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“Holy s**t!”

Rogue’s hand flew up to cover her nose as she stepped off the O-train and onto the dark city streets of the Midgar slums. The air was harsh and acrid after years of living in small towns out in the country, thick with the smells of exhaust and people, and somehow of insanity and the icy creep of darkness. Not the literal nighttime blanket that now cloaked the sky and wound through the streets, no, more of a spiritual darkness that turned your stomach to a roiling bouncy rig and had you whipping your head around to check behind you every ten seconds, always expecting someone to be there, to be following you. That, in the city, there would usually be someone walking close behind you, too, really didn't help the feeling.

Quickly leaving the station commons and taking to the residential streets, Rogue walked with her head tilted up, watching both sides of the street for something like “room for rent” or “vacancy”. She was new to the city, with no money. Finding a safe place to sleep... Wasn't going to be easy. After all, little vagrants weren't known for being reliable with the rent payments, so a hotel or motel was probably out. Unless they were stupid or a sucker for the lost little girl eyes.

That’s making a huge assumption that you have it in you to make the little girl eyes, Rogue. Think on that one a little.

Yeah, okay. Rogue wasn't exactly the helpless little girl type. Didn't like pretending it either, but if she had to, she wouldn't be above it. Survival was survival, honor paled in comparison to that, sometimes. But, again, that was making the assumption she could pull off a passable helpless performance. And that really wasn't likely, growing up... The way she had.

Jostled by the legs and elbows busy adults wedged against her, Rogue stumbled from the sidewalk to the street and fixed her bag over her shoulder. It was a plain, battered black duffel bag, but it held all her clothes, her two knives, her sword, and a notebook. Along with a toothbrush and things like that. All her worldly possessions, slung over her shoulder like Atlas balancing the world.

Yupp, the world's first midget, hobo Atlas. Sure, I can go with that. The fates balance in my hands! Oh ********, don't even think that. That's your father's line.

Speaking of, maybe... Well maybe she would have better luck getting a job first. It was dark, and the after-hours crowd was giving her no kinda good looks. This wasn't the place for a sixteen-year-old girl, SOLDIER-bound or not. Right about now, getting to ShinRa was probably the best idea she'd heard since she'd left home a week ago.

Rogue'd been to Midgar, to the ShinRa headquarters often enough for her father that she knew how to get there. Thankfully, that in and of itself was easy enough. It just meant cutting through to the living district known as Sector Six, which was slightly nicer than Sectors Five and Seven (Seven being the ultimate slum), and emptying out what was left in her wallet on another train ride up to what was known as the Plate, which was a giant second level type thing suspended above Midgar itself by seven thick pillars that extended from a Mako reactor in each of the Sectors, then one more in the center of the city. The only thing up there was ShinRa HQ and it's direct operations. A small network of highways trailed down to drop outside the city's walls, a quick dispatch for SOLDIER forces, a quick escape route for the execs. Rogue wasn't stupid, these guys would evac their own people before they worried about the citizens, and there was never a promise that a helicopter would be an escape option.

So in no time she was walking across the blindingly white lobby of ShinRa HQ. Men and women in business suits littered this lobby, clustered in small groups chatting, clutching expensive looking leather briefcases. These people speared glances at Rogue like she had the Black Plague, and immediately their voices would drop a full octave lower. The harsh hisses... She didn't have to hear them. She could guess what they were saying.

She ignored it thoroughly and walked up to the giant redwood reception desk, where the lady slanted a look up from behind narrow horn-rimmed glasses.

“May I help you, Miss? You look a little young, are you lost?”

“Nope. Not lost. I just need to know which floor the SOLDIER director's office is on.” Rogue rested one hand on the polished wood, her slender fingers looking frail against it.

“Another one, of course... It's floor 49. The elevators are over there. Head up at your will, he'll be in there. His name is Dr. Lazard.”

“Thanks,” Rogue replied in a slightly sharp tone. She didn't like being patronized, and that had been far too close to stripping her back down to being a mere child. She let it slide, barely, and slipped into the small metal elevator, marked with the red ShinRa Electric Power Company insignia, both on the door and laid out on the floor inside it, as a horrifically redundant carpet. Wonderful.

The elevator stayed empty the whole thrice damned way up. Rogue stood perfectly still in the center of the elevator, arms crossed across her chest, one lean leg locked in a slant away from the other, staring straight ahead with her head slightly angled down. Her black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the natural waves weaving it into something that wasn't lifelessly laying against her neck, a couple of flyaway baby strands poofing up around her pale face, her almond shaped, ice blue eyes framed by long, curled, black lashes. She wore a simple black tank top that molded against her slim body, black jeans, faded at the knees, and heavy black combat boots. Little silver studs glinted at her earlobes in the overly bright fluorescent lights.

When the doors pinged and slid smoothly open on their tracks, it opened into what looked like a lounge. A lounge Rogue quickly noted was for the SOLDIERs. Men in uniform were scattered around the room, which weirdly looked like a living room in a group home, with a couple couches on opposing sides of the room and two flat-screen TVs set up on the walls. The uniforms were two colors. Navy blue and... A really disgusting shade of purple. A shade that leaned a bit too heavily toward red, without quite making it there. Most of the men were wearing those uniforms, and were clustered on the right side of the room. The other side is where the men in blue were. There were only three of them, and you could... Sense a difference between the two colors as well as notice the obvious visual. The purple guys gave off a callous, light air. The blue guys were more serious. Men that had seen battle. Probably with decent frequency. The others were rookies.

On both sides, every head turned and stayed turned when Rogue stepped into the lounge.

“Uhh, Miss, I think you got the wrong floor...” one of the boys in blue spoke up. Rogue's eyes shifted straight to him. He had a handsome, youthful face, spiky black hair that... Exploded wildly around his head, kind've like a dark starburst, and lively deep blue eyes. He was easily head and shoulders taller than Rogue, but that was fairly common, considering she was only five foot five. No way in hell he was older than twenty. Her first impression of him? Nothing more than a kid that was way too warm hearted for a job like this. What the hell was he doing here?

“Nope, right floor. I can read a floor plan, after all. But, ya know, there really are way too many buttons in there. They really could stand to make that thing a tad more user-friendly.” She offered him a fleeting smile as she breezed by to soften her words, but there wasn't much she could do about his buddies, all of whom got a good laugh out of their big, tough SOLDIER buddy getting told off by some scrawny little high school girl.

I'm flattering myself. High school? I probably look like I could pass for still being in middle school. Goddamn it.

You had to give the guy some credit. He grinned at himself, a perfectly happy, boyish little smile, open and honest, the faintest of pink blushes flaring over his cheekbones. It was... So damn cute and... Weird. Out of place in a hellhole like this. Rogue felt herself hesitate, felt herself stare, felt for a second like everything else around her'd gone a bit fuzzy, till she mentally took a hold and shook herself. She looked back toward the office at the back and kept walking, as though nothing'd happened.

She slipped into the office, quietly shutting the door between herself and the room of soldiers, feeling... Pretty self-conscious now. That one soldier... She hadn't meant to stare at him, but... Well, too late to go back on it now. If she... Didn't want to admit that his smile was imprinted before her eyes like the brilliant afterimage of the sun... Then that was her prerogative.

The director's desk wasn't too different from the one in the lobby downstairs. Big. Redwood, polished, but this one was massively crowded with files and papers and pens. Fitted amongst the clutter sat one computer, very fancy, very high tech, that seemed to control the large screen behind the desk, and a steaming cup of coffee, untouched. Dr. Lazard himself was, however, a study in composure. His dark blond hair was slicked back in a smooth wave; his narrow black-rimmed glasses perched on his rather large, hooked nose, his deep blue suit stiff and immaculately pressed.

“Hello? May I help you with anything?” Yupp. Generic, suit-type voice too.

Rogue swung into the chair across from him with an easy, trained grace, all too aware the wall behind her was nothing but glass. All too aware that far too many eyes were trained on her back. She shifted her battered bag from where it'd been perched on her shoulder, into her lap, unzipped it and handed him a slightly crumpled form, her expression hard and honest. When he took the form from where it balanced on her fingertips, she sat back in the chair, her pale blue eyes meeting his dark brown gaze steadily.

“I'm here to join SOLDIER.”