raspberryturk | Edge, Saturday Afternoon

Entry tags:

Edge, Saturday Afternoon

It was a good thing that Bat Eyes were so damn easy to take down, Reno mused, as he wiped some bloody monster sludge off of his baton and onto his pant leg. Things had been busy in Edge over the past few days. A few monsters had wandered into the outskirts of the town out of the ruins of what used to be the Midgar slums, and they were having their hungry ways with the locals.

Which suited Reno just fine. He got the pleasure of being hired on by the WRO in order to take care of the threat while they continued working on setting up their military, and on top of the pay that they were giving him to deal with the job, he got to keep whatever the monsters dropped when he took them down, too. Mostly ethers and bubblegum money, but he could live with that.

He finished rummaging through what was left of the corpse of the last one as it faded away to join the lifestream, or whatever it was that dead monsters did, and then he took a seat on the nearest bench, sprawling out, looking up at the bluish-gray haze of sky above him, pulling out his phone, and turning it on.

Sometimes, rebuilding wasn't really so bad after all.

[For anybody who wants to phone or be phoned! NFB for distance, of course! Zack-related spoilers throughout the threads. Read at your own risk, yo.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"If you want a cheerful diversion," Ino said dryly, as she answered her phone, "then I'm fresh out. Also, phones on vibrate are damn freaky when you're balancing on a staff in mid-air."

Just a bit.

Reno couldn't help but grin a little, at that.

"And here I was, missin' the cheery sound of my favorite ninja's voice," Reno replied, sounding more or less bemused. "I didn't know you were a vibrate kinda girl, Ino."

Yes, Reno thought he was clever, sometimes.

"I bet, given time, I could find a portal to your world and come stab you in the face," she said, her voice wry despite the threat. "I mean, fancy phone or not, they lack stabbing capabilities."

"They do," Reno agreed, "an' that's a very sad thing. The day someone invents a stabby-phone, that's the day I'll be a happy man, yo."

Imagine the possibilities!

Reno would phone Cloud Strife every day.

"I'm willin' to place bets that you've been havin' a shitty day."

"I want a stabby phone now," she informed him. "It would be fun."

Ino would abuse it so much.

"Meh. Better day than yesterday, but not really up to dealing with, you know, meaningful interaction."

"Hey, talkin' with me ain't never meaningful," Reno protested. "I'll have you know that I'm the biggest waste of time you'll ever talk to on a phone for twenty minutes, yo!"

He was oddly proud of this fact, yes.

She snorted, it was almost a laugh. "You'll note I haven't hung up on you," Ino pointed out. "So you're doing okay. And I'm the one that picked up the phone, so obviously I don't mind your pointlessness."

"Kickass!" Reno grinned for a moment, and then stubbed out the last of the cigarette that he'd been working on, only to go rummaging for another one. "So, you been up to anything interestin', Ino?"

"Beyond giving into the urge to fight someone I could kill, and worse want to kill right now?" she asked, tucking her pen away, and making sure her sketchbooks weren't unbalanced. "Um. I've probably spent more than a full twenty-four hours this week in the air? I'm real good at balancing while flying and drawing at the same time now."

Okay, chakra helped when the wind got bad.

Oooh. Okay, killing people on the island was bad. Reno had spent nearly two years taking pains not to do so, himself. He could relate.

"Flying, huh? That sounds pretty kickass. You ever need to actually kill somethin', Ino, you let me know, okay? I spent the whole mornin' gettin' Ahriman guts all over me. Good exercise, yoto."

"It's for your stupid reserve thing," Ino informed him. "The flying."

Yes Ino, because stupid-reserve-thing totally meant you had to give so much time and attention to it. Ino liked denial, it was shiny.

"What I want," she continued on, "is a real fight, but the one I want the fight with isn't badass enough to keep me from killing her, 'cause when I'm mad, I'm not going to pull punches, and well." Well. He knew. "What's an Ahriman? Are they hard to kill?"

Killing people was still probably not a good thing.

"The Ahriman ain't so tough, no. They're kinda like these giant eyeballs with green bat wings an' tails? But there are different breeds of 'em, so even if the ones in Midga-" He caught himself there, and sighed. "In Edge ain't so tough, there are bigger challenges in other places anyhow."

On Fandom? Probably. Ino's opinion was a bit warped the rest of the time, though she wasn't a fan of the idea of killing in a temper.

Which, hence, flying and avoiding the cabins.

"Giant eyeballs," she repeated. "With wings. I don't suppose you can mail one to me?" Because monster killing might be fun. "Midgar or Edge? They're the same place, yeah?"

"Not quite," Reno replied, glancing over his shoulder at the towering monolith that used to be the ShinRa building. "Edge is the city that we're buildin' up in the shadow of what's left of Midgar, zoto. Midgar's kinda..."

A light breeze blew by, and a steel girder fell to the ground somewhere in the distance.

"... Kinda a bit of a fixer-upper, yo."

"Same place, but not," she said, shifting as the wind picked up. "Okay. What's got you messed up between them then?"

"I grew up in Midgar," Reno replied, sighing. "I'm lookin' at it right now, actually."

The same place, but not.

Ino sighed. "No getting depressed," she ordered him. "Otherwise I'll have to show up and give you a hug."

"An' I'm sure that'll do wonders to help you keep that sour mood of yours," Reno mused. At least he was grinning again. "Tell you what? I'll see what I can do about catchin' the next Bat Eye that flaps its way outta Midgar and into Edge, and then I'll tie up the little motherfucker and send it your way if I can find someone nuts enough to let me ship it, yo. It ain't exactly the toughest monster out there, but shit, is it ever juicy when you smack it in the face, yo."

Oh yes. Reno was completely sane.

Sane was overrated!

"How sweet," she cooed, "getting monsters in the mail. I knew there was a reason you were my friend."

Really now, monsters in the mail.

"'Sides, maybe getting out of town would help. I haven't had a mission for awhile and it's different thinking on a mission than here." Ino shrugged. "Not much I can do 'bout that, you know? I wish we had random monsters like that in my world."

"Oh, yeah, because them killin' and eatin' people on a regular basis is a real party," Reno snorted, but his tone was pretty easygoing regardless. "Tell you what, Ino. You find a way to Gaia, and I'll get some spare time. Maybe take you on a trip through the badlands. The monsters there got bigger'n meaner since Meteorfall, yo. Sometimes they're even a challenge."

"Is for the monster hunters, and you can't tell me you don't enjoy it. If I get killed 'cause I listened to you, you get to talk to my dad, 'kay?" She was actually laughing. "I've seen you at Fight Club, and I know you're more badass than me."

A beat.

"Not, mind, that I'm not game. 'Cause I totally am."

"I got no doubt that you are, Ino," Reno chuckled. "Don't worry. I'll keep the big bads from eatin' you, an' I'll have a few spare potions on hand just to be sure."

Potions were the one resource that he could find relatively easily around here. Every monster and its uncle dropped one of those when it died, it seemed.

"I'm not a baby," she said, making a face at him even as she laughed. Well, at her phone. "I just know that your easy and mine might not be the same. I'm totally badass too."

"You totally are," Reno agreed, smirking. "You know who else is?"

"Maaaybe," she said, "depends on how badass we're talking here."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject