Chapter 15: You feel so safe inside, the walls you fortified. Supremacy implied, who dares to overthrow?

"So, does everyone understand the plan?" Sephiroth wasn't even bothering to pretend that as the leader of Avalanche, Barret should be the one giving orders.

To his credit, Barret hadn't raised a fuss; rescuing Aerith and raising hell in Shinra HQ were both causes near and dear to his heart.

"Third basement level, look for the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department Lounge, it'll be the room with a couch; find Aerith's staff, a materia with a white glow, and anything else that obviously belongs to her, then meet up with you in President Shinra's office on the 70th floor!" Kadaj gave an enthusiastic thumbs up as he repeated an abridged version of Sephiroth's orders.

Hanging from his brother's outfit was a loop of zip ties that Sephiroth had provisioned him with.

"Perfect. If for some reason I'm unable to draw the majority of Shinra's attention, just do whatever it takes to get out alive and meet up again at the Church I told you about in Sector Five." Sephiroth concluded the mission briefing with a few seconds to spare.

His stride didn't even slow as he walked straight through the still-closed lobby doors to Shinra HQ. Sephiroth distantly felt shattered glass pierce his skin, but his body forced the foreign objects out, healing the wounds before they even had a chance to bleed.

"Excuse me! If you don't have an appointment, you'll have to…." the receptionist began, her mind clearly operating on bureaucratic auto-pilot.

"Please inform the President that General Sephiroth is reporting for debriefing on his Nibelheim mission. I'm already five years late, so I'm sure he wouldn't want me to suffer any further delays."

The receptionist's face rapidly began to drain of color.

"Of course, General…. and as for your... companions?" Fear was causing her to stutter, and she had a look in her eyes suggesting she regretted having spoken at all.

"They're here to assist me with classified matters. Also, if you'd be so kind, please contact the head of the Science and Research Department. Tell him that his newest test subject is about to be placed under my personal protection."

Over the course of his speech, the lobby crowd, an even mix of deliverymen, citizens, and suits heading to or from a smoke break, unfroze and scattered.

Four red-clad Shinra troopers with drawn firearms began to cautiously approach Sephiroth.

"Excuse me a moment..."

XXX XXX XXX

Gina saw the general reach for his sword.

Then… then she wasn't quite sure what she saw next….

It was like looking at a bright light that left behind an afterimage that you could still see even with your eyes closed. Except, in this case, it was like her eyes were seeing a dozen different things happen in an amount of time that was far too short for them all to have occurred.

She heard a clamor of metal on tile, saw each guard jerk back, dropping the remains of his gun as if it had bitten him.

Then Sephiroth was calmly standing in front of her once again idly wrapping the black cloth around his blade and retying the hitch he used to hold it in place.

XXX XXX XXX

The interlopers appropriately disarmed and cowed, Sephiroth resumed the conversation.

"After you're done passing that message along, you have my permission, no, my orders, to take the rest of the day off."

"Thank you, sir… and… please make sure your companions don't forget their visitor ID badges!" the receptionist timidly pushed a green tray containing plastic badges forward.

Kadaj attached one to his black outfit with a wide grin, while Tifa and Barret did likewise with less exuberant expressions.

"Much appreciated; since the streets of Midgar are proving to be especially dangerous these days, you four should escort her home." Sephiroth gestured at the troopers who he'd recently disarmed.

Questioning looks were exchanged, and then one trooper, less cowed, or perhaps just more disciplined than the rest, stepped forward and gave his very best parade ground salute.

"Of course, General!"

The other three abruptly did likewise, and the entire quintet eagerly hustled out of the building. They weren't the only ones who were making hasty exits; by this point, the lobby was more or less deserted.

"Richest company in the world, and they can only afford two elevators?" scoffed Tifa as she sized up their options.

"What's the plan if one of them is already in use?" Kadaj worried.

"I never planned on using one," Sephiroth answered without a moment's hesitation as he kicked open the door to sixty flights of stairs. "I don't have the time."

XXX XXX XXX

As befitted the most important building in the world, Shinra HQ had security cameras almost everywhere; the stairways were no exception.

"What was that?" Ralph asked his shift partner.

"What was what?" Nigel inquired right back.

"I think I just saw something on floor ten… no wait, there it was again, on floor twenty!"

Nigel stopped inspecting videos of random people eating food in the commissary and turned his attention to Ralph's screens.

"So, what am I looking for exactly?"

"Well, I mean, it's not there anymore…. but if we look at floor thirty… THERE!" Ralph pointed an accusatory finger at his screen.

"It's some kind of visual glitch; your monitor is on the fritz." Nigel sighed while shaking his head.

"It'd be one thing if it just kept happening on the same floor, but it keeps getting higher up. It just happened again on floor forty!"

"So switch to floor fifty, set your watch, and figure out exactly how long before it happens again."

It wasn't the worst of ideas.

"Something like half a minute or so?" Ralph concluded when the visual glitch repeated itself.

"So what do you think is gonna happen on floor sixty?"

"No idea, I mean, there's no way whatever this is can go any higher than that. There… there it is again! Did you see that door swing? I swear I saw something shove the door open hard enough to make it swing back and forth!"

"Look, our shift is ending in twenty minutes, and we've been at this for hours; your eyes are playing tricks on you. Besides, nobody could have gotten into the stairways without going through the lobby first, so let's just review what happened there a few minutes before all this started..."

XXX XXX XXX

"What in the Planet's name are the Canyon's hotheads up to this time?" sighed Mayor Domino to himself, wondering why he hadn't been warned in advance about the mess unfolding around him.

Even if he couldn't wait to see Shinra toppled and the office of the Midgar's Mayor to be worth more than a bucket of warm piss, this kind of blatant lightning assault on Shinra HQ held little appeal to him.

The damned fools were just lucky he'd managed to intercept the video feed of the lobby break-in and replace it with a looped recording of normal business operations. There were so many different cameras in Shinra HQ, and so few people paid to watch them that no one was going to spend the half an hour they'd need to notice the video repeating itself .

Luckily he hadn't needed to work any sort of digital trickery on the stairways; the Avalanche team using that route seemed to have brought their own equipment, something that sped up the recording of their passing to the point that they became little more than a visual glitch.

XXX XXX XXX

Sephiroth shoved open the door to the sixtieth floor. Hojo's laboratory was spread across floors sixty-seven and sixty-eight, but since he kept his prized experiments on the higher floor, that was where he'd find Aerith. If Shinra hadn't changed its security procedures since his last visit, there was a complicated series of interlocking doors, passwords, and staircases with a different key card being needed for each floor.

Finding all of them would slow even Sephiroth down, and the doors were probably protected by their new kinetic barriers, so trying to power through them would require unacceptable time and effort on his part. He briefly considered going through the walls, instead, but leaving that overt a trail of destruction was really only likely to make his job harder in the long run.

While Shinra hadn't changed its fondness for gigantic floor-to-ceiling windows, there was no easy way for Sephiroth to shatter one of them without unleashing a storm of high-velocity glass shards on anyone standing below. Instead, he opted for a slightly more subdued approach.

"I'm afraid I need to borrow your window for a moment," he introduced himself to the first minor functionary he could find with a private office.

"Borrow my window?" they repeated the words back to him in confusion.

Sephiroth grabbed the window frame in question and yanked hard. It came loose, creating a gaping hole large enough for even Sephiroth to squeeze through, but the debris only got a chance to fall a few feet instead of several stories.

He'd managed to wiggle out through it before the office's owner had even gotten a chance to call building services and/or security.

A moment later, flames roared to life in either hand, the magical heat softening the walls of Shinra HQ enough for him to crush it into handholds.

Now all Sephiroth had to do was climb eight stories straight up a building without any gear while freezing wind lashed at his body.

So far, so good. He hoped the rest of Avalanche was having as easy a time of things...

XXX XXX XXX

"There is no Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department!" Kadaj cried out in a mix of anger and disappointment.

They'd circled the entire floor three times without finding the room in question.

This was not good; his brother had given him direct and clear orders for what to do, and he was failing to follow them.

"It has been five years. Shinra might have moved them to a different floor." Tifa pointed out.

Knowing why he was failing didn't make him feel that much better.

"What do we do now, then?"

"Ask for directions," Barret sounded surprisingly calm and confident, almost cheerful at the prospect.

He followed up this comment by slamming his shoulder into a nearby door hard enough to make its hinges pop loose.

Barret pushed over the now unresisting door and beheld a room filled with people who were busily sorting through piles of mail.

"Pardon me, we're a little lost..."

XXX XXX XXX

The glittering glass walls of the lower stories were conspicuously absent on the 67th and 68th floors, with the exception of the executive elevator. Perhaps they'd simply proved too tempting to one test subject too many. Perhaps Hojo withered in daylight like some kind of cave-dwelling fungus. The 'why' was irrelevant; Sephiroth needed an entrance, and the executive elevator was by far his best option.

The cylindrical glass elevator had never been intended for building ingress, but nor was it protected by anything more than tempered glass- why bother, when Shinra controlled the skies? Sephiroth flung himself sideways through the flimsy barrier, arresting his fall with the threshold to the 67th floor exit.

Elevators were meant to open from the inside, but not when the elevator was not, itself, present. Lacking an option that could compete for pragmatism or sheer catharsis, Sephiroth drove his fist through the steel doors, then wedged his hands into the indented seam and wrenched outward. Hydraulics failed, stainless steel buckled under his hands, and a nearby alarm started wailing. Hauling himself inside, he silenced the siren with a gout of flame.

Even so, the alarm had served its purpose.

"Ah, the prodigal son returns!" a too-familiar voice accompanied a too-familiar face as a nearby monitor flickered to life...

"Where is Aerith?"

"You mean the Ancient? You're here because of her in particular? Fascinating."

"I'm here for many different reasons; she's simply one of them."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, five whole years, yet nothing has changed, still the same abundance of promise and dearth of results. Just think about it Sephiroth, you, her, your..."

The monitor exploded, as machines tended to do when struck by bolts of magical lighting. He put a second bolt through the actual computer connected to it for good measure.

If Hojo wanted to talk to him through electronic means rather than face to face, Sephiroth would tear the lab down around him. It didn't matter whether it drew Hojo out or silenced him completely; either outcome suited Sephiroth.

XXX XXX XXX

"Structural damage sustained, fires detected, suppression systems overwhelmed..." A monotone voice announced.

"Power flow interrupted. Switching to backup power systems..."

"Backup power levels are below five percent. Switching all remaining power to critical systems. Situation red, emergency failure protocols initiated..."

Click.

A single orange eye opened warily as the translucent walls of its prison suddenly parted.

A tail that somehow burned without ever giving off smoke swayed behind the creature as it stalked through the halls of the laboratory on four russet paws. Its nostrils detected a scent that made its tail twitch and its fur bristle.

There was something strange in the laboratory, and the red beast would not be satisfied until it tracked that scent down…

XXX XXX XXX

In the face of the Turk's stoic rebuttals and bureaucratic nitpicking, Hojo had overseen the process of scrounging up some fail-safe containment pods, having her and his other most prized specimens transferred into them, then had diverted his attention to other matters out of sheer frustration, temporarily leaving the two of them alone.

The almost-comfortable silence was broken by the buzz of Rude's phone. He gave it a single glance, then abruptly rose to his feet.

"Time's up."

Aerith tried to get closer to him, but once again, the chains made that impossible.

"Why are you leaving now?" She demanded, worried that Hojo would swoop back in the moment he departed.

"Time's up," Rude only repeated his previous statement as Aerith gazed into a pair of concealing black lenses.

Aerith wasn't quite sure how, but suddenly she knew exactly what he meant.

Rude wasn't leaving because his shift was about to end… but because Aerith's imprisonment was.

XXX XXX XXX

"Reno, my lab is under attack by Avalanche! You need to get up here right now and.… " Hojo's voice screamed through his radio.

Much as Reno was glad to have an excuse to take his mind off of his poor opening hand, this was not the ideal distraction.

"Okay, you see, I'm gonna have to stop you right there." Reno countered, allowing his voice to reach a particular tone he liked to think of as "maximum drawl".

"You see, I'm under direct orders from General Heidegger, who is a total hardass, by the way, to look after the Vice President's new bodyguard today. Not only that, but I was instructed that for NO reason was Dark Nation to enter your lab. So, I'm gonna go back to our card game now, he's getting angry that I haven't reacted to his two hundred gil raise. Byeeeeee…."

The dog playing poker in question was even kind enough to throw in a series of loud, angry growls to add verisimilitude to Reno's excuse.

Reno removed his suit's radio, laid it dismissively on a nearby table, and then threw his cards away, allowing Dark Nation to claim the meager pot. He might be losing to a dog, but he hadn't been born yesterday!

XXX XXX XXX

People were running in fear, people were down on their knees begging for their lives, and people were cowering under their desks, clearly hoping he wouldn't notice them.

Sephiroth preferred the hiders to the beggers and especially the screamers; he'd always hated high-pitched noises. He hated them even worse in here. He remembered the tests they'd subjected him to in order to discover the full range of his hearing. He could still recall the weight of the headphones that he'd been forced to wear during his childhood to insulate him from the constant aural assault of everyday life.

No one…. no one but Professor Gast had wanted to see him as a child. They'd only been interested in him as a scientific curiosity, like an oversized bacteria for them to study, to poke, to prod, to experiment on however they wished.

It was going to feel good when he finally got his hands around Hojo's neck. So… so good.

His eyes narrowed as he finally caught sight of it, the door that had been burned into his mind, into his soul. Every nightmare he had always started with him being forced through that door.

The door to Hojo's lab.

Sephiroth pressed a hand to it, waited a few moments, and shoved.

It disintegrated into a thousand frozen shards.

He was done letting fear control him.

The lab looked depressingly similar to how he remembered... except that he wasn't the "star experiment" anymore; Aerith was.

"You know... I've been working on something special lately; it's rather impressive. Sadly, it's a bit unstable; deprived of its current cocktail of sedatives, there's no way it could consume calories faster than it expends them. Its life expectancy in 'the wild' is roughly ten minutes.

So, I don't think I'll bother releasing it; we both know it wouldn't last half that long against you," Hojo's voice rang out from countless computer monitors set up all across the room.

"Tell me about my mother." If a conversation had to take place right now, Sephiroth was determined to control its topic.

"Jenova..."

"Don't be obtuse."

"... I see. I suppose if I had to give her some kind of appropriate memorial, she was surprisingly hardy in retrospect. I mean, after you started displaying such remarkable physical abilities, Shinra insisted I repeat the process. We did… oh a few hundred trials, all of which inevitably concluded in the death of the incubator and a non-viable offspring."

Sephiroth should have been horrified at the number of innocent people who had died because Shinra had insisted on chasing Hojo's mad dream, but he couldn't muster the shock to be horrified. Disgust would have to suffice.

"That's why I eventually decided to shift the process to more artificial means of reproduction. I mean, the womb, it's just so… temperamental. When you're developing a fetus in an artificial incubator, everything is so much easier to control; if it needs more nutrients, you simply pull a lever! It's no wonder I only started to have even minor successes like your incomplete brother once I moved away from the frailties of human flesh."

"You have to know I'll tear this entire building apart to find you. Perhaps I'll oblige you with a firsthand demonstration of human frailty. You always were pushing me to perform for you... ."

"If only you had the grand intellect to match your brute strength," Hojo scoffed before the screens went dead.

XXX XXX XXX

Professor Simon Hojo leaned back in his chair and sighed heavily. He'd known, known that something like this would end up happening as soon as the incompetent fools who worked for Shinra had failed to confirm Sephiroth's death during Operation Damocles.

He'd hoped that he could have made the few hours he'd had with the Ancient matter and get some real research done, but it seemed that once again, the entire universe was conspiring against him.

The most astounding part of it was that despite all his hard work, everyone else still thought the powers of the Ancients lay in pathetic parlor tricks like communing with the Planet! Even the other executives at Shinra thought he was a fool or a madman, but in reality, he was the only one who truly understood this world, who truly knew what its prior owners had been capable of.

Still, it hadn't been a complete loss. While she'd been fully sedated, he'd overseen the extraction of a pint of her blood, along with numerous skin and follicle samples, and his new research materials were hidden where Sephiroth would never find them. Not only that, but it was clear that no matter how he tried to hide it, Sephiroth was taking some sort of interest in the Ancient.

If only he'd stop being so selfish and realize what a tremendous service he'd be doing for the Planet if he successfully mated with her! What manner of magnificent crossbreed might they create? What sort of hybrid vigor would their offspring possess? They would be unto gods!

It was a pity that there were so few Cetra left in the world.

With that bitter note in mind, Hojo began to tap a few keys onto his laptop, then reflected that there was nothing more he could possibly need to do or say at the moment.

At least when all was said and done he'd still have the subject he'd managed to obtain from Cosmo Canyon, at great cost of life, as that bore Heidegger had insisted on repeatedly reminding him.

He removed his glasses and laid them on a nearby table, then unbuttoned his lab coat so that the sun's rays could more fully fall upon his body.

Costa del Sol's pleasures were puerile in their nature, but not entirely without merit. It was certainly among the best places to be if someone in Midgar wanted to rip out your throat.

"Waitress, another mixture of heavily filtered distillation of molasses, a lipid-rich suspension of coconut water, and fresh pineapple squeezings!"

"...You... want another piña colada?"

"Yes."

XXX XXX XXX

WHAM!

"Is this the General Affairs Department Lounge?" Kadaj asked politely.

Despite his cordial tone, the fact that he'd kicked the door down seemed to have somewhat soured the room's occupants' opinion of him.

That was probably why they were screaming, and if he hadn't been blocking the only exit, they might even have been running as well.

Regardless of their unhelpful reaction, Kadaj was glad that Barret had come up with a plan for how they could find their target, Kadaj was just glad to have a plan.

Some people might have considered 'break down every door until they found the right one' not much of a plan, but Kadaj didn't mind. Eliminating one room after another from the list of possible suspects was a lot better than just wandering around at random, after all.

XXX XXX XXX

Sephiroth stared at Aerith.

She didn't say anything; she didn't have to.

Shattering the containment pod and her chains had been laughably easy for him, dealing with this though…

Sephiroth knew all too well how she had to be feeling right now… how he'd felt every day of his life growing up and being treated like he was a... thing rather than a person.

It'd broken him, left him spending the earliest nights he could remember curled up into a ball, sobbing tearfully for the mother he'd never known. For someone, anyone, to take him somewhere, anywhere else.

What could he say at a time like this? How do you comfort someone after this place had had its chance to drain the life out of them?

How was he supposed to apologize for the fact that he'd decided to go to sleep and wait for Madame M to arrive, rather than tracking her down to shave hours off of her captivity?

Words were useless. What could he possibly do to help her?

As Sephiroth stood there, he felt the comforting weight of Masamune across his back. Holding Masamune had been the first time Sephiroth had been anything close to happy; the sword had been proof he wasn't going to be a victim anymore.

Weapons were important, being able to defend yourself was important; you couldn't erase the suffering of the past, but you could protect your future.

Sephiroth reluctantly looked away from Aerith and scanned the room.

He spotted what he needed.

He raced over, grabbed it, and raced back, wordless offering it to Aerith.

She took it, uncertainly at first, but her grip tightened more with every passing moment.

Nailed it.

XXX XXX XXX

Aerith stared at Sephiroth.

He somehow looked worse than she did.

From a distance, he'd seemed immaculate, a wrathful angel with destruction in his hands and fire in his wake, but as he ripped apart her manacles, she finally got a good look at his eyes..

There was a haunted look in them; for the first time since they'd met, Aerith was seeing Sephiroth genuinely afraid.

She wanted to tell him that it was all right, that the Turks had been there to keep Hojo away from her… but she couldn't get those lies past her lips. It hadn't been all right, even if it could have been so much worse.

Why, why should this be her job? Why should she have to comfort someone else right now? Shouldn't she be able to have a few moments to herself?

Sephiroth suddenly looked away from her.

Aerith felt her heart leap into her throat; had those piercing green eyes somehow seen her selfish thoughts?

Well, what right did he have to judge her for them? What would the most powerful and exalted of Shinra's SOLDIERs know about how it felt to be treated like an animal?

Just as quickly as he'd looked away from her, Sephiroth seemed to blur, a vaguely humanoid black and silver afterimage snapping across the room, then back to stand in front of her.

His right hand reached out, offering Aerith the severed back from a steel lab chair.

What did he…?

Oh. Ohhh….

Aerith took the improvised bludgeon and smiled.

"First Shinra goon I see is gonna regret having taken this local florist prisoner!" Aerith promised him.

It was the kind of line that you'd expect to hear in a movie… a bad movie.

But the way Sephiroth's shoulders relaxed, the tension melted off his face, and the faint, relieved smile that made him look five years younger for the brief moment before it faded into his customary stoicism… it made it all worthwhile.

Nailed it.

XXX XXX XXX

No sooner had Aerith stepped out of her containment pod than a nearly inaudible rustle of movement caught Sephiroth's attention. He spun to face its source- a red-furred quadruped. . Beyond that, Sephiroth wasn't quite sure what he was looking at; it wasn't a perfect match for any animals or monsters he had seen before. Perhaps Hojo had changed his mind about unleashing his latest biological monstrosity after all... but the new arrival's body seemed too symmetrical and had too few tentacles for that to be the case. What's more, its remaining eye didn't show even a glimmer of Mako glow; almost definitely not one of Hojo's, then.

Which didn't make it harmless. It growled and pawed the ground, claws scoring the stainless steel floor as it edged closer. Well, if it was determined to start a fight, Sephiroth knew how to end one. He'd just have to toss the creature into the same tank that he'd just freed Aerith from and use his magic to seal it inside….

"Aerith, I won't let this… thing… hurt you," Sephiroth promised.

He really didn't want to waste any more time in this lab, but killing this animal out of hand was all but assured to upset Aerith; even if it'd be a kindness to the creature, he wasn't willing to make this day any worse for her than it already was.

"Aerith… I won't let this…. thing… hurt you," the beast growled right back.

Sephiroth blinked in confusion; when he'd disregarded the idea that this thing was a creation of Hojo's, he'd also implicitly concluded that it must be no more intelligent than your average apex predator.

"Do you... know what you're saying?" Sephiroth probed, not sure if the creature possessed human-level intelligence or was just mimicking sounds.

"Do you?" the animal scoffed, its flaming tail lashing back and forth. "Why do you smell of death, destruction, and disease?"

Sephiroth was shocked into unconsciously taking a step back.

It knew.

It knew.

Too busy being shaken to his core to properly respond, Aerith managed to slip past him, placing herself between Sephiroth and the animal he was supposed to be protecting her from.

"Sephiroth is my friend. If you've been kept here against your will, you should consider him your friend, also..."

Then she awkwardly extended an arm towards the russet beast.

"Um, maybe you could tell us what your name is?"

The creature shook itself thoroughly before turning its single eye upon a numeral tattooed on its left shoulder. It wasn't the only tattoo the animal bore, but it seemed the most recent and the only one with an obvious meaning.

"You may call me Red XIII, the name I was given in this place. It is as good a name as any other."

"I'm morally opposed to giving any weight to ANYTHING Hojo does to anyone," Sephiroth countered.

This animal might not like him, and it might have a completely valid reason for not liking him, but he'd never call it by the specimen name Hojo had given it or stand by while someone else did so.

The beast considered him in silence for a moment. "...Stargazer, then."

"All right then, Stargazer, this is Sephiroth; he's a friend. I'm sorry that he hasn't had time to have a bath recently; he's probably been very busy trying to rescue me. Sephiroth, this is Stargazer, he's a..." Aerith's words trailed off as it became obvious that she had just as few clues regarding Stargazer's nature as Sephiroth's did.

"Stargazer, what exactly are you?" she eventually just flat out asked.

"...Eager to leave."

Stargazer's good eye turned a cautious stare at Sephiroth.

"Aerith, you truly trust this one?"

Sephiroth wished he could have thought less of Stargazer for his suspicion.

"There are few things I want in this world more than to kill the man who imprisoned you two." It wasn't much, but it was the best answer he had at the moment.

"How quickly the worm turns upon itself!" Stargazer chuckled, finally allowing his claws to retract.

Sephiroth returned Masamune to his back and returned his attention to the door he'd shattered while breaking into the lab.

"If we're done here… I should deliver my resignation in person."

XXX XXX XXX

Reno's phone gave off the polite "chime" of an email arriving.

A moment later, it started playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

"Oh no, it's her!" Reno leapt for the phone with a stricken look.

Scanning the email he'd just received proved surprisingly therapeutic, however, and soon he was genuinely smiling.

"Looks like cards are the only thing you're lucky at today, Dark; Debbie from Marketing wants to speak to you."

The canine bodyguard tilted his head to the side in obvious confusion.

"Yep, that is EXACTLY the look I gave when I got my first email from her. I mean, I sure as hell don't know why Shinra still even has a marketing department. We've got no competitors, and the product pretty much sells itself.

"Are soap operas in the slums getting interrupted for advertisements about 'Shinra brand Watts'? Mako Power, if you're not already using it, how are you even watching this commercial? Mako Power, it's better than rubbing two sticks together in the dark! The Shinra Electric Power Company, we're here, our monopoly's clear, get used to it!

"Still, somehow, someway, Shinra still has a Marketing Department. The most important rule of thumb, or rule of dewclaw in your case, is: don't cross the Marketing Department. I hear that Palmer once said that Debbie's new dress made her look fat, and BOOM, his entire department vanished within a month!

"So whatever she asks for, just smile, nod your head, and do it."

XXX XXX XXX

WHAM!

"Is this the General Affairs Department Lounge?"

"We're just the Accounts Payable Department!"

XXX XXX XXX

"Man, somebody really has it out for the Shipping, Receiving, and Interoffice Parcel Delivery Department... and the Janitorial Department... and the Customer Service Department…" Reno reflected as he noticed that one door after another seemed to have been kicked in.

Realizing what he'd just said, the Turk paused for a moment and made a mental bet with himself.

Then he poked his head into the Customer Service Department.

"I'll be damned; there is somebody in here!"

His curiosity satisfied, he turned and walked away.

He'd expected it to be empty, but the room's sole occupant, having been zip-tied to his chair with his tie stuffed in his mouth as a makeshift gag, felt just about right.

XXX XXX XXX

WHAM!

"Is this the General Affairs Department Lounge?"

For once, there was no one present to answer Kadaj's question.

Even though the plaque on the door said "Auditing Department", he quickly noticed that this room, unlike all the others they'd broken into, had a couch!

"Jackpot," chuckled Tifa as she noticed the same piece of furniture Kadaj had.

The three of them spread out across the room, looking for any of Aerith's errant possessions.

XXX XXX XXX

"Hey Debbie, having a rough morning?" Reno asked as he removed the makeshift gag from her mouth.

Reno wasn't sure what color Debbie's hair was, nor her eyes; she seemed to change contacts, hairstyles, and dyes two or three times a week. She was neither fat nor thin, neither tall nor short. To be perfectly honest, Reno was only certain that this was "Debbie" because he'd found her in the Marketing Department's Office.

He had no proof that Debbie was secretly a Wutain spy who would one day detonate several tons of strategically placed C4 and turn Shinra Headquarters into the world's biggest pile of rubble, but he wouldn't bet against the possibility. On the other hand, he also wouldn't be surprised to discover that Debbie was actually the result of one of Hojo's experiments, creating a handful of different women, all of whom shared a telepathic link and took turns coming to the office.

"It's a living," she admitted, taking a few moments to rub some feeling back into her wrists once Reno freed her from the zip ties that had bound her arms.

"I brought the dog you were so interested in."

"Wonderful. I have some exciting ideas for cross-promoting him alongside Stamp!"

"Well, I'll let you figure that out..." Reno was already inching out the door.

XXX XXX XXX

The phone on Reeve's desk rang, which was actually a rather rare phenomenon; most people trying to reach him typically went through either email or Ms. Pans.

"Reeve, get in my office, now."

The line went dead.

Reeve put down the phone, his arm shaking.

President Shinra had found out.

Reeve had done his best to cover his tracks; he'd backdated all the information to look like the Plate release system update had been ordered by him well before being briefed on Operation Damocles, but it hadn't been enough.

Either they'd managed to sift through his digital trickery, or they'd gotten in direct contact with the people who had done the update; it didn't matter which.

Reeve took a long drink from his coffee mug, the last drink he'd ever take from it.

He briefly pondered staying right where he was, forcing President Shinra to send SOLDIERs or Turks to drag him away kicking and screaming. Except that had never really been Reeve's way; he wasn't some glorious rebel who would die with a pithy quip and smile on his lips, refusing to perish without one final act of defiance.

That was probably why he'd gotten a call in the first place instead of having armed men deliver the demand at gunpoint. Reeve just didn't have it in him to be a spy, a rebel, or a hero; he was just a bureaucrat.

He wondered if President Shinra planned to have him executed today, or would he prefer a grandiose show trial that culminated in something lingering, with boiling oil involved.

No, Reeve Tuesti wasn't that important; he wasn't even worthy of being a proper scapegoat. His death would be quick and just as quickly swept under the rug. Within five years, nobody at Shinra would even know his name.

Nobody would know his name, and yet over sixty thousand people in Midgar would still be alive because of him.

He could live… well, he could accept that.

Reeve got out of his chair and began to loosen his tie; he might as well spend the last few minutes of his life feeling comfortable.

"You can take the rest of the day off, Miss Pans; I'm done with work unexpectedly early," Reeve let his secretary know as he walked past her desk.

He hoped that she didn't end up getting executed as well.

Despite that fear, there was a strange lightness in Reeve's step as he headed to President Shinra's office.

There was just something perversely liberating about knowing that he'd done everything he'd be able to. For the first time in over ten years, tomorrow was someone else's problem.

XXX XXX XXX

"Is somebody having a party today, and they forgot to invite me?" Reno couldn't help but ponder as he returned to the Turk's lounge.

Just like many other departments, he discovered that their door had been knocked clean off its hinges.

Not only that, but a quick survey of the room revealed that the only thing missing were items that Tseng had seized from the captured Ancient... and that Dark Nation had been bluffing.

Reno sighed heavily, got out his PHS, and started dialing.

"Boss, I've got some weird news for you. Oh, also we're gonna have to buy a new door, but this time it isn't my fault!"

XXX XXX XXX

Reeve entered President Shinra's office.

He'd prepared himself for all manner of possible outcomes: from having a black bag placed over his head, to just getting stabbed by a SOLDIER or shot out of hand.

He was not expecting to get there and find that instead of walking into his own execution, he'd arrived at President Shinra's.

The most powerful man in the world was slumped over at his desk with a massive wound in his back, a pool of blood still slowly spreading out across the floor; while the office's massive glass window had been shattered outward.

Reeve wasn't a doctor, but he was fairly sure that living people didn't have skin that was quite that pale or lay quite that still. Not to mention they typically hadn't lost enough blood that someone had used it to write a message on the floor.

That was his first shock.

He got his second when he noticed something shiny out of the corner of his eye and promptly found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Granted, that in and of itself wasn't unexpected, but the gun should have been held in an arm, not grafted onto it.

"Well, what do we have here?" the weapon's owner chuckled to himself.

For a brief moment, Reeve wondered if he was looking at President Shinra's killer, then disregarded the notion since the corpse had been stabbed rather than riddled with bullets.

"Whoever he is, we can't risk letting him call in reinforcements." declared a well built young woman with long dark hair.

He felt a powerful pair of hands grab his own and pull them behind his back; the process was slow enough to be painless, but forceful enough to make it clear that resisting would be pointless.

"Don't worry; I got him!" a youthful male voice piped up.

A youthful male voice that Reeve had heard before...

His mind finally stopped thinking about his own "inevitable" death long enough for him to realize exactly what was going on.

"You're Avalanche!"

"Looks like the train's finally pulled into the station," the one-armed man chuckled.

"Of course, it does raise the question, who exactly are you?" the woman's glittering mahogany eyes watched Reeve with a dangerous intensity.

Deciding to sacrifice his life in an act of rebellion only to wind up getting murdered by anti-Shinra rebels who thought he was still completely loyal to the company; Reeve could have done without the irony.

Still, he did have one card left to play...

"Kadaj, please ask your friends not to kill me."

He felt the hands holding him loosen slightly. If Reeve wanted to, he could try and make a break for it, but he didn't much fancy his chances of outrunning the inevitable hail of gunfire.

"Wait, how do you know my name?"

"I am Reeve Tuesti, Director of Shinra's Urban Development Department. I'm also the man who sabotaged President Shinra's attempt to drop the Sector Seven Plate."

"Wow, I'm almost sorta impressed," the woman scoffed. "Look, we're not in the business of killing anyone who doesn't fight back, but this would go a lot more smoothly if you don't lie to us. So who are you, really?"

"As the head of a major department, I was briefed on the company's attempts to clone Sephiroth. Why else do you think I would be able to recognize Kadaj's voice?" Reeve countered.

A part of him wondered if he should feel vaguely insulted that these people hadn't recognized him; they were fanatical terrorists who had dedicated their lives to destroying the Shinra Electric Power Company, and they still hadn't even bothered to memorize his face. Was he truly that inconsequential?

"How exactly did you stop the Plate from being dropped, then?" the one-armed man demanded.

"As the head of Urban Development, I'm in charge of Shinra's civic infrastructure. I created a work order that told someone to visit the Plate Release System an hour before Operation Damocles began..."

"Operation Damocles? Really?"

"Yes. Trust me, I found it in utterly poor taste, just as you do. As I was explaining, I had a repairman visit the Plate Control System's access terminal in Sector Seven and install a new update patch. The patch would require roughly eight hours to complete, and as long as the system was updating, it would refuse any further input. The fact that I did it is the very reason I'm here in the first place. President Shinra realized I was responsible and ordered me arrested."

"You know what I'm thinking?" the one-armed man pondered as he scratched his chin.

"That he's telling the truth?" Kadaj offered helpfully.

"Nah, I ain't met a Shinra suit yet who wouldn't be willing to lie their head off rather than take a bullet in it. What I'm thinking, is that we got into this mess because Shinra captured Aerith. So..."

"Avalanche could use a captive of our own?" the woman eagerly jumped on board that particular train of thought.

"Damned right. Kadaj, zip him."

Reeve felt something being wound around his wrists to pin his arms in place. Considering he'd walked into this room a dead man and had just been promoted to high-value hostage, his day actually seemed to be looking up.

XXX XXX XXX

"Who's this?" General Sephiroth asked upon catching sight of Reeve standing around zip-tied in President Shinra's office.

"What's that?" Kadaj instantly shot back upon catching sight of the red-furred quadruped that was accompanying Sephiroth alongside Shinra's recently "recovered" Ancient.

"Says his name is Reeve Tuesti, head of Urban Development. I figure if anyone would know your Shinra bigwigs from the pretenders it'd be you; he the real deal?" The one-armed man answered.

"Kadaj, this is Stargazer. Stargazer, this is Kadaj, he is also a friend," Sephiroth insisted sternly.

A great many things were going on at the moment that Reeve would have appreciated clarification on, but doubted he'd be getting it any time soon.

"As for your own new acquaintance, back when I was working for Shinra, Reeve Tuesti was the Director of the City Planning department."

"I was promoted after the successful construction of Sector 4; Urban Development oversees all of Shinra's major construction efforts, not just those in Midgar."

"Any horrible secrets in his past we should be aware of?" the dark haired woman seemed distressingly eager for an excuse to inflict violence upon him.

"He kept sending his emails to the entire company directory, so SOLDIERs would get random updates about how the city's construction was progressing while they were halfway across the world in Wutai."

"Oddly enough, I got better about that after being put in charge of Shinra's digital infrastructure."

"Here's the real important news, President Shinra was already dead when we got here. Not only that but..." Avalanche's leader gestured towards the message that was spelled out in blood on the office floor.

"See you in Junon, brother. Our mother will guide us to The Promised Land."

Sephiroth seemed to go even paler than normal after seeing that message and only grew more unnerved as he inspected the wound in President Shinra's back.

"I know the sword that did this."

"You can tell the exact sword that was used to stab someone, just by looking at the wound it left behind?" the Ancient questioned.

"It's a very distinctive wound."

"Does that mean the message was left for you? Do we have more family you haven't gotten around to telling me about yet?" Kadaj was more exuberant than ever at the prospect.

Sephiroth looked at Kadaj for a moment before closing his eyes with a slow shake of his head.

"No. I'll explain all of this later, or at least as much as I can. We need to get out of here. Not just out of Shinra HQ, but out of Midgar. We need to get to Junon." His arms and face twitched as if he wasn't sure what expression to use or how best to comfort his sibling.

"Leave Midgar? Yeah, there's a Shinra base in Junon, but why travel halfway across the continent when we can fight the bastards right here?" it seemed there was some dissension in Avalanche's ranks.

"Because what's waiting for us in Junon just killed President Shinra. They killed the most powerful man in the world... just so that they could send a message to me. If I don't respond to this one, the next message could well be written in the blood of thousands. It... wouldn't be without precedent."

"Wait, you can't be serious, are you trying to say that..."

"Miss Lockhart, this is no time for internecine strife. We've accomplished everything we came here to do: Aerith is safe, and President Shinra is dead. I will explain everything... but in his office, next to his cooling body, is not the place. We need to get out of Midgar."

'Miss Lockhart' visibly tensed, but as Sephiroth spoke, that tension morphed into resolve; she gave a single curt nod as he finished..

"Sephiroth is right." She grabbed Reeve by the shoulder and started to drag him from the room.

Honestly, Reeve was amazed that these terrorists were able to discuss matters for as long as they had without SOLDIERs storming in; wasn't this supposed to be the most secure building in the world?

XXX XXX XXX

"Tseng, we've got a problem on floor 67," Rude reported over his radio.

"How serious a problem? I'm a little busy trying to beat Avalanche to the ground floor right now..." Tseng's tone was even more clipped than usual.

"Class J containment breach. At least two dozen dead, both SOLDIERS and civilians."

"Confirm your last statement, 'Class Juliet' containment breach?" Tseng spoke with the bitter regret of one who knew they were grasping at straws.

"Correct. Class Juliet."

"Wonderful, first Avalanche, now this. I'm rerouting what reinforcements I've been able to get in contact with to your location; they're too spread out and would only get defeated in detail trying to stop Sephiroth."

XXX XXX XXX

"Elevator card?" Sephiroth made the request as soon as the seven of them entered.

Reeve didn't waste any time with obfuscation, he just gestured with his bound hands towards his right pocket; a moment later Shinra's ex-captive Ancient reached into said pocket and handed over a plastic card.

Sephiroth inserted it into a slot in the elevator before hitting the "lobby" button.

"Thank you. The last thing any of us need is to wind up having our exfiltration delayed by random office workers. Luckily, Shinra designed this elevator system so that its higher-ups could order it to ignore all incoming requests when they were on board. Alas, I misplaced my own somewhere in the Lifestream."

The doors began to close but a black-gloved hand suddenly reached out and halted them.

"Wait, so no matter what, this elevator won't stop? Can I meet you guys on the ground floor? I just had an idea...

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra Headquarters, 60th floor

"SOLDIER Bulloch, this is Rude of the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department; we need you up on floor 67 now," A stoic voice announced through his radio just as the doors closed.

Jeremy risked a glance over at his fellow Firsts, Peter, and Andrew.

"I'm sorry but we're already en route to the first floor, terrorists to kill and all that; you'll have to find somebody else to play janitor. What a pity, button already pressed, nothing we can do..."

XXX XXX XXXX

"Shinra Headquarters, 59th floor..." Announced a recorded female voice.

"Hello, is there anybody out there?"

XXX XX XXX

"Shinra Headquarters 58th floor..."

"Is there somebody out there?"

XXX XXX

"Shinra Headquarters, 57th floor..."

"Seriously?"

XXX XXX XXX

"Shinra Headquarters, 56th floor…"

"Seriously?"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ: floor 55...

"Seriously?"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ: floor 54...

"So, do you think one of those Avalanche bastards hacked the elevator system?"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ: floor 53...

"Obviously, that's what they did. I mean, how the hell else do you explain it?"

XXX XXX XXX

Floor 52...

"Well, I mean, say if somebody ran down and just hit the down button on every floor?"

XXX XXX XXX

Floor 51...

"You expect me to believe that even one of those eco-terrorist nut jobs is crazy enough to run down sixty flights of stairs….

XXX XXX XXX

Floor 50...

"… then he pushes the down button on every floor, but doesn't like actually cut the elevator's cable…"

XXX XXX XXX

Floor 49...

"...or do any of a dozen other things that would permanently disable the elevator?"

XXX XXX XXX

Floor 48...

"What kind of asshole would have that much free time on his hands?"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ floor 2….

A black-gloved finger pressed a button.

A downwards pointing arrow began to glow gently.

"That ought to slow them down a bit..." Kadaj congratulated himself.

That would buy them some time, but to really be free and clear, they'd need something more drastic.

Then he saw it.

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ floor 47...

"So, do you think we should get out and walk?"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ floor 46...

"Down forty five flights of stairs?"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ floor 45...

"Well, it would be forty four flights now…."

XXX XXX XXX

A pair of elevator doors swung open, disgorging three Avalanche members, one local florist, one lab rat cat dog, and one hostage.

"So now we just need to find your brother and split. I don't suppose the elevator ride gave you some sort of a brilliant idea for a plan W which doesn't involve us having to flee Midgar on foot?"

Sephiroth opened his mouth to speak, but his words were drowned out by an oppressively loud engine roar, the kind that he typically associated with Shinra's top-of-the-line robotic weapons.

He was pleasantly surprised when it turned out the sound was generated by a heavily customized motorcycle being ridden down a series of stairs from the second floor, with Kadaj perched atop it.

"Hey Seph, look what I found!" Kadaj boasted.

"...Since when could you drive?"

"Part of being a hero is being able to reach the people or places that are in trouble. I'm not quite as fast as you, so one of the doctors brought in a bike and gave me some lessons. If anything, this is easier; there aren't random obstacles all over the place!" Kadaj chuckled as he killed its engine and engaged the kickstand.

Sephiroth promised himself that he and Kadaj were going to have a long conversation about everything he did and didn't know how to do at some point… but right in the middle of Shinra HQ during the early stages of lock-down was neither the time nor place.

"So, someone just left a motorcycle laying around on display with a full tank and its keys in the ignition?"

"Well, there was a note on it!" Kadaj ripped a small piece of paper that had been attached to the cycle's handlebars with string and tossed it to a bemused Sephiroth.

"Yes, this is my private motorcycle, so you mechanics had better take good care of my girl first, then you can worry about the showroom's truck... Tseng."

A quick search of the nearby area confirmed that there was indeed an unremarkable pickup truck with a pair of keys in the ignition and a quarter full tank on display. It had just barely enough room for five people and quadruped to squeeze into, though it helped that everyone agreed the best way to make sure Reeve didn't try anything funny was by having Stargazer lay directly on top of him.

"Are Kadaj and I the only ones who can drive?" Sephiroth asked. "We'll likely be pursued, so I'd prefer to keep a clear line of sight... and to not have to split my attention between casting and driving."

A red gloved hand rose in answer.

"Lower Midgar isn't exactly real big on licenses, but you'd be surprised how much time I spend behind the wheel," Tifa answered with a smile.

Sephiroth tossed her the keys and took position next to Barret in the truck's bed.

XXX XXX XXX

"Reno, why are you drinking with a dog in our office?" Tseng couldn't help but ask as he entered the Turk's Lounge.

Reno heaved a heavy sigh as he took a swig and then poured a generous dollop of liquor into a bowl that he'd swiped from the commissary.

"The poor guy just had his first run-in with Debbie. Besides, what do you expect me to be doing with him? The stupid mutt already won all my mad money!" the Turk grumbled in irritation.

The "stupid mutt" in question smiled broadly enough to let its tongue lull out as its tentacle waved back and forth.

"Shut your mouth! You are not better than me! Any son of a bitch can win money if they draw into an inside straight, that doesn't mean they're actually good at poker!"

XXX XXX XXX

Shinra HQ Lobby

"Guys, we finally made it!"

End Chapter

AN: First off, let me apologize. Me and my editor Fenrir have put our heads together and come to the conclusion that due to its sheer size Masamune is an impractical weapon to have a sheath for, you'd need to either practically bend your arm into a pretzel in order to be able to draw it properly from a sheath because of how long it is.

That said, it is also equally impractical to imagine that Sephiroth just walks around having to carry his massive sword all the time.

So instead we've decided that the best /most logical approach is that Sephiroth wraps Masamune up in black cloth and attaches it to his back, and the covering is bound with a slipped hitch so that instead of drawing the blade from its sheath, he just releases the covering. Yes, wrapping the blade up again post-battle will take longer than simply sheathing it, but Sephiroth has an easier time moving really fast than turning his arm into a tentacle in order to successfully get the leverage he needs to draw a sword longer as tall as he is from a sheath.

I'm sorry I didn't realize this/go with this approach sooner in the story, but I figure better late than never, so we're calling this an official retcon based on my inability to visualize all the physical issues involved in properly wielding Masamune.

Secondly, if you didn't recognize it, "Stamp" is the name of a cute cartoon dog that Shinra uses in its propaganda in the remake.

Thirdly, to be clear, "Stargazer" is still Red XIII or… well saying more would be "cheating", but if you've played through FFVII you can probably guess. It's going to be a temporary title that exists only until he feels like sharing his real name with the rest of Avalanche. I'm not trying to sneak an OC in here, it is just that this story's version of Sephiroth wouldn't ever find "Red XIII" an acceptable name for the person in question due to his own past with Hojo.