Hi. I can't post new stories. It says I'm not logged in. That happen to anyone else? Anyway, enjoy.
Challenge 24: Reno v Yuffie
Bored and depressed after losing his job (according to Rufus, he'd drawn with Elena, not beaten her), Reno made a beeline for his favourite bar-one Turtle's Paradise in Wutai. Had he been thinking, he'd have realised that this was inadvisable given Shinra's past history with the town, but he'd come. Still wearing the Turk jacket, no less. He'd been in it so long it was hard to think about anything else. He might as well have worn a sign 'Seventy percent off at Lynchmob supplies!'
The barman, who knew him, was willing to let his origins slide because of the alcoholism that made him an obscene profit. Yuffie Kisaragi, newly eighteen and coming into the building to celebrate her first (legal) drink, was not.
"Get out of my town." Her manner would have surprised AVALANCHE, who knew only the 'hyper kleptomaniac' version. Reno, turning around, suddenly realised how much trouble he was in and stood up.
"You're standing in the doorway."
"My mistake." She stepped aside, and he walked past, exposing the Turk jacket to the passers by. They swiftly moved to block his escape. Turks were (justifiably) not well thought of in Wutai, thanks to a couple of unpunished war crime atrocities. And now, Shinra wasn't powerful enough to hold them back...
Grabbing a surprised Yuffie, Reno threw her through the railings outside the Paradise and into the pond, Electroprodding her at full charge before the ripples had settled. Magnified several times by the water, the charge knocked her cold instantly. As the angry Wutaiens rushed to save their princess, Reno bolted in the opposite direction –deeper into the town. He was soon followed by a fifty strong angry mob, and knew if he had any hope of survival he needed to cut down the odds.
Gorky was caught entirely by surprise when Reno burst in, the mob on his tail. He didn't react fast enough to stop his ascent, but succeeded in barring the stairs against the mob that followed. Those who had already defeated Gorky continued the chase, only to be barred by Shake on the next floor, while the others squared off with him one by one. Similar things happened with Shake and Chekhev further up. Nobody excepting Yuffie and Godo had ever formally defeated Staniv, so Reno found himself on Godo's floor alone. But not for long.
000
Below...
Another Wutaien hit the opposite wall hard as Staniv spun his mace. Two others considered their options.
"What the hell are we gonna do?"
"He can't stay up there forever!
"Oh, come on. We can't keep everyone here indefinitely. A siege isn't going to work."
"What about Godo?"
"Do you want to wake him up?"
"...Fair point."
A reinvigorated Yuffie flashed past, running along walls and ceiling, heading to the upper floor.
"We can't let her up there alone!"
The two ninjas exchanged glances, eyeing Staniv, still twirling his mace.
"...You go first."
000
Ducking under a Mag Rod swipe on the threshold, Yuffie somersaulted to the centre of the room and flung her Shuriken back at where Reno was standing, embedding in the doorpost instead as Reno lunged for her feet. Somersaulting over him, the ninja retrieved her weapon and flung it again, only to have it batted aside. Still wet, a follow up Mag–Rod strike staggered Yuffie, but she recovered and a small fireball blasted Reno back into the wall.
Retrieving her shuriken, she flung it at close range. Reno found the Mag-Rod he was holding trapped between two of the spikes that embedded in the wall around it, rendering it immovable. Abandoning it, he lunged for Yuffie, hitting her hard in the face. A follow up kick to the stomach didn't work out as Yuffie grabbed his foot and drove him backwards through the light wooden wall of the room and out onto the ledge outside, narrowly avoiding being impaled on the shuriken embedded in the wall nearby.
She could have just kicked him off the ledge, but Yuffie stopped to give a futile tug to the shuriken in the wall. Unable to retrieve it, she drew a sword from Godo's rack of spares before attacking. Reno rolled aside from the slash, then stepped back in and pushed her in the back, off the side of the building. Being a ninja, Yuffie caught the ledge and pulled herself back up, but not before Reno had stepped back inside the building and pulled a second sword from Godo's rack.
Turks trained with every kind of weapon under the sun. Wutaien ninjas had been training with every kind of weapon under the moon for two thousand years. Neither Reno nor Yuffie were stellar examples of their creed, however. Training versus heritage...and even lazy ninjas/turks could give most ordinary soldiers a good battle.
The blades clashed. Yuffie had faster reflexes, but Reno had more raw strength. Forced back, she lashed out with a strike that nicked his upper arm, but neglected to defend her other side when he spun, resulting in a gash to her left eyebrow. He sidestepped her slash at his briefly exposed back, then stepped to meet her again, blades striking sparks off each other. Reno's underhand slash suddenly turned into a swipe at Yuffie's feet, for which she stepped back, then came back in slashing at his head, almost, but not quite, getting in a fatal strike. Blood streaming from his scalp wound, Reno suddenly countered with a gash to Yuffie's shin. A minor wound, it was actually a very intelligent attack, making it painful for her to step and limiting her footwork. Pressing the attack, Reno forced her to put her weight on her now weak leg, provoking a slight stagger with every step that created opening for those capable of taking advantage. Her reflexes kept him from a fatal strike, but he got in a few gashes before falling back, waiting for her to step to meet him.
She was limping painfully towards him when Godo appeared in the doorway, sword in hand.
"What's going on?"
Reno knew he couldn't fence with a trained swordfighter and started edging away. Godo attacked, a blistering display to put Sephiroth to shame. When Godo stepped back, Reno was exhausted. Then two more ninjas, the third and fourth people ever to defeat Staniv in a pagoda battle, appeared in the doorway.
At this point Reno decided he'd had enough and jumped off the building. A five floor fall hurt, but he'd been in worse collisions before. With most of the angry mob on various levels of the pagoda arguing with/attacking the guardians, he had a head start that allowed him to get free of the town alive.