::The Last Avatar::

Gamer Edition

BOOK ONE
LEVIATHAN

1.12

Shenanigans Before the Storm

"Get back here you little demon!" Rue hollered as she tore down the dirt path after the little giggling girl ahead of her. Yuffie had, as was her nature, finally gotten around to stealing her Materia. Unfortunately the child was faster than Rue had expected and had managed to get a good head start before the teen had realised anything was missing from her meagre possessions. Honestly, she wasn't all that mad, it was Yuffie after all. Stealing people's Materia was kinda her thing. Rue was practically required to at least act mad and chase the small child around for a while in retaliation. It was also kinda fun.

"You'll never catch the Treasure Princess!" the five year old declared over her shoulder. She was running across a wooden bridge, likely headed to the dojo she normally trained in. An idea occurred to Rue and she slowed, looking to the Coeurl racing along beside her.

"Follow her, I'll circle around," she told Tera with a grin. Tera made a sound of what seemed to be approval before lopping off after their quarry with ease and not for the first time did Rue consider how her furry friend was built like a cheetah after her little transformation. Rue watched as Yuffie squealed as she realised it was Tera who was after her now and grinned to herself. She only hoped her plan would work, it wasn't like she'd 'unlocked' the particular skill she'd need for this after all.

With a deep breath and a mental 'Geronimo!' Rue took a running leap towards the water separating her from the little tyke who had nicked her only three Materia. Sweeping her arms underneath her, Rue managed to make a small ice board to land on. Though she swore a little as it rocked and tilted when she did. "Okay, not as stable as I thought," Rue muttered to herself as she tried to stay balanced on the ice. A hard enough feat with the constantly shifting surface below the ice before adding in the fact that the ice itself was slippery as all fuck. Katara and Korra had made it look so damn easy. Looking up Rue was thankful Yuffie hadn't yet noticed that her friend had acquired a new form of transport. The girl was still fleeing from the enthusiastic Coeurl behind her. Giggling madly the whole time.

Carefully Rue shifted her stance on the ice board, once she was as sure of her balance as she could be on her first try at this particular trick, Rue raised her arms in front of her and then pushed them out and behind her in one swift movement, bending the currents below her to push the ice board and herself forward. She wobbled a little as she suddenly felt herself be shot forward across the small body of water, not as ready for the quick jolt of forward momentum as she thought she was, but used her arms as to keep herself balanced and pushed herself forward again, gaining speed and distance on Yuffie and Tera. Not easy, but I could get used to this. She decided with a grin. She could practically feel the approval from every water based past Avatar pressing against the back of her skull. That, not so much.

Rue caught up to Yuffie in a matter of moments and used the momentum she'd built up to jump off the ice board and skid to a halt in front of the giggling child with a victorious 'HA!'. Yuffie wasn't able to stop in time and ploughed right into Rue almost knocking the taller girl off her feet, when they steadied themselves Rue crouched down and held her hand out patiently. Tera padded over and when Yuffie didn't immediately cough up the stolen Materia she head-butted the little girl gently and gave her what could have only been a reproachful look. Rue really wasn't sure how Tera made those faces, but half the time she was sure the feline could have spoken if she wished to. Like Nanaki or something. Well shit, that would just be fucking scary.

"Fiiiiine, you can have them back," Yuffie huffed as she pulled out the small orbs from her many hidden pockets. Rue made sure Yuffie gave back all three, knowing the little minx would try to keep one if she didn't pay attention. She was silently glad she had so few, easier to keep track of what she had lost that way. She wouldn't envy Cloud when the ninja stole his Materia collection in the future, having to keep track of so many was going to make it a task an a half. It certainly had been annoying for her as the player after Yuffie had replaced the Materia in the wrong places at the end of that particular side quest. Living it could only be that much worse.

"Thank you," Rue said after she had all three Materia in her grasp. Pocketing them she ruffled Yuffie's hair and straightened. The little girl huffed again and then looked around with a frown.

"Where'd you come from anyway, you were waaay behind us a minute ago," she asked with a tilt of her head. Rue grinned and pointed to the ice board floating on the waters surface, bobbing on the ripples Rue's small race across it had caused. Yuffie stared at the floating piece of ice and then looked back at Rue with excitement shining in her eyes, "show me!" she demanded. Rue laughed a little at the demand and then pursed her lips as she considered the ice board thoughtfully. Walking over she shifted, bending the ice a little more to make it bigger. Yuffie stood beside her, watching the motions with a curious interest as she always did when Rue bent in front of her these days. "I don't get it, why did you make it bigger?" she asked after a moment. The teenager just grinned at the little girl before scooping her up and jumping onto the floating sheet of ice. Rue deposited Yuffie in front of her carefully after the effects of her jumping onto the unstable surface had minimised. Though the unsuspecting teen did almost fall off when a screen popped up unexpectedly in front of her.

Congratulations!

Your use of Basic Water Bending has upgraded your skill level!

Basic Water Bending is now level 3!

That hadn't been expected to say the least and Rue couldn't help but feel a little proud of herself for it. She dismissed the screen as she prepared to push off from the edge of the pond-river-thing Godo had in his 'backyard'. Yuffie squealed with delight as they took off back down the way Rue had come, but with a few more turns involved to make it more exciting for her tiny friend.

After an hour or two both girls were exhausted for very different reasons and Rue was far more confident on the water, unfortunately that meant that she was a little more adventurous than usual with her bending and took a turn a little too hard. With a yelp Rue was unceremoniously dumped into the water while Yuffie just barely managed to stay on the ice board. Thankfully the water wasn't deep, and when Rue sat up, some weeds stuck in her hair, Yuffie could do nothing but laugh at the disgruntled and more than slightly embarrassed teen. Of course that began a splash fight that lasted for some time before Rue decided she had to get out of the water lest she become fish food.

Pulling the board over to the side of the pond-river-thing Rue picked Yuffie up and placed her back on dry land with a smile. Seeing the little girl so happy always made Rue feel a little better about just hanging around Wutai when there were places she could have been where she may have been able to stop a bunch of cray shit from going down. Of course that line of thought wasn't helpful. What could one, highly untrained, Avatar do about a psycho-alien-squid that can control people with it's mind, or whatever the fuck it did, seriously. She was just one fucking person. A person who wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place.

"Rue?" Yuffie pulled the teen from her steadily darkening thought processes. Looking up to see the little girl watching her worriedly Rue forced the thoughts away, because really, what was she doing?

"Yeah kiddo?" she asked with a small, slightly lopsided, smile. Yuffie poked her cheek thoughtfully.

"Are you okay? It looked like you were far away," she said after a moment. Rue blinked and then grinned at Yuffie, she really did adore the kid sometimes.

"Yeah, sorry, I did go away a little," Rue winced and avoided actually thinking about what she had been thinking about. Bad thoughts were bad. Yuffie giggled and pulled at her arm, a devious glint in her eye.

"Weren't you worried about being fish food?" she reminded the teen. Rue blinked and realised she was still standing in the knee deep water. With a grimace Rue carefully pulled herself out, dripping water everywhere and her boots squelched under her making Yuffie wrinkle her nose a little.

"Yeah, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Rue looked down at her drenched clothes dubiously. Yuffie, while a little dryer than Rue, was still dripping with water as she grinned up at the teenager.

"Hey Rue?" Yuffie's eyes still that that glint. Alarm bells went off in Rue's head and teal eyes thinned suspiciously.

"What?" she asked, eyeing the child carefully. Yuffie's grin got wider as she shifted on the balls of her tiny feet.

"Did you drop something?" she asked, holding Rue's Steal Materia out with a barely suppressed giggle. The two girls stared at each other for a moment before Rue hollered 'Thief!' and Yuffie took off with the teen right behind her. Squelching with every step.

Congratulations!

Thanks to your Shenanigans on the water you have unlocked a new Bending Skill!

+Skill - Riding the Waves Lvl 1

Now admittedly Rue wasn't much one for caring how she looked to others, in fact the thought rarely crossed her mind, however like most people she did have a small amount of vanity. Saying this, Rue had generally been avoiding looking at herself in the mirror because, well, she was a twenty five-six, she was twenty six now, in a seventeen year olds body and, in her eyes, she hadn't been all that attractive at that age. She didn't need the extra reminder.

So when the teenager stepped out of her nice long shower to catch sight of her reflection after avoiding doing so for months on end, to say that Rue was more than shocked would have been perfectly acceptable. If one were to venture to say that the young woman proceeded to swear like a sailor for a good five minutes afterwards then that particular individual would not have been entirely wrong either.

Rue had never, in her life, been as physically fit as she was now. She had mother fucking muscle tone, since when did that happen? Had the Wusheng used some kind of weird-ass-asian-magic-thing to make her all buff and shit? Nah. She surely would have noticed that if it had happened. Unless all the non-crap food she'd been eating lately and all the training she'd been put through had actually had an effect on her. Holy fuck nuggets. I'm-like-healthy and shit. Were the only words to appear amid the awe and disbelief racing through her.

So pleased with herself was Rue that she exited the bathing area of her small apartment wearing nothing but her skin, as it was, her friend Keiko had been waiting to spend the afternoon with Rue as it was her free day. Of course, Rue had stopped dead at the sight of her friend, suddenly noticing it was quite breezy and Keiko's face had turned a deep shade of red.

The pair of girlish shrieks heard from the other side of the compound had people wondering what had happened for hours to come.

Godo again. Why was it always Godo that made her life difficult? They had her back in the war room and it seemed like Shinra was getting read for, well, something. No-one really knew what though and all the speculation was starting to drive Rue into boredom. She was sitting in her seat- because, shit she had a seat now- while playing with the ends of her, stupidly long, hair. She needed a hair cut. It was just getting absurd in length now and she hadn't even noticed till recently. Which was completely unacceptable. She was fairly certain it reached her butt now, which was getting dangerously close to what she called the 'Sephiroth Stupid' length. True, she'd been trying to grow it out when she'd died, but she didn't have a straightener or curler here and her hair was stupid with its 'I'm-wavy-and-slightly-frizzy-so-you'll-never-get-me-the-way-you-want-me' thing. She also wasn't good at styling her own hair.

"-ink, Lady Avatar?" Rue's head snapped up at the sound of her 'new' title. Godo had 'granted' it to her after the last mission she'd gone on for him, that and a small estate somewhere in the mountains, apparently. She blinked owlishly at them, they were all looking at her.

"Huh?" she asked blankly. Chekhov sighed and shook her head at Rue's inability to pay attention. Huffing Rue sat up from her slouch and raised an eyebrow to the Lord who had spoken.

"I was just saying, my Lady, that we should strike at Shinra now before they can attack us," he told her. Rue frowned at the way he spoke to her, it was slightly condescending in tone, like he was talking to someone less intelligent than him. Rue did not appreciate that kind of treatment, not to her or anyone she considered a friend. Outwardly however, only her eyebrow raised a little higher as a cool, unimpressed look slid its way onto her face, masking her thoughts entirely.

"Yes, because we know, without a doubt, what it is they're planning," she told the Lord flatly. When the man looked to be ready to argue with her, Rue's instinctive need to stop the moron before he became more of a moron in the most sarcastic and melodramatic way she could manage reared it's ugly head. She jumped up and clapped her hands with a smile on her face, her eyes locked onto the Lord. "Oh I know, why don't we just send in every soldier at our disposal, into the main Shinra camp with no intel and see how that pans out, shall we?" she said with a smile on her face. Arms waving about her in emphasis as she spoke as per usual.

"Well, when you say it like that-" the Lord shifted under her gaze.

"Well, when I say it like that you see how stupid you sound," she finished sharply. "Just because I wasn't listening to you, doesn't mean I'm stupid, just that I was bored out of my skull by all the supposition you people are throwing around!" Rue's arms flicked into the air to show her exasperation with them all. "In the words of a-well she's not a friend, but that's not important-You. Are. Insanely. Boring. Someone should throw a piano or something at you people," she finished with a huff.

Of course, later, when asked, Rue would deny she had mentioned anything about a piano after watching one fall onto the large table-map in the war room from thin air.

AN: Okay so, I vanished for a bit last week, that was mainly because it was my birthday on the 12th and I had to do birthday things with family and stuff. So YAY ME.

When going to write this chapter I came up with nothing, so, upon checking my notes for this section of my story plan and timeline I found 'Yuffie and Rue Shenanigans' as my only prompt. So that's what we have, SHENANIGANS. Seriously I love that word. It could even be said it's my favourite word. Thus we have SHENANIGANS. Because I needed to write some stupidity and I think Rue needed some.

The plot will be back next chapter I promise. That last scene was actually pertinent to the plot even with 'B''s obligatory Piano. Because, really, as if the woman could have resisted that. Rue set her up perfectly.
The Wutians are probably going to assume it was Rue though. 'Magic water' and all. Avatar Tricks. Yeah.

Next time: Rue VS The Wusheng! Her final test! WOO!

Thanks for all the love guys! It makes writing this insanity worth it!

Till next time~
RLK