The first of the three individuals had a young face, even though his cerulean eyes showed experience. He was getting impatient. Like the other two, he wore a navy blue suit, which was unbuttoned, and his shirt hung loosely from his neck with the absence of the first few buttons. He ran a hand through his vivid crimson hair and sighed,
"Hey, Reno, you alright?" questioned the voice of an older man, who shared Reno's experience. He was also clothed in a navy suit, although his was properly fastened. He was more serious than Reno, for he wore a black tie in addition to his white shirt. His eyes were concealed by dark glasses, and as he spoke, the light shone off his head, which was somewhat lacking hair.
"Yeah, Rude…" Reno replied, not wanting to express his feelings of anxiety. He clasped his hands together, placed his elbows on the pine surface of the table, and rested his chin upon them. Under the table, his leg twitched. He was restless.
"Don't worry, Reno," comforted the voice of a woman, who sat next to the flame-haired man. "We're all nervous." Rude grunted, trying to make out that he was not nervous. If his eyes could be seen, they would have showed a glint of worry though.
The woman who had spoke completed the trio of the executive team, the Turks. Like Rude, her clothes showed the seriousness of her job. This was Elena, the newest recruit of the team. She pulled out a hand mirror and adjusted her golden hair, her coffee eyes admiring her beauty. She shut the mirror and put it back in her pocket, checking the time on her watch. 11:58.
"He's gonna be late," Reno stated, also looking at his watch. The reason why they were all so nervous is because they were awaiting the arrival of a new member of the Turks. After Tseng had died, they had been one member short.
Rude chuckled, "The only reason you're so damn grumpy is because you wanted to be the leader," Out of the three of them, Reno was the best trained, and he was greatly disappointed when he heard that Shinra had found somebody new to do it.
"Why do we need a new leader anyway?" Reno questioned, bitterness in his voice.
"You know why!" Elena replied, raising her voice a little. A single tear trickled from her eye as she remembered Tseng. Before he died, they had agreed to go out, but she never got to live that distant dream. Reno and Rude glanced at Elena, and knew why she was upset. After that, everyone was silent, until a sound from Elena's watch alerted them it was 12:00. All eyes darted towards the double doors, its dark, wooden exterior looming to watch. Then the shiny, brass handle turned slowly and one of the doors opened. All the Turks waited for their new boss to reveal himself.
The first thing that appeared from behind the double doors was a shoe, polished to perfection, its surface as smooth as opal. Then a leg appeared, the colour of the fabric the same as the others'. Then emerged the rest of the figure. He wore a Turk jacket, turquoise in colour, unbuttoned, and hanging loosely from him. Underneath was a plain white shirt, the top button missing, or maybe just undone. His clothes gave him an aura of importance, but his face gave him a sensation of power. Locks of sea green hair dangled in front of his left eye, completely sealing it from the view of the human eye. His right, however, was visible. It glimmered a dull brown colour as it scanned the room. The rest of his facial features were normal, in fact, they were flawless. Overall, he had a handsome face, but something about him told you that wasn't what got people's attention.
As he walked the length of the conference room, his footsteps echoed, the noise filling the room like an eerie presence. The trio who were seated at the table remained silent, each one anticipating the first words of their new head. Their eyes followed the man around as he approached a chair at the far end of the table, gently pulled it out, and sat down. The new recruit looked down in front of him at a pile of papers that lay atop the polished wood. He shuffled them around a little, eventually extracting a single piece of paper with a paper clip attached, which held in place a photo, but of what, the Turks did not know. After scanning the leaf, he looked up at the other individuals settled at the table. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a rapping at the doors. It opened and a Shinra employee entered. He looked at the new member of the team and spoke,
"I have a message for the new boss of the Turks. A Mister…" he racked his brains for the name he required. "Mister…"
"The name's Nero." came the ominous voice of the secretive boss. It had a tone of malevolence in it. "And don't forget it."
"Y…y…yes…s…s…sir…" replied the employee, taken aback by the sudden tone of voice. He ruffled through the papers that lay in his hands. He picked one out and carefully read out the message written upon it, not wanting to make as mistake. "You have a meeting at 2 o'clock to go over the plans for rebuilding our reputation."
"Very well," Nero said, looking at the stationary messenger, "You may go now." The man nodded his head and left the room hastily, wanted to escape Nero's clutches.
"What does he mean 'rebuilding our reputation', sir?" asked Elena formally, wanting to get on the good side of her new boss.
"After our plan to destroy Meteor failed, people started to doubt Shinra's power," he answered, eying the blonde woman.
"But that wasn't our fault!" Reno exclaimed, leaning forward sharply. He had noticed this fall in respect as well. People staring at him whenever he walked through the streets, there eyes not filled with reverence, but a mild disgust. He loved the power he once had, the power to command respect whenever he wanted, the power to make people step aside when they were in the way. However, all that was now gone.
"Just you calm down, red-head!" Nero ordered, speaking with the power that Reno used to have, and longs for now.
"The name's Reno, and don't you forget it!" Reno answered back, anger filling up inside of him.
"I'm sorry, I only remember important names," Nero retorted, a smirk forming on his otherwise motionless face, "Not names of washed-up has-beens." Reno stood up, ready to throw back another comment, but Rude put a hand on his shoulder, slowly shaking his head. Rude looked at his fellow Turk and obeyed, sitting gently down.
"So what's our next mission, sir?" Elena asked, glancing sideways at Reno, who was glaring at Nero, hatred visible in his eyes.
"Well, as I was saying before I got interrupted," he replied, staring back at Reno, "We need to rebuild our reputation. And to do that, we need to show off our power." He looked at the sheet of paper in his hand and then threw it across the table at Reno. Reno hesitantly picked up the page, and looked at it. The first thing he saw was the photograph attached. It was of a young man with blonde, spiky hair. He wasn't smiling as he stared back at Reno, his bright blue eyes standing out from the rest of his face. On the actual paper itself was a list of details;
Name: Cloud Strife
Age: 21
DOB: 19.8.83
Height: 173cm
Place of Residence: Nibelheim
The list continued, stating every little fact known about the swordsman who had saved the world from Meteor, including blood type, weight, eye colour, hair colour, even his parents' names. Everything about him was written down on the paper, his whole life summed up in a matter of words. But what caught Reno's attention most were the two words printed at the bottom of the paper, BAHAMUT and KOTR. Reno knew that KOTR stood for Knights of the Round, but that didn't explain why two of the sixteen summons were printed on this page.
"Next look at these," Nero ordered, skimming seven more pieces of paper to Reno, who once again picked them up and looked at the photographs, and the two words printed in bold at the bottom of each page; A brown haired, beautiful woman, SHIVA & PHOENIX. A short haired, black man, TITAN & NEO BAHAMUT. A beast, flaming red fur, IFRIT & BAHAMUT ZERO. A teenage ninja-girl, LEVIATHAN & ALEXANDER. A stuffed cat atop a giant mog, CHOCO/MOG & KJATA. A middle-aged pilot, RAMUH & TYPHOON. And finally a mysterious man, most of his face hidden, ODIN & HADES. Reno was perplexed. Were their targets Cloud and his party? And why were all the summons listed, two for each person?
"I…I don't understand," Reno stated, his confusion affecting his speech.
"What? Show us." Elena pleaded, eager to witness the mystery that had puzzled Reno. Reno slid the papers over to Rude's direction, much to the annoyance of Elena. Reno scanned the papers himself, although he did not look as mystified as Reno. Rude never showed his emotions outside. He then handed them to Elena, whose reaction was worse than Reno's.
"What!? I don't understand! Why are these here? And these? And those?" the questions just flooded out of her mouth, as she pointed to different parts of the document. She only stopped when Nero held up a hand to signal for silence.
How about you listen, instead of asking stupid questions." Nero exclaimed aggressively. Elena settled down, not wanting to upset their new boss. "At the present, Cloud and his party are the most powerful people on the planet, and not just because they are strong. They also hold a kind of power that demands respect. But it has come to our attention that the only reason they are considered the strongest is because people are scared to challenge them. And why are they scared?" he asked rhetorically, eying each members of the Turks, "It's because of the summons."
"So what are we supposed to do?" Reno asked, his curiosity overpowering his hatred for Nero.
"First we ruin their reputation, then we steal the summons." Nero answered. Reno was shocked. He knew the summons were powerful. On numerous occasions had he been burned, frozen, electrified, drenched, smashed, bashed and overall beaten by them. He also knew that Cloud and his posse would not let go of the summons.
"And how do you plan we do that?" Rude asked. It was the first time he had spoken since Nero had first entered the room. Although his words were sarcastic, he spoke them in a normal tone. Nero looked at the bald man, trying to decide what he was like. He knew what Elena and Reno were like by the way they acted, but Rude gave nothing away. Everything about him was cool and calm, his emotions kept inside. Although Nero could not figure out Rude, Rude knew perfectly well what he felt about Nero. The same way Reno did, and Elena did deep inside. Hatred. But he was not one to let his colleagues get in the way of his jobs.
Nero eventually stopped trying to deduce Rude's personality, and answered with a sentence that was short, but still stuck in the Turk's minds.
"Everyone has their weaknesses…"