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Chapter XXX – End of the Line
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'Mom told me there would be days like these.'
Slouched over Barret's kitchen table with cheek propped on a row of dainty knuckles, Yuffie's thoughts were accentuated by a brisk, meandering breeze through the open window and an echo of wisdom from the steady flow of time.
'Life is both weird and wonderful, my daughter. And even when you get the weird days, cherish them for what they are: with the dignity and respect only a Wutainese woman can grace.'
'Yeah, right,' Yuffie mused, watching Barret hum a tune both merry and annoying. 'But you never had days dealing with these bunch of weirdos, Mom.' She idly twirled a feather of Phoenix Down between her fingers, her previously won bounty from a certain Cokatolis encounter spread out before her on the table. 'Then again, you did put up with the old man for years...'
It had been a strange morning for Yuffie.
The ninja's slumber in Marlene's lavish bedroom that night had been blissful. The quilting of her provided blanket massaged away all her aches and pains so deep, Yuffie felt like it had massaged away all her troubles as well.
Or, at least, she did: right up until she'd dreamt of being chased by the girl's various stuffed plush toys.
Waking up in a sweat and tangle of limbs, the late teen decided to write off the instance and, once tiptoeing over Denzel in the early hours of daybreak, sought out the party's fistfighter and only remaining female cohort. When she couldn't find Tifa after a good ten minutes of searching and subsequent fumbling in the dark, the ninja just knew it was going to be one strange day. Her suspicions were only confirmed when Barret had awoken shortly after.
They had pottered about the house like stray mice in the gloom of morn, whispering banter and snuffing out lanterns before rejoining in the kitchen to set about preparing for the day ahead. It was there a few hours later where Vincent made his sudden appearance. With nothing but a glance, an offered empty cup and a smooth rumble of, 'It was a good blend,' the gunslinger left as quickly as he came. Leaving Barret with a terribly concealed grin and Yuffie gawking after his red cape.
Barret had taken to a merry melody since, and Yuffie, to questioning her own sanity.
'I mean– since when did Vinnie compliment people?! It was kinda indirect, I guess, but still! Well, at least he looks better than last night...'
Barret stepped out of the kitchen as the teen's thoughts began to stray with the wind. Before she could fully ruminate on her observations and the ease in which the gunslinger now carried himself, a scuff of boots from the doorway drew her eyes from the twirled pinion in front of her quaint button nose.
Before Yuffie could stop herself, her natural extempore shone through. "Where have you been?! I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Tifa stopped with a blink of dazed russets. First at the rainbow-laden table, then at the ninja seated behind it. Yuffie was about to continue her third-degree when she noticed the red blanket bundled in the fighter's arms. A furrow of the brow accompanied Tifa's preoccupied gaze and forced the teen to raise one of her own.
"Hey, what's up?"
Tifa glanced up sharply, her eyes retaining some of their focus. "Oh, nothing. I just thought this was... something else."
Yuffie stared. Peering over the shimmers of prismatic plumage, she watched Tifa follow after Barret with something on the way to a smile on her lips.
Yuffie wrinkled her nose. 'Yup. Weird.'
While the ninja fell prey to her own suspicions, she wasn't the only one to notice Tifa's departure. Azure eyes followed the flutter of chocolate tresses and leather duster from under a veil of tousled hair. Denzel pulled his socked feet tighter beneath him, a half-eaten plate of beans on toast balanced across his lap in happy equilibrium. Marlene happily scribbled into her colouring book by his side, blissful and unaware of the orphan's thoughts falling quarry to a darker nature.
'I want to follow Tifa, but I shouldn't leave Marlene here all alone... What should I do?' His eyes narrowed through the purple smears that framed them.
Ever since the Adamantaimai fight outside Costa del Sol, Denzel had not only been watching his own back (an easy habit for him having spent two years living alone in the slums) but the backs of everyone in the group: especially Vincent's. Despite recognising the gunslinger's disquieting behaviour, it was actually Tifa who unsettled the young boy the most. Calm and caring in countenance, her demeanour shifted around the aloof man as quickly as Vincent's did on the battlefield: transforming into something strange and unrecognisable. It shook what little foundation the orphan had.
Tifa hadn't seen Vincent snarl at him like a monster. No one had. So why had she been acting so strange since? The young boy's scowl wrinkled his nose.
'Just like Cloud before he left...'
No, Denzel didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.
A stray streak of brown caught his eye and reeled him away from the troubled waters of his mind. "Hey, you're going over the lines."
Marlene immediately stopped in her colouring. "No I'm not!"
"Yeah you are! See? You should move your hand more gently around the edges, like this..." The boy plucked the crayon from her grasp and moved his breakfast plate away to sit closer to her colouring book. Folding socked feet neatly beneath crossed legs, he guided her acquired crayon across the page like a navigator charting a ship's course. When he brushed the wax along the line of a signature vest jacket, the boy paused. A familiar, grainy figure with cornrow-styled hair smiled back at him.
Denzel stared at the divide between white and brown, the chocolate-coloured crayon suspended in a quivering grip. "... Marlene?"
"Hmm?" The girl's head perked up from the page, her pink hair ribbon bobbing with it.
"Why... do you call Barret, 'Daddy'?"
Marlene's brow furrowed. "Because he is," she said, plain and simple as if stating the sky was blue.
"But he's not." Denzel shook his head. "I mean, your skin's not even the same colour."
Marlene's lips turned downward, a puffiness falling over her cheeks. "That doesn't matter. Daddy is still my Daddy."
The orphan scrunched up his nose, colouring book all but forgotten. "But... I don't call Tifa, 'Mom', or Cloud, 'Dad', because they're not. So I don't think–"
"No, you don't. They still look after you the same way my Daddy looks after me. Daddy is my Daddy. He is." Marlene stared down the orphan, the fire behind her eyes glossed with something heavy and wet. Denzel stared back, azure-blues wide. The boy pulled suddenly to his feet, crayon dropping to the dust-laden floor.
"Tifa is Tifa and Cloud is Cloud. They're not my parents. Why should I care? I can look after myself." He stalked away, but not before a resounding snap echoed from beneath the socked arch of his foot. Marlene watched him go with pursed lips, soft-browns falling from the back of his hoodie to the now broken crayon lying on the floor. She reached out and picked up the severed pieces, staring down at them with blurred vision.
All she could see was the pink of her palm clashing with the brown wax.
Swallowing against the thick, dense swell in her throat, she pulled her colouring book closer and studied the grainy figure she'd added to the depiction inked on the page. It was a few moments of staring before Marlene reached up and proceeded to rip the entire leaf from the spine. Flicking to the back of her book, she pulled out a blank sheet of paper from where she kept her spares and left the previously scribbled page to drift dejectedly to the floor.
She'd already conjured a new piece in her head, and Marlene was determined to make this one special.
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
~ oOo ~
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
Grey clouds convened on the horizon like a flock of sheep corralled by the shepherd of rain when Denzel stepped outside. Small patches of atmospheric canopy opened up to shine down brilliant rays of persistent sun, and it was in one of these rays that Vincent stood. Perched on the edge of the rocky outcrop elevating Barret's home, his brilliant eyes were turned to survey the southern grasslands and waves of wind that tore through the soft blades.
The orphan squint through his lashes when his gaze settled on the cloaked man's left shoulder. Before he could give voice to the strange angle it held, a different, more effeminate one rang out that sent his back pressing against the hovel's wall and out of sight.
"Good morning," Tifa greeted, climbing the rusted highway sign that led to the upper level with a step as chirpy as her tone. Vincent watched her a moment before he returned it.
"Good morning. I trust you slept well?"
"I did." The woman came to stand next to him, her gaze joining his own to follow across the far prairie. A beat passed before she snuck him a sideways glance and a tilt of her head to better see over his cowl. She couldn't. "In fact, I woke up a lot warmer than I thought I would."
Vincent's features remained delicately passive. "Is that so?"
Tifa hummed a note that curled the corner of her lip, but said no more on the subject. Denzel resist the urge to tilt his own head.
"Barret's down by the miner's tents," Tifa spoke, the last vestiges of humour leaving her face. "He said he's going to corral people together to tackle the debris around the reactor. I just hope Reeve gets here soon. Barret can get pretty reckless when he's impatient."
Vincent hummed low in acknowledgement. "Reeve is punctual if nothing else. What of the others?"
"Nanaki is taking a tour of the town to learn more about its recovery. Yuffie's joined him but, well... let's just say her motives for doing so aren't entirely selfless."
"As always." Vincent turned to regard the fighter with steady irises, his eyes cooling coals. "And you?"
"Well, I thought I would help you. You know. With..." Neither the gunslinger nor his gaze moved. It was a moment before Tifa straightened to face his stolidity head on. "Vincent–"
"AHA! I KNEW IT!" The fighter whirled around at the sudden cry. Vincent simply shift his gaze to peer over Tifa's crown of chocolate tresses. Yuffie bound up the same corroded ramp the fighter herself had climbed earlier, her grin its own ray of sunshine. On noting her comrades' attention, she bent forward and held her finger and thumb out in an 'L' shape towards the pair. "You lose and Detective Yuffie wins again!"
Tifa could only stare. Vincent, however, was not so lax in tongue.
"To win implies a game was afoot. We cannot lose if we never played."
Yuffie pursed her lips and glared at the stoic man. Tifa swallowed a smile at the sight. "I found Tifa so this case is closed," the ninja announced with a subsequent flip of her headband ribbons. "Your argument is invalid!"
"I wasn't exactly hiding," Tifa supplied. When the ninja turned narrowed chestnut-browns from Vincent's neatly arched brow to her own, the fighter promptly changed course. "How did you know I was here, anyway?"
Yuffie's smile was its own sunbeam. "Process of elimination, my dear Lockhart!"
Vincent crossed his arms, but not without an awkward jerk from his left. "I see. Which is to say, you sought Tifa at all other possible locations before coming here. A simple process of exhausting all options, which also requires the most minimal of thought."
Yuffie balked. The teen stomped her high-laced boot into the dirt and stormed forward like an enraged Chocobo. Tifa smoothly sidestepped from the ninja's warpath and watched as the youngest member of AVALANCHE initiated a bickering rant customary of their journey days. It sent off a pang of oddly placed nostalgia within the fistfighter. Yuffie always loved to tease Vincent, the pair's banter almost as synonymous as their polar opposite dispositions. Despite the teen's jibes toward the gunslinger, Tifa knew she cared for the man and most likely missed their verbal sparring matches from over the past three years.
Getting Yuffie to admit this, however, was another matter entirely.
"–And besides, finding stuff isn't that hard!" the ninja continued. "We all have eyes. You just gotta keep looking!"
"Tracking is much more involved than that." Vincent pointedly turned his focus on Tifa and the fighter met it with her own steel; two blades clashing in a sparring match. They warred silently in a furious stalemate.
Yuffie looked between the two and, unbeknownst to the trio of adults, so did Denzel from his throne of shadows.
"... Whatever!" Yuffie threw up her warmer and wristband adorned arms. "I'm just here to drag Miss Doesn't-Know-How-To-Have-A-Good-Time away from Mr. Doesn't-Know-When-To-Stop-Being-Depressing!" Before Tifa could utter a single word of protest, the ninja hooked an arm through her own and began to reel her away from the gunslinger.
Vincent's chin dipped deeper into his cowl, but it couldn't muffle the resonance of his words. "... Perhaps that would be best."
Yuffie stopped dead in her tracks. "Wait, wait, wait. No way. You're agreeing?!" When the crimson-caped man gave no further provocation, she dead-panned. "Who are you and what have you done with Vinnie."
"Vincent..." Tifa sought the man's features but he remained reticent, passing sunbeams rending his eyes molten.
"Oh, forget him! Come on Tifa, I'm gonna whisk you away for some sublime prime girl time á la Yuffie!"
Yuffie proceeded to tug the fighter away from the man and Tifa let her, but not without shooting a look of forlorn russets over her shoulder.
The gunslinger inclined his head but after a moment nudged it forward slightly, as if to say, 'Go on.' Another message was offered in that action, silent and unspoken, yet Tifa understood it all the same.
'Trust me.'
Her frown eased way to a smile and she followed Yuffie with much more willing feet, the latter proclaiming prospects of 'grand adventures' and 'new horizons' as the two women disappeared down the rocky incline arm in arm. Vincent could still hear them long after they'd vanished, their jovial lilts drifting on the wind. He especially took solace in Tifa's: she needed the respite, one which he himself was unable to give.
Tracking was methodical and arduous. It took great patience and a keen eye; for a trail gone days cold, even more so. He would need to concentrate, harness utmost focus and brush off the rust of a thirty-year sleep. For that, he needed to dismiss distractions. He needed to dismiss Tifa.
Something cold snaked its way around his neck from the base of his skull, pulling his vertebrae in the direction of the grassy lea with knuckles of ice. Eyes bled scarlet cracked open to interrupt his thoughts and peer into the noesis. Rasps of agony followed the words hacked and spoken in his head.
'Ju-udge-ment sha-adows the con-demn-ned. De-eliver it.'
Vincent was careful to pry mobility from the demon and once more take reign over his own body. Death Gigas ambled back into the ebony murk of his mind, leaving him to consider the words severed by a dead tongue.
Did Cloud feel remorse for his actions? Was he even aware of them or their consequent aftermath? Vincent knew more than anyone that guilt was its own sentence. Regardless, it was time to get to work.
Vincent swept aside his cloak and jumped from his perch in a billow of crimson.
The passing day saw him across southern plains, past sprightly clusters of wild rosemary and thyme. Harmonious clinks of pickaxes and shovels faded as surely as the sun rose, the growing hustle and bustle of a waking mining town now far behind. The discordance of a thriving marketplace occasionally carried on the wind: Corel's own modest celebration of prosperous trade. Only when the sun hung high noon and seared his own shadow to dust did Vincent stop in his travels.
'… Disturbed earth.' Crimson eyes flickered over the expanse. Pockets of tilled soil peppered the ground, interrupting the rolling green in discordant mounds. Golden sabatons traced along the trail of dirt. Off to the side lay a significant patch of flattened grass, once proud blades now left tangled and yellowing.
Vincent stepped into the clearing.
Patches of wild flowers lined the border and stuck up at various angles like bent pipes, their stalks broken and brittle. At its centre lay a heap of ash and tinder encircled by a necklace of rocks. A blackened smear streaked away from the pit as if the fire had sneezed to extinguish itself. Vincent knelt by the ring of stones in a crunch of leather, gloved fingers gently stirring the cinders and soot. Red embers jumped to life beneath his fingertips.
'This fire was left to burn naturally, and recent. The heat still lingers.' The gunslinger rose in a tide of crimson, eyes making another careful pass over the small parcel of land. From his new position, the sickly segment of grass now sprung up across his peripheral as a vague indent of a square. 'Tent groundsheet.' The heaps of soil he followed earlier made a distinct tread the closer they dug into the makeshift camp. 'Man-made. Specifically mechanical.'
A series of angled lines carved themselves out the steppe amid stray tufts of grass, the blades swaying calm and unconcerned with the small destruction of their home. He moved closer to the damage. 'Multiple tread depths. Strange... the axle draws too close for any regular vehicle. An overlap of many, perhaps?' Inhuman eyes narrowed as he assessed each sculptured trench. 'No. Equal measure, in both depth and diameter. One origin. One maker.' He crossed his arms, but not without a flare of nostrils from the pain lashed across his left shoulder; sharp and quick as a cane. He ignored it. 'The contact patch is too wide for any conventional model of tyre.'
Heat blew in from the nearby dunes of the Gold Saucer and made his skin prickle in a discomforted tingle, one that had nothing to do with his collarbone. 'Model...' Something else squirmed deep under tendon and muscle. 'Unless... a high CC engine. A custom motorbike... ?'
Vincent turned to peer over the vast expanse stretching out before him, the shadows of passing clouds rolling across the plain. Flecks of gold set alight in his eyes like that of the fire's fervent ashes. 'Cloud.'
Something deep and dark in his blood met ignition and set alight primal urges to sing in his veins. A rumbling growl echoed around stalactite incisors set inside a cavern of teeth.
'Let them run. Their veinsss tasssste ricccher that way. A prey worttthy of bloodsssssport.'
Something sinister and eldritch commandeered his limbs, puppeteering him further into the steppe and away from civilization. Vincent was no longer aware of the colour that seeped into his eyes; nor of the newfound set of tread marks that tore huge, dirty trenches into the Planet's soil.
'Ne-ew tra-acks for old blo-ood. For the unat-toned, sin ne-ever rusts.'
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
~ oOo ~
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
The sky slowly bruised into night by the time Barret relit the oil lantern on his kitchen table. It flickered with his thoughts, burning and uncertain, but otherwise remained steady. Shadows danced across the walls to brush with the blue haze of light that crept from his living room. The buzz of the TV was just enough to stop him sinking too deep, but the static couldn't pervade the voice of a man that Barret, despite everything, still dared to call friend. He had no right.
'I can hear her voice. … What's that?'
He already knew. He knew as closely as he did his nightmares.
'It's Eleanor's voice. Begging me... not to hate your rotten guts.'
He reached into the inner pockets of his white vest jacket and fished out the golden pendant resting there, curling it between his fingers as he balled a mighty, beige-knuckled fist. The ball chain clinked in protest, the attached .45 bullet burning a hole through his skin. It always did weigh too heavy for him. He never could wear it.
The suffering creak of the front door signalled the arrival of the group's two women long before their voices did. Soft, dulcet tones were swallowed up by invigorated babble and Barret coiled the remaining pendant chain into the folds of his palm and out of sight. The warm, weathered tones of Esther whispered a past reminder to him just before Yuffie barrelled under the kitchen archway. 'Barret... have you told her yet? You know, the longer you leave it, the harder it's going to be.'
"Barret, these people are crazy! There's no Materia – anywhere! I can't even buy some, not even those bogus Shinra knockoffs!"
Burnt umber eyes glanced up sharp and quick-like. "Don't go throwing tha name of those fools round this house. And don't ya mean 'steal'? I ain't never seen you buy a damn thing."
Yuffie stopped in the doorway, the tick of her eyebrow slightly suppressed by their accompanying furrow. The amused glint in her eye disappeared. "Hey, I've bought things before. With, you know. Gil." The ninja made a pointed sweep of the room with an arc of her warmer-adorned hand. "Maybe you should do the same sometime."
Barret's could feel the pendant bite painfully into his palm as his fist closed tighter around it. The lantern's flame quivered wildly. It was that moment Tifa chose to place a hand on Yuffie's slim shoulder and gently tug her from the archway. "Hey, Red and Cait Sith are watching TV. You should have a look." Tifa fought to keep the smile from her face. "There might even be a Materia special."
Yuffie spun on her heel. "No. Way. A working TV? Here?!" The ninja was already bouncing into the other room as she spoke, her grin once more on full-beam. "Move over, scrubs! The queen of the remote is here!"
Cait Sith's voice could just be heard floating over the electronic din. "Thair is nae remote!"
"You're kidding, right?"
Barret felt like he could breathe again.
Tifa stepped further into the darkness of the kitchen, the lantern light throwing her shadow on the wall to hang there like a fair portrait. She brushed past Barret as she rounded the table, squeezing the tattooed bicep of his left arm as she did so. She took the seat across from him, her russet eyes now encrusted rubies over the lantern. There was a moment of easy silence before she spoke. "You know, she does have a point."
Barret almost huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, yeah... I guess she does. Even a broken clock's right twice a day. But some things are jes' more important." Bole-like fingers loosened their grip slightly around the pendant, the ball chain uttering a muffled clink in response. Tifa's attention was too drawn further down the corridor to notice. Barret's thick lips quirked a smile.
'And some things never change.' The gun-armed man answered Tifa's question before she could even ask it. "Marlene's in her room with Denzel last I knew. Boy's bin' driftin', though. Might be in my crib." Tifa glanced back to him and opened her mouth, but Barret once again predicted her query. "Vince ain't back yet. Dunno where he's gone so don't even ask, but ya know how he is. Sometimes yer better off not even askin'."
Tifa's lips tugged into something close to a smirk, though a concerned wrinkle marred her brow. "I see. Thanks, Barret." The fighter straightened and tucked a lock of brown tresses behind her ear. The lantern reduced it to a shimmer of molten chocolate. "And how about you?" When he just blinked at her over the tablecloth, the small dimples in Tifa's cheeks deepened. "How'd the reconstruction effort go?"
"'Bout as well as a Cait Sith karaoke moment." The dark-skinned man scrubbed a hand down his face and Tifa could hear the bristles of his beard whisper against his palm. "Left early mornin' an' spent all day lookin' over old blueprints with a bunch'a grumps in a drafty ass tent. We can't reconstruct summit we don't have tha plans for, so we're jes' gunna have ta start dismantlin' scrap fer now 'til Reeve gets here. I wanted ta tell ya I'd be late gettin' back, but you sure hid yer pretty ass well." Barret levelled his gaze at her with a dark glimmer of his eyes. "So, where the heck did ya sleep last night?"
"With Vincent."
Barret choked on his own spit. Tifa's spine snapped straight in error while her old friend busied himself with hammering a mighty fist against his chest.
"Beside Vincent. Next to him. I mean close to– you know what I mean." Tifa's cheeks were almost the colour of the man-in-question's cape. Barret couldn't keep the quiver from his broad shoulders. The effort shook his vocal chords, even more so when Tifa leaned over to deliver a light punch to his arm.
"Y-yeah, yeah. I getcha. Don't, ah– hah. Don't sweat it." Tifa's old friend hid a suspicious snort behind a deep cough and busied himself with adjusting the collar of his vest jacket. As he did so, the small ball-chain tumbled loose from his closed palm with a merry tinkle. Barret's shoulders stiffened. Russet eyes immediately caught on the metal beads, and now it was his turn to fall uncomfortable.
"Barret...?" Across the table, Tifa's voice fell distant on his ears. "What is..."
With taut muscles, the gun-armed man uncurled his left fist to reveal the gold pendant resting in his palm. The solemnity of the act erased all trace of prior humour, the light of the lantern falling into the grooves on his face as surely as it did the jewellery's. It shimmered through the decorated etchings like tiny golden streams.
When Barret next spoke, it was with a hoarse gravel. "I'm jes'... tryin' ta follow some advice. From Esther."
Tifa's eyes lit up with a flicker that had nothing to do with the table lantern. "Is that what you two were talking about yesterday? When we first came into town?"
"So you heard that, huh?" Barret suspected the fighter had caught the tail-end of his conversation with the red-head, but now that he knew the truth, he found he wasn't actually so bothered by it. "Yeah. Still, you knowin' or not don't make it any easier."
"Well, I'm not sure what I know." Tifa fell quiet for a moment as she watched Barret brush his thumb over the trinket. The bullet clicked its annoyance with each sweep. A familiarity whispered itself in Tifa's mind, but she was unable to place it. When the fighter next spoke, her tone was carefully neutral. "Is this about me?"
Barret's thumb stopped. "Huh?" Realising how Tifa could have misinterpreted Esther's past words, he was quick to correct her. "Naw, naw, it ain't about you. It's about..." The ghost of his best friend once more drift through his mind as he answered, "... Marlene."
Tifa straightened slightly. "Marlene?"
'These hands are a little too stained to carry Marlene anymore...' Barret could almost feel the necklace force his giant hand to the table with its weight. "Yeah. Let's jes' say... someone asked a favour of me three years ago. An... old friend. And I still ain't delivered on it."
Tifa's eyes widened as the pieces snapped together. She looked at the necklace with newfound recognition, realising it to be the same pendant she'd spotted Barret regarding back in the bar at Costa del Sol. The knowledge of its owner pulled a whisper from her lips. "Dyne."
During their past journey, the party paid a visit to the famous Gold Saucer only to find themselves wrong accused of murder. Summarily thrown out with an earned 'visit' to Corel Prison, they found themselves in an unforgiving complex built in the shadow of what was now known as Old Corel; Barret's hometown that, decades ago, Shinra razed to the ground. Naturally trapped by scorching dunes which surrounded the base of the towering amusement park, their exile could only be lifted by the prison leader's permission. By one terrible twist of fate, that leader turned out to be none other than Dyne: Barret's best friend once thought dead, and Marlene's biological father.
Barret could still hear the grief-stricken voice of a man driven to the brink. A man who'd tragically lost his wife and child, or so he'd thought. On hearing Marlene was still alive, Dyne decided it best to 'reunite' her with her mother in the Lifestream. With Barret's intervention, he failed. Or, rather, Barret failed him. He still wasn't sure. All he knew was he wouldn't let Dyne lay a single hand on his little girl. 'Give that pendant to Marlene... It was... Eleanor's... my wife's... memento...'
Helpless, he watched in his mind's eye as Dyne took that one deliberate, fatal step too many over the cliff's edge. The next voice to ring in Barret's head was his own. 'Dyne... Me an' you were the same. My hands ain't any cleaner. I shouldn't be able to carry Marlene either...' He tried to breathe past the weight in his chest. "I still don't know what to tell her, Tif'."
"Tell her the truth." Tifa's tone was bright and fervent like a freshly forged blade. It drew Barret's gaze to hers like a moth over the lantern. The flame danced a fiery reflection in the fighter's eyes. "Marlene's smart. I have no doubt she already knows to some degree. But she needs to hear it from her father." Tifa reached over in the gloom and curled a hand around Barret's huge knuckles. "She'll always be your little girl no matter what you tell her. And you'll always be her dad. Right?"
Barret took a moment to absorb her words before he nodded. Turning over his palm, he clasped Tifa's hand and ran an giant thumb across her slender fingers. "No doubt in my mind 'bout that, but... I'm jes' not sure if Marlene's gonna see it that way. I don't have tha right ta make that decision for her, Tif'."
Silence fell over the lantern-lit kitchen, the subdued tones of their conversation now swallowed up by the drone of digitised vocals from the TV in the other room. The accompanying blue glow crept out to war with its adjacent warmer counterpart, a clash of fire and ice being waged down the corridor. Neither one paid heed to the additional shadow pressed close to the kitchen wall, small and silent. It dropped something to the floor before shakily creeping through no man's land of the two forces. The front door clicked softly shut behind it.
"Maybe you don't," Tifa murmured, rousing Barret from his own thoughts with her answer, "but the fact you're giving her that decision shows just how much you care. If that's not the sign of a good father, I don't know what is."
Barret blinked before he huffed a humourless laugh and squeezed her hand. "I dunno what I did to deserve you two girls in mah life, but I ain't one ta look a gift Chocobo in the beak."
Marlene was barely a year old when Barret had found her amid the charred ruins of Old Corel. She was a small miracle bundled up in an ashen baby blanket, all red-faced and crying. When Tifa dropped into his lap not even a year later, courtesy of her old martial arts mentor, Zangan, she was red-faced in a different sense. Drenched in blood and barely breathing, it was yet another miracle she'd even survived the trip to Midgar for medical attention at all. It was one long road to recovery before she joined AVALANCHE and helped aid in his anti-Shinra cause.
Tifa quirked a small smile at him, 'a real damn smile', he thought, and said, "We don't know what we did to deserve you either, but I'm sure Marlene's just as glad as I am."
Barret felt a little lighter. As Tifa gave a reassuring squeeze and released his hand to lean back in her chair, he almost believed her. He curled his fist around the pendant with purpose this time, watching the fighter answer Yuffie's annoyed call of, "Hey, these are just old recordings on VHS tapes! That's false advertising!" from the next room.
"I don't suppose Barret taped any classic black-and-white movies, did he?" she called back before adding, "Oh wait, I think those might be too classy for Barret's tastes." Tifa crossed the threshold into the living room, but not before shooting a cheeky wink at him over her shoulder. Barret shook his head, the grin tugging at his lips almost rusty from disuse. The fighter always did tease him for recording nothing but news footage and Shinra propaganda for use in AVALANCHE intel.
Tifa's entrance was met with the intrigued gaze of Nanaki. "Ah, Tifa, I've been meaning to catch you." Red shook the spiked mane from his lone eye, the blue haze from the television cooling the red-hot blaze to his fur. "May I enquire to where you slept last night?"
Before Tifa could utter a single syllable, Barret's voice boomed from the kitchen.
"With Vincent!"
Tifa's head fell into her hands at the same time Cait Sith tumbled clean off Barret's hole-ridden sofa. Nanaki flicked a ring-adorned ear though his lone eye widened considerably. Yuffie practically leapt from the bookcase of cassette tapes she'd been surveying to hang over the sofa arm in horror.
"Shut. The. Front. Door. WHAT!?"
Tifa didn't even respond. The fighter walked away, head still buried in her palms to mask the ruddy glow to her cheeks. Yuffie hopped after her while Barret's laughter quaked throughout the house. Pleased with his revenge, he pulled himself to his brown-booted feet and made his way out the kitchen when a protesting crumple underfoot drew his attention. Eyebrow raised, he stooped low to carefully peel the stray piece of paper from his tread with metallic fingers. Smoothing the page, a merry outline of two figures met his furrowed brow. One tall and brown, the other small and pink, they held hands in grainy jubilance against a backdrop of lush green forest.
Barret's eyes softened. He took care to uncrease Marlene's crayon wax work at the corners, trying to fathom why it lay abandoned on the floor, when something wet met his skin. Further perplexed, Barret pulled his fingers back only to discover small drops of water dotting the paper. Dyne's ghost whispered in his ear and went straight to his head like a chilling gulp of ice-cold beer. The sensation crept across his shoulder blades and down his spine like he'd been doused.
'Barret... Don't make... Don't ever make Marlene cry...'
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
~ oOo ~
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
Scrubbing at her eyes in the mauve gloom of twilight, Marlene made her way down the old motorway sign come makeshift ramp outside Barret's home. Her high-top sneakers scuffed on the raised lettering to leave a flurry of copper flakes in her wake. The little girl took no notice and kept walking, the wet trails on her cheeks now a burning chill from the wind.
'Daddy is my Daddy. He is. I don't care about the colour of his skin, or– or even how much he swears! That doesn't change how much I love him.'
Marlene swept away the fresh heat and sting of tears, pulling her turtleneck jumper higher around her neck as she weaved through the many tents and shacks that made up Corel. She made her way with practised ease through the many candles and lanterns slowly breathing to life with the stars, her feet unconsciously carrying her towards Esther's quaint home on the outskirts of town.
While she tried to think of the best way to explain to her friend-more-than-school-teacher why she wound up at her doorstep at such a late hour, the little composure she'd gathered was completely shattered by the figure standing between the valley of junk piles that led to the mining town's exit.
"D-Denzel?"
The boy jumped in the dusk, almost tripping over his undone shoelace as he whipped round. "!? M-Marlene? What are you doing here?"
The little girl stuck out her lip despite the tears staining her cheeks and carefully looked over her best friend. Shouldering a canvas rucksack Marlene recognised as his own, she noted the pockets stuffed to the brim and stretching at the seams. Even his loose jeans were burdened with additional weight. Supplies, she suspected, and ones that most certainly weren't his.
Denzel shuffled his feet but stopped on catching the glimmering tracks down her face. He stepped away from the junk pile to approach her, and Marlene noticed the steel pipe that stuck out from the unruly mass like a disjointed limb. "What's wrong?" he asked, brow and voice marred with worry.
Marlene rubbed her eyes and held her tongue. "Where did you get all that?"
The young boy watched her for a moment, azure-blues searching her own of soft brown. "I bought it." When Marlene continued to shoot him a skeptical eye, Denzel added, "Tifa gave me some Gil in Kalm, so I used it." He walked back over to the towering junk piles and gripped onto the pipe she'd spotted earlier, placing an unlaced sneaker against a broken rail wheel for leverage as he pulled. "I scavenged..." he strained, "the rest...!"
The cylinder dislodged with a hollow groan and sent the cliff of garbage shuddering like a wild, live thing before it once more fell silent. Marlene swallowed down her unease, watching dark clouds convene on the horizon behind the orphan like a pack of hungry beasts.
"Where are you going?" she asked, adamant not to reveal her worry to the one who sowed it.
Denzel swung his newfound steel pipe once, twice, before satisfied with the dispersal of air and subsequent noise, wedged it behind his backpack strap within easy reach. "I'm going to find Cloud."
Marlene audibly inhaled. "B-but–," she sputtered, "you can't! Won't the others worry?"
"Who cares about them?" Despite the scowl on his face, Denzel's eyes flicked up to Barret's crumbling abode high on the small mesas. "They're acting all weird." Denzel scrunched up his nose. "Cloud would know what to do. So I'm going to find Cloud."
Marlene was quiet. 'What would Cloud say about Daddy and me? Would he say the same thing as Denzel...?' Instead of voicing her thoughts, she instead asked, "Do you even know where Cloud might be?" When Denzel held his silence, Marlene flit about him like a startled bird, her skirt fluttering behind her like wings to block his path. The little girl dug her heels into the dirt and stared at him with all the fire and steel of Barret's gun-armed prosthetic. "I'm not letting you go alone!"
Denzel stared at her with wide eyes before they once more fell to the wet trails that streaked down Marlene's face. Brow furrowed, the boy looked away from the girl's puffed up cheeks up to Barret's home then back again. Resolute, he said, "... Fine. You're coming with me."
Marlene froze, eyes wide as Materia. Denzel grabbed her hand and tugged her through the valley of rubbish and scrap towards the plains and storm clouds looming. She resist, feeling Denzel loosen his grip in response. He let go and peered back at her through tousled locks of hazel. The little girl stopped to look back at her home and the soft lantern glow that spilled from the glassless windows.
Marlene was faced with a choice. Accompany Denzel in his search for Cloud, and persuade him to head home with her, or return to her father and face hearing a truth she didn't at all want to hear.
Marlene reached into the pocket of her white lace skirt and took tight hold of her Phoenix Materia. Lacing her golden condor feather more securely behind her pink ribbon, Marlene went to Denzel's side and, together, the two children walked out of Corel hand in hand.
Weathered dirt and grit gave way to sprightly grass as sure as the night drew in. The lanterns of the town began to dim and shrink at their back, becoming nothing more than the fireflies of civilization. Darkness swelled above them and roiled with thunder, muted flashes of light sparking from behind the murk like severed cables. Marlene jumped at one particular burst and pressed herself closer to Denzel's side, the heat seeping through his moss-green hoodie a comforting one. The orphan squeezed her hand and, emboldened, Marlene straightened to survey the plains with confidence.
That was, until she caught sight of the shadows that lay ahead.
A cluster of trucks were parked at various angles towards the eastern shore, their ribbed tarp canopies rehearsing a downbeat rhythm conducted by passing winds. Bigger shadows lurked behind, but were of considerate enough size to give Marlene pause. She watched Corel grow ever more distant at her back. About to voice her unease, Denzel stopped just as she was about to herself.
"Those look like army trucks," he said, squinting into the dark. "They must be the WRO soldiers I heard the others talking about." The orphan pondered before, with a nod of self-assertion, changed course toward the group of outlines. Marlene's hand on the sleeve of his hoodie gave him pause.
"W-where are you going?" Her knuckles whitened. "Wouldn't it be better to stay out of their way?"
"They might have a map. I couldn't find one in Corel." When Marlene continued to stare up at him with round eyes, Denzel quirked a small smile at her. "It's okay. There's a lot of them. I'm sure they'll have at least one spare." He moved away and, though he misread her concern, Marlene let him, allowing her hand to slide away from his sweatshirt sleeve. He approached the back of one of the trucks with a quick glance at the surrounding shadows. Presuming their owners on patrol, he began to forage through their supply crates with the practised ease of a child seasoned to the slums.
Denzel pulled out a roll of paper when a voice muffled through cloth stopped him cold.
"You lost, kid?"
The orphan discreetly tucked the parchment away with nimble fingers before turning to face the speaker. The rehearsed line on his tongue died when, instead of the standard red beret he was expecting, his sight was instead filled with a steel helmet emblazoned with three solid-red lenses.
The troop pulled down his blue neck scarf as he spoke. "So? You wanna tell me why you're looking through our supply crates in the dark?" He crossed his arms, the blood-red colour of his armour a dull crimson in the oncoming storm until muffled flashes of lightning proved otherwise. The notorious red-and-white diamond insignia on his arm lit up in strobes, flashing the embellished outline of what appeared to be a falling meteor. Denzel took one look at the uniform and slid the weathered pipe from his backpack, holding it out before him in the pose of a missing ghost.
The Shinra soldier laughed like he'd done something cute.
"Ha! That's pretty good. Might be hope for you yet!" He was about to continue his jibes when a ruby glimmer from his peripheral stole what little humour could be seen over his scarf. Turning round, he found a little girl holding up a Summon Materia to his back. Despite her trembling grip, her eyes were as steady as her voice.
"Leave him alone!"
The infantryman slowly rose his hands, palms up, but carefully moved two digits to his right ear. Denzel clambered down from the truck and stumbled back to grab Marlene's hand, pulling her away while the soldier pressed two fingers to the side of his triple-lens helm. A few short mumbles later, he dropped his stance and went to grip his rifle stock. Marlene held her Phoenix Materia higher, but the man simply grinned. Heavy combat boots struck the dirt deep as he walked towards them.
"Well now, that's one special ball of Materia you got there. How 'bout you hand it over, and I forget ever seeing you two kids." When Marlene continued to level her glare at him, the troop made a chuckle that shook his shoulder guards. "I'm offering you a good deal here. Heck, you can even keep whatever you took outta that box. I'll just look the other way."
"We're not giving you anything," Denzel growled, swinging his pipe overhead ready to strike. The smile disappeared from the Shinra troop's face. The sky grumbled in discomfort, a series of flashes erupting from behind the thick canopy of clouds before thunder followed like a muffled series of grenades. The moon briefly appeared, but a waning crescent among the angry shroud of gloom, and chased the dark away from the more prominent shapes lying among the cluster of vehicles.
The unmistakable silhouette of a tank gleamed to light, alongside something else that, if not for its enormous size and grossly misshapen outline, would have appeared almost human.
The soldier continued on unaware. "If you two didn't notice, you just stole from and interfered with a military patrol. My regiment's on its way back and should be here any second. I say you hand over your Materia right now and leave before I..."
The ghostly faces of two children tripping over their own feet prompted him to turn around.
Lightning struck the earth as fast as the man was ripped off his feet and hauled across the tread-ridden plains like a child's doll.
"Denzel! Marlene!"
The cries of their names was almost obscured by the rattle of gunfire. Further voices rose in the bedlam, including barks of a military nature, before the air ripped with bullets and the deafening volley of grenades. In the discordance that ensued, the two children scrambled. Before they could get very far, a huge arm materialised around their waists and pulled them back. Denzel yelped in fright but Marlene recognised the familiar muscle and clung to it, gripping tight like it was the only thing she had left. Barret pressed the two close to his legs, hands on the back of their heads to avert their eyes.
Red XIII suddenly appeared on the crest of a low rolling hill, breathless and frightful while Cait Sith clung to his mane. His lone eye flickered wildly as his nose twitched, the cat puppet shaking between his ears while the noise pulled them flat. Tifa reached his side seconds later, chest heaving as her heart hammered against her ribs. Her gaze instantly locked onto the two children and she pulled Barret and themselves even further from the battlefield. The unmistakable crack of bone made the fighter flinch, her eyes screwing shut with a tight crunch from her leather gloves. She grit her teeth and pulled the two children behind Nanaki, forcing herself to look on with mordant dismay. The moment Denzel and Marlene were free from his hands, his arm shift into its full gatling gun form with a series of angry whirrs.
Yuffie skidded to a halt, the whites of her eyes more visible than her chestnut irises. The ninja's shaking fingers loosened around her shuriken, the strength in her arms faltering with her tongue.
She choked the words out.
"V-Vincent... ?!"
Barret lowered his gun-arm, voice grim. "Not anymore."
'… End of tha line.'
