Switched

Conditional Challenges

Chapter 11

When they all started after Weiss, Vincent stopped Sephiroth. "We need to head back to the board room." Sephiroth nodded his understanding. At that point, Vincent took the lead. When Weiss looked like he was about to say something to the passing gunman, Genesis grabbed his arm in a firm grasp. He gave Weiss a look that clearly said, 'don't make trouble.' Weiss glared back but didn't say anything.

When they all made it back to the meeting room, the rest of the group was already waiting. Weiss and Genesis were the last to enter. When Weiss' gaze took in the assembled group, he broke out into mad laughter. Everyone was giving him looks ranging from concern to anger until he finally started to speak. "What is this, the heroes and villains' convention?" Even his words were broken by his continued laughter. By that point, the looks around the room had all turned to aggravation, at the very least.

"Enough!" Sephiroth's cold voice rang out, cutting across Weiss' laughter and forcing him to finally stop. He didn't lose his smirk when he looked back at the ex-general. Sephiroth ignored him. "We don't have time for this. Sit down so we can make plans." He was talking to Weiss specifically, but everyone moved to sit. Sephiroth moved to take the seat at the far end of the table across from Reeve so that Weiss was between himself and Genesis. He wanted to make sure the volatile man was overseen.

No one moved once they were all seated. The tension was thicker in the room now than it had been previously, and no one seemed to want to break it. Finally, Sephiroth stood once again. "We have already gone over all the pertinent details, but with Weiss' presence, we will need to touch on the basics again." He turned to Weiss at that point. "Please just listen to what Reeve has to say. Once he is finished, you can ask any questions you need to." Weiss crossed his arms over his chest but gave a slight nod to show he agreed. With that, Sephiroth nodded to Reeve to start.

He once again pushed the buttons to dim the lights and bring up the picture of the object headed for Gaia. Since Weiss was the only new element, he focused his attention in his direction. "The object you see here is on a collision course with Gaia. We have estimated its time of collision to be in approximately nine days if it continues uninterrupted. We are looking into possible ways to stop it from reaching the planet, but we are more concerned that it is not an inorganic rock, but more of an organic threat. We are currently still working on plans to determine its exact nature as well as possible ways to stop a collision."

Reeve left the picture up once he was finished. Every eye turned to Weiss to see his reaction. "So, it looks like someone else is going to succeed where all of us failed, eh?"

At his goading comment, several people all jumped up at once. Genesis was the first to grab Weiss, followed quickly by Sephiroth and Cloud. While Genesis had him in a death grip, the two others that had jumped up realized they were now in far closer quarters than either wanted. The fact that it was for the same reason didn't sit well for at least one of them. Their mutual discomfort was pushed back to focus on the scene in front of them. Genesis had started in on a tirade already. "-realize that if you insist on being a problem then we will not have any choice but to detain you? I don't want that to be the outcome, but we all have much bigger problems now. This affects all of us equally. I didn't nurse you back to health for this, and I certainly won't put up with it."

Throughout the rant, Weiss had not lost his smirk. When Genesis finally wound down, Weiss just looked up at him indifferently. Sephiroth could easily see how worked up Genesis was getting and, to keep the building from burning down around them, stepped in. "Genesis, that's enough." Genesis was still livid, pulling back only far enough to glare at Sephiroth. He didn't give him a chance to retort now that he had his attention. "He's being purposefully provoking. Don't let him get to you."