sleazeoverstyle | (no subject)

(no subject)

Shit.

Shit. It's pretty much all he can do to follow through this dark nothingness at Axel's heels, and he ain't so fond of the way this feels. He's been in worse situations before, of course, and he's about 99% sure he will be again, but this place can kiss his ass. It's like drowning in a nightmare and his Electro-Mag rod's buzzing and giving off the occasional nearly-invisible spark in his left hand and yeah, he's moving as fast as he can, even though he doesn't know where the hell he's going.

Every friggin' sense is on high alert, and because sight is low on the availability scale he does what he's trained to do: ignores the pounding of his own heart, lets himself adjust to the surroundings however he can, and shuts the hell up. If this is that Void he heard about, it ain't a place he wants to stay.

In the darkness he nods to Axel in a get us the fuck out of here now kind of way.

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What the fuck's aloha mean, he wants to know, but doesn't ask; he can do that later. For now he just makes nice: nods, waves, and can't believe how friggin' lucky it is that these locals from another planet mostly speak the same language as him.

Come to think of it, everyone he's met at the end of the universe speaks the same language as him: ain't that handy. Right now it sure ain't something he's gonna question none too hard.

"You were right. They're friendly." Least he can do is be a little friendly back, he figures.

"Nice place you got here."

That oughtta do.

"Nice, it is, yeah?" one of the locals agrees, giving a wave as they pass by.

The trail they're following leads down onto the main road (black-top paved, single lane) that goes through the village. It is, as Axel said, rather touristy; two souvenir shops in a town this size is a bit overkill.

The one bar in town isn't open yet, but the restaurant next door is, and the waitress is chatting with the only current customers, a pair of middle-aged tourists.

It's the little things that Axel files away though, like the apparent lack of a synthesis shop, or even a moogle anywhere about. Or even a general item shop; there's a small grocery, but it's not the same thing.

So this is the village. Personally he thinks it ain't got much going for it and of course they won't stop for a drink 'cause... different world, different money. He goes flashing gil around here, they won't know what to make of it. Anyhow, looks like they're just passing through.

It's nice, though, in that touristy kinda way. Reminds him even more of Costa Del Sol now he looks, and like that place, there's no weapons shop which is usually the first place he checks out. "Peaceful. Think you could ever live in a place like this?"

Yeah, he'd get all fat and happy, drinkin' his life away. Honestly, this place ain't much of a going concern but like it has to be? No, the people living here seem low-key and happy and him and Axel are just tourists.

Fat and happy his ass: if this is the whole thing, it'd drive him friggin' crazy living here. Give him the city, please, with all its problems and noise and opportunity and mess.

"Not a chance in hell," Axel replies. "It's a nice place to visit, but I think I'd get bored if I stayed here too long. Maybe someday I'll get old and change my mind, but until then, I'd rather live at the end of the universe."

"Me, I'd rather live right where I do live. Let's face it: end of the universe is cool, but it ain't home."

Not that he's ever had a real strong attachment to the concept of home ever since his oldest brother moved away. But he likes the place he's got -- it's close to work, it's easy to get to, it ain't in Sector 7 -- and he likes his job just fine, and he likes his opportunities and his paycheck and the fly time he gets with the chopper. He's good with his partner, Rude, and the girls he knows.

Yeah, life's okay.

"How long you say you'd been there now?"

"Mmm... Over a year and a half now, by Milliways' calendar," Axel replies, after a bit of thought. "It feels like a lot longer though, you know? Like a lifetime."

In a way, it has been a lifetime, and another lifetime since this past midwinter; the difference between no heart and heart is that profound.

"The place kind of is home now, to me. You know?"

"I guess." He's lived in Midgar his whole friggin' life. Not in the same house or nothin' but same city, although he's traveled the world 'cause that's... his job. And though he's probably the least sentimental person he knows, home's still home.

He looks around, shielding his eyes from the sunlight: it's bright but it's pretty and the village is small but the view goes on and on. He wouldn't mind flying over it in a chopper; that'd give him his usual pilot's frame of reference for a place but like that's gonna happen.

"So is there more to this tropical hideaway? 'Cause me, I'm wonderin' what kind of trouble a guy could get in here. No weapons shops or found materia? No monsters to summon, no aliens or shit like that? Present company excepted, of course."

Axel shakes his head.

"Not even a synthesis shop," he says. "There should be Heartless around somewhere, but the locals haven't been bothered. Then again, it's not like I know everything about the place." He pauses, parsing the unfamiliar terms from Reno's questions.

"What's materia?"

"It's..." What the hell's the official line on it? He's only read it a million times: materia are small crystallized spheres of spiritual energy that allow the user to cast various spells and use special abilities; the orbs contain the knowledge and memories of all who have lived and died in the past. While that answer's easy as shit on his world, -- everyone knows what materia is -- it's kind of a can of worms to explain.

Axel probably doesn't know the term Lifestream either, right. "Well, to put it in simple terms, materia are these little crystal spheres and they're what let us harness any magic at all." He holds his hand out, thumb and forefinger maybe an inch and a half apart. "The spheres are about that big and if you're lucky you might find 'em, but nowadays, they're mostly manufactured from Mako."

And he won't know what Mako is either.

"And Mako's... pretty much the pure liquid energy that runs my planet. Any of that make any sense at all, or you need me to whip out the Beginning Materia User's Instruction Manual?"

"No, I follow," Axel replies. "Sounds... Well, it's pretty lame that you have to use something like that to use any magic, but I guess whatever works, I mean... Actually, here, check this out--"

Reno's description - crystals made of energy - remind him a little of the composition of synthesis materials. So he rummages in his pocket a little, and snags out a little crescent-shaped shard of blue - a Frost Shard, as it happens - and tosses it to his not'twin.

"That's a Frost Shard," he explains, rubbing his fingers together; the things are cold.

He catches it easy with his left hand but doesn't hold onto it long: that thing's friggin' freezing and he holds it as little as possible between that same thumb and forefinger he used to show the size of materia before his whole hand goes numb and he has to toss it back. "You tryin' to freeze my nuts off, pal?"

It takes a while for him to shake the feeling back into his hand but once it's warmed up again, he reaches back for his own weapon, does a quick bit of disassembling, and holds out a small green orb. It glows and sparkles and looks like shit's moving around inside it. "That's materia. The green ones are magic and this one happens to be lightning." By itself it ain't gonna do a friggin' thing; it's safe to touch and hold. Not like that frost shard thing.

"How the hell you carry that ice thing around without freezing your ass off anyhow?"

"Magic pockets," Axel replies. "See?" He demonstrates by putting his arm into the pocket up to his elbow, without making a dent in the exterior of the coat. "It's really handy, especially for things like that.

He leans close, to peer at the materia. Reno says it's safe to touch, but he's not elementally normal, and even though it's not ice or water, he's still a little leery of handling unfamiliar magic that isn't fire.

"So you have a thing for lightning?" he asks. The moving, sparkling bits make him think of Elixir; golden and glowing, with shifting sparkling motes of something in it.

"Maybe." Casual as hell and in a ladies really dig electricity sort of way, he reequips the rod with the materia and stows it away. "Depends who's askin' and what kind of storm's brewin'."

Yeah, there might just be a smug little smile on his face.

"You might say electricity and I could help each other out in a pinch." It ain't just lightning, but that's the visual form it most often takes. Give him a good fight and it might just show.

There's other materia slots on that rod too, but a guy has to keep some things to himself.

"Well, I guess no one's perfect," Axel says, with a slight shake of his head.

Fire is way, way better.

"Smug egocentric I-play-with-matches ugly bastard." But he laughs -- out loud and everything -- and shrugs in amusement. "You gonna start your volcano flowing to amuse the locals?"

What he's really curious about is where this door of Axel's is that's gonna lead them back to the bar. He ain't in no hurry to go -- he's been in warm places dressed like this before and it's no big deal -- but he's always been a watch-and-learn kind of guy. And if his significantly less perfect partner-in-crime here can make a door to the bar show up from wherever the hell they are, then he can learn to do it too.

Talk about a nice impressive trick.

"What, you want to see an eruption?" Axel asks, grinning at him. Liken he'd pass up a perfectly good chance to show off? ...Well, he might, actually, if the circumstances were less than ideal, like if the Heartless suddenly started pouring out of the corners, but he thinks that's a little less than likely to happen.

"Far be it for me to be the cause of wanton destruction, my morally unscrupulous almost-twin." Hey, even he has to laugh at that one. Hello, Sector 7? And that was his home town?

Just his job.

Click.

"Well, if you insist, I'll hold myself back, somehow, Mr. Goody-goody," Axel replies, laughing along with him.

"It sure would be a pretty explosion." With a sigh, he gives the volcano a wistful look.

"Not that I'm advocating random acts of... fire, unless you want to."

"This isn't the kind of volcano that explodes very well," Axel says with a sigh. "It'll be really fucking cool if we stick around until after dark though."

He looks at Axel, then at the volcano, then up at the sky, then back at Axel. "Hey. Same deal with time standing still at home when we're here as it does when we're at the bar?"

If that's true, he ain't in any kind of rush at all. If it ain't, though, someone -- probably the boss -- is gonna notice he ain't around to answer his phone or ask how high when the guy says jump.

And the boss is the only person he does that for.

"As far as I know, as long as you don't leave through your door, time stands still. I don't know how it'd work if you were to go back to your world from here though," he says. "As far as I know, I'm the only one who wanders around as regularly as I do, and I'm usually pretty careful about how I do it."

Again, he looks from Axel to the sky to the volcano; there's a faraway and almost content look on his face for just a moment.

"Fuck it. It's a risk I'll take. You want to wait till dark, then set that sucker off?"

It'll be so pretty and he really can't resist the very idea of it.

Axel flexes his hands, and grins. It's not what most people would call a pleasant grin, but it is very much the sort of grin that takes a great deal of pleasure in its life's work.

"Sounds like a plan to me," he says.

He knows grins like that. Not just 'cause Demyx gave him one when they talked either: he's seen 'em lots of times. He's made 'em lots of times himself, usually before he does something a little... oh, say destructive.

The time passes pleasantly enough: there's plenty of shade and one of the locals even brings over a couple drinks just to be nice -- what the fuck, who does that besides no one? -- as the afternoon turns to evening and the sun begins to set. This town of Axel's is a real sleepy one but it's cool and he's almost ready to revisit his whole thing about being able to live in a place like this. But that's just an afternoon of nothin' but friggin' lazy talking, and he knows he'd get sick of it sooner or later. Probably sooner.

The stars from here are pretty spectacular, and if he was the kind of guy who actually gave a shit about that kind of thing he'd be impressed. But a nature boy he ain't, and as the sky darkens he gives Axel an expectant look.

"What do you think? Time for the show?"