Reno: Excellent. No one's here. Tyramir doesn't own the rights to Final Fantasy or any of its characters! Booya, I said it before Reeve or anyone else!
Reeve & Red XIII: Blast!
Elena: Hey, genius. Weren't you the guy who didn't want to say it and kept getting tricked into it?
Reno: .... Dammit!
A Break In the Battle
Barret sent another barrage of bullets at the enemy, wiping out another line in the never-ending army of monsters. This was getting ridiculous. If there were really this many monsters in the world, humanity would have been over-run by now.
He looked for Reno, who was supposed to be covering his back. He gave a start when he saw the red-haired Turk behind him, fighting a Tonberry that had snuck around the main charge and managed to get behind him.
Reno was amusing himself by dancing around the Tonberry, striking it with his staff while it blazed electricity, and then hopping back before it could strike.
"Die, already!" he shouted, sounding annoyed.
"Stop playin' around and kill it!" Barret said.
"I'm trying! He refuses to die. Nothing I do really damages him, woah!" The Tonberry's knife lashed out and clipped Reno in the side. "Ow! That hurt!"
The Turk pressed his electro-mag rod directly against the Tonberry's forehead, sending a pulse of electricity through it. Then, while still at point blank range, sent a fireball off.
"There. That'll teach you." Reno gripped his side with one hand, and used his staff to hold himself up with the other.
"You okay?" Barret asked.
"Been better. Is it me, or are the monsters finally gone?"
Barret looked up and surveyed the horizon. The monsters were definitely retreating, but something about it didn't seem right. If they had kept pressing, they could have easily over run Avalanche and its allies. Something definitely didn't feel right.
"Looks like. I don't trust it."
"You think they beat her?" Reno asked weakly.
"Nah. Jenova made a shit-load more noise last time we beat her down. We'd know if she was dead."
"Uh huh. I don't suppose you've got any Cure Materia on you?"
Barret shook his head. "Gave all my Materia to Tifa. Figured she'd need it more since I've got my gun-arm to keep the baddies away from me."
"Well, shit. Can't believe that little bastard managed to stick a knife in me. Elena's going to laugh herself silly when she finds out."
"Nah, she won't do that. Here, I got an idea. Take your jacket off."
Reno put aside his staff and slowly stripped out of his suit jacket and handed it to Barret, wincing as he stretched. Blood stained the lower part of his shirt. Reno immediately put a hand over it to over it.
"Gonna need your help here. I only got the one arm. We need to rip this, make you some sort of bandage for that wound."
Reno reached into his pants pocket and pulled a small knife and handed it to Barret. The former leader of Avalanche wordlessly nodded and put down the jacket. Holding it down with his gun-arm, he began to cut the jacket into strips with the knife. After he was finished, he gave the pieces to Reno to tie around his own chest.
"Not the best job, but it'll have to do." Barret said. "Here, lean on me. If my feeling's right, we're about to run into a whole mess o' trouble."
The Turk put an arm around Barret's shoulders, and fiddled with his staff in the other. "Huh. Only a quarter power left, too. Whatever that trouble is, I hope there aren't many of them."
The two stood together, one supporting the other, in complete silence, anticipating the next attack. All around them was a dead feeling, as if nothing around them was alive. Barret began to get the sinking feeling they were the only ones left. He couldn't even see Proud Clod anywhere, or hear its taunts.
"Hey," Reno said.
"What?"
"You know how many kills are you up to?"
"'Bout a hundred twenty seven. Hard to tell when you're mowin' 'em down from range."
The Turk laughed weakly. "Fair enough. Looks like I might be buying drinks after all. I'm only at eighty three."
Barret frowned. He wasn't sure if Reno would make it to the victory celebration even if there was no more fighting. He put on his best smile. "Yeah, but you better not cheap out, not with the huge paycheck Rufus'll be giving you after this is done."
"And Rude. Rude's paying me, too."
"Yeah. There better be lots of good drinks."
"Oh, there will be. You can bet on that. Expensive drinks and cheap women, all around. If Elena's nice, I might even let her have one."
"An expensive drink or a cheap woman?"
Reno said in disgust, "A cheap woman. I'm not wasting good booze on her."
Barret laughed, and after a second, Reno did, too. It was a strained sound which was immediately followed by a series of coughs.
"Better not do that again," the Turk said. "Looks like it's hazardous to my health. Almost as much as a Tonberry, anyway. Always figured those things would be wimps. You hear stories about them, eh? 'The Scourge of the Planet' and all that. You don't really think they're all that tough just by lookin' at 'em, though."
"Nah, you don't at that."
"I'll be damned if I let this little sissy wound from some sissy Tonberry get me. Come on, Jenova! Bring your worst!" Reno began to shake in anger, and Barret was suddenly scared that the Turk might hurt himself. "Come on! Tonberries and Behemoths? I saw worse at Turk Academy! What's the worst you got? Send it at me, I'll kill it all!"
Reno stopped, and coughed weakly.
"Calm down, man. It's okay." Barret tried to make the words sound comforting, but he doubted they came across that way.
And then, off in the distance, a new rumbling started. Barret groaned and looked up, then winced. "I think you got your wish, Reno."
"What? More monsters?"
"No, worse. Looks like Jenova's extended her influence. That new horde is filled with Soldiers."
Author's Note:
Alright, I'm gonna be out of town for the next few days, so this'll be the last update until probably... Monday. I may be able to sneak a chapter in during the weekend, but I doubt it.