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It was almost noon, and the sun shone upon the imposant Shinra building towering above the city of Midgar. But however peaceful it looked like from the outside (disregarding the whole “overcompensation” thing of the Shinra President when he had it built), inside it was another story.
There had already been half a dozen incidents of various importance and damage level, most involving the First SOLDIERS (and by association, a few others including Turks, Seconds and Cadets) this week.
It was Monday.
And it looked like it was a miracle none of them had gone rogue.
(Though it might change soon.)
Rumor had it that a few of the less seasoned Turks were on the verge of crying, and that their director, Veld, had ingested the equivalent of the daily coffee consumption of their entire department. He now seemed to have a killer headache (though if you didn’t know him well enough you wouldn’t be able to notice) and was in a foul mood, further terrifying the rookies.
The smart ones did their tasks as fast as possible, but stayed as far from Veld as they could. The chatting was a lot quieter than usual (despite the numerous things to discuss and investigate) and the paperwork done in time and without protesting. A true miracle.
But the main rumors, those whispered in every corner, secretary desks and training rooms, were about the Firsts. And the apparent madness following them.
It had all started early in the morning. It didn’t seem like much of an incident at first, so no one was particularly worried or suspicious.
Commander Genesis Rhapsodos had failed to show up for the Second’s materia training. Oh, it hadn’t stopped the lesson, he wasn’t the official instructor after all, and was hardly present for every single one of them, but he had said he’d test them today (probably with fireballs knowing him) and he had neither a scheduled mission nor an unexpected urgent one.
So why wasn’t he there ? For those Seconds, it didn’t go further. Genesis had a capricious temper and could change his mind quickly so he might just have found something more interesting to do with his morning.
It… wasn’t exactly the case, but they were probably better off not knowing why.
(It wasn’t even reported, because as inconveniencing as it was, the First had no formal obligation to be there. But the instructor left a note to in his papers, and the Turk would later discover that it was the start of this Hellish Day.)
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Here is what really happened.
Genesis woke up, years in the past and back in Shinra. His shoulder was uninjured and he had no wing. The Tower and the Plate were still standing.
He was, at first, understandably confused. Was it a real or just a fantasy ?
Had he really dreamed about all that time on the run, the clones or the Deepground mess ? The destruction of Midgar, Angeal’s death and Sephiroth’s insanity ?
Genesis wanted to pretend that those tragedies hadn’t happened, but it would be lying to himself. He knew the truth, he could feel it in his (not yet failing) body. No, it would appear that the Goddess had truly sent him to the past, to prevent a bleak future. One where the Lifestream was slowly depleting, and the Planet dying, unable to recover from the continuous blows at the hands of Jenova’s “children”.
Yes, this was his chance to have everything go right, as it should, and a way to become the hero he always wanted to be, to protect his friends (his beloved friends who had deserved so much better).
(Redemption.
He had reflected on his actions during his exile, and later when the survivors thought they only had to reconstruct their lives (before the situation had worsened again, and the world had started to decay). He had matured, his degradation-induced madness had been washed away by the healing rain. And had wished, so many times, that he had acted differently.
Now, he had this chance. He wouldn’t waste it.)
He would protect and save Sephiroth and Angeal. And the Puppy, Zack. And the blond Future-Savior-of-the-Planet-Currently-a-Cadet too, might as well, he owed it to Strife. And Gaia.
Anyway ! No time to lose, the world’s Fate was in his hands. He got prepared promptly before grabbing his beloved red cloak and leaving his rooms to find his fellow Firsts.
(Totally forgetting what his schedule was. Even if Genesis had, he would have ignored it. There were more important things to do than fry a couple Seconds.)
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In the bowels of the enormous tower, a Cadet was crawling in dark and dusty vents.
Why no one ever bothered to fix the easily accessible paths to the more confidential rooms, he’d never know. Be it now or when he was in AVALANCHE, the flaw in security was as present as ever. Surely, the Turks were aware of them, right ? He was pretty sure a few of them (Reno mostly, if just for pranks) used them.
Or they had forgotten about them, and lost the plans of the building in the archives (a room so messy, rumours has it that people had died buried in paper after a tower of paperwork had fallen on them). As it was, there were no cameras, only dust, and a perfect way to the labs.
His destination.
He was half crawling, half walking on all fours to be honest, those vents were quite large. He had a general idea as to where he had to turn, though his memory was quite spotty… even after Gaia’s help. Apparently, sending back a warrior who had no clear memories of his past was a bad move, so the Planet had restored them. Mostly.
Cloud was thankful, waking up in the past disoriented was bad enough. It would have been a hundred times worse if he had been as clueless about his cadet days as he had been after the whole experiments/coma/fights for his life, his friends’ and the world in general, thing. Here, he had mechanically woken up and the memories had only truly hit during breakfast in the mess. The other recruits had watched him with surprise when he had choked on his bread and excused himself, leaving in a hurry, but he paid them no mind.
There was no way he was letting things run as they had Before, and the best way to do it was what he was currently attempting.
His goal ? Hojo’s death. It would be cathartic as hell, and would stop him from hurting further… well the entire world.
A good place to start saving Zack, the world and the other Firsts he reckoned.
Even if he currently had noodle arms. And no mako. Or sword.
He’d improvise.
He soldiered on, continuing to advance above the hallways he could sometimes get a glance thanks to the ventilation openings. It was pretty slow, because he didn’t want to be heard (despite the lack of people under him), and he feared getting lost. Thankfully, even with the multiple turns and drops he seemed to have been able to stay on track.
There was another turn and he should end up next to Hojo’s private lab, who would be empty but for the Professor. Everything was going well.
At least until someone almost dropped on top of him from another ventilation shaft open above him.
He had to muffle a surprised shout, and the newcomer, who had landed surprisingly silently, yelped.
“Wha…” A big hand covered his mouth.
“Shhh. Who are you ?” said a very familiar voice.
“Zack ?!” Cloud couldn’t help but exclaim. He was immediately hit by a wave of emotions, surprise, relief to see with his own eyes that Zack was alive, amongst others.
In the dim light provided by an opening a bit further, Cloud saw his best friend’s eyes widen, and his face shift through multiple expressions, and ending in a determined stare that he knew mirrored his own.
“Spikey ?! What are you doing here ?” spoke hurriedly in a hushed voice a shocked Zack.
“I could ask you the same.” answered Cloud, still trying to understand why exactly the other boy could be here. He didn’t have the Buster Sword (which was still with Angeal anyway), or a regular broadsword. But no materials for pranks who could have justified his presence in the original timeline.
There was an awkward mutual silence for a minute or two, before it was broken by Cloud’s realisation.
“Wait. Have we even met yet ?” He was unsure as to when exactly he had been dropped by the Planet, but he was pretty certain he and Zack had been introduced on a mission who happened in spring. It was still winter.
Zack’s eyes widened in realisation. “Wait ! No, we haven’t technically !”
“Does it mean you too… ?” Cloud didn’t manage to finish his sentence, but almost got suffocated in the bear hug the bigger boy had somehow managed to wrap him despite the size of the place they were in.
“Shhh Cloudy. Don’t worry, Zack is here. The big bad professor won’t get you.” His tone was both gentle and… bloodthirsty, it was quite impressive.
But Cloud, as much as he loved the warm embrace, couldn’t let himself get smothered now.
He untangled from the steel-like muscles (who could never hurt him, but were hard to dislodge), still indulging in the much needed hug. Raising his head to look at Zack square in the eyes, he answered determinately.
“No, I’ll protect you Zack.”
His smile was very close to a deranged one, and just as disturbing has Zack’s had been.
“It’s time for Hojo to get into an unfortunate accident, don’t you think so ?”
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Two days later, the report given to Rufus Shinra (because the old President was unexpectedly unavailable) was centred around those few key points ;
Genesis Rhapsodos’ personality had done a 180-degree turn, and there were multiple accounts of employees seeing him “mothering General Sephiroth and First Class Hewley to death”, requisitioning armfulls of blankets and litres of hot chocolate and alcohol.
Said First had rumoredly gotten quite drunk (a feat in itself with their enhanced bodies), and there was a breakdown or two somewhere along the line, though no one is sure who had one exactly, too scared of being cremated by a brooding (in the purest mother hen way, not the emo one surprisingly) Genesis.
At one point, Sephiroth had tried to take (steal) a helicopter, and would have succeeded if not for a tackle by Zack Fair. The following conversation had been said too far to be recorded, though there might have been sentences about “discretion” or “clouds” so another attempt may happen sometime sooner or later.
Not that the Turks could stop him if they wanted, since the one who provided them the means, Professor Hojo, was dead.
This was the next batch of incidents, that they couldn’t really link to the Firsts and their entourage because of a lack of evidence despite the patrols, the cameras or the other persons working there in the labs. That and the fact that the Turks knew exactly where the Firsts were around the approximate time of death.
They explained to the flabbergasted new boss that the (creepy) Professor had an “unfortunate accident involving a fall down several flights of stairs, and a landing on a heavy table and its very sharp tools” resulting in a lot of broken bones, severe lacerations all over the body and caved in ribs. (Though how several butter knives and a bread knife had ended amongst the scalpels, they didn’t know. Maybe he had been carrying them)
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“Wow Spikey, your Limit break sure is impressive !”
“Thank you, but it would have been a lot better if I had had my Fusion Sword. Or any mako enhancements. But it was pretty therapeutic to push him. Did you really have to jump on his chest though ? The sound was disgusting.”
“Hey, I deserved some fun too ! And Angeal still has the Buster right now, I didn’t think I’d be able to borrow it without explanation. That and it’s too big to fit with me in the vents. Anyway, are you sure they’ll believe it ? Because it looks pretty obvious it was murder in my opinion.”
“Don’t worry, I think they had more to think about than who was responsible after we left. And a lot less motivation to punish us.”
“Uh, so that’s why you searched for those specific files and put them in clear view !”
“Yeah, you know how Turk’s loyalty works, they protect their own, and with Hojo’s nasty habit to experiment on anything he finds interesting, or just there at the wrong time and place… well. I don’t think we need to worry too much.”
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As the Turks had found Hojo at the bottom, laid in a plausible way, to go with the theory of an accidental fall, and that there were no signs of a perpetrator, it was considered a closed case.
That and the rest of the labs, including the main ones, had been mostly destroyed by the rampage of many experiments set free (letting slip away the most sentient and sane ones) shortly after.
Probably unrelated, but similarly, the next day Hollander had found his tragic death in a fire that had scorched his own lab (far from Hojo’s own, they couldn’t stand each other) a day later.
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“Genesis, you smell like smoke, have you gone tormenting Cadets and SOLDIERs again ?”
“No Angeal dear, I just got rid of some useless trash.”
“Go shower, you stink ! And why have you gotten up so early ? We have the day off, come back to bed.”
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(Here is what they left unsaid ;
When they had found the Professor’s cadaver, the Turks had given to their boss the files they had found very near, neatly set on a table.
Veld had gotten his daughter back, his beloved Felicia who was still alive but had been subject to some experiments by the Professor. He had, fortunately, died before doing her planned materia graft because it had yet to be shipped to that secret lab’s location.
He had also learned that his former partner, Vincent Valentine was not dead but in stasis in the old (and not as abandoned as they thought) Nibelheim Mansion, had also suffered under Hojo’s “tender care” but could be woken up.
He’d go as soon as he would be able to leave SHINRA’s tower without it risking to collapse, literally and metaphorically. They still had no idea where Shinra the father was, and he was a tub of lard barely capable of walking without help.
Tseng added a note about the half-Cetra they monitored being particularly happy since the Hellish day, but then again she was also one of Hojo’s past victims and could very well have some kind of power letting her know of his demise. )
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“I wonder how the Planet’s chosens are doing, they should have gone destroying JENOVA by now, so why haven’t they ?”
“Nevermind, Hojo’s dead. Fuck yeah !”
“I’d have liked to use his corpse as fertiliser though, too bad.”
(The Turk who heard that last remark sweatdropped. The girl was kind and cute, but she was from the Slums and it wouldn’t do to forget it. Not helpless or weak.)
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Rufus had also gotten a much less stressful bunch of paperwork, from the Second prodigy Zack Fair (who was on fast tracks to become a First). The young man had asked to become the mentor of a Cadet he had noticed and who had potential.
(The junior Turk who handed him the papers and was a friend of Zack commented that he might have a slightly less professional reason to ask.)
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“Hey Cloud, is it me or since that time you got ill at breakfast Zack Fair is always around you ?”
“He’s not here that often. And we met and he decided to be my friend.”
“You sure ? ‘cause I’ve seen him watch you a lot.”
“He’s just… overprotective.”
“We have noticed. You got a small cut at the arm during sword practice and he rushed in and got you in a princess carry to take you to the infirmary. And he looked way too intense while doing it. It was weird. And kinda scary ? But hot.”
“Please stop talking.”