Digging for Secrets
Who: Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Kadaj
Status: Open~ish
When: 4:30pm (at the end of post. He would have started at around 1:30pm)
Where: Old Midgar - ShinRa main building
What: Cloud makes good on his word to look for skeletons in Rufus’… building?
Cloud surveyed the area in front of the old ShinRa tower, a place that he had been many times before in the past. It was run-down and dilapidated, chucks of cement, mooring and re-enforced metal sticking out at all sorts of angles as the tall building rose in a sick sort of proud way. He thought that a few more battles would finally topple the tower down to lie with the rest of the dead buildings of Old Midgar.
He leaned against parked Fenrir and simply looked around the area for signs of life. This place was deserted for the most part since power, running water, and even food was hard to find. The only thing Midgar was good for was to be a reminder of mistakes of the past.
He finished his little reminiscing and finally popped the compartments in Fenrir’s hood, pulling out the sturdy shovel he had hidden within. It took some searching around at the bottom of the compartment to find the other tool he had brought with him, since Rod had given him ample warning of what he would be dealing with here. He drew back and pulled the cement cutter and a few other tools from the motorcycle, laying them down.
ShinRa had never gone cheap on anything, especially for burying their secrets.
Heaving the cement cutter over his shoulder, Cloud pulled out the piece of paper that had the clues from Rod, briefly looking over them. He walked towards the stairs, frowning at some of the debris that he found in his way. This was setting up to be an all day job as far as he could tell.
He dropped the saw down next to him and walked over pushing some of the smaller rocks out of his way to make a path to the main building entrance. He shuffled around boulders and pushed aside loose cement from the stairs, hoping that whatever was under there remained a little undamaged. He actually hoped that whatever was under there was in one piece or this could be a waste of his time.
It took him about half an hour to clear away the fallen debris from the stairs before he felt safe enough to actually work there. He started at the edges of the stairs and worked his way inwards with the cement cutting saw, cutting through in as even of bricks as was possible. The middle section was worse off since that was where most of the heavy debris had fallen, but it also meant it was easier to work with.
Once it was all cut, he started in the middle, pulling out chucks of concrete and tossing them aside. The stairs were well made, that was for certain He made fairly quick progress though, drawing out blocks of cut concrete until he finally stumbled on an area that was clearly not as solid as the other portions of the front stairs.
Cloud sighed heavily and worked a little more slowly, tugging on the concrete in smaller pieces before it gave way to reveal a body with a dusty suit. It was well-preserved thanks to the cement, but he wrinkled his nose as he thought he caught a small whiff of decay.
Well, this just went to show that Rod hadn’t been lying. Now he really believed in the other four locations that he had listed.
He pulled around at a few more pieces of cement around the body to get better access, only to discover a second corpse. He rolled his eyes passed his goggles and drew the corpses from the cement, doing his best be gentle and respectful of the dead. He didn’t need to be cursed on top of everything else.
His curiosity managed to get the better of him, and he searched around in the coat pockets for any identification for the two. They looked professional, he mused. He blinked as he found a plastic baggy, drawing it back to look at it, and he was surprised to find a picture of a rather young looking Rufus. His eyes flicked from the picture to the men before he sighed heavily. Kidnappers, eh? You get all the fun, Rufus.
He pocketed the picture and went back to searching, coming up with a wallet for each. There was plenty of gil on them as well, which meant that they had probably been paid half for the beginning of the job and would have been paid the other half had they completed the job. Sloppy work to leave identification on the dead, not that he knew who these two were.
Still, he stood and pushed his goggles up, wondering if there was any point in reporting this. He would just bury them properly in Midgar once he had collected them all. He had to figure out what he was dealing with before he decided on a place to make a grave in.
Cloud tucked away the identification as well as the gil, thinking that he could make use of it or simply give it back to Rufus. He has other places he had to go to now, and he pulled out the list that Rod had sent to him to read it over again. A few places weren’t around in the tower, so he would leave those until last.
He frowned as he looked at the next destination. The sculpture in blondie’s office was all it said. Looking up at the building, he groaned as he tried to remember where Rufus’ office had once been. Vice-president or President’s office? He was going to take a wild guess and go for the President’s office.
Walking back to Fenrir, he took one of his swords with him and strapped it to his back. He hoisted the cement cutter and took a running jump to the top of the building, landing where he was certain the President’s office would have stood before the WEAPON’s blast.
The damage inside was extensive, and he almost hesitated going in due to the fact that he was certain that this place could collapse on top of him if he knocked around the wrong supports. He did convince himself in for the sake of being curious of what Rufus would hide in his office… in his sculpture no less.
Cloud stopped to look around at the extensive debris that littered the floor. He didn’t see any standing sculpture, which meant that it was buried or perhaps even blasted apart. No, he doubted that it would still be on the list if it had been destroyed, so he had to assume that it was still here somewhere. It probably stood near a wall or near a desk, since sculptures were meant to draw attention to the area.
He picked his way through the falling ceiling plates and over to where a large lump was. It was closest to the main window, so that would probably be what was left of Rufus’ desk after the blast. Of course, there were multiple large ‘lumps’ in the area, but that one was closest to the window. It took him a lot of time to work his way over, having to toss aside fallen debris, and it almost didn’t seem worth the effort when he found himself only halfway.
Stubborn pride kept him digging through with his shovel and hands, and he did eventually get to what looked to be a wrecked desk. It seemed to have been protected by the twisted remnants of what might have been a filing cabinet or something equally large and unmovable. He searched around under drywall and insulation for what could be a sculpture, pushing boards and stray pieces of cement aside until he found what probably would be the floor.
Working his way around the entirety of the blocky wreck that was Rufus’ desk, Cloud paused when he found himself peering into a hole. He wondered what that was from and had to pick his way around it to get a good look at it. On his way, he noted the EMR that had been discarded but paid it no mind as he instead went looking into the hole.
It looked like someone had dug it, he decided after looking at it for a little while. It looked hastily done as well, so he assumed Reno had a hand in it. The hole was fairly large, big enough to fit a person or a person and a child if someone was really desperate; however, there was clearly no body meant to be found here.
His eyebrows drew together before he looked towards the shattered window then back to the hole. He shifted over and inspected closer, reaching out to rub his thumb over a jagged piece of bent steel. It was only the fact that he had good eyesight that allowed him to see the flecked rusty material come free from the steel. Blood he thought and rested his elbows on his thighs.
He looked to the discarded EMR and frowned as realization slowly dawned on him. He looked into the hole again and tilted his head to the side. “This is where they dug you out, isn’t it? Despite everything that had happened, they probably believed you were alive and came to rescue you even though the building was unstable. Just your Turks, huh?”
Remaining crouched over the hole, Cloud thought that he was getting a better idea on how the Turks that Rufus knew were different from SOLDIER. He sighed and slowly climbed back to his feet and moved to stare at what he thought was Rufus’ desk.
It was a shattered mess, and he doubted he could really find anything of use on the top of it. Too much drywall and boards had fallen to pin it to the floor. It seemed by its precarious lean that probably one of the sides had been cracked and buckled under the weight along with the blast that had roared through. There was splintered wood everywhere, making the desk seem rather unsalvageable.
Still no sculpture here though, and he looked around to survey the area. There were a lot of dangerous materials around the walls, but those materials also made it difficult to see what was over there. He glanced at Rufus’ desk again before walking away slowly.
He glanced back before returning and pushing at some of the debris, shoving a considerable amount off of it. He looked at the drawers and felt a sense of guilt wash over him before he squashed it down. He was not snooping around for anything private, and besides, what kind of private stuff did someone like Rufus keep in a business desk? The man was paranoid about secrets leaking.
Pulling at the drawers, Cloud managed to get the bottom on open quite easily. He found contracts and other filed papers that just seemed to be the odds and ends of business. He wasn’t surprised when he found a shotgun underneath all of that, hidden at the back. There were a couple binders with breaking down pieces of paper that had the ShinRa logo fading in the corner.
The next drawer had been crushed in a little, but he got it open with some pulling. It contained much the same as the first opened drawer, though instead of a shotgun, he found gil. He rolled his eyes and tucked that away to give back to Rufus. The man really shouldn’t leave money sitting around where just anyone could come along and find it.
Looking at the top drawer, Cloud wasn’t so sure it could be moved. It looked pretty crammed into the space that normally housed it. He gave a pull on it to test it, feeling it creak and give way a little. He tucked his thumbs to the inside of the drawer and pulled hard, feeling the wood grinding and sliding slowly. The high pitched sound filled the empty room as he set his weight and pulled a little harder.
Quite suddenly, the drawer gave way, and he tripped over a stray piece of cement, falling backwards uncharacteristically. He landed in a cloud of drywall dust and coughed once before he winced as something hard and cold hit him in the head. He rubbed his forehead and looked at the drawer he had just accidentally pulled from the entire desk.
He looked around for what had hit him in the head and his fingers eventually picked up a round object. He lifted it to inspect it, frowning as his eyes fell on a little tag with the words ‘Dark Nation’ on it. A stab of guilt twisted in his gut as he stared at the collar, rubbing his fingers over it. Rufus spoke fondly over the pet, and it seemed that fondness was kept as a reminder in a collar. He suddenly felt very intrusive to something private, something he shouldn’t have stumbled on.
Cloud didn’t feel that it was right tossing the collar away either, and he carefully tucked it away with the gil to return to Rufus at a later date. He sighed and looked around for that sculpture again. That was his purpose after all.
He moved carefully around the room, having to stop every so often to make himself a path to each of the lumps that remained in the office. It took him a considerable amount of time to finally locate the sculpture over in one corner of the room, and he was relieved to find it after searching for so long.
It was bigger than he thought it would be, but the fall of ShinRa seemed evident on it as there were chips from the stonework. He was certain that it would have been quite impressive in a clean room, but now it looked as sad as the rest of the ShinRa office.
Pushing aside some of the stray materials hanging about the sculpture, he felt only a small tremor of guilt as he reached out and hit the sculpture hard enough to chip away some of the cracked mortar. He thought there was nothing there for a moment, but upon further investigation, he found that there was obviously something more than stonework there.
He shoved the sculpture over hard enough to cause more external damage, and it took time to pull off chucks of stone until he paused at a rather sizeable chest wound. He was not all that familiar with guns, but whatever had been used had had a considerable amount of punch behind it. He found no identification, unlike the other two corpses and wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not.
Pushing himself to stand again, Cloud looked at the list in his hands, crossing of a second one mentally. He was required back in Edge in a few hours, and he decided to leave the others for a day when he could pay an appropriate amount of attention to details. This little romp had been informative, and he would have to get in touch with Rufus soon in regards to some of it.
Walking to the window by Rufus’ desk, he leapt from it, flipping over to ease some of his momentum before his feet touched the ground. He hefted the cement cutting saw over one shoulder as his shovel over the other as he walked back to Fenrir and set the former down leaning against the motorcycle.
He used the shovel to dig a quick shallow grave where some loose dirt could be found. It wasn’t much, but it seemed more appropriate then being stuck in cement steps forever. He pushed the two dead into the hole and covered them again, wondering where they came from or if anyone missed them.
Cloud huffed softly to himself as he walked back to Fenrir, setting the shovel down as he leaned himself against the motorcycle. He peeled off the glove on his left hand to check the bandage there, finding it had been jarred and moved during his endeavors. He quickly unwrapped the bandage from the fading injury and frowned at the black marking that was getting clearer and clearer on his palm with each passing day.
He flexed his fingers as his eyes fixed on the black symbol, displeased with its existence so late in his life. Why now? I was deemed a failure who never received one… how can I bear one now? He clenched his fingers over the black number ‘7’ that was starting to show, and he quickly rebandaged the injury and slipped his glove back on.
He had to head back to Edge. He had other things to do, like mind his resurrected friends.
Status: Open~ish
When: 4:30pm (at the end of post. He would have started at around 1:30pm)
Where: Old Midgar - ShinRa main building
What: Cloud makes good on his word to look for skeletons in Rufus’… building?
Cloud surveyed the area in front of the old ShinRa tower, a place that he had been many times before in the past. It was run-down and dilapidated, chucks of cement, mooring and re-enforced metal sticking out at all sorts of angles as the tall building rose in a sick sort of proud way. He thought that a few more battles would finally topple the tower down to lie with the rest of the dead buildings of Old Midgar.
He leaned against parked Fenrir and simply looked around the area for signs of life. This place was deserted for the most part since power, running water, and even food was hard to find. The only thing Midgar was good for was to be a reminder of mistakes of the past.
He finished his little reminiscing and finally popped the compartments in Fenrir’s hood, pulling out the sturdy shovel he had hidden within. It took some searching around at the bottom of the compartment to find the other tool he had brought with him, since Rod had given him ample warning of what he would be dealing with here. He drew back and pulled the cement cutter and a few other tools from the motorcycle, laying them down.
ShinRa had never gone cheap on anything, especially for burying their secrets.
Heaving the cement cutter over his shoulder, Cloud pulled out the piece of paper that had the clues from Rod, briefly looking over them. He walked towards the stairs, frowning at some of the debris that he found in his way. This was setting up to be an all day job as far as he could tell.
He dropped the saw down next to him and walked over pushing some of the smaller rocks out of his way to make a path to the main building entrance. He shuffled around boulders and pushed aside loose cement from the stairs, hoping that whatever was under there remained a little undamaged. He actually hoped that whatever was under there was in one piece or this could be a waste of his time.
It took him about half an hour to clear away the fallen debris from the stairs before he felt safe enough to actually work there. He started at the edges of the stairs and worked his way inwards with the cement cutting saw, cutting through in as even of bricks as was possible. The middle section was worse off since that was where most of the heavy debris had fallen, but it also meant it was easier to work with.
Once it was all cut, he started in the middle, pulling out chucks of concrete and tossing them aside. The stairs were well made, that was for certain He made fairly quick progress though, drawing out blocks of cut concrete until he finally stumbled on an area that was clearly not as solid as the other portions of the front stairs.
Cloud sighed heavily and worked a little more slowly, tugging on the concrete in smaller pieces before it gave way to reveal a body with a dusty suit. It was well-preserved thanks to the cement, but he wrinkled his nose as he thought he caught a small whiff of decay.
Well, this just went to show that Rod hadn’t been lying. Now he really believed in the other four locations that he had listed.
He pulled around at a few more pieces of cement around the body to get better access, only to discover a second corpse. He rolled his eyes passed his goggles and drew the corpses from the cement, doing his best be gentle and respectful of the dead. He didn’t need to be cursed on top of everything else.
His curiosity managed to get the better of him, and he searched around in the coat pockets for any identification for the two. They looked professional, he mused. He blinked as he found a plastic baggy, drawing it back to look at it, and he was surprised to find a picture of a rather young looking Rufus. His eyes flicked from the picture to the men before he sighed heavily. Kidnappers, eh? You get all the fun, Rufus.
He pocketed the picture and went back to searching, coming up with a wallet for each. There was plenty of gil on them as well, which meant that they had probably been paid half for the beginning of the job and would have been paid the other half had they completed the job. Sloppy work to leave identification on the dead, not that he knew who these two were.
Still, he stood and pushed his goggles up, wondering if there was any point in reporting this. He would just bury them properly in Midgar once he had collected them all. He had to figure out what he was dealing with before he decided on a place to make a grave in.
Cloud tucked away the identification as well as the gil, thinking that he could make use of it or simply give it back to Rufus. He has other places he had to go to now, and he pulled out the list that Rod had sent to him to read it over again. A few places weren’t around in the tower, so he would leave those until last.
He frowned as he looked at the next destination. The sculpture in blondie’s office was all it said. Looking up at the building, he groaned as he tried to remember where Rufus’ office had once been. Vice-president or President’s office? He was going to take a wild guess and go for the President’s office.
Walking back to Fenrir, he took one of his swords with him and strapped it to his back. He hoisted the cement cutter and took a running jump to the top of the building, landing where he was certain the President’s office would have stood before the WEAPON’s blast.
The damage inside was extensive, and he almost hesitated going in due to the fact that he was certain that this place could collapse on top of him if he knocked around the wrong supports. He did convince himself in for the sake of being curious of what Rufus would hide in his office… in his sculpture no less.
Cloud stopped to look around at the extensive debris that littered the floor. He didn’t see any standing sculpture, which meant that it was buried or perhaps even blasted apart. No, he doubted that it would still be on the list if it had been destroyed, so he had to assume that it was still here somewhere. It probably stood near a wall or near a desk, since sculptures were meant to draw attention to the area.
He picked his way through the falling ceiling plates and over to where a large lump was. It was closest to the main window, so that would probably be what was left of Rufus’ desk after the blast. Of course, there were multiple large ‘lumps’ in the area, but that one was closest to the window. It took him a lot of time to work his way over, having to toss aside fallen debris, and it almost didn’t seem worth the effort when he found himself only halfway.
Stubborn pride kept him digging through with his shovel and hands, and he did eventually get to what looked to be a wrecked desk. It seemed to have been protected by the twisted remnants of what might have been a filing cabinet or something equally large and unmovable. He searched around under drywall and insulation for what could be a sculpture, pushing boards and stray pieces of cement aside until he found what probably would be the floor.
Working his way around the entirety of the blocky wreck that was Rufus’ desk, Cloud paused when he found himself peering into a hole. He wondered what that was from and had to pick his way around it to get a good look at it. On his way, he noted the EMR that had been discarded but paid it no mind as he instead went looking into the hole.
It looked like someone had dug it, he decided after looking at it for a little while. It looked hastily done as well, so he assumed Reno had a hand in it. The hole was fairly large, big enough to fit a person or a person and a child if someone was really desperate; however, there was clearly no body meant to be found here.
His eyebrows drew together before he looked towards the shattered window then back to the hole. He shifted over and inspected closer, reaching out to rub his thumb over a jagged piece of bent steel. It was only the fact that he had good eyesight that allowed him to see the flecked rusty material come free from the steel. Blood he thought and rested his elbows on his thighs.
He looked to the discarded EMR and frowned as realization slowly dawned on him. He looked into the hole again and tilted his head to the side. “This is where they dug you out, isn’t it? Despite everything that had happened, they probably believed you were alive and came to rescue you even though the building was unstable. Just your Turks, huh?”
Remaining crouched over the hole, Cloud thought that he was getting a better idea on how the Turks that Rufus knew were different from SOLDIER. He sighed and slowly climbed back to his feet and moved to stare at what he thought was Rufus’ desk.
It was a shattered mess, and he doubted he could really find anything of use on the top of it. Too much drywall and boards had fallen to pin it to the floor. It seemed by its precarious lean that probably one of the sides had been cracked and buckled under the weight along with the blast that had roared through. There was splintered wood everywhere, making the desk seem rather unsalvageable.
Still no sculpture here though, and he looked around to survey the area. There were a lot of dangerous materials around the walls, but those materials also made it difficult to see what was over there. He glanced at Rufus’ desk again before walking away slowly.
He glanced back before returning and pushing at some of the debris, shoving a considerable amount off of it. He looked at the drawers and felt a sense of guilt wash over him before he squashed it down. He was not snooping around for anything private, and besides, what kind of private stuff did someone like Rufus keep in a business desk? The man was paranoid about secrets leaking.
Pulling at the drawers, Cloud managed to get the bottom on open quite easily. He found contracts and other filed papers that just seemed to be the odds and ends of business. He wasn’t surprised when he found a shotgun underneath all of that, hidden at the back. There were a couple binders with breaking down pieces of paper that had the ShinRa logo fading in the corner.
The next drawer had been crushed in a little, but he got it open with some pulling. It contained much the same as the first opened drawer, though instead of a shotgun, he found gil. He rolled his eyes and tucked that away to give back to Rufus. The man really shouldn’t leave money sitting around where just anyone could come along and find it.
Looking at the top drawer, Cloud wasn’t so sure it could be moved. It looked pretty crammed into the space that normally housed it. He gave a pull on it to test it, feeling it creak and give way a little. He tucked his thumbs to the inside of the drawer and pulled hard, feeling the wood grinding and sliding slowly. The high pitched sound filled the empty room as he set his weight and pulled a little harder.
Quite suddenly, the drawer gave way, and he tripped over a stray piece of cement, falling backwards uncharacteristically. He landed in a cloud of drywall dust and coughed once before he winced as something hard and cold hit him in the head. He rubbed his forehead and looked at the drawer he had just accidentally pulled from the entire desk.
He looked around for what had hit him in the head and his fingers eventually picked up a round object. He lifted it to inspect it, frowning as his eyes fell on a little tag with the words ‘Dark Nation’ on it. A stab of guilt twisted in his gut as he stared at the collar, rubbing his fingers over it. Rufus spoke fondly over the pet, and it seemed that fondness was kept as a reminder in a collar. He suddenly felt very intrusive to something private, something he shouldn’t have stumbled on.
Cloud didn’t feel that it was right tossing the collar away either, and he carefully tucked it away with the gil to return to Rufus at a later date. He sighed and looked around for that sculpture again. That was his purpose after all.
He moved carefully around the room, having to stop every so often to make himself a path to each of the lumps that remained in the office. It took him a considerable amount of time to finally locate the sculpture over in one corner of the room, and he was relieved to find it after searching for so long.
It was bigger than he thought it would be, but the fall of ShinRa seemed evident on it as there were chips from the stonework. He was certain that it would have been quite impressive in a clean room, but now it looked as sad as the rest of the ShinRa office.
Pushing aside some of the stray materials hanging about the sculpture, he felt only a small tremor of guilt as he reached out and hit the sculpture hard enough to chip away some of the cracked mortar. He thought there was nothing there for a moment, but upon further investigation, he found that there was obviously something more than stonework there.
He shoved the sculpture over hard enough to cause more external damage, and it took time to pull off chucks of stone until he paused at a rather sizeable chest wound. He was not all that familiar with guns, but whatever had been used had had a considerable amount of punch behind it. He found no identification, unlike the other two corpses and wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not.
Pushing himself to stand again, Cloud looked at the list in his hands, crossing of a second one mentally. He was required back in Edge in a few hours, and he decided to leave the others for a day when he could pay an appropriate amount of attention to details. This little romp had been informative, and he would have to get in touch with Rufus soon in regards to some of it.
Walking to the window by Rufus’ desk, he leapt from it, flipping over to ease some of his momentum before his feet touched the ground. He hefted the cement cutting saw over one shoulder as his shovel over the other as he walked back to Fenrir and set the former down leaning against the motorcycle.
He used the shovel to dig a quick shallow grave where some loose dirt could be found. It wasn’t much, but it seemed more appropriate then being stuck in cement steps forever. He pushed the two dead into the hole and covered them again, wondering where they came from or if anyone missed them.
Cloud huffed softly to himself as he walked back to Fenrir, setting the shovel down as he leaned himself against the motorcycle. He peeled off the glove on his left hand to check the bandage there, finding it had been jarred and moved during his endeavors. He quickly unwrapped the bandage from the fading injury and frowned at the black marking that was getting clearer and clearer on his palm with each passing day.
He flexed his fingers as his eyes fixed on the black symbol, displeased with its existence so late in his life. Why now? I was deemed a failure who never received one… how can I bear one now? He clenched his fingers over the black number ‘7’ that was starting to show, and he quickly rebandaged the injury and slipped his glove back on.
He had to head back to Edge. He had other things to do, like mind his resurrected friends.