Zack was not especially hard to find, given Reno had already found him. Which was not the problem it might be for some; Zack and Reno got on well enough these days, and Kunsel found him interesting, which bought more tolerance from Zack even when Reno went pushing buttons. (And Reno couldn't help but push buttons.)
Of course, he'd intended on questioning Zack and Kunsel some himself, but after a bit of text-tag agreed that Tseng had a good point about doing better just lumping him and Aerith together and collaborating on the task.
They made their way to Zack and Kunsel's suite for the discussion; not as ideal as the Turk offices, but if being more comfortable meant being more cooperative, then Tseng wouldn't complain.
Zack greeted Aerith and Cloud with a warm smile, accepting a hug from her and squeezing Cloud around the shoulders with a brief nod to Tseng. Kunsel followed suit, then shooed them all towards the couches, a big L unit that had been bought to accommodate lounging SOLDIERs and would work just fine for seating the seven of them, especially since Rude chose to stand and lean on Reno's seat and Aerith was partially perched on Cloud.
"We need more seating in here," Zack said, despite them making it work. "If we had a bigger brainstorming session, or even just more people, we'd be stuck."
"We could grab chairs from the dining room and office and fix that pretty quick," Kunsel pointed out, far from worried about it. "We're good for now, anyway."
"Hnn. Alright." Zack heaved a sigh and glanced at the others. "Sooo… I imagine you want to pick our brains because unlike the rest of you, we were actually down there."
"That would be correct," Tseng agreed.
"Alright." Zack nodded. "Who's going first? Or do we puzzle it out a piece at a time?"
"Perhaps you could walk through the event from your perspective, and then she can see if she can make sense of what she was feeling," Tseng said. After all, he still remembered what she'd said before, in case this swayed her beyond what was inescapable.
And there was the matter of the discreet recording in his office, but he'd prefer not to reference that if he could help it. At least not openly.
"Right, sure." Zack nodded, leaning back in his seat and idly grabbing Kunsel's hand to play with while he spoke. "So, we went down. Like, way-way-way down, under Midgar, and there's this city - real city sized! Possibly as big as Midgar sized, I'm not the best set of eyes for this but still. It was freakin' huge. And we're met by the Restrictor. Is it his name? Is it his title? Nobody knows."
"Zack," Kunsel said.
"Focus, right." Zack heaved a sigh, scowling.
"No, by all means, I like Zack-flavored stories," Aerith said, smiling encouragingly. "Really. It's… helpful."
"See? She likes it." Zack's grin was back, even if it wasn't quite full wattage. "And I'm telling her. You all had mission reports."
"Whatever nets us the end result we want, yeah?" Reno said, shrugging. "Not like you're reportin' to a director or somethin' y'know. I like it. 's got color."
"There is that," Tseng agreed. And he knew what Aerith meant, he thought; how Zack said things said a great deal about his mental state, and how he was reacting to it all, in a way that would be much harder to gauge from a stone-faced retelling. Zack's animation was a gift most of the time for getting a proper read on him. "Go on, Zack."
"Right, where was I?" Zack hummed, bouncing his leg a moment. Sitting still was not exactly a strong suit of his even when he wasn't keyed up. "So ok, this Restrictor is stupid tall and dressed entirely in black including a full-head helmet. Not a visor deal like Kunsel or the troopers - full head covered. And he just… the moment we got down there, it was like a slap in the face. He reeked of Jenova. Like, I was having a full-on Nibelheim flashback for a few seconds there. Chaos wasn't happy, either."
Aerith nodded slowly, leaning into Cloud as she tried to put it all together.
"But, y'know, you do what you've gotta do and right now we needed to play nice to get information," Zack said. "You don't have to be a Turk to figure that out. So, I kept my mouth shut, or asked helpful questions, and generally just… tried to ignore the way his presence alone was crawling under my skin and making my brain buzz.
"It worked, for a while there. There were new things to fix on, the Tsviets for one. All kinds of nope there, but a different breed of nope. I'm sure they've got Jenova but they're not… like that. That's a whole other thing."
"What were the Tsviets like?" Cloud asked, slipping his arms around Aerith. When she leaned all the way back, he briefly rested his chin on her shoulder.
Zack took a deep breath, licking his lips, perhaps a faint memory of nerves returning. "Weird."
"That's not exactly… descriptive," Tseng observed.
"No, I know, but it's just… they're weird. There's this legit little kid on their team, and two adults - one of whom was like if you meshed Angeal and Sephiroth and then made the final guy even bigger," Zack made a gesture more suitable for fish stories. "And then there were three more and okay, maybe they're teenagers, maybe. But they had to be younger than me."
"My age?" Cloud guessed, somewhat amused.
"Maybe," Zack said, wrinkling his nose. "And don't give me that look, alright? I stand by it. None of us had any business being where we were when we were."
"Is this a recent shift of opinion?" Tseng asked mildly.
Zack looked at Tseng. "When I was sixteen, I cleared an entire fort on my own, Tseng. No teenager needs that kind of power, and these kids have even more."
"Amen to that, yo, but it's a lil late for all that don'tcha think?" Reno said.
"Maybe. I'm not saying I want SOLDIER gone but… damn, there's got to be a better way." Zack sighed, rubbing his face. "Sorry. Getting off topic. Anyway, they're weird - one of them was like staring into the sun if you tried to read his energy, the other one was just this bottomless pit and the third one, swear by Shiva, gave me the 'I know your weak points' once-over."
"I know I'll regret asking, but what is that?" Aerith asked.
"It's where you very slowly, very deliberately look at all your opponents visible weak spots, either in their armor or just ones you know are general default human weaknesses," Zack said. "The points they teach you to go for first in self defense, probably. I don't know, I never did those courses, I just jumped straight into boot camp and came out SOLDIER."
"Worst thing is, I don't think she particularly meant it," Kunsel said. "It wasn't a threat. It was just…"
"Habit," Zack said flatly. "These kids are in such a toxic environment that they say their hellos while they make sure they know how to kill you."
"If the Restrictor is as influenced by Jenova as you say… that may make more sense than I'd like," Aerith said.
"What happened from there?" Cloud prompted.
Zack went quiet, looking away. His hand tightened on Kunsel's, grounding himself. "There's more kids. We saw training rooms, a ton of them, from way overhead and a bank of monitors and there were some… they start their training at nine. And since I certainly don't think dozens and dozens of nine year olds are kidnapped every year I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're home grown."
Despite the forced light tone, the dark meaning made Aerith's stomach quietly bottom out. "…home grown…?" She desperately wanted to misunderstand.
Zack didn't look at her, staring off at nothing and clutching Kunsel's hand in a white-knuckled grip. "You know. Breeding them."
"Goddess bless," Aerith whispered, horrified.
Tseng couldn't help but wonder if Veld had left that out because the Jenova issue was the more important focus, or if he'd wanted them to have the obvious response to the news that the SOLDIERs would be looking for. Regardless, their reactions - from Aerith's open horror to Reno's slight flinch, to Tseng's own small tells - seemed to soothe something in Zack.
His smile was tight, strained, but there once more. "Yeah, so. I didn't take too well to that. And about that time… I started just feeling angry. Which I think was fair, but, a lot angrier than I'd expect, looking back. I mean, we're pretty used to twisted stuff going down by now, and after some of what we learned about the trio this isn't exactly as big a jump as I wish it was. Just… I was so angry, I could barely see straight. It was like wading through jello or something, I couldn't focus, I couldn't get a grip. If Kunsel hadn't been there to ground me, and talk me down…"
"You think you would have attacked?" Aerith said softly.
"I sure would have tried," Zack said. "But anger makes you stupid, sloppy. I'd have been at a disadvantage from the get-go because I wasn't thinking straight, and wasn't able to strategize. I… don't know that I'd have won that."
"It's hard to properly gauge the Restrictor," Kunsel said. "You can't see his build, so you don't even have a visual cue to maybe-strength - not that that's always reliable. And he keeps his magic quiet, whatever he's got of it. Some people, like Zack most of the time, are like staring into a bright light when you look for their MP - you can't really say for sure what you're dealing with, but there's a whole lot of it. Other people, like Valentine, are like staring into the deep end of a pool. You know there's a lot, but you're pretty sure it's somewhat distorted from how it normally looks so you don't really know how much you're looking at. And then there's this guy, who apparently doesn't show his magic if he's not using it."
"Genesis could do that," Zack said. "He had a crazy amount of magic, but if he didn't want you sensing him you wouldn't know he was there until the fire started."
"It's a useful skill," Tseng said. Several Turks had learned it as well, though it was not one he'd had need for. And of course, Aerith. "There are limited ways around it - Sense materia, for example - but that's only of use within a certain range of your target."
"So we might be flying blind there," Zack said, making a face.
"…you still wish to fight them?" Tseng asked.
"I want to stop them," Zack said. "Whatever that takes. But it's not the same blind fury I had earlier. That was just… I didn't even realize it at the time, I was just so angry and then… then we got into the elevator and started going up and it was like, you know when your ears pop from elevation? It was like my anger popped."
Well. That was an image. "It just stopped, then."
"Kind've? I wasn't angry the same way, anymore. The adrenaline bottomed out, and my heartbeat began to slow back down. I could think again," Zack said. "That's when I realized what had happened, suddenly being able to think. That I hadn't been thinking before. Or, more accurately I guess, the thoughts hadn't been mine."
"You think the Restrictor…?" Aerith said hesitantly.
"I don't know," Zack said. "I guess? He was the one that was physically there. But with how much he felt like Jenova… Rayleigh said my J cells were more active than ever when I got back."
Aerith nodded thoughtfully. "I'm not sure we have the full picture, but I have a better idea now, at least…"
"Share with the class?" Reno prompted, arching a brow.
Aerith shook her head. "Not yet. I want to talk to Chaos."
A/N: I'm sorry to have to do this here, but would the person leaving repeat "guest" reviews regarding a story they want me to write please just sign in? I can't comment back to you like on Ao3 unless you're signed in, and refuse to discuss this in my story that's supposed to be about something else. Please don't make me turn off guest reviews.