Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Past Grudges, Saving Graces ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter III
A strange sense of bonding, search and rescue, and a false sense of closure...

Yuffie eyed Reno cautiously. She gritted her teeth in annoyance. Of all the Turks to be trapped in a building with, it had to be him? Rude she could handle. Elena would be tough, but she wouldn't be nearly as bad. But Reno?

She sighed as she leant back against the wall. It was late at night and she wanted to get in some semblance of sleep. Once she was rested, maybe she could think up a means to escape.

Reno slowly curled up on the cot and stretched out, his six foot tall frame using up every inch of the surface, and then some. He sighed and then began to softly snore.

Figures. Yuffie growled as she struggled on the bench to find a comfortable position to sit in. It was going to be a long night.

"I don't like this, Rude." Elena paced the length of the Turks' office. "He hasn't been gone this long before."

"I know, Elena. I'm sure he's fine, wherever he is." Rude offered a slight, reassuring smile, a rare gesture. "Now please, Elena, stop pacing... you're making me dizzy."

Elena gave in and sat on the nearest chair, just in time to see the door burst open. Reeve abruptly entered, stress clearly evident on her face.

Elena shot out of her seat. "Reeve?! What's going on? News on Reno?"

"No... I think I may have a job for you two." He slammed a newspaper on the desk.

"Wait... without Reno?" Elena crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Reeve, you know we work as a team."

"I know, I know... but this needs our attention now."

"But..." Rude hushed her with a wave of his arm. "Continue."

"You know that pact we made with Cosmo Canyon, Wutai, and Mideel?"

Elena sat down and crossed her legs. "Yeah, the peace and protection act. What about it?"

"I got a call from Lord Godo of Wutai, yesterday afternoon. This was in the Wutai Times today." He pointed to the newspaper laying on the table.

Rude picked up the newspaper and opened it up to the cover page. "'Lady Yuffie Kisaragi kidnapped.' Hmm..." He looked over the page, and handed it to Elena.

"Godo got a ransom note yesterday. There were spots of blood on the paper... a DNA test proved it was hers."

"What do they want?" Elena folded up the newspaper and gently placed it on the desk.

"I don't know, but it's a large sum of money. Wutai is still in the process of building itself up again. They don't have the money to pay... Plus, I think Godo's too proud to give in to people like this. He wants us to start up a search for Yuffie."

Reno awoke with a groan and pulled himself up. How many days had it been since they last questioned him? Two? Three? They must be busy with Yuffie, their new little project.

He stretched, cat like, wincing as his ribs protested in a stabbing sensation. Yuffie lay across from him, asleep on the bench. He glanced at her momentarily, almost feeling bad that he had taken the cot all for himself.

Almost.

Lying by the door was a small tray, containing two bowls of some sort of gruelish oatmeal substance.

"Shnookums, it's breakfast time!" Reno shook Yuffie lightly and brought the tray over to his cot. "And it looks.... delicious."

Yuffie growled and attempted to turn over, only succeeding in falling off the bench. "Funny Reno. I can't say how much I enjoy your company."

"I can't say how much I'm going to enjoy your breakfast." Reno said as he picked up a spoon and began carefully mixing the goop in the bowl. Better not be any roaches in here this time...

"Have fun... good luck finding a prize in there. Maybe this time it'll be a cricket." She stood up, stretched, and sat back down on the bench.

"You really are spoiled, sister." He began eating, forcing down the nauseating mess.

"You really are disgusting."

He finished scarfing down the 'food.' "No, really, I mean it. When I was younger, I was lucky to have something like this." He dug into her bowl, hungrily. "You, on the other hand, spend your time in your own little world, where your daddy owns everything."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Don't pretend that you know the half of what my life is or has been like. Just eat your damn food and shut up."

Reno opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, but the door suddenly opened. Both captives turned to the door immediately, and saw the amused and smirking face of Kayce staring back at them.

"Don't think we forgot about you, Reno."

"What's going on? Finally getting him out of here? Thank God!" Yuffie almost did a dance, but Reno shot him a look. She sank back in her seat.

"Just for a little while... don't get your hopes up." He glanced at Reno. "Unless he puts up a fight." Kayce motioned toward Reno with his gun. "Come along now... don't want to keep 'im waiting."

Yuffie watched Reno slowly walk toward the door. This doesn't sound good...

"We're going to try this a different way." Reno looked up at the white haired man with malice. He was chained upright as he had been the first time they had interrogated him. "We're going to give you a taste of your own medicine, so to speak."

Reno's eyes narrowed at the figure before him. Then he saw the weapon he carried with him.

My nightstick!

"There was this psychological experiment they once did. The purpose and outcome are all irrelevant in this case, but I'm going to use the same premise." He turned on the nightstick, putting it on the lowest level. "See, they chose two people. The subject and the questioner. The latter asked questions, while the subject answered them. Whenever the subject answered incorrectly, he was shocked with electricity, like so." The man smacked Reno in the side, shocking him slightly. "Not so bad, I know. But, after every incorrect answer, the electric current would increase. There's the kicker!" He laughed, a cold sense of amusement in his voice.

"I've always liked that study. It's intriguing. Wouldn't you agree?"

Elena holstered her gun with a frustrated growl. How many times had she pulled it out after hearing a noise, only to find that it was a bird or some other species of wildlife?

"This is pointless! How do we have any idea where the hell they are?!"

Rude looked up at her silently and managed a response. "You know how we deal with missing persons, Elena. First we start around the area they went missing, then we spread out. Turk procedure."

Elena said nothing and kicked the nearest rock in frustration. It was so much easier when they did the kidnapping...

"What was that, Elena?"

"What was what?! That? Just a rock!" She threw out her arms in frustration.

Rude knelt next to the reddish rock, curiously. He picked it up and dusted it off until it was pristine, shining and glowing faintly in the sunlight. "This isn't just a rock, Elena."

"In Junon?"

Reno said nothing, trying to focus on something other than the pain that covered nearly every inch of his body.

The interrogator lunged forward, hitting Reno in the ribs, electricity crackling in the air. Reno let out a slight gasp.

"How about Reeve Corp. Headquarters?"

Reno growled an obscenity and was met with another surge of electricity. The still unnamed interrogator was losing his patience all too quickly, and punched him in the face. Reno looked into the man's eyes and spit at him, saliva and blood staining his clean white shirt.

Ferocity. The man pulled Reno close to him by his ponytail, making Reno flinch involuntarily. They were face to face, now, their noses nearly touching. "Nobody fucks with Constantine Brandt without being fully dealt with." He pushed the high powered nightstick into Reno's back, between his shoulders and just below his neck.

He let go. "You will not be the first. You will talk."

Constantine released the trigger, relishing the screams of agony as an unspeakable number of volts went through Reno's ravished body.

Yuffie yawned as she poked around in an old crate in the back of the basement. Alone for the past twenty minutes, what else could she do? All she had found thus far was rotting chocobo feed and a few old blankets.

At least these blankets may come to some use...

Yuffie looked up startled to see the door swing open, revealing Kayce once more. "Sorry girlie, looks like we didn't kill 'im yet." He tossed a rather beaten and noticeably burnt and shivering Reno to the ground with a sickening thud and left the room.

Yuffie put the blankets on the bench and cautiously walked up to Reno. He was breathing shakily, almost as if it held effort to do so.

She put a hand to the side of his face, noting a slight discoloration as bruises were forming. He moaned softly, his body wracked by shaking.

Oh God... What do I do? Do I move him? Can I move him? What?

He moaned again. You're losing it, girl... Caring about an ex enemy now... Caring about Reno?

Suddenly she heard gunshots and screaming. What was going on in there?

Yuffie instinctively huddled closer to Reno's inert form as she heard another gunshot tear through the door. It opened once again, this time revealing the suit clad forms of Rude and Elena.

Yuffie sighed in relief. Finally, this hell was over. She stood up, careful not to bump Reno. "I have never been so happy to see Turks in my life."

A/N: No, this is NOT the end. There is still a lot to be resolved and I'm not finishing it here! Plus, as asked in a review, this will have some romance. I'm not sure exactly how much, but I think everyone can guess who the two are. ^_~

I'm sorry if much of this isn't all that medically correct. I want to be a writer, not a doctor! I'm pretty certain that there should be a lot more problems with being electrocuted in such a way... Just pretend that Reno's the Superman and can handle high voltage without dying.

As for that psychological study... well, I can't remember who did it, but it was done... sorta a study on social psychology. I believe it was testing people's obedience and such...

More to come! Thank the muses!