Chaotic Iteration
Until very recently Sephiroth had been largely indifferent to the petty scheming and backstabbing that went on both in the boardroom and outside it between the department directors. Except on those rare occasions when their latest plot directly affected him or his SOLDIERs, the Silver General was happy to just let them be. Of course, if their scheme did require something from him he did his best to shoot it down; Lazard was a great help there, as he was Director of SOLDIER and did not like seeing his people pushed around any more than Sephiroth did.
But now Sephiroth had had his eyes opened to the painful truth that even petty boardroom politics sent out ripples that affected all employees of ShinRa and even the most innocuous-seeming piece of trivia could come back and bite him later. Especially when the Science Department and their ludicrously huge budget were involved. This revelation had left the Silver General with a feeling of dissatisfaction that lingered unpleasantly in his chest and a vague desire to cut down those responsible for his discomfort.
He hadn't killed anyone as yet, but the temptation to do so was rising daily and he made it abundantly clear to those seeking his advice, approval or support that he was very much not in the mood for dealing with people who acted like toddlers squabbling over a favourite toy.
Not that he had any first-hand experience with small children, but they couldn't possibly be worse than Scarlet and Heidegger.
His simmering anger at Hojo and Hollander in particular for creating Project J and its successors and at President Shinra himself for financing their delusional egomania could not be channelled elsewhere with Genesis unavailable to spar and Angeal moping, so Sephiroth growled and brooded and grew steadily closer to boiling over as the days went by. He wanted to talk with Valentine, but she was busy ensuring Genesis wasn't going to die. Not that he begrudged the redhead his continued existence, but she was Sephiroth's mother and he'd barely spent a day with her yet.
The Silver General wanted to pound someone into the ground and have a good long fight, but there just wasn't anyone in SOLDIER who could match him. He was starting to seriously consider going up to the Science Department and trashing the place on principle one afternoon when Zack's energetic pounding resonated through his office door for a few seconds before driving it open. Sephiroth raised a chilly eyebrow at the intruder.
"What is it now, lieutenant Fair?"
Zack took a deep breath and looked Sephiroth in the eye, grim determination resonating through his entire being. "The past week has been an absolute nightmare for everyone, especially the third-classes and the Security Department. They're all terrified you're going to kill them for some imagined mistake. The second-classes aren't much better and most of the first-classes are quietly taking missions a long way away from Midgar. It's got to the point that I'm the only one whose willing to even knock on your door at the moment. So, I've decided you need a buffer between you and whatever is setting you off. Lazard agrees with me and we've found you an aide to assist you for a while. Hopefully you'll manage to get your temper back under control in a few months so we can reassign him."
The Silver General was about to say something about how the Director could mind his own damn business when a familiar defiant-haired blond in a dark suit stepped out from behind the SOLDIER second-class. Sepiroth paused as he realised that his new aide was none other than the intriguing Cloud Strife.
"Hello, Seph," Cloud said cheekily. "Didn't you know that terrorising the hired help just makes them less helpful? They're too busy concentrating on staying alive to do as they're told."
The Silver General pierced the impertinent blond with an icy stare. Or at least he tried to; Cloud seemed oblivious to the atmosphere.
"Zack mentioned you were scaring even your toughest minions," Cloud went on blandly, face grave and concerned, "so I thought, why don't I infiltrate the company and make sure Sephiroth is okay? After all he seemed nice enough when I made breakfast for him and his friends last week and it would be kinda sad for him to get into trouble while my mentor's off nursing the ginger whinger back to health. So here I am. Zack helped me buy a suit and Lazard handed over ID cards no questions asked when my eager friend here said he had a possible way to keep you from going further off your rocker."
Zack had stuffed his fist into his mouth and started shaking helplessly with mirth when Cloud had referred to Genesis with the utterly disrespectful nickname of 'ginger whinger' and even Sephiroth himself felt his lips twitching at how the flamboyant redhead would react if he knew what he had just been called.
"Zack, go drag your brooding mentor out of his office and get him to pound some hand-to-hand into you in the simulation room, okay?" Cloud said, firmly shooing the still-giggling second-class out of Sephiroth's office. "I'll take it from here."
Angeal's protégé left. The Silver General stared hard at the charismatic and irreverent little menace who'd just waltzed into his office and taken over, not quite believing that the last five minutes had actually happened. He'd just been chewed out by Zack of all people then Cloud had thrown everything off kilter.
"Let me spell this out for you," the blond said coolly, his face split by a frankly disturbing grin. "I am not working for you so you can't fire or reassign me. I am not a part of SOLDIER as yet so I am not obliged to follow your orders. If you kill me Vincent will be seriously displeased, not to mention disappointed in your lack of self-control. I'm here because I'm worried about you. You've terrorised the entire building into running at half its usual speed and have nothing productive to do with your time. You need to blow off steam and relax a little. So you are going to prank the Science Department."
Sephiroth stared. He had not just heard that. "Prank?"
Cloud smirked. "I am assigning you a tactical exercise, my dear General. You are to remove and conceal the Science Department's entire stock of syringes without anyone realising you are the perpetrator. They must be without needles for a twenty-four hour period for the exercise to be deemed successful. You may recruit whoever you wish to assist you, but be aware that having allies means there is a greater chance of your scheme being discovered."
Almost against his will, the Silver General felt his mind processing the challenge. It was audacious, complex and would require exquisite timing and consummate skill. It was also utterly ridiculous and would send Hojo off in a tizzy as he tried to process what had been done to him. Sephiroth slowly leaned back in his chair and relaxed, eyes unfocussing as he began thinking up strategies and discarding ideas.
As he pondered the situation Cloud began swiftly shuffling through the paperwork on the General's desk and dividing it by subject or provenance. It was all internal to SOLDIER rather than the interdepartmental issues Lazard had to deal with, but it was still something of a variety including both the mundane and the peculiar.
"Cloud?" Sephiroth asked thoughtfully, "How does one go about preventing new shipments of hypodermics?"
"By hacking into the database and erasing the latest order," the blond said. "I recommend you find a Turk with a sense of humour and the ultimate poker face; I'll be too busy liaising to assist you. I also suggest finding a way into the Science Department so you can raid their stock while most of the personnel is off the clock and messing with the security cameras. Again, find a good Turk or hunt down the emergency access codes."
The Silver General smiled the smile he'd inherited from his mother, the one that Vincent Valentine had most recently worn just before utterly humiliating eight veteran Turks though a series of embarrassing accidents, incidents and coincidences. It was the smile that said her enemies would suffer unspeakable horrors while she laughed at their humiliation. On Sephiroth's face it looked no less scary than on its original owner's.
Rude was a very efficient Turk. His naturally stoic demeanour led most people to overlook him, either automatically blanking him out or simply ignoring him since he rarely even attempted to interact with others. Most believed he lacked any kind of personality at all, but the truth was that Rude was rather shy. He didn't like talking or participating in group activities much, though he was an exceptional listener.
Getting cornered by General Sephiroth in the elevator, dragged into Genesis' office and asked to assist in a 'surgical strike' was therefore rather surprising for the even-tempered Turk. Rude was even more surprised when he discovered the rather peculiar nature of the raid being planned, but found himself oddly disinclined to back out. Sephiroth's words, that no-one would ever suspect him of being involved in something this ridiculous, coupled with the General's gleefully off-kilter smile, woke the part of Rude that gave him the potential to become a truly brilliant Turk. Yes, the plan was silly and bizarre and complex, but it was a challenge. A real challenge with very real risks.
Behind his dark sunglasses Rude's eyes gleamed...
Both the Security Department and SOLDIER breathed a collective sigh of relief as Sephiroth's volatile mood cooled and eventually evaporated completely over the next few days. All soon realised this change for the better was due to the Silver General's smartly dressed shadow, who ran errands, took messages and transferred paperwork with zealous efficiency. The boy looked about twelve, his spiky hair a golden beacon as he hurried back and forth, yet was unafraid to meet every last Mako-bright eye in the building including that of Sephiroth himself. Strife could calm the Silver General down with a hand on the older man's arm and a sly, sideways glance that seemed somehow to get Sephiroth to take a breath and back off a little, for which every last person in the building -with the possible exception of the board members- was thankful for: It was no longer necessary to live each day on high alert.
The inexplicable rash of childish pranks, outlandish mixups and minor mysteries that plagued the company for almost a month thereafter was the subject of much talk and speculation among everyone in the building. However only the ever-observant second-class Kunsel noticed the suspiciously bland expressions of General Sephiroth and his delicate aide when Scarlet raved furiously about getting a shipment of licorice rather than wires, when Hojo almost had apoplexy when one of his Mako tanks was replaced by an identical tank full of green sugar syrup, when the Turks all went around in lurid floral shirts for a day and when Hollander's notes were somehow switched with biscuit recipes.
Sephiroth was personally proudest of the sugar syrup incident; it had taken a lot of hard work to pull off and had been entirely his own idea from start to finish.
Because Cloud is an evil genius and Sephiroth needs to live a little. And because Rude is just that cool.
