Playing Crisis Core 1: Extra missions

Ahh. Hello.
     So yesterday I was playing Crisis Core:Final Fantasy VII for an hour and a half.  The last time I played it, it was a few days ago, and I reached the part when Zack is a little older (so he'd be 17).  This time, I just wanted to play through a few extra missions.  Y'know, to kick some monster-ass butt.  That...and to see the older Zack use that famous Buster Sword.
Heh heh...
     In playing those missions yesterday, I discovered something new that I should've figured out sooner.  Late last month I used "Materia Fusion" to create the Silence Blade materia, and I'm glad I did.  Helps me out a lot; it's more powerful than the regular Attack and for three-fifths of the time I use it, it causes Silence status effect on the enemy.  Yeah...it was so sweet I used it most of the time instead of the regular attack.  Which was a mistake.  I realized too late after a while that my AP (action points) went down to 22/257 points.  Ah heh...what?  How did that happen?
     So I watched the AP go down by ten or so with every hit Zack made with the Silence Blade.  And to make it worse, those insectoid monsters had this magic attack that takes much of Zack's AP away.  How was I going to defend myself (I mean, Zack) from other attacks if his AP was zero?!  Oh no!! So I solved the problem with a soma.
     Then that annoying-ass insectoid stole 96% of Zack's AP again.  Gosh darnit!  Oh well.  I'd just have to defeat those bugs once and for all.
     And it really helps that the DMW is there for me...some of the time.  It's funny when three Tsengs match and I have only one weak-ass monster to kill and it's almost done.  "Is this the end?" says Tseng.  You know what I'd want Zack to say?  "NO!! Let me be a man and finish this f***-a** blue wolf thing myself!!!!"