A/N – Sorry I haven't updated in so long (braces for the brick-throwing)...life just loves to throw me a curve ball or two now and then; so, here's the seventh chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 7...there, I said it.

Chapter 7

Yet again, he didn't know where he was at all. But unlike last time, he woke up more quickly and alone. Sitting up, Rollin surveyed the area. It wasn't as neatly kept as the other holding cell he had been in before his failed escape attempt, but less cramped to make up for it. 'Maybe I can break out again…' he contemplated, standing up. When he was within arm's length of the metal door, he pulled back with his left arm. Clenching his hand into a fist, he tried to punch through the door; sadly, this idea didn't work like it did with the glass tube. His arm reverberated off of the door from the force, and he reeled in pain. 'Damn! Okay, I guess I'll just wait here.' Sitting back down on the metal bed in the corner, he closed his eyes hoping that he would wake up and that all of this was just a bad dream.

He woke up to the sound of footsteps suddenly, becoming more alert. Were they guards? More prisoners? He couldn't tell; he didn't have x-ray vision like any of the heroes from fiction books. 'But who the hell is out there?' he wondered. As if on queue, the door to his cell swung open, and a woman was thrown in by a guard. And not just any woman, either. '…Aeris?' Slowly, she got up and brushed her dress off, and saw him as well.

"Rollin?" she said, shocked. He smirked slightly, remembering what he had said.

"Fancy meeting you here," Rollin stated quietly, "but how did you break out?" She told him about being rescued by a person named Cloud, and the fight against one of Hojo's earlier creations, H0512. From the sound of it, the battle was tough, but manageable.

"Afterwards, we went onto the elevator, though the Turks caught us." She sighed, "Now, we're here." Rollin now leaned against the cold wall, taking all of this in; for a relatively short time, that was a lot of information. He could hear movement in the cell to their right.

"Aeris? You in there?" someone asked, looking through a hardly noticeable hole in the wall. The person's eye was a brilliant, glowing blue.

"Yeah, I'm here." She replied, sitting up against the wall. Rollin knew that he wasn't a part of this conversation, so he tuned out as much as humanly possible, his small smile becoming part of a blank, but thoughtful facial expression. His mind began to work on overtime, processing all of what he had heard before. If they were going to be executed, then didn't that mean he would be next in line as well? Or was he an exception to that rule, and was going to be sent back to that crazy bookworm, Hojo? He hated that idea with every fiber of his being…or what was left of his being.

Hours passed, and Rollin dozed off still standing on his two feet.

He opened his eyes, feeling the cold atmosphere setting in – not that the cell was already cold. This chill was much different: only the kind that can move down someone's spine with blinding speed…the kind that gives people that ominous feeling in the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He heard more footsteps from the cell on his right, continuing out of the cell. 'Maybe a guard taking someone to their death?' Rollin concluded, though he was quick to judge.

"What the hell?" he heard someone say, and heard more footsteps going back into the cell, "Tifa, wake up!"

"Wha…?" a woman's voice this time. More footsteps sounded throughout the halls.

"Open up the other cells." The man ordered as the door to his cell opened, revealing one of the people in his ever-growing unknown list. He had blonde hair that shot out in multiple directions without any sort of order to which direction, and was now carrying a large sword – it must've been at least his height (not to mention particularly heavy). Rollin took a quick glance at him, and woke up Aeris. She looked over to the person in the doorway, "C'mon, we're leaving." Getting up, she walked out of the room into the hallway, Rollin following closely behind. The chances of him being welcome in this group were slim, but it was worth a shot.

Besides, he wanted to have a 'chat' with Hojo…no, he needed to see him and pay him back in full this time.

The man turned to face him holding his sword out in warning, but Aeris stopped him.

"It's okay Cloud…he's a friend." She commented, smiling in his direction.

'A friend?' Rollin thought, shocked, '…I'll have to thank her later – that is, if we all survive this.' Cloud grunted and walked off in the other direction, following a path of blood. Everyone followed him (the leader-figure from the looks of it) up an elevator and into the president's office. The president of Shin-Ra sat at his desk, as he normally did.

If his idea of normal was with his upper body leaning over the desk, and a nodachi stuck in his back.

"So, the president of Shin-Ra is dead." The other man said with half-relief, half-regret. He must have been in his mid-thirties, and sported a gun-arm on his right arm. Aeris slightly reeled back at the sight.

"Who would do something like this?" she murmured, as Cloud took a closer look at the sword lodged in the corpse's spinal column.

"That sword…its Sephiroth's sword." He concluded. Rollin finally remembered the papers Angela had found in the facility. 'Sephiroth?' he pondered, 'But isn't he dead?' The sound of helicopter blades filled the room, and Cloud ran outside to meet whoever was inside of the transport. He tried to follow, but one of the two unknown people held him back – a woman this time.

"Better let him go." She commanded sternly. She turned to everyone else, "Barret: take Aeris and Red downstairs. I'll catch up later." The man with the gun-arm nodded, and led the other two to the elevators. She turned to face Rollin again, who was already descending the staircase, "What about you?" she asked, and he stopped.

"I'll be looking for an armory." He replied, and she tossed him a keycard.

"It's on floor 55, so you might want to use the elevator." He shook his head.

"No need." He walked down the seemingly endless set of stairs, picking up speed rapidly with each step. He thought that his vision would blur at this velocity, but it was clearer than ever; the sharp turns weren't a problem for him, either. Soon enough, the armory was within sight, and he stopped a few feet away from the door. Swiping the keycard, the door slid open and revealed a sight familiar to any former military enlistee (or specimen, for this matter): weapons as far as the eye could see. Rollin walked over to one of the guns hung on the wall, took it off, and examined it; a bit primitive compared to what he used, yes. However, he was willing to use whatever he could get his hands on at the moment. He looked over to his left, and saw the weapons he came here with…and still intact, luckily.

'Finally – some weapons I'm familiar with.' He thought, picking them up along with a holster, and stored them for when he found some ammunition. Finding yet another gun on a stand, he inspected it closely: semi/full automatic, forty round magazine capacity limit, and able to use AP rounds. He hung the strap attached to it around his shoulder, and continued his search; he had more than enough in the ways of ranged weaponry, but if anyone got too close for even his pistols to take care of…

His eyes caught the shine that only a blade could give off. Moving closer to the glass case, he broke it open with a quick swipe of his left hand and 'liberated' two of the three objects of cutlery – one was double-edged, and the other had a serrated blade, although shorter in length than the first.

Perfect…now for the bullets.

As he rummaged through the various crates for any sort of projectile he could use, the woman from before walked in.

"Almost done?" she asked, and he pulled out a few small boxes, each containing about one hundred bullets each.

"Almost." He answered solemnly, searching for something to hold the newly acquired blades. Finding what he needed in a storage crate in the back of the room he began his walk down the rest of the stairs, the woman following closely beside him.

"Who are you, anyway?" she gave him a questioning look.

"Rollin." He kept his pace slow enough for her to keep up with him, "What about you?" he extended his left hand (if he could even call it a 'hand') to shake hers.

"Tifa." She slowed to a stop near a vehicle showcase featuring a motorcycle. He took this opportunity to get a look at his new acquaintance: she had deep brown eyes – a hint of red if you looked hard enough – long, dark brown hair, and a good figure. Whether she was no stranger to fighting or not, he had yet to see. He checked around slightly nervously, which was a very new development for him; it was partly the fact that he had never really been charismatic in his opinion, but also the fact that he expected some lab coat lackey of Hojo's would pop up as if out of nowhere and try to put him back into one of those cells – strange how you can become selectively claustrophobic when experimented on by some mad scientist.

And by the looks of his handiwork, he wasn't the first, either.

Tifa looked at him with a somewhat worried look on her face, "You okay?" he shrugged his shoulders.

"If you were worked on in here, you would be a bit paranoid too." Rollin replied, watching Cloud walk down the stairs to where they stood. He could see what the man was heading towards: the same bike that Tifa was leaning on. Sitting down on the seat, Cloud nodded in her direction, and she motioned for Rollin to follow. They boarded the nearby elevator, and let it take them down the rest of the way to their destination.

A/N – Well, hope you've enjoyed the story so far...reviews are always appreciated!

Until the next chapter,

Lloyd Redgrave