Chapter 17
Barret dashed down the jungle path, wanting to go full tilt and knowing he couldn't. It was at least two miles back to the road over uneven ground, and that wasn't a pace he could maintain. Then again, could Dyne really outpace them with that limp? Tifa was fast, but Barret didn't know how badly Dyne had clocked her.
That limp... If it wasn't from the tussle with Dominic, then had he had it since the fall? Broken his leg badly enough that it had never healed right? Barret should have gone back for him. Shouldn't have assumed.
He felt the phantom pain of his missing hand, remembered fighting through tears to wrap the mangled mess in his shirt to staunch the bleeding. It had only worked so well. He'd smeared blood all over Marlene's swaddling and dripped a trail of it as he staggered north with the few others who'd survived hiding in town until the soldiers had gone, their bodies thick with ash. His memories of the rest of that day came in jagged pieces. He knew the others had helped him. They'd all been too stricken for thought, and the blame hadn't come yet.
When he'd regained his senses, he should have told them. Even if his hand had kept him from going himself, he should have insisted. Someone had to check for Dyne. But amid all the death, he hadn't even considered the possibility. He'd been so certain Dyne was dead, everything ripped from him but Marlene.
He'd been so stupid. And all these years, Dyne had had nothing.
The path felt longer, somehow, even though he was moving faster. His heart pounded in his ears, too many beats.
He caught up to Tifa somewhere in the middle of it. She'd stopped to lean against a tree, breathing hard. Blood ran down her face from somewhere in her scalp, and he tamped down on the panic that rose at the sight of it. Head wounds bled a lot, that was all. It probably looked worse than it was.
"Tifa!" he said. "You okay?"
She nodded, held up a hand, and gestured a little ways ahead on the path. Distracted by her injury, he hadn't noticed the monster lying there. Some kind of large bat thing, or a very small wyvern, dark wings splayed limp across the ground.
"I thought I saw him just ahead of me," Tifa explained once she'd caught her breath. "And then that thing dropped out of the trees."
She'd started walking again, moving past the monster and starting to pick up her pace.
"You sure you're good to go?" he asked.
"Yeah. Let's hurry, we can still catch him."
They pushed on through the trees, and just as the road came into sight past the branches, Barret heard the sound of an engine turning over. Tifa put on an extra boost of speed, and he surged after her.
"Barret!" she cried.
The buggy was pulling away. In reverse, it wasn't outpacing her yet, but it would soon. Barret stopped at the edge of the trees and took aim. The front tire blew out, the buggy rocked, and it slowed. Tifa ran on, vaulting up onto the hood.
"Just stop!" she yelled. "We don't have to make this another fight."
Dyne wasn't listening. The buggy lurched backwards, nearly throwing Tifa from the hood, but she regained her balance and climbed into the front seat. Dyne let go the wheel to meet her, and the buggy backed into a tree. Its tires spun, then stopped. Barret caught up to it and leapt up onto the hood as Tifa was getting her legs around Dyne in a hold.
Dyne had stuffed the Keystone into the pocket of his jacket, but the big stone barely fit, and it was close to tumbling out. Barret swung himself around the side of the buggy so he could reach in and grab it. Dyne stopped struggling against Tifa to sneer up at him.
"That it then? You gonna dispense with me?"
"What?" Barret stared at him. "No. No way. You got some kinda death wish?"
"I want it all to end. Don't you understand? All of it." His voice broke in a desperate plea. He couldn't stop himself, so he was asking someone else to do it. Tifa must have heard it, too, because she loosened her grip.
"...an' Marlene?" Barret asked.
"Marlene... Gods, Barret, she wasn't even three months old. She wouldn't even know me."
"She could. She should."
"No, she shouldn't. The things I've done... I ain't fit to hold her."
"So you want me to shoot you instead?" Barret gestured with his gun-arm, never pointing it at his friend. "The hell'd that make me?"
Dyne just closed his eyes, not answering.
"Dyne... The hell happened to you, man?"
"You know what happened. You were there."
"I know it all went to shit, back then... But it don't gotta stay that way." Barret wished Dyne would look at him, wished a look could communicate everything he couldn't find the words for.
"Maybe for you it doesn't," said Dyne. "But somethin' broke in me, an' you can't fix it."
"So you're a coward," said Tifa.
Dyne opened his eyes. "What...?"
"You think you're the only person who's been through hell?" she asked. "The only person who's lost something? I know it's hard, but you wouldn't have to do it alone."
"Tifa..."
She didn't look at either of them. She pulled away from Dyne, climbed out the side of the buggy, and disappeared into the trees, though Barret was sure she'd stay within earshot.
"...who the hell's she anyway?" Dyne asked.
"A friend," said Barret. "Shinra soldier burned her town to the ground, if that sounds familiar."
Dyne's brow furrowed as he stared into the trees, and Barret took a moment to really look at him. Four years had aged him more than it should have. New scars dragged down the side of his face, narrowly missing his eye. The empty port on his left arm looked so much like Barret's that their weapons might have been interchangeable.
"You could fight with us," Barret proposed. "We're tryin' to put a stop to all that, to Shinra. They're gonna be lookin' for this Keystone. I don't think they know what it's for, but I sure don't want them gettin' their hands on it. Do you?"
"Take it, then, if you think you can keep it from 'em."
"I'm askin' you to come with."
Dyne finally looked back at him. "I know what you're askin'. But I don't got it in me. Shinra? I'll fuck 'em up if I see 'em, but I ain't nobody's hero."
"You think I am?"
"I think you're as big a fool as you were back then, convinced you can make the world better."
Barret couldn't think of what to say. It was different, he knew it was different. He wasn't fighting for a lie someone had fed him, and he knew it wouldn't be easy, but if Dyne couldn't see the point of fighting at all, then what could he say?
"You got two options here, Barret," Dyne went on. "You want me to come with you? I ain't comin' willingly."
"I ain't makin' a prisoner o' you," Barret stated.
"Then I guess you gotta let me go."
Were those the only options? After all these years, it seemed insane to find Dyne again only to let him go. He hadn't expected a reunion where Dyne would welcome him with open arms, but weren't there things to talk about? And what about Marlene?
But Dyne was right about one thing: Barret couldn't force him. It had to be his decision, or it meant nothing.
Still, he hesitated. "There some place I can find you again? If you change your mind..."
"I ain't gonna change my mind."
Barret grimaced. "You can call me an idiot for thinkin' it's possible, but the future ain't a done deal. You get to choose how you meet it. You don't want nothin' to do with me, that's fine, but you think on Marlene. She does deserve a better world than this one, but I think that woulda meant something a hell of a lot different to Eleanor."
Dyne's expression darkened at the invocation of her name. "Just go," he said.
"Dyne... We're gonna make the world better," he said, and then he dropped down from the buggy, Keystone in hand.
Tifa met him in the road a few paces in front of the buggy. She glanced at Dyne and then met Barret's gaze. "Are you sure about this?"
"No," he said, "but what else are we gonna do?"
She nodded, drew a breath, and let it out. "Let's get back to Wedge," she said.
He was beginning to hate the jungle path, the miles dragging out his worries. Every step was too slow getting back to Wedge, and a step too far from Dyne. Where would he go from here? Would they run into each other again? Was there a version of that where they could be on the same side again?
When they reached the clearing, they found the others had been busy in their absence: the remaining lackey was securely tied with Dominic on guard, Wedge's shoulder was bandaged, and Jessie and Aeris stood with a makeshift stretcher puzzling over how to move him onto it. They looked over as Barret and Tifa emerged from the path.
"Is he...?" Jessie began.
Barret shook his head. "Let 'im go. But we got the Keystone."
Jessie nodded, relaxing.
"How's Wedge?"
"I swear it's not that bad," Wedge insisted from the ground. He looked pale, but his voice had steadied.
Aeris threw him a look. "He's not allowed to move around until we get that bullet out. I don't want him messing up his arm. But I think he'll be okay."
"Good. We'll head back to the village in a minute an' see what they got to help." Taking his gaze from his friends, Barret walked past them to where Dominic stood. He lifted the Keystone. "This is what we came for," he said, "but we ain't thieves."
Dominic shook his head. "Far as I'm concerned, you've earned it. Besides, seems like it's more trouble than it's worth."
Barret nodded. "You told 'em... that Temple's got some kinda destructive magic inside?"
"According to the legend," Dominic affirmed. "I never thought too much of it before now, but they say the Ancients hid something there to keep it safe."
"You know where it is?"
Dominic nodded, and Tifa brought their map over so he could mark the island. They'd definitely need to hire a boat if they decided to head out that way, but it wasn't Barret's first choice.
"And this Keystone's the only way to get inside?" he asked.
"That's what they say."
Barret turned the heavy stone over in his hand. There was a faint geometric pattern across its surface, and he'd left traces of Wedge's blood in the grooves. "So if we destroyed it, nobody could ever get that magic?"
Dominic shrugged. "Maybe, but I don't know what the hell that thing's made of. I picked it up because of the unusual material, thought it'd be interesting to work with. But it doesn't melt down, an' nothing I've got could put a chip in it."
"Well... thanks," Barret said. He shoved the Keystone into a pocket and looked to the bound lackey, and the corpse of his comrade lying nearby. "What about these guys?"
"I'll take care of it," Dominic said, and the lackey swallowed.
"You sure? Dio found out you had the Keystone, might not be the only ones comin' out here for it."
"I can look after myself. You get your man seen to."
Barret nodded and turned back. His eyes fell on Dyne's gun-arm, left abandoned on the ground. He knelt to pick it up.
"Think he'll be comin' back for that?" an accented voice piped up.
"Shit!" Barret twisted to his left, spotting the damn cat. "The hell'd you come from?"
Cait Sith's ears drooped. "Ahh, it hurts to go unnoticed..."
Maybe he'd been too distracted by everything else to lay eyes on the cat before now, but he didn't like that it had popped up moments after he'd taken his hand off the Keystone. He strode back to the others, handing Dyne's gun-arm off to Jessie and pulling the Keystone back out to offer it to Aeris. He hoped she understood, but he turned back to Cait Sith just to make himself perfectly clear.
"Look, we're not handin' this Keystone over to Dio, so I don't think you got any more business here."
"I just wanted to help!" the cat insisted.
Barret regarded it skeptically. "You wanna help, you can tell Dio that Dominic didn't have the thing an' spare 'im any more trouble."
"I dinnae think the two who ran off'll be tellin' the same story."
"Who knows if they're even goin' back? But your operator's already at the Gold Saucer. You can get in his ear first."
There was a thoughtful silence, and Barret wished the cat had some kind of expression he could read. "An' if I did ye that favor, we'd be friends?" it said.
Barret snorted. "The hell you wanna be friends for? You ain't involved."
"I'm invested now!"
"There's no harm letting him tag along back to the village, is there?" Aeris spoke up. "It's kind of sad thinking of this little guy trying to make it all the way across that desert on his own..."
Barret shrugged. "Yeah, whatever." Maybe they could get back and stick the thing in a box. The cat had only helped them against Dio's goons because Dyne had gone rogue; they didn't have any reason to trust it.
He and Tifa got Wedge onto the stretcher and then lifted him for what he hoped was their final trek down this damn jungle path. Aeris took point with the Keystone in one hand and Wedge's materia bangle in the other, ready with magic for anything that might be drawn to the smell of blood. Cait Sith trotted along at her heels, peppering her with seemingly innocent questions about their band that she answered cheerfully while managing to reveal almost nothing of note. Barret guessed she had experience.
Jessie brought up the rear, and when they reached the road, Barret told her to leave Dyne's gun-arm at the entrance to the path. The garish buggy was gone, and Dyne with it, but he might come back for the arm. Barret wasn't sure leaving it was the right thing, but at any rate it would keep him from bothering Dominic again, and Dyne could probably get his hands on another weapon anyway. Maybe he'd take it for a gesture of good faith. Probably not.
Gongaga wasn't exactly what anyone would call a lively village, but they drew stares from the people out and about as they wound their way back to the inn.
"The hell happened to you guys?" Elena was the first to ask. She sat at the table in the middle of the room, following their lead in cleaning her handgun. Not only was her hair was damp, suggesting she'd had time to bathe after returning from their excursion to the reactor, but she'd finally ditched the uniform and changed into plainclothes. Yuffie had apparently had other priorities and sat with a rough-cut piece of red crystal in her hands, soot still smudging her fingers. Red lay on the floor beneath the table.
"We weren't the only ones who got that lead about Dominic," Tifa answered as she helped Barret transfer Wedge to his bed. In the room behind them, he could hear Jessie had stopped to ask the innkeeper if there was a doctor in town.
"Is Wedge okay?" Elena asked with a note of genuine concern that almost made Barret smile. But then he caught the innkeeper's answer that their doctor had been called out to another village and wasn't expected back for another day at least.
"I'm managing," Wedge said, offering a weak thumbs up with his good arm.
"Plus you're here now, so you've got my singular magic to help out," Yuffie announced, rocking onto her feet.
Aeris held up a hand. "We need to get the bullet out first."
"No doctor," Jessie said, poking her head into the room, "but I'm gonna run out and see if I can grab some medical supplies. I'll be back soon."
"Uh, what's with the cat?" Yuffie asked as Jessie vanished out the door.
Her question drew Elena's attention to Cait Sith, and her eyes narrowed. "Get that thing out of here," she said.
"You dinnae have to be so hurtful," said Cait Sith.
"Lose the cat," Elena repeated, fixing Barret with a look.
"Got it." He grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck, ignoring its yelp of protest, and deposited it outside the inn. "'preciate the help with those goons, but we're done now. We see you snoopin' around again, an' you're gettin' locked back up."
Cait Sith let out a dramatic sigh. "If that's how it has to be..."
Barret rolled his eyes and headed back inside. "You wanna tell me why you recognized that thing?" he asked Elena.
"I don't know the story," she admitted, "but I definitely saw a file with a picture of it in Tseng's office."
Tifa grimaced. "You're not saying it was actually one of the Turks operating it?"
Aeris let out a laugh before she caught herself. She waved a hand at them. "Sorry, I was just picturing Tseng putting on that act. No, I don't think it could be any of them. If Tseng had a file, couldn't it be someone he was keeping tabs on?"
Elena shrugged. "Maybe, but that's not a chance I'd take. The Turks have a whole network of informants. Where exactly did you pick him up?"
"He said he was a friend of Dio's," said Tifa. After a glance at Barret, she went on, "The guys we ran into were hired by Dio to pick up the Keystone. He said he was keeping tabs on them."
Elena nodded. "Then my money's on him being a Shinra asset embedded at Gold Saucer. Dio's friendly with Shinra, but he's also a weirdo. He'd hand it over to Shinra if they asked, but it makes sense to babysit that transaction."
"So when he said he could lie to Dio for us," Tifa said slowly, "he might have meant it. But he'd just tell Shinra we have it instead."
"That's a new low," Wedge mumbled from his bed. "Cats shouldn't be used for evil..."
"You okay, man?" Barret asked him, and he nodded.
"Here we go!" Yuffie exclaimed suddenly. She'd spent the conversation rooting around in her pack with one hand, unwilling to let go of the red crystal, and now she'd produced a pair of chopsticks.
Barret raised an eyebrow. "An' we need those because...?"
"Something long and skinny to get the bullet out," she said. "You don't wanna be digging around with your fingers."
She said it so matter-of-factly that Barret exchanged worried glances with Tifa. Yuffie would've been just a kid during the war. He didn't want to think about her having to deal with bullet wounds.
"What?" said Yuffie. "You got something better?"
They didn't, and when Jessie returned a short while later, she hadn't found anything better. What she did have was a kind of local anesthetic made from the secretions of those giant bugs. They nominated Jessie as the one with the steadiest hands. She sterilized the chopsticks, unwrapped the wound, and set to work. Yuffie took care of Tifa's head wound in the meantime, and then she and Aeris waited. Once Jessie drew the bullet out and let it plunk onto the floor, they moved in to heal the wound.
Wedge relaxed into sleep moments after. He still looked pale, but his breathing was easy.
"...I think that should do it," Aeris said. "He just needs to rest a while."
"Thanks," Barret said, and he nodded to Yuffie and Jessie, too.
"Sure thing," said Yuffie.
"So did you find that in the reactor?" Jessie asked her, nodding to the red crystal as she cleaned blood from the chopsticks.
"Sure did!"
"Is it materia?" Tifa wondered. "I've never seen red materia before..."
"It's summon materia," Red rumbled from his position beneath the table. "It's rare enough for it to form naturally. I didn't think it was something that could be manufactured..."
"So is that the kinda special project Shinra's workin' on in their reactors?" Barret wondered, looking to Elena.
She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. Summon materia's powerful, but not so powerful that it'd make sense to keep it under wraps like that. Plus, the Gongaga reactor wasn't in operation as long as the Corel reactor has been now, and whatever they're doing there still isn't finished yet. I'd say this one's a dud compared to what they're really after. It'd explain why they just left it, too."
"Some dud!" Yuffie remarked. "I'm gonna wreck somebody's day with this."
"Well, sounds like it'll be good for us anyhow," Barret reasoned.
"So what's our next move?" Elena asked. "Did you find anything out about that temple?"
"Yeah, but..." He looked to Wedge. "Let's let 'im rest a while first. Then we can talk it over an' figure out what the hell we're doin'."
"If Shinra knows we're here, we might not wanna wait too long," Elena said, folding her arms.
Jessie clapped a hand on her shoulder, making her start. "Well, then, let's see about clearing some logistical hurdles. That tree in the road for one thing, and we don't have that much gas left..."
Barret nodded in thanks as Jessie began steering the ex-Turk out of the room, and she winked back. The others began to file out after.
"You're gonna stay with him?" Tifa asked.
"Yeah. Got some thinkin' to do anyhow."
She nodded, touched his arm briefly, and disappeared after the others, closing the door behind her. Barret pulled a chair around to sit at Wedge's beside, and his feet told him he could use the break, too. All that running around.
A powerful destructive magic, he thought. Just how powerful was it? Sephiroth had already single-handedly destroyed a town, so it had to grant him something bigger than that. Bigger than Sector 7? If it was vengeance he was after, was it something he'd use to wipe Midgar off the map, erasing Shinra and thousands of innocents along with it?
They couldn't let him do that. And they couldn't let Shinra get their hands on it either. Maybe they still thought the Keystone was the path to the Promised Land, but they wouldn't hesitate to use what it actually offered to keep their populace in line. He thought about Yuffie's little chunk of red crystal. What if they were already trying to manufacture something that would rival whatever the Temple held? If they'd had something like that during the war, would there be anything left of Wutai now?
Could one person really wield that kind of power? Dyne hadn't been any more magically-inclined than him, back then. If he could get his hands on it, he might not be able to do much.
Sephiroth was another story.
Barret sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair. He ran his fingers over the grooves in his gun-arm, the weapon he'd made a part of himself, same as Dyne. Was he any less of a loose cannon? With all he'd done, all the people he'd gotten killed...
He wanted vengeance against Shinra, too, but there were costs he wasn't willing to pay. He didn't want so much blood on his hands that he wasn't fit for anything afterwards.
Wedge stirred and woke after a few hours. He shifted to get up as if by habit and then stopped himself, remembering.
"...how're you feelin'?" Barret ventured.
Wedge settled back against the pillows and rolled his shoulder experimentally. "Sore," he said. "Like I've been lifting boxes for a week straight."
"You just take it easy a while then."
Wedge nodded. The fingers of his other hand probed experimentally across the skin where the wound had been. "...man, so much for this shirt," he said.
Barret chuckled. "Good thing you got others."
"Pass me one?"
Barret got up to search through his pack and handed Wedge a clean, undamaged T-shirt. He watched carefully, but Wedge didn't need any help sitting up. His movements were slow and careful pulling off the bloodied shirt, but he managed. When he noticed Barret's scrutiny, a little color came back into his cheeks.
"I- I'm okay," he said. "Promise."
"You been sayin' that since you were shot, so I'm takin' it with a grain o' salt," Barret told him.
Wedge picked up the clean shirt, fumbling with the hem. "Well, it wasn't, you know, life-threatening."
"Wedge. It coulda been."
Wedge's hands stilled. He looked back at Barret. "That's what I should be saying to you," he said. "You just stood there."
Barret swallowed, not sure what to say.
"You didn't... You didn't think you deserved it. Did you?"
"No--" he said quickly, but he knew it wasn't the completely honest answer. He tore his gaze away from Wedge and found himself staring at his own gun-arm. "I don't know," he admitted. "Haunts me, sometimes. Thinkin' about all the people I got killed. I think about what kinda vengeance they're owed, what they might do to me if they had the chance. But I don't actually want..."
"...when you first told me about it," Wedge said quietly, "I couldn't really believe people would be that hard on you. You were just being hard on yourself. You were tricked, it wasn't your fault."
"I'm still responsible," Barret insisted.
"Not for all of it. Not all by yourself. I mean... Isn't that how the world works? Good or bad, nobody does it all by themselves."
Barret looked back at him, nodding slowly. "Yeah. Maybe."
Wedge smiled wryly. "You know I'm right, 'cause I learned that from you."
Barret huffed. "Yeah, yeah. Look, I... Thanks for keepin' me from bein' a total idiot."
"Just promise me you won't do that again?"
"I'll try," Barret promised. "I don't wanna put you through this again. Or me. Hell, you weren't thinkin' either, man. You just dove for it."
"I thought it was pretty brave of me," Wedge said, finally stretching his arms through the T-shirt. There was a self-satisfaction to his tone, but he was too modest to fully own it, busying himself with dressing instead.
"Brave an' stupid go hand-in-hand a lot o' the time," Barret told him. "So, uh, let's both try bein' a little less stupid. I don't wanna lose you."
Wedge stopped and looked at him with wide eyes, hair mussed from pulling the shirt over his head. "Y-yeah," he said. "Same."
Barret managed a grin. "Should I get everybody back in here? They're gonna be glad to see you up, an' we gotta figure out our next move."
He caught a flicker of disappointment before Wedge nodded, smiling. "Yeah, okay."
What was that about?
"Gonna miss these beds, huh?" Barret tried. "Gonna have to hit up some fancy resort one o' these days."
"Maybe one of those places with a spa," Wedge suggested.
"A spa? You ever been to a spa?"
"Nope. That's why we've gotta try it."
Barret rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Well, at least once wouldn't hurt nothin'. All right."
Wedge opened his mouth to reply and then shut it again, lips pressed together.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. It's just nice to have something to look forward to."
It was definitely more than that, but Wedge wasn't going to give it up now. Maybe he'd ask Tifa later if she knew. For now, he got to his feet, gesturing to the door. "Well, lemme get the others an' we'll see what kinda accommodations we can spring for next."
Barret did feel lighter somehow as he stepped outside. Wedge was okay, so that was one thing looking up. Yeah. It had been a shit day, but they'd made it out the other side all right.