Oh yeah we are back on the ball with our uploading...noticed some kind of update has caused the dash scene change's to vanish, will have to upload chapters one through to thirteen again with the new X changes. Other than that we hope you enjoy chapter fourteen! P.S Thank you kindly for the reviews, they really are appreciated!

-Chapter Fourteen-

Taken

Tseng and Rufus had made a swift retreat from the Louvre. It would not take long for the authorities to work out that something was wrong. It was still mid-afternoon, so the two of them found blending in with the crowd incredibly easy.

"You have a jet ready to take us to England I take it sir?" Tseng asked as they walked down the crowded streets of Paris.

"No." Rufus replied, "We go by public transport, I have a feeling we are being watched."

This news seemed to take Tseng by surprise. "Who could possibly be watching us?" He asked, "I thought it was we who were keeping an eye on them?"

"I don't know." Rufus replied simply, now quickening his pace.

"But you have your suspicions no doubt?" Tseng inquired, he knew his boss all too well.

"Of course, but I don't know for sure." He was heading in the direction of the main train station in Paris.

Tseng seemed to be able to read something in his voice. "You suspect an insider sir?"

Rufus slowed his pace slightly and turned to look at Tseng. "It's a possibility, but let us hope that it is not the case." He resumed his normal walking pace as he headed towards the station.

It was not long before they arrived at their destination, Rufus was drawing a little attention due to his eye patch, but he and Tseng tried as best they could to act normal.

"I know you said public transport sir, but surely air travel would be more desirable?" Tseng asked after getting the tickets.

"No, this gives us more time to shake whoever is following us, and more time to find out who it is." Rufus walked over to the train which was already waiting at the platform.

They boarded and found the most disused carriage on the train. After taking a seat Rufus extracted the materia which they had managed to obtain from the Louvre and started to examine it.

"It's odd…" He began, holding it up to eye level, "…I have never known a materia to act like this before." He placed it on the table in front of him. Tseng then reached out and took it and as Rufus had just done, started examining it.

"It's like it was being used but poorly." Tseng voiced, tossing the orb between one hand and the other, "Why didn't the materia that the others stole from the tower act in the same way?"

"How do you know it didn't?" Rufus asked, as far as he knew, all he had done was watch as they escaped from the tower.

"I was watching on the monitors in the security room." Tseng replied, replacing the orb back on the table. "They had a much easier time stealing that materia than they know. They believe it was all through the ninja's manipulation skills, they would not have made it within thirty feet of the building if it weren't for me." He looked extremely angry.

"That will make it all the more sweet when we steal it back from them." The train then kicked into life and departed the station. Rufus picked the orb up and pocketed it to stop it rolling off the table from the motion of the train.

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, during which Rufus seemed to examine every inch of the carriage in which they were sat. Whatever it was he was searching for however, he seemed to be unsuccessful.

He looked back over at Tseng. "Any luck finding the others?"

"Very little progress when it comes to that I'm afraid sir." He replied, looking solemn. "I think I have a possible location for Reno, if I find him finding Rude should be easy. As for Elena, nothing at all on her, not a whisper as to her whereabouts."

"Hmm." Rufus seemed to be thinking. "No matter, I have a feeling they will turn up sooner or later." He stared out of the window.

An hour passed. Wherever it was the train was heading it was obviously a long way from Paris. Rufus all of a sudden did something very odd. Making sure nobody was watching, he extracted the manipulate materia from his arm and placed it on the table in front of Tseng.

"I want you to use that on the driver, make sure he keeps the train heading towards our destination." Rufus then got to his feet and started to walk towards the back of the carriage, Tseng stopped him however.

"What are you going to do?" He asked, looking slightly worried.

"I'm going to separate the carriages, if whoever is following us is on the train, there is a high chance we will lose them." He whispered back. A couple of people at nearby seats seemed to be intrigued by the pair of them. "Five minutes, then come back here so I know it is safe to separate them."

Without another word Tseng walked towards the front carriage, whereas Rufus walked towards the back of theirs. His instinct told him that whoever it was that was tailing them was not situated in their carriage, so he was confident in this tactic.

After a few minutes Tseng returned, and Rufus made his way into the small area which connected the carriages. He looked through into the next carriage, noticing that it was considerably fuller than the last, then looked back into the one he had just come from. Tseng seemed to have persuaded the few people who were in there to move into the next carriage.

Making sure that nobody was going to walk through, Rufus took careful aim at the point in the floor beneath which he knew the couplings would lay. His hand glowed blue for a brief second, and one huge ice dagger erupted from it. It pierced easily through the metal walkway and straight onto the couplings, which separated at once due to the damage.

Rufus caught a brief glimpse of the shocked faces from the carriage which he had just uncoupled, before closing the doors of his own. He turned round to see Tseng standing almost right behind him.

"Nicely done." He complimented, "The driver isn't going to stop at any more stations except the one we want, we should be at our destination in no time."

"Fantastic." Rufus replied, walking back to his seat as though nothing had happened, "London here we come…"

X

"It is a crude location I know, but will it do for a basic place of operations?" Tseng asked as he and Rufus entered a small room decked out with what looked like nothing but computers.

Rufus walked in behind Tseng and looked around the room. It was nowhere near as big as his main base of operations, but anything was better than nothing.

"How far are we from the known hosts?" He asked Tseng, walking straight over to a computer and turning it on.

"One hour at most, I chose this location because of how close it is to London however." Tseng answered, starting to pace around the room.

"Good enough I suppose…" Rufus muttered to himself. He extracted a disk from his inner coat pocket and inserted it into the drive, in no time at all a replica of the map which was back at his base appeared on the screen, "…will make us more difficult to find."

"Sir," Tseng began, looking over at his boss, "how exactly are we going to take the materia from them?"

Rufus looked away from the screen. "Do use your brains." He then turned back and looked at the map. Zooming in on the point which they were currently at, he added a green marker. "This should make the rest of them show themselves as well…"

"What do you mean?" Tseng asked, walking over and looking at the screen, he scanned it and noticed that most of the blue lights were blinking. "Ah, I see." Tseng then noticed another marker, neither blue, red nor green. It was a flashing black marker, currently situated in London. "What is that?"

"Well…" Began Rufus, looking at Tseng very seriously, "…I'm almost certain that Sephiroth is here too. I've been doing some research…" He looking back at the screen and zoomed in on the black marker, "…and at a best guess, I would say that he is currently in London."

Tseng looked a little uneasy. "So this is why you want so much materia? You think that the more materia we control the greater a chance we will have at defeating him."

Rufus nodded. "Knowing him however, he probably possesses more materia than you and I put together. I have a feeling he hasn't got hold of any extremely powerful materia yet however, he would have used it if he had…"

"You mean summons?"

"Yes…and no…" Rufus replied, Tseng looked confused. "Summons would be an obvious target for Sephiroth, but we have to remember what materia he was hell bent on getting back in our world."

A look of realisation suddenly dawned on Tseng's face. "You think that is here too sir?"

"I really hope it is not, but we have to be prepared for the worst. If it is here, we will find it before he does and keep it from him. God knows what will happen if he gets hold of it…" He then fell silent clearly thinking, "…however, materia seems to function slightly different in this world. Who knows what it might do if activated."

"Who is to say it isn't activated now, like Kjata?" Tseng voiced, Rufus did not seem fazed by this at all though.

"It would have been headline news. If it is active we will know, that much I am certain of." He got up and walked over to a small table. He removed all of the materia in his forearm and placed them in front of him. There were four, all of different colours: Red, green, purple and yellow. He picked the purple one back up at once and replaced it in his arm.

"Materia starting to weaken you sir?" Tseng asked, he too knew the drained feeling that feel upon a materia user after wearing it for too long.

"Slightly." Rufus replied, unfazed. "Now about stealing back this materia…"

"If I could make a suggestion on that sir…" Tseng moved over to the computer which was displaying the map, "Why not take down two birds with one stone…?"

Rufus looked at him intrigued. "Go on?"

"Well," Tseng began as he zoomed in on the map to one of the solid blue markers, "Flush out all the rest of Cloud and his gang by kidnapping one…"

"You think that will work?" He strode the length of the small room and looked at the marker Tseng had zoomed in upon.

"Even if it doesn't, we can still 'Liberate' whoever we choose of their materia, a win win situation as such."

"You see Tseng…" Rufus began, a smile now creeping onto his face, "…this is why you are in charge of the Turks…"

X

Present day, London.

Tifa and Shaun found themselves in the all too familiar apartment of Savina Grisham, AKA Yuffie. The two of them had decided to make a trip back there after having a stroke of luck gathering materia.

"So…!" Yuffie said, looking excited, "…What have you found?"

"Well," Tifa began, producing not one but two new orbs from her forearm. "This one Alex found, has come in pretty useful." She tossed a purple orb over to Yuffie who caught it.

"Speed?" She asked, examining it closely.

"How did you know?" Tifa was surprised.

"Lucky guess!" Yuffie smiled and threw it back to Tifa who replaced it in her arm. "And the magic?" She asked, looking at the green orb in Tifa's hands.

"Can't say we have had to use this yet, thankfully. It's fire." She threw it over to Yuffie to examine.

"Where did you find them?" She asked, throwing that orb back as well.

"You see now that's the thing." Tifa replied, looking slightly confused. "We just happened to come across them in our hosts lives, it's like nobody else is aware that they are even there."

"Like with Alexander in the sceptre…" Yuffie was thinking out loud. "We should tell Reeve this when we see him, he is on his way over."

"Well Red and I…" Shaun began, seated in the comfortable looking armchair in the corner of the room, "…have found one pretty awesome piece of materia!" He got up and walked into the centre of the room, with a look of discomfort on his face a green orb surfaced on his forearm.

"Oooh! More magic!" Yuffie exclaimed, giggling madly. "Which is it?"

"I can show you…" The orb sank beneath the surface of his skin, "…try and hit me in the next ten seconds." He got to his feet.

"Oh god…" Tifa rolled her eyes, yet still a smile crept onto her face, "…can I bet all my materia that she can't?"

"Sounds like fun to me!" Yuffie replied. "Tifa, say three two one go!"

"Right…" Yuffie moved a little closer to Shaun, a wicked smile on her face. "Three, two, one…go!"

The following site was extremely amusing. For ten seconds, Shaun seemed to dodge every single punch Yuffie threw at him with ease. It looked impressive, yet by the end Yuffie looked ready to have a schoolgirl tantrum.

"How the hell…!" She exclaimed. "Pretty cool though, but still how the…!"

"Much different to how it works in our world, wouldn't you say?" Tifa chirped in.

"It's time magic." Shaun explained. "It increases the frame rate my brain can process actions, so I go matrix mode baby!"

"How long can you keep it sustained?" Yuffie asked.

"Takes practice, best I've managed is fifteen seconds." He looked a little disappointed in himself. "Which I might add is about a minute in super slow mode."

"Can you do that to other people?" Yuffie asked.

"Can't say we've tried that yet…" Shaun replied, looking slightly excited. "Could try it?"

"You should let Red do this one, he can use materia with more ease." Tifa suggested.

Shaun agreed, and within seconds the flame coloured beast which was Red XIII stood before them. "Ok so who am I trying this on?"

"Oh ooooh, me me me!" Yuffie exclaimed, jumping up and down with one hand raised.

Red rolled his eyes. "Ok this might feel a little weird, its nothing like you're used to…"

There was a green glow from one of Red's paws, and then something very peculiar happened. A jet of gold light shot from the aura straight into Yuffie's eyes. The beam of light continued to remain solid as Yuffie, apparently in the slowed down state Shaun had described, proceeded to walk around the room in amazement. Fifteen seconds later, the beam broke, and Yuffie shook her head slightly.

"That…was…epic!" She beamed, looking at the both of them. "That materia is going to come in very handy!"

There was a sudden knock at the door. Yuffie went to answer it, and as expected Reeve entered the room. "Afternoon all." They all greeted him in return. "Bad news, Rufus is in England."

They all looked at him in shock. "How do you know!" Tifa asked, walking over to him.

"My sources have never let me down thus far." He sat down on the sofa opposite the armchair. "So far as we can tell he arrived here a little under a fortnight ago. The fact that he is yet to make a move is most disturbing…yet relieving."

"Any idea why he is here Reeve?" Red asked.

"Too many possibilities, most likely materia gathering, but then there is always the possibility of Sephiroth…you got any whisky here Yuffie?" He looked over at her.

"Little early to be drinking?" She inquired.

"Not on this occasion it isn't…" Reeve was handed a small glass of whisky, "…why are you all here anyway?"

"Materia sharing." Tifa explained, to which Yuffie smiled.

"I have only found one so far you will all be disappointed to know…" Reeve said, setting his glass down and exposing his forearm, "Only as useful as its sister materia…" He produced a green orb from his arm.

"Even more magic!" Yuffie exclaimed again, looking like a toddler at Christmas. "What is it?"

"Nothing to get that excited about I can assure you, its destruct, and so far as I can tell it works exactly the same way here as it did back in our world. Only of use if someone has the barrier materia…which…" He paused for a minute.

"Which what?" Tifa looked slightly concerned.

"Which 'He' does…"

"Sephiroth?"

"Correctumundo…" He replaced the orb in his arm and took another sip of his drink, "unfortunately I was yet to find this materia at the time…"

"The time?" Red asked.

"It doesn't matter, what happened is irrelevant. The point is the amount of intelligence we have on him is poor."

The silence which filled the room was horrible. It was as though they were all starting to realise the seriousness of the threat which they were posed with, Sephiroth and Rufus Shinra, two formidable foes none of them wanted to meet in this world.

"Let's look on the bright side guys!" Yuffie exclaimed, trying to make the atmosphere a little more cheery. "Us four are all together and Sephiroth is all on his lonesome!"

Tifa couldn't help but chuckle. "Except for his host of course." She pointed out. "Whoever that may be…"

"Indeed." Reeve agreed, downing the rest of his drink, "If we can find him before he finds us that would be preferable… gives us a real edge…"

Red suddenly shivered and within moments, Shaun was laying on the floor where he once was. "Tell Alex that we should really be making a move soon, the trip home takes forever from here!"

Tifa closed her eyes and let Alex take over. "Agreed, give us a call if anything develops won't you?"

"Did you even need to ask?" Reeve chuckled. "You two take care of yourselves."

"You too Reeve." Alex and Shaun said together.

X

After the long trip home Shaun was just about ready to collapse. He walked over to his mirror and peered into it, now used to not seeing his own reflection gazing back at him.

"Well that went well…" Red said to him, walking over to his bed in the reflection and jumping onto it, "…going to have one more go with the time magic before you collapse?"

"I think that would make me collapse…" Shaun replied in his mind, Red chuckled. The relationship between the two of them had lost all of the awkwardness which it had started with. Reeve's suggestion of developing a good rapport seemed to have paid off.

"Well goodnight Shaun…" Red curled up on the bed and dozed off almost instantly, so Shaun did not see the need to reply.

It was a few hours later that it happened… In the pitch darkness of the room, the window was slowly prized open. Shaun was completely out of it, it would take an extremely careless move from whoever this was to wake him now.

The dark haired man stepped cautiously into the teenagers room. He proceeded over to the mirror and peered into it. Sure enough he saw a flame red creature laying on the bed in the reflection.

"A fool proof way of checking it was him Tseng?" Isaac, Tseng's host, asked him in his thick Arabic accent.

"Of course…" Tseng replied. He then walked silently over to the bed, withdrawing from his inner pocket a syringe filled with a clear liquid.

He hovered the needle a fraction of an inch away from a vein in the sleeping teenagers neck, he would need to execute this perfectly in order to ensure he did not make a sound.

Tseng pierced the needle into the vein, and as expected Shaun woke with a small yelp. He quickly covered his mouth as he injected the clear liquid, and within seconds, Shaun's eyes drooped and he was unconscious once more.

"Not even a fight?" Isaac asked curiously.

"Must have been too disorientated…makes our life easier…Right, let's get him back to the president…"

A/N: So if you are interested in the progress we really have had a sudden burst of creativity, the story is almost finished! Chapters will be uploaded twice a week every Wednesday and Saturday. Reviews as always are greatly recieved, let us know if we are good bad or the things in between! Until saturday guys,

R&A