Chapter 13: Victoria Vel Nex
"Well, you've heard my plan." Tifa states, waiting outside the cafeteria. "What about you? Any plans for after Meteor?" In her peripheral vision, she sees Cid, Yuffie, and Nanaki raiding the cafeteria while the rest of her team waits outside.
"Yes. The first thing we plan to do, aside from quitting what's left of Shin-Ra, is to fly down to where the Temple of the Ancients used to be and have a memorial ceremony for Tseng. We… never had time to properly mourn him. We've had too much work to do since his death." Rude replied.
"He was really important to you, huh?" she asked.
"He was a good friend, a mentor, and sometimes a confidant as well to all three of us. After the war, he helped Reno and I re-adjust to... normal society."
"I've heard some stories about vets having troubles after the war, was it really that bad?" she asks.
"People say the slums are like a war zone, but it's just a figure of speech. Living in an actual war zone is... hard to describe. Coming back to Midgar was like coming to a different world. For example, for several years after the war, you could easily spot the vets who had been through heavy combat. We were the ones who dove for cover whenever a car backfired, or any other sudden, loud noise was made. Many small things like that added up and separated us from the 'normal' people. And then there were the memories. Sometimes they came back so strong we thought we were back in the war. Thankfully, neither of us have had that problem for years."
Barret says, "I knew a few vets in Corel who had that problem. They'd be fine one minute, then they'd start seeing shit from the war. They was digging foxholes all over town for a while."
"Yes, that was a common reaction. There weren't many places in Midgar where you could dig, though. Tseng helped us get over that habit before we ruined too many knives trying to dig through sidewalks and office floors."
Tifa asks, "If he meant that much to you, why couldn't you take some time off? It can't be healthy, waiting this long to let go."
"It's not, but it's hardly the first unhealthy thing I've had to do because of my job. If we have time after the memorial, we plan to fly to the plains northwest of Gongaga. We should have the best odds of surviving Meteor's impact there, although they'll still be slim."
"Wait, you mean you don't think Holy'll work?" she asks.
Cloud proclaims, "How could you doubt it? Aeris prayed for Holy, so Holy'll save us." with adoration for the dead Cetra shining in his eyes.
"My... profession doesn't exactly engender optimism... All three of us expect to be dead in less than a week." Rude calmly states.
"But... Then what're you fighting for?" Tifa asks with surprise and confusion on her face.
"Tseng's memory." Standing in the back of the group, Vincent silently nods his approval, although no one notices.
"I understand," Cloud announces, "because I'm fighting for Aeris's memory."
"I see she was important to you." Rude observes.
"She's everything to me and always will be." Cloud proclaims, oblivious to the hurt look that briefly flashes across Tifa's face. Rude notices, however, and feels a wrenching sensation at the sight that causes him to clench his jaw muscles and be thankful for his sunglasses.
"Sorry for bringing it up. I know it's a painful situation..." Rude says in an apologetic tone. This confuses Cloud, but Tifa notices that Rude's looking directly at her as he says this and realizes that he'd noticed her change of expression and somehow knew what it meant and was apologizing to her. Before she or Cloud can respond, he says, "Looks like they're finished." with a nod towards Cid and company, who're returning from their raid on the cafeteria. "Let's go." He then begins to lead the way towards the briefing room.
"How can you be so calm when you think you're walking to your death?" Tifa asks.
"Experience. I grew up a street kid in the slums and went straight to the war when Shin-Ra recruited me. Most of my life's been spent one small mistake away from death. It's the same for Reno and Elena. It also helps that there's a chance we'll live. If that happens, we plan to go into business together as freelance consultants."
"You mean mercenaries?" Cloud asks.
"You could phrase it like that..."
"More like freelance assassins, I'd bet." Barret states.
"No." Rude denies. "The three of us agreed that we won't accept that type of job."
"Shit, you tryin' to claim you lost your taste for it or sumpthin?" Barret asks.
Rude states, "None of us had a taste for it in the first place. No sane person enjoys killing. The company has always found sane people easier to control."
"Hey baldy, why the -- you being so --ing talkative? I can count on one --ing hand how many times you got chatty back in the --ing war."
"Usually there's nothing worth talking about, or actions can speak more efficiently than words." he replies. "We're here. Remember, if Holy doesn't work, the plains northwest of Gongaga are the best place to be." he says while looking directly at Tifa. Rude then confuses the members of Avalanche when he knocks loudly on the briefing room door and waits several seconds before opening it. He then sighs and mutters, "Oblivious..." before walking into the room and clearing his throat loudly.
The reasons for his actions become clear to the members of Avalanche when they follow him into the room and spot Reno sitting in a chair to one side of the room with Elena sitting sideways on his lap. Both have their eyes closed, their lips locked together, and their hands busy exploring one another's bodies, often reaching inside each other's uniforms. Rude loudly clears his throat again, but the amorous duo once again fails to notice him.
Cid takes a deep breath and bellows, "Get a --ing room!" This gets their attention and the pair jump a little before reflexively drawing pistols and pointing them at the source of the noise. When they notice that they have an audience, Elena blushes deeply and Reno looks annoyed.
"Shit, don't you know how to knock?" he asks while the pair re-holster their sidearms.
"I did. Loudly." Rude informs him. An amused smile crosses his face. "I can't leave you two alone for a minute, can I?"
Reno laughs. "No, and you shoulda known better than expecting any different." He then slips a hand under Elena's legs and smoothly stands while still holding her, then plants a quick kiss on her still-blushing face before gently setting her down on the chair he'd been sitting in. "Why'd you think I sent you to be the welcoming committee?" he asks with a crooked grin. He then turns his attention to Avalanche. "I'm surprised you all showed up."
He waves to a table covered with liquor bottles and stacks of pizza boxes, plastic cups, and paper plates. "Grab some grub, sit down, shut up, and I'll explain my plan." He notices that several Avalanche members hesitate to head towards the food. "What, don't trust me? It's not poisoned. If I wanted to kill you, I'd've shot you when you came in the door."
"How do we know you won't use us for cannon fodder?" Tifa asks with a suspicious look on her face.
"Cause that wouldn't be professional. As leader, part of my job's to bring as many of you back alive as I can. That's no guarantee you'll make it back, but hey, I'll be leading the most dangerous part personally. Now, if your personal feelings're gonna get in the mission's way, get the hell out. That goes for all of you."
"I'll do what it takes to defeat Sephiroth and avenge my father." she replies. "Even if it means following your orders. But don't expect me to forgive you just because we're on the same team."
"You shouldn't." he replies calmly. He looks down at his open left hand. "There's a hell of a lot of blood on my hands. Too damned much for anyone to forgive me." He clenches his hand into a fist. "But that's not the point. I'm not here for absolution and I'm sure as hell not expecting to be redeemed or anything. I don't buy into all that karma bullshit where you can do some good deeds and wipe the slate clean. None of that shit matters, I'm just here to get this one last job done and hopefully get a little more quality time with the woman I love before I die."
"Also, he tried to talk the President into an alternate plan that would've actually worked." Rude adds.
"Well, yeah, but that didn't do any good. All I could get out of him was letting me wait until I'd actually seen all the targets in the area before dropping the plate."
"Wait, you mean if we hadn't showed up-" Barret begins to ask.
Reno interrupts, "Old Man Shin-Ra probably would've gotten tired of waiting and ordered it dropped anyway. Now let's get this shit over with." He walks over to the table with the food and pours some Gin in a cup while he begins to explain his plan. "This'll be a straight up, high-speed Zippo run, just like the old days. It'll be three elements with sf-mod slicks and weasels. Now here's the COC. Obviously, I'm the CO and Rude's the XO-" he cuts off when he turns from adding Tonic Water to his Gin and notices that every Avalanche member except Cloud, Cid, and Vincent has a confused look on their face. "Shit, forgot most've you haven't got any military background. So much for getting this shit over with quickly. Hell, I --ing hate speeches." he complains while stirring his drink.
He lights a cigarette, then takes a slow sip of his drink while revising the briefing in his head and decides to start off differently. "Alright, let's try this again. If I get over your heads again, tell me so I'll clarify shit. Now, back in the war we had this little saying, 'victoria vel nex'. It means 'victory or death'. The brass thought it was a fun little slogan, but to Turks and some of the other elites, that was how we lived. See, those were the only ways we'd get out of there, win the war or go home in a bodybag. Follow me into that crater and you'll be walking into the same type of situation, with only two ways out. If you're not alright with that, leave now." No one gets up from their seat.
"I thought that meant 'death or glory'." Cloud states.
"No, that's 'nex vel palma'." Rude says.
"Yeah, that was Soldier's bullshit." Reno adds.
"What do you mean, bullshit?" Avalanche's leader asks.
"The whole 'glory' thing's a bunch of bullshit recruiters used to pull in dumb kids. Pros don't give a damn about glory, they just get the job done." the redhead clarifies.
"What? That can't be right!" Cloud denies, having believed the Shin-Ra recruiter.
Reno laughs for a moment. "Still gullible, huh? Look, I spent five years in the war and two years hunting down guerrillas after the surrender and I never saw anything that looked like glory. How bout you, Rude?" Rude shakes his head. "Cid?"
"-- no!"
"What about the second battle of Goblin Island?" Cloud asks. "I saw the documentary, and it looked glorious. It was victory against overwhelming odds."
Reno rolls his eyes. "That piece of propaganda's about as accurate as the commercials the company used to run about how clean and safe mako energy is. They may've had more troops, but we had a better position and better air support."
"But they said the movie had actual footage of the battle." he says, clinging to the reasons behind one of the biggest decisions he'd ever made.
"They lied."
"How do you know?" he asks, not trusting Reno.
"I was there." the lanky redhead answers. "There was a big supply drop on day three that included reinforcements, three Turk sniper teams and a regiment of Solider airbornes. It was Wutai's last big counteroffensive, an end run straight towards Midgar. Orders were to hold them there or die trying. Flak was pretty damned thick, one of the sniper teams and about a quarter of the regiment didn't make it to the ground. Shot out of the sky without a chance to fight back, pretty glorious, huh?"
He takes a long drag from his cigarette before continuing, gripped by the old memories. "Me and Rude were one team, and the other was a couple damned good friends of ours. The four of us were only a little older than her," he points to Yuffie, "but me an' Rude'd already been in the war for two years. We'd seen plenty of death before, but never on that scale. Both sides dug trenches and were kinda grinding away at each other, dropping in fresh troops every couple weeks. The smell hit me when I was still hanging from my chute, a couple hundred feet up. Thousands of bodies, rotting in the sun. A smell like that sticks with you, you never forget it. Maybe that's what glory's supposed to smell like." he says with a faint expression of disgust on his face from the remembered odor.
"Shit, ain't you got any respect for the dead? Why didn't you bury them?" Barret asks.
"Cause we were too damned busy dealing with the living to worry about the dead. Things were bad enough we had to put the wounded back on the line to fight. No way in hell we could spare anyone for burial detail." He pauses for a sip of Gin & Tonic. "At night, the goblins came out and we could hear them feeding on the dead. Every now and then, they'd find some poor bastard who wasn't dead yet, but they'd eat them just the same and we'd all hear them screaming. Between that and the night attacks, no one got much sleep. I spent over a month in that hell, about half of it in charge after all the higher ranking officers got killed, and I never saw anything like glory. Lot a the Solider-boys jumped in looking for glory. The ones that survived their first day forgot all about that shit. So, you expecting to find glory in that crater or something, Spike?"
"No, I'm going for revenge." Cloud answers, now having a new reason for hateing Shin-Ra.
"Good motive. Now, like I was saying earlier, we'll be relying heavily on speed for this mission. We'll be going in three teams, here's the chain of command..."
"What's a chain of command?" Yuffie asks.
"It's the chain I'll beat you with to let you know who's in command." Reno jokes. His partners and Cid chuckle, but no one else reacts. "Damn, don't any of you chumps have a sense of humor? Chain of command's who's in charge of who. First team's the assault team. That's us three. If either of them give any of you an order down there, obey it like it's an order from me. Next team's the reserve. It'll be Valentine, Lockheart, and Strife. Spike's in charge. The rest of you report to Highwind. You're the security team. Other'n the team leaders, use your normal pecking order."
"Why's the security team so big?" Cloud asks.
"I was getting to that. When we get to the crater, the Highwind'll drop napalm, hopefully clearing out a lot of the shit living in there. After the drop, we'll fly in on three slicks, small choppers we used for commando missions back in the war. Assault and reserve's slicks've been modified to carry a weasel scout car. We fly as far as we can into the crater, then land. Weasels only carry three, so that's why there's so many of you in security. Assault and reserve'll drive as far as they can while security protects the choppers. We've got a map, and all the vehicles've been fitted with special sensors, so finding Sephiroth shouldn't be a problem. When we get to him, assault'll go kill him while reserve guards our ride back to the LZ. If he gets lucky and manages to snuff my team, it'll be reserve's job to step in and finish him. If both teams snuff it, security gets to hike in and take a shot at him." He picks up a box from a table and begins handing out small radios with headsets. "These're simple, press this button to talk, let go to listen. Frequencys're set so you just talk with your teammates. Team leaders, your's have a setting to talk to the other leaders. This button here switches which frequency you transmit on, they're set to receive both." He then picks up another box and begins to pass around small pill bottles, giving everyone two different types.
"What're these?" Tifa asks.
"The ones in the white bottles're a type of amphetamine the company made for long missions where you don't have time to sleep. There's enough in each bottle to keep you awake from when we hit the crater till meteor hits. Just don't use them unless you need them. These aren't nearly as addictive as the type the company used to issue, but you crash pretty damned hard when you come down from these."
"You really expect us to start popping pills?" Tifa asks, looking disgusted.
"Hey, it beats getting killed in your sleep. We probably won't need them anyways, they're just in case the mission takes longer than planned. The other type I gave you, we call them corks. One pill'll keep you from shitting for a day, cause we won't have time for that either. That's it for the briefing. Any questions?"
"That's it?" Barret asks. "That's your big plan? I was expecting more."
"Well, let's hear yours. I'm sure it'll be much better since you spent less than a year leading a small rebel group and I only had training in military tactics and years of experience leading troops in an actual war." Reno remarks with sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Shit changes soon as you run into the enemy, so simple plans that're easily adapted to changing shit're best. Any other questions?" He waits a moment. "Good. It'll take maintenance a couple hours to modify the Highwind-"
"What?" Cid interrupts. "The --'re you --ers doing to my --ing ship? If you shitheads -- it up, I'll --ing rip your goddamned heads off and shit down the --ing stumps! --!" he bellows with typical Highwind tact.
"Heh, easy. Nothing's getting --ed up you can't un-- later. All they're doing's adding hardpoints and wiring for the napalm and racks for the two modified slicks. Now sit down, shut up, and drink your... What the --'re you drinking?"
"It's my goddamned tea, mother--! The --'s it look like?"
"What the --..." Reno mutters, shocked.
"He's gone AA on us." Rude helpfully informs Reno.
"Damn, never thought I'd see the day that'd happen... Well, like I was saying before the --ing howling mad tea swiller interrupted me, we're gonna have a couple hours downtime. So relax, eat some pizza or something. Just don't wander too far, if I can't find you when it's time to go you'll get left behind. If you've got any more questions, one of us might answer." The briefing over, most of the people in the room stand and help themselves to more food and drinks.
"Hah, you got shorter!" Yuffie blurts out when she notices Elena's traded in her normal high-heeled dress shoes for hiking boots, which would be better suited to climbing around inside a large crater.
"I'm still taller than you, pipsqueak." she retorts.
"Baka no gaijin!" Yuffie taunts, then sticks her tongue out.
Reno steps in and says, "Ojosama, zakennayo!"
Yuffie looks more surprised than insulted. "How'd you learn to say that?"
"Easy, I'm a cunning linguist." the redhead answers with his trademark smirk.
"Be careful with that joke, boss, it's an antique." Rude dryly advises. Reno responds by raising his middle finger in his best friend's direction. Rude smoothly retorts by saying, "Hey, man, I'm flattered, but I just don't feel that way about you." causing Reno to roll his eyes.
"Omygawd, did big, bald, and scary just make a joke?" the kleptomaniac ninja asks.
"Of course not." Reno says, still smirking. "Everyone knows big, bald, and scary doesn't have a sense of humor, so there's no way he just made two jokes in a row. You're hallucinating." Rude responds to this veiled insult by nailing Reno in the side of the head with a crumpled plastic cup. "That must've been a hallucination too." He feels something warm impact his head after saying this and reaches up, discovering a piece of pizza stuck to the side of his head. "Hell, it's on now!" he declares with a grin before hurling the slice back in Rude's direction.
Rude dodges by dropping into a quick backwards roll under the table loaded with pizzas. He then stands on the far side, reaches into an open box, and begins a barrage of pizza slices in Reno's direction. Their audience looks very surprised, with the exceptions of Vincent, who looks vaguely bored, and Elena, who's seen and participated in enough impromptu food fights with her fellow Turks that she simply watches with an amused smile. Reno, not having a ready ammo supply, resorts to catching and throwing back the slices Rude hurls at him.
Unfortunately, pizza isn't the most aerodynamic projectile, and one of Reno's errant slices ends it's flight splatting against Elena's chest. This turns her amused expression into an annoyed one and prompts an unspoken cease-fire. "Shit, sorry, babe! Um, he started it..."
"You just ruined another of my ties, Reno." she says while walking towards him.
"Hey, you would've gotten Sephiroth's blood on it anyways." he says while reaching out and brushing pizza bits off of her.
"True..." she says while taking his hand. She then quickly twists his wrist, pulling him forward and bringing his arm behind his back. Additional pressure, drops him to one knee. "But that's no reason to let you off easy." She then reaches under his jacket and begins to prod him in his ribs.
"Hey... don't... Lena..." he gasps out between laughs while she tickles him. "Rude... a little help here?"
"You got yourself into it..." Rude answers.
After squirming for a few moments, Reno manages to reverse the hold and gains a measure of revenge, holding Elena down and tickling her. Moments later, she slips out and throws him, bouncing him off a nearby wall before resuming tickling him.
Rude notices shocked expressions on most of the Avalanche members and says, "Don't worry, this is normal for those two." He then watches with amusement while the odd hybrid of a tickle fight and a wrestling match continues, accompanied by the sounds of Reno and Elena laughing and occasional crashes and thumps.
Author's Note: As always, big thanks go to Noroi for betaing this. Thanks for the great reviews The Tiramisu Of Impending Doom, CelticPhantom, TheDonutMistress, Cathy7, icewolf9, Yumesuta, rune, Arkv01, and JA-Japster. Well, looks like my Cid went over well. Hey, looks like someone got the A-Team reference. Nice catch CelticPhantom, especially since I forgot to mention that in the AN. Hey, it's only a T-rated fic, TheDonutMistress, so she'll have to do him off screen. Although I still haven't decided if they'll have time to get that far before the sequel. icewolf9, that's four minimum. My chapter's have tended to end up bigger than planned in this fic. I've already split several planned chapters into two or three chapters, so it could happen again. I've decided to end this shortly after where the game ends and the sequel'll probably pick up either on the next morning or a few days later. You'll have to wait and see for the ending, though.
The first part of Reno's 'unforgivable' speech was inspired by the ending of Xenogears and the ending of The Way of the Gun. Goblin Island was inspired partially by World War One and partially by Wake Island. The chain of command joke's a Firefly homage. Best TV show ever. The Japanese insults used by Yuffie and Reno probably have horrible grammar and are basically Yuffie calling Elena a stupid foreigner and Reno calling Yuffie a spoiled brat and telling her to -- off. If I remember right, that is. Hopefully I didn't screw up and have Reno tell her his hovercraft is full of eels... (Monty Python reference there, btw...)
Edited again because some site update deleted all the '--' lines I used to use to denote scene changes. So time to slap horizontal rulers into all my fics.