Thinking.

"Speaking"

"Success!"

I open my eyes.

The first thing to meet me is a man's face, uncomfortably close. He straightens up, and helps me stand. I can see that I'm in some kind of facility, or factory. Everything is made of steel, and there are pipes of various sizes stretching in different directions. The man helps me out of the globelike thing I woke up in, and as I look around I see a lot of people staring at me with something akin to awe.

Weird.

The man steers me down some stairs I didn't notice before and I discover someone who is certainly not awed by my presence. The look in his eyes is more akin to hate.

I didn't know hair could be that red. I wonder if it's dyed or natural…

It seems my "helper" has also noticed the look the redhead is giving me, for be backhands him quite harshly.

"How dare you look at the goddess in such a way!"

Come again?

I only manage to blink, utterly stupefied that someone just referred to as a goddess. I don't have time to further try to understand what he meant, for the redhead's captor, who's been standing behind him all the time, draws his leg back as if to kick the kneeling redhead. I rush forward to stop him, if for nothing else but the fact that I don't like prisoners being abused.

Besides, he is quite cute.

I snatch him out of the way and glare at the captor, which makes him shrink and mutter an apology. I pet the redhead's hair, and it's really silky. Insert girlish squeal here, he he. The captor turns to my helper: "Do you want me to take him into the holding cells downstairs?" The man turns to me, and I try to give my best glare, pulling the suddenly very compliant redhead closer to me. "Let her keep him if she wants." The captor nods and bends to pick up what looks like a collapsible table leg and a gun. My hand stretches out for them before I am even aware of it, and the captor hands them to me with a bow.

Not quite sure if I should be freaked out or happy.

"Please come this way goddess." My helper hauls the redhead to his feet, pushes him in front of him, and then motions for me to follow him. We exit trough one of the doors to the right, walk through a hallway, and up some stairs. "We're all ecstatic you're here, goddess. Now we can finally fight back against those ShinRa scumbags." The redhead's head snaps up, but before he can utter a word, my helper slams him into the wall. "Keep your mouth shut, you piece of shit. You should be grateful the goddess likes you, or you would have been in the dungeons now, entertaining the boys." My jaw drops, and I almost gasps, but fortunately, both of them are turned away from me, so they don't see my expression.

Rape isn't something I would wish on my worst enemy.

My helper wrenches the redhead of the wall, which makes him trip and fall face first into the stairs. He's dragged to his feet again and we continue until we evidently reach our goal. My helper opens a door, strides through to cuff the redhead to one of the pipes, turns around, bows to me, and then leaves through the door, closing it after him.

Eeehhh.

I look around spotting a bed, a night table and a chair and a table.

I take it this is where I'm supposed to stay?

The redhead's cuffed to a pipe so that he can't rise and I walk towards him. After all, I think he knows more of what's going on than I do.

As I draw closer he glares at me again. "If you think I'm just gonna sit still and let you molest me you've got another thing coming yo." I merely rise my eyebrow and kneels next to him, brushing some of his hair out of his face to see if he's got any bruises. I grab his chin to look at his other side and is almost bitten for my efforts. "I'm not your boy toy yo."

"Of course not."

The answer seem to take him by surprise. "I was merely looking to see if you were hurt. Will you tell me your name?" For a moment he just looks at me, disbelief and sceptics warring in his face. "Reno."

What an unusual name. Or rather, unusual for me. I have no idea if it's a common name here. Wherever here is.

"Are you hurt Reno?"

At this the sceptics in his face morphs into full blown disbelief. "The fuck are you playing at yo?! You really think I'm dumb enough to fall for your tricks. I'll never betray ShinRa!" I sigh. So much for trying to be nice.

"In case you didn't notice, I woke up in this place about 30 minutes ago. I haven't got a clue what's going on or what's I'm supposed to do, so don't you dare berate me for trying to be nice!" Reno looks appropriately mollified by my yelling. "Now we just gotta get you out of those cuffs." His eyebrow rise and he pulls his hands from his back. Evidently he managed to free himself just fine.

I hand him his gun and the collapsible table leg, and then I turn around trying to see if there's another way out. There's not. Reno takes the lead as we sneak outside, surprisingly not meeting anyone. Are their defence really this slack, or is this some kind of trap…?

As we get outside we're met with a cold wind and snow as far as the eye can see. Thankfully it's dusk, so nobody's going snow-blind.

"You should probably get going before they find out you're gone."

Reno turns so fast he almost trips. "You're coming with me. I ain't gonna leave you here yo." Open my mouth to argue, but close it again. Why bother? I'd probably only lose in the end anyway. I shrug and we start trekking through the snow.

I don't know how long we'd been walking when we heard shouts behind us. Reno swore and started running. I tried to keep up with him but sadly, I'm not in that good shape.

I had only ran a couple of strides before I fell. "Ahh!" Reno turned around and quickly made his way back to me. Behind us, we could hear the shouts of our pursuers. "Come on doll." I shook my head. "You run Reno. I'm in no shape to keep up with you, and I doubt they would hurt me given my apparent status." He snorted. "Like hell I'm leaving you with those bastards yo! I don't care what you say doll, I'm not leaving you behind." He took my hand and started dragging me as we made our way further.

Sadly it seemed we had gone the wrong way as we came to a plateau. "Jumping from here is not something any of us would survive."

"There they are!"

We spun around just as our pursuers caught up to us. Suddenly we were held at gunpoint.

I don't have any more time to think as I'm suddenly dragged to my side and something hard and cold digs into my left temple.

"Back off or she'll end up with a hole in her head yo."

What…?

I'm frozen, unable to comprehend what's going on, why Reno suddenly would turn on me like this. I'd think he was bluffing if his tone wasn't so dead serious.

What's going on?

His threat seems to work, but before they can retaliate a helicopter emerges from thin air behind us, we're hauled inside. I vaguely see the pursuers getting shot at, but I'm still too out of it to function properly.

"Yo boss. Great timing you have." I turn my head and see Reno talking to a man with a black ponytail. "Indeed. Who's the girl Reno?" Reno shrugs. "Dunno. The rebels where calling her goddess, but so far she hasn't done anything useful. Figured if I took her it would discourage the rebels, and bossman might find some use for her." He looks at me with a shrug, as if he couldn't care less what happened to me.

Betrayed. Used. He never cared in the first place.

A lone tear slips down my face.