Firstly I do not own FF7, this is simply a fan fiction.
Secondly, I do not own Reno or Rude or any of the characters from FF7, this is simply a fan fiction where I have put them together as adversaries to explain their eventual partnership as we all know that this eventuallyhappens sooner or later and I am man who likes accuracy with his stories and characters.
Thirdly, though already partially complete I cannot guarantee that the updates will be speedy as I work full time and have multiple projects on the go currently. Updates will largely depend on my mood and motivation. I have found reviews help.
Finally, I would like to thank anyone who reads this for their time. I hope you will not find it wasted.
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Chapter 1
Night fell over Midgar but the sounds of construction never ceased; metal clanged on metal as girders were set in place, the buzzing drills of hydraulic equipment broke out in the silence, the sparking and crackling of welders soldering layers of protective sheets of metal over the industrial skeletons dazzled and flashed like a light show all over the massive construction project, the chattering of workmen mixed in with the clanking of tools to make the spectacle as noisy as it was breath taking.
The noise, the smell and the sight were amazing at times; it was as though it all was a staged performance designed to impress the audience of thousands of citizens that lived amongst the worksites and the noise. Perhaps in a certain sense it was; it was certainly worth the watching and waiting for at least one of the many citizens of Midgar who gazed up at the growing tower.
As much as President Shinra would have liked to grandiosely announce that all this work was for the benefit of providing those living here with more comfortable lives they would all have known his words for the hollow lies they were, the truth this was as much about bettering his own position here and cementing his claim as the de-facto governor as it was about gaining their support for his regime.
This tower was his masterpiece, this was his design and if he'd cared enough to give it a name other than 'the current work at hand' then its title would have dramatically been called; 'the start of the future'.
Yes, here began the future of Shinra and it promised to be bright indeed if this work pace kept up!
It would be even brighter than the illuminating spotlights that lit up the massive tower that was being built for him to look over all that he owned. It would elevate him higher than all others in this city and then he would direct all he saw from on high upon its completion.
The construction of this tower would bind all the plates together under the Shinra Company's supervision and break up this current "Section" business that had gripped the plates.
Lately people were talking about giving the different plates their own names and whilst this wasn't exactly the first time he'd heard of such a notion this was still the first time he'd seen growing popularity for its approval.
Naming a plate was a minor detail, but it basically provided the people who lived on them with more autonomy, and to President Shinra this was a bad thing.
Names were powerful here in Midgar because a name could instil fear or awe. It could fill you with belief, and in this case that belief would be that you could accomplish more than just being an extension of the massive Corporation that you worked for. If people started living on the Plate they'd named then it would only encourage them to want more say in how their plate was run.
Giving in to other people's wishes was not something the President did lightly, and especially not when it encouraged this strange wish for independence!
Such independent thinking was bad for business; it would dilute the current absolutism with which he was able to rule if he showed he could be moved by a popular appeal.
And if people started thinking they could change where they lived from a number in a name… well it might lead to them thinking they deserved more than just the name – it might even lead to a populist attempt at seceding away from Shinra's authority altogether!
… His train of thought was an alarmist view admittedly, but it was still sound and had a certain logic to it. But even then it wasa possibility, and President Shinra didn't want to leave anything to chance; he wanted absolute certainty in this matter. So no he would not allow this "Name plate" hysteria business to get any more out of hand than it already had.
The President looked out of his window upon the marvellous spectacle of the growing tower with a shine to his eyes that was as much power lust as it was emotion for all that he had accomplished. He marvelled at what he had built out of a simple Power Company sometimes.
Shinra was a great power in this city at the moment, indeed it was arguably the most powerful in the city right now thanks to its monopoly of the power supply.
Once the tower was built then it certainly would be the greatest; the tower would make a marvellous monument to the ambitions of the Shinra Electric Power Company and serve as a testament that the designs of one man could be realised if you had the will to create it, and if one man could realise his own dreams then could he not create something for all men? The tower would serve as a political rallying point; a man that could get things done was a man you wanted in charge!
The President nodded to himself with a stiff upper lip and then drank down some of the fiery liquor that he had poured himself earlier before he'd come to the window to watch the construction work.
President Shinra wanted to be the man in charge of Midgar so badly that he would do anything to get it. His son Rufus apparently shared this trait along with his father which was a little worrying, but not worth getting alarmed about just yet.
The true danger to the President lay with the fact that his boy was too young and his head too full of dangerous ideas. The President was admittedly a ruthless businessman with extremely high ambitions, but he still thought within the realm of reason. What Rufus was proposing could only be called 'delusions of grandeur' and the methods by which he believed the ends should be met were very distasteful to his old man at times.
He'd called Rufus to join him when he'd heard that he had voiced lately that the profits that his father was spending on keeping the people comfortable during this massive construction period were ruinously high and there were other ways to meet that end without the cost.
The President turned to face his son now, the thin younger man staring back at him was every bit his son except for something about his eyes that made him feel that Rufus wasn't entirely human sometimes.
The President had mastered a poker face to best every other rival he'd met in the world during his rise to power, but he had never seen anyone with eyes like his son.
As the needle pokes into the skin to find a vein to draw out a patients blood so his son seemed able to look into other persons eyes and get the truth out of them merely by staring at them until they relented what he wanted.
This wasn't what impressed the President for he was certain the boy had learned that trick from him, but just as a needle can draw things out it can also inject things too, and it seemed that his son was also able to do with his gaze… the President felt the boy's gaze on him even now and could almost believe his body was betraying him, it were as though his son were injecting some sort of poison into him to make him aware of how old he was getting and how some day he would have to relinquish power over to him...
Why not now, he mused, why not just have this silliness over and done with and just hand it over to Rufus…?
The second he turned and confronted the boy the spell was broken. His son was a human – nothing more! He would have to wait until he was dead before he had control over the company.
The President felt weary for this was how he felt all the time with his son… he felt he was under siege to surrender the company with every conversation the two of them had… and Rufus somehow made him feel like this with just his eyes!
"You don't need to spend all that money, you know." The boy said in his eerily soft and serious voice "You hold the power to cut off their standards of living literally with a word and the push of a button. You do know you can do that, don't you sir?" Rufus asked him with just the hint of insolence to his voice.
The President frowned at that comment and the title. Not once had his son ever called him 'Dad'. The best he'd once managed from him was the impersonal title of 'Father' and only when a large company of people had been present and its use at the time would have been beneficial to the boy.
He asked if Rufus had a point or if he was simply pointing out the obvious; of course he knew he had that power.
"I see. Sometimes I just wonder, that's all." his son said in a soft musing tone.
Ah, there it was. The thoughtful way he spoke sometimes gave away the underlying feelings that Rufus had for him. He knew Rufus was waiting for him to die, but it was still hard for him to accept it sometimes. It was unfair that his own son was his biggest rival for power in this world and to two of them could not get on, but life was not fair.
And neither was he when his son spoke to him like that. He hated insolence.
"I see." He replied to his child in his loftiest voice "Well when I want a boy'sopinion about business and politics I suppose I shall know who to ask for it, won't I Rufus?" He replied brusquely.
His son had flushed at that barb. His age would always be a sensitive subject for him until he was old enough to be considered a man. There were those who claimed he was too young for his position, and those people would always think Rufus would be too young for it.
"I just think you're approaching this the wrong way." His son suggested, his face cooling quickly now.
"Oh?" the President asked his prodigy.
Rufus then told him he was being too soft about all the noise of the construction by stuffing the cotton into peoples ears per se, when what he should do instead to show people that the noise was least of their concerns. The quality of life they enjoyed was not a gift made out to them by the Ancients, it was a debt that they'd taken out by wanting to enjoy the benefits of using the power they enjoyed from the Shinra Company. This was a debt that they could always retract and perhaps then those who complained would value what they had right now when it was taken from them briefly and 'accidentally'. He could always reassure them that the construction work would not be much longer afterwards and that would be enough for them.
"That is an infamous suggestion Rufus." the President stated "They pay us for the use like everyone else, so by what right should I take it from them because they complain for being where others are not? Do you not see it from their point of view? So I say let them be distracted by all our fairs and shows during this busy period of the construction, I would rather risk the high cost of entertaining them presently than the future cost that angering them might bring."
Rufus was silent for a second as though decided if his father was taking him seriously or not "The money they give you is for the power the use to live in comfort, not the land they're living on! In the olden times living on someone's land was expected to be repaid with by continued loyalty to the state or realm, these people who use our energy should be made to understand there is a cost to living here in such a time of expansion and development and putting up with a little noise is one of those costs. Why don't you point out to them that they're living on your land and like any unruly tenants they have to obey the rules or their homes can be given to more grateful families!"
The President was gobsmacked for a moment, amazed at his sons brazen nature to dictate to his own father about his business… but then he'd reminded himself that Rufus was young and full of the certainty of youth too. Ah yes…
He gently pointed out to his son that the people living the closest to the racket of the tower being built would all probably disagreed with the notion that this was a time to be happy or thankful; peace was one of life's simplest pleasures and right now it was being denied to them.
This statement was also a hint that his son completely missed out on or deliberately ignored.
"But they're part of greatness!" he protested.
Yes, well... President Shinra harrumphed as he took a sip of brandy… greatness was easy to appreciate in the long run but it was certainly hard to appreciate in the short term, and people always lived in the short term because the short term was the here and now and that was something that affected them.
So that was why he'd made the 'ruinous' costs to have them relocated in some cases and entertained in others, he explained, it served him well look like he cared about their well being for sometimes it was better to be loved rather than feared.
He looked at his son expectantly, If only is son might think from the other perspective sometimes, he lamented privately, then what a brilliant leader Rufus could be!
His son as usual didn't disappoint him for what he expected from him.
"Mm. Well as you say sir. After all, we all know that friends and followers you have to buy things for are worth keeping…" Rufus deliberately made the comment a little too smartly for his father to not get angered at.
Spare the rod and spoil the child… he thought resignedly, his brows beetled together in a scowl at his sons words and the President smacked his boy hard across his impudent mouth for his smart remarks.
"You'll do well to keep those comments to yourself in future my boy, or I'll do worse than smack you for saying them!" he threatened softly.
The blonde boy raised his fingers to his mouth, the tips came away red from a thin split at the corner of his lip where the blow had drawn blood.
Giving his father a cold look the boy simply turned and walked out of the room, his face red from the smack and his lips tightly shut.
The President sighed and wondered if he might have announced too early in his career that his son was going to inherit the business from him, it had bred nothing good in his son, the arrogance with which he held himself was unbelievable at times!
The President turned away from the future inheritor of his company and focussed on the here and now; though Shinra was secure in its assets and position in Midgar, it was by no means uncontested for that position.
Before Shinra had risen into the political scene another player had been getting its own way with running Midgar as it wanted it to run.
That family was the wealthy family 'Dellora', it had been running its own areas of the slums and had risen to the plate along with the other elite when they'd been erected above the slums.
In the shadows Dellora had watched as Shinra had been growing and lately it seemed that the brighter that Shinra lit the city with its electricity and announced its supremacy the darker Dellora's intentions became towards them.
A collision between the two families was going to happen for they were both too powerful not to be wary of each other.
But those criminals was still too influential in the local politics of Midgar for the President to do anything against them yet, oh there were rumours that the family was up to its eyeballs in illegal activities that gave them their incredible wealth and contacts and they were probably all true enough, but when you had enough friends in high places to be all but immune from prosecution it really didn't matter what people said about you so long as they didn't have enough evidence to hold it up in court.
In any case, here in Midgar it was rarely what you knew, it was who you knew. And no one who wanted Dellora out of the city knew anyone highly placed enough to get them put away through the legitimate route. Not even the President could do that yet; he didn't have enough support to dictate quite as freely as his son seemed to think. Shinra was a key player, but they weren't loved enough by the people to start dictating things like that just yet.
If the Shinra Company wasn't so useful and beneficial then they'd probably be as hated as the Dellora's for their wealth and status by the elite circles in the city.
But the Dellora's didn't have to operate with the love of the people and a man prepared to go up against the mafia family would also have to be prepared to risk his reputation by going through the sham of a court hearing (where the Dellora family's lawyers would first discredit your accusations for the court of rich social elites in the Dellora's pocket to scorn) and then would come the subsequent alienation from your peers who would be afraid to be associated with you when the Dellora's came for their pound of flesh.
When that inevitably happened you suddenly found yourself alone and facing a whole family of enemies, and this was how things had operated in this city before Shinra.
But now things were changing and it was in Shinra's favour and the President knew that Dellora could be beaten by him because unlike all the others who'd stood up to the mafia family before he owned a private company and had his own department that dealt with scum like them.
But if he removed Dellora now it would only cause unrest; this city had too many people who liked what Dellora offered them, so he had to offer them something bigger and better.
Once he'd gained the love of the masses then the Dellora's power to challenge him would effectively be gone because he'd be able to announce himself as the governor of Midgar and then set up a martial law that would allow troublemakers to be rooted out for the safety of the city and the security of its future… and the Dellora's would be the top of that list with their illegal activities, and most deliciously there would be nothing they could do to stop him without further cementing his claims about them.
It was all in the future. President Shinra relished the thought of a hostile takeover of the Dellora family but he didn't have the means just yet… but soon.
He moved his plans beyond the Dellora's and considered the stage after. Once the Dellora's were gone then there were the slums to consider. He thought about that den of iniquity with disgust and fascination.
Too many people lived in the ungoverned slum district beneath where he was building his shining new model city. If the Dellora family could be called a symptom of the disease that was corrupting Midgar then its source would undoubtedly be found somewhere in the Slums where the family had risen from.
Beneath the plates it was a different world; messy and ungoverned. It was rough down there and crime was rampant along with poverty. Those people certainly weren't the desirable sort to have up here on the plates, but there was little he could do about them.
He was a little more reluctant to rid himself of the Slums despite as much of a nuisance as they were, after all what good was being rich if the poor lived up here on the plate beside them? There had to be someone to look down upon and something to aspire to be for his system of rule to work.
That aside, there was also the fact that the President actually enjoyed some of what was hidden down there under the plates.
Don Corneo, the owner of the Honey Bee Inn offered the temptations of the flesh at reasonable prices, and whilst that sort of thing or something close might be present up here on the plates it would surely be a 'members only' thing that would mean some of the more liberally minded members of the higher class of Midgar would know he enjoyed certain vices, and the President of Shinra did not like the thought of someone having that kind of leverage on him.
Of course the services he got from Don Corneo's establishment was irrelevant when it came to his view of the man who owned it; Don Corneo was a jumped up and very expendable pimp who thought he had power because he used fine looking young girls for the pleasure of others. Upon receiving his patronage the President had been clear with Don Corneo - to him 'President Shinra' did not exist and the man who was paying him right now should be thought of only as a businessman who was paying well for the establishment's discretion to keep his good name secure.
Still, he wasn't a fool. He was paying fewer trips there these days and in the past whenever he'd gone there he'd taken on a secure false identity and made sure not to wear anything that he could not dispose of after – he had money to burn as easily as clothes.
One day he'd take care of both these tumours that were 'Dellora' and 'the Slums', and then he'd build himself a shining new world… he would see all those things happen once he'd built his tower to show all of Midgar who was boss here.
The first step was the love of the people, he had it in mind to acquire another branch for his business to grow in to and that was in entertainment. But a new competitor had risen in this field lately; Marmont.
Neville Marmont was a businessman like Shinra, he'd made his money in shares and owned the majority in most entertainment companies around Midgar that weren't already Shinra owned. The President had tried several times to buy out the shares from Marmont, but unsurprisingly the other man had refused to hear of it.
Now he needed what Marmont had more than ever – how much more might Shinra be considered right for government if it not only powered your house with energy but also connected your calls and broadcasted your favourite programs and advertisements?
How good would Shinra then seem to the common man who was so influenced by what he saw and heard?
The President nodded. Right then, the man had refused him enough times. It was time to take the gloves off!
Picking up the telephone he dialled up the private line to one of his many departments and after only ringing twice the other end picked up.
"Yes Sir?"
"Ah, Director" the President greeted the other man as he swirled the contents of his glass "It appears I have a job for you, come by my residence so I may show you the details."
Veld, the man in charge of the 'Investigative Department of General Affairs' replied he would be there within half an hour and the President hung up with a satisfied smile as he emptied the remains of his glass.
