Chapter Text
Cloud let the engine wind down slowly, leaning back on the seat of his bike as he scanned the terrain. He was just a rock throw away from the Zolom Marshes and though the creatures of the marshlands weren't really a match for him, he still rather hoped he didn't need to go that way. He might be able to handle the bogs but his bike couldn't.
After a moment of just looking, Cloud pushed his goggles up and to his forehead before reaching for his waist and unclipping the binoculars he'd brought with him. They were an old ShinRa infantry model, from a time before the standardised infantry helmets – so they were basically better than anything currently available. The zoom function stuttered a bit – the jury-rigged battery didn't quite work as well as the old Makocells used to – but it still gave a decent magnification.
Good or not, though, they showed very little new. The marshlands of the Kalm-Midgar plain were as dirty, as polluted, and as disgusting as they'd ever been, nothing interesting in sight. He couldn't even see any movement, but then again, it was daytime. The Zoloms only came out to play during the night.
Shaking his head, Cloud lowered the binoculars and scanned the area with his eyes alone before fishing out his phone and dialling Reeve. "There's nothing," he said the moment the call was picked up. "You sure it was here?"
"I've confirmed it with Cosmo Canyon and Rocket Town," Reeve's smooth voice answered. "We've all got a bit of variation, but we've all pinned it down to the same area. Whatever it was, it should be there."
"I don't see anything," Cloud said, grimacing in the direction of the marshlands. He had a bad feeling that the reason he couldn't see anything was because the damn thing had of course landed in the one place he would rather not go. "How big is the thing?"
"Hard to say. Big enough to make it through the atmosphere intact. There's nothing? No fires, no crater, nothing?"
"There's nothing," Cloud repeated and scratched at his cheek. "There's bit of fog over the marshes though, might be hiding it," he added and then hesitated. "Do you really want this thing, Reeve? I mean… it's probably just a rock."
"It's probably not just a rock," Reeve said, without remorse. "Cosmo Canyon reported that it moved in abnormal ways before entering the atmosphere and when Cosmo Canyon calls something abnormal, it's usually is. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to find it."
Cloud sighed. "I hate wetlands," he muttered. "You owe me a pair of boots and full maintenance on the bike and everything else I ruin in there, alright?"
"I'll pay the bill personally. Please call me back once you have something."
Cloud sighed and snapped the phone shut. This is what he got for quitting the delivery business – doing delivery favours for friends he sometimes rather wished he didn't have. Well, fuck it. "To the marshes we go, boo yeah," he muttered, and pushed the phone into his pocket, clipped the binoculars back to his belt, tugged the goggles back on, and then revved the bike.
He crossed over to the edge of the marshes swiftly, and there he pulled to a halt on the last solid piece of land and let the engine wind down. He had no intention of actually taking Fenrir into the swamp, no space rock was worth that much. Well to be honest, he didn't think it was worth trekking out to a swamp on foot either. Reeve was going to owe him so much booze for this.
With a sigh, Cloud opened the bike up, and started pulling his swords off their usual holsters, thrusting them to their straps on his back. Then, with final check up on the bike and on his own gear, Cloud left the bike standing at the edge of the swamp and after moment of considering the land, he took a few running steps and jumped, calculating that if he jumped from dry patch to dry patch he might minimise the amount of swamp water his boots would end up swallowing.
No such luck – after a second leap that propelled him good twenty meters forward, he sank knee deep into a wet mush and there went the water, into his boot.
"Great," Cloud muttered, struggling to find his footing as he pulled his foot free. The wet squelching noise was just… lovely. "I hate swamps."
And he didn't even have any idea what he was looking for or how to find it, and more than a hundred hectares of marshes to cover. He really should've stayed in the delivery business – it had given him all sorts of handy excuses to give when old friends came calling for favours.
Still he was here, so he might as well find the damn thing. So he pushed onward, stopping occasionally to scan the area with the binoculars, and more than a dozen times to empty out his boots. So far nothing – but as he went onwards, he noticed a strange sort of agitation in the atmosphere. The marsh birds were attentively silent aside from an occasional warning call, and there were unusually high amount of monsters on the move for a place that usually didn't see that many humans about. Cloud even saw a couple Zoloms, slowly slithering under the marsh surface. Something had stirred the marsh up.
And he was getting closer to it.
Well, at least it wouldn't be a wasted trip, Cloud thought grimly as he unsheathed one of his smaller blades, whirling it in hand. Then he jumped forward again, leaping over the submerged Zoloms and heading forwards. He wouldn't fight them if he didn't have to, but if they started something he'd be more than ready to deal with them, and anything else the marsh had to offer.
Still no fires, no craters, nothing – which made sense, if something had impacted the marsh it would've already been swallowed up. But the marsh wouldn't have gotten riled up over something as simple as a fiery rock being thrown at it – no, the tension spoke of something being still there. Cloud was kind of hoping the space rock was going to be big. Very big. Too big for him to carry. Then he could call Reeve, tell him to get the thing himself, and leave and call it a day.
Of course it wasn't anything that simple – it never was.
What he eventually found half sunken in the swamp, leaning on several crushed trees, wasn't exactly a space rock. It took a moment for Cloud to wrap his mind around what it was – and even then he got the name from it more out of science fiction than from reality.
"Well," Cloud muttered, staring. "This is new."
It was maybe around the same size as the Highwind – slightly bulkier near what Cloud assumed was the back end. That was as far as similarities with the airship went, though, because this thing obviously was meant for something a bit more straining than air travel. And judging by the looks of the holes along its side, sparking and smoking and surrounded by scorch marks, it had definitely been strained too.
It was also something no one on the planet had the ability to manufacture.
Cloud eyed the thing for a while in a sort of bewildered daze before taking out his phone again and dialling Reeve. "Found it," he said, still staring. "It's a spaceship."
"… I beg your pardon?"
"It's a spaceship," Cloud said, half shrugging even though Reeve couldn't see him. "And it's sinking into the marsh."
"… Could you repeat that first part?"
Cloud sighed, pulled the phone from his ear, flipping it around and aiming it's camera at the rather startling scene the smouldering space ship made. He framed the shot in order to get most of it in frame, and then took the picture before sending it to Reeve.
"… I concur, it is indeed… a spaceship," Reeve said after a moment.
"Mm-hmm," Cloud agreed, tilting his head a bit. There was a sort of enormous burping sound and a bunch of bubbles broke the surface beside the spaceship as something gave under it. Shaking his head, he checked his bangle. He'd brought Sense with him more out of sheer cynicism than any other reason. Good thing he had. He fired it up. "Hundred and twelve meters in length, forty one in width and about… four hundred tons in weight. I'll need a summons to pull this thing out of the marsh, and I didn't think to bring any with –" he stopped, as more info filtered into his mind.
"Cloud?"
"There are live people on board," Cloud said, his whole demeanour changing. "I'm going to call you back, Reeve."
With that said, he ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He gave himself ten seconds to pull all of his swords loose and then fit the fusion sword together into its full form, before dashing ahead and leaping towards the ship, over a couple patches of somewhat dry grass and up a half collapsed tree and then up to the ship. Then, with the Sense intel still whirling around his head, he ran up the ship's hull until he found a spot where there was an empty space underneath – and then, charging Cross-Slash, he began cutting himself an opening into the ship.
There were forty two people on board, the Sense registered them all as human, and most of them near to death. Cloud didn't give himself a moment to wonder how or why or how it was even possible – there wasn't time. The ship was sinking, taking in the marsh water and sinking faster with it. Already, the Sense not so helpfully informed him that someone was drowning in the back end of the ship. Wonderful.
Cloud dropped down to what seemed like a corridor, half braced on the metal floor and half on the wall thanks to the tilt the ship was at. Inside the ship was dark aside from what seemed to be some sort of red emergency lights that flickered on and off, losing power. Well, he didn't need light, thanks to Mako and all the rest of the shit in his veins, so that was fine.
He took a breath and then, letting the Sense lead him, he started making his way to the closest life signature.