Forcibly United

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Chapter 5

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In a small Malaysian town there exists a small hospital. Really, to call the thing a hospital is generous. It could only be called as such because of the unique nature of one of their patients and the circumstances surrounding her arrival. The girl was young: At most she was thirteen years old.

She'd been found by a police officer of the town with a large automatic rifle at her side, a small cloth bag wrapped with the rifle, full of cash, and a head wound which appeared at first to be fatal. Given this girl's apparent luck up until that point, it should come as a rather large surprise to learn that this officer was neither corrupt nor lacking in compassion.

This police officer had also lost his young wife to an injury a properly equipped hospital could have treated. In this fragile, barely still-living young girl, the policeman saw an opportunity. He checked the young girl into the hospital where she was initially treated, though the prospects were indeed poor. As with the police officer's young wife, the chances for the girl were grim without proper medical care.

That evening at the end of his shift, the officer dutifully handed in the Browning M1918 Automatic to the arms clerk, reporting it as found on the scene of the shooting. He did not report the bag of cash, which contained nearly half a million dollars in American funds. Instead, he went to the director of the hospital, a retired American doctor. A former head of surgery, in fact, and a man who could do wonders for the community were his building properly financed.

The man agreed to take the money for the hospital. Within days, it was transformed, all sorts of medical equipment flown in at great expense. The doctor knew that the girl was the cause of his hospital's good fortune. He swore he would save her, whatever it took. The first thing it took was a blood transfusion, a decidedly rare commodity. He drew the blood from his own arm.

The bullet which had shot her must have come from a small-caliber pistol. It had struck her three inches to the left of the crown of her head, tearing up the scalp quite a bit and causing massive bleeding. Between the blood and the wig hiding the lack of a gaping exit wound, it's no wonder her killer thought her dead.

Between the surgery, three blood transfusions, and the superior monitoring equipment the doctor was able to largely stabilize her condition. Unfortunately, this left the girl in a rather deep coma. A coma which looked to last for the rest of the girl's life. The police officer looked in on the girl from time to time, reading her stories from a book of fairy tales.

The girl seemed to smile a bit whenever he read the story of Hansel and Gretel to her. Just so he could catch a glimps of that smile, he read it to her often.

It was a surprise to both when the girl woke up. After taking some time to make sure she was alright, they learned something interesting. The girl had family. She had a brother, one who was working in a nearby city. The last thing she knew, she was supposed to go on a picnic with him.

It was a struggle for her to remember anything else. She couldn't tell the officer why she had a Browning M1918 Automatic. She couldn't tell the doctor why she had half a million dollars in cash hidden in the rifle's wrapping cloth. She couldn't even remember her own name.

She could remember her brother's smiling face, however: His short black hair, the warm smile he'd had when she sang for him. She remembered those things. Both men promised to help her find him again.

oOo

Ryouga groaned as he twisted out of the way of the shot, the bullet striking the wall behind him. Ranma rolled over a crate and leaped, trying to keep their foe off balance. They would have none of it, however, and three shots took Ranma high in the chest, red dripping from his white t-shirt and leaving him to land and then slump to the ground limply.

Ryouga grimaced at the loss of his ally. That would make this battle that much more difficult. With a snap, his foe reloaded his weapons and advanced, using Ranma's leaden weight to slow Ryouga down as the Lost Boy was forced to drag Ranma around by the magic binding them.

All too soon, Ranma's body got caught on a steel pole, halting Ryouga's horizontal momentum and leaving him easy prey for the pistolero eyeing him. Two shots stung his legs before one drilled him in the forehead, finishing the fight.

"Come on, boys! You can do better than that!" Chang snapped, ejecting the clips from his guns and unchambering the rounds left behind. He slapped two different clips in place of the old, once more arming himself properly. "I don't care if we're using simunitions, my aunt says you can do better than this. If I'm going to be taking valuable time out of my day to train you, you can damn well try harder than this!"

"It's not our fault!" Ranma protested, wincing as he sat up. Being the first down meant playing dead. That meant being dragged around by his partner until he got shot or managed to disarm Chang. Neither boy had managed the second, yet. "We ain't used to these damned bracers yet, man! We're not used to moving in tandem like this!"

"You'd better learn, fast," Chang said, holstering his weapons. "Look boys, you're good, but you're not immortal. You probably want to avoid getting shot just as much as the rest of us, right?"

"Right," Ryouga confirmed. He grimaced at Ranma. "Look, let's get used to moving together with these damned things. We'll go see this guy a little later. I'm not going to be comfortable running around a city filled with guns unless I'm used to dealing with them."

"Hey, I did fine against that Revy chick!" Ranma scowled, crossing his arms. "I'm sure we'd be fine!"

"You may have missed it, but I've just shot you boys five times out of five," Chang pointed out bluntly. He snapped his fingers, and three men with MP5s entered the room. "These boys aren't nearly as good a shot as I am... but with those guns, they don't really have to be. They'll be taking over your training while I'm away."

"What?" Ranma muttered, his face going pale. Ryouga was already moving, knowing his reaction times were not quite up to the pigtailed boy standing next to him. Predictably, Ranma dodged the opposite way, leaving them both open to attack.

Leaving the boys to their training, Chang left to go meet up with his underlings.

oOo

Drug smuggling. Two of her men could handle the investigation, backed up by two men from her coms unit. The recent weapons smuggling. Ugh. Four men, meaning she'd have to pull a fire team off of active rotation to deal with the problem. Again, backed up by two men from coms. She rubbed her head and eyed the clock. It was only eleven thirty.

Balalaika set aside her paperwork as her sergeant entered the room, flashing him a small smile.

"Lunch is ready so soon?" She asked lightly, getting out of her chair. At his curt nod, she followed him into the small dining room next to her office. "You will, of course, be joining me?"

"Of course," the man said with a small nod, pretending there wasn't only a single place setting at the table. He quickly and efficiently got a second set of dish ware out and spoke quietly with the man at the door. "Bring up a second dish from the kitchen, then serve the men."

He received a curt nod before turning back to the table. Moments later the first dish was brought in, and without prompting the man placed it in front of the Capitan with a flourish.

"I think Gleb's outdone himself," Sergeant commented, indicating the meal. Balalaika nodded her agreement, digging into the first bite of the mushroom dish with relish.

My, Gleb had indeed done a wonderful job. With just one bite of the meal she felt refreshed. She hadn't felt this good in ages, in fact. Almost as if one bite of the food had transformed her!

"Sergeant, you really must compliment Gleb on this meal. I haven't felt like this in a long time," Balalaika said with a rare, genuine smile on her face. That smile faded at the blank look on her underling's face.

"You, get Gleb!" The large man snapped, shoving the man with the tray towards the door. "Make sure nobody touches the food he prepared!"

"Sergeant?" Balalaika muttered, confused.

"Capitan, take a look in the mirror. I hope we can get to the bottom of this," the scar-faced man growled, crossing his arms. Wordlessly Balalaika rose and went to the mirror, fearing the worst. When she got there, she saw a face she hadn't seen in thirty years, albeit one which still bore the scars of her time in Afghanistan.

It was her own fifteen-year-old face.

"Well, this is interesting," Balalaika commented. My, she'd forgotten how light her voice had sounded when she was younger.

She was a woman who'd been through the fires of hell itself, been through the worst battles a war had to offer. She'd seen comrades die and killed hundreds of men with her own two hands. She'd thought she was immune to shock.

Losing thirty years of age from eating a mushroom dish, however, ranked right up near the top of her small list of things which could shake her. She could be forgiven fainting, given the impossibility of what she'd experienced.

oOo

Benny smiled as he closed down his PC, catching a last glimpse of Jane's smiling face on his desktop before the machine shot down. At the sound of his footsteps, Revy opened on eye to briefly look at him where she lounged on the couch. He crossed the threshold of the Black Lagoon company's office to the small kitchen where Rock was frying up mushrooms, onions, and tofu in teriyaki sauce.

"How's it coming?" The blond asked his fellow noncombatant, glancing into the fry pan. Rock flashed him a small grin.

"It should be ready soon. Revy was nice enough to go out to the store to replace the bad mushrooms I got, so... Once Dutch gets here, we'll be able to eat," Rock said. He flicked one of the smaller mushrooms onto his flipper with a wooden spoon, holding it out to Benny. "Here, let me know what you think."

"I'm not going to complain about sampling the chef's cooking," Benny grinned, taking the mushroom.

"Hey, what the fuck is up with that shit!? Rock, you smacked my hand with that damned spoon of yours when I tried to grab one of those mushrooms just a minute ago!" Revy growled from the couch.

"A minute ago the mushrooms weren't ready. Now they are," the Japanese man told her with a smug smile. The dark-haired Chinese-American woman got up with a snarl, intending to visit a small amount of pain on the poor bastard for his transgression.

Ignoring what was, after all, a daily ritual for those two, Benny popped the mushroom into his mouth. Rock sure did cook well. The mushroom was juicy, retaining the tangy bite of the teriyaki and layering it with several spices the tall man couldn't readily identify.

Well, he thought he was tall. Why was Revy, storming past him to the office's small kitchen, now taller than him? More importantly, why had his pants just fallen down?

"Uh, guys?" Benny asked, wincing as he heard his voice squeak. It hadn't done that since puberty. He turned to see the astonished looks Revy and Rock were flashing him.

"Holy shit," Revy stated bluntly, her hand still grasping the front of Rock's shirt. A small thread of smoke curled up from the high heat of the pan as Rock stopped stirring, opting instead to stare at the short blond.

"What's going on?" Benny wondered, his hand flying to his throat.

"Rock, on second thought, I'm not sure I want any of that," the gun-woman muttered, releasing her grip to walk up to the communications expert of Lagoon Company. Her hand slapped the top of his head, before traveling levelly to her collarbone. "Holy shit, Benny! You're a kid again!"

"I don't believe this," said kid yelped, reaching down to pull up his pants. He tried tightening his belt to keep the trousers up, only to discover that his belt didn't notch quite that tight. "Rock, what the hell did you cook?"

"It's just a Japanese recipe! It's not the fucking fountain of youth or anything!" Rock protested, his gaze turning to the woman next to the young boy in question. His eyes narrowed. "Revy, where the hell did you get these ingredients!?"

"Don't blame this fuck up on me, Rock! I just went to Tong's market to pick up the stuff, like I do every time I have to go shopping!" Revy snarled, storming up to the man. She jabbed him in the chest. "This wouldn't have happened if you'd gone anywhere but Mohommad's place anyway!"

The argument ground to a halt as the door to the office opened. Clad in oil-stained clothes, one of Dutch's eyebrows raised over his sunglasses.

"Who's the kid?" He asked smoothly, indicating Benny.

"This is going to sound weird, Dutch," Benny tried, wincing again as his voice cracked.

"What the fuck... Is that you, Benny?" Dutch pondered quietly, shaking his head as the stricken young teenager just nodded. "Well, this is certainly quite the predicament."

oOo

Across town, two nuns sat down to eat their meal after a hard day's work. A few bites into the mushroom risotto, Yolanda and Eda discovered quite an interesting fact: They looked nearly identical to one another when they were seventeen years old.

Yolanda was happy about being young again. Who wouldn't have been, in her position?

Eda, on the other hand, was furious. She'd just gotten to the point where she'd forgotten just what it was like to be an older teenager. She was not happy about being reminded of her days at a shitty American high school doing shitty cheer leading.

In the mess hall, certain altar boys noted that they'd shrunk an inch or two. They didn't really care.

oOo

Author's Notes:

Balalaika being hit with the mushrooms was obvious. Benny not so much, especially the age he got hit with. Yolanda and Eda both? That was for all the jokes I'm going to get to crack about the fact they look quite similar now.

So... Gretel. Put simply, this sub-plot's a late addition. Originally I had no intention of bringing her back. Then I got into a discussion with my beta-reader for Ripples of a Chaotic Pebble about Black Lagoon. I mentioned something about finding it sad that Gretel, at least, didn't get a happier ending than a bullet to the back of the head. She was practically home free when it happened, after all.

My beta-reader told me it was pretty well impossible to give Gretel a happy ending anybody would buy. So... Amber? Challenge accepted.