Suddenly there was a bahamut crouching on the monument.

Reno, who was going to bring the rod down in a wide swing, stopped, staring at the big monster which was daintily perched onto the monument like a hummingbird on an aspen branch. Rude, who had not managed to stop in time, had the misfortune to get his face solidly whacked by the rod. He grunted, going down. The bald man got to his feet soon enough, only to see Reno staring, wide-eyed, at the monster. It chewed on a chain, tearing it with a squawk.

"This is…"

"Impossible," Rude finished.

Reno stopped his motion for a split second, then spun on his heel, his rod swinging in a wide arc again and nearly hitting Rude in the face, then took off. At a somewhat leisurely speed. Rude followed, and then Sissy and Gorilla took off as well, making a rather comical chase that would have been hilarious if Reno himself hadn't been involved. But Reno found himself preoccupied, and Rude didn't find the situation particularly funny.

For one thing, Reno - for a reason that Rude couldn't really figure out - had decided to rescue the kids. Or a kid, since he could not carry more than one.

The kid was heavier than he had expected, but it was not something he could not manage. Rude, who was far stronger than he was, was managing two kids at once.

And then the kid stuck his fingers up his nose.

He wanted to scream at the kid, because it hurt. He didn't have a very large nose, and while that usually worked for his looks, this time it worked against him. But he bore the pain and dashed away, running for his life, because that bahamut was a heaping mount of trouble, and not necessarily something he wanted to fight against.

Which had been a good thing, in retrospect. Since there was a gigantic monster practically breathing down his neck, and Gorilla, who apparently had decided to stalk him, suddenly came jumping down. Reno slid away, Rude dashed after him, and the bahamut, apparently bored with the entire slapstick comedy, decided to take to the air and belch out a big honking ball of energy. The magnificent wings unfurled and beat, leveraging the monster higher into the air and causing dust to rise from the ground.

Not that Reno or Rude cared.

"Is it comin'?" Reno yelled at Rude, who was slightly ahead of him. The redhead sped up, overtaking Rude. The kid was about as responsive as a pillow, which was disturbing, since the blond child had enough tenacity to stick a tiny hand up Reno's face.

"I don't want to see!" Rude yelled back. He was carrying two children, but he somehow managed to get ahead of the Turks' fastest for a few seconds.

And then the bahamut belched out the ball.

It was more like a tidal wave of wind, heat, and dust, rather than a ball of energy. The monument splintered into smithereens, peppering everyone with metal scrap pieces and debris. Reno yelled as he launched himself forward, trying to avoid the worst as the energy turned into heat and things began to burn. The Turks crashed onto the ground, and a scorching wave of wind overcame the two.

Elena got off the phone and looked to her left, where her coworker and a friend, if a little distant, sat, looking out the window. It was calm and quiet in Healin, but it was looking to be a little iffy in the Edge. Tseng's voice had been strained, even tense, but he had refused to divulge the details, leaving Elena to guess and come to no conclusion at all. It was, all in all, a tense moment for the young Turk, and she wondered how Arien could be so calm. Never did she know that Arien could appear to be so calm simply because she had lived in fear for a good amount of time now. When one lived in perpetual fear, added fear left significantly less impact upon the face than getting it with a nice side dish called shock.

"Tseng called," she said.

The woman, who had been as still as a statue, got up. "Now?"

"Now."

Three minutes later, the helicopter was taking to the air, the blades spinning faster and faster. "I'll stay behind," Arien said as she flipped on the switches. "We need to hurry."

The flight was short, but for Elena, longer than it should have been. Tseng did not elaborate why the two women were needed, and she expected the worst; was Tseng injured again? Pinned under a beam, perhaps? Or?

Arien, who was in the pilot's seat, seemed less concerned about Tseng. "Did Tseng say what was going on?" she asked as she gently moved the steering stick to the left.

"No."

"Hm." Arien looked concerned. "Try calling Rude," she said. "Maybe he'll pick up."

Elena dialled, but no one picked up. After four rings, it went to voicemail.

"Voicemail," she reported.

Arien frowned this time. "Try Reno," she said after a moment of thought. "As much as I doubt that he'd pick up, if Rude didn't." The two were usually together, and although she found the rumour ridiculous, she was aware that there had been quiet whispers within the Shinra HQ that Reno and Rude were, in fact, secretly gay and in love with each other. When she had offhandedly told Reno about that rumour, he had spat out the coffee and had choked on it. He had coughed until she pounded on his back a few times. Some people had wild imagination.

"Voicemail," Elena said, after ending the call.

Arien's frown deepened. "We'd better hurry."

It took about forty-five minutes to reach the outskirts of the Edge, and then Elena took off, hurrying to get to the building where Tseng and Rufus were. Arien remained behind, hiding the helicopter in one of the warehouses. The roof had been turned into a makeshift helipad, and there was no outer access. The actual warehouse was one of the Turks' workshops and hideouts, and there were tools lying around, cables, and a PC monitoring station set up in the corner. She sat down, and blinked.

The Turks had a few cameras installed in strategic points of the city some time before, after coming to the conclusion that constant monitoring couldn't hurt. And now, up on the screens, were chaos and pandemonium. People were running to and fro, every which way but definitely away from something, screaming, falling down, some even crawling. It was a scene that was reminiscent of a panic movie. And there, in the corner of one of the screens, was…

Arien sat there, doing nothing. There was nothing she could do, but wait. So she waited, watching, her eyes the colour of dark steel, her mouth drawn in a taut line. It was the stillness before a storm on her face, but she knew, instinctively, that sooner or later she'd be called to action. So she waited, like a predator, waiting on its prey.

Most people, when caught in a big shockwave of energy, generally tend to pass out from the stress and the shock.

Reno was no exception.

He came to, groggy, disoriented, and with no child in his arms. That alarmed him for a moment, but he saw the kids walking away from him, and decided that there really wasn't anything else he could do about it. The kids wanted to leave, and the best thing was to let them leave. Besides, he had other concerns.

There were burning debris everywhere, but the streets had quited down. He wasn't quite sure how long he had been out. Rude was also stirring, his bald head miraculously without scratches or injuries. The rod scraped against the asphalt, making a hollow noise as Reno got up. Rude was following suit.

And then Sissy and Gorilla loomed over them. Reno glanced at Rude.

"Isn't this fun, guys?" Sissy said. Reno was a little surprised that Sissy could make noise other than sniffs, but he didn't let it show. He was pissed off, and he was going to give the two silver-haired brats a world of pain, even if it killed him.

"No… fuckin'… way!"

Anyone less than those with silver hair would have been knocked out by the next kick. Reno wasn't sure what was going to happen, but he went for it anyway, following it up with a swing of his baton. He swung the baton again, pissed off. He really, really didn't like the condescending tone of these punks. Another kick, but the Sissy - who apparently had excellent reflexes - dodged again. He ran in, kicking upwards, but Sissy caught it in his hand, swiping it away.

Then Sissy came in for his offence, kicking - which Reno backstepped and dodged - and then another kick, which caught him cleanly in the abdomen. He felt himself flying through the air, falling onto his back and sliding a good measure backwards. Somehow, the rushing stampede of people trying to get away from this mess didn't trample all over him, and his jacket didn't end up like holey cheese. He flipped upward onto his feet, then rushed in, getting even angrier by the minute.

"You guys are like fuckin' bad pennies!" He shouted, swinging his baton again, but Sissy somehow managed to leap into the air - backwards - and land on top of a building. Was the fucking thing a Spiderman or something? Did he wear abseiling lines?

Not really caring about Reno's concern for the apparent defiance of the laws of physics, Sissy landed, gracefully, with elegance, on the roof. The long black coat fell with a flap about his ankles like a dress.

"Like I said," said Sissy, "if you guys give Mother back to us, it'll be all over."

Ugh. What is UP with these guys and their mums?

The condescending tone of Sissy did absolutely nothing to calm Reno down. Blood rushed to his head, almost blinding him; he grimaced, ran to the base of the building Sissy-pants was standing on, and then managed to amaze himself by scaling up the wall. Maybe something in the air turned folks into Spidermen. Or something. He leapt into the air as he reached the top, coming down with yet another swing of a baton, but Sissy simply stepped away. Blood was thrumming in his ears, not the familiar rush of danger, but that of anger. It was the kind of anger that Arien would have called a bull rush, and in a calmer situation he would have known that this was a losing formula. But he was too hotheaded. He hated being mocked, and especially by a punk like this. The fact that he hadn't made a hit so far also infuriated him.

Today fucking sucks. It's official.

Another swing sideways, a kick, then another swing, all too wild to land. He really regretted not being able to use firearms, but with any luck he'd shoot, Sissy would step away, and then the stray bullet would hit a kid on the street or something, which wasn't exactly something he wanted. He swung again, trying to avoid kicking on the precarious foothold. His swing was blocked, but his roundhouse kick managed to hit Sissy's head. Sorta. Lightly. But it was still a hit.

Score one for Reno! Reno thought. "This 'Reunion' shit," he jeered, "are you guys fuckin' serious?" Another swing, but the idiot ducked. He spun on his heel and used his elbow to carry through the motion as he tried to hit the bastard again, but the damn thing ducked yet again.

"We just want to see our Mother," Sissy said as if he was lecturing.

And then Sissy-pants kicked him in the face.

Reno had his bad moments, but this had to count amongst the top three. It was very rare for anyone to land a hit on Reno, especially in the face; usually, people were too slow, or he was too nimble, or he was just too dirty in a fight for someone to make a hit. So it doubly humiliated him to get kicked in the face, and to go flying in the air a full few yards.

That, and it hurt. His nose was in for a bad day.

He also fell on Rude, who fell down. He accidentally stepped onto Rude's sunglasses as he got up, but he didn't pay much attention to it, since Rude usually had spares lying around. He never knew that Rude started this practice after learning his lessons being around Hurricane Reno and having many victim sunglasses. He was far too busy dusting himself off, although from the looks of it, Arien was going to yell at him for the state of his uniform anyway. The dust patches smeared, but didn't come off.

And come to think of it, he was far more averse to the idea of Arien yelling at him than Sissy-pants fighting him. Sissy-pants he could beat up and not feel anything about it; beating his girlfriend, who not only fed him and gave him sex but also was really quick to reach for her gun, was something else. This entire situation was irritating him to the maximum, and so he decided to switch tactics, and let his mouth run off with its own ideas.

"You keep sayin' mummy this, mummy that," Reno said as he continued to dust off, "but c'mon, it's only JENOVA's head, man."

It wasn't really his best insult, but usually his mediocre insults drove people to rage, and this was no exception. Predictably, the two punkheads got angry.

"Don't call Mother that!" Sissy-pants snarled.

"We won't forgive that!" cried Gorilla-head.

Not only do they want their mummy's tits, they have the insults of a three year old.

"My apologies," Rude said, pulling out another pair of sunglasses and sliding them on. His tone was neutral, but it screamed that he was just baiting.

"You're right," Reno added, glancing at his bald partner. Despite all the dirt smudges, his pocket square was still pristine, as was his tie. What the hell? "Hang on a sec… why the fuck are we sayin' sorry?!"

Reno leapt into the air with a yell just as Sissy did as well; Rude landed a hit on Gorilla, who was too distracted with the two leaping figures above his head to properly pay attention to Rude's fist coming his way. Reno spun in the air, using the momentum of his leg poised ready to kick out.

The moment came in clarity, a moment of cosmos in an otherwise chaotic world. One moment of singularity, and then his foot lashed out, hitting Sissy-pants squarely in the chest.

It was the best kick of the year so far.

Reno landed on his feet in a crouch. Damn, that felt good, he thought, giving his buddy a cheery laugh and a thumbs up.

Which apparently was the equivalent of beating one's chest, since Gorilla's punch hit him a moment later.

The two Turks flew through the air again, and landed on the asphalt. Reno could feel his nose bleeding. His nose was really in for a beat-up today. As he crawled to his feet, his body hurting but not ready to give in, he stood, back to back with Rude. They needed a new strategy and more people, pronto, but with those two lunatics chasing after them this wasn't going to be a good option.

Now what?

Reno saw a foot coming at him and ducked. There was a bahamut still doing wahtever it wanted in the air, but two Turks against that monster was a battle that Reno wasn't going to do anytime soon. He might be stupid, but he wasn't suicidal. He blocked the other two kicks, hopped away from the third, and spun on his heel. He was beginning to understand Arien's almost obsessive appreciation with keeping distance; both he and Rude were close-quarter, but Arien wasn't, and he was beginning to understand just why Arien had managed to survive the encounters with these yahoos. He danced away again, gaining focus as the anger subsided like a wave. This wasn't a fight he would be expecting to win; this was a fight that he was expecting to survive.