Reno: So, I hear you're getting the spotlight this chapter.

Reeve: Yes. Yes I am.

Reno: Attention whore.

Reeve: No more than you. Heh heh.

Reno: Grr.. Tyramir doesn't own the rights to Final Fantasy.

Chapter Forty Nine

Necessary Risks

"Stay in hiding," Cait said to himself, rolling his robotic eyes as best he could. When Reno had said that, Cait had honestly thought that would mean he'd get a nice, comfortable hiding place. He had no nerves, and no mechanisms to register pain or discomfort, but when Reno had firmly stuffed him into a footlocker filled with dirty socks and told him to stay there, the robotic toy decided finding another hiding spot was in order.

Of course, any place in the Turk offices was out of the question. Trask was now constantly there, always hovering over somebody's shoulder. Yuffie was similarly banned, since she was still a wild card that Hojo and Trask knew nothing about. But at least she could just disguise herself as a Shinra soldier and pretend to be under orders from Reno or Elena whenever someone asked her why she wasn't as her post. Cait wasn't so lucky. He looked a little too much like a small, bipedal cat that was currently on Shinra's Most Wanted list.

The first logical place to hide was the air ducts again, but those were being closely monitored, and rooms were being randomly searched. So now Cait Sith sat inside of a Robo-guard that he had shanghaied and hotwired. A devilish smile was on his feline face as he manipulated the large, over-bearing robot and forced it to walk down the corridors, as if patrolling. A Shinra Robo-guard wasn't meant to be piloted, but with the correct manipulation of wires, and a console controller stolen from one of Reno's gaming systems had rectified that problem very nicely. Now, as Reeve peered out a small hole in the Robo-Guard's chest, he nearly cackled with delight as he successfully manipulated the twelve-foot tall mech-like robot to do his bidding.

He hummed absently as he made his way out the Shinra building and down the street towards the Underwater Reactor. It wasn't unusual to see Robo-guards patrolling from the Shinra main building to the Underwater Reactor, but Cait still felt unusually exposed as he made his way down the street. He could have used the elevator in the Shinra building to get to the Reactor, but it was more than likely being monitored extensively, perhaps even scanned regularly. The elevator on the street level had no such scanning systems however.

So it was a few minutes later that Cait Sith was in the storage area of the Underwater Reactor, surveying the wreckage of the computer that had once housed Hojo's consciousness and the Cait Sith diagnostic program. There wasn't much left. Hojo had done a fair job in destroying it. On the other side of the room lay pieces of broken Cait Sith units, scattered about and left as they were. They hadn't been destroyed by engineers with precision, or taken apart by mechanics. No, they'd been propped up in front of a firing squad and been cut down. Defenceless dolls torn apart by machine gun fire and shredded.

Cait swore.

He'd come down here in the hope of salvaging some parts, maybe try to figure out a way to use some old parts to figure out how Hojo had done what he did and switch bodies again.

Muttering, the cat steered his commandeered Robo-Guard out of the room and down the hall. A bad mood was starting to sink in. First, he'd lost his memories and been manipulated by Rufus. Then he'd gotten said memories back, but at the expense of his body, which was now being controlled by Hojo. And of course he'd been taken into custody shortly afterwards, and when the Turks to freed him from the imprisonment they had basically put him in, Shera had died in the process. Oh, and Reno was probably billing him for the rescue.

The last three months had sucked.

He slowly made his way down the corridor when he heard a voice yelling. His voice. Or rather, his old voice. Stopping short, Cait listened in.

"Those damned Turks!" Hojo yelled. "They know! They're hiding that cat somewhere. They must be. But the question is… how? How are they doing it?"

"A third operative, perhaps?" another voice said, a cold male one. Probably Trask. "There are always four Turks. Perhaps Reno has a fourth Turk that we do not know about?"

"Interesting theory. Continue."

"I think it is Abner Owen," the voice said with some measure of contempt.

"Who?"

"Abner Owen. He goes by another alias now. He was in Soldier, as a Covert Operative. I fought alongside and with him many times. And then he supposedly died."

"Supposedly?" Hojo said. The man sounded amused.

"Yes. Owen was originally a Turk, and after being in Soldier, after getting a real taste of battle, he got weak. He wanted to leave, rejoin the Turks. So he had someone, I suspect Tseng, the former leader of the Turks, a brutally efficient killer and someone everyone in Shinra looked up to, arrange his death. Abner Owen died. And in his place came Rudolph Seirath, the man people call 'Rude.'"

Cait Sith nearly gasped at this. He sort of remembered Heidegger bragging about a prized Soldier Operative named Owen, and then despairing at the man's death during a bombing made by Avalanche. Something akin to a frown came over Cait Sith's face as the pieces came together. Trask was right. Avalanche never would have bombed a guard station like Tseng had reported. Owen's death was not on their hands. He was still very much alive.

"Interesting idea. But Reeve's memories indicate the Rude defected to join Avalanche."

Trask snorted. "Owen would never do such a thing. Leave a position where he tests himself daily for one in a group of unloved freedom fighters who will one day be killed? Unlikely."

"Then how do you know that Owen and Seirath are the same man?"

"Rudolph has a bearing to him. A warrior's bearing. He moves a certain way, fights a certain way. His identity is screamed out with every action his body makes. It's him."

Cait Sith steered the Robo-Guard to peek around the corner so he could get a better look. He was tempted to just raise one of the robot's arms and fire a barrage of bullets at them. But then he'd never get his body back. He'd be stuck in the Cait Sith doll forever.

Was it worth it? Was losing his own body forever a necessary risk? A necessary sacrifice?

No. If he killed Hojo this way, he'd still win. He'd have robbed Reeve of one of the very things that made him who he was, and he wouldn't allow that. Instead, he continued to listen.

"If you knew it was him all along, then why didn't you report it to Shinra?"

"Because, Professor, I wanted to kill him."

Hojo let out a laugh, and then said, "You've just given me an idea, Trask. If the Turks are against us, then we must find a way to neutralize them."

Cait gulped, and realized he had to hear this. If he couldn't kill them here and now, then the very least he could do was find out what threat they posed, and try to minimize it by warning Reno.

"I could kill them," Trask supplied.

"No, my strong friend, you could not. Against any one of them, I suspect you would emerge victorious. But against two of them? Three? No, Turks are among the best. I will not risk you so. I have another idea."

"What is your idea, Professor? Surely I can take care of them by myself."

Hojo wheeled on Trask, and something came into his hand, a controller of some kind. The impersonator pressed down on a button, and Trask suddenly fell down, screaming in pain and clutching the back of his neck.

"There are limits to how much I allow my creations to question and disrespect me, Trask! You should know this! Perhaps I should let you face off against all three Turks. I would be greatly amused to see you get slaughtered. From what Reeve remembers of the Turks, even the newest and most inexperienced of them is a killing machine. Did you know that reports say Elena is a better spell caster than you? Or that Reno is judged to be just as fast as you? Or worse, that Rude Seirath, the man you so lust to kill, is just as strong as you? Combine those three, as well as their ability to work in a cohesive unit that knows how to work together, and you have a force that you cannot overcome."

Finally Hojo released the button, and Turk slowly stood up, albeit slowly.

"Know this. The Turks frequently gave Avalanche a good fight. And Avalanche, if all accounts are to be believed, defeated Sephiroth, and you, Trask, could never defeat Sephiroth. You will always be second best to me, Trask, and I am disappointed you are all I have to work with. Now tell me, does this blasted facility have anything worth calling a laboratory?"

"Yes, Professor. Rufus came up with a lab that is able to perform the Soldier process-"

"I remember. Or rather, Reeve remembers. He was there when Rufus had it done. That will have to do. My plan won't take long. Just some choice machines, as well as a the medical reports of the history of the Turks."

"What would you need that for, Professor?"

Hojo lifted the device that had caused Trask so much pain before, and the man flinched. Cait Sith was on the edge of his make-shift seat, awaiting the madman's response. "The Turks are among the best, Trask. But I'm going to have you fight alongside the best."