Chapter Eight : Gemini - Consequences
Quintus Superbus Shinra had not slept much that night. His rest had been overshadowed with reports of the fight in the mountains of Nibelheim, the loss of one of his reactors, as well as the possible loss of one of his generals. And he had no idea who was to blame. He needed a scapegoat to unload the responsibility on or the ShinRa would suffer an immense loss of publicity. In these times, when single individuums were starting to stand up and preach against the concern and his mako technology, every small bit of information could start a wildfire of protests.
And so president Shinra sat in the conference room, waiting.
***
Reno's night had been long, too. After he'd dug through some databases he shouldn't have access to and finding out tons of interesting stuff, he'd spent the final hours of the night briefing Sephiroth on the fun facts he'd unearthed.
The general had not slept a single minute the night, too, something that Reno had seen happening before, without the general showing any ill effects, but sometimes, that night, he looked like his mind was ten thousand miles away.
Reno didn't knew it, but Sephiroth was transmitting his findings to his brother, was listening to his ideas... and the voice of the Planet. It was a bit distracting, the Planet was often using music or colours or a wave of emotions to communicate. Sometimes the voices in his head managed to overwhelm Reno's and he had to concentrate very hart to force the volume down.
At the end of the night, a rough plan had been constructed and now they only had to wait and prime the bait. Old man ShinRa would do the rest.
***
He watched them enter the conference room, Kyle Reeve and his chief of staff, who were here for details about the damage of the town and the reactor, Heidegger, Scarlet, Hojo, because he had the feeling that one of them was responsible for the mess, his son, Rufus and his pet/bodyguard, vice president of ShinRa inc and then, the last, general Sephiroth, who was stopped in the door by two young cadets, which were delivering folders.
President ShinRa looked at them, trying to remember where he had seen them before. One of them, the red-head, was a candidate for the Turks... Reiner.. Rinjo.. or something like that. The other one was one of the generals special ones, as they were called. From time to time one of the generals would pick, seemingly at random, one of the cadets and take them under their wings. All such trained cadets became top level SOLDIER's and so every special one was a welcome addition to the troops.
He gestured for them to enter, deciding that he could use their opinions as well, for, if he remembered correctly, both cadets were eye-witnesses of yesterdays massacre.
***
Sephiroth placed the folders on the table in front of him. Two folders, that would take care of Hojo. When he was younger, he had read the expression that, if you gave someone enough rope, the person would use it to hang him/herself. Hojo had done more than that. With the seemingly unlimited freedom he had gained after the mysterious death of Professor Gast, he had created a bomb. A bomb he was embracing, that was just counting down the last few seconds 'til its explosion.
He couldn't wait for Hojo's destruction, but first, he had a role to play.
***
Numbers were Kyle Reeves domain. Statistics about everything imaginable. But what he was listen to now took all the joy from his work. It was one thing to look at a printed number on paper and a total different on to hear about the loss of people and houses, to bare witness to the detailed description of the total destruction of an entire town. Reeve felt sick. Sometimes during Sephiroth's report he had to force himself to suppress his urge to vomit onto the conference table.
And all that had been done by one creature. A creature that the general described as very powerful and absolutely insane. He shivered at the combination.
***
Sephiroth had watched them carefully as he told them the tale. Their faces were pale and drawn, they were ready for the final facts before the explosion.
"When I returned, I started searching for information on that creature, ordering cadet Strife and cadet Reno to do the same. This is what we found."
He threw one of the folders in the middle of the table. The force behind the throw opened the folder, spilling its contents on the conference table.
Photographs, diagrams, sheets covered with scientific equations and reports, the life of C1 a.k.a. Aeris Grainsborough since her capture.
"These are all information we could find on C1, as she was called by the scientists. Until her capture by ShinRa forces, three years ago, she was, of all things, a flower girl. A psychological profile done shortly after her capture showed her as a passive, peace loving girl. That is obviously not true anymore. C1 is insane, plain and simple. Whatever had been done to her made her hate humans, all humans, but those associated with ShinRa the most. Despite her insanity she is able to cast spells, several at the same time and all without the help of materia. Her power to manipulate spells and to draw them from seemingly nowhere makes her an enemy that could do serious damage to all things ShinRa. And yet, despite her dangerous nature, nobody seemed to deem it necessary to inform SOLDIER or the Turks of her escape. In fact, no one was informed except the head scientist and nothing was done to recapture her. She escaped three weeks ago! Three weeks and we weren't given a single warning. We could have prepared for her, but instead this noninformation-politic allowed a massacre to happen!"
He stood and his fury formed an almost visible aura of menace around him. Anger at being left out of the information-loop, of having to fight without knowing anything about the enemy, of having lost so many of his recruits and civilians and of probably having lost his brother. The last wasn't true, but the others in the room didn't know it.
They were afraid of him now, finally realising what kind of force he would be if he were to turn against them. And now he had reason to do so, now that his brothers death could be announced every second, but at last, they had a name they could pin the blame on for this disaster.
******
Two days after Prof. Hojo's arrest, Alexander was found in Mideel, showing all signs of heavy mako poisoning, as well as several broken bones. But he was alive and, given time, would make a full recovery. Those that had witnessed Sephiroth's rising temper were relieved, since the general was visibly calming down since the finding of his twin.
One week later, Elmyra Grainsborough was released into the custody of the generals, who had found out about the insemination and had demanded to be able to raise the children as their own. Since they were the most stable and suitable choice, nobody tried to protest or fight them on that matter, since there were worse problems to be solved.
Hojo had escaped prison with the help of several, loyal to him, lab workers. He had vanished from sight and was continuing his mad experiments, now no longer caring about the health or survival of his human guinea pigs. Something inside him seemed to have stopped working and he had lost the last bits of ethics and morale he had before. He only lived for destruction now, destruction and revenge.
Three months after the Nibelheim massacre Hojo managed to abduct Zack and Cloud, one week later his men captured Reno. Since he knew that attacking the twins directly was impossible, he had decided to attack them through harming their friends and as many SOLDIER recruits he could get his hands on.
When the Laboratory war raided, half a year later, they found 25 survivors, Cloud, Zack and Reno were among them. They all were in terribly physical condition and had to stay in hospital for quite a while... with one exception: For the duration of the naming ceremony of Sephiroth's child Marius Kohabiel and Alexander's son Jessaia Teiaiel they were released, after all, you can't have a naming ceremony without the godparents, could you?
***
High up in the north, in the wound of the planet, a girl was sleeping. Locked into a cocoon of mako that was meant to slow her down and imprison her for a while, her wounds were slowly healing. There was no sound in the crater, but still the girl was listening. Listening to a voice that whispered so sweetly about destruction of traitors, of punishment for the wicked and of a new beginning for her. She would become one with the life-force, would become the new heart of the planet. Maybe then the planet would speak to her again.
tbc
Kohabiel: hebrew Angel of the Stars
Teiaiel: hebrew Angel of the Future
Quintus Superbus Shinra had not slept much that night. His rest had been overshadowed with reports of the fight in the mountains of Nibelheim, the loss of one of his reactors, as well as the possible loss of one of his generals. And he had no idea who was to blame. He needed a scapegoat to unload the responsibility on or the ShinRa would suffer an immense loss of publicity. In these times, when single individuums were starting to stand up and preach against the concern and his mako technology, every small bit of information could start a wildfire of protests.
And so president Shinra sat in the conference room, waiting.
***
Reno's night had been long, too. After he'd dug through some databases he shouldn't have access to and finding out tons of interesting stuff, he'd spent the final hours of the night briefing Sephiroth on the fun facts he'd unearthed.
The general had not slept a single minute the night, too, something that Reno had seen happening before, without the general showing any ill effects, but sometimes, that night, he looked like his mind was ten thousand miles away.
Reno didn't knew it, but Sephiroth was transmitting his findings to his brother, was listening to his ideas... and the voice of the Planet. It was a bit distracting, the Planet was often using music or colours or a wave of emotions to communicate. Sometimes the voices in his head managed to overwhelm Reno's and he had to concentrate very hart to force the volume down.
At the end of the night, a rough plan had been constructed and now they only had to wait and prime the bait. Old man ShinRa would do the rest.
***
He watched them enter the conference room, Kyle Reeve and his chief of staff, who were here for details about the damage of the town and the reactor, Heidegger, Scarlet, Hojo, because he had the feeling that one of them was responsible for the mess, his son, Rufus and his pet/bodyguard, vice president of ShinRa inc and then, the last, general Sephiroth, who was stopped in the door by two young cadets, which were delivering folders.
President ShinRa looked at them, trying to remember where he had seen them before. One of them, the red-head, was a candidate for the Turks... Reiner.. Rinjo.. or something like that. The other one was one of the generals special ones, as they were called. From time to time one of the generals would pick, seemingly at random, one of the cadets and take them under their wings. All such trained cadets became top level SOLDIER's and so every special one was a welcome addition to the troops.
He gestured for them to enter, deciding that he could use their opinions as well, for, if he remembered correctly, both cadets were eye-witnesses of yesterdays massacre.
***
Sephiroth placed the folders on the table in front of him. Two folders, that would take care of Hojo. When he was younger, he had read the expression that, if you gave someone enough rope, the person would use it to hang him/herself. Hojo had done more than that. With the seemingly unlimited freedom he had gained after the mysterious death of Professor Gast, he had created a bomb. A bomb he was embracing, that was just counting down the last few seconds 'til its explosion.
He couldn't wait for Hojo's destruction, but first, he had a role to play.
***
Numbers were Kyle Reeves domain. Statistics about everything imaginable. But what he was listen to now took all the joy from his work. It was one thing to look at a printed number on paper and a total different on to hear about the loss of people and houses, to bare witness to the detailed description of the total destruction of an entire town. Reeve felt sick. Sometimes during Sephiroth's report he had to force himself to suppress his urge to vomit onto the conference table.
And all that had been done by one creature. A creature that the general described as very powerful and absolutely insane. He shivered at the combination.
***
Sephiroth had watched them carefully as he told them the tale. Their faces were pale and drawn, they were ready for the final facts before the explosion.
"When I returned, I started searching for information on that creature, ordering cadet Strife and cadet Reno to do the same. This is what we found."
He threw one of the folders in the middle of the table. The force behind the throw opened the folder, spilling its contents on the conference table.
Photographs, diagrams, sheets covered with scientific equations and reports, the life of C1 a.k.a. Aeris Grainsborough since her capture.
"These are all information we could find on C1, as she was called by the scientists. Until her capture by ShinRa forces, three years ago, she was, of all things, a flower girl. A psychological profile done shortly after her capture showed her as a passive, peace loving girl. That is obviously not true anymore. C1 is insane, plain and simple. Whatever had been done to her made her hate humans, all humans, but those associated with ShinRa the most. Despite her insanity she is able to cast spells, several at the same time and all without the help of materia. Her power to manipulate spells and to draw them from seemingly nowhere makes her an enemy that could do serious damage to all things ShinRa. And yet, despite her dangerous nature, nobody seemed to deem it necessary to inform SOLDIER or the Turks of her escape. In fact, no one was informed except the head scientist and nothing was done to recapture her. She escaped three weeks ago! Three weeks and we weren't given a single warning. We could have prepared for her, but instead this noninformation-politic allowed a massacre to happen!"
He stood and his fury formed an almost visible aura of menace around him. Anger at being left out of the information-loop, of having to fight without knowing anything about the enemy, of having lost so many of his recruits and civilians and of probably having lost his brother. The last wasn't true, but the others in the room didn't know it.
They were afraid of him now, finally realising what kind of force he would be if he were to turn against them. And now he had reason to do so, now that his brothers death could be announced every second, but at last, they had a name they could pin the blame on for this disaster.
******
Two days after Prof. Hojo's arrest, Alexander was found in Mideel, showing all signs of heavy mako poisoning, as well as several broken bones. But he was alive and, given time, would make a full recovery. Those that had witnessed Sephiroth's rising temper were relieved, since the general was visibly calming down since the finding of his twin.
One week later, Elmyra Grainsborough was released into the custody of the generals, who had found out about the insemination and had demanded to be able to raise the children as their own. Since they were the most stable and suitable choice, nobody tried to protest or fight them on that matter, since there were worse problems to be solved.
Hojo had escaped prison with the help of several, loyal to him, lab workers. He had vanished from sight and was continuing his mad experiments, now no longer caring about the health or survival of his human guinea pigs. Something inside him seemed to have stopped working and he had lost the last bits of ethics and morale he had before. He only lived for destruction now, destruction and revenge.
Three months after the Nibelheim massacre Hojo managed to abduct Zack and Cloud, one week later his men captured Reno. Since he knew that attacking the twins directly was impossible, he had decided to attack them through harming their friends and as many SOLDIER recruits he could get his hands on.
When the Laboratory war raided, half a year later, they found 25 survivors, Cloud, Zack and Reno were among them. They all were in terribly physical condition and had to stay in hospital for quite a while... with one exception: For the duration of the naming ceremony of Sephiroth's child Marius Kohabiel and Alexander's son Jessaia Teiaiel they were released, after all, you can't have a naming ceremony without the godparents, could you?
***
High up in the north, in the wound of the planet, a girl was sleeping. Locked into a cocoon of mako that was meant to slow her down and imprison her for a while, her wounds were slowly healing. There was no sound in the crater, but still the girl was listening. Listening to a voice that whispered so sweetly about destruction of traitors, of punishment for the wicked and of a new beginning for her. She would become one with the life-force, would become the new heart of the planet. Maybe then the planet would speak to her again.
tbc
Kohabiel: hebrew Angel of the Stars
Teiaiel: hebrew Angel of the Future
