An: As promised, I have rewritten Betrayer, and as I have decided it would be too long to be a single story I'm splitting it into installments. Betrayer is the title of the entire work, but each part will be titled differently. Don't worry, I'll mark them chronologically.
EDIT: I have also split the story into smaller chapters to make it easier to read. Though they still ended almost the length of Timeless chapters...
Rewritten January 2016, Beta-d by RLnera
Tseng would be the last person to admit it, but the girl miffed him. Him, miffed by a little girl who looked barely fourteen lounging in the chair in the interrogation room as if she were on a vacation in Costa Del Sol and not about to be brutally interrogated by the second most dangerous people in the world. It was, to say the least, a little degrading.
Tseng could only sigh and take comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only one. When the girl just appeared in the SOLDIER building, asking questions (they were definitely questions) in a language no one could understand the Turks were immediately called in. At first, Tseng couldn't possibly fathom why in the world was he, the second in command of the Turks, called in to interrogate a little teenager who probably couldn't even understand him. But then, when he saw her, or rather she saw him she did something that shocked all of them. She recognized them.
"Tseng? Rude? Reno?! Oh God, it can't be…" Were the first words out of her mouth that they could understand. The fact that she knew their faces wasn't that much of a surprise, as the Turks often ventured into the slums. But that fact that she knew their names, and could connect them to their faces was… disturbing, to say the least and downright suspicious at best.
It was how she ended up in an interrogation room, locked and alone. Surprisingly, she seemed so shocked that she was willing to be cooperative. Aside from saying their names, she hadn't uttered another word to anyone, just sometimes casting the three Turks disbelieving glances that eventually turned inquisitive.
Another disturbing fact was that she was a nobody. Her face didn't match any in the database and she didn't have any belongings on her, wearing only an oversized shirt, cotton shorts and she was barefoot. Honestly, she looked like she just stepped out of bed and into the building. If she wasn't so young, Tseng would have passed her off as a whore a SOLDIER brought home for a good night, but that theory didn't hold water when no one recognized her. The security was too tight for her to sneak in, and there were no reported security breaches. It could mean she had help on the inside, but Tseng reckoned that if the terrorist group, AVALNCHE, really wanted to send someone in they wouldn't have blown their cover within two minutes.
All theories cast aside, who was she?
When they turned up empty handed, the Turks had no other choice but take her picture and go questioning around in the slums, where the only people without legal identification dwelled. No one recognized her, and no one saw her even in passing. The same process was repeated above the plate. They combed through every corner of Midgar, even going so far as to ask the Turks and SOLDIERS stationed in Junon and Costa Del Sol to do the same.
Nothing. She was a complete nobody. Tabula Rasa. And that was what made her so dangerous.
The entire search lasted several hours, during which she had been confined in the interrogation room. It was a standard Turk procedure. Lock a suspect in the interrogation room, set the setting to weak light and mildly cold temperature while they hunt for their background. By the time they got down to interrogation, the suspects usually broke and confessed everything. But in this case, their procedures seemed to be failing them.
The nameless girl seemed to snap out of her shock about two hours in. Her reaction was both amusing and worrying. She looked around, slumped in her chair and then began laughing hysterically. The Turk in charge, Elena, was seriously considering calling somebody in to sedate her when she stopped laughing and started cursing. She apparently switched back to her mother tongue, but they were without a doubt curses she was hissing and spitting around.
Elena crossed the language she was speaking with the ones in the database, but once again turned up empty handed. In her defense, maybe it would have been easier if the girl did anything other than curse. She didn't even bang the glass and demand answers or anything, and once she finally calmed down she took a deep breath and settled on the chair, feet propped up on the table.
She had been in that position for nearly an hour by now, and all she did was mutter something under her breath, switch her crossed legs and chew on her hair or twirl it between her fingers. It was Reno's shift to watch her when Tseng came in, and the redhead only reported that listening to Commander Rhapsodos sprout Loveless all day was more interesting than watching her. There were also come complains about her being jailbait, but Tseng chose to ignore it.
"Do you have anything else worthwhile to report?"
"Actually, yeah." Reno suddenly turned serious. "You see how relaxed she is? She's not shivering, she doesn't even have goose bumps and the temperature in that room is 14 degrees celsius. Wanna bet that she's from the mountain areas? Like Modeoheim or maybe Nibelheim? Even Kalm's not out of the question. Looks like we have been searching in the wrong place."
Tseng had to raise an eyebrow. Now that he thought about it, his subordinate had a point. She seemed perfectly comfortable in the cold temperature despite her thin and not really covering garments. She was just chewing on a stray lock of her hair and looking into a wall, obviously thinking something over. Tseng decided it was enough stalling. They would simply look into it later.
"We're going in." Tseng announced.
"How are we gonna interrogate somebody who doesn't even understand us?" Reno stood up from his chair and followed despite his complains. Tseng didn't answer, but he was counting on the fact that if she knew their names she probably understood their language. Rude was guarding the door, and he walked into the room with them, leaving Elena in the observation room, and Cissney guarding the door.
The girl looked mildly surprised to see them, but she recovered quickly and took the strand of hair out of her mouth. She didn't put her feet down though. Tseng and Reno sat in the chairs opposite of her while Rude chose to stand, watching her intently. She didn't seem to mind.
The silence stretched for a few minutes, during which she decided she was bored and started chewing her hair again. It wasn't a particularly good habit, but she looked like she could care less. Tseng had to give her points for guts; she didn't look scared being in the room with three, well two intimidating figures. Reno wasn't even trying.
Eventually Tseng gave up. "Can you understand me?"
The girl looked at him funny. "Why wouldn't I?"
She was apparently fluent in Midgardian, with only slight traces of an accent Tseng couldn't place. It seemed Reno's theory was at least partially correct. But before Tseng could utter another word the aforementioned redhead piped in.
"Great! Now you can tell- umpf!" Tseng stopped him from saying anything more by jabbing him in the ribs. He could understand why Reno was eager to get some answers but that didn't excuse him from breaching the interrogation protocols! It didn't help that the girl snerked into her hand, trying to contain her laughter. Great, if they ever had any chance of intimidating the answers out of her it was gone now. None the less, Tseng continued.
"It seems you already know our names, care to share yours?" The girl looked contemplative for a moment.
"Nerina Blacker." She finally said. Tseng raised an eyebrow.
"Is that your real name or an alias?" The name sounded too Midgardian for a girl who spoke another language, especially one that wasn't in the database.
The girl, Nerina apparently, laughed. "Caught me, didn'cha? Yeah, it's an alias I usually give to folks like you who don't know how to say my name properly. And don't try telling me you could, your attempts would only be good for a laugh."
It was rude, and Tseng had to raise an eyebrow. What language was so hard to pronounce that she resorted to giving an alias just so she wouldn't have to listen to the botched attempts of saying her name? The southern Wutaian dialect used to be classified as a language of its own and was said to be the most difficult one to learn and pronounce properly, but she didn't seem to have a drop of southern blood in her, much less Wutaian. And what little they heard her speak her mother tongue, it didn't sound like any language he knew.
"Back to business. Do you really know who we are and how do you know?" She seemed cooperative enough that maybe they could get direct answers out of her and find out what she was doing here.
"Of course I know what you are! You're the Turks, officially known as the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department, or Administrative Research, whichever you prefer. To the public, you are in charge of scouting for SOLDIER candidates, but you are really the President's right hand men, and you do all his dirty work, like reconnaissance and espionage, including assassinations and kidnappings. As long as the mission objective is achieved, nothing else matters." She said it all with a smile on her face, like she was proud that she knew so much.
The three Turks on the other hand, couldn't have been more shocked. She knew?! It was one thing knowing their names and faces; someone could have slipped that up, but this… Tseng wasn't sure whether to recruit her or shoot her. How in the world had she gotten that information? Half of what she said was considered sensitive and secret data. And if she knew that, how much and what else did she know?
"How the fuck do you know that!?" Reno was the first to recover and blurt out the question they were dying to ask. But instead of answering straight away like they expected her to, she bit her lip and looked away, as if suddenly realizing it wasn't common knowledge.
"Yeah, I'd… rather not tell you." She took her feet off the table and replaced them with her hands. She was biting her lip and wringing her fingers, like she was thinking what to tell them.
"And why not?" Tseng forced himself to keep his cool exterior, though his eyes now had a hostile glint. This one was no innocent girl she pretended to be. Theories were running through his mind a mile a minute, and none of them were good.
She held up one finger. "A- Because there's no way you would believe me." She raised another finger. "B- You'd think I'm crazy." Third finger. "C- You'd either shoot me or dump me in Hojo's lab to become an experiment." She dropped the fingers and leaned her elbows on the table.
"You do realize that the C option is likely to occur anyway if you don't tell us how you got this information, right lassie?" Reno raised an eyebrow. While he had to admit the girl had guts to talk about the possibility of her death in the near future like that, he was leaning more towards stupidity being the cause. Then again, if she was stupid she wouldn't have gotten her hands on that information.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes I'm well aware of it, Reno."
"Then you should give us answers, Miss Blacker." Surprisingly, it was Rude who spoke.
Nerina's glaring eyes turned to the black Turk and then suddenly the smirk was back on her face. In that moment her entire body language changed. She intertwined her hands and leaned her chin on them, giving the impression that she was now the one doing the interrogating.
"Ah, you want answers Rude? Tell me, you have a girlfriend, right? Chelsea if I remember correctly. Met in the Slums, right?" The way Rude stiffened gave them all the answers they needed.
"Is that where you've been sneaking off to lately?!" Reno asked incredulously. He had been wondering for a while where would the dark Turk disappear every once in a while, but he hadn't been able to figure anything out. He was planning to trail him the next time to see where he always went, but now a little girl just gave him the answer.
It stung his pride a little.
"How do you know about her?" Even with the glasses on, they could tell Rude was glaring. Nerina on the other hand apparently dropped the façade of a good little girl and was glaring back.
"Hate to be the one to break your love bubble, but she's an AVALANCHE spy. You have an awful taste in girls." She didn't seem to hate breaking the news in the least. But the other tidbit made them pause.
"You're with AVALANCHE?" Tseng asked sharply. He should have known. But she just rolled her eyes.
"Weren't you listening? I said Chelsea was the one working for AVALNACHE. Man, can't you listen? Anyway, Rude, on your date when you go to the bathroom she will fiddle with your phone and try to plant a bug on it. Don't believe me? Assign Reno to follow you, he will confirm what I'm saying is true." Gone was the little smirk she wore; now she was dead serious.
"And how do you know all that?" Tseng repeated his question. While he was still glaring at her, he was just dying to find out how the Hell she found all that out. On one hand, she knew way too much to walk away alive. On the other hand, they could use that sort of knowledge to their advantage. It wouldn't matter how she knew so much if that knowledge was in the direct possession of the Turks.
Too bad she was a bit too young to recruit.
"That's for me to know, and for you to find out. You're a Turk, you'll figure it out." Then she frowned. "This interrogation is over. Either get someone competent to do it, or let me go. Or put a bullet between my eyes, it all boils down to the same conclusion." She propped her feet up onto the table again and took a lock of hair to chew on. She was completely ignoring them.
Rude was in a mild state of shock so he turned on his heel and walked briskly out of the room. Reno glared at her one more time before following his partner, leaving Tseng alone with the girl. Who was still ignoring him. That made Tseng think. The minimum recruitment age for the Turks was fifteen, just like for SOLDIER. Looking at her propped legs, they seemed long enough that standing she would be around 5 ft 6, giving the impression that she was already at least fourteen. But judging her age by her height was directly contradicted by her face. Just looking at her face with soft cheeks she seemed like a twelve year old. In the end Tseng gave up.
"If I may ask, how old are you?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, looked him over and then glared at him.
"I know you Turks don't give a rat's ass for legal shit, but yes, I am jailbait, and totally not your type." Had she been in possession of any fire materia, Tseng was pretty sure he would have burned on the spot. Instead he chuckled.
"That is not the reason I was asking your age Miss Blacker, so rest assured there will be no advances on you from my part, or from any of my Turks." He assured her with a smile. Now that she was the one uncomfortable her sudden hostility amused him.
She still glared at him. It stretched on for a few minutes before she snorted. "Turned thirteen a couple of months ago."
Tseng nodded, inwardly a little disappointed. He had been hoping to recruit her, but there was no way they could do that if she was so young, and even looked too young. Tseng stood up from his chair still not entirely decided if he should just put a bullet between her eyes like she said or get Veld to interrogate her. Except he couldn't, because Veld was currently on a forced 'vacation' and there was no way Heidegger would be able to interrogate a dog, much less somebody like her. As he reached the door he heard her call him.
"Tseng! Wait!" He turned around to see her fiddling with her hair not looking at him. "Tell Rude that his girlfriend never will plant that bug on his phone. She will try, but she likes him too much. And when she rejects him it would be because she doesn't believe enemies could be lovers, not because she doesn't want to."
Tseng raised an eyebrow. That sounded like she already knew it would happen for sure. But this time she wasn't talking about top secret material or plans, she was talking about the feelings of those she didn't even know. It was like she knew their exact moves, even though they didn't even do it yet. Like she knew…
Cloud she be like her?
He wondered, but out loud he said, "I will tell him. But I have one last question."
"Shoot."
"Are you with AVALNACHE?" He wasn't sure if she would lie, but it would be easier to gauge her reaction if she actually answered this time. Instead she snorted again.
"Those idiots playing terrorists? They are nothing, the real AVALANCHE will form only until this one has disbanded. Then they will pose a real threat." She still didn't look at him. Tseng took it as his answer, but only when the doors already closed and locked did he realize his error.
She never said yes or no.
"Someone more competent, huh?" He smiled slightly, remembering her words. Well, with Veld on leave, there was only one other person 'more competent' that he could think of. He whipped out his PHS and dialed a number he knew by heart.
"Hello, General? Yes, I have a favor I'd like to ask of you…"
Nerina sighed as she was left alone again. She cursed her soft heart that made her tell Tseng about Rude's girlfriend. She was never fond of the Turks, even after watching them in Advent Children. All through Crisis Core and even in Before Crisis they were pretty bastardly in her eyes. Especially for hunting Zack and Cloud down before the real game even started. Not to mention dropping the sector 7 plate.
Yes, as you have probably already figured out, 'Nerina' was from Earth.
She didn't know how in the world she managed to land herself in this situation, but she wasn't too scared. Things like that just didn't happen, so she came to a logical conclusion any psychiatrist would have recommended: she was dreaming. And you know what they say about dreams; the fastest way to wake up was to die. Or in this case, get killed.
She kept twirling her hair between her fingers and even started humming a little tune. Last thing she remembered before she fell asleep was that she stayed awake way past midnight replaying Final Fantasy 7 on her PSP for God only knew what time. She vaguely remembered putting on her pajamas and climbing on a stool to place her game in a little basket on top of her closet, so her little sister couldn't reach her games. Then what? She remembered the static electricity pricking her fingers. She yelped, the stool wobbled and she was sent crashing into her open closet. When she opened her eyes again, she was hanging out of a supply closet into an unfamiliar hallway.
Confused out of her mind she quickly shoved everything back into the unfamiliar room and closed the door behind her. There were no secret passages into some unknown buildings in her closet last time she checked, so she started walking in a random direction, hoping to find somebody and explain why she suddenly ended up in Narnia. She found somebody who looked like a secretary carrying papers somewhere. She ran up to her and asked her where she was. But the woman looked at her strangely and maybe even a bit fearfully before pulling out her phone and walking away, just a bit faster than before.
Nerina huffed and went in search of somebody nicer to extract answers from. Her plans were foiled when two men in a strangely familiar uniform began yelling at her in English. She furrowed her brows and asked them what the fuck was their problem. Only, she realized she forgot to switch to English a little too late as she was already being manhandled into submission and having cuffs placed on her wrists.
She was about to give them a piece of her mind in both languages when she noticed a very familiar trio. A trio that should by all rights be only fictional characters in the game she was playing not an hour ago. The very same characters that were now standing before her.
"Tseng? Rude? Reno?! Oh God, it can't be…" She said, barely above a whisper. The very same Turks she was trying not to stare at escorted her to a dark room with a table built into the floor and three chairs around it. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized the room's purpose as that for interrogating suspects, but she just slumped into the chair the furthest from the doors. She took a few calming breaths and began thinking.
What the fuck was there to think about?! She was in the game! She somehow turned her closet into a portal like those kids from Narnia! But instead of coming to Narnia she came to Midgar! From a game! What the fuck was she supposed to do?!
She had never felt so helpless and so terrified in her life. She guessed it was around that time that she started her hysterical laughter. But her usual way of dealing with fear quickly took place and gave way to anger. She stood up and walked around the room, spewing the worst curses she could think of left and right, even punching a wall at some point. It took some time, but when she was finally completely vented she took a deep breath to calm down and forced herself to sit on the damn chair. Only then could she start to think rationally.
And by rationally, she meant denial. Some thinking later she came to the two only logical conclusions. She was either A) lying in a hospital somewhere doped on happy drugs and hallucinating after she broke her head when she fell from the stool or B) dreaming. She was pretty tired when she was climbing to put away her game, she probably passed out when she fell and just didn't have the energy to get back up again. Add a possible concussion to the mix and it was no wonder she was having such weird dreams.
Thinking of her odd predicament, she twirled one lock around her finger before slipping it into her mouth. She always tied her hair into a ponytail and basically only untied it when she was washing said hair. She hated her long brown locks but she never found the time to cut them, and even when she did have the time she usually forgot, and as a result the tips of her hairs were turning a shiny shade of golden. Plus her sister really liked being able to braid it like her Barbie dolls. Stubborn little thing never grew out of her 'hairdresser' phase. Well, it kept her quiet if nothing else.
Speaking of stubbornness, those Turks were the epitome of it. From the moment they walked into the room, she knew they wouldn't let her leave unless they got some answers. But all they did was stare at her in silence. And then Tseng popped the million dollar question.
"Can you understand me?" Luckily for him, it only occurred to her later that she could have pulled his tail and pretended not to know English- err, Midgardian. Still, this was her dream, she figured she might as well play along.
What she said about her name was true. She had yet to meet an English speaking tourist that said her name properly without at least ten tries, and when she thought of what name to give him she thought that if this was some sort of alternate Narnia she might as well pay tribute. Nerina was close enough.
They seemed nice enough at the beginning, but then they revealed a bit of their true nature and the entire thing had turned sour. Judging from who she guessed was Cissney standing outside she figured this was sometime during Before Crisis. And when Rude piped in, she remembered just the event to push his buttons.
The thought that it actually worked made her do a happy jig in her head. Watching all those CSI series finally paid off! Man, she wished this was real so she could brag to her friends that she outsmarted the Turks. Maybe she could tell them anyway? The looks on their faces would be priceless.
She was snapped out of her thoughts from the sound of the door unlocking. Thinking Tseng had finally returned to finally wake her up with a bullet she crossed her legs and twirled a strand between her fingers again, not looking at the door. Only when she heard the sound of somebody coughing to catch her attention did she look up. And had to stop herself from gaping.
'Oh shit, they're upping the level.'