Aeris and Terry boarded a helicopter early the next morning. When their luggage was packed neatly into a small compartment, the chopper rose into the air and headed toward the mountains. Aeris sat next to the window and sadly watched the polluted city move further into the distance. She never did get to see Sephiroth before it was time to go. Hopefully he wouldn't be too upset......(of course he would!) She never turned away from the window until the Shinra building was completely out of sight.

Aeris sat back in her seat and sighed.

"Its okay, you'll be back in no time," Terry told her.

Aeris said nothing.

"Strange. I thought everyone would be happy to get away from Midgar."

Aeris turned to face the tall man sitting next to her caretaker. He wore a crisp, blue suit with a red tie and white shirt. He had long, straight black hair and amber eyes which he kept hidden behind a pair of dark shades. He was light skinned and had a small but hardly noticeable mole in the middle of his forehead.

"Who are you?" Aeris asked with slight curiosity.

"Tseng of the Turks," he said lowering his sunglasses to reveal his eyes.

"I remember you now. You're the one who took me to the Shinra building seven years ago."

"Good memory."

"Why are you here?"

"I have been assigned to look after you and Terry during the operation."

"Why would I need someone else to watch over me?"

"To put it simply, you are about to be introduced to a group of genetically enhanced little boys that probably have never seen a little girl before in their life."

Aeris gulped at his words then nodded. "Then you better do a good job."

Tseng laughed.

The trip lasted no longer than an hour. They passed over the dead plains that surrounded the smoggy city and flew over the mountain range to the other side where a vast, lush forest lay. The helicopter flew to the rim of the trees and hovered over a grassy. Aeris looked down below and saw a few men on the ground waving colored flags into the air. The pilot landed the chopper and turned off the engine.

Tseng opened the door and hopped out then helped Aeris and her caretaker down. The men approached the chopper and began to remove their bags. One of them was dressed exactly like Tseng except he was bald and had a strong, expressionless face. The chopper started up and rose into the air.

Aeris and Terry followed the Turks into the forest. They walked a good ten minutes before Aeris started to grow tired. Unlike Sephiroth, she didn't have to run on a treadmill everyday. She never had to walk any path longer than a hallway. She started to wonder just where this camp was supposed to be. There was nothing but trees as far as the eye could see.

Finally, they stopped before a pair of large metal doors. They were painted with the colors of the forest and covered with camouflaged netting. Fake foliage and barbed wire decorated the edges of the wall around it. Aeris could have sworn she heard a low buzzing hum in the air. Rude spoke into an intercom device and the door opened wide with a low groan.

The group started forward down a long path.

Aeris looked around the camp in slight awe. They passed by several rows of large cabins and a fierce looking obstacle course. Farther back there were a pair of wide, rectangular cabins. Outpost towers were sprinkled all over the camp. Aeris glanced up as a guard dressed in a black uniform walked out onto the small balcony and lit a cigarette. A machine gun dangled carelessly at the end of a strap on his shoulder. Despite all the open space, there were still plenty of trees around to provide enough cover overhead

Farther ahead Aeris spotted a couple of teenage boys slouching on the steps outside of the lodge. They wore an identical pair of shorts and tee-shirt with writing that she couldn't make out. The two young men watched the group make their way silently up the path, eyeing its shortest member with interest. Quietly, they rose from their places and casually walked over to one of the wide cabins and disappeared inside.

There had always been controversy between the boys in both cabins. None of them really knew who named them or even how they got there. Some came in, some went out, some even were killed. It used to happen a lot when they were kids. The older ones decided to rebel and escape. They formulated a plan, one that could only result in victory. They procrastinated for a long time. Too long. Maybe it was fear that kept them back. Not fear of dying, they decided to give that up a long time ago. More than likely it was the fear of the outside world. Very few of them had ever left the walls of the camp; once or twice overseas but always to someplace worse. One of them managed to get past the gates. No one is sure how but he made it out. Sad thing is that he was lost. Every tree, every bush, and every rock looked exactly the same. The guards that chased him knew the forest a lot better unfortunately.

When the others left behind heard the gunshot, they didn't move, they didn't say anything, they just stared into oblivion. After, they were all punished and practically worked to death for the folly of their late comrade. The guards strung the escapees body half way up the flagpole for a few days, as a warning to everyone else. At night, they peeked from their windows and watched his carcass sway back and forth in the breeze and listened to the slight creak of the metal as he moved. They didn't talk about it, they just watched silently, thinking to themselves.

Shortly after the corpse was removed and buried, a helicopter flew by. Each time it passed, a few kids were brought in, each of them male and less than four years old. There were a lot of them, way too many to have a place in either of the two cabins. The younger boys were still clueless, but the older ones grew uneasy. Toddlers could only mean one thing: replacements. Both cabins joined forces in secret, leaving the immature and the weak behind as they had been taught.

The plan would have resulted in at least a handful of them making it out alive. It would have been perfect had not a few preteens eavesdropped and tried to join in the breakout at the last second. The boys were prematurely forced to use their hand-to-hand combat skills against a few machine guns and semi-automatics. Eventually all of the boys were forced to fight for their lives. The commotion stirred the toddlers from their sleep and they clumsily made their way to the windows to watch the fight. It was that night that many of them got their first glimpse of death.

There were only a handful of teenagers left alive after the massacre. They had to help clean up the mess and prepare the cabins for the newcomers. They got to meet a few of the "new recruits." One of them was Zack Ferrin. They spoke to him words of wisdom in hopes that one day he wouldn't have to endure the same penalties. A helicopter flew overhead and the four remaining teenagers were led out of the gates and never seen again.

Zack showed leadership qualities from the very beginning. The others grew to admire his spirit and mentality. They'd follow him anywhere. Their cabin was known as the B-pack. It was strange name considering that they felt more like brothers than animals. Their neighbors were called the C-pack. It was amazing to see how a mere title could separate one half of a group from another. They had all grown up together, been through all the same treatments, run the same obstacle course, and yet they considered each other rivals.

The strongest of the C-pack went by the name of Matthew Vassilakos, so naturally he took control of everything. Whereas Zack ran the B-cabin based on equality, the C-packs morale revolved around pure skill. Basically, the faster you ran, the better your aim, the stronger you were, the more respect you got. Simple as that.

In time, their numbers grew smaller. Some were shipped out to places unknown. The stragglers and the weak were taken to a secluded spot and executed. The lucky ones were just transferred to another pack. There hadn't been any unnatural deaths since they were seven.

The doors to the B-cabin swung open and the two boys in matching clothes entered. The others inside hardly looked up from their activities.

"Zack! Zack! A helicopter just flew in!" said a red-head.

"Yeah, so?" A spiky, dark-haired boy yawned.

"There's a bunch of fancy guy's in suits coming up the path." Everyone was still uninterested. "They brought a girl with them."

Everyone hopped out of their cots and hurried as fast as they could to the windows. Anybody in their way was simply stepped on or crawled over.

"Where!?"

The small group walked passed the two wide cabins, unaware of the eyes staring at them through the windows. Aeris stuck out like a sore thumb. Sure there were a few female counselors and the C-pack were the only ones, for lack of a better word, stupid enough to make a few passes at them, but now there was a girl here. A walking, talking, living, breathing, flesh and blood girl.

"Wow, what a beaut!" said a brunette.

Another boy whistled. "Very nice!"

"If they start a pack of chicks, I'm moving in."

"Amen."

"They probably won't keep her here for long. If it's one thing I know they don't send Turks here for nothing. Probably won't be able to get close to her without getting shot in the head first." Zack said to the others.

"I wonder why they sent her here."

"Who cares, she a hottie!"

"I'm sure they'll have a meeting or something. We'll find out then."

The group led Aeris and Terry to their own private cabin. It was a small one room cabin with a washroom at the far end. Aeris picked out her bed and started to unpack her clothes. The Turks were given their own quarters just down the path next door. She found out from Terry that the bald man's name was Rude. He too was a Turk and shared the same assignment as Tseng. Even though he seemed like a quiet man, Aeris had a feeling that he didn't want to be there. She couldn't blame him. She was tired of having a babysitter too.

Aeris wasn't sure what to expect during her two week "vacation." No one had bothered to give her anymore information than what she already knew. As a child, there wasn't much time to mingle with the other children. She'd spent years learning how to hide and many more locked away in the Shinra building. What did other kids do nowadays in the outside world?

"Don't you want to go outside and meet the people around here?" Terry asked.

"I'm not sure I want to go out there," Aeris admitted.

"I'll go with you?"

"Hmm...okay."

Terry changed out of her traveling Shinra uniform and into something more outdoorsy. She pinned her name tag to the front portion of her shirt and they went outside.

"Lets check out the lodge," Terry smiled.

"Okay," Aeris agreed.

The older woman could sense the tension the young Cetra was feeling. "Don't worry. You'll be fine."

Terry and Aeris started down the narrow path toward the center of camp. Up ahead, there was a dark-haired boy leaning casually against a tree. He had an apple and used a survival knife to peel away the skin. Terry saw him first.

"Hey, there's one of the local kids." She whispered. "You should introduce yourself."

"Hmm, I don't know. What do I say ?Hi, I've come to take you away to Hell?" Aeris asked sarcastically

Terry chuckled. "Just say hello, it doesn't have to be anything special."

The spiky-haired boy looked up as the two ladies got closer. Terry waved and Aeris did the same.

"Hey!" The boy smiled. "Are going to live here now?"

They stopped.

"Only for a while," Aeris replied.

"We'll be leaving in two weeks." Terry added. She patted Aeris' shoulder. "This is Aeris."

"Pleased to meet you. Aeris." He replied. "People call me Zack."

"Good to meet you too Zack." Aeris answered.

"Here on business?" He asked.

"Kinda. I'm supposed to choose two other people to take with me back to Midgar."

Had he heard right? "Take with you?"

"Yes," Terry cut in. "Two of you boys will get to leave this place.....forever. And Aeris here gets to pick who."

Zack hesitated for moment to think. Leave the compound? Forever? "Cool."

"We have to be going now." "Alright. See you around." Zack said. "If you ever need someone to show you around, don't hesitate to ask."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

He watched them disappear down the path. There was nothing he could want more than to escape. Everyone wanted to but nobody had tried in over a decade. He tossed the half eaten apple over his shoulder and hurried to the B-cabin.

The guys were going to be psyched