Obligatory Disclaimer:
I don't own any characters (or anything else, for that matter) you recognize from Final Fantasy VII, they are all the property of Tetsuya Nomura and/or Square-Enix.
Alcestis forced her eyes open, feeling hands tight on her shoulders.
"Alcestis, listen to me, we have got to move."
Alcestis felt a burning pain in her eyes as they slowly adjusted to the light, the specters of her dreams slowing draining away as she squinted into the face above her.
"Elena? What's wrong?"
The younger woman bit her lip, her blonde hair messy. "I don't know how to tell you this, but Reno and Rude are missing."
"WHAT?" Alcestis snapped upright, throwing her legs over the side of the cot, Nereid already standing to the side, nodding gravely.
Elena stood more slowly, looking to the side. Tseng approached them, checking that his gun had a fresh clip. "Reno and Rude are missing. We don't know where they've gone, if someone has taken them, or what else might have happened. We're going to very thoroughly sweep the place. If we determine they are not on the premises, we will take an airship to Mideel as we had originally planned."
"Like hell we will!" Alcestis said, holding her hand out and summoning her staff to her hand without looking. "Tseng, I cannot do this without Reno. Cannot. If he's not here…"
"Chances are the people who have him are the very people we will run into at Mideel." Tseng replied, turning the safety on his gun off.
"Don't worry, Alcestis. We'll find them. And even if we don't, well…" Elena smiled at her weakly. "They're Turks, they can take care of themselves."
"Worry not, my mage." Nereid said, padding over to her side, claws clicking on the flooring. "The red one is capable, if not always observant."
Cyrene burst in, Oedipus hot on her heels, and the Moogle flitting over to land in Elena's arms.
"They're not anywhere on the upper levels, Tseng." Cyrene bit out tersely. They're either down here, or gone from the building entirely."
"That will make this search easy and quick, then." Tseng muttered half to himself.
Yetta tumbled in through the door, having tripped on the last step in her haste. Vincent caught her easily, standing her upright.
"Report from my Turks back in Wutai." Yetta said, breathless. "Communication has been reestablished and Kisaragi has announced that the 'scourge' of the city has left."
"Right after they left Midgar. They've stopped sieging people with resources." Tseng said, cursing under his breath.
"They must know where the Summon is." Vincent said quietly. "In all likelihood, they are somehow responsible for Reno and Rude's disappearance."
"Because they know that we'll take the time to search them out, and that will delay us." Tseng said, closing his eyes.
"Which means Mideel must be the place to go, if they know we know that's where to look, and they don't want us getting there." Yetta murmured, her eyes wide.
"It's a race to the Summon." Alcestis said, tapping her staff and its pointy tip on the floor. "We've got to find Reno and Rude, and haul ass down to Mideel just as fast as we can manage."
"All right, we've got one last floor to sweep, and it's this one." Tseng said. "Look through every room, open every door, leave no box unopened. Anything that seems out of place is to be reported." Everyone began moving.
Except Alcestis. "They won't be down here, Tseng." she said quietly.
"How can you be sure?" Elena asked, her eyes flicking nervously to the sides.
"Because if whoever did this to Reno and Rude could get down to the basement, and their ultimate goal was to prevent us from going forward, why wouldn't they take me instead?" she said, her eyes on the floor. "Ajax cursed my line, Pandia's line; all of her descendants have died young. I'm the last one. He knows I'm the threat, I'm the one who will come for him. If their goal was to stop us, and they were able to get into the basement, they would have taken me, not Reno, not Rude." She took a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh. "Besides, I know Reno's not in the building; I can't feel him anywhere nearby."
Elena's eyebrows shot up. "You can't feel him?"
Alcestis' eyes snapped up off the floor, her expression surprise bordering on shock. "What?"
Cyrene frowned. "You said you couldn't feel him nearby, Alcestis."
Alcestis felt her brow furrow. "I did say that, didn't I?" she murmured. "The last link." The last link. Happy feelings when the other desires them in you. A physical manifestation of that. Increased sensitivity to their touch. Shared dreams. Being able to sense the other's presence. That's all five.
Tseng cleared his throat. "Well, no matter what Alcestis feels, we're still going to look before we go rushing off to that Holyforsaken island chain where the lifestream has ravaged the land."
The flurry of activity resumed and Alcestis stared at the floor, counting the tiles.
-~-*Å*-~-
Reno groaned as he stirred, his legs shifting aimlessly, his drowsy mind wondering why he couldn't lift his arms.
"About time you came around." Rude muttered.
"Wha…? Rude ol' boy, whatsit going?" Reno said, blinking slowly. "Woah, my head feels like I rammed a brick wall."
"More likely it was rammed into a brick wall." Rude replied.
Reno looked about, his mind finally processing his surroundings. His arms were tied down to his sides by a long length of rope, wrapped many times about his torso. Reno peered at his friend, and found that Rude had the same treatment. "What the hell is this?"
The room was utterly featureless, its walls a blank metal. A single door off to the side, and 12 square feet of floor space. I'm thinkin' I don't wanna be here, Reno thought idly.
"What in the fuck is this hunk o' junk, yo? This isn't an airship."
"No kidding?" Rude said. "I'm thinking we've been captured."
"Ah. That would explain the rope, yo." Reno said, casually shrugging, finding that the binding allowed him very little wiggle room. Reno squinted at the door, trying to find some characteristic that would give him an idea of where they were; he realized the edges of his vision were still quite fuzzy.
"I'm thinking," Reno announced dramatically, "we've been drugged." Reno shook his head, bringing on a bout of dizziness that would not cease.
"I came to that conclusion, too." Rude blinked slowly, as though attempting not to tax himself.
"This little box they've got us in is downright clinical, yo." Reno said, attempting to get his legs under him and finding the task impossible. He brought his head forward and allowed it snap back into the wall, his eyes closed and his face scrunched. "I hate the smell of clean."
The door handle began to wiggle, and Reno narrowed his eyes, focusing on the movement, trying to hear the clicks in the lock that might indicate the shape of the key…
The door flung open and slammed into the adjacent wall with a heavy metal clank, the intruding man's boots making a similar sound as he entered. Hair of a deep cerulean blue sprang from his scalp in all directions, and Reno recognized his facial structure with its sadistic smile.
He was identical to the man they had defeated on the S.S. Cushy.
"Greetings, vagrants." The man said, revealing too-white teeth, his cheeks shifting into a maniacal grin, altering the shape of narrowed brown eyes. "Enjoying your stay in our little hotel?"
"If you're what we get for room service, I ain't tippin'." Reno said, crossing his legs at the ankle.
"Oh, how clever," the man simpered, snickering. "As you have probably noticed, you are no longer among friends."
"Shit, I think we missed that memo. Did you hear about this, Rude?" Reno said, looking over at his partner.
"News to me. I thought this was a pleasure cruise."
"If this were a pleasure cruise, I'd ask room service to wear a bikini, yo." Reno turned his eyes back to the blue haired man. "You'd look great in a little blue number, you know it? Find a nice bikini to match that hair, and you'd be set."
The man's nostrils flared. "Scumbag." He grabbed Reno's collar, pulling him up. Reno struggled to plant his feet underneath him, finding his reactions slowed from the drugs.
"I need you two to tell me everything you know about the party you were traveling with." The man hissed, his spittle landing on Reno's nose. Reno's eyes slid to the side, catching a glint of steel as he blinked…
"That's pretty tough shit, 'cause we're not tellin' you a damn thing." Reno said with a grin.
Reno saw colorful circles explode in his vision as the man cuffed him, pain exploding and shooting down his jaw.
"Tell me where they're headed now." The man demanded, his voice rising.
Reno spat in the other man's face, the saliva mingling with his blood as it ran down the blue-haired man's chin. "Fuck if I know," Reno said, laughing.
The man threw him down on the floor, Reno's legs collapsing underneath him.
"Did you really think we were gonna tell you anything?" Reno laughed derisively, his mirth carrying a cutting edge. "Honest to Holy, did you? Is your little Order full o' morons?"
"Our little Order grows daily," the man replied, his smile returned. "Thanks to my Master, there are now hundreds, if not thousands of me."
"Clones." Rude murmured, squinting at the man.
"Of a fashion," the man replied. "Ajax's power has allowed us to expand and grow, making perfect carbon copies. Very soon, there will be so many of us that you will be unable to stop us all, and once more this silly little planet will belong to my Master."
As the man turned to leave, Reno began laughing again.
"What is so funny, scum?" The man asked, without turning, pausing in the doorway.
"Your Master is going to get his ass handed to him, yo." Reno said, grinning from ear to ear. "You don't want to fuck with my girlfriend when she's angry."
"We shall see." The man said shortly, pulling the solid door behind him.
A moment of silence followed before Rude cleared his throat. "That was fun."
Reno glared at the door. "Wasn't it?" Reno began to wiggle, the ropes falling from his body like dead snakes.
Rude's eyebrows rose. "How the hell did you manage that?"
"The guy was wearing a knife, and it wasn't in the hilt all the way." Reno replied. "All too easy to piss him off enough to get close to me. Gave me a chance to rub one of the ropes against the knife at his hip without him noticing, yo." Reno smiled, showing bloody teeth. "He was too intent on hitting me as hard as he could."
Reno set to work untying Rude, the larger man sighing with some relief, even as a sense of doom darkened his features. "Even with our arms free, we can't get out of here. There's only that one door, and I'm sure they're not stupid enough to leave it unlocked."
"Maybe not," Reno replied, spitting on the floor. "But we can clean the clock of whoever comes in next, yo." Reno bit his lip as he stood, feeling a little strength return to his limbs. "What I can't figure out is why we're alive at all. We were unconscious in their hands long enough for them to drag us into this little room and leave us here – why not just kill us?" Reno folded his arms as Rude stood, his stance wobbly. "They must need us for something, yo. But what?"
"I recommend we don't stick around long enough to find out." Rude said, rubbing his upper arm to get the blood flowing.
"Agreed, buddy." Reno said, rubbing the back of his neck, finding it sore. "I've got to get back to Alcestis, yo." He murmured, and Rude smirked. Reno cleared his throat. "We've got to get back to Alcestis. I get the feeling all this shit is going to come to a climax real soon, yo."
