Chapter One: Flawless Cowboy

Barret was expecting enemy soldiers, but what appeared was far larger and more intimidating. From somewhere above, hidden among the pipes, a massive, crimson-painted war machine was stirring, a whip-like tail flashing about beneath it as it awoke at the hands of the alarms that sounded around it. The machine unfolded itself, and released the clamps holding it in place, dropping toward the bridge below and crashing down right in front of the two intruders.

It was huge, over fifteen feet tall, painted a blood-red metal and featuring a scorpion-like tail as long as it was tall, tipped with a pointed, cannon-like "stinger." Six armored, spider-like legs supported its massive frame, set into a lower abdomen that the tail was attached to as well. Above this was a humanoid torso, though it lacked any "head' to speak of. Its arms were actually long machineguns, and on its chest were a set of glowing green sensors.

"M23-55A7 model," Cloud muttered under his breath. "Guard Scorpion. Didn't think Shinra still used things this outdated to defend their reactors."

The green sensors activated, and a cone of blue and green light poured over the pair where they stood.

"The hell?" Barret asked, and Cloud grabbed him and pulled him aside, out of the beam's path. An instant later machinegun fire poured over where he had been standing, thundering blasts of fire that tore up the concrete beneath his feet.

"Targeting sensor!" Cloud warned, drawing his sword. "That tin can is old enough that it still uses visible targeting sensors! Keep out of the beam's path and it won't see you!"

"How do we kill it?" Barret demanded. "We ain't got time to fool around! The bomb's gonna blow!"

"We - move!" Cloud shouted as the tracking sensor fell over them again. Heavy machinegun fire ripped past them as the two fighters dove aside on the narrow platform, concrete and metal screaming around them as the robot released a hellish firestorm on their position.

"Not much room to dodge," Barret said quickly, and Cloud nodded.

"It's a mecha," Cloud continued. "The key to killing any mecha is to destroy its legs. Knock it off-balance with ranged attacks, then hit it up close. Disable the legs and finish it off." Barret nodded in understanding, and they had to split apart as the sensor tracked them, locking on again. Machinegun fire ripped into their position, but they managed to escape relatively unscathed, excepting a few shrapnel wounds that were little more than insect stings.

"I'll cover you!" Barret roared over the gunfire, and raised his arm, leveling it at the robot. His gun-arm erupted with flashes and unleashed a hellish thunder as he ripped into his target. The 20mm bullets bored into the machine's armor, launching sparks from its torso as they shattered or bounced off. Several did manage to penetrate its hull, however, ripping apart electronics and components within the war machine. The tracking sensor closed in on him, however, and Barret dove forward underneath it, the sensor passing right over his body.

Cloud took advantage of the momentary distraction to close in. He knew he wouldn't have much time once he got close; this model was also equipped with short-range motion sensors just in case anyone got beneath the weapon's long-ranged sensor scope. His heavy sword slashed up, an arcing swing that cleaved deeply into one of the machine's six legs. A shock of electricity jolted through Cloud. Good; he'd hit internal circuitry. The mercenary pulled the blade free, wrenching it loose from the metal, and backed away as the robot turned and its scorpion-like tail jabbed down at him.

Rather than evade, Cloud snapped his blade across, actually deflecting the stabbing stinger out wide. He rushed in behind the attack and jumped up, landing on the connection between the damaged leg and the main body and chopped across, burying his sword into the side of the machine. He wasn't sure how deep the weapon struck, as an instant later the machinegun on that side swung around and batted him off the mecha's side. Cloud laded in a crouch beside the machine, and ducked between its numerous legs, noting with some satisfaction that the limb he had struck was still and unmoving.

The targeting sensor was still tracking Barret as he fired ferociously, trying to find maneuvering room on the narrow platform. Bullets lanced from his gun, deforming the metal armor of the machine as it was momentarily distracted by Cloud's assault. One of his bullets hit something critical; there was a small explosion inside its torso armor, forcing the machine a step back. Cloud took advantage of that attack, leaping up into the air and chopping his sword down hard into the forward armor of the machine. His sword dug in deeply once more, but then the tail shot over the machine's torso and stabbed down at Cloud.

The mercenary growled in sudden pain as the blade stabbed into his shoulder. Clutching his sword tightly with his left hand, he reached up to his shoulder with his right and closed his hands around the stinger. Then, with seemingly superhuman strength, he tore the stinger free from his body. He kicked off the front of the machine, tearing his blade free as he did so, and before it could pursue, Barret send a barrage of lethal rounds into the machine's chest.

Cloud dropped down beside Barret, and nodded toward his comrade as he pumped round after round into his target. The machine stumbled back, twisting its torso so as to bring one of its arms across to protect the vulnerable portion of its body. At the same time, its tail started to rise, energy visibly pumping through the tail toward its stinger. Bright light began to glow from the tip, almost too bright to watch.

"Barret, hold your fire!" Cloud quickly ordered, recognizing the motion. "Find cover, its going to-"

Cloud didn't get a chance to finish his warning, as light of the robot's stinger reached blinding intensity, and a scything blue bolt of light shot out, cutting across the platform at the pair. Cloud hurled himself back, just barely out of the bolt's path, but Barret took the beam across the chest, his coat instantly set ablaze by the laser. He roared in pain and fell back, grabbing at his coat and pulling the trenchcoat away, meaty hand and gun-arm scrabbling over his chest. The ceramic body armor he wore beneath his coat was slagged all the way across, half-molten, and he worked frantically to remove the armor's straps.

As Barret was doing this, the robot's tail lowered, and the targeting sensor lit up again, tracking toward Barret. Cloud saw this, and in an instant, he had rushed back at their enemy, leaping toward the machine's chest. Barret's gunfire had managed to rip open the plate on the front of the machine, the armor protecting its power core removed and leaving the weapon's heart exposed.

Cloud stabbed his sword as deeply as he could into the opening, driving the blade deep into the machine, and then thrust his left hand into the gap. Electricity crackled down the length of his arm as he channeled a blast of energy through his hand, and the mercenary unleashed a powerful bolt of lightning into the machine's heart. The shock stabbed up into the core of the weapon, electricity dancing over its power core and overloading the generator inside.

The weapon shuddered as its power core was overwhelmed by the electricity shooting through it, and Cloud leapt away as the generator went critical. He dashed back toward Barret, who had managed to remove the molten plate and throw it off his skin. Cloud grabbed the big man, yanking him back, and then their enemy exploded in a brilliant plume of fire and noise, chunks of the machine hurtling around the inside of the reactor. A heavy metal shard stabbed into the wall right above where Cloud and Barret were ducking, and other debris rained down around the pair for a few more seconds.

Cloud quickly stood up, and looked to his watch. His eyes widened, and he hauled Barret to his feet.

"Less than five minutes!" Cloud shouted, and his words energized Barret, who took off down the bridge, running around the collapsing hulk of the destroyed machine, and toward the ladders. They reached the ladders in seconds, and scrambled up them, Barret doing remarkably well considering his lack of a right hand. Within less than a minute they had ascended to the same level as Jessie, who had been watching their battle intently, helpless to get down there to assist them, and likely unable to help them with her small blades anyway.

"We gotta hurry!" Barret roared to her, and the trio quickly abandoned the interior of the Mako reactor, rushing outside. They quickly scaled the structure outside and made a mad dash for the elevator, Barret slapping frantically on the controls as it made its stately way down to their position. Finally, the elevator stopped and the doors opened, and the trio burst in.

"We gonna make it?" Barret asked, and Cloud glanced at his watch, before nodding.

"Three minutes left," he informed them. "As long as we don't run into any trouble, we should be fine." A moment later, the doors to the elevator slid open with a cheery tone, and gunfire slashed through the center of it, nearly taking down Barret. The big man fell back, pressing himself against the wall of the elevator.

"Ya had to open your mouth," he muttered, and Cloud shrugged, before rolling around the corner. The Shinra soldiers outside opened fire immediately, but Cloud was already ducking and rolling to the right, out of their line of fire. They pivoted, bringing their rifles to bear, and Barret spun around the doorjamb, gun-arm raised. 20mm rounds scythed across the room, blasting guards, tearing off limbs, and splattering heads.

Cloud came out of his evasive maneuver with another roll, and shot forward into the ranks of the squad of confused soldiers. His sword struck quickly, without mercy, cutting down three men with a pair of strokes. More gunfire erupted from the entrance to the room, and Cloud turned to see a Shinra war machine, a boxy contraption about man-height, set on two legs with wide metal feet, and with a pair of arms that sported heavy machineguns. The few surviving Shinra soldiers fell back to this machine, using it as cover as it poured fire into the elevator.

Barret cursed as he ducked behind cover, the heavy slugs exploding and ricocheting all around his head. He reached down to his belt and pulled out a grenade, the pin of which he removed and hurled blindly around the corner.

Cloud saw the grenade bounce out of the elevator, and quickly formulated a plan. He swept his sword before him in the air and let out a challenging roar at the Shinra troops, who spun, aiming their rifles at him. Cloud crouched, preparing to spring away, when the grenade stopped in the enemy's midst and detonated. Shrapnel flew around the room, a few pieces of which dug into Cloud's body, but he ignored the minor wounds. The Shinra soldiers were not so lucky, as they were torn part by the high-speed metal shards. The grenade penetrated the armor of the war machine, sending sparks flying across its length and forcing it a few steps back. Cloud took advantage of this and dashed forward, raising his sword as he neared the robot. The blade cleaved down like a thunderbolt, splitting the front of the machine in two and rupturing the power generator. The Shinra robot fell silently to the floor.

"No time, no time!" Barret quickly shouted, and the trio rushed over the metal corpse. They rushed through the antechambers beyond the battlefield and hurried outside, with less than thirty seconds remaining on the countdown timer. As they got outside, they quickly scanned the bridge, only to see no one around.

"Biggs! Wedge! Get ya asses out here!" In response, the door they were planning to use at the end of the bridge slid open, and Wedge poked his head out.

"Keep the door open!" Cloud ordered as they ran across the bridge, the seconds ticking away. They rounded the bend in the bridge and hurried toward the exit, with only a few seconds remaining. Suddenly, without warning, Jessie tripped on the bridge and started to stumble. Unthinkingly, Cloud spun, catching her, and lifted her up, hurling his body toward the portal. Barret barreled inside and spun, putting his shoulder against the solid metal door as the last couple of seconds ticked by far below, and then Cloud and Jessie sailed through the gap, rolling into the dark, safe tunnel beyond. Barret threw his weight against the door, and it slammed shut at the last possible moment.

Deep within the reactor, a small explosion detonated within the raw, unrefined pool of Mako energy. The small explosion set of a cataclysmic chain reaction as the Mako energy, the living lifeblood of the planet, stolen by Shinra, was turned into the very weapon that would destroy what the corporation had wrought.

In the blink of an eye, every drop of Mako in the reactor became pure, unbridled energy that expanded outward, consuming walls, machinery, corpses, and those soldiers and robotic sentries unfortunate enough to still be inside the perimeter of the facility. White fires ripped up through the chamber, throughout the lower levels, up into the reactor core and through the control rooms and offices, consuming the elevator Cloud, Barret, and Jessie had used.

It tore through each level, consuming all in its path as it advanced, a wall of unstoppable fire that rose up to the level even with Midgar's upper plate and onward, exploding up and out of the top of the reactor and far into the night sky.

Energy ripped out of the reactor, blasting through the halls and channeled out the door toward the bridge. A massive wall of raging plasma consumed the bridge, melting and rending the metal and utterly annihilating the place where Cloud and Jessie had stood a moment before. The fires were only barely kept back by the thick metal door the rebels had hid behind.

All of Midgar heard the resounding explosion, and everyone in Sectors One and Eight would tell of the shockwave from that blast, and the night that all of Midgar would know the name of the rebel terrorist organization that Barret Wallace had christened AVALANCHE.


"That should keep the Planet going, at least for a little longer," Biggs commented, laying back against a pile of rubble shaken loose from the ceiling during the explosion. Cloud leaned against the wall of the tunnel, while Wedge and Jessie worked on an explosive charge set against a door leading into Sector Eight's upper level.

"Get ya ass up," Barret muttered at the thin rebel, surprising him. "You weren't fightin' that big ugly sumabitch down below, were you?"

"Nah," Wedge replied with a chuckle. "We just hid from the guards when they came in force!"

"Yeah, about that," Cloud commented. "Why didn't you stop them?"

"Two of us, against a dozen of them?" Biggs replied. "And with Roboguard support? No thanks. Besides, we knew you guys could handle that!"

Barret snorted, and then winced, glancing at his shoulder. One of that robot's rounds had grazed him as he had been taking cover in the elevator. The injury was minor, compared with the burns that cut across his bare chest, but he would live. Cloud, on the other hand . . . .

The merc looked like he'd been through hell and back. A nasty series of red bite marks ran across the back of his neck, and his left shoulder was still badly gouged. A dozen minor cuts marked his body, and several black, clotted holes, bullet wounds he'd sustained throughout the mission, dotted his body. Yet, he seemed to ignore the injuries, as if they were trivial things, and even as Barret watched, his wounds became less pronounced, seeming to slowly heal right before his eyes. Cloud's face was locked in an impassive stare, as if he wasn't hurting at all.

"The hell you made out of?" Barret muttered under his breath, and looked aside as Jessie finished setting the bomb.

"Okay, people, get back!" she ordered, and they moved to the far end of the tiny chamber. An instant later, a brilliant flash of light shot through the room, and the wall blew open, revealing an open area beyond the new passageway. Cloud was first out, before the others even began to move forward, jumping through the small flames licking around the edge of the portal. Barret followed suit, and was quickly pursued by Jessie and Biggs, and finally Wedge, who rushed out quickly, his back singed by the flames.

The area outside the sealed tunnel was little more than a disused, empty lot in a run-down section of Sector Eight's topside plate. No one was in sight, and only a single road led out of the lot, a small drive that curved around a building and disappeared into the cityscape. Barret nodded, turning back to his group.

"Okay, good job!" the burly man barked. "One reactor down! But this is jus' the beginning. For right now, we need to split up and move out. Meet up at the train station, it should be leavin'," he glanced at his own watch. "Twenty minutes from now. Ya'll know how to get there. Move like you got a purpose!" The other rebels split up, leaving Barret and Cloud alone as they ducked through alleys or ran down the main road, quickly vanishing. Barret turned to leave as well, until Cloud interrupted him.

"Hey, Barret," he said, and the rebel leader waved his gun-arm into the air.

"You'll get your money when you get back," he responded, and Cloud shrugged.

"Just so we know," he replied.

"You're a hot hand back at the reactor," Barret added, looking back at Cloud. "But don't let that make ya cocky. Just because you were SOLDIER doesn't mean you're invincible." With that, Barret walked off down the street.

"Says who?" Cloud replied offhandedly to the emptiness. He waited a few more moments, and then reached down to his pocket, pulling out a small plastic pack. He shook it once, releasing a cigarette, and set it between his lips. He fished out a lighter and lit the smoke up, setting it ablaze and inhaling the scent. For most people, a cigarette was a bad thing, but Cloud didn't precisely have to worry about the health problems associated with them. Besides, long-term death seemed to be a minor threat to someone who spent their time hip-deep in warfare.

Cloud took another drag on the cigarette, and moved off into the city, quickly vanishing among the urban landscape. It was easy enough, considering that once he made his way into more populated areas, he was surrounded by dozens of panicked, shocked, and confused citizens, rushing hither and yon, as debris littered the streets and open plazas. Taking advantage of the panic, some people were looting a few stores. Shinra soldiers were out in force, he quickly saw, moving through the streets, stopping random people roughly and demanding IDs. Anyone who was too slow to produce one was cocked across the head with a rifle or baton, and the ID was forcibly taken from them. Typical Shinra arrogance. Of course, they were doing a fine job stopping the looters, at least. Couldn't let those thieves hurt the economy, after all.

Cloud made a point to avoid the soldiers as they systematically moved through the crowds. He kept his eyes on them, not paying attention to the people around him, mostly just frightened citizens shaken by the blast. However, as he walked, he heard a yelp of surprise, and glanced over to see a couple of punks, just like the rest of the looters, harassing a woman, demanding money from her. One was waving a steel pipe in his hand and talking tough. Cloud sighed and, taking another drag on his coffin nail, stepped over to the two men.

Clenching his cigarette between his teeth, he grabbed both punks by the scruffs of their collars and, with casual ease, smashed their heads together. He then whirled and launched the two men into an abandoned produce cart, smashing the wood and splattering what few vegetables remained intact within.

His good deed for the day done, Cloud silently turned away from the woman, who had been knocked down in the commotion. She quickly stepped after him.

"Wait!" she called, and he paused, glancing back for a moment, and then finding himself looking at her for a bit longer. That wasn't surprising, considering what he saw.

The first thing Cloud registered was her eyes, a vibrant shade of green that seemed to glow with inner life. They were set into a pale-skinned face that would have captured any man's heart, with smooth and unblemished skin, a delicate nose and a small mouth. Her rich brown hair was long and thickly braided, running down to below her waist. She wore a slender pink dress that seemed to cling to her body, highlighting her curves, and open enough to reveal her long, slender legs. She wore a small red jacket, open, over the dress, along with a small pair of weathered boots, and a necklace around her throat.

"Thank you," she said, and Cloud grunted something in response. He looked down at her slender, delicate hands, and saw she was carrying a small wicker basket, filled with flowers.

"Do you know what happened?" she asked, looking up at the buildings around her. "I heard an explosion, and then the people started panicking, and now there are Shinra troops everywhere."

"No clue," Cloud lied, distracted by what she had in her basket. Brilliantly colored flowers filled the basket, looking freshly picked and well-cared for. There was no way those came from Midgar . . . Did they?

"These?" she asked, noticing what he was looking at, and nodding at his perplexed expression. "Flowers don't grow in Midgar. People are so amazed when they see them. Do you want one? Its only one gil."

She must have been poor, Cloud mused, selling flowers on the street. At least she didn't have to resort to other, more base means of making an income, and people around Midgar would love to get their hands on those kinds of flowers, especially at such a low price. Some rich people would pay a thousand times that price for even one flower.

Cloud reached into his pocket, and took out a wad of gil bills. He wasn't sure how much money he had in his fist, but he guessed at least thirty or forty gil was there. He dropped it into her basket casually. She looked at him, surprised, and he shook his head.

"Keep the flowers, I don't have much use for them," Cloud explained with a shrug. He turned around and walked away, leaving the girl behind, surprised by his charity. Such things were a rarity in Midgar. Part of the reason why he didn't like this damn city . . . .


Barret stood over the lifeless corpse of the Shinra soldier, his neck twisted at a lethal angle. Slowly, the big man lifted the dead man up, and pinned the corpse to the wall with his gun-arm. His other hand grasped an iron bar, which he slammed through the dead man's stomach, driving it into the side of the wall. Barret stepped away, admiring his handiwork.

"Like shot geese," he said with a chuckle. Beside him, Jessie reached into her pocket and pulled out a rolled up poster that proclaimed AVALANCHE's responsibility for the bombing, placing it on the man's face, and stabbed a small knife through it, pinning the sign to the corpse's head.

"Phone calls are so cliché," Jessie commented as they moved off, leaving the dead man's body pinned up on the side street, a macabre signpost.

"That'll show 'em we mean business," Barret responded. "AVALANCHE ain't here to fuck around!"

A minute later, as they neared the train station, the two heard a woman's scream, and knew that their calling card had been discovered. By morning, all of Midgar would have heard of their terrorist group.


Cloud ducked around the corner, and quickly counted down from four. As he reached the end of his countdown, his hand shot up, and with perfect timing, the pursuing Shinra soldier ran right into his waiting fingers. Cloud spun the man around, and wrapped his other arm around his neck. A quick twist and pull shattered the soldier's vertebrae and finished him. Not hesitating, the warrior spun, and grabbed a soldier right behind that man, who was skittering to a halt and raising his rifle. Before the soldier could even cry out in shock, Cloud whirled and smashed him into the wall hard enough the crack the bricks.

All it had taken was one lucky (or unlucky) MP, who had demanded Cloud's ID. The mercenary's response was to punch the man's lights out, launching him across the plaza, and then he had taken off, Shinra troops in hot pursuit.

Now he was behind schedule. Three minutes ago the train was supposed to leave, and he was being dogged by the enemy. Cloud did have a plan, however, and if the train was on time, he would be able to get away. The only problem was these damn soldiers were like cockroaches.

Cloud moved down the street quickly, as more enemy soldiers filled the alley behind him. He reached an open street that overlooked the train tracks, and nodded. He glanced at his watch. One minute.

Two soldiers entered the street from Cloud's right as he stepped out. Without hesitation, Cloud pulled the sword off his back in a smooth overhead cleave that sliced one unfortunate man in half, and whirled, bisecting the second with a horizontal cleave. Shouts of shock and surprise surrounded him, and Cloud turned, running up the street toward the train track it ran over.

Between two buildings came another pair of enemy soldiers, and Cloud cursed as he saw them too far away to strike down with his sword. His left hand rose, and two glowing lights on his gauntlet flashed brilliant green. A shard of ice and a bolt of lightning lanced out, each blast of magic striking one of the men in the torso and hurling them off their feet.

Cloud moved back toward the edge of the street, overlooking the train tracks, as another soldier rushed at him recklessly. Without missing a beat, his sword slashed across, chopping the man down in a shower of blood. Yet another foe closed in from Cloud's right, and his arm shot across, smashing the hilt of his weapon into the man's faceplate and hurling him away. A third foe smacked Cloud across the face with his baton as his sword arm was tied up. Cloud snarled and sent a jab across into the soldier's face, rocking him back, and grabbed the man by his armor. Lifting him with his left hand, Cloud's forehead crashed into the man's armored helmet, denting it inward and dazing the soldier. The mercenary casually tossed the man over his shoulder, off the edge of the street toward the tracks below.

By that time, an entire platoon of Shinra soldiers were quickly surrounding Cloud, cutting him off from escape and pinning him against the edge of the street. Every man had a rifle leveled at Cloud, and behind their masks, the mercenary knew their faces were locked in anger due to the corpses strewn about him. He glanced around at the soldiers, and then down at his watch, as a rumbling filled the air and shook the pavement beneath the soldiers' feet.

"Sorry," he said after a moment, shrugging. "I don't have time to screw around with you punks." Cloud spat out the last word. One of the soldiers, an officer apparently, laughed.

"Don't care how tough you are," the man snarled. "You're dead now. Kill his ass!"

The Shinra soldiers brought their fingers to their triggers and, with another halfhearted shrug, Cloud hopped back off the ledge. A slight grin went across his face as he did so, and his left hand rose up, giving the officer a one-fingered salute. The man shouted something in outrage, and instant before Cloud's raised wrist flared, and the officer caught a bolt of lightning in the face. Before the other soldiers could react, Cloud was out of sight. They rushed to the edge of the street, and looked down, to see the train passing below rocketing away into the darkness.

They managed to catch a glimpse of Cloud Strife, crouched on top of the train, his sword in its leather sheath on his back and raising both hands, middle fingers extended in their direction.


Aside from the lone, patrolling Shinra soldier Barret had killed and used as a signpost, nothing else of note had happened while the remainder of the rebel group were en route to the train. Now, they stood in the rear car of the vehicle, the baggage and cargo car, somber and quiet. None of the rebels spoke, all of them exhausted, and some of them actually worried about the fifth member of their group.

"Barret, you think Shinra killed Cloud?" Biggs asked, and Barret shrugged, wincing at his wounded shoulder.

"How'm I supposed'ta know?" he replied, shaking his head. "I don't think he's dead, myself. Damn crazy fool is as hard as they come."

"You think he'll stay with us?" Wedge asked hopefully. "Stay on with AVALANCHE and fight Shinra?"

"I look like a mind reader?" Barret snarled, slamming his arm down on the box next to him, splintering the wood. "You try predicting what's goin' on in that crazy bastard's head."

They rode on in silence for a few more moments. Then, the group looked up, hearing a faint clattering on the rooftop, barely audible over the clatter of the train car. A few moments later, the cargo door suddenly flew open, startling the rebels, and a figure suddenly dropped into the room, flipping in under the doorjamb of the open portal.

"Holy shit!" Biggs exclaimed as Cloud's battered, battle-scarred body dropped into the room with the rest of the group. Cloud paused to dust himself off, apparently not caring about the wide red mark across his face, where something had obviously clubbed him.

"Cloud!" Barret roared, halfway in anger and half in surprise. "The hell you doin'?"

"What does it look like?" Cloud answered with a shrug, looking around the room. Good, he mused. Everyone had survived.

"Goddamn hotshot!" Barret snarled. "Gettin' everyone here worried about whether Shinra wasted you or not, and then making some damn flashy entrance like that!"

"Flashy?" Cloud echoed, and shrugged. "Nah. Just what I always do."

"Son of a . . ." Barret fumed, and he smashed the crate beside him again. "That's comin' outta your pay, hotshot!" He spun and clambered over a box blocking the entrance to the car up ahead. "C'mon, we can't be sittin' back here all day! Time to upgrade our accommodations." With that, the huge, angry man stormed into the next car.

"Hey, hey Cloud, don't listen to Barret," Biggs said quickly, and Wedge nodded.

"You rocked back there!" the portly man added, and Cloud managed a shrug. "Never seen anyone fight like you did!"

"I did my job," Cloud replied quietly as Biggs and Wedge made their way past the mercenary, clambering over the crates and following after Barret. As they did so, the roar of the air whipping past the car was cut off. Cloud glanced over his shoulder to see Jesse securing the door he had leapt through, and then turn back.

"Didn't want anyone to fall out or anything," she explained, smiling slightly at the mercenary. "Ah . . . thanks for the save, Cloud. If you hadn't grabbed me back there . . . ."

"It was nothing," Cloud replied. "I did my job." She nodded, and started moving past him, but then paused and looked back, frowning.

"Hey, your face is covered with soot," she muttered. Cloud reached up toward his face, but Jesse quickly reached up before he could and rubbed her sleeve over his face, wiping the ash and grime off. He blinked in surprise as she did so, not used to people being quite so forward around him. If they had been in combat, he might have reacted to such a motion as if it were an attack . . . .

"There," she added with a smile. "Much better." She hesitated for a second, almost looking like she wanted to say something else, but then walked past Cloud, following her comrades. He watched her move past him, and, after a couple of moments enjoying the relative silence of the empty train car, he followed suit. The mercenary climbed over the crates and moved between the rear cargo car and the last passenger car on the train.

The car should have had a fair number of occupants sitting in the seats or standing along the length of the vehicle. But when a collection of toughened, dirty-looking individuals barged into the car, clad in combat gear and all heavily-armed and equipped, most of the regular citizens quickly evacuated the compartment. Only a couple of homeless, half asleep drunkards remained in the rear passenger car after AVALANCHE took over.

"Sit yo' asses down and shut up!" Barret snarled to the rest of his team, particularly at Wedge and Biggs, who were chatting and laughing like teenagers come back from a late party. "Quit actin' like a buncha kids!"

Cloud himself plopped down on one of the torn, stained cloth seats for a moment, stretching his sore muscles as an announcement of the estimated time of arrival at their destination could be heard over the intercom. They'd be back in the Sector Seven slums before half past midnight. Good.

He looked over his body, scanning the scratches and cuts, and checking the bullet rounds. Barret watched the mercenary with interest as his body slightly healed right before his very eyes. It looked like the bullet wounds that Cloud had suffered were almost sealed up, the rounds having been pushed right out of his skin by the regenerating tissue. Barret Wallace had no idea what to make of it, but he remembered one of the stories about members of SOLDIER, how they were showered with intense treatments of Mako energy, which fundamentally altered their bodies. And apparently, one of the effects was that unnatural regenerative power Cloud had . . . no man would otherwise be standing and fighting with the savage wounds that he had suffered in the assault on the Mako reactor.

Barret then knew that, despite his anger and annoyance at Cloud's antics, that he had made a good investment in the mercenary.

The lights in the car dimmed momentarily, and a harsh red light cut through the passenger car. The members of AVALANCHE tensed as the light flashed for several seconds, before it vanished and the train's normal lights cut back on.

"Jesse! Good job!" Barret called to the brown-haired woman, and she smiled, a bit embarrassed.

"That was the I.D. checkpoint you warned us about in the briefing, huh?" Cloud asked offhandedly, and Barret nodded.

"Scans the I.D. cards of everyone on the train," Jesse added, pulling out her own identification card for a moment. "And then checks those readings back with the database in the central Shinra HQ. Lets Shinra know exactly who is on the train at any given moment . . . and since the data is on Shinra's secure servers in their own headquarters, it is, theoretically, safe and reliable."

Biggs snorted.

"Yeah, no hacker would ever be able to insert a fake I.D. through their security!" he added, with a snicker, and Jesse looked embarrassed again.

"Still, even if what I planted in their servers checks out, they'll eventually find the forged data and purge it, and increase their security," she added. "But by then we may have found a way around the checkpoints themselves."

"So, why don't we just not carry I.D. at all?" Wedge asked. Barret leaned forward and swatted the portly man lightly across the front of his forehead.

"Dumbass!" he snarled. "Ain't it obvious?"

"Uhhh . . . ." Wedge began to say, not sure what to reply with.

"Shinra has biometrics scanners set up alongside the I.D. scanners at the checkpoints," Cloud answered before Wedge could get smacked again. "If there's someone on the train who isn't reading as carrying an I.D., the train gets flagged and a security team is waiting at its next destination to check everyone out."

"So, not carrying an I.D. is a sure way to get caught by Shinra," Jesse finished.

"And since we're good, upstandin' citizens," Barret added with a grin. "We always carry."

The train broke free from the tunnels a moment later, and rolled out over open train tracks exposed to the grimy, polluted air of the lower city of Midgar. The slums stretched out for miles in all directions before the windows, countless people making their homes among the refuse and garbage of the upper city. No sunlight or starlight fell upon the darkened depths of Midgar's slums; only the light from fires or battery-operated electrical lights lit up the lower city. Some power lines snaked from the pillar supporting the upper city and ran to several homes, but few could afford to pay the rates Shinra charged for its electrical power.

Eight sectors made up Midgar, each consisting of a wedge-shaped plate attached to the central pillar at the center of the city that held up the massive power plant and corporate headquarters of Shinra. A secondary support pillar located further out held up each plate. Each of the eight sectors of Midgar had its corresponding slum located beneath the plate, living off the trash and refuse that the more affluent citizens living up top dropped.

"Look out there," Barret muttered, watching the slums pass by. "This city don't have any day or night."

Cloud nodded as he watched the slums with his glowing eyes. He looked up, to the plate towering over the lower city, and thought back to his first glimpse of Midgar. He caught a flash of memory from when he'd first arrived in town . . . how long ago? He couldn't remember exactly; all he could really recall was seeing the massive city seeming to hover in the sky over the ground, suspended atop massive platforms and pillars, the Shinra Headquarters stabbing up into the brown, overcast, polluted sky like a shining dagger of corruption.

"A floating city," he muttered, remembering that vivid first impression. "Very . . . disconcerting when you first see it."

"Damn right," Barret answered, voice filled with frustrated rage. "And its' cause of that fuckin' plate up above that the people down here don't have any day or night! Those assholes up top, makin' life so hard for the people down here in the slums."

"If they don't like it," Cloud added, turning his eyes back toward the squalor spreading out around the central pillar. "They should move up onto the plate, or get out of town to begin with."

"Not everyone's got that choice," Barret replied, shaking his head. "Expensive to live up on the plate. Not very many people got the money to go up there. And some are crooks, people that can't show their faces up top or they'll get caught by Shinra. And some of 'em love their land, no matter how polluted it gets. Life may be shit for 'em, but they've got something to hold onto and call their own. Can't let that ever slip away."

Cloud listened to Barret speak, and caught something in the way he delivered that last bit, spoken with a healthy wave of vehemence and a tinge of regret. The mercenary was a bit curious, but one look on the rebel leader's face, clouded with anger, told Cloud to not inquire at that moment. Instead, he simply nodded.

"No one lives in the slums because they choose to," he stated, and looked out the window again.

"They're like this train," he finished. "It can't go anywhere except where its tracks lead it."