Chaos Babe, Lifestream -and Mako- is made of dead people. So the voices Cloud hears cannot be from people who are still alive. Rest assured however that he is hearing very interesting dead people with future relevance to the plot.

Now, on with the show!

Unequal Probabilities

Zack sat in the helicopter opposite the Turk Lazard had introduced him to earlier that morning. Tseng didn't seem all that bad for a blue-suit, but the mission was weighing on his nerves. For one, it was supposed to have been Seph's mission but the Silver General had exercised his little-used right of refusal, preferring to dodge fanatical Wutai guerrillas in the jungle rather than stroll through Angeal's home village and try and coax the Dark General back into the fold. Considering how close the three Generals had been before this mess got started, that refusal bothered Zack. Lazard also seemed concerned that the Turks who had been dispatched to investigate previously had disappeared. Which, come to think of it, was also disconcerting. Turks were not pushovers.

The second-class sighed, leaning his head back against his seat. At least he'd get a chance to see his mentor's hometown and the dumbapples Angeal had told him about while they were waiting to attack Fort Tamblin.


Shortly after landing Zack and Tseng were attacked by a pair of the weird, animalistic SOLDIERs he'd first seen in Wutai, the ones Sephiroth had called 'Dead Men'. When Zack had asked why the Silver General had explained that all three of the SOLDIERs whose bodies they'd found had been reported among the casualties of the Wutai war between two and five years previously. The very recently killed men had been among those reported KIA rather than MIA and had supposedly been long dead. Zack had had difficulty suppressing the urge to crack a zombie joke.

Defeating the two SOLDIERs was pretty easy, but destroying the robot accompanying them had been considerably harder. After the fight was over and the machine trashed Tseng identified it as having been stolen from the science department. The second-class personally thought murderous robots were more Scarlet's thing than Hojo's; he'd spent the past month since getting back from Wutai going on missions for the science department. He'd had to go all over the planet killing rampaging monsters and chasing down rumours of newly emerged species. He'd got a lot of new items for Materia Fusion for his efforts but rather than use them himself he'd chosen to sell them to his fellow SOLDIERs: Cloud had spoiled him for manufactured Materia and he only used natural ones now. Zack had found the little shop down in Sector Seven of the slums that sold natural Materia and totally made the owner's day by buying half his stock with the money he'd made selling the spoils of his missions.

The new Materia were fun to play with: he'd already got himself an MP Plus and an HP Plus while on a mission in Mideel -Shiva those had been expensive- so he had treated himself to two new Elemental Materia, a Seal and a Poison. He'd also been fortunate enough to find a Slash-All in the Materia cave in Nibelhiem Cloud had told him about when he did a couple of missions up there. The chocobo-blond had also been dead-on the money when he warned Zack that the fauna around his home village was nasty. These purchases and discoveries had brought his Materia arsenal up to thirteen with his Fire, Cure, Barrier, Sense, the Elemental he'd had already and the Throw Cloud had given him that had kick-started the new trend. Not even one of them was mastered yet but the second-class was getting there.


As Tseng led the way through the surprisingly silent village of Banora towards the fanciest house they could see Zack had to dispatch another three Dead Men Walking, which led to Tseng asking why he'd called them that. The second-class repeated the explanation Sephiroth had given him, which got a long and thoughtful silence out of the Turk.

The house had a fresh grave outside it under a nearby tree, which Tseng investigated while Zack checked the building's interior. It didn't take the SOLDIER long: it was completely deserted and even the cupboards had been stripped bare of food and supplies. Wandering back outside, Zack learnt that the grave contained the bodies of Genesis' parents. The idea that the Crimson General had killed his own father and mother was deeply disturbing, making Zack seriously wonder about the implications of Cloud's belief that Genesis had been rescuing his younger siblings from a lab. If that was the case, had Genesis' parents just handed over their younger children to the ShinRa science department?

Seeing that visiting Genesis' house had been unproductive, Tseng suggested Zack find Angeal's home and see if he was in. The second-class did find the right house, but the only person there was the Dark General's mother, Gillian Hewley.

The visit with Angeal's mother was both a little awkward and fairly uninformative. Zack suffered the indignity of having a total stranger call him a puppy and learnt right off that Angeal had written home and told his mother that his student had absolutely no attention span. Next he found out that, while Angeal had been there and was certainly in the area somewhere, he wasn't in right now. His massive sword was, though: Gillian Hewley described the Buster Blade as being 'the symbol of our family honour', which meshed with what Angeal had told him about it. More unpleasantly, she told Zack that Genesis had killed off the rest of the villagers. The SOLDIER recommended that she leave Banora for her own safety, but Gillian assured the second-class that Genesis wouldn't kill her. Zack's final observation on leaving the house was that Angeal looked quite a lot like his mother, though the Dark General had never seemed to be as passive as his mother was.

Walking across the village square, Zack found Tseng again and the two made their way to the only building in the area yet to be explored: the Banora apple juice factory.


Zack had not been expecting to find Genesis in the back of the factory. The Crimson General was lounging on the floor under a window and reading LOVELESS out loud to a fifteen-year-old girl with deep red hair, an equally red SOLDIER-style uniform with the trousers tucked into black knee boots and a slightly softer and more feminine version of Genesis' face.

"Aren't you a noisy one, Zack the puppy," Genesis said languidly, closing his book and putting it away inside his coat. The girl leaning over the General's shoulder giggled at the nickname, her girlish glee in stark contrast to the wary way her eyes never strayed from Zack's centre of mass. She was expecting to be attacked; it was oddly disheartening to be seen as a threat by a cute girl.

Tseng, having heard the conversation, dashed into the back room area where Zack had found the two fugitives and went over to the large, old-fashioned Mako tank set up by one wall. It contained another of the oddly dressed Dead Men. The Turk then accused Genesis of killing the two of his subordinates who had been investigating in the village. The Crimson General waved off the accusation calmly, insinuating that Tseng was misinformed. Zack then berated Genesis for having murdered his parents, which got more of a reaction: The Crimson General rose to his feet, the girl moving to hide behind him as her eyes flicked from the Turk to Zack and back again as her fingers twitched at her right hip.

Genesis coolly informed his accusers that 'those two' had betrayed him one time too many, then angrily blasted Tseng with a fire spell.

Zack instantly drew his sword but had it wrenched from his hand by Angeal as the Dark General charged in, placing himself in front of the second-class and facing Genesis and the girl. Genesis immediately smiled at the brunet first-class:

"Hey there, cousin."

Zack's eyes widened as his brain kicked into high gear. Cousin? He'd thought these two were just childhood friends, a rich kid and a poor one in the same village with no other children their age. How on earth could they be related?

Angeal raised Zack's sword defensively and the redheaded General rolled his eyes. "I'm not about to kill your puppy, Angeal. I will understand if this is your final decision -I have known you all my life- but do think it through." The Crimson General wrapped a gentle arm around the shoulders of the girl lurking behind him and gently led her past Angeal and Zack out towards the factory doors: "Are you sure you can live in that kind of world?"

As the girl glanced across at Zack in passing him she met his eyes with a fierce glare for a slip second and the second-class felt like he'd been hit around the head with a sledgehammer. She was gorgeous! Timid as a wild chocobo and fierce as a griffon all in a very shapely red package. He'd never seen a girl like her before in his life.

The second-class shook off his stupor as Angeal lowered Zack's sword. "Angeal-"

The Dark General did not say a word, shoving Zack roughly across the room and embedding the sword in the factory floor before turning his back and stalking away.


Poor, poor Zack. He's having his head messed with by people who should know better. Plus, Rosso makes her debut! On a more practical note, I love that YouTube has the story-bits of Crisis Core! It makes plotting so much easier.

Yes, it is indeed an 'evil' cliffhanger. Review generously and I won't make you wait too long for the second half.