It was on of those days again. One of those days were finally he would get the opportunity to proove himself.
They were standing in the sterile antechamber of the deepground training room, him, Professor Hojo and some of his assistants.
The air smelled like desinfectant and sweat.
Sephiroth was nine years old.
He was a pale slender boy with the face of an angel, tall for his age, but not particularly athletic. He would have looked like any normal boy, if it weren't for his vibrant mako eyes and his shiny silver hair.
Said hair was already growing past his shoulders, was his pride and joy.
It was the only thing that they'd let him keep, the only thing they hadn't taken away from him yet.
Not that they hadn't tried...
Well. Sephiroth had shown them.
'I've had a new simulation made especially for you.' the professor introduced.
'It might be a little bit... demanding for you. But I know you can push through. You are my most pomising subject after all.'
The bespectacled face towering above him gave one of it's creepy smiles, Sephiroth had learned to fear.
'Come on now, put on your gear.' the professor said as he ushered him towards the glass doors and into the training room.
It was slowly and with utmost care that the young boy donned his VR headpiece, made sure that it all sat in place.
The VR goggles still a little bit too big for him, it was heavily that they rested on his small delicate face.
Soon they would not bother him anymore, he was aware.
Soon it would all be gone.
The headpiece, the goggles, the room, the scientists. Even Professor Hojo. Everything he knew was real.
They'd be gone and replaced by a fantasy world full of foreign plants and animals and people and buildings he had never dreamed to see.
Sephiroth couldn't wait to be gone.
The truth was that he loved those trainings. Loved the vast rich alien worlds they offered for him to explore, loved the colors of the plants, the sky, the ground, the scents of the fields and the farns and the trees, the sounds of the forests and the birds and the creeks, the warmth of the sun as it fell on his skin. Loved the wind and the sky and the stars. The stars... Somehow he'd always loved them most.
It was all so different, se refreshing, such a stark contrast to everything he knew. So different to everything in deepground. So different that it had in fact scared him out of his wits the very first time he'd set foot into a simulation.
The sky, the sun, the plants and the beasts... Those had all been things he'd never seen before. Things he hadn't even known the name of. Things of which's existence he'd been oblivious for all his life, would have been oblivious still had he not been sent there into training.
The truth was Sephiroth had never left deepground. Not even for a single day. Had never had a chance to see any of these things in reality. To him, they existed only in the training room, or in those fictious figments that were chasing through his head thereafter. To him there were no trees, no sun, no sky.
No world above the ground.
Only the blank white walls, and the endless marble corridors of the maze he'd come to call his home.
'Are you ready?' one of the assistants asked over the headset speakers.
The boy with the immaculate pale skin and the long silver hair was ready. He had positioned himself in one of the flashing ovals on the ground already, gave a tiny confirmative nod.
It made the team of scientists in the anteroom begin to load the simulation.
'Simulation ready in 3 – 2 -1.'
There was the usual blinding white light that would signal the beginning of the transfer and then Sephiroth opened his eyes to a dimly lit forest clearing, took a deep breath of fresh clean unconditioned air.
The constricting headgear was gone and so was the room. Gone and replaced by an idyllic rural forest scene.
It was night time again. His favourite time of the day and the moon and the stars from above were his only source of light.
It was beautiful.
So very beautiful.
He could have stood there for hours just watching the nightsky, pondering the infinite depths of the universe, listening to the rustle of the nearby trees as they swayed gently in the soft late summer breeze. And he definitely would have, if it hadn't been for the mission.
The mission.
That was why he was here.
To proove how much he had learned, to show off his skills, demonstrate his abilities.
'There's a village half a mile south of you.' Professor Hojo's voice briefed him through his headgear. It was as if he was talking inside his head.
'Approach silently and assess the situation.'
Using the constellations of the stars above as he'd been tought, Sephiroth quickly made for orientation, determined where was south and setting off at a swift pace, he made to the other side of the clearing and melted into the woods.
This had been the first test. The first hurdle. And he knew that he had passed.
Reading the constellations was something that came easy to him. Almost too easy actually.
Somehow the stars had always felt familiar, spoke to him, made sense to him. Reading them, to him was second nature. As was staring at them. Longing for them really, as he kept looking up at them for guidance.
Sephiroth didn't really understand what those missions he was sent on were actually good for but absolving those simulation trainings and besting them was what he lived for. Was what he strived for. What he was looking forward to all week. It was besting those simulation what being a warrior was all about. And he was going to be a great warror. The best. At least that was what Hojo told him.
One day he would managae to beat all the simulations. Even the hardest ones. The ones for grown ups, the ones he hadn't yet seen, the ones he couldn't even imagine.
Sephiroth didn't know how many of them there were, but he had heard the scientist talk about ones with giant beast and magic, there even were ones with drones and combat bots. Some that had never been beat. By anyone.
Somehow he couldn't wait to face them, to beat them, to succeed. One day he'd beat them all. He would be the champion. The best.
That was what this was all about.
Proofing that he could do it. Proofing that he was the best. And proove it he would.
That much he was sure of.
Failing was not an option. Ever.
It was after a few minutes of creeping throught the woods that the thickets thinned and he found a small path leading further south, leading to the village.
It was a trap of course.
The second test probably.
One could not simply follow the path. Never. Following the path would lead you to houses, and farmers and merchants, following the path would risk him getting seen.
It was from a certain distance therefore that he trailed the path from the safety of the thickets, was straying away from it alltogether the moment he saw the first set of houses coming into view.
He needed to find himself a vantage point, some kind of a lookout.
He had to assess the situation, the professor had said.
And he had no map.
It was approaching a set of conveniently placed rocks that he made to do just that.
Using the equally conveniet inlays that were cast into the covered side of the rock to climb up the unnatural formation, he reached the top to find the entire village laid out in front of him. It was a group of ten or maybe fifteen buildings, a few farms to the north and a generous set of stables, some merchant's houses with shops, an inn and a big mansions, at the very center.
It had to be late in the evening but not too late yet. There were still ligths on in the mansion and in the merchants' houses and even some stray candles gleaming in some of the farm houses too.
People must have just had dinner, must have just prepared for bed.
'Your target is loacted in the mansion in the center of the village.' professor Hojo's voice suddenly spoke up inside his head.
'Your mission is to approach quietly. Leave no witnesses.'
'You will enter the building through the servants entrance. Approach from the west, make sure not to be seen.'
It was all Sephiroth needed to hear.
Stealth.
This was the next level. The next part of the test.
Get to the mansion without being seen.
It was easy really.
Getting up on his feet again he found a way down the rocks and swiftly as a cat weaseled over to the first row of farmhouses.
He became a shadow then.
Melted into the night as though he was the night himself.
Past roundpens and stables and silos and farms, over to the merchant shops and gardenhouses and the outdoor sitting accomodations of the inn, it were the casted shadow of the trees, the buidlings, were the nooks and crannies of the cobbled house seeemed streets, that were his camouflage, his cover.
He had almost reached the main square when suddenly it happened.
He'd been sneaking through the backyard of one of the fancy merchant houses when he made a mistake.
Crossing the yard without loooking twice, his eager mind all set on the target not too far ahead he'd gotten carried away with the task, had gotten inattentive to the present moment.
'You have been seen.' Hojo informed.
His voice had a sharp undertone to it.
And it was only then that Sephiroth sensed it too, felt a set of eyes on him, felt the peculiar prickle of being watched.
'You!' a startled high pitched voice called out, 'What are you doing in our backyard?!'
And it was very unexpectedly that he found himself face to face with a woman, the oldest woman he had ever seen. The old wizened grandma, she had just come out to get some water from the well and there was a big metal bucket clutched in both her hands.
Sephiroth cut her down with his training katana in the blink of an eye.
He was lucky it seemed.
Noone seemed to have heard, but still. There was a body. And bodies always made witnesses.
'Hide her.' Professro Hojo instructed.
And it was with utmost effort that Sephiroth heaved her over to the nearby bushes. Covered her with a few quickly gathered branches.
That old granny, she was definitely heavier then he would have thought.
He was wet with sweat when finally he set off for the mansion again. And with a sour taste on the back of his tongue too.
He had made a mistake, he was aware. And he'd wasted time.
How much time had this slip-up cost him? Sephiroth had no idea.
Still. He hadn't screwed up completely.
He was still in the game.
'There are guards ahead. Take them out.' Hojo said and Sephiroth got ready for part four.
Infiltration.
The building surrounded by guards, it was sneaking up on them one by one from the shadows that the young boy dealed with them. It was all done in a few minutes time, neat and clean with no alarm raised, perfectly executed if he might have said so.
Well, to Sephiroth it was only a simple infiltratioin training exercise. Was something he had done a hundred times. Something he'd been trained for for at least the past few years.
It was stepping over the bodies of his victims that he made to enter through the stables.
There were a few stablemen busy drinking, playing cards.
'Get them.' Hojo said and Sephiorth complied.
The unsuspecting drunkards, they were wiped out before they even knew what hit them.
It was making past their corpses that finally the boy entered the house.
It was quiet inside. Cool. There was a short dark hall with big heavy doors set into the bricked walls and a staircase leading to the upper floors.
'Your target should be somewhere in the eastern wing of the top most floor.' Hojo whispered in his ear.
'Locate the target. Kill everyone.'
Good.
Seek and destroy.
Easy.
It was at a swift pace that Sephiroth set off and up the stairs. The first few corridors he passed were empty, and so was the next floor's hall, but then he entered the kitchens.
And the story was an entirely differnt one in there.
He must have misjudged the time of day. He could have facepalmed himself. Dinner wasn't over yet and the kitchen was bustling with people, servants and cooks and attendants, at least a dozen people, all busy and stressed preparing a feast.
It was quickly that Sephiorth strode past them, was without giving them a second thought that he made towards the door on the other side of the room, the door that would hopefully give him excess to the upper levels.
The people all busily minding their own tasks, it was without anyone noticing that he made across the room.
He was halfway past them when Hojo's voice rang out again.
'Kill them.' came his clear instructions.
'They don't attack.' Sephiroth justified as he kept making towards the door.
It was true.
Those people there, those servants, they were much too busy to notice anything, too busy to pose any kind of threat, maybe much to unskilled too or they would not have become servants, Sephiroth thought.
Surely there was no advantage to be gained by getting rid of them, on the contrary, killing them would only be a waste of time.
And he couldn't afford to waste more time now, could he?
Hojo had not given him a time limit. But eventually all those missions had one.
It would all be counted into the evaluation, would compromise his marks.
'Kill them.' the professor repeated emphatically.
It made the silver haired boy furrow his brow.
'But they are not our targets. They are just servants. They do not even pose a threat.' he anwered somewhat stubbornly.
'Do it.' the professors voice rang out. He was growing impatient now, Sephiroth could tell. And it wasn't exactly a good omen. Getting Hojo angry never was a good idea.
Well, if there was no way around...
Drawing his training katana once more, the little silver haired boy carried out his orders.
It was a few minutes later that the room around him was quiet, the floor littered with blood and severed body parts and spilled guts.
His clothes were a mess, his silver hair stained red with blood.
There was no time to think about it now.
'The upper levels. Now. You have five minutes. Then the alarm will be raised.'
Turning around on his heels Sephiroth shot towards the door.
Sprinting up the stairs and down another set of corridors it was again and again that he found himself in dead ends, again and again that he encountered more and more people. Again and again that he was held up by having to dispose of them.
It was rather irksome really.
It seemed the whole house was designed just to hold him up, was one big frustrating maze actually, and he hadn't even managed to locate the next set of stairs yet when Professor Hojo's voice reminded him that he was running out of time.
'Two minutes left. Don't disappoint me, subject.'
Shit.
He had to reach the upper floors. And fast.
There had to be a way upstairs.
It was about half a minute later that finally he managed to locate the backstairs used by servants to pass through the house fast, managed to ascend without further obstacles.
He should have sougt it from the beginning, he realized somewhat begrudgingly. It must have been somewhere near the kitchens.
It was his clothes drenched in sewat and blood and filth that finally he reached the topmost floor.
There were more people on the landing and the hall beyond but they were no match for him.
Raising his katana again he cut throught them like a warm breakfast knife through butter.
'Your targets are in the room beyond. Eliminate them. All of them. Time's still ticking.' Hojo said and it was without wasting another second of precious time that the silver haired boy burst through the heavily ornamented oak doors.
Assassination.
The final test.
It was what he was best at.
The part he always looked forward too.
No stupid trappings and beating around the bushes.
Just some good plain killing.
It definitely was what he liked best.
Stumbling out on the other side, katana raised above his head, ready to deliver the final blow to whatever it was that was waiting for him in the room beyond, it was taking in the scene in front him that made him freeze dead in his tracks.
The room was blue and full of monsters. Monsters towering above him and surrounding him from every angle.
No.
Those weren't monsters, were they?
It took him a few moments to realize they were not monsters at all, but simply animals, painted on the tapestries.
There were horses and bunnies and dogs and a whole bunch of other creatures Sephiroth had never seen. Some with big leathery wings that carried them high into the sky and some with fire coming from their nostrils, all in vibrant colors and as he realized, once he took a second look, highly stylized too.
It was the most peculiar room he'd ever been in.
And it were not only the animals on the walls.
There was more.
There were tiny wooden chairs and a table all set with tiny porcelain teasets and eleborate female figurines with fancy dresses, a truck and a wood carved horse mounted on rockers and a bunch of stuffed animals, all in minuature. There were round leather spheres in all kinds of vibrant colors and giant glittering hoops and a giant miniature railroad complete with rails and wagons and stations and a whole lot of other things he didn't know the name of. An endless parade of them.
They all gave the silver haired boy goosebumps, creeped him out to no end.
What exactly was this?
None of it made sense.
The weird creepy objects lining the walls, occupying a huge portion of the ground and every surface available, they all led up to a cozily crackling fireplace and on a giant plushy rug in front of it it sat.
His target.
It was a woman with long wavy dark brown hair. She was standing with her back to him, hadn't heard him enter. She was holding something in her arms, a bundle, something Sephiroth couldn't see.
And there was more.
'What is going on here? Who are you?' a high pitched voice suddenly piped up and suddenly a little foreign creature appeared from behind the voluminous skirts of the woman's fancy garments.
It had brown curly hair like his target's and was wearing what seemed like a pink miniature dress all set in pretty ruffles.
That creature, it looked like all the other people, but it somehow was much smaller.
It was quickly followed by a second similiarly looking creature, a miniature man this time, with wild black hair and a set of baby blue dungarees. There was a bright red race car clutched inside his hands.
'Have you come to play with us?' the miniature man asked in an unmanly high pitched voice that equalled that of his female counterpart and it was only then that Sephiroth realized that they were children.
Children just like him.
The realisation of it, it made him lower his katana instanly.
The truth was he had never seen another child before, hadn't even known they existed, had never really thought about it.
It was in utter shocked surprise therefore that Sephiroth only stared at them.
'Oh yes we could play hide and seek!' the girl piped up invitingly.
It sounded a lot like seek and destroy. Still, none of it made sense.
'Kill them.' Professor Hojo's voice reminded through the inbuilt speakers of his headgear.
But the boy with the blood covered face could only stare, didn't move a bit.
'What do you mean... play?' he asked somewhat befuddled as he looked at the girl infront him with big confused mako eyes.
It was a word that made no sense to him. Carried no meaning in his mind.
'Kill them.' Hojo said again.
His voice had turned to acid.
'Who are you two talking to?' the woman in the red dress suddenly said and turning around to face him, Sephiroth realised the bundle she'd been holding in her hands was actually another child, one that was even smaller than the others, one much younger still.
The baby's small chunky fist coming up to play with her mother's hair it was with a tiny giggle that expertly she twirled it round her miniature fingers.
Sephiroth could only stare.
Never had he seen someone so small before.
'Who are you?' The mother asked indignantly as finally her big dark eyes fell on him and it was with said eyes widiening in shock that she took in his appearance, was with her gaze filling with fear that she quickly reached for her kids.
Thrusting the baby into the girl's ready hands she pushed them all behind her, planted herself in front of them protectively.
The miniature race car hit the ground.
'Who's sent you?' she demanded, her big brown eyes, startled a moment ago, were hostile now, scared. Scared but ready to act, to fight.
Sephirth didn't move an inch. Did not reply.
The woman infront of her children measuring him up from head to tow, it was with her eyes travelling to his face and down to his bloodstained katana that tears welled up inside them.
'No. Please, Don't do it. Please don't harm us, don't harm them. They have done nothing wrong.' the mother began desperately.
The baby in the small girl's arms began to scream.
'Kill them.' Professor Hojo's voice ordered relentlessly.
'What do you want?! Money?! Take it! Take everything you want!'
Reaching up to the cleavage of her dress the woman revealed a heavy silver locket, all beset with jewels. It was without thinking, was without regret, that she pulled it over her head and made to throw it at his feet.
It landed with a clutter an inch from his blood stained combat boot.
'Take it! Take whatever you want, but please, I beg you, do not take my children.' the woman in front him wept.
'I said kill them!' Hojo's voice rang out, the agitation in his tone now worse than ever, his words, they echoed endlessly in the little boy's small head.
'But...' It was all that Sephiroth brought out.
His eyes were all set on the woman's face before him. Those huge scared eyes, those flushed cheeks, those desperately trembling lips and big fat tears that were rolling down her face now.
'Please don't harm them!' she begged again. 'Please!'
'DO IT. NOW!'
Professor Hojo's voice yelled worse than ever.
There was fury in his voice now and disappointment.
His patience had run out.
The boy with the long silver hair, it was tentatively that he stepped forwards, was waveringly that he raised his sword.
'No... Please...' the woman infront him wailed.
The baby's screames seemed to echoe endlessly.
It was only a few steps away from her that he froze.
One of his chuncky combat boots had caught on something and it was looking down that he found the flashy red miniature race car.
It was a pretty fancy thing. Eleborately crafted and delicately laquered. One of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.
It was lowering his katana that slowly Sephiroth leaned down to retrieve it.
His fingers had barely touched the cool metal surface when suddenly the simulation around him froze and the world around him turned seethrough.
'What is it with you today?!' Professor Hojo's voice rang out from right next to him and a moment later something impacted with his face so hard that his body tumbled sideways and straight into the unrelenting plastered wall. His cheek cracking open at the rough concrete, he felt one of his molars come loose and the bones of his cheekbone splinter, felt his world erupt in pain as his body slipped down onto the ground.
For a few blissfull moments his vision went dark and he was lost in the soothing fangs of oblivion to then, mercilessly, be shaken back to reality by one of his sore shoulders.
There was the horribly familiar taste of blood in his mouth and a throbbing pain exploding from his jaw that made him give a soft pained groan.
'I told you to kill them!' the professor raged as his fist closed around his subject's throat and it was feeling his body beeing shaken back and forth that with a few helpless futile gasps for air Sephiroth mercyfully felt his vision blur again.
If only he would pass out fast...
It was the last thing he thought before his face hit the concrete again, before the ground beneath him spinning back to reality, he felt his senses return to him with a few needy gulps of air.
Damn...
If only he'd blacked out for good.
It would have spared him the trouble of having to endure what he knew was coming next.
Taking a few shaky steadying breaths, coughing up some blood to clear his airways, it was rolling carefully over onto his back that he made to face his destiny.
It was the moment that he looked up that Hojo's wrath came down on him.
He was using his electric shock prod again. His favourite torture device.
It made Sephiroth wish he'd passed out even more.
The electric current passing through his body rendering him immobile, it was with his muscles spasming uncontrollably that the young boy writhed on the ground.
The pain was beyond words. Was indescribeable.
His heart standing still for a few moments, his lungs unable to breathe, the current cut through every coherent thought, made him arch his spine so badly it would almost snap.
Finally the round was over and the beated boy recoiled with heavy gulps for breath. His every cell on fire, his limbs shaky and weak, it was with his muscled clenching uncontrollably, that he treid to get back on his feet.
But Hojo didn't stop there.
Zap.
Zap.
Zap.
He hit the boy with the electric shock prod again and again.
Zap.
Zap.
Zap.
Finally a gap to breathe.
The small pale boy nothing but a pile of limbs now, lying on the ground fighting for a few small gulps of air, there were tears freely running down his flushed face. They were the tears of pain. Of agony.
The professor made to kneel down close to him.
His voice was deadly calm now.
'What have I tought you?' the professor said.
Zap.
There he went again.
'I give you orders. You carry them out.'
Zap.
Zap.
'Instantly without complain. Is that so hard?'
And a zap again.
Panting heavily, Sephiroth made to roll onto his back.
'What is your purpose?' Hojo asked with bated breath.
'To become a warrior.' the boy replied obediently.
'What is your duty?'
'To obey.'
'What is you task?'
'To carry out orders.'
Professor Hojo zapped him once again for good measure.
The boy infront him screamed.
'To carry out orders instantly and without complain.' the professor reminded with his eerie smile set back in place.
'To carry out orders instantly and without complain.' the boy repeated instantly.
He was openly crying now.
Studying the trembling form before him, Professor Hojo smiled his creepy smile.
'Another round mabye...' the professor mused.
'No... No I can do it... I.. I'll do it...' the panting boy before him stammered.
'Oh.. I'm sure you will.' the professor said, that creepy smile of his spreading into a malicious smirk, as the electro shock prod came down again.
That feeling that had overcome him at the edge of the forest when he had been hunting with Fang, it never quite left him, hadn´t left his thoughts even for a second. There was something nasty going on in these woods. Sephiroth knew that. And he couldn´t much longer ignore it either.
'The origin of those beasts... It is somewhere in the middle of that forests. I know it Angeal.' he stated matter-of-factly.
They were out in the thickets bordering one of Bodhums most frequented beaches, Angeal and him and they had just slain another bunch of especially teribly mutated beasts.
'We have to find a way to make this stop. They are getting bigger. And they´re getting stronger...' he heard his burly comrade speak from somewhere right behind him, but somehow it was hard for him to listen, hard for him to focus.
The mako in the monster's bodies was speaking to him again, was making his flesh yearn for it. The absence of it making him feel light headed, was making his head spin.
And there was something else he sensed there. He was aware. Had noticed it the last few times he'd been in contact with the wicked creatures. Something else he suspected the both of them might have in common.
Sephiroth tried hard not to think about it.
'And we know there´s something even bigger hiding in there hunting them.' he added, as carefully he made to inspect the wound that supposedly bigger thing had torn into the body of yet another of the huger dogsters.
Angeal Hewley only gave a silent nod.
His expression was grave.
He knew the general was right.
That much was for sure.
But he also knew this whole story was unsettling the tall lean man to no end or he would have gone straight to the heart of the forest himself. And the fact that something was making the general hesitate was something that was greatly worrying the burly First Class.
He´d never seen his general this concerned before.
Well... Certainly not about a beast. Not even about those weapon things.
No, this was different. Was something else entirely.
And Angeal knew it too.
Yes... What if there was something worse waiting inside those forests? Something more terrible than those weapons they had faced. Something Sephiroth couldn´t handle. Something he´d been trying to deny, to forget...
The silver haired first class didn´t even want to think about it.
He in fact couldn't. He dearly needed a break from all of this.
Just a little break...
And desperately so.
A break from those dogsters, a break from their constant attacks, a break from his constant mako cravings, those headachse, those nightmares, those memories from the past that tortured him now almost every night, the empty void in his heart where Lightning should have been...
It was already getting dark when the two of them made it back to the station.
The general was greeted by a pair of accusing ice blue eyes the second he entered the hall.
Lightning...
Standing near the copy machine on the other side of the room she was busy stacking some of her files and for a few seconds their gazes locked like they used to back when they were still at HQ. Back when he used to give her a hard time.
Lightning...
Could she feel it too?
That presence in the woods?
Sometimes Sephiroth wondered...
'There´s something he isn´t telling us.' she overheard Zack pointing out the obvious.
He was talking about Sephiroth of course.
Ligtning couldn´t help but find her mind drifting back to him and that look he´d given her in the entrance hall that day.
She had almost thought he was going to approach her...To talk to her.
But he hadn´t.
No... The only person he had eyes for these days was Fang.
He probably hadn´t even really seen her. Had looked straight through her, had just been staring into the distance as he so often did these days.
'Hmm... No... I don´t buy it... Why would he do that?' Cloud answered somewhat stupidly.
Claire Farron could only roll her eyes.
Cloud really could be dense sometimes.
'No idea...' Zack mused.
She had no idea either.
But sure. Zack was right. The general knew something. Something he wasn´t telling anyone.
Not even Angeal.
And to be honest, she didn´t like it either.
'Well... Who cares.. Are you coming to the party later?' Cloud swiftly changed the topic. He never seemed eager to talk about anything work related for longer than two minutes it seemed.
'Sure. Lebreau, is probably already there.' Zack answered. 'Haven´t seen her all day.'
And it was just a few moments later that he turned around, blue puppy eyes looking at his female comrade pleadingly.
'What?' Claire Farron asked, sounding slightly dumbfounded.
They were on one of their scouting-the-streets-for-roaming-beasts missions and she really could care less about the two men´s constant chatter.
'Are you coming too?'
Lightning only stared.
It was just another Friday evening with one of their Friday night chill outs at the beach that seemed to have become one of their after-work hours traditions somehow completely without her.
'Uhm... No... I don´t know.' was her only answer.
They had never asked her to come along with them before, had somehow miraculously forgotten her existence when it came to freetime gatherings these days.
Not that she was bothered really.
She wouldn't have come anyway.
'Oh come on, you never join our evenings anymore... Where are the good old SOLDIER times?!' Cloud threw in somewhat accusingly.
Yeah... Those good old SOLDIER times... Where were they exactly?
'I... I´m tired...' Lightning began tentatively. It was ture. Somehow that stupid pregnancy had left her tired constantly.
'But... I´ll give it a thought... Okay?' she added quickly when she saw the told-you-so look on her comrades´ faces.
'Maybe... After I´ve had a shower and everything...' she mused as quickly she made to look away.
'Great!' Cloud and Zack chimed in unison as they set off down their path again with new vigor in their steps.
Lightning didn't feel too great about though.
She hadn´t felt much like going out lately, had she?
Well, maybe she should give it a try.
She'd been sticking to her sorry self far too long anyway. She could definitely need some distraction.
And who knows, maybe the evening wouldn't turn out so bad after all.