Don't Step On The Flowers

Reno stared at the little sphere in his hand, squinting hard at it. It had almost killed him to get this damn thing, this stupid fucking piece of doomsday that AVALANCHE - the real AVALANCHE - had been so hell-bent on getting their mitts on. And he hadn't told Tseng yet. Hadn't really told anybody but the Rookie.

He had a little piece of the end of the world, the beginning of the end of the Turks, right there in his hand. Shit, he was still bleeding on the damn thing. Or maybe that blood belonged to the Ravens he'd taken down to get it.

AVALANCHE would notice it was missing before long. They'd send someone to investigate and they'd find blood and footprints and the telltale smoke and ozone smell of thundaga in the air. And he'd be long gone by the time that happened. He looked down at the corpse of the Raven on the ground. He spat on it as the body began to fade.

And then he picked up his phone and placed two calls. One to Portalocity, telling them to send a portal to a location that was a good ten minutes away on foot, if he ran like hell. And, as he was running like hell, he placed a second call.

Now the mission was out of his hands and over to Iris.

[OOC: For one!]

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.]

Okay, so there had been a bit of drinking, last night. A little. More than a little. A fair bit. A lot.

Reno and Rikku were totally smashed. Which had led to wacky goings on and terrible fashion choices in a completely handwavey manner involving a horrid Hawaiian shirt, even worse shorts, and one of those hideous fish-ties.

There just so happened to be a chapel on the boat. And, in their particular states of inebriated stupidity and horrible misdress, there had been a revelation...

Weddings totally didn't count if you used fake names, right?

And heck, even if they did, they were drunk enough that it seemed like a very good, very hilarious idea, at the time.

[Open chapel is TOTALLY OPEN. Because... Yes. It must be.]

Okay. It had been... a week. To say the least. It was only Tuesday and Reno already wanted it to be over, already.

But that wasn't going to stop him from making an ass of himself in public. After all, so far as public outings went, some things were practically sacred.

"Think they'll let me take home a penguin if I ask real nice?"

[For the partner in crime! NFB for being all mainlandy and stuff, woo!]

The sun was just starting to sink through the sky, lengthening the shadows across the ground.

Through those shadows, other shadows emerged, hauling the remnants of their unsuspecting prey toward its final resting place.

Smoochy was dead.

And now he was going home.

[Intended for interaction with one, and then reactions from the residents of this particular shiny address afterward, which has been modded with permission by a certain Chem teacher!]

There had been kids. Showing up out of the blue, being bloody adorable at them with introductions and some more over breakfast. There'd been worry about two of them taking off to feed ducks, and more worry that morning about what would happen to one of them when he went back home.

But right now? Right now was all about not worrying about any of that. Right now, Reno, Rikku, Ruba, and Rede had found their way to the beach. With umbrellas of varying sizes for both the wee, and not-so-wee.

For family time.

"Bet I can make a bigger splash in that puddle than you can," Reno mused.

[For le aforementioned bits of family!]

It had been not only that kind of day, but that kind of week. Month. Something. Reno was going to have to make his supply-run into town a quick one, today, as he was fairly certain he was going to be in need of booze after the inevitable conversation with Rikku that they had arranged earlier.

The sober conversation. Where she met him in his room and they figured out what the hell kind of crack they were both on, and then she would leave and he'd binge on whatever the hell the flavor of the day was after his liquor run. He had a little time before that.

He was stalling.

[NFB! For one person in particular.]