Before Crisis: The Beginning
By DarkAngel
Disclaimer: All I has here is this concrete slab I likes to call a laptop, see? It dun even power up without being plugged into that there socket – that's how poor I be. Suing me do no good, yeah:DDD
Chapter 10: Through the Bramble Lined Path and Into the Breach (Rosalind)
The sound of Reno's voice carried across the corridor. Rosalind arrived just in time to see President Shinra marching out of his suite, Reno right on his heels.
"I've waited long enough," the President was saying. "We're going."
Reno spotted Rosalind and breathed a sigh of relief. He made a face and rolled his eyes at the President's back. "Oi! Rookie!" he said in an exaggerated tone. "What's your status?"
"I've swept the hotel," Rosalind said, not understanding what Reno was getting at. "We're clear."
Reno made a face at her. Obviously she'd misunderstood something.
"Get ready," President Shinra said brusquely to them. "We're leaving right now."
"Understood." Rosalind took up her position in front of the President, letting Reno take the rear.
Outside the hotel was a fair sized cortege – obviously the men that Veld had sent in response to the President's wishes. The President addressed the soldiers, telling them that he wanted to get to the Junon branch office.
Reno sidled up to her, his face sour. "Thanks a lot, rookie."
"What is it, sir?"
"You don't have to call me – Never mind. I wanted to keep him in the building. If you'd said something about it not being safe just yet, he might've waited."
"Judging by the way he was storming out of there, he wouldn't have waited much longer either way," she replied.
Reno shrugged. "Maybe you're right." He sighed. "All I know is that we'd better be getting double time for this."
They set out. It would take about twenty minutes to get to the branch office assuming nothing untoward happened. At this point, Rosalind wasn't about to hold her breath on a miracle.
Her pessimism turned out to be well justified. No sooner had she finished that thought when a voice shouted at them. "President Shinra!" Frantically, she searched for the source of the voice. An AVALANCHE operative was watching them from out a window. "Remember this!" the operative shouted. He dropped something.
The ground shook, and there was a roaring sound that filled her ears. Rosalind shut her eyes as pieces of debris went flying. She held her arms up to shield her face as hot chunks of debris hit her. When she opened her eyes again, she gasped.
The road had been rent apart. There was a huge crack down the middle of it, with a sizeable gap in the dead centre of where the explosive had made contact with the ground.
She also saw that she had been separated from the others: she was on one side of the newly made divide; President Shinra, Reno and the guards were on the other.
"Sir, are you all right?" she called from across the divide. How in the world had she gotten separated from them like that?
If the President had been disturbed before by the sight of the guardsman catching fire, it was nothing compared with now. Even from this distance she could see him shaking, and he was tugging absently, nervously, on his moustache. He was babbling something that she couldn't quite hear.
"Hey, rookie! I'll take care of the guy up there," Reno yelled, jabbing a finger up at the window. "You make sure the President gets to the branch office safely."
"Understood!" she shouted back.
They negotiated the gap so she and Reno had switched places: she, President Shinra and some of the guards were on one side of the road; Reno and a couple of other guards were on the other side closest to the building. The guards followed Reno, who was already running into the building.
Rosalind's PHS rang. Picking up, she was slightly surprised to hear Veld on the other end.
"What's your situation?" Briefly, Rosalind wondered if he could read minds. She explained what had happened.
"I see," Veld said at last. "It seems AVALANCHE is putting everything they've got into this operation." He sighed. "Still, the President's safety is our priority. Get him to the branch office safely. It doesn't need to be said, but AVALANCHE could be anywhere, so stay on your guard at all times. As long as you stick close to him, you shouldn't run into too many problems."
Somehow Rosalind doubted that, but she replied with an affirmative and hung up. Nodding at the guards, they started off down the street once again.
They passed a number of shops and residences. Things were once again eerily quiet – what had happened to all the citizens? Were they hiding? They passed a sweet shop. Just then the door to the shop banged open, and voices shouted.
"He's here! Come on!"
"Do something! Quickly!" President Shinra bellowed.
Spinning around, Rosalind fired off rounds, double tapping so that it looked as if the operatives had been hit at the same time. They had walked only a few feet more when they were attacked again. These operatives too, Rosalind took out quickly. There were more shouts. Rosalind spun around, leaving the last man she had dispatched to fall spinelessly to the ground. Her eyes widened.
President Shinra, who had run for it was standing just across the entrance to an apartment building – which AVALANCHE operatives were boiling out of.
"You! They're over here!" President Shinra shouted, alarmed. Biting back an oath, Rosalind ran for his position.
Instantly, the AVALANCHE operatives swarmed the President. They were pushing him around now, and a couple of them were drawing weapons –
With a strangled yell, Rosalind called upon the lightning spell, gratified as they all went down at once. She rushed to the President's side.
"Be more careful next time!" he growled at her.
"Yes, Mr. President," Rosalind said in as neutral a tone as she could manage. It was hardly her fault that he had rushed out of her line of protection. If he had only stayed beside her, he wouldn't have been attacked like that.
He turned to the guardsmen. "We've lost precious time. We're moving on."
Rosalind turned, following behind the group. They'd attacked the last two times from the rear; if she took up that position, she'd be able to see ahead as well as respond to anything that might come from behind.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out like that. As she caught up with the others, there was a whizzing sound, and one of the guards fell over, dead.
"A sniper?!" Immediately, Rosalind moved in front, shoving President Shinra behind her. The remaining guardsman gestured at the window where the shot had come from, then at the entrance to the building.
"Damn it!" President Shinra blustered. "What do you think you're doing?! You! Get in there! I won't feel at all safe until that vermin's taken care of!"
"Yes sir." She wished he would stop shouting. Things were tense enough without him roaring in her ear. "Please be careful while I'm gone." She really hoped he'd take her advice and just stay put with the guardsman.
The sniper had attacked from the third floor. Rosalind ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The sooner she could take care of this, the sooner she could get back to the President – and the sooner they'd make it to the branch office. As it was, it felt like the office was miles away.
She burst into the room where the sniper had shot from. The idiot was actually taking the time to disassemble his rifle. She nearly laughed. The operative scrambled up, clearly surprised. Amateurs. A lot of these so-called AVALANCHE people were amateurs. The operative reached for a handgun in his holster. Rosalind sighed.
"I've never lost a gun fight before," she murmured. "Let's go!"
The operative then dropped his gun. Rosalind blinked. He bent over to pick it up.
This was too much. He wasn't even worth the bullet. She zapped him with a thunderbolt.
There was a scream from outside. Rosalind rushed to the window.
Three AVALANCHE members had surrounded the President and the guardsman.
"The President?! I've got to hurry!"
She didn't think she had ever run so fast in her life. Within seconds, she had cleared the final landing and was shoving her way outside. She grunted as she impacted with something. There was suddenly a lot of purple in her field of vision, which soon cleared. President Shinra was staring at her, wild eyed.
"Mr. President?!"
"The guard's been killed," he said, pointing rather stupidly at the dead guardsman. Rosalind nodded briskly.
"I'll take care of them," she said. "Please, sir. Wait here." She sounded exasperated to her own ears, but he would just have to live with it.
When she got back, she found to her relief that for once, the President had stayed put. They started – for the umpteenth time – the trek to the branch office.
It had only been a few minutes when yet another contingent of AVALANCHE showed itself. Rosalind counted four of them ahead of her. Shouts made her turn around – they were behind her too!
Ignoring the President's shouts, Rosalind dove into the fray. She dealt with three out of four of the rear contingent with magic. The fourth one somehow managed to evade the lightning bolt aimed at him. This one Rosalind took out with a bullet. Turning her attention to the group in front, she raised her hand again to call forth her magic again.
When it was over, Rosalind let out a breath. Glancing up at the street numbers, she closed her eyes. They were just a block away from the branch office. Somehow, they'd made it this far.
"Double time indeed," she muttered under her breath, echoing Reno's earlier words.
To be continued…
Author's Notes: Thanks very much to those who have been commenting. :) Your words are a great encouragement, and I do appreciate you taking the time to write. The action bits are always challenging to write for anybody, methinks. In a way they're like sex scenes: There's a fine line between TMI and not enough; credulity and "hey, that's not humanly possible"! Not that I'd know anything about that. I mean, if I had to publish a lemon, it'd probably take me 10 years because I'd be too busy a) choking b) laughing c) going back and deleting, shaking my head going, "What the hell am I thinking?" I'll leave writing of romance novels and such to the experts. :3