By Ktrenal
Chapter Nine - Dungeons And Dragons
After the somewhat rude awakening earlier that day, which had turned out to be only an hour or two short of dawn, the morning had proceeded in a lazy, almost casual manner. The prisoner that Reno had so successfully prevented from escaping was taken away to the tiny surgery the town of Darton had chosen to refer to as a hospital, under the care of the local doctor and Bob, who seemed to be remarkably medically inclined, considering his enormous size. Once the rest of the town awoke, the full compliment of police officers had worked together to clear away the wreckage in the office, under the joint supervision of Daverrison and Reno; the latter only because his leg was still too stiff and sore for him to be helping, or staying out of the way.
Spending the morning perched on one of the partially collapsed desks, calling out hints and suggestions to those doing the cleaning had not made the young man particularly popular, and so Daverrison was obliged to remove the red-head before anyone decided to take their threats a little further. The police commander seemed to have written off Reno's obnoxious behaviour as nerves for the upcoming fight with the black dragon.
Which might have had a little truth in it, but only because the Turk himself knew he wasn't really in a good enough condition to be taking on a dragon in combat. He knew he would survive, because he always did. It was part of his innate luck that he never actually died, even when his injuries were severe enough that he should. But for the most part, he wasn't nervous; it seemed rather pointless to Reno, considering that being nervous wouldn't change the inevitable outcome of the fight. But to distract himself from the thought of black dragons, he'd devoted some of his energy to being irritating.
After the third remark of 'you missed a spot', Daverrison had declared that the rest of the cleanup could be achieved without supervision, and had pulled Reno outside of the ruined office. With a curt order to stay put and not get into trouble, Daverrison had left him there, going alone to the small chocobo stables in the town to acquire two of the birds. Reno had behaved himself too, if only because of a momentary lack of inspiration, rather than any real desire to be obedient.
That had been perhaps three hours ago, and by this point Reno was beginning to dislike chocobos, or at least dislike riding chocobos when every pounding step the running bird took sent painful jolts through his injured leg. He was going to die, wasn't he? He was going to get eaten, and chomped into mush by a huge black dragon, and then swallowed, and digested, and the dragon would use one of his bones to pick chunks of his flesh out of its teeth. Reno was almost beginning to wish he'd stayed in the cell and remained a prisoner.
Unconsciously, his hands tightened on the pale yellow feathers of the chocobo's long neck as the large bird leapt over a small ditch in the rough road, causing pain to flare once again in his leg, and the chocobo responded to this rough treatment with an indignant wark. Despite this, sideways glances at Daverrison suggested that Reno was the more experienced with chocobos, and was having much less difficulty with the ride, injuries or not.
As far as he could tell, they had been traveling steadily eastwards, and the distant mountains were growing closer as the rolling hills the road cut across became increasingly rugged. The hills were less rolling, and were now definitely more mountainous, pitted with rocks and the occasional small cliff, visible from the road that wound through the rough terrain. Although the landscape was familiar enough, the air seemed so much cleaner, almost a pleasure to breath in. This was what had always been meant by the concept of fresh mountain air, which Reno had never understood before. Even in the mountains in his time, the air was somewhat polluted.
Here the air was clean, smelling faintly of heather and distant snow. The ground around the road was coated with thick, dry grasses and strange dark plants with purple flowers, the kind of flora Reno vaguely associated with heather. Here and there a few butterflies fluttered around the flowers, evidently unconcerned by the chill mountain air. Above, the sky was a clear, crisp blue, patched with pleasantly fluffy white clouds, and the sun shone down on them, warming them despite the cool breeze that swept down from the nearby mountains. It was, on the whole, a pleasant day.
And to Reno, another 'adventure in nature'. This was all very pleasant, but he was beginning to miss the cities of his own time. It felt like an age since he'd been slinking through the heavy downpour of rain in Junon, and depressing as that weather had been, it was still home. It was a severe blow to his sense of independence, but the Turk realised he genuinely missed the familiarity of Junon, and his life there. It had been boring, but it was familiar, and part of him. All the more, he wanted to get this over with so he could get to Midgar more quickly, or at least get eaten by the dragon and no longer capable of worrying about it.
Naturally, there was only one thing he could do in the face of such depressing thoughts, and the need to hasten their arrival at the mines. "Are we nearly there yet?" he asked, looking over at Daverrison.
"Yeah, not long. I hope you're ready for this, Turk," the man responded, not sounding in the least amused at Reno's mockingly petulant question.
"Me too, actually," Reno responded, his thoughts brought unerringly back to the problem at hand; that of his impending death by dragon. Really not the way he'd expected to go. Of course, he'd always seen his death as something that would come violently, but he'd been imagining something along the lines of a bullet to the brain, rather than being torn to pieces by an overgrown lizard.
Before too long, the chocobos ran to a halt, reined in by their riders as they approached the rocky entrance of what could only be the Mythril Mines. Even to Reno, who'd only ever seen the mines in latter days, when they had been abandoned and left in ruin, the outline was familiar enough, although cleaner, more freshly cut. Here the rocks were hewn roughly to create the tunnel that descended into the mines themselves, not smoothed with the passage of time and the growth of moss as they were in his time.
The road they had followed here widened to a circular bare patch of earth around the mouth of the tunnel, allowing plenty of space for the unloading of mythril from the small wood and metal carts set onto rough tracks. A tall wooden buffer lay at the end of the tracks, a good twenty feet from the entrance to the mines; and while Reno's knowledge of mining was limited, he guessed this construction was to prevent the carts running off the end of the tracks. Several such carts rested here now, lined up against the buffer, and left abandoned. A few even had some chunks of mythril ore in them, and scattered across the ground nearby. The miners had left in a hurry, so much so that they hadn't been concerned with leaving the valuable mythril or their tools behind in the dirt.
"I guess they didn't want to hang around with a dragon here," Reno remarked as he slid from the back of his chocobo, tying the bird's reins to the buffer at the end of the tracks.
"I hardly blame them. I wouldn't want to stay here either," Daverrison agreed, and he too tethered his chocobo to the buffer. The two birds squawked to each other, the soft 'warks' sounding almost muffled, despite the eerie silence that surrounded the mines.
"We don't have any choice, though. Let's do this," Reno said, smirking despite the deep foreboding that he felt as he walked to the dark hole before them. There seemed to be no light inside, none of the torches or paraffin lamps that should have been present. But a dark dragon would dislike light, and so likely as not would have made some effort to remove all sources of light from the mines.
Which meant they would have to take some light with them, if they intended to see more than a few inches in front of their noses. Reno turned back from the cave, casting his gaze around the area nearby. There had to be something here that would burn. As he searched the bare earth around the cave entrance, inspiration hit, and the red-head couldn't help but smirk in amusement. Adaptability was the name of the game, and it was a game he always won.
Moving away from the tunnel now, he picked up one of the discarded tools, something reminiscent of a pickaxe. It was so stereotypical that he couldn't help but snigger softly, before working on removing the metal head of the tool. He only needed the wooden handle. With the beginnings of his new torch in hand, he shifted the backpack on his shoulders, allowing him access to the contents; one of the towels he'd 'borrowed' from Maggie would be perfect for this. The small, relatively light teatowel he recovered from the bag Reno now twined around the end of the long shaft of wood from the pickaxe.
"Very nice," Daverrison remarked dryly. "You forgot one thing."
"What's that then?" Reno asked innocently, turning now to look at his companion, eyes sparkling with amusement. He knew already what the man was going to say, but he contained himself, keeping his facial expression neutral, but questioning, as he awaited the man's response.
"The fire," Daverrison pointed out. In the man's defense, for all he knew they didn't have any means with which to make fire, although if he'd checked the contents of Reno's stolen backpack, he would have seen the box of matches contained within. But Reno had something a little more flashy in mind than simply striking a match.
"Fire1," he said simply, casting the spell in an almost offhanded manner, igniting the towel wrapped tightly around the end of the pickaxe handle.
To Reno's amusement, Daverrison jumped back, and the Turk wasn't certain whether his companion's surprise was more to do with the magic, or the casual way in which Reno had used it. For the red-head, a simple fire spell was nothing at all, little more than a simple amusement, but in a world where magic was unknown, held only in myths as tales for children, even the smallest spell was enough to impress.
"I forgot about that," Daverrison said, relaxing a little, although sending Reno some very wary looks, as the young man himself idly tossed the burning torch from one hand to the other. "You really can do magic, can't you? I thought it was just a myth."
"I guess a lot of people do. A whole lot more people could do it, if they simply understood how," was the shrugged response from Reno, who now moved back towards the cave, albeit with the remains of a limp. The muscle was protesting at having to support his weight, but he was ignoring the injury, for now, blocking the pain of it from his mind as if this were a mission, which in many respects it was. He could worry about how much further damage he'd do to his leg with moving around on it, after he'd killed the dragon and was certain of his continued state of living.
He paused outside the cave, and looked back at Daverrison. "I assume you're still coming? Got to have someone to see me kill this thing." Or someone to pick up whatever chunks of him would remain after the dragon was finished with him. He doubted the police commander would be any use, other than watching to make sure Reno fulfilled his end of the bargain, which was hardly any help to the Turk himself.
"Of course I'm coming. This is something I have to see," Daverrison said, stepping up to follow Reno as the red-head walked into the darkness of the mines, waving the lighted torch in front of him to banish the shadows that clung ominously to the chipped and fragmented stone walls. Where the deep orange light of the fire shone, there were occasional reflected glimmers from traces of mythril present in the rock here.
The tunnel had literally been carved to follow the largest seam of mythril through the stone of the mountain, heading down and east, before bearing left a little, and still sinking further into the ground. Reno retrieved his compass from his backpack, standing still for a moment as he studied the device. It was useless down here however; the effects of the surrounding mythril, either magnetic or magical, were powerful enough to render the compass worthless. An interesting effect, to say the least.
By his best guess, Reno decided the dragon would be in the deepest, darkest part of the mines, and he wondered idly if these tunnels weren't in some way connected to some other, more natural system of caves. There was no other way that a creature as large as a dragon could have got into the mines, as if this particular tunnel was any example of the others, it was far too narrow for even the lithest of dragons to pass through. If there were other passageways here, they would be in the furthest reaches of the Mythril Mines, and probably in the deepest parts. Perhaps the miners had broken through into a natural cave system, surprising the draconic inhabitant. Reno's imagination was quite content to wildly explore the possibilities as he moved deeper into the mines.
The air was still, almost stagnant, and smelled oddly metallic and tinged with sulphur. This was something Reno knew well enough to indicate the presence of a dragon, and it was a much watered down version of the proverbial dragon breath. It was also almost uncomfortably warm and humid, soon causing sweat to drip from both men's foreheads and soak through their clothing. Reno took this in his stride, treating the entire situation as an adventure, or simply another mission, and so ignoring any discomfort he felt, but Daverrison seemed not to be enjoying the rising temperature.
Despite this, they continued in silence, Daverrison following Reno's lead, since the red-head had both the torch and the majority of the experience. And unlike the police commander, the Turk seemed not to be in the least afraid. This wasn't exactly the truth, but Reno knew how to cover his anxiety for the situation. Never before had he fought a dragon in a one-on-one scenario. He would rather have gone against the entirety of Avalanche, in fact.
Their course took them down into the very depths of the mines, and still the air grew hotter, to the point where even breathing became a somewhat unpleasant experience. "I would have thought this was a red dragon, for all this heat..." Daverrison remarked as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
Reno shook his head. "A lot of dragons like the heat, even if they're not fire based. Dark dragons come from dark places, underground, and the really deep caves are close to the Lifestream, and so can be very hot. The deeper you go, the higher the temperature rises," he explained, already knowing that his companion wouldn't understand. There was so much knowledge that would only be discovered years into the future, knowledge that was commonplace for those of Reno's time, but beyond comprehension for the people here.
"The Lifestream?" Daverrison asked, fixing Reno with a curious look.
"If we survive this, I'll explain it all," the Turk responded, and suddenly came to a halt. He raised a hand to silence Daverrison and prevent him from taking a step further. "Here. The dragon is in the next cave. I can hear it," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
A glance sideways told him that the police commander was struggling to hear the sound as well, but was unable to do so. "I don't hear anything," Daverrison said quietly.
"I have enhanced hearing. It's there, trust me. Stay here," Reno ordered, not even thinking as he took command of the situation. He was a Turk, and yet not just a Turk: he was the leader of the Turks, and had been trained for the position. Taking command was something that came naturally to him, at least when he had to, and this was one of the situations where Daverrison needed to listen to him. Reno knew this would be much easier if he didn't have to worry about the other man getting himself killed, too.
He crept forward, switching the torch to his right hand so he could take the mag-rod in his left. After a moment, he pushed the end of the torch into the sand at his feet, letting it stand there, still ablaze, as he continued forward. He wanted to have a hand free, in case he needed it, and the torch would still cast enough light into the adjoining cave to allow him to see. It would be dark, but his Mako-enhanced eyes would be able to see well enough by the limited light.
The tunnel rounded a corner, and then opened out into a large, clearly natural cave. The miners really had dug themselves into more trouble than they could handle. The rock formations were familiar enough, though: stalactites hanging down from the domed ceiling of the cavern high above, while below them stalagmites rose, reaching upwards in a billion year race to touch the sky. This cave was still here in Reno's time, changed very little.
Well, clearly the dragon wasn't there in the Turk's time, nor the horde on which it lay; mostly dark mythril ore, although here and there pure mythril stones shone and glimmered in the flickering red light from the torch back in the tunnel, and there were even a few traces of gold, silver and bronze. Jewelry from the miners that had been killed by the beast, Reno imagined.
If the effect of the dim light on the horde was eerie, it was doubly so on the form of the dragon itself. But Reno couldn't help but feel impressed. Dragons in his time were much smaller, and less powerful. Years of killing had likely reduced the population, but here there were few with the power to take on such an animal. This dragon was huge, and well muscled, and even in this light Reno could see it bore few scars or broken scales. Its scales were of the purest jet black, but tinted with deep purple or blue in places, and a few of them shone with a kind of starlight. Amongst dark dragons, this one truly was a beauty.
From its powerful shoulders its huge wings rose, slightly flared to cover the ovoid objects the beast lay coiled around; it was wrapped around them in such a manner, with its head laying across the tip of its tail, that it reminded Reno powerfully of the serpent in his dream. It seemed to be protecting the objects it lay around, and Reno realised after a moment that this dragon was female. It had probably only killed the miners to protect its clutch.
He paused in his steps, just to stand and look at the dragon for a few moments. There was no question of not killing it, despite its massive size and powerful instincts to protect its offspring. Reno was a Turk, and he was here to do the job. His half of the deal, and no matter how beautiful this creature was, no matter that he would be destroying not only the parent, but its young as well, he had to uphold his part of the bargain. Reno of the Turks had collapsed the Sector Seven Plate on top of a million people, and had felt no guilt. A dragon and its offspring were nothing.
It was now or never; the creature was asleep, and so the red-head at least had the advantage of surprise. He reached his hand into his pocket, soon wrapping his fingers around a few orbs of materia. These were his combative magic materia, and of these he selected a couple, pushing them into the empty slots in the mag-rod. Lightning, Fire and Poison he chose, while Destruct remained in his right hand; it would be useless against a dark dragon. After a moment, the yellow orb of Deathblow joined the three green materia in the mag-rod. Reno was ready, or as ready as he could be, anyway. He had little in the way of defensive magic, something that had never worried him before. It did now, though, very much so.
He walked carefully towards the dragon, keeping his movements as near silent as he could, and when he was within range, he targeted the most immediately powerful spell he had at the dragon. Bio3 would, with any luck, poison it, but Reno didn't hold much optimism for this; he vaguely remembered something about not many dragons being vulnerable to poison.
As soon as the spell was cast, he followed it up with a blast of electricity from the mag-rod, knowing that his main advantage here was speed, rather than strength. The sound of a bio spell had always amused Reno, a kind of glooping noise accompanied by the bubbling of the deep green visual effects of the spell. Even as the green bubbles boiled around the dragon, the arc of electricity from the mag-rod cut through them, creating one of the most interesting visual effects the Turk had ever seen.
And the effect was... absolutely nothing. Evidently dark dragons were immune to both poison and electricity, which made Reno's task that much harder. The only noticeable effect his attack had was that the dragon stirred in its sleep, muscles twitching as it slowly awoke. It took a deep, sighing breath, and exhaled with a deep growl as it lifted its massive head and turned it to focus on the intruder.
The comparatively tiny intruder, Reno realised, watching as the dragon went from laying down to reared up onto its powerful hind legs in one fluid movement that impressed the agile Turk himself. Who would have thought a creature so huge would be so fast, or so dexterous? He really didn't have any chance of prevailing against a creature like this.
And yet, dark dragons relied primarily on physical attacks rather than magic, with the exclusion of the beast's death magic. If he could avoid its teeth, claws and bladed tail, he might have a chance of surviving. Reno didn't even so much as hesitate before letting loose a fire spell, a weaker one just to test its effect. He didn't want to waste any more energy on magic that wouldn't work against the dragon. The mag-rod he pushed back into its holster at his hip; the weapon was confirmed to be useless against this opponent.
Distracted for a moment with this action however, Reno had only a moment's warning before the dragon's claws slashed at him, a massive paw larger than his entire body impacting hard with his side and throwing him off his feet and into the side of one of the large stalagmites. The structure cracked slightly with the impact, and from the sudden flare of pain in his chest, the rock hadn't been the only thing that had cracked. The dragons claws had torn through his clothing too, leaving deep wounds across his side.
The only thing that saved him here was the fire spell he'd released; despite being a weak one, it caused the dragon enough pain to distract it from killing Reno while he was down. It gave him the moment he needed to pull himself to his feet, despite the pain of the injury. He wasn't sure which had affected the dragon more; the fire itself or the light it created, but he wasn't about to question it. Targeting another, much more powerful spell, Reno knew he would be relying heavily on his fire materia now.
Even as the fire spell struck the dragon, its paw swiped again at Reno, but this time he saw it coming and leapt backwards, away from the jagged claws that threatened to disembowel him. The dragon's aim had been thrown off too, evidently by the fire, so the blow wouldn't perhaps have been critically wounding even if it had hit. Reno didn't want to find out, however, and had no intention of letting the dragon injure him again. He might not be able to get up again after another blow like the first one.
He backed away from the dragon now, reaching for the gun tucked into his belt, and quickly moving the Deathblow materia from the mag-rod to this weapon. He knew the target he wanted to aim for, and the Deathblow would assist his aim, which in the dim, flickering light of the cavern, would be hazy at best. He focused on the yellow materia orb, and lined his sights carefully, firing a single bullet at the dragon. He had little ammunition, and it was unlikely he'd be able to get any more in the near future, so he had to be careful.
The bullet ricocheted from the solid scales over the dragon's cheekbones, barely a few inches from his intended target. Reno cursed, and aimed again, but not before the huge black dragon could retaliate to the attack. It reared back, lifted its huge head and roared, the sound not one of fury, but of building magic. Reno had barely a moment to realise what was about to hit him before it did, and instinctively he forced himself to resist the magic, despite already knowing it would be useless. The death magic of a dark dragon was far too powerful to be withstood by simple strength of will.
But if he was going to die, he was going to take the dragon out with him. He fired once more with his gun, trusting the Deathblow materia to do its job of making sure the blow hit its target despite the aim that had been thrown off by the onslaught of the death magic tearing fiercely around him, pulling more at his mind and soul than at his body. The bullet struck true, however, piercing the dragon's large eye and passing directly into its brain, even as the last tendrils of the death spell tore at Reno.
There was a brief sense of satisfaction at his skills; he'd killed a dark dragon, all on his own, and without help. Just a shame that no one would know he'd succeeded.
Disclaimer - Not mine; Reno belongs to Square. However, considering I've now bought three copies of the game over the course of the years, the last two vastly over-priced, I think I've at least paid for a significant share in Reno. Will that hold up in court?
Author's Notes - Long chapter, I know. It might have gone on longer, but... cliffhanger. You know you love 'em really.
Really, I had several more plans for this chapter, but I felt this was a good place to stop it. Seeing as I seem to have accidentally kind of killed Reno and all. Is 'ooops' a satisfactory response to this?
My eternal thanks to WrexSoul for doing the beta on this one, especially showing me and correcting all my odd uses of the comma. Reno has butterflies, I have commas.