Final Fantasy 7

by Azura De Martel

Two years after the tragic events in Banora and on the cliff outside of Midgar, Laina Donovan, Cloud Strife and Angelina Pierce finds themselves joining the "AVALANCHE" rebel group within the slums and helped them in taking down the Shinra company. But what they didn't know is that their decision to take down the company acted as a catalyst for saving the Planet from Sephiroth.

1. Chapter 1

I don't own Final Fantasy 7, it belongs to Square Soft/Enix. I only own my OC characters, Laina and Phemie Donovan, Angelina Pierce, Carter Black, Selwyn Rexley and others within this second fanfic/story of mine, maybe.

Chapter 1: Blowing up a reactor

Under the night sky filled with thousands of bright stars as they shone their pale luminescence light down on the cold, dark and large city of Midgar, a young, fair-skinned woman with emerald-colour eyes, long brown hair tied up with a magenta ribbon (and also with a small pebble size white materia tucked safely inside her magenta ribbon) in a ponytail behind her, an almost round-shaped face and wearing a long sleeveless pink dress with a short red bolero jacket over it, metal bangles on both of her wrists, short brown boots on her legs and holding a small basket with several white and yellow flowers in it was staring down at the small pinpricks of green light/energy floating out of some rusted-looking pipes on the right side of an old, run down shop in LOVELESS avenue within Sector 8. Slowly she stood up before turning to her left and walked out of the alley, away from the old, run down shop toward the street and stopped in her tracks as several vehicles drove past her and she watched as many people roaming/walking around the street before and pass her, each of them minding their own business.

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Meanwhile at the same time, a train was speeding through the rail tracks in another Sector next to Sector 8 before pulling then stopping in its tracks next to the train station and near one of the mako reactor in Midgar. Two guards in red security uniforms who were standing in silence near the train station glance up at the now silent train without interest, until a stranger named Biggs with short, dark brown hair with a long red cloth tied up around his head, wearing a sleeveless green shirt, dark brown pants and boots jumped down from the top of the train and landed on the platform near one of the two guards, who noticed him and began charging toward Biggs with his assault rifle ready in his hands. But as the guard got near him and right before he could open fire on Biggs, Biggs swiftly grabbed hold of his assault rifle, yanked it away from him and tossed it far away before grabbing him by his collar, flung him over his shoulder and send him crashing on his back down on the platform ground which immediately knocked him out cold.

The other guard saw what happen to the first guard in surprised before recovering his composure and swiftly run forward to help him but got intercepted by another stranger who came out of one of the side doors of the train. The second guard saw that the second stranger was a young woman (named Jessie) with long, light brown hair tied-up in a ponytail, a long black cloth tied-up around her head and wearing a dark grey tank top and long, dark green pants. Before the second guard could react, Jessie drew her hand back (which is now clenching into a fist) and punched him hard on his face before raising her right leg and kicked him hard on his stomach. He fell back from both of her punch and kick with a yell of pain and the back of his head knocked against the wall behind him before he then fell unconscious to the platform ground.

After both Biggs and Jessie knocked out the two security guards, two more strangers run out from two different side doors of the train. The third stranger was a short and plump guy (named Wedge) with short black hair, a plump-looking face and wearing a yellow T-shirt with knee-length black pants. He took a quick look around the train station area for any more securities and when he saw none of them, quickly hurried toward both Jessie and Biggs.

The fourth stranger (named Barret Wallace) who run out of the side door of the train after Wedge was a tall and muscular black guy with short black hair, a strong, serious and fierce look (and also a short beard) on his face, wearing an almost torn-looking dark green shirt with a light brown vest over it and long dark brown pants. And grafted on where his right arm use to be was a large and dangerous-looking gun which he use as a weapon.

After Barret run out of the train, he turn back to the train and raised his gun-arm to give out a signal and two final strangers of their group jumped down from the top of the train and landed on the platform before Barret. The fifth stranger was a rather young and good-looking guy (named Cloud Strife) with short, spiky blonde hair, clear yet cold-looking blue eyes (mako eyes) on his face, wearing a sleeveless black cotton shirt with a curved plate metal on his left shoulder with four blunt spikes jutting out of it, metal bangles on both of his wrists, a long and slightly black baggy pants with black boots on his legs and a huge yet powerful-looking sword with two slot-holes on it strapped to his back. The sixth stranger behind Cloud was another young woman (named Angelina Pierce) with long, brown hair down her back, violet-coloured eyes on her pretty face and wearing the same black outfit as Cloud with a long black and silver-coloured naginata strapped to her back.

"Come on, you two newcomers." said Barret in a curt tone to them both. "Follow me." He turned around and without waiting for them both, took off after Biggs, Wedge and Jessie who already took off across the platform ground (while ignoring the two unconscious security guards) and through an open door on the side of the train station seconds ago.

Angelina sighed and crossed her arms while Cloud stared at Barret's back with an annoyed look on his face before he turned his head to stared at Angelina who stared back at him with a small smile on her face. They then began to run across the platform after Barret and the others but before they could went through the door, two more security guards in blue uniforms and carrying the same assault rifles weapons as the two unconscious security guards lying down on the platform ground near them came out of the same door, saw them both and began charging toward them. Both Cloud and Angelina waited until the two guards are close enough before they both reached for their weapons behind their backs, pull it out and swung their weapons on them which destroy their assault rifles and causes slash wounds to appear on their body. Both of the security guards fell to the platform ground and Cloud and Angelina quickly put their weapons back behind them and went past them through the door to the alleys beyond and caught up with Biggs, Wedge and Jessie.

After they caught up to them, both Cloud and Angelina see that Jessie was kneeling down on the ground before a metal door and trying to cracked it open by typing furiously on a small, black-coloured laptop on the ground before her while both Biggs and Wedge were standing on her left and right, looking out for any signs of soldiers who might come to stopped them and they also noticed that Barret was nowhere to be seen. When Biggs saw them both coming, he began talking to them.

"Wow! You two weren't kidding when you two say that you two and her used to be in SOLDIER, all right…" said Biggs with awed in his voice. "Not every day you'll find them within a group like "AVALANCHE"."

"SOLDIER?" exclaimed Jessie with an alarmed look on her face and fear in her voice and she stopped her typing to look up at Biggs then at them. "Aren't they our enemy? What the heck are these two doing with us in AVALANCHE?"

"Woah, hold it, Jessie." said Biggs as he hold out his hands to try to held/calm her down when she attempt to stand up and attack them both. "They both WERE in SOLDIER. They and the other woman named Laina Donovan Fair quit SOLDIER and left and now they're part of our group."

Jessie looked at them both suspiciously for a few seconds until she sighed and nodded at Biggs before kneeling back down and continue her typing. Biggs smiled down at her then turned to looked at them again. "Didn't catch both your names." Biggs asked them.

"…Cloud Strife." Cloud answered coldly (and with an indifferent look) to Biggs.

"Angelina Pierce." Angelina answered politely to him.

Biggs nodded his head. "Cloud and Angelina, huh? I'm…"

Cloud shook his head and cut Biggs words off. "I don't care what your names are. Once this job's over, I'm outta here." said Cloud coldly.

"Cloud, don't be so rude!" said Angelina as she gave him a disapproving look. "What would Laina say if she were here and saw you acting/saying this rudely to him?" Cloud didn't say anything to her and turn to look away from her which make her sighed before she look at Biggs and apologized to him for Cloud's behavior. Biggs nodded and he turned to look back down at Jessie (who's still typing away) and soon Barret show up from another side alley door to their left and came to a stop next to Wedge. He glance at all five of them before a look of anger crossed his face.

"The hell you all doin!? I thought I told you all never to move in a group!" Barret yelled angrily at them and Biggs, Wedge and Jessie flinched slightly from his angry yell while both Cloud and Angelina just stared at them and Barret in silence. Barret then closed his eyes and take a breath to calm himself down before turning to glance at the closed metal door before Jessie. "Our target's the North Mako Reactor," he informed them sternly. "We'll meet on the bridge in front of it."

Soon after he finish his words, the metal door which Jessie try to cracked open with her laptop finally open fully and Biggs, Wedge and Jessie (who stood up and put her laptop back into her laptop-size pants pocket) all hurry and ran through the opened door. Barret watched them run through the door and followed them but before he went through the door, he turned back to look at both Cloud and Angelina with looks of disgust and anger on his face.

"Ex-SOLDIERS, huh?" said Barret in anger as he stared at the both of them. "Don't trust ya both!" he finished talking, turned around and run ahead without waiting for them again. Angelina sighed and shake her head at Barret's angry words to her and Cloud while Cloud himself raised his head and glance up at the large, cylindrical shape of the mako reactor with the logo of Shinra on it for a moment before he exchange glances with Angelina and they both ran through the door after Barret and the others. They both run silently through several dark maze-like alleyways filled with crates and chemical containers (and fortunately encounter no security guards while running through the maze-like alleyways) until they reached a T-junction bridge and saw several knocked out security guards lying on the ground of the bridge (no doubt knocked out by Barret and the others) and Wedge himself as he stand guard at their far off left door exit. Wedge saw them and tilted his head to the left to tell them to go on ahead and they both did. They run and turned left, went through another door into the reactor building and they saw Barret, Biggs and Jessie inside and standing before another sealed-up door. Jessie immediately kneel down and pull out her laptop device to begin typing to open the door while Biggs look around the area for any security guards.

"Yo, this your first time in a reactor?" Barret asked Cloud and Angelina curtly without looking at them as he waited for Jessie to open the door.

Cloud snorted and Angelina rolled her eyes at Barret's question. "No." replied Cloud coldly. "After all, we did work for Shinra, y'know."

"The planet's full of mako energy." Barret told them both with a scowl on his face. "People who live here in Midgar use it every day."

Angelina shrugged her shoulder dismissively and Barret noticed it and glared at her angrily. "It's the life blood of this planet, but Shinra keeps sucking it's blood out with these damn machines!" Barret said out loud to them while waving his arms around angrily.

Cloud sighed and shook his head at Barret. "Look, we're not here for your lectures. So let's just hurry and get it done already."

Barret glared darkly at Cloud and pointed a furious finger at him. "That's it! You two are coming with me from now on!"

"Fine, whatever." said Angelina as she shrugged her shoulder again. Soon Jessie deciphered the code on the sealed door and it opened and both Biggs and Jessie run through the door with Cloud, Angelina and Barret following behind them. She then kneel down and began typing on her laptop to opened up yet another sealed door and quickly run through it once she's done typing and went into a small, enclosed elevator. Cloud, Angelina and Barret soon went in after her and the elevator door closed behind them. Jessie then told Cloud to push the "Down" button at the other end of the elevator and he did. He went toward the button and pressed it and they felt the elevator began to jerk before slowly going down to the depths of the reactor building. As the elevator descends, Barret stomped his way to the far end of the elevator and leaned his back silently against the wall while Cloud went and stood next to Angelina, who's also leaning her back against the wall far from Barret. After a few seconds, Barret decided to continue his lectures to them.

"Little by little, all the reactors'll drained out all o' the Planet's life, and that'll be that."

Both Cloud and Angelina gave him blank looks and shrugged their shoulders at him.

"Don't you two get it? The Planet's dying!" said Barret out loud in a shocked tone to them.

"That's not our problem. All I care about is finishing the mission before send in any more soldiers, securities or robots at us." replied Cloud flatly.

"If those people working in and for Shinra want to keep on killing the planet with their mako reactors then let them do so. Like Cloud just said, it's not our problem." Angelina added slightly coldly to Barret.

Barret gritted his teeth, his face and eyes livid with anger and he turned away from them both, clenching his hand into a fist and shaking it in anger. He was very tempted to knocked some sense into them both but refrained himself from doing so due to the fact that they and the other woman (who's not with them now) are Ex-member of SOLDIERS and possibly had some useful inside-information of . So he swallowed his anger at them and refused to even look at them both. After a short while, the elevator finally came to a halt on the level below and when the door parted open, Jessie quickly hurried out of the elevator with Cloud and Angelina following behind her and Barret following closely behind them just so that he could keep an eye on them in case they do something funny.

Once they came out of the elevator, they saw that they're standing on a balcony overlooking the pale green light of the mako energy that's pooling around the base of the reactor with a large metal structure in the middle of the area and several large round, almost rusted-looking pipes all around the area, going into/through the walls/floors of the area and pumping power/mako throughout the entire reactor facility. Before them is a set of metallic stairs which wound their way down the side of the metal structure and Jessie, Cloud, Angelina and Barret hurriedly went down the stairs, through a door at the bottom of the stairs into another room, jumped over a hole and going across the grids about twenty meters above the ground (here Jessie stand guard and told them to go on ahead), climb down two ladders toward some pipes below and they all slide down it then run across some bulky, spherical-looking pipes which crossed over the ceilings above the ground, climbing down another ladder until they finally reached the level where the inner reactor is located.

Once the three of them got off the ladder, they then went down the long, straight walkway towards the reactor which lay in front of them, with faded, burnt writings scrawled over its surface. Along the way, both Cloud and Angelina noticed a single, light green materia (Restore materia) lying on the walkway ground and Cloud bend down to picked it up. He look at it for a moment before handing it to Angelina, who also look down at the materia in his hand then at him and mouthed "thank you" to him before taking the materia from him with a small smile on her face. Barret grumbled darkly at them before pushing his way pass them toward the valve on the reactor.

"When we blow this place up, it ain't gonna be more than a hunka junk!" said Barret to them before he turned around and pointed a finger at Cloud. "Cloud, you set the bomb!"

Angelina raised an eyebrow at him. "Why? Shouldn't you do it, Barret?"

"Shut up, woman! And you just do it already, Cloud!" Barret yelled angrily at them both while waving his arms in the air around him. "I gotta watch to make sure that either of you don't pull nothin'!"

"Fine. Whatever, man." Cloud muttered darkly at Barret and took the explosive device from Barret who held it out to him then took a step forward and was about to kneel down to set it on when he stopped suddenly. A kind of coldness seeped into his veins and body, numbing it beyond control at the same time a sharp, piercing whistle began to ring in Angelina's ears which make her winced and close her eyes and send both of their now aching minds into hazy thoughts.

"Watch out!" said a man's voice which they both didn't recognize out loud to them in their minds. "This isn't just a normal reactor!"

The voice of the unknown man, the sharp whistling and the coldness soon faded from both Angelina's ears and Cloud's body and Angelina let out a deep, relieved breath while Cloud himself stepped back from the reactor in surprised and shake his head to get rid of the peculiar feeling he had just experienced before turning to look at Angelina.

"Hey, are you alright, Angie?" Cloud asked her in a worry tone.

"Yeah, I'm alright, Cloud." replied Angelina.

"What's wrong with you two now?" Barret demanded impatiently at them.

"Huh?" said both Cloud and Angelina as they looked over at him only to see him glaring at them.

"What's wrong with you two? Just hurry up already!" Barret ordered Cloud in an annoyed tone and they quickly apologized to him before Cloud took a step toward the reactor and kneel down again to placed the bomb against the wall of the reactor within its deepest crevice where no one could easily spotted it and disarm it before it could go off. Cloud then set the countdown time to twenty minutes, giving them enough time to escape from the reactor, but right after he set the time on the bomb, a loud alarm went off from somewhere and a red light began to shine within the reactor area they're now in. They then heard the sound of large, metallic footsteps began to approach them rapidly from above and Cloud quickly stood up and pull out his large sword from behind him while Angelina pull out her long naginata and Barret raised his gun-arm, all of them ready to faced whatever robot now coming their way.

"Heads up, you two!" Barret shouted to them both. "Here they come!"

Soon the robot appear, crouch and jumped down from above them and landed on the walkway to faced them (and rendering them unable to escape through it due to its massive size) and they saw that the robot is a huge red scorpion-like robot (named Guard Scorpion) with two bulky sub-machine gun-arms, a metallic chest bearing a red searchlight to search for intruders/enemies, six metallic legs and a huge, long tail with a laser at the spiky tip of the tail swaying left and right behind it.

"Watch out for its tail, Barret!" Cloud told him out loud.

"If you hit it, it'll counter back at you with its laser beam! That's what Laina told us back when we were in SOLDIER!" Angelina added to Barret and he nodded grimly while glaring at them.

The Guard Scorpion began flashing its searchlight to find them so it could fired its laser beam attack on them but Barret won't have it as he raised his gun-arm, aimed it at the Guard Scorpion's searchlight and firing a torrent of bullets at it. The bullets hit the Guard Scorpion's searchlight and its hard-plated surface, penetrated through its metal into its inner circuitry which causes it to shuddered and fell to its knees but soon it pushes itself up, cocked and pointed both its sub-machine gun-arms at them and began firing bullets at them. Barret jumped back to dodge the torrent of bullets (while both Cloud and Angelina dodged to the side of the walkway to avoid its bullets) and found himself with his back to the reactor and he saw that the Guard Scorpion quickly halted in its shooting so as not to risked in destroying the reactor with him so near it. The Guard Scorpion hesitated for a second then turn its attention toward the two other nearby available targets, Cloud and Angelina.

Both Cloud and Angelina saw that it had turn its attention on them both and they lifted their sword and naginata to prepared themselves. The Guard Scorpion raised its gun-arms and fired several bullets at them and they both dodged the bullets from it before Cloud broke into a sprint toward it while raised and swung his sword down and he cut off three of its right legs. It fell down on the walkway with a robotic screech and Angelina quickly run forward to it, raised her naginata and swung it down to cut off the Guard Scorpion's remaining three left legs which make it screech again. Right after the Guard Scorpion loses all its legs and fell down on the walkway, Cloud, Angelina and Barret quickly finish it off by casting multiple thunder/ blizzard magic and using their Braver, Vile Strike and Big Shot limit breaks on it. Soon bullet holes and traces of magic/limit breaks which they inflicted on it appear on the Guard Scorpion's body and it began to shake and sizzle with electricity before the light/electricity from its body began to dimmed down and disappear. Barret approach the now defeated Guard Scorpion warily and with a look of anger on his face before he kicked the robot angrily with his foot, not minding the continuous sound of the loud alarm for a second.

"Come on, let's all get outta here now!" said Cloud as he looked at both Angelina and Barret and they both nodded back to him before they quickly clambered over the Guard Scorpion and backtrack the way they came from, back to the exit of the inner reactor. As they swiftly climbed up the ladder and reached the top, Barret quickly left them behind and ran for the next ladder to head out and Cloud was about to follow suit after him when out of the corner of his eye he saw Angelina run to the left of the metal grid they're standing on and began to help Jessie, who had both of her legs stuck on a long, heavy piece of metal grate.

"Cloud, help me lifted this thing!" Angelina called back to him and he quickly run over to help her get the metal grate off of Jessie's legs.

"Thanks, you two." Jessie thanked them both after they get the metal grate off of her legs and she stood up before they turned and quickly make their way out of the reactor building after Barret, who's no doubt already out of the area and headed up to where the elevator is. The three of them eventually made it into the elevator where Barret's waiting for them (here Angelina scolded him slightly for not helping Jessie earlier which make him even more mad at her) and Jessie quickly ran straight to the buttons on the wall in the elevator and pressed the "Up" button and the elevator door closed and the lift began to bring them all up. Both Jessie and Barret were waiting impatiently/anxiously (while Cloud and Angelina just stared at them) for the elevator to arrived at the top and when it did and the door opened, they quickly headed out of the elevator onto the room where they could see Biggs waiting for them near the door who's sealed up again once the alarm went off. Jessie quickly went to deciphered the code on it to open it and when it opened, they quickly went through it to the other sealed up door and Jessie did the same on the door and it opened and they quickly run through it, out of the room and back onto the T-junction bridge where Wedge is waiting anxiously for all five of them near the far off left side exit door to their left.

When Wedge saw them came out of the reactor room, he sighed in relieved before turning and kicking open the door and run through it, leaving it open for them. Both Barret and Biggs run through the door after Wedge but halfway across the T-junction bridge, Jessie suddenly fell down on the bridge and Angelina quickly helped her up and she, along with Jessie and Cloud quickly run through the door and closed it behind them.

Soon after they closed the exit door behind them, massive amount of electricity began to emanated from the reactor before it exploded, then another huge explosion soon occurred as the mako reactor was blasted apart and the people who live in the sector near where the reactor is, could see a huge, reddish/yellowish ball of flame appear in the night sky, followed by a huge cloud of smoke and parts of the mako reactor debris landed on the sector and on the slums below.