Edge, Friday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Distress calls from Rookies, left, right, and center. That was what Reno came home to, after over a week without phone reception out in the wastes. And now it was the countdown, before one Rookie would get here, with Ifrit only knew what kind of trauma fresh in her head.

Pick up the phone. Dial numbers. He had well over an hour, between the time Ino's portal would arrive to pick her up, and the time it would actually make it into Edge, after all.

"The boss sends me on one mission in the middle of nowhere, Mako, an' the whole universe goes to Hell without me, zoto."

[NFB for distance, as usual. Open for anyone who needs a Reno call or who wants to give one, all calls will sit chronologically before a certain Ninja visitor, yo.]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"Rottin' in the wastes alone, smackin' around one-hits sucks," Reno clarified. "I'd sooner be travellin' to somewhere that the monsters actually give me a challenge, yo. They're dangerous to civilians around here, sure, an' they like to mob people. But boooooring."

[intraspective]

"Adrenaline junkie," she laughed. Maybe not as bright as normal, but it was a laugh. That was something. "I bet they're not one-hits for most people though."

[raspberryturk]

"Nah, they ain't," Reno allowed, smirking faintly. The laugh was good to hear, even if it wasn't the usual chirp. "Gonna have to take you out there an' show 'em to you anyhow, I guess. See how well you take on a Kalm Fang, zoto."

They were wolves. Kinda.

[intraspective]

Ino eyed him. "Lemme guess--floating fangs, or something?"

What? He had demon houses and stuff.

[raspberryturk]

"Dogs," Reno laughed. "You want literal, I'll introduce you to a Bomb sometime. Big fireball with a face that'll go all kamikaze on your ass if you don't kill it fast enough."

[intraspective]

...

"...how do you kill something that--blows up?" Ino was pretty sure kunai weren't going to cut it.

[raspberryturk]

"It decides it wants to blow up. It gets bigger as it's gettin' ready to, so you gotta kill that little fucker before it gets that far."

Kindergarten stuff, totally!

[intraspective]

No, not really.

"Right," she said, a bit dubiously. "And try not to get blown up in the mean time."

[raspberryturk]

"Or lit on fire," Reno agreed, pleasantly. "Mostly try not to get lit on fire. That part tends to suck."

As being lit on fire is wont to do, yes.

[intraspective]

"Brilliant," she decided. "I want to see one."

[raspberryturk]

"That can be arranged," Reno decided, grinning. Thinking. Where had he seen bombs, lately? "Probably some somewhere in the ruins, actually. Works nice like that. We don't gotta wander the friggin' desert for months to find 'em, that way."

[intraspective]

"You could spend months in those ruins," she noted.

Monster killing (or commentary as other people did the killing) was totally excellent therapy.

Or something. Or maybe Ino was just an adrenaline junkie too.

"I think, too," she added, "that people would be upset if I disappeared for months."

Ino: hadn't really let anyone know she was back and then leaving again.

[raspberryturk]

"Probably," Reno agreed, though if he was agreeing to the first statement or the second or the both was anyone's best guess. "Helps that I know my way around Midgar like the back of my hand, then."

Even after it had fallen, Midgar was still Midgar. Just... A bit more squashy in some places.

[intraspective]

"Lucky me then," she said. "I'll have a guide."

It was hard to tell how much she actually thought that was lucky. Ino liked the idea of wandering alone almost as much as she liked the idea of tagging along with him.

[raspberryturk]

That earned a bit of a chuckle.

"Trust me, in that mess, you'll need one. At least a few times. Never know when you'll stumble across another mako leak, zoto."

Which, again, would suck.

[intraspective]

"Do they look like anything in specific?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at him.

[raspberryturk]

Reno shook his head.

"If you're lucky, you might see some kinda green mist risin' outta the ground." He motioned again, this time toward one of the flattened reactors. "Stay away from them things. That's where the mako was refined, zoto."

[intraspective]

"And going there leads to coma-death," Ino replied, looking where he'd pointed. "I remember."

[raspberryturk]

"You'd have the prettiest blue eyes of any corpse in Midgar," Reno snorted, and then reached into his jacket and pulled out his baton. They were getting closer to Midgar, now. There were monsters, there. Better have it out and resting on his shoulder, ready for action, than hang around waiting unarmed for something hungry to find them.

[intraspective]

Ino didn't bother asking anything like 'do you see something?' or 'is this dangerous' when he pulled out his baton, because that would be stupid and she was wee and inexperienced compared to him but she wasn't stupid.

"I wouldn't," Ino denied, "my eyes are just a very normal blue, sadly. No glowy stuff for me."

Because that was way prettier, you see.

[raspberryturk]

"Good. Keep it that way."

He gave his baton a tap against his shoulder, and then nudged some wreckage to the side with one foot. There were signs up, put there by the WRO stating that this area was off-limits.

Limits were for civilians, anyhow. Reno pushed on past and into the shadow of the old city.

[intraspective]

Ino bit back a smart-ass comment and followed him.

Creepy.

"So," she said quietly, stepping lightly enough that her feet weren't leaving any sound as she took in as much of the ruined city as she could. "Let's guess--signs are to be ignored if you're stupid and/or stupidly brave and/or work for the... WRO?"

[raspberryturk]

"The signs are to keep out civilians who don't know where the leaks an' monster dens are," Reno replied, glancing upward at the ragged mass of metal overhead. "Plus there are pieces of plate still left standin' that could come down at any moment. There ain't no way to get out from under one of them if it's fallin' on you."

Trust him. He'd seen it before.

"The WRO is the World Regenesis Organization. They give guns to kids who ain't never seen battle an' then pretend that they can keep the people safe. Reeve was doin' more good in that regard when he stuck to his toy cats, zoto."

Reno was being maybe a little harsh. The WRO was also the group that was responsible for most of the organized building around Edge.

[intraspective]

"Sometimes kids are all that they've got to use," Ino said, frowning slightly as she added that to her mental list of Things From Reno's World.

"Reeve? Toy cats?" Mmm, questions. "Are the signs the only thing that keep people out?"

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah, just the signs. People tryin' to scavenge anything of any worth either risk comin' back sick, or way too often they don't come back at all."

Monsters. Et cetera.

"The toy cat was... Stupid."

That was the best way Reno could really describe Cait Sith, yes.