Every Now and Then
Chapter 11: The Heart of the Matter
“OK, I would really… really… like to know what the hell is going on here,” said Reno. His voice was still a bit strained, and his neck was more than a bit bruised. Besides which, his head was throbbing from being slammed against the floor by a very pissed off martial artist. All in all, he was wishing that he’d simply decided to stay in bed that morning. At the rate he was going, he’d be lucky to make it out of here in one piece.
“So would I,” Tifa agreed, still shocked at her own uncontrollable rage. The substance that had entrapped the Turk had… for lack of a better word… shattered, much like Rude’s materia orb had earlier, the moment she and Yuffie had broken the first few strands to free him.
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” the ninja piped up.
Reno and Tifa both stared at Yuffie.
“Obvious?!” they chorused, though they didn’t seem to notice this time.
“Well, duh… I mean think about it. It’s got to be the fountain that’s doing it, right? It’s messing with our heads, like the log book says. Makin’ us see things… and makin’ us think they’re real. So what was it you two saw?”
“I saw Tifa trying to brutally murder me… That’s what I saw!” Reno growled, though with perhaps less emphasis than he’d meant to use, given the recent abuse of his throat.
“I meant earlier, ya dumb Turkey!” Yuffie countered, “Upstairs, with Elena!”
“I…” Reno started, but then paused, “I’d really rather not talk about it.”
Yuffie was glaring at him. The Turk looked from Yuffie to Tifa and then back to Yuffie, noting the identical expressions on both faces, and sighed.
“Fine… I saw my mom, OK?”
“So… you attacked Elena because… you thought she was your mother?” Yuffie asked, somewhat perplexed, “Geez, and I thought thought I had issues with my family…”
“It’s not like that,” Reno muttered, rolling his eyes, “Look… My mother’s been dead for years. She died when I was a kid… Hell, I watched her die,” he paused, unable to meet their eyes for a moment, before adding, “So I figured that whatever that thing was, it was definitely not my mom. That’s why I attacked.”
“Oh. Er… So what about you, Tifa?” Yuffie asked, noting that it was a somewhat touchy subject.
“What?”
“What was it you saw?”
“I… uh… saw Reno,” she replied.
“Oh, well, that make me feel much better…” the Turk scoffed.
“No, I mean… I saw you in the past. It was like I had gone back in time,” she said, adding softly, “To Sector Seven.”
Perhaps it was the mimimal lighting in the room, but Tifa could have sworn she saw a flicker of emotion in the Turk’s eyes. For a brief moment, he actually looked… vulnerable.
“See?! It’s just like she says here…” Yuffie squealed, log book in hand, pulling Tifa’s thoughts away from her one-time enemy, “Right here… where she says ‘At first I thought I was going crazy. Old friends… my sister… my grandfather… things from my childhood… But now Terran sees them, too.’ Whatever happened to the research team is happening to us.”
“Wonderful,” Reno drawled, “That’s just wonderful… Too bad we still don’t know what the hell did happen to them!”
———-
Elena shook her head for the umpteenth time, trying to clear it. The blow to the head had left her dizzy and disoriented, and it was taking most of her concentration just to stay awake, now that Rude was no longer there to keep her talking. Fortunately, training had taken over to some extent, her lessons in first aid and self-preservation coming back to her instinctively. She probably had a concussion… which meant that she had to stay awake… though she couldn’t remember why exactly she was supposed to stay awake, especially when all she wanted to do was close her eyes for just a quick nap…
‘What’s taking them so long, I wonder?’ she thought to herself.
Rude had been gone too long. He would’ve come back to tell her what was going on, even if it was something serious… or at least have sent Yuffie or Tifa back to stay with her.
‘Concussion or not, I’m going to check on them,’ she finally decided. She took a deep breath and inched her way up the wall, swaying when she finally got to her feet as the hallway spun before her eyes. Elena closed her eyes for a moment, pressing her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, until the sensation stopped, and then she began to move forward, keeping one hand on the wall to steady herself.
“Rude?” she called, “Reno? Can you guys hear me?”
She kept moving, slowly so as not to set the floor spinning again, never noticing the wraith-like figure that was swiftly creaping up behind her.
———-
“How did you get here?”
“…”
“Rude?” Cloud prodded when the Turk didn’t answer.
“Don’t know. I was following Tifa…,” he replied, then paused for a moment, before reluctantly adding “… Reno’s dead.”
“Wha… Dead? What do you mean he’s dead? What happened?! What about Tifa?! And Yuffie?!”
“… Don’t know.”
Rude mentally tuned out Cloud’s rather loud and drawn out response. He wished he knew. More than anything, he wished he knew. But he had no clue what had happened to Reno… only the memory of the younger man… his friend… his partner… lying motionless in a pool of his own blood, cold and lifeless. It was something he’d hoped he’d never live to see. But worse still was not knowing what had become of Elena, as well as Tifa and Yuffie. Whoever, or whatever, had attacked Reno was still on the loose… and he was stuck here. Wherever “here” was.
“They may yet come here,” said a female voice from somewhere within the light, though Rude could not see the source of it, “None of us are really sure how we got here, either. One minute we were there… the next, we were here.”
“Oh great… She’s getting all philosophical again,” a male voice, Terran, muttered.
“It’s better than your constant complaining,” a second male voice said.
“Now, now… Let’s not start that again,” the woman said.
“… Who are you?” Rude asked.
“They’re the ones we were supposed to find,” said Cloud.
“Hnn… My heros… Oh, I’m so terribly greatful that you’ve found us,” came the retort from Terran.
“Don’t mind Dr. Farwith… He may be an absolute genius when it comes to physics and chemistry, but Terran never has been what you might call socialable,” said the woman’s voice.
“Don’t you ever shut up?” Farwith replied.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being such an ass?” she asked.
Rude only listened to the arguement half-heartedly. He had other things on his mind.
———-
The hallway was silent, save for the harsh sound of her own breathing, and her footsteps treading lightly on the floor. Elena paused every now and then to listen for the voices of her companions, hoping to get some sense of where they were. She was certain that she had seen Rude turn this corner before she’d lost sight of him. And indeed, the door to the next room had been left wide open.
Beyond was a long, wide hall, the walls lined with tables containing a vast assortment of rock and crystal samples, along with some decidedly high-tech looking equipment.
“Rude?” she called, “Come on, answer me!”
Her head was still throbbing, and moving around seemed to only make it worse. What she really wanted to do was lie down and sleep… but she had to find Rude and the others first.
“Elena!”
When the female Turk wheeled around to face the source of the voice, much to her relief, she saw Reno’s familiar outline standing in the doorway.
“I thought I told you to wait with Rude,” Reno said crossly, quickly closing the distance between them.
“I… I did sir. I-I mean we… we were waiting… but Tifa said that you were hurt, and Rude went to check on you… I… I waited as long as I could, but I was worried and…”
“I get the point…” Reno snapped, “You never listen, do you Elena? I tell you to wait, so naturally, you go wondering off on your own…”
“But…” she began, only to be cut off a second time.
“And with some psycho on the loose, no less!” Reno continued, enraged, “How stupid can you get?!”
“But I…”
“And don’t you ever shut up?!” he demanded, “How you ever got to be a Turk is beyond me… Always babbling like some annoying little kid. Hell, you couldn’t keep a secret if your life depended on it!”
“That’s not…” she tried again. His words stung, and not because they were so harsh, but because she’d thought the same things about herself many times over. Somehow, though, hearing it from Reno was ten times worse than her own privateinsecurities.
“You blab details about our missions to AVALANCHE every time we run into them… You completely ruined Rude’s surprise party last month… and let us not forget that little incident in Junon on our last visit!”
“But Reno, I… I’m…” She blinked back the tears of humiliation that had suddenly welled up in her eyes.
“Dear Holy, you are so fucking pathetic!” Reno growled at her, “Now I suppose you’re gonna start crying. Don’t act so damn weak, Elena!”
He reached out, and in one fluid swipe, grabbed her by the wrist and began pulling her along, past the tables and shelves toward the door to the next room.
“R-Reno… Stop it! You’re… You’re hurting me!” she gasped, trying to wrench her arm away from him, but the senior Turk’s grip was unbreakable. In response to her struggles, he merely tightened his grip, causing her to wince in pain, as he dragged her through the doorway.
“You are so fucking worthless, Elena!”
———-
“Face it, guys… It’s not gonna budge.”
Reno glared at the large, securely fastened door in defeat and gave it an annoyed kick. Tifa, as well, ceased in her efforts to open it.
“Well, if Cloud’s on the other side of this thing, we’re not getting through from this side,” he muttered, “Guess we’d better backtrack. There should be a corridor back the way we came that eventually leads to the room we want.”
“How can you be so sure about that?” Tifa asked, eyes narrowed.
“Geez… Can we not start this again?” Yuffie interjected.
Tifa snorted in contempt, but let it drop as the trio made their way back through the darkened hallways. Reno took the lead, having comandered Tifa’s flashlight, and Yuffie was bringing up the rear. Suddenly, the sounds of a struggle up ahead met their ears, and a voice cried out.
“R-Reno… Stop it! You’re… You’re hurting me!”
Reno stopped in mid-stride.
“Elena?!”
He broke into a flat out run towards the sound of her voice before either Tifa or Yuffie could say anything.
“Did… she just say that Reno was hurting her?” Yuffie asked, her question met with a confused nod from Tifa. They stared blankly at one another for another second, before following Reno’s lead and racing off after the redhead. Tifa and Yuffie skidded around a corner and nearly ran straight into Reno himself, who stood, poised defensively at the beginning of the corridor. Halfway to the door at the other end, the grey-cloaked figure he had seen upstairs was viciously dragging Elena toward the next room. The blond Turk was fighting back admirably, but she was still dazed from her head injury, and couldn’t get loose.
“Reno… Let go! Please!” she cried out, “I’ll do better… I promise! I won’t be weak… I… I can act like a Turk should act! Please! Please, Reno… I’m not worthless! I’m not! Please… You’re hurting me!”
Her words cut through him like knives. If this was anything like what he and Tifa had experienced earlier, whatever she was seeing was undeniably real to her. And apparently what she was seeing was nothing less than he himself… and he was terrifying her. She couldn’t really think of him like that, could she? Elena didn’t really think that his opinion of her was so low that he would…
Reno shook himself from his thoughts and charged forward, his mag-rod crackling menacingly as he swooped in for the attack.
“Let her go!” he screamed, as electrifed metal made contact with Elena’s assailant. The figure screamed in pain and staggered backwards, it’s grip on Elena’s wrist released, and it tumbled to the floor. It lay there where it fell, whimpering softly, like a wounded animal.
“Elena?” Reno questioned, gathering up his fellow Turk, and looking her in the eyes, noting the tears that had run down her cheeks. She blinked at him through a haze of confusion, and then glanced down at the figure on the floor.
“It… it wasn’t you?” she said dazedly, as realization began to dawn. Reno pulled her into a tight embrace, as much to reassure himself that she was alright as to comfort her.
“Aw, ‘Lena… ‘Course it wasn’t me. Come on, ‘Lena… You know I could never hurt you. You and Rude… you guys’re family,” he replied, and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“Then who…”
She turned her gaze toward Yuffie, who was now crouched over the huddled figure on the floor.
———-
Tifa watched the scene unfold as a mere observer. Reno had covered the distance between himself and Elena in record time, and a moment later it was all over. The stranger was down for the count, and Reno had Elena in his arms before Tifa and Yuffie were even certain what was happening. Yuffie sprang forward with Tifa not far behind, just in case the cloaked figure had anything else up its sleeves… but whoever it was, they were stunned senseless for the moment from the jolt of electricity. Tifa reached the scene just in time to hear the word “family” from Reno and see him place a tender kiss on Elena’s forehead.
That was almost too much… for a moment, she feared that she was trapped inside another strange non-reality as she had been when she’d nearly throttled Reno to death. Maybe… maybe she really had been wrong about the Turks… Maybe, as Yuffie kept telling her, they weren’t the heartless creatures she’d made herself believe that they were.
“Then who…” Elena said, looking toward the figure Yuffie was now crouched beside.
Tifa blinked and refocused her attention. She would have plenty of time to re-evaluate Reno’s humanity later. Yuffie was already reaching for the hood of the assailant’s cloak.
“Yuffie, wait a second…”
But by the time she spoke, the assailant was unmasked. Tifa half-expected the person to lunge forward and seize the ninja by the throat, but there was no movement, save for the occasionally twitching as the aftershocks of being electrocuted wracked the wraith-like body with random convusions. Now, in the light that spilled into the corridor from the next room, Tifa could see that the stranger was a woman… Her face was gaunt and pale, with protuding cheekbones, her features now slack. Long, unkempt, locks of greying hair fell about her narrow face. Her hands and feet, which protruded from the cloak, were pale from lack of sunlight, and almost skeletal.
“Who is she?” Tifa asked, crouching down beside Yuffie.
“I don’t give a crap who she is… All I want to know is what she’s done with Rude,” Reno growled angrily, electro-rod poised to do some more damage, should it come to that.
———-
Something had changed. Cloud could sense it… the light that surrounded him had changed somehow. There was an undercurrent of tension embedded in it… a thrumbing, pulsing sensation of unease, as if it had been suddenly disturbed.
“Oh my…” the female voice whispered.
“What?” asked Cloud, “What’s going on?”
“I’m not certain… Terran?”
“Hn… Something’s changed,” Dr. Farwith replied.
“We had noticed that, hadn’t we, Kris?” the second male voice piped up.
“Yes, we had… but what is it that’s changed?”
“… Something’s missing,” Rude ventured,with his usual stoic-born insight. The other voices were silent for a moment. The more Cloud thought about that suggestion, the more he somehow knew it to be true. The strange sense of tangible unease… it was if something had sudddenly been taken out of the mix. Something that Cloud hadn’t even realized was even there until it was gone.
“Dr. Umeshi?” the femlae voice again, hypothesizing, “Could she have been here? Could we not have known? Could she have escaped?”
“More likely, assuming she was even here, she’s died,” Farwith noted. The man’s continuous pessimism was beginning to grate on Cloud’s nerves.
———-
“Hey! Wake the hell up!”
Reno had the mysterious stranger by the collar, and was shaking her rather violently, trying to rouse her.
“Reno! Take it easy!” Yuffie cried, latching onto one of his arms and trying to pull him away. But the Turk was determined to get some answers. No one attacked one of his fellow Turks and got away with it. He wanted to know what was going on, and he wanted to know now. The woman’s eye fluttered open, and she looked up at the redhead with no small amount of terror.
“P-p-please… L-let me go…” she wimpered. The shock from the electro-rod seemed to have jarred her back to reality.
“What’d do with them, huh?” Reno asked, nose to nose with her, staring unblinkingly into her eyes.
“Have to… Have to leave. Get away from… from the fountain… Have to… before it draws me back in!” she said. Her voice was hoarse… raspy with disuse. Reno loosened his grip slightly, but didn’t release her.
“Fountain… The mako fountain? What do you mean?” Tifa prodded.
“Mako… too much mako. We were studying it… makes you see things… We have to leave, before it’s too late! Too late for the others… for my team… but not too late for us!” she replied.
“Dr. Umeshi?” Yuffie gasped. The woman’s eyes widened slightly, and she nodded.
“Where are they? Where are the others?” Reno demanded. Damned if he was going anywhere without Rude… and if Strife happened to be hanging out with him when they found him, he could come along, too.
“The fountain… they’re in the fountain,” Dr. Umeshi said, haltingly, “But… it’s too late. Can’t go in there… too much mako energy. Never get out… Please… have to leave this place… I don’t want to go back there!”
But Reno ignored Umeshi’s pleas for a swift retreat.
“Yuffie… You stay here with Elena. Make sure the good doctor doesn’t run out on us. Tifa ‘n me’ll keep looking for Strife and Rude. Be ready to get out of here quick, just in case…” Reno instructed. He rose from his crouched position and glanced at Tifa, “Ready?”
“Let’s go,” she replied. He’d half expected an argument… half expected her to go off on her own again rather than be stuck alone with him… but he didn’t have time to think on it at the moment. Right now, he was only interested in getting Rude, and getting the hell out of Dodge.
The door on the far side of the room stood halfway open, a pale, bluish light seeping out from whatever lay beyond. That was where Dr. Umeshi had been trying to take Elena… so that was where they would have to go to find their missing companions, he was sure of it. Tifa took the lead, her strides confident and sure, and Reno quickened his pace to catch up with her, falling into step beside her. As soon as they reached the door, Reno threw it open wide, stopping short at what he saw. His mouth dropped open slightly and for a moment, he couldn’t do anything but stare.
There was no perfectly polished tile here, no metal walls, no scent of unnatural cleanliness that pervaded the rest of the underground laboratory. Crystalline mako rose straight up from the solid rock of the floor. In the center it grew up and outward like a tree, in branches that rose up into the shadows toward an unseen ceiling. Around the base were clusters of elongated crystals, perfectly faceted, their faces smooth and polished. And in some areas were intricate web-like patches… a fine crystalline laticework that looked as delicate as the spider’s webs it resembled. Everything glowed with a soft, inviting light… a mixture of colors that was entrancing… almost hypnotic. The light pulsed and thrumbed as if it were alive.
Reno took a tentative step forward. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to be a part of it… and as that realization registered in his mind, his shook his head violently to clear it… What the hell was he thinking? He looked over at Tifa, and realized that she was in the same boat. This must have been what the doctor had meant… about how it drew you in. Reno grabbed Tifa by the arm and shook her out of her daze.
“Don’t let it get ya! You hear me? We’ve gotta find Cloud and Rude and get away from this thing!”
Tifa blinked at him, confused for a moment, but then her expression cleared, and she nodded.
“Let’s go,” she said.
They made their way closer to the massive structure in the center of the room. It was no small feat to remain focused on the task at hand. As the rounded the structure and the far side came into view, Tifa gasped.
“Dear Holy…” Reno said under his breath.
They were there. Cloud… Rude… and three others, whom Reno suspected were the other scientists. Each of them was entombed in their own mako caccoon. The mako around the three scientists was thick… solid. The mako around Cloud and Rude looked as though it had only just begun to form… delicate web-like strands, like the ones that had pinned Reno to the floor when Tifa had attacked him. Reno didn’t hesitate a moment longer. He moved toward Rude, intent on freeing him. Tifa did the same.
“Cloud!” Tifa yelled, as she tore at the crystal mesh, shattering strands with her bare hand. But it wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped… the strands grew back almost as quickly as she could break through them. Reno, on the other hand, was having better luck, using the flashlight to bash his way through to his partner, and yanking Rude’s arm free. As soon as he managed that, he grabbed on and pulled, hauling the other Turk free with sheer brute force. Rude tumbled to the floor at his feet.
“Here!” he said, tossing the flashlight to Tifa before lifting a very dazed and confused Rude to his feet and supporting him, “Hurry the hell up! Get him out and let’s go!”
“What about the scientists?!” Tifa replied, as she renewed her assault on the crystal, “We can’t just leave them!”
“Aw, come ON!” Reno muttered, “You’ve gotta be kidding…”
“We can’t leave them!” Tifa said firmly. Her eyes narrowing at the Turk.
“Fuck,” Reno said simply, “Keep working on him… I’ll be back!” And with that, he guided Rude back towards the door.
———-
“Aw, come ON!” Reno muttered, “You’ve gotta be kidding…”
It was just the response she’d expect from a Turk. Cover your own ass… don’t worry about anyone else.
“We can’t leave them!” Tifa said firmly. Her eyes narrowing at the Turk. When it came right down to it, Reno didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself, just as she’d always thought.
But then he surprised her yet again.
“Fuck… Keep working on him… I’ll be back!”
She had fully expected him to simply walk out on her. And she would have been glad to see the bastard go. She didn’t want his help. She didn’t need his help.
No… she had to admit, that wasn’t true. She did need his help. She didn’t want to leave those poor people trapped in there, but she had no way of freeing them. They were completely encased. It was taking all she had just to break Cloud free of his crystalline prison… and the haze that had clouded her mind from the moment she’d drawn too near the fountain was fast becoming more and more difficult to focus through. She couldn’t stay here much longer. Cloud fell loose from the materia, and Tifa pulled him to his feet. He was out of it completely, and though he tried to stand, his legs quickly gave out beneath him. Tifa gave up on the notion of him walking out of here on his own power, and instead did the only thing she could do… she grabbed him by the wrists and started dragging him toward the exit.
Between the dead weight of Cloud’s limp body, and her own growing disorientation, getting him out was easier said than done. Several times she stumbled. And then she fell altogether.
“Why are you fighting it, Tifa?” a voice asked. Tifa turned her eyes toward the source.
“P…Papa?”
Her hands slipped away from Cloud’s wrists, and she stood up, never taking her gaze off the figure that now inexplicably stood before her.
“Papa? Is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me, Tifa. Why don’t you stay? You could be so much happier here. We can go climbing on Mt. Nibel… just like we used to. Stay with me, Tifa…” the apparation urged.
“But… I, I can’t… I have to…” and there she paused. What was it that she had to do? It was something important… She looked down at the ground, but there was nothing there. She was sure there had been something there a moment ago. Something very important to her.
“Stay, Tifa… Stay here with us,” a new voice called. Tifa looked up again, and saw another presence.
“Mama?” she gasped.
“Tifa…”
She took a step toward her parents. And then another. And another…
“Tifa!”
A strong hand gripped her by the arm and pulled her back. She shook it off, but a moment later, someone grabbed her by both arms, and roughly dragged her backwards.
“Tifa, snap out of it!”
The apparations vanished right before her eyes, as recognition dawned. She turned around, and came face to face with Reno, who was staring at her with an expression of concern.
“Thanks,” she said grudgingly. Reno nodded in acknowledgement.
“Let’s get him out of here,” he said, grabbing Cloud under the arms and dragging him towards the door and out into the adjoining room. He motioned Tifa to close the door behind them, and she did so.
“The doc says that the door’s made of solid mithril… blocks some of the effects of the fountain,” he explained, as he dumped Cloud next to Rude. Rude seemed to have recovered a bit, and was now sitting up, looking quite a bit more alert than he had after Reno’d pulled him out of the fountain.
“We still have to get the others out,” Tifa insisted.
“Others?” Yuffie said, looking up, “You mean the other scientists are in there, too?”
“Forget it… every time we go in, we risk not coming back out. I say we cut our loses and run,” said Reno.
“You bastard,” Tifa hissed, “How can you even think of leaving them there? Those are living people! Or don’t you even care?”
“I DO FUCKING CARE!” Reno yelled back, finally reaching his limit, “You think don’t have any feelings just cuz I’m a Turk? You think I do what I do and it doesn’t come back to haunt me sometimes? I got news for ya! I do, and it does… I don’t like leaving them behind anymore than you do, but the fact is we don’t know if we even can get them out. Hell, we dont even know if they’re still alive!”
Tifa was momentarily taken aback. She didn’t have any response to that at all. For a moment, she considered the possibility that he was just trying to worm his way out of going back in for the scientists… but there had been honesty in his voice. It was a trait she’d come to recognize over the years, and she couldn’t deny that he was being absolutely serious. She also couldn’t deny the fact that he could very well be right… they didn’t know if those people in there were dead or alive. But Rude, quite unexpectedly, solved that dilemma for them.
———-
“… They’re alive,” Rude said, breaking the tense silence that had fallen. Reno looked over at him.
“You sure about that?”
“…”
“Shit,” Reno sighed. For a moment he didn’t say anything.
“Alright, so how do we go about gettin’ them out of there?” he finally asked, in a somewhat defeated tone.
“Very delicate, mako…” Dr. Umeshi said, glacing nervously toward the exit, obviously wishing that they would hurry up and decide to leave, “Easy to shatter if you apply enough force in the right spot… Easy to shatter if you strike at the core.”
“Yeah?” Reno said, curiosity peaked, “And just how do we find this ‘core’?”
An idea was forming in his head. All three of the Turks carried firearms. If that wasn’t enough “force” they were out of luck. It was worth a try, at any rate.
“Easy… Feed it,” Dr. Umeshi replied. Reno rolled his eyes. Wonderful… the doc was going nutty on them.
“Riiiight… I think I’ve got a candy bar in my pocket. Think that’ll work?” he muttered, his voice heavy with sarcasm. Yuffie suddenly smacked him across the back of the head.
“No, you idiot… Feed it. Feed it more mako… just like Rude did when he tried to cast that Cure spell earlier. I’ll bet that the energy from the materia went straight to the core of the fountain!”
Comments