Chapter 15: A New Friendship
(This section will focus on Suufi as the speaker) Cloud and I were racing through the underground Shinra Prisons to escape before we could get caught. All the cells were empty, and the security seemed very lacking; we were the only people here. I kept my special eye activated so I could protect Cloud from any possible life forms invisible to him. Even though he had acted sincere in front of me when I was imprisoned, I had a lot of trouble trusting him completely. I didn't understand why, and I couldn't erase the feeling well at all. It was like a wound that wouldn't vanish. I asked "Where are we going?" Cloud answered "We have to exit this place by entering the first floor of Shinra Headquarters. Until we arrive there, there's no way out. The nearest exit is on that floor." I felt suspicious "And how do I know you aren't just setting me up to be killed?" He stopped in his tracks and turned to glance at me sternly. I stopped and looked back to him, feeling frightened yet again. Why am I so scared of this guy? I don't understand any of this! I panicked. Cloud said "I don't tell lies, kid. Maybe Sephiroth did, but I never do." I was furious at his response "Hey! Shut your mouth, old man! Big Brother is stronger than you could even hope to be!" Cloud groaned under his breath but kept silent. Ignoring my anger, Cloud turned around and continued walking "Just follow me. I said I will help you and nothing is changing that. I know why you don't trust me, but I'm not leading you into anything dangerous. I'm trying to help you, even if you don't believe me." He kept walking, and I followed. I felt myself beginning to cry. I was confused. This weird scary man was acting so honest, and even still something inside of me was giving me some kind of danger signal. None of this made any sense. I sat down in a corner ahead of Cloud, and folded my hands "Mother... please, help me... I don't know this guy, and he's really scary, but he's acting so casual and like he doesn't wanna hurt me... Mother, just tell me what's going on... please..." My tears were heavy, and my arms dropped at my sides. I clenched my fists, trying to fight the uncontrollable fear and hatred, but it was useless. Cloud stopped in front of me, and I sensed he was looking down at me in a strange way. He seemed to mumble something "This poor kid... what have I done..? All of Sephiroth's fears, anguish, all of it... it's all been instilled into this innocent boy who doesn't even know about any of it." I overheard him "What are you talking about..?" Cloud paused, then said "Hey, listen... if I killed myself, would that get rid of your bad feelings?" I couldn't believe what he said. I hurried to my feet and punched him "What?! Are you crazy?! What are you thinking!" He rubbed his face where I had hit him "I should've known you'd act like that... you're as arrogant as Kadaj." I was so angry at his response my face felt hot. He sheathed his sword and put his hands on my fist, gently pushing it down "Stop. That's enough throwing fits. If you shout any louder, they'll know you're free before we can get close to escaping. You have to control your temper." I forced myself to calm down "But you idiot! If you kill yourself, I'm stuck here anyway! Without my super strength and my katana, I'm almost helpless. I'm no match for them without my weapon and strength." Cloud sighed "Look, I know you've been through a lot, and I would never kill myself like that. I didn't expect you to take it so seriously... But if you don't cooperate with me, we won't make it." I grumbled. What he said was true. If we didn't work together, it was pointless anyway. I didn't think his joke was funny, either. This wasn't a laughing matter to me. I asked "Alright... do you know how to get my super strength back? If I can do that, we can escape without too much trouble. I can easily retrieve my katana if I get my strength back." Cloud paused to think "Hmm... I'm almost certain Rufus has the answer to that. What's worse, he's on the top floor of this place in the control room. Unless he gives us the answer, we have no way to get you back to normal." I moaned "And how do we get way up there without getting stopped by security a thousand times?" Cloud shook his head "We can't. There's no other way up but the elevator. If we are discovered, it will obviously lock up so we can't continue." I asked "Any bright ideas on how to breach the security system so we can do this?" Cloud sighed "I wish I knew how, but there's no choice but to figure out how to hack in so we can unlock it. I'll do the fighting, but I need you to do your best with hacking in." I wanted to argue, but couldn't since I can't fight anyway. I asked "And what if the freaks in the blue suits get to us before we can reach Rufus?" Cloud shook his head "I have no choice but to defeat them if that happens. If we wanna make it out alive, the only choice there is means cutting down anyone in our way. Even if it hurts or doesn't feel right..." After that, Cloud led me to the elevator around the corner, and I followed him inside. The doors slid shut, and he looked at me "Are you ready? This mission won't be an easy one for either of us." I shook my head "As ready as I'll ever be. We won't know what happens until we start..." Cloud entered some numbers on the keypad "Agreed. Let's do our best, even if we aren't friends yet..." The elevator started going up, and the strangest feeling swept over me, and I found myself staring up at him, my left eye returning to its usual green. He didn't look at me, but I had a feeling he was serious about helping me escape and bringing me back to normal. We stopped at the first floor, and Cloud led me out. He drew his sword, and carefully studied the area, lowering before long "It's awfully quiet... I don't like that. Kid, hurry and find the CPU and hack it before we get any company. If you block them before they can disable the elevator, it should save us some time and trouble." I worried "Do you think they heard me downstairs?" Cloud replied "Of course they did. Why else would it be so vacant all of a sudden? I was just here before going downstairs to stand guard and there were employees all over. Most likely, this isn't a good thing." I complained "Oh no..." I began to search the area for the nearest computer. I passed by a few rooms that both had computers in them, and entered a third one with a larger system. I studied it carefully, activating my left eye's powers to examine it. Somehow, I already knew this was the right computer, tied directly to the main security system. I got right to working on it to find a way to destroy their locking systems so we wouldn't get stuck here. For some reason, I wasn't nervous at all here; did it all like it was natural to me. I entered a command, and brought up a window with a lot of weird numbers all over it that seemed like some kind of code i didn't recognize. Suddenly, an alarm began to sound loudly from outside "Oops..." I knew I had either made a mistake, or already got detected by Shinra staff. I sighed "Oh great... I already did something wrong. If I don't act fast, Cloud will run out of strength before they run out of numbers." But even the background noise didn't disturb my focus on the task at hand. There was no room for distraction with a brutal situation that this could easily become. I used my eye's powers to identify the code displayed on my screen, but I immediately got a negative signal from my reactor which meant it couldn't be identified. I began to feel panic well up "Gah..! Sequence unidentified..?! This is bad..!" I had a feeling Shinra already had knowledge of the power I was using and had something nearby that prevented my recognition system from working properly. Whatever it was, I knew something was blocking me. I forced the panic away and tried numerous commands to get past this security level, but none of them worked. I heard Mother's voice in my mind "Calm yourself, my son. Where you are calm, you are unstoppable." I stopped typing. I directed a bright red laser from my eye, and ran it over the long code displayed on the screen. I knew what to do now "Looks like somebody forgot to fry the laser scanner." I smiled and continued working. I broke the lock and the window disappeared. However, I got another one with an even more elaborate code on it. I sighed "So their security is layered... go figures. Leave it to Shinra to make breaching security as difficult as possible...." I listened to the background noise hoping to find out Cloud was holding out ok, but there were too many gunshots for me to hear him at all. The alarm was also making it impossible to hear him. I tried tapping into him to speak telepathically, but the response was so weak it almost seemed blank. I sighed "Well, he is a human... I didn't expect that to work. I guess he doesn't have Mother's cells yet..." I got back to getting through the encryption on the Shinra systems to block the security. I was concerned about Cloud "I have to move fast... if I'm too slow, he won't make it... there's too many of em out there!"
Outside the computer room, Cloud was fighting Shinra troops...
(This part will focus on Cloud as the speaker) The enemy response was vicious. When the JENOVA remnant I had helped went to working on disabling the security, Shinra troops came flooding in like an avalanche. I was managing to fend them off for now, but they just kept coming; almost like there was an endless supply of them. I didn't have time to stop and rest. The choice was to either fight them nonstop, or be killed instead. The more time went by, the greater their numbers seemed to become. I continued fighting them off regardless "Give me a break! There's no end to them!" I decided to fight them off while focusing on getting to the kid who was working with me. I knew this would put him in danger since he had his powers drained, but it was either we tried to escape this mess or we die trying to clean it up. I found him working at a computer "Kid, we have to get out of here! There's too many of them!" He turned to me "What?! After I finally got to the last layer of encryption, you're telling me to abandon this without getting my strength back? We had a deal, old man, didn't we?! I'm not going anywhere!" I replied "Fine, but make it fast! I can't fight them off much longer!" He got back to working on the computer "Gah! I knew this would happen!" Fortunately I lured them away from the kid before they could know he was there. I thought this fight would never end; I was starting to lose my strength from this endless supply of enemies. This all continued for what seemed like forever, until I finally managed to lower their numbers to the last few. I heard a loud buzzard, and the alarm had stopped. I finished off the last of them, and saw the kid come out of the room and hurry to me. He was very happy "I did it, Cloud! I shut down their security and defenses!" I nodded "Good work, kid... You were great..." I coughed and fell down, dropping my sword. The silver haired child cried "Cloud!" He ran to me, kneeling down with tears in his eyes. I said "I'll be... fine. You did your best, even if the enemy response was brutal... there were just too many of them..." He asked "Can you keep going? Maybe I should just run away without getting my powers back..." I disagreed "No, don't go. I said I would help you, and I will. Since you shut down their security, things should settle down the rest of the way. I said I don't lie, remember?" He nodded silently, and I managed to get back up and retrieved my sword. I realized despite how weak I was, I wouldn't die at all "What is this..? I won't die even though I'm weakened..?" The child reacted happily "You can still fight?" I nodded "It looks that way, even if I am a bit tired and look worn... someone, or something is keeping me from death or even fatal condition..." The child asked "Is it... Mother?" I replied "I don't know what it is, but we better get going so we can get your powers and your sword back. I doubt they have any reinforcements left. That horde was as big as it could possibly get. There's no way they have any left." The silver haired child cried out in joy and lunged at me. Surprised, I fell back down and saw him laughing before my eyes. I managed a faint smile, and brushed my hand through his hair "Everything be ok, alright? I'll get your powers back to you and we can get outta here."
To be Continued...
(This section will focus on Suufi as the speaker) Cloud and I were racing through the underground Shinra Prisons to escape before we could get caught. All the cells were empty, and the security seemed very lacking; we were the only people here. I kept my special eye activated so I could protect Cloud from any possible life forms invisible to him. Even though he had acted sincere in front of me when I was imprisoned, I had a lot of trouble trusting him completely. I didn't understand why, and I couldn't erase the feeling well at all. It was like a wound that wouldn't vanish. I asked "Where are we going?" Cloud answered "We have to exit this place by entering the first floor of Shinra Headquarters. Until we arrive there, there's no way out. The nearest exit is on that floor." I felt suspicious "And how do I know you aren't just setting me up to be killed?" He stopped in his tracks and turned to glance at me sternly. I stopped and looked back to him, feeling frightened yet again. Why am I so scared of this guy? I don't understand any of this! I panicked. Cloud said "I don't tell lies, kid. Maybe Sephiroth did, but I never do." I was furious at his response "Hey! Shut your mouth, old man! Big Brother is stronger than you could even hope to be!" Cloud groaned under his breath but kept silent. Ignoring my anger, Cloud turned around and continued walking "Just follow me. I said I will help you and nothing is changing that. I know why you don't trust me, but I'm not leading you into anything dangerous. I'm trying to help you, even if you don't believe me." He kept walking, and I followed. I felt myself beginning to cry. I was confused. This weird scary man was acting so honest, and even still something inside of me was giving me some kind of danger signal. None of this made any sense. I sat down in a corner ahead of Cloud, and folded my hands "Mother... please, help me... I don't know this guy, and he's really scary, but he's acting so casual and like he doesn't wanna hurt me... Mother, just tell me what's going on... please..." My tears were heavy, and my arms dropped at my sides. I clenched my fists, trying to fight the uncontrollable fear and hatred, but it was useless. Cloud stopped in front of me, and I sensed he was looking down at me in a strange way. He seemed to mumble something "This poor kid... what have I done..? All of Sephiroth's fears, anguish, all of it... it's all been instilled into this innocent boy who doesn't even know about any of it." I overheard him "What are you talking about..?" Cloud paused, then said "Hey, listen... if I killed myself, would that get rid of your bad feelings?" I couldn't believe what he said. I hurried to my feet and punched him "What?! Are you crazy?! What are you thinking!" He rubbed his face where I had hit him "I should've known you'd act like that... you're as arrogant as Kadaj." I was so angry at his response my face felt hot. He sheathed his sword and put his hands on my fist, gently pushing it down "Stop. That's enough throwing fits. If you shout any louder, they'll know you're free before we can get close to escaping. You have to control your temper." I forced myself to calm down "But you idiot! If you kill yourself, I'm stuck here anyway! Without my super strength and my katana, I'm almost helpless. I'm no match for them without my weapon and strength." Cloud sighed "Look, I know you've been through a lot, and I would never kill myself like that. I didn't expect you to take it so seriously... But if you don't cooperate with me, we won't make it." I grumbled. What he said was true. If we didn't work together, it was pointless anyway. I didn't think his joke was funny, either. This wasn't a laughing matter to me. I asked "Alright... do you know how to get my super strength back? If I can do that, we can escape without too much trouble. I can easily retrieve my katana if I get my strength back." Cloud paused to think "Hmm... I'm almost certain Rufus has the answer to that. What's worse, he's on the top floor of this place in the control room. Unless he gives us the answer, we have no way to get you back to normal." I moaned "And how do we get way up there without getting stopped by security a thousand times?" Cloud shook his head "We can't. There's no other way up but the elevator. If we are discovered, it will obviously lock up so we can't continue." I asked "Any bright ideas on how to breach the security system so we can do this?" Cloud sighed "I wish I knew how, but there's no choice but to figure out how to hack in so we can unlock it. I'll do the fighting, but I need you to do your best with hacking in." I wanted to argue, but couldn't since I can't fight anyway. I asked "And what if the freaks in the blue suits get to us before we can reach Rufus?" Cloud shook his head "I have no choice but to defeat them if that happens. If we wanna make it out alive, the only choice there is means cutting down anyone in our way. Even if it hurts or doesn't feel right..." After that, Cloud led me to the elevator around the corner, and I followed him inside. The doors slid shut, and he looked at me "Are you ready? This mission won't be an easy one for either of us." I shook my head "As ready as I'll ever be. We won't know what happens until we start..." Cloud entered some numbers on the keypad "Agreed. Let's do our best, even if we aren't friends yet..." The elevator started going up, and the strangest feeling swept over me, and I found myself staring up at him, my left eye returning to its usual green. He didn't look at me, but I had a feeling he was serious about helping me escape and bringing me back to normal. We stopped at the first floor, and Cloud led me out. He drew his sword, and carefully studied the area, lowering before long "It's awfully quiet... I don't like that. Kid, hurry and find the CPU and hack it before we get any company. If you block them before they can disable the elevator, it should save us some time and trouble." I worried "Do you think they heard me downstairs?" Cloud replied "Of course they did. Why else would it be so vacant all of a sudden? I was just here before going downstairs to stand guard and there were employees all over. Most likely, this isn't a good thing." I complained "Oh no..." I began to search the area for the nearest computer. I passed by a few rooms that both had computers in them, and entered a third one with a larger system. I studied it carefully, activating my left eye's powers to examine it. Somehow, I already knew this was the right computer, tied directly to the main security system. I got right to working on it to find a way to destroy their locking systems so we wouldn't get stuck here. For some reason, I wasn't nervous at all here; did it all like it was natural to me. I entered a command, and brought up a window with a lot of weird numbers all over it that seemed like some kind of code i didn't recognize. Suddenly, an alarm began to sound loudly from outside "Oops..." I knew I had either made a mistake, or already got detected by Shinra staff. I sighed "Oh great... I already did something wrong. If I don't act fast, Cloud will run out of strength before they run out of numbers." But even the background noise didn't disturb my focus on the task at hand. There was no room for distraction with a brutal situation that this could easily become. I used my eye's powers to identify the code displayed on my screen, but I immediately got a negative signal from my reactor which meant it couldn't be identified. I began to feel panic well up "Gah..! Sequence unidentified..?! This is bad..!" I had a feeling Shinra already had knowledge of the power I was using and had something nearby that prevented my recognition system from working properly. Whatever it was, I knew something was blocking me. I forced the panic away and tried numerous commands to get past this security level, but none of them worked. I heard Mother's voice in my mind "Calm yourself, my son. Where you are calm, you are unstoppable." I stopped typing. I directed a bright red laser from my eye, and ran it over the long code displayed on the screen. I knew what to do now "Looks like somebody forgot to fry the laser scanner." I smiled and continued working. I broke the lock and the window disappeared. However, I got another one with an even more elaborate code on it. I sighed "So their security is layered... go figures. Leave it to Shinra to make breaching security as difficult as possible...." I listened to the background noise hoping to find out Cloud was holding out ok, but there were too many gunshots for me to hear him at all. The alarm was also making it impossible to hear him. I tried tapping into him to speak telepathically, but the response was so weak it almost seemed blank. I sighed "Well, he is a human... I didn't expect that to work. I guess he doesn't have Mother's cells yet..." I got back to getting through the encryption on the Shinra systems to block the security. I was concerned about Cloud "I have to move fast... if I'm too slow, he won't make it... there's too many of em out there!"
Outside the computer room, Cloud was fighting Shinra troops...
(This part will focus on Cloud as the speaker) The enemy response was vicious. When the JENOVA remnant I had helped went to working on disabling the security, Shinra troops came flooding in like an avalanche. I was managing to fend them off for now, but they just kept coming; almost like there was an endless supply of them. I didn't have time to stop and rest. The choice was to either fight them nonstop, or be killed instead. The more time went by, the greater their numbers seemed to become. I continued fighting them off regardless "Give me a break! There's no end to them!" I decided to fight them off while focusing on getting to the kid who was working with me. I knew this would put him in danger since he had his powers drained, but it was either we tried to escape this mess or we die trying to clean it up. I found him working at a computer "Kid, we have to get out of here! There's too many of them!" He turned to me "What?! After I finally got to the last layer of encryption, you're telling me to abandon this without getting my strength back? We had a deal, old man, didn't we?! I'm not going anywhere!" I replied "Fine, but make it fast! I can't fight them off much longer!" He got back to working on the computer "Gah! I knew this would happen!" Fortunately I lured them away from the kid before they could know he was there. I thought this fight would never end; I was starting to lose my strength from this endless supply of enemies. This all continued for what seemed like forever, until I finally managed to lower their numbers to the last few. I heard a loud buzzard, and the alarm had stopped. I finished off the last of them, and saw the kid come out of the room and hurry to me. He was very happy "I did it, Cloud! I shut down their security and defenses!" I nodded "Good work, kid... You were great..." I coughed and fell down, dropping my sword. The silver haired child cried "Cloud!" He ran to me, kneeling down with tears in his eyes. I said "I'll be... fine. You did your best, even if the enemy response was brutal... there were just too many of them..." He asked "Can you keep going? Maybe I should just run away without getting my powers back..." I disagreed "No, don't go. I said I would help you, and I will. Since you shut down their security, things should settle down the rest of the way. I said I don't lie, remember?" He nodded silently, and I managed to get back up and retrieved my sword. I realized despite how weak I was, I wouldn't die at all "What is this..? I won't die even though I'm weakened..?" The child reacted happily "You can still fight?" I nodded "It looks that way, even if I am a bit tired and look worn... someone, or something is keeping me from death or even fatal condition..." The child asked "Is it... Mother?" I replied "I don't know what it is, but we better get going so we can get your powers and your sword back. I doubt they have any reinforcements left. That horde was as big as it could possibly get. There's no way they have any left." The silver haired child cried out in joy and lunged at me. Surprised, I fell back down and saw him laughing before my eyes. I managed a faint smile, and brushed my hand through his hair "Everything be ok, alright? I'll get your powers back to you and we can get outta here."
To be Continued...
