Information Theory

Genesis had been having a reasonably good day. The Invade-Midgar-as-a-distraction operation had proceeded smoothly despite Shelke calling them half an hour early: being a General in Wutai had taught him to make sure there was enough redundancy built into his strategies so that it was possible to adapt to unexpected changes. As a result all his troupes had already been in place when the girl's message arrived and minutes later the Plate had been crawling with Deepgrounders. The Crimson General had not participated personally in any of the fights panning out in the streets, preferring to fly high above the fray and keep an eye out for any of the major players.

He only landed when he spotted Hollander running into the Sector Five reactor, which he should not have left in the first place. The professor was supposedly being guarded by Angeal, but it seemed the Dark General had not yet recovered from the shock of his mother's suicide. Vincent was doing what she could to help him, but Angeal had been having nightmares, had retreated from reality and was often both broody and dangerously oblivious of his surroundings. Genesis personally thought his best friend needed a good pounding to set his priorities straight but kept his opinions to himself. It had only been three months and two weeks since Gillian Hewley took her own life; if Angeal was still depressed in three months time he'd take more drastic measures.

Sephiroth arrived at the Mako reactor shortly after Hollander, prompting the Crimson General to move off the building's flat roof and into the structure through an unfinished wall. His plans needed Hollander to remain alive for a little while longer, so he had to keep the idiot professor out of ShinRa's clutches, which in this case included Sephiroth.

Genesis located Hollander and shadowed him inconspicuously until the scientist stumbled across Sephiroth and Zack while looking for his notes. Rolling his eyes at the professor's ineptitude, the Crimson General dropped into the escalating confrontation from his perch in the rafters and held Sephiroth at sword-point. He let Zack chase after the panicking Hollander; the scientist would run to wherever Angeal was currently moping and the puppy would be distracted enough by his mentor's gloom and doom to ensure the professor's escape.

Once Zack had left the room Genesis let his Rapier drop away from Sephiroth's throat and smiled. "There is no hate, only joy, For you are beloved by the Goddess, Hero of the dawn, Healer of Worlds."

"LOVELESS again? You never change. What are you trying to achieve here, Genesis?" the Silver General asked.

The redhead smirked. "The three friends are now gathered. One becomes the prisoner, another flies away while the last remaining friend becomes the hero."

Sephiroth sighed, pupils thin slits. "What is it with you and that play?"

"It is a prophesy: Chaos told me so," Genesis retorted. "We seem to fit the pattern; which of us is the hero, I wonder?" He did so love getting into heated debates with his silver-haired colleague. "I want to know what the gift of the Goddess truly is, and when the prophesy will finally come to pass."

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at the vibrant, black-winged, red-coated General opposite him. "You can be the hero if you like; the role holds no pleasure for me. You are investigating the end of days?"

Genesis shrugged. "It passes the time, which I now have a great deal of. By the way, Hollander is being funded by a third party; dear cousin Vincent suspects Lazard to be embezzling Company funds on the professor's behalf. You may yet find yourself confined to desk duty if his activities are discovered."

The Silver General growled, sounding quite disturbingly dragon-like for a moment. Genesis didn't blame him; paperwork was of the devil. "Oh, and how is Cloud doing? He won't tell me."

"Very well indeed: his broadsword competence in increasing daily, he completes his missions efficiently and his behaviour is exemplary," Sephiroth replied rather smugly. "Well, his documented behaviour is exemplary at least."

"And what of his undocumented behaviour?" Genesis inquired with a suggestive twitch of an eyebrow.

The Silver General's smug expression bloomed into a disturbingly evil grin. "The Turks are all instinctively nervous of him, and they are getting constantly twitchier as they cannot find a single shred of proof to support their suspicions. It is a joy to watch."

Genesis sniggered, then froze. Something wasn't right...

"Excuse me, little cousin: I think Angeal may be having another meltdown."

Sephiroth waved a hand agreeably and the Crimson General took off, weaving through the rafters towards the lower floor area where his best fried had been lurking. He arrived at the top of the stairs just in time to hear an explosion and see his little sister and Angeal's puppy drop into a ventilation duct along with the gratings that were supposed to prevent this kind of accident from happening.

"Rosso!" Genesis bellowed, diving after them.


The interior of the Plate was highly inhospitable and very hard to manoeuvre in when you had a wingspan of over thirty feet and were carrying a teenage girl and a fully armed and unconscious SOLDIER taller than you were. Fortunately Genesis managed to catch Zack and Rosso before they did themselves any serious damage, although the puppy's seeping head wound did not look good.

After at least an hour of controlled falling and bouncing between support beams in confined spaces with his arms full the Crimson General finally dropped through the bottom of the Plate and instinctively spread his wings wide to slow their fall. Unfortunately the excess weight he was carrying meant that, while he was able to go from a plummet to an almost-glide, he was unable to prevent them from tumbling through the hole in the roof of the building below their exit point.

Flapping heavily, Genesis managed to land on his feet rather than slam into the floor, which he counted as a win. After letting Rosso down and laying out Zack on the worn floorboards the Crimson General looked around to get a feel for where they'd ended up.

It was a church, a very old and dilapidated one that still had pews in rows as well as a chunk of floor pulled up near the altar. In the patch of ground exposed by the torn-up boards flowers grew, beautiful gold and white blossoms nodding on lush green stems. Genesis had never seen flowers growing wild anywhere in Midgar before, even on the Plate. Finding a patch of sweet-smelling paradise in the Slums was surreal.

"Dad?" Rosso quavered. Genesis turned at once to survey his genetic offspring anxiously: the younger Valentines only ever called him that either to poke fun when he was being overprotective or when they were feeling badly shaken.

"What is it, princess?"

"Have you got a Restore? Zack's hurt bad."

Genesis glanced down at the insensible SOLDIER. She was right; he should have woken up by now, head-wound or not. "Here," he held out the requested Materia. "You keep an eye on him while I secure the area."

"Thanks Dad." Rosso gave him a pale, wobbly smile then knelt down next to the puppy and cast Cure on him. Genesis smiled encouragingly at her, snapped his wings away then surveyed his surroundings more attentively. He was officially dead, but reported sighting of a redhead in a red leather coat would still bring the army down on him and he didn't want Rosso caught in the crossfire. Or Zack, come to that: the puppy had matured admirably in the past year and seemed to care enough about Rosso to get his head bashed in trying to protect her.

With anonymity in mind Genesis found a door leading to an old stairwell ‒the actual staircase had been destroyed by the unexploded missile leaning against one of the walls‒ and reluctantly changed out of his coat, gloves, braces, uniform sweater and knee boots, putting on in their place the standard SOLDIER boots like Angeal wore and a long-sleeved dark blue sweater. His beloved Rapier hidden in his inventory alongside his customised uniform, Genesis walked out of the room into the main church, ready to go exploring.

"You forgot the earrings, Genesis," Rosso called after him with a faint smile as he walked past her towards the exit. The Crimson General paused, made a face at his baby sister and carefully removed his precious earrings.

"Anything else, princess?"

"Yeah: wear a hat," the teenager said cheekily. Genesis growled softly but pulled out a knitted cap to cover his distinctive hair. Now completely unrecognisable to any save his closest friends and family, he headed out to determine where they'd landed.

An hour's walking about enabled him to pinpoint where on his mental map of the Slums the church they'd landed in was. It was still Sector Five, but much further towards the interior than the Mako reactor was. However it was still close enough to the Plate's perimeter that dawn sunlight would be able to enter the stained glass windows, if the moonlight across the floor when he returned was anything to go by.

"Sleep," he ordered Rosso firmly as he sprawled out on the floor next to the flowerbed; "I'll keep watch." Rosso nodded, snuggled up to the still-unconscious Zack and immediately dropped off. All three of his younger siblings could sleep anywhere at the drop of a hat; that they'd needed to learn the skill at such a young age made Genesis itch with the desire to commit murder.

Having determined that the only person to regularly visit the church ‒a girl with size four feet who wore sandals‒ was unlikely to be a threat, Genesis let himself doze. People could manage without him until morning.


Genesis, Rosso and an unconscious Zack crash-land in Aerith's church. Genesis goes incognito and grudgingly gives the teenage duo his approval.

Next up: It's Veld! At last!