Well, here it is! Chapter 12! Hope you enjoyed the little cliff-hanger! WARNING! MAJOR PERVINESS IN THIS CHAPTER!
Chapter 14: Walking Shadows: Dark and Angry!
The next day, Reno awoke to find Cloud personally tending to his wounds. "HEY!" Reno said, "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Cloud looked up for a second, a worried expression on his face. "You missed a spot on my back, could you please dress it?" Cloud rolled his eyes and continued working as Reno and Rude enjoyed a silent laugh. Elena called over, "Hey, Reno, have some decency! The guys helping you get better. You thank him, not get a cheap laugh at his expense!" "Yeah, you're right, Elena," Reno said, looking from her bed back to Cloud, "I'm sorry, Cloud, for poking fun. And thank you."
Cloud smiled slightly, and said, "Well, It's the least I can do for the ex-Turks that killed my temporary hometown. And by the way, Reno, you did a good job. You managed to work your way into my "good books" for that." "No," Reno Said, causing Cloud to look down with a confused expression, "I mean thanks for dressing that wound. I feel hundreds of time better, despite the pain everywhere else." He laughed hysterically; Rude, however, was the one to speak up this time. "Reno, it was funny the first time. The second time made me realize that Elena is right. You should only thank Cloud, not make it a way to poke fun at him." Reno once more became quiet. Cloud got up from his seat, and Reno said, "Hey, where are you going?"
"I'm stretching my legs. I've been sitting in one place for six hours fixing you up. You were the closest, so I took to working on you first. And now I'm done, if that's ok with you, Reno," Cloud said sarcastically. "Oh. Ok," Reno answered quietly. Cloud moved on to Rude, and spent another six hours working on him, all the while trying to work up a conversation with the reserved man. After that, he moved on to Elena, and pulled back the covers. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Elena screamed, reaching down past her mangled chest to pull the sheet back up. "Elena, I got permission from the doctor to dress your wounds. And, he told me there was a way to remove the shrapnel from your body without surgery," Cloud replied, to which Elena responded, "Really? How are you going to do it?"
Cloud moved his head closer to hers, and just before their lips touched, he stopped and said, "I need that sheet down, and you to stay perfectly still and quiet. I'm going to pull out what I can, and what I can't, I'll magnetize from you. OK?" "Fine," Elena said, then as Cloud reached for the sheet, she finished, "Pervert." "I'm doing this not to peep on you," Cloud said, "But so that you three can be at your best in a few days when we hold the induction ceremony, naming you and the three girls that beat your ex-boss as permanent members of NEO AVALANCHE." "You mean to say," said Reno, "That regardless of what we've done to you guys in the past, you're going to hook us up with jobs in your group now that we aren't Turks anymore?" "Well, Rufus said he was replacing you guys, so, Why not give you some incentive to get revenge!" Cloud replied. "Hmmm. Revenge, you say?" Rude said, finally speaking after six hours of maintaining constant silence.
He continued, "I could go for some of that. But, Reno, you know what this means?" Reno looked over and said, "No, what does it mean?" "It means," Rude stated, "That the three of us are going to need to train more. Rufus will only hire people better than we were, so he'll probably have them hunt us down and eliminate us." Reno, shocked by this news, looked at Elena, who appeared just as shocked as he had been. In the time it took for Cloud to successfully pull each piece of shrapnel from her body, Elena would call him a pervert, and he'd say calmly that, "no", he wasn't, most of the time with a huge grin. When he could pull nothing else from her, he looked at her, and said, "Now get ready, Elena. This is going to hurt like hell." She nodded, and watched as he pulled out a small rod and a coil of copper wire, wrapped the rod with the wire, and, starting at the top of her head, passed the newly made electromagnet over her body. Every time he reached a piece of metal, it would tear through her flesh, and fly out of her body, causing her to scream a horrible, blood-curdling scream. By the time Cloud finished, Elena looked much worse than she had before; her body was covered with open holes where the metal had shot from within her flesh, and her face told the whole story.
Her eyes were wide and almost glazed over, and she was gritting her teeth and groaning horribly to ignore the pain. "In the next few days, with regular visits from the doctors and med mages, you should be fine," he said, getting up from his stool. In addition to pulling the metal from her body, he had taken another six hours to fully dress her wounds. Pulling the covers back over her shaking, trembling body, he slowly started leaving the room. "Hey, Cloud?" Elena called; Cloud turned and looked at her, then said, "Yeah? Something I can get you?" Elena looked at him, and said, "No. I just wanted to say… Thank you for spending so much time of your busy day to sit here and help the doctors fix us up. Myself most of all. I didn't really want to go into surgery for all that shrapnel. It would have taken them much longer than you did, so… again, thanks."
Cloud simply nodded and said, "You're welcome. And thank you, Elena." "Huh?" Elena said, sounding confused, "What for? I didn't do anything." "That's exactly it. You didn't do anything but lay there and look pretty. Damn freaking hot, if you permit me to say." And with that, Cloud left Elena to think. As he left the room, he heard her yell, "HA! I KNEW IT! YOU WERE CHECKING ME OUT! PERVERT!" He yelled back, "NO, I WASN'T, IT WAS A FRIENDLY OBSERVATION!" Next morning, Reno awoke to see Rude throwing punches at the air. "So, hard at work are we?" "Wouldn't you like to be, Reno?" Elena called from the other end of the room. Reno turned to see her usually flawless face covered in small scars and slow-healing holes. "Ouch, Elena, what happened to you? It looks like someone took a handful of needles to random parts of your face. Acupuncture gone wrong, ya know?" Reno said, as he put on a robe and started joining Rude.
"DAMN," Elena said, "I wish I hadn't done that stupid grenade thing. I bet they took all my grenades." Reno said, "Well, I know I don't have a rod anymore. That chick sliced it in half." "And they confiscated all my explosives by now," Elena said, sitting up in bed, "I can't wait to be out of this hospital bed. It's so boring! There is nothing to do. I just want to get up and stand again." "Well, Elena, you won't be standing again for several days, so just stay down and rest," Reno said, standing Net to Rude and following his routine. In a few days, Reno had permission to be training outside, using large poles made of tree branches, and Rude was still in their hospital room, training like mad. A few days later, Cloud Returned once more to the room to check on the three ex-Turks. "Well, guys, I have good news, bad news, and worse news. Which do you want first?" "Give us the good news first," Rude said, betraying his usually quiet personality.
"Well, The good news is actually for Elena. You should be able to walk now, so go ahead and try whenever you like. Now, the bad news, with a bit of good news. Cait Sith got in touch with Reeve, and it seems that the Shin-Ra finished their search for your replacements days ago. The later-than-late old man Shin-Ra's personal guard made it into the cut, as did a rather worthy candidate. Both have exceptional magical and physical abilities, … and both were tossed to Hojo. Apparently, they weren't quite what they were looking for." "HAHAHA! So much for that. Which of the old man's personal guards was canned?" Reno asked, just now getting up and slipping on his new clothes.
"Nogias Frazar, The Secret Guard Service to The President," Cloud replied, and Reno laughed again. "No wonder they sent him to Hojo! That Nogias guy has major behavioural problems. One minute he's calm and collected, the next he's wildly bouncing off the walls. No one could keep him in check, so they gave him the job of Presidential Secret Guard. He did well for a time. Up until the old fart died, that is. Then they put him back in the Turks under the Special Task Operations sector. They must have thought him a good addition until they remembered how wild he gets, then sent him off to see if Hojo could calm him down with testing and drugs. Wait, didn't you guys kill Hojo?" "Well," Cloud said, "We did, but the Shin-Ra inducted his son mere hours after we left to deal with Sephiroth at the North Cave. Anyway, while you and Rude were busy getting permission to train and Elena was resting up, the rest of the team and I went over to the Shin-Ra building to find him. He wasn't there, but we got information from his son, Hojo II, as to his location, and we gained a new team mate in the process. His name is Ashe Shadow." "ASHE IS ALIVE?!" Elena shouted from her bed, jumping to her feet and rushing to grab Cloud by the throat. "You had better not induct him into this group, or I will quit of my own accord. That guy tried to hit on me, and I shot him for it. He deserved it; he was touching me where I didn't want him to, and he even stole a kiss. It was a really long, drawn out kiss. It was one I didn't even want."
"So, personal reasons, huh? Well, maybe you should talk to him, and get him to understand why you shot him, because he says he's got a bone to pick with you. Says he's going to kill you for shooting him. Also says that Hojo II was the one who saved him. He's got this thing around his neck that won't come off… says it carries a curse, or something…" Elena let go of Cloud, and said, "Well, maybe I did over-react a little." "A LITTLE?!" Reno shouted, laughing harder than he had before, "A little is punching him in the face, the stomach or giving him some sort of testicular injury. You way over-reacted. I mean, I've had women run up and kiss me on the lips without reason before, but I never shot them for it. Man, you've got a lot to answer for."
Suddenly, the door blew open, and there at the door a tall man wielding a slightly odd looking sword, and sporting attire that would have made Ifrit envious. His hair was black with red tone at the bottom, and hung over his right eye like a veil. he had a large cloak on, and his shirt was half buttoned, showing quite a deal of chest. his pants went all the way down into his boots, which seemed to be on fire, not just styled like a flame. his gloves looked ragged and torn, and a small pendant hung from his neck, which shined an eerie blackish-purple color. Every second, he looked slightly worse than before. That's when it hit Elena: the pendant was constantly draining the man's health. "Ah, Ashe. You're just in time to-" Was all Cloud had time to say before Ashe pushed him from his path and stepped up to grab Elena by the throat. "So, you violent little bitch, you ARE still dealing out your wrath on others. That's why I liked you, but you shot me. WHY DID YOU DO THAT?! I was just trying to be friendly!" he shouted, as Cloud, Reno and Rude slowly backed their way to the door and stepped out.
"Ashe, I'll leave this to you, K? You two can talk for a while." Cloud closed the door, now almost off its hinges, behind him, and left Elena and Ashe to talk. "Why did you do it?" Ashe asked, earning Elena's reply, "I didn't know how to react. I hadn't asked you to kiss me, and I hadn't asked you almost go all the way with me. You came a little too close to doing that for my liking, so I reacted the only way I could think of: get you off by killing you so it wouldn't ever happen again. Apparently, it didn't work. Now… can you let… me go… can't… breathe…" "I'll say it didn't," Ashe said, releasing Elena from his hold and letting her get some air, before continuing. "Well, I didn't understand back then, but I do now. I guess I should have asked before advancing so fast, huh?" he said, scratching the back of his head. "Um, yeah, ya should have. But, you didn't and I over-reacted. A lot. Sorry for shooting you, Ashe," Elena said.
"Hey, it was my fault entirely. If I hadn't advanced so quickly, you wouldn't have shot me, right? I will take full blame," Ashe replied. They looked at each other for a second, then Ashe said, "Well, I guess I'd best get going. A villager asked me to help get his cat from his well. See ya later, Elena." Ashe opened the door, walked through, and closed it. It promptly fell over, and Ashe just blindly continued walking. Elena chuckled, then started laughing. Ashe quickly came back to the doorway and said, "Hey, Elena, can I ask you something?" "Sure, what is it?" Elena replied, waiting for a response. Ashe walked over to Elena and kissed her on the lips for a split second, walked over to the door and turned, looked her up and down and said, "Answer me this. Why…" Elena stood still, and listened as Ashe continued, "… Are you completely naked?" Elena got extremely tense, looked down at herself, and realized that she was indeed totally nude. She squeaked and attempted to cover herself with her hands, shouting "PERVERT!" as Ashe contently walked down the hall, laughing to himself.
Just so you guys know, Nogias Frazar and Ashe Ashe are RPCs made by my brother and I. His is Ashe. Hope this didn't throw you off! R&R, flames are accepted!