Ordnance

Chapter One: ERYX

"Look Kid, I'm not about to let a liability join my team."

"I'm not a kid." The blond said defiantly, his eyes never leaving the pacing man's form. He knew he was small for twenty one; he knew that he probably looked no older than fourteen at most, but dammit, he wasn't a kid. There was no way this man was more than a few years older, either.

"But you are a liability." Statement of fact.

"I won't be." He tried not to clench his fists any tighter. If his nails drew blood now they would only scab over and cause problems later. He had to be able to prove himself. He couldn't afford distraction.

"We'll see about that." The scarred brunet gave him a once over, eying him as though he might crack under too much scrutiny – attack the soldiers…again. "It's a wonder you weren't – that they still accepted you after that display."

That display.

He almost cringed. The man meant yesterday when he had blanked out and forgot where he was. No one had been able to reason with him – he nearly killed five men. It had taken the base nurse to calm him down.

With a flower, no less.

He could only imagine the impression he had left amongst the regular troops, and had no doubt that he had made quite a few enemies in that short span of insanity.

But the base commander had seen something in him, apparently, and he had been allowed to enlist – only to be placed under the command of this stone-faced man of ice who didn't seem too pleased with the idea himself.

"You pull a stunt like that again without orders and I'll see to it that you're put down for good. I won't have you endangering the lives of my operatives because you have some issues you can't deal with. Do you understand that?"

He had no doubt in his mind that at this point the other man could snap him in half, regardless of his deceivingly lean stature. He would train though, and he would become stronger than that bastard. He would become stronger enough to defeat anyone who had ever looked down on him, ever made fun of him…a match for even the great General himself. But…under orders?

Was there a point when he'd be given orders to brutally attack members of his own squad?

…would he do it?

"Yes, Sir."

"Where the Hell did you even find a nail bat on this Base." The dark haired man muttered to himself as he ran a hand tiredly down his face, over the scar at the bridge of his nose, sliding to rest at the base of his neck. It was the gesture of the tired; of the exasperated. Of the over-worked.

He chose to remain silent, as much because the statement wasn't directed at him as because he didn't know the answer himself. One of those beneficial offshoots of momentary insanity.

"Lockhart will show you to your barracks for now." The man turned his back, casting the blond one last look. "We'll go over procedure later. We operate a little differently than the army here, our squad in particular; you may have some adjusting to do."

…

Sora's gaze was distant as he lolled his head back against the plaster, hand drifting and gliding against the perfectly maintained walls.

The room was white. Sickeningly pristine white, and almost blindingly so.

He hated this room. But Kairi loved it.

Well, not Kairi, Namine. Namine loved the white room. The box like room. She liked to paint here, splashing colours across the papers they indulged Kairi and filling the space with her imagination and dreams. But the papers never stayed here. They took them. They took them beyond the white room and into the world the room's inhabitant saw only rarely, and only then to splatter the world with red. Never blue or yellow; only red.

There was that one time the target had spilled his coffee, leaving a brown stain across the room's wallpaper dripping, dripping. Splash. Surprise!

He giggled softly to himself. That had been a fun day. Roxas had like that.

There was a hand on his shoulder now, and silver hair tickling his nose. He batted idly at it, still snickering. The hair's owner caught his hand, tugging it gently in a silent request for his attention. He was different, that one. He didn't have someone living inside of him. Not anymore.

He killed him.

He was evil.

Not like Roxas. Roxas wasn't evil. Vengeful and depressing sometimes, but not evil. He couldn't imagine what it was like to kill a part of you and still want to live. But that's what made Riku strong. Stronger than him, at least.

They had told them, the men in the lab coats, that they were special. Gifted. Sora didn't feel special.

He liked the games they let him play. Most often it was Seek and Destroy. Riku liked those games too. Kairi didn't. She liked the staged games better, though she said Namine enjoyed cleaning up after them. Positioning the targets; arranging the aftermath into a tableau.

None of them liked the scientists.

They came with their chemicals and their needles and their machines and their false smiles. They came with silky words that no one could really believe, and they came with the evil man.

He had greasy black hair and round glasses that always slid off his too narrow face and hooked nose. He was the man who smelt like the chemicals they injected and faintly of something else, something darker. Sora didn't like that smell. He was the harbinger of nightmares and feverish delusions.

The girls he sometimes brought with him were somewhat nicer. The taller one, with long brown hair trussed up in a tail of sorts – a tail on the back of her head! – she always looked sad, and was gentler than the dark man. The shorter one, she smelt faintly of engine grease and the cars they sometimes rode in on their way to paint the world red. Namine whispered that she was doing the man with the foul mouth and temper. Namine liked knowing these things. She and Kairi liked watching when Riku came to him.

Roxas liked her best because she wasn't really a scientist. How Roxas knew that without Sora knowing was beyond him. He was sure that Riku would have an explanation for that. He had an explanation for everything.

Sora liked it when Roxas spoke to him though, even if the boy didn't like talking to Riku much. Riku and Roxas didn't get along very well. Roxas didn't really get along well with anyone. He had to be careful.

He rolled sideways, landing on a rather unsurprised Riku, giving the boy's shoulder a pat or two. And another, just because it felt nice.

"I want to get out." He mumbled against his chest in lazy drawl. "Namine's bugging me."

"Kairi's asleep, Sora." The silver-haired boy responded dully, hands clasped behind his head.

"Not Kairi," the brunet poked at a hole in the other's shirt, his fingers prying at it, watching in fascination as it grew, "Namine. She says she's going to draw me again. Why is she always drawing me?"

"Maybe she likes you." Riku yawned, rolling over to face the wall despite Sora's heavy weight on his chest. The brunet wriggled and readjusted, sprawled over the older boy's side, his nose touching the cool plaster.

Riku couldn't hear Namine. He had never been able to. Roxas he could, when Sora let him talk. And back when he had that evil man inside him…that was probably why Roxas didn't like him, even now. That man had hated Kairi too, but Sora couldn't understand that. How could anyone not like Kairi? She was a princess!

"Can we leave now? Roxas is bored." He began scratching rhythmically against the wall only inches from his nose. Scratch scritch scritch scratch scratch schritchity. White powder? He sneezed.

Riku called him a prince sometimes. He liked those moments. He could still remember having a crown once – a silver one on a chain…but how could you wear a crown if it was on a chain? The memory confused him.

Riku shifted beneath him in protest. "We have to wait until they explain the game. We can't play without toys."

Well that was only half truth. They could play without toys. Kairi was especially good at that. But Sora knew that the door was locked, and he really didn't have the energy to open it at the moment. He never had the energy it seemed, but for some reason he never seemed to care.

Apathy.

That's what Riku called it. He knew it was something to do with the chemicals they kept bringing in their white coats and glass tubes and needles, and he knew somewhere in that apathetic mind of his that he had a reasonably good idea what they were, and what they were doing to his system. But that was another affect, wasn't it. It dampened his ability to think, to react. It wasn't until they were let out that they were allowed to function again.

Riku had said it was because they were dangerous. He thought that it was because they won too many of the games.

Sora had said that they didn't have to win the games then. He had tried to lose. Riku had yelled at him then. Riku yelling was terrifying, and he seemed to grow and look more like that man that he had killed, the evil one that had tried to hurt them all. He didn't like that Riku. He had never tried to lose since.

"Open the door, Riku." He whined, rolling over onto his back, his sharp hips digging into the soft flesh of the other boy's side.

"Why should I?" Apathy. There it was again! Why was it always there? That simply would not do. Well, maybe a little. Doing nothing was nice. Wait, there was a reason he wanted out of this godforsaken room of blinding white and lack of windows and attempting to be unconscious Riku and Kairi.

He wanted to see what the greasy man would do. Wanted to see with a morbid curiosity that arose from a boy who had long forgotten what it meant to live without the meddling of those who viewed him as both a pet and an experiment; a monster and a tool.

"I wanna visit Matron. She likes it when we visit."

"We've never visited Matron."

Sora dug his fingers into the silver mess of Riku's head, absently tugging handfuls as he thought. There was a muffled sound of obligatory protest. "She might like it."

She seemed like a nice lady. Leon had said that she liked orphans…and they were kind of like orphans…he thought. At least, as soon as he remembered what an orphan was, he was pretty sure he qualified. He hoped he did.

His awkwardly painful cushion log began to move in jerky protesting movements, and it took the brunet a moment to realize that this was due to the fact that said cushion log was in fact Riku, and that motion generally meant he was still alive.

It also seemed to mean that he was going to open the door. It was nice when things worked out. To commemorate he began to hum a jaunty little tune he'd heard once and away. It sounded an awful lot like the funeral march, but then, he hadn't heard that many songs in his life.

"I don't see why I'm the one doing this. You're better at this type of thing than me." The teen grumbled as he deposited himself under the lock.

That was a lie. Sora was grinning like a maniac now that freedom was in sight. They both knew that Sora was best at making things that moved still. And often in more pieces than when it began. Riku was good at that too.

They made one thing two; Kairi made two things one. Or three – but they had told her that from now on her use of ribbons and glitter would be limited to special occasions. She hadn't liked that much.

"Door's open." There was a harsh click in the white, white room, and the almost unperceivable shuffle of cloth. You're in trouble!

"What're you doing?"

Sora flinched at the hand clamped down on his shoulder. Small hand. Girl's hand.

Kairi.

"You woke up."

"I woke up."

"She woke up." Riku supplied helpfully.

"Kairi woke up." Sora's grin grew as he nodded; Roxas was right.

"I restate, what're you doing?"

Oh. OH! Sora gestured to the open door and the girl nodded encouragingly.

"We're going out."

…

He didn't like this.

He had only been there a few hours, and already he knew that he was in far deeper than the army had ever been. Whatever this was would be far more…involving than drill sergeants and cardboard cafeterias. Here there was no risk of court marshalling. Here there was only one way out, and he was quite certain it would happen with his back turned. He didn't trust the man in red at all.

So he had tried to be a soldier. It was obvious he had failed that. They didn't take crazies in the army.

They took them here, it seemed.

It would explain why he was now in a barracks rooming with new team mates who where all afflicted with some abnormality, be it obsessed with trains, thought they were vampires, questionable transvestites, kleptomaniacs…he wasn't sure what was wrong with their squad captain yet, but it was certain that there was something. It looked like you couldn't be assigned this job unless you'd proven yourself psychotic. But he was assured that they were all apparently the best in their field regardless, which led him to be more than a little worried. If he had actually killed those men, he wondered where that would place him.

"What did you say your name was?" The one he could swear was a man, if it weren't for the pretty face and the glaringly obvious bust. Aggressive.

"Strife. Cloud Strife, Sir."

"I think I know you." She was obsessively tugging at her long dark hair as though trying to remember something buried deep.

"I really don't think so," He did his best to ignore her as he sat down on his bunk, "Sir."

It was hard. Well, harder than he had expected. He wasn't sure what it was that made him think that the bunks here would be any softer than the ones at the base, but there was still that niggling surprise. Maybe that the government took better care of those that were mentally disturbed. But then again, what government trained them as assassins.

He eyed the pillow despondently. It looked more like a pillowcase than an actual pillow. He bet Leonhart had better accommodations; down duvet and high-count linens. Probably had three civilian issue pillows too. That bastard.

"Not Sir. Tifa." She let it go, obviously not caring enough to press the issue. "Here you'll only find two people ranked higher than you: Matron and the General. Leon too, for a bit at least. He's kinda the unofficial leader while the General's busy. Gets the officer's quarters at the end too."

The General…but –

"General Sephiroth?" He narrowed his eyes, his fist clenching in the overly starched sheets, "I thought he was dead."

She gave him the look that he had grown accustomed to over the years; the one that he found ridiculously funny to come now from her. She thought he was crazy.

"He's been working here for over five years now. Even the army knew that much."

He flinched and cast his eyes to where his sheets had torn. Huh. Clearly they didn't make sheets like they used to. Or it could have been the inhuman strength that had been the by-product of those experiments he would rather forget. He thought he'd go with the first answer.

"Hey…" The deceivingly female team mate was watching him closely now, hands fisted at her waist. "Let's get out of here; get a drink or something."

"What for?" There was a hole. A hole in his sheets. For some reason that thought refused to leave him, and at the same time made him horribly sad.

"To celebrate. You're one of us now." She grinned down at him, offering a hand he had seen her punch through a wall not even an hour ago.

One of us! One of us! One of us! His mind chanted gleefully as he stood, ignoring her hand carefully. Who was she joking?

"Do they have better swill here than the last place?" He had to glance back at her when she didn't respond, hesitating as he saw her maniacal grin. "What?"

"I think you just attempted a joke. Failed, but now we deserve two." She quickly linked their arms and began pulling him along.

"You're buying." He muttered.