Editing Final Fantasy VII (section)

===Plot===
AVALANCHE destroys a Shinra Mako reactor in Midgar, but an attack on another reactor goes wrong and Cloud falls into the city's slums. There, he meets Aerith and protects her from Shinra.<ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Aerith:''' You okay? This is a church in the Sector 5 slums. [You] suddenly fell on top of me. You really gave me quite a scare. / '''Cloud:''' ......I came crashing down? / '''Aerith:''' The roof and the flower bed must have broken your fall. You're lucky.}}</ref><ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Aerith:''' Say, Cloud. Have you ever been a bodyguard? You DO do everything, right? / '''Cloud:''' Yeah, that's right. / '''Aerith:''' Then, get me out of here.}}</ref> Meanwhile, Shinra finds AVALANCHE's base of operations and intentionally collapses part of the upper city level in retaliation for the Mako reactor being destroyed, killing many AVALANCHE members and innocent bystanders as [[collateral damage]].<ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Don Corneo:''' Shinra's trying to crush a small rebel group called AVALANCHE, and want to infiltrate their hideout. And they're really going to crush them...literally. By breaking the support holding up the plate above them. / '''Tifa:''' Break the support!? / '''Don Corneo:''' You know what's going to happen? The plate'll go PING and everything's gonna go BAMMM!! I heard their hideout's in the Sector 7 Slums...}}</ref> Aerith is also captured since Shinra believes that as a Cetra, she can potentially reveal the "Promised Land", which they believe is overflowing with Lifestream energy they can exploit.<ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Cloud:''' Why is Shinra after Aerith? / '''Elmyra:''' Aerith is an Ancient Cetra. The sole survivor.}}</ref><ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''President Shinra:''' She's the last surviving Ancient... Don't you know? They called themselves the Cetra and lived thousands of years ago. Now they are just a forgotten page in history. / '''Red XIII:''' Cetra... That girl, is she a survivor of the Cetra? / '''President Shinra:''' Cetra, or the Ancients will show us the way to the 'Promised Land'. I'm expecting a lot out of her. / '''Red XIII:''' The Promised Land? Isn't that just a legend? / '''President Shinra:''' Even so, it's just too appealing to not to pursue. It's been said the Promised Land is very fertile. ...If the land is fertile... / '''Barret:''' Then there's gotta be Mako! / '''President Shinra:''' Exactly. That is why our money-sucking Mako Reactor is a necessity. The abundant Mako will just come out on its own.}}</ref> Cloud, Barret, and Tifa rescue Aerith, and during their escape from Midgar, discover that Sephiroth murdered President Shinra despite being presumed dead five years earlier.<ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Cloud:''' ...Did it get away? Jenova...? / '''Red XIII:''' Jenova Specimen... Looks like it went to the upper floor using that elevator for the specimens.}}</ref> The party pursues Sephiroth across the Planet, with now-President Rufus on their trail; they are soon joined by the rest of the playable characters.

At a Cetra temple, Sephiroth reveals he intends to use a powerful magical artifact known as "Black Materia" to cast the spell "Meteor", which would have a devastating impact on the Planet. Sephiroth claims he will absorb the Lifestream as it attempts to heal the wound caused by Meteor, and become a god-like being in the process.<ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Aerith:''' How do you intend to become one with the Planet? / '''Sephiroth:''' It's simple. Once the Planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to heal the injury. The amount of energy gathered depends on the size of the injury. ...What would happen if there was an injury that threatened the very life of the Planet? Think how much energy would be gathered! Ha ha ha! And at the center of that injury, will be me. All that boundless energy will be mine. By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet... I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a "god" to rule over every soul. / '''Aerith:''' An injury powerful enough to destroy the Planet? Injure... the Planet? / '''Sephiroth:''' Behold that mural. The Ultimate Destructive Magic... Meteor.}}</ref> The party retrieves the Black Materia, but Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into surrendering it. Aerith departs alone to stop Sephiroth and follows him to an abandoned Cetra city. While Aerith prays to the Planet for help, Sephiroth attempts to force Cloud to kill her; after this fails, he kills her himself before fleeing, leaving the White Materia behind.<ref name="jenova">{{Cite book | year=2005 | editor=Studio BentStuff | title=Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω | pages=210–215 | language=ja | publisher=Square Enix | isbn=978-4-7575-1520-8}}</ref> The party then learns of Jenova, a hostile alien lifeform who landed on the Planet two thousand years prior to the game's events. Upon arrival on the Planet, Jenova began infecting the Cetra with a virus, and they were nearly wiped out. However, a small group managed to seal away Jenova in a tomb, which Shinra later unearthed. At Nibelheim, Jenova's cells were used in experiments which led to the creation of Sephiroth.<ref name="SephOrigin"/><ref name="jenova"/> Five years before the game's events, Sephiroth and Cloud visited Nibelheim, where Sephiroth learned of his origins and was driven insane as a result. He murdered the townspeople, and then vanished after Cloud confronted him.

At the Northern Crater, the party learns that the "Sephiroths" they have encountered are Jenova clones who the insane Shinra scientist [[Characters of the Final Fantasy VII series#Professor Hojo|Hojo]] created. Cloud confronts the real Sephiroth as he is killing his clones to reunite Jenova's cells, but is again manipulated into giving him the Black Materia. Sephiroth then taunts Cloud by showing another SOLDIER in his place in his memories of Nibelheim, suggesting that Cloud is a failed clone of Sephiroth.<ref>{{cite video game|title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=Square Co |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=PlayStation|quote='''Cloud:''' Sephiroth! I know you're listening! I know what you want to say! That I wasn't in Nibelheim five years ago. That's it, isn't it? / '''Sephiroth:''' I see you finally understand. / '''Cloud:''' But, I want to ask you one thing. Why... why are you doing this? / '''Sephiroth:''' Ha, ha, ha...... I want to take you back to your real self. The one who gave me the Black Materia that day... Who would have ever thought a failed experiment would prove so useful? Hojo would die if he knew. / '''Cloud:''' Hojo!? What does he have to do with me!? / '''Sephiroth:''' Five years ago you were... ...constructed by Hojo, piece by piece, right after Nibelheim was burnt. A puppet made up of vibrant Jenova cells, her knowledge, and the power of Mako.}}</ref> Sephiroth summons Meteor and seals the Crater as Cloud falls into the Lifestream and Rufus captures the party.

After escaping Shinra, the party discovers Cloud at an island hospital in a catatonic state from Mako poisoning, and Tifa decides to stay as his caretaker. When a planetary defense force called Weapon attacks the island, the two fall into the Lifestream,<ref>{{Cite book | year=2005 | editor=Studio BentStuff | title=Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω | page=58 | language=ja | publisher=Square Enix | isbn=978-4-7575-1520-8}}</ref> where Tifa helps Cloud reconstruct his memories. Cloud was a mere infantryman who was never accepted into SOLDIER; the SOLDIER in his memories was his friend Zack. At Nibelheim, Cloud ambushed and wounded Sephiroth after the latter's mental breakdown, but Jenova preserved Sephiroth's life. Hojo experimented on Cloud and Zack for four years, injecting them with Jenova's cells and Mako. They managed to escape, but Zack was killed in the process. The trauma of these events triggered an identity crisis in Cloud, and he constructed a false persona based around Zack's stories and his own fantasies.<ref name="jenova"/><ref>{{cite video game |title=Final Fantasy VII |developer=[[Square (video game company)|Square]] |publisher=SCE America |date=September 7, 1997 |platform=[[PlayStation (console)|PlayStation]]|quote='''Cloud:''' I never was in SOLDIER. I made up the stories about what happened to me five years ago, about being in SOLDIER. I left my village looking for glory, but never made it in to SOLDIER...... I was so ashamed of being so weak; then I heard this story from my friend Zack... And I created an illusion of myself made up of what I had seen in my life..... And I continued to play the charade as if it were true.}}</ref> Cloud accepts his past and reunites with the party, who learn that Aerith's prayer to the Planet had been successful: the Planet had attempted to summon Holy to prevent Meteor's impact, but Sephiroth prevented it from having any effect.

Shinra fails to destroy Meteor, but manages to defeat a Weapon and puncture the Northern Crater, seemingly killing Rufus and several other personnel. After killing Hojo, who is revealed to be Sephiroth's biological father,<ref name="SephOrigin"/> the party descends to the Planet's core through the opening in the Northern Crater and defeats both Jenova and Sephiroth. The party escapes and Holy is summoned once again, destroying Meteor with help from the Lifestream.<ref>{{Cite book | year=2005 | editor=Studio BentStuff | title=Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω | page=591 | language=ja | publisher=Square Enix | isbn=978-4-7575-1520-8}}</ref> Five hundred years later, Red XIII is seen with two cubs looking out over the ruins of Midgar, which are now covered in greenery, showing that the planet has healed.