Please review if you enjoyed this, or if you think there's something I can improve upon. Chapter 1 will probably be up in a couple of weeks, but I am determined not to abandon this!

I don't own Final Fantasy VII or any places, characters or events within it.

Prologue – Take No Prisoners

His breathing was heavy, his heart almost pounding through his ribcage. By all rights, he should feel like a god. Any other lowly trooper in his position undoubtedly would, but he only felt slightly sick. He brought his gun up, struggling to keep it steady, and shot SOLDIER 1st Class Zack Fair several times in the chest. There was a slight moan as effulgent Mako eyes rolled backwards, but Zack didn't move again. He thought he would be relieved to finally end this wild-goose chase around Gaia, but he didn't feel it.

"That should do. There's no way he can survive that one." Officer Grey clapped the infantryman on the back, nearly knocking him over. "Well done. It's not every day you bring down a SOLDIER 1st, is it?" He guessed not, and smiled weakly. He couldn't shake off the sickness though, but that was his own fault. Joining the army when you don't like blood? He only joined to get out of the slums.

"Hey, sir!" He could hear the call of his other comrade, and he looked over. Marcus was stood next to a huge rock, gun in hand, smiling. "I found the other guy!" He beckoned the two over.

"Ah, good." The officer ran over to Marcus, grinning under his helmet. This was perfect; he'd been hoping for a promotion soon, and after this, he was sure to get one. "Let's make it two out of two, then. Come on, Corporal Jackson!" The trooper quickly followed his officer and his eyes followed the path of scuffed-up dirt to the figure of another infantryman. Private Cloud Strife was the name the mission brief had stated. The brief had also said he was twenty years old, but Jackson privately thought he looked more sixteen or seventeen, with his blond spikes and slight stature. His head lolled against the stone he was propped up against; he was clearly out of it. Did he even know he'd just murdered his friend? For some reason, he hoped not.

"Jackson. Would you like to do the honours?" He shook his head. He could just about justify the killing of a rogue SOLDIER that had a huge sword and wiped out about half of the squadron. However, killing a boy that had been unwittingly dragged along was another thing entirely. It was very clear that he had a bad case of Mako poisoning on top of that; his eyes looked like they were about to burn themselves up, they were so bright. Jackson wondered if Cloud Strife even knew that his death was being casually discussed right in front of him.

"Just leave him, Sir. He's as good as dead anyway. "

"Leave him?!" He could almost hear the sound of his pay being docked. Bad move. "Leave him?! We have orders for his termination, and this is our chance to get one up on those SOLDIERs!" And a promotion, Marcus added in his head. It was no secret Officer Grey sucked up to his superiors to try and get raises and promotions, and that was the reason the other officers hated him. The officer pushed Jackson aside and turned to Marcus. "You do it."

Marcus was torn. Jackson had a point, and Marcus sympathised with the reasons behind Jackson's rebuttal -this one's just a boy, damn it - but he didn't want his pay docked too, and he knew Grey would. He had a little daughter to think about, so he pulled out his knife and pressed it to the boy's neck. Come on, Marcus. He'd probably die anyway. He wouldn't make it to Midgar even if you didn't do this. He firmly told himself he was putting the blond kid out of his misery, and pushed down on the knife, sawing through the windpipe. Blood spurted out, dying Marcus' uniform purple as it dried in. The kid exhaled and then he was dead. As quick as that; no fighting back like Zack Fair, no heroic last stand for freedom or something like that, no last words, nothing. He'd just laid there and died as quietly as possible, and something about that just didn't sit right with Marcus. He felt like a monster. The death of this one had been unnecessary, and he'd done it for the pay check.

"Good job, boys. We're gonna be heroes!" Grey didn't seem to care though, even going as far as purposefully kicking dust on the corpse of the boy before heading back to the helicopter, a slight bounce in his step. "C'mon, let's head back and get the good news up to Heidegger!" Marcus rolled his eyes to Grey's retreating back. Jackson reached out and absently stroked the tip of one of the spikes before turning and following Officer Grey.

"Sorry, kiddo. Grey wasn't letting you go." Marcus took a moment to compose himself and clean his knife off on his trousers before running to catch up with Jackson, carefully stepping over the bodies that the SOLDIER had sliced down.

When the Turks finally found the outcropping that Zack had died on, he'd already passed into the Lifestream, along with the regular infantrymen that had died by Zack's hand. Rude wasn't sure he'd ever seen this much blood in one place before; a massacre had occurred here.

"We're not very good couriers, are we?" Reno asked as he studied the Buster sword. Blood had dried on in rivulets and there were slight scuff marks all along the blade. At least he'd put up a good fight against those bastards. They'd only won because they'd gone against Tseng's orders. This could've been avoided.

"Reno." Reno looked over, not realising that Rude wasn't by his side anymore. He was crouched behind a rock; Reno only knew he was there from the tails of his jacket rippling slightly in the breeze.

"This isn't the time for Hide-and-Seek." Reno muttered under his breath as he came and stood beside Rude. They were looking down at a regular-issue sword for the army and a pool of red that was beginning to seep into the ground and dry up.

"Looks like they got the trooper." Rude said as he picked up the sword and examined it. It was almost free from marks and blood, which probably meant it hadn't participated in the fight against Zack. It also wasn't twisted or broken, like many of the other swords left here.

"Yeah, that's probably Strife's. Pass it here." Rude handed the weapon over and watched Reno walk away from him with it. He stuck it in the ground with one hand on the edge of the outcropping where the Buster sword lay. He then managed to heave the Buster sword up and wedged that next to the army-issue sword. Reno looked over towards Midgar and sighed. For all that SOLDIERs were supposed to be rivalling Turks and vice versa, Reno genuinely liked the 1st Class. He just had something about him that made him so likeable, even to Tseng, and he was one of the few SOLDIERs that had preserved their youthful innocence. Which was something Reno wished he'd never lost.

"Should've gone a bit left." Reno jumped slightly, too lost in thought to notice that Rude had come up behind him. He was surprisingly light on his feet for a big guy, and he was also right. If they had flown just a bit more East from Headquarters, they would've found them. They could've intercepted the army easily and taken them to safety.

"Should've, but we didn't. C'mon, we need to go break it to Tseng. We lost them both."

"A task impossible for the Turks?" Rude murmured, remembering the conversation he'd had with Reno in the helicopter.

"Perhaps for three Turks. If we'd still got…" Reno trailed off, but Rude knew exactly what he was referring to, or rather, whom. Silently, they got back in their helicopter and flew back to Midgar.