"Roy Peters." came the hesitant answer to the question asked.

"Okay Roy, if you could just fill this out, then we'll be able to get under way." The man talking handed a piece of paper over and then folded his arms, looking very bored. Roy grabbed a pen and began filling it out quickly.

Name: Roy Peters

Age: 15

Gender: Male

Hair: Black

Eyes: Green

Height: 5'5"

Handing the paper back, Roy waited nervously for the man to say something else. Applying to join ShinRa was not a matter taken lightly, and each one trying had to fill out lots of forms before being considered. This was only the first form of many.

Nerves having kicked in a while ago, Roy shifted from foot to foot, wondering what to do. Joining ShinRa had always been his goal and he hoped desperately that he'd make it. He glanced at the older man's face, wondering if he already knew his secret. Was it obvious?

Where was a mirror when you needed one...

"Alright, you can go through. They'll give you everything else you need to fill out and assign you to a small group of others just like you who you'll be working with today." The man handed his form back and jabbed his thumb in the direction Roy was to take.

Roy left the line of other young boys all wanting to join ShinRa and headed over to the door where all the others before him had gone. He put a hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, walking in cautiously.

"Ah, here's another one!" The man who was in authority in this room walked right over to him and handed him a lot of sheets, explaining quickly that he was to fill them out and then hand them back. Roy nodded and took the pen offered to him, beginning to fill out the first questions he was presented with.

Everyone else in the room was still working through their own forms, and Roy wondered just how long he'd be going through them. At least he hadn't been last in line.

The first questions were basically the same as what he'd already answered, so he filled them out fast and was soon on to new ones.

Wiping a nervous hand across his forehead, Roy tried to calm his breathing. He was so nervous! He was probably more nervous than all the others combined! And all because he had a secret which would prevent him from joining ShinRa. He glanced around and then turned back to filling out the forms, hoping no one suspected anything yet.

"Hey, you look like a chocobo!" Roy looked over to see two of the boys in the room staring at another, a blonde. The blonde shifted and tried to ignore them, continuing to fill out his forms.

"We're talking to you!" One of the boys snatched his forms away and began looking over them, snickering. "You're from Nibelheim? Where's that?"

"Please give them back." the blonde said softly.

"Let's see... oh how cute! Your name's Cloud!" the other boy laughed.

Roy didn't quite know what he was going to do, but he knew he wasn't just going to stand there watching this happen without doing anything. So he walked over towards the blonde, Cloud, and sat next to him, snatching the forms back off the other boys while they were pausing in confusion and handing them to Cloud, silently turning back to his own papers after all this was done.

"Who're you?" one of the boys asked, folding his arms.

"Roy." Roy muttered in response.

"Well, I'm Davis. This is Rex." Roy glanced up and raised an eyebrow. Davis smirked and nodded as if answering a silent question.

"He doesn't look like a dog." Roy said before realising what the words actually meant. He winced, expecting to be bashed up beyond recognition.

Instead, Davis and Rex both laughed. Cloud sniggered.

"You're cool!" Rex said, grinning.

"Thanks." Roy muttered, his face flushing bright red in embarrassment.

"Hopefully we'll be in the same group." Davis said thoughtfully. "I don't want to work with any of them, they're so stupid." He gestured to everyone else in the room and then sighed, sitting on the other side of Roy.

"I reckon." Rex agreed, remaining standing. He turned to Cloud. "Hey, sorry 'bout before Spike. It was just a joke."

"Hey, that's great! Spike! Can we call you Spike?" Davis asked, leaning forward to look past Roy at Cloud.

"Uh, I guess." Cloud shrugged, staring down in an obvious shy manner. Roy was glad he'd come over to help, seeing as Cloud was as shy or possibly even more shy than himself.

Some more people had slowly been entering the room while this conversation was going on and now the man in charge grabbed a chair and stood on it, whistling to get everyone's attention.

"Okay! Time to hear which groups you're in." he said. He began rattling off the lists and, to the pleased surprise of Davis, Rex, Roy and Cloud, they had been put together.

"Yes!" Davis hissed under his breath. Roy smiled slightly, pleased to know that someone was glad to have him in their group.

"Now that you know your groups and you've filled out all your forms," the man glared at each boy individually, knowing fully well that none of them had finished. "You'll be started on your tasks for the day."

A door to the side opposite where everyone had entered opened up and someone else walked in. Someone who caused all the boys in the room to gasp in shock and snap to attention in an instant.

"Uh, General?" the man standing on the chair hesitantly got off, facing Sephiroth and saluting.

They've found me out. They're gonna send me home right now. Roy turned his head to the ground, hoping that maybe if he didn't look at them they wouldn't notice him and they'd forget all about what his mind told him they already knew.

"I told Fair I wanted him looking after the newbies as practice. Where is he?" Roy looked up, hopeful. They didn't know?

"Oh, sir, he asked if I could do it for him because he was really busy." The man shifted, glancing at all the boys who were listening intently and then focusing his attention back on the General.

"Then what is he doing chasing chocobo's out in the field?" Sephiroth asked. All the boys snickered. "Get him here in less than five minutes."

Sephiroth spun on his heel and was about to leave when he turned to look at all the boys. His piercing glare seemed to be directed at each one individually and they all felt singled out. Then he walked out quickly and the boys blinked rapidly, as if they had just come out of a trance.

"Looks like you have extra time to fill out your forms. If anyone moves from this room they will be disqualified from this years batch of new ShinRa employees." The man headed out the door they'd come from and the boys were left alone. Many of them took the man's advice and picked up their forms to continue filling them out.

I'm alive. They don't know. Roy breathed out in relief, not believing his luck.

"Woah, we saw Sephiroth!" Davis exclaimed, eyes wide in astonishment. "He looked at me! D'ya reckon he saw some awesome talent in me that will make me a great SOLDIER?"

"Only as much talent as it takes to fall over while standing still and holding onto something." Rex said, grinning. He was referring to something which had happened earlier, and Davis glared at him for bringing it up again. "Hey, do you guys ever talk, or what?" Rex had turned his attention to Roy and Cloud again. Cloud was hurriedly filling out his forms and Roy was staring in a bit of a daze.

"Hey, Roy," Davis smirked, nudging him. "Want me to get a mop for all your drool?" Roy looked over at him and his expression changed to one of confusion before he rolled his eyes.

"Ha ha." he said.

"Okay! I was always here! So, I'm Zack Fair and I'm gonna be leading you through all your like, test things." A man with dark hair stood at the front of the room now, with a bit of a crazy look in his eyes. "Have you guys finished your forms?" There were shakes of heads and Zack slowly nodded, sitting down on a chair and waiting.

Everyone hurried through, and in about ten minutes they were all done and the forms were piled up at the front of the room.

"Great!" Zack stood up again and clapped his hands together. "You've gotten your groups? So let's go set to work and find out which of you are staying with us!"

They all began filing out the door after Zack, moving slowly due to nerves and hoping desperately that they would make it. Roy followed after his new friends, glancing behind to see Cloud following him, and crossed his fingers.

Please... please don't find out. I have to get into ShinRa. I have to!

[2 months before]

"I'm not joking!" Kayli Peters could not make her best friend believe her. With a sigh, she decided to attempt approaching the subject from a different direction. "How about you just help me for fun then? I mean it's not like I'm going to get in..."

"For fun? Sure!" Gemma Freshstone nodded her head vigorously. "Although I can't really understand why on earth you want to do this, it'd be a challenge for me!" She was now bouncing with excitement and thinking about how much experience this would give her for her future career in hair and make-up.

"Great!" Kayli said, her eyes lighting up. Gemma had agreed!

"...Um, do you honestly want to learn how to walk and talk like a guy as well?" Gemma stopped bouncing and bit her bottom lip in thought, raising one eyebrow.

"Yes." Kayli said without hesitating. Gemma sighed but nodded, signalling that she would help even though she couldn't understand why.

"Can we work on the look first though?" she burst out, the excitement and hope obvious in her eyes. She loved doing people's hair and make-up.

"Of course!" Kayli said.

"What about your parents? Ha, what will they think when they see you like that?" Gemma giggled. Kayli smiled sadly and shook her head, a tiny signal for Gemma to drop the subject. Gemma nodded and grabbed Kayli's wrist, dragging her inside the house.

"Woah, slow down!" Kayli was laughing now too.

"Do you want me to cut your hair or do you want a wig?" Gemma asked, her mind already whirring with thoughts of how she would do this so it would be perfect.

"Uh, cut it?" Kaylia suggested.

"Sure?" Gemma asked, shoving Kayli to sit down on the chair in her room and reaching for the hair scissors which she'd used to trim her own hair just that morning. Gemma paused and waited for an answer, watching Kayli's face carefully.

"Yes." Kayli said after only a moment longer of rethinking it. "Can you thin it too, to make it look less like an untameable mop?"

"Definitely." Gemma confirmed, beginning to take Kayli's long black strands of hair and cut them to her shoulders. "I'll just cut it to here first and then figure out where to cut it to afterwards."

Kayli stared across the room at the mirror on the wall and watched as thin black objects seemed to float to the ground from her head. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see it happen any more, and contented herself to imagining what life would be like if she actually made it in and managed to convince people that she was male.

"Okay, do you want me to see what I can do to your face?" Gemma asked, backing away and grinning as she ran her eyes over Kayli's temporary new haircut.

"Yeah." Kayli nodded, still not opening her eyes.

"Let's see..." Gemma started sifting through her make-up drawer, looking for something which she could use to make Kayli's face look more masculine. She grabbed something and walked back over, wiping it over Kayli's face. Then she took hold of something else and dabbed it around Kayli's chin, giggling madly once she was done.

"What did you do?" Kayli asked, panicking for a moment.

"Look for yourself!" Gemma giggled. Kayli took a deep breath and opened her eyes, having them widen as soon as she saw what Gemma was talking about. Her lovely friend had made it look like she had stubble.

"Gemma!" Kayli whined, her horrified eyes flickering over to see her friend smothering a laugh.

"Okay, okay! I'll get rid of it." Gemma shook her head in amusement and left to get something which she could use to remove what she'd done. Once that was over with, she experimented with other things and was finally satisfied with something she tried.

"If I'm going to be a guy for a while, I'll need to know how to do this myself." Kayli said, leaning closer to the mirror to study her new look. Gemma had used different skin-toned foundation to make it look like her jaw was more square than it actually was, creating the look of a male shaped face.

"I'll do it again. This time I'll explain everything I'm doing so you can remember." Gemma said, beginning to wipe all the make-up off with a wet cloth. Kayli nodded in agreement and settled back in the chair.

It was a while later when the two finally finished with the make-up. Kayli had applied it herself and was now leaving it and instructing Gemma to cut her hair into a boys haircut.

"Do you want it all scraggy?" Gemma asked, lifting different bits of her friends hair to see just where she should start.

"Yeah." Kayli replied.

"Hmm, okay." Gemma brought the scissors up and carefully made one snip. Some hair fell to the floor. She grinned then and continued snipping bits of the black hair. "Your parents are going to kill me."

"No they won't. They'll kill me, and I don't care." Kayli corrected. Gemma rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. They won't like it all the same."

"Too right."

There was a moment of silence as Gemma concentrated on cutting to the right length.

"Hey, were you serious about trying to join ShinRa?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah, I was." Kayli said, also in a quiet voice.

"I'll miss you." Gemma said.

"Oh come on, I probably won't even get in."

"Once I'm done with you, you will!" Gemma laughed. Kayli grinned and risked a glance at the mirror, shocked to see a rather male looking face staring back at her. The hair was making a big difference.

"You almost done?"

"Yep. One more... here we go!" Gemma stood back and surveyed her work, her mouth falling open. "You look like a guy!" Kayli giggled, standing up to get a lot closer to the mirror.

"I do, don't I?" she said, tilting her head and running a hand through her short hair. "Wow, this is great. If you don't get a job as a hair and make-up artist then you should definitely file a complaint."

"Ha, thanks." Gemma laughed. "But come on, now that you're serious about this you've gotta start walking and talking like a guy too. Convince me you're male!"

"How's this?" Kayli turned to look at Gemma and raised an eyebrow, having spoken in an unnaturally low voice. Gemma burst out laughing and shook her head quickly.

"Maybe we should start with the walk first." Gemma suggested, trying to calm herself down. Kayli nodded, agreeing. "And we need to get you new clothes."

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Kayli snapped, feigning being insulted. The two laughed again and began trying to figure out how a guy would walk.

In another two hours, Kayli was walking like a guy and talking like a guy. As she tried to walk like one she had tried speaking like a male as well and had finally settled on something that Gemma said was very convincing.

"You're amazing!" Gemma laughed. "If I saw you on the street I'd definitely think you were a guy."

"Awesome! Do you think I'll have a chance at ShinRa?" Kayli asked, a wistful look coming onto her face. Gemma nodded hurriedly.

"Duh!" she said.

"Cool." Kayli giggled. "Hey, do you think your brother would let me borrow some of his clothes for today?" Gemma's eyes widened in excitement.

"Oh my gosh, he'd better! That would be so awesome!" Gemma hurried out of her room to find her brother and Kayli could hear the rushed begging and pleading. Pretty soon, Gemma came back with a pair of baggy jeans and an over-sized shirt.

"They look great!" Kayli said, taking the clothes and grinning, disappearing into the bathroom quickly to change into them. When she came back out, Gemma could hardly even squeak in response. The overall effect was amazing.

"Are you sure you're not really a guy?" Gemma managed to say finally. Kayli laughed. "Uh, you gotta fix that." At Kayli's confused expression, Gemma figured she should explain. "Your laugh. It's too girly."

"Oh." Kayli said. "Well, we'll work on it." She walked over to the mirror and looked in, taking in her face, hair and clothes. She too was really shocked at what she saw.

"You're not going to keep your name as Kayli, are you?" Gemma asked suddenly. Kayli frowned and looked over her shoulder, shaking her head.

"Of course not."

"Have you thought of a name, then?" Gemma probed. Kayli turned back to the mirror, staring in and trying to think of a name that matched her new appearance.

"Roy?" she asked, turning to face Gemma again. Gemma considered it for a moment and then grinned, nodding.

"Roy it is." she said.

"Roy." Kayli repeated. "My name is Roy Peters."