Sephiroth woke to a loud banging that jolted him out of bed. Out of reflex, he materialized Masamune only to see a very smug Genesis just outside the now open doorway, ready to dodge out of the way of anything coming his way. The Silver General considered running him through anyway, but eventually took a deep breath and dismissed the sword. Then he glanced at the clock by his bedside. Well past midnight.

"I told you to wake me in three hours."

Genesis shrugged. "Angeal said to let you sleep unless we ran across something important."

That didn't bode well.

"Did you?" Sephiroth asked.

"Come and judge for yourself," the Red Commander said haughtily as he turned and strode down the hall.

He got out to the front room in time to see Angeal glare at Genesis and practically growl at him. "Grow up, for once."

Sephiroth froze. Angeal… never snapped like that. He lectured, he scolded, he had the most condemning disappointed look, but he rarely let his temper get the better of him.

"Is… everything alright?" the silver-haired man asked slowly.

Genesis, sighed. "Sit." Then he turned to Angeal. "Don't take your worry out on me."

Angeal just harrumphed as Sephiroth took his original place on the couch. "What happened?" he asked.

"Well," Genesis said, "you left when we were in the Gold Saucer, correct?"

Sephiroth nodded.

"A man with a gun-arm shot up an area in the Gold Saucer. Then, without a trial – or even a pretense thereof – they tossed Barrett, Cloud and Cait Sith into the 'Corel Prison', which is apparently just below the Gold Saucer and right where the old, burnt-out remains of Corel are."

Genesis shot Sephiroth a meaningful look before going on. "It turns out the man who had done the shooting wasn't Barrett but Dyne, who had started out hating ShinRa and sort of grew to hate everyone."

"He definitely wasn't all there upstairs," Angeal agreed grimly.

The thespian of their group nodded. "He and Barrett had a marvelous showdown, after which he jumped off a cliff."

Sephiroth blinked. "Dyne, I suppose?"

Genesis waved his hand, annoyed. "Of course. Anyway, we discovered that he is Marlene's birth father. Dyne thought she'd died in the fire and that his childhood friend, Barrett, had been killed in the same accident where they both lost their arms. We saw a flashback where they'd been attacked by ShinRa troops and Barrett had grabbed Dyne as he'd fallen off a cliff. Unable to pull his friend back up, Barrett had simply hung on until both of their arms had been shot off." Sephiroth rolled his eyes at his friend's drama, but said nothing as the man continued. "Dyne fell, they both lost their appendage, but unbeknownst to the other, they both survived. Barrett lost his wife in the town burning while Dyne thought he'd lost his wife and newborn daughter, but Barrett managed to save the baby – Marlene. Then, coming back to the present, Dyne declared how he didn't deserve his child and then he seemed to just want to end everything and dived off of the cliff after asking Barrett to keep looking after Marlene."

Angeal huffed. "It was every bit as dramatic as he's portraying," he said, almost deadpan.

Sephiroth felt the corner of his mouth twitch up, but Genesis turned to his friend as if betrayed. "All that awaits you is a somber morrow, No matter where the wind may blow!"

Both Angeal and Sephiroth scoffed at that.

Genesis rolled his eyes and continued on. "In any case, we had to race chocobos to get back up and plead our case."

"That sounds…" Sephiroth faded off, trying to find the right words.

"Completely ridiculous, biased and wrong?" Angeal put in, glowering.

The silver-haired man blinked, then nodded. "Yes."

"You're not the only one who thinks so," Genesis said airily before continuing. "In apology for throwing us in prison without so much as a pleading, the owner of the Gold Saucer, a man named Dio—"

"Who dresses in a leopard-skin swimsuit…" Angeal cut in.

Sephiroth blinked. What? What kind of people did this game think owned businesses?

Genesis went on as if Angeal hadn't spoken, "Gave us a buggy we can use to cross the desert. A ridiculous, gaudy thing that looks like a child's toy if one is generous."

"We have to ride in it to continue on. The desert is very easy to get lost in, apparently," the brunet added, sounding frustrated. Perhaps it was time to take the controller away from him.

"Then we went to Gongoga," Genesis said.

Sephiroth blinked again. "Isn't your student from there?" he asked Angeal.

Angeal nodded, looking grim.

"There we found the Turks, again, and discovered that Rude has a crush on Tifa, Elena has a crush on Tseng and Tseng likes Aeris."

"Which really isn't relevant to the story," Angeal pointed out, huffing a little. Besides, it was difficult to imagine Tseng of the Turks having feelings towards anyone.

"It was amusing, though," Genesis said.

Angeal just shook his head, allowing the red-head to continue.

"Well, we ended up fighting Reno and Rude again, then went to Gongaga."

"The reactor there?" Sephiroth asked, frowning.

"No," Angeal put it. "This game says it exploded."

Sephiroth paused, blinking. "Really?"

The other two nodded. "We went through the ruins," Angeal said, sounding angry, likely on Zack's behalf.

"We fought some utterly ridiculous monsters that I've never heard of before," Genesis went on. "Then Scarlett came in to get some materia that had supposedly been left there once it exploded, but didn't find it."

"What kind of materia?" Sephiroth asked, confused.

"They called it 'huge materia', but I've never heard of such before," Genesis said.

"Is such a thing even possible?" Sephiroth wondered.

Genesis, their resident materia specialist, rubbed his chin. "Theoretically, I suppose, but it would have to be a very dense materia and extremely high pressure and heat for an extended period of time. It would have to be unfiltered mako too – too dangerous to work with inside the company, which is part of the reason why natural materia is almost impossible to artificially produce. That, and it would be more expensive to store and acquire the kind of equipment necessary for such." Ah, the money angle. The President never cared for the safety of his 'underlings', but he had cared for the money such storage and usage would cost. Why wasn't he surprised?

At least it was fairly obvious as to why it would supposedly explode… they'd need to double check that, too.

"In any case," Genesis went on, "since Hojo quit, Scarlett had been getting more funds and was building a secret 'ultimate weapon', although we don't know exactly what that weapon is.

"We also got our first mention of another SOLDIER besides yourself," Genesis said with a careful look at Angeal, who didn't acknowledge him as he played. "We met Zack's parents. This game supposedly happens ten years after he left to go to ShinRa."

"He came here at fourteen," Sephiroth said slowly, also watching Angeal carefully.

"Thirteen," Genesis said. "He came in about a month and a half before he turned fourteen, so he must have left home at the age of thirteen."

"He's sixteen now, correct?"

"Almost sixteen," Angeal practically grunted. Sephiroth hadn't realized the boy was so young. He must be one of those who grows physically quickly.

"So… this game supposedly happens in 8 years?" Sephiroth confirmed slowly.

"Yes. And Nibelheim burns in three or four years, supposedly," Genesis said. "In that time, Angeal and I disappear completely – at least, we aren't mentioned at all, and currently thirteen-year-old Cloud Strife becomes a SOLDIER first class."

Sephiroth shook his head. "This doesn't match up. Ignoring the implausibility of it all, there are too many holes and contradictions."

Genesis shrugged. "Then I suppose we don't have to worry about it coming true."

The two men blinked and stared at each other for several seconds before Sephiroth's shoulders relaxed a little. "True."

And yet…

"In any case, Aeris acted very strangely and wouldn't talk about Zack. Tifa seemed to have the same or a similar problem. I think they both know Cloud's story doesn't add up, and I think they've both met Zack."

Angeal grunted in agreement.

"We also got that Zack disappeared five years before the beginning of the story from Aeris when we spoke with her later." He shot a look towards Angeal.

Ah, so that was why Angeal seemed so upset. Even now, Sephiroth could see his hands gripping the controller a little harder than normal. Perhaps it was time to move on. Or should he suggest Angeal call his protege? From the looks of it, Angeal didn't want any sort of advice right now, so Sephiroth decided to stay quiet.

Genesis decided something similar as he simply continued. "We began to run into 'Touch-me's' around there."

Sephiroth blinked. He'd never been to Gongoga – or that part of the world at all. The closest he'd been was the Shinra Rocket build. "The frogs that can turn other living animals into frogs?"

Angeal and Genesis nodded, both looking annoyed.

"Then we got to Cosmo Canyon." The red-head's negativity evaporated as he watched for Sephiroth's response to that.

The Silver General could only blink. "Cosmo… Canyon." He'd heard it was a back-water place where people who don't like ShinRa tend to congregate. They claimed to be peaceful people who study the planet, and indeed they must be if they were still around even now. As far as Sephiroth knew, ShinRa mostly stayed away from there, so they must not see the area as a threat. It wasn't rich in mako, so they left it alone.

"The buggy broke down," Angeal muttered, bringing Sephiroth out of his thoughts.

"In any case, that's where Red XIII is actually from," Genesis said breezily. "We also got his true name: Nanaki. He belongs to an old race of beings, and he seems to be the last of – or one of the last of – his kind. He idolized his mother and hated his father, calling him a coward. But we find out that his father died in defense of the settlement when Red was younger."

Sephiroth frowned. "Defended the settlement from what?"

He suspected ShinRa, but then the company would have gone back to finish the job.

"The 'Gi', apparently," Angeal said.

Sephiroth blinked. "The… Gi? What are the Gi?"

"Ghosts," Genesis replied with a scoff. "At least the ones we fought were. I don't know exactly what they were otherwise. A warring clan, I suppose. At least that's what Nanaki's grandfather said."

"His grandfather still lives?" Sephiroth asked.

"We're pretty sure he's not blood related as he looked like an old man," Angeal said, finally starting to sound a little more like his usual self. Maybe all of this talking actually did him some good?

"On a floating, green contraption of undefinable make," Genesis replied dryly. "It looked like a giant, green materia, but it can't be that. Who would use something so priceless for something like floating around?"

Sephiroth was beginning to think he'd missed something…

At this point he'd just have to chalk it up to 'Game Insanity' and move on.

Genesis seemed to agree as he continued summarizing. "His grandfather also has an observatory and a projection room of some kind, although it looked rather rudimentary, the results were… impressive. He had a projection of our solar system… although it couldn't be to scale and there also looked to be what I assume was a black hole nearby, which must be ridiculous because the effects it would have are… not worth considering.

"In any case, he explained about the lifestream and the theory that anything living has a soul. When they die, that soul returns to the lifestream, enriching it. However, he took it a step further than I've heard before, saying that the lifestream is the source of all life on the planet. He also claimed that the 'life energy' is what allows planets to form in the first place. Or, planets capable of sustaining life, I suppose, but when he showed a planet teaming with the energy, then took that energy away, it fell apart."

Sephiroth shook his head. He supposed he could understand the lifestream being the result of life, maybe even a source of life, but of planets too? That seemed to take it a bit far.

The red-head went on. "In any case, he also claimed that when the lifestream is artificially extracted, it cannot fulfill it's true purpose. That by using it as the mako reactors do, it is going to waste."

"That sounds like terrorist propaganda," Sephiroth pointed out.

"Well, Barrett claimed that AVALANCHE was born in Cosmo Canyon," Genesis replied.

"Is it propaganda?"

The question seemed to freeze the room as a heavy silence fell over them.

That question had come from Angeal.

"What?" Sephiroth heard himself say.

"That doesn't sound like someone who has pride in their honor as a SOLDIER," Genesis said slowly, carefully.

Angeal sighed. "This game has… many things wrong with it. But it does highlight one very important thing: Our current government is a business created to make the man who owns it more wealthy. Name one recent law that has been passed that benefits the general populace and not someone or some group related to the upper echelons of ShinRa."

Sephiroth thought back. He couldn't come up with anything. Apparently, neither could Genesis because he took a different route of defense.

"Of course a government would benefit itself," Genesis said, although he didn't sound as sure or nonchalant as he usually did.

"No," Angeal replied, turning his dark gaze on them, eyes burning. "A government is supposed to benefit the people as best it can, if only because without the support of the people, the government will fall."

This… had gone well past the line they'd been flirting with between safe ideals and far more dangerous ones. Sephiroth felt his chest squeeze a little and had to take a deep breath. He wasn't worried. Or scared. He didn't get scared, so it couldn't be that.

"There is scientific proof to support what ShinRa is doing right now. There is no way to prove what Bugenhagen said," Genesis pointed out.

'Bugenhagen?' That was the name of the old man? What a name. The thought skittered over the top of Sephiroth's mind for a moment before he banished it and focused on the task at hand – namely, keeping Angeal from doing something stupid. Normally he was the rock everyone could rely on – the heart of SOLDIER, as he'd heard several of his subordinates say. Sephiroth was the face of SOLDIER, Angeal was the heart and Genesis the inspiration – at least to think outside the box and not only focus on the physical. Hearing Angeal question the company like this was… disconcerting.

"Books that were printed by ShinRa in the first place?" Angeal asked, face returning to stare at the screen and expression set in stone.

"This is starting to sound like a conspiracy theory…" Genesis commented, brow furrowed as he looked at his friend as if he'd never seen him before.

"That doesn't make it implausible," Angeal replied. And… he had a point. Then he turned, staring at his two friends determinedly. "So who are we supposed to believe? A man who has paid everyone to have the same opinion as him, or the fanatics who adamantly refuse to fall in line? Are either one correct?"

Well… when he put it like that…

The silence returned, thick and oppressive until their resident thespian cut it with a clearing of his throat. "Perhaps that is a discussion for… later. In any case, Red decides to come with the party when they leave, wanting to help save the planet.

"We moved on and came to Nibelheim."

Sephiroth frowned and felt his hands curl into fists. "Why didn't you wake me for that?" he asked quietly.

Genesis and Angeal exchanged a glance. "Mainly we were worried," Angeal said calmly, apparently having taken his friend's blatant change of topic to heart. His solid, assuring voice had returned, and it went a long way towards helping Sephiroth feel less… lost. He hadn't realized how much he'd come to depend on his friend... "We wanted to get through Nibelheim, just in case there were some nasty memories that came up."

The Silver General glared at the other two. "I can handle it."

"But you didn't have to," Angeal returned, voice just as firm. "And if something dire had come up, we would have woken you," he assured, voice softer.

Sephiroth unclenched his fists and nodded, still feeling a little tired. "Very well. What happened there?"

The two of them exchanging glances again did nothing to reassure him.

"Another ShinRa coverup," Genesis said, his own voice unusually subdued. "The town was back. Rebuilt. They claimed they'd been there for decades."

"Their memories could have simply been faulty," Sephiroth pointed out, frowning.

"Perhaps," the red-head conceded with a nod. "But I doubt it. Unless their entire lives are lies. The village people didn't remember them and they didn't recognize the village people. You know the policy, Sephiroth."

Erase any evidence of corruption. More like scrape it off the surface and hope it doesn't grow back. Hmm, maybe Sephiroth had been around Genesis too long if he was starting to come up with metaphors like that.

"The first thing of note that we did," the red-head explained, "(besides question the villagers) was go to the ShinRa mansion and add another member to our party: one Vincent Valentine, as you may remember from the instructions given to us by our very own flower girl."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow in question and Genesis went on.

"We don't know much about him, except that he used to be a Turk-"

"Don't ask, we don't know how that fits in." Angeal interjected.

Genesis picked right back up where he'd left off. "—And that he was an experiment of Hojo's, locked away in the same basement we saw… your game equivalent studying in."

"A room off to the side of the cave outside," Angeal supplied.

So not even the turks were safe from Hojo? Sephiroth couldn't help the grim thought that stole through his mind.

"He seemed to know about you, despite the fact that we found him locked in a coffin," the red-head informed him.

Wait. What?

"A coffin… for how long?"

Genesis shrugged dramatically.

"He insinuated that it has been… a while," Angeal said.

The silver-haired man blinked. "How did he survive?"

The brunet snorted. "Genesis thinks he's a vampire."

"It makes sense," the red-head defended.

Angeal snorted in amusement and even Sephiroth found himself repressing a smile. But then the other two seemed to remember something and turned back to their commanding officer.

"He knew about you and seemed… particularly interested in you… or in Game Sephiroth, I suppose," the red-head said thoughtfully. "We're sure there is something to that, but we aren't exactly sure what. I will say, he does remind us of you: Quiet, confident, keeps things close to the chest, even if he does seem to prefer using a gun."

"He has a frustrating overdrive," Angeal grumbled. "He transforms into a beast that we can't control."

"Really?" Sephiroth asked, turning to observe the battle the party was currently in. Sephiroth had seen a red-cloaked man wield a gun and assumed that was this 'Vincent'. As they'd been talking, a large beast reminiscent of a behemoth had taken the man's place.

The Silver General blinked, then turned his head to stare at his friends, incredulous. If he hadn't seen proof of this game's veracity himself, he wouldn't believe them. He still found it difficult to believe. How could anything so… ludicrous be the truth?

"And there was one other thing. Some of the village people were… odd," Genesis said, a frown of his own on his face.

The brunet nodded and backed his friend up. "Many of them wore dark cloaks and moved oddly. When speaking to them, what we got most often was the word 'Reunion'."

That word sparked something inside of Sephiroth. It was barely a twinge, but it was there. Only for a moment, he sensed something deep in his chest. He blinked and it took all of his willpower to not lay a hand over the spot and rub at it.

"Sephiroth?" Angeal asked, turning to him in worry.

Whatever it was, he couldn't feel it anymore. It must have been a coincidence.

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Please, continue."

Instead of responding, the other two sat in more silence for several seconds before he decided he needed to know whatever they weren't broaching.

"What aren't you telling me?" he asked firmly.

More exchanged glances. He was getting rather tired of those.

"Vincent said your mother's name is 'Lucretia'."

Sephiroth felt his eyes go wide. That was the real reason they'd decided to wake him, he knew it.

"Lucretia…" he repeated. "No last name?"

The other two shook their heads. Sephiroth nodded, trying to wrap his mind around that. There was another person involved in all of this? Somehow, this game's story just seemed to get more and more confusing.

"Also," Angeal said, speaking carefully, as if he were stepping around landmines, "the cloaked people did seem to have other things to say. They spoke about how Game Sephiroth would lead them, how they waited for him and... how they looked up to him. We found their fanaticism rather… disturbing."

Sephiroth frowned. "I told you I can handle it."

Angeal snorted. "You can. But can we?" he shuddered. "There was something very wrong with them, Sephiroth. And they all had tattoos of numbers."

"Like the sick man from Midgar?" Sephiroth asked.

"Yes," Genesis said shortly. "We also ran into Game Sephiroth."

The General felt his jaw clench for a moment before he got a hold of himself. "And?"

"He asked Cloud if he would participate in the Reunion." There was that strange feeling again. Sephiroth ignored it.

"What was his response?"

Genesis shrugged. "That he didn't know what Reunion was." That word did trigger something as Sephiroth felt it again. He didn't like it. "After which Game Sephiroth said that Jenova would join the Reunion and become the Calamity from the Skies. He basically confirmed that she wasn't actually an Ancient, then told Cloud if he wished to know, to follow him North. Then he threw more materia at Cloud and flew away.

"That's when we decided to come and wake you."

More silence. Then Genesis broke it again.

"In any case, Angeal has been trying to get past Mount Nibel since then so we could wake you before we go to our next destination."

"Which is?" Sephiroth asked.

"We're not sure. Wutai, perhaps?"

"Not the Nibelheim reactor?"

Angeal scoffed. "I've already passed it. The dragons here are beyond frustrating."

"Are you under the mountain right now?" Sephiorth asked, eyebrows rising slightly. It looked like ShinRa had had their way with said mountain as it had all sorts of walkways and ladders and collecting tubes and mako…

"And what is that," he said, pointing to what looked like a cross between a dragon and a scorpion without the tail.

"I have no idea," Angeal said, "but I'm pretty sure it's guarding our way out. If I could just find my way there… I'm missing something."

And so he wandered around some more… and then again… and then again. By the time they finally found their way to the monster, they had over 60,000 gil, and several levels on the characters so perhaps not such a bad way to spend their time, no matter how frustrating it got. Although, Sephiroth had to wonder how they got food and other supplies if they didn't spend their gil on anything but weapons and items.

Angeal had warmed up considerably since Sephiroth had come out, but he still didn't seem to be handling his own revelations too well judging by how he was handling the fights. Not that the silver-haired man could blame him. The brunet was obviously still upset about the game Zack. The kid may be a puppy, but Angeal could be a mama chocobo at times. They fit.

The fight against the scorpion thing wasn't difficult, and almost 45 minutes after they woke Sephiroth, just after one in the morning, they finally made it out of Mt. Nibel.

Sephiroth couldn't help but be relieved. The further they could get from Nibelheim, the better.

xXx

AN: Thanks again to Imagination7413 for her help in beta reading!

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