- Reno and Arien will indeed meet them. And yes, they're the Evan and Kyrie from Turks: The Kids are Alright. They'll be coming up soon (as in, less than 7 chapters). We'll meet Evan first, then Kyrie, and I'll be integrating that plot arc.

Echo the Ethereal Swordmaster - I'm just feeling faint. Standing up's a chore. But I can sit up, so it's not that big of a deal. Mitchie's coming up soon as well. The planning's taking a bit longer than usual, because I have a novel to integrate.

Chapter 7: An Altercation Below the Dance Room Floor


Reno rounded to the back of the brothel, smelling the filth and nearly gagging. Hooker dens always smelled awful where the owners thought the customers won't see it. He waited, the baton uncharged but ready to strike. When they came, they'd come quickly, and he'd have about a tenth of a second to react before they could get away clean… or things could get really ugly.

There was a heavy thrum of music from the inside, and he wondered what was taking them so long. Was Arien having trouble getting the dealer off the floor? Maybe. Arien had the tell-tale stiffness of an amateur when it came to seduction, something that he had never really gotten around to training her out of. Perhaps there was a certain reluctance to the idea of it, he amended. He liked her bewildered and inexperienced.

The air was definitely getting a little chillier than before, and Reno blew away at the strand that was in his vision. An ominous mist was coming out of nowhere, enshrouding the town with its soft organza of haze that did nothing to improve his mood or his vie. It seeped in from the cracks, through the open doors; the air was foul, fetid and lukewarm, and he felt unclean, and not in a good way either. What the hell were they doing? Was Arien actually blowing the guy or something? At least he was inside, he amended; when he had come in, rain was beginning to fall, and no doubt it was still going.

He was getting agitated. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, trying to calm his nerves. Man, he hadn't been this nervous since… well, since his first year as a Turk. That had been one hell of a nerve-wracking mission after mission, and most of it had been reduced to a haze of memories that made little sense or coherence in his head.

"Fuck," he said to himself. Time was precious, he felt vulnerable, and right now their collective asses were hanging in the wind just begging for someone to put a bullet right between the cheeks, so to speak. He felt he was entitled to feel nervous. There were more dustheads, shitheads, pissers and stonelickers than he cared for in the room with his girlfriend, and here he was, a sitting duck with nothing he could do.

There was a noise, and he stopped, tensing. Someone running? Shouts and screams, although people never paid attention to them at Violetta's; some people were into sadomasochism a bit too much for their own good. There was a crash, and then the rapid footsteps were getting closer. Reno narrowed his eyes, standing so that the door would not hit him should it slam open, and slam it did, when a very terrified man came bursting out of the doorway, making a beeline for the exit.

Reno swung the baton, his cigarette dropping onto the ground as he swung, the uncharged rod making a solid connection with just below the sternum. The man groaned in pain then doubled over, falling to the ground. Reno looked at the fallen cigarette with regret; he'd just waited half a cig for this moron. He then looked in the direction of the doorway, where Rude and Arien stood, looking aggravated.

"I thought it was your damn job to knock this douchebag out so I won't have to do it, Barney," he grumbled. "What the fuck was that about?"

"The drug didn't work," Arien said, throwing the syringe onto the ground with disgust. "The idiot got Rude between the legs then made a run for it."

"It didn't work?"

"Either the thing's expired or he's built tolerance. Not sure which."

"Well, shit." He kicked the man in the gut when he struggled to get up. "Stay down," he warned, "or I'll rip your balls off and feed it through your ass."

"You're gonna… catch hell!" The man croaked. "I'll tell this to my boss, you're all gonna die."

"Like I haven't heard that before," the redhead snorted. "If I got a gil every time someone told that to me, I'd be as rich as Rufus fuckin' Shinra. Now, you're gonna come with us."

"Fuck you, punk!"

"Is that really all you can come up with? You need a lesson in bad-assery, pronto." Reno shrugged. "Get up. Oh, and if you even so much as twitch without being ordered, this lady here's gonna shoot your balls off." He pulled out his Jericho and handed it to Arien with a flourish of a spin, who did a press check to make sure a round was chambered.

"Like she can do anything except have a cock in her mouth."

He was rewarded with a muzzle in front of his face. "What was that?" the woman said sweetly. "I'm sorry, I think my finger might be slipping…"

The fear emanating from the man was almost palpable. He nodded fearfully, and did not protest when Reno blindfolded and gagged the man; hands bound, the man was forced to walk, guided only by the cold metal that kept prodding him in the back. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run to, and a blindfolded and gagged man wasn't something so abnormal at the whorehouse to alert anyone. He was grandly screwed.

And his captors knew this very well. And yet they refused to relax their vigilance, and that much he knew from the way the footsteps fell in rhythm to his own, the proximity of the bodies around him. He could perhaps make a run for it again, but to what avail? The big burly one was obviously the muscle of the group, and it was likely he'd just break a few bones to make him comply. The redhead seemed to be the leader of the group, and so the woman must have been bait… but something told him that she could act in more than that capacity. They were a dangerous bunch, all in all, and the captive was starting to doubt his ability to handle this by himself.

But why now? His thoughts wandered; he had been peddling drugs to whores and crackheads for a decade, and never had anyone paid any attention to them. Why? Was the Edge some battle zone for druglords? Perhaps, but then he'd know about it; he'd always been careful not to get caught in the crossfire. So it must be something else.

His thoughts were interrupted by the hot air that told him they were outside. And then there was a hit in his stomach and the world blacked out.


Arien kept a lookout as the two men heaved the body into the back of the SUV. Reno did a quick job of tying up the man's feet as well, and then they rolled the body onto the vinyl-covered back portion of the vehicle and not gently either. She stood, pistol against her cheek. Jericho was Reno's sidearm, not hers, and the grip was unfamiliar against her palm in comparison to her Sig. The pistol had a more slender feel in her grip, and the trigger didn't have the weight of her Glock. All in all, it wasn't very much her gun.

The lukewarm wind and the mist glued the clothes to the body, and Arien secretly envied the other two men with their cotton shirts. The dress, made of quite possibly the cheapest synthetic fibre mankind had come up with, had absolutely no circulation and stuck to her flesh like some wet rubber. The fog had definitely sucked up the air pollution, still evident two years after the demise of the corrupt metropolis, half-cloaking the moving figures in a cataract of achromatic hue. The asphalt was wet, making a grit of a noise as she moved her foot. The heels were starting to make her feet feel uncomfortable. During the day the town would be filled with noises - Reno and Rude were also overseeing the construction of the monument in the middle of the square, ostensibly to commemorate those who had died in the Meteor Crisis, although everyone pertinent knew that this was just Rufus' ploy to make sure they'd have the space for the Shinra Tower 2.0 - but it was quieter now, just the noises of people shuffling through the streets, taking care of their own business and trying to get home. It was a sound of life, pulsing, ebbing like a tide with the sundown.

"All-right, all set," came Reno's voice, sounding slightly muffled. He came up to her, looking a little concerned when he saw her. "Everything okay?"

"No," she said, scowling. "My feet're starting to kill me."

"Oh." He paid an appropriate glance to her footwear, then nodded sagely. "Yeah, I'd be dead by now."

"Thanks," she said dryly. "Shall we go?"

"Yeah." He took back the Jericho and re-holstered it. Arien click-clacked to the back seat of the car and slid in, taking care to cover her thighs as much as the skirt allowed, which wasn't much at all.

The next stop - One Two Two - was easier than the previous; for one thing, this man didn't seem to have the tolerance for the drug as much as the previous mark did, and the man dropped as soon as Arien delivered the shot. She struggled with the dead weight as she tried to juggle the body in the toilet cubicle. Rude came in, took the body off her hands, and Reno swiftly blindfolded and gagged the body. Everything happened within three minutes, and then they were dragging the body out from the club through the back door. Another body was dumped next to the one already present in the back, and then they were off to their destination, where they'd commence the actual business for the evening. The grab job was only a prelude.

Warehouse 2 was one of the warehouses that the Turks had kept empty, and when Reno and Rude dragged the first body in, a smell of stale concrete hit their noses. There were no windows, just a bare bulb hanging above their heads; Reno brought a chair, Rude tied the man to it, and then they moved to haul the second body in. There were muffled groans from both, but the Turks methodically ignored the two.

"Ugh," Reno grumbled as he half-carried, half-dragged the second man in; he was a bit more portly than the previous, with a layer of fat that added to the bulk of the body, making it harder to manoeuvre. "Would it kill for these assholes to lose some weight?"

Rude said nothing; it might be that this particular fellow is on the big side, but Reno wasn't exactly a man-tower either. The redhead was suited to acrobatic movements and light-footed work, not bruiser. It had fallen to Rude to take that role. And Arien, well… she relied on her firearms far too much, in Rude's opinion. When the defences fell, the last line was the body, not bullets. Perhaps she thought she'd be good enough to avoid that particular event, but one never knew. It was always better to have both in the arsenal, rather than just one.

Arien remained in the car a few minutes longer as the men dragged the bodies around, changing from her skimpy excuse of a dress to something a little more practical. The uniform would give her identity away, and she wasn't sure what Reno and Rude planned to do with the bodies. The plastic bag on the seat next to her had a simple grey T shirt and a pair of trousers, and she donned them, struggling to move about in such close quarters; her elbows got in the way as she tried to pull the shirt on, and she had to move her legs in odd angles to pull the jeans on.

How many times do I have to change in a vehicle? She absently wondered as she shrugged the double holster on. A quick press check, just to make sure - she had returned the Jericho to the owner - and then the Sig and the Glock went into the left and the right respectively. She felt much better armed. The gravel made a scritching noise as she stepped down from the SUV; there was a hint of stale sweat in the air as she stepped into the warehouse.

Despite the heat, the interior of the warehouse was cold; there was no insulation, nor air control, and the place was about as big as a gymnasium, enough for some two hundred people to dance in. In such a large place, five people felt oddly small as a number. Arien rubbed her arms, feeling the goosebumps rise; she felt slightly useless as she waited for the men to finish setting the men up into their respective chairs in their partitions. She shook her hair out from its languid loops, letting the black locks fall about her face. She was running her fingers through to get the snarls out when Reno came out.

"Hey," he said. "You look better."

"I look more like myself," Arien corrected, then took the elastic out from between her lips and put her hair up in a ponytail. "How're they?"

"Both conscious. The fat dude's a little less terrified. The skinny guy's about to shit his trousers."

"I'm sure we can communicate with both. I speak fluent gun."

"Just don't kill the douche before he spits up the info we need."

She smirked. "I'm a pro, Reno." With that, she walked into the warehouse, leaving Reno a few steps behind, her dark ponytail trailing behind her.


Arien had just finished delivering the terms when Rude had come in, on cue. It was a standard interrogation technique, and she had first learned it when she had been training as a Section B member of the Sector of Intelligence. Her codename had been the Page of Sword back then, and she had taken the role as the official interrogator for the section when she had finished her training. She had quickly progressed to the other sections, but the techniques she had learned as a Sword was useful, even now.

The fat man sat, tied up and rendered immobile. Arien had been straddling the chair backwards, and turned her head as Rude came in. "What's going on?" she asked, twirling the Sig in her hand. When words didn't do, a colloquial piece of brass was extremely effective in persuading people.

Rude's face remained impassive. "You might want to hear this," said the big burly man.

"Oh?"

Rude nodded, arms crossed. "Right," she said, standing up. "Keep watch, please," she said, then walked out of the partitioned cubicle.

Time for act two.

She opened the door - flimsy thing and easily kicked in by the likes of her - and slid into the room. "Well," she said, crossing her arms. Reno sat in the other chair, looking bored, which made him look even more dangerous. There was a large knife in his hand, which he kept twirling expertly.

"Well?" Reno asked, as scripted.

"Looks like you boys need to be a little more trusting," Arien said coolly. "The other one cracked. And it took" - she took a look at her watch - "an hour. Must be some kind of a record."

The man trembled.

"Great." Reno grinned. "So it's my show now?"

"I suppo-" her words were interrupted by a scream of "I'll talk!", and she smiled in satisfaction. "I guess not," she said to the redhead. "After all, he said he's going to talk."

"Damn."

The prisoner's dilemma had been a theoretical idea a few decades ago, but some sick, twisted bastard had taken it and perfected it as an interrogation technique that was built on fear and doubt. It also only worked when there were two prisoners who knew something of each other, and therefore Arien didn't have much experience with it in comparison to the other techniques.

She walked back to the partition, where the fat man awaited the report. She gave it to him and Rude without much fanfare, as if this was nothing to be taken seriously. "The other one cracked," she said, all nonchalance while carefully studying the fat captive's face for expressions and hints to his thoughts.

"What?!" the man hissed. "That bastard, I'll kill him with my own two hands, I will! I'll eat his balls alive for breakfast!"

"I doubt that's an appetising breakfast," she commented dryly. "Anyway, I guess I should just kill you now, since you didn't break and the other one did. Admirable, though, I'll give you that. Now-"

"Hang on!" The man interrupted, fear in his eyes. Good. "Can I… can I still talk?"

"I don't know. Can you?" Don't sound too enthusiastic, Arien.

"I'll talk, I'll talk!" the man stammered. "I'll answer any question you have. Just please, please let me go! Please!" The last word came out with tears and snot. She remembered her own torture, and felt slight pity but mostly disgust. She had kept her mouth shut, regardless of what happened to herself. These men were disloyal to boot, and that disgusted her.

"Well, fine," she said. "Who's the boss?"

"Dunno, man, I really don't know!" More blubbering. "I, I only see the guy who gives me the stuff! I really don't know! I swear!"

"All-right." No point pushing for an answer that he didn't have. "Where can I find this distributor?"

She was rewarded with silence. She raised an eyebrow.

"I guess you don't want to live…"

"I do, I do, I really do, but they'll kill me if I talk!"

"Or we'll kill you instead. It's die now or die later."

"His, his name's Danny! Danny Warren!" The man was shrieking. "I, I meet him in an apartment! 23A Street Five! I swear, that's all I know! Now please let me go!"

She turned to see Rude; she didn't know what Reno had decided to do with these two. Letting them go seemed unlikely, but she wasn't about to presume. Rude, however, shook his head, ever so slightly, but still a clear message: these boys couldn't go back to their druglords alive. It was their own folly that had brought them here, and no one had asked them to sell drugs.

She pulled out her Sig. It was so simple; Thumb the safety, unlock it, then pull the trigger. The double-action made even cocking unnecessary. Simple pull of the trigger. That was all.

Her face was impassive as she aimed, casually, with the enthusiasm of a woman about to polish shoes; a squeeze of a trigger and the man was dead, his life cut short by a single bullet. She heard a gunshot from next door, knew that the Jericho had discharged a single round, instead of a nasty crunch from a baton colliding into the skull.

"What are we going to do about the bodies?" She asked Rude. Reno, who had come into the room, leaned onto the doorway, his lanky frame looking lankier in the cold, harsh light.

"There's an entire desert out there," Reno shrugged. "Drive the bodies out, leave them out there. The birds'll do the rest."

She nodded. Reno was a man when there was no one else around, but when he was on a job, there was nothing but an operative, cold and ruthless. Behind the grinning face of a harlequin lived a deadly assassin, a man who would kill and have moral qualms later.

If there was a later.