Forcibly United

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Rock's Little Sister

Chapter 1

This is being posted two hours after Comes the Hot-Blooded Dragon 5. If you haven't read this story in the last day (as of Oct/8/09), go back and start with Chapter 16, which was posted late last night.

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Greta blinked at the hard tone in Ryu's voice. She'd finally found her brother! The look in his eyes, the relief... It was enough to prove he'd been just as worried about her.

Wasn't it?

"Greta, we've just found your brother, right? Shouldn't you get your things ready to go with him?" Ryu asked casually, belying the stern statement he'd put to her brother only a moment before. The young Japanese boy met her eyes, silently asking her to leave.

"Ryu... Be nice, alright?" Greta demanded sternly, getting to her feet and dashing for the door. She paused to turn back, seeing Ryu help her older brother to his feet. Satisfied that immediate violence wasn't about to break out, she dashed to her foster home.

She'd need to pack if she wanted to leave with her brother!

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"You'd better have a damned good explanation for why she was found with a bullet in her head and a machine gun too large for her to use planted on her dying body on the docks of this town, otherwise I'm not sure that girl's ever going to be reunited with her brother," Ryu informed the shocked man firmly, doing his best to look stern.

"It wasn't planted," the other Japanese native finally said, fishing a cigarette out of it's package and lighting up. He raised an eyebrow at the Kumon heir, smiling sadly. "And if the genetics didn't make it obvious, she's not really my sister. I did know her before she wound up here."

"What do you mean it wasn't planted!? She had a damned assault rifle that weighed nearly a fifth as much as she does! How could she possibly fire something like that!?"

"It wasn't planted. She's quite well known in Roanapur for the work she did with it," Rock continued, taking a drag and breathing out the smoke. He smiled sadly. "She can fire that weapon because it's a Browning 1918 Automatic. It's got a recoil-suppression system which is unsurpassed by a lot of modern-day firearms. I know that because after I lost Greta, I did some research on the weapon. Bonnie, of Bonnie and Clyde, fired the exact same weapon. Bonnie was a hundred and six pounds when she died, including the dozens of bullets in her corpse."

"She's twelve," Ryu denied with a growl.

"She's killed more people than most people in the world," Rock replied nonchalantly. The sheer truth and simplicity the older man invested into the statement rocked Ryu back a moment. The Lagoon Company member dropped his cigarette, grinding it into the pavement. "In fact, she's smiled more times in the few minutes I saw her than the entire time I knew her before she wound up dying on the dock here."

"What the hell happened to that poor girl?" Ryu whispered, leaning against the crates behind him.

"She was a child soldier for the Sicilian Mafia. She and her brother were sent to Roanapur about six months ago to kill Balalaika, the head of Hotel Moscow. Her brother, Hansel, died at the hands of snipers when he tried to kill his target with a fucking axe," Rock told him, not pausing at the way Ryu's face went pale. Nor did he meet the young man's eyes, instead staring distantly. "Gretel, or Greta I guess, hired my company to see her safely away.

"We had a contact here. We escaped the mafia, not to mention their military contacts, to bring her here. She'd hopped off the boat and promised to have a picnic with me when our contact shot her in the back of the head with a short-barreled revolver," Rock said, stepping away so Ryu could only see his back. The younger man wasn't sure, but he thought perhaps Rock's voice choked a bit at the last statement. "She'd never seen the sea or the sky, and Balalaika's military contacts were closing on us. I chose to let her last vision be one she'd never seen before instead of the inside of a ratty tarp."

"Who the hell were you to her that someone like you is her only memory?" Ryu whispered, his voice harsher than intended. Relatively slow as it was, the older Japanese man's punch into a crate still startled him.

"I was the only person who ever gave a shit about her until someone killed her." The white-shirted man stalked away, leaving Ryu to gaze after him.

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Dutch caught his Japanese employee's attention with a wave, causing him to stroll listlessly towards the cache of weapons the black man had found in one of the crates.

"Rock, would you believe the shit this kid has laying around here?" Dutch asked jovially, indicating the rifles in the crate. Most were a superior grade to the dozens of other crates littering the warehouse. He then noted the look on the young man's face. "What's up?"

"We're in trouble, Dutch. I think. I mean, I'm sure it's going to be trouble, but it's not," the Japanese man sighed, running his hand back through his hair. "Fuck, I don't know. This is pretty fucked up."

"What's pretty fucked up?" Benny asked, carrying a computer tower past. He rested it on a crate, while Dutch silently nodded. The ex-soldier had taken note of the swearing. Rock didn't swear like that unless he was especially shaken.

"Fuck. Well, you remember how you said this town looked familiar, Benny?" Rock asked, prompting the blond American to nod.

"This is where Gretel died, Benny-boy," Dutch informed his employee, nodding once. "Sad tale. So what does this have to do with us, Rock?"

"Remember how we all saw Gretel die when she got shot in the back of the head, Dutch?" Rock asked, prompting a nod. "Remember how none of us were ghoulish enough to actually check her for a pulse because Balalaika's military friends were closing on the Lagoon from the east anyway?"

"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me," Dutch groaned, hand slapping his face. After a moment, he glared at the other man. "Now would be the time you tell me why this is our fucking problem."

"Big brother!"

Dutch was surprised at the smiling, energetic girl in a yellow sun dress who tackled Rock. Between the change of clothes, the shorter hair, and the actual joy on the girl's face, he would have been hard pressed to I.D. her as half of the two-child rampage which had more than a few gunslingers dead six months ago. Yet he could vaguely see it. Enough that he knew someone as smart as Balalaika could see it as well.

"Did she just call him big brother?" Benny asked Dutch quietly, leaning in conspiratorially.

"That would be why this is his, and by extension, my fucking problem," Dutch groaned.

He glanced down at the weapons in the crate. Just a few minutes ago, the day had been going so well, too.

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"We're not leaving her, Dutch," Rock informed his boss firmly, crossing his arms. He'd noted the way Benny and Dutch had been talking in low tones while he'd been chatting with the pre-teen. He'd finally told her to say her goodbyes to Ryu, gently pushing her towards the Japanese pirate.

Ranma and Ryu were currently joking around with the young girl, while Ryouga sat off to the side and nursed his headache, leaving the trio of Lagoon Company employees to discuss the problem. Rock had flatly thrown aside the idea of just leaving the girl, noting her dependence on him.

"I'm not saying I like the idea," Dutch said with a frown, crossing his arms and inhaling deeply, the cherry on the end of his cigarette burning bright for a moment. "But have you considered how this is going to come back and bite us in the ass? Balalaika did her best to kill this girl once already."

"I think I can handle that," Rock admitted reluctantly, taking a sip of the tea he'd brewed in Ryu's office. "Though Balalaika and Revy are going to be the two biggest problems."

"Revy didn't really get along with that girl," Benny noted, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "The problem, like you said, is Balalaika. She had to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars making sure that Gretel died. She's not going to be happy to find that the money was poorly spent."

"The girl she ordered killed is dead, though!" Rock said pleadingly. "Dutch, that girl doesn't remember anything. I've talked to her. All she remembers is that she's my little sister and she's been searching for me. We can't just abandon her."

"That's not going to fly with Balalaika, Rock. We both know that," the black American said sternly. "Balalaika wanted blood, and you know she never stops until she gets it. Once she finds out that Gretel is alive, she's not going to care that the girl doesn't remember what she did. She's going to want to put a bullet between those cute little eyes herself."

"We can dye her hair. I can handle Balalaika. Trust me, she won't figure out what's going on," Rock said. He sighed, glancing over at the girl. "With her shorter hair dyed black, she won't stick out. I can make something up to cover things on Hotel Moscow's end. It's just... She deserves to be happy, Dutch. You know how fucked up her childhood was. This is her chance."

"Fuck me..." Dutch grunted, putting out his cigarette as he glared at his employee. With his new sunglasses, the gesture had little effect. Rock met his stare evenly, though there was more than a hint of desperation in the calm-looking young man's eyes. "Fine. Rock, understand this clearly, though... It's going to be up to you to explain this shit to Balalaika when said shit hits the fan. Are we clear on that?"

"Who are we kidding, Dutch?" Benny asked lightly, grinning at the confused look his boss flashed him. "Revy had it right when she said Rock has that woman wrapped around his pinky finger."

"Didn't you call her one of the three scariest women in the world, Benny?" Rock asked. He shrugged. "How the hell do you think I have one of the scariest women in the world wrapped around my fucking pinky?"

"Not one. Two," Dutch teased, raising an eyebrow at the incredulous look on Rock's face. "What, you think I haven't noticed the way Revy's been acting lately? You do know you've got more control over her than I do, and I can at least pretend to scare her sometimes. You control her with just your voice, Rock."

"Maybe next time the Terminator Maid's in town he can go three for three," the blond teenager beside them noted with a chuckle, moving away to pick up the computer tower and moving towards the boat.

"You're both insane," Rock concluded, stalking over to where Gretel was playing with Ryu.

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Greta waved to Ryu as the Black Lagoon slowly pulled away from the pier, the weight of all the supplies Ryu had given her big brother causing the big metal boat to sink heavily into the water. The cute boy on the pier waved back with his good arm, the broken one sporting a doodled pink heart and her name.

That'd make sure the boy remembered her.

She heard a step behind her. Without knowing how she knew, she knew it was Rock. She spun with a smile.

"Well... Greta," Rock said, seeming to fumble over the name. He held up a bottle of black hair dye. He'd said that some mean people where he lived had tried to kill her without going into details. Greta hadn't pushed, seeing the incredibly sad look in his eyes when he'd said it. "Are you ready?"

"I'll always be ready whenever you are, big brother!" The cheerful girl said, latching on to his arm.

She couldn't contain her excitement. She'd found her big brother. She was going to be living with him permanently!

Nothing could spoil it for her!

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Author's Notes:

This is going to be an interesting arc. Mainly character development, unlike the last arc. Things will go back to action sooner or later, I promise. Don't expect much Ranma and Ryouga over the next three or four chapters, unfortunately.

I think I'll take a break for the rest of the night. Three chapters in a day or so is enough for me. Probably.