Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of its characters.

Ludicrous Body

In the darkness of the Midgar slums, a train flew along its tracks, carrying both the bravest of the slums' inhabitants and the Shinra guards assigned to maintain order amongst them. Had it not been for six passengers aboard the train, this fact would have gone completely unnoticed by the city's inhabitants – after the previous day's bombing in Sector 1, most sensible people were at home, cowering in fear of another attack, not risking using a train when the rebels could be anywhere. However, in the days to come, every detail of this train's journey was to be scrutinised in the boardrooms of Shinra, in the news stations on the plate, in the streets of the city's slums – until the next crisis took place. But this could not have been known by the train's passengers that day – although the rebels who set off the security alarm, raced through the train as though their lives were at stake, and finally hurtled from the speeding vehicle to land in a tunnel infested with soldiers, leaving their allies behind to fend for themselves, may have had some idea of the chaos they were about to unleash.

Inside the train, Wedge stood near his two companions, trying desperately to project the right combination of concern at the failure of the Shinra to capture the terrorists and a feeling of supreme entitlement to his position at the front of the train in a guard's uniform. Which, considering that the uniform had been stolen from a Shinra soldier Biggs had rendered unconscious the previous night in their attempt to move from what remained of the Sector 1 reactor to their Sector 7 hideout while avoiding detection by Shinra forces, and that he had been whispering words of encouragement to the terrorists only seconds earlier, was harder than it might appear. Beside him, Biggs, also dressed in a guard's uniform, was grinning maniacally. He was always enthusiastic about the possibility of any situation involving Shinra troops degenerating into an all-out brawl, and he had no talent for hiding his emotions.

"Biggs?" Wedge muttered.

"Yeah?" The noise made Wedge wince. Half the train must have heard that.

"Most Shinra employees do not grin when terrorists have escaped. The leaders of Shinra aren't known for leniency regarding mistakes among their soldiers, and most of the soldiers know this. Can I suggest that you –" Wedge noticed the guards from the carriage adjoining theirs enter the carriage and march towards them and stopped mid-sentence.

"Never mind. Let me talk, and don't draw attention to yourself."

Wedge turned towards Jessie momentarily. She looked uncomfortable in her stolen soldier's armour, but hopefully the light in the train would be dim enough to hide this from the Shinra troops, who presumably wouldn't be looking at them too closely in any case. The other passengers were shooting nervous looks towards the Shinra guards, and trying to leave the carriage without looking like they had something to hide. Wedge was intensely grateful for the fear the troops created. The other passengers had probably seen Wedge talking to Barrett and the others, but with them out of the way, he might be able to hide the truth until they reached the Sector 5 station.

One of the soldiers approached Biggs. Wedge almost groaned, but stopped himself just in time. He pleaded silently with whatever cosmic forces might be listening for the guard not to talk to Biggs, fearing that he would realise they weren't part of Shinra from Biggs's behaviour – that smile hadn't gone away. But Wedge's internal plea went unanswered – the soldier barely seemed to notice him, having focused all his attention on Biggs - and he was forced to remain silent and hope for the best.

"What are you doing here, soldier?" The Shinra guard carried himself with an air of self-confidence which bordered on arrogance. Wedge had seen that kind of attitude among the Shinra many times before, and thought that this man was probably the leader of the squad. At any rate, the other soldiers seemed to defer to him, standing back and remaining silent.

Much to Wedge's surprise, Biggs responded perfectly. "We're on the lookout for the escaped passengers, sir!" he exclaimed, as his hand flew almost reflexively into a salute. Wedge glanced at him approvingly. For all his inability to hide emotion, Biggs could disguise himself fairly well, when the situation called for it.

"Well, which way did they go?" The leader was obviously impatient, and Wedge suspected that vagueness on their part would not be appreciated.

"Um… we haven't seen them, sir. I think they must still be in another carriage. Unless they jumped off the train." Biggs was looking around nervously as he spoke, and the soldiers glared at him suspiciously.

"Is that a fact?" Biggs nodded frantically, apparently noticing the disbelief in the captain's voice.

"No one has come in here since the security alert started." Jessie was valiantly trying to take control of the conversation, but this seemed to be a losing battle.

"I think you're lying. We've personally checked all the other carriages, and as for jumping off the train – do you have any idea how fast we're traveling? The passengers may be stupid – they oppose Shinra, of course they are – but that doesn't mean they're suicidal." Wedge couldn't argue with the soldier on that count. The plan had seemed ridiculously dangerous to him as well. But then, most of AVALANCHE's plans seemed to him to be composed of gratuitous risk taking, and they usually worked – and it's unfair to judge plans made in twenty seconds after fake IDs fail to work too harshly.

"Well, what do you have to say to that?" Out of the corner of his eye, Wedge noticed Biggs sidling towards the door.

Biggs's movement apparently drew the soldier's attention towards the open door. "Stop! Why is that door open?" Wedge could almost see his brain working frantically to understand this turn of events. He waited for the guard to put two and two together – given the average intelligence of Shinra troops, he felt justified in relaxing slightly.

"They're with the terrorists! Stop them!" the captain barked at the other soldiers. Wedge blinked – he'd never seen a Shinra captain reach an accurate conclusion in this short a space of time without a minute-long mental warm-up first. He could feel the train slowing, knew the station was close, and forced himself to move towards the door. Biggs and Jessie were already there, preparing to jump and hoping desperately to land on the platform.

Biggs went first, turning in mid-air to wave at the soldiers and narrowly avoiding a bullet fired by one of the grunts. He hit the concrete of the station floor on his back, and lay on the ground in pain for a few moments before forcing himself to his feet. Jessie followed him immediately, her stolen armour stopping every bullet fired at her. Wedge had heard how durable Shinra-issued armour was, but had never quite believed it until now Wedge was standing next to the open door by now, and the train had slowed almost completely. As the squad leader raised his shotgun, Wedge considered making a comment about the stupidity of designing armour which your own bullets can't penetrate, considering the ease with which the armour could be obtained, but decided that he'd quite like to keep his reputation as the sensible member of AVALANCHE – not to mention a life which wasn't extremely painful and very short. Gathering all the strength he possessed, Wedge half-jumped, half-fell off the train. He could hear the gunshots from the train just above his head, but he had almost hit the platform by now, and –

- he hit the ground standing, but he was unable to keep his balance and toppled forwards. For several seconds, he lay on his stomach, unable to rise, watching the Shinra guards outside the reactor looking at him suspiciously – they'd heard the gunfire from inside the train and watched Jessie and Biggs jump before him, they knew something unusual was going on. Then he could feel the other AVALANCHERs pulling him to his feet and dragging him along as they ran down the tunnel the train had emerged from seconds earlier – they couldn't go into the reactor via the station now, the soldiers from the train had gotten off and were telling the reactor guards what had happened. Fortunately, the pain was starting to diminish – he apparently hadn't done any major damage to himself. He was still in pain - his left ankle in particular hurt, but that had been damaged many times before, and Wedge had become accustomed to continuing his work while injured in his time with AVALANCHE.

Wedge could hear the shouts of the reactor guards as they chased him, but he was able to move on his own by now, and even injured as he was, he had enough of a head start to get too far into the tunnel for the guards to pursue him – they weren't allowed to go far from their posts, in case someone tried to get in while others were distracting them. The guards from the train had apparently given up chasing them to search for Barrett and the others – which had, after all, been their job - but Wedge had an uneasy feeling, a feeling that they wouldn't escape those soldiers that easily.

"Are you injured badly?" They were some distance into the tunnel now, and Jessie and Biggs stopped running to let him have a rest. Wedge smiled at Jessie, trying to reassure her.

"I'm fine. I always knew that someday, there would be a benefit to being a grossly overweight guerilla. I wasn't expecting it to being shock absorption after falling from a moving train, but… I'm not complaining." It was a weak joke, but it seemed to relieve Jessie.

"Let's move." Biggs was apparently becoming restless. "The Shinra troops will realise where we've gone any minute, and we have to get to the reactor at about the same time as the others.

"Well, we're not going to be able to get into the reactor now – not by the main entrance at least. But then, neither are Barrett and the rest, so we can try to find a way in from around here. Jessie, do you know of any entrance to the reactor from this tunnel?" Wedge knew it was a long shot, but they didn't seem to have any other options.

"I don't carry a perfect map of Midgar in my head, you know. That sort of thing isn't on the official diagrams of Midgar – not the kind most people have access to, anyway. There's probably a way in near the security sensors – there usually is." Jessie pointed to beams of light Wedge could just faintly see at the end of the tunnel.

"Come on, let's go and take a look." Biggs was obviously reluctant to stay still any longer, and began to lead them towards the sensor.

"The Shinra are remarkable in that way. What kind of leader hires a city planner overconfident enough to build an air duct right next to a security check point?" Wedge had often wondered this, but he'd always had a faint feeling that he might jinx himself if he mentioned it to anyone - all the air ducts might be boarded up, or something of that nature. He was glad Jessie had asked for him.

"It's to demonstrate their power." Wedge was startled to hear something like this from Biggs. But then again, he should be used to this by now. Every time he thought Biggs was just an aggressive man with a grudge against Shinra and a brain cell deficit, Biggs would prove him wrong by coming up with an explanation for something no one else could understand – and which always seemed perfectly obvious after he explained it.

Biggs continued. "You see, the Shinra are power hungry. They like to control people – and make a show of the fact that they can. In this case, they make it perfectly easy to find a way into a reactor – yet no one tries to. Why? Because the Shinra have convinced the people that it is in their best interests to use Mako. And putting in an air duct leading to a reactor which no one ever tries to use to destroy the reactor - because they've been convinced that they need reactors - is the Shinra's way of showing us that we'll never gain support from the public."

Wedge whistled softly to himself, making a mental note never to underestimate Biggs's mental capacity again. He could see the glowing light of the sensor beams much more clearly now, and guessed that they'd almost reached the checkpoint. Jessie crossed to the other side of the tunnel to look for an air duct, while Biggs crouched lower on the same side. Wedge prayed that there would be no trains anytime soon, and tried to peer though the beams to see where Barrett and the rest of AVALANCHE might be. He saw nothing of them, but he could hear faint sounds of gunfire. Wedge sighed quietly - it seemed that, no matter how carefully they planned, AVALANCHE just couldn't avoid endless waves of Shinra grunts.

"Hey, I can feel some kind of entrance down here. I think it connects up with that one, on the other side of the checkpoint. If Barrett, Cloud and Tifa got off the train where I think they did, that's the one they'll use to get into the reactor." Jessie was speaking softly; trying not to attract attention from the guards they all knew couldn't be far away. They were in no condition to fight at the moment.

"What entrance?" Wedge felt rather embarrassed at not being able to see anything there. Jessie pointed to the spot – it was perhaps two paces away from the security beams.

"I didn't see that. Too busy listening for the others. Do you think we'll fit through the – what is it? An air duct?" Wedge was starting to feel anxious about this plan. Being overweight may help in fighting Shinra sometimes, but in squeezing through narrow tunnels, it was decidedly detrimental.

Jessie nodded. "I think so." By the light of the sensor beams, she saw the look of unease that Wedge was trying to hide. "Don't worry, you'll fit through. Barrett could fit through here – it's ridiculously wide."

"I hope he can - he's going to have to go through the duct on the other side." Wedge muttered, half to himself.

"Look, can we please hurry?" Biggs sounded exasperated. "We really don't have time to stand around and chat."

Jessie nodded. "You're right, we should get moving." She crouched down and began to crawl slowly through the tunnel, closely followed by Biggs. After casting one last, worried look around the tunnel, Wedge knelt and gradually maneuvered his body into the air duct.

A few metres away from him, concealed by the shadows of the tunnel, the Shinra captain smirked. When the sounds of the rebels moving through the duct had died away, he turned to the other soldiers. "Don't worry, men. We'll have our revenge soon enough."