fic: red apocrypha pt.1 (ffvii)

[jukeboxhound_backup]

 
Red Apocrypha
Part 1, posted 17 November 2007

 

_________ 

“My name is Cloud Strife.  I was born in Nibelheim and I have my mother’s eyes.  My best friend’s name is Zack—“

 

xxx

 

Even though he had, figuratively speaking, fought alongside and saved the world with Cloud Strife, Reeve admitted to himself that the number of facts he knew for certain about the blonde fighter could be counted on one hand.

 

He knew that Cloud had come from the backwater town of Nibelheim to join the SOLDIER program.  He knew that it had been while on a mission to his hometown that Sephiroth had found Jenova and finally snapped, razing the town and everyone within to the ground.  He knew Cloud killed the General, and in a spat of vindictive vengeance Hojo had taken him as a test subject.  Then the kid had somehow escaped and found his amnesiac way to Midgar, where Tifa found him and the story began.  And Reeve knew that somewhere in all of this, Cloud had somehow believed himself to be someone else for a while—but as for all the why’s and wherefore’s, the blond may as well have been a closed book on the most remote shelf in an abandoned library. 

 

Well, he also knew Cloud preferred his tea hot and bitter, so perhaps he knew Cloud better than he had realized.

 

Reeve snorted to himself and wished yet again that he could put himself in Cait Sith and simply not have to deal with anything associated to ShinRa, past or present.

 

“You want to do what?” Elena hissed, slamming her hands down on the battered desk that had been rescued from the ruined ShinRa Tower.  To his credit, Reeve didn’t jump, just looked at her wearily and ran a hand over his face.

 

“Elena,” he said in a forcibly calm voice as he wondered if a tendency for insubordination was a prerequisite for all Turks, “I know you don’t like or trust him.  But the situation being what it is, we don’t have many options.  With the Plate gone and over half of Midgar reduced to rubble, our resources are severely limited.”

 

“But it’s Strife.”  She stressed the name like it was a filthy curse.

 

“Do you have any better ideas?” Reeve finally snapped, long sleepless nights and the stress of rebuilding the largest city on the planet taking its toll on his patience.  “Cloud knows the area—he grew up there, for the Planet’s sake—and Holy knows that after Sephiroth he’ll be able to handle anything that might be there.  And he’s hardly likely to leak any damaging information about ShinRa to the public, not that it would care right now.  He’s capable, strong, and discrete, but most of all, I trust him.”  Holy knew why, if the number of Things He Knew For Certain About Strife reached a grand total of six.  (At least they could be counted on more than one hand.)  “Now, do you have anyone better in mind?”

 

She blinked, obviously taken aback by his uncharacteristically forthright manner, and finally shook her head with a distinctly unhappy expression.  Standing just behind her, Rude was as silent and inscrutable as always behind his shades.

 

“Thank you.”  All the aggression suddenly went out of him with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples tiredly.  “He’ll be here in a few minutes anyway.”

 

“I thought he’d started a delivery service,” she muttered.

 

“Unofficially, whenever he has time between helping the crews rebuild.”  Reeve reached out to absently play with a pen, tapping it restlessly on the desktop.

 

Really, Reeve could understand Elena’s hesitation.  The Turks had tried to kill Cloud, and Aeris, and all of AVALANCHE for that matter, on numerous occasions; but Cloud was a professional and had served as a mercenary himself, and understood that none of it had been personal.

 

Besides, Neo-ShinRa’s new president thought privately, I think he’s too messed up to really care about the Turks.

 

The bare, almost sterile office was silent for a while as the three were lost in their own thoughts.  Then Elena said, very softly, “I hope he’s all right.”

 

Reeve didn’t need to ask.  “We’ll find him,” he vowed solemnly.

 

The door suddenly opened and the two Turks tensed, covertly reaching for weapons, but the familiarity of a blue mako-enhanced gaze made them relax.

 

Reeve stood.  “Hello, Cloud.  Please, come in and sit down.”

 

Cloud glanced briefly at the Turks and took a few steps into the room, letting the door close behind him, but he remained standing.  Used to the man’s blatantly standoffish nature by now, Reeve folded his hands behind his back calmly and looked Cloud in the eye.

 

“Reno is missing.”

 

His eyes flickered towards Elena and Rude, but he said nothing.

 

“He was on a mission to recover Hojo’s old files,” the president said quietly, not missing how Cloud’s gaze suddenly sharpened.  “I felt it’d be best if everything related to him and his methods were under lock and key, if not outright destroyed, so that the next inspired intern wouldn’t be tempted.  However, we lost contact with him four days ago, and he hasn’t returned.”

 

“You want me to find him,” Cloud broke in flatly.

 

“Yes.  Despite past relations and his…personal quirks, Reno is good at what he does.  His knowledge of Midgar’s underworld has helped immensely in our reconstruction, and, well…”

 

“We want him back, with your help or not,” Elena said fiercely.  “And we’re going to do it.”

 

Cloud looked at her, head slightly tilted and an absence in his expression that made Reeve wonder what he was seeing.

 

“Where was he last known?” he asked finally, still staring at Elena.

 

Reeve hesitated for a moment.  “Nibelheim.”

 

He suppressed a wince when Cloud focused on him.  Convincing him to return to his hometown, even to a remade one, would likely be difficult, and definitely unfair.

 

“The ShinRa mansion.”

 

“Yes.  Not many of ShinRa’s papers remain, after Meteor,” Reeve sighed, finally sitting back down and leaning his chin on his hands.  “But there’re enough to give me reason to believe that Nibelheim was Hojo’s headquarters After Crisis.  Supposedly the only ShinRa center in those mountains was the old mako reactor, but abnormally large funds were being diverted there, and with Jenova having been stored there so that Sephiroth just happened to find her, it seemed a logical place to start looking.  Reno’s disappearance only makes me more certain.”

 

“And you want me to go in case there is something,” Cloud deadpanned, and Reeve wished he wouldn’t put it so bluntly.

 

“Partially, yes.  But Cloud…”  He paused, then said in an even softer voice, “The fact that Reno, one of the best Turks ShinRa has ever had—and yes, I’m serious about that—has gone missing means that there’s something there that no one wants found.  After everything Hojo and Sephiroth did against AVALANCHE, I’m not ready to dismiss anything as mere coincidence.  I don’t know the details of what happened in that town, Cloud, but if there’s any sensitive information, I trust you to find out and keep it safe.”

 

He stared hard at the blond, willing him to read between the lines.  Hojo had always been a painfully careful and observant researcher, which meant that he likely had whole volumes on the methods he used to create Sephiroth.  And if that was true, then Cloud himself was likely somewhere in that mess of crablike writing and dusty, bloodstained papers.  Reeve wanted to give him the chance to destroy those documents, so that the humiliation and torture he undoubtedly suffered would never become widely known, and bring back the rest of the reports—to let past demons remain as nothing more than bad memories.

 

It seemed the president hadn’t overestimated him, for Cloud nodded once and his stance relaxed slightly.

 

“You will, of course, be paid as well as we can afford,” Reeve added, though secretly he figured that it was unnecessary.  But appearances were everything in ShinRa, even now, after the near-Apocalypse that had left thousands dead and countless more suffering.  Belatedly he realized that he’d said we, as though ShinRa had never fucked the world over and he was still Secretary of Urban Development, wanting so badly to help the people but forced to deal with sharks that had scented blood-money, and though the end of the world had passed the powerful still ruled over the commoners.  (Names changed, but the past never did).

 

Reeve watched Elena watch Cloud, and her young, pretty face was set with hard determination, the kind of fortitude that came with I hate you, but I hate the situation even more.  The cynical side that had been forged within ShinRa pointed out that such a sentiment was rather unbecoming of Turks, who were supposed to maintain a professional cool in even the most difficult of situations.

 

“Minimum rate,” Cloud said to Reeve, referring to the average payment for a mercenary.

 

The president nodded in agreement, and added, “Elena and Rude will accompany you.”

 

He just blinked slowly, looking like he wouldn’t give a shit if Elena and Rude wanted to elope and have fifteen kids.

 

“With your permission, Cloud, might I suggest taking another along?  Perhaps Tifa or Barret?  Payment would be stretched to include them as well, of course.”

 

After all, one never sent a wounded animal to the lions’ den without protection.

 

“…I’ll consider it,” he muttered.

 

“It’d be best for you to leave as soon as possible, tonight if you can.  I’ve already contacted Cid, and he’s agreed to use the Highwind for your transportation.”  Reeve paused, and looked at Cloud with a penetrating, inscrutable gaze.  “I’m sorry to ask this of you, Cloud; were the circumstances any different, I wouldn’t.  If there’s anything you need at any time, please, don’t hesitate.”

 

Cloud nodded his head once, briefly, and turned to leave.

 

xxx

 

Tifa had been working late in the bar one night.  Reeking of alcohol and her feet sore, she finally threw the last drunkard out just after three o’clock in the morning and, after securing the doors, trudged heavily up the stairs to the living quarters she shared with Marlene and Denzel when Barret was away.  Technically, Cloud also had a room, but he disappeared so often and so variably that he may as well have just been one of the many stray dogs wandering Edge.

 

Tonight was one of the rare nights that the blond had stayed.  She’d hoped, the night before their final decisive battle with Sephiroth in the Northern Crater, that something more than friendship was possible between them, that perhaps he returned her affections.

 

But Cloud, if anything, had only gotten worse since that day.

 

“I can’t save anyone, Tifa.”

 

When she passed the closed bedroom door, Tifa paused, listening for any sound within.  It was almost a reflex, just to make sure that she wasn’t alone in the place, and when she didn’t hear anything, she hesitantly pushed the door open.

 

It was dark—the only light came from outside the window, where the pollution of Neo-Midgar made night into an eternal dusk-lit twilight.  The room was impersonal and bare, and felt as cold and sterile as a hotel-room; the only sign that it was being used was Ultima leaning against the wall near the unused bed, and the long coat slung over the lonely desk.  It took Tifa a moment for her eyes to adjust, and when they did she started a little at seeing Cloud sitting at the head of the bed, fully clothed and leaning against the wall with his legs drawn up.  In the half-darkness, his eyes had glowed a soft, electric green-blue.

 

Tifa left very quickly after that, unnerved.

 

So when Cloud came to her as the late afternoon cast long shadows across the bar’s hardwood floor and told her of his new job, staring down at a slightly greasy tabletop as he did so, she immediately volunteered herself.  Even when she knew that it meant going back to that mockery of their destroyed home, she steeled her resolve and didn’t back down, unwilling to continue letting him face these things alone.

 

Marlene and Denzel were safely sent to Elaine’s and Tifa had one of the barmaids she employed part-time, a sweet young woman whose face had been scarred by a piece of the falling Plate, to take over the bar for the indeterminable amount of time she’d be gone.  Then she and Cloud met Cid at the Highwind on the outskirts of the city, where the two Turks were already waiting.

 

Tifa and Elena exchanged terse greetings while Rude and Cloud said nothing, and with much cursing and verbal abuse of the crew the Highwind set off for the northern expanses of snow and mountains.

 

xxx

 

Reno held a hand over his broken leg in a fruitless attempt to hold it still, and cursed violently in his head.  He was very good at that, cursing, almost as good as he was at killing people.

 

He cast a look towards the ceiling.  He’d already shoved the vent-grate he’d dropped through back into place, and so far, his pursuers hadn’t yet shown up.  They weren’t as good at killing as Reno, but they were pretty damn effective in making you wish they were.

 

There was an urge to curse aloud, but he was better trained than most people believed and he kept his mouth shut.  After several long moments of holding himself utterly still, barely breathing, it was clear that his pursuers had either been thrown off track or given up.  Slowly, he slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, wincing when the centimeters-deep water and filth that covered the stone soaked into his pants.  Drainage pipe, he guessed.  Or a floor vent that was simply neglected, and in a remote wilderness like Nibelheim, it wouldn’t take much time before mildew and rot started creeping in.

 

Or, like the library and the labs, the stone corridor he crouched in was just another hidden aspect of an old mansion run by a now-dead madman.  But Reno, never one to care much for the pomposity and eccentricity of wealth, had other concerns at the moment.

 

Gently, he felt the area of his right thigh through the material of his slacks and had to suppress a hiss of pain.  Experience told him that no bone protruded through the skin, but the break was probably messy and the limb in three or more pieces.  Elena was never going to let him live it down, and Rude would just give him that look that made Reno want to punch him in the face.  His nine-millimeter had three bullets left, two of five knives had been lost or broken, and his nightstick was running low on power; now, with a broken leg, his infamous speed in a fight would be reduced to a slow hobble.

 

Fucking Hojo and his fucking perverted megalomania, fucking scientists for fucking around with nature, he mentally groused.  Planet-damned SOLDIER motherfuckers, with their glowing eyes and freakish unnatural strength.  He wanted a fucking drink—maybe a shot or three of the strongest illegal mako-lanced shit he could find in the slums—but in the meantime, he could use it as a good incentive in getting himself the fuck out of there, yo.  Hell, maybe he could convince Reeve to put it on ShinRa’s tab, in exchange for the camera full of naughty little goodies he’d hidden in a pocket lining his trousers.

 

Reno thought of that camera and the pictures on it, and thought that maybe, hey, Strife did have a good reason for being such a fucked-up sonofabitch.  And maybe it really had been only a matter of time before Sephiroth went insanely AWOL, because Hojo was one sick bastard to rival some of the other sick bastards living in Midgar’s shithole.

 

But.  Enough waffling.

 

Reno used the slimy wall to pull himself to his feet and started limping, painful and slow, down the tunnel as quietly as he could manage.  Fire shot up his leg and lower body every time it bore a little of his weight, but he gritted his teeth against the groans trying to claw their way out of his throat and forced himself forward.  Really, between this, or ending up as another photograph to join the macabre gallery of mutations and experiments, a broken leg and almost imminent demise didn’t seem so terrible in comparison.  Although he could feel the shock from the adrenaline rush and the pain nipping at his heels, and that kind of sucked.  Not in the good way, either.

 

A few illegal shots and a good round of wild monkey-sex, he decided.  Once he got out of here.

 

Time passed in increasingly odd intervals—the shock, damn it—until Reno found himself standing in the musty old mansion with a vague remembrance of stairs and a hidden door to get him there.  He wondered if a good jolt from his nightstick would give him a bit more energy, then decided to save the weapon’s waning power for the bastards he could hear clamoring towards him.

 

How the fuck did they find him?  Cock-sucking sons of bitches.  The only people allowed to cheat like that were Turks.  Or Reno, specifically, because he was just kick-ass like that and enjoyed annoying the crap out of people.

 

Three white-coats.  Probably doctors.  Plus what looked like two SOLDIERs, if he squinted and tilted his head and pretended he had only a vague idea of how human bodies should look.  Two more presences coming up behind him, but he didn’t turn around to look.

 

“Shitty digs here, man,” Reno grinned, just because he could, and because he was even better at annoying people than killing them.  “Fake as Scarlet’s tits.”

 

Which I never even got to see, he sighed to himself as someone shot him from behind with a tranquilizer and sent him falling to the floor in darkness.
________

Chapter Index
 

Comments

[artimusdin.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm. Poor Reno. *grins* But hey, at least HE understands a bit now just why Cloud's as fucked up mentally as he is.

[libsrevenge.livejournal.com]

Fantastic...does part two not work? I am sooo looking foward to more. Have been browsing your fanfics today and have loved every minute of it.

[jukeboxhound.livejournal.com]

Oh, part 2 hasn't been written yet. I just stuck that there to indicate that I intend to finish it, hopefully in the relatively near future. Ha, sorry.

And, uh, thank you? *blushing* XD

[akalillyn.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to more of this. I liked the outside perspective of Cloud. Nice. I'm starting to love all your fics. D:

[jukeboxhound.livejournal.com]

*blushes* *pushes fic under the rug* This is one of many in line to be redone/finished, but thank you. :3

[faicinn-rocais.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor Reno! He is just as good at annoying people as he is at killing them. I wonder if he's annoyed people to death.

Reno definitely has the best lines in this part here.

Kinda feel bad for Cloud--memories and all, but him finding Reno isn't going to be as easy as he thinks its going to be--because Reno is Reno after all.

I love this story! I can't wait for part II.