Chapter Eight

Into The Line Of Fire

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 10

"Hello, hello?" Aerith cautiously called out into the church, Ranma following close behind. It looked as though something had crashed through the roof, as there was now a sizable number of fallen timbers in the immediate area of the flowers. "Is anyone here?"

Ranma smirked briefly, remembering the old line about what one would do if they asked that question and heard a voice reply 'no'. She was pretty sure she could sense someone, but with the panic outside and everyone running around, it was actually hard to tell. "Sure ya wanna be here right now?" she asked.

Aerith shushed her. "I'd be here if it was you that fell," she responded, "no matter what you'd been doing up there." Ranma nodded in response, suitably chastised and accepting it. The two of them stepped forward and began pulling away the timbers. "Oh my…"

Near the bottom of the heap was a man lying face down in the flower bed. He was clad in a loose black sleeveless tunic and dark pants, and strapped to his back was an enormous, thick sword almost as broad as Ranma. It looked as though the sword had kept the weight of most of the debris from landing directly on his back. Ranma and Aerith glanced at each other, and nodded, before carefully shifting the fallen timbers away from the body.

"Is he alive?" Aerith asked, concerned.

Ranma leaned down carefully and placed two fingers against the man's throat. "Well, he's breathin'," she confirmed. She stepped back, looking up through the brand-new skylight in the church roof. "Beats the hell out of me how he survived a fall like that," she mused after a minute.

The body on the ground let out a groan; whether from pain or relief it was difficult to tell. "Oh, he's moving!" Aerith whispered in a surprised tone. "Are you okay?"

The man gently shifted position and rolled to hands and knees before opening his eyes. "I… think so," he said quietly, shifting position slightly. "I came... crashing down? Where am I?"

"Yes, you're very lucky," Aerith replied. "You're in my church in Sector 5. The roof and the flower bed must have broken your fall some."

The man looked down and focused on the flowers. "Oh, these are yours?" he asked, suddenly aware of himself. He cautiously shuffled to one side, careful to avoid damaging the flowers further. "Sorry."

Ranma looked the man up and down. His face was more or less expressionless, his bare arms showed an abundance of lean muscle, and he carried himself like a professional. Even his footsteps were even and measured. Then she noticed the bracer strapped to his arm, with materia slotted into it. Coupled with the sword that looked as heavy as she knew Ryoga's umbrella to be, and she realized that trying to fight this man might actually end up becoming very dangerous.

Aerith, on the other hand, was simply looking him over as if trying to remember something. "Oh!" she said suddenly, recognition dawning. "We meet again."

The blonde looked briefly startled at that, running one hand through his hair, doing absolutely nothing to tame it in any way. "Oh, right. You were selling flowers," he said calmly.

Aerith smiled gently. "Oh, I'm happy you remembered," she replied. "Thank you for buying one of my flowers. Do you mind waiting for a moment? I want to be sure they're all okay," she said, gesturing to the flower bed.

The man nodded and stepped to the side, as Aerith walked over and kneeled down, scrutinizing the flowers and tugging gently at the roots with her bare hands. Ranma glanced over at the man, who had a suitably puzzled look on his face. "Don't worry about that," she said, noticing the befuddled expression. "She did that when she met me too."

The man nodded and appeared to relax some, or at least to not stand as rigidly. Ranma lay down casually in the frontmost pew, reaching down to pick up a small rock, and tossed it over her head to pass the time while Aerith tended to her garden.

"What's your name?" Ranma asked after a short silence.

The man turned his head to face her, giving her a good look at his blue, faintly glowing eyes. "Cloud," he replied.

"I'm Ranma," she introduced herself, "and that's Aerith," she said, gesturing to the girl almost obliviously engrossed in her work. "You look pretty tough… what do ya do around here?"

"Kind of a jack of all trades, I guess," he responded lightly.

Ranma blinked. "Like a mercenary, sort of thing?"

Cloud nodded. "You could say that," he answered, then turned away to the front of the church, by the entrance. He gave a meaningful glance to Ranma.

"Yeah, I know," Ranma said quietly, still lazily tossing the stone up and catching it in one hand. "Heard 'im come in about thirty seconds ago. S'why I'm asking about you." Aerith finished her work, and stood up, turning to face Ranma and Cloud, and noticing Reno for the first time. "Look, you're a mercenary, I'll make this simple," Ranma continued, gesturing to Aerith with one hand. "I'll pay you fifty gil to keep her safe from Red-boy and his cronies up there for the next sixty minutes. After that, we'll either be safe or we'll be in a lot bigger trouble."

Cloud's gazed bounced between Reno and Aerith for a moment, before returning to Ranma, prone on the pew and still playing catch with a rock. "You don't want protection too?" he asked casually.

In response, Ranma caught the stone in one hand, and squeezed. When she let go, a fine powder drifted to the floorboards. "I don't need protection," she explained, "but I can't fight that many alone and make sure nobody gets the drop on us. And…" she said, smirking, "I kinda dislocated Red-boy's elbow last time we saw each other, so I doubt he's gonna be in the mood for tea and pleasantries."

Aerith swallowed, but nodded. "Please don't fight here, you'll hurt the flowers!" she pleaded. "There's a back way out, we can use it to get to the roof."

Ranma smiled, and uncrossed her legs, still laying relatively flat on the pew. "All right, Aerith. I'll do what I can, but it kinda depends on him. Wait for the first move," she said quietly. "Once I've got his attention, break for it. I'll catch you up by the wall if I can."

Cloud smiled briefly, and glanced up to the front. The red-haired man was indeed approaching, and had several armed Shinra troopers flanking him. "Yo, don't mind me," Reno called out with a smirk, stepping forward lazily in his disheveled attire. He paused briefly as he got a good look at Cloud. "Oh, it's one-a you."

Cloud stared at the man. "Do I know you?" After a moment, his gaze flickered. "Wait... I do know you," he declared. "You're a Turk."

"Guilty as charged," Reno responded smugly. "Ya don't wanna get in the way. We're just picking up somethin'."

"Is it your pride?" Ranma quipped, coming to her feet and into Reno's view. "I'm actually impressed you're standin' right now after that shot I gave to your knee the other day."

Reno glared, and the smirk on his face vanished. "Glad to see ya, girly," he replied flippantly, though he could not hide the undercurrent of anger in his voice. "Gotta repay ya for that."

Ranma flicked her eyes to the side for a moment. "Gonna invite Rude down here too, or do ya think you can take me on your own?"

Ranma had the pleasure of watching the color drain away from Reno's face. "How did-" he stopped. "Whatever. Yo, Rude!" he yelled out loud. "That girl here, she's askin' about ya!"

Even knowing Rude was present, his entrance was something of a shock. There was a loud shout and suddenly the tall man leaped in from above. He landed with a loud crack as the floorboards beneath him shattered, splintering beneath the force of his landing. Without so much as a grunt of effort, he stood up, straightened his tie, and stepped in the way of the door leading to the back of the church. "Did you know you had the top half of a rocket back there?" Rude asked, completely unperturbed.

Ranma looked at Rude in genuine confusion. "Wait, what? Really? Can I see it?" she inquired.

Rude shook his head. "Not getting past me today, miss."

"Well, so much for plan A," Cloud commented, drawing his sword. "Got any others?"

Ranma grumbled, but conceded the point. In trying to draw out the rest of the Turks, she'd inadvertently cut off their escape. So now the best option was probably honesty. "All right, all right," she said. "You got beef with me, I'm game. But if we throw down in here, the roof is gonna come down on all of us," she said, pointing up to the already damaged rafters. "What's left of it, anyway. I know you got two more out front, I'm guessin' one of them is Tseng, and I'd bet he wants a piece of me too. So I'll make ya a deal, on my honor. All of us step outside, and we resume this uncivilized conversation there."

Rude was stoic and unmoved. Reno paused for a moment and cocked his head, probably listening to Tseng or whoever else was in charge. "All right, girly," Reno finally responded. "My boys here are gonna take a walk with the skinny chick. Then tall, blonde, and quiet over there is gonna step out with Rude. Then you an' me. Try anything…" Reno flicked his wrist, and in his hand was a sheathed baton, "...and yer not gonna live to regret it too long."

Ranma nodded, realizing that this had been a trap more or less from the moment she and Aerith had walked inside. "Do what he says," she said, turning to Cloud. "If we get out of this, you still get paid. Until then, I'm puttin' my foot down to keep her safe."

Aerith blinked at her words, trying to understand the odd phrasing. Cloud looked at Ranma doubtfully, but nodded, holstering his sword behind him. "If we get out of this, remind me to introduce you to a friend of mine," he said quietly. "I think you'd get along."

"I'm sure we would," Ranma replied, smiling despite herself. "Aerith? Go on, we'll be right behind you." Aerith did not look or feel nearly as assured as Ranma, but nodded and walked forwards between the rows of pews, the six troopers closing rank around her. Rude inclined his head to Cloud, and they too strode forward out of the building.

"Reno," Ranma said softly. "You know this isn't gonna end well."

Reno's smirk returned. "Doesn't haveta end well," he drawled, gesturing with his empty hand. "Just has to end."

Ranma rolled her eyes at that. "Careful what you wish for," she said, stepping forward. She followed Reno out of the church, and was pleased to see that despite her reservations, Cloud and Aerith were currently unharmed, though they were surrounded by armed troops, guns trained. She glanced to one side and was unsurprised to see Tseng, along with someone else, a short girl with platinum blonde hair and a heavy-looking pistol in one hand.

"Ah, our mystery girl," Tseng said theatrically. "Over a week and we haven't found anything out about you yet. But you knew all our names when we first met. I wonder if you understand just how… unaccountable… that is?"

Ranma shrugged. "I could tell ya," she said casually. "But I wouldn't want to deprive you of the opportunity to lock me in a cell, starve and torture me, and beat the information out of me."

Tseng smiled and gave an almost aristocratic bow. "Well, I can't say I look forward to it," he replied. "But I'm sure we could find someone willing to stand in."

"Yeah, keep talking, Tseng," Ranma countered. "Maybe you'll bore me into submission. You knew we were here," she said louder, cutting off Tseng's retort. "Which means you know, for a fact, that we were down here when that explosion went off. So whatever that was, we had nothin' to do with it."

"Yeah," Reno said, dragging out his words, "but we don't care about that. We're here for you and the girl today. Catching blondie over there is just a bonus."

Ranma glanced at Cloud, whose expression remained stoic and blank. For most, that in and of itself might have been a dead giveaway, but it was hard to tell so soon after meeting him. "Fine, you want me, you got me, but I'm putting my foot down about the girl. Let her go."

Reno laughed. Behind him, the message clicked in Aerith's head and she leaned up to whisper quietly to Cloud. Cloud's face solidified, his gaze fixed on Ranma, who had in fact planted both of her feet firmly on the ground. "Ya really think you're in any position to negotiate, girly?" Reno said dismissively, extending his baton. "Lemme show ya what happens to anyone who messes with the Turks!"

Ranma pulled both arms in close to her body and took a deep breath. There was a moment where everything appeared to happen at once. Reno charged forward at Ranma. Cloud, understanding the warning Aerith had passed on, pulled the two of them down to the ground, turning his back to Ranma to cover Aerith. "Yama-Sen Ken: Kijin Raishuu Dan!" Ranma shouted suddenly, her voice amplified and bizarrely echoing, throwing out her hands in a broad sweeping motion. There was an incredible sense of pressure as the air moved, parted, and warped around them all. A moment later, there was a series of sounds, as of metal being sheared in half, clothing being torn, and skin being cut. The entire event lasted less than ten seconds.

Each of the troopers' assault weapons had been cut in half, some laying on the ground in ribbons. Two of their helmets sported deep gashes. Their armor was all in tatters. That was as nothing compared to the Turks themselves. Rude was laying on the ground, one hand covering a deep gash on his shoulder, a similar cut over one thigh. Tseng's suit jacket was in scraps on the ground, the pressed shirt below it in only slightly better shape. The pistol he had drawn was currently in three pieces, and there was a shallow cut along the hand that had drawn it.

Reno had clearly gotten the worst of it. He was on the ground with several large slices across his now bare chest, and one nasty looking cut running from cheek to chin. One leg was bleeding badly. Dozens of smaller slash marks lined his arms and shoulders. He curled up in pain, but even that brought no relief, as shifting in any way pushed those wounds against the dirty ground.

The blonde girl standing to Ranma's left had somehow managed to step back just at the start of Ranma's attack. She had the heavy pistol still drawn and trained on Ranma, but she was clearly shaken, her aim unsteady. Of course, at this distance, she could pull a foot to one side and still hit center mass. "What…" she began, trying desperately to rein in the quaver in her voice. "What did you do to them?"

Ranma said nothing, but turned to face the girl. There was a long, tense moment, the two staring at each other, the gun jittering between them. Ranma moved one arm like a snake, and in that moment the girl found her resolve, and pulled the trigger.

**click**

No deafening crack, no ejected casing, no scream of agony. The girl looked down at her gun. Ranma's hand was wrapped around the top of the pistol, two fingers gripping the hammer and holding it against the force of the spring, keeping it from slamming home. The girl pulled the trigger again, the hammer not moving even a millimeter closer to the firing position. Ranma frowned, and pinched her fingers together, crushing the metal hammer into a flat plate and twisting it slightly to the side. She then wrenched her hand hard to one side, ripping the gun from her hands.

"I tried to be nice last time," she said, her voice flat, eyes dark, no trace of a smile on her face. "I'm gonna try being nice one more time. I want you to understand my full meaning here of 'nice'. The technique you just saw was underpowered by about eighty percent." She gripped the gun absently in both hands, feeling for the magazine release and ejecting it onto the dirt below. "If I went all out, every person here, including you and possibly my new friend there, would be bloody chunks in the dirt. And that isn't even the most destructive technique I know."

Ranma's hands squeezed together, the sound of metal fatigue and cracking plastics the only punctuation to her words. "If you get them to medical care soon, they'll all survive, and will probably only have a few scars," she continued. She reached out and took the girl's hand, placing the twisted, crushed lump of metal in her hand. It no longer resembled a gun. In fact, it now looked like a small miniature of Ranma. "I gave a warning to Tseng last time we met. I even left him unhurt so he could make sure his men were cared for as fast as possible. I also offered, freely, to answer any question any of you had about me, provided my friends went free and unharmed. He didn't listen. So listening…" she smiled, a smile which held no warmth or comfort in it, "...now falls to you."

Ranma rested one hand on the girl's shoulder. "You wanna talk, please come by, I'm sure you already know where I'm stayin'. I'll be happy to answer any questions you got for me. Send another squad of killers, and I'm going to stop holding back. Come after Aerith again, and on my honor as a martial artist I will march to Shinra's door and I will tear it to the ground with my bare hands." Ranma raised one leg behind her in a deliberately feminine pose, and leaned in close to the blonde Turk. From the outside it might have looked like a kiss behind the cheek. "Don't come after us again," she whispered.

With that, she turned, and gestured to Cloud and Aerith. "I think we've overstayed our welcome," Aerith said quietly.

Cloud stepped over the prone body of Rude, and they began walking. "Remember what I said about you and my friend getting along?" he said.

"Yeah?" Ranma said.

"I take it back," he answered. "You would terrify my friend.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

Elena looked after the trio as they walked away, completely unharmed. Could it all have been a trick? Smoke and mirrors? A mole inside Shinra, feeding info to… some random group of civilians? Or was the redheaded girl for real? Had she just taken out a half dozen troopers and the entirety of the Turks by… by what? Pushing the air with her arms so hard it created blades? How the hell would this fit into her mission report?

The least-injured of the troopers stood at attention, or at least mostly so. "Sir, what should we do?" he asked.

Elena took one look at the backs of the trio in the distance, and then looked down, first at her injured comrades, and then at the statuette in her hands, which less than five minutes previously had been a Shin-Ra Model 10SA Quicksilver pistol. "Let's get them to help," she said, gesturing to the rest of the Turks. "None of you are to speak of this, not to Heidegger or anyone else without my direct order!"

"Yes sir!" the trooper responded, and called for medevac on his somehow undamaged radio.

Elena took a step closer to Tseng, gripping his wounded hand firmly, keeping pressure on the wound. "We need to report this to Rufus," she said quietly. "Immediately."

A/N: And now we join the main story, already in progress! Obviously, with some changes. Events from here will follow similar frameworks to the original FF7 plotlines, but do not expect everything to be as linear, or as instantly recognizable.

Reno and a handful of troopers showed up in the original game. However, all of the Turks know at this point that Aerith has some protection, and that protection is not a pushover, so they'd have come loaded for bear and fully prepared to fight. The two reasons this battle went south for them as quickly as it did is that they allowed themselves to get bunched up, believing their superior firepower and numbers would be sufficient to stem the tide, and once again they underestimated the capacity for Ranma to cause problems. At this point they will have revised the threat assessment of the girl sharply upward, and are exceptionally unlikely to make any further errors of judgment in that regard.

Yama-Sen Ken: Kijin Raishuu Dan (Thousand Mountains Style: Demon-God's Multiple Strikes) is a high level technique from one of the two arts developed by Genma Saotome. Simulating the action of flinging shutters open with your hands, the user's movement are so swift that the air itself is forced apart, creating a vacuum of sharp blades of air capable of cutting through almost anything. In this instance, Ranma has deliberately cut the flow of chi to the technique to prevent lethal force from being inflicted.

Elena's model pistol is a reference to the gun Vincent Valentine begins the game with, a Quicksilver pistol. Seeing as how he also was a Turk, it seemed reasonable that this might be a standard issue weapon for the Turks.

I didn't know until I started writing this story that the pillar-shaped object in the back of the church was the top half of one of the rockets prior to Shinra No.26, i.e., the vessel that would have carried Cid Highwind into space so many years ago. Just one of the wacky little details you find out when you're researching things for a fanfic, I guess. :D

Hope you like it! Feedback and comments welcome! Next chapter oughta go up Thanksgiving morning; next one after that should be December 8. Enjoy your holidays and have lots of roast chocoducken. :P