FIC Responsive Part 15
Aug. 21st, 2006 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jessara40k_ljResponsive Part 15
Final Fantasy VII fic, pre-game, mostly, with a post-AC epilogue.
CloudxSephiroth - and yes that does mean Cloud is topping.
Rating R.
Apparently their base of operations was to be a small mountain village, small enough that there wasn’t even an inn large enough for them all, or any sort of ShinRa accommodations available. There was a small research lab but Cloud was honestly surprised there was enough here for ShinRa to think it was worth sending anyone out to deal with the rebels - unless it was in the name of keeping their army busy and nipping trouble in the bud. It didn’t really matter why they were assigned here though and he focused on helping unload the helicopter. Cloud wasn’t sure exactly what was in all of the crates, but it wasn’t important, what was important was getting everything off the helicopter so it could leave. It didn’t take long for everything to be unloaded, leaving the crates spread out all over the field they’d landed on and the backpacks and bedspreads all piled together.
“Team alpha, set up the tents and prepare the bedding. Team beta, go hunting and bring back firewood. Team gamma, dig the latrines, fire pits and prepare the laundry area.” They acknowledged the captain’s orders, and Cloud assumed that the SOLDIERs were all pulling guard duty while the regulars set up, but he didn’t say anything about it in case he was wrong, just gathering silently with the rest of his team.
“Right, we go out in pairs, one guarding while the other cuts. Small branches, even twigs, preferably deadfall, if you have to cut live wood we’ll need to leave it to dry. Bring back as much firewood as you can reasonably carry then go out again. You’ll be issued one axe and one gun between a pair, if you get a chance at meat take it, but don’t bother gutting the body or anything. Strife, Dylan, you’re paired together, the axes are in that crate, and the guns and ammo are in the two beside it.” Cloud saluted and walked away with Dylan.
“What sort of aim do you have? Mine’s pretty crap, so if you’re any good with a gun you take it.”
“Then you can have the axe.” Dylan had a smile on his face, telling Cloud that he’d just let himself in for the majority of the work, but he didn’t see that he really had much choice.
“Why were there bales of straw waiting here anyway?” Cloud looked for the best of the three axes as he asked the question, and he was answered by one of the four privates who’d accompanied them from a line company.
“To make up your beds, the straw gets made into piles on top of your groundsheet and your bedroll’s laid on top of that.”
“Ah, thanks.” Cloud glanced at Dylan as he stood, checking that he’d finished collecting his gun and ammo. “I grew up in mountains like this, so I can probably guess the best places to look for deadfall.”
“You lead then.”
They didn’t spot any animals on their first trip to collect firewood, but Cloud did find evidence of deer visiting the copse he’d found to get the wood from, and he insisted on trying to track them on the second trip. He gave Dylan one chance to shoot one of the herd they’d managed to find, and when he only managed to wound one deer, and not even fatally Cloud used an Ice2 to trap three of the fleeing deer. Dylan knew how to lash together a rough travois for them to drag the deer back on and Cloud took the first deer back while Dylan made a second travois, explaining that they had three deer to bring in at the camp.
The camp was almost finished being set up by the time they got the last deer back and Cloud asked the outside private who would dress them once they’d defrosted to keep the hides for him, since Dylan had explained that they’d been brought along as effectively servants. Sephiroth had mentioned that it was SOP to send a scout before a group raid on a suspected enemy base, and that included rebels.
“Can you figure a way to keep a couple of them frozen? Then we can let one defrost every two or three days.”
“Find me somewhere I can leave them then.” Cloud casually brushed his hand over the other man’s siphoning off some of his energy reserve, not even enough to cast a first level spell but almost three quarters of his power core. The ‘servants’ had already set up a metal frame raised about six feet from the ground with a ladder leading up to it and a pulley and sling to lift anything too heavy and they raised two of the deer up there, joining a pile of dressed rabbits and pigeons already set on the frame. He took energy from each of the servants as he got the chance and they offered to give him the other hides since the men who’d killed the rabbits didn’t seem to want them if he froze those as well.
“Sure, just put them together in the amount you’d need for a day’s meal first though.” He was probably overusing the spells, but he’d got enough energy from the servants to do almost three Ice spells, and he’d recovered nearly half the energy he’d used on the Ice2 while they were bringing the deer back. And it only took four Ice spells to freeze all the meat in separate blocks of ice. He half expected Dylan to be impatient with the wait, but he’d spent the time breaking up the travois they’d used for the wood and then they made one more trip out for more wood before Captain Morgan called the camp to order and gave out duty assignments.
Two teams would be sent on scouting missions every day, working on a two days on two days ‘off’ arrangement, while the base team would be on every day. Cloud hadn’t expected to be assigned one of the regulars from team alpha, Private Newton, and ordered to maintain guard on the operations base, and his surprise must have shown. Newton laughed at him, not quite cruelly, but he certainly found Cloud’s faint disappointment amusing.
“You can expect more of this when you get officially named our medic. We don’t let medics go on routine patrols, or scouting missions and you generally get the ‘safest’ position in any real fight.”
“Bahamut’s Balls. How am I supposed to get the experience to be a SOLDIER then? I mean I’m just under two months out of cadet training and this is our first real mission.”
“The SOLDIER Entrance Exams aren’t that affected by how much experience you’ve had, not really. But I don’t think there’s ever been a trooper trained to be a medic straight from the cadet classes before.”
“Zack doesn’t think there has either.” Cloud ignored Newton’s surprise and began unfastening his dagger, still with the Ice materia set in the slot, as he walked over to Dylan. For the scouting missions each team had been split into two groups, two regulars unequipped with materia working with each SOLDIER and the remaining two privates working with the NCOs. Lieutenant Rook had taken the trooper from his team Cloud had planned on giving a materia to if the NCOs weren’t carrying materia themselves for his patrol, but Dylan would be working under Corporal Sands.
“Dylan, here. You can use this until I actually get a chance to fight.” He’d only be good for one spell, but it would help.
“Thank you Strife.” Cloud could see that he wanted to ask where he’d got the materia, but he had the grace not to actually do it, since Cloud was being very generous in sharing his personal equipment. “I’ll give it back to you at the end of each scouting trip.”
“You’re welcome. And remember to ask me for it before you go out.” He fully intended to do what he should have done earlier, and buy an unlevelled combat materia as soon as he could, probably when he returned to Midgar, if he couldn’t find one locally, to start maturing it himself. He knew there was no way he could buy anything worthwhile here and apparently none of the rebels had materia, but there might be a cave with ‘wild’ materia, if he was lucky. And if he got a chance to go looking for one, which it didn’t look like he would.
“Strife, all you two need to do is be available and to record where and when we encounter the rebels. Do whatever else you want, just don’t leave camp.”
“Yes sir.” That bothered him, but he’d obey orders, no matter how stupid they seemed to him.
“You’re staying here to make sure one person knows everything we found out about where the rebels might be, what attack routes they use and that sort of thing. You’ll be expected to brief the captain at least once a week, probably more often, and hopefully we’ll be able to work out where the rebel base is from that.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Cloud knew that Lieutenant Huff had been under no obligation to tell him that, and he appreciated it, even if he didn’t quite get why he’d been elected as Intel officer.
“I’ll show you where the maps are in about two hours.” The lieutenant was scowling unhappily ay the camp, although Cloud couldn’t see what was wrong with it. He dismissed the question and went over to collect his hides, he knew how to do a very rough tan on them, and that was all he needed to do for what he planned. The first part was cleaning the hides, and for that he found where the stream they were using as a water source left the camp area and pinned the hides on the bottom of the streambed, fur side down. He didn’t think the hides would need much in the way of preserving, and hopefully he’d be able to find what he needed for that when the time came.
Then he returned to the main part of the camp, looking over how it was set up for future reference. Six tents, four the same size and arranged in almost a semi-circle, one larger tent at the center-point of the semi-circle and a smaller tent closer to the laundry area and latrines. He guessed that the largest tent would be the command centre and looked inside, then when he saw the map laid out on the table he began to study that instead.
o0()0o
It had taken almost four weeks, but Cloud was pretty certain he’d worked out where the rebel base was, or at least he’d narrowed it down to a fairly small region, now he just had to convince Captain Morgan about that. Unfortunately his location of the base was more a result of intuition, and noting where his fellows were not encountering rebels than of any logic, but he’d prepared a presentation on why he thought the base was in that area, and written a report arguing the same thing. Hopefully one of those would be enough to get through to him, if not he’d have to resign himself to being stuck here for even longer - that was one of the factors he thought would work in his favour as he made his arguments, Captain Morgan seemed to be getting just a little impatient himself.
“Strife, report to the captain in the SOLDIER tent.” Corporal Sands sounded a bit frustrated, not that Cloud could blame him, he thought the mission had been a bit more boring for him and for Newton since they had to stay inside the camp, but more tiring and difficult for everyone else. The scouting missions went out on a different route every time, and the timing of the routes varied almost randomly, not enough to short anyone on sleep, but enough to mess up their ability to establish a regular sleeping pattern. And they didn’t even really have anything to show for it, except for occasionally a small fight with a few rebels, or sometimes catching sight of the rebels moving in the distance. At least Cloud usually had something new to add to the map and file he’d been developing of rebel contacts, or something else he could put in his report for the captain.
“Yes corporal, I’ll do that.” He hesitated for a moment about whether or not he should bring the presentation he’d prepared, but decided on reporting as soon as possible instead since he’d put everything he’d need for the presentation away in a box in the command tent, the tent where all the maps were stored.
“Private Strife reporting as ordered sir.” They were in the field, so saluting was forbidden as constituting a sniper check, even if they were in the base camp at the moment.
“You believe you’ve identified where the rebel base is, and you argue for that quite convincingly. But we don’t have any hard evidence, do you have any suggestions on how to get that evidence?”
“A scouting expedition to locate the cave they have to be living in. And I believe I’m best suited to do that.”
“Why?”
“I’m a mountain boy, and I spent most of my childhood running around terrain just like this.” To get away from the children who tried their best to make his life hell. “I checked, and no one else in the squad has any training or any personal experience in an area like this. That means I’m probably the most likely to spot any hidden or had to find caves or passes, I’m going to be the best at using this terrain to hide, and I can probably move the most easily. I’m the youngest, and I think I can disguise myself well enough to pass for a local, an additional layer of defence.” His mother had always bought or made clothes for him that were just a little too big, so that he’d be able to wear them for longer, especially since he usually wore his clothes until they either wore out or didn’t fit anymore. And since she’d insisted on sending him off with the newest clothes he had, including an almost brand new ‘formal’ outfit, the set of his oldest clothes he’d brought with him was just big enough for him to wear, despite the muscle he’d put on. “I haven’t had a chance to familiarise myself with the terrain from the ground, but I probably know the maps better than anyone here including you sir. Also I can cast more spells than anyone else in the squad, about twice as many in fact, and I’ve been doing some supplemental training that will let me move faster while I’m equipped with materia than anyone else in the squad.”
“And what about back up?” It was SOP to send scouts in pairs if at all possible, and Cloud knew it had to go against the grain for Captain Morgan to consider sending their only ‘medic’ on a solo scouting mission, but...
“I don’t think there’s anyone else with enough experience in mountains not to slow me down if I have to run for it sir, and more people make it more likely we’ll be detected.”
“Get your sergeant. If he confirms what you’re saying then you have a go as soon as the last scouting mission comes in.” All of team gamma were still out scouting since they’d began to stagger the times the groups set off.
“Yes sir. I’ll start preparing once I give him the message then.”
“Get some rest first. They’re not due in for almost four hours, I’ll send someone to wake you in three.”
“Yes sir.” Cloud found Sergeant Redson, then went to his tent and curled up on his ‘bed’, getting some sleep - he’d been told that an important part of being in the army was learning to sleep any time you got the chance, and Sephiroth had taught him a sort of self-hypnosis to help with that. When Dylan came in to wake him up and tell him he had a go he immediately started dressing. Issue boots wouldn’t work very well in the area mountains, so he’d used the furs and hide he’d been collecting to make a field expedient, enough to keep his feet warm, and just hoped he still had thick enough calluses on his feet to make the protection part unnecessary. Finally once he was fully dressed he knelt and rubbed a bit of dirt into his hair and skin.
Then he reported to the captain, in case there was anything new he should know, after all he did still have some time left.
“What are you equipped with, and how are you equipping your materia?”
“I’ve got these bracers.” Cloud showed them to the captain as he spoke. “And I equipped an Ice and a Restore in one.”
“Here, I can lend you a Mystify and an All for your other bracer. They’re both still first level, but it’ll probably help you get away in an emergency. That is if you can handle the extra materia?”
“Thank you sir, I can manage a linked green and blue pair, but I’m aiming not to need that.” Cloud smiled as he fitted the two materia into the linked slots on his bracer.
“Hope for success, but plan for failure private.”
“Yes sir!” Cloud saluted and waited for the captain to dismiss him before going to wait where he could watch the most likely approaches to the camp. As soon as he saw that all of team gamma had returned he was off, running at a steady pace while he could, while the ground was mostly clear and level.
When he reached the area he suspected contained the rebel base he slowed down, and began trying to hide his presence, using the tricks he’d learned as a child. He couldn’t quite believe his luck when he saw a piece of cloth trapped on a thorny bush, leaves all dead, but it was a pointer, even if it was bait for a trap the very fact that the rebels had felt the need for a trap here indicated their presence. But he couldn’t detect any signs that the cloth was the result of anything but carelessness, and it was tiny and a brown that almost matched the bark, if it was bait it was so subtle that only the best would detect it - Cloud knew he wasn’t that good, but he’d been lucky.
Something about the shadows under one cliff said it was something he needed to look at, Cloud couldn’t have said why, but they seemed deeper than they should be, and darker too. There was an overhang, but that wasn’t reason enough for the shadows to be so dark, and there seemed to be a subtly darker area, although that could be his imagination. He’d have to be even more careful now, but he moved into the shadow, taking every bit of cover he could use not to be seen, and staying as close to the cliff as he could. He found a cave entrance...no, more than a cave entrance, there were signs of some fairly recent shaping going on further in when he risked turning his torch on, shielding the light and switching it off almost immediately. And it was pretty deep, branching at one point, with a wall built to hold a door just a few feet down the right hand tunnel.
That was probably enough to give the captain a reason to raid the place, and Cloud wasnot going to risk drawing attention by trying to open a closed, and probably locked door. Of course if this was the only exit the rebels had been pretty stupid, but that was something they could find out easily enough from other sources. He knew that they had maps of cave systems, the fact that there was a large cave system in this area had been one of the factors he’d used to argue it was worth a solo scout. But their maps hadn’t been able to give them good enough information to spot the cave entrance without any prior mountain experience - as evidenced by the fact that he knew at least two of the scouting missions had passed the entrance without noticing anything.
When he reported back Captain Morgan seemed a little surprised, but he accepted Cloud’s assessment of the cave system he’d found and called for the map of the cave system in question.
“The system might have changed since these maps were made, they’re almost ten years old, but I can see only one alternate exit from the system emerging from that branching other than the one you found, can you see any more?”
“No sir, but I can see...two places where they might have dug out fresh entrances or exits.”
“Go check them out then, and take Lieutenant Rook and Sergeant Redson to see the entrance you already found at the same time.”
“Yes sir!” Cloud changed into his duty uniform first, to enhance the illusion that this was a normal patrol, then went to find them.
o0()0o
The rebels hadn’t bothered to dig extra exits, not from the two easiest places anyway, and that lowered Cloud’s opinion of them quite a bit - the rock wasn’t that hard to work, he was certain of that. Of course they might have decided to dig exits in places that wouldn’t be suspected, but Cloud wasn’t sure he believed that was a serious possibility, even though he had mentioned it to the captain. Captain Morgan agreed with his assessment of how likely it was as well, and even if it had been more likely it would be almost impossible for them to work out where the new exits were, so there was no point in worrying about it.
Lieutenant Huff had brought an Earth materia - apparently against orders, but the captain had been glad of it anyway, so he was assigned to make the other exit unusable, after Cloud had taken him out on a second ‘routine scouting mission’ that passed by the exit.
“We’ll start the attack at 0830 hours, so seal the exit no earlier than 0815 and no later than 0845 then come and join us.”
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant looked resigned, but there was a hint of panic underneath as the captain briefed them, and Cloud decided to find him afterwards so he could find out what he was worried about.
“Strife, you choose one private to stay with you at the entrance to the cave, you’re there to keep any of the rebels who get by us from leaving. I recommend you disburse the Potions to your squad mates prior to the attack, but we’ll still need to know where you are in case your skills as a medic are needed.”
“Yes sir. I’ll take Private Dylan. And I can give two Potions to every Regular.” He’d been able to use his Restore for any injuries incurred so far. If the captain ordered him to distribute the remaining six Potions to the SOLDIERs he would, but he wouldn’t like the idea, since Cloud would far rather have a reserve in case he needed it. He just nodded, no sign of judgement or objection to Cloud’s plan. Cloud listened as the captain explained how they were going to deal with the rebels, and how they’d split up if they needed to, and went up to Lieutenant Huff when they were dismissed.
“What is it Strife?” He looked stressed, and Cloud was pretty sure he knew why.
“I’m good with materia sir, and you seemed a bit worried about your assignment.”
“You saw the second exit, how am I going to block it with a Quake?” The secondary exit emerged on a comparatively gentle slope, and there wasn’t any loose rock or a convenient overhang around, so the only way to be certain it was blocked would probably get Huff trapped himself.
“You could try a layered approach sir. Use an Ice materia to basically create a sheet of ice blocking the tunnel partway in, pull back and use the Earth materia to drop the entrance, as much as you can, and then use Ice again to bind the rocks together.”
“Thank you. I hadn’t thought of using an Ice spell like that.” Cloud mightn’t have either if it wasn’t for how well he’d managed to store the meat in such large lumps of ice, and that had been inspired by when he’d shaved Sephiroth.
“I guess you don’t check up on the ‘larder’ personally sir. It’s cold enough that it takes a while for ice to melt once you get it frozen.”
“Checking on the day to day stuff’s an NCO’s job, SOLDIERs are too valuable to end up doing supply or Intel shit.”
“Yes sir. I should go and distribute the Potions now, rather than have to rush tomorrow.”
“Go then.” Cloud turned and picked up a box containing ten Potions from the team beta tent and delivered it to Corporal Hende so he could hand the Potions out to his team. Then he pulled an extra two Potions out of a second box before picking up the third and delivering those Potions to the sergeant for team alpha. He’d check that they’d been distributed properly later, for now he could hand out the Potions for his team himself and pack the remaining eight to carry. He’d managed to avoid using any of his Ethers either, so those went into the belt storage compartments too, ready for the next day and then he tried to get some sleep like the rest of the team.
Cloud was looking forward to this, even if he was meant to stay in reserve it would be the first chance he really had to put any of the skills he’d been developing to use. He dressed quickly enough, checking that he had all his Potions and Ethers in case he needed them, then checked that he had all his materia easily available, and only then did he check that his sword was easy to carry and draw. The rest of the squad were making the same preparations, all in the tent with him, even though it might have made more sense to move out of the tent for the final checks, and they did when Corporal Sands told them to, for a final pre-battle inspection.
He took extra time with Cloud, not that he blamed the corporal, since he was the new guy and he brought up the one thing Cloud hadn’t thought of checking himself.
“Do you have your PHS easily available?”
“Yes corporal.” Cloud pulled his PHS from where he’d clipped it to his belt automatically, almost offering it to the NCO.
“Does it have everyone’s contact details recorded?” There was a net dedicated to the squad itself, and that used two digit numbers to contact everyone, the three SOLDIERs had been added to that net as 81 for Captain Morgan (1 indicating a commander), 82 and 83. Cloud was 26 for the moment, but if he became the medic that would change to 02, leaving 1x, 2x and 3x to designate teams alpha to gamma. He quickly checked through the list of numbers, making sure that everyone was listed at least, even if it would have been a very bad idea to test using it to contact everyone.
“Yes corporal.”
“Good.” Apparently that was the last thing he needed to check, because he led the team towards where the servants were preparing a surprisingly large breakfast. But Cloud found himself eating more of it than he’d expected, and he noticed that a lot of his squad mates were eating heavily too.
Then they set off, with Lieutenant Huff peeling off on his own mission when their paths diverged. Cloud just hoped he’d learned the area well enough to find the entrance he was supposed to block, Cloud knew mountains in general well enough to find it from a map, but Lieutenant Huff hadn’t been doing too well in the mountains. But there was nothing he could do about that, Cloud couldn’t afford to offer to go with him, and the lieutenant had been assigned the two regulars he’d been taking on the scouting missions with him to accompany him on his task.
Cloud had to hang back with Dylan to let the rest of the squad get into the cave system first, Captain Morgan leading, and presumably breaking down the door, but eventually they were the only two people left outside the broken door.
“What would you recommend, keeping guard from here, or from just inside the door?” Cloud didn’t think it would make any real difference, but if it would he wanted to know.
“Here, the door will limit the rebels to passing through here single file, and they won’t be in as good a position to fight as they would if we moved through to actually enter their base.”
“Thanks.” They didn’t need to say anything else, and even though Cloud felt a bit guilty about keeping his Ice when he wasn’t expecting to have to fight today, if he was called forward to heal someone he’d need it to leave a barrier behind them, so the rebels couldn’t escape while he wasn’t there to stop them.
Lieutenant Huff didn’t stop to speak to them when he got back from blocking the alternative exit, Cloud knew that he’d been well briefed on where he needed to go, they’d planned out exactly how they would search through the cave system, and which groups would turn which way at each branching at first. They’d only been able to plan out the first six total branchings, and after that the squad would be keeping track of who’d been where by marking the tunnels taken at each branching with a number in one of six colours, numbering from the first to the latest tunnel taken at each branching.
“Medic, red team.” That was Corporal Sands’ team, the one where only one of them had a materia and Cloud let Dylan go through the doorway first, sealing the tunnel behind them while he did that, then pausing to seal the doorway with Ice once he was through. Then they ran, checking for the numbers to tell them where the red team was.
It was Private Newton who’d been wounded, a gut wound, and they must have all been fighting hard enough to use up their Potions, but at least this wasn’t something where seconds could make the difference. This would take a Cure3, and a Poisona at least - if he wanted to heal Newton up all the way, except he didn’t have the energy to cast a Cure3. But he could cast a Cure2 with a Poisona to take care of any poisoning from the damaged intestines and that would keep him alive, then a simple Cure would make him mobile.
“I can’t get you into fighting condition at once, I don’t have enough energy, but I can get you up and about, you can tell me then if you need to be able to fight.” He suited actions to words, casting the Cure2 followed by the Poisona, since the infection seemed to be pretty low, and finally used the last of his magical energy to case a Cure, sitting down while he drank an Ether to recover.
“Strife, leave Newton as is, we’ll take Dylan to replace him. Newton, help guard the main entrance with Strife.”
Cloud wasn’t needed again, except to use a Fire materia to take down the barriers he’d created - he got the impression Captain Morgan assigned that to him as a sort of punishment.
o0()0o
Once they got back to camp Cloud realised that Newton must have been suffering for a while from the way he was walking, but he hadn’t realised because he’d been walking beside Captain Morgan and answering his questions on the way he’d used materia during the assault.
“Why didn’t you say anything Newton?” He took hold of the other man, and began helping him to the team alpha tent.
“I didn’t want to delay us all.”
“I could have given you a Potion before we started back, I should have anyway. I’m sorry. Which bed is yours?” Newton shrugged as Cloud helped him lie down on the bed he pointed to.
“Not your fault. I could have asked for a Potion too.”
“Well, I can finish healing you now at least.” When Cloud checked he realised that he hadn’t quite managed to deal with the inevitable infection from a gut wound so he started off with a Poisona, followed by a Cure2, then he needed another Poisona and he finished off with a Cure. “Rest for the rest of the day, and I’ll leave a Potion with you just in case.”
“Thanks Strife.” When he left the tent Captain Morgan cornered him immediately.
“Strife, we’re going to need to file a report when we get back. I’ve called for us to be picked up, but it’ll take a day or so. In the meantime I want you to write up how you made that barrier with an Ice materia, in as much detail as you can. And cover how you got the idea as well - I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”
“Yes sir.” Cloud retreated to the command tent while everyone else was left to do whatever they wanted basically. He couldn’t tell the truth about how he got the idea, so what was he going to say about that? And since he’d already been using the same sort of trick to keep the meat fresh he couldn’t claim to have stumbled onto it during the mission either. Sephiroth, he’d pin the ‘blame’ on Sephiroth; he had mentioned using Ice spells to cool some tents down during the Wutai war, the command tent usually, not his own, and the tents his men had shared when he commanded few enough men to make it practical.
Not that Cloud really believed he’d used exactly the same method as Cloud would have, but it made a good place to start, and he could steal parts of his report from some of Sephiroth’s ‘lectures’ on the subject of materia handling. Sephiroth hadn’t really given any lectures during his lessons, unfortunately since Cloud thought it might have helped Alex and Marius to learn, but if he managed to get Sephiroth to talk about it, helping him figure out his abilities his lover could be most informative.
So he started the report by mentioning that the General had explained that most people tended to have a particular affinity for one or more materia, in Cloud’s case Ice, letting him get more from an Ice materia for less effort than most people did. Then he covered the way Sephiroth had used the Ice materia to cool certain tents with ice during the Wutai war. That let him lead into how the Ice spell always formed a layer of ice around whatever he was targeting with it for him, and then how he expanded that to use it in storing the meat from the camp. From there it was a fairly simple step to the application he’d told Lieutenant Huff about and that he’d used and he described that in full detail, as well as why he’d used it.
He arranged his ‘report’ into the proper order and made sure the pages were all aligned neatly then he picked it up and began looking for Captain Morgan, eventually finding him watching as the servants took their ‘larder’ down.
“Sir, here’s what I’ve got about how and why I used an Ice spell to create a barrier.”
“It’s more than I expected.” He sounded surprised, and Cloud had to admit that he probably wouldn’t be able to use the full six pages.
“You did ask me to explain what made me think to develop that technique sir, and I went into as much detail as I could.”
“I see.” The captain was already reading the first page, and he smiled at Cloud. “If the General helped you learn how to do this it’s no surprise you can manage unusual things.”
“Thank you sir.” Cloud returned the smile and glanced around, spotting Lieutenant Rook doing some kata. “I’d like to do some more training with your permission sir?”
“Go ahead.” Cloud saluted and walked over to the Lieutenant - he’d trained as much as he could while he was in camp, and Rook had been the most willing of the SOLDIERs to spar with him.
“Sir, would you mind sparring with me?”
“Not a problem. Lieutenant Huff was assigned to getting all the information from your NCOs for the report so I could use a sparring partner. I hate having to fight in such confined quarters.” Rook was only three inches taller than Cloud was, and his style tended more towards speed and movement than the more ‘brute force’ techniques the larger SOLDIERs like Zack favoured, so of course he’d have problems fighting as well in confined spaces. Cloud didn’t win their spars of course, but he managed to put up a fight for almost three quarters of an hour before he simply couldn’t keep up with the lieutenant - he suspected Rook was going easy on him but he didn’t say anything about that.
“Again?” Lieutenant Rook sounded almost hopeful, and Cloud couldn’t think why, not unless he wanted to feel better about his abilities by defeating Cloud, but he agreed to another spar anyway. He only lasted half an hour this time, and he refused Rook’s offer to spar again.
“No, I don’t have SOLDIER stamina you know. But thanks, I appreciate this, and all the times you’ve been willing to spar with me while we’ve been here. It was probably better training than the monster hunts Zack’s taken me on every two weeks.”
“You were doing pretty well too, especially considering that you’ve needed at least one Ether to keep on using spells today.” That reminded Cloud that he’d almost forgotten about his patient.
“I need to check on Newton now that you mention it.” And hopefully he hadn’t had too much trouble eating, since Cloud hadn’t had the chance to tell the servants what restrictions there were on what he could eat and the meal that had been delivered while he was working on his report was stew with a small loaf of bread.
“Go ahead.” Newton hadn’t taken the Potion Cloud had left with him, and he looked healthy enough. Cloud linked to his Heal materia to check if he needed another Poisona, but there didn’t seem to be any problems.
“Do you feel alright? No problems eating or anything?”
“I’m just bored. Are you sure I still need to stay in bed?” Newton’s voice was very near a whine.
“Probably not.” Cloud laughed ruefully. “I was being a bit overcautious I guess.”
“So I can get up?”
“Yes, sure.”
“Then take the Potion back.” Newton was standing up as he spoke, and he handed the Potion to Cloud, reminding him that he needed to collect any unused Potions. He spent the next hour finding everyone in the squad and asking to have the Potions they didn’t need back, and he ended up with just seventeen Potions left in total. Then he was grabbed for the group taking down and packing the command tent, before he had the chance to figure out what to do with them.
Their evening meal was a feast, using up the last of the meat before they left, and Cloud ate so much that he felt really sleepy afterwards.
“Strife, do you have many Potions left?”
“Seventeen sir, and seven Ethers. I’ve packed them away in three boxes, do you want them now?”
“Yes, then you can go to bed if you want.” Cloud repressed his annoyance at the almost motherly concern and stood up.
“Follow me then sir.” He led the way to team beta’s tent and picked up the three boxes he’d set at the foot of his ‘bed’, handing them to the captain. “Here they are sir.”
“Thank you.” Cloud reluctantly stayed behind, accepting the captain’s advice to get some sleep, but he felt better about his decision when the rest of his team joined him ten minutes later.
They had to get up just as early this day as they had for the raid, and half the team were assigned to striking the tent and packing things away while the rest were set to do the other jobs; like disposing of the straw they’d used for bedding, or filling in the latrine trenches once everyone had used them. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the helicopter to arrive, which it did by 0800.
“We’re probably going to have leave time after this, what are you going to do with it Strife?” Cloud glanced at Dylan in surprise before deciding how to answer.
“I’ll probably spend as much of it as I can with my girl. And if I get a chance I’ll go monster hunting while she’s busy.” Cloud wasn’t sure what date it was, or even what day of the week, but he was certain he’d go hunting next Wednesday, with or without Zack or his friends from his cadet class.
“You like hunting monsters that much? Or is it the money you like?”
“The money’s nice, but it’s more for the training. Mind, I got a bit bored going after the same sort of monster every time, but there aren’t that many different monsters of an appropriate level for me to face in easy travelling distance. What about you, any plans?”
“I was hoping you’d show me where to get something cheap to equip materia, and hopefully a cheap materia too, with my combat pay.”
“Combat pay?”
“Yeah, we get three hundred gil a week combat pay when we’re assigned on a mission like this. Will you help me?”
“Of course. What sort of materia do you want? And you do know that the hundred gil armbands are pretty crappy, even compared to ShinRa standard issue don’t you?” ShinRa issued slots always had circuits made from two alloys; lunarium at the materia interface with metarium further away from the materia for regulars and solarium at the materia interface with lunarium further away for SOLDIERs.
“Something I can fight with. And I’ll take just about any sort of slot.”
“I didn’t really look, but I think I know where to get a Fire materia for under a thousand gil. Just first level, but I don’t think you could manage a Fire2 yet.” And he could look for a Lightning for himself too. “We can probably do that today.”
o0()0o lj-cut>
Final Fantasy VII fic, pre-game, mostly, with a post-AC epilogue.
CloudxSephiroth - and yes that does mean Cloud is topping.
Rating R.
Apparently their base of operations was to be a small mountain village, small enough that there wasn’t even an inn large enough for them all, or any sort of ShinRa accommodations available. There was a small research lab but Cloud was honestly surprised there was enough here for ShinRa to think it was worth sending anyone out to deal with the rebels - unless it was in the name of keeping their army busy and nipping trouble in the bud. It didn’t really matter why they were assigned here though and he focused on helping unload the helicopter. Cloud wasn’t sure exactly what was in all of the crates, but it wasn’t important, what was important was getting everything off the helicopter so it could leave. It didn’t take long for everything to be unloaded, leaving the crates spread out all over the field they’d landed on and the backpacks and bedspreads all piled together.
“Team alpha, set up the tents and prepare the bedding. Team beta, go hunting and bring back firewood. Team gamma, dig the latrines, fire pits and prepare the laundry area.” They acknowledged the captain’s orders, and Cloud assumed that the SOLDIERs were all pulling guard duty while the regulars set up, but he didn’t say anything about it in case he was wrong, just gathering silently with the rest of his team.
“Right, we go out in pairs, one guarding while the other cuts. Small branches, even twigs, preferably deadfall, if you have to cut live wood we’ll need to leave it to dry. Bring back as much firewood as you can reasonably carry then go out again. You’ll be issued one axe and one gun between a pair, if you get a chance at meat take it, but don’t bother gutting the body or anything. Strife, Dylan, you’re paired together, the axes are in that crate, and the guns and ammo are in the two beside it.” Cloud saluted and walked away with Dylan.
“What sort of aim do you have? Mine’s pretty crap, so if you’re any good with a gun you take it.”
“Then you can have the axe.” Dylan had a smile on his face, telling Cloud that he’d just let himself in for the majority of the work, but he didn’t see that he really had much choice.
“Why were there bales of straw waiting here anyway?” Cloud looked for the best of the three axes as he asked the question, and he was answered by one of the four privates who’d accompanied them from a line company.
“To make up your beds, the straw gets made into piles on top of your groundsheet and your bedroll’s laid on top of that.”
“Ah, thanks.” Cloud glanced at Dylan as he stood, checking that he’d finished collecting his gun and ammo. “I grew up in mountains like this, so I can probably guess the best places to look for deadfall.”
“You lead then.”
They didn’t spot any animals on their first trip to collect firewood, but Cloud did find evidence of deer visiting the copse he’d found to get the wood from, and he insisted on trying to track them on the second trip. He gave Dylan one chance to shoot one of the herd they’d managed to find, and when he only managed to wound one deer, and not even fatally Cloud used an Ice2 to trap three of the fleeing deer. Dylan knew how to lash together a rough travois for them to drag the deer back on and Cloud took the first deer back while Dylan made a second travois, explaining that they had three deer to bring in at the camp.
The camp was almost finished being set up by the time they got the last deer back and Cloud asked the outside private who would dress them once they’d defrosted to keep the hides for him, since Dylan had explained that they’d been brought along as effectively servants. Sephiroth had mentioned that it was SOP to send a scout before a group raid on a suspected enemy base, and that included rebels.
“Can you figure a way to keep a couple of them frozen? Then we can let one defrost every two or three days.”
“Find me somewhere I can leave them then.” Cloud casually brushed his hand over the other man’s siphoning off some of his energy reserve, not even enough to cast a first level spell but almost three quarters of his power core. The ‘servants’ had already set up a metal frame raised about six feet from the ground with a ladder leading up to it and a pulley and sling to lift anything too heavy and they raised two of the deer up there, joining a pile of dressed rabbits and pigeons already set on the frame. He took energy from each of the servants as he got the chance and they offered to give him the other hides since the men who’d killed the rabbits didn’t seem to want them if he froze those as well.
“Sure, just put them together in the amount you’d need for a day’s meal first though.” He was probably overusing the spells, but he’d got enough energy from the servants to do almost three Ice spells, and he’d recovered nearly half the energy he’d used on the Ice2 while they were bringing the deer back. And it only took four Ice spells to freeze all the meat in separate blocks of ice. He half expected Dylan to be impatient with the wait, but he’d spent the time breaking up the travois they’d used for the wood and then they made one more trip out for more wood before Captain Morgan called the camp to order and gave out duty assignments.
Two teams would be sent on scouting missions every day, working on a two days on two days ‘off’ arrangement, while the base team would be on every day. Cloud hadn’t expected to be assigned one of the regulars from team alpha, Private Newton, and ordered to maintain guard on the operations base, and his surprise must have shown. Newton laughed at him, not quite cruelly, but he certainly found Cloud’s faint disappointment amusing.
“You can expect more of this when you get officially named our medic. We don’t let medics go on routine patrols, or scouting missions and you generally get the ‘safest’ position in any real fight.”
“Bahamut’s Balls. How am I supposed to get the experience to be a SOLDIER then? I mean I’m just under two months out of cadet training and this is our first real mission.”
“The SOLDIER Entrance Exams aren’t that affected by how much experience you’ve had, not really. But I don’t think there’s ever been a trooper trained to be a medic straight from the cadet classes before.”
“Zack doesn’t think there has either.” Cloud ignored Newton’s surprise and began unfastening his dagger, still with the Ice materia set in the slot, as he walked over to Dylan. For the scouting missions each team had been split into two groups, two regulars unequipped with materia working with each SOLDIER and the remaining two privates working with the NCOs. Lieutenant Rook had taken the trooper from his team Cloud had planned on giving a materia to if the NCOs weren’t carrying materia themselves for his patrol, but Dylan would be working under Corporal Sands.
“Dylan, here. You can use this until I actually get a chance to fight.” He’d only be good for one spell, but it would help.
“Thank you Strife.” Cloud could see that he wanted to ask where he’d got the materia, but he had the grace not to actually do it, since Cloud was being very generous in sharing his personal equipment. “I’ll give it back to you at the end of each scouting trip.”
“You’re welcome. And remember to ask me for it before you go out.” He fully intended to do what he should have done earlier, and buy an unlevelled combat materia as soon as he could, probably when he returned to Midgar, if he couldn’t find one locally, to start maturing it himself. He knew there was no way he could buy anything worthwhile here and apparently none of the rebels had materia, but there might be a cave with ‘wild’ materia, if he was lucky. And if he got a chance to go looking for one, which it didn’t look like he would.
“Strife, all you two need to do is be available and to record where and when we encounter the rebels. Do whatever else you want, just don’t leave camp.”
“Yes sir.” That bothered him, but he’d obey orders, no matter how stupid they seemed to him.
“You’re staying here to make sure one person knows everything we found out about where the rebels might be, what attack routes they use and that sort of thing. You’ll be expected to brief the captain at least once a week, probably more often, and hopefully we’ll be able to work out where the rebel base is from that.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Cloud knew that Lieutenant Huff had been under no obligation to tell him that, and he appreciated it, even if he didn’t quite get why he’d been elected as Intel officer.
“I’ll show you where the maps are in about two hours.” The lieutenant was scowling unhappily ay the camp, although Cloud couldn’t see what was wrong with it. He dismissed the question and went over to collect his hides, he knew how to do a very rough tan on them, and that was all he needed to do for what he planned. The first part was cleaning the hides, and for that he found where the stream they were using as a water source left the camp area and pinned the hides on the bottom of the streambed, fur side down. He didn’t think the hides would need much in the way of preserving, and hopefully he’d be able to find what he needed for that when the time came.
Then he returned to the main part of the camp, looking over how it was set up for future reference. Six tents, four the same size and arranged in almost a semi-circle, one larger tent at the center-point of the semi-circle and a smaller tent closer to the laundry area and latrines. He guessed that the largest tent would be the command centre and looked inside, then when he saw the map laid out on the table he began to study that instead.
It had taken almost four weeks, but Cloud was pretty certain he’d worked out where the rebel base was, or at least he’d narrowed it down to a fairly small region, now he just had to convince Captain Morgan about that. Unfortunately his location of the base was more a result of intuition, and noting where his fellows were not encountering rebels than of any logic, but he’d prepared a presentation on why he thought the base was in that area, and written a report arguing the same thing. Hopefully one of those would be enough to get through to him, if not he’d have to resign himself to being stuck here for even longer - that was one of the factors he thought would work in his favour as he made his arguments, Captain Morgan seemed to be getting just a little impatient himself.
“Strife, report to the captain in the SOLDIER tent.” Corporal Sands sounded a bit frustrated, not that Cloud could blame him, he thought the mission had been a bit more boring for him and for Newton since they had to stay inside the camp, but more tiring and difficult for everyone else. The scouting missions went out on a different route every time, and the timing of the routes varied almost randomly, not enough to short anyone on sleep, but enough to mess up their ability to establish a regular sleeping pattern. And they didn’t even really have anything to show for it, except for occasionally a small fight with a few rebels, or sometimes catching sight of the rebels moving in the distance. At least Cloud usually had something new to add to the map and file he’d been developing of rebel contacts, or something else he could put in his report for the captain.
“Yes corporal, I’ll do that.” He hesitated for a moment about whether or not he should bring the presentation he’d prepared, but decided on reporting as soon as possible instead since he’d put everything he’d need for the presentation away in a box in the command tent, the tent where all the maps were stored.
“Private Strife reporting as ordered sir.” They were in the field, so saluting was forbidden as constituting a sniper check, even if they were in the base camp at the moment.
“You believe you’ve identified where the rebel base is, and you argue for that quite convincingly. But we don’t have any hard evidence, do you have any suggestions on how to get that evidence?”
“A scouting expedition to locate the cave they have to be living in. And I believe I’m best suited to do that.”
“Why?”
“I’m a mountain boy, and I spent most of my childhood running around terrain just like this.” To get away from the children who tried their best to make his life hell. “I checked, and no one else in the squad has any training or any personal experience in an area like this. That means I’m probably the most likely to spot any hidden or had to find caves or passes, I’m going to be the best at using this terrain to hide, and I can probably move the most easily. I’m the youngest, and I think I can disguise myself well enough to pass for a local, an additional layer of defence.” His mother had always bought or made clothes for him that were just a little too big, so that he’d be able to wear them for longer, especially since he usually wore his clothes until they either wore out or didn’t fit anymore. And since she’d insisted on sending him off with the newest clothes he had, including an almost brand new ‘formal’ outfit, the set of his oldest clothes he’d brought with him was just big enough for him to wear, despite the muscle he’d put on. “I haven’t had a chance to familiarise myself with the terrain from the ground, but I probably know the maps better than anyone here including you sir. Also I can cast more spells than anyone else in the squad, about twice as many in fact, and I’ve been doing some supplemental training that will let me move faster while I’m equipped with materia than anyone else in the squad.”
“And what about back up?” It was SOP to send scouts in pairs if at all possible, and Cloud knew it had to go against the grain for Captain Morgan to consider sending their only ‘medic’ on a solo scouting mission, but...
“I don’t think there’s anyone else with enough experience in mountains not to slow me down if I have to run for it sir, and more people make it more likely we’ll be detected.”
“Get your sergeant. If he confirms what you’re saying then you have a go as soon as the last scouting mission comes in.” All of team gamma were still out scouting since they’d began to stagger the times the groups set off.
“Yes sir. I’ll start preparing once I give him the message then.”
“Get some rest first. They’re not due in for almost four hours, I’ll send someone to wake you in three.”
“Yes sir.” Cloud found Sergeant Redson, then went to his tent and curled up on his ‘bed’, getting some sleep - he’d been told that an important part of being in the army was learning to sleep any time you got the chance, and Sephiroth had taught him a sort of self-hypnosis to help with that. When Dylan came in to wake him up and tell him he had a go he immediately started dressing. Issue boots wouldn’t work very well in the area mountains, so he’d used the furs and hide he’d been collecting to make a field expedient, enough to keep his feet warm, and just hoped he still had thick enough calluses on his feet to make the protection part unnecessary. Finally once he was fully dressed he knelt and rubbed a bit of dirt into his hair and skin.
Then he reported to the captain, in case there was anything new he should know, after all he did still have some time left.
“What are you equipped with, and how are you equipping your materia?”
“I’ve got these bracers.” Cloud showed them to the captain as he spoke. “And I equipped an Ice and a Restore in one.”
“Here, I can lend you a Mystify and an All for your other bracer. They’re both still first level, but it’ll probably help you get away in an emergency. That is if you can handle the extra materia?”
“Thank you sir, I can manage a linked green and blue pair, but I’m aiming not to need that.” Cloud smiled as he fitted the two materia into the linked slots on his bracer.
“Hope for success, but plan for failure private.”
“Yes sir!” Cloud saluted and waited for the captain to dismiss him before going to wait where he could watch the most likely approaches to the camp. As soon as he saw that all of team gamma had returned he was off, running at a steady pace while he could, while the ground was mostly clear and level.
When he reached the area he suspected contained the rebel base he slowed down, and began trying to hide his presence, using the tricks he’d learned as a child. He couldn’t quite believe his luck when he saw a piece of cloth trapped on a thorny bush, leaves all dead, but it was a pointer, even if it was bait for a trap the very fact that the rebels had felt the need for a trap here indicated their presence. But he couldn’t detect any signs that the cloth was the result of anything but carelessness, and it was tiny and a brown that almost matched the bark, if it was bait it was so subtle that only the best would detect it - Cloud knew he wasn’t that good, but he’d been lucky.
Something about the shadows under one cliff said it was something he needed to look at, Cloud couldn’t have said why, but they seemed deeper than they should be, and darker too. There was an overhang, but that wasn’t reason enough for the shadows to be so dark, and there seemed to be a subtly darker area, although that could be his imagination. He’d have to be even more careful now, but he moved into the shadow, taking every bit of cover he could use not to be seen, and staying as close to the cliff as he could. He found a cave entrance...no, more than a cave entrance, there were signs of some fairly recent shaping going on further in when he risked turning his torch on, shielding the light and switching it off almost immediately. And it was pretty deep, branching at one point, with a wall built to hold a door just a few feet down the right hand tunnel.
That was probably enough to give the captain a reason to raid the place, and Cloud wasnot going to risk drawing attention by trying to open a closed, and probably locked door. Of course if this was the only exit the rebels had been pretty stupid, but that was something they could find out easily enough from other sources. He knew that they had maps of cave systems, the fact that there was a large cave system in this area had been one of the factors he’d used to argue it was worth a solo scout. But their maps hadn’t been able to give them good enough information to spot the cave entrance without any prior mountain experience - as evidenced by the fact that he knew at least two of the scouting missions had passed the entrance without noticing anything.
When he reported back Captain Morgan seemed a little surprised, but he accepted Cloud’s assessment of the cave system he’d found and called for the map of the cave system in question.
“The system might have changed since these maps were made, they’re almost ten years old, but I can see only one alternate exit from the system emerging from that branching other than the one you found, can you see any more?”
“No sir, but I can see...two places where they might have dug out fresh entrances or exits.”
“Go check them out then, and take Lieutenant Rook and Sergeant Redson to see the entrance you already found at the same time.”
“Yes sir!” Cloud changed into his duty uniform first, to enhance the illusion that this was a normal patrol, then went to find them.
The rebels hadn’t bothered to dig extra exits, not from the two easiest places anyway, and that lowered Cloud’s opinion of them quite a bit - the rock wasn’t that hard to work, he was certain of that. Of course they might have decided to dig exits in places that wouldn’t be suspected, but Cloud wasn’t sure he believed that was a serious possibility, even though he had mentioned it to the captain. Captain Morgan agreed with his assessment of how likely it was as well, and even if it had been more likely it would be almost impossible for them to work out where the new exits were, so there was no point in worrying about it.
Lieutenant Huff had brought an Earth materia - apparently against orders, but the captain had been glad of it anyway, so he was assigned to make the other exit unusable, after Cloud had taken him out on a second ‘routine scouting mission’ that passed by the exit.
“We’ll start the attack at 0830 hours, so seal the exit no earlier than 0815 and no later than 0845 then come and join us.”
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant looked resigned, but there was a hint of panic underneath as the captain briefed them, and Cloud decided to find him afterwards so he could find out what he was worried about.
“Strife, you choose one private to stay with you at the entrance to the cave, you’re there to keep any of the rebels who get by us from leaving. I recommend you disburse the Potions to your squad mates prior to the attack, but we’ll still need to know where you are in case your skills as a medic are needed.”
“Yes sir. I’ll take Private Dylan. And I can give two Potions to every Regular.” He’d been able to use his Restore for any injuries incurred so far. If the captain ordered him to distribute the remaining six Potions to the SOLDIERs he would, but he wouldn’t like the idea, since Cloud would far rather have a reserve in case he needed it. He just nodded, no sign of judgement or objection to Cloud’s plan. Cloud listened as the captain explained how they were going to deal with the rebels, and how they’d split up if they needed to, and went up to Lieutenant Huff when they were dismissed.
“What is it Strife?” He looked stressed, and Cloud was pretty sure he knew why.
“I’m good with materia sir, and you seemed a bit worried about your assignment.”
“You saw the second exit, how am I going to block it with a Quake?” The secondary exit emerged on a comparatively gentle slope, and there wasn’t any loose rock or a convenient overhang around, so the only way to be certain it was blocked would probably get Huff trapped himself.
“You could try a layered approach sir. Use an Ice materia to basically create a sheet of ice blocking the tunnel partway in, pull back and use the Earth materia to drop the entrance, as much as you can, and then use Ice again to bind the rocks together.”
“Thank you. I hadn’t thought of using an Ice spell like that.” Cloud mightn’t have either if it wasn’t for how well he’d managed to store the meat in such large lumps of ice, and that had been inspired by when he’d shaved Sephiroth.
“I guess you don’t check up on the ‘larder’ personally sir. It’s cold enough that it takes a while for ice to melt once you get it frozen.”
“Checking on the day to day stuff’s an NCO’s job, SOLDIERs are too valuable to end up doing supply or Intel shit.”
“Yes sir. I should go and distribute the Potions now, rather than have to rush tomorrow.”
“Go then.” Cloud turned and picked up a box containing ten Potions from the team beta tent and delivered it to Corporal Hende so he could hand the Potions out to his team. Then he pulled an extra two Potions out of a second box before picking up the third and delivering those Potions to the sergeant for team alpha. He’d check that they’d been distributed properly later, for now he could hand out the Potions for his team himself and pack the remaining eight to carry. He’d managed to avoid using any of his Ethers either, so those went into the belt storage compartments too, ready for the next day and then he tried to get some sleep like the rest of the team.
Cloud was looking forward to this, even if he was meant to stay in reserve it would be the first chance he really had to put any of the skills he’d been developing to use. He dressed quickly enough, checking that he had all his Potions and Ethers in case he needed them, then checked that he had all his materia easily available, and only then did he check that his sword was easy to carry and draw. The rest of the squad were making the same preparations, all in the tent with him, even though it might have made more sense to move out of the tent for the final checks, and they did when Corporal Sands told them to, for a final pre-battle inspection.
He took extra time with Cloud, not that he blamed the corporal, since he was the new guy and he brought up the one thing Cloud hadn’t thought of checking himself.
“Do you have your PHS easily available?”
“Yes corporal.” Cloud pulled his PHS from where he’d clipped it to his belt automatically, almost offering it to the NCO.
“Does it have everyone’s contact details recorded?” There was a net dedicated to the squad itself, and that used two digit numbers to contact everyone, the three SOLDIERs had been added to that net as 81 for Captain Morgan (1 indicating a commander), 82 and 83. Cloud was 26 for the moment, but if he became the medic that would change to 02, leaving 1x, 2x and 3x to designate teams alpha to gamma. He quickly checked through the list of numbers, making sure that everyone was listed at least, even if it would have been a very bad idea to test using it to contact everyone.
“Yes corporal.”
“Good.” Apparently that was the last thing he needed to check, because he led the team towards where the servants were preparing a surprisingly large breakfast. But Cloud found himself eating more of it than he’d expected, and he noticed that a lot of his squad mates were eating heavily too.
Then they set off, with Lieutenant Huff peeling off on his own mission when their paths diverged. Cloud just hoped he’d learned the area well enough to find the entrance he was supposed to block, Cloud knew mountains in general well enough to find it from a map, but Lieutenant Huff hadn’t been doing too well in the mountains. But there was nothing he could do about that, Cloud couldn’t afford to offer to go with him, and the lieutenant had been assigned the two regulars he’d been taking on the scouting missions with him to accompany him on his task.
Cloud had to hang back with Dylan to let the rest of the squad get into the cave system first, Captain Morgan leading, and presumably breaking down the door, but eventually they were the only two people left outside the broken door.
“What would you recommend, keeping guard from here, or from just inside the door?” Cloud didn’t think it would make any real difference, but if it would he wanted to know.
“Here, the door will limit the rebels to passing through here single file, and they won’t be in as good a position to fight as they would if we moved through to actually enter their base.”
“Thanks.” They didn’t need to say anything else, and even though Cloud felt a bit guilty about keeping his Ice when he wasn’t expecting to have to fight today, if he was called forward to heal someone he’d need it to leave a barrier behind them, so the rebels couldn’t escape while he wasn’t there to stop them.
Lieutenant Huff didn’t stop to speak to them when he got back from blocking the alternative exit, Cloud knew that he’d been well briefed on where he needed to go, they’d planned out exactly how they would search through the cave system, and which groups would turn which way at each branching at first. They’d only been able to plan out the first six total branchings, and after that the squad would be keeping track of who’d been where by marking the tunnels taken at each branching with a number in one of six colours, numbering from the first to the latest tunnel taken at each branching.
“Medic, red team.” That was Corporal Sands’ team, the one where only one of them had a materia and Cloud let Dylan go through the doorway first, sealing the tunnel behind them while he did that, then pausing to seal the doorway with Ice once he was through. Then they ran, checking for the numbers to tell them where the red team was.
It was Private Newton who’d been wounded, a gut wound, and they must have all been fighting hard enough to use up their Potions, but at least this wasn’t something where seconds could make the difference. This would take a Cure3, and a Poisona at least - if he wanted to heal Newton up all the way, except he didn’t have the energy to cast a Cure3. But he could cast a Cure2 with a Poisona to take care of any poisoning from the damaged intestines and that would keep him alive, then a simple Cure would make him mobile.
“I can’t get you into fighting condition at once, I don’t have enough energy, but I can get you up and about, you can tell me then if you need to be able to fight.” He suited actions to words, casting the Cure2 followed by the Poisona, since the infection seemed to be pretty low, and finally used the last of his magical energy to case a Cure, sitting down while he drank an Ether to recover.
“Strife, leave Newton as is, we’ll take Dylan to replace him. Newton, help guard the main entrance with Strife.”
Cloud wasn’t needed again, except to use a Fire materia to take down the barriers he’d created - he got the impression Captain Morgan assigned that to him as a sort of punishment.
Once they got back to camp Cloud realised that Newton must have been suffering for a while from the way he was walking, but he hadn’t realised because he’d been walking beside Captain Morgan and answering his questions on the way he’d used materia during the assault.
“Why didn’t you say anything Newton?” He took hold of the other man, and began helping him to the team alpha tent.
“I didn’t want to delay us all.”
“I could have given you a Potion before we started back, I should have anyway. I’m sorry. Which bed is yours?” Newton shrugged as Cloud helped him lie down on the bed he pointed to.
“Not your fault. I could have asked for a Potion too.”
“Well, I can finish healing you now at least.” When Cloud checked he realised that he hadn’t quite managed to deal with the inevitable infection from a gut wound so he started off with a Poisona, followed by a Cure2, then he needed another Poisona and he finished off with a Cure. “Rest for the rest of the day, and I’ll leave a Potion with you just in case.”
“Thanks Strife.” When he left the tent Captain Morgan cornered him immediately.
“Strife, we’re going to need to file a report when we get back. I’ve called for us to be picked up, but it’ll take a day or so. In the meantime I want you to write up how you made that barrier with an Ice materia, in as much detail as you can. And cover how you got the idea as well - I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”
“Yes sir.” Cloud retreated to the command tent while everyone else was left to do whatever they wanted basically. He couldn’t tell the truth about how he got the idea, so what was he going to say about that? And since he’d already been using the same sort of trick to keep the meat fresh he couldn’t claim to have stumbled onto it during the mission either. Sephiroth, he’d pin the ‘blame’ on Sephiroth; he had mentioned using Ice spells to cool some tents down during the Wutai war, the command tent usually, not his own, and the tents his men had shared when he commanded few enough men to make it practical.
Not that Cloud really believed he’d used exactly the same method as Cloud would have, but it made a good place to start, and he could steal parts of his report from some of Sephiroth’s ‘lectures’ on the subject of materia handling. Sephiroth hadn’t really given any lectures during his lessons, unfortunately since Cloud thought it might have helped Alex and Marius to learn, but if he managed to get Sephiroth to talk about it, helping him figure out his abilities his lover could be most informative.
So he started the report by mentioning that the General had explained that most people tended to have a particular affinity for one or more materia, in Cloud’s case Ice, letting him get more from an Ice materia for less effort than most people did. Then he covered the way Sephiroth had used the Ice materia to cool certain tents with ice during the Wutai war. That let him lead into how the Ice spell always formed a layer of ice around whatever he was targeting with it for him, and then how he expanded that to use it in storing the meat from the camp. From there it was a fairly simple step to the application he’d told Lieutenant Huff about and that he’d used and he described that in full detail, as well as why he’d used it.
He arranged his ‘report’ into the proper order and made sure the pages were all aligned neatly then he picked it up and began looking for Captain Morgan, eventually finding him watching as the servants took their ‘larder’ down.
“Sir, here’s what I’ve got about how and why I used an Ice spell to create a barrier.”
“It’s more than I expected.” He sounded surprised, and Cloud had to admit that he probably wouldn’t be able to use the full six pages.
“You did ask me to explain what made me think to develop that technique sir, and I went into as much detail as I could.”
“I see.” The captain was already reading the first page, and he smiled at Cloud. “If the General helped you learn how to do this it’s no surprise you can manage unusual things.”
“Thank you sir.” Cloud returned the smile and glanced around, spotting Lieutenant Rook doing some kata. “I’d like to do some more training with your permission sir?”
“Go ahead.” Cloud saluted and walked over to the Lieutenant - he’d trained as much as he could while he was in camp, and Rook had been the most willing of the SOLDIERs to spar with him.
“Sir, would you mind sparring with me?”
“Not a problem. Lieutenant Huff was assigned to getting all the information from your NCOs for the report so I could use a sparring partner. I hate having to fight in such confined quarters.” Rook was only three inches taller than Cloud was, and his style tended more towards speed and movement than the more ‘brute force’ techniques the larger SOLDIERs like Zack favoured, so of course he’d have problems fighting as well in confined spaces. Cloud didn’t win their spars of course, but he managed to put up a fight for almost three quarters of an hour before he simply couldn’t keep up with the lieutenant - he suspected Rook was going easy on him but he didn’t say anything about that.
“Again?” Lieutenant Rook sounded almost hopeful, and Cloud couldn’t think why, not unless he wanted to feel better about his abilities by defeating Cloud, but he agreed to another spar anyway. He only lasted half an hour this time, and he refused Rook’s offer to spar again.
“No, I don’t have SOLDIER stamina you know. But thanks, I appreciate this, and all the times you’ve been willing to spar with me while we’ve been here. It was probably better training than the monster hunts Zack’s taken me on every two weeks.”
“You were doing pretty well too, especially considering that you’ve needed at least one Ether to keep on using spells today.” That reminded Cloud that he’d almost forgotten about his patient.
“I need to check on Newton now that you mention it.” And hopefully he hadn’t had too much trouble eating, since Cloud hadn’t had the chance to tell the servants what restrictions there were on what he could eat and the meal that had been delivered while he was working on his report was stew with a small loaf of bread.
“Go ahead.” Newton hadn’t taken the Potion Cloud had left with him, and he looked healthy enough. Cloud linked to his Heal materia to check if he needed another Poisona, but there didn’t seem to be any problems.
“Do you feel alright? No problems eating or anything?”
“I’m just bored. Are you sure I still need to stay in bed?” Newton’s voice was very near a whine.
“Probably not.” Cloud laughed ruefully. “I was being a bit overcautious I guess.”
“So I can get up?”
“Yes, sure.”
“Then take the Potion back.” Newton was standing up as he spoke, and he handed the Potion to Cloud, reminding him that he needed to collect any unused Potions. He spent the next hour finding everyone in the squad and asking to have the Potions they didn’t need back, and he ended up with just seventeen Potions left in total. Then he was grabbed for the group taking down and packing the command tent, before he had the chance to figure out what to do with them.
Their evening meal was a feast, using up the last of the meat before they left, and Cloud ate so much that he felt really sleepy afterwards.
“Strife, do you have many Potions left?”
“Seventeen sir, and seven Ethers. I’ve packed them away in three boxes, do you want them now?”
“Yes, then you can go to bed if you want.” Cloud repressed his annoyance at the almost motherly concern and stood up.
“Follow me then sir.” He led the way to team beta’s tent and picked up the three boxes he’d set at the foot of his ‘bed’, handing them to the captain. “Here they are sir.”
“Thank you.” Cloud reluctantly stayed behind, accepting the captain’s advice to get some sleep, but he felt better about his decision when the rest of his team joined him ten minutes later.
They had to get up just as early this day as they had for the raid, and half the team were assigned to striking the tent and packing things away while the rest were set to do the other jobs; like disposing of the straw they’d used for bedding, or filling in the latrine trenches once everyone had used them. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the helicopter to arrive, which it did by 0800.
“We’re probably going to have leave time after this, what are you going to do with it Strife?” Cloud glanced at Dylan in surprise before deciding how to answer.
“I’ll probably spend as much of it as I can with my girl. And if I get a chance I’ll go monster hunting while she’s busy.” Cloud wasn’t sure what date it was, or even what day of the week, but he was certain he’d go hunting next Wednesday, with or without Zack or his friends from his cadet class.
“You like hunting monsters that much? Or is it the money you like?”
“The money’s nice, but it’s more for the training. Mind, I got a bit bored going after the same sort of monster every time, but there aren’t that many different monsters of an appropriate level for me to face in easy travelling distance. What about you, any plans?”
“I was hoping you’d show me where to get something cheap to equip materia, and hopefully a cheap materia too, with my combat pay.”
“Combat pay?”
“Yeah, we get three hundred gil a week combat pay when we’re assigned on a mission like this. Will you help me?”
“Of course. What sort of materia do you want? And you do know that the hundred gil armbands are pretty crappy, even compared to ShinRa standard issue don’t you?” ShinRa issued slots always had circuits made from two alloys; lunarium at the materia interface with metarium further away from the materia for regulars and solarium at the materia interface with lunarium further away for SOLDIERs.
“Something I can fight with. And I’ll take just about any sort of slot.”
“I didn’t really look, but I think I know where to get a Fire materia for under a thousand gil. Just first level, but I don’t think you could manage a Fire2 yet.” And he could look for a Lightning for himself too. “We can probably do that today.”
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Date: 2006-08-21 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-21 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-21 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 01:44 am (UTC)Sex shop wonders, yay.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-22 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-23 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 07:02 pm (UTC)what's wrong with no sephy anyway since its part of the story? kami. most of the people here are too impatient. like the technicalitites anyway, it gives me the feeling of playing cloud in the RPG, LOL.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 08:34 am (UTC)Hm...
Date: 2006-09-03 12:10 pm (UTC)Re: Hm...
Date: 2006-09-04 08:43 am (UTC)