Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING to do with final fantasy, wish I did but I don't.

Interesting Fact: this is basically my English coursework , I just had to change the names just in case

Enjoy

A Ghost, A Shell, A Shade

Why is it life inevitably screws you over? That's a question I've been asking myself for a long time. My life's been nothing but one pain after another. Well except for…but then again, that ended badly too, as I'll tell you.

I was a slum rat, born, bred and stepped on. All of those come hand in hand for my kind. I never knew my father, not that I wanted to. My mother, she was the only good thing in my life until she was taken away from me, but that's another story, one that I wont go into now.

From the age of six I had to fend for myself, I did favours for one of the local gangs, stole things for them, distracted shop owners etc. After years of growing up like that I obviously became just like them. When I was old enough I joined the gang. I eventually earned my own name, Wraith.

That was when I met her.

Everything a slummer, like me, could wish for. It would be a cliché to say it was love at first sight. Well the more accurate version would be lust at first site, at first anyway.

Let me get one thing straight, the slums have no rules, anything goes really, you just don't mess with the big boys or Shin-ra Inc. As long as you kept to those rules you could do what you want. Teenage pregnancy was rife here, as were all manner of other illegal things: murder, prostitution, abuse and drugs just to name a few.

I was no different.

It must have been two months after I met her that she told me. I got rid of her straight away of course. Can't have a kid slowing you down.

Within a year I started rising in the ranks of my gang, I wasn't the top dog but I was the best at what I did. After all they called me Wraith for a reason, I'm almost impossible to catch. The amount of times I've escaped from the authorities, other gangs and angry shopkeepers is legend amongst our ranks.

But then I saw them…I saw them in the street. I saw my child sitting on the cold wet floor and its mother slumped over on the ground.

Now I am, or would like to claim to be, heartless. But I couldn't stand by and watch. So I went over to her and tried to start a conversation, offer her some money or something…no reply, unless you count the baby crying. I tried again…nothing.

It's amazing, myself and my gang were responsible for countless deaths and I didn't care at all, I was proud of it in fact. But this did affect me. I wasn't proud. I had a kid, my kid, and its dead mother on my hands.

I'm amazed I didn't bolt. Instead I took the child. Don't ask me why but I just couldn't leave it there. Even though I've ended many lives, personally or not, there was something in me that couldn't see harm to my own child. Something to do with my own dad, no doubt.

I took it, or as I would soon discover, her, home. Long story short I don't know what made me keep her. I was miserable and she didn't seem too happy either but she started growing on me. I enjoyed being around her, enjoyed taking her out, enjoyed talking to her. Although I had things to do, places to go and people to kill. I missed her when I had to do that…I wonder if she missed me. Sure I had someone always looking after her but I wonder if she missed that person being me.

She was an angel, beautiful in every respect; she had those sparkling blue eyes that my mother had, she had my hair too, well my natural hair colour anyway. I never liked my hair on me, but on her it was perfect. She was the best thing in my life…

She was three when it happened.

I was the leader of my gang by then. How could I think of raising a child on the side? I was a target to many, wanted dead by many more.

Rule number one of slum warfare, target friends and family.

She was executed, a bullet through her heart…how ironic is that eh? I saw her lying on the blood soaked floor when I got back with the morning's food. I went pale, eyes went out of focus, head spinning and then I had only one thought in my mind.

Revenge.

I systematically hunted down everyone who had a reason to kill me and returned them the favour-something no one in their right mind would do, not that I was one of them. At last I came face to face with the man, or boy, responsible for the death of my three-year-old daughter, my angel…he was going to pay for killing Alda. It wasn't pretty I can tell you that.

I expected, and indeed wanted, to be hunted down and killed afterwards by the gangs' family and friends of the people I killed. Now she was gone I felt like my whole world had disappeared…But I wasn't hunted down and killed. I was hunted down all right but not to be killed like I thought…

Shin-ra wanted me to join the Turks, a group of assassins/mercenaries. Apparently what I did was no mean feat and they'd been watching me for a wile now. I was just what they were looking for. An escape artist so to speak, someone that could get out of the worst situation and come away relatively unharmed.

Oh yay, I guess that means that I get lots of cash, a flash car, nice suite…the works. Don't even know why Shin-ra needs the Turks. They have their own army at their disposal. Heck why do they even need an army? They're a bunch of dictators that's why. Then again I'm not going to complain.

Fancy that eh? Slum rat to a billionaire's personal assassin, typical man to loving father, full of life to nothing but a ghost…a shell…a Shade.

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Authors Notes- this goes along with my fic Shades, which I haven't got around to starting the first chapter to, well I did but I've decided against what I had planned

Anyway I'd like to thank my friends at college who helped me make a few thinks better and also many of the people on for their inspiring pieces of work (especially the 'fighting for a chance' series by drakonlily