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The sun beat down on the miserable wasteland, sweat already dripping down Zack’s spine despite it being barely past morning. His black armor seemed to soak in the heat like a sponge; the extra burden of its emotional weight just not enough punishment, he supposed bitterly. The landscape was nothing to look at for distraction, and after a full day and night of walking through it without shelter or cover, the bleakness was starting to eat away at him. An occasional desiccated shrub broke up the monotony as dry earth crunched beneath his boots, dead beyond any traces of life.
Cloud had started moving again recently and Zack clung to this one, fragile piece of hope like a lifeline in a hurricane. His friend had rarely been conscious for the better part of a year. Over the first few months after escaping Nibelheim, the blonde only had glimmers of cognition between vast oceans of emptiness.
Despite years in the lab, Zack never fully got used to the silence, and even the constant murmuring of a one sided conversation couldn’t fill in the chasm left in his heart. It felt like a lifetime ago that he was surrounded by the hubbub of the Tower -- of Kunsel finding him to give the daily gossip, of ambushing Cloud in the infantry cafeteria then dragging him to a late-night gaming session, inevitably getting them both in trouble with curfews. The laughter of those days couldn’t have felt any further away; it was as if they were someone else’s experiences entirely. In the lab he often questioned if they actually had happened to someone else. Hojo had implanted and tampered with so much of them already, what was stopping him from taking that, too?
He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. That train of thought wouldn’t help him now, or probably ever. His primary focus was Cloud now, everything else could wait. He could spy Midgar distantly shimmering like a mirage in the heat. So close, they were so close, after nearly a year of running.
A quiet whump whump whump started in the distance, breaking the peace of his thoughts. It was just far enough away that only a SOLDIERs hearing would have picked it up. After dodging Turks and the army all across Gaia, Zack felt especially attuned to the vibration of helicopter blades. He cursed quietly under his breath. Turning to Cloud, who was slung over his back with head resting on his shoulder, he gave him a smile that came out more like a grimace.
“I don’t think we can hide this time, Cloudy. Unless you see some cover you’re not telling me about?” He arched an eyebrow jokingly.
Cloud remained silent.
Zack turned back to the wasteland, picking up the pace and scanning the horizon frantically. He was dehydrated and it had been days since either of them had seen any kind of food. His mind was becoming foggy to the point adrenaline was barely sharpening it. The blazing sun had been relentless during the day, and they couldn’t even enjoy the stars at night through the smog of Midgar. The hollow of Cloud’s cheeks hit a pang in his heart. They were at their limit. They were so close! If only they could reach those gates…
The rumble of trucks joined the sound of the choppers, halting Zack’s thoughts in their tracks. Hope was dashed away like waves on a rocky shore. They would never make it. Even if Zack was at full capacity and sprinted, they wouldn’t make it to Midgar now. He drew in a long, resigned breath. Okay….okayokayokayokay. So they wouldn’t make it. After all this time, they were at the end. What did that change? He glanced at Cloud’s seemingly lifeless, glowing eyes. If he wasn’t breathing in those shallow, rattling breathes, a person probably wouldn’t even know he was alive. If he could just find an outcropping along the edge of the cliffs, he could stash Cloud there and he might escape notice from the air. And he could hold off the rest…he would make sure of it.
He nodded to himself, solidifying the plan and adjusting the friend at his back. He pivoted his stride, running towards a cliff shelf that hung just a little further out than the rest. He found a crack in the rock face, and slowly lowered Cloud into it. He was so slight and emaciated that he nearly fit. The spot wouldn’t even provide shelter from the sun, but maybe with Cloud’s blond hair and dirt caked fatigues, he might escape notice. It was the best he could hope for right now.
He reached out to ruffle the blond head of spikes. His fingers lingered longer than he had time for.
It won’t be the last time…
don’t say good bye
don’t
He choked on the words he wanted to say as his throat suddenly tightened. His vision grew blurry, but he blinked it back, turning away. There was a time when Zack wore his heart on his sleeve, but it had long since been torn off.
Too dehydrated to cry anyway.
Now wasn’t the time… and probably there would never be a time again.
In the corner of his eye, he spotted Cloud’s shaky hand reaching out towards him. His breath caught in his chest at the sight. It had been so long since Cloud had any cognition, so why now?
Odin spare him, he wasn’t sure he could leave Cloud like that. But the rumble of trucks was growing dangerously close.
This was it--they had run out of time.
With a deeper breath he steeled himself, raising the Buster high. He touched it to his forehead and said a quiet platitude to the Planet. He couldn’t bother with honor anymore; Angeal had taken that notion with him to the grave.
Where was honor in the countless bodies they left in their path to freedom? Where was honor in the bars of ShinRa’s science subjects? Where was honor in SOLDIER, anymore?
He let the breath out, dismissing his thoughts and summoning the calm clarity of war. Lowering the Buster, he engaged the armor. Black metal plates slid out over his legs and arms; the helmet uncoiling from his back to cover his neck and the top half of his face. The helmet was pointed sharply at the front giving it a canine like shape. The back of his chest plate was lined with rows and rows of sharp spikes, resembling a dragon.
He could feel it come alive like a sentience in the back of his mind, whispering with dark red tendrils, promising death to all.
Zack shook in bottom of the mako tank as it drained. His body was convulsing from shock. The cold lab air was turning the drips of mako on his skin and hair into tiny crystals. He choked and coughed, gagging as he tried to rid his lungs of the glowing fluid.
He could hear Hojo in the other room, rambling and muttering as he paced. “Subject Z continues to show no progress on integration of either S or J Cells despite mako treatments to override genetic barriers… conclusion: failure. Subject C however shows great promise in uptake of both, perhaps from having a blank slate? Despite previous clone failures, we will continue forward with the process…”
Zack's vision swam and everything he looked at was outlined in a green halo. Mako poisoning. He remembered the treatments when he made it through each Class ranking, but none had compared to being practically drowned in it. He wondered who C was and how he was somehow handling this better, but the thought drifted away from him as if carried on a breeze; thinking was a slippery thing.
Glancing up, he realized some time must have passed, as the lab now had darkened to simulate “night”. He was back in his cell with barely anything but a bucket for waste and a poor excuse for a cot. In the corner sat the connected shoulder pauldrons, chest plate, and helmet of the darkest armor he had ever seen.
His breathing was even as he rounded the corner away from Cloud, watching as countless infantry poured out of the back of covered vehicles on a nearby cliff face. He wondered for a moment if Hojo was watching a live feed right now, sitting in some cozy office chair as he stood starving on this literal wasteland. There had been many paranoid nights awake where he was sure their escape had actually just been an orchestrated continuation of their experiment trials. A ”next stage of testing”. He tried not to think about the infantry in front of him, how many moons ago, it could have been Cloud standing there in one of those helmets with a gun in his hands.
Strategically, it was the worst spot for him, effectively backing him into an open corner. But it wouldn’t matter. It would keep them focused on Zack and not go looking for Cloud.
ShinRa was about to meet the monster they had so eagerly created.
The soldiers had moved into an untidy semi-circle around his position, holes and openings everywhere. He shouldn’t be surprised at how sloppy Heidegger was with his men’s training, but was willing to count his blessings while they were being given so openly to him.
He raised the Buster in two hands, crouching lower into a fighting stance. They weren’t bothering to call for his surrender, but he wasn’t surpised. The trail of blood and corpses he had to carve across Gaia probably spoke enough about his answer.
He doubted Hojo really didn’t care to continue toying with them…maybe he had just decided they didn’t need to be alive to continue to do so.
“Well I don’t have all goddamn day!” he growled out. He was getting impatient; the adrenaline and fatigue were pulling him in opposite directions, and it was giving him a headache.
The bullets came first, and he felt the armor activate. The helmets eye sockets glowed bright red as the bottled emotions in his chest came uncorked, and the darkness within stoked to life like gas on a fire. Rage consumed him and his movements were fueled by it with each swing. His footsteps left craters where he surged forward, dancing between the ranks as the Buster sang through the air.
The sword was so heavy… heavy with the guilt of death and loss, heavy with the promises and lies he was fed, heavy with pain and longing for freedom. That heaviness made the movements nearly effortless as he sliced through body after body. While Angeal had refused to use the Buster and treated it like a precious, religious artifact, Zack used every ounce of the huge blade to his advantage. It was less like he swung the sword, and more that he followed its lead, respecting it’s intent with each killing blow. The momentum of each swing led into the next, making it so the redirection of its trajectory was his only input. He flipped between the bodies and sprays of blood and carved a path through the army. Screams cut off in guttural grunts. The sound of bullets ricocheting off the back of his armor and sword filled his ears.
Zack could hear screaming from the other rooms sometimes in the night. Different pitches and tones, and most didn’t last or come back again. He assumed these were other survivors of Sephiroth’s rampage.
He tried not to dwell on the memories, but sometimes in the dark of the lab, he couldn’t get away from them. Cloud’s body dying and curled around Masamune that pierced his chest. The disgusting creature in the reactor, tubes from its body running into the mako pods, creating monsters where there used to be humans. Doubtlessly products of Hojo’s madness, like Sephiroth was.
If there was one solace that he could take from all this, it was that Cloud died having murdered the bastard, and didn’t have to suffer through this torment after.
------
One day, he had lost track of how many by this point, he was ordered to put on the armor and come to an underground arena.
At best it was really a natural cavern that they crudely bolts and strung bare bulbs to the ceiling of. Scientists in lab coats stood behind what looked to be thick impact proof glass, their clipboards ready to take note of whatever was to happen.
“Subject Z,” Hojo’s voice creaked over a loudspeaker that must have been buried in the rock somewhere, “Activate the armor.”
“What? How? It’s on, what else do you want from me?” Zack felt off from all the trips to the mako tube, but he had just enough of a migraine to still be bitter and snappish. He had trusted the professor with his own mako treatments. He had helped him countless times in the Tower with his research. Sure, he never understood it beyond ‘testing the power of SOLDIER’, but he had been happy to help. Hell, he had even defended the man from Genesis! And this was all the thanks he received. He never had been anything but a lab rat under a microscope to this man, and his own naivete had clouded that fact for years.
“Dear boy, the armor is controlled by your mind! You must give it instructions, it is bonded to the Lifestream in you. Call to it like you would give instructions to Materia.”
The professor must have lost his marbles. The armor didn’t feel like Materia, it had no prescense to it the way Materia did. There was nothing to ‘call’ to. But knowing he’d probably be getting a chocobo prod to the side again if he didn’t at least try, he mentally reached out.
Immediately he felt the armor come alive, and the dark tendrils of it’s influence snagged around his mind like a net. He let out a gasp, he couldn’t help it, and heard the soft clinks as the chest plate, shoudlers, and helmet lengthened out to cover his body. He felt enveloped by the darkness and like something dark was sitting in his head with him.
Before he could breathe or comprehend it, a Behemoth was ontop of him.
But through all the noise of battle was a steady static that grew slowly louder inside. It crept at the edges of his mind, dulling it like a tidalwave of grey, picking away at his slipping control. Zack recognized the armors influence once he started paying attention to it. He batted the feeling down, but barely contained it. It was lifelike in a will of its own, and activating the armor meant the battle on the outside raged just as hard within. The armor was a risk to use at all, but he knew the odds right now. There was no way he could take on a whole battalion in his starved and exhausted condition.
The armor energized him and pushed forward all that was needed for war; it strengthened his already enhanced movements from super SOLDIER to nearly god-like. But the cost was deep. It all lay on his ability to fight back against the crushing waves of grief and anger that he kept bottled inside. The darkness would drag it up to the surface, and the rage could consume him. He couldn’t risk losing his footing on his sense of self even slightly… it was a thin tightrope to walk. A war within his mind parallel to the one on this wasteland.
If a SOLDIER was unnatural, this armor was an abomination. If he lost that inner battle, nothing would be able to stop him. It would cost him everything.
Each swing of his sword felt like the world lay in the balance of its tang. Each swing pulling up a fresh horror and dread from his memories. Angeal, impaled by the Buster. Sephiroth, slicing into him like butter. Genesis’s mocking snear. They had been his friends, his mentors. Now what were they? Accomplices to ShinRa’s horrors? War criminals? Was Zack a war criminal too?
Flashes of Wutai, flashes of pain, flashes of the lab. They all swam and fused into eachother creating a cascade like the river Styx showing him every horrible event and death that he had shoved down inside.
Cloud, pinned, screaming till his lungs gave out. Submerged in mako until his lungs screamed and the black overtook him.
Helicopters crashed, bodies littered the ground, rockets were deflected and dodged. Each movement was smoothed by his unnatural speed, and each swing of his sword was like a sickening dance of death. He was center stage, and his dance partners were dropping like flies.
He could hardly hear the battle anymore, as red flooded his vision and the static grew louder.
“You see, boy, we created this armor through fusion of various materia and JENOVA genetic material for its morphing and bonding properties. It’s adaptable to its wearer, flexible in its form, and the initial intention was to turn regular infantry into SOLDIER strength and capability without having to do years of mako infusions and training. We could turn out an army of SOLDIERs within seconds! An incredible breakthrough, especially now that your program is likely to be shelved after the failure of the entire First Class.”
Hojo was rambling outside the cage, and Zack was on the floor half listening, but mostly blocking it out while shuddering with revulsion. One, from all the mako he was vomiting into a bucket they all pretended was a toilet, and two, at the very thought of infantry just being handed out that armor like it was a uniform. There was something truly evil and uncontrollable about it, like it had a bloodthirst. Zack would sometimes lose time while in the armor, coming to later, to the bodies of lab monsters strewn everywhere. He felt nauseous again at the memory. Whenever he was forced to wear the thing, it was like it was trying to control him, trying to push him over an edge he couldn’t see, and made it difficult to get traction to resist.
“The integration of S or J-cells seems to fail in most of the subjects I’ve tried, if they didn’t die outright they often became mindless husks. The same for the armor trials. You’re far from the first to wear it, but perhaps because of your higher level of SOLDIER enhancements, you’re the only one who has retained cognition afterwards. You’re a bit of an anomaly…however, we’re-“
Zack tried to block out Hojo’s droning. The man could gloat and speculate for hours if he thought you were listening. Zack was literally a ‘captive audience’.
But there was some ringing of truth to the professors words. The power the suit lent was undeniable. It multiplied everything he already had to give, pushing him past broken bones by fusing the bone together, aiding his already enhanced healing. Sometimes he felt unstoppable, and it scared him. Was this how Sephiroth felt? Unmatched? Was this what drove him to madness? This nagging of JENOVA to just let go, as it twisted your darkest fears and emotions against you in new horrible ways each time. He could see why others fell to it quickly. Maybe even why Sephiroth fell. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could last, knowing he had nothing left. No one would be looking for him. No one would come to break him out. Hell, he was pretty sure it was the Turks, his friends who brought him to the lab to begin with. ShinRa was a home of monsters. He could only hope he died before he became one, too.
“Are you listening, Subject Z? This is important! We’re starting the next phase of trials, boy!”
Zack had no idea what this meant, but dread filled his stomach. It could get worse?
“Subject C has succeeded where you have failed! S and J cells have integrated perfectly, and so we can move on to the next tests. When the wearer of the armor succumbs to madness, the combination of cells will have the power to influence the armor and wearer and override it. Don’t you see what this means? When Sephiroth returns, we will have an army waiting for him to control! The most perfectly obedient army for my most perfect creation!!”
Hojo had gone off the deep end again. Zack knew that Sephiroth had jumped off in the reactor. There was no coming back from that. There wasn’t even genetic material to retrieve if, gods forbid, Hojo had it in his mind to clone the man and start again. One had to look for the small miracles at that. Zack wasn’t much of a scientist, but he could guess these ‘S-cells’ weren’t enough to fully clone Sephiroth, or Hojo wouldn’t be messing around down here with him.
As if on some sort of que that Zack couldn’t perceive, the lab door opened. One guard carried the armor, swinging it roughly at Zack’s chest while he fumbled to catch it. The next guard carried something that stole his breath, stole the very life out of him as his stomach felt like it hit the floor.
Cloud.
Cloud was alive.
Cloud was barely alive.
He looked younger somehow, despite the years that had doubtlessly passed. He was small and crumpled and hollow looking. His eyes were glowing bright with enough mako to surely be mako poisoning. He didn’t seem aware at all of what was happening as the guard set him on the floor in the corner of the room.
“Phase three begins! We will continue until Subject C demonstrates capability of control. Subject Z, put on the armor, I’m sending in the beasts now.” Hojo’s voice crackled over the loud speaker. Somehow Zack had missed their exit, so focused on Cloud’s state.
Cloud! Cloud, his friend, was here suffering this whole time, and Zack had done nothing. Zack had been the one to drag him into Nibelheim, had been powerless against Sephiroth to stop the murder of his family and town. Zack had handed him the Buster and charged him with an impossible task…to finish the job. This was all his fault…and he was going to make it right.
Zack scrambled to put the armor on as fast as possible. He felt the cool metal pressing against his skin as the heat rolled off his body. The guilt washed away to grim certainty and determination. They were getting out of there…today…now. They were getting out even if it killed every single person in the area.
The armor seemed to sing in response.
Zack didn’t notice when he had succumbed to the armor’s thrall.
He just simply seemed to stop thinking about the pain of his memories anymore. It was like letting go of your lifeline when the ocean current was sucking you down and under. It wasn’t hard, quite the opposite, it was easier than breathing. It felt right, somehow. A soothing dark purr was echoing through his mind; it felt like the hum of a million hornets. It revolted him and entranced him at the same time.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed like this.
Eventually he started to notice a pinprick of light in the endless darkness. He swam to it, in his mental prison, reaching out to it. Something inside him screamed, and shifted, and roared back. But the light only grew bigger.
“Zack”
Was he imagining it? The light was pulsing the word like a beacon.
“Zack….zackzackzackzackzack…”
That was his name, wasn’t it? When had he forgotten it?
“Zack…come back…”
He reached for the light, and it reached back. The darkness screeched and tried to drag him backwards, but it was too late. The light touched his fingertips and slowly spread up his hand and arm, pulling him back into his own body inch by inch.
The first thing he noticed was the pain. Blood was leaking through the chest plate of his armor, dripping into a pool at his feet. He was pretty sure his shoulder was dislocated, and his opposite femur broken. He mentally forced the armor to detract, feeling it rip its support spikes out of his leg as it collapsed beneath him. It had set the bone, which would have to be good enough for now. The shoulder he would have to fix himself, after delicately removing his arm from the shoulder pauldron.
He lifted his head up as the helmet slid back. His eyes focused on the ground around him. Hundreds of bodies were strewn across the desert landscape. A pair of crash-landed helicopters still crackled with fire, a bit too close for comfort with all the explosives they were carrying.
Gasping, he grabbed at his chest with his good arm, trying to force the rapidly leaking wound to close. He was exhausted, famished, so his SOLDIER healing had slowed. A cough rasped out as he looked up again, searching for Cloud. He had done it, for the moment. They needed to move on before reinforcements arrived to finish the job. He tested his leg shakily, but still couldn’t put weight on it. Maybe if Cloud was still coming back to himself, they could still make it to Midgar. Doubtful, but he had to hope. After all of this, he couldn’t stomach failure now.
Slowly, so slowly, he made his way back towards the outcropping. He had known the feel of that light, known the sound of that voice. Though he hadn’t heard it in what felt like an eternity, he would recognize it even in the darkest of his nightmares. Cloud had pulled him out of the darkness, just in time before the armor let him bleed out. He spotted the tuft of blond hair, and as his eyes met Cloud’s that were a bright mako blue, he let out a shuddering sigh before collapsing. Cloud’s movements were slow and seemed just as strenuous to him as Zack’s had been, but he made it to Zack’s side with urgency and alarm in his eyes.
“Hey buddy,” Zack rasped, clutching at the wound in his chest. It must have collapsed a lung, he felt like he could hardly get a breath in. “We did it. We got ‘em all.” Despite himself, his voice sounded flat. He reached up to Cloud’s face, catching his eyes as they finished their search over Zack’s wounds. “Are you finally back with me?”
“…Zack…” Cloud’s words were drawn out like they were pulled from the depths of the ocean. The clarity in his friend’s eyes was already wavering. Zack wanted to curse. He needed Cloud here.
“That’s right” Zack sighed, “Now, let’s go, Cloud. They’re waiting for us in Midgar. Think you can give me a hand? I’m not sure I can make it the rest of the way myself.”
“Waiting?...” Cloud’s voice sounded dreamy, like he was already far away again. Probably swimming in the Lifestream, for all the mako Hojo had pumped him with.
Zack reached out again, running out of energy to talk. Cloud stared at the hand for a long moment, before slowly reaching back. They grasped each other’s forearms and gradually both stood. Zack wrapped his good arm around Cloud’s shoulders, and for a moment they just stayed there, holding each other through the dizziness and weakness, through the blood loss and muscle atrophy.
When they did move, each step felt like it took every ounce of energy Zack had. He focused on each movement, dragging his injured leg and panting from the effort. His thoughts were distant and swimming, but he led them both on to the Sector Seven gates. It might take them all night, but by gods, Zack was going to make it through.
He was going to make it to Midgar...
And then he was going to give ShinRa hell with a monster of their own making.