Final Fantasy VII Retelling

This is my view of the iconic game that changed RPG's for the better in my opinion. I wanted people to see my favorite game of all time through my eyes.

The stars glittered in the darkness as the train sped through the night towards it's final destination. It was as though the stars couldn't see the turmoil and trouble of the world below them. Or perhaps they held a secret they refused to share to those that lived below them. Either way, Cloud just glared at them as he rode atop the train.

The other four were inside the third car and were likely prepping tools and weaponry. The alarm had started going off inside the train about half an hour ago. Luckily, there weren't many guards on the train, but there would be once they arrived.

The train started to slow and Cloud knew that the train had reached it's destination. He looked ahead and saw six ShinRa guards up ahead. Cloud knocked on the roof six times and waited for the train to come to a stop. Once it had, a woman with short brown hair threw a hard kick into the chest of one of the guards, sending him to the ground. Jessie had made her appearance.

The next was a man with brown hair holding a small bag. His name was Biggs and he took after Jessie and the second to last was an overweight man in a bandanna. His name was Wedge and he, too, followed Jessie and Biggs. The last was a large black man with a gun grafted onto his left arm. His name was Barret and he stopped and waved at Cloud. He flipped off the roof and landed on his feet in front of Barret.

As Cloud took off after the group, he was stopped as four guards rounded the corner, "Freeze!" They yelled as though they were some kind of police force. Cloud just drew his Buster Sword from his back. The blade was too big for anyone to carry, but Cloud was able to wield it with only one hand like it was a dagger.

The guards began firing at Cloud and threw grenades at him. Apparently, Cloud was the diversion as the others got closer to the reactor. Cloud whipped the sword in front of him to block the barrage of bullets that were intended for him as he rushed towards the guards. Once he was close enough, he whipped the sword around like it was nothing and cut the guns in half before swinging his whole body around and cutting his enemies in half like Cloud had those guns.

Once the enemies had dropped, he placed the blade back on his back and rushed forward, finding Jessie and Wedge guarding Biggs as he went to decipher a code to open the door.

Cloud walked up to the group and Biggs smiled, "Wow, never thought we'd have someone from SOLDIER helping us,"

Jessie frowned at this, "Isn't SOLDIER the enemy? Why's he with us?"

Biggs laughed, "Hold it, Jess. He used to be with SOLDIER, now he's with us," He looked back at Cloud, "I never caught your name,"

Cloud looked to him with a straight face and said in a deadpan voice, "Cloud,"

Biggs nodded, "Cloud, eh? I'm-"

Cloud shook his head, "I don't care what your names are. Once this jobs over, I'm out of here," And at that, the door opened.

Barret ran up to them and yelled, "The hell y'all doin'?! I thought I told y'all never to move in a group!" The team broke apart and ran ahead as Barret moved forward a bit and then stopped to look at Cloud, glaring, "Ex-SOLDIER, huh? Don't trust ya," and with that he turned around and ran into the reactor with Cloud trailing behind.

Once inside the reactor, they stood on a three-way bridge. Below them was a lake of Mako energy that would kill anyone that fell in due to Mako Poisoning. He saw Wedge go straight across the bridge while the other turned and went deeper into the reactor. Cloud turned down the same way, following them.

Biggs was working on another locked door while Jessie guarded and Barret waited for Cloud to show up before he started to talk to him.

"You ever been in a Mako Reactor before?" he said plainly.

"Yes, after all, I did work for ShinRa, ya know." He returned in his normal deadpan and bored voice.

"Mako Reactors slowly drain the life of the planet to give power to the rest of the world. Slowly the reactors will drain all the planet's energy and that'll be that," Barret said trying to convey the importance of this mission.

Cloud just shook his head annoyed, "I'm not here for a lecture and I don't care about why you're doing this. Once I have my pay after this job is done, I'm outta here,"

Barret growled in frustration before yelling at him, "Tha's it! You comin' with me from now on!" And as he yelled, the door opened and the four ran into the room where Jessie got to work on the next door.

Biggs stayed in the room even after the door was opened. Cloud, Barret and Jessie ran forward and got into the elevator which took them down slowly.

"The planet's dyin' Cloud, and once the planet's dead everyone on it will die!"

"It's not my problem," He said shortly as though he truly didn't care about the fate of the world. The elevator came to a stop and Jessie ran out first. Cloud and Barret were right behind her though. Jessie went and stood on the opposite end of the platform as Cloud and Barret descended down to the core of the reactor. She remained there, guarding the direction they had come from.

Cloud and Barret walked up towards the reactor and as they walked, Barret smiled, "Once we're done here, this ain't gonna be nothing more then a pile of rubble,"

But Cloud hadn't heard him as his vision blacked out and a headache rang through his head, causing him to hold his head in pain as a strangely familiar voice spoke into his mind, "Watch out! This isn't just a reactor!"

Once the words had been said, the headache faded and his vision returned and Barret was looking at him less out of concern and more pissed.

"The hell ya doin'?"

"Huh?" Cloud said a bit confused.

"Set the damn bomb!"

"Shouldn't you do it?"

"Jus' do it! I gotta make sure you don' pull nothing!"

Cloud rolled his eyes and moved forward, "Fine, be my guest," He said frustrated as he knelt down and set the bomb against the core and put in the time for it. He then heard the sirens go off and the red lights began flashing.

"Heads up! Here they come!" Cloud called out as a giant scorpion like tank dropped from above them, striking at them with it's tail. Cloud back-flipped out of the way and Barret jumped to the side and began firing at it with his gun, moving around the machine.

As the scorpion turned it's attention to the one damaging it, Cloud began to analyze it. He hadn't seen one of these machines when he was with ShinRa but he knew the types of machines they tended to use.

Barret wasn't really one to think things through. If things attacked him, he was going to shoot it. Cloud had a different approach. Due to his training in SOLDIER, he was able to think as though everything was moving in slow motion and move faster then normal and hit harder then normal.

He nodded when he figured out what he need to do. He closed his eyes and focused his energy on the materia in his Buster Sword. The more he focused, the more a green aura surrounded his feet before he opened his eyes a bolt of lightning came down and struck the machine, causing it to shudder and shake.

Cloud had been right. Electricity shorted it and made it stutter. It still seemed to attack Barret who was firing constantly and yelling as he did so, but it's head had turned around and a green light scanned over Cloud.

"Target acquired," it said in a robotic voice before it turned around and launched it's tail at Cloud who dodged and struck at it's tail with his sword in one swift motion. The machine seemed to wince, not from pain but from the force of the blow against it's tail.

Cloud watched its reaction for a moment before he noticed it's tail start to raise. Cloud growled in frustration and yelled to Barret, "Barret! Don't attack while it's tail is up! It's going to counter attack with it's tail laser!"

Barret didn't hear over the gun shots and yelling. Cloud growled and stabbed the ground and braced himself as the tail blasted a laser around itself, striking both Cloud and Barret. who winced. Barret fell onto his back and yelled out of anger instead of pain. A red aura appeared around his feet as a red orb started growing larger in front of Barret's gun due to him charging up an attack.

A similar aura appeared around Cloud's feet as he held his sword up above his head. Barret fired off the red shot that he had grown which tore off it's tail and several pieces of the scorpion as Cloud seemed to vanish from his speed. He appeared above the scorpion with his sword above his head, yelling the name of his attack as he descended on the scorpion, "BRAVER!" he yelled as his sword split the scorpion in half, causing it to fall into two separate heaps on the ground.

Barret was panting and looked hurt. Cloud took out a small blue vial and tossed it to him. Barret caught it and downed it, stretching out his muscles as he was healed by the potion. Cloud and Barret then began taking off towards the ladder.

Barret was up first and took off towards the elevator. Cloud stopped along the path, seeing that Jessie hadn't been following. He frowned and ran to her and noticed her leg was stuck between the pipes on the ground. He pulled her foot loose and before she could thank him, he pointed to the exit.

She nodded and took off after Barret. Barret had left bodies along the way and Cloud had noticed more enemies and turrets to which he disposed of with either lightning or his blade. They rejoined Biggs and kept running as they saw that Wedge had gotten the door opened for their escape. Wedge, Biggs and Barret made it through the door as the reactor started to explode. Jessie tripped on the run towards the door. Cloud quickly stopped and picked her up back onto her feet and the two darted through the blast doors which closed behind them just as the reactor truly blew up.

The explosion was easily seen all over Midgar. The multi-layered pizza that was Midgar was rocked by the explosion of the first reactor of eight that surrounded the city and one person in the middle of the city in a tower like building stood watching the explosion.

Cloud and the others sat in the remnants of the reactor as Jessie planted a second bomb to make sure that they couldn't recover anything from the remnants of the reactor. The rest of them sat in silence.

Jessie nodded, "Alright everyone! Get back!" They all ran away from the reactor as the bomb went off, forcing Cloud to dodge roll out of the door way. Barret rushed out of the building like the flames were nothing and Biggs and Jessie were soon to follow, coughing at the smoke. Wedge finally came out of the destruction having just put out the fire that was on his pants.

"Aw'ight, don' move together an' meet up at the train station!" Barret said and Biggs, Wedge and Jessie nodded in response and took off in different directions.

"Wait!" Cloud yelled at Barret.

"If it's abou' your money, save 'til we reach the hideout!" He snarled back at him and took off.

Cloud growled and shook his head before running up the stairs towards the train tracks. The streets were filled with people panicking and running around confused. Cloud watched one such person run into a woman with a pink dress and combat boots on. He frowned and moved over to her. He didn't know why, but this woman just drew him in. He watched her pick up her basket of flowers and stand, brushing herself off.

She noticed Cloud and walked up to him, "Hey what's going on?" she asked confused.

Cloud didn't want to inform others of his current activities, so he played it down, "Nothing..." He said coldly before noticing the flowers she was holding and again, he was drawn in and didn't know why. "Don't see many flowers around here," He said quietly.

"Oh these? Do you like them? They're only a gil," She said cheerfully. Her hair was long and brown, braided in a ponytail and held there by a pink ribbon. Cloud nodded and handed her a single coin and was handed a blue flower. She then made her way to the train station.

Cloud shook off his thoughts and took off towards the train station himself. He only stopped when he heard a yell, "Stop right there!" came the voice of a ShinRa guard. He growled and noticed that all his exits had been blocked.

Shortly after he learned he was surrounded, he heard the train whistle ring out. The guards rushed after Cloud who took off and jumped from the over pass and onto the train which sped away on it's way to Sector 7.