Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Intervention ❯ Bodies ( Chapter 9 )

Story title Intervention

Rating R

Story Description Reno finally succumbs to the dark and destructive nature of his unstable emotions. When his bosses Tseng and Rufus do nothing & his partner and friend Rude stands in the wings and watches mutely, it's up to Elena to step in and save him from himself. (Post Game, Elena/Reno, Het, Yaoi, Drug & Alcohol abuse)

Author's Note Characters may appear OOC. Tried to keep them as close to cannon as possible, but considering I'm writing this not the people at SquareEnix, you'll have to deal.

Disclaimers I don't own the boys and girls of Final Fantasy 7, SquareEnix does.

 

 

9 - Bodies

 

Skin against skin blood and bone

You're all by yourself but you're not alone

You wanted in now you're here

Driven by hate consumed by fear

Let the bodies hit the floor

-- Bodies by Drowning Pool

 

 

When Rude returned, he was dressed similar to Elena in black combat fatigues. The major difference being his had more pockets then hers had. He also had with him his field medic kit and a small collection of materia.

 

“Whatcha got Rude?” she asked as he placed the case containing the materia on her coffee table. She settled on the couch and waited eagerly like a kid on Solstice day during the Winter Festival.

 

Rude chuckled as he settled next to her. “Hold your chocobos kid,” he told her as he unlocked the padded case. Inside were almost two-dozen softly glowing spheres, mostly greens, but there was a pair of yellows, three blues, two reds and a single purple sphere amongst the treasure. “Let me see… I have,” he paused as he picked up each sphere in turn and named it. He started with the purple one first, “Long Range,” next was the reds, “Phoenix and Leviathan.” He reverently placed those two orbs aside. “Two of the blues are All, the third is Added Effect. These are both Sense,” Rude explained as he touched both yellow spheres.

 

“Oh wow! And the rest?” she asked gesturing to all the green spheres. “Do you have multiples of the same stuff or all of it different?”

 

Rude tapped each one in turn as he named them off. “Time, Seal, Restore, Heal, Revive, Poison, Lightening, Fire, Ice, Gravity, Barrier, Contain and Earth.”

 

“Daaamn,” Elena muttered. “All I have is mastered Shiva summons, low level Ice, and a mid-level All.”

 

Rude grunted as he gently rolled the spheres back into their resting places. “Most of this is actually Reno's. The summons's are his, got them near the end of the war with Wutai,” He didn't elaborate on it since it wasn't his story to tell.

 

“Eh?! Wait, he's only a year or two older then me.” She did a fast calculation then stared at Rude. “That means he was only… what? 16 maybe 17 at the end of the war.”

 

Rude nodded. “Reno was 15 when I meet him that first time. I had been assigned as the General's field medic. Reno was one of Sephiroth's personal scouts, as was his father.” He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose then sighed. “You wanted to catch a couple hours down time before we go in right?” he asked changing the subject.

 

Elena nodded, still mulling over the idea that Reno had been in the war when he should have been in school and acting like a teenager. “Yeah, and you're trying to change the subject.”

 

Rude hmphed, “I'm gonna do you the way I did the grunts and SOLDIERs before a major battle. I'm gonna put you under for a few hours of rest. You can bitch at me about it after we get Reno back,” he told her before raising his hand, palm up and blowing the dust he held into her face.

 

Like most people she inhaled in surprise and that was all it took. “You bast….” She never finished, having succumb to the effect of the sleep dust.

 

“Gets 'em every time,” he said with a sigh as he caught the blonde rookie. Picking her up was easy, she was fairly light-weight, even when compared to Reno. The big Turk deposited her on her bed, not bothering to cover her for the moment, then returned to the living room. He had his own way of resting before a job.

 

 

Almost four hours had passed by the time Elena woke up from her rather enforced nap. She stretched languidly at first until her mind got up to speed on things. She snapped fully awake then, tumbled out of the bed and made her way into the living room. She understood why Rude did it, but she was rather pissed at the dirty, underhanded way he did it. When she reached the living room she found Rude seemingly asleep on the couch.

 

Rude wasn't asleep, merely resting there with his eyes closed. He heard the youngest Turk when she entered the room. Now he waited to see what she would do and how she would 'wake' him up. Reno had known from the beginning how to wake someone who had experienced combat. Elena didn't have that knowledge.

 

Elena's first thought was to go over and shake him awake but she thought better of it. A second idea was to call his name or throw something at him at a distance. She decided to combine her second and third idea, which was to make coffee and something to eat, to wake him up. Slipping into the kitchen she started the coffee pot then raided the fridge for something to eat. Not use to having anyone else around her place, she nearly jumped out of her skin when Rude reached past her for the creamer. “Damn it Rude! Why didn't you let me know you were awake?” she glared at him. “And that was a damned dirty trick you pulled on me.”

 

Rude just laughed softly under his breath before taking a sip of the coffee. “I wanted to see what you would do to try and wake me. And it worked didn't it?”

 

Elena glared at him another moment before huffing a sigh. “Yeah I guess it did. But you could have told me what you were going to do.”

 

He nodded. “So how were you planning on waking me up?”

 

She told him as she put the items out on the counter for her and Rude's meal. “Don't mind omelets do you?”

 

Rude shook his head as he patted Elena on the shoulder before walking out. He needed to go over their gear one last time before packing it into the bags. He didn't plan on taking it out to the car until they were ready to leave. No sense pressing their luck. And speaking of luck, he grabbed his phone and checked the messages. He had nearly a dozen of them. When he checked the messages all but the last one was from Tseng. Each of them some varying degree of orders for him to report on what was going on or ordering him to report in for his duty shift. The last one was from Rufus.

 

“Rude, I'm over-riding all of Tseng's orders. You have my full permission to do what is necessary to bring Reno back…. Good hunting.”

 

Rude let his lips curl upwards in a smile. They'd been given Rufus' blessing for this and that was all that mattered. “Hey Rookie, we got the go ahead from the big boss.”

 

“All Right!” Elena squealed then finished dishing up their food.

 

 

Both ate in a hurry, then finished packing everything and left her apartment. It didn't take long to stash their bags away in the trunk of Rude's vehicle, both of course being armed still. The drive was a smooth yet quietly tense affair. Rude having done this type operation before so it wasn't as big a deal as it was for Elena.

 

Rude parked about a block from the location. They would go in the rest of the way on foot. Better chance of picking off the outer ring of guards first then hit the inner. “Let me guess, no intel on this group?” Rude asked as he slung his bag over his shoulder and rechecked his weapons once again.

 

Elena blushed looking down at the ground. “No… Only that they have Reno and that he's still alive in there.”

 

“So you were going to head into an unknown situation with only what you had with you and hope like hades you could get him and yourself out without getting killed.”

 

Elena nodded again as she walked around to his side of the car, bag slung over her shoulder.

 

Rude heaved a sigh. “Rookie,” he said with the shake of his head. Reaching over he ruffled her blonde hair in a good-natured show of affection. “You had better hope nothing happens to you or else Reno will have my hide. Not to mention I don't think Rufus would be too appreciative either.”

 

Elena looked puzzled for a moment. “Why would Reno be mad at you? This is my crazy idea after all.”

 

“If you haven't figured it out for yourself then it's not my place to enlighten you about it,” Rude told her. “Now let's go.”

 

 

As the pair made their way around the warehouse, the two Turks spotted and eliminated several guards. They stashed the bodies out of the way so they wouldn't be easily found, but didn't bother to really hide them more then that. The advantaged that they had over the gang was that their weapons were top of the line, well taken care of and had extra accessories such as silencers. They also took a pair of radios off the now deceased men. Over all Rude was very proud of Elena. She hit her target every time, she didn't put up a fuss about dealing with the bodies and she managed to keep her cool. There were several guards that they came across that they had to kill up close and personal.

 

“Hey Rude?”

 

Rude grunted softly in reply.

 

“Is it me or do these guys seem… I don't know... weird, zombie-ish.” Elena waved a hand at the body at her feet. “It was like they were sleep walking.”

 

Rude grunted again and nodded. Glancing around he pulled a wristband out of a pocket and slipped it on. The yellow orb started to glow softly as he used its power. “These men are… were under a command spell. From what I'm picking up, it's one that has been used often enough that it's become imbedded into their minds.”

 

Elena wrinkled her nose in disgust. “You mean…” she looked at the body and shook her head. “So we're doing them a favor then.”

 

Rude nodded as he put the wristband away, again hiding the tell tale glow of materia. Straightening up he nodded once more then looked around. He pointed in the direction that they needed to go, signaling for her to follow before moving in that direction. He never said anything but he was finding this way too easy. Things were falling into place a little too much and it raised his hackles like nothing else had in quite a while.

 

The pair stopped trying to hide the bodies as they changed methods and went straight in. The warehouse was old and dilapidated looking. The windows set high up in the wall were mostly busted though here and there a whole pane of dirty glass could be seen. Neither could discern if there were lights on anywhere within the warehouse from their current position. Only way to find out if Reno was still there was to go in. They found that like most warehouses in the area, this one had once been used to manufacture goods. Instead of open area there were a lot of broken and ancient looking machines, thus allowing for an excessive amount of hiding space.

 

When the pair came upon the open floor area of the warehouse Rude had to quickly grab Elena and silence her. Even if he wanted to go right in and start `busting heads and kicking ass' as the saying goes, he knew better. He pulled them both into the shadows hissing in Elena's ear to be quiet or else. Once she settled down he took his hand away from her mouth and let her go. “I know little sister, I know,” he said softly when she whirled around, glaring at him accusingly. “But we don't know if that's a trap or not. I want all of us to go home alive, not in body bags.”

 

There was a time in her life that Elena would have turned right around and charged right into a dangerous situation without thinking. Now that she was older and was more experienced, she knew better. But that still didn't quell the desire to dive with guns on full auto. “Damn it Rude!” she hissed back. “You saw it just as plainly as I did. You saw what they are doing to him!”

 

Rude pulled Elena into a tight hug then let her go. “We will get him out of there and we will make sure he survives this. I promise you, little sister, we will. Now here's the plan…” he leaned down and started speaking softly, his lips a fraction of an inch from her ear.

 

Elena nodded, murmuring sounds of affirmation to his plan. When he was done she looked up with a grin. “You bet your sweet ass big man!”

 

“Give me five to get around to the other side then wait till I signal. If you hear a commotion before I get there, presume I've been spotted go ahead and start the party. I'll be with you as soon as I can,” Rude instructed one final time. “Remember, get Reno and get out of here. We'll deal with the trash once we know the redhead is safe again. Got it?”

 

“Got it big man. Good hunting!” Elena said as she turned to settle in a shadowed spot closer to the edge of the open area where Reno was being kept.

 

“Same to you little sister,” Rude said before turning and vanishing into the shadows.