Wordlessly, they stared at each other.
Upon seeing Cloud, Reno's eyes had immediately darkened with indignation and blame. However, he could not maintain the glare as strongly as he would have preferred to, because Cloud did not glare back. In fact, he didn't look angry or spiteful at all, which completely caught Reno by surprise. Soon enough, Reno's facial expression had melted into irritated befuddlement.
And then Cloud got up. He walked right up to him and extended his hand, which only furthered Reno's spite and confusion.
Was this guy kidding?
From the look on Cloud's face, he was dead serious. Even still, Reno made no movement. He did not feel inclined, nor obliged, to shake Cloud's hand.
His offer to make amends rejected, Cloud withdrew his hand slowly, and eyed him more cautiously, though not with an any higher degree of vindictiveness, much to Reno's dismay. He went back to sit on the counter.
Silence followed. Reno stared at the floor bitterly, desperately wishing he was anywhere else but here, alone in a room with someone who was still very much in dire need of a comb. He was in a bar, the perfect place to inebriate his troubles, but he was on duty now, and he never drank while on a mission for some reasons. For one thing, Reno seemed to have never heard of drinking in moderation. And another, he learned the hard way that it is not wise to try to operate a nightstick while intoxicated. Oh, yes, Rude and Elena have many more tales of Reno's drunken stupor to tell. But if they were to tell anyone, they'd have to kill them. That might not be necessary, though, because they'd probably die laughing, anyway.
Reno wasn't sure which prospect would be worse; to hear about his alcoholic mishaps, or do what he was doing now. He felt like such a loser; the Turks' name seemed to be stripped of its dignity.
He glanced around the place. There was someone else who was supposed to be here...
"Where's that chick?" he demanded. He'd practically spat the words in disgust, and did so purposefully. It was his every intention to have Cloud know that he blamed him and Tifa for his being here.
Cloud looked up at him, the slightest glimmer of resentment flashing in his unnaturally blue eyes. It gave Reno satisfaction in knowing that he could tick him off. Unfortunately for Cloud, Reno did not feel like burying the hatchet; rather, he felt like sowing dragon's teeth.
But unfortunately for Reno, Cloud seemed to have gained more self-control since their last run-in with AVALANCHE. Cloud's resentful look faded almost as quickly as it had come, and he said, "She'll be back here soon." Now he didn't look so much cautious as he did distrustful.
It was another long, quiet moment that seemed like forever to Reno. He wasn't used to having to stand still for very long. He found himself wriggling with impatience and boredom, and couldn't take it anymore.
After a while, Cloud looked up again, noticing that Reno was staring directly at him. "...what?" he asked flatly, sounding mildly annoyed.
Reno's perplexed gaze remained fixed on Cloud. "I've always wanted to ask..." he said slowly, in mock wonder. "...have you ever heard of a comb?"
Cloud shot a glare back at Reno, who wasn't very average-Joe looking, himself. "Have you ever heard of an iron?" he retorted, sliding off the counter, onto his feet.
"Oh! you have a bed head." Sensing Cloud's mentality advance from slightly peeved to seriously annoyed and going up, Reno fed off it, seeing how far he could push. "See, I can tell which side you sleep on." He gestured to the left side of his head.
He noticed Cloud snarl and subconsciously reach for the handle of the sword strapped to his back. Reno shook his head. "You can put down the novelty butcher knife," he informed him coolly. "I think you can impale me just as easily with that hair of yours."
And Cloud promptly jacked him in the face.
*~*~*~*~*Tifa knew something was deeply wrong even before she opened the door to the bar. And when she did, her gut feeling was only confirmed. She saw two figures, almost blurs, rolling around on the ground punching each other. One of them was Cloud, whom she recognized immediately, but it took her a second to gather her senses and recognize the other person. All that she could really see was the flame of deep crimson, that could unmistakably be the hair of...
She was afraid this was going to happen.
Immediately she dashed over to the two, grabbed the one closest to her -- who turned out to be Reno -- and pulled him up onto his feet. He looked very surprised to see her, and so did Cloud. In a second, both of them were up; and much to Tifa's relief, neither of them looked much worse for the wear.
"What do you think you're doing?" she scolded. "I'm not gone for longer than ten minutes, and when I come back, you're already fighting! If we're ever gonna get through this, we are not going to be at each other's throats." She crossed her arms. "Apologize."
The two said nothing, but they both continued to glare at each other, breathing deeply, one wordlessly challenging the other, neither of them wanting to be the bigger man.
"Well?" Tifa demanded.
Reno and Cloud simultaneously looked at Tifa and asserted, "He started it." After hearing what the other had said, they scowled at each other. They were both tall and roughly the same height, but what with Cloud's gravity-defying hair, he looked like the taller one.
In one swift motion, Tifa reached over and knocked their foreheads together. She really didn't want to do that, especially not to Cloud, but she saw no other effective way of handling this.
In great pain, they almost keeled over, pitifully moaning, "Sorry...!" They were quick to apologize now.
And suddenly the door swung open. Shocked, all three of them turned to see who it was. "Johnny!" Tifa exclaimed.
With nothing less then a look of horror on his face, Johnny ran to the back of the bar, trying not to look directly at any of them. Nearly stumbling over an overturned stool as he did, he said quickly and almost incoherently, "Sorry-to-intrude-I-just-forgot-my-jacket!"
Cloud and Reno, who had been clutching their foreheads in an obviously great deal of pain, had stopped their moaning and groaning as soon as Johnny had entered the bar, and abruptly tried to play it off by pretending to scratch their heads. Tifa sighed and rolled her eyes. Men.
*~*~*~*~*Man, why did everyone have to be stronger than he remembered?
Reno massaged his aching forehead bitterly. Tifa was very strong, for a woman who had never been exposed to mako. But for Cloud, however, it was quite obvious that he had been exposed. He barely had a medium build, and it would otherwise have been impossible for his frame to support that ridiculous butcher knife. Reno also had mako running through his veins, but it was evident that Cloud had somehow been exposed to a much higher degree than he was. Cloud's eyes glowed, but not with the typical mako glow; they had a strong sort of synthetic blue astringency. It was abnormal.
Since Cloud had such a prodigal amount of mako running through his system, wouldn't he have been able to hurl Reno against the wall? No, Reno took note that Cloud wasn't any stronger than he was; if at all, it wasn't by a significant amount. Maybe there was some sort of genetic barrier; Shinra must have known that someone could only get so much stronger before the mako stops having its effect. The next step up from that, of course, is overexposure. And mako poisoning is fatal, in virtually all cases. Reno was no scientist, but he still had some knowledge on this subject, limited as it may have been, and this was the most sense he could make of it.
It hadn't even been half an hour, but already he and Cloud had a headache and a couple of bruises to show for it. And as for the first part of their mission, they would be heading for Midgar, which was certainly no cause for rejoicing. But Reno figured if he was going go through with this, he would at least have fun while doing so. He had a feeling that pushing Cloud's buttons would soon become a favorite pastime of his.
*~*~*~*~*Midgar, or at least what was left of it, could be seen from as far away as Kalm. As they neared it, it became bigger and bigger, and though this was reality, it felt all the more surreal. Most of the debris had been removed since the city was destroyed, but they left the rest of the city there... for some reason that Reno was unsure of. He thought it was stupid that they left the remains... maybe because it really was irrational; maybe because he just didn't like the feeling he got looking at the place. It was darker here. Not because of the air pollution, that was long gone. But from their view, The outer walls of Midgar blocked the sun.
Reno trailed a short distance behind Cloud and Tifa, who were walking side by side, searching for the entrance. He wasn't looking forward to this at all. It was so pointless, anyway.
It took quite a long walk to reach the entrance, which was littered with big piles of debris. A solemn sort of resolve settled over the three of them. Reno stopped and looked up at the dead skeleton of a city; Midgar, the metropolis of smog and steel and... nightmares. He looked at it with a sort of reserved disgust, as if he loathed this place and had been happy to see it go.
Reno didn't know it at the time, but Cloud was looking at it the same way.
*~*~*~*~*"Wait, you're actually going in?"
Cloud turned around, mildly surprised because this was the first thing he'd heard Reno say that wasn't remotely offensive. He sensed the distressed tone in his voice. "Look, I'm not crazy about this, either, but... yes." he replied.
"Do you even know if any of the reactors are intact?" Reno inquired. He certainly hoped that none of them were still standing, so they wouldn't have to do anything here.
Cloud shrugged. "I guess we'll have to find that out, now, won't we?" He turned back around, and he and Tifa proceeded to walk into the city.
With much reluctance, Reno ended up following and catching up with them. The air inside Midgar was ominously heavy and cold. "You know, this whole thing is potentially dangerous." he pointed out.
Cloud shrugged again. "Orders are orders." Reno silently cursed Cloud's sense of leadership.
He looked around, getting a little more frantic. "This place doesn't look particularly stable... how can you be so sure that nothing's gonna collapse on you, or something?"
Reno had stopped, but Cloud kept walking. "That's a risk I'm willing to take." he replied.
"But that's STUPID!" Cloud seemed to pay no heed to what he'd said. Glaring, Reno watched as he went farther into Midgar.
....moron.
"Hey, Cloud!" he yelled after him. "Maybe after this and you're still up for playing the let's-all-get-ourselves-killed-game, we can play catch with MACHETES. Yeah. And if that STILL isn't enough fun, we can eat glass and go on a ROLLER COASTER RIDE!"
*~*~*~*~*They'd split up and had their own areas to 'inspect', although unfortunately for Reno, many of the reactors were still standing. Just barely. It had taken them awhile, too -- already, it was nightfall. No, nothing collapsed on anybody. And no, there were no signs of suspicious activity. At one point Reno thought he saw a... possum, but that was it. It's sad to say that so far, the possum (although come to think of it, it may very well have been an old shoe) was the highlight of his night.
And here he was now, sitting on a pile of debris at Midgar's entrance. Cloud wasn't too far away; he was on the other side of the entrance. They were waiting for Tifa to finish up her part of the search so they could get going. But in the meantime, Reno sat twirling his nightstick like a baton to amuse himself.
"Can you... stop that?" When Reno looked over to see a very agitated Cloud, it only gave him more reason to keep up his twirling.
"She isn't gonna find anything." Reno informed him as if he didn't know, flipping his nightstick up into the air and catching it. "This whole thing is stupid."
Cloud pretended to ignore Reno's incessant fidgeting, and said, "If it's so stupid, then what are you doing working for the corporation?"
Proudly, Reno did a little pose. "I'm a Turk. We owe allegiance to no one..." he stopped, analyzed his words, then quickly amended, "...unless they're paying us."
Cloud cocked his head in thought. "Oh? I thought the Turks ceased to exist when Midgar did." A few days ago, Reno would have thought the same thing. But apparently that wasn't true. Apparently he was tied to this for life, whether he wanted to be or not. Even though this mission was about as exciting as watching paint dry, only one factor really mattered in all this.
"Nope." Reno said. "I'm only in this for the money. And as soon as your girlfriend finishes searching scrap metal for 'suspicious activity', we're outta here." He looked over again at Cloud, who was staring at him with a weird, blank expression on his face. Reno stared back the the funny-looking blonde, confused. "What?"
If Cloud was going to answer, he certainly would not have had the time to. Because a second after Reno spoke, they both heard a sort of hollow burst, and a deafening explosion. Alarmed, they both jumped to their feet and looked back to see that part of Midgar was up in flames. The silver and steel of this city, which had laid here so long in its lifeless repose, was suddenly alive with the flickering orange-red gaze of the fire. Just watching it filled Cloud with a horrified fascination as he remembered the heat of the flames and the smell of the smoke that seared his memories of Nibelheim. For one fleeting moment it felt as if the nightmare had revisited him...
Not another thought was able to register through his mind, for he felt a forceful blow to the back of his head that he had no warning to brace for; he fell forward, and everything happened too fast to think, or even act, to defend himself. He felt something... an arm, slide around his neck and tighten, threatening to crush his windpipe. Cloud could do nothing but make vain attempts to gasp and claw at his throat, shocked and disoriented and confused as his vision blurred and he saw an approaching figure, a black silhouette that rapidly obstructed the red and orange light that burned his eyes.
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Author's Note: AAAAAAUUGGGHHHH !!! Sorry to stop it right there, but I had to leave some sort of hook to make you want to read more, and keep the plotline more interesting. Hey, at least it moved along in this chapter. I already have some of the next chapter written, but.....
You know how to make me happy.See, if you scroll down a little farther, there's a link. No, not the one that reports abuse to the staff, the other one...the button one.
Well, you find that button, and then you click it...
.....and then you write a REVIEW !!!!