Twinkles in the night sky
Chapter four: On the road again.
It felt good to be on the ground again for James Firecat. To be fair, this was not some kind of sibling rivalry with his "sister" the Valar, because James liked flying. It was just that while watching the passing scenery was quite interesting, something else was currently making its way through James' mind. The Seraphim, who fit his concept of "family" to a T, or would, if there was a T in "family".
The time he had spent in the Seraphim Rebellion had probably been only a bit more than a month, but when you were as old as James (about a year, give or take) a month was a long time. More to the point, that month had been the time when his desire to go everywhere and do everything had been closest to being fully sated. The months that followed had been wonderful because he had spent them with Mirri, but as he had discovered somewhat quickly, being in the military was sort of boring when there wasn't a war going on.
What slogging through the rain, fighting, killing, bleeding, seeing his companions killed off (okay saying that he had seen that was a bit of a lie, but for a while they had thought Sephiroth was dead), had failed to accomplish, the bureaucracy had. James would have never have guessed that war required so much paperwork, though it did do a bit to explain why the Seraphim Rebellion had been able to succeed.
That's why he was wondering if he should talk to Mirri about getting himself honorably discharged in a couple of months. Of course, on the other hand, James hadn't ever not been involved in some kind of structure, but he thought the civilian lifestyle might be just the thing for him. Civilians could live where they wanted, sleep the hours they wanted, and eat the things they wanted. Of course these were frighteningly new concepts to James who for the most part been brought up to do all those things on Shinra's command, which was why he had followed Sephiroth commands on them for a while.
Now he was following Mirri's, which as they were married was at least socially more acceptable. Give him to his first birthday (he spent a lot of time wondering what he would get for presents) and he would probably be able to figure out all those things for himself! Sentience was a tricky thing, and you had to grow into it, that's what James thought. But that wasn't the main reason he wanted to be a civilian, as a civvy he didn't have to worry about protecting himself from anyone who tried to kill him.
Apparently the army could actually do far less to protect itself. Despite being made up of armed people, it was better for attacking others than defending itself. It was like one big target when you thought about it. As a civvy James wouldn't have to spend nearly as much time looking over his shoulder, because being a military man meant you were a good target.
James didn't like to be a good target, he liked to be a bad target, one that jinked, twisted and twirled. And since there had yet to be any particular law against his gloves (funny how with Melkore and Mirri sitting so near the top of the New Shinra hierarchy the issue of his gloves had been ignored) he could keep them after he stopped being a military man. That was a good bargain, you weren't a target, and you could fight back!
But that was an issue for a later date, James had to keep his mind on the mission or the mission would make him keep his mind on it. As he had discovered over his "years" the mission could really bite you in the tail at times. Speaking of "the tail" that was one of the things he liked about being on top of the world. Mirri had instructed the tailors to design him two sets of military pants, one for dress (whatever that meant, since it still included pants) and one for combat.
Not that this was unusual most people had two different sets of uniforms, but with James there was quite a clear difference between them. His uniform for fighting had a special hole in the seat of the pants for his tail to come out of. Actually, not having his tail constantly stuffed down a pants leg was probably the thing he liked most about having all of Shinra's resources at his beck and call.
After swinging said tail back and forth playfully for a few moments James got to work recalibrating his mind, he had to focus. He was out here, and it was his job to look for mako reactors or unusual monsters. Something that should be fairly easy, after all, the monsters were looking for him as well!
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Sephiroth was only too glad to take part in the group that was going down to Gongaga with Mirri and Alex. This was exactly what Mirri had expected because it let him get away from his parents and his wife. Despite a pronounced lack of empathy, Mirri had spent considerable time practicing how to be empathic, in the sense of knowing what people were thinking and feeling, mainly so she could manipulate or predict their actions better.
"Alex you should shift to human, unless Sephiroth can somehow turn into a raven and perch on my shoulder, though if you can, I'm good with that to." In response Sephiroth tucked his wings into his back and adjusted his clothes slightly to hide them. "Funny. You did make sure to send that note to Zack's parents about his death, right?" Before Mirri could give Sephiroth the affirmative, Alex shifted to human, and Mirri found herself without words to speak.
At least other than, "Alex what the hell happened to you?" Gone were the jeans, t-shirt and combat boots he had favored since the escape from Junon, the shaggy hair held in a loose ponytail by a simple leather thong, and the thick beard that stemmed more from an apathy towards razors than from any particular preference for the look.
In their place were black slacks and flats, a slate grey dress shirt and a dark green canvas duster that fell to mid-shin. His coppery hair was pulled back sharply into a tight braid, clasped with what Mirri recognized as a Cetra glyph. His beard was now neatly trimmed and had a stripe about ¾ the width of his mouth cut out of it from nose to neck, giving even his fully human face a feral cast and a suggestion of his lupine muzzle. The clothing was all clean, well made, and well maintained, although Alex had spared himself the impression of excess domestication by growing his canines into small fangs and his fingernails into short, thick claws. All together, it wasn't a bad look on him, but it didn't seem like the sort of thing he'd have done on his own.
He took one look at the way Mirri was unable to keep herself from smiling, and mumbled something that even Mirri couldn't catch.
"Say that again?" Apparently even Sephiroth couldn't catch it. Alex had the look of a condemned man who had refused a blindfold, and was now regretting it.
"I said, Morning Glory happened to me." Mirri was not normally the gossip prone type, but as Alex himself would say this bone was too full of marrow to stop chewing.
"Which means what exactly?" An annoyed growl started deep in his throat, but when he spoke again, his voice had softened from his customary guttural rumble. It was still a rough bass, but the growl was behind his words rather than in front of, between, and all around them.
"It means that after I mated with her, and while we were waiting for the pups to arrive, she told that my human form should be just as 'regal' as my wolf one. She'd somehow gotten an image of what humans with status dressed like, all gems and silks and pointless frills; I was able to convince her that humans of means preferred a more subtle approach these days, thank Gaia." Mirri had seen something similar to the way Alex was dressed, but she couldn't put her finger on it at first. Then it struck her- it was a matter of theme, not structure. "Nice clothes, personally tailored, simple enough to be easily maintained and loose enough to kill in. If you're not careful, people will think you're a new brand of Turk." Alex looked at Mirri, he did not snarl at her, gentlemen did not snarl, he simply smiled and ran his tongue over one of his fangs.
"While I may be a berserker, a blunt instrument, Gaia's wrath personified and all the other stereotypes of my tribe, that's not what all Garou are. As the only living being raised in and fully aware of Garou culture, I have a duty to present a more complete image. The less people see us as savage animals, the harder it'll be for some worm to convince them we should be put down." Alex barked a harsh laugh at the incredulous look on Mirri's face. "I may not enjoy politics, Black Fury, but I've lived a very long time, and it's impossible to do that without picking up a little bit of everything."
"I take it you learned to read, also?" Alex shrugged, Mirri would admit that he was getting better on his human body language as well as his controlled shifting.
"I learned how to read a long time ago; I just don't normally have much use for it. But Morning Glory said that I wouldn't be needed for another two moon spans when the pups are born. So I've had nothing but time to spend on the things that will convince Morning Glory to let me mate with her again." Mirri snickered into her glove barely managing to muffle it in time. Well, at least she hadn't giggled. When she finally got herself under control, she still couldn't stop smiling.
"Welcome to marriage, now get off your tail, go make something of yourself, and don't come back till you're bringing home the chocobo meat. Who says that animals aren't just like us?" Alex shrugged again and tapped a claw against his teeth.
"If it was just bringing down Chocobos, I wouldn't be dressed like this. Unfortunately, it's hard to convince Morning Glory of my progress when so many of the concepts I'm working with don't really exist to wolves. Wolves don't do politics, so I wouldn't even know where to start explaining it to her." The idea was out of Mirri's mouth almost before the thought had finished processing.
"You can borrow James, if you want. He can speak wolf, he gets human rules at least a little better than you do, and he's very good at simplifying." Sephiroth allowed a smirk to slide onto his face at Mirri's words.
"So tell me Mirri, is that your solution for every problem you can't deal with, use James?" Mirri glared at Sephiroth as they started towards Gongaga, but it was hard for her to miss that Alex had changed his gait, as well. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought it was a synthesis of his customary lope and Sephiroth's measured stride…
"Well, now that you ask, yes. Considering how many things I can take care of myself, that's no insult to James. We just happen to have a set of well matched skills, anything I can't trick and take advantage of, James can deal with by sheer naivety. Being able to successfully handle problems by pooling resources is the trademark of a successful marriage. I'm sure you'd agree with me if I said that you and Aeris specialize in different fields."
Not particularly eager to discuss his marriage with the company smartass, Sephiroth changed the subject. "This is the first time in months James has been operating on his own, isn't it? You're not worried he might get distracted?"
"It won't really matter if he gets distracted, he's got a penchant for stumbling into things by accident that would take anyone else days to find on purpose. He's got his flares; one for if he gets lost and realizes it, one for if he comes across monsters, and one for if he finds a reactor. What's there to worry about?"
"Fine, so tell me… General, what's our job in town?" "We reestablish Shinra's presence in the city. If I had my choice, we'd be arriving with a new mako reactor, or something else to supply this place with power. We don't have that, so we'll have to make due with what's on hand. So when we get there Sephiroth, stop looking so flighty, unfurl your wings and preen like the bird of prey you are." Sephiroth glared back at her.
"You first, you're the one in charge, so that means you walk point. Fun isn't it?" Mirri reached into her jacket, and pulled out a small five pointed star.
"Are you so sure about that?" Alex stopped short and leapt backwards, he knew what wolves at play looked like, and this was no game to get involved with. Mirri gingerly held the star as she looked at Sephiroth. Sephiroth began to take several very long steps away from her.
"I promised Aeris that I wouldn't become a Shinra general again. Mirri, are you really going to make me lie to my pregnant wife?" Mirri knew that her smile didn't stop at her lips, it extended all the way to her eyes.
"It'll be a learning experience for her. Because unless you're as blameless as James, sooner or later you'll lie to her, and you're no James. If she knows to be looking for it, then she'll be more likely to see it."
With that, Mirri charged. Sephiroth might have been out of the game for a few months, but obviously he had found time for training. He seemed to effortlessly slide past Mirri's arm, and adjusted his coat as he did so. The black wing shot out of his right shoulder blade, knocking into Mirri's hand, causing her to lose her grip on the star. To be fair, that was a new trick, and she hadn't been expecting it (you didn't get many chances to practice fighting people who had wings) but she recovered quickly.
While she was doing it however Sephiroth leapt over Mirri, and managed to grab hold of the star in midair, and the moment he landed he was driving it towards Mirri's jacket. Mirri countered with a kick that had enough length on it to reach Sephiroth's hand, and knock the star out of it. It flew through the air, and landed on the dirt strewn path, Mirri and Sephiroth's eyes met for only a moment.
"Last one to it wears it." Instantly they both were off. Sephiroth was faster than Mirri, but she was closer. It looked like they would reach the star at close to the same moment till Mirri went from full speed to zero in an almost impossibly short amount of time and stuck out her leg directly in his path. Sephiroth went flying and not in that controlled kind of way that he had practiced with his wings. Mirri left a small cloud of dust behind her due to her sudden stop, but she was back to running almost as quickly.
Inactivity had done nothing to dull Sephiroth's reflexes, and he easily reached out, snatching the star as he flew by. He landed in a handspring, and flung the start at Mirri before he had even come to rest. Mirri ducked, allowing the star to fly over her and lodge in a tree trunk. Sephiroth saw that he had no chance of reaching it before Mirri could rip the golden star from its new resting place, so he headed in the other direction, vanishing into the foliage. Mirri pulled the star from the tree, and began to look for her target.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are..."
"As you wish!"
Sephiroth swung down from an upper branch of the tree, that Mirri had pulled the star from, slamming his boots into her face. She held onto the star however, and even as she stumbled, her mind reeling she waved the star in Sephiroth's (or the three Sephiroth's who she currently could see) direction like a priest using a holy symbol to try and keep a demon at bay.
Sephiroth knew she was momentarily off balance however, and pressed his advantage, charging her and knocking her to the ground. Even as she rolled over on the dirt path Mirri still held onto the star jabbing away at Sephiroth with it.
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Both of them sat still, not really panting for air, but playing at it. As it was, other than scrapes and burses, they might have dirt on their clothing, but they were unhurt.
"Damn it Mirri, you're going to have to be able to hold me down before I let you make a liar out of me where Aeris is concerned."
Sephiroth's wings flapped slightly with each breath he took.
"You put up a good fight old man." Sephiroth was not too tired to take another swing at Mirri, SOLDIERS didn't get "too tired" even after a pitched battle, but he had more respect for her than that.
"I did more than that, I won."
"No you didn't, look: no star on my chest."
"You didn't get me either."
"Then..."
"Where did it end up?"
Sephiroth and Mirri both looked around to see if the star had managed to get itself lost somewhere. As a matter of fact, it had managed to get itself lost somewhere very obvious. Alex (who had reverted back to his natural form) looked back at them with a look that was hard to read in his golden eyes, and the star of a Shinra general digging into his fur. Mirri managed to get coherent words out first.
"Would you look at that? Pin the star on a wolf. Could be a great party game."
/Don't bet on it.\
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There was a lot of arguing and a lot of explaining. A lot of "Morning Glory" this and a "Morning Glory" that, along with plenty of "Black Fury" this and "Ragabash" that. In the end, however, Mirri managed to win out.
"Besides Alex, you're the only person in this group of three who looks suitably like a general, because your clothing doesn't have dirt caked into it at the moment. Don't worry, you just stand back and look suitably impressive, me and Sephiroth will do all the talking." As she said so, Mirri put an arm around Sephiroth's shoulder, and Sephiroth felt more than the weight of Mirri's hand on his shoulder.
"You conniving bitch!"
Sephiroth snapped around holding up the second golden star that Mirri had removed from under her jacket. Mirri waved a finger before his eyes reproachfully.
"A female cat is a queen. Besides, we're all in this together." As she spoke Mirri removed a third gold star from under her jacket, and attached it where it would be visible in plain sight.
"See? Now instead of having one three star general, we have three generals, which shows just how much Shinra cares about this place." Sephiroth made a noise of contempt under his breath, and though she refrained from nodding her agreement, Mirri didn't hold it against him.
She agreed, Old Shinra hadn't cared about this place, and though Reeve doubtlessly did, he had other problems to deal with, like figuring out something other than mako power that worked.
"I can't believe we're the first forces that New Shinra has sent out to this place." Mirri refrained from letting Sephiroth's bad mood infect her.
"Smile for the cameras Sephiroth, it may be par for the course, but once again we're making history."
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Back in Midgar, the New Shinra personnel were burning the midnight oil, and they weren't the only ones. Midgar was known planetwide as the City that never Sleeps. Certainty, Reeve "Shinra," the man who tried to keep it all running, never seemed to sleep. At the moment, he was placing a piece of paper on his desk very, very slowly and, with equal enthusiasm, reaching for the nearby intercom.
"Reno, come to my office, now."
Almost instantly the response came and it was exactly what Reeve suspected.
"What did I do now, Mr. President?" A long lifetime of living in Shinra taught you that you were guilty until proven innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"Nothing, I just really need a drink, and someone to talk to. Actually, make that several drinks." In retrospect, the best thing about rehiring Reno was that not only did he know where all the bodies were buried, he knew where the wine casks were as well. Though Reeve knew there was a mini-bar in the Turk's lounge, he was also sure that the Turks had their own distillery somewhere in the building, he hadn't found it yet but Reeve was quite sure it existed. The Turks had always been a branch apart from the Shinra tree, and Reeve was sure he hadn't curtailed even half of their unreasonable privileges, for the simple reason that they weren't recorded anywhere. It didn't take long at all for Reno to enter Reeves office with a bottle in either hand.
"You didn't specify what you wanted Mr. President, so I just brought some Corel 32', good vintage for any occasion, be it a wake or a wedding, and my favorite corkscrew will have it open in no time!" Reeve took the bottle and the corkscrew that Reno pulled from his pocket and passed over. For a brief moment Reeve shuddered as a thought struck him, but he kept his mouth shut and didn't ask Reno why this happened to be his favorite corkscrew. His mind could provide him with several unpleasant answers, chief among them involving ruptured human eye sockets.
"So, Mr. President, what exactly is the problem?" Reeve picked up the paper and passed it to Reno, before taking the bottle and taking a sip from the bottle. Reno scanned it fairly quickly, before tilting back his glasses, taking the corkscrew and using it to open the other bottle and took a drink from it.
"Oh boy. Well, I can't say that I've been setting the best example, but we do have a problem." Reeve took another drink, he usually abstained from liquor and even a few sips from something Reno liked was enough to make his head swim. But that was a good thing compared to the alternative, at the moment he didn't mind having a long distance relationship with reality.
"Yes, Reno, we are in trouble, isn't it nice how many different disasters waiting to happen the Old Shinra regime left for us?" Reno was evidently figuring that if a cat can look at a king, a Turk could drink with a President, which was exactly what Reeve needed.
"Like moving into a building and finding C4 strapped to all the supports." Reno took a much larger swig than Reeve, which made him wonder if the Turk didn't have as many bottles concealed on his person as he normally had weapons.
"This had to happen sooner or later, and we're the poor fools who end up holding the bag. The world is finally waking up from being under Shinra's thumb, and realizing what a mess they left. And, as Murphy's version of luck would have it, they hit on the problem that no amount of money can solve. If there is a way to get the mako and Jenova cells out of SOLDIERS, we haven't found it."
Reeve looked at the one sheet of paper that troubled him more than anything else he had read during his time at Shinra. Wonderful, oh so wonderful. It was politely worded, but quite clear on its point. People had realized what a danger SOLDIERS represented, and had asked for Reeve to turn over to the city of Midgar a list of all known recipients of SOLDIER enhancements and their status.
There were a collection of various signatures, and none of them struck him as important, but then who was behind it would probably have buried his signature about halfway down the list. That would be how Reeve would have done it when he wanted something taken care of and not to be known it was his idea.
It didn't ask for the list to be turned over to anyone, just posted in some public place where anyone who wanted to could see it, wonderful. If the argument had been a bit more fanatical maybe Reeve could had ignored it, but it was too logical to toss aside, too insane to implement.
"You know what this will lead to, don't you?" No matter how little common sense Reno seemed to have, he hadn't risen to his current position by simple luck.
"Of course I do! It starts with this, then because you shut down the SOLDIER program -smart move by the way: The world has room for only so many of us- the stuff used to make them becomes a hot black market item. People can finally live forever, or so they think.
Of course getting the treatments are an exact science, so bing, bang, boom, people start dropping dead all over the place from mako poisoning. Except instead of low life junkies like with other drugs, it's important rich people, 'smart' people, and the economy goes down the drain. Then people blame us because we came up with the process, and blame SOLDIERS especially. I can already hear the angry mobs with the pitchforks, hurling a battering ram against our castle door." Reno recited this apocalyptic prophecy with complete certainty and lack of care.
"So what are we going to do about it?" The answer came back with blinding speed.
"Drink. That's why you called me in here, ain't it? We're going to drink, and watch humanity do to itself what some giant alien couldn't. If there was anything we could do to stop it, you'd be doing it, but there isn't, so you called for me instead." Reeve made a mental note that if he could remember anything tonight, remember that Reno had a shockingly accurate grasp of human nature.
"So we're screwed."
"Six ways from Sunday, sir. Face it, we all are, we're dead men who don't have the decency to realize that people tossed our coffins into a lake for a reason. So we open them back up, swim to shore, and go back to work. Hell look at my boss, he wrapped one arm around the coffin and brought it ashore with him! The only difference between us is I'm one of the lucky ones. I know I'm dead, but I'm not quite ready to lay down yet. You're still wondering why people keep hanging air fresheners on your ears." Reeve looked at Reno, but he did not take back his statements.
"Oh and Mr. President, here's a tip, it works better if the stuff left in your bottle is large enough that you don't need a microscope powerful enough to see the OH, trust me I know." Reeve looked at his bottle and realized that it was empty, how had that happened? Reno pulled up his pants slightly revealing a pair of bottles currently resting in the ankle holsters that every Turk wore even around the office. Reno drew them with spectacular ease and handed one of them over to Reeve.
"As I said before, we're dead meat. That's why I signed back on, because when the whole world goes to hell in a hand basket, I want to be at the very center of it. No prolonged struggle for me, I'll be the guy sitting on the warhead, and waving James' hat. You're the one who really needs a drink though, when all this is over and humanity's reduced to living in caves, people are gonna be scratching your picture on the wall pointing at it, and saying 'this is the one who did this to us!'
Me, I'm already making reservations in the underworld, I figure unless you call ahead it'll be pure hell to get a good room in the land of fire and brimstone. Maybe I can get a room across from James and Mircat, good company to spend all of eternity with." Reeve looked at his second empty bottle, Reno's humorous attitude towards eradication was just what he needed, and what he didn't want to hear.
"You know what I think, Reno? I think that we're trying to fight a glacier with our bare hands." Reno pulled a pair of flasks from his suit pockets and passed one to Reeve.
"That's exactly what you're doing, and exactly why you need me. Believe me, I've tried to court Mircat, I could have written the book on fighting glaciers with your bare hands. And you know what I learned?
The moment when you've given your all, the moment that you know you're lost, do you know what happens? Some guy comes up behind you, jumps on your back, and the glacier a little push, and then the whole thing instantly topples its way back into the ocean. That's all we can do boss, we can do this stupid thing, and hope that some guy is gonna come along and instantly make it all right. It makes you feel like an absolute idiot, but you know what, as long as you can feel like an idiot, boss, it means you're still feeling something."