The FF7 Experience: (Chapter 5: Sewer monsters and ill fated missions)

Author stuff: Everyone be glad that Frankto corrected a bunch of errors I made in this chapter. The glue that holds this fic is weakened by the water of errors, but he acts as as some kind of ‘anti-water’ element that makes the glue hold strong and last long.

I did something I never thought of before. I went into the sewers in the train graveyard and pocketed the items there. In the game, you couldn’t reach them until you’d moved the trains around and all. Here, I can actually just climb over stuff.

When I went into the sewers, the turtles bothered me with their little water riffles. The mechanics of fighting them have changed a bit, luckily. They had high physical defense I the game, but all I do is aim for the ‘non shell’ on them. Genius, no? They give out good EXP when compared to other monsters and aren’t all that hard. Thanks to them and the EXP from the earlier Guard Scorpion, I am now at level 7.

I took the ‘Steal’ materia and placed it in my armlet. I don’t use ‘Chocobo lure’ much, anyways. I also found a ‘Power Source’. Just what I wanted. It was in the form of a potion. I drank it down and noticed the difference soon after. My strength increased. Permanently. The change wasn’t much, but every little bit counts, right?

BUT, there was one thing I never took into account when I came here. And I’m facing this problem as we speak. The boss in this sewer. Don Cornero kept a monster as a pet in these sewers and he would drop people in here from his room, which is right above where I am right now. But because I was stupid enough to come here and not consider this occurrence, I am now in a rather difficult position.

The said boss is called ‘Aps’. He is a hulking green beast with broken chains attached to his arms. Most likely reptilian.

“Bio!” I chant. As the exploding green orbs hit Aps, I note that he is glowing faintly. Seeing as he’s poisoned, I can only hope to live long enough for it to kill him.

The monster hissed and swung it’s arms at me. The arms themselves didn’t hit, but the chain came around and whipped my back as I tried to dodge. I pushed myself back up from the ground and prepared another spell.

The monster opened it’s mouth wide and shot out a stream of sewer shit at me. The vile substance coats my body, making me vomit from the stench. Before I recover from this latest attack, I was knocked back into the wall by the back of its hand.

I was about to cast another spell when I noted the strange change in my body. It felt like it was on fire and I wanted to vomit a second time. Violently ill, I would call it. I was poisoned. I had magic for that, luckily.

“Poisona!” I call. A free light dances around my body as the poison is drained away and disperses.

Shit, it’s coming again. But so is my limit.

“Slice&Dice!” I shout out, using my strongest limit break.

I feel my instincts kick in as my speed raises. As I dash around with my scythe, I deliver a series of fast slashes with the blade on my scythe, cutting arms, legs, and it’s body in the process.

I get back into stance, fully expecting it to die. To my mild surprise and great annoyance, it did not. I half expected this. It was a boss from later on in the game and I’m alone. Seems the poison hasn’t killed it yet either.

Aps began beating it’s chest and hissing. I have a faint idea what’s to come. Now, I have no idea HOW, but this thing can control the sewer water, human feces, and other disgusting substances down here. I watch as sewer water bursts out through pipes in all directions.

“Quake!” I shout, hoping to finish it before it finishes it’s attack.

As the ground explodes, only it’s legs are cut up and damaged, but it’s not enough to stop his attack. I brace for it as the wave of water approaches. I’ll say this, being hit by a wave of mucky, unclean water, and having to swim through it isn’t a lot of fun.

The attack subsides and I swim to higher ground where I cough mightily, crouched down on the concrete ground. I lost my scythe with that attack. It drifted off to another area in the sewer.

I quickly stand and prepare for healing. As I’m focusing, the Aps is already running my way, preparing to throw his fists at me. Damn, I don’t think I’ll be able to cast cure before this hits…

Then it stops. It was running my way, ready to kill me, and it stopped. It let out a low and pained hissing noise before it dropped dead and faded away into nothingness. Poisoning the enemy has saved my ass SO many times. Same with Glen. And Cloud. I really need to get stronger…I only survived because I had a piece of materia that the others wouldn’t get until later.

I’m in a little luck, at least. This monster wasn’t meant to be killed until a little later and the EXP went solely to me instead of being divided among 3 members. I reach level 8, close to 9. Was it worth getting covered in shit and god knows what else? Right now, I say fuck no. I’m sure when I calm down, I might possibly think differently.

After the appropriate healing, I wonder the sewers now that the battle has ended and find my scythe lying near a wall. I pick it up and make it out of the area as fast as I can, not wanting to get into any more fights. I’m damn tired.

I worm my way through the train graveyard and back into sector 7. Everyone is looking at me. Probably because I look like a mess.

I enter the bar, and my scent is instantly picked up. Their noses wrinkle and eye brows lift before someone finally says something.

“The fuck happened to you?” Barret says, looking as though he were about to laugh.

“There is a gigantic reptile monster in the train graveyard’s sewers.” I answer.

“What were you doing there?” Wedge asks me from his usual bar stool.

“Forget it.” I grumble. “I’m going to get changed and throw these clothes out.”

When I entered Midgar, I met a pretty good tailor in the sector 5 slums. I had him make a ‘back up’ set of clothes for me. Call me a freak if you want, but at least I have something to wear. And yes, the clothes match what I’m wearing now almost EXACTLY. I’ve become comfortable with this set up.

I still smelt pretty bad, so I went to the neighbors place. They have a shower there, the lucky bastards. For a small fee, they let me use it. And that’s exactly what I did.

By now, it was around dinner time to I figured I’d ask Tifa to make me something. Or I’d make something for myself. I’m a bad cook, though.

Cloud was still around the bar. I’m guessing Tifa already convinced him to stay while I was out.

I’ve been doing some thinking. I really should pick up a lightning materia. I’ll be running into a fair number of mechanical monsters during my time in Midgar. I should have done this right when I came to this world so I could build up AP…although, once we’re out of Midgar, I don’t think I’ll use lightning anymore. I’ll just keep it in my pouch and use it when the time calls for it.

I finished my dinner and prepared to leave when Barret sat down across from me. I looked at him for a moment, trying to determine what he wanted to say.

“…Yeah?” I question.

“Are you sure you wanna come with us tomorrow?”

That was unexpected. It also dealt a blow to my pride. I knew I wasn’t as good as them, but to have them question weather or not I should come…

“Why?” I ask, trying not to jump to conclusions.

Barret sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “People died today. You obviously ain’t too comfortable with that. I’m not sure if I shoulda let someone as young as you into somethin’ like this.” Barret said slowly.

This bothered me too, but nowhere near as badly as the thought of being worthless.

“I’ll get over it. I decided a long time ago.” I answer. “Do you want me there with you guys?” I ask. The thought of being unwanted was still present in my mind.

Barret grunted and placed his hands on the table, drumming the fingers on his non-gun arm lightly.

“Kid, don’t get all bent outta shape cuz you needed our help a few times today.” Barret said plainly.

“Is that a yes?”

“If you want to come, we want you there. S’all up to you, kid.” Barret stated.

“Good.” I said as I stood up. “Then it’s decided. I’ll be back in a bit. I’m gonna go pick up some lightning materia.”

Glad that a conversation had ended, I left the bar.

The man in the materia shop was glad to see me. I noticed that he likes to talk to himself, saying how his shop is going under and you can’t sell things so well in a slum. Every time I enter the shop, he says this before being surprised that I came and showing me his products. In the game, I attributed this to NPC looping, where they say the same stuff over and over again. In this case, the guy was just bat shit insane.

Satisfied, I returned to the bar. The AVALANCHE crew seemed to be enjoying themselves, telling old stories and jokes. Cloud was no wherein sight. At this point in the game, he wasn’t that sociable. I guess it took time for him to warm up to the others.

I considered staying up a while longer and hanging out with the others, but I also knew I should probably get some rest. It was doubtful I would get mush sleep tonight, too. Going on a mission wasn’t a “woo hoo! This is gonna be awesome!” kinda thing like I thought if would be before I came here. I would actually worry about screwing up and the kind of enemies we would fight.

I’ve been giving this next mission a lot of thought. Since there are no ‘random encounters’ and we actually sneak in this time as opposed to showing up via train and kicking a whole lot of ass, it might be possible to avoid a lot of conflict.

“Hey! I’m going to bed now! Night everyone!” I shout as I head to the pinball machine.

“Already? It’s like 8 o’clock!” I hear Barret shout as the machine takes me to the lower level.

“I know! I’m really tired!” I shout back up.

As I head towards my bedroll on the floor, I hear heavy smacking sounds coming from the corner of the room. There Cloud was, taking some swings. He noticed me but said nothing.

“Hey Cloud, you do a bunch of stuff for money, right? A ‘jack of all trades’?” I say, remembering that was the term he used to describe himself.

“Yeah, that’s right.” He says as he continued to hit the bag.

“Can you teach me a thing or two sometime? About fighting I mean.” I ask.

Cloud punches the bag one last time then places his hand on it to stop it from swaying around. “It’ll cost you.”

I nod, “Yeah, that’s fine. Maybe after this mission or something?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Sure.”

“Thanks.”

With that, I crawl into my bedroll and try and get some sleep. The lights flick off as I hear the pinball machine moving back up. I open my eyes and see that Cloud is no longer present. I guess he went up for a drink?

I close my eyes but realize it’ll take some time before I actually fall asleep. I wonder what my family is doing right now? Oh yeah, nothing. When this is all done, it’ll be like a second after I left. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around being 15 and then coming out 14 again. I guess I should be thankful though. Free year added on to my life. What’s more, while I was certain any skills such as shadow replication would not pass over when I returned, I’d know how to fight a lot better. I’d probably be more mature too. After what felt like hours, I finally fall asleep.

When morning came, I awoke to the Barret alarm. I scrambled out of bed with the others and headed upstairs. I glanced back into the room, noting that while Cloud was awake, he didn’t jump up like the rest of us. He was very slowly getting to his feet and stretching.

When I got upstairs, Biggs, Jesse, and Wedge all ran out of the 7th heaven to wait for us at the train station. Barret and Tifa stood near the door way.

I peered over the bar and found Marlene behind the counter. Yes, a little girl was bartending. When I saw it in the game, I had to wonder what the fuck everyone was thinking. Did they just say, “Hey! It’s a GOOD idea to let a preteen manage a bar on her own!” or what? I had to ask.

“Um, Tifa?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Who’s gonna look after the bar while we’re gone? I mean…you’re not really going to leave Marlene here alone…are you?” I ask incredulously. Hot or not, I’d lose respect for Tifa if that was the case.

She looked rather offended by my question. “No, of course not. I’m having a friend of mine come by to help manage the place.” She answered.

It made me feel a bit better, but this was still somehow very wrong. But, she didn’t die or anything in the game, so whatever.

The machine lowered itself back down to the basement level and a moment later, it came back up with Cloud.

“Good morning Cloud! Sleep well?” Tifa smiled.

“Barret’s snoring kept me awake.” He commented.

Damn, I wanted him to say something like ‘Next to you, who wouldn’t?’ just so I could see Tifa’s face. Oh well.

Tifa placed her finger over her lips. “Shh!” she said in a hushed voice as she leaned closer to Cloud. “Barret’s always edgy before a mission.” she straightened herself out and placed her hands behind her back. “I’m coming too this time.”

“Awright, let’s get a move on. Tifa, you can have that materia I found in the reactor.” Barret states, handing the small orb to her.

He didn’t find it! Cloud picked it up! A minor detail, though. Really, we all found it.

Since Barret already knows how to use materia, were spared his asking and Cloud’s boring explanation. Without another word, Barret turned to leave and we follow behind.

We see a large crowd of people gathered with AVALANCHE standing near them. I should say, a lot of this sector is aware of our activities and support us. I think that’s part of what Barret meant when he said “We find ways to support ourselves”.

As we go closer to the group, I catch a few people saying things like “go get em!” and “good luck!” before they scatter and Biggs and the others run off to the train station where they were supposed to have been some time ago.

“Oh, that’s right!” Tifa suddenly says. “ The man on the second floor of the item shop said he had something for us.”

Ah. I remember, it was that guy that explained some of how the system worked. Since there is no ‘system’ anymore, he was likely just wanting to give us the ‘All’ materia. No, wait. I’ve used my magic on multiple targets here before. You can spread out the effects of your magic without linking the materia to all, from what I’ve seen. I’ve never thought of it before, but what would ‘All’ do now? It would be useless, right? Following this line of thought, what would something like ‘Long Range’ do without a back row? I want to see the guy just so I can ask these kinds of questions.

“Aw hell, we don’t have time for that.” Barret grumbles.

Yes, unlike in a game, time actually does pass here. So when someone says ‘meet me here in an hour’ you can’t wander around town, rest at an inn, and then fight some monsters to level up and expect the guy to still be there. Saying something like “Right on time!”

“Let’s make it fast!” I beg. “We could use all the help we can get, right? It might be something really handy.”

Barret considers for a moment. “Awright, Tifa, you go see what he wants. We’ll wait for you at the station.” He gave in, pointing in the direction of the station with his gun arm. I’d laugh it just went off for no reason.

“No, I’ll go.” I say. “I have a question I want to ask the guy.”

“Well whatever, you go then. We’ll see ya at the train station. But be fast or we’ll be goin’ with out you!”

“Okay!” I shout as I run towards the shop.

When I enter, there are some punk kids shooting at targets on the wall. I bolt upstairs, ignoring the guy at the counter yelling at me to buy something.

On the second floor behind some fencing, there are a bunch of people standing around on crates. I have no idea why they’re there or what they think they are doing, but that is unimportant.

I turn to my right. “You said you had something for us?”

The man nods, “You’re with Tifa and them, eh? Here.” He extends his hand, holding out a blue orb. I take it and glance down at it.

“Hey, what does this do?” I ask.

“That is ‘all’ materia. It lets you use the chained materia on multiple targets.” He answered.

I think I get it. While you may be able to spread out the effect of your magic here, I’ve never actually targeted a group of enemies. I’ve target the general area around one and spread the magic around, making it hit multiple targets, though. My guess is that ‘all’ would let me shoot my Bio in different directions at different enemies. Magic is definitely more flexible here.

“Thanks.” I bow.

“Good luck out there, son.”

I exit the building, once again ignoring the man at the counter. I sprint towards the station and feel relief when the others are still waiting there. Barret gestures to go inside the train, and I follow him and the others.

“So what did he give ya?” the black man asked as he took a seat near the front of this car.

Now that I think about it, it was selfish of me to think that this materia was mine. I had a lot more of the stuff then the others.

“This.” I say, placing the blue orb in Barret’s hand. “All materia.”

“Hm.” He grunts.

The train makes a whistling sound before it begins moving. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster until we’re on our way.

“Ugh.” I look to the middle of the isle and see the red coated Shire train manager walking along the isle away from us. “Hoodlums. God, this is why I hate the last car.”

He said it quietly, but loud enough for Barret to hear. He stands from his seat and walks towards the man before stepping in front of him.

“You say somethin’?” he asks.

The manager ignores him and sits on one of the side seats.

“I SAID…’You say somethin’?’” he repeats.

When he ignores him again, Barret leans over top of him and slams his gun arm into the wall behind him. “Yo! This car emptied out rather quick! What’s goin on?”

“..I-It’s empty because of people like you.” The man stutters.

“Da hell is that supposed to mean?” Barret growls.

“Ah! I won’t give in to violence!” the man cried, shielding his face with his arms.

Barret moves back and sighs. “To hell with you.” He moves back along the isle and takes a seat while Tifa bows apologetically at the Shinra manager.

I watch as she moves towards a screen on the side of the train. It’s intended for showing passengers a map of the Midgar railway system.

“Cloud! Come look at this with me!” Tifa shouts to the blond. He shrugs and runs from the back of the car all the way to the front.

Before they take a look, the lights go out for a moment and there’s a brief red flash.

“Tha’s the security check point.” Barret informs me. “We’re fine though.”

The thing is, we really aren’t. If memory serves me, a certain someone fucked up.

The lights go dark, though not completely, and there is a red flash.

“WARNING! UNIDENTIFIED PASSENGERS! BEGIN CAR LOCKDOWN!” came a voice over the PA.

Good thing it told us it was locking down cars, or we might have stayed put!

Barret sprung up from his seat with a nasty scowl on his face.

“Yo! Someone screwed up! We gotta move!” he ordered.

Without having to ask, we all head for the next car. Just as we enter, I hear the lock snap shut on the door behind us. They’ll be locking the rest of the cars too.

“Let’s go! Keep it up!” Barret shouts again.

As we run through this car, I notice a spiky haired looking punk. In the game, he tries to pickpocket you when you move past him. As I pass him, I kick out his legs and snicker.

We keep moving through another few cars before we spot Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. They’re wearing some pretty nice disguises. Biggs looks like a private eye with his trench coat and hat. Wedge looks…well, pretty much the same, except he doesn’t have a bandana. Jessie looks like one of those red coat Shinra soldiers.

Tifa opens the train door. I watch as signs and graffiti zoom by.

“No turning back now. Scary, huh?” Tifa comments to Cloud.

“If that’s the case, why did you come?”

“…Because.”

“Yo!” Barret interrupts. “We don’t got time for none of that. We gotta jump!”

Tifa nods. “Right. Watch how I do it.”

She hesitates for a moment before leaping out of the door. She ducks and rolls along the ground until she finally stops. Cloud follows a second after. Realizing it was my turn, I swallow hard and close my eyes before I leap out as well. I tuck my head in and begin rolling on the ground, feeling gravel cut at my skin a bit. I finally stop and see Cloud and Tifa a bit back. I run to meet up with them, Barret not far behind.

We all gather around, still intact. Barret slams his gun against the wall angrily. He’s obviously pissed off about Jessie’s screw up. He’ll get over it.

“Guess we’ll have to go by foot?” Tifa states.

“Guess so.” Barret replies.

The four of us start moving through the tunnels. It’s pretty strait forward. No turns or anything, just following the tracks.

It’s nice that we can actually move in a group of 4. If this were the game, either one of us would have stayed behind at the bar and magically appear sometimes when a character reaches a save, or someone would have suggested we split up. And by ‘split up’, I mean 3 go one way while the other goes another or stands around near a save point. Don’t get me wrong, I love FF7, I’m just commenting on how much more convenient this is.

Up ahead, we all spot some glowing yellow beams. They’re for the next security checkpoint. If we passed that, it’d be all like ‘wtf, no train…but ppl with bad id!’ and then it would make the alarm in these tunnels go nuts. So, the beams are something we want to avoid.

“What’s that?” Cloud says, pointing to a small duct to our left. He approaches it and kneels down, peering inside.

“Damn, that’s a tight fit!” Barret complains.

“It doesn’t look like theirs anything that would get us stuck in there…” Tifa observes. She stands up and brushes her little skirt off. “What do you think?” she says, asking Cloud.

“Let’s go in.” he answers.

Cloud knelt down and swung his legs around, slipping them into the duct before pushing himself downwards and inside. Tifa followed. I had been hoping to go ahead of her so I could look up when her turn came. But alas, it didn’t happen like that. I went in after, and then Barret somehow managed to get through the little opening.

When we landed inside a large ventilation shaft, Barret rubbed at his sides. It must have been a tight fit.

We all turn to the sound of light scurrying. Three little green insects are crawling towards us. They come up to a bit below my knee and don’t look all that threatening.

One stops and spits out a stream of silk at us. We scattered away and Barret opened fire. The bullets pierced the insect with little trouble, and it fell dead. Cloud jumped up and brought his sword down before the second could get out of the way. These things were slow.

With two down, I watch Tifa jump and flip off the wall, bringing the bottom of her heel down into the insects head. It crashes against the metal of the vent and I run in with my scythe, swinging at its body before it can react.

Not far ahead is a ladder that goes down. We all climb down, and once again, I am above Tifa instead of below. Cloud didn’t even look up, that non-pervert. When we reached the bottom, we were in…some kind of underground storage facility? That’s all I could think of. The floor was made of industrial steel and boxes were scatted along a few parts of this area. There weren’t any monsters in sight, so we moved through, looking for somewhere to go.

There was another ladder near by, this one went up quite high and into another vent. I just followed Cloud as he climbed up first, then Barret.

“Go ahead.” Tifa says, motioning for me to climb.

“Uh…Yeah, okay.” I comply. God damnit.

When we reach the top, we see Jessie standing there waiting. I’m not sure what she was doing or how it was useful, but there she was. I think she just wanted to apologize before we went on with the mission.

As we approach her, she gets an apologetic look on her face.

“Um, boss.” She says quietly.

“Yeah?” Barret answers gruffly.

“It was…” she stops, playing her belt. Wow, she’s quite ashamed. “It was my fault. Cloud…I wanted to make your ID special, but I messed up. That’s why we were caught. I’m sorry everyone.”

While Cloud doesn’t seem to care…at all, Barret looks a little more upset.

“We’ll talk about it later.” He says, only a hint of anger in his voice. Barret wasn’t one to hold grudges against his own allies.

I’ve come up with a theory. I think that Jessie’s screw up is actually a good thing. I believe that when Shinra picked up the bad ID on the train, they assumed it was AVALANCHE or some other rebel group. Since the sector 5 reactor was closest, they prepared for an ambush. How else would they know that’s where we were going to attack next? And if they didn’t know we were coming, Cloud would never have fallen into the sector 5 slums and met Aeris. So really, I’m not the least bit upset with her. Unless I find out my theory is wrong.

With the whole Jessie thing taken care of, we descend down another large ladder. I make a note not to look down as we climb.

And there we are, right inside the reactor. Pretty convenient for us that the ventilation shaft led here. Strangely convenient, in fact. But I’m not gonna complain.

We’re standing o a small platform, and there’s a large pipe that leads all the way down to the floor. We all get on, using it like a slide. It was a rather fun ride, but during our little trip, a guard spots us and immediately runs in our direction, meeting us at the bottom with a friend of his.

Barret jumps up from his sitting position o the pipe and fires with his assault gun at one guard. He jumps out of the way and pulls out his sub machine gun. It’s the same one Glen uses. The other guard goes for his as well, but Tifa, being as fast as she is, appears at his side and elbows him in the face before removing his gun and tossing it to the side.

Barret and the one guard are currently involved in a shoot out. The guard was covering himself behind a crate while Barret used a grouping of barrels.

Tifa was busy knocking the crap out of the guard she disarmed. It didn’t take long, however. After another few seconds, Tifa gave a stiff uppercut to his jaw. His head shot back and he fell to the ground, out like a light.

Wait, where was Cloud?

I glance around and spot him fighting two soldiers. They’re the red version of the ones we fought in the previous reactor. Their beam guns pack a bit more power, as evident by the damage they do to the walls whenever they miss Cloud. After evading another attack, he chanted “Ice!” and shot the frozen spears through the first one’s chest.

“Grant!” I hear Tifa shout. I turn back to face her and see a machine gun toting robot heading our way.

It’s an odd machine, it has a number o the front of its body, and its legs look like drills. Its arms are small machine guns.

Barret managed to kill the first guard, but a few took its place. Cursing in annoyance, he sent a blast of fire in their direction, blowing the crate apart. Now that they were completely open, he stood and emptied a slip into them. They fell to the ground dead, and Barret joined us in fighting the mech.

“God damn, they just keep coming!” I shout. I had been hoping to avoid this kind of thing.

Now that I have lightning magic, I prepare to launch a spell.

“Bolt!” I cry, sending the wave of electricity towards the robot.

Its AI knows to avoid getting hit, surprise surprise. It jumps sideways, avoiding the attack. I guess it can only jump. I wouldn’t expect it to be all that nimble with drill feet.

The robot prepares to fire, but Barret finished reloading his gun and shot first. The bullets clanked against the things outer armor, some piercing while others bounced off, only leaving small dents.

Damaged, but not dead, it brought up its arms and shot at us. Barret rolled under the bullets and began firing again. I was busy running about, trying not to get shot.

Tifa dashed underneath the robot and pushed herself up with her hands, sending a kick upwards. The thing’s head actually shot up from the force. Tifa was pretty f’ing strong. Or the machine had light armor. I don’t really know.

Tifa jumped back from the machine. Cloud had apparently finished up with his enemies and came down with his sword, driving it into the machine’s back and quickly pulling it out, moving away as it caught on fire then exploded.

“That was easy enough.” Cloud commented.

“Screw you…” I say, panting.

“I think that’s all of them for now. Is everyone okay?” Tifa asked.

While it wasn’t fun, none of us were hit. That’s always good.

As we walk through the reactor, I couldn’t help but notice: This reactor looks almost exactly the same as the last one. These thoughts remained the same as we followed along the same path of ladders as the last reactor. Like before, there was a pool of mako below a walkway that led to the reactors core.

Not wanting to see Cloud go all weird again and since I already knew what it meant, I hanged back, saying I would watch for trouble. I turned back a few minutes later, just as they placed the bomb on the reactor.

“Someone set up us the bomb.” I say as I join the group again.

They shoot me strange looks which I ignore. As we wind our way back to where we started, we run into another few guards. They were so small in number that I didn’t even bother. Cloud and Barret would have them down in under a minute anyways.

Finally, we reached a part of the reactor that did NOT look like a copy of the last one. We were in a hallway when I noted the closed steel door ahead of us and a room to the left.

We entered the room and Cloud, Tifa, and Barret surrounded the table at the center. Below each of them were three overly large buttons.

“Jessie said we have to hit them at the same time.” Tifa explains.

This was odd to me. For one, if three were needed to open this door, one would expect three guards to be hanging around. Two, the buttons were WAY too big. Three, this is the lamest door lock mechanism EVER! No voice ID or overly long password…just this.

I suppose the lack of guards here made sense. This WAS a trap, after all. And while I would have loved to point this out, I knew that this needed to happen.

The three finished up their synchronized door disarming, and well all moved on through the once sealed door and down another hallway until we were running along a steel walkway suspended above the sector 5 slums.

Just as we reached the intersection of the pathway, lines of Shinra soldiers marched in our direction.

“What the hell?” Barret said, shocked.

We turned around. Same thing in the other direction. Then, we heard a helicopter approach us. We looked ahead to the only path NOT blocked off and watched as the president stepped forward. The man was plump, balding, old, and wore a tacky red suit. Right when I saw this guy both now and in the game, I knew he wasn’t a major villain or even an important one, really.

“P-President Shinra?” Barret stuttered. I could tell he was now boiling with rage, but with soldiers in every direction, mowing him down with bullets wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Why is the president here?” Tifa asked. No one answered.

Cloud stepped forward. “Long time no see.”

The president quirked an eyebrow. “Long time no…? Oh. You. You’re the one that quit SOLDIER. I can tell by the glow in your eyes.” The President remarked. ‘So tell me, what was your name?”

Cloud looked rather displeased. “Cloud.” He answered.

“Ah.” The President said, walking forward slowly. “Forgive me. I can’t be expected to know the names of all SOLDIERs. Unless you become another Sephiroth.”

The man was quite cocky considering it takes am army of his grunts to keep us from ripping him apart.

“What a shame. A waste of such good fireworks just to dispose of vermin like you.”

“VERMIN!” Barret exploded. “That all you got to say? Ya’ll harm the planet and kill anyone ya need to just to fill your own damn pockets with gold! So that makes you king vermin, jack ass!”

The President faked a yawn. “You’re beginning to bore me. If you’ll excuse me, I have a dinner I must attend. But don’t worry, I’ve arranged a play mate for you all.” With that, the fat ass snapped his fingers.

Realizing what this meant, I quickly moved behind Tifa and Barret. This probably made me look weak or afraid, but I did it because I didn’t want to be on the same side as Cloud. There were a number of reasons, which I’ll explain a little later.

I looked down the walkway as the soldiers all moves aside and began exiting the building. A large and legless mechanical soldier hovered towards us. Its back had what looked like a motor and jetpack. It charged at us slowly, pushing us back.

“Cloud!” Tifa shouted to get his attention.

Cloud turned around and stared at the machine. “What is it?”

“Something our weapons research facility cooked up. Say hello to the Techno-SOLDIER, Airbuster.” The President answered. “I’m sure the data it extracts from your bodies will be most useful. Take care.” He said as he climbed up the ladder of the helicopter before flying off like a little pansy.

The Airbuster charged a little more, once again causing us to move back.

“This thing is in SOLDIER? No way! It’s just a machine!” Cloud shouted in disbelief.

“I don’t care what it is! I’m blowin’ it to bits!” Barret declared.

Cloud took his place behind the machine and the battle began.

I held my scythe and chanted bolt, aiming at the hovering mechanism. I thought I had a winning strategy, but it used the hovering devise to push itself up for a moment as the lightning passed under it and towards Cloud before it landed again. Cloud jumped back to avoid my attack.

God, I always miss. Alright, let’s try it from above. I jump onto the railing and then into the air, aiming my attack again. While this is happening, Tifa is mostly sticking back. There isn’t a lot she can do with only restore materia and her fists. Not against a big machine.

“Bolt!” I shout again.

It swerves out of the way, though its speed is nothing impressive. The lightning connects with its side, blowing a small piece of metal off. Another lightning spell comes from behind, courtesy of Cloud. The lightning impacts its back, making it sway a bit before it regains itself and fires at Cloud with rear guns.

Barret is shooting at the machine as well, focusing on the same area. Its armor is being dented, but it isn’t doing anything major.

I land back on the ground and get ready to cast another spell when the chest plate on the Airbuster opens up.

Damn, it’s gonna use ‘Big Bomber’. I run back hoping this will somehow help. When the attack finally comes, I learn it did very little. The bomb hits just a foot away from my current position. The floor beneath our feet rumbles of the blast sends me flying back. I hit the metal of the walkway and continue moving back before I come to a stop.

I can feel burns on my body and I’m likely bruised up too. I was pretty close to that thing. Good thing Tifa was there with healing. I don’t think I’d be able to get up to heal myself.

“Cure!” she shouted. The light refreshed me a bit, but I still felt like hell.

I hear Barret grunt in pain as he comes flying back from a punch to the gut. He rolls back and lands next to me.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Fine, kid.” He assures me, pulling a potion from his pouch.

I get back to my feet. At the moment, the Airbuster is turned around and focusing on Cloud while shooting at Tifa with its rear guns.

One pierced her legs making her fall. She gasps looks down at the wound.

“Cure!” I call, focusing the healing energy on her. The wound closed itself up and she got back up, nodding a thank you in my direction.

“Grenade!’ Barret shouts as he pulls the pin on one. We all scramble back, including Cloud, as Barret hurls it towards the machine. T swirls around just in time to meet the blast.

When the smoke clears, it’s still there, though mostly blown to shit. Its hover mechanism appears to be damaged and it’s missing an arm. Next one should finish it off.

I watch Cloud get into some kind of stance as he is surrounded by red energy. Ah, his limit.

“Braver!”

Cloud jumped up into the air as his sword shined. Then, he flew down and slashed, cleanly cutting through the machine. Its remains began to crackle until it exploded, but not without taking a chunk of the walkway with it.

The machines remains fell down onto the church below in the slums, as Cloud dangles helplessly, his grip on the edge slipping. With his other hand, he places the sword back on his back and tries to hoist himself up with little success.

“Cloud!” Tifa cries.

Barret grabbed the frightened girl from behind as she tried to break free from his grip.

And this is why I wanted to be on THIS side. If I was on Cloud’s, I’d either fall down all that way (and frankly, I don’t know how Cloud survived this in the game, and at any rate, I have zero desire to fall down that far. And, let’s say I wasn’t in his position, but rather, was standing near by. He’d want me to pull him up. What do I say? “No”? I don’t think so. Thus, I am on this side.

“Tifa, I’ll be fine! Take care of her you two!” Cloud shouts. He obviously knows he’s going to fall.

“Sorry about this Cloud…” Barret apologizes.

“Don’t talk like this is the end.” Cloud replies.

Barret pulls Tifa back, moving towards the exit. “Right. Later then.”

“Take care of yourself, Cloud!” I shout. “We’ll be waiting for you back at sector 7!”

“Got it.” Cloud shouts back.

Then, the reactor exploded and the rumbling causes Cloud to relinquish his grip.

“Cloud!” Tifa shouts, holding her hand out to him.

Barret yanks her back once again and we all leave before the place is completely blown to shit.

Everyone is silent as we make our way back to the train. Jesse was waiting for us with fresh ID cards. Ones that wouldn’t fuck us up.

“You know Tifa…” I say, ‘Cloud is really strong. He’ll be okay. Try not to worry, okay?” I say, hoping to comfort her.

She nods, “Yeah. I’ll try.”

I look back and forth between the two. Tifa is looking down and looks pale. The corners of her eyes look a bit wet. She’s really afraid he’s dead. Barret looks ashamed of himself. Maybe because this mission didn’t go so smoothly and as a result, he believes Cloud may be dead.

I was a bit surprised actually. When I played the game, I got the impression that they were worried about him but didn’t think he was dead. When Tifa saw Cloud again, she was relieved and obviously worried but not in the sense of “I thought you were dead!” or anything. When Barret saw Cloud again, he really didn’t make much of it. But what I was seeing suggested something very different.

You never saw what they did while Cloud was on his adventure with Aeris in the game. Since I’m here though, I guess I’ll get to see.