Big Boss Fight

Cloud and Tifa emerged onto the roof of the stairwell, the gigantic plate looming just above them. There they saw Barret, running around, shooting from his machine gun arm, a one man army unto himself. "I ain’t done with you yet! You hear me!?" he cried out, taking out two more troopers. "Think you can come up in here—do what you want—and we're gonna take it!?"

"Daddy!" Tifa cried out.

"Tifa!? Get your bitch ass behind cover! Now! Chopper's gonna chew you up! I ain't done with you yet!" he providing covering fire as the two scampered over to Barret's position near the thick cylinders holding the plate up.

The command copter hovered over the open area of the rooftop, and Reno hopped down. He sneered at the heroes.

"Time for a rematch, huh… Rude!" Rude tossed Reno his electrified baton, and then veered off to reposition itself. "It's nothing personal, bitch!"

Reno leapt at Cloud, trying to disable him with the electrified baton. Cloud barely blocked the blow with his sword, sending off a bright shower of sparks, then brought his sword up for a counterattack, which Reno missed through an agile leap backwards. Meanwhile, Rude came in for an attack run, abating it only upon the withering fire from Barret. Rude then came around again, and this time aimed for Cloud. Cloud scampered behind the cylinders, and Reno used that opening to his advantage, running towards the computer panel that controlled the plate.

"Sorry, losers! Gotta play for keeps today. No time to dick around," Reno said, smiling malevolently as he started to input commands into the keyboard. A robotic voice suddenly began to intone a dire message.

"Plate separation authorized. Awaiting confirmation. Plate separation authorized. Awaiting confirmation."

"Yeah, yeah, coming right up," he growled. Cloud raced over to his position, raising the Buster sword to amputate Reno's arm, but he barely blocked the blow with his prod, rolling out of the way. Barret fired more shots at Rude, causing him to descend, giving Barret and Tifa the time to run over to Cloud.

"You ain't got shit on us," Barret growled.

"Careful, he's quick," Cloud warned. But the three of them together were too much for Reno, and soon he was bleeding from multiple areas, though he was too quick to give more than superficial wounds too.

"Stubborn little shitbirds, ain'tcha?" he hissed, rubbing his aching legs. Behind him, Rude's copter reappeared.

"Rude! No!" Reno cried. He reached down, picking Rude's glasses off the ground, mourning the man. But just then, his partner put a hand on his shoulder. Reno smiled suddenly, giving Rude the glasses.

"Clipped your wings, huh?" Reno said snidely.

"I was planning to join you anyway," Rude responded.

"Any landing ya can walk away from… C'mon! Let's teach 'em the Turks two-step!"

The battle was difficult, leaving both sides weary and injured. Just when they thought they'd won the battle, however, they'd lost the war. Rude used a momentary distraction to rush the computer panel, inputting the final code sequence. Cloud rushed after him ... only to run into a wall of the phantoms. Fuck ... they wanted the sector to be destroyed?

"Plate separation initiated. Five minute countdown commencing. Evaacuate immediately. Plate separation initiated."

Rude ran to Reno, picking up his badly injured partner and running to another copter to exfil. And the three heroes were left to face catastrophe together.