Chapter 3: My Enemy's Enemy...
"I told you we'd get back to you." The members of Avalanche, surprised, turn at the sound of Reno's voice echoing up the tunnel from behind them. They're further shocked at the appearance of the three figures in rumpled, bloodstained suits that stride out of the shadows in the tunnel.
"Holy shit! What the -- have you --ing --s been up to?"
"Heh, I see you haven't mellowed out any, Captain." Reno glances down at his suit and smirks. "It's mostly Hojo's. Dealing with him got kinda messy."
"What'd you do to him?" Cloud asks.
"... less than he deserved..." Rude states.
"Yeah," Elena adds. "You shoulda seen some of the sick stuff in his personal files. That sick bastard's been torturing people longer than most of us've been alive! He experimented on himself too and changed into some freaky monsters with lots of blood in them but that didn't help him any. Just took longer to kill him and made a bigger mess is all." She briefly pauses to breathe. "We ran into Heidegger and Scarlet too, and killed them. Because they told us Sephiroth killed Tseng and they left him to die when he called for help. So now we're gonna kill Sephi..."
"Enough, Lena," Reno interrupts, "you're starting to ramble again." He turns back to the members of Avalanche. "We're not going to kill you, we just want information. Everything you know about Sephiroth and Meteor."
"No! After all he's done to us, we should be the ones to destroy Sephiroth!" Cloud proclaims.
Reno holds back his instinctive smartass reply, deciding to try tact. "Think about it. Everyone here wants Sephiroth dead. We beat you, so we'd have a better chance than you at making that happen. Best thing you can do to make sure he dies is tell me what I want to know."
"We can't just stand back and watch!" Tifa proclaims. Her comrades all voice their agreement.
"Alright," Reno concedes. "If you want a piece of the action I'll let you tag along. But only if you all agree to follow my orders and tell me what I want to know."
"What?" Barret bellows. "Ya damned Shin-Ra --s think we'll follow a murderer?"
"Why not?" Reno quips. "You've been following one since your last time in Midgar. Damn hypocrites."
"What'd ya say?" Barret demands.
"I think you heard me, murderer." Reno pauses to casually light a cigarette while Barret fumes with rage. "Want to know how many people you killed blowing up reactors? Each one wiped out about three blocks around it."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this from the guy who dropped the plate on sector seven!" Tifa exclaims. "Do you know how many people you killed when you dropped the plate on them?"
"Yep. And how many on top of the plate died from the fall. The difference between me and you hypocrites is I don't lie about having blood on my hands."
"It was for the planet. Ya gotta expect some casualties," Barret explains.
"President Shin-Ra said about the same thing when he ordered me to drop the plate," Reno replies. Barret has no answer to this, staring at the ground apparently deep in thought. "So, are you with us?"
"Hold on a minute," Cloud requests. He withdraws a few yards with his teammates where they form a loose huddle to discuss Reno's proposition.
"What're you doing, Reno? We don't need them," Elena complains.
"Yeah," Rude agrees.
"We don't need them, it's just the quickest way to get their info," Reno explains. "Just need to have something to keep them busy while we're dealing with Sephiroth, like guarding our landing zone or something."
After a few minutes of hushed debate, Cloud and his companions walk back over to the Turks. "Alright, we'll do it. We all hate Sephiroth more than we hate Shin-Ra." Reno turns on a recording device hidden in one of his pockets as the members of Avalanche tell what they know about Sephiroth, Meteor, and Holy. Red XIII does most of the talking. "So now what?" Cloud asks.
"Heal up, get your best gear, and meet us at the Junon airport in four days. Bring your airship. If Bugenhagen's right, we'll have three more days to kill Sephiroth. One or two oughta be enough." After Reno states this, the two groups exchange PHS numbers and part ways.
After walking a few feet, Rude suddenly stops. "Did he just say 'mosey'?"
"I think so," Reno answers, laughing.
"Heh, mosey," Elena chuckles. "So, where're we gonna mosey to, Reno?"
After laughing a bit, Reno answers. "My place. It's the closest safehouse with a generator." He then leads the way to the nearest ladder, which takes the Turks up to street level. There they see several burning buildings and a few looters running down the street with stolen electronics. "I used to think the slums couldn't get any worse," Reno remarks. After walking a few blocks through the riot-torn streets, Reno stops in front of a small building that's built up against a secondary plate support.
"You live here?" Elena asks.
"Nope, just passing through," he answers as he opens the door. Inside, they see a small apartment that looks like it's mostly used for storage. Reno opens a cabinet, revealing boxes of assorted types of ammunition. After the trio takes a minute to stock up, Reno steps into the bathroom and pulls a hidden lever that causes the back wall of the shower to slide aside, revealing a maintenance tunnel. "We've got several places like this around town," he explains to Elena. "Makes it easy to move around unseen." When closed, the door to the safehouse blends in almost perfectly with the tunnel wall. Reno then turns and leads the way up a well-maintained ladder leading up a narrow shaft in the ceiling.
"Where's this lead?" Elena asks.
"Onto the plate..." Rude answers.
"Isn't that kinda a ridiculously long climb?"
"What, you're not up for a little climb?" Reno teases. "Don't worry, there's platforms every few hundred feet where you can rest. Wouldn't be much use to the repair guys without them." They slowly climb the dark tunnel mostly in silence, interrupted by an occasional curse. After only a few breaks they reach the top, where a hatch leads into another tunnel. After feeling around on the wall, Reno trips another hidden switch, opening a door to what looks like a closet. Passing through, the team finds another small safehouse, slightly bigger than the one in the slums. "Almost there. My place's on the outer edge of the next plate over."
Exiting the safehouse, they find less looting and burning than in the slums, probably due to the occasional patrolling Shin-Ra troops. "Hey, get over here!" Reno yells to a pair patrolling on a motorcycle with a sidecar. Recognizing the distinctive blue suit, they immediately pull over.
"Sir, are you all right?"
"We're fine. We just need your bike, now." The troops hesitantly hand it over then resume their patrol. "Much better," Reno says as he sits on the bike. "We've been walking too much today." His partners gratefully climb on, Rude in the sidecar and Elena on the seat behind Reno. Reno twists the throttle and, engine roaring, they speed off down the street towards Reno's safehouse.
Author's Note: This chapter went much more smoothly. Here's hoping the next one's as easy... Hmmm, all these new hits after uploading chapter two and only one review? Come on, tell me what you think of it. Please?
Edited again because some site update deleted all the '--' lines I used to use to denote scene changes. So time to slap horizontal rulers into all my fics.