Sorry... the server crashed and I couldn't sign in til today. Hence I'm a day late.

Moonshine's Guide - I got Scarlet's last name from a novel I read... it was a name of a location, and I didn't feel like going through the name generator to find something that matched with 'scarlet'. Reno is going to get his ASS kicked, HA! Kinda interesting chapter, this chapter, at least for me, since I don't do martial arts. I was also watching the Matrix when I wrote this chapter... kudos to you if you can guess which scene the first part of this chapter came from. The cult came from a book I was reading, btw, called Coldfire trilogy.

Echo the Ethereal Swordmast... - I've never heard of Tsubasa Chronicle, but i did read Layearth and Cardcaptor, and I liked Cardcaptor... except sakura's brother's friend was kinda weird... and sakura's teacher, who was going out witha 4th grader... yeah, PEDOPHILE! PEDOPHILE! Ahem, anyway, Michele is going to make further appearance... she actually plays a weird role in the ending, heh.

Crazy Bubbling Blonde - that was just a random number that popped in my head when I was writing that phrase, doesn't really mean anything. apparently Rude had a tragic love story, and the chick died or something, so he turned into the stoic 'i can't talk' self. Very interesting for me to read that, since Rude going out with anybody is kinda... weird... because he doesn't TALK.

Chapter 15: In for a Surprise

The Intelligence floor was relatively calm that day, with people eating, chatting, minding their own business. Suddenly, the door slammed, and entered a young man who resembled a twitching mouse with his dancing eyes and a twitchy mouth. He had obviously come in a great hurry; his hair was in his face and he was flushed, his breathing a little faster than normal. Holding onto the doorframe so he won't fly into the room, he took a deep breath and yelled, "DeVir's sparring against Miller!"

The calm was broken as the officers and the trainees scrambled to their feet to watch the match.

The training arena was silent, as everyone – including those from the intelligence – gathered around to watch the two Turks fight. Sure, they weren't SOLDIERs, but the Turks were notorious for dirty fighting. Rules went out the window when Turks became involved, and fighting was no exception. And besides, they never put on such a show; usually, if you saw a Turk fight, you were either training with them and that meant you would be bruised head to toe, or you were their enemy, in which case you would end up dead.

"No back of the neck," Arien declared. Reno grinned; he knew damn well how bad it hurt when someone kicked you in the back of the neck.

"Right, baby."

They both looked relaxed, but both of them saw a certain tension in each other, as if the relaxed stance was a subterfuge to fool the opponent. They stood, balanced on their balls of their feet, fists made and arms raised. Hands were lightly made into fists; clenching put tension in the hand muscles and was unnecessary.

They were both slim. Neither of them was muscular. But like a slender knife, both of them could be deadly.

The gong rang, and it was Reno who got an attack in first. His fist made a contact with her face; she twisted her body, and his knuckles grazed her cheek, smearing frosty white, then cherry blossom pink slash onto her cheekbone. She whirled, hair flying, and chopped into his side. It made a contact, but not hard enough to send him reeling. In came the other hand, and he blocked it with his forearm before it smashed into his nose. Reno feinted a kick, and but Arien dodged to the left rather than the right, leaving no openings. She rolled, narrowly avoiding a second assault. She shot up, then ducked backwards as Reno's hand came flying.

Blood was pounding in their veins, adrenaline coursing throughout the system. The Turks' limbs blurred in motion; Reno received a solid punch in the jaw, Arien a kick in the stomach. The two of them went on at it, unaware of the pain. Reno kicked upwards, aiming at her stomach, but Arien caught his foot and sent him flying up into the air. He tucked into a small ball, rolled, and landed on his feet. He heard clapping.

Arien tried to punch him again, but Reno slid down, ducked, hooked his foot into hers, and yanked. Arien lost her balance and regained it, but at the cost of a punch in her face. When she refocused, Reno was already there, his fist coming straight at her face again. Arien captured his hand, her fingers straight. Her hand sliced the air into his face. He winced as it made contact, strong enough to hurt but not enough to bruise. He kicked into her again, and she caught his foot, but not before the impact was made.

Reno stepped back and jumped, probably trying to launch an aerial kick into her upper body. Arien did not bother to follow him, but waited until the gravity pulled him down to the level she wanted, then pulled his leg and threw him bodily into the wire. He went, but not before kicking her in the chest and away. He came back in an instant, his elbow ready to smash into her ribs. Arien raised her arms to block it off, but now Reno's legs were taking over. She could not block that.

She therefore resorted to a dirty trick. Making sure that the way was clear and he was close enough, she brought her knee up, smashing her kneecap into his groin, ignoring his hand slamming into her back.

Reno's expression changed briefly into pain. "You bitch," he whispered. Then his hand shot out. Arien ducked. Reno's hand grasped her hair, and pulled. Arien screamed, then punched straight into his stomach.

The gong rang again, marking the end of a round. They were both standing, but Arien was now sporting a killer headache and Reno was wondering if he would ever be able to have sex again. Her kick was really painful.

"You guys aren't fighting," Reno explained as he leaned onto the cord that separated the ring from the rest of the room after the applause had died down. "I don't have a clue what the hell you guys are doing, but it ain't fighting. This is fighting. You guys need to get to this level, if not this fast."

Silence.

"Right then. Back to practice."

Arien noticed no improvement in the practice after the demonstration; the Turks sent their juniors flying into the mattress one after another, and at the end of the hour the Turks looked the same as before but the juniors were hosting series of bruises and injuries. When the clock stroked two, the juniors seemed relieved.

"Get outta the room," Reno gestured vaguely. "You guys are done for today."

"That was one hell of a dirty trick."

"And you pulling my hair? That wasn't dirty."

Elena smiled. "Is it really that painful, Reno?"

"I think I'm now impotent. How would you like that, eh, Arie? Your boyfriend can't knock you up because you kicked him in the testicles."

A snort was heard from the next cubicle, against the water from the shower. "It might be a vast improvement."

The hot water ran down the bodies with refreshing splashes, as the Turks took a shower after the practice. They, unlike the juniors, had a luxurious changing room with rows of showers and bathtubs. Not many of them utilized the bathtubs, because, as Elena had said, "you're bound to get called away when you're just starting to relax". But the showers they used often, and they often talked over the cubicle walls.

When Reno got out of the shower, Arien was already out, looking at herself in a large mirror. Her body was clad in a white fluffy bathrobe. Elena was still in the shower; that made Arien with the shortest time in the shower. She had often taunted Reno for "taking showers like a girl". He personally thought that Arien should take longer, but for some reason she always took less time than he did. He tried to sneak up on her, but she turned, seeing his reflection in the mirror.

"My head hurts," she complained.

"Yeah, and so does my penis," he replied bluntly in a whisper. "It's your loss if I can't fuck you ever again."

"Oh really." She picked up her clothes, and disappeared into a dressing room. Reno grinned into the mirror, then picked up his clothes, and shut himself into another cubicle.

The day proceeded on without further incidents and adventures; reports were turned in, Reno took naps, Elena worked on deciphering the walls, and Arien supervised the research for Foster and Miaka. It should have been Elena's job, since she was in charge of the explosives, but this wasn't something Arien couldn't handle and Elena had better things to do. Five o'clock came; the building slowly emptied out, in groups of twos and threes, as the employees went home to their families and their partners.

The two Turks were the last on the floor to leave. Reno was still complaining of his pains, which Arien ignored. They drove home with Reno in the driver's seat; Arien forced Reno to stop at a supermarket to buy some groceries, receiving much criticism from the redhead about "the inconsiderateness and the inefficiency of a woman", which Arien also ignored.

Dinner was a simple affair, since both were too tired to prepare or to consume a big dinner. Arien had quickly cooked up pasta; Reno did not complain; the meal was consumed in relative silence, because there really wasn't anything to talk about. Arien did not wash the dishes; she would do that the next morning.

"Reno?" She did not wait for Reno's response. "Can you put your plate in the sink when you're done?"

"Wha'you gonna do?"

"I'm going to bed, what did you think?" Arien dumped the fork and the plate into the sink, wiped her hands on a towel, then disappeared down the dark hallway.

Arien was already in bed reading a file – she never read much else – when Reno had finished his dinner, put the plate and the fork in the sink, and came into the bedroom. After closing the door, he sat down on his side, and began to take his shirt off. He heard the slight hiss as Arien circled something with a felt-tip pen, heard the teeth against the plastic as she bit the end of the red pen. He was about to toss the shirt onto the dresser when suddenly, Arien's voice rang out loudly:

"Please hang it in the closet."

"Arie, Tseng isn't around to be a uniform police anymore."

"It's not like you cared in the first place. But you do look significantly better with a clean shirt rather than a rumpled one."

That did the trick. Grumbling, Reno ambled over to the closet, opened the door and pulled out a hanger. "Ya know, I'm really not sure if I'm still working." Arien's eyes were confused. Reno pointed at his nether area, his legs still clad in slacks, his face mock-serious.

"Well, I won't have an idea," she said, putting the file down onto the night table. "I'm not a man, and usually getting kicked in that area doesn't cause too much pain for me."

"Well, I'd love to check if it still works, yo."

"You have two options then." She sat up in the bed and began filing her nails in a languid, idle manner, taking care so the filed nails won't fall onto the bed. "You can either amuse yourself in the corner… there's a box of tissue over there," Arien pointed and smiled innocently as Reno glared at her, "or you can amuse both of us."

Reno pretended to think. "I think I'll take the second, thanks."

"That's what I thought," replied the woman, with a little smile on her lips.

"What are you thinking about?"

They always ask that question when it's done, Reno thought. Every single woman. Most women also wanted some romantic, lovey-dovey answer. Not her. She was just curious about him, just wondering what he was thinking about. She wanted a straight answer, no nonsense.

"About… stuff." He waved his left hand in the air; the other hand was under his head. "Ya know, the past couple of years. Sephiroth."

Arien stiffened next to him. "You're thinking about the past? Now?"

Maybe she did want less truth after all. "Just… never mind."

But she went slack again, next to him. The right hand rested on his chest, began tracing the scars and old wounds etched into his skin, white souvenirs from battles long past. Reno had seen more battles, suffered through more serious wounds than the woman next to him. It was her habit to trace the scars, but he never objected, because it was the closest thing to a caress she ever offered. Besides, he liked her hands on him.

"I never beat him, you know. Never."

Arien's hand stopped, then resumed the movement. "And why in the world would you want to beat him?"

"Guy's ego, I guess."

"Reno." Her voice was stern, but also a consolation. "No matter how wise, or clever, or fast, or strong that insane general was… and yes, he was all of them," Arien added, looking at the ceiling, "you've beaten him in one thing, a crucial thing. Isn't that enough?"

"Yeah? And what is that?"

"You aren't crazy," she replied softly. "Yes, a lot of people will link your name and that adjective, but you didn't go insane… we're all created by Shinra more or less, we've seen just as much things as he did… but we survived. The truth didn't crack you, as it shattered him into pieces." Her breath was like a soft feather in his ear. "He didn't have the capacity to accept the truth, so he denied it, fled from it. But he's just a memory now. We're here. We're alive." Her fingers moved to his arm, found the scar. A very familiar scar. The one she had left on his body, forever engraved into his flesh. He could feel a slight pressure as her fingers stilled. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

This wasn't the first time. She meant it every time. And probably recalled that moment every time, in that dark, wet tunnel, surrounded by darkness. In vision. In mind. The lukewarm air, the humidity, the wet ground. Splash of water. The crimson blood, the unwavering command – no, the desire – to kill. Arien had wavered, that night, could not obey her orders; Reno did not pause.

"Could have been worse," Reno grinned. "Could have shot me where you kicked me today-" he rolled over and atop her, crooking a leg across her hips, "-and then we'd both be sorry, yo."

Arien laughed, touched his face, her other hand raking across his back.

"Hey, Arie?"

Her reply was a gaze, luminous and soft. In the light of the bed lamp her eyes were no longer sharp blue-green but like aquamarine, a hue not unlike his, but more feminine, velvety and yielding. It was forgiving, undemanding, tender, all at once. She wasn't a Turk just then, just Arien, with no titles, no ranks.

"About my function…" he stopped, cracked a smirk, "can we check if it works again?"

Arien's laughter was smoke; it curled its ways round him, dissipated into the air. He loved her because in moments when nothing else seemed real, she alone seemed to exist, the evidence that he wasn't alone after all.

Elena sat at her desk in her apartment, staring at the screen, dictionary spread out. It didn't make sense, no matter how many times she read it. She read it over again, eyes tiring, brain slowly turning into a fuzzy mush from fatigue.

"At the moment when the moon overrules the sun, the moon wielded by the claw will be plunged into the receptacle's" – the word was smudged and she could not read it – "and the holy chalice will be filled with the traitor's blood. The dotted priest will die and the dark sun will rise."

It made no sense. But then, most religious ramblings that Elena had come across made no sense. It was the priests' job to twist the sentences around until it made an ambiguous impression of logic and sense to the unwary. There were vague references to moons and suns, but that was only to be expected; the "dark sun" was also referred to as "the counterpart" and "the beget", but that led her nowhere. Whose counterpart? What did they mean by "beget"?

Elena rubbed her eyes. She was not sure if the translation made no sense because the original context made no sense, or because she was using the wrong words for the translation; a "claw" in Junonese could mean a claw or a hand.

Elena sipped the coffee, now cold, and stretched. The desk chair squeaked. She felt that she had hit the wall, something that she could not overcome. She doubted if even the original text had made sense.

Sitting up straight, she hit "create new document", and pasted the translation onto the new text. She began to underline the words using her keyboard, typing in small numbers that indicated notes and references.

Cold wind caressing his cheek like a soft petal; crisp linen under his other cheek. A gentle touch on the forehead, cool and comforting; breeze tousling his hair. A fresh smell of the green.

Reno opened his eyes, and saw the curtains fluttering in the window. So that was where the wind came in. Arien was reading a book – he squinted and saw the words "The Basic Structure of Religions". She looked apologetic as she realized that he was awake. "I didn't mean to wake you up," she said.

"Not your fault, yo." He yawned. "What time is it?"

"Six. You woke up really early." Well, early for Reno; he never came to work on time, rarely came before ten. "Are you going back to sleep?"

"Nah." He reached over, shut the alarm clock off, curled away from her. Arien did not stop him; she gazed upon his back, surprisingly devoid of scars, then rolled over, facing the ceiling. They remained silent like that for a while, until Reno whispered through the silence.

"Arie."

She made no reply, but Reno went on anyway, aware that a part of her mind was listening while the other absorbed the words on the page. "Why didn't you go off to a university?"

Arien stiffened, then relaxed. "I didn't get in." She picked up a pen from the bedside table, scribbled something in the margin, then turned the page

"You what?" He turned around, surprised.

"I didn't get in. Or more specifically… I was denied admittance."

"But…" Reno was aghast. "I saw your grades. I saw your scores. You could get in, easy."

"You saw my scores?" She took her eyes off the book and glanced at him. "How? Why?"

"How? I have access to everyone's files below my rank. Why? I just wanted to know."

"A fine reason."

"Yeah, I know." He grinned to himself. "Anyway, why were you denied admittance?" He remembered her scores from the Academy; all A's, save two C's in the final year. That would have gotten her anywhere. But here she was, a Turk. Which meant that she joined the Shinra Company right after graduation. Knowing Arien, who strived to be better than others, this was peculiar. Sure, she might have went to the Academy to join Shinra in the first place, but considering her attitude, that was highly unlikely.

Her answer was simple and terse: "The Wutai Wars."

"Yeah? And?" Then he understood. Completely. Unaware of his epiphany, Arien obliged to his question and began to elaborate.

"The great wars had wiped out half the Shinra Intelligence, but you know that."

A nod. That was how someone like him, completely uneducated and undisciplined in military matters, could join the Turks; a desperate search for talent usually led to the slums. On that day, fate had led Tseng and Veld to him. Or maybe it was the other way around. Who cared?

"Anyway, I applied to go to a medical course in Midgar."

"Go on," Reno encouraged.

"Well, by then, half the Intelligence was wiped out. Shinra needed a fresh batch of Intelligence Officers; it came from the graduating class. My class." She sighed. "Only the best were chosen, those who were in the 'Intelligence Course'. That was only a name, but Shinra saw the chance in us, and took it. They put us through rigorous tests. A lot didn't make it…" she sneered at the long past and at the page. John McKinnon among the failed others, looking at the notice with distraught eyes. The final failure, the final defeat.

"I made it, but just barely. I didn't know the tests were to select the next batch. I thought they were entrance exams to the medical course."

"What the hell did they do then?"

"They graduated us early. None of our applications got through. Shinra paid the university to reject us." She said all of it without emotion, as if she accepted everything. A matter-of-fact tone. "We weren't given another chance if we refused; there were no gap years for us, since we were to be labeled failures and sent down below the Plates. None of us wanted that. So we joined. Shivvalan's one of them, I think. He graduated a few years ahead of me, but my class wasn't the first."

"Shiv!?" Another surprise. Shiv was slick, sure, smart, yes, cunning, of course, but Shivvalan? A military graduate? The elite of the elite? No way.

"Those who didn't make it went to the universities; we were trained as officers, then we enlisted automatically. No questions, no buts." She closed the book after placing a strip of paper as a bookmark.

Reno was speechless.

"But I don't really blame Shinra," she said with a smile.

"Why the hell not, yo? They friggin' messed up your life!"

"I would be doing the same thing," she shrugged. "My parents wanted me to become a physician; I thought it was a natural course, since I was raised to be a physician. I didn't like the prospect much; a physician's career is covered in piss and blood and sweat. But as a Turk, I still got covered in piss and blood and sweat, didn't I? I saw just about as many deaths as I would as a doctor."

"Dr. DeVir."

"Yes, that would have been my name." She stretched, yawning. "But then, this job pays much better, and I don't have 36-hour shifts. So I'm thankful."

"Huh." He remembered the report card again; two C's. Very conspicuous among the rows of A's; so different from his own. His was less than spectacular, and he never paid attention in school. Then he left the institution at age fifteen, unable to take the meaninglessness of the entire coursework. "What about the C's?"

"What C's?"

"You had two C's on your final year, baby."

Instead of exploding or snapping, Arien laughed. "That was a class for court-dancing."

"What!"

"As Academy graduates you had to be able to dance." More laughter. "By the final year the only girl on the Intelligence track was me, and every other male had already completed the course. They asked me if I was willing to take the worst grade for skipping class; I said yes. I didn't care much for social dancing, and it wasn't my fault there was no class for me. Nobody said that girls have to take dancing by basic diploma."

"Basic diploma?"

"Elementary academics, before you go into your specialization. You graduate BD at age sixteen."

Well, he never got there. "Now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Vince is going to the Academy," Reno pointed out. "And then?"

Arien shrugged again. "He'll be given a choice, as I was not," she said coolly. "I'll make sure he gets a choice, unlike us."

That was, of course, based on the assumption that Vincent Miller was alive and well. And in order to ensure safety, they had to find him.

The breakthrough came at noon that day. Reno was lazily looking up random words – he was that bored – when a pop-up obstructed his view of the page. "New message – from Elena" said the message. He swerved the mouse and clicked "View Message". The pop-up opened into a new window, displaying Elena's message. It was short and to the point:

'Wall recordings cleared. Report attached.

-Elena'

Reno double-clicked the icon shaped like a clip. A document popped up. He clicked print, and waited for the printer to finish spitting out the white sheets.

Reno shoved the folder under Arien's nose, and waited as she opened the folder, and took out the sheets of paper. Page after page after page of typed font. On the right hand corner of the top page it said "1 of 17". She turned, and saw "2 of 17". There were seventeen pages total. She flipped to the last page, where it was filled with small-print. Notes. Elena did a thorough job, and she excelled in writing reports, unlike Reno, whose "sentences" consisted of an subject – usually a pronoun that was too vague to discern exactly who it was referring to – and a single action verb, or Rude, whose longest report was three-quarters of a page long. As the commander of informational tactics, meaning that she planned the method of attack, Arien liked good reports, like Elena's. Not too wordy, but filled with the necessary information.

Reno obviously thought otherwise. "I can't make head or tail out of it, yo," he informed her.

Arien knew better than to credit his inability to analyze. "And how many pages did you read, sir?" she asked quietly.

"Two."

That was an improvement. The first time she had asked him that question – when she had first joined the ranks and had to read the report so Reno could decide the next plan – his response was "half". She took it as "half the report", but no. He had meant "half a page". She placed the folder neatly on the desk, parallel to the edges. Reno had called her OCD and a neat-aholic. Maybe she was.

"Thank you sir."

"I want a spoken report by three o'clock."

"Yes sir."

He left. Arien picked up the phone, and dialed the Junior Turks' line. A girl picked up – quiet voice, just enough words to acknowledge who she was.

"I want Cousteau, Trident, Gould, and Vanning to find every piece of information they can find about writings from the Hands of Mafi. I want a full article compiled by 10 AM tomorrow morning." She hang up without waiting for the affirmative. She did not really care. She stapled the pages Reno had given her, and began to read.