Angeal came back with more pizza a couple of minutes later. He also passed around some drinks that had been on the far corner of the table as Genesis went around fighting more monsters. The brunet asked Sephiroth if he was alright, to which Sephiroth replied that he was. Angeal didn't look convinced, but he didn't push it further and they all settled in again.
Sephiroth's mind wasn't really on the inane fights the game characters encountered, though. He dwelt instead on his friend's question regarding his state of mind, and his subsequent answer that he was well. He wasn't lying per se, he was fine, just… taken back. His current state was very new for him. It had been years, if not decades, since he hadn't simply absorbed any concept explained to him. But with all the revelations from the game, this time he found he didn't particularly want to absorb it, despite knowing that he should at least prepare himself for the likelihood of the game's truthfulness. He tried to ignore that childish want to hide away, with only some success. After a few minutes of growing more and more uncomfortable, he finally decided to force himself to consider what he had learned and slowly absorbing it, despite all of the issues it would bring up.
The more he seemed to grasp, the more he realized how much he hated this.
The whole situation.
And yet, he had time to process everything from a relative distance, so there was that, at least. If this had just been sprung on him, like it had been in the game... He still didn't think he'd act exactly like Game Sephiroth had, but still…
"There's the swamp, I think," Angeal said, breaking Sephiroth out of his reverie and pointing off to one side of the screen. A shadow moved in the depths of said swamp looking like a large snake.
"Is… that a Zolom?" the brunet asked, sounding more than a little shocked.
Sephiroth agreed. Either they grew a great deal in the next couple of years, or the scale size was off again. Personally, Sephiroth thought it would be the latter seeing as they'd just made another three (almost four) hour trip in less than ten minutes.
"Let's fight it," Genesis said with a grin, pushing Cloud to run into the Swamp.
"Wait!" Angeal said before his friend could go too far. The Commander turned the avatar around and got out of the swamp just as the shadow hit where they'd been.
"What?" the red-head asked, sounding annoyed.
"Save the game at least! We don't know how they would fare against a mutated Midgar Zolom."
Genesis frowned. "True," he said, a little grudgingly, as he headed to the menu and the, convenient save option they'd found there earlier.
"What about that group of buildings over there?" Sephiroth asked, pointing to the opposite side of the screen from the swamp.
The red-head shrugged. "We can explore those later."
"Alright, so…" Angeal started, and they went through the party, deciding to take Aeris and Barrett with Cloud for healing and ranged attacks. Then they ventured into the swamp.
The zolom thoroughly thrashed them when it brought out it's beta attack after a good five-minute fight. Up until that point, they'd barely been able to stay alive. The party died and… that was that. The three SOLDIERS stared at the screen as it faded to black.
"Did that just…" Angeal asked.
"Yes." Sephiroth said.
And apparently Zoloms did grow that big in the future… according to the game.
Genesis hit that he wanted to continue the game and then, with a scowl, he turned Cloud towards the buildings Sephiroth had pointed out earlier when the map came up. No one said a word.
The buildings turned out to be a chocobo ranch. Sephiroth did know of a couple in that direction, and wondered which one the game thought would be the only one to last for a couple of years.
As soon as they entered the area, Genesis walked up to the fence, behind which, a chocobo stood.
"Perhaps we need one of these?" he asked.
"They do run faster than humans," Angeal said thoughtfully.
Genesis turned to him, looking affronted. "I won't simply outrun the Zolom! I will get them all strong enough to fight it! Fighting it from the back of a chocobo would give an advantage and be sufficiently dramatic."
Angeal sighed and Sephiroth snorted.
"Genesis, that could take hours. We don't have the time," the brunet said patiently.
The red-head scowled, then sat back in his seat, pouting.
Angeal just shook his head.
Genesis pressed something, probably hoping to get the bird to react somehow. Normally Sephiroth wouldn't condone just taking a bird like that, but how many other things had Cloud stolen recently? So he stayed quiet.
To their surprise, a menu came up.
They were supposed to say 'Wark!' or 'Warrrrrk!' back to the bird.
What utter ridiculousness.
Apparently Genesis agreed because he just pushed 'X' and they watched, a little surprised, as the chocobos did a dance and then gave them a summon materia. One Sephiroth had never heard of before called 'Choco-mog'.
The owner of the farm, one 'Choco-Bill' (what a ridiculous name) recommended they get a chocobo to cross the marshes. He informed them that they were supposed to talk to the man's grandson, 'Choco-Billy'.
Seriously? Who named these people?
Sephiroth made a mental note to volunteer to go to Choco-Bill's farm/ranch and verify.
They ended up using the man's spare rooms for a hundred gill not a bad deal to rest and restore their HP.
Afterwards they had Cloud go and speak to Choco-Billy, who informed them that the farm didn't have a chocobo to spare. Then an entire menu about how to catch a chocobo sprang up. Oh. Well, then, it seemed they were going to catch a wild riding mount then.
The instructions all seemed rather pointlessly convoluted to Sephiroth, but he dutifully memorized the procedures nonetheless.
Then Choco-Billy said he'd sell them a chocobo lure for 2000 gil.
They had a little over 400.
Genesis swore at the representation of the little boy. Vehemently.
They spent the next hour going around and fighting the loco weed and other monsters that popped up in the area.
Meanwhile, Sephiroth found his thought process returning to his earlier train. Unfortunately, little had changed. The best he could do was come a sort of uneasy truce with the information he'd been handed.. and honestly, he felt that was an accomplishment. Not one of the caliber he was used to, but still... Potentially, his 'mother' was a strange not-Ancient… thing that was somehow still alive after 2000 years of being buried (he didn't even know where – near Nibelhiem?). He had about as much information about his father when he'd inquired after him, but the SOLDIER suspected a human donor or he would have ended up looking rather more like the strange figure behind the metalic bust. Somehow, between her cells and the mako injections he'd likely been receiving since birth (or at least as long as he could remember), he'd gained the inhuman strength common to all SOLDIERS, and then some.
Which begged the question: Why? Why did he get this strength that few others could come remotely close to? Why had he always been so different? Why him? Or, why just him? Especially when it seemed that Genesis, Angeal the other firsts and even the Puppy would be good bases to work with. Did he have so much more strength than normal because of the process that made him, or the genetic material they'd used as a basis? Sephiroth was a blatant success, so why hadn't they grown more SOLDIERS from birth?
He came up with a few potential reasons…
He didn't like any of them.
First, he was just too 'expensive'. ShinRa was nothing if not about profits, and Sephiroth knew he was a good SOLDIER and he fulfilled the role ShinRa needed him to – winning battles and wars and posing as a hero when he really wasn't, (no matter what Angeal said) for the company's propaganda. If the experiment he belonged to was such a success, it very likely had to do with money. Growing a SOLDIER couldn't be cheap, and ShinRa always looked for ways to cut costs, even at the expense of quality.
Reason number two? They feared him. And rightly so, it would seem (at least, if the game was anything to go by). He was a very strong individual. The idea of using that strength to make people cower before him made him sick, though. He'd been there before, with every Wutai village they took over, and he had to admit that there was a rush to coming out on top, but that was the challenge of it, not the sheer satisfaction of lording power.
Wasn't it?
Not wanting to dwell on that thought, he quickly moved on to reason number three. As distasteful as some possible conclusions from reason two were, he found he liked three even less. Perhaps ShinRa had 'grown' other SOLDIERS with similar methods to how they'd gotten him. He just wasn't aware of them. His eyes shot over to Genesis and Angeal. They hadn't grown up in labs, but did that mean they weren't somehow engineered? What about Zachary? Or were there labs somewhere buried deep down inside ShinRa that never saw the light of day crawling with little potential SOLDIERS like Sephiroth?
He made a mental note to check because no one deserved that fate.
And the last reason? He was a rare success and those 'monsters' in the Nibel reactor (if there really were any) were what happened when the process failed.
Maybe some unholy combination of all of the above?
Sephiroth knew he was the best; the strongest; the man who could confront armies and win. He'd always known it, but for some reason, it had never really occurred to him that he held far more political power than he realized because of it. No one left ShinRa. But… could he? Especially if Angeal and Genesis followed, could anyone really hope to stop them? The Turks might have a way, but even if it were only just the three of them, it would be a nigh-impossible task. And how many men would go with them if they really decided that would be best – for them, for the population, for the planet? Many SOLDIERS of all three classes (and half the infantry) were loyal to the firsts more than the company…. Could they afford to do it? Where would they go? How would ShinRa react? By sending all battalions after them? He didn't like that idea. Too many lives would be lost, mostly infantry (on both sides), but undoubtedly some of his SOLDIERS as well.
Would it be a good idea to leave? Which was worse, leaving and attempting to make their own way and their own lives while somehow trying to find a way to keep up with the mako shots* they needed... or subjecting themselves to the likes of Hojo? Could they change the company from the inside? Somehow convince President ShinRa that his methods weren't conducive to long-term growth of a company? What about Genesis and Angeal? Would they even want to leave?
Was he actually considering this?
Perhaps heneeded to stop thinking about it and come back to it later, when he wasn't still reeling from everything the game had given out.
And yet his mind kept returning to everything the game said about him directly, and SOLDIER more indirectly. He had his two friends and his men. How could he protect them from what was (potentially) coming?
That, of course, didn't even count the potential disaster of the Sector 7 plate. The fact that the President could do something like that, let alone that he would, needed to be addressed. Would they be able to do anything about that if they left?
Shaking his head, he forced his thoughts away, looking for something else to keep his mind busy. Fortunately, they were playing a video game at the moment, and Genesis seemed to be getting rather frustrated at the monotony of trying to get enough gil to buy the chocobo lure. Oh, and somewhere along the way, they'd gone back to the ranch to rest up and had discovered that 'someone else' had gone by, heading for the marshes. Somehow, Sephiroth got the feeling they'd soon be following another blood trail.
Still, as Genesis seemed to be getting closer and closer to just throwing the controller, Sephiroth offered to continue in his stead. The red-head agreed, thankfully, practically thrusting the controller at him. Not three battles after he took over gameplay, they had enough money for the chocobo lure. Genesis just about smashed the coffee table.
He calmed slightly when he found out that they then had to get the gil to buy greens.
And after that, they had to catch the chocobos.
Sephiroth switched out the party for some variety and was surprised at how much stronger Cloud and the previous party had gotten. They'd also figured out some more about the limit breaks and switched those around, getting everyone started on their second one (apparently, there were four possible, and 2 sides to each).
In any case, almost an hour and a half after they'd gotten to the farm, they finally caught a chocobo. Angeal made them save the game before they went into the swamp, just in case. Sephiroth also switched the party back to Genesis' original party of Aerith and Barrett as they were stronger. Just in case.
It was a good thing they did, because they still ran into the stupid Zolom.
The Zolom thrashed them again with the stupid Beta attack.
Sephiroth contemplated throwing the game system out his window and watching it completely shatter on the ground several stories below. He never would go through with that thought in regards to a gaming system that wasn't his, but he couldn't say it wasn't a satisfying thought.
He wasn't used to losing.
They reloaded the game and the second time was a charm.
They got off the chocobo once they reached the other side and then headed towards what was likely supposed to be the Mythril Mines (although it looked more like a giant hole in the side of the mountain…) and the game cut to an uncontrolled scene where one of the Midgar Zoloms they'd just been utterly defeated by was skewered on the remains of a dead tree… courtesy of Game Sephiroth.
If watching the group lose to even a large Zolom wasn't a reminder of just how much power he had at his disposal as compared to other people, that certainly was. But why would he do that? It seemed needlessly cruel to just skewer the thing. And why hadn't it dissipated back into the lifestream yet?
The three of them exchanged glances before Sephiroth moved them into the Mythril Mines, which ended up more like a maze than anything. It only took them about ten minutes to get to the end of it where they met Turks.
Rude asked if they remembered him.
"How could we possibly forget?" Genesis practically hissed at the screen. "You dropped an entire plate!"
Sephiroth agreed.
Rude went on to explain the Turks before he seemingly had to stop. Then a new Turk Sephiroth had never met in real life, named Elena, took over, claiming she was the newest member while giving far too much information away. He could believe her.
Then Tseng came in and reprimanded her before she could embarrass herself more.
Apparently, in the future, the SOLDIER prerequisites weren't the only thing that had gone down in quality.
The leader of the Turks expressed, in some rather clever double speak, that Aerith didn't need to worry about ShinRa coming directly after her as they were chasing Game Sephiroth and then warned her to stay out of the company's way. Or the Turk's way. It was rather the same, wasn't it?
The party followed the Turks outside, and they were nowhere to be found of course.
"In the note Aerith gave me, it said that running through the woods on this side of the Mythril Mines would get us our next member, Yuffie. Um… that forest in particular, I think."
It took them four fights and far too much wandering in circles to find the fight they were looking for.
"That's a ninja!" Genesis exclaimed as soon as they saw the girl on the screen. "From Wutai! I'm positive of it!"
"I agree," Sephiroth said through tight lips. Angeal didn't say anything.
They hit a snag almost at the beginning of the scene at the end of the fight as there was a save point in the upper portion of the screen that Sephiroth almost immediately headed towards.
"It says not to approach the save point! That it's a trap!" Angeal said, reading over the paper he'd gotten from Aerith.
Sephiroth immediately lifted his thumbs from the controller and blinked. That seemed awfully… contrived, but it wasn't the worst decision the game designers had made so far, so he repressed a sigh and turned to speak with the groaning girl on the ground.
The first menu that popped up with a choice for them to make caused more issues when she basically challenged them to another fight. Genesis was all for it and Sephiroth didn't particularly care, but he turned to Angeal, who shook his head.
"No, that results in her getting away with some of our property," Angeal muttered, sounding disapproving.
Genesis looked offended at the thought of a girl – likely a child from how she spoke and acted – robbing them. Sephiroth simply followed Angeal's advice.
He didn't have a problem choosing the next correct option as it was what Sephiroth would have said. Or something similar in any case. She asked if he was pretty scared of her, and he answered an obviously sarcastic 'petrified…'.
When she threatened to leave, Sephiroth honestly wanted to just let her go, as did Genesis, but Angeal convinced him otherwise. The Silver General asked her to wait a second and she turned around. Everyone else walked up to her.
Then she assumed they wanted her to go with them.
The menu came up to ask her name, and Sephiroth went to choose that, obviously.
"Don't ask her name!" Sephiroth very nearly jumped at that. He turned to stare at Angeal.
"Why is this so important, Angeal?" Genesis asked. "If she's important to the game, we'll eventually get her in the party."
The dark-haired man looked down at the instructions. "Whoever sent us this game – whoever wanted to send us this message – wanted us to get these people into the party. Call it a hunch, but I think it's important."
"My friend, the fates are cruel! No dreams, no honor remains," the red-head replied, annoyed. Apparently the outburst had startled Genesis into one of his 'Loveless Only' modes.
Angeal frowned, reading the subtext far better than Sephiroth thought he could. "Fine, I apologize for shouting like that and scaring you—"
"My soul, corrupted by vengeance hath endured torment to find the end of the journey In my own salvation, And your eternal slumber."
The largest of the three of them grit his teeth. "I'm sorry for shouting, but please just trust me."
The other two looked at each other, then Genesis shrugged.
"Even if the morrow is barren of promises, Nothing shall forestall my return."
Not quite a 'you're forgiven', but it was as close as Angeal would get from Genesis – mainly because getting Genesis to admit he'd been startled in so many words would be like pulling teeth. Sephiroth, on the other hand, looked at his dark-haired friend closer, scrutinizing. He'd known the game had gotten to all of them, but he hadn't realized just how much it worried Angeal if he was acting like this.
The best he could probably do at this point was play along. So he turned around and pressed the second option – the one that had the party just walking away. Then the name board popped up.
"Yuffie," Angeal said, frowning. "Why spell it like that if she's from Wutai? Wouldn't it be 'Y-U-F-I'?"
"Similar to the Princess?" Sephiroth asked.
Then they all stopped and thought about what he'd said. "You… you don't think…" Angeal started.
"Wings of light and dark spread afar…" Genesis said.
"Surely it is a coincidence," Sephiroth said. "She would be eighteen at the oldest. Likely younger."
When Angeal spoke, his voice was quiet, but had an edge to it. "You were sent to fight at fourteen. When we joined, we were sent at fifteen and sixteen respectively. That isn't an uncommon age for SOLDIERs."
"We had support," Sephiroth reminded them. "It must be a coincidence."
The other two exchanged glances.
"Since when is anything in this game a coincidence?" Genesis asked softly, and maybe a little bitterly, finally snapping out of his Loveless quoting.
The three friends continued to stare at each other before turning, almost as one, back to the screen and the girl on it who was laughing about how it was all part of her plan…
Then they continued on.
xXx
"Is that Fort Condor?" Genesis asked after they'd wandered around a bit, fighting battles and trying to figure out where to go now that they were past the Mythril Mines. The most logical choice would be Junon (as that had also been eluded to by the Turks), but they'd run into what looked like a large bird on top of a blue building-like shape near the sea on the way.
Fort Condor was at least two hours out of the way of the route from the Mythril Mines to Junon. Sephiroth had had to study that area of the world a couple of times for the purpose of missions.
Ridiculous. This game was just ridiculous.
And apparently someone had taken the reactor there over and 'settled in' for a long war against Shinra.
"Then why can we just walk up to it?!" Genesis asked, sounding like he'd throw the controller at the screen if he'd held it. It was good that Sephiroth still had it, then.
"So, do we wish to stay and commit treason, or do we want to go find out what's going on?" Genesis postulated.
It didn't take them long to decide. All of three seconds later, they all nodded.
"Junon," Angeal said. Neither of the other two disagreed.
"Check and see their limit break status," Genesis said. "Let us see if they have leveled up sufficiently to move to their next limit break."
Angeal snorted. "If only limit breaks were that easy in real life."
Genesis nodded smugly.
Most of the currently equipped characters could learn their level two limit breaks thanks to the hour they spent wandering around the chocobo ranch to fight the zolom. Sephiroth didn't like the idea of having low-level characters, so he switched Aerith and Barrett out for Yuffie and Red XIII.
The red-head of the group gave him no small amount of grief over it. Sephiroth ignored him.
He spent a good ten minutes wandering around and fighting monsters to try and get the two of them up to a better standard before he finally (according to Genesis) went into Junon.
Sephiroth had never, personally, been to the underplate of Junon. It was significantly smaller than the Midgar Slums, but he didn't think it was actually as small as the game portrayed. And, of course, they couldn't get up to the top to catch a boat that should be able to help them follow Game Sephiroth.
Who… somehow had a way to get overseas?
They met a little girl who could talk to dolphins. She didn't like them initially, but then a sea monster came in and they had to fight it. It wasn't a difficult fight, per se, but it wasn't exactly easy either as Sephiroth hadn't spent as much time as he would have liked leveling the characters up.
Still, they eventually succeeded and the floating sea monster (seriously, it floated in the air?) vanished. Of course, they hadn't realized one of the big waves had gotten the little girl.
Who looked very dead, but apparently could be revived by some extremely unbelievable CPR.
"That isn't how CPR works," Genesis grumbled. Angeal nodded solemnly.
They kept wandering around town after that, although people seemed to be far warmer to them than when they'd first arrived. One of the people even let them stay in their house for free to rest. Which was good because Cloud wasn't the only member of their party who had had to be brought back with a Phoenix Down.
Of course, as they slept, more words came onscreen with creepy music. Cloud could seemingly talk to the voice as he asked who it was. They simply said he'd find out soon, then spoke of the Nibelheim incident five years before.
It actually went through and began to ask a couple of questions about Cloud's memories and where Tifa had been… why she hadn't seemed to recognize him. It told him to ask Tifa. Cloud said he would.
When he woke up (and Tifa was conveniently there), she avoided answering the question by saying she didn't remember, and then had Cloud come see something outside.
"That isn't suspicious at all," Genesis scoffed.
The music had changed to something more march-like and upbeat… and annoying.
Cloud's group had gathered around a set of stairs. He'd only gone half-way up when the door opened and the little girl from before came out and thanked them and apologized for thinking they were ShinRa. It was kind of amazing how much ShinRa hate this game portrayed. Was it because that's what the creators wanted, or because that's what they actually saw – what the general populace was really like?
Still, they got a Shiva Materia from it, so there was that at least. Although Sephiroth didn't approve of a child giving away a family heirloom like that. To be fair, it was a baby materia, so perhaps it had just been born from another one? Likely.
They also found out that Junon was rehearsing in preparation for the new president's reception.
Barrett had something to say about that.
So did Priscilla (the little girl had introduced herself). She hated what ShinRa had done to her home town. Sephiroth frowned. It sounded like the slums of Midgar, but worse. It bothered him that he wouldn't know.
Just one more thing to verify. The list was getting rather long…
The next half-an-hour was spent trying to climb into Junon with the help of a dolphin, of all things. It really said something when Sephiroth thought that was one of the more ludicrous things he'd seen in the game.
The infantry men they ran into in Junon didn't recognize a SOLDIER 1st class uniform at all and insisted he dress like them, giving him an easy in to the army (he didn't even want to think about the implications of a security breach like that). Then they'd been to join a parade, and they'd have to sneak into. Conveniently, every. Single. Platoon had a nice, open space for him to sneak to. With Heidigger, that would have never happened.
Once they finally got the timing right there, they marched with the parade, followed by Sephiroth nearly breaking the controller when he couldn't get the movements for a salute for Rufus correct. After a moment of taking calming breaths, he handed the controller over to Angeal, who took it gladly.
The timing on the game was obviously off and didn't account for his SOLDIER reflexes. That was the only explanation he could find to explain the utter disaster that had been. How he hadn't been discovered, even by incompetents, went beyond him.
They also found out that Hojo had disappeared. He'd quit, ShinRa… yet another event that made absolutely no sense.
The whole point of sneaking up through the base turned out to be superfluous anyway as the others from this version of AVALANCHE had somehow been able to slip in. Handing the game controller over to Angeal had been the right call.
And if Sephiroth ever saw guards who missed a four-legged creature trying (very poorly) to imitate one of their men, he'd deal with them personally. There was incompetent, and then there was just lazy. Of course, they were under Heidegger, so he probably shouldn't be too terribly surprised. The man was many things, and he could be competent, but usually just tended to be overly harsh and riding high on his power trips. The game caught that fairly well. One of the few things he could assign 'fairly' to instead of 'incredibly' that didn't fall back to the limitations of the medium.
They had to have Cloud talk to more or less everyone on the ship (twice), both above and below deck, before the infantry man guarding the front of the ship moved and Cloud finally found Barrett. However, this was not an unproductive use of time as they did also find an 'all' materia… just lying around… he'd really like to find the people who seemed to think that leaving priceless artifacts in random places was a good idea. Still, he appreciated the small positive. He had to look for them in this game. Somehow, he didn't think that playing games was supposed to be this… frustrating (or worrying).
They walked up on crouching Barrett, dressed in a sailor suit (it was obviously far too small, and bordering on inconceivable that anyone wouldn't spot it immediately), he was eavesdropping on Rufus ShinRa and Heidigger in the bridge. The Eco-terrorist wanted to barge in and take the two out right then… and honestly, from a pragmatic view point, Sephiroth agreed. They were trapped on a ship and it didn't look like there were many guards inside… it would have made sense for them to attempt something like that, as long as they had an escape route. Sephiroth highly doubted they did. Which might be why Cloud stopped him.
Before either one of them could argue much, an alarm went off and a voice sounded over the speakers saying that a stow-away had been found. Had it been Aeris?
The current AVALANCHE quickly gathered together (in the middle of a ship – enemy territory, for all intents and purposes – not suspicious at all – perhaps he'd been doing this for a little too long if he was starting to sound as sarcastic as Genesis…) and somehow jumped to the conclusion that the stow-away was Game Sephiroth.
How did they jump to that conclusion?
Game Insanity.
Yuffie seemed particularly afraid of Game Sephiroth, which made the real one want to look away. The Wutaians had every right and reason to hate him. Him and anyone associated with ShinRa.
Once again, they found themselves following a trail, although instead of blood, it was bodies. Those that could still talk (not many) spoke of little but how the stow away 'wasn't human'. It bothered the Silver General that Cloud didn't use potions or cure materia on anyone they found – true, they may not be able to save people in dire enough situations, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to try. He forced himself to focus on that instead of the non-human insinuations about Game Sephiroth. He had to consciously loosen his clenched teeth but otherwise refused to let his frustration with the game creators show. He knew they hated him. It shouldn't bother him like it did whenever they brought it up.
It shouldn't, but for some reason, it did.
They spoke to the only person actually standing, only to have them turn around and fall on the floor, sprawling out and disappearing… obviously dead.
And then…
"Apparently they think you can somehow move through solid objects," Genesis stated dryly as Game Sephiroth rose through the floor. "I've heard of placing people on pedestals, but this is rather ridiculous."
Sephiroth appreciated the comment, and acknowledged it by turning to look at Genesis and offering him a small nod. Genesis must have seen him for the side of his mouth twitched up.
Game Sephiroth didn't seem to remember Cloud at all. He said something about the time being 'now'… and then flew by, knocking everyone down and leaving a giant… thing for them to fight. A thing named 'Jenova Birth' for some incomprehensible reason.
That was the first fight they lost since the Zolom.
It was the first fight that made them redo events.
Sephiroth was beginning to think that there had to be a new word for something more than 'frustrating' but not quite 'furious'. Fury indicated a raging storm, but his emotion felt far colder than that. Far more calculated and… vindictive. And it bothered him that it took a game to bring this out in him.
He took a deep, silent breath and tuned the game out for a moment to center himself while Angeal leveled their characters up. Then he and Genesis played with the different materia combinations and they went into the fight again. Thankfully, they won. All three of them were grateful for that one. At least Genesis seemed to have a new appreciation for the subtly that could be found in the materia system now.
Sephiroth didn't.
Perhaps he was being childish, holding his own personal grievances with the game creators against the characters, but he doubted anyone could tell him it wasn't justified.
Oh, and Jenova Birth left a wriggling tentacle behind. Just what did these people think his 'mother' was? The tentacle disappeared and Aeris, who they'd needed in their party for healing purposes, said she didn't understand and asked if Cloud could explain it. Sephiroth didn't think he could, but Angeal clicked on the 'I'll try' option.
Cloud went on to say that Game Sephiroth went in search of the promised land to gain enough power to rule the world. (Sephiroth most certainly did not wish to rule the world – too much paperwork, thank you very much.) Then Game Sephiroth came back and killed President Shinra. and all the game characters had just seen him and he was carrying Jenova, so apparently he wanted to take her to the Promised Land too… which was all Cloud knew.
"That explained precisely nothing," Genesis pointed out.
Angeal sighed and paused the game just as a boat whistle blew and someone announced that they'd be landing in Costa Del Sol soon. Both of the other SOLDIERS turned to him.
"So, what's for dinner?" Angeal asked, breaking the tension that had been there almost since Sephiroth came out of his room.
Despite himself, Sephiroth smiled softly. He was very lucky the only people to really try and be his friend were valiant, trustworthy people who cared – no matter what Genesis tried to get everyone to think.
xXx
*Sephiroth has been told that he needs mako shots. Genesis and Angeal get mako shots, albeit at fewer intervals, and since all SOLDIERS get at least quarterly checkups, Sephiroth has come to the conclusion that all SOLDIERS need them. Hint, they don't. Hojo's lies again.
Eh, I am not particularly happy with this chapter. I've gone through it so many times and then AO3 wouldn't let me log in and my Internet's been spotty and I've been with family all weekend and… things have been busy.
I forgot to post the AMAZING fanart I'd gotten last week! *headdesk* Well, I WOULD, but fanfiction won't let me. However, you can also view them on my Discord: discord (period) gg (forward slash aka /} qNpruuW (without spaces). Just go to the 'user fan arts and fics' thread and search for xashes art. It should come up. If you have problems, let me know and I'll figure something else out.