Reno: ShinRa Was Control
Control.
Such a simple word, yet the meaning is so profound that you immediately feel trapped when I say it. And that was the definition of my workplace. Workplace of course, is read, hell that I had no other choice but to live in or else. You can just say ShinRa, I mean, it's the same damn thing.
I am from Midgar, born in a hotel room, to a woman that never really wanted me. She wasn't really a woman, odds are she wasn't even fifteen and I wasn't her first child. That is how life had to work deep in the slums of that unholy death trap some people called a city. I will never hold a grudge on her, if I do meet her one day, what she did was in my best interest. She dumped me on an orphanage's door stop a few hours after I was born. I would tell you the date but I don't know it, just in case you were wondering. They kept me till I was of legal age to throw out on my ass- eleven. From there I started working for Don Corneo at the Honey Bee Inn.
I know, you think this is going to be some damn "pity me" story. Well it isn't. I don't need fucking pity, so go to hell. The Don used kids as workers- maintenance and clean up stuff- until he could bully or bribe them into being "private entertainers". That means "whores" for the sheltered out there. I lead a towel boy existence for about two years.
I never did belong there, nothing felt right. From the dirty towels I washed to the way my clothes smelled of other's people's sex, I felt out of place. Sure, it was an easy way to get laid early in my life but what does that matter now? All I knew was I didn't belong.
I saved a bit of gil, not a lot, but enough to quit the Don's for a while. I wanted to find something more productive to do with myself. I was so fucking naïve. The Don didn't want to lose me, so he offered me a raise and a new position. Apparently some of his regulars liked my hair…
Women loved it, some men loved it, I hated my hair. It's that bright fire toned shade of red, like I have been out in the sun my whole life. I stood out like a sore thumb under the plate. Hell, I didn't know there was a sun back then. I just had this damned red hair. It was the source of never ending cat calls. I have also always been on the tall side, in short nothing helped me to blend into a place where everything is brown or black or somehow dirty. Even my hair, didn't seem to want me to belong.
I told the Don to go fuck himself. He didn't like that. Lucky for me I was always fast or this story would be much different, if I would be alive to tell it at all. He had five grown thugs after me before I knew it. I ran into the alley ways and I should have been afraid. I wasn't, I was pissed.
Yes, I was always self righteous, just in case you were wondering. I always felt like I saw something the rest of the world didn't. If they would just stop, take a moment and look at themselves, they would see what I saw. But no one did. And that feeling stayed with me, even when my life was at stake.
I lead those goons down more twisted paths, to a reactor area. I knew for a fact it had a catwalk that was loose, some kids had fallen off it a week ago. One of those kids was wearing a bright red bandanna that still hung on that walkway. It gave me an idea. Those guys were just dumb enough to mistake a bandanna for hair in the foggy steam of a reactor. I ran harder, putting space in between me and the idiots. They followed after me, only thinking of what they would be able to do to me when they caught me. Never once considering that I would be plotting. I could have never been a thug; I swear they would had to have done a lobotomy. I slammed the old tower door shut and ran up to the top. There I waited.
It wasn't long till I heard a scream and a crash. I laughed out loud and sauntered to the ledge of the catwalk. There, thug number three was trying to help up thugs one and two. Four and five were already nice little splats being soaked up by the grit on the highway. Something had to give, I needed to lash out. I yelled at the last man, who spun with a shocked look. It barely took a half shove to knock him over. I watched them fall, guilty of my first multiple homicide.
I got up from watching their fall and walked down to the ground, right into the arms of the waiting law enforcement. Apparently Corneo had claimed that I stole something and sent his thugs out. I was arrested not only for a multiple murder but a robbery that I never committed. I learned life got worse then the Don's. Much worse.
I was thirteen years old with a life sentence, in the same place with the other murderers. I had my first fight the day I walked in and got my skinny ass handed to me. I would rather not discuss the incident again. I learned fast though, if I hadn't I would have spent the rest of my short life wishing the Don's men had caught me. By the time I was fourteen I had a reputation of winning fights, by any means necessary. Fighting kept me alive, just long enough to fight again. There was only one good thing about being in jail. I learned to read.
I did read -often. Anything I could hold, the more I read, the more I felt that rebellious, out-of-place feeling. Somehow, reading made it seem alright to feel the way I did; that something was wrong. But books were- in my mind -just fantasies. Grass didn't really exist, there was no such thing as a sun. This is going to sound stupid. I didn't belong at the Don's or in jail. I know all the slum rats said that. But ask them where they did belong and they didn't know. I belonged in school. I wanted to be a writer.
Yeah a writer, they can take people to a world that never will ever occur. I could picture green fields and sunshine when I didn't think such things were real. I wanted to do that, it would give me a reason to feel this way. That would validate my own emotions. But that was some stupid dream. I liked having it though, I was only fourteen I could dream. Just when I thought that I couldn't be in a place more wrong for me, kicking and screaming I was dragged to the last place I belonged. To ShinRa.
And I thought that I knew hell already…
In ShinRa you were a number, a specimen number. Mine was Turk Model 341279 aka Reno, just in case you were wondering. I will remember that number till the day I die, I will also remember that cold scientific hand and voice that made me what I am. ShinRa had an army. A huge one, made up of three basic classes of mako enhanced SOLDIERS. They were the spine of the army, strong, not too bright or too fast. Takes more then a silver bullet to kill them let me tell you. Their heads were made of steel and that was just about how smart they were. They had levels, lowest is three, highest is one. Then they had two elitist groups. I was part of one. The Turks.
Turks were also Hojo's favorite toys. He had the full authority on any "enhancements" that we got. Needless to say you can get some real freaks out of the mind of a mad man with very deep pockets. Then again, maybe we were all freaks. Turks were the specialized units of the army, for strength, for speed, for control. We were designed to run in groups no larger then four. One strong guy, one dead shot, one undercover model or one stealth model. I'm a stealth model, just in case you were wondering. I run a mile in about four minutes and you won't hear me coming.
Hojo was what made us behave. He was evil. Not that "ohhh creepy and diabolical vampire in the dungeon" way. No, that's so cliché, Hojo- I will never call him a man- was pure unrelenting evil. To make matters even worse he was brilliant. So smart that he literally was above all he saw at least in that aspect. I don't know why he turned the way he did, I read some of his older studies. But somehow he became that monster that still haunts me. Read his first study and then read my file if you have a barf bag. You'll need one.
Strait and to the point, if you didn't behave you were sent to him. He made you behave. He made you scream. He made you beg for him to kill you and he never did. When I entered ShinRa I was bound and determined not to behave. I was sent to Hojo for an "attitude adjustment". These scars on my face aren't intentional on my part, it was all him. One thing I can claim, the one thing I can say I did and no one else to my knowledge can claim, is that Hojo never once made me beg. Scream? Yes. Pass out from blood loss or pain? Many times. But that monster never once made me beg for my life. I am damn proud of myself.
I went back to training, after almost eight months of sheer hell. I learned a lesson alright, just not the one I think they wanted me to. Instead of coming out loyal and brainwashed I came out with a purpose. I was going to see this company fall. I wanted to kill ShinRa, Hojo, all of them. They were teaching me how to be a very good killer. I started to just slightly disobey. Nothing worth ShinRa sending me back to Hojo. But I learned what rules to break and I broke them well. That is why they sent me to the General.
That would be the newest and most interesting model in ShinRa. The General Model 000001, code name: Sephiroth Hojo. From day one I didn't believe then that they were related. You couldn't have fed me that if it were prime rib. Yeah, they were both smart and great at what they did. But honestly, Seph was the one man in ShinRa who I actually had some form of respect for the moment I saw him. That was because he immediately knew I was only giving very little of myself to be controlled by him. I would follow his orders, just to the letter and not a punctuation more. Unbelievably, I had found my first real joy in life all because of ShinRa. That thing was mental war with General Sephiroth. I suppose that's why I knew something wasn't right with him and Hojo. You see, I liked Seph.
He was raised and reared by ShinRa. To do just his job and his job alone. He was in control from the age of 18 when he walked on. At least of the trainees he was. He was as much a tool as the rest of us, doing what we were told out of fear of Hojo. But for some reason he stuck out. He seemed to know that something wasn't right with ShinRa the same as I did. I even got the feeling that he enjoyed yelling at me sometimes. Out of over thirty problem recruits he had that year, he learned my name quickest.
He didn't learn my name quickly because I excelled. No, he learned it because I was always at some sort of odds with him. He would tell me to do something and I would do just that and nothing more. In fact I stood in place for over thirty six hours once because he told me to "stand still". I wouldn't take the order to move from anyone of a lesser rank then he was. He walked back in and glared at me, for almost five whole minutes we stared at each other. I couldn't tell if he was amused or not. I almost got the feeling he respected me
At least, there were times I felt he went out of his way to speak with me, more like lectures. You see, my little stay with Hojo was pretty well known. There were those who didn't know my name at all, but they knew my face. What can I say? I was infamous. Last "Talk" I had with Seph was just before I became a full Turk. "Just do what you are told Reno?" I snorted at him, by now the man should have known I always did just what I was told. He sighed, pinching his nose.
Seph and I had a little game going on, I enjoyed pissing my superiors off, but I was not stupid. I knew that Hojo would break me if he tried hard enough. So, I pretended to be a fairly good Turk Model. I was only 16, I had a long life to live. I could wait for any revenge. So I went into the Turks, and I found something that almost resembled family in Tseng and Rude. Hell, I will admit it, never to them though, I really loved those guys like brothers.
When we got asked to find a "Cetra" specimen for Hojo that the SOLDIERS couldn't find, (you recall my none too bright comments right?) Tseng asked me to follow her. He told me she was just a girl, she was only 18. I guess he forgot that I had barely turned 19 to the best I could figure. "One of those kids you can't help but want to protect" he told me, his Wutain accent showing. Just in case you were wondering it only did show when he was worried, mad, or really drunk. So I nodded, took my orders and did what I do best- followed them to the letter and not a fraction more. I looked for the girl, found her, and kept looking for her. Hey, she moved. My orders never were to touch her, just to say where she was. But she was never still enough to be where I left her. I so hated wasting ShinRa time. It didn't take me long to figure out why Tseng wanted to keep this "last of the Cetra" safe.
She was beautiful, sweet, delicate, innocent. I could smell it on her it was so pure. The place that made me what I was somehow had no effect on her. She stood out more so then even I used to, before my scars, before Hojo made me a Turk. There was more then something different about her, it was the way I felt when I read.
Right here, at this moment, I want to make perfectly clear that I wasn't falling for the girl. I like much more energetic and much less innocent girls, basically the opposite of her. I need a girl I can fight with. You know, one with spunk, vigor, the kind that will sock you in the face if she has to. Not that I had ever met a girl worth falling for in the first place. I wasn't made to fall in love, I was made to kill people.
The Cetra, Aerith was her name, certainly worked hard though, same boring ass routine every day, always to go home and cry at her mother's failing health. I felt bad for her, but I was sticking my neck out as it was letting her keep what little freedom the slums gave her. So I continued to follow her, how can people do the same thing all the damn time? I mean seriously. I could set my watch by her.
I had been following her for months and then she was late. I will admit that I was worried about her, anyone could have picked up on what she does every day. Could someone have snatched her when I went to get some lunch? Probably that guy that kept watching her and talking to her. I thought that I should have followed him home to check on him. That would have been a shit, Tseng would try to kill me. Not that he could, not that I cared if he did. I was just about to go in when then I saw who kept her. My eyes went wide.
"Well I'll be damned, you both shocked the hell outta me for once." Locked in a passionate embrace with the innocent little Cetra, was none other then the Great General Sephiroth.
