Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, or any other part of FFVII.

AN: Sorry for the long wait. I don't really have any excuse besides, for some strange reason, being unable to simply sit down and write the thing. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy, and again, I'm really sorry for the wait. For anyone following my Harry Potter story, or Reversal (One of my Naruto stories), you might want to check my profile if you haven't already. Not sure if anyone reading this is reading those, but I thought I'd let you know.

NOTE: My forums have finally been updated with the things that I said I was going to post on the last update. Again, sorry for the lateness on that one.

"Talking"

Thoughts

Zack watched as Rufus' helicopter began to move away from the building, and considered trying to bring it down for a few seconds before deciding that it wasn't worth the little time they probably had before reinforcements arrived at Shinra Headquarters. He ran back through the office and through the reception areas below, towards the elevators. He had to admit that, while he understood the reason, the company's refusal to put a stairwell leading to the president's floor had always been annoying.

Arriving at the elevators, he noticed the damaged door, and a tinge of worry passed through his mind.

Well that can't be good.

Looking down through the ruined elevator shaft, he was relieved to see that while there were signs of a struggle, he couldn't make out any signs that the others had been hurt. Of course, his relief disappeared as soon as he heard the roar of gunfire and several explosions from below. Taking a breath, he jumped into the former elevator shaft, bracing himself for the inevitable impact and, for once, thanking Hojo's twisted mind for coming up with the power-enhancing SOLDIER treatments.

"Well, anybody got any bright ideas? Cause I'm out." Barret leaned around the corner and let out another small burst of fire, which the soldiers gathered outside ducked away to avoid. "Plus, I'm startin' to run outta ammo."

"How much longer do you think you can keep this up? If you just fire in small bursts, I mean." Tifa peered around Barret, trying to get a better view of their problem as Nanaki and Aerith sat along the wall next to them, both taking a moment away from searching for a solution to listen to his reply.

"If I don't fire much? Probly about an hour. Lil' less. How 'bout you?"

Tifa pulled away from the side of the wall, and rolled the green materia around in her hand for a moment.

"I'm not sure. I'm not starting to feel any strain yet." She wasn't an expert on materia, but she knew that it drew at least a little power from the person using it. Nothing compared to the amount it pulled from the planet, but still enough to wear a person out if used too much. Of course, she hated that it drew power from the Lifestream at all, but in the long run, the small sacrifice for using materia would be worth putting Shinra out of the Mako Energy business.

"Well, we better think a' somethin'. I don't think they're gonna keep waitin' for long." Hearing something hit the ground behind them, he twisted to face the elevator, gun-arm raised. Seeing Zack stretching out, he turned back towards the entrance, and fired off a few more shots as the men outside began to move from their cover.

"'Bout time you got here. Where's spiky?"

"Spiky? Wait, you mean Cloud? He's not down here?"

"No," Tifa glanced at him worriedly, before charging up another blast of electricity, jumping towards the entrance, firing a bolt of lightning, and pulling herself back around the corner to face Zack. "He was upstairs, trying to find a way out. We thought he'd meet up with you."

"I haven't s-"

"Guys!" They looked towards the stairs, where Cloud was waving them over from the floor above. "This way, c'mon!"

"Well, looks like spiky's got a plan. How 'bout we get outta here?" Barret swung out towards the entrance, firing away, and the others ran across as the men outside ducked for cover. As they moved up the stairs, Barret backed towards the staircase himself, continuing to fire until he was clear of the entrance, then rushing up to join them.

As they reached the second floor and entered the doors in the back of the room, Cloud's plan became obvious. A good indication was that he pulled up in front of a three-wheeled truck on a motorcycle, and motioned towards the vehicle.

"Sweet! I'm in the back!" Zack ran forward, hopping into the bed of the truck and sitting at the very end.

"I'm driving!" As Tifa ran for the driver's side door, not all that far behind Zack, the others made their way to the truck. Nanaki easily leapt into the bed of the truck behind Zack, and Barret pulled himself into the bed beside him, while Aerith jogged around to the passenger side door.

When he saw that all of them were in the truck, Cloud pulled forward, driving up yet another set of stairs. The others followed behind him, and when he pulled to a stop and pointed towards the window at the opposite end of the room, Tifa gave him a nod. Cloud took a breath and drove as fast as he could towards the window, slamming through with ease, and falling towards the highway below the window that would lead out of Midgar. Seconds later, the truck landed behind him, the yells from the back of the truck a combination of fear from Zack and Barret, and joy from Zack.

As they began making their way down the highway, Cloud honestly believed they might've given Shinra's local "police force" the slip back at the headquarters. As it was, he was sorely disappointed when he heard gunfire from behind him. Glancing back, he saw that Zack was holding the Buster Sword vertically at the back of the bed of the truck with one hand, while Barret leaned to the side and fired at the men following them on motorcycles.

For a moment Cloud wondered how Shinra had managed to catch up to them so quickly, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind as a bullet ricocheted off the front of his motorcycle, and he dodged to the side as three motorcycles came up a ramp to his left, each with one soldier driving, a second armed soldier sitting behind them.

Without hesitating, he pulled his sword from the "sheath" on his uniform, and jammed it into one of the drivers. As the motorcycle fell backwards, knocking the one behind it down, Cloud deflected several shots from the third before swinging across in front of the third, slashing the driver across the chest as he went, and turning the motorcycle to face forward again. Turning to look at the others, he noted that they were holding out well enough, and returned his attention ahead of him. Seeing several more cycles entering the highway, he sped forward to greet them the same way he'd greeted the others.

As Cloud continued to handle the enemies coming up ahead, the others were dealing with the ones following behind them.

"Stubborn bunch, ain't they?" Barret called over the blaring of his gun-arm's fire as another of the motorcycles dropped away from beside the truck, and Tifa swerved to the side to shove another into the railing, and then moving back into the center of the road as it fell behind.

Lying down in the bed of the pickup, unable to provide too much aid in a battle requiring range or shielding, Nanaki couldn't help but agree with Barret's claim.

"They are rather persistent."

As he deflected yet another shot, and ducked back behind the Buster Sword, Zack hollered back to the other two.

"Yeah, I know. Boring, eh? They're sure not trying anything new."

Even as he said it, there was a deafening banging sound from behind them, and they were tossed to the side of the truck as it dodged left to avoid an explosion just in front of them. Zack, Barret, and Nanaki peeked around the Buster Sword while Tifa and Aerith looked into the mirrors, and Zack cursed his tendency to jinx things.

"The hell is that thing! A damn tank!?"

"Yeah…" Zack shrugged sheepishly, glancing to Barret. "That might be a bit of a problem."

"It's a freakin' tank!" Yeah, that was the reaction Zack had expected. Not that he blamed him. He wasn't certain that he'd call the thing a tank, but he wasn't sure how else to describe the six-wheeled behemoth following behind them.

"I know it's a tank, whattya want from me!?"

"Um, gentlemen?" Nanaki's voice was nervous as he glanced back around to the tank.

"You're the big, tough SOLDIER man! Blow it up or somethin' why don't ya!"

As another explosion roared just to their left, and Tifa swerved to avoid it as the shrapnel pelted the barrier Aerith had erected around the side of the truck, Nanaki spoke up again.

"I really think we should focus on the problem at hand." The problem being that the "tank" was closing in on them rather quickly, and seemed to be preparing to fire yet again.

"How am I supposed to blow it up? I don't carry bombs around or something! You're the eco-terrorist, why don't you handle it!"

Cloud slowed down and pulled up beside the driver's side of the truck, reaching his hand towards the window and saying something that Nanaki couldn't make out.

"Terrorist!? We ain't no terrorists! We're fightin' for the planet that Shinra's killin'!? If we don't, the whole planet could die!"

Nanaki watched as Cloud began to fall behind, grasping a small green orb in his hand, and pushing it into his blade before twisting the motorcycle to the side, facing the "tank," as Barret had dubbed it.

"Or I suppose we could just leave it to him." He decided that would be the best option. The two others sitting in the bed of the truck with him certainly weren't helping things.

Moments later, Nanaki leapt from the truck's bed as the tank's next shot neared its mark, exploding just below the back end of their ride. Catching himself and sliding along the ground for a few moments, he watched as the truck flipped upside down, Barret barely jumping from the bed as it began to flip, and Zack being thrown from the crashing vehicle with Buster Sword in hand. As Zack rolled to his feet, and Barret began to stand, Nanaki made for the truck, ignoring his aching legs, in the hopes that the two still inside weren't too bad off.

As he heard the second explosion from behind him, certain that it was in fact an explosion this time, he turned to see the problem, and his eyes widened at the sight of a massive tank making its way down the highway. He looked around the highway, hoping for some kind of solution to pop up. When he was unable to find anything that looked as though it could be of use in stopping a tank, or at least what appeared to be some kind of bizarre tank, he decelerated and brought himself alongside the driver's side of the truck.

"Tifa!" He reached his hand in the window. "Materia!"

She glanced at him in confusion for a moment, but decided that he must've had something in mind, and handed the small orb over. He gave her a nod before pulling away from the truck, and swerving around to move towards the oncoming tank, and placing the materia into the blade he'd received from the SOLDIER earlier. Accelerating as fast as he could make the motorcycle move, he sped towards his target. When he came within thirty feet of the thing, he shoved off of the motorcycle, and landed on top of the six-wheeled war machine just before it crashed into his motorcycle and fired off another shot.

As he walked across the top of the tank in a crouch, he realized that it was unmanned. Not a major problem for his plan, but still annoying, seeing as he doubted that he could take out the engine itself from the top of the vehicle, and trying to lower himself under it might take too long. As this thought flashed through his mind, he lifted his sword, and stabbed it into the top of the vehicle.

He'd never used materia before, but Zack had explained it to him back when they both worked for Shinra. He focused for a moment, trying to focus on the materia's energy, and felt the materia's power course through him as the electricity traveled through his blade into the vehicle below him.

Alarms suddenly started blaring, and the tank's emergency brakes activated, bringing it to a screeching halt just a dozen feet in front of the wrecked truck that Avalanche had been driving. As it began to come to a halt, the sword came loose, and Cloud was thrown from the roof. He was stunned for a moment as he slammed into the ground at full speed, and flipped over the edge of the unfinished highway.

AN: A little shorter than usual, I think, but it's something, right? Anyway, thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed this one.