------------------------------------------------------
PART 2#:  THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
------------------------------------------------------

	Before they could figure out how to tell Cloud about their unhappy
discovery, a soft, delicate female voice murmured, "Excuse me.  I've
got some good news and some bad news."

	They all whirled to face the speaker.  Cid snapped, "You bloody
well better explain yourself, lady."

	She gestured and they followed her out into the lobby.  The woman
was quite beautiful in a delicate, fragile sort of way.  She had a
petite build and long, brown hair caught up in a ponytail.

	"Allow me to introduce myself.  I'm Dr. Roissy."

	Cid lit up a fresh cigarette and gave her a cynical stare,
apparently unmoved by her rather startling physical resemblance to
their dead friend Aeris.  "Yeah, whatever.  Now what is this crap
about good and bad news?"  

	She twisted her hands nervously.  "The good news is that whoever
stole that sample has junk.  The stolen sample contains nothing
except... porcine mammary tissue."

	"Huh?"  Yuffie looked confused.

	Cid blinked, puzzled over it for a moment, then started to howl
with laughter.  "You mean.... you mean that the thief's got nothing
but PIG TITS?"

	Roissy blushed furiously.  "Y-y-yes, if you must be THAT crude
about it."

	Tifa snapped, "Then where the hell's the real sample!?"

	The doctor looked away and said wistfully, "Stolen.  It's been
missing for over a year."

	"Who stole the damned thing?"

	She meekly said, "I did." 

	"YOU!?"

	"While I was working under Hojo, I found about the most recent
sample of Sephiroth's cells.  I couldn't just leave that sample in
Hojo's hands.  So I managed to get a hold of the authorization codes
and substituted the... I switched the samples."

	Yuffie whispered to Tifa, "She probably wanted it for her own
wacko experiments!"

	Roissy heard the ninja girl's comments and cried out, "That's not
true!"

	Yuffie mockingly drawled, "Sure.  Right.  Like stealing one puny
sample would have stopped Hojo.  From what I've heard, he had gobs of
Sephiroth's cells lying around.  Fortunately, all of them went POOF
when Meteor took the top off the Shinra Building."

	Cid finally managed to stop laughing and said, "So you've got it?"
	
	"That's the bad news.  I HAD it, but I don't have it any more."

	The pilot abruptly scowled and shouted, "Then where IS the damn
thing!?"

	"I don't know."  Before Cid could yell at her again, she hastily
added, "I should explain.  I took the sample with me to Nibelheim. 
That's where I was assigned.  But I was forced to hide the sample when
Hojo suddenly decided to pay us an unexpected visit.  Unfortunately,
before I could retrieve it from its hiding place, the sample was
stolen by an escapee from Hojo's lab."  Roissy sighed regretfully
before continuing with her story.  

	"The specimen and its companion were later hunted down and killed.
 But as for the sample...."  She held up her hands helplessly.  "Who
knows where it might be now?"

	Cid said, "Whoa here!  When you say 'escapee' and 'specimen', are
you talking about a human being or something else?"

	The doctor blinked in bemusement.  "A human, of course."

	"Of course," Tifa echoed sarcastically.

	Yuffie started to kick an inoffensive table leg.  "No need to
panic, she says.  Great!   Now we find out there's a chunk of
Sephiroth floating around god-knows-where on this bloody Planet!  The
guys who took it could've stashed that stupid sample damn well
anywhere before they got killed!"

	"True, but in this case, I'm almost positive that they would have
kept the sample with them at all times.  If you could find the
escapees' bodies, you'll probably find the sample...."

	"You said yourself that it's been over a year!  How do you know
the stupid thing even exists anymore?"

	"I can't be absolutely certain, but you have to understand that
these types of sample containers are designed for archival use. 
They're very, very durable.  The same thing goes for the contents. 
The samples were specially treated to remain stable for literally
decades.  Unless it was subjected to extreme conditions such as
cremation or such, the sample should still be intact and viable."

	Vincent spoken for the first time.  "Why haven't you tried to
retrieve the sample yourself?"
	
	Dr. Roissy looked at them helplessly.  "But I had no idea where
the specimen went or where it died.  Only Hojo had that information
and I couldn't just ask him about it.  He would have demanded to know
the reason for my inquiries.  And after I was transferred here, I
never had the opportunity to go back to Nibelheim to look for the
information."

	Tifa sighed.  "Okay.  So who else knows about the substitution?"

	"My friend, Dr. Stephen knew about it.  But he doesn't know
everything."

	"I'm not saying that I believe this load of crap but let's assume
that you're telling the truth...."

	"I AM telling you the truth!  I took the sample, then someone took
it from me!  The creatures that broken in here don't have the real
sample and I don't have it!"  Dr. Roissy looked like she was about to
burst into tears.

	Cid muttered in exasperation, "Yeah, yeah.  Whatever.  So what can
you tell us about those escapees?"

	"Uh, let's see.  Timewise, it happened just over a year ago.  I
hardly had any contact with the specimens.  I only recall that one of
them was a black-haired SOLDIER designated as 'Code Z' and the other
was a blond Shinra trooper labelled 'Code C'...."

	Roissy blinked as she watched everyone's jaws drop in stunned
disbelief.  Even Vincent looked visibly startled.  Nervously chewing
on a fingernail, she whispered, "Uh, did I... say something... wrong?"

	Vincent murmured, "Is it possible...?"  

	Cid was too stupefied to reply and could only shake his head.
	
	Yuffie said very carefully, "Hojo's lab.  You were talking about
the one in the basement library of the Shinra Mansion.  In Nibelheim. 
Right, doc?"

	"Um, yes.  But how did you know?"

	Tifa frantically shook her head and blurted, "No!  No way!  Didn't
she just tell us that both escapees were killed?"

	Vincent said grimly, "So Hojo lied.  No surprise."

---------------------------

	As Roissy watched Cid and the others, she hid the incredible surge
of elation.  The dark man called Vincent was right.  What a fool she
had been for believing what Hojo told her.  She should have verified
the reports herself, but she had been so rattled by the sample's loss
that it had completely slipped her mind.
	
	However, it seemed clear from these fools' reactions that at least
one specimen was still alive -- and possibly both.  That meant that
the last existing sample of Sephiroth's cells was practically as good
as hers.
	
	Then she'd show her sisters just who was the greater scientist....

---------------------------

	Vincent had been just as surprised as everyone else at the verbal
bombshell Roissy had dropped.  Given the timeframe, the location, and
the chances of not one, but two people managing to escape Hojo's
clutches, it was a virtual certainty that Dr. Roissy was talking about
Cloud and his friend Zack.  The likelihood of it NOT being Cloud and
Zack was practically nil.  

	However, he had been listening very carefully to Roissy's voice. 
Throughout most of the conversation, he had sensed that the doctor was
telling at least the partial truth.  But when she said that she had
had little contact with the escapees or that she couldn't remember
their names, Roissy was definitely lying.  She knew exactly who they
were.

	The big question was whether Roissy knew that Cloud was still
alive and whether she knew that he was right here, right now.

	Before he could pursue the thought any further, a faint scraping
sound caught Vincent's attention.  He took a silent few steps to the
side, lifted Death Penalty and fired twice into a ventilation grating.
 The body of a small creature flopped out of the shattered air duct.

	Cid finally managed to shake off his astonishment and blurted,
"What the HELL!?"  

	The creature was the size of a small dog and looked like nothing
more than a four-legged mouth packed with jagged black teeth.  The
greenish blood oozing out of the corpse slowly began to eat its way
into the floor.

	Vincent held up his hand and cocked his head.  "There's something
else here.  And there's more than one."

	Cid smacked himself on the forehead.  "Stupid, stupid, stupid!  We
assumed that all the shit-assed creatures were gone!"

---------------------------

	Just inside the building's entrance, Cloud and his companions
suddenly heard the sound of gunfire echoing up a nearby air shaft. 
Charging inside, he said, "Red!  Where are they?  Can you locate
them?"

	A few quick sniffs was all Red needed.  He ran over to a stairwell
and shouldered the door open.  

	"This way!"

---------------------------

	After motioning for silence, Vincent listened intently as he
prowled around the lobby area, trying to pinpoint the source of the
suspicious noises.  He ended up near a storage closet down the hall,
Yuffie close behind him.  She waited for Vincent's nod, then flung the
door open.  At first glance, the only item of interest was a corpse of
a pudgy man lying in the shadowy closet.  He caught a suspicious
ripple of movement in the darkness, then suddenly shoved Yuffie out of
the way as a bunch of small flying creatures suddenly exploded out
from their concealment behind the corpse.  They streamed out of the
closet and flew wildly around the lobby, attacking everyone in sight.
	
	The beasts were small, about the size of bats, but were equipped
with oversized claws and fangs.  And when Dr. Aston staggered back
into the lobby at just the wrong moment, everyone realized that the
creatures were also extremely poisonous.  Two quick bites and the
director was instantly thrashing on the floor with blood-flecked froth
spewing from his nose and mouth.

	Cid shouted, "Watch it, guys!  Don't let 'em touch you!"

	The creatures' small size and speed, combined with the relatively
confined space made the fight much more difficult than expected.  And
there was the little matter of their magic reflection ability.  The
scorch marks on Yuffie attested to that.  The ninja girl had tried
blasting them with lightning and ended up nearly frying herself as the
spell got bounced right back in her face.

	"Yuffie!"

	"Ow!  Shit!"  Fortunately, she wasn't too badly injured but it
definitely hurt.

	Cid and his companions were slowly winning the battle but there
were plenty of close calls.  Despite her best efforts, Tifa received a
slight claw scratch that sent her to her knees, shaking in agony.

	"Tifa!"  Yuffie scurried over to her side.

	The pain was excruciating but she could still move and think...
barely.  "Not... too serious," she wheezed.  "Yuffie!  Watch... your
back!" as one of the venomous little beasts nearly slashed the ninja
girl's ear.

	"Just take worry about yourself, Tifa!"

	As Yuffie provided cover, Tifa concentrated desperately on using
her materia to stop the poison's spread and heal herself.
	
	Just as Cloud, Cait Sith, and Red burst onto the scene, Yuffie
frantically screamed, "Duck!"  

	Cloud didn't bother asking questions and hit the ground rolling
just as Conformer whizzed just over his head and sliced one of the
flying creatures in half.    

	"Watch it, guys!  The damn things are poisonous!  And they reflect
magic!"

	His duck-and-roll maneuver brought him within a few steps of the
elevator shaft, but Cloud was too late to save a petite, brown-haired
woman from toppling into the open shaft as she awkwardly tried to
dodge one of the creatures.  There was something about her
appearance....

	Cid shouted, "Cloud, get her!  We need her alive!"
	
	He nodded and peered inside the shaft to find Roissy desperately
clinging with one hand to an thin electrical cable.  Her superficial
resemblance to Aeris gave him a nasty shock but a closer look told him
that this was clearly a different person.  As Cid guarded his back and
fended off any swooping creatures, Cloud jumped for the rickety
service ladder and quickly climbed down toward her. 

	Shaking with terror, Roissy could feel her sweaty hand slipping
off the cable.  Suddenly, a strong, warm hand closed securely over her
fingers.  She looked up with a gasp of relief.  Her expression of
happiness grew even more as she recognized the blond man who had just
saved her life.  

	"You... you're alive... and you're here!  I thought you were dead!
 Hojo said you were DEAD!"
	
	Cloud gave her a bewildered look.  (What is she talking about?) 
Then an oddly familiar odor tickled his nose.  It was actually a
pleasant floral scent but it set his stomach churning. 

	(....perfume...?)

	Then something clicked in Cloud's brain, like a key turning in a
lock....

	Roissy was so caught up in relief and excitement that she nearly
missed the sudden change of expression on her rescuer's face.  But she
choked in fright as Cloud's mildly puzzled expression was abruptly
replaced by the searing hatred burning in his Mako blue eyes.  

	He gave her a vicious little grin....

	....pried her fingers off the cable....

	....and let go....  

	"NOOOO!!!!"

	Cloud blinked.  He could have sworn that he had a firm grip on
her, but then the woman's fingers somehow slipped from his grasp.  He
made a desperate last lunge but just missed.  Cloud could only stare
helplessly as she plummeted toward the bottom of the shaft far below,
still screaming.

	The others heard Roissy's terrified screams just as Cid nailed the
last creature to the floor.  He whirled around to looked down the
shaft, fearing the worse.  To the pilot's relief, Cloud was clinging
precariously to the ladder, his hand still outstretched in a futile
last grab.  

	"Shit, Cloud!  I thought....  Oh fuck!" as Cid recognized the
rapidly receding figure of Roissy.  "Cloud, you okay!?"

	He looked upward at his friends who were now clustered around the
elevator doorway.  "She....  Damn it!  I almost had her!"

	Red shook his head.  "Don't blame yourself, Cloud.  I know you
tried your best."

	Yuffie muttered, "Do you think she could have survived that fall?"

	Cloud said, "I don't know but we can't leave her down there."  He
was about to climb down to the bottom when Tifa said, "Cloud, we've
got something really important to tell you.  Yuffie, can you go down
there and check on Roissy?"

	"Why me?  Why do I have to go down there?" whined the ninja girl.

	Cid scowled at her and said, "You goddamn know why we've got to
talk to Cloud!  Anyway, aren't you always going off about how young
and spry you are?  So get your butt in gear!"

	"All right!  All right!"  After Cloud climbed out, the ninja girl
nimbly jumped in and slid down the service ladder, muttering dire
things.

---------------------------

	Reno could hear someone screaming.  And they wouldn't shut up.

------------------------------------------------------
PART 2#:  BACK TO THE DARKNESS
------------------------------------------------------

	Tifa mumbled, "Cloud...."
 
	"What is it?"

	"Uh...."  

	He looked around at his friends.  Vincent and Cid looked him
straight in the eye with grim but sympathetic looks.  Tifa won't look
at him but stared at the floor as she struggled to find the right
words.

	Finally, Vincent simply handed Cloud the computer printout.  "What
was apparently taken."

	From their odd behavior, Cloud already had a horrible suspicion
about the theft.  He thought he was prepared but reading the name at
the bottom of the printout made him feel like someone had slammed him
in the gut.  After reading the printout one more time, he folded it
very carefully and handed it back to Vincent.

	"I... see."

	Cid said, "Cloud, it gets shitloads weirder."  He rubbed the back
of his neck.  "But I'm not sure if that's good or bad.  That lady at
the bottom of the shaft...."

	"Yeah?"

	"I don't know just how much of her story we can believe but she
told us that the stolen sample was a fake."

	That shook Cloud out of his fragile calmness.  "A fake!?"

	Cid scowled.  "Yeah.  According to her, the real sample's been
missing for over an year.  She stole it, then it got stolen from her."

	Cloud took a deep breath.  "So where the hell is it NOW?"

	"Nobody knows.  Supposedly, some escapees from Hojo's Nibelheim
lab took it."  Cid coughed and shuffled his feet nervously.  "A
black-haired SOLDIER and a blond guy in a trooper's uniform...."

	Cait Sith nearly toppled off his Mog while Red's jaw simply hung
open in disbelief.

	Finding out that a part of Sephiroth still existed had been bad
enough, but now Cloud's face turned stark white.

	Tifa glared at Cid, who shrugged helplessly.  There really hadn't
been any nice or gentle way to say it.

	In a strangled voice, Cloud whispered, "What... did... you say?"

	"Roissy -- that's the lady's name -- claims that...."

	"....Zack and I took it.  Is that it?"

	Cid glanced at the others uneasily and muttered, "Well, unless
there was another pair of guys matching that description who managed
to escape from Hojo's basement lab in Nibelheim at the exact same time
just over a year ago...."  He definitely didn't like the glassy look
in Cloud's eyes.  Cid had known people with similar blank stares -- it
usually meant that the person's brain had basically shut down.

	They had all explored Hojo's little lab setup in the basement
library of the Shinra Mansion... read both the labels and the
scratches on the sinister glass cylinders....  They all knew the very
basic story.  Cloud and Zack had been captured after Sephiroth's
destruction of Nibelheim.  Shinra had handed them over to Hojo for use
as experimental subjects.  The two of them had later escaped.  Zack
had been killed by Shinra troops.  Cloud had managed to elude those
same troops and ended up in Midgar.  And that was basically it.

	Cloud never talked about it except for the very rare references to
Zack.  The pilot had guessed that his experiences with Hojo had been
bad, but now he had the vaguest inkling of just HOW bad things had
been....

	Tifa quietly murmured, "Cloud, do you remember anything about a
sample container?"
	
	"I don't... recall...."  

	Cloud shook his head slowly.  He whispered, "I remember so little
about... that time.  It's all a big blur.  I only have these
nightmarish impressions, flashes of people, places, and... other
things."  He looked up at them.  "Zack could have carted off half the
library for all I know.  I was so totally out of it."
 
 	"So you have absolutely no idea if Zack took the sample or what
he might have done with it?  Hidden it, maybe?" said Tifa.

	"No.  No idea.  Even after that trip through the Lifestream, the
events in Nibelheim are still pretty hazy.  And I barely remember
anything after Sephiroth torched Nibelheim.  I don't even know how
long I was wandering around Midgar before Tifa found me at the train
station.  It could have been weeks.  It could have been just days."

	Cloud stared blankly at the floor.  In a distracted voice, he
murmured,  "All I know is that... Zack was always... with me.  Zack
never left...me alone."

	"Cloud...."  Red stared worriedly at him.
	
			// We're friends, right? //
	
	"We were... friends."

	Alarmed by the increasingly vague tone in his voice, Tifa grabbed
Cloud's shoulders and shook him sharply.  

	"Cloud!"

	He blinked, then grabbed at his head as if fighting off a sudden
headache.

	"Damn it...."  It sounded more like a whimper than a curse.

	"Come on.  Stay with us, all right?"
	
	While Tifa tended to Cloud, Cid turned to Cait Sith.  "Can you dig
up any stuff about escapees from Nibelheim?"

	"I'll check on that.  Hold on.  It may take some time."

	"Right."  Cid glanced over at Vincent and Red.  "Well, it looks
like Cloud's going to be no help."  That comment earned him a nasty
look from Tifa.  The pilot raised his hands and quickly said, "Calm
down, Tifa!  I don't mean it in a bad way.  I'm just saying that it's
pretty clear that Cloud doesn't know a damn thing about that sample."

	Red cocked his head thoughtfully.  "If this Dr. Roissy is telling
the truth about Zack taking the sample, he must have had some idea of
its contents.  Otherwise, why bother to take it?"

	"I believe that most of what she said was the truth as she knew
it."

	They all looked at Vincent.  "Most?" said Cid.

	"Yes.  But I have a feeling that she knew much more about Cloud
and his friend Zack than she led us to believe."

	"Heh.  I sure didn't buy that bit about trying to keep that sample
from Hojo's clutches.  I bet she was up to her pretty little eyeballs
in all this Jenova shit."  Cid lit a cigarette and started puffing. 
"The brat's probably right.  Roissy wanted that stupid sample for her
own crazy scheme but Zack snitched it right out from under her nose. 
Man, she must have pissed!"

	By this time, Cloud had managed to regain some of his
self-control.  "That may explain why she seemed... sorta familiar."

	Red's ears perked up.  "Do you remember her?"

	"Not really.  But there's just something about her...."

	There was a long pause, then Cait Sith perked up and said, "Sorry,
guys.  I don't have anything at the moment.  I checked through
President Shinra's files but came up empty.  Not surprising.  Hojo
didn't report a lot of things, the secretive old bastard.  I going to
search through all those boxes of Jenova papers on this end but that's
going to take hours.  And I've got more bad news, guys."

	"What now!?"

	"I can't get a hold of Reno... or anyone at Nibelheim."

	"Shit!"

	Cid turned to Cloud and said a bit sourly, "You know that this
means."

	Cloud had a resigned expression on his face.  "Yeah.  If Reeve
couldn't find anything, the only place left to go for answers is
Nibelheim."  He sighed heavily.  He didn't like it at all but Cloud
was well aware what had to be done.  "Besides, we need to find out
what happened to the Turks."

	"Rescuing the Turks.  Feh!"

	From the bottom of the elevator shaft, Yuffie shouted, "Hey guys! 
Get Tifa and a stretcher down here quick!  She's still alive.  Well,
sort of.  She's a mess.  Her head looks like a splattered egg."

	Tifa grimaced at Yuffie's words. 

---------------------------

	Hojo ignored the quivering lump of raw flesh on the lab table as
he considered the information so thoughtfully provided by the
unfortunate Dr. Stephen.  'Code Z' was dead and no sample container
was found by the Shinra troopers.  Even the idiot military could not
have possibly missed such a conspicuously marked item.  Obviously, his
next step would be to capture and interrogate 'Code C' as to the
sample's whereabouts....

	Hojo chuckled sourly.  "It all comes back to the Failure.  Again! 
'Code C' strikes again!"  He stared down at the remains of Dr.
Stephen, lying on the examining table.  Miraculously -- or rather,
unfortunately -- Stephen was somehow still alive.

	"Now, how to get his attention?"

	The mad scientist's gaze turned in the general direction of the
sleepy little town situated below the Mansion... its stupid residents
oblivious to the bloody events which had just taken place inside. 
Hojo smiled slowly, exposing row upon row of small, razor sharp,
triangular teeth.  

	Nibelheim was quiet now.  Soon it would be dead quiet.

---------------------------

	After the medical personnel managed to haul the critically injured
Roissy out of the elevator shaft and into the infirmary, Tifa set to
work trying to put the doctor back together.  Finally, she sat back
and sighed wearily.

	"Well?  Good or bad news, Tifa?" Yuffie asked impatiently.

	"I've managed to fix most of her physical injuries.  But like I
said before, head injuries are tricky, even with healing materia.  And
while it's not quite as bad as a 'splattered egg'," she glared at
Yuffie, "it's still pretty damn bad.  There's no way to tell if she'll
recover from the trauma or how much brain damage she might have
suffered."

	Cid pounded his fist on the wall.  "Shit!  That means that we
might never know all the details about that friggin' sample!"

	Cloud said, "We can't stand around here waiting for her to recover
consciousness.  We got to get over to Nibelheim right now and find out
what's happened to the Turks.  If something's taken them out,..."  

	"Yeah, I don't like them much but they can handle themselves
pretty well in a fight."

	"That would indicate that there is something seriously wrong in
Nibelheim."  Red looked at the others and added, "Should we leave
someone to keep an eye on Roissy's condition?"

	Tifa stood up and said, "I don't really see the point.  The
medical staff knows what it's doing.  And if there's trouble in
Nibelheim, we may need everyone.  That includes Barret."

	She turned toward the handful of medical personnel hovering in the
hallway outside Roissy's room.  "You WILL let us know if her condition
changes, won't you?"  Tifa's narrow-eyed stare and the blatant
adjustment of her fighting gloves made it abundantly clear that she
was not making a suggestion.

	"C-C-Certainly, madam," mumbled the senior physician.  Dr.
Montessi, who was also standing in the hallway, merely gave them a
curt nod.
	
	Before they could make any more plans, there was a sharp buzz on
Cloud's phone.
	
	"Hello?"
	
	"Aw shit, man.  I... I'm not sure how to tell you this, Cloud...."
	
	"Barret?  What's wrong!?"
	
	"Uh... Aw, the hell with it!  Cloud, I just got a report.  And it
looks like...."
	
	"Yes...?"  It was like pulling teeth.
	
	Cid snapped, "Barret, just spit it out, okay?"

	"It looks like Nibelheim's... burning."

	In a perfectly even, flat voice, Cloud said, "Nibelheim."

	His friends all stared at him in frantic concern and worry, but
they found the utter lack of emotion on Cloud's face infinitely more
disturbing than any expression of rage or pain could be.

(to be continued)

------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------

In parts 3-4, 
	- MORE mad scientists galore....
	- a hot time in old Nibelheim again....
	- who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man....
	- find out what Scarlet really carries up her skirt...
		(No no! This is NOT a lemon!)    ^_^;

--------------------------------------------
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