Law & Order marathon + FF8 replay + coffee = this fic.

I love Law & Order. :D I've been addicted to this show about five years now. And so I've decided to combine my favorite video game with my favorite TV show. For this fic, I've written my own Law & Order episode, only set in the FF8 world. I've tried to recreate the L&O feel EXACTLY. It was a good writing exercise. Enjoy, hopefully.

**

Chapter One

Sasha Mirukami clasped her video camera firmly in her hand. Disdainfully she glanced at the dingy alleyway around her. "Are you sure we have to film it here?" she asked the two teenagers in front of her. "It smells pretty awful."

"The script calls for a dumpster, right?" Nick Royden, the dirty blonde, replied. "And this is the closest we're going to get to a dumpster without actually being in a dumpster."

Lita Hiram, a tall statuesque young woman, tapped her foot impatiently. "Who cares? Let's just get this over with."

Still having her doubts, Sasha scanned the area in front of her hesitantly. "Well…I don't think there's enough space. Maybe if we moved that bag over there." She motioned to a large, white, canvas bag lying carelessly in the corner.

Nick walked over and tugged at the bag, discovering that it wasn't a bag at all, just a large piece of cloth. Noticing something oddly shaped underneath, he pulled the cover back.

"Oh….Hyne…." he barely muttered as he stared at the pale dead body lying on the ground.

**

Detective Rocky Aries ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and approached a nearby uniformed police officer. "What do we have?" he asked in an unusually deep voice.

The officer replied quickly, "Female victim, single stab wound through the chest. She was wrapped up in some cloth. Couple of kids found her while shooting a video for a school project." He nodded towards the trio of teenagers, who were currently being questioned by another officer. "They're pretty shook up."

Slowly Aries approached the body. The other crime scene investigators were still at work, marking up the ground, examining the body, taking pictures. The victim lay almost peacefully at an angle, her hands placed stiffly at her sides. Her skin was pale and cold and her lips had turned that distinctive dead purple color. A single large jagged blood stain indicated a rather violent and untimely end. Although not the most gruesome of deaths, Aries had definitely seen more painless ones throughout his career.

"How long has she been dead?" Aries questioned.

One of the medical examiners looked up. "From her body temperature and onset of rigor mortis, I'd say around twelve hours. Maybe a little less."

"She's dressed nice," the uniformed guard commented. "That's an expensive shirt."

"Yeah," said Aries. "Too bad that blood stain ruins it."

**

Balamb 14th Precinct

May 20, 10:35 AM

Quistis Trepe smoothed back a strand of blonde hair and strode confidently to a man working diligently at his desk.

"Excuse me," she said.

"Yeah?" the man said, not bothering to look up.

"Do you know where I can find a Detective Aries?"

The man glanced up indifferently, then did a double take at the gorgeous woman in front of him. "Uh, yeah," he stuttered, "he's right over there." He pointed at a tall, but heavyset, man filling his mug at the coffee machine.

Quistis smiled. "Thank you." She walked off, and the man at the desk watched her leave with a more than interested eye.

The SeeD made her way across the busy room. She had no idea how bustling a police precinct could be. Detectives in and out of uniform shuffled about, answering ringing phones and filing papers. No wonder they needed help from Garden.

"Mr. Aries?"

The detective turned around. He cocked his eyebrow up curiously. "Yes?"

"My name is Quistis Trepe, and I'm a SeeD from Balamb Garden --"

"Ah, so you're part of that batch of SeeD's they sent in," Aries interrupted. "What took you guys so long?"

Quistis stumbled. "Well, um, the Balamb police department only gave us the order recently."

Detective Aries waved his arm casually. "Don't worry about it. We could use the extra help around here."

"I can tell."

The older man smiled, sizing the SeeD up. "So you're partnered up with me for the rest of the month, huh?"

The woman nodded. "That's what I've been told."

"Then let's get working on the first case." He motioned for Quistis to follow him to his desk, where he opened up a file. "This morning we found a young lady murdered in an alley. Not that uncommon, even in a place like Balamb." He handed the papers to Quistis. "So Miss…Trepe, was it? – tell me what you think."

Quistis adjusted her glasses and examined the file in her hands. "Well, I have to admit, this is the first time I've worked with law enforcement." She tried hard to remember the Criminal Investigation lectures she had at Garden. "Don't we have to identify the body first? Did you canvas the neighborhood?"

"Yup, we asked everybody within a two-block radius," replied Aries. "Nobody knows her, and nobody saw anything suspicious last night."

The woman frowned. "Have we checked with the M.E. yet?"

**

Balamb Coroner's Office

May 20, 1:05 PM

Miriam Greenstone removed the latex gloves from her slender fingers carefully. She sighed at the thought of the rest of a long day still ahead of her. Being a medical examiner never got easier.

Turning around, she addressed the detective and the SeeD. "The victim was stabbed with large blade, a sword of some sort."

Quistis Trepe unwittingly took a glance at the deathly white body resting on the examination table. Although a SeeD, she had rarely seen a dead body so close before. She shuddered and was glad a sheet covered most of the corpse.

"Judging from the size, I'd say it was a katana," Miriam continued, washing her hands in a nearby sink. "She was stabbed in the back. Sword went right through and out the other side."

Quistis's disturbed expression deepened. She reserved a special loathing for cowards who attacked from behind.

"Did you run her fingerprints through the system yet?" Aries inquired.

"Yes, but we got no hits," Greenstone answered.

The detective threw his hands up exasperatingly. "So we still don't know who she is."

"Actually…." The medical examiner shook the excess water off her hands. "I found something that might interest you." She walked to her computer and brought up a series of diagrams on the screen. Quistis and Aries leaned over inquisitively.

"I ran a couple of tests on her brain, just to see if she was under the influence of magic or not." Miriam gestured to the multi-colored blobs all over the screen. "And I encountered something very unusual. See this blue spot right here?" She pointed at an especially large dull blue blob in the back of the brain. "That indicates a large concentration of para-magic that disappeared when she died. No regular magic spell does that."

"So what does that mean?"

"That means that she was junctioned to a GF. And the only people that have access to GF's are…"

"…SeeD's." Quistis gasped. "Oh, Hyne, she was a SeeD."