Chapter Text
“You’re too late, once I push this button…” Reno smirked at Aerith’s blonde “bodyguard.” He waited for the realization to hit the man’s mako-tinged eyes, then pressed down the button.
PING.
Reno laughed with a vicious grin on his face. “That’s all, folks! Mission accomplished.”
“Damnit! A time bomb!?” shouted the Avalanche cell leader, a large man with a prosthetic gun arm. His arm was pointed at Reno, but he held back. Reno suspected it had more to do with the bomb next to him than any sort of level-headedness.
The dark-haired girl snapped into a fighting stance. “We have to disarm it,” she said with a desperate, determined glare. “Cloud! Barret! Back me up!”
“I can’t allow that,” Reno tsked.
He whipped out his baton and took a wide, crouching stance. There was no way that some SOLDIER washout and a couple home-grown Avalanche-wannabes were getting past his guard. “No one messes with Reno and the Turks.”
Reno launched himself past the blonde, feinting a strike with his electrified baton. The bodyguard, whip-quick, misjudged the man’s movement and only nicked him with his buster. Reno spun, somewhat off-balance, and struck the blonde in the face with a pyramid-trap. He was cocky, not stupid- he saw how that guy fought monsters back in the church.
However, this put him right in the path of the girl’s strikes. She landed a solid kick to his gut, and he barely dove out of the way of a straight punch.
Reno glanced over at gun-arm to see if he needed to intercept him from reaching the console. Fortunately, the man was occupied shooting the barrier off the pyramid trap. The console was clear except for some stray cat pawing at the bomb.
“What in the world-“ Reno cut himself off, diving into a roll as the brunette was on him again. He struck her legs, shocking her out of her form, and ran for the console.
“Get away from that, you stupid cat!”
The cat jumped up onto its hind legs in surprise. “Uh-oh,” it squeaked. Reno noticed the cape, the crown, and the deer-in-headlights look on the cat’s face. That wasn’t a cat.
“Hold him off if you can!” shouted the cat in the thickest highland accent Reno had ever heard. “I’m going to try to disarm it.”
“What the hell is that?” Gun-arm finished breaking the pyramid trap and looked over. “Is fucking Stamp going to show up next?”
“Worry about the details later,” the cat shrieked, bouncing around the console to avoid Reno’s strikes.
The blonde lurched over, freed from paralysis. He launched himself at Reno with a powerful swing. Reno jumped away a half-second late and the buster sword scraped through his coat. His back stung, but wasn’t bleeding badly yet.
“Can you disarm it?” the blonde asked the cat.
“I don’t know, my codes aren’t working,” said the cat, as he typed rapidly. “I’ve increased the timer to thirty minutes, but I can’t stop the actual plate separation once it’s started. This was supposed to be a safety mechanism for making sure the plate attached correctly.”
The blonde nodded, half-paying attention, before throwing himself back into the fray with Reno. He and the girl worked together to overcome the Turk’s speed.
Gun-arm took up a defensive position by the console. He took shots at Reno whenever the Turk came too close, driving him back towards the close-range fighters while keeping them out of range of friendly fire. “It’s not a bomb?” he asked.
“The Turk brought some explosives,” the cat pointed at a small package sitting on the console. “But I suspect that’s more to do with blaming you lot. The plate separation is hard-coded in. I didn’t even think someone would abuse the plate connection like this…”
Gun-arm snorted, “That’s Shinra for you.”
The cat scowled, seemingly intent on working on the console.
The blonde got in another slash on Reno, tearing open a wide gash on his arm. Reno dashed off quickly, making sure the pillar was between him and the ranged fire. The martial arts girl and the so-called bodyguard moved to corner him against the railing.
Reno touched his earpiece, “Looks like it’s time, eh?”
On the other end, Rude grunted in affirmation.
Reno grabbed onto the pillar railing with his good arm and vaulted over the edge. He rolled into the waiting helicopter.
“I need to go back them up,” said gun-arm. He leaned out over the side, glaring at the helicopter moving into view. “How much longer do you need?”
The cat shook his head, “It’s useless. None of my codes worked. The only thing I could do was put it into test mode to make it go through diagnostics and make it run longer.”
“You’re saying we’re screwed?”
“It’s a safety feature,” the cat snapped. “This was supposed to prevent any computer errors from causing the plate connection to stop midway. The only way to fix it would be to shut it down and reprogram it. And it won’t shut down until it finishes its current function.”
The console still displayed a timer in bright red letters. Twenty minutes now, still counting down.
“Aerith!” The martial artist’s shout reached over the loud chopper. Gun-arm glanced at the cat, then ran over to his friends. The cat couldn’t make out the rest of the conversation without getting closer, and he had no intentions of entering Tseng’s line of sight.
“So, all I could do after all was buy more time for people to evacuate,” said the cat. “There’s no way everyone can get out in time…”
Cait Sith prodded his maker’s consciousness, wanting control. Reeve ceded it, as always.
The odds of breaking the function are against us as-is, and more likely to backfire than help. Reeve warned. Don’t tempt fate.
“Aye,” murmured Cait Sith, “But it can’t hurt to ask her anyways.”
Cait Sith moved his arms in a dance, plucking a fortune from thin air. He held it up to his eyes, and read it along with Reeve.
Cait Sith crumpled the fortune, “We should stick around, then.”
Don’t let the Turks spot you.
“You already did that,” said Cait Sith.
The helicopter took off, and Avalanche rounded the corner.
“We’re screwed,” said the cat.
“Shit,” the martial artist went to the console. She started typing.
“Lass, I’ve already tried everything! Don’t set it off.”
The martial artist groaned. “Cloud, you try.”
The blonde one, Cloud, stepped up to the console. He seemed even more out of his depth than the martial artist.
“Listen, we don’t have much time,” said the cat. The console showed just over fifteen minutes remaining. “We might not even have time to run down the pillar. Is there anyone you can call to help evacuate? That’s all we can do.”
“The troopers that Tifa and I passed on the way up were evacuating people,” said Cloud.
“Goddamnit,” gun-arm struck the wall of the pillar. He pulled out a PHS and dialed a saved number. Suddenly, he looked up at the cat. “Wait, who are you, anyways?”
“Cait Sith. The details aren’t important right now.”
“Right, right.” Gun-arm stood, listening to his PHS ring out. “Fuck. Marlene’s not answering the bar phone. I have to go.”
Gun-arm eyed one of the safety cables leading into the sector.
Tifa stopped him, “Barret, wait- I think Aerith got her out. That’s what she said, right?”
“I have to know,” said Barret. “I’m headed to the bar. You two take that cable and get out of here. Well, you three.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Cait Sith, jumping onto the man. “I failed here, I need to get as many people out as I can.”
Barret startled, then shrugged. “Whatever, cat.”
“Barret-“ said Tifa, moving towards him.
“Well, Cloud, it looks like it’s your turn to take care of Tifa,” Barret cut the cable, flying off into the sector.
“He’ll be alright,” said Cloud. “Let’s get out of here.”
A few seconds later, Barret and Cait Sith landed ungracefully in the middle of the slums. Barret jumped to his feet and charged off. Not wanting to get lost, Cait Sith chased after him. After a few blocks, Barret charged into a bar called Seventh Heaven, shouting for Marlene.
“All this for a bar half the size of a barn,” Cait Sith sighed. He pulled out the final part of his plan: a flash drive with override codes to send out an evacuation warning. President Shinra took away Reeve’s remote access to warnings when he first brought up his concerns, leaving a manual override as the only way. He checked around and spotted a broadcast tower a block away. He ran up to it as quick as he could, jumping up to the service console. He plugged in the flash drive, and after a moment, the tower started sending the evacuation alarm. The other towers in the sector above and below plate synced with it, and began broadcasting as well.
He checked his own watch. Was there ten minutes left? Five? They didn’t have much time to get out. Reeve did not want to sacrifice Cait Sith trying to make amends for his own failure.
He glanced over at the bar, considering. This was the man who had planned and executed the bombings of two reactors. He killed dozens of innocent people and injured hundreds more, not to mention the damage done by brownouts across hospitals and other essential services over the last week. But this was also one of the only people who had tried to stop Shinra from killing over fifty thousand people. People that Reeve and Cait Sith had failed to save.
He charged in, “Barret!”
Cait Sith charged in, and saw an arcade cabinet rising from the floor, carrying a relieved-looking Barret. He made a note of that, maybe Avalanche would use the same method in their next hideout. “Did you find her?”
“Not at all!” the man laughed, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Barret scruffed Cait Sith and charged out of the bar. He ran towards the sector six gate.
Cait Sith shrieked, then looked back at the bar. “I thought you had someone you needed to get out-“
“And she’s not here. Marlene’s a very good little girl, she wouldn’t have left unless it was with someone she trusted. Tifa was right.”
They just barely made it out of the sector as the plate finally separated. A crowd had gathered in the sector six playground. Tifa, Cloud, and two worn-out looking troopers were herding people out.
Reeve prodded for control.
“Not many people got out,” said the cat.
“There could be more at the sector eight gate,” said Barret. “Were you looking for someone?”
“Barret!” Tifa spotted them, and she ran over, Cloud trailing behind.
“No, I don’t know anyone in this sector,” the cat sighed. He jumped down from Barret’s shoulder.
Barret walked over to Tifa, “Tifa! I couldn’t find Marlene. You were right. Where did this Aerith girl take her?”
Cloud started talking, and Cait Sith slunk away. He only saved a handful of people, and those he did save would go on to keep bombing reactors and killing more people. Some hero he was. Reeve was almost looking forward to the Turks executing him for treason.