5

Saved

"STOP IT!" Cid's knees had given way just as the older girl came into the clearing and ordered the Children to stop their attack. Poison racked through his body after a ten tear old had cast a Bio spell on him. He was all right for now, but fighting caused him to loose the precious energy his body needed to keep fighting the poison pumping through him. He recognised the girl who had finally got the relentless kids to cease their attacks. It was Reno's friend Jennin. All the younger kids stared at her as she ran over to Reno's bloodied form. She crouched beside him and took his pulse. He was barely alive, but as long as his heart was still faintly beating she could revive him. Her nimble fingers made deft work of quickly unbuttoning his blood soaked shirt in order for her to touch bare skin. A glow surrounded her, brighter than any Cid had seen before, the children near him gasped, their jaws wide as they watched the glow grow so bright that all could be seen of the redhead and his newest love interest was a blinding sphere of light.

After what seemed like a few minutes, but was actually only a few seconds, the glow subsided. Jennin's eyes were barely open; she slouched beside Reno, breathing heavily. Reno seemed to stir, twitching a little at first, then slightly moving his arms. A few minutes passed before he sat bolt upright, blinking profusely. His eyes were wide and mouth open as he realised he was awake; whatever dream he had been having was gone.

Something wasn't right, he looked down at his body; his unbuttoned white shirt was almost entirely red and soaking wet with the red liquid. He was sitting in a whole pool of the stuff. Then he remembered. It was his blood, he should be dead, why wasn't he dead? He wasn't even in pain.

"Reno…" Jennin muttered beside him, looking like it was her who was close to death. He gasped and was overcome with concern for her. Grabbing her shoulders lightly, he looked into her half closed eyes, searching for an answer to what he should do to make her better. Something hard in his pocket pressed against his leg. A potion. He grabbed it quickly and unscrewed the cap, pressing the bottle to Jennin's lips and softly requesting her to drink from it. She complied, drinking slowly to start with, then more deeply as strength returned to her. Yet, it had only been a potion, it was not strong enough to even nearly fully cure her. She got to her shaky feet and stared at the children before her.

"I am weak, so I will speak rather than communicate in the usual way in front of such company." The children who had been further away gathered in close to her, watching her with unblinking eyes.

"What is the meaning of this attack? Has word not reached you? Have you not come home in the last twelve hours?" Her voice was a little shaky, but seemed to hold much authority with it. The eldest boy, the one who had the sword, stepped forwards. He said nothing, but Jennin seemed to think he had.

"You are a fool Jez. A fool. They were doing nothing to the lifestream that would harm us. Dale has told all the Children that no more attacks on the Inferiors should happen like this without his consent, Reno would have died if I hadn't intervened.

"For one, we need as many Inferiors as possible alive for the tests. Secondly, this morning Dale gave orders that under no circumstances is the redheaded Turk to be harmed.

"I came here to find him minutes away from death! Dale will not be happy with this. I am not happy with this. The Red-head is mine! All of you…" She glared at the boy she had called Jez

"Shut up! Do not interrupt me again Jez. You should have been there; if you had been you would have known. All of you go back home. Go on. GO!" The children yelped and ran off, Jez remained for a little while, still saying nothing.

"Whatever Jez. Whatever. Leave me alone now." With that the boy ran off into the forest.

Reno's attention had been partially distracted by Elena's unconscious form and Cid's pale face. He rushed over to Elena first and checked her pulse. She was alive, but would not stir when he tried to rouse her. He turned back to Jennin, who had sat down near his patch of spilt blood that had not yet started to dry, even in the heat of midday.

"Can you cure her?" he asked, she shook her head.

"I am exhausted from healing you. I cannot even heal that scratch." She gestured to the small cut on Elena's cheek. Reno swore under his breath, his Restore materia would be too weak to wake her from this, and he had no Phoenix Down with him.

"What materia did you use to bring me back? I was sure I was a gonner. But the bullet wounds are gone; it's as if I had never been shot at all. Was it a Full Cure? Those are really rare." He chuckled to himself as he mentally added 'Yuffie would squeal with delight if she knew there was Full Cure materia here.'

"Something like that." Jennin mumbled, standing up now. "I must go." He didn't even have time to thank her for saving his life, she was gone too fast. He sighed and looked over to Cid.

"Are you ok?" Cid nodded.

"I'm poisoned. Let's hope there's a materia or item shop in Mideel. I need some Antidote or Heal materia." Reno nodded and shrugged off his blood-soaked shirt, it felt horrible against his skin. He unclipped his weapon from his wristband and re-attached it to his belt. Elena wasn't waking up anytime soon so Reno picked her sleeping form up in a fireman's lift and carried her to the edge of the clearing. Cid followed, limping slightly.

'I hope you've not ended up the way I almost did Yuffie.' Reno thought to himself; as they slowly made their way back to Mideel he found himself surprised at his concern for the whereabouts and safely of the young ninja. 'Geezz Reno, you're goin' soft in your old age.'

He needn't have worried over Yuffie though; she was back at the hotel bar by the time they got back with not a scratch on her.

"Yuffie! Thank Gaia you're ok!" Reno exclaimed as he came in after putting Elena in her bed to encourage her to wake up naturally; Phoenix Down was expensive, waking naturally was free. Yuffie screwed up her nose

"What? Did you just sound glad to see me? Aw, Reno, I'm afraid I don't feel that way about you. So put a shirt on and forget about getting with me." She flashed him a toothy grin. He stuck out his tongue

"You keep telling yourself you're not mad for me and maybe one day you'll believe it…but nah, seriously Yuffie, where did you go?" He sat down opposite to her, drumming his fingers on the surface of the table.

"You and Cid were being jerks. I decided I was better off alone. From all that dried blood about your person I think it was just as well I did go off." He leant back in his chair and sighed, she was right there. "What happened to you Reno?" Her voice sounded strange in its seriousness. He explained everything to her, the Children, Cid getting poisoned, Elena being knocked out, him being inches away from death.

A strange feeling had risen into her stomach at hearing about Reno's near-death experience. Ok, he was a complete jerk most of the time, but she couldn't help kinda liking him when his rare moments of humanity shone through, and he was kinda cute-looking.

She pushed away the feeling in all it's grossness and started re-telling him what she had been up to.

-------------------------------------------------

"Reno, how old are you?" He ignored Cid, looking off into the forest.

"He's twenty five." Yuffie saw Reno give Elena a dark look for that, to which she stuck out her tongue.

"ACT LIKE YOUR FUCKING AGE'S THEN!" Yuffie did not take kindly to being shouted at, or wound up; she'd had enough.

Slipping away had been easy, the Turks and Cid, blind as they were, did not notice as she darted behind a large tree that had a thick bush growing at it's base. She peeked through the dark foliage as Reno's impish little face looked around with a puzzled look.

"Er… where's the brat?" Yuffie narrowed her eyes 'I am not a brat!' she thought to herself in anger. Elena looked 'round but was as short-sighted as her co-worker and failed to see Yuffie crouching down among the dark foliage of the bush behind the large tree. She watched as Elena ran over to Cid and told him that the ninja was missing. Cid stopped and looked around them, staring through the trees for any movement before shrugging and continuing to walk.

"She's just admitted she's an adult, she can do as she pleases. If you ask me I reckon she's off materia hunting."

A sly grin rippled across Yuffie's face 'Good idea pilot. I think I might just do that.' Once she was sure the group were far enough away she stalked though the forest silently, her ninja skills did come in handy sometimes. She had no idea how long she silently traversed through the forest, but sometime later she stopped. Loud chirping came from above her. She looked up, vaguely recognising the birdcall. Was that….? A phoenix nest? Excitement fuelled her as she climbed the tree with deft agility. Phoenix down could get her a few bob; it was expensive stuff nowadays. She perched on the branch high above the ground and sneaked along it towards the nest. To her disappointment, the birds were not Phoenix chicks, but Jay chicks. Jay down had no magical properties and therefore could earn her no money. Just as she was about to clamber down from the tree she heard voices.

Through the trees foliage she could make out a group of about eight children who had stopped near to the tree.

"Shhhh…Is that a Phoenix call?"

"No you twirp, it's a Jay call! Geez you're a cloth head!" Yuffie scowled at that, Jays did sound a lot like Phoenix birds.

"I need a rest!" A younger sounding voice demanded. Another voice sighed loudly.

"Oh All right!" Nothing was said for a moment, the chitter of the jays in the near by nest filled Yuffies ears for the time being.

"When is the big test happening?" A young voice broke the silence.

"Dunno. Dale said probably next week."

"That's ages away! Vince said some Shinra scum have come to Mideel. He reckons they're onto us."

"Shu' up Danny! Even if Shinra scum were 'ere they're not powerful like us Children. They're the Inferior. It don't matter if they're onto us coz we can crush 'em like worms." A girls voice resounded in a cockney accent, another little feminine voice giggled at that and repeated in a small, but gleeful voice

"Like worms! He, he, he!"

"I don't like it. Ok, they're lower down the evolutionary scale than we are, but we have no right to be killing people like this." There was a long pause, Yuffie dug her little finger into her ear to dig out the earwax, was she hearing them right?

"Well, Dale, Nyra, Jak and Jennin say tha' if we don't kill 'em, they'll kill us just like they did with the Ancients. We're different from them, we're more powerful, and they're scared of us so they'll kill us. Dale says it's kill or be killed. Dale says it's time for new blood to rise to the top of the evolutionary scale, and we're it."

"We know what Dale says Lara. It just doesn't seem right that's all…"

Strange echoes resounded through the forest, the children all looked in one direction.

"What's that then? Someone make a telepathic link to see if there's any Children in that direction." One said in a hurry gesturing to where the sounds came from.

After a few minutes silence the cockney girl spoke;

"Yeah! It's Jez an' his tribe. He said there's Inferiors sniffin' about the lifestream, He reckons they're the Shinra scum Vince talked about. Come on let's go!" With that they ran off.

------------------------------------

"Hmmm…" Reno puffed out his cheeks, leaning back lazily in his chair.

"Inferior. They called us that. They don't seem to say it as an insult, more just a label, a name. And the telepathic thing you mentioned makes sense; they seem to convey a lot of information in those meaningful stares they give one another." He thought over what Yuffie had said for a while, trying to make sense of it.

"Do you think that they might be Ancients?" He finally asked.

"I doubt that, Aeries was the last one, that blood line died with her." Yuffie had a point, but he had no other way to explain how they could communicate telepathically, and he was pretty sure Jennin didn't have any materia on her when she was curing him. It felt different from a Restore spell too, he could still feel the magic lingering within him… it was odd. He sighed and stood up, stretching.

"I'm going to buy a new shirt and maybe some Phoenix down in case Elena doesn't wake up, coming?" He had half hoped she'd decline, he wasn't sure if he could hack any more of her bratty personality. But almost dying a few hours previously had put him on edge enough to want some sort of company, a ninja made him feel strangely at ease that if he were attacked again he would have more chance getting away with his life intact.

The sun was below the horizon now and the shops were just shutting, the red haired Turk had dragged Yuffie around too many shops to count, she had very nearly ran off again. But shopping with Reno was kinda fun really. She made him try on all sorts of crap and he did the same to her until he finally settled on a white shirt almost identical to the one he had left soaked in blood at the lifestream.

"C'mon you pint-sized little brat, let's see if Cid got that antidote and if Elena's got off her lazy arse yet." He said this with a friendly enough tone, but Yuffie never took kindly to being called a brat, or pint-sized for that matter.

"Why you son of a-" She was stopped short when a group of shadowy figures circled them, the orange glow of sunset dully lit the edges of weapons they carried, jammed packed with coloured orbs. Reno and Yuffie stepped back, fear rising into both of them, they stopped when they had pressed their backs against the other. Reno's hand slipped instinctively to the Electro rod at his hip, but he didn't have time to even unclip it, two darts flew through the air, missing him by a fair amount. One, however, found it's way into Yuffie's arm; she gasped and put her hand to it, meaning to prize it out. But everything around her started spinning, everything looked so colourful; she collapsed in a heap, out cold.

"Yuffie!" Reno shouted, pacing towards her, three children beat him to it and were prizing her materia off her like greedy vultures. Man did that girl carry a lot of those orbs! "Hey! Give those back!" He insisted, grabbing one of the kids. There was a curse and a flash of metal and Reno found the cold, hard barrel of a semi-automatic gun placed at his forehead, the kid looked familiar, it was that Jez boy who had attacked them earlier, and there was a dangerous glint in his eye.

"Hey there kid! Jennin said you weren't to hurt me? Remember?"

'Please remember you fool child!' he thought to himself desperately. Jez laughed manically.

"Yeah, I remember all right. But you see, not even Jennin can cure a bullet in the head. What happens, happens, not even us Indigo Children can turn back time." He smirked and cocked the gun, Reno clamped his eyes closed desperately thinking of a way out, there were eight heavily armed Indigo Children against one man with an electro-rod still attached to the loop of his belt.

"If you hand over all your materia and let go of Lara there then we'll leave with the same number of bullets inside this gun as we set out. If you aren't willing to co-operate…well then, one little bullet missing won't be too much of a loss will it? Even two won't be sorely missed." His greedy eyes flashed over Yuffie's form. Could he risk unclipping his Electro-rod before that bullet was fired from the gun, into his head? He doubted it very much. 'I can't believe I'm being mugged by a gang of children!' he groaned to himself as he let go of the girl he had grabbed.

TBC…