The Good Life: Bad Blood (ch. 109)

“I should be out there,” Zack muttered to himself, a foot bouncing as he watched a video feed of the monster- the WEAPON breaching the water and attacking Junon. The city was nearly destroyed just by the tidal wave that its arrival brought, and from the drone footage he saw someone using an Ice Materia to do what they could to stop it. 

A sense of uselessness overcame him as he could almost hear the response that should have been there. ‘You’re needed here,’ or ‘We have a different job to worry about,’ or the tried and tested ‘Quit whining.’ Yet, instead, there was a deafening silence. 

Cloud was dead. 

It still didn't feel real, days later in the aftermath of the Reactor 5 explosion. Somehow, the terrorists got around him and blew up his friend along with themselves. It just felt so… 

They were SOLDIERs, but that didn’t make them invincible. They’d had plenty of close calls over the past couple of years, but they’d always had each other's backs to make sure that they survived, even if it was by the skin of their teeth. And that was why guilt wormed its way into his heart. 

He should have been there. If he had been there instead of playing the part of the useless guard, then Cloud would still be alive. He could have made a difference. And now, while all of his friends and companions were racing against the clock to fight a gigantic monster, he was once again left behind on the sidelines. 

Frustration welled up in his chest, his hands clenching into fists, “What was the point of becoming First Class if I can't do anything?” 

“A part of being First Class,” Angeal remarked from behind, and Zack could feel a lecture about his situational awareness coming. “Is understanding that what you wish to do, what you can do, and what you're ordered to do all tend to be very different things.” 

Zack glanced over his shoulder to see his mentor entering the room, leaning heavily on a cane that he seemed to need more and more every passing day. He knew under the sleeves was the same stone-like flesh that had turned Genesis into that monster. Law was so close to a cure, but in the back of his mind, Zack wondered if it would be discovered before… 

“... I know,” Zack answered, looking away. “Suppose I can't complain to you.” 

“Not without being rude, no,” Angeal agreed with a chuckle that almost made him sound like he was his old self. “I've made my peace with the sidelines. Being the tip of the spear is a role I have left behind, but that doesn't make me useless. Nor the role that I now occupy any less important,” he advised. 

“Which is guard duty with me,” Zack sighed. He understood the point, he just had a tough time accepting it. All the more so because the last time he wasn't there, he lost his best friend. 

“Protecting President Shinra and Midgar,” Angeal corrected gently. “Not all of Shinra's enemies are so obvious-” 

Angeal was cut off as an alarm blared and in the very same instant, he received a message. Flipping open his phone, he saw the message: ‘Avalanche is attempting to drop the Sector 7 Plate. Stop them.’ 

And, for a fraction of a second, he stopped and stared at the message. The sheer monstrousness of Avalanche -- days ago, they killed hundreds of people by destroying Reactor 5, murdered his best friend, and now they were going to drop a plate on Sector 7? Just… crush tens of thousands of people under the plate and kill the tens of thousands more of those who lived on top of it? 

For that split second, he didn't believe it. No one could be that cruel. That heartless. 

Then he closed his phone with a snap, clenching his teeth so hard they could shatter. His gaze darted to Angeal, who wore a serious expression. 

“Go!” He commanded with ease, and Zack wasted no time. He broke into a dead sprint, leaving the room and sprinting down the hall and towards the glass wall that marked the side of the building. He threw himself through it, flying through the air with as much speed as he could towards the Sector 7 plate. 

As he flew through the air his phone buzzed, and he saw it was telling him his destination -- a central hub that controlled the utilities of the plate. It was also where they could override safety locks and drop the plate. 

He landed lightly on a building after a hundred foot drop, and he took three long strides to cross the roof before he was flying through the air once more. Over the sound of whistling air in his ears, he heard the sharp sound of gunshots in the distance and he threw himself forward once more with all the strength he could muster, shattering the concrete barricade he launched off of. 

Drawing his sword, he used it as a barrier as he flew towards a concrete wall. Throwing out a hand and casting Blizzaga, the concrete iced over in an instant before impact, flash freezing, and making it brittle enough that he smashed through it like a wrecking ball. The moment that his feet touched the ground, Zack didn't let the momentum go to waste, following the sound of gunshots in the Shinra complex. With every step they drew nearer, until he finally rounded a corner to see the battle. 

A woman in a mini-skirt and white tank-top used a Barrier to block a half dozen shots from the guards resisting their entry. Fire gathered at her fist that she started to deliver a punch that would have killed the Shinra soldier had it landed. With a grunt, Zack threw himself forward a final time, arriving to block the blow with his blade and he felt the impact in his bones.

“What-” the girl said, her eyes widening a fraction, but whatever she was going to ask was lost when he countered with a kick to the stomach that folded her around the blow and sent her flying back. The fact that she survived the blow told him that she was made of sterner stuff than most, but it still knocked the wind out of her. Meanwhile, the other three -- one chubby guy, one really handsome guy, and a girl that looked really familiar all turned their guns on him and started firing. 

Zack blocked the bullets with the flat of his blade, using it as a shield as he crossed the distance in an instant. The big guy was the closest, and he shifted his blade, going to behead him. 

Yet, the blow was stopped cold in its tracks as another blade blocked the swing. Zack's eyes went wide enough that they could have fallen out of his head, a gasp lodged in his throat, and he didn't fight the push back that sent him away a dozen feet. 

“Cloud?!” Zack yelped, lowering his blade as he tried to process the sight of his dead best friend standing across from him. 

On the side of Avalanche. 

The people who blew him up. 

Who were here to kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people. 

“What-how- You're alive?!” Questions tried to jump off his tongue in a jumbled mess, but the most important one of them all managed to get out. Zack lowered his sword and Cloud did the same. “I thought you died in the reactor explosion- did you forget my number or something?!” He yelled, the relief and concern swiftly turning to anger. Not an angry anger, but a concerned anger. The kind that made you want to hug someone so tightly that their head popped off. 

He’d thought his best friend had been dead for three days. But Cloud wasn't dead. He was alive, in the city, and had apparently forgotten how phones work. 

Cloud grimaced, but before he could answer, one of the Shinra soldiers took a shot at him. He blocked the bullet with his blade, and the sounds of metal on metal broke him out of it. That haze of pure relief to see that Cloud was alive. But, even as he looked at him, everything behind him started to come into view and the context felt like a noose wrapping around his neck. 

He saw the broken and dead bodies that Avalanche had carved through to reach this point. Shinra soldiers who had just been doing their jobs were shot to pieces, their bodies smashed, charred through materia… or hacked apart. His gaze flickered ever so slightly, desperately looking for someone else wielding a sword. There wasn't one. 

And when his gaze met Cloud's again, he shifted his weight. 

Readying for a fight. 

“Cloud,” Zack started, raising a hand to forestall another shot from one of the soldiers. “What are you doing?” The relief and fond anger bled away from his tone, replaced with a calm wariness. A tone that Cloud would have heard him use dozens of times before, knowing exactly what it was a prelude to. 

Cloud opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he tried to say wouldn't pass his lips. Instead, he pressed them into a thin line and said, “Zack… please don't get in our way.” 

The fuck? That's it? That's what he says? He knew that Cloud struggled to express himself, but Zack thought he would at least try. 

“Your way. I'm not sure if you noticed, Cloud, but you're working with Avalanche. You're attacking a Shinra base so they can drop a plate and kill hundreds of thousands of people- what- What are you doing?!” He shouted, wanting some answers to make any kind of sense of this. Cloud was working with Avalanche. 

Cloud was working for Avalanche?

“Zack!” The girl he kicked called out, and now that he got a look at her, Zack realized that he recognized her. Tifa, the girl from Cloud's village. She was alive? She was part of Avalanche too? “We're trying to stop the plate from being dropped by Shinra! You have to let us through!” She pleaded, sounding genuine and that was so absurd that he nearly laughed if it wasn't for the emotional whiplash. 

“Shinra,” he repeated slowly, trying to make sense of it. Or just so they could hear how stupid they sounded. “Is going to drop a plate, killing thousands of its own citizens and causing hundreds of millions in property damage for… what exactly? I suppose they also blew up their own reactor?” 

“They did!” Tifa protested and… he was being sarcastic. 

What was even going on right now? He felt like a crazy person. Like, the world really had gone insane in the past six hours. 

“Zack, they did,” Cloud echoed Tifa. “Explosives were already planted before I got there. Tifa and the others didn't have the chance to plant theirs before it exploded, and the ones they brought couldn't have caused an explosion like that.” 

His knee jerk reaction was to trust him. Cloud was his friend. His best friend. He had trusted him with his life a hundred times before and Cloud never let him down, not once. But as he looked at Cloud, he struggled with that trust. It was simply too much. Far too much. What they were saying was absurd. 

Why would Shinra drop a plate? Why would Shinra blow up its own reactor? Especially when there was a giant monster attacking Junon as they spoke? Even if Shinra was mad enough to destroy a chunk of its own city and murder thousands of its own citizens for reasons that Zack couldn't even fathom, he would think that they would at least time it a bit better. 

No. No matter how he looked at it, it just didn't make sense. But, as he looked at it, another possibility arose in the back of his mind. One that he didn't even want to consider and the mere thought of made his heart clench in a way that almost drove him to his knees. 

“Or,” Zack began, clenching his sword with white knuckles and leveled a heavy accusing stare at Cloud. “You planted them yourself.” 

Cloud recoiled at the idea, his expression crunching with so much confusion that Zack almost believed him. Yet, the pieces fit too well together. He didn't want them to. He desperately wished for an answer that could explain this mess better, but the facts remained and they were undeniable. 

Cloud was here, with Avalanche, tearing through a Shinra base. 

“You can't be serious!” Tifa shouted at him, sounding genuinely outraged. 

“What makes more sense, huh? Shinra decided to kill its own people and destroy its own property…” Zack began, leveling his sword with intent. “Or in the aftermath of Genesis going crazy, you two started working for Avalanche?” 

Tifa flinched, “I- I did!” She admitted that much, at least, “But I only just found out Cloud was alive! I thought you both died at Nibelheim!” 

He wanted to trust her. Cloud had followed after her like a puppy, but what he remembered of her before the fire and Genesis’ rampage… he liked her. She had moxie, as Law liked to say. He wanted to trust her and Cloud more than anything in the world. 

But he couldn't. 

If he was wrong, thousands of people would pay the price for it. 

Cloud saw his answer and hefted his sword, his expression one of guilt and betrayal. “I'll hold him off. Get this done, Tifa.” 

Tifa barely had time to nod before Cloud threw himself forward, and Zack met him halfway. Their blades clashed in a shower of sparks, and while ice gathered around his palm, fire gathered around Cloud's. The elements met in the middle, filling the hallway with a cloud of scalding steam, and through it, he and Cloud traded a dozen blows in a fraction of a second. 

They had fought a thousand times, Zack reminded himself as Cloud cut off an attempt to block Avalanche at the cost of over exposing a flank that Zack lashed out at with a punch. It landed in Cloud's waiting palm that he used to fling Zack down the hall before darting to keep him away from his team of terrorists. For the past two years on the road, they had fought a thousand times. Zack would win some, Cloud would win some. 

There had never been any stakes. No odds. Well, beyond bragging rights. 

It was something that they did just for fun. 

Which is why it felt so wrong when he swung at Cloud with all of his strength, sending his friend through a wall that Zack then iced over so he could pursue the other members of Avalanche. The other soldiers would slow them, he was sure, but if Tifa was half the fighter he remembered her being, then they wouldn't last long. And that meant it was all riding on his shoulders. 

The weight of it struck him with more force than Cloud's blows after he erupted from the ice wall to give chase. He could feel them rattle his bones -- Cloud was swinging harder than he ever had before. They had never exactly pulled their punches, but this… 

They were trying to kill each other. 

And it felt wrong. 

They tore through the building in their continuous clash, both of them so familiar with how the other fought, that they didn't just know their next move, but two or three after that. It almost felt like another spar, but there was an urgency behind every blow that had never been there before. Zack was trying to get through Cloud and Cloud was desperately trying to hold him at bay. 

They didn't say a word to each other as they fought, their blades flashing in blurs of speed and showers of sparks. There was nothing to be said. If either of them could have been convinced then they wouldn't be fighting in the first place. They tore through the building, fighting through the halls and knocking down walls as needed. In the distance, he was keenly aware of the sounds of gunfire, telling him that Avalanche was pushing their way through any resistance. 

A flash of anger welled in his chest, knowing that meant good and loyal soldiers of Shinra were being murdered as they tried to stop an atrocity. Gritting his teeth, as they clashed blades once again, Zack lashed out with a fist and struck Cloud in the face. He almost hesitated when he saw blood. It was barely a drop, and they had injured each other worse during training, but it was different this time. He’d never drawn blood with the intent to hurt. 

And something in that moment changed things, because as Cloud recovered, his next slash was at Zack's neck. He carried the blow that rang out through the floor, their eyes meeting and… He knew they’d crossed a line that there was no going back from. 

Zack felt like he had been giving it his all before, but there had still been that part of him that didn't want to hurt Cloud. Well, maybe beat some sense into him, but not… not treat him like an enemy. But, slowly, with every swing of his sword, that feeling faded away. And as it did, Zack felt himself making progress, pushing Cloud back as they gave chase to Avalanche. 

Cloud had blown through the ranks, and he was stronger than most, but Zack had always had the edge in skill and experience. Something Cloud sensed as his expression pinched, feeling himself being forced on the defensive. Zack knew him. He knew exactly what Cloud would do even before he thought of it. 

Cloud liked to be on the offensive, and when he felt like he was losing the initiative- 

There. 

He lashed out with his sword, intent on driving Zack back. Instead, Zack leaned in, his own blade positioned for a thrust, only to abandon the attempt when Cloud countered. Zack felt a sharp sting in his neck as he reversed his grip, realizing he had been played, but he was committed. He drove the pommel of his weapon into Cloud's stomach, sending him flying through a wall and out of the building. 

A hand went up to his neck, feeling blood, but the cut was already mending by the time he reached up. “Pulled the swing, huh?” Zack muttered, already moving on. The grip on his heart lessened ever so slightly, but not enough. 

He sped through the building, finding a sight of absolute carnage, the rooms filled with the dead and dying. Zack ran past them all, wanting to help but knowing that he couldn't. It just drove him to arrive that much sooner, racing so fast that he nearly missed his turn when he arrived at the ongoing fire fight. 

Avalanche was in a massive room, one filled with machines and soldiers that were fighting against the small squad of terrorists. They had cut their way through to the central terminal, and arranged themselves around it while one of their members was hacking in. The big guy and the handsome one were nearby, but it was Tifa who was keeping them from being overwhelmed. 

Their eyes met, and hers narrowed into slits before she cocked back a fist and sent a tidal wave of fire over his position. He used his sword to absorb the worst of it as he threw himself into the fray. Erupting from the flames, he swung his blade at Tifa and he wasn't entirely sure if she survived the blow because the barrier held or because he pulled back at the very last second. In either case, she hit the floor with a bounce. 

“Tifa!” Over the gunfire and chaos, he heard Cloud shout out. He must have run up the side of the building to get here in time. He didn't need to look to see where Cloud was, supernaturally aware of him. Just as he was aware of the sight before him. 

The other girl stood before a terminal, her fingers flying over a keyboard, and he saw a progress bar. It was closing in on 98%. 

Zack made a decision, even as Cloud threw himself at his back, his sword raised to skewer Zack in the back. He hefted his sword up before he launched it forward like a spear. It streaked through the air in a fraction of a second, slamming into the terminal just as it hit 99%. The screen flickered before winking out with a series of loud sparks. 

And that should have been it for him. 

Zack expected a searing pain in the back where Cloud would kill him -- he accepted it. He made no mad scramble to save his own life. He was falling through the air, no leverage to speak of, and no way to continue the fight. 

But, what he instead felt was a kick in the ribs that sent him flying away. At first, he thought that Cloud changed his mind at the last possible second, but as he twisted in the air, what he saw instead filled him with horror. 

At first, he wasn’t sure what it was -- the porcelain-like skin, the two white wings jutting out of one shoulder, the long mane of dark blue hair… but as the wings withered away, a transformation slipping that was all too familiar, Zack understood what he was seeing. 

Angeal, hanging in the air where he had just been.

Skewered in his place. 

Cloud was visibly in a similar state of disbelief, so much so that he did nothing when Angeal backhanded him hard enough that he slammed to the ground near Tifa. Angeal himself fell to the ground heavily, landing on a knee, and as he did, rivers of blood flowed out of him. Like with Genesis, the transformation was coming undone, reverting him to the man he had always been and not the monster that he became. Yet, with it, blood gushed from him…

Too much blood. 

Zack was moving before he was even aware of it, rushing to Angeal's side to catch him before he could fall over. A hand went to a Heal Materia, but Angeal, even dying, proved too quick for him. A hand caught his, and Angeal shook his head. 

“Don't,” he rasped, offering a thin smile as blood dripped down the corners of his mouth. “Let me… die with… my honor. Tell Sephiroth… I'm…” 

His voice grew weaker and weaker until he went limp in Zack's arms. 

Dead. 

Zack went numb. Everything sounded like it was underwater -- the gunshots, the shouting… he was barely aware of it, but he saw Cloud pick Tifa up and rally the other members of Avalanche. Their mission failed and they had no way of completing it, so they were running. Zack knew he should stand up. He should grab his sword. He should chase them and stop them. 

But he felt like a puppet without its strings. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He didn't even blink. He just stared down at the man who had been his mentor. Who took him under his wing and shaped him into the man that he was today. A man who had given all that he had to give and more, and had finally given his life to save his. Zack felt numb, all except for the warmth of Angeal's blood on his hands. 

Then two words cut through the noise. 

“I'm sorry,” Cloud whispered before he and his team of terrorists fled the scene. 

The words echoed in his ears, bouncing around his skull, before a slow burning anger began to rise up in the back of his throat. He clung to Angeal's body, uncaring how he was soaked with his blood as the depths of Cloud's betrayal began to sink in alongside it. 

Zack grit his teeth hard enough that they felt like they could shatter, tears burning at his eyes, but they refused to fall. It was then that he made a promise -- to Angeal, to himself, to the Planet itself. 

“I'm going to kill him.”