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Chapter Twelve The next morning, after a good night's sleep (even Red, who was relieved to discover that Costa Del Sol nights were more temperate than the days), the ragtag group set off into the mountains to the west. The journey was more or less uneventful, and Kit found their relaxed pace to be easy going, especially after the hard pace that Sephiroth had set. Other than the occasional attack by weak monsters, everyone seemed to be enjoying themself.
Well, almost everyone. Barret seemed to be growing quieter the further they went into the mountains, or at least it seemed to Kit that he was. He was nearly always hot-tempered, she'd figured that out quick enough, but as they travelled, he began to shout less, and appeared lost in thought often. Actually, it looked to Kit as though he were brooding.
On the second day of the journey, they came to a narrow pass leading deeper into the mountains. It looked like it led steadily upward, though the way was covered with huge boulders they'd have to make their way over. Resting against one of the rocks was a short, stocky man who didn't even look up at their approach. When Cloud said hello, he glanced up in surprise. "Whew! Hey! You're actually talking to me," said the man with a touch of relief in his voice.
"What is it?" Cloud asked.
The man frowned. "I just passed a guy in a black cloak back there," he said, gesturing further up the mountain. "I just tried to tell him that it's dangerous up ahead, and he ignored me!" The man shivered a little at the memory.
Cloud turned to look at the others. "Sephiroth..." he said in a low, dangerous voice.
"There was a black-cloaked man here too?" Aeris said wonderingly.
"Oh gawd, what a drag!" Yuffie exclaimed.
"Hmm..." said Red. "I'm moving on ahead."
Tifa nodded eagerly. "Let's hurry on!" she said, taking an excited step towards Cloud before turning to look back at Barret.
He'd turned away, and was looking back down the way they'd come, almost regretfully. Everyone waited for his word - after all, he was in charge of AVALANCHE, which they all sort of were at this point in time. "Ahh..." he said, then sighed and shrugged as he started up the mountain path.
Kit watched him carefully. Even if she had technically been on their side, she would have been suspicious of him, the way he was acting all of a sudden.
She and the others glanced at Cloud, who shrugged and started to follow Barret, nodding his thanks to the man who sat against the rock, regarding them with gruff amusement. "It's dangerous up ahead. Be careful on your way," the man warned. "If any strangers should greet you warmly while travelling, make sure to greet them back," he added with a long-suffering smile. Aeris smiled back at him, and the man mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. "Whew! I guess that's the fun of being on the road."
The path did get trickier ahead, and they had to forge their way around more rocks and boulders even though the path dropped off to a steep cliff on one side. Kit was short and slight enough to get through easily, but she wondered how Barret would manage with his broad shoulders. He appeared to be having no more trouble than she was, and chose the safest routes before she'd even seen them, as if he'd been here many times before. Maybe he had. She wondered what was at the top of the mountain.
Aeris struggled along beside Kit, cheerful despite not having an easy time in her long pink dress. She shaded her eyes with one hand, holding her staff in the other as she looked ahead at the setting sun behind the mountain. "It's so beautiful," she exclaimed. "The sun, the mountain, the winding path, that single tree at the very top..."
"The two hundred foot drop to the river below," Yuffie added, nervously eying the cliff that dropped off only a few feet to her right as she scrambled over a pile of loose gravel. "Barret acting like a zombie - hey Cloud, what's up with that?" she said as he came back to help Aeris over the last rough spots. "Why's Mr. Yo-I-out-ta-save-da-planet-so-shu'p-foo so quiet all of a sudden?"
Cloud shrugged. "Beats me. But you're not going to get me to ask him when he's in this kind of a mood."
Up ahead, Barret, Tifa, and Red had reached the top of the mountain, and they were staring down into the shadowed valley. "I wasn't expecting this," Red said as the others approached. "Come and take a look at this."
The rocky path abruptly stopped at the top of the mountain, but continued on the other side as a walkway, leading down to a huge platform, on which was built...
"A Mako reactor!" said Cloud in amazement. "I didn't know this was here..."
"It doesn't look like it's been very well maintained," Aeris said, still trying to catch her breath from the climb.
Barret stared down at it coldly for a moment longer before he began to make his way along the narrow walkway. The others followed hesitantly, trying not to look down. Unfortunately, unless they looked down it would have been easy to miss a step and fall, so they didn't have much success at that.
Kit noticed the look of dread on Barret's face had intensified, and his one fist was clenched tightly. He looked, she thought, like a man walking steadily towards his doom. Suddenly she realized where they must be - Corel. She'd actually never been to the town herself, but she knew the story. Shinra had built a reactor in the old coal mining town, but four years ago, some local rebels had taken it upon themselves to sabotage it, and it exploded, killing many of the townspeople.
With a start, she remembered the explosion of Reactor One, back at Midgar. It was too similar. And with Barret acting so strangely... Could it be this was where AVALANCHE had gotten their start?
Cloud ran ahead with Red and Tifa once they got to the platform with the reactor. Everyone stopped and examined it, except for Barret. His dark eyes stared at it with hatred for only a moment before he turned and stalked off across the bridge through a pass in the mountain to the south.
"Hey, Barret," Aeris began, but he turned and glared at her so hard that she stopped short, causing Yuffie to crash into her from behind.
"Oof! I dunno what his problem is," Yuffie said as she caught her balance, "but he's giving me the creeps. Hey, is that a roller coaster track up there or what?"
"I doubt it," answered Kit, "considering it goes straight from the reactor."
"Well, maybe the cars are shot out by Mako energy," Yuffie said, grinning. "Wouldn't that be a rush?"
"Hmm, the track splits in two," Aeris noticed as they stepped through the pass into bright sunlight again. "It looks like Cloud and his group are taking the high road, and Barret's taking the low road."
"Then I'm taking the low road, alright?" said Yuffie. "I wanna know what he's up to." Kit and Aeris nodded, and they followed Barret over the lower set of tracks, careful to avoid falling through the weak spots.
Eventually the two tracks became a pair of bridges, the lower one a drawbridge. It was raised, and the wall to the other one was too steep to climb. There was no sign of Cloud and his group. Aeris appeared concerned. "I hope he didn't fall off," she murmured.
Yuffie laughed at her. "He's not that much of a klutz."
Just then, Aeris looked up, and her face brightened. "Oh, Cloud!" she exclaimed. The others looked up to see him peering over the side of the upper track. He grinned down at her and motioned for them to stay put. "Good luck!" Aeris called after him as he ran off across the bridge with Tifa and Red behind him. After a minute or so, the drawbridge mechanism groaned, and then began to lower itself. They ran across, and the track forked again. Barret took the one that wound around the edge of the mountain, and the rest followed.
Yuffie gawked at the sight that greeted them. "Uhmmm? Is that safe?" A long, narrow suspension bridge hung across a deep ravine, creaking in the wind.
Barret continued across it as though it were a wide stretch of paved road. "I think that answers that question," Kit commented, as she started across.
On the other side was the entrance to a small town - if you could call it that, Kit thought. Really it was nothing more than some tents and a shack or two constructed from what looked like old planks and scrap metal. A rebel encampment?
She was about to head in after Barret when Aeris spoke up. "Where's Cloud?" she asked, puzzled. "I thought he'd wait for us..."
"Other way around," Tifa called, running up behind them. "The tracks we followed had collapsed, so we had to backtrack a little."
"Everyone's here?" Cloud asked, looking around. "Where's Barret?"
"He headed right into... that," Yuffie said, gesturing over her shoulder with a grimace at the scene below. "Where are we?"
"I don't know," said Cloud, "but I get the feeling Barret can tell us."
They'd only taken a few steps into the camp, when they spotted Barret talking to three men. One of them walked up and punched him in the stomach. Barret accepted it without flinching.
"Well, lookey here!" said another of the men. "Never thought I'd ever see your face again."
"They kick you out of another town or somethin'?" asked the first one bitterly. "You destroy everything you touch."
"You got a lot of balls, comin' back here!" the third man said, furious. "Look at this place! It's all your fault North Corel turned into a garbage heap!"
"Why doncha say something?" the first man said, tapping his foot impatiently. "Or did ya forget what you done here already?"
Kit cringed, having seen Barret's temper before. But to her surprise, he merely stared down at the ground, looking miserable. "I'm sorry..." he muttered.
The third man exploded. "$#%&! You ain't even worth the effort."
The other man, who'd stood by watching the exchange, turned to the others. "Don't waste your time talkin' to that techno-freak," he grumbled. They nodded and turned away, pointedly ignoring Barret.
With a sigh, Barret straightened his shoulders and turned to head back the way he came. When he realized that Cloud and the others were already there, his shoulders slumped again, and he went back to staring at the ground. He looked... ashamed.
"What was that about?" Cloud asked as they approached him.
"You heard 'em," Barret replied bitterly, turning away. "It's my fault this town was... destroyed." Without any further explanation, he marched off deeper into the jumble of tents and scrap material.
The others all exchanged puzzled glances, but Kit thought it fit perfectly well into her theory. Barret had been the rebel. He'd tried to sabotage a reactor, and somehow botched it, and it exploded, destroying the town. All the pieces fit.
Tifa ran after him, looking worried. Cloud shrugged and followed with the rest of them, to a run-down looking station with a shuttle that looked like a cross between a cablecar and a helicopter.
"Barret, what happened?" Aeris asked.
Barret looked at her worried face and sighed. "Sorry," he muttered.
"What happened?" Cloud repeated.
Barret shuffled over to stare at the side of the shuttle. "My hometown used to be around here."
"What do you mean, 'used to'?" Red asked, puzzled.
"It ain't here no more. Heard it got buried," Barret growled, "in just four years."
"But how could those people say those terrible things?" Aeris asked.
"An' it's my fault," Barret continued, as if he hadn't heard her. "All my fault." Finally he turned to face them and told them.
To Chapter Thirteen. To the intro. That means it's mine, not yours! |
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