Final Fantasy 7: The Novel Ch. 01

Cloud backed quickly away from the core and looked around quickly. Barret was pointing his gun around blindly.

"I think it's time to go!" Cloud shouted over the screaming siren.

They turned toward the elevator and froze. The wall to the left slid apart and a huge red robot emerged into the wide open room. The robot was like a giant scorpion with a humanoid upper body. It walked on eight legs and had a long stinger-like tail and the upper body was perpendicular to the actual body. Instead of arms, there were two huge assault rifles. The huge machine moved in front of the elevator effectively blocking off the escape.

Cloud darted forward with his sword swing before the machine scorpion could get a lock on him. Cloud reacted instinctively, knowing that underneath the robot would be the safest spot for attack as its upper body could not bend over and the tail would never get to him under the body.

Barret chose another plan of attack and simply stood his ground, firing at the robot as fast as the gun on his arm would allow. The energy bullets exploded on the robot harmlessly. The great machine never even flinched.

The scorpion aimed both guns at Barret since Cloud had become an unattainable target. The scorpion fired at Barret. Barret dove out of the way as the energy bullets tore up the catwalk where he had been sending cement and brick pieces into the air.

Cloud's blade had no effect on the armor of the machine. Try as he might, his blade bounced off the armor leaving hardly a scratch. Cloud looked for some kind of weak spot under the machine but found nothing that could provide any sort of damage. Shinra had been getting better at building robots of death.

Suddenly the robot's tail shot in from behind Cloud and knocked his out from under the scorpion. Cloud rolled to his feet and dove as bullets splattered the ground behind him.

Barret was firing at the robot's guns trying to disrupt its aim. None of Barret standard attacks were doing anything to the giant machine so he decided to switch to his bigger attacks. He braced himself on the floor and took careful aim. He let the gun build up power for a large energy blast against the robot. The air in front of the barrel began to swim like the air around it was getting hot. Soon an orange ball of energy began to grow in front of the barrel. Slowly the ball got bigger and bigger until he was ready to fire it.

Cloud had run around away from Barret, with the machine following his every move. Now the scorpion faced away from Barret and there was nothing Barret could shoot at. Cloud stopped on the opposite end of the room and braced to attack. The scorpion pointed both of its guns at him and prepared to fire. Cloud glanced at Barret and saw he was nearly ready to launch a big blast against the robot.

Then the scorpion paused and its head rotated 180 degrees and looked directly at Barret. Somehow the machine had sensed that build-up of energy and now it changed its focus. Barret pointed and was going to fire the blast even though his shot was still not clear.

The scorpion didn't give Barret the chance, its tail shot out like a whip and slammed into Barret's side. The impact broke Barret's concentration and the shot fired anyway only going way off the mark and hitting the pipes above with a thunderous explosion. Pipes broke and some fell to the ground bouncing with loud crashes and others just hung by a thread.

Barret slammed into the far wall opposite of where the robot emerged, the wind knocked from him. The scorpion stomped forward and Cloud watched as it began to prepare a similar attack to what Barret had planned to do. It stood mere feet from Barret and Barret was still fighting to get to his feet.

Cloud flipped his sword down and opened a small flap on the hilt of the blade. Inside was a small compartment with two orbs of magic, lightning and fire. Lightning was good, he could use lightning and he smiled at his choice of what orbs to bring this time around. He closed the flap of his sword and turned the blade upright. He held it battle-ready in his hands as he began to focus on the magic of the orbs.

Barret's knees trembled beneath him as he finally stood. He look up at the robot ready to blast him away. He had to smile to himself. After all the work he put into this team, he was going to die on their first mission. What a jip.

The robot tensed up as it reached maximum power for the blasts. Barret braced himself as best he could for the coming doom.

There was a loud crack and a flash of lightning slammed into the side of the scorpion. The robot flew across the room and crashed into the wall. There it lay still with only the head turned about in a spasmic motion. The bright red armor of its side was torn open and burnt.

Barret looked at Cloud who held his sword still pointed at the machine. The blade gleamed with electricity and small bits of lightning ran along the blade.

Barret trotted over to Cloud. "You could have told me you had Materia."

"You didn't need to know." Cloud said as he put his sword away.

Barret started to say something but the elevator door opened and Jessie stood in the doorway.

"Three minutes guys!" She screamed.

"Time to go" Barret said.

Together Cloud and Barret ran to the elevator almost in step. Jessie had the elevator moving before the doors finished closing. They rode up to the main floor and Barret didn't wait for the door to open, he blew them open and they were running out of the reactor. Biggs met them at the door he too took off with the group. Wedge was jumping and waving his hands and screaming for them to hurry.

"GO!" Barret shouted.

Wedge ran into the hall then took off down a ways before waiting. Cloud was last out of the reactor with Jessie just in front of him. Jessie tripped and Cloud grabbed her by the waist. AVALANCHE reached Wedge mere seconds before the explosion ripped through the reactor and the shock wave was felt throughout Midgar.