Zack's phone rang. It was Sephiroth.
"Once Sector 8 is clear, come to Mako Reactor 5." Sephiroth paced down a catwalk inside a nuclear fission chamber.
"Did you find something out?"
"...Angeal has been sighted."
Zack was silent for a long moment, a million implications whirling in his mind. But after that moment was over, he growled in frustration and rage. "So, it's search and destroy?"
"The army is mobilizing, but there's still time. You and I will find them before they do, and—"
"AND WHAT!" Zack screamed into his phone like he'd kill Sephiroth himself.
Sephiroth just jerked the phone away, dashing a lock of hair over his face. That had been a little startling, a minor inconvenience. He brought the phone back to his ear as Zack brought his own back to his.
"...Fail to eliminate them."
Zack's anger evaporated, and the puppy came back, with his tail wagging so hard it practically beat off the floor. "For real?"
"Yes," Sephiroth let out something like a laugh. "For real..."
"EXCELLENT!" Then Zack remembered who he was talking to, and thought maybe he should tone down his enthusiasm just a tad. "Eh, PROBABLY!"
Sephiroth hung up, a slight smile still in his eyes, and continued along the catwalk in Reactor 5. Zack clicked his phone and ran there like a kid at an amusement park.
Mako Reactor 5 looked like something out of this one comic book about ninja turtles, sewer pipes and green ooze and weird mutant things crawling around. Zack climbed down a service hatch ladder into the huge personnel chamber like a factory subdivision, looking around in awe and utter bewilderment.
Suddenly, a monster he'd never seen before leapt down at him. A frost-sabertooth with white fur-scales and an elongated head lunged for him, and Zack quick-slashed at its pouncing body.
The monster darted back, emitting a chortling call. Right as it was about to pounce a second time on Zack, a daikatana cut its life short. Sephiroth showed up to mock-steal Zack's kill again, utilizing that annoying habit of appearing out of nowhere like a phantom.
Zack crouched down by the body—this strange monster he'd never encountered or seen in a dex-manual—and saw that there was a face emblazoned on its elongated head.
"Is that Angeal's face?"
Sephiroth saw it too. "It appears Genesis isn't the only one who can be copied."
Then he looked around the Reactor, surveying the scene very carefully, as if some slight minute detail might make all the difference in the world. Then, it did, and he recognized the hull of which he now stood.
"The company Training Room."
Zack looked around in turn. "Oh, it is, isn't it."
Sephiroth reminisced, remembering this place from the training sims. "We used to sneak in there for fun, when the 2nds were out...Genesis, Angeal, and I."
"You guys were pretty tight, weren't you?"
He grunted. "I wonder..."
And a memory played before his eyes like projector reels, a vision of the past...
***
"Infinite in mystery is the Gift of the Goddess. We seek it thus and take to the sky. Ripples form on the water's surface. The wandering soul knows no rest. She appears to the pure heart on Last Days, foretelling his day to die."
YOU ARE READING
Crisis Core: The Novel
Hayran KurguZack Fair is a SOLDIER in an elite paramilitary organization. But when a revered 1st Class operator goes rogue, his tight-knit family of teammates gets taken for a fatal ride. Friendships will be tested and loyalties strained as mentors abandon him...