Replacement

He was a burly guy. Well, at least he looked that way to me. He was the kinda guy most people feared. Up top, that is. Down in these slums well-built, tall as Hell, bald guys aren't what scare people. Now, up top all those classy ass suckers might be wimps, being afraid of such appearances, but not in the lower city.

Down here It's the ShinRa that put people on edge. It's not the mean attitude, it's the pressed suit. The suit; the shades; the silencer; everything that makes him look expensively dangerous. Now we're afraid. That's right, both those up top and down below are afraid of him. He's known as 'Turk.'

I'm talking about Rude, my partner and drinking bud. He was a Turk before me, Hell he was a Turk before I even met him. But I was the one they picked when they said they needed a new second-in-command...

I remember livin' down in the slums, and every now and then you'd catch a glimpse of the Turks as they came down to do a job or make a hit. You knew they were after someone, but you never found out who, 'cuz Turks' business is Turks' business, and no one sticks their nose in it.

I remember, every time a blue suit walked by folks would hold in the breath - as if thinking the barrel would suddenly swing around and zing 'em in the head - but as soon as the suit was gone people would murmur about Turks and the Devil, as if the topics were related.

Usually, when you saw the Turks, you would see them in pairs. I had heard that there was three or four of them up there, but I always remember seeing the same two guys. It was always Rude. He was the tall bald one that was the kind of guy that you could imagine wouldn't waste time talking to his victims. He was the silent one that would pull the trigger before you knew he was there. Then there was the pale, shifty, side-kick. He was probably bigger than me, but he perpetually looked like the little guy standing next to the giant Rude all the time. He was always that little guy with the darting eyes and the brown bowl-cut. He was the one who always wore his shades on the tip of his nose, so you couldsee justthe tops of his eyes from behind them. I always thought it was so he could look into the eyes of the hopeless suckers he pulled the trigger on.

But I had seen the pair of smartly dressed snakes around before, and every time you heard about the Turks, they were the guys in the image your mind pulled up. Those were the Turks, and they stuck together. Never one without the other…

Until Rude came down alone that time.

I remember walking in to the bar after work, just to have a drink before I went home, and seeing a blue suit sitting on a barstool. It was a little weird seein' the guy drinkin' in my haunt, especially because it was a slums bar. I mean, didn't rich suits like him drink at those up-scale bars above the plate? Now the place wasn't any fun, now it was uncomfortable. Now, the people of Midgar know the value of a good drink, and know that when you have a shot at a good time you take it, but it was a little too hard to do when you've got ShinRa's assassin drinking next to you.

And I blame the atmosphere in that bar for the events that happened afterward. That air in the tavern made for a bad night. So bad if fact that I believe, at one point, I ended up sloshed and insulting that Turk to his face about how I could do his job better than him…well, maybe I was a little overly cocky, too.

Had it not been for my practiced stealth, and knowledge of all the dark alleys in the near vicinity, (and the fact that I think Mr. Turk was a little boozed up too, if you know what I mean) I would have been in my grave by morning.

I passed out in one of those alleys, and went to work in the morning with a hangover. I didn't get home until two in the afternoon, and if the barmaids hadn't known my name and address (because of the frequent trips made to take me home while intoxicated), maybe I would have never seen that bald Turk again.

As it is, two of those boys came knocking at my door by four while I was home alone (I lived with my older, anti-Turk sister at the time). They asked if I would like to make money. I think I looked a little suspicious at that offer. They asked if I would like to live above the plate. I think I was a little less apprehensive. Okay, a lot less. They asked if I would like to be a Turk. I don't even think I said a word through the whole conversation (if you could call it that, seeing as it was quite one-sided.) but they knew by my face that I would be working for them.

They took me up top to where the Headquarters was, and tested my abilities to see what I was capable of while sober. I went up against Rude again, but this time I could see straight, and I wasn't running away. This time I took him on fist to fist.

I think if it hadn't been for my speed and agility that I would have been knocked shitless, but as it is I only got my ass handed to me about twice. I did manage to regain composure and weasel in to get a few good hits though, and I guess that's all that counts for newbies (I guess I'd know, I got to satnd around gimply and watch Tsengmatch Elena…).

After that they admitted me as a Turk. I was finally introduced to the whole team, consisting of Rude, Tseng, who was my new boss, Reeve, one of the ShinRa higher-ups in charge of God-knows-what department, and all the other wonderful employees of ShinRa that had the power to order my assaround. All I remembered was which people I worked directly under.Those were thepeople that taught me the rule I now live by: If they say to do it, I do it, no matter what the cost or consequence.

From there I was trained, refined, and given a standard issue pistol, and my very own blue suit. I never figured out how to wear it as prim and neat as Tseng, but it didn't really matter, because now I was a Turk and I commanded respect either way.

…Until it was time to sit me through Tseng's 'newbie lectures,' and "learn a little" as he said. Sweet Holy, it was like going the school all over again.

The first thing I learned was that the Turks don't hire people because they can fire a gun or because they can steal and kill, the Turks hire people because they can do it without guilt or morals to get in the way. Basically, you had to start out a bad person to be a Turk; they would fill you in on the rest. My ability to commit crimes and not regret it in the slightest came from my need to survive in the world underground, and in the end it's what got me the job in the sun (if you know what I mean...).

I was taught to fire a gun, to fire a gun at a person, be a master of stealth, to work with a variety of standard weapons, and to obey the ShinRa head-honchos. Stealth came the easiest seeing as I had raised my self on it, and obedience came the hardest. No one liked the ShinRa, but over time I learned that I hold in my dislike or I lose my job. With an ultimatum like that you could say that I grew not to care about how I disliked them, and just knew that I worked for them. I was bad and corrupt, why shouldn't they be, right?

I don't think they broke me into following and enforcing their rules, I just think that it didn't matter to me as much as it used to. I hated them for how they treated me below the plate, but now I was living the life I had wanted and it was all because of the guys I worked for. So why hate them?

After all was said and done I was a full-fledged Turk and had to be let loose on the battlefield one more time to see where I stood in the chain-of-command this time. I was already one of the highest ranking creatures in the food chain.

In the end, they told me I was second in skill only to Tseng (which I say there isn't a soul that was better than Tseng.) and since Rude and I were so close in our abilities, that we would work as partners. It hadn't really occurred to me what had become of Rude's last partner, or why he had been getting sloshed at some slums bar that time, but I figured that in this business it wasn't hard to guess what had happened to him. I asked about him once, just out of curiosity, and was told sharply, "You're his replacement," by Tseng. Rude didn't respond, and Tseng didn't have a thing else to say. They didn't ever tell me his name.

The guy was dead, and I was paid to be the criminal in his shoes. But Hell, if it makes me money, it's a good job to have.

AN: Does anyone know how to get the asterisk symbol, or the equals symbol to show up in the text once you submit a chapter to The formatting is driving me nuts and not letting me do it.

Discliamer: I don't onw FFVII.