Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 82: Kidnapped

“Tch… Come on, you stubborn pain in the ass…”

The lock was a tricky one, and thus far his progress in picking it had been nil. It refused to budge, leaving him trapped in the passenger section of the aircraft. He hadn’t fared any better when he’d attempted to kick the door in a short while ago, either.

“This ‘rescue’ of yours leaves a lot to be desired,” Rufus’ voice sneered from the back of the helicopter. Reno ignored him… even while he silently admitted that the little shit was right. They were running out of time, and he couldn’t afford to keep screwing around with a damn lock. He was going to have to try something else.

He supposed he could try shooting the stupid piece of crap open… but something told him he’d probably end up regretting it. Opening fire in a small, confined space was generally considered a terrible idea. Plus… what if it went through the door and took out the pilot without actually breaking the lock? He and Rufus would be stuck back there, with no one flying the damn helicopter and no way to reach the controls.

Which, in his mind, only left him with one other option. With a mental sigh, Reno stood up and moved over towards the release for the large exit door in the side of the aircraft.

“What in Ramuh’s name are you doing?” Rufus asked, peering over the seat backs.

“Somethin’ I definitely didn’t wanna do…” he groaned, “Stay the fuck down, sir. And, uh… you might wanna strap yourself to somethin’… ya know… just in case.”

“Just in case of what,exactly?!” the executive demanded, clearly not fully convinced that whatever the redhead had in mind was a good idea… or that the Turk hadn’t lost his mind entirely. To be fair, Reno had his doubts on that, as well.

But doubt, for the moment, at least, had to be cast aside. Steeling himself, the rookie Turk pulled downward on the door release lever. It swung outward with a loud clang, slamming against the outside of the aircraft, and continuing to bang against it intermittently in the current of air created by their forward momentum. Reno carefully eased himself out onto the skid.

“Are you out of your mind?!” he heard Rufus shout from the relative safety of the cabin.

“Probably!” he shot back.

---

“Reactor security said Rufus’ transport left the Number 1 Reactor almost twenty minutes ago. They should have been back by now,” Tres said as he slipped back into the room with more updates. With the cell towers down yet again, they were having to rely on other measures to keep in contact with the monitoring stations Tres had helped to set up over the past week. Fortunately, the senior Turk had thought to factor in the possibility of another such communications breakdown, and reports were coming in directly to his office via hardwired fax machine.

“No answer on the radio,” Kai added. “I’ve tried every frequency. Either the helicopter can’t hear us, or they’re ignoring us. And the Transportation Department is just as blind as we are right now.”

“This is ridiculous,” Tseng muttered and rose from his seat, storming towards the door.

“Tseng? Where are you going?” Veld asked.

“To the equipment room to find a pair of binoculars, and then up to the Leviathan-be-damned roof!” the Turk lieutenant replied, angrily.

Rude turned to his mentor, the question already on his lips.

“Don’t even bother askin’, rookie… just get your ass upstairs with him, ‘n let us know when ya spot ’em,” Tres ordered, tossing him a radio. The rookie Turk nodded and took off after Tseng.

---

The only sound that filled Reno’s ears once he was fully outside the helicopter was the rush of wind that assailed him relentlessly. If Rufus was still loudly proclaiming that he was nuts, he could no longer hear it. Which was probably a good thing. He didn’t need the reminder… The sight of the massive drop to the street below was reminder enough.

The redhead inched his way along the skid towards the cockpit as carefully as he could. A slip from this height, and he’d be little more than a smear on the ground when all was said and done. Unlike the helicopter reserved for the Turks, which had only a sliding door on either side of the cargo compartment, the executive helicopter had an entry directly into the cockpit from the outside. He’d been told that this was a privacy feature so that the ViPs in the passenger section would never have to interact directly with the lowly flight crew.

His plan… if one could call it that… was to make his way up to that door, wrench it open, and slide inside, gun drawn. Then he’d order the son of a bitch to land. A gun pointed in one’s face made for a very convincing argument, after all. Once they were safely on the ground, he’d handcuff the fucker, radio headquarters, and check on the brat. Simple. What could go wrong?

Well, he thought, as his boot momentarily slipped off the skid… a fall from about twelve hundred feet, maybe. But aside from that…

He sidled along the narrow metal rail, clinging to whatever handholds he could get – and making a mental reminder to actually thank Kai for a change, for the many times she’d forced him up the climbing wall in the gauntlet – until he finally reached the other door.

“Oh, thank Shiva,” he breathed, as his fingers wrapped around the handle and he pulled himself forward. He peered through the window, careful not to be seen, and spotted their pilot. Thankfully, he was alone. A good thing, too, because Reno wasn’t real sure of his odds of this actually working with only one guy up front. If there was copilot he’d be fucked.

He took a deep breath and readied himself, reaching for his gun to have it ready the moment he was inside the cockpit. Just as he pulled it from the holster, however, the aircraft banked sharply to the right, nearly dumping him off his perch. His instinctive reaction was to grab onto whatever was available with both hands and hold on for dear life until it leveled out.

Unfortunately… that meant letting go of the gun. He watched in dismay as it tumbled downward, and eventually out of sight.

“Are you fucking kidding me… ?” he groaned. Well… there went the first part of his plan. He’d just have to hope the asshole was as intimidated by his EMR as he would have been by the gun. This time, he’d get his ass inside before drawing the weapon, though. Fucked if he was going to make the same mistake twice.

Reno reached for the handle again and twisted, feeling the seal release, and then pulled outward. It was harder than he’d expected it to be. Between his precarious position, and the air currents created by the helicopter’s movement, it took all of his strength to force it open enough to wedge himself inside. It was hardly the dramatic surprise entrance he’d been going for.

He was only halfway in when the first shot was fired at him, the loud report of the gun ringing in his ears. The bullet itself left a neat hole in the plexiglass window over his right shoulder. His saving grace was that his attacker, apparently, was just as surprised by the deafening sound as he’d been. Reno used the opportunity haul himself in the rest of the way and dive across the copilot’s chair. From there, he was able to force the man’s arm – and the gun with it – upwards. The second shot hit the ceiling, sending a shower of sparks raining down on the two of them.

Annnd… that likely took care of the second part of his plan. He was pretty sure the main casualty of that shot had been the helicopter’s radio.

Reno reeled back as the man landed a hard punch to his face, though his awkward position didn’t actually allow him to get out of range. Instead, he ended up on the floor in between the two seats. His hand clawed at the mag-rod on his belt, only just managing to pull it free before the gun was leveled at him. The redhead brought it up in a wide arc, slamming it into the pilot’s arm with a painful sounding crack. The other man howled in pain and dropped his weapon.

Now was his chance. Reno fingered the controls on the handle of the EMR, setting the electrified baton high enough to stun a goddamn chocobo and brought it home a second time. It crackled loudly, and he felt a faint buzz himself, as the current passed through his target and into the metal infrastructure of the copter. The pilot tensed and twitched until Reno let up on the attack, and then slumped forward against the controls.

Which, of course, sent the helicopter into a sharp dive.

“Oh, shit!” Reno hissed, struggling to right himself. His EMR dropped, forgotten, onto the floor, as he staggered to his feet and yanked the man’s limp body upright in his seat before desperately grabbing for the controls and leveling them out. For a moment, he could only stand there, breathing shakily and staring through the windshield at the rather large sky scraper in front of him.

“… Ooooookay… Not quite the way I planned it…” he exhaled, “But, hey, whatever works, right?”

Down. He really wanted to go back down now. He maneuvered the aircraft into a more open area, and then released the controls just long enough to secure his unconscious prisoner and slide into the co-pilot’s chair. He looked around at the instruments, trying to match them up to the ones he knew from the Turk’s helicopter. The executive copter may have been a lot fancier than what he was used to, but some things were pretty much universal. A few short minutes later, they were dropping slowly into a small park near the center of Sector 1.

Once they were on the ground, he shut down the engines and just sat there for a few seconds… hardly daring to believe he’d actually pulled a stunt like that off. By all rights, he ought to have been dead about three times over right now. A loud hammering on the door behind him pulled him from his thoughts, and the redhead scurried out of the seat and unlocked the opening to the passenger section.

“Heh… Still alive, sir?” he asked, upon seeing Rufus.

“It seems so. How,I have absolutely no idea,” the vice president replied, wide-eyed and looking slightly pale. “You’re a complete lunatic!”

“Yeah. I’m not gonna argue with ya, sir,” he admitted. Before Rufus could comment upon his sanity any further, the familiar sound of rotor blades interrupted them, and Reno cringed. Great… the son of a bitch had reinforcements coming. His gaze dropped to the floor, and he hurried to retrieve his abandoned EMR, as well as the kidnapper’s gun, wondering just how far his luck would hold.

As it turned out… he needn’t have worried. Once the new arrival came into view, Reno spotted the Shinra logo clearly emblazoned on the side of the aircraft and groaned in relief.

“Thank Ifrit…” he sighed, glancing back at Rufus, “I didn’t much like my odds if I had to take on more of these assholes with only you as backup…”

Rufus glared at him, though the redhead got the impression that his heart really wasn’t in it and that the vice president was just as relieved to see Tseng and Rude exiting the other helicopter as he was.

---

It didn’t take long to spot what he was looking for. The Shinra Building was the tallest structure in the city and commanded one hell of a view of the surrounding area. Tseng very quickly zeroed in on the large helicopter that was making a beeline for the edge of the Plate over Sector 1.

“There they are,” he said, pointing them out to the rookie beside him. And then he froze as he spotted something else and a horrified realization came over him. Reno… was climbing outside of the helicopter? What in the Nine Hells… ?

Rude was on the radio, already speaking to Tres, updating the rest of the team on the situation. Tseng started towards the Turks’ helicopter, climbing aboard, hardly giving the rookie time to catch up to him before he had the rotors spinning. He was half tempted to turn control of the craft over to Rude so he could continue to keep an eye on their target through the binoculars… Instead, though, he tossed them to the younger Turk.

“Watch them,” he ordered. He clamped down on the rising panic as they ascended into the air. Both of his charges were in danger, that much was obvious. The redhead wouldn’t be risking his life, clamoring around on the skids of an in-flight helicopter, just for the hell of it. Clearly there was more going on than merely Rufus being a bit behind schedule.

When the executive helicopter suddenly dropped several hundred feet in a matter of a few seconds, Tseng was half convinced his heart momentarily stopped in response. Even Rude gasped and leaned forward in his seat, eyes wide as they watched it plummet. The relief when it abruptly leveled out and hovered in place almost made him dizzy. By the time he recovered, the other helicopter was already descending… far more controlled this time… and the Turk lieutenant headed straight for it.

It set down in the middle of a park. The one right behind his own apartment, in fact, he belatedly realized. He did the same, coming to rest on the ground just as Reno was climbing out of the cockpit, Rufus close on his heels. Tseng shut down the engines, and fumbled with his harness, hands shaking slightly. At last he managed to free himself, and moments later was scrambling from the aircraft, striding purposefully towards the very relieved looking pair.

Reno was the first one he managed to get ahold of, and he seized him by the collar of his shirt, practically lifting him onto his toes.

“What in Leviathan’s name were you doing up there?” he demanded, his tone more disbelieving than angry.

“Tryin’ not to die?” the redhead replied, surprised by the unusual greeting and blinking somewhat owlishly, his left eye ringed with a rapidly darkening bruise – most likely a souvenir from whatever altercation had taken place mid-flight. Tseng shook his head, and released him, but only for a a split second before pulling both Reno and Rufus into a tight embrace. And he would have been quite content to stay in that position for quite some time, had they not been out in the open and completely exposed to further attack. Instead, he reluctantly let them go, and herded them towards the Turks’ copter.

“Rude… get them back to headquarters without delay. I’ll follow in the executive helicopter.”

Rude nodded, and he and Reno bundled the vice president into aircraft. Tseng didn’t make a move towards the other helicopter until he was certain they were safely in their air, and then he turned and climbed aboard the stolen vehicle. In the cockpit, he found the pilot, still unconscious and handcuffed in place.

His eyes narrowed angrily as he realized that the man wasn’t even Wutaiian. In fact, he knew him quite well. He was one of the four pilots Tseng had personally vetted and recommended for the express purpose of transporting the Shinra family and company executives. Somehow… the Wutaiian forces had gotten to him. Used him in an attempt, he could only assume, to kidnap Rufus. Whether it was with money or with threats hardly mattered. The fact that someone that trusted could be turned against the company made nearly everyone suspect.

Tseng settled into the copilot’s seat and leaned forward, his face resting against his palms as he tried to stop shaking. Dear Leviathan, someone had nearly taken Rufus today. And Reno right along with him. Losing even one of them would have been unbearable. The thought of losing both…

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t banish that thought. It wasn’t until he realized that he’d been sitting there long enough for the pilot to start to come around that he finally started the engines and began the return trip to Shinra headquarters.

---

“You’re insane,” Rude said, shaking his head in what Reno could only assume was disbelief after he finished regaling the other rookies with the tale of his dramatic rescue of the vice president.

“He’s making it up,” Rodney snorted, contemptuously, “No one’s that crazy.”

But the bald Turk shook his head again. “I saw it. He really did climb out on the skids to get to the cockpit. Scared the hell out of me, just watching.” He turned to his friend. “You’re insane.”

“Well, I think it was very brave,” Cissnei interjected, “Who knows what might have happened to the vice president if you hadn’t been there.”

“Tch… it was mostly just desperation,” Reno replied, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. “That ‘n I kinda figured that if I didn’t get outta that mess, they’d probably just kill me anyway. If I’m gonna go, why not do it fallin’ out of a helicopter? ‘Least it’d be a more interesting way to kick the bucket than takin’ a bullet to the head.”

“You’re insane,” Rude repeated again, and the redhead grinned.

“Yeah, trust me, pal, ya don’t gotta keep tellin’ me… I know. If I never have ta do somethin’ like that again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Is Rufus alright?” Cissnei queried.

“Pretty much. Think he was kinda beyond freaked out by everything that happened, but at least he wasn’t hurt.”

“Can’t say the same for you,” Rude chuckled, nodding to the half-melted ice pack his friend had abandoned on the table. Reno merely shrugged.

“Eh… A black eye never killed anyone. Far as I know, anyway,” he said, grinning.

“One thing’s for certain…” said Rodney, “After this, I’m not going to be the only Turk Rufus Shinra doesn’t want on his security detail.”

“Tch… the fuck’s that s’posed to mean?” the redhead replied, narrowing his eyes at the other rookie, annoyed.

“Just that you let him get into a helicopter with an agent of Wutai… At the absolute best, he’d have been held for ransom if the plan had succeeded. He’ll never trust you again after this…”

Cissnei rolled her eyes and turned to her compatriot. “Reno risked his life for Rufus, and you act like he should have just known that the pilot was working for Wutai. You know… the Turks vetted all of the executive pilots. We signed off on every last one of them. If none of the more senior Turks saw them as a potential threat, how in Titan’s name was Reno supposed to be able to?”

“He wasn’t,” Rodney said defensively, “But what are the odds of Rufus seeing it like that? Our beloved vice president is the most self-absorbed pain in the ass I’ve ever met.”

“Hmph… seems like you two should be the best of friends, then,” Cissnei giggled, “I wonder why he doesn’t like you…”

“Oh, very funny, Cissy,” Rodney deadpanned, “I’ll have you know I didn’t do anything wrong, and he still banned me from his office.”

Reno couldn’t help the loud snicker that escaped his lips. Rodney glared at him.

“And just what are you laughing about?”

“Oh… nothin’,” the redhead replied, a grin firmly plastered on his face, “Just that I actually asked the brat why he hates your guts. Wanna know what he said?”

Rodney merely scoffed and turned his attention elsewhere, ignoring the goading question. Cissnei and Rude, however, were suddenly all attention.

“Well, even if he doesn’t, I do,” Cissnei laughed.

“So do I,” said Rude.

“Rufus said Rod was such a massive suck-up he just couldn’t stand havin’ him around,” Reno smirked. Rodney glowered at the other rookie, and abruptly stood up and stormed out of the lounge without a word. The redhead’s smirk faded. “… Uh… ‘kay, that mighta come out a little more dickish than I meant it to…”

Cissnei smiled slightly and laughed. “Oh, he’ll get over it. Frankly, it’s probably about time someone told him that. I’ve always just been too nice to come right out and say it to him. Sometimes Rodney just… tries too hard. It makes him seem really fake and insincere, even though he’s not.”

“Tch… why are you always defendin’ him, anyway? You keep sayin’ oh, he’s not so bad… Sure as hell coulda fooled me,” Reno griped.

The rookie Turk giggled again. “He’s really not so bad. Really. I know, because I got to see his nicer side a lot when we were in the recruitment program together,” she replied. Her expression turned more serious. “Rodney has a lot to live up to, though. His family… well… let’s just say he’s got some big shoes to fill. It’s a lot of pressure when you grow up being told that the people you love most expect great things from you. Or else they might love you a little less.”

Reno glanced over at Rude, who seemed to be having the same thought as he was – that maybe they’d been a little too hard on their fellow rookie. Cissnei grinned and shook her head.

“That doesn’t excuse him for being a royal pain in the butt sometimes, though.”

---

“Did you find out anything useful?” Veld asked. Tseng didn’t answer immediately. He was too busy staring straight ahead at the grisly sight in front of him. “Maybe I should rephrase that,” his mentor amended, “Did you actually interrogate him… or did you just kill him?”

The Wutaiian Turk lifted his gaze from the body and looked down at his bloodstained hands.

“He confirmed Fuhito’s involvement.”

“Which we suspected from the start,” the Turk leader noted, dispassionately.

“He also confirmed that he was being blackmailed.”

“Which hardly matters, given what he attempted. The President would have ordered him executed no matter what his reason for daring to go after his son.”

Tseng didn’t answer. The rage he’d felt while questioning the pilot had yet to abate. It was still simmering just below the surface. Not even finally snapping the man’s neck had calmed it.

Luca… Rufus… Reno… his family. None of them were safe. Today had only confirmed that for him. This man had tried to take more of his family from him, and had died for it. Tseng had drug it out far longer than strictly necessary, extracting his pound of flesh for Luca’s death. He hadn’t cared that the man likely had nothing to do with that attack. He was helping the enemy. That made him suitably guilty.

That, and he’d wanted him to endure physical pain equivalent to the emotional pain his success would have caused Tseng. It had been… gruesome… even by his standards. And he was finding it to be very hard to hold any regret at all for what he’d done to his prisoner.

“This is far more personal than I’d expect from you, Tseng…”

“I will not lose another Turk. And I will not lose Rufus, either,” he stated with a calm he didn’t truly feel.

“And woe be unto anyone who might try to prove you wrong,” his mentor said, grimly. “This isn’t like you. At all.”

“Forgive me for wanting to prevent more death, sir,” Tseng replied, coldly.

“From where I’m standing, you seem to have done just the opposite. Unless I’m very much mistaken, your interrogation subject is quite thoroughly deceased, and looks to have been for quite some time now.”

“He had it coming. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re at war, sir. People tend to die in wars.”

“Yes, they do. On both sides of the conflict. I’d prefer you not eventually end up among the casualties yourself. Seeking vengeance often makes a person act foolishly,” said Veld. He paused, glancing over at the dead man in the chair in the center of the room. “Clean this up, and then meet me in my office. We have a few things to discuss. And don’t let your rookie see you like this.”

~end chapter 82~