Nesa had heard over the office grapevine Hojo in Biological Sciences had been cackling a lot lately. Hojo cackling was generally Bad News. She'd learned this in the process of spending a few years dealing with SOLDIER. Indeed, Hojo Cackling was in second place on her personal scale of Impending Doom And Too Much Paperwork, right up there just after Zack Fair Grinning Like A Maniac.
So, when she came to work one morning to find the majority of the SOLDIERs with additional appendages, the military distracted by zombies within their midst, and Corporate running screaming from the Shinra tower, she thought it was just another day at the office. Nobody stopped her from going to her desk, pulling up the phone number for Supply, and digging into the pile of paperwork in her In Tray.
She was onto her second cup of coffee when Zack Fair, his blond shadow trailing along behind, stopped by.
"Hey, Nes," he said, as though everything was as normal as things ever got around him, "seen the Boss anywhere around?"
Nesa looked up, noted the wings, the horns, and the black leather pants, and sighed. "Give me a moment," she said, pulling up the General's schedule on her computer. She looked back. "According to this, he's supposed to be in Junon with you. Given you're not in Junon, I have no idea where he is. So, what's happened?"
"We don't know," Zack said. "Best guess is Hojo put something in the last round of the Mako boosters. Most of SOLDIER has wings, and a lot of guys have sprouted tails."
Nesa leaned sideways. Zack noticed, and turned to display his butt, grinning as he did so. "Not me. I just got the horns and wings."
"Do you have numbers for how many of each?" she asked. "I'll need them if I'm going to get Supply to do modifications to standard uniforms."
"Hmm... might wanna check with the regulars first. All their folks who had the standard booster came down with something, too. Most of them are zombies."
Nesa looked across at Zack's young friend. "So how did you miss out?" she asked Cloud.
"He's got a horn," Zack said, leering a little. He was immediately thumped by Cloud.
"Another crack like that, and I head back to barracks and take my day off," Cloud said, glaring at the SOLDIER.
Nesa decided to intervene to prevent the two of them from brawling in front of her desk. "I take it you're developing an additional bit of hardware, so to speak?" she said to Cloud. Cloud turned away from Zack to nod at her.
"It's right here," he said, touching an area in the middle of his forehead.
"And you can still stand to be around Zack?" Nesa teased. "I thought unicorns were supposed to prefer the company of virgins." She looked across at Zack. "Although, I had been wondering whether your reputation was somewhat... exaggerated," she said, grinning wickedly.
"Ouch!" Zack said. "Point taken, Nes. We'd better go look for Seph, and see if we can get those numbers you're after."
"You do that," Nesa said. "I can see this is going to be causing me more than a few problems." Given the way this mess was panning out, Professor Hojo better be hoping the General reached him first, because when she next encountered the man, she was planning on giving him a piece of her mind. The paperwork in Shinra was bad enough on a normal day. "Tell the General from me, if he kills Professor Hojo, he takes all the pleasure out of bureaucratic revenge."
"Bureaucratic revenge?" Cloud asked.
"Oh, I plan on finding out what changes need to be made to uniforms, bedding, fixtures and similar, then getting Executive Lazard to have all the necessary funds taken out of Hojo's budget. If nothing else, it should at least slow him down a little before the next catastrophe is unleashed." She smiled an evil smile.