Chapter 1- Mako, worms, and Zack Fair


"Morning Mom, Dad."

"Morning Jade." They replied.

Their daughter, Jade, covered her mouth as a yawn escaped her. Sluggishly, her pale hand grasped the door of the fridge and yanked it open, revealing some whole wheat bread and eggs. The brunette opened the bag of bread, fried an egg and began to eat tiredly. It wasn't a tasty breakfast but food was food.

Lazily, her brown eyes drifted over to the newspaper grasped in her father's hands. She was never big on newspapers. It was a waste of taxpayer money; everything could be found on the internet. She followed the grey oversized paper as her father flipped to the next page.

A few seconds passed before she went back to her breakfast. A few more passed when her father exclaimed, "Well would you look at that," Jade raised a brown eyebrow questioningly but didn't voice her thoughts. Her mother did it for her.

"Look at what dear?"

He just folded the newspaper in half and thrust it in front of him. His calloused finger pointed to a picture and the headline.

Zackary Fair Promoted to SOLDIER 2nd Class

Growing up in a backwater town is difficult. Growing up in a backwater town, joining SOLDIER, and having enough talent to get the first class SOLDIER Angeal Hewley to become his mentor, is outstanding. Zackary Fair is a remarkable young man. Within a year of joining, he went from infantryman to SOLDIER second class; a truly remarkable feat indeed. Shinra is putting the future in good hands.

"Our boy is growing up fast. I knew SOLDIER would be good for him." Jade's eyes narrowed when they landed upon her mother. That woman didn't know the half of it.

"That's exactly what I said. I only wish we had another child exactly like him." Even though he didn't say it, Jade knew he was silently implying something. Her parents were never impressed by anything she did but when Zack did something even remotely good, they'd praise him like he was a god.

The brunette made a barely audible 'tsk' sound before she picked up the slice of half-finished toast. "I'm going to school. I'll see you later." She grabbed her backpack that was filled to the brim with textbooks, binders and a compact touch screen laptop and stepped out of the stuffy house.

As soon as she was outside, a gust of wind picked up. The different smells of Gongaga wafted under her nostrils. It was earthy with no mako scent.

"Odd," Jade said out loud as her black running shoes made contact with the dusty earth. With each step, a cloud of dirt rolled over her feet, coating her black sneakers with a layer of red dirt. Ever since the reactor burned out and raw mako leaked into the soil, nothing was ever the same.

Nothing grew in the small town. Barely any residents lived there. The ones who did were fools who survived the death of the reactor and stubbornly, continued to rebuild their lives. The total population of the town was 30,000; a dangerously small amount of people. They were 'old school' as in; they still hold dear the beliefs of their ancestors. One would joke that Gongaga was a large cult.

The new generation however, was lost. They were caught between the practices of the old and the ideals of the new. The 'new' being Midgar with more job opportunities and freedom.

Because of this power struggle of old and new, many children and teenagers turned to substance abuse as a way to cope. Some even committed suicide; they didn't want to live in a world where their parents push them to becoming what their ancestors were. Many of these children and teens had to choose between their parents, their future or death. Many chose the last one.

The ones who got caught in the crossfire of beliefs, unsure of what to do, turned to substance abuse. Normally, it was alcohol and smoking but now increasingly, people turned to mako as a way to solve their problems. These were usually the rich kids or regular kids that couldn't kick the habit.

Liquid mako was a fluorescent green liquid with small, coagulated bits of solid crystals in the mix. When injected into the blood stream, it takes seconds to kick in. The user would feel all of their senses heighten. They would temporarily become stronger and match a 3rd class SOLDIER in battle. It was the most common form of mako and it was easily collectable, at least for Jade.

The teen walked to the outskirts of town where a fork in the road separated mainland Gongaga and the mako reactor. Her bag wasn't really filled with textbooks and binders but the laptop was in there, along with some supplies to harvest the liquid mako and 'purify' it.

But before the collecting could happen, she needed an injection herself. The brunette reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small syringe full of mako. Quickly, the needle sunk into her skin and the fluorescent liquid was gone, pumped into her veins.

Jade put the container back into her pocket as the effects of the drug started to warp her mind. Slowly but surely, her eyesight went to 40/20, as sharp as the eyes of an eagle. Her ears were able to detect even the faintest scurrying noises of a mouse. Her nose was able to sniff out the scent of different humans within a two mile radius.

The teen knew all sorts of monsters thrived near the reactor. She had to be on guard. It wouldn't be that hard due to her temporarily enhanced senses. A pale hand removed the spectacles on her face and pushed them into her jacket pocket; she wouldn't need them. For the moment at least.

After a five minute hike, Jade finally found what she was looking for; the burned out mako reactor. A smirk spread across her heart shaped face. Her feet dug into the red dirt like it was jelly and made depressions around two inches deep as she ran into the reactor. The power of mako was magnificent, even if it did last for a short while.

The reactor, when burned out, split in two. An entrance formed where the metal shells cracked. Deep beneath the planet's surface laid the drill that was used to suck mako out of the lifestream. That was where Jade's profits lay.

The young woman stood on top of the metal shell. Her mako induced blue eyes stared deep into the crevice. With her enhanced eyesight, she could see it; the liquid mako at the bottom. Without even the slightest hesitation, the young girl dove headfirst into the old reactor.

That was a mistake. Not only did she land on her hands, she had managed to gain a variety of cuts and obtain a sprained wrist. She gritted her teeth as she dipped the sprained hand down into the lake of pure mako. A tingly feeling washed over the limb, as if the energy from the lake was trying to burrow into her pores.

When the feeling stopped, her hand was as good as new. No bloodied cuts or a sprained wrist. It was as if nothing happened.

Jade set her backpack down and pulled out her laptop, pipette and some test tubes with caps. While the digital device was booting up, the teen loaded her test tubes to the brim with liquid mako and stuffed them back into her backpack.

A small 'ding' echoed through the reactor, signifying her laptop was ready to be used. Her fingers furiously typed away and her mako blue eyes scanned at the coding of each program. She worked the laptop for fifteen minutes before a triumphant grin spread across her face and the laptop snapped shut. There, her school grades had all been changed to an 85% and her attendance was wiped clean of any misses. She would just look like a regular student to anyone who checked the records.

A scurrying noise snapped her out of her cocky trance. The girl looked around frantically. No one should know she was here. The noise gradually grew louder and louder. The scraping of claws against the cold metal, the barely audible hum of wings beating rapidly reached her ears.

Before Jade could react, something slammed into her back. The buzzing was right by her ear along with the clicking of pincers. The smell of rotten flesh assaulted her sensitive nose and instantly, she recognized the creature; a Kimara Bug.

Her gloved hands reached behind her head and grasped two insect legs. The brunette knew what these things were capable of. Her uncle died at the hands of the oversized bug. "Get off!" In a desperate attempt to dislodge the monster, Jade jumped and rolled forwards so all her weight would be used to crush, or at least damage, the bug.

A sickening squish, coupled with the last breaths of the insect, fell upon her ears. The teen stood shakily and glanced at the carcass before packing up her 'stuff'. A monster had already attacked her. Who knows how many more there might be?

Her mako enhanced muscles pulled her body out of the reactor with ease. Glowing blue eyes scanned the surrounding area, making sure there were no trespassers. Once the coast was clear, Jade made a beeline for her home, slamming the door shut once she got in and running up to her room. Mother and father were out work.

Heavy pants escaped the teen. She had just sprinted several kilometers and the mako that was pumping through her system had almost been burned out. It was just a matter of waiting until she looked 'normal' again.

"T-the mako… I-is it safe?" She stuttered and numbly walked over to her bag. When the mako in a person's system starts to burn out, they begin to experience side effects. The effects aren't normally too severe ranging from mild headaches to vomiting, to having an out of body/ distorted experience.

Shaky fingers unzipped the bag and dilated pupils saw the tubes of mako were… perfectly fine.

Jade breathed out a sigh of relief before hiding the bag under her bed and stumbling over to the bathroom. A nice hot shower would help burn out the mako residue in her system.

Stripping herself of her blood, sweat and mako-active insect guts clothes, she carelessly tossed them into the hamper and basked under the showerhead. Hot water beat against her pale skin, turning it a pinky hue.

Waves upon waves of nausea washed over her until she felt the clenching of her stomach. The brunette fell onto all fours as acid traveled up her esophagus and reached the back of her throat.

Jade hadn't the time to get out of the shower and to a toilet. Instead, her back arched and, with a final lurch, she vomited. The acid and undigested food flew out of her mouth like a waterfall. Bits and pieces of what looked like toast floated around her before going down the drain.

Tiny bits of crystalized mako clung to the shower wall stubbornly, not wanting to go down the drain. It was disgusting. The washroom smelled like vomit and death. Jade knew she had to get rid of it and soon. Her parents would be home at 8:00PM.

The young girl pushed herself onto her feet. The mako had been cleared from her system by vomiting however, the little concentrated mako crystals were something to worry about. That had never happened before.

A dry heave went through her body as she coughed violently. Like a cat hacking up a hairball, Jade hacked up a spherical mako crystal the size of a marble. "Fuck."

She shut off the showerhead and watched as the vomit and bits of mako swirled down the drain. Quickly drying off and hiding the marble sized bit of mako in her pocket, Jade stepped out of the shower feeling better than she had been in a long time.

While toweling off her hair, her phone buzzed.

"Hello?"

"Regular place ASAP." The line went dead.

Jade stared at the device in her hands before redressing. Small hands grabbed the bag of mako and she fled out the door. It was one of her clients whom regularly bought 'liquid earth' from her. They needed another dose.

The brunette saw her client at their regular spot; the park. No one ever came to the park anymore due to the increase of mako enhanced monsters in the area. It had to be a quick in and out procedure. Gil for mako.

"Do you have it?"

"Yes, regular amount?"

"Yeah," The exchange was quick. A couple thousand gil for a few vials of mako and they were done; gone their own separate ways until next time. Jade knew it wouldn't' be long before he'd come crawling back. Her clients always did. They were completely dependent on mako and needed refills every two weeks.

The dealer was back in her home in less than twenty minutes. The gil in her pocket was heavy. She would need to hide that from her parents and where better to hide it than in her stuffed animals? Quickly ripping the Velcro clasp that held the two flaps of fluffy cloth together, the brunette stuffed the wads of gil into the money filled animal before pulling out her laptop.

Her thick glasses rested on the brim of her rounded nose, the lenses reflecting the light of the screen as she typed in her password. Jade was never good in social situations, nor did she excel in the sports but she had an uncanny ability to manipulate any sort of technology she touched. In other words, she was an elite hacker, a black hat and cybermanic.

Jade had been working on a long and difficult personal project; hack into Shinra databases and change Zack's information. It had been over two months now and she made a lot of progress.

Upon looking at a family picture, she knew it wasn't fair. He had gotten everything; everything she'd ever wanted. Zack never had to work a day in his life. His 'good looks' and 'impeccable social skills' did everything for him. Heck, even when she had brought home all A's, and he'd brought home all D's, their parents always coddled him; told him how proud they were.

No matter what Jade did, she was always behind Zack. She was always the second, the flaw, the imperfection. Well no more. She wanted Zack to feel what real dedication and determination was like. She was going to make his life as difficult as possible.

So far, Jade had broken through three of Shinra's firewalls, an impressive feat for anyone less than a Turk. The fourth one however, it was unbreakable. She'd tried everything from Rootkit programs to Keystroke logging but nothing worked.

Jade chewed on her bottom lip as her brown eyes scanned the lines upon lines of code. Her fingers worked furiously; typing away, trying to crack the code. Earlier, she had implanted a worm in the Shinra system via email sent to a very specific employee. He was a red headed Turk who was known to be a womanizer. What better way to lure out the fiery haired Turk than with a big fat email labeled, 'Nude Pics of Cristain Iswart?'

The youngest Fair was sure the womanizer Turk would fall for it. Sure enough, he did. She watched as the worm tunneled deep into Shinra files and their databases. All she had to do was wait until the worm entered the SOLDIER data bases. Then, screwing up Zack's life would be as easy as taking candy from a baby.

It would take some time for the worm to reach it's destination. She had time to kill. Just as she opened Google Chrome, her phone buzzed. Pale hands typed in the password and read the text message from a new number. They wanted a large amount of mako.

Quickly cross referencing the number, Jade made sure it wasn't from any Shinra employees before responding. They would meet up at the Gongaga mini mall; a public place. There was no use getting killed over mako dealings.

Jade brought a few vials of mako on her person before stuffing her bag with empty syringes that would impersonate the mako vials and went out the door.

The mall was in the center of town, a mere fifteen minute walk from Jade's home. Once she arrived, her phone buzzed again, the text message telling her to head over to the benches by the frozen yogurt stand.

A man was waiting there when she arrived. Her eyes narrowed. He looked to be around his mid-twenties, not bad looking. Brown tufts of hair stood up in all directions, complementing his face quite nicely. Based on the clothes he wore, Jade would estimate he was a wealthy middle class man. She'd be able to milk roughly ten thousand gill from him.

"How many did you need?" Jade smiled and sat down beside the man. From passerby views, they looked like old friends reconnecting.

He caught on fast. "Your entire stock." His teeth were shown as he smiled. They were ridiculously white, almost blinding.

"Of course, but it is going to cost you." The brunette continued her façade of the happy little girl.

Her client smiled; one that didn't quite reach his eyes before he reached into his pocket. Jade's eyes widened as she saw the wads of a thousand gil bills. Holy crap! This guy was loaded. "I have plenty more where this came from. I want your entire stock." It took a while for her to recover from her shock.

"Of course. When do you need it by?"

"Tonight."

That was going to be difficult but not undoable. "Sure. Meet me at the main park at," She glanced at her phone. "7:00PM." Her parents wouldn't be home until eight.

The man nodded before stuffing the gil back into his pockets and walking away. Jade copied his actions. She was giddy during the walk home. In that wad alone, there was at least 100,000 gil! That was enough to buy a motorcycle!

Jade couldn't wait to get her hands on all that gil. After stuffing her bag full of mako vials, she headed out to the park. It was 6:45PM. She was still early. The girl sat under a tree, waiting for the man to arrive and make the exchange.

"Did you bring it?" A voice startled the girl out of her thoughts. She whipped her head around to see the man from earlier on the other side of the tree. When did he arrive?

The brunette cleared her throat and unzipped her bag, showing him the vials upon vials of liquid mako. "This is all I have at the moment; 26 vials." The male with the spikey hair nodded and took out a bag full of thousand gil bills.

"1,000,000 gil." The exchange went smoothly and Jade had a skip in her step as she entered her house. A million gil… that was enough to buy a house; no, a mansion!

As soon as Jade shut the door, she saw her parents on the sofa, looking at her with disapproval and disappointment on their faces.

"Jade Fair… where were you?" Her father pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose as he halfheartedly glared at his daughter.

"Sorry dad, I had to stay a bit afterschool to work on my extracurricular project." Her outdoor shoes quickly came off as she walked towards her family and flopped down on the comfortable sofa with a thump.

"I was researching the effects of mitosis and what happens when it stops prematurely or stops mid- life. Agent Orange was a drug used in chemical warfare that caused pregnant women who drank the contaminated water to have defects in their children. Their babies were born without eyes and deformed limbs." Jade was lying through her teeth. She just needed her parents to believe it. Being a biology and technology nerd, it wasn't difficult. Just use big, scientific words they don't understand.

"Anyways, that's premature mitosis. Mature mitosis happens when the cells don't multiply and therefore, don't heal the body. My hypothesis is that during metaphase, chromosomes and chromatids fail to separate. Mature mitosis is genetic and the 'mutation' should be on one of the four nucleotides: thymine, adenine, guanine and cytosine-"

"-Okay, just go and continue to research the subject." Her father waved her off, too annoyed and confused to deal with his daughter's biology ranting. A small smirk spread across the girl's face as she grabbed her bag full of cash and headed to her room.

Jade stuffed all the gil into her money filled animals and checked her laptop. Bingo. The worm had finally found the SOLDIER databases. Today was a good day.

Her slender fingers altered small amounts of Zack's info. It was mostly age, middle name and social security number. If her predictions were correct, Zack would have 'lied' about his information and would have to go through a bunch of legal procedures. He would be suspended from SOLDIER for a certain amount of time to fix all of the altered information.

A click to the 'Enter' key and all was completed. Her brother's information was updated. Let's see how long it would take for him to get suspended.

Jade surfed the web for a while, monitoring her worm on the side to make sure it didn't get detected before she logged off. She still needed more information on her brother and what better way to do that then to send an undetectable worm into the system?

A content smile spread across the sixteen year old's face as she charged her laptop and flopped down on her soft, comfortable bed. She couldn't wait for everything that is to come; more money from her mysterious new client, Zack's suspension and her parent's semi approval. Ah yes, today was a truly good day.

Jade changed from her day clothes into her Pj's and climbed under the covers. She took off her thick rimmed glasses and set them on her night side table before turning off the lights.

The only source of illumination throughout the room was the moon light shining through a small sliver in the curtains. The moonlight danced on the floor for a few moments before clouds covered it. The sky darkened and the telltale rumble of thunder rolled over the town of Gongaga.

Heavy rain droplets fell from the heavens above. A storm had arrived.


Well, it has been a while since I updated. Lets hope this story will be better than Brother, Father, Mentor, Lover. What do you guys think of the story so far? It will start getting interesting in the next chapter or the third chapter.

Storm Caleum