For Great Justice 1 (7/14)
Title: For Great Justice 1 (7/14)
Authors: sphinxofthenile and _ice_lady_
Fandom: FFVII
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Pairing: Veld/Tseng, more to come in future chapters.
Rating: PG13 this chapter, NC17 whole
Beta: white_jenna, poor girl. :D
Summary: Life happens.
Warning: This arc does not contain incest and shota. Teen romance, though, happens. For the rest… :P Also, spoilers for omg everything!
Word count: 4192
Authors' notes: We really have to apologize for taking this long for this chapter. Sadly... life just sometimes happens.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
---
Reno walked into Training, stifling a yawn and rolling his head around once to move the muscles in his neck, and immediately felt more awake. Thanks to Tseng’s punctuality, he wasn’t late, and yet, all the other six kids were already there.
They stood in two groups that clearly signalled the diversification of strength and intelligence in the group, Reno noted with a small grin. One group consisted of four boys, three brothers and their cousin from Junon; and whoever in their family gave them their names must have had a very weird sense of humour.
Honestly, who the hell named their children John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
They were bulky, but not too bright guys, taken in for their sheer brute strength. They held very closely together, following around John, the eldest, like obedient little puppies.
Reno could already tell John was trouble. The guy paraded around acting like he was the alpha male in the group, and it not only irritated Reno in the worst way imaginable, but the other two trainees as well, who were standing aside.
One was a girl from Mideel called Ivana, the only female in the whole group. With her blonde hair, pretty round face, and deceptively frail body, she looked like a doll, but her body language and blue eyes told a whole different story.
She was talking quietly with the last of the trainees, a tall guy with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, one completely white, wavy lock hanging into his face, and Reno needed only a moment to remember his name: Arsen. He wasn’t really talkative, so Reno had no idea where he came from, but he had a slight accent to his speech that suggested somewhere far, far away.
Ignoring the brutes, he walked up to them, a wide grin on his lips.
“Hi! Ready for the day?”
“Reno.” They both nodded in acknowledgement, but only Ivana smiled back.
Reno wasn’t that fond of any of these people. He had a certain feeling he would never be able to fit in, especially considering the fact that he was tiny, looked at least five years under his age, and was as fresh as a fish that was still in the sea. Considering the fact that these people weren’t that hard to read, he already knew to keep a distance from the four idiots, and had a fairly good idea he would manage to get along quite well with Ivana, though he could be wrong eventually.
Of course, since the word generally travelled faster than light, everyone already knew that the skinny redhead was sleeping with the Turks’ second in command, and the fact that they were sleeping in separate beds wasn’t as important as the first one.
Reno didn’t really mind that, no, since even the four idiots kept their distance, because Reno was certain, were their paths to cross, sparks would be flying, because Reno had one too many memories of empty headed muscles wanting to spread their territory because something as tiny as Reno could easily be broken.
He was pulled out of his musings not by his two very talkative (notice the irony?) companions, but by the click-clacking footsteps resonating through the corridor. All six heads turned towards the sound, and so did Reno. He had a distinct feeling he should be able to recognize the pattern, but somehow it just didn’t dawn on him.
Until the moment he saw the woman making them, that is - tall, amazing long legs, ass to die for and a rack to kill, long brown hair, and a gorgeous smile. What was there not to hate?
Reno thought Caddie was just passing by, but since she stopped right before the small group and smiled, he just knew he was going to hate the day.
“I’m sorry to say, but Ethan’s schedule forced him away from you, guys, so I’ll be in charge for the day. Is that okay?” she asked, smiled that sweet gorgeous smile of hers that, Reno could see, enchanted the four idiots more than chocolate ever could. She looked around them, giving Reno a wink, which caused an unwanted attention in Reno’s direction, but everyone kept their mouths shut. “Since I know you haven’t touched the weaponry yet,” Caddie said, sounding disappointed, “I suppose some hand to hand combat could be a good way to start the day.”
She smiled, then walked through the small group, which then followed her, in the direction of the training hall. Once there, she put her hands on her hips, shifting into professional Turk mode in a heartbeat.
“Stand in pairs now, you sorry excuses for training material!”
As the trainees complied with the order, the usual pairs were formed, and as expected, Reno was left alone. Caddie frowned a bit at that, then smiled brightly again. “I’ll take on you myself. If you are as good as they say, maybe I’ll even have some fun today!”
Reno’s eyes narrowed slightly at the thought, but she was already instructing John and Matthew to take fighting stance, not leaving any chance of response, so after a moment Reno turned his gaze to the two boys exchanging blows, studying their moves.
He didn’t see anything exciting, really. Raw power against raw power; a common occurrence in the slums. Though he noted with a small flicker of interest that John was indeed left-handed, a small detail that might be useful later on. The other thing he noticed (albeit admitted to it reluctantly) was the fact that Caddie’s advice was clever and useful, and he found himself storing away the information and listening on with interest.
The fight of the other two brutes was very similar, but just as Reno anticipated, the one fought by Ivana and Arsen was something else entirely. The girl was very fast and agile, here one moment and there the next, while the boy was clever enough to take the defensive, staying put in one place and trying to outbalance his disadvantages by his greater strength. It lasted for quite a while, but finally Ivana managed to gain the upper hand, knocking him off his feet.
“That’s it, girl!” Caddie smacked Ivana on the shoulder with an expression that could almost pass for a grin. “We don’t want them to get too cocky, now do we?” She winked, and the girl smiled back shyly. Then Caddie extended a hand to Arsen to help him up from the ground. After a moment of hesitation, he accepted the gesture. Once back on his feet, Caddie went on speaking.
“You are not very adept at using your fists. Good balance, good stance though. You have received sword training, am I right?”
“For three years.” Arsen was clearly surprised by that remark, almost looking embarrassed, which made Reno really curious, but Caddie didn’t push for details.
“I’ll talk to Ethan to put more basics in your schedule then. Or else, she’ll keep on kicking that pretty ass of yours.” She winked. Then, she turned on her heels and gave Reno the look that would have easily frozen him had she not been smiling. “Your turn now, little red riding hood,” she said and the practice room was filled with muted chuckles. Reno growled at her, but she seemed unfazed.
She nodded towards one of the training areas; smaller rectangular spaces with softened floors, the one she wasn’t standing momentarily at. Reno walked casually towards it, then turned around and looked at the woman. Her walk was deliberately slow then, just before she would step on the softened floor, she squatted and took her shoes off, and Reno had to force himself from gawking at the fact that she was wearing pink socks with tiny red hearts.
What the fuck?
She stood up, unzipped her suit coat and let it slide off her shoulders, neatly folding it and leaving it on the shoes. Then, she stepped closer to Reno, and Reno noticed the woman wasn’t wearing a bra. Well, god damn, he thought, that sure was a nice rack. Definitely answered the question of what Tseng saw in her. The white shirt was practically see through, like it wasn’t even there, and Reno realized that something like this could be a bit too distracting had he not had a mission. And that mission was to prove that he was stronger and better than Tseng’s fuck-toy. If he managed to knock that bald gorilla back then, then he was going to at least leave a bruise or two on this chick.
She put her hand into her pants pocket and pulled out pink scrunchy (Reno realized it was the same shade as the socks) and tied her hair into a tight ponytail. “Ready?” she asked with a wink, her lips spread in a big smile. She shook her head a bit, making sure the ponytail was in place, then took a starting fighting position (at least Reno thought that was what it was, with her legs slightly spread, one before the other, hands in some weird protective stance before her chest and the fact that her usually smiling face turned serious and threatening in an instant).
“Ready,” Reno answered, not bothering to do any of this fancy show-off shit. He relaxed, letting his shoulders droop, and just observed. Living in the streets taught him one very important thing - let others make the first mistake, that way you could use it and run the hell away before they pulled out a gun.
Reno lived by the rule. The fact that he had survived all these years was more than enough of a proof for him. Since he was tiny, the most common mistake was simply not seeing him as a threat. Others that did always underestimated him. If he looked casual and non-observant enough, then Caddie was bound to repeat the same mistake.
Her first move was rather slow, probably deliberately so. She just stepped forward and extended her right arm towards Reno’s chest. He evaded it easily and jumped back, expecting more to come. Instead, she pulled back as well and paused.
Her next blow wasn’t that much faster either. She estimated where he’d be, jumped slightly front and extended her arm again. Reno wasn’t stupid; he moved accordingly and she missed him. Again, she pulled back and watched for a few moments.
Next time, as expected, she slightly changed her tactics. She used her fist, then tried to cut Reno’s move with her leg. Reno predicted it and came out of it both without a scratch and hitting her knee.
She pulled back, tested her knee a few times, then resumed her stance. The next pause was a bit longer with her still trying to determine whether to use the knee to its full capacity or no.
Reno became cocky; he approached her, keeping his stability on his right leg, then swiftly changing it to kick her in the loin with that leg. She did manage to smack Reno in the process, but the victory was definitely not hers.
She jumped back, trying to hide her hiss. Her cheeks were already flushed and her breathing became deeper, faster.
Reno couldn’t believe it. That was it? He danced around her with ease and she was already showing signs of fatigue. So far, the only person that had actually presented to be of any threat was Veld, which was, of course, logical due to his position. Reno had a distinct feeling Tseng was highly trained too, since he was positioned directly under Veld, but if the rest of them were anything like Caddie, no wonder Reno had managed to make that gorilla pass out.
He noticed all eyes were on them, in sheer disbelief as Reno kept on pushing and pushing, hitting Caddie almost every time and constantly being fast enough to be outside her reach; and every time she missed, she’d become more tired. She wasn’t even just breathing heavily by now, she was fighting for air.
Then, Reno heard the door open. He glanced quickly and saw that the man entering was Ethan, but then he returned his attention to the fight and punched Caddie in the shoulder. He couldn’t help it, he was a show-off.
“Oh, give the boy a break, Cadence,” Reno heard Ethan say and, after that, his mind simply wasn’t fast enough to collect all that happened. One second, he was trying to punch Caddie again, and the next, he found himself on the floor, the force of collision strong enough to expel all the air from his lungs.
He felt Caddie grip his arm in a way that he had to arch his back and tilt his head backwards in hope that the pain would stop. He did see Ethan shake his head, both annoyed and amused.
“But they’re cute when they think they’re winning,” she said. Reno noticed there was no heaviness of breath in her voice. “You okay there, pooch?” she asked Reno as she let him go.
Reno got up and noticed that she wasn’t even flushed any more. She didn’t look anything like that out of breath tired woman from a minute ago. She went to put her jacket and shoes back on and she shot Reno a grin.
“You’re quite good,” she said and Reno opened his mouth to say something down the line of obviously not being good enough, but she was faster. “Would be a waste to focus on the guns.” She looked at Ethan and he wanted to say something in protest, obviously knowing her too well, but he too wasn’t fast enough. “Want him,” she pointed at Reno, “the chick and the bishie boy,” she eyed Ivana and Arsen, “three hours a week for martial arts.”
Ethan shrugged. “If Veld agrees and Tseng wants to, I see no reason not to.”
“Great,” Caddie said smiling. She ruffled Reno’s hair in the passing and Reno growled at her, but she ignored him as she walked out of the room.
Reno looked at his two new… well, whatever the hell they were. They looked equally puzzled so he turned his eyes meekly at Ethan. “We are being trained by Tseng?”
Ethan nodded. “Him and Caddie are martial arts trainers when we have candidates for it.” He paused for a moment, eyeing Reno, Ivana and then Arsen. “Don’t remember having three in the same group ever, though.” As Ethan said those words, Reno looked towards the four brothers (three brothers and a cousin, whatever), who looked a few levels above pissed for obviously losing some sort of supremacy battle nobody but them knew they were having.
Reno couldn’t stop thinking that them losing meant him winning, in that very same strange sort of way. He grinned, thinking he couldn’t wait to tell Tseng that, but then John seemed as though he would like to kick Reno’s ass. Not that that bothered him right now, being chosen for that very special martial arts group ran by Tseng and Caddie.
Then, he remembered who Tseng and Caddie were and he was probably doomed with weeks and even months of watching the two flirting and teasing and doing… stuff. Not that he knew what ‘stuff’ was, but he knew they were going to do it and he sure as hell wasn’t going to like it. It made the sweetness of the victory seem awfully bitter all of a sudden.
The feeling came back even stronger when he finally left the floor. His mood was lifted after they left Training and went to the showers. With the three of them receiving the privilege of attending martial arts, the ties automatically grew stronger between them and the gap between them and the four brutes widened with the speed of light.
But Reno couldn’t care less about that. What he did care about was the fact that on the way to the showers Ivana asked him to join them for lunch in the canteen, and Arsen didn’t protest. The fact that the ‘bishie boy’ (Reno couldn’t help but inwardly grin at how Ivana immediately picked up that nickname, and he also made a mental note to ask Tseng later on what it meant) let him take the last piece of cherry pie. Maybe, they weren’t so bad after all, and Reno couldn’t help it, he was a social person, and it made him feel so much better.
They’ve talked about the training first, that was the most obvious choice of topic if they didn’t want to sit together silently for twenty minutes. Then they moved onto other neutral areas, like favourite foods and drinks, and soon, Reno found himself telling a story about the speak-easy they frequently visited with the other kids, and saw no distaste on their faces.
After that they still had fifteen more minutes until their next scheduled activity, so they stopped at the buffet to have a drink. Arsen chose coffee, and Reno followed his example. Not that the tea Tseng made was bad, but it was good to drink something else for a change. Quite surprisingly, Ivana decided on cocoa, putting some reddish thing into her steaming drink. She answered Reno’s questioning look with a hint of weariness.
“It’s cayenne. Makes it spicier.”
Reno just shook his head, completely clueless why would anyone want to add anything to a perfectly good cocoa if it wasn’t whipped cream. “Always knew you were some crazy folk down there in the jungle, magical dances and all.”
Eyes quadrupling in size, Ivana tried hard not to choke on the gulp she was swallowing, and failed miserably. Helping her with a few convivial pats on the back, Reno couldn’t refrain from laughing, and he could see Arsen’s lips twitch before the older boy turned away to get a napkin just in case.
---
“So this is, like, your lunch break or something?” Caddie asked with a smile as she seated herself opposite of Tseng in the building’s cafeteria.
Tseng took a sip of his tea, returned the smile and glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, since it’s five to four, at least no one can blame me for slacking.”
“Oh, shit!” Caddie exclaimed a bit too loudly. “It is?”
Tseng nodded, the smile on his lips turning to bitter. “Having to find a good explanation to why thirty bottles of liquid gas are missing takes… time. Among other things,” he added dryly.
“Aw, shit, Tseng, I’m…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hey, you were there!” Caddie defended.
Tseng took another long sip, big enough to empty the cup. “You said you’d take care of it,” he whispered, leaning closer to her.
She mirrored his actions, smiling. Her eyes glanced around the almost empty cafeteria serving as a restaurant until around noon. No one was paying much attention to the two Turks, but they were still being cautious, since neither of them was wishing to pay the loss from their own pockets.
“Ethan called me,” she said loudly, shrugging. Then she lowered her voice. “So, how d’you do it?”
Tseng leaned a bit more closer, speaking through his teeth. “Sure as hell didn’t tell him about the exploding balloons.” Of course, that was a blatant lie. Tseng had told Veld, and the two of them had spent the most of the past two hours trying to figure out the way to make the explanation seem valid. If there was one thing that worked perfectly with ShinRa, it was making sure that every gil was used to the fullest. “I don’t understand where you two get these ideas.”
Caddie chuckled and raised her eyebrows. “Generally from the bottoms of very cheap vodka bottles.”
“I gathered as much,” Tseng said frowning.
Caddie actually giggled, then she moved back, leaning into her chair. “That kid of yours,” she said, volume of her voice normal now. It got Tseng’s attention, but that just amused her. She didn’t say a thing, but she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket instead.
“No smoking in here,” Tseng said.
“Oh? You gonna stop me?”
Tseng’s eyes rolled almost unnoticeably. “You mean, as your superior officer and all?”
She poked her tongue at him as an answer, but she didn’t pull a cigarette out, so it was obvious the message did get through.
“That… kid of mine,” Tseng urged, which made Caddie laugh.
“Fast kid,” she said, then put the pack back into her pocket. “Not faster than me, though.” She smirked and elbowed her body onto the table.
Tseng shook his head slightly. “Why do I have a feeling Rude won’t hear the end of it?”
“Well…” Her lips spread into a wide grin. “Because he won’t?”
“You’re such a child, Cadence.”
She pursed her lips, pouting a bit too theatrically. “I’m just misunderstood.”
“Ha, ha…” Tseng mocked, voice serious. “I suggest you get the ‘mis’ out of your ass because I have a distinct feeling Veld might like to solve the mystery of those disappearing helium tanks from the labs.”
“Hey, those were Rude’s doing!” The grin instantly disappeared from Caddie’s lips. “I’m not accountable for that man’s voice fetish.”
Tseng visibly cringed. “I’d rather not know certain things about my subordinates, thank you.”
Once again, Caddie grinned. “No adding the colour of my thong in the report, then?”
Tseng sighed. He’d given up trying to figure out that special trait that makes a Turk out of a man (or a woman) because, he had a feeling, the knowledge would cause world destruction or at least chronic headaches. In the end, he was carrying a higher rank than her. “So, how did it go?” he asked instead.
Caddie shrugged, playing with the lighter that remained in her fingers, even though Tseng hadn’t noticed it before. “We’ll have three of them this time.”
Tseng raised one eyebrow. “You are serious.”
Caddie nodded. “Yup.” She raised her eyes and locked them with Tseng’s. “Your menace, that girl who I’d just want to feed until she stops looking like death on leave, and that sweet little bottle of poison,” she said as a rather worrying (for Tseng) sort of smile appeared on her lips.
“Caddie,” Tseng pulled her out of whatever place she had been heading. “He is our protégé, is that understood?”
She nodded, chuckling. “Oh, I’ll protect him, alright. Put him in a pretty little cage next to my bed and make him do tricks for treats.”
“Caddie,” Tseng said louder this time, both eyebrows up. “Focus. As far as I know, you lack that specific thing that makes men’s brains leak between their legs.”
“Oh, you mean a vagina? I have it right there…” She lowered her eyes onto her lap.
“That’s it.” Tseng hit his palms onto the table surface a bit too loudly. The girl behind the counter, the ‘coffee girl’ as they called her, glanced towards the sound, but she quickly returned to doing whatever she was doing, which was probably making up something to keep herself busy. “You get Reno, I get Arsen.”
“Do I get to watch?” she said and Tseng choked. He spent the next few seconds coughing and Caddie didn’t even bother helping him out. She chuckled instead, relaxing in her chair. Once Tseng was done, she wiggled her eyebrow for a second and grinned. “We can share, you know? Always wanted to see you fuck another man.”
“Goodbye, Cadence,” Tseng said and got up from his chair. He knew she was teasing, pushing his limits to see when he was going to snap which he, of course, wasn’t going to give her no matter what else she said.
“I suppose you’re just too perfect for earthly pleasures,” Tseng heard her mutter. She knew it was loud enough for him to hear, and she added a teasing note to it, but Tseng decided to ignore it as he waved his hand at her without bothering to look back on his way to the door. It was far too late, he still had far too much to do before Ethan would dismiss the trainees and he probably wouldn’t hear the end of it once he’d be in the car with Reno.
His life suddenly seemed way too complicated. He was supposed to be a mentor and a trainer to a kid he was living with (whom he’d actually managed to grow feelings for in such a short time, even though he was still too afraid to admit it). He just knew the alarms in his head far too well, and the fact that he was going to have to keep one eye on Caddie the entire time wasn’t helping. And, of course, there was work in general, which kept on piling up upon already existing piles, and Veld wasn’t going to cut him some slack any time soon.
He felt his cell phone vibrate in his suit jacket’s pocket. He pulled it out, noticing it was Veld. This just wasn’t good. “Tseng,” he said, sighing, as he hurried his step down the hallway to the elevator.
“Six tanks of compressed helium,” Veld said, not amused. “What do you know about it?”
Authors: sphinxofthenile and _ice_lady_
Fandom: FFVII
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Pairing: Veld/Tseng, more to come in future chapters.
Rating: PG13 this chapter, NC17 whole
Beta: white_jenna, poor girl. :D
Summary: Life happens.
Warning: This arc does not contain incest and shota. Teen romance, though, happens. For the rest… :P Also, spoilers for omg everything!
Word count: 4192
Authors' notes: We really have to apologize for taking this long for this chapter. Sadly... life just sometimes happens.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
---
Reno walked into Training, stifling a yawn and rolling his head around once to move the muscles in his neck, and immediately felt more awake. Thanks to Tseng’s punctuality, he wasn’t late, and yet, all the other six kids were already there.
They stood in two groups that clearly signalled the diversification of strength and intelligence in the group, Reno noted with a small grin. One group consisted of four boys, three brothers and their cousin from Junon; and whoever in their family gave them their names must have had a very weird sense of humour.
Honestly, who the hell named their children John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
They were bulky, but not too bright guys, taken in for their sheer brute strength. They held very closely together, following around John, the eldest, like obedient little puppies.
Reno could already tell John was trouble. The guy paraded around acting like he was the alpha male in the group, and it not only irritated Reno in the worst way imaginable, but the other two trainees as well, who were standing aside.
One was a girl from Mideel called Ivana, the only female in the whole group. With her blonde hair, pretty round face, and deceptively frail body, she looked like a doll, but her body language and blue eyes told a whole different story.
She was talking quietly with the last of the trainees, a tall guy with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, one completely white, wavy lock hanging into his face, and Reno needed only a moment to remember his name: Arsen. He wasn’t really talkative, so Reno had no idea where he came from, but he had a slight accent to his speech that suggested somewhere far, far away.
Ignoring the brutes, he walked up to them, a wide grin on his lips.
“Hi! Ready for the day?”
“Reno.” They both nodded in acknowledgement, but only Ivana smiled back.
Reno wasn’t that fond of any of these people. He had a certain feeling he would never be able to fit in, especially considering the fact that he was tiny, looked at least five years under his age, and was as fresh as a fish that was still in the sea. Considering the fact that these people weren’t that hard to read, he already knew to keep a distance from the four idiots, and had a fairly good idea he would manage to get along quite well with Ivana, though he could be wrong eventually.
Of course, since the word generally travelled faster than light, everyone already knew that the skinny redhead was sleeping with the Turks’ second in command, and the fact that they were sleeping in separate beds wasn’t as important as the first one.
Reno didn’t really mind that, no, since even the four idiots kept their distance, because Reno was certain, were their paths to cross, sparks would be flying, because Reno had one too many memories of empty headed muscles wanting to spread their territory because something as tiny as Reno could easily be broken.
He was pulled out of his musings not by his two very talkative (notice the irony?) companions, but by the click-clacking footsteps resonating through the corridor. All six heads turned towards the sound, and so did Reno. He had a distinct feeling he should be able to recognize the pattern, but somehow it just didn’t dawn on him.
Until the moment he saw the woman making them, that is - tall, amazing long legs, ass to die for and a rack to kill, long brown hair, and a gorgeous smile. What was there not to hate?
Reno thought Caddie was just passing by, but since she stopped right before the small group and smiled, he just knew he was going to hate the day.
“I’m sorry to say, but Ethan’s schedule forced him away from you, guys, so I’ll be in charge for the day. Is that okay?” she asked, smiled that sweet gorgeous smile of hers that, Reno could see, enchanted the four idiots more than chocolate ever could. She looked around them, giving Reno a wink, which caused an unwanted attention in Reno’s direction, but everyone kept their mouths shut. “Since I know you haven’t touched the weaponry yet,” Caddie said, sounding disappointed, “I suppose some hand to hand combat could be a good way to start the day.”
She smiled, then walked through the small group, which then followed her, in the direction of the training hall. Once there, she put her hands on her hips, shifting into professional Turk mode in a heartbeat.
“Stand in pairs now, you sorry excuses for training material!”
As the trainees complied with the order, the usual pairs were formed, and as expected, Reno was left alone. Caddie frowned a bit at that, then smiled brightly again. “I’ll take on you myself. If you are as good as they say, maybe I’ll even have some fun today!”
Reno’s eyes narrowed slightly at the thought, but she was already instructing John and Matthew to take fighting stance, not leaving any chance of response, so after a moment Reno turned his gaze to the two boys exchanging blows, studying their moves.
He didn’t see anything exciting, really. Raw power against raw power; a common occurrence in the slums. Though he noted with a small flicker of interest that John was indeed left-handed, a small detail that might be useful later on. The other thing he noticed (albeit admitted to it reluctantly) was the fact that Caddie’s advice was clever and useful, and he found himself storing away the information and listening on with interest.
The fight of the other two brutes was very similar, but just as Reno anticipated, the one fought by Ivana and Arsen was something else entirely. The girl was very fast and agile, here one moment and there the next, while the boy was clever enough to take the defensive, staying put in one place and trying to outbalance his disadvantages by his greater strength. It lasted for quite a while, but finally Ivana managed to gain the upper hand, knocking him off his feet.
“That’s it, girl!” Caddie smacked Ivana on the shoulder with an expression that could almost pass for a grin. “We don’t want them to get too cocky, now do we?” She winked, and the girl smiled back shyly. Then Caddie extended a hand to Arsen to help him up from the ground. After a moment of hesitation, he accepted the gesture. Once back on his feet, Caddie went on speaking.
“You are not very adept at using your fists. Good balance, good stance though. You have received sword training, am I right?”
“For three years.” Arsen was clearly surprised by that remark, almost looking embarrassed, which made Reno really curious, but Caddie didn’t push for details.
“I’ll talk to Ethan to put more basics in your schedule then. Or else, she’ll keep on kicking that pretty ass of yours.” She winked. Then, she turned on her heels and gave Reno the look that would have easily frozen him had she not been smiling. “Your turn now, little red riding hood,” she said and the practice room was filled with muted chuckles. Reno growled at her, but she seemed unfazed.
She nodded towards one of the training areas; smaller rectangular spaces with softened floors, the one she wasn’t standing momentarily at. Reno walked casually towards it, then turned around and looked at the woman. Her walk was deliberately slow then, just before she would step on the softened floor, she squatted and took her shoes off, and Reno had to force himself from gawking at the fact that she was wearing pink socks with tiny red hearts.
What the fuck?
She stood up, unzipped her suit coat and let it slide off her shoulders, neatly folding it and leaving it on the shoes. Then, she stepped closer to Reno, and Reno noticed the woman wasn’t wearing a bra. Well, god damn, he thought, that sure was a nice rack. Definitely answered the question of what Tseng saw in her. The white shirt was practically see through, like it wasn’t even there, and Reno realized that something like this could be a bit too distracting had he not had a mission. And that mission was to prove that he was stronger and better than Tseng’s fuck-toy. If he managed to knock that bald gorilla back then, then he was going to at least leave a bruise or two on this chick.
She put her hand into her pants pocket and pulled out pink scrunchy (Reno realized it was the same shade as the socks) and tied her hair into a tight ponytail. “Ready?” she asked with a wink, her lips spread in a big smile. She shook her head a bit, making sure the ponytail was in place, then took a starting fighting position (at least Reno thought that was what it was, with her legs slightly spread, one before the other, hands in some weird protective stance before her chest and the fact that her usually smiling face turned serious and threatening in an instant).
“Ready,” Reno answered, not bothering to do any of this fancy show-off shit. He relaxed, letting his shoulders droop, and just observed. Living in the streets taught him one very important thing - let others make the first mistake, that way you could use it and run the hell away before they pulled out a gun.
Reno lived by the rule. The fact that he had survived all these years was more than enough of a proof for him. Since he was tiny, the most common mistake was simply not seeing him as a threat. Others that did always underestimated him. If he looked casual and non-observant enough, then Caddie was bound to repeat the same mistake.
Her first move was rather slow, probably deliberately so. She just stepped forward and extended her right arm towards Reno’s chest. He evaded it easily and jumped back, expecting more to come. Instead, she pulled back as well and paused.
Her next blow wasn’t that much faster either. She estimated where he’d be, jumped slightly front and extended her arm again. Reno wasn’t stupid; he moved accordingly and she missed him. Again, she pulled back and watched for a few moments.
Next time, as expected, she slightly changed her tactics. She used her fist, then tried to cut Reno’s move with her leg. Reno predicted it and came out of it both without a scratch and hitting her knee.
She pulled back, tested her knee a few times, then resumed her stance. The next pause was a bit longer with her still trying to determine whether to use the knee to its full capacity or no.
Reno became cocky; he approached her, keeping his stability on his right leg, then swiftly changing it to kick her in the loin with that leg. She did manage to smack Reno in the process, but the victory was definitely not hers.
She jumped back, trying to hide her hiss. Her cheeks were already flushed and her breathing became deeper, faster.
Reno couldn’t believe it. That was it? He danced around her with ease and she was already showing signs of fatigue. So far, the only person that had actually presented to be of any threat was Veld, which was, of course, logical due to his position. Reno had a distinct feeling Tseng was highly trained too, since he was positioned directly under Veld, but if the rest of them were anything like Caddie, no wonder Reno had managed to make that gorilla pass out.
He noticed all eyes were on them, in sheer disbelief as Reno kept on pushing and pushing, hitting Caddie almost every time and constantly being fast enough to be outside her reach; and every time she missed, she’d become more tired. She wasn’t even just breathing heavily by now, she was fighting for air.
Then, Reno heard the door open. He glanced quickly and saw that the man entering was Ethan, but then he returned his attention to the fight and punched Caddie in the shoulder. He couldn’t help it, he was a show-off.
“Oh, give the boy a break, Cadence,” Reno heard Ethan say and, after that, his mind simply wasn’t fast enough to collect all that happened. One second, he was trying to punch Caddie again, and the next, he found himself on the floor, the force of collision strong enough to expel all the air from his lungs.
He felt Caddie grip his arm in a way that he had to arch his back and tilt his head backwards in hope that the pain would stop. He did see Ethan shake his head, both annoyed and amused.
“But they’re cute when they think they’re winning,” she said. Reno noticed there was no heaviness of breath in her voice. “You okay there, pooch?” she asked Reno as she let him go.
Reno got up and noticed that she wasn’t even flushed any more. She didn’t look anything like that out of breath tired woman from a minute ago. She went to put her jacket and shoes back on and she shot Reno a grin.
“You’re quite good,” she said and Reno opened his mouth to say something down the line of obviously not being good enough, but she was faster. “Would be a waste to focus on the guns.” She looked at Ethan and he wanted to say something in protest, obviously knowing her too well, but he too wasn’t fast enough. “Want him,” she pointed at Reno, “the chick and the bishie boy,” she eyed Ivana and Arsen, “three hours a week for martial arts.”
Ethan shrugged. “If Veld agrees and Tseng wants to, I see no reason not to.”
“Great,” Caddie said smiling. She ruffled Reno’s hair in the passing and Reno growled at her, but she ignored him as she walked out of the room.
Reno looked at his two new… well, whatever the hell they were. They looked equally puzzled so he turned his eyes meekly at Ethan. “We are being trained by Tseng?”
Ethan nodded. “Him and Caddie are martial arts trainers when we have candidates for it.” He paused for a moment, eyeing Reno, Ivana and then Arsen. “Don’t remember having three in the same group ever, though.” As Ethan said those words, Reno looked towards the four brothers (three brothers and a cousin, whatever), who looked a few levels above pissed for obviously losing some sort of supremacy battle nobody but them knew they were having.
Reno couldn’t stop thinking that them losing meant him winning, in that very same strange sort of way. He grinned, thinking he couldn’t wait to tell Tseng that, but then John seemed as though he would like to kick Reno’s ass. Not that that bothered him right now, being chosen for that very special martial arts group ran by Tseng and Caddie.
Then, he remembered who Tseng and Caddie were and he was probably doomed with weeks and even months of watching the two flirting and teasing and doing… stuff. Not that he knew what ‘stuff’ was, but he knew they were going to do it and he sure as hell wasn’t going to like it. It made the sweetness of the victory seem awfully bitter all of a sudden.
The feeling came back even stronger when he finally left the floor. His mood was lifted after they left Training and went to the showers. With the three of them receiving the privilege of attending martial arts, the ties automatically grew stronger between them and the gap between them and the four brutes widened with the speed of light.
But Reno couldn’t care less about that. What he did care about was the fact that on the way to the showers Ivana asked him to join them for lunch in the canteen, and Arsen didn’t protest. The fact that the ‘bishie boy’ (Reno couldn’t help but inwardly grin at how Ivana immediately picked up that nickname, and he also made a mental note to ask Tseng later on what it meant) let him take the last piece of cherry pie. Maybe, they weren’t so bad after all, and Reno couldn’t help it, he was a social person, and it made him feel so much better.
They’ve talked about the training first, that was the most obvious choice of topic if they didn’t want to sit together silently for twenty minutes. Then they moved onto other neutral areas, like favourite foods and drinks, and soon, Reno found himself telling a story about the speak-easy they frequently visited with the other kids, and saw no distaste on their faces.
After that they still had fifteen more minutes until their next scheduled activity, so they stopped at the buffet to have a drink. Arsen chose coffee, and Reno followed his example. Not that the tea Tseng made was bad, but it was good to drink something else for a change. Quite surprisingly, Ivana decided on cocoa, putting some reddish thing into her steaming drink. She answered Reno’s questioning look with a hint of weariness.
“It’s cayenne. Makes it spicier.”
Reno just shook his head, completely clueless why would anyone want to add anything to a perfectly good cocoa if it wasn’t whipped cream. “Always knew you were some crazy folk down there in the jungle, magical dances and all.”
Eyes quadrupling in size, Ivana tried hard not to choke on the gulp she was swallowing, and failed miserably. Helping her with a few convivial pats on the back, Reno couldn’t refrain from laughing, and he could see Arsen’s lips twitch before the older boy turned away to get a napkin just in case.
---
“So this is, like, your lunch break or something?” Caddie asked with a smile as she seated herself opposite of Tseng in the building’s cafeteria.
Tseng took a sip of his tea, returned the smile and glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, since it’s five to four, at least no one can blame me for slacking.”
“Oh, shit!” Caddie exclaimed a bit too loudly. “It is?”
Tseng nodded, the smile on his lips turning to bitter. “Having to find a good explanation to why thirty bottles of liquid gas are missing takes… time. Among other things,” he added dryly.
“Aw, shit, Tseng, I’m…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hey, you were there!” Caddie defended.
Tseng took another long sip, big enough to empty the cup. “You said you’d take care of it,” he whispered, leaning closer to her.
She mirrored his actions, smiling. Her eyes glanced around the almost empty cafeteria serving as a restaurant until around noon. No one was paying much attention to the two Turks, but they were still being cautious, since neither of them was wishing to pay the loss from their own pockets.
“Ethan called me,” she said loudly, shrugging. Then she lowered her voice. “So, how d’you do it?”
Tseng leaned a bit more closer, speaking through his teeth. “Sure as hell didn’t tell him about the exploding balloons.” Of course, that was a blatant lie. Tseng had told Veld, and the two of them had spent the most of the past two hours trying to figure out the way to make the explanation seem valid. If there was one thing that worked perfectly with ShinRa, it was making sure that every gil was used to the fullest. “I don’t understand where you two get these ideas.”
Caddie chuckled and raised her eyebrows. “Generally from the bottoms of very cheap vodka bottles.”
“I gathered as much,” Tseng said frowning.
Caddie actually giggled, then she moved back, leaning into her chair. “That kid of yours,” she said, volume of her voice normal now. It got Tseng’s attention, but that just amused her. She didn’t say a thing, but she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket instead.
“No smoking in here,” Tseng said.
“Oh? You gonna stop me?”
Tseng’s eyes rolled almost unnoticeably. “You mean, as your superior officer and all?”
She poked her tongue at him as an answer, but she didn’t pull a cigarette out, so it was obvious the message did get through.
“That… kid of mine,” Tseng urged, which made Caddie laugh.
“Fast kid,” she said, then put the pack back into her pocket. “Not faster than me, though.” She smirked and elbowed her body onto the table.
Tseng shook his head slightly. “Why do I have a feeling Rude won’t hear the end of it?”
“Well…” Her lips spread into a wide grin. “Because he won’t?”
“You’re such a child, Cadence.”
She pursed her lips, pouting a bit too theatrically. “I’m just misunderstood.”
“Ha, ha…” Tseng mocked, voice serious. “I suggest you get the ‘mis’ out of your ass because I have a distinct feeling Veld might like to solve the mystery of those disappearing helium tanks from the labs.”
“Hey, those were Rude’s doing!” The grin instantly disappeared from Caddie’s lips. “I’m not accountable for that man’s voice fetish.”
Tseng visibly cringed. “I’d rather not know certain things about my subordinates, thank you.”
Once again, Caddie grinned. “No adding the colour of my thong in the report, then?”
Tseng sighed. He’d given up trying to figure out that special trait that makes a Turk out of a man (or a woman) because, he had a feeling, the knowledge would cause world destruction or at least chronic headaches. In the end, he was carrying a higher rank than her. “So, how did it go?” he asked instead.
Caddie shrugged, playing with the lighter that remained in her fingers, even though Tseng hadn’t noticed it before. “We’ll have three of them this time.”
Tseng raised one eyebrow. “You are serious.”
Caddie nodded. “Yup.” She raised her eyes and locked them with Tseng’s. “Your menace, that girl who I’d just want to feed until she stops looking like death on leave, and that sweet little bottle of poison,” she said as a rather worrying (for Tseng) sort of smile appeared on her lips.
“Caddie,” Tseng pulled her out of whatever place she had been heading. “He is our protégé, is that understood?”
She nodded, chuckling. “Oh, I’ll protect him, alright. Put him in a pretty little cage next to my bed and make him do tricks for treats.”
“Caddie,” Tseng said louder this time, both eyebrows up. “Focus. As far as I know, you lack that specific thing that makes men’s brains leak between their legs.”
“Oh, you mean a vagina? I have it right there…” She lowered her eyes onto her lap.
“That’s it.” Tseng hit his palms onto the table surface a bit too loudly. The girl behind the counter, the ‘coffee girl’ as they called her, glanced towards the sound, but she quickly returned to doing whatever she was doing, which was probably making up something to keep herself busy. “You get Reno, I get Arsen.”
“Do I get to watch?” she said and Tseng choked. He spent the next few seconds coughing and Caddie didn’t even bother helping him out. She chuckled instead, relaxing in her chair. Once Tseng was done, she wiggled her eyebrow for a second and grinned. “We can share, you know? Always wanted to see you fuck another man.”
“Goodbye, Cadence,” Tseng said and got up from his chair. He knew she was teasing, pushing his limits to see when he was going to snap which he, of course, wasn’t going to give her no matter what else she said.
“I suppose you’re just too perfect for earthly pleasures,” Tseng heard her mutter. She knew it was loud enough for him to hear, and she added a teasing note to it, but Tseng decided to ignore it as he waved his hand at her without bothering to look back on his way to the door. It was far too late, he still had far too much to do before Ethan would dismiss the trainees and he probably wouldn’t hear the end of it once he’d be in the car with Reno.
His life suddenly seemed way too complicated. He was supposed to be a mentor and a trainer to a kid he was living with (whom he’d actually managed to grow feelings for in such a short time, even though he was still too afraid to admit it). He just knew the alarms in his head far too well, and the fact that he was going to have to keep one eye on Caddie the entire time wasn’t helping. And, of course, there was work in general, which kept on piling up upon already existing piles, and Veld wasn’t going to cut him some slack any time soon.
He felt his cell phone vibrate in his suit jacket’s pocket. He pulled it out, noticing it was Veld. This just wasn’t good. “Tseng,” he said, sighing, as he hurried his step down the hallway to the elevator.
“Six tanks of compressed helium,” Veld said, not amused. “What do you know about it?”