---
It was so goddamn cold. No one had mentioned it would be cold, or he would have put something on over the suit.
Where am I. . .?
He remembered the place vaguely, but it didn't look like it was supposed to. This was definitely the Temple of the Ancients, but things were. . .different. Besides the fact it was freezing, there was snow everywhere. He couldn't see anything but a blanket of white with a door. Just snow -- probably why it was cold, but it never snowed here; this was the zone of no climate or something, right? -- and a door leading inside.
He started for the door, legs moving against his will, and noticed the weight in his left hand. He tried to look down, but this neck was not his own.
What the. . .?
Suddenly, he was inside. Too fast to have actually happened. This was the temple he recognized -- but it had been destroyed by AVALANCHE, hadn't it?
What's going on?
Sure it had. That was a definite. Then why was he here? Where was here, some alternate universe? His head swiveled down to check his watch and a familiar voice said, echoing off the walls, "Rufus should be calling me soon. Where is he?"
No. . .
In the watch's silver surface was a face, but it wasn't his. It was the face of a Wutain man with long, black hair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Keystone in his left hand. So that was what was weighing it down.
I can't be. . .
Not there. . .
. . .not then.
He pulled a hand through his raven-colored hair and turned round to inspect the area. There he was. The legend with the silver hair, the sleek black SOLDIER uniform, the Mako eyes that were said to burn holes right through walls. The sword.
Not him.
God, please, not him.
The sword that had met President ShinRa's spine, the sword that had felled Nibelheim, the sword that had nearly killed that Lockheart girl, the sword that had fought a war and would now begin another. It was amazing that one blade could hold so much significance, but this one did so tenfold, at the very least. And there was that smile. That "your time is now" smile.
Run.
For the love of fuck, run!
But his legs refused to move, though there was resistance. This was not his body; his body had left him in this immobile shell. And now Sephiroth was advancing on him, murmuring a song as he readied his blade for the one swing it would take.
"Mother, Mother, where have you gone?" he sang, a children's song turned horribly wrong. "You never came home, and Dad's on the lawn. The trail on the stairs leads up to your room. And there, still, you lay, impaled on a broom." His smile widened, and then he narrowed his lips, reaching a strange, hypnotizing note. "Ooooooh, no, Papa's not coming home.."
Run.
If you can move any muscle at all, you will turn and run away!
NOW!
He finally moved, turning and trying to run into the temple. But the other was too close, and all there was was the distinct feeling of a pane of glass breaking in his chest. His breath refused to come, and a life that wasn't his flashed before his eyes. Wutai; girls in uniform skirts; boys in blazers with wheatfield hair; the war; the first job; the acceptance as a Turk; his companions; his death.
---
Reno awoke with a start and clutched at his chest. This wasn't the first time this had happened; he always wanted it to be a heart attack that would give him that nightmare and kill him in the night.
He looked around and tried to regain some sense of security. He didn't like to admit weakness -- what good Turk did, after all? -- but that dream had a good habit of scaring the living hell out of him. Yuffie was laying next to him. Good. That was natural; just the way he'd seen it last. This was his room; these were his pillows; that was his piss-shade wall color. His pants were still on. Good; that was the way it usually was. He checked the clock. 7:48. Good a time as any to start drinking, said his mind.
There was a loud, impatient knock at the front door.
Definitely not routine. If anyone wanted anything from him this early, it was either one of those religious freaks or it was a dire emergency. The knock sounded again, this time with the doorbell as well, and the possibilities spawned by his nightmare overflow that came to mind were not good. He carefully rolled himself out of bed, threw on his blazer, and opened the door. Across the living room, in the window of the screen door, was a man low on his list of expected guests.
"Reeve?" he asked the man. When there was no response, he figured out he was still across the room and behind two doors, and decided to remedy the situation by crossing the former and opening the latter. He tried again. "Reeve?"
"Reno," he replied hurriedly. He was prepared for the weather in that businessman way. Nice black overcoat and leather driving gloves. His SUV in the driveway set him at cliché level. "Reno, we need to talk. Something's going on, and you're not gonna like it at all."
He snapped his fingers. "Shit, Scarlet the Starlet's retiring?"
Reeve's face hardened. "Reno!" he scolded. "C'mon, just come to breakfast with me. We can talk in the café. I'll even pick up the tab."
There was a system to things in ShinRa, and Reno was very familiar with it. President Reeve -- that title still sounded strange -- never paid for anything unless he was desperate to have someone else come with him or he was doing it as a favor to a business partner. Reno sure as hell wasn't a business partner, so something must have happened. "Yeah, alright. Just let me see if. . .you mind if we have company?"
"It's probably better if it's just the two of us and the people we're meeting." He smiled in that fatherly way he always did; despite being a bit anal about things, he was a good guy deep down, Reno had to admit. "Why, is Scarlet here or something?"
Reno thought of how to answer that. If he said yes, then Reeve would want her to come because she was the logical one and would probably have an answer to. . .whatever was going on. If he said no, it was Yuffie Kisaragi of AVALANCHE, Reeve might think he was slipping and not trust him nearly as much. He'd managed to go two years without blowing that cover. He debated saying Rude, but if this was serious enough for the Turks, he had probably already been found. Instead, he cracked a Reno Drannor grin and passed it off as, "A third-floor secretary. Picked her up at a bar last night. I'll just tell her to take off when she wakes up if I'm not here."
Reeve mumbled something in response and went back out to his large black vehicle. Reno made his way into the bedroom, threw on a shirt under the blazer, and feebly tied his hair back. He jotted a quick note on her forearm -- he'd done this to enough sleeping companions to not wake her up -- that might come off with a few washes. In that early-morning excitement, he attempted to slide out of his bedroom, hit the doorjamb, and fell flat on his ass.
He debated not standing up, for a moment. He considered just laying there until Reeve came in to find him, then he could make up some boldface lie story about being pitched out of the room by the strongest receptionist in ShinRa. He would wrap it up with some wise-crack about how handy that was in the sack. When this great arrival of Reeve was just his horn blaring, Reno decided to scrap the idea, pick himself up, and walk outside.
The ride to the café was quiet; almost tense in a way. Something was obviously getting on Reeve's nerves, and even Reno knew that wasn't a time to make wise-ass comments. They rounded the block twice once the place was in sight, which was a silent signal for Reno to grip his gun. He hadn't even thought of picking it up; it was just habit by now. "What is this place?" he asked cautiously, as if his voice would trigger some explosive.
"Café Faust," said Reeve, parking the car a few doors down from the small, empty-looking diner. "President ShinRa bought it for Rufus as a birthday present when he was fourteen, but the kid never got out of the building for long enough to have a meal here. So I found the title and signed it over to myself." He put the car in park and composed himself, straightening his collar and lighting up a cigarette. Reno ventured a guess that he'd never seen Reeve look as old as he did right now; something was seriously screwed up. "While we're on that subject, you're now full owner of the Turk bar in Junon. Rude doesn't want a bit of it in case he has to go into hiding. It's yours for your wishes."
Responsibility being handed to him? Reno gripped his gun tightly and got out of Reeve's transportation. They walked casually to the café, which Reeve unlocked with a key from his pocket, and held the door open for Reno.
Had the redhead not immediately seen Rude sitting at one of the tables sipping orange juice and flipping through a file, he might have opened fire. That was probably because roughly thirteen guns were aimed toward him, which were dropped when Reeve walked in behind him, locking the door as he went. With a quick scan around, he realized he knew all these faces on a first name basis; they were the leaders and major representatives of all the prosperous gangs in the slums. He recognized one especially; Johnny C., his old employer.
They saluted each other out of long-aged habit and Reno took his seat with Rude.
"Order what you'd like, Reno. We may be here for a while." The offer was from Reeve, and Reno decided he'd be picking up the tab. He ordered the number three without any idea of what it was and then things started to get more interesting. "As you can all see, I've finally decided to bring my associate Reno Drannor into our meetings. Johnny, I know you two are quite acquainted, as are a few others. Most of you here can see that this is a much larger group than usual. There is indeed a reason for this. Johnny, would you please tell Reno about us while I get something to drink?"
Reeve walked toward the back and Johnny stood up. He looked as he always had to Reno; hair as red as a match tip, tattered leather jacket and army knockoff pants, and wrap-around sunglasses. He was chewing a cigarette filter furiously. "Reno, you and I go way back, right?"
The other redhead nodded, eyebrows scrunched together. "Yeah. . .a good fifteen years or so."
"Right." Johnny raked a hand through his hair as a few other people began talking about random things. This was all habit for them. "Reeve's had this little group going since he signed the place to himself, called Operation Big Brother. Us, the thirteen most powerful slum-dwelling gangsters --" There were a few excited crows at this. "-- are bringing ShinRa information about crime rates as long as we get professional protection, mainly from Rude here. We meet every weekend to exchange what needs to be exchanged, talk about what needs to be said, and shit to that effect. The only reason you weren't inside earlier is because Rude thought there might be a bit of bad blood between the two of us, but 'sall cool now. It's usually just Reeve and a few of us, but. . .well, he'll tell you about what went down last night."
Johnny and Reno had been through their fair share of fights in their day. It had gotten so nasty that Johnny had eventually knocked Reno out with a steel door and kicked him out of their mock base. To spite him, Reno joined up with a rival gang, Beelzebub. It was there that he met Tseng, who came to be known as a spy for ShinRa, and just after he was pulled out and made a Turk, nearly the entire gang was wiped out in a night raid. Since then, Johnny and Reno had seen eye to eye.
"How many would you reckon you lost last night, Jarvis?" Reeve had come back with a glass of water and was now leaning against a table casually, even as Reno tried to wrap his head around the entire situation.
Jarvis, a lanky black man who ranked right up with Leila in facial piercings and had a ridiculous amount of tattoos, tipped his head back to think. "We ticked three stiffs, but there's still a chance some of our MIAs got clipped." He nodded across the table to a bald white man in a trench coat who wore enough rings to make shaking hands with him a task in itself. "And I think, night before last, M-Dogg lost five outta his little army." This supposed M-Dogg nodded in affirmation and sipped his brandy.
"It's Winter Day season," came the notice from a fat man wearing a dog collar and tags in the corner. "The night before MD's loss, our whole kennel went down. Nobody'd expect a holiday serial killer, right?"
Reeve held his hand up, calling for order. "Poor Reno is being confused into a stupor. Reno, for the past week, major gangs have been losing members like nobody's business, and it's showing a trend. No one else notable's been killed except them, and whoever this is, he or she makes it look extremely easy. In and out in ten minutes, obviously knows the guard shifts."
"How does this involve me?" he asked. That was all he really wanted to know. He didn't want to be sent on some fucking hunt while Yuffie was there. Besides, this was his precious time off.
Rude signaled to Reeve that he would handle it, and the goateed man nodded his thanks, bringing the others' attention toward him as he began discussing security beefing.
"Reno," his bald friend said calmly, "this is serious. They're making their way from least threatening to most, and at the top of the list has to be ShinRa; they've left clues that they know about the Operation. The way this looks is," he said as he slid a few corpse photos toward Reno, "that we're dealing with a samurai wannabe. Now I've looked at the rate of travel, and this sets ShinRa as getting hit in four days, the night of the company party. And what better place to do it than. . ."
"The ballroom?" Rude nodded. Now this was something, said the side of Reno's mind that didn't constantly tell him to get drunk and shoot himself in the foot for shits and giggles. The party was always held in the ballroom and there was always someone dancing. With the staff of ShinRa, there would be no shortage of targets, or killers for that matter. They just didn't have the strings to pull for legitimate security within two days, though, and Reno knew this. He voiced this to Rude, who replied by saying this was exactly what their problem was.
"That's why this involves you. As Turks, we're obviously the biggest threat to any serial killer and probably won't fail to be high on their list of targets. As much as I'd love to indulge your ritual of fucking something up and going home from this party, I'm actually begging you to stay and keep an eye on Elena. I'm going to have my hands full with Reeve as is; Scarlet can be informed and she'll handle herself." Anyone else would have been shocked at Rude speaking so much, but Reno was used to it. What could he say, the guy just didn't like crowds.
"What's in it for me?" If someone had been asking for help and had the plague, that would still have been his first question. He was just that kind of a person. That and he didn't much consider a serial killer any type of match for Laney. His physical reaction to her was just to keep her just below the bar and keep her reaching to better herself, but he knew she was one tough girl when needed.
Rude sighed and ground his teeth together for a moment. "Reno, if you go to the party with Elena and watch her for the night. . .I'll pay off your Icicle Inn bar tab." He winced just saying it. That tab was legendary, dubbed as The Tab of Death by people who didn't even know him. The total sum was written on a large banner on the wall with a name and address to accompany it.
When someone called Reno's tab legendary, it was generally because the thing could, when printed, wrap around the equator six times with enough extra to wipe a naval fleet's ass. But this tab was different; though it was pretty big, it had just pissed the bartender, some surfboarder and snowboarder named Mukki -- he said he had some connection to Don Corneo, which worried the Turks a bit -- off to a surprising extent. Reno had actually been chased out of the town and a legal ban put on him until the tab was paid off, and he really did like that place.
Reno smirked. "You've got a deal."
"Rude?" came Reeve's voice. He held up his thumb and gave a questioning look, and Reno was suddenly aware of the fact that the other conversation was very loud and punctuated by laughs. That was to be expected from gang members, though. They were all fun-loving people beneath the killing and whatnot. Rude returned the gesture, which Reno knew was over his participation, and Reeve closed their meeting. Rude hurried out, and most of the men went with him. Reeve disappeared to the back.
Reno debated whether he should complain about not getting his "number three" or not. He decided on the latter when he saw Johnny sauntering his way, flashing him a grin. "Red, man, you wanna go someplace real and get a bite to eat?"
"What's the occasion?" the other asked. He and Johnny, despite their fights, had made up considerably well and since then had always been nice when they caught each other sneaking around.
Johnny shrugged. "Ain't seen you in a while. Just wonderin' if you wanted to get somethin' to chow down on and catch up a bit. No gun under the table aimed at your dick this time, I swear." They both grinned. That had been one rough night for Jay's Pub and Grill. "Just pay half the tab and we're in business. What else you really gotta do today?"
The Turk thought about this, and actually had an answer for once. It surprised him that Yuffie's name came up so quickly; normally she was just someone to have around, maybe he would sometimes even go so far as to call her a distraction, but he truly cared for the brat now. He debated the pros and cons of going back and picking her up. The pros were along the lines of a third wheel so he didn't feel so nervous around Johnny, the other person to back up his sarcastic remarks, and the fact he would have finally done something with her.
His brain piped up again, mentioning how he actually was acting like a weekend father or some bullshit.
The cons, the other half of his mind threatened the distraction, were that he would have to drag her out of bed and that would make the rest of his day hell. Plus he might have to take her shopping later. On the other hand, there were endless, embarrassing opportunities if she did come along.
He looked Johnny up and down and his lips quirked up again. "Help me drag somebody out of bed and we've got a date."