Welcome back! So, I know there's a lot going on right now in the world, between the coronavirus event and anything else going on closer to home for each of you. I wouldn't normally do this here, but I want to take a moment to ask each of you to be aware of your fellow humans over the next few weeks. People in foodservice making your latte or your burgers do not deserve to be yelled at. The individual bagging up your groceries doesn't get paid nearly enough to deal with you to demand a store manager go look in the back for more toilet paper for you. That person on the phone trying to help fix your computer does not have the Magic Wand Button that makes it start working again, and neither do the next eleven people up the chain of command. The person on the street being told to go back to whatever country and stop infecting people is third-generation and has lived six blocks away their whole lives. Please be aware that every person you meet today is probably just as worried about what's going on in the world, in the country, and in the immediate are as you are. So don't bully people who are already dealing with this kind of thing. We've all got enough trouble right now. Don't borrow more, and don't make more for others. Be kind. Or Ranma Saotome will come and kick your ass. :)

doraemax: It's not so much that Ranma is leery of horror films. It's just that the horror film that's in his mind in that scene is The Shining, and while he's muddying a few details, that movie is frankly a rollercoaster of some of the best horror tropes and scenes in history. Also, he was trying to lighten the mood, somewhat unsuccessfully. He's still mostly a teenager and still occasionally misses social cues, like how talking about one of the most iconic horror films in Earth's history while living a different one isn't exactly a good idea.
cj1of4: Yuffie will definitely be interesting with this crew, yes.
WanderingStarmaster: Chaos is basically guaranteed with Ranma's presence, and that's one of the things I love about the character.

After next week's update, I will be moving this to a hopefully bi-weekly update schedule. I've gone back and looked over my work and I've realized that I have some work to do to get the next ten or so chapters up to an acceptable level, and I still need to go back and re-edit #20. In short, expect updates on alternating Sundays, but if it doesn't come it'll come when it's ready. The schedule is in some way to keep me goal-oriented, and now I'm taking extra time to make sure chapters are up to snuff.

Chapter Twenty Three

Descent

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 13

Floor 61

"OUT!" Barret shouted, as Heli Gunner strafed the elevator again, the last of the glass shattering and twinkling away into the darkness below. Ranma stepped out and pulled Aerith sharply out of the line of fire, Barret and Red only a step behind. "Shinra's out of their fuckin' minds, somethin' like that here."

"I told you we shouldn't have taken the elevator!" Ranma shouted. "Place like this, we were sittin' ducks!"

"Never mind that," Red growled. "We have to find a way to take that thing out or we're going to have a bit of a problem getting out of here."

Barret glared at Ranma, before turning and firing a salvo at the mechanical Gunner. "Di'int you say somethin' about bein' good at mid-air combat?"

"Yeah, but I mean stuff like jumping and striking from that height, I can't fly!" she clarified. "I try anything on that little dervish out there and I'm looking at splat city from sixty floors up!"

Aerith glanced between the two. "What about your materia?"

"My what?" Ranma glanced down at her arm, the glowing orb embedded into her bracelet. "Oh! Forgot about those."

Red looked up at Ranma in disbelief. "You forgot you were wearing materia?"

Ranma focused for a moment, hurling a Blizzard spell out the window at Heli Gunner. "Look, don't get on my case right now, I only found out these things existed two weeks ago!"

"You must be joking!" Red called back, tossing a Fire spell of his own into the distance, colliding with one of the rotary cannons just hard enough to throw its aim off. "I have been trapped in this building for three years and I know how materia works. Have you been living underneath a rock?"

"She's from another planet," Aerith started explaining, but Barret pushed them all over as Heli Gunner fired another salvo into the floor-to-ceiling windows ahead of them, sending shards of glass tumbling into the huge open break area of the 61st floor.

"Bitch at each other later, team?" Barret suggested, raising up to one knee and returning fire. "Deal with that now!"

Ranma nodded, rolled to her feet, and tossed another Blizzard at the attacker. "Wish Ryoga was here," she muttered. "Could just throw him at the thing and be done with it… wait." Ranma looked at the assorted wreckage of the break room they were taking cover in, and spotted exactly what it was she needed. It wasn't as good as throwing a Ryoga at the problem, but it'd do. "Barret! Cover me!"

"What?" Barret yelled, but Ranma was already moving towards one of the tables they had toppled over in their efforts to stay out of sight. "Damn it, girl is gonna get herself killed." He leaned around the corner and opened fire at the mecha, unloading a full salvo to give as much of a distraction as possible.

Ranma grabbed one of the massive circular tables, tipped it upward, and snapped the legs off with a quick knife-edge chop of her hand. Tossing the legs to one side, she pushed her fingers firmly into the heavy oak forming the table, giving herself a firm handhold. "Everybody down!" she shouted, before lifting the table level with her shoulders, rotating around herself like a comically oversized discus.

Barret realized what she was doing, but nearly fell over out of shock seeing the wisp of a girl spinning in a circle, surrounded by a rapidly rotating solid wooden table some three meters across. He quickly pulled Aerith and Red to the ground and covered them, just in time for Ranma to release the table, sending it flying through the air, through the metal frames that had previously held the windows in place, and straight into the Heli Gunner's rotors. The suddenly smashed and mangled metal rotors immediately ceased functioning, and the Gunner tumbled end over end into the darkness below.

Ranma, meanwhile, was now laying flat on the floor, fighting against dizziness. "Guys, gimme a second, that was a bit too close to a vomit comet for my tastes," she called out, even her tone of voice managing to be woozy.

"You must be much stronger than you look," Red commented, padding lightly over to her, taking care to avoid the shards of broken glass strewn about the place, "because I would have estimated that table to weigh more than your entire body."

"Got that right," Barret confirmed. "Ranma is our little miss badass, and don't you forget it."

"That's 'mister badass,' thank you very much," Ranma corrected, "and don't you forget that either." She slowly turned over and moved to a kneeling position. "Okay, think I'm gonna be fine now. Let's book it."

The four ran down the stairs, past floor 60, and exited to the 59th floor lobby. Aerith jabbed the elevator call button repeatedly. "What's taking it so long, anyway?" she asked. "It's five in the damn morning, nobody ought to be using this thing right now."

Ranma shook her head. "Seriously, guys, I didn't want to take the elevator when I came in, I didn't want to take it on the way out earlier, and I still don't want to take the elevator here now. They've probably shut it off, let's just get moving already." She started walking towards the lower stairwell without waiting for the others.

"What do you have against elevators, anyway?" Red asked in confusion, over the gradually increasing sound of a mechanical motor.

"Nothin' against 'em in principle," Ranma explained, standing next to the fire escape door. "But here, it's basically a lockable box that Shinra might be usin' to drop us all to the ground or haul troops up to fight us or somethin', and I like my organs where they are."

Red looked around as the motorized sound continued to increase in volume. "Do you all hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?" Aerith asked.

"Sounds like a car."

"We're fifty nine floors up, there's no way they have a car up here," Barret said, as the elevator 'ding' sounded behind them. The doors opened. The object inside was in fact much larger than a car. The Hundred Gunner was more akin to a small tank. Four rotary wheels had braced it against the floor of the elevator, and a massive, towering body housed several turrets and a pair of mako-powered cannons. It leveled two massive minigun turrets and began to spin up.

"Oh, no," Ranma had a moment to react, shoving everyone roughly to one side, an instant before the scream of the miniguns began tearing through the office walls behind them. The sound was almost deafening, akin to a swarm of metallic bees shredding everything in sight. The elevator doors closed, but it was pointless in the face of the incessant fire coming from inside. The door itself splintered and shattered into scrap metal, and fell to the lobby floor.

"Well, it's not a car!" Aerith shouted.

"Didn't we just leave this party?" Barret yelled over the sound of gunfire.

The twin miniguns continued spitting out a truly absurd number of rounds, carving the inside of the elevator doorjam out further, widening it for the tank's passage. After a few seconds more, the sound of gunfire finally halted, and a motor spun up. The tank began to push itself out of the elevator, its rotary treads trying to gain purchase on the smooth marble tiles. Ranma watched in rapt horror for a moment as she considered exactly how short their lives would become if that thing rounded the corner and they remained standing there. "Aerith!" Ranma called out. "Need your staff!" Aerith nodded and pulled it out from beneath her, handing it to Ranma. "Barret, need you to blow out a window for me!"

She stood up as the sound of crunching glass and metal to one side signaled the Hundred Gunner's ponderous attempts to clear the elevator doors to renew its assault. Ranma pulled hard against the elevator doors for the opposite shaft, wrenching them open, and wedging them ajar with the staff.

Barret finally caught on and ran over, leaning out into the elevator shaft and firing at the glass casing around the outside, opening a hole in both the current shaft and also in the one occupied by the Gunner. Ranma hopped to the frame on the near window, then over to the next one, and finally perched herself atop the elevator holding Hundred Gunner. Focusing for a moment, she forced a Blizzard spell into the assembly holding the elevator carriage to the ascent cables. "Kami, I hope this works," she breathed, and stepped backwards to the inner wall of the elevator shaft. Taking a deep breath, she tensed her body as she focused her chi, and lifted her arms as if holding a sword. "Yama-Sen Ken: Kijin No Ha!" she shouted, bringing her arms down sharply.

The air tore with her motion, a vacuum forming in front of her and flying forward at breakneck speed. The chi-infused blade of air struck the cable assembly and passed through with an audible shatter, the rapidly cooled metal unable to withstand the sudden force against it. It continued, piercing cleanly through the window on the opposite side, and vanished into the night.

The elevator went into freefall, plummeting down the shaft. Ranma leaped from the roof of the elevator into the open space of the freshly-carved 59th floor lobby. The scream of metal fatigue echoed upwards through the shaft and into the building as the guide rails that held the elevator to the side of the building reached their stress point and failed, the carriage snapping free at around the 20th floor. Hundred Gunner and the elevator car that had held it hurtled out into midair, landing on the pavement just outside the Shinra Tower entrance, and exploded into a massive fireball as its collective armaments ignited almost simultaneously.

"That," Ranma declared forcefully, pulling herself to her feet, "is why I didn't wanna take the elevator when we came in here." Red stared at her, dumbstruck, tongue lolled out to one side. Barret beamed his approval.

Aerith peered down at the wreckage in the distance below. "So, how are we getting down, then?"

"Guess it's the stairs again," Barret indicated the fire escape to one side. "We're gettin' out on the third floor, meetin' up with the others in the main lobby."

"Not yet." Ranma turned back to the up-stairwell. She glanced over one shoulder and caught Barret's eye. "Keep Aerith safe. I'll catch you up, but I've got somethin' to get off my chest first," she said, her tone turning dark.

Barret blinked, but nodded, and gently but firmly started guiding Aerith towards the lower stairwell, Red padding silently behind. Ranma steeled herself, and started back up the stairs.

Floor 67

Blood still stained the walls, and the tank which held Jenova was still empty. But Ranma wasn't here for any of that. She remembered the look of terror Aerith had on her face when they had found her in the Science department. Trapped in a container, referred to as a specimen, nearly forced to fight another living, thinking creature to the death for what appeared to be nothing more than Hojo's amusement... Ranma was here to make sure that nobody else would be 'studying' any more specimens for a long, long time.

She stood in the abandoned Science Department, the lights already dimmed from the battle below. She barely had to think about what she was doing. She barely had to pull on her already strained emotions. She simply knew what she needed to do. She faced the 'specimen tank' that had held Red captive when they arrived. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and screamed. "Shishi -"

Floor 69

Cloud limped down the stairwell, clutching at his ribs. "Damn that Rufus," he muttered, before he glanced over to the entryway. "...Tifa? What happened? What are you still doing here?"

I wanted to stay by your side, no matter what, she did not say. "I stayed to make sure we all met up in the right place," she answered, rushing to his side and pushing a Cure spell into his torso. "What happened to you?"

"Couldn't finish Rufus," he indicated his side as the spell took effect, knitting his bones and healing the bruises. "He got a lucky shot off and cracked my ribs through the armor, then hopped back onto his helicopter and flew off somewhere. This is gonna get complicated…"

"Doesn't matter," Tifa waved him off. "The others should be waiting downstairs by the time we get there. Let's go."

Before they could take another step, there was a massive, thundering blast that echoed through the tower. "What the hell was that?"

"Felt like a bomb went off," Tifa replied, pulling him towards the stairs. A second later, they noticed a dull red light out the window, somewhere below them, and an orb of reddish energy sailing off into the horizon. "Oh, hell."

"What?"

"I think..." There was a second tooth-rattling thump from somewhere below, and another red light sailed off into the distance. "Yeah, Ranma's getting some stress out. We need to go," Tifa added. "Now."

Floor 26

Red, Aerith, and Barret has been descending the stairs for a good ten minutes, the trip down proceeding not quite as quickly as the route in had taken them. The slower descent was largely to ensure that none of them fell and injured themselves, as it was a long way down. Barret had admitted to himself that he hadn't fully understood what Ranma had planned until he heard the thump of an explosion somewhere above them. He grinned when he heard it and continued on his way down the stairwell.

It was around this point that Red stopped for a moment on the landing, ears perked up. "Do either of you hear that?" he said quietly to the others.

Barret paused, as did Aerith, and concentrated. There was a sound of fabric, flapping in the air, and then nothing. And then it began again. "What on Gaia..." Barret muttered, raising his gun-arm as the sound grew closer.

Immediately above them, there was a grunt of effort and the sound of an impact against the stairway. Barret's arm twitched higher and he motioned for the others to back against the wall. There was utter silence for a long moment. Then, from above, "Barret, put that thing down, it's me!"

"Ranma?" Aerith called out at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Yeah, I had ta catch y'all up somehow," she said, as she rounded the landing above them. "Dropped a few floors at a time in the open space here."

Red grinned as only a wolf can. "What exactly did you do up there anyway?"

Ranma shook his head. "Let's get out of here first. Story time later."

Barret nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's damn right. Get a move on, everyone!"

Main Lobby

Pre-dawn was visible in the distance, the sun's glowing rays illuminating the clouds on the horizon. It was because of that light and the contrast with the surrounding areas that Barret noticed the veritable army standing at the ready outside the lobby entrance before they approached the lobby doors. "Wait up, y'all, this is about to get messy," he said, pointing outside.

Several rows of armed troopers and a number of heavy vehicles were waiting just outside. A loudspeaker squawked into life somewhere outside. "Attention," a nasal voice barked into the speaker. "You are surrounded. Surrender your weapons, and come out of the building with your hands up, or we will be forced to fire upon you!"

The four of them paused for a moment in consideration, and as one, made for cover provided by the pillars and reception desks before the troopers outside opened fire. The spray of bullets chewed into the floor, the furniture, and the scenery, leaving pockmarks and bullet holes everywhere. Barret peeked out from cover, getting a better view of the troopers' positions. "If I was alone, wouldn't be a thing… but I gotta reputation to uphold," he commented. "Fightin' retreat might be our best option from here. Get back to the upper levels an' make 'em pay for every floor if we have to."

Ranma looked outside doubtfully from her own position. "I might be able to take some of them out, but that… is a lot more firepower than I'm comfortable gettin' in the middle of," she admitted with a frown.

"I don't know about you two," Red said quietly, lowering his body into an aggressive stance, "but even though I could voluntarily return to the tender mercies of Hojo and the Science Department, I have no desire to. If we are to die fighting, then so be it."

Ranma smiled softly. "Can pretty well guarantee that ain't happenin', at least," she commented through a lull in the gunfire coming in. "Blew up Hojo's precious little specimen tanks while I was up there. I couldn't even dent the prison walls, though. No idea what the hell they built those things out of. So I pulled the ceiling down in the hallway in front of it instead, buried it. Nobody's going back in there for a while.

Barret turned and looked at the girl. "Damn," he swore quietly, giving a small smile. "It took you a while to get pissed enough at Shinra, but can't argue with the results."

Aerith looked out at the assembled Shinra forces in the pre-dawn light washing over the plate from behind a damaged pillar. "I won't go back, no matter the cost," she confirmed. "I am not going to live my life under their control, even if that means we fall here."

"Well, we are at least of one mind," Red confirmed. "Fight and live, or fight and die, but no surrender."

Ranma shrugged. "All things bein' equal, I'd rather we live, but I guess we'll have to wait an' see," she said softly, clenching her fists and getting ready to charge out.

"Barret!" Tifa's voice called from the top of the stairs, drawing everyone's attention.

Barret turned sharply at the sound of Tifa's voice, and gave a wry smile despite himself as she descended the stairs. "Good, you're here, Cloud's here, now we can all die together... Wait," he paused, noticing the absence of anyone with Tifa. "Where's that spiky head run off to?"

Tifa ignored him for a moment, pulling a grenade out from somewhere and throwing it at the front gate, before ducking for cover. The blast kicked up dust and smoke, and scattered the troopers approaching the front gate. "Come on, Cloud's got a way out!" she shouted, running past them and into the middle of the lobby.

There was the sound of a motor from somewhere above. "Oh, Kami, not another one," Ranma complained. "I can't even throw this one off a building from here." Regardless, all of them followed Tifa. The sound of the motor grew louder, as suddenly Cloud appeared, rolling down the stairs on an enormous motorcycle. Tifa jumped up onto a display panel and into a light blue, three-wheeled truck, and rapidly peeled away a panel to hotwire the engine. Aerith climbed into the passenger seat, while Barret and Red hopped into the flatbed. "This is not a good idea," she muttered, "but out of a field of one…" she shrugged and piled in alongside Barret. Tifa gunned the engine, and they rolled across the floor of the main lobby, following Cloud to the third floor.

Cloud rolled to a stop, his front tire pointing towards a large window. Tifa skidded to a halt behind him. "Everybody hold on tight!" Cloud shouted, and accelerated.

Ranma ducked down as Tifa floored the gas, right behind Cloud as he smashed straight through the window. They sailed over the assembled military might of Shinra, landed on a smooth paved highway, and drove into the distance.

Within seconds, Shinra's forces were in pursuit.

A/N: The Hundred Gunner/Heli Gunner fight always felt... boring to me. Forced encounter in an elevator sounds interesting, but there's not much going on in a strictly storytelling sense with these fights. I decided to make them a little more dynamic, first by switching up their order of appearance, and then by having Heli Gunner chasing the descending party around instead of just showing up in an elevator shaft and taking potshots at them. This also made for more creative solutions in concluding or circumventing the battles. I will also say that I have seen some of the trailers for FF7 Remake, and it appears that something similar occurs in at least one scene in one of the more recent trailers. I wrote this segment in late November, so I'm holding this iteration as my own, regardless of any similarities that may present when the game releases.

Ranma forgetting that he had bought an Iron Bangle and a materia set is actually... really in character with Ranma's character historically. It's the same thing where he trains for most of an arc to learn a new ability or style of Martial Arts And Crafts and then it's not seen again forever, even when elements of it would have been useful later on.

Ranma's techniques...

Yama-Sen Ken: Kijin No Ha - Thousand Mountains Style: Blade of the Demon-God. An impromptu modification to the standard multiple strike technique, this instead refocuses the energy spent in creating many blows to a single cutting edge, allowing for greater precision and focus of the blow. As a result, the overall cutting power is increased compared to the diffused strength of the multi-strike attack, but can only hit a single target. Ranma using this after flash-freezing the elevator's cable assembly to make it more brittle was probably not strictly necessary, but Ranma decided to maximize the chances of success when attempting an ad-hoc chi technique.

Hope you like it! Comments and feedback welcome!