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Character(s): Angeal Hewley, Sephiroth
Content: Two old friends meet up once again. Explainations are demanded for one-another.
Setting: Cafe Ersesat in Jotenheim
Time: Afternoon
Warnings: An abunance of 'stern-talking-tos', most likely.

It wasn't often that he'd taken to leaving the hotel since his arrival, but SOLDIER instincts demanded that he'd take a look around his... hopefully temporary home. Yeah. Temporary.

Because there was no way in hell he was going to be stuck here when he should've been in the Lifestream.

It hadn't been too terrible so far, though. At least there were a few familiar faces. Reno might not've been a pleasant one, but he wasn't an enemy. That was good. He could do without enemies here. And hopefully, it would remain that way.

But that would be boring, wouldn't it?

Shrugging off his thoughts, the winged man stopped just outside a cafe not too far from where he started from. It hadn't seemed that crowded for the time being, and with a moment's hesitation, he stepped inside. There were still a few 'shiny' parts left over from when he'd paid for the hotel, so he figured he could get something nice for himself. A coffee, maybe.

Or a donut. Hm.

Hesitating for a few moments, the SOLDIER sat down at a nearby table and eyed the menu, trying to decide.

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Sephiroth had, in his time in the domed city, come to expect the unexpected. Future, past, history had no real meaning here, where it seemed like time itself was bent into knots.

Since the first arrival of someone from his past, Sephiroth had been expecting - hoping! - for this man's arrival. Angeal was the level headed one; surely he would be able to make some sense of all this.

But he had also been dreading this meeting, ever since he had met Kadaj and had all the horror stories of the others confirmed. Things had changed; would have to continue to change, if he was to reconcile himself with his future - past? It made no real sense.

Even so, he was now looking at a dead man. Angeal, as far as he knew, had been dead for months, maybe even a year or more. Gathering himself, he walked into the diner.

"It's been a long time, old friend," he said, standing at the end of the table. What looked like a genuine smile had crossed his face and decided to stay a while.

How long it would remain... well, that would depend on a few things.

Angeal looked up from the menu in time to see that familiar head of silver hair, and smiled. Genuinely smiled, as this Sephiroth would mostly likely be from a future void of the two men trying to kill each other.

It was pointless to hide the wings; the General had already seen them.

"Well, well. What do we have here?" The SOLDIER gestured for the man to sit at the table. "Sorry. Fresh out of sparkling red carpets, Your Majesty."

Sephiroth smirked just a bit at that, glad to see that Angeal had brought his sense of humor with him. Not many of the others had. "I think we can deal without them this once. Mind if I sit?"

The wings weren't a problem; Sephiroth had seen them before, and had sported one of his own when situations called for it. Why he had the ability to retract his completely and Angeal did not was anyone's guess.

For a moment, sitting there, Sephiroth was at a loss. What they had to talk about, what had passed, would pass, might pass, could pass, all of it made less than no sense. But that was just the kind of place this was.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and assume Reno told you about the future he's from," Sephiroth finally ventured, willing to get the hardest parts out of the way at the beginning.

"Well, since you're already sitting..." Angeal shook his head, amused and grateful for the familiar company. "Always one to jump the gun, aren't you, Sephiroth?" The SOLDIER gave a small laugh, picking up the menu once more. "What're you in the mood for?"

Looking up when Sephiroth spoke, the older man frowned once more. "I know not to trust Reno for information, but..." He sighed, leaning forward on the table. "He told me about... Nibelheim. Something about you going insane and murdering everyone, Zack and a friend of his being used for experiments after. You and him are supposed to be dead."

The winged man paused, remembering how this place screwed up time. "Wait, what do you remember?"

"I remember Genesis losing it, that you were killed soon after, and that Wutai lost the war. Parts are a bit blurry now; I don't remember many of the details, and that worries me. I've been here nearly a year now, and there have been mentions that this place changes you over time." He sounded a little worried about that, but not too much; after all, he still knew who he was and who everyone else was.

"Zack is here," he finally said. "Or he was a short while ago. The one they called Cloud, too. Last thing I remember before I ended up here was being on patrol near Kalm."

"Zack's still here." Angeal confirmed, nodding. "I just spoke with him a day ago. He's from our future." And from what it sounded like, Sephiroth had been pulled... what, a couple weeks? A month after him? The Nibelheim thing hadn't happened yet.

...good. He wasn't in the mood to face a homocidal Sephiroth.

The menu lowered at a certain bit of information, and the SOLDIER eyed his fellow top First Class warily. "What kind of 'changes' are we talking about, here?" He lowered his tone. "Organization XIII?"

"There are rumors that you become more like the locals. Docile. I'm not sure I buy that, but there's no denying that this city does things to people." He folded his hands, fairly certain the next bit wasn't going to be pleasant in any light. "Organization XIII has been responsible for some of those changes, yes. They specialize in capture, torture, and experimentation with varying methods and substances. Each member has a fighting style tailored to their specific element. I have what information is available in a dossier I keep hidden with my other notes. They seem particularly adept at driving people into temporary insanity."

Angeal placed his chin in his hand, leaning over the table in more exasperation rather than worry. Wonderful. More scientists screwing with them. "So, basically... it's ShinRa all over again." The SOLDIER replied flatly, resisting the urge to just pound his head into the table.

Here we go again.

"Temporary insanity? From experiments?" The winged man inquired, confused. "Sounds more scarring than that. You sure?"

"Something to that effect, yes," Sephiroth confirmed, just shaking his head at the implications. "On the bright side, I don't think they have anyone in Hojo's league working on their staff. Not sure how much Reno told you, but a fair number of the Turks are here, and the boss's son has apparently taken control of the company." And... that pretty much covered ShinRa's local assets.

"A fair number of the other visitors have formed a sort of underground resistance movement against this Organization," he ventured, leading in to the next bit of information that needed to be shared.

Angeal tapped his fingers against the wood of the table impatiently, looking more bored than actually worried. "Reno didn't say much. Just that ShinRa went down and Zack's supposed to have died. Rufus being President really doesn't surprise me." He shrugged. "Kid's pampered like a newborn Chocobo."

The thought of a 'resistance' piqued the SOLDIER's curiousity. "What, like AVALANCHE here?" He asked, brow raised. "What're you planning to do?"

Yeah, that was about how Sephiroth felt about the whole ordeal too. Aside from his apparently impending insanity, anything ShinRa could do was old news.

"A little less organized, a lot more powerful," he said, looking a lot more serious than he had at any earlier point. "There are beings in this city that, quite frankly, scare the hell out of -me-." Like, oh, -Death-. "However, we're in relatively good shape. You might say that they're on our side."

"People who scare you?" Angeal asked, incredulous. "Wow, I think the world really is coming to an end. Who are some of these people?"

A part of him really didn't want to know, if even Sephiroth was wary of them. The great big hero known all throughout Gaia and possibly worlds beyond, though he may have been exaggerating. He never did want to become popular himself. It just... happened.

"Just what is this city, anyway? Nobody's really being helpful."

Sephiroth gave his oldest friend a look that managed to contain wry humor, a touch of awe, and maybe even a bit of genuine fear. "One of them is the living incarnation of Death. Another is what appears to be a young boy, but whose capabilities and ability to withstand punishment outclass even our own. He claims to be a demon overlord, and I believe him."

As for the next question... that one wasn't so easily answered. "I have some theories as to that, but each of them seems as unlikely as the next. The first is that it is some kind of interdimensional vacuum, drawing people from everywhere, from every -time-, though for what purpose, I cannot say. The second is that this place is somehow alive; for example, it somehow regenerated its wounds after a gigantic creature wrought havoc. The third theory is that this is all some kind of gigantic interconnected dream, though I've no idea how such a feat could be accomplished across the kind of gaps a project of this magnitude would require. And, quite frankly, I doubt that. Would the creator of such a dream world not give himself absolute power?" he reasoned, knowing full well that anyone who had ever had any contact whatsoever with ShinRa would do just that, given the chance.

Angeal laughed a little at that, drumming his fingers on the wood table once more. "That's... wow. You sure we're not drunk? This whole thing is just... unbelieveable."

The SOLDIER's attention perked back up at the General's explaination, however. "A dream? Alive? So which is it? Nothing can be real and fake at the same time. And how do you know for sure there's not someone here calling the shots and controlling this place?" But if this place was like Gaia, and alive... and all of these weird happenings had occured, why hadn't the world simply stepped in to stop it?

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