Two hundred reviews! You guys totally rock!

Hidden Variables

Weiss Valentine sat halfway up a tree, idly swinging his feet back and forth, eyes closed as he soaked up the feeling of sunlight on his face and the way the wind ruffled his spiky white hair. Forty-six days ago he had been a prisoner and a test subject, unable to even protect himself, let alone his precious siblings. Now however he was free. Free to see the sky, free to try new foods and wear new clothes, free from painful injections, countless tests, the whims of the Restrictors and being forced to kill fellow prisoners. Genesis, his older brother, had rescued them all, invading Deepground, slaughtering every single Restrictor and evacuating every last prisoner and test subject in the complex. But even though everyone had been rescued only he, Rosso and Nero had been allowed to go with the Crimson General when he left. Everyone else had been divided up into squads and placed under the command of Genesis' renegade SOLDIER following and some of the newer, saner, test subjects.

Genesis had said that Weiss and his two siblings were part of his family, so they should all stay with him and get to meet the others. They hadn't met everyone yet -General Sephiroth had yet to make an appearance, as did the 'Cloud' they all talked about at times- but the ones they had met were, well... odd. Not bad, just different to what Weiss was used to.

First there was Genesis himself, bright, loud and charismatic. The Crimson General loved to be at the centre of attention but Weiss had learnt that he had a hidden side to him as well which emerged only in private, such as after he had slain his foster parents. The white-haired teen had lain on the roof of their farmhouse-hideout and listened as his big brother screamed, threw things, ranted and finally cried. The ranting had been fairly informative: Genesis' foster parents had been embezzling his inheritance, siphoning off Valentine money. The entire village of Banora belonged to the collective Valentine family and Genesis' biological father had entrusted its management to the General's foster parents so he would be properly provided for both as a child and when he reached adulthood. Unfortunately Genesis' careers had preferred to keep the money for private ventures rather than invest in the well-being of the village; Banora didn't even have a general store. Even worse, Genesis had never been told -as was his right- that he owned the village and had a massive amount of gil at his disposal.

But what actually set off the Crimson General's powder-keg of a temper was that his foster parents, the people who had raised him, had tried to report Rosso to ShinRa on the pretext that she was 'a bad influence'. That, Weiss deduced, was the real reason he'd killed them rather than just arranged for Vincent to abduct, bribe, drug and rehouse them like the highly capable Turk had done to the rest of the civilians. The only reason his new cousin hadn't done that for Angeal's mother was that her JENOVA cells made it impossible. The white-haired former Deepgrounder decided Genesis' foster parents had deserved their deaths, shrugged off what he had learned and forgot about it.


Weiss was glad Genesis was protecting Rosso; his lively older sister had been getting increasingly fragile over the past year in Deepground and after the rescue had stuck to Genesis' heels like glue, only leaving his side for important private meetings or to do 'girl things' with little Shelke. Weiss had learned that Rosso loved staring up at the blue bowl of the sky, loved LOVELESS, especially when Genesis read it to her, loved eating the purple dumbapples their big brother had introduced them all to and more then anything else loved to fly. She begged and coaxed a ride out of Genesis at least once a day, whooping and laughing as he looped the loop, dived and soared with her in his arms. Weiss thought his big brother ran extra risks flying with her because he loved the attention she showered on him.

All Rosso's new likes were very newly discovered and she never wasted a chance to try any of them, which generally required she dog her older brother's heels all hours of the day. Genesis didn't seem to mind, taking the teenager on flights when there was nothing else that needed doing, picking apples with her and reading or reciting bits of LOVELESS to her. Weiss knew his sister needed the attention to stabilise her but he still -selfishly- wished he could spend as much time as she did with their older brother.

Weiss also missed Nero's constant company; his black-haired, red-eyed little brother had been instantly drawn to their cousin Vincent, the presumed-dead Turk who was actually a woman. Initially Nero had been fascinated by their strikingly similar colouring, then he had discovered that his peculiar dark powers were derived from Chaos, the enigmatic being imprisoned within their cousin's flesh. Chaos had offered to teach 'little shade' how to use and control his powers properly and the thirteen-year-old had not hesitated for long before accepting. As a result Nero spent most of his time either with Vincent or practising on his own. Weiss had noticed how much in common his baby brother had with the Turk, far more than just their colouring: both were sharpshooters, though Nero was only starting to learn, both were quiet, deep and slow to anger, both were inclined towards minimalism rather than the flamboyance both Genesis and Rosso enjoyed and both were fiercely, viciously protective.

The white-haired fourteen-year-old had witnessed the degree of Vincent's protective streak first-hand: he'd been sprawled out on the dirt floor of the farthest barn one afternoon, watching ants. The tiny insects fascinated him, so simple yet so highly organised. He'd been totally absorbed when a faint, choking gurgle reached his ears. Looking up and across to the half-open sliding door he's seen his red-eyed cousin coolly garotting a struggling Turk that the teen belatedly realised must have been watching him. Weiss was no stranger to death -he'd killed and seen people die all his life- but that afternoon had been the first time anyone had ever killed in cold blood for him personally. Vincent's calm dispatching of the snooper and speedy disposal of the blue-suited corpse had given Weiss a strange warm feeling of safety in his gut. That his cousin had been watching out for him in spite of her other responsibilities helped temper his jealousy of Nero's special treatment. After all, his little brother needed to learn control; Weiss did not.


As his siblings were mainly too busy with their own projects to seek him out Weiss spent most of his time -unless he wanted to be alone- with Shelke, the little girl who had almost become a Deepgrounder. The nine-year-old knew a great deal about people and the planet in general and was very mature for her age, which she explained was a result of borrowing memories from Cloud, the boy who had rescued her. Weiss asked her hundreds of questions about absolutely everything, totally unashamed of his ignorance and hunger for knowledge, and repaid her diligent explanations with combat lessons and absolutely everything he'd ever tried or heard of being done when Synaptic Net Diving. That last subject was their common ground, one that was often returned to and discussed in minute detail. The littlest redhead was weak and slow in a fight compared to the rest of the Mako-enhanced family but her technique was improving and her Materia skills were adequate.

Weiss spent hours at a time just listening to her describe the slums of Midgar, fixing the details in his mind just in case he ever ended up there. Her memories of the rest of the Planet were second-hand, but they were still repeated, dissected and memorised for later. Knowledge was power. The teen knew they all owed Shelke; the nine-year-old had fried the control chip in his head so that the auxiliary field surgeon rescued from the labs could extract it safely. There had been a remote-operated suicide switch on the foul thing and having a slowly healing slot in his skull and staples in his scalp for a week was a small price to pay for genuine freedom.

The only relative neither he nor his siblings got along with was their cousin Angeal. The Dark General was quiet and conflicted, rarely talked to them and his facial expressions were often at odds with his words and tone. As a result Weiss avoided him whenever possible and he suspected his sister and younger brother did the same. The brunet SOLDIER had several long, occasionally heated talks with his older sister Vincent and visited his mother on various occasions, but he always seemed less at peace with himself after returning from the village. Weiss had eventually approached Vincent in private to ask about the Dark General; he needed to know if Angeal was a threat to his siblings or not.

Vincent had led Weiss out of the house and a good distance away across a field before explaining things. "Weiss, little light, Angeal is struggling to reconcile two very different value systems," his red-eyed avatar of a cousin said with a sigh. "His mother has trained him all his life to behave honourably, to not shame his family, to uphold his dreams and SOLDIER duties to the bitter end. Then he discovered that he had another family, his father's family, who have a very different set of values to follow. Valentines are much more pragmatic: we put family before everything else. If in doubt, protect those you love and let the rest go hang. Angeal feels the need to follow those values as he sees himself as a Valentine as much as a Hewley but the two systems conflict.

"Worse, he has learnt that the so-called 'SOLDIER values' he has worked so hard to follow are not being upheld by the company, which instead prefers to abuse and exploit those who follow the rules. The rest of us Valentines are adapting to our new situation much more easily as we are willing to forsake honour to get things done. Angeal can't; he has spent too much of his life on his current path to simply abandon it now. It defines him as a person. However the conflict will continue to eat away at him until he makes his choice and defines his own path, whatever that may be."

"Can't you just tell him which one he should pick?" It seemed obvious to Weiss which set of values worked better. Angeal's brand of honour just got you walked over by people like President Shinra, bastard that he was.

"Part of being free is the right to choose for yourself what to do with your life, which goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for your mistakes and learning from them," Vincent informed him calmly, "which is why I warned you about the perils of climbing trees rather than forbidding you from doing it."

It had been very good advice, Weiss now really did know; he would never have guessed how very different it was climbing living things rather than concrete and steel. He;d retreated to the orchard after Angeal marched through the farmhouse-hideout and quietly locked himself in his room almost an hour ago. Vincent had let the brooding General be until Genesis got back with Rosso and told the Turk what had happened. Vincent had listened, asking for clarification once or twice, then gone and broken down Angeal's door and deliberately and calmly provoked the Dark General into completely losing his composure. The shouting and flying fists had been very impressive, but not as impressive as his red-eyed cousin's dodging skills. Weiss had only retreated to the branches of a tree once Angeal stopped fighting and started to cry.

Freedom, it would seem, was more difficult than it looked.


Weiss, because he is cool. Plus, insight! I hope this clears up some of the emotional morass that was the previous two chapters.

This is going up early as I have to go out early -GMT time- and can't put it up later.