Event || The Enemy Within

[melodiesmods]

Characters: All characters who signed-up for the event.
Where: In their heads.
When: January 15th.
Summary: The Heroes of Light have a vision-- They are living through a hypothetical future where the Sage share his knowledge with them, and things went horribly wrong as some Heroes of Light became the villains in this timeline. Maybe they'll revise their thoughts on getting all of that knowledge.
Warning: The apocalypse, deaths, tragedies, overall a lot of very bad things.

Mingle Threads: The Antagonists || The Protagonists || The Others || General
Free Open Threads: The Two Years || Other Events

#01 Attempts at Negotiations || Trano Golsaucia
#02 Tactical Espionage Action || Aqures Ixen
#03 Judgmental Glares || Aerilon
#04 The Fight for the Crystallized Bodies || Aqures Tosf
#05 The Dusk of the Heroes || Mysidia
#06 The Fight for the Moon || Lunar Gate
#07 Conflict Above the Stars || Moon Base
#08 The Birth of a God || Crystal Life Tree
#09 The Death of a World || Moon Base
#10 Where Everything Ends || Pandaemonium

Conclusion || The Sage in Mysidia

Comments

closed;

[ruinedempire]

It was just a few months after the Rift accident that Rufus found himself leaning against a building, panting and definitely not as composed as he usually was. Blood stained his side and every step felt like he was one moment closer to dying. But he had to keep going, he needed to try and learn more about what was going on. Figure out some sort of solution to whatever was happening.

"Heh, I'm in such a state..."

He closed his eyes for a moment, but Rufus shook his head and attempted to keep moving. Elena and Reno were around the city, somewhere. They split apart from each other and perhaps that was why Rufus was fatally injured now. He didn't want to think in such terms, but there was no point in denying his current condition either.

He avoided death so many times, but perhaps his luck was finally running out now. Rufus didn't enjoy the thought of dying in some foreign planet, but he wasn't going to spend his last few minutes whining about his fate.

[shinra_dog]

After the Rift, Reno was reluctant to go back to the lab. A lot of the equipment had been destroyed in the battle that ensued, and even though he knew it would be useful to have information from Palitutu's notes and devices... he wasn't sure how much was left. Besides, things were getting dangerous. He'd stayed out of it, but watching, waiting, listening from the sidelines, it wasn't hard to see that tempers were rising. Old fractures between heroes began to widen, trivial arguments began to contribute to much deeper breaks in relationships. Things were tense, to be sure -- but if it continued on this way, it was only a matter of time before heroes began fighting each other more than monsters.

Sometimes eavesdropping was easy; other times, the spy game was a little more complicated. Reno had a lot on his mind when a familiar white suit caught his attention out of the corner of his eye -- and everything once prioritized faded to nothingness once he noticed the distinctive red in contrast against the fabric.

"Rufus!" He ran to the other man, nudged himself up under Rufus' arm to prop him up. It took everything in him not to panic as his wide eyes looked over Rufus' body, assessed the wound. It was a lot of blood. Not good.

"Gods, what happened to you?" he panted.

oh no crai

[provenworth]

There was a lot of cleaning up to do once things finally had settled down. Elena donned her mother-hen persona that she had all but mastered back at Ruby City, tending to Terra as much as the woman would allow her. And she, like Reno, maintained a neutral stance during the arguments that came after. Staying around only to pick up information, to watch the division. To be mindful of who sided with whom.

Arms laden with a single brown bag filled with some necessary groceries, Elena had been considering reaching out to a few individuals she could still trust to discuss the current state when her ears picked up a familiar voice shouting a familiar name. Her eyes snapped toward the sound, catching the movement of what looked like Reno moving towards a figure leaning against a nearby building that almost looked like -

"....Oh no." The bag is dropped, abandoned on the street, as she runs over to where the two man stand. "Reno! Rufus!"

Without so much as a word, she starts tearing at a clean section of her shirt, wide eyes focused solely on the injury and the copious amounts of blood that soaked through his clothes.

With the cloth ready to serve as a temporary gauze to try and stopper the bleeding, she glances up at Reno, desperately trying to not look as panicked as she felt - and failing. Keep him still.

"Sir, I'm going to try and slow the bleeding until we can get you somewhere to better address this." Her words are meant as both a statement and an announcement of her plan to move his clothing so she could get to the injury directly. "How long have you been like this?"

[ruinedempire]

Rufus allowed himself to be pulled up by Reno, not having the strength or energy to really protest even if he wanted. The injury was painful and the young Shinra temporarily closed his eyes before mumbling a reply to the question.

However, his usual calm voice was traced with pain and had a certain weakness to it.

"Someone finally disagreed enough with my presence to try something like this..." Honestly, they probably did this because death was now a permanent thing in this world. Before, it didn't last and thus killing him would be rather pointless in the end. Everything was different now though. It was just like any other place where death was something not so trivial.

He felt himself get weaker with every passing moment, the blood was leaving his body at a truly alarming rate. But Rufus didn't think too much about that right now, even as sweat started to bead at his forehead. Instead, he looked up as Elena ran over to them, merely nodding as she tried to stem the blood coming out from him. It wasn't enough, but he allowed Elena to do her job.

"Too long." Rufus didn't know how long he was bleeding like this, but he knew that his current state was anything but good. Was he really going to die this time? He escaped death many times before, but did his luck finally run out? It was going to be ridiculous if he died like this, on some planet he didn't care about.

He wanted to chuckle, but all that came out was a cough with blood coming from his mouth. Gaia, he really must look like a wreck...

[shinra_dog]

"Shit," Reno muttered, not bothering to censor himself. He never had before, really, why start now in a crisis? Rufus was bleeding too much, too fast. He wouldn't be able to walk like this.

"Hold that tight, Boss," he said sternly, pressing Rufus's hand to the makeshift bandage. "Tight. Don't let go, alright, I got you."

They had to fight gravity at this rate. But Reno still didn't want to give up. He wasn't going to let Rufus just die in the street, he couldn't. He refused. He stooped, wrapping one arm firmly behind the other man's knees, and lifted him with a grunt. "Just... hold on. It's gonna be okay."

He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince.

[provenworth]

Blood on her hands. His blood. Warm and slick between fingers, leaving a thick layer that spoke volumes to the severity of the injury. Panic nipped at the fringes of her focus as she managed to finish the bandage. It was perfect timing, with Reno pushing Rufus' hand on the wound to maintain pressure.

"Ah. Fuck." Since censorship was out the window, Elena might as well join in on the frantic vulgarity. "That's not going to last. We need to get him somewhere so I can find what's bleeding and stop it."

At the sound of the cough her attention, which had been on the wound, the blood, Reno's hand pushing Rufus' against the makeshift bandage, moved to Rufus. The panic monster grew louder, growling and snarling in the back of her mind. They were going to lose him. She was going to have failed him.

"J-just hold on, Rufus." Formalities are forgotten. She's half in the city, half out. "We can fix this. I just need my needle and thread and a clean table. You'll be just fine."

[ruinedempire]

Any other time, Rufus might've protested being carried like this, but now wasn't the time for such complaints. He pressed into his wound, holding back a hiss of pain at the action. He wanted to follow Reno's instructions even though each passing moment felt like he was getting closer and closer to death. Rufus was starting to shake from the loss of blood, his face even paler than normal.

Both Elena and Reno were telling him that he was going to be okay. Maybe they actually believed that, but Rufus didn't think he was going to last. The injury was too grave and he was losing blood too fast for them to salvage this. Rufus resisted the urge to close his eyes, forcing himself to look up at the Turks as they tried to find a place to heal him.

"Reno, Elena." His voice was different than before, quieter than normal. Back when he first saw Diamond Weapon attack, he accepted death then. Of course, he later chastised himself for giving up that easily, but this was different. He was actually injured and he knew that his time was short.