Before Crisis: The Beginning

By DarkAngel

Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing but the names I gave the playable BC Turks.

Dedication: Another dedication, this time to another friend, who recently announced his engagement to his sweetheart. That whole stereotype about men not being able to commit? Totally a lie! Three of my best guy friends within the past year have married or are about to.

Now, if you're reading this my friend, would cases of Marmite and Guinness and a ticket for a factory tour do for a congratulatory gift, or should I keep my eyes peeled for a future registry? ;)

Chapter 12: The Gaeans for Planetary Restoration (Rafe)

It not quite seven in the morning when Rafe got the call from Veld telling him to come to headquarters. While seven was by no means an unreasonable hour in which to get up, he was still getting used to the fact that by now he would have been sound asleep had he still been in the Don's service – Corneo's hours had been on the night time side of things, and daytime was when they all slept. Besides vainly struggling to get his body clock to synch with the schedule the Turks kept there had been the patrol followed by the training session which had lasted until the early hours. All in all, Rafe was going on less than five hours of sleep.

When he got to headquarters, he found nobody in the bullpen. Shrugging to himself, he made his way to the main conference room where he found St. Andrew. He nodded to the other man, who was rubbing at his eyes.

"You've been called too?"

St. Andrew nodded. "Uh huh."

He looked around. "Where are the others?"

St. Andrew shrugged. The room was dark – nobody had bothered turning on the lights. Rafe took a seat at one of the desks. A few moments later, someone hit the lights. Samantha came in, followed right away by both Tseng and Veld. Immediately, St. Andrew straightened up from his slouched position against the wall.

The commander-in-chief of the Turks looked around. "Where's Rude?"

Rafe and St. Andrew exchanged looks. What was going on here?

"He's been held up. He'll be on his way soon," Tseng replied. Veld nodded.

"Well, let's get started. About five hours ago, hostile elements were detected in Midgar. An anti-Shin-Ra group calling themselves AVALANCHE have made what is essentially a declaration of war against the company. In the early hours of this morning they attempted to destroy the Sector 8 reactor. They failed in the attempt, but we have word now that they are gathering en masse in Junon, with the goal of assassinating the President."

Rafe blinked. Well, he hadn't been expecting that. "They tried to destroy a reactor?" he repeated. "And now they're targeting the President?"

"Yes. We're trying to find out more as we speak, but we're short on men. That's where you come in," Tseng replied.

At that moment, the door opened and Rude, followed by Reno and Rosalind trooped in. Reno and Rosalind in particular looked particularly worse for wear. Rosalind especially, who normally looked quite neat and presentable was dishevelled, her hair a mess and dark circles under her eyes.

"What happened to you?" Samantha exclaimed, looking up and down at the rumpled Rosalind. She didn't pay so much attention to Reno, since he more or less always looked like that.

Rosalind smiled thinly. "It's a long story," she murmured.

"Explain it," Veld ordered.

"Yes sir." Rosalind paused, looking at Reno, then cleared her throat. She explained what had happened – the chance encounter with AVALANCHE, the close call with the reactor, the sheer numbers of the group, how they were organized.

St. Andrew whistled. He had slid into a seat by one of the desks, his head resting against the back of the chair. "Wonder what their beef is?"

Samantha crossed her arms. "Why are they targeting Shin-Ra in the first place? It doesn't make any sense."

St. Andrew glared at her. "I said that already."

She stuck out her tongue at him. St. Andrew's head snapped up and he opened his mouth, obviously ready to retort. Veld shot them a look, and both of them desisted.

"That remains to be seen," Tseng said. "In the meantime, a large number of these AVALANCHE members have gathered in Junon."

A thought occurred to Rafe. "Isn't that where -?"

Veld nodded, his expression somehow more sober than usual. "The President is due to carry out a press junket there. Reno, Rosalind, since you've both had direct contact with the hostile elements you will leave immediately after this meeting for Junon. Continue to send in periodic reports. Your first job is the protection of the President at all costs."

"What about the rest of us?" This from St. Andrew.

"I'll be sending you out to gather information and intelligence."

They were split up. Reno and Rosalind left for Junon. Rude, Samantha, St. Andrew and Rafe were sent to different locations. Rafe was assigned to investigate Junon with St. Andrew with Tseng, who would pilot them.

"Hey, when are we gonna learn to fly these things?" St. Andrew asked.

"Not for a while yet," Tseng answered shortly, getting into the pilot's seat. Getting the hint, St. Andrew dropped the subject.

Idly, Rafe wondered why it was that Reno and Rosalind had left separately. He had St. Andrew were only about an hour behind Reno and Rosalind's team. They were all going to the same place – couldn't they have requisitioned one of the larger choppers? Was the situation really that bad?

The trip was made mostly in silence, and when they arrived, an employee rushed up to them, saluting smartly as they disembarked. The air control employee got into the chopper. Behind them, it rose up into the air again, heading for the next contact point.

Tseng turned to face them, his hands behind his back. His relaxed posture didn't betray the consternation Rafe knew the man must be feeling.

"We'll begin scouting. It's 14:00 now. President Shinra is set to do the press conference at 17:00 this afternoon. From there, he'll be going on an inspection tour. He will be leaving the hotel at exactly 16:17. Veld's handling all the security related to that. Our job is to find information on AVALANCHE here. Meet me back at the airport at 16:45."

Rafe and St. Andrew nodded. Then St. Andrew seemed to think of something, because he twitched. "Hey, how are we gonna canvas the city? It's pretty huge for just the two of us."

Tseng's mouth quirked up in what may have been a smile. "First of all, there will be three of us, not two. Second of all, I'll input a map of the sections you'll be covering into your PHS. If you work along that grid, you should get done fairly quickly." Tseng reached into his pocket, flipping his own mobile open. "We don't have time to waste. St. Andrew, you'll cover L and Lower L-Junon. Rafe, you'll cover R and Lower-R. Let me know if you find anything."

With that, they were dismissed. They took the elevator down to city level and dispersed.

Rafe took out his PHS. As Tseng had said, there was a map already filtered into the device. Looking at the arrow that marked out his destination, and the small yellow blip that marked his position, he nodded to himself.

Keeping an eye out for the distinctive uniforms Rosalind had described, Rafe made his way down the streets. He stopped at each of the shops, asking them if they'd seen anyone matching that description. Nobody had. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on in the streets, either. Rafe's eyes narrowed. They were being quiet. That was almost as bad as a whole band of them marauding across the city streets. If they were such a large group, and the lot of them had been sent here to kill the president…

He finished patrolling the upper section of the city and moved down a long flight of narrow stairs to the lower area. High walls on either side of the stairs blocked out the sunlight. A chill wind bit at Rafe's face, cutting through the material of his suit. Junon was a coastal city, located south of the Junon Bay from Midgar. Although it didn't get much in the way of snow, it did get its fair share of wind, and it was winter. The high walls and wind-tunnel streets didn't help matters, either.

Reaching the end of the stairs, Rafe carefully looked to the left and the right. There was nobody here either.

He had just reached the end of the city, and was heading toward the elevator that would take him to the military barracks in the upper city when he saw it. It was flapping in the wind, taped to a lamppost. Hands in his pockets, Rafe approached the flyer.

'SAVE THE PLANET FROM SHIN-RA! MAKO ENERGY KILLS!!' the big bold letters screamed. Plucking the flyer off from the post, Rafe examined it more closely. There was a website printed in small letters at the bottom of the flyer and an address located here in Junon. Rafe made a noise in his throat. Surely they weren't that stupid…

Looking at his PHS, he saw that there was still some time before he had to be back at the airport. Shrugging to himself, he started back to the upper city.

The church was located in a side street between an office building and a laundrette. Checking the flyer one more time, Rafe pushed open the doors of the church.

Inside it was cool and quiet. There was a reception desk to the left and a rack full of little pamphlets and flyers beside it. More of the same flyers from outside were stuffed into one of the small shelves. These he scooped out, stuffing what he could into an inner pocket.

"Can I help you?"

A man of about retirement age came out from the double doors leading to the main hall of worship. He didn't seem the type to be affiliated with a terrorist organization. He was wearing a v-necked bright green sweater over a white button down shirt, brown slacks and well worn loafers. His hair was a salt-and-pepper sort of grey, and there were small wrinkles around his eyes and around his mouth. He walked with the aid of a cane.

"Can you tell me more about this group?" Rafe held up one of the flyers. "It says they meet here in the church."

The man took the flyer in both hands, examining it. Instantly, his face lit up. "Oh, yes. Are you interested in attending a meeting?"

Now that was an interesting possibility. He thought about it for a split second before shrugging nonchalantly. "Maybe. When do they hold meetings?"

"Well, let me see," the man said, bustling back into the office that connected to the reception. Taking down a green binder, he flipped through the pages, muttering to himself. "Every Thursday evening from 7-8. Attendance is open to anybody who's interested."

Rafe approached the reception desk. "They seem sincere about their objectives," he said, leaning casually against the countertop, his eyes flickering down at the binder's contents.

"They're always very nice. Some of the members help clean the church sometimes, and they always make a very generous donation."

Shifting, Rafe coughed. "Is it safe? I mean –" He gauged the old man's face. "I mean, the flyer makes this blatant anti-Shin-Ra statement. What if they come swarming in here?"

The old man's eyes widened. "But they're just an environmental group. They're not doing anything wrong!" He closed the binder. "Besides, you don't know much about the beach here, do you?"

"What about the beach?"

The man frowned at him. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen you among the parishioners. Are you new here?"

Adopting a sheepish smile, Rafe bobbed his head once. "I just moved from Midgar." He grimaced. "There were some complications I wanted to leave behind."

"No need to say anymore," the man nodded, apparently satisfied. He chuckled. "I got into scrapes when I was a young feller too. Well, the Gaeans for Planetary Restoration certainly aren't doing anything wrong. They think Shin-Ra's behind a lot of the environmental degradation we've been seeing throughout the world lately, and they're a hundred percent right! Take the beach. Junon used to have a marvellous beach – the prettiest thing your eyes have seen – definitely one to rival the one at Costa del Sol. 'Course then the Shin-Ra built the upper city and blocked the sun out from the lower part… It wasn't long before things started dying and people stopped coming to the beaches, too.

"We were none too happy about that. As if that weren't bad enough, suddenly construction crews were coming in day and night. We could hear them banging and clanging up here, building their military machines. The army got bigger, too. But there was nothing really we could do. Shin-Ra was at war with that far off country in the west… civilians were the last thing on their minds.

"Not long after the war ended, the Gaeans began preaching. They've helped to rebuild from the damage we've sustained, and they want to bring back the beach. Plus, no matter which way you slice it, you have to admit, what the Shin-Ra are doing can't be called environmentally friendly." The man smiled thinly. Rafe nodded.

"Tell you what. Why don't you take this?" The man reached under the counter and handed Rafe a pamphlet. "It'll tell you more about the Gaeans and what they're about. If you've got the time and the interest, you can drop into the church on Thursday, all right?"

Rafe nodded. "Thanks." He tucked this pamphlet into his suit jacket as well, trying not to dislodge any of the other papers he'd crammed in there. With a nod, he left the church. Checking the time, he started making his way back to the airport. There was no conclusive proof that these Gaeans were connected with AVALANCHE, but the timing was uncanny; just a few months before the end of the war with Wutai.

Taking out the pamphlet, Rafe read the title: Gaeans for Planetary Restoration and the Studies of Planet Life.

To be continued…

Author's Notes: Oh gods I need a beta reader. I have this horrible habit, even after I've read something through thrice, of missing the most obvious mistakes. Even after I've left something sitting for days to clear my mind the mistakes will still be there. I was looking at the BC scripts again and realized I'd screwed up the timing in Chapter 9 – that little note that says President Shinra asked for a scotch and it wasn't even 10 a.m. – it would make no sense because in the official game time, Reno and the PC Turk arrive in Junon – at 1 p.m. XD;;; I've gone and fixed that.

So this is the change of pace I was talking about. I did say I would be following the game more or less, but I also wanted to branch out and do a few things outside of what we see in the missions. This is one of those things. Apart from that, I want to start looking into what the Turks do when they're not chasing down AVALANCHE, rustling thugs or serving the president scotch. ;) Don't worry – we'll be back on the main storyline soon enough – but I did want to do some exploring. :) If you want to take the cynical view, I guess you can call these fillers. I'm following in the illustrious footsteps of BLEACH and Naruto. XDDD