Disclaimer: I own nothing besides the beetle and the plot. Whoa, weirdest sentence ever.

A.N.: Italics. They are my gift . . . and my curse.

Thanks to Final Hikari for reviewing!

A foul wind blew through Midgar, temporarily reducing the ever-present chemical stench of mako to almost bearable levels. Soon, however, the smell returned; not that anyone noticed.

Towering far above the other buildings of Midgar, the Shinra Building loomed imposingly over the city, casting its immense shadow over almost half of the metropolis and plunging several Sectors into darkness.

Perched on top of the monstrous building sat a large beetle, waggling its antennae cockily in the breeze; it was having a good day.

However, inside of the Shinra Building, someone else's day had just gotten a good deal worse. . .

Angeal stood, stunned, staring at Zack with an expression of disbelief covering his face. Zack tried his best to remain solemn. "Griselda and Norman are gone. . . I'm not sure if Harriet will make it," he hesitantly put his arm around Angeal's shoulders, patting him awkwardly on the back.

He led Angeal to his apartment, guiding him through the hallways. Zack stopped at the door. He slowly opened it, head hanging in shame.

Angeal gaped, horrified by the carnage that stretched before him. "My plants," he gasped numbly.

"I'm sorry. It's my fault; I forgot to put the pesticide on them," Zack said apologetically, but Angeal wasn't listening. He rushed over to his beloved flora. He gently ran his hands over the stripped leaves. "What happened to them?"

Zack perked up a little. "Well, see, there were these big beetles…they were, like, everywhere. They were all shiny! And green!" Then he checked himself, remembering he was supposed to show remorse. "I'm so sorry," he said, flinging himself repentantly at Angeal's feet. "I don't deserve to be a SOLDIER any more. I've lost my honor . . ." at that, Zack finally lost his composure and burst into a decidedly irreverent burst of giggles.

"I'm . . . sorry," Zack finally wheezed, "It's just that the beetles were so . . . so shiny and they looked so hungry . . .," the young recruit said, barely noticing what had just slipped out of his mouth.

However, what he had just said dawned on him, and he looked up in horror at his mentor.

Angeal glared coldly, pitilessly, mercilessly, back at him.

Realizing that he probably had about thirty seconds to live if he took no action, Zack wailed 'I'm sorry!' and sprinted past Angeal and out of the room, slamming the door forcefully behind him. Angeal heard him running away down the hallway, probably smacking into the other SOLDIERs.

He turned back to his plants in futile dismay, and immediately saw . . .

Oh Gaia!

A giant green beetle sat contentedly upon one of Angeal's few plants that had not been desecrated, chewing its perfect green stalk up, shredding its pearly green leaves, utterly devastating his precious plant . . .

Angeal abstractedly noticed the beetle looked something like Bob, if a tad smaller and a little less glossy.

Did Bob have something to do with this? Swiftly plucking the insect off of the plant, Angeal hurried into his kitchen, and reached behind his small refrigerator for the plastic container that housed Bob, the beetle he had found in Genesis' office and then later on - curiously enough - in his own closet.

A frown formed on his face; partly from the disturbance of the idea and but mainly because he could almost see why Genesis has incinerated his own apartment in rage.

He groped around – where is that thing? – when his fingers suddenly met something smooth, hard, and most decidedly alive.

Out from behind the refrigerator crawled one, two, three Bobs.

Angeal stared, dumbfounded, at the small procession of vegetative death as it paraded past his microwave, and then his kitchen sink. One of the beetles fell into the sink, but soon flew out and landed behind the other two insects, which had, strangely enough, paused to wait for their fallen comrade. The intelligence they were showing was borderline traumatic.

The SOLDIER, shaking himself out of his reverie, immediately went over and removed the beetles from his counter-top. He opened the safety-glass and steel window that hung over his sink, and set all four of his collected beetles free.

Angeal frowned; surely there had to be more beetles than that, to have eaten all seven of his carefully-nurtured plants . . .

After a painstaking search of his apartment, Angeal had found fully fifty-three beetles. Worst of all, they had been everywhere. He found the most in the rooms near where his plants were stored, but a few had hidden and taken up residence in other places, specifically in his bedroom. Each one had been released out the window, and the SOLDIER looked forward to a restful, insect-free evening.

Angeal reached for the book he was currently reading: a leather-bound copy of Loveless Genesis had given him for his birthday. He would admit, it was fairly dry, but he felt obligated to read it.

He had just sat on his couch down when he saw it: the fifty-fourth beetle. This one was most definitely Bob; it was larger than the other beetles, and a much more iridescent shade of green. He stared at the creature as it made a clicking noise, and launched itself towards Angeal's one remaining intact plant – Leigh.

The SOLDIER launched himself out of his chair, and caught Bob out of the air with a precision that surprised even himself. Bob wiggled unpleasantly in his hand, even resorting to sticking Angeal with the points on the ends of his spindly legs.

Seeing as Angeal was nowhere close to letting go of him, the beetle resorted to its one last defensive mechanism.

The insect sank its tiny jaws deep into the fleshy part of Angeal's hand, causing the man to cry out and promptly drop the beetle. It landed feet-first on the carpet, while Angeal, stifling his cries, looked at his wounded hand. It oozed drops of blood, and . . . was that . . . blackening?

Angeal looked closely at his injured hand; it was indeed blackening dangerously around the edges of the bite. Abruptly, the man felt himself swaying back and forth.

The SOLDIER barely managed to aim himself at the couch before his vision blacked out and he fell.

The beetle, watching the entire scene, cheerfully clicked a few times before going over to munch on Leigh.

When Angeal awoke, he found himself in a sterile-looking white and grey room; a room he had been in many times before. However, this time he was surrounded by a legion of white-coated scientists, and he appeared to be horizontal.

One of the scientists separated itself from the crowd of others . . . wait, was it holding Bob? Angeal blinked blearily at the scientist, and then recognized it as . . . oh, crap.

Professor Hojo stared down at Angeal, wearing what could only be described as a very disturbing smile. Not that he wasn't very disturbing in the first place, but this was more so than normal.

Hojo's eerie smile only increased in intensity as he began to speak, "Wonderful, just wonderful! My test results came out exactly as planned!"

Angeal couldn't help but to ask grimly which test results Hojo meant.

"The test results of Project XC-13D, of course," Hojo replied, looking triumphantly down at Angeal. "I took a normal beetle of the Scarabaeus family, and gave it a regulation SOLDIER treatment! It worked marvelously, and of course the neurotoxin I added to its bite obviously . . . is quite effective," the professor said, all the while smirking at Angeal.

"Why?" Angeal asked, not seeing the reasoning behind enhancing a beetle. Perhaps a Three Stars, or another particularly powerful monster, but a beetle? Angeal simply could not see the logic behind it.

"President Shinra ordered a monster to be made that could easily take down a SOLDIER First Class, in case of any . . . unfortunate events," Hojo smirked, "And he said to make it as small and easily concealable as possible." Angeal stared at the professor, but seeing that no explanation was forthcoming, he decided that it was probably in his best interest not to ask why, exactly, President Shinra needed deadly, SOLDIER-killing beetles at his disposal.

Hojo smiled coldly at Angeal and then turned away, all the while lightly stroking the green beetle. It looked perfectly at home, despite the fact that it was perched on the glove of a deranged scientist.

Angeal stared at it for a few seconds, silently swearing bloody revenge.

Later that day

Angeal tiredly pushed open the door connecting the Science Department to the waiting room, and abruptly found himself knocked off his feet; Zack had appeared out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground.

As he lay dazedly on the floor, Zack leaned over him, anxiously looking down at him. "Are you all right? What did Hojo do? Are the beetles dead? Are you-" He would've continued, but he was silenced quickly by a painful kick to the shin, courtesy of a very annoyed-looking Genesis. The young SOLDIER hissed a curse that earned him an equally dirty look from Angeal; Genesis merely smirked.

Angeal picked himself up – ignoring Genesis' offered hand – and promptly fell over again, head spinning. He vaguely heard Genesis tell Zack to shut up, and then everything went black.

Hojo stared contemplatively at Specimen 3566. It appeared to be perfectly healthy; its carapace was as shiny as he had ever seen it, and it appeared to have grown by a quarter-inch. The professor smiled, made a note of the specimen's improvement, and moved on to the next one.

He frowned; this one was not nearly as healthy looking. Shrugging, he wrote that down as well, and moved on to Specimen 3568.

This one was the largest so far, barring Specimen 1. Hojo let himself indulge in a maniacal cackle – after all, it was good for his image.

Project Scarabaeus was coming along just as planned.

A.N.: Out-of-hand idea is out of hand. But really, only two more to go now!

*Clears throat* Remember, reviews feed a starving author . . .

-Beta's Note- And that means you too, Dr. Meh! XD All must review! -dragged off by Krynn-