Fearless

Disclaimer: Insert clever disclaimer here that says I don't own anything! :D

A/N: All right, it seems like I'm always saying I'm sorry for not updating sooner - but I want to legitimately apologize for the length of my last bold section, my A/N and whatever. It was rather irritating, even to me. So while I'm tryingto respond and stuff to people, I'm never writing one that long again. I'm just gonna say: check out my profile! I have a poll up that kind of has to do with this story, so I want all you lovely people to give me an opinion. That's all for now, so I'll start the replies :)

Shatter: I know, right? ! Oh you gotta love Vincent :) Eheh, the wall-smashing moment was a bit hilarious to write, I'll admit it. Yes, they need to cure him before it all goes to hell! :( Don't worry, you'll see :) Thanks! Shadow of a Broken Angel: Hahaha yaaaaay for the humor! Happy 2011 to you too, thanks! Sarah: Heehee, funny times... I knows it, they gotta get going on that...*shifty eyes* I shan't spoil it for you :) Thank you! Sayonara: Hahahahahaha oh so true! She totally would dominate over them all... Yeah, poor Gen needs the help of our fearless heroine! *triumphant music* Yay Vincent and GO Yuffie! (Even better - get together already!) Lol. All in good time. Ultimate: Well, seeing as how we've gone over all this already at various hangout times/sleepovers...what else can possibly be said. ^^ love u and enjoy this one! Angel: Awww thanks :) Glad to know I made you happy. Of course - Zack's awesome like that ^^ and Cloud and Tifa...well, what else is there to say? LOVE them. Hehehehe Reno...Vincent...Yuffie...good times at Shinra! Except for poor Genesis :/ he needs some saving! Stat! Yeah, I thought it'd make a good dramatic sub-plot. What can I say? Lol. I eagerly await the coming of your oneshots/stories/whatever else! :D Thank you so much! Shadow Ware: Why thank you! Yay for continuing to write! :D I feel so special and influential :') Thanks, i knew I was messing with canon but to heck with it, it's more fun this way ^^ Ahhh I never finished Trickster's Queen but Choice was really good even though I hardly remember it now...Song of the Lioness was just so awesome because I've always had this fascination with girls doing the unexpected and all :) (Favorite childhood movie was Mulan, lol!) Thanks! And yes, here comes that pesky degradation...heh. Thank you! Enjoy!

Chapter 38: Gain Some, Lose Some, and Become Generally Irritated at Some

"Hey! Let me in already!" She yelled in a voice of a considerably lower register, as she pounded on the door of room 192 several minutes later.

"Coming! Jeez." Max yanked the door open to the startling sight of his shorter roommate. "Dev?"

"No, it's the pizza man," she muttered. "Yeah, I'm back, finally. Got held up last night."

"Yeah, where were you, exactly?" Shane poked his head in from the kitchen area. "Way to disappear."

"I know, I just had to be somewhere fast." She waved a hand as she crossed the threshold and turned toward her and Cloud's room. "I stuck around the city, just moved around a few times. I'll take a couple extra missions this week to compensate, no big deal."

Max shrugged and nodded in agreement, but Shane gave her a scrutinizing look that she was more than a little uncomfortable with receiving while she wasn't completely bandaged up, even if she was now wearing her massively oversized sweatshirt. "Wait, so if you've been gone all weekend, where's your stuff?" he asked perceptively.

She rolled her eyes. "Left it at Tifa's earlier, then I went to go run some errands. I came back and, well, Cloud was there."

Max made an expectant face. "…Yeah? So…?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "If Cloud was there, then what do you think he and Tifa were doing? I wasn't gonna stick around for the gory details. I mean, I don't know about you, but—"

"Ohh, got it, got it." He looked briefly grossed out, then an evil grin made a stealthy appearance. "Hey Shane."

"Yo." He had submerged himself in the contents of the refrigerator and emerged once again, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

"Whaddaya say to a little…party crashing?"

He gained the same look. "I love crashing parties. Especially the private ones."

Diana snorted and let them do what they would, disappearing into her room and tracking down a half-used roll of bandages in the space under the sink. She performed the methodic, painstakingly learned actions that she had done a hundred times before, and went to change her clothes. Reminding herself that she didn't have anything to worry about (except maybe questions that might stem from the fact that her legs had no hair on them) she threw her old clothes in the hamper. She noted the fact that said hamper was a regular Mount Nibel of sweaty men's clothing, and decided to take that to Tifa's when she went to go get her backpack and explain things to her.

Digging out a white tank top, she pulled that on over her head and zipped up the sleeveless navy uniform top over that. Looking down at herself, she realized how natural it had become to be able to see all of her torso when she looked down. That was slightly unusual for most girls her age. The pain that she had had to become accustomed to was all right once she was properly conditioned to it, and it was well worth the freedom of movement. The first few days that her chest had been bound, she had jumped up and down for a minute straight in wonderment. It was perfectly comfortable to do, and that was just plain weird—but it was worth having that ability to move more easily and in more ways.

She pulled on her navy blue cargo pants and snapped on the belt contraption that Cloud had had a terrible time with in the beginning, fastening the adjoining straps over her shoulders. She wasn't going to bother with her shoulder guards for now, but threw on a jacket instead to cover her arms. Passing by the bathroom again as she crossed the room to retrieve her left boot, she had a thought. She threw the boot onto her bed and returned to the bathroom as she yanked on her leather gloves.

Inside, on the floor by the far wall, was a small black scale. She didn't know when the last time she had weighed herself was, and what if she had to fill out her height and weight on something sometime soon? You never knew. So she pulled out the scale, narrowly avoiding stubbing her sock-covered toe on the baseboard, and stepped onto it. She watched the little red needle swing up clockwise and looked at where it pointed on the little black lines. Then she spotted the numbers next to the thicker lines and her eyebrows shot up.

She had always been thin as a child, although her bone mass seemed to be considerably denser than average, seeing as how she had weighed about fifteen pounds more than she looked like as a teenager. This was ridiculous, though.

She stepped off the scale, made sure it was calibrated to zero, and got back on. The needle still pointed to the line just above the thick one in between 150 and 160. A hundred and fifty-six pounds? Really? She knew that muscle weighed more than fat, and she had gained a considerable amount of that over the past few months, but not that much.

"Hey, Max!" she yelled in the direction of the common area. "You still here?"

"Yeah!"

"We weren't actually gonna do anything!" Shane scoffed in addition.

"Yeah, so you say." She emerged from her room and moved towards one of the cupboards by the sink. "I was wondering. Do mako infusions make you gain bone or muscle density or something?"

Max muttered something about 'geniacs' and Shane cocked his head to the side. "Er, why d'you say that?"

"I think I, uh, gained some weight." She hadn't realized quite how odd that sounded, especially coming from a supposed man. Sure enough, as she turned to them, her friends were giving her equally strange looks that were asking 'and you notice this why?'

"No, it's just, there's a scale in our bathroom and I was bored. I mean, what if someone needs my age, height, and weight, or something? I don't know. You never know. But seriously. Do I look almost one-sixty to you?" She spread her arms and glanced down at her comparatively scrawny body pointedly. Granted, she was dressed, but her feet were devoid of the thick uniform boots, and she hadn't eaten anything in the past fifteen hours, either.

"One-sixty?" Max wrinkled his nose. "You sure you can read?"

She rolled her eyes. "You go check!"

So he marched off, and returned twenty seconds later. "About one-eighty-five. …Yeah, that's definitely off." Diana raised her eyebrows in victory as she riffled through the boxes in the cupboard and finally located the granola bars, pulling out three. Max was just two inches taller than her, and was of a fairly average build. If her idea of an average weight for a male his size and age was correct, he was definitely heavier than normal.

Shane rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe it is the mako…I mean, that would make sense, right? If it makes us stronger, then…"

"A dramatic increase in muscle density would be logical since the muscle needs to take and exert a lot more force, and the bones as well, as an allocation for increased stress and potential forceful contact…" She tapped a finger against her bottom lip in consideration. "…What. Makes sense to me," she said defensively at her friends' now exasperated looks. "Whatever." She forcefully chomped off half the granola bar in her hand. Finishing it off in another bite, she unwrapped the second one. And I haven't even eaten yet today. Jeez. Mako sure does do weird things. At least it's the same for them as it is for me, them actually being male and all.

"What're you guys doing today?" she inquired conversationally.

Max snorted. "Taking a break. We were in the slums on extermination duty all of yesterday and the day before."

"Ah." She nodded as she wolfed down the third bar quickly. Jeez, if she wanted to, she could probably pull off being a man for any given duration of time. As if the habits and mannerisms she had picked up from her twin over the years weren't enough, now she was living with three men and had had to learn hands-on how to act like them and make it look natural. That's really the key to life, she mused as she deposited the wrappers in the trash. Just look like you know exactly what you're doing, and no one's going to question you. She smirked slightly. "Well, I'm gonna go see what I can do about getting my stuff back. My favorite knife's in that bag," she remembered with a slight frown. "Catch you guys later."

They both made noises of affirmation as she exited the dorm. Maybe Cloud had left Tifa's, maybe not; either way, she wanted to go for a walk.

She should have learned by now that this was in general not something that would have an entirely positive and incident-free outcome, but even with this in mind, she did it anyway. The thing was, for once, it was a good idea after all.

She heard the rumble of the engine of what sounded like a bus start and gradually fade off, and cocked her head to the side. Exiting? Why would a bus… Oh. In one of the large courtyards from which one could easily gain access to the cadet dorm buildings, an equally large number of people seemed to be gathered. There's a new round of cadets that's come in? …Awesome! Out of curiosity, she decided to make a pass by the area, just to take a look.

Her memories of her first day at Shinra were funny ones. First off, there was befriending Cloud on the bus, then making quite the impression by gaining the reputation of being the feisty midget. Now that had been fun. Except that she had had to be saved…by Zack. Well, maybe that part wasn't so bad. She grinned resignedly. I would've been toast. But, he was there, so no worries.

Suddenly, a thought dawned on her. She also remembered seeing SOLDIER members in uniform, smirking as she and her friends made their way around the unfamiliar campus. The inherent form of entertainment was to pick on the newbies, as she had experienced several times before people figured out not to mess with the shrimp.

Of course, she wasn't going to be malevolent about it. Even if it was somewhat of a tradition—on her part, it would all just be in good fun.

Taking advantage of the angle of the sun (which didn't provide any honestly direct light anyway, even up here on the plate, due to the pollution) she leaned against the open doorway from the hall she had just crossed into the courtyard, crossing her arms. Ever the silent watcher, she just observed. She took in the young men with amusement, seeing them look around in wonder, most likely thrilled at the thought that these walls were the foundation of Shinra, the world's most powerful corporation, and that they were going to help fight for it. There were dreamers; there were action-takers; there were fighters; there were peacekeepers—all with the united goal of becoming achievers.

Here was the part where everyone stood around cluelessly, waiting for someone to come and tell them what to do. She chuckled. Bet Sephiroth's just thrilled—he's probably stuck with this job again. Or maybe Angeal. I doubt Genesis has left his rooms yet. She frowned slightly at the thought of her friend. I'd better talk to Aerith, ASAP. Who knows how fast that wound could spread to the rest of his body, or mutate, or something… Heck, I don't know. That's not a natural wound, though, and he needs help. She suddenly noticed a few slightly raised voices, and her thought bubble popped as she refocused on the scene outside.

It was all too obvious what the milling around of men into a loose circle usually meant. "Oh, you're kidding, right?" she muttered exasperatedly. She nearly had a heart attack when she got a response, and then almost fell over when she realized it was coming from inside her own head.

No, I'm sorry—they're not kidding. They rather like their manly displays, don't they?

The voice was on the borderline of amusement. Diana made a face. Sweet Shiva. You do know you just about made me go into cardiac arrest, right?

Apologies. I know you certainly don't need any more near-death experiences…

I'm a SOLDIER. Kinda comes as an occupational hazard.

You know what I really meant, child.

Er, no, actually… Wait. Oh, that. Hey, about that— she began.

We can have this discussion later. Right now, I think you may want to see this…

The voice of Gaia faded out of existence, and in seconds, the Goddess' presence was gone. Diana sighed exasperatedly, vowing to sit in a quiet corner where she could have a nice, private mental discussion with the deity later. She turned her attention back to the soon-to-be cadets.

They were definitely circling something. Oh, a space in the middle. Fabulous. All that that meant was a fight— She cut off the thought abruptly. Hey. Wait. That's…someone really is fighting! What the hell do they think they're doing? Throwing their testosterone around was one thing, but if someone was going to be walking away with a broken limb, that wasn't going to fly.

She nonchalantly strolled across the empty space, looking like she knew exactly what she was doing, and she silently thanked Gaia for her ability to almost disappear when necessary.

She narrowed her gray eyes to focus better on the details. Hmm. Definitely just two in the center. She slipped into the crowd with practiced ease, keeping her head angled down while moving to see the action better.

Okay, I know I have a temper, but at least I have my motives, right? I swear, if these guys got into an argument over who has a bigger— She shuddered and rolled her eyes. She knew she was being judgmental. But hey, she'd gotten way too many jokes involving women and kitchens before that were unjustified and uncalled for, and had resulted in some severe…er…conflicts, to put it mildly. If stereotypes were really based on twisted facts, then there was a good chance that this was something trivial. Nevertheless, it was well within her duty to call them on it. And, besides—she grinned evilly—she was their superior.

A couple men were laughing. A few looked a bit uncomfortable. Most just looked mildly interested; only spectators, not here to intervene. She pushed through a few more people, cursing the fact that while she was a tree among women, she was a midget among men. Is there no happy medium? !

She paused and looked over someone's shoulder, and what she could see made her eyebrows shoot up. The men were indeed circling each other, one baring his teeth aggressively, and the other one shouting loud insults.

Well, she wasn't going to be a bystander, because doing nothing was just as bad as advocating the events.

She shifted her way subtly to the near front of the throng, hoping that maybe they were just trying to scare each other, but when their postures changed to attack mode in a way that she had learned to recognize, that possibility disappeared. Time to move, then, she thought resignedly. That's not cool.

"What is this, the playground?" she said loudly, stepping into a slight gap in the front line. Heads turned. A few of the men around her moved back a bit, almost as if they were anticipating her needing space. Smart guys. "I mean, really. I'd expect more from potential SOLDIER members."

The aggressive, shorter one whirled on her almost immediately. She stared back with an air of sarcasm.

"What do you know?" he said, of an equal volume.

"I'm saying, break it up. Do you have no sense of honor?" Angeal would be proud.

"He was the one who called me a prick—"

"You punched me, asshole—!"

She laughed dryly. "Ouch. Am I sensing a rivalry? Didn't anyone ever teach you that public displays of aggression are likely to get you kicked out?"

"Look, who do you think you are?" the first one snapped. He was on the verge of adding something else, but Diana had spotted one of his fists beginning to curl and his arms tensing to cock back. The second man flinched reflexively and was about to go on the defensive when Diana's next statement made him realize that he was off the hook for now.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." She cut him off and threw it at him like a challenge.

"Oh, yeah?" he asked loudly. "Well, you're not me, so who are you to be giving orders?" he challenged her back.

"If you want to know, the name's Devon Loveless." She paused slightly, the corner of her mouth threatening to pull up triumphantly. "SOLDIER, Third Class."

There was a beat of silence, presumably during which some reconsidering was done. Diana flicked a glance at the second man, who was now openly staring at her. She refocused on the other man. "Now, let's be honest, Thirds don't have huge amounts of authority. Fact of life," she stated conversationally. "But that still does make me your superior. So… I might take my recommendations into consideration. If I were in fact you. So I say break it up."

She could have laughed out loud at the mutterings that were going around. Oh, she knew full well that she looked fairly unassuming as a man. There's a reason for that, she snickered to herself. Oh, Gaia, their faces if they knew the truth!

"I don't want to see or hear about any more of this," she called out. The two men were slowly backing into their places among their immediate friends in the circle. "Today, you are all here with the hopes of becoming SOLDIERs. I'm not going to lie—it's not an easy road." She almost laughed. "Not by a long shot. You may not like a lot of what you see. But if it's what you really want, you will make it. You have to work for it; and then you have to make it worth it. These men," she gestured around, turning slowly, "these men are your comrades in arms. If you can't trust them, you can't trust anyone. I'm not saying we all have to be best friends. I'm not going to insult your intelligence with that. But among comrades, you don't need that to trust each other. It's completely different." She smacked one hand into her other palm for emphasis. "By the end of your cadet training, each and every one of you should be able to trust each and every other man here with his life. Because if that trust doesn't exist, there is no core to our military. You have to be careful who you do trust in life—it isn't something to be given lightly. But above all, trust your comrades. Remember that." She pointed a finger around at the men, who had gathered in a kind of circle around her now. Dropping the hand, she looked around, meeting every pair of eyes that she came to with her glowing emerald ones. She smiled lopsidedly. "Now, one of the commanders should be along soon. If you're lucky, it might be the General. I'd make a good impression if I were you." She raised her eyebrows expectantly as the men began murmuring again, excitedly this time. Turning, the men parted for her like water, and she strode off, back the way she had come. Before she got to the doorway, however, she stopped dead, because Zack was coming toward her.

"Hey Shorty!" he yelled, grinning madly and clearly aiming to embarrass her.

"Good to see you too, Porcupine," she called back, walking to meet him. She was sure that every single eye in that crowd was on them now, but she wasn't going to turn around to check. "Minor fight a few minutes ago," she said quietly as he approached. "I broke it up, gave them a speech worthy of Angeal," she snorted.

"Really?" He exhaled loudly. "Why am I not surprised. Hang on, you didn't do the honor spiel, did you?"

She waved a hand. "Nah, that'd be stealing from the original. I did the trust-your-comrades spiel."

"And how true that is," he said seriously. "Wanna stick around? I have to get them all off to where they need to be and Sephiroth ditched on me so I need a second."

"But I'm only a Third!" she protested.

"Okay, I'm not sure if that was intended to be a bad pun or not," he wrinkled his nose adorably, "but either way, it doesn't matter. I get the feeling they respect you."

She sighed, partially in an effort to expel her hormonal tendencies. (Stop looking at him like that! Stop it! Oh, so it's no big deal that I woke up in his bed this morning, I'm just hanging out here, you know, like everything's totally normal…) "Fine, fine. I'll stick around."

"Cool. Hey, cadets!" he yelled, but the raise in volume wasn't really necessary, because Diana saw as she turned to stand beside Zack that the men were hanging on their every word. At least, they were trying to; they couldn't hear a thing, of course, but still. Most of them knew who Zack Fair, First Class was, and Devon Loveless of the Third Class seemed to be in cahoots with him, making them easily the most interesting people for several hundred feet.

Diana listened to Zack with half an ear and concentrated the rest of her efforts on scanning the crowd of men. She didn't recognize anyone, of course—now that would be a regular disaster—but then again, Kalm was small, with few people. With a little less wisdom, she would have said that she and her friends hadn't looked nearly so unprepared and bewildered as this lot, but of course that wasn't true at all. She must have looked quite the pathetic sight herself, she thought wryly, suppressing a chuckle. Looking back on it, she could clearly remember Cloud's perpetually dazed, wide-eyed expression. Our little chocobo's grown up, she allotted with a twinge of nostalgia. We all have. She risked a sidelong glance at Zack, who was in the midst of enforcing those privileges not allowed to cadets that they should be particularly observant of. More than we realize ourselves, and more than we realize of each other, too. Maybe more than we can ever recognize.

She shook herself out of the short reverie when Zack clapped his hands sharply and yelled something about signing the roster and getting the keys from him. He produced a small box that jangled a lot, and Diana presumed those were the keys, not to mention the spares. He peered into it as the cadets milled around, looking for roommates.

"Er. I think I've…disorganized them a bit," he muttered, looking at the jumbled mess. "Mind sorting these out?"

Diana rolled her eyes good-naturedly and grunted an affirmative. "Thank Gaia someone had the sense to label these, at least…" She peered over at the box. As she took a step toward him and extended her hand, she froze suddenly, having experienced a subtle but all too familiar sensation from farther south. "Uh-oh," she muttered, staring straight ahead, trying to figure out if that had indeed been what her instincts had told her it was.

Zack popped into her line of vision and she drew back slightly, blinking. "You okay?"

"Er, yeah. Look, I've just remembered—I have to go. Now." She stared at him in a bit of an odd way.

"Uh. Okay?" Zack was taken aback by his friend's sudden urgency. "See you later, then. We should sign up for a couple missions together soon!" he called after her, as she had already begun to jog away.

"Great! Later!" she yelled over her shoulder, swearing to herself. Why, why hadn't she remembered that today was the nineteenth? Granted, she had had other things on her mind, but she scolded herself for forgetting about this all the same. And running seemed to be making it worse, although if she walked, it would take way too long. She ran all the way back to the dorm, finding it locked and fumbling slightly with her key, and discovered it to be empty. Well, there was one good thing, at least.

She tore into the bathroom and hunted down her well-concealed bag of supplies. This is beyond irritating, she fumed repeatedly to herself.

At some point, you're going to have to recognize that you are in fact a woman.

Diana snorted at the reappearance of the goddess' presence. I'd noticed, thanks. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

So you would really rather be a man?

Now there was something to think about. Both sides had their pros and cons, of course. No. No, I suppose not. I mean, think of all I'd miss.

But think of all you would gain.

Diana got the distinct impression that she was being tested. But from where I am now, everything about my life? I'm perfectly happy the way I am.

Exactly.

…Wait, what? Was I just played?

I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about.

Sure, sure. Jeez, this is weird. I'm in the bathroom, for Ga—er, your sake.

Well then, get out of the bathroom, why don't you?

You're just afraid to sass me in person, she grumbled. That wasn't a provocation, she thought hurriedly.

I thought not.

Diana washed her hands and walked back out into her and Cloud's room on autopilot. So, I've got a few questions.

No doubt you do. I wish I could answer them.

First off—wait, what? What do you mean? You can't tell me you don't know—?

Of course I know. That does not, however, make it my place to meddle in the affairs and opinions of mortals.

"I—what?" she spluttered out loud. "This isn't—this is self-preservation! I want to know why people are out to kill me!"

All I can say is to keep constant vigilance. You will need to keep you friends very close. I do not want your life in such near jeopardy again. Her tone was severe, but considerate all the same.

What, like it's my fault a psychopath came out of nowhere while I was visiting my family? she argued heatedly, in her head this time.

No, the Goddess continued patiently, even I almost didn't see that coming. I am just saying that since that man and monster were killed, their…benefactor…will only send stronger ones after you.

"Stronger? ! That guy nearly killed me! How am I supposed to handle anything stronger than that—?"

Is Diana Loveless accepting that a challenge is too great for her?

I—no—no, not that, I mean, I was just unprepared, right? If I'm always ready, then—

Then perhaps you will be able to delay an attacker until help can come for you? She was suddenly alarmingly serious.

Well, maybe—I don't know! With preparation I can handle whatever he'll throw at me, right—?

And what happens when you cannot? She cut in sharply. You cannot do everything by yourself. You need to accept help once in a while, whether willingly or not. I know how much pride you have, finally being able to take on nearly anything, but this is not by any means a natural case. Someone out there, someone with a dangerous amount of knowledge and resources, wants you dead. You, specifically. And he will do anything he can to accomplish that. Do you realize how imperative it is that you survive, and beyond that, find out who he is? Surrender just a bit of that pride for once, and make a healthy decision. Novel, I know. Oh, and on that topic—go and see your friend the Cetra as well. It will be a good decision.

Needless to say, Diana didn't exactly have anything to say to that.

I will talk to you again soon, then. Take your sword when you go the slums. Which, by the way, you haven't named yet… She trailed off and faded completely, leaving Diana standing in the middle of her room, staring at her sword in the corner and feeling more frustratedly confused than ever.

A/N: And so she's got no answers. :/ Well, those deities just can't go against the rules, I guess! So this was more of a transition chapter, but it's got those little blurbs of significance. Ya know. But on the topic of the parting line - I honestly have gone through a ton of ideas for naming her sword. Just because I feel like it should have a name :) Does anyone have any ideas? At all? That aren't overly cheesy, because I've thought of plenty of those *grin* Thanks, hope you enjoyed the slight interlude, and until next time! :D