I have decided to stop titling individual chapters. Pain in the ass, as Cid
once said. C&C/MST begged for, flames laughed at and then trashcanned, FF7
isn't mine, don't sue me because I'm really, really broke and you'd be
wasting your time.
------
Final Fantasy VII: Children of Jenova

Chapter 8

The Wratt & Pitney plant manager's office had two windows; one that offered
a lovely view of the countryside and the hangars where experimental
aircraft were kept, and one that allowed said manager to observe what was
going on in the plant. Said manager, at that point, happened to be a chubby
little man in a beige suit that was about four sizes too tight, with pants
that were about two inches too short, and with several grease stains on his
tie from the double cheeseburger he was stuffing into his fat little face.
Hmph. Work, work, work. Never time for a decent meal anymore. 

The phone rang, and Palmer was so surprised he dropped his burger right
onto the floor. He looked around quickly to make sure nobody was watching,
then he picked up the burger, plucked a few bits of carpet fuzz off, and
resumed eating. Then he picked up the phone. "Shinra Aerospace," he said
around a mouthful of almost pure cholesterol.

"What the HELL is going on in there, Palmer?" Scarlet screeched, and Palmer
had to hold the phone about a foot away from his ear to avoid permanent
hearing loss. 

"Hey-hey, Scarlet! We've almost got that passenger airship ready to go, all
we need to do is run some test flights--"

"Scrap it. I want fighter jets, not fucking flying buses!" Scarlet paused.
"And if you say  'Hey-hey' one more time I'm going to reach through this
phone and rip your nose off!"

Palmer spluttered, dribbling a few particles of bun down his tie. "But
Scarlet--"

"I told you when we took over that damn plant I wanted you to start
cranking out fighters for me. How close are we to having an operational
squadron?"

"Well, I suppose within a week we can have some prototypes flying, and most
of our older jets are still operational...well, the ones that weren't
parked at Junon, anyway."

"Aargh, don't remind me about that! And get RID of that airship. We've
still got more than enough Gelnikas to handle all the cargo and
troop-carrying crap. I don't need some huge hunk of scrap metal taking up
valuable space on my airstrips. Got it?"

Palmer sighed, but unlike Heidegger he lacked the backbone to argue with
the new President. "Got it." He hung up, then picked up the intercom. "All
right, I want everyone that's not working on the fighter aircraft to get
your hacksaws and crowbars and start taking that airship apart!"

"What!?" came several shouts from the plant floor.

"Look, fatass, we've been working on this for five years!" came another.

"If you have a problem with that, feel free to come to my office and submit
your resignation notices." Palmer yawned, not realizing that those words
had just sealed his fate. "Get to work, now." He flipped off the intercom,
not seeing several of the workers flipping HIM off at the same time. Boy,
he was tired. Ordering folks around all day and night sure took a lot out
of a guy. Tucking away the last bite of his cheeseburger, he sat down and
propped his feet up on the desk and promptly began to snore.

The next thing he knew, several hours later judging by the sunlight that
now streamed through the window, there was a rather loud whirring noise
emanating from the hangar where the airship was being stored. Palmer jumped
out of his chair and went straight to the window that overlooked the
interior of the plant, and what he saw turned his bowels to water.

Spraypainted on the floor of the plant, in big red letters, were the words
"TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT, LARDASS."

"Oh dear." Palmer dashed to the other window just in time to see the
experimental airship sailing off into the morning sky. Shoved under his
door were numerous leaves of paper. Resignation letters from every single
worker in the plant. "Oh no." Palmer sat down heavily and began to blubber.
"What am I gonna do...I'm gonna lie, that's what I'm gonna do..." He picked
up the phone and dialed Scarlet's number. "Hey-h--hi, Scarlet! The
airship's all gone!"

"Damn, that was fast." Scarlet sounded mildly amused. "What about my
fighters?"

D'oh! He'd forgotten that little detail..."Well, I sent everyone home. They
worked so hard getting the airship torn down--"

"Forget it. Just have my fighters flying by the end of the week." And she
hung up.

Palmer put the phone down and groaned. He was dead. Absolutely dead. He
opened the door of his office and looked down into the plant. "Hey! Anyone
here?" Silence. "Oh, great." He bumbled down the stairs that led into the
main plant and looked around sadly. "This is bad. Really bad." He made his
way through the plant, stopping every so often to "tsk" or shake his head
at the abandoned workstations. Soon, he stood outside the plant, staring at
the empty hangar that had once held the Wratt & Pitney airship and sobbing.
Just then, his cell phone rang. "Hello?" he whimpered. The sound of a truck
engine starting not too far away gave him a momentary burst of hope, but
that was soon dashed to bits when he found out who was on the other end of
the phone.

"Palmer," Scarlet began calmly. "Is there something you didn't tell me?"

"N--no, of course not!"

There were a few seconds of silence. "I am not an unreasonable woman,
Palmer. I have been very patient with your fat ass up to this point. Now
I'm going to ask you a question, and if you don't have the right answer I
am going to make you wish you'd never even heard of me!" Another pause
came, followed by the eardrum-rupturing shriek of "WHAT THE *FUCK* JUST
FLEW PAST MY WINDOW!?"

"Um...I don't know." The truck seemed to be coming closer, and Palmer
prepared to wave it down.

"Well, I'll tell you. It looked a lot like an airship. In fact, it looked a
LOT like that airship you just told me your flunkies had torn apart! Care
to tell me what the HELL is going on?"

Palmer opened his mouth to answer, but two things happened that prevented
it. First, he ran out around the corner of the building to try to catch the
truck's attention. Second, the truck made a sharp turn, right into his
path... 

As he bounced off the truck's front bumper with a resounding thud, Scarlet
heard two words wailed through the phone.

"Not again!"

*			*			*

Cid let out a grunt as he realized that someone was shaking him out of his
well-earned sleep. "Wha?"

"Morning, Daddy." Junior was already up, confirming one of his worst fears:
his daughter was a morning person. Damn, she definitely didn't get that
from him. "Uncle Cloud just called. He needs you to take Zack to the doctor
again." 

"Huh?" Cid sat up groggily and felt on the nightstand for his cigarettes;
Junior found them and slipped them into his hand. "Thanks, kiddo. What
for?"

Junior shrugged. "Dunno. He said that doctor called real late last night
and told him to." She sniffled. "There's somethin' wrong with Zack, isn't
there?"

"Aww, come here." Cid held out his arms to Junior and gave her a big hug.
"Don't you worry about Zack. Would you feel better if you got to go with
him?"

"Yes sir." Junior nodded. "Uncle Cloud sounded real worried."

"Okay. Go get your stuff ready." He let Junior go and she padded off to her
room as Shera stirred beside him.

"What was that all about?" she asked as Cid got up and started dressing.
"Is something wrong with Zack?"

Cid lit up a cigarette. "I hope not, but last night they had Doc Cooper do
some blood work on him to check for Jenova cells...if he called 'em that
late at night I don't imagine he had good news."

"Oh, no." Shera bit her lip. "That poor boy." 

Cid nodded and sighed as he pulled his boots on. "Maybe they'll figure out
some way of gettin' rid of it if he does have 'em. Goddamn, though...that's
just plain evil...bad enough that Cloud had to go through that shit. Zack's
just a little kid." He stood up and threw on his shirt and jacket. "I'm
gonna take Junior with me. She's worried sick about Zack."

"That's fine. The school's going to be closed down for a while anyway. I'd
rather she had something to do besides shoot pop cans off the fence with
that slingshot of hers." Shera looked thoughtful for a bit. "Tell me
something, Cid."

"Sure."

"Where exactly did those lightning spells that killed some of the monsters
at the school come from?"

Cid shifted his weight from foot to foot a couple of times, and Shera
frowned. "Well..."

"Never mind, I already know." Shera sighed. "Cid, promise me you won't let
her get into any more of that business."

"But--" Cid started to argue, but the look Shera was shooting at him could
have melted steel at a hundred yards. "Okay, okay. I promise."

Satisfied with that, Shera smiled and went back to sleep. 

"Daddy?"

Cid turned around and saw Junior standing in the hallway, ready to go.
"What's up, punkin?"

"What's Jenova?"

"Well...I don't know how exactly to put it." Cid puffed on his cigarette
and sighed. "It's kinda like a germ, I guess, except it makes folks go sick
in the head."

"Like Vicks?"

"Sort of." Cid bent down and picked Junior up and gave her a hug. "We're
not gonna let that happen to Zack, though. I promise."

Junior craned her neck around, peering over Cid's shoulder, and she sighed
in relief. "Good, you didn't have your fingers crossed that time."

"Huh?"

Junior blinked. "You didn't have your fingers crossed like you did when you
promised Mama you weren't gonna let me fight anymore," she blurted. Shera
stirred and grunted, and Cid flinched.

*			*			*

Cloud was not looking forward to taking Zack back to the doctor. He already
knew that the tests had come up positive; Doc Cooper's late-night phone
call had told him all he needed to know in that department even though the
doctor hadn't said anything one way or the other over the phone. "Hey,
buddy. Wake up, We gotta go see Doc Cooper again."

Zack whimpered and pulled the covers tighter around his head. "I don't feel
good, Dad."

"What's wrong?" Cloud reached out and gently pulled the covers back, and he
gasped in shock as he looked at his son. They had put a six-year-old boy to
bed the night before.

"I'm cold and I hurt all over." The boy that lay shivering under the
blankets now looked about eight or so, about Junior's height, and his brown
eyes glowed a dull rust color. "Dad?" he whispered.

"Yeah." Cloud got himself under control. "What's up?"

"My p.j.'s shrunk or something. Lookit this, one of the buttons popped
off." Zack held up a small plastic disc in one shaking hand. "This stinks.
I don't feel good and my p.j.'s are too small. How'd they shrink so fast?" 

"I dunno. Let me check the rest of your clothes. Maybe some moogles got in
here and messed with 'em." Cloud calmly opened a dresser drawer, took out a
pair of pants, and pretended to study them intently. "Yep. They all shrunk.
I think the moogles are playin' a joke on you. We'll see if Junior has
something you can borrow that's not pink, and I'll get Cait Sith to rough
up the moogles and make 'em fix this mess," Cloud said calmly, and Zack
snickered at the thought of a horde of moogles sneaking into his room and
shrinking all of his clothes. "Let me go call Uncle Cid again and see. You
just hang in there, okay?"

"'Kay."

On the way out of Zack's room, Cloud nearly collided with Tifa. "What's
going on?" she asked. "Is he ready to go yet?"

"I think you better see for yourself," Cloud replied. "Just don't freak
out. I don't want him to get upset," he added in a whisper.

Tifa frowned and stepped into Zack's room. A few minutes later she came
out, white as a ghost. "What happened!? Cloud, what's wrong with him?"

Cloud shook his head and took Tifa into his arms. "I don't know. I just
hope Doc Cooper can figure out a way to stop it."

*			*			*

Cid was on the way out the door when the phone rang again. "Look, whoever
this is, I'm in a hurry."

"Cid, it's Cloud. Listen, I have kind of a strange request. Can you bring
some of Junior's clothes with you? Preferably something that isn't pink?"

"What the hell for?" 

"You'll see why when you get here."

"Cloud, what the hell you need Junior's clothes for? What happened?"

There was a short silence. "Something happened to Zack. He--well, he grew."

"Yeah, kids do that. Guess it's time for a shoppin' trip--"

"You don't get it! He REALLY grew! Cid, he put on about two or three years
overnight!"

Cid's jaw dropped, and his cigarette plummeted to the floor. Junior
retrieved it and handed it back to him. "What the--how?" He paused. "Oh,
Lord."

"Yeah. It freaked me and Tifa out too." Cloud sighed. "I can't handle this,
Cid."

"Hang in there, Spike. We'll figure something out." Cid hung up and shook
his head. "Hey, Junior?"

"Sir?"

"Do me a favor, okay? Go get a T-shirt and some pants out of your dresser."

"'Kay." Junior disappeared into her room and came back out a few minutes
later with a blue Snow Racer T-shirt and a pair of sweat pants over her
arm. "How come you need these?"

"Zack needs 'em." Cid took the clothes and stuffed them in his backpack.
"Something happened to him and  he kinda got bigger last night. I don't
know how so don't ask me. Just don't flip out when you see him."

Junior shrugged. "Okay." She started for the door, then paused. "How much
bigger?"

"Dunno. The way Cloud was talkin', about your height."

The kid nodded and processed this information. "I wonder if I can still
beat him up now?" she mused, then she shrugged again and headed out.

*			*			*

Reeve painfully opened one eye and glared at a lump of plastic on his
nightstand. The lump was making a horrible racket, and after a few minutes
of squinting and eye-rubbing he was able to recognize it as a phone. At
this point he realized that he had several options. He could ignore it
until it stopped ringing, he could answer it, or he could pick it up and
throw it out the goddamn window. The first was simply not an option; it
felt like a small nuclear device was detonating inside his skull with every
ring the thing emitted. The last would have required too much effort. That
left only one option. He reached out and swatted the receiver off the hook,
and it landed somewhere in the vicinity of his aching head. Close enough
for government work. "Huh," he grunted.

"Sir, this is Conner at the airfield. I just got a call in that there's an
unidentified airship flying around. Nobody's ever seen the like of it, but
it's got the W&P logo on it. What do you want us to do if it tries to land
here?"

"Oh, gawd." Reeve groaned. Thinking about it was making his head hurt even
worse. How much DID he drink last night, anyway? "Talk to the crew first.
They're probably Shinra, but make sure before you go blowing it up."
According to Shera, she had not been alone in her decision to walk off the
job; it was possible that some disgruntled ex-W&P employees had decided to
voice their displeasure over the new management a bit more dramatically. Or
the airship might be full of Shinra troops ready to try to take Junon back.
Either way, a new airship could be useful..."Try not to mess up that ship
if you can get around it."

"Yes sir." 

Reeve hung up on him and hid his head under a pillow, trying to remember
how he ended up getting home the night before. He'd nodded off at work and
for some reason had decided to go get pissed. He'd run across the old Turks
on the way out. He was now lying in bed, fully clothed except for his tie
and shoes. Interesting. Oh, and someone was snoring in the living room.
Great. He opened the drawer of his nightstand, fumbled a bottle of aspirin
out, and swallowed three dry, grimacing as he did. That done, he slowly and
painfully eased out of bed, and the room yawed crazily as he stood
teetering beside the bed. Feeling his way along the wall, he eventually
arrived in the ruins of what was once his living room. Roughly forty empty
beer bottles were strewn about the room, accompanied by several mostly
empty bottles of rum and scotch. And among this mess, the Turks slept more
or less peacefully. Elena looked the most comfortable of the three, having
grabbed the sofa. Rude was sprawled on the floor; that was where the
snoring was coming from. And Reno was draped over the back of the sofa like
a towel, his feet still on the floor. 

Ah, yes. It was all coming back. They had at some point been asked to leave
the bar and just brought the party (such as it was, Reeve hadn't
particularly been in the mood to get drunk and rowdy, just drunk and
relaxed, and the Turks hadn't been in a very jovial mood either) back to
Reeve's house. Well, at least nobody had thrown up...no, that wasn't
entirely true...Reeve winced as a fleeting image of himself having an
argument with his dinner came back to him. Ugh. Fortunately he'd made it to
the bathroom; after that he didn't remember anything. Evidently one of the
Turks had put him to bed following that unlovely incident. And where HAD
his tie gone? Something told him that something unpleasant had happened to
it, but he wasn't sure what.  
 
Reeve poked Reno on the shoulder. "Hey."

"Huh?" Reno grunted. He attempted to stand up and promptly fell flat on his
ass. "Oh, man. Are you hung over as bad as I am?" Reeve nodded in reply,
and Reno laughed. "Hey, imagine how bad you'd be feeling right now if you
hadn't barfed..."

"Oh, God. Don't remind me. Damn, I've got to get to the office..." The room
seemed to execute a series of barrel rolls; Reeve turned white and then
green, at the same time breaking out in a cold sweat and leaning heavily on
the sofa. "Oh, screw it, I'm calling in." Reeve picked up the living room
phone and dialed. "Hey, Rosie? I'll be working from home today...yeah, I
think I caught some kind of bug or something...anyway, I'm powering Cait
Sith up so you know what to do if you need me for anything. Thanks." He
then started to pick his way back to his bedroom. "I'm going back to
bed..." He stopped, clutched at the back of a chair to steady himself, and
shook his head. "At least, I will be when the floor stops moving. Reno, do
me a favor. If I ever so much as suggest doing this again I want you to
beat the crap out of me, okay?"

"I was just about to ask the same of you," Reno muttered, sinking back onto
the floor. 

"Hey, Reno?"

"Yeah."

"How'd I get into bed, anyway?"

Reno snickered. "Elena carried you. She's the only one of us that was still
somewhat close to sober at that point. She didn't even pass out. She just
finished her last beer, said 'I'm going to bed,' and fell asleep right
there on the sofa after she hauled your drunk ass off. Me and Rude just
kind of slept where we fell." He cast a glance at the sleeping Elena and
shook his head. "She's probably going to wake up perky as ever, you know.
I've never seen her get a hangover the whole time I've known her. Hey,
maybe I should call out for something to eat, it might help--"

The utterance of the word "eat" triggered a series of unpleasant reactions
in Reeve's body. His stomach did some amazing acrobatics, the green color
he'd turned a few minutes before deepened, and holding his hand to his
mouth he stumbled off to the bathroom from whence Reno almost immediately
heard the unmistakeable sound of someone tossing his cookies. "Hey, at
least this time your tie won't get in the way," Reno called out.

"Ugh...shut up, Reno--urk!" 

Elena stirred and yawned. "Oh, gawd! Is he throwing up AGAIN!?"

Reno laughed and nodded as he began the task of clearing the empties from
the living room.

*			*			*

Vincent had been staying in Kalm, and he tagged along for the ride to
Mideel. Upon entering the clinic there, he got the distinct feeling that
something was wrong, but he didn't think much of it at the time. Later he
would curse himself for not warning Cloud and Tifa; for now he simply
thought he was being paranoid. 

"I'm glad you could bring Zack back on such short notice," Dr. Cooper said,
looking over his clipboard. "I'm not absolutely sure of his condition,
which is why I've asked you to bring him back for a few more tests. This
won't take long." He held out his hand to Zack. "Come on into the other
room." Junior stood up and started to follow, but the doctor fixed her
where she stood with a look. "Excuse me, you can't come in here."

"You let me in there last night," Junior argued. "Because Zack was scared
and..." Dr. Cooper ignored her and led Zack away, and Junior stuck out her
tongue at the closed examination room door. "What's his problem?" she
muttered.

"He probably just thinks you'd get in the way," Vincent said, patting
Junior on the head. "Don't worry about Zack."

For about five minutes, the five of them sat in the waiting room leafing
through magazines except for Vincent, who was looking out the window.
Suddenly he tapped Cid on the shoulder and pointed to a spot about ten
yards away from the building. "Look over there. Do you see something
strange?"

Cid squinted. He did notice something that wasn't quite kosher; some of the
foliage seemed to be shimmering. The effect was something like heat waves
rising from a hot road in the summer. And there were two perfectly parallel
trenches in the ground where the distorted air hung. "The hell is that?"

"I'm not sure..." He would have thought about it a little more, but a
scream of "HELP!" from the examination room interrupted him. "That was
Zack!"

Cloud and Tifa were on their feet instantly, as was Junior, and the five of
them burst into the examination room just in time to see a white-haired
woman in a lab coat hauling Zack out the back door. 

"Vail!" Vincent screamed, raising his pistol but not daring to fire; even
with his superb aim he feared that he would hit Zack. "Stop!"

"Can't...stop." Vail wheezed, still dragging the kicking boy. She rolled
her eyes, extracted a syringe from her pocket, and stuck it into Zack's
arm; he went limp almost immediately. "That's better." She wrapped one arm
around the boy's waist, and reached down with her other hand and picked up
the Masamune. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill him. You should be proud
of your son, Cloud." With that, she disappeared into the wavering air
outside, taking Zack with her.

"Zack!" Junior started to run towards the distortion and it took the
combined efforts of Cid and Vincent to hold her back; Cloud and Tifa
squeezed past them just as six blue-uniformed Shinra guards materialized
out of the odd patch of air and headed straight for them.

"Shit!" Cid hissed, grasping the Viper Halberd. Vincent popped off a few
shots at one of the guards, but not before the guard had whipped a grenade
into the bunch. Junior studied it for a second, and then threw it right
back just before it went off. It detonated, knocking four of the six guards
off their feet and as the one nearest to Cid staggered back up, Cid neatly
ran it through with the Viper Halberd. Scratch one Shinra guard.

The guard Vincent had drilled was apparently wearing a bullet-proof vest;
he had been thrown back by the bullets Vincent had pumped at him but he was
still very much alive. The same could not be said for a second guard; Tifa,
who was already nearly blind with rage, had Waterkicked, Meteodriven,
Dolphin Blown, and Final Heavened him into oblivion, not to mention into a
broken and bloodied mass. Cloud, likewise enraged, sliced and diced a third
guard into lunchmeat via Omnislash. And Junior was mercilessly flinging
Bolt spells at anything in a blue uniform that was still moving. Still, the
three remaining guards were putting up a hellacious fight, concentrating
mostly on Vincent. Unlike the guards, Vincent wore no bullet-proof
equipment and he took a spray of machine-gun fire across his left leg. 

And then all hell broke loose. Or, more precisely, Chaos broke loose.

Cloud and Tifa wisely got the hell out of Vincent's way, and Cid grabbed
Junior and covered her eyes, whispering "Don't look, honey," into her ear
as he did, but he was a little too late. Junior had already seen part of
the change, and she whimpered and shut her eyes tight.

"Daddy, what's happening to Vincent!?" she wailed, shivering. 

"Remember when you got mad at that bird at school?" Cid held Junior tight
and stroked her hair. "I know it looks scary but it's still Vincent, and
you know Vincent won't hurt you. It's okay." Junior said nothing; she
simply buried her face in Cid's shoulder and sobbed loudly. This was sort
of a mixed blessing; she did not see the winged form of Chaos ripping the
three remaining Shinra guards to shreds with its talons. Cid definitely
didn't want her to see that. 

An uneasy silence now blanketed the area, broken only by Junior's
occasional sobs and sniffles and Vincent's gasping and panting as he
reverted to his human form. Then it was broken by something louder: the
roar of a helicopter's engine starting. 

As a gust of wind nearly knocked Cid down, the shimmering air began to take
on a more tangible form: a Shinra helicopter. The chopper roared to life
and took off, vanishing again once it was in the air.

"I'll be goddamned," Cid swore, shaking his head at the spot where the
cloaked chopper had been. "I'll be double goddamned! How'd they do that?
What the HELL is Scarlet cookin' up over there!?"

Tifa didn't answer. She stood there, staring at the sky and shaking with
rage as tears spilled from her eyes. "Shinra," she finally said. "What the
hell does Shinra want to do to him?"

"If they wanted him badly enough to lure us here and kidnap him, then I
think it's safe to assume he's carrying Jenova cells." Vincent caught his
breath and stood up. "But I think Vail has an agenda of her own. You all
saw it. She's carrying Sephiroth's sword."

Cloud stared blankly at the grass, trembling, and then he reared back and
screamed, "Sephiroth!" at the sky.  

---

Author's notes: Poor Palmer. He just can't seem to get the hang of that
"look both ways" thing...forget fatboy, poor REEVE! I think we can all
sympathize with him (you in the back, don't lie, I saw you on New Year's
Eve!)...I just got a shiny new modem; 33.6 kbps of pure screaming
Internet-cruising power (insert Tim the Tool Man grunt here) because my old
14.4 met with an unfortunate incident (i.e. lightning strike) and word to
the wise, if you own a Packard Hell I mean Bell computer and buy a Newcom
modem for it, be prepared to spend some time on the line with tech support
screwing with your COM port and IRQ settings and possibly a few jumpers
till you just wanna throw the whole 'puter out your window before the damn
thing will work; but work it does and does so beautifully...By now it
should be obvious where Sephiroth Obscura has taken up residence. I have
received a few guesses from readers. One is right on the money, one is
close, and one is WAY the hell out in left field (Cait Sith!? BWAHAHAHAHA).
For those of you that HAVEN'T guessed it yet, I'm not gonna say a word.
'Night.

--Sailor Solathei
"Ice...snacks...and--fifty gallons of BEER!? What kind of life does she
lead, anyway!?" --Shinji Ikari
"Hang on to your drawers and don't piss in 'em!" --Cid Highwind
"A brand new ML to blow up! Wai!" --Zen
--------------------
Happiness is a belt-fed weapon
--------------------
Sailor Solathei's Cid Highwind shrine (still under very heavy construction)
http://members.xoom.com/ssolathei/cidshrine.html and the Cid Highwind Otaku
Ring: http://members.xoom.com/ssolathei/ring.html