~Author's Note:
Heh, inspiration! I haven't written in this fer a long time and it prolly shows, but thanks fer da reviews all ya peeps. ^_^o And yes, I know da battles in da first part were a bit short, but I was tired and didn't wanna deal with it, since what I really wanted ta deal with was da whole thing afterwards. yeah, laziness. ^_^o
A raging headache was the signal for consciousness for Barret.
Unable to even move for several seconds, the man simply lay and tried to silence the insistent pain that thrummed behind his eyes. It wasn't a hangover, so he hadn't gotten drunk...this was an entirely different kind of pain, one he had never experienced.
The pain was able to distract Barret for some time about what happened and where he was. As soon as it began to ease, he tried to move and felt his chest slowly moving off of metal.
Opening his eyes he found a swirling image of metallic grey and blue in front of him. Closing them quickly again, he allowed the freshly renewed pain to fade again before opening them, after which the metal he was staring at decided to calm down and stop moving.
He used his good arm to push himself further upward until he finally leaned back against the crates on the ship, using them to support himself. He felt unbearably weak and it was highly disturbing.
He stared at the gun that had been grafted into his arm, noting the faint white shine of the moonlight glinting off it's exterior. He took care of his arm...after all, it was a part of him.
He found himself sighing heavily as he thought as to why he had the gun grafted to his body. Hatred, burning anger, and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance for the death of his one, true friend...
It was that hatred, that sense of loyalty and of obligation, that took him to take on Marlene.
Marlene...!
He stared at the sky consciously for the first time he had woken up.
The moon was rising and it looked peaceful against the dark fabric of the sky. He flicked his eyes about, taking in the stars, the trees, the ship, the others.
Asleep...
He pushed himself to his feet and wobbled unsteadily for a few moments. His years training in Avalanche had taught him to be quick and responsive to new situations where there might be danger. This was a dangerous situation in his opinion...
Cloud and Tifa, laying near him, seemed to be out cold. How long had he himself been asleep? What had happened?
...Where they the only ones left...?
"#$^$!" He felt anger coursing through his body again. Not again! He couldn't have lost his friends, his companions, he couldn't have lost anymore he cared about through neglect! How could he have done this? How could he have been so foolish, so lazy, so idle!
Just him, Cloud, and Tifa...
He twitched a muscle in his arm and felt the click as the barrels of the gun loaded with fresh ammunition. This brought the arm back to his attention and he felt inexorable sadness rising in his chest to replace the burning anger. Like a wave of calm, it stopped the desire for vengeance from surfacing again.
Leaning back, he sat on one of the free crates and stared upwards, reflecting. Everytime he had lost someone or something important to him, he had reacted with anger, with violence, with the inexorable desire to take vengeance for what had been enacted upon him.
Everytime...he would be frustrated...and lose something else he cared about...
A circle...
Everything was moving in a circle.
"Marlene..." He stared upwards, watching the moon move across the sky.
Sighing deeply again, he held the cold metal in his flesh hand. Although he was able to control the functions of the gun with his muscles, he could not feel through it.
He found his thoughts meandering towards Vincent Valentine, one of the few in the group that he identified with, if not mentally, physically. He had seen the gold apparatus that had apparently taken the place of Vincent's arm and found himself speculating about it often. Had Vincent also lost someone close to him? Had he also had his arm sacrificed in an effort to regain vengeance...?
He stared at Cloud and Tifa and sighed again. How much about his team-mates did he truly know...? They each had had their own personal lives and memories, some of which he would never know and none of which he would ever be a part of, before they had met him. Before he had come into their lives, they had had a life. He only knew fractions...
He never assumed to know everything about them...he found that to be an invasion of the privacy that only one's personal life could give.
Sometimes he would be frustrated because he could never understand why they acted the way they did.
When he had seen Vincent laying asleep in his coffin, light glinting of the metallic appendage, he felt rage surge through him because he felt a kindred spirit that had died. He had a gun grafted to get revenge...Dyne had a gun grafted to get revenge...he could only assume that Vincent had one grafted for revenge as well...but instead was wasting his time away in a box...
He regretted his rashness now. His feelings and thoughts had changed greatly since he first began his quest to destroy Shinra.
He got up off the crate and headed for the farthest railing, which was slowly rising into the air fraction by miniscule fraction. Leaning his hands on it, he stared outwards.
A jungle. A #%^# jungle. He was terrible at geography, which was why he let Cid do all the flying. The only place he could truly remember was the area around the Gold Saucer and Midgar itself...and the two were massive monuments...
The jungle meant nothing to him, but he felt that it should. He watched what seemed like a moth flutter by, it's wings glowing with iridescent light. The moon reflecting off the feathered wings. He remembered reading somewhere that butterflies wings were covered with tiny scales. If those scales got in your eyes...they would blind you. Personally, Barret found more kinship with moths. Night creatures that wandered around without quite the notoriety or the beauty their rival insects garnered. He had always imagined that butterflies and moths had some kind of rivalry going on, but he supposed that was his imagination...
He was always seen as a realist, but he wasn't always one. He was made one because he had been forced to stare at reality as it ravaged his life and he had been forced to leave his dreams aside...
His dreams hadn't been destroyed, just laid to one side and sometimes he thought laid to rest. Staring at the moth that fluttered so unevenly in the warm night air reminded him of his thoughts which came back with vivid intensity. Butterflies and moths...night and day...night was so much safer...
He often waxed metaphorical when he was alone. However, his team-mates hardly expected that from him. So he rarely gave it to them. They had a vision of him firmly implanted in their heads and he wasn't about to uproot it so violently in such times of stress by remarking on how butterflies could blind people.
He smirked to himself and stood straight, trying to get his body to respond properly. It was aching from motionlessness, making him again wonder how long he had been asleep.
The feeling of guilt rose in his chest again. He had been sleeping...had his friends been killed again...killed because of him...
He began walking, his heavy boots making thick noises against the metal of the ship. Despite everyone's assertion of their independence, he felt that he was somewhat of an authority figure among them and was responsible for everyone's safety. They may not have viewed HIM as terribly essential in their battles and such, but Barret often took it upon himself to take care of the ones left behind or to take responsibility for the little things that would go wrong.
This was his responsibility...he had started this entire ordeal, one way or another, and he should take responsibility. That was one lesson that his life had taught him. He couldn't hide from what he had done and what he had to do. He simply had to take it, like he had refused to once and caused the death of so many people...
He not only was angry at himself for letting this happen, he was also upset that he had lost some of the only people he had let himself get close to...after what kept happening...he always kept losing the ones he loved and yet he never learned...he always kept getting attached...
How many of his friends had their own regrets, their own things they wished they could take away forever? How many had sins like his own that needed so badly to be atoned before they could be put to rest...?
He knew the pilot had his own sad thoughts which he kept hidden...Cid didn't have any illusions, which let the two get along...he would regret missing him...he'd regret never really truly knowing Vincent, which he felt a bond with somehow...never truly speaking to Red XIII to listen about the birth of AVALANCHE...
Cait Sith and Yuffie...even though the two were aggravating, they must have had their own story to tell...
His footsteps sounded hollow on the floor. He peered around cautiously, not sure of what he would find...dark eyes looking through the darkness...
There was a flickering orange light which caught his attention. Light from...a fire, he was sure of it...
He would have to put it out before it spread. Walking forward purposefully, he readied himself for the blast of heat that would come from rounding the corner where the flickers were coming from. He held his good arm in front of his face and, in case of attack, he readied his other arm in front of him.
There was no blast of heat, which surprised him, and he lowed his arm and looked around.
A little flickering flame dancing on the top of the metal, tapping back and forth gently. He smiled to himself as he found the body of Red XIII. The fire lion...that was what had caused the light.
Moving closer, his heart quickened with excitement...Red XIII was lying on something...
Kneeling next to the cloak-wrapped bundle, he stared at it with utter relief. So they weren't dead...! He hadn't failed again after all! All of them were here...Cid and Cait Sith and Vincent and...
Yuffie...
He looked around, but saw no sign of the young ninja. Worried slightly, he made a mental note of where the rest of the party was sleeping and headed towards where he had left Cloud and Tifa.
Still no sign of the ninja anywhere on the ship. This worried him badly. Shaking the remaining two, he found that they refused to wake, despite everything he tried. Shrugging, he walked back to where Vincent and the others had been resting.
The guilt and worry that had been building in his heart had been erased by his discovery and he felt free. The constricting feeling around his lungs and his heart was gone at the realization that, for once, he had not failed.
He sat down next to Vincent, who slept peacefully, and stared at the sky. His only concern now was where Yuffie had gone...
And whether Marlene was safe or not...
He glanced at those beside him and sighed. One of his responsbilities had been taken care of...but he was never truly free...
He'd wait until everyone woke up again...then he would advise they head to Midgar...to see what happened to everyone they had left...and all the things he had yet to do...
He waited and stared at the flickering flame on Red XIII's tail, letting it dance back and forth in his eyes until they became everything he saw, and then he unintentionally slipped back into dreams.
Heh, inspiration! I haven't written in this fer a long time and it prolly shows, but thanks fer da reviews all ya peeps. ^_^o And yes, I know da battles in da first part were a bit short, but I was tired and didn't wanna deal with it, since what I really wanted ta deal with was da whole thing afterwards. yeah, laziness. ^_^o
A raging headache was the signal for consciousness for Barret.
Unable to even move for several seconds, the man simply lay and tried to silence the insistent pain that thrummed behind his eyes. It wasn't a hangover, so he hadn't gotten drunk...this was an entirely different kind of pain, one he had never experienced.
The pain was able to distract Barret for some time about what happened and where he was. As soon as it began to ease, he tried to move and felt his chest slowly moving off of metal.
Opening his eyes he found a swirling image of metallic grey and blue in front of him. Closing them quickly again, he allowed the freshly renewed pain to fade again before opening them, after which the metal he was staring at decided to calm down and stop moving.
He used his good arm to push himself further upward until he finally leaned back against the crates on the ship, using them to support himself. He felt unbearably weak and it was highly disturbing.
He stared at the gun that had been grafted into his arm, noting the faint white shine of the moonlight glinting off it's exterior. He took care of his arm...after all, it was a part of him.
He found himself sighing heavily as he thought as to why he had the gun grafted to his body. Hatred, burning anger, and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance for the death of his one, true friend...
It was that hatred, that sense of loyalty and of obligation, that took him to take on Marlene.
Marlene...!
He stared at the sky consciously for the first time he had woken up.
The moon was rising and it looked peaceful against the dark fabric of the sky. He flicked his eyes about, taking in the stars, the trees, the ship, the others.
Asleep...
He pushed himself to his feet and wobbled unsteadily for a few moments. His years training in Avalanche had taught him to be quick and responsive to new situations where there might be danger. This was a dangerous situation in his opinion...
Cloud and Tifa, laying near him, seemed to be out cold. How long had he himself been asleep? What had happened?
...Where they the only ones left...?
"#$^$!" He felt anger coursing through his body again. Not again! He couldn't have lost his friends, his companions, he couldn't have lost anymore he cared about through neglect! How could he have done this? How could he have been so foolish, so lazy, so idle!
Just him, Cloud, and Tifa...
He twitched a muscle in his arm and felt the click as the barrels of the gun loaded with fresh ammunition. This brought the arm back to his attention and he felt inexorable sadness rising in his chest to replace the burning anger. Like a wave of calm, it stopped the desire for vengeance from surfacing again.
Leaning back, he sat on one of the free crates and stared upwards, reflecting. Everytime he had lost someone or something important to him, he had reacted with anger, with violence, with the inexorable desire to take vengeance for what had been enacted upon him.
Everytime...he would be frustrated...and lose something else he cared about...
A circle...
Everything was moving in a circle.
"Marlene..." He stared upwards, watching the moon move across the sky.
Sighing deeply again, he held the cold metal in his flesh hand. Although he was able to control the functions of the gun with his muscles, he could not feel through it.
He found his thoughts meandering towards Vincent Valentine, one of the few in the group that he identified with, if not mentally, physically. He had seen the gold apparatus that had apparently taken the place of Vincent's arm and found himself speculating about it often. Had Vincent also lost someone close to him? Had he also had his arm sacrificed in an effort to regain vengeance...?
He stared at Cloud and Tifa and sighed again. How much about his team-mates did he truly know...? They each had had their own personal lives and memories, some of which he would never know and none of which he would ever be a part of, before they had met him. Before he had come into their lives, they had had a life. He only knew fractions...
He never assumed to know everything about them...he found that to be an invasion of the privacy that only one's personal life could give.
Sometimes he would be frustrated because he could never understand why they acted the way they did.
When he had seen Vincent laying asleep in his coffin, light glinting of the metallic appendage, he felt rage surge through him because he felt a kindred spirit that had died. He had a gun grafted to get revenge...Dyne had a gun grafted to get revenge...he could only assume that Vincent had one grafted for revenge as well...but instead was wasting his time away in a box...
He regretted his rashness now. His feelings and thoughts had changed greatly since he first began his quest to destroy Shinra.
He got up off the crate and headed for the farthest railing, which was slowly rising into the air fraction by miniscule fraction. Leaning his hands on it, he stared outwards.
A jungle. A #%^# jungle. He was terrible at geography, which was why he let Cid do all the flying. The only place he could truly remember was the area around the Gold Saucer and Midgar itself...and the two were massive monuments...
The jungle meant nothing to him, but he felt that it should. He watched what seemed like a moth flutter by, it's wings glowing with iridescent light. The moon reflecting off the feathered wings. He remembered reading somewhere that butterflies wings were covered with tiny scales. If those scales got in your eyes...they would blind you. Personally, Barret found more kinship with moths. Night creatures that wandered around without quite the notoriety or the beauty their rival insects garnered. He had always imagined that butterflies and moths had some kind of rivalry going on, but he supposed that was his imagination...
He was always seen as a realist, but he wasn't always one. He was made one because he had been forced to stare at reality as it ravaged his life and he had been forced to leave his dreams aside...
His dreams hadn't been destroyed, just laid to one side and sometimes he thought laid to rest. Staring at the moth that fluttered so unevenly in the warm night air reminded him of his thoughts which came back with vivid intensity. Butterflies and moths...night and day...night was so much safer...
He often waxed metaphorical when he was alone. However, his team-mates hardly expected that from him. So he rarely gave it to them. They had a vision of him firmly implanted in their heads and he wasn't about to uproot it so violently in such times of stress by remarking on how butterflies could blind people.
He smirked to himself and stood straight, trying to get his body to respond properly. It was aching from motionlessness, making him again wonder how long he had been asleep.
The feeling of guilt rose in his chest again. He had been sleeping...had his friends been killed again...killed because of him...
He began walking, his heavy boots making thick noises against the metal of the ship. Despite everyone's assertion of their independence, he felt that he was somewhat of an authority figure among them and was responsible for everyone's safety. They may not have viewed HIM as terribly essential in their battles and such, but Barret often took it upon himself to take care of the ones left behind or to take responsibility for the little things that would go wrong.
This was his responsibility...he had started this entire ordeal, one way or another, and he should take responsibility. That was one lesson that his life had taught him. He couldn't hide from what he had done and what he had to do. He simply had to take it, like he had refused to once and caused the death of so many people...
He not only was angry at himself for letting this happen, he was also upset that he had lost some of the only people he had let himself get close to...after what kept happening...he always kept losing the ones he loved and yet he never learned...he always kept getting attached...
How many of his friends had their own regrets, their own things they wished they could take away forever? How many had sins like his own that needed so badly to be atoned before they could be put to rest...?
He knew the pilot had his own sad thoughts which he kept hidden...Cid didn't have any illusions, which let the two get along...he would regret missing him...he'd regret never really truly knowing Vincent, which he felt a bond with somehow...never truly speaking to Red XIII to listen about the birth of AVALANCHE...
Cait Sith and Yuffie...even though the two were aggravating, they must have had their own story to tell...
His footsteps sounded hollow on the floor. He peered around cautiously, not sure of what he would find...dark eyes looking through the darkness...
There was a flickering orange light which caught his attention. Light from...a fire, he was sure of it...
He would have to put it out before it spread. Walking forward purposefully, he readied himself for the blast of heat that would come from rounding the corner where the flickers were coming from. He held his good arm in front of his face and, in case of attack, he readied his other arm in front of him.
There was no blast of heat, which surprised him, and he lowed his arm and looked around.
A little flickering flame dancing on the top of the metal, tapping back and forth gently. He smiled to himself as he found the body of Red XIII. The fire lion...that was what had caused the light.
Moving closer, his heart quickened with excitement...Red XIII was lying on something...
Kneeling next to the cloak-wrapped bundle, he stared at it with utter relief. So they weren't dead...! He hadn't failed again after all! All of them were here...Cid and Cait Sith and Vincent and...
Yuffie...
He looked around, but saw no sign of the young ninja. Worried slightly, he made a mental note of where the rest of the party was sleeping and headed towards where he had left Cloud and Tifa.
Still no sign of the ninja anywhere on the ship. This worried him badly. Shaking the remaining two, he found that they refused to wake, despite everything he tried. Shrugging, he walked back to where Vincent and the others had been resting.
The guilt and worry that had been building in his heart had been erased by his discovery and he felt free. The constricting feeling around his lungs and his heart was gone at the realization that, for once, he had not failed.
He sat down next to Vincent, who slept peacefully, and stared at the sky. His only concern now was where Yuffie had gone...
And whether Marlene was safe or not...
He glanced at those beside him and sighed. One of his responsbilities had been taken care of...but he was never truly free...
He'd wait until everyone woke up again...then he would advise they head to Midgar...to see what happened to everyone they had left...and all the things he had yet to do...
He waited and stared at the flickering flame on Red XIII's tail, letting it dance back and forth in his eyes until they became everything he saw, and then he unintentionally slipped back into dreams.