Disclaimer:Don't own nuffink! 'Specially not FFVII and it's wonderful, wonderful array of characters.

And now, a bit of an Intro…

Cast your minds back to that HIGHLY ANNOYING Wutai subquest, readers! (anyone else get their ass handed to them by Corneo's freaking pet? No? Just me, was it?...Right. OK, shut up. I was only 11 at the time!)

What would happen if – for some obscure reason – Cloud and company DIDN'T turn up to save Yuffie from certain doom up on Da Chao? Well, for one: Yuffie wouldn't be too happy. Two: someone else would have to rescue her. That someone may very well happen to be the Turks. Possibly.

So let's assume they save her from one of two potentially sticky situations: either falling to her death, or becoming Fat Don's new honey-bunny. Euch.

…Surely that's the end of it, right?

Wrong.

Reno, Rude, Tseng and Elena are about to get a dose of the new recruit blues…

Chapter 1: How the Blues Began

The wind whipped Reno's blood red hair about his face as he stepped up to the crumbling ledge, glaring down at his latest victim with menace.

"All right, Corneo," he said coolly. "This'll be quick, so listen up. Why do you think we came all the way up here to get you? 1. Because we had nothing better to do, 2. Because we were sure we'd win or 3. Because we thought we might be able to sort all this out over a nice cup of tea?"

Normally in times of peril such as this, infamous slum pimp Don Corneo would calm himself by remembering the bed full of buxom blonde tarts waiting for him back at his Wall Market mansion. Now, hanging by his fingertips from the hand of a colossal statue 70ft above the ground, and staring – panic-stricken – up into the dangerous eyes of Reno of the Turks…he found it somewhat difficult to think of anything else but what a long, long way down it was.

(A secondary thought flitting around his mind was that if he somehow did survive through this, he was almost certainly going to have to change his underpants.)

"Three…?" he whimpered breathlessly, one of his expensive designer label shoes slipping off. "Number Three?"

"Wrong," Reno whispered, lethally bringing the heel of his boot down onto Corneo's pudgy, bling-ridden fingers. The Wall Market tycoon howled in pain and terror as he knew he could hold on no longer. After a moment of desperate scrabbling during which he made a hopeless grab for Reno's leg, he finally slipped, and went plummeting to a very rocky doom.

Reno stepped back, satisfied.

"The correct answer WAS…" he said, as Corneo's screams died away.

"…because it's our job," Rude finished, strolling over.

"Well said, partner."

They turned to view the enormous carved face of Da Chao behind them, to which the (now) late Don Corneo's two female hostages were tied, strung up by their ankles.

Reno placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the situation.

"Another victory for the Turks," he stated, then after a moment or two in thought, added, "Think I looked appropriately bad-ass back there, Rude?"

Rude said nothing, but instead advanced towards Elena and set to work on freeing the blonde rookie from the ropes that bound her.

"Yep," Reno self-evaluated, despite Rude's complete lack of response. "I thought so, too."

"Oh, thankyou very much!" Elena cried, her face beet red from hanging upside down. "I never expected you to come for me…"

"Elena," said Reno tiredly. "Quit acting so weak. You're a Turk, aren't you?"

"Y-yes. I'm so sorry," she replied, trying her best to assume a professional air, despite her bizarre position.

The second of Corneo's hostages, however, was not quite so thankful for the way things had turned out.

"Well, JEEEEZ!" Yuffie Kisaragi exclaimed loudly from the other side of Da Chao's face. "Cloud might've turned up!"

"I'm guessing Spikey's got his hands full right now with those other two birds," said Reno loftily, recalling his brief encounter with Cloud earlier that day. "And anyway, didn't you steal some shit?"

Yuffie faltered. "Nrghh…ye-….n-……maybe!" she stuttered. "But I was gonna give it back when I'd finished, I swear! He didn't have to get all upset about it and abandon me!"

"Guess that should teach you not to bite the hand that feeds you then, eh?" said Reno, mysteriously.

"What do you mean by that?!"

"You've got time to figure it out while you hang around here and wait to be rescued."

Yuffie lapsed into upside-down, slack-jawed silence as she tried to comprehend why in the world she might have to "hang around and wait" to be rescued, while beside her, Elena was being helped down by Rude.

As the last of her ropes were loosened, the blonde Turk wrapped an arm awkwardly around Rude's neck and he lowered her to the ground, in a somewhat unorthodox manner.

"Thankyou," she said breathlessly, dizzily stumbling sideways a little.

Rude steadied her before she teetered too closely to the edge and met the same fate as Corneo.

"We done here?" he asked.

Reno gave a small nod.

Yuffie looked suddenly flabbergasted, as the three Turks made to leave.

"Wh - HEY! You can't just leave me hanging here!"

"We can, and we will, kid. You're not our concern."

Yuffie growled and struggled furiously against the ropes.

Elena however, just wasn't absorbing any of the career-minded logic her superior was dishing out.

"Reno…" she said, a sympathetic look creeping onto her (still flushed) face. "She's just a child."

Reno sighed.

"We're off duty, Elena. And even if we weren't…we're not getting any more involved with AVALANCHE than we need to."

"Hey who cares about that!" Yuffie shrieked. "I'm dizzy, get me doooooowwwwn!"

Elena chewed her lip, observing Yuffie sadly as if she were an insect struggling to free itself from a spider-web.

"But – but surely – given the circumstances – ?" she began, but was interrupted by a muffled electronic ring tone.

Reno withdrew his phone from his pocket. "The circumstances being that maybe she's been dealt some decent karma?" he suggested, before answering the call. "…Yes, this is Reno."

"Quit yer yappin, Turks! I've had enough of this!" Yuffie hollered in the background, going slightly cross-eyed from the blood rushing to her head. Reno held up a hand, signalling for her to "zip it" as he spoke.

"……Yeah…….yeah, of course……right."

Yuffie ogled at him incredulously, bristling at the way this casual phone call seemed to have sucked any remaining urgency out of the situation.

"We'll get onto it." Reno finished. He pressed a button and tucked the cell back inside his jacket.

"Was that the company?" asked Elena, now attempting to smooth down her windswept hair.

Reno nodded, turning to Rude. "They want us to find Cloud."

"…Are we on?" his bald partner asked.

"Fuck no, the only thing we're on is vacation. Cloud could be anywhere," Reno paused to throw Yuffie a meaningful glance, before adding nastily, "anywhere but here, huh?"

The little ninja looked momentarily hurt, but it was short-lived.

"If you let me down I can help you find him!" she suddenly blurted out.

"You don't even know," said Reno, bemused. "He left you."

"Yeah, well, I know where he was headed, and that's more info than you losers have right now, so hah!" she teased, but there was a trace of desperation in her voice. "I can tell you everything I know, I can tell you right now! Just cut these damn ropes already!"

"And why are you so quick to side with us?"

Yuffie paused. She seemed to be turning the question over in her mind. "Well," she began, quietly. "Maybe – maybe I'm just sick of being abandoned."

Her sombre tone took all three Turks by surprise. Her temper, oddly, had subsided, and her voice became no more than a whimper as she went on.

"I trusted him…I trusted ALL of them…yeah, I stole their materia, so what?…I did it for Wutai, for the greater good! And now look…after all I did for them, they've left me, hanging upside down, on top of a mountain– " (by this point, Yuffie sounded very nearly on the verge of tears, voice wavering with emotion) " – they've left me all alone, to fend for myself, which is just what everyone else has done to me throughout my entire, miserable existence…"

She broke off. Her lip was trembling pathetically.

Elena turned sappy eyes on Reno and Rude, cocking her blonde head to one side.

"What harm could it do?" she asked, softly.

Reno looked to Rude, who shook his head and shrugged.

"Ahh – hell," said Reno eventually. Not so much moved by Yuffie's teary story of betrayal, but rather, not particularly wanting to have a sobbing teenage girl on his conscience, he turned to Rude and said, bitterly, "Do it."

Rude advanced towards Yuffie and reached upwards to tackle her ropes. Yuffie's expression brightened a little too suddenly, but no one noticed.

"You see?" said Elena to Reno, with a reassuring smile. "That wasn't so hard."

Reno chose to ignore her.

"You're going to cooperate with us, little girl," he called, as Rude loosened the bindings around Yuffie's ankles. "Here's how it's gonna happen: as soon as we get you down –"

However, how Reno thought it was "gonna" happen never actually eventuated. Now free of her bonds, Yuffie back-flipped off Da Chao's face with a ninja-like scream and landed between them. She took a moment to swiftly knee Rude in the groin, before sprinting off down the mountain side.

"Sunnuva…!" Rude croaked, doubling over.

"That's for taking your time, JERKS!" Yuffie yelled gleefully over her shoulder. "Later!"

"Hey!" Elena cried, baffled, still trying to deduce exactly what had just happened. "Hey, you get back here and you apologise!"

"…Kid's got some spunk," Reno noted. He turned to his partner, wincing. "You gonna be ok, Rude?"

Rude hobbled away to be alone with his agony for a moment or two.

"So ungrateful!" Elena cried shrilly, watching Yuffie haring off into the distance down towards Wutai. "She said she'd help us!"

"Yeah, well, whatever…at least she's out of our hair now," sighed Reno. "Strife owes us big time."

Little did the Turks know, Cloud Strife and company were at that very moment, trying to put as many miles between themselves and Wutai as possible.

After retrieving their stolen materia from Yuffie's empty house (who'd have guessed the password to her safe was "MATERIA"?), and having been unable to locate said thief anywhere, they had decided that perhaps the best course of action was to simply just "mosey on out of there", as Cloud had phrased it…much to Cid's annoyance.

"Do you think she'll be looking for us?" asked Tifa, conversationally, as the group trekked back over a rickety bridge towards the Tiny Bronco. "We didn't exactly say goodbye, did we?"

"Goodbye?" repeated Cloud. "Listen, Tifa – she was only after our materia from the beginning. She's a thief. Period."

"I don't know about that," Tifa replied, thoughtfully. "I think she was just a little lonely. She might not have shown it…but more than anything, I think she just wanted friends."

"…yeah, well…whatever," said Cloud, coldly. "At least she's out of our hair now. No doubt she'll find someone else to leech off."

"I pity the foo's who gonna end up with that brat trailin' after 'em!" roared Barret from behind them. "Nuthin' but a damn nuisance!"

Tifa smiled sadly.

"Well, I personally hope she finds someone to fit in with. Somewhere she feels like she belongs."

Cloud glowered.

"Fat chance of that. Anyone with common sense would want to get themselves away from that girl as quickly as possible."

...Uh oh. Chapter 2 coming your way soon, guys!