Aftershock
A/N: Okay, some words of explanation. Currently, I'm posting these Reno-centric stories as short fics. Eventually I hope to end up tying them together into a longer story. At the moment, though, I'm not sure where I'm going with this or if I'll ever get to that point, so I'll just keep posting material as short fics until I figure it out. But I recommend you don't hold your breath, yo.
This one takes place in-game. Reno has just brought down the Sector Seven plate, and although injured in the battle with Avalanche, he is unaware of the severity of his injuries and has taken it into his head to have a close-up look at what he has accomplished before reporting to Turk headquarters to debrief and receive medical treatment. Since in-game we hear nothing about Reno between when he is injured at Sector Seven and when he shows up back in the field with a desire for revenge, there's plenty of room for fan-fic!
Night came. The soundscape of the city did not lessen, it only changed. Midgar still pulsed with energy and life, it just hummed now in a darker key. But silence had fallen over the remains of Sector Seven. Anyone left alive in there no longer had the strength left to cry for help. Reno the Turk stood, wraithlike, in the shadows. A strange weakness was stealing over him, saturating his blood and melting his bones. It probably had something to do with the injuries he had sustained in the fight against Avalanche at the Sector Seven pylon earlier. He remembered it only in brief flashes. The dark-haired girl's kicks, in particular, had done a lot of damage, and he suspected the least of it was some broken ribs. But broken ribs alone would not cause this weariness seeping into his being, unless something else was amiss within.
Reno allowed that he might have made a serious error by having Rude drop him solo at the Sector Eight junction after completing the mission. But he had wanted, no, needed, to see for himself what he had accomplished when he had beaten Avalanche back and successfully armed and set off the charges at the Sector Seven pylon. He had been walking the perimeter of the sector now for over an hour, and his wanderings were becoming more and more aimless.
He leaned against the twisted metal at his back and tried to focus his eyes on what was in front of him. It was difficult, and not only because of his dulling vision. He had never seen metal twisted into such bizarre forms before (thank the gods). And what was that over to the right? It looked like...a hand? Poking out from between two metal sheets that had folded and wrapped around each other, like the petals of some kind of weird flower. A flower that had leached a dark red pollen out onto the ground. The hand...was it moving? Reno blinked his eyes and shook his head, which produced an effect like an interior snowfall, further damping both sound and vision. But he should go and look, there could be someone...no, it wasn't moving. At all. It was just the shifting light. Nothing could live within that deadly flower, after all.
And besides, he didn't think he could cross the distance to the flower-form. Too weak. Even as he thought it, his legs crumpled beneath him, slowly, like a telescope collapsing, and he watched through suddenly strobe-like vision as the ground approached. It seemed to take a really long time. There. It stopped now. He must be sitting, because he could see one leg stretched out in front of him. The other was probably under him, but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything now but the cold, which, strangely, was not seeping upwards from the ground but outward from somewhere at the center of him.
This wasn't good, he thought, got to...what? Got to what? Move? He couldn't anymore. Too tired. Too numb. Too cold. Too...too...two. Channel two. That was it. Call Rude, channel two. Call Rude, get out of here. He moved his hand up his torso, inside his jacket, which seemed to have taken on a strange purply-red tinge. What the hell, he thought, I just had the damned thing cleaned, gonna have to do it again. He contemplated the prospect glumly. Wait, what was he doing? Oh, yeah, channel two. He found his PHS, but couldn't seem to manage to close his fingers around it, and it slid down to his lap. But why were there two of them? Which one should he call on? Didn't matter. Channel two. Punch it in, hit send, wait for a response...
A bit later, he focused his eyes. Where was he? Why was it so damned cold? And why was he sitting on the ground with his PHS next to him? Damned Tseng would dock his pay if he wrecked another one. He looked across the twisted metal landscape to the strange flower. It hadn't moved. The hand looked like it was waving at him though, in the flickering light, beckoning him to come closer and smell the sweet, coppery-wet scent of the blossom. Hmph. Stop and smell the flowers. They smelled like blood. A perfect flower for Reno the Turk. He chuckled, which hurt.
Why were the lights flickering so much anyway? Why were there lights down here in the wreckage at all? And who was singing? Singing. Singing. He should sing. Why not? He was probably just drunk on his ass outside one of his hangouts, maybe someone had finally slipped through his guard and landed one that knocked him out cold. Wow. He was slipping if he had let that happen.
But just one song, he'd cheer himself up, then...
A bit later, he focused his eyes on the dark on the other side of where he was. Something was moving in there. Wait. Where was he? Oh, yeah, Sector Seven. Sector Seven slums. Sector Seven under the plate, under the plate, why why why was he down here? Something moved again, but the lights dimmed and...
From the dark behind the strange flower-form, a small boy wandered out, hesitantly, edging toward the red-haired man slumped against the ruined metal. The boy recognized the uniform, knew what it meant. Turk. Danger. But he was so still. And there was a PHS there on the ground next to him. Maybe, just maybe...if the Turk stayed quiet, maybe he could get to it, use it to call his mom. He'd been trying to get home for hours and hours, ever since the unthinkable happened and the plate came crashing down, but he couldn't find his way in around the wreckage at the edge of the sector. He knew they'd be worried about him, and he was worried about them, too.
The worry made him brave, and he sidled closer to the silent Turk. Nothing. No movement. Now that he was closer, he could see that the Turk's jacket was soaked through with blood, staining the deep blue a dark purple color.
"Mister?" Still nothing.
"Mister, can I use your phone?"
Silence.
The boy moved closer, slid a foot forward and nudged the Turk with a toe, springing quickly back out of reach. The man gave a soft moan, but stayed still, and the boy moved close again. He looked into the Turk's face, which was a sickly pale color. He noticed two dark red tattoos running along the man's high cheekbones. But the man's eyes remained closed, his breathing shaky and uneven.
The boy bent down and picked up the PHS. It was off. He turned it on, switched over to the commercial frequency and dialed his home number. Nothing. Just static. He waved the phone through the air, moved a few feet over, tried again. The phone was working, because he had an open line, but when he dialed home, he got nothing but more static. He sighed softly and went to put the phone back by the Turk.
He wondered what to do about the man. Even though he was a Turk, and therefore ShinRa, those people were supposed to be protecting the city. Whatever had happened in Sector Seven, maybe this guy had gotten hurt trying to protect them. He didn't feel right leaving him there alone, but he had to find his family, and there was nobody around to ask for help. He put his small hand on the man's shoulder and gave him a little shake. The Turk gasped, then muttered "Two," before subsiding.
The boy considered this. Two. Well, when he switched the PHS on, it had been on channel two. Okay, he put it back on channel two and activated it.
Back at Turk headquarters, the effect was instantaneous.
"We've got him! His PHS just came on line! Tracking now..."
Tracking proved difficult due to interference in the devastated sector. What's more, the signal was faint, and growing fainter. Rude shouted into the PHS, begging Reno to give his location and status. The tech officer continued to narrow the search, closing in on the signal in painfully slow increments.
"He's still in Sector Seven! What the hell, Rude?"
Rude turned to the tech and in a tight voice said, "I already told you! The man said he had something he had to do. After he finished that particular mission, I wasn't about to argue with him."
He threw the copter keys at Elena and growled, "You're driving!" To Tseng, he spoke in a slightly more deferential manner. "Call in the coordinates when you have them. We'll be en route." Tseng nodded, and continued to work with the technician to focus in on the signal's source as the intermittent transmissions allowed. "We'll have medical stand by, just in case." Rude grunted, and strode out after Elena.
At the other end, voices were coming over the PHS, although they were indistinct and broken. The boy felt better about leaving now. The man's friends, dangerous friends, would come for him now. Maybe not soon enough, but he couldn't help that. At least someone would come to find him. He wouldn't wake up here all alone in the silent dark, wondering if anyone would come at all.
Satisfied that he had done what he could, Denzel edged back into the shadows to continue his own search for a way back into the sector, a way back home.