The Bombing of Mako Reactor 1

The mako core was a giant, cavernous room. Barret pounded his chest.

"Goddamn ... I can practically taste the mako in here ... Hurry it up! My heart's pounding like a jackhammer!"

Jessie stayed towards the top of the room, as Barret and Cloud descended the stairwells and ladders to the belly of the beast. Barret panted.

"You think, if we fell in, we'd sink right down to the bottom? To the planet's core?" he asked, almost sounding scared.

"No, the pump would suck us back up," Cloud said, rolling his eyes as he descended the ladder.

Finally, they reached the bottom floor of the reactor. Barret crossed his arms. Cloud sighed, feeling another power play coming on.

"All right. Let's see if little Stamp really can bite the hand that feeds ... go on. Do the honors. Prove to me you're the man Tifa says you are. That you're one of us."

"Never said I was. Just here for the paycheck," Cloud said, adding 'and pussy' under his breath. He took the bomb, approaching the center of the core, when a headache overwhelmed it. What was it he was seeing?

"What's wrong?" Barret asked suspiciously.

"I'm fine. What about the timer?"

"Your call, merc." Cloud set it to thirty minutes.

"I see you are a pussy. I thought that the moment I laid eyes on you."

"This is a big facility," Cloud responded. "And that isn't a game."

At that moment, the defender of the facility leapt up onto the platform. Cloud had only heard of these things back in SOLDIER. Sentinel Scorpions.

"You double - crossing," Barret said, turning his gun on Cloud.

"Behind the debris!" Cloud shouted. He and Barret ran, avoiding a laser strike. "It's got reinforced armor plating, but the internals can be overloaded. Remember the sweeper?"

"You need a distraction?" Barret said warily.

"Get it to raise its tail at you. Overload on it. Then I'll hit it with this," Cloud said, tapping on the fully mastered Lightning materia he swiped.

"You been holding out, merc," Barret growled. But he leapt onto the platform, shooting at the Scorpion. It paused looking for the merc, training on Barret. He was more elusive than he looked, and finally it happened. It lifted it's tail for a precision, deadly strike. And behind it, Cloud cast a fully charged Lightning spell, causing to to go fully haywire. Unfortunately for Cloud and Barret, the laser slashed at the reactor room in its **** throes, before it fell into the roiling mako below.

Barret and Cloud immediately started climbing the crumbling stairways and ladders. He saw Jessie, pinned under a piece of metal.

"You okay?" Cloud asked.

"Do I look okay?" Jessie said, trying to free her foot. Cloud reached down, helping her. "My hero!"

The three fled upwards, back to the elevator, and then reuniting with Biggs and Wedge as the three fled towards the topside. This explosion would be small, Cloud had been told. They should be fine.