Burning Sand

"Tseng!" Elena quickly stepped into the Turk's office followed slowly by Rude.

Their boss lifted his head up from what he was doing and looked at the two other Turks. "Yes Elena," he said in a much calmer tone than the blonde woman.

"We've found him Sir." Elena continued at a quick pace, not giving Tseng much time to say anything else. Tseng merely nodded as she carried on. "Well not exactly found him, we haven't seen him but we know where he is… sort of." She paused for a moment and Rude stepped in.

"We spoke to Tifa Lockhart who got in contact with Cid Highwind. He's seen Reno and knows where we can find him. It's complicated Sir but with his help we can get there."

There was a confused look on their superior's face, then a sigh as he spoke. "What do you mean complicated, where is he?" His voice sped up, getting louder.

"In this kind of other world, Sir," the blonde answered.

"Go on," said the dark haired man.

Elena's face showed her struggle for words. "We don't really know all that much about it."

"A few of Avalanche spend regular time over there, we need to travel by airship Sir and we also need Highwind to navigate," Rude finished.

"Alright then, there's no point in wasting time. I believe I can trust the two of you with this. Leave as soon as you can." Tseng said confidently, sounding a lot happier that he had done previously.

"Sir." The two remaining Turks nodded and left the office.


"Where the hell am I…." After making his 'deal' with Santa Claus Reno had said goodbye to Jack and headed off again in the borrowed ship. He was fairly happy about his deal although it meant a sacrifice on Reno's part. He felt good for doing it though.

"Man it's hot, maybe I'll get a tan or something," said the redhead to himself as he stepped onto the sand. "Nah…I doubt it."

Reno had only just noticed, a few moments after stepping out of the ship that his outfit had not been affected by this world. It was to his disappointment though. It was extremely hot and Reno was sweating. It was intensified by the fact that he'd just spent time in Christmas Town.

The redhead exhaled heavily in the heat and blew the hair hanging over his eyes temporarily out of his face. He turned back around to face the ship and took off his jacket, throwing it through the entrance. Then he undid his shirt buttons all the way to the bottom, leaving it on so that his shoulders didn't burn. Then he unbuttoned, unzipped and let his trousers fall to the floor.

He perched himself on the step leading up to the airship and struggled to pull the ends of his trousers over his boots. Taking his boots off first would just have been all too easy.

After removing his trousers and throwing them into the airship Reno took a proper look around. In front of him was a great stone wall with huge wooden doors and behind him was a vast boiling desert.

He felt his heavy boots push into the sand as he headed toward the doors. The place gave the impression of a fort from the outside, Reno only hoped that he wouldn't have to do any more fighting. He pulled at the ring hanging on one of the doors and lifted the latch. The ease of opening the door shortly put Reno's mind at rest, the people inside couldn't have been that protective. Or perhaps it was handing out a false sense of security. Still Reno carried on and pulled open the door.

Through the doors it was quiet. There were market stalls with baskets and pots. It was weird, like it was too quiet. Then out of the corner of his eye, something huge appeared.

"Heartless?" Reno questioned to himself. The thing was huge and circular but it had a similar appearance to the other heartless Reno had come across. "Big fat ass heartless."

The Turk rung and swung at it as hard as he could but with great force his EMR was forced back in his direction. "What the?" Reno backed off a little, not being able to inflict damage.

All of a sudden a burst of flames came bursting out through it's huge mouth. Reno instantly dropped to the floor, avoiding the fire. He could feel from just the heat over his back when the flames had died down and once they did Reno stood again. The heartless began to turn and Reno struck at all angles he could. "Nobody - burns - Reno!" He shouted in between each strike. When Reno struck the heartless from behind it took damage. Using all his strength the thing, just like the smaller ones, faded into nothing.

"Man I'm hungry." Reno looked around at the market stalls for some food. He lifted up the lids of baskets only in disappointment to find fresh fruit underneath. That was at first at least. He moved on, only at the very extreme would Reno lower himself to voluntarily eating fruit.

Lifting another basket on another kart he found different types of nuts and raisins. He grabbed a handful of nuts but they weren't really salty enough for Reno. Once again he quickly moved on whilst at the same time checking around for any owners of the stalls that could be watching him. He continued to search through the stalls until he found something that he could funnily enough eat a hell of a lot of.

"Sweet, salmon." Reno grabbed a handful, shoving it into his mouth. "Awesome, it's been smoked." Reno was actually starving, more so now that he'd had a taste of some food. He grabbed the whole bowl and sat on the sand under one of the stalls in the shade. It didn't take him long to finish what was left in the bottom of the bowl.

A combination of the hot sun and his lunch had made Reno slightly sleepy. He lay back on the cooler sand with nobody around and the heartless taken care of and quite easily fell to sleep.


"I can't believe we actually found him, we really ought to thank Cid properly." Came Elena's voice.

"I can't believe he's asleep." Rude replied with slight amusement in his voice.

"Shall we wake him nicely or not?" Elena asked, smiling.

"I'll go find a bucket of cold water." Rude said.

The two Turks stood in the blistering heat staring at the little Turk lying peacefully in the shade. He looked so sweet when he was asleep, just like a child. But how nice it would have been to wake him up abruptly. A little payback perhaps, for both of them.

"Hey Rude can you move please coz the sun off your bald head is shining in my eyes and it's woken me up!" Reno said not even being able to keep a serious tone of voice throughout the whole of the sentence.

The redhead sat up, yawned and rubbed his eyes. Rude merely stared at his childish friend, resisting a laugh with difficulty. "Sup Laney, Rude."

"Reno! How can you be so…so." Elena's voice was raised.

"What?" Reno knew full well this would aggravate Elena further. He couldn't help it though, he was too relaxed and still a little sleepy.

"We've been looking for you! We've had Highwind use his ship to track you down. You left me at the Chocobo farm and after what you did to Rude." She paused. Rude adjusted his posture awkwardly and raised a hand to his mouth only to lower it again. "How can you be so casual."

"Elena what were we doing?" Reno carried on just as Elena opened her mouth to speak. "Well I'll tell you Elena, we were investigating an airship yes?"

"Yeah but.." Reno cut her off again. Rude stood with his arms folded. This conversation would no doubt in Reno making some cocky, over complicated an unnecessary excuse.

"Well I investigated that ship did I not?" The redhead gave no time for answers. "Yes I did and I found an entire other world Elena! What did you do huh? Plus I gave you two something interesting to do."

"Shut up Reno." Reno knew she hated doing that but he could always outsmart her, leaving her with nothing else to say."

Rude however knew Reno. "You didn't know you were going to find another world, that was a fluke. And you owe me an apology."

"I knew full well bald man. And both of you will get an apology, I promise."

Reno put his weight on his hands and pushed himself up to stand. Rude's expression was fine but Elena still looked a little irritated.

"You can apologise now Reno!"

"You can't just demand an apology, it's not the same as actually getting one."

"Reno!" Elena raised her voice and it was clear she was increasingly losing her temper.

"Elena, stay here I need to talk to Reno." Rude interrupted and walked off around the corner, Reno following him.

"Reno, just lay off her ok? What you did would annoy anyone." He said when they were a fair distance away from the blonde Turk.

"Rude, how come you aren't as mad, I thought you'd be really pissed." The redhead didn't look Rude in the eyes but simply lowered his head.

"Well you said you'd apologise and you don't break promises do you Reno?" The redhead shook his head. Rude looked down at his smaller partner. "Come on, let's get outta here."

"Yeah." Said Reno cheerfully.

The two Turks headed back through the market place as Rude asked, "Hey Reno, why are you half naked?"

"You shouldn't be looking' Rude." The redhead laughed and Rude just shook his head with a smile. "Are you not slightly hot? Well, I suppose you do have no hair."

As they came back into the market place the two stopped simultaneously, noticing it was empty. Their fellow Turk gone.

"Ah crap, where the hell's Elena?"


A/N: It's finally up! WOO! A little shorter than the last chapter, I hope you found it funny. Let me know what you think!