Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Characters that belong to Square Enix.
Chapter 1: The Morning After
Reno woke up with a headache the size of a reactor. 'Where am I?' He thought as he took in his surroundings. The tiny bedroom held the bare essentials of comfort, the blinding light from the bare window increased the pounding of his head. His attempt to soothe his temples was blocked by what felt like bandages. The twin bed under him creaked as he tried to hoist himself off of it. He grimaced at both the sound and the ache that came from his midsection. Further self inspection revealed more bandages just above his pants. 'Wonderful.' He thought bitterly. Listening intently for a moment, the sound of a keyboard seemed to be coming from the next room.
As he looked through the door he saw a brown haired woman at a computer, muttering under her breath, pressing hard on the keys. She wore a simple blue pant suit with no tie and the top collar button abandoned. "Hey, babe, can you tell me what we did last night?" He said with the same tone he used on new office assistants. She looked up at Reno, hazel eyes with a nature behind them that reminded him painfully of Tseng. All work and no play. Surely he didn't sleep with that, which begs the question of what he was doing here.
"Oh, you're awake. How do you feel?" She stood up. Walking around the desk, she put the back of her hand on his cheek that had been spared bandaging. "You still have a small fever, but I'm sure you'll be fine." She nodded to herself before returning to the desk. After a few minutes of waiting, he realized she wasn't going to answer his question.
He looked her over, "Charming. Look I got work to do, so if you could point in the direction of my stuff and that bar I was at last night, I'll be on my way." He glared at her to get his point across. She only chuckled at him. " I take it you don't remember last night?" Reno shook his head. "Wouldn't be asking if I did, babe."
"I didn't think you would... Well, my name is Angel." She slightly smiled. "Last night you were at a bar called 'Last Stop', and head-over-heel drunk I might add. You got into a fight with a few 'friends' of mine. Why a Turk would walk into a place like that alone, I don't know."
His gaze narrowed. He didn't talk about his occupation off the job, one of those little rules. He scanned over her again, looking for anything that might be a weapon. If she noticed, she didn't let on and continued un-bothered.
"You see, after the first one jumped you, his buddies joined in. You held your own for a bit, but when they started slipping materia shots in the bar something had to be done. So I, being an idiot, decided to jump in. You took a poison sleep combo and a nasty head blow. The bar wasn't so lucky. Since I live right around the corner, I brought you here and cleaned you up. Unfortunately, I think Dad towed your car out of spite."
"So, thanks, I guess. But-" His next round of questioning was cut off by a ringing of a phone. A hand was held up to him as she fished her cellphone out of her jacket pocket.
"Lorns. ... Yeah, he's right here." His look of suspicion increased. " ...He's there too? … And Him? Shit. Are they mad? … Yeah, ok, I'll see you at HQ." A frown had worked it's way across her face as she returned the phone to her pocket. Once again his attempts for answers were interrupted as she immediately began speaking again, "I'll explain the rest on the way. Your things are in the bathroom behind that door. Get ready, we need to go. Apparently your friends have been looking for you."
And with that she left through the only other door, the sounds of items being collected soon following. While Reno was arguably quite annoyed, all of his usual effects were indeed here. Weapons and all. Had Angel wished him harm, she certainly wouldn't patch him up or rearm him. Maybe it was that damnable recklessness of his, but he'd play along for now. He at least needed to find out how she knew he was a Turk. Fully dressed, he followed through the second door. A midnight blue convertible sat in a drive way past the small kitchen he had entered.
Angel put a laptop in backseat, and then sat down in the front seat. "Reno, are you coming or just going to stand there?"
He closed the door and got into the car on the passenger side and gave her a questioning look. "How did you know my name?" She started the car, and began pulling out of the drive as she answered his question. "Because there's only one red-headed Turk."
"Where are we going?" Reno asked once Angel started the car.
Angel hesitated. "That's classified." She said quietly. "What matters is your boss isn't really please right now."
Reno looked out the window with a groan. "Are you going to avoid every question I ask? Classified by who, and how do you know my boss?"
"Look, it's not my fault. I'm sure Tseng will explain everything once we get there. I mean, it is our fault you got jump. Those thugs thought you were a co-worker of mine named Red."
"Red? Who's he?"
"One, Red is a she. An-"
"They mistook me for a woman?!"
"To be fair, the two of you do look remarkably alike. Aside from your scarring under your eyes. As I was saying though, you happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. So, sorry about that."
The rest of the ride was spent in a semi-awkward silence with Reno trying to pick up anything off this strange woman he could. However, there was nothing in the car to give away habits or anything personal. The resemblance to Tseng's procedure of operations was getting a little unnerving. They soon pulled into the warehouse district under sector plate 4. Reno gave a raise eyebrow to the rundown warehouse Angel parked before.
"Hey, just because it looks rundown doesn't mean anything." She said with a smirk as she climbed out of the car with the laptop. "Maybe if you're good, I'll give you the tour."
Reno gave the place another look and sighed. "Careful, that almost sounded flirty, yo." He retorted with a smirk, moving to stand between her and the building. "This is cute and all, babe. Really diggin' the creepy girl bit, but who are you really?"
"Miss Lorns. I see you found my missing Turk." Angel's eyes narrowed to a glare over Reno's shoulder.
Reno whipped around so fast his own ponytail hit him in the face. "Tseng, sir!" He almost shouted.
Tseng acted as if he hadn't even hear Reno and walked straight up to Angel. "Lorns, President Rufus would like a word with you about the explosion on the 65th floor. If you recall?"
Angel's glare seemed to strengthen. "I hope you recall that the explosion wasn't my fault?" She asked back.
Reno stood there feeling slightly confused. Rude came up behind Tseng and motioned for Reno to follow him. Not knowing what else to do, he followed Rude. "Hey man, what is going on here?" Reno asked his friend.
"…You have been missing since yesterday."
"I meant with that chick and Tseng." He responded slightly annoyed.
"….You mean Angel?" Rude asked Reno with a raised eyebrow.
"No, the cute blond next to her!" Reno yelled.
"… She works with the Shinra Investigations Department in Administrative Research." Rude stated calmly.
Reno stopped and gave his teammate a questionable look. "Rude," he started, "WE are the Manufacturing Department in Administrative Research. Wouldn't I KNOW if there was another department?"
"…No. It's classified." Rude said still calm as could be.
Reno's eyebrow twitched as he began to open his mouth again. This time a gloved hand appeared on Rude's shoulder interrupting Reno's train of thought. A messy red-headed woman with blue slacks, and a loose mostly unbuttoned, white dress shirt.
"Yo, Rude." She said with a big smile on her face. "I see you found your buddy. Sorry about last night, man. Name's Red." She held out her hand to Reno as she finished.
Reno looked from Red, to Rude, and back again, as he slowly shook his doppelganger's hand. 'Remarkable nothing, Hojo must have cloned me or some shit when I wasn't looking.' He thought morbidly to himself. "Reno, but you probably already knew my name."
Red shrugged, "Mostly, yeah. But Rude here only ever says good things about ya."
Rude looked a little uncomfortable as Reno gave him a suspicious look. After making note to ask Rude about it later, Reno refocused on his boss.
Angel and Tseng were still glaring at each other.
"Are you going to come on your own?" Tseng asked.
"Are you going to let Elena off at my expense?" Angel replied.
Tseng didn't respond to her but turned sharply on his heel to face the direction of his car. "Red already agreed to attend. She even volunteered to come with you." He said as he started towards his car. "I except you are coming to the main office."
Knowing that she had no choice, Angel turned back around to reenter her car. Red waved off the guys and then plopped into Angel's car. A quick dive into the back seat with a muttering of "Come to mama," brought the appearance of the laptop into her hands.
"Every one in." Tseng said from his car. "Rude, you're shotgun. Reno, in back."
Tseng kept taking peeks through the rear view mirror, as though he expected the other car to take off at any point. His mood had greatly improved by the time they had reached the tower, and Angel's car pulled up behind them. The elevator ride to the office was completely silent. Angel and Tseng had returned to subtly glaring at one another. Once the elevator slowed and opened, the group made their way up to the President's Office. Behind the massive desk stood Rufus Shinra. Off to the side, looking as if she could murder that particular floor tile, was Elena. Rufus looked from Angel to Elena to Tseng and back to Angel.
"Does anyone know why we're here?" He asked calm and collected, as though he was speaking to a room full of misbehaving children.
"Because I'm being framed for the explosion on the 65th floor, the floor that the Turk office is in, that Elena caused." Angel stated glaring at Elena.
"I caused no such thing. It isn't against regulations to start and leave fires unattended within a Shinra building." Elena said back in her defense, turning to face Angel in return.
"All the more reason for you to blame it on me. Rule #8: Cover anything you don't want someone to see, especially if it's your mistake." Angel said to her. "I mean, that's practically a confession!"
"You were the one the knocked it into the curtaining near the ammo stash!"
"Only after you Threw it at me!"
"Well, if you weren't such an insufferable cu-"
"Enough, both of you." Rufus said interrupting their argument.
Red snickered, tossing her hands behind her head to sway close enough to Rude to whisper to him, "Cat fight..."
"Tseng, if you would explain." Rufus requested.
Tseng nodded and stepped forward. "A short time ago there was a small explosion in Elena's office, this happen right after a scheduled appointment Knight Lorns had with you, sir, had ended. After the explosion, they both were found covered in soot, yelling at each other."
It felt like Rufus let the silence go on forever. Just staring at them. He eventually sighed, "Two new protocols effective immediately. One, no open fires in the building. I thought that should be self explanatory, however your lacking of common sense is spectacularly great... Two, Knights and Turks will not engage in hostile activities on Shinra property. Again, a given, however, you're idiots. Now get out of my office." With a flourish of his hand, and a toss of his hair, so it was decreed and so it would be. He had returned to sitting at his desk when he stopped them at the stairway, "Oh yes, Tseng, see to it that Reno is debriefed on our little project."
"Yes, sir." Tseng said firmly, before continuing to herd the group downstairs. Once everyone was in the elevator, he spoke up again. "From here, we go to the conference room. Angel, Red, if you would accompany us."
Angel glared at Tseng once more for good measure, "Yeah, yeah."
By the time everyone was seated in the conference room, Angel and Tseng were locked in a stare down once again. Elena, who once again needed to sit next to Tseng, was trying to be a participate, but Angel refused to acknowledge anyone else's challenge. Red, who had turned a chair around in order to use the back as an arm rest, watched grinning.
"So, if you three are done fucking each other with your eyes, Big Boss did say to let me in on the big secret." Reno said rather loudly. Elena flushed red, finding the section of table in front of her suddenly interesting.
"So he did." Tseng replied coldly, still glaring at Angel. After another tense moment, he sighed hard as he surrendered the unspoken war first and focused on Reno. "The SOLDIER program had no stability in the long run. And President Rufus as always been fond of the Turk initiative. While we have been fairly successful, we're becoming known. He wanted a fresh program, in order to properly have undercover agents again. Angel, if you would introduce yourself and Red, no need to compromise anyone else."
Angel gave an exaggerated eye roll as she stood up and looked over the four Turks. "I'm Angel Lorns. I am the current leader for the Dark Knights initiative. This is Red, she is my computers and explosives expert. And if Tseng could learn to keep his mouth shut, you wouldn't even know there were others."
"Hey hey, boss said be good." Red reminded her.
"So he did," She muttered, before continuing, "We're currently trying to infiltrate a terrorist group out of the Nibel Plant. Most leads have ran cold, and the last round of questioning caused the brawl intended for Red to fall onto Reno. I believe that would cover basic need to know explanation. Questions?"
"And what, you're like secret agents that know everything about us?" Reno asked with a disbelieveing eyebrow.
"No," Red cut in, "we get basic access to all employee files, but Turks are like us; not below us. Unless under orders from Ru-ru himself, Turk files are classified outside of name, photo, and badge number."
"Uh-huh. And my car?"
Red looked to Angel in blatant confusion. Both Tseng and Rude traded disappointed looks, while Angel shoved her hands in her jacket pockets."Well, that bar you were at last night, my family owns it. We've been using it as a front. My dad remembers you, and he wasn't to happy when you were involved -"
"In Red's fight, mistaken person!" Reno interjected to defend himself.
"Yeah, yeah, long story short, your car is in impound. Up side, Shinra owns impound. So go get it tiger."
"And who's your dad?" He pryed.
"Zanther, he's a former Turk that retired just after you joined up. So don't worry, he's in the fold so to speak."
"Keeping it in the family, quaint."
"Dad doesn't know, part of the whole 'undercover' thing. So keep it to yourself. Like that warehouse. It's our field headquarters, company secret."
Reno couldn't help the grin that came over him, "Sounds dangerous, yo. Maybe I should get reassigned."
"Not hiring. We done here?" Angel turned, directing the conversation at Tseng.
"Yes, After leaving this room, each of you will carry on as if this day had never happened. The integrity of the program must be maintained."
And with that, Angel and Red seemingly vanished from the building after the Turks had left the room.