Peacemaker

Chapter 1

End of a Dream

Cloud awoke to being hit in the head with a pillow.

This was a common occurrence.

"What is it, Alexei?" He moaned, not yet wanting to open his eyes.

Alexei Mosin. A Modeoheim native who was very sociable. He also loved throwing things.

One of three people Cloud shared a room with. And, like everyone else who bunked here, including Cloud, a SOLDIER aspirant. Well, actually a SOLDIER. They passed training yesterday. In two days they would begin to to get their enhancements.

"Tomorrow is our graduation ceremony."

"That's tomorrow. why are you getting me up now?"

"Because, comrade, today our... personal restrictions are lifted. We can go out into town, what was contraband before may not be now, and… you can go get your stuff out of lockup."

That got Cloud's attention. In order to train discipline, SOLDIER aspirants were allowed very few personal effects, and were not permitted to leave the grounds unsupervised.

And in Cloud's case, the confiscation of personal effects made sense to him.

And the personal effects that he brought with him were very valuable.

"What's in there that's got you so excited, anyway?" Alexei inquired.

"Come with me to the quartermaster, and I'll show you."

"Okay, since you got me all curious." Alexei said with a grin.

When they arrived, the quartermaster took one glance at Cloud, and began rummaging through the inventory.

"Let me guess, Strife to pick up his 'personal effects'. Boy, If that is what you call personal effects, I'd hate to see what you use for work." The quartermaster gruffly stated as he looked for said items.

Cloud shot him a grin. "The Company doesn't like us using stuff we brought from home."

"Okay, seriously, what the hell did you bring with you?"

"Wait and see, Alexei."

The Quartermaster finally found what he was looking for, and handed a case to Cloud, who opened it to show Alexei the contents.

A Sniper CR rifle, and a Gold Armlet, both filled with Materia.

"A Gold Armlet!? How much cash do you have? That's something the Firsts would use!"

"I didn't pay for it. You see, Nibel Dragons really like shiny things. I didn't think it should go to waste just sitting in one of their hoards. Of course, the dragons disagreed, so I got out of dodge the second I was able, but not before I got a cool new spell for my Enemy Skill Materia." Cloud explained, tapping a golden Materia mounted in the Rifle.

"I remember going up to my mom, feeling so proud that I managed to nick something from a dragon. She was… not as enthusiastic. She threatened to ground me for a year… and then she found out about the burns. She was not a happy woman that day."

"I'll bet. I mean, damn. I heard rumors about you, but nothing that crazy."

"What kind of rumors?"

"Nothing bad. Just… fantastic. Like the rumor that you walked all the way from Nibelheim to Costa del Sol, boarded a ship to Junon, then walked from there to Midgar. And made the entire trip alone."

Cloud raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"How else was I supposed to get here?"

Alexei looked at Cloud in shock.

"Wh...what about the monsters?!"

"That's what I brought the rifle, Materia, and armlet for."

"Comrade, if you had told the brass that story, they wouldn't have bothered with the training program before accepting you."

"I doubt that."

Alexei was about to retort when his PHS rung.

"Hold on, Cloud."

He flipped the PHS open.

"Mosin here. Oh, hey Sig."

Siegfried Koch. Comes from Kalm. His family has a long military history, and it shows. He's usually the one who prevents things from getting out of hand when the officers aren't watching.

"Do you need Cloud and I to swing by?" Alexei asked. "Alright, we're on our way."

Alexei hung up.

"Sig needs us to head to the Sector Two slums. Apparently Theo is causing some trouble."

Theodore Browning. Midgar resident and 'slum rat'. Apparently used to run with some... unsavory types. If there's a vice to be found, Theo knows where it is.

"What do you mean by 'trouble'?"

"Trouble as in 'Publicly drunk and taunting the locals.' Apparently he wasted no time in taking advantage of our new freedoms."

"It's seven in the morning, how is he drunk?"

"Apparently, the bars in the slums follow the 'it's five o'clock somewhere' philosophy… as does Theo."

"And he's fifteen."

"They don't care. They only care that he has Gil."

Cloud sighed.

"Alright, let's mosey." Cloud said, equipping his gear.

"...Mosey?"

"Don't make me hurt you, Alexei."

Within fifteen minutes, they had met up with Siegfried and Theodore. Siegfried was restraining Theodore, while Theodore was yelling at a group of six people.

"You think I'm a sellout?! Maybe, but I'm gonna be a SOLDIER! A somebody! And unlike you, I won't be living in this shithole for the rest of my life!"

Alexei sighed.

"Cover me, Cloud. I'm going in."

It was the best option. If any one of the four could defuse the situation, it would be the friendly Alexei. Also, Cloud could fire a warning shot if that proved insufficient.

Cloud nodded, and climbed onto a nearby building, and cocked the lever of the Sniper CR.

"Sorry about him, Comrades. he's just feeling a little excited about his new promotion. I am certain he will regret his words once he sobers up." Alexei says with his most charming smile.

"The hell I will! I'm the only one who will give it to them straight! They're NOTHING! Never will be! That's how it is!"

Those words would ordinarily be brushed off.

However, Theodore was wearing a Shinra uniform.

Hearing the words that they long believed the Megacorporation thought of them, confirmed by someone who used to be one of them, caused things to boil over.

One of the people Theodore was heckling pulled a knife.

Cloud noticed.

In less than a second, Cloud had focused his aim on the man.

In less than a second, he had adjusted for wind and the fall of the bullet.

In less than a second, the Deathblow Materia in his rifle activated as he pulled the trigger.

In less than a second, a bullet passed through the Pterion joint of the man's skull.

In less than a second, the man was dead.

In less than a second, Cloud's dreams were dead.

Contrary to popular belief, how you kill a man does matter.

If you blindfire, and all of a sudden the return fire stops, that is easier to deal with.

If the person you kill is concealing their face, that also makes it easier.

If there is some possibility someone else delivered the killing blow, that makes it easier, and is the reason executions by gunshot are done by an entire squad.

Looking a man straight in the face, and watching him drop immediately after you pull the trigger is an entirely different matter.

Cloud was petrified by what had just happened.

And still was when the MPs hauled him away in handcuffs.

AN: No, I have not abandoned SotOR. In fact, All I need to do is crank out the boss battle, and it will be ready to post.

PSYCHOMAN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA AKA THE ENPSYCHOPEDIA

OCs: Will be minor characters, but I included them because no military, even a private one, would let its grunts/cadets have private rooms. and there is no way you can not develop a bond with people you share a room with for any significant amount of time, whether you like it or not.. And because they are people with a bond with the protagonist, they would come into the story eventually. As their coming up was inevitable, I figured I would give them some substance. And there is no way I would be stooping to the level of having Cloud, Kunsel, Luxiere, and Zack all be bunk buddies. It is just too contrived. Also, There is a theme in my OC's names. Bonus points if you figure it out.

Also, don't worry. Theo isn't going to be completely irredeemable. He lets his temper and vices get to him, but he's not going to be 'that guy who has no good qualities whom everyone wants to punch.'

CLOUD'S EQUIPMENT: with a few exceptions, most of Cloud's Materia, and his weapon, are found either in the Nibelheim region, or on the way from Nibelheim to Costa Del Sol. The exceptions are his Steal, Enemy Skill, and Barrier Materia, the last of which was not explicitly mentioned in this chapter.

COCKING THE LEVER: According to in-game models, Sniper CR is a lever-action rifle, which means the gun is 'cocked' by operating the trigger guard 'lever'. It was invented around 1848, and was the first 'repeating' mechanism.

WHY CLOUD SHOT THE GUY: He pulled a knife during a tense situation. Cloud panicked because he thought one of his friends were going to get stabbed.

ADJUSTING FOR WIND AND FALL: Basically, just because bullets go really fast doesn't mean gravity stops working. Adjusting for fall is basically saying 'okay, how far away is my target, and how much is my bullet going to drop in the meantime?' Same with wind. 'how hard and in what direction is the wind blowing, so where am I going to aim to make sure the bullet goes where I want it to?'

Basically, in real life, being a sniper is less like 'line up crosshairs, pull trigger' and more of 'doing a hell of alot of complex math in your head, point your gun in a different direction than your target, and hitting it anyway.'

Granted, at relatively short range, in the enclosed space that is a Midgar slum meant he had to adjust his aim very little, but the point remains.

PTERION JOINT: Point Just behind the temple, where the parietal, temporal, sphenoid, and frontal bones of the skull connect. Is the weakest point of the skull, and an artery runs directly beneath it. In other words, Cloud scored the mother lode of headshots.