Polarisation

After first checking Tseng was still alive and casting Cure on him Zack ran after his mentor through the deserted village. He followed the older SOLDIER's tracks to the Dark General's house and threw open the door, only to freeze on the threshold in shock: Gillian Hewley lay sprawled across the floor, dead. Stumbling further inside, Zack turned to see Angeal standing a little to one side of the doorway, Buster sword in hand, staring down at his mother's corpse with empty eyes.

Zack remembered what Genesis had done to his parents, looked from the corpse on the floor to the drawn sword in Angeal's hand and came to a very upsetting conclusion. He lunged at his mentor, grabbing the front of the older man's uniform and slamming him into the wall:

"How could you do that? How the hell could you have even considered doing that? What is wrong with you? Why?"

Angeal did not fight back at all, further convincing Zack of the Dark General's guilt. With a roar of rage and hurt he yanked his mentor around and punched him in the face, launching him out of the cottage to land on his back in the dust.

"Is this what your damn honour is about?" Zack screamed. It hurt to see how far his beloved mentor had fallen.

Angeal slowly climbed back to his feet. "My mother no longer had anything left to live for," he said flatly, "and I feel much as she did."

"What is that supposed to mean? Explain yourself!" Zack screamed from the doorway.

"Didn't I tell you already?" Genesis said, stepping into view on the left-hand side of the door frame. "He can't live that way anymore."

Across the dirt from the front of the cottage, next to one of the irrigation windmills, Angeal slung the Buster sword onto its usual place on his back and trudged away, steps heavy. Zack tried to run after his mentor but Genesis stuck out a foot, sending the second-class sprawling on his face in the dirt.

"Angeal!" Zack shouted desperately. He needed to know why this was happening? Why was he being abandoned?

"My friend, do you fly away now?" Genesis quoted with a half-smile as Angeal vanished out of sight between the buildings of the tiny village. "To a world that abhors you and I?"

"Shut up!" Zack yelled at the Crimson General.

"All that awaits you is a sombre morrow-" Genesis went on undeterred, stepping away from the wall of the cottage towards Zack and coincidentally moving in front of the fifteen-year-old in the pseudo-SOLDIER uniform who was still following at the General's heels.

"I said shut up!" Zack shouted over the quote, scrambling to his feet. Angeal was leaving and Genesis was reciting LOVELESS at him!

"-no matter where the winds may blow." the Crimson General finished, waving a gloved hand theatrically with a patronising smirk on his face. "It seems Sephiroth didn't come," the redhead went on, a spell coalescing around his left hand. "I wonder why that is?"

Zack barely had a chance to recognise the Spell as a summons before light flared and Bahamut was bearing down on him.


The next ten minutes were very sticky indeed; Zack had lost a fight against Ifrit, a much weaker summon, just six weeks ago and had needed to be rescued by Sephiroth. The second-class frantically cast spells at the dragon, inordinately grateful for the new Materia he had equipped boosting his stats and that natural Materia really did cast Spells faster. In the end the SOLDIER had to pull out a Limit Break to win the confrontation, using a Chain Slash to finish off the summons.

"What the hell was that about, attacking me with a summons!" Zack yelled as soon as Bahamut dissipated. "Where's your SOLDIER honour?"

Genesis turned away so that his back faced Zack, the girl standing in front of the General and sneaking glimpses over his shoulder at the second-class. "We are not SOLDIERs any longer;" the Crimson General said softly as a truly massive pair of black wings sprouted from the back of his his shoulders, "only monsters have these. We no longer have dreams or honour. Rosso, come."

The girl stepped closer and Genesis wrapped his arms around her and leapt skywards, vanishing into the distance with the fifteen-year-old -was Rosso her name?- in his arms, leaving behind only a flurry of feathers to mark his passing. Zack caught one of them, turning it over between his fingers. There were a lot of griffins around Gonaga, the second-class' own home town, and they had feathers like this.

"SOLDIERS are not monsters," he muttered to himself, wishing he sounded more convincing. Genesis had wings and Seph had claws and cat eyes; was Angeal hiding something similar? Would more SOLDIERs be going through changes like those?

His PHS rang, jerking him from his reverie. Startled, Zack dropped the feather and fished the phone out of a pocket. "Hello?"

"Zack." It was Tseng; apparently he'd recovered. "ShinRa had originally intended to bomb Banora to hide the evidence of Genesis' presence here, but it turned out that the apple orchards belong to a very wealthy land owning family who objected to billions of gil's worth of lost revenue and pressured the company into refraining. Instead the Security Department is flying in a squad of demolition specialists to bring down all the man-made structures. Get to the edge of the village so I can order the helicopter to collect you."

"Coming," Zack sighed, hurrying off back the way he'd come this morning. Today had not been a good day. Other than getting to see the loveliest girl ever, that is; that she was probably Genesis' little sister was definitely another of the day's low points.

As the helicopter touched down Zack turned to look at the arching dumbapple trees one last time; there was almost zero chance of him getting sent out here on a mission again, ever.


Shortly after Zack's return to Midgar ShinRa in its dubious wisdom declared General Genesis Rhapsodos and General Angeal Hewley killed in action. The second-class didn't really care; he knew it was a lie, a coverup to hide from the public the unpleasant reality that two of the company's top SOLDIERs had deserted.

Zack himself spent most of the next two months chasing Genesis' army of Dead Men all across the planet, killing hundreds of animalistic SOLDIERs, a small number of more human ones and wrecking dozens of stolen ShinRa machines. Many of the Dead Men were on closer examination not reported KIA SOLDIERS but former Security Forces, auxiliaries -of both genders- and military police. It seemed that the actual ShinRa casualties in the Wutai war had only been half of what had actually been reported, if that. It depressed Zack that all these people had been spirited away from the battlefields and turned into mindless monsters.

The second-class still wasn't sure if he believed Genesis was a monster or not. The Crimson General had certainly behaved cruelly towards Zack and Tseng in Banora but he'd never once stopped protecting the girl with him. Rosso, he'd called her. Zack had been unable to put her out of his mind. She was beautiful and skittish and fierce and he was hoping desperately he'd get a chance to see her again.

Which really, really did not help resolve his inner confusion. Zack wished he could talk to Cloud about it, but the chocobo-blond was still out on the front in Wutai -though not for much longer if Kunsel was right- and he really didn't feel like explaining the situation over a phonecall.


The second half of the Banora confrontation, as seen by Zackary Fair. So many easily solved problems arise out of a lack of communication. On a lighter note, did anyone else notice that all of Zack's canon crushes are redheads?