"He's alive."


"He's alive."

Zack let out a tiny whimper when he heard Sephiroth utter those terrible words.

No.

Nonononononononono...

It was impossible! It should be impossible, but...

Zack wanted to pound his head against the floor until he succumbed to unconsciousness. But that was cowardly, and he needed—he deserved—to face his accuser and his punishment: the horror his own idealism had created. He wiped his nose and eyes, and then, as though in a trance, he staggered to his feet and slowly, oh so slowly, turned around.

Sephiroth still stood before the tank, hand still flattened against its surface. He still gazed into Angeal's face. Every brain cell screaming against it, Zack forced himself to look up.

Angeal's one eye stared down at them. His jaw moved, as though trying to form words, but the only sounds in the lab were the rhythmic background pulse, the bubbling and hissing of the various holding tanks, humming machinery, and the gurgle of liquid flowing through networks of coiled tubes.

Zack lunged forward, fingers scrabbling against the tank. "Oh, Angeal," he sobbed, staring up at that single blue eye. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." Fresh tears soaked his face.

I should have killed you like you wanted, his mind chanted relentlessly. I should have killed you...

At last he understood Cissnei's warnings, how she'd said that she'd kill him herself rather than see him end up...here. How she'd said that Angeal should be dead, and would be better off dead. Zack's heart pounded into his throat as he struggled to speak anything beyond apologies to the man he'd wronged. He'd thought he'd been the hero, he'd had such good intentions, it had felt so right to talk Angeal into surrendering himself...

Now he faced the nightmarish outcome his good intentions, his heroism, had wrought...

"I will put him out of his misery," Sephiroth said dispassionately. "You needn't watch, Zack."

Zack whirled, his mouth opening in denial. But there was nothing to deny. Sephiroth was right.

"I will make it quick, my friend," Sephiroth told Angeal, in a voice so toneless it was clear he was already broken. He unsheathed his sword.

Angeal's lone eye closed.

"Well, well, well," an unwelcome voice intruded from hidden loudspeakers. "If it isn't Sephiroth and Zack Fair, finally come to visit their traitorous friend."

"Hojo," Sephiroth breathed with such deep loathing his words should have exterminated the scientist on the spot. He turned around to glare upwards at the observation windows, stopping when his eyes found their mark. Zack followed his gaze to the man in a lab coat staring down at them, arms folded over his chest.

Hojo said, "Dear me, did you really think there was a square millimeter of this lab that isn't monitored? I knew the instant you set foot in here." He uttered his grotesque, hissing laughter. "Honestly, Sephiroth, I must say I'm disappointed in you. You took long enough to get here. I was expecting you much sooner."

"Expecting..." Sephiroth muttered under his breath. The muscles in his neck bunched up as his jaw worked. "The Turks."

"Cissnei? No!" Zack couldn't believe it. "She wouldn't—"

"She may have been a dupe. The Turks have different levels of 'need to know' classifications."

Zack hoped that were true, and that Sephiroth weren't just trying to soften the blow. It hurt to think she'd willingly betrayed him to Hojo. It hurt a little less that she might have been a pawn in a Machiavellian scheme. But if she'd been on the level and knowingly fed him classified information, she was as good as dead. She might already be dead. Maybe she'd suspected a double-cross and run after she'd left him in the slums. She was a Turk. She had the skills to evade her colleagues.

Sephiroth glared up at their tormentor and gestured to the tank. "Turn off your life support machines, Hojo. Let him die."

"Die?" Hojo huffed out more laughter. "You've seen the contents of this lab, and you still don't understand! He won't die."

Zack gaped at Hojo, turned to look at what remained of Angeal, then looked back at Hojo again. "No one can live like that without artificial support."

"No human can, little boy," Hojo sneered. "Hollander was right for once in his miserable, misbegotten career. Hewley has indeed inherited the complete power of Jenova. He was created differently than the other experiments. He should never have existed at all, but Hollander and Gillian let their ridiculous passions overcome their scientific objectivity and almost ruined Project G. Not that it wasn't fatally flawed from the outset." He laughed once more.

Project G, Zack thought. Everything came back to Project G. Project Gillian, Hollander had told him. Gillian had been infected with Jenova cells, and her own had become the basis for the experiments and even G-Type SOLDIERs.

"Those two fools got so carried away they didn't take precautions," Hojo scoffed contemptuously, "like moronic amateurs, but once conceived Hewley became part of the project. He was an accident and a mistake, but a fortunate one. He wasn't mapped with Jenova genes and cells as an embryo or fetus in the womb like the others. He was conceived with Jenova's genetic material, organelles, and biochemistry already integrated in Gillian's eggs and reproductive organs. He's never been human, not even at the very instant of his conception."

"And neither am I," Sephiroth murmured. His posture was calm, collected, but mad fire burned in his eyes. "The calamity from the sky. No wonder those techs said she—it—was one of my parents. I'm one of those 'other experiments.'"

It was a quiet comment, but Hojo's hidden microphones picked it up. "You finally understand, but you were not just any experiment, Sephiroth. You are the best, the most successful. As I have told you repeatedly, you are superior."

"Yes, you did keep making that claim while I was growing up." Sephiroth's lips twisted. "Conceited of you."

"You may not admit it to others, but in your heart you believe it, too," Hojo said, treating him to a horrible parody of a smile. "You are special. Unlike Rhapsodos, you will never degrade. Unlike Hewley, you are a stable, non-mutating form. You are the strongest physically, and possess the highest native mana levels. Your cells can't naturally create copies or absorb traits, but that is irrelevant. Copies are merely tools and cannon fodder. Hewley's cells will provide all Shin-Ra needs of them. You are the ultimate SOLDIER of your generation and the superior specimen of the Jenova Project. Take pride in that. I do, my precious son."

Zack stared at Sephiroth. Hojo's son? Just like Angeal was Hollander's? Sephiroth didn't look surprised. Had he known all along?

But if it were true, Hojo must be off his rocker to think that he and his experiments had any objectivity at all. Zack reached out to touch Sephiroth's arm in comfort, but his superior held himself as rigid as stone. Zack let his hand drop to his side.

"Sephiroth, is it true?" Zack whispered. "Did you know?" Now Sephiroth's reaction to hearing that Hollander claimed to be Angeal's father made more sense. Shared trauma of the paternal variety.

"I...suspected," Sephiroth admitted reluctantly, "due to certain sly hints Hojo would sometimes let slip. He can't stand anyone not recognizing his 'brilliance,' but he never confirmed it outright. I never knew for certain. I always hoped I was wrong, though."

"That was disappointing of you." Hojo put his hands on his hips and shook his head. "You always pretended not to notice, so I assumed you truly had no idea. Foolish boy, indulging in wishful thinking just to salve your own pride."

"What is Jenova?!" Zack shouted up at the observation window. "What is the calamity from the sky? You told me yourself it wasn't an Ancient!"

"Jenova's frozen remains were excavated from the North Crater," Hojo sneered at him. "How do you think that crater was made? Two thousand years ago, a giant meteorite crashed there. Jenova was found in the same stratum as the meteorite's fragments. Knowing those facts, what conclusions do you draw?"

"And you used it for genetic experiments on humans," stated Sephiroth coldly. "You and the rest of your pathetic lackeys."

"Oh, don't blame me for that idea," Hojo chuckled. "It was Professor Gast who declared Jenova one of the Ancients. He devised the plan to recreate their race by mapping Jenova's genes and cells onto human embryos in utero. He even gave the specimen its name."

Sephiroth flinched at mention of Gast.

"Oh, yes, Sephiroth, your beloved Gast sold the idea to our idiot President, claiming that his new Ancients would be able to sense the so-called 'Promised Land that overflowed with limitless mako energy.'" Hojo made air quotes with his fingers. He rambled on, reveling in the pain his spiteful, poisonous words caused. "Shin-Ra, that greedy old fool, bought it hook, line, and sinker. Gast set the initial parameters, assigned the projects, and oversaw everything. He didn't discover the inconsistencies until after the program had been underway for years. The coward stole his research and ran away." Hojo smirked with vicious pleasure. "Shin-Ra found him, of course. I learned what he knew about Jenova. His loss was my gain.

"You were always the superior product, though, even before we understood the truth. Hollander's freaks appeared to be normal humans, useless mewling things, so after Gast was gone the President gave me everything. Who could have known that Hollander was right all along?" His lips twisted into a particularly repulsive sneer that shifted in an instant to perverse delight. "Hewley has been most useful to me. Most useful. I've gathered so much precious data from him. The copy technology is only the beginning. Just what I've learned so far is enough to fix certain problems in other experiments that utilize unusual forms of brain-to-brain communication."

"Let him go, Hojo," Sephiroth demanded again. "It's enough. Turn off your machines."

"You still don't understand. Hewley won't die, not with Jenova's power a fundamental part of him. He is the copy technology that Shin-Ra wants. He's even helped me verify my Reunion theory! All his cells want to be together and unless physically separated, they join again. I won't give him up. Not until I can duplicate it all." Hojo's laughter grew strident as he manipulated some controls. "See? Do you see?"

Overhead, a mechanical arm came to life on a levitating drone. It approached one of the specimen containers—the one with the strange, animated eyeball, Zack realized. Its mechanical claw grasped the container and the drone carried it to Angeal's tank. An access port opened in the base pedestal, the claw set the container inside then moved back to its ceiling mount. Suction hissed.

The pump equipment flushed the eyeball into the main tank beside Angeal's exposed pelvic bones. It floated for a moment, then, as earlier, its trailing nerves and muscles contracted and expanded rhythmically like a caterpillar, and it swam.

It swam right up to Angeal's face.

As Zack watched, horrified, it circled a few times before crawling up Angeal's cheek and squeezing into the empty eye socket, nestling into place. It emitted a bright flash of light. Angeal grimaced and clenched his eyelids shut. When he opened them again, his gaze—two eyes now, working together—settled on his friends with what Zack swore was a nonverbal plea for mercy.

Zack felt sick. How many times had that experiment been performed in this torture chamber? How many times had Hojo cut off pieces of Angeal and then let them reattach merely to gather hellish data?

"Reunion!" Hojo crowed. He even pumped a fist in the air. "Haven't you noticed? All his body parts are alive and animate! They all want to rejoin with him! Even his copies are driven to join with him at a cellular level. They'll eventually degrade if they don't. It's the same with Rhapsodos and his copies, but he can't absorb biological traits so they can't reunite. Hewley's copies want to return to their origin and become one with the greater whole. His torso is the largest concentration of his cells, and his brain is the master controller. With the proper nutrient solution and Jenova's power, he can even regenerate himself! Look at his arms! True cellular dedifferentiation and redifferentiation like Jenova! In time, he'll regenerate his entire body."

Zack stood frozen, appalled. Regenerate his body? He swung around to face Angeal's prison. Did Hojo mean the flipper? Zack stared at Angeal's left shoulder, and realized the paddle of flesh extending from it possessed five nubs on its end, like...like... "Sephiroth, look. Are those...fingers?"

Hojo cackled at their reactions. "Hollander wouldn't push his own son so hard, the sentimental fool. He didn't chemically or surgically trigger the full Jenova adaptations, but I've done what was necessary to activate all Hewley's modified biochemistry and instincts. He's finally complete! Look what he can do! I've gathered more data on the regeneration and Reunion integration processes than I ever thought possible! If I can replicate them—"

"Shut up!" Zack screamed. He drew the Buster Sword and waved it like a maniac, and with his free hand flung an enormous ball of fire that broke up against the observation window in a shower of ineffective sparks and embers.

"It's reinforced," Sephiroth muttered. His rage-filled eyes narrowed in calculation. "There's no way to stop or silence him. Hojo always did need an audience."

Zack gritted his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. The whole lab was probably reinforced against both magic and physical attacks. Hojo couldn't let the experiments get the upper hand, after all.

Hojo ignored them both. "That integration with his eye was purely involuntary, purely a native Reunion instinct, but he has voluntary control over his remote parts, as well. Unfortunately, he has been uncooperative in those particular experiments. Up until now." Hojo's hands moved as he manipulated some controls. "Now you, his dear friends, are here, and I shall have my data."

Along the lab walls, hidden doors slid open to reveal darkened portals. Growling and snarling noises escaped them.

"I know you will reign supreme, Sephiroth, though you might receive a few injuries in the process, but Zack Fair, now..." Hojo cackled again. "These enhanced experiments will savage him before they are defeated."

From each doorway emerged multiple monsters, Sahagins and Ahrimans and mutated Hounds. All wore the signs of Angeal's copies: mismatched wings, matte silver armor with gold highlights growing directly from their gray-white bodies, and the image of Angeal's face upon their heads, necks, or chests. The doors slid shut behind them. The monsters formed a tight semicircle around the SOLDIERs, who kept their backs to Angeal's cylinder.

"They're all copies," Zack said, holding the Buster Sword at ready. He counted twenty-five of the beasts: Five Hounds, ten Sahagins, and ten Ahrimans.

"The Ahrimans are in incredibly poor taste," Sephiroth said with an undertone of barely leashed anger, "considering what we have witnessed here." He carried Masamune before him, ready to strike.

Zack agreed. Bat-winged, giant flying eyeballs with claws, tails, and grotesque mouths seemed to demonstrate a particularly sadistic sense of humor at work. "Hojo's a sick bastard."

The monsters drew closer. Saliva dripped from the Hounds' jaws. The scaly-shelled Sahagins brandished their tridents in threat, and the Ahrimans swooped overhead, coming nearer with each pass.

Zack said, "Now that we know they're connected to Angeal, like part of him, how can we kill them? Will we hurt him, too? I never realized before—"

"We shall do what we must," Sephiroth said grimly.

The Angeal copies all suddenly stopped moving. The Sahagins and Hounds froze in their tracks; the Ahrimans hovered in the air. They ceased their hostile growling, becoming eerily silent against the soft heartbeat of the lab, the quiet machine noises. All focused their complete attention on a point behind the two SOLDIERs.

"What's happening?" Zack asked, keeping his weapon up in a guard position.

Sephiroth didn't answer. Instead, like the copies, he looked back at Angeal's mangled form.