Cloud awoke to the sound of shuffling and bustling about upstairs. He was sleeping in the AVALANCHE operations room and yawned groggily. He took his Buster Sword off of the table and sheathed it. He took the pinball machine upstairs to where Barret and Tifa were. Marlene was busy behind the counter mixing drinks and cooking food. Wow!

Tifa: (Walks up to him) "Hi, Cloud. How did you sleep?"

Cloud: "Barret's snoring kept me up..."

Tifa: (Snickered and whispered to him) "Watch it, Barret always gets edgy before operations. Oh, by the way...I'm coming along too on this one."

Barret: "So, you know what we're doing? We're going to bomb the sector 5 reactor...and...um...Cloud, will you teach me how to use materia?"

Cloud: "You wouldn't understand, I'm not good at teaching..."

Barret: "So that's what makes them SOLDIERS so good huh? Well, the gang's outside so let's go!" (Barret, Tifa and Cloud go outside to where Biggs, Jessie and Wedge are.) Let's go! Move out!!"

    They left the town and ran to the train station. They got on Barret told his troops to spread out. and a Shinra employee got a little upset. Barret saw this and hassled him a little bit, then he started to curse and yell at him, making the employee whine and whimper from terror. Tifa stopped Barret before he got violent with him.

Tifa: (Walks to the monitor system.) "Cloud come here!"

Cloud: (Goes over to Tifa and shrugs) "Sorry, I've already seen it."

Tifa: "Jessie showed this to you already? Oh well...anyway, you probably have heard that that the train has switched to security mode. A security mode that Shinra is very proud of..."

Barret: "That means that we can't use our fake ID's anymore. In a few minutes we'll have to get off of the train to avoid the damn thing."

    Suddenly the areas began to glow bright red. Barret and Tifa look around confused and a little uneasy. Suddenly there was an alarm and an announcement that there were unidentified passengers aboard the train. AVALANCHE was spotted.

Tifa: "What?!"

Jessie: (Enters their car) "We've got big trouble, we've been found out!"

Barret: "Damn it!! Someone blew it..."

Jessie: "Don't worry, they conduct the searches car by car so if we skip the cars before they get locked down, we might have a chance." (Runs out of the car) "Hurry up!!"

    They had twenty seconds to get off but that was more than enough time. When they got to the next car, Jessie briefed them that they're not out of the woods yet. They had less and less time. On the third car, a thief stole about 100 Gil from this, taking advantage of the dire situation. Cloud ran back and forced the money from him but the door was closing at the opposite end. Cloud ran deftly to the door and slid under it just before it locked down. They finally made it to the front of the train and awaited a new plan.

Cloud: (Runs up to Tifa) "What now?"

Barret: "Think of somethin' dammit!"

Tifa: (To Cloud) "Scary huh? (Opens the car door and looks out of it to the speeding ground below.) "... ... Watch closely! I'm gonna jump!!"

Cloud: "I guess we have no choice...what about you, Barret?"

Barret: "You guys go first, a leader needs to stick around to the end. Cloud, don't go gettin' your spiky ass hurt! It's just the beginning of the mission!"

    Cloud and Tifa jump and then Barret jumps as Jessie, Biggs and Wedge take off their disguises and jump too, but they land in a different location. Barret land near the underpass to the Sector 5 reactor. They compose themselves and check the situation.

Barret: "Ouch! Damn! We're in the lower sector 4 plate, we'll have to do some walkin'..."

Tifa: "Don't worry..."

Barret: "The reactor's just down this tunnel!"

Cloud: (Hears some skittering and scraping.) "What's that noise?"

    Cloud, Barret and Tifa look over to the darkness and found some creepy bugs and floating fish. The bugs were bluish and had hideous leech like mouth. The fish looked very aggressive and spiky. They looked like...Blagu and Grashstrike.
    The blagu attacked Tifa, biting and attempting to cut her with their sharp fins, Tifa cried out as she let out a blast of punches and kicks and wasted the ones attacking her. Barret shot each of the little monsters that attacked him and Cloud chopped the attacking grashstrikes with his sword until one of them spewed a sticky silk that covered his sword. The grashstrike jerked his sword away and the little buggers surrounded him. Tifa looked over and during of her fighting shouted "Here!!" to cloud. She threw a blue orb of crystal to Cloud and he caught it. He took the ice materia from his newly bought iron bangle and combined it with the blue crystal. With a prayer and a whisper, he successfully unleashed a blast of ice on all of the little monsters in the room. The ice surrounded them in flashy blue blasts of light and coated them in ice. The ice choked them off and they were no more.

Cloud: "Thank you, Tifa."

Tifa: "No problem! I received the "all" materia from a friend before we left Sector 7! I also bought two more materia crystals, a "fire" and another "lightning" materia."

Cloud: "Where did you get the money for those?"

Tifa: "I used the advance on your pay!"

Cloud: ( He and Barret do a sudden anime fall) "Hey! That money was for me!"

Tifa: (Gets angry) "I also bought you and us an iron bangle but I don't hear you complaining about that! It's just your childhood friend helping you out!"

Cloud: (Sighs) "Oh well..."

    They run through the tunnel and hoped that they wouldn't be attacked by more of those Blagu and Grashstrike creatures and made it to the Shinra security entrance. They looked at the glowing green beams that protected the doorway. They sighed.

Cloud: "Those are Shinra's security beams, we can't go any further."

Tifa: (Averts their attention to a air duct) "Look, an air duct! We can climb in through here!"

Barret: (Looks down the air duct) "That's one damn tiny hole. You tellin' me to squeeze into that hole to get under the plate? No way."

Tifa: "What other choices do we have?"

Cloud: (looks down the air duct.) "It doesn't look as though we'll be stuck if we go in there so..."

Barret: "But damn man, that thing gives me the chills!"

    They climb down into the vent and find some carelessly thrown away items. The jump down to the main level and find Wedge. They climb a ladder to another air duct and find Jessie moping about in it. She's sad because they tried to modify the ID's and failed in it. It's no big deal they tell her and she feels a little better. They crawl through a connecting air duct to the beginning of the sector 5 reactor. Cloud, Tifa and Barret slid down a pipe to the lower level. They ran to the corner of the mako machine and espied three Special Combatants taking a break. They nodded in agreement and Cloud put the All and the Fire Materia together and jumped out of the corner. The Special Combatants looked over and cried out as Cloud used the fire all materia. Cloud gained an aura of greenish white and he directed his power at them.
    Suddenly, the three Special combatants caught on fire, they screamed in terror and pain from the burning from the flames. They run around trying to put out the fire but weren't able to. The flames burned them into ashes. They didn't stick around for the barbecue and they ran to the Mako reactor itself. The climb down from the ladders to the lower level was no different from the last reactor. They must have had the same design. They finally made it to the engine room.

Barret: "You set the bomb." (Gives the bomb to Cloud.)

Cloud: (Nods and takes it. When he approached the engine he suddenly felt a ringing in his ears and he fell to his knees. The ringing brought on a flashback.)

    The flashback was about a Mako reactor he saw in his life before. A teenage girl wearing a somewhat rustic getup was tending to a man who was stabbed by a long slim sword. He was unconscious and bleeding all over the floor. The teenage girl turned out to be Tifa as a younger girl.

Tifa: "... ... father ..." (Looks at his wound and at the sword that caused it.) "Sephiroth?!" (Begins to cry) Shinra...SOLDIER...Mako reactors....(Screams) I HATE THEM ALL!!! (She gets up from her dead father and picks up Sphiroth's sword and hastily runs into the next room.

Cloud: (still hearing the ringing in his head.)

Barret: "Pull it together, man!"

Tifa: (Kneels down to him) "You all right?"

Cloud: (Gets up) "...Tifa..."

Tifa: "Huh?"

Cloud: "Oh, never mind. I'll set the bomb." (With some beeps and a click, he sets the bomb on the engine.)

    They all run out of the engine room and eventually make it back to the crispy char broiled soldiers. They go up the stairs and into a new area. They run into a room with three huge button pads on a table in the center. The controls in the room were making beeps and clicks.

Tifa: (Runs to the buttoned chamber) "According to Jessie, we all have to push the buttons in unison to open the security door. (They all raise their hands and press down on the switch, but it didn't work. They tried it over and over but couldn't coordinate.)

Cloud: "Screw this! everyone, put your hands on the button and when I count to three, we'll all push it." (Cloud counts to three and everyone pushes the button and it opens the door.)

    Everyone runs out the door to the entrance area over the slums below. They got to the split in the tracks and Barret tells them to go left. When they go left, five Shinra Soldiers block them. They go the other way and it's also blocked. They had no place to go.

Barret: "Shinra soldiers!? Sh#%!! What the hell is going on here?"

Cloud: "...a trap."

    It became so silent that anyone in the room could hear the slightest noise. There was a silent noise, the noise was the sound that came from the boots of an overweight but extremely official man who walked out of the Mako reactor.

Barret: "Pres...president Shinra!"

President: "...Oh you are...um...that renegade group..."

Barret: "We're AVALANCHE! And don' you forget it!"

Cloud: (Cloud walked up to him a bit) "...Long time no see, sir."

President: "Who are...oh, it's you. Tell me, traitor. What is your name?"

Cloud: "Cloud."

President: "Forgive me but I can't be expected to remember everyone's name...unless you've become another Sephiroth. Ahh, Sephiroth....he was brilliant, perhaps too brilliant."

Barret: (Runs past Cloud) "None of that matters now, this place'll go up in a BANG soon. Serves ya right!"

President: "...Such a waste of fireworks. We'll get rid of vermin like you."

Barret: "We the vermin?? Your company sucks up the life of the planet just for your gains! You're the vermins...so I guess it makes you king VERMIN! So Sha'up Jackass!"

President: "...You're beginning to bore me. If you'll excuse me, I've got an important lunch I must attend to." (The president radios for a helicopter and it comes down to pick him up.)

Barret: "Wait, I'm not done with you yet!"

President: "I have however arranged for a special playmate for you." (He snaps his finger and a giant klunky robot appears from the right of Tifa. Barret runs down to see it.) "Meet, "Airbuster" a TECHNO-SOLDIER created by our weapon department. I'm sure the data from your dead bodies will be useful for us." (Gets in the helicopter and it flies away. Air buster advances on Tifa and Barret who are both backing off.)

Barret: "Yo, Cloud! What're we gonna do?" (Backs off)

Tifa: "Cloud help!"

Cloud: "This thing is from SOLDIER? Can't be!"

Barret: "I don't care! I'm gonna bust it apart!!"

    Cloud jumped behind the giant lunky robot and the battle began. Barret tore into it with his machine gun and the bullets barely made any dents. The robot countered him by ramming into him. He was knocked back several feet and crashed to the ground. While the Airbuster's back was turned, Cloud took the opportunity to attack, he hacked and slashed at the robot with his sword only to make more dents in the outward casing. A back compartment opened up and a gun came out and it shot Cloud in the arm. Cloud fell to his knees and gripped his arm, the bone stopped the bullet and it fell out so it wasn't that bad. The robot hovered up and then slammed down hard on the platform and released a pack of explosives. The blast knocked Tifa and Barret against the railing. The robot turned and rammed Cloud, sending him back. He tumbled to the ground and instead of feeling groggy, he suddenly felt wildly exhilarated. Limit break, Cloud jumped up and performed a leaping chop at the Airbuster. The sword went through its head and part of the way into it's chest. It sparked and fizzed as electric currents buzzed about the robot's new wound. The robot's turn function was now broken so it was now helpless.
    Barret threw Cloud the restore materia and cloud combined it with the all materia. With a quick prayer. Cloud started to glow and he sent out a shining green energy that revitalized Tifa and Barret. They were now perfectly fine. Barret took his machine gun and shot at the robot's hover controls, short circuiting them. The Air buster itself was now just a pile of junk and it jerked twice and fell flat on the ground.
    Cloud was too close to it. The Airbuster exploded and the explosion ripped out some of the platform and Cloud flew up and landed hanging on the very edge of the twisted remains of one side. His grip was slipping...

Tifa: "Cloud!!" (Trying to reach one of his hands) "I can't reach him! Barret! Can you do anything?"

Barret: "Not a damn thing..."

Tifa: "Oh Cloud! There's still more I need to ask you!"

Cloud: (Looking up at her) I know...

Barret: "Are you going to be okay?"

Cloud: "Yes! Stop talking as though it's the end! I'll be okay!!"

    The metal beam Cloud was holding on, snapped and Tifa watched in horror and then grabbed Barret in grief as they both watched Cloud fall from the upper level to the lower level. He fell from up high into the Church in sector 5. Cloud fell into unconsciousness and a voice came to him in his sleep.

Voice: "...You had a pretty bad fall."

Cloud: "Yeah..."

Voice: "Back then, I only had scraped knees..."

Cloud: "What do you mean 'back then?'"

Voice: "How about now? Can you move?"

Cloud: (Moves his legs) "How about this?"

Female Voice: "Oh! He moved!"

Voice: "That's good..."

Female Voice: "Hello! Hello!"

Cloud: "...Hey, who are you?"

    Cloud opened his eyes to reveal a beautiful church. There was a beautiful stain glass window on one side and pews along with a minister's area behind him. But he felt the grit of dirt beneath him. He was lying in a garden full of pretty yellow, pink, red and white flowers. Among the flowers was another flower, not a plant but a beautiful and cheerful girl wearing a pink dress and she had brown hair with a hairband. Her green eyes glowed mysteriously and had an aura of kindness.

Aeris: "Welcome! Another visitor! The flower bed must have broken your fall."

Cloud: (Leapt to his feet) "Did I come crashing down? I'm sorry. Hey, where am I"

Aeris: "You are in the church in the Sector Five slums. Don't worry about the fall. The flowers are resilient here because this is a sacred place." (Gets up and sighed) I love it here... Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't tell you my name! My name is Aeris, the flower girl. What's yours?"

Cloud: "My name is Cloud and me...well, I do a little bit of everything."

Aeris: "A jack of all trades..."

Cloud: "Right, I do whatever's needed..."

Vex:  (Jumps down from the rafters of the church. He lands on his feet semi gracefully, stumbling a bit. He smiles at Cloud and then at Aeris.) This place is fun but...I think I'm gonna go exploring. I'll see you around Aeris and a good day to you too sir. (Runs out of the church, almost hyperactive.)

Aeris: (Giggles a bit) "Oh right, his name is Vex..."

Cloud: "Vex?"

Aeris: (Nods) "Well, he LOVES the name, he's a boy who helped me. Say...I feel like talking are you up to it?"

Cloud: "Sure."

Aeris: (Tending to her garden) "We meet again..."

Cloud: "Mmm...you were the one selling flowers."

Aeris: "I'm so happy you remembered! Thank you for buying one." (Aeris gets up and checks over her flower garden.) "Just a little longer...You didn't hurt them at all, don't worry about it Cloud."

Cloud: "That's good..."

Aeris: "Say...do you have any materia?"

Cloud: (Shows her some of his materia crystals) "Yes, some."

Aeris: "Nowadays you can find materia anywhere but mine's special, I got it from my mother and it's good for absolutely nothing!"

Cloud: "What? You just don't know how to use it..."

Aeris: "No, I do know how to use materia. This one just doesn't do anything."

    A man dressed in a dark suit comes in. The man was unkept in appearance and had dark eyes and hair. He smiled a malicious smile and approached them.

Aeris: "Hey Cloud...how about being a bodyguard? You said you could do anything so take me home."

Cloud: "Sure but it'll cost you..."

Aeris: "How about...if I go out with you once."

Man: (Walking up closer and he smiled.) Hey sis, this one's a little weird.

Cloud: "Do...I know you?"

Man: (Still smiling) "We know you."

Cloud: (Suddenly it flashes for him and he realizes it.) "I know you! Shinra spy!" (Suddenly, three guards walk in and up behind the man.)

Soldiers: "Hey Reno! Want him taken out?"

Reno: (Turns to them and shrugs) "I haven't decided yet."

Aeris: (Stands up and hurries to the back door of the church) "Wait! Don't fight here! You'll ruin the flowers. Come back here, Cloud!"

Reno: (Looks their way when they go through the back door. Then he walks through the flowers thoughtlessly and tramples some of them.) "They were...Mako eyes..." (Turns to the soldiers) "Well, go after them and...(leaves through the back door) "...and don't trample the flowers."

Soldier1: "You trampled them yourself!"
Soldier2: "They're ruined!"
Soldier3: "You're gonna catch holy hell!"

    Cloud and Aeris jump across a gap in the back way. They jump another and run up the stairs. Reno and his men also came through the doors and prepared themselves. Cloud jumped across and motioned for Aeris to jump as well but she shook her head.

Cloud: "... well if you want to go first, well then, I'll hold them off."

Aeris: (Nods) "Right, make sure they don't get through." (Aeris begins to jump across another gap.)

Soldier: "The ancient is getting away! Stop her!!" (Shoot their guns and they fire them at the gap. It causes Aeris to slip and fall down and she screams.) "Think we killed em? Should have never got in our way..."

Aeris: (Gets confronted by a soldier) "Cloud help!"

Cloud: "Damn! Hold on!" (Cloud runs to four sets of barrels and calculates quickly. He then pushes one over and it falls on the guard threatening Aeris.)

Aeris: (Looks up.) "Thanks, Cloud." (Starts her trip up the stairs but at the top of the set she was on, another guard confronts her.) "Cloud help!"

Cloud: "Not again...hold on!" (Cloud runs to the another barrel and calculated where it might land. He pushed it and it rolled down the stairs, taking the guard with it. Aeris got out of the way before it reached her.)

Aeris: (Looks up again) "Thanks again, Cloud!" (Aeris passes the downed guard and runs up the next flight of stairs and almost gets to where she was originally and the final soldier confronts her.) "Cloud, help!"

Cloud: "Hold on, I'll be right over!" (Cloud goes over to the far barrel and pushes it over, it falls right on the guard and the guard rolls over with it down to the bottom level. Aeris got out of the way again.)

Aeris: "Thanks Cloud! I'll be right there!" (Aeris runs to the gap and jumps it and she and Cloud reunite.)

    Cloud led Aeris up the next flight of stairs and they reached the top of the church. Cloud left Aeris and they walk the rafters and got a perfect view of the flower garden below and all of the pews. Cloud led her to the hole of the roof where he boosted her onto the roof. He and her sighed a sigh of relief.

Aeris: (Laughing nervously while looking down on the slums just below.) "Ha ha...they're looking for me again..."

Cloud: "You mean that this isn't the first time they've come looking for you?"

Aeris: "...No..."

Cloud: "Those were the 'Turks.' They scout for any possible candidate for SOLDIER."

Aeris: "This violently? I thought they were kidnapping!"

Cloud: "Why would they come after you?"

Aeris: "I don't really know, they might think I have what it takes to be in SOLDIER!"

Cloud: "Maybe you do! Want to join?"

Aeris: "I don't know...but I don't want to be caught by THOSE people..."

    Cloud looked over and found a way down. He began to jump between pile and pile of slum garbage. He deftly leapt to the spot where an easy way down was. It wasn't so easy for Aeris though, she jumped the gaps but it took her twice as long and she was out of breath by the time she caught up with him.

Aeris: (Panting and out of breath) "Wait UP I say..."

Cloud: "That's funny...I thought you had what it takes to be in soldier?"

Aeris: "Oh! You're terrible!" (They both laugh it up and eventually they find a way down. They jump down from the slum garbage metal and Aeris smiles at him.) "My house is over here! Let's go before the soldiers find us!"
 

That's the end of Chapter 2...This chapter in the story however wasn't much different from the original story. Just keep reading to find out what might happen that's different! Thanks for reading!