Tifa awoke with a startle. She had been dreaming that her legs were in pain, and now that she was awake she discovered that it wasn’t a dream. Her legs hurt really badly, and a small pinprick was visible by her ankle, out of which a tiny bit of blood had formed. As she sat up and rubbed her eyes she caught a glimpse out of the window. An airship, way bigger than the Highwind, was out there, with Shinra Soldiers hammering it and putting screws in here and there. The rest of her friends who had been at the caves were here as well. Barret was snoring heavily, leant up against the wall beneath the window, whilst Red XIII lay in the centre of the room, his head on top of his crossed legs. His eyes were open, so she knew he wasn’t asleep. Yuffie was also awake, but was gagged and tied to a chair near to the window.
‘Mphh, MPHH!’ she called, as she rocked the chair forwards and backwards until she finally ended up on the floor, face first. Tifa pulled herself up, but soon found she didn’t have the strength to walk across to Yuffie, and collapsed back down again onto the bed.
‘What’s happening…?’ she whispered. Red XIII, who had been woken up because of the noise, answered her.
‘They’ve taken Cid. He’s out there now working on that big airship out there. The rest of us can’t move much, like you. It seems they’ve given us some drug after they knocked us out. The only person who didn’t get affected was. The only person who didn’t get affected is Yuffie, so they did that to her.
‘Mphhh….’ she mumbled.
‘Argh! They’re coming!’ Barret yelled out as he also awoke with a startle. He stood up, but fell backwards into the wall and slid down to the ground again once he had felt the effects of the drugs.
‘Shh…’ whispered Tifa from across the room, ‘you were having a bad dream.’
‘What’s happening? Why can’t I walk?’
Red XIII explained the situation to Barret and then continued to tell all of them what he had heard whilst they were all asleep.
‘Basically,’ he began, ‘the Shinra building has been destroyed. Now, I don’t know who actually did it, but it seems that yet again the President is looking for scapegoats to cheer up the people of Midgar. I think they’ve got a little show in store that’s going to be broadcast on live television this afternoon.’
‘And I guess we’re the stars?’ said Tifa.
‘Looks like it. Well, unless we get out of here pretty soon then we’re dead.’
‘Oh yeah, and why is Cid out there?’
‘I don’t know. I think that they are building some new airship model, and Cid’s the best when it comes to airships. They’re forcing him to draw up the pans and help with the construction. As you can see, its been in construction for a long time, and now all that’s needed are the finishing touches.’
‘Mph!’
‘Oh!’ called Tifa, ‘sorry Yuffie.’ Red XIII walked over to Yuffie’s chair and pulled the gag out of her mouth, and ripped apart the ropes on her arms.
‘It looks like the drugs have worn off of me now. Hmmm, it seems my body must have some sort of immunisation towards it.’
Yuffie gasped and crawled across the room towards the window. She hung her head out of it and breathed in a lungfull of air.
‘Wow, that’s better! That thing tasted horrible!’
There was nothing to do here, none of them apart from Red XIII and Yuffie could walk, and after ten minutes thorough searching, neither of them could find a way out of the room. Each of the windows had bars on the outside, and the glass was at lest an inch thick. The door was equally protected, with a tiny window at the top, which when Yuffie stood on top of the chair she could see four heavy locks on the outside. Two armed guards also stood outside on each side of the door, with two more a little way down the corridor. She climbed down from the chair again and sat down. Red XIII lay down by the window again and went to sleep. There was no way they could get out of here, so they had may as well wait until they were needed, and find a way out then.
‘You know…’ said Barret, ‘does anyone actually know where we are?’
‘I mean, we can’t be in the Shinra Building can we? But they were definitely Shinra guards out there, and the walls were covered in Rufus posters…’ answered Yuffie.
‘Rufus?’
‘Yeah…’
‘But he’s dead!’
‘I know, I thought about that too. It looks like either we’re in some place where they haven’t redecorated for a long time, or they don’t know about it yet.’
‘That’s a bit unlikely’ interrupted Tifa.
Barret shifted a little where he was sitting, and sat up a bit more up against the wall.
‘Erm…’ he began, ‘can I tell you a story?’
The rest of the group looked a little puzzled, but let him continue anyway.
‘When AVALANCHE was first formed, we started off by gathering as much information as we could. You know, stuff about the Shinra, where they were based, Mako income figures, building details, that kind of stuff. Now, a member we had back then, his name was Edge, went away for a while. He was gone for weeks, none of us knew where he had gone, and he had left without a trace. Anyway, we’d guessed he had given up and had just gone, disappeared to avoid what we might say or do, so we thought no more of it. But then, one night when we were having a drink in Seventh Heaven he stumbled in, blood pouring from his legs, and he had a case in his left hand. He dropped it on the floor, then stumbled out of the door again.
We tried to find him, but he had already gone, again. We searched Midgar that entire night, looking for Edge, but yet again he had disappeared without a trace. So, we inspected that suitcase he had brought with him. It was President Shinra’s own suitcase, and contained quite a few of his official documents, as well as some stuff we had never imagined.
There was stuff about new projects, even that ‘Neo-Midgar rubbish they were on about a couple of years ago, I mean that thing had been in the pipeline for ages. And there were some other documents in there, including one which might be of interest to all of you.
There was a sealed envelope, and when we opened it there were blueprints and notes on some kind of ‘flying city’. It was supposedly being developed at the time by President Shinra, and was going to be high up in the sky, where no one at the time would be able to reach it, and was to be named Alpha-Midgar.  It would be an impregnable fortress, but what the Shinra wanted one of those for is anyone’s guess.
Anyways, my guess is that we’re here, on the fortress. And no one is going to come and save us.’
‘Wow’ was the only word everyone else could say. This information came as a complete surprise, and no one could have guessed that the Shinra had done something like this. The room was filled with silence for a few minutes, as everyone took all of this in, before Tifa broke the silence.
‘Then…how come no one’s ever noticed this before?’
‘Cid owns the worlds only flying machines, and this is very well hidden.’ Barret answered.
He stood up and turned to face out of the window. Yes, it was true. Barret could see the clouds, but instead of being high up in the sky as they normally are, they were slightly below the base of this thing. The airship was still there, and Barret could see Cid standing there, with a hammer in one hand and a couple of Shinra soldiers standing around him.
As he stood there and wondered what to do next, the door beeped and slid open. Though it came a man, dressed in a green Shinra uniform, with a gun slung over his shoulder. His dark brown hair fell over his eyes, and came down to the base of his neck at the back. His eyes were kind of bluey-greeny, and a cigarette hung limply from his mouth. As he entered the room he dropped the cigarette to the floor, and trod on it with his boot.
‘My name is General Miragliano’ he said ‘but you may call me ‘sir’. I will be in charge of you for whatever is left of your miserable lives, and it is my duty to make sure that you die an unpleasant death. Now, the President has told me to make this execution as intense as possible, so I will randomly be picking each of your names to decide on the order that you will die in. Also, you will be taken to the chamber where you will watch each and every one of your friends die in front of your eyes, before none of you are left. Now, follow me.’
Several soldiers entered the room, and placed a pair of handcuffs on each of the prisoners. Men carrying television cameras entered the room, and began filming the prisoners being dragged out of the room.
None of them could see what was happening, as a brown bag was placed over each of their heads, and the Shinra soldiers took them down the winding corridors in complete silence.
Barret tried to move, but every time he tried a baton was swung into his skull, until he decided he didn’t want to go unconscious. Yuffie attempted to escape, but as she dropped to the floor a taser was shot in her direction, resulting in he being temporarily paralysed whilst the guards picked her up again.
It was a long time getting to ‘The chamber’, it was probably about twenty minutes of being dragged across the floor of this place until they were finally dropped to the floor, and the bags on their heads were removed.
‘Oh…’ Tifa gasped as she surveyed her surroundings. They were outside now, and were on the top of an enormous building. As she looked out, she saw buildings in the most amazing colours stretch out as far as the eye can see, and men dressed in the Shinra uniforms everywhere. There were machines all over the place, and robots scuttled here and there doing various jobs. But the most amazing thing about this place, is that it was nothing like the Midgar back on the surface.
‘Well, well, well…’ sneered Miragliano as he stepped in front of them. In his hands he carried a small computer, big enough to fit in one hand. He turned it so that all of them could see the screen, and although it was so small it was very easy to see what was written on it.
Each of their names ran down the screen, in alphabetical order, and a ten-second timer was visible in the corner. The names ran in alphabetical order, and a small dot was at the side of the top name. Miragliano tapped on the screen, and began to explain what it meant.
‘I will now press this button, and the dot will randomly place itself on one of your names. After the ten seconds shown on the timer are up, whoever’s name is selected will be taken to the execution chamber and killed. The show will be broadcast to the world, and at last this trouble will be over. Also, I believe this is not the first time this has happened to some of you, is it Tifa? Or should I say Barret? Let’s just hope it’s your names that come up first eh, so you finally get what’s coming to you.’
Miragliano tapped the button, and the dot flashed around the screen for ten seconds, before finally stopping. He turned the screen so that no one could see it but himself, and chuckled quietly. Sweat covered Barrets forehead, whilst Yuffie shook madly, and Red XIII closed his eyes.
‘Hehe, you’d better follow me…Tifa.’
Tifas head dropped. She was pulled to her feet by two Shinra guards and dragged across the roof of the building and made to climb down a hatch leading to the inside of the building. The last thing she heard before going down was Barrets voice calling out to her.’
‘Tifa!!!’

‘This is it.’
The old man had said that he would walk no further than the entrance, and he was sticking firmly to it. He pointed to a pile of rubble on the floor and disappeared behind the buildings. Cloud looked down at the pile of rubble on the ground. The old man had led them here, through various sectors of Midgar, over to sector 1, and now here, in the remnants of an old factory. It was difficult getting even here, as the Shinra had put guards everywhere to stop anyone getting into or out of Midgar, but somehow they had made it past.
‘This pile of rubble is the entrance?’ He had been told that sector 1A was a top secret research facility looking into Mako before the Shinra even knew anything about it, and was also involved in attempting to understand the nature of the Lifestream. It was closed down a few years after it had opened though, because it cost too much to run, and strange things were going on. The head of the Shinra’s science departments at the time, Professor Gast, supposedly discovered an amazing secret, which he would not share at the time, and without him everything went downhill. So, the place closed down and everyone apart from Gast who had worked there was killed, to keep the secret safe. The old man was a survivor of the incident, and escaped the labs and lost contact with Gast, so went and took refuge in Kalm instead.
Cloud poked at the pile with a sword the old man had given to him, and a couple of rocks toppled from it, but nothing else.
Cloud noticed the old disused railway track running past a couple of metres from where he was standing, and old train wreck lying there on its side.
‘Hmmm…’ He stroked the stubble around his chin and thought for a minute. It looked like he was going to have to shift the entire pile if the trapdoor was underneath it all. So, he kicked the pile and chucked rocks off of it, stubbing his toes a few times, until it was down to just a few rocks. Sure enough, Cloud could make out a locked metal door on the floor, with the fading words ‘1A’ printed onto the top of it. Underneath was the memorable image: the image of the Shinra corporation.
It was slightly faded, yet just as obvious as the day he first lay eyes on it.  Obviously this door had not been used for a very long time, as very bad rust had formed around the hinges, and the handle which would once have been used to open the door had snapped off completely, probably with the force of Clouds boot.
‘Damn…’ he muttered under his breath. Cloud ran his fingers along the edges of the strangely smooth surface of the door, but not a single crack could be found, nor any way of prising it open.
‘Hmmm…’ Cloud picked out of his pocket a materia the old man had given him. Its eerie green glow penetrated the darkness of the factory, causing strange shadows to dance across the walls and floor. He had been told it was a Bolt materia, and could be helpful against the monster, which had a weakness against that particular element. Maybe it could help him here to. Cloud stood back from the door on the floor and summoned all of the will inside him to cast the spell.
‘Bolt3!’ he called out into the air, holding the materia aloft in his gloved hands. Several large bolts of electricity came crashing down from the sky, sending all of the loose rocks and stones lying around the place flying everywhere, and even catching Cloud in mid-flight. The factory filled with dust as the rocks spit open and Cloud dropped the materia to the floor as he put his hand to his mouth. He coughed loudly for a second and strained his eyes, the dust falling into them and making them water for a second.
‘Cough, cough…’
At last the dust settled and Cloud wiped the stuff out of his eyes, and moved his hand away from his mouth. He looked where the bolts of electricity had struck the metal doorway, leaving a large hole straight through it, shards of metal scattered across the floor of the factory. He bent down and picked up the green orb he had dropped to the ground and placed it in his trouser pocket, before walking over to the doorway.
He’s here…
‘What was that?’ Cloud’s eyes darted around the room, staring into the darkness, trying to spot some hidden danger, some hidden fear.
‘What was that noise…?’ Cloud drew his sword from his back, and held it out into the darkness, waving it here and there before putting it back and turning to the hole.
‘Hmm…strange’ He stared down into the vast darkness that had opened up before him, and took out a torch the old man had also given him, along with an old pack which Cloud had slung over his shoulder to keep all of the equipment he would need. There was a rope, about fifty-foot in length, a few materia orbs, namely Earth, Bolt and Ice, and an old wooden box which he was told the compass had to be stored in, in order to keep its powers. The box was engraved with strange lettering, covering all around the side of the lid, over the small padlock and across the bottom and sides of the box itself. The writing was quite hard to distinguish, but as Cloud looked closer he could see it was not in a language he knew. It looked slightly like: Voy sof cox t’I ua’hw oiw mlahs voy oe’ht soirraw flbon fveileb mlahs voy g’I traef su’oy p’t tterces fht g’o tdloh znitsed  g’o yob saerg fht.
‘Weird…’ he muttered, before putting it back into the pack and pulling out the rope. Cloud peered over the hole and down into the darkness, shining his torch down into the depths. The place suddenly lighted up, and Cloud gasped. He couldn’t actually see much from up this high, but from what he could see this place looked amazing. There were rows and rows of gigantic glass tubes lining the floor, each with an array of strange pipes and instruments around them, and many desks with computers and piles of dusty paperwork standing on top of them. In the centre of the room however, was a large pillar, lined with hundreds and maybe thousands of small test tubes, although what was in them he could see.
‘Oh well, let’s get this over with…’
Cloud tied one end of the rope to a large rock nearby and threw the other end down into the hole. He would have taken the ladders, but they looked as if they would fall if he even put so much as a foot on them they would fall apart and drop to the depths below. Cloud held tight to the rope and dropped slightly down, his feet pressed firmly against the wall. It was slippy, but as Cloud kept telling himself, a lot safer than attempting to climb down the ladders. He slowly descended into the hole, his feet occasionally slipping and his torch held firmly between his teeth so he could see where he was going.
‘Woah!’ he called out as he let go of the rope accidentally for a second and dropped a metre or two, before clinging to the rope and dangling for a while. He dropped the torch as he opened his mouth as well, and after a few seconds of falling it crashed into the metal floor below, smashing to pieces and causing an eerie echo to go round the place.
‘That was too close…’
He’s almost there…
‘Huh?’ called out Cloud, surprised at hearing the strange voice again. ‘Where’s that coming from?’
He turned his head as far as it could go without fearing for his life and then looked downwards, but he could see nothing in the darkness, now he had dropped the torch.  Cloud pressed his feet against the wall again and continued to make his way down, confident that he could do this without suffering the same fate as his torch.
‘Oh no….’
The rope had ended. The old man had never said how far Cloud would have to go down, but fifty-foot of rope was too short. He was at least another thirty-foot above the floor, and there was absolutely no way he could make a jump like that. The ladder still continued all the way down to the floor, as it had obviously been built for that purpose, but it was just too dangerous to even try.
Cloud hung there in the darkness, sweating with the fear that he didn’t have a clue how to get down. He didn’t have the energy to pull himself up again, so the only way was down. But how? Cloud contemplated taking the ladder again, but turned against the idea. If he was going to come up with a way to get down he would do it without doing anything too dangerous, he still had to get back to save Zack.
‘Why isn’t there a spell that makes you float or something…?’ he wondered to himself, before he felt his hands slipping off the rope, and before he had any time to react he had fallen down into the depths of Sector 1A.
 

‘Welcome to the insides of Alpha-Midgar…Tifa.’ The voice was unfamiliar, yet Tifa knew it was one of the Shinra’s soldiers.
Tifa struggled in her position in the chair, but it was too well secured. She was sitting in some kind of large chair, much like the one in the torture room in Junon, but instead of handcuffs there was a type of metal rope, which held her hands firmly to the chair. There was no way she could get out of here this time, not with the amount of security posted around this place. As she had been taken down the corridors she had seen at least two Shinra soldiers posted at every door, and about four posted at the entrances to the outside. Surveillance cameras were at the corner of every corridor and were linked to the alarm system. She could see that because there was a thin black wire leading from every camera into a hole in the wall. She had also been taken past the room with the main alarm systems in, a large room with a computer in linking all of the cameras and all the other security devices into the one place. Sensors were also in place all around the perimeter of the inside, and a small air fleet was in place in an outside hangar to counter any threats. The Shinra sure didn’t want anyone getting in, or out, of here.
‘Well Miss Tifa, I believe it’s about time for the programme to begin.’ At that, several cameramen entered the room and set up their equipment, and then attached a small microphone to Tifas shirt, to hear exactly what she said as she died.
Miragliano entered the room shortly after, still with a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth, although it was unlit. As he stepped into the room everyone stopped and saluted him, before carrying on with their tasks. He took his gun off of his shoulder and held it out to the side of him, before a soldier took it off of him and placed it neatly on the table against the wall.
‘Well, well, well…’ he muttered, ‘we’re really in a bit of trouble here aren’t we Tifa?’
Tifa spat at his feet and turned her head to the left. Miragliano strided over to her and grabbed her neck, forcing her eyes to make contact with his, and threw it back against the metal chair. Tifa winced in pain as the back of her head throbbed, but she didn’t say a word. Miragliano walked over to the wall and leant up against it, lighting his cigarette and blowing out smoke.
‘This is how it is. An electrical chair that can kill you within ten seconds, all powered by Mako. It’s good isn’t it? You’re going to be killed by the same power source that you fought to save for so long. Hehe…I can’t wait. Anyway, you’ve got until the clock hand hits the twelve. And that’s about thirty seconds. Better start saying your prayers.’
Tifa began to sweat even more than before.  Miragliano began to pace up and down the room, the sound of his boots hitting the metal floor the only thing breaking the silence. The only other noise was that of the clocks second hand slowly making its way up to the twelve, and it was almost there now. Tifa closed her eyes and remembered the good times she had had, with all of her friends, playing games in Nibelheim, and then when she was older fighting Sephiroth in the Northern Crater, and helping Cloud find out who he really was inside of the Lifestream. But that was all a fading memory now, with the sound of Miragliano walking over to her and whispering into her ear:
‘It’s time…’
Tifa choked on her tears. She opened her eyes and stared into his, those deep greeny-blue eyes strangely comforting her for a second. He reached over to the chair and moved his hand to hover over a switch near to her left arm.
‘This is the switch that ends it all.’ He said, before slamming his hand down onto the button. Tifa was going to scream, or at least she thought she was going to, but as there was no pain she guessed it must have been all over already. She had slammed her eyes shut as he had pressed the button, but now as she opened them she was greeted with a strange site. She was still in the same room, and Miragliano was still there, holding a Shinra guard up against the wall.
‘Urgh, they’ll get you for this, Miragli…’ he whispered, before his eyes closed and he was gone forever.
‘Miragliano! What’s going on!?’ Tifa called out to him as he dropped the dead body to the floor. Several other bodies were also scattered around the room, a few of them containing bullet wounds, and on the floor just near her chair lay a gun, with what Tifa guessed was the Mark IV Silencer. Only three men had them in the world she had heard, so Miragliano must be a pretty important guy. But for now, she was just scared about what was going to happen now.
Miragliano turned to her and picked up his gun.
‘Let’s go.’
The metal wire loosened on her wrists and Tifa pulled free of the chair. She stood up and held her wrists for a second, before following Miragliano out of the door. Four more dead bodies greeted her as she stepped out, along with a shattered window with several security sensors ripped out and scattered across the room. Miragliano stood outside of a doorway, with some sort of small box in his hand, and a frown on his face.
‘Three…two…one…’
The door exploded in a blinding flash and flew down the corridor, nearly missing Tifa as she dived to the floor to avoid it. Miragliano dropped the box and walked through the doorway. He took his gun off of his shoulder and pointed it into the smoky room, surveying the area for any enemy soldiers.
‘What’s going on?’ Tifa called after him, just as he disappeared into the smoke.
‘Shh!’ he replied before firing a few shots off into the distance, and coming back out of the smoke again. He grabbed Tifa by the arm and pulled her into the smoke, crouching down to avoid a grenade that was flung into his direction.
‘You know how to fight?’ he asked her.
‘Of course…who do you think I am?’ Tifa replied.
‘Then help me!’
He dived onto his stomach and fired his gun into a group of advancing soldiers, and chucked grenades down a corridor to the left. After Tifa had heard the screams of the soldiers that were coming down there, she ran around the corner and landed a neat right hook into one of the survivors’ chins. He fell back into the wall and sank down onto the floor, as Tifa placed a roundhouse kick straight into another’s skull, causing him to crash into a nearby table. As she turned around to check the area, another Shinra soldier attempted to wrestle her to the ground, but Tifa retorted with a quick three-hit combo to the chest, before kneeing him in the stomach and throwing him into the wall. The sickly sound of bones cracking could be hear as he made contact, but Tifa didn’t have time to hear anything as she sprinted after Miragliano.
‘Tifa, get the rope!’ he called to her as she ran into his view. Tifa looked around frantically around the room for a second, before spotting the rope lying next to the wall. She went to pick it up, but was blocked off at the last second by a Shinra guard who had somehow escaped the onslaught of Miragliano.
‘Stop right there!’ he called at her, raising his Weapon to point at her.
‘Not likely…’ she muttered under her breath. Those words were the last the guard was going to hear, as a neat blow to his abdomen sent him crashing into the wall, before being thrown out of the window, down to the surface of the planet far, far below.
‘Got it!’ she called as she picked up the rope. Miragliano turned to her and gestured for her to throw it to him. Tifa complied and Miragliano tied the rope to one of the railings on the wall, before throwing the rest of it out of the broken window. He fired into the window to get rid of the rest of the shards of glass which were still there, and then sprinted over to it.
‘Tifa,’ he said ‘we’ve gotta climb down this rope into the engine rooms below, and get out of here as soon as we can.’
‘What about my friends?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find them. But we gotta get out of here fist before they send more of them.’
‘What’s going to happen to them?’
‘I don’t know. But if most of the soldiers are going to be looking for us, then my guess is that they’ll be in the prison block, underneath the engine rooms.’
‘Ok then, let’s go. But first, can I ask you a question?’
‘Sure, go ahead.’
‘How come you did all of this. I mean, I thought you were a Shinra Soldier, so either you’re a traitor or you ere in disguise. Either way, I want to know why you saved me I the first place, because I’ve never met you in my life, so what have you got to do with me?’
Miragliano sighed and looked out of the broken window. He pulled some hair out of the way of his eyes and dropped his head down, as if in deep thought.
‘The truth is, my name isn’t really Miragliano. I thought you might have remembered me Tifa, after all, we knew each other for so many years…’
Tifa gasped and put her hand to her chest. Distant memories flowed through her mind, thought of AVALANCHE, her first days in Seventh Heaven, and her very first customer…
‘Edge? Edge Preace?’
Miragliano looked straight into her eyes, penetrating them with his stare, looking deep down, as if he was trying to find something, something that had been hidden for so long…
‘I remember the first day we met Tifa. Do you? It was a lovely sunny day, the first warm day of the year in fact, and you were cleaning out Seventh Heaven, ready for the big opening. I walked in and offered to help, but of course you said you didn’t need it, but I helped anyway. So afterwards you invited me for a drink under the stars, and later that night we…’
‘Stop it!’ Tifa shouted at him. She had tears streaming from her eyes, and was trying to wipe them away with a tissue. Edge looked at her in surprise, he wondered why she wasn’t glad to see him, after all, they hadn’t seen each other in years.
‘Tifa, what’s wrong?’
‘You, you left me…and, and you never told me why. I loved you Edge, why did you leave me?’
Edge stared at the ground.
‘Tifa, I…I can’t tell you yet. We’ve got to get out of here now, before any more soldiers come…’
‘No! No Edge, you are going to tell me why you left me now, or I am going to walk away right now and never have to look at your face again!’
‘Tifa, it’s hard to explain…I used to work for the Shinra and…’
‘You worked for the Shinra? So you were a traitor? Or were you just using me, you sick…’
Tifa tried to slap him, but he dodged the blow and grabbed her by the wrists before she could lash out at him again. He pulled her face close to his and stared straight into her eyes.
‘No Tifa! No, that is not how it was. I worked for the Shinra most of my life, I used to be a General, like I was acting as now. But one day I found out about Sector 1A, a place in Midgar where they did experiments just like those at the reactor on Mt. Coral. Everyone thought all they were interested in then was space travel and Weapons, but no one knew about Sector 1A. So I thought about leaving the Shinra, but I knew they would just kill me if I tried to leave. So I stayed, but I joined AVALANCHE because I thought I could have been of some help, because I was on the inside, I was in Shinra, and any information Barret wanted, I could get.’
He let go of Tifa and walked over to the door. He poked his head around the corner to see if anyone was coming, and as he could see nothing yet, he carried on speaking.
‘So one day I thought I would try and steal the briefcase of the President. An easy job for someone like me, as I was in charge of guarding him most of the time. But the day I went to take it was also the day Sector 1A was due to be opened, so I had to go with him all the way down there and witness the horrors first hand. I’m not going to explain everything in detail Tifa, but what you saw in the Mt. Coral reactor was done by Hojo, and what was in Sector 1A was much, much worse. So anyway, I finally decided to make a grab for the suitcase, but as I did, the rest of the Presidents personal bodyguard shot at me. I tried to get out of the way, but I caught a bullet in each leg, and only managed to make it to the ladders out of there without being shot again. As I ascended the ladders there were bullets flying around me all the time, and quite a few Shinra soldiers climbing up the ladder. I kicked a couple down, but one of them grabbed my leg and tried to take me down with him. I was quite near the top at this point, so I threw the case up onto the surface and unholstered my pistol. I put a few rounds into his head, but caught myself in the leg once, and dropped my pistol in a moment of extreme pain. I finally managed to pull myself to the surface, but the alarms had been raised, and I knew I had to get out of there quickly. That’s when I noticed a train was just about to come past on the railway track.  As it came past me I threw myself at the old glass doors they used to have back then and crashed into the carriage of the train. As you might of guessed, the people inside the carriage were a bit surprised at seeing a Shinra General jumping through the door, but I had not time to explain. I waited until we had gone into sector 7 and dived out of the door again, much to the horror of the passer by I almost landed on. So, I dragged myself all the way to Seventh Heaven, where I dropped off the case and then I left again, before the Shinra could find me. I hid out for a couple of weeks in Kalm, before coming back to finish my work. I made my way into the Shinra building by climbing up the centre structure and snook in using an old service lift that used to be there. I made my way to the labs and hacked into a computer while everyone was at lunch, and deleted all of my personal records. My name, date of birth, where I came from, everything. From that day on there was no information about me at all. Officially I didn’t exist. I knew I couldn’t go back in case the Shinra ever found me again, so I lived out a new life in Costa Del Sol, living in a beautiful villa I bought of some guy there. Then, about two years ago, I actually managed to sell the place to some mug and I was out of there like a shot. There’s only so much sun, sea and sand you can take, believe me.  I made my way back to Midgar to carry out my last job. I had to get back in there again. Now, I’d heard about Alpha-Midgar and I thought that the best way for me to get new information and help out AVALANCHE again was to get up there. So I got into Midgar again and hacked into the computers, but this time I entered an entirely new entry for myself. A new name, new date of birth, new everything. I called myself Miragliano, after my great-grandfather who was a famous explorer in the cold mountains of the north, and entered myself as the lowest rank possible. So I stowed away on a shuttle going up to Alpha-Midgar and started working there. Now, as I was already a General beforehand, it wasn’t long before I had risen throughout the ranks back to General again. That was a couple of weeks before you lot arrived, and now this is what’s happened in the end.’
Tifa wiped a tear from her eye, and walked over to Edge, embracing him in a large hug. They stood there for a while, before Edge finally let her go and stood back. ‘
Tifa,’ he said to her, ‘I know we’ve got a lot to talk about, but we’ve got to get out of here, fast.’
Tifa looked away and towards the window, and picked up a rope from the floor. She tied one end to the railings on the far wall and one end around her middle.
‘Okay, let’s go.’
She walked up to the window and climbed out.

Death Gigas pulled out the screw on the right side of his head, blew on it, wiped it down his front, and screwed it back in again. He walked over to the edge of the beach where the water was lapping up around Hellmaskers feet and sat down.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said ‘about Vincent.’
Hellmasker turned to face him and growled in a very low tone, signalling for The Galian Beast to come over and explain to Death Gigas. The Galian Beast picked itself up from where it lay and slowly trudged over to where the two of them sat down by the sea. It looked into Death Gigas’ eyes and began to speak.
‘Vincent will be here soon. I summoned him this afternoon, and he told me he could come here as soon as he had been to Alpha. He got there about an hour ago, so he should be here any minute.’
Death Gigas nodded in acknowledgement and walked further into the sea. He dropped down onto his back and swam out a little, before climbing up onto a rock a little further away and sat down. The Galian Beast looked at Death Gigas and nodded at him. The sky had gone a little darker, and black clouds had came over above them where they sat.
‘The last of us is here…’ whispered Hellmasker. Droplets of rain began to fall from the sky and before long the entire beach was engulfed in a torrential rainstorm. Hellmasker stood up and held his hand above his eyes as he stared up into the sky.
‘Chaos!! Come down, we need to talk to you!!!’
Even before he had finished speaking a large thunderbolt came down from the clouds and struck a nearby rock, smashing it into pieces. A piece of rock flew into The Galian Beasts skull, but he just swatted it away without a second thought. A second bolt flew down and struck the cliffs behind him, causing several large rocks to plummet down into the sand.
‘I…am…Chaos!’ bellowed the demon as it flew down to the surface at an incredible speed, before flying back up again and landing on the top of the cliff. It held its arms out to its sides and closed its eyes, channelling mental energy into its surroundings. After a few seconds of thought, the rain stopped and the clouds dispersed, and all was calm again.
‘Vincent Valentine is here to ask for our counsel, and we must decide what to do about the Cloud Strife incident. He doesn’t know what he is getting himself into, and we need to stop him before he unleashes the power we have feared for so long.’
A little way down the beach from where The Galian Beast was standing, the air rippled and light shone out from an unknown source, creating a portal. Though this portal stepped a figure, clad in a red cloak, his long black hair falling down over his eyes. It was Vincent Valentine.
‘I am here to seek your counsel, and to understand what I must do next.’ he said to the demons.
‘When you were killed your body was infused with a substance which gave you the prize everyone dreams of, the gift of immortality. But you were cursed Vincent, you were cursed to be not human anymore, but to be a carrier for the four demons of the other plane. Them demons are us Vincent, and we help you when you are in need of it, but we guide you as well, and talk to you, and take away the pain from your human body. You know that you are no longer human Vincent, and that you are the symbol of death now and forever more.’ bellowed Chaos.
He flew down from the cliff and held out a materia. It glowed green in its gnarled hands, emitting a warm light upon Vincents face.
‘Go on, take it…’ he whispered. ‘Now, cast the spell held within it, and see what happens.’
Vincent summoned up energy from within the materia and cast the spell on Chaos. A black hole appeared in the ground with whisps of black smoke escaping from the opening, and a small skeleton, no larger than three feet high, flew up from the hole. It was dressed in the same clothes as Vincent, except that it was carrying a large scythe in its right hand and it had no hair on its skull. The skeleton struck put at Chaos, but the scythe passed straight through its body and out the other side again. Then, it disappeared to whence it came, and the smoke dispersed.
‘You see Vincent? The spell you just cast was the Death spell, and the figure which arose from the hole was in the image of you. It is part of your curse, that all death shall be a memory of you.’ Said Chaos.
‘I know all of this already, why are you telling me this?’ asked Vincent.
‘And your Weapon, Death Penalty. Surely you have seen through the name? Death is your penalty, but it is just a step ahead of you. It will always be chasing you, but when you go to catch it, it’s not there. And that, Vincent, is your curse.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?! I know that my fate is pre-determined already, and that it is my duty to live until there is nothing else left, but I did not come here to talk about my life! I came here, to the plane of demons, to ask for your counsel, and to ask for your guidance. Surely you can grant me that without referring to my past, and the life I am destined to lead?’ shouted Vincent at Chaos. The demon flew above Vincent and looked down upon him with fire in his eyes. Wind swept around Vincents body, causing his cloak to billow out around him and his hair to fly about wildly.
‘Vincent, I am trying to help you understand. The events of two years ago are not over yet, in fact they have not even begun. Sephiroth was killed once, so what makes you think he could be killed again. He was arisen at the awakening of WEAPON, and if you do not listen to what we have to say then the final WEAPONS will awaken, and maybe Sephiroth along with them!’
‘Other WEAPONS? But I thought we destroyed them all! Surely you do not mean to tell me there are more?’
‘There are two more WEAPONS Vincent, namely Alpha and Omega. They are not stable together, and can only be woken up in times of the greatest calamity.’
‘But surely Meteor was the greatest calamity the planet would have to face? What event could cause the planet greater pain than that?’
Chaos came down from where he hovered in the sky and stood upon the sand, staring into Vincents dark eyes.
‘The calamity from the skies.’
‘Jenova?’
‘Well, Jenova came all those years ago, but still did not wake them. But if she were to return, then the power she would bring with her would be on such a great scale, the WEAPONS would surely awake, and bring even more destruction to this already ruined planet.’
Vincent’s eyes glowed with anger. He could not contain his hatred anymore.
‘And what of Sephiroth? If Jenova has the ability to return, then what of him?’
‘That is a more difficult subject, Vincent. There is a way…’
‘A way?! Then you must tell me the way, and I will stop it before it is too late!’
‘Vincent, let me ask you a question. Do you know how powerful a man can be once he has achieved complete and utter hatred for someone?’
Vincent sighed and placed a hand on his head.
‘You mean Limit Breaks?’
‘Yes. Now, imagine the power Sephiroth could achieve were he to go into a Limit break. It happened to Cloud once you were at the centre of the planet, and he killed Sephiroth at once. But if Sephiroth were to reach that point of power…’
‘Enough!’ shouted Vincent, ‘tell me how to sort this problem out, and I will get the help of my friends, and end the pain of this planet once and for all!’
Chaos turned away from Vincent and fixed his eyes on the horizon.
‘I estimate that in four days, yes Vincent, only four days, Sephiroth will return. Not as a physical form of course, for he has already been destroyed, but his will can do terrible things to the planet Vincent. The only way to stop Sephiroth is for Cloud to banish himself…’
‘Banish himself…?’
‘You know Paraelix? He must be slain, in order for Cloud to achieve ‘Call of the Planet’.’
‘Such power could not be held by a mere mortal, Chaos, it was told to you at the start of time…’
‘But Cloud is no mere mortal. He has the power of a god, but he must find it in himself to unlock that power. The events of two years ago are not finished yet Vincent, and I trust you can help Cloud in his quest, lest we all perish under the power of Sephiroth.’
‘I will do my best.’
And at that Chaos vanished into the sky, stopping the rain falling from the sky, and at once the sun rose again and the Plain was calm. Vincent closed his eyes and concentrated his thoughts, and materialised back into his own world. The world that was in great danger.

‘I don’t believe you were gonna put a converter for the catalytic process for the engine, where the internal combuster was supposed to go. Boy, you Shinra types really are stupid…ow!’
Cid clutched his head as the butt of the nearest Shinra guards gun smashed over his head, almost knocking him to the floor. He picked up the spanner he had dropped and carried on screwing two metal plates together.
‘You gotta admit it, it was pretty stupi…’
Cid stopped in mid speech as the guard’s gun loomed scarily over his head, so he shut up and got back to work. Twelve hours! Twelve hours they had got him to work, and without a single break too! If Cid had managed to break through the guards around him, then he would have stolen the ship, flew away in it, saved his friends, and then maybe found out what exactly was going on here. All he knew was that the Shinra needed a new airship for something, and they needed him to make it for them. And these men he had to work with were the worst bunch of slackers he had ever worked with. If he had his own way he would have chucked them off of the job and hired some men that actually knew what they were doing.
‘Hey Cid, have you finished yet?’
Cid turned around, only to be greeted by the grubby face of one of his ‘helpers’.
‘Well I woulda finished if you had been helping me, so no. But let me tell you something, if you actually helped me instead of lazing around on your arse, then maybe this ship, which is supposed to help you, would be done!’
The man stared blankly into thin air and scratched his head.
‘I er, I better go tell the boss it’s getting on well then…’
‘Damn idiot.’
Cid watched him walk off and go down the hatch leading to the inside of Alpha-Midgar. He looked over his shoulder and saw the only guard left, the one who had smacked him over the head earlier on.
‘Time to get to business.’
Cid picked up a metal pole he had hidden under a pile of old rags, and then picked up a knife he had stolen from his helper earlier on. He tied the knife to the top of the pole with a bit of old string he had found earlier on, and then tapped his makeshift spear against the wall to make sure it wouldn’t fall apart. It made a small clanging noise as he hit it against the wall, but it didn’t fall apart.
‘Perfect…’ Cid whispered to himself. He walked over to the guard who had turned his back on Cid for a minute, and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Hey!’
The guard spun around and held his gun up as he spotted the spear in Cids’ hand, but Cid was too fast. He knocked the gun out of his hands and kicked it off of the top of the platform, sending it crashing down to the planets surface below. He thrust the spear through the guard and then kicked him off of the top of the platform.
Without a seconds thought Cid ran up to the airship and climbed the ladders into the cockpit. He flipped a couple of switches and the inside lit up.
‘Hey, who the hell are you?’ called a guard who was asleep in the cockpit, and had just been woken up by the sudden humming of the airship.
‘I’m Cid, that’s who the hell I am!’ Cid replied, before delivering a quick hit to the guards head with the metal pole, knocking him unconscious. Cid switched on one more button and the airship came to life, flying up into the air as smoothly as the Highwind once did.
‘Ha ha ha! Just you wait, guys, Cid’s here to get you!’ he called out, before pulling up on the controls to avoid crashing into a nearby crane.  Cid checked the computerised map on the control panel and noticed that the execution chamber was in a different place to where they had told him it was. Probably because they didn’t want a rescue operation going underway, but it was too late now.
‘Where are they…’ he muttered under his breath as he circled the facility and couldn’t see a thing going on. Cid guessed that they would most likely be in the execution chamber area, but he needed to land the airship for that, or crash into the side of Alpha-Midgar.
‘Hmm…I guess if I were to crash it then I could save ‘em…’
Cid directed the airship to take a collision course with the third level of Alpha-Midgar, around the area where the chamber was. The airships rockets turned up to full speed as Cid headed towards the bright silver wall of the structure, pouring out enormous amounts of smoke as the airship increased speed at an alarming rate.
‘CID!!!’
‘Huh? Who was that?’ called out Cid, not noticing where the voice had come form.
‘Cid, over here! Stop the ship!’
‘Holy Chocomog! It’s Tifa!’
Cid saw the shape of Tifa and someone else hanging from a rope out of the window just under where he had planned to crash into, and he was getting there fast. He darted into the cockpit and entered a command into the computer.
‘Collision course command cannot be overridden without correct password.’ hummed the computer.
‘PASSWORD?! Dammit!’ Cid shouted. He didn’t know what the password was, only that the generals of Shinra would know. He frantically hammered the keypad but to no avail, and kicked it a couple of times, much to the same result.
‘Oh Shiva…surely the password can’t be that hard, all it needs is a bit of thought. Maybe if I try…’ Cid wondered. He then tapped a code into the keypad once more, but yet again the computer didn’t react.
‘ARGH! Damn Shinra! Can’t they do anything right?!’
Tifa slid further down the rope in a desperate attempt to get out of the way of the oncoming airship, but Edge was still near the middle of the rope. He clasped his hands tightly around it and shoved his legs up against the wall, trying to abseil down to Tifa in some desperate attempt to save them both.
‘Tifa!!’ he called. Tifa turned up to see Edge come down the rope near to her and stop just above her head.
‘We gotta go through the window below us, into the storage departments!’ Edge told her.
‘But the rope is too short, we’ll be in free fall if we go off of the edge of the rope, and I can’t catch the ledge!’ she replied.
‘Tifa, trust me, you can do this!’
‘But…’
‘We don’t really have a choice if you look at it! So get down to the bottom of the rope and try and grab the ledge!’
Tifa stared down towards the bottom of the structure. Several feet below her was another window with a ledge sticking out of it. The ledge looked like it could fit a person onto it, but it was at least seven feet from the bottom of the rope, and she would have to drop that far and not fall off.
‘Oh Bahamut…’ she whispered to herself. This was it, the moment of truth. Tifa slid down to the bottom of the rope and hung from it. Plucking up all her courage she took her hands off of the rop and for a second she was in freefall.
‘Tifa!’ Cid called from the airship, still kicking the keypad trying to make it work. He noticed that Alpha-Midgar had started to move, and the airship had turned to get to its new destination. Alpha-Midgar was moving through the air now at quite high speed, and as Tifa hit the ledge she was immediately swept off of it and only managed to get a hand on it to save her from a fatal plummet to the ground.
‘Agh!’ she screamed out. She tried to pull herself up onto the ledge but a voice coming on over the tannoy made her stop in her tracks.
‘THIS IS PRESIDENT SHINRA. YOUR ESCAPE ATTEMPT IS FUTILE, YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE FROM ALPHA-MIDGAR. WE HAVE BEGAN MOVEMENT OF THE STRUCTURE TO HINDER YOUR ESCAPE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. AND AS FOR YOU TREILANI, OR SHOULD I SAY, EDGE, YOU WILL BE EXECUTED ALONG WITH THE REST OF THEM WHEN WE GET YOU BACK.’
‘Edge, I can’t hold on…’ Tifa called up to Edge as he struggled to make his way down the flailing rope. Her hands were beginning to slip off of the ledge due to the increase in speed and she couldn’t hold on much longer.
‘Okay Edge, this is it. This is what it’s all come down to.’ Edge whispered to himself. He took one hand off of the rope, struggled to regain balance for a second, and then pulled a pistol out of a holster inside his coat.
‘Here I come Tifa!’ he shouted out, taking his last hand off of the rope and freefalling away from Alpha-Midgar and down towards the ground. He shot the pistol at the wall near to where Tifa was and a small pin shot out, connected to a very thin wire. As the wire reached the end, Edge was immediately stopped in mid-air and thrown towards the structure, smashing face first into the wall. He almost let go for a second, but manage to regain control just before he fell.
‘Ow…’
He was just in time, because at that moment Tifa’s hands slipped off of the ledge and she fell towards the planets surface, but Edge reached out and grabbed her hand before she was out of reach. She hit the wall and Edge struggled to hold her and support his own weight, but he managed in the end and they were safe, for now.
But the threat of the incoming airship still loomed. Cid still struggled with the entire control system and eventually resorted to smashing apart the entire thing with a metal bar. The circuits crackled and electricity flew out here and there as the control panel fell apart. Unfortunately, the ship stopped in mid-air and began to fall to the ground. It had been so seriously damaged it could no longer fly, and Cid was not aware yet.
‘Password entry verified.’
‘Haha! I done it!’ called out Cid in relief.
‘Contact with surface in thirty seconds.’
‘WHAT?! I better get out of here!’ Cid looked frantically around the room for a parachute of some kind, and eventually noticed one on top of a locker. As he went over to it the ship tilted in its descent to the ground and Cid slid across the floor into the wall.
‘Ow! That’s it, now I’m really fed up!’
Cid picked himself up and grabbed the parachute off of the top of the locker, strapped it onto himself and ran to the edge of the ship.
‘Ten seconds to surface impact.’
‘Uh oh, I better go.’
Cid dived out of the ship and pulled the ripcord, bringing out an enormous parachute with the Shinra logo printed onto it, sailing safely high above the now burning wreck of the airship. The wind took him a small way away form it and he landed on the fields outside of the town of Kalm, tangled up in the parachute.
‘Mph! Mmmpphh! Blah, can’t the Shinra even make a parachute easy to work? Dammit.’
Back up on Alpha-Midgar, Edge was still trying to think of a plan whilst holding the weight of himself and Tifa from the small line of the gun. It was beginning to come out of the wall, so he needed to think quickly.
‘Erm, maybe if we swing to the right enough then we can smash through that window…’
‘Anything!’ called Tifa, ‘but we’d better do it now!’
Edge signalled to Tifa to start swinging to the right to get through the window, but she had just came up with another idea. Edge noticed sweat pouring down Tifas face and saw that she was ready to do something else, something more drastic.
‘Combo!’ she called out, and she glowed red for a second whilst a Dolphin appeared and kicked the window through that they were trying to get to. Next she pulled Edge off of the rope and threw him through the window, before following up by a flying kick through it herself, landing in a crumpled heap in the room beyond.
‘Tifa, before you do something like that again, please tell me…’ Edge panted, tending to a bleeding arm after being cut by the window. Tifa picked herself up from against the wall and apologised, before rubbing her eyes to get some of the dust out of them from outside.
‘Tifa?’
She opened her eyes and noticed Yuffie and the rest of the gang in this room, all sitting around waiting for their ‘turn’.
‘I didn’t know you were being kept in here…’ she told them.
‘They decided to put us in here after the rescue operation we heard about started to take place. What exactly is happening, and why is that man with you?’ asked Red XIII.
‘Treilani!’ shouted Barret as he raised his gun arm to Edge’s head. Edge raised his hands above his head and looked at Barret.
‘Long time no see, Barret.’
‘Huh?’ called out Barret, pushing his gun arm even closer to Edge’s head.
‘You don’t remember me? I’m surprised, after all I done for you as well…’
‘Edge…?’
Barret dropped his gun arm and walked closer to Edge, inspecting his face to make sure it really was him.
‘Edge! It is you! But why were you ‘jes trying to kill us earlier on?’ he asked.
‘It was a cover up Barret, but hey, I’ll tell you later. For now we’ve got to get out of here before they found us.’ He walked over to the window and signalled for everyone to look out. A small way away, a transport was parked on the roof of Alpha-Midgar, although the area was swarming with guards.
‘You think we can get up there? You really are crazy…’ mumbled Yuffie.
‘Hey,’ retorted Edge, ‘if you have any other ideas then I’d like to hear them, but if not, then we’d better get going over there.’
‘Excuse me,’ interrupted Red XIII, ‘but where may I ask is Cid? He was over on the ship earlier on, but I have not heard from him in a while.’
‘He’s okay, he fell down near Kalm on a parachute.’ said Tifa.
‘Then why don’t we all do that?’ asked Barret.
‘It’s a little risky…and the Shinra are almost all over us. We don’t want to be shot down in mid air.’ replied Edge.
‘Yeah. But if we were all in that transport thing and we got shot down, then we’d all die. At least we’d have a chance with parachutes.’
Edge sighed. ‘Okay then, on your head be it.’
The party opened up the various cabinets around the room stacked with parachutes and put one on each. Red XIII had the most trouble, as he needed assistance from Tifa and Yuffie to get his parachute on.
Edge walked up to the broken window and pulled out a knife from the inside of his boot to clear all of the extra glass that was still inside it, then turned around to everyone else. He nodded to Tifa.
‘When you land, be sure to roll if you don’t want your legs broken. There’s a good chance that we’ll be pretty far from the intended target, so meet up at Kalm as soon as you can, okay?’
Everyone nodded.
‘Okay then, let’s do this.’

Various figures scurried in the darkness on the Eastern continent, far, far away from each other, yet all making their way to one town. The town of Kalm. Three hours later, the sun rose and the land was full of light once more.

To Day Three
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