Considering that he was in a head lock from behind by some stranger and there was another one approaching him from the front, he couldn't breathe, and he was yards away from a flaming structure, Cloud had every cause to panic. But he didn't. He couldn't. He could barely even think. But in amidst all of this, all he knew was that getting air into his burning lungs was a top priority.
Barely hanging onto consciousness, Cloud closed his eyes and shut all else out from his mind. He concentrated his remaining energy into his fist as he blindly swung it behind him. After it came into contact with the stranger's face, it took a few more hits to get them to let go completely; he heard them stumble backwards. Hardly getting the chance to breathe, Cloud sensed them come back up to him, at his left side. Before his obscure adversary could make another move, he swung around and struck them again, this time knocking them to the ground.
Cloud barely had any more time to inhale, as he was caught off guard and hit again, this time from the front. Dazed and lightheaded (if he wasn't already), he stumbled backwards, inching farther back as the man before him moved in. It wasn't long before his backside hit the side of a huge pile of debris, and he couldn't fight, at least not without missing. He didn't have the time or strength to pull out his sword. Dizzy and in pain and momentarily sapped of energy, there was not much more he could do in his condition.
Pitifully, Cloud slumped against the heap of rubble and braced himself for the next hit. He watched as the man poised himself to strike, but at the very moment he was about to, a bright flash made Cloud draw back and shut his eyes by reflex. He opened them again and saw the man shaking violently, a crackling white-hot electric current running through his body. Cloud could almost feel the silvery heat from where he was. When he blinked he could see that the light had traced the image in his eyelids. It had stopped almost as soon as it had started.
An expression of pure shock stunned the man's face, and a very shaken Cloud watched him crumple to the ground deplorably; and behind him stood Reno, who was looking at his nightstick with impressed satisfaction. Cloud would have thanked him, but he didn't have the breath to. His face said it all, anyway.
Reno acknowledged Cloud's gratefulness and irritably waved it away.
Cloud took a moment to catch his breath, wondering not only what happened, but what they were going to do next. Then a sudden thought exchanged through his mind, and he barely uttered the word "Tifa" before dashing off past Reno, his boots hollowly thudding the ground, picking up a trail of dust as he ran through the entrance and into Midgar.
*~*~*~*~*Reno gave an endearing glance it his beloved nightstick, and another at his handiwork: the unconscious, occasionally thrusting, half-fried man at his feet. That's gonna leave a little more than a mark, he thought.
He hadn't done this in a long time. And MAN, it felt good.
Reno whirled around, the glow of the flames reflecting off his eyes in a lively glimmer as they traced the path Cloud took into Midgar. It turned out that only a small part of one side of the city was on fire, but it was enough to faintly illuminate the whole area. He slowly walked forward, his eyes closed, a rare look of serenity on his face. A truly content smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, then he opened his eyes and broke into a run. No time to ponder the thousand questions at hand, no time to heed the dangers there may be. He began to follow Cloud's path into the city, his ponytail of blazing red hair trailing in the air behind him. In this moment he feared nothing, and felt not even the slightest pang of reluctance, as he was driven by the overwhelming, exhilarating rush of adrenaline he hadn't felt for too long.
He hadn't taken ten paces when another one of those guys jumped out in front of him, and Reno briefly wondered where the heck these people come from. The deranged psycho took a swing at him, which he dodged with little effort. In one swift motion, he brought his nightstick down and struck him across the collarbone with a rather satisfying crack. Reno watched him fall like a ton of bricks, then nonchalantly stepped over him. This is just too easy, he thought to himself. He was only too happy to see that he hadn't lost his touch.
On his way he encountered a few more of these blithering fools. One of them actually reached out and tried to take his weapon; after a few vain attempts to make him let go, Reno noticed he had a good grip on it, too. But when he realized which end of the nightstick the moron had his grip on, a knowing half-grin appeared on Reno's face and he pushed a handy-dandy button, shocking his contender instantly. The rest of his enemies he executed with great ease and skill, and Reno was sure to make them sorry they ever crossed his path. And he would have been able to evade the guy with the crowbar, but he didn't see him until it was too late.
*~*~*~*~*Tifa desperately looked around. Upon entering the city she had been a little spooked, but since the explosion, she was beyond horrified. She had no idea what was happening, if this was it, or if something worse was about to happen. Many more structures within Midgar had collapsed, and the fact that a huge piece of metal was now blocking her initial way out was not any more comforting. It was about eight or nine feet in height, and she couldn't climb over it, or find a different escape route.
The sky looked malicious, like black marble, slowly turning gray as the smoke curled upwards. She could barely see the fire over the twisted metal, and noticed that it wasn't as nearly as big as it was when it first appeared. It wasn't anywhere near her, and fortunately she wasn't hurt. But her hopes of getting out had already begun to diminish, and Tifa felt as cold and alone as ever. She hugged her jacket tighter around herself, and scanned the vicinity again. All the way to her left was an area that was a little more open, but it was pitch black, and she didn't want to venture any farther into this place than she had to. It would be easy to get lost if she went that way. On all other sides were either the walls of Midgar or the piece of metal. Staying where she was looked like the best move to make. She just hoped that help would come...
The most unpleasant chill crept up her spine when the thought occurred to her that something might have happened... to Cloud. Or Reno. Or both of them. What if she was alone?
...what if she was alone? She couldn't bear to think of that possibility.
Suddenly she heard something... someone, scrambling up the other side of the steel, and Tifa felt herself start to panic. She gasped a shallow breath, hearing her own heart pound wildly in her chest. She scanned the horizon of the metal form, afraid of what she would see. For a moment her eyes met nothing but darkness, then she saw someone emerge from the top, and her heart skipped violently. The light was too dim to see details of the face, but the fire from behind edged the silhouette with orange-red, and she could immediately recognize who it was.
Cloud! He's okay! She was too relieved to speak.
"Tifa!" she couldn't have been more glad to hear his voice.
And she wanted to get out of here now more than ever. She wrapped her arms around herself tighter and wondered how exactly she would go about doing that.
Cloud leaned over the edge, as far down as he could go, and reached out to her. She jumped up and caught hold of his his hand. At the sudden weight his grip tightened, and she heard him murmur, "Hold on..." He wasn't going to let her go. Tifa was now able to climb as he pulled her up.
Once she made it to the top, Cloud put his arm around her waist and helped her over the edge. Now she was safe, the seemingly unshakable feeling of cold no longer plagued her; the scourge of fear that brought it almost melted away as he quietly asked her if she was okay, his arm still around her. Tifa nodded her head hastily.
A moment later they were back on the ground, cautiously stepping over the newly disseminated rubble. Tifa glanced around and toward the entrance and asked, "Where's Reno?"
Cloud looked, too, seeing no sign of him. Reno should have followed him in by now.
He felt another foreboding feeling rush over him. "...I don't know."
*~*~*~*~*"Reno."
.....go away. He didn't want to be bothered.
"Reno!"
What...? Why couldn't they just leave him alone?
"RENO!"
"WHAT?!" His eyes snapped open, and his vision immediately went from stark darkness to the temporarily blurry figures of Cloud and Tifa, who were standing over him. At the moment he was mildly annoyed at them both for disturbing him when he had been feeling so comfortable a second ago. And instantly after that thought went through his mind it occurred to him that he had been unconscious a second ago.
Reno slowly sat up, and though the light was dim, he could see more clearly. Tifa looked concerned, maybe even a little worried. "You're bleeding!" she urgently pointed out.
At first all he could do was just stare back at her, hardly believing he'd heard her right. Then, almost as if on cue, he felt something drip from the side of his face and onto his shirt. He looked down and noticed that it indeed was blood. The wound, close to his temple, was bleeding moderately. He was already starting to get a good deal of it on himself.
"It's not as bad as it looks." Reno was probably just saying that because the pain hadn't completely kicked in just yet.
Cloud looked at him with equal concern, and asked, "Can you stand?" He looked as if he were about to help him up.
Reno, feeling a little more irritable, gestured him to stay away, then stood up by himself without caution. But as soon as he had, he wished he hadn't gotten up so fast, as his head throbbed with the sudden pain and a storm of black flecks clouded his vision. He nearly stumbled but they caught him by the arms. When the waves of dizziness and pain had momentarily subsided enough, he annoyedly shoved them away; Reno didn't like them fretting over him like this. It took several moments, but he had steadied himself without their help.
With the sleeve of his wrinkly shirt and the heel of his palm, Reno applied pressure to to the wound. He had to make do with the medical resources they had on them, which was pretty much nothing. They didn't even have materia on them, as no one expected to get injured on this stupid mission. He was upset to see that he was the one who got badly hurt and not Cloud.
Tifa looked back up at Midgar, and at the fire that had drastically died down. "What happened?" she hadn't been there to see half of it, and her mind was reeling with questions.
Cloud shook his head, not sure where to begin or what to make of anything. Answers were hard to come up with at that moment, as they'd had hardly any time to speculate what happened. Reno, who already had a cigarette in his mouth, remained bitterly silent. He looked tired and crossed, and appeared to be paying attention to nothing other than the lighter he was fumbling with in his free hand.
A short moment of silence followed, then Reno asserted, "What more is there to it? There was an explosion and we got jumped by a dozen psychos."
Cloud and Tifa just blinked. That was a rather blunt summarization of the recent events, but coming from Reno, little more could be expected of him. Still, many questions remained unanswered.
Tifa shifted her weight, looking down at the ground. "What caused the explosion?" she wanted to know.
No one really knew what to say to that. The three of them stood quietly for a moment, but then they began to feel drops of water, and smell the impending precipitation in the cool air. Rain. Reno snorted at their luck, blowing a cloud of smoke that quickly deteriorated in the humidity. Cloud looked up at the sky and tiredly announced that they'd continue this later, and the three of them turned and began their long walk back to Kalm, with Reno lagging lazily behind.
He took one long, last drag of his cigarette and threw it down resentfully. It was only his first day with his two favorite people (this time he couldn't be referring to Rude and Elena), and he was about ready to collapse. He could just imagine himself calling up Rude on PHS and having a conversation with him (that is, assuming he would be inclined to talk): "Hey, Rude! Oh, the mission's not so bad; in fact, it's going alright...tonight I got jumped and assaulted with a CROW BAR, but enough about me, how was your day?"
After several minutes the bleeding stopped, but it was kind of hard to be sure, considering that it was now raining heavily. Reno walked with his head down, the water running off his nose, dripping from his mouth. Because of the lighting and the rain, his hair looked more like a dark auburn than its usual scarlet color, and his bangs were plastered to his face in curving rivlets. The rain didn't really bother him; he had more important things on his mind.
At the moment Reno didn't care so much about the how or the why concerning the men who attacked them, or the explosion. All he could think about was the guy with the crowbar, who apparently ran away after knocking him out. He just dared him to come back out there so he could get a little nightstick-happy and fry him a new one. Reno silently vowed to himself that the moron wouldn't get away next time... that is, if there would ever be a next time.
About half an hour later the rain had pretty much stopped. But above them it remained thickly overcast, and made the night sky look much lighter. As a result, it wasn't very dark out, but everything looked gray and slightly foggy. There was not one thing that didn't have a dismal tint to it. It was as if someone took gray watercolor and painted a layer over the whole scene.
Just a couple hundred yards from town, they stopped. Cloud looked at the sky. "Look's like the rain's let up," he observed. "but it might start up again. We'd better hurry." Then he reached up to fix his wet, spiky hair (that miraculously maintained its shape) and muttered, "Now my hair's all messed up..."
At this Reno tossed his head back and made an exaggerated theatrical pose of tragedy toward Cloud. "Alas!" was his melodramatic cry (...perhaps the head injury had made him a bit tipsy). The fingerless gloves on his hands and the view of Midgar behind him were the only traces of real black against the sullen canvas.
Cloud did not look amused.
After a second, Reno looked back at him and misread his facial expression. "No worries, Cloud." he flashed a smug lopsided grin. "A couple cans of mousse and you'll be good as new."
Cloud's eyes darkened at him, and he heard Tifa silently chuckling. He shot a sideways glare at her, and she immediately stopped. But then a smile crept up on his own face, and he turned and walked ahead with her as he mumbled something that Reno just barely overheard.
Reno just stood there, eyes widened, in disbelief of what Cloud had said. It was the worst possible insult you could utter to someone with an ego like his... and the worst part of it was that it wasn't even true!
"HEY! I do NOT have a mullet!" he yelled, and broke into a run after them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Author's Note: Got alot to say. Well... that concludes Chapter 5. I was originally going to put more in this chapter, but I just cut it off here. Answers and more humor and such will be in the next chapter.
And I apologize for it taking me practically a month to update. I've had the worst luck; I just don't know how to begin to explain. It all started when my brother spilled coffee on the keyboard, and it went downhill from there...not to mention, fanfiction.net crashing. Before it crashed the second time I had this chapter done, but it was still an underdeveloped mess and the site was going vomit-inducingly slow, anyway. So... yeah. I'll try to do better with this updating business.This installment had my first attempt at action fighting in it. I guess this fic will be alot of firsts for me, since all I usually write is humor and angst (the latter of which I've hardly scratched the surface of).
Oh, and one more thing. I would like to say that as of this time I refuse to reveal anything about the romantic plot. Oh, I guess I could tell you it's not yaoi. So that's two possible pairings.
And I wanna thank all the people who reviewed because encouragement means everything (and thanks to Speed for pointing out something that I somehow didn't think of... goes to show how absent-minded I can be). I was feeling sort of crummy about this for a while, but I've done a lot of rethinking since then. I'm going on vacation in a couple days, but if all goes well I'll update once more the day I leave.Anyway, that's enough of my incessant rambling. Please tell me what you think! :D