to be."

She smiled. "You know it!"

"This isn't the end, Barret," Aerith assured him.

"You're gonna help us save the planet, right?" Tifa added. "We can't do it without you, big guy. We need you."

He snorted. "Shit! 'Course I will, Tifa. You oughta know."

"Yeah, we're a lot alike," she replied.

"I guess I understand," Aerith said. "We're the same as you, Barret. And we're not gonna let you do this alone."

I nodded. "Get used to it. But I don't think we all need to go, either. Three of us oughta be enough. Everyone else can wait here 'till it's over. As for who's going, it'll be me, Barret, and…"

"Me," Jessie insisted. "I have to be there, Cloud. So don't even try to tell me to stay behind. Because I'll just sneak after you anyway. I wish I could explain, but I can't. Not yet, at least."

"Alright, Jessie," I agreed. "You're in."

She smiled. "Thanks, Cloud."

"I know where Dyne's hidin'," Barret said as he stood up. "He's got a place in that big junkyard. Dio told me 'bout it. So we go there an' we'll find him. I gotta talk to him an' get him to stop what he's doin', one way or the other. Jus' follow me an' do what I tell ya."

"We're with you," Jessie promised.

Then she and I followed Barret out of the house, where the intense desert heat hit us in the face. But we didn't let it get to us as we quickly made our way back across the dirt around the base of the Gold Saucer's main tower to the fence we'd seen earlier. Barret led us to the other side without a word, and soon we found the junkyard, where piles of scrap metal and the hollowed husks of empty cars rusted in the dry air along with all kinds of other trash. Dyne was hiding somewhere in the midst of this mess, and before long, we found him.