Jenova Absolute, Part Two - Video Games - http://maxpages.com/aerischurch/Jenova_Absolute_Part

"Hojo, you've got to stop this! You're becoming a madman!" Vincent burst into Hojo's lab in the basement of the Shin-Ra Mansion. Irate over Lucretia's death, he wanted to put an end to this...madness that had enveloped Shin-Ra. Hojo had become increasingly obsessed with his precious 'Specimen' and was now gaunt, pale, and horrifying to behold. His weeks spent at his microscope had transformed him into a hunchback, and now he stood blinking in the bright light from the hallway that flooded his darkened laboratory.
"A madman, you say? How can you call me a madman? I have done the greatest possible deed for this Planet! Jenova can make everything better! How dare you call me a madman!" Hojo rose to his full height, fire flashing in his eyes.
"Yes! A madman! You've sacrificed Lucretia to your miserable experiment, and you're killing yourself! You must stop this foolishness!" Vincent reached for the gun concealed in his loose sport jacket. Hojo noted this with his dark eyes, and placed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, as if in shame. And stroked the pistol he had hidden there.
"Very well. Try and stop me, fool," Hojo whispered to himself, seeming to mumble to himself in contrition. Vincent drew his rifle, but before he had a chance to fire, Hojo had whipped out his tiny pistol and emptied the cartridge into Vincent's body, sending the younger man flying. Hojo returned the pistol to his pocket after poking the Turk with it to make sure he was no longer a part of this world. Satisfied he was dead, he hauled the corpse to its feet and lay it on a worktable, found a scalpel, and set to work.
When he was finished, he dragged the now cloaked and shrouded form of a thing that had been human into the crypt located in the Mansion's depths. The loose, flowing cape he had clad the Turk in moved aside for a moment, and light gleamed on a brassy claw, where Vincent's left arm should be. After consigning his foe to whoever might come, he deposited the key to the vault in his safe, placed a few notes in strategic positions in the front foyer, and set to work, removing his equipment from his lab and piling looseleaf binders filled with notes in the Professor's cramped handwriting into a few boxes. Satisfied that he had gotten everything, he called for a guard to carry his things away, and left Shin-Ra Mansion.

***** Jenova watched all this with faint interest, slightly surprised by Hojo's initaitive. She felt the miniscule pieces of herself placed into Vincent's body by the Professor become active, and she silenced them, telling them to wait until he was awakened. She then fell back into the abyss of sleep, waiting for her 'Son' to come and free her.

***** Hojo studied the files of his son with interest, paying closest attention to Sephiroth's skill with the huge Masamune that he used as a weapon. A weapon! Most people kept one on the wall as a decorative device, and needed ten strong men to place it in its rack. But Sephiroth wielded the sword with ease, waving it about as though it were a pencil! Good Lord, what a warrior he had created! If Sephiroth was this good with the Masamune at age fourteen, imagine what power he would have as an adult...yes, Shin-Ra certainly had the General it needed...
Hojo felt a flash of fatherly pride, for did Sephiroth not owe his strength and very existence to him? If he had not been treated with Mako and Jenova, he would just be an ordinary boy...but with the enhancement, he was stronger, faster, more agile, and certainly had a greater amount of magical ability than other people. And the spells he knew! Most people had one or two Materia, a Cure usually, and perhaps a Fire or Bolt...but Sephiroth knew powerful Summon spells, like 'Leviathan' and 'Kjata'. He refused to use Materia like HP Up, claiming that they were unnecessary. Magic Materia were at his full command, and he was able to wring hidden power from his Contain and Barrier spells. All in all, Sephiroth certainly was worth his cost...
Hojo broke away from the reports, a strange smile twisting his face. What if-what if he gave his son the Black Materia? What if Sephiroth had the power to destroy the Planet? Would his child use the inner strengths that God had seen fit to give him? Hojo wished that he could carry out this experiment, but he knew that it was impossible, too costly. Although Hojo held no regard for anything or anyone else on the Planet, he still had no desire to destroy his only home...
Hojo reprimanded himself for such self-destructive thoughts. He had to concentrate on his current experiment. He pushed a tape of Sephiroth fighting a Roboguard in a training area into a VCR. He stared at the recorded motions of his son with pride, looking at his flowing silver hair and glowing eyes. Strange, that hair was...why did it grow in that fashion? Was it because of Jenova? Hojo had seen similar hairlike tendrils growing on the Cetra's head...or what he supposed was her head, and knew that Sephiroth himself certainly didn't style it that way. He had seen the recordings of his son in his room, and knew that he had no concern for personal appearance, merely getting up, bathing, and dressing in the enveloping black cape and uniform of a Shin-Ra general. And the eyes...presumably the Mako was responsible for the green glow and the eerily beautiful shifting from blue to turquoise to green; he had seen it before in members of SOLDIER, but the cat-like pupils were beyond his reasoning. He guessed that they were a gift from Jenova. Exactly why Jenova would cause that, he had no idea, and he didn't know if she had eyes like that. If only she would open them, if she was alive! He could use a probe to open them, but he wasn't going to risk his precious specimen...
Hojo set down the reports, looking up at the clock. Six-fifteen...time for Sephiroth's 'medicine'. Most children were frightened by doctors with needles, but Sephiroth had merely stared at him with intent solemnity. Always. Hojo twisted his mind, trying to figure that out. Now he remembered that it had seemed as though Sephiroth had been staring into his...his soul. No matter. Hojo left his Spartan office and went to the medical Wing.

*****
Professor Gast looked into the cave with worry. He had been told by the villagers that an Ancient lived here, but the cave was obviously too small for a being of Jenova's size. Gast stepped into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Then he felt something sharp and pointy poking his neck.
"Who are you, intruder?" said a female voice to his left.
"Um. I'll tell you, if you don't stab me." The knife was removed, and Gast breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well?" the voice asked.
"I'm... a scientist in search of Cetra artifacts. The villagers in Icicle said that an Ancient lived here, and I wanted to see if it was true...and I wanted some artifacts, something to take back for study. We've already found one specimen of the Cetra, but we would like more data. My name is Gast."
Gast waited for the voice to reply. It seemed to him that it was considering what he had said.
"You say you actually found one of the Cetra? But that's impossible!"
The owner of the voice stepped into the light, and Gast gasped with awe. The inhabitant of the cave was a beautiful woman, with brown hair that cascaded to the floor, and large, expressive green eyes. She was wearing a red and orange dress, and she carried a long and evil-looking knife. "I'm Ifalnya. I live here..." Ifalnya walked into the darkness and gast heard the sounds of scraping, which were followed by light flooding the inside of the cave. Gast saw that Ifalnya had lit a lantern, and in its light he saw that the cave was small, with only the one chamber. A pile of logs stood at one wall, a curious structure of what appeared to be the massive rib bones of some creature hung with some cloth was at another, above a pile of furs that seemed to be a bed. Ifalnya walked to a depression in the stone floor and placed some of the logs therin, and then pulled a small green sphere from the hilt of her knife.
"Fire!" she said, and a small burst of flame shot out of her Materia and set the logs ablaze. She turned to the scientist. "Pull that fur over," pointing to a draped skin near the enterance of the cave, presumably to act as a door. Gast did as he was told. Ifalnya pulled some of the furs from the bed and dropped them near the fire, indicating to Gast that he should sit. He sat down on one of the furs as Ifalnya did the same.
"Now, what do you want to know of the Cetra? Sadly, I know but little, as she has seen to it that all but a small few of us survive..." Ifalnya looked up at Gast, noting his shocked expression. "What? You're surprised to find one of the Cetra living here? Or is it that I am one of them? What, were you expecting some betentacled monstrosity?" Then she saw Gast's horrified look.
"Yes. I was. You see, we have a frozen Cetra in a laboratory. She's about forty feet tall, is sort of conical-shaped, she has branch-like limbs, and is a reddish, brown-blue color. She has what looks like hair growing over her forehead, or what we think is her forehead. I saw that this cave is too small for a being her size, but I came anyway..." he trailed off, looking at Ifalnya worriedly.
"Have you got a picture or something with you of this 'Ancient'? If you do, I would be greatly interested in this..." Ifalnya looked calm, but with a flash of empathy, Gast knew that she was absolutely terrified. He reached for his pack and produced an photograph of Jenova. Ifalnya took it and studied it with trembling hands.
"It is as I feared. She has awakened again. And now only I remain to combat her...I think the Planet may be doomed." Ifalnya looked at Gast calmly.
"What? How can we be endangered by a thing that's been asleep for thousands of years? How can Jenova harm us?" Gast looked at Ifalnya with apprehension.
"Jenova, you named her? How appropriate...that is what we named it so long ago...before your race evolved, in fact..." she stared at Gast, and then spoke again. "Many thousands of years ago, thousands of thousands of years ago, before any life existed of this Planet, we, the Cetra, came here. They arrived, and started a 'Planet-reading', that is, made contact with the Planet and learned what they could of it. They prospered, and started a great civilization. Then she came. She rode down on a stone from the stars, and caused a great wound, and also killed many of our people. She was given a name among our people. Jenova. It meant 'Crisis from the Skies'... Jenova lured away a group of us, and won them over to her cause. She warped their minds, and finally...gave them the virus. It left them horribly mutated, and under her complete control. She started a great war, and there were many casualties among those remaining Cetra. Some of the survivors branched off and became the human race. The few remaining 'pure' Cetra combated Jenova until only she was left. She was locked into the ice near the wound she had inflicted upon the Planet. That is why there is snow at all times around the North Crater...so much Lifestream is gathered there to heal the wound. remainders of the war still remain...locked in the heart of the Planet, for example, are five great creatures called WEAPON...WEAPON is a defence mechanism of the Planet...it was never used, because the war was over by the time they were finished. But they are still sleeping, somewhere below us...the Planet keeps them around because Jenova is not gone...she's alive in a capsule and in the bodies of most of Shin-Ra's army. And there is an alarmingly high concentration in one person..." Ifalnya broke out of her little history lesson, and glanced at Gast.
"I...might know who that is...about fourteen years ago, my assosiate, Professor Hojo, treated his unborn son with Mako and Jenova cells. It was discovered that cells would create super-human strength...
The one who you sensed is probably recieving an injection right now. His name is...Sephiroth."
"A name of great signifigance. I believe Sephiroth was the name of some great warrior or forgotten god...And what weapon is young Sephiroth being trained with?" Ifalnya now looked at Gast with hope.
"It is a great sword...approximately six feet long, and very thin. It is almost like a katana, but much longer...it has seven Materia slots. It is called the Masamune."
"Ah, yes. Masamune... supposedly a Holy sword. It is said to be of incredible strength and power. The maker of such swords was a very powerful man. The blades he made are supposed to be very lucky. The Masamune is very old. It is very important that Sephiroth be allowed to keep it. You see, there was a great warrior in that war so long ago... many of those infected by Jenova fell beneath his blade. He was called the One-Winged Angel. Legend says he had a wing on his right shoulder. After the war he dissapeared into the ice of the North...the North! Where was the blade found?" Ifalnya looked very expectant.
"I believe it was found encased in a block of Summon Materia...yes...the block was of tremendous size, but it was flawed, so as to be unuseable. There were many cracks in it, and only a small fraction was good enough to carve and be used. I think it was called 'Alexander' or something. Supposed to be Holy, that Summon... but I ramble on. The sword was found when they put chisel to the block, to see if it was useable. Did the Holy element of the Materia permeate the sword?" Gast looked at the Materia in the hilt of Ifalnya's dagger.
"Aha! Large amounts of Lifestream can crystallize and form Materia. It is possible that the warrior was caught in a blast of raw Mako, and carried down to the core of the Planet. Then, millenia later, the sword was brought along in an uprising of Lifestream and frozen into the block when the liquid solidified. That would account for the dissapearance of the One-Winged Angel and the finding of the sword." Ifalnya stood up. "Now, you should go back to wherever it is you have Jenova, and gather as many notes on her as you can. Then come back here. try to get some information on Sephiroth and the Masamune too. Take as long as you like, as I'll need some time to talk to the Planet... Fate may smile on us yet!" Ifalnya then walked over to Gast and, to his great surprise, hugged him, and then handed him his pack.
"Um. Okay. I'll be back in a week or so. See you then! Goodbye!" Gast ran out of the cave as fast as he could, hoping that Ifalnya couldn't see how much he was blushing.

Sephiroth
Shin-Ra Mansion , 6 Main Street
Nibelheim	West Continent
seraphsephiroth@icestorm.net

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Page Updated Tue Jul 18, 2000 10:32am EDT