Learning Lessons

When Tseng next woke, he was back in his bed in his room and Veld was sitting beside him while Kariya stood at the window. To Tseng's surprise, Veld actually looked angry—enough so that it showed past the blank mask of the emotionless state he'd had since the firebombing of Kalm. Kariya looked displeased as well, but not angry, and the Wutain had to wonder why Veld was there, given the amount of work the Director of the Turks had to do.

Veld's brown eyes settled on the younger man and he said in a carefully controlled tone, "Next time, plan before running headlong into a dangerous situation."

"I didn't have that much time, Sir," Tseng answered.

"You did, and chose not to use it. I spoke with Donnel about the situation, and with Kariya. Taking five minutes to call in a few more Turks would have worked wonders on your effectiveness. While I fully understand the sense of urgency you had—apparently always 'have' now due to Leviathan's Blessing—I don't understand how someone normally so methodical and disciplined is becoming an impetuous fool. Or do I have to remind you of how Arkin got himself and his mission partner killed by doing the kinds of things you just did?"

Tseng's expression turned sour at the words, but he didn't actually have an answer outside the perpetual, extreme sense that he had to act and act now. He knew both Kariya and Veld had points, and he knew they were right, but he also didn't know how to stop just—reacting to the immediate sense of having to act once he'd found a link. Even fourteen years of additional experience wasn't enough to overcome the urgency of what was effectively Leviathan's Blessing, even though he also knew he had to stop reacting like that.

"I don't know how to stop it," Tseng sighed at last into the silence Veld's words had left.

"I thought you would say that," Veld replied, then held a card out to him. When he took it, he could see it was a modified ID card. The older man said, "Until you're ready to head to Nibelheim with Commander Hewley, your weapons, armor, ID, and work PHS have been confiscated. Your Materia are locked in the box at the foot of your bed, except for a few of them Kariya said would be best if I left out—Airmed, for example. I've also confiscated your uniforms because you won't be working again until the day before you leave. Questions?"

The Wutain was very tense by the time Veld was done, his hand holding the modified ID so tightly it was in danger of snapping. Kariya pulled the card out of his hand forcibly and dropped it onto the bed beside him, and Tseng struggled to work his mind around what had been done to him.

Finally, his gaze moved up to Veld as he asked, "You're making me completely helpless to do anything?"

"I'm forcing you to gain control of yourself again. You'll be taking the next six days off. If you think of something we need to react to, use your—modified—PHS to call me and let me know. We've updated it to add Kariya's, Reno's, both Commanders', and the General's numbers. Otherwise, your temporary ID card won't allow you to go to the first floor, the executive floors, the security floor, or our main office. If you're with someone who has a valid ID, you'll be able to reach those floors, which assumes you have a guard. If you're trying to leave the building—via any method—I'll have to approve it. Get used to using your PHS to let us know about things, to think through the appropriate response, or we won't know and they'll happen the same way they did last time."

"And driving me insane with nothing to do is a better option?" the Wutain glared.

Veld's brow rose. "Nothing to do? Tseng, you can still use most of the resources in the building, from the training rooms to the VR rooms to the libraries and even the Academy floors. You can even go to the shops on the second floor freely. If you want city food, someone can go grab that for you—Donnel and Kariya have both already offered to make deliveries. There are plenty of things you can do here, and in the meantime, either you'll learn to think before you act again—as you should be as a Turk—or you'll end up back in this position after the trip to Nibelheim until you do. I understand your need to try to fix everything you possibly can, Tseng, but I don't want to see you die or end up bed-ridden every time you do it, either. You're the closest thing I have to family now—don't take my one last anchor to the world away from me."

Tseng's eyes shut in defeat as Kariya asked angrily, "I thought you weren't gonna to guilt him into it?"

"It's okay, Kariya," Tseng said softly, making the other two look at him. He opened his eyes again to look at Veld as he asked, "Why did it take you so long to tell me? Last time, you never did, and this time—why? I've been thinking this whole time that I had nothing worth—nothing I could call real, personal family, but this whole time, you felt so strongly and never told me? Why?"

Veld blinked and asked, "I never told you last time?" When Tseng just gave his head a shake, the older man sighed, "I can't tell you why, unless it was just because nothing harrowing enough came up to make the realization come to my mind. With the way the last two days have been, however, the feeling that I was on the verge of losing my last family has been too strong to ignore."

The Wutain looked away, eyes blurred with tears he held back as he thought about the words, about everything Veld was doing. Not that he could actually do anything about it in the first place, but the precautions Veld was taking looked a lot like being kept prisoner while being done for a purpose not that. However, how else was a person supposed to be able to learn to restrict themselves and their actions without first being forced to revert to more logical methods of acting? Between his exhaustion, injuries, and sudden dangerous actions, was he really surprised? Even Kariya had threatened to have him put on suicide watch more than once, and what he was now restricted to was less restricting than a watch.

After a minute, Tseng drew in a breath and released it slowly, then nodded, but his gaze hadn't lifted to Veld or Kariya. "If I have to basically stay here for the next six days, I'm going to end up spending more time in my room. I'm going to need some sort of—stereo system and some music to listen to. I had been counting on being able to go to a store in the city to listen to and choose my own music, but as things stand, I now can't do that, so someone else will have to—try to guess what I might listen to, might enjoy listening to, for me."

A hand on his shoulder made him look up slowly at Kariya, who asked, "Surely you have some idea of what you'd like to listen to?"

"Besides Wutain music, most of which doesn't actually qualify as 'music', I haven't really had much time or inclination to listen to any," Tseng answered.

"Haven't you gone to bars and heard music there?" the orange haired Turk asked with a puzzled frown.

The Wutain actually looked faintly amused at the words. "I have, but pretty much all I 'heard' was the pulsing of the base because they played the music so loud, and I actually quite dislike feeling sound waves making my body throb."

Kariya looked startled for a moment before he burst into laughter, and even Veld gave a small chuckle. "I think we can find samples of different kinds you can listen to and tell us which types you like best so we can search out more in a similar vein," Veld offered. "And if that's your priority at the moment, we'll be able to do that before the shops out on the Plate shut down for the day."

A sudden thought made Tseng say, "Reno might have enough of his memories to instinctively know a few things to look for if you take him with you."

"That's true," Kariya agreed, then looked at Veld.

"He should still be in the office and would welcome another distraction from paperwork, so we'll get him on our way out," Veld agreed. "And Tseng, I'm absolutely certain you'll find things to do with the time you have."

With that, the two men left, and Tseng was left thinking about the words as he eyed the modified, temporary ID card again. Without his own gun, training would be next to impossible—unless he branched out and began refreshing his training in other kinds of weapons again. The VR rooms had scenarios built for Turks as well as for SOLDIERs, and he knew several had been added since the last time he'd gone in to train in one of them, so it might do him good to test those new scenarios. And if he was talking about training, maybe he'd get to spend some of that time with Cissnei he'd thought about doing before she became a Turk officially. He wasn't cut off from training or from people, he was just cut off from his job and anything outside Shinra Headquarters. In a way, it was like a forced vacation.

...When was the last time he'd had a vacation?

A thought about the computer in the corner of his room sent him to check what he could access there—everything except the Turks' mainframe. Someone had put a multi-layer password on it, and while he probably could figure out the layers of passwords, he suddenly found he didn't want to. If he did, it would betray Veld's trust and put him right back into the same position he'd been in before having his work equipment taken away. Or a worse one with more restrictions. Which also left him to try very hard not to bow to the temptation of using the back stairs to get out of the building, as those had neither ID requirements nor locks.

Speaking of work equipment, Veld said he'd left a few Materia out on Kariya's recommendation, so Tseng got up to look at the trunk, seeing some of his Materia sitting out on top of it like they'd been randomly tossed there. For Summons, he'd been left with Airmed, Siren, Leviathan, and Alexander—why him? Regardless, they seemed to be a good set. The other four Materia were Underwater, Full Cure, Sense, and Manipulate. It only took him a moment to stick Airmed in his ponytail, held by the tie, and to start trying to figure out where he'd keep the rest.

:Are you all right, Tseng?: the Summon who had once been Aeris asked as soon as he tucked her into his ponytail.

:Yes, Aeri—med, I'm fine...Veld has just effectively put me on house arrest for the next six days,: he told her, unable to keep a small, whining tone out of his mind-voice.

:Well, it'll mean you'll get the rest you need, right?: she asked, sounding amused.

At that, he had to sigh, but then he thought to ask, :Do you know how they moved my Materia into the box and managed to set eight of them on top of it? Didn't Minerva say no one but the five of us could touch the Materia which had seen that space?:

:She did, and I don't know how. Being bounced around is unsettling, though, and apparently, they did a lot of bouncing...: Aeris-as-Airmed explained.

Tseng sighed at the incomplete answer, then decided to go have a shower and get changed into some of his normal clothes, though he didn't really have many 'normal' clothes. After his uniforms had been confiscated, his closet was almost empty, and he realized there were only three pairs of normal pants and four shirts he could wear. At least he had something to wear...When had he actually given up entirely on clothing not his Turk uniform? When he'd been about twenty-two, he thought. Clean, dry, and dressed casually, Tseng settled onto his couch as he listened absently to the Lifestream voices in the background and pondered where best to put a stereo of some sort.

Not long after, the two men returned with Reno in toe, Veld carrying a fair-sized box and Kariya and Reno both carrying a few small bags from about seven different stores. By then, he'd figured out where he wanted to set up the player, so led them to the place and watched as they hooked up the system. It was a multi-CD player which he could put twenty-five CD's in at once, and he could choose to play them straight through or put them on various forms of 'shuffle' to make them more or less random. They'd gotten him twenty-five CD's—one which made him stare in shock because it was one of the few very impressive Wutain music works—so he could listen to different styles and compare them by having them all able to play, one after the other.

He never got around to asking them about the Materia and how they'd moved them, because he ended up becoming fascinated with the music instead, much to the men's amusement as they headed out.

MB

After a busy day of moving things to one of the larger apartments on the SOLDIER Firsts' floor, Genesis flopped onto his couch in his new living room and kitchen combo, Kunzel sitting in one of the chairs across from him. In all honesty, he hadn't even realized there were two-bedroom apartments there, as Mentoring in the SOLDIER program was rare, and to the best of his knowledge, when Angeal had taken on Zack, they hadn't moved into one. Then again, Zack had had his own (well, shared with a roommate) room as a Second when Angeal had taken him, but the only room Kunzel had was the Cadet one, and that only for a few more days. Genesis liked moving—new things were always a plus in his book—but being tired after moving all his furniture wasn't so fun.

"Are we starting on anything tonight or just—doing whatever, Commander?" the half-Wutain sixteen-year-old across from him asked curiously after a few minutes.

Genesis gave him an amused and sleepy look as he said, "Call me Genesis, and unless there's something in particular you want to talk about, tonight's a free night. We'll start training in the morning. Well, it might be more like afternoon, since we still have things to sort out and put up to make this place home after the move."

"Like your LOVELESS posters?" Kunzel asked in amusement.

"Those. But I don't have so many anymore," Genesis shrugged. "If there's things you want to put on the walls, we can work out how we'll set them up."

For a minute, Kunzel was silent, but then he asked, "Why me, Com—Genesis? I'm not fantastic at anything, and even though I made it through the program and will probably pass the finals to be placed in SOLDIER, all of the typical skills a SOLDIER needs are lacking in me. I'm sure my magic use doesn't actually compensate for my physical skills."

"Wha...?" Genesis blinked, then rolled his eyes. "Your skills aren't lacking, you're just fighting the wrong way for your body structure. I hope to have corrected that sufficiently for your finals, but becoming truly skilled at combat in a style you're new to will take more than a few days. I'll also make sure you can cast properly by the finals. And you can't tell me your theory and academic classes are bare passes—they aren't."

Kunzel sat blinking at him for several moments before he asked, "I'm fighting the wrong way?"

With a small sigh, the red haired man pushed himself up to settle in a sitting position facing the teen across from him. "Shinra's basic premise is 'give a boy a stick and let him pound things with it—that's sufficient.' And because most 'boys' don't have either combat training or toned muscle which doesn't build, it works fine. Of course, the ones who rise in the ranks the fastest are still the SOLDIERs who show the initiative to hone their own skills, develop fighting styles which suit them, and show their tactical and strategic expertise on missions. Angeal built on his strength, but Sephiroth built on his speed, hence their actual primary weapons, but both were able to develop more muscle than I was—mine just never built, like yours. It toned wonderfully, but that was all it did, even once I'd gotten my infusions, which normally bulk up a man.

"For that reason, I started to think about something—this came up while I was in Wutai and we fought their Ninjas. All of those men are slender and toned, but incredibly strong combatants, hard to hit, and highly capable of taking down SOLDIERs. The women also fit the same traits. It made me think of the Turks, and it made me think maybe I was fighting the wrong way. Obviously, not all men are meant to build heavy muscle, so I thought about what I could do to start matching or overcoming them, and the only answers I could come to were agility, speed, and magic—the same kinds of skills Ninjas and Turks use—but with a direct-combat fighting style, not one for sneaking around and assassinating people."

Genesis paused as he watched Kunzel blink in surprise several times, then went on with the explanation, "The first thing I realized is that meeting blows head-on is to be avoided unless there's really no choice. Don't meet and 'catch' your opponent's blade on yours, meet it—and tilt your blade so the other weapon slides off it with very little pressure on you. This does two things—spares your arms and stamina, and most often unbalances them because they'd struck the blow expecting resistance."

"And unbalancing them means a free hit of your own while they try to recover," Kunzel finished the thought, his expression thoughtful and curious. When Genesis nodded, the sixteen-year-old said, "So you mean my build is one which benefits from deflection rather than the standard style we're taught. If I start learning a skill which allows me to avoid being hit, I'll have better chances in the combat finals, and in actual combat. What about when you can't avoid a blow?"

The older man looked amused by the question. "Yes, sometimes those can't always be avoided. And sometimes, letting yourself be hit is the only way to bypass an enemy's defenses to defeat them—defeating a King Behemoth is almost impossible solo unless you can do exactly that." When the black haired teen blinked in surprise, the red haired man nodded. "But there are ways to absorb the blows, too, so they do less damage and put less strain on you, like by shifting your balance to allow give."

"I see," Kunzel said thoughtfully, then his brow quirked. "You really do seem prepared to take on a protegee and be a teacher, so I guess you actually took the time to think about this first. I was pretty skeptical at first after some of the stories I'd heard about your temper and—independent nature. Unapproachable, they like to call you. On good days."

Genesis snorted and said, "Yes, there's truth to that. Not so much the independent part, but the temper and my normally being unapproachable, yes. I'm letting you in, so don't make me regret my decision."

The younger man gave a nod, then decided to take a look around the apartment as he commented, "I didn't know they had rooms like this."

"Honestly, I didn't either until Lazard said we could use one of them," the other answered as he just leaned back against his couch comfortably. "And more space is always a welcome thing."

Soon after, Kunzel had returned to the living room—the two bedrooms were down a hall rather than having a door right off the main room—and commented, "I'm not so sure you're getting 'more space' when you have to share it with someone else, though. Doesn't this actually give you less space per person?"

With a snort, Genesis answered, "No. Your bedroom is about the same size mine used to be, mine is now a few feet larger, the bathroom is larger with a bigger tub—not sure why unless they expect both of us to be in it at the same time for some reason—and this space is several feet larger. But to me, this space is a 'public space' and I expect to be sharing it—Angeal and Sephiroth are going to be over here a lot. My only 'space' is my bedroom, and it's bigger."

Kunzel then noticed the bag his new Mentor had dropped at the foot of the couch, so asked, "What's in the bag there?"

Shrugging, the older man answered, "A bunch of Materia only I can touch and which I have to sort out for active use. I think when they reproduce at Mastering, I can actually give the new one away to someone else—these ones just won't let others touch them."

"Materia can do that?" the black haired teen asked in surprise.

"In very rare circumstances," Genesis sighed, then pushed himself up and retrieved the bag so he could head to his room. "Come here," he said as he stepped inside, moved over to the mess of a bed (he'd have to make it soon if he wanted a place to sleep that night), and dumped the bag of Materia onto it. Kunzel, standing nervously at the door, watched him carefully until he invited, "Come over and see what happens if you actually try to pick one up."

For a moment more, the teen stayed at the door, then stepped into the room and over to the bed, where he tried to pick up a red orb. He was shocked when he found its name was Knights of the Round, and stunned when something propelled it from his hand and into an arc to land near Genesis. The red haired man picked it up with a small sigh and used it to start a pile of red Materia, then began sorting the rest into piles of each type by color—all the green ones in one pile, all the yellow in another, and the same with blue, purple, and red.

"That's what it does," Genesis said. "The only thing I know about every one of these is that they all 'saw' the same place—and because they did, only certain people, who also 'saw' that place, can touch them. Even Angeal and Sephiroth can't touch these, because they never 'saw' it."

Kunzel eyed him for a long moment, started to open his mouth, then shut it again before pondering the developing piles. "Are you going to actively use any of them?"

It was a good question, because to date, Genesis had actually just used the same things he already had equipped in his Wizard Bracelet and Rapier. Each had eight slots in four linked pairs of two, and he had never filled them, knowing he'd find others eventually—he'd just never thought those 'others' would have been these. What he equipped onto each item may have a different effect depending on whether he put it in the Bracelet or on Rapier.

A sudden thought made him pull off his bracer and hand it to Kunzel as he asked, "Slip that on and tell me what you think of it—how it feels, whether it weighs you down, or so on."

The black haired teen obeyed, strapping the bracer on and blinking in surprise as he peered more closely at it. After a minute, he said, "I'm not sure. It doesn't feel bad, but it's a little—I'm not sure 'heavy' is the right word. These are some pretty powerful Materia, but I don't really feel drained by having them on, so I guess I'm actually capable of using them. At least, if any of the theory was true, such would be the case."

"It's not a matter of 'using' them, it's a matter of how often, how easily, and how many times before needing a recharge," Genesis answered in amusement. "Anyone at all can use a Materia—someone magically weak might only be able to cast once, or Summon once, though a few may take so much energy in a single use that someone so weak would die in the attempt. The average person will be able to cast five or six times at the level two magic level—Cure 2, Fire 2, Esuna, or something like Comet, because Comet's base level is equivalent to a level two basic Materia—so could safely cast anything once. People like you and me can cast an average of fifteen times, even without training."

"Then what's the problem with these?" the teen asked curiously, slipping the bracer off and passing it back to Genesis.

"A raw cast is harder than a slotted cast," the red haired man said. "Do you know why that is?"

Kunzel paused as his brow furrowed in a small, puzzled frown, then tentatively said, "A raw cast has nothing to support or stabilize it, so we have to try to do that as well as direct it in the cast. The 'armor' and weapons with slots are made so they stabilize the wild energy in the Materia." He eyed the older man uncertainly as he spoke, but his lips twitched into a small smile as Genesis nodded.

"The stability comes at a price, however," the Commander informed the younger man, who blinked in surprise. "When you slot a Materia shard, there's a give-and-take process which happens which causes slotted Materia to benefit you in one way while weakening you in another. Most Magic Materia will increase your casting ability—I'll nominally call it 'intellect', though it isn't an accurate term—while at the same time reducing your ability to lift your sword—your strength. It's easy to overload yourself with powerful Materia, and to virtually incapacitate yourself in the process. Mages already have very high 'intellect' and lack in 'strength', so having too many spell Materia is a bad idea. Most other Materia are more variable in what they enhance or reduce, and some types—like Independents and Supports—don't give a reduction."

After taking the time to think about the words for a minute, Kunzel asked, "So I have to work to build up my own strengths and compensate for my weaknesses before I start playing with Materia combinations, and even then, it's a delicate balancing act, is what you're saying?"

"Exactly," Genesis nodded with a small smile. He was actually pleased with how quickly his new mentee was catching on, so felt a lot more sure of his decision to take him on for the foreseeable future. Any boon was good in the current situation.