Author's notes: A short ficlet I cooked up, the premise being Reisen Udongein Inaba as a higher-ranking PSICOM member. As you can see, it's rather short. I hope it's enjoyable. I think the premise is interesting, so I might make more of these.

Reisen gritted her teeth as the wheel whizzed past her head, almost hitting her prosthetic bunny ears. The wheel spun around in mid-air, returning to its sender. With practised ease, she jumped backwards onto a crystal ledge, scrutinizing the opponents below her.

Fucking perfect.

The Pulse l'cie had been taken down without too much trouble. Her troops had him cornered. He was on the ground, panting and wounded. All that remained was restraining him and delivering him to HQ. Then all she would have needed to do after that was fill out some paperwork and sign her name a few times, and before long, she would have sitting at home in her apartment on Eden enjoying some well-deserved time with her girlfriend.

That is how it would have gone at least, if not for the two eidolons who suddenly decided it would be a swell time to appear.

Reisen groaned inwardly, the purge was quickly becoming more trouble that it was worth. Not that that was particularly surprising. Having the entire operation dumped on her hands, even when she had made it perfectly clear she'd rather they didn't, had not done much for her motivation.

As long as everything had gone according to plan, things had been fine. Get the Purge victims onto the train and over to the Hanging Edge. Then, kill them. Nice and simple, and easy for PSICOM to cover up, so that the Sanctum could keep their pearly white image.

… Of course, real life never worked the way you wanted it to. When the last train had arrived, everything went to pieces. Clearly, planning to genocide an entire town's populace did not go over well with the remainder that had avoided purging. In short order, the entire operation had been wrecked.

The reports she had received didn't tell her much, though she had some idea of what had transpired. Apparently, there were two separate groups that had caused all this havoc. One was larger than the other, and had armed several of the people they had rescued in an effort to bolster their ranks. The other consisted of two people…

Nabaat was obviously not going to take this well. Reisen could only hope she was occupied with that little l'cie of hers. He was the one who had pointed out the Pulse Vestige for them, and the director seemed inordinately interested in his abilities.

In which case, Rosch would be the one she would have to report to. Apparently, she was screwed either way.

That's not to say it had been a total failure, they had managed to kill the majority of Bodhum's populace, but a significant amount were able to escape. That was the main reason she was down here with her men, on the crystallized Lake Bresha. The sooner they finished off the survivors, the sooner they could all go home.

Focusing once more on the situation at hand, Reisen contemplated her options. A retreat seemed most attractive right now, despite the potential consequences. Taking on two eidolons without backup would be tough, especially considering the fact that she would have to hold back as well. She did not want the fact that she was also a l'cie, albeit a Cocoon one, to become known.

Of course, if she killed the Pulse l'cie, that wouldn't be an issue. The eidolons would likely disappear, and she'd have ridded Cocoon of a threat. In that sense, it was fortunate that her men had been killed.

Further deliberation was cut short by the wheel hurtling towards her once more, actually hitting her in the gut and knocking her to the ground. The two eidolons came closer, hovering menacingly above her.

Right… retreat it was then.

Without batting an eyelash, Reisen pulled a grenade out of her pocket, lobbing it at one of the eidolons. Scurrying to her feet, the PSICOM officer promptly turned tail and ran away as fast as she could. The explosion that sounded a few moments afterwards brought a smile to the l'cie's face. Without pausing her run, she pulled out her communicator and called the men back at the Palamecia.