::The Last Avatar::

Gamer Edition

BOOK ONE
LEVIATHAN

1.20

Sleep Good, Hojo Bad

Turned out, 'not long' was about a week. After the adrenalin, and her irritation in general, had worn off Rue had ended up sinking to the ground against the wall in mortification. She had made a scene, that part she was fine with, what wasn't fine was that she had made a scene in front of a lunatic scientist who had exclusive access to the floor she was being held on. After that thought Rue had been quiet and patient while waiting for the idiots who had thought it would be a good idea to take her to Midgar in the first place. Well, as quiet and patient as a bored and slightly paranoid teenage girl could be while confined in a small room. Although it had given her some time to consider her options, maybe she could stop the 'crisis' from even happening. She had to try, right? If she knew what was going to happen then it was her duty to save as many people as she could. Or that's what she told herself. Repeatedly. All she had to do was figure out how to do that and, on a more personal note, figure out what the hell they'd done with Tera. Because if they'd given her to Hojo, or anyone in the science department really, there would be blood. Head's would roll and overall it would be mostly unpleasant for everyone involved.

Now, as she sat on the floor of her cell, glaring at the uncomfortably thin mattress she'd been forced to deal with, Rue could say that she had had more than enough of being on lock-down. She had pulled her hair out of the style she'd put it in for the meeting and had decided to braid it in order to keep it out of her way and getting even more tangled than it already was while waiting for something to happen, and when something finally did she honestly wanted to sing.

*Meet the Shinra's*

Story quest #5

Well you met the idiots fucking this world up.

You were actually entertaining.

For once.

You should do that more often.

The safe comment was gold.

I'll think of more stupid shit to throw around for next time.

Sounds good, yeah?

You earned a little something extra.

Have fun brat.

…

850 EXP

300 AP

1500 GIL

+Executive Key-card

Rue's eyebrow's raised as she stared down at the key-card that had been deposited into her hands. According to the screen it was an executive one, which meant that she could probably get into just about everywhere in the stupidly designed building. Fuck. Yes. Were all her mind could come up with before more bright lights danced before her eyes.

CONGRATULATIONS!

ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED!

*Luke, I Am Your Father*

Meet Professor Hojo

Reward:

*Scientist Rue* Discovered

The corners of her mouth twitched at the name on that achievement, she couldn't say she'd actually agree with the whole 'meeting' thing, unless being in the same room as a person and not saying anything to them particularly then, sure, she'd met Hojo.

Glancing between the card in her hand and the door, Rue considered her current options. She was on the same floor as the science department, which meant security might very well be higher than she was actually equipped to deal with. On the other hand, she had a mother fucking key-card so she might as well use the fucker, and do something. Like maybe find some actually true files about Sephiroth rather than the staged ones he would find in Nibelheim. Telling him about Lucretia now, with proof, would save them all some trouble later. Yeah. That was a good plan.

Nodding to herself Rue picked herself up off the floor and strode over to the door, only to realise the door didn't actually open from the inside. Frowning and mumbling insults at herself Rue turned back to the still open Quest screen that she hadn't dismissed. Peering at the screen thoughtfully Rue figured asking was better than sitting doing nothing.

"Uh, hey 'B'? You think you can open that door for me?" she asked awkwardly. She was talking to an invisible screen after all. Well, invisible to everyone else anyway.

Oh I'm sorry, brat.

Did you want some of my help?

Psh.

Why the fuck would I go and do something like that?

Was her response. Rue just rolled her eyes as she shifted her stance before the screen. "I thought you wanted to be entertained? Or were you enjoying watching me sit on my arse for days on end?" she gave the screen a flat look. The door opened. "Thank you," she said with a sigh and the screen vanished. Straightening her clothes somewhat Rue took a deep breath and walked out of her cell.

Okay. So creeping around the very quiet halls of the science labs maybe wasn't such a great idea. It was dark and creepy and she was paranoid about running into Hojo. This was not a good combination in hindsight and perhaps she should have known better than to go poking around the Shinra Science Department, but Rue had been stuck in a cell for a while and doing stupid shit seemed to be her thing these days. And speaking of stupid shit.

Peaking around the edge of the door she'd just opened Rue sighed in relief upon seeing no-one inside. She slid into the room and began to poke around, unfortunately this seemed to be a break room that doubled as a storage room for the prisoners belongings. With a sigh Rue pulled her blue bag toward her, checking the contents to make sure nothing had been taken. Her weapons, she noted with a frown, were gone, including the daggers from Yuffie that she'd never used. Seeing this, Rue had little doubt that Tseng was behind it, and with pursed lips the teen decided that if she was going to do stupid shit she might as well do it right and look the part.

With a determined grimace Rue pulled out the 'outfit' Yuffie had given her. Her Thief's gear was not something she would normally choose to wear, but it fit her current mission and the mood the darkened corridors created. Rue ducked behind a packed shelf, changing as quickly as she could in the chilly and somewhat exposed area.

Although the lack of skin cover was a little embarrassing, the darker colours of the main pieces made up for it, not to mention the use blue was something that appeased her a little. Pulling on the black short shorts Rue couldn't remember the last time she had worn shorts that were quite that, well, short. The black and blue layered midriff top was almost skin tight, and remarkably comfortable.

The grey calf-high boots didn't feel new, they were broken in already despite how they looked like they hadn't been worn before. Of course once she was wearing them, she didn't care so much, they were comfy as fuck and that was all that mattered. When it came to the accessories that went with the outfit Rue was a little perplexed, and with a shrug she pulled the single black glove on one hand and a teal arm band on her upper arm. She pulled the glove's matching black arm warmer onto the other arm with a raised eyebrow and a thoughtful frown as she looked over herself as she sat on the floor of the darkened room.

Humming to herself Rue picked up her belongings, squinting in the dark as she felt around her to make sure she hadn't dropped anything she didn't want to lose. Only when she was sure she had everything did Rue sling her bag strap over her shoulder and step back out from behind the shelves. Her eyes scanned the room once more for anything of interest, finding nothing that jumped out at her Rue moved on.

She'd found her way up to floor sixty eight about half an hour ago if her Player Screen was anything to go by, it wasn't as late as she'd imagined, and things weren't going well thus far. True, the key-card 'B' had provided her allowed Rue to move throughout even the Science Department unhindered, but finding what she was looking for was proving difficult. Jenova wasn't in the building, she hadn't thought the creature would be, but it certainly would have been helpful. Hojo's office seemed to be in hiding or it just wasn't labelled for some reason and it was slowly driving Rue insane. All she wanted to do was find his fucking-oh no wait- Yeah. No. She just walked into it the right room. Thank fuck for that.

Upon confirming that the room was, in fact, Hojo's Lab Rue began poking around in hopes of coming across something useful concerning stopping Sephiroth from losing his shit. Naturally Rue had not anticipated that a control freak like Hojo, even a crazy one, does not just leave important shit like that laying around. The longer she was in the room the more high-strung Rue became, not wanting to get caught by anyone while in that particular room. She didn't want to risk turning on the computers, the light might alert someone that she was in there, if they didn't already know, which was likely. So she kept to looking through the physical files in the room, much to her annoyance. It went on for a while like that until she was swearing profusely under her breath and then, the inevitable happened. The door behind her opened.

Rue froze when she turned around, staring in complete horror as Hojo stood in the doorway to the darkened lab. The Professor didn't move at first, taking in the sight of a scantily clad young woman poking around his lab, a young woman who looked rather familiar. Hojo slowly reached down into the pocket, and the moment she saw his hand disappear into that white lab coat Rue let out a blood curdling shriek and bolted, racing to the nearest door that the reason for her flight was not standing in the way of, and wrenched it open, tearing her way through the labs toward the exit.

When she made it to the exit Rue stupidly glanced back as she went to move through the security screens, instead of actually going through the doorway beyond, however, the terrified teenager slammed into what felt like a brick wall. Hands grabbed her as she stumbled back and Rue let out another scream, waving her arms around uselessly as she tried to get away from the wall with hands.

"Rue!" she froze at the familiar voice. Looking up Rue found herself peering up at Angeal's concerned face, realising she was not in danger Rue slumped against him with a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank the Lords of Time," she breathed into Angeal's rock hard chest.

"Rue, what are you doing out of your cell? And what are you doing running out of the Science Department at four in the morning, for that matter," he asked her with a frown. Rue winced at his down turned eyebrows and desperately tried to figure out what would be the most believable explanation.

"Uh, the door opened?" she offered with an awkward smile. Angeal just stared down at her for a moment before sighing and turning around, steering her towards the elevators. "Where are we going?" she asked as he pushed the down button.

"Somewhere safe," Angeal told her as he ushered her into the open doors when the elevator arrived. He didn't say anything else until they were on their way down the tower, of course that didn't necessarily mean it was a good thing. "Rue?"

"Uh, yeah Big Guy?" glancing up at him Rue found Angeal frowning at her again. This frown was slightly different though, and she wasn't sure why.

"What are you wearing?" he asked her after a moment. Rue blinked and it took a moment for it to compute that she was wearing her Thief gear and Angeal, or anyone for that matter, had yet to see it before. Hojo didn't count. Hojo never counted. Shit. Was all her brain could come up with as the elevator stopped at the floor Angeal had picked.

"Its-I-You-Yuffie gave it to me," she stumbled over the words as they vacated the tiny metal box. As the larger teen herded her towards a door down the empty hallway, Rue had to wonder where the hell he was taking her. They were on floor fifty three, which was one of the information blanks Rue had on the building. Maybe it was one of the SOLDIER only floors? They probably had a few of those clustered together somewhere.

"Yuffie? Who's Yuffie? One of your Wutian friends?" he asked her conversationally. Angeal had stopped in front of one of the doors, unlocking it with a key-card of his own and then steered her inside.

"Well, yeah, I guess she's-wait-where the hell are we?" Rue was distracted by the homey atmosphere of what was apparently an apartment. Angeal's apartment, if the small pot plants randomly placed around the living room and the gardening magazines she spied on the kitchenette bench. His love of gardening was one of the main things she remembered about Angeal in general. The apartment wasn't big, by any means, Shinra was cheap even for their best, but it was one of the most welcoming spaces she'd been in since arriving on Gaia and that feeling was very, for the lack of a better word, welcome.

"All Second Classes have two rooms in their apartments, I used to bunk with Genesis, but when a few of the other Seconds were killed during a mission he laid claim to the apartment that was left empty after the shuffling around was done," he explained while rubbing his neck awkwardly. Rue's brows furrowed a little as she tried to figure out what Angeal was trying to get at.

"Okay then," she said slowly, her eyes were squinty again and she knew it.

"I'm just saying, you could, you know, stay here-if you wanted to, I mean-I just-I-" Angeal cut himself off with a sigh. It seemed he was not very articulate at this point in his life, it was slightly endearing. Ah, the awkwardness of adolescence.

"Oh, well, cool, thanks Big Guy," Rue beamed at him. She tried to ignored her own awkward, and Angeal seemed to appreciate the lack of sass. In all honesty it was too early for sass, or late, in her case. She didn't know how long it had been since she'd slept, but Rue was starting to feel like she was going to fall over if she didn't catch a few hours of down time, preferably somewhere more comfortable that the cell they'd practically thrown her in. Like an actual bed. Or a couch. A couch like that one that was sitting in the lounge area all innocent like. Yes. That couch looked comfy.

"Hey," a hand touched Rue's shoulder, dragging her out of her sleep deprived mental rambling. Looking up at Angeal and blinking slowly at him seemed to get her point across if the soft smile and chuckle she was awarded was anything to go by. "Alright, come on, the bed in my spare room is far more comfortable than that couch," he told her gently. Rue allowed him to steer her towards the spare room, the adrenalin rush from the fright Hojo had given her was gone and she knew she was crashing hard now.

"Good," she said distant. "Sleep good, bed good, very, very good," was she rambling? Possibly. Angeal chuckled again over her head as Rue yawned loudly.

"I agree, I would also say that running around the Labs very, very bad, particularly in that outfit," Rue snorted in amusement at his words. No doubt she would have said something sarcastic about how awkward he seemed about her clothing choice for the evening slash morning if only her brain had been working. Later. Much later. After sleep.

AN: Okay, I may have inadvertently, temporarily, destroyed my legs after two long walks so I figured if I was going to sit I might as well get another chapter out. I'm thinking that I might be able to get Book One done before I move, if I'm lucky. Two chapters more is what I'm aiming for, and then EARTH TIEM~ I have a horrible feeling that Rue Earth Bending will be just plain dangerous, not Toph level dangerous, but dangerous nonetheless. Though as we get closer to Book Two I begin to consider Rue's Earth Bending style and strengths, and lately I've been tossing up between Metal Bending and Lava Bending. Because Lava Bending is freaking awesome. Any thoughts from you guys would be welcome concerning that.

Stupid ridicules fluff chapter next and then, I hope, the 'Season Finale'.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I made a poll about the potential for a comic version of this fic, have a look at it okay peeps?

Thank you for all the reviews guys, 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