Chapter 7. 1997 - εуλ0000
Zack was a country boy. But he'd never intended for that to be ALL he was. Of all the things in his hometown, it had always been the reactor that had fascinated him the most. Every chance he'd get to explore, he'd make the trek to the outskirts of town and beyond, to the hulking mass of technology, so different from Gongaga's tropical forests and desert landscape, and wonder. About what it was and where it had come from.
People said all of Midgar looked like that. They said it with scorn, speaking of walls of black metal and grey concrete, smoke and fire billowing into the sky. Zack was fascinated. A whole city, just like that? They spoke of it being so crowded with people that you could barely move. Zack could only think of how many more people that meant there was to meet.
Every story that might have chased him away, only intrigued him more.
He was nine when he learned there WAS a way for him to get there. Even in a backwater (even then, Zack was old enough to know what a backwater was, and that Gongaga was one), there was news, and that's how he first learned the names. SOLDIER. The elite fighting force of ShinRa. There was war in someplace called Wutai – Zack hadn't heard much from the west, that was WAY too far for the average Gongaga to concern themselves with – but war made heroes. Sephiroth. The ultimate SOLDIER, it was said, and there were a hundred rumors about how or why or even WHAT he was. Hero. Demon. Monster.
Zack supposed it all depended on the way you wanted to see it.
He had started making plans before he'd even been fully aware that he'd made his decision. He was pretty sure he had what it took. He'd always been the tallest kid in the village, the fastest, the strongest. Even when he was eleven and girls started growing up faster than boys, he was STILL taller than all of them. And then he started shooting up like a prong flower himself, until his mother teased him about whether he ever was going to stop. A black-haired, brown-eyed, six-foot-three block of lean muscle.
He had to take care with his strength. Other guys would try to pick fights with him; Zack knew he could take them on easily, and possibly hurt them seriously. He endured a certain amount of name calling for refusing, but he knew he was doing the right thing. There was no honor in beating the weak for its own sake. Not the sort of thing a hero would do.
Thirteen years old, and the opportunity came. Recruitment teams, passing through. Zack signed before he even thought to ask his parents, realizing later they hadn't asked for his age. (Later, he learned that's because there wasn't a minimum, and until much later, it didn't occur to him to wonder why.)
Things moved fast from there. His parents were reluctant, but didn't have much choice. They bundled him off with their goodbyes and love, and Zack was on his way to the city of his dreams.
SOLDIER was a breeze. At least to start. Zack was snapped right up for Third Class, passing all the physical tests with flying colors. Physical prowess was apparently the only requirement for that initial step. It wasn't until he was officially admitted that he learned the big steps came later.
Mako injections. The words gave him a shiver. Mako, the same stuff that came out of that reactor back home? And they were going to inject it into him?
"It's the step you've gotta take to be Second Class," his fellow candidates told him. "That's what REALLY makes you a SOLDIER."
Third Classes, he found, were mostly just naturally strong regular troops, those likely to be able to tolerate the eventual Mako injections and modifications that came with them. Well, enhancements, really. Actually, once he really learned what the results were, they didn't sound all that bad. More speed. More strength. Enhanced senses. Essentially, a whole lot more of what Zack already had in spades. He supposed he could handle it.
Then after that, the goal was to make First. What did that take, Zack wondered? Answers were mixed on that regard. There were only a few dozen who hit that level – enough that they didn't all know each other, but small enough that they were still considered an elite group, compared to the thousands that made up the regular army. A "best of the best", thing, that was sure, but it seemed to be something MORE they were looking for, and no one was precisely sure what. Because the decisions weren't made by any one standard. The decisions were made by the ones some referred to as the "Firsts of the Firsts," names spoken in reverence, but only one he recognized: Sephiroth.
"So all I've gotta do is meet Sephiroth, huh?" he asked his friends.
"Good luck, buddy," was the sarcastic answer he got.
Fifteen years old, and he was approved for Second Class. Apparently that rise was meteoric. Zack didn't exactly have much to compare it to. Excited as he was for the promotion, the upcoming enhancements still made him afraid. He approached the day with trepidation, forcing himself to calm as they put him under, and –
- he woke up, feeling great. Lighter, more fluid. He flexed an arm expectantly in front of his face; it didn't LOOK any different, but he felt like he could lift a house.
He'd been warned of some of the possible side effects, but the real surprise was when they brought him a mirror. He startled himself, looking into a pair of eyes that were – BLUE. Like, REALLY blue. Zack allowed himself a few minutes of narcissistic fascination with the change.
"Mostly it means the Mako took well," the doctor, a kind older lady, told him. "But everyone's a little different. Yours are bluer than most that I've seen. We don't entirely understand the biochemistry, but it could be somewhere in the genes too. Are there blue eyes in your family?"
"My dad has blue eyes," he told her. "Only not quite this bright, obviously."
"Well, that could be it. Localized deactivation of the gene. The eye color gene is located near a number of other genes the Mako procedure is known to modify. We don't know yet how thoroughly the gene is altered, if it's uniform throughout the body. It seems to be a harmless effect, however. Purely cosmetic."
Zack thought about that. "Do you think chicks will like it?" he asked, giving the woman (three times his age) his best winning smile. She laughed. "I would think so," she told him, "especially if you combine it with that charm."
Girls DID like it, as it turned out. Especially in combination with his rank and SOLDIER uniform. He'd had a decent amount of dates before, but now… Offers were just flowing in. Zack had exceeded the boundaries of what he knew about how to deal with girls. Should he accept all the offers so that no one felt rejected? Or should he be more judicious, so he didn't lead anyone on? In the end, he started out by splitting the difference, blinding fumbling his way through the intricacies of the opposite sex.
Which, he realized, was the only real way to learn. Practice.
He was an avid student. He couldn't help it, he simply liked women. Easier company than guys, once he got the hang of it. Previous experience had been limited to a couple fumbling encounters, but now he was getting a proper initiation into the treatment of the female body.
The other guys were so jealous.
"You don't have to try so hard to be a ladies' man", one women (this one a TRUE woman, twenty-eight, not just a girl) told him. It hadn't occurred to Zack that he was TRYING to be anything. Was that really the impression he was giving off?
He dated around, yes, but that wasn't any particular agenda. He just hadn't found anyone who really touched his heart… He didn't have a particularly defined notion of what that was supposed to feel like. Everyone just kind of told him it was something you knew. He DIDN'T know yet – but he thought he might like to find out.
In the meantime, there was training. He'd get sent out on the odd little mission, first your basic monster cleaning exercise – a Mako side effect, Midgar being the only city with a regular population of monsters WITHIN its limits – but gradually, he was sent out a little further afield.
Still, it was in the 49th floor training room that, with a group of comrades, he one day noticed a First Class looking in. He tried to focus on the task at hand like he was supposed to, but over the next hour, he couldn't help feeling that the man had been particularly focused on HIM.
"Dude, you know who that was?" another Second told him when he mentioned it. "ANGEAL HEWLEY. For real, you don't know who he is?"
"Never heard of him," Zack admitted.
"He's one of like, the really important ones. Like, friends with Sephiroth and stuff."
Kunsel was his best friend during these times, and the man gave a much more thorough answer. "There's three of them. The third is Genesis Rhapsodos," he told Zack. "There's something supposed to be special about them. I heard it was the Mako injections they got. Still experimental at the time, not perfected yet. Not the stuff they give us. Seems it gave them extra-enhanced abilities."
"So why don't we all get that?" Zack asked.
"Unpredictable side effects. Weak at first, but the results were inconclusive. Jury's still out on whether anything will show up in those three later. So ShinRa went for quantity over quality and scaled the doses way back in order to successfully administer them to a greater number of candidates." He waved an arm to take in his small, serviceable Second Class apartment. "And here we are, Zack."
Unpredictable side effects. Hey, blue eyes were pretty cool, but Zack didn't want to risk greater changes, that was for sure. "How do you know all this stuff, anyway?" he asked Kunsel.
"I pay attention." The other man shrugged. "Keep my ears and eyes open. Read whatever scraps of information pass my way."
"Sure you shouldn't have been a Turk?" was Zack's response.
But Kunsel's information proved valuable, especially when Angeal approached him some days later.
"I've been watching you," the man began, as Zack tried not to look too star-struck. "You're Zack Fair, right? Second Class?"
"Yes sir," Zack stuttered.
"I've been thinking of taking you under my wing," Angeal told him.
Zack could barely contain his excitement.
It was more than just combat he was learning from his new mentor. Angeal talked a lot about pride and dreams.
"But I just want to be a hero," Zack told Angeal.
"They're the same thing," Angeal insisted.
Zack had thought being a hero meant being a poster boy like Sephiroth, but it seemed Angeal was right. He DID have a lot to learn.
Fortunately, he had a mentor ready to guide him through that.
And then one day, on a mission across the world in Wutai, his mentor abandoned him – and Zack's world changed forever.