Edge, Healin Lodge, and Elsewhere, Saturday Afternoon
Dōjima
It was all concrete, as far as the eye could see, with towering bits of metal and the faint scent of industrial pollution in the air.
It reminded Dōjima of some of her favorite areas of Tokyo, only with less neon.
They'd been walking for hours, working off the landmarks and the half-intoxicated descriptions Reno had given Dōjima whenever he waxed nostalgic about his favorite bars.
"Here," she said, stopping suddenly and pointing at one of the nicer-looking establishments. "This one. It's Tifa's place, I'm sure of it."
Rikku
She hadn't expected the overflow of people, here. Spira had tiny villages and outposts; in Edge, everyone spilled out onto the streets. With bandages on children, huddled together against buildings. Everything was gray, and urban, and flat.
There were hulking ruins outside the city limits, and Rikku couldn't help wondering if that was Midgar. It had to be nearby, didn't it?
"And she knows them?" Rikku asked, shivering a little. It wasn't cold. "Let's go in."
Tifa
Tifa didn't usually get customers this early. They weren't anybody she recognized -- couldn't be locals, dressed like that.
"Reno?" she smiled. "Yeah, I know him. Can you tell him to stop calling me? I gave Cloud his messages already."
They looked anxious. Reno had sounded strange on the phone, too. Not quite himself.
"Is everything okay?"
She didn't quite believe them, when they said they were fine. But she gave them directions to Healin Lodge anyway.
She'd ask Cloud, later, what Reno had wanted. It was starting to sound serious.
Reno
Reno was aware of three things as he lay on the floor next to Rude, groaning and trying feebly to push himself up again.
Firstly, that he was, in fact, on the floor. And he was alive, as well. He knew this because he was pretty certain being dead wouldn't be so damn painful.
Secondly, that the President had a damn good poker face. He'd seen a bit of it somewhere between the elbow to the skull and the boot to his gut, and well before the actual reasons for his current pain had started.
And third, that the silver-haired freak was still in the room. And, for as much as he wanted to kill his ass dead, Reno didn't seem to be able to stand up.
The world was kind of swimming around him. So he flopped to his back against the floor again and managed to vocalize the most angry sort of pained groan ever.
But just barely.
Kadaj
Kadaj sauntered into the room as though he owned it.
"Boy, do I hate liars."
Rufus
Rufus barely bothered to incline his head to acknowledge the silver-haired man in front of him. All-in-all, he was behaving quite as though the whole ordeal was serving only to bore him.
"I apologize," he said, in the same tone he'd been bluffing in since the Remnant-- Kadaj, he'd called himself-- had arrived. "This time you'll get the truth. The object you seek fell from the helicopter while we were running from you." 'We,' of course, being one of the two Turks currently sprawled out on the floor nearby. "I'm afraid we were careless."
Kadaj
Kadaj appeared to weigh that for a few seconds. "Is that right?"
Sarcasm dripped from each word.
Rufus
And, with every ounce of sincerity that Rufus Shinra never had, he replied, entirely too easily.
"I swear it."
And if Kadaj didn't believe him, what was he going to do about it? Kill him?
Rufus Shinra was close enough to death already, it wasn't as though it would bother him terribly.
Kadaj
Kadaj smiled. Triumphantly. Cruelly. He held up two small pieces of plastic.
"Fine. Then swear on these."
Two bloody ID cards landed on the floor, next to Rufus's wheelchair.
Rufus
Rufus recognized them right away. His two missing Turks. Bloodstained proof that Tseng and Elena were dead.
His grasp against the arm of his wheelchair tightened slightly. He didn't bother to hide the frown that pulled at his features.
They'd died hard.
It took him a moment to find words, and when he did, they were not words pulled from the middle of some elaborate ruse.
"Why did you do this?"
They were words that said, quite clearly, that if he had been capable of standing and retaliating, then he damn well would be.
Reno
Reno was aware, vaguely, of the objects landing on the floor nearby. The sound of laminated cards hitting the hardwood was still echoing through his skull.
He wouldn't have cared beyond that fact if it wasn't for the President's reaction to them.
Reno could hear the bluff slipping away, didn't want to open his eyes, but managed to squint upward to see Rufus lose that poker face of his.
He knew damn well what those cards were.
The idea of getting up got that much harder, just then. The realization had hit him just as hard in the chest as Kadaj's fist had before. Maybe harder. There were words being volleyed back and forth around them, about Remnants and Reunion and Mother, Mother, Mother, motherfucking Mother, and none of them really mattered, did they?
The Sephiroth clone knelt on the floor in front of the President, and a chill ran through the room.
And then Reno, Rude, and Rufus Shinra were in the room alone.
Nobody was in much of a state to pursue the Remnant.
None of them could have done a thing, even if they were.
Rikku
Healin Lodge. This was where Tifa said the Turks were. If whoever was coming for Reno hadn't gotten here yet. If any of them were still alive. If. If. If.
It looked quiet, which meant they were waiting for the bad guys to show up. Or else they were already chopped up on the floor. Great.
Stop thinking that, Rikku.
Easier not to worry so much with a Godhand strapped to your good hand and a gun in the other.
"We ready for this?" Rikku asked, glancing to the other members of the posse. Two nods came back to her. Shouldn't have dragged them into this. Was too grateful just to have them along.
Rikku marched up to the door and kicked it in.
Reno
The voices on the other side of the door, Reno had been almost willing to ignore. Maybe it was some receptionist or something, in some world far away where sanatoriums were pleasant, happy- okay, no. The voices on the other side of the door had Reno panicking as best as he could from his place on the floor.
It was difficult, however, to get to his feet while every little noise was ransacking the contents of his skull. And the fact that he wasn't sure if his spleen was still where it was intended to be wasn't helping much. But he had managed, somehow, to at least flop over onto his side again.
The door being kicked in made him yowl like a strangled cat as the sound split through his head, and Reno was now on his face.
Which, at least, was a change of pace as opposed to being on the flat of his back.
Rikku
Rikku braced, scanning the room for --
-- for a shock of red hair, and a Turk lying on the ground and groaning.
In a heartbeat she was on her knees next to him, arms wrapped tightly around his torso, please don't be dying, please don't be dead, please.
It was so hard to breathe.
Rude
Rude lifted his face off the floor, a trickle of blood and drool dangling from the corner of his mouth. Assess situation. Identify threats. Formulate plan. Try not to get beaten to shit and back again.
Identify... Oh.
"Oh, sure, HE gets a... hug," he croaked.
Dōjima
Well, a suit probably meant a Turk, so Dōjima wasn't going to shoot the poor other person on the floor.
Unless Rikku said to.
"Hey, which one's that?" she asked, gun still drawn as she looked around. "I like to know the names of the boys I'm possibly hugging."
Rude
"Rude," he grunted, trying to raise himself to his knees. Maybe not just yet. "Pleased to meet you, Dōjima."
Shit. Should he have pretended he didn't know her name? His head hurt too much to think right now.
Rufus
Rufus was going to sit quietly in his chair, processing the exchange in front of him with all of the casual grace he possibly could.
It would appear, however, that his Turks had allies that he, himself, had not been made aware of. And this bothered him.
Particularly the blond one that was clinging to Reno as though she was more than simply worried over a friend. But he would address that issue later.
Rufus Shinra cleared his throat.
"I don't believe," he stated, in that eerily calm voice that hid quite effectively the fact that he was terribly confused, "that we've been introduced."
Rikku
Rikku now had one arm under Reno, trying to help him up off the floor. She glanced up at the man in the wheelchair, straightening her back and setting her chin defiantly.
"Rikku, of the Al Bhed tribe," she said, with all the dignity she had. "Romeo Montague of Verona. Dōjima Yurika of Tokyo."
She hoped. Close enough.
"We're friends of Reno's, from school. And you are?"
Well, screw him, if he got to be snotty, so did she.
Rufus
Rufus was allowed to be snotty. He had been the president of Gaia, essentially.
"Rufus Shinra," he replied, just as haughty as ever.
And really, that's all he figured he had to say on that.
Reno
Off the floor was good. Reno could totally handle being helped off of the floor.
Standing was not easy, however, so he was pretty much hanging off of Rikku. Which... would be a bigger issue in a moment.
"That's the president," he said, slurring only slightly, which was quite the accomplishment. "An' now that we got introductions together, you can all go back to Fandom. Good to see you. Bye."
He was aware, vaguely, that he was in deep crap for keeping them a secret from Rufus. He was also pretty sure that they wouldn't be alive long enough for it to matter. It evened out.
Romeo
"You could not have thought that we came so far to be disposed of so easily," Romeo said, breaking his silence. "We are here to help in any way we are able, and if you say we cannot it will only strengthen our resolve to follow you until you change your mind."
He wasn't wincing at Reno's apparent condition, or at least he was doing his best not to.
Dōjima
"What he said," Yurika agreed, finally holstering her weapon and offering Rude a hand up. "Nice to finally meet the infamous Rude. I keep hearing such nice things about you, but I was convinced you were a figment of Reno's lonely imagination."
She looked over her shoulder at Reno, forcing a grin. "Smile, Red, the cavalry just showed up, and we brought shiny toys."
Reno
The room was still swimming, and Reno hadn't quite convinced himself that he wasn't hallucinating the appearance of Rikku, Romeo, and Dōji at all. But the fact that Rufus didn't seem entirely pleased that there had been a secret kept from him was convincing enough, and the stubbornness of the posse in insisting that they were going to stick around, and the fact that Rikku wasn't leaving his side for a moment.
After a while of arguing in circles, Reno just kind of nodded toward the next room. He'd sort this out with Rikku.
Or something.
Yeah.
Rikku
"Okay," Rikku said, shutting the door behind them. Not letting go for an instant, not with the way he was wobbling. "You're alive, so that means you get to yell at me. Those are the rules. You want to get it out of your system, you go right ahead, zoto."
He looked like hell.
Reno
He felt like hell.
"Shouldn't have come," he mumbled, not protesting to the support she was offering. He'd take the help standing up. He seemed to be failing at it on his own, before. "You guys tryin' to get yourselves killed or whatever? We got Sephiroth clones and all hell and..."
... Okay, he could kind of see why they'd come. He would have done the same, were the circumstances reversed.
"Dammit, Rikku, this ain't safe. For any of you."
Rikku
"I know," she said. "I just went to tell them that I was going, and they insisted on coming along. I couldn't talk them out of it."
She took a steadying breath.
"We couldn't let you do this alone. We brought guns and potions and ..."
Now was a good time to crumple against him, and just breathe for a minute. He was alive. Okay. Right. Good.
Reno
He held her close, then, letting her breathe and shutting his eyes and losing himself in the warmth of her arms and the swimming of his head, and every shade of haze that drifted over him between the two.
Haze had many shades, today.
"There's nothin' I can say that'll make you turn back."
It wasn't so much a question as a statement of fact.
"I'm glad I got to see you again, then, zoto."
Rikku
"Nothing at all," she said, relieved that he didn't seem to be fighting the point any longer. "You'd have to tie us up in a broom closet or something, and you don't have time for that."
She stretched up for a faint hint of a kiss. "It's not over yet. I've done this whole end-of-the-world thing before. So've you. It's not."
The rest was softer, almost under her breath. "This is exactly where I'm supposed to be."
Reno
He leaned down to return that kiss, ignoring the pain that blossomed up from every battered inch of his body as he did so.
He was good with pain. One of the many important skills to have as a Turk.
"It probably ain't gonna be pretty," he warned her. But then, the end of the world never was, was it?
He straightened again, and nearly fell over in the process.
Nearly. He was too proud to crumple to the floor now that he was on his feet again.
Rikku
She still had a death grip on him. It was okay. He wasn't going anywhere.
"Are you ... gonna be in trouble, 'cause we're here?" she asked. "We stopped in Edge, met a bartender Dōjima said you knew. Figured ... someone would know where you were."
Especially if they checked the bars.
She shook her head. "It's never pretty. But don't give up yet. Okay? For me?"
Reno
"Trouble's mine to deal with, don't you worry about what Rufus thinks of all this. We can't afford to be turnin' anyone down. Not now, with all this goin' on."
Down two Turks. Cloud being impossible. All hope gone.
But not alone. Hey. Lookit that.
"I'm still standin' up. Not dead enough to give up just yet, yo."
Rikku
"Good," she said, nodding. "Lots of guns. Lots of potions. Three posse members signing up for duty. It's far from over."
Another brief, stolen kiss.
"What's the plan?"
Reno
"We gotta get outta here. The Remnants know where we are, and they'll be back, I'm sure. Somewhere in Edge, I'm thinkin'. Maybe we find Cloud again. Wring his neck until he agrees to help, I dunno. I'm not throwin' in the towel yet, zoto."
There was a pause.
"But before all that, I'm gonna down a freakin' potion. And then I'm gonna go in there and catch hell from my boss."
Rikku
"Potion," Rikku said, fishing one out of her leg-pouch. "I gave some to Romeo and Dōjima. Other goodies, too. Stuff that might help."
She bit her lip. "Do you need a minute? Just to ... breathe?"
Freak out? Wibble? Not think about any of this?
Reno
Reno reached tentatively for the potion that she'd pulled out, uncorked it, and downed it all in one swift motion.
Felt better already.
Physically.
He took a deep breath, and he shook his head. It was the end of the world. He was the leader of the Turks, now. All one of them. And now the only other people who ever meant anything to him were in on this as well.
"We don't got a minute for breathin'."
He leaned forward, brushed his lips against hers again, just to be clear that the change in posture and the no-nonsense attitude was nothing personal at all.
And then he took another deep breath, squeezed her hand, and turned to go back into the other room. He had to face the music from Rufus. And then he had to get right back to saving the world.
Shiva knew nobody else was going to.
Tseng
Tseng had to be alive. Being dead would not be this painful.
Therefore, he should investigate further. He would try opening his eyes.
He was a Turk. He could certainly accomplish something as trivial as opening his eyes.
The last thing he remembered ... was pain. Before that, more pain. Some silver-haired men. Screaming. Elena, screaming.
Elena.
Tseng opened his eyes, forcing himself not to groan. He was in a room he'd never seen before. It wasn't the base that the men had been using, in the Forgotten City.
Had they relocated? He would have expected to be left behind, to die there.
Vincent
The shadows moved.
Vincent had been keeping vigil since tending to their injuries, waiting in the darkened corner of the room. He was good at waiting.
"Tseng."
Tseng
It only took Tseng a moment to find the name that went to that face.
"Vincent," he said.
Vincent Valentine. One who had helped Cloud defeat Sephiroth. They'd been both enemies and allies; he could only guess what they were now.
First.
"Elena?"
Vincent
Best not to put that question to Vincent. He still wasn't sure what he was now.
"Behind you. She'll live."
He stepped forward, tattered cloak flowing dramatically.
Tseng
Tseng turned his head, fighting the shooting pain in his shoulders and the sudden swimming of his vision, until he could see blonde hair, attached to what appeared to be a sleeping Turk. Good enough. He let himself fall back against the bed again.
He searched for words. There was no easy way to ask someone why they'd saved your life.
"How did you find us?"
Vincent
"Don't move," Vincent cautioned. "You're badly injured." Cold eyes watched Tseng without blinking.
"The shinentai -- the Remnants. I followed them. You were there."
Tseng
"Shinentai," he repeated thoughtfully. "They're connected to Sephiroth. They were calling Jenova's head 'Mother.'"
Jenova, the Calamity from the Skies. An alien frozen in a geological stratum for 2,000 years. The discovery had driven Sephiroth mad ... or maybe only nudged him further across the line that had been taunting him, for years.
"Does Cloud know?"
Vincent
"If he doesn't, he'll find out soon enough." Sephiroth -- Sephiroth. Vincent tasted bile in his mouth; felt almost alive again. His mistake. His fault. His penance. And Cloud's vengeance.
"You can't let them have the head, the Jenova cells."
Tseng
"I know," Tseng said. He very nearly added a few ruder things about how he knew that, already, that that was perhaps how he had ended half-dead, but he bit them off. Vincent had saved his life, and Elena's; bickering was counterproductive.
"We went to the Northern Crater to secure it. They attacked. Reno escaped, with Jenova's head. Elena and I were ... less than forthcoming."
Hence their current state.
Vincent
"It all comes back to Sephiroth," Vincent told him. "To Jenova. That's what the Stigma is -- a symptom of alien matter infesting the body. Jenova's mimetic legacy. Call it what you will. It pollutes the Lifestream." Like Vincent himself never would. "The body tries to eliminate it and overcompensates."
Vincent paced back and forth, and then turned, cloak billowing, and his eyes met Tseng's. "Kadaj's group is using it."
Tseng
Tseng's eyes widened. "Geostigma?" The disease had ravaged Midgar since Meteor's wrath. He'd never thought to tie it back to Sephiroth.
And Tseng had told Kadaj that the President had it. He allowed himself a moment to scold himself for that.
"Thank you. For rescuing us." He tried to push himself up to sitting, only to be greeted by a fresh wave of nausea.
Vincent
Vincent glared at Tseng, and pointed one clawed finger of his metal gauntlet at the Turk's chest. "Lie DOWN!" he commanded. "You're not done being rescued yet."
He turned his back, not waiting to see if Tseng would obey.
Tseng
His head was still throbbing. He might have made it to his feet, but he was no match for Vincent. Even Tseng of the Turks had his limits.
Reluctantly, Tseng laid down again. He would sleep, and when he woke again, perhaps Elena would be well enough that they could leave.
Reno
The great reunion of the posse had, as all great reunions tended to be, to be cut short in favor of far more pressing matters. They'd set out as one in an attempt to hunt down Cloud. Again. If the world was going to end, they weren't going to roll over and just accept defeat without putting up a fight.
A good deal of asking around Edge had revealed several points. Firstly, that nobody really knew where Cloud was, though some people had seen him, on more than one occasion, heading back into the ruins of Midgar, toward the slums of Sector Five. Secondly, that there had been silver-haired men running around Edge earlier that day, holding out their hands to any kid with the stigma and then taking them away. And third, that wherever it was they were headed with them had seemed to be suspiciously in the same direction as The Forgotten City.
.... It made sense, really. If you were a crazed, villainous clone of the nightmare who almost ended the world, there couldn't possibly be a better place to chill out than there.
The real challenge, then, was to locate Cloud. A brilliant suggestion from Rude had noted that there was a church in Sector Five, which the Ancient used to spend a good deal of time at. Reno remembered the place, too.
He'd kinda made a point to step on her freakin' flowers.
So, they'd followed that hunch, and gone to the church, and they'd found a two-for-one deal, there, when they'd found Cloud and Tifa both passed out in the freakish flower patch that grew in the hole in the floor. Only plant life in Midgar, right there, and they were sleeping in it. Rude had, naturally, gone to carry Tifa, which had left the little guy carrying the stupid emo kid with the armor on. Poor Reno.
Now they were back at the Seventh Heaven bar in Edge, Cloud and Tifa supposedly resting it off in the other room, and Reno was exercising his amazing eavesdropping skills from the other side of the door while the two bickered about the end of the world.
As you do.
Tifa
When Tifa awoke, it was dark, and she was home again. She remembered -- fighting a silver-haired man, in the church. She remembered Cloud, shaking her back to consciousness. Swooning again, as Cloud had had a fit of pain and collapsed in the flowers himself.
It fit with the bandage she'd found lying nearby. So she asked the one question settling deep in her stomach like fear.
"You have ... Geostigma. Don't you?"
No answer. Which was all the answer she needed.
"So you're gonna give up and die, is that it?"
Oh, Cloud. Too ready to fail, never believing in himself, quitting before the battle had even begun. Two years ago, he'd stood as the only one strong enough able to take down Sephiroth. She wondered if he even remembered how that felt; he'd lapsed back into himself not long after. Guilt and blame and loss. He carried it all on his shoulders. No wonder he kept his head down.
"Let's fight it together. We can help each other, I know we can."
He was sitting on the bed now, eyes haunted, gaze firmly at his hands. She sighed.
"I guess that only works in real families."
Cloud
So, what, they were a family now? Her, him, and Denzel? And Barrett and Marlene? And the rest of their little group? Did Reeve count? Did Aerith's mom? His own parents were dead. And Tifa's. And Zack. And Aerith. All Sephiroth's fault, and that made them, in a lot of ways, his own fault. Everyone he touched died...
And now he had Geostigma. Just another reason for everyone to stay away.
"Tifa," he told her, "I'm not fit to help anyone." Anyone at all. Certainly not fit to save the world again. "Not my family, not my friends, nobody."
Tifa
"Stop saying that," Tifa snapped. "Dilly-dally-shilly-shally. They're just words. Stop running."
Reno
Reno crossed his arms as he slipped into the room, head tilted impassively.
"I think she wants you to move on, man."
Reno sure as hell did.
Tifa
Reno? What was he doing here?
She was really going to have to tie Cloud down, choke him, and make him tell her what was going on. It'd help if they both stopped passing out so much.
"Marlene," she said. "Some silver-haired guy took her."
Reno
"Kadaj's gang," Reno answered, "they took her, yo. They've been taking... a lotta kids, from the sound of it."
Scads of kids. Oodles of 'em, even. Just one more piece of crap going on that the Turks didn't need.
Rude
"They're at their base now," Rude added. "The Forgotten City." He didn't actually say it, but he didn't think he had to: rescuing the innocents was Cloud's job. The Turks had work to do, here in Edge.
Cloud
Cloud stood up, lost in thought. There was too much... and he was of no use to anyone. "Go," he told them. Reno and Rude, they could be the heroes for once, and let him sit this one out. "I have to talk to Rufus." Why, he wasn't sure. But he had to.
Tifa
"Stop running," Tifa repeated. Choking him was sounding better all the time. "I know. Even if you find the kids, you might not be able to help them. Maybe something will happen that can never unhappen. That scares you, doesn't it?"
He was terrified. They'd saved the world and he was still waiting for the next tombstone he could blame himself for. Aerith, Zack, anything so he could call himself a failure and justify giving up.
"Look at you! You think you've got it so damn hard. Well, you hate being alone, so let people in! Sure, you might not answer the phone, but I don't see you throwing it away, either."
Maybe you couldn't be broody and feel sorry for yourself unless you knew for sure people were calling to beg you not to.
"So which is it: a memory, or us?"
Reno
Reno was starting to feel as though he was sitting in on something that... he really didn't want to be.
Awwwwkward.
He ran his fingers through his hair and shifted his weight from foot to foot. Okay. Looked like Tifa was going to beat Cloud into submission.
"You go. The base is all yours."
He was gonna... just turn and walk out, now, and hope for the best. The Turks had business of their own to deal with. A President to move. They weren't going to get caught in Healin by Kadaj again.
Cloud
Cloud walked over to the window and looked out at Edge, at all the people, people who needed help. Needed someone to save them. Someone like a Soldier, First Class. Or even a poor imitation of one.
He turned and nodded at Tifa, and gave her half a smile. "I'll be back."
[Follows this post. Preplayed with the_merriest, fair_montague, dojima_hime, and sarcasm_guy, the first of whom rocks the coding, and the rest of whom rock no less, but with less HTML. Wee, tiny chunks of dialog once again lifted from Advent Children with a bit of tweaky goodness because we can to spare repetition... and confusion, which Square-Enix manages to excel at. NFB, NFI, and OOC is made of sparkles and lifestream and will be nommed upon accordingly.]