Author's note: Reno is now the bane of my existence. I used to write him better.
Insufficient Data
B3- General Affairs: Auditing, ShinRa Tower
"Well, this is a step down." Reno sighed as he brought in some boxes. The 'office' was more like a conference room. "More like twenty flights down."
"We don't exactly have the people to justify the use of an entire floor anymore." Rude reminded him.
"Still, having Heidegger taking over everything is just …" Reno sighed, and bumped a box of letters meant for First Class Fair with his elbow.
"We do what the company requires of us, as always." Tseng picked up the box of letters. "Reduced status non-withstanding."
"Can't believe Fair was an experiment all that time." Reno hadn't exactly cared, but Fair had looked after Turks whenever they were partnered with him, and Tseng and Shuriken alias Cissnei had both been saved by the soldier on occasion, so Fair had been a sort of ally for them. One that hadn't asked many questions outside of 'how can I help?'.
"Reno, take these to the church tonight. We can no longer pander to Ms. Gainsborough." Tseng passed him the box and then answered a call, leaving.
"Something happen?" Reno blinked.
"Probably better not to give her false hope anymore, that infantry mobilization might've been wiped out but an injured Soldier would have been an easy target for monsters." Rude said.
"Right. Let's finish setting up." Reno grimaced as he opened a box and found multiple knives. "I know there wasn't much time, but he's gonna kill us when he realizes he left all these behind…"
"Safe's over there."
Sector Center, Sector 5 Slums
Sonon was frustrated. After encountering the children, Cloud had just stopped talking, focusing on hunting. More wandering machines were destroyed before they headed back to the main area.
"Cloud! How'd it go? Any trouble?" Zack bounded up to them.
"No, I'm fine. Sonon helped." Cloud clutched at the scarf again, it made him look younger.
"Neat scarf, where'd you find it?"
"Bought it. Mog's Moogle Emporium." Cloud said, completely stone faced. This made Aerith giggle.
"Huh?" Zack asked.
"It's a children's story here, pretty popular. There's a rumor that there's a moogle that hangs around near where the kids play." Aerith smiled. "It looks good on you, Cloud!"
Cloud looked like he wanted to hide his face completely behind the scarf.
"Cool! That would be fun to see." Zack smiled.
"Well, since we're here. Zack, would you and Cloud mind checking on the church for the night? I need to get home. Sonon, would you mind walking me home?"
"No problem." Sonon sighed, not bothering to fight.
"Did you get your answers?"
"Some. More questions… Cloud stopped talking after getting that scarf."
"Not surprising, he doesn't remember much." Aerith studied Sonon for a moment. "If I told you that ShinRa destroyed a town, kidnapped survivors and then hired people to say they always lived there, what would you say?"
"Seems like a lot of effort." Sonon blinked. "Cloud said they turned his home into a fort …" There wouldn't be anything to gain to pretending the town wasn't destroyed.
Her eyes met his, and Sonon felt ill at the deadly serious look she was giving him.
She was telling the truth.
"Which town?"
"There were two, Kalm and Nibleheim. Zack's gonna break the news to Cloud now." Aerith looked down. "Zack's got a contact that can get information from ShinRa, it won't be cheap, but you could pay him for information."
"… Know what the rate is going to be?" Sonon would rather not, but to have another source of information to verify everything he was told … he'd be a fool not to accept a deal.
"You'd have to clear it with Cloud, I know some people in sector seven are paying five hundred Gil a tip, but that's a discount rate." Aerith smiled. "Though if you want to trade information for information, they might let you."
Ms. Folia waved as they walked by, before looking startled by something behind them.
Sonon turned around to a man in black stumbling out of the clinic.
The doctor scrambled out, catching the wheezing man before he fell.
"What the-" Sonon felt Aerith pull him away.
"Degradation, is what Zack called it. That's what happens to all soldiers. They just sort of breakdown physically and mentally after a while. It happened to Zack's Mentor and Commander Rhapsodos and his men. ShinRa's not a fan of admitting there's a problem with Soldiers. Or even trying to cure them."
"Why?" Sonon asked. As much as he wanted ShinRa destroyed, the sight of what had once been a terrifying warrior stumbling like that made Sonon uncomfortable. An honorable death would be better.
"Zack's gonna find out. Hopefully we can find a cure."
"Why would he- oh." Sonon froze.
Zack and Cloud were soldiers. Eventually, they would degrade as well. Cloud's headaches could be a symptom.
And ShinRa's refusal to do anything… Things suddenly made sense. Cloud was degrading, Zack was trying to pretend things were some sort of routine for Cloud's sake while trying to find a cure without someone taking advantage and using Cloud as collateral.
They might have been used in experiments to try and stop the degradation, but given a choice, Sonon would prefer fighting monsters instead of dying in a lab.
This was something Wutai could use to recruit soldiers, if they could find a cure first.
He headed back to the Happy Turtle, and blinked at the new person helping Hikaru take out the trash.
"Ah, Sonon, meet Zhijie." Hikaru introduced.
"Hello."
"Nice to meet you, Happy Turtle's like a second home." Zhijie smiled.
"More like a little piece of it." Sonon replied with the counter phrase. "Avalanche?"
"Yep. You're our Ninja? How was your scouting?"
"I made a few friends. You meet the two mercenaries?"
"The so called ex-soldiers? Seen them. They've been doing a lot of good work. Not sure I trust them, yet." Zhijie studied him. "You think they're worth talking to?"
"They're willing to sell me information, even gave some for free."
"Oh?"
"Soldiers have a time limit, after a while, they start to degrade. ShinRa's not telling them that when they give their recruiting speeches. Not sure the exact timeline, but the mercs may already be on borrowed time."
"Damn. Any proof?"
"There's a man in Sector five, wears all black and sort of shuffles and moans- Zhijie?" Sonon saw the other loose color in his face.
"We've got a couple in Sector Seven, we were told it was just a negative reaction to the mako they use. You're saying it's just a natural part of soldier?!"
"Apparently it happened to a couple of firsts and an entire unit a few years ago. ShinRa's hushed it up."
"ShinRa's good at covering their tracks, but they've made mistakes before, we can track down any hard copy information that was left behind. There's an old library archive in sector 8 slums we can check, as well as some records in Sector 1, but since that's a base it takes a while to break in."
"Sounds like a challenge."
"C'mon, you'll meet everyone else in the morning, but we have a place for you to stay." Zhijie lead the way to Sector Seven.
The Church, Sector 5 Slums
Zack was tempted to kill Hojo. Cloud had another flashback after Zack explained everything about Nibleheim. The downside with killing Hojo was the consequences- ShinRa would definitely try to kill or capture him after that and Zack wanted to stay with Aerith and Cloud.
"I don't think I liked being in the tank very much." Cloud shuddered as he can back to himself.
"Neither did I." Zack had gotten lucky, breaking out the way he had.
"So … what happens now?" Cloud asked, sitting near the flowers.
"Same objective. We live, we help people, we find a way to save people."
"But ShinRa…"
"We're not going back to a lab, Cloud. We'll find a way to get ShinRa to pay for what they've done, we just need allies and for you to go twenty four hours without a headache, we probably should ask the doctor for help about those." Zack grimaced at the thought.
"A doctor?" Cloud looked skeptical.
"Not all doctors are like Hojo or Hollander." Zack assured him, even though Zack was having a hard time of believing the idea himself. "We can at least try it."
"I guess."
The door opened. Cloud lunged to his feet.
The red headed Turk, that Zack struggled to remember the name of, froze in the doorway.
"You're supposed to be dead, yo." He managed.
"Yeah, I got that impression. It's Reno, right? Or Rude?" Zack knew it started with an 'R' at least.
"Reno. Rude's my partner." Reno looked like he was seriously thinking of running.
"Neat, since you remember me, this is Cloud, my partner."
"Wasn't he infantry?"
"Field promotion, no better way to describe his eyes." Zack shrugged. "I can make that call. How's Tseng doing?"
"Fine. We're fine."
"Really? Sounded like the Turks got mostly erased."
"How do you know about that?"
"Flock of Suits in Sector Four, locals weren't happy." Cloud spoke up. "Changed clothes and left."
"And you would have found us sooner if you had a full department. ShinRa's definitely slipping." Zack sighed. And then thought of something. "Oh, when you report back in, tell Tseng that Hollander and Lazard are definitely dead. Genesis is alive, but there was a chopper so you might already have him." Zack shrugged. "Consider that my final report. You okay?" Zack asked as Reno seemed to be frozen.
"Zack." Cloud was tense next to him.
"He's not bringing us back in, it wouldn't end well." Zack studied the Turk. The man in front of him was a good fighter- you didn't get into the Turks by being weak, but Zack had gone up against Genesis Hewley and Sephiroth, as well as most the infantry. Reno would give a good fight, but two first class level soldiers vs one Turk weren't good odds.
"I'd be offended, but my odds are definitely not good." Reno seemed to finally reboot. "I saw the carnage. Here." Reno tossed the box over. "Mission Accomplished. I'm off the clock. Good night." Reno left.
Zack glanced down at the contents and forgot how to breathe.
Aerith's letters. The missing ones. Zack was terrified to read them, even though they were meant for him.
He didn't want to read them and see her giving up on him, but at the same time, he wanted to read them.
"Zack?"
"I'll ask Aerith if she's still okay with me reading these." Zack hugged the box.
"Will we have to leave?"
"No. There's only three of them. We're not actively fighting ShinRa and there's more important things happening than tracking down the two of us." Zack sighed. It was a risk, but the Slums had barely tolerated the security sweep. Actually attacking the Slums would not go over well.
There was a reason Wall Market was walled in after all.
B3- General Affairs: Auditing, ShinRa Tower
Tseng listened to Reno's report with a sense of unease.
Zack Fair had always had a strong sense of right and wrong, challenging anyone when he felt they were going too far.
He was also smarter than most had given him credit for, the previous gullibility having been removed over time.
Fair was a valuable company resource, but getting him back was impossible as long as Hojo had free reign.
And Cloud Strife, the infantry man was awake and moving, Shuriken had reported he was catatonic with Mako Addiction, possibly Mako Poisoning. Fair was keeping the kid close and in check. That was for the best.
There weren't any notes on what Hojo had done to them- at least, none that Tseng had access to, hard copies may be in Nibleheim but ShinRa and Heidegger wanted them close for the foreseeable future.
Hojo's projects tended to not be sane after too long in the professor's 'tender care'. The situation needed monitoring, but there was no way to consistently do so. Tseng would have to trust that Zack Fair was still as honorable as he'd been, at least until Tseng could verify that in person.
"Oh, and get a load of this, I spotted it hanging up at the Train Station, when I got back to the helicopter."
It was a flier, for Fair and Strife Services, which included monster hunting and mail delivery.
No numbers for contact, just 'Sector 5'.
Tseng felt some relief. Monster hunting missions were getting assigned less and less even as monster populations were rising in the slums.
Fair and Strife would be busy for a while, Tseng had time to figure out a way to bring them back to the fold.
"Anything else?"
"They know the rest of the Turks are gone. Apparently the suits gave the others away in Sector Four, and they weren't exactly hiding from us, been down there a while. Fair said ShinRa's slipping."
"He's not wrong. Even with the Vice President keeping the three of us, we lost a lot of skilled agents, and no soldier's come close to the strengths Fair and Sephiroth had." Rude noted. "We may be in trouble if Avalanche and Wutai Resistance notice that."
"Your concern is noted. I have faith we shall find a solution to both problems before that becomes a problem." All Tseng had to do was convince Aerith, Fair and Strife to return to ShinRa and help the company. The precise leverage for such a deal needed to be found. "Rude. Edit Strife's file, add the Soldier designation and promotion being recommended by Fair. If any of Avalanche think to check his records, we shall use Strife's file to measure their true knowledge." Tseng burned the flier.
End Note: And the first set of dominoes has been flipped, ladies, gentlemen, and denizens of the internet. It's gonna be inconvenient for everyone.
Next up, a reporter gets unmasked and Kunsel starts his investigation into Reeve and Palmer, while Sonon questions Avalanche's motives.