Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Apotheosis ❯ Dark Deeds ( Chapter 4 )

Braddock stretched, closing his eyes against the twilit gloom of his office. It had been a long but profitable day; many entries in the daybooks of he and his employer had been moved to the 'completed' file. He was proud of his efficiency; being an executive assistant, particularly to someone as erratic as Rufus Shinra, was more difficult than most people realized.

But there was one more matter to be planned for today. Resettling his glasses on his nose, he opened the e-mail he had received from the head of Shinra's special operative group, the Turks, and scanned it once again.

AVALANCHE apprehension much more difficult than anticipated; request assignment of a S.O.L.D.I.E.R. Black operative ASAP. Respond with identification and estimated time of arrival.

Braddock frowned, thinking back to his conversation with the head of S.O.L.D.I.E.R. that morning. The trouble was that there weren't any S.O.L.D.I.E.R. Blacks any more; many of the original group were the foundation of the Turks themselves; those who hadn't joined were retired, missing, or had been… disposed of. Cross-referencing the Black roster with S.O.L.D.I.E.R.'s current enrollment, he had been able to come up with only one name: Sephiroth.

Only Sephiroth was currently involved in the mopup of the Wutai conflict; had, in fact, led the assault himself, a brutal onslaught that had quickly ended with Wutai's submission. Even then, Sephiroth had not permitted his forces to relent; every day more news footage rolled in of S.O.L.D.I.E.R.s slaughtering unarmed refugees, their leader often right beside them wielding a large curved sword. Needless to say this footage did little to convince the populace of the need for the 'pacification of Wutaian militants,' and was suppressed as quickly as possible.

Such behavior was finally beginning to draw concern from Shinra's upper echelons, although it seemed the scale and publicity were what distressed them, rather than the actions themselves. Braddock had seen Sephiroth's record of duty; surprisingly short considering his recent promotion to general, it was nonetheless a nightmare of assassinations, torture, demolition, and rampant sociopathy. At least he's on our side, Braddock thought morosely, and pulled up the file again.

Yes, Sephiroth was well regarded… he had only received one mark of censure in his career, and the details were so classified even Braddock couldn't access them. He had heard bits and pieces of the story, though; something like that was too bizarre not to get around. Sephiroth had apparently walked into the research wing one night, and walked out with a girl who had been kept there, making no attempt to hide his theft. Gossip had never explicitly stated what had happened to her, but it had surely been nasty; raped and murdered, most likely. Whatever he had done to her, no trace had ever been found, and the research head, Hojo, had been furious. That had ended in Sephiroth being transferred from Research--and odd place for a man of his duties to be assigned anyway--to S.O.L.D.I.E.R. full-time, and, ironically, begun the ascent of his career a few years ago.

Still… while having a tame monster like Sephiroth might be useful, it was definitely felt that he was too visible at the moment. Such things as his talents lended themselves to were best done in the dark. Perhaps it wouldn't be a tremendous problem to remove him from Wutai and send him after this AVALANCHE group.

Confident the recommendation wouldn't be discarded, Braddock opened another program and began a new e-mail. A few moments later he received the response: an annotated dossier on AVALANCHE. The information was distressingly sparse. Apparently they were an environmentalist group of some sort who had recently begun taking violent action; they were responsible for the bombing of Reactor 7, an invasion of the President's mansion, and a hijacking, among a host of lesser crimes. However, Shinra intelligence had been unable to discover who they were; the only positive ID they had was a young man named Cloud Strife, an ex-guardsman and a failed S.O.L.D.I.E.R. himself. He allegedly associated with a woman named Tifa, a large man with a cybernetic weapon, another unidentified woman, and a half dozen others, according to eyewitnesses. Troubling; they seemed a paltry group to have wreaked such havoc, let alone given the Turks so much trouble that they asked for help. Still, it wasn't his job to wonder why they needed help; he simply had to arrange it as quickly and conveniently as possible.

Braddock began his last email of the evening, advising Mr. Rufus of the reasons he felt Sephiroth would be suited for the role, finally attaching the Turks' request, the AVALANCHE dossier, and Sephiroth's resume before sending it off. As he did so, Sephiroth's bloodstained list of atrocities caught his eye again, and he shuddered involuntarily. I hope he doesn't need to come here for a briefing; I'd hate to meet him in the hall.

Well, Mr. Rufus would be the one speaking to the general, not Braddock.

A tame monster indeed.