Angeal started regenerating.
Another week went by, then two. The G-copies finished installing Angeal's new cylinder-tank in the center of the main lab. At least something was going well, Zack thought. It was ready to go.
Lazard didn't magically reappear. But his defection was forgotten for the moment by everyone because something wonderful happened.
Angeal started regenerating.
Sephiroth noticed it first, of course. He spent the most time with Angeal, carrying him around whenever outside the lab. The growth began as an expanding lump at the base of Angeal's neck, just as it had the previous times he'd grown new tissue. Over the next few days it thickened and elongated.
Everyone constantly inspected Angeal, day after day. A little over a week passed, with the growth getting larger and longer. Creases and folds appeared.
Sephiroth and Hollander transferred him to the cylinder-tank in the center of the main lab. It stood almost three meters tall and roughly one and a half meters in diameter, and had been filled with nutrient fluid with a very slight, almost unnoticeable greenish tinge. Angeal would have plenty of room to expand and grow a full-sized human body in there. There were several thick, plastic and metal access ports embedded in the back, one of which was man-sized—presumably to get Angeal out as needed for whatever reason. A variety of winding conduits, tubing, pumps, and naked, incomprehensible machinery Zack thought of as "mad scientist equipment" was installed at its top and base, and ran down the length of the back next to the access ports. A sort of control console, exposed wires snaking into all the machines, stood to one side.
Angeal floated within, gently held in place with a loose, collar-like harness across his brow and around his head. Four lightweight wires reached out from the collar and attached to the tank's sides. The whole arrangement appeared to be pretty thin and flimsy, just enough to keep him from bouncing around in the slowly circulating liquid, but Zack did wonder if at some point it might provoke Angeal into another panic attack. The entire assembly looked an awful lot like the tank Hojo had kept Angeal in, just not as polished or sophisticated, with no shields or housings to disguise the guts of the machinery. Too much of the functional equipment was exposed for comfort. Zack thought the thing might give both Angeal and himself nightmares and flashbacks of Hojo's lab.
Since Sephiroth couldn't carry the tank around with him, the three former SOLDIERs set up a rotation where one of them would always be with Angeal, no matter the time of day or night. They never left him unattended, and rested in the patient bed Zack had used back when Hollander had amputated Angeal's baby wings. They dragged it across the lab to be near Angeal's tank. Sephiroth claimed that Angeal knew they were there, and that their presence provided some comfort and security. Hollander accepted their constant intrusion in his domain with only a mild eye roll.
A week after Angeal had been moved into his new home, Genesis asked, "Is he growing a tail from his head?" His tone was only slightly caustic. "I thought he was supposed to grow a human body, not become a tadpole or a monster."
In the lab, Zack, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Hollander all stood around Angeal's tank. As far as Zack could tell, Angeal's new growth did appear to have become a thick, stubby tail sprouting from the base of his neck. It was a little over half a meter long, slightly flattened like a flipper, and tapered down from the stump to a dull point. It curled sharply inward and sported a number of soft, ill-defined lumps of tissue, particularly along its middle and outer back edge.
It might have been concerning but for Hollander's next words:
"This is expected. I assume none of you have ever studied progression images of a developing embryo of any mammalian species, have you?"
"Never," Genesis proclaimed, sounding strangely proud of that fact.
"I thought you knew more biology," Hollander mused, "considering you found a way to stabilize and can Banora White apple juice for commercial purposes. Banora Whites are notoriously temperamental."
"Dumbapples have nothing to do with embryos. Much different processes. Unless you plan to pasteurize and can Angeal," Genesis sniffed with heavy sarcasm. He stared at Angeal's developing body and added, "It kind of looks like an uncooked cocktail shrimp."
Despite the fact that this was Angeal they were talking about, Zack snickered. That weird, lumpy, curled thing did remind him of a shrimp. A big shrimp, to be sure, without any segmented shell, fanned tail, or jointed, insectoid legs, and with an adult man's head attached at the top. Kind of gross, really, and the pale, pinkish-grayish-whitish color reinforced the unfortunate impression of raw seafood.
"An ordinary human embryo would only be, at most, three to five centimeters long at this stage," Hollander said in his lecturing tone. "It obviously would not have a fully developed adult male head, either." He chuckled. "Just an oval-ish lump, really. No bones, organs, brain or neural tissue, no eyes or mouth or other features. Just the cell clusters that slowly specialize and form into the parts we're familiar with. But this isn't a normal situation, is it? I can show you pictures and describe the process if you're interested."
They all agreed, and in the next hour Hollander had them gather around his computer, where he gave a high-level lecture on embryology and human fetal development, complete with audiovisual aids. Zack found it ridiculously confusing, but managed to learn that embryos and early-stage fetuses were nothing like itty bitty tiny human babies as he'd always imagined. In fact, as Hollander pointed out by comparing the pictures with embryos of other mammals, only someone knowledgeable could tell the difference between a human embryo and that of, say, a dog or a whale. They all looked shockingly similar. Zack had already recognized that his schooling and personal assumptions about biology were naïve, oversimplified, and often flat-out wrong, and so didn't experience quite as much dissonance about seeing how Angeal's regrowth was likely to progress as he might have just a couple months ago.
Assuming, as Hollander pointed out, that Angeal's regrowth followed the same patterns as human fetal development. There was no guarantee it would continue to do so. "For all we know," Hollander proclaimed, "he might have a drastic growth spurt and develop a small child's body in the next week without the intermediate fetal or infant stages. This is unprecedented. There's no real way to predict how his regrowth will occur, but as long as he follows the human bio-templates I created, he should end up with a human body that strongly resembles his old one, given his personal genetic makeup. The phenotype might be different, and he might have an extremely pale, fragile skin tone at first, at least until his natural melanin production kicks in. It's unclear how much of his physique was due to training, mako, and natural predisposition, but for the most part—"
"What do you mean?" Zack asked. "He might end up a skinny albino?"
Genesis cast a pointed look at Sephiroth and snickered.
"I am not skinny, nor am I an albino," Sephiroth proclaimed, indignant.
"I didn't say anything." Genesis snickered again. Zack had to look away to hide his own mirth.
Stress. The absurd bickering was due to stress, and giddiness that Angeal was growing a human body, and a whole lot of other irreconcilable emotions that were bubbling over. Everyone was feeling them, he thought.
"Albinos lack pigment," Sephiroth stated. "They have powdery white skin, white or transparent hair, and pink or red eyes. That is obviously not true in my case."
Genesis nodded sagely, still smirking.
"That's a stereotype and misconception, you idiots!" Hollander snapped at them. "There's more variety than that and there are multiple types of albinism! They can have blue or brown eyes, and even light brown hair. Grow up." When he was satisfied they had settled down and were paying attention again, he went on with his lecture: "Now, to continue," and here he gave Sephiroth and Genesis a pointed, quelling glare, "it's unclear how much of Angeal's Jenova biology controlled how he was built. Some things are bound to be different at first: skin and nail texture, muscle mass, fat distribution, melanin production, that sort of thing. There's a good chance he'll be quite weak and frail at first. But he had a natural predisposition to an enhanced form, so probably a good diet and training program will get him back to normal."
"We can take care of that," Sephiroth said, waving a hand to indicate himself, Genesis, and Zack. "He won't stay weak for long. He probably won't be weak at all. Not with me here to guide him."
"Us, you mean," Genesis said, annoyed that he'd been disregarded. "But you're right that he probably won't be weak. Even when we were kids, he was unusually strong. We both were."
"As a child, he'd had the advantage of years of further growth outside the womb, diet, and physical activity. He won't this time. If all goes as planned, he'll come out of this with an adult body, but it's bound to be underdeveloped in some ways," Hollander pointed out. "I'm just warning you of potential differences." He added wryly, "Don't be shocked if he has poor muscle tone at first and doesn't look like he can lift a piece of paper by himself, let alone that massive sword of his."