Whatever Cloud's immediate plans were for finding the stranger, they were quickly dropped in favour of a more urgent matter. The first announcement of the next week was that the free day was cancelled and replaced by what Corporal Stengar called a "thinning of the flock". No classes, but also no freedom from ShinRa tower.

Assessment and reassessment was nothing unusual, but the surprise battery of tests lined up for them felt like - well, being battered. Everyone was new to the program, but the army bred gossip and according to someone's cousin's best friend who'd gone through this last year, or maybe four years ago, or possibly had watched it because they were a cleaner at the time, what they were looking for was either high test scores, or improvement on the entrance scores, or perhaps their ability to endure the relentless and unexpected assault.

As far as Cloud was concerned, he didn't exactly have the brain space left to worry about something so pointlessly vague.

In reality, the first month was a probation few knew about. Everyone had passed the entrance exams, some more easily than others, and that initial period was how they made sure you hadn't cheated to get in. On the day, everyone in Guard Hound was called up to have an brief one-to-one meeting with Corporal Stengar to "discuss" their progress, but not everyone got the seal of approval they were hoping for.


As it was a not-free free day, different groups had claimed different areas to congregate and gossip, and in some cases comfort the unsuccessful. Cloud and his friends had picked the tactics classroom for their hideaway, as it at least had a small collection of books to distract them while they waited; as they made their way over, Hendrik's PHS dinged with a text telling him he was next.

He was the first of the group to go to Corporal Stengar's office for his evaluation. None of them were expecting it to be fun, but considering he was one of the strongest candidates and had mostly decent marks across the board they all anticipated an easy pass for the young man.

"You know where to find us, just come over when you're ready," Cloud said, clapping Hendrik on the arm as they left him outside the office door.

"Right," Hendrik nodded, visibly bracing himself before marching in.

As they turned the corner to get to the tactics classroom, they passed one that was and open and unclaimed. Marcel paused.

"Um, guys? I think the office walls have to be really, really thin," Marcel said, leaning slightly around doorway into the room. "You can hear everything clear as a bell if you stand over here. We should probably close the door?"

"Wait, really?" Thom said, striding back down the corridor to stand next to him. "Hey, he's right."

Cloud and Stefan hurried over, Cloud feeling a little more guilt than the others appeared to (but naturally not enough to carry on to the tactics room as planned).

The sound may not have been 'as clear as a bell', but when they stepping in they found it easy enough to make out what was being said.

"But I - I can do better!" he could hear Hendrik say, clearly distraught. "I can improve!"

"Then you should have improved," Corporal Stengar responded, blunt as always. "Your test scores on entering were impressive, but that hasn't translated into improvement now you're here. SOLDIER is no longer considering your application."

"But - sir, this is my dream."

The four eavesdroppers could just about hear Hendrik heave in a ragged breath as, they assumed, Corporal Stengar watched.

"Come on," Cloud said quietly. "We shouldn't be listening to this."

"Brutal," Thom agreed.

Once they were out of the room and safely out of earshot, the four looked at each other awkwardly.

"Brutal," Thom said again, shaking his head. "I couldn't do Stengar's job. Hendrik was doing fine, I don't get why he got kicked out."

"If it happened to him, it could happen to me," Stefan interjected. "I got similar scores, and I know I've near the bottom for tactics and strategy."

"What happens to him now?" Thom asked the group, only to get shrugs.

"I think - well, from what I remember, he goes down to Public Safety full time or they reassign him to another department they think he'd good at," Marcel said slowly. "I think, anyway."

"Not much we can do for our chances now," Cloud told him fatalistically. "If we're going to be tossed, that decision's already been made."

"Fuck me but I hope I've improved," Stefan said, pale-faced. "I can't afford to stay in Midgar without being in the army, and I can't afford to pay back the contract to go back to Corel."

"We'll know soon enough," Cloud reminded him.

They carried on to the tactics room, and said absolutely nothing about what they'd heard when Hendrik appeared half an hour later with red-rimmed eyes.


Cloud's own meeting was significantly less traumatic, but slightly more bemusing. Corporal Stengar's office was as bland and grey as the rest of the floor - it looked like someone had literally put two walls against a corner and given them a cursory coat of paint before calling the job done. The desk was cheap grey MDF, with the computer and keyboard shoved to the left and two piles of green-grey paper files on the right. The only bit of colour was on Stengar himself, with his ginger hair and blue uniform, making him seem larger and more defined against the monochrome room.

Carelessly waving him over and plucking the top file from the smallest pile, Stengar didn't waste much time going into the evaluation.

"Cloud Strife, from Nibelheim. You're the youngest, scrawniest and least physically impressive of the recruits - and that's across all the squads. I would honestly be surprised if SOLDIER seriously considered your application, but according to the metrics you've passed your first month. You're still in the program," the corporal said, thumbing through Cloud's file even though both of them knew he didn't need to.

"Thank you, sir." Thank Gaia. I think.

Cloud stayed outwardly calm, even though inside he wasn't quite sure whether to feel happy he was in, or annoyed that he was still not up to par physically. Irritatingly, he couldn't see much of the contents of the file the corporal had in front of him from the angle he was at.

"I hear you're doing extra work to be less of a liability in a fight - dedication is a skill that's in high demand, but so is teamwork. If you're the strongest man in the room but nobody trusts you because nobody knows you, you're weak," came the bit of advice the others had told him to expect.

"Understood, sir."

"Look," he said after a short pause, abruptly closing the file, pushing it to one side and lowering his voice. "This is supposed to be a review of your progress, and honestly? You're improving faster than the others in nearly every area. Others are getting higher scores, but your scores now are a minimum of three grades higher than your entrance scores after a month. That's not normal. If I didn't know better, I'd say you cheated on the entrance exam to lower your grade. But I do know better - nobody's that damn stupid. Are they?" he asked pointedly.

"No sir." At least he didn't say it looked like two different people took them, I guess.

"There's talk. You've been identified as interesting. And trust me Strife, nobody in ShinRa wants to be interesting. So, off the record? Take your foot off the goddamn accelerator. Or you won't be going into SOLDIER. You'll either be going to the labs or the Turks."

"What? I mean - sir?" What?

"I'm not saying it twice. Calm down. Get out of my office - you're still in, so look grateful as you go," he instructed, leaning back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache.

"R-right, yes sir," Cloud saluted, and got out of the office as fast as he could.

Now I have to worry about being interesting? What does that even mean? The labs - the Turks - the hell?

That evening, when those who had passed were in the canteen poking at their food pretending to eat and those who had failed were clearing out their trunks, they found that out of the twenty-four Guard Hounds who started six had been cut from the program. Three had gone straight to the main Public Safety branch, and three were waiting to be redistributed elsewhere. Hendrik was apparently one of the latter.

"He told me he'd let me know as soon he knew," Stefan told the table, subdued. "My bet's on engineering, he's good at that."

"Yeah," Thom murmured into his mashed potato. "Sounds about right."

"He's just gone to another floor," Cloud reasoned. "He'll have free days just like us, we can still meet up. He just won't have to deal with drills anymore."

"You're right," Stefan sighed, before tossing his fork on his tray and giving up on the meal. "Fuck."

"Oh, don't be sore," Thom snapped. "It's not like he's dead, he's just not sharing a room with you! You going to be this miserable the rest of the year?"

"Hey!" Cloud interjected as Stefan stood, kicking back his chair. "Hey! Look, it's a crap day and we've been split up, but they won't go easy on us if we start a fight. Just - let him be miserable, Thom, and Stefan, maybe you should go back to the room and help Hendrik. You aren't eating anyway."

With an inaudible grumble Stefan did as Cloud suggested, clearing his tray with sulky forcefulness and stomping out.

"Great. He'll be joy to bunk with now," Cloud said accusingly.

"Sorry, guys," Thom said. "It was just... it was a tough day."

Understatement, thought Cloud, and let it go in favour of unsubtly prodding Marcel into participating in a less fraught conversation about the mystery "vegetable" of the day. Was it intentionally distressingly liquid, or does the cook have a special talent? Who knew? Who cared? It was gross either way.

The final ramifications of the cull made themselves known a couple of days later.

Cloud was leaving the showers after briskly washing off the worst of the sweat of the day and passed Thom coming in.

"Is Stefan asleep already?" Cloud asked, roughly scrubbing at his hair with a towel. "I don't want to end up dealing with him if I wake him up."

"You didn't hear?" Thom asked with a frown, "he left."

"Left?" He didn't say anything this morning...

"Yeah, packed his bags this afternoon and didn't bother saying goodbye. I guess he wasn't the type of guy to stick around after his buddy was kicked out."

"Huh. Wouldn't have taken him for a quitter," Cloud replied.

"Me neither, but that's how it went," he said with a wry smile. "Guess we won't be seeing much of him now either."

"Weird," Cloud muttered.

Stefan had been so worried about failing, why would he just pack it in? Unless he'd got cold feet and hoped to outrun the debt collectors. If so, Cloud wished him luck. He'd need it.

"Are we still meeting at the Zemzelett Wings tonight?" he asked.

"Dunno. We'll see when we get there, I guess."

It was perhaps unsurprising that even though the three waited at the bar for the better part of three hours, neither Hendrik nor Stefan came down. Cloud could understand the embarrassment of failing and quitting respectively stopping them from wanting to commiserate with people who were still on track to achieve their dream, but something about it made him uncomfortable.

Obviously, it was all just part of the process. SOLDIER was an exclusive program, and not everyone could cope; the ones who failed at any one of the stages leading up to getting in were booted out to be plain grunts, just as he had once been.

Obviously.