For a long time darkness had only meant what it sounded like, darkness. Pure dark. Pitch black. But up until a few hours ago, darkness had a few meanings. To Cloud Strife it meant a permanent hell. A land of horrific nightmares only he was subjected to and to which only he could not escape.
‘Agh!’ he screamed as light filled his eyes. A soft hissing sound was coming from somewhere to his left, although whether it was mechanical or…animal, was something he could not pin down.
Cloud lifted his hand up to his eyes to shield them from the bright light, but wherever he placed his hand the light still blinded him.
‘Where am I…?’ he mumbled, choking for a moment as he felt a small trickle of blood go down his throat. He fumbled around for a second trying to find something to hold on to so that he could stand up, but apart from a stone cold floor there was nothing.
‘You…you came to find me, correct?’
‘What the hell?’ said Cloud as he heard the strange voice. It was very similar to his, but was a little deeper, and once the last word had been said, a small hiss followed. Cloud scrambled around once more and placed his hand on a small piece of metal. Following it along, he found it to be a part of a table, which he then used to prop himself up. Rubbing his eyes to get his sight back, he slowly made out the shape of a human in front of him.
‘Who are you…?’ he whispered. The figure walked slowly over to Cloud, until it stepped into the faint bit of light that was coming down from far above. Cloud gasped.
‘Holy Ifrit!’ he cried, ‘who the hell are you?!’ He fumbled around on the table until he found a metal pipe, which he swung in front of himself, fending away the figure.
It was about the same height as himself, and also around the same build, if maybe a tiny bit slimmer. Its blonde hair, full of dirt and grime, hung around his shoulders, and a tatty looking full brimmed hat covered his face. From what Cloud could see of it, the figure looked almost identical to himself.
Cloud gasped, too shocked to speak, and dropped the pipe to the floor. It clattered noisily on the floor and rolled over to the stranger. He bent down and picked it up, before tossing it aside. As he threw it, he lifted his hand up to his hat.
‘No, I don’t want to see…please…’ Cloud murmured, wanting to both look away and not look away, both terrified and intrigued.
‘You need to know.’ The figure whispered, before taking the hat off and revealing his face to Cloud.
‘No…!’ he cried as he stared straight into the stranger’s face. He was identical to Cloud, in every way, the same Mako fuelled eyes, the same features, everything. Cloud dropped to his knees and tears filled his eyes. He wiped them away, but more took their place, until he knelt there on the floor, in front of a man identical to himself, unable to move.
‘It’s…not over yet….is it?’ he gasped, choking on tears and blood. The man placed the hat back on his head and turned away from Cloud.
‘Do you want to know the truth, Cloud Strife?’ he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he carried on. ‘my name is…Paraelix Strife, an identical clone of yourself. When Hojo made you, he made a backup, just in case of your death. I was kept in complete isolation of the world, yet he told me of everything. The Sephiroth project, Jenova, you…everything. Even though I was kept here, below the planets surface, I learnt more than you could imagine.
But then when you were deemed a failure I was shunned, kept in a cold cage far below where we are now. I stole an empty pistol from a guard who was assigned to make sure I didn’t escape, and began to teach myself how to use it. I became skilled in the art of gunfighting, and eventually taught myself how to use a gun perfectly with both hands.
But then, when this place was shut down, I was to be executed, as I couldn’t be taken to the surface, nor left here. But I fought back, and fled into the darkness, going down to the final level, the MD level, and residing there until I felt it was safe to come out.
And that’s my story. I know that you and I have a destiny, and that what you began two years ago did not finish. In fact, all that you did was stall the impending events, throw a spanner into the works if you will. But I have been waiting here for you, waiting for destiny to be fulfilled. And now I can climb from my living tomb and free this planet of its perils, and finally...finally be at rest.’
Cloud sighed. This was always going to happen, he had known it since the start. He knew there had to be a copy of himself somewhere, but not here, not now.
‘I-is there, an animal, or something down here, with an erm…a compass of some sort?’ he managed to get out. Paraelix looked at him, a glint in his eye.
‘Yeah, yeah there was. Notice the emphasis on the ‘was’ though, because I killed it a couple of days after it was thrown down here. Could have escaped that day, but I missed my chance, dammit. And I took the compass from it as well. A nice one at that. Why, you want it?’ he replied.
Cloud stared at the ceiling.
‘Yeah, I need it. A friend if mine is sick, and if I take it to an old man he’ll give me a buggy to get me to where I can get some medical help.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, the sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can cure your friend right?’
‘Okay, let’s go.’

‘Gimme another drink, I’m still sober’ mumbled Cid as the bartender poured him yet another glass of fine Kalm ale. The rest of the party were sat around the table, sipping at non-alcoholic drinks, as it was only about seven o’clock in the morning. Cid however, had his own reasons for getting drunk at this early hour.
He had bumped into a couple of Behemoth on his way down here (Cid still hadn’t figured out what the hell they were doing in the Midgar area) and had to fight them off, using a shabbily made spear constructed out of a tree branch and a nail, and had barely made it to Kalm an hour ago.
 ‘So, what do we do now?’ asked Tifa. Edge sat back in his chair, staring up into the ceiling. He knew he had to stop the Shinra, again, and the only way of doing that at the moment, was to destroy Alpha-Midgar. ‘
‘I’ll tell you what…if we could get hold of that materia you told me about, we may be able to take out the President and maybe even Alpha-Midgar.’ he suggested.
Tifa sighed. ‘We lost it all.’
‘Edge almost fell out of his chair. ‘You what?!’ he spluttered.
‘That’s right’ butted in Barret, ‘damn party we were at. Someone made off with it all, and we ain’t got a clue who it was…’
‘You lost all of your materia. The most powerful materia on the planet? How in the name of Kjata can you lose all of that?!’
‘Hey, hey…’ chimed in Yuffie, ‘we can always go looking for it, right?’
Edge stared at her.
‘Look for it? Look for it?! Where the hell are we gonna look?’
Yuffie stared at the floor.
‘Hey, maybe she’s right…’ suggested Tifa, ‘I mean, it’s been stolen before, hasn’t it?’
Everyone stared at her.
‘You mean…go to Wutai?’ asked Yuffie.
‘That’s right!’ shouted Edge, ‘all the inhabitants of Wutai steal on occasions!’
‘Hey!’ barked Yuffie.
Cid slipped off of his chair and landed in a heap on the floor with a pool of alcohol around him, before he quietly fell to sleep.
‘Zzzzzzz….’
A worried expression spread across Tifas face. She stood up and walked over to Edge, who had put on a puzzled expression after Cid’s tumble.
‘What about Cloud…?’
‘I’m sure he’ll be okay’ he replied. ‘besides, we gotta get rid of that city soon anyway, or they’re  gonna get us first. And we still gotta figure out what the Bahamut’s going on around here…’
‘Okay…let’s get over to Wutai. We’re going to have to take the Junon boats though.’
Barret sighed. ‘I don’t think I can ever go back there again after what happened. It’s just so…quiet nowadays.’
Memories flicked through Tifa’s mind, of the dying people she had tried to save after Meteor had exploded, of the pain those people suffered, whilst she could only look on, helpless. No, she had to go there, she had to protect the planet, and this was the way to do it.

Vincent picked up a piece of rubble and threw it across the room. Cloud had been here, he was sure of it. He spied a faint trail of footprints snaking their way across the dust, over the ruins of a wall and down behind a small hill. He jogged up over the hill and followed the trail down again, before the trail became to faint to read and there was nothing more to go on.
He had arrived in Midgar only an hour ago, after receiving information from various inhabitants in Kalm that a man matching Clouds description had made his way over here, although when he asked what for no one had a clue.
Now he was searching in the rubble for any type of clue that may lead him to where Cloud was, so that he could get him out of trouble and show him what he had to do next.
Vincent made his way up and over the ruins of someone’s old house and jumped into the remains of what looked like a garden, trampling the few blades of grass left into the dusty floor and vaulting a hedge into the ruins below. He jumped up into the attic of the house ruins he was in and poked his head up through a large hole in the roof, surveying the surroundings.
‘Hey…’
A short distance away Vincent spotted what looked like figures, clad in rags, rummaging through the debris of the former city. One of them looked up and caught a glimpse of Vincent’s head just before he withdrew it into the house, but it was too late. They had spotted him.
Vincent dared to have a peek through a little hole near to where he was crouching, and noticed that there were now three figures coming his way.
‘Time for them to feel the might of the demon!’ he called out in an attempt to startle them. The three figures stopped for a second, giving Vincent enough time to flip out of the attic, land on the floor and pull out his pistols before the figures had anytime at all to react. Upon closer inspection, Vincent could see that the three figures were all male, each one of them wearing a ragged trench coat, and each of them had a holster on the inside of their jackets.  One of them had an eyepatch on his left eye, and his short blonde hair had been tucked away under a cap. He glowered at Vincent as he was held at gunpoint. The next one in line had a hood pulled over his face so that it was impossible to tell what he loooked like, although the long black beard coming out from underneath the hood gave away the fact that it was a man. And finally, the third man in the line had his longish brown hair falling about all over the place, with stubble covering his chin. He chuckled as Vincent pointed the gun at him, turning his head away from Vincent a second as if to mock him.
‘Who are you?’ demanded Vincent.
The third man looked at him and laughed, dismissing the gun with a wave of his hand.
‘There’s no need for guns here. Our intentions are totally honourable, if even more so. Although I believe it is you who is invading our property, so until you tell us who you are, I don’t think we’ll give away our identities just yet, eh?’
Vincent scowled and held the gun at the mans head.
‘My name is Vincent Valentine, former member of the Turks, member of the team that destroyed Sephiroth, and one of the guys who saved this planet from destruction. And yourselves?’ he half-shouted.
The third man took a second to take all of this in and then answered.
‘Well, now that I know you may be on our side, I’ll tell you. We live here, in Midgar. We lived here even before it was destroyed. The three of us here don’t actually know each other, we just met. Anyways, I bet you didn’t know that there is still sort of an ‘underground’ community living here in Midgar did you? We gamble, we kill, we help each other out, just like anywhere else. But we can’t get out with out those damn Shinra troops gunning at us. Dammit! So there are a few of us out here called ‘runners’. We basically stay out in the open for days, maybe even weeks at a time, hunting as many soldiers down as we can and stealing their stuff. It’s an incredible long shot, but as long as we keep killing them and then moving our location, they’ll have to give up one day eh?
But up until a week ago there were about ten of us runners. We make sure that none of us have ever met before or will ever meet in our lives, to ensure that if we see one of the others dead, dying or injured, emotion won’t get the better of us.
So, as you can imagine, it’s a solitary lifestyle, but we’re doing it for Midgar, and we’re going to keep on doing it as long as we can draw breath, to keep those damn Shinra from killing us all.’
‘Then it seems you and I are together then. I take it you are one of these so called ‘Resistance Factions’ that have sprung up everywhere as well yes? But enough of that. I am searching for a man named Cloud Strife. Have you heard of him?’
‘Sorry, don’t have a clue who you’re on about.’
Vincent sighed. He had to make haste. Unless Cloud knew what he was running into, then he could end up dead. He looked back at the three runners and pointed towards sector 1.
‘I heard there was a secret place over there. Do you know anything about it?’
The third runner pulled a pistol out of the inside of his coat and loaded it.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but there’s not much chance of getting out of there alive. Why? Is your friend in there?’
‘I think he may be. I know I am asking a lot of you, but would you assist me in finding him. I am sure I will be able to help you in some way afterwards.’
‘Hmm…’ said the second runner. ‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Tell you what. A load of Shinra people have made their way into this sector and it worries the inhabitants of the lower city. You help us clear out all of them or at least make them call the retreat, and then we’ll help you, okay?’
Vincent took a second to think. He was defiantly going to need their help, so he had no choice but to aid them. He nodded.
‘Okay…’
 ‘You’re gonna have to be on RCV patrol, so that gun you got there ain’t gonna be any use to you at all.’
Noticing the puzzled expression spreading across Vincent’s face, the third runner cleared it up for him.
‘An RCV is a Shinra attack vehicle. It’s pretty heavily armoured, so you’re going to need a grenade launcher or something to take them out. I think there’s about three in the area, so that’s what you’re going to do.’
‘Sure thing, but where do I get a grenade launcher from?’
‘Well, there’s no time to go back to the base so you’ll have to steal yourself one from a Shinra. Just take out one of the guys who are sent ahead of the main lot and then nick nail of his stuff.’
‘Although there is one problem…’ mentioned the first runner.
‘What is it?’ asked Vincent.
‘Well, from the photos we managed to take, it seems that they are trying to surround us and cut us off that way. So, we need to make our way back into the main part of the ruined city and take this like a siege.’
‘Siege warfare huh? Let’s get this over with then...’

Amongst the dusty remains of the Shinra building, residing in the centre of the great city of Midgar, a blackened hand lay on top of the rubble. It twitched one, before stopping again for about three minutes. Then, it twitched again. It stopped again and after about five minutes it began to move, groping the debris scattered around it. At last it found a small piece of metal jutting out of a rock, and it grabbed onto it.
Slowly but surely, the hand pulled and pulled and finally managed to reveal an arm, and before long an entire body ahd emerged out of the rubble.
It lay there, choking, coughing and spluttering, covered in dirt, grime and mud, but it was still breathing.
‘Cough…cough…’
The body lay there for about ten minutes choking on the dirt that had fell into it’s mouth from the buildings collapse, but eventually it stopped.
‘I’m…I’m still alive…’ it mumbled.
Eventually the body opened its eyes, the faint amount of sunlight finding its way through the blackened skies forcing his eyes shut again before they could get used to the light. Finally the body opened its eyes fully and wiped a blood-smeared hand across the face, taking a large amount of dirt that was previously clung to it.
‘Where…where am I…?’ it muttered. Slowly but surely the person pulled themselves to their feet, shakily at first, but steadily when it got used to the sensation of standing once more.
‘The Shinra Building, and…and Vincent. Damn him. I’ll find him and teach him.’
The person went to wave its fist in the air, but had to hold on to a wall again as it almost toppled over.
‘I’ll teach you not to mess with the President of Shinra!’

‘His will is reaching out to him.’
‘Ah, but he still knows what he is doing, doesn’t he.’
‘Thou art wise good sir, but remember, if he were to go there again, there could be no knowledge of the damage.’
‘’Tis true, but were he to have our protection then we could save him. Maybe.’
Into the darkened room entered a large man, dressed head to toe in full plate armour. The armour itself was inscribed with thousands of small runes, all over the armour, and upon his hip he carried a large scabbard, containing an immense sword, the hilt of which was ornately detailed. The head of a serpent was etched into the handle, with the handle itself representing the rest of the serpents body.  On his head he wore a large helmet adorned with gold leaves, and on his back he wore a large red cape, flowing behind him like the sea as he strode into the room. As he entered the room filled with light and everyone could see again, and the rest of the men, all dressed in similar armour but not quite as splendid, knelt down in front of him.’
‘Do we know of his location yet?’ he asked in a powerful, commanding voice. One of the men rose from his knee and bowed low in front of him. As he rose, he took off his own helmet to reveal his face. It was clean shaven, and longish brown hair fell about his shoulders.
‘He has entered Midgar, but has yet to leave sire.’
‘Hmm. Where exactly do we reside at the moment?’
‘In the lake around the village of Wutai sir. We have been here for the last four days. It is my knowledge that we were accidentally dropped here, and that no one has found us yet.’
‘Then they still might find us then.’
‘Correct.’
‘That is good then. As long as they come to Wutai, then there is still hope.’
‘Yes sire.’
‘Sir Gawain, I would like you to continue with your sights, and attempt to see if any of the rest of them are heading this way. Tell me of any news as soon as you get it.’
‘Of course, King Arthur.’
King Arthur spun on his heel and left the room where he entered, plunging it into darkness once more.

‘Light. Tell me this is not light Cloud.’
Cloud turned his head to Paraelix and looked puzzled.
‘What?’
‘Light. This place is dark, yet I have seen light before, and it was nothing like this. Where has all the light gone Cloud?’
Cloud sighed and stared at the floor.
‘When Meteor was destroyed, the dust created after its impact with the planet was thrown into the atmosphere, blocking out a lot of light in places. There’s hardly and light above Midgar at all.’
‘Oh…I see. That’s a shame.’
Paraelix pulled his hat further over his eyes to block the faint amount of light out.
‘I don’t like it anyway, I’ve spent too much time in the darkness.’
‘You’ll get used to it I guess. Anyways, we’d better get back to Kalm as soon as possible with that compass.’
Cloud pulled the compass Paraelix had given to him out of his pocket. It was gold, with a green leaf motif running around the sides of it, and the hands of the compass were pointed with the heads of snakes, the rest of them being the snakes bodies. Cloud put it back into his pocket and unsheathed the sword Paraelix had given him.
‘Let’s go.’
The two of them began to make their way through the rubble of Midgar, stopping every now and again to either catch their breath or to check that they were still going in the right direction, but after a while they stopped after hearing gunfire.
‘Where’s that gunfire coming from?!’ shouted Cloud. Paraelix drew his pistols and shot a Shinra Soldier who had appeared at the top of a hill straight through the head.
‘Shinra…’ he muttered. Cloud turned around and began to run in the direction they were heading, before being stopped in his tracks by a Shinra Soldier.
‘Die!’ the soldier shouted, firing his gun at Cloud.
Cloud was thrown onto the floor by the impact, sliding three metres across the floor before rolling over twice and lying up against a wall. The soldier ran off over the hill, content with his kill, and got shot down immediately by Paraelix.
‘Cloud, no!’ he shouted as he made his way over to Clouds body. He picked up Clouds head and checked for his pulse.
‘He’s still alive…’
He began to search for the bullet wound, but after he had found non he began to wonder what had happened. Cloud spluttered, and opened his eyes eventually.
‘I’m…alive…?’
He lifted his head up and spotted his sword, shattered into many pieces, lying several meters away from his feet.
‘I don’t believe it…someone favours you today Cloud. The sword deflected all of the bullets! I guess this is your lucky day.’
He spun around on his knee and took out three soldiers with bullets to the knees before looking back at Cloud again.
‘Quick, get up before they kill us here.’
Cloud staggered to his feet and picked up one of the dead soldier’s guns.
‘You know how to use that thing?’ Paraelix asked.
‘Of course. I was one of them once you know.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘So let’s get out of here.’
As the two of them made their way up the hill, but a large vehicle coming their way suddenly blocked off their route. They threw themselves to the floor and fired at it, but to no avail. The bullets simply ricocheted off of the hull of the vehicle, although one of them did catch another soldier in the arm, knocking him to the floor.
‘Cloud, what the hell is that?!’ yelled Paraelix, as he spotted some strange animal flying up over the hill. As it came closer, Cloud gasped. It was Vincent. Not in his human form of course, but in the form of the demon Chaos.
Chaos flew over to the vehicle and picked it up with no effort, much to the soldier’s fears. They attempted to escape through the hatches on the sides but as soon as they touched the walls of the RCV they were enveloped in fire, and were subjected to a painful burning death within the metal walls of the RCV.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Cloud shouted. Vincent threw the RCV to the ground and flew over to an escaping Shinra soldier, and flew straight through him at an incredible speed. He turned around to face Cloud and Paraelix and dropped tot he ground. A bright white light shone out of him and when it had passed, he stood there in his human form once more.
‘Vincent!’
‘Cloud!’
Paraelix holstered his guns and ran over to where Cloud and Vincent had gone to, and began to speak.
‘Who the Ifrit are you?’ he asked.
‘There’s no time,’ Vincent replied, ‘we have to get out of here right now. Cloud is in great danger.’
‘Obviously,’ Cloud answered, ‘there’s a small war going on around here.’
‘No, it’s more serious than that. First of all we’re going to have to go and meet the runners…’
‘Runners?’
‘I’ll explain on the way. They were going to help me get to you after this had finished, but now we have to…’ he spun around and smashed a soldier across the face with the handle of his gun, splashing bone and sinew up a nearby wall. He pushed Cloud to the floor as a shell from one of the Shinra’s mortar crew landed dangerously close to them.
‘Go go go!!!’ he shouted as the three of them got up and began to follow Vincent in the direction of the runners base. As they drew closer, they saw that the walls (which were at least twenty feet high and six inches thick) had finally been breached, and the Shinra that were left were pouring in, firing at everyone within. Screams and shouts from men and women, adults and children could be heard, before they were silenced for eternity by the cruel hand of the Shinra.
‘No!’ called Vincent as he surveyed the scene. He immediately unholstered his pistols and fired a full clip into the Shinra, and as soon as they were spent he threw them to the floor and pulled out another two from inside his belt behind his back. He emptied another clip into the Shinra as he ran up the side of the wall and flipped over them, landing on the head of another, breaking his neck instantly. As soon as his clips were empty, Vincent called for Cloud and Paraelix to come over, discarding his pistols onto the dusty floor and taking a machine gun straight out of one of his attackers hands.
‘Vincent, where do we go?’
‘Ho down to the second level. That’s where the inhabitants of Midgar live. You’re going to have to kill every single member of the Shinra in the building though. This is their last stand…’
And at that Vincent shot the man who’s gun he’d stolen from in the head, threw another man over his shoulder and ran into the building.
‘Cloud, go!’ Paraelix called, and followed Vincent into the building. Cloud beheaded a soldier wielding a knife who was running towards him and followed him into the building.
As he entered the main corridor, he stopped for a moment in sheer horror. The entire length of the corridor was coated in crimson blood, bodies of innocent people threw up against them, and trampled across the stony floor. Men, women, children, no one had been spared from the Shinra raid. This was the true face of the corporation. Cold blooded killers.
They had no way of protecting themselves at all, they were only civilians, yet the Shinra had attacked them as if they were a military force to be reckoned with. But, and this was the thing that hit Cloud the hardest, they could get away with it.
‘Damn it! Damn them all!!’ he shouted out, breaking into a sprint, avoiding the bodies strewn across the ground. He jumped over a corpse lying in front of the door and came into the main hallway, and cut down three Shinra soldiers as he entered. Before any of the rest could fight back, he stuck his sword through one of them and punched another in the face, before bringing hiss word out and beheading two more.
‘Die!’
Cloud stood there for a second, catching his breath. Thinking about his next actions, Cloud saw Paraelix enter the room.
‘This is too much. They have to pay now’ he said as he came in.
‘Paraelix, I don’t think anyone in Midgar is going to be alive after today, but swear something to me. After I’ve cured Zack, me and you will destroy the Shinra once and for all, with the help of everyone else.’
Paraelix sighed.
‘Of course. They…caused so much pain to everyone, and…’
He was cut off in mid-speech as a bullet caught him straight in the back, sending him flying into Cloud and knocking the two of them to the floor.
‘Cloud…’ he gasped, ‘run…quickly.’
‘I’ll come back and get you, I swear…’ Cloud called to Paraelix as he dived behind a ruined wall to dodge a hail of bullets. He rolled as he hit the ground, put his sword on his back and dived through a wall that had almost fell apart. It crumbled to the floor as he went through it, and he found himself in the makeshift church of Midgar.
‘Woah!’ he called as he fell the fifteen feet he was up in the air down to the ground, landing on a bed of soft flowers that cushioned his fall.
As Cloud lay there, staring up at the broken ceiling, memories came flooding back to him of the day he first met Aeris.
‘Hehe…twice in two years.’
He pulled himself up to his feet and ran out of the door, intent on locating these so-called ‘runners’.

Vincent sprinted as fast as he could across the dusty planes of the Midgar ruins. He had received a vision during the fighting, summoning him to the plane of demons to receive extra information from Chaos.
As he ran towards the centre of the city, near to the ruined Shinra building where the portal was located, he noticed a figure leaning up against a wall. As he drew closer, he saw that the figure had long black hair, much like his, and was wearing a pair of sunglasses.
‘You!’ he shouted as he recognised the man. He was wearing a long faded coat that had been torn in almost every place, he was covered in dirt and was very, very scruffy, and had various cuts and scars all over his body. As Vincent came to about three meters away from him, he ran up the wall running parallel to him and flipped over backwards, planting an upside-down kick into the mans head as he spun from one side of him tot he other. As soon as he landed, he planted a roundhouse square to his forehead and sent him spinning into the wall, tumbling to the ground.
His opponent flipped up onto his feet and spun around on one foot, tripping Vincent over and smashed into his chest with his fist, sending Vincent reeling into a broken metal fence.
Vincent spun his legs around on the floor and hopped back onto his feet, taking a fighting stance. He ran up to his opponent and threw a flurry of punches his way, each of which were parried expertly with inhuman speed. Vincents arm was grabbed and pulled to the side, leaving a perfect oppurtunity for the other man to kick him twice around the head and spin him into the near wall.
Blood poured out of Vincent’s nose as he jumped up onto his feet, but he was not beaten yet. He pushed back the inside of his black trenchcoat, unholstered his two pistols and emptied two clips at the man. But, as each of the bullets arrived at him, he dodged them with such inhuman speed it made even Vincent gasp.
How can a man dodge bullets?
Vincent’s opponent sprinted up to him and then ran up Vincent’s legs and up onto his chest, kicking him twice in the face before landing and kicking the two empty pistols out of his hands. He stared at the ground, legs apart, breathing heavily.
‘Urghhh…’ groaned Vincent as he landed on the floor in a pool of blood, too confused and weak now to fight. His opponent ran over to him and grabbed him by the leg, throwing him into an old phone box, which had somehow survived the falling wreckage of the Shinra building.
He wiped a smear of blood from his face and ran up the wall in the same style as Vincent, somersaulting sidewards and kicking Vincent in the stomach three times before landing on the floor and picking up Vincent’s two pistols.
He whipped two empty clips out of the inside of his trenchcoat and reloaded each of the pistols with one hand each, before aiming them at Vincent.
Vincent had only just managed to pick himself up off of the floor and wipe the blood obscuring his vision out of his face, when he noticed the pistols aiming his way.
‘No!’ he called as they were fired at him.
He didn’t know how he managed to get out of the way in time, but Vincent back flipped behind a small piece of wall and lay as flat as he could to avoid getting caught by a bullet.  Enormous amounts of masonry and brick fell from the wall and landed on his body, causing him to cry out in pain as the objects pelted him.
‘Damn it!’ the other man called as he tossed the pistols to one side and jumped over the wall. Vincent was there to meet him however, and punched him in the stomach so hard he went right back over the wall again and Vincent hopped up onto his feet and dived over.
Each of them faced the other across the dusty ground of Midgar. Vincent’s opponent took up his fighting stance, as did Vincent. Then, the two of them ran at each other and began throwing punches and kicks at each other at incredible speeds, most of them being parried or reversed but the occasional one or the other, knocking them back or to the ground.
The fight lasted for well over an hour, with neither of the attackers managing to gain an obvious advantage, until finally Vincent managed to hit his opponent square in the face, dazzling him for a second, before grabbing the two of his arms and headbutting him in the face three times, kicking him in the stomach in an attempt to wind him and finally throwing him onto the floor.
He spat on him and sat down on a rock.
‘So, you survived.’
The man rolled over onto his back and stared into the sky, sitting blood out of his mouth and onto the floor.
‘Yeah, that’s right, I survived…’
‘How? How could you survive the blast?!’ he demanded, kicking him once more in the stomach.
‘I…agh…I don’t honestly know. When I woke up, I was underneath the rubble, alive. I managed to get myself out of there earlier today, and then you showed up.’
‘And now I’m going to kill you.’
‘No you’re not.’ The man flew up from where he was onto his feet and punched Vincent in the forehead, making him stumble back into the wall. He followed up with a triple kick to the face and landed on the floor as Vincent lay on the floor in agony.
‘You thought you could beat me?’ he laughed, tying Vincent’s arms and legs together with a nearby piece of wire. ‘Ha. Then think again…’
He punched Vincent one more time in the face, knocking him unconscious, and threw him over his shoulder. He put on a new pair of sunglasses which he had in the inside pocket of his trenchcoat (his old ones had been broken during the fight) and walked off into the distance.

‘What do you mean this is all you have?’ yelled Cid at the ship attendant. The attendant stayed calm even in the face of certain danger and actually attempted to hold Cid back, as he called for his superior officer to come over.
‘What seems to be the problem then?’ he asked, taking a nightstick out of its pouch on his hip. Cid stood back and waved his arm in the air.
‘This guy says the only ship we can get on is this damn titchy one!!’ he yelled at him, pointing to a small boat in the water near to them. Its small sails almost dwarfed the ship itself, and looked as if the cabin could only accommodate four, maybe five people.
‘Sir, I am afraid that the larger boat is reserved for a special guest arriving later on today’ he said.
‘What guest?’
‘The Ambassador of Midgar’
‘What?!’
He is coming over here. After the accident, he needs to get the city back together again, so he is going over to Wutai, with our help, to steal a load of resources.’
‘What?!’ Cid drew his new spear.
‘Ah…’ the officer started, ‘you thought that after everything the Shinra has done, we would still be against them. You don’t know about everything yet.’
‘Everything? What the Bahamut’s going on here?!’
The rest of the party drew their weapons and took up fighting stances.
‘You sicko! After all the Shinra have done!’ Yuffie yelled at them.
‘No no no… you think we would be stupid enough to go against the Shinra this time? They are much more powerful now.’
‘More powerful? But I thought they were falling apart…’
The officer blew a whistle on a string around his neck and the shrill sound made everyone, including the attendant next to him, to wince. Several soldiers came out of the ruined houses on either side of the street, although these soldiers looked better equipped and quite obviously a lot better trained than the normal Shinra troops.
‘SOLDIER…’ hissed Barret.

Zack moaned in his sleep as the old man brushed a cloth damp with water over his sweating head. It cooled Zack down and he stopped talking in his sleep for a while, but as he began to sweat again he began to moan again.
‘The poor lad, he’s having nightmares’ the old man said, wiping another cloth over Zack’s head.

Cloud ran across the fields, blood running from his nose, his legs aching. But he would not stop. He had lives tom save. He had to get over to Kalm and save Zack. Then he had to get over to Midgar and rescue Paraelix, before he could finally get over to Rocket Town and see what Cid wanted him for. He was sure to be mad at him, he’d waited over three days for him now, and he probably wasn’t best pleased. Cloud just hoped that nothing bad had happened to them.
‘Nah’ he said to himself, ‘they’re sure to be okay.’
As he drew near to Kalm he slowed down, taking a sharp left into the town, and straight up the steps into the old mans house. As he entered he finally stopped, taking in a deep breath for a moment before finally walking over to Zack’s bed and sitting down.
‘Aha’ said the old man. ‘I see you have brought back what I requested.’
Cloud threw the compass on the bed and sighed.
‘Was it hard to retrieve?’ asked the old man.
‘Don’t…ask…’ gasped Cloud.
The old man looked over the compass and laughed.
‘You have done a good job Cloud, and now I will give you what I promised. The buggy is behind my house, you can take it whenever you like. And I can finally begin my journey to pray for my friends souls now. Maybe I will meet you again, but if not, goodbye.’
 He held his hand out and Cloud took it, shaking it before standing up and picking Zack up.
‘Thanks very much’ he said to the old man, ‘just be sure never to go to Midgar again. There’s something terrible happening.’
‘I know,’ he replied, ‘I have foresaw it, and I would never go to that place anyway. It is too full of evil for me.’
He bade his farewells and picked up everything he needed. Across his back was a giant harp, intricately made and with beautiful patterns etched across the sides. In his pack he had a dusty book tied with string, a long with a rose that looked as if it was made out of sand, yet was as strong as mithril. And finally, in his hands, he held the compass of all knowledge, the item that had changed Clouds life forever.
‘Goodbye’ he said as he left the house.
Cloud looked at Zack and began to whisper.
‘This is it buddy, we’re finally gonna get you fixed up. I had to find out things I would rather not have, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Now, let’s go.’
He took Zack outside and loaded him into the buggy, which was right where the old man had said it would be, and in mint condition too. The engine started on the first try and lurched forwards, almost into the wall.
‘Woah…’ whispered Cloud as he took control of it and steered it out around the house and into the street. There were several kids playing out in the streets, but they soon moved when Cloud honked the horn.
As soon as he was out of the town, he sped off in the direction of Junon.
‘I’ll be there in no time’

‘Damn SOLDIER!!’ yelled Barret as he was thrown against a wall, his nose pouring with blood. The members of SOLDIER had chained the party up, they were no match for several top class members of SOLDIER, and were in one of the ruined buildings. His gun arm ahd been ripped off and he was in great pain, a pool of blood forming at the base of his wrist on the floor. The officer they had met earlier on walked over to them and pointed to Yuffie, who gasped.
‘Take her away, and put that dog thing in one of the cages, and then ship it to the designated location.’
‘Yes sir’
Two guards picked Yuffie up off of the floor and with a little force, put her in the boot of a Shinra jeep and drove off in the direction of the ships. Another two guards grabbed Red XIII and put him in the boot of another jeep, before getting in themselves and starting the vehicle up.
‘Sir, mission data shows that there were three survivors from the incident in Midgar earlier on. Do you want us to check them out afterwards?’
The officer scratched his chin and took of his cap.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but be sure to be back before tomorrow night.
‘Yessir!’
The vehicle sped off into the distance out of Junon, and after the dust had cleared, all was quiet again.
‘Where are you taking them?’ Tifa called out.
‘They are to be returned to their home towns as bait, although you do not need to know about that just yet do you…?’
Cid snarled but stopped when he noticed one of the members of SOLDIER come over to him, sword in hand.
‘Well at least answer me this. What are we here for?’ asked Tifa.
The officer walked over to her and put her chin in his hand. He brought his face close to hers and began to whisper.
‘Hehe…now my pretty thing. I have you here because you seem to have stumbled upon one of our tops secret plans. I don’t think the ambassador will really want any outsiders knowing about these, so we will have to keep you prisoners for the time being.’
Tifa spat in his face and he drew back, wiping her saliva off of his face with his gloved hand.
‘Hmm…we seem to be having some sort of communication problems here, don’t we? Jack, take her and the guy with the half arm away and get them ready, while I get this young lass and the old guy ready.
‘Old guy?!’ snarled Cid. Tifa looked at the officer in fear and tried to pull back from the two members of SOLDIER holding her, but was thrown to the floor and dragged across the floor.
‘What are you going to do with her?’ Barret yelled after them, but was silenced with a quick blow to the stomach. As he gasped for air, Tifa was dragged into the lift right at the end of the street and as they went down, Barret let out a low growl.
‘I’ll get you for this…’ he muttered. The officer and two Soldier members walked over to Cid and him, standing over them and blocking out the sun.
‘Now, I believe the ambassador will be very interested in your explanation of the attack on the Shinra building.’
‘It wasn’t us…’ Cid snarled.
‘Oh, I know it wasn’t you’ replied the officer, ‘but, it was someone. I need your help to catch this person under the orders of the ambassador.’
‘How can we help you? What can we do?’ asked Barret. ‘If you think we’re gonna help you lot without an explanation that’s good enough, then you gotta ‘nother thing comin’’

To Day Four
To Main Menu