"This is...... Jenova, right?"
He stood in front of a large metal door, hands on his hips and standing on his toes to peer through a small glass window in the door. It was mucked up from the inside, and one could hardly see through the tiny window, but Zack could make out some sort of person like structure on the other side of the door. He fell back onto his feel, and glanced back at Sephiroth. The general moved his eyes towards the ceiling, then to an object above Zack's head. Frowning in confusion the black haired man backed up.
'Ah,' he thought, reading the sign ' So it is Jenova.'
With a quick shrug he reached for the door and twisted. It didn't budge. He frowned, looking at the lock. It was a type of touch pad, one with letters and numbers filling most of the space and a black bar at the top to show what the user of the pad was typing in. Consulting his memory, Zack Flame silently pressed the required buttons to open the door. A buzz went up when he had finished, and the raven haired man again tried the door.
Still no luck.
"The lock won't open…" He said slowly, not really sure why the lock wouldn't open. He had done the code properly, he was sure of it. He checked what he typed again, confirming his belief, and was about to say something more then the general cut him short.
"This is the reason for the malfunction." Sephiroth said. Zack turned to him to watch him walking along the first row of pod like containers in the reactor. A frown on his face and his hands now resting on his hips, the younger of the two men opened his mouth, but his question was answered before it even escaped him.
"This part is broken." The Midgar hero tapped a part of the pod. Zack walked towards the small stairway, leaping down them two at a time until he reached his companion. The man didn't even seem to notice, nor lose his train of thought. "Zack, close the valve."
Nodding obediently, Zack did as he was told. He struggled with the object momentarily, until finally the valve game up resisting.
"Why did it break...?"
"Dunno." Zack replied, walking back over to the platinum haired man. He gave Zack no notice as he looked over the pod again.
" ...now I see, Hojo." With a sick chuckle he went on, " But, even doing this, will never put you on the same level as Professor Gast."
His head turned to survey Zack's face, confusion clearly written across it. Sephiroth straightened up, gifting the younger man a strange, twisted, smile.
"This is a system that condenses and freezes the Mako energy," He explained, turning back to the pod and moving to another. " ... that is, when it's working correctly. Now... what does Mako energy became when it's further condensed?"
He sounds like a teacher. Zack thought bitterly, laying his weight on one leg.
"Uh, ummm...…" Dammit, I have no idea. What did he say, what did he tell us earlier? I know he said something… But damn, all he ever says only goes in one ear and fly out and hits Cloud through the other. The general tapped his foot in impatience.
Suddenly something stirred in the back of Zack's mind. An image came back to him. He was watching Tifa lean over the Mako fountain…He remembered thinking 'just a little farther…down…'
But his sick and (to him) pleasant thoughts were interrupted by Sephiroth's voice.
"When you condense Mako energy, materia is produced. It's very rare to be able to see materia in its natural state"
"Oh yeah!" He said, smacking his forehead. " It becomes a Materia!"
"Right, normally." The general said, clearly used to Zack's catching on slowly, or his lack of brain, whichever didn't matter to the man. "But Hojo put something else in there." Sephiroth stood up on his toes a little, peering through another glass window. A circular one this time, clean, compared to the one on Jenova's cell.
"...Take a look. Look through the window."
Zack glanced at Sephiroth, disturbed by his hauntingly calm tone, then shrugged and marched over to the closest pod. He glanced again at Sephiroth, then lifted his face to the window.
And quickly showed away, falling back onto the floor with a thud. What he had seen reminded him of dolls the little girls in his village had played with, until some rough boys stole them and mutilated them, adding tentacles to their heads and painting their bodies sick shades.
Horns grew out of this beasts head, and it seemed to be covered in scales. It was colored a pale gray, and to Zack, looked much like a corpse. The corpse of a beaten and broken body. Even his worst nightmares, nightmares of monsters and demons, couldn't compare to the sight of this beast. Gasping in shock, his head darted to face Sephiroth.
"Wh... what is this!?"
"Normal members of SOLDIER are humans that have been showered with Mako. You're different from the others, but still human. But, what are they? They've been exposed to a high degree of Mako, far more than you." The man said, in his same sickly calm voice. It sent shivers down Zack's spine. With a heave, the man shoved himself back onto his feet, stumbling and refusing to look at the pods. He knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to look away.
" ...is this some kind of monster?" He asked slowly, trying to keep his eyes from darting to the window.
"Exactly. And it's Hojo of Shinra that produced these monsters. Mutated living organisms produced by Mako energy. That's what these monster's really are." The general stepped close to the pod once again, looking at it with an expression and a feeling in his eyes Zack just couldn't match with anything. Longing? Realization? Hate?
"Normal members of SOLDIER? You mean you're different?" Sephiroth's body began to shake, and this time Zack was sure he saw pain mixed in with that realization of before. A hidden realization, of a fact that had always been sleeping under his pale skin. "H... hey, Sephiroth?"
"N...no..." the general whispered, looking around the reactors interior. "...Was I?"
Zack leaped back suddenly, as Sephiroth let out a cry of rage and anguish. The masumune being unleashed soon followed. The blades edge slammed against a pod, creating deep scratches in the object. One blow was followed by another, and another, and every time the blade hit Zack flinched. The silver haired mans eyes darted to him, and Zack quickly took the sign as that of one which screamed "move!" at him. He did as the sign told, racing out of the 7 foot swords reach.
"Sephiroth!" He screamed, watching as the man stopped his slashing, only to tremble.
"...Was I created this way too? Am I the same as all these monsters…?" He asked, voice hollow of any emotion at all, or an hint of emotion.
"...Sephiroth. I-" Zack started, but flames danced in Sephiroth's eyes as he spun to face Zack. An arm, covered in the gray and black of his trenchant, shot out to point at the pods.
"You saw it!" He yelled in rage, still trembling, flames still dancing, "All of them were humans!
"Humans?" Zack asked, trying to sound confident that the general was mistake, "No way!"
"...I've always felt since I was small…," Sephiroth said, lost in his own world now, ignoring Zack's very existents as he turned back to the pod. "That I was different from the others. Special, in some way." His black gloved hand stroked the glass, before he crunched it into a fist and pounded it against the glass.
"But... not like this…"
