Author's Note:
Reno: Well, finally.
Reeve: Oh shut up. I'm about as unhappy about this as you are excited.
Reno: Oh, come on. A POV with the two of us! Granted, mostly centered on me, but that's only natural.
Reeve: Oh shut up already. No one thinks you're cool, or suave, or what have you. You're not even as man-pretty as you think you are.
Reno: Aha! You said 'as man-pretty as you think you are.'
Reeve: So?
Reno: So by implication, you think I'm man-pretty! You are so gay for me!
Reeve: Oh god. I better say the disclaimer before fangirls start demanding yaoi content in the disclaimer. Tyramir doesn't own the rights to Final Fantasy or any of its characters.
Reno: Admit it. You love me. You wouldn't mind a slash fic set with me. Eh? Think about it.
Reeve: Oh god! Why isn't the fic starting?!
Reno: I am really sexy. And I know you want me.
Reeve: Gah!
Reno: So howabout you and me... y'know...
Reeve: Say it, and I'll sodomize you with your own 'mag-rod.
Reno: Now you're talkin'...
Reeve: Tyramir! Please! Get to the fic! Why do you hate me so?!
Tyramir: I don't hate you per se... All the best plot points just happen to involve your pain and suffering. That, and this is kind of funny.
Reeve: Right now, I hate you as much as I hate Reno. Maybe a little more.
Tyramir: That's nice. Reno, sic 'im!
Reno: Come here, lover boy!
Reeve: Nooooooo!!!
Chapter Thirty
Plan Guy
Reno liked to think that he was an intelligent guy. Not just intelligent. Brilliant. Genius, even. Yeah, that was him all right. A brilliant genius. Way beyond everyone in the brains department. But he also knew that in Shinra, the very best was expected from you, and if you were that much better than someone else, you had to do that much more work. So Reno decided to slack, goof off, drink on the job, flirt with the women, and generally have fun instead of work. Everyone just assumed he was an idiot and left it at that. Except for Tseng. Tseng always saw right through his clever little disguises, his bravado, his ego, and his attempts to make himself look like he was dumber than he actually was. Tseng said nothing to his superiors, and never expected Reno to give his all to the job. He just expected Reno to get the job done. And that he always did. From stealing candy from babies, he loved doing that, to dropping Sector plates, he hated doing that, he always got the job done. He never let morals get in the way, and never put too much effort or brain power into doing it, but he always gave just enough to see it through.
Reno suddenly missed Tseng, and he took another drag of his cigarette as he stared at the computer monitors that overlooked Cait Sith and his jail. Standard eight by ten cell, but the bars had been replaced so that the spacing wasn't as wide between them. Eight guards surrounded the cell at all times, with two outside of it in the hall, and another fifteen guarding the room that led into the hall. Not good.
Now, Reno was one of the best. No one could deny that. Sure, he'd had his ass handed to him by Avalanche a few times, but he was a Turk. And despite all the laziness and urge to screw around when he should be working, he was damn good. Especially with the ladies.
Fuck. How'm I gonna do this? I can't take on that many guards, even with Elena, or that half-pint Yuff-- waitaminute.
The beginnings of an idea were coming to the red-headed Turk, and a sudden grin crossed his face. He pulled out his special issue Turk PHS, and pressed the blue button on the bottom, then pressed the number one. Neat little thing on all Turk phones -- press the magic blue button, and all other Turk pagers go off. Depending on what number you pressed following it, that meant meet at a certain location, one being the Turk head office, two through nine being several safe houses located throughout Midgar, Junon, Mideel, Wutai, Kalm, Gongaga, and Rocket Town, and zero meaning scatter, because something went wrong, and all Turks would be best off finding the closest rathole, kicking out the rat and shooting it to make sure it told no one that it saw you, and then hide in it.
He hadn't had much time to instruct Yuffie on what being a Turk was all about, but he had told her the basics. As in, 'Yes, you're going to have to kill people just because someone told you to,' 'Yes, you get to wear a snazzy suit, and if Rufus ever gets around to it, you get an even snazzier car... I miss my old car... fucking Meteor,' some basic Turk protocol, and what the numbers '1' and '0' meant if she ever got them on her pager.
Reno looked at the cell on the camera display, and noted that there wasn't an air ventilation shaft, however, there was a Mako shaft. It would stink, and it would probably knock ten years off your life, but a human being could fit in there if they were small enough...
The more he thought about it, the more the plan that was forming in his head appealed to him. An absolute grin split his face in two by the time Elena and Yuffie both showed up, walking side by side into the office.
"Sorry we took so long," Elena said. "The rookie here got lost and I found her wandering around."
Yuffie made an indignant noise but didn't say anything. Reno almost laughed at Elena's comment. It wasn't too long ago that he had been calling her rookie. Hell, now that he thought about it, he realized that he still did.
"What're you smiling about?"
"My own brilliance," he said. "I'm such a godamn genius some days I amaze myself."
Elena rolled her eyes, but Yuffie seemed all enthusiasm. "Did you find a way to free Reeve?"
"Yep. You know, it's day like these that are the proof why I make the big bucks around here. I'm handsome, I'm cool, I get to shoot things for money, but most importantly, I'm damn smart. Now come on, who wants to congratulate me first?"
"Can you get to the point please?" Elena said. "Hojo has me patrolling Lower Junon because he claims there's some sort of new rebel faction rising up against Shinra. He's going to expect my report soon."
"I know, I know," Reno replied. "He has me inspecting the troops regularly and looking for new candidates to join the Turks. A lot of them being former members of Soldier, I might add."
"What's that have to do with anything?" Elena asked. "That's not unusual."
"I've been looking into their files. All of them were recommended into Soldier by Professor Hojo. All of them were given the Soldier enhancement process by Hojo. Hell, this one file here..." Reno said indicating a pile of papers on his desk, "...A guy named Ivon Trask. Says he's fifty years old, but the picture of him looks like a guy that's twenty. Put through all kinds of secret experiments that even I don't have the clearance to look at. It all stinks. I don't trust them, and I don't trust Hojo. But that's besides the point. Yuffie, what's Hojo got you doing?"
"Well, uh..." Yuffie started, seeming oddly hesitant. "He has me... uh... kidnaping people for Soldier."
Reno snorted. "That's the best you could come up with? You, the infamous ninja Princess Yuffie? Your lies are suppsed to be the stuff of legend, and you can't come up with anything better than that?"
Yuffie turned a very deep colour of red, and refused to look directly at the Turk, averting her eyes. "He doesn't have me doing anything. He hasn't given me any orders yet, so I just took advantage of it and have been, uh..."
"Slacking off?"
"Yeah."
"We'll make a Turk out of you yet," Reno said, managing to keep his grin on. "Now, I have a plan. I'm a regular plan guy. And this one is perfect for King Plan Guy himself."
"Will you please get to the point and stop patting yourself on the back?" Elena demanded.
"Yeesh, calm down, rookie. Here's my plan. It's nice and simple. Hojo took over Reeve's body and seems to know everything that Reeve does, right? But Reeve was busy elsewhere getting taken over by Hojo when we recruited Yuffs here. So, Reeve doesn't know that Yuffie's a Turk, and by extension, Hojo doesn't know that she is either. Rufus left before he could file any paper work on her, and I know I haven't gotten around to it yet. That's why she hasn't been getting any assignments from him. He doesn't know she's here."
"Okay, clever," Elena said. "So how'sYuffie going to get around all the guards to free Reeve?"
"Well, first we need someone to knock out the power. But it can't be you or me. We need alibis, so Hojo doesn't suspect us. We need to bring someone else in on this, but I haven't figured out who... It's the only flaw in my plan right now."
"Shera!" Yuffie blurted. "I mean... well, Shera came here with Aeris, right? And she doesn't know what's going on, but maybe we let her in on it and get her to knock out the power we'll be all set for your plan, right?"
Elena whistled, and Reno just stood there standing at his newest recruit. It took him a minute to realize that his mouth was hanging open, and when he did, he firmly clamped it shut. Yuffie was looking at Reno expecting, what? Approval? Praise? He wasn't sure.
"Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all. Okay, we'll do things that way. I'll let you talk to Shera."
"What's the rest of your plan?" Elena said.
"Oh, easy. There's a Mako shaft leading into the cell Reeve's in. It's basically just there to vent Mako fumes in there and make life uncomfortable for the prisoners. Sucks to be on guard duty in there. Yuffie's small enough to fit in there... She's even already gone through some of those ducts already. We just need to get a blueprint of the system so she can have something to navigate by."
"And take out the room full of guards," Elena said.
"There's only eight," both Reno and Yuffie said at once, then looked at each other. He smirked, then reached over and ruffled her hair. "You aren't so bad once I get to know you. Remind me of me when I was an immature braggart."
"You still are," Yuffie said.
"Oh right. But I'm the boss now, so you guys aren't supposed to point shit like that out. You're supposed to show me some respect, end sentences with 'sir', that kind of thing. Got that?"
"Whatever."
Author's Note:
Sorry it took so long to post this... I haven't been feeling well. Lame excuse I know, but still there. I'm gonna go hide under some blankets now.