::The Last Avatar::

Gamer Edition

BOOK TWO
TITAN

2.0

Waking on the Road

AN: Note I added an Epilogue to Book One before posting this, in case you haven't read it.

It was the rocking motion that woke her, at least that is what Rue wanted to pretend for the moment. She wanted to ignore the fact that her back and arms felt like they were on fire. It was a hard sell, but for the short time that she lay there, wherever there was, and felt the rocking of whatever transport she was inside sooth her, just a little bit.

'You okay, kiddo? You were out for a while, we were worried,' asked a concerned sounding Korra. Rue's eyebrow's twitched, apparently she'd been unconscious long enough for the other Avatars to be worried about her. That wasn't a good sign, and neither was the amount of pain she was in.

"M' fine," she mumbled through dry lips. She coughed soon after and grumbled when a cool hand touched her forehead lightly.

"Rue?" the voice was muffled, but distinctly male. It was a little familiar, but Rue's mind couldn't quite place it right at that moment. The pain was a little too intense for her brain to think about much of anything.

"No, Rue is unavailable right now, please leave a message," she attempted to grumble out. Instead it sounded like a partially unintelligible mumble that Rue doubted anyone could have understood. A deep chuckle was her response, and Rue found that things were growing less muffled the longer she was awake. She grumbled again and cracked an eye open, which was a task in itself, only to find herself staring up at a blurry roof of what she supposed was a truck. Moving her head slightly Rue caught sight of a very worried Angeal who was sitting by her side, she would have tried to say something else, but a Tera face appeared in her line of sight and Rue had to smile as the Coeurl bumped their foreheads together gently. A hiss of pain escaped Rue as she tried to move her hand and arm to pat Tera, moving right then and there was not going to happen evidently.

"Easy, you're still recovering," Angeal warned her. His hand found hers and gave it a gentle squeeze of reassurance as he moved a little closer so she could see him without having to move her head too much.

"From what?" Rue asked through clumsy lips. Her words weren't properly formed though Angeal smiled down at her regardless, Rue noted he seemed relieved. She must have been in a bad way. Angeal ran his free hand through his hair and sighed before answering, he looked a little hesitant to talk about it for some reason.

"You got doused with purified Mako, it caused some serious burns to your back, neck and arms and some with some ones to your legs, it could have been worse though, Tseng and I got you into the chemical shower pretty fast. The problem was the levels your body absorbed before we got you cleaned off," Angeal trailed off with a grimace. Then it all came flooding back to her; creeping into the Science Department, Hojo, guns, Tseng and Angeal. Blood Bending. The glass shattering and burning agony as she passed out. Well Shit. Rue grumbled to herself as she tried to wrap her tired, sluggish mind around that little nugget of information. It seemed like she was recovering not just from the burns, but Mako poisoning as well. Surely not, that was absurd, Rue was not a emo-chocobo and her hair was certainly not spiky enough for this shit to happen to her. Of course a wayward, unwelcome, worry floated up from the corners of her mind. Was the Mako that doused her, just Mako or had Hojo added a little something to it? Something like psychotic alien squid? Fuck Nuggets.

"Jus' Mako?" she mumbled out. The frown she got in response could have been either Angeal not understanding her or him not knowing what she was talking about, of course it was natural that he wouldn't understand. He didn't know about JENOVA yet. Wouldn't until he was older and how could she ask him about something he wasn't in the know about. Rue would have to ask someone else about the content of the Mako that had doused her. Maybe Tseng could help her with that, if she ever saw him again.

"Of course it was only Mako, what else would it be?" Angeal attempted to laugh a little and failed miserably. This wasn't the time for laughing it seemed. Tera pushed her head under Angeal's free hand, it seemed she understood Rue wasn't able to give pats right at that moment.

"Nothing, its fine, how long was I out for?" Rue moved away from that bag of cats with the speed of a galloping toddler. She didn't have the brain capacity to explain JENOVA to Angeal right at that particular moment. Another grimace as Angeal looked away for a moment, glancing toward the front of the truck and for the first time Rue wondered who was driving and, more importantly, where Sephiroth and Genesis were.

"It's January," was Angeal's hesitant answer. Rue's teal eyes widened, she'd been unconscious for around two months.

"Where are-?" Rue was looking around for the others uncertainly. Angeal smiled when he noticed and gave her hand another squeeze.

"It was decided that it would be suspicious if all three of of us went on a mission to such a peaceful area, so, as I'm the one who's supposed to be responsible for you, we figured it would make more sense for me to be the one to escort you out of Midgar. We were hoping you'd wake up before hand so Sephiroth and Genesis could say goodbye, but the doctors warned us you probably wouldn't," there was a silent apology in Angeal's eyes as he spoke. Rue smiled and shook her head the minimal amount she could without pain and closed her eyes, wishing she'd woken earlier to see the other two before they'd moved her.

"Take it Hojo kicked up a stink," she muttered with a tired half grin. Angeal snorted and shook his head at her as he leaned back a little, he looked as tired as she felt.

"More like the entire Science Department did, one of us had to stay by your bedside in the medical bay at all times in case they tried to Rue-napp you," Rue smiled at the term 'Rue-napp'. She had no doubt Genesis had coined the term while she'd been unconscious and used it frequently enough for Angeal to start using it too. "Tseng helped too, if we all had missions then he either sat in himself or posted a few other Turks in the room to keep watch," that made Rue's eyebrows crawl up her forward. Damn.

"Creepy Turks watching me sleep? Did they eye rape me?" she asked with a tired smile. Angeal snorted with laughter and Rue heard someone else laugh along with him from the front of the truck. She turned her head carefully, trying to see who was driving, a futile effort in reality, there was a wall between them with only a small rectangle open so those in the back can talk to those in the front.

"I wouldn't be surprised miss," called a oddly familiar voice from the past though that window. Rue frowned and looked at Angeal for information on who was out there. He smiled at her and nodded his head at the window.

"I believe you've met Private Robin," eyes widened again as memories of her first battle flashed through her mind. Rhys Robin, the trooper she shot in the knee and left alive after the fight. Rue could barely believe that was over a year ago now, she could still remember her panic during that first battle with Rhys and his companions. Her first kills. She still shied away from that, the fact that she'd killed anyone wasn't something Rue enjoyed dwelling on.

"Yeah, we've met," she murmured with a sigh. "How's the knee dude? Been doing much adventuring lately?" she mentally slapped herself for submitting to the overdone joke. Again. Not that it was a thing on Gaia, but still, Rue should have tried harder.

"Not as much as I hear you have miss," Rhys called back from the front. Rue snorted at his good humour, appreciating that he didn't seem too dark on her at the moment. How he would be if Angeal weren't present was a thought for another day. One with less pain.

"Oh yeah, I've been doing all sorts of ill-advised crap since we first met," she called back as loudly as she could. Which wasn't very if she were honest, she was tired and the pain was starting to get worse the more she tried to move.

"Rue," Angeal called her back to their conversation. Fixing her eyes on his tired form Rue took note of how his shoulders sagged a little and the way he was leaning against the wall behind him. She wondered how much he, and the others for that matter, had slept since her little accident.

"I'm listening," she assured him with a smile. Somehow she had a feeling she knew what he wanted to talk about, though she was trying very hard not to think about it, such things needed to be dealt with head on before they started to fester.

"We need to talk, about a number of things, but right now we need to discuss what happened down in the labs," he paused as though trying to figure out what to say next. Rue wondered if Tseng had told them anything or if he'd kept his knowledge to himself while she'd slept.

"Yeah, I guess we do," Rue admitted with a sigh. She closed her eyes and motioned gingerly with her free hand for him to begin with his tentative questioning.

"Tseng has asked me to ask you about what you were doing to Hojo when we entered the room, he seemed even more worried that the rest of us about that part in particular," Angeal told her slowly. Rue grimaced, that was the thing with Angeal, he never beat around the bush and wouldn't stand for her to do so either. This was going to hurt.

"It-it's called Blood Bending, Ange, I was scared, I didn't even know I could do it and suddenly it just-just happened, I didn't mean to. I hated myself for it as soon as I realised what I was doing, but it stopped him, you know?" Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and the back of the truck blurred. Angeal shifted closer to her and soothed her as best he could, squeezing her hand comfortingly while he waited for her to calm down a little.

"Okay, it's okay, Hojo's fine, on a war path sure, but unharmed," he assured her. Unfortunately that only made Rue feel worse, sometimes she swore that foreknowledge was the bane of her existence. It just made things more complicated. "I'll tell Tseng you didn't know about the- what was it? Blood Bending?" Rue nodded, "I'll tell him you didn't know you could, okay?" Angeal's reassuring smile encouraged Rue to nod again. The tears slowing a little as she took a long shuddering breath to settle, crying hurt more than breathing did after all.

"Thanks," she murmured through a sniffle. Angeal chuckled a little and shifted forward slightly as his face morphed into something more serious a moment later. He glanced at the window into the front of the truck with a small frown before he opened his mouth again.

"I also need to ask you about something else, something you mentioned on the way to Midgar," he began quietly. Rue's brows furrowed, what in the seven hells was the beef-cake on about? Something she'd mentioned on the way to Midgar?

"Um, 'kay?" she was frowning at him a little.

"You said you'd never 'stepped foot' in the city, and then said the same thing to Tseng after I found you in the Science Department that first time, I was wondering what you meant by that, because it seems to me that you knew exactly where you were when Hojo stumbled across you, both times," as Angeal frowned down at her Rue got the intense desire to spill the beans. It was his eyebrows, they demanded the truth, she decided.

"I believe I said something about there being other ways to visit a city," Rue's eyes slid sideways as she tried and failed not to smile.

"You did. Care to share what ways?" he was smiling back, but the words were quiet. This conversation was obviously between them and was not for Private Robin, their driver for the day. Rue raised an eyebrow at him, the conversation starting to become a nice distraction from the pain.

"Well," she began hesitantly. Her mind just wasn't working enough for this shit, but it was fun. "I could, but then you'd know all my secrets and then all the fun would drain from our relationship, all the passion, think of the passion Angeal!" she was grinning by the end of her slightly melodramatic words and the pain in her arms and neck was worth the flush racing across Angeal's face. Payback's a bitch.

"I-I didn't-" the teenage boy spluttered while leaning back, away from Rue as she lay down the centre of the truck bed on a pallet. Rue's grin widened as she watched Angeal flounder uncertainly, obviously unused to such talk directed at him.

"I never forget, Angeal, remember that, never, ever, ever, and eventually, I always get mine," the grin on Rue's face turned a little devilish in nature and Angeal sighed at her as he leaned back against the inside of the truck.

"I will keep that in mind, I only ask that you not do that again, I think you almost gave me heart palpitations," he joked half-heartedly. Rue snorted in amusement at him and rolled her eyes.

"Don't tell me that, it'll make me want to flirt with you more for shits and giggles," Rue complained lightly. She was still grinning.

"Please don't," he asked with a sigh. It was at that moment that a thought occurred to Angeal. "You changed the subject," he accused with another frown. Rue hated his eyebrows.

"Just notice that, did'ja?" her smugness was almost tangible. With a sigh and a shake of his head Angeal folded his arms, waiting for Rue to give him some form of explanation. Seeing this Rue rolled her eyes at him and gave a sigh of her own, dealing with this one was going to be exhausting. "Through a screen, Ange, I was there, seeing it all, through a screen," she told him flatly.

"A screen? What are you talking about?" he was frowning at her again. Rue growled at the roof of the truck, she knew he wouldn't believe her if she were to tell him the all of it, none of them would, so what was the point in trying at all? What else could she say?

"Yes, Angeal, a screen and I'm not saying any more on that particular subject so don't ask me any more," Rue's eyes closed.

"I see, alright then, you should get some more sleep, you look tired," he told her awkwardly. Rue nodded slightly and allowed her consciousness to slip into the world of dreams.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Quest Completed!

*Survive a Night in the Science Department*

Well Done Brat!

Another night in the place of Nightmares, with some decent prizes up for grabs too.

That was interesting, to say the least.

Your task was, simply, to survive this little foray.

If you come out of this in one piece I'll even give you something real nice.

…

You got 100% on a technicality, but I'm a little worried about your mentality after that shit.

Could have at least snapped the bastards neck while you were at it.

…

As you did not complete the optional task you did not score the bonus reward.

…

Tough luck kiddo

…

2500 EXP

1000 AP

3500 GIL

Were the words to welcome Rue back to the land of the living, it was dark and they'd stopped for the night apparently, the only light coming from the nonexistent screen Rue was now staring up at. She huffed quietly at the words presented to her, though relieved that the light the damned thing gave off wasn't hurting her eyes like her phone used to when she brought it out at night. 'B' seemed to be unaware of the mental and emotional strain killing others caused her, even killing someone as vile as Hojo would have given her nightmares, even as he gave her nightmares because he lived. Grimacing Rue lifted a shaky hand to dismiss the screen, forcing herself to move after Angeal telling her not to might not have been the best idea, but sometimes you just needed to do things. Mother fucking Mako. Why does it have to hurt so much?

CONGRATULATIONS!

LEVEL UP!

…

You are now Level 12!

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 18

Vitality: 11

Magic: 13

Intelligence: 15

Luck: 10

Stat Points to Spend: 5

Rue blinked at new words that had appeared, she'd leveled up now? Sweet. Grumbling to herself Rue focused on trying to figure out where she wanted her new stat points. Her luck would have to wait this time, she decided with a thoughtful frown as she quietly allotted the points. Hoping not to wake the other two in the truck with her.

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 20

Vitality: 12

Magic: 14

Intelligence: 15

Luck: 10

…

Confirm?

"Confirm," Rue whispered finally. She heard someone shift in their sleep and huff quietly making Rue wince and go still once she'd gotten rid of the screen. Waiting for whoever it was to settle down and go back to sleep.

"Confirm what?" asked a quiet voice in the dark. She should have known her luck would fail her, Rhys was awake after all it seemed. Well fuck.

"Nothing, go back to sleep," she whispered back tersely. More shifting and then;

"But what were those numbers and things you were talking about?" he whisper-demanded through the hole in the trucks cab. Rue sighed to herself, she'd been hoping he hadn't noticed that bit.

"I was trying to go back to sleep, counting helps me sometimes," she grumbled at the trooper. Angeal hadn't really explained why Rhys was there and now it was bothering her a little, but she supposed she'd find out more in the morning.

"Oh, but what were you saying 'confirm' to?" now he just sounded confused. Rue made a face as she desperately tried to find a number that sounded something like 'confirm'.

"I didn't say 'confirm', I mumbled 'long-term', as in 'is this pain going to be long-term?'" she grumped. "I was thinking out loud in sleep mumble," huffing Rue went to roll over and then remembered she couldn't. Grumbling more she settled back down, staring up at the roof grumpily. This was not her night.

"Oh, right, sorry, I-uh-I'll just let you sleep then," Rhys answered awkwardly. Rue found herself sleepily wondering how old the guy was, because he sounded as awkward as she did sometimes.

The next screen that appeared before Rue made her stomach drop;

Congratulations!

Thanks to the fear for your life during your confrontation with Hojo you have unlocked a new skill!

+Skill - Blood Bending Lvl 1

Rue forced herself not to cry at the sight of it, she did not want that as part of her skill set. It was scary to think she could turn people into living puppets, if only on the full moon. Fuck. What if it's not only on the full moon. I don't wanna be like Amon!

'Rue, calm down, it's not that bad,' someone tried to reason with her. Rue wasn't sure which past Avatar that had been, the voice hadn't been familiar, but it was soothing. Knowing she couldn't verbally answer Rue could only shake her head, disagreeing completely with that assessment. It was very much bad and the fact that neither Aang or Korra had spoken to her about her Blood Bending only made her more sure that it was a very bad thing to have skills in.

"Rue, you aren't Amon or Tarrlok, you're you and that's all that matters, Blood Bending or not," Korra's words meant more to Rue that she could have ever articulated.

AN: WELCOME TO BOOK TWO GUYS!

It's been a long journey here, but we made it. Which is something I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to do, this is without a doubt the longest thing I've written to date. Which is good and bad a the same time. Good, because, holy shit, I'm past nearly past 100k without the AN's. And bad because I'd much rather have this much written on an original work.

I spent a full day writing out the outline for TITAN and for some reason Rhys Robin suddenly appeared as a background character who was somewhat important. Not story wise, not really, but for Rue personally. She needs someone 'normal' that she can just talk to and he put his hand up for that. It was interesting figuring out his part.

Ah well. Hope you enjoy Book Two, here's to the insane ride we're in for!

Lots of love for all of you, who kept me writing this strange little story of mine. Thanks for everything guys!

RLK