The meeting with Reeve went as expected. It was all information they already had, and he agreed to look into using the equipment reclaimed from Deepground to see if they could start devising methods to more finely pinpoint Jenova cells. Methods of inoculating people were already in the works, considering Aerith's Healing Rain hadn't reached out past Edge, and Mideel was heading the efforts on that front. Raul couldn't have possibly known, the Director said with a sad smile, considering they were keeping it under wraps. They didn't want the public upset by what some of the people testing the cures had endured.
Genesis, Tseng and Tifa slipped into the room quietly, the red-headed turk having made good on his promise to run and get them and the conversation continued with a renewed round of coffee.
Nobody really knew the difference between corrupted lifestream and tainted lifestream, but Reeve thought maybe Jenova - due to the mindset and temperament that was shown - might have been the equivalent of Chaos as opposed to Omega, considering they didn't have any proof that Omega had made Weiss immortal. Except yeah, about that, slipped from the red-clad swordsman's mouth and he folded his arms.
"What. It's not like you guys told -me- everyone you have on hand."
So Weiss -was- alive, if catatonic, constantly watched over in what Genesis had used as a 'base' by another half-dozen copies. Raul fought to keep his eye from twitching and immediately spread his notes out over every available surface to make adjustments. Tuesti called Vincent and confirmed that the white-haired former host of Omega had, indeed, been dead before the pure lifestream injected into him had brought him back. Genesis promised to test what altitude he could reach before he lost mental connection with his copies, saying it was the least he could do for withholding such information from them. Not without some prodding, of course, and much to Reeve's consternation turned to clamber out of the window. The breeze sent papers flying, and everyone scrambled to catch what they could and place it all back down so that they could continue.
"What happens if all of this succeeds?" Tifa compared two different sets of notes, frowning and leaning over to read what the clone was almost frantically writing down once more. "Say we successfully pull Jenova out of the lifestream and out of everyone."
"I'm of the opinion that she lacks any personal ability to travel through space, hence why she must ride one planet into another. Outside of the atmosphere, we should be able to burn her-... Hmm. There is no oxygen in space, is there. That makes fire... Difficult." Raul paused, frowning and shaking his head with a faint click of beads tapping against one another. "I am -incredibly- confident that we can find a way to kill Jenova if given enough time."
(He didn't mention the fact that he thought maybe, just maybe he could infect Jenova with his own strain of cells. He wasn't entirely certain he could, but he had a feeling that - since he had been able to somehow give Loz and Yazoo the ability to choose for themselves - it was a possibility. He wanted to test his theory out first, especially if it was just a matter of will power.)
"All of this has caused me to wonder what level of 'strength' Jenova and Sephiroth have, over their respective cells. We know that it took several days of forced seclusion, coupled with the catalyst of research that may or may not have been tampered with to twist the truth. Jenova did not take Sephiroth over in a matter of minutes, it took a great deal of time." The clone held up the page he was jotting things down on, studying it and nodding to himself. "Three days, and during these days by all accounts Sephiroth neither slept nor ate. While he frequently suffered from insomnia, typically after fourty eight hours without any manner of sleep at all, the immune system becomes compromised and the chance of making risky decisions increases and inflexible reasoning becomes standard."
"Seventy two hours severely limits the ability to think properly." Reeve frowned, leaning back in his chair and stretching. "It also makes you more paranoid and easier to anger. And... It's also when you begin hallucinating."
"Exactly. I think all of these factored into his sudden descent into insanity. Jenova and Hojo had to severely weaken him, before he broke. And he was already cracked by the loss of of his friends, in addition to what Genesis said to him at the reactor. He did not go down, without a fight." Raul turned towards Tifa and Tseng, who were still comparing notes. "Do you agree?"
"What does that have to do with getting Jenova out of the lifestream, into space where we theoretically might be able to kill it and the power level of the WEAPONS?" The fighter frowned, looking up form her notes and blinking at the smug grin across the clone's face.
"It means that anyone with Jenova or Sephiroth cells can act as a pseudo-Cetra for those aspects specifically, if they have the willpower to do so and that if it took three of you to fight a Weapon physically, then for something... Let's call it 'god' level, if baseline five WEAPONS were deemed by the planet enough to neutralize such a threat we would need perhaps fifteen individuals of sufficient will power strategically placed. Of those fifteen, we would really need perhaps... Ten." The clone held the paper out towards Reeve, who took it and studied it for a long moment.
"Why five people less?" Tuesti glanced up as he spoke.
"Because - and please do not let Loz and Yazoo know - we happen to have a very angry, very well rested Sephiroth fully prepared to engage in a mental pincer maneuver with us."
Tifa's frown grew. "The Remnant of the Past you've mentioned? You think he's...?"
"I know he is. I debated sharing this information for a very long time. In the Crystal Cavern, he protected me from the Reunion reaction. This has given me a baseline for the strength of his willpower. I believe that he's remained... Distant, since then, out of a necessity to hide until the proper time to strike." Raul crouched and started gathering up the spread out notes.
"Why are you theorizing about the distance between the planet and when Jenova will be unable to maintain a connection to other Jenova cells, if your plan is to - for lack of a better term - pseudo-Cetra her out of the Lifestream?" Reeve sipped his coffee, sighing contently. "We have a plan now, or the makings of one."
The clone smiled easily. "Are you familiar with the phrase 'the first casualty is always the plan'?"
Raul didn't have his own office. He was, in essence, a mercenary after all but Reeve lent him desk space when he asked for it which was why he spent the next two days with a chair pulled up to the corner of the Director's desk as he pored over lists of everyone who had been part of the soldier program at one time or another, as well as their last recorded levels of enhancement. Genesis was at the top of that list, as were the copies that he commanded but even he had to admit that the copies lacked the strength of will they needed. Everything about who they were in the past had been stripped away by Hollander, leaving relatively simple minded ants that worked as part of an extended 'hive'. They obeyed Genesis, because the red-clad former 1st could flex his will through the connection and it had a lingering effect.
Their connection was altogether a different one from what the remnants had, and the clone had started thinking of them in terms of frequencies. Two people could shout, standing next to each other but the one with the higher pitched voice was more likely to be heard by an elderly man with a hearing aid, after all. And not very well at that.
Because he had experienced with mental influences, however, that made him one of (if not the most) proficient with defending his own mind against external influences. The next on the list was Cloud, but he was dismissed due to his Jenova cells having already been neutralized by the Healing Rain. This meant that their next best bet was anyone who had been in the soldier program that hadn't defected with Genesis, been captured by Hojo and turned into a clone, and likely hiding in plain sight. It was something of a poorly kept secret that some people in the WRO had eyes that held the glow of Mako.
Six people, all told, four of which he recognized from the altercation with Rourke in the gym. They had formed something of their own community and loosely kept in touch with each other. Reeve jokingly said that it might have been a very small reunion effect, which drew a silent stare that quickly had him focusing on his own paperwork once more.
The clone simply hoped that maybe, just maybe they might know of a few more outside of the WRO that might be willing to help, and that with enough practice he might be able to broach the subject with the remnants to get them in on the plan as well. Of course, that all depended on whether or not he could temporarily smother their connection with the main source. Despite being given the ability to choose, he didn't quite want to risk tipping his hand to the insane thing that lurked behind their eyes.
Paul, Robert, Daryld, Gerald, Sidney and Bryce. He knew all of them passingly of course, he had made it a point to try and network with everyone that worked in the WRO compound and outposts that he had relatively easy access to. When Reeve pulled them from their squads and sent them to the track outside Raul nodded to each as they arrived and lined up in front of the two of them.
"I suspect you have some questions as to why you were all called here." Tuesti clasped his hands behind his back, watching the reactions (what few there were) and shaking his head. "Don't worry, you're not in trouble. And despite what you may be thinking, I have no desire to rebuild SOLDIER. I know you recognition each other, having served as 3rd's and - in Sidney's case - as 2nd. Let me assure you, the experiments that led to your enhancements will never be repeated."
"Instead, we have a job for you. Something only those who were in SOLDIER can do. You've all seen the reports coming out about what went into the SOLDIER serum." Reeve paused for effect, looking solemn. "It's true. Each of you have, in some small part, Jenova cells within you. The calamity. The space parasite. Call it what you will, just understand that it, is the enemy. And you, are the only people that we have to try out some ideas we've had on how to pull her out of the planet. Raul."
The clone stepped forward, surveying the former soldiers, and some part of him felt at home.
They managed to keep their activities from the remnants for almost two weeks. During that time Kunsel and Jack came out of the civilian woodwork to join in the training with the assurance that one more had been spoken to about it and, while loath to leave behind the quiet life they had carved out for themselves were considering it. They might have been able to hold out longer if not for the almost insatiable curiosity that haunted them in the form of Loz.
It wasn't his fault, though. With eleven particularly strong individuals constantly gathering together (a periodic twelve but Genesis wasn't exactly mentor material), it was only a matter of time before the burly remnant wanted to play with them. He even stayed off to the side as they stretched and worked with materia, hands in his pockets and a mournful expression on his face until the clone called him over.
"I know what this looks like, but I don't quite know if you're ready to join them." Raul clasped Loz on the shoulder, shaking him gently (for their level of strength, at least) before removing his hand.
"But I wanna play. What they're doing, looks fun! And they're all really strong, so I wouldn't be able to hurt them accidentally." Pleading-sadness hemorrhaged through their connection, and the clone laughed easily and waved a hand.
"How about a test, then. If you can suppress your connection to me, to the point where I can't feel it, and successfully sneak up on me then I'll let you play with them. Tell Yazoo that I extend this same offer to him, as well, and that I look forward to when you both can join us." Raul held out his hand, and after a moment of contemplation the burly remnant beamed and clasped it.
Genesis had been sent to the ruins of Banora, trying to retrace his steps to see what he could do about contacting Minerva. Vincent had grudgingly spoken about what he knew of Chaos, temperament and composition, and had reluctantly agreed to try and utilize the form Chaos contained within him granted him to see what he could do about the shards of Omega that hung in the sky. Reeve pulled through with the visors that Deepground had used and had a team of engineers working on them to see what they could do about fine-tuning the sensitivity of the equipment with the added benefit of narrowing down where the Jenova cells were, if possible.
The materia crew reported a successful delivery of the stockpiled materia to the center of Midgar, where some of the Genesis copies that could fly had taken the crates and disappeared into the drilled holes that the lifestream had once filled, returning an hour or so later with the empty boxes so that they could be returned and refilled. They couldn't really talk, and so it only after the red-clad swordsman called that they had actual confirmation that the copies had done their jobs with noticeable effects. Oh, and his range (discounting standing orders) covered five and a half hundred feet before it became something largely unusable, but that was only discerned by having one of the copies hover in one place as he flew as far away as he could. He couldn't -breathe- at the altitudes required to test it otherwise, after all. The clone ignored the way 'idiot' had been tacked on at the end of the last text.
Nanaki, who the Director had reached out to, had sent an e-mail with pictures of everything they had relating to Omega to try and help them confirm whether or not Omega had the ability to reabsorb into the lifestream. Or, more accurately, the large red feline had dictated and led the efforts while those with thumbs sent everything. So far, all signs pointed towards yes, which meant that it was potentially a distance thing.
Raul stretched out on the floor of his rooms, staring tiredly at the ceiling as he mentally cataloged everything that was in motion, hoping against hope that his idea might just bear fruit. If nothing else, it allowed him to work beside Tifa and Cloud (who stopped by the grounds and gave the new squad of former soldiers advice on what fighting off a mental compulsion was like) without anything awkward being brought up. Closing his eyes, hoping he might catch a few moments of rest before he had to get up again, the clone drifted off to sleep and opened his eyes to a field of lily-like white and yellow flowers.
'Eyyy, the solid meat of the plot arrives. People are doing stuff and things! This -also- means that the boring plot-building parts of the story are tidied up and it's got a direction, instead of an aimless drift. The next chapter should be lighter and more enjoyable, less crunch-time based. Also, I'm aware that Genesis is acting without a visible escort. It should be taken as a sign that he's earned enough trust to act on his own, because I find him difficult to write and thus have 'accidentally' neglected to write about what he's been doing to be let off the proverbial leash.
-KD