A/N: Three things. First thing: This is a high school AU – don't like it, don't read it. Second thing: I'm super horrible at grammar, so just kinda deal with it. Third thing: if this story seems familiar it's because I've scrapped the original and I'm revamping it (the original was godawful. Sorry for anyone who liked the bitchy teenage melodrama without an actual plot, I can send it to you if you really want it).

Prologue: Just a Situation

At my age, most teenagers don't even think of the future. They all seem so content with the way their lives are, wasting away the days and their youth. I know because I see them, day in and day out. Squandering away all their potential in apathy.

It wasn't hard to drown in apathy being forced to sit through the inane drone of high school life. I still can't figure out what's more torturous: listening to the drivel that spills from the teachers mouths or undergoing experiments in the lab. I had to re-evaluate every day.

For the first few days, attending high school was a relief. Seeing new things, interacting with new people, all of it was fascinating. Until I realized that over-emotional teenagers were the most annoying creatures I had ever met. If they weren't talking about how they wasted away their hours with a new television show or illicit drug, they were talking about how wrong everyone was for trying to protect them. Sometimes it boiled down into a discussion of dreams. That loud one with the piercing voice wanted to be a writer – but I think she would do better in the military – that quiet one who couldn't even stand up straight wanted to be the next President of ShinRa... the list just went on an on.

Dreams...

What a worthless concept. I know exactly where my future lies. It doesn't sparkle like hope or fill my chest with wonder, as they tell me dreams are wont to do. It's dark, grim, and real. Like a nightmare.

My name is Vincent Valentine. I know exactly why I exist – most of the experiments my age do. We're the next generation of human, Hojo, our creator, likes to call us that. For all his madness, he could at least make tearing flesh open seem interesting; something the biology teacher failed pitifully at. I don't have a number. Even though I'm the first, I don't have a one or even a zero. As I am right now, I worth less than dirt. If I were dismantled and buried somewhere, the few who would notice would only be relieved.

As the next generation of human, I should be in military training – learning, as all the good experiments do, all the ways I can kill and all the ways I can not be killed. Unlike the numbered ones, I have a slight problem. I lose control. The clinical term is schizophrenia; I prefer the mystique of insanity.

For a long time, I couldn't explain the holes in my memory. Holes where I had, apparently, taken a quiet stroll around the compound. It was always quite strange to wake up covered in blood and guts.

Ever since the gauntlet was made, I've been getting them less. I do sometimes hear inexplicable things, but I've chalked it up to hallucinations.

Since further training in the arts of killing was suspended, the scientists weren't quite sure what to do with me. Then, someone made a decision – I should be sent to high school. A high school full of perfectly normal, unmodified, defenseless, human civilians. Given the fact that I;m a defective super-human who periodically just went around killing people, this plan seemed a little flawed; but, who was I to say? The whole point of high school life was to stabilize my mind. So far, it hadn't done anything remotely close to that.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say it was actually making me stupider if nothing else.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by – of all things – a person. "Vincent," the teacher said. Her voice, as always, sounded more like a whining animal than anything human. "You know, if you have any problems you can talk to me." I couldn't be bothered to respond. Just because I liked to sit on the plastic chairs after class ended didn't mean I wanted to talk to her – or to anyone. Everyone had learned very quickly, save the teachers. These few moments between classes were my only true moment of peace in the day.

"I know that you're just putting on a brave front and you have a lot going on underneath the surface. But, sometimes you just have to let it go and let the world in. And you - Vincent! Come back here! I'm talking to you!"

I didn't even bother looking back as I walked out the door. The halls were nearly empty, threatening that class was about to start. She doesn't follow me far out the door, but instead keeps calling for me. When I took a cursory glance behind me, I see the teacher hovering by her classroom with her jaw agape looking as if she might cry. How pathetic.

I notice she is closer than I remember her being. How did she move that fast? Or had I simply blinked?

I'm distracted by a blinding pain in my arm. Something knocks the wind out of me. Were I anyone else, I might have found the situation odd – doubling over with inexplicable pain. But I'd learned to recognize the sensation for what it was. A prequel to my 'power.' I grit my teeth.

A mutation will start, as it always seems to, in my left arm. It's not painless either. My bones are shifting into an inhuman, but familiar, shape. The muscles distend, trying to reconfigure. But I refuse to let the parasite take over. I imagine my skin hardening. Like a cage, I sought to trap the thing. This was a skill I had managed to pick up in the last few months, but I haven't honed it completely. I can feel the mutation prod around a few times, as if desperately trying to escape. In a few hours I knew that the sensation would settle. And, a few hours from then, it would be gone as if it never was.

"Vincent," her voice was laced with concern and I could hear her heels click as she advanced towards me.

"Leave me be, woman," I hissed at the teacher as she tried to approach me again. She almost bawled. How could anyone become a high school teacher with thin skin like that? "I'm going to the nurse."

With a few of Hojo's prescribed drugs, I was off on my merry little school boy way. The nurse was new, Wutain with a lingering accent. I think the last one was fired for incompetency – she had been known to dole out bandages to students with fevers and taking the temperature of others with cuts. I was sorely tempted by the beds when the nurse offered one, but I knew I couldn't risk it. I would lose control until the drugs took effect; plus the monitors embedded in my skull would take careful note that I had fallen asleep in the middle of the day. I would be sure to get an earful when I got back.

Instead I picked myself up and went to class. Only a few more hours and then I'll be free from the mind-numbing drivel and stuffed back into the lab. Whatever had been planned would probably be out the door. Instead I was going to get the nodes today; it always happened when I nearly transformed. Safety first and all; but it was a real pain in the ass getting strung up and cut open like that.

As I sit down in my class, I wonder if all teachers are trained to give me that pitying and invasive look. It was just the situation I found myself in. I have come to accept it as my life. It didn't mean I liked it; but I accepted it.

Project: C

Subject: V

Entry: JV-6575

Subject still exhibits mental instability. The host personality is unreachable and cannot control the creatures. Suggestions on the host personality have been successfully imprinted on subjects no.1 and no. 2.

Stabilizers have reduced instances of full-body shape-shifting by 75% and mental alterations by 40%. Shape-shifting is now preceded by a mental alteration 90% of the time.

Sensors indicate no transformation triggers are located within the school premises. Theorized that subject attending will strengthen host personality. There is a 50% chance for subject no. 4 to appear.

Mental alteration recorded at 09:30:03. Mental signature of subject no. 2 appeared at 09:31:10. Resonance was initiated. Fully contained within thirty minutes. Resonance forcibly terminated at 15:10:25 following standard procedures.

No mental signature related to no. 4 has appeared.

Project: J

Subject: S0

Entry: JS0-6209

Subject shows no signs of mental or cellular degradation. Immune system continues to resist infection.