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Rogue and Zack 8
Rogue snorted and stood up, looking down at him.
“In the end they're both trying to kill ya. The only difference is strategy.” She tugged lightly at the collar of his vest. “C’mon, then. Let's get this crap job over with.” She tugged his shirt again, beckoning, then grinned slightly and headed off down the hallway. Straight for the elevator. With a shake of his head, Zack pushed himself up and dogged her heels.
“You and your dad so much as exchanged a word yet?” Zack asked as the doors started to close.
“Nope. Haven't even seen him yet...”
“Gotta say, if you were my kid, I'd have tracked you down the minute I found out you'd been stupid enough to sign up,” he paused and shot her a grin. “That'd mean you were mine for sure, you'd caught my stupid genes.”
“Very funny. I told you, my dad wanted me to do this one day. Wanted me to be a SOLDIER. What reason would he have to check on me? Either I'd make it upwards... Or I'm gonna die. He has no concern for me if I don't make it.”
Luckily Zack didn't have time to reply when they hit the bottom and Rogue took his arm and tugged him from the metal box towards the exit to the ShinRa building.
Down on the streets of Midgar, they walked side by side in companionable silence. Crowds parted like the Red Sea for people in SOLDIER uniform. Children tended to stare at the weapons, men tended to size them up, and women tended to size up Zack, but no one harassed them.
“Man... Did they even give us somewhere specific to check?” Zack asked after an hour of what seemed like aimless wandering. Rogue grinned.
“You haven't noticed? I said they were gonna blow a reactor. So we've been winding our way around each reactor one by one... You thought I was taking these roads for the hell of it?”
“... Alright. I might have underestimated you...” Zack rubbed the back of his neck with a grin, looking up at the Sector 5 reactor. “What do you know...”
“Amazing what you can learn if you're paying attention...”
Without breaking stride, Rogue ducked behind Zack and his heavy sword, that he had erected as a shield, as a spray of gunfire peppered the ground where she had stood a moment before.
“Found 'em.”
“Guess so. You wanna just handle it ourselves?”
“You're the one that wants to be promoted right?”
“Hey, we both do.”
Fair enough. Rogue kept cover behind Zack for another moment, then she feinted around him, blade drawn. Already having zeroed in on the guy she needed, she was on him in a heartbeat, cold cocking him with the hilt and scooping up his machine gun, turning it on his friends who, in comparison, were inadequately armed. While, true, they were packing a bomb... They were bombers. She was pretty sure they weren't suicide bombers. Not willing to die like dogs in the streets to kill a pair of middle and low class military grunts to prove their point.
Sure enough, the moment they saw her finger on the trigger they all turned to beat a hasty retreat. But Zack hadn't been idle. While she had put the machine gun out of action, he had moved his way around to block a retreat into town while Rogue prevented advancement into the reactor, his blade ready.
“Guns,” Rogue began in a tone, she was proud to admit, was chill as ice and smooth. “May not be a very SOLDIER thing to use in combat... But in guerrilla warfare, my friends... You will find that modern day, realistic elitists will be as fast to pull one on you as an infantryman.” She grinned, slow and cold. “Blades are a preference. Sometimes guns are practical.” She swooped around in front of the vigilante group, the gun never wavering in her grasp.
“Put down the bomb,” Zack continued in a more standard-issue speech. “And render yourselves prone for search and seizure of any further weapons. You have five seconds to comply, or we are permitted to-”
“Permitted?” Rogue cut in with a chuckle that was all steel bravado learned from her father. “Zack, they're ready to blow up a residential district. I'd say it'd be more like my pleasure to 'eliminate the threat', as the Company likes to say.”
The bomb was down on the ground well within the five seconds, and Zack dismantled it and called for a ShinRa transport while Rogue stripped the other rebels of their weapons.
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