Voices trailed after him. Heated, growling, low and deadly, like the smaller monsters of the outskirts. But he knew the territory; he knew its streets and alleys, knew every backdoor and manhole. They were on his turf, and he wasn't afraid of them. Not one bit.
He knew they would come for him, just like he knew that someday he would be taken up, beaten, have his hands cut off street-manner for stealing. He'd be a poor, wretched beggar his whole life, unless he shaped up and learned how to fight. That's what made them come after him, he was sure, thinking over it as he sat huddled in the ruins of an abandoned middle-city shack. Once he'd gotten a name for himself, his round face and dark, shimmering eyes now instantly recognisable - the Ghost, disappearing in the span of a blink, aura-less, intangible. No one could catch him, and the one time they did he fought back. Worse than an alleycat, only slightly bigger but so much more dangerous. He'd clawed their eyes out, first. The two who'd come forward after him. The other three weren't so lucky. Jiao-long ticked them off mentally. One - shattered hand, broken shin; compound fracture. Rather bloody. Two - snapped neck. Much cleaner. Three...well, three only took a few steps out of the alley before he fell over from blood loss. Jiao-long was a dangerous child, and the men in the suits knew it.
The muscles in the back of his neck tensed, his bent legs readying instinctively to launch him, as the sound of the men stopping too near for comfort reached his keen ears. He's a kid, for fuck's sake! Just find him! Oh, but they knew. The chorus of Yes, sir!s knew. The scrambling of feet, a light shuffling Jiao-long envied, and they were left alone together. Just the two of them. Tch. What idiots. They'd be one man down soon.
One tiny hand reached out and silently balanced him forward just slightly, changing his centre of gravity, as the crunch of dirt, glass, city sidewalk heralded the slow, measured steps of the approaching suit. A change in pace, from the racing, heart-clenching, fearful chase. Now it was this man, this man in the starched collar with the gun. Him, and Jiao-long's instincts.
He waited for the shoe to come into his vision, his hole low to the ground allowing for a perfect exit point for an exquisite roll. Between the man's legs, and behind, as he'd taken a step forward. A startled gunshot, the man's sharp curse, and a cry of Get him! And the chase resumed. Jiao-long leaped forward, barrel-rolling under a decrepit old cart just before the swiftest of the men crashed down on it. He could feel the cold of a predator behind him, knew their hearts beat in tandem with his own, each breath a clipped, measured prelude, only to be caught once they could pause. They were there, they were beside him, behind him, all around him, kicking up dirt and grime as he pushed his small, starved body to its brink, and skidded to one side into a tiny, dark crack. No hesitation. The nearest one sent his body flying through it, and Jiao-long turned to stare down the barrel of a gun. His heart skipped a beat, and he stopped. Now, now was the time to catch his breath.
"Finished running, kid?" The man's voice was rough, rough like the stubble across his cheeks, where he hadn't had time to trim his beard that day. They'd been busy chasing him, he knew: he was a handful. Two other men flanked him, guns trained on him, one the man who had been beside him. He stood out the most, and was the one Jiao-long's eyes went to as he measured his situation. A stern, hard face, yielding to eyes of dark, dangerous acid green and a shock of orange hair. Unnatural orange. The man fronting them made a noise. Predictably, Jiao-long blinked back at him.
There was a long, pregnant silence. One of the men nearer the back cocked his gun, and Jiao-long flinched at the sound. He didn't recognise it, didn't know guns like he knew knives and fists and feet. He took a moment to recuperate, blinking wide eyes around them, before looking back up at the insufferably blank face of the man with the beard. It only took a second to return that look, and even less time for it to become blase. Narrowed eyes narrowed, glinting like steel under long, boyish lashes. This was his life. This was his game.
"I don't like you."
The man blinked. Actually blinked, in something like astonishment. The man with the orange hair made a sound of derision, and re-aimed his gun. Jiao-long merely glanced at him, before returning his cool gaze to the bearded one, who was now standing in full shock before him. Had he not understood him? Jiao-long knew his words were heavily accented, and could very well be wrong. He was never good with speaking. Something in the bearded man's eyes brightened, and a smile grew on his face. And then...he laughed. Jiao-long started, but maintained his cool exterior, as the man kept his gun trained on him and laughed for all he was worth. The orange-haired man was looking at him in disbelief now, and the man on his other side moved forward slightly - a shifting in the shadows. Jiao-long stared.
"Kid, you really are something." Laughter led into chuckles, a low sound that died without warning, as the man uncocked his gun and stepped back. The man shook his head, and addressed those around him. "It looks to me, boys," he stated with an amused cock of his head, "that we have a con on our hands." His demeanour suddenly changed, the smile falling off his face as he turned his back and took a step through the ranks. "Nobody speak to him." But before they could come forward, the instant the guns were off him, Jiao-long was off again. They had him. He gaped, stunned. He hadn't even seen them move. The orange one cocked him a half-smile, as if he could read his thoughts, and blatantly disobeyed the words of the man who must have been his superior.
"Welcome ta Shinra."
He had struggled the entire way; he wasn't going down without a fight. By the time they wrestled him in through the front doors, the meagre clothing he was wearing barely clung to him. The man with the orange hair shoved him down by his shoulders, paying no attention as his fellows walked past them, and patiently rearranged the torn, greyed bits of cloth. More like pillowcases; what seemed to be an old shirt, much too big for the small child, with its sleeves torn off, and a muddy pair of trousers tattered so badly at the bottom that they were more like shorts. No shoes, though. Just a pair of scarred and dirty feet. The man with the red hair shook his head, and sighed, and fretted over him in a way no one ever had. Then he picked him up, flung him over his shoulder, and with a half-assed, "Let's get 'cha clean, squirt," carried him unmoving into the building.
The phrase held no meaning to Jiao-long. Once inside, he was set down, and a pair of men in blue and silver with helmets that covered their eyes came around him. The orange man stepped to one side, and the two others - SOLDIERs, Jiao-long was sure - took up the other two escape routes. Apparently they didn't expect him to dash forward. Well, they were right there, at least. He was too busy being stunned. Eyes huge and all-too-admiring, it took a nudge in the back by one of the men's guns to make him move.
"Easy," was the response from the suit. Then forward, up stairs and stairs and stairs. Up so many stairs Jiao-long thought they had to be close to hitting the sky by now. Third floor, and an elevator, one SOLDIER stepping in before him, the three surrounding him once more in the cramped quarters. The man's hand on his shoulder, though now he knew he could not run. Where would he go? With the world falling down and down and down around him, how would he ever get back to the ground, even? An age, forever, and then the doors came open, and they stepped out onto low, dark blue carpet. Small ShinRa Co. logos every few steps. The SOLDIERs stayed in the elevator, and Jiao-long turned to gaze back at them as they were left behind, before the man who still held his shoulder gently turned him forward once more.
The endless hallway was lined with doors, some open, most closed. There were connecting hallways in a few places, which offered glimpses of yet another long hall opposite the floor from the one they were in. Jiao-long stared openly, at the stark, businesslike colours and decorations, at the men sitting in their rooms. They passed one cleaning a gun on his bed who stared at them with the look of a starved dog out for meat. Another sitting at a cluttered desk cramped into his small room, who paid them no attention whatsoever as he barked into a PHS and ruffled papers here and there. A young woman sorting laundry, a huge poster in the back of her room with boxes and letters and colours all arranged neatly together. The dark shape from earlier, who had proven to be a man, though a very scarred man. The right half of his face was totally maimed; his eye scarred shut, ridges and slashes creating a landscape in white and pink over naturally tan skin. The muscles on that side of his face were dead, Jiao-long knew; he'd seen it in the car on the way over, and had stared. Now the man spared him only a passing glance, as he undressed from the casual mission. The hand on his shoulder slipped off, and with the slide of a keycard a door was held open for him. He turned into the room, and stumbled back as a puffball of bright red came hurtling toward the open door and into the arms of the man beside him.
"DA!" it screamed at the top of its lungs, and Jiao-long barely registered that the scarred man next door had also flinched before his own door was shut quietly. "Da I missed you guess what nana came over an' she said Rufey said -"
"Okay, okay," the man laughed in response, obviously amused at the child's inability to break between sentences. "Da's still on the clock, so sit tight an' go play ya games fer a little while longer, okay?" There was something about the way this man spoke that was hard for Jiao-long to interpret. An accent, he registered, though he didn't recognise it. The round thing, a tiny boy, sucked on his fingers some and quieted the instant he saw Jiao-long looking up at him. Suspicion, Jiao-long knew; he recognised it. Even in children so small, he knew it well. Silence once more as the child was set down, urged off to one corner, and the man with the orange hair came back to shut the door and lead Jiao-long into a small bathroom. Jiao-long stopped outside the door of the place, as the man turned on the water and found a towel.
"Come in here, take off your clothes." A different creature entirely than the one who had been laughing and loving the red child in the other room. Jiao-long merely stared. He'd never seen a place like this before. He'd only known water from rusty taps on the streetsides, and only to clean off something dangerous or sticky or... And now this man wanted him to strip? Jiao-long's eyes narrowed in suspicion. He knew what people wanted when they asked for you naked. Silently, falling back into the manner of a street-bred killer, he glared and stood his ground. The man turned off the water, the tub only half-filled since he knew the kid would flail, and stepped forward with a bleached-white towel. He could have blended in like a chameleon without his suit and hair. Bleached-white walls, bleached-white towels, bleached-white ceramic, bleached-white tile. And now he was glaring right back.
"Kid, I don' wanna have to fight 'cha yet." Yet. He couldn't think for a second that Jiao-long hadn't caught that. And now that he knew what he was there for - did that smaller child serve this purpose too? - he wasn't about to back down. The man sighed after only a moment, set the towel down. He unbuttoned his blazer and slipped out of it, folding it neatly and placing it over the edge of the sink. Undid the cuffs of his shirt and laid them in the exact middle of the folded blazer. Rolled up the pressed sleeves, and loosened and slipped out of his tie in seconds. Once the last bit of silk had joined its fellows in a neat, perfect pile, he moved forward a step. Jiao-long tensed, centred himself. And like that, once more, it was over. The man had him pinned back against his now-kneeling body, one arm around his neck as his free hand literally ripped the tattered cloths off him. He didn't even have time to react, only flailed fruitlessly as he was picked up and tossed bodily into the water. It splashed everywhere, violently, and Jiao-long was sure he heard the small child rooting for this man as he forced him under the water and pulled him back up, sitting him shivering and totally shocked against the back of the tub. The man sat back and eyed him.
"There. Don' make me do it again. I don' like pickin' on people ain't mah own size." Jiao-long merely stared at him, eyes huge and gleaming. In...water? In massive amounts of water? What for? Arms still hugging his shivering form, he gazed down at the pool he sat in. There was the sound of something snapping sharply, but before he could even look up the man's hands were shoved into his hair, and Jiao-long began to flail once more. Rough fingers massaged his scalp, digging all over, as a warmth moved over his skin. What was he doing! "Kid - hold still!" He was shoved down again, a little less roughly, and stopped moving, begrudgingly. Whatever he was doing, though odd, seemed fairly harmless for now. Not worth the fight. The man reached for a cup by the side of the tub, scooped a generous amount of water into it, and began to carefully rinse out Jiao-long's hair.
"There, see? 'S jes' like gettin' a showa' from the street faucets. 'Cept 'lot less people starin', wantin' some'in' outta ya." Jiao-long watched as the stream of soapy water, dark with grime, rolled over the man's hand that had been placed before his eyes. Careful indeed. He sniffed. "I'm Evander," he introduced as he sat back, placing the cup on the floor by him and reaching for a large hairbrush. He continued conversationally as he worked stubborn, years-old knots from Jiao-long's hair. The boy sat still and silent. "I work fa' Shinra. Department of Administrative Research. Turks. An' truth be told, I'm not the one supposed to be watchin' over ya. But they wanted ya cleaned up an' all, an' I...well, I'm not about to let 'em beat 'cha first night, when ya not even clean or nothin'." Jiao-long flinched, as the hairbrush caught, and the man - Evander - apologised softly. "What about 'chu? Ya gotta name?" Jiao-long sat still for a long moment. The way this man spoke, his inflection, made it difficult for him to catch all of his words. Midgarian wasn't a language he was fluent in yet. He understood alright that the man wanted his name, though. Why, he had no idea, but he wasn't about to give in to him. Evander sighed, and left the task of burshing his hair to lather and wash it once more.
"Look, if ya don' wanna tell me, I'm not gonna force ya. Thing is, if ya do, they won' have ta force ya. And they're not nearly as nice as I am. I promise." Another pause, as Evander rinsed his hair and began to run his fingers through it. Thick, silky, smooth, and dark, under all that. He was definitely a beautiful youth, as they all must have been able to tell, even looking at him in the state he had been in. Evander shook his head. "How does a kid like you end up-"
"Zheng Jiao-long." Evander paused, hesitated, and leaned down some to attempt meeting the kid's eyes. They were down, however, his arms still wrapped protectively around himself and his head bowed low. A small smile crossed Evander's face, and he nodded.
"A'ight, then," he said, sitting back up to work more on Jiao-long's hair. "Zheng Jiao-long. Nice ta meet 'cha." Jiao-long cringed at the pronunciation of his name by this man's strange speech, but said nothing. Neither did Evander. He'd gotten what he needed, and it wasn't his job to entertain young kids. At least, not for the Turks. The small creature who had snuck so easily over to stand in the doorway, fingers in his mouth as he blinked large teal eyes at Jiao-long, was his only real responsibility. For now.
Once clean, Jiao-long let Evander lead him out of the tub, dry him off as uninvasively as possible, and followed the man into the other room, where a set of clothing was laid out for him. Black pants that slid in Jiao-long's fingers like water, as Evander pulled him back and shoved a sleeveless black shirt of the same material over his head. Before he could move to do the same with the pants, however, Jiao-long moved away from him, shooting daggers from his eyes at the man as he stood back and watched him finish dressing with a look of utter skepticism. He moved away after only a moment, however, and Jiao-long listened to him usher the red-haired child into another room, talk to him for a moment, move off to the bathroom, and emerge a second later pulling on his jacket. Jiao-long actually stopped as, in the span of a blink, the man had performed three sharp movements and managed to lay the jacket onto himself perfectly.
"Well, ya' comin' or what?" Evander offered, the tiniest of smirks playing at the edges of his eyes, something Jiao-long easily recognised as pride. Hesitantly, he followed the man to the door, where he was bowed out, eyes down momentarily. As he looked back up, however, he started violently, and moved back into an offensive posture, only to be stopped against Evander's legs.
"Not this time, Zheng Jiao-long." That voice...was it really the voice of the man who had just taken care of him in his apartments? The rough scrape in the lowest tone of those words, his accent rougher and more clipped into sharp syllabic rhythm, where in those few words his entire being seemed to exude a dark cloud of something Jiao-long recognised instantly. A split-second, and he'd turned, ready to strike the man with the orange hair, but as every time before, he was snatched into a binding hold before he could so much as think. It was then that, in the clutches of the first real monsters he'd ever seen, Jiao-long screamed.
