Chapter 9: Textus Duo
I jerked awake from my sleep breathing heavily and glancing around the dark room. Cloud stirred at my side as I gasped for breath, not even remembering the nightmare that disturbed my sleep. I felt sweat sliding down my face and chest making me shudder. I was not a man to be frightened easily, but this time…damn, I was sweating so badly, and my hands were shaking.
"R-ren…wass wrong?" Cloud asked sleepily.
I looked down at him, smiling a bit. A few days after the Franklin's call, Cloud had woken up without any pain. Vincent checked him thoroughly, and we even took him to the Shinra Hospital but, lo and behold, he was perfectly fine. It must have been another bluff on those doctors' part; that, or the…experiment…failed. Either way, I was glad that he was all right, even more so because I've been staying at his place and we've been getting along pretty well.
"I'm fine, kitten, just go back to bed."
Still halfway in the land of dreams, he decided to take my word for it and roll over and go back to whatever dream he was having. I rubbed my stomach tenderly and I felt the usual knot in my throat. I haven't told Cloud that I was pregnant, and I never wanted him to know. But how the hell was I going to hide it from him in a few months?! I could be as large as a watermelon! And then the words that Chaos told me…that Cloud was the father of one of them…them, which means I'm carrying at least twins, which in turn means that it's for sure that I'll be toting around a huge motherfucking belly. Ugh, how the hell could he get me pregnant? It didn't make sense! And only one of them? Then where the hell did the other guy come from?
Man, these questions have been haunting my every moment for the past two weeks, and there was no definite answer. I rubbed my temple and fell back into my pillow hoping that sleep would come, when I suddenly realized something. The tight feeling in my throat hadn't left, and my stomach was churning painfully. My mind immediately went into overdrive trying to diagnose this sickening feeling. Did I eat anything I'm allergic to? Was the food I had for dinner bad? Had I been poisoned? I was certain that I haven't had any chicken or salad which has been making me sick lately, so what could it be?
Whatever it was, the pain increased in my stomach and I felt the familiar queasiness that always came before the mother of hurls.
"Reno, what the hell?" Cloud mumbled sleepily. "Are you ok?"
"I- I feel-"
The control I had was gone, so I jumped off the bed and barely made it to the toilet in time. Bile spewed from my mouth into the porcelain throne and the tiled room echoed my groans and heaves mockingly. My head was pounding with the rushing blood and even though it felt like all of my insides had been chucked up into the bowl, I continued to heave.
A hand rubbed comfortingly on my back and I could barely pick up the comforting words whispered to me. Several minutes later I leaned back against my lover, panting and in pain. My throat felt raw and my nose was burning. Ugh, it was an overall terrible feeling.
"Are you ok, babe?" Cloud asked again with a yawn.
"No," I croaked. "That's a stupid question to ask when I just threw up this week's meals."
My little blond chuckled and rubbed my arms gently.
"If you can still bitch and moan, you're all right."
"Piss off…"
He laughed again, before slipping a hand under my shirt and running his blunt nails across my stomach. I tensed for a minute just thinking about his reaction if he found out about the babies. Well, I should make that a "when" not an "if." The sensation of those nails dragging along my skin gave me goosebumps and I moaned in pleasure. I absolutely loved when he would ghost his fingers over any of my flesh, especially my belly. Those talented digits trailed up to my already perked nipples and I couldn't help but snort.
"Tryin' ta get a little somethin' from a sick man?"
His gorgeous voice chuckled as he pinched the dusty flesh and rolled them in his fingers like he had done countless of time before. However, unlike all those other times, it hurt like a bitch.
"Ouch, fuck!"
Reflexively, I pushed away from him and clutched my chest where the pain still lingered. What the hell? That had never hurt before, and he'd done it rougher before…
I looked up to see a confused Cloud looking at me curiously. Panic gripped my heart and I tried to laugh it off as nothing. He could not find out about anything, no matter what.
"Ah, heh, sorry kitten. I'm just tired, and besides I got vomit breath, and you wouldn't want any of that."
"Er, ok."
He stood up and petted down my crazy red hair before he went to the bed to sulk some. I shook my head and wondered if I had just experienced morning sickness. If I did, then I was royally screwed. I never gave much thought to the different symptoms of pregnancy, and if I wasn't careful, they would give me away to the man I cared deeply for. I wasn't ready to handle the rejection that would undoubtedly come once he found out. No, I needed some more time...
"Uh, Reno, are you sure that's healthy?" asked an exasperated Elena.
I looked up over the paperwork still sucking on a large orange taffy candy called Airheads or something, all the while trying to cut open my tenth pixie stix.
"Wha kinda queshion iz tha?" I asked with the taffy still in my mouth. "O course i' iz."
A vein throbbed in her temple but I ignored her to get the damn candy open. How could those suckers make such divine sugar laden candy so freakin' hard to open! Well, maybe it was the scissors that were making it hard. After all, these were the ones I used to cut my cardboard cutouts. I looked over at the little cardboard Turks that I was obsessed with cutting last week. It was definitely a challenge cutting Rude's head absolutely round.
"Reno, consuming vast amounts of processed sugar is definitely not healthy!" Elena whined. "It says so right here in this book!"
I rolled my eyes as she read out of a large book that was supposed to be an encyclopedia on pregnancy, or some shit like that. She tried getting me to read that thing, but after a while she finally realized the fruitlessness of an endeavor like that. Instead, she's taken to reading the entire damn thing out loud to me while we sat in our cubicles.
Elena and I had been getting closer to each other an awful lot since it had been discovered that I was pregnant. Rude and Tseng had been going out and focusing on the Deepground situation, while me an' Laney here sit on our butts in the office and throw things at each other. If it wasn't for her entertaining and sometimes bugging the shit out of me, I would have gone crazy. My search for the Franklin's was definitely slow work because of their talent for hiding, but the Boss had been keeping me loaded with paperwork and Elena had been keeping my mind off those fuckers by trying to make me memorize that evil book.
I glanced at the clock as I finally tipped the mangled sugar filled straw into my hungry mouth. Finally! Lunch time!
"Laney! It's food time!!" I squealed in delight.
She sighed in defeat and banged her head on the desk a few times. I laughed and grabbed her hand, easily dragging her to the break room where we always made our lunch (or picked up our take-out). Today, I already had my lunch planned out. I couldn't keep my hand from holding another pixie stix in my hand like a cigarette in an effort to keep the pain of my nicotine withdrawal. Although I'd already passed the "quitter's flu" phase of the withdrawal, the urges continued to haunt me. If I were a lesser man, I would have gone straight back to the cancer stick.
Once we arrived at the break room I went in search of my ingredients while she separated her take-out from the Boss's. She ordered some panini sandwiches and a side salad from the nearby bistro, and the Boss seemed to have ordered a large helping of white rice and sweet and sour chicken. Shiva, how did he stay so thin if he kept on eating like that? I shook my head and turned my attention to my lunch masterpiece. It was everything that anyone could wish for!
"Reno, can you take Rufus's food—HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"
I looked up from my sandwich at her shocked face before looking down at my sandwich. There in its infinite goodness was my peanut butter-turkey-mustard-and-tomato sandwich. It was divine tastiness.
"What's wrong with my sandwich?"
"That's not a sandwich, that's disgusting!" she shrieked.
"I'm not asking you to eat it," I mumbled while rolling my eyes. She sure could spazz out when she wanted to.
To give her some credit, even Vincent seemed weirded out by my choice of foods lately. The seemingly cold-hearted man has grown accustomed to stopping by my place nearly every night just to make sure that I was eating food, and actually consuming things somewhat healthy. Chaos himself has been keeping me entertained with his bitter sarcasm, even offering advice on more "yummy" food, but I've never made the mistake of trying to tell my innermost feelings to him or anyone else again. I needed to trust only myself, and even if Chaos was sort of my biological father, other than the old man Shinra, I just could not think of him as a true father. Still, the older ex-Turk had seemed to be more distant than usual whenever he was around, with a permanent frown etched on his mouth. I just rolled my eyes and pushed back all thoughts of Vincent and Chaos for now.
I added the top of the bread and squeezed the sandwich together before I grabbed the Boss's take-out and headed towards the elevator. Elena looked like she was going to be sick, but I brushed it off. I didn't need to puke any more than necessary considering that I was doing it every freakin' morning. I decided to stay at my apartment for a while so that Cloud wouldn't have a reason to be suspicious, but I think he was still worried. Oh well.
After I gave Rufus his food, I headed back to the cubicles. They were still empty for now, so I decided to sit at my desk and relish the moment of silence. I noticed that my computer was blinking with the message that I received a new e-mail. Curious, I clicked on and blinked when I saw a message from S. Ograj. Was it some new kind of spam? Before I clicked to delete it, the meaning slapped me in the face. It was the mirror image of J. Argos, June Argos.
My hand shook as I set down my half-eaten sandwich and focused all of my attention to the e-mail. Never mind that she got her hands on my e-mail address, but what could she be sending me? I opened the file only to receive one line. It was the coordinates to somewhere. I ran over to Tseng's office and pulled down the map he had on his wall. My fingers traced down the lines on the map while my eyes read the numbers in the message carefully. Soon enough, my fingers froze on the map and I looked down to see that it was hovering above the middle of Mideel's largest jungle. It looks like I knew where I was going to head now.
I watched as the message deleted itself completely, and I wasn't surprised one bit. My body ran on auto-pilot as I put the map back up on the wall where it belonged and went back to finish my lunch. It was obvious that Argos wanted me to go there, but there was no way that the Boss or Rude would let me go, especially to such a dangerous place like Mideel. Those jungles have swallowed up many people and beneath the dangerous ground was a stream of pure Mako that would occasionally surface claiming the life of any fool in the area. It looked like I was going to head right into danger again, but then again, it was the inevitable. They should have expected this from me.
It didn't take me very long to come up with a plan, and by that time Elena dearest was back. I knew that Rufus, Rude, and maybe even Tseng and Elena would be pissed with me, but I was sick of doing nothing, of not having a lead to follow. Nothing would be able to stop me now. Tomorrow morning I was going to take my chopper and go on a little vacation.
Humidity, super sized bugs, and flesh eating plants surrounded me as I trudged through the wet and lethal jungle. My E-mag was fully stocked with Materia as was my bracelet; the Ribbon around my arm was covered in mud and blood as well as the rest of my body. I knew that my suit was going to be retired when I was finished with my little expedition. The grime had already ruined it and I was barely here for a day. An entire day of fighting bugs the size of a damn motorcycle, plants that would like to digest me, and the humidity that was threatening to melt me into a puddle of Reno-goo. Even my body was making this trek difficult. I didn't want to know how many fucking mosquito bites I had on my dick from the constant bathroom breaks, and a few dizzy spells were slowing me down. I really hoped that there was a point to risking my life in this uninhabited place. I heard the high pitched buzzing of yet another swarm of giant bugs and rolled my eyes. I wondered how much longer I would have to go through this hell hole…
The next afternoon…
I felt like utter shit as I cautiously made my way through the seemingly abandoned laboratory. Broken tanks with deep scratches in the glass made me shudder despite the steamy temperature. I felt bad for all of the poor beings who had had to endure the terrible experiments that those nut cases conducted. It made my stomach churn more than the babies did. My hand rubbed the still flat expanse of my stomach comforting the little guys. Even though they were still too small to be felt, I still wanted to make sure that they weren't scared or nuthin'.
The sunlight streamed through the broken roof of the building, making the steam visible as it rose from the decaying ground. I accidentally found this place a few hours ago, but the overgrowth made it near impossible to enter the building. It was obvious that it was built in a clearing at one time because of the lack of overhead branches, but it wouldn't last long. Already, trees were beginning to grow around the area at an unnatural rate and it would probably be a matter of months before this place was completely hidden. My headset buzzed, letting me know that Rufus was calling. I had a feeling that I knew what he was going to say, considering that I left it off yesterday, but I answered it anyway.
"S'up?" I whispered, my eyes still darting about as my hands pushed through the debris and overgrowth.
The President's cold voice came through just as clearly as if he was lecturing me in his office.
"Reno, give me a damn good reason for you being in the middle of a Mideel jungle, searching through an abandoned laboratory, not to mention the fact that you are alone."
"Sure thing, Boss. My reason is for payback. And how did you know I was in a laboratory?"
I heard his tired sigh and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. He was overreacting once again, and I was in too bad of a mood to deal with it. I knew that he was worried, but I wasn't going to let that stop me right now. I was filthy, sweating like a Behemoth, and ready to find a reason for Argos sending this to me.
"Quit being a worrywart, yo, I'll be fine." It took a lot of self control to keep my voice to a whisper. I wanted to yell it right in his ear, but there was a possibility of wild animals and maybe even people here. "I'm a pro, I can do a little reconnaissance mission all by myself."
"I am using my authority as your Boss and President, and I am ordering you to come back right this instant!" he yelled, unaware of my position. "You're being irrational and reckless and you could be in serious trouble!"
I knew that the Boss only meant well, but he was only pissing me off right now. I was not a snot-nosed little kid that needed babysitting. I was an excellent Turk with all kinds of mad skills and surely, just checking things out was not going to be a big deal!
At this moment I caught sight of something that looked like a computer and headed over there.
"And I'm fucking using my authority as your big brother to tell you, no—argh!"
The rotten floor under me had collapsed just as I had reached the old computer. Pain shot through my head and my vision became a black slate with a few white hot splotches for a bit. I'm not sure how long it took, but I became aware of a buzzing and cackling noise in my ear. My eyes snapped opened revealing that I had fallen down into a room nearly swallowed by the natural flora. Sunlight streamed through the porous and eaten floor above my head and I noted that it was a miracle that I didn't fall through earlier. A little jolt of electricity brought my attention back to my headset. I was dismayed to find that it was broken.
"Shit," I hissed.
I sat up and heard a loud snap. I reached under my sore ass and lifted up my broken PHS. Swear words that would make Cid blush poured from my mouth as I looked helplessly at my broken equipment. This was the exact fucking position that you would want to be in when you are all alone in the middle of uninhabited Mideel. I turned my head to get a better view of the rest of the room and I was face-to-face with the gruesome open mouthed face of a corpse. My scream must have echoed throughout the entire jungle.
My breaths came in broken gasps as I stared at that corpse from a safe distance of ten feet. The corpse seemed to be in agony as its decaying face was twisted in ghastly expression. The most frightening aspect was that the thing looked like it might have been part human, part…something else.
When I calmed down a bit, I crept back to get a closer look at the thing. My nose could pick up the putrid stench of its rotting flesh, but I pushed that aside to investigate. I glanced at a rusted piece of machinery near the thing which had some emblem stamped into its side, but I ignored it for the moment. Now that I was closer I could see that part of the creature had been eaten off and it made me wince. Without some equipment, I wouldn't be able to tell if it was before or after the poor thing died. Maybe I didn't want to know.
A hot breeze blew into the room making me shudder. Horrible things had happened in this room, and who knew how long ago that was. Maybe things were happening just months ago, and this thing, this person had been suffering while the rest of the fucking world was chilling out and celebrating.
Tears welled in my eyes as I looked at that thing, wondering who it was. Did this thing have a normal life before the horrible and cruel things were done to it? Did it die cursing the PLANET and the people who had done this? My eyes traveled down the body and I realized that this thing was missing part of its innards, mostly in the abdominal area. I looked around its feet and my heart stopped when I saw half buried fragments of bones. I fell to my knees and numbly dug up the small fragments. My mind had already put the pieces together, but I needed to actually see it for myself. Finally, there it was, the crushed skull of a baby, even with some flesh still clinging to it.
A sob escaped my throat as I looked down at the tiny human remains. There was no doubt that this creature had been human once, before someone had gotten hands on him. In the pit of my stomach, I knew who exactly had done this, and it made the hatred in me burn even fiercer. The salty tears fell to the ground as I looked down helplessly.
A snapping noise behind me made my blood freeze. I held my breath as all of my senses shot up and scanned the area. There was something behind me. My heart was beating like crazy and I felt the adrenaline; no, it was Mako running through my system. I felt the muscles of the thing behind me tense and ready for the jump. Only seconds later did the thing lunge right at me. On reflex, I rolled out of the way bringing out my E-mag at the same time.
It didn't give me any time to recover and swiped right at me again, but I was faster than any normal human being. I dodged the curved claws and cast Thunder 3 around the room. I heard the thing yowl and when it stood still I felt terribly sick. It was crouched on its four limbs all of which were clawed, and its entire body was covered in sores and bloody blisters. But the thing that really got me was the fact that it's bald and scaly head was humanoid. Black discharge issued from its empty eye sockets and it screamed loudly with a human voice. My nerves seemed shot and I stood there paralyzed, and not from any magic it cast. This thing was in pain and was hungry. Unfortunately, I was on the menu right now.
It sprung towards me again, trying anything to get a bite, and even though I was agile and super fast, the shock of seeing this creature was doing a number on me. I had no desire to kill it, but I wanted to live and I couldn't let it hurt me. I stepped back to dodge another flurry of attacks, however, my foot struck a root above ground and I fell back.
The creature jumped on top of me and I felt the teeth sink into my shoulder trying to tear apart the ligaments and tendons. I screamed in pain, but I couldn't bring myself to hit the creature with my EMR. This thing was just trying to survive, the same thing everything else in the world was trying to do. Was it my place to take that away from this poor suffering being?
A burning pain spread across my stomach and it brought me back to reality. The claws of the creature had grazed my stomach leaving a bloody gash and that's when it hit me. Yes, this creature had the right to fight for its survival, but so the hell did I! On top of that, I had babies inside of my body that deserved the right to be born into the world, to earn their chance to fight for survival. Just because you fight to survive doesn't mean that you will, and that's just how things work. I couldn't lose my will now, because it wasn't just me anymore.
With a new found vigor, I threw the creature off of me and cast a flurry of Thunder 3, Cure 3, and a few defensive spells. Just because I wanted to survive didn't mean that I was going to kill the thing, it only meant that I had to survive. In this case, that meant running away.
Using my Mako-enhanced powers, I jumped up through the rotten floor above and over the overgrowth. My wounds didn't heal very well which surprised me, but I didn't really have time to think about that. The creature was right behind me every step and, for the first time in a while, I was scared of dying. The thoughts of my babies made my inhuman speed faster, and my mind blocked off the pain in an attempt to keep me ahead of the creature. I heard the harsh breathing of the creature behind me, but I had to keep moving.
The foliage was a blur as I ran over stumps, brushed past vines, dodged large trees, and tried to stay one step ahead of that thing. It almost felt like a dream, like any moment I would wake up, sweating and trembling. I felt the thing take a swipe at me, managing to shred the back of my shirt and leave bloody welts, but it made the creature slow down to gain its balance, giving me a valuable chance to get ahead.
I forced my body to go even faster than ever before and I felt that it was starting to take its toll. My breaths were haggard and shallow, not giving me enough oxygen. Tears of pain that I could barely register stung at my eyes, and my limbs started to go numb. Only will power was carrying me through this, the will to live another day. I broke through the jungle, into the clearing where I had landed my helicopter. I barely thought on the fact that I ran a day-and-a-half journey in a bit over an hour. Only a few more feet and I would be safe in the cockpit of my baby and I could fly away safe and sound.
That is, until my foot caught on something and I went sprawling on the hot wet grass. When I made contact with the ground, it felt as if all of my energy disappeared, leaving a writhing mass of pain on steaming vegetation. I looked up and gasped as the creature pounced in a last effort to make a meal out of me. A gunshot rang out and the thing dropped just short of its target. I looked at the twitching body of that creature and I put a hand over my mouth and sobbed.
"Reno! Damn it, Reno!"
Strong arms grasped me, and all I could do was cling to the large body, sobbing, gasping desperately for air. My entire body felt like gelatin, but I clutched desperately to the body holding me. I stayed conscious, but I just couldn't get my body to respond.
"Reno, please say something to me."
"A-aibou…gods…I was so scared, s-so fucking scared…"
"Shhh, it's ok. I'm taking you to the nearest city and we'll get you fixed up."
I could only gasp some more as his strong arms rubbed my back. I heard him cursing under his breath as he made sure to not touch my bloody shoulder. Rude lifted me up and took me into a helicopter that wasn't my own. He left only for a minute, but I knew what he was going to do. The gunshot rang out and I shook my head, letting myself sob some more. Once he came back, we took off and I let myself drift off once we were in the air, hoping that I wouldn't be seeing that creature's face.