The following morning, James took the elevator to the main floor and met up with Barret and Amy, who both looked ready to go.

'Did you sleep well?' she asked him.

'About as well as anybody can, listening to Barret snoring like a chainsaw right next to you,' he replied, scathingly.

'Shhh!' hissed Amy, pointing at Barret, who seemed to be oblivious to James' remark.

He turned around to address them both.

'Right! Our next target's in Sector 5. Head to the station, an' I'll fill you in on the train,' he barked. James and Amy turned to leave. 'Uh, James. I got somethin' I wanna ask you.'

'What is it?' question James, sounding bored.

'I…I don't really know how to use materia. I'll give you that materia you found at the reactor, just tell me how to use it!'

James looked slightly weary for a second. Then he launched into a hurried explanation of using the magical orb. Amy nodded in understanding, but Barret merely looked lost. When James, finished, he said 'Shi -!...What's all this 'it wasn't so hard' crap? I'm completely clueless…'

Without another word, he threw the materia at James, and headed out of the bar after telling his daughter Marlene to watch after the bar. She replied with a cheerful 'okay, good luck!'. James looked at the small orb in his hand. He saw that it was curative magic, and quickly slid it into a spherical slot in the wrist of his glove.

When he and Amy left the Seventh Heaven, she pulled him into all the shops in the hideout's village, Sector 7, and bought more of the small green orbs.

'What about getting a Fire materia?' she asked him.

'Knock yourself out,' replied James shortly. 'Although I can't get an Ice afterwards, unless you have some gil stashed away somewhere.'

'Oh well,' she replied, handing over a number of small silver coins.

They arrived at the Sector 7 train station a few minutes later, with Barret staring at his watch, casting them both impatient looks.

'Sorry,' apologised Amy, when they reached him.

'Two words: women and shopping,' called James. Barret gave him an understanding look as the train they were to be boarding came to a grinding halt.

They got on, and met up with Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. Barret's obvious anger had already started to scare away some of the passengers into other sections of the train, so they were again the only passengers in their carriage.

'Yo!' shrieked Barret, causing everybody remaining in the vicinity to jump. 'This don't look like no private car, so split up!'

The three quickly made their way into the next car, leaving James and Amy with Barret. Barret thought he heard somebody saying 'Oh God, hoodlums again….don't I just have all the luck' sarcastically to themselves, and mistook the voice for either Biggs or Wedge. He threw open the door to the next carriage and yelled 'You say somethin'? I said….'you say somethin'? Huh, look at that…it got empty in here all of a sudden.'

He seemed to have only just noticed the depleted number of other passengers. There was a solitary man who had dared to stay near Barret, dressed in a uniform that made him look like some sort of manager.

'What's going on?' he asked, looking at Barret. 'Damn! Uh…it's empty….because of guys like you…'

Barret loomed threateningly over the manager, who yelped.

'Did you see the news?' he asked hurriedly. 'That, that group, AVALANCHE, or whatever they're called, they said that there were going to be more bombings! Only….only a devoted employee like me would go to work in this sort of situation!'

The manager failed to notice that he had just made the situation worse for himself. Barret took a step backwards and aimed his gunarm.

'You workin' for Shinra?' he spat.

'I won't give in to violence!' choked the manager. He noticed that Barret was the only one that was not near a seat. 'I'm not giving you my chair, either!'

Barret swore loudly as Amy called out to him. The AVALANCHE leader cursed again.

'You lucky bastard,' he growled at the Shinra manager.

James waited patiently for Amy to calm Barret down and drag him away from the manager. When the manager was out of earshot, James whispered, 'so what's our next target?'

'Damn, man, what are you so calm about? You're bustin' up my rhythm…' muttered Barret.

Their carriage gave a slight jolt.

'Seems like they've finished connecting the cars,' stated Amy. 'We're finally leaving.'

'That's great,' said James sarcastically, 'now, again….what is our next target?'

'Heh, listen to Mr-Serious-About-His-Work, here! Okay, as Jessie probably tol' you, there's a security checkpoint at the top plate. It's checkin' all the trains.'

'And Shinra is very proud of it,' interjected Amy.

'The real problem is…we can't use our fake IDs anymore.' Barret's tone sounded slightly worried.

There was a sound, and then the sound of the conductor rang through the car.

'Good morning, and welcome to the Midgar lines. The arrival time at Sector 4 will be eleven forty-five.'

'That means there's….about three minutes until the checkpoint!' exclaimed Amy, quietly.

'Yep,' confirmed Barret. 'So in three minutes, we're jumpin' off this train!'

Amy made her way over to the end of the carriage, where Jessie positioned herself when AVALANCHE went to explode the Sector 8 reactor. She pulled James over with her.

'Come and have a look at this with me. Oh…you look like you've already seen it. Oh well, it doesn't matter.' She giggled. 'It's okay, come a bit closer.'

James resisted rolling his eyes at her and took a small step closer. She beamed at him.

'That's better.'

Before she could say anything else, a bright red light flashed through the entire compartment.

'That's odd,' she mused, 'the security checkpoint was meant to be further down.'

The red light was soon accompanied with a warning siren, as the voice of the conductor yelled once more.

'Type A security alert! Unidentified passengers confirmed, a search of all cars will be conducted. Repeat, type A security alert! Unidentified passengers confirmed, a search of all cars will be conducted.'

'What's happening?' cried Amy, sounding shocked.

'The hell is goin' on?' snapped Barret, drowning Amy out.

Jessie came running into their car and made her way over to Barret.

'We're in trouble!' she called.

'I hadn't noticed,' came the retort.

'I'll explain later, you all need to get to the next car, hurry!' urged Jessie.

'Damn, someone blew it…'

'Unidentified passengers located in car one! Preparing for lockdown!'

'Let's get the hell out of here!' cried Barret, knowing that they had only seconds to get through the doors before they locked.

Barret, James and Amy forced their way through, barging several other passengers out of the way in the process, who looked merely annoyed, whilst the other, unbeaten passengers watched with interest.

'Car one locked down. Upgrading to level two security.'

'They're going to lock the door, sir!' called the voice of Wedge, to a passenger who was lingering dangerously close to the door.

'Just run!' screamed Jessie, 'changing to plan two, just go!'

'Unidentified passengers located in car two, preparing for lockdown!'

With Barret's frustrated cry, Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, James, Amy and Barret forced their way through car two, stamping on people's shoes, and elbowing them out of the way. The group forced their way through, leaving a trail of disgruntled passengers in their wake.

'Car two locked down. Upgrading to level three security.'

'Alright, are we in the clear yet?' Barret asked Jessie.

'Not yet,' she replied. 'They're conducting another search.'

'Damn Shinra.'

'If we just move up the train, car by car, then we should hopefully get past it without being caught.'

'Unidentified passengers moving to front of the train. Currently tracking position.'

Barret and Jessie ushered their small band of dishevelled people into car four.

'Car three locked down. Upgrading to level four security.'

'How many goddamn warnings are there?' screamed Barret, getting more and more frustrated.

They burst into the very front of the train, and James took his first proper look at Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. He noticed that they had changed their clothing, to look like ticket collectors, so not to arouse suspicion.

'Car four locked down. Upgrading to maximum security!'

The doors of the trains were opened. Amy and James stood, watching as they zoomed along the tracks, the wind hard in their faces.

'Okay, we've made it!' announced Barret. 'Come on, this way, let's go, we need to jump out o' here!'

'That's pretty scary,' whispered Amy to James.

'Don't you think it's a bit late to be saying that?' he replied. 'Anyway, what did you come with us for?'

'I don't know…'

'Hey, you two, in case you ain't noticed, there ain't no time for that! Hurry it up!'

'I've made up my mind,' said Amy, determinedly. 'Watch, I'm gonna jump!'

She took in a deep breath, and leapt out of the open door of the train. James tried to catch sight of her, and then turned back to Barret.

'Do you mind if I go first? Or do you want to?'

'A leader always stays until the end,' he said shortly.