Heads up, we start seeing people start to be mean to each other thanks to the propaganda- it's sanitized because Chadley's not the best at understanding racism though he does understand violence.
Games
Seventh Heaven, Sector Seven Slums
Sonon had left the bar quietly, between one trip to the dishwasher and the next. Tifa closed her eyes as Barrett cleared his throat.
"You're having second thoughts?"
"As I said, I don't want to be someone else's ShinRa. I'm torn, Barrett, Cloud's alive, but he was in Nibelheim all this time! I left him and who knows who else to be tortured!"
"You were injured and needed medical attention. No shame for that. You didn't even know he was there."
"I was so angry … I ignored that a trooper risked his life to protect me, Zack protected us getting down the mountain. I want ShinRa to stop… I just…" Tifa hadn't known Cloud was a trooper. There were people underneath those helmets and she had definitely broken bones of troopers on a couple missions, if not worse … if Cloud hadn't been experimented on at Nibleheim she could have killed him and never known because she'd never thought he could be a trooper.
"He would have stopped you. Called your name. Taken off his helmet." Barret offered, and she hadn't realized she'd said that out loud. "Tifa. You don't have to go to the reactor with us, just don't go telling anyone."
"I'm not telling anyone anything, I'm not losing you, Cloud or any one else to ShinRa!" Tifa put down the glass before she broke it. "It's foolish to have second thoughts now, I know. I'm still with you, I just can't stop thinking."
"It's a mess. I get it. I'd rather stay with Marlene, but I can't sit and do nothing as ShinRa happily destroys life after life. Four towns at least have been destroyed, two rebuilt and ShinRa actors hired to pretend nothing happened. That kinda shit can't be ignored."
"If I sit out, you still need someone's who's been in a reactor." Tifa noted.
"Soldier would know, right? Think either of them would agree?"
"We'd have to ask them. Damaging a reactor pump … shouldn't be too hard. And Jessie's developing new ids for the new security." There were always things that could go wrong. Hospitals had back up generators, and damaging the pump wouldn't get rid of the already stored mako so the sector should have time to figure out what to do, how to live without it.
Gongaga's reactor had melted down and taken half the town with it and the survivors stopped using Mako in response.
Their cell weren't trying to be ShinRa who burned down towns, they just wanted to stop the drain.
"Pick your replacement, it will be alright." Barrett assured her before going to bed.
… She just couldn't stop the feeling she was getting that things would go wrong.
Urban Development Director's Office, Floor 63, ShinRa Building
Reeve had been busy with paperwork and was startled by the door opening.
"Ah, you're here." The Soldier hesitated in the doorway for a moment before letting himself in. "I'm sorry for intruding, but … I have some concerns and Heidegger's not … well …"
"Heidegger's not the type to listen to things being wrong, I know." Reeve watched as the soldier seemed relieved.
"I'm Kunsel, Soldier 2nd Class. I'm sorry about not making an appointment, but Heidegger has moved an entire guard rotation away from a science lab in the slums that had monsters escape from it. Science has declared the lab obsolete and said there's no viable experiments, but monsters were reported escaping and we never received mission orders to clear it out."
"Why come to me?" Reeve knew about the lab debacle, but he had thought Heidegger wasn't so arrogant as to move security away from a recent problem.
"As a director, you have control over a squad of troopers and can control over at least three soldiers for any projects you want. Please. I'm asking, no, I'm begging you use that power to cover the holes."
Reeve was surprised. This was not what he thought would happen when he heard about a Soldier snooping through his office.
"I wish I could, but Heidegger has last say on deployments. He'd never sign off on that."
"He would if he was distracted." Kunsel put the papers in front of him. "Heidegger prefers his troopers to Soldier, but he doesn't think they can think without him. I also have a couple possible reasons you can use if he gets upset, sir."
"Why are you so intent on this, Kunsel?" Reeve took the papers.
"… All due respect to the board, but so far, you're the only executive who doesn't creep me out." Kunsel informed him. "You don't abuse your power over your people, or toss them under a bus when things go wrong so they're happy working for you, and you have more of a spine than Palmer. I lost my best friend to a company screw up, the only reason I stay is because he believed in the good people at ShinRa, and I came up with this because he ran several missions for your department."
"I see. What was his name?" Reeve could see the way
"First Class Zack Fair."
"The name's familiar. I'm sorry for your loss." Reeve offered, signing the forms. He faintly remembered hearing about the man from a couple of his employees, Reeve thought he might've had a fan club a few years back.
"… Thank you, sir. I'm sending the email addresses of the men, as well as a recommendation for schedules and locations."
"Thank you. I'll get on that." Reeve was relieved to see that with the exception of the lab, all locations were actually Urban Development Areas of operations with a threat assessment attached. He did notice that Kunsel had put himself down for the Sector Seven Undercity lab rotation.
How quickly Heidegger had forgotten about the lab was concerning, but somewhat unsurprising.
"You know where to submit these papers?"
"Yes sir, they'll all be filed before morning. This is your copy." Kunsel took the needed paperwork and stood there for a moment.
'Ye need to dismiss him.' Cait whispered in the back of his mind, giving him a strange sensation of seeing double.
"Ah. Dismissed, Soldier?" Reeve managed.
"Sir." Kunsel saluted and left.
Very shortly, Reeve had another email detailing military speak and what orders to give, as well as recommendations for how to make Heidegger think it was his idea all along, or at least, embarrass him into not admitting he made a mistake.
Miraculously, they made it to the afternoon before Heidegger realized he had signed off a squad of troopers and a couple soldiers.
Reeve had memorized the talking points.
"Why has Urban Development taken my troopers?!"
"You assigned them to me to protect our supply depots, the last thing we need is a Wutai infiltration unit to steal our butane, Scarlet demonstrated how explosive that stuff is." Reeve stared at Heidegger. "I must also thank you for assigning a soldier who helped catch spies from Wutai, you're right, Urban development being infiltrated five years ago was almost a disaster given how many blueprints the infiltrators copied."
Heidegger turned colors that Reeve had never seen on a human before.
Reeve glanced at the President who seemed bored by the conversation.
"Leave the squad for Tuesti, we have other concerns."
Reeve took the statement for the dismissal that it was.
By the time he returned to his office, the two troopers had a new patch on their uniforms for Urban Development Security.
"Sir!" They saluted.
"As you were, gentlemen." Reeve felt a little confused about how they listened to him. Usually troopers just acted like a blank wall.
… Maybe he could get them different helmets, or hats that didn't obscure their faces. He'd email Kunsel about that. Right now, he had work to do.
Turk Office, General Affairs Auditing, Floor B3, ShinRa Building
Reno watched, impressed as Tseng's face remained impassive as Heidegger yelled abuse at him. Apparently the guy was upset that Tuesti managed to snag some troopers to protect Urban Development supplies and was blaming Tseng for not notifying him.
"Sir, you did order the transfer, you said yourself Reeve didn't understand what to guard. He would have left vulnerable assets at risk." Tseng pulled up a guard rotation and Reno leaned over to look.
The lab that had escaped specimens had a familiar soldier name scheduled as a sixteen hours guard.
Tseng said a few more things to placate the moron they had to listen to, and then was hung up on.
"So, Boss, think Kunsel knows about Fair?"
"Yes. He's also the one who went to Tuesti, and supplied all the information Tuesti would need for dealing with Heidegger, based on the emails. He is acting in the company's interests by guarding Urban Development's weak points." Tseng blinked at the screen. "The only mark against him is he selected friends of Cloud Strife, from training and his old unit from the troopers, as well as two soldiers that worked with Fair." Two units or rather, or rather, one squad was not a lot of people, and just barely enough to cover the weak points in Urban Development. The soldiers would be almost non stop monster hunting.
"One guy's been flagged for questioning Strife's disappearance." Reno noted. "Low level though."
"Guy was basically Strife's partner, went through training together. We flagged him to keep him away from being posted at Nibleheim." Rude observed.
"Mm. We'll leave it be for now. We have more important things to deal with, like speaking with the black market dealers who sold a highly volatile blasting agent to someone under the plate."
"Got it." Reno grinned. He was looking forward to leaving the building. A hunt would be fun. "Let's go, Rude!"
"He's not going with you."
"What?" Reno stared at Tseng. Rude adjusted his glasses.
"For the foreseeable future, we will each have a unit of Troopers assigned to us by order of Heidegger. I suspect they are also our guards."
"Boss …" they were all loyal to the company. What was Heidegger thinking?!Turks weren't Soldiers.
"I suspect Heidegger doesn't believe us to be … professional. He's actually been doing an audit of our reports. Most likely looking for discrepancies or anything to use against us."
"It's cause of the Vice President, isn't it?" Reno felt annoyed.
"Heidegger's made no secret that he feels slighted by Rufus ShinRa taking the Vice Presidency five years ago. He doesn't let go of grudges. Rufus has already expressed interest in having us back in our former capacity, which puts him at odds with Heidegger. Be careful. We cannot afford mistakes."
Sector Seven Slums
Chadley had meant to stay in Sector Five. It was easier to check in with Cloud and Zack that way. But his research was actually ahead of schedule for once and he needed to slow down before they noticed.
So he decided to observe Sector Seven's undercity in more detail.
What he observed was different compared to Sector Five's inhabitants, there were more complete family units in Sector Seven, for one thing, whereas Sector Five had far more orphans and elderly.
For another, most were ignoring a man in a turtle costume holding a sign.
By his facial features, he was Wutaian, though why he wore a shell was confusing.
There was one altercation Chadley observed, a group of men he had previously observed in Sector Six Undercity attacked the man physically along with verbal phrases that described his physical appearance in a derogatory manner, which Chadley didn't quite understand, as according to Hojo's records of vivisection the man was of Average Wutaian features.
The watchmen he'd previously scouted yelled, and chased off the group.
The watchman called Wymer was the only one to check on the Wutaian, and Chadley tilted his head slightly to catch their now hushed conversation.
"-know better, Snap."
"We've been planning the promotion for months, it's just bad timing."
"You know how gullible the young ones are, hells, you know how ShinRa spins things. You need an escort or buddy. Monster attacks are on the rise again, I can't do it, and not all my bunch are as smart as they think they are." Wymer helped fix the sign the Wutaian was carrying. "Corneo's men like to stir up trouble, word is they're recruiting again. This is going to be a mess." Wymer sighed.
"Which is where having fun is a good reminder that we're not all the enemy." The Wutaian offered.
"Snap."
"Wymer."
The two stared at each other.
"I'll get the ones I know to keep an eye out. Just stay out of trouble, Snap, I don't want to discover you vanished one day like …"
"I promise I won't go down quietly. They'll hear me screaming for help from the plate."
That proclamation had Wymer laughing. Which confused Chadley as most people in the slums didn't laugh at screaming, like Hojo sometimes did.
"Got time for a game?"
"No, got to keep making my rounds. Please be careful."
"I will." The Wutaian waved Wymer off.
Chadley was about to continue on when he spotted a rather obese man come up to the Wutaian.
"Hey! Up for a game?" The man asked.
"Of course!" The Wutaian replied.
Chadley blinked moving over to watch as the two took out a small portable game board each and a deck of cards.
The pieces were block representations of ShinRa troops, and the goal was unclear, but some sort of strategic ability was required.
"Wanna play?" The obese man asked, startling Chadley.
"I do not play games." Chadley did not understand the glance the two shared, it was similar to the looks Zack and Cloud shared. "I also do not have a board or cards."
"No problem! I have a beginner set here. No charge. This game is called Fort Condor, you defend your fort from challengers."
"But they also have the same Fort, is that not counterproductive to attack the place you defend?" Chadley blinked.
"… Okay, let's start with the basic basics, do you know what a game is?"
"A frivolous use of time I should not entertain." That was Hojo's definition, anyway.
"… I don't know where to start with that."
"I do. A game is not supposed to contribute to work, but a way to relax when work is done, or when you're waiting to start work. It can also help your mind relax by focusing on something else other than a problem." The Wutaian explained. "What's your name?"
"Chadley."
The two men were called Wedge and Old Snapper, or Snap to his friends. They were happy to teach Chadley the game and something inside Chadley's head eased as he was given more data to puzzle.
End Note: I moved the timeline. Again.
One day, I will actually stick with an outline
edited note: apparently we can't delete reviews, even if they have hate speech in them. This seems like an oversight. Sorry guys.