Gallery of Shattered Mirrors
Disclaimer: I do not, unfortunately, own Final Fantasy VII or any of its sequels/prequels. The horrendously irritating sarcasm is my own, however.
Summary: What happens when you throw an unawares ninja into a perfectly planned Turk mission? Chaos, jailbreaks, and enough sarcastic remarks to last one very irritated Reno a life time…not that anyone's counting.
Warnings: My usually horrendous spelling, and colorful language. If you're allergic to sarcasm, I do not suggest reading this XD
Prelude to a Fatal Coincidence
Over dramatization serves no purpose when dealing with a heartless individual such as Tifa. Yuffie begged, whined, feigned cardiac arrest, and even fake fainted due to—just as fake—internal bleeding, but all of her theatrics went, apparently, unnoticed, and the ninja still landed herself in the kitchen, with a headache, and a grievous stab to her pride.
Perhaps the fact that Yuffie attested to internal bleeding in her elbow, of all places, had something to do with Tifa's incredulousness, but when one takes into consideration the shinobi's claim of rising blood pressure and brain blackouts when next to a stove, it's highly debatable which lie snapped the older brunette's temper. Between these two fake—but rather entertaining—pieces of information, and Yuffie's voiced fear of being attacked by kitchen appliances, it's no wonder that Tifa felt it her duty to drag the protesting ninja into the aforementioned kitchen. After all, even the sweet—or evil, as Yuffie would have you believe---martial artist was somewhat sadistically inclined.
"I swear the oven won't bite."
Yuffie rolled her eyes at the soothing voice, with which Tifa was trying to mask her amusement.
"I'm not clinically insane, Tif," the ninja informed huffily, still struggling with the death grip around her arm. "And would you let go? You're cutting off my damn circulation!"
"Oh? But wouldn't that help stop the internal bleeding at your elbow?"
"You're aiding the wrong elbow."
Tifa let out a short laugh of amusement. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but three minutes ago, I believe, you were screaming about this one."
"Some friend you are," Yuffie accused indignantly, glaring at the back of Tifa's head. "I'm standing in front of you woman, quite possibly dying, and you don't even know which elbow will cause my demise!"
The ninja was quite aware that the allegation was ridiculous, but heck, if she started this charade, she'd be damned not to finish it. Not to mention the feint hope that if she annoyed the older woman enough, maybe—a very slim yet none zero probability—Tifa would let her off the hook.
"I'm sorry sweetie. I simply couldn't get past your alleged blackouts to pay attention to anything else."
Yuffie gasped in disbelief at the mocking comment. Since when was Tifa, of all the sentimental women on the face of this planet, allowed to be sarcastic?
"Have you been drinking arsenic lately?" The ninja stopped her futile struggle against the death grip, deciding offhandedly that chewing her own arm off was an option if all else failed.
"That's an over exaggeration," Tifa scoffed quietly. "A bottle of hydrochloric acid sufficed."
The martial artist ushered Yuffie into the kitchen—or Satan's playground, in the ninja's hail-all opinion—finally letting go of the younger girl's arm. The shinobi in question brought the abused appendage to her chest protectively, shooting Tifa an irritated look.
"Don't give me any bright ideas. You just might find such a bottle served with your next meal."
Tifa promptly ignored the comment.
"Come on, Yuff! Cid really needs out help. He's hopeless when it comes to cooking and such; you know that."
"Cid is hopeless, period," The ninja corrected, slouching into a nearby chair, observing, with quite the bit of amusement, as Tifa fished for her lost list of ingredients.
"Shera's going to be home in three hours. We need everything ready for the surprise party by then," Tifa continued, as if the inserted quip wasn't voiced. "Think we can do it?"
"You can! There's really no need for me."
"Oh but there is."
Yuffie groaned at the implication. If her duties for the evening involved cutting salads or anything of the sort, the poor ninja wouldn't make it out of the hellhole with all of her limbs in place…and attached.
"Right," The girl pronounced in a small voice, slouching further into her chair—if that was even humanly possible.
"Do me a favor?" Tifa grinned in a pleading manner, which only made Yuffie narrow her eyes at the forced innocence. "I'm missing a few things, as it would seem. Care to pick them up for me?"
Yuffie could have jumped for joy at the unexpected inquiry. Of all the horrendous things, such as actually preparing food, that Tifa could have asked...
'Thank Leviathan!'
"Of course!" The ninja flew out of her chair with a delighted grin and bounced over towards Tifa. The other quirked an eyebrow at the drastic change in disposition, but decided not to comment. Scouting out a pen, she scribbled a few quick things on the back of her newly-found list.
"I suggest the convenience store on 27th Street." Tifa handed over the paper, assuming a somewhat thoughtful expression. Was she forgetting something?
"Anything else I should know?" Yuffie threw over her shoulder, more for etiquette's sake than anything else, as she headed for the door.
"Oh, and make sure the ice tea is sweetened."
"Tif, please! You don't actually expect me to buy anything without sugar, right?"
"And don't take too long! I need those here in no more than an hour."
"Got it."
"And thanks!"
Yuffie, who was waiting patiently at the door for the rest of Tifa's instructions, took that as her queue to get a move on it. With a dismissive wave of her hand at the unnecessary thanks, she took off down the hall.
Tifa stood still for a moment. There was something else that she was simply forgetting to say. 'What else—ah…that.'
"Oh, and Yuff!"
"Yeah?"
"Cid isn't here to drive you."
"WHAT?!"
Reno's eyes narrowed in disgust as the young man began shaking his head emphatically in the oh-so-familiar 'heck no' manner.
"There's no way in all nine circles of Dante's Inferno," was the categorical exclamation accompanying the exaggerated movements. "Simply not gonna happen." Reeve's stern stare, however, did not waver, and Reno was forced to look for a more straight forward approach to illustrate the point of his earlier dramatics: "No!"
"No way in all nine circles of Dante's Inferno?" Elena quirked an amused eyebrow, barely concealing the sadistic pleasure she derived from the unfolding scene. As unbeneficial to one's health as making Reno do anything against his will was, the whole process was wonderfully amusing to watch from the sidelines.
The red-head did not, as was expected, grace such a rhetoric with any response.
"I don't see what you find so problematic." Reeve's tired voice drifted through the office, as the man broke his wannabe intimidating gaze and looked down at the plastic-wrapped uniform in his lap. "The whole process will take no longer than a half hour."
Reno snorted and slouched farther—if such was even achievable—into the armchair he was occupying. "Who is this sought-after individual, anyway?"
Reeve couldn't resist the inquisitive gaze that settled over his features at Reno's unexpected inquiry. 'At least we're making progress…' The brunette thought warily. And, in fact, such was progress indeed; most certainly much more lenient than the original 'no way in all nine circles of Dante's Inferno.'
"Devon," Elena responded amusedly, ignoring the fact that the question required an explanation rather than a simple name
"How absolutely charming." Reno rolled his eyes in irritation. "Now that I have his name, perhaps you'd like to inform me of the guy's phone number, and send us on a date?"
"I didn't realize you…rolled that way." The slang sounded somewhat foreign off her lips, but the laughter in the phrase was not lost on anyone.
"There are lots of things you don't know, 'Laney." The red-head waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "My fondness for killing irritating blondes on the weekends, for the sheer fun of it, happens to be one of those things."
"Blond men, I assume?"
"No, blonde Femi Nazis." Reno grinned at Elena's rapidly bubbling annoyance.
"Chauvinist."
"Anti-Aryan chauvinist," Rude inserted, not bothering to lift his head from the file that he was diligently studying.
"Never aspired to be labeled as anything else." No words could possibly describe the Cheshire grin that settled over Reno's face when Elena simply huffed in response.
At this point, Reeve decided to cut in and interrupt the exchange before it went any farther. If long years of experience with these three amounted to anything, he didn't even want to consider hearing the rest of that conversation.
"The man deals weaponry." The president sighed lightly in relief as the ensuing argument fell into dead silence. Even Reno, surprisingly enough, deigned it somewhat necessary to snap to attention. Encouraged by the overall seriousness in which the office became consumed, Reeve continued. "Lately, however, as it would seem, he picked up on the habit of kidnapping government officials."
"For a hefty amount of ransom money, I assume?" Reno questioned lazily.
"Indeed." Reeve nodded in the affirmative, moving the plastic-wrapped uniform to rest on his desk, where the red-head had an easy time grabbing it.
"You said something about kidnapping government officials," Elena spoke out slowly, perhaps still trying to wrap her mind around the concept.
"Care to elaborate?" Reno's uninterested voice finished the inquiry for her.
"Neo ShinRa and Wutai agreed, as you may know, upon improving national interests with a free trade agreement, unbarred by tariffs and the likes. Perhaps the agreement is only a small step towards forgetting the conflicts of long past, it's most certainly an important one."
"Cut the propaganda Reeve," Reno interrupted cheekily. For if Reeve was left to his own devices, these pep talks—as Reno liked to refer to them—would be endless.
"As I was saying," the brunette glared at the Turk in a half-hearted fashion "the aforementioned agreement does not bode well for a weapons dealer. As the main manufacturer of artillery to both, ShinRa and Wutai, for a decent amount of time, the firm would suffer great losses if the conflict between the two was to be resolved."
"And the mutual trust for establishing trade almost guarantees that the said conflict will, in fact,be resolved," Elena filled in.
"And the kidnapped officials?" Rude inquired quietly.
"Official, to be more exact," Reeve corrected.
The Turks exchanged brief glances, Reno being the first to come to terms with his suspicion.
"Godo?"
"Unfortunately. His advisors received a ransom note this morning, no more than seven hours ago," The president informed dejectedly.
"And what about Yuffie?" Elena inquired curiously. Wasn't Yuffie, as the daughter and princess, supposed to receive the letter?
"In Midgar and blissfully ignorant at the moment. I'd prefer keeping it that way."
"And you want to get to Godo before the ransom is due," Reno stated flatly, as he fiddled with the plastic-wrapping around the uniform that he was more inclined to burn than wear.
"And that requires your cooperation." Reeve smirked at the 360 that the conversation just went. He only hoped that the exchange wouldn't go back to the ridiculous exclamations.
Calmly surveying his dimmed surroundings—though dimmed, by no means, was an accurate adjective to describe the lack of lighting—Reno decided that luck, apparently enough, was not on his side yet again. With only one broken streetlight to provide for the dark, ten-meter alley and not a soul within a twenty-meter radius, the Turk's bold action of simply being there could easily—and justifiably at that—be labeled as suicide.
For all his elaborate protesting, Reno certainly didn't get what he wanted. No bar, no liver-killing liquids, no attractive bartender. Oh, the horror!
"Remind me once again why I'm doing this?" Reno adjusted his ear piece, hearing a soft snort issue from Elena.
"Because you're getting paid."
"Say, Rude? Think that particular edition of irritating blonde comes with a mute button?"
As was expected, Rude did not reply, but Reno could hear a distinctively male voice chuckle on the other end of the transmission. Elena, however, didn't practice as much restraint with her vocal chords. Her tirade on 'improper treatment of such a wonderful young woman' rang loudly from the ear piece, which Reno was already holding in his hand rather than on his ear. It wasn't in his plans to loose a pair of eardrums that particular evening, thank you very much.
"Apparently not," was Rude's subtle way of cutting off the blonde.
With a smirk, Reno picked at his cable company uniform—rather obviously, Reeve was seriously lacking in creativity—satisfied with the defeated sigh off Elena's lips.
"We need to change your remote, 'Laney."
The blonde, understandably enough, didn't address that.
"I'm delighted you're having such a wonderful time tormenting me this evening, but there are still much more pressing matters to attend to."
"Such as?" It was safe to say that Reno was not lacking in sadistic tendencies.
"Such as going over what you're going to do yet again, in case you screw up and decide to get yourself killed."
"You're worried? How positively sweet of you!"
"Don't flatter yourself," Elena scoffed. "I'm afraid I'll loose my job over you."
"I never met a woman more charming than you."
"I try…"
"To displease?" Reno snorted. "You're doing a very fine job of that."
"Weren't there mission details you were going to cover?" Rude, the ever sensible one, cut in promptly.
Reno's gaze instinctively traveled to the mansion not a block north from his current location. "Go in, search through 'private' papers, find the blueprint that Reeve is sure—god knows for what reason—is in the midst of those, 'fix' the television, and get the heck out," Reno recited flippantly. "Got everything down?"
"Don't forget to be polite. You're service personnel at the moment."
"Yeah, yeah, no bitching at the snobby shit. I know."
"Reno," Elena growled threateningly.
"Yes?" Innocence embodied, much?
"Get going."
With a quick flash of white teeth, Reno turned towards the roof Rude and Elena were perched on, for back-up, receiving a glower from one and a stony stare from the other.
"What got your knickers in a twist?"
Shouldering his equipment bag, Reno turned away, heading due north towards 27th Street. How many times has he done this? 'Too many.' So there was no problem…right?
TBC…
A/N: I hope you've enjoyed this first chapter! Pardon the somewhat slow start, but as you can probably tell, everything is going to pick up next chapter XD Please tell me what you think! Love it, hate it, don't think it sounds interesting in the least? You get the point. Oh, please feel free to flame, and constructive criticism is more than welcome! Thank you yet again!
-Fantasie
