La Femme Ranma
A Ranma � / La Femme Nikita crossover
Part 6: The Way I Feel About You
By Akraen (S. Metcalf)
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-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

"Saotome."

"Nabiki."

And with that short emotionless exchange, the two newest recruits continued on in their paths without any further notice being given to one another.

"I've never seen him act like this before," Nikita commented to Walter and Birkoff as the three witnessed yet another meeting between the teens. The two former Nerimians had been acting decidedly cold to one another since Nabiki's arrival, and it was slowly bleeding off into how they reacted to others as well.

Ranma's behavior had turned emotionless to the extreme, even giving Michael an uneasy feeling. But if Ranma's personality had changed enough to scare people, it was nothing when compared to the behavioral pattern that was starting to show from the Tendo girl.

"I know what you mean, darling. This is like watching a second generation of Michael and Madeline," said section's resident technical genius.

Nikita allowed her worried gaze to switch from the departing teens to that of her father figure and silently nodded.

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

Nabiki jerked, startled by the feel of someone leaning upon her shoulder to overlook her work. "Yes, Nikita? Did you need something..?" she asked coldly. She was still annoyed at how the blond op had managed to fool her into thinking her nothing more than a teacher for a whole month.

Nikita seemed to ignore her in favor of perusing what was on the terminal screen. "The Fairchild Kidnapping? What were they thinking when they assigned that to you.. such a waste of talent."

Nabiki stared back at her in silence. Even though she agreed she did not say it aloud. Such comments were dangerous here.

"Tell you what.. look over these pre-mission briefs and see if you can spot the discrepancy in one of them. You have my authorization to use whatever resources necessary to show why the mission was changed." Nikita handed over a group of the mission briefs and then said, "I'll go find you something more suitable to your skills, but I do expect that assignment done before my return."

Nabiki stared down at the huge pile with grim determination.

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

Nabiki stared at the holographic display of Operations briefing the team. It was the last of the briefs she had been handed, (Naturally!), and to call it a discrepancy was giving it an extreme understatement.

She was currently staring at a briefing in which Section was supposed to capture a target for interrogation. She had been in Section long enough to know what the standard procedure was for treatment of prisoners afterwards.

Which made the fact that the target was not only alive and well, an agent of Section no less, quite a large breach of protocol indeed.

What made the whole situation even more intriguing was the identity of the mission target. Staring at her was an exact duplicate image of herself.

'What is going on here..' she thought to herself in shock as she numbly witnessed what should have been the eventual end of her life after a horrific torture period of interrogation by the 'twin sadists' as the pair were called by the agents.

Nabiki pulled herself out of her shock and back to the task at hand. 'Nikita did say that I could use any resource..' she thought with a calculating smirk. Nabiki's fingers sped as she began trying to pull up the security footage from the day of that briefing.

Finally, she witnessed the briefing taking place. Nothing unusual occured during the brief itself. Her attention was alerted at the end, however, when she watched Ranma being called into Operations' office.

Nabiki stopped cold at this. Nikita had said all resources were to be used.. but this was Operations' private area. If she broke into that and was caught at it...

It was a tough decision to make.. but she decided that this was worth the risk. 'Besides.. I do have authority..' she smirked slightly before she began frantically typing away. She may be daring.. but there was no way she was going to tap into that feed without having first making it impossible to trace back.

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

After a lot of hard work preparing for her invasion into the security camera records, and the final risk of actually tapping into the records, she was finally rewarded with the video/audio log of the meeting between Ranma and Operations.

She waited anxiously as she saw the two walk in and seat themselves on opposite sides of Operations' desk.

-=-

"Did something about the briefing bother you?" Operations asked grimly.

Ranma stiffly replied, "I can't follow mission guidelines on this one, sir."

Operations paused to stare at Ranma, who began to shift about in his seat. Finally Operations stated, "Ranma, we cannot have our agents dictating what they will or will not do. Regardless of your feelings on betraying this girl it has to be done. I will accept no refusal on this matter."

Ranma seemed to shake for a moment. "I'm not trying to dictate to you and I know my duty, sir. I might not like it but I'll do it.. but this goes beyond that.." Ranma's fists clenched together as he broke off.

Finally he resumed speaking, ".. The girl that you want me to get close to.. I already am.. sort of.. She almost became my sister-in-law."

The room was silent for a few minutes. Finally, Operations replied, "Well.. this could indeed complicate matters.."

Operations looked at Ranma for a few long moments. He sighed once then ordered, "Alright. You're off the mission. I'll tell the team to terminate her due to the security risk. Thank you for alerting me to this matter, Ranma. You may return to your duties now."

Ranma seemed to hesitate for a moment before he stiffly nodded in return and walked to the door. Just before openning it he called out, "Sir..?"

"Yes? What is it now?" Operations queried.

"Nabiki.. she's all of those things you mentioned in your briefing.. but she's not evil.. her family needed the money. Sir, I'll vouch for her.. she did not know whose money she was taking.." Ranma seemed at a loss of further words for the moment.

"Yes, well I'll be sure to take that under advisement." was all Operations said in return before returning to his work as if dismissing both the matter and Ranma.

About a minute later Operations looked up again with a hard look in his eyes. "Let me make something clear to you, Ranma. We are not in the business of making friends. This girl is a mission parameter that cannot be overlooked just because she may have been helping her family."

Operations continued to hold his cold stare as he bit out, "Now.. I suggest you return to your duties and forget that we have had this conversation. You are dismissed, Ranma."

Ranma nodded and turned back around toward the door. Rather than leaving the office, however, he spoke to the door as if in observation, "The account she hacked into was setup by Birkoff and Danvers.. I used to think all of those security layers either created was impossible to get into separately. I wonder how many people could have gotten into a system created by both of them. I'd imagine that anyone who could do it without even any professional backing would be a great asset to whichever organization procurred their services.."

Operations' glare became full of steel as he used his communicator, "Madeline? Is there still space in the ladies sexpionage class? .. Thank you. I don't think it will prove necessary but please keep it that way." Finally he replied to Ranma, "I have so far handled you very gently since your results speak for themselves. Do not make me rescind my kindness. You are here to take orders and nothing more. Tread very carefully, Ranma or your next order will be something you find very.. distasteful... Goodbye, Ranma."

-=-

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

Nikita was talking with Walter and was suddenly startled as something landed in her lap. She turned around and saw Nabiki standing there with an angry scowl marking her face.

"It didn't work. Even if he did save my life it doesn't excuse what that asshole did. He used me.. he was a friend and friends don't pretend to love someone and use their love to destroy them. I don't care what you say or what you show me.. nothing is going to change things. I still want to kill that jerk!"

Walter stared after the girl as she stormed off. "And what was that all about?" he asked in shock.

"I had her find the original mission briefing regarding her capture." Nikita replied as she stared at the report Nabiki had given as to why she was still alive.

Walter whistled in shock as he read over her shoulder. "That was an incredibly dangerous thing to do, sugar."

Nikita continued to read through the report as she nodded in return. "My god.. Ranma really pushed this.." she stated in awe as she read verbatim what he had done.

Walter's face looked much older than it usually did as he too understood the risk that had been taken. "This is almost unbelievable.. why did he push Operations so hard.. if it had been anyone else they would have been cancelled for this.. Jesus.. Nikita, how did you know Ranma had done this for her?!"

"I didn't."

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

"The next fourty-eight hours will be critical, ladies and gentlemen. Red Cell has reared its ugly head again..." Operations paused his oration as the holographic projection of five faces appeared. "These five men are rumorred to have created a chemical action bomb set to release its gasses in a major city. Projected death rates if this device should go off are listed in the millions."

A hush settled over the room as the information registerred in their minds. "Intelligence sources have verified the authenticity of the original report, unfortunately that information was not received until after each of these men had split up and sequestered themselves within their own personal strongholds. This leads us to our current action."

The five faces are coverred over by a zoom-in of the first face. "Michael Winston, an expert in chemical agents. He is rumored to have laced his compound with deadly toxin traps. Tony, you and your team are assigned the task of taking him out."

A look of sympathy could be seen upon the face of Nikita as she heard the order being given to Tony. He'd been in danger of being cancelled ever since his failure to capture Ranma a few months past. From the sounds of his orders, his team's time had finally came barring a miracle in the evolution.

Nikita listened in as the second and third targets were assigned to other small teams. "The final two men are the most important. One or both of these men knows the location of the device, and they both must therefore be taken alive. Michael, Nikita, you two will each lead a team of abeyance operatives to storm their main compound where this man, Nikolai Gastev, has taken refuge. We want that compound taken down but your primary target is Gastev. He is to be brought to base alive."

"The final Red Cell agent is also perhaps the most dangerous in his own right. Whereas Gastev has taken refuge within a heavily guarded central compound, Dmitry Kachenovskii has hidden himself in a corporate office of a bodyguard agency. To the best of our knowledge no one other than Dmitry has any connection to Red Cell. However, almost all of the personnel are highly trained former mercenaries and intelligence operatives. The extraction of this man from this building by a team of agents has been declared humanly impossible by the recon teams."

Operations' gaze fixated upon Ranma at this point. "Which is where you come in, Ranma. It is too difficult for a team to insert, capture, and withdraw but a single agent has a slim percentage of success according to the sims. After factoring in your unique abilities, the percentage increased by thirty point two, making this mission a go."

"Due to the difficulties inherrent to these missions, a single comm operative cannot oversee every team. Therefore I am assigning Simon, Tony's team. Gail, you will be handling both Danvers' team and Kronley's as their missions are expected to be relatively light. Birkoff, I am putting you in charge of the teams led by Michael and Nikita. The action is expected to become very intense which is why you were pulled in during your monthly."

Nikita watched as Operations locked his attention upon Nabiki. "Congratulations, Nabiki. You've been promoted to comm. Being a comm is a great responsibility. You will be the deciding factor of whether operatives fail or suceed. I am giving you a chance to prove yourself.. you've got the final mission comm."

Nikita stared on in shock as her mind replayed Nabiki's last words to her.. '-=I still want to kill that jerk!=- My god.. Operations just put in charge of Ranma's survival the one person most likely to want to end it!'

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

"Oops.. sorry, Saotome. I meant right not left."

Ranma could swear that he almost 'heard' a smirk in her voice when she said that too.

This mission had gone anything but smoothly. First there was the air conditioning shaft that had taken him to a boardroom full of highly trained personnel rather than the storage closet Nabiki was supposed to have been leading him towards. That was quickly followed up by the two guards who had 'somehow come out of nowhere'. And now this.. 'Enough is enough!'

"Damn it, Nabiki, that's it. I'm through listening to you. I hope your will is prepared, because if I get it in here how long do you think you'll be kept around after having set me up to be killed?!"

"As if, Saotome. You know as well as I do that you're too good to be taken down by these guys." Nabiki replied through his comm-link.

The sound of a handgun being cocked had Ranma once again cursing the fate that was his life.

"Well, well.. the Chameleon. I've heard a lot about you from my friend. John swears you are some kind of top-secret black ops creation that can change forms at will. I'd be inclined to think he was insane if I wasn't already aware of projects Quicksilver and Water Nymph. I suppose we'll find out for sure which you are when you're dead.."

Dmitry began to fire at him as he dove and rolled for cover. A bullet zinged past as he rapidly moved behind a nearby vehicle.

The bullet ricocheted once, then a second time.. then all was silent.

"Trevors forgot to mention that you could fight too.." the target began to cough up blood. "Ironic.. my own bullets are going to kill me it seems.."

"Just put the gun down. I will have a doctor take care of you. You don't have to die here, Dmitry."

Dmitry dropped his gun to the ground. Ranma finally relaxed, but it was too soon for such an action.

Dmitry laughed through his blood, "You've got me, I'll admit it. But I'm not going down alone!" He pulled his shirt out from his pants and slowly lifted it. Beneath it lay some sort of an explosive device. "You see.. all I have to do is press a simple button and I'll take you out with me!" he shouted out as he revealed his trigger device. "Now.. don't move a muscle or you will find out first-hand what it feels like to be a dead-man walking.."

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

'Well, well, well, Saotome. Looks like you're in trouble yet again. You really should stop making so many enemies.'

Nabiki stopped for a moment to think about the situation occurring inside the garage beneath the office building. 'If I let this guy kill him I'm not going to last alive for much longer in Section. Then again.. is my life now really worth living..?'

Finally having made her choice, Nabiki turned away from her comm station. 'Well I did say that I wanted to kill him..'

-=- -=- -=- - * - -=- -=- -=-

Ranma stared coolly at the sweating man who held the control for the explosives. He doubted that the man would follow through on his threat to blow them both up if moved, but he was under orders that the man was to be taken alive at all costs. He knew in his heart that he would be able to disable the man before any reaction could be taken.. but the orders were specific, which meant he couldn't take such a chance.

Dmitry let off a ragged laugh, causing more blood to escape from his lips. He knew his fate.. he'd either die now or in a few hours. But if he was going to die it was going to be his choice and he'd take this bastard down in the process.

"Are you ready to die, chameleon?" he snarled out through his blood frothed lips. Even as the words left his mouth he began to clench his finger on the explosives trigger.

Ranma stared emotionlessly at the man's body as it fell limply to the cold ground. He looked over at the pillar and spoke to the shadows there. "They wanted him alive, you know."

A second shadow detached itself from the mass there. "He was determined to die now. At least this way we will not suffer a downtime trying to replace you."

He smirked slightly before he replied, "I suppose I should thank you then for saving my life. It would have been a shame on my record if someone that pathetic suceeded in killing me."

"Don't worry, Saotome. You have no need to worry about anyone killing you while I'm around."

Ranma raised an eyebrow as he stared speculatively back. "I'm touched. Didn't know you cared."

A snort was the only reply before the shadow again swallowed his rescuer up. "I'm the one you have to worry about."

- Akraen (S. Metcalf)

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