The Price Of Your Greed
//Once again, I have loosely based a short story (and possible roleplay idea?) off of a song that I’ve been listening to lately. Blood // Water by grandson. Please, enjoy.
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“I’m telling you Laney, everything is going to be fine. Everything is going to be routine tomorrow.”
“I believe you and all, but something just doesn’t feel right, you know?”
“Heh, let me tell you. Nothing we do ever feels right, but it's gotta be done, yeah? You’ll get used to it eventually. Soon, you’ll be able to ignore it just like I can.”
Honestly, that wasn’t very helpful if she was being honest. But there was just something in the way the other Turk carried herself that made her believe everything might actually be okay. It was just a routine meeting in the conference room. What could possibly go wrong? There was security. SOLDIERS. Turks. Who in Gaia would actually try and break in while everyone was all there?
Though his efforts had succeeded in calming down his companion, there was still a feeling swimming in the pit of his stomach. Whatever this feeling was, he couldn't shake it. They walked together for a little bit longer before they came to a stop in front of the blonde’s place. They said their final goodbyes and parted ways. Reno stayed outside her apartment just long enough to look around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Shrugging, he shoved his hands into his pockets and started for his own place.
The Turks had gathered in their President’s office upon arriving in the building that morning. Rude, Rem, and Tseng had arrived within moments of each other. Truth be told, the Director hadn’t exactly left the building last night. No one would notice that he had taken a small nap in his office before coming in. With as important as this meeting was, there would be no room for mistakes. Sleep had been necessary. Rude just got a good night’s rest before coming in. Rem knew how important today was and decided to be a responsible Turk.
Reno was, of course, late. Why wouldn't he be? Wasn’t he always? Though, to his credit, when things like this occurred, he managed to show up on something that resembled on time. Checking the time, he still had a few minutes before he was due to arrive. But one thing that they found a little off was the fact that Elena wasn’t here yet. She was either always on time or a little early. They would give her the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe she’d just overslept? The blonde had been here a little later than usual last night.
Turning his back to the others, the bald one reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. His red headed companion’s number was on speed dial; tapping it and listening to it ring, he wondered how many calls it would take for him to answer. The record was five. His foot began to tap after it went to voicemail the first time. Either he was asleep or in the shower. Rude let it ring to voicemail a second time. Nothing. The man kept trying; Reno had a habit of dropping his phone or ignoring it in his apartment during his morning routine. However, it was when the call count bordered on the fifteenth call that he was starting to get worried.
“Reno isn’t answering his phone.”
“I mean, isn’t that normal though?”
But something wasn’t sitting well in the pit of her stomach so she reached for her phone and dialed the redhead’s number as well. Each and every time, it went to voicemail. While Rude and Rem tried to get ahold of Reno, Tseng decided to try and get in touch with Elena with no avail.
“Neither is Elena.”
That was when Rufus looked up from his desk. His Turks could handle themselves, he knew enough about their lives and habits that they could sort themselves out. However, hearing that one of them was acting out of the normal brought him pause. Even if she had been out late doing whatever it was the Turks did when they were no longer office bound, she still showed up on time. Or answered her phone.
“What do you mean she’s not answering her phone?”
Had the redhead heard that, he might have made a comment about the pecking order around there. Though it could be thought that Reno was lowest priority, that wasn’t really the case. He was capable of taking care of himself. Not to say that Elena wasn’t, it was just the redhead had vastly more experience in this line of work than she did and the potential for her to not escape an ambush or a kidnapping was . . . Well, no. The blonde was pretty good in a fight. There was no doubt about that. But the fact she wasn’t here just didn’t sit right with anyone.
“Sirs.” Everyone’s eyes were immediately on the door. One of their messengers rushed over out of breath and handed an envelope to Tseng. “This just arrived at the front desk. I ran up as fast as I could.” The man took a moment to breathe again, several more seconds of silence before he managed to get out, “Said it was important that you get it as soon as possible. Your childrens’ lives depended on it.”
The Director dismissed the messenger and they all waited until the man was gone before looking down at the envelope.
“That’s strange. As far as I’m aware, you don’t have children.”
“True, but don’t you find it strange that this arrives upon the fact we’re missing two of our number?”
Though there were precautions to take in regards to suspicious mail, but too many things needed to be done. They needed answers now. So they cleared a spot on the blond’s desk and opened the envelope. Its contents spilled out onto the desk and it was a CD. Dangerous as though it might have been, they loaded it into the computer and a pop up appeared. Clicking on it, a video began to play.
At first, it was difficult to distinguish what was going on. There was nothing but darkness. Lights started to come on one by one and they saw a tuft of blonde hair. A gruff computerized voice grunted, gave the woman a little kick. She groaned, but cried out a moment later when the man reached for her hair and pulled her up. Something was shoved into her hands. When the camera focused on it, the words, “We have your daughter.”
There was a shout from somewhere off to the side. They heard something that sounded like Reno’s voice shout, but it was difficult to make out what it was. A thug came staggering into view before he fell. The camera looked over to see a battered and bruised Turk roundhouse kicking another thug into submission. They watched as the redhead ran over but he tripped. On what, they couldn't see. They watched as he struggled to get up only to be kicked in the ribs. Coughing, he fell and they kicked the shit out of him. The camera man walked over to the passed out body of the male Turk and tossed another sign down and this one read, “We have your son.”
The camera swiveled around to the man’s face. His features were covered by that of what looked like an ornate mask. When he spoke, the jaw on the mask moved with it.
“We have your son and your daughter. If you want them back, alive, you’ll give in to our demands.”
The ‘credits’ began to roll after that and the video had to be paused to read everything. Obviously, they weren’t going to give in to these people. Even if Turk lives were at stake, they knew what they were getting into when they took this job. The Director was about to make a judgement call when the lights went out. The cellphones of the Turks began to go off, alerting them to what was going on. There had been a security breach. But how was that possible? There was another commotion at the door. Rude went for whoever that might have been while Tseng and Rem stayed with the President. They heard a woman scream and the lights came back on. Wasn’t that the President’s secretary?
Rude helped her up and she dusted herself off. After a small discussion and several apologies, she produced an envelope for them. This time, a letter was inside of it. The words didn’t make sense, not at first. Why were Reno and Elena constantly being referenced as ‘the son and the daughter’? It didn’t make sense.
“The price of your greed is your son and your daughter.” Tseng repeated, eyes glancing up at Rufus. “Have you any idea what that might be referring to?”
“No.” Then what could it have meant then? From the video, they could determine that the ‘children’ were the two missing Turks. That much had been easy to figure out. However, why were they being referenced as such? Terrorist groups were a constant threat to ShinRa. Could it have been one of them? It was possible, but which one would be taking credit for this? Tseng was more than willing to pour himself over this note and find all the information out about it that he could, but something caught his attention.
“Rem, what is it you’re doing over there?”
“Checking the security breach; it doesn’t make any sense.” There was clicking and clacking and a lot of rapid eye movement. She was searching for something. “We should have known about it the moment they walked in the building. Why didn’t we? Why are we just learning about it now?” Camera after camera was searched until she discovered what she was looking for. The one set of cameras she couldn't access. Some digging and hacking later, she gasped. Everyone rushed over to see what she saw.
Elena was splayed out on the meeting room table. Reno was hanging from the ceiling by his ankles. There were pools of blood slowly starting to form. Judging by this, they hadn’t really been in there for very long. But how had their bodies been smuggled in? Rude was making a phone call down to the front desk to get answers while Tseng and Rem began to formulate some kind of place to get into the conference room.
From what they could tell so far, there were at least three other people in that room aside from the two injured Turks. They were heavily armored and weaponized. One of those men was sitting on what looked like a large metal chest. That might have been what they transported the two of them in. But shouldn’t that have been reported as suspicious if they came in the front door? Heh, bold of them to assume it was the front door. They got deliveries from other entrances so not as to crowd up the main lobby. That’s where they’d come from.
Rude got off the phone and walked over to the Director and whispered something into his ear. Master of hiding his facial expressions, the Director then leaned over and whispered something into the President’s ear. Keeping Rem out of the loop wasn’t deliberate per se, but given the information that had been uncovered it was best that she didn't know. Their emotional states did not need to be compromised anymore than they might already be. Decisions had to be made and they needed to be made quickly.
“Someone has to stay back here and monitor the cameras. I’ll need updates every couple of minutes. The rest of us will take various approaches to get inside the room. The vents, the halls, from below.”
The Director was explaining the plan that he had come up with all on the spot. But there was one flaw. What if the people in that room knew they had accessed the cameras? What if they had access to all the other cameras? What if they knew what was going on right now? There was so much room for error. But what else were they really supposed to do? There were obvious risks to this plan, but something needed to be done.
“I’ll stay back and watch the cameras. Go. Retrieve our Turks.”
The Turks nodded to their President as he took a seat back at this desk. The three of them quickly made their way out of the room and down the hallway. Almost immediately, they were given an update from their Boss; the men inside the room were getting up and getting into position. There were more of them than originally thought. The initial three they assumed were in there were actually closer to ten. Though this gave the Turks a moment of pause, they kept going. There was no way they were just going to leave those two alone in there.
When they got the crucial update, it didn’t make sense to them at first. If you were holding two Turks hostage, why would you not keep watch of them? Reno, who had previously been thought to be either passed out or near death, had managed to manipulate his body to curl upwards. One hand gripped the rope that had him tied while the other worked on getting the knot undone. It was difficult, but he got himself free. From there, he had very carefully placed bare feet on the conference table and began to untie Elena.
The redhead seemed to have a plan and communicated it to the blonde. She must have argued with him about it a little too loudly because that had gotten them some unwanted attention. Luckily for the Turks, there were hidden weapons in the room so they wouldn't have to fight completely unarmed. Reno fought a lot harder than his companion, or so he made it seem. Given they focused more of their attention on him than her, she had a lot easier of a time fighting her way towards the door.
However, she wasn’t fast enough to slam it shut afterwards. A gunshot rang out and the bullet went through her calf. A scream ripped free from her lungs and she rolled over in enough time to see one of the men taking aim at her. Reno shouted something before tackling the guy off to the side. Somewhere in the scuffle, he’d kicked the door shut. They shot the cameras out from inside the room and their updates from the office were gone.
It was Rem who shouted for Reno when their Boss reported all of this to them. She took off, leaving the other two in the dust. By the time they caught up, she was already tending to a wounded blonde. They all tried to get as much information as they could out of her; certainly she would have to know what this was all about, right? Rufus had caught up to them by now and he, too, wanted answers.
All she could really tell them was that this had something to do with a reactor. Whatever town or village or whatever they had destroyed to build it, these people were some of the only ones left. They were out for revenge. The whole ‘son and daughter’ thing was starting to make sense. Despite her injuries, Elena demanded to be allowed to continue on. Reno had risked his life for hers, she at least owed him to try and get him out. But when it was mentioned that since he did, in fact, risk his life for hers, she should repay him better by living. Reluctantly, she made her way towards medical. They had patched her up the best they could; she’d live long enough to get down there. The rest was up to the staff.
“So what’s the plan?”
“There is no plan. We just go in and kill them all.” “Rem, we have to have a plan; you can just cowboy it up.” “I’m with her.”
“Rude.”
The bald man was already flexing his hands and adjusting his gloves. What would Reno’s brother say if he knew this was happening? What a time to have a fucking solo mission. Once they reached the door, they could hear the scuffle dying down. Raised voices were talking shit to the captured Turk while his calm voice was practically begging them to go through with it. Rude was on one side of the door, Rem on the other. Rufus had never intended to sit this one out. His shotgun was trained on the door. Tseng had taken up a position beside him.
On the count of three, they had a plan to charge in. However, there was a small explosion from inside. They all recognized the sound of the boom. It was a specialty of Rude’s; so Reno had found that secret stash as well? They needed to get in there fast though. But they hesitated when several more went off. These weren’t Turk supplied. They belonged to the terrorist group. Fires were starting to rage inside the room, the sprinkles were activating.
Water began to seep out from under the door. Two voices were heard; one belonged to Reno while the other seemed to belong to the leader of this group.
“Well come on then, you fucking pussy. Do it. You gotta know even if you kill me, you and the rest of these idiots are just going to be lambs to the slaughter.” The Turk spit blood out of his mouth, cocked his head to the side. “The price of our greed was your sons and daughters, huh? That’s fucking rich.”
“SHUT UP!” The man’s voice was shaking. It was coated in hesitation. Whoever had told him that this would be an easy job had lied. There was nothing easy about this. “Just shut up and die!”
Gunshots were deafening in their own right. However, being on the opposite side of the place they were coming from held a different sort of quiet. After a couple seconds, more than just water began to seep out from under the door. There was blood in it. Someone was on the other side of that door, they were still breathing. They were coming closer. It was now or never.
They broke the door down only to see a lot of dead bodies and a severely wounded Reno stopping, holding his hands up in surrender. It took seconds to recognize what was happening here and the idiot sighed, looking off to the side.
“Wondered when you guys would get here. Didn’t really want to die alone.”
“You aren’t going to di- . . .”
But before Rem could finish, the redhead fell to his knees. While the shot he had fired had gone through the forehead of the leader, that man’s had pierced his chest. A centimeter in either direction and it would have killed him being so close to his heart as it was. Even if it had missed, it was still a near fatal shot. Unless they did something for him soon, he really would die.
“What have I told you, Reno.” Came the President’s voice. Though the Turk’s face was covered in blood, he still extended a hand and slapped him. “You don’t have permission to die. So you better stay alive.”
“Heh, yeah?” The redhead coughed, blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ll do my be- . . .”
His vision had gone splotchy and his body began to fall forward. They caught him and rushed him off towards medical. It was a close call, but the man would live. He’d be out for a little bit, but he’d make a mostly full recovery.