Chapter 3
The Secret Chronicles of Shinra: Part 1

Besides my boring day being ruined by the arrival of a new Shinra dog, everything went as smooth as ice cream. History was fine. Yuffie did not even talk to me, too busy staring all googly eyed at Reno, which means I actually got to take notes! Like I would actually use them in the near future, please. Then came third period, you guessed it, English. English was another good subject for me since writing was actually a very important thing in my life. My essays apparently, were extremely good in sophomore year, so they bumped me up to AP Writing. Fine with me, like I said, I love to write. However, these AP students I am surrounded with have to be the most idiotic people that ever graced this planet of hours. Every two seconds they complain about every essay they are assigned, every chapter they have to read and every homework assigned three times a week. If they hate writing so much, why did they even take AP Writing. It’s in the name. WRITING! May I repeat it WRITING as in WRITING essays. To make matters worse, I am stuck in a class room with the three people I hate the most; Sephiroth, Rufus and Hojo.

It is impossible to explain this without mentioning some of Vincent’s demons, so, without further hesitation, I will quickly and as painlessly as possible explain the plague of our school…Shinra. I do not know when it happened or why, it just happened, Shinra became a constant sore on our towns backside. And not just our town, a town in southern California, where no doubt Reno is from, also had to feel our pain. The whole point of Shinra? Simple. Ruining peoples lives. Why? Pure Enjoyment? Money? They are the spawn of Satan? I don’t exactly know, nor do I care what the method to their madness is, all I know, is they have some kind of power, supernatural or whatever, that they are able to dig up dirt and use it to drive people to suicide. Okay, maybe it has not gone THAT far, but I do not know the that’s going on in California so for all I know it has happen. I personally never felt their crazy wrath, since they know I would kill them (though I doubt that is what’s stopping them). However, I have seen my best friend completely shatter at their hand.

Vincent, I hate to say it, was apart of Shinra. I do not know exactly what his job was, since he never told me, but apparently he was good at it. From the sixth grade to about freshman year of high school, he would roam the halls with those hoodlums looking for new victims, digging up dirt, posting them in their tabloid. Vincent was always getting praised from his little group every time another life was ruin. For those years, I can honestly say, I hated him.

Then, the perfect Shinra lap dog made an almost fatal mistake; he started going out with Hojo’s eye candy. Lucretia, Shinra’s first girl. (Elena came in later, but we will get back to that little ball of fire), a great scientist, extremely intelligent, and worse of all nice. Naturally, Vincent fell head over heels in love with this beauty. Wouldn’t blame him either. But she was Hojo’s, and you did not touch what was his.

Hojo, he is too smart for is own good. A genius in almost every subject offered in school. Of course, the smart ones are always the most dangerous. He became enraged when he caught Vincent swapping spit with his woman. However, Hojo was not the type to just run up and punch Vincent in the face. No, that was too easy. To painless. He wanted to make Vincent suffer, and he did.

Vincent never told me exactly what Hojo did, but it was obvious. The marks on his wrist and throat, his misshaped arm, why he went missing for three weeks. I knew very well, Hojo had something to do with what happened. But like I said, Shinra has money, power, the school wrapped around their finger. Who was going to believe a poor little boy when he pointed to finger at the son of the most power family in New York City. They would have called him crazy.

Oh and Lucretia’s fate? She was sent over to California by Rufus…for her own safety.

Rufus, the leader. Not as crazy as Hojo, but then again you have to be some kind of insane to get this kind of gang going on. He doesn’t do any of the dirty work. He is, lets just say, a representative. Instead he sends his little group called, ‘The Turks’. Not an entirely big group of cadets, but they do have some memorable leaders. Elena and Rude are the two who come to mind. Not much to say about them. Rude never talks, just does his job and that is it. Elena is a little more sociable, and gets along with most people in our school, however she is extremely emotional…and well…like I have to tell you what happens when you piss off a chronically menstruating chick.

Now there is Reno. To my knowledge, actually to Vincent’s knowledge since he did tell me, there has to be a balance of power between the California Shinra and the New York Shinra. Leader, Scientist and two Turk leaders. So, lets see, we got Rufus, Hojo, Elena, Rude and Reno. Last time I checked with Vincent, California had Tseng, some chick named Scarlet, Reno, and Lucretia. Rude and Elena had replaced Vincent and Lucrecia when, well, the drama happened.

“Hey,” I catch up to Vincent between third period and forth period, just to pry into this a little more, “This new kid, Reno, he looks like one of those Turks right?”

Vincent eyes me, telling me silently not to get into the subject, but I am a Leo…stubborn as . “Yes.” Small reply, but at least I got one out of him; lets try for two.

“And you said there has to be an even amount of people on both sides right? Four, so how come Reno is here?”

“Many things actually, however, non make sense,” he says quietly, “If they were planning on switching members, Elena or Rude would have been gone by now.” He stops and looks at me, sternly. I know exactly what he is going to say, and he is right. “Do not get involved.” He walks away, leaving me in the hallway, not satisfied of course.

I walk to my forth period class…lab. Lab is not so bad, since I am missing a GRAND forty minutes of gym, however I now have to spend forty minutes working on physics related stuff. To make it even more fun, I am stuck with two complete morons as my lab partners since there is an odd number of kids in the class.

I stroll in, about a minute late, receiving a nice glare from my idiotic lab teacher, who points to my seat with her pen. I sit in the back, in the last lab table in the last seat closes to the window. Alone. Save for the two idiots facing me…they shall remain nameless.

Suddenly, a stern yell from my lab teacher broke me away from thoughts. I look up, and to my dismay see Reno, the newbie, standing in the front of the classroom.

“Mister Strife,” she begins, me already knowing my fate, “Reno shall be your new lab partner. Reno, my dear, just take the seat next to Cloud…don’t worry, he won’t bite…most days.” The little joke at the end received some laughter from the group of students. Reno rolled his beauti- his green eyes and walked over to MY table and takes a seat next to me.

“ I am not good at physics,” are the first words out of his mouth. I chuckle despite myself.

“Take a look around you,” I say, “You think this group has any idea what we are doing?”

I eye him, as he looks at around the table. “Heh,” he said, staring nonchalantly at the girl in front of him, “yeah well, can’t have the best of both worlds.” I look at the girl he is talking about, and chuckle again. He leans over to me he says, “You either get the big brains, or the big ‘BRAINS’”

“Hmm, nice to know you are a boob guy,” I say coldly, rolling my own blue eyes and looking away from him. He doe not seem fazed by my obviously cold aura.

“Actually, I hate boobs,” he says laughing slightly, “in fact, everything about a girl scares me.”

“Oh?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die.”

I look over at him, so damn happy to expose him for the fraud he is…

“You so ripped that from South Park,” I say. “so” since when did I talk valley girl.

Dammit I am getting gayer as the day goes on. I have to get laid.

“Ha, yes what of it?” Reno laughs, now turning his attention to the big breasted vixen in front of him, “Hey baby.”

This girl, who shall not be named, looks up from her “work”. Upon laying her eyes on the “sexiness” that is Reno, she seemed to have forgotten how to make coherent sentences.

Oh who am I kidding…she could never make coherent sentences.

“Uh, hi,” she says, suddenly becoming very seductive in her tone of voice, “Is there anything I could do for you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Reno says, a little to enthusiastically, “I need some help with this stuff. I am new to this school and well, I do not understand these directions, do you mine helping me?”

“Oh OH! Of course,” she says, happily hopping from her seat and rushing next to him, “I am Tifa, by the way…eheh.”

Gah, she had to say it.

“Tifa. That is such a beautiful name. I am Reno.”

“Oh it is like so nice to meet you Reno…so…umm..”

I roll my eyes at the pair, looking away in fear I my IQ would suddenly drop as low as Jessica Simpson’s. My eyes though, refuse to stay in one place…and sadly they drift to the angel in front of me. ‘Aeris…’