Ok here's chapter 3 redone, I thought everything moved a little too fast in the first version.


Ash lay on the bed in Sephiroth's room drifting in and out of consciousness, not that it made much difference, she couldn't see anything anyway. She could hear voices talking lowly near her, moaning softly she shifted her arms and tried to sit up. The second her stomach muscles began to clench in order for her to move she felt hands on each of her shoulders pushing her back down to the bed. "It's alright Ash, it's me Zack, you need to stay still, we don't know how hurt you are."

Even in pain, she knew not to trust anything or anyone without proof, "Prove it," her voice cracked as she spoke, clearly she hadn't been allowed to drink anything in the 36 hours she'd spent in Hojo's lab.

He held a glass of water and guided the straw to her mouth so that she could drink from it and answered her, "Um...when we were six I asked you to marry me and you told me that boys were icky and could never marry a boy because we all have germs..."

That brought a round of laughter from Genesis, "Would you look at that Pup, even at six she knew it was too good for you!"

And that earned him a slap on the back of the head from Angeal, "Be nice."

"Ok now I know this isn't real because that sounded a lot like First Class Rhapsodos and Hewely."

"It is Genesis and 'Geal, they helped me get you out of the lab. Ash what did Hojo do to you?"

"I-" she tried in vain to search her memory for something, anything that could give her a clue as to what had happened yesterday but there was nothing, just darkness and pain, "I can't remember there's just pain. I don't- why can't I see anything Zack and where the hell am I?"

Zack grimaced at the question, "From what we can tell, Hojo was experimenting on them, I don't think you're gonna be able to see for a few days. As for where you are, well you're in the General's room..."

"Sephiroth's room!" she exclaimed, "Why-what am I doing in here? Don't you think that it'd be better for me to be at my place?"

"Someone needs to look after you Ash and SOLDIER can't go into the Turk's building. It would be too much work for Jess to look after you the whole time and Tseng won't be able to spare any more of his guys to help out. So we figured it'd be easier if you stayed here."

"Well why aren't I in your room Zack?"

"Well duh Seph's got the biggest room out of all of us, and he offered, ain't that right Seph?" Zack grinned, not getting any response from his superior.

"Right-well uh, thank you, all of you, but if you take me back to my room I can take care of myself, I know where everything is at home and can navigate the place in my sleep."

"That would not be a good idea, we have yet to find out just how injured you are and I doubt you'd be able to feed yourself. You'll stay here until you can see." Sephiroth interjected, he couldn't explain it but he felt like it was his duty to protect her.

"Fine, then I'm going to sleep, oh...has anyone told Tseng that I'm here?"

"Crap," Zack whined.


Tseng looked over the boardroom's table and fought the urge to shoot Hojo right in between his beady little eyes. Zack had come to find him a few hours ago and informed him that Ash had been found. Steepling his fingers he reminded himself that technically speaking all she was to him and to the company was just another Turk, someone who could be easily replaced by a person far more agreeable to the President's wishes. She wasn't important, and if he was found to be favouring any member of staff more than another then he could be just as easily replaced.

But he couldn't help it, when Ash had first arrived she had been only twelve and had almost immediately found that her big eyes and pouting lips could get her just about anything she wanted. She was quite a cute tween and had promptly climbed through the ranks of generic bodyguard to T.I.T, to generic Turk to being on the Vice-President's special task force. She was three years older than Rufus ShinRa and met him when he was eleven, quickly endearing herself to him. Rufus thought of her very much as an older sister, in fact on every one of his birthdays she would sneak the Vice-President out of the building and take him out on a day out of fun.

When he had told Rufus what he had heard from Zach, when he had seen the damage done to her up close along with Rufus, he had had to physically restrain the young blonde from (as Reno had put it) 'going postal on Hojo's ass.' Regardless of what the scientist had done to her, she was technically property of ShinRa and if the President saw fit to order these experiments he was duty bound not to stop them. He had already loathed the President for the beatings he had put his young son through but something had cracked in Tseng this time, it was if this was the final straw, the one reason that he would irrefutably be executed. The final nail in his coffin so to speak . Tseng couldn't stop the beatings Rufus had received but he would not allow one of his Turks, especially one as talented as Ash to be subjected to such torture. And he knew in that moment that the President wouldn't survive much longer. Young Rufus' rage had been dark and powerful, the look in his eyes had been one of pure malice, and when it came down to it, the Turks would be on Rufus' side. If the Vice-President wanted his father dead then it would happen, and it would happen just as slowly and painfully as Rufus requested.

Clenching his fists now Tseng came back to himself, "Mr President the point is, Professor Hojo deliberately endangered one of my people, and did so without informing anyone of what he was planning. As stated in sub section C of the Shinra science department's rules and regulations, paragraph seventeen 'No member of the Turks is to be used for experimentation unless it has been agreed upon by both the Vice-President and the head of the Turk department.' " he finished, glaring at Hojo from across the table.

"Never the less, what's done is done. Your Turk is alive and she has proved very useful for Professor Hojo's research, I don't see the problem here." The President replied.

"The problem is that when we found Miss Montearo in the halls she was half dead, currently she is confined to bed and has been blinded by whatever it is that the Professor has done to her. She is one of the best at what she does and one of the most competent, and it is part of her responsibility to protect your son. How is she to do that if she is being pulled away from her duties in order to be experimented on?"

"That's enough Tseng, when Miss Montearo is in better health we shall continue this meeting and I shall decide what needs to be done. You're dismissed Turk." It was obvious the President didn't have any respect for the Turk department, ever since his son had been named Vice-President he had felt the hands of time ticking. While Rufus was in power the President's own time would come to a close shortly. His decision to give Rufus such a position of power had been a mistake on his part, a grave one, but one that would be remedied as soon as possible. When Tseng had left the President turned to Hojo. "How did the results come out?"

"Miss Montearo is responding to the treatments marginally better than her father did, a few more and we should be able to gain control of a real demon, no one would dare oppose Shinra again. And if she really did manage to make it out of the lab on her own then she is improving far more quickly than expected. It won't be long before you have something more powerful than Sephiroth on your side." He let out a cackle as the President smirked.

"When she has recovered I want her power tested, and we can find out if all of Vincent Valentine's children possess his knack for survival."


Dum, dum, dum! Ash is Vincent's child...but who else is? Well the only way to find out quickly is to review. A happy author is one who updates more frequently you know?