I feel like I have to talk a little about what this is, even though I don't like forwards. This is, in short, a story about how Shinra Electric Power Company rose to power. I've gone through source material, read through games, and decided on how to hash contradictory information together as best I can. I wanted to start early, before the world really knew what Shinra was, and how they first heard the name. As such, there are countries of my own design, there are original characters derived from things like official artwork, and a lot of world-building material. I wanted to write a story about Bugenhagen and President Shinra, and I'm still doing that, but it became more about The Planet, Shinra, and how they shaped each other. It was a bit of a struggle, but I hope it's worth reading.

-Zix

Formative Years

Prologue: Weapons from the North

"I never used to smoke; I started when I lived with the Phoenix tribe. Don't get me wrong, it isn't like they had to be high all the time to cope. Believe me, I'd understand. It's just that they have to burn everything. When something burns, it releases its spirit and comes back stronger. I think the joint is the only time they ever got it right."

-Paer Rolfe, first architect on retainer, Shinra Manufacturing Works

"The enemy is climbing the mountain. There are about thirty with your mako weapons."

Paer flicked the lit rolled Madroon plant from the edge of the table to the waste basket beside it. "I'll mourn the loss of uncivilization."

"You can help us." Abner leaned into the earth of the tunnel behind him. The mineral smell of the new halls winding through the mountain left Paer relaxed when he should not have been, hiding in the womb of the earth. "Though I do not trust you."

Table legs scuttled. "You don't trust me? I built you a mountain fortress, I stole steam drills and weapons from my people. I—" but he couldn't say the last thing, not least of all because Abner knew it, and yet it did not phase him. To know another man's darkest insides and barely blink—how could people like that live in this world?

"I'm not a tactician," Paer said at last, swallowing his indigantion. "I built this place because it made sense, and it's kept your bird alive a hell of a lot longer than those Kjatas, the Typhoon tribe your people used to share this land with, and those stupid fairies—what do you call them? Some uninspired monosyllabic bullshit like 'Spill.'" Paer clutched his forehead and waved his left hand in front of Abner's nose. "If you aren't going to take my advice, then why are you here?"

"Because I want to take your advice," Abner said, stooping to pluck the joint from Paer's waste basket. He blew on it as if this would make it sterile once more and placed it in a pouch tied shut with Phoenix feathers at his waist. "I am here so that you will give me an excuse to follow the direction of the man who built the fortress of our enemy."

Paer sat back down and opened the drawer in his desk. He'd snuck into Junon to steal one just so he could have a nice wooden desk with a drawer in it. The natives would have been even more suspicious of him for chopping down a tree to build a desk—not because they hated chopping down trees, but because they associated such behavior in recent history with Gold Nation—so he had to risk his life for one. He looked at the single red sphere he'd laid inside, hearing it roll around.

"Set your men on the mountain with muskets and the few Shinra weapons you've managed to take. If you want this"—Paer scooped up the sphere and passed it to Abner—"then it's yours. I don't know what else you expect me to do."

Abner lowered his eyelashes, clutching the stone. "I expect you to give the orders."

Paer tossed back his head and started to laugh, then thought better of it. Sun and a necklace of Phoenix feathers given to him by Abner's daughters had made them look more alike, but he swore Abner would always be smarter than him. "That's how it is." Paer wiped his mouth and stood, clutching the back of his chair. He shook his head and clapped Abner on the back. "First big confrontation since we built this place, and you want me to take the roll. It's fair since I made it for you, but even if it fails, it won't ruin everything else I've done for your bird. When you're scraping my name from the walls in this hill, don't you dare forget it.

"I want you to give the orders," Paer repeated. "Oh, Abby, classic." Paer held out his hand. "Give that back to me, then. I'm using one of the cannons."

Considering this for a moment, Abner fingered the pouch at his side as if he were itching to use the rolled Madroon already. Then he handed the red stone back to Paer and watched in horror as the man kissed it.

"Don't you love Shinra?"

Abner twisted his lips to the side. "I'll prepare everyone. Get to the top of—promenade?"

Paer supposed Abner loved Shinra Manufacturing Works about as much as he had meant for his last sentence to come out as a question. The Phoenix Tribe, living in what Paer had designed and dubbed "Fort Condor", blamed them for everything that had changed. Paer left his office and followed the tunnels he'd drilled to a rope. A small room with a sweeping walkway—Promenade—wrapped around the top of the mountain, all made from Junon scrap. Paer could grimace at his deplorable work, but he found himself satisfied by the fact that he had managed to build something by drilling through a mountain and cutting as little wood as possible without it caving in on him.

Morning wind cleaved into Paer's lungs, and he looked out from the mountain—more of a foothill, really—that dipped in the center of the prairie. To the east lay a large mountain range, to the west, an arguably more impressive coastal base also designed by Paer. The land outside Junon stood marked by craters. Much of the grass had turned brown. Pieces of straw and phlegm nesting, golden feathers, and blood knitted through the dirt. He remembered what the landscape had looked like when he'd taken a boat over from Costa to what would become Gold's new city, Junon. Little orange men lying on the grass in canvas tents and giant, gold and red birds making the sky look as if someone had taken flint to it. It had smelled like bird shit, but he'd gotten used to it.

The Phoenix Tribe was lucky as far as inhabitants of the Wildlands went. Once, it had been populated by a great many different peoples and giant beasts, revered as gods by the natives. Now only a Phoenix, one Leviathan, and a handful of wild chocobos remained. Wutai and Gold waged war on every scrap of Planet they could find. Paer supposed that the winner ended up with the most land. Wutai, attacking from the Mideel continent, had managed to occupy the bulk to the east of the Great Range, while Gold's forces had been stalled by the Phoenixes in the west. Gold had hired Paer to build military bases—that meant a bunch of the steel in Junon and that little outpost on a circle of land Gold had managed to steal by taking a ship around north.

Paer'd completed his work, dignity falling out from under the straps in his overalls, without complaint until he'd done something stupid. Just done it. Like he'd just stolen the desk. Like he'd just started to look like he'd gone native, fallen in a vat of Phoenix feathers.

"Pick up the new shipment from Shinra Manufacturing," Corporal Goddard had told Paer, about a year ago, straightening the Gold Nation flag wrapped around his left sleeve. His hair was greasy, his eyes glassy, and his skin pale from the wound he had taken the previous week and the poison in his blood.

They stood in the War Room, the Gold Nation banner dipping so low that it almost grazed Paer's head. Paer had always been large, 1.9 meters and stocky for an architect. He'd started out as a construction worker in Costa, apprenticed under a contractor for the Rafael Estate. A few suggestions favored by Rafael's head of house—paneled instead of stone siding, more windows in the front, kick the fountain in the foyer—had put him on the fast track. His background and the amount of time he'd spent in Junon with the military made him a prime candidate for manual labor while the boys waged war on the front lines. Paer and his contractors had completed most of the construction a year ago, and they sat around on their hands waiting to build new bases or take repair jobs when they came up. Those Gold aristocrats sure knew how to spend their war money.

"Shinra?" Paer raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of them."

"According to the Sergeant Major, it's going to send those Phoenix men rolling. We'll be able to cross the mountains to Wutai and take out the chivies as long as the Gold aristocrats can negotiate an exclusive."

"Where they from?"

"Icicle."

Paer whistled and kicked his heel against the base of the wall. Solid—well, no one paid much heed to a buckle here and there. "Getting an exclusive from a company based in Icicle is like trying to build a house made outta' doors."

Goddard rolled his eyes. "Just have your boys pick up the crates at Port 1B in an hour. I'll send another corporal with distribution instructions. There are only enough for some of the officers."

"Seems a little inefficient, doesn't it? Why not order more if they're so suave?"

Goddard headed for the door past Paer. "I trust the Sergeant Major's judgment." Then he left.

Far below the Fort Condor promenade, men in uniforms ringed the foothill, turning the grass black. Paer had set up the staff supporting his hand canon, hoisted the iron piece, cleaned out the barrel, and rested it against the rail. He didn't have any flint, nor had he used a hand cannon more than once, but he didn't intend to fire it anyway. A small, half-sphere dimple at the base clung to the materia stone from his desk drawer, picking up sunlight and splattering red across his chin.

He removed another Madroon joint form his pocket, realizing that he had no means to light it. Shrugging, he put the end in his mouth. Residents of Fort Condor appeared from hidden holes in the foothill. Phoenix people, rising from dirt and soot.

"Alright," he called, knowing that the group below him would pass his words down. Years of invasion from Gold had taught the Phoenix people his language, but he had just started to learn theirs, so he spoke in his own tongue, taking some pleasure at the unintended insult. "Wherever you stand is where you're staying. This is the best time to act because the Phoenix is asleep up there. He'll wake up eventually, but in the meantime, we're standing between him and, for all intents and purposes, every man of Gold. Things get iron-plated, make sure you leave more than a few around you, pop back in your hole, and find the medic with the cure materia. The slope itself will hold them off for a while.

"Most important thing?" Paer ran his hand over the red stone in his hand cannon and felt a sting slip into his fingers.

"Stay out Kjata way!" hundreds of Phoenix men cried.

The men of Gold below answered with a rejoinder and started climbing.

Humidity in Junon after hauling big crates for several hours reminded Paer of vacationing when he had been four, and his ten year old sister had buried him up to his chin in sand on one of Costa's beaches. The illusion of being unable to move lest the whole world fall in on him had been building since Goddard's injury, so that part wasn't especially new.

The Sergeant had gotten bitten by a Kjata trying to travel over the mountains, and poison had begun spreading through his body. No one had gotten close enough to a Kjata to get bitten by one before, but men had seen three of the beasts prowling the Great Range. Red, yellow, and blue shaggy manes bristled as the rocks skittered to the base of the mountains. When three privates turfed Godard at the Junon hospital, bleeding from a gash in his side and almost completely green, Paer had sat on the roof, watching Phoenixes and praying that, just once, they would treat a man of Gold like one of their own, burn away his humanity, and bring him back to life. They didn't listen, of course, but they sang as they flew over Junon, spinning like pinwheels in the sky, and Paer imagined they cried. It sounded like a harp, playing on its own, missing a string.

Godard, the doctors said, had a month to live. He would get weaker; it was best if he went home and stayed with his family. Sergeant Major Crescent promoted Godard instead. Paer hadn't expected to care so much, but living in a war zone as one man's roommate for three years made him hate Sergeant Major Crescent.

"So boss," Greg said, wiping sweat from his face with a kerchief, "what's in these?"

Paer didn't answer his contractor immediately. He told the man in the red Shinra waistcoat "thank you, that would be all," and "please get that god-awful tug boat outta' here before a Phoenix blows it sky high." The man nodded, grateful to get away from the Wildlands. Steam left sky scars as the boat headed north.

"Boss?"

Forty crates. Paer had counted forty crates. By weight, he guessed they contained two different kinds of guns. At first, he had expected an elaborate, multi-part contraption, but they came only in two sizes, which made this guess unlikely. More firearms were always welcome, but how were forty of them going to change anything?

"It's confidential," Paer said. "A corporal is supposed to arrive with a list of officers."

"What's so damn confidential about hand cannons and muskets?" Paer and his contractors had handled enough artillery on delivery jobs—and in training; living at a military base meant you needed to know how to fire a weapon—to know as well as he what those boxes contained.

Good question. Paer scanned the harbor. From his pier, he could see the other five harboring parked, deserted warships. A few soldiers in black uniforms with the Gold Nation flag latched around their arms marched up and down the docks, humming along to their drills. No one noticed Paer and his contractors. "You want to stick our noses in it?"

Greg grinned, stretching out a mole on his chin. "I'll get a crowbar."

Anthony and Blue, who had also helped unload the crates, opened one of each size. Paer cracked the lid and cleared away bleached grass to find hand cannon parts: a long black barrel bearing an etched diamond Shinra logo and the number forty seven, a wooden spear broken into three segments with metal clasps, flint, a box of fuses. He picked up the cannon to get a closer look.

"There's a hole in the hilt," Blue said, holding a heavy wooden musket from the other box.

Sure enough, when Paer turned the barrel of the hand cannon over in his arms, he saw a half-sphere indent in the iron mold. It was about the shape of—

The night the privates had brought Godard to the hospital, he had gripped a green stone from Mythril Mines until it made bite marks in his palm, and an orderly had had to pry it free from his fingers. The corporals had all been sent to the Mines to search for the same rocks. Then, there were the ones at the Rafael estate, displayed in glass cases on violet cushions…

"Hey!" a man shouted, and Paer froze, still clutching the hand cannon. "Hey!" He wore a black uniform and the unmistakable yellow corporal "C" on his left breast. His lower jaw jutted out, and though Paer had never met him, he could tell he wasn't happy. "You aren't supposed to open those."

The contractors cursed, but Paer just stared at the corporal as he tore the hand cannon from his arms, bruising his fingers. "What exactly are you guys planning to do with those stones you got back from Mythril Mines?"

Then the corporal froze too. He nearly dropped his liberated cannon. Sweat formed on his forehead, under his black beret. "You'll hear about it soon enough."

"My roommate's dead because of those things," Paer told the corporal. "I think you better tell me now."

The corporal shuffled. He lowered the hand cannon back into the box and shook his head. "Actually, there's a small chance he isn't."

When thunder made eardrums bleed, Kjata's hooves still drowned it out. When men fell, Kjata's massive body covered them. Though Gold had Typhoon, a purple wisp of anise, Kjata had been the first species extinct, the first to crystallize in memory. Its use had made it large enough to cover a fifth of the foothill's slope. Paer felt it tug him through the materia, the flesh plastering its horns, the bones breaking in its jaws.

The poison running under its skin.

Shinra Manufacturing Works called them materia. For decades, the wealthy had collected them from springs in The Planet as valuables, and five months prior to Godard's accident, the Works' star employee, Catherine Drake, had figured out, if not what they were, at least how to use them. Godard said that a young professor, Gast Faremis of Icicle College, had translated documents referencing the use of naturally occurring stones to access the memories of The Planet. Men can access and revivify these memories through a connection between something else from The Planet that has been remolded by him. Something like a weapon, and Catherine Drake had developed the technology.

In the field, these weapons could blast chasms in the ground, scorching scores of natives and freezing entire contingents. One stone even made earth shake beneath enemies, swallowing them whole.

Unfortunately, the corporal Paer had met on Pier 1B had been wrong about the technology saving Godard. A couple of the green ones would heal Godard's wounds, extending the time he had left to live, but magic memories reported in Faremis' work to cure poison remained elusive. He was still dying. This information made Godard bolder. Eager to access more materia in Mythril Mines—dubbed so earlier in the war because miners from Corel had been taken there and had discovered vast mythril deposits in addition to the then apparently useless materia—he climbed The Great Range with a musket imbued by Earthquake and fought the Kjata beasts. He came back to Junon later, leaking his insides through cavities easily healed by materia and grasping a bright red stone.

"It appeared when I killed the third one," Godard told Paer. "The first two I killed merged with the last one. Its mane became pink, and it grew violet horns. It threw lightning storms, fireballs, and froze my legs where I stood, but I defeated it, and the red glimmer that remained kept me from passing out."

Yet the poisoning the Kjatas had done while he attacked them worsened his overall condition, and the doctor told Paer that Godard would be dead come morning light. Paer thought part of his rage stemmed from the red glow scratching at his corneas. Why wouldn't he put that stupid marble down? He punched Godard hard in the jaw, even as he lay in his bed, defenseless.

"What the Hell is your problem?" Pair demanded, shaking out his knuckles. Blood ran, tinged black by the poison, from the split Paer had made in his lower lip. Then the idiot had the goddamn nerve to smile.

Paer stood from the chair at Godard's bedside and stooped down to pick up the Sergeant wrapped in blankets. Paer had expected the man who had slain the three Kjatas of the Great Range to be heavier. The poison played tricks, and he felt so light in Paer's arms that he thought he would dissolve as surely as Godard had said the Kjata had.

"What are you doing, Sir?" A nurse wearing a yellow Gold Nation beret put her hands on her hips when she spotted Paer kicking the door to the hospital open. "You can't just take—"

Paer didn't let her finish before he went through the door he had kicked open, and it slammed shut behind him.

"What are you intending to do now?" Godard sighed as Paer held him in the stairwell of the hospital on the second floor. Paer began attempting to shift Godard's weight to one arm, but he at least proved too heavy for that. He would have to find some way to carry Godard up the ladder that led to the roof before the nurse got the nerve to call security after them.

"You think you can climb a ladder?"

"Does this mean you're done being over-dramatic?" Godard rolled his eyes. In them, Paer could see cold glass, as if they had begun to freeze over and fracture. "I walked all the way back from the Great Range on my own."

Paer cleared his throat apologetically and lowered Godard, helping him stand. "We're going to the roof."

"I figured as much. I also know you won't tell me why—for god's sake, stop crowding me." Godard removed Paer's arm from his shoulder. "Why couldn't I have bunked with the other corporals? You designed the barracks so cramped just to have someone to torture."

Paer watched as Goddard wobbled toward the ladder and latched onto the highest rung he could reach. At this point, it was clear that he could barely lift his hands above his head. Paer winced.

Every building in Junon's base had a ladder leading to the roof in case of an overhead Phoenix attack. So far, the Phoenixes that swooped low over Junon did not bother to breathe fire or even acknowledge the invaders from Gold as long as they remained within the outpost. On the battle field, however, they flew high and lit the grasslands, burning soldiers like dry trees.

After a few minutes, Paer and Godard made it to the roof. Paer had cringed several times when Godard's hands slipped on the ladder rungs, but the Sergeant always caught himself before he fell backward. Once he had made it to the roof, he sat at Paer's feet. "I suppose I'll kick out faster this way," he said.

Paer surveyed the sky, seeing smoke from burning coal rising over the squares that dotted Junon. The stars bleached the metal and the wood, and for a moment, Paer fancied himself in Purgatory, clutching Godard's hand as Hades drug him below.

But he was not clutching Godard's hand; he was standing above him and scanning the sky for a firework. It did not take him long to find one. He wondered if he'd gone mad, but he reminded himself that this was the only chance in the whole world that Godard had. He raised his hands around his mouth and called as loudly as he could. "Phoenix!"

"What are you doing?" Godard hissed, grabbing at Paer's pant leg. "Do you want to get yourself killed?"

"Phoenix!"

Godard tugged hard, and Paer almost fell over, despite Godard's sickness and Paer's size. "Shut up. If I had known you were this stupid…"

As if it could actually recognize its own name, the Phoenix turned in the sky, away from the mountains to which it had been flying, flipped in the air, and dove for the roof of the hospital.

"Run, you idiot," Godard said.

The needles clawing up Paer's back told him to listen to Godard, but instead he whooped and waved at the giant red bird.

As the Phoenix dove closer, Paer could see its eyes, the golden feathers of its wings tapering off violet and emerald. It stared at the man from across the sea and asked, 'what makes you think you deserve it?' It drew closer still, and Paer became fixated on the sharp of its yellow beak and black claws, Godard mumbling "stupid, stupid, stupid—"

Paer couldn't keep his eyes open. Just as he closed them, he felt energy wrap around him, squeezing his chest like a Corral cave-in. His insides turned to mist even as tissue burned just beneath his skin and steam came wafting from his pours. All his exhaustion and weariness vanished, and he felt himself falling, as if he had tripped off the roof of Junon's hospital. The sensation evaporated. Paer let the cold creep back. Bird shit and fire spice cloyed his nostrils.

One eye opened to see the Phoenix flying away, already several meters into the sky above and heading back toward its original destination, the Great Range.

"Paer?"

Paer looked down to see Godard, pink-cheeked and breathing hard. His hands still clutched at Paer's pant leg, but Paer spotted vitality in him that he hadn't seen in the past two weeks. It had worked, Paer felt sure of it. The Phoenix had restored Godard's life to him.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

Godard pulled himself to his feet, still shaking. His eyes thinned like ghosts, belying his obvious recovery, but the ice had melted. "What the Hell is your problem?"

A loud shriek sent hope and apprehension down the foothill. The Phoenix had swooped from its nest, its claws grazing above Paer's head. The death of all but one had made it stronger, had made it the memory that materia would seal should it fall that day. Yet it came to the aid of the people in the mountain, spitting fire and bringing men back from the brink of death.

Fire warmed Paer's lips; he looked down to see the ember flickering merrily at the end of his joint. He breathed in Madroon, letting it untangle the tension in his brain. Phoenix always seemed to understand people better than other members of their own species.

Paer could see Abner, misty-eyed and just below him, toting a gun imbued with fire materia. The old man fell under the flame, and stood up again, flesh tinted gold.

Everyone in Junon started calling Paer "Falconer" after news of Godard's recovery and the circumstances surrounding it spread. Some said he had leapt twenty feet into the sky, wrapped himself around the great bird's neck, and steered it to the ground where he spoke in "screes" to get it to do his bidding. Then he had flown off, riding the Phoenix, to blow up half the Wuteng forces on the other side of the Great Range. Damn chivies never knew what hit them.

Paer passed the time with his contractors in the bar while Godard remained tied up in officer's meetings. No one in the Phoenix tribe or in Junon had mounted an offence since the incident, but Paer guessed they had planned something big. They had, apparently, tested out the red stone Godard had brought back and determined that it was some sort of materia, but his roommate would not tell Paer anything more.

After Blue, Anthony, and Greg went to their bunker by the docks, Paer would go back to the hospital and climb up to the roof where he watched the Phoenixes fly. He thought he loved this land even more than he loved the sandy beaches of Costa del Sol. It wouldn't be so bad to live in Junon, falling asleep to Phoenix crooning every night, in steel walls with holes only he knew. When the Phoenixes finally went to the lone mountain to roost, Paer would walk home to find Godard eating and bitching about some sergeant or other who didn't agree with him.

One evening, Godard came back from a meeting after Paer had made dinner and gone to sleep. He slumped onto his bunk, waking Paer, but not acknowledging him.

"Sergeant?"

"Go to sleep."

"I left some beans on the stove," Paer said. "You should have some."

"You can't cook anything else, can you?" No response. "I'll pass."

The room they shared seemed more like an emergency bunker. It sported two beds and a coal stove in the corner. The room contained a desk and a chair, but only because it was also Paer's office. Godard had mentioned—when not dying and climbing up a ladder at Paer's whim—that he preferred it to the stuffy room packed by corporals and bunk beds. As a sergeant, he could have had his own room, but he'd waved off the offer at his promotion. Paer guessed he had not wanted to die alone, but Godard had not asked for a reassignment since his recovery either.

Paer got up to finish the beans and turn off the stove, but Godard interrupted him. "If there was an easy way to finish this war, would you do it? No matter what?"

Since Godard had downed the Kjatas, it occurred to Paer that the seemingly immortal god-beasts that the natives worshipped were no longer immune. Paer thought about the Phoenixes in the sky, to which he owed a great debt. "Sure. A lot of things would be worth that." Paer forced a spoon from the pot of beans to his mouth, running the cayenne over his tongue.

"Thanks," Godard said.

As soon as Typhoon, Slyph, and Titan, a gift from the other side of the Great Range, fell, Gold's forces started slipping down the foothill. Kjata's memory would fracture soon, and it too would return, but its rampage had not ended. Its hooves severed heads. Fire, ice, and lightning broke men into scraped pieces.

"Fall back!" Paer heard the words in his own tongue. The joint almost fell from his lips. He had not expected it to work so well.

"Chase them back to the sea," Abner shouted.

Paer rolled his eyes. If they over did it and went to level ground instead of allowing a retreat, he would not be held responsible for Abner's over-zealousness. Hell, he'd only pilfered a Wallace drill and dug some tunnels. As long as the Phoenix didn't follow them, Paer couldn't bring himself to mind.

"Godard," Paer said to himself, "no matter what."

Paer woke the morning after his late conversation with Godard to the sound of the worst lightning storm of his life; the crack broke through his skull and forced him to tuck his pillow over his ears as he extricated himself from the sheets and dashed to the window—

Only to find a clear, blue sky, offset by smoke.

A battle with the natives; someone had Lightning materia. It sounded close—close to his fort town, which he had designed with love for every steel panel and ten foot deep dugout. Without putting on a shirt, Paer shot from the barracks and followed the noise to the hospital at the outskirts of the town where he again climbed to the roof to try to ascertain his surroundings.

Soldiers already stood atop the hospital: a handful of corporals and another sergeant toting the new Shinra muskets. Yellow tongues stabbed the sky when soldiers ran their palms over the butts of their guns. Paer looked out and saw six Phoenixes circling, dodging bolts as they fell from the clouds and instead rolled natives like fat quilts over the grass.

"You're firing at the Phoenixes," Paer said.

The sergeant glared at him, missing part of his beard from, Paer guessed by the small square of paper, a poor shaving job. "Yeah. His orders." The barrel of his gun pointed in a direction Paer hadn't looked, closer to Junon.

The biggest damn Kjata Paer had ever seen, exactly as Godard had described it. Above it circled a phoenix, flying jerkily, as if its wing were damaged, below—

Paer turned back to the sergeant, tore his musket form his arms, and bolted down the ladder. It seemed easy for about a minute. None of the soldiers expected Paer to take a musket from a sergeant during a battle. None of them had any idea what he intended to do with it—Paer couldn't blame them; he didn't either—so they remained still until Paer had made it out the door of the hospital.

There were men just outside Junon too: privates holding regular muskets and hand cannons, also made by Shinra. They bit their lips and buried their feet in the dirt, waiting for the battle to draw closer or for someone to give orders to charge. No one paid Paer heed as he ran toward the giant Kjata on the field and the man standing behind a planted hand cannon several meters from its back.

A torch of lightning fell before the Kjata, narrowly missing the Phoenix circling and screeching. The man behind Kjata had his hand on the base of the cannon, and Paer took his appearance without shock.

Godard, hair greasy, this time from sweat, stood and watched as Kjata and Phoenix tore each other apart. His head turned, and his eyes locked Paer's.

"Call it back," Paer demanded. He felt out of breath, but not from the running.

"I have to do this," Godard said. "The Phoenixes can bring the dead back. With its materia, Wutai is ours. They all have to die, no matter what happens to the people here."

"Screw the chivies, screw the natives—hell, screw Gold," Paer yelled. He adjusted the musket on his shoulder and took aim at Godard.

Godard rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Kjata and the Phoenix. "What are you going to do with that? You barely know how to shoot it."

"All the more reason to listen to me," Paer said. His finger had found the trigger. One small iron piece sat stopped up inside. The sergeant on the hospital roof had had no reason to shoot, so far off, but he would have loaded a shot and some gunpowder, just in case.

Godard's eyes widened, but he appeared otherwise unmoved. He clutched the hand cannon and remained intent on Kjata. "I have to take it out."

An ice storm started above the Kjata's horns, spinning into a discus. Paer felt his teeth chattering.

"It isn't your life anymore," Paer said.

The discus flung through the air, just as Phoenix released a fire ball from its mouth. The two projectiles collided, but the discus sliced through the fireball, turning it to smoking halves of a rock, and continued its path, sharper. In the next moment, its edge sliced through the long neck of the Phoenix.

The head fell first, rolling in the sky, landing with its beak stuck in the ground. Then the body followed, bursting into flame and disintegrating into ash. Spice and char infiltrated Paer's nose. Energy turned Paer's insides to mist.

Paer's first fallen Phoenix burned away his human parts, he supposed, because he could only think of its pieces falling around him. The empty green eyes of the bird turned to glass; the severed head in the ground displayed them like materia orbs on stands. Sweat in his eyes, Paer thought, finding it difficult to see, definitely sweat.

At least on his trigger finger, on the trigger too.

Paer's fingers shook as he pulled the joint form his mouth. His lips had started to blister. As soon as Gold's forces had turned tail, still falling under fire and Phoenix pinions, Paer had stopped paying any attention at all to the proceedings. At least Abner had the spark to keep his men on the mountain. There were cheers and a few mourning hymns as they began to vanish back inside the Fort through hidden holes.

The Pheonix Tribe had resisted Paer's advice at first, but they were assimilating. They had one thing in common with Paer; they cared more about the stupid bird than anything else. Paer had named the Fort "Condor" as a joke. Condors were little chicken-like birds that roosted in the streets of Nibelheim and a small village called Reit nearby, where Paer had been born. Nothing majestic or remotely wild about them; it had been a joke, but the more Paer thought about it, the more the nickname seemed to fit. The Phoenix people were tucking in their wings and becoming Condor people.

Paer started turning in when he heard Abner calling from about a fourth the way down the mountain. The chief held his musket at the back of a man in a red waistcoat. Familiar. Where had—

Then Paer raised an eyebrow. He chuckled to himself. How had a man from Shinra gotten all the way over to Fort Condor? Imagine, a guy like that marching out of Junon to peddle his materia weapons to savages. Maybe the Gold forces had gotten soft if they hadn't noticed. The Phoenix people must have no idea who he was, or he'd be dead. Paer stomped the remains of his joint, still smoking slightly on the promenade.

"He asks for you," Abner called. "Should I kill him?"

"Take him to my office," Paer replied. "I'll see him."

When Paer got to his office, the Shinra man stood in its center. Abner still had his musket pointed at him. That's when Paer noticed that this wasn't just a Shinra employee, but a chivy. He had slanted eyes, soft sideburns down his face, and the narrowest shoulders Paer had ever seen on a man.

This guy had even more nerve than Paer thought. Surely he hadn't come through Junon?

"He come from beach," Abner said, "in a boat. He was looking for Paer Rolfe, and I said I know you, but I've never seen a man look like this. I didn't think he was your people."

Paer didn't have people anymore, so he supposed Abner was right. "Thanks, Abby, you can go."

Abner twisted his lips reluctantly. Paer supposed that, before the battle that day, he would have insisted on staying, but a bit of tentative trust had finally formed. Abner slipped out, waving his musket as he went.

"You know who I am?" the man said after Abner left. He spoke Paer's tongue very well, but his accent still came through, carrying the question at a high lilt at the end.

"I know from the waistcoat that you work for Shinra," Paer said, "and I also know that you're pretty gone trying to come in that close to Junon, looking like you do. You're also gone for asking to see me. I don't have fondness for any race in particular, but I'm iron-plated against yours."

The Wuteng laughed. His eyes curled back into his head. He carried his arms around his waist at a sharp angle, as if his elbows wouldn't straighten. "I am Kane Tuetsi, Vice President of Shinra Manufacturing Works. I immigrated to Icicle from Mideel."

Paer shook his head and sat down in his chair. He opened his drawer to put the Kjata materia back inside. "That's some tapestry you've got."

The man who called himself Tuetsi cocked his head. "Tapestry? I'm not familiar with Gold Nation slang. It's one of my failings."

Paer scratched his head. "You expect me to believe something like that is all. What would the VP of the corporation that changed the world in a year be doing in my office?"

"The President has heard of you," he said. "He's very interested in intelligent people, especially young ones who have yet to form entrenched loyalties. You say we changed the world in a year, but your achievements here"—Tuetsi swept his arm around Paer's office—"are nearly as impressive. A Gold Nation retreat for the first time since we exported the Drake Weapons."

Paer had a feeling he knew where this went, but it seemed ridiculous, so he had to ask anyway. "And?"

"And our company is interested in offering you a lucrative position in Nibelheim, designing for us."

Shaking his head, Paer leaned back in his chair. "What would a Weapons Manufacturer want with a guy who builds forts?"

"I've heard you've also designed some of the newer mansions in Costa del Sol." When Tuetsi grinned, it felt like a knife slice.

"The question still stands."

"I think it's best if you ask this of the President. He is eager to meet you in person, but some business detained him in Icicle, so he sent me instead to fetch you. Would you accompany me?"

Paer whistled. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Tuetsi's stance did not change. Paer stared at him for a minute until he fell forward in his chair and shook his head.

"Your information is wrong. I do have loyalties, and they're to that big bird up there." Paer pointed to the ceiling. "I can't leave."

"Excuse me, but can you do anything else?" Tuetsi shifted his weight to one foot, surprised. "I was under the impression that your work here was done. You've shown your human friends how to sneak into Junon for supplies, and you've built this fort. I've heard you aren't very good with a weapon, and anyone can use materia."

Paer licked his lips. "Iron-plated." He shook his head. "You're honest."

"The outcome is obvious," Tuetsi said. "Stealth tactics will let the Phoenix people sneak into the base at Junon, but not the other way around. They have a summon creature that isn't constrained by the strength of its materia casing, the first and strongest summon materia"—Tuetsi's eyes skittered to the back of the desk drawer containing Kjata—"and this fort. There's nothing left for you to do, unless…"

When Tuetsi trailed off, Paer crossed his arms. "Phoenix, just spit it out already."

"It's just that, I rather thought you would want to get out of here before you had to watch everyone in the Junon base die. It'll be your fault when they lose this war."

Paer couldn't believe Tuetsi was still standing, a meter away, in the center of his office. He could have sworn that he'd leapt forward and punched him in the stomach. He released a low whistle. Again, he hadn't expected to care. He hadn't thought about it much, and he'd been sure the Phoenix had burned away all his human parts when Godard's Kjata killed it. For the first time—he should have thought of it before!—he realized that, no matter who won in the end, he lost.

Abner knew it too. "I do not trust you," was what he'd said.

Swallowing and massaging his temples, Paer stood. His legs, thick from all the running and building he'd done lately, seemed as thin as Tuetsi's chivy sticks. Would they take him anywhere? He almost laughed. All those uncomfortable things caught up to him. The sturdy desk. Greg, Anthony, and Blue. Even the sergeant he'd stolen his musket from. Then his Fort town. Did he want to stick around and see Junon burn?

When Paer had been little, his ten year-old sister had buried him in the sand and left him there until the tide crawled all the way up to his neck, and he'd started to cry. Then she'd dug him out, complaining, "I don't see why you couldn't just break out on your own."

Paer closed his eyes and listened to the mountain, he listened to the banging of steel a field away in Junon, the steam ships, silent and empty in the harbor. No one begged him to stay. Deep breath, Paer. Just hope Abner doesn't shoot you in the back on the way down.

Then Paer opened his eyes. For a moment, Paer thought about calling Kjata again to stab the smug grin from the chivy's face. He'd give it to him, though. The man knew he'd won, but if he didn't bend those damn elbows of his, Paer swore he'd—

Deep breath.

"Where's your boat, Tuetsi? I want to meet this Shinra."

Beta: Clan Dragoodle

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