LES: The Mako Reactor! Genesis included! Yea-ness!!
Chapter II: The Mako Reactor
Zack had the last watch of the night, so he was already awake when Sephiroth, Cloud, and the other infantryman came out of the inn. "Zack." Sephiroth called. The black-haired SOLDIER and the second infantryman switched places. "Are you ready?"
"Of course." Zack answered.
"Good. We'll leave as soon as our guide gets here." Sephiroth said.
"I'm here." Tifa said, walking up. "You guys will keep me safe from the monsters, right?"
"Of course." Zack said. "No harm will befall you, I promise."
"Shall we go then?" Sephiroth asked, but a small voice hailed him.
"Err… General Sephiroth?" It was a local holding a camera. "I was wondering if I could take a picture. As a memento of your visit to Nibelheim."
Sephiroth sighed. "Very well." The man grinned brightly, looking less nervous. Zack walked over next to Sephiroth and stood next to him.
"Don't forget me." He said. "Seph ain't the only First-Class around here."
"And you too, young Tifa." The cameraman said. "Then you can prove that you met the great Sephiroth." Tifa smiled and stood between Zack and Sephiroth. The man aimed the camera briefly, and then took a quick shot. "Perfect." He said, and then he disappeared.
"Now… let's go." Sephiroth said, drawing the sword Masamune, which was as famous as its owner. It was much thinner than Zack's Buster Sword, but a lot longer, and just as strong. Zack had witnessed that blade cut through solid steel like a hot knife through butter.
"Yes." Zack agreed, drawing the Buster Sword from its place on his back.
"That way." Tifa said, pointing. "The path by the Shinra Manor." She led them towards the path into the mountains by the Manor.
The path was short, but very twisted. It soon became apparent to Zack that, without Tifa, they would have gotten hopelessly lost. But Tifa did appear to know the way quite well and led them surely.
With Tifa's guidance, and Sephiroth's, Zack's, and Cloud's combined combat experience, they made it to the Reactor with little trouble. The only exception was the cameraman, who tagged along, and seemed hell-bent on getting a picture of Sephiroth in action. Zack had to send him back to the village with orders to get in his house and stay there.
The Mt. Nibel Reactor came into view. Like most reactors, the structure had a green Mako-drenched aura, but the green color was more vivid than normal. "Seems like the Mako is leaking." Zack commented. He could literally sense the Mako-soaked air. Mako-infused SOLDIERs always got an energy boost from the presence of Mako.
"A Mako leak is a simple fix." Sephiroth said, moving forward. "What worries me is the fact that every reactor on Gaia developed the same problem at the same time. The odds of that are… astronomical… to say the least."
Zack blinked in shock. He hadn't thought of it like that. "Seph, that's why you're the General." He said.
Sephiroth smirked. "Come, Zack."
Zack began to follow Sephiroth when Tifa stepped forward. "Can't I come in?" She asked. "I've never…"
"No!" Bot Sephiroth and Zack said, albeit Sephiroth was harsher than Zack. Tifa took a step back from Sephiroth, staring at him with a look of fear.
Sephiroth sighed, realizing that this girl was not in the military, and was not used to the General's manner of dealing with people. For his whole life, he had lived inside Shinra and was used to the military's harshness. He often forgot that most people did not share his tortured live-or-die upbringing. He glanced at Zack, a much gentler person, and motioned for him to explain.
Zack took a step towards Tifa. "Reactors like this one are full of Shinra's industrial secrets. Only Shinra's scientists, SOLDIERs, the Turks, and certain other personnel are allowed inside." He glanced at Cloud. "You. Keep the lady safe." He sent a small wink in his direction that only Cloud noticed. Cloud smirked slightly and saluted.
Sephiroth was already well up the stairs that led to the reactor's entrance. An iris scan discretely scanned the Mako-infused eyes of the approaching SOLDIERs.
"SOLDIER General First-Class Sephiroth… SOLDIER First-Class Zack Fair… access granted." A monotone computer voice spoke. The air-lock door opened automatically for them.
Down at the foot of the stairs, Tifa tried to follow them, but the helmeted Cloud stopped her advance, held out his hand in the universal sign of 'stop' and shook his head.
Tifa glared at him, incapable of recognizing him with his Shinra mask, and stomped a short distance away, presumably to sulk.
The reactor's entrance closed after Sephiroth and Zack.
Sephiroth and Zack moved quickly through the Reactor, having been inside Reactors before. "Do you feel the Mako, Zack?" Sephiroth asked suddenly.
"Yeah." Zack said. "But it's much stronger than the Mako-infused air of other reactors. It's like having a high."
"Yes." Sephiroth said. "It could just be the leak… or it could be something else entirely. Be sure to keep your head about you. It wouldn't do to have First-Class SOLDIERs like us going into a Mako Frenzy."
Zack was familiar with 'Mako Frenzy'. All SOLDIERs were. It was the term given to the high-like crazy period that SOLDIER recruits experience the first few times they are exposed to Mako. It was marked by an over-abundance of energy, random destruction of inanimate objects, insanity, and (strangely) a sudden, violent increase in libido.
As mentioned, this only happened to new SOLDIER recruits during their first few Mako treatments. After a few treatments, the recruit's body got used to the Mako and the side-effects slowly stopped. For experienced First-Class SOLDIERs to fall prey to something like Mako Frenzy would have been highly embarrassing. It would have been the hot topic on the SOLDIER floor for an unholy amount of time.
Zack's own Mako Frenzies had consisted of general bouncing-off-the-walls behavior and an increase of sexual behavior. Pretty standard.
Sephiroth, on the other hand, could never confess of having a Mako Frenzy. No matter how much Mako that sadistic excuse for a scientist, Hojo, pumped into his body, his cells readily accepted it without any side-effects.
Zack laughed. "Don't worry, Oh Fearless Leader, the Mako Frenzy days are long behind me."
"Good. Because the last thing I need right now is for you to mistake me for a woman and try to hit on me again." Sephiroth said.
Zack blushed. "That was one time!" Back when Zack had first joined, his unit had been inspected by the SOLDIER General. Zack had been in the throes of a Mako Frenzy, saw the General from behind, and assumed he was a woman because of his long hair. Before he could even think of stopping himself, he had commented (loudly) on the "sweet-lookin ass on the silver-haired chick" and an innuendo on how much he wanted to bang her (him). Needless to say, Sephiroth had not been amused. "I couldn't help it, Seph!" Zack said. "You've got to admit that your long hair makes you look like a woman!"
Sephiroth glared back at Zack. "The sacrifices I make for Midgar…" Sephiroth mused. "President Shinra nothing short of demands I keep my hair like this. He says the public… more likely the women… like it."
"Yeah. The day the General Sephiroth loses his prized silver mane is the day that Shinra loses all of its power." Zack laughed.
"Zack." Sephiroth warned.
"Oh. Sorry." Zack said, sobering up instantly.
They found their way to the reactor's main research room, which was present in every reactor outside of Midgar. The room was full of large pods that seemed to contain a large amount of Mako.
Sephiroth moved over to one of the pods, and studied the glowing green liquid that was leaking out. "Here is the problem. This section is broken." Sephiroth said. "Zack, turn off that valve over there." Zack quickly did as he was told. "That will shut off the Mako to this pod and give us time to repair the damage." He paused. "Why did it break?" Next, he glanced through the window on the front. "Disturbing." He commented. "This is definitely Hojo's work."
"What?" Zack asked, moving towards Sephiroth. The General glanced at Zack, and then stood back and invited the younger man to look. The younger SOLDIER moved over to the window and glanced inside. Suspended in the glowing Mako was some kind of monster… faintly humanoid, but not human. Zack jumped back with a small cry of surprise. He looked at Sephiroth. "What is this?"
Sephiroth sighed. "You regular SOLDIERs are humans that have been infused with Mako energy. You are enhanced, but you are still human. But then… what are these things? They've been exposed to much more Mako than you have."
"So… they're monsters?" Zack asked.
Sephiroth nodded. "Creatures that have been exposed to too much Mako energy… and has gone insane… that's all that monsters really are."
"You said… 'regular SOLDIERs'." Zack said. "What about you?"
But Zack apparently struck a nerve that he wasn't even aware existed. Sephiroth staggered as if he had been shot. Zack instantly leapt forward to help his friend. "N—no!" Sephiroth gasped, shoving Zack away. "Could it be? Was I created the same way?" He paused. "I've known ever since I was young… I wasn't like the rest…" He glared back at the monster in the pod. "But this is NOT what I meant! Am I… a human being?"
"So, Sephiroth, you finally see the truth?" A familiar voice asked. Both Zack and Sephiroth looked around, shocked. Genesis landed close by, his one black wing folding against his back.
"Genesis!" Zack yelled, drawing the Buster Sword and rushing at the SOLDIER traitor.
Genesis simply unfurled his wing and knocked Zack away with the surprisingly strong appendage. Zack hit the wall, smashing the back of his head pretty good and forcing all the strength out of his limbs. He couldn't move, let alone fight Genesis. The ex-SOLDIER scoffed. "Letting riff-raff into SOLDIER First-Class these days."
Sephiroth glared at his one-time friend. "What do you want, Genesis?"
Genesis simply smiled, and began to recite from his favorite work, the epic poem, LOVELESS. "My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I?"
Sephiroth interrupted him. "LOVELESS, Act III. You never changed, Genesis."
"You jest, Sephiroth." It was true, in terms of how Genesis looked. He was but a shadow of the man he used to be. Once, his handsome looks and skill in battle had rivaled Sephiroth. But no more. Due to the failure of an experiment by the mad scientist Hollander, his body was slowly degrading. His once red hair had streaks of gray and patches of his skin looked like too-dry ground. "Why I have come, Sephiroth, is to shed some light on the situation… dear friend." Genesis held up a dumbapple. "Any friend would do no less."
"You are no friend of mine, Genesis." Sephiroth said. "You betrayed SOLDIER and Shinra."
"But never you." Genesis said. "Yes, I did part ways with Shinra… because I discovered the truth… the truth of the Jenova project."
"Jenova? My mother?" Sephiroth asked.
Genesis laughed. "Poor little Sephiroth. You've never known your mother. You've only been told her name, no?" He used his wing to point up at the door at the top of the room. A legend above the door clearly read 'JENOVA'.
"Mother?" Sephiroth gasped.
"Jenova's right behind that door. But who knows how you will be affected by meeting her." Genesis said. "I don't know what sort of image you've conjured in your head about your mother, but the hard truth is… Jenova was the name Professor Gast and his team game to an organism they excavated from a two-thousand year old rock layer. She's a monster. And you, Sephiroth, are as much a monster as I am."
"Seph!" Zack gasped, still trying to get up, but the hit still kept him down. "You are not a monster!" Sephiroth continued to stare longingly at the door marked 'JENOVA'.
"You are a monster." Genesis repeated. "In fact, the greatest monster created by the Jenova project." Genesis grinned. "Your traits cannot be copied onto others like myself and Angeal. Your cells are stable, and therefore, your body will not degrade."
"Why did you come here, Genesis?" Sephiroth demanded.
Genesis lifted the dumbapple into the air, staring fondly at it. "My friend, your desire; is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess." More LOVELESS. "The Gift of the Goddess, Sephiroth. A gift of pure S cells will stop the degradation process. Share your cells with me, Sephiroth, and my degradation will cease."
Sephiroth stared at him. "Even if what you say… are lies created to deceive me… or the truth… which I have sought my entire life… it makes no difference." Sephiroth glared at Genesis. "Genesis… you will rot." With that, Sephiroth stormed out.
"Perfect monster indeed." Genesis said. "Even if the morrow is barren of promises… nothing shall forestall my return." He spread his one black wing and disappeared in a flurry of feathers.
Zack carefully picked himself up and used a Curaga materia. Once he was cleaned up, he took off out of the reactor after Sephiroth. He made it out of the reactor easily. Sephiroth was nowhere in sight, but what he saw made the young man curse himself for a fool.
Genesis was in Nibelheim, and that meant that his copies were never that far behind. Tifa was getting assaulted by one of the higher-ranking Genesis copies. Cloud was laying on the ground near-by; the front of his uniform was torn open and stained with his own blood.
Zack quickly drew the Buster Sword and rushed down the steps. When he was almost at the Copy, Zack leapt into the air, the enormous sword held high, and he brought it down on the unsuspecting copy, cleaving it in two down the middle.
Before Zack could even properly recover, Tifa was rushing towards the fallen Cloud. She knelt down beside him, staring at his wound helplessly. "He was trying to protect me from that… thing." She explained.
Zack rushed over and examined the wound. The actual cut wasn't life-threatening; Cloud was in real danger from blood-loss. What small portion he could see of Cloud's face was deathly pale. Zack quickly cast another Curaga spell on Cloud. "He'll be fine." He assured Tifa. "But it will take some time for him to be top-notch again. Help him along, and I'll clear the path ahead."
Tifa nodded, and helped Cloud to his feet. She had one of his arms around her neck, and she wrapped her left arm around his waist, supporting him rather effectively.
Zack nodded and took the lead, heeding Tifa's calls about the proper direction.
Once they were back in Nibelheim, many of the locals swarmed Zack, asking what had happened. They had heard the commotion up on the mountain. Zack sent Tifa to take Cloud to Room Four of the inn, and the deflected the villager's questions with his own. "Has anyone seen General Sephiroth?"
But no one had seen him; even Sephiroth's Nibelheim camera-wielding stalker didn't have a clue about Sephiroth's whereabouts.
With a defeated sigh, Zack retreated to the inn. There, he immediately ran into Tifa. "That infantryman is in bed." She said.
"Good. Rest is the best thing for him now." Zack said, absentmindedly.
"Hey. Are there any blonde guys in SOLDIER?" Tifa asked suddenly.
"What?" Zack asked.
"Blonde guys." Tifa repeated, going a little red. "Isn't it any girl's dream to have a blonde SOLDIER to protect her?"
Tell that to Aerith. She's more into black-haired SOLDIERs. Zack thought to himself with a small grin. He knew now that Tifa was asking about Cloud.
"A fair few." Zack said truthfully. "Blonde's a pretty common color, you know." He smiled broadly. "Tell you what, I'll tell the blonde SOLDIER guys to look you up."
Tifa blushed some more. "Oh… you don't have to do that. I'll find my own blonde SOLDIER."
"Whatever you want, Tifa. Hey, can you keep an eye out for the General?" Zack asked. "We seem to have gotten separated."
"Sure. I'll tell you as soon as we have some news." She ran out.
Zack went upstairs to Cloud's room to check on him. The young blonde was sitting up now, inspecting the damage to his uniform with a sour look. Zack knew why. SOLDIERs were supplied their uniforms, but for an infantryman like Cloud, the ruined uniform would likely come out of his pay.
"Hey, you okay, buddy?" Zack asked.
Cloud looked around. "Yeah. I'm fine. The stupid copy got the jump on me. Is Tifa all right?" Cloud gasped, panic finding its way into his voice.
"Whoa! Don't worry. Tifa's fine. Right now, Sephiroth's the one I'm worried about." Zack said.
Cloud looked away. "What happened… in the reactor?"
Zack sighed. "I don't know, man. One minute, everything's fine, and then the next…" Zack stood up. "I'm with SOLDIER, so fighting's all I do. Sorting things out… is someone else's job. What's going on? Who's the enemy? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO ME!" Zack growled with rage and raised the Buster Sword above his head like he was going to bringing it down on an innocent table and slice it in half. But he stopped himself, took a deep breath, and pressed his forehead against the cold metal. As always, it had a calming effect on him.
"You know…" Cloud began. "I've never seen you use that."
Zack's eyes opened in shock. His mind traveled back two years ago when he had asked his mentor, Angeal, the same exact question about the same exact sword…
A younger, Second-Class Zack watched his mentor for the signal to begin the operation that would finally bring an end to the war with Wutai. "Hey, Angeal, I've never actually seen you use that thing. Doncha think that's a waste?"
Angeal laughed slightly. "Use brings about wear… tear… and rust. And that's a real waste."
And then later, during the same operation, after Angeal had used that blade to save Zack's life… Zack grinned apologetically. "I'm sorry if your sword got any wear, tear, or rust on it."
Angeal sheathed the mighty blade. "You're a little more important than my sword… but just a little."
"Zack?" Cloud's voice returned the SOLDIER back to the present.
Zack grinned at Cloud and held the sword out in front of him. "This sword… represents my dreams and honor." He paused. "No. It means more than that… that's right. I had almost forgotten. Thank you, Cloud."
"What?" Cloud asked, but Zack didn't answer him. "So… about what happened in the Reactor…"
"Well, I'm beat. Good-night, Cloud." Zack interrupted, walking out the door and leaving Cloud stunned, mid-question.
LES: Hopefully, this is an okay balance between the two games. Final Fantasy VII is an amazing game, and Crisis Core is an amazing game. It's finding the middle ground that's making this fun!