Continuing work on assembling the arc reactor, Alex from time to time unnoticed resorted to magic in order to maximally speed up the process. He desperately wanted to make it before sunrise — in case extremely unpleasant harbingers like the Gray Whispers interfered in the events. Having relocated to Avalanche's secret hideout right under the bar, Alex decided to take a short break before finally connecting the device to the main distribution hub.
Wearily rubbing his face with his palms, he for a moment thought about everything he still had to pull off before the situation in the city finally escalated and they all would have to leave Midgar to set out on adventures across the expanses of Gaia. Lowering his hands, Alex looked around and noticed a detailed operation plan drawn on the board that Barret had mentioned earlier.
Approaching closer, Alex saw the schemes for infiltrating the Fifth Sector Mako reactor. Stroking his chin, he clearly recalled exactly what catastrophe was supposed to happen there. And the only correct way to rewrite this scenario was to go on the mission personally, together with Barret and Tifa. While Alex carefully studied the blueprints on the board, he did not even notice how Tifa quietly entered the basement.
She had to come down because the others had simply grown tired of waiting upstairs and were already asking questions — when would Alex finally start the energy node and test it in action? Arriving on the lower level with the help of the secret elevator, Tifa saw how Alex was studying the developments of their plan and silently crept up behind him.
"Going to call our plan stupid again?" Tifa inquired with a soft smile, standing shoulder to shoulder with Alex.
"The plan isn't stupid at all. And I'm sincerely glad that you even took into account the necessity of switching the Mako reverse flow valve… And the method of infiltration through the railway tunnel system itself is quite effective. With the exception of certain details, but…" Alex responded in a calm tone, pointing the tip of a thin cigar at the board and on the go laying out everything he had managed to analyze.
"And what is this hidden 'but'? Don't you want to share your authoritative opinion, Mister Genius?" Tifa teased with a slight laugh, turning to Alex, putting her hands behind her back and coquettishly leaning a little forward.
"None of you simply took into account unforeseen factors. Especially after all our latest pranks…" Alex began to explain, slightly waving the cigar in the air.
"Maybe you meant — your pranks?" Tifa interrupted in a sarcastic tone, giving Alex a cunning look.
"Okay-okay, my pranks… If speaking in two words: tomorrow absolutely anything can happen," Alex admitted with a chuckle and slightly shrugged, turning his head to Tifa.
"And that is precisely why you are going to go with us to provide backup and help?" Tifa noted with a cunning squint, instantly figuring out exactly what Alex was driving at.
"Exactly. And at the same time I have one stunning idea how to make this sortie even more interesting!" Alex responded cheerfully, extinguishing the clenched cigar on the ashtray.
"Another of your grand concerts? I think Barret will be categorically against something like that!" Tifa responded with clear interest, noting to herself that she wouldn't mind at all listening once again to how Alex sings.
"Not exactly… Well, fine, time to finish with the installation! And if I did everything right… And I did absolutely everything right, then the slums will get their own personal autonomous light source right now," Alex said in a mysterious tone, approaching the massive switch and confidently grabbing its handle.
Holding onto the switch, Alex turned to Tifa. Seeing his look, Tifa nodded, letting him know that she was ready too, and Alex immediately with a confident motion yanked the handle downward. In that same instant throughout the entire Seventh Sector of the slums the light completely went out for a short moment. Finding herself in absolute darkness, Tifa for a second thought that the idea had failed. But in that same moment from the depths of the installation a strange, quiet humming sound rang out, and the arc reactor came into motion, shining with a soft bluish light.
Looking at the device, Tifa saw Alex in this mysterious glow — Alex pulled the switch again, this time upward. Through the even hum of the device a clear click rang out, and the lamps in the secret hideout lit up again. Slightly squinting from the stream that hit her eyes, Tifa noted to herself that the light was burning noticeably brighter than usual.
And the moment this thought flashed in her head, it dawned on Tifa: Alex had indeed succeeded! Now the entire Seventh Sector of the slums had received its own, completely independent energy source. Sincerely rejoicing at this event, Tifa from an excess of feelings impulsively stepped forward, intending to hug Alex. However, before she managed to do this, Alex raised an index finger, silently hinting that they needed to wait a second.
Stopping from his gesture, Tifa noticed that Alex was holding a smartphone in his hands, directly connected to the diagnostic port of the apparatus. Making sure from the graphs on the screen that all systems were working ideally, Alex turned to Tifa and immediately showed her a thumbs-up. Seeing this final confirmation, Tifa joyfully laughed and instantly hugged Alex around the neck.
For her the opportunity to ease the hard daily life of the slum residents was the best gift in the world. Feeling the very soft and pleasant warmth of her embrace, Alex quietly smirked and pressed Tifa to himself, fleetingly thinking that today he was being hugged somehow too frequently. However, Alex understood perfectly well the price of such a reaction — for Tifa the life of everyone who huddled in these slum districts, and even the residents of the Upper City, was infinitely important.
"Thank you… Now it will become much easier for the locals to live! At least they will be able to save a little on electricity. Lately everything has gotten much more expensive — especially new water filters," Tifa noted with a tender smile, still not releasing the embrace.
"And why were you silent about this earlier? I would have ordered the needed materials from Leslie back then to install an excellent filter right on the common pipeline — and absolutely everyone would receive clean water!" Alex teased cheerfully, lightly patting Tifa on the back.
"Um… Well, I somehow didn't even think of it. I wasn't completely sure whether your reactor would work at all," Tifa admitted embarrassedly, stopping hugging Alex around the neck and taking an awkward step back, slightly blushing.
"Well then, I think we should add the water pipeline to our list of nearest plans! And for now let's go upstairs to the others. I think they're also in seventh heaven from happiness up there," Alex said with a smile, winking and affectionately stroking Tifa on the head.
"I'm simply sure of that! Wedge is probably rejoicing louder than everyone!" Tifa picked up joyfully, stepping after Alex toward the stairs and putting her hands behind her back.
Approaching the platform together with Tifa, Alex with a habitual motion pressed the hidden reset button on the pinball table, and the elevator immediately silently went back upward. While the platform was rising, Alex and Tifa with surprise noticed that an unusual, literally ringing silence reigned in the bar — no one was shouting or rejoicing.
And the moment they appeared in the hall, absolutely everyone present stared at them with greedy, questioning gazes, with bated breath awaiting the final confirmation. Seeing these burning eyes, Alex with a satisfied grin confidently raised a thumb upward, letting them know that everything was working simply ideally!
And the moment the group received this long-awaited signal, the Seventh Heaven bar was instantly deafened by joyful laughter. Biggs and Wedge with delighted cries rushed to hug each other. Barret with a huge smile of a satisfied winner crossed his arms on his chest and kept nodding approvingly.
The happy Jessie tightly hugged Aerith and Yuffie, who turned out to be closest to her. Watching this general euphoria, Alex with a warm smile shook his head. If not for the rigid time frames in which Alex was constrained, he would have pulled off such things far more gradually.
But time remained so scarce that he had to act at high speed in order to manage to save and protect everyone. Sharing the general joy, Alex approached Dean's table and unhurriedly sat down on the chair opposite.
"It's wild to watch someone who experiences such childish delight from ordinary electric light… Although, damn it, you can understand them. Life in this place is pure shit," Dean began speaking in a calm voice, nonchalantly throwing his legs right onto the table.
"You definitely can't argue with that… But everything could have been much worse," Alex responded in a slightly tired tone, leaning his elbows on the tabletop and with a smile watching the rejoicing friends.
"You're right there, it could have been worse… And what do we do next?" Dean nodded, turning his head toward Alex.
"We wait for the reaction of these Gray Fart-faces… At least I sincerely hope they won't crawl out," Alex answered thoughtfully, carefully removing his pink headband from his head.
"Have we ever been that lucky? I'd sooner believe that the next cursed hospital will be packed with kind ghosts," Dean teased with a smirk, lowering his feet from the table and leaning a little closer to Alex.
"And you can't argue with that either, damn it!" Alex answered with sincere laughter and with a habitual motion took his favorite strawberry candy from his pocket.
Sitting at the bar counter, Claudia restrainedly observed the general merriment, not even intending to join the noisy group. However, it brought her enormous relief to see how her close friend Tifa's mood had finally noticeably risen.
Slightly smiling at this thought, Claudia transferred her gaze to the side and looked at Alex and Dean, who were sitting secluded at a distant table. Noticing that Alex and Dean were tensely conversing about something, she tried to listen to their voices — from their wary gazes it seemed as if they were expecting some catch any minute.
However, through the joyful hubbub standing in the bar she still could not make out anything properly, except short, strange fragments of phrases about some "cursed hospital" and that the two of them chronically had no luck. Chuckling at the fact that Alex and Dean had simply recalled one of their past mad jobs, Claudia averted her gaze from them and continued to look distractedly at the rejoicing friends.
Thinking that there was no longer any sense for her to be here, Claudia decided to return to her room and properly get some sleep — after all, additional work awaited her tomorrow. Rising from the chair, Claudia suddenly sharply jerked her head toward the window when right next to her ear a otherworldly, soul-chilling whisper rang out.
"Nothing has changed… He hasn't changed anything, and you won't change anything either. So accept your inevitable fate and simply fall asleep… I will show you your most desired dream," a quiet whisper that penetrated right into the head rang out right next to Claudia.
Hearing this chilling whisper right in her head, Claudia instantly recognized the familiar voice that belonged to Sephira. But for some reason this time it seemed to her terribly strange — as if male and female voices were sounding simultaneously in her mind. Not even trying at that moment to figure out the reasons for such dual sounding, Claudia squeezed her eyes shut and sharply jerked her head, trying to shake out yet another terrible delusion.
Feeling how the low hum in her ears was becoming stronger and stronger, she frantically grabbed her temples with her hand from the flared wild headache that was rolling in more strongly with every moment. The pain was so hellish that Claudia was on the verge of losing consciousness. An inner feeling sharply suggested: the moment she blacked out even for a second — something catastrophic would happen.
With enormous difficulty holding onto the remnants of the slipping mind, she still managed to pull herself together, and Sephira's voice in her head began to gradually subside. As soon as the whisper finally died out, Claudia lowered her trembling hand and heavily raised her gaze.
And the moment she did this, she noticed that absolutely everyone present in the bar was intently looking right at her. But a second later Claudia realized: their gazes were fixed not on her herself, but on what had appeared behind her back!
Hearing the painfully familiar hissing right behind her back, Claudia instantly drew the heavy Buster Sword and with a turn delivered a crushing blow! In that same instant she felt how the edge of her blade with a clang crashed into something incredibly dense and hard. Raising her eyes, Claudia again saw right in front of her a hovering Gray Whisper, from under whose deep hood Sephira's voice was still coming, audible to her alone.
Still not understanding in what way this otherworldly being was connected with her enemy, she furiously swung for a second blow. But before Claudia managed to bring the blade down, the Gray Whisper sharply lunged forward. Putting the wide blade in front of herself at the very last moment, Claudia felt such a terrible ramming impact as if a multi-ton truck had hit her at full speed!
Seeing that Claudia had been knocked off her feet and was literally being carried toward the exit, Alex with one sharp jump dashed forward. Catching Claudia by the waist before she was thrown out of the premises, Alex immediately felt another strong push — and both of them were dragged further with enormous force. In the next second the doors of the Seventh Heaven bar swung open with a crash, and Alex with Claudia flew out onto the street!
When the bar doors swung open, everyone immediately woke from the stupor. Freezing with shock in their eyes, they saw how a terrible picture unfolded before them: the entire Seventh Sector of the slums was literally swarming with hundreds of similar beings, circling and hovering right above the roofs of the houses. Seeing this nightmare, the entire group immediately on the move drew their weapons and jumped out onto the street, trying to figure out what these creatures were and where they had come from.
"What the fuck is this shit?!" Barret barked at the top of his voice, the first to run out of the bar and stunned by the chaos happening in the slums.
"I… I've never seen such terrible beings in my life! And I really don't like how ominously they're circling above us…" Biggs spat nervously, clenching his pistols in his hands to the point of cramps.
"How many of them there are… How many of them are here at all?!" Wedge exhaled in fright, beginning to tremble strongly from the mere sight of the Gray Whispers hovering in the sky.
"Yeah, there are a lot of them. And now wipe your snot and try to take down at least a couple!" Dean barked, with a habitual motion taking the Blade of Cain from behind his back.
"Right, to hell with these creatures! Who cares who they even are, this is our district — and we won't let any filth just fly around here and scare people!" Barret added furiously, with a click switching the mode of his cyber-arm to heavy machine gun.
"I'll help too!" Aerith responded ringing, confidently taking her long magic staff from behind her back.
"First time seeing things like this, but against the great kunoichi they still won't stand!" Yuffie picked up with a daring smirk and was the first to eagerly rush into battle, making a rapid jump forward.
Not waiting for the others to focus and switch to attack, Dean clamped the Blade of Cain in a death grip and rushed forward with such colossal force that the sturdy wooden flooring under his feet was covered with a web of deep cracks. Finding himself in the air, Dean decided to release a drop of his true power, carefully controlling himself so as not to overdo it.
In that same instant the short Blade of Cain in his right hand was enveloped by dense impenetrable darkness, and the blade began to rapidly lengthen, turning into a massive two-handed sword. Dean's right arm instantly locked into trembling black spiky armor, and ominous dark marks appeared on his neck. Hovering for a moment in the air, Dean with a whistle swung the darkness-flaming blade, slicing in half a whole dozen Gray Whispers at once!
Seeing that these otherworldly beings could quite really be destroyed, the remaining members of the group immediately with a battle cry rushed into battle. Barret still didn't fully know how exactly to control his new high-tech cyber-arm, so he acted at random — a couple of times he slapped the massive machine-gun body on the backhand with his palm. Noticing on the small indicator the flared inscription "Incandescent Bullets," Barret contentedly snorted and without delay opened hurricane fire, pouring glowing red-hot projectiles onto the Gray Whispers.
Yuffie with a running start rushed into the thick of the enemies, lightning-fast forming hand seals on the move. A moment later around her from a white cloud appeared several of her exact copies with funny green leaves on their heads. Joyfully smiling at her clones, Yuffie launched her huge shuriken at the enemies and immediately began forming another combination of seals.
Yuffie's clones synchronously repeated the movement after the original, threw their giant shurikens at the Gray Whispers and immediately duplicated the seals. In that same moment right in the sky around the four rotating blades furious fiery hurricanes flared up. Merging into one, they formed one colossal flame tornado that with terrible force began to suck in all the nearest Gray Whispers! Meanwhile Jessie, Biggs and Wedge in a dense formation opened continuous fire from all barrels, along the way tossing fragmentation grenades at the clusters of Gray Whispers.
"Return to your homes! Hide immediately!" Tifa shouted, in a powerful jump kicking away a flying Gray Whisper and with alarm noticing that frightened local residents were beginning to come out of doors at the noise of the battle.
"Tifa, careful!" Aerith shouted loudly, on the fly swinging her magic staff and instantly putting up a protective barrier to cover her friend from an unnoticed attack.
Hearing Aerith's warning cry, Tifa instantly turned around and saw how a squad of Gray Whispers was rushing straight at her at full speed. But before the creatures managed to come into contact with her, a bright flash blossomed a tender-pink magic barrier in front of Tifa, resembling a flower bud. Seeing how the Whispers with a clang crashed into the impenetrable barrier, Tifa immediately took a combat stance and with a sharp, lightning-fast leg swing in a turn knocked down several enemies at once with one blow.
Turning to Aerith, Tifa gratefully nodded to her friend and continued to hold back the onslaught. Aerith at that moment heavily frowned. She had not expected such a furious and strong reaction from these beings at all. However, Aerith no longer intended to blindly submit to that tragic fate that these creatures were trying to impose on her. Gathering her spirit, she suddenly clearly heard in her head the gentle voice of her own mother, who was whispering to her in a tender tone how to act.
Listening to this tender voice that she had not heard for so long, Aerith felt how memories of a long-forgotten, ancient spell surfaced by themselves in her mind. In that same moment she raised her magic staff high above her head and began smoothly, rhythmically rotating it.
Right above the Seventh Sector of the slums a barely noticeable but colossal pink magic circle began to be drawn. Feeling how her life and magic forces were rapidly depleting, Aerith did not even think of stopping, firmly intending to bring the charms to the end — even if after that she would fall unconscious to the ground. As soon as Aerith completed the last swing of the staff, the pink circle in the sky for a moment flashed blindingly.
The Gray Whispers hovering over the slums suddenly heavily stretched downward, as if a multi-ton press had crashed down on them, and barely noticeable cracks crawled across their dark bodiless figures. Seeing that the spell had worked as it should, Aerith felt the rolling wild fatigue and immediately with all her might leaned on the staff so as not to collapse onto the pavement. Noticing the state Aerith was in, Jessie instantly put her submachine gun behind her back and in a couple of jumps ran up to her.
"Aerith, are you okay?!" Jessie asked in a worried tone, timely catching the falling-asleep Aerith under the arm before she touched the ground.
"I'm completely fine… Just a little tired. Who would have thought that using Materia for such a thing would turn out so hard," Aerith answered, with difficulty catching her breath, covering the true origin of her unique power with a small lie.
"Oh, why are you so silly with us?.. And where on earth is Alex when he's so needed!" Jessie said annoyedly, shaking her head, carefully trying to lead Aerith to a safe shelter.
"He'll return very soon. After all, he is still my personal bodyguard, he-he," Aerith responded with a light quiet laugh, with all her soul leaning on Jessie.
"Don't you want to share your bodyguard?" Jessie inquired with a cunning squint, carefully helping her friend climb the steps right to the bar doors.
"I'll think about it… Although it seems you've already done that!" Aerith noted, slightly narrowing her eyes, and with a sly look looked Jessie straight in the eyes.
Several minutes before Aerith applied the large-scale spell against the Gray Whispers, Alex and Claudia had been thrown with enormous force beyond the limits of the Slums. Thinking on the fly about what was happening, Alex decided for now simply to observe what exactly the Whispers were aiming for, since they had decided to remove him with Claudia farther from the others.
Continuing to tightly hold Claudia by the waist, Alex fleetingly looked back and immediately saw that they were approaching a gigantic junkyard at breakneck speed. Pressing Claudia more tightly to himself and covering her with his body, Alex grouped and at full speed crashed with his back into a mountain of metal scrap. Feeling only a small push, Claudia raised her gaze and saw right in front of her Alex's face, which had taken the entire main impact on himself.
Rising, she with a frowning look looked around and understood that they had found themselves far beyond the territory of the Slums. Frowning even more strongly from this guess, Claudia turned to Alex and extended a hand to him, helping him get out of the rubble. Climbing out of the pile of trash, Alex with a dry crunch cracked his neck, feeling strong irritation from the fact that once again some otherworldly filth had used him as a cannonball — and without his personal permission at that.
Making sure that Alex was completely fine after such a terrible ramming, Claudia returned the Buster Sword behind her back, insistently thinking that they needed to break through back to the others as soon as possible. After all, she had seen with her own eyes hundreds of hovering Gray Whispers surrounding the residential sector.
"We need to return to the others immediately!" Claudia said in a sharp tone, intending to jump down from the pile of metal trash.
"Only first we'll have to deal with those who so kindly threw us here," Alex said, narrowing his eyes and looking at the Gray Whispers growing right out of the ground.
"How damn untimely… And what are these beings even? Do you know anything about them at all?" Claudia said in an irritated tone, jumping down and with a habitual motion drawing the Buster Sword from behind her back.
"No idea. They keep crawling out at the most unsuitable moments. The first time Dean and I ran into them in the Fifth Sector church. But then there were significantly fewer of them," Alex answered, shaking his head, not intending at such a moment to go into details about the real origin of the Whispers.
"Clear… Then we'll just kill them quickly," Claudia summed up in a frowning tone, making a trial powerful swing with the Buster Sword.
"That's exactly where we should have started! And now let's go and touch these ghosts by their chimichangas!" Alex summarized with a predatory smirk, with ease yanking a long rusty pipe right out of the pile of scrap metal.
Hearing another of Alex's stupid jokes, Claudia smiled slightly and immediately focused maximally on the Gray Whispers. She already understood perfectly well that these beings could not simply be cut apart, and she would have to apply far more effort. Narrowing her eyes, Claudia slightly leaned forward and made a rapid dash toward the Whisper.
Instantly finding herself in front of the Gray Whispers, Claudia turned in place and delivered a sweeping horizontal blow, putting all her physical strength into the swing. As soon as the blade of the Buster Sword touched the body of the Gray Whisper, Claudia felt as if the blade had sunk into something terribly viscous and dense.
Frowning from this unpleasant sensation, she with all her might pulled on the handle, slicing the first Gray Whisper in half. Having destroyed the opponent, Claudia sharply sensed approaching danger and sharply jumped back. And exactly in the place where she had stood a moment ago, a sharp black spike materialized from under the ground that nearly pierced her through.
Intently observing the Whispers, Claudia decided to use her Materia — in her hand a bright fireball flared up, which she immediately threw at the enemy. But instead of striking the target, the fire clot simply passed unhindered through the ghostly figure of the Whisper.
Irritably clicking her tongue from the fact that the Materia had turned out useless, Claudia sharply turned in place and with a swing threw the Buster Sword at the nearest opponent. She threw her heavy weapon with such terrible force that the blade pierced the Whisper through and flew out from the opposite side. And before the blade managed to fall, Alex already found himself on that side and deftly caught the handle.
Describing a rapid arc in the air, Alex instantly sliced two more Whispers and immediately tossed the blade high upward. Seeing her weapon in the air, Claudia jumped toward it. Grabbing the handle, she spun like a top and began falling downward right onto the frozen Whisper.
At the very last moment before the ramming impact the blade of the Buster Sword flashed blindingly green and in the blink of an eye halved the creature! Landing on the dry ground, Claudia with a habitual swing of the Buster Sword shook the gray ash from the blade and immediately sharply jerked her head to the side when literally a millimeter from her face a rusty pipe whistled past.
Turning her head, she saw that the pipe had sunk through exactly in the place where the Gray Whisper's face should have been. Snorting, Claudia sharply swung the Buster Sword as if it were a baseball bat and delivered a crushing blow with the blunt side of the blade to the protruding tip of the pipe. Claudia struck with such force that the rusty fragment flew through the back of the Gray Whisper's head and with a dull clang stuck into a metal plate nearby.
"Oi, that's my unique weapon… Why did you do that? I had already practically grown attached to this pipe and even gave it the name Frank!" Alex said with feigned offense, with a click lighting and lighting a thin cigar.
"You'll still have time to find yourself a new weapon. And what kind of stupid name is Frank anyway? Don't you have any imagination at all?" Claudia responded in an irritated tone, putting the Buster Sword into the mounting behind her back.
"That sounded frankly offensive, by the way!" Alex said with a sigh, pointing a finger toward Claudia.
"I know. And I did it on purpose!" with a daring smirk Claudia was the first to quickly rush toward the Slums.
Slightly smiling, Alex threw the smoldering cigar aside and easily ran after Claudia. Catching up with her, he nodded, letting her know that it was time to pick up the pace. Answering him with the same short nod, Claudia ran even faster, desperately striving to make it in time to help the others — after all, the number of Gray Whispers circling over the slums was not thinking of decreasing.
Quickly running across the junkyard, Alex and Claudia saw ahead a high lattice fence beyond which the residential quarters were already beginning. The moment they approached the fence, a whole pack of ghosts crawled right out of the ground, blocking their path with a solid wall.
Narrowing his eyes, Alex right on the run took his massive Jackal pistol from the holster and opened rapid aimed fire at the Whispers, clearing a corridor. When he had shot down a sufficient number of creatures, Claudia at full speed with a ramming impact crashed her shoulder into the fence, smashing a passage into the Seventh Sector to pieces.
Getting out into the settlement, Alex and Claudia immediately rushed toward the main square where the others were fighting. But the moment they jumped out onto the wide street, a dense stream of Whispers again appeared before them, completely blocking the passage. Not intending once again to break through this living wall with a fight, they dove into a narrow alley, calculating to reach the friends by roundabout ways.
Finding themselves in the labyrinth of houses, Alex and Claudia again ran into clouds of Whispers that were trying with all their might to push them back. Continuing to stubbornly clear a path, he tightly dragged Claudia after him so that she would not be washed away by this continuous stream. Feeling how wild irritation was growing with every moment, Alex was already one step from spitting on stealth and grinding absolutely all the creatures into powder.
And precisely at that moment he saw how in the sky over the city for a short moment a blinding pink magic circle flashed, after which all the Whispers that had been trying to hold them back sharply braked with abrupt movements and began moving significantly more slowly. Quickly recognizing the structure of this magic and immediately understanding who exactly had applied it, Alex turned to Claudia.
"Throw me upward!" Alex said confidently, pointing a finger at the sky and looking Claudia straight in the eyes.
Hearing Alex's request, Claudia instantly nodded and in that same moment jumped back, with a habitual yank drawing the Buster Sword from behind her back. Holding the massive weapon with the flat side upward, she with all her strength swung toward Alex. In that very second when the blade was supposed to touch his footwear, Alex jumped, forcefully pushed off from the blade of the Buster Sword as if from a springboard, and shot upward into the sky like an arrow!
Finding himself at bird-flight height, Alex immediately saw everything that was happening on the main square. Despite the fact that Aerith's spell had noticeably weakened the Gray Whispers, destroying these creatures with ordinary attacks was still damnably hard.
Beginning to rapidly fall downward, Alex right in the air elegantly dodged a ghost that had tried to push him back and immediately pushed off from the bodiless carcass toward Aerith. Turning over in flight, Alex with a dull thud landed right in front of the wooden steps of the bar.
"Don't be afraid! Why? Because I'm here!" Alex shouted perkily at the top of his voice, theatrically raising an index finger to the sky.
"You're late, silly!.. Finally do something about these beings already!" Aerith shouted with a chuckle, on the backhand batting away a flying Gray Whisper with her magic staff.
"No problem! After all, I am the Hunter, and my bullet doesn't distinguish who and where, and won't spare anyone, be it human or beast!" Alex declared with a daring smirk, extending a hand toward Fenrir standing nearby.
In that same moment Fenrir's weapon compartment clicked open, and a long antique musket flew upward from there. Deftly catching the weapon in flight, Alex with an elegant motion spun it in his hands and raised the barrel strictly vertically to the sky. Narrowing his eyes, Alex smoothly pressed the trigger.
In that same second a heavy round bullet with a terrible whistle tore from the muzzle and rushed upward! Seeing that Alex had simply fired blank into the heavens somewhere, everyone present stared at him with bewildered and strange gazes. But literally a moment later throughout the entire area a deafening, growing whistle rang out, accompanied by a whole series of powerful shockwaves.
Raising their eyes to the hovering creatures, everyone with amazement saw how the single bullet fired by Alex madly twisted in the air, with incredible accuracy piercing every creature and literally turning their dark bodies into a sieve! Watching how just one shot instantly destroyed dozens of Gray Whispers at a time, everyone immediately exhaled with relief, however still continuing to systematically finish off the miserable remnants of these beings.
By this moment Claudia had just jumped out of the narrow alley. With one quick continuous motion she instantly halved several opponents at once, completely not paying attention to the strange whistling and explosions in the sky. At that moment Claudia was worried about only one thing — making sure that Tifa was completely fine.
To be continued...
(So, I sat for a long time and thought about whether it was even worth adding the Grey Whisperers at this point. And after a lengthy vote with all my cockroaches, a collective decision was made with a higher number of votes. And as you can see, the Grey Farts did show up. It's just that, logically, these creatures were supposed to appear after something like this, and it was unavoidable. So, about the rest of the plans. Well, as usual, the Mako Reactor explosion, or rather, explosions. And it seems I messed up the timeline. It turns out the Slab explosion won't be the next day, but the day after. I finally turned on the PS and logged into the game to check. And as it turns out, I messed up the timing. Oh well, I'll make up some nonsense about how Alex was wrong, blaming it all on the time shift. Mwahahaha. And now it's time to eat. Peace, love, and a bullet make a swoosh.)
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