Chapter Two: The Unwilling
Yay chapter two yaaaaay.
Shame disclaimer follows as chapter one - i own nuffin!
I woke the next evening from a dreamless sleep, the thunderous music next door having quieted, leaving the dead empty air hanging awkwardly still. I stared up at the ceiling for a while, making patterns in the darkness before I rose and went for my dresser.
I grabbed my gunbelt - two artfully crafted, blissfully simply handguns that could lock together as one for a more powerful shot... slinging the belt around my waist, and I was in the middle of latching the leather strap when I felt something, warm and wet, drop onto my hand.
Bringing it to my face and turning it toward the dim sunburnt orange light from the distant Midgar, I watched as a tiny bead of blood made a trail, delicately across my palm from around my thumb.
Damnit, I cursed myself, and wiped underneath the eyepatch, my hand coming away stained with more blood.
Going to the bathroom but leaving the light off, drenched in a semi-darkness, I flipped up the eyepatch and groped for a nearby towel.
The eye, underneath the patch, is actually quite normal. It's not missing, like one might assume, or horribly mangled. In fact, it's free of the acidic green tint that Mako left in my right eye... But ever since I was little, I'd be told, even the slightest bit of light would cause it to bleed.
Sensitivity, I always shrugged it off.. It could have slipped while I was sleeping.
I dabbed away the blood and stood back, staring at my shadowy reflection, my tired face illuminated just barely by that distant city. I ran a finger underneath my eye to be sure it'd stopped bleeding before I fixed the eyepatch back into place, and left my tiny little bunker.
And in every one I passed, the lights were off.
Hmph, strange... I thought to myself as I turned down the worn old patch, toward what probably was a mess hall on these massive grounds.
I pushed open the door that presented a massive living space filled with run-down couches, mis-matched tables and chairs, some with legs that didn't even match. The rugs appeared to have been pulled straight from the Slums itself, covered in numerous stains that none of us questioned, or sat on really.
There was a kitchen off to the corner, with more mistmatched appliances, some appearing to be over forty years old. There was a flickering lightbulb attachted to a old cord hanging above this all, casting vacant light, while old lamps supplied the rest of the light.
Reeves sat in the corner, with his state-of-the-art computers, one of the few things that survived the ShinRa buildings collapsing.. How he got them out, I have no idea. But if I hadn't been around, those things probably would have been his babies.
His glasses were pushed low on his nose with this look of concentration, one that radiated with "bother me now and I'll blast you're head off". It intimidated me as a child, but these days I found it rather thrilling to overstep his boundaries.
I stepped behind him, and looked over his shoulder, "What're you doing?"
He jumped a little - so enthralled in his work he hadn't heard me come in, "Hacking into a database."
So non-chalant.. I squinted my one good eye, trying to read the technical mumbo-jumbo on the screen... I'd learned long ago I was rather technically-challenged with computers... Or anything electronic for that matter. I could barely operate a cellphone.
"What database?" I said, trying to play along.
"Meta-corp." Reeves responded in a quiet rumble.
Ah, Meta-corp, the answer to all our problems, supposedly.
It was the new power company in town... Meta-corp had found a new source of energy to run the city, and eventually the -world-. It wasn't fossil-fuel based, so the Lifestream was safe. But it wasn't solar based either... Water-based... All methods ShinRa had tried to regain his throne of power and failed miserably - Gaea was too badly damaged still.
Meta-corp was also the only reason Reeve had decided to, however briefly, assist ShinRa. He was convinced that Meta-corp was up to something horribl, something that would conflict with his "restoration" of the planet, and it just so happened Rufus had to resources to do so.
He's never here for very long. Usually, a week or so, before he returns to his beloved World Regenesis Organization and abandon's me here with the rest of the Turks.
Lately though, due to my condition, he's been spending more and more time here.
I stepped back and looked around, "Where did everyone go?"
"Small mission to Midgar," Reeves mumbled, scrolling through what seemed like miles of data, "Don't worry about it - I told you to rest, remember?"
"Why would I even want to go?" I asked, innocently, biting my bottom lip.
"Well," Reeves said with a languid stretch, carrying it through in his voice, rubbing his eyes slowly as though he hadn't moved from that computer in a while, " 'Might be blowin' something up, dunno."
Blowing something up?
The Turks held regular acts of rebelion, either for Rufus' own satisfaction of sitting back and watching his beloved city crumble into shambles, or, for some reason, Midgar might oppose these new leaders of the city.
Either way it didn't seem to work, but it did relieve some frustration.
Reeves knew me too well though: I loved explosives. I could feel the first of a evil smile tweaking the corner of my mouth, for what felt like days. Reeves turned around and caught the smirk, frowning on his own accord.
"I told you to rest," He repeated slowly, "Don't do anything stupid."
"I'm not," I said, and that was half true. I didn't intent on doing anything stupid.
I left the large mess hall quickly before Reeves could scold me any further, hoping that he would just return to his diligant work and disregaurd me.
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The breeze felt wonderful of my fevered brow as I raced toward Midgar, it's orange glow hazing in my eye for a moment or so, my head swimming.
I was about halfway there when I realised that it might not have been a good idea to leave after all, stopping my battered and beaten old motorcycle that could've been called a scooter at this point, its engine rattling to a stop.
It wasn't safe to stay mobile for long in these wastelands, so I had to clear my head as quickly as I could.. Gripping my head and crouching down til my nose was almost in contact with the cool metal of the handlebars, staring at the ground, waiting for it to stop spinning...
Go, a voice came to me, suddenly.
It echoed so close, like someone had been standing behind me. I turned sharply, almost slipping from the seat.
"Whose there!" I demanded in a scream.
A throaty snarl echoed in my mind, coming at me from every direction. Almost immediately, I panicked. This never happened to me before!
It grew louder, and a second voice, the one from before, seemed to have to shout over the growls and hissing in my head.
Go!, it said a second time, more insistant.
I turned the key, choking the engine once, then twice, before it roared to life, grabbed the throttle hard and took off quicker than I had intended... The weight of the bike slipped back onto the rear wheel for a good few yards before colliding with the ground and swirving unsteadily.
The growls didn't fade for a good mile, and then silence.
I didn't slow down though.
Didn't stop until I barrled through the gates of Midgar, into brightly-lit, heavily-populated safety. I hardly even slowed down til I reached a alley, somewhere in the old Seventh sector and hopped off the bike, pulling it to a stop before I promptly slipping onto the filthy ground, trying to control my fluttering heart.
No one had been around me! The wastelands were completely barren, unlivable at night! No one was there...
No one was there.
I held my head tightly, the echoes of what happened replaying themselves.
Finally I found the strength to pick myself up, and the bike, and grappled for a cigarette from it's back pouch. The package was slightly crumpled from my stupidity, but the stick was fine, unsmashed. I lit it, and started pushing the bike from the alley.
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Finding where Reno, Elena and Rude had gone off too was easy enough.
Most of the city had reformed and refined itself - nightclubs, bars, resturants.
One sector, Sector Three, had done fairly well... Where the wealthiest found the bravery to go out and spend some of their millions of Gil.
I was pushing my bike through the crowded sidewalk, when an explosion erupted before me. People came flying with debris and bouts of smoke and ash, the fire roaring up toward the sky.
The blast of it momentarily stunned me, ears ringing, looking up to catch three black sleek motorcycles racing off, people around me fleeing and panicking.
People were running out of the building in flames, what seemed to be a massive casino, or had been... One of them was tall, strong-looking with wicked eyes and a harsh complextion - he didn't come out coughing like the rest of them. Rather, he walked straight out, my eye zeroing into the badge on the collar of his lapel.
It was the Meta-corp insignia.
He turned and looked around, almost immediately focusing on me. And then, came barreling after me.
I dropped my bike, turned, and ran.
Riding through a heavy crowd was almost impossible, and I was quicker than most people I'd come across - though this guy kept up easily.
I darted into alley after alley until I felt a sharp blow and my head connect with a old brick wall. I hardly had time to fall and hit the ground before a vice-like grip was strangling me, lifting me off my feet, slamming my head repeatedly into the wall.
"Think I dont know?!" he yelled, holding me still briefly, "Think I can't smell the Mako, eh? No SOLDIER's in the City.. just you rotten, filthy Turks! I'm going to killing you, one by one, peice my peice!"
Coughing, stuggling to breathe, I managed to grab one of my guns - this idiot was faster though.
He grabbed it before I could pull it from the holister and smirked wickedly, eyeing the peice before pressing it into my stomach.
"Nice try," He hissed, firing off round after round into me.
I could feel the gush of blood, the spray onto the wall behind me, the bullets tearing straight through me. The pain nearly choked me off completely, and I could feel my body beginning to depart, to run on auto-pilot.
I grabbed my second handgun and whipped him, hard, across the temple.
He stumbled back and dropped me, holding his head. Taking his hand away, I could see it smeared with blood through my hazy vision.
He was advancing on me again, my sight sliding drastically out of focus. It was getting harder to breathe, and I kept trying to get up, only to have the pain pull me back down, like being speared onto a spike.
The guy was almost too me, and I thought I was done for, when he stopped suddenly and looked up. He opened his mouth in some kind of muted scream, using my un to fire at something above him.
There was a whirl of red, something knocked him down onto the ground. He was trying to get up, but before he could even solidly make it onto his feet, there was a muted shot, not the kind of loud, resounding I might have expected, and his head was gone.
His body fell loosely onto the ground, this red-cloaked figure remaining still for the moment.
I struggled to stay concious, but my one good eye was pressed down into the old garbage-ridden pavement, limiting my vision greatly.
The last thing I could remember before I slipped entirely, was a pair of gold gauntleted feet stalking their way toward me.
Chapter two done yaaaaay.
Reviews please. x_x They make me happy.