Chapter 2

"You seem cheery for someone who just failed his mission."

Those words were the first to greet him as Zack stepped off the elevator and onto the SOLDIER floor. Any other day he would have been bristling at the implication that he could fail, because Heroes couldn't fail and Zack was going to be a Hero, but as it was he was far more fascinated by the red materia sitting innocently in his palm. He was just a Second, only first could check out summon materia from the company stores. He'd used them of course, but only in training. He'd never held on to one for this long before. Most other materia went quiet when not being used, but this one was still warm. Still alive and sparkling. "Eh, the guy was alive, if a poisoned popsicle. I'd say it went well."

He grinned up at his mentor, easily picking out Angeal's bulky form leaning against the wall. Zack was still giddy that Angeal had picked him to work with personally out of all the other Seconds, so he could put up with jabs at his abilities if he had to.

"Your opinion doesn't go on record, you know." In two steps Angeal was next to him, and strong fingers were fluffing his hair. As much as he was expecting it, Zack still responded with an indignant "Hey!" but the force of his glare was completely negated by the grin on his face.

"What've you got here Zack? Spoils of war?" Angeal noticed the glittering orb in Zack's hand, and he released the Second in order to get a better look. Zack uncurled his fingers, and the bright hallway lights had the orb sending red reflections onto the surrounding walls.

"I found it in the snow! If it weren't for this guy our popsicle would have been monster chow." Zack beamed. Angeal hummed in response, plucking it out of Zack's grasp to inspect it. The orb flared under Angeals' magical probing.

"I'm not familiar with this one. The magic feels strange." Angeal popped a second summon materia out of his bangle, holding one in each hand. Zack noticed the difference immediately.

"It's smaller. And brighter." Next to Angeal's materia, Zack's shown like a small sun. Granted it wasn't very bright in itself, but the larger materia's glow was much fainter, nothing more than a glimmer.

"Correct." Angeal tossed it back, counting on Zack to catch it, "Your homework is to figure out why that might be. Now get on over to the Materia Department. They'll decide if you can keep it."

"Yeah, yeah." Zack grumbled, waving his empty hand, "Man. Homework already? And it's book work. Slave driver."

Zack heard Angeal chuckle, and once Zack was out of his sight the SOLDIER got rid of his pouting look. Angeal'd been kinda down recently since his best friend had been deployed to Wutai. Zack didn't know Genesis well, nor was he particularly keen to get to know him. The rumor mill pointed toward him being a rather difficult person to get along with.

But he was Angeal's friend, and Zack could understand that.

Soon he reached his destination, and the red lettering announcing the Materia Department slid into the wall as Zack stepped through the automatic door. He hadn't been in here much. Only Firsts had access to the Materia Fusion aspect of the lab, and the only reason the rest of the SOLDIERs would be here was to turn in Materia. Summon materia were the only kind required by company policy to be handed over for analysis, and those were extremely rare.

The department was smaller. Much smaller than he'd expected. It was a single room with a row of machines along the back wall. He could only guess they had something to do with Materia fusion, and that the main bulk of the diagnostic equipment was squirreled away in a main lab somewhere else. Sections in the corners of the room were walled off, and Zack could see even more machines inside along with a few lab coats. There were a handful of the science geeks in attendance, and one looked up at his arrival, taking in the color of his uniform, "You aren't authorized for materia fusion, SOLDIER."

"I know, I know." Zack ignored the annoyed look the scientist was giving him in favor of fishing out his summon again. He had to bite back a snicker as the scientist went from disinterested to focused curiosity upon seeing the red orb. Zack actually wanted to liken it to a look he'd seen one of his comrades give a chocobo after they hadn't gotten anything to eat in a week. "Found this. Policy says it has to go through you guys first, yeah?"

The scientist snatched it up with just a mumbled affirmative, and the summon glimmered from the now familiar probing tendril of magic. He saw the guy's eyebrow rise, before the scientist turned immediately to the computer. A form was pulled up, and he started to input identifying numbers for the materia. At some point he remembered Zack, "Name and rank, SOLDIER?"

"Zack Fair. Second."

A dismissing wave, "We'll be in touch."

Zack wasn't an idiot, he knew a dismissal when he heard one. "D'ya want me to send the combat data later?"

"Yes. Fine. Good." The 'Leave' was implied, but the scientist obviously wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Zack just laughed and let himself out. Since he hadn't actually fought the summon his data wasn't complete, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to offer.

"Zack! What're you doing here?" He was assaulted as soon as the door slid shut, and Zack took in the purple uniform, standard helmet, and normal issue broadsword. Despite having absolutely nothing identifying about the Second class, Zack knew exactly who it was. "Heya Kunsel! I just had to drop off something. What're you up to?"

"What'd you find? A war prize? Did your target make off with one of the new prototypes?"

"Nah. I just picked up. Probably fell out of someone's bangle—it's smaller than usual so it could've slipped out."

"Might be a baby materia. The science department released a report a while back about the growth rates of natural materia. Apparently it takes a long time for them to reach the standard sizes. It's all extremely interesting, you know? If you did find a natural materia you probably won't get it back for a while—the science department is currently doing a bunch of trials with them."

"Nuts." Then Zack remembered the homework Angeal gave him, and that Kunsel was a walking talking encyclopedia, and suddenly grinned, "Hey Kunsel, wanna go for a beer? I want to pick your brain."

x-x-x

Time passed without any word from the Materia department—not even a thank you when he sent in his combat data—and Zack had pretty much resigned himself to never getting his summon back. He'd talked to a few of the other SOLDIERs, and the science department had a tendency to 'lose' things that they had an interest in. It made him unhappy of course, and he'd complained many times about it to Kunsel over drinks, but he didn't have the political pull to do anything about it. Angeal might, being a First Class, but Zack didn't want to use him like that.

Zack let out a breath as the remains of the simulation dissolved around him. He'd been stuck on training missions since the Marlboro incident. He still didn't understand why that was deemed a failure. The fugitive was frostbitten, and poisoned, but Zack hadn't been the one who dragged him out into the middle of the glacier and nearly gotten himself eaten by a monster. That was his own damn fault.

Annoyed, Zack hit the restart button, closing his eyes as the scene changed, the drab grey lines of the training room dissolving into the dark of the slum's night. He heard a train whistle in the background. Slightly startled, Zack found himself perched in the steel rafters below the plate. This wasn't the sim he'd had it set on. He'd been hunting monsters in the Mideel forest—someone had to have changed it.

Zack snapped his phone open when it started to go off. "Yeah?"

"Pop quiz, Zack." Angeal's voice drifted over the line. Well, if his mentor was behind all this, there wasn't much he could do about it. "You are in Sector Seven. There is a breech in security and Wutai Infiltrators have hijacked a train and are heading for the Station. What do you do?"

The train whistle sounded again. "Gotcha."

Directed missions were a lot more fun because it was controlled by someone instead of a pre-programmed script. It was more lifelike, and just all together less mind-numbingly dull. It also gave Zack some leeway in how to actually do the mission, since the director could compensate for his insane stunts.

He stowed his PHS in its harness instead of his pocket, and listened for the train whistle again. If this were real, he'd need to get moving fast.

With the smile that Angeal had called his "stupid grin" Zack started running, the simulated wind streaming through his hair. Soon there was nothing before him, and a spring from mako powered muscles sent him soaring through the air, timing it just as the hijacked train passed by below him.

He spread out his body to slow the fall enough to quickly shift positions in the split second before smashing face first into moving metal. The gambit worked and he landed on his feet instead, settling into a crouch, fingers finding handholds to keep him in place.

In Midgar, nothing was faster than the trains.

The first thing Zack heard when the simulation cut out was "You Failed."

"Hey!" Zack cried out indignantly, waving his broken broadsword at his mentor's frowning form, "I woulda been just fine if you hadn't thrown Sephiroth in there! Wasn't the behemoth enough? What gives anyway? He's on our side."

Angeal looked unruffled, instead moving forward to poke Zack in the forehead, "Sephiroth isn't some kind of God. It is completely possible you might have to fight someone of his power at some point or another. Besides, you are the one who wishes to become a First Class. Who do you think we train with?"

Zack paled at the thought. Just fighting Sephiroth's data was as scary as a pack of Behemoths. Maybe more. But at the same time the idea thrilled him. Zack had always been of the opinion that in order to get stronger, he had to fight stronger opponents. Even so, Angeal had pulled a dirty trick on him, "Still! Throwing Sephiroth in after a freakin' Behemoth?"

"Deal with it Zack. We must always be prepared for the unexpected, not to mention the unfair." He let his hands fall to the side, and Zack was suddenly aware that Angeal was no longer looking at him, but through him, "War is never fair."

Zack shifted uncomfortably. "Fine, fine. No more complaining. I'll redo the simulation."

Angeal snapped back, quirking his eyebrow with that half smile of his, "I've got something else in mind."

It was the one that promised that Zack was not going to like what was happening next. He hoped it was squats. He hoped to every single possible existence of a higher being that it was just going to be squats. He didn't really like squats, but they were far preferable to some of Angeal's training regiments, which could include random Sephiroth data popping up in a simulation and resulting in his sword breaking in reality. He still didn't understand that.

The fluorescent training room lights glittered between Angeal's fingers as something small and red was fished out of the pocket of his SOLDIER uniform. Zack soon had a grin splitting his face, and he snatched at the familiar, too-small summon materia now sitting in his mentor's hand. He was going to get it back!

Except the grab met with empty air as Angeal's even faster speed took the bauble out of reach. Zack pouted.

"You know the routine." Angeal flipped open a consol in the control panel, opening the materia interface. It revealed a small depression, but even the normal-sized materia slot was too big for his runty summon. It settled in the bottom, and Zack wondered aloud if the machine could even read it, since really only the bottom surface of the materia was in contact with the reader. Angeal shrugged, "The Science Department released it for testing, so they must think so." He chuckled, "I'm not one to second guess them in these matters."

"Yeah, yeah." Zack waved his hand dismissively, "Fine, I'll jump through the hoops. But could I at least get another sword?"

He waved the broken broadsword in the direction of the control booth, "I saw that summon fillet a Marlboro, could I at least go get a replacement?" He was not looking forward to blocking and parrying those whip strikes with a full length blade, much less halving his reach like this.

The last thing Zack saw before the room around him dissolved was Angeal smiling at him through the observation window, "You need to take better care of your equipment, SOLDIER."

Drat.

Zack gripped the handle of his half-blade nervously as the simulated jungle built up around him. It was the same setting as his prior missions. Except the edges of the clearing were cordoned off with red dots—which made sense, it was a battle. Arena-style.

He waited nervously for the summon to appear—in all his previous sims they had already been here. Then again this was his first actual summon. The others were all preloaded data used in training exercises. Maybe it took longer for the machine to read the materia?

Or maybe it wasn't working. Maybe the machine couldn't read it since it was abnormally smaller.

And just maybe the blue mist rolling in from between the trees was just his imagination.

'Data loaded '

The words flashed in front of his eyes and Zack could no longer put off the fact that he had to fight that crazy summon with a broken sword.

Since this wasn't a real battle, none of the time dilation kicked in. The mist didn't take quite so long to form, and soon dissipated to reveal the very same figure that Zack had watched slice a Marlboro into hundreds of tiny pieces all those months ago. He saw those gold eyes land on him, and was that a—smirk?

He shoved away his nervousness and fell into a fighting stance, the same one he would use if his sword were not a broken wreck. He saw the summon quirk an eyebrow at his battle stance, and was that a laugh? It was! It was laughing at him. There was no sound of course, but the summon's shoulders were shaking, those golden eyes lidded, and silver ears twitched along with the silent laughter. Zack pouted, even the summon was picking on him.

"Hey!" He found himself shouting, waving his broken sword around in indignation, forgetting for a moment that he was fighting a beast of pure magic, "It's not funny! This repair is gonna come out of my paycheck!"

Then he remembered, there was no use talking to a summon. He ran a hand through black spikes, mussing them up out of irritation. Angeal must be wondering what was going on to take so long. It was weird. Why wasn't the summon attacking him? He knew it had both offensive and support capabilities—he WELL remembered the much appreciated Esuna -like effect , so maybe it would respond to aggressive motions?

After a few moments that consisted of Zack waving his sword like an idiot, the summon finally got tired of laughing. It flicked an ear dismissively at him, instead prowling toward the edge of the clearing. It lingered near the edges of the zone, testing the barrier that was the edges of the arena. Zack ended up leaning against a tree, tapping his foot impatiently as he was completely ignored for the next ten minutes.

"Zack!" Angeal's voice sounded in the clearing. The summon stopped in its examination of a particularly large fern, turning those narrowed gold eyes skyward, searching for the source. Zack had never seen a summon act like this before. "What's taking so long? Even your time for Bahamut was better."

"Turn on the display. It isn't my fault." Zack groused, arms crossed petulantly, the broken end of his sword stabbed into the grass-covered earth beside him, "It doesn't seem interested in me."

"Perhaps the materia's abnormal size is messing with the targeting matrix." The summon was eyeing Zack now, and he was starting to feel…uncomfortable under the heavy scrutiny. He wasn't worried, if the simulation had gone on this long, the summon had no intention of attacking him, but…it was so weird. Unnerving. He could read the summon. Not easily. But the fact that he recognized the blatant curiosity in that silent mannerisms…Summons didn't do that.

Then again, when was the last time he'd fought against, or even with a summon so human looking? The closest thing he could think of was Shiva, and the ice queen might as well have been made out of ice for the amount of emotion that she showed. Which was none. She had been the example his instructor had used during materia class.

"See this?" They had a guest instructor today. Every eye in the room was riveted on the young man in red who slowly stalked around the frozen woman he'd just called into being. Genesis Rhapsedos was without a doubt the most skilled Materia master in the SOLDIER program, "This, is a summon. Such perfect beings. Lovely. Powerful. Gifts from the Goddess to those with the luck, or ability to wield her most powerful weapons."

"But she looks so human!" At first Zack thought the exclamation had come from one of the other spellbound cadets. It certainly hadn't been him. But the voice shifted, returning to Genesis' own tones with the ease of a well practiced actor. Of course. The rumor mill said Genesis was obsessed with some sort of theatre performance, "I'm sure the thought has crossed your innocent little minds once or twice. 'She looks so human, what can she do to me?'"

He didn't release the attention, a hand raising, pointing to where he'd set up a target along the training room wall. In the blink of an eye, the summon shifted. Her frozen face did not slip from the emotionless mask as she brought an arm around, ice crystals forming in the air as the temperature in the room dropped to freezing. Zack flinched as they sliced through the space between her and the target, a resounding crack filling the room as the specialized magic-target was frozen solid.

Genesis waved a dismissive hand, and the summon shattered, the perfect image dissolving into splintered ice shards, and then even those faded to nothing. The bright red glow in his bracer died. The ice covered target remained.

"That is what a summon can do. If one of you got a hold of the materia, you could even make her do that to me." An amused smirk twisted his lips at the excited murmurs his words caused among the cadets, "Of course, that assumes you cadets had the strength to summon her in the first place. A summon will fight for you, but should you lose their materia, they would turn on you in a heartbeat. They are jealously guarded—for who wants their weapons turned against them…?"

Weapons. They were just weapons. Not human. Not even human-like. Most summons were like Bahamut, more monster than human looking.

Not…like this.

"I'm ending the simulation." Angeal's voice came over the speakers again, and Zack let out an irritated sigh. Another failure. "There's no point in wasting more time if it won't battle you…"

If Zack hadn't been watching the summon's face carefully, he wouldn't have noticed the slight widening of those eyes. The realization dawning. Or even the wide smirk that broke the otherwise cool expression.

"Angeal stop!" He shouted, diving for his sword just as something fast and green tore into the ground where he'd just been standing, leaving a gash deep in the tree he'd just been leaning against. He rolled, the forward momentum dislodging the loose grip the simulated earth had on the broken blade, and when he was upright, he immediately fell into a fighting stance, his too short blade between him and the summon. It was standing nonchalantly, the long green vine-like whip coiled around clawed fingers. Eergh. Were those thorns? He hadn't been able to see well in the middle of a blizzard.

"Start the time now."

If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn that smirk clearly said, "Why didn't you just say so?"

x-x-x

Kurama waited patiently for that strange energy to release its hold on his youki, remembering the strange not-quite-there feeling from the last time he'd seen the black-haired young-man. Once he settled in his own body, in his own bed, he allowed himself to sigh in relief, that weird unfamiliar energy draining away and returning to wherever it came from.

A quick glance at his alarm revealed the glowing numbers to be closer to dawn than he remembered, but at least this time the summons hadn't come while he was otherwise occupied. He'd noticed the strange tugging in time, and had excused himself from dinner to study. Vanishing from the dinner table would have been rather hard to explain, especially since he didn't quite understand what was going on himself.

Kurama's hand drifted to his hair, specifically to a strange seed that was currently rooted just below his more lethal arsenal. He hadn't been able to find a match for it, even among the blood-thirsty flora that infested the Makai. It seemed akin to the man-eaters related to the Death Tree, but with a poison so toxic Kurama was surprised the black-haired man had been able to survive, even with Kurama having been careful to administer his home-bred anti-venom.

He thought back to the first summons. The way that strange magic had clamped down on his. How it smothered sound before it could drift beyond intention. How his attention had been invariably drawn to the giant demon plant, even as he'd been more interested in the man collapsed in the snow…

It hadn't been until he'd defeated the monster that he'd been able to satisfy his curiosity about the man, and the curiously glowing orb clenched in frozen fingers. He'd felt the magic moving, mixing with his youki as he'd grown his plant, becoming something…more. Something that had cured the frighteningly toxic poison where Kurama was sure nothing else could.

This last time hadn't been like that. There'd been no danger when he'd felt the mist clear. No target. No monster. Just the black-haired young man, brandishing a broken sword.

The magic still smothered his words, but the grip was looser, letting him satisfy his curiosity. The world around them had felt…odd. He couldn't sense any of the plants, even as a veritable jungle seemed to surround them. There were no scents. Nothing beyond a strange, sharp, clean smell that he could only describe as Life.

It was the same smell his body was covered in now, and it would linger. Hiei had complained about it for days last time…

"It happened again."

Really, Kurama should have expected this. He sighed, shifting on the bed until he found the small fire-demon sitting in his now open window. "Whatever do you mean, Hiei?"

"Don't play dumb, fox. Not with me." Those red eyes were narrow, and Kurama could even see the faint glow of the Jagan through the white bandana, "I felt your energy vanish. I saw you return."

Of course. He had asked Hiei to keep an eye out since he'd first started feeling the tugs. They'd begun shortly after that first abrupt summon however many weeks ago. "How long?"

"Hours."

He hadn't been in the strange simulation with—what had the disembodied voice called him? Zack?—Zack for that long, he was certain of that. It had taken about half an hour before he realized they were supposed to battle—and really, why hadn't he just said that in the first place? It wasn't like Kurama could read minds—and the following battle had taken another ten, twenty minutes at most. An hour tops, total.

But both the clock and Hiei's words disproved that fact, obviously there was some sort of time dilation going on. The first time he'd been barely gone ten minutes, now it was a few hours? "What did you see?"

"I don't know." Hiei's admission startled the fox—the fire demon's gaze was murderous, his bandaged fist clenched around the hilt of his katana. He hadn't realized Hiei would take failure this personally. "Your youki distorts strangely during the tugging—and then gone. Like mist."

"Well…" Kurama shrugged, "At least it doesn't appear to be harmful. It is irritating, yes, but so long as I'm careful, these…episodes shouldn't impact much."

"And if one happens during a fight?" Hiei growled, "One where we need you? Not like that trash when it first happened."

"I'm sure a powerful S-class demon such as yourself can hold out long enough for me to return." Kurama smiled pleasantly. Hiei's irritated huff drifted through the room even after he'd departed. Most likely going to go sulk in one of the surrounding trees. Kurama nonchalantly detached the strange seed from its place and rubbed it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger. He really should be more worried about this whole thing. Something was randomly plucking him out of his life, and throwing him onto another plane, with irritating restrictions that oddly reminded him of what human fiction depicted demon-summoning to be. But…

There was power there. A single seed contained a plant a thousand times more deadly than any the Makai had ever spawned. With the added magic, his healing herbs had grown exponentially in potency. Perhaps if he returned one to a seed before leaving, would it still retain the extra power?

Living as Suuichi Minamino for so long might have tempered his demon's desires, but Youko Kurama still craved power. If this whole situation became too inconvenient, he would go to Koenma. He was sure the godling could find a way to dislodge the grasp of that strange magic. But until then…

He replaced the seed and swiftly got ready for bed. He'd already lost much of the night, and he had school tomorrow.

He thought back to the conclusion of the fight. To the sweat soaked young man, the one who'd managed to survive the poison. The one who'd managed to keep up with a speed that human should not be able to. Who hit as hard as Yuusuke. Whose eyes glittered with an inner light Kurama found both compelling and curious.

Things were just getting interesting.

x-x-x

A/N: I just got finished rereading the Best Defense. Guess what plunnie bit down. So here's the rest of the follow up chapter. I don't know how much there is to this story. The rest of the series I have in mind (AKA Materia-verse) is a lot of one-shots, but this main story goes a bit further than that. I'll try to keep them as decently self-contained as I can. They will be updated as inspiration comes.

…I do really want to write and finish Cloud and Aeris' stories even if I don't touch the others in this 'verse…but I can't find the notebook I had Cloud's in :(