[FF7-AU] Pathfinder - Chapter 4 [Rewrite]
[FF7] Pathfinder - Chapter 4 [Rewrite]
Rating PG-13 - Statuts: Incomplete - Warnings: None
Characters: Rufus, Tseng, Veld, Vincent
Timeline: FF7, Alternative universe
Summary: [AU] Sierra, they called him. And Tseng had been appalled and embarrassed to find that their vaunted Junon informant was just a kid... Rufus Shinra, severed from the Company and his destiny by events so secret and buried so far in the past that not even the Turks are aware of them, takes on a different role.
A/N: This continues from the re-written Chapter 3 - just to recap, I went back and ripped out the old chapters 3 - 5, since I didn't know where I was going with them. Here's to hoping this works better!
When Tseng opens his eyes, he opens them to the sight of a brilliant winter sunrise, partially obscured by a faceful of green chocobo feathers. Or at least, he thinks that it's a sunrise, because his vision is still blurred under the influence of a raging concussion, and because being tied face-down to a chocobo saddle doesn't leave much of a view.
It takes a while for his memory to catch up with him, but when it finally does, he has to stifle a groan. It's going to be difficult to explain this one to Veld.
It goes something like this.
The sky above Eldsworth is a brilliant blue, cloudless in the grip of a cold winter day. Tseng scowls at it, resisting the urge to wrap his arms tightly around his body to preserve warmth, and stamps a bit to get the blood flowing in his toes again. The track into the village isn't even visible right now, snow-covered as it is, but he can still make out the chocobo prints from where Sierra rode off. Leaving him to freeze here.
"Just how long does it take to get two new birds?" The air is so cold that even his annoyed mutter makes his breath steam. Sierra's been gone for nearly an hour, and Tseng can't help but wonder if he's just been abandoned.
He stamps again, churning up small snow flurries, and strains to listen for any sound of Sierra's return. All he hears is the whisper of the wind amidst the bare branches of the trees.
One minute. Two. Three. And Tseng's patience finally runs out.
"Fine. Time's up, spy-boy," he mutters. Digging his fingers deeper into the pockets of his jacket, he turns to follow the trail of chocobo prints, tramping doggedly through the knee-high snow drifts.
He takes ten steps before he senses a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. He ducks aside immediately, and smells the reek of ozone as a materia spell cuts right past his ear, to slam into the snow beyond. He doesn't wait to see it land, diving behind a snowdrift and grabbing his pistol from his jacket. The second spell smashes into a tree, sending snow crashing down from its branches, and he notes its trajectory and snaps off a shot in return.
There's a strangled curse, and the familiar retort of gunshots a second later. Eyes narrowed, he makes a quick assessment of the situation - at least three, no, four assailants - goodness knew how many snipers there were, or how heavily armed, or why the hell they were after him. A tree shakes, and snow falls, betraying the location of another sniper, and Tseng takes him down with two bullets as materia spells slam into the snow around him. One whips right past his cheek, burning and leaving it numb with the tingle of a stop spell.
What the hell. Whoever these people are, they're armed to the gills and aren't afraid to use their heavy guns. Just a quiet mountain village? Damn you, Sierra...
There's nothing for it but to keep moving, but the snow slows him down, and all the attackers are staying at range and using firearms and materia. Another stop spell narrowly misses him, but the splash catches enough of his left shoulder to freeze it. He curses, snaps off another two shots, and is rewarded by a brief scream. The attack falters for a second, and he uses it to dash towards the village. Out in the open he stands no chance, outnumbered and outgunned as he is.
That's when the slow spell catches him in the leg. He feels his knee freeze, a second before he pitches forward, crashing heavily into the snow. The numbness spreads, engulfing his entire lower body, and he curses, rolling onto his back. No good. He can barely move and he can sense them circling in for the kill - or capture, more likely. Damn, he thinks, damn it wasn't supposed to be this way, wasn't supposed to end like this. He's not even close to succeeding; hell, he hasn't gotten anything useful out of this entire debacle, and here he is being taken down like an idiot by ... random kidnappers. Or not so random, maybe.
But why, he rages in his mind at Sierra, even as he struggles to break the slow spell. Why set up such an elaborate trap just to take down one Turk?
He doesn't know, and that thought irks him even more than the thought of potential capture or death.
Snow crunches as they close in. He drags back the trigger on his pistol and is rewarded by nothing more than the hollow click of an empty magazine. Damn them. Damn all to hell.
He has one more shot, a doomsday device to strapped to his belt - enough explosive to take him out and most of the area around him in a five metre circle. If it comes to that - Veld has always said a dead Turk is better than a captured Turk.
Crunch. The footsteps speed up when they realise that he's out of ammo, and he narrows his eyes and steels himself for the inevitable.
Crunch. It's an effort to move his left arm, half disabled as it is, but he forces himself to reach towards the control. Black shapes move against the trees, and he sees one of them raise a time materia. Preparing to cast another stop spell. His lips curl back in a snarl. Damned if he's going to let that happen. Damned if he's going to let them win like this. He hammers out the code, feeling a curious lack of fear, as though this were merely another protocol. 5, 8, 0, 2, 2--
--The roar of a shotgun splits the air. He falters, even as Sierra bursts into view, thunderig to a halt between Tseng and the oncoming would-be kidnappers, the claws of his chocobo flinging up clouds of snow. It's a black, damn the boy - a beautiful, gorgeous black, every feather gleaming and its neck arched strong and proud. Behind it trots a green, its reins trailing on the ground. Tseng opens his mouth to ask Sierra just where the hell, he's been, when the boy's voice rings out over the clearing and into the sudden stillness.
"Stand down, Tseng." Sierra glances over, the reins of his chocobo looped casually in one hand and the other cradling a sawn-off shotgun. Tseng isn't sure whether to be more impressed by the fact that he's riding one handed, or firing a double barreled shotgun one handed. But right now he just wants to know why Sierra isn't shooting the attackers, and what the hell is going on here.
"Sierra--"
"He's with us, boys," Sierra calls out, then loops the reins around the saddle horn and dismounts. Picking his way through the snowdrifts, he steps over to where Tseng is, looking at him in some concern. Tseng gives him a bland look in return.
"Are you injured?" Sierra crouches beside him, slinging the shotgun over his back.
"Slow spell," Tseng says, his voice deceptively calm. "I'd appreciate a haste to undo it."
Sierra signals, and someone runs up. The one holding the time materia, Tseng realises, and no one he recognises. The man-- no, the woman, he realises, as she brushes back her hood and a long strand of black hair escapes-- gives Sierra a questioning glance, but seems satisfied by his nod. There's a glow of green, then the warmth of a haste spell, and Tseng feels life returning to his legs again.
"Thank you," he says to Sierra, and the boy grins, relaxing--
--and then Tseng slams Sierra to the ground, his gun jammed under his chin and his other hand curled around Sierra's throat. The girl makes a move and he snarls at her to stay the hell back, his hand tightening ever so slightly around Sierra's neck. Just enough to cut off air, and he squeezes a little bit harder, enough to put some pressure on those fragile neck bones. "So," he says, almost conversationally. "Let's talk, Sierra."
Sierra makes a strangled noise, and Tseng loosens his grip just enough to let him suck in a thread of air. "Yes, let's," Sierra says, wheezing. "Would you kindly let me up?"
Tseng pretends to think about it. Then he jams the gun barrel deeper into the soft hollow of Sierra's throat. "No. I don't think so. What the hell is going on?"
"I recall I told you to stay away from Eldsworth," Sierra says.
"I recall you said that Eldsworth was a small village, not an armed military installation," Tseng snaps back. "What is this, rebellion?"
Sierra sighs, and Tseng has to resist the urge to backhand him hard. "Why don't you let me up and we can talk about this in a civilised fashion?"
Tseng tightens his grip again, and is rewarded by a spasm from Sierra as he tries and falls to draw air. The girl with the materia makes an aborted motion, clenches her fists, and glares. "Order them out of hiding," Tseng says sharply. "And to drop their weapons."
Sierra nods jerkily, his fingers starting to claw at the snow from the lack of air. Tseng drags him up, watching warily as Sierra gives the orders -- just whose dogs are skulking in the trees today? They gather in a ragged line, five of them, one clutching his arm.
"That isn't all," Tseng says flatly, although he can't be sure - but he doesn't miss the narrowing of Sierra's eyes as he takes a silent tally, and can only conclude that there are some who are unaccounted for.
"There are six," Sierra concedes, glancing towards the girl.
"Wedg-- one of us has been shot in the chest. He can't move." The look that the girl shoots Tseng is almost pure venom.
"Then move him. And Sierra, turn around," Tseng says sharply, not waiting for him to comply before giving him a shove. He needs to get out of here before backup arrives. "You," he says sharply to the girl. "Hand over that materia."
The girl gives Sierra a worried look, and Tseng a more poisonous one, before tossing over a green sphere. Tseng catches it, the barrel of his gun never wavering from the back of Sierra's head, and prepares to cast a stop.
And misses the rustle as Sierra's black chocobo sneaks up behind him and kicks him in the head.
-
"You're awake."
Awake, in pain, and very much possessed of the urge to throw up. The rocking of the chocobo's movement goes straight to his head, and from there, to his gut. He's greatly relieved when it finally stops, but his head doesn't seem to want to stop spinning.
He musters a scowl as Sierra hovers into view. Sierra gives him a smirk, then moves to untie him. As he sits up, he's greeted by the sight of a massive stone condor, perched atop a mountain. Its eyes seem to glitter red with subdued malice in light of the rising sun, and its claws glint gold.
Fort Condor. Heart of the anti-Shinra resistence, a constant stronghold that Shinra has never been able to take. He tries to imagine how fast they must have ridden in order to get here, and can only imagine that it must be far faster than a normal yellow chocobo could travel. The green that he's riding doesn't even seem to be the same green that Sierra had gotten at Eldsworth, but the black is the same, and its arrogant black eyes regard him coldly. They've probably ridden all night, and he's the only one who looks worse for the wear. Life isn't fair at all, sometimes.
"I need to blindfold you," Sierra says, almost apologetically, and doesn't give him a chance to respond before wrapping cloth around his eyes. The rest of the journey is a stumble in the dark, his reeling head refusing to register changes in direction. Sierra's hand is a warm but impersonal grip on his arm, his voice quite in his ear as he warns of steps, turns. There are voices, which quickly fall silent, and are slow to resume.
When the blindfold is finally removed, Tseng finds himself in a small, windowless room. The walls are rock, hollowed out of the mountain itself. Electric lights cast a warm yellow glow over the room, revealing simple wooden furnishing. Tseng sits on the edge of the bed, trying not to look too grateful for a chance to get off his feet.
Sierra strips off riding gloves, stuffing them into a pocket in his jacket. Then grabs the single wooden chair, spins it around and sits on it, crossing his arms across the back. "So. Ready to talk like civilised people?"
Tseng raises an eyebrow in response. It somehow surprises him that Sierra is at the heart of the resistence. He's always been their informant, but he's never thought of him as a double agent. And neither, he suspects, does Veld.
But to drag him here doesn't make sense. His value as a hostage or a bargaining chip is minimal at best. Surely Sierra's interests would be better served by keeping his cover, not blowing it wide open like this.
"You had the ill luck to run into one of the Avalanche patrols returning from a mission," Sierra says without preamble, and curiously enough, with a directness that Tseng isn't used to. Not from him, anyway.
"So Eldsworth is an Avalanche staging base?" Tseng says, keeping his tone mild.
Sierra studies him for a second. "Eldsworth is known for their chocobos. I stable mine there, as do some Avalanche teams. The villagers know their chocobos, and could care less for Shinra politics. When I asked you to stay out of the village - it was much for your own protection ... as it was for the village's." Sierra smiles coldly. "I had hoped precisely to avoid a situation such as that."
Tseng shrugs off this implication that the situation is somehow all his fault. "You might have mentioned this before riding off."
"I was hoping to avoid having to hit you over the head and drag you home, you know." The mako light in Sierra's eyes is all too bright in the subdued lighting. "But seeing how that's happened--"
"You could cut the crap and get to the point," Tseng's tone is distinctly hostile now.
"--I was going to," Sierra arches an eyebrow at him, in mocking mimicry. "Your mission, if you recall, was to render assistance to me in whatever form I required--"
"--As long as didn't involve compromising Shinra's interests."
The temperature drops by a few notches. Sierra straightens, and when he speaks, his tone is brittle. "One of the Avalanche squad will not be coming home tonight, Tseng, because you could not follow an instruction. One of your lucky shots caught him through the chest, clipped the aorta. He bled out before we could get him back."
Death doesn't bother him. He meets Sierra's gaze. "They were attempting to apprehend me. What else did they expect, that I would go quietly?" He shakes his head. "Don't give me this bullshit, Sierra. If you train a man - or a woman - to be a soldier, you need to train them to be prepared to die as a soldier."
They exchange glares. "The duty of a soldier is to fight and die for his country," Sierra says, "But tell me, Tseng - are we even at war? How many concrete threats has Avalanche posed in the last two years?"
"How would I know? You should ask Veld," Tseng snaps back. "I'm not the Director."
"No," Sierra says coldly. "Just the Assistant Director and Veld's designated successor. But if you don't know anything, Turk, then shut up and listen." And before Tseng can come up with a suitably scathing retort, Sierra's already plunging on.
"Avalanche was extremely active in its early years. Ten years ago they were a ragtag outfit with hand painted signs standing at the gates of Shinra HQ trying to organise peaceful protests. When those failed, they went militant, and as of five years ago, were attacking Shinra and infrastructure. But their crowning achievement was to have been the bombing of Reactor 7."
"Information on which, I recall, you were paid an exorbitant amount of money for, and which ultimately never happened. Convenient, isn't it? Fake a threat, conjure up some details, earn a tidy package..."
Sierra barks a laugh. "Ah, forgive me, Tseng. I had really thought you were deeper in Veld's councils than this. Veld didn't pay me for the information. Veld paid me to bring information back to Avalanche that their grand plans had been busted. They pulled the abort pretty quickly after that, ending with the bloodless solution that Veld had wished for. Oh how glorious the battles that were never fought, the lives of soldiers who were never called to be martyred." Sierra grins, lightning fast. "Twenty thousand gil is a small price to pay for that, don't you think?"
"Despicable," Tseng says, smiling sweetly back at him.
"Why, thank you." Sierra inclines his head. "In any case, Avalanche activity dropped off sharply after that. No doubt you Turks were pleased, congratulating yourselves on a job well done."
Tseng struggles to remain expressionless, but evidently something shows, for Sierra's lip curls in a smirk.
"But what happened is this." Sierra taps out a staccato rhythm on the back of the chair. "My role in preventing the little Reactor 7 incident gave me a fair amount of standing with Avalanche command. It took a bit of fast talking, but eventually I persuaded them to set their sights on something other than Shinra."
Despite himself, Tseng feels like his attention has been rivetted. It's a lie, has to be - this entire place feels like an illusion built of smoke and mirrors, carefully sculpted by Sierra's clever words. He doesn't trust the boy, and it seems his suspicions were not misplaced, if Avalanche welcomes him with open arms like this. But he finds himself drawn in, sucked into this illusion for now. His job demands that he play this game, play by Sierra's rules, until he finds the leverage he needs to shatter it, to tear Sierra apart until he finds the kernel of truth that lies at the core of all these lies.
"Something other than Shinra?" he asks, skeptical.
"Something that I would like to show you, too," Sierra says, and there is no trace of his earlier mockery now. "Shinra may believe that it lies at the centre of this universe, but there are other forces moving as well. Things that would make a bombing of a single mako reactor look like child's play in comparison."
"What is it?"
Sierra shakes his head. "Tonight," he says distantly, "We ride for the Condor harbour, to take a ship to the western continent."
The guessing games are getting decidedly wearying. "And just where are we headed for?"
Sierra stands abruptly. "Get some sleep. You can't ride with a concussion."
Fine. If that's the way he's going to be-- "And I can't help you if I don't know what our objective is."
Sierra half turns towards him, and his silhouetted profile is familiar to Tseng in a way he can't place. "To fight in my war, Tseng," Sierra says, "You must first understand what the war is about."
And then he is gone, in a whisper of movement. Tseng stares after him, and bites back the urge to curse in frustration.
--
When the alert comes, Veld goes to investigate personally. He thinks, vaguely, that it might be very slightly hypocritical for him to tell Vincent not to go to Nibelheim when he himself rushes off in person the moment a report comes in that there have been strange sightings in his hometown of Kalm.
But it's different. Kalm is just his home - or one time home . The place where his small, dysfunctional family had grown up, before the disaster. Before the fires that torched it to the ground, on orders that had been wrongly relayed. His orders. His men. Don't fire, he had said, but only the second word had gone through.
And his wife had died for it. His wife had died, and his daughter with her, presumably - there hadn't been enough DNA fragments to piece anything together, and Shinra hadn't even been interested in trying.
But it's different, because there aren't any ghosts left, aren't any unsolved mysteries. The wounds are still there, but they have scarred over, and the ache is born of memories and not of unsolved issues.
Different, he tells himself.
"Landing in two, boss," Reno says, looking over his shoulder at him. Veld gives him a brief, distracted nod, still listening to reports over his headset. Two found dead in their homes, apparently from sword wounds. No apparent connection between the victims, not even in physical proximity - in fact, they were found at opposite ends of the town. Time of death - unknown. Certainly, they died within the last few hours, but there were no witnesses.
They touch down as close as possible to the cordon around the first victim. Even Reno makes a face at the scene that greets them - blood is splattered liberally in a five metre radius around the corpse. It looks as though the killer was aiming for maximum carnage and impact.
"Yeah, looks like he wanted our attention, boss." Reno peers more closely. "But lookie." He points with his EMR.
The bullethole is almost obscured by the victim's hair, but it's present. The rest of the mess - certainly a bladed weapon. Not the Nibelheim killer, or he's changed his style.
Veld takes a walk around the cordon, examining the body, the tell-tales signs of attack. Strangely enough, there are minimal signs of any struggle - it appears that the the victim was first shot then disembowelled.
"Are you done, sir?" the Shinra MP says, sounding put out that the Turks are basically trampling all over his territory. It doesn't have anything to do with Shinra internal security, the look in his eyes says, so get the hell out.
Reno takes the pictures, and lets them bundle the body away. They proceed in silence to the scene of the second murder, and are greeted by more of the same. Blood and guts everywhere, the same bullet and blade combination of wounds that was present on the first victim.
"What do you make of it?" Reno asks, as the clean-up crews move in, and Veld paces the cordon in thought.
Veld shoots the area an irritated glance. "It's a message."
Reno's eyebrows climb to his hairline. "Yeah? What's it say?"
"Whoever did this is out for attention. The pattern is pretty clear. It started in Nibelheim -- although we don't know for sure whether the Nibelheim killer is the same as this one. Then it spirals slowly closer. Costa del Sol, the Junon, now Kalm."
Reno whistles softly. "Next stop, Midgar."
"Intimidation tactics, or something more? I'm not certain. It doesn't have the flavour of an Avalanche attack at all, it doesn't appear to be targetted specifically at Shinra, and yet it's calculated to induce fear and paranoia." Veld's fingers itch for a cigarette, and he wraps them around his PHS instead. "The motive is unclear. The methodology is unorthodox. But if anyone was carrying a sword and a gun in Kalm, he would have been noticed straightaway. The village is small."
Reno shrugs.
"Increase the security around Shinra Tower," Veld decides. "We don't have the manpower to monitor everyone moving in and out of Midgar, much as I'd like to do so."
"Aw damn, boss," Reno groans. "Overtime again? Shit, can't we recall Tseng?"
Veld just gives Reno a quelling look, and continues pacing. If it is a message - and that much he is quite certain of - just who is it directed at, and what is it supposed to say? He can't be sure that it's Shinra specific, but he's paid to be professionally paranoid, and who else could it be targeted at it, if not Shinra?
And what is it supposed to imply, besides some oblique threat? Shinra won't feel threatened by the murder of random civilians, no matter how gruesome.
He watches as Reno searches for witnesses, coming up empty handed. This is a dead end, he decides. There isn't much left to do here that the military police can't handle themselves. But it has the feel of a mystery, and he finds himself pacing again.
Gunshot and blade wound. Sephiroth never carried a gun.
"Yo boss," Reno says, waving at him. "Come 'ere--"
--instinct makes him duck, dive for cover, but just a fraction of a second too late. Pain explodes across his shoulder blade as a bullet snaps past, scoring a groove. He notes its trajectory by sheer habit, but that proves unnecessary as the assailant appears a second later.
Assailants.
There are three of them, clad in skin-tight black leather. Silver hair, of varying lengths. Green eyes. The resemblance to Sephiroth is unmistakable. He notes the confidence in their stances, the aura of unrestrained violence, and there's no doubt in his mind that these are the culprits responsible for the murders.
They've managed to separate him and Reno - carelessness on his part, he thinks, although it's rare for someone to be able to sneak up on either of them like that. He notes their weapons - sword, gunblade, and some hand-to-hand device that he recognises as some experimental prototype for SOLDIER.
"Nice to meet you at last," he says, because they don't seem to be attacking. Reno gives him a covert signal that he's already radioed for help, and if these guys want to keep talking, that's fine by him.
"Hah." The leader seems to be the shortest of the three. "And here we were told that the infamous Turks would be a force to be reckoned with."
"Well, we hardly see the need to go around murdering helpless civilians to prove a point," Veld says mildly. "Who are you?" And a stab in the dark. "Sephiroth's little babies?"
That hits a nerve. The short one tenses, tightens his grip on his curious double-bladed sword, and the aura of violence around him flares almost tangibly. "He's our brother. Nothing more." The words are strangled with jealousy and rage, but also a tinge of... fear? Interesting.
"Well, then. Why don't you give me your names, Sephiroth's little brothers?"
The long haired one scoffs. "You don't need to know our names, Turk. Just tell your master that we're coming for him."
The one with cropped hair smirks, while the leader smiles, the fey smile of madness. "Yes," he says, his voice high and light. "And then the Reunion will come." The anticipation in his voice is unmistakable.
"Reunion?" Veld says, trying to string them out, get them to talk more.
"Reunion," the long haired one replies with a lazy smirk, cat-like. "It's a pity you're not invited."
They laugh, and when the short one looks back at him, the predatory gleam shines clear in his eyes. Leather clad hands shift their grip on the hilt of his sword. "But since you're here, little Turks," he says, sing-song, "Let's play."
--
Rating PG-13 - Statuts: Incomplete - Warnings: None
Characters: Rufus, Tseng, Veld, Vincent
Timeline: FF7, Alternative universe
Summary: [AU] Sierra, they called him. And Tseng had been appalled and embarrassed to find that their vaunted Junon informant was just a kid... Rufus Shinra, severed from the Company and his destiny by events so secret and buried so far in the past that not even the Turks are aware of them, takes on a different role.
A/N: This continues from the re-written Chapter 3 - just to recap, I went back and ripped out the old chapters 3 - 5, since I didn't know where I was going with them. Here's to hoping this works better!
When Tseng opens his eyes, he opens them to the sight of a brilliant winter sunrise, partially obscured by a faceful of green chocobo feathers. Or at least, he thinks that it's a sunrise, because his vision is still blurred under the influence of a raging concussion, and because being tied face-down to a chocobo saddle doesn't leave much of a view.
It takes a while for his memory to catch up with him, but when it finally does, he has to stifle a groan. It's going to be difficult to explain this one to Veld.
It goes something like this.
The sky above Eldsworth is a brilliant blue, cloudless in the grip of a cold winter day. Tseng scowls at it, resisting the urge to wrap his arms tightly around his body to preserve warmth, and stamps a bit to get the blood flowing in his toes again. The track into the village isn't even visible right now, snow-covered as it is, but he can still make out the chocobo prints from where Sierra rode off. Leaving him to freeze here.
"Just how long does it take to get two new birds?" The air is so cold that even his annoyed mutter makes his breath steam. Sierra's been gone for nearly an hour, and Tseng can't help but wonder if he's just been abandoned.
He stamps again, churning up small snow flurries, and strains to listen for any sound of Sierra's return. All he hears is the whisper of the wind amidst the bare branches of the trees.
One minute. Two. Three. And Tseng's patience finally runs out.
"Fine. Time's up, spy-boy," he mutters. Digging his fingers deeper into the pockets of his jacket, he turns to follow the trail of chocobo prints, tramping doggedly through the knee-high snow drifts.
He takes ten steps before he senses a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. He ducks aside immediately, and smells the reek of ozone as a materia spell cuts right past his ear, to slam into the snow beyond. He doesn't wait to see it land, diving behind a snowdrift and grabbing his pistol from his jacket. The second spell smashes into a tree, sending snow crashing down from its branches, and he notes its trajectory and snaps off a shot in return.
There's a strangled curse, and the familiar retort of gunshots a second later. Eyes narrowed, he makes a quick assessment of the situation - at least three, no, four assailants - goodness knew how many snipers there were, or how heavily armed, or why the hell they were after him. A tree shakes, and snow falls, betraying the location of another sniper, and Tseng takes him down with two bullets as materia spells slam into the snow around him. One whips right past his cheek, burning and leaving it numb with the tingle of a stop spell.
What the hell. Whoever these people are, they're armed to the gills and aren't afraid to use their heavy guns. Just a quiet mountain village? Damn you, Sierra...
There's nothing for it but to keep moving, but the snow slows him down, and all the attackers are staying at range and using firearms and materia. Another stop spell narrowly misses him, but the splash catches enough of his left shoulder to freeze it. He curses, snaps off another two shots, and is rewarded by a brief scream. The attack falters for a second, and he uses it to dash towards the village. Out in the open he stands no chance, outnumbered and outgunned as he is.
That's when the slow spell catches him in the leg. He feels his knee freeze, a second before he pitches forward, crashing heavily into the snow. The numbness spreads, engulfing his entire lower body, and he curses, rolling onto his back. No good. He can barely move and he can sense them circling in for the kill - or capture, more likely. Damn, he thinks, damn it wasn't supposed to be this way, wasn't supposed to end like this. He's not even close to succeeding; hell, he hasn't gotten anything useful out of this entire debacle, and here he is being taken down like an idiot by ... random kidnappers. Or not so random, maybe.
But why, he rages in his mind at Sierra, even as he struggles to break the slow spell. Why set up such an elaborate trap just to take down one Turk?
He doesn't know, and that thought irks him even more than the thought of potential capture or death.
Snow crunches as they close in. He drags back the trigger on his pistol and is rewarded by nothing more than the hollow click of an empty magazine. Damn them. Damn all to hell.
He has one more shot, a doomsday device to strapped to his belt - enough explosive to take him out and most of the area around him in a five metre circle. If it comes to that - Veld has always said a dead Turk is better than a captured Turk.
Crunch. The footsteps speed up when they realise that he's out of ammo, and he narrows his eyes and steels himself for the inevitable.
Crunch. It's an effort to move his left arm, half disabled as it is, but he forces himself to reach towards the control. Black shapes move against the trees, and he sees one of them raise a time materia. Preparing to cast another stop spell. His lips curl back in a snarl. Damned if he's going to let that happen. Damned if he's going to let them win like this. He hammers out the code, feeling a curious lack of fear, as though this were merely another protocol. 5, 8, 0, 2, 2--
--The roar of a shotgun splits the air. He falters, even as Sierra bursts into view, thunderig to a halt between Tseng and the oncoming would-be kidnappers, the claws of his chocobo flinging up clouds of snow. It's a black, damn the boy - a beautiful, gorgeous black, every feather gleaming and its neck arched strong and proud. Behind it trots a green, its reins trailing on the ground. Tseng opens his mouth to ask Sierra just where the hell, he's been, when the boy's voice rings out over the clearing and into the sudden stillness.
"Stand down, Tseng." Sierra glances over, the reins of his chocobo looped casually in one hand and the other cradling a sawn-off shotgun. Tseng isn't sure whether to be more impressed by the fact that he's riding one handed, or firing a double barreled shotgun one handed. But right now he just wants to know why Sierra isn't shooting the attackers, and what the hell is going on here.
"Sierra--"
"He's with us, boys," Sierra calls out, then loops the reins around the saddle horn and dismounts. Picking his way through the snowdrifts, he steps over to where Tseng is, looking at him in some concern. Tseng gives him a bland look in return.
"Are you injured?" Sierra crouches beside him, slinging the shotgun over his back.
"Slow spell," Tseng says, his voice deceptively calm. "I'd appreciate a haste to undo it."
Sierra signals, and someone runs up. The one holding the time materia, Tseng realises, and no one he recognises. The man-- no, the woman, he realises, as she brushes back her hood and a long strand of black hair escapes-- gives Sierra a questioning glance, but seems satisfied by his nod. There's a glow of green, then the warmth of a haste spell, and Tseng feels life returning to his legs again.
"Thank you," he says to Sierra, and the boy grins, relaxing--
--and then Tseng slams Sierra to the ground, his gun jammed under his chin and his other hand curled around Sierra's throat. The girl makes a move and he snarls at her to stay the hell back, his hand tightening ever so slightly around Sierra's neck. Just enough to cut off air, and he squeezes a little bit harder, enough to put some pressure on those fragile neck bones. "So," he says, almost conversationally. "Let's talk, Sierra."
Sierra makes a strangled noise, and Tseng loosens his grip just enough to let him suck in a thread of air. "Yes, let's," Sierra says, wheezing. "Would you kindly let me up?"
Tseng pretends to think about it. Then he jams the gun barrel deeper into the soft hollow of Sierra's throat. "No. I don't think so. What the hell is going on?"
"I recall I told you to stay away from Eldsworth," Sierra says.
"I recall you said that Eldsworth was a small village, not an armed military installation," Tseng snaps back. "What is this, rebellion?"
Sierra sighs, and Tseng has to resist the urge to backhand him hard. "Why don't you let me up and we can talk about this in a civilised fashion?"
Tseng tightens his grip again, and is rewarded by a spasm from Sierra as he tries and falls to draw air. The girl with the materia makes an aborted motion, clenches her fists, and glares. "Order them out of hiding," Tseng says sharply. "And to drop their weapons."
Sierra nods jerkily, his fingers starting to claw at the snow from the lack of air. Tseng drags him up, watching warily as Sierra gives the orders -- just whose dogs are skulking in the trees today? They gather in a ragged line, five of them, one clutching his arm.
"That isn't all," Tseng says flatly, although he can't be sure - but he doesn't miss the narrowing of Sierra's eyes as he takes a silent tally, and can only conclude that there are some who are unaccounted for.
"There are six," Sierra concedes, glancing towards the girl.
"Wedg-- one of us has been shot in the chest. He can't move." The look that the girl shoots Tseng is almost pure venom.
"Then move him. And Sierra, turn around," Tseng says sharply, not waiting for him to comply before giving him a shove. He needs to get out of here before backup arrives. "You," he says sharply to the girl. "Hand over that materia."
The girl gives Sierra a worried look, and Tseng a more poisonous one, before tossing over a green sphere. Tseng catches it, the barrel of his gun never wavering from the back of Sierra's head, and prepares to cast a stop.
And misses the rustle as Sierra's black chocobo sneaks up behind him and kicks him in the head.
-
"You're awake."
Awake, in pain, and very much possessed of the urge to throw up. The rocking of the chocobo's movement goes straight to his head, and from there, to his gut. He's greatly relieved when it finally stops, but his head doesn't seem to want to stop spinning.
He musters a scowl as Sierra hovers into view. Sierra gives him a smirk, then moves to untie him. As he sits up, he's greeted by the sight of a massive stone condor, perched atop a mountain. Its eyes seem to glitter red with subdued malice in light of the rising sun, and its claws glint gold.
Fort Condor. Heart of the anti-Shinra resistence, a constant stronghold that Shinra has never been able to take. He tries to imagine how fast they must have ridden in order to get here, and can only imagine that it must be far faster than a normal yellow chocobo could travel. The green that he's riding doesn't even seem to be the same green that Sierra had gotten at Eldsworth, but the black is the same, and its arrogant black eyes regard him coldly. They've probably ridden all night, and he's the only one who looks worse for the wear. Life isn't fair at all, sometimes.
"I need to blindfold you," Sierra says, almost apologetically, and doesn't give him a chance to respond before wrapping cloth around his eyes. The rest of the journey is a stumble in the dark, his reeling head refusing to register changes in direction. Sierra's hand is a warm but impersonal grip on his arm, his voice quite in his ear as he warns of steps, turns. There are voices, which quickly fall silent, and are slow to resume.
When the blindfold is finally removed, Tseng finds himself in a small, windowless room. The walls are rock, hollowed out of the mountain itself. Electric lights cast a warm yellow glow over the room, revealing simple wooden furnishing. Tseng sits on the edge of the bed, trying not to look too grateful for a chance to get off his feet.
Sierra strips off riding gloves, stuffing them into a pocket in his jacket. Then grabs the single wooden chair, spins it around and sits on it, crossing his arms across the back. "So. Ready to talk like civilised people?"
Tseng raises an eyebrow in response. It somehow surprises him that Sierra is at the heart of the resistence. He's always been their informant, but he's never thought of him as a double agent. And neither, he suspects, does Veld.
But to drag him here doesn't make sense. His value as a hostage or a bargaining chip is minimal at best. Surely Sierra's interests would be better served by keeping his cover, not blowing it wide open like this.
"You had the ill luck to run into one of the Avalanche patrols returning from a mission," Sierra says without preamble, and curiously enough, with a directness that Tseng isn't used to. Not from him, anyway.
"So Eldsworth is an Avalanche staging base?" Tseng says, keeping his tone mild.
Sierra studies him for a second. "Eldsworth is known for their chocobos. I stable mine there, as do some Avalanche teams. The villagers know their chocobos, and could care less for Shinra politics. When I asked you to stay out of the village - it was much for your own protection ... as it was for the village's." Sierra smiles coldly. "I had hoped precisely to avoid a situation such as that."
Tseng shrugs off this implication that the situation is somehow all his fault. "You might have mentioned this before riding off."
"I was hoping to avoid having to hit you over the head and drag you home, you know." The mako light in Sierra's eyes is all too bright in the subdued lighting. "But seeing how that's happened--"
"You could cut the crap and get to the point," Tseng's tone is distinctly hostile now.
"--I was going to," Sierra arches an eyebrow at him, in mocking mimicry. "Your mission, if you recall, was to render assistance to me in whatever form I required--"
"--As long as didn't involve compromising Shinra's interests."
The temperature drops by a few notches. Sierra straightens, and when he speaks, his tone is brittle. "One of the Avalanche squad will not be coming home tonight, Tseng, because you could not follow an instruction. One of your lucky shots caught him through the chest, clipped the aorta. He bled out before we could get him back."
Death doesn't bother him. He meets Sierra's gaze. "They were attempting to apprehend me. What else did they expect, that I would go quietly?" He shakes his head. "Don't give me this bullshit, Sierra. If you train a man - or a woman - to be a soldier, you need to train them to be prepared to die as a soldier."
They exchange glares. "The duty of a soldier is to fight and die for his country," Sierra says, "But tell me, Tseng - are we even at war? How many concrete threats has Avalanche posed in the last two years?"
"How would I know? You should ask Veld," Tseng snaps back. "I'm not the Director."
"No," Sierra says coldly. "Just the Assistant Director and Veld's designated successor. But if you don't know anything, Turk, then shut up and listen." And before Tseng can come up with a suitably scathing retort, Sierra's already plunging on.
"Avalanche was extremely active in its early years. Ten years ago they were a ragtag outfit with hand painted signs standing at the gates of Shinra HQ trying to organise peaceful protests. When those failed, they went militant, and as of five years ago, were attacking Shinra and infrastructure. But their crowning achievement was to have been the bombing of Reactor 7."
"Information on which, I recall, you were paid an exorbitant amount of money for, and which ultimately never happened. Convenient, isn't it? Fake a threat, conjure up some details, earn a tidy package..."
Sierra barks a laugh. "Ah, forgive me, Tseng. I had really thought you were deeper in Veld's councils than this. Veld didn't pay me for the information. Veld paid me to bring information back to Avalanche that their grand plans had been busted. They pulled the abort pretty quickly after that, ending with the bloodless solution that Veld had wished for. Oh how glorious the battles that were never fought, the lives of soldiers who were never called to be martyred." Sierra grins, lightning fast. "Twenty thousand gil is a small price to pay for that, don't you think?"
"Despicable," Tseng says, smiling sweetly back at him.
"Why, thank you." Sierra inclines his head. "In any case, Avalanche activity dropped off sharply after that. No doubt you Turks were pleased, congratulating yourselves on a job well done."
Tseng struggles to remain expressionless, but evidently something shows, for Sierra's lip curls in a smirk.
"But what happened is this." Sierra taps out a staccato rhythm on the back of the chair. "My role in preventing the little Reactor 7 incident gave me a fair amount of standing with Avalanche command. It took a bit of fast talking, but eventually I persuaded them to set their sights on something other than Shinra."
Despite himself, Tseng feels like his attention has been rivetted. It's a lie, has to be - this entire place feels like an illusion built of smoke and mirrors, carefully sculpted by Sierra's clever words. He doesn't trust the boy, and it seems his suspicions were not misplaced, if Avalanche welcomes him with open arms like this. But he finds himself drawn in, sucked into this illusion for now. His job demands that he play this game, play by Sierra's rules, until he finds the leverage he needs to shatter it, to tear Sierra apart until he finds the kernel of truth that lies at the core of all these lies.
"Something other than Shinra?" he asks, skeptical.
"Something that I would like to show you, too," Sierra says, and there is no trace of his earlier mockery now. "Shinra may believe that it lies at the centre of this universe, but there are other forces moving as well. Things that would make a bombing of a single mako reactor look like child's play in comparison."
"What is it?"
Sierra shakes his head. "Tonight," he says distantly, "We ride for the Condor harbour, to take a ship to the western continent."
The guessing games are getting decidedly wearying. "And just where are we headed for?"
Sierra stands abruptly. "Get some sleep. You can't ride with a concussion."
Fine. If that's the way he's going to be-- "And I can't help you if I don't know what our objective is."
Sierra half turns towards him, and his silhouetted profile is familiar to Tseng in a way he can't place. "To fight in my war, Tseng," Sierra says, "You must first understand what the war is about."
And then he is gone, in a whisper of movement. Tseng stares after him, and bites back the urge to curse in frustration.
--
When the alert comes, Veld goes to investigate personally. He thinks, vaguely, that it might be very slightly hypocritical for him to tell Vincent not to go to Nibelheim when he himself rushes off in person the moment a report comes in that there have been strange sightings in his hometown of Kalm.
But it's different. Kalm is just his home - or one time home . The place where his small, dysfunctional family had grown up, before the disaster. Before the fires that torched it to the ground, on orders that had been wrongly relayed. His orders. His men. Don't fire, he had said, but only the second word had gone through.
And his wife had died for it. His wife had died, and his daughter with her, presumably - there hadn't been enough DNA fragments to piece anything together, and Shinra hadn't even been interested in trying.
But it's different, because there aren't any ghosts left, aren't any unsolved mysteries. The wounds are still there, but they have scarred over, and the ache is born of memories and not of unsolved issues.
Different, he tells himself.
"Landing in two, boss," Reno says, looking over his shoulder at him. Veld gives him a brief, distracted nod, still listening to reports over his headset. Two found dead in their homes, apparently from sword wounds. No apparent connection between the victims, not even in physical proximity - in fact, they were found at opposite ends of the town. Time of death - unknown. Certainly, they died within the last few hours, but there were no witnesses.
They touch down as close as possible to the cordon around the first victim. Even Reno makes a face at the scene that greets them - blood is splattered liberally in a five metre radius around the corpse. It looks as though the killer was aiming for maximum carnage and impact.
"Yeah, looks like he wanted our attention, boss." Reno peers more closely. "But lookie." He points with his EMR.
The bullethole is almost obscured by the victim's hair, but it's present. The rest of the mess - certainly a bladed weapon. Not the Nibelheim killer, or he's changed his style.
Veld takes a walk around the cordon, examining the body, the tell-tales signs of attack. Strangely enough, there are minimal signs of any struggle - it appears that the the victim was first shot then disembowelled.
"Are you done, sir?" the Shinra MP says, sounding put out that the Turks are basically trampling all over his territory. It doesn't have anything to do with Shinra internal security, the look in his eyes says, so get the hell out.
Reno takes the pictures, and lets them bundle the body away. They proceed in silence to the scene of the second murder, and are greeted by more of the same. Blood and guts everywhere, the same bullet and blade combination of wounds that was present on the first victim.
"What do you make of it?" Reno asks, as the clean-up crews move in, and Veld paces the cordon in thought.
Veld shoots the area an irritated glance. "It's a message."
Reno's eyebrows climb to his hairline. "Yeah? What's it say?"
"Whoever did this is out for attention. The pattern is pretty clear. It started in Nibelheim -- although we don't know for sure whether the Nibelheim killer is the same as this one. Then it spirals slowly closer. Costa del Sol, the Junon, now Kalm."
Reno whistles softly. "Next stop, Midgar."
"Intimidation tactics, or something more? I'm not certain. It doesn't have the flavour of an Avalanche attack at all, it doesn't appear to be targetted specifically at Shinra, and yet it's calculated to induce fear and paranoia." Veld's fingers itch for a cigarette, and he wraps them around his PHS instead. "The motive is unclear. The methodology is unorthodox. But if anyone was carrying a sword and a gun in Kalm, he would have been noticed straightaway. The village is small."
Reno shrugs.
"Increase the security around Shinra Tower," Veld decides. "We don't have the manpower to monitor everyone moving in and out of Midgar, much as I'd like to do so."
"Aw damn, boss," Reno groans. "Overtime again? Shit, can't we recall Tseng?"
Veld just gives Reno a quelling look, and continues pacing. If it is a message - and that much he is quite certain of - just who is it directed at, and what is it supposed to say? He can't be sure that it's Shinra specific, but he's paid to be professionally paranoid, and who else could it be targeted at it, if not Shinra?
And what is it supposed to imply, besides some oblique threat? Shinra won't feel threatened by the murder of random civilians, no matter how gruesome.
He watches as Reno searches for witnesses, coming up empty handed. This is a dead end, he decides. There isn't much left to do here that the military police can't handle themselves. But it has the feel of a mystery, and he finds himself pacing again.
Gunshot and blade wound. Sephiroth never carried a gun.
"Yo boss," Reno says, waving at him. "Come 'ere--"
--instinct makes him duck, dive for cover, but just a fraction of a second too late. Pain explodes across his shoulder blade as a bullet snaps past, scoring a groove. He notes its trajectory by sheer habit, but that proves unnecessary as the assailant appears a second later.
Assailants.
There are three of them, clad in skin-tight black leather. Silver hair, of varying lengths. Green eyes. The resemblance to Sephiroth is unmistakable. He notes the confidence in their stances, the aura of unrestrained violence, and there's no doubt in his mind that these are the culprits responsible for the murders.
They've managed to separate him and Reno - carelessness on his part, he thinks, although it's rare for someone to be able to sneak up on either of them like that. He notes their weapons - sword, gunblade, and some hand-to-hand device that he recognises as some experimental prototype for SOLDIER.
"Nice to meet you at last," he says, because they don't seem to be attacking. Reno gives him a covert signal that he's already radioed for help, and if these guys want to keep talking, that's fine by him.
"Hah." The leader seems to be the shortest of the three. "And here we were told that the infamous Turks would be a force to be reckoned with."
"Well, we hardly see the need to go around murdering helpless civilians to prove a point," Veld says mildly. "Who are you?" And a stab in the dark. "Sephiroth's little babies?"
That hits a nerve. The short one tenses, tightens his grip on his curious double-bladed sword, and the aura of violence around him flares almost tangibly. "He's our brother. Nothing more." The words are strangled with jealousy and rage, but also a tinge of... fear? Interesting.
"Well, then. Why don't you give me your names, Sephiroth's little brothers?"
The long haired one scoffs. "You don't need to know our names, Turk. Just tell your master that we're coming for him."
The one with cropped hair smirks, while the leader smiles, the fey smile of madness. "Yes," he says, his voice high and light. "And then the Reunion will come." The anticipation in his voice is unmistakable.
"Reunion?" Veld says, trying to string them out, get them to talk more.
"Reunion," the long haired one replies with a lazy smirk, cat-like. "It's a pity you're not invited."
They laugh, and when the short one looks back at him, the predatory gleam shines clear in his eyes. Leather clad hands shift their grip on the hilt of his sword. "But since you're here, little Turks," he says, sing-song, "Let's play."
--