Disclaimer: None of the final fantasy characters belong to me…yep…
Author's note: Sorry it took so much time to get this chapter up. I was sick for a week and have been buried under make-up work. Honestly, I thought I was going to choke on math. Thank Yevon for Spring Break!
Chapter 4: A ghost in the machine
Vincent was awakened around one o'clock that night by a loud pounding on the door. At first he thought it was Seph, knocking to get back in. He lurched down the stairs, pulling on his shirt blearily. When he hit the landing, he was alert instantly. The pounding was coming from the front door, not the back.
As he peered through the small window, Vincent noticed that both his mother's and his father's boots were gone. As odd as that was, he had more pressing problems. The group of armed figures congregated on his front porch, for instance.
Vincent opened the door just a crack to tell them to get the hell out of there. That was his first mistake of the night. The moment there was any distance between the door and the door jam, someone put all their weight into pushing it open. Vincent was knocked backwards into the banister. He felt his head crack against the solid wood. Stars winked in front off his eyes as he fought to remain conscious.
Outside of his front door stood Erika, Reno, and Tseng, dressed in black leather and armed to the teeth. The Turks had come out in full force. What was worse, Gon and Scarlet were with them. Gon had a black eye.
"Send him out here and we won't have to kill you," Tseng said, his gun pointed at the center of Vincent's forehead.
"Who?" Vincent asked. He knew the answer, but he had to stall for as long as he could to give Seph time. He hoped to God that he had enough sense not to try to make it out of the village.
Just hide in someone's barn! He thought earnestly, as though wishing it could somehow make it happen.
"Don't play stupid with us, kid, the chick told us that Sephiroth left with one of you two." Reno jerked his head in Gon's and Scarlet's direction.
As annoyed as he was with being called kid by someone that looked younger than he was, he didn't speak. He was too busy looking at Scarlet, shocked. How could she have sold Seph out like that?
"I-I didn't mean to, Vincent," Scarlet gasped, "They were gonna kill me if I didn't talk."
Erika gave her a withering glance, snapping, "Reno, go and check the back of the house."
Vincent started down the steps. "Hey, you can't go back-," He was silenced by two guns pointed his way.
His attention was suddenly snatched by the sound of an explosion. A huge puff of black smoke streamed up from the direction of the mayor's home. He could see the glow of firelight and the sound of many voices raisen in anger.
Erika followed his gaze. She smirked. "Yes, apparently farmers get angry when you kill they're mayor. They have a tendency to riot."
Vincent couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"You didn't-you couldn't!"
"Oh yes we could, Vincent," Scarlet answered. A gun had suddenly materialized in her hand. She must have been holding it behind her back for the whole time. She was now standing with the same confident air as Tseng and Erika.
"Scarlet," Vincent ventured, "What the hell are you doing?"
"The smart thing," Erika answered for her, "She wants what's best for her village, and for herself."
Gon gave a cry of anger and leapt away from Scarlet, going to stand beside Vincent instead. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"What the hell? How could you, Scarlet.?"
Tseng laughed in an annoyingly clichéd villain tone. "She's not an idiot like you two, that's how. Right after she found what we were looking for in her shed, she found us."
They were all distracted by a commotion at the side of the house. Reno emerged from the shadows, leading a very disoriented-looking Seph. His face was pale, his eyes blank. He stumbled along after Reno obediently like a dog on a leash.
"What did you do to him?" Vincent demanded.
Erika spared Seph half a glance, as though she was in the middle of something terrifically important and couldn't be bothered. "Spell. He'll be fine in a couple of hours. By then, we'll be out of here and halfway to Condor."
It was strange how small boys can be so fearsome when they were upset. Gon gave an angry yell and launched himself at Reno. It was a mark of how frustrated he felt that he was defending an almost complete stranger. Scarlet's betrayal had really hurt him.
Vincent didn't know how he felt about his former friend, but he did know that he couldn't let them take Seph. He moved to join Gon in his attack, when a gunshot sounded. Gon stopped in his tracks, pressing a hand to his chest. His face went blank and he slumped to the ground. Vincent could only watch in shocked horror as his friend gave a final spasm of pain and lay still.
In a kind of numb haze, Vincent looked from left to right, searching for the source of the bullet. He saw instead Scarlet, gun in her hand, shaking.
"You were wrong about me, Gon," she whispered.
Vincent could never really recall what happened next. He remembered throwing himself at Scarlet, only to be knocked to the ground by Erika. She moved so fast he didn't even see if she hit him or kicked him. All he knew was he ended up in the mud, completely winded. Scarlet gave him a long look, then turned away. Reno grabbed Seph roughly and pushed him forward.
Vincent groaned and tried to rise. He felt something slam into the back of his head, and was sent back to the ground. Tseng's leering face peered down at him, as he kicked him over and over again.
"Enough, Tseng," Erika ordered, "Don't kill him."
Vincent coughed and groaned, trying to roll himself over. The last thing he saw was the retreating backs of the Turks and their captive, before darkness closed in on him.
Even after regaining consciousness, several hours later, he laid there, eyes closed. His whole body felt like one giant bruise, which was nothing compared to the torture in his mind. Scarlet, Scarlet had betrayed them.
It had begun to rain again and, as Vincent levered himself out of the mud, it poured down like a million tears from the heavens. Gon lay a few feet away, sprawled on the ground, his eyes blank. Blood still oozed from the wound on his chest, to be washed away into the mud.
Vincent lurched over to his friend's body. Everything felt like a dream, empty and unreal. There were still shouts from the direction of the mayor's home, but he ignored them. He knelt down and, with a whispered prayer to some nameless god, eased Gon's eyes closed. He now looked like he was just sleeping. On the ground, in the rain, in the middle of the road.
Vincent stood back up, and began limping toward the square. He felt like he should be crying, but no tears would come. They all seemed to be stuck behind his eyes. Nobody close to him had ever died. He had nothing to compare the experience to.
His body ached and his mind spun, but still, he continued up the road. The closer he got to the center of town, the clearer it was that something big had gone down. Windows had been smashed and doors hung of their hinges. Vincent passed two other people lying face down in the mud, having met the same fate as Gon. No matter what destruction he passed in the street, nothing could have prepared him for what met him in the town square.
The Mayor's mansion was in flames. Red and yellow tongues licked at the windows, impervious of the rain. All around him, the square was littered with bodies. Most of them were villagers, but several were men and women in black army uniforms.
"Soldier," Vincent whispered. The Turks had obviously planned this attack since the very beginning. They must have wanted the village to turn over Seph, not knowing that he had been found and taken in by three kids. One of which had now added to their number.
Throughout the square, villagers roamed, tending the wounded or covering up the dead. They worked rhythmically, no one saying so much as a word. A hushed silence had descended upon the square, save for the crackling of the flames consuming the mayor's house, which no one was making an attempt to put out. It was a field of battle, and of disaster.
Vincent found what he was looking for immediately. His mother, on her knees before a body. A great lump rose in his throat as he approached, not wanting to see what lay on the ground before him.
"Dad," he croaked, "Dad, no."
His mother looked up. Her face was stained with tears and her eye's held more pain than he even knew existed. She raised a shaking hand. Vincent touched her fingers; she seemed to be making sure he was really there.
"Who did this?" he asked.
His mother had to swallow several times before she answered. "T-That tall woman, from the Turks. She-she shot him."
An image of Erika's haughty figure swam in front of Vincent. A red mist seemed to have descended upon his vision. A strange ringing filled his ears as he straightened up and walked back out of the square.
"Vincent!" His mother's cries followed all the way out of town. "Vincent." No one followed him, no one stopped him, as he walked out of his childhood home; towards empty hills, towards danger, towards revenge.