Disclaimer: Vincent and the Turks belong to Square-Enix.
A/N: Well, I just typed this for fun, so I haven't edited it or anything like that. Please enjoy!
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His breathing came fast, his legs shook. Vincent stared, wide-eyed with fear and excitement as a broad-shouldered man walked confidently up towards him, holding the handle of a gun out.
'Hey, boy.' The man growled, deep in his throat. 'I'm your coach.' He grinned as Vincent gazed up at him. The new cadet was only ten years old.
Swallowing his fear, Vincent took the gun, hardly daring to look at it. He felt the unfamiliar handle, the smooth steel. He could hear the click of the safety as he switched it on and off.
'Alright, the others are through here. Well, the boys anyway,' the tall man said. He led Vincent through a steel door into a broad training room where hundreds of boys practiced with wooden training swords, others with paint-loaded guns.
Vincent had begged his father to let him be a Turk. Night after night, he had brought the subject up, pleading. Now, he finally had his wish. The problem was he did not want it anymore.
His terror slowly returned as every boy in the huge gym turned around to face him. He could feel their enmity, radiating out and pressing at him until it was all he could do to lock his feet in place.
He stared back. Then a voice slightly deeper than his piped up.
'Let's get him!'
Vincent swung his gun up to face them as they charged, and fired rapidly, unsurprised at the paintball that spun out and exploded onto another boy's face. Grinning hideously, a large, stocky boy swung his smooth training stick to whack around Vincent's ankles.
Hiding the pain, Vincent tried to fire again, and missed as a different boy crashed into him, sending him down in a press of bodies. When he struggled to his feet, he could see that the fight had degraded so that some of the boys simply fought among themselves. He tried to catch his breath as he barely dodged one stick that whirred above his head, and found a paintball smashing into his face.
Gasping for air beyond the gluggy red paint that coated his mouth, Vincent fired at the other boy, only to see him dodge away, laughing. He felt a hard stick smash into his back, followed by a paintball, and whirled around to face his attackers, who had vanished.
Feeling childish tears prick his eyes, he scolded himself as he scanned the room for any more hostile attacks. The boys were still fighting amongst themselves, but they soon remembered their prey and came after him.
He fired until all the paintballs were gone, backing helplessly into a corner. Now, it was time to start dodging.
He managed to jump over the low stick that threatened to bang his ankles, but there was no such luck for the second one, which smashed into his middle. A paintball narrowly missed his head, but another stick found its target and struck his head straight on. Stars began to float in front of his eyes.
He tossed his gun at the nearest boy's head, who caught it easily, frowning.
'Hey!' he protested, 'that's a violation of the rules!' In order to drive this point home, he levered his own gun at Vincent and fired a paint-ball into his stomach.
Now, as well as being dizzy, backed into a corner, and unarmed, Vincent found he had an upset stomach to contend with. Some of the boys backed away as he retched, but he was not finished just yet. Taking advantage of the situation, he lunged for a weedy-looking boy holding a gun limply between his hands, yanking at it until it pulled away freely. Feeling as though he ought to thank him, Vincent looked around for another target instead, firing quickly on the stocky boy who had smashed his stick into Vincent's ankles before. The paintball missed again, landing on the boy behind.
Vincent swung his arm mechanically from side to side, firing at all of the boys as they tried to come closer. The paintballs were not bullets, but they definitely stung.
One wiry-muscled boy, older than the rest, came at him from a diagonal point, dodging the erratic bullets with expert grace and ease. Reaching Vincent, he gave him a small, apologetic smile, before slamming the back of his hand into the small boy's head. With a moan, Vincent crumpled. The last thing he heard was the coach's voice:
'Alright, boys. Initiation's over for this stupid kid.'
Vincent stared at the ceiling of the sickbay, depressed about his shoddy performance. He wondered how he could ever face that training hall again. The coach had called him stupid! He rolled over, wincing as the bed pressed against the spreading bruises on his side, and tried to sleep.
The coach leaned outside against the Turk training building, nonchalantly chatting with an important-looking man in a suit.
'Oh, well, you know the boys,' he was saying. 'They try damn hard, but they're stupid. They just don't get it. Girls, they're smart, but they don't care about fighting. They're stupid with their swords. They twirl them like bloody cheerleading batons!' He snorted. 'They're all too soft. We need to toughen them up a bit.'
The man in the suit nodded, pondering something. Then he said quietly, 'I heard a new boy came in, took it rough in initiation. How is he?'
'Oh, yeah,' the coach muttered. 'Huh, of course Tor had to show off again. Knocked him out with his hand, didn't bother with his damn sword.'
'That's a shame,' the man murmured.
'Yeah, well, I'll just have to remind Tor how old he is. Thirteen, and acting like a ten-year old. He'll get himself killed, mark my words.'
'So, I guess the new boy isn't any good… Pity. I was thinking of giving him to Shinra for experiments, but Hojo will only take the best.'
'Oh, he's good,' the coach said proudly. 'Give me a few more years with him. I promise he'll be one of the best.'
Vincent sat up, rubbing his eyes tiredly before pulling out a notepad and pencil to begin a rough letter home.
Dear father, he wrote, I want to go home…