Shinra had had great power. Spanning over two continents, one of which was entirely under its rule, it was the largest, most dominant force on the Planet. Still, those who have power tend to use it, and power is inevitably used to gain more power. Therefore Shinra launched a war on those who were not yet under their control. The combined forces of Midgar and Junon marched out and off to war. Among this army were the feared SOLDIER forces. The members of SOLDIER were treated with Mako energy and had cells from Jenova injected into them. This treatment gave them superhuman strength, and, most noticeably, it gave their eyes a green glow. While the SOLDIER forces were powerful, they were too few in number to be of any true assistance. When all of SOLDIER rode out into one battle, the enemy would soon retreat, but SOLDIER was often divided to keep defenses from attacks up. Eventually only one or two battalions of SOLDIER would be seen in battle, and rarely even that.
However, even with SOLDIER defending them from onslaught, the superhuman force was too few in number and spread out too thin. Towns began to fall to the allied rebels of Wutai and Corel. First to be surrendered was Gongaga village. After that the rebels seized Costa del Sol and plotted a safe sea route to Shinra's main continent. They then used that sea route to land in Junon, Shinra's symbol of military might. While the rebels could not seize the heavily defended Junon, they were able to slip out of Shinra's military headquarters with few casualties. They then seized Fort Condor, which was just outside of Junon. From this they were able to launch hit and run raids on Junon. Eventually Shinra filed out of lower Junon, as the price to keep it was beginning to be too much. With that the rebels managed to isolate upper Junon, as with Costa del Sol came control of the sea separating the two continents. Shinra soldiers couldn't sail away from Junon without running a fifteen ship blockade, and Junon currently only had one ship in its harbor.
After achieving this great success, the rebel forces moved on. Braving the Midgar Zolom, the rebels trekked across vast plains to Kalm town, which neighbored Midgar. Attacking en masse, the rebels managed to seize Kalm town, but not without heavy casualties. Still, the rebels thought the price worth it, as they could attack both of Shinra's main cities. More importantly, both Junon and Midgar were cut off from the outside world. Shinra was crumbling bit by bit, and only SOLDIER was keeping their last defenses from crumbling. While this disturbed many, even some of those in SOLDIER, one person was not perturbed the least bit. He saw everything in different terms. This was not the sign of the fall of Shinra; this was the sign of his ascension to power. He, Sephiroth, would now be able to rise among the ranks of SOLDIER. And Sephiroth was quite powerful, even amongst the ranks of SOLDIER. Only he, Hojo, and several of the top executives in Shinra knew why. Instead of most members of SOLDIER, who were exposed to Mako and injected with Jenova cells after proving to be elite amongst the ranks of Shinra's army, Sephiroth was given this treatment before he had even left the womb. Also, he was given far more massive quantities of Jenova cells and Mako radiation than the other members of SOLDIER. As a result, Sephiroth was indeed the most powerful human ever. Still, he hadn't yet had the opportunity to prove this power, as Shinra was afraid to lose its prized specimen prematurely. Instead, Sephiroth was given the useless task of being the guardian of Shinra's main Mako harvester. At least, it seemed useless…
Sephiroth ducked and rolled across the narrow catwalk. After coming up he performed a combination of slashes and thrusts, all of which went into the air. Of course they did. He wasn't actually fighting someone; he just enjoyed the thrill. One misstep, or one imperfect move with his sword, and he would plunge into the Mako pool beneath him. He guarded the main Mako harvester, from which well over two-thirds of all of Midgar's Mako came from. If he fell, he would fall through the Mako pool and into the Lifestream from which it had come, and that would be lethal. He had seen the results of exposure to the Lifestream. For the most part anyone exposed died. The worst thing was, they were the lucky ones. The ones who lived, they were worse off. They lived, yet they did not. The body was functioning, but it was just an empty shell. There were no remnants of whoever had once lived in that body. It was because of this that Hojo repeatedly tried to talk Sephiroth out of his practice, saying it was because he was concerned about his "son". Sephiroth knew that he was nothing greater than a lab rat in Hojo's eyes. A very strong lab rat, but a lab rat nonetheless.
The thought angered Sephiroth and his training session grew more furious. His own father didn't care about him. Most people who didn't have a true father really didn't have a father present in their lives. But Hojo, he checked up on Sephiroth as often as he could. He didn't want his experiment to go awry. Then, of course, there was the five-a-day injections, the bi-weekly physicals, the monthly "progress report", and…
Sephiroth lost his train of thought as the alarm blared to life. His eyes darted back and forth, trying to see if he might have tripped the alarm. The catwalk he was standing on was filled with proximity alerts. He then looked to the door at the opposite end of the catwalk. The metal of the door was glowing. Sephiroth's eyes furrowed and a slight grin came to his face. This would be an interesting challenge. He dropped into a battle stance, positioning his sword, a standard SOLDIER model, into a perfect defensive position.
The door burst forward and Sephiroth leapt straight over it. A squad of five rebels filed onto the catwalk, two of them hanging back to cover the others. This would be fun. Sephiroth came down and sliced straight through the rebel who had taken point position. He then twisted to avoid an attack from one of the other rebels and thrust his blade into that rebel's neck. A quick step and a turn, a slash of the blade, another rebel went down. Now only the two rebels were left. They rushed Sephiroth in sync, but dealing with them was all too easy. As they fell down into the Mako pool, still very much alive, a look of glee spread across Sephiroth's face. This was what being part of SOLDIER was all about.
Sephiroth's victory was cut short when his legs were swept out from underneath him. He began to fall but managed to grab hold of the catwalk with his hand. He looked and saw that one of the rebels was still alive, and had dared to attack him. He attempted to pull himself up but the flat of the rebel's blade crushed the hand he had been holding himself onto the catwalk with. Sephiroth didn't scream, he never did, but he couldn't hold on to the catwalk and as he fell his only thought was how ironic it was that Hojo was right, he really shouldn't have been on that catwalk.
Sephiroth's body slammed into the pool of Mako energy and every muscle in his body began to spasm. Sephiroth twitched violently as he went deeper and deeper before he finally entered the Lifestream. The experience was far worse than anything he could have imagined. Voices, millions of them, entered into his head. Thoughts that were not his own ran amuck, and he heard cries of agony that didn't exist. It was overwhelming for Sephiroth, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on. He couldn't even find his own line of thought, there were so many. He began to lose hold of himself. The name Sephiroth no longer seemed to be his own. There were hundreds of thousands of names going through his head, each telling it was his name. In his last moments before he slipped into unconsciousness, Sephiroth realized why it was that victims of Lifestream exposure became empty shells. They didn't even know who they were. Hojo would have been proud…