Hello all,

I'm sharing this fight scene from my novelization here so that I might get some feedback onto whether my fight scenes are good or not. I must say that I end up devoting more time to them than most anything else because I am very thorough in trying to imagine how the characters would react and whether the battle is realistic enough for my own senses. This fight scene alone took me about half a week to write out!

Anyways, let me know what you guys think when you get the chance. Any feedback will be much appreciated.

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With no more regard for stealth, the group sprinted as fast as they could back to the black elevator. As they ran, they believed they could hear distant echoes of their physical efforts, except the long corridors seemed to return a sound that was more like screams. Finally, frustrated and spooked by the sounds, Barret stopped and motioned for the rest of them to do the same as he arched his head to listen. Wedge gasped for air with both hands on his knees while Jessie patted him on the back, comforting him quietly for making the run with no complaint. Biggs nervously looked about. Cloud walked back to Barret and listened with him for further sounds. The room that they stopped in appeared to be a giant warehouse for various large gears and pipes. Tidy stacks of such objects littered the room.

Along with the various mechanical whirrs and whistles, a heavy sounding clanking sound suddenly emerged. This was a new sound, and one that would seem to accompany the rising and falling of some sizable chunk of metal on the ground, over and over. Listening for a moment, Barret stood considering. He looked down at his wrist. Next to the giant black glove that covered his right arm, a watch with red text ticked slowly away. Twelve minutes left. Jessie rubbed her arms as if a sudden chill had entered the room.

“Guys, wasn’t it strange that there were barely any guards guarding this facility? Why would they have so few sentries guarding an entire reactor?”

Cloud stood tall, a motionless sentinel against the onset of fear. Wedge walked over next to Jessie.

“Maybe they bring out the big guns when someone like us tampers with the reactor.”

Jessie looked anxiously at Wedge as he said it. The metallic clamor came ever closer. Barret started pacing furiously in indecision, the others looking on worriedly. Then, the clanging stopped. Cloud’s voice was a low rumble.

“It’s here.”

A sinister green and red light emerged from the exit they had come from, scanning the room slowly but completely. The interplaying colors shone slowly across the room. Silently, Cloud motioned everyone behind one of the stacks of gears. Barret peeked out around the side. In the entrance, a massive dark machine held still. It had the appearance of a robotic scorpion, multiplied in size to be five times the mass of a man. Where normal eyes would be, rays of pale green and scarlet danced as they moved across the room. An enormous tail stretched out behind it, waving slightly in the shadows. Six powerful legs sprouted from the sides of its grey steel carapace, holding it resolutely in the air. Suddenly, the scan turned from the opposite corner of the room to shine directly on Barret’s face. Instantly, he ducked back behind the gears.

“Shit, I think it saw me.”

Biggs slapped his arm.

“Damn it, Barret! What the hell were you doing stickin’ your big head out?”

“Shut up, Biggs! Alright, now I want you, Wedge and Jessie to go on ahead and get the hell out of here. Me and SOLDIER boy will stay for a minute and take care of this robotic scorpion thing.”

The skeptical looks the crew gave him spoke volumes. Cloud merely looked on, accepting the command. Finally, the renewed clanking of the scorpion’s legs moved everyone into action. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie moved quietly from stack to stack of parts as they left the room, managing to just stay out of the scorpion’s roving gaze. Barret started rummaging through his giant pockets. Cloud watched silently. After a moment, the ex-SOLDIER spoke.

“You do realize you’re unarmed.”

Barret looked up, and gave him a big toothy smile.

“Well, that’s one way to put it.”

He took off his right glove. He had no right hand. Halfway down his forearm was a flat steel plate. At last he found what he was looking for in his pocket. In his left hand emerged a colossal prosthetic Gatling gun. With a grin, he snapped it onto the metal plate. Immediately, it started whirring and turning. Expertly, he placed his left arm underneath it and pushed something below, causing it to stop. Just as quickly, he grabbed a cartridge of ammo from one of his pants pockets and clicked it satisfyingly into a slot on the side. Prepared, he nodded to Cloud.

“Now let’s see what you’re made of, SOLDIER b…”

Before he could finish, the stack of gears they were crouching behind exploded. Shiny metal equipment sprayed everywhere, sparking off the floor and bouncing off the walls. One particularly large one dug a jagged furrow deep into the steel. Cloud nimbly jumped aside. Barret had less luck. A number of small gears smacked him directly in the face as he scrambled to get out of the way. The monstrous robotic scorpion advanced quickly, shoving aside stacks of metal as it came. Moving as fast as he could, Barret leaped over the scattered parts, turning when he could to spray a hail of bullets at his pursuer. The bullets sparked off the scorpion’s armor plates and ricocheted wildly around the room, creating a chaotic rain of flashes and sparking metal fragments.

“Cloud! Get the hell over here!”

To one side, Cloud rose silently. In both hands, the massive sword was drawn. Without a word, he dashed over. Barret unloaded on the robot, backing up fast. With a leap, Cloud lifted the blade and sent it crashing downward on the monster’s claw. Instantly, the monster recoiled, skittering to one side. The left pincer sat to one side, askew and unresponsive. An enormous gouge was visible where the joint connecting it to the body used to be, sparks flying from the revealed machinery. Clanking, the scorpion skimmed away. Barret grinned for a moment, and then spouted angrily as Cloud positioned himself between the monster and him. Moving forward, Barret pushed Cloud out of the way.

“I can take care of myself!”

Cloud glanced at him for a moment, then reached into his pocket. A perfect globe emerged, a deep yellow stone streaked with jagged white lines. It nestled snugly in the palm of Cloud’s hand. He tossed the globe to Barret. He caught it with his left hand, looked at it quizzically for a moment, and then lobbed it back.

“The hell is this?” Barret said in an irritated tone, “Take it back.”

Cloud gave him a look devoid of emotion then gestured to his sword with one hand. As he did, the scorpion began to move closer again, creating a deafening metal clang with each step of its six legs. It was then Barret noticed that the ex-SOLDIER’s sword had two open circular holes near the base of the blade. It was in one of these that Cloud inserted the stone. Glancing once more at Barret, he then turned to face the robotic monstrosity. The scorpion had raised its stinger. As if in challenge, Cloud raised the flat of his sword to his forehead. The robot clanked forward.

Suddenly, Cloud whipped his blade forward in a blur. A crackling bolt of blue and white lightning coruscated and danced on the blade, shooting ahead to crash directly into the scorpion. The robot recoiled once more, the electrical discharge sparking wildly on the monster’s armor plates. Immediately, the scorpion lost control of itself and slammed into the wall; sending a nearby stack of gears shooting all over the floor.

Barret gaped, astonished. Then just as quickly he opened fire, adding to the robot’s predicament by hitting it with a wave of bullets. Making a horrendous squeal of metal on metal, the scorpion fell to the ground, stunned. Cloud charged, lifting the sword with both hands to finish the monstrosity.

But the battle was not yet over.

Just as Cloud was about to slash at the robot, the scorpion slammed his midriff with the one working claw, sending Cloud crashing into a pile of gears. It skittered forward with astonishing speed, preparing to finish the dangerous warrior. Growling, Barret followed, clicking another hidden button on his prosthetic weapon. Instantly, the chain gun whirred into a higher gear, spitting out hundreds of bullets at an unbelievable rate. The intense torrent of shells seemed to give the creature pause as some few slugs managed their way through gaps in the armor plates, ripping into vital machinery as they went. As if enraged, the scorpion turned about and charged at Barret without warning, causing him to yell in surprise and to start backtracking fast so as to avoid being trampled. After a few more hasty steps backward Barret tripped over a fallen gear, landing on his back. The scorpion skittered menacingly closer and raised its stinger. Barret winced and shut his eyes as the stinger surged forward at his face.

With a resounding clang, time seemed to stop.

Barret opened his eyes.

A gigantic flat sword filled his vision. In between the one remaining open slot in Cloud’s blade, the stinger quivered, surging forward again and again as it tried to reach its target. Cloud stood rock steady to one side, quivering as he held the scorpion’s strength back with his own. Sweat rolled down his face as he moved in front of Barret; the stinger still lodged within his sword. With a grunt, Cloud let go of the sword’s haft with his left hand for an instant to move it to the flat of the sword on the other side. With his center of gravity strengthened, he seemed to relax for a moment. Beyond him, Barret could see the scorpion trembling from the exertion of trying to thrust the stinger into Cloud’s eyes. Then with one swift motion, everything changed.

Cloud pushed forward with a yell, twisting his sword to one side. With an unholy squeal of ripping metal, the entire tail of the scorpion separated from its body, the length of it still stuck in Cloud’s blade. Sparks shot from the stump in the robot’s body across the room, revealing the extent of the damage done to it. Quick as a blink, Cloud ripped the tail clear with one arm and leaped atop the stunned monster’s carapace. Plunging his massive sword into the center of the creature, Cloud ended the threat. The robot’s crimson green eyes dimmed, never to be lit again.