A/N: As per usual, I don't really know what this is supposed to be. I just wish more people explored the potential underlying relationship between Vincent and the modern day Turks, in light of Advent Children. I don't know if I necessarily buy that Vincent just saved them out of the kindness of his heart, and I definitely don't buy that he was picked randomly to save them. So, I guess I'm making my own wish come true.
I don't exactly know what will come of this. I don't know if this will be a story per-say. But expect more chapters, if anyone seems remotely interested. Oh, and if anything seems AU it's not intentional – I haven't played the original game in a decade.
As per usual, story and chapter names come from music. Recommended listening, the band Down.
Told from Tseng's POV.
NOLA: Part 1
Ghost Along the Mississippi
At first I thought it was a hoax. He was a legend, even among the older generation. His natural skill, his level of training, his inhuman abilities – even down to his too human downfall. It all sounded like one of those epic poems authored by the ancients we were forced to study in high school. The world's greatest man bested by man's greatest weakness – love. A part of me always thought it was just a tall tale. Of course, parts of it had to be true. A cursory glance through ShinRa's records could quickly prove that, though I suppose not anymore.
Since Meteorfall, there isn't much left of ShinRa's Archival Department. Even before Meteor, those files seemed to have "disappeared." If there's one thing the Company hates more than old ghosts, it's old ghosts turned traitors.
Sure, he was there, hidden amongst the mundane details of deceased personnel files. I found him when I was still a rookie. I was always a skeptic, but even the most trusting of men found the mythos surrounding the late Vincent Valentine hard to swallow.
Though I suppose most of those legends died with the generation before mine. 30 years was a long time to pass on old water cooler stories. The older guys before me were still only fresh on the job when the man still walked the Planet. They fed on the legend – he helped inspire them to become Turks in the first place, after all. Me? I saw no use in myths.
I never wanted to turn my charges into a clandestine group of assassins – though I do suppose that it can't be fully avoided given the line of work we're in. My men would be grounded. We would know our job, do our job and leave the mystical allure at the door. So Rude and Reno never heard Valentine's death defying tales, because in my mind they were just that – tales.
They aren't the type of men to buy in to that sort of hype anyway. Elena on the other hand, she would've been enthralled – bordering on obsessed. Luckily for her, the whole world seemed to go to Hell too quickly for her to hear those types of rumors anyhow. Most of her learning happened on the field, out of necessity. She never heard any stories of the old days, not even the ones I actually found myself fond of telling.
But Vincent Valentine turned out to be much more than legend.
Had I met the man before his death, I wonder if I would have recognized him. I could never dig up any pictures of him from his active duty with ShinRa, but I can only imagine Hojo played more than a small role in the man's striking appearance. And being on opposite sides of the battle field didn't leave much time for the exchange of names. His tenacity on the field, though, left me wondering.
AVALANCHE was full of worthy fighters, but they were just that – fighters, warriors. That tall, pale man prancing around in a ridiculous, comically morbid get-up wasn't a warrior. He was a killer. He was an assassin. His shots were cold and calculated. Even his hand to hand combat was dangerously effective. There was no sense of martial art or military training to his combat. It was something swifter, deadlier. It was a text book example of Turk training. Knowing what I know now, I wonder if we were modeled after him.
Yes, his fighting style was suspect, but the connection didn't come until much later. Not until that girl shouted his name.
The evacuation of Midgar was the first step forged in a tenuous alliance between oppressor and oppressed. The soldiers who refused to let go of their allegiance to an obviously crumbling empire just could not seem to find a way to work with the surviving masses of the ruined city. Both halves of the circle were equally mindless, it seemed – no side admitting it needed assistance from the other in the Planet's hour of need. They needed to be led.
That was not the intention, of course, when the battered remnants of the Turks and a rebellious offshoot of AVALANCHE both arrived on the scene. It was almost comical, the symmetry the two groups seemed to present. Yuffie Kisaragi, proud and disobedient daughter of Lord Godo of Wutai, instantly sprang into action only to be met head on by Elena, the woman who still so recently sacrificed her last name and any vestiges of her family ties to take on the proud banner of the Turks. Their battle surely would have been heated, if allowed to progress past a single gunshot and single hurl of a shuriken – both being fueled by rage and, subsequently, poorly aimed.
"Yuffie…" The darkly clad figure let his low, grumble of a voice trail off. The ninja instantly stilled, though her eyes still gleamed with malice.
Tseng even found himself momentarily stunned by the sound. He only allowed himself a wonder at the bottomless depths held in the guttural sound before he roused himself to his previous task. In an instant, his hand found Elena's shoulder, staying her previously conceived attack.
The two older men didn't seem to need words. Their eyes communicated all that was necessary. Whatever we are doesn't matter right now. There's a job to do.
"Elena. We have a mission. Let's go."
We went our separate ways, spreading out to coordinate the evacuation effort. It wasn't until the final sector was complete, until I heard the little ninja girl cry out his name over her PHS, that it finally dawned on me.
Death defying? Perhaps the legends didn't do the man justice.