A/N: I know that the last couple of chapters have had very little interactions with Sephiroth, and this one isn't different, but with her being a Turk, it's a little harder. Trust me when I say it'll happen though :) The next chapter after this will start seeing him more, but know that it'll still be in small doses for a little while longer. Don't worry, the end goal is still the same! Thanks for reading!
Chapter 11
They had almost reached the Shinra building when Tseng stopped and turned to her. "If I do choose to believe you, how much time do we have until Genesis leaves with Hollander?"
She gave him a contemplative look. "That depends. What day and year is it?"
The look he gave her was incredulous. "How can you not know the year at least?"
The look she gave him back was flat. "I know the General had to have made a report when he found me and there is no way you haven't seen it yet. Given that, you shouldn't be surprised. It was no lie that I nearly drowned somewhere in the ocean and somehow went from there to that pool in Modeoheim. The fact that I was still wearing my bikini should have told you all something. With that being the case, I can't make assumptions on the year. There is no telling how long I was actually out."
The look he gave her was contemplative. He had read the report, but at the time had discounted her words as confusion or straight up lies. Now that he knew a little more, he had to reevaluate. If she really had been swept through the lifestream from one location to another and survived, that opened up a whole new set of questions. He frowned at her slightly before he spoke. "I will not say that I can believe that you survived something like that so easily, but I'll play along for now. It is August 3rd of 2000. Now, when will he leave?"
Eve's eyes widened at his words and she couldn't hold back her curse. "Well shit! She wasn't kidding when she said we don't have much time."
"She?"
Eve ignored his raised brow and waved away his question. "Minerva said I had to focus right away as we didn't have much time left. Genesis is going to be injured some time in the next month and that will be the catalyst to the whole ordeal."
Tseng could tell she was lost in thought, but noticed she was so absorbed that she was answering without much deliberation. He wondered how far he could push before she noticed and clammed up again. "What day will he be injured?"
She gave him a frown. "I don't know exactly. All I know was that it will be sometime in late summer. That is why I said sometime in the next month. It could be tomorrow for all I know."
Tseng finally frowned as well. He wasn't sure how far to believe her, but if she was telling the truth, he really didn't have much time to dig for the answers. "He leaves after he is injured?"
She shook her head. By that time, she had finally realized she was blabbing without much thought, but it wasn't anything Tseng didn't need to know. Even if he didn't believe her for now, if he was armed with the truth, he might have a better chance of helping her figure out how to stop it. "No, his injury leads to him finding out the truth about his birth, but Hollander only tells him enough to control him. He ends up leaving sometime in October when he is deployed to Wutai. If we can keep him from getting injured, or at the very least, keep him from being deployed, we have a better chance of making changes. He won't be happy, but we can't let him leave."
Tseng was still confused about the connection. All the Firsts had been injured many times, even severely, but none of their injuries caused the type of behaviour she was listing. "Why would he desert after being injured. That makes no sense. His superior healing should make short work of anything that potions and cures can't fix."
The look she gave him at that was almost haunted and he found that he had to work to suppress a chill. Something he had not expected, and her words did not help to stop it. "It will be unlike any injury he has ever received. Something about it will be a catalyst that causes his body to start rejecting his very cells. He will not be able to heal and will basically start rotting alive. His degradation will be what causes him to believe and follow Hollander. Not that the crackpot has any real clue how to stop it, but Genesis will be desperate."
Tseng froze at her words. All the pieces finally fell into place and he understood with sickening clarity why someone that was so devoted to Shinra would start a revolution. If she was telling the truth, killing the man now might be a mercy. That wasn't something he would jump to yet though, and certainly not something he would tell his newest Turk. If that was the decision, he was certain she would interfere. He didn't let those thoughts show when he started walking again and motioned her to follow. "I will have someone keep an eye on him for now. That doesn't mean I accept everything, but I have learned it is better to be safe than sorry. For now, you have other things to worry about. Like the fact that you have training to finish."
Eve wanted to roll her eyes at his continued insistence that she train. She thought that now that he knew a little more, he might be more inclined to have her focus on things that would be more productive. She found she was tired of the farce already. "I am not a real Turk, so why do you insist that I be trained?"
He paused again and gave her a hard look. "First, you should not be questioning orders, but if you need reasons, there are many. Right now, you are a target, and targets end up dead without some form of protection. You won't get that from me, but I will arm you with the skills to take care of yourself. Besides, unless you want to let everyone know that you are not what you seem, then it would be best to follow the same protocols that everyone else has."
She grimaced at his blunt statements but didn't argue. They were both valid points, even if she hadn't considered them yet. Instead she just gave him a curt nod. "I'll try to remember not to question your authority going forward."
Tseng didn't miss the fact that she had accepted his reasoning, and still managed to sound disrespectful when she answered. He found that he had a hard time concealing his aggravation. Had she been a normal recruit he would have taken her to task. He could already see that something would need to change, or her cover would be pointless in front of the other Turks. "If you don't want the rest of the department to realize you were not recruited under normal circumstances, then you need to remember your place. You don't question, you obey."
Eve desperately wanted to snap back. She wasn't a dog, but she knew his desire to not deal with her insubordination was secondary. Neither of them wanted anyone else to find out about her connection to Minerva for now so she took his words to heart. She knew it would not be easy for her to keep her mouth shut, as that wasn't something she had ever been good at, but she would try. Even if her main reason was survival and not because she felt she was obligated to. She managed to give him a nod and keep her jaws clamped shut as she followed him back up to the Turk floor.
On the elevator, Tseng pulled out his phone and told someone to meet him in the training room in five minutes. The conversation lasted all of fifteen seconds at the most, but it made her wonder who he planned on pairing her with now. The thought that she didn't know of many of the Turks made her wonder how many of them she would end up meeting. She knew there was another game that was based on the Turks, but they had never been able to find it, so she was pretty clueless besides the four that were a staple of the compilation, plus Cissnei. She had been wracking her brain to try and remember everything she could but there were still a lot of details that were fuzzy at best. At least she remembered the big things. That was saying a lot considering it had been more than ten years since she had played the games.
She didn't have long to wait to find out. Tseng led her to a large room she had not yet seen. Waiting near the door was a tall man with dark hair that was almost slate colored. She thought he might have been an older Turk she had never heard of before until he turned to face them. She nearly stopped when she saw his face. He was one of the most handsome men that she had ever seen. He even rivaled Sephiroth almost, but where the General was a pretty masculine, this man was a little more rugged. The tattoo he had down the side of his face only added to his appeal. She shook herself out of her stupor when he raised an eyebrow at her continued evaluation. She was glad that Tseng spoke at that point. "This is Two Guns. He is one of our best marksmen. He will be able to teach you how to hone your natural talent with firearms. You will work with him until he clears you. Unless I instruct you otherwise, you will be working with him each day until then."
She gave him a nod in understanding before she reached out her hand to the other man. "Dr. Evelyn Marx. Pleased to meet you."
At her introduction, the man looked her up and down a couple of times before he smirked and finally took her hand. "Pleasure's all mine sweet cheeks. This looks like it's gonna be more fun than I thought. Feel free to call me Ruluf if ya want."
Eve had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she looked him over once more with a critical eye before her eyes widened. "You're from the slums originally?"
The man's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, what's it to ya?"
She could tell her question was probably a bit offensive, so she smiled to try and make up for it. "Nothing really. It makes no difference to me, I only asked because I was wondering if there was something about it that meant you are allergic to ties, or buttons for that matter." Despite her smile, her tone was sarcastic.
Much to her surprise the man grinned at her. "I'm glad to see that tongue of yours ain't reserved for the red-headed moron. It'd be a shame."
She raised a brow at his reference to Reno but didn't get a chance to say anything before Tseng spoke up. "These are to be formal lessons, so don't forget that." He turned to Eve at that point. "You have an appointment in the morning with Dr. Kramer. I will send another operative with you. Be ready by 07:30."
Eve had to work hard to not allow her sudden gut-clenching fear to show on her face. It still took her a moment to respond. "Understood. There is an alarm in the room, correct?"
Tseng nodded. "I'll leave you to it."
Eve didn't wait for him to walk out before she turned to the man that would be teaching her. "Where do we start?" She wanted to get her mind off her upcoming trip to the labs. She was still uncomfortable with the thought of running into Hojo.
He was still grinning, but Tseng's warning must have reminded the man that this was an official assignment. He immediately started with his instructions by pulling one of his own guns out of its holster. He held it so she could see it, but made it clear she wasn't allowed to touch it. "You can see the slots in the grip? Those are for materia. I was told you have some potential there, so as soon as you can show me your accuracy, we'll start with some basic materia too. That's the fun part, when you can shoot flaming bullets and such."
Eve wasn't sure how to feel about his announcement. She realized already that she needed to learn materia given her circumstances, but she was still a little apprehensive after the last time. She didn't bother hiding those feelings when she answered him. "You have been told that I am taking special lessons for materia handling, right?"
He laughed as he holstered his pistol. "Yeah. I heard you nearly froze two of the Firsts. I'm looking forward to seein' it."
The look she gave him was confused. "Does that mean you want to experience being flash frozen, or that you like the idea of getting one over on Soldier?"
He chuckled at her quip but didn't really answer. "We'll save that for another day. For now, show me what you know already. There are five targets at different distances. Can you hit all the stationary targets? I want you to get at least one bullet in the two center rings for each one."
She turned to the far wall where he was pointing and saw what he was talking about. There were several human shaped targets with circles around the left side of the chest. She raised a brow at the reminder of what she was being trained to shoot, but she didn't comment. Instead she walked to the line and started. The first two targets she hit close to center with one shot. The second one took two, but the two that were farthest away took several shots before she was able to figure out the way the distance affected the trajectory and get one near the center.
She was wearing a frown when she turned back to Ruluf, but he was shaking his head. "They weren't kiddin'. If you're half as good with moving targets, my jobs gonna be easy."
She was still frowning. "What? It took at least five shots to hit the one farthest away."
He raised a brow at her evaluation of her skills. "How long you been practicing?"
She still hadn't lost her frown. "This is only my second time shooting, but I'm good with trajectories. This shouldn't have been so hard."
He chuckled at her assessment, but he was giving her an evaluating look. "So, it's brains, not instinct. That's good to know. It'll help me give you tips." He paused at that and walked back to the table.
She watched him with confusion until he pushed a few buttons in a panel she hadn't seen previously. She turned back toward the targets when she heard a whirring noise. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw that there were several more targets added across the distance, but they were all either moving side to side or up and down. Ruluf's face had finally settled into a serious cast when he rejoined her. "Normally we wouldn't start with movin' targets for a few weeks, but that much practice won't do you any good. Hit each of 'em, just like the last ones."
She raised her brow at him, but he just tilted his head toward the targets. "This'll help with two things. You gotta keep track of the ones you hit already, plus it'll give ya the practice you need to hit somebody that's runnin' from ya."
She still hated the reminder that she was going to be shooting at humans, but she had already made her decision and there was no point in bringing it up again. She gave him a nod and switched out her magazine before she faced the targets once more. She again started with the ones closest and worked her way back. Keeping track of the ones she had successfully hit wasn't too hard but hitting them was more difficult. If she took too long between shots, Ruluf would yell at her with a reminder that she wouldn't have time to stop in the field. Every time he did, she grimaced, but still followed his directions. He would also occasionally yell out tips to better figure the way the distance and movement affected the shots. It meant that it took her much longer than she thought it would to hit every one of them. She had to stop halfway through and refill her magazines. She ended up going through all three again before she was finished.
By the time she was finished, she felt that her ears were numb, as were her hands. She had never thought of the effect the rebound would have on her hands. She swore that she would take a long bath before sleep, as well as remind her instructor that he should have provided earplugs. Once she was finished, she holstered her pistol without thinking and realized a little too late that she should have waited. It was still uncomfortably warm, but the leather managed to keep her from being burned at least. Her grimace didn't escape her mentor's notice either. He laughed. "It won't usually be that bad. If you're shootin' that much in the field, then a little burn'll be the last thing on your mind."
She only shook her head at the reminder. "I would suppose so." After she buttoned her jacket, she gave him a questioning look. "What's next?"
"You want more?"
She could tell he was surprised that she asked, but she just shrugged. "Not really. My bed is calling my name and I still need a bath, but my wants don't always jive with what needs to be done."
He grinned at her again. "Another time I might ask if you'd be interested in company for that, but for now, you're dismissed. I'll see ya tomorrow at 10:00. You should be done with the eggheads by then."
She ignored his less than subtle come-on and laughed at his reference to the Shinra scientist. She still couldn't let it go without a quip of her own. "You do realize I'm a doctor as well, right?"
He tilted his head and raised a brow. "You don't look like any scientist I ever seen. Definitely not like Hojo and his cronies. Didn't figure you for wanting to be compared to them anyways."
She laughed again and shook her head. "No, not really." At that point she held out her hand again. He gave her a curious look before she spoke. "Thank you. I know this is an assignment, but I feel like you've really helped. I'm looking forward to the next lessons."
He pushed her hand down instead of shaking it. "No need for thanks. Turks help each other. Besides, I ain't done much yet. Thank me after you surprise the shit out of Tseng. I wanna see him ruffled a little."
Eve had to clap her hand over her mouth in order to not laugh out loud. When she finally felt she could talk, she lowered her hand, but she was still grinning at him. "Tell you what, if you can teach me well enough to make that happen, I'll owe you one."
His smirk took on a glinting edge at that. "Don't think I won't hold you to that."
She paused as she took in his meaning, but she just shook her head. "I'll see you in the morning." He gave her a nod as she left, but he was still grinning. As she walked out, she could hear him chuckling still.
