Final Fantasy 7 - The Sentry Objective CHAPTER 3 - New Information

Back in the Seventh Heaven bar, Marlene was trying her best to attend to the customers on her own. A couple of them looked at her funny, which made her uncomfortable. She felt even more uncomfortable when the three Shinra guards from outside entered the bar. They sat down and requested drinks.

As Marlene began making them, she thought of something. They requested some liquor, but not too hard so they’d stay awake and ready. She made them all hard drinks. Really hard drinks. Hopefully it would make them lose their edge a little, and then she could let Zymon out safely.

They drank up easily, and ordered another round. Marlene added a little squirt of Tiipilo wine. Tiipilo juice was had natural alcohol, and was unbelievably strong when fermented into wine. It could outdo any liquor she gave them. They drank up, luckily not noticing the slight tang the Tiipilo should have added.

She repeated this little process six times in a row. The guards were beginning to act jolly, laughing uncontrollably at even the most ridiculous things. One of them tried to stand up on the bar counter, but Marlene shoved him off. He landed on the ground with a loud thump. He had the wind knocked out of him, and he was still trying his hardest to laugh. His face turned purple from the lack of air, and the other two found that absolutely hysterical.

Marlene, in the meantime, was a little confused. They had taken in an equivalent of 30 shots of whiskey! Why hadn’t they even fainted, when they should technically be dead? Although they hadn’t ordered another round, and were in fact too drunk to do so, Marlene made them one more batch, hoping it would put them down for the rest of the day. After that round, they were all becoming delirious, and had all removed their helmets, and upper armor. They were sweaty, obnoxious, and STILL AWAKE! WHY? HOW COULD THEY STILL BE AWAKE?? Better yet, how could they still be ALIVE??

SMACK! One of the guards hit head full force on the counter, and was out cold. Standing behind him was a customer, who’d obviously grown irritated with them. The other two guards began chuckling, and playing with their comrade’s unconscious head.

SMACK!

SMACK!

The customer did the same to the last two guards. All three were out like lights, sure to stay like that for several more hours.

       “Oh thank you!” Marlene said, with a sigh of relief.

       “My pleasure, believe me...” the man said.

                            *************************

About four hours ticked by. Nothing had happened since Zymon began hiding in the hidden level of the Seventh Heaven. He was watching the TV, trying his best not to nod off. No news about the reactor’s detonation as of yet. Just some report about repairing a huge crack in the Sector 7 pillar. He heard three loud thumps from above earlier, but thought nothing of it. Why hadn’t anyone come back? Why hadn’t he heard Barret’s gun-arm blazing at a victory, or just for kicking people out? Were they dead?? Delayed? Lost?

He began twiddling with a pocketknife someone left on the floor out of boredom. Another twenty minutes few by while he did his best to entertain himself. Marlene would know when the time was right. He knew that. But was she okay? Suddenly that thought led to wondering if the guards had gone into his house yet and found the soldiers he’d killed. He was letting his thoughts betray him again, running through his head violent scenes of Marlene being killed, Tifa being killed, and soldiers blitzing the Seventh Heaven. Tension was building inside him. Dammit, Zymon! Stop doing this to yourself!

Suddenly a loud clank sound went off from the hidden platform, and the pinball machine lowered, with Marlene standing on the platform. Zymon calmed down almost immediately, and leaned his head back. “Sorry!” she said. “I had to wait until all the customers were gone!”

       “That’s alright. Did any guards come in?” he asked.

       “Yeah, actually. They’re all knocked out.” She smiled. “So you can leave safely now! They’ll be like that for a long time, with the drinks I gave them.”

       “Well, thank you.”

Zymon gathered his guns and envelope. They went back up to the bar, and he left.

Outside, he was groggy, and still nervous. Someone was knocking hard at his materia shop door, yelling his name loudly. He was wearing an undershirt and tattered old pants. He had two machetes latched on either side of his waist. At once, he knew exactly who this was.

Zymon walked up behind him and tapped him. Twitchy, the man jerked around, startled and sweating. He let out a loud gasp. After the initial shock, he was panting breathlessly, and was extremely scared of something.

       “Zymon!! There you are!” he said, nearly out of breath. “I wondered if you’d been taken by Shinra soldiers! You’ve got two dead ones in your house!”

       “Yeah I killed them,” he said.

       “Oh... well, they probably weren’t looking for you.”

       “Really? There were there five of them here earlier”

       “They were stationed to keep everyone inside Sector 7.

       “What? How come??”  

       “Read this and you’ll” he said, shoving the envelope in Zymon’s hand. He opened it and took out a black and white photograph. It was a model of Midgar taken made at Shinra’s headquarters.

“When did you get this?” he asked.

“About five days ago. Apparently it’s been an idea Shinra’s had for a little while...”

“I don’t see it yet.”

       “Look at Sector 7.”

He looked down at it for a moment, and brought his head back up. “The upper plate’s been lowered!”

       “Exactly!”

       “How do they plan to do that??”

       “By smashing THIS PLACE WITH IT!”

       “WHAT??”

“It’s all in the documents! They’re all in there! That’s why the guards were keeping people in! They didn’t want them crowding up the other sectors!”

       “So they wouldn’t have been able to escape even if they knew. Those psychopaths bastards!”

       “I highly recommend getting out of this place. The operation’s taking place now! Check out the pillar tower!”

       Zymon looked up. In the slight distance, he could see helicopters circling the tower searchlights blaring. “There was a cover story that they were repairing a crack!” he said.

       “Well you ought to know bullshit when you hear it!”

            Next Chapter – How to Escape Midgar