The characters are not of my own creation but belong to Square Enix, merely the plot is mine. No 'real' profit is being made.

A collection of my short works centring around Elena from Final Fantasy VII. Enjoy~

ONE

She could hear Reno-sempai in her mind. She could hear him, she could see him, she could almost feel his breath on her neck as he spoke to her.

"Don't blow it, Rookie, we're all countin' on y'."

She gritted her teeth and growled at the phantom of her superior. He was not going to heckle her while she was working with explosives. And he certainly was NOT going to heckle her inside of her own head while he was unconscious not ten feet away.

"Damn it, sempai, shut up and let me work."

The dream-Reno fizzled away, leaving her with the detonator, and a forty five second countdown to the end of her career. Or the biggest commendation she'd ever have.

Reno's voice came to her again.

"You get m' ass blown off an m' gonna strangle y'..."

Her brow furrowed in frustration as she fought him off.

"Unless you're going to tell me which wire to cut...stay out of my head!"

Her hand tightened around the pliers as she spoke, neatly snipping the wire she'd selected. She pressed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, albeit a bit belatedly, and not that it would have helped anyway.

After a moment, she let the breath out and looked at the timer. Frozen at twenty seconds. She let out a silent prayer of thanks, and went to Reno's side to cast cure on him until he could at least halfway support his weight. There was no way her five foot frame could carry him. He'd never know why she was annoyed with him.

TWO

Elena sat up at the staff table, wondering why she was supposed to teach these kids how to use materia when they could cast spells easily with those sticks of theirs. Wands. Right. Wands. Well...it didn't really matter, now did it? The old man was talking, and he was ever so nonsensical. Was it against some law of their off-the-wall society for anyone to make sense in public? So far it had just been a parade of fancy words and other bull. Ah well, Tseng had told her to take the job. She could get information on their surroundings easily enough from her position in the school, and perhaps get a few of the other teachers to help them figure out how to get home.

Finally, Dumbledore waved his hands, and food appeared. She jumped, then stared at it, then very, very hesitatingly prodded it with her fork. Seemed solid enough. She began to eat. Dinner had seemed to have just begun when all of the students broke off and retreated to their dormitories. She set her fork down and retreated to her own rooms. It was odd, not sharing a room with one of her sempai's, but she understood why they had to be separated. Rufus and Tseng were in London trying to figure out where London was in relation to Midgar, and Reno and Rude were there to protect Rufus.

The next morning, she ate quickly and left for the classroom she'd been given. Unlike the other teachers there, she couldn't wave a wand and have the chalk write as she talked. Instead, she'd have to write everything out before the lesson. Gods but she never would have taken this job if Tseng hadn't told her how important it was.

THREE

Tseng had given her a mission. A very, very important mission. She was supposed to give a politician a good old fashioned reminder of who had put him in office, without actually hurting him. Or at least not hurting him badly.

She had to plan this carefully, since she didn't have Rude's intimidating size or Reno's smooth-yet-threatening mouth. No, really her only great skills were guns and materia. And there really wasn't a materia that would scare without hurting. So she was going with guns.

She had her baby carefully perched on the roof, and she was laying down beside it. It was the most beautiful gun, really. The entire thing was in shades of grey, not that it truly mattered. The most beautiful thing about it was how flexible it was, how she could re-tool the detachable magazine so easily to suit this purpose.

Yes, the politician would get the scare of his life, he'd never forget that he owed ShinRa. She carefully took aim, released the safety, and.....her cellphone rang. It was a parade, no one would hear it over the crowd below. That and she was nearly a mile away. Ahh, how powerful her baby was that she could do this.

She flipped open the slim phone, and answered easily. "This is Elena..."

The cool voice on the other end was that of her superior, Tseng. "Elena.....I noticed your favourite sniper rifle is missing from the armoury.....you did see the line in the order where you were not to harm him?"

She smiled. He was underestimating her. He'd be impressed, then. "I am aware, sir. He will not be harmed. But I need to go or I'll miss my shot."

So he'd be angry at her for hanging up on him. Well...she couldn't really help that. She'd spoken the truth. She lay down beside her gun and once again took aim. Her hand moved to the safety next, purely out of habit. Finding it already ready, her fingers moved down to the trigger. She took in a breath, and pulled the trigger.

Down in the politician's car, pandemonium exploded. Her aim had been right and true, he'd been struck in the chest. With a red paintball. Mission accomplished, she began taking apart her gun to pack up and report in.

FOUR

It had been a rough mission. In fact, it had been awful. And despite her best attempts at consoling herself, she just.....couldn't put it out of her mind. She'd never killed an innocent before. Every other time, she'd been able to write it off as doing her job, as just part of the mission. Not this time.

Well....it had -partly- been part of the mission. Standard kidnap/capture, interrogate, terminate. Their target had been innocent as well, but not even he preyed on her mind as much as the accident. She'd gone in with Rude, and a tranq dart instead of a gun. When their target had had his four year old daughter on his lap, Rude had emptied out part of a dart to a safe dose for the child, and passed it to her.

Her aim had been true, as always. She struck the girl in the neck, and the child had dropped unconcious just as her father had. They went in, and Rude picked up the man. But something was wrong. Very wrong. She took the child's pulse. Nothing.

She never would know what happened. Maybe Rude had miscalculated, maybe the girl had a medical condition. Did it matter? She'd killed a four year old child.

First, she'd tried taking a bubblebath when she'd gotten home. But after staying in the tub until the water was cold and her skin was pruny, she still hadn't gotten the image of the crumpled child out of her mind. Finally, she'd gotten out and pulled on her pajamas.

She retreated to her room and laid down on the bed, easily snuggling around the large stuffed rabbit there. She smiled softly, though it was a badly flawed mask.

"Hey, mister bunny.....I'm really sad tonight...."

The sewn features and button eyes held no response for her, but she cuddled closer anyway.

"Yeah, I know...you're quieter than Rude-sempai. But you listen really well." She looked up at the impassive face. "Am I a bad person?"

She nodded when there was no response. "I know I take good care of you, but...that doesn't change what happened today...."

She continued to talk to her stuffed rabbit until she finally fell asleep. Only then, without the restraints of wakefulness, did she cry.

The girl was buried several days later. Long after the funeral service did the solemn ShinRa car pull up. Elena crept out, and placed the toy on the girl's grave.