Has it already been two weeks? Goodness. Last weekend was good for me, spent time with family, did some nerdy stuff, and generally had fun and some relaxation. And then... I got horribly sick. Flu, lost my voice, barely slept, felt like death, missed a couple days of work. But you all ain't here for that. You're here for the story. So let's get back into it, shall we?

Comment time!
fen: Yeah, we're going to be avoiding some of the more... um... 'dramatic' instances of Cloud's absurd strength for most of the story. The basic line I'm drawing here within the story is that humans are still, biologically, humans. They can get cut, they can be shot, and the like. As a result, each individual foe right down to Shinra's baseline troopers are a potentially lethal threat.
silentstrixe: I *hate* stairs. But I almost always feel better after finishing off a climb of stairs, in the "Hey, this doesn't suck as much anymore" kind of feeling better. It's strange, seeing the places you'll pull your personal experiences from when you write.
Hmm23: Ranma generally tries to get back to male form at any time where doing so would not otherwise endanger others or delay an active goal. In this case, he had an opportunity to become male again at the inn near the Gainsborough household, and decided to stay that way. He's also familiar enough with the curse that he knows if he gets hosed, he's staying in the other form for a while.

Owing to the illness that has plagued me for literally all of this week, I didn't get a whole heck of a lot of writing or editing done. But I got this one ready to go. Hope to stay on track going forward.

Chapter Eighteen

From Shadows

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 12

The last trooper collapsed to the ground, a heavy slash through his riot armor. The other guards and the mechanical troops were strewn about the floor, some in pieces. Ranma drew a breath and looked over the carnage, as Barret and Ranma began pulling the bodies off to the side. It was, briefly, disquieting to think that he'd just struck someone with intent to kill. It was significantly more disturbing to him that he'd succeeded. He hadn't restrained himself; he'd not bothered wasting his more powerful techniques, but over his own objections, he'd just killed human beings in his goal to rescue Aerith. A cold shiver ran down his back as a tiny part of him noted how effortless it had been.

Ranma shook his head at that. It hadn't been effortless. Physically, the troopers had proven no challenge, yes. But a larger and more insistent part of him realized he'd crossed a line, walked through a door that he could no longer return from. He'd struck with intent to kill and succeeded. People now lay dead before him as a direct result of-

Ranma paused and took another breath. There was no time to have a crisis of conscience here in the heart of enemy territory. He shuffled the train of thought to the back of his head, resolving to deal with it later. Aerith's safety was what mattered right now, he reminded himself, refocusing his attention.

"How long you think we got before security notices the blood?" Barret asked Cloud, the question snapping Ranma out of his reverie.

"Honestly? About thirty seconds ago." Cloud dragged the last body into the stairwell. "I'm surprised we haven't heard anything yet. Either those cameras are for show, or the guys up on sixty six are asleep."

Ranma nodded. "By the way, what's this for?" he said, indicating a badge he'd snagged from one of the guards' uniforms in the middle of combat. He passed it to Cloud, who looked it over.

"Yeah, we'll need this," he said, and pocketed it.

"What is it?"

"The floors up to fifty nine are considered low security, as these things go," he explained, gesturing over to the stairwell. "Everything above us is special access. Each floor requires a specialized access card to get to."

"What's on this floor, anyway?" Tifa asked.

"Mostly cubicles, offices, a couple conference rooms..."

"So nothin' important?" Barret confirmed.

"Nope."

"Then let's go."

Floor 60

Cloud peeked out the door on floor sixty. "Guards," he whispered.

"Human ones?" Ranma asked.

"They look human enough. No machines that I can see," Cloud confirmed.

Ranma nodded and gave a wicked grin of amusement. "All right, Tifa," he said, cracking his knuckles. "You want to be my student too? I'm going to give you your first lesson, right now."

Tifa looked torn between worry and excitement. "Are you sure we have time for this right now?"

"Watch and learn, that's all. Cloud," he said, turning to face him. "Give Tifa the security card. Tifa, if you still have a hold of the card by the time I get back, then I'll teach you this technique as soon as we are out of here."

Tifa and Cloud shrugged, and Cloud handed her the ID card. Ranma stood to one side, and raised his arms to shoulder height, letting his wrists go limp. He whispered something that the others couldn't hear, and then seemed to fade from view.

"The hell'd he go?" Barret demanded quietly, still mindful of his surroundings.

"I think it's one of his special techniques, something he knew from his world," Cloud answered. "When we met in the Sector 5 slums, he did… something, I still don't understand what, but it turned a half dozen troopers' weapons into scrap laying on the ground, and also knocked out three of the Turks."

"And last night when we were escaping from Corneo," Tifa added, miming the motion of the Mōko Takabisha as best as she could recall, still gripping the ID card in one hand, "he did this thing, where… it was like he just made a big fireball explode out of his hands. And unless he swallowed it or something, I'm pretty sure that he wasn't using materia."

"Nope, I wasn't," Ranma confirmed, standing behind the trio. His sudden appearance caused all three of them to jump in shock, Barret starting to raise his gun-arm in an attack posture before he recognized the boy.

"The hell, Ranma, thought you was a ghost for a second there," Barret said, lowering his gun. "Were ya gonna do something about those guards with that little trick o' yours, or do you just fuck with the living?"

"What guards?" Ranma said innocently.

"The ones that…" Barret gave up. "Fine, do it myself." And turned and walked out into the security area, his gun-arm raised. A moment later, Barret's voice could be heard around the corner. "...what the hell?"

Cloud and Tifa glanced at Ranma, then together stepped out through the doorway. Six heavily armed bodies in padded coats lay unconscious on the floor. None of them had drawn weapons, and nobody had heard a sound, not even of the limp bodies striking the ground. Tifa turned around and saw Ranma standing there with a smirk on his face. "All right, that was pretty good. But now you're gonna pay up. Because I…" she trailed off, seeing Ranma lift one hand, holding a security badge. Tifa looked down at her own hand, which had been firmly gripping the badge.

Which was now holding firmly onto the Elixir they had found in the stairwell.

Tifa stared at her own hand as if it was an alien being, utterly confused by the turn of events. "...how…"

"It's all in the reflexes," he said, still smirking. "None of them had a badge on them, so we might be stuck here.

"No, Ranma, hold on, how did you actually do that?" Cloud insisted.

Ranma sighed. "You three were distracted. I slipped behind her and switched the card for the Elixir."

"Without me noticing you'd taken it out of my hand, and put something else in my hand in its place," Tifa elaborated flatly, still not quite believing it as her hand dropped to her side.

Ranma blinked, glancing between the trio as they argued the point. "Wait, I took out six guards without making a peep or being seen, and you three are hung up on that?"

"Far as we're concerned," Barret rumbled, "that's the more impressive feat."

Ranma sighed in defeat. "Fine, let's get moving at least. Anything else worth checkin' out on this floor?"

Cloud thought for a moment. "I think the rest of this floor is dedicated to the maintenance of the above floors," he commented. "Electrics, fire suppression, plumbing, janitorial equipment…"

"So, nothing. Let's go," Tifa said.

"Wait." The other three turned to Ranma, who was now looking out to the back of the building, away from the stairs. "Fire suppression... you mean like sprinklers, right?"

Cloud nodded. "A bit more aggressive, but yeah. They release a chemical that smothers fires by pushing all the air out of the way. It's..." Cloud blinked, realizing what Ranma was suggesting. "You want to disable it?"

"If we can, yes." Ranma looked across at the three of them. "Can we? Without getting security on our backs? Would make tearin' this place down afterwards a hell of a lot easier."

Cloud and Tifa considered the possibility. "Probably not without triggering something," Tifa said finally, looking down at the ground for a moment. "That was... Jessie's specialty. Maybe on the way out, though."

Ranma gave her a nod and followed the others towards the stairwell.

Floor 61

"Door's open already," Tifa whispered, peeking her head over the top of the stairway railing.

"What, open? Or just unlocked?" Cloud asked from below.

"Open, like stuck open."

Ranma stepped around the others and walked up the stairs to the landing, despite their hisses to get out of sight. He strolled through confidently and looked up at the entryway.

"Doesn't look obstructed or anything…" he considered, rubbing his chin in thought. "Malfunction maybe?"

"Oh, good, Maintenance is finally here," someone called out from inside.

Ranma looked in the direction of the voice. Several suited workers were sitting or standing nearby, and one man in a navy-blue suit with short platinum blonde hair was walking towards him with a put-upon look on his face. The area appeared to be a cafeteria or break room, with large tables and chairs set about the area. He cleared his throat and did his best to sound professional. "Yeah, sorry about the delay, there was-"

"Never mind that," the man said, more than a little grumpy. "The door needs to be fixed, it's a security issue, this should have been top priority!"

"I appreciate the concern," Ranma did his best to look abashed as he spoke. "But you know how it is, they tell us what order to do the jobs in, and a flooded bathroom took the top spot. The other problem is, they ran out of badges for up here, and I'm gonna need to check the entry way on sixty-two to see if I can find the issue. Anyone lend me theirs for a few minutes?"

Navy Suit looked at Ranma oddly. "What would you need to check on sixty-two? Door's here."

"Look, something is obstructing the door's closure," Ranma argued, gesturing calmly to the open door. "It's not here, I just came from sixty and it isn't there either. So I need to get up there and get into the maintenance crawl-ways so I can check the mechanism above the door. You need the door fixed; I need access to do my job. Gonna help me out or not?"

Navy Suit grumbled, but acquiesced. "Fine, here," he said reluctantly, handing over a badge. "Gonna need that back so I can get back to my seat later, so don't forget about me, yeah?"

Ranma glanced over the badge. "Sure thing, Locke. Won't be long. Meet you back here in… what, thirty minutes? If I can't fix it by then…" he shrugged.

"Yeah, yeah," Locke replied. "Get going, I'll be here."

Ranma nodded, and walked back over to the door, giving it another cursory look. Stepping back inside the stairway vestibule, he motioned to the others. "Sometimes you just gotta fake it until you make it," he said casually over the banister. "Come on, coast is clear."

Floor 62

"So, what, it's just a library?" Tifa asked after several minutes searching.

"Archival records for Shinra's projects and historical data, but…" Cloud nodded. "Yeah, basically, it's a library."

"Goddess, what a waste of paper."

"Don't know about that, Tifa," Cloud countered, "there's a lot of stuff here about the Ancients, biology and cultural history…"

"Wait," Ranma said, skimming through the document titles. "You had a space-flight program?"

Barret nodded. "Yeah, years ago," he answered. "I remember there was a big damn deal about the project when I was a lot younger. Never went anywhere though, and I think it got scrapped about four or five years ago."

Ranma shook his head in disappointment. Tifa looked at his reaction. "Your world has been to space?" she asked, though it was only barely a question.

"Yeah, it wasn't Japan that did it, but it was a major point in human history," he explained. "It's too long to go into here, but it took years of dedicated work from some of the biggest minds of the past century, and tons of money and resources, but men and women of Earth have been in space and walked on the moon."

That last statement caused everyone present to stop and turn. "One day I'm gonna not be surprised by stuff outta your mouth about this Earth place," Barret commented. "But it ain't today, that's for sure. You're telling us all about this later when we're safe."

"Deal," Ranma agreed, then pointed to a smaller office in the corner. "What about that last door?"

The door had a brass plaque out front that read 'Domino, Mayor of Midgar'. Nobody was inside or outside of it. Cloud stepped inside, noticing the table strewn over with documents, the safe against the floor in one corner, the rows of filing cabinets, and the overall sense of cramped space. "Not much in here," Cloud said quietly. "Just more paperwork."

Tifa stepped inside as well, and looked over the sheets of data and work orders, the rank and file of the bureaucracy. There was an envelope below the first layer, and Tifa picked it up, reading the scrawl on the outside. "Uh… that's unexpected."

"What?" Cloud asked, but Tifa was already stepping outside the office. She handed the envelope to Barret.

"Says 'To AVALANCHE'," he read out in a suspicious tone. He opened the envelope and held out the letter inside. "'Sorry to have missed you, you seem like such interesting people, but I am out at dinner. I've hidden something that will help you in my office, but the key is inside the library of documents on this floor. Here's a clue to get you started, look for-'"

"Bored with it," Cloud interrupted, and walked back into the office. Pulling the Buster Sword free from his back, he pointed the tip at the safe in the bottom corner of the room, and pushed straight through the steel wall of the safe with the blade as if it was made of butter. Wedging it apart, he reached inside, and pulled free a keycard and a light blue materia orb. "We don't have time for games, we need to rescue Aerith."

The others nodded their agreement, and they continued onwards.

Floor 63

"Anything here?" Tifa asked, glancing at Cloud.

"Main long-term equipment storage, central air and ventilation, and they kept some stupid Shinra coupon redemption computer here for some reason nobody understands."

"Let's keep going, then."

Floor 64

The group stepped out of the stairwell one at a time, and began walking along. "It's a health center, basically," Cloud explained. "Gymnasium, showers, rest area, lockers…"

"Maybe we can find someone's badge there?" Barret suggested.

"Seems like a good bet," Cloud replied. All four walked in a casual, staggered line towards the locker room, Cloud leading the way, Barret's gun-arm hidden underneath a folded towel draped over his right arm. Barret did his best to hide his disapproving glare as they passed by the high-comfort gym and spa, but couldn't stop his grumbling about the wealthy sitting in the lap of luxury while the rest starved.

Inside the locker rooms, the four of them split up and began sorting through the lockers as quickly as possible. "Clothes, clothes, clothes, a megaphone, a trooper's uniform…" Cloud muttered. "Don't even remember how long ago it was when I got sick of wearing that…"

Tifa groaned in frustration. "This place is a mess! How are we supposed to find anything in this crap?" In anger, she punched the jammed locker door at the end of the row, bending the metal even further out of shape. This caused the locker to tilt slightly to one side. So tilted, a bar of soap resting atop the lockers slid down off the top, bouncing off the polished tile floor and coming to a rest to one side. Where Ranma was walking between the rows of lockers.

Ranma's foot stepped down firmly on the soap bar, causing him to lose his balance and careen forward on the tile floor. Unable to regain his balance in the face of momentum, he tripped and fell at the end of the row, right into the line of showers. One flailing arm, reaching for a handhold, landed on the showerhead, spraying him atop the hair with ice cold water.

Ranma sat there for a moment, her expression grumpy as she released the showerhead. "So, if anyone at all ever had any doubts," she started, "about this curse magnetizin' water to me, at the worst possible times, I want you to remember this moment." She stood up, grabbed a towel, and dried her shirt and hair.

"Use the shower to change back?" Cloud suggested.

Ranma shrugged. "Too much work right now, an' we ain't got time to burn waitin' for the water to heat up. Kami wants me a girl right now, I'll be a girl for now."

"Who is this 'Kami' you keep talking about?" Tifa asked sincerely.

Ranma opened her mouth, but hesitated. She considered the viability of breaking down even the basics of Shinto into a five minute conversation, and immediately abandoned all hope. "It's complicated," she answered instead. "I'll explain later, when there's time."

"I can see that 'Ranma's Fun Time Story Hour' is gonna feature into a lot of our rest time," Barret commented. "Course, that's assumin' we survive the night. By the way," he said, holding up his hand, which held a badge with a name on it and the number 66 printed on it. "Let's get movin', yeah?"

Floor 65

"I think this is Urban Development's department," Cloud said, uncertain. "Never visited here before."

The floor was clean, uncluttered, and contained a number of different offices. A long glass wall lined one side, behind which was a workbench and a number of small mechanical models. Some were of various war constructs, others were of Midgar overall, still more seemed to show the inner workings of the mako reactors. All of it was meticulously organized, except the area that appeared to be the current focus, a small model of a humanoid dressed in a SOLDIER uniform, alongside a set of small stuffed animals standing in a carefully positioned row, a chocobo, a moogle, and a moomba among them.

"They can't be planning to mechanize all of SOLDIER," Cloud commented, when Barret pointed the model out to him.

"Why not?" Barret said simply. "Don't need food, water, or sleep. Don't disobey orders, can't rebel, and you don't need to meet any recruitin' quotas. Jus' build your army out of parts, like the toys we had when we were kids. Batteries included, this time."

Cloud looked over the models in puzzlement. "Why would it be here, anyway? If they're planning something like this, you'd think it'd be stored in the Weapons Development floors. What would Urban Development need with robots?"

"You bin outta the loop a while, Mister Big Shot," Barret rumbled. "Don't waste your time thinking Shinra's been sittin' up here just sendin' out bills to folks. For all we know, they're usin' these things to build more reactors."

Ranma pointed to a large computer screen, currently isolated from most of the clutter. "Any idea what 'Project Sidhe' might mean?"

"Project Swhat?" Tifa asked, struggling over the unfamiliar word.

"No idea," Cloud answered. "SOLDIER never really got involved in anything going on here. Never had to."

Barret glanced over everything. "What the hell are they up to, anyway?"

Cloud shook his head, but they moved on, finding nothing else of consequence.

Floor 66

Cloud looked around as they entered from the stairwell, and then immediately ducked back in. "Everyone back," he whispered urgently, waving them down with one hand.

"What is it?" Tifa whispered back.

Cloud peeked his head out of the door again. "Heidegger and Scarlet," he said quietly, "they're just down the hall talking about something.

Barret growled, his fist clenching at the mention of the two names. "We can't stay in this stairwell forever, y'know."

"Yeah, gimme a minute." Cloud peeked out again, and saw both executives turn away, heading down the hall in the opposite direction. "Now, move, head to the left!"

Cloud waved the rest through and guided them around the corner as Scarlet and Heidegger sauntered down the hallway. Before he could duck out himself, the pair turned to the right, facing a door halfway down, but still in sight of the stairwell if he stepped out. He flattened himself against the wall inside the stairwell and took a breath. After a long moment, he peeked back out. Scarlet and Heidegger were both gone.

"C'mon!" Ranma called as loud as she dared, seeing Cloud's head poking out from the doorway. "They went inside already." Cloud nodded and ran around the wall to the others. "So, who the hell were those two?" she asked.

"Scarlet is the head of Shinra's Weapons Development and Research," Cloud answered. "Heidegger is the head of Public Safety… the actual military branch of Shinra."

"That guy runs SOLDIER?" Tifa asked. Behind her, Barret curled his good hand into a fist, growling incoherently.

"And the naval forces, and the city militia, and the Regular Army troopers," Cloud added. He looked around the corner again and saw someone step out of the stairwell. "Ssshhhh…" he waved them back. A man in a labcoat stepped out of the stairwell, stringy black hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. "He looks familiar…" Cloud whispered, but shook his head, unable to place the face.

"Seems everyone's getting in this meeting," Tifa whispered. "We need to find out what they're up to."

"Too risky with all of us," Ranma muttered. "One or two of us might've been able to get in, when there wasn't already people inside."

"We should split up, then, try to find our own separate access points?" Tifa suggested, then reconsidered. "Wait, Cloud, you said security was on this floor?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Can we give them a blackout?"

Cloud thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Yeah, follow me. You two, try to find a way to get an ear on that meeting."

Barret nodded, and he and Ranma turned the corner and started moving down the halls. The floor seemed to mostly consist of individual, executive-level offices. "Ranma," Barret said quietly.

"Hm?"

"Didn't get much chance to say this before…" he paused, taking a breath. "Thank you for helping me find Marlene."

"Barret, I'd'a done that for free," she answered, lowering her gaze to the ground. "But you're welcome."

Barret nodded thoughtfully. "You're… somethin', that's for sure."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, buddy." She took a moment, glancing around. "Maybe the restroom?"

"What?"

"Air vents gotta go somewhere," she said, shrugging.

Nearby...

Cloud pushed the tip of his sword into the wall. "That should be close enough," he said, backing up. "Hit it."

Tifa nodded, aiming carefully, and summoned a Thunder spell to strike the sword. The excess current ran down the handle, through the blade, into the wall, and leaped into the circuitry and cables controlling camera feeds, door accesses, and even secured communication lines. Within moments, the security control room was blind, mute, and locked shut.

Elsewhere...

The door behind Locke gave a shudder just after he passed through it and halted in the open position. "Not again…" he muttered. "That does it, I'm calling Maintenance myself this time."

And then...

"Can't believe you talked me into this," Barret hissed, trying to pull himself silently along the inside of the admittedly sizable air vent. "I ain't exactly a master o' stealth like you."

"Ssh, listen," Ranma cautioned, somehow standing in a low crouch and walking easily along, her footfalls silent even against the sheet metal. There was a sound of voices from ahead and below. She lowered down to hands and knees, and somehow effortlessly swung her body across to one side of a vent outlet. She motioned for Barret to move closer, and he did so, slowly inching towards the vent.

"Lotta suits," he whispered, earning a waggling index finger from Ranma.

"-damage is estimated at approximately 10 billion gil," one of the people below was reading off of a document, in a heavy accent and a clearly concerned voice. "The estimated cost to rebuild Sector 7 is-"

"We're not rebuilding," a calm baritone voice said, with an air of finality.

Barret squeezed a fist. "That's the president," he whispered. "I'd remember his voice anywhere."

Sitting at the head of the table, holding a lit cigar in one hand, clad in a well-tailored crimson suit, and surrounded by the heads of departments, was President Rupert Shinra.

A/N: Poor Locke. And yes, that is supposed to be Locke Cole, from FF6.

President Shinra's given name is... kind of a weird thing. Apparently, his first name is 'President'. As in, his mother gave him the first name of President. He's actually the CEO of Shinra Electric Power Company, not its president. So I guess... paging the Flynt brothers from Borderlands, someone's trying to hog into your territory. But... I dunno, he kinda looks like a Rupert, doesn't he? Credit to TheScreamingViking for originally naming him Rupert, it stuck in my head and every other name I tried to stick him with didn't fit right.

I always wondered about what all was on the other floors, because it felt like each floor in the game was significantly smaller than the space they were supposed to occupy. I tried to make this office building make a little more sense in the context of being an office building. Though at least in this one John McClane is unlikely to appear in the air ducts.

Hope you like it! Feedback and comments welcome :)