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"You ready for this?" Reno inquired.
"What do you mean, 'am I ready for this?'" I replied. Ever since my first day, he had been acting absolutely ridiculous. It was as if he had never experienced happiness before our destinies tied strings. He had seriously been getting on my nerves and I had become very short with him.
"Well, this is your first mission."
"So? All I'm supposed to be doing is collecting data from this 'Hojo' guy." I looked over at him and made a pretend glare as I adjusted the tie on my newly acquired uniform. "You aren't even supposed to be here."
"Aww, but Zinc—"
"If you blow my cover, I swear..."
"Alright, I won't hover for that long. I'll leave in a moment..."
"Thank you."
"But only if you spend time with me tonight."
I sighed, shook my head at him and walked off. I had been spending time with him constantly. To be honest, I kind of wanted some time to myself. I enjoy his company, don't get me wrong, I really like him; I was just not used to him yet.
"Wait, Zinc!" he called after me, quickly catching up and matching my pace.
The day before, on my third day as a Turk, Tseng told me that I had a right to know why I was allowed to be a Turk without any special background checks or anything, even though I didn't really want to be. He told me that I had to go to Hojo and ask him for the data on his experiment IX. Tseng promised me that he wouldn't question me too much about it, and for the questions he would ask, they would be simple ones that I could easily answer.
Once I had gotten señor clingy off my back and was on my own, I made my way into the science department of Shinra building.
"Excuse me," I called as I walked into a grey room. I saw him standing there with the same black hair and ridiculous glasses as the guy who was in the room the day I woke up from being tested on. This time I recognized him—Hojo, the man responsible, in my home, for so many problems between Shinra and my father.
"Yes?" he asked in a typical, mad scientist voice that was dragged out for too long. I was feeling slightly out of breath by the time he finished saying the one word.
"Would it be a bother for you either tell me about your experiment IX or show me the files on it?"
He smirked at me. It didn't take me too long to figure out why. That IX on my shoulder, the one Reno wanted to see the other day, was the result of this man marking me. It was as if I were his cow that he needed to brand in case I strayed into someone else's farm. In other words, Tseng had sent me out to get information on myself. In a way, it was cruel, but I have to admit that I was curious. Besides, as a Turk, part of an intelligence unit, I had to accomplish my mission no matter what.
"Why yes, of course my dear," he replied. He walked over to a desk with papers stacked ceiling high in some plies. From the middle of one of the stacks, he skillfully pulled out a manila envelope without the rest of the pile collapsing. Handing me the envelope, he said, "My name is Hojo, head of the Shinra Science Research Division. And what might your name be?"
"Zinc, sir." I really had no idea why I called this insensitive crazy man sir. Maybe it was an old habit of mine or maybe it was the polite side of me running up to say hello.
The scientist took a seat at the desk with the enormous amounts of paper. I opened the folder and started on the first page that was stamped, CONFIDENTIAL in big, bold, capital, red letters. At the top of the page was a picture of me. I was wearing the same scarf, three-quarter sleeved sweater top, shorts, brown tights, thigh-high socks, and knee high boots that I had been wearing on my first day to this dimension—when everything was happy and exciting.
Next to my picture was my name. Under age, date of birth, place of birth, and other terms of the such, was written unknown. Under that was a physical description of me, then a brief paragraph about how I was from a different dimension and would be stuck in this one for four years. I expected that he had gotten this information from Reno since he was the one that brought me to him in the first place.
I turned to the next page and on the top, in bold letters, was written, "experiment results and notes". In handwriting, that I presumed was Hojo's, read the following:
Did not really respond much to the injection. It only twitched.
SECOND DAY: It showed some signs of transformation when it reflexively punched at the glass and made a crack. Possibly from a dream it was having.
It opened its eyes once and showed it's glorious mako color. They were momentarily the same as Sepiroth's. A good sign.
It sprouted a black wing momentarily and broke the container. Thankfully, it was unconscious, but the body attacked me and had substantial power. The power was a little less than equivalent to that of Sephiroth's.
THIRD DAY: Awakens, but shows no sign of memory of what had happened. I put the IX on its shoulder and put it back to sleep for one more day.
LAST DAY: Success. It was perfect. I could tell just by looking at it that, in time, it will turn into the perfect Sephiroth. But for now, it will humble itself among the ranks of the Turks, slowly ascending to the true power it wields.
I didn't really understand it at first since I had no prior knowledge to that of who Sephiroth was. In my dimension, Sephiroth was a member of SOLDIER, but was K.I.A. while he, my father, Angeal, and Genesis were all fighting in the war.
I turned the page and was at the last. All that it read was scientific stuff that was complete gibberish to me. I scanned it over and it had nothing to do about me, only the injection that was mention in his notes.
Looking up, I closed the packet. Hojo looked over at me and chuckled. I could tell that he was very excited at the aspect of getting to communicate with me as my superior. "Not so clueless now, are you girl?"
"I knew that I was an experiment, but since I'm not from here, I don't really know who Sephiroth is," I replied, trying to maintain calm in my voice so that I appeared not intimidated by this man.
"I will put it simply. Sephiroth is the most powerful being to ever be created and has the power to destroy the universe!"
"But that means-" I began, losing my cool.
"Yes my dear! It means that the pretty little life you have now will soon be gone and you will become a killing machine! Maybe even more powerful than Sephiroth himself!" Hojo began to cackle evilly.
I was fuming. There was no way that I would give in so easily to this retched man and his desires. He had no right to decide my fate or my actions. Everything was going perfectly—the story of my adventure here was unfolding just as I wanted it too and this man was not going to get in the way of any of that. While he was laughing, I stormed out of the room, out of the building, and into the streets of Sector 8.
"Whoa, hey! Zinica!" I heard from behind me as I trudged. I had no intention of spinning around to find out who it was that was calling out to me. Well actually, I knew very well who it was because I could identify his voice no matter the circumstance, but I didn't care about anything that was going on around me. Until he touched my shoulder and stopped me.
"What do you want, Zack?" I said coldly.
He ran in front of me and pulled my chin up to look at him.
"What happened?"
My hands formed into two clenched fists and I fell into his embrace.
"I'm an experiment; a death machine. I fell into a trap and was injected with this sciencey stuff! I'm...I'm a..." I sobbed. My intelligence always seems to drop when I'm sad. I just, don't care about the words I say, so I end up sounding kind of childish.
I fell to the ground in tears and everything was silent until life around me faded and I drifted into unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I imagined that Zack had carried me to this place—the church. "You're awake!" Aerith exclaimed.
I furrowed my eyebrow at her as I sat up. "Is that a bad thing?"
"No! It's just that when Zack brought you in, I was really worried."
I hugged her. It was rare for me that people cared so much about my well-being.
"Thank you, both of you." I smiled warmly to the two of them.
"I was really glad when I saw you walking in Sector 8 because we hadn't seen each other since you were kidnapped that one time," Zack mentioned.
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot to come back and tell you guys that I was okay. I was too busy doing other things. My apologies."
"It's alright. We should be the ones apologizing. We couldn't save you."
"If I may ask, what happened, exactly?" I inquired.
"When you fell into Reno's arms, unconscious, I picked up my sword and went to go attack him, but Rude punched me down."
"I threw a rock at Reno, but he kept walking away until a helicopter landed outside and the two hopped in," Aerith added.
"I thank you guys for trying to save me. You shouldn't feel bad for not being able to, because everything is inevitable."
Aerith and Zack exchanged awkward glances. She looked down at the wooden floor. "I guess, but, what happened to you? We were so worried."
I too, then looked at the floor. "I became a test subject for Hojo. He gave me this injection and turned me into, as he says, 'a perfect Sephiroth clone.' But I refuse to let that happen, or believe it. I would never hurt anyone."
Aerith gasped. Zack put a comforting arm around me.
"I know that you have the strength to fight off the transformation. Everything is going to be okay, I promise." I folded into his embrace, feeling the familiar warmth of my father that I had come to miss. Even though I knew that these two people were not actually my parents, I still felt incredibly reassured by their efforts to help me. In a way, I felt like the two were somehow pulled to treat me like a daughter, almost. Similar to how my father is pulled to Edge, these two don't understand why they felt so pulled to act as my parents. It made me realize how much I missed my home, even though I had been getting the adventure.

Longest, most boring month of my life. Absolutely nothing exciting happened. I had taken to the everyday schedule of wake up, eat food, get mission assigned, go to mission, come home, eat food, be with Reno, and fall asleep. Not even one side effect from the experiments on me occurred.
I woke up, however, to another day, thinking it would be the same as always, but instead, I was assigned a mission with some Infantrymen.
"Zinc," Tseng said through my phone as I walked outside to the helicopter I always took to my missions. "Today, your mission will accompanied by some Infantrymen. It will be just you and them, so be careful."
"I understand," I replied.
"Good. You will be going to the Shinra Manor in Neibelheim. All you have to do is scope out the place and collect any data that you deem important. Anything about project S. You may read the documents if you are interested, but it is not required for you to do so. I'm counting on you."
Click.
Click.
I hopped on the helicopter and made my way to my destination. On the ride over, my phone rang again. I flipped it open and held it to my ear. "Zinc speaking," I said into the receiver.
"Yo, it's Reno," he replied, "I heard you were heading up to Neibelheim today."
"That is true, what about it?" I asked, sitting down in the leather seats, plugging one ear in an attempt to hear over the sounds of the helicopter.
"There's been something up with the place recently—not good things. I just wanted you to know so you're extra careful."
"Thanks, Reno. Tseng warned me as well."
"Okay, good. Just, promise me you'll be safe."
"You know me, I'll be fine."
"Can you promise?"
"I'll talk to you later, kid." The nickname had become a sign of endearment between the two of us. I called him kid and he usually responded with rookie. I asked him where he got that from once, but he remarked that it was an old habit.
Click.
I hung up on him, I know, but that was because I can't make promises. Every time I have, I haven't been able to keep them. Every single time. Even when I simply promised to wash the dishes at the end of the day, I couldn't keep it. Especially in this case, however, I had no idea what would happen in this town, so I didn't want to promise him that I would be alright when there was a possibility that I wouldn't be. If it was inevitable that something bad would happen to me, then it would, and a promise to him wouldn't change that.

Upon arrival at the destination, I was bombarded with questions from the Infantrymen of what we were doing at the site. There were three of them, one of which told me they were expecting one more. "Hold on, you all were sent here without a briefing and without a full party?" I asked the one who seemed to be in charge of the others.
"No," he replied, seeming a little offended at my assumption, "we were informed that we were to escort a Turk around the Manor and protect her at any cost. The guy we're missing suggested to scout ahead to see how bad the monsters were today."
"You only sent one guy? What was the sense in that? If he dies, then it's your fault, you know."
"I told him to come back before that happened."
"How very strict of you," I replied sarcastically.
"Hey! It's you!" I spun around to see the final man running towards us from an off-the-trail path. He was wearing his helmet, but I assumed that it was the guy from my first day here who had run up to me in a similar manner. This time, however, when he came up to me, he took off his helmet and said, "It's me, Cloud."
"Oh yeah, I remember you. You're one of Zack's friends, right?"
"Yeah, and, I'm sorry I've completely forgotten your name."
"Zinc," I outstretched a hand for him to shake.
He took it, but looked at my quizzically. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"How could I forget my own name?"
"True."
"Alright," I turned to address the whole group. "Now that everyone is here, we should get moving."
"You're the woman in charge," the Infantryman I was addressing before said.
To be honest, I was insulted to an extent that these men had to come with me. It inferred that Tseng didn't believe that I could handle myself, which was the farthest thing from the truth. Heidegger told me himself that I was one of the most talented Turks they have. I guess the Infantrymen coming along were more for their own benefit than mine.
As the five of us made our way up the mountain that led to the Shinra Manor, Cloud took it upon himself to take off his helmet, finally, and reveal his true identity. He was blonde with a soft face and incredibly spiky hair. I compared it to my fathers, thinking that is was similar, except slightly out of hand rather than the well-kept, slicked back way my father wore it. "So," he said to me at one point, "Are you new in the Turks?"
"Relatively, yes. I joined about a month ago," I answered.
"That's pretty cool, I came here wanting to join SOLDIER, but they told me I was unfit for the Mako infusion process," he explained.
"I'm sorry, that's really unfortunate. I wish I had a choice for all of that. Instead, I was kidnapped and had it forced on me. Zack can tell you about it, next time you see him."
"I don't know if I will again. He's in SOLDIER, I'm not. Our divisions are kind of rivals."
I looked over at him for a moment, stopping in my tracks. The others around me stopped as well, staring at me in confusion. I was curious as to what Cloud meant by that they were rivals. It was a military, so weren't the two supposed to cooperate? I had hoped that that was the way it would be in this different world. I believed that SOLDIER was just the elite division of the Military, but I guess I was wrong—very wrong. In my home, it was something that led to the war. The Infantrymen were fed up with not being able to have the Mako infusion that they wanted, creating tension between Shinra and the rebellious group, AVALANCHE. In some ways, I became a tad excited, because if that was the way things were, then this Midgar might break out in Civil War just like mine and I would get to experience the war that I had just missed by a year.
Just as these thoughts ran their course through my mind, I looked behind him to see the most menacing looking Bomb there ever was. It was about to explode right behind Cloud. Since the focus was on me at the moment, I was the only one who noticed the monster. I screamed for everyone to take cover and shot it right in the mouth. My attempt, however, to dismiss it before the explosion failed. As the Infantrymen dashed away, I stared into the flames erupting in my face. I was blown onto my back, landing on top of Cloud with a bloodied face. My hearing impaired, my ears rung in high pitches, making my mind feel fuzzy. I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or not, but soon I regained a trace of vision. The first person I saw was Cloud. I could tell that he was holding me up on his lap and that his lips were moving, but I still couldn't hear a thing. "Get me to the Manor," I tried to say, but was unsure whether or not the words came out the way I wanted them too. Before I completely blacked out, I remember thinking about how I had to accomplish my mission no matter what the circumstance.

Of course, before long I woke up and found myself inside the Manor, just as I had requested. I sat up and looked around, seeing that my guards were all still there, guns at the ready in case anything came towards me. To my surprise, I had fully regained my hearing. I ran my fingers over my face and there wasn't a single mark or wound that I could feel. As a matter of fact, I think that my hearing as well as vision was better than it had been. My heart was racing, I felt like a hundred degrees, and my senses were somehow improved. I wondered if it had something to do with the experiment done on me, eventually deciding that it was.
"Cloud," I said, looking around for him.
"Glad to see you're awake and okay, but he's not here," one of the Infantrymen replied.
"Then where did he go?"
"Your phone rang while you were out cold, so he answered it. Told some guy named Tseng what happened, then was directed to look for some files. You should probably give him a call."
"Thank you," I said. I stood and left the room, instructing the men to spread out and take out any monsters they encountered. Once I was by myself, I flipped open my phone and dialed Tseng's number.
"Are you feeling better, Zinc?" he inquired.
"Yes, thank you," I responded. "What exactly did you tell then man who answered my phone previously?"
"I gave him no specific details, but to recover any files he found. At first, I told him that it was not necessary that he carry out your mission, but he insisted on helping. You should go through the files he has found and locate any remaining ones in the Manor."
"Understood. I will carry out my mission."
"I expected nothing less of you, Zinc. Carry on."
Click.
I then pursued searching every room in the Manor for said files. There weren't many to find on the upper levels of the house, so I assumed either Cloud had collected a good sum of them or that there was a basement that would serve as a gold mine. Eventually, I did run into the blonde.
"How are your findings?" I asked.
"Whoa!" he said, completely ignoring my question, "you're not injured at all!"
"Yes, that would be the case, but did you-"
"Oh yeah, sorry, I'm just surprised. You looked really bad."
"Well, thank you for the insult. Now may we proceed with business?"
"Sorry, sorry. I put them all in this room." He led me to a destroyed looking room on the second floor. Bookcases were destroyed and desks in shambles, books and papers lying about the floor in every which way. There was one small pile, however, of assorted folders and papers. I grabbed the stack of papers and sorted through them, soon determining that none of them were what I wanted. There were journal entries, a deed, and one lab report that I decided was important. "There has to be more than this, right?" Cloud wondered aloud.
I scanned the walls. Behind one of the bookcases was a suspicious looking line. I told Cloud that he was right, there should be more, and for him to scope out the main floor as I would look around the second. He agreed to the plan and departed. Once he was gone, I made my way through the debris to the bookshelf. I pushed it aside, very easily to my surprise, and examined the wall. I kicked at the wall, instantly making it crumble and reveal a spiral staircase. Descending the rickety structure, I made my way to a hidden basement. I turned to the left to find a locked door, which I picked with a pin from my hair and found myself in a room full of coffins. Incredibly suspicious, I investigated each, only to find nothing—except for one, which had a person inside. "Ack!" I called, jumping back. Actually, he was quite handsome. I wanted to touch his face, to feel his skin, or even wipe the long black locks from his eyes, but I wanted even more so to not disturb his slumber. Instead, I covered the coffin and locked it, hopping that the next person who came along would break it open and take the man with them on an adventure.
Retracing my steps, I went to the other way and discovered a laboratory. This, of course, was exactly what I had expected—a plethora of reports and documents labeled with "Project S." Curious, I scanned them, but soon after wished that I hadn't. What I had discovered was so dreadful, so lurid, that I couldn't bear to read them all. It told me more than I wanted to know about Sephiroth, but also explained to me why Hojo would want to replicate him.
I gave Tseng a call, asking him specifically what he wanted me to do with the files I discovered. He informed me that he spoke with Professor Hojo earlier and that he wanted only the files labeled "subject detail."
"Did you read them?" he asked.
"Yes," was the only word I was able to say.
"I'm sorry, I should have warned you."
"No, it was good that I read them. It tells me a little bit more about your society that I wasn't aware of."
"You're doing a good job, Zinc. Keep it up."
Click.
Click.
I collected the documents he desired—one on Sephiroth, one on a woman named Lucrecia Crescent, and a final on a man named Vincent Valentine—and made my way back up the stairs.
When I found myself back downstairs, I encountered, Cloud, telling him that I found what I needed and asked him to gather to other Infantrymen. With my mission accomplished we left the Manor. The helicopter for me descended from the sky and as I walked towards it, Cloud called to me. "Will we ever see each other again?"
I stared at him for a moment, the sound of the helicopter behind me. I decide not to lie to him and say, "I'm not sure, but I hope so."
"Me too!" he yells, smiling. I waved goodbye to him and departed.

Every now and again us Turks were assigned a sort of free-day. It was actually mission, but it was so laid back that whenever one of the sort was assigned, we decided to call it a "free-day." The objective was to stroll through the assigned Sector and take note of any unusual activity among the people. That day, I was assigned the Sector 5 slums. I was going about my own business when I spotted Zack strolling towards the marketplace. He was looking strangely down, so I went over to him and initiated a conversation.
"Hello, friend," I said. "Is something wrong?" Of course, I knew that there was, but I didn't expect him to actually give me a straight answer.
"Oh hey, Zinica," he replied, a little startled to see me. "No, sorry, I was just thinking. What about you? You look a little down in the dumps yourself."
There was only one thing I could think of to tell him about. "I guess there was just a mission that I accomplished recently."
"Did something interesting actually happen?" he joked.
"There were some files that I found. The content was, for lack of a better word, disturbing. I'm still a little shaken by it."
"I'm guessing you can't tell me because it's something Turk-like and secretive."
"That's exactly it."
"Hey, so, off topic, I was heading down to do some training. Do you want to come?"
I didn't have anything else better to do, so I agreed to join him. I phoned Tseng first, asking him if it was alright, when of course it was.
We walked to the area past to park and started happily shooting and slashing away. I took note of Zack's fighting ability, determining that it was much better than what he had exhibited the first day when he attempted to save me. I complimented him, but he denied the fact, just as I knew he would. I could tell, however, that he had not always been that way—denying compliments. I think he used to be a little cocky and possibly flirty, basically the last person to turn down a compliment.
He too complimented my fighting ability, asking me where I got some of my techniques. I replied with an honest answer, my father. Zack remarked that some of them looked familiar, but nothing that he had ever done before. I mentioned that it might be a strange connection to someone in his past that he can't remember anymore, or even someone that he doesn't know at all. He declined the idea, saying that he probably just really liked the way it looked.
One bad habit of mine that I've had since I was a kid was making sound effects for my actions. Of course, that was one of the moments that I just had to make one for my pistol. As I shot the last enemy through the skull, I screeched, "PYUHEM!"
I had hoped that Zack hadn't noticed, but of course he did. "What was that?" he asked.
"I-it was a sound effect," I replied, blushing.
"For what?"
"My pistol. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize!" he said, chuckling in between words. He came over to me and rubbed my skull with his fist. "I think it's cute."
That was the absolute last thing that I wanted to be—cute. For my age, I decided that it was a degrading term. It was meant for children and babies and I was neither of those things.
As we laughed at each other, something peculiar happened. I stared at Zack, but for some reason, my vision started to blur and it appeared as if he were a monster of some sort. I tried to shake off the image, but my mind tried to tell me that I had to back away and attack. I knew it was Zack, a friend, with all of my heart. For some reason, my hands went towards my weapons. Practically instinctively, I jumped back, fighting with myself.
"What's wrong?" he asked me, trying to decode my strange state. I must have been wiggling oddly or something—I'm not really sure what I looked like then, considering that I wasn't really aware of my actions at the time.
"Please, just stay back, I don't want to hurt you," I said, trying not to stutter.
My arm, shaking, rose with the gun in hand, aimed towards Zack. My finger pressed on the trigger, but the next thing I knew I had blacked out and collapsed to the floor.

Description
"You ready for this?" Reno inquired.
"What do you mean, 'am I ready for this?'" I replied. Ever since my first day, he had been acting absolutely ridiculous. It was as if he had never experienced happiness before our destinies tied strings. He had seriously been getting on my nerves and I had become very short with him.
"Well, this is your first mission."
"So? All I'm supposed to be doing is collecting data from this 'Hojo' guy." I looked over at him and made a pretend glare as I adjusted the tie on my newly acquired uniform. "You aren't even supposed to be here."
"Aww, but Zinc—"
"If you blow my cover, I swear..."
"Alright, I won't hover for that long. I'll leave in a moment..."
"Thank you."
"But only if you spend time with me tonight."
I sighed, shook my head at him and walked off. I had been spending time with him constantly. To be honest, I kind of wanted some time to myself. I enjoy his company, don't get me wrong, I really like him; I was just not used to him yet.
"Wait, Zinc!" he called after me, quickly catching up and matching my pace.
The day before, on my third day as a Turk, Tseng told me that I had a right to know why I was allowed to be a Turk without any special background checks or anything, even though I didn't really want to be. He told me that I had to go to Hojo and ask him for the data on his experiment IX. Tseng promised me that he wouldn't question me too much about it, and for the questions he would ask, they would be simple ones that I could easily answer.
Once I had gotten señor clingy off my back and was on my own, I made my way into the science department of Shinra building.
"Excuse me," I called as I walked into a grey room. I saw him standing there with the same black hair and ridiculous glasses as the guy who was in the room the day I woke up from being tested on. This time I recognized him—Hojo, the man responsible, in my home, for so many problems between Shinra and my father.
"Yes?" he asked in a typical, mad scientist voice that was dragged out for too long. I was feeling slightly out of breath by the time he finished saying the one word.
"Would it be a bother for you either tell me about your experiment IX or show me the files on it?"
He smirked at me. It didn't take me too long to figure out why. That IX on my shoulder, the one Reno wanted to see the other day, was the result of this man marking me. It was as if I were his cow that he needed to brand in case I strayed into someone else's farm. In other words, Tseng had sent me out to get information on myself. In a way, it was cruel, but I have to admit that I was curious. Besides, as a Turk, part of an intelligence unit, I had to accomplish my mission no matter what.
"Why yes, of course my dear," he replied. He walked over to a desk with papers stacked ceiling high in some plies. From the middle of one of the stacks, he skillfully pulled out a manila envelope without the rest of the pile collapsing. Handing me the envelope, he said, "My name is Hojo, head of the Shinra Science Research Division. And what might your name be?"
"Zinc, sir." I really had no idea why I called this insensitive crazy man sir. Maybe it was an old habit of mine or maybe it was the polite side of me running up to say hello.
The scientist took a seat at the desk with the enormous amounts of paper. I opened the folder and started on the first page that was stamped, CONFIDENTIAL in big, bold, capital, red letters. At the top of the page was a picture of me. I was wearing the same scarf, three-quarter sleeved sweater top, shorts, brown tights, thigh-high socks, and knee high boots that I had been wearing on my first day to this dimension—when everything was happy and exciting.
Next to my picture was my name. Under age, date of birth, place of birth, and other terms of the such, was written unknown. Under that was a physical description of me, then a brief paragraph about how I was from a different dimension and would be stuck in this one for four years. I expected that he had gotten this information from Reno since he was the one that brought me to him in the first place.
I turned to the next page and on the top, in bold letters, was written, "experiment results and notes". In handwriting, that I presumed was Hojo's, read the following:
Did not really respond much to the injection. It only twitched.
SECOND DAY: It showed some signs of transformation when it reflexively punched at the glass and made a crack. Possibly from a dream it was having.
It opened its eyes once and showed it's glorious mako color. They were momentarily the same as Sepiroth's. A good sign.
It sprouted a black wing momentarily and broke the container. Thankfully, it was unconscious, but the body attacked me and had substantial power. The power was a little less than equivalent to that of Sephiroth's.
THIRD DAY: Awakens, but shows no sign of memory of what had happened. I put the IX on its shoulder and put it back to sleep for one more day.
LAST DAY: Success. It was perfect. I could tell just by looking at it that, in time, it will turn into the perfect Sephiroth. But for now, it will humble itself among the ranks of the Turks, slowly ascending to the true power it wields.
I didn't really understand it at first since I had no prior knowledge to that of who Sephiroth was. In my dimension, Sephiroth was a member of SOLDIER, but was K.I.A. while he, my father, Angeal, and Genesis were all fighting in the war.
I turned the page and was at the last. All that it read was scientific stuff that was complete gibberish to me. I scanned it over and it had nothing to do about me, only the injection that was mention in his notes.
Looking up, I closed the packet. Hojo looked over at me and chuckled. I could tell that he was very excited at the aspect of getting to communicate with me as my superior. "Not so clueless now, are you girl?"
"I knew that I was an experiment, but since I'm not from here, I don't really know who Sephiroth is," I replied, trying to maintain calm in my voice so that I appeared not intimidated by this man.
"I will put it simply. Sephiroth is the most powerful being to ever be created and has the power to destroy the universe!"
"But that means-" I began, losing my cool.
"Yes my dear! It means that the pretty little life you have now will soon be gone and you will become a killing machine! Maybe even more powerful than Sephiroth himself!" Hojo began to cackle evilly.
I was fuming. There was no way that I would give in so easily to this retched man and his desires. He had no right to decide my fate or my actions. Everything was going perfectly—the story of my adventure here was unfolding just as I wanted it too and this man was not going to get in the way of any of that. While he was laughing, I stormed out of the room, out of the building, and into the streets of Sector 8.
"Whoa, hey! Zinica!" I heard from behind me as I trudged. I had no intention of spinning around to find out who it was that was calling out to me. Well actually, I knew very well who it was because I could identify his voice no matter the circumstance, but I didn't care about anything that was going on around me. Until he touched my shoulder and stopped me.
"What do you want, Zack?" I said coldly.
He ran in front of me and pulled my chin up to look at him.
"What happened?"
My hands formed into two clenched fists and I fell into his embrace.
"I'm an experiment; a death machine. I fell into a trap and was injected with this sciencey stuff! I'm...I'm a..." I sobbed. My intelligence always seems to drop when I'm sad. I just, don't care about the words I say, so I end up sounding kind of childish.
I fell to the ground in tears and everything was silent until life around me faded and I drifted into unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes and looked around. I imagined that Zack had carried me to this place—the church. "You're awake!" Aerith exclaimed.
I furrowed my eyebrow at her as I sat up. "Is that a bad thing?"
"No! It's just that when Zack brought you in, I was really worried."
I hugged her. It was rare for me that people cared so much about my well-being.
"Thank you, both of you." I smiled warmly to the two of them.
"I was really glad when I saw you walking in Sector 8 because we hadn't seen each other since you were kidnapped that one time," Zack mentioned.
"Oh yeah, I completely forgot to come back and tell you guys that I was okay. I was too busy doing other things. My apologies."
"It's alright. We should be the ones apologizing. We couldn't save you."
"If I may ask, what happened, exactly?" I inquired.
"When you fell into Reno's arms, unconscious, I picked up my sword and went to go attack him, but Rude punched me down."
"I threw a rock at Reno, but he kept walking away until a helicopter landed outside and the two hopped in," Aerith added.
"I thank you guys for trying to save me. You shouldn't feel bad for not being able to, because everything is inevitable."
Aerith and Zack exchanged awkward glances. She looked down at the wooden floor. "I guess, but, what happened to you? We were so worried."
I too, then looked at the floor. "I became a test subject for Hojo. He gave me this injection and turned me into, as he says, 'a perfect Sephiroth clone.' But I refuse to let that happen, or believe it. I would never hurt anyone."
Aerith gasped. Zack put a comforting arm around me.
"I know that you have the strength to fight off the transformation. Everything is going to be okay, I promise." I folded into his embrace, feeling the familiar warmth of my father that I had come to miss. Even though I knew that these two people were not actually my parents, I still felt incredibly reassured by their efforts to help me. In a way, I felt like the two were somehow pulled to treat me like a daughter, almost. Similar to how my father is pulled to Edge, these two don't understand why they felt so pulled to act as my parents. It made me realize how much I missed my home, even though I had been getting the adventure.

Longest, most boring month of my life. Absolutely nothing exciting happened. I had taken to the everyday schedule of wake up, eat food, get mission assigned, go to mission, come home, eat food, be with Reno, and fall asleep. Not even one side effect from the experiments on me occurred.
I woke up, however, to another day, thinking it would be the same as always, but instead, I was assigned a mission with some Infantrymen.
"Zinc," Tseng said through my phone as I walked outside to the helicopter I always took to my missions. "Today, your mission will accompanied by some Infantrymen. It will be just you and them, so be careful."
"I understand," I replied.
"Good. You will be going to the Shinra Manor in Neibelheim. All you have to do is scope out the place and collect any data that you deem important. Anything about project S. You may read the documents if you are interested, but it is not required for you to do so. I'm counting on you."
Click.
Click.
I hopped on the helicopter and made my way to my destination. On the ride over, my phone rang again. I flipped it open and held it to my ear. "Zinc speaking," I said into the receiver.
"Yo, it's Reno," he replied, "I heard you were heading up to Neibelheim today."
"That is true, what about it?" I asked, sitting down in the leather seats, plugging one ear in an attempt to hear over the sounds of the helicopter.
"There's been something up with the place recently—not good things. I just wanted you to know so you're extra careful."
"Thanks, Reno. Tseng warned me as well."
"Okay, good. Just, promise me you'll be safe."
"You know me, I'll be fine."
"Can you promise?"
"I'll talk to you later, kid." The nickname had become a sign of endearment between the two of us. I called him kid and he usually responded with rookie. I asked him where he got that from once, but he remarked that it was an old habit.
Click.
I hung up on him, I know, but that was because I can't make promises. Every time I have, I haven't been able to keep them. Every single time. Even when I simply promised to wash the dishes at the end of the day, I couldn't keep it. Especially in this case, however, I had no idea what would happen in this town, so I didn't want to promise him that I would be alright when there was a possibility that I wouldn't be. If it was inevitable that something bad would happen to me, then it would, and a promise to him wouldn't change that.

Upon arrival at the destination, I was bombarded with questions from the Infantrymen of what we were doing at the site. There were three of them, one of which told me they were expecting one more. "Hold on, you all were sent here without a briefing and without a full party?" I asked the one who seemed to be in charge of the others.
"No," he replied, seeming a little offended at my assumption, "we were informed that we were to escort a Turk around the Manor and protect her at any cost. The guy we're missing suggested to scout ahead to see how bad the monsters were today."
"You only sent one guy? What was the sense in that? If he dies, then it's your fault, you know."
"I told him to come back before that happened."
"How very strict of you," I replied sarcastically.
"Hey! It's you!" I spun around to see the final man running towards us from an off-the-trail path. He was wearing his helmet, but I assumed that it was the guy from my first day here who had run up to me in a similar manner. This time, however, when he came up to me, he took off his helmet and said, "It's me, Cloud."
"Oh yeah, I remember you. You're one of Zack's friends, right?"
"Yeah, and, I'm sorry I've completely forgotten your name."
"Zinc," I outstretched a hand for him to shake.
He took it, but looked at my quizzically. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"How could I forget my own name?"
"True."
"Alright," I turned to address the whole group. "Now that everyone is here, we should get moving."
"You're the woman in charge," the Infantryman I was addressing before said.
To be honest, I was insulted to an extent that these men had to come with me. It inferred that Tseng didn't believe that I could handle myself, which was the farthest thing from the truth. Heidegger told me himself that I was one of the most talented Turks they have. I guess the Infantrymen coming along were more for their own benefit than mine.
As the five of us made our way up the mountain that led to the Shinra Manor, Cloud took it upon himself to take off his helmet, finally, and reveal his true identity. He was blonde with a soft face and incredibly spiky hair. I compared it to my fathers, thinking that is was similar, except slightly out of hand rather than the well-kept, slicked back way my father wore it. "So," he said to me at one point, "Are you new in the Turks?"
"Relatively, yes. I joined about a month ago," I answered.
"That's pretty cool, I came here wanting to join SOLDIER, but they told me I was unfit for the Mako infusion process," he explained.
"I'm sorry, that's really unfortunate. I wish I had a choice for all of that. Instead, I was kidnapped and had it forced on me. Zack can tell you about it, next time you see him."
"I don't know if I will again. He's in SOLDIER, I'm not. Our divisions are kind of rivals."
I looked over at him for a moment, stopping in my tracks. The others around me stopped as well, staring at me in confusion. I was curious as to what Cloud meant by that they were rivals. It was a military, so weren't the two supposed to cooperate? I had hoped that that was the way it would be in this different world. I believed that SOLDIER was just the elite division of the Military, but I guess I was wrong—very wrong. In my home, it was something that led to the war. The Infantrymen were fed up with not being able to have the Mako infusion that they wanted, creating tension between Shinra and the rebellious group, AVALANCHE. In some ways, I became a tad excited, because if that was the way things were, then this Midgar might break out in Civil War just like mine and I would get to experience the war that I had just missed by a year.
Just as these thoughts ran their course through my mind, I looked behind him to see the most menacing looking Bomb there ever was. It was about to explode right behind Cloud. Since the focus was on me at the moment, I was the only one who noticed the monster. I screamed for everyone to take cover and shot it right in the mouth. My attempt, however, to dismiss it before the explosion failed. As the Infantrymen dashed away, I stared into the flames erupting in my face. I was blown onto my back, landing on top of Cloud with a bloodied face. My hearing impaired, my ears rung in high pitches, making my mind feel fuzzy. I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or not, but soon I regained a trace of vision. The first person I saw was Cloud. I could tell that he was holding me up on his lap and that his lips were moving, but I still couldn't hear a thing. "Get me to the Manor," I tried to say, but was unsure whether or not the words came out the way I wanted them too. Before I completely blacked out, I remember thinking about how I had to accomplish my mission no matter what the circumstance.

Of course, before long I woke up and found myself inside the Manor, just as I had requested. I sat up and looked around, seeing that my guards were all still there, guns at the ready in case anything came towards me. To my surprise, I had fully regained my hearing. I ran my fingers over my face and there wasn't a single mark or wound that I could feel. As a matter of fact, I think that my hearing as well as vision was better than it had been. My heart was racing, I felt like a hundred degrees, and my senses were somehow improved. I wondered if it had something to do with the experiment done on me, eventually deciding that it was.
"Cloud," I said, looking around for him.
"Glad to see you're awake and okay, but he's not here," one of the Infantrymen replied.
"Then where did he go?"
"Your phone rang while you were out cold, so he answered it. Told some guy named Tseng what happened, then was directed to look for some files. You should probably give him a call."
"Thank you," I said. I stood and left the room, instructing the men to spread out and take out any monsters they encountered. Once I was by myself, I flipped open my phone and dialed Tseng's number.
"Are you feeling better, Zinc?" he inquired.
"Yes, thank you," I responded. "What exactly did you tell then man who answered my phone previously?"
"I gave him no specific details, but to recover any files he found. At first, I told him that it was not necessary that he carry out your mission, but he insisted on helping. You should go through the files he has found and locate any remaining ones in the Manor."
"Understood. I will carry out my mission."
"I expected nothing less of you, Zinc. Carry on."
Click.
I then pursued searching every room in the Manor for said files. There weren't many to find on the upper levels of the house, so I assumed either Cloud had collected a good sum of them or that there was a basement that would serve as a gold mine. Eventually, I did run into the blonde.
"How are your findings?" I asked.
"Whoa!" he said, completely ignoring my question, "you're not injured at all!"
"Yes, that would be the case, but did you-"
"Oh yeah, sorry, I'm just surprised. You looked really bad."
"Well, thank you for the insult. Now may we proceed with business?"
"Sorry, sorry. I put them all in this room." He led me to a destroyed looking room on the second floor. Bookcases were destroyed and desks in shambles, books and papers lying about the floor in every which way. There was one small pile, however, of assorted folders and papers. I grabbed the stack of papers and sorted through them, soon determining that none of them were what I wanted. There were journal entries, a deed, and one lab report that I decided was important. "There has to be more than this, right?" Cloud wondered aloud.
I scanned the walls. Behind one of the bookcases was a suspicious looking line. I told Cloud that he was right, there should be more, and for him to scope out the main floor as I would look around the second. He agreed to the plan and departed. Once he was gone, I made my way through the debris to the bookshelf. I pushed it aside, very easily to my surprise, and examined the wall. I kicked at the wall, instantly making it crumble and reveal a spiral staircase. Descending the rickety structure, I made my way to a hidden basement. I turned to the left to find a locked door, which I picked with a pin from my hair and found myself in a room full of coffins. Incredibly suspicious, I investigated each, only to find nothing—except for one, which had a person inside. "Ack!" I called, jumping back. Actually, he was quite handsome. I wanted to touch his face, to feel his skin, or even wipe the long black locks from his eyes, but I wanted even more so to not disturb his slumber. Instead, I covered the coffin and locked it, hopping that the next person who came along would break it open and take the man with them on an adventure.
Retracing my steps, I went to the other way and discovered a laboratory. This, of course, was exactly what I had expected—a plethora of reports and documents labeled with "Project S." Curious, I scanned them, but soon after wished that I hadn't. What I had discovered was so dreadful, so lurid, that I couldn't bear to read them all. It told me more than I wanted to know about Sephiroth, but also explained to me why Hojo would want to replicate him.
I gave Tseng a call, asking him specifically what he wanted me to do with the files I discovered. He informed me that he spoke with Professor Hojo earlier and that he wanted only the files labeled "subject detail."
"Did you read them?" he asked.
"Yes," was the only word I was able to say.
"I'm sorry, I should have warned you."
"No, it was good that I read them. It tells me a little bit more about your society that I wasn't aware of."
"You're doing a good job, Zinc. Keep it up."
Click.
Click.
I collected the documents he desired—one on Sephiroth, one on a woman named Lucrecia Crescent, and a final on a man named Vincent Valentine—and made my way back up the stairs.
When I found myself back downstairs, I encountered, Cloud, telling him that I found what I needed and asked him to gather to other Infantrymen. With my mission accomplished we left the Manor. The helicopter for me descended from the sky and as I walked towards it, Cloud called to me. "Will we ever see each other again?"
I stared at him for a moment, the sound of the helicopter behind me. I decide not to lie to him and say, "I'm not sure, but I hope so."
"Me too!" he yells, smiling. I waved goodbye to him and departed.

Every now and again us Turks were assigned a sort of free-day. It was actually mission, but it was so laid back that whenever one of the sort was assigned, we decided to call it a "free-day." The objective was to stroll through the assigned Sector and take note of any unusual activity among the people. That day, I was assigned the Sector 5 slums. I was going about my own business when I spotted Zack strolling towards the marketplace. He was looking strangely down, so I went over to him and initiated a conversation.
"Hello, friend," I said. "Is something wrong?" Of course, I knew that there was, but I didn't expect him to actually give me a straight answer.
"Oh hey, Zinica," he replied, a little startled to see me. "No, sorry, I was just thinking. What about you? You look a little down in the dumps yourself."
There was only one thing I could think of to tell him about. "I guess there was just a mission that I accomplished recently."
"Did something interesting actually happen?" he joked.
"There were some files that I found. The content was, for lack of a better word, disturbing. I'm still a little shaken by it."
"I'm guessing you can't tell me because it's something Turk-like and secretive."
"That's exactly it."
"Hey, so, off topic, I was heading down to do some training. Do you want to come?"
I didn't have anything else better to do, so I agreed to join him. I phoned Tseng first, asking him if it was alright, when of course it was.
We walked to the area past to park and started happily shooting and slashing away. I took note of Zack's fighting ability, determining that it was much better than what he had exhibited the first day when he attempted to save me. I complimented him, but he denied the fact, just as I knew he would. I could tell, however, that he had not always been that way—denying compliments. I think he used to be a little cocky and possibly flirty, basically the last person to turn down a compliment.
He too complimented my fighting ability, asking me where I got some of my techniques. I replied with an honest answer, my father. Zack remarked that some of them looked familiar, but nothing that he had ever done before. I mentioned that it might be a strange connection to someone in his past that he can't remember anymore, or even someone that he doesn't know at all. He declined the idea, saying that he probably just really liked the way it looked.
One bad habit of mine that I've had since I was a kid was making sound effects for my actions. Of course, that was one of the moments that I just had to make one for my pistol. As I shot the last enemy through the skull, I screeched, "PYUHEM!"
I had hoped that Zack hadn't noticed, but of course he did. "What was that?" he asked.
"I-it was a sound effect," I replied, blushing.
"For what?"
"My pistol. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize!" he said, chuckling in between words. He came over to me and rubbed my skull with his fist. "I think it's cute."
That was the absolute last thing that I wanted to be—cute. For my age, I decided that it was a degrading term. It was meant for children and babies and I was neither of those things.
As we laughed at each other, something peculiar happened. I stared at Zack, but for some reason, my vision started to blur and it appeared as if he were a monster of some sort. I tried to shake off the image, but my mind tried to tell me that I had to back away and attack. I knew it was Zack, a friend, with all of my heart. For some reason, my hands went towards my weapons. Practically instinctively, I jumped back, fighting with myself.
"What's wrong?" he asked me, trying to decode my strange state. I must have been wiggling oddly or something—I'm not really sure what I looked like then, considering that I wasn't really aware of my actions at the time.
"Please, just stay back, I don't want to hurt you," I said, trying not to stutter.
My arm, shaking, rose with the gun in hand, aimed towards Zack. My finger pressed on the trigger, but the next thing I knew I had blacked out and collapsed to the floor.