They entered a nondescript restricted complex, with a bunch of machinery behind fences and storage sheds. The team travelled around a few corners and down a few stairs, staying vigilante for guards, but the whole place was hushed. Cloud caught up with them in a small two-story warehouse. Jessie was already on the second floor, standing on Biggs’ and Wedge’s hands while blowtorching a hole in the roof.
Barret was standing on the elevator lift and called over Cloud. Cloud instead climbed onto a stack of crates and wall-jumped over the second floor railing. Barret shouted, “Show-off!” while he was slowly lifted by a metal platform.
Jessie carved out her square, and the chunk of sheet metal dropped to the floor. Jessie got thrown up through it, then Wedge tossed up Biggs, and Barret Wedge.
Cloud said, “Stand still,” to Barret, and jumped from the railing onto his shoulder to the roof, prompting an unsatisfied, “Hey!” from him. Barret pulled a rope from his satchel and tossed it up, and it took the full strength of Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge holding it for Barret to climb up.
From the elevated position, Cloud could see nearly the whole complex, and some of the upper city beyond. All the buildings and yards around in dull grey or bright green under overhead lights—it was cleaner and more advanced than what he saw of the slums, yet it felt even more hollow and emblematic of Shinra’s decaying effect.
The obvious lack of a human presence was only one thing. The corporate base design, the city streets and skyscrapers propped up as part of an efficiency structure, and the great wall of the city where possibly nothing lies on the other side was all depressingly familiar, and overdone. And it was all standing directly over another worse city. What was any of it for? What gave Shinra the right to create any of this?
But behind him, the one grand structure sticking out above all under the foggy sky was the mako reactor, with a giant “01” painted on the front. Its intimidating size took up half of Cloud’s field of vision, close enough to him that he could see the details of it’s metal plating. Cubic tons of smoke billowed from the top with green light beaming from it like fire from a blowtorch. It was an incomprehensible monster, and one of many.
But the team was on the roof to reach somewhere else. The others went ahead to a set of horizontal beams connected to the warehouse, with powered off screens attached. It was a tightrope walk towards a pipeline about three feet in diameter above, which they stopped by to allow Cloud to get on first.
Wedge told him, “You’re gonna carefully walk to the end at that wall, and cut the electric fence on top of it so we can climb over. Is that cool?”
Cloud shrugged and jumped onto the pipeline. They embarked on an even sketchier tightrope walk almost 15 feet in the air until coming up to the wall. The fence was only a few feet above. Upon one slash down through the chain links on his right, the electricity started sparking from every loose end. He carefully swapped hands with the sword and chopped the full chunk of fence off, doubling the sparking.
The fence nearly fell onto Cloud before his sword caught it, and while pushing it off to the side, the edge of it came within a millimeter of Jessie’s face and shocked her. She yelped and almost lost balance, bumping into Biggs and nearly imperiling his balance too before Wedge caught them. Cloud offered her a blithe, “Sorry, mind the sparks,” and hopped the wall.
An unexpected 20-foot drop met him on the other side, which he crash-landed with a botched roll.
Jessie laughed at him once she saw him sprawled on the ground. He made sure to quickly recover. “You missed the roof!” she shouted, pointing at the roof he missed that was two feet to the right.
Down the fenced-off stairs of the platform he was on, there laid an open yard full of guard hounds in steel box cages with barred windows. They were vicious panther-looking beasts, muscled and black, with skin even tougher than his and a tentacle growing out of the back of their necks. Genetically modified killing machines.
And around the corner past the building the others jumped on, a Shinra MP on another elevated platform spotted him and hit a button on the wall. A screen hanging above from a steel beam activated and showed, “WARNING! INTRUDERS” in bright yellow, with no sound. And then he fiddled with a control panel, automatically lifting the doors of all the beast cages, before running inside the building behind him. Barret made it onto the roof just too late to shoot at him. Now a dozen hounds were loose, and in the way of that door.
“That’s all yours, merc!” shouted down Barret.
Cloud sighed and leaped over the platform railing and into the arena, scraping the sword on the ground to get everyone’s attention. They encircled and jumped him within a second. He tried to jump over them before getting dogpiled, but one bit his foot and slammed him to the ground. He fell into a swarm of gnashing teeth, claws, and rapid lashing tentacles trying to rip him apart like a chunk of meat.
Standing safely above the action, Jessie punched Barret’s arm and yelled, “Help him!”
Cloud resorted to cheap shots against the hounds while they had him pinned, jabbing at their eyes, kneeing at their throats, and kicking at their neutered junk, accomplishing little other than buying him a little more space. The buster sword couldn’t easily cut through them, and he couldn’t swing it hard enough to hurt. He wondered what he thought he was going to do jumping like that into the pit.
Wedge made feral hollering sounds at the dogs, and a grenade shot in the middle of the pack threw enough off of Cloud that he could stand up again and shake all of the saliva off. Barret’s machine gun arm reluctantly joined the fray as well. The bullets didn’t do damage, but they succeeded in distracting.
Cloud slashed away the dogs that jumped at him and deflected their tentacles, not having much else to do. He backed away towards one of the cages, waited for another lunge at him, ducked and smacked them into the cage like a baseball, and broke the gears holding the door to drop it shut.
Barret and Jessie created a line of gunfire in front of him to keep the hounds at bay, while Wedge shot another grenade at them. Cloud pointed at the door the guard escaped through and shouted, “Someone get over there and find that guard!”
Biggs responded, “On it!” but had no direct path there from the roof. He thought for a second, then opted to jump off into the pit and make a B-line as fast as possible. One of the hounds saw him right away and chased him there.
Jessie yelped, “Biggs!” and she and Barret redirected their fire at that hound.
Biggs managed to jump up to grab the platform railing, but the hound latched onto his ankle. Cloud broke from his position to sprint over and get a jumping slash across the hound’s face, breaking its grip, but not without its teeth tearing through Biggs’ skin. He cried, “Ow! Shit!” while climbing over the railing. He dashed through the door and vanished inside.
That hound was left with a thin red streak where the sword met it. Now the ten others were coming back. Still angry, and none injured enough. Cloud ran to the side and made a wall jump to juke them, and Barret kept up the fire as a distraction.
One dog broke from the pack to specifically run towards Barret, jump up the building, and slap him with its tentacle. That pissed him off, and he chucked a grenade from his sachel at it while it scratched at the wall. It caught the grenade in its mouth and chewed it like meat, and the fire and shrapnel exploded inside of it beneath its tough skin. A plume of fire and smoke blew from its mouth, and it flopped back dead. Barret laughed at it triumphantly.
Jessie shouted, “Cloud! Catch!” while he was outrunning the pack, and chucked a palm-sized green orb at him. He couldn’t possibly catch it while running away, but he recognized what it was—the inky texture inside, the feint glow, and the light blue glittering in the middle. He slid across the ground to grab it, felt the strength of its resonance in his hand, and punched the ground with it to unleash a sprawling wave of ice through the whole pack, freezing them in place.
Full-sized materia, the crystallized and condensed power of the planet’s magic; a tool for defense and weapon of mass destruction alike. Almost impossible to get your hands on legally. Not only was this one full-sized and incredibly rare, it was incredibly potent. And Jessie somehow had her hands on it.
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He looked at Jessie slightly shocked. She just gave him a thumbs-up while Wedge cheered for his magical success. The ice wall started cracking and melting quickly, and he put the materia in his pants pocket.
The pack broke free, shook off the ice chunks, and prowled around Cloud again, but they were visibly rattled and shivering. A grenade shot by Wedge into the pack sounded like it hurt them. Cloud saw the opportunity, and pounced first. The ensuing melee was split between Cloud battling half of them and the roof crowd occupying the rest.
A hound jumped at Cloud and bit into his sword, and he pushed back with it until the hound was pinned against a cage as another jumped onto his back. He couldn’t push the sword into its mouth enough to split its head, but he could scrape it upwards through its teeth, lodge the blade against the front fangs, pull back, and tear them out. He spun himself and hit the dog on his back against the corner of the building the team was on.
One hound kept dodging his swings, so he abruptly swung at a different one unexpectedly and cracked the blade into its shin. He kept slashing and smacking at everything that came within distance, finally leaving visible injuries on them, and rearmed the ice materia. All the hounds fell back. The orb grew foggy as he held it and his hand became sprinkled with frost. He readied and aimed, and threw a spike of ice clean into a hound’s chest. That ice broke and melted away, leaving a giant hole to bleed out and die from.
A tentacle whipped at him, and he caught it midair with a chunk of ice sprouted from his hand, and chopped the tentacle in half. Another caught a sword jab in the eye. So did another. Every one of them recoiled from a gruesome injury, and Cloud realized the ice had weakened their hide. He stowed the materia and got to finishing the job.
One punted up in the head by the sword’s blunt edge and chopped in the neck. One dodged and then stabbed into the side until the blade ran through the rib cage. One cut and bludgeoned in so many places it fell unconscious and bled out. The last attempted to bite at Cloud and got the sword jammed into its mouth and down the throat, and he cranked it back until its neck snapped.
Cloud rushed to finish off the other five who were battered with gunshots, when the platform door opened back up to three more guards coming and jumping into the arena. One cried out, “The dogs!”
A grenade shot exploded into an MP’s helmet and blasted him away, prompting the other two into a firefight with the roof. Cloud knocked down one of the hounds and used his sword like a shovel to fling it into the guards.
Barret ducked behind cover with Jessie and Wedge and yelled, “Where the hell did Biggs go?!”
Cloud slashed one of the cage doors loose, a block of iron too heavy for him to lift. But he could bait over an injured hound, counter and smack it down, then drop the door onto it and probably crack its skull. The battle with the remaining hounds was more an endurance challenge, staying on his toes as long as possible until they dropped from their injuries or ran away to hide.
An MP chucked a grenade up at the roof, and the three of them scattered from cover. Cloud charged over on queue, barely keeping enough adrenaline to haul around his bulky sword, and swung at a guard’s helmet. It succeeding in knocking him away, and also getting the attention of the other, who proceeded to unload a full ammo clip onto Cloud. The sword protected his face, but not his arm, legs, shoulder, chest, abdomen, or hands. The constant punching of bullets left him unable to respond until it stopped.
The other trooper swung his baton at Cloud after seeing the bullets not working. He easily caught it, chopped the gun from his hand, kicked him into the reloading guard, and slashed through his neckerchief. The surviving one pushed him off and finished reloading, primed for another hit on a tired Cloud, until Barret emerged from the roof for a hit of his own. The minigun bullets broke holes through his hollow helmet, and blood spurted out from them, felling the last combatant of this shitshow.
Cloud threw the sword onto his back and plopped down out of exhaustion. He was covered in saliva, bite marks, lashes, and bruises; his single arm bracer was scratched up; and loose threads poked from all over his turtleneck. The sweater had endured well, at least.
He looked up at Barret. “Is hiding behind cover on a roof for five minutes the best a giant gun-armed squad leader can do?”
Barret laughed like it was funny. “You’re the one with the iron skin. I’m leavin’ the job of gettin’ shot down to you, SOLDIER boy.”
“Investing in a little more basic protection wouldn’t hurt, so you’re not just a glass cannon.”
“Hey, this ‘glass cannon’ can still kick your ass!” He, Jessie, and Wedge finally jumped down from the roof.
Cloud saw that flashing yellow intruder alert screen again. “Shinra knows we’re here. A silent alarm is active. They’ll have us on camera too.”
“Ha! Good. Let ‘em see the faces and names of the people that are finally gonna give ‘em a helpin’ of their own medicine.”
Wedge gave Cloud a big thumbs up and said, “You did awesome down there! The guy we hired before you would have gotten torn apart.”
Jessie added, “Yeah. But the job ain’t done yet, SOLDIER. The inside of the reactor will be a beast of its own. Hope you’re not too tired.”
Just as Barret was about to climb up the platform, Biggs suddenly reappeared through the door of the building. “Oh! You guys got the dogs taken care of?”
Barret barked, “Where the hell’ve ya been?!”
“Sorry. Tried giving the security a run-around by pretending to surrender and running away, then three of them went to confront you anyways. So, a gunshot or two and a grenade here and there, and basically I took out everyone else. With a bitten ankle, no less. You guys handled your end, and now I got us a clear path to the reactor, if we hurry.”
Jessie wooed, “Hell yeah!”
Barret grunted. “Alright. Good work.” And they climbed the platform to head inside.
Cloud felt at the shoulder where he got shot for a second time, and realized the metal guard that was supposed to be protecting there was gone. His shoulder was fully exposed, and the guard on his other shoulder was rusted and chipped, and had three thick screws poking out of the top. That wasn’t right.
The quick rhythm of his heartbeat helped him see them again, wherever he last had them. It was another undercity communal resting pit.
Not in the tenements this time. He was under a dusty tarp—somewhere worse. Dirt beneath him, no pillow, no blanket. Just tired eyes and an impaired mind. A desperate feeling. Just wanting to lie there until it all went away. Clutching onto his sword handle for dear life.
There were… children around him. Or just the incoherent shrieking of them. Were they playing? Fighting? Getting attacked? No one gave a shit.
He stood up in a dreamlike haze, tried to walk somewhere. But things kept getting in his way; bumping into him, or tugging at him, or wrapping around him. He hacked away with the sword until he could get past them. Every sound he heard was just meaningless unintelligible screeching, ringing in his ears. His legs took him for as far as he could keep up the pattern of moving one foot in front of the other while carrying his flailing body.
He eventually collapsed somewhere, and found relative quiet to let his mind and body rest with his eyes. The puffy mounds of dirt were cushioning enough, even if he was slightly breathing in the dust by his face. There was something about this one place in the dirt that brought him comfort, and put a constant imploding in his mind to rest. Sleep, at last.
When he awoke, there was a beam of light coming down into his eyes. Glancing up, coming in just perfectly between the plate above and the city walls, he saw a blurry glint of the sun shining just between the clouds of burned mako. The light had found a crack through every barrier designed to protect from it, just to glare onto him.
His breathing resounded in his ears as he climbed back to his feet. He was in front of a small gate, leading to a winding path through a dirt canyon. Trash, rocks, and scrap metal laid around his feet. And looking down, he saw what he was missing. His right shoulder was completely bare, not only missing the armor plate but the latch on his arm that it attached to. Another piece of him pawned off.
But his hands were empty too. So was the magnetic disc on his back. So was the ground, and everywhere around it. The buster sword was missing too. He had kept it locked in his hand the whole time unconscious, as he did all of the time. But his hand was open now. His hand. A SOLDIER’s grip was broken so casually he didn’t feel it happen.
The sword was gone. His sword was gone. His only sword, his only relic of identity, his power. It was stolen. Somebody took it. Somebody else’s grubby hands were violating it, probably being swung around at other mako addicts in another tenement shithole, or decorating the shelf of someone’s bootleg pawn shop in the middle of a busted van. It was somebody else’s weapon. A product. A vanity. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
He started anxiously twitching. But he had the sword on his back now. The emotions weren’t real. Somehow, the crisis resolved itself. So what was the problem?
“Cloud!” shouted Barret, the last one standing in the doorway. “We’re movin’!”
Now they were moving. And so was he. The great Mako Reactor 1, right there above him, looking ready to stomp him out like a flea and forget about him. Untouchable, insurmountable over this one man. What was a Cloud to a mako reactor?
The only thing in the distance that could eclipse its dominance of the skyline was Shinra’s headquarters, square in the city’s center. Nothing could stand taller than it; nothing was allowed to. A big, strong tower, led by small, weak and fragile men.
A lifeless reactor felt bigger than they did. But on the ground here, this tiny squad of bandits was to blow it all up. So was he.
Hm. Sure.
