Chapter 9

Like most of the fancier types of functions organized by Shinra, the victory banquet was held in the Shinra tower's reception hall. The reception hall was a sight worth seeing. It spanned two floors, the higher of the two merely a second layer of tables that seated six to eight people each. On the lower level, there was a stage at the back and before it an open expanse, now reserved for dancing. The decorations were tasteful enough while still screaming wealth and the lighting intimate and warm and as its source the thousands and thousands of small lights spread around the room and embed into decorations as well as the absolutely massive chandelier at the middle of the ceiling.

There was a quartet playing in the corner of the stage, guests already mingling on the lower level, few yet seated, all seeming to be waiting.

The moment the elevator doors opened, Sephiroth was already hoping to be done with the evening. The eyes of the people nearest to the elevators were already being drawn to him and he felt them like a heavy weight on him.

"Offer me your arm", came the quietly spoken suggestion from next to him. He found himself moving before the words even fully registered, her hand quickly settling on the crook of his elbow. He turned to look at her and found her eyes already on him. She looked perfectly at ease and he found a strange comfort in the small smile on her lips and the touch of her hand on his arm. "I can feel Rhapsodos and Hewley near the stage." He nodded, grateful, happier with an objective in mind, even when it was only something as simple as 'navigate through the masses to Genesis and Angeal'. Not to mention he know moving with purpose had the added benefit of making it less likely people decide to approach you for small talk.

He followed the small ques in the form of discreet tugs on his arm to walk toward the right direction until his ears could finally pick out the voices of his fellow 1sts among the dozens even hundreds of voices around him.

"Ah! The Hero of Wutai and his trusty sidekick!" Genesis was quick to greet them the moment they reached them. The mocking tone wasn't quite as convincing as the one the man usually used, leading Sephiroth to believe he wasn't quite as bitter about Sephiroth success in this case as he would have liked everyone to believe. The man then sneered at Valkyria and asked: "You do know you're not supposed to bring pets to functions like this despite it not being explicitly stated?"

Angeal groaned, "Genesis!"

The man just gestured at the summon, "Look at it! Not even on a leash!"

"Keep waving your hand at me like that and I might bite", Valkyria half-jokingly threatened, a smirk playing at her lips.

"Her presence here was requested by the President", Sephiroth said.

"Of course", Angeal nodded, "Stories of her part in the swift victory are already spreading like wild fire."

Genesis huffed, "A summon is only as good as its summoner."

Angeal's eyebrow rose, "Complimenting Sephiroth? That's a first."

"You have very selective hearing if that's what you picked out", Genesis sniffed. "Obviously, the point I was making was that the summon can be accredited none of the success that was had."

"Far be it for you to say anything positive about anyone", Angeal agreeably, and with a hint of exasperated amusement, said. He then turned to Sephiroth and the woman on his arm. "I'm glad to see you both return home unharmed."

"Thank you", Sephiroth replied. "It is good to be home. Despite… the circumstances", he added, referring to the undesirable but completely predictable event that was the banquet.

Angeal laughed at that, and even Genesis seemed reluctantly amused. To be fair, neither of them were fond of events like this. They disliked being put on display like this. Like animals in a petting zoo, the most famous of the menagerie of freaks cultured by the Shinra company.

A sudden hush fell over the crowd as it was noticed the quartet had failed to continue on to another piece as one had come to a close. All eyes were drawn to the stage as the President walked to the very center of it, preening.

"I am happy to see so many of you have managed to clear your calendars and attend this victory banquet despite the admittedly short notice." Not that anyone would dare to refuse an invitation from the President Shinra, who, for all intents and purposes, was the de facto ruler of the entire planet. "I admit, even I was surprised by the swiftness of our victory over Wutai when I chose to send the esteemed General to put an end to this regrettable conflict once and for all. It gladdens me that there is to be no more losses over this." And though all but the most naïve knew the only losses the President was concerned over were those of the monetary sort, none would dare to voice it in fear of being heard by the wrong pair of ears.

Then the President's eyes moved to stare straight at Sephiroth, who fought the urge to cringe. "General, would you and the lovely lady on your arm join me on the stage?"

The people between them and the stage parted even before they made to move, and it was with reluctant resignation that Sephiroth led Valkyria up the small case of stairs up and to where the President waited. A pudgy hand patted his back before the President addressed his audience again: "I'm sure our General Sephiroth needs no introduction." People laughed politely. "But I'm sure far fewer of you are familiar with the fairly new addition to this company that I would like to present to you." He grandly gestured to the sole lady on the stage. "This, my friends, is Valkyria, the first artificial summon created by our research department, and indeed, the very first in existence! It is with her aid that General Sephiroth and his brave men achieved the decisive victory. These two – ", he gestured to the beautiful pair of specimen next to him, " – are the crown jewels, the very embodiment of the near unbelievable potential of the Shinra company! With people like this as part of the family that is our company, is it any wonder we have once again proven supreme?" There was applause and you could practically see the man swell with pride.

As the applause died down, the President continued: "Now, I would like to wish you all a very enjoyable evening. Let us dine and dance for this marvelous victory!" Another round of applause that almost drowned out the President's – not even a little bashful – thank yous.

Sephiroth needed no permission to make his hasty way off the stage and out of the limelight, hardly even aware of the woman on his arm before finally away from the sheer number of eyes on him. Set on heading back to the relative safety of his friends he was caught off guard by one very flamboyantly dressed woman stepping in his path. And of course, it had to be one of the few people he most definitely could not be seen deliberately evading. Low-cut red dress, blond hair in an elaborate up-do, sparkling blue eyes surrounded by thick make-up…

"Director", he greeted, tone carefully neutral.

"Oh, Sephiroth, haven't I told you to call me Scarlet?" The woman shrilly asked, her hand playfully tapping his chest as she took a step closer to him, leaving almost no space between his front and her ridiculously sizable and almost indecently bared breasts. "I wanted to be one of the first to congratulate you on your victory. My, all the stories I've heard are simply awe-inspiring! You simply must share your recount of it all. The suspense is positively killing me!"

He was finding the conversation increasingly uncomfortable, especially with her proximity and his lack of options about it, until he heard her come to his rescue.

"Perhaps we can find a time to pencil you in sometime next week, Director", Valkyria said, drawing the suddenly unsmiling blue eyes to her for the first time. It had not escaped his – or Valkyria's – attention how Scarlet had so deliberately ignored her presence at his side. "Now, if you'll excuse us…" She guided him around the female director and he only realized he had been bracing himself for another 'attack' when they were well past the blonde woman.

"Shall I make every effort to politely deter her for as long as possible, General?" Valkyria asked when there was no longer any chance of Scarlet hearing them.

"Please", he replied. He couldn't say he exactly enjoyed conversing with any of the directors – bar, perhaps, Veld and Reeve Tuesti – but he had always dreaded any interaction with Scarlet the most.

Valkyria smiled. "It will be my pleasure."

He only realized his mistake – letting himself get distracted – when he was already upon them.

"Sephiroth!" The man exclaimed, not sounding the least bit excited or surprised. Clearly the man had been looking for him, "… And Valkyria." Or for the both of them. And judging by the way those intense eyes behind round glasses honed onto the summon, she had been the one he had been more keen to find and confront.

"I was hoping to run into you", he said, sounding almost pleasant, considering his serious lack of social skills. "I will expect you to come to the labs tomorrow for some tests." Adding his tone to the effort he had gone through to appear presentable – hair brushed and tied back tidily, tailored clothes – he came off nearly… reasonable.

Valkyria blinked, expression perfectly blank, and said: "No."

"'No?'" Professor Hojo repeated, sounding somewhere between confused and outraged.

"As in 'No, I will not be coming', tomorrow or any other day", she expounded, completely needlessly, of course. "And so help me God if you come at me with a syringe I will take out my ire on your hide, same goes for any attempts at having someone else doing the dirty work for you."

It was with morbid fascination that Sephiroth watched the Professor's face darken with color as word after word sunk in.

Then, with almost theatrical emphasis, Valkyria changed the subject: "Oh look! No one has dared to start dancing yet. I think that's our cue." She gave his arm a small tug toward the dancefloor they had been skirting and he didn't hesitate to follow. Blatantly ignoring the Professor they were escaping, she said to him: "I hope you know how to dance."

"It was part of my education", he replied. It hadn't been his favorite, by any means, but…

"Anything you put your mind to, you excel in", she said. It wasn't quite how he would have put it, but she wasn't wrong. "Perfect. Because I cannot boast any sort of mastery in this sort of dancing, so I will be counting on you." He shot a raised eyebrow at her as they reached the center of the dance floor and he turned to face her. Her smile was confident and unconcerned as she added: "Guide me well, my summoner."

He held out his hand, which she immediately took, and when his hand settled on her waist, hers easily rose to his shoulder. There was a brief moment of hesitation, but when he took the first step, he found her following him seamlessly.

She noted the slightest of cues his body gave and moved accordingly, always with a perfect lack of hesitance, with the kind of perfect surety that would have led him thinking she had been doing this all her life. Not even with his dance instructor had dancing been this effortless.

Though now that he thought about it, he realized something that was distinctly different. His instructor had always been wary of him. He had been in his late teens and his control over his strength had occasionally faltered after Professor Hojo had upped the Mako concentration in his treatments, something that all his instructors had been warned about. There had always been a hint of fear in her eyes when she took his hand, fear that he would break her hand or otherwise harm her.

After he gained the title of Demon of Wutai, everyone stopped fearing an accident, fearing him causing injury on purpose instead.

Valkyria… There wasn't a hint of unease in her eyes, in her body language. She was utterly at ease.

He knew her shielding ability was powerful indeed, but here, when he was already touching her, her shields would be useless. He might not be able to kill a summon, nor cause lasting injury, but he could still make her hurt and she knew it. And she trusted him not to, with the kind of blind faith as if it hadn't even occurred to her to doubt him.

It made something in him unwind. He felt himself relax despite all the dozens if not hundreds of eyes on them. He even found himself wondering if they could just dance the night away, avoiding having to converse with all these people wanting to talk with him…

But the fantasy was even more short-lived than he would have expected, the ending coming in the form of the Head of Turks.

"May I cut in?" Veld asked, and Sephiroth knew he had no choice.

O O O

The dance floor had quickly begun to fill with people, but it hadn't even occurred to me that someone might have the guts to come and interrupt our dance. That's why it came as such a surprise when Sephiroth pulled back and Veld took his place.

Of course, once I realized it was Veld, I was less astonished by his daring. He was the Head of the Turks after all, and someone who had previously interacted with me, and even more with Sephiroth.

"The Vice-President expressed his interest in talking with the General", Veld said as he offered me his hand, and when the cool metal of his gun-arm pressed against the side of waist, he added: "I offered to steal you from him for a few moments. I haven't had the chance to dance in years."

"Oh?" I raised my eyebrow at him.

"The gun-arm, it makes most ladies uncomfortable", he explained, not really seeming like he minded the fearsome effect the prosthetic added to his image.

I hummed in thought. "But you didn't think I would be the same."

"You danced with the General and didn't show the slightest hint of unease", he pointed out. "I watched you, and I am very good at reading body language."

I huffed a laugh. "We both know he is no threat to his allies, and even with his enemies, he has mercy."

"You trust him", he said, eyes intent.

"More than anyone", I easily replied. I saw him – Sephiroth – at the edge of the dance floor – surrounded by people vying for his attention and I saw the Vice-President Rufus Shinra there with him.

Then I lost line of sight of him again, and for a moment I wondered if I should go to him, to save him from the crowd I knew had to be making him uncomfortable.

"And myself?" He asked, drawing my attention back to him.

"I trust you to do your duty to the best of your abilities", I said. "The duty you have to your subordinates, the company."

He nodded. "I see."

We danced in silence for a while, and then there was a horrible crash as one of the large vases with an elaborate flower-arrangement shattered on the floor by the wall nearest to us. The sound had everyone around us stopping and turning toward the racket, some women even screamed in fright, adding to the moment of chaos. And just when I had ascertained that nothing terribly significant or dangerous was going on, I felt something I had not expected.

The magic being fed into my summon materia had stopped.

My eyes immediately shot toward where I had last felt Sephiroth, but I couldn't see him with all the people between us. I barely had the time to breathe out his name before all the magic keeping me there was used up and I was pulled into the nothingness again.

O O O

The first thought that crossed my mind the moment I was next summoned, was that it wasn't Sephiroth. That Sephiroth wasn't inside the range I could easily sense.

Someone had summoned me, and it wasn't Sephiroth.

It was with worry channeled into a silent rage that I opened my eyes. A mostly empty, rundown warehouse with six men present in total. Five men wearing identical uniforms and blank faces one in each corner and one standing a dozen feet before me, next to a man with somewhat Wutaian features, slicked back brown hair and glasses, and a smug look on his face.

The goon next to the smug one had my summon materia. I had no doubt that he was only summoning me on orders, but I wasn't exactly feeling merciful. He was already as good as dead.

"The first manmade summon", the smug one said and I slid my eyes to meet his dark ones while carefully keeping my face expressionless. "Professor Hojo's new masterpiece of science." There was a very obvious tone of mocking in his voice. "They say he created you, but from all that I have gathered, that isn't exactly accurate, is it? He may have made you into a summon, but he didn't make you."

He seemed awfully sure of himself and as I felt no desire to entertain him with confirmation or clarification, I kept my silence.

"I am a great fan of Professor Hojo and his work, make no mistake", he almost cheerfully added, "But it seems he hasn't quite had the chance to finish his work with you. You have been very good giving him the slip, and so to my utter delight, I got to you first."

This man was a scientist, or at least fancied himself one. I could practically smell the familiar brand of insanity on him. Wonderful.

"Who are you?" I asked, breaking my silence.

He laughed, as if embarrassed, and replied: "Oh, how silly of me. Introductions completely slipped my mind in my excitement." It was like watching a robot go through the motions, performing human emotion. It left me cold. "My name is Fuhito and these are my Ravens."

Fuhito… That was a name I remembered reading in a report somewhere. And then it clicked. "AVALANCHE."

He practically glowed with satisfaction, "You've heard of me! Splendid!"

I was starting to have a creeping suspicion that I didn't find the least bit comforting… "What do you want with me?"

"What do I want with you?" He asked, blinking, as if caught off-guard, but it was quickly becoming apparent to me that nothing on the man's face or voice was genuine. "Why, I want you to help me strike down Shinra. Starting with the symbol of their power."

"The General", I deduced, feeling a wave of relief wash over me. He's alive. Sephiroth's still alive. "That's not going to work out well for everyone."

He tilted his head curiously, "Oh?"

"No", I simply said and then pointed a finger at the goon keeping me summoned. It was, perhaps, not the wisest decision to waste energy just to make a point, but when an energy bullet pierced straight through the goon's covered forehead, brain and the back of his head, delivering instant death, I didn't regret my choice in the slightest.

I faded away, but when I next found myself summoned, the scene I materialized into was exactly the same, except for a new goon summoning me. The cooling corpse of the previous one still where it had fallen, and judging by how wet the blood on the concrete floor looked, not long had passed since I had struck him dead.

It looked like I wasn't the only one with a point to make.

"I can see that you hold no loyalty for the one summoning you", Fuhito said, not sounding the least bit irked by my defiance. "That's alright, I wasn't expecting any different. After all, barring your unusual powers and how you are bound to your materia, you are quite human, are you not?" A malicious smile spread on his lips, and it was honest. "And humans I know how to work with."

And by 'work with', he meant 'bend to his will', I was sure. I didn't know what exactly he was planning on doing, what exactly he was hoping would work on me when I could use my shields to keep anyone from so much as laying a finger on me, but if his confidence was even a little bit deserved, this was not going to be pleasant.

O O O

I had always appreciated the ability to think outside of the box in people, and even now, when I was directly paying for someone's imagination, I couldn't but hold a reluctant respect for the man that had introduced himself as Fuhito.

That didn't mean I wouldn't kill him. Oh no… No, no, no, no. I was going to take great pleasure in ripping the man's spine out and bathing in his blood like a savage. In fact, I couldn't remember ever wishing someone dead as much as I did him.

He was going to pay for what he had done to me. All of it. Every excruciating moment of it.

That's what I kept swearing to myself. It was one of the two thoughts that kept me hanging onto sanity and everything that I was.

It was pictures of that man on a goddamn spike that I hung onto as I screamed, the sound being buried under the horrible sound that I was being assaulted with. A high and loud screeching that seemed to cut into my very brain, causing pain the likes of I had never before experienced.

I had been able to block some of it at first, but he had been patient, even with me dropping his Ravens like flies. For hours and hours he had kept at it, having me summoned again, attacking me with that unbearable sound from all directions until my shields sapped all my energy as absorbing the soundwaves gave me less than what I used, until my shields failed me completely.

Whenever the damage to my body became too much and I dematerialized, he would summon me again, and ask me: "Is fighting Sephiroth starting to sound tempting yet?"

And when I would refuse the offered way out, he would turn the speakers on again.

The cycle repeating again and again and again.

I swore I would see that man dead. I hang onto that thought as my eardrums burst and it felt like I was splitting in half and died again.

And when he asked me about fighting Sephiroth? I thought of Sephiroth and how I would return to him at the end of this. I would return to him. I would.

But you know… Eventually something had to give.

And it was me, my mind. My determination.

I sobbed, broken on the floor, not even having the strength to rise off the floor of the sound-proofed little room that had become my Hell. Uninjured and freshly summoned.

I sent a mental apology to my General, apologizing for not making it back to him after all, despite how I had sworn to myself, to the memory of him.

And though I refused to beg and plead, the sobbing was enough to make that man smile, smug and victorious.

He crouched down next to me. "You will do it for me, won't you, Valkyria?" He practically cooed. "Kill Sephiroth?"

My face was streaked with tear tracks and my voice trembling and weak, despair and defeat painted over every inch of me. I wouldn't be killing this man, after all. "I would rather die", I said.

The smile on his face vanished, taking with it every trace of expression.

"I would rather die." Than hurt the one who had shown me such respect and kindness.

He rose up to his feet.

"I would rather die." Than hurt the one person who had become the only one that mattered to me.

His eyes were cold, like that of a robot, but more aware than those of his Ravens.

"I would rather die." Than hurt Sephiroth.

My hand flexed, and his brow furrowed slightly.

"I would rather die." Than be used by someone like you.

My eyes drifted to the Raven by the doorway, my current summoner, and to the glowing red materia I could see – feel – in his bangle. That man's eyes followed my gaze, widening as he realized what was coming.

And just as I, for the last time, repeated the words in a mere whisper – "I would rather die." – the perfectly flawless orb of solidified Mako cracked and then grumbled into tiny little pieces.

It was like, for a moment, Time itself froze and the world's breath caught in its metaphorical throat.

I wasn't dead.

I wasn't dead, but someone else would soon be.

I struck like a viper, my fingers slipping under the leg of that man's trousers, wrapping around his ankle, right above where his sock ended, bare skin meeting bare skin.

And then I sucked.

It was with the kind of animalistic rage that I drained energy from him, that he dropped unconscious in less than a second and even when he fell, I kept a tight grip on him. The Raven rushed to his maker's aid, but an energy bullet took care of him easily enough.

By the time reinforcements rushed in, Fuhito was dead. I hadn't received the pleasure of making him bleed like I had dreamed, but I had drained every drop of energy in his body. Not as satisfying as giving him some well-earned pain, but it had served to fill my reserves quite nicely.

The moment the first Ravens ran in, I sent a pressure wave around me, tossing them and the thick white walls away from me.

It was the same warehouse that they had first summoned me in. They had simply built the small sound-torture chamber there for me.

The Ravens came at me again, silent and emotionless puppets that they were, and I tore them limb from limb. Perhaps they were just victims of Fuhito and AVALANCHE or truly loyal to the cause, I didn't care. I was still burning inside, bursting with the sheer magnitude of my fury.

And there was only me and dismembered corpses on fire, flames licking at the far walls of the warehouse I stood in the middle of. Absently, with the back of my hand I wiped at the blood that was slowly running down my face, and then frowned when I noticed it wasn't only blood now staining my hand. I rubbed at the foreign stain with a fingertip and realized it was lipstick.

The lipstick that had I applied before dying as a human. The lipstick that had become an unremovable part of me when I had become a summon.

For the first time, it struck me. I wasn't a summon anymore.

I didn't know what I was, but I wasn't a summon anymore.

There was no longer a materia binding me, forcing me to rely on someone else to exist. I couldn't be unsummoned only to be summoned again in the same state I had been frozen in.

But if I wasn't a summon anymore… Why did I feel as strong as before? Why did I still have my powers?

What the Hell was going on?

Posted on September 29th , 2017.