Summary:
We climb up to the 67th and 68th floors. Hojo takes the Worst Ever
prize with his attempt to breed Aeris with a hyper-intelligent dog. (I
can’t believe I just wrote that sentence.) A new party member joins us,
and our party of five is captured by Shinra.
Shinra Building - 67th Floor
-Cloud’s heard of Hojo, but never saw him until now.
-Nasty-looking guards up here. “Moth Slashers.”
-Tifa’s attempts to Steal thus far have been fairly ineffective. Not that there’s nothing to steal, but that she couldn’t steal.
-Hojo’s about to test “today’s specimen.” It’s some animal with a tail.
-Cloud looks into a test chamber of some kind and says,”Jenova.” He flashes back to winged person/beast.
Really bright, so hard to tell for sure, but from his reaction and the almost abstract structure of what we glimpse, I’m guessing it’s some Eldritch-horror-style monstrosity.
“Jenova… Sephiroth’s… So they brought it here…” WHAT WHAT WHAT
-hahahaha – Barret’s so chill about this.
-I backtrack a bit to check out what look like cells, but they’re all locked. Time to use the “specimen elevator.”
---
Shinra Building – 68th Floor
-Aeris is here, in some glowy containment tank
-Hojo sees us, and basically says if we hurt him then nobody can operate the equipment here (a threat against Aeris). He raises that pig thing (a Jenova iirc) from the floor below up into Aeris’s chamber.
[Later edit: I had forgotten that the Jenova was separate from the animal, that this was not the Jenova.]
-He’s
-wait
-is this right? Is Hojo this fucking awful?
-HE WANTS TO BREED THEM NLSVJKLSNVIWNUIOWVNUIOVNWUIO
-Barret busts the chamber, and the animal pounces on Hojo. Go, animal! …And it talks!?
-Cloud tells someone to get Aeris to safety, either Barret or Tifa – up to me. Hm. Let’s go with Barret. Tifa can stay.
-The animal is “Red XIII” as named by Hojo, but says that’s not its real name, to just call it whatever. What’s your real name?
-Red XIII is playable. This is glorious.
-The three of us – Red, Cloud, and Tifa – fight a lab-created plant monster boss.
It uses poison and hyper, and has some adds, but isn’t too bad.
-After the fight, there are some “thank goodness Aeris wasn’t forced to mate with a dog” lines. Red interjects that it would’ve been gross for him too. He has the ability to consent which was threatened as much for him as for Aeris, and he doesn’t find two-legged creatures attractive.
Yeah, that was horrifying all around. Fuck Hojo. THE WORST. Die in a fire, dude.
-Our party splits up. Barret and Aeris head to the elevator while Cloud, Red, and Tifa explore a bit. We try to head up to 69, but are supposed to head back to 66.
---
Shinra Building – President’s Floor
-We reach the elevator. Tseng and a Turk named rude corner us. Shit.
-We’re all caught. Everyone minus Aeris is brought before President Jerkface, and Aeris is being kept “in a safe place.” I’ve seen what you consider a safe place. Ugh. I hate you all.
-The Ancients called themselves the Cetra, and lived thousands of years ago. Red knows of the Cetra, and it sounds like he knows of them from first-hand experience. Who are you, pup? I need Red backstory like right now please.
-More about the Promised Land. Shinra seems to want to use it as a gas station, just to pump out more Mako.
-President Shinra is the literal worst. Or maybe Hojo is. Or Tseng? This company really knows how to pick em.
---
Next time: the party in captivity.
Shinra Building - 67th Floor
-Cloud’s heard of Hojo, but never saw him until now.
-Nasty-looking guards up here. “Moth Slashers.”
-Tifa’s attempts to Steal thus far have been fairly ineffective. Not that there’s nothing to steal, but that she couldn’t steal.
-Hojo’s about to test “today’s specimen.” It’s some animal with a tail.
-Cloud looks into a test chamber of some kind and says,”Jenova.” He flashes back to winged person/beast.
Really bright, so hard to tell for sure, but from his reaction and the almost abstract structure of what we glimpse, I’m guessing it’s some Eldritch-horror-style monstrosity.
“Jenova… Sephiroth’s… So they brought it here…” WHAT WHAT WHAT
-hahahaha – Barret’s so chill about this.
-I backtrack a bit to check out what look like cells, but they’re all locked. Time to use the “specimen elevator.”
---
Shinra Building – 68th Floor
-Aeris is here, in some glowy containment tank
-Hojo sees us, and basically says if we hurt him then nobody can operate the equipment here (a threat against Aeris). He raises that pig thing (a Jenova iirc) from the floor below up into Aeris’s chamber.
[Later edit: I had forgotten that the Jenova was separate from the animal, that this was not the Jenova.]
-He’s
-wait
-is this right? Is Hojo this fucking awful?
-HE WANTS TO BREED THEM NLSVJKLSNVIWNUIOWVNUIOVNWUIO
-Barret busts the chamber, and the animal pounces on Hojo. Go, animal! …And it talks!?
-Cloud tells someone to get Aeris to safety, either Barret or Tifa – up to me. Hm. Let’s go with Barret. Tifa can stay.
-The animal is “Red XIII” as named by Hojo, but says that’s not its real name, to just call it whatever. What’s your real name?
-Red XIII is playable. This is glorious.
-The three of us – Red, Cloud, and Tifa – fight a lab-created plant monster boss.
It uses poison and hyper, and has some adds, but isn’t too bad.
-After the fight, there are some “thank goodness Aeris wasn’t forced to mate with a dog” lines. Red interjects that it would’ve been gross for him too. He has the ability to consent which was threatened as much for him as for Aeris, and he doesn’t find two-legged creatures attractive.
Yeah, that was horrifying all around. Fuck Hojo. THE WORST. Die in a fire, dude.
-Our party splits up. Barret and Aeris head to the elevator while Cloud, Red, and Tifa explore a bit. We try to head up to 69, but are supposed to head back to 66.
---
Shinra Building – President’s Floor
-We reach the elevator. Tseng and a Turk named rude corner us. Shit.
-We’re all caught. Everyone minus Aeris is brought before President Jerkface, and Aeris is being kept “in a safe place.” I’ve seen what you consider a safe place. Ugh. I hate you all.
-The Ancients called themselves the Cetra, and lived thousands of years ago. Red knows of the Cetra, and it sounds like he knows of them from first-hand experience. Who are you, pup? I need Red backstory like right now please.
-More about the Promised Land. Shinra seems to want to use it as a gas station, just to pump out more Mako.
-President Shinra is the literal worst. Or maybe Hojo is. Or Tseng? This company really knows how to pick em.
---
Next time: the party in captivity.
