This is a rewrite of one of my favorite stories that I've ever written. It REALLY needed to be redone.
If you think Vincent is a little OOC throughout this rewrite, just imagine him starting tickle fights, making period jokes, and making many, MANY stupid references. Also, Chaos and Shadow made out. It was quite the ride.
I should just go back to the original and rename the original Violet Shadows "Vincent does ALL the drugs."
Anyway, I hope you enjoy :)
I shake my head firmly, eyes falling to the scuffed surface of the table before me. My sister's words echo through my head, a whisper of dying hope laced in her words.
"Lucy, I just..." I sigh, frustrated. "I don't think it's a good idea. This is your child we're talking about here—not to mention that mad scientist."
"Professor Hojo isn't mad," she defends, lifting her pointed chin defiantly and narrowing her brown eyes on the wooden floor. "He merely takes pride in his unprecedented studies. They're not exactly what you would call socially acceptable."
"None of this is socially acceptable," I counter, rolling my eyes and sinking back into my seat. I cross my arms over my chest tightly, glaring at the foggy window to my right before heaving a sigh and turning back to Lucrecia. "And what about Valentine?" She cringes quite visibly, uncomfortably shifting in her seat and gazing at the door to the library longingly. Scanning the room for any sign of the gloomy agent, she gives in and straightens.
"He'll be fine," she replies, her voice barely crawling over the edge of a whisper. "He's sensitive, but he'll get over it soon enough." I huff a sarcastic laugh; it sounds more like she's trying to convince herself. She's leaving the perfect image of a man behind (granted, he's a Turk—so not quite perfect) for a madman who does nothing but rant and rave about aliens and creating the perfect soldier.
"Yes, what could go wrong," I mock, leaning forward and slamming my hands down on the table just to make her jump. I stand so abruptly that my chair clatters to the ground behind me. "Except, y'know, a few issues with your child!"
"I really wish you wouldn't worry so much," Lucrecia says with a sharp edge to her voice.
"He's my nephew!"
"Hush, Violet!" she scolds, scanning the empty library nervously before gently grasping my forearm, an earnest look in her innocent eyes. "There's no need to be so loud." I scoff, jerking away from her touch and starting toward the door.
"Right," I mutter, stretching my arms and shaking my head bitterly. "I'm gonna go get some air."
"Enjoy," Lucrecia murmurs, frowning and facing the window.
Rolling my eyes, I throw the door open and make sure to slam it hard behind me before charging down the hallway. Irritated, I wrap my arms around myself tightly and storm down the dim hallway, unsure of where I'm going as I fume over Lucrecia's purely idiotic decisions. "The older sibling is always smarter" my Shinra-kissing-ass. I don't realize my company until I crash straight into them, stumbling into the wall to keep myself from sprawling out on top of them. I follow the dark tie in my face up to the slim, pale neck of a man, followed sharply by an angled face and crimson eyes that speak volumes about Shinra's Turk training. The man's emotionless.
"Sorry, Vincent," I huff, straightening quickly and dusting off his shirt for good measure. Maybe as a sign of formality... I'm not sure how socializing works, if I'm totally honest. "Didn't see you there. You blend in with the gloom, y'know?"
"It's fine," the Turk utters, shaking his head. His eyes may be unreadable, but his guard is down and his body language gives him away freely. He stands at an awkward, lanky height naturally, but today his spindly, pale fingers are scratching at the back of a messy pile of ebony hair that sticks at odd angles atop his head. A bizarre look overtakes his stoic face and I know he wants to talk. However, Vincent Valentine has never had a way with words. "Can I speak with you?"
"Now?" He nods, solemn. I shrug, nervously scratching the back of my head and forcing a light laugh. "Sure, why not?" I just hope he hasn't received orders to terminate me. He strides past me toward the nearest door and I swallow hard. Termination in Shinra... Well, to put it nicely, Shinra's never had a way with words, either. They prefer their bullets and poisons and mysteries.
The old door creaks open, the chipped paint clearly peeling from the top down, and Vincent leads the way into the piano room. I close the door behind me gently and scan over the familiar setting carefully. The grand piano in the corner, the collection of matching tables and chairs, the bar with its shiny countertop and spinning stools, and the wall featuring my curious endeavors into art that take place in my downtime. Vincent keeps his back to me, tracing a finger through the dust on the glossy black piano silently and jamming his other hand into the pocket of his navy blue slacks. Finally, he takes a deep breath, turning just enough that I can make out the profile of his face as he speaks.
"It's Lucrecia. Is she blinded to the truth about Hojo?"
"She doesn't think so," I scoff, rolling my eyes and leaning my back against the paneled wall. "And really, she does know all the facts. She's just looking past his faults." I shrug, my face twisting into a bitter smile. "Though, the whole man in and of himself is a tragic mistake."
"She does this of her own accord?" he asks, inquiring for clarity.
"Oh yeah. She thinks Lab Boy's a real catch."
"Lovely," Vincent grumbles, taking me by surprise. He's had his moments, to be sure, but I haven't heard him utter a sarcastic comment in months. "And you have tried to convince her otherwise?"
"Do you know me?" I snap, half-teasing. "You really think I'd just sit back while she screws herself over?"
"Right." He nods curtly, staring at the sheets covering the canvases on the faded walls. "Perhaps, then, our target must be Hojo."
"Do you have any idea how much manpower it would take to dissuade that man?" I ask incredulously. You can't be serious. "The guy's crazy." Vincent doesn't reply, his black brows drawing together. I sigh, shaking my head. But... What have I got left to lose? It's all been sent to Hell. "Listen... Do you think he'd take me over her for his experiments?"
He frowns, facing me. "Do you have any idea what that entails?"
"Maybe, maybe not. But what's left here for me, Vincent? You at least have Lucrecia. Just... Let me try, at least. I'm the perfect willing specimen."
"I don't think that's wise."
"Neither am I," I shrug, feigning indifference. "But it's for Lucy. You told me you'd do anything for her, and I know I'd do anything for her son."
"Is this because—"
"No," I cut him off sharply, straightening and holding my hand out for him to shake it. "This is for me. Promise you won't get in the way?"
"...I swear it." Vincent steps right past me, leaving the room without so much as a goodbye. With a sigh, I drop my hand to my side and trace a finger down the side of a covered painting.
"What would you do if you saw me now?" I murmur, breathing a final breath of the room's musty air before leaving. Though my heart hammers in my chest, never once do I look back.
"You said you'd let her be," I choke out, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "I stayed because... I stayed to protect her!" I fall to my hands and knees, trembling. Nausea washes over me like a rushing river and my head spins as though I'm tumbling beneath those white-capped waves. Pristine black shoes stroll past casually, a cackle erupting from the greasy-haired scientist wearing them. "To protect them," I correct, hissing in pain as a clammy hand grips my arm and jerks me upright onto my unsteady feet.
"I said this, I said that," Hojo sneers, his pitchy voice burning my ears as he cackles. "You know, she authorized all this. You and Sephiroth." A dreamy look flashes over his beady black eyes and he chuckles, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his hooked nose. "I can't turn down an opportunity as ripe as this, I'm afraid."
"Opportunity!?" I practically shriek, my world rocking right and left as I try to grasp reality. Instead, I grasp the front of Hojo's pressed white lab coat, staining it with my bloody fingers. "He's your child!"
"Yes, he is my son," Hojo replies indifferently, shoving me down onto the smooth, cold metal table in the center of his laboratory and busying himself with the restraints. I'm too disoriented beneath the blinding white lights to fight back. "And as such, he will be the strongest, most successful man Shinra Inc. has ever seen!" He laughs his sharp, squawky laugh, shaking his head. "I don't care how much Jenova cells or experimenting it takes—he will be the one."
"You're disgusting," I grit, letting my head fall back onto the table. "He's a human being, Hojo, not a lab rat."
"Human? Oh no," Hojo snickers. "He's far from it, and he'll be far more than superhuman when I'm done with him."
"You sick little—" A sharp electric shock jolts though my body, cutting me off and leaving me sputtering on the tabletop, gasping for air.
"Let's up the voltage this week, hm?" Hojo sneers, pulling a pen from his pocket and flashing a menacing smile.
"Valentine has regrettably passed," Hojo announces all too gleefully, stepping into my cell with his arms crossed triumphantly. I remain chained to the wall, my eyes too heavy to open fully. I glare up at him through my eyelashes, unable to speak around the swelling in my throat. "But, no worries. Your pathetic sister made an effort to save him with Chaos cells! He's turned into the very beast that slaughtered his father—oh, the irony!" He giggles maniacally and shakes his head, his ponytail sweeping across the back of his blood-splattered lab coat. "It made me wonder, Miss Violet, what would happen if I found my own friend from Hades... And bound it to your soul?" He throws his head back, cackling uncontrollably. I watch unaffected, my suffering having extended to the point that I just. don't. care. "Could you imagine the power?" he cries.
Hojo pulls a syringe from his pocket, creeping closer and closer with the needled vial of black fluid. Beady eyes flit between the viscous substance and me, his victim. Creeping forward, the scientist suppresses a chuckle and shakes his head before kneeling before me and gripping my arm. I try to pull away, my muscles screaming in agony at the tug of their newly repaired tissue.
"Don't," I try to plead, but my voice won't work past a wheeze and my lips move in vain. Hojo's brows furrow and he pinches my skin between his gnarled fingers, inserting the needle.
"After all this conditioning, you should survive this," he mutters, patting my head with a twisted smile and stepping back. An agonizing burn immediately overtakes every nerve in my body, contorting my face into a display of anguish. Professor Hojo chuckles, throwing his head back and his arms to the side as laughter bubbles out of his chest while I writhe on the ground. "It's working! All this time and you haven't gone to waste!" He wipes a tear away from the corner of his eye and adjusts his glass, a smug smile overtaking his face. "Now please, Miss Violet, be welcoming to Shadow."
"You're free to go." Hojo's voice is flat and empty as he unlocks the exit to the Shinra mansion that started my home and ended my prison. "Leave. There's nothing left for me to do to you."
"You're joking," I rasp, scowling at him. "This is a trap." But my nose quivers at the first smell of fresh air in three years and my legs scream for me to run. Whatever happened to Lucy and Valentine?
"It could be if you don't leave," Hojo retorts, arching a dark eyebrow. "I could easily shoot you where you stand. Now get out."
I eye him suspiciously a moment longer before bolting, legs pumping underneath me as fast as they'll carry me. Hojo watches as I leave, scribbling down a few notes on his clipboard before returning to the lab. I run until I'm outside of Nibelheim, gasping for air and doubling over to clutch my knobby knees with my scarred, bony hands. I grit my teeth, suppressing a cry as a sharp, hissing whisper stabs through my head, a voice only I can hear. A voice I spent endless days repeating for Hojo so he'd spare me a jab or two in his "experiments." I grimace; they were merely endeavors to see just how much torture I could withstand with this new... enhancement.
Now that you're free... Does this mean I too am free to come and go?
No, don't—
A blood-curdling scream rips through my skull and I collapse to the ground, clenching my head between my hands and choking on babbled pleas for the pain to stop. My hair curls out of my grasp, growing longer and longer, darker and darker. My joints and muscles pop and tear as I'm contorted into the taller, stronger figure of the demon that's tied to my soul. My eyes flicker open as the pain subsides, the gentle glow of brilliant violet reflecting off the sides of my nose as I straighten, flexing my taloned fingers and tracing my gaze up my glittering gray skin and across my thick leather armor. The hood over my head falls back from a head of long, black hair and suddenly I'm no longer Violet Crescent—I'm the harbinger of nightmares, the mistress of the dark, the master of fear: Shadow. Her charcoal gray lips peel back to reveal menacing white fangs, a blade materializing into her hand.
"Have you already forgotten who's in charge?" she snarls, towering high over the plains outside my hometown.
And thus begin my thirty years of torture, my memories of my time with Professor Hojo pursuing me relentlessly the whole way.
ALSO, I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT ORIGINALLY I HAD VIOLET'S PHYSICAL FEATURES MODELLED AFTER STELLA NOX FLEURET. THAT'S RIGHT, WE ADOPTED HER AFTER SQUARE ENIX THREW HER AWAY :D