Chapter 28: Struggle and Flight

 

            Kent stood alone in the town's materia shop, and wondered vaguely if Cloud or Vincent would ever come along. The bell on the front door tinkled merrily, and as if by cue, the vendor leapt from behind the counter to greet the men only to retreat back behind it again when the two looked at him. Kent turned about to face them. Both were in blue suites, and both were clearly carrying weapons. The door chimed again as a third man entered the store. The shopkeeper stayed where he was. "Are you 'Kent Elder'?" The third said. He was a tall man with bright red hair tied back in a ponytail, and the other two seemed to be his partners. One was female, blonde, and held a small handgun in her hand, which was aimed at Kent. The other was a giant of a man, bald with a small goatee, wore obscuring sunglasses, and held no weapons at all. "Yo," said the red haired one again, "Are you going, to answer my question?" Kent looked at him, casually slipped his hand onto his knife's handle, and nodded. The man's eyes widened, and he smirked. "Oh?" he said, "This is good luck, yo." His eyes moved onto Kent's knife. "I wouldn't try that if I were you. We have you out-manned, and out-skilled. It would only be foolish to try a thing like that in here, yo." Kent brought his knife out, and tightened his grip.

"Don't do that in here." Said a voice. All five inhabitants of the store looked over at the entrance. There stood Vincent and Cloud. "Yo." Said Reno, cheerfully. "As usual, Cloud's right about this fight, yo," Kent looked at Cloud and opened his mouth to speak, but Reno hadn't finished. "But, things have gone from spill to overflow." His tone was much more serious, and his smile slipped away. "We need to ask this boy some questions."

"About what?" Vincent asked. All three Turks looked at him. It seemed that they expected him to make a move, but when he did not, they calmed down. "High strung, aren't we?" Kent said sarcastically. Now it was his turn to smirk. The situation had changed hands.

 

 

"Uhn."

"Hmm? Oh, she's awake. Nurse, you can stop the pump, I think she'll do fine on her own now. Let's just remove the mask."

"Yes, sir." Yuffie felt something being taken off her face, and opened her eyes. A doctor in a white coat looked down at her. "You certainly have a lot of resilience, young lady, I thought for sure you weren't going to make it." She sat up, and winced. The doctor rushed forward to give her a hand. "Whoa, there," He said, "You're in no condition to move around just yet, it's a miracle your lungs are still in working order after what you went through. I'm sure your friends are quite worried about you."

"Friends?" Yuffie said, blearily, slurring her words. "Y'mean Cloud 'n Vince?"

"Well, I-" And explosion sounded from somewhere outside the clinic. "What the devil is going on out there!?" The doctor yelled, but Yuffie had already stumbled to the door and flung it wide open.

            The yelling and screaming of people below was obscured by the booming roar of Alexander's fists pummeling the ground. The towering giant half castle- half man summon scanned the land below it for its target. Reno appeared on its back and began to   assist it in the search, but to no avail. Vincent and the other two had disappeared. He swore, and looked back at the blonde girl behind him. "Elena!" She didn't meet his eyes, "You jumped the gun again! Now they've disappeared thanks to all this dust we've kicked up."

"Sorry." Elena mumbled. The other man suddenly landed next to her. "Yo, Rude." Reno said. Rude only nodded, and then spoke above the constant noise. "It's no good!" He yelled in a deep voice, "With all this dust about, they could've already left, even if it's not their style." Reno swore again, and punched Alexander's back. The behemoth didn't feel it. Waving his hand to relieve the ache, Reno swore a third time, and looked back at Elena. "You see what you've done? Now we can't get the kid."

"Go easy on her, she's just over-zealous, Reno."

"You're too soft on her, Rude, she needs to learn about controlling herself."

"Just drop it. We can find the kid again."  Reno walked over to Rude and looked up at him. There was about a foot in height difference, but it didn't seem to matter. Neither man was intimidated by the other. "If we find him LATER, it may already be too late." Reno spat. Rude, shrugged.

"There's nothing we can do about that now. What we CAN do is to pick up their trail as soon as we can. We need to focus on that right now. Not whether we're too late or not." Reno glared at him for a second, and then turned to Elena, "Why haven't you gotten rid of this summon, yet?" He asked forcefully. She nodded, and knelt down on the back of Alexander. The Great castle warrior paused in his rampage and slowly faded away.

 

            Cloud watched the scene from a rooftop a few houses away. There was no need to hide at the moment; the dust was hiding him well enough. Clutched tightly in his hand was a small yellow sphere of "Sense" materia. He heard exactly what the Turks had said, but unfortunately that didn't get him any closer to understanding what this was all about. He stopped using the materia when he felt Alexander disappear, jumped off the roof, and ran to where Vincent and Kent were sitting, just near the hospital. "What's going on?" Kent asked. Cloud shook his head, "Nothing was said that we didn't already know, but we're going to have to move fast if we want to avoid fighting with them again." Vincent nodded. "I'll get Yuffie." He said simply, but when he stood up, he clutched at his chest. Cloud put a hand on his shoulder. "It's ok," He said, "I'll get her. You stay here with Kent." Kent looked puzzled, but restrained his questions in light of the situation.

 

"Now see here, young man," The doctor said, "This woman is in no shape to be going anywhere for quite some time. Her lungs are barely holding up the way it is, if you move her around-" Cloud hoisted Yuffie onto his back and ignored the doctor's warning. "She'll be ok, she's been through worse."

"Been through-"

"Do we owe you anything? I can pay you if you need to be for your help."

"Well, I… no, no thank you. You just take care of her, but I still think you're doing the wrong thing."

"With all due respect, sir, you don't know what's going on right now, but thank you very much for your help." The doctor shook his head, and with that, Cloud ran out the door, Yuffie supported on his back.

 

"How are we going to get out of here?" Kent said as the four of them, Yuffie on Cloud's back, ran towards the nearest edge of town.

"I don't know," Cloud said truthfully, he hadn't had time to think about this yet, "But we'll think of something." Kent rolled his eyes.

"I'll never get used to you guy's ways of doing things." He said, but didn't complain further. Cloud looked at Vincent, who was running on his other side. "You okay?" He asked. Vincent smiled, "You're the one who's got a body on their back, why are you asking me?" Cloud didn't press the matter, but that didn't stop him from worrying about it. However, the biggest concern right now was getting out of town without running into the Turks. His mind wandered a bit after a few minutes of running, and he thought again of where Tifa was, and why Yuffie had washed up on a beach. "I plan to use these clones to destroy the earth when I've perfected the DNA, and I'm exceedingly close." He sighed as Menos' words washed over him. Time was running out.