The theatre district in Sector 8 was in full midnight bustle. Aeris stood on the corner, watching. The theatre-goers had tear streaks down their faces. They were chatting in pairs and groups, and seemed to all be happy. The musical seemed to have worked its magic.

A presentiment took hold of Aeris, suddenly and violently. She felt her entire body being ripped off of her, like a scab. But she was only standing still.

Some of the people in the crowd stopped their chatting. Aeris realized that the screaming she heard in her head was something breaking in the distance.

The light hit them first. The nearby reactor burst into a ball of blinding fire.

When the shockwave struck them, it was like driving into a wall of noise. She saw nothing except the brown blur of her own hair and small glimpses of an exploding world. She realized too late that she was not on her feet anymore.

A newspaper cart splintered from the shock. A car flipped over somewhere, but the sound rolled in her head.

Aeris crash-landed onto a collapsed awning sign that read Goblin Bar.

Her first thought was that the Goblin Bar should be two blocks away, and maybe she took a wrong turn. And she thought she hadn't meant to travel. And she realized she had been thrown. The sign had been thrown. She was so grateful that she wasn't hurt. She was surrounded by bodies. She needed to find the injured. There had been an explosion. There might be more. She needed to find cover.

The lights all over the block went out. The white noise of the city's machinery slowed to silence. The glowing advertisement for Loveless flickered and was swallowed by a deep blackness, deeper than Aeris had ever known.

She saw a blurry white circle in the sky above her. The moon – behind a thick blanket of smog.

The first screams were distant. Aeris reached blindly for something to help her up. Her hand slid down a solid vertical plate of metal. She couldn't see what it was.

She pressed against it and rose to her feet. A reactor far to the south churned to life, and a distant green light bounced off the clouds above Sector 8. The moon disappeared.

Aeris was pressed against the hood of an overturned s-510 Sedan. As the people began to see the roads, they ran.

The shouting became a constant noise down both sides of the street. Someone was knocked into the sign of the Goblin Bar. Aeris ran as fast as she could along the wall back to the Loveless theatre.

Her hip ached and her shin felt bruised, but she could keep her speed up.

Someone hurled a tire through a Ronsons window and several people leapt through the broken glass into the store. She kept moving.

Her weave basket hadn't travelled as far as she had. The flowers were scattered on the black brick.

Someone knocked her from behind. She barely got her arms in place to break her fall.

The wide-eyed man didn't even seem to notice her, he simply kept running. A nearby billboard collapsed and screams rose once again. People darted around Aeris.

Her hand had landed on a wind-blown piece of paper. A flyer. As she stood, she read it's rough, hastily printed contents:

Don't be fooled by Shinra!

Mako energy doesn't last forever!

Mako is the Planet's life source!

The end is in sight!

Protectors of the Planet:

AVALANCHE

Residual wind gusted from the chasm beyond the Sector 8 wall, hot, like death. The flyer was pulled from her hand. Aeris drew her eyes up to look at the unnatural fire burning in the remains of Reactor One. Suddenly, none of the rioting around her mattered at all.

She started to laugh.


He passed a collapsed billboard leaned against a cracked building. The billboard advertised: "Warning!" A New Punk Rock Musical.

Cloud entered an intersection. The young woman in the pink dress was standing, looking at the reactor. She had blood on her. Some people ran past her at full sprint. A noise rose in the distance – the promise of a riot.

He passed the girl, and her head followed him. "Excuse me!" she called.

If he had taken the time to think about it, Cloud would have let her be and continued on to the train station. His body moved faster than his mind. He turned.

Her voice had an unmistakably slumling inflection, but it was calmer than he expected. "What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing."

She raised her eyebrows and smirked a little. "Nothing?"

"I don't know."

She was cocking her head now. "That was suspicious."

Cloud heard the distant sound of sirens. "You'd better get out of here."

"Again, suspicious." She slowly sized him up. He saw her eyes focus on his sword, and a calculating look flashed across her face. But it just as quickly vanished, and she looked at their feet. "Oh no, my flowers."

Cloud looked down. They were trampled on the black brick, but they were beautiful for some reason.

He knelt down and picked up one of them. It flopped in his hands. The petals were discolored. It smelled – it smelled real.

"What's the matter?" the girl asked. "Never seen a flower before?"

"…Not a real one. Not in a while."

"Do you like them? They only cost one gil."

He helped put the rest of her flowers in her basket. Then he stood up. He took a gil out of his coin purse and held it out for her.

She took the coin, and smiled so widely her eyes closed. "Oh! Thank you."

And she walked away.

Three cars were piled beside him. One had landed upside-down upon another, and the third must have crashed into the whole mess. A newspaper drifted across the street.

The trouble brewed the next block over, threatening to spill in his direction. Cloud saw Midgar's military police hastily construct a road block near the ruins of the Chestnut Trees Inn. Beyond the barricade, they were hosing the crowd.

Cloud slipped into the shadows. The military police were in Shinra's pocket. He wouldn't get to the train station that way. He stepped around an overturned patio table, into an alley that circumvented the conflict.

He kept close to the wall. The sounds drifted away behind him. His blood settled even as he ran.

'You can't relax yet,' he told himself. 'You're still on the Plate.'

The alley was clean. No rats. No puddles. No waste.

Cloud passed through a non-toxic fog of hot exhaust and stepped out of the alley into a huge arena. The platform stretching forward was beset by tracks. There were no doors leading in or out of the station, but it was inside all the same.

Several walls supported a domed roof, crowned with a yawning oculus. There were fresh cracks in the roof. Dangling livewires swung from the walls.

The station was crammed with people, all shouting and waving their arms. Those who weren't trying to pack themselves onto a train were sprinting from one crowd to another. Cloud found himself darting out of the way constantly. A circular fountain took a full minute to walk around.

Above, two livewires touched and blasted out a shocking noise. Long arcs of blue lightning shivered between them.

The shouting threatened to escalate, barely kept at bay by a widely dispersed contingent of MPs.

The blue uniforms peppered the crowd. Cloud passed near to an MP who was trying to calm an anxious couple. Cloud maneuvered around a steam clock to hide himself from sight.

There was an MP at every door of the train, checking ID cards.

'Looks like there's no getting on without going through one of them.'

He could try using the SOLDIER angle, stating emergency procedures. That would draw attention, though, and without identification, they would bring him to the ivory tower and President Shinra. Not good news.

'Besides,' Cloud sighed. 'SOLDIERs come in twos.'

He remembered that. He knew that.

Suddenly, a rioter from the street entered the station. A young man at full sprint, pursued and tackled by a riot control officer.

It sparked a panic. The train passengers rushed the doors, and the MPs were overwhelmed. They reached for their guns.

'Time to leave.' He was nearer to the exit on the opposite end of the platform.

Before he knew it, he found himself outside of the station. Distant gunfire rang softly in the smoggy air.

He stood in a street plaza laid with black brick. Storefronts surrounded him. The street lamps flickered. In front of a café, empty chairs sat at round tables, which were covered in abandoned drinks. Above the shops were two-story apartments, with tall ceilings. Plastered between the windows, were ads for Mt. Koltz Sports Gear, Vu Meats, and someone called The King of Floors.

In the center, rather than a fountain or a statue, a stone railing bordered a square hole ten meters across. Cloud approached it and looked down.

Railroad tracks ran underneath the plaza. If he stayed here he could watch the trains on their way down to the lower city.

No trains came. Perhaps he still had time to get back to the station. Perhaps going back now would be too late, and the whole place would be on lockdown.

If so, he would have to rescue AVALANCHE again.

He turned to head back. Out of the smoke, two MPs entered the court.

Cloud tensed and hesitated.

The MPs walked towards him with a sense of purpose.

'Oh man,' Cloud thought.

"Hey you!" one of them shouted. "You left the station pretty quick there."

Cloud stepped forward. "I'm a SOLDIER. We're searching this sector for the terrorists."

He knew he was a bad liar. One of them stepped forward. "What's your name and rank?"

"I'm ordering you to leave me alone," Cloud barked. "Or have you forgotten your rank?"

That was a little more like it. The MP stammered. "Y-yes sir. But we have orders straight from HQ to take stock of everyone in the area."

He heard the whistle of the train blowing in the station. It distracted the MPs too.

His hand flew to the handle of the greatsword and he brought it down on one of them. The MP died on impact.

The other MP leapt back out of range and grabbed his com device.

"Rogue SOLDIER! Blonde hair, blu—"

Cloud cut him down before he could finish, but the damage was already done.

He assessed his options. There were three directions to run.

Out of the smoke in the train station came two more MPs. Upon seeing the bloody sword and their slain comrades, they fired.

Cloud danced clear of the spray.

One of the MPs called for backup on his com device. Cloud rushed towards the west exit, only to see three armored riot control officers rushing in from the next street. He stopped, pivoting to the east exit. The MPs reloaded. Cloud ducked below of a burst of fire.

A store window shattered nearby.

MPs were swarming in like ants out of a building around the corner – a barracks. He backed up against the stone railing. He was surrounded.

The MPs weren't firing. Some of them were shaking; most were staring at him in disbelief.

"Officers down, perp is surrounded. He's a… He's a…"

He was still holding the flower.

"Hold your fire," said an MP. Cloud assumed him to be the leader, but they all looked the same. The enemy stepped forward. Even behind that stupid scarf mask, Cloud could tell this one was ready to shoot. "Why?" the MP asked Cloud.

Cloud heard the distant whistle of the train leaving the station. His mind raced, calculating. His foot ached, his shoulder bled. He counted the guns pointed at him.

"Come on back to HQ," said the MP. "We'll get this straightened out."

Cloud laughed. "I don't have time to be messing around with you guys!"

He hurled a magic thunderbolt at the crowd. It burst at the feet of the MPs. One of them fired blindly, hitting another. In the resulting confusion Cloud swung himself up onto the stone railing.

The bullets flew through the air around him. Dust exploded from the stones near his feet. Below, the train sped into the opening. Everything was obscured in steam.

He exhaled and threw himself from the wall.


Sitting in the train car, Wedge took off the cap and set it beside him on the crate. The red bandana was underneath the disguise.

Wedge had to ditch the grenades and his bandolier of shells in the laneway outside of the station. He'd dropped them into an empty dumpster, and then ran like mad in case one of the pins had accidentally come loose. It hurt to run because the reactor explosion had set fire to his butt, or at least it felt like it.

He ran anyway, though, into the station where he'd shuffled through the crowd.

"Watch it, fatty!" shouted an old woman with a minor head injury.

He moved into the loading lane for the slum-bound train.

That was where he took the hat Biggs had given him and put it on. It had the Shinra diamond on it. The workers loading the train had the same hat. Nobody noticed him.

Wedge had waited until there was one last box, and then he picked it up while the other workers moved along to the next car. He carried his box into the car and slid the door shut behind him.

Barret, Biggs, and Jessie were there, sitting on crates. Barret's arms were crossed – his gun-arm sat like a barrel over his stomach. When the train started moving, Barret ordered Wedge to sit down, which was an easy enough order to follow.

He set the cap beside him on the crate. "Where's Cloud?"

"Well he ain't here," Barret gestured. "So I rightly don't know."

Biggs tended to a graze on his arm. "Wonder if he was killed."

Barret uncrossed his arms. "Killed? No way!"

Wedge frowned. "There were so many Shinra troops. They were everywhere."

"Cloud…" Jessie murmured.

"Hmph," Barret grunted. "If y'all weren't such screw ups."

Biggs stood up from his crate. "How is any of this our fault? We didn't 'accidentally' trip an alarm. Cloud did. For all we know, he's at Shinra Headquarters right now getting a pat on the head from the President."

"That's not true," said Jessie. "He saved me."

Wedge thought, 'He saved Barret too.'

Biggs scratched his face. "Do you honestly think Cloud's gonna fight to the end for AVALANCHE?"

Barret snapped. "How the hell would I know? Do I look like a mind reader?"

There was a silence, which Wedge broke by saying, "Hey Barret, what about our money?"

Barret punched the crate next to him. The wood cracked.

"Uh, nothing…" Wedge shrunk. "Sorry."

There was silence for a moment, until Barret heaved himself up off his crate. His eyes were pointed at the ceiling.

"What—" Biggs asked.

"Shu'up."

Jessie un-holstered her pistol. "I hear it too."

Wedge couldn't hear anything.

The cargo door on the side of the car trembled.

"Someone's trying to get in," Wedge said.

Barret trained his gun-arm at the door. Biggs stood up and drew his pistol.

There was nothing for a moment.

"It could be the pressure from the tunnel," Biggs said.

"It could be tunnel monsters," Wedge said.

"We're too high up for tunnel monsters," Jessie said.

"Shu'up, allya."

The door shook again.

A sound like glass cracking became longer and louder. Wedge watched the door.

The hatch looked odd – pale. Wedge looked closer. It was covered in a thin layer of frost. The ice crystals grew until the entire side of the door steamed from the cold.

Unbelievably.

Magically.

Jessie pointed her gun at the door.

The hatch bent and snapped under the pressure. Wedge backed up against the far wall.

The ice shrunk as quickly as it had formed. The spell was over.

The door slid open.

Biggs's pistol rattled in his hands.

Cloud swung into the car from the top of the train.

Barret dropped his arm. Biggs and Jessie were frozen, their guns still trained on him.

"Cloud!" Wedge shouted.

His face and hair were covered in soot and smears of blood. He was panting. He looked around the cargo car, and with a deep inhale he let out a laugh. "Looks like I'm a little late." The white of his teeth was shocking.

The guns all lowered. Barret growled. "You damn right you late! Come waltzin' in here, makin' a big scene!"

"No big deal. Part of the job description."

"Part of the—havin' everyone worried like that!? You don't give a damn 'bout no one but yourself!"

Cloud smirked and leaned against the wall. "You were worried about me?"

Barret stammered. "It's comin' outta your money, hot stuff!" He made his way to the front of the car. "We're movin' out. Follow me."


The passenger car of the train had long rows of teal-cushioned benches along either wall. Outside the window on either side, the lights of the tunnel raced by.

Cloud's eyes tried to adjust to the constant strobing. The way the tunnel lights seemed to fly at him, it gave him a headache. On the left side, a train raced past – the sound shook the window above the benches, where a man in rags slept with his legs crossed.

A businessman in a maroon suit stood near a console at the far end of the train, across from a couple of punks – a boy and a girl – in patched leather and spiked red hair. Her skirt reminded Cloud of ballerinas.

The driver of the train continued an announcement over a speaker in the corner. "…Last stop is Sector 7, Train Graveyard. Expected time of arrival is 12:23am, Midgar Standard Time…"

Barret made a gesture at the punk couple, who turned and moved to the next car up. The man in the maroon suit followed them, spooked by Barret's presence.

The tracks curved always to the left, and downwards. The tunnel spiraled around the main support structure of Midgar – Cloud guessed they were halfway down at this point.

Wedge and Jessie stood near a monitor with an interactive map of the rail system on it. Cloud approached.

Jessie turned from the console. "Did you want to look at this with me?"

Cloud leaned in and looked at the screen.

"I like this kind of stuff," Jessie said. "Bombs, monitors… flashy stuff."

Cloud watched the map of Midgar slowly pivot on the screen.

Jessie pointed at their position. "Don't worry," she explained. "There won't be any ID checkpoint on the way down. We're home free. Next time, going up, I'll have a fake ready for you."

Cloud remembered the thrill of riding on the top of the train. He also remembered the danger. "Looking forward to it," he said.

"Okay," Jessie smiled. "Then I'll make it with a bang!"

Cloud's instincts precipitated a sudden change in air temperature as the train shot out of the tunnel, curling down a track to the left, around the city's central pillar.

Barret pivoted in his seat and turned his head to look out the right. "You can see the ground now," he said. "…An' the ceiling, too. This city don't have no day or night."

Cloud looked out the window and up.

The Plate stretched out over the land, fifty meters aboveground. Barret sighed. "If that Plate weren't there, we'd see the sky."

"The floating city…" Cloud wondered. "Pretty unsettling scenery."

Barret turned his head slowly back at Cloud. "Never expect ta hear that outta someone like you." He huffed out a laugh. "You jes' full of surprises."

Cloud returned his attention to the window. Barret addressed his party. "The upper world…" he said. "A city on a plate… It's 'cuz of that fucking 'pizza' that people underneath are sufferin!"

Jessie nodded.

Barret continued. "And the city below is fulla polluted air." He swung his gun-arm, gesturing out the window at a distant reactor, the southeastern one, connecting the Plate to the earth. "On topa that, the reactors keep drainin' up all the energy."

Cloud asked, "Then why doesn't everyone move onto the Plate?"

"Dunno," Barret sighed. "Probably 'cuz they ain't got no money. Or, maybe… 'Cuz they love their land, no matter how polluted it gets."

Cloud gazed down. "No one lives in the slums because they want to… It's like this train. It can't run anywhere except where its rails take it."

The tracks continued spiraling down the main support structure – the Central Pillar of Midgar. Additional supports throughout the slums held each sector of the Plate aloft. At their bases were crowded shanty towns. Waste was scattered across the land, and there was no plant life to be found. Cloud didn't know what sector he was looking down upon – from this height, they all looked the same.