Disclaimer: I don't own any of the FFVII characters, places, etc.
Chapter 37: Tangled Webs
The few times Reno had worked directly with Lyn had never been anything like this. Equipped with her broad sword she was never at a loss for what to do. But when Reno and Rude had met her at the bikes she was holding a forgotten cigarette as she stared vacantly at the building. Ash had fallen all over her when Reno startled her back into the present with a throaty roar from his Asena bike. The younger men had pretended everything was perfectly normal.
As Reno followed Lyn's almost suicidal recklessness in her haste ahead of them he tried not to wonder what her unease meant. Lyn and Grim hated each other, right? But rather than gleeful she looked pale.
Lyn swung to such an abrupt halt that Reno almost crashed into her. Lyn was completely unconcerned as she studied the surrounding rock faces. The sounds of violence echoed up ahead. She hesitated long enough that Reno lit up a Sol Sunburst and offered it to her by way of politely asking for her attention. She took it without looking at him.
"You two are fine Turks," she observed idly as the pair of them exchanged glances. "Our top objective is the Empress. Grim can wait if he has to."
"You think these other guys are in on it?" Reno asked.
"Trust your gut," she shrugged honestly. "Watch your skins." Her sword flashed free of its sheath and she bent back over her bike.
They plunged into the pass and roared straight into the middle of an all out assault without a backwards glance. Reno lost both his bike and his comrades quickly. SOLDIERs, Fenrirs, and enlisted were fighting the demon masked Imperials and Elite Shinobi. Reno cut through the Wutai forces alongside Shin-Ra troops as he hunted for either Grim or the Empress. The pass itself was illuminated in gouts of fire and blasts of magic, the occasional flash of lights from a machine throwing everyone into unsettling blindness.
He cut through men and lobbed spells, the cacophony of armed combat somehow louder than his hammering pulse. The undercurrent of fear that came with life and death struggles kept his senses sharp. He'd learned somewhere along the line how to harness it instead of letting it overcome him. At times like this it played an integral part in his survival.
An Elite threw him against the ground with a surprise attack from behind. Reno scrambled onto his back just in time to avoid impalement. He put his foot into the other man's guts and tried to get up. The Elite hit him again in the jaw so hard that stars danced in his vision. As his sight honed in on the blade making for him he wasn't quite able to formulate the realization he was about to die. The millisecond it crystalized in his awareness a standard issue SOLDIER blade cut the attacking Shinobi in two.
Grim stepped over him and impaled another before clearing the space around them with a gout of flame. Spattered with gore he reached down and caught Reno's stupefied arm, hauling him to his feet. A staccato cut decapitated another enemy.
"Come on boy," Grim urged. Reno snapped his elbow into Grim's solar plexus and planted a foot in the lieutenant's chest. Grim's eyebrows came together as he looked up in confusion. His eyes slid a fraction to the right. Pulling Reno's knee forward so it unbalanced him he cut the legs out from under another Imperial. "Focus Turk!" Grim advised dragging them both up again and putting his back to the red head.
Reno reacted mechanically to another attacker as he tried to put things together. His brain clicked uselessly except in its efforts against other Imperials. Grim's back touched his as he threw up a reflect spell to return an incoming magical attack. Reno reflexively knocked down an opponent that might have caught Grim's side and then crushed his skull.
"There she is," Grim's voice grated out of his throat as he nudged Reno and indicated a pillar of fire. "The woman will be there too."
The pair of them cut through the battle in search of Lyn and Xíhē while Reno still struggled to put fragments together. His gut told him not to let Grim out of his sight.
Lyn and the Empress with her demon mask were something to behold. It seemed they had both reached the conclusion that this was the battle. This would decide their fight once and for all. Around them other bodies struggled but they all seemed content to leave the women alone. Both of them were covered in blood.
Reno bludgeoned some Imperials getting too close as Grim unleashed poison. Somewhere nearby Reno spotted Rude holding back several Imperials at once with a spear he'd claimed from the dead. It cracked against bodies and stabbed with power and precision.
"Shit," Grim snarled behind him. Reno twisted towards Lyn in time to see her slip on some loose footing, Xíhē's conformer marking a shallow red line across her throat. Lyn lashed out with her sword to buy time but the Empress crushed her arm and cracked the Turk's ribs. As Reno struggled to get to her Lyn responded with a kick that came into audible contact with Xíhē's ribs in turn. The Empress staggered back while Lyn regained her footing. She moved forward with the sword cocked over one shoulder. It whistled, shattering the mask on impact.
Reno was almost there when two Shinobi broke the lines, landing knives in either of Lyn's shoulders. She pitched forward with a snarl. Reno caught one about the middle as Grim decapitated the other.
"You!" Xíhē choked at Grim. Lyn was up now and slammed the butt of her sword into the Empress' stunned face. She collapsed right there.
"Clear 'em out," Lyn commanded as she looked at Grim. The Lieutenant put two bloody fingers into his mouth and whistled shrilly. Reno stood slack jawed. Lyn bent and removed the prayer beads from around Xíhē's wrist, snapped a zip tie around her hands, and then sat down on the unconscious Empress.
While she panted light came from overhead in sudden brilliance. Reno raised his arms so he could look up. On the cliff faces stood hundreds of Shin-Ra troops with automatic weapons, three flares glowing like a false sun in the sky.
It took less than fifteen minutes to kill those that wouldn't be taken prisoner as the rest surrendered. Reno just stood staring at Grim removing the knives from Lyn's shoulders. Rude had joined him at some point with an equally stupefied look.
"Am I to understand they figured it out?" Grim inquired as he applied a rudimentary cure spell. Lyn winced as she took out her smokes. She shot the pair of them a crippling glare.
"That's their only draw back," she replied tersely as Grim probed the now scabs. "What the Hell put you on his trail?"
"You...planned this?" Reno demanded.
"You're lucky things played out this way. If Grim'd made it all the way to the Bug Captain and been detained we'd have been in real trouble." She extracted her phone and dialed a number, smoking as she watched both boys.
"What about...Sa Gong?"
"I had to do something to draw out the Empress and leave Godo vulnerable," Grim answered.
"Bagged her. We've got Ifrit," Lyn informed whoever answered. "We'll meet you boys there." She ended that call and punched in another number. "Told you so Verdot. We're off now to meet up with the Bugs...they're with me. They put enough of it together I had to bring 'em with me or risk 'em blowin' the whole thing wide open." She shot a sour look their way as Grim cast cure on them both.
"Perhaps over a drink," Grim raised a hand to stop Reno before he could ask anything else.
"The Yakuza," he shook his head and caught Grim's arm. "Why were you manipulating them?"
"One organization is much easier to check than five," Grim answered simply. He removed Reno's hold before advancing. "No survivors!" he announced. Reno and Rude both turned, watching in silent horror at the wholesale slaughter of unarmed men.
"Time to go," Lyn sighed as she heaved herself up. Reno realized he was slouched on his knees staring at the carnage uncomprehendingly. He had no idea how much time had passed. "I should have known you were too smart once you even heard the name Bai Yan," she said looking down at him. Her hands were in her pockets.
"You've had him playing both sides for a while," he surmised.
"About four years now," she nodded. She glanced at Rude and placed a hand on his silent back before laying the other on Reno's cheek with shocking tenderness. Her touch lingered barely a few seconds before it vanished. "This job will never stop taking from you if you try to look outside it. Be careful of that." Reno looked up towards her and saw the weary expression on her face.
"You take the Empress Rude. Red, I might need a ride." She assumed her command again before crossing towards Grim in the middle of issuing orders.
"Why am I surprised? Why am I surprised they set everyone up?" Reno looked up at Rude as he climbed to his feet.
"Because it cost us Kaede," Rude answered.
"What do we do with them?" he gave his friend a hopeless smile.
"All they did was convince Karasuma to consolidate by preying on his power hunger and the dissatisfaction of the younger members eager for more action and less talk. I'm curious to know what incentive 'Bai Yan' offered to entice Karasuma into thinking there was better opportunity working with him and keeping up a façade with the Shin-Ra. Of course that's the dirt Lyn'll use as an excuse to crush the Yakuza once the war's over."
"Smart and handsome," Reno mused disheartened. "Does that mean I set Kaede up for murder?"
"No," Rude shook his head as the muscles shifted in his jaw. "It means Karasuma killed her while he unwittingly danced to the Shin-Ra tune. Lyn didn't set it up the way he played it out. She'd have known better than to kill Kaede."
"Would she?" Reno prompted bitterly. Rude touched Reno's cheek like Lyn had and raised his eyebrows. Without another word he turned and slung the unconscious Empress over his shoulders. Reno trailed behind him thinking about Lyn's unusual reaction to everything that had happened in the last two days.
She didn't say anything when she climbed onto the scavenged Asena as sunrise broke and maintained the silence most of the way through war ravaged countryside with intermittent patches of rich forest. She kept a hand loosely at Reno's side as he tried to guess what other secrets she might be keeping. Ahead of them Rude managed with the Empress lashed across his bike. Grim had stayed behind to get the convoy in order and move the rest of his men in a more orderly fashion towards Sephiroth's army.
They came upon Sephiroth's uniform camp positioned in another seige at a fair sized city with high walls whose name Reno didn't remember. After travelling all day with only a handful of breaks his muscles were stiff and he was hungry. They followed the slithering road towards camp and came to a halt when SOLDIERs hailed them.
"Sephiroth's expecting us," Lyn announced from behind Reno as she proffered her ID badge. They waved her through without checking, one shooting her a distasteful look.
"An admirer," Reno remarked sarcastically.
"Who wouldn't want this much babe on the back of their bike?" she smirked. Reno shuddered as revulsion prickled the hair on the back of his neck.
"I'm so glad we haven't eaten recently," he threw back at her. She laughed.
Sephiroth was waiting for them outside his command tent. He looked perfectly at ease thumbing through reports on an outside bench. Reno looked around expecting to see Mullaney but she was strangely absent. They came to a stop and killed the engines.
"Restrain the Empress," Sephiroth instructed two SOLDIERs nearby without look up. They took the lashed burden from Rude's bike and spirited her away. Lyn winced as she stood, probing one wounded shoulder. "Her capture almost makes me glad to see you," he remarked to the Turks.
"That's saying something," Lyn's eyebrows arched. "Godo's in the city?" Sephiroth stopped reading and looked up at her.
"My time will be quite wasted if he isn't," the Captain observed. He spared a glance at Reno and Rude before doubling back for a second look. "You have the Ifrit?" The question was directed at Lyn but he hadn't quite finished examining the younger Turks. By way of answer she just pulled back her sleeve to expose the prayer beads.
"Disregard any previous messages about Grim. We'll give you a full report once he shows up with reinforcements," Lyn advised.
"Visit medical and rest. We'll reconvene this evening once I've had a chance to talk with the Empress." Sephiroth pointed in the direction Reno presumed medical might be found. None of the three Turks objected, Lyn resuming her seat heavily as they prowled slowly through camp until they found the medics.
Reno sucked on a cigarette as a medic tended some minor cuts on one arm. The stinging disinfectant hardly bothered his exhausted mind and body. He was just turning to say something to Rude behind him when he spotted Lyn leaning over her knees several seats away. Her back was facing him and her shirt had been stripped away, the straps of her bra pulled down over her shoulders. Ordinarily he would have gagged but the sheer number of scars roped across her back and shoulders riveted him. She'd been shot at least four times, there were marks from burns, and more than a few slashes and stitch marks.
Her last name was Corsigg he recalled, wondering where she fit into this puzzle. Just who the hell was she? The marks rankled him because they made her human. Lyn wasn't human. Sure she bled but this was the creature that had masterminded the consolidation of the Yakuza and lured the Empress into attacking by turning Grim into an informant and sacrificing Sa Gong. What was her angle? Why did she give a damn about the Shin-Ra? Anyone with that much luck and conniving surely could make way more money independently than she did working for the company.
"You look different," Mullaney said on his other side. He twisted around and saw her standing in front of Rude. She removed his sun glasses so she could squint into his eyes. "What about that guy?"
"Taken care of," Rude answered wearily. Reno turned away discreetly when Mullaney sat down beside his friend.
"All done," the medic gave him a smile. Reno pulled his shirt back on and didn't wait for Rude. He strolled out into the sunlight wondering if Mullaney would be at risk too. For Rude's sake he hoped not. He rubbed grit out of one tired eye.
"I hear bed's this way," Lyn announced as she came out in her bloody shirt rolling back the sleeves.
"What do you get out of all this?" Reno asked before he could stop himself. He bit his tongue as soon as the question escaped. She pursed her lips thoughtfully.
"Satisfaction," she shrugged at length.
"Why do you work for the Shin-Ra? You could make oodles of money as an independent contractor."
"I'm not creative enough to cause some of the shit storms they do. Cleaning up their mess is most of the fun," Lyn gave him a smile so viciously gleeful it turned his stomach. "Its a challenge and that's satisfying."
"Has anyone ever diagnosed you as 'bat shit crazy?'"
"All the time," she chuckled.