Blood & Sympathy (FFVII: Vincent x OC)

Ch97 - Coffee

Things had been busy in the WRO Headquarters for quite a few days. New recruits were brought each day. The Turks were teaching new members, and Vincent was asked to help with their training. He did not remember much from whatever he was taught in the Turk Academy -so long ago- but it was all coming back to him from watching Reno, and Rude and Elena. They weren't like the Turks back in his days -more than thirty years ago- but they did have that spark that the Turks should have. And the new recruits had that too. They were all here to aid to the world's betterment, after all.

Hester and Shalua were researching all day, all night. There was just no end to progress. New weapons, new generation of artificial limbs. Hester led such projects with her team and she couldn't have been happier. Sephiroth was training the rookies of the WRO's army. He was their General, after all. A title that more than suited him.

The microscope's light fell on the hazel irises of Hester's eyes that stared curiously behind the lenses of her circular glasses. Hester was trying to figure out how to grow artificial neurons from one's cells and put them into an artificial limb making it possible to feel contact, heat, pressure, pain. The four basic senses that all areas on the body have. Well, pain isn't a basic sense since the brain can't feel pain. Hester reminded herself, but without pain censors it would be difficult to protect the arm. It is pain that keeps somebody from slicing their arm off.

She frowned. Maybe she should come up with some kind of synthetic liquid that could work as blood. Because without it, how in the world can the neurotic message reach the brain? Hester sighed. She should probably recheck some stuff before proceeding to that.

But for now, she grabbed the empty cup -that once contained coffee- that she had on the counter, and she got off her bench to go fill it again. She wasn't sure how many coffees she had had already, but she knew they were many and the caffeine wasn't doing any good to her nerves. But who cares?

She grabbed her empty mug and proceeded to walk out of the lab but Shalua's voice cut her. Shalua too was wearing an arm that Hester had fixed for her, with synthetic skin covering the electric mechanisms that hid beneath. She finally had an arm that she thought she had lost forever. Jocasta had suggested the use of JENOVA's genome to regenerate one's cells and create 100% compatible implants. Brilliant! Just brilliant. But they had no geneticist who knew how to do that, so, they were waiting for Jocasta to come and take a piece of the action.

"Going to refill?" Shalua asked as she typed on the keyboard of the computer that she had in front of her.

"You know me. Can't go on without fuel," Hester said and Shalua handed Hester her own mug.

"Me neither," She agreed.

Hester gave her a smile as she grabbed her friend's mug and walked out of the lab. A couple more scientists and executives walked all around the halls of the large building. She recognized most of them and she returned their nods with a smile of her own. The café rested no further away. It was a large room filled with coffee, tea, water, and food, free for the staff members only.

She spotted Sephiroth filling his own mug with coffee. He turned and gave her a smile that she returned gladly. He was dressed in the WRO grey/blue General's uniform. A few of his shirt's buttons were unbuckled, revealing some of his chest. It all suited him so well. She always found herself sighing whenever he was around. I'm hopeless.

He must have the left Masamune in the training room. His hair fell on his back and his bangs fell on his face never once bothering him. And she too looked stunning. And maybe that's why that smile flashed across those perfect lips of his. Her blue skirt reached just above her knees. Her shirt was stuffed beneath it, two buttons were unbuckled, exposing some of her chest and her hair were wrapped back in a ponytail as usually. Her glasses rested neatly on top of her nose. She filled her own and Shalua's cups and she took a sip from her own, turning at Sephiroth as he spoke.