Afternoon from merry England all!
Chapter 5 has landed! For any/all of my 'Fearing the 1st' readers, the next chapter I will be posting will be chapter 40 for that fic which I hope to have out in a couple of days :).
Big thanks to my latest reviewers!
Chrono your reviews never cease to make me crack up lolz :D
Ocena Strex, your review was really awesome! I was so happy with it as all the things you say about the current Seph/Aerith relationship is exactly how I was hoping it would be recieved. I was also really aiming to show Aerith's younger girlier/teenage side and your review made me feel like I accomplished that so thankyou!
Moosh! Oh wonderful Moosh! I hope I have pm'd you about your latest review (I lose track HAHA). After writing and reading this chapter 2-3 times I started realizing just how similar the first part is to the first chapter of "Like A Moth To A Flame" (which for anyone who hasn't read it, you must!). What can I say? your writing inspires me and I think we have that subconcious writers mind synch going on! Lol I wish!
Anyway I hope you all enjoy and please leave me your thoughts and opinions!
Genesis wanted to skip, he wanted to sing and laugh and dance. Hell he was so happy right now he even wanted to grab that little cadet over there who was pressing his terrified back against the corridor wall in a desperate attempt to avoid him and kiss the little bastard. Of course he wouldn't actually do any of those things, he had a reputation to uphold, a reputation that was now set to climb to even greater heights!
Oh screw it! One little hug wouldn't hurt!
Unable to contain his excitement any longer, Genesis plucked the petrified kid off the ground and swung him around like a squawking ragdoll.
"There is no hate only joy! For you are beloved by the goddess!"
"HELP ME! HELP! HELLLLP HE'S KILLING ME!"
Chuckling gleefully Genesis set the screaming boy down and patted him fondly on the head making the cadet recoil sharply into the wall with a loud yelp and scamper away as fast as he could wailing. Genesis thought it was a bit of an over exaggeration and he would have frowned at the boys reaction if he wasn't so damn happy, the kid had acted more as if he had burned him than hugged him. The crimson SOLDIER shook his head in amusement then turned to see a corridor of mortified looking people, frozen and gawking wordlessly in his direction.
Silly people, couldn't they see he was being friendly? Couldn't they see he was walking on cloud nine?
Laughing again and filled with the rare urge to be friendly to the world Genesis waved to his paranoid colleagues with a still hand but to his alarm everything erupted into sudden chaos and the corridor began to empty with a haste that not even he had seen before. People tripped and fell, ducked and dived and dashed around corners in a loud panic to escape, he even saw one young cadet in the distance climb into his locker and shut himself in.
Now Genesis really did frown but quickly realized the source of everyone's terror when he caught a flicker from the corner of his eye and saw that his hand that was suspended in mid-air was engulfed in a thin layer of flames. He was inadvertently channelling the power of the materia junctioned in the bracer at his wrist and was quite literally burning with excitement without realising it.
Genesis rapidly shook his hand out and looked back down the now empty corridor in the direction that the cadet had run off in that he had just thoroughly abused.
Oops…
Hurrying away from the scene of the crime that Lazard was undoubtedly going to give him a good bollocking about later, Genesis shrugged his shoulders and merrily went to summon the elevator to come do his bidding. Nothing could shatter his happy mood today. Not Lazard, not burned cadets ratting on him, not even the small office lift who's doors took an age to open and played the same 'Costa De Sol'esque' tune over and over in one continuous loop.
Genesis stepped in after waiting for an eternity for the lift to arrive and pressed for his desired level then went to lean against the back wall patiently, grinning briefly at the scorch marks that tarnished the upper left corner of the small box where the old speaker used to be.
Such anger, oh how foreign it seemed to him right now.
Setting his head back with a peaceful content smile, the second class SOLDIER closed his eyes and felt his mind begin to drift and his body begin to tilt from side to side rhythmically as he was carried upwards. You know now he thought about it, he really didn't give this song enough credit.
Suddenly Genesis' daydream of being sat on a nice, warm, empty beach with nothing but the sea, the sun and his limited edition copy of Loveless in hand came to an abrupt halt as the elevator jolted to a stop. He snapped one eye open, there was no way he had travelled 16 levels in the worlds slowest elevator that quickly.
As the doors slid open in painstakingly slow motion, Genesis opened and rolled both his eyes at the sight of the miserable wretch who had delayed his journey. Why her? Of all the people in the world why did it have to be her? Why did he have to have his buzz killed by the companies most notorious buzz kill?
Genesis begrudgingly stood upright and distastefully observed the tall, strawberry-blonde haired doctor who was standing motionlessly in the doorway, staring off into space with downcast exhausted eyes and hugging an armful of files lifelessly.
She looked terrible. Her reddish-golden hair was messily thrown together in a high spread ponytail that looked as if it had been constructed by a toddler, her baggy white lab coat was hideously creased and hung unflatteringly tent-like over her slim frame and she wore a knee length black skirt that... well the skirt wasn't too bad. A jet black C.G. Clements with a delicate stretch, a month left in season and an elegant cut that travelled up into long slender legs in the perfect balance between prude and tramp.
Still... besides the skirt she looked terrible.
The defensively withdrawn looking book-worm looked like she hadn't slept in years or seen the sun even longer since and Genesis had seen her moping around in the halls long enough to know that she was losing weight. She was the women who could often be found crying alone in a corner somewhere about her 9 year old sister who had gone missing nearly three weeks ago after wandering off into the slums never to be seen again. In Genesis' mind the child's fate was obvious by this point and whenever he caught a depressing glimpse of the doctor, a strong part of him wanted to yell at the women just to get over it already. Of course not even he was that heartless to actually say it, but he certainly wouldn't object if someone else did.
"Are you getting in or not!?" he snapped angrily as the young women who must have been in her very early twenties continued to gaze distantly at the ground.
His bark made the zoned out medical geek jump violently and the majority of the documents she hugged protectively, slipped from between her arms and cascaded to the floor in a messy shower of paper.
Genesis groaned and growled simultaneously, it would seem his belief that 'nothing' could shatter his happy mood was proving to be a very sorely mistaken assumption.
"For the love of the goddess! Pull yourself together women!"
Now Genesis was expecting many things. Weeping, a yelp of terror, more zombie-like depression. What he wasn't expecting from the long-legged, teary eyed doctor scrabbling around on her hands and knees, was for her teal green eyes to lock up onto his venomously and shoot him with the most scathing look he had seen since the day he switched Sephiroth's shampoo for scented toilet gel.
"DO YOU REALLY THINK I NEED ANOTHER PERSON TELLING ME THAT!?"
The enraged women stood up on fairly high heels and squared directly up to a surprised Genesis who tried to take a retreating step away but realized his back was still already up against the wall.
"DO YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW HOW I LOOK OR WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ME YOU JERK!?"
The crimson SOLDIER stood speechlessly as the front of his jacket was prodded numerous times with a firm finger. What in the fuck was happening right now?
"I KNOW OK! I KNOW WHAT YOU ALL THINK AND I KNOW WHAT YOU ALL SAY!... AND!… AND THE LAST THING I NEED RIGHT NOW IS A BULLY LIKE YOU GENESIS RHAPSODOS TO TRY AND PUSH ME AROUND!"
Recovering somewhat Genesis folded his arms and smirked proudly. So she knew his name.
His grin did not go down well with the lunatic and she stepped threateningly closer into a proximity that was uncomfortably invading his personal space, glaring at him as if she was awaiting some kind of response.
At least she smells nicer than she looks.
That was all his liquefied brain could think about while she stared him down intensely.
Now Genesis had never been tongue tied or lost for words before, but neither had he been held hostage in a lift by a hysterical girl who had to be at least 20 times weaker than he was. It was an exceptionally surreal and awkward experience and when all he could do was maintain the smug expression disguising his growing discomfort, the women shook her head and a long tear fell from behind oval-shaped spectacles to snake down one pale cheek.
"... you SOLDIER's... you're never going to help me find Shelke… you're all the same… you're all heartless bastards!"
The baffled auburn-haired man found his voice and was on the verge of making a snide retort to that ridiculous statement. However before he could make it the unhinged doctor turned and fled the elevator in a noisy clattering of heels, leaving her paperwork that was jamming the door open littered across the ground.
"Loopy cow" Genesis mumbled stroppily, but not before he leaned out of the lift to check the women was indeed gone and out of ear shot.
Wishing to continue his journey the SOLDIER was left with no choice but to pick up the mess the emotional wreck had selfishly created and he did so roughly, taking every opportunity to scrunch and crinkle the pages in his hand as he went.
How dare she speak to him that way! Did she even have the faintest idea who he was or who he was about to become!?
Genesis angrily pieced the documents together and glared at the name written neatly across the bottom of a generic looking medical report on the front page. Missing sister or not, this so called 'Shalua Rui' would learn that here in Shinra there was a hierarchy in place, a food chain to be obeyed that he was soon to be bumped straight to the top of.
Him the same as everyone else? It would be laughable if he gave the slightest damn what some pitiful little boffin thought about him.
Steely eyes watching as the doors slid sluggishly shut he huffed a laugh. Then channelling an inferno in the palm of his hand Genesis looked up at the speaker in the corner of the small box that was playing that god forsaken tune.
Angeal slunk further down into the comfortable office sofa and rolled his head sideways against the sleek white leather furniture to eye Sephiroth who was reclining equally as casually behind his desk.
"I hate to say it Seph, but I hardly think 'because it would be so much fun' would constitute as a valid enough reason to spend 128 million gil of company money"
"But it would be" Sephiroth grinned, flicking the small leathery-foam stress ball Aerith had once bought him over to Angeal who absently caught it with one hand.
"Well when you make it to 1st you can put your signature against that particular line, along with your neck.
Sephiroth replied to the raven-haired SOLDIER by running his eyes around his large extravagant office.
"Officially 1st I mean" Angeal emphasised.
Sephiroth caught the ball and shrugged, due to the politics of his age, his current rank was what you might call something of a 'grey' area. He was a 2nd carrying out mostly 1st class duties in a future general's office.
Yeah it confused him most of the time too.
"Well I am confident we can piece together a document that will be sufficiently long-winded enough to convince the board about all of the 'benefits' that a virtual reality training simulator would bring"
The sprawled older 1st smirked and nodded his agreement, "fine, but we're keeping Gen away from it for as long as humanly possible and only letting him in when he's in an exceptionally good mood. Heaven only knows that'll be an expensive disaster just waiting to happen otherwise"
Sephiroth lazily tossed the ball to Angeal, "agreed"
"We'll kick around some more ideas about it after Wednesday's financial. More importantly though, I hope that you have remembered that it's little Aerith's…"
"… birthday next week" Sephiroth finished, slumping his head forward on to his desk at the bleak reminder. To think it had already been an entire year since he had last felt totally incompetent.
"Present troubles again?" Angeal chuckled.
Sephiroth removed his head from the laminated glass surface and glared, every year Angeal seemed to take pleasure in this suffering.
"You've already got her something haven't you?"
A bright white smile and a thumbs up was Angeal's tormenting response and Sephiroth's insides withered in despair. He had 72 successfully completed assignments under his belt now, how was it that this still remained the most daunting mission of them all?
"Is it true that this particular turning of age bares a particular significance over the others?"
"Turning 16? Yep, it's a biggie"
Sephiroth groaned and looked to Angeal pleadingly.
"Then you must help me"
"Oh no no no, you know the rules, no helping"
Sephiroth's jaw clenched.
"Ok, how about I tell you what ideas I have thus far considered and you just tell me all the ones that are unsuitable?"
"Nope. That would be equally as dishonourable towards the spirit of gift giving"
Sephiroth groaned once again, it seemed nothing was exempt from Hewley and his damn honor, not even buying presents for young adolescent females.
"Very well. How about I tell you my ideas and you simply blink your eyes if..."
"No Seph!"
"Ugh"
"Look, you're thinking about it too hard, you always think about it too hard. Just use what's in here" Angeal bumped a closed fist to his chest then pointed to his head, "not what's up here. Believe it or not you know Aerith better than anyone and besides, even if you do cock it up, as long as it's from you and you alone she'll love it no matter what. She's a sweet girl like that"
Sephiroth scowled at the sentimental fluff and reclined back in his tall stiff leather office chair. While he couldn't deny that was true and Aerith always did show great appreciation for anything he got her, that still didn't stop him from wanting to get her something she actually liked.
"Gee you're hopeless…" Angeal droned, "fine, you want a bit of advice? Here it is. Don't get her anything pink this year"
Well that was precisely 95% of his current ideas gone in a flash.
"But I assure you it is her favourite color" he protested back somewhat dubiously.
Angeal uncrossed his leg that had been rested atop his knee and sat forward.
"Undoubtedly, but you need to understand that she's not the same small child who clung to your leg and followed you around for years Seph, she's becoming a women now, she's going to start seeing things differently"
Sephiroth sat silently taking that in for a moment. He was quite aware that she was maturing into adulthood, physically it was blindingly obvious but he had never considered that her mind might be changing as well and that worried him.
She was going to start seeing things differently? Would she start seeing him differently? Would she start seeing how undeserved and unmerited her affection towards him was?
Sephiroth was so caught up in a swirl of thoughts that the 'heads up' warning from Angeal failed to register in his brain along with the footsteps that were approaching until his office door was thrown open and Genesis was already in the room. Sephiroth wondered when he had missed the memo that knocking was no longer a thing.
Sweeping confidently into the room Genesis made an energetic entrance but then paused with a surprised stare when he noticed Angeal, then he looked between the pair of them and squinted.
"Hey are you guys hanging out without me? Where was my invite!?"
The aubern-haired SOLDIER reacted instinctively and ducked an incoming stress ball that was aimed skilfully at his head by Angeal.
"Sit down you drama queen"
"We were discussing the budget report for the upcoming quarter" Sephiroth explained with a hint of amusement.
Genesis' expression changed from a jealous smoulder to nonchalant indifference and he retired gracefully to the empty space beside Angeal.
"Oh ok. I don't care about that"
"We were also discussing, or should I say captain clueless over here was begging me to give him some ideas for Aerith's birthday" Angeal leaned over and jabbed the fashion fanatic in the arm. "Perhaps you can offer some advice Gen? You're about the closest thing we have to a sixteen year old girl around here"
A ball of conjured fire danced around playfully in the seconds open hand. "Oh how I long to incinerate you bigfoot"
A friendly smile was exchanged between the pair and then Genesis looked down at his lap deep in thought.
"So it's Aerith's birthday you say?"
"Correct. In precisely one week from tomorrow" Sephiroth urged bluntly, leaning forward towards the youngest of the trio both hopeful and doubtful at the same time.
Suddenly something seemed to click in Genesis' mind and Sephiroth tensed with anticipation, "I have the perfect idea! Why it is as if the goddess herself has aligned the planets and twisted the tendrils of fate!"
Angeal laughed and wrinkled his nose, "the tendrils of fate? You know Gen, you come out with some truly exceptional bollocks at times"
"Go on" Sephiroth interrupted curtly before a domestic could begin, "What is it? What should I get her?"
Genesis looked over at him blankly like he had just remembered he was in the room.
"Oh I wasn't talking about what 'YOU' should get her, no that my friend is like the gift of the goddess... infinite in mystery. No I was referring to what 'I' should get her, you see it was just the other day we were discussing attending a viewing of Loveless together..."
"Oh for heaven's sake Gen! You didn't did you?" Angeal moaned as he sank lower into his seat as did Sephiroth while shaking his head disapprovingly.
"What!? What are you Neanderthals grunting about!? She said she wanted to go!"
"Genesis. You know Aerith is not allowed outside. You know Hojo and the science department does not permit her to leave the grounds of the Shinra building"
Sephiroth clenched his hand resting on the laminated glass surface of his desk lightly. It made him feel uncomfortable to talk about his surrogate sister like she was a prisoner and even more uncomfortable still to use her name in the same breath as that cretinous professor.
"And?" Genesis scoffed, "Since when did we start giving a flying tonberry's ass what that greasy little chimp thought? In fact I still can't quite fathom why you have not rendered that man's head from his body as of yet"
"It's complicated" Sephiroth grit his teeth as his mood began to sour, something that never failed to happen whenever Hojo was the topic of conversation.
"I don't see how" Genesis pushed, "I would have ran that man through a thousand times over by now if I was you and he used me like a little lab-rat"
"You mean the same way Hollander uses you!?" the silver haired SOLDIER spat back making Genesis sit up rigidly.
"... that is different"
"I think it's time to get the stress ball back" Angeal mumbled and ducked out of the way of the crossfire between both men to retrieve the squeezable toy from the floor.
"Was there a particular reason why you came here Genesis?" Sephiroth ordered, firmly dismissing the current thread of conversation and indicating his eyes expectantly at the files that Genesis had carried into the room with him.
The younger second's emotions dramatically polarised and lit up brightly.
"Ahh yes! Yes I did! But not for these, no these belong to a deranged women I made cry in the elevator a minute ago"
He sighed... only Genesis.
Suddenly there was a loud high pitched noise that made Sephiroth jump and he and Angeal who was stood in the middle of the room looked at each other and frowned. The bizarre outburst had come from Genesis and it sounded like something between an over-the-top giggle and a squawk.
"What was…"
Equally as suddenly and equally as unexpectedly it came again and it made Sephiroth sit up alert. Genesis was shaking on the spot, his hands clutching the edge of the seat and smoking slightly with his mouth clamped shut like he was trying not to explode. Was he having some kind of seizure?
"Woah..." Angeal walked over and slapped a firm hand on the human volcanoes shoulder, "Gen, chill... breath... stop burning Seph's sofa"
"WE ARE BECOMING FIRSTS!"
Genesis erupted and launched from his seat to try and violently shake Angeal by the shoulders but with little success and Sephiroth stood sharply from his.
"We are becoming firsts! It's happening! IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING! Oh how long I have waited!"
Genesis leapt up onto the clean white sofa, dirtying it with his boots as he raised his arms theatrically.
"At long last I will become the crimson commander! The raging inferno! The flame of redemption! Wings of light and dark spread afar! She guides us to bliss, her gift ev...!"
"Genesis! Reality. Now" Angeal dragged the excited poet down from the couch and rooted him to the spot. "Now calmly explain in normal people language what in Gaia it is that you are going on about"
"WE ARE BECOMING FIRSTS!"
"Yes we already got that bit!" Sephiroth snapped impatiently, "but why are you saying it!? You know that will not be for at least another year"
"Do I? I don't think I do!"
Angeal's brow creased heavily.
"Seriously Gen, what are you talking about? You have to be over 21 at least for those injections… and for a bloody good reason to if you ask me. That's the minimum age, it's the law"
"Not anymore, they're lowering it! For seconds and thirds too!"
Sephiroth felt a knot twist in his stomach but it wasn't from excitement and casting his eyes to Angeal they shared a deeply disturbed glance with one another. Mako injections were incredibly dangerous and painful things and each class of SOLDIER had always had its different age restrictions. The higher the class the higher the age limit had to be as the enhancements became inevitably stronger and physically tougher to deal with. It was a long standing rule that no one under 21 could be a first, a rule that not even Sephiroth had been exempt from despite Hojo's ongoing protests.
"Genesis, how have you come about this information?" Sephiroth coolly and diplomatically inquired.
"I overheard that women Scarlett talking about it with some friend of hers. Sure she's the company bike and all but don't forget she is the assistant head of weapons executive and has her claws in enough people to know about this kind of thing. It's legit I'm telling you. I heard it all… too much in fact. She was rather… 'graphic' in explaining how she went about acquiring the information…"
Sephiroth cringed, while it wasn't the most solid of sources it was as good as any. It was common knowledge that the repulsive women who was hell bent on sleeping her way to the top was having intimate relations with the current head of weapons director who would be privy to such knowledge. Regardless, he would have to get a definitive answer for himself.
"Seriously, what's with the faces? Are you guys not hearing me! WE ARE BECOMING FIRSTS!"
Angeal who's expression had turned into something just shy of rage marched sternly over to Sephiroth's desk, grabbed the newspaper that had been folded there neatly since this morning and hurled it at the confused second.
"Wake up Genesis! Shinra lowers the enhancement age brackets while our headlines look like this!? Make the damn connection for yourself!"
Genesis looked down.
FEARS ESCALATE: Threats of a Wutai invasion looms across the western border.
"Giving kids injections that their bodies can barely cope with all because they want to start a war! This isn't something to be pleased about Genesis! It's something to be angry… hey Seph!? where are you going!?"
Sephiroth's hand was already on the handle of the door.
"To speak to the president"
