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“Brother...are you gonna go and become a SOLDIER like Sephiroth?” A young blonde haired girl asked her older twin brother, blue eyes glistening with a mixture of worry and excitement. The older twin looked back at his sibling and nodded his head once, before turning to stare at the sky above their humble village of Nibelheim.
“Mhm, and I’m gonna be the best SOLDIER yet.”
“I’ll go with you!” The sister announced, placing her hands on her hips with a big grin on her face. “We’ll be the most unstoppable pair of SOLDIERS yet! And all will hear about the heroic deeds of the twins Cloud and Celeste Strife!” This caused Cloud to chuckle a bit before his own eyes flickered with worry.
“I don’t know, sis. I haven’t heard of any SOLDIERs who were girls. Besides, who’s gonna take care of mom when I’m gone?” he asked. This caused his twin to pause, a frown making its way onto her face, her right hand reaching up to tap on her lip in thought.
“You got a point, but I can’t exactly leave my only twin brother to go fight by himself! We were brought into this world together, so I’d rather if we left at around the same time too. I’m sure Mom would understand.” A small smile curled upon the boy’s lips.
“I guess. You are tough after all, since you are my twin.”
“You know it!” she giggled, before she turned her head towards the sound of their mother’s voice. “Looks like Mom’s calling us in for dinner. We should head back before we make her worried.” Celeste stretched a little before she grinned at her twin, but Cloud paused.
“You go on ahead and let Mom know I’ll be there in a bit. There’s something I got to do first,” he said, looking at the water tower. His twin glanced over before she frowned.
“You’re gonna talk to Tifa, aren’t you?” she asked, seeing the way her brother tensed up at the mention of their neighbour, which served to confirm her suspicions. Celeste was never the biggest fan of Tifa, but she tolerated her for her twin’s sake, and was well aware of her brother’s little crush on her.
“N-no!” he exclaimed, a little too quickly. Celeste sighed, shaking her head before crossing her arms and let the annoyance in her gaze fade.
“You know you can’t lie to me, brother,” she huffed, Cloud looking away in embarrassment. She looked at him before lightly nudging him.
“Well? Go on. I’ll tell Mom to wait up. Don’t take too long though!” With a playful tussle of his hair, she spun on her heel and ran off to their home, leaving the other blonde by himself.
‘Thanks, sis.’ He thought to himself before taking a deep breath, making his way over to the water tower to tell Tifa about his departure.
Celeste opened the door to their home, smiling when she saw the figure of her mother behind the stove, the smell of dinner wafting through the air.
“I’m home!” she exclaimed, shutting the door behind her. Claudia turned to look over, smiling at her daughter before it switched to an expression of slight worry.
“Welcome home, sweetie. Where’s your brother?” she asked. Celeste struggled to not give an eye roll right then and there as she thought about what her twin was doing as she moved over to the cabinet and began grabbing plates and utensils.
“He had to do something really quick. He’ll be back soon,” she explained, setting 3 sets of dinnerware on the worn wooden table. Her mother nodded, relaxing slightly and smiled.
“That’s good. I just worry about him, since he said he’s going to go to Midgar to be a SOLDIER like all the other boys in the village,” she sighed, turning off the stove and began to wash her hands at the sink. At those words, the blonde haired girl hesitated, pressing her lips into a thin line.
“About that…” she paused, before shaking her head, “I was thinking about joining him. Going to Midgar I mean.” Claudia whipped her head around to look at her daughter in surprise.
“You can’t possibly be serious, Celeste. The city is no place for a young girl like you! I’m worried enough about Cloud, I can’t possibly…” she looked away, staring at the water draining into the sink. “I just don’t want to lose the both of you too.” The young girl whipped around and pressed herself against her mother in a tight hug, burying her face into her chest.
“I know, Mom. I know. But I can’t just leave Cloud to risk his life by himself! Who else is gonna tell him when he’s being a big idiot? He’s my brother...I don’t like the thought of him leaving either. But there’s nothing here for me. We get bullied by the other kids, and I can’t see myself staying here all my life.” She pulled away and looked up at her mother, eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“I promise we’ll keep each other safe. And we’ll send you lots of letters and money, a-and we’ll visit you when we can! We’ll make sure you’re happy after everything’s over, when me and Cloud are heroes you can be proud of!” Claudia sighed, struggling to keep her own tears back as she returned the hug.
“Oh, sweetie...You and Cloud are already something to be proud of,” she murmured, holding her daughter close, stroking Celeste’s hair. A small, choked sob escaped from the young girl as she hugged her mother tighter, committing the moment to memory. After a while, they pulled away, Claudia wiping away Celeste’s tears gently.
“Come on, let’s get dinner set up and wait for your brother.” The younger twin smiled, nodding as she rubbed the remaining tears away from her face and helped her mother get everything ready. A few minutes later, Cloud entered the home, looking a little relieved.
“I’m home!” he announced, wiping his shoes on the rug.
“Took you long enough! Mom and I have been waiting for you to get here!” his twin huffed, crossing her arms. The older twin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, looking a little guilty.
“Sorry…”
“Now now, “ Claudia gently scolded, “he’s here now. Come on, Cloud.” He smiled, walking over to the table and sat down with his family, enjoying the company of his loved ones, unaware that it would be the last time the three of them could ever be like this again.
Celeste jerked slightly as she heard the screeching of metal against metal, the memory of that day fading away whilst she braced herself. Cloud was next to her, waiting as well, his Buster Sword put away on his back. She moved her hand behind her, double checking that her mechanical scythe was still folded up, ready to be whipped out at a moment’s notice.
She took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand. They had been hired to help an Anti-Shinra group called Avalanche blow up Mako Reactor 1, and they had agreed. For a price that is. The train screeched to a stop, signifying that they had reached their destination. Her twin lifted up a hand slightly, making her nod and stay put for now. Two Shinra officers were approaching, probably to make inspections. She figured their accomplices would handle them, and double checked her phone so that it was set to quick response mode.
Seeing as she could no longer speak now, she had to devise some way to communicate. Of course, she and Cloud had both learned sign language together after she had lost her ability to speak, and they could communicate without it, but the same could not be said for most people. She was glad she was able to snag someone who could help make it easier for her with her phone, it saved her a lot of trouble.
A yelp and a grunt later, she looked over to see the two guards knocked out, as well as the faces of the other people who were engaged with the current ‘job’. Before she could do anything else, however, she heard the gruff voice of the man who hired them, Barret Wallace.
“Get down here, mercs,” he grumbled, the twins exchanging an annoyed look between each other before they hopped off the top of the train, Celeste dusting herself off whilst Cloud swung his sword to the side, testing the weight he was all too familiar with before returning it to his back. No sooner than they had, two more Shinra officers appeared around the corner, yelling at them threateningly.
“You’re up,” Barret ordered, Celeste scoffing slightly before she unsheathed her scythe with a flick of her wrist, Cloud grabbing his sword and held it at the ready. Barret and the other three went off ahead, leaving the twins to deal with the trouble. She exchanged a quick look with her brother and nodded before she launched herself ahead first, catching the officers off-guard as she swung her scythe in a wide arc. They startled, moving back slightly.
Cloud followed up by leaping over his twin and with a large swing, cleaved both officers at the same time, knocking them out. With that done, they ran after the others, Celeste keeping her weapon out in case they ran into more officers on the way. There had been several, but the two dealt with all of them easily. Such is the case when you’ve been fighting with each other for a long time, plus the added synergy as siblings helped. They soon caught up with the others, waiting at the side while the girl, Jessie, fiddled with the control panel. Celeste let out a sigh before she began moving her hands in signs, having a silent conversation with her twin.
“So, what’s SOLDIER boy and girl’s deal? They one of us now? They’ve got balls, uh, what were their names again?” Jessie asked, glancing over at the two, quirking her eyebrow in curiosity.
“Cloud and Celeste Strife, they’re twins. Cloud’s not a SOLDIER anymore, and apparently Celeste was good enough to tag along with him in the field. They’re professionals though, unlike us. And I’m personally glad to have them on our side,” the thinner man, Biggs, replied as he helped her with fiddling the power cords.
“Twins, huh? That’s pretty rare,” she commented, before returning to the task at hand. The other guy, Wedge, gave a thumbs up to the two, Cloud simply looked away while Celeste smiled quietly at him, being the more friendly of the siblings.
“This is a onetime gig, once it’s done. We’re done,” Cloud said coldly, earning a light smack from his sister who gave him a sharp look, shaking her head and placed her hands on her hips. The older twin rolled his eyes at her before shrugging and crossing his arms.
Barret slowly walked over, pushing the older twin out of the way, earning a shared glare at him, not that the man seemed to care. Wedge attempted to talk to Cloud again but was given ‘I don’t give a shit’ stare in response. A series of beeps sounded and the door that was previously locked, opened. Jessie and Biggs went on ahead, guns in their hands, keeping an eye out for guards.
“Wedge,” Barret said sharply, causing the man to jerk a little before he nodded and ran after his friends. Then the large man turned to look at the two siblings, his eyes narrowing slightly in distrust at the two. It was clear he didn’t like them, and the feeling was mutual.
“You’d better be worth the gil, mercs. Every last gil ,” he spat, turning to walk after the others. It was Cloud’s turn to scoff, looking at his sister and raised his hand in disbelief. She sighed in response before she followed after them with him. They encountered more enemy reinforcements along the way, and eventually came to another door they had to get open. As they stood around waiting for it to happen, it seemed Barret decided it was a good idea to start making jabs at the two.
“SOLDIERs may attack on command, but I hear they make good guard dogs too,” he sneered, waiting for a reaction out of either of them, but was mostly looking for one out of Cloud. “Bet you’ve seen a few reactors. So how do we get to the bridge above mako storage?” Cloud let out a breath, eyes widening slightly as he looked up at the reactor.
“Ain’t holding out on me, are you? Stamp scared to bite the hand that fed him? Or is he a loyal little doggy?!” he yelled, before he startled in surprise when the blade of a scythe came dangerously close to his neck. Celeste glared at him with silent, seething anger, her eyes seeming to glow and her irises sharpening into slits. Her stance was unthreatening, but her tightened grip on the handle served as a warning. The screen of her phone lit up and an automated voice came from it.
“One more thing that comes out of that mouth of yours and I’ll cut your tongue out. We came here to do a job, not to get belittled by a man too obsessed with his payback.” The others looked at her, their jaws dropped in shock. Cloud was the only one unaffected, and a tiny smirk briefly crossed his lips.
“I wouldn’t want to get intimate with that blade of hers, so I suggest you do as she says,” he sneered, relishing in the look of slight terror that crept its way onto the larger man’s face. His twin held the blade there for a few moments longer, before flicking the scythe back into the folded position behind her back and stepped away from Barret. Cloud then grimaced, grabbing his head as a brief flash of pain shot to his head. Once it had subsided, he looked up once more.
“Anyways, to answer your question. Different reactor, different layout. Depends on when it was built. Never seen one like this before, but we’ll manage,” he explained. The others were still shaken up by the not so mild threat that the ex-SOLDIER’s sister had made, but Biggs was the first to shake off his stupor and unlock the door. The others came to their senses once he did, and ran into the room. Barret eyed Celeste a little nervously as he walked after them. He wasn’t going to admit that he just about shit his pants at that unexpected reaction. If anything, he expected it out of the older twin.
The group kept moving forward, eventually getting to an elevator. Cloud stepped forward and lightly tapped on the ‘up’ button, placing his hands on his hips while they waited. Jessie took this as an opportunity to try and divulge some information out of Cloud.
“So you know Tifa right? It’s not really my business but, are you two close?” she asked, a sly grin on her face. Off to the side, the younger twin rolled her eyes at the mention of their ‘childhood friend’ and at the other girl’s question.
‘If it’s none of your business, why the hell are you asking?’ The other blonde thought to herself, shaking her head slightly. She glanced over at her brother and frowned slightly when she saw the conflicting look upon her brother’s face.
Cloud remembered Nibelheim, how they would walk out to the village, see Tifa with the village boys and walk away. Tifa would call out to them, but they would turn away and then their neighbour would huff, asking if they were ignoring her. It was a yes and a no. Tifa never understood why the two didn’t really hang out with her, and that was something neither twin wanted to explain.
“Tifa and I…” he started, but was interrupted by the elevator dinging and opening up to let the group in. The four of them, Jessie, Celeste, Barret and Cloud went in while Biggs and Wedge stayed behind. To say things were tense would be an understatement, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Meanwhile, in the Presidential Suite of the Shinra Building, the president watched from the security systems, a look of mild displeasure upon his face. A large, unruly man stepped up to his side, a scar over his eye.
“These sewer rats call themselves Avalanche. We’re currently investigating whether or not this was the same group that made the attempt on your life. But rest assured, our inquiries will not take much longer,” The larger man informed the president, who only scoffed slightly in response. Back in the elevator, Barret was preaching about how Shinra needed to be stopped and that the reactor’s sole purpose was to suck the planet dry of mako.
“I know you can hear the planet crying out in pain!” He stated, pointing at Cloud.
“You really hear that?”
“Damn straight I do!” he responded proudly.
“Get help,” the blonde returned flatly, earning an angered look from the larger man while the twin silently laughed to herself. He stepped forward menacingly, raring to have a fight, but the elevator dinged, signifying that they had reached the floor they were headed to. They exited, spotting a bunch of turrets that neither twin could reach, so they had to rely on Barret and his gun-arm.
Some other obstacles barred their way, such as a laser security system, and a sweeper, to name a few. Soon, they reached the room where the mako reactor was, where they'd have to place the bomb at the bottom and shut the reactor down for good. Many thoughts ran through Celeste’s head while they made their way down the ladders to the reactor core, of how she wanted a breather away from a certain someone, how she wanted to forget the stench of mako, of how that green changed her and her brother’s life forever because of it.
They were just about to start the timer of the bomb when she sensed it. She whipped out her scythe, Cloud grabbing his buster sword and holding it at the ready. It was coming, and they were going to be in deep trouble. Barret cried out, initially thinking that they were betraying him, before a large Scorpion Sentinel barged it’s way to the area. They dodged out of the way and Cloud made an annoyed ‘tch’, this was going to be a hassle.
He gave a hand signal to Celeste who immediately began harassing the Sentinel from behind. He gave a quick yell at Barret to focus fire on the head before he joined his twin in attacking it from behind. The Sentinel soon backed up, running along the walls and landed on the open area behind them, activating a barrier.
It was something neither twin had seen during their time with Shinra, so it had them worried for a moment. There had to be a way for them to disable that and they’d be able to beat it senseless again. Cloud circled around the machine, spotting the tiny field generator right under it.
“Field Generator! Focus on it!” he called out, earning a quick thumbs up from his other party members before they turned their attention on the generator, taking turns to attack whenever it decided to focus on someone else. It lifted up it’s tail, smacking Cloud away from it, who hadn’t had time to dodge before it suddenly turned on him.
In response, Celeste slammed the handle of her scythe down into the ground, anchoring it into place before she held a hand out, spinning and catching her brother’s hand, using the momentum to launch him back into the sentinel. He took the opportunity to slam down on the field generator right as it reared up, rendering it broken, and the barrier deactivated.
“Time to punch this thing’s lights out!” Barret yelled in excitement, powering up his Focused Shot ability and fired it at the enemy, pressuring it. Once he noticed that there was an opening, Cloud flashed a hand signal to his sister. She did a zig zag motion with her finger. She was telling him 'Lightning.'
"Barret! Ya got Lightning materia on you?" He hollered at the larger man.
"Yeah, why?" He shouted back, firing another stream of bullets.
"Celeste says it's weak to lightning! So let's hit it with magic at the same time!"
"Sounds like a plan to me!"
All three of them backed up, yellow electricity sparking in between their fingers before they unleashed the bolts onto the Sentinel, staggering it.
"Now!"
The trio leaped onto the machine and began using their most hard-hitting attacks on it while it was still down. Celeste’s eyes seem to glow with excitement, her irises sharpening to become slits once more, her lips curling up in a smile, a flash of sharpened teeth reflecting against the blistering light coming from the machine. It wasn’t going to stay down forever though, and after the trio had done a decent amount of damage to it, it got back up, crawled along the wall, burning this time and causing debris to fall from the ceiling.
It raised its tail laser, charging it up for a big attack. The trio immediately sprinted over, skidding behind cover right as it blasted. They could feel the blistering heat of the laser even from behind their makeshift barrier, and all silently thanked whatever higher power that they avoided it. Darting out of the way once the debris crumbled into dust, they resumed their attack on the machine.
Eventually, after beating on it for some time, and avoiding the tail lasers, they started to focus on crippling the legs to make it stop moving. It felt like it had been hours that they’ve been fighting that stupid thing, when the reality was that it had been 15 minutes or so.
They each took out a leg by themselves, leaving only one left to cripple to hopefully finally get rid of it. The trio exchanged nods with each other, the twins running forward with their blades as Barret charged a shot, firing it right as the blades came into contact with the final leg, crippling the leg and staggering it again. The party gave one final beat down to it and finally defeated it.
The Sentinel started malfunctioning badly, it’s tail laser firing all over the place, the beam dragging itself over the reactor core and to the ceiling before it fell into the pit of mako, exploding in the process. Whatever celebration they might have wanted to have had to be saved for later, they needed to get out because the bomb’s timer started counting down.
They sprinted up along the way, meeting up with Jessie, though were separated for a bit when a piece of debris fell on top of the other girl, Cloud rushing over to help her while Celeste continued on with Barret, meeting up at the lift after fighting their way through a bunch of enemies. Unbeknownst, to them, President Shinra was watching, and gave Heidegger the order to make the explosion seem much more devastating than it actually was. The group eventually met up with Biggs, sprinting out of the reactor. One of the platforms gave out when a pipe fell on it, making Celeste start to fall forward.
“Sis!” Her twin cried out, backing up to reach out a hand to her. She nodded and quickly leaped up, hopping off another falling platform and caught her brother’s arm, who pulled her forward onto stable ground. She thanked him with a smile before they continued to run out of the mako reactor as it blew up into smithereens behind them. The debris fell from the sky in scattered remnants as the whole surrounding sector went dark, now no longer getting power from the destroyed reactor.
This, however, was only the beginning.