Author's Note:

Reno: Finally! Back to my sexy POV again!

Reeve: Yeah yeah. Don't get too excited.

Reno: Why not? I rock! All the ladies love me!

Reeve: Yeah, but Rufus is currently getting more than you are.

Reno: Who cares? He's a bad guy right now, and I'm a sexilcious anti-hero, and chicks dig anti-heroes.

Reeve: Tyramir, why must you insist on pairing me with this loser?

Tyramir: If I wanted to pair you with him, I'd right some yao-

Reeve: You shut your filthy mouth!

Tyramir: I'll consider it if you say the disclaimer.

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

Tyramir: Dance, little monkey, dance!

Chapter Fifty Three

Theft of the Sacred

"I'm telling you," Reno protested, "the only thing in that foot locker is porn and old gym socks! And it's mine! Dammit, Trask, step away from it now, or I swear I'll pump a round in your other leg!"

Trask ignored him and continued to pry at the small box with his crowbar. Reno actually thought of drawing his pistol and shooting the man. What would be the harm? Well, except to Trask. But that was a loss Reno was willing to take.

Of course, then Hojo would eventually come looking for Trask, and probably with a lot of armed guards. And Reno knew he wouldn't be able to fit a body as large as Trask's into a footlocker. He hated this stealthy 'keep your enemies closer' stuff. He just wished he could put a bullet in Trask, a second one in Hojo, and let the loss of blood and/or sprayed grey matter solve those two problems. Besides, then he could wear that pin he'd bought at the Junon Fair that said 'I Solve My Problems With Violence' without the shame of knowing he had helped in an operation where someone didn't get decorated with all sorts of bullet holes.

Finally, the footlocker gave and Reno started wondering just how he was going to explain a foot and a half tall robotic cat hiding in a foot long footlocker. Trask rifled through the contents, grunted, and said, "You lied to me."

"Listen, I can explain-"

"There is no pornography in here," Trask continued.

What the fuck? Oh, that little bastard cat! If not for his luck, I'd kill him! I'm in charge of this Op, he's supposed to follow my… oh god. I sound like Tseng. I sound like Tseng in my own head! I'm going to shoot myself. After I shoot Cait, Trask, and Hojo. In that order.

He absently wondered how many bullets and where they'd have to be placed in order to kill the robotic cat as he answered, "Yeah, forgot about that. Lent it to Elena. She loves that kind of stuff."

Trask gave him a sceptical look, and Reno just grinned and shrugged. It was a load of bull. In actuality, he couldn't remember where he'd put his stash of porn, but he wasn't going to let Trask know that there was a potential gold mine of smut floating around the Turk office somewhere. Besides, implying that Elena liked to look at his porn was kind of funny. And hot.

"So, any reason why you're ransacking the Turk Offices?"

"I believe the Cait Sith unit has decided to find sanctuary by hiding in the very lair of those who hunt for him."

"Or, y'could've just said he was right under our noses. Tell you what, Trasky, if, during your search, you find my collection of smut in Elena's locker, undoubtedly right next to her feminine products and unmentionables, I'll actually give you some pay for that botched mission."

"The mission was not botched," Trask said coldly.

"Sure it was. You fucked up. Big time. Didn't get the target, and even took a wound."

"The target was neutralized, and you were the one who gave me the wound."

"Of course I was. How's the leg, by the way?"

"Healed," Trask supplied, narrowing his eyes dangerously. "The doctors managed very well, despite that Materia has seemed to be failing recently."

"Perfect!" Reno drew his gun and shot Trask in the leg for the second time in the past few days. "Go have them look at it again. It looks like it's still bleeding to me. And take that damn Robo-Guard with you," he added, indicating the large robot that was on sentry duty outside the door.

Trask gritted his teeth and said, "What, may I ask, was that for?"

"You're annoying me. Tseng used to beat me up all the time for the exact same reason. Now, question me again, and I'll aim for the kneecap next time. I hear those are a bitch to Cure. Now get outta my sight."

Trask hobbled out, bleeding all over the floor as he went. Reno nearly clapped at the performance. Twice now Trask had been shot, and neither time had he indicated that he felt pain. The Turk filed that away under 'Things to rectify', and began whistling a cheery tune to himself. He sat at his desk, opened up a drawer that was filled with paperwork he'd been putting off doing for the past month, and nearly gasped. So that's where his porn was!

Not even the Robo-Guard that Trask was supposed to take with him clanking into his room could ruin his mood now. Or so he thought until the front hatch opened up and Cait Sith peered out.

"So that's where you were," Reno observed. "Clever."

"Yeah, yeah. I have important news. Hojo's up to something."

"Isn't he always? Where've you been?"

"The Underwater Reactor. I went to see if I could play with any of the Cait Sith units and find out if I can use any of their parts to try to fix my situation, but they were put in front of a firing squad and disassembled that way."

Reno inwardly swore. He was the one who'd ordered it done that way instead of having some fancy engineers play with the robots with overly expensive tools. "And?"

"And I saw Trask and Hojo down there, and they know you're helping me. But get this, they thing Rude's helping you out. They still don't have a clue about Yuffie."

"But they know we have a third person. Shit. Wait, if you overheard Trask and Hojo, then how come you're telling me just now? Trask's been up here for hours."

Cait gestured at the Robo-Guard, seated as he was from the inside of it. "My command over this hunk of tin sort of fizzled out after a while and it went back to work. I had to rewire the entire system while the thing decided to do a patrol."

"So, what's Hojo been up to?"

"He didn't say. Trask asked, but Hojo pulled out a controller and pressed a button. Trask went down faster than a Midgar hooker."

"Fell down, all writhing in pain?"

"Yep."

Reno smiled. His mood was definitely brightening today. "That, my friend, is a little something that was implanted in first generation Soldiers during the Midgar/Wutai war. In order to ensure loyalty after instilling a person with near-super hero power, implants were placed at the base of their skulls. Trask's file said he was a first generation Soldier, but I thought all the behaviour-modifying controls were destroyed. Looks like Hojo decided to keep one."

"So how does that help us?"

"Easy. We get Yuffie to steal it. Then we get to play Shocky-Go-Trask whenever the mood suits me. Which will pretty much be every other second. Unfortunately, we need to know what Hojo's planning. Did he give you any hint?"

"I can't remember. He said something about Sephiroth being better than Trask, needing a lab, saying the Soldier one will do, they were talking about you guys, the Turks, being really good, and something about medical files. I wasn't taking notes."

"You're a robot! Don't you have perfect memory or something?"

"I'm also a cat. Easily distracted with a small attention span. You're lucky I managed to remember any of that boring conversation. I miss being a man."

"I hear you. I wouldn't know what I'd do if I suddenly lost my ability to be me."

Cait huffed, then said, "Have you been monitoring Hojo?"

"A little. He hasn't played with the Soldier labs or anything yet. He made a quick run into the Junon morgue, pulled out a body, and left. I figured it was so he could play 'Mad Scientist' some more, and I'm probably right. But now that I think about it, that's probably important. Think he's gonna try his voodoo science to try to resurrect an army of flunkeys from the dead? How lame would that be?"

"Very."

Reno turned away from Cait and began tapping on his keyboard, pulling up the surveillance video of Hojo in the morgue. Cait hopped out of the robot and onto the desk and began to watch.

The video wasn't very long. Hojo came in, spoke with the guard, the guard left, and then the scientist opened up one of the drawers. He was in the way for Reno to make out whose body it was, but he figured it was probably just some flunky guard anyway. No one important had died recently.

"Can you get a list of whose bodies are in there?" Cait asked.

"Sure," Reno said, hit a few keys, and then swore. "Oh come on! I finally become head Turk, and my clearance still doesn't seem good enough to get me in anywhere."

"What was that?" a voice said from the doorway. They both looked up, and saw Elena standing there.

"Hey, rookie. Nothing much. Hojo's just playing the part of the mad doctor again, and he's digging up bodies. We figure he's going to make his own legion of the stupid by resurrecting random guards that've croaked off. Right now he's only got one body to play with. I wanna figure out whose. For some reason it's classified."

Elena smiled, and said, "That's easy enough to figure out. Just give me a minute."

The woman walked over to her desk, turned on her computer's monitor, and began hitting keys furiously. Reno whistled, and Cait managed to arch an eyebrow. After a while, Elena looked over to them and said, "What? There's a reason why Tseng let me onto the Turks. You think it was because of my 'legendary fighting prowess' or because I look great in the suit?"

"Well, that's why he let me in," Reno said, and Cait snorted.

"You don't even wear the suit properly. You're still messy, even after you were told by Rufus to clean yourself up."

The red-headed Turk grinned and responded, "Yeah, well, Rufus isn't here."

Cait looked as if he were about to retort, when Elena made a sudden cry of anger and the sound of crashing came from her desk. The two looked over immediately and found that she had pushed her monitor off her desk, which was quickly followed by her tower.

"Shit! She's PMSing!" Reno said.

Hopping from Reno's, Cait ran over, leaped onto Elena's, and began trying to calm her down, asking her calmly what was wrong. Reno rolled his eyes. Cait obviously knew nothing of women if he expected rationality to work. Picking up one of his porn mags and rolling it, Reno walked over to Elena and smacked her over the head a few times with it. "Bad rookie! Calm down! No treat!"

Elena's fist hitting him in the face clearly told him how bad of an idea that particular joke was.

"Ow! Fuck!" Reno swore. "Enough with the PMSing, Elena! What would Tseng say if he saw you having this kind of temper tantrum?"

"Maybe you can ask him! That's whose body he stole!"