An: This story almost has nothing to do with the story in the game. The only things used are characters and locations, which are of large quantity. Most references are from the game, so if you just saw Advent Children (which I thought was horrible) and didn't play the game, you probably won't know too much of the vocabulary in this story. In which case, if you read something you don't know of, ask, or use your friend Google. :)

One more thing, I don't own anything having to do with FF7. This story is set in a sort of an alternate FFVII universe. Italics from here on mean someone is thinking. This chapter (All chapters up to six) of the story has been rewritten, so chances are if you read this anytime before 1/10/09, this will be new to you. I've not only fixed a lot of grammatical errors and plot holes, but I've also added some details.

Also, I really dislike Vincent's limit breaks in the game. Well, I hate them. A lot. So I'm going to make stuff up lol. Kindaa. Maybe add in some DoC influence/Chaos later on.

Chapter 2

Tifa's POV:

"WARK! WARK! WARK! WARK!" sounded the chocobo alarm.

"AGHHHHH. IS IT 9:00 A.M. ALREADY? I'm supposed to be at the first damn day of school already!" Screamed the just-awakened Tifa as she smashed her fist into the alarm clock. She was the type of girl who always liked to be at school early to not only meet her friends but her boyfriend, Sephiroth Jr.

"DADDY! WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP!??

A loud "OH MY ODIN! I'M SUPPOSED TO WAKE TIFA!" was heard downstairs in the wealthy Lockhart mansion.

"WHERE THE HELL IS MY DAMN BLUE BLOUSE!" Screamed out Tifa as she scurried with straightening her long black hair. "Screw it; I'll take this white tank top. Awwwh, where's my skirt?"

After changing, Tifa ran downstairs, turned on the TV, and started eating cereal. Her father, who was enjoying the newspaper, was sitting at a table when he turned his head and gave his daughter the you're-going-to-be-late look. It did not look good.

"Daddy, if I'm already going to be late, can't I be late by a couple more minutes?"

A man in a suit, with short jet black hair sitting in a chair replied with a short "Fine."

With a smile on her face, Tifa took the remote and started flipping channels. The strangest thing happened on TV. Every channel was exactly the same.

"Man! WHERE'S THE CARTOONS!?" Tifa tuned in to a random channel and made the volume louder with the remote and started listening.

A woman was reporting the story in front of what appeared to be a destroyed mansion on fire.

"If you're just turning in, than as you can see behind me, the Shinra mansion, located 45 miles north of Nibelheim, has been destroyed." Tifa had just sat there watching anxiously as her cereal began to become soggy.

"Here's one witness: a Jack Arnold." A farmer and three toddlers were suddenly shown on TV, all of them with surprised looks on their faces.

"The house had just looked a little creepy and at the time I was just telling my kids a good scary story about the abandoned mansion. As soon as I finished my scarrry story telli-"

"Dad, your stories suck…"

Ignoring his daughter, Jack continued his story. "AFTER I FINISHED my story, the kids and I heard something raining from the sky. We looked over and we saw this HUGE explosion. It looked as though huge rocks or something came out of the sky, like shooting stars. Well, except instead of stars it was like giant rocks. It nearly scared the piss out of my kids."

"Daddy do you know anything about this?" She said as she turned around staring at her father. Putting down the newspaper, Tifa's father looked over and began to recap what he had read and heard of so far.

"The N.P.D (Nibelheim Police Department) came and saw a huge load of bodies, mainly scientists. Further examination of some bodies showed that a lot of them died before the explosion. All of it so messed up; that farmer had one good reason to tell a scary story about that place. Also, they even found some papers about experiments on DNA enhancing; the N.P.D would've gotten more if not for the damn Shinra company coming in. You've heard of the Turks, right? They're the so-called secret agents handling the private affairs of Shinra? They say they don't know what was going on, but that's probably a lie. They also say the N.P.D. can't touch any of their property. What a load of crap. They're obviously covering up something." Said the father in a low voice. "However, what everyone is freaking out about now are the two people seen leaving the mansion. A lot of eye witnesses say they saw two people came out of the explosion: a kid with a supposedly giant sword that resembles a Buster Blade, and another kid with a lot of guns on him.

"Supposedly?" Tifa's curiosity had been poked.

"The Buster Blade belonged to a man of great bloodline: the Strife bloodline. A one-of-a-kind blade said to have a great power embedded into it. It's said that the Strife bloodline wa-"

"HMM... Strife…where have I heard that name? OH! JAMES STRIFE! Wasn't he a great warrior or something in history, and didn't he move HERE to live?" shouted Tifa wanting to know as much as possible.

"*sigh* Where did I go wrong with you on manners? Ahem, yes, but sadly, James Strife and his wife were murdered along with witnesses' years ago. It was a strange case…the parents were found buried in a marked grave outside of this town. As for the boy… no one knows what happened to the boy; he was presumed to have died too, but no body was found. He would be…well, your age Tifa, that is, if he were still alive. The Strife's, lived nearby here… they… they…" Mr. Lockhart was having trouble speaking and his mind seemed lost in thought.

Clearing his throat, Mr. Lockhart continued. "They were an extremely nice group of people. They were always helping people; people who were looking for shelter or anyone facing hard times they didn't mind helping. Other than that, I don't know too much about them." The father had said this with an extremely sad face that made Tifa sad too. "TIFA! SHOULDN'T YOU BE AT SCHOOL!?? HURRY! TAKE ONE OF MY CHOCOBO! TAKE BRONCO!"

Tifa ran out the door, into the family's chocobo ranch. She ran up to Bronco and began to put the reins on Bronco as he stood in the ranch. A happy "WARK!" was all the chocobo could say about seeing her owner. After jumping onto Bronco, Bronco took this as a sign to go and blasted off at 45 mph.

As she rode to school on the sidewalk she could hear her father screaming "DON'T FORGET YOU HAVE MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOL AFTER SCHOOL TODAY! YOUR MOTHER SAYS HI!"

As Tifa rode even faster than before, she began to think to herself "MAN! Mom's in Wutai doing her own little job for Mr. Godo Kisaragi. Her and her excavations… Hey, Yuffie said she was related to someone big in Wu-tai. Maybe she wasn't lying when she said she was a transfer student. Her English is so good though."

The bell had just ringed while she was putting Bronco in the school's chocobo ranch. Quickly grabbing her backpack and running towards the school, Tifa managed to shout a rather loud "CRAP! I'M LATE!" as she ran.

As Tifa ran into through the entrance doors, dashed down the hallway to the very last room on the right: room C109. This was a typical classroom with many pictures of rockets and other promotional educational ads. One thing to note was that the classroom was very big, and could fit a bit more than 60 students.

In Tifa's class, she had three close friends: Yuffie, Aeris, and Sephiroth Jr. As soon as Tifa got past the door, she sneaked past Sephiroth Jr. who managed to give a small, yet still perfect smile to her. With romanticized thoughts in her head, she found and sat down in her seat just before the teacher, a Mrs. Shera Highwind, had noticed. She was the homeroom teacher that was married to Mr. Cid Highwind, who built the first rocket into space and who taught mechanics next door.

"Aah…Sephy, the boyfriend I can count on to help me forget a bad start to a day"

This was the year Tifa and her friends were juniors at Nibelheim Private School. This was where Tifa realized that she had forgotten something at home. "Private school… crap. It's required that all students wear uniforms."

"Psst…PSST! AERIS! Do you have a spare uniform I can borrow?" Whispered Tifa.

"YES, I always carry a spare. It may not be the right size for you in the upper regions, but I think it'll last you! NOW RUN into the bathroom at my signal and I'll think of a distraction." Whispered Aeris as she pulled the uniform out of her backpack and handed it to Tifa.

"Heh, Aeris I can always count on you!" Tifa then took the uniform from Aeris, hunched down on her desk, and waited for Aeris' signal.

As soon as she saw Tifa hunched over her desk, Aeris stood up and had this to say:

"beeehh…Ahem…byaaaAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHH!" She began to scream at the top of her lungs. Everyone around her stared in horror and surprise as they saw Aeris screaming for no reason whatsoever.

"MS. GAINSBOROUGH! CALM DOWN PLEASE! Why would you scream when I'm trying to explain today's lunch menu…"

Tifa crouched down on the floor, ran towards the door, and opened it.

BAM!

Tifa had hit something and fell back. Sephiroth Jr. stood up out of his seat and ran over to help her, but before he could someone lifted her up by the arm quickly. Tifa was staring at the ground, holding her head when a gruff voice coming from a young man in red asked if she was alright.

Tifa looked up and saw a kid with bright blue eyes and spiky yellow hair next to a mysterious-looking kid in a red cloak…and a metal hand!

Sephiroth gave a threatened stare at the yellow-haired kid and shouted "Watch where you're going, Ass-face!"

When Tifa finally got her balance back she replied "It's ok Seph, I'm fine".

Sephiroth let out a growl. "You're not even going to ask if she's okay!?"

The kid just stood there staring at her.

Tifa looked puzzled as to why it appeared as though he was wondering why he would even have to ask in the first place.

"This guy has books in one hand…and a giant sword behind him. Holy materia…Are these two the same two guys that…" Tifa was confused.

A moment of silence came and what felt like hours to Tifa was driving her nuts. No one was saying anything or even doing anything. Finally breaking the ice, the kid walked into the room, looked at Mrs. Highwind and asked "…Is this room C109?"

The teacher and everyone else just stared at the kid before Mrs. Highwind replied "Yes, this is that room. How about you two have a seat and when you do, can you both please tell me your names and why you both don't have a uniform? Also, tell me why you have a weapon in school without a license. Everyone here at Nibelheim Private School knows that weapons are permitted on school grounds as a mean of security against increasing numbers of monsters ONLY if one has obtained a license. So, explain yourself."

Cloud only stared blankly at his soon-to-be homeroom teacher. "Security? Against monsters? Why would you need that? Vincent." Cloud turned to his friend behind him. "Why would they need security?"

"Now may not be a good time. I'll explain later…uhh" The red-cloaked young man looked over at Mrs. Highwind. "I believe my teachers nearby. I'm a senior; and my young friend here is a junior. I thought I would help him find his class before finding mine. I believe I got mixed up, I must apologize; I thought this was Mr. Highwind's class, but it's my friend's. Once again, we're both sorry for being late and not having uniforms."

Tifa was still staring at the two guys before her. "That senior is probably the most polite kid in this entire school…and the other kid…well, this kid looks a little suspicious. His clothes look like they're from… Shinra? They're not camo, but they've definitely got a military look to them."

At this time the seniors from room C108 came to the classroom for a once-a-week- partner pairing assignment and since the classroom was quite large, there was space for both classes. Mr. Highwind was the one leading the class into Mrs. Highwind's class. A sort of coincidence that a lot of students didn't need to wonder about.

Tifa got back to her seat as the other class found seats in the back of the class. Pretty soon only two students were at the front of the classroom wondering what to do. Everyone in class was talking about how neither of them had been seen in town before.

Looking at his wife with little hesitation, Mr. Highwind examined the two while the rest of the classroom was wild with murmurings.

"Well, I've never seen either of them before. And that little star pupil of yours is right; both of them have clothes that look pretty much Shinra-issued. The younger one seems to be carrying pretty damn big weapon too, obviously. A Pretty damn good one too. I don't think either of them have a license though." Taking a good look at them one more time, he added "No, I'm SURE they don't have a license."

Mrs. Highwind then began to walk over to the two with a big smile on her face.

"So, since you're both new here and don't appear to know anything about this school, why don't you two begin by telling us your names?"

The senior wearing a red cloak replied "Vincent Valentine."

The younger junior replied "Strife. Cloud Strife".

Everyone in the class began to look over and wonder if they really did hear what they thought they heard.

Hearing this, Cid pulled out a cigarette.

"Heh. Fuck school rules. I need this…"

AN: Ah, I kind of rushed through this, so I'm sorry if there's a plot hole in it or a grammatical error. But a quick read-through…and I don't think there's anything. The next chapter will be out soon!