"WHHHYYYY is she hanging out with the thirdies?" Zack cringed. "Aaarg, they're idiots! That's why we make fun of them! She should be hanging out with me and my friends. We'd totally be bro with her."

"Though I've tried explaining to her that changing is not a team sport, she's afraid you'll exclude her."

"Oh hell no, we change next to a gay guy—no homo—and we don't even care! If she wants to get naked in our lockerroom and watch us all salute her, she's more than welcome to."

Sephiroth growled deep in his throat, flashing a flat dead-pan glare. "Whatever makes her happy."

Oh man, and Zack thought he had relationship issues!

"I've gotta be honest, I think she's the coolest person I've never met," Zack admitted.

"She'll be happy to know that. However, she won't believe it coming from me."

"Man. I'd tell her myself, but she hates me," Zack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in disappointment.

Sephiroth started laughing, slow and building, like it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard in his life.

"What's so funny?" asked Zack.

"That's exactly what she said about you, that you greeted her once and jumped back like she was an alien."

"NO!" Zack threw his arms forward in a similar state of shock. "That's not what I meant! Oh maaaaaan that's not what I meant. I'm such a dilweed!"

"Hahahah!"

"This isn't funny!"

"Are you kidding? It's hilarious!"

"But how do I apologize to her now?"

"I'd suggest staying quiet and letting her apologize to you first, which I warn you she will do for a solid ten minutes straight, then maybe you'll get a word in."

"I'll do it. I don't care."

Wow, they both thought they hated each other. Sephiroth still chuckled at the thought.

"It was probably my fault. I'd just debriefed her on Lazarus' rescue mission."

"She was there?" Zack sat up.

Sephiroth shot the young First another flat stare.

They dashed in darkness, weapons in hand, flowing like ghosts toward the shadowed reactor where their Commander was being held. B Unit—Sephiroth and his student—crouched down behind some concrete dividers to get a lay of their target.

"You hike up to the lookout post. Relay the coordinates for the Paratroopers. I'll go set off the bomb for the other team," he ordered, but her eyes shot to his.

"Let me do it."

He raised his brows.

"It's a job for a 1st."

A sharp-eyed smile, her opportunistic smirk. He got the hint with an evil stroke of genius.

He handed her the explosive satchel and synced the clocks on their phones.

"We'll be in radio-darkness for about twenty minutes until I get up there. You can handle it. And hey…have fun. Indulge yourself."

She rolled her eyes. She didn't do fun.

They split up with Sephiroth heading around the dark side of the compound while she slip-dashed into combat-mode.

Hooded thugs funneled down from the wall. She shot her gunblade out sheening through foes like smashing a nine-iron. Too easy. And they said she wasn't cut out for 1st Class. She took the Semtex from her satchel, set it up against the gate and calibrated it to her cellphone. But before she could finish, a fireball streaked for her in a scream as she leapt away. Another bashed the ground in front of her, blocking her escape.

A dark angel descended from the sky, hovering down on an ashen wing in a Tiamat red long coat. Genesis, an unholy meriah, cascading in apocalyptic reverence. He peered at her with dark eyes while drawing a crimson Curtana.

"If I'm to understand…you have twenty minutes…"

A rush-slash crashed against her gunblade, sending her toppling back to leap off a hand for balance. She regained her footing, skidding across the ground in a plume of dust.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked with whirling eyes. He flipped his hand in a poetic flourish, charging a fire specter.

"Oblivion is the fate of all things."

A wall of flame shot at her as she darted away, the scorching blast of heat caressing her skin. Too close, she wouldn't be able to fight this battle alone. She called her Summon to her side.

Odin, the ancient ancestral deity, came forth like a searing of the sky. Genesis was not unprepared though as he called forth Diablos from his pocket-dimension of darkness. As the deity and the devil razed the sky in auric absolution, she and Genesis rushed for each other with flaring blades of ascension.

Their swords crashed together in cacophonic coalescence, bash-charisma beaming in bilateral saber-melee. A sword-barrage sent her flying back through a brick pile, leaping in rush-chasms to dodge flinging flare-shots of fire. The arc of her slash singed Kevlar fibers, a Curtana sweep singed flesh. She covered down, a slam-upblock shattering his flare-downs. Elliptic waves of whirling slashes lunged for him through a crescent plume of feathers. A leaping dive-roll, and she crash-locked up with his blade, only to have a flare-slash send her careening across the ground to skid around.

Bleeding, weak, woozy now, she knew she probably wouldn't survive this. At least she had to set off that bomb! But how?

She back-flipped in front of the gate, inconspicuously before the Semtex charge. Would he go for it?

He charged a Firaga bolt. He was going for it.

A flaring cast screamed toward her, tasting the kill, and she leapt away at the last moment. The depth-charge exploded high into the night…The signal for the other team.

Mission Accomplished.

She lay crawling away on the ground, clear out of Magic and Ability Points, very low on HP. She was seeing double now as an infuriated angel stalked toward her. He raised his blade for the finishing blow to let it fall with dire hate.

A flash of light, and Genesis found his Curtana slam-crossed with the cold gleam of a daikatana. He stared dead-on into cerulean orbs of rage. She looked up to see her mentor standing strong over her like a vengeful guardian, holding the world at bay. When he'd seen the Summon's at war, he knew. Sephiroth threw Genesis back in a crash of unfurling sparks that sent him sailing thirty feet across the ground.

The dark angel stood up, and it seemed an imaginary line was drawn on the ground between them, cast in fire as the two severed all remaining bonds of brotherhood.

"Traitor," Sephiroth growled from deep in his throat. Genesis threw a theatric smile, flipped his hand, and flew off in a flash.

She turned him about with wild eyes.

"The other team!"

Sephiroth's face went even more stark-pale than it already was as he turned back toward the fort.

"Angeal…"

And they both ran like someone else's life depended on it.

"You guys really did save the day!" Zack exclaimed. Sephiroth shrugged.

"I heard you and Angeal were camped out in a bush somewhere playing with your dingus."

Zack winced.

"They still gave the credit to you though. They didn't even mention her!"

"She's been taken advantage of for far too long. It's clouded her view of the world, made her think that all people seek to take something from her."

"So that's why she was so shy at Costa del Sol."

"Ah yes, Costa del Sol, she told me about that…"

They'd found her on the floor of Sephiroth's loft. She awoke on white sands under a beach umbrella being served apple cider—she knew better than to drink it. Instead she stared a million miles ahead, whirling in the daze of her mind.

Damage control, she went full paranoia at the hotel they'd put her up in. She drank water only from the tap. They couldn't poison her without poisoning themselves. Down on the beach where she sat by herself in a blue sarong and taupe triathlete's two-piece, someone else came to sit next to her, and life sucked ten times worse.

Reno flopped down beside her shirtless in swim trunks, leaning on a knee and licking his teeth to say hi.

"Hey baby, wanna see my riot baton?"

She growled deep in her throat and ignored him.

"Fwew. I could use some sunblock on my back, wouldn't wanna get too hot."

She took the bottle, ripped the top off, and dumped it on his head.

"Mm, gooey."

A scoff and she left him there, but she could never seem to get rid of him! Walking in the hallway, turn a corner and there he was, standing in a presumptuous pose sticking his chest out. He kissed his fingertip to his nipple, and she took an aggressive step forward.

"Oh no, please, don't hit me. I wouldn't like it," he pleaded with hands up. She punched him square in the jaw, leaving him lying on the ground with a wry smile on his face—which only made it worse.

Walking to breakfast…

"You know, you could tie me to the bed to keep me from following you." Try to go around him, he leaned over her like a high school jock. "I have some handcuffs in my back pocket you could swipe."

She went back to her room. She wasn't that hungry anyway.

At least she could stomach him more than the shrink who sat her on a sofa in a small air-conditioned room.

"Tell me about your childhood," he asked, chewing on the end of a pen with a clipboard in his lap. She shot him a cock-eyed glare like he'd cat-called her.

"Go suck on something long and tubular."

He dropped the pen.

An islet laid a ten minute boat ride off shore, she swam there every evening. Crouching on a rock, gazing out at the sunset, she pined to wonder if she was truly alone. Was there anyone else out there who understood? Swimming back at night was a sick rush, a maddening fear that made her beat her personal record every time.

Pushups in the surf and wind-sprints up the dunes, and she kept running, five miles down the shoreline to the sea cliffs that stood like a bombarded fortress. Leaping rocks like a feline, she stood at the top of the cliff like an iconic SOLDIER recruiting poster. THE FEW, THE PROUD.

She stood where no one could stand, on top of the world like everyone said she couldn't. With the sea breeze whipping shards of lilac off her eyes, and salt beading off her chiseled shoulders like she was proving the world wrong, she realized the absolute truth…

…That they were all right. That she wasn't good enough. If she had been good enough, why had he left her?

She stepped out onto the hotel deck in bare feet one morning to lean on the railing. The soft winds wafting off the waves brought her no comfort in this place. Footsteps, drawing near, she looked up to see a flash of black hair.

And ran.

She'd heard of him. Big head, loud mouth, best operator in the regiment, barely two years in and already he was a 1st. She knew that any feat of strength she could muster, any jaw-dropping display to shatter perceptions and blast away stereotypes, he could do it better. He had a size and strength advantage, he had every advantage over her, the truth leered that he was just straight-up better. He always would be, just because of what he was, and what she was.

He'd come to rub it in. She couldn't take it, not now.

I freaking know okay!

A glance over her shoulder to see if he was gone…she stopped. He turned away like his whole body slumped. This proud fighter looked beat to hell, head to the ground with a hand raised to wipe burning eyes.

What's this? A man…with emotions? Impossible! Did men even have feelings? She highly doubted it after what she'd been through. Still, maybe it was best to make sure. She turned to follow him down the stairs.

Reno came stumbling out onto the deck after her. He caught up with her down the steps by the pool.

"Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Can we talk? I like feet."

She slammed him with a hard fist in the stomach, dropped an elbow on his back and ran him toward the pool. But she stopped, thinking better of throwing an unconscious man into a swimming pool…She stuck a life-preserver over his arms and chucked him in.

Down on the beach, he sat with his eyes to the waves, looking like he wanted to be part of them, to swim away and dissolve into liquefied nothing. Right then, everything in her life changed.

She knew she was wrong, he was hurting, he was right there with her. She'd go wrap him up hard, not even say a word to him, they'd sit locked in a catatonic embrace for hours blocking out the world. Rain, storm, shine, it didn't matter, they were stronger.

They could run away, go vandalize some private property and get arrested, complete the whole SOLDIER's having an episode stereotype. Chucking rocks off the jetty, they'd curse at the sky, throw huge middle fingers at their employer and go back to work like a couple of bastards ready to take on the world with a newfound sense of screw you.

But…A challenger appeared. A girl Turk with red hair sat down behind him to rub sunblock on his back. He didn't even seem to like it, but he would, she'd make him.

Sephiroth's razorgirl stood watching this whole sick charade with bile rising in her throat. These girls. She hated these girls above all else in life. Traumatic memories of not being able to lift a finger against girls she could easily break in half flashed before her eyes. She lived her life by the same rules the boys did, so the same restrictions unfortunately applied to her, and these girls knew it. If she laid a hand on one of them, or said a word, even shot a stray glare, she became the bad-guyan amassed army of male friends would try to stick up against for brownie points. Fighting a little girl became fighting a posse of men…men she had no quarrel with, whom she wanted nothing more than to share honor with.

…and he wanted her.

She turned to leave, surrendering once again to the women who'd shoved her to the sidelines her entire life, who'd taken friends from her and even lost her a high-paying job as one of them. She wasn't sorry for not ending up in a Microcheck suit, but she wouldn't tolerate them, she couldn't even be civil with them if her life depended on it.

It didn't matter anyway, deep down she knew the type of guy he was too. He liked his delicate flowers that he could take care of and would make him feel like a hero. But she was a rose, and had to be handled in a very specific way that took years to master. She had complicated needs and problems that weren't easily solved. She was frustrating to deal with, not picky but needy. She required people close to her to grow with her in order to grow herself. He'd never put in the effort, never accept a woman with thorns.

Helplessness assailed her as she headed back to the hotel, the sense of being objectified blared in her psyche like a huge cognitive distortion. She couldn't take it, she couldn't accept her station in life, this empty crushing feeling of not being real would assail her no longer…She would do it tonight.

Searching around her room, she noticed they'd left her no razor, but a huge bottle of Nair in the bathtub. Her gunblade was back at HQ, along with the strap that belted around her hip. Her boots were latch-ups, and her bed sheets were the kind of neoprene that wouldn't hold a knot. Not even a bottle of Asprin lay in the medicine cabinet.

Now she was spiraling, that helpless feeling welling like razor winds in her whirling mind. Deprived of all personal power, the power over herself, over her body, even the power to end her own life, she paced back and forth like a caged tiger, a dangerous animal cornered and harassed. With nothing left to live for, no one left to fall on, no one who cared when she didn't even care about herself, she screamed.

The medical team stacked up outside the hotel room where crashing furniture flew against the walls. Reno stumbled out of his room pulling his boxers up—he slept naked after all. Making the medics stand down, he forced his way in, ducking a chair that flew over his head.

"Okay, all joking aside now…" he grabbed her thrashing and screaming, and clutched her close. She crumbled against him, crying and sobbing onto his bare chest.

"See? That wasn't so bad. Just a nice, friendly hug," he said as his hands slid lower down her back.

Reno went crashing through the window.

.

[Received Odin Materia]