The first scene doesn't feel right for some reason, but I had to get him into the HBI and this was the handiest way. Enjoy.

Assassination

The Don decided to celebrate his newest member's successful mission by giving him the opportunity to use his coupon at the earliest opportunity –ie. holding a massive orgy at the Honey Bee Inn. Then again, most situations, up to and including boredom, triggered the Don to go to the Inn. Still recovering from 2nd degree burns, Eric didn't think he was up for it yet, but couldn't think of a way to refuse. Thus he found himself alone in a cubicle with an extremely young girl, wondering if he'd last his hour session without her aggravating his burns and sending out audible screams into the main building, which wouldn't give the best impression to the rest of the gang.

"Hi." she said told him, leaning back on the bunk.

"Ummm...hi. What age are you?"

"Fourteen. Why?"

"Fourteen? Working in a brothel?"

"The Inn caters to everyone. We've been known to bring in dead Chocobos for clients with...unique tastes."

"...Ew. Are you sure you're old enough for your work?"

"Are you old enough to kill people?"

"I haven't killed anyone."

"Yet."

"Anyway, the Don selected me personally for you, so I must be fairly close to you. What age are you?"

"...Fifteen."

"Close enough, then. So..."

"Umm...look, I'll be honest, I'm recovering from serious burns here..."

"...But you don't think it's smart to refuse the Don?"

"Yep." He showed her the scars. She winced, but probably just because they were trained to agree with customers.

"Ok. Works for me. Just means I have to work less."

An explosion, then gunshots, came from outside. A machine gun, something that none of Corneo's were equipped with. Drawing his gun, he ran out of the cubicle. He wasn't much good with it yet, so hopefully it wouldn't come to a fight.

In the entrance hall of the Inn, six Shinra soldiers were standing in battle positions. There were bullet holes in the front wall, and the leading soldier had the Don pressed to one of them so he could see out.

"-track him?" the leader was saying.

"Yep. That gun arm is pretty distinctive. Brotch?"

"Yeah?"

"Tail the bruiser after he leaves."

"Gotcha."

"Will you let go of me n –who is she?

The soldier paused but didn't reply, releasing the Don after Brotch left. Don promptly drew a sub machine gun and cocked it under the soldier's ribs.

"Look down." the Don told him, grinning.

His target turned slowly, a handgun magically appearing in his hand, somehow having taken from Corneo's other holster without the man noticing. All around the room, people cocked weapons.

"Look down further."

By now, the entrance hall was full of Corneo's enforcers. One misstep would lead to a massacre.

"Wutaien standoff, fellas!" Botch yelled gleefully

"You won't kill me. The Shinra need me." But the Don was visibly nervous.

"True. But you can still serve Shinra minus an...appendage or two." The soldier lowered his aim.

That hit the mark. The Don went white. Tension grew. Then a woman emerged from a cubicle behind the Don and wrapped her arms around his neck. The little visible of the Shinra soldier's face suggested he was trying not to laugh.

Corneo struggled manfully to keep his focus, but it was always a losing battle. The woman wrapped around him was one of the Inns most senior employees. It wasn't long before, against his will, the gun barrel dipped slightly. The Shinra saw it, and an armoured fist sent the Don flying into the woman behind him. She was tall, and as such avoided getting a broken nose from the impact of his head snapping back, hitting her chin instead, but the Don was a heavy man, and he landed on her as they both fell backwards, knocking the unfortunate woman cold. Cushioned by her body, the Don regained consciousness quickly, but the Soldiers were long gone by the time the lackeys started firing.

The Don sat up. "Botch?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get their serial numbers?"

"I got the leader's-the rest's shouldn't be hard to find."

"Good. I want those men killed."

Of course, it wasn't quite as easy as that. As powerful as he was over the slums, the unsanctioned murder of Shinra employees was not something that could be done with impunity by any of Midgar's resident crime families, but especially the Don's, due to his unique situation.

There were four major non-Shinra gangs in Midgar. There had once been nine, but two had been brought down by inter gang wars, and two were mercilessly obliterated by Shinra after they overstepped their boundaries. What had happened to the final gang was now a Midgar slums legend. The gang had been the major traders of illegal drugs in the city, but their leader was imprisoned after the Turks brought down a major deal. Imprisoned, the leader became good with a guitar and, upon his release, launched his hit single I shot a man named Reno/Just to watch him die. It was an instant bestseller among everyone who hated the Turks (ie. almost everyone) and rendered an obscene profit to its writer, who then went legitimately into the music business and brought his gang with him. They all became obscenely rich, leaving behind a major vacuum in the less profitable drug smuggling niche, which had yet to be filled three years later.

But that was beside the point. Including the Corneos, there were four major gangs in Midgar. The Fujeo controlled the densely populated lower Sectors 3 and 4. The Fujeo were the most numerous of the gangs, but also financially the weakest. Their major money spinner was extortion, but because the sectors they controlled were so poor, it didn't have much of a yield. But there were far more Fujeos than any other gang, and they could afford to lose a dozen enforcers to take over a minor money spinner from the others and still consider it a victory. There were far too many people in the slums they controlled than was healthy, and they were desperate to expand their territory to alleviate the strain. They were a direct threat to the Corneos, held in check by Shinra.

The Massacci were the richest of the gangs, as they controlled the lucrative real estate market in Upper Sector Eight., running protection for the businesses and residences there. Upper Sector Eight was where the rich people who didn't have mansions lived, who could afford to pay large protection deals. They controlled Upper Sector Two as well, but that wasn't so profitable. What the Massacci didn't have were many gifted enforcers. As The Plate was heavily patrolled by Shinra, they didn't need too many. When they needed Enforcers they usually hired them from the other gangs.

The Samazi were firmly entrenched in Upper Sector Five, where Scarlet's manufactories were. Unlike the other gangs, they controlled just one sector, but they could not be dug out. Led by a renegade Shinra soldier, all the clan enforcers were well equipped with refuse from the factories, and the gang controlled the non-Shinra weapons trade in Midgar with an iron grip. Aside from that, they made their money by hiring out their enforcers to whoever needed them; usually the Massacci, but they'd take any contract. They were the best enforcers in the city –even Shinra had been known to hire them on occasion. The clan stayed based in their territory, and refused to spread out and dilute their forces. They never made a move towards an opposing clan, but if you attacked their territory, you would lose your invasion force to the last man.

Lower sectors five, six, and seven belonged to the Corneos. They were slums, but a few high earning businesses kept them afloat. The Honey Bee Inn, of course, had a huge annual turnover, as did the Boutique nearby (even Scarlet bought her dresses there), and Tifa's Seventh Heaven was widely considered one of the best establishments in the slums, rivaling even some of the high class restaurants and bars on the Plate who could afford to import high quality ingredients from Icicle or Wutai. The Don controlled more land than the other clans, so his enforcers were thinly spread, leaving him vulnerable. Realising this, he'd kept himself and his empire intact by making sure he was useful to the Shinra, getting them the information that they wouldn't find out otherwise and occasionally facilitating a murder that the Shinra didn't want directly connected with them. In exchange, they protected him from the other families and kept his rivals from expanding their territories. Murdering their employees would jeopardize this connection and put him at risk. So he had to be careful.

First, he filed a protest towards Heidegger demanding the execution of the six soldiers. This failed, as he had known it would –Heidegger did not want it to seem as though the Shinra were at the beck and call of criminals. But, after a few hours of negotiations, they struck a deal. Shinra would not investigate six mysterious deaths if the Don got them a location for the base of AVALANCHE. This was a waste of a valuable bargaining chip, but Heidegger made it clear that if it was refused he'd take the commission to Corneo's rivals. Thus a deal was struck.

It was a busy day for the Corneos in general. Brotch had successfully tracked Gun-Arm to Sector Seven, but he'd then lost him. Corneo passed this along to Heidegger, then sent Brotch back to narrow down the search. He did not return. Heidegger said that this was irrelevant, and mentioned to the Don in passing that he might want to move his assets out of the sector. The Don recalled his employees in Sector 7, seriously scared by the implication. Brotch still couldn't be found.

The downside to this deal was that Corneo had to instrument the deaths of his targets, something that was not easily done. He took no chances, splitting his squads into two squads of fifteen for the six soldiers designating three targets for each. The normal accepted figure for a hit squad was three per target, so Eric thought he was being a tad over-cautious. Soldiers weren't allowed to bring their guns home, so it shouldn't be any tougher than usual, right? He also sent his least experienced, most disposable enforcers in each group, which was why Eric found himself on one of the hit squads. He was cannon fodder, expected to die in place of anyone valuable. Botch, who was leading the squad, gave him some basic instruction with his gun until he could usually hit what he was aiming at a reasonable distance, but was advised that it was very different when shooting at somebody attacking you. All in all, it wasn't very encouraging.

Heidegger had said that an investigation wouldn't be launched, but that wouldn't do much good if they were caught in the act, so they split up on the train so as not to be noticed. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been necessary, but there'd been a crackdown by Shinra after the two reactors were blown up. So Eric was left in a seat on his own, examining the gun he'd been issued and wondering if it'd do him any good. The three targets lived in lower sector 1, which wasn't part of any major gang's territory, but any unclaimed territory was effectively No-Man's Land for any gang affiliated entity. There were minor gangs everywhere in the city, as well as independent groups like AVALANCHE, that weren't powerful enough to challenge the major gangs but could nevertheless defend their territory against a perceived incursion. And there was always Shinra.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by a voice over the carriage speakers.

"Would the gentleman in Car 4 who is pretending to examine his gun but is actually staring at that woman's chest please stop? You are fooling no-one, you filthy pervert." He glanced around the carriage and located a sign showing that he was in car 4, and a quick glance around ascertained that no-one else was holding a gun. He was also getting disapproving looks from other passengers. He sighed.

"Y'know, if you're going to do this every time I get on a train, you're eventually going to be fired" he said aloud, to empty air. There was a pause, then "Yeah, probably. But you make such an easy target, I can never resist" came out over the speakers. The other passengers relaxed.

Hmph...this's what I get for being friendly with a train guard...

A short time later, the guard at the end of the car strolled over.

"Sorry about that. Can't help it."

"You are going to be fired eventually if you keep doing that, you know."

She smiled behind her mask. "Well, I'll just have to scrounge off you until I get re hired, then, since it's your entire fault. Judging by the way you were making sure I noticed the gun, I take it you got the job? What's the wage like?"

"Not as good as a Shinra appointment. Most of the wage comes as perks. And, for the record, I didn't even notice you were on this car."

"Odd coincidence. Anyway, I'm going to have to take that –new regs after AVALANCHE attacked. You'll get it back when you leave the train."

"I'm on an assignment, so you'd better give it back!"

"Don't worry, theft would get me fired. You'll have to show me what you can do some day I'm not working. Good luck with whatever you're doing." He handed over the weapon and she returned to her post, slightly disappointed at the lack of resistance.

The I.D. scanner filled the carriage with flashing red light, and there was the usual rush of discovered people trying to avoid the lockdown. Having both a ticket and a legitimate I.D. supplied by the Don, he didn't have to worry about the scanner, but there were always a few opportunistic muggers who wanted to take advantage of the confusion. On this occasion, he was left unscathed, and shortly afterwards they arrived at Sector 1. station.

Lower Sector 1 was a run down but fairly safe area, but the recent attack on the reactor left security systems vulnerable. The area was no longer completely without electricity –ever conscious of loss of revenue, Shinra had rerouted surplus from the other reactors through the reactorless areas- but the emergency measures could not supply the same level of power as a fully functional reactor, and the street lights were less bright than was usual. This gave opportunities for ambushes, but no mugger would tangle with a party of fifteen men with guns, so they reached their first target house unchallenged. Just short of it, Botch, who was leading the group, paused for some final advice.

"Okay guys, listen up. Shinra soldiers aren't allowed bring their weapons home, but they are allowed bring their armour, and a lot of them have private sidearms for home use. This isn't a time for mercy. Shoot to kill, and make sure that you hit your target. If we have to fight, some of us are going to die, so they have to be dead before they know we're here. They don't know we're coming, but they'll be suspicious that Shinra released them unpunished so they might be on the alert. Be careful, and try to stay alive. Let's move."

They stalked up to the house. There was an upstairs light on, but no other signs of life. Molotovs thrown through downstairs windows soon had the place in flames, and as the house's occupant ran out the front gate to escape from the blaze he was ambushed from both sides and behind by all fifteen assassins shooting to kill. He never had a chance, and the only injuries for the assassins were flesh wounds from accidentally shooting each other. Reloading, the assassins fled before the fire brigade arrived.

They had expected the kill to come at a price, and the unexpected bloodlessness caught them by surprise. They began thinking that perhaps Shinra Grunts weren't as infallible as advertised, and laughed at the complacency of their first target in running blindly to his death. They became overconfident, which was not a good thing to be for assassins.

Their next target at first seemed to be even easier to achieve. The target's wife could be seen clearly from the road at the window, talking to her twin daughters. That might have been a contributing factor to what happened. Lechery rubbed off on you after a while in the Don's service. Instead of following the plan of burning the house and killing those who fled, Botch gestured to four men to follow him and disappeared into the house, leaving the rest standing guard outside. Shortly afterwards, a male scream was heard followed by a long symphony of female screams followed by gunshots.

It should be impossible to kill silently with a sledgehammer, but the angry Shinra Grunt managed three kills with one before Eric noticed the man beside him fall in his peripheral vision and half turned, so the hammer's head shattered his shoulder instead of his skull. He was knocked sideways by the force of the strike, his arm limp, instantly an incapacitating wound. His scream alerted the rest of the assassins up to then staring in fascination and envy (she had been beautiful) at the house, and they started to turn. Dropping the sledge, the Shinra soldier picked up the two guns of his rearmost kills in either hand and started shooting. In ordinary circumstances, he would have killed them all, but rage and grief damaged his aim and only three assassins were dead when the guns clicked empty. The three remaining assassins had by now turned and raised their guns, but the Shinra soldier took seven chest wounds without slowing. He cannoned into the foremost assassin, knocking him backwards into the other two, and all four of them fell to the ground. The Shinra rose first and rammed his foot into the throat of the nearest assassin, crushing it, while being fired on by the two others from the ground. Eric, semi-conscious, remembered what happened next with crystal clarity, as something he would associate with skilled fighters for the rest of his life. Still being fired on, the Shinra soldier hooked his foot under a gun on the ground and flicked it up, snagging it out of the air and firing down at the two assassins in the same movement. Both died. There was nothing showy or flashy about the flick, it was just that bending down would have given the two grounded assassins a better shot at his head.

The Shinra soldier had to have at least twenty bullets embedded in him at this stage, but when somebody started shooting at him from the house he was instantly crouching to reduce his ability to be targeted and firing back. Three shots later, the figure shooting at him collapsed backwards. Then Botch's voice floated out from the building.

"If you don't stop shooting we'll kill your family."

"I heard you kill them!"

"We didn't shoot to kill. They're still alive, for the moment."

"Then have them talk to me. If they don't, I'm going to keep shooting."

"Go ahead. You won't be able to reach us. The house is in the way."

"Then I'll burn it down around you!" True to his word, the Shinra started picking up Molotovs and hurling them through the windows of his own house. Behind him, Eric rose to his knees, supporting himself on his good hand, fully expecting to be shot at any moment, but the soldier's attention was elsewhere. Staggering to his feet, Eric raised the weapon to point at the side of the soldier's head and slowly backed away, ready to shoot the instant he turned but not willing to shoot unprovoked knowing the consequences if he missed. Once he was well away, he had an instant of moral conflict

Should I try the next target?

It was quickly resolved.

With one good arm? Forget it. I'm going back to Wall Market to report, get a legitimate excuse as to why my shoulder's shattered that doesn't involve assassination, get treated, then go home and hope that soldier doesn't come looking for me to get revenge.

Just to cap off a perfect day, he was in sector seven en route to Wall Market when the Plate collapsed on top of him. But on the plus side, he now had a perfectly good excuse as to why his shoulder was shattered.

Assuming he survived, of course.