Author's Note: I know, I know, I'm late. College and McDonald's are secretly conspiring against this fanfiction, I swear it. In the meantime, I plan on finishing Chapter 19 as soon as I click "Add Chapter" on this one, so I should go back to updates every other day for a while.

A couple of quick notes: Yes, this is indeed a villain chapter. This means that every major villain that has been introduced gets a scene. Secondly, you may notice that most of Odine's scene is thought, as in little or no talking. Between Odine's last scenes and a couple of future chapters. I have decided that I hate Hate HATE writing in accents. If ANYBODY has any tips at all for me, PLEASE feel free to give me some pointers.

Lastly, in its own paragraph, in case any of you were wondering about my DoC stuff, there are no major spoilers planned at this time. I have dropped a minor spoiler in Chapter 16, but what I am spoiling happens in the fourth or fifth mission in, something like that, and there were larger things to spoil that I haven't even mentioned, nor do I see myself doing little more than alluding to them for a long time. In response to the "large cast of characters" comment I have gotten from a few of you, I am only adding two DoC exclusive characters.

Chapter 15

"You failed, Sephiroth. You had the perfect opportunity to kill all of them, and you failed!"

Sephiroth brought Masamune around threateningly. "You know what happened there. I think you even knew ahead of time that it would happen. If anyone is to blame, it is you."

"I'm not the one who let them escape!"

"Because you are busy hiding away in this hole." Sephiroth grabbed the man's collar. "We leave," he said simply.

"Leave? And just where do you think we are going?"

"To the Northern Crater. We will finish this now so that I can be rid of you."

The man scowled. "We're going nowhere!"

Sephiroth threw the man against the wall. "I don't understand you. You need this as much as I do. Why drag your feet? Why have you waited so long to retrieve it? Why do you still wait?"

"I have my reasons, and you'll respect that."

Sephiroth turned and pressed his sword into the man's neck. "I respect nothing."

"You won't kill me," the man chuckled. "In the end, you still know that you need me."

"I need no one."

"Of course. That's the whole point of this, isn't it? You're trying to prove to yourself that you can survive without Jenova. You've wanted to do that ever since your will became stronger than hers."

"My reasons for having dominion over this world are none of your concern."

The man laughed. "But they are, Sephiroth! I, too, seek dominion over this world. The only way for either of us to acquire it, however, is to use each other. Deep down, you understand this. You know that you can't do it alone."

Sephiroth snarled, but he knew the man spoke the truth. He needed this man to get around the Weapons that lay deep within the Crater. He knew that they would awaken if he attempted his task again; they had proved that the last time he tried.

"If you can get around the Weapons, why haven't you?" Sephiroth asked again.

The man frowned. He would have to answer Sephiroth this time; his very life was on the line. "There is another piece to the puzzle."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at this. "I can retrieve them, but I activate the Weapons in doing so. You can negate the Weapons, but you cannot retrieve them. What is there left to answer?"

"We need a way around another ancient protection. What you were calling, it wasn't what you thought it was. Rather, it was a way to get to them. There is something deeper that we still must face. Your sword alone will not work, nor will my skills."

Sephiroth looked at the man skeptically. "And how did you discover this? You failed to mention it before."

He smiled and turned around. "I have acquired an anonymous link to Dr. Odine. He's a brilliantly mad man."

"And he knew of these things?"

"He found them for me," the man corrected. "When I found out that I couldn't retrieve them myself, I sent him to work on it. How he got as far as he did, I'll never know. Dumb luck, perhaps. He did, however, confirm my suspicions that there is a deeper threat lurking before them."

"And he didn't tell you how to pass them?"

The man laughed, which thoroughly annoyed Sephiroth. There was something about that laugh that he simply couldn't stand. "I said he was brilliantly mad, not a genius! He knows his field and that's about it."

"Then how do you know that I can't handle it?"

"Hints, suspicions…you need to trust me on this, Sephiroth. I'm even more anxious than you to get them and start ruling over this miserable planet, but let me gather my intelligence first."

Sephiroth turned to leave. "Perhaps I should do the same."

Dr. Odine marveled at the frightened yet resigned young summoner before him. She was a frail thing, and the very sight of him frightened her now. He could tell that she was afraid of what would happen to her, of what he might be planning to do to her. It seemed as though his obvious thirst for knowledge had crushed her childhood innocence and willingness to trust anyone.

He chuckled to himself. None of this would've been possible if the worlds hadn't merged. The presence of a summoner aside, he had acquired a new "boss" shortly after the merger, one that had wanted him to investigate some nonsense in the Crater. In that investigation, however, he discovered something that he thought could never exist. The Guardians of whatever it was he was supposed to be searching for…he still couldn't believe it was true. They had been capable of mind control.

He had decided than that there had to be a way that he could harness the ability. In time, he found that way. He himself could not retrieve what he desired; it was far too dangerous. Instead, he sent an underground mercenary team after it. Only one had survived, and even he wasn't alive any more. He had returned to Odine completely mad, and for his own safety Odine had to kill the man after taking what he had asked for.

To date, his efforts had only yielded him half of what he expected; the less knowledgeable would deem it a "truth serum", but he still liked to consider it as a lesser form of mind control. At the least, this would work enough, ensuring him that he had a summoner on his hands, though her horn made it painfully obvious. The side effects would keep the girl sedated after his brief interrogation of her as well.

"Name," he barked, realizing that the drug had likely taken effect.

"Eiko Carol," she told him. Her tone was strange, almost as if she was in a dream. No doubt she was trying to separate herself from this experience.

"Age?"

"Eight."

"Are you a summoner?"

She nodded. "From Madain Sari," she confirmed.

"You can summon eidolons?"

She nodded again, tears coming to her eyes.

"Vat do you fear right now?"

"That you're planning on extracting the eidolons," she whispered.

Odine paused for a moment. He hadn't even thought of extracting them; clearly their bond with their summoner was more than he had expected. He knew that a summoner could only summon eidolons that would speak to them; that much was in the legends. The idea that they would reside in the body of a small girl, however…He was definitely intrigued.

"Dr. Odine," a voice said. "The beta is nearly ready."

Odine nodded and left without saying another word. He would get Rufus his data on the eidolons some other time. This came first. He had been attempting to perfect mind control from the moment he began his earlier research. This beta would have to be worn, and he was unsure of how much will, if any, the subject would still have, but he swore to himself that before the war was over he would have complete control over the summoner.

Rufus smiled to himself. He knew that the assassin wasn't from Esthar; Laguna may have been a fool, but he was neither smart enough nor dumb enough to send an assassin after Rufus. All that mattered, though, was that the people believed him. The assassin had not only given him an excuse for war, it had provided him with an upper hand in the world. Laguna was viewed as the lower party now, despite previous misgivings about Rufus. He chuckled briefly at how the world could easily shift its opinions.

He looked over the reports on his desk, pausing on one that mentioned the town of Kalm being burnt the night before. He thought briefly of investigating it, but he smiled as he realized that it would be easier to blame the situation on Laguna. Moral standing always helped a country in a war.

He pulled out a map and looked over it briefly. He had already marked places that his associates thought Lunatic Pandora might be hiding. He would send teams to excavate those areas, while at the same time he would send SOLDIER to invade Esthar, distracting Laguna from the people he sent digging.

He smiled as he thought about all the tales of what Lunatic Pandora could do. He would have the world on its knees. Shinra would again rise to the power it once was, with Rufus at the head of everything. He was looking forward to being the ruler of all the worlds. No one could stop him, not even if Sephiroth came back from the dead.

He pressed a button on his desk. "Put me through to Odine," he told his secretary. "I'd like to see how he has progressed with the summoner."

Next Time on Mad World: The mysterious vanishing is explained to a degree, and we discover the fates of the characters involved in The Crater Part 2. More filler and set up, but the set up leads into a later climax...