"So that's why everyone says to stay away from the labs."

She laughed at Reno's state of shock and disgust. "You're surprisingly squeamish. Had I known...I would have brought some friends to watch."

"Very funny. What do you think he'll do with the... body?"

She shook her head, realizing the distance she had kept herself from that floor. Behind her smirk, she hid the fact that even she did not have the nerve to view the newest live specimen. She had only heard that it came from the Cosmo area, and shut it out of her mind.

"I have no idea. I don't want to know what he does with any of his...specimens."

Reno held open the door to the cafeteria for her. "Good point. I think I'll continue with my 'out of sight, out of mind approach.'"

The lounge was quiet, as most of the Shinra employees had already taken lunch breaks. Penelope and Reno bonded over their unorthodox schedules, and often wound up in the empty cafeteria together hours after the rest of the company had returned to work. On this day, both had returned from equally exhausting weekend missions: She had infiltrated a drug ring. He had accompanied the Vice President to an energy convention in Costa del Sol. He pushed overcooked green beans around his Shinra Inc plate while she nursed an iced tea, scanning the large room from behind mirrored sunglasses.

"You believe she's really an Ancient?" he asked, resigning himself to the disappointing lunch and taking a flavorless bite.

"I don't know. I'm not sure it matters. Her fate is sealed now, anyway, don't you think? She'll likely live and die by Shinra hands."

"I don't know. Tseng seemed awfully protective," he argued, pushing his tray away. His phone buzzed suddenly. As he pulled it from his pocket, his eyebrows arched upward. "Speak of the devil..." With that, he stood and left the table, wandering to the far corner of the lounge to take the call.

"Who is that?" she asked lowly to herself, allowing herself to stare across the room at a short blond man talking to one of the newer recruits. Before the urge to identify him overtook her, he walked out of sight. She checked her watch. With five more minutes left of her break, she let him go.

Reno returned to the table and picked up his tray. She tilted her head in question.
"Avalanche is on the move. I've been reassigned."
Her jaw dropped slightly before she stood and lightly punched him in the arm.
"No, you've been promoted, idiot. The final cord has been cut, my friend!" she exclaimed, drawing several glances in the pair's direction.
"Yeah, yeah. Promotion seems like a stretch. I'm still working under Rufus, apparently. This 'field work' is his baby right now. He's taken a particular interest in this little faction."
"Please. He got the Ancient. Papa can't be far from that Promised Land now."
He shook his head with an amused smile. "Apparently, they want her back. Tseng says to stay on alert. Be suspicious of everyone. Who knows who they've recruited."
"What're they paying? Maybe I'll join..." she mused, standing and stretching her arms. Reno laughed and nodded once as he headed toward the elevators.

.

The final touches to her report came easily, and she shut off her computer for the evening. As she stood, wincing at the crack of her knees, her personal cell phone buzzed once. Upon retrieving it from her inner blazer pocket, she checked the ID. Red Dragon.

"Can I help you?" she asked in lieu of a more traditional greeting.

"Heeey...Someone wasn't bullshitting. HQ has been infiltrated."

Violet eyes immediately began searching the office. "And?"

"Rude and Tseng are on it. I think the main elevator's going to be out of commission for awhile. They definitely wanted the Ancient back. Who would've guessed?"

"So what happens when they catch the bastards?" she asked, pulling her small handgun from her underarm holster and heading for the stairwell at the back of the building.

"The President wants to talk to them. I guess they'll be locked up. Worse, maybe."

"Likely. Have you left?" she asked, referring to the protocol that accompanied such an attack. The Vice President was to be relocated to protect the Shinra legacy, should a more violent infiltration follow.

Reno answered her with a silence that spoke volumes. She swore in irritation and began a long descent down the stairs. "Alright. I wasn't called for the attack, so I'll help you out. Meet me in the lobby."

Halfway down the long flight, a small red ribbon caught her eye on the corner of a metal stair. A few steps further down, an empty glass potion bottle lay abandoned. She picked up the ribbon and left the bottle.

At the ground level, Reno greeted her with a signature, Can you believe this shit? grin. She shook her head and pulled her hair into a low ponytail as she blew past him. He turned quickly and walked next to her toward the main entrance.

"Is he at home?" she asked hastily. Reno shrugged and raised his hand to the three guards at the front entrance. They nodded silently, unaware of Penelope's glare from behind the metallic lenses.

"He shouldn't be. He was supposed to be in his office all day. Not there, not answering the phone. No one's seen him. Lucky it should still be my responsibility to protect him when the shit hits the fan."

"Why drill us with this plan if he has no intention of following it? Disappearing without contacting one's team is about as far from protocol as one gets," she seethed, her jaw clenched tight, a dull ache rising into her temples. Reno could nearly feel the heat rising in her, but knew only a fraction of its cause.

An irritation with the current company leaders mixed with disgust at the reports coming in about the damage Shinra was doing to the planet. These toxic elements combined with the unavoidable sense of dread and tension caused by rumors of sightings of an old friend and created a highly unstable chemical deep within her. It inspired late nights of great doubt in her future, and the future of the Midgar. It caused a rift between herself and her co-workers. While they all knew she was more pensive as of late, they had no idea of the great struggle happening within her each time she set foot into the Shinra HQ. A great shift seemed only a single spark away. She had no idea that she would soon be cast into a fire.

.

"You still have a key, right?" she asked, unwilling to reveal her own unapproved means of access to the Vice President's residence.

Reno nodded as they approached the penthouse door. "I do. Assuming he hasn't changed the locks recently."

The key worked, and Reno led the way into the darkened apartment. The search did not take long. Reno stopped in the doorway to the master suite and let his shoulders fall. His head was not far behind.

When Penelope looked over his shoulder, she found Rufus curled tightly into a large white chair in the corner of the bedroom. If not for the light furnishings, the room would have been blackened with shadows. Instead, brave rays of light slipped through the drawn curtains and reflected off the bright white furniture. Her throat tightened as she processed the sight.

He had chewed his nails painfully short before digging his fingertips into his calves, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Blond hair streaked at sharp angles across his wild eyes. Circles danced darkly under the blue orbs, somehow making the color seem colder than usual. She was surprised it was even possible.

Their respective reactions highlighted the differences in both the Turks' personalities and relationship with the young man. Reno raised his head and smoothly crossed the room, throwing an arm around his charge's bare shoulders. Penelope fought the urge to slap that same man across the face and shake some sense into him.

"I wasn't there. No one noticed."

The cracked words hung in the air in front of Penelope, waiting for a response that never came. Instead, Reno replied.

"We're right here. It was noticed."

"It took an attack on the company. Fucking Avalanche scum had to break into the place for someone to realize I wasn't there. What is that? I'm the Vice President of this company, and nobody notices when I don't show up? You've all been humoring me. Playing nice, as ordered by my father. Gaia, who are we fooling? I don't have an ounce of power in that place."

Penelope nearly strained a muscle rolling her eyes. She stormed into the room, headed for the massive closet, and turned on the light. Just where she had left it years ago, a black leather travel bag waited for her violent grip upon a top shelf.

It landed heavily at the base of his chair. Reno took a more diplomatic approach

"But for one man, you know more about the company than anyone else. That doesn't seem important to you? That doesn't seem powerful? You have an entire department working for you. And here we are. Are we not important? Someday, everyone in that building will be looking to you for answers. That's a lot of pressure. Why not enjoy what freedom you have now?"

"And why not follow your own protocol?" Penelope asked with an acidic voice. She looked at her phone. "You have a bird waiting."

Rufus never looked at her. He did, however, unfurl himself. "He's running the company into the ground. I'll be in my forties by the time he's ready to hand it over, and the company will be in ruins."

"Then maybe it's time you start putting some of your own ideas on paper. But that's not what we need to be discussing right now. You have to get out of the city. We don't know what else that faction has planned."

Silence made the room its home. Whatever progress Rufus had made toward leaving had died a quick death.

"No. I'm staying. We've caught them. We'll make an example of them. I'll be the one to do it."

Reno's glance at Penelope said what his lips did not: What now?

The air itself held its breath while the atmosphere shifted. The sun was setting. Reno received a message that Avalanche had been captured and imprisoned. The trio had become part of the furniture, not daring to move for three very different reasons. One stood at the precipice of a defining act of rebellion. One was holding together a fractured psyche. One was simply too tired to take any initiative. Eventually, a silent decision came to fruition. Rufus stood slowly and walked toward the illuminated closet. He returned in a black turtleneck and white pants, wearing determination as an accessory. Penelope sighed and walked back into the closet. She returned with two items. The first she draped over Rufus's shoulders after positioning him in front of his full-length mirror.

"You hide in black. It diminishes you."

Reno raised his eyebrows at the display, crossing his arms.

Rufus glanced at her reflection over his shoulder. "You wear black. Are you 'diminished'?" he mocked.

"Every day," she replied in a low whisper, catching him in the glance. She noticed that his eyes appeared a shade of red that only the most pained tears inspire. The color could not cut through the ice of their history.

He slid his arms into the long white coat and reached his hands into the pockets, pulling out black fingerless gloves. Without hesitation, he put them on. She nodded once, then surprised him, reaching around his shoulder and shoving the second item into his chest.

"You want people to notice you, you better start taking yourself seriously." She ended her torture by turning quickly, glancing once at Reno, leaving the bedroom, and soon after, the apartment.

Both men watched the mirror's striking new image. Rufus tightened his grip on the shotgun.

"I like this," Reno commented, waving his hand at the newly developed persona. "I don't mind this at all. I can just...This works."

"I'm starving."

"What, you gonna go hunt something for dinner?" Reno kidded, nodding at the shotgun.

"Maybe I am. Or maybe we could go to Grey Haus."

"Grey Haus it is. I'll buy," Reno agreed, perking up and escorting his revolutionized boss to the parking garage.

.

The pair felt every pair of eyes on them as they followed a young Wutaiian waitress to a private corner of the restaurant. They ordered immediately, without bothering to take the menus from the waitress. Moments later, a pair of glasses appeared on the table, filled with a clear and undoubtedly flammable liquid. They toasted to nothing and threw them back, promising to make a night of this meal.