Chapter 816 - 815: The Beginning of the Battle for the Main Support."

Standing near the "Seventh Heaven" bar, Alex wanted to carefully observe exactly how the situation in the slums was developing in order to more precisely understand in what way this state of affairs could be changed for the better. First of all, what concerned him was not at all how many Grunts the Shinra command had sent and how many combat helicopters they had lifted into the air. Right now he was far more interested in the question: where were the Gray Whisperers hiding, who in such a catastrophic situation should certainly have intervened in order to protect the canonical course of events.

However, no matter how much Alex peered into the space, he saw absolutely no signs of their presence—neither near the Support of the Plate itself, nor in the slums themselves. Slightly narrowing his eyes and raising his gaze to the very upper Plate, Alex made out that, at least, Shinra had nevertheless decided to conduct an evacuation of the peaceful residents from the Sector above.

Having finished with a cursory survey of the situation, Alex turned to the rest of the group, and his gaze immediately fell on Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. He remembered perfectly what exact sad fate awaited them if they found themselves in the immediate vicinity of the Support. And in order to once and for all avoid this tragedy, he needed to keep this trio as far as possible from the epicenter of the main events.

He had long had ready the simplest and most effective plan allowing him to protect them and not let them near the Support. Putting out the thin cigar, Alex once more briefly glanced at Aerith, who in the current situation looked more worried than all the others.

"So, kids, the plan for preventing the fall of the Plate is extremely simple. As usual, we split into two separate groups. You five stay here. And if everything finally goes to shit and the crap seriously hits the fan, your task is to immediately begin a mass evacuation of the residents of the slums toward the Wall Market…" Alex began speaking in a calm tone, expressively pointing a finger at Jessie's group, as well as at Tifa and Aerith, clearly explaining to them the primary order of actions.

"Hold on a second, handsome! You, of course, look insanely hot when you take everything under your control and start commanding like this… But this place is our home too, after all!" Jessie tried to interrupt him, not allowing Alex to finish the thought.

"Exactly because this is your native home, it will be many times easier for you to convey to the local residents that it's time to get their asses up and get the hell out of here," Alex interrupted her in an even tone, softly raising a hand and forcing the girl to fall silent.

"Fine, we'll do everything and take care of the people, buddy. But what real chances do we even have that we'll get lucky and the Plate will stay in place?" Biggs asked, nodding his head and anxiously shifting his gaze to the Support towering in the distance.

"Roughly fifty-fifty. Or even much less. From here it's perfectly visible that Shinra prepared for this operation extremely seriously. So all of you better prepare in advance for the worst scenario," Claudia began speaking in a cool tone, with habitual, brought-to-automaticity motions changing the spherical Materia in the slots of her main Buster Sword.

"Sounds like a completely shitty situation," Barret spat out with deep irritation, slightly raising his sunglasses and with rage examining the gigantic Support in the distance.

"We don't particularly have a choice, giant. Either we right now quickly get the hell out of here, or we go and help protect this piece of junk," Dean said with a predatory smirk, deftly loading his double-barreled sawed-off with large-salt cartridges and along the way stuffing additional ammunition into his pockets.

No one could object to these reasonable words, and absolutely everyone understood perfectly that right now a far from that situation had developed where it was worth rushing headlong forward without having a clear understanding of the circumstances. Alex hoped that they would still have at least a little time to fully discuss the details of the plan before Shinra officially began its bloody operation for the so-called "preventive stopping of 'AVALANCHE' from the fall of the Plate." However, the higher command of Shinra had its own, far harsher plans for this operation, and no one was going to wait for them.

At that very same moment throughout the entire area of the slums an amplified-by-speakers command voice echoed, ordering the terrorists to immediately surrender and lay down their weapons. And immediately after that the first solitary shot rang out dryly—it remained unknown who exactly had fired it.

But barely had the rolling sound of the first shot died away in the air when a full-fledged, massive shelling of the technical service zone of the Main Support began. Several combat helicopters began rapidly descending from above right onto the metal construction, on the move disembarking onto the tiers squads of ordinary Grunts. Observing the unfolding hell from afar, it finally became clear to everyone: there was no more time left for empty talk.

Alex turned to Aerith, Tifa, and Jessie and slightly nodded his head to them, wordlessly making it clear that in the case of extreme shit he fully counted on their endurance. Aerith and Tifa were already about to nod to him in response when right next to the Support the first deafening explosion thundered, from which the ground under their feet shuddered.

Barret, Dean, and Claudia were the first to tear off from the spot and at top speed ran toward the Support in order to manage to render aid to the defenders. Irritably sighing, Alex slightly patted Yuffie on the crown, making her understand that it was time for them to hurry as well. Yuffie quickly nodded her head and as a swift shadow rushed forward after the running trio. Already preparing to immediately dash after the others, Alex unexpectedly felt how he was tightly hugged from behind.

"Here's a tight hug for good luck," Aerith said with a warm laugh, burying her face between his shoulder blades.

"Eh, this woman still doesn't like me much… Look, stay closer to Steve—in case of anything he'll definitely protect you," Alex answered with a light smile, softly stroking Aerith's hair and once more insistently reminding her to be extremely careful.

"Run already, we'll definitely look after everything here! And you yourself… look after the others there," Tifa said in a caring tone, with warmth patting Alex on the shoulder.

With a smile nodding his head, Alex turned to Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge and with a juicy snap of his fingers behind his back unnoticed imposed a powerful magical protection on this trio. He wanted once and for all to exclude any possibility that the Gray Whisperers would still try to intervene and eliminate these three, as had originally been prescribed in the canonical fate.

And now, even if the entire multi-ton Plate collapsed on their heads, thanks to the imposed shield they would not receive a single scratch. Having made sure for the last time that he had absolutely forgotten nothing, Alex tore off from the spot and at maximum speed ran after the others in order to gain precious time.

Running along the narrow streets of the slums, Alex with chilling sobriety realized: the Plate would fall in any case, and this process could no longer be avoided in any way. All that he sincerely wanted to achieve right now was to gain enough time so that absolutely everyone managed to evacuate from the slums, and thereby save those who were doomed to perish in these events.

Seeing ahead a dense crowd of frightened residents anxiously observing what was happening, Alex with one powerful jump flew up onto the roof of a nearby house and ran right over the tops, along the way at the top of his voice shouting warnings so that no one would approach even a step closer to the technical service zone of the Main Support. Continuing to shout loud warnings for the civilians, Alex managed to reach the needed place just at that very moment when Dean decided to clear a path inside for them with habitual rough force.

The squad of Grunts responsible for guarding the outer perimeter tried to detain Dean, Claudia, Yuffie, and Barret and already raised their weapons for a kill shot. Without thinking for a single extra second, Dean aimed his sawed-off right at the leading Grunt and discharged a large-salt cartridge into his chest. Receiving the heaviest blow to the torso, the Grunt collapsed in a heap onto the ground and went into a loud moan, desperately holding onto the bruised place.

The remaining Shinra soldiers did not even manage to react when two of them were literally swept away by the charging Barret, who with a crash slammed them into the monolithic concrete wall. Yuffie and Claudia with lightning-fast attacks instantly dealt with the remaining ones, not giving them a single chance to respond.

"As I see it, up there the party is already in full swing, and completely without us. Damn unkind of them that they forgot to invite us," Dean said with a predatory smirk, with a deft habitual motion reloading his sawed-off.

"Then let's not waste time, hurry up and right now join this party," Alex said, easily jumping down from the high wall right next to the group.

"I don't need to be told twice! I'll with great pleasure personally throw these Shinra rats out of my home!" Barret snorted irritably and with all his might kicked out the mesh gates with his foot, opening a passage onto the inner territory.

"Then only forward! Our main goal is at the very top. Exactly there is located the main control panel of the entire Support. If we manage to operatively take it back, then we will guaranteed prevent the collapse of the Plate," Claudia commanded and first ran forward along the stair flights, not waiting for the others.

"Oh, I'll get there much faster!.. Alex, give me a boost!" Yuffie began speaking in a competitive tone, excitedly turning to Alex.

Hearing Yuffie's excited request, Alex turned his head to her, and the girl with a precise gesture pointed a finger at the third floor of the technical platform, where right now a fierce firefight was in full swing. Immediately understanding what exactly she had planned, Alex took a step back, standing with his back to the technical zone, and with a habitual motion folded his hands in front of himself into a boat. Taking a deep breath, Yuffie stepped back several steps in order to gain maximum acceleration.

Quickly collecting her thoughts, Yuffie tore off from the spot and as a swift shadow ran forward. With one powerful surge reaching Alex, she lightly jumped, precisely stepping with the tip of her shoe onto his clasped palms, and immediately felt a crushing upward push. Flying high into the air, Yuffie deftly turned right in flight, along the way snatching from her belt bag a sturdy steel cable with a hook. Swinging the cable, Yuffie sniper-like wrapped it around a massive metal column on the tier and sharply pulled it toward herself, instantly climbing onto the platform.

Seeing that Yuffie had safely found herself on the third floor, Alex unhurriedly took out from his pocket a small smooth black cube and carelessly threw it to the side. Barely had the cube touched the ground when it brightly lit up for a moment, and right in its place a sufficiently large soft inflatable mattress materialized. For, despite all the catastrophic nature of the current situation, Alex sincerely wanted to save as many human lives as possible.

After all, even the ordinary Shinra Grunts did not properly realize that in this bloody game they themselves were nothing more than ordinary cannon fodder, and about the true goal of this mission only four people in the top of the corporation knew. Raising a calm gaze upward, Alex carefully looked at the military helicopters continuously circling around the construction and technical scaffolding of the Support.

"Eh, maybe I still should have properly beaten that trio of Turks yesterday? So that instead of them they would send some other people here whom it would at least not be such a pity to kill," Alex muttered thoughtfully, stroking his chin and observing the maneuvering helicopters in whose cabins Reno, Rude, Elena, and Tseng were certainly located.

Deciding that it was better for now not to bother once more over this question, Alex turned toward the technical zone and powerfully jumped upward. Grabbing onto the stair flight between the third and second floors, Alex briefly glanced downward and saw that Dean, Barret, and Claudia were excellently coping with the full suppression of the superior forces of Grunts on the second floor. Pulling himself up on his arms in order to jump even higher, Alex, flying past the third floor, managed to notice that Yuffie was also magnificently coping with her task of helping the allies from "AVALANCHE."

And that automatically meant that he himself could calmly completely and fully occupy himself with the fourth floor. Grabbing onto a sturdy steel pipe right during the jump, Alex inertially spun and with a deafening crash tumbled inside the tier, along the way knocking down with his body several combat robot-drones at once. From his incredibly sudden appearance the Grunts and members of "AVALANCHE" for a moment fell into a stupor and completely stopped shooting at each other.

And while absolutely no one managed to adequately react, Alex as a swift lightning rushed right at the group of Shinra Grunts. Finding himself close to the soldiers, Alex with a sharp motion jerked his hand, and from his sleeve a telescopic baton immediately fell out, which he on the fly unfolded with a juicy click. Finding himself next to the first Grunt, Alex crushingly swung the baton and right away struck him on the ribs, sending the soldier into an uncontrolled flight.

Seeing how their comrade literally flew out beyond the limits of the platform through the iron railings, the remaining Grunts finally came to their senses and panickedly opened a barrage of fire at Alex. Deftly dodging the whistling bullets from all sides, Alex threw one Grunt after another out onto the street, not forgetting at the same time to thoroughly beat each one in order to beat out of them absolutely any desire to return back into the fight. Throwing the last loudly screaming Grunt out onto the street, exactly to where the soft inflatable mattress was already waiting for him, Alex heard the sound of a fallen body, after which he carefully folded the telescopic baton and put it back into the pocket.

"Thank you enormously, guy! You're from Barret's group and came to help us, right? And where are they themselves now?" a man from "AVALANCHE" exhaled with enormous relief, with his entire group approaching closer to Alex.

"Yeah, they're just climbing up here… And thank you enormously that you yourselves so conveniently approached me," Alex answered with a mocking, rather specific smile, turning his head toward the members of "AVALANCHE."

"In what… in what sense?" the member of "AVALANCHE" asked in confusion, completely not understanding the hidden subtext in Alex's words.

"Oh, I didn't want to say this, of course… But you, kids, are also out. And now—it's time to fly a little, children! You all so insanely love to fly, hee-hee-hee-hee!" Alex began speaking in an incredibly cheerful, creepy clownish tone and with a loud, crazy laugh grabbed the member of "AVALANCHE" by the arm in a death grip.

"Wait! Damn it, what are you even planning?!" the member of "AVALANCHE" desperately shouted, feeling how he was being pulled with irresistible force right toward the edge.

"Everyone loves to fly, Georgie! And you will definitely fly… All of you will fly for me now!" Alex answered, continuing to speak in a soul-chilling clownish tone, and with a sharp, powerful throw flung the member of "AVALANCHE" right through the railings out onto the street.

The member of "AVALANCHE" named Georgie, who a second ago had been talking with Alex, did not even manage to properly understand how he was already whistling downward from an enormous height. Perfectly understanding that after a fall from the fourth floor of the platform he was guaranteed not to survive, Georgie merely shut his eyes in horror, sincerely believing that this was his last moment.

However, instead of the expected wild pain and crunch of bones he felt how he softly and springily landed on some amortizing surface, and right above his ear a strange monotonous voice rang out. Carefully moving his hand, he felt under himself the dense fabric of an inflatable mattress. Opening his eyes, Georgie stunnedly realized that he was indeed lying on a gigantic mattress. Completely not understanding what the hell was happening around, Georgie nervously shuddered when he was without extra ceremony forcibly dragged from the inflatable mattress right onto the dusty ground.

Before his eyes appeared a rather specific guy, clad in a plush Rabbit mask and with an elegant black top hat on his head. Georgie stunnedly observed how the unknown in the mask insistently pointed a finger at a wooden signboard in his hand, on which by hand was written: "All those who have fallen are to proceed to the safe zone at the Wall Market, and no one is to fight."

Feeling complete incomprehension of the happening madness, Georgie suddenly heard yet another loud series of cries from above and saw how from the height of the fourth floor one after another his own comrades were flying out. The entire group of members of "AVALANCHE" with a juicy slap landed all together on the inflatable mattress, going into loud moans from fright.

Seeing that his friends had gone through exactly the same madness, Georgie hurried to them, helping them come to their senses and carefully descend to the ground. The Shinra Grunts, who at that very time nearby were coming to their senses after their own fall, instantly noticed the descending rebels and resolutely intended to arrest them.

"Detain the members of 'AVALANCHE'! Detain them immediately!" the Grunt-commander shouted at the top of his voice, painfully holding onto his bruised side and pointing a finger toward the fighters descending from the mattress.

"No one is to fight and all are to proceed strictly to the safe zone," the clone of Alex Gluttony, dressed in a carnival Rabbit costume, began speaking in an absolutely monotonous, emotionless voice, and without long reflections ringingly struck the Grunt-commander on the head with the wooden signboard.

"Ah you, Shinra scum! Well come on, approach, I'll lay you all out right here with my own hands!" the rebel Oscar shouted enragedly, panickedly reaching for the empty thigh holster and intending to immediately engage in hand-to-hand combat with the soldiers.

"I clearly said: no one is to fight and all are to proceed to the safe zone," Gluttony repeated in exactly the same monotonous, robot-like voice, this time with a swing striking the wooden signboard on the head of Oscar himself.

Having struck with the wooden signboard two idiots who absolutely did not understand simple human speech, Gluttony with a cold gaze surveyed those gathered and quickly understood: mere oral warnings would clearly be insufficient to force the two warring sides to forget about mutual hatred. Lazily raising a hand, Gluttony without an extra swing lightly struck a fist against the massive concrete wall next to himself.

However, barely had his fist touched the monolith when throughout the area a deafening, rolling roar rang out, and the entire wall instantly flew apart into small pieces, opening a wide direct passage leading exactly toward the massive gates between the sectors. The members of "AVALANCHE" and the Shinra Grunts, having visually seen such a monstrous demonstration of force, instantly fell silent, staring in silent shock at the smoking breach.

Noticing that everyone around had finally calmed down, Gluttony first expressively pointed a finger at his wooden signboard, and then—at the destroyed concrete wall, without a single word making it clear: anyone who dared to violate the rules would inevitably find themselves in the place of this very concrete. And one such transparent hint was more than enough—absolutely all those present completely lost any desire to fight among themselves.

Satisfiedly nodding his head, Gluttony pointed a finger at one randomly chosen Grunt and at one member of "AVALANCHE," after which with a strict gesture pushed them upward, clearly explaining: now the two of them were obliged to stand duty at the mattress and help absolutely all the following "flyers" who would fall from the upper tiers to get up. And exactly at that very moment from the height of the third floor with a loud yell successive Grunts began flying out, who with a juicy slap one after another landed on the inflatable mattress.

Raising confused gazes upward, all those present saw a young girl with an incredibly mocking smile on her face, who cheerfully waved a little hand to them from the platform and immediately carefreely threw yet another Shinra soldier through the railings. Completely confused by the happening absurdity, the remaining Grunt and member of "AVALANCHE" stunnedly looked at each other, and then shifted their gaze to Gluttony—but the clone of Alex in the Rabbit costume simply completely ignored them, still imperturbably and monotonously continuing to hold the wooden signboard in front of himself.

Unhurriedly climbing the steps to the fifth floor, Alex slightly peeked through the steel railings downward and sincerely rejoiced at the fact that he had rather foresightedly decided in advance to create his clone. Gluttony was ideally coping with his task, instantly extinguishing absolutely any conflict at the foot.

Alex was not in the least concerned that both sides were only doing what was prescribed to them by duty—the only truly important matter for him remained continuously breaking the canonical events, saving the lives of those who by the canon were doomed to inevitable death. Stopping peering downward, Alex stepped onto the platform of the fifth floor and gloomily, heavily sighed.

The entire fifth tier was literally littered with mutilated, torn corpses of members of "AVALANCHE." And right in the middle of this nightmarish bloody mess of human bodies the Elite Stormtroopers of Shinra proudly towered. Noticing the appearance of a new living target, the stormtroopers tore off from their places and at top speed rushed right at Alex, ready to chop him into pieces with their blades.

However, the moment they found themselves close enough, Alex with an absolutely frozen, gloomy expression on his face carelessly raised a hand and pointed with two fingers toward the attackers. The stormtroopers did not manage to run up to him even a couple of steps when their bodies were instantly sliced into dozens of bloody pieces, and the entire technical fifth floor lengthwise and crosswise was covered with deep traces from a multitude of invisible cuts.

Smoothly lowering his hand, Alex raised his gaze to the ceiling beams, carefully listening to the unceasing echo of shots and the deafening explosions continuously thundering on the very upper tiers. Understanding that he should hurry, Alex turned around and quickly ran up the steps to the sixth floor. But barely had he managed to climb a little higher when right above his head yet another deafening explosion rang out.

Throwing his head upward, Alex saw a combat helicopter engulfed in flames that was rapidly and uncontrollably falling downward. Observing the falling burning machine, Alex quickly evaluated the trajectory and understood that it was flying exactly onto the densely populated quarters. Irritably sighing, Alex with a light wave of a finger changed the course of the fall, forcing the helicopter to crash exactly in the place where no one was guaranteed to suffer, but at the same time a strong panic was guaranteed to rise among the onlookers still gawking at the Support.

Seeing how the helicopter with a crash smashed into the empty buildings, instantly causing a bright fire, Alex satisfiedly nodded his head. Extracting a signal flare from the pocket, he shot into the sky a bright flashing charge—this was the conventional sign for Tifa, Aerith, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge that it was time to immediately begin the evacuation. While Alex was completely distracted by launching the signal flare, his figure between the sixth and fifth floors was noticed from another circling helicopter.

"Hey, Rude! Just look, it's our long-time SOLDIER buddy! He looks damn healthy and cheerful for a guy who literally still yesterday was juicily vomiting blood right onto the sidewalk," Reno said with a venomous smirk, confidently holding the helicopter's control stick and examining Alex through the windshield.

"Hmm. It's quite possible that he managed to fully recover thanks to his direct connection with the Ancients… if, of course, our boss's theory was initially correct," Rude said thoughtfully, with a habitual sparse motion adjusting his sunglasses.

"Well, right now we'll personally check how well he recovered!" Reno answered with an excited smirk, sharply banking the helicopter onto its wing and directing the combat machine downward, right at Alex standing on the flight.

Smirking, Reno sharply directed the helicopter downward, quickly descending from the upper tiers of the Support. Having descended sufficiently low, he hovered right opposite Alex and immediately turned on a bright blinding searchlight. Already preparing to move further and completely ignore the equipment, Alex discontentedly narrowed his eyes from the beam of light that struck his face.

Turning his head, he made out in the cabin two perfectly familiar idiots—Reno and Rude. Merely wearily shaking his head, Alex continued climbing the steps to the sixth floor, seriously intending to further ignore this annoying duo that was always getting under his feet. Noticing how they were being frankly and carefreely ignored, Reno venomously smirked and immediately opened fire from the large-caliber machine gun right at the metal steps in front of Alex's nose, not allowing him to take even a step. Lowering the raised foot back onto the flight, Alex unhurriedly took out a thin cigar from the pocket, lit it, and turned face toward the hovering helicopter.

"Ahem-ahem… Check, check! One-two-three… Attention, SOLDIER buddy! We know perfectly well about your insidious plans to destroy the Support! But the Turks… Ahem, that is Shinra… in short, WE! We will under no circumstances allow you to do this! So immediately surrender voluntarily, and then we, so be it, will take pity on the rest of your rabble and allow them to crawl back into those dirty holes from which they crawled out! In case of non-compliance we open fire without warning! So, seems everything is said… And now choose, SOLDIER buddy!" from the external loudspeaker of the helicopter rang out the mocking, clowning voice of Reno, who right away tried to hang all the blame for what was happening on Alex.

Listening to this entire absurd tirade, Alex merely lazily scratched his ear with a finger, once again finally becoming convinced that Reno was a rare idiot. Tilting his head to the side, Alex looked at the red-haired Turk with an expressive gaze literally screaming: "Did you just dump this for real?"

However, in response the machine-gun block on the belly of the helicopter began rotating with an even greater rolling hum. Rubbing his forehead from the surging fatigue, Alex shook his head and simply silently showed Reno the middle finger, extremely clearly expressing his official position, after which he slightly waved it in the air, inviting them to attack.

Seeing such an open and insolent provocation, Reno predatorily narrowed his eyes and slightly leaned forward, gripping the control stick with both hands, after which he instantly clamped the trigger and opened a barrage of fire right at Alex. Alex himself remained calmly standing in place—he merely lazily yawned, releasing dense gray smoke through his nose and thereby completely blocking Reno's view. The red-haired Turk continued excitedly firing until the dense cloud of cigar smoke finally dispersed. Reno saw that Alex was still motionless standing in the same place, lazily smoking his cigar.

"Ho! Damn, seems I still missed… And that means I need to shoot at him a little more!" Reno said with an excited smirk, already preparing to again press the machine-gun trigger.

"You didn't miss," Rude stopped him in an extremely calm and even tone, intently peering at Alex's tightly clenched fist.

"In what sense? This idiot is standing absolutely whole and unharmed! Bullets of such a caliber should even have turned him into a bloody sieve in the blink of an eye!" Reno asked with deep bewilderment, turning a confused head to his partner.

"Just look at his right hand—and you'll understand everything perfectly yourself," Rude answered, with a sparse gesture pointing the partner forward with his chin.

Turning his head back toward Alex, Reno was stunned: the latter had already easily climbed onto the metal railings and smoothly extended a clenched fist forward. Beginning to slowly unclench his fingers, Alex poured downward the entire machine-gun burst that had been fired at him. Reno and Rude with a squint observed the falling metal lumps, without extra words realizing the crazy fact: Alex had caught the entire barrage of bullets with bare hands.

Throwing out all the bullets to the last one except one, Alex clamped it between his fingers and immediately with a precise flick flung it right at the helicopter. The bullet thrown with monstrous force pierced through the thick windshield, and Reno managed to jerk his head aside at the very last, critical moment. Turning his head, he with deep shock stared at the smoking metal stuck right in the headrest of his pilot's seat.

Blinking in surprise, Reno turned his head back and again met a direct gaze with Alex. Slowly raising a hand, Alex folded his fingers into the form of a pistol and put the "barrel" to his own temple. Making with a gesture of the thumb an imitation of cocking and pulling the trigger, Alex sharply jerked his head to the side, and from the opposite side of his head a bright fountain of red confetti sprayed out. Removing his hand from the temple, Alex transferred the finger-gun right at Reno and made a light shooting motion, giving an extremely clear and direct hint.

"Damn… And this guy really knows how to threaten! He almost, the bastard, took my head off!" Reno spat out with furious irritation, not taking an intent gaze from Alex.

"If he sincerely wanted to hit you—he would have hit. He and his partner could without problems have killed all of us still then when we were supposed to first escort Aerith to Shinra," Rude began speaking, stretching a stiff neck and with involuntary reluctance recalling their first crushing defeat.

"And what do we do now? You remember perfectly our official mission: to make the appearance of conducting the operation and at the same time capture the girl and him," Reno began speaking in an extremely tired tone, leaning back against the back of the pilot's seat.

"We'll just observe. If the boss manages to successfully capture Aerith, he might surrender himself. I still deeply doubt that in one single night he managed to recover so fully after what happened yesterday," Rude answered in a thoughtful tone, not taking his eyes from Alex, who had already continued his calm ascent up the steps to the sixth tier.

"Damn it, they clearly don't pay us that much to deal with this monster! Right now we're sacredly relying purely on luck—whether he recovered fully or not. Because if not… we're all completely fucked. And don't forget about the second guy! That one is definitely fully healthy," Reno cursed and, tightly grabbing the control stick with both hands, slightly pulled it toward himself, forcing the helicopter to rise higher and higher.

Stopping paying the slightest attention to the two idiot-Turks, Alex continued unhurriedly climbing the steps. He knew perfectly well that on the opposite side of this entire massive metal construction there was yet another staircase along which Grunts or members of "AVALANCHE" could at any moment be descending. However, this fact did not concern him at all: on the tiers below were moving Dean, Barret, Yuffie, and Claudia, who would without the slightest problems deal with those whom he accidentally let through.

Having climbed onto the sixth tier, Alex saw only frozen corpses of Grunts and members of "AVALANCHE" who had perished in the fierce firefight. Dejectedly shaking his head, Alex continued climbing higher and higher, intending to reach the very top of the technical service zone of the Main Support.

Stopping on the stair flight between the sixth and seventh tiers, Alex completely ignored the helicopter continuously watching him from the air and looked toward the slums engulfed in bright flames. From here he had an excellent view of how the frightened people were gradually evacuating into the safe sector with the direct help of Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge.

Casting a quick glance over this rescue squad, Alex looked a little farther and noticed Aerith and Tifa: both girls were on the main square and straining with all their might shouting, calling the residents to hurry and leave the doomed Sector as quickly as possible. Lighting yet another thin cigar, Alex cast a fleeting glance at the circling nearby helicopter and continued unhurriedly climbing to the very top. He intended to calmly await the beginning of the following key events that were supposed to unfold here in the nearest few minutes.

To be continued...

(Here's another chapter; I managed to cram in most of what I'd planned for it. That means in the next chapter, I can move on to the actual fall of the Slab. Maybe. The most annoying part was that I developed such a splitting headache just as I was finishing the chapter—it was almost funny. But now I can finally rest and get something to eat with a clear conscience. I'd write more about my plans, but I'm just too exhausted. Peace, love, and what's done is done.)

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