Chapter two: Here I am, doing everything I can, pretending I'm a superman.

"If you had told me Melkore was coming along I would have turned you down." "Which is exactly why I didn't tell you." Mirri and Sephiroth had the quick conversation in barely audible whispers as the subject of it was not so far away from them.

Doctor Melkore stood roughly 5'7", and his blue eyes bore the mako glow that seemed a prerequisite for any success in old Shinra. His primary concession to personal grooming was giving his face a quick shave every morning; other than that, he let his fingernails grow until they broke and left his hair alone entirely. As such his brown wavy hair had a tendency to assume a style and length more frequently associated with rock stars than scientists. He had recently decided to give the lab coat he wore for all occasions its annual wash, thus clearing away the blood and oil stains which had accumulated on it over the months. He was widely considered to be one of the most useful persons you could ever meet, and also the most annoying.

Melkore's casual lechery combined with that assessment to make him fairly unsuccessful with women, but he had developed a tendency to treat the weapons he made as substitutes for the children he would probably never have. This was good, in the sense that it made you sure you got a weapon that was top of the line in every way imaginable, and bad, because occasionally Melkore would drop in just to check on your weapon, as if you had married his daughter rather than just bought a gun from him.

To put it simply, Melkore was brilliant at making weapons, but because he knew it, he subsequently had no desire to rein in his tremendous ego. The fact that his status as a celebrity had helped him actually establish a beachhead from which to attack the problem of romance (or in laymen's terms, meet a girl and go on a few dates with her) had only exacerbated the problem. Worst of all, (for anyone dealing with him) Melkore had recently been given the position that he had wanted all his life at Shinra, he was finally in charge of weapons development, able to work on weapons anyway he wanted and delegate more menial tasks down the chain of command.

All this added up to give Melkore not only a sense that he was king of the world, but that the entire galaxy was starting to revolve around him as well. Though Mirri assured Sephiroth there was a way to instantly puncture his overinflated ego, she didn't feel like sharing it with him at the moment. It may have helped that Melkore was currently helping James hold the huge jug that contained the materials they would need for the mission.

"Do you realize how insane this is?" "What's the matter, Sephiroth, wings tucked in too tight?" Mirri's jibe would not have been nearly so hard for Sephiroth to take if it hadn't been true. Useful as his wings were for the strictly utilitarian task of flight, they were also highly conspicuous. Since he had yet to successfully retract them into his body simply by willing it so, he was indeed concealing them under his clothing.

It was less than enjoyable of course, much like tucking his silver hair into the collar of any outfit he wore that was reasonably loose, but he did it for the same reason. Sephiroth's silver hair might be a wonderful thing for people trying to make a hero out of him, but it also made him very, very, recognizable. Even with it tucked in, enough of it was visible that, between it and his eyes, any attempt at avoiding recognition was analogous to shouting at a deaf man.

The wings were even worse, and feathers, muscle and bone resist confinement much more stridently than hair does. Reflecting on the painful cramps in his wings and the homicidal feelings they were engendering would have given Sephiroth far greater sympathy for women in general were he not currently trying so hard to resist throttling a specific sarcastic smirking specimen of the sex.

"What is Melkore doing here anyway? Didn't you said this was a military operation?" Mirri shrugged, indicating that she hadn't invited Melkore, which was quite obvious to Sephiroth anyway. "He came because he was tired of getting broken or busted equipment shipped back to his lab. He can't tell us anything worth knowing from it so he decided the best way to make sure that things got done well was to do them himself."

A good principle in theory, but Melkore had a history of doing bad things with good principles. Like what Sephiroth could see him and James about to do now. "This had better work. If nothing happens then I'd rather have spent today running from my new relatives than letting people stare at me like a freak show exhibit." Mirri was less than sympathetic, but then, she didn't have wings growing out of her back to worry about.

"Not a freak show, more like a stand up comedy routine. I mean this is one of the oldest ones in the books. Oh sure, the people behind us are probably going to hate us for the rest of their lives but I can bet that everyone else is going to be cheering us on. Which is all a moot point, as we're working on ironclad intel. I got the info straight from Vincent, and he's double, triple and quadruple-checked everything from your paternity test onward."

Sephiroth gave Shinra's newest general a scowl that could ignite ice. "Mirri if you ever feel the desire to use my family as a basis for jokes again, allow me to remind you that I've killed people for less personal reasons." Mirri giggled, sounding like an immature school girl before she got regained control of herself. "Well aren't we getting in touch with your Wutain samurai side, next thing you know you'll be bowing to opponents in single combat before you kill them."

Sephiroth kicked the glare up a notch, and Mirri paled a little despite herself. "In my defense, he does have the blood tests that prove he's your father framed and hung in his office, you could go see yourself if you don't believe me."

Sephiroth let his scowl dissipate into a tired sigh; that sounded like exactly the sort of thing Vincent would do. He was saved from the conversation by James and Melkore's arrival at the front of the line.

"Hello, my name is Frodrick Fronkenstien, and I've come all the way from Cosmo Canyon. I've been instructed to open a bank account here, and for that reason my assistant, Mr. Renfield, has brought this entire jug of one gil coins!"

At that point James unscrewed the lid and casually deposited a veritable mountain of coins before the teller. Sephiroth had to resist the urge to smile, because it would have proved Mirri right, in truth there was something indefinably amusing about the look in the teller's eyes. "Sir, you'll have to count those before you can deposit them."

Melkore and James exchanged glances, Melkore's of feigned indignation, James' of pretending to be afraid of Melkore's reproach. It was an easy sell for James, because Melkore was one of the few people he actual did sort of respect. "Fine then, we'll count them right here, if this is what passes for civility!" His threat made, Melkore and James instantly started to enact it.

Between the two of them they divided the mountain in half and began to count it aloud, much to the anger of everyone present, though it seemed to strike a particular nerve for three people in particular. They were all dressed as normally as anyone else, but from inside their jackets, they produced assault rifles. Sephiroth and everyone else instantly got to see how the rifles had been altered to be more easily concealed, and it had been done well.

Brandishing their weapons one of the men instantly shot the bank's security camera. The leader of the trio pointed his weapon down range at the bank tellers. "F***ing idiots! Hand over all your money or else..." Sadly no one present would discover exactly what threats the man was going to make, because in the blink of an eye James stopped counting coins, and spun around.

The deadly monowire concealed within his gloves was clenched in his fists and ready to be put to use in an instant. With the supreme ease of an expert magician pulling a tablecloth from under a full dinner service, James' dexterous fingers manipulated his weapon of choice. To most people James' monowire looked exactly like the garrotte wire that was used only by experts (either criminal or military) to help expedite the process of choking a foe.

James' monowire, having been designed by Melkore Morningstar himself was, like most of Melkore's creations, even deadlier than it looked. The wire's edge was filed sharper than a razor's edge.

It easily sliced right through the barrels of the three men's weapons, who didn't even see it happen, or realize anything was wrong until their weapons fell apart. By that point the monowire was back in James' gloves, and Mirri and Sephiroth (the former flashing a Shinra ID card with her rank as general quite evident on it) were leading the men out, and one look from Sephiroth made quite plain the folly of trying to resist.

----

Melkore's lab had once belonged to a scientist named Simon Hojo, whose single redeeming feature was that he had been resilient enough to be "killed" several times over. As it was, spending even the smallest amount of time in this place brought feelings of paranoia and claustrophobia to the forefront of Sephiroth's mind no matter how hard he tried to force them down.

Sadly this room had not been high enough up in the 70 story monstrosity that was Shinra HQ to have been wiped out by Diamond WEAPON. So Melkore had simply done everything he could with the place, and, to be fair, it no longer looked like the Marquis de Sade's sitting room.

What it did look like was the lab belonging to the villain from a bad spy movie, and was suitably littered with all the weaponry you might ever need to either conquer a small country or hold the entire world hostage. Needless to say, Sephiroth didn't mind that so much as someone else might have, with this place any change was a big improvement.

At the moment Melkore was busily doing a dissection of the three assault weapons, granted dissection might have been the wrong term as James had already given them one by separating their barrels from their chambers, 'autopsy' might have been more appropriate. He was busily taking the pieces apart and studying each and every single thing about the guns. This was chiefly because of the contents of the guns' chambers. The bullets were spread out over the table that he was sitting at, and they glowed a slightly luminescent green.

Mako bullets were widely considered the top of the line regardless of who you asked. Chiefly this was because the residual mako poisoning left over from being shot with one would probably kill a person even if the bullet hole itself didn't. Even worse, the bullets had the ability to repress the healing abilities granted to SOLDIERS, which meant that Shinra kept such weaponry under tight wraps, or at least it had.

During the first month after Meteor hit, Shinra had more or less undergone the amputation of a limb to save a life, and multiple things had been lost in the process. Not the least of which were seasoned veterans with weapons that shouldn't have gotten out among the public. Still, the fact that idiots like those three were using mako bullets was a very bad sign.

Melkore looked up at Sephiroth from his work, not enjoying the examination of his examination. "There you go Sephiroth, that's all I have to show anyone. I don't know why Mirri even let you in here, but there it is. Look at it as long as you like, I have a board meeting to attend."

With that Melkore turned and headed for the elevator, leaving Sephiroth alone with the mystery of where the mako bullets had come from. Sephiroth knew where he would probably be most likely to find some answers for the questions he had, but before he approached the elevator himself he wondered if it was worth the cost.

----

Reeve "Shinra" mentally wondered what it was about the company he had now come into possession of that attracted people with questionable morals to it. After all, as of this particular moment he had been with the organization through an otherwise unprecedented three presidents, Reeve could admit to himself that all three had only one thing in common: putting people into positions of power who seemed to be an absolute genius at business, despite being more or less certifiably insane.

Reeve himself was that third president of Shinra, and he had found much (make that just) as he had expected, that the view from the top of the garbage heap was no more enjoyable than from any other part of it. He could distinctly remembering turning down an offer to hold the position he now did, and it had been one of the smartest things he had ever done. Just about every single problem he had imaged besetting him as president had already risen its head in his first few months on the job.

The one bright spot was that at least so far no one had tried to drive a sword through his chest. Still, much as he had expected being president of Shinra didn't mean that you ran the world and could do anything wanted, at least not in the long run. What it meant was that you spent all your time trying to keep the world going ahead and knew that if anything went wrong you would be blamed.

As he looked around the room, he reflected on what an odd collection of people he was now working with. Mirri "Catwarrior" Lufkin, was a clear improvement on her predecessor, "General" Heidegger, by virtue of having actual military experience. Unfortunately, she also bore a stereotypically cavalier attitude in regards to where the pieces fell when you were done blowing them up.

Moving around the table you had Lucretia Valentine who was said to more or less live in the Shinra building, but Reeve knew better, she did flat out actually live in the building. Vincent Valentine had made that point abundantly clear, and done so while looking down the barrel of a rifle with the business end of it pointed at Reeve. If anyone ever needed proof of just how little actual power a president had, Reeve had gotten it on day one, thanks to a conversation with a certain Mr. Valentine.

Vincent had not asked for the job as head of the Turks, he had taken it. To be fair, he was the most qualified person for the position, but that didn't mean Reeve had enjoyed his "job interview" as it had been remarkably similar to discovering that you owed a loan shark money, and unless you did what he wanted he would break your legs, chop them off, and then sell them on the black market to make up the money you had lost him.

That was how Reeve's presidency had started, with him becoming a victim of coercion via brute force, and he had no doubt that it would continue in a similar vein. As noted, both Vincent and Lucresia lived in the Shirna building, and they did so for a very good reason, they were both vampires. As it was, Vincent hadn't needed to threaten Reeve over the issue of making Lucresia head of the Shinra science department, there really hadn't been much choice in the matter(Something about the fact that very few scientists were left on Shinra's payroll, as all the others seemed to have died, almost never from natural causes).

.

Granted, Lucrecia was "alive" by unnatural causes, but that still made her employable. Of course, her eyes had adopted the same blood red hue as Vincent's, and she had opted for a new labcoat in the same shade. While this did make Reeve a bit uncomfortable sitting next to her, it paled before a room full of people who a few months previously would have been quite willing to kill him.

Take Melkore Morningstar, head of Shinra weapons research for example, now known world wide as the man who had invented the Mako Cannon, a weapon without which the world might have been destroyed.

There was simply something unsettling about a man who built a minigun into a guitar, mainly because you never knew for sure if anything in his hands was a deadly weapon or not. Also there was James Firecat, who was sitting there in his position as second in command of Shinra's military might, and that was certainly a thought designed to give one many nightmares.

This was largely because James Firecat happened to have the general laid back personality of a pacifist, except without the strict moral objection to killing. The fact that he also happened to be married to Mirri (nepotism was not just alive and well in Shinra, it had never died) made Reeve assured of one thing. He was a very small mouse, sitting at a table with a bunch of cats and claiming to be "president" of the world.

The only reason he had ended up with the job was because the table's other occupants had come up with better alibis. Mirri not being a native of Midgar, had claimed that with her strong ties to Corel nobody would have accepted her as president. James Firecat needed no alibi, one minute spent in his company would convince anyone of his unsuitability for the job.

Melkore Morningstar had pointed out that he was a touch more widely known for his small shop (Melkore's Munitions) than he was for any particular ability to manage large organizations. Vincent had been quite quick to point out that, you rather had to be alive to be President, otherwise he could never hope to have a heir to pass the company on to. Had Vincent not been holding a loaded rifle pointed at Reeve's head when he said this, Reeve might have pointed out that Vincent already had an heir.

Of course Sephiroth Valentine would have been the perfect candidate for president; if he wasn't exactly born in Midgar, he was close enough to it, and wildly loved by the people of Midgar. That was why Sephiroth had vanished off the face of the planet before the ink on his pardon had dried, he knew better than to become a president.

Because Reeve happened to be the last Shinra board member alive, he had become president by the virtue of being in the right place at the wrong time. He had become president, and now every single board meeting he couldn't help but feel like all it would take was a single order from Sephiroth to have all his department heads instantly pull out lethal weapons (or in Mirri and James' case they were already wearing them) and reduce Reeve's body to a pile of misshapen bleeding lumps.

"So, do you mind if I call this meeting to order?" There was acquiescence from everyone present. The sad thing about the board meeting was that the one person who wasn't directly linked to the Seraphim rebellion was Brain Lane, Melkore's senior assistant.

He had been Melkore's assistant during the Wutaian War. His sandy brown hair and soft blue eyes gave him a tranquil look that probably let him work well with Melkore. Though Reeve had never bothered to spend the time confirming it, he had heard that Brian and Melkore had once played the lead roles in their college production of The Producers. It had required no great skill to see who was Max and who was Leo.

The fact that the person who was most removed from the Seraphim Rebellion was one who had worked closely for one of its members was proof of just how low that particular bar was set.

"We're all ears Reeve, shoot." It was nice of James Firecat not to wear a hat to the Shinra board meetings, but as his ears had a way of drawing more attention than was needed, leaving Reeve wished he would wear one just like he did everywhere else. "Very well then, let's get down to the subject of what we found out during the mission."

----

The Turk's office was widely known as the Gates to Hell for two reasons. The first was that many people that entered it were never seen again. The second was that you could find anything you were looking for in there, but you would probably regret the price you paid for getting your hands on it in the long run. That hadn't changed in the slightest with the rise of New Shinra, and it probably never would.

At the moment Vincent Valentine sat behind his desk looking quite content with himself. The plaque on his desk read "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down!" or at least that's what it said give or take a few more lines that didn't deviate from the original. Sephiroth looked at Vincent, and Vincent raised a single hand in greeting. "Hey Seph." There were only three people in the world, who Sephiroth let call him "Seph".

The first was James Firecat because he paid about as much attention to what someone wanted to be called, as Reno did to the rules about no getting drunk before (or during, or after) missions. The second was Aeris, because arguing over nicknames was a sure way to sleep on the couch. Vincent was the third because he was Sephiroth's father, and the roundabout way in which they had discovered that had bred a certain informality into their relationship.

There might eventually be a fourth person if Sephiroth ever had a long face-to-face discussion with his mother, but he doubted it would ever be an issue because Sephiroth knew the ventilation system of Shinra HQ like the back of his hand. Sephiroth didn't bother to raise his own hand in greeting, he just walked right up to his father's desk. "Hello Vincent, I've been out of the loop for a few months, and I need to find out a few things. Talk to me about Wutai."

----

Melkore showed a bunch of charts that probably only made sense to him and then, confident that he had established one simple fact (I have a higher IQ than any of you), he finally addressed the issue in accessible terms.

"Now then, let's talk about the bullets, since I'm sure that what everyone here cares about. While I'm not saying that we haven't lost track of plenty of bullets or make over the last few months, judging from the fact that these guys were clearly not expecting to have to deal with SOLDIERS, I can only come to one conclusion. Given the sheer relative unimportance of their task, whoever sent these guys, or at the very least, whoever's supplying them, has their own mako reactor."

----

Vincent looked up at Sephiroth and shrugged. "What about Wutai?" The two sized each other up very carefully after Sephiroth's question. They both knew that Vincent was Wutaian, and thus Sephiroth was half Wutaian, which was slightly ironic as Sephiroth had lead Shinra's efforts in the war against Wutai. "Tell me everything we have on how they've been acting after Meteor."

Unlike Mirri, Vincent didn't put up a struggle over information, after all, for him it was still keeping it in the family. "I'm not the best person for that as I've been out of the game for 30 years, but here's what I've got. After the war Wutai made like a turtle and pulled itself back into its shell to hide from things getting worse. Basically they just went along with whatever they were told to do. After Meteor, well they'd have to be fools not to have sensed the shifting the wind, and as I'm sure your aware, Lord Godo may be old, but he isn't a fool."

Sephiroth nodded, Lord Godo had commanded the Wutaian armies in the field to a string of victories over better equipped, more numerous Shinra armies under various commands. Then a new and very young general had come along, and the other shoe had dropped, Sephiroth had finally made use of Shinra's supplies to their greatest abilities. "So, how are they reacting to New Shinra?"

Much like Sephiroth, Vincent held little respect for documents, preferring to trust his own memory. "About the same as everyone is. They'll take while the taking is good. It's sad, but Wutai would be stupid not to take advantage of the fact that we're a friendlier, nicer, non-genocidal Shinra, and I've already touched on how they aren't mentally deficient." Sephiroth put a hand down on Vincent's desk. It was sad, but you couldn't be a general in Shinra without learning something about politics. "It all comes down to power."

----

That was a very, very painful idea for Reeve to swallow. "Someone else has a mako power plant going?" Shit, that was one of the few things that could possibly have gone wrong but doubtlessly shouldn't have. You would think that the draconian way that Shinra had stamped out competition should have prevented anyone else from setting themselves up with their own private mako reactor.

"Would you people mind telling me how that could be possible?" The answer startlingly came from the last person that Reeve would have expected it from, James Firecat. "Well, mako power is actually a lot simpler than most people think it is. I mean the "womb" I was made in, the thing we've got going that Shiva is in, that's really nothing more than a miniature reactor. All you need is a drill for breaking through the surface of the planet, and a siphon for getting the Lifestream out. Then it has to be taken to somewhere when it can be distilled from lifestream to mako, but that kind of thing is all over the place."

Brian pondered a moment before stepping in. "Shinra keeps tabs on places and technology needed to derive power from mako, but not the equipment for extracting and distilling it." Melkore cast an irritated glance at Brian. Brian had been working far more closely with Shinra for the last ten years than Melkore had until now, thus giving him a better knowledge of such bureaucratic practices.

"Okay then Brian, since apparently you know what's going on, how do we find them?" Brian shrank back from Melkore's glare, but pressed on all the same. "I hate to bring up ghosts of the past, because I remember hearing these words said here in another much darker context when I was working for former director Scarlet, but none the less, I guess I'll just have to say them, we need a Cetra."

----

"Power?" "Power, Vincent." The thoughts had already been kicked around in Sephiroth's head so many times prior to this event that he practically memorized what he would say. "We've been monitoring the size of Wutai's army, but we haven't done anything concerning their power base, whatever it consists of." Vincent opened a section of his desk and pulled out a stack of papers.

"You're telling me? These files are an insult to the trees that were cut down to make them. If you believe what these things say, they don't have anything past the water wheel." Sephiroth nodded as Vincent put the files away. "Any idiot knows they didn't put up as good of a fight as they did without some kind of manufacturing."

-----

Lucresia Valentine might find it humorous, but Reeve didn't, he had also been present when those words had been spoken beforehand. "I agree with you in spirit Brian, a Cetra's ability to detect the rips in the planet that drilling for mako inevitably creates would make them ideal for our purposes. However, I hardly believe that now is a good time to go out and try to capture a Cetra."

Mirri surprisingly wasn't endorsing the military option this time around. "Who's talking about capturing? We didn't stage the Seraphim Rebellion without getting a couple of people to owe us favors, including Cetra. If you give me time for one trip to lower Midgar I can bring a Cetra back with me."

----

Power was an easy thing to talk about. The next issue was harder. "There's something else about Wutai that bothers me, sooner or later Godo is going to die, and when he does, it'll be bad news for everyone involved." Vincent smiled, showing his pointed canines. "Yes, you did rather kill off the rest of his family."

As a general Sephiroth was less than sentimental about death, but he was outpaced in sheer sanguinity by Vincent, who had been a Turk first and then a vampire, which meant he ended up viewing death as natures best joke. "I didn't kill them directly and you know that. His pregnant wife died of a combination of shock, heartbreak, and complications involved with childbirth." It wasn't that Sephiroth had a direct problem with being accused of killing someone, but hell if he would let the accusation stand for someone he hadn't actually killed. "I know, I know, and if you want me to take a random guess about what will happen after Godo dies, it's just that Wutai is going to be in trouble. The nobles are probably going to start fighting each other over who gets to be in charge. One big civil war on one very tiny island."

Now that was just a lovely thought. "So basically, we're looking at Wutai going straight to hell, unless he finds someone to be his heir." Vincent and Sephiroth looked at each other, and shuddered as they both had the same brand of thoughts. "The problem being that Wutai doesn't have anyone who they could unite behind."

Vincent reached under his desk and pulled out a bottle of beer. Then he gave on decisive twist to open the bottle. He didn't even need to look over his shoulder as he spoke. "Hey Reno, do you think you could get James to look like he was a Wutain?" Just as Vincent suspected, the sound of a alcohol being opened had attracted his second in command's attention like a moth to a flame.

"Well boss, we would have to paint his hair and ears black, which James wouldn't like much, but if you asked Catwarrior she could probably convince him to do it. On second thought, scrap painting the ears back, I don't think that what color his cat ears are will really make a difference. We might have to do some minor plastic surgery on him, and Catwarrior really wouldn't like that, but then we might be able to get away with a facemask and really good wig instead. After that we'd need to teach him the language, and the walk, maybe inside two weeks given a really intensive course." Sephiroth recoiled, his cool façade cracking. "You want to use James?"

---

While 70 floors above, people talked about finding a Cetra, little did they know that below them a Cetra was already going about the process of delivering itself right into their laps. The huge silver wolf ran through the streets of Midgar with the impunity of a god. Much as it expected, people quickly got out of its way rather than trying to stand before something that probably could slam them to the ground and then keep going without even breaking its stride. Size wasn't the only thing unusual about the wolf, its intelligence was beyond normal lupine standards as well.

It stopped at the door to Shinra HQ, got up on its hind legs, and used its front ones to push the glass door open. Then it was back on all fours, it raced through the lobby of the building, drawing a very odd look from the receptionist. Clerks ducked to the side as he wolf approached the elevator, and pushed the "up" button with its nose. Then, as calmly as anyone else, the wolf waited for the elevator.

The door eventually opened with a slight "bing" and a very surprised person got out after the wolf was kind enough to step to the side slightly. Then the wolf was back in, and he pushed the button for floor 65. At least he tried to, given the size of the wolf's pads and the fact that it couldn't retract its claws, it ended up pushing buttons 66, 65, and 64. As the wolf slowly sunk to the ground, it let out something between a high pitched wine of displeasure and a growl of anger.

Thankfully, by whatever luck the universe ran on, nobody else needed a ride on this particular elevator at the moment. When the door opened, the wolfdarted out of the elevator and ran into the Turk's lounge. /Vincent, the shapeshifter is missing!\

End chapter two