Chapter Three: A Flower In The Slums
Early the next morning Cloud stumbled to the ladder, he could hear Barret talking about the next target—the Sector Five Reactor, already Cloud adrenaline was taking over his body—the rush was readying him for the pressure.
He started up them just as Barret was dismissing Jessie, Biggs and Wedge. On the way up he noticed since they had gotten back to the hideout that Jessie was talking to him as little as possible. He wondered on the notion a little bit—then he got the idea that it might be because of Tifa.
Barret looked to him, "There you are, spiky ass mofo—I need you to show me how to do that thing with the Materia—" said Barret.
Cloud pulled his sword off his back carefully, "Look, it's this simple, Materia adds power to your weapons and armor. The Cure Materia I used on you can be shoved into one of these slots on your weapon—that machine gun the robo-scorpion dropped should have some slots, too," Cloud acknowledged two slots on his own sword.
Barret looked at him blankly, "I think that you should handle the Materia till I get the hang of it!" said Barret.
"Will do," Cloud said.
Tifa stepped out of the back room tying her bow in her hair, "Wait up, I need to go this time! Watch the store Marlene!" said Tifa.
"All right! Good luck," said the small girl.
As they stepped into the train the piles of morning commuters were apparent, people were packing the benches of the train, and there was the same Shinra Manger from the night before—the man who had been watching over the train.
Barret stopped right in the door, Biggs and Wedge stopped right behind him, with Jessie Cloud and Tifa bringing up the rear. With a hasty look around Barret said, "Yo, this looks like it ain't no private car—so split up!"
The Shinra Train Manager rolled his eyes, "Hoodlums again…"
"What the hell did you call us?" he asked poking the Manager. The man just shook his head no, "Dammit com'on what was it?" The train car emptied because of the commotion. "What happened, everyone left alluva sudden?"
"It's empty cause of you!" said the Manager.
"What?"
"Yeah—AVALANCHE says there'll be more bombings—only a devoted employee would go into tow on a day like this!" said the Manager.
Tifa yelled at him, "Barret leave the pour man alone!"
"Lucky son of a bitch," Barret mumbled as he walked off to find a new seat on the now vacant train. Cloud, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie came further into the train and then split up a little.
Cloud stayed in the same train car. "So what are we gonna do now?" asked Cloud.
"Why the hell are you so calm?" asked Barret, "You bustin' my rhythm!"
The train moved slightly with a jerk then actually took off. A voice came over the intercom, "Morning ladies and gentlemen—our arrival time at Sector Five station will be 11:45 AM."
"That means three minutes till the ID scan," Tifa said.
Cloud folded his arms, "So we jump before then!"
Tifa walked down the train, "Hey Cloud com' 'ere a—"
A deafening sound blared over the trains loud speaker, "Impossible—" Cloud stuttered.
"Type A Security Alert—unidentified passengers!" said the voice. "Locking down train cars—"
Cloud rushed the doors, "We're already locked in—the guards will be here soon…" Cloud rushed at the door with Tifa and Barret behind him, "Follow me!"
With a single powerful blow Cloud knocked the lock of the door with his sword, Tifa dealt the door a jump kick sending it to the ground and allowing them to run to the next train. Biggs, Jessie and Wedge were at the front of the car, but they were in disguises. Biggs was dressed in the red coat of a Shinra commander. Wedge dressed like a small boy, and Jessie was a business man.
A door was right behind where Jessie stood, Cloud looked back into the train car from which they had come, "Here come the guards,"
Tifa took a fighting stance, "Let's send 'em packin!" she said.
Barret pointed to the door behind Jessie, "There's a door to the outside there—we can go out there!" he suggested.
They ran for it, the guards behind them caught on and started to chase, but there were plenty of patrons in the train that blocked the way and slowed the guards by now. Barret and Cloud reached Jessie first, "We're in serious shit, I'll explain later—right now you have to jump train!" she said.
Tifa looked back but Biggs said, "Just do—we'll handle the guards!"
Cloud slung his sword out, "This train is going fast—we'll ride the door out to minimize injury and I'll slow us down with my sword." He wrapped his arm around Tifa, Barret stepped In closer, "On the count of three…"
"One…" Tifa started.
"Two…" Barrett continued.
"Three!" Cloud yelled as they jumped from the door and the guards reached Biggs and Jessie.
Jessie tossed the first one out of the train head first, the second was kneed in the chest by Biggs.
"Let's hope their okay!" Biggs said.
"Yeah…" Jessie sighed.
The door that the three of them rode out spun dangerously out of control, Cloud's sword sparked as it scraped the ground hard. It seemed to whirl forever in an endless pattern, then it stopped with them facing the train as it sped away. Cloud lifted the sword and they all sighed—in the clear for now.
Landing from the train had been the hardest part, there was just a relatively thin piece of metal protecting them from death. Cloud was the first to get his stance back, he swept back his spiked hair and examined his sword for any damages that it might have sustained.
Tifa and Barret surveyed the spot where they had landed, the whole thing looked endlessly the same as the rest of the tunnel. All of the walls were metal and arched up in a blocky way to allow two trains safe passage. Further down the tracks there would an area where the track was just one lane.
That area would be where there was elevation in the track, since the tracks were a double helix around the main support structure of the city. Barret folded his arms, "Well how do you like that shit?" he asked.
"I couldn't see how the ID scan could have caught us, we weren't even near it!" Tifa said.
Barret glanced over at Cloud who was standing further from them wiping his blade down with a cloth as he studied it further, "I'll tell you how we got caught!" Barret said, "This Shinra bitch here probably ratted us out!"
Cloud lunged from his spot quickly, yelling right in Barret's face, "I'm not working for Shinra anymore, and I'll be damned it I have to join up with some group just to be part of something—I'm in this for money—and nothing else!"
"What about our promise?" Tifa asked Cloud.
Cloud struck off down the path in the direction the train had been moving, "It's not even valid he said as he continued to walk.
Tifa and Barret started after him, "What do you mean, 'not valid'?" she asked.
"The man who made you that promise died with Sephiroth—and just like Sephiroth that promise is just a relic of the Wutai war," said Cloud.
Barret's voice showed a little compassion, "Cloud, heroes like Sephiroth don't die…" Barret was cut off in mid-sentence.
"I would hardly call him a 'hero' Tifa said getting a smug attitude about her pretty face.
Cloud, catching the anger in her voice turned and stared at her, "You're always pretty when you're mad," he said.
"People always make me mad—" she uttered turning her head away.
Without warning there was a sound like thunder, with it rumble it grew louder and closer. The entire tunnel quaked with a tremendous ferocity. A huge passenger train emerged from the direction they had been headed in, it shook and rocked on the tracks as it passed.
"Let's just get this mission over with—after that I'm heading out to find somewhere I can make more money," Cloud said.
Ignoring the last comment Barret and Tifa moved to catch up with Cloud. Tifa's hair swayed from side to side in the back as she walked, Cloud just watched this motion fascinated by her.
As he continued to that horrible ringing came back into his ears and dropped to his knees, a voice in the back of his head spoke again, this time it was more familiar, more like an old friend, "Find somewhere to make money—who's idea was it for you to move to Midgar—you haven't always lived here…"
Cloud answered it in his own head, "I moved hear after…after a great loss…who are you?"
"But who wanted to move here?" said the voice again.
Cloud's voice was screaming at the other voice only in his head, "I don't know what you mean, leave me the hell alone!"
Cloud felt a petite hand grab hold of his shoulder, he was sure it belonged to Tifa. With that sensation he shot to his normal state of high alert, his body jolted him to his feet and jumped back against the wall.
"What's the matter?!" Tifa asked, "Are you alright?"
Cloud looked at Barret, he knew Barret remembered the last time this happened, in the reactor, "Yeah, I'm—just a little tire, maybe I'm coming down with something—" Cloud's glowing eyes stared at her so hard that they seemed to pierce her very being and cut through her.
Barret just turned away, he noticed something further down the way they were heading. It looked like giant green beams of light were cutting across the tracks. He pointed them out, "What's up with those damn green lights?" he asked.
Cloud stepped off from the wall and stared further down the track, "Those are the ID scan beams, if we pass through them we'll be caught for sure…"
Tifa looked back the way they had come, "So the trail ends here?" she asked.
Barret nodded, "This mission ain't looking too good—something just don't seem right…"
Right near the ID scan beams Cloud noticed something on the ground, a large lose hatch. He walked over wordlessly and kicked the hatch open, "This must be where the workers go in to fix the tracks."
"Wouldn't this be connected to the rest of the sewer system?" asked Barret.
Cloud nodded, "I would think so, since the sewers usually run right down through the slums and up to the side of the reactor—considering where we left from—we might just be a hundred yards from the entrance to the reactor…"
"And a few feet beneath the upper part of Sector Five," Tifa said.
Barret and Tifa joined Cloud over by the hole just before Cloud looked back and checked to see where they were, "Let's get this over with," sticking his foot down into the hole and feeling for a ladder. It was easily found even in the dark.
With metal clangs marking his every step Cloud headed down into the dark depths, Tifa tapped Barret on the back, "You jus go next," he said.
Tifa nodded, "I got you," she said heading down the ladder after Cloud. The rungs of the metal ladder were slightly damp—but it was better than trying to walk through the ID scan—no telling what the Shinra had there for them.
Barret came down into the dark abyss last—and after he got started he could see the ground far below—he sincerely hoped that they wouldn't have to come back out like this. He yelled down to Cloud, "Yo Cloud, don't take us back out this way, foo', black folks don't like heights!" he said.
Cloud laughed slightly, "What ever man," he said.
When Cloud hit the ground he waited for Tifa, then helped her off the ladder. As he touched her arm the warmth of her soft gentle skin ran through his body. It had been so long since he touched her. He could hardly remember how much he had missed her for all of those years.
It felt good to hold her hand, even for the short time while she jumped off the ladder. "Thank you," she said.
Cloud nodded.
Barret got help from both of them; he outweighed and outsized them all. He stood about six foot five and weighted two hundred and thirty pounds. He was a hell of a lot to get when he put his mass into getting off.
"Thanks foo'," he said to them both.
Cloud had already started to look around, "Yeah, but where are we?"
The area around them was filled with large wooden crates that were stacked as high as two men. Some of the crate stacks were covered with drop cloths. Tifa walked over to the nearest stack of crates, which was covered, "What are all these?" she asked lifting the cover on one.
In large blood red letters were the words, Shinra Corp., Barret just shook his head upon seeing it, "Whatever it is, it can't be no good for us—let's get a move on!"
Cloud folded his arms, "Where do we go next, though?" asked Cloud.
Barret scanned the area, there were plenty of boxes, but nothing else, he looked back at the hole they had come through. There was an air vent just past the hole that was large enough for them to crawl into, "This way—we'll take this ol' vent up to the actual sewer—it should come out right at the side of the reactor."
The ladder was shorter than the last, but this time Barret went first, then Tifa and then Cloud. It wasn't even that had a climb, but the air ventilation shaft slanted up slightly so they had to make and effort at it. When they reached opening at the end, they flung themselves free of the dusty interior, right there by the side of the opening was Biggs.
He smiled over at them as they emerged, "Good thing you guys jumped train when you did—they think you were just some kids—boy are they about to have their asses handed to them on a silver platter, huh?" Biggs elbowed Barret who had come out and stood to the other side of Biggs for Tifa and Cloud to get free.
"What happened to Jessie and Wedge?" asked Cloud.
Biggs looked around, "No idea, Jessie and I jumped together but we got separated by the ID scan beams—Wedge didn't come with us—"
"Let's hope they' both alright!" Tifa said clasping her hands.
Barret slapped Biggs on the back, "We're gonna go on—"
"Watch out for the creatures down here, I had to fight some off…" Biggs said.
Cloud nodded, "We'll keep that in mind, he said as they all walked off down the passage ways. There was only two ways to go—and one of them was going in the opposite direction they wanted.
As they headed down the twisting one-way passage they came to a set of steps that went up about a story.
"As we get further this way we're going up—Tifa said.
Barret and Cloud didn't respond and took the stairs at full speed, they reached the top quickly and spotted Jessie standing over by a large door, she must have passed this way even before Biggs had come.
As they approached her they noticed she was sobbing lightly into her hands. The sounds of their boots my have alerted her, she gazed up, "Guys—I—I'm sorry," she said.
Tifa glanced at her with an odd expression, "Um—okay—" she said.
Jessie stood up away from the door, "Go through here and you'll be outside the reactor—" she said between sobs. "It's all yours after that."
They nodded walking off into the next room, but Jessie grabbed Cloud by the arm and stopped him, she pulled him over to the side while using her hand to signal for the others to go on.
The doors opened automatically, and they stepped through leaving Cloud and Jessie alone. She stared into Cloud's glowing eyes and smiled slightly through all the tears, "Cloud—I don't know how to describe how sorry I am—I fucked up…"
"What did you do?" he asked.
She shook her head as if she didn't understand herself, "I called myself making your card with love and compassion so maybe just once a guy would notice me—I've never had anyone to really love before and I feel this strange thing for you I don't know how to express…"
Cloud just stared for a long time, sighed then said, "It's not your fault—" he paused. "And I'm not a guy you want to be with—I lie—and I'm just not a good person…all I need in life is enough money to get by from day to day…"
"What about love—it's worth more than anything—one day you'll see it!"
Cloud stared to turn around, "Jessie I—"
Before he could finish the sentence she jumped in front of him, pulled herself up to his face and kissed him forcefully. Her tongue came into his mouth and he just stopped fighting it all together—figuring just let it be, see where it takes you…
Their lips danced together for seconds, and in one sudden motion she pulled herself back just out of reach.
Then she let go of him, tears falling from her eyes faster now, she turned away almost embarrassed to even look him in the face, her hand covered her eyes as she faced the other way.
"Just go on through the door Cloud—" she paused and then yelled, "Go!"
Cloud walked up to the door while looking back at her, the door opened and he gave her one final glance and charged off out the door. What he was expecting to be there; a hall, some steps, wasn't there at all instead he went sliding incredibly fast down a large metal ramp.
The speed was too much for him to even get a handle on where he was, fighting for control as he spun around quickly. Cloud hit the ground stumbling to his feet and almost hitting some tall metal barrels of something. He caught himself on them, gazing up to see Barret and Tifa before him.
"Damn, you ready yet—?" Barret wandered out loud.
Cloud stood back to his feet and looked around, it looked exactly like the area in the first reactor they had done where they came down the long stairs; only this time they got to skip the stairs.
Tifa folded her arms, "Where to now?" she asked.
Barret threw his hand in the air, "I know the way, follow me!" he charged off through the place holding his gun arm out in front of him ready to fire. They went up to just where the stairs touched the ground.
Tifa couldn't help but glance up, way up to where the reactor exit was. Barret had explained to her that they would have to high tail it out of there in one hell of a rush, but she was just beginning to understand.
All of them took a right turn and ran single file through the door into the reactor, this part was much different from that of the first reactor. The entire thing held a gold type hue glow through out the room.
There was a walk way over to an area where ladders led down to a bridge of pipes. Cloud led the way and Tifa took up the end this time around. They headed down ladder after ladder coming ever closer to the pipes below. When they finally got down to the pipes Cloud glanced over the side at the raw Mako down below erupting from the fissure in the rock as glowing steam.
There was a long bridge of pipes that led across the huge Mako below. No railing stood on the side of the pipes to protect them, which meant that every Shinra employee that had walked through here did so unprotected from a great and deadly fall.
Even so, Barret, Tifa and Cloud reached other side with out any complications. Now they stood right in front of the reactor hatch, just like Barret and Cloud had the previous night. "Ya' do tha honors now," Barret said slapping Cloud on the back.
Cloud went to set the bomb, he got down on one knee, and then once again the horrible sound rang in his head, worse now than the previous encounters.
He dropped to his knees blacking out. There was a foggy darkness that over took him, spinning through time and murky space, he was being cast into another dream.
In his mind he saw that same girl from before, she was standing over the body of a man, "Papa…" she said once.
All too quick Cloud remembered who the girl was, Tifa! Then she threw her arms back and screamed, "Mako, Shinra, Sephiroth, SOLIDER…I hate them all!"
The dream faded away and all that remained—darkness, wrapping itself around Cloud. He could hear a voice faintly calling him, "Cloud…oh God…wake up Cloud…"
When Cloud came awake Barret and Tifa were staring down at him, Barret just shook his head. "There's somethin' seriously wrong wit this one…"
Cloud couldn't say anything else until he addressed the pain he felt in his head, "Aw, dammit, my head…"
Tifa took his hand to help him up, "We have to get out of here…the bomb's set—"
Cloud got his stance back fully, "It's set, then we don't have much time!"
"Can you walk?" asked Barret.
Cloud nodded.
Barret got off to a start, "Then let's go!"
No one wanted to mention the fact that there was no guards yet and that seemed to odd—no need to jinx things that they had going for them. They reached the room where the stairs were, but this time they sprinted back up the stairs, not knowing what to expect—rushing into the unknown.
The room that held the stairs was like a pit on the side of a great wall. The wall was wrapped by pipes and various steel beams for support. There were several exhaust emitting points that could be noted by a slightly glowing steam that rose from them. The three headed around the corner to the next set of stairs after reaching the middle platform. Just in view of the last riser was the door, they were as good as home free!
They rushed into the elevator waiting for them at the top step and Cloud pressed the button. Barret and Tifa sunk back on the wall, "This is a' shit load easier than tha last un, what's the damn deal?"
Cloud shook his head, "I don't know, but I don't like it…"
The elevator doors opened and the three of them rushed out into a hallway, still no sign of the guards. They continued on down the hall until it bent slightly to the left and they followed it right to the exit.
When they stepped out they were on a t-shaped catwalk just as there had been at the first reactor. Quickly they made a run for the middle of the t. Barret took a left, "This way!" he called. Right was only a dead end.
As they started to follow Barret, a loud sound like stomping came from the path they were heading for. A score of soldiers stepped out aiming machine guns at them.
Barret froze and Cloud and Tifa almost ran into his back, "What is this?" Barret asked.
"…a trap…" Cloud said looking around.
Tifa pointed to the entrance to the reactor, "Look!" she hollered.
A short chubby blonde man with a thick bristly mustache emerged from the reactor. His suit was blood red and buttoned up all the way to the top.
Barret headed back to the middle of the t, "President Shinra?"
"Why the hell is he here?" asked Tifa.
Cloud shook his head, "He's just putting his life in needless danger!" Cloud said.
"Damn straight, cause I'm going to light a fire up unda his ass!" Barret yelled cocking the gun on his arm and loading a new clip into it. He started to fire but. To their surprise the group of soldiers didn't fire. "This is for my wife!"
The bullets just hit some sort of field in front of the President and stopped falling to the ground as if someone had lightly plucked them from the air and dropped them. Barret stopped as President Shinra billowed his loud sinister laugh.
"You must be that group of 'freedom fighters', what are you called again…TIDAL WAVE?" he thought for a moment, "Naw, that's not it…"
"AVALANCHE bitch—and remember it!" Barret yelled.
Cloud stepped forward, "Long time no see to you too…"
"Your tha ex-SOLDIER that joined the ranks of these terrorists…" said the President. "What was yer name again?" he asked.
"Cloud."
"Sorry I had to ask—but you're no Sephiroth you know—" Shinra answered. He shook his head, "A shame he had to die—he was a brilliant warrior, perhaps too brilliant."
"Sephiroth…?" Cloud said.
"Shut the fuck up and run you ol' bastard cause this place is goin' straight to hell when that bomb goes!" Barret yelled.
"Yeah," Tifa hyped.
The President turned his narrow pointed nose up at them, "Sorry, I have no time to waste on vermin like you—there's a dinner I must attend."
"Wait a sec, you're the only vermin I see, you planet kill lying bastards!" Barret yelled.
"Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you," as the President said that a helicopter dropped from the sky off to the side of the catwalk. The pilots dark skinned man and a man with long black hair rolling down his back. Each of them were in blue suits. "I have playmate to keep you occupied while I get back to work—a real job…"
A loud buzzing sound started, like a bee but louder. "What's that sound?" Tifa wondered.
"Sounds like some bees, what the hell is it?" Barret asked.
Cloud looked back to see President Shinra climbing into the back of the helicopter. The Shinra then announced over the intercom, "I call him Airbuster—he's just the first of many techno-SOLDIERS, a little experiment that Scarlet cooked up!"
The helicopter banked right and lifted off across the top of the reactor, just as it left a huge hulking robot that hovered a few feet off the ground approached them. Barret and Tifa jumped to the side, but Cloud was hit by the robot.
He grabbed the front of it and hung on as it tried to shake him off, "Cloud!" Tifa yelled.
The robot stopped and Cloud dropped down in front of it, the thing was too big for anyone to go around it, it covered the entire walkway. As Cloud lay there half unconscious the robot advanced on Tifa and Barret.
Barret was loading his gun again, Tifa jumped in kicking the front of the robot to deflect it back.
"Get yo' spikey ass up Cloud, we need help!" Barret yelled.
Cloud rose up pulling his sword out again, Airbuster looked bigger than it had before. It's fists were clenched tight in front of it; the thing's shoulders rose well above it's head. There was a large high powered jet on the back keep mechanical menace in the air.
Barret opened fire on it's front, it started to move for him and then two gun turrets appeared out of the palms of the clenched hands. Airbuster opened fire and Tifa jumped to the side as Barret slid under the gunfire.
Cloud ran at the thing taking his sword in one hand, which was hard to do because of it's massive weight, and he jumped onto the back of the robotic fiend. As the Airbuster sensed him it went wild, flying off the side of the walkway zipping and dipping in no pattern at all.
"Shoot the damn thing and distract it Barret!" Cloud yelled.
Barret looked back at Tifa, she just said, "No, you might hit Cloud!" she yelled. He nodded and then opened fire.
The thing ran straight into Barret hail of gunfire, it tired to turn but Cloud swung it shifting it's weight too much. Then Cloud went to work, he slammed his sword into the back of the things head as hard as he could, "I don't call it the Buster Sword for nothin'!" Cloud said.
Airbuster started to jolt from side to side and spark a lot, it was falling apart now. It sailed down over the entrance to the reactor and came back down the middle of the walkway. Cloud could see that the thing was loosing altitude, he jumped off just before it went crashing into the ground with a resulting catastrophic explosion.
The was massively severed by the explosion and when the smoke cleared there was Cloud hanging onto the ledge by one hand, the Buster Sword weight down the other. Tifa cried out, "Barret, is there something you can do?"
"Not a damn thing!" Barret yelled, "But this reactor is going to blow taking us with it!"
Tifa flattened herself out across the walkway, "Hang in there Cloud—I won't let you down!" she yelled.
"Just go Tifa!" Cloud yelled. "Get her outta here Barret!"
Barret shook his head, "Sorry bout this!" he pulled Tifa by the hand.
"Stop talking like it's the end—I've been in worse!" Cloud yelled.
The reactor exploded and Barret lifted Tifa pulling her away as she screamed and cried. Cloud let go of the walkway just as they fire reached where he was hanging, almost burning him, Then he sailed down into the abyss of the Sector Five…
In Cloud's mind there was darkness, and he was standing in the middle of it, holding his sword. A voice was all around him, calling to him, "…you alright?" the voice was not the one before—it was a beautiful light hearted airy voice.
"Can you hear me?" the voice said this time.
Cloud answered it feebly, "Ye—yeah…"
Then the other voice came back—the one that had plagued him since the first reactor, "Back then you get by with just skinned knees?"
"What do you mean by back then…" Cloud called.
The womans soft light voice poked in again, "He's moving!"
Then there was the other plaguing voice, "Take it one step at a time, Cloud, get up!"
Cloud's eyes shot open and he found himself staring into the bright green eyes of the pretty brown haired flower girl that he had only seen last night—it seemed like a life time ago.
He looked over to his side to see what he was lying in, slowly he sat up to find himself surrounded by flowers. "So this is where you got them from…" Cloud mumbled,
"Hey, I thought it was you—the guy who brought my flower!" Said the flower merchant.
Cloud got to his feet, "Yeah—I remember all of that." He noticed that the flower girl was prettier now than the night before. Her brown hair shimmered in the ethereal light that poured through the roof. Her emerald eyes glowed almost like jewels. Her waist was slender and tapered off to her round hips.
She rushed to his side, "Oh my, you had a terrible fall, be careful—don't over exert yourself so fast you—" the girl caught a glimpse of his eyes and froze, "you're going to get hurt…" she said with a smile.
"Where am I?" he asked.
She pointed around, "A church in Sector Five…"
Cloud looked up and around to see rows of pews going back all the way to the wall. There was a large cross in the back of the room hanging from the ceiling, the girl spoke again, "The roof and flowers must have broken your fall—"
"Yeah—I guess so…" Cloud said. "Sorry about your flowers."
She smiled as she knelt down and touched the flowers lightly, "It's okay—they're strong flowers."
"How do they grown…" Cloud asked.
She shook her head, "They say you can't grow flowers in Midgar—but there seemed to be no problem in this sacred place…"
"What is this…"
"An old Cathedral…from back when the planet was young…" said the girl. "I love it here." She bent over the flowers to pick at them, Cloud noticed a glowing white orb in her hair.
"Hey is that thing in your hair Materia?" asked Cloud.
The girl looked up at him from the ground, "Yeah—but it's good for nothing, I could never make it work…"
"Funny I've seen plenty of different Materias, but never a white one…" Cloud said.
The girl smiled, "I just keep it around because it belonged to me mother…" she continued to check her flowers. Then she looked up, "We haven't been properly introduced yet have we?" she asked.
Cloud shook his head and she got to her feet and stuck her hand out.
"My name's Aeris…" she shook his hand, "Nice to meet you…"
"Cloud…and nice to meet you too."
Behind them as they were just learning each other's names a pale man stepped in wearing the same blue suits that had been on the two helicopter pilots. But he wore the suit in a different style, the blue suit jacket was unbuttoned and his white button up shirt hung out of his pants. Part of his bare chest was showing. The man had spiked red hair that struck high into the air. There was a pair of coolly placed sunglasses blurring the line between the skin and hair. His nose was sharp and came to a point. His eyes were narrow and his lips pursed. The man just stood there for a while, then took a few steps.