Author's note: Please bear with me as I lay the ground-work for this story. This chapter may seem slow, but I promise it will pick up in the next several chapters. As always, please review, and enjoy! (P.S. I made Sephiroth's birthday in November, because he strikes me as a November baby. Get over it, if you don't like it! Haha.) Also, sorry about the multiple email notifications...my computer had some communication issues with and I had to edit this chapter several times... ^^;
Disclaimer: Let me check one more time and...nope, still own nothing of the wonderfulness that is Final Fantasy VII. (:
Chapter 2
The room was dark, but the sounds of the outside world permeated through the screen of the open window. It was way past midnight, and the only noise was that of a passing car, the honking of a horn…or the rumble of the Mako Reactors powering up every four hours; six times a day, sun-up or sun-down the massive machines had not failed once in the nearly half-century they had been a part of the city's skyline.
A pounding in his head from the reactors was what woke him, a burden he had carried since he was brought into this world that cold day in mid-November. It was uncommon that the mako in his system responded so violently to Shinra's virtual raping of the Planet every few hours, but considering he had just been dumped nearly a decade into a possible past, Sephiroth hoped it would not be a reoccurring issue.
The blue LED lights on his bedside digital clock read three-quarters past one in the morning, and he sat up in bed, momentarily disoriented. He had little clue as to what day or year it was, but figured with the warm breeze wafting through the window accompanied by the unforgettable putrid smells of Midgar, it had to be early or mid-summer. Flicking on the lamp on his nightstand, the light caused his eyes to become slits as he took in familiar surroundings.
Shinra spared no expense when it came to their prized General, and his studio apartment, though impressive in size, was awash in neutral grays and black, giving it a distinctive male taste. Everything was exactly how he recalled it; and a small smile crossed Sephiroth's face as he stood and gazed at Masamune leaning up against the far wall in its scabbard, its hilt nearly touching the ceiling. The cool breeze caressed his bare torso and he went to his closet and threw on a non-descript black t-shirt and a pair of denim jeans.
Then, he made his way to the luxurious bathroom. His long platinum hair was braided down his back, a habit he had formed long ago in order to keep damage to a minimum while sleeping; his glowing cat-like green eyes still startled him when he looked at himself in the mirror, and he immediately noticed the scars on his arms and peeking through the v-neck shirt collar on his chest. Apparently, the Cetra wanted to make sure that nothing was left to chance, so they outfitted him (and probably Cloud, as well) with reminders of the wounds that had been inflicted upon him during his past life.
With a snort, Sephiroth absentmindedly unraveled the braid in his hair and ran a brush through the flawless locks. A leer crossed his face, then; I would love to just take some scissors to this stuff; seeing the look on the President and the Director's faces when their poster-boy changed his infamous appearance would be deeply satisfying. But he had been given a mission, and like the SOLDIER he was, the mission came first. Personal vendettas would simply have to wait…well, at least, some personal vendettas. With an exasperated sigh, he returned the brush to its rightful drawer and walked out of the bathroom.
As he strode to turn on an overhead light in what could be called his living room, Sephiroth noted the month and year on his calendar:
July, εуλ 0002
His breath caught in his throat. This was just months before that fateful incident at Nibelheim and instantaneously, he furrowed his brows and thought of Cloud Strife. The boy, now back to his sixteen year-old self, had a lot of explaining to do, and that explanation would be heard tonight; Sephiroth strode with purpose to the laptop as his desk. The machine faithfully booted up as a plan began forming in his ever-calculating brain.
Letting the computer do its thing, Sephiroth collected a glass of ice water from the kitchen, and the refreshing taste cleared his mind even further. Taking a seat at his desk with water in hand, the General opened up a cataloguing program on his laptop that listed all SOLDIERs and infantrymen subordinate to him; their vital statistics, personal history, achievements, awards, reprimands, and…their schedules and sleeping quarters. With a sneer, Sephiroth scrolled through the alphabetically-listed last names down to 'S' and was rewarded with all he needed. He opened Cloud's file and found that the Ancients had conveniently provided him with a room all to himself…right across the hall from none other than Zack Fair, of course. Indeed, Sephiroth thought evilly, I suppose that just means I'll have to be extra quiet. If his nocturnal perusing woke the puppy, he knew he'd never hear the end of it from Zack or his mentor, and the last thing he wanted was to sit through another one of Angeal's pride and honor lectures; not, at least, this soon after careening into a unknown past to save a possible future.
As General, he could request a keycard to any and all rooms within the Shinra complex; all he would have to do was get on the phone with the secretary in the Security department and she'd have a pass card ready for him in about fifteen minutes. Before doing that, however, Sephiroth retrieved a blank piece of paper and a pen in his left hand; writing down the number to Cloud's room and the phone number to Security before he shut down the computer and made his way toward the kitchen.
His PHS lay quiet on the marble countertop, and he eyed it momentarily before picking it up, dialing the number, and no doubt waking the sleeping secretary downstairs.
"Security, how may I help you?" A groggy female voice answered and Sephiroth made a mental note to himself to have the lazy wench fired in the morning.
"General Sephiroth here, and I need a keycard to room 6228B made immediately," his deep, commanding voice said softly, and he almost heard the woman's heart stop as she began typing on her computer.
"General, sir," she squeaked. "Room '6228B'. Yes, sir, that will be ready for you in approximately ten minutes, sir."
Without so much as a 'thank you', Sephiroth clicked the phone shut and tossed it back on the counter. The watch on his right wrist told him ten minutes would be plenty of time to march himself down to the Weapons department and acquire a gun. Though he detested using such a quick and messy method of death, this confrontation required stealth and a shock-factor that his beloved Masamune would simply fail to achieve. Additionally, no matter how hard he fought it, he knew he could not bring himself the satisfaction of killing the boy…yet. This was just a tactic to increase intimidation in order to attain the results he sought.
Sephiroth stepped into a pair of boots, slipped the keycard to his room and the piece of paper into one of the back pockets of his jeans and walked out his front door, leaving his apartment as dark as if he'd never been there. His living quarters emptied out to a long, broad hallway entirely devoid of human life. The red light of the elevator at the end of the corridor was the only indication that he had not just plunged into a vacuum, and he made his way toward that lift, pressing the necessary button to the floor housing the Weapons department.
Dealing with Scarlet was not what Sephiroth desired at the moment, so he was thankful that the head of Weapons Development had taken the night off, leaving her duties to a soft-spoken intern. Most likely to fraternize her way further to the top, the General mused in disgust as he stepped off the elevator and turned down one hallway in a maze of corridors to the gated storage area. Incredibly, he ran into no one of importance during his trek through the labyrinth of mazes known as the Shinra building; save for the occasional armed guard, who merely nodded at him as he passed, Sephiroth did not even see a prowling scientist or doctor, much to his relief.
The intern in Weapons, remarkably, was respectful and prompt, and in response, Sephiroth vowed to have the young woman offered a full-time job after her schooling. Interestingly enough, the brunette seemed unfazed when the legendary silver-haired General himself paid her a visit, requesting a large-caliber semi-automatic at half-past two in the morning, even. It was rather difficult to recruit such level-headed, courteous individuals at Shinra, and he gave her one of his rare, grounding smiles as he took the loaded gun from her with a nod as thanks.
The woman in Security would be afforded no such compliment, however. She presented Sephiroth with the keycard to Strife's room with shaking hands and misty eyes; he yanked it from her grasp and turned in a swirl of platinum and slammed the door behind him. In the elevator to the 62nd floor, he pinched the bridge of his nose and found himself half thanking, half ridiculing the Ancient's for this so-called 'second chance.'
A part of him was relieved that he could have this opportunity to bring down the company that had stolen his childhood, leaving him in the care of a man who delighted in putting him through excruciating daily tests and training simulations, and using his successes as an excuse to launch campaigns to attract starry-eyed new recruits. He felt like a tool, usable only until his value was drained, and then he was expendable, liable to be tossed into a garbage bin and shipped out to the dump for decomposition.
Sephiroth's heart skipped a beat and he swallowed nervously at the revelation. In this reality, he was mere human again, not the divine creature he had made of himself in the past life. He knew what it was like to die; the agony of when Cloud snatched the life out of him not once, but twice, had slapped him in the face, making him confront his own mortality no matter how many times, and in what forms, in which he returned. Death at the hands of the rifle-wielding Shinra army simply because he had worn out his welcome was terrifying.
The indicator inside the cramped elevator read floor forty-two, so he let his thoughts continue to run away with him. "But, then again, I've always known that, even in the past," he spoke softly to himself. He was disposable. For all his accomplishments and fame, he was still just a means to an end. They all were when it came to Shinra's bottom line. All his SOLDIERs, all his infantrymen, all the employees were simply things that helped rake in the gil for the company…and people wondered why the turn-around rate was so damn high here.
Moreover, he knew way too much to simply be put out to some pasture when his time came. Should the vast amounts of information he carried about Shinra's inner workings fall into the hands of any number of the company's enemies, the higher-ups understood it would be devastating. If he turned traitor, even if it was the right thing to do and evidently what the Ancients expected, it would be like painting a big red target on his chest for the army, the Turks, or hired assassins on which to set their sights.
To hell with what the people thought of Shinra at that point…their greatest warrior had defected, and the price on his head would be enough for anyone to purchase the grandest loft apartment on the upper plate, should they attempt to cash it in and haul him in dead. Having one capable enemy was more than enough; yet, a chill ran up Sephiroth's spine at the thought of taking a bullet in the back from someone he could not see coming.
The thought was sobering, and Sephiroth glanced at the gun in his left hand, suddenly not so sure about his plan to rend even somewhat of an explanation from that little blond plague. The realization that he and Strife would have to work together to accomplish the Ancients' goals clenched unpleasantly at his heart, and he curled his lips back in a snarl. Cloud's overblown sense of heroics had irked him too many times in the past to count, and the fact that the boy put on a façade of innocence and superiority bent Sephiroth out of shape even further, making it conceivably difficult that he would feel nothing less than repulsion whenever he saw those irritating golden spikes milling about the Shinra complex.
"What in Gaia's name made the Ancients think him and I would ever work together toward a common goal?" He voiced out loud, slamming a fist into a panel of the steel box around him. "That is not even a remote possibility, if at all, unless I lay down some expectations first…"
And, I will remind him of who is in charge regardless…and dammit, he will have an explanation! The elevator chimed on the quiet Second Class SOLDIER's floor just in time to prevent Sephiroth from talking himself into ending the boy's miserable life, no matter the consequences. He was in too deep now; they both were, and if they failed, he and Cloud would be yanked back to the crumbling remains of Shinra's building, to duke it out and die in a way the Ancient's saw fit. Sephiroth's controlling nature, however, found that alternate ending unacceptable as he made his way down the well-lit corridor.
Sounds of snoring seeped from under various doors, including the one that housed Zack Fair. Angeal's pup never changed no matter in which lifetime they were. But he was a good SOLDIER, and his sleeping patterns were hardly at the top of Sephiroth's concern list at the moment.
The gray, non-descript numbers of Strife's room were staring at him in the face, and he felt a buzz in his brain as the Jenova cells running through his body were excited at the closeness of another strong host body. As always, he found himself annoyed with the personal connection he shared with such insignificant human being. The mako in Sephiroth's body came to life as he slipped the keycard into the reader, his turquoise eyes glowing menacingly.
Nightmares gripped Cloud's mind as his body subconsciously became aware of another presence in the room, a presence that held as many Jenova cells as he and they were calling out to one another from each of their hosts' bodies. He dreamt about his past; the same nightmares that had plagued him for years were being relived as his nemesis stepped into his room without a sound. The traumatic experience of time travel had not aided in the levels of stress hormones in his small, but powerful body, either.
Aerith's death, Sephiroth's mind torture, Geostigma, the Three Remnants, and the feeling of being helpless as Cloud fought tooth-and-nail for the Planet he loved. Over and over and over again, like a demented record player set on loop, these dreams wrought havoc on him, falling from one reality to another with no hope of solid ground or connection and no way to stop a seemingly never-ending cycle of torment.
As Sephiroth approached the boy's bed, eyes aglow in the dark room, a breeze ruffled the curtains on the small window, illuminating the messy blond spikes and Cloud let out a muffled groan. The big General quietly cocked the gun and knelt down at Cloud's head just in time for the young SOLDIER's eyes to jerk open.
For a split second, Cloud's mind was still in its dream-state, and the haziness of the situation forced him to roll over on his back and look around the room. It only took the firing of a single neuron in his brain for recognition to set in, and he writhed away from those glowing green eyes and parted his teeth to let out a scream of terror.
A hand came over his mouth to stifle the shout of surprise in realization of who loomed over him in the blackness, while the other hand, with no amount of gentleness, shoved the gun to Cloud's sternum and pressed hard. Sephiroth shushed the frightened SOLDIER and Cloud halted his attempt to get away as his body heaved in great, frightened gasps. The muzzle of the gun was cold and painful, and the thought of a piece of lead exploding from the end of it and slamming into his chest made the hairs on the back of Cloud's neck stand up; and the fact that it was none other than Sephiroth on the other end of the gun made it even worse.
The terror in Strife's glowing blue eyes was incontrovertible, and Sephiroth smirked and Cloud's skin crawled as he heard that purring, nerve-racking voice once again. "Good evening, Cloud. Sorry to wake you, but we have several things to discuss."
