Streak
Like the moons
‘Cross the starlight sky
And
Our veins
Weep their salty wine.

--

Moonlight Sonata

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ONE

Prometheus Brought Fire to the Mortals

--

People like me…

Humph. What gives? People like me are born everyday. We open our eyes, stare into some damn bright light, and can’t help but scream at the absurd awfulness of it all. Most of us stop screaming a few minutes later; some of us never really stop. Maybe my father really did drop me on my head, or maybe the doctor wasn’t careful and cut off the umbilical cord too soon. Either way, it doesn’t matter.

I’m a werewolf. Always have been and always will be.

Sure, my father tried to get me cured; “fixed” as he insisted on putting it. My mother was, if anything, as normal as a lady could get, and my father was no more inhuman than he was pigheaded. Of course, the shock of my first transformation—made in the incubator at two weeks of age—would have been enough to constitute drowning me in the bathroom sink before I got any bigger than a pathetic, mewling, blind pup. Mother certainly wanted it done; she wanted none of her part in the awful legacy she’d received in the marriage to my father to remain.

“Back off,” she told my father, eyes alight with the madness induced by her escalating pain no longer tempered by morphine and barbituates. “The little whelp shouldn’t suffer anymore than it should.

Father, however, had the final say and he needed an heir, no matter how imperfect, and he needed an heir of his blood. So I was taken from my mother and spent the first year of my life being handled by frightened hands in a sterile, pure oxygen nursery room with silver bars covering my crib.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I was born early. I had to be since Mother’s strength was already mostly failing her and I would have wasted away in her rotting womb if she had brought me to full-term. Personally, I think it must have been something in her or that the doctors treated me with that made me so imperfect; perhaps a strange, unlabeled pint of blood or a shot wrongly administered. It’s not all that uncommon. Then again, I’m completely human except for one night out of every moon cycle so the theory that I’ve got the blood of another race mixed in me doesn’t quite work.

There are benefits to my condition, though. I have exceptional night vision, hearing, and olfactory senses, and my coordination as well as strength are something no mere human could even dream of matching. I can run for miles, jump amazing distances, and have the strangest flexibility normally only seen in contortionists who have had bones removed to aid their profession. My teeth are sharper than most and very strong.

I have also inherited the most powerful company in the world.

But that is a double-edged sword. Even after the fiasco of JENOVA, Sephiroth, and the Remnants, after half a decade of rebuilding, refinancing, restructuring, I’m still here. Reeve’s ambitions were honourable but he was no businessman; he is an idealist as the rest of them are, and he could not predict what followed Meteor in many ways. A call for a return to the old, common throughout history when a revolution goes wrong, no matter how miserable it had been came about. Reeve, the WTO, AVALANCHE—they all lost their popularity when they couldn’t fix the economic depression, the mortality rate, the sewer systems among other things.

It is one thing to save the Planet, but it is quite another to run it. It took a lot of energy for me to not dissolve like Reno and laugh outright in their once so smug faces when they had to come to ask me for advice and, eventually, permission to get me to restart my company in full. Most of the time, I got a good kick out of it all, stringing them along with ifs and buts.

Still, though, it doesn’t help me any more than it used to that I’m a werewolf. Some of that little motley crew has this thing about going out on full mooned nights, and they always make a point to invite me along. I don’t know why they try to be polite; perhaps because they hope to repair some of the damage they themselves have caused. With Cloud gone off on his own, only rarely returning to Midgar when absolutely needed, those who have remained to rebuild and restore Midgar have only themselves and, they think, me and mine.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate them. They are idealistic fools and they become angry every time I draw my gun or the Turks go out on errands. They fear what was my father’s legacy, not mine, fear that I shall turn into him. Hah. If only they knew what I really turned into once a month, if only they knew the reason Dark Nation and I were so close. Before Cloud killed her; I don’t think I’ll ever stop holding that against him, clone or no clone.

I haven’t been quite well ever; transformations are not easy things although I do believe only the former Turk Vincent Valentine would be able to relate. It was a mystery to the doctors that I was able to heal when my conditioned combined with the injuries I sustained from Weapon, but that’s just a benefit of the mako treatments Father had had directed used on me in one of his more desperate attempts to suppress my condition. If not for the mako in me, I would have been crippled probably for life, forced to walk on a cane or live in a wheelchair.

My office faces to the west at the setting sun. I can’t stand the early morning light that invades so I had my original working quarters in this new building moved. I’m a creature of the night; morning is not a natural time for me to be awake. Humanity really is a pain in that way.

Today, Cloud is back and thus insists upon coming to pay me a visit. He arrives as he always does unannounced, knowing as the rest of those with the privilege of knowing me personally do, that I work at all hours and seem to sleep so rarely that it’s a wonder I haven’t keeled over and died by my own stubbornness. It’s one of the first things people feared about me. I remember my first secretary—a tall, lithe lady with faux black hair—whispering when she thought I couldn’t hear:

“No, Janet, you don’t understand. Sure, I’m always telling myself, he’s just a kid; fourteen-years-old is a ridiculous age to run a company division. But then I come to work every morning and he’s there like he never left, working or standing at the window. I swear to God, if I didn’t know he went home because of his appointment book, I’d think he was a demon or something!”

I won’t lie. I still have nightmares about that first secretary. She was my father’s favourite of the ones he picked for me; she loved to watch my every movement, loved to report to my father on anything I did out of the ordinary or wrong. So it was then that I began to essentially live in my office and at my job, only ever going to the shooting range or to whatever function Father put me up to. God, the satisfaction of killing her was one of the best things I had ever felt in my miserable life.

“Rufus.”

Cloud had been in contact me enough times to know I won’t respond to being addressed as Shin-Ra. Shin-Ra is my father; Shin-Ra is the old company and not me. I look up from my work; he probably is wondering why I’m standing and what has happened to the leather chair I normally sit on. Well, I’m not the most pleasant of people a day before and after the full moon; it’s also why we had people repairing windows today. I’ll get a new chair sometime; probably once I get injured again or when Tseng bothers me into it. That man has gotten real good at nagging.

“Ah, Strife-san, what brings you here today?”

Really, though, I don’t know why he visits me. No one could stop him if he wanted to, but that isn’t the problem. His visits are the strangest things—rather awkward on his part and trying on my patience. Wolves are not the most forgiving or patient of animals, and he rubs me the wrong way on principle. It’s like getting burns on the ass to be blunt.

He takes the seat across from my desk, the one in the glare of the window because he knows that, as evening is falling now, I see best at this time that way. Some part of me is angry that he knows this fault of mine; Tseng happened to divulge that information in the early days of our business alliance when there was still strong hate for me within most of the core AVALANCHE group. It was, of course, to dissolve some of the tension for I knew each and every of their weaknesses. I could not be infallible in their eyes for the alliance to work.

But my eyes… yes, they are weaker during the day. I live without electric lights and prefer the dim lighting I do allow in my office; only when company calls or when twilight falls do I open the blinds on the window.

Cloud, though, is different today. He seems distracted; his sword slung low over his shoulders as if it had been recently used and his eyes moving sometimes to the side. Not so confident and assured today, hm, Strife-san?

“I made an appointment this time for a reason; there’s something important we need to talk about.”

Immediately, this is a signal to turn from my desk, set down the pen I was using to scribble notes onto one of Reno’s reports, and go to the small liquor box hidden behind a scenic picture of Costa del Sol. A blast of cold air and my little collection stands like soldiers at attention awaiting my orders. I suppose I am a bit of a sick bastard in some ways.

Hm… That cognac looks lonely there. Have I drunken the other two bottles already? Oh, no, I haven’t: drank one, gifted the other to a client from Kalm. I pull the bottle out of the back, pick up two glasses attached to the back of the picture, and close the painting before returning to my desk.

Cloud accepts his with a grateful glance and gulps it down in one go. No, no… wait for it… Yes, there it is. The savior of the world is not able to suppress the cough at the burn in his throat.

“Gaia, Rufus,” he sputters with a nose-wrinkle of distaste, “that’s some nasty shit. If that damn bottle didn’t have curly writing on the label I’d be accusing you of feeding me dog piss.”

I take a sip and simply smile in that way that drives him absolutely nutters. “You still haven’t answered my question, Strife-san. It’s not your style to avoid a subject.”

There is a benefit to this beast as part of me. It allows me two separate planes of existence: the human and the animal. One tastes all the deception in words and actions, and the other all the feelings and desires. Sometimes I find it can be overwhelming, intoxicating even, to smell the scent of sweet fear and worded defiance in the same breath. Cloud smells like a vacuum right now of emotions, full of empty disappointment and bitterly of despair. The animal rejoices at its triumph over its longtime prey; the human worries about the consequences.

“There’s been a large increase of activity around the North Crater. Mostly monster activity, but there’s been some odd sightings.”

“Odd sightings.”

I took another sip. Really, there wasn’t much that I could do. Temper is a volatile thing for a creature like me, and I could feel it rising in the pit of my stomach. It gets so tiresome, constantly having to return to the past, to the mistakes of the last generation, and to have to clean up the mess they left behind. Cloud must have noticed the change of atmosphere in the room because he frowns deeper and looks over to my side where I kept my favoured gun holstered. It is then that I realized I’d been resting my hand on my hip above it as I drank.

“Tell me about these sightings.”

Cloud sighs, inhales deeply, and takes two quick, shuddering gulps of his drink. Sometimes I still forget he’s so much older than me. Twenty-five when I was eighteen and now twenty-eight to my twenty-one.

“You might want to sit down.”

Leaning back against my desk, it’s the most he’ll get in compliance before he continues.

“I’ve been doing some cleaning up near to the North Crater when I found that one of your old mako reactors seemed to be active. Naturally, I was suspicious so I went in to check.”

He pauses to take another drink, the haunted look in his eyes indicating his need for it. I suppose I could take offense at that suspicion, but Cloud is no more forgiving than I am.

“There were… things in there. I don’t know how else to describe it. They were alive, dormant still, but they didn’t look like Hojo’s kind of work. They were too normal. I don’t know; you have to come see it to understand.”

--

A lot of pieces of the puzzle have warped over the years.

AVALANCHE was surprised in the beginning when I showed active motivation to take part in what most people would call the dirty work; like many of my critics, they thought me essentially a spoiled brat with a lot of nerve. I think I may have broken something essential to their view of me when I went along with that first mission to clean out the Nibelheim mansion. The change happened when I put fifteen bullets successively through the head of three monsters before getting my shotgun mangled and snapped from my hand.

I believe that the beast—hideous, undead thing—broke my wrist. I don’t really remember the incident too well, just that everything went the same spanned, sensual colour of bloodlust, rippling and smelling of all the nothingness associated with impeding revenge. It’s this sort of odd oblivion, deeply primal and intoxicating, perhaps even positively horrific, feeling the wolf awaken and strike out on instinct. I ruined my jacket with the dark, stagnant blood splatter.

Cloud was there as was the Wutaian princess, Yuffie Kisaragi. Their faces were very strange, much like Reno’s and Rude’s the first time they saw my beast manifest itself. Unless you have a beast inside of you, it’s hard to imagine how hard it is to suppress, to separate, the urge to pride and lord over the kill. I’ve given up suppressing the smile of satisfaction, given up the urge to inhale the scent of warm, freshly spilt blood on myself.

I think I very well may have still been smiling like a lunatic when we met back up with the rest of the group. Killing things like that always has put me in a better mood.

And such the puzzle warps, and such the puzzle turns.

--

Tseng is in his office talking on the speaker phone with Reno when I enter. He glances up quickly to acknowledge me with a bow of his head.

“’Boss there? ‘Kay, Sir, catch ya later!” the redhead chirps before hanging up.

Reno’s voice always sounds tiny and harsher over phone lines. It’s a lot smoother in person, a lot more like wine than scotch. These sorts of things bother my hearing.

Tseng is already staring at the bottle I have tucked under one arm with two clean glasses and has probably noticed that the unruly lock of hair has fallen into my face again. The fact that I haven’t bothered to brush it away yet alerts him to the fact I am sufficiently displeased as well as irritated with someone external; the external requires drink while the internal requires self-punishment.

“I take it whatever the meeting was it was bad news,” Tseng says with a sigh as I unwrap the cognac and set the glasses to the side of Tseng’s filing table.

Half-full glass to Tseng and a full one for myself; he frowns disapprovingly but I’ve long since learned to ignore his mothering. Even so, I can’t help but roll my eyes when he asks in that stiff voice of strictness if I’ve eaten today. He returns the action with a flat, deflated kind of look that I’ve only ever seen Reno get out of him besides myself. Still, though, he accepts the glass and gives it a polite taste before setting it down again.

“We will be traveling to the North Crater later this week, most likely Friday and Saturday if something comes up to interfere. Most likely we will end up at a rendezvous with a contingent of Cloud and Company once the destination is reached.”

Tseng’s withering look only intensifies and he helps himself to a more genuine sip of the cognac before responding. “Sir, there is a reason that the Turks exist.”

Popping my right shoulder to relieve some of the stiffness building up there from staying hunched over my desk of most of the day, I give him a smile. “Hm… there is, isn’t there?” I hum into my glass. “But I do become horrifically bored holed up around here all the time. You know how it is; the urge in young blood to romp cannot be suppressed without terrible consequences.”

Predictably, he sighs heavily, swallows the rest of his drink in a single gulp, and massages habitually at the sides of his eyes. Despite this, I know why Tseng never retired after he reached thirty-five, which is the standard retirement age for Turks and SOLDIERS. With the Turks as they are and having raised me so closely, he is just like an alpha female: forever dedicated to his pack of troublesome whelps. Without us to constantly ride his tail and nip at his toes he would go mad with boredom and purposelessness.

It’s happened before, but that’s not the point of this.

“Rude and Reno will be along on this one; you’re still cleaning up the events in Sector Two and I’d rather not pull you away from that. Elena is still doing speed interrogations, correct?” I wait for him to confirm this before continuing. “Right then. Oh, and Tseng?”

“Yes, sir?”

I pause at the door; the bottle is nearly empty, mostly consumed by a very needy Cloud Strife, so I’ll just leave it with him to finish as he starts to put things in order.

“If we aren’t back before the height of the moon cycle Sunday, then you have my approval to empty stock.”

He nods, somewhat sated. Outside the waxing half moon rises.

--

Little flower
Your petals bloom
Smell so sweet and pure
And, little flower,
The bee to your bud,
Smell so sweet and demure