::The Last Avatar::

Gamer Edition

BOOK ONE
LEVIATHAN

1.19

Falling Objects

Rue blinked in surprise at the words that had danced in front of her face as they walked down the stairs to the landing strip. Apparently she had just earned 'friend' status for three of her companions. Why did she always make friends with the weirdest people? On the plus side, she had a two star Fire now and it hadn't been spat at her out of nowhere so it was probably in her bag. It seemed the universe liked her for the moment. Rue just hoped it kept liking her for the foreseeable future.

Up this high it was damn windy and the only thing Rue could focus on for any real length of time was keeping her hair from becoming obscenely tangled while it blew around her face. Grumbling she eventually grabbed her tangled mass of dark blond hair and held most of it in one hand in the hopes of keeping it somewhat manageable, though she new it would look terrible when they finally got inside. She was starting to remember why she was so prone to cutting it all off when it got as long as it currently was and that option was becoming very attractive to Rue the more it got in the way. Huffing while they walked Rue glared at Sephiroth's back and his stupidly perfect hair. Fucking game slash anime characters and their untangleable hair.

"Anyone got some scissors handy so I can cut my stupid hair off?" Rue half joked the moment they were inside the tower. Attempting to straighten her hair by running her fingers through it probably wasn't helping all that much, but it was all she could to for the moment.

"We can stop by a bathroom so you can straighten yourself out a little before the meeting," Tseng offered. Though by the way he looked her up and down Rue didn't doubt he was wishing she was wearing something a little more presentable. Her Water Tribe gear wasn't exactly designed to be pretty after all and it had been through the ringer the last few months leaving it a little worn here and there. On the other hand she did just get three new outfits upon leaving Wutai, there was no way in hell she was donning the one she'd gotten from Yuffie before leaving but the other two were viable until she looked at them.

"Sure, just loan me a hair tie or three and I might even be able to look presentable," she grinned at him. Eyebrows were raised at her, dubious ones, but the idiots in attendance wisely said not a word against her as they headed off down the unremarkable hallways of Shinra Tower. There was nothing markedly interesting about the insides of the tower, in fact Rue wasn't even sure what floor they were on other than 'high'. She assumed they were close to the top and thus the elevator trip would be quite short, though the wait for one might not be.

It took some time to locate a ladies toilet, idiots only knew where the mens were, and then Rue had to wait for Tseng to search his pockets for a spare hair tie for her. When he handed her one she smile gratefully and winked at him conspiratorially before hurrying into the bathroom without a word, knowing they would all be wondering why the hell she'd just winked. Rue only hoped one of her other outfits was suitable and she hadn't done the winking thing for no fucking reason. That would just be awkward.

Rue didn't even bother to glance at her hair yet, clothes first, then her hair would be dealt with to the best of her ability. Which wasn't all that impressive really, not without a brush. Digging around in her bag Rue found the clothing sets she was looking for, which included shoes and accessories, Rue even whooped a little happily as she pulled them out for a squiz at them. The Air Nomad set wasn't quite what Rue wanted, apart from the markedly unflattering colours, they were a little to monk-like for what she was heading into. However, the Fire Nation set made her grin a little. Yes. This was what she wanted. It looked bad-ass and Rue only hoped she could pull it off.

She put the Air Nomad set back into her bag and grabbed everything else she needed and headed into a stall to get changed. She also took the chance to relieve herself while she could, it was a bathroom after all.

There was a small smile on her face as she looked at the colours, it had been some time since she had worn red, she generally preferred blue and greens, though she'd been told in the past that red looked alright on her. So that was promising.

Rue twisted to and fro a little after settling the layered skirt portion of her outfit over the loose pants, watching the lighter fabric swish around her with amusement. She felt a little more girly in this outfit, something she hadn't been feeling much of late with all the training and fighting she'd been doing. With the added starched lapels of her midriff top Rue felt more than a little bad-ass as she sat on the lid of the toilet to pull her new Fire Nation boots on, complete with the upturned toes. It was making her inner geek remarkably happy and distracting her from what was to come after she was done with the bathroom.

Once fitted in her new clothes Rue exited the stall to fix the accessories in place in the open space before the sinks and mirror, avoiding her reflection altogether until after she was done, wanting the full effect with her first glance. Her gold armbands were then snapped into place, followed by the red and gold arm covers, they couldn't really be called arm warmers as they were far to thin for that, and once that was done Rue picked up her Leviathan Ring from her previous 'story quest' and considered it. Normally Rue wasn't much for jewellery, but if she was going to forgo her usual gear then she felt that wearing the ring would be a nice touch. She fitted it onto her left pointer finger with a tilt of her head and a small frown, not used to wearing rings was an understatement.

With a deep breath Rue finally took a few steps back and looked at her reflection with a wince that quickly turned into a raise eyebrow. She just kept forgetting that her figure was much better than she was used to, not to mention younger than she was used to generally being. Because Rue's own mental image of herself and her actual physical form didn't match she was constantly surprised whenever she looked into the mirror and her current situation only made that glaringly obvious to her. Something she'd really need to work on.

Focusing back on her constantly tangled hair, Rue ran her fingers through it again, trying to tame it as quickly as she could. Looking down at the hair tie she'd been given Rue pondered her options and figured to stick with her running theme, pulling her hair into a quick half up, half down bun-thing that was similar to what Katara had worn in the Fire Nation. Though Rue's was nowhere near as neat, her hair just wasn't cut out for neat. Not unless she had a brush and straightener handy.

With that done Rue gathered her bag and checked to make sure she hadn't dropped anything in the stall or near the sink, thankfully she hadn't, and then headed out of the bathroom to meet up with her escorts.

"Okay, all done," she announced cheerfully to her new friends as she walked towards where they were all waiting.

"Wait, what? Did you change your clothes?" Angeal asked her in confusion. Rue grinned at them as she twirled between steps to give them a better look at her new outfit as she strode towards them. The awesomeness of her new outfit giving her a bit more confidence than she usually did.

"Sure, Tseng seemed to be of the silent opinion that my normal clothes weren't all that appropriate or something so I changed," Rue shrugged. All four of them stared at her for a moment, silently appraising her. When they didn't say anything Rue raised an eyebrow at them and crossed her arms as she cocked a hip expectantly.

"You look," Sephiroth began slowly. He halted when he apparently didn't know the right words to use and looked to Genesis and Angeal for help. Unfortunately the latter seemed just as at a loss of what to say and Genesis watched his two friends with some amusement.

"What Sephiroth and Angeal are failing miserably to articulate is that you look quite different than usual," he commented lightly. "In a good way, of course. I particularly approve of the colours," he added with a smirk. Rue's immediate reaction to his words was to reach up and flick Genesis' forehead.

"You would," was all she replied with as eyes were rolled. "Okay, so can we get this over with? Please?" she asked Tseng with a sigh.

"Indeed, we should move along, we don't want to keep the President waiting," the Turk nodded and motioned towards the waiting elevator.

It wasn't until they were nearly at the President's office that it occurred to Rue that Sephiroth had mentioned that the other Executives would be in attendance for this meeting. Which also meant it was possible for Hojo to also be present. That thought sent an unwelcome shiver down her spine and fear began course through her once again.

"Uh, Sephiroth?" she peered up at him cautiously. When he met her gaze he seemed to notice something was up with her and tilted his head slightly to indicate he was listening. "Is, uh, is Hojo going to be in this meeting thingy?" she asked awkwardly. Sephiroth blinked at her, frowning minutely.

"I don't know for certain, but I know once Scarlet and Heidegger heard of the meeting and made somewhat of a fuss it was opened to the other Executives and Department Heads. Of course if Hojo or Hollander have heard of your actions in Wutai they may be curious enough to make an appearance," he explained thoughtfully. Rue grimaced, of course, she should have thought of that. Those two were the lead scientists of the separate arms of the Jenova Project and she'd been in a 'fight' with two of the boys and befriended Sephiroth. Yeah. That was going to get their attention to some degree. Although Rue quietly hoped they'd be too preoccupied with their own little crazy ass endeavours, and by endeavours she of course meant human experimentation. Fun times.

Rue's first impression of Shinra's Executive line-up was lack lustre at best. The President, Rufus Shinra Sr., was shorter than she was, and that was saying something, and more rolly-polly than expected. Not to mention her memories of the scenes in the Honeybee Inn found in the original game made it hard not to just laugh at the idiot outright. He was eyeing her over with a cigar in his mouth, his bright red suit just made him look even more like the king in his castle. Rue twitched one of her eyebrows at him in disdain and allowed her eyes to glance over the rest of those in attendance for this stupid meeting thing.

Scarlet was standing with, a still a bit wobbly-looking, Heidegger in her usual stupidly revealing red dress, the unimpressed look on the woman's dolled up face and the way she was tapping her foot while giving Rue a once over of her own only made the girl smirk. Next to those two idiots stood Reeve and Lezard in their regular attire, although both looked remarkably young and Reeve in particular appeared far less beaten down than he had seemed in the original. That was something good to see. Neither Palmer, the Lardman, or Rufus Jr., Pretty-boy, were anywhere to be seen. This was good, and rather curious in itself.

Of course the good couldn't last as a nasally chuckle caught Rue's attention, glancing a ways behind her she watched Hojo's hunched form enter the overly extravagant room. The teenager tensed, but stubbornly held the creeper's gaze as he surveyed her behind thick glasses before looking over at Sephiroth.

"Interesting," he commented with another nasal chuckle. Rue did not like any part of what had just happened, she felt dirty under Hojo's gaze and the urge to grab Tseng's gun and let off the entire clip into Hojo's skull was almost overwhelming. On the other hand, so was the urge to run as fast as she could away from the creepy ass man, but she suspected that most people felt that way about the scientist.

"Indeed, Hojo, the young lady is quite interesting, though in truth I find it hard to believe she has the capabilities to match one of our SOLDIER's," the President commented. Rue just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms defensively, holding her tongue around these people was going to be hard.

"It was less about matching us, at least physically, and more about us underestimating Rue and her being a natural with Materia, much like Genesis," Angeal put forth calmly. Though as she glanced at her companions Rue noted that all three teenage boys looked about as uncomfortable as she felt. Well at least it's not just me.

"Are we to understand that it was this girl that encased the two of you in ice?" Scarlet snorted with amusement. Rue gritted her teeth at the condescending tone the older woman used, wanting to go over and punch her. In the face. With a mallet. Or something.

"Obviously it was a fluke, Mr President, unenhanced teenage girls don't just drop out of the sky and defeat some of our most promising SOLDIER's," Rue felt her eyebrow twitch with both irritation and amusement as Lezard eyed her over while cleaning his glasses. If only he knew.

"I think we can all agree on that, the question is what to do with the girl now," President Shinra talked dismissively around his cigar. Smoke billowed out of the giant cancer-stick with ever word and Rue couldn't help the instinctive urge to wave the horrible smell away from her face. She should have known that it would be like this, that all of them would just dismiss her entirely and make excuses for her very existence over her head. Fuck. This. Shit.

Rue sent a glare at Tseng, making her feelings on the entire situation known, and then suddenly strode forward towards the President without any warning and yanked the cigar out of his mouth, dropping it on the floor and put it out with her booted foot.

"If you want to give yourself lung cancer, you can do it on your own time, but I know for a fact that second hand smoke is far more deadly than what you're inhaling and personally I would appreciate it if you would cease and desist blowing that shit about like a fucking idiot," she told the squat blond man sternly. Nobody in the ridiculously over-large room moved a muscle as they watched a teenage girl scold the most powerful man in the world for smoking, of all the things to scold the man about.

Rue turned on her heel and began to walk back to her place beside Sephiroth, only pausing to look at Scarlet, before throwing, "Oh, and it wasn't a fluke, I am unenhanced, I did 'just fall out of the sky' and me and the guys had some fun back in Wutai, deal with it.," over her shoulder.

"Yes I'm sure, however-" Rue spun sharply to glare at Lezard. Apparently the dumb-ass wasn't listening, so Rue sent a glare at him.

"Deal. With. It." She repeated shortly. An unspoken warning was in her tone as she stared down the Director of SOLDIER, when he opened his mouth to argue with her again Rue just raised an eyebrow. "Would you rather a large safe just drop into the middle of this room for no apparent reason? 'Cause we can do that too," she asked lightly. Lezard frowned at her and was about to say something again when a large old fashioned safe quite literally dropped heavily into the centre of the room. "Do you people see the shit I have to deal with now?" she asked them with her hands on her hips.

Which was exactly how Rue ended up where she was now: incarcerated in the cell block on level sixty seven which was located outside the god damned science department. Because that shit made so much fucking sense. Who the fuck designed this building? Who thought it was a good plan to put their prisoners near the scientists? Because whoever it was, Rue was fairly certain they hadn't met Hojo.

"I just had to mention the safe before it fell, I just had to open my fucking mouth, didn't I?" Rue growled to herself as she paced the length of the tiny cell. They all probably thought she was magical now, able to conjure up random objects to crush people she didn't like at will. Yeah. Not so much. 'B' was the all powerful one, Rue was totally the victim here. Still. The look on Shinra's face when that safe landed had totally been worth getting thrown in prison.

It wasn't like she'd be there long. Right?

AN: SURPRISE! Okay so I had a little down time between cleaning my place up and figuring out what I'm keeping, not keeping and other things. This is the outcome. It's stupid, but when does this fic ever take itself seriously? The answer is rarely, if ever. Possibly never.

Aaaanyway. Yeah. A safe, cigars and prison. Just what Rue ordered.
The next chapter should have more information on what Shinra plans to do with Rue and how much he and the other executives know about her.

I can see two maybe three more chapters before the end of Book One. YAY! I don't know when the next post will be, depends on how long it takes me to get my shit together over the next two weeks. But one of those chapters will have some random moments of silly fluff spread over a number of weeks or days leading up to the 'season finale'.

Expect some more Hojo.

Also Turks. And Reeve. Because we can't go to Shinra Tower and not harass Reeve and the Turks, it wouldn't be right if we didn't.

Thank you for all the reviews guys. I'm so glad I've been making so many of you laugh, that's always my goal, if you're laughing I'm doing my job right.

The faves, alerts and the like are also deeply appreciated.

All of you are the reason this fic is still alive, so thank you for the support.

RLK