When Sephiroth returned, his two friends looked over at him. Genesis' face had a careful blankness, while Angeal's brow furrowed ever so slightly in worry. They didn't say anything to him, though, which he appreciated.

Apparently, while he'd been gone, the red-head had handed over the controller to his friend. They hadn't unpaused the game.

"You did not need to wait for me," Sephiroth said calmly.

They didn't answer for several seconds.

"We didn't want to leave you out of the loop if you'd be back shortly," Genesis said nonchalantly.

Sephiroth simply nodded at them and motioned for them to continue.

Still looking uneasy, Angeal did.

Fortunately, there wasn't anything else about Sephiroth the murderer. Actually, Palmer escaped (somehow) and a helicopter flew by outside. The group on screen turned to it and Barrett commented about how he'd forgotten about Rufus. How the man could have possibly forgotten about the Vice President of the company he was actively trying to take down, Sephiroth didn't know. But Barrett, while not stupid, also didn't seem to be an intellectual either. Somehow, it wasn't difficult to see him as absent-minded too.

Or it could be more game logic.

He was getting to where he rather despised that term.

Palmer ran outside and to the helicopter.

"Why would one run up to a helicopter like that?" Genesis asked. And somehow, him simply commenting on inconsistencies or points that didn't make sense made everything more normal. Sephiroth didn't think the commander was doing it for him, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

Tifa didn't even seem to know who Rufus was at all, simply because he'd been assigned 'away for a long time'. Away? Was Junon so difficult to say? And it wasn't that far away. A couple of hours by helicopter ride.

"Shouldn't we just escape?" Angeal asked, turning Cloud to walk back to the door.

"Somehow I think the game wants us to confront him," Genesis muttered, annoyed.

Game.

Logic.

Somehow, the idea of shoving Masamune right through the case while it held all three disks was becoming more and more appealing.

Shrugging, Angeal directed Cloud outside. The scene cut to the entire group running towards the President's private landing pad. They got there in time to hear Palmer give his 'Sephiroth' story. Then Rufus asked who they all were.

They introduced themselves.

Each and every one of them.

"This group needs someone with brains," Genesis groused. Sephiroth privately agreed.

Naturally, the new President didn't care. (Although, that brought up the question of why he'd asked in the first place.) But, much like his father, he did seem to like monologuing.

"Were Barrett so inclined, he could have shot the man multiple times by now! He would have taken the entire company out!" the commander practically yelled at the screen.

"Not everyone has a history in fighting."

"Then they shouldn't be fighting."

"Then who else would? Would anyone with any sort of training stand up to ShinRa?" Angeal said, almost flippantly.

"They'll only get themselves killed!" the red-head returned.

"Better that then dying by ShinRa's hand," Sephiroth said quietly. Both of the other two turned to look at him. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and raised an eyebrow. "I never said I didn't understand them. I do know some psychology."

Angeal's mouth twitched up while Genesis just shook his head. "No matter how well you know someone, there is always something more to learn," the latter said.

Well, at least he hadn't quoted Loveless.

Again.

They went back to the game while Rufus went on about how his father controlled the world by money and protection. Rufus would control it through fear because the other way was 'too much'.

Both Genesis and Angeal snorted at that. Were Sephiroth anyone else, he likely would have too.

"Entitled, sheltered rich boy," Genesis muttered.

"Much like you?" Angeal asked, sounding a little too innocent.

Genesis' mouth dropped open and he leaned away from his friend, affronted. "You would compare me to… him?!" he pointed to the screen. And yet, somehow, he didn't seem as angry as Sephiroth thought he should. Genesis was annoyed, but not angry like the General would have supposed. It seemed he still didn't understand their dynamic.

"If the boot fits…" Angeal teased.

The thespian of the group scoffed again and turned his head away with a scoff.

"Sulking doesn't become you," Sephiroth said, daring to venture into this and hoping he had said the right thing.

Apparently he had, because Genesis continued to turn away from them, only acknowledging the comment with a short, sharp 'hmm'. He didn't blow up and challenge Sephiroth right then and there, he didn't return with something biting and all too cruel, he just 'hmmed' at them. Perhaps He was making improvements.

"He looks down on 'common people', is too focused on his own goals and ideas to 'waste money' and time on them, he dresses savvy, is self-assured so much as to boarder on arrogant and likes to make speeches," Angeal continued, shooting Sephiroth a conspirators smile.

"He doesn't have red hair," Sephiroth pointed out. "Nor is he using a sword. And he rather likes white, not red."

"That's enough from you two!" Genesis said, turning around and folding his arms with a huff. Now he was pouting as well as sulking. "Besides, the biggest difference between him and me? I have enough brains to realize that what he is proposing is lazy at best and doomed to fail. People rise up against fear. They don't rise up against plenty."

Well, they had to give him that. "True," Angeal said as Cloud turned to Barrett and asked him to get Aerith out.

"Why didn't they do that before?!" Genesis practically shouted.

Sephiroth wasn't going to dignify that with an answer.

Mainly because the answer didn't deserve it.

Everyone left but Cloud… because the blond told them to run.

Why?!

And instead of staying with Cloud, the game followed everyone else back into the office. After urging everyone to exchange materia (how they could do that without Cloud there, Sephiroth didn't know), Tifa stayed behind to wait for him.

Seriously, how were these people still alive?

The other three got onto the elevator and had a rather ridiculous fight against another couple of Scarlett's monstrosities.

Honestly.

The elevators didn't even work like that.

And anyone who had lived in any place that ran off of mako should know that.

Clearly, game logic needed to be renamed something more along the lines of 'game insanity' or 'game convenience'.

The game then went back to Cloud and Rufus talking. And Rufus asked if Cloud knew Sephiroth had been an Ancient.

Wait.

What.

Genesis and Angeal both turned to him, looking expectant.

"I have no idea what he's talking about," Sephiroth said calmly.

"You don't hear the planet's voice?"

Sephiroth frowned. "No."

"The only feature you seem to have in common with Aerith is the eye color," Angeal said, sounding a little unsure.

"Different talents could have manifested in different ways if he comes from another family than hers," Genesis pointed out.

"It may have been something the game creators made up," the General commented, eyes fixed on the screen.

But the opposite was true as well. Simply because it was in the game that knew about the secret passages into reactors and the ShinRa buildings gave it more plausibility than he was really comfortable with. What would being an 'Ancient' actually mean? Perhaps he needed to go and see this Aerith and ask her…

Not a minute later, they ended up in a one-on-one fight between Rufus (with his pet hound named 'Dark Nation'… what a ridiculous name) and Cloud. It wasn't an easy fight, but Angeal managed it. Perhaps they'd need to do more about the different materia? Rearrange it more often or something? That had certainly helped to get the mateira he needed before the fight.

And he was sure he'd seen a comment that said the main character had reached the next level of his limit break. Good. Most soldiers had at least three limit breaks, and two different sides to those limit breaks, although it was rare for new SOLDIERS to have one coming into the program. Sephiroth, himself, had four. There was a fabled 'fifth' limit, but he hadn't found a way to cultivate it, if it did actually exist. Of course, it was also possible to adapt and evolve limits as well, but that wasn't exactly easy to do.

In any case, the new 'President' of the company put one hand up and somehow let the helicopter that had been hovering around the fight take him away. It looked ridiculous.

Cloud ran down the stairs and up to Tifa. They started off together when the screen switched to Aerith, Barrett and Red XIII coming out of the (impossible) elevators. Barrett ran out the front doors, what passed for shooting noises sounded, and then he came back in saying they were surrounded.

"About time," Genesis muttered.

After talking and proclaiming that they wouldn't abandon Aeris (something he could appreciate), Cloud and Tifa caught up. Or so Sephiroth thought. It was actually just Tifa gesturing for them to follow her.

And if Sephiroth had thought the game was ridiculous before… watching Cloud ride a motor bike down the ShinRa stairs was, while extremely satisfying, on another level of insanity. Where did he get it? Why would ShinRa have one in their building?

Then the group found… "The old vehicle display?" Genesis asked, sounding about as incredulous as Sephiroth felt.

"That doesn't look like a truck I've seen there," Angeal mused.

"This is set in the future," Sephiroth pointed out, unsure as to what exactly he felt about all of this.

"How does it still run? Did some idiot forget to empty the tank of explosive substances?"

That wouldn't be the only thing wrong with a car sitting on display…

Then they crashed out of the second story window and onto the nearby highway… which… actually was plausible… if beyond foolhardy. They were lucky to not end up very, very dead. And wasn't it sad when the most plausible event regarding a situation happened to be the group driving through a window onto a freeway? Of course, desperation and all of that, but still...

And then they were chased down the highway until they reached the end and had to fight another robot monstrosity. It was getting to a point where they all seemed to blur together.

Once they won that battle, Cloud spoke on how he has a score to settle with Sephiroth. The actual man watching the game being played only thinned his mouth at the comment.

After that, the party climbed down a rather convenient crane hook and into the Midgar wastes, where they decided that they would head to Kalm just before they split (ridiculously) into two groups.

Whatever.

Sephiroth sincerely hoped he never had to work with the people who created this game when it came to actual field battles.

The next several minutes consisted of battles and wandering around a very simplified map of the area outside of Midgar. Honestly, if they crossed the distance as quickly as the scale implied, they'd all somehow become motor vehicles themselves. The three-hour trip by vehicle that it would normally take to get to Kalm ended up being, literally, twenty three minutes. With monster fights. On foot.

Game insanity.

"The point of the game isn't to make it real to life, I don't think," Angeal finally said after yet more complaints from both of his companions. "It's to make it entertaining."

"And yet, it brings in realistic state secrets that even the company doesn't know about," Genesis rebutted.

Angeal could only shrug and shake his head.

In any case, once they got to Kalm, the party members went into the Inn.

"You should stock up before the meeting," Genesis said to Angeal, who nodded.

Then they walked into town and found several red arrows greeting them. Sephiroth wondered what the point was. So did the others, apparently because Angeal walked up to one of them, starting in the bottom left corner. They soon discovered that, apparently, they could wander into people's homes and just take things here as well.

"How are these terrorists supposed to be the protagonists?" Genesis asked, throwing his hands in the air, and accidentally hitting Angeal's shoulder. This earned him a glare, but Genesis looked unrepentant… as Genesis tended to do. He simply continued rambling. "Blowing up reactors and costing who knows how many lives, threatening the government openly, walking into people's houses and simply taking things all while accusing Mr. 'Perfect Record' over there of coming back from the dead simply to kill the president of the company?! Are we to believe that, simply because one of their people has a child and they were all wronged that it justifies everything they're doing?!"

"An apt summary," Sephiroth said, a little amused and grateful that Genesis had seen what he had.

But Genesis wasn't done. "There is such a thing as character growth, but there is literally no place for these characters to go but up!"

"They could be as bad as Hojo," Angeal pointed out, also looking amused.

Genesis opened his mouth, but paused and thought about it, then sat back, definitely not pouting. "He has been digging for a while," he muttered.

True. Sephiroth almost found himself wanting to smile at that comment. Almost. The previous events in the game still weighed on his mind, though, stopping any mirth from showing.

They found the items, weapons and materia shops.

"Oh, now you want to pay for everything," Genesis said to the screen.

After stocking up on some hypers (something about the Mythril Mines, hypers and tranquilizers would be advantageous for the areas to come if that was where they were supposed to head next – or so the blue text suggested), they returned to the Inn. No one was on the first floor, so Angeal decided to try going upstairs, where they found the rest of their group.

Barrett called out that Cloud was late. The blond apologized. That was fair, Sephiroth supposed. Then they asked Cloud for his 'story'. The one about Sephiroth and the crisis to the planet. Both Angeal and Genesis looked over to their friend, who noticed and contemplated. They were asking his permission to continue. He appreciated that. A great deal.

Part of him had a bad feeling about this – wanted to quit and just walk away… but part of him couldn't. It would haunt him if he just stopped now… like a coward.

He was just about to nod for them to continue when his phs rang.

It took him a moment to register it, but when he did, he fished it out of his pocket and stood.

"General Sephiroth," he said, answering.

"Are you sick?" came the nasally, very unwanted voice from the other end. Hojo.

Hadn't they just been talking about him. Speak of the Devil and all that.

"No," Sephiroth responded.

"It came to my attention that you took a sick day."

He didn't sigh, but it was a close thing. "I took a personal day."

"Why?

Sephiroth grit his teeth. "I discovered something that needs my personal touch and am investigating."

"Hmm," said the voice. Then a pause. Sephiroth suddenly thought of all the things he wanted to ask this man; about Jenova and the Ancients and his experiments and the Promised Land… but he knew that now was not a good time. No, he needed to explore what this game had to offer thoroughly first.

"Still operating within expected parameters. That's good. What are you looking into?"

"Some problems that have come up within SOLDIER," was his immediate response. It was technically true, if vague.

"I see. Very well. Carry on." And with that the scientist hung up.

Sephiroth lowered the phs and looked at it for several seconds. Then he saw the time. They'd started the game a little before nine that morning. They'd already been playing for almost an hour and a half. Actually, he was kind of surprised it took Hojo that long to look into his 'masterpiece'. Sephiroth's hand tightened around the phs for a moment, but then he took a breath and relaxed. It was Hojo. He shouldn't expect differently.

"We can resume," he said as he returned to the couch.

"Are you sure?" Angeal asked quietly.

Sephiroth looked at him for a moment before nodding.

So they played on.

xXx

AN: Yes, I ended it there. Next chapter... *evil cackle*

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