AN: This is a one-shot meant to portray what the battles in Final Fantasy VII would be like in real life. I took a realism approach to this piece. Anyways, this is my first serious fanfic, so please leave me feedback on what to work on.

Assault on SHINRA

In the eternal night of Midgar, there was a single beacon of light. Like a giant nightlight to the city's inhabitants, it not only pierced the darkness with its ill-won electric luminosity, but it also pierced the heart of the slums with its faint hope. A hope that one day a beggar might make his way to the Upper Plate and a better life. A hope that one day a child might rise from her glum surroundings to a glamorous life. A hope that one day the greedy corporate powers would actually aid the helpless citizens and create happy lives. Staring up at the SHINRA Building, I felt pity for the thousands of hopes we would be attacking, and I feared the thousands of eyes who would view our faces with hatred. But Aeris was in there, and I had to save her!

The three of us stood outside, looking as suspicious as could be, arguing about our course of action. Barret wanted vengeance for AVALANCHE, and he decided that rushing the enemy's headquarters, gunarm blazing, was the only way to get it. Tifa was just as upset as Barret, but she also knew that SHINRA's guards weren't our enemies. Why should we kill innocent men when our true foes were the Turks and the corporation's head honchos? They left the decision up to me. I remembered Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie, the people who'd befriended me despite my apathetic mask. I remembered the smile on Reno's face as he flew away in that helicopter right before the plate dropped. I remembered the screams of Sector 7, louder than the rushing air of the dropping plate. Whatever logic Tifa had presented didn't matter to me anymore. I wanted blood.

We ran in ready for a fight. We were foolishly expecting an army to be waiting for us. A few people looked up, surprised by our sudden entrance. A woman noticed Barret's hand replacement and screamed. She ran away and the rest of the civilians quickly followed her. A few guards were the only ones left. "Murderers!" was the last word one of them heard as Barret began to unload a clip on his gun. The rest of the guards sprang into action, but they were all clumsy greenhorns. Protection of civilians was their only duty. After all, anyone who mattered was guarded by SOLDIER on the upper floors. I ran toward a guard trying to load his gun and hit him with a quick horizontal slash aimed at the throat. His jugular began spraying blood in short bursts. His partner screamed "Bastard!" at me, but he couldn't even raise his gun before Barret fired a well-aimed bullet at the poor guy's forehead. It was a perfect movie-like shot, with just a trickle of blood dribbling its way down the guy's face. Another guard rushed me from behind, but Tifa elbowed him in the temple before kicking his gun out of his hands. He fell to the floor and Tifa kicked his skull in, leaving her boot blood-stained. I hit the last guard with a Braver, sailing through the air sword-first and slicing his arm off. He began to scream from the pain. Barret took the honors of silencing his bone-chilling alarm.

We rushed for the elevator, and pressed the UP button, hoping for a speedy arrival. The elevator answered our prayers, but it brought five more guards with it. This time they were better-trained; I was guessing SOLDIER Third Class. We instantly stepped back as the guard in front tried to slice us with his sword. Barret prepared a Big Shot, creating a ball of highly-charged energy that he shot out at our new adversaries. The sphere seared its way straight through the first guard's chest, cleanly burning the man's inner body tissues so that no blood spewed out. With little energy left, the orb burned the next man's torso and dissipated as he slumped to the floor. I jumped in amidst the confusion and began to swing my sword, hoping for accuracy while Barret reloaded. I cleaved one guard's head off, right in that space between his body armor and his helmet, and turned just in time to parry another's blow. The elevator was confining, and, by taking the entrance, I had limited the capacity of these men to fight. They were completely helpless as Barret sniped two of them in the heads. Unlike before, however, the shots were not as clean. Blood exploded from their wounds, staining my face with droplets of crimson. Suddenly, the burn victim sat up, pistol in hand, and fired at me. The bullet hit me in the left shoulder. The first injury to our trio was too great an insult after the tragedy in the slums. Tifa viciously cast a Fire spell, burning the rest of his flesh and killing the man, while Barret popped our Cure Materia into his gun and healed my wound.

We walked into the elevator and headed for the highest floor we could reach: the 59th floor. As we rose, an alarm went off, and the elevator began to stop intermittently. Every time, the doors would open and we'd be faced with another squad of guards. But they stood no chance against the three of us and our feral fury. Eventually, it seemed there were guards waiting at the doors of every floor. We must have killed hundreds of them. I can't tell you how many limbs I lopped off with a savage pride, enjoying my victim's agony before I finished them off, hoping their pain was tribute enough to the fallen AVALANCHE. Tifa took on an entire squad herself on one floor, beating three men at once with her flying fists in a Beat Rush, and then cracking one man's ribs with a Dolphin Kick. She continued on, electrocuting one with Lightning and setting another ablaze with Fire. Two down and one to go, she walked up to the man whose ribs she'd broken, silently grabbing his weeping head and whispering, "Please stop crying," while she snapped his neck.

We must have been the darkest souls in that place, a place filled with corporate monsters and greedy killers, as we murdered our innocent victims. They had been sent forth to do their duty, completely oblivious to the evil intentions of their leaders. They thought of themselves as heroes and protectors, defending their home from terrorists. Still we ended all of their lives. When we reached that 59th floor, the magnitude of our actions began to sink in. But there was no time for reprieve. Our mission wasn't over yet. We walked out of that elevator and rooted our humanity in savagery, leaving ourselves to deal with the emotional consequences of our actions years later.