Huzzah! Chapter three is out and ready for a reading! :D I've gone over my last two chapters and noticed some excruciatingly painful spelling errors I did not catch until I received a flame. Yup, a flame. Now telling me how I spelled Hewley wrong was fine, but to come out and say I need to put down my computer, be excited for the eighth grade and quit writing? Kinda pushing it there dude. I've got a lot of patience, but flames wear me thin real freakin' fast. Next time, use a profile so we can talk it out like adults instead of hide behind an anonymous guest review and act like a child.
With that out of the way, I hope you guys enjoy the chappie! :) Oh, and forgive my little rant up there, I just call it like I see it -_-
~III: Session~
"Angeal, whats do you do?" Zack asked from his spot in the ravenette's broad arms as he was carried out of the pipe room and further towards the front of the ruined facility.
"What do you mean by that, pup?" The First asked as he briefly looked him in his bright blue eyes before looking back ahead of him to see where he was currently going.
"Mmm! You know! Whats do you do? Mister Jeff was a scientist-ist, what does you do?" The puppified child asked, stammering over the larger words in his inquiry before sticking his tongue out to try and gently repeat the word 'scientist' correctly.
Angeal couldn't resist a deep baritone chuckle before he responded with, "I'm a SOLDIER." as he readjusted the child in his arms to sit more on his right hip while keeping him cradled close.
"Ooooh! Okay! ...What's a swoldier?" Zack asked as his right fuzzy ear twitched when an itch developed around it.
"It's like a really strong warrior. I fight battles and keep the peace in the city of Midgar, which is where we are going now." The elder responded to the young one as he gently rubbed at the twitchy ear that contained the itch.
"Ooohh! That means you've seen a lotta blood, haven't you, Angeal?" The wolf-hybrid queried as he looked him square in his eyes of deep midnight's blue.
"I have." He simply responded as he broke out of the pipe rooms and into the boiler and bath room he had once been in before.
"Have you ever seen anybodys get killed?" He asked with big eyes as his ears shot straight up atop his head.
The First class stopped in his tracks, images flashing before his eyes like a haze he could not see past. The Second's eyes glanced quickly to his mentor. They were filled with fright, pain, and yearning. His left hand slowly began to reach out to him, like if they could just reach then it would be all okay. He saw Locke take that blade and slit Zack's throat with it.
The scarlet liquid spurt out in haphazard directions and patterns as the teen's electric blue eyes pulled away from his teacher long enough to roll into the back of his head and his body fell limp, left hand dropping to the ground as his fingers twitched gently as the life drained out of him and swirled all around his figure.
Being dragged away by the hair like an old toy.
"Angeal?" Zack voiced gently, using one of his small hands to gently pat at the older ravenette's right cheek to get him to snap out of his revere.
The First resurfaced from his memories with a jolt and a shake. He drew in a shaky breath before locking his eyes with those cornflower blue ones just a few inches away from his own. He grinned a little grin that did not reach his eyes and seemed more forlorn than anything. The child cocked his head to the right as one ear flattened to his head while the other remained poised in an upright position.
"I've seen many bad things and done just as many, Zack. Now, we better get a move on or we'll be late." He spoke, adding that last bit to distract his own derailed thoughts as he began to walk again.
The puppified child piped down, both ears flat against his head as a little bit of regret shone through his big blue eyes from his earlier question and how it made the older man react. With a gentle hand, he reached up and patted the ravenette on the head a few times in a tender manner. He succeeded in drawing out a tiny smirk that barely made his eyes shimmer like the deep indigos of an evening sky after a frightening storm had passed. That smirk made the boy's tail wag once more as a little giggle echoed from the back of his throat.
They emerged from the back room and towards the front again where he saw his two friends by the door conversing with each other. From their visual movements, Angeal could tell the two came up empty handed in their search for answers or remains even. He knew he was going to get some pretty confused looks when he made his presence known.
"You'll never guess who I found." The ravenette called out whenever he was in earshot of his two friends as he continued to saunter towards them without a care in the world.
As soon as their eyes of green and blue locked on to their friend, but more specifically the child coiled in his arms, jaws slackened and brows shot up to their hairlines.
"Angeal, who is that child?" Sephiroth quickly asked as his surprise quickly faded into a deep frown: His natural expression for any kind of heightened emotion.
"If you take a look at this, you'll get the whole story." The First class responded as he held out the small black binder for his comrades to look over.
The General was the one to take the offered folder and flip it open as Genesis slightly leaned in closer to get a glance at what was inside as well. The silverette scanned through the first few pages of the binder's contents before freezing on a page that Angeal just knew was the page that he froze on as well. The red-head Commander had varying facial expressions as he read through the report while the black-clad First kept his face frozen in that scowl.
It then snapped with a shut as Sephiroth looked up from the black casing of the folder, his questions of the child in his friend's arms answered. Not only that, but now they were aware of which SOLDIER's had gone missing or been experimented on. This Halling was kind to leave this vital piece of the puzzle behind in a battle believed to be completely one-sided.
"So, it seems that the pup is in all reality, a pup. What do you plan to do with this child-like version of your student? He may still retain his Mako and a few skills, but he is now just a child." Genesis brought up as he stared at the wolf-hybrid wagging his tail and smiling.
"I plan to bring him back to Shin-Ra and perhaps continue to keep him in my quarters, but after that I'm not too sure. It's not like I can inform his family that he's alive, they've already been given notice of his passing. He cannot resume training and duties like he once did before due to AVALANCHE's experiments..." Angeal expressed, humming in deep thought after trailing off.
What could he do with a wolf-child hybrid? Because of this, he had technically lost his Second class SOLDIER status and what had once been his greatest dream: To become a hero. Now he was just a small child with no knowledge of who he was before except for the ravenette himself, but even that was a hazy image at best. It was just like hitting reset and starting over completely and from the very beginning. He had to restart his relationship with his student turned child.
After an ear ringing pause of silence, the General was the one to break the ice and speak what needed to be spoken. "Please keep this thought in your subconsious, my friend. Due to the tampering of his physical state he might not even be allowed in Shin-Ra, let alone continue to remain under your care."
Angeal was all ears after hearing that brutally true remark. Subconsciously, his broad arms swarmed around Zack tighter as the little pup smiled a bright and toothy grin while his tail wagged fast. This small action did not go unnoticed by the two standing before their ragged friend. To think he had lost his student and was only out to find his lifeless body now just had that life returned to him in some form. Now he was being told the brutal truth that he might not even be able to resume where he left off with the young one.
"Ultimately, the decision is up to the president. Lazard may be the director of SOLDIER and might be able to vouch in your favor, but president Shin-Ra has the final say so in any matter." Genesis reminded him as he agreed with his silver-haired friend's statement.
"He has to let Zack stay in Shin-Ra. He still has Mako coursing in his veins." Angeal rationalized with desperation masked by blind hope.
"I hate to argue with you, Angeal, but there are many children out on the streets with a raw introduction to the substance. However, what they are exposed too is not as refined and synthesized as we possess, it is still Mako none-the-less." Genesis brought up, knowing how many times he had run into children with more of a green glow in their eyes than the normal blue that purer forms of Mako granted.
The ravenette exhaled heavily as he broke eye contact from his only friends and down to the pup in his arms wrapped up securely without a care in the world. Those big electric blue eyes glanced up at him with a glimmer and shine like the crack of lightning across and black streaked sky. Surely the president wouldn't toss him out just because of these changes.
"We'd better hurry back before our pilot decides to leave without us, I hate being out in the cold anyways." Genesis spoke up as he turned on his heel and began to walk out of the ruined facility.
"You say the same thing about the heat in Costa when we vacation there in the summer." Sephiroth retorted in his own way of showing he was making a joke.
Angeal followed the red-headed Commander out of the abandoned building with the General at his side and his former student in his arms. It had started to snow again and blanket the world in luminescent white while the sky above was choked a midnight's black. The wolf-hybrid stuck out his left hand and watched as a tiny flake landed in the palm of his hand before quickly melting away. Awe spread across his face like the snow on the ground before he stuck his tongue out to catch a flake like that.
When one landed on the organ, it melted faster than the flake that evaporated in his hand. He pulled it back into his mouth with a giggle as his tail wagged so fast it was more of a blur than anything. The walk back to the chopper seemed shorter than the walk towards the bath house just a few measly hours ago. The return trip always seemed longer than the start of the journey. Both their pilot and their helicopter lay waiting in the same spot they last saw it in. Cramming into the small mode of transportation was no easy feat with an agitated red-head and a newer addition to try and squeeze in.
After a bit of a shaky ascent, the helicopter was soon high in the air and above all of the clouds pouring their load of snow down on the earth below. Sephiroth and Genesis were sitting on one cramped side of the chopper while Angeal occupied the other side with Zack sitting still in his lap and looking rather lethargic. The red-head was complaining about the lack of space in the cabin again and was barking a few insults at Sephiroth and how his seven foot long katana; Masamune, took up too much space. The silverette was just barely smirking and keeping his eyes closed.
"Angeal, I'm tired..." The pup spoke up with a thickness in his voice that could only come from drowziness as he rubbed his right eye with the heel of his palm.
Without words, the ravenette gently wrapped his large hands around the young child's waist and scooted him off his lap and to the empty space on his right. He then gently coaxed the wolf-hybrid to lay his head on his lap and close his eyes. Zack made sure to grab hold of the older man's hand and hold it in his own small ones as he drifted off fast and without fuss.
"Sleep well, puppy." He responded softly as his other hand gently ran through those raven black spikes in a comforting and lulling manner through the entire chopper ride back to Midgar.
It wasn't until the clock read midnight that Angeal arrived back in his own housing quarters on the fifty-ninth floor. Even though the hours of the night had changed into early hours of the following morning, the three Firsts were still required to debrief their mission to the director and report their findings.
After reporting to Lazard that they had found something big, he had stated that the president informed them that it could not wait until morning and must be discussed immediately. He had only stopped by his quarters to lay his student to rest in his old room. His flat contained two rooms since he was -or had been- enrolled in the Student/Mentor program.
The former Second class's room had been still been untouched by time since that fateful mission four months ago. The metallic jade green covers on the full sized bed were heaped on the floor on the left side of the bed. The small desk he often had the teen fill out his paperwork for any of his missions was cluttered with an assortment of old textbooks from his earlier days of study before he made SOLDIER. A few unfinished mission documents lay scattered about the pine colored surface and even lay motionless on the tan carpet below.
Ever since his student had been murdered and his body taken away, Angeal refused to enter this room, let alone even open the door. He didn't want the memories and the nightmares to assault him just by glancing inside. But now that his former student turned half-wolf was sleeping securely in his arms, he could face the music again. He carried the catatonic hybrid to the bed and laid him down. The large mattress seemed to make his small body shrink even more so. He had once been able to stretch out and almost be too big for this bed, but now that was a different story.
He pulled up the covers from the floor and draped them over the little one, tucking them in by his shoulders. The pup's left ear twitched before falling completely still as it once was. The ravenette couldn't resist gently rubbing the fuzzy appendage in between his right index finger and thumb. The notion caused the sleeping child to smile as one of his canines gently poked out from behind his little grin.
The First did not do this for long before pulling away and turning on his heel. As he began to walk out of the room, his left boot gently collided with something soft as the smallest jingling noise could be heard. He glanced down to only find himself grinning softly with slightly watering eyes. The former SOLDIER's infamous chocobo plush. He once did not know his former student had possessed something so, child-like and innocent at his age.
0600 hours and they already had a mission lined up for them. It was a simple extermination task located in the slums of sector six. A few guard hounds had broken out of the labs late last night and were now causing people that lived in sector five to be late for work or other obligations. It was a walk in the park for Angeal, but it technically wasn't his mission. It was his newly appointed Third class student's mission.
It was a rather stormy morning today. The sky was suffocated with ash-gray rain clouds and the wind was howling harsh and strong today. It sounded like a droning howl of a lost bandersnatch while the rain sounded like a raging river. The thunder was louder than a booming war drum and sounded more like the ricocheting 'ping' of a shotgun being fired. Either that, or a bazooka. A few claps of thunder even had the First slightly jump and check for signs of exploding mines or guns firing.
Knowing they didn't have much time to waste to get the mission finished with and were already running a bit behind schedule, Angeal left his room fully dressed in his uniform before making his way down the hall and to his student's room. He rapped against the door with three loud knocks before opening the door and glancing inside.
What he saw even had him thrown for a bit of a surprise. Zack was curled up into a tight ball with his eyes scrunched shut tight and had a small toy in his tight clutches. Was his student afraid of thunderstorms? That couldn't be right, he always boasted about how dauntless he was and how nothing scared him in the slightest. Not only that, but was that a chocobo plush wrapped up in his broad arms? The scene seemed almost out of character for the vivacious teen.
"Zack!" Angeal called with his best Commander voice.
The ravenette instantly opened his eyes. There was a brief moment of silence cutting through the air like high tension as the two stared at each other. All of a sudden, the Third class stuffed the stuffed bird under his pillow with a small yelp, like he was hiding some dirty little secret before pulling his blankets over his head and hiding himself. When a clap of thunder boomed like the blast of a mine going off, the lump under the green covers moaned a little and curled the blankets tighter around his growing frame.
"Zack, we have a mission." Angeal spoke when the rumble faded away and left the sound of pelting rain dripping off the building from outside instead.
His student refused to answer and remained hiding under his blanket without a sound.
"Zackary-"
"Please get out..." Was the muttered interruption his superior officer was given.
"What?" Angeal questioned, completely baffled at the response he had been given. The teen may be reckless and impulsive, but he never disobeyed his mentor and always did as he was told.
"Just get out!" He cried with a shaking voice that sounded more pitiful than demanding.
The First was just about to question the Third's behavior until the next crash of thunder did the explaining for him. The younger ravenette squirmed under the blankets again and dug his head underneath his pillow to further hide himself. The fourteen year old did possess a fear of thunderstorms, and knowing how the teen thought, was probably embarrassed or ashamed that his mentor had caught him acting so childish.
Angeal did not leave the room. He walked in quietly and paused in front of the younger ravenette's bed. He gently sat against the foot of the mattress and gazed at the lump that was his pupil. When the younger felt the weight near the edge of his bed, he pulled his head up from its hiding spot and pitifully glared at his mentor. His face was flushed a feverish red as translucent tear tracks stained his cheeks. His cornflower blue eyes were bloodshot and filled to the brim with copious amounts of salty tears.
"Please leave, I don't want you to see me like this." He choked out, voice cracking sharply.
"Do not be ashamed. It's perfectly fine to cry every once in awhile." The twenty-three year old told him reassuringly.
"No it's not! You never cry, Ang'! You aren't scared of anything!" Zack shouted as he tried to wipe away the tracks of tears on his face like he as erasing the evidence of his weakness.
"That's not entirely true, pup. I have my own fears and demons to contend with." The First spoke, speaking the truth.
"Really? I find that super hard to believe. What the heck are you scared of anyways?" The ravenette denied with a roll of his irritated eyes of bright blue.
"A lot of situations involving you tend to rile me up." He said with a baritone chuckle as he patted the Third's left leg.
That caused a blush, not from tears or agitation, but from a sheepish kind of embarrassment to flourish across his face in a feverish fashion as he broke eye contact with his superior.
"So, was that a chocobo plush I saw before you buried the poor thing underneath your pillow?" The older man questioned with another gruff laugh.
"Maybe..." Zack muttered as he reached under the puffy pillow and pulled out his stuffed companion.
It wasn't very big, maybe eight inches in height. It looked plush and soft and had lots of wear and tear all over the thing. What the First class could assume used to be a golden yellow color was now more of a faded pale yellow. It had a few bald spots near the neck and plumage of the dated toy and with further observation, the older could see stitches and patchwork all around the bird's tail feathers and wings.
When the ravenette gently moved the toy, the sounds of a broken rattle could be heard sloshing around in the old stuffing like water being shaken in a container. Obviously, the toy was about as old as the Third class himself and had seen many years of rough love and plenty of wear and tear and would continue to receive more years of tattered age.
"How pathetic is this, A Third class SOLDIER that still sleeps with a stuffed animal." Zack muttered under his breath as he looked at the floor to his right.
"I find it endearing. This just proves how much of a puppy you really are I suppose." Angeal spoke with a grin.
"Yeah, thanks, Angeal." The ravenette spoke sarcastically with another roll of his brightening blue eyes, his earlier fear all but washed away now.
He gently turned back on his heel and placed the old toy next to his puppified former student, the toy gently rattling as if speaking to greet its owner after going so long without him. Zack gently turned over and nuzzled his face into the old, yet soft material of the toy. A bigger smile stretched across his face as he snuggled into it as his left ear twitched once more.
Knowing he had spent enough time reminiscing, the First stepped out of the room and gently cracked the door behind him. With that, he made his way out of his quarters and locked the door behind him. He took quick strides to reach the elevator. The sooner they briefed Lazard and the president, the sooner he could get a verdict on the issue with his revived and experimented former student. He could only pray to the Goddess that the president wasn't all that insensitive and allowed the Mako enhanced wolf-hybrid to stay.
A/N: And there's a wrap on chapter three! I hope you guys enjoyed it :) I planned on making this one a little bit longer, but I figured here would be a good stopping point since what I've got planned out might even be longer than this chappie!
So don't forget to drop a line, leave a review, or type a response and let me know what you guys thought and think! Every bit helps my muse! :3 If you must find something to correct, please use some concrit instead of a flame, I take those better :)
Until the next chapter, everyone!
Toodles!
~Zimithrus1
