This challenge are sick

I really hope a prospective employer understands the title or can understand its an inside reference.

So we continue with the game and meet Aerith’s loving and caring mother, Elmyra. She's so loving and caring that she asks Cloud to leave during the night so he doesn’t get Aerith caught up in his antics. I understand why some might think she’s an overprotective mom, but she’s absolutely correct. Cloud quickly acquiesces to Elmyra’s logical request and sneaks out after a quick nap, where he has a dream of his mother )not named in the PS1 version), only to be beaten to the gate by a certain flower girl he was trying to avoid. Not sure how she got there before a trained SOLDIER, but flower girls are pretty rough, ya know? The two of them proceed through a ruined highway filled with sentient houses (which may explain why this area is ruined) to reach the nearby seedy city of Wall Market. Before reaching it, Cloud and Aerith have a chat on top of a Moogle slide until the two see Tifa on a Chocobo driven carriage heading toward the city.

They chase after it and, it is here where one of the most interesting events takes place. Fans were curious how Square Enix would do this scene in the Remake, and that scene is what fans call the “Cross Dressing” scene. Cloud and Aerith learn that Tifa has been taken, willingly, to the ‘leader’ of Wall Market, Don Corneo, who is looking for a wife. It’s romantic until you learn he's a sleazy criminal who runs a brothel and then it just becomes creepy. Like, illegal creepy. The less I'll think about the ramifications, the better I'll feel. To reach Tifa, they decide to dress Cloud up like a woman to sneak in. Doing so involves our heroes fixing a fashion icon’s ‘Fashion Block’, beating a muscular gym rat in squats, which are the only required steps. I, however, want Cloud to win for the first time in my playthroughs so I’m going above and beyond. To ‘win’, I miraculously heal a woman of her dietary problems, help a Materia seller spy on an inn, and hang out in a brothel filled with bee cosplayers (during which Cloud has a freak-out and gets his “hp and mp fully restored “ by a large, muscular, man. The two get changed, head to Corneo’s place, quickly get in and meet up with Tifa. She’s surprised Cloud would do such a thing and tells them of her plan. She wanted to know what The Don knew about Shinra’s plan for the slums. Anyway, all my hard work paid off and I got to marry The Don that night. Until he tried to kiss me and my female cohorts ruined everything. We then threatened him with genital mutilation. He tells us the plan (he’s into that), which is, Shinra is going to drop an entire upper plate (high-class city) on the slums to destroy AVALANCHE and blame it on them. And then, via Loony Toon physics, drops us into the sewers. Normally, I hate sewer levels since there’s usually no running water in RPG, but FFVII actually has bathrooms and, therefore, a need for sewers so it works here.

There we fought a boss who attacked with sewer water but was felled with little effort. We even quicklyer exit the sewers and roam through the Train Graveyard. This is another quick dungeon where the only real challenge to a veteran player are the ghost enemies who are randomly targetable and untargetable. We finish here, walk past the train station we left from, and try to save as many as we can from a falling sky. Tifa asks Aerith to save Marlene and, after we see Wedge, one of the AVALANCHE members from the bombing missions fall off the plate support, make our own way up. We see the other members of the team, Biggs and Jessie, who we say our goodbyes too, and meet back-up with Barrett.

We’re then ambushed by the guy we saw in Aerith’s church as he plants a time bomb. We beat him up, learned he kidnapped Aerith, and he blows up the support beam leading to an FMV where the plate collapses as power and TV stations stutter. The next scene is the three of us, in the park Cloud and Aerith saw Tifa at, as Barrett grieves his fallen comrades, neighbors, and home. The party goes to Aerith’s house to see Marlene and plan the next move.

Elmyra informs us of Aerith’s past. Elmyra is not Aerith’s real mother, rather, the two of them met in front of the train station as her real mother died. Aerith is the last of an ancient race called The Cetra, who can hear the cries of the planet and talk to dead people as they, “return to the planet”. The party heads back to Wall Market to figure out how to raid Shinra HQ, learn the collapse caused a way up from Wall Market, buy batteries for an unknown reason...and there I called it a night.

So far, nothing has changed in my challenge run. My characters are still not up to their jobs, yet. Cloud still can’t add elements to his attack. Barrett can’t debuff. Tifa lacks everything but Chakra. But, we’re getting closer to when they can. Trust me on this, things are about to get good. Until them, I can only attack, which sucks, but what can ya do.

I’ve also decided I will be duel-classing.
Barrett will be a Mediator from Final Fantasy Tactics. He’s gonna have the debuffs and is a leader of a somewhat successful organization.

Tifa will be the knight because I don’t want ANOTHER healer, even though she has the worst HP, defense, and strength right now.

I’ve caved and I’ll make Asrith a Geomancer. I’ll just give her Quake in Kalm and call it good. It’s not like...um...

Cid will be my Time Mage, because I’ve always wanted to run one, but never could for various reasons.

Vincent will be my Dark Knight (or as close as can be) because...why not?

No clue about Cloud. Maybe I’ll cheap out and make him a Chemist. Or jack up his HP and call him a Viking? I can also use steal if I go that route so...I will. Cloud will be my Spellblade and Viking.

Tomorrow I raid the Shinra HQ, free my friend, and gain my purple mage!