INTERmission Chapter 2: Covert Ops

Story mode. Written for a first playthrough and kept free of spoilers — it will not tell you what happens here, only what the game is asking of you.

The second chapter is a single climb through the basement floors of the building you spent Chapter 1 trying to reach. There is no town, no shop counter and no way back down. Vending machines sit by the benches and sell nearly everything, including every weapon from Chapter 1, so if you walked past one, you can buy it here.

Pack lightning, wind and fire. Most of the machines you meet fold to lightning or wind, the people to fire, and Elemental Ninjutsu means one of each covers a lot of ground.

Power first, then look around

Every floor works the same way. You fight your way to a terminal, switch the power on, and the floor opens up. That is the moment to explore. Once you take the way up, you are not coming back to that floor.

On the second floor up, three materia sit in capsules around the room once the lights are on. Walk the whole room.

The floor above that is the one to be thorough on. A dead end off to the east, a short staircase at the start of the west hallway, a side room through the hallway’s left-hand door, and a platform up a pipe and across two swing points from the power terminal each hold something good: an accessory that blocks status ailments, an armlet that grows materia fast, Sonon’s best staff and a Time Materia. None of them is on the way.

The vault

Switching on that floor’s power also opens a door opposite the terminal. Inside is a box-smashing challenge against the clock, with six support materia as prizes. The first course is fair and the first three prizes are worth having now. The second course is a real test; it wants the weapon from the top of the yellow pole in Chapter 1, and you can come back for it after the credits.

The trials

Near the top, the game puts you through a series of fights and lets you choose a door each round. Neither is the wrong answer; pick the side your materia handles. Before you start, examine the machine in the middle of the entrance chamber — there is a materia in it.

The last trial is fixed and resists lightning. Swap to fire, ice or wind before you go through.

The end of the episode

The last stretch is a run of hard fights with benches between them. A machine waiting at the top is weak to lightning, and whoever is riding it is weak to fire. A simulator room after that throws waves at you; ice helps against the big one.

After the bench that follows the simulator room, you are committed. Heal and restock. The final fight has no elemental weakness and ignores status effects. Save both Limit Breaks for the end, and keep Sonon in mind — he can pull Yuffie out of trouble when she cannot.

Finishing the chapter opens INTERmission’s own Chapter Select and Hard mode, and a new set of simulator challenges on the first floor.

Game Notes

After Chapter 1’s sprawl, this is the opposite: tight, vertical, mean. It is the kind of level the main game’s Shinra Building chapters were, compressed into an hour or two, and it is better for being short.

The side paths are the whole game here. The obvious route takes you from boss to boss; the rooms off it are where Yuffie gets properly kitted out. A player who rushes will reach the end underpowered and wonder why it is so hard.

The box-smashing vault is the one place in the episode built entirely around how Yuffie moves — throw, recall, cast, throw. If you never got the shuriken to click in Chapter 1, an hour in there will fix that.

How this page was made

Researched across 4 community walkthroughs and written from scratch — no source’s wording appears here.

How we decide what to print

Completionist mode. Full spoilers, in play order, with every permanent loss called out before you reach it. 3 entries below are marked where our sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

Spoilers from here.

The deadlines

The route runs one way: B16, B15, B14, B13, the Testing Grounds, Scarlet, and Deepground. Leaving the Advanced Weaponry floors for the Testing Grounds leaves behind the three B15 capsule materia, the Ribbon, Volant Armlet, Djinn Staff, Time Materia, Healing Carcanet and the Shinra Box Buster. The AP Up Materia at the Testing Grounds entrance goes when you enter the trials. After the bench that follows the prototype simulator room, the next thing is Nero.

None of it is lost forever. Beating Nero opens INTERmission’s Chapter Select and Hard mode, and on a replay the Ribbon, Volant Armlet and Healing Carcanet chests pay a Potion; the Time Materia and the Djinn Staff chests repeat as they are.

Everything, in order

B16 — Inspection (“Scarlet’s Trap”). Bench and vending machine round the first corner. The locked door beside them is the Shinra Combat Simulator, closed until the credits. Scarlet’s test room sends three waves: Slug-Rays with a Sweeper (one guide says a Cutter), Monodrives, then Slug-Rays with Shock-Rays. Lightning for the rays and the Sweeper, wind for the Monodrives. Throw at the hanging container to make a step (“A Way Out”), climb with Sonon’s boost and lower the ladder for him.

B15 — Production (“Find That Materia”). Two Shock Troopers (fire). Turn on the central terminal, then collect the three capsule materia: Ninja Cannonball in the tube opposite the terminal, Steadfast Block by the locked lift, Skill Master on the walkway across from it — guides swap these two, so walk the whole room.

B14 — Maintenance (“The Scent of Materia”). Drop to the pipes and climb the generator wall. The Ribbon is at the east dead end. The Volant Armlet is at the top of the short stairs on the left as the west hallway begins. Two 3-C SOLDIER Operators (fire), then the grab points, then an Armored Magitrooper off the elevator — no weakness, hit its core, and when the pilot ejects you fight the Enhanced Magitrooper suit. The Djinn Staff (with a Potion) is in the side room through the hallway’s left door. Switch on the Level 2 power grid: the Secret Vault opens opposite, and the Time Materia is up the left pipe and across two swing points from the terminal.

B13 — Development (“The Hunt Continues”). Up the right-hand pipe. Throw at the girders to bridge the gap; before the second one, climb the left pipe for the Healing Carcanet. Security Officers (fire), an Elite Grenadier and an Armored Shock Trooper guard the Level 3 terminal. Back in Scarlet’s office, a Magitrooper and a Shock Trooper (lightning). Her chair restores HP and MP, as often as you like.

Testing Grounds (“The Invitation”). Examine the tube machine in the central chamber for AP Up Materia. Bench and vending machine through the north door. Five trials, the first four with a choice of door:

Trial	Left	Right
1	Mark II Monodrives (wind; resist physical)	two Sweepers (lightning)
2	Cutter (lightning)	two Blast-Rays (lightning)
3	a pack of Monodrives (wind)	four Slug-Rays (lightning)
4	M.O.T.H. Unit (lightning, wind)	two Armored Magitroopers (cores)
5	Deathwheel	—

Cutters and Blast-Rays appear only here, so take the other door on a replay for Enemy Intel. The Mark II Monodrive and the Deathwheel each drop a Turbo Ether, the Blast-Ray a Heavy-Duty Bracer, the M.O.T.H. Unit an Iron Maiden.

“A Fateful Confrontation.” Elevator, bench, Scarlet and The Crimson Mare. The Firebird Armlet is the reward — one guide calls it an amulet, another says Time Materia, and both are wrong.

“A New Threat.” Deepground SOLDIERs: weak to fire, turn invisible, cast fire and ice. Hit them as they reappear.

“Escape.” The Combat Simulator Prototype: bench and vending machine first, about twenty seconds between waves. Two Unknown Entities (ice); two Zenene (no weakness, resist fire); two Riot Troopers and an Elite Grenadier (fire — thrown shuriken get round the shields); then the Projector and Diabolic Creation. Bench afterwards. That is the last one.

“Dread.” The walk to Deepground and Nero the Sable. Sonon falls; Yuffie leaves Midgar alone (“The Journey Continues”).

Shinra Box Buster

Opened by the B14 Level 2 power grid. Orange boxes take physical, purple take magic and Ninjutsu, red add time, metal 1,500-point boxes want a shuriken and then Windstorm. A hidden time box sits right of the start. Every Basic prize must be earned before SOLDIER Training opens. In the final room of SOLDIER, the Steel Reaper’s Banishment does most of the work.

Course	Score	Reward
Basic Training	5,000	ATB Assist Materia
Basic Training	10,000	ATB Boost Materia
Basic Training	20,000	ATB Stagger Materia
SOLDIER Training	10,000	Magnify Materia
SOLDIER Training	30,000	Gil Up Materia
SOLDIER Training	50,000 (every box)	EXP Up Materia

All six is Materia Maven. EXP Up is the only one in INTERmission’s save.

Bosses

• Deathwheel — fire, ice, wind; resists lightning. Blocks from the front; get behind it or stagger it with a weakness.
• Scarlet and The Crimson Mare — Scarlet to fire, the Mare to lightning. Emptying the Mare’s bar wins; emptying Scarlet’s leaves the suit Pressured. Kill the Sentry Rays and the rim launchers first. Flaming blades early (wait them out); Makocannons around 75% (shoot them to stun); claymore and shield around 50% (break them to stun). Melee the guns, throw at the blades. Firebird Armlet; 16 SP.
• Projector and Diabolic Creation — the Projector is shielded until the Creation dies, then briefly Staggered. The Creation is weak to ice, returns weaker each time, and its right arm is a target that stuns it. Sideways when it vanishes.
• Nero the Sable — no weakness, immune to status. Binding Talons grabs Yuffie; have Sonon break her out. Line attacks (Dark Torrent, Chthonic Surge) — dodge left or right. Veil of Woe and Soul Erosion shut down attacks for a while; kite with throws. In the last quarter the room drains HP and the Abyssal Wings become targets — break them for a stun. Keep both Limit Breaks for that. 16 SP.

After the credits

Through Chapter Select, the B16 simulator opens. Items are not allowed.

Course	Fee	First clear
Yuffie & Sonon vs. Shinra’s Dark Secrets	300 gil	Enfeeblement Ring
Yuffie & Sonon vs. Midgarian Monsters	400 gil	Enfeeblement Ring
Yuffie & Sonon vs. Top Secrets	700 gil	Götterdämmerung x2

Top Secrets opens after the other two: Bahamut and Ifrit, then Ramuh, then Pride and Joy Mk 0.5, for Ultimate Weapon 2.0. Clearing INTERmission also adds Weiss the Immaculate to the main game’s Chapter 17 simulator; that fight is Cloud’s party, not Yuffie’s.

Hard mode only

• Secrets of the Ninja / Staff Vol. XI — the Deathwheel.
• Vol. XII — Scarlet and The Crimson Mare.
• Vol. XIII — the Projector wave in the prototype simulator room.
• Vol. XIV — Nero the Sable.

With Chapter 1’s ten, that is all fourteen pairs. Both chapters on Hard earns The Road to Revenge.

Game Notes

Covert Ops is a better chapter than Wutai’s Finest and a much harder one to like on a first run, because it ends the way it does. Everything that came before it is light: the moogle posters, the board game, the turtle flyers. Then the episode spends an hour in a basement and takes Sonon away.

Play it a second time and the craft is easier to see. Each floor is a little puzzle box with a power switch at the centre and loot round the edges. The trials let you shape the fights to your materia. Scarlet’s fight is the best multi-part boss in the episode, and the Box Buster vault is a genuinely good action-puzzle hiding behind a side door.

Nero is the real point, and he is meant to feel unfair: no weakness, no status, a room that eats your HP. Lose to him once and you will understand what the game wanted you to feel about him.

How this page was made

Researched across 8 community walkthroughs and written from scratch — no source’s wording appears here. 3 are marked where sources disagree with each other — we have not picked a winner for you.

How we decide what to print