Crimson Fury number 12
Shakai: way hayyy 12 chapters!
Reno: its not that much
Shakai: I don't care, its on its way to becoming another ace fic. Well I hope it will.
Reno: yeh, just gotta keep gettin these chapters out, well not these kind of chapters, I'm not in this one.
Shakai: you've had your turn, there are other people in this fic.
Reno: but I'm the main one (sulks)
The helicopter landed at Dio's chocobo ranch near late afternoon. Elena and Yuffie had spent the rest of the trip in silence after the conversation. Yuffie was extremely glad to be off the machine. She jumped aroun stretching her muscles and breathing the air without feeling sick. Vincent looked as unruffled as always, he viewed the ranch before heading to the nearest barn. Elena groaned, her foot had gone numb. She kicked it into the ground before looking around.
Dio had certainly made this place look nice in such a short time. It was a huge version of the chocobo farm and had about 7 paddocks. There were 4 large barns, one in each corner of his land. They were outside the smallest one where the renting chocobos stayed. Dio was waiting for them, he smiled and led them into the barn.
"so, which kinds will ya be needing?" he asked. Elena mentally viewed what the terrain was like on the way.
"Blacks I reckon, 3 of them." Dio nodded and walked to the far end on the barn, past blues and greens and the most common yellows.
"How come you don't rent out golds?" Yuffie asked. Dio turned to face her.
"I do, its just that they are so rare and hard to breed I keep them in my house with Choccy." He grinned. Choccy was obviously the chocobo which had saved him. Yuffie nodded and went to stroke the nearest black.
Vincent was closest to the door, he felt a strange presence. It wasn't off any of the chocobos. He turned and faced a yellow chocobo pen. Inside, hidden under some straw was a stray mutt. It stared at him with an intelligent gleam in its eye then growled. Vincent was positive that that was the mutt from Midgar, but that was impossible. No dog was that fast, not even racing dogs. He dismissed the idea and went to find a suitable black.
Elena picked a small black chocobo called Gravy. It seemed really tame and warked happily as she stroked and cooed over it. Vincent picked a medium chocobo big enough to hold him and another person, it was nice enough as long as Vincent fed it greens, it was named Koroi. Yuffie surveyed every single black chocobo before choosing the biggest, most fierce looking one aptly named Sauron. She tried stroking it but it snapped at her. Elena eyed the huge chocobo warily as she hugged Gravy.
"You sure you can manage a chocobo like that?" Vincent had asked.
"Of course! I'm a ninja, I can handle anything." Yuffie had replied grinning proudly at the feathery beast.
After they had purchased several greens, most of them for preventing Sauron from eating Yuffie. They were ready to set off. Vincent hopped onto Koroi and handed it another green. Elena didn't have to give her chocobo a green, it followed her everywhere and warked happily when she climbed on its saddle. Yuffie had to give her chocobo seven greens before it would let her near it. She had to give it another 3 to let her climb it. When she was in the saddle though it stopped trying to kill her and just warked annoyedly.
Vincent led the way to Mideel on Koroi with Yuffie in second and Elena and Gravy taking the rear. They rode without incident for an hour as it went dark. As they ran across the sand dunes Vincent spotted something out of the side of his eye. It looked like a black thing moving to the side of them. He turned his head to look closely but there was nothing there. He shrugged and concentrated on where he was going. A few minutes later something darted by the side of his chocobo again and he turned to look. Again there was nothing there but Sauron started warking nervously. Yuffie petted its head trying to quiet it but it had a different effect. Sauron started going crazy with fear. Vincent pulled on the reins of his chocobo to make it slow down, it complied. Elena's chocobo followed its lead and stopped running and warked nervously. Sauron was still going crazy, it jumped up and down warking madly at something in the shadows. Yuffie clung to the reins until it jumped a little too hard throwing her off.
Yuffie went flying into the shadows where Sauron was staring at. Vincent jumped off his chocobo and gave it a reassuring pat as he went to calm Sauron down. Elena also jumped off hers and ran to the shadowy place where Yuffie had been thrown. Gravy followed right behind her and Elena stroked its neck. Yuffie hadn't appeared and Elena wondered if she was ok. The shadowy place was in fact a ditch, Elena peered into the darkness softly calling Yuffie's name. There was no answer. Elena began to feel nervous, Gravy had backed away warking nervously and Vincent sounded a long way away. She slowly took a step closer to the edge of the ditch and bent forward to look in.
Two hands reached out from the darkness and wrapped around Elena's waist. She shrieked and tried to pull herself away, the opposing force was too strong though and she fell into the black ditch with another high scream.
Vincent pulled on the Sauron's reins again and threw some more greens its way. It calmed down a little but still warked madly in the direction of the shadowy ditch. Vincent paused and watched Elena walk slowly to the edge of the shadows. /It must be a hole or something/ he thought, /Nothing makes that kind of shadow/ He squinted in the dark as Elena crouched down on the edge of the shadow and leant forward slightly. Her chocobo hadn't followed her any further, it stood warking worriedly a few metres away.
He turned his attention back onto Sauron who was warking angrily because it had ran out of greens. Vincent handed a few more when he heard the scream. He whirled around in time to see Elena pulled into the ditch with another scream. Forgetting the grumpy chocobo he sprinted over to help Elena.
All she could see was darkness, it felt as if something had been placed over her eyes. There was a loud scream coming from nearby and she wanted to get away quickly. She groped blindly at her eyes, desperate to see but found nothing in the way. There was only one hand on her waist and soon she felt the other one clasping across her mouth. It muffled the loud shriek which startled Elena when she realised that it had been her.
Elena shut up and forced herself to think rationally. She was in a ditch with some evil monster holding her. She could hear it. What she imagined to be a huge slimy bulbous beast was making a horrible din. /Probably getting ready to eat me/ Elena thought hopelessly, the horrible noise increased and brought Elena out mental images showing herself being chomped on by a marlboro. She realised that she had heard the noise before, only when she had heard it, it had been...laughter? Elena's past morbid death thoughts were replaced with anger when she placed the laughter on a certain person, well, a certain ninja.
Yanking the hand off her waist and biting down on the hand holding her mouth, Elena grinned when she heard the pained gasp. She scrambled out of the ditch practically seething with fury and ran straight into Vincent.
"Ooomph." She said, the breath knocked out of her. Vincent grabbed her arm gently.
"You ok?" he asked softly. Elena looked up and realised exactly why the young ninja had a crush on this man. He spoke so softly, never rose his voice at anyone and his crimson eyes were deep and mysterious Someone could get lost just staring at them. Vincent shifted and let go of Elena's arm and she realised that she had been staring.
"Yeh, I'm ok." she said quietly and walked up to her chocobo which was terrified for her. It nuzzled her and warked happily that she was safe.
Vincent let her go. He watched the blonde VP hug her chocobo reassuringly, and felt distinctly uncomfortable. She been staring at him for ages lost in thought, with a look on her face which read easily as want. He shrugged and bent down into the ditch. Choking noises could be heard and he hoped that Yuffie was ok, although the scream was easily Elena's.
A hand emerged from the darkness and gripped the ledge. Yuffie's face appeared shortly after and she was crying from laughing too hard. Vincent helped her out and she wiped her face with her arm.
"Payback!" she yelled at Elena who glared in return. Vincent sighed and trudged back to Koroi. Yuffie edged a little more slowly to Sauron who was trying to eat the little grass it could find. She held her hand out and it looked puzzled at her. Yuffie pulled a gysahl green out of her pocket and placed it on the outstretched hand. Sauron warked and it sounded strangely like a happy laugh and walked toward Yuffie. She stroked its neck and jumped on its back. She pulled the reins and it walked calmly ahead to Mideel. Vincent and Elena stared amazed at how placid the chocobo was being. Yuffie turned around and yelled.
"Told you ninja's could handle everything!" Vincent shrugged and urged Koroi on whilst Elena scowled.
"We'll see ninja girl. I want some revenge!" she muttered under her breath and urged Gravy to run after the retreating figures.
Reno: I wasn't mentioned once in that chapter!
Shakai: if you carry on sulking I'll pull you off the chapter blurbness and let Rude say it.
Reno: baldy? say anything?
(Rude flexes)
Reno: right whatever, you just know that I'm the best character for this.
Shakai: yeh yeh,
Rude: ...Review.
Reno: he said something!!!
