Hojo was surprised; Lucrecia had given birth to twins instead of the one that he expected. "Hmm", he thought. "Lucrecia only agreed to this experiment if the child was a boy, she may want to keep the girl for herself. I cannot allow that, these are perfect specimens."

Hojo walked over to where the boy was sleeping and inspected him " I will call you . . . . . Sephiroth. Yes, that is a good name for my son" he muttered to himself, then he turned to the girl " I did not anticipate you, but you will make a great subject. I think I will name you . . . Angel, but I will not reveal your presence to your mother."

The next day Lucrecia died of mako poisoning and the Jenova cells that were injected into her during pregnancy. As she lay dying she called out for her son Sephiroth, unaware that she had a daughter also.

Steel crashed against steel as the swords of Sephiroth and Angel met causing a shower of sparks to fly in the gap between the combatants. To one side of them a group of new recruits into the SOLDIER program were watching in awe.

"Sephiroth, Angel . . . Stop. I think the rookies have been watching long enough." a voice told them. Commander Omar of the Shin-ra army pushed his way through the crowd of new recruits. "It never ceases to amaze me how you two managed to get through the ranks of SOLDIER so quickly."

Sephiroth turned towards the group, his green mako eyes looking at each one of them in turn and his long silver hair blowing in the slight breeze, and told them, "What you were seeing then was a sparring match, using all the skills that you can learn as you progress through the ranks of SOLDIER. It takes plenty of hard work and dedication."

Angel then turned towards the recruits. She stood at the same height as her brother and looked almost identical, except that her hair was golden and her eyes blue "It can, however, be fun." The recruits looked at each other nervously, they had not expected the two youngest SOLDIERS in the army to talk to them. Looking at the receding forms of Sephiroth and Angel, they all hoped that someday they might be as good as them.

"God, I hate having to perform for the new kids." complained Angel as they walked towards Hojo’s Lab " If they weren’t around we could have had a proper sparring match."

"What’s the point? Although you use a straight sword or a staff, we still cannot beat each other." replied Sephiroth " We are equal, but you are right. The rookies can work out the details of SOLDIER for themselves next time."

"Ever since we became the youngest people ever to make it to first rank of SOLDIER last year, we have been put on show. Its so . . . so" Angel said unable to come up with a suitable word.

"Degrading? Don’t I know it . Speaking along those lines…" Sephiroth said, pushing open the door to Hojo’s laboratory. Hojo was sitting at his workbench, and he looked up when they entered.

"So you decided to come early this week, I see. Well, you will be relieved to know that your injections have finished." he told them, turning back to his work.

Angel looked at Sephiroth in relief. Both of them hated the weekly injections and now they were free of them.

"I have some important work to do, so you are free to go" Hojo said without taking his eyes off his work. As Angel was walking out of the door Hojo cursed. "Angel, can you get my notes on mako energy as a power source from my personal library?"

Knowing that an order was an order she sighed "Yes, sir." and left the room. Sephiroth had already gone outside to practice. Walking down the corridor towards the room where Hojo kept all of his personal research notes, she realised that he must be doing very delicate research to send her to this room. He always went to fetch these notes himself. When Angel reached the room, she took her time looking through the documents, describing different experiments. Fifteen minutes later she found the document that Hojo required, but as she got it down another set of notes caught her eye . . . The Jenova Project.

"This is strange, Hojo said mother was called Jenova." she thought as she opened the notes and started to read Hojo’s spidery Handwriting.

Angel closed the notes and started to walk back towards Hojo’s lab. "I need to know the truth. He lied to us, our real mother is Lucrecia not Jenova..." she stopped suddenly as the realisation hit her, Hojo had been married to a woman called Lucrecia who had died eighteen years ago. "No!" She thought in dismay " That must mean that Hojo is . . ." Angel ran back down the corridor to the lab that Hojo was in. Pushing open the door and slamming it against the wall made him jump in surprise. Drawing her sword she asked him in an angry voice " Why did you lie to us…Father?"

Hojo got up from his chair behind the workbench and walked towards her " Oh! So you found out did you? What a pity. You were such a promising specimen, I cannot allow you to tell your brother so I will have to take care of you!" He said pulling a small gun from one of his lab coat pockets. Angel, knowing that she had to tell Sephiroth, turned and started to run towards the door as Hojo pulled the trigger. Ten seconds after the tranquilizer dart hit her, she was unconscious.

********

One day after the defeat of Sephiroth a small meteorite, a remnant of the original meteor that was blown off in the explosion caused by the Shin-ra 26 rocket, headed unnoticed towards the northern crater. It impacted near to the body of Sephiroth and as the Lifestream tried to heal the extra damage to the planet, his hand moved towards the strands of energy.