A/N: Okay, this chapter is longer than normal because I just couldn't separate the last discussion into two parts. Cheers!

Mages' Rules

"So what are we doing now?" Zack asked eagerly, having stopped his squats and rejoined them when he saw Sephiroth heading out.

"I'm going to be working Kunzel through his necessary method of casting with Materia," Genesis answered. "It won't—or shouldn't—have much effect on your own casting, so you could listen in and try it or not. Once Kunzel knows how to do basic casting, we'll go to the VR room to run a scenario you can both use as practice."

"So that's the thing—when I tried to look at the Materia in that class and saw those lines in my mind," Kunzel said suddenly, and the red haired man looked at him. "Are you going to tell me what that was now?"

"I am," the older man agreed with a small smile. "I mentioned 'rules' to you, right?"

"Yeah. What does that have to do with those lines?" Kunzel asked, and Zack just stared at the two in amazement.

"The 'lines' you saw are the usage instructions—the 'rules', if you will—for the spells," Genesis answered. "Those are actually multiple interlocking circles, nominally called arrays, each with other lines and markings in them which each have a use and a purpose in the way the spell works and what's needed to cast it. Those also limit how the spells can be used, and making changes to them will change how the spells work—that's what I do. You'll learn that later on. For now, we're only going to work with the existing arrays. The central one is the spell itself, which designates it as Fire, Ice, Esuna, or Life—or whatever else it is. The same is true of Summon and Command Materia. Support and Independent Materia work of their own accord, Support by being appropriately paired and Independent automatically regardless. Following so far?"

Kunzel looked startled and Zack looked stunned, but after a pause, the sixteen-year-old asked, "So even though we don't understand the lines technically, those are essentially a language?"

"Some of the lines are geometric and set into place mathematical and scientific equations," Genesis informed him, making both Cadets' eyes widen. "This is actually a science, even though it 'looks' like something paranormal to us, which we've called 'magic'. Most of the 'lines' you would have noted in that quick look would have been the functioning mathematical and scientific data which would be equivalent to engineering blueprints for Materia. There are also many smaller lines running alongside the geometric patterns, and looking closely at those would show very clearly a 'language' which is giving instructions like a computer code. Those can't just be put into place in any old order or location, they're very specific in their use, just like a computer code."

"Oh..." Kunzel stared. "That's...wow. I never would have thought Materia were so detailed. How can I use them if I don't understand the 'language'?"

"By learning 'what' some of the basic rules are, even without knowing the language. For example, the arrays outside the main one often give instruction on the strength of the spell, its duration, its form when cast, and limit how much damage it can do. From my studies, I've found each central array has several 'sub-arrays' directing it, and every Materia has both at least one array and no less than twenty sub-arrays. In Magic and Command Materia where the Materia has more than one spell or command, they share several sub-arrays because they all use the same instructions provided by those sub-arrays," the Commander explained, gaze becoming amused.

"The Fire spell, for example, is set to do a base damage of surface burns plus damage roughly equivalent to twenty percent of your maximum energy level. Mathematically, the 'base damage' is a heat ratio which would result in surface burns, which is about sixty degrees centigrade to achieve those burns in the few moments the cast lasts for. Your personal energy level will increase that by a percentage. For me, the final output is around one hundred degrees centigrade. For you, it would be lower until your base energy level has improved.

"The second and third level spells also have a base damage of sixty degrees, but Fire 2 has additional damage equivalent to about thirty percent of your maximum energy level and Fire 3 has additional damage of roughly forty percent of your max energy. Taking into account the Contain spell Flare, we see an anomaly because it doesn't follow from Fire 3's damage output—rather, its base damage is one hundred and twenty degrees and one hundred percent of your max energy."

"Whoa! That's really mind-boggling, knowing you can calculate the damage that way!" Zack gasped.

"It is, but most Magic Materia work on those same percentages, which is one of the rules—unless you've manually modified the arrays, it will always do those percentages of damage from whatever their base damage is calculated by and the twenty, thirty, and forty percent of you own max energy. You don't want to try to shove more energy into it than it's willing to take—that's typically called 'trying too hard'," Genesis agreed.

"Before you proceed," Sephiroth cut in, sounding vaguely amused. As the others looked at him, he held up a Shinra Alpha with six slotted Materia and two SOLDIER practice blades, both with two Materia slotted. "The one for Cadet Fair has a Fire and Restore," he said as he offered it hilt-first to Zack. The other blade and the bracer he offered to Kunzel once Zack had taken his curiously. "Yours has Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Restore, Sense, and two Alls. You may rearrange them as you wish, with the understanding that the practice blade has no linked slots so would be pointless to use an All on. Other than one All, these are all first level Materia."

Kunzel eyed the two blue Alls for a few long moments, then looked up at Genesis to ask, "Is there a specific format you want me to use them in?"

"You can choose that for yourself, but it might be useful for you to pair one with Lightning since that was apparently your first spell," Genesis replied.

"Does a 'first spell' matter so much?" Zack asked curiously as he switched the Cadet-issue practice blade with the one Sephiroth had brought.

"For a Mage, that normally indicates their magical affinity—it's easier for a Mage to cast a spell which they have an affinity for, and Kunzel had to've been pretty young to have cast some sort of lightning spell in Gongaga," the red haired man explained. "As such, he'd have a harder time trying to cast with Fire or Ice than with Lightning, and the damage ratio of Lightning is very close to Fire's general ratio. Its calculations are based on an electrical discharge of watts or volts—no one can seem to agree on which name to use—which result in an equivalent to the sixty degrees centigrade. As I said, the percentages of the added boost are also the same. The only difference in this is the—resistance the energy flow will meet, less with Lightning in Kunzel's hands because his energy agrees with it. Or its energy agrees with his."

"Oh. And you don't care what I do with the other All?" Kunzel asked.

"Nope," Genesis agreed.

"Don't worry about pairing it with Restore, 'cause I have one of those, too," Zack said, then looked at the red haired man to ask, "Does it work on the same percentages, too?"

"It does, for Cure, Cure 2, and Cure 3," Genesis told him. "Regen is different because its only real factor is based on a percentage of the target's maximum health, not your own energy, which it gives periodically over a set amount of time. For the moment, you should only have Cure to use, so it would be based on twenty percent of your maximum energy."

"What other rules do I need to know to make the spell go somewhere?" Kunzel asked as he carefully removed the Materia from the slots.

"First, you aren't trying to make it go somewhere, you're just choosing a final location for it to activate," the man told him, raising a brow slightly.

"...What?" the sixteen-year-old frowned in puzzlement.

"You're not 'throwing' the spell. There's no 'distance' between you and your target," Genesis explained. "When you activate the spell, it has a range, it has a 'list' of viable targets, and it has a strength. We discussed the strength. The range is the distance your target can be from you to be included in a cast area—your training targets are only twenty feet from you in class because the least magically inclined people can only cast on a target twenty feet or less from them. Your range will be larger, and we'll find out your current maximum later on, but for right now, we'll assume about a twenty foot radius. The list of viable targets is much larger than the average person knows because most people can only access the most prominent of those—an attacker or ally, be it human, animal, or monster. You can also target spells, the ground, water, a wall, a tree stump, or so on—as long as you know 'what' you're targeting, you can target it."

He paused, then held his hand up and created a fireball in it. "Here's the thing with your actual cast and the rules it follows." He then moved to 'throw' the fireball in the direction of the Thirds—and it almost immediately fizzled out and vanished. "A cast doesn't travel when you're using the basic arrays. If you try to make it travel from you to your target, it doesn't matter how skilled you are, it won't work. Either it stays directly tied in to you to stay active by siphoning your energy or it instantly transmits to your target and takes form at them. At them. Spells are hard to dodge for that reason. Some spells have a format which requires 'travel' of a sort, but those are very high level and we'll go into more detail on those and their hows and whys later on. For now, you need to stop trying to send it. Pick your spell, pick your target, and cast. The spell's arrays will make it take form at the target."

"Ohhhhh..." both Zack and Kunzel murmured in awe, staring at him in amazement.

Kunzel looked back at his temporary set of Materia, then placed Lightning with an All on the bracer, put the second All below the first, and left the linked slot blank. He put Restore below the blank, then examined Fire, Ice, Earth, and Sense. Soon after, he picked Sense to go with the other All, then put Fire in the last slot on the bracer and put Ice and Earth on the sword. Done choosing the layout of the set, he put the bracer on his wrist and stood to strap on the sword.

"It feels a lot lighter than yours does, Genesis," Kunzel commented in mild amusement as he held up his wrist with the bracer on it.

"Not only are those at lower levels—less strain due to less energy buildup—but they aren't very powerful in comparison to most of the ones I use," the red haired man nodded. "Now, ready to try the VR room for your combat practice?"

"Yeah," Kunzel agreed as Zack grinned eagerly.

Sephiroth quietly followed them as Genesis led the way to the VR room, and they stepped inside—only to see a city street as a red haired thirteen-year-old girl stood looking around at the 'crowd' in confusion. She wore the Academy uniform.

"Aw, come on..." the girl whined. "Tseng, stop that!" She was holding a combat shuriken in her hands and there was a glassy look in her eyes. "I should so be able to track you!"

Genesis and Sephiroth looked at each other in surprise as Zack and Kunzel just stared at her in shock. A few moments later, one of the people in the crowd jumped at her back, and she yelped and spun, catching his katana on her shuriken, but getting thrown to the ground flat on her back anyway. The breath was obviously knocked from her lungs, causing her to lay there for a couple minutes as she tried to get it back, Tseng in civilian clothes standing over her after sheathing his blade. While waiting for her to get her breath back, he looked up right at them and cocked his head to the side curiously.

"Can I help you, Commander, General?" he asked formally.

"What are you doing, Tseng?" Genesis asked in amusement.

"Training our baby Turk while I'm—off duty. Why?" the Wutain asked in reply.

"Off duty?" Sephiroth blinked as Genesis snickered.

"Do you mind if we set up that Kalm monster deflection scenario for Kunzel and Zack so Kunzel can start learning better ways to fight?" the red haired man asked, still looking highly amused.

The red haired girl stirred around then, so Tseng looked back at her and offered his hand as he asked, "Doing all right, Neirine?"

"Yeah," she pouted, taking his hand and letting him pull her up. "How do you keep doing that? You shouldn't be able to disappear from my view while I have Sense and All active."

"Yours works differently from the normal stats of Sense and All, and it has one drawback—information overload. When you're on a crowded street, you get too much data and have to take time to assess every person around you to find the one you're looking for, even if it's just a second for each person. On a stake-out, that's not a problem, but in a combat situation, it leaves you vulnerable. You need to adapt a way to target information to the one you're looking for, and to do it quickly, effectively so anyone who doesn't match the basic stats of your target is automatically instantly discarded," Tseng informed her. "Now, three strikes technically means you've lost the match and we're done."

"Fine..." the girl pouted. "Do we have to go, though? This is fun."

Tseng gave an amused smile and looked back at Genesis and Sephiroth as he offered, "How about if Neirine spars with Kunzel for a bit first so he can see someone who fights by deflecting in real combat, then the three—trainees—can take on the scenario you mentioned while we just back them up if they get overwhelmed?"

"We could do that," Genesis commented thoughtfully.

"Is it safe for me to spar with someone who isn't—built to withstand my added strength just from being a male in puberty?" Kunzel asked a little worriedly, trying to gently say he didn't want to hurt a 'little girl' by accident without insulting anyone.

Genesis met Tseng's gaze as Neirine glared, but the Wutain said, "Neirine has been trained for combat since age six. What she needs now is real-time experience and opponents who fight with greater physical strength than her. I wouldn't offer to have her fight SOLDIER Cadets unless I thought she would be at least an even match, though her extra years of training make me think she'd have the upper hand, even against both of you boys at once, as things stand now."

"Uh..." Kunzel blinked stupidly.

"Cool! I'd like to see if she's really that good," Zack grinned.

Genesis gripped the sixteen-year-old's shoulder. "Don't worry about Turks in combat—some of them are good enough to single-handedly take down SOLDIER Firsts, Kunzel. And Turks have always had women in their ranks, so even if she's younger than Zack, you can take her as a qualified Turk—which does mean her skills exceed yours. Your likelihood of hurting her is very low."

Kunzel rubbed the back of his head and gave a small smile before saying, "Okay, then. We can give it a try. So the first part is really a sparring match?"

"What do you think, Neirine? Just Kunzel or both Cadets at once?" Tseng asked her, expression a smirk.

She returned his smirk and said, "I can take them both!"

Sephiroth shook his head in amusement as Genesis chuckled and said, "Okay, boys, give it your best shot!"

Tseng made his way 'into the city' as Zack and Kunzel squared off against Neirine, but then the 'terrain' shifted and the city vanished to be replaced with the plains and fields outside Kalm. Tseng returned to their area and said, "You have about an hour to spar and rest before the monster scenario will start. We'll stop you after half an hour if you haven't stopped on your own."

"Got it!" the three answered, then began their practice sparring—the first round which Neirine promptly won by deflecting both as she threw them to the ground hard, their blades stuck in her shuriken. They began again, that time with the Cadets being more cautious.

Tseng joined Genesis and Sephiroth to ask, "Aren't the boys supposed to be in lessons?"

"I'll fill you in later. Aren't you supposed to be at work?" Genesis returned.

The Wutain man sighed, "I'll fill you in later."

The red haired man snorted.

MB

It was incredibly irritating that Cloud still couldn't go out, that he could still only make it as far as the kitchen table to eat. Actually, in the short time since he'd gotten his Mako enhancements as a twelve-year-old, it was pretty amazing he could make it as far as the table and back to his room on his own power. And without doing serious harm to the home, the utensils, or his mother. Even though it was driving him insane, he realized he was recovering far faster than he should have been—the process he'd probably be done with by the next day usually took nearly a week for grown men. Then again, even if he was only twelve now, he had the experience from his older self, which probably helped him adapt faster.

Besides the usual things he did, the only source of entertainment he'd previously had was the newspaper clippings which gave data about 'General Sephiroth' and occasional mentions of others he'd worked with. Often, the articles were also about the Wutai War, which made him think about Yufi, Emperor Godo's daughter who had been quite the Hellion and a skilled thief through the time he'd known her. At this point in time, though, she'd only be seven years old. Had she still been like that at her current age? And how was Wutai doing in the war for their own sovereignty? From re-reading the articles, it didn't seem to be doing well.

He also had the issue of having to be faced with 'the Nightmare' again.

Back when he'd been twelve, he'd had something like hero worship for the silver haired General—nearly all the boys in Shinra territory had. When he'd been fourteen, he'd joined Shinra hoping to get into SOLDIER and become a hero like Sephiroth. At sixteen...he'd watched his 'hero' go insane and burn down his hometown, slaughtering most of the villagers, then heading for the Reactor to retrieve Jenova. The survivors of the destruction had been taken and experimented on—including himself and Zack Fair. Tifa had been the only one to escape that fate because of her martial arts teacher at the time, a man called Zangan, who had taken her from the town before she'd been found, getting her medical care elsewhere.

Cloud and Zack had been the only ones to survive Hojo's experiments on them, but not intact—nothing like intact. In the end, Zack had died protecting a defenseless Cloud, who had been struggling with Mako poisoning, and by the time Cloud had become functional again, the damage had been done and he'd erased Zack from his memory. To make matters worse, he had been nothing more than Sephiroth's puppet, put into place to help the insane monster destroy the world, even against his will, and the Nightmare Sephiroth had become had used him to get his hands on the Black Materia. He had never fully recovered from having been the one to give Sephiroth the very item he needed to bring about Meteorfall. He had only become aware of that and truly faced it two years later, when the disease known as Geostigma and the Remnants of Sephiroth had shown up.

Now, being twelve again, Sephiroth would be about eighteen, and it was pretty much a guarantee he'd meet him again. All the feelings and actions he'd learned to associate with the Nightmare were going to cause him to react poorly to the man, even possibly to attack him as soon as he laid eyes on him. Not out of hatred, but out of fear, out of survival instinct, out of the memory of how much the man had destroyed.

And yet, Sephiroth hadn't yet done any of those things as an eighteen-year-old, and it would be four years before he would do them. Going through his old articles on the SOLDIER General made him really realize he was dealing with someone who hadn't done anything wrong or gone insane yet, but his emotions weren't yet caught up to that fact. There was a part of him which said Sephiroth would always be the Nightmare because he had no choice, but another part wanted to hope—to believe—his hero worship of him hadn't been misplaced.

At that point in his thoughts, Zack asked, :Once someone's a 'hero', where do they go from there?:

:What?: Cloud returned with a confused frown as he stared down at the red Materia he kept wrapped in cloth bandages around one wrist.

:Everything keeps changing in the world, right? If someone rises as high as they can go, where do they go from there if they change, when there's nowhere further up to go?: the man-made-Fenrir-Summon asked again, the question only vaguely more clear to Cloud.

:Heroes are still heroes, that part doesn't change,: the younger of the two returned with a glare.

For a moment, Zack was silent, but the sense of wary apprehension from him caused Cloud to think the discussion wasn't over yet. Finally, the black haired man asked softly, :What was he famous for?:

:He was a war hero, famous for ending the Wutai War.:

:Ending it? When he stopped being sent to the battlefield after two years on the frontlines, while the war was still going on?:

:Zack, what are you getting at?:

:Go back to those articles. Several of them praise him for one thing in particular, every one of them the same 'one thing'. Tell me what it was.:

Cloud went back to the articles he had out, reading them again for commonality between them. At first, he didn't know what he was looking for, but after six articles, he'd begun to feel unsettled, and on the seventh, he realized with dawning horror what it was Sephiroth had been praised for. It wasn't ending the war. It wasn't protecting people. It wasn't making the world a better place. It wasn't even defeating an enemy out to destroy the world—Wutai wasn't being presented that way, only as a 'less civilized people' who shunned advancement. All the things which a hero would normally be praised for, he wasn't being praised for.

:He's being praised for killing large numbers of humans...: Cloud finally replied to Zack, feeling ill.

:He's being praised for killing. That right there is one of the biggest problems with so-called 'war heroes'. They did it to me, too, if they sent me to kill humans, which happened a few times. Even once in Wutai. But Seph's numbers are up in the hundreds in every battle, and if Angeal's stories are true, there were several times Seph came back from human battlefields drenched in blood. We did our duty. We killed who they told us to kill. But not once did anyone ever so much as thank us for protecting them. Sephiroth is a product of a society which has forgotten how to value human life. Don't you think the thing which would help him the most would be to help him see his own value as a human being? Now, thinking about that, where does a hero go when they've reached the top and can't go any further, when there's nothing left for them to achieve, yet everyone has shoved a bunch of unrealistic expectations on them?:

Again, Cloud felt more ill, but his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door before it opened a crack and a familiar voice asked, "Can I come visit, or are you resting, Cloud?"

"Tifa," he said quietly, so she pushed open the door to peer at him.

"You look sick," she said. "Should I get you a pail or call Ms. Strife?"

He gave his head a shake and answered, "It's not that kind of illness. I just..." He looked back down at the articles in front of him, not sure how to say what he wanted to.

"Oh, you're reading up on the General again," she commented moving over to sit on the edge of his bed to pick a couple articles up.

For a moment, Cloud was silent, but then he asked, "How do you define 'a hero'?"

"Someone who protects and saves other people. Maybe it's something as simple as helping get a kid out of a tree, or maybe it's something as horrible as killing a man who attacked a family. Why?"

Her prompt, sure answer made him wonder how he'd ever seen Sephiroth as a hero, but it also made him repeat Zack's question, "Where does a hero go if they can't rise any higher?"

Tifa stared at the boy for a long moment, giving him the searching look her older counterpart had so often given him, but then she sighed and said, "I guess it depends on a few things."

"...Like what?" Cloud asked the girl with a startled blink.

"Some heroes were—say, rescue workers who saved people in disasters. They're 'heroes', especially to the people they saved, but they never really go up or down from there unless they get huge egos. Then they turn into as—monsters." She paused and cleared her throat with a blush for what she'd almost said. "But there are different types of heroes, and—General Sephiroth is a war hero, not a rescue hero. He kills people for a living. As much as sometimes bad people have to die, I don't think all the people he's killing are bad people, do you?"

"They aren't. Why does it matter who he's killing?"

"Mmm, because if he was only killing bad people, he'd be killing a lot less of them. He's being given the okay to kill anyone, and told he's wonderful for doing it. They're teaching him it's okay for him to kill anyone he wants to kill, or anyone who's in his path. Right now, he's a hero, but—what would it really take for all the pressure they put on him to make him snap and start killing ordinary people, his own troops, the President? Or maybe he would just be a jerk and start taking things he doesn't have a right to, and killing anyone who tries to stop him. If he can't go any higher, where will he go? Well, if he can't go higher, there's only one way he can go—down. And I'm sure a lot of people would help push him down, maybe without even knowing they were doing it. Does that answer the question well enough?"

Cloud was quiet for a minute as he stared at the articles in his lap, then looked up at her as he said, "You're saying they're breaking him by making him kill."

"No. They're breaking him by praising him for killing hundreds in every battle," she answered, holding up the articles she'd picked up. "Sure, he's killed a lot more people than most of Shinra's troops in Wutai, but—Wutai belongs to Wutai, and Shinra attacked them first. He's not even protecting anyone, he's going to take from them their own land. If he can use logic, he knows what he's doing is wrong, but he's being told over and over again he's right. How long can he be told that before he thinks it's true?"

"...He's a puppet..." Cloud gasped softly with realization.

"Pretty much," the brown haired girl agreed. "So, why are we talking about this?"

He gave her a small, quirky grin and said, "Some of the things I saw him do in the future—I never understood how or why he even went that route. Now, after—Fenrir came back to talk with me, then what we talked about just now, I'm starting to get his mental state and his reasons. I'm really confused by why I ever thought he was a hero or someone I should look up to."

"You did because he was strong and you weren't," Tifa told him dryly, eyes amused. "No one could beat him, so no one picked on him, either, but almost all the kids in the town shun or bully you. If you were strong like him, they wouldn't. It's not a bad thing to want to be strong, or to really be strong, but all you saw of him was his strength."

The boy blinked at her, blinked at her again, then chuckled and said, "Yeah, now that you mention it, I did used to think that before the Mako spring and the Blessing, didn't I? It was foolish. I don't want to make the same mistakes I did back then this time through, and I think understanding this will help me to not make those same mistakes again. Thank you, Tifa."

"...So, what were you as an adult? What kind of job did you have?" she asked.

"...Lots of things," he said in mild amusement. "I was with the Shinra Infantry for awhile. I was a mercenary for a bit, then a terrorist. I became an accidental hero in the middle of that, then decided I was tired of fighting all the time and became a delivery boy. It wasn't until I took such a—mundane job like that...It was only then when I started playing around with things like mechanics, since I had to make sure my delivery bike worked, and being a delivery boy gave me a lot of free time to play around."

"Whoa..." Tifa stared at him in shock. "A terrorist? Really?"

"Yeah. It wasn't a great decision, but I was first hired by the terrorists through my mercenary work, and ended up being shoved into leadership. The only reason we were even registered as terrorists was because it was Shinra we attacked."

The girl was quiet for a minute before asking, "Couldn't you have taken your delivery bike to a mechanic to fix?"

"Not if it broke down in the middle of nowhere," he answered dryly.

"Did you like mechanics, or was it just because 'you had to'?"

"...At first, it was just because I had to. Then, I started to like it. I even did some engineering for weapon development. It was a lot more fun than I had ever thought before then."

"Wow," Tifa blinked, then smiled. "Maybe that's the sort of job you should do instead of fighting this time."

Cloud gaped at her as Zack commented, :She's got a point, buddy. If you've got the skills—and you do—you should develop and use them.:

Finally, after a few moments, he told both Tifa and Zack, "I'll give it real thought." Both sent him smiles, hers right in front of him and Zack's into his mind.