Sephiroth was not impressed with Zack's choice of "Dull, Mousy Brown" hair dye.
Sephiroth was not impressed with Zack's choice of "Dull, Mousy Brown" hair dye. He turned the box in his hands, and the look he gave Zack spoke volumes.
"Hey, it's inconspicuous," Zack told him, steering the truck onto a secondary highway that had seen far better days. Honestly, how could he have screwed up getting brown hair dye? It should have been a no-brainer, with only three shades to choose from, and he'd still managed to pick the ugliest. "Really, really inconspicuous. That's what we want, right?" he added, hoping Sephiroth bought his half-assed explanation.
He cast a brief glance at the uncovered container sitting between them before returning his attention to the road. Angeal's hair drifted in the circulating liquid. Zack could practically hear his old mentor's pragmatic—not to mention dry—response. "I know Angeal'd agree. We need all the inconspicuous we can get. No one will look twice at boring brown hair. Well, except maybe to admire its length. We should probably cut it, too."
He didn't admit that he'd just grabbed any box of brown without looking, such was his hurry to get out of the general store. The mousy brown dye had been luck of the draw.
"Cut my hair?" Sephiroth frowned, demonstrating his dislike of the idea.
"At least by half. Right, Angeal?" Zack said, including his voiceless mentor in the conversation. Since he'd realized he'd been treating Angeal like an inanimate thing, he'd made a conscious effort with interaction. Even one-sided interaction was better than nothing. "Very few men have hair anywhere near as long. It's not fashionable."
"Bad enough to dye it," Sephiroth muttered.
Zack sniggered at the vanity that came through loud and clear. He'd known Sephiroth was Shin-Ra's big, famous poster boy, but he hadn't really understood that the man did value his looks. Or at least his hair. "Remember, coloring it was your idea!" he needled.
Sephiroth tore open the packaging. He extracted the instructions and quickly reviewed them. "It says I should do an allergy test first." He scowled. "I have no known allergies. Hojo tested me extensively."
"Did he test you for allergies to the ingredients in hair dye?"
"Unknown," Sephiroth admitted. "But SOLDIERs are very resilient. I've never heard of one with allergies of any kind."
"Must be the mako," Zack said under his breath.
Sephiroth finished reading the instructions. "The test takes forty-eight hours! That's ridiculous."
"That's for normal people," Zack said. "Not SOLDIERs. But it would sure suck if you did have a reaction to it."
Sephiroth blew out a huffy breath. "Stupid. Twenty-four hours, max. Pull over, let's get it started now."
Zack obediently parked the truck on the side of the road. Sephiroth fiddled around with the dye package. He scowled again. "I need to mix up a small amount," he grumbled as he got out of the cab and walked around to the back. A few minutes later he got back in with a bowl, a spoon, and the first aid kit.
Zack watched curiously as Sephiroth poured a little of each bottle into the bowl and mixed it. His unspoken question about the first aid kit was answered when Sephiroth rolled up his sleeve, extracted a cotton swab from the kit, and used it to apply the dye mixture to the skin on the inside bend of his elbow. He packed everything back up and shook the last few drops of test dye from the bowl out the window. "Twenty-four hours." He stared at the small, fresh stain on his skin. "Even that's ridiculous."
"We can use the break," said Zack. We'll need to find somewhere safe to camp for a couple days, I guess."
"According to these instructions, the process is intended to be easy. I will need to rinse and shampoo my hair to get the excess dye out when it's done setting."
"Maybe a room at an inn?" Zack asked hopefully. He pulled the truck back out onto the highway. "One with a shower, in some obscure little farming settlement, like the last couple of towns?"
"Maybe a camping spot with a clear stream," Sephiroth countered.
Zack sighed, acknowledging the reality of their situation.
Sephiroth relented. "Maybe an inn, if it seems safe enough."
Somewhat cheered, Zack said lightly, "Nelson told me it wasn't my color, but I wonder how it'll look on you. Bet it'll look okay." Probably it would look good. More natural than shiny silvery gray, at any rate.
Sephiroth's head shot up. He stared at Zack. "Who's Nelson?"
"The shopkeeper where I got the dye. I was trying to get someone to tell me the story behind how Emmie's Last Chance got its name, and then some teenagers came in—"
"You spoke with him at length? So he'd recognize you?"
"I talked to a couple people. It would've been rude not to. People remember rude strangers, especially in small towns. Townsfolk will complain about jerks forever. Loners just passing through on their way to somewhere else are only gossiped about for a little while then forgotten. I grew up in a small town, remember? I know about these things."
Sephiroth grunted.
"Don't worry, I gave them a fake name. I also told them I was going to Rocket Town to look for work. I wasn't dumb enough to tell them any real information." Zack might not be a sneakiness expert like a Turk, and his professional training as a SOLDIER hadn't exactly emphasized subtlety, but he wasn't an idiot, either.
"At the next exit, head northeast."
"Northeast? But all the ports with ships to Costa del Sol are on the west coast..."
"We can't go to Costa. Rocket Town is on the Western Continent, too."
"Way out on the northwestern side," Zack protested. "Costa's on the eastern peninsula."
"It's not safe."
"It's not safe anywhere, Sephiroth. Shin-Ra's probably got Turks and other spies out all over the entire Planet looking for us. Isn't that why we've been camping in weird places all this time?"
"Yes, to avoid contact with other people as much as possible." Sephiroth looked from the package of dye in his hands to Angeal's container, and then up at Zack. "We need to hunker down for a few days, at least. We'll head into the mountains. We can decide on a plan after we've had a chance to think."
Zack also glanced at the specimen container. "We really need to find Hollander and Genesis," he said, voicing worries that had been preying on his mind ever since he'd realized Angeal's head was regenerating fresh tissue. "We need more of that nutrient fluid at least. It's not something we can find in a drugstore. Are you sure hiding out in the mountains is the best course?"
"We've got enough to last a little while longer."
That was probably true. Zack couldn't bring himself to watch too closely whenever Sephiroth did what he called "routine maintenance" to the specimen container. He knew that Sephiroth was rationing the nutrient fluid, though. Usually he just drained a little from the container then "topped it off," so a mixture of old and new was constantly swirling and "feeding" Angeal. Somehow.
Maybe Hojo and Sephiroth were right, Zack thought, and Angeal's head wouldn't die even without the fluid, but it needed nutrients to grow its new body. It would be better to have a stable supply, with enough to give Angeal a complete fluid change so it was all fresh. He'd probably "grow" better with a good supply. A new, larger container was also on Zack's wish list. So were a lot of things that they needed Hollander for. If Hollander was able to make new G- or A-copies, surely he'd have the supplies required for Angeal.
Zack hoped so. He knew Sephiroth was also only hoping, and couldn't know for sure, either.
Sephiroth said, "I'm surprised we haven't seen any sign of Genesis copies in all the time we've been running. I was hoping we could fight or catch one and get Genesis's attention that way, but they seem to all be MIA."
Zack nodded. He'd been on the lookout for copies, too, and like Sephiroth, he hadn't spotted any. Their crazy crisscrossing all over the Eastern Continent hadn't yielded any results aside from keeping them off Shin-Ra's radar. Which, of course, was also of critical importance for them.
"Maybe we should let word get out that you've been spotted," Zack said thoughtfully. "That might draw him out."
"It would also draw out Shin-Ra. Turks at the very least." Sephiroth was silent for a few moments. "Rocket Town might not be a bad destination, after all. It has advanced technology like Junon," he mused. "They have a highly scientific and engineering population to maintain. They'll have excellent, well-stocked medical facilities we can raid. It might be a good place for Hollander to set up a secret lab."
"But I told the townsfolk back at Emmie's Last Chance that's where I was heading! Besides, Shin-Ra's got a large presence there, with all that space technology they're developing. Hollander won't be hiding there."
"He might. He's arrogant enough. He and Genesis were parked right under Shin-Ra's nose in Reactor Five in Midgar, remember?"
Zack remembered. He nodded slowly. "That was when they had Lazard covering up their activities, though. That's not the case anymore. Rocket Town's a bad idea."
"The city itself and its nearby settlements are a terrible idea," Sephiroth acknowledged, "but I doubt Genesis and Hollander would be in the heart of that location. It's more likely they'd be somewhere away from it but still in the wider area, perhaps hidden in a cave or an abandoned coal mine in the north Corel region. It would have to be someplace within reasonable flying distance of Rocket Town for Genesis or his copies."
Zack wondered what exactly a "reasonable flying distance" was for mutated, one-winged men. "That's also a direct shot to Nibelheim as the crow flies, where they last took a mako pod! It makes sense, doesn't it? We know they were in Nibelheim not too long ago. Them staying on the Western Continent would explain why we haven't seen any trace of them." It did make sense, he told himself. It seemed so obvious, but then again, Genesis and Hollander had traversed much of the globe in the past couple years. Maybe it wasn't a perfect solution, but it was worth checking out.
"Yes. Given our logic, the Western Continent seems more likely than Wutai, the Northern Continent, or the Mideel Islands." Sephiroth treated Zack to a rare smile. "I believe we should go to Costa, after all. We can work out the details before we embark on any ships." Sephiroth patted the container. "For now, just head for the mountains. I need some time to think." He grimaced then, unhappiness in every crease of his sour expression. "It'll also give me time to dye my hair. Stop laughing at me, Angeal."
Zack didn't comment. He kept his gaze on the road and concentrated on driving.