Cloud and his friend Jay stared in horror at the large black wolf that was sitting in front of them as it dropped what appeared to be the head of a dragon that it had walked over with it in its mouth. The wolf stared at them happily with plumes of dust puffing up into the air every time its tail hit the ground as it wagged happily.

General Sephiroth, Commander Genesis, Zack and his mentor stared at the wolf with various degrees of shock on their faces and with various degrees of gore covering them.

"Did that wolf just decapitate a dragon and drops its head at your feet?" Angeal asked calmly.

"Yes," Cloud said weakly. The wolf stepped forward and put his head against Clouds chest. Cloud scratched the wolf behind the ears instinctively and he, it was a male, gave the cadet a wolfish smile.

"Is this the pet you were talking about?!" Zack asked incredulously. Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal turned to Zack.

"PET?!" Genesis shrieked. "That is no pet!"

"How did he find you?" Jay asked staring at the wolf, who was acting more like a puppy than anything else at the moment. Completely ignoring everyone but Cloud.

"I told you that Shade was smart," Cloud told Jay defensively, the dark haired teen shook his head in resigned amusement.

"You named it Shade?" Zack asked looking at the large black wolf. Standing it was taller than Sephiroth with glowing red eyes. The pupils looked like stars. Cloud blushed and stammered something.

"YOU have a WOLF for a pet?!" Genesis looked appalled.

Cloud nodded his head, but didn't look up. To be honest, he was wondering how this had happened. After all, dragons don't usually get lose in ShinRa and Cloud was very sure that Shade shouldn't fit through any doorway. Or at least, he didn't seem like he should have.

"How did that happen?" Someone asked, at this point Jay was fairly certain that Cloud was going to pass out he was blushing so hard.

"Cloud just found a wolf pup and raised it," Jay said.

"What's up with the glowing red eyes?" Zack asked now completely unafraid. That had Jay blushing. Cloud looked up with a glare at his friend who suddenly found his shoes very interesting.

"I might have... dropped Shade into a pool of Mako as a pup..." Jay said embarrassed.

"I doubt that dropping him into a pool of Mako once would produce eyes like that." Sephiroth pointed out. Jay's blush deepened.

"Jay dropped Shade into the Mako pools more than once," Cloud muttered, every one of the enhanced SOLDIERS ears caught that line.

"Well, no matter what happened to its eyes it can't stay here," Genesis snapped eyeing the wolf warily as Zack started to pet the wolf. Shade wriggled happily to face Zack and a long red tongue, that didn't seem quite wolf, licked the Second class SOLDIER.

"Well you can't kill it!" Zack told Genesis quickly jumping to the wolf's defense. Genesis had a habit of killing things. Angeal groaned, this was not his day.

"Him," Cloud corrected quietly.

"Can you send him back home?" Jay asked Cloud hopefully. The look on Cloud's face clearly said, 'Are you stupid? This wolf goes where he pleases and is not going to go back home without me just because I tell him to.' Genesis had to admit that was a very impressive expression. Almost as good as Sephiroth's. Almost being the key word.

"It can stay in my room!" Zack said excitedly. The others stared at him.

"No," Angeal said. Zack was staying with him because Zack hadn't moved out after being promoted to Second Class. There was NO WAY he was having a wolf in his apartment.

"Please," Zack gave his mentor his puppy dog eyes. Angeal looked at Cloud whose large watery blue eyes staring up at him.

"Only if you two train very hard," Angeal told them sternly.

~Four months later~

"I can't believe it," one of the cadet instructors was telling another. Angeal paused to listen.

"I can't either," the other instructor said.

"If I didn't know better I would have thought that Cadet Strife was born to be a SOLDIER." The first said. Angeal liked the sound of that.

"Four months ago he was the weakest in the class, now he's the top of his class." The second agreed.

"Wonder what changed."

"I don't know, he's been tested for drugs and steroids. Two Third Class SOLDIERS were put on his tail two weeks ago. We would have heard if Strife was doing something illegal." At that moment two bemused and slightly alarmed Third class SOLDIERS walked down the hall. The two instructors turned to face them expectedly to learn what the Cadet had done to improve so drastically.

"Cadet Strife is doing nothing illegal," The red haired one informed the instructors.

"Then where is this massive talent coming from?!" The shorter instructor asked.

"He and Zack are working hard. I honestly didn't know that it was possible for the human frame to be so flexable." The dark haired SOLDIER added.

"Or so durable." The red head commented.

"So he's getting extra training from Second Class SOLDIER Zack?" The taller instructor clarified.

"No, they're training each other." The dark haired SOLDIER replied.

"What could Strife teach Fair?" The short one asked.

"How to disappear and get into places he has no reason to be in." The red head smirked. Angeal had a bad feeling about this, what had changed in the past four months? He almost dropped his coffee. The wolf. He was glad that they were improving, but he was also now worried about what they were learning. What was Zack teaching Cloud and what was Cloud teaching Zack?

"Doesn't he do that anyway?" The shorter instructor said skeptically.

"Yeah, but apparently Zack is blackmailing the Turks with whatever he got from their offices." Dark hair said. That got a few moments of silence.

"Don't believe it." The instructors said simultaneously.

"Strife was learning how to break bones last time we checked," Red head shrugged. This earned a scoff.

"Strife doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Kid wouldn't hurt a fly." Short said with a frown.

Angeal left quickly. He walked to the training room that Zack had been using for the past few days. What he saw was two young teens fighting a monster that no cadet should be near so early in training. To the First's surprise Strife and Zack finished off the beast quickly. Zack and Strife also seemed to be on the same skill level. He turned on the volume to see if he could hear what they were saying. It was new and only a few people knew that it existed.

"Training together was the best decision ever!" Zack cheered.

"Wish Jay had joined us," Strife said.

"I don't think that he liked our training schedule." Zack said with a frown.

"He called it 'the pit of insanity' if I remember correctly." Strife replied. Zack was using a large blade, but the blond was using a far smaller Kanata which suited his smaller lithe frame.

"I thought it pretty bad myself, but it's really paid off." Zack said. "Who knew that crawling on the ceiling was so good for stealth and arm strength." He grinned.

"Do you think anyone else has figured out it was us?" Strife asked Zack.

"Doubt it." Zack said with a feral smile. Angeal was fairly certain that was new. Strife smiled back just as feral. And so was that. "After all, you are from a backwater town."

Angeal was really starting to worry.

"Such a backwater town." Strife agreed tilting his head in a movement that brought old memories to the front. Memorries that he and the rest of SOLDIER had been repressing ever since the war. It wasn't possible, Strife was such a nice shy kid... there was no way that he could be a Chiati.

"You really should stop hiding your abilities," Zack scolded Strife. Strife blushed.

"Makes it easier for me to blend in, until Shade came." Strife said with a sigh.

"So what's the name of your horse?" Zack asked eagerly. Strife smiled lightly. Angeal hoped that there were horses wherever this kid was from.

"I named him Vincent. Everyone one else calls him the Watari Devil." Strife replied.

Zack laughed. "Just like Seph!" He said gleefully.

"Who do you think they named the General after?" Cloud said nimbly stretching. He really was just as flexible as the Chiati who were practically a group of contortionists. "The main debate is who caused more damage."

"Your horse must be nasty to have that kind of rep." Zack started doing squats.

"Yep, nastiest Stallion. Voted during the war." Cloud said.

"So your saying that nice little Cadet Strife with those big blue eyes is the rider of the most terrifying creature we've ever met." Genesis said looking up from his book.

"That's what I heard," Angeal said. "You don't seem surprised that he's a Chiati." He told Sephiroth.

"How could I not know? His every movement screams it." Sephiroth commented.

"When did you notice?" Angeal practically demanded. He had no fond memories of the Devil Stallion and knowing the unusual bond between the horses and riders of the Chiati made him shutter. It was as if the horse reflected the innermost parts of the rider. Devil Stallion and Cadet Strife were not a pair he would have ever considered. In the brief time he had spent with Strife he had seemed very shy and kind. The Stallion that he remembered was strong and not really silent. It was powerful and fierce. Not at all afraid to make it very clear that he did not like you and was going to take you out.

"The first time that I saw him," Sephiroth said calmly. "When the new recruits arrived. He was obviously still adjusting to being without his mount and being surrounded by people he didn't trust."

"I just thought that he had dyed his hair," Genesis said thoughtfully. "That isn't a very common color, but not as uncommon for a Chiati."

"Who may or may not have a sadistic streak five miles wide that we all missed." Angeal said bluntly.

"I'm trying not to know what you are talking about." Genesis said pointedly.

"Then you don't remember how a Chiati's mount will follow them anywhere." Angeal said finally bringing up his point. Genesis dropped Loveless.

"You don't think that..." Genesis said horrified. A similar look of horror was on Sephiroth's face. The Turks would have loved to have seen it, Genesis couldn't help but think.

"A wolf followed him here. Who's to say that the Devil won't?"

Zack and Cloud sat on top of ShinRa and watched the Turks and SOLDIERS run around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. Several of the monsters in Hojo's lab were running wild everywhere. Someone had left most of the doors open so they could get pretty much anywhere their feet, tentacles, or whatever they had took them. It had taken a long time for the three to get the monsters placed exactly where they wanted them to cause the most chaos. Jay had been particularly happy placing one next to the Turks office.

The two were silent. Something that Cloud had taught Zack so that they wouldn't get caught. They smiled widely and the wild laughter in their eyes would have made it very clear to anyone who could see them clearly that these two had either done it or knew who did.

'Who would have thought you could be such a prankster?' Zack signed with his hands to Cloud. That was something the Chiati had taught the young SOLDIER as well. Darn useful at the moment as the SOLDIERS and Turks screamed bloody murder. Shade was nowhere to be found. Cloud had given him the command to 'Stay'. One of the few commands that Shade would hold for hours.

'I grew up with three of them, had to learn to stand on my own.' Cloud signed back.

'Ready?' Zack asked with his hands.

'Ready," Cloud replied.

'Yes,' Cloud replied. The two actually had a reason to do this named Vincent Valentine. The very person that young Cloud had named his horse after.