New chapter. So there.

I had a bit of a mix up while updating chapters again…so here's the real chapter 15. Sorry for the confusion.

I don't own any of the characters or places.

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Angel Memories: Chapter 15

User Friendly

I spent the remainder of the night watching the men carefully as they exchanged turns with the night watches. A young man yawned at the end of his shift and ducked into his tent to wake the next in line. The cloth rustled softly as another soldier pushed his way out. His spiky blonde hair sprouted out on all ends for a moment before he placed his helmet on his hand and switched the night vision on with a soft click.

He was the most recent addition to the select team that the Turks had chosen for the team to surround me. I tended not to pay attention to the names of the new recruits. Zack could care about them so why should I? As long as they do their job, I shouldn't have to worry myself with trivial things like that. After fifteen minutes, the boy's head drooped slightly and then jerked up sharply. He was nodding off. What the hell was Veld thinking, sending someone so obviously inept on this mission?

Gradually, I stood up and gently wiped the dirt from my SOLDIER attire. The boy's head drooped again but this time he recovered more slowly. For a third time, the head fell forward and this time rested there undisturbed. Sighing, I stepped quietly toward the youth. Suddenly from behind me, I heard a sound. My head whipped around and my hand fell into place on Masamune's hilt.

Upon turning, I discovered an alarmed Zack waving his arms frantically in an attempt to tell me to stop. I obeyed and slipped the four inches of blade that had been removed from the sheathe slowly back inside. Zack let out a sigh of relief and mouthed to me that he would take care of our slacker. I nodded, grunting softly and sat back down against the tree where I had been before. As he passed he gave me a friendly smile that I dismissed. We would need to talk about his use of stealth around me and his lack of sleep later.

Carefully, I watched as Zack crept up on the sleeping child and detached his flashlight from his belt loop. Silently, he snuck around the young man and flicked the switch on the flashlight. Cautiously, he placed the beam of light so that it shone directly into the goggles of the soldier. Then, with a wide grin aimed at me, he thrust out his remaining hand and gripped the boy firmly around his jaw, effectively closing off his mouth.

With a startled jump, the boy woke up and immediately let out a muffled scream as his eyes opened into night vision goggles filled with flashlight beam. His hands flew to his helmet and he pulled it off in a rapid movement and dove to the side. Zack fell back, rocking with silent laughter and dropped his flashlight to the ground. The boy clutched at his eyes swearing softly and wiping away the tears.

When he regained his feet he discovered Zack lying, out of breath on the ground. His eyes flashed venomously but he finally decided to follow proper conduct. He feet came together and his hand flashed to his forehead in a stiff and grudging salute. Zack, clutching at his abdomen in pain, slowly stumbled to his feet and wiped away tears of laughter. He waved a hand to the boy and ruffled his intense bed head with a friendly hand.

"Go to sleep, I'll take care of your watch, you are the last one after all." He pushed the youth toward his tent and smiled widely. "After all, rest is important." The bewildered child remained silent and simply stripped off his top and slipped into the tent. Zack let out a cheerful whistle and stretched lazily. He turned to me and grinned playfully.

"You give them too much slack," I said simply.

"Sometimes the men need it," he replied.

I cast a sidelong glance at the black haired teenager. He cocked his head and smiled with his deep blue eyes.

"That one…he'll never make it with us."

Zack grunted and sat down heavily. "Yea, but he's living out his dream, fighting with the great General of SOLDIER." He let out a wistful sigh. "No reason to strip him of that so soon."

"Hmph…I'm a legend now am I?"

"More than that," Zack began with a grin. "You're a hero. You practically won the Wutai war for us. We never stood a chance once they broke the firing line. Our weapons were our biggest advantage and once they got in range, we didn't stand a chance." He trailed off silently and spat at the ground. "I mean…the other members of SOLDIER helped out…but you saved entire regiments while you were on the field."

I remained silent for a long time, memories of various encounters with the Wutai ninja flashing in my head. It's true…they were far more adept when it came to melee combat. Maybe I had saved many of our own men from death…but how many of the enemy did I kill?

"So I'm a hero…we humans are disgusting…aren't we?"

Zack shot a confused glance in my direction. His mouth opened and shut but he couldn't seem to form a rational sentence. He looked again at me with a questioning stare…but I said no more and slowly drifted into a shallow sleep.

While I slept, I dreamed for the first time in as long as I could remember. The voice of a young girl echoed softly inside my skull, quiet and unintelligible at first but it soon grew until I could hear every cryptic word.

"…It's difficult to do more than one day at a time…I'm not sure if I can do what you ask."

A vision of blonde hair cascading over a pale white shoulder pulsed into view and then faded away. Hojo would want to hear about this, it had been so long since my last dream. Soon, another voice, deadpan and gruff began to resonate in my mind.

"You must try…something very important depends on it."

A flashing image of silver hair and a large X faded in and out of my sight. There was a pause and then the female voice sounded once again.

"But…what about Marluxia? He won't like what I'm-"

Before she could finish, the cold voice spoke again. "Marluxia doesn't matter anymore…he is a traitor to the superior and is being dealt with even as we speak. But for everyone's sake…for your own sake, you must make him relive these things once more."

Relive? And who were they talking about? I pondered this for a moment before coming to my senses and banishing the silly thoughts. Dreams didn't mean anything to me. Let Hojo and his lab rats analyze this. For now I'll simply memorize what I can.

"But…why? It's hurting him…you know that."

Silence stretched as a bright white room crossed my vision and then faded away.

"I know…but if he doesn't find some sort of middle ground between protecting people and looking out for himself…we're all going to have some serious problems later in the future."

"Saix…I don't know if I can really do this though…simply insofar as my own abilities even…"

"We can assist with that. I can lend you some of my own power…that should at least be enough to get him through this floor."

Saix? This floor? This was certainly a most cryptic dream. And why did I feel like I recognized the girl's voice? Another image flashed quickly in front of me, this time of a man standing against a pillar in a black leather suit. An enormous scar was emblazoned on the front of his face. He faced a young girl in a white chair. In her hand she held a small notebook. Blonde hair fell softly over one shoulder and her sleepless eyes shone darkly.

"Alright…we'll do that then. If it will really keep those other pieces from coming together."

"That is the plan." The male voice grew slightly tense and his worried tone showed in his next sentence. "Zexion is meeting him in the next hall…after that we have one more floor before he reaches you, we can only hope that the boy doesn't kill Marluxia before then." He sighed softly. "Now…take my hand and we'll let him feel his happier memories." Slowly, I felt myself drifting in a direction, fading out of my dream and into reality again.

"Don't forget…almost everything rests on this, Namine."

And then the world flashed bright white.

"Yo! Sephiroth!" Zack jogged to keep up with my lengthy strides through the hallway. "Going to see Hojo again?" He smiled widely as he drew up next to me. "The old man's pretty creepy, isn't he?" I looked gravely at the young man and shook my head in disgust. Zack let out a loud laugh and as we turned the corner, one of the lights overhead burst and white light filled my vision.

Above us, the stars shown like brilliant diamonds. Zack had taken up residence in one of his favorite places, a large branch of a tree and I peeled slowly at a fruit we had scavenged from the surrounding forest. "You ever wonder if there's life out there?" he asked quietly. "like…watching them all makes you feel pretty insignificant…makes you wonder if its all that worth it to be working in a job like this if you're so small," I heard him let out his familiar chuckle before flipping gracefully off the branch overhead. As he landed he smiled and tossed me another piece of fruit. "In case you get hungry," he said simply and then ducked inside his tent. The night sky exploded into bright light that cascaded over my eyes and blinded me temporarily.

"This isn't just their decision, is it?" Zack stood grudgingly in the doorway to East wing of the Dorms. "The great General Sephiroth doesn't just start receiving low level bodyguard and retrieval missions for no reason."

"Move," I said coldly. Zack didn't budge an inch.

"I've worked under you for a long time now…you requested this, didn't you?" I remained silent and pushed past the black haired young man. He grabbed my wrist as I passed. This was completely unacceptable behavior for a man of his rank. In a flash, I grabbed onto his wrist and threw him across the hall. He slammed forcefully into a wall but managed to keep his feet. I strode past him once again and he stepped in front of me with a grim expression.

All at once, the look on his face melted and his familiar smile fell into place on his lips. "Well I'm going with you…I hope you realize that. If you're stepping down from the hardcore missions…I still want to be there right next to you. How else are you going to deal with the men on the mission?" His brilliant smile made me nervous but I just nodded and passed him.

In front of me, the door to my own room loomed large and imposing. With each step, a small itch in the back of my head grew until I was standing directly in front doorway. Then, suddenly I felt some kind of tension release and my mind squeezed tight and…why had there not been any terrible memories?

I turned around briefly to survey the laboratory hallway. Why had I just relived the memories with Zack? It was certainly a break from the regular terrible things that happened when I entered a doorway. But it didn't make sense. Until now, I hadn't even felt the need to take over my memory and reclaim my body from that girl's control.

And why was there a gap in what I could remember of this floor. On the one hand, something different had taken place with the mixing of all the different memories…but that doesn't explain how I felt a gaping hole in my recollection of the time directly after I had fallen asleep. It felt as though something unbelievably important was missing and I couldn't even come within twenty feet of it.

It doesn't matter though. If I dwell too much on this, it'll only end up hurting me. As I stepped toward the doorway, I couldn't help but think about how I had nearly forgotten some of those memories of Zack. The door creaked open slowly, covering me in light and I stepped forward through it. Zack…he really had been the only person to ever think of me as a friend. As my body was consumed by the glittering nothingness, I recalled all the people I had met. Cloud who thought of me as a hero, Hojo who saw me as an experiment, and Jenova who always saw me as a puppet…Zack had been the only one to see me as an equal.

Maybe I really did have a friend back on that doomed world.

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I like Zack. Dude…I am so excited as to where this is all going. For like the third time ever, I know what's going to come next and how all the characters are going to fit into it all. I have a feeling I'm going to have the more hardcore readers looking back into Shadow Feather and being like "He planned this! That's amazing!"

…I didn't actually start planning things until I got a fan letter a couple chapter's ago. Chaos009, you are my man…for now at least. Between you and my inability to keep my grubby paws off of Kingdom Hearts 2 information, I have formulated exactly how I'm going to continue this whole thing after the Kingdom Hearts 2 arc is over. I can tell you right now…it's going to be epic. So be excited.

…as for the Kingdom Hearts 2 arc…I don't really know what I'm going to do. I'll figure something out…or use the Nexus to godmode my way through it.

Thanks go out to Chaos009, Unita, and xsaturnine for reviewing…sorry I'm not ranting about anyone…I jut am so excited…I love it. I even had to put that cryptic dream in there to help relieve myself a bit.