Standard Disclaimer: I dont own, woo woo.
"This body is... the punishment that's been given to me... I was unable.... to stop Professor Gast and Hojo... And Lucrecia... I was unable to stop them... All that I was able to do was watch... That is my punishment..."
- Vincent Valentine
Make Yourself
Chapter 1 – Privilege
"Eh…stupid piece of junk." Mumbled a rather stoic man to an ancient piece of technology. His head shined from its recent shave, and his blue suit was pressed to perfection. "You sure this will work Reno?"
"Don't worry your odd shaped, bald head over it Rude." came the cocky reply from his lax friend on the couch. Reno was currently completely sprawled out in an absolute lazy manner. His suit had a disastrous look to it, with a few stains most likely from some form of liquor. He appeared totally uninterested in what Rude was up to, but his eyes shone with an eagerness that belayed his current stature. Idly he lit a cigarette, "Why not let Lena look at it?"
"She's asleep."
"Well go wake her lazy ass up!"
"No." the tone Rude used was his way of saying 'And that's final.' They had been swamped with random encounters all friggen day. That damn mansion was still teeming with strange creatures. Although the monstrosities were easy enough to dispatch by the highly trained group, it was the massive amounts that seemingly came from nowhere, which wore them down.
And regardless of what she said, Elena was not the battle type.
Easily able to think both him and Reno under the table, she was unofficially assigned to be the strategist of the group. Granted she could handle a gun better then most military types could ever hope to achieve, she had the stamina of an old hag. That mixed with the relatively close combat that the small rooms of the Shinra Mansion had a habit to make, was enough to thoroughly drain the feisty woman of all her so called "pep".
As soon as they had made it back to their current lodging inside Nibelheim, she had promptly vanished to her room. Only the quaint, lady like snores coming from her vicinity told them that she was, indeed, still alive.
'Lady like snores…' Rude scoffed mentally.
Still fiddling with the antique he had, Rude managed to recall the discovery they made within the ghost of a mansion.
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The trio had received orders from Reeve to, quote "Give that place a deep, and full cavity search because were tearing it down soon." Which promptly set Reno off into a fit of giggles, probably imagining some of the…finer aspects of his job as a Turk.
Namely being one of the top one-liners that got him a "piece of ass".
The place Reeve had been talking about was none other than the old, abandoned, spooky, monster filled, Shinra Mansion. The dilapidated Mansion was the place where legendary ex-Turk, Vincent Valentine, was sentenced to his life as a living abomination. Vincent was still hailed as one of the best, even when Reno joined. The myths surrounding his downfall, and disappearance were the equivalent to kindergarten knowledge in Turk training.
It was a wise lesson in what not to do as a Turk.
Although Vincent himself had destroyed Hojo, the consequences of his failure still remained. It was proof to them that they were not invincible, nor were they immortal in any way. If a supposed Turk god, such as Valentine was hailed to be, could fall from grace so horribly, then they all could.
Wasting little time, they had packed up what supplies they would need and headed toward the rebuilt, Shinra owned town of Nibelheim. Their helicopter had gotten them there in relatively little time, and so they were able to get an early start on their four-day 'cavity search'.
It was, perhaps, one of the most tedious things they had all ever done.
Monsters had littered the halls; apparently mating season had gone exceptionally well. Clearing their way around the mansion, they had searched every goddamn inch of the main house for two goddamn days. They had all but given up on the prospect of finding anything, when they started their decent to the basement on the third day.
Going through the secret door Reeve had told them about, they began their descent down the spiral staircase. Or as Elena came had come to call it, the 'Stereo-typical, horror movie staircase, that most likely leads to an early death' (long winded, but that's just her style). When asked if the last part was referring to Vincent or them, she just sort of lifted a brow then continued on.
Surprisingly enough the boards seemed to be made of steel!
…
All right, very crappy pieces of moldy steel, but still they were pretty strong. The beginning of their search in the basement consisted of a mumbled 'Uh god, gross.' And, 'What the hell is that?' from Reno and Elena. Soon enough, however, the site of old skeletons, and misshapen dead…things, became commonplace and a real search could begin.
They had quickly found themselves within the very room where Professor Hojo had put Vincent…to rest. Examining the coffins, they were thankful to find all of them still empty.
Gods forbid they stumble upon a sleeping Valentine and agitate him with their presence.
But, just in case someone still lingered in the remainder of the hall, Elena pulled her gun a bit shakily. The whole atmosphere of the place, and her current fatigue getting to her caused her to accidentally do something she had not done in years.
Her shaking trigger finger had suddenly jerked when she pulled out the gun, causing it to fire.
Flinching at the unexpected sound, and her own embarrassment she looked up to see Reno about to explode, when Rude stepped in.
"Look."
He pointed to the hole Elena's bullet had made. By some stroke of luck, or perhaps fate, the bullet had hit Vincent's open coffin. Now just this would have not garnered such attention from Rude. It was the fact that instead of dirt on the other side of the hole, there was a black void.
Jackpot.
As quickly as they could, they moved the immensely heavy coffin and proceeded to dig up the hidden boards underneath. Shining a flashlight down into the pit, they found a brown packing box taped shut. And on top was a message to the person to whom it was for.
Dear Valentine,
I do so hope you stumble across this little package of mine Vincent. Remember all the fun we had? Well if you don't, then it is all here, for you to watch all you want. Never forget what you are, and how you ended up that way.
With love, - Hojo The note left them all feeling awkward. Opening the box they found incredibly old videotapes, each labeled a certain date. There must have been about 30 of them in total packed tightly. Last in the box was an even older looking VCR, most likely to make sure that whenever Vincent woke up he could, indeed, still watch whatever they were.
And it didn't take a genius to figure out what could be on those tapes.
So many things went through each of their minds, and for a single moment they all received chills down their spine. Wasting as little time as possible, they gathered what they found and made their way out of the mansion.
A Turk always trusted their feelings on a situation, and right now they all wanted to get the hell out of the mansion.
Even though they forgot to check the library, but then again if anything had been down there, they figured Sephiroth or AVALANCE would have found it.
And so here they were now, back at their little pad trying to fix the damn VCR. Apparently time did not treat the stupid thing to kindly. Even worse was the fact that their self-proclaimed techno wiz was currently lost in a land of sleep.
"Screw it." Rude knew he couldn't fix the blasted thing. He had just hoped that maybe he could have spotted something that seemed even remotely familiar. The only thing he could accurately point out was the fact that the contraption was coated in a nice layer of dirt.
"Lets just go to bed, Lena will fix it in the morning." Spoke Reno through lips closed around his nearly finished cigarette. Blowing a final billowing cloud of smoke into the air, he promptly stamped out the burning stick in his ashtray and proceeded to his room.
Rude lingered for a bit, just gazing at the box full of tapes. Feeling slightly bad for taking something that was meant for someone like Vincent, his negative feelings were all but erased at the thought that maybe Valentine was perhaps…better off not having these.
Getting up, he checked the locks on the doors and windows, before finally heading off to his room.
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'Hm…what was that?'
Rude was awakened by a clinking sound coming from the living room. Looking at the clock he saw that it was nearly seven in the morning. Taking a glance out his window confirmed the clock somewhat as he noticed it was slightly light outside. Getting up, he cautiously began to step toward his door. Then he heard something that made him sigh in relief and laugh heartily on the inside.
Stepping out into the hall he rose his voice just enough so she would hear, "Women shouldn't talk like that." His typically void type of speech was tainted with amusement as he made his way toward where Elena was.
He found her, sure enough, in the living room, and on the floor in a loose white shirt and black boxers. Between her legs was the broken VCR and to her right was an open, bright pink, repair kit.
'Feminine to a fault.' He mused to himself as he watched her yell at the contraption she was currently trying to fix.
"The damn thing still needs one hell of a cleaning!" she announced as she stood up with the gutted machine, "Every, piece of shit, part is coated in a fine layer of grave dust." Elena walked quickly to the window, placing the VCR on the sill; she undid the lock and opened it. Taking a quick breath of the crisp early morning air, she returned to her bag.
Rude watched her silently as she rummaged through her kit. "There you are!" he heard her coo to something that resembled a hairspray can. Detaching a straw from the side and placing it in the spray opening, she made her way back over to her current project.
"Rude could you go start some coffee?"
She was halfway to the window when she stopped and looked over her shoulder to ask the question. Some days she was a morning person; on others she could be just as bad as Reno. On the days she was, if asked why, she would just say something along the lines of 'I got a jump start today', and on the days she was a Reno her only reason was 'I need my beauty sleep you bastards'.
She had not been nearly as…blunt…with them when she first joined. Timid like a mouse, and obviously quite smitten with their boss Tseng, she was simply a little girl to them. Of course she had warmed up to them after a few weeks on the job.
Considering all the shit she was put through with them. A Turks life was not the kindest life, if you catch the hidden meaning. It wasn't till after she seemingly got over Tseng's death (Seemingly because neither Rude nor Reno knew for sure if she was.) that she started acting bluntly towards her two cohorts.
Deciding that she was probably neither a Reno, nor morning person, today, he moved to start the coffee maker. Her apparent eagerness in discovering what was on those tapes was probably the current cause of her early morning work attitude. Although he was sure none of them really wanted to know what was those tapes, curiosity was a powerful override for such a simple thought.
Yes, as Turks they were trained to control such urges. But this was something that was strangely emotional to all of them. If what is on the tapes show what had happened to Vincent, it would end up becoming the ultimate reinforcement of the lessons they were taught when they first joined.
And besides, Reeve had said nothing about them returning immediately with anything found, or about how they couldn't mess with what they found. Somewhere in the back of Rude's mind, he absently wondered if Reeve would be terribly upset if they watched.
Starring at the inky blackness of the dripping coffee as it started to fall into the empty pot, he pointedly pushed all of those thoughts from his head. Quietly contemplating a few other things, his silent reverie was rudely interrupted by what could only be described as a loud, concentrated gust of wind.
Looking over at Elena, he noticed a large cloud of dust begin to settle around her as she let out a small cough. "Phew! Holy gods this thing is a mess!" She spat out before using the compressed air to, once again, clean out the VCR. Already having cleaned the boards before replacing anything that needed to be just left what was intact and the VCR case itself.
Which, all in all, seemed to contain more dust then some of the coffins.
Spraying the parts diligently she only stopped when she felt warm ceramic on her right shoulder.
"I'm going to go take a shower, seems you already had one this morning?"
He watched as she took her cup with a small smile, "Yeah, I had wanted to last night but…" he watched as she took a quick sip of the liquid pick-me-up.
"You promptly passed out when you hit your bed." He deadpanned as always.
"You know me oh so well!" she exclaimed with sarcasm. "Now go hit the showers, you smell like a tomb," he watched as her brow lifted quizzically, "and dog shit."
Mumbling he strode down the hall to his room to grab a change of clothes before he 'hit the showers'.
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Reno was, and would always be a 'Reno' in the morning. And this morning was no exception. Looking at his clock his eyes grew when he noticed it was only seven. Hearing Elena and Rude talking about something out in the living room; he decided it was time to catch another three to five hours of shut eye.
He was just as eager as his companions, but some things took more precedence in his life. The act of sleeping late, for one thing, was much more compelling then looking through the memories of someone like Valentine.
Turning onto his stomach, Reno coughed once before leaving for dreamland once again. With practiced ease, he found himself there in a matter of moments.
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Finally, gathered at a reasonable hour, thanks to a slightly hung-over Reno, they sat contemplating, once again, whether or not to go through with watching the videos. After about fifteen minutes of quiet reflection, one member of their group decided to speak up.
"Fuck this, I'm going to pop the damn thing in!"
With his typical eloquence, Reno grabbed the first tape. "These things cleaned too, Lena?" Still questioning the morality behind watching the tape, even after Reno's outburst, she was caught off guard by his question. Luckily Rude was there to cover for her.
"She cleaned what she could, but nearly all of the tapes have deterioration to a large extent."
Looking questioningly at the tape, Reno propped it into the VCR tray, but didn't push it all the way in. "What we see here, stays with us only, alright?" in a rare moment of seriousness, even Reno understood they were delving into something personal. Typically they would ransack any material they came across without a care. But there was something special about this particular set of objects. They were moments in Valentine's life, and regardless of his traitorous activities in the past and in the present with AVALANCHE…
He was still a legend to all of them.
Catching the nods from Elena and Rude, Reno pushed the tape in the rest of the way. Quickly finding a seat on the couch with the rest of his team, and just like them he steeled himself for what he could possibly be seeing.
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Video Date 9-29-XX
After a moment of fuzz, the camera focused on two men in what appeared to be a white room with a surgical table. One man was strapped onto said table, the other slowly making his way around it.
"Valentine…Valentine…what AM I going to do with you?" the voice of the man walking around the table all but sneered. The man on the table just kept his fierce gaze on the other. "Trying to take my beloved wife away from me!" the line was heavily dipped in sarcasm, "What were you thinking?"
"I love h…" before the man, stated to be Valentine could finish his sentence; the other slapped the left side of his chest where a now recognizable hole could be seen. Valentine growled in pain as he jerked at his shackles.
"You what?" the other taunted. "Apparently your love wasn't worth shit to her Valentine. If it really meant anything to her at all, then why did she come CRAWLING to me?" as the words hung in the air, the body of Vincent became completely motionless. "Valentine…did you ever stop to think…" the man now continued his pace around the table, "maybe she was…afraid of you?"
"Why…"
"Why would she be afraid?" cutting Valentine off, the other man seemed genuinely surprised that such a question would be asked. "Look at what the hell you are Valentine!" the other man stopped at the head of the table and appeared to be starring into Vincent's eyes. "In the eyes of the world, Turks are monsters!" at this the other man slapped his hands down hard. "How many people have you killed Valentine? How many men, women, AND children have fallen before you? The blood on your hands, how thick is it? HOW TAINTED ARE YOU VALENTINE?" he screamed the last part directly into Vincent's face.
"You dare call me a monster for what I did to Lucrecia." Once more he continued his pace. Walking toward a separate table with indistinguishable objects on it, he continued, "What I did to her was in the name of SCIENCE! How about you Valentine? What type of reasons did you have to kill whom you did? 'Oh, he said the wrong thing about the president. Go eliminate him!' were those your orders?"
"You see, monsters do not have a reason to kill. So how can I be one and you not? I had a legitimate reason, while you…you had nothing but the want to follow orders." Seeming to have found what object he wanted, he walked back over to Valentine. "Human beings are born Valentine, monsters are created. And you, Valentine, need to become the real you. So please, allow me to help." Holding Vincent's neck, he quickly stuck what appeared to be a syringe in. Taking the syringe back out, he proceeded to walk back over to the table of objects.
"You need to be awake to realize the creation of your true self, Valentine. That should keep you awake for a while." The other man had begun to drag the table of objects toward Vincent. "Keep in mind, this is only day one Valentine. There is oh so much I need to get done!"
With that the man began to slice, seemingly at random, all across Vincent's chest and stomach with a scalpel. The only thing that could be heard were the screams of Vincent as the knife cut deeply through his flesh again and again.
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"Oh…oh gods Reno, turn it off!" Elena shouted while closing her eyes and covering her ears. This was wrong! They shouldn't be watching this, gods poor Vincent…taunted, degraded, then tortured!
'No,' she thought sickeningly to herself, 'that's just a savage raping of the flesh.'
Reno had quickly turned off the tape, himself being a bit pale from what he saw. Hell, he had grown up in the slums of Midgar, been through many a weird and disturbing shit with the Turks. He figured he had been desensitized to just about everything, but this just screamed 'wrong' to him! Taking a quick glance at Rude, he saw that even his mouth hung a bit open.
It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been just a random person they were watching. Just some random guy getting cut the fuck up by some psycho, some every other day shit for the Turks. But they knew this man! They had fought him, talked with him…
Idolized him…
"M…maybe we should skip a few, just…to see ya' know?" he hated when he stuttered, or sounded unsure. He was the leader of the goddamn Turks! Clearing his throat he began to shuffle through the tapes.
A small girlish huff was enough to alert him of an argument that was on the way; "No way Reno!" yep here it comes. "This really is wrong, W R O N G, all capital with three exclamation marks!" the fiery blonde was starting to really get worked up.
Quickly thinking of a solution, he was glad when his wits kicked in causing him to just push the tape he had pulled out into the VCR. He watched as Elena deflated back into her seat as the tape began to play.
Reno had selected this tape, not at random, but because its date held a special meaning. And he knew…or rather hoped he was wrong…that Hojo would have used this specific date to further demoralize Vincent.
For the date on the tape was a faded '10-13-XX'…Vincent's birthday.
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Video Date 10-13-XX
After a bit more fuzz then the first tape, it again cleared up into what appeared to be the same room as before. In the center of the room lay what could only be described as a mangled corpse. The barely raising chest was the only way you could tell he was still alive. Now visible scars ran all along Vincent's body, the surgical table was now stained with blood along with a lot of the floor around it. Nothing appeared to be happening, and for quite awhile the scene appeared to be just a still picture.
But after a long wait, the same door from before opened up to reveal the form of Professor Hojo. He was bringing in something covered on a cart with annoyingly squeaky wheels. Pulling it up to Vincent's left he began to examine his face, and without warning his hand flew up and across what he had be examining.
Vincent's head snapped to the right, and he began to go into a coughing fit. Apparently this angered Hojo as he began to strangle him, yelling at him to stop. Finally after Vincent quieted down, he let go of his throat.
"Today is a special day, is it not Valentine?" Vincent merely stared off to the right. His eyes appeared blank, and lifeless to the camera, because it was the same in actuality. "I brought a present for you on your special day Valentine!" quickly removing the cloth from what he wheeled in, there sat on the cart a gleaming golden claw.
"Well look at it Valentine!" grabbing Vincent's head, Hojo forcibly turned it to stare at the claw. "What? No thanks? Where have your manners gone?" Walking over to a dish of what looked like red liquid he cackled madly to himself, "Oh look! There they are!" apparently finding this hilarious, Hojo began to laugh loudly. Walking back over to the cart, he grabbed something from the bottom and brought it to rest by the claw.
"Time to give you your present!" securing Vincent's head down, he grabbed for the device he just brought up. Turning it on, a sick smile came to his face as Vincent's eyes widened at the sound.
It was a circular saw.
"As they say Valentine, out with the old, in with the new." Putting on goggles, a mask, and slapping on some gloves he eagerly began work. Ever so slowly he began to cut through Vincent's left arm. Almost the instant the blade touched his skin, the seemingly dead man began to scream.
And Hojo began to sing.
"Happy birthday…" he screamed over the sound of the saw and Vincent, "to you!" keeping at his agonizing pace the entire time. "Happy birthday, to you!" by this point Vincent had stopped screaming and was openly crying, begging for Hojo to stop. Hojo, not to be deterred, started on the last verse. "Happy birthday de…"
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Reno had slowly shut off the VCR while being horrified by what he saw. He did not blink, did not move, and did not say a word. The usually outspoken red head merely sat in front of the black screen, and did nothing.
Gods, he really hated when he was right.
"He…he was really fucked up…in the head." Elena choked out. "I think I'm going t…" before she could finish her sentence she ran to the bathroom.
"To be sick…" Rude finished for her, although he was more or less speaking the end of his own thoughts. The reserved, bald man had seen his fair share of sick, and twisted shit, even more so then Reno. But what they just witnessed skyrocketed to the top of his 'Sick, Twisted, Shit' pile. Hojo really was 'fucked up in the head'. To do this to someone, even though he had beaten Vincent at everything, was just too much to comprehend.
He ruled over Lucrecia's heart, received the test child Sephiroth, and managed to capture Vincent. Mutilating him, and turning him into a walking freak show was just overkill. Hearing Reno sift through the box brought him back to reality.
"What are you doing?"
"One more, I have to see the end."
"Can't you leave it?"
Looking up from the mound of tapes, Reno regarded his friend with a humorless expression. "I need to know how this ends, how Vincent was put away." Slipping the final tape in the box into the VCR, Reno stood rigid with his arms crossed.
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Video date 10-28-XX
The fuzz remained only for a short time before the image appeared. Vincent was lying on the table motionless, but he was dressed this time. He wore black dress pants; knee high boots with pointed golden tips, and a black shirt. Hojo sat at his left side, apparently working on the claw.
"Finally complete." He stated lazily as he threw the instruments he was working with on the nearby tray. Moving toward Vincent's head, he leaned low to speak directly into his ear. "Lucrecia left a present for you, Valentine." He spat the name with an immense amount of malice. "Consider this a parting gift, I really do think it would fit a monster…such as yourself."
Here the video cut back to fuzz for a while. When the video finally came back, a few men were placing Vincent in a coffin. He was now wearing a scarlet cape, and matching headband. A glint of metal showed that a pistol was strapped to his side.
Hojo walked in and proceeded to demand them to work faster. After setting Vincent into a resting position, he commanded them to prepare for sealing off the room permanently. As he watched them leave, he turned and looked down at the near lifeless form in the coffin. Whispering to him in a voice barely audible.
"It has been…a privilege Vincent."
Then the camera turned off.
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I promise to explain why Reeve wanted to tear down the mansion in a later chapter, and yes Vincent will become the major character in the next chapter. There is a pairing, as for who it is…well that's yet to be seen :p