The young redhead re-adjusted his headset with one hand while the other fiddled with the controls of the helicopter, long slender fingers wrapped around the main control.
He sighed, blowing a strand of fiery red hair out of his eyes.
"RENO!" He almost jumped out of his skin at the loud voice through his headphones. Does that girl always have to be so hyper.
"Geez…" He said in annoyance, rubbing his ear under his headphones. "No need to shout Elena. I can hear you, you know?"
He heard a small forced chuckle from the other end.
"This isn't funny! I nearly got deafened." He said, desperately trying to lighten the mood.
Only a couple of hours ago, Rufus Shinra, president of Shinra, had given him a mission to fly over Enemy lines and find the co-ordinates of the enemy camp.
"Let me guess, I'm the only one who can do this?" he asked after the briefing, raising an eyebrow.
Rufus gave a small nod. Reno sighed, it was, after all, his Birthday that day, it wasn't really that important, but still... 'not that anyone actually cares' he thought.
Just as he was about to leave, Rufus said one more thing to him. "By the way," he paused, "there's a very high chance that you won't be coming back," He said sadly, his expression hidden by the veil he still wore, even if he didn't need it.
When he left, no one was there, Rude, Tseng, no one, they had all buggered off home once they were let off duty. The only one there was Elena, who had to be there because she was watching over the whole mission. He could see her now in his mind, sitting at the desk, various screens in front of her, notebook and pen ready to write everything down. Most likely doodling from sheer boredom.
'Nice to know people care about you isn't it?' he thought, sighing, eyebrows furrowed.
"Reno…" Elena sighed down the mike, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Reno picked up on the sad note in her voice.
"Elena. Please don't do this." He said, glancing down at the ground far below him.
Suddenly the helicopter jolted forward slightly.
"Whoa!" Reno checked the dials to see if anything important had been hit. Luckily, nothing had. His slender hands gripped the controls, keeping the aircraft balanced.
"Reno? Is everything Ok?" he heard Elena ask. "What's happened?"
"Elena, enough with the questions, a shot must have clipped the tail or something, that's all. Let's get this over with before anything important, namely me, gets hit, 'kay?" He peered out the window. "I'm here, sending the co-ordinates." He said, pressing a few buttons, Elena scribbling the numbers down in a notepad.
"Right! Got 'em, now get the hell out of there," Elena ordered, smiling slightly, her hopes rising. She had accidently over heard the comment from ShinRa earlier. 'There's a very high chance you won't be coming back.' They were only getting the co-ordinates right? How dangerous could it be?
"Roger that" Reno grinned, expertly turning the helicopter around.
It was then that the aircraft jerked forward violently, throwing Reno into the dashboard, smacking his head hard.
He lifted his head and looked at the dials, his eyes widened when he saw they were going haywire.
"Oh, crap." He muttered, "This can't be good."
"Reno? What's happening?" Elena asked, her voice breaking up over the microphone, something had definitely been hit bad.
"Got hit. Look's really bad. Dials, controls, everything is going absolutely haywire! It's becoming difficult to control." The redhead explained, sounding calmer than he felt, just like he'd been trained to. Desperately trying to keep control of the helicopter, he was doing everything he could to make sure he sounded composed and not make Elena panic on the other end. He felt warm blood trickle down the side of his face.
"Reno!" Elena cried, forgetting her training in her worry.
Reno ignored her as he gripped the controls, trying to steer the helicopter away from the camp. It was absurdly difficult. The aircraft was becoming extremely difficult to handle.
Managing to get it away from the camp, he looked out the side window, only to see how high he actually was. He wasn't afraid of heights, far from it in fact. However, he knew if he was to fall from this height, if the helicopter stopped now, well. There was no way he was going to survive this. Even if he were to jump, and on the off-chance survived, it was likely he would be caught by whoever was on patrol, and killed anyway.
"E-Elena." Fear was starting to show in his voice. He swallowed, composing himself so he didn't sound as anxious as he was. Might as well die here rather than at their hands. Though technically this was by their hands, but he chose the ignore that fact.
"Reno, a-are you ok?" Elena asked, fear and alarm crept into her voice.
"Elena, there's no way I'm getting out of this one." Reno sighed as he accepted his fate. He heard Elena gasp on the other end and could just picture her face, eyes widened, both hands over her mouth and nose and he just knew she sat up straight suddenly, the way she always did, one of the many things she did that he jokingly made fun of her for.
"No…" she whispered, so soft he could barely hear. "No!" more stern this time. "No, you are not giving up yet. You can't. Not today…" Her voice had slowly gone down in volume. "Reno… Reno, please. Everyone's at Tifa's, it's your birthday remember, everyone's there, waiting for you. Tifa called up earlier. You can't leave them. You can't leave me…" she sobbed. "Who else can I yell at?"
"Really? All for… me?" Reno whispered, almost to himself. No one had ever done that for him, ever.
Just as he began reaching for the controls to give it one last try, another shot rang out closer to the front this time, sending the large aircraft spinning. The loud sound of the propellers slowed and ceased, throwing and eerie silence over the entire aircraft.
There was no point in trying to jump out; he would die anyway from the height he was at.
"Reno…. Where's the propellers gone?" Reno heard Elena ask, cracked up slightly.
Reno looked out of the window to see the ground getting nearer at an unbelievable speed.
"Well… see you around…I guess." The redhead muttered, taking off his headset, and sitting back, sighing deeply. Not the most amazing last words, but what else could he say.
Then everything went black.
"Reno?" Elena stared at the screen as the little green dot that was Reno, blinked out, and a beeping noise came out of her headphones, indicating that the connection had been lost
He was gone.
Elena buried her head in her arms and cried.
A/N: This is a rewrite. I noticed just how little sense this made with the rest of the story. Mainly because the plot took a sudden left turn and ended up almost completely different from the original plan. Well, actually this isn't really rewritten, I just went through and changed a few bits, and added things here and there.
To those who have just started reading, ignore all of that. And welcome, thanks for reading this far without hitting the backspace button, much appreciated ^^ I do hope you leave a review before you do leave, be it nice or not, anything is welcome.