Chapter 12

It's bigger then you, and you are not me.

Mirri looked at the car she was guarding with James and Niro and then self-consciously started whistling. She was not an extremely good whistler but sometimes there was nothing else to do in life. "So why are you so interested in Mircat?"

Spoke too soon, unless Mirri's ears were deceiving her something interesting was heading her way right now. "Well it's like this Rude. There are lots of girls out there who if you give a couple of sweets to and talk nice they'll open their pants wider then Horselaugh's waist. But not Mirri! She saw through that stuff like the material Scarlet wears when she's not at the office!

Trying to get Mirri to give in is like climbing a mountain you have to do it one small step at a time, but when you finally get on top it's a real sense of accomplishment! Nothing in life feels good unless you have to give something up or work for it. That's why, the more beer costs, the better it tastes."

"Beer tastes the same." "You have no taste for the finer things in life my friend." "Like chugging crappy wine?" "Hey that was a challenge between me and the big guy, Rufus."

"Um guys, shouldn't you be keeping your eyes open for trouble?" "Stop being so weak Elena! You make it sound like if we take our eyes off where we're going for one second that we'll run completely unaware into either the guy who killed President Shinra or Sephiroth and his whackos."

It was at this point that Reno came into view, walking up the other trail that lead into town. At his side was a man in the traditional Turk blue suit, he wore dark sunglasses and his face was totally blank. Trailing behind them was a woman with blue eyes and blond hair, also in a blue Turk uniform.

Reno took one look at James, Mirri and Niro, then rubbed his eyes slightly as if just to make sure. Then he spun around and gave a death glare to Elena. "Listen, this does not mean that you are right, all it means is that God is still holding his grudge against me. It goes way back to the time when I showed up for work drunk and vomited all over the President's new suit."

Mirri crossed her arms and glared at Reno. "Reno, allow me to say that first off, not in even in your wildest dreams are you going to be on top of me. Secondly, James: sic." "DEATH FROM ABOVE!"

James, who had up to this point been perched "sunning" on the top of the car, rolled over and did a fairly good impression of Alex leaping at someone even if he did lack fangs or claws. The man with the black sunglasses was about to go to his partner's aid when Niro transformed into a black panther and leapt at him, and soon those two were rolling on the ground trying to kill each other also.

Mirri took one look at the various men attempting to kill each other, shrugged and turned to Elena. "So how many people have you killed?" Elena looked like part of her wanted to go to Reno and the other man's aid, but at the same time knew that doing so would risk Mirri's wrath. "Well, none as of yet..."

Mirri laughed clutching her sides, a Turk who hadn't killed anyone? Now that was absurd. "You haven't killed anyone, and you're a Turk? Hell, Misaki, acquaintance of mine, got iced a couple years back, female Turk, said you weren't even initiated in till you'd ripped somebody's heart out with your bare hands! Oh yeah, and you had to do it without getting blood on your suit, real difficult. Of course the secret that they don't tell you is that you have to roll up your sleeves first. So anyway, if they aren't using that as an entrance exam, what are they using?"

The other man had apparently managed to fend Niro off, so he had turned back into his human "self" and pulled out two small automatic pistols. He then proceeded to blaze away with them, and what they lacked in stopping power they made up for in spray and pray. The man in the dark glasses was thus kept very busy. Even though Niro was spraying a lot of ammo the guns didn't generate a great amount of sound, just a continuous one. Mirri calmly took a few steps towards Elena.

The female Turk was still busy trying to figure out what she should do. "Well you see I scored very well on these test and they said being a Turk was the best way I could serve Shinra..." Why was Mirri not surprised? She leaves Shinra for a few days and already the entire system was going to the dogs. "Tests? What do tests have to do with anything? Battles happen out here on the battlefield not on paper. Where's the rhyme, reason or logic to this?"

As she spoke Mirri took a step to the side so that James and Reno could roll past her. Unlike the other Turk Reno showed no sign of wanting to disentangle himself from James. Instead the two were kicking, punching, strangling, and otherwise going at each other like cats in a bag. Wet cats in a bag.

"Umm how do you do that?" Niro in a last refuge threw his empty pistols at the man, who, of course, dodged them. He then dashed at Niro and slammed into him at full speed, bearing him to the ground. However, Niro was only down and far from out, he reached into his trench coat and pulled out another pistol. Then he somehow back flipped from the ground onto his knees as if the law of gravity had been repealed. Mirri shrugged and waited for the thunderous boom of the .44 pistol Niro had drawn before she started talking.

"It's a combination of devil's luck and woman's intuition. Anyway..." Mirri paused for the discharge of another high power round. "What are you doing with these two?" "GET THE HELL OFF ME YOU FREAK OF NATURE!" "HEY I WAS MADE FROM BASE STRANDS OF DNA UP, WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE? BESIDES, NATURE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!" James and Reno were now busy finding the breath to hurl insults at each other in between attempts to maim each other.

"Well I was told that I was qualified to be a Turk and I could do the best to serve Shinra that way so I did." Niro had now pulled from his trench coat (how many different guns did that man carry around with him?) another automatic pistol. This one also apparently had a small missile for use against hard targets. Suffice to say this area of the world was soon missing one tree. Thankfully, it didn't hit anything when it fell.

Apparently it was God's plan for Mirri to need to give every women other then her a lecture on how to live. "First off, the 'greater good' and other such concepts are just words people use when somebody has to get the short end of the stick. Secondly, life isn't about doing what's good for everyone, it's about doing what good for you and you enjoy."

Reno now apparently had the upper hand, having a death grip on a particularly sensitive portion of James' anatomy. "NOT THE EARS!" Regardless of any pain he was feeling, James was at the same time using Reno's occupation with the upper portions of his body to pound the Turk's midsection. "See that over there, that's the sound of unbridled idiocy."

Mirri was also reluctant to think about the other sound she was hearing at that moment. It sounded like a gatling gun, but you did not fit a gatling gun into a trench coat. "As I was saying, these guys are here because they like what they do. After all, it's certainly not out of any ideas about the greater good." Mirri distinctly heard the sound of a belt fed weapon "reloading"; apparently Niro had an entire armory in his trench coat. Now all he had to do was pull a tank out of it.

"Suffice to say you really should reconsider what the hell you're fighting for, and who your fighting with. Because sooner or latter a blind will to do what is good for others gets taken advantage of. For example, I would keep Reno away from any credit cards. Oh, you also might want to keep your eyes on him whenever he goes near anything expensive, brightly colored, and easily breakable."

"SOUTHPAW FLAMING SPLEEN PUNCH!" "YOUR SINISTER WAYS WILL NEVER TRIUMPH OVER THE TRUE HAND!" "Clink." "Clink." That was clearly the sound of grenades having their pins pulled. "In conclusion, if we don't keep our boys under control, then no one will. Women are the thin line between men and the shiny explosive things which can destroy the entire world."

By this point there were several small patches of grass on fire, and several more trees had toppled over. "So watch, this is the correct way to get their attention." Mirri calmly stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew, generating no discernible sound.

A moment later James managed to kick Reno in the face, not a particularly debilitating blow but it disoriented him for a while. In that times James squirmed away from Reno and instantly made himself present at Mirri's side. Niro tossed aside the assault rifle he had been using, and gave a small approving nod to the other man in the blue suit who dodged countless shots. He then took his place next to Mirri, if nowhere near as hurriedly as James.

Reno, whose blue suit had been smeared with quite a bit of dirt (just like James' clothing) stood back up, took a moment to adjust his (clip on) tie and then nodded to himself. He then glared at James, who also looked suitably scruffy for having spent the last few minuets rolling around taking blows all over his body.

Reno looked like he might have suffered a broken nose from the way it was bleeding and James would clearly posses an impressive black eye for a while. Mirri just smiled at the speed with which the two had reacted. "As you see, a suitably high pitched noise, detectable to the decibel range of animals but not humans, it's generally quite efficient for getting the attention of the common male."

James and Reno started growling at each other from their respective positions. "James do you know what they do to male cattle to make them more docile towards other males?" James stopped growling and instantly contracted backwards trying to make himself look as small and cute as possible. Mirri nodded and turned to Elena who was staring in surprise.

"See? When a man threatens a woman, it is a domestic crime. When a woman threatens a man, it's efficiency. I do so love living in a period of reverse discrimination." Reno wiped off his bloody nose on his outfit without an ounce of tact. Then he blew his nose getting even more blood on his outfit. Once that was done he turned back to Elena. "Hey unless you two are about to start making out as a way of proving women are superior to men, we do have the former president's killer to be looking for. Of course if you two are about to start ripping each other's clothes off and making out, please, be my guest!"

Pause. "Niro, how many guns do you have?" "Enough" "Could you hand one to me?" "What kind?" "One without any kind of automatic fire. Extremely high caliber. Something that could take out a mans entire reproductive system in one shot." Niro handed over his .44 magnum, the only weapon he wore openly.

Mirri took a moment to get the balance down then extended her entire body like an proper duelist. "Reno, your have exactly five seconds to get some less vital, to you at least, part of your body between your genitals and the bullet I'm about to fire. If I were you, I wouldn't plan on sitting down for a long time."

Reno spun around and started leading Elena and the other Turk's off with him. Mirri waited till she had a perfect shot and pulled the trigger. The chamber rotated. "CLICK" "Niro, next time I ask for a gun, give me one with bullets in it." "Of course, but I felt in this situation a little discretion was warranted. After all, the organs in question have an IQ of at least 85. They should be preserved in a museum."

"Bah, men just don't have the stomach for true justice, your prefer to kill someone and be done with it. There are things so much worse then death in this world." Mirri casually flipped her hair to the side like a cat's swaying tail. "But that was good enough for now."

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Alex had kept silent, as he had been instructed to. However the way those two had acted had been most strange. The had visited a family, and he could understand most of the story, of how a mated pair's pup had gone off to battle, and had vanished without a trace. This was where the story became difficult to understand.

To Alex the pup's death was quite clear, come back in your glory or on your shield. It would have been better for the mated pair to have realized this and moved on then to continue holding onto false hope. Not that Alex blamed them, humans had less understanding of the nature of life and death than Garou did.

However the interesting thing was that the Silverfang and the Child of Gaia instantly found a need to leave the house. They went off in opposite directions, and Alex pawed the earth in irritation, this pack would be far less dubious if it could control itself as well out of battle as it did in.

Fenris bless the Black Fury and Ragabash (if either of them would accept it) they at least could work in tune with their emotions. Alex padded after the Silverfang first, the stability of an alpha was the stability of the pack. When he found him, his alpha was busy looking at his gloved hands.

Alex looked up at him and raised an eyebrow as much as he could do to duplicate the human gesture. /Something is on your mind. Tell me.\ The Silverfang slowly looked away from his glove and met Alex's eyes. "I knew him Alexander. I'm just glad Zack never took me to meet his parents. I watched him die five years ago, and I can't tell those two without getting them involved in this thing also."

An interesting contradiction, Alex thought. /So the dead pup ran in your pack?\ "Yes, he and I spent much time together." Humans! At least with the ways of Fenris things could simply left to lie where they fell, rather then dragged out one piece at a time. /He was your beta?\ Sephiroth looked down at his gloves again and then drew them across his face slowly.

"Yes. His death still hurts, he died, along with that whole town, because I was too slow. Nonetheless, I will get my revenge against those who killed him. I'll hunt them to the ends of the earth if I have to. I will tread upon them and crush their bones with my boots." /My teeth will claim their marrow.\ The Silverfang went back to his gloves, and Alex went off to see how the Child of Gaia was faring.

There was something very odd about her. The first change should come with the change from being an adolescent to an adult. Humans matured slowly, but the Child of Gaia looked old enough to have already undergone that change. As of yet she probably wouldn't even be able to understand the dangers of silver even if she was holding a pound of it in her hand. Alex sniffed the air to get her scent, and followed her, she was slightly outside of town.

At least they would not be disturbed in their conversation when he found her. She was up on her knees reclining in the shade of a tree with her hand to the ground. She looked up and gave Alex a smile as she partially dug her hands into the ground, careful not to disturb so much as a single blade of grass. "Yes Alex?" /You seemed unduly stressed. The inner wolf is greatly sensitive to such things.\

The Child of Gaia dug her hands into the ground a little deeper. "Let me guess, the outer wolf is very sensitive to that kind of thing as well? I think I remember somebody saying something about how animals could tell what someone was feeling just by how they smelled." She continued to dig her hands into the ground. "Seeing those two, Zack's parents, it reminded me that there are always people worse off then you are."

Children of Gaia, might as well try to understand the Ragabashes, didn't take joy in killing but took joy in pain? "You're right, Alex. Looking down, it reminds me of what I'm fighting for. Reminds me that it's never as bad as it looks at the first glance. I knew their son, I dated him, about five years ago he vanished during a mission outside of Midgar. I guess part of me was afraid that he'd run off with someone else, because he was a couple of years older. But if his parents don't know where he is... I mean, it's, I'm not sure. I guess misery loves company. Because, no matter how bad you feel, when you can help someone else, you feel better."

What in the name of Fenris was Alex doing? Running back and forth between two pups dealing with their first change as if he was their nurse. He was a disciple of Fenris, leave the nursing of ground and body to Children of Gaia, he needed to go kill something. That would make him feel better, there had to be some game reasonably near the town.

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Sephiroth lay back on the bed; it was moderately comfortable. The room was on the second floor of the inn, the door was closed and the window shut. He wondered how many days, weeks, maybe even years since he had slept alone inside. He tossed and turned on the bed, it shouldn't be like this.

It hadn't been like this in Mirri's house, that place had only had one door, and from the floor you could see the whole house. In this one room, lights out in the hallways, it was all too small.

He tapped his fingers along Masamune's hilt, but it wasn't enough; he was tired, and he just didn't have time for this kind of thing. He got out of bed, walked over to the window, and opened it. Then he calmly and deftly slid out the window, and dropped gracefully to the ground. It didn't take him long to find a suitable tree, one with branches strong and wide enough to suit him. He pulled himself up its limbs, looked up at the clear endless sky filled with twinkling lights. Now he could finally fall asleep.

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"You must be very uncomfortable up there." It looked true enough. Aeris didn't have any idea how or why Sephiroth did some of the things he did, and this was clearly one of those times. If Sephiroth had been asleep he wasn't any more. He rolled over, careful not to go over the limbs edge, and glared down at her.

His neon green eyes were two brilliant pinpricks in the night. "What are you doing out here, Aeris?" Aeris looked up him and smiled, it was one of those things you learned too deep to forget while growing up, a smile could go a long way towards anything you were trying to accomplish. "I heard you leave the inn, so I followed you, I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

Sephiroth apparently gave her smile up at him about as much value as love was in tennis. "Well as you can clearly see I am. So you can leave me alone." "Well what if you fall?" From the way Sephiroth's face was lit by his eyes she could tell that anyone else would have laughed at the suggestion.

Sephiroth simply made one quick statement with total confidence. "I don't fall. I can walk across a tightrope in high winds just fine, I don't fall." "I hesitate to ask what you're doing up there. After all, if you were James, I'd have already called for the fire department, and told them to make sure to bring the long ladders."

It was the wrong joke told at the wrong time to the wrong person and Aeris knew it, but she told it anyway. Sephiroth did what she expected him to do in response, even if she was surprised that his glare could somehow still intensify. "I am up here trying to fall asleep if that is not too much to ask at this hour of the night? Do you mind Half-Cetra?"

Now she could tell he was mad at her, Sephiroth always became more formal with people when he was upset with them. "Well it must be very uncomfortable up there, anyways. Particularly for a general." There, she could get more formal to counteract his formality. Sephiroth apparently possessed more glare settings after "high" than anyone else in the planet, his neon green eyes focused even more intently, and more downwardly at her.

"As I told you before Half-Cetra I am a general, not some pampered Shinra scion. I slept in the same conditions as my men, no, worse then most of my men to conceal myself. I slept in the dirt, mud, sleet, hail, and blood of the battlefield. I trained myself to sleep while artillery blasted overhead and snipers bullets flew through the air. A peaceful town and a strong tree? You do not have to worry about me getting sleep Half-Cetra. Unless you insist on talking to me up to all hours of the morning."

Sephiroth's words alone where acidic enough to have melted through solid steel. Aeris had been told a thing or two about stroking cats the wrong way, better to just leave them alone. So she walked away and left Sephiroth in his tree, let him find out how to climb down in the morning on his own.

OWAN: Well, I'm back. For the first time, I'm going to respond to my supporters in an author's note!

Ok, here we go…

Cal: Yeah, we're just full of surprises, aren't we…

Sulphurya: Believe it or not, James is based fairly closely on my co-author, James. He writes all his own dialogue, except for rare exceptions. Never seen him wear red, though…

SSJ4 Sailor Menz: Glad to have you on board, too. Those were actually James' views, not mine. Mine are more like Sephiroth's. "Life's a bitch, but it'll leave you alone if you smack it with a rolled-up newspaper."

James and I will be releasing at least two more stories, no official date set for those, but only one of them will be listed under Final Fantasy. More updates on this matter once we actually decide what we're going to do with it.