The Last of an Elite
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Think it'll Work?
By InterfaceLeader
-~-~-~-
The Gelnika flew through the sky with it's precious cargo on board. The one remaining Huge Materia, on which all of Shinra's hopes in defeating Meteor rested, was being flown from Junon airport to Rocket Town. Along with the Huge Materia were various other items that had been collected in hopes they would aid in the fight against Sephiroth.
The pilot hummed to himself as he flew the craft over the sea.
He didn't notice Ultima Weapon gliding silently along behind the plane, drawing a deep breath as it followed.
The Gelnika sank like a stone.
-~-~-~-
"Hey Rude…"
"…… yes?"
"Are we there yet?"
"………… Very funny." Rude watched the sea roll past the submarine. "…it's your fault we're down here…"
"My fault Weapon decided to sink the stupid plane?" Reno fished in his pocket for his cigarettes. "More like Heidegger's fault for giving me guards that can't swim… would you look at what happened to my cigs? " He held up the soggy mass of paper and tobacco mournfully.
"… I see it." Rude pointed to a dark shape in the water.
The submarine latched onto the sunken plane, and the two Turks made there way down the ladder into it. The Huge Materia was quickly found, in the first room to the left. Reno picked it up and grinned at Rude.
"That was easy!"
Clunk.
"……You had to say it didn't you?"
The two Turks listened to the sounds of footsteps outside. Three pairs of feet, echoing through the waterlogged space with disturbing loudness. Reno raised an eyebrow as he heard the sound of the other door open.
"Ten to one it's you-know-who… They'll clean this place out if we don't stop 'em." Reno frowned. "But damn that Bahumut's a nasty looking fella…"
"…… try to confuse them……"
"Before they get a chance to do anything too major? Think it'll work?"
"… No."
"Me either. Ready?"
"…Yes."
-~-~-~-
Scarlet strode impatiently through the corridors of the Shinra building, high heels clicking sharply against the floor. The failure of both her guards and her robot rankled, and when she heard a familiar humming from Palmer's office her fury intensified. She opened the door to his office and looked at the dumpy, brown-suited man slurping noisily from a cup.
"Palmer…" she smiled icily at the Head of the Space Division. "I thought I sent you to Rocket Town?"
"Oh I'm going, I'm going, don't worry! Just finishing a little tea-break!" Palmer giggled.
Scarlet crossed the room in two strides and hauled the unfortunate man into the air by the throat, the cup of tea hitting the floor and smashing. Light frightened eyes met dark glittering ones, as Scarlet slowly squeezed Palmers throat, her long nails cutting into his skin.
"Get that rocket in the air," she hissed, "Or I will melt your body down and use it as engine grease. Understand?"
"Glrk!" Palmer tried to nod, and Scarlet dropped him disdainfully. The fat man fled the room, leaving Scarlet gazing out his window at Midgar.
"Why am I surrounded by incompetents!?"
-~-~-~-
Cloud walked into the room first, and he was clearly surprised to see the two men stood there.
"Turks!?"
"...again?" Rude frowned slightly as Tifa followed the Avalanche leader in. It seemed like he was always trying to kill the woman he loved. After her came the pilot, Cid.
"We just seem to keep running into each other lately!" Reno grinned cheerfully, giving no sign that he expected the battle to turn out badly. Gesturing with his electro-mag rod at the nearby door, he added. "There were weapons and Materia developed solely to destroy Sephiroth."
"...but, it was attacked by Weapon and sunk to the bottom of the sea." Rude spoke seriously, hoping that Avalanche and Tifa would recognise everything on the Gelnika as belonging undoubtedly to Shinra and leave without a fight.
"I can't give you what's here." A glint of bravado came into Reno's eyes. "We'll take out Sephiroth."
Cloud shrugged, and drew his sword. There was clearly no chance he was going to let Shinra keep what was theirs.
"I guess this is our last meeting." Reno spun his electro-mag rod and took up a fighting stance.
"I won't let you get in our way." Rude followed suit.
The three Avalanche members shared the briefest of glances, and then started one of the most well co-ordinated attacks Rude had ever seen.
"Haste - all!" Tifa yelled the words out, and immediately jumped back as the spell swirled around the three attackers.
"Regen - all!" Cloud followed suit, he too jumping back the moment the spell had been cast.
"Wall - all!" Cid cast the final spell a bare second after Tifa had cast the first, the magical barriers springing up around the Avalanche team and shimmering in the air with near invisibility. Tifa was already running forward for the first attack, spinning around and slamming the base of her foot into Reno's chest. He staggered back from the force of the blow, but had enough breath to gasp out; "Confuse!"
It was Tifa's turn to stagger back as the spell hit and sent her world spinning. Reno tried to bring his electro-mag rod around in a back hand in a follow up, but at the zenith of it's path it hit Cloud's sword with a crash.
Rude cast his own confuse spell, the magic washing over Cloud as he swung his sword away from Reno. The warrior shook his head, and then jumped back from the Turk. Cid ran his spear at Rude, and the Turk was forced to twist sideways to avoid the diamond hard tip. The pilot swung round after him, but Rude was ready and slammed a powerful fist into his face, the magic barrier rippling with the blow but still absorbing the main force of it.
The confuse spell clawed at Tifa's mind, and she turned on Cloud. He grunted as she hit him, and then took one hand of his sword long enough to whack her across the back of the head and release her from the confusion. She spun round and glared at Reno, fury dancing in each eye. Cloud promptly stepped away from her.
"Beat rush!" The furious woman leapt forward and started slamming her fists into the redhead Turk so fast they blurred into each other. "Somersault!" She spun round and kicked him in the face, throwing him back into the metal wall of the room. "Waterkick!" She kicked him again, this time with the force of the sea behind her, smashing him back into the wall. "Meteordrive!" she picked the hapless Turk up and then slammed him down into the floor. Rude winced.
"Ow!" Reno clambered to his feet, bruised and bleeding, and put one hand against the wall to steady himself. Tifa smiled with satisfaction as she stepped back.
"Neo Turk Light" Reno was as furious as Tifa had been, and the electricity spell drew from his rage, sparking crazily as it flashed through the air and into her.
Cid brought his spear in low, aiming for Rude's gut. The Turk chopped it away with his hand, and cast Fire-2 on the pilot, a wash of flame driving him away and giving Rude room to dart out from the corner. Cid swore volubly, and skidded round after him, using the long reach of his weapon to attack again. This time Rude was unable to defend, the point driving into his arm and drawing blood.
Reno was suddenly beset by Cloud, who cut and slashed at the Turk. With the haste speeding his already quick moves Reno was hard pressed to defend, his electro-mag rod sparking each time it parried the heavy sword. Driven back by the relentless onslaught, he soon found himself pressed up against the wall.
Rude ran over, using his good arm to batter the swordsman. Cloud grunted as the magical-wall faded and he took the full impact of Rude's blows. Reno took advantage of the let up and slammed his rod into the side of Cloud's head, electricity crackling.
"Ice-3!" Tifa sent the frozen missiles flying at Rude, cold slicing through him. He shuddered, but didn't return the attack, instead turning to defend against Cid who had come up behind him and was once more thrusting his spear forward. Rude caught it and twisted it away. The pilot narrowed his eyes at the Turk, and dragged on his cigarette.
"Bahamut!"
Reno swore as the lights went dim, and then purple. Above them the armoured dragon wheeled, power collecting in it's mouth.
"This is gonna hurt…"
The beam smashed down into them, intense white hot power that burned their skin whilst explosions sunbursted around them. The light was blinding, the pain unbearable. The moment stretched for an eternity and then Bahamut swept away into thin air, the explosions lessened, then stopped and the two battered Turks were left facing Avalanche once more.
Reno shook his head, pain disjointing his thoughts. He couldn't cope with that a second time, and by the glint in Cid's eye he knew the pilot could summon it again. He put his hand on the Huge Materia protectively, thought of the meteor speeding towards them, and then of the probably death that awaited him if he continued to fight. He ran.
Rude took a quick survey of the odds, glanced briefly at Tifa - eyes hidden by his sunglasses - and then he too, ran.
-~-~-~-
Reno and Rude reached Rocket Town at the same time as Palmer. The rocket scientist was so flustered by the scare Scarlet had given him he didn't notice the two Turks battle-scarred, slightly smoking state.
"Goody - you're here at last! Quick quick! One of you take the Huge Materia up to the rocket, the other one come with me to the ground control room! Hurry before she turns up!"
"Here Rude." Reno tossed the Materia to his friend. "Have fun."
"……" Rude sighed, and started towards the rocket.
-~-~-~-
Marlene scribbled busily, the row of colourful crayons spilled out beside her. Elmyra was outside, planting some shrubs she had bought. Tseng was cleaning dishes, one of the few things he could do without straining himself. As he wiped the last plate and put it to dry, he sighed. The dreariness of his new life depressed him. He didn't want to live out his last days cleaning dishes and leaching off the goodwill of others.
He left the kitchen and looked down at the small form of Marlene on the floor. She clearly resented his presence in the house, and he felt strangely guilty about being the cause of dissent in a household. He sighed again; he had been a Turk and here he was feeling guilty over upsetting a kid. It was amazing what complete dependence could do to a person. Still, he would make another effort to be nice.
"Marlene…"
She jumped, she hadn't heard him come in. Looking up, she flushed slightly.
"Hi Tseng…"
"What are you drawing?" Tseng frowned, he wasn't used to talking to children.
"Um… a picture of my Papa." Marlene looked at her crayon pack, embarrassed.
"Can I see?"
"I guess so…" she handed the picture up to him reluctantly.
"Hmm." Tseng studied the scrawl of primary colours. "It's very good…"
"Thank you. Marlene mumbled.
"I like the way he's jumping up and down on my mutilated corpse."
"… yes …" Marlene's voice sank even lower.
"And the snakes devouring my flesh were a nice touch."
"They're worms."
"Ah…of course. Green worms." Tseng handed the picture back. "Imaginative. And rather surreal. I await the final piece with interest."
"…" Marlene looked up at the ex-Turk. "Are you going to kill me now?"
"Of course not. You should have seen some of the pictures Reno's drawn of me over the years." Tseng smiled faintly. "He's nearly as good as you."
"Really? Whose Reno?"
-~-~-~-
The technical brilliance of Shinra's engineering squad had never failed to impress Rude. The rusty, precariously balanced rocket had been converted into a Huge Materia fuelled missile in the space of two hours. The entire nosecone had been overhauled, a coded case once meant for bringing back scientific samples now held the single Huge Materia safely within it. Only the auto-pilot remained to be fixed, and the engineers had assured him it would be done within twenty minutes.
He left the control room, flanked by two commander guards. Twenty minutes, he thought, and Avalanche wouldn't be able to stop them. He was almost at the exit when he heard the yell.
"Goddammit, what the hell do they think they're gonna do to my rocket!? I'm outta here, Cloud! I'm gonna kick those $^%$# Shinra right out of my rocket!"
He stepped out the door and looked down the ladder. There was no mistaking the three people climbing the ladder and hopping onto the corroded metal walkway that led to the rocket's door.
"...you again?" He looked at Cloud, Cid and Tifa without enthusiasm. They must have been practically on our tail all the way back from the Gelnika, he thought. Still, if I can draw out the battle long enough for the auto-pilot to be fixed… He stepped forward, the guards with him.
"...We will eliminate everyone who gets in Shinra's way."
-~-~-~-
A/N: Depending on how you play the game, the Turks can go to the Gelnika either before or after the Rocket. It just made more sense to me this way, and this is how I play it.
Shiankra - LoaE is going to continue up to the end of the game, past the final "official" Turk scene, but not what happens after Meteor. Though I might be writing another story that starts from there ^_^