Ranma ½ Divine Blood
- Thread starter Thrythlind
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Edited the Tuatha da Danaan v Poseidon fight:
**********************************************
Tessa stood up as soon as the Danaan righted, and almost tripped herself in the rush as she stared at the screen and listened to Naiki in her head.
"Kaname, there's something I need you to do," Tessa said.
"There's something I can do for this?" Kaname asked. "He's not even on the ship."
"I need you to replace the AI for a little bit," the captain said quickly. "Show her the way and how to hook up, and take three of the guards outside with you. No telling whether or not our prisoners escaped again in that."
"I could go with her..." Eija started to say.
"Poseidon is bleeding, Miss Satomi," Tessa said.
"Hull pressure increasing!" one of the techs declared.
"Go!" Tessa commanded firmly to Kaname and the tech.
Kaname barely hesitated, but followed quickly enough, confused over what exactly she'd be expected to do.
Naiki, I need the pressure kept off my ship.
Yeah, I've gotten very good at that the last couple of minutes.
"Hull pressure slacking off," the previous tech noted.
"Keep us moving!" Tessa said, "Vary speed and direction, maintain equilibrium as best you can. Sonar, I want tracking on the pockets of heavy pressure, get started now!"
Eija looked out through the camera as the sub turned about their enemy and noted the small rivelet's of red leaking out into the water.
"Miss Satomi," Tessa said. "If you'd do me the favor of bleeding our unwanted visitor."
________________________________________
Poseidon blinked a moment as he felt a noticeable drain on his endurance and felt a spark of mana lashing out towards, dark and filled with the touch of death and the weak-touch of a soft-hearted soul.
ôHecateÆs girl,ö he thought as his form enlongated and shifted in shape. ôAnother of these degenerate young Gods and Demons.
All around him, the wounds heÆd suffered were pushing themselves open even as he concentrated on pushing water in to close them and growing large enough to make them of minimal concern to him.
Slowly his form shifted into something massive and vaguely whale like, but with massive fins that still ended in distinct digits and parted feet that pushed him monstrously through the water.
Angrily, he opened his mouth and took in a massive surge of water before releasing it again into directed wave that should have torn the mortal craft into tiny pieces.
________________________________________
ôIncoming pressure wave!ö the sonar operator called out.
The wave struck into them and the deck titled sideways again sending Tessa sprawling to the side and slamming into one of the walls hard.
Eija meanwhile stood up with the shifting deck, leaned against the change in center of gravity and then leaned back again as the ship managed to right itself before shifting back into a kneeling meditative position, hands staying poised in front of her. ________________________________________
Elsewhere in the hallways, Kaname was running as quickly as she dared when the walls once again became floors and ceilings and both she and her escort were pulled off of their feet as the sub tried to right itself up.
TheyÆd been about to take a set of stairs down to a lower deck when the boat heaved and one of the three soldiers with her tripped and started to fall off the banister heading for a long, bouncing fall in the shifting sub.
Kaname reached out reflexively to grab the manÆs harness with both arms and locked her legs against the banister. She wouldnÆt have held had the other two soldiers not taken the opportunity sheÆd provided and grabbed their comrade to pull him back.
ôThanks Miss Chidori,ö the soldier said as the sub started to right itself again.
ôNo problem, protecting people that can kick my ass is what IÆm here for,ö Kaname said irritably.
________________________________________
ôTessa, do you neàö Eija started to say, looking toward the way the Captain was holding her right arm.
ôKeep on him!ö Tessa declared standing up herself and holding her arm as she walked up into the front of the command room.
ôCaptain, you should sit down,ö a tech noted. ôIf thereÆs another strike and you fall again.ö
ôThen I stand back up,ö Tessa said firmly. ôHe wants to face the Danaan in her ocean, heÆll find her Captain on her feet.ö
ôWhy the hell are we in one piece?ö the sonar tech said.
ôNaikiÆs out there,ö the Captain explained.
________________________________________
Naiki raced to the sub and kept above it, forcing a path through the thickening pressure for the sub as she watched Poseidon shift around in pursuit and reaching out with his over sized hand to apparently attempt to grab and crushing it physically rather than just with water pressure.
As he did so, Naiki noticed the small trails of blood coming off the massive construct the God had made of himself. It's smell filled the entire ocean in the area, pouring out of his body.
"Heh, Eija's here," Naiki said. "And I think I've got another thing I can do with that."
As she swam parallel to the Danaan, like a remora alongside a shark, Naiki let another thought empowered by pishogue flow out into the deep around her. A thought that directed the scent of that bled outward to deliver a message.
Poseidon reached out to grip closed one of his wounds when they first showed up, flowing around the danaan and Naiki, ignoring them as they keyed in on the source of the sweet scent of the bleeding god.
Naiki smiled as hundreds and thousands of sharks swarmed past her to attack Poseidon like over sized piranha.
And the kicker of the lot of them came as a vast dark shape rose out of the untracked depths and swum up beside the Danaan purposefully, seeming to roll one black eye to take it in curiously before pressing onward in the attack.
________________________________________
"Ma'am, is that?" one of the techs asked, gaping at the monitor along with everybody else.
"Megalodon charchadon," Tessa said, mouth agape. "Do we have a targeting solution?"
"No, not with the way we're moving," the tech said.
ôRig something,ö Tessa said. ôTry a snap shot.ö
Eija stood up from her kneeing position and wiped at the sweat on her forehead. ________________________________________
Kaname was rushed through the ship and to a strange room that only held a sensory deprivation tube like the one she had been held prisoner in sometime ago.
"Okay, I'm going to need you to get in that and...resonate," the tech said. "I'll start the procedures out here."
The entire sub shook and, in some places, groaned.
"I don't think we have much time," the tech said.
Kaname nodded and, with a trace of reluctance stepped into the tank.
Kaname's eyes closed and suddenly, she was floating the water and calm in every way. She could see Gauron and Sousuke gearing up for their fight in the launch bay and watch the play of ocean battle outside the Danaan, with the sub moving erratically and trying still to get a targeting lock on Poseidon.
Her body was in pain all over. It was cracked and even leaking in places. Nothing that couldn't be handled, but it was getting worse. Something kept trying to grab her and squeeze her and she didn't like that.
And she felt something powerful just within reach of her hand, but first she had to go to her friends.
________________________________________
Sousuke stood up and held his weapon and let go of the hand rail as the sub righted itself again. He looked out into the hold and saw the trail of blood that Gauron had left. It wasnÆt enough given how many bullets Sousuke had poured into him. HeÆd been wearing some sort of body armor.
ôSousuke,ö KanameÆs voice behind him said and he whirled to find her looking somewhat translucent and a bit distracted.
ôChidori,ö Sousuke said in a hushed whisper, ôwhat are you doing here?ö
ôIÆm in the ship,ö Kaname said. ôUsing this is hard, not sure how IÆm doing it. Got to get to it. Poseidon is in the ocean. Gauron is in the Danaan.ö
ôPoseidon?ö Sousuke repeated. ôIs that whatÆs here?ö
ôGauron is more dangerous,ö Kaname said. ôI didnÆt know that before, but I canàfeel him in the ship now. HeÆs diseased, he wants to die in glory and violence, hit a home run so hard that everyone stops playing the game because it can never be topped. This ship and everyone in it is the perfect ball to hit out of the park with him.ö
The ship shook then though KanameÆs image held steady in place with just a shiver of what looked like pain.
ôI have to go help Eija,ö she said. ôStop him, Sousuke. And donÆt answer his taunts. He wants fans. He wants an audience. He wants this to be about him.ö
She stopped and took a breath, or at least her image did.
ôMake it about us.ö
And then her image faded away.
________________________________________
Something snaked out of the gloom and latched onto the side of the massive shark, halting it just long enough for another tentacle to reach up and grab it again.
Grimacing, Naiki was about to go down and tear into the squid or whatever stopping her shark cold, when a burst of air heralded the sudden entrance of a guided torpedo into the water.
Damn it Tessa snapped not good enough!
Noting that the missile was going to go far off course, Naiki bent herself toward altering it's path a little, down along the route of the tentacles holding the struggling shark still.
The explosion pushed shark and Naiki up into the water, and stunned it, but at least it was free.
However, all about, Naiki looked and saw the sharks she had called in entered dozens of their own battles all over the place against dolphins, cuttlefish, squid, whales and numerous other things besides.
"You bring them up in rebellion, daughter," Poseidon roared though he had to catch his breath immediately afterward. "They will pay the price."
"Blowhard," Naiki snapped back angrily as a swarm of cuttlefish pulled around her and the megalodon.
One gripped at her leg and tried to pull her off down into the depths away from the shark. Or, worse, where the shark might decide she was a tidbit. Angrily she dipped into the form a demon remembered, though not to the extremity that Poseidon had into his.
Scales traveled up her body and she ripped her foot up, cutting through the water and into the cuttlefish and then slicing through the water fast enough to forge a small fan of vacuum blades that didnÆt last much longer than it took for the cuttlefish to be cleared from around the shark as it slammed into Poseidon again.
One of PoseidonÆs massive fins whipped forward into the megalodon and pushed it off as the shark pulled some of the skin away. It further ripped away into the deep as the mana-flesh exploded and Naiki had to fight to get herself back into position to shape the water currents to guide it back around again for another attack.
She slipped back into her true form, conserving her strength and attention on just the torrents she was shaping.
________________________________________
Why do you fight with this Demon and these mortals against, neophyte? A deep rumbling voice spoke in EijaÆs mind.
That is not a question that can be answered if you have to ask it, Eija responded.
You think you know more than me? Poseidon roared in her mind.
How are you in my mind? Eija demanded. You arenÆt dead and IÆm not linked with you.
You are attacking my life force directly and you wonder that I can speak to you? Poseidon responded with angry laughter. You donÆt deserve to be a part of my species. Why did you abandon your human blood if you care so much for these things.
Abandon myà Eija blinked.
You and my daughter both threw aside the blood of your human parent for the true power of the Immortals, Posiedon explained. If you cared so much for humanity and your family, why cut yourself off from it.
The hell she did! KanameÆs voice sniped in. Eija didnÆt abandon humanity. She protected me!
Another of these mortals intruding on the mind of the Gods, PoseidonÆs voice roared. When this toy of yours is destroyed, itÆll be a pleasure cleanse this taint from the Yggdrasil network.
Kaname donÆt get in to this, Eija said.
HeÆs distracting you, Eija, Kaname said quickly. The idiotÆs realized that he tried to rob a gun store packed with the cops and now heÆs trying to bluff his way out.
I do not bluff little mortal, you and your friends need a bit of the lessons I gave Odysseus.
It was strange, but Eija seemed to feel KanameÆs mental presence pushing past hers and rushing at PoseidonÆs.
Odysseus was a guy with a boat, a sword and a lot of smarts and he still escaped your wrath for ten years. YouÆre trying to take out Tessa now, and sheÆs got a lot more than that.
And what might that be?
Us.
The Whispers and Songs, the collective unconscious of both Gods and Humans, seemed to pull into the mindscape around them as a particular sequence of codes and symbols filtered in as the three figures turned visible instead of just being a collection of thoughts.
Poseidon stood across from the black and white spirit forms of Kaname and Eija, a blue-green shape of spirit and power that seemed almost twice the size of either girl though not both. And his image rushed forward at the two girls as various codes coalesced in front of them. The code of the spell forcing his wounds to bleed rushing out from Eija and tearing into him piece by piece.
He was distracted between the fight with the sharks and Naiki as well as trying to nail down the ship that his daughter was protecting, but he felt like he could handle two young spirits, one of them a mortal. It didnÆt require more than half a thought on his part to simply hurl them out of the way.
Which is why he was surprised when his rush was interrupted with a jarring smash from a collection of white and golden codes and symbols in the mortalÆs hands. The weapon formed was strange, and seemed to like a paper fan folded several times over. It didnÆt so much hurt as just stunned him with the sheer ridiculousness of it, especially as she smacked him back again with the mental harisen.
Poseidon growled irritably, stepping back, trying to formulate a response when she smacked him again upside the head.
You dare toà
And she didnÆt let him finish but just whacked him again and was in the process of swinging again when she was interrupted and Eija stepped forward, taking the harisen into hand herself. Immediately she recognized it as the virus that had attacked her not too long ago and which Kaname had altered, and apparently had kept in mind and altered again.
Thank you, Kaname, Eija said as the bleeding spell wrapped around the harisen and squeezed it tight, stretching it out into a long, thin bladed jian. I can handle this from here.
DonÆt let him distract you, remember, Buzzing of Hornets is your family technique, Kaname encouraged as her projection faded away to focus her attention on her main task.
She let herself back away and fall into a whirl of Whispered codes and numbers that attached to her and fled out, bringing to her knowledge and awareness which partially poured into Eija as well. Both girlsÆ spirits started to fill and Eija felt, for a moment, that she probably could make her projection as large as PoseidonÆsàbut decided against it.
Let him waste energy on impressing her. She was going to need every advantage.
________________________________________
"Don't every worry. Everything will be happy!"
Kaname's face popped up on screen briefly before it faded away.
"All right, here we go," Tessa said calmly, she turned to the intercom. "All hands, prepare for some extreme maneuvering."
Now she just had to hope the Kaname understood what it was Tessa wanted as she described it.
________________________________________
Naiki's swarm of sharks enjoyed only a short-lived success as Poseidon roared and pushed them back with a wave of water pressure lashed out from his mouth again that dispersed the swarm, killing some and stunning others. Only the megalodon, Naiki grabbed onto its massive fin managed to push against the wave and get in to tear out a chunk of the God's massive form.
It shook as the mana-crafted flesh exploded again slicing into NaikiÆs skin where shrapnel passed by, but this time the water dampened it and the megalodon turned about for another attack on Poseidon. Naiki glaring brilliantly from atop the creature and looking toward the other sharks she had called to the area.
Some were recovering and circling out at a distance, watching the megalodon taking on this thing that dwarfed even it.
The blood was still trailing out of his wounds in an ever increasing amount and as she directed her shark with a torrential nudge here or there in the currents of the water, Naiki smiled broadly and opted to give her sister and even more direct hand.
The leviathan Poseidon pushed in again to head for the sub and taking a breath to unleash another blast of water out at it. And then he stopped, as one of his energies burst out in an explosion of blood and tissue that brought the creature whirling about to stare at Naiki gripping the dorsal fin of the megalodon and staring at him with a wild sharp-toothed look.
ôViolent, tumultuous, overwhelming flow!ö she shouted into the water, knowing Poseidon would understand clearly.
The great monster that was a transformed creature shrieked outward bowling toward Naiki and her shark and pushing them end over end out into the depths even as the small sharks again flooded over the tide of red blood that had been blown out of the leviathanÆs side.
And a torpedo rushed past the megalodon only barely being struck aside by a burst of water pressure.
________________________________________
Eija ducked under PoseidonÆs trident, swiping up her virus-Jian as she came in under his reach. The tendrils of her spell ripped outward, tearing strips of her enemy apart each time she swung her sword, even apart from slashing it directly at her enemy.
But he was not helpless or unskilled despite his incredulous inability to comprehend KanameÆs attack on him earlier.
Eija felt a blast of focused power lift her off what she had thought of as her feet and bring her slam down painfully dozens of feet away. The wiry tendrils growing out of the blade of her spell ripped away from Poseidon one by one until they were whipping about her waiting to latch back onto her enemy.
But, she felt herself fading back away out of the soulscape, almost too tired to hold it.
________________________________________
Tessa watched as Eija dropped to one knee, panting heavily and goddess marks still glowing as she continued to try to bleed the massive form of the God.
"Miss Satomi?" Tessa said, "Are you okay?"
"There's a lot of blood," Eija noted, swallowing. ôBut heÆs not going down easy. I donÆt think I could do this alone.ö
"Good thing youÆre not alone then,ö Tessa said. ôHow are we doing?ö
ôItÆs been 30 seconds since the last time we neared theorized cataclysmic hull pressure, Captain,ö a tech said.
ôGood, youÆre making progress then, Miss Satomi,ö Tessa said. ôKeep it up.ö
Eija nodded and forced herself back into the mindscape.
________________________________________
The Goddess of Blood rose up again from where sheÆd disappeared before and looked to see Poseidon starting to try to pull away from this to focus all his attention on Naiki and the Danaan.
Poseidon, she called out calmly.
Her sword raised in her hand over her head, holding out the other with two fingers forward.
We are not finished yet. And, as you said, this soulscape is here because I am attacking, you donÆt get to leave if I donÆt want you to.
So be it, neophyte,
________________________________________
Gauron around, grimacing as he shrugged off the armor he had been wearing, something stripped from one of the soldiers he'd killed. It had stopped most of the bullets, but even the ones it had stopped and just about shattered his ribs. He'd been just about completely helpless when Sousuke had been about to obliterate his head, but he was at least partially mobile now.
Somewhere in the room, Sousuke was up and moving too, and with much less in the way of injury, Gauron was certain.
"Well, Kashim," he called out. "Your little lavender princess really pulled one over on me, if wasn't for that last minute emergency, I think you would have actually killed me."
The sub groaned around them.
"Uh oh, something tells me that's part of what we moved to avoid," Gauron noted with a laugh.
He crept over to his AS, the Venom, keeping his eyes open.
"So, I'm guessing you're waiting for me to keep talking so you can track down my position and outflank me," Gauron said chuckling. "But what do you do if I expect you to do that?"
Gauron eyed the Venom and smiled psychotically.
Sousuke meanwhile, was listening to the voices and trying to pin down Gauron's position in the vast, echoes of the launch bay. He had a good idea that the man would aim to get to the Venom, though and started to move in that direction.
He found blood on the hand rail of the Venom, leading up into the cockpit and followed the trail up quickly and found an empty cockpit.
At which point one of the M-9s shifted forward, the machine guns in the head firing across the launch bay.
Sousuke dived away from the Venom as it was peppered lightly and the machine gun fire followed him until he took cover behind another AS.
ôHey Kashim!ö Gauron shouted. ôAre you going to try to fight this without an AS?ö
Sousuke grimaced as the M-9 charged forward, knife drawing out, Gauron reaching out to tear aside the M-9 behind which Sousuke had taken cover. In the collision, Sousuke dived out and rolled away from the impact, moving in the blindspots of the M-9 that he knew so well, few of them that there were.
ôHey, Kashim!ö Gauron snapped. ôWhere are you?ö
The soldier came up behind the toppled M-9 and scampered up the side, having to hold tightly as the ship was rocked again by an attack from outside. But then he was up top of the wreck and in leaping distance of GauronÆs M-9Æs back.
A light clanking sound alerted the psychopath to the location of his opponent and he chuckled lightly at the roof of his cockpit and then laughed uproariously.
ôOh is the shifting deck not good enough for you Kashim?ö Gauron demanded with a loud chortle as he let his M-9 fall back in an attempt to crush Sousuke underneath it.
Grimacing, Sousuke pulled himself around to the front of the M-9Æs body and found a maintenance crevice in the M-9, firing his submachine gun into it in the hopes of gumming up some of the works.
The ship rocked again, turning the ASÆs controlled fall into a tumbling, smashing topple that scattered over the entire launch bay with Sousuke dropping off the machine and catching a sideways pillar to hold onto as the ship settled again and he took up his feet, making a dashing run at the downed M-9 as Gauron struggled to right himself as his mech leaned against the wall near where the damaged Venom was secured.
HeÆd covered half the distance when the head and its anti-personnel guns turned toward him and whirred into life, forcing him to dive aside for cover and continue his approach from behind the row of M-9s.
GauronÆs M-9 tried to stand but the shoulder of one arm wouldnÆt move completely, whether damaged in the fall or by SousukeÆs P90, or a combination of the two, it was hard to say. In any case, Sousuke heard the pop of a cockpit opening up.
ôI think itÆs time to trade up from this piece-of-shit M-9, Kashim,ö Gauron said with a smile. ôLetÆs go back to my old favorite.ö
Sousuke turned about a corner and saw Gauron ponderously leaping to the cockpit of his Venom to get inside.
If he started that up and cut loose with the lambda driver, he could tear open the da Danaan from the inside out like a bird hatching from an egg. And that would kill everyone on board.
The mithril soldier was too far away to stop Gauron from closing the hatch, but maybe.
SousukeÆs eyes turned toward the Arbalest.
If he couldnÆt stop Gauron from starting the Venom up, heÆd keep it busy and suppress that lambda field with his own.
ôWhere did you go, Kashim?ö Gauron demanded as he set his Venom to standing up, growling as the machine proved slow to respond from the accumulated damage it had suffered.
Further ahead in the launch bay, the Arbalest slowly stood up.
ôHeh, thatÆs good, Kashim,ö Gauron said. ôThatÆs the way things should go.ö
The Arbalest turned to face him and its lights blinked on.
ôStill with the silent treatment I see,ö Gauron said.
________________________________________
Naiki, most of the energy boost of the peach gone, but some still remaining, whooped under water as the great black shark took another massive bite out of the God.
"Go, Ed! Go!" she shouted eagerly.
Poseidon pushed the shark aside with a thrust of water. One less such thing that wasn't aimed at the Danaan, but still required Naiki to push her own torrent through it to stop it.
It was following one of those pressure waves that caused her to see a flutter of movement beyond the thousands of still circling sharks.
Naiki, follow the Danaan's lead.
What?
Naiki watched the Danaan blow some of its ballasts and whip around sideways in a painful looking ripple that couldn't have been doing much for the DAnaan's structure.
But it brought the Danaan to a brief but complete stop, pointed directly at Poseidon's back.
The Demoness smirked and pushed the patterns of water to suggest the giant shark to pull away from the fight for a moment.
"Still running daughter?" Poseidon demanded as he pursued.
Two torpedoes slammed into the massive center of Poseidon's body, rocking into distraction and setting off another explosion from the volatile nature of his fake, enlarged body.
________________________________________
The Venom and Arbalest felt the ground twist out from under them, scattering them apart for the brief moment it took to stand the machine up again and return to fighting.
"Are you mute, Kashim?" Gauron demanded loudly. "Why aren't you trying to upset my focus here? Tell you what, why donÆt I set a time limit on this conversation. Two minutes, one minutesàletÆs see what the self-destruct says."
Sousuke's mind ran through all the possible scenarios that involved his enemy and all the past events that he had been involved in.
Foremost in his mind, he imagined Kaname and Eija in one of those sensory deprivation tanks handled by one of the scientists Gauron employed.
The idea of them being tortured to the point that Sarah had been in when they'd rescued her put a spur of anger and swiftness to his actions.
"Start the lambda driver. Grab the cable."
The words typed themselves out over his computer monitor.
"So how did you goodie two shoes figure out a consistent lambda field?" Gauron wondered. "And how did you form one when the driver was down."
This followed by a quick laugh.
"I don't suppose it matters," he declared as he reached to trigger the self-destruct sequence. "We're both going to be gone soon."
Gauron frowned as the forward section of the launch pad suddenly sealed itself off from the bulk of the bay. As if the machine was rigging for an aquatic launch...
The doors above opened wide and Sousuke, glowing with the power of the lambda driver, bent down and gripped firmly on to one of the cables as the water rushed in over everything. The creaking of the metal, stressed by the flood and the high speed maneuvers of the Danaan, echoed dangerously, threatening for large sections to snap cold under the circumstances.
In the rush of waters, Sousuke directed himself toward Gauron as the psychopath was holding tight to the deck, apparently tearing gouges in the metal to hold. The ArbalestÆs feet slammed into the head of the Venom, dislodging it as both machines were pulled out of the da Danaan into the crushing water outside.
The cable in the ArbalestÆs hand snapped to an end and almost pulled out, but held just barely, keeping the Arbalest from wiping further out into the deep. Almost immediately, the da Danaan began to reel Sousuke back inside and close the doors.
ôV ^_^ Vö typed out on his computer screen.
ôThank you, Chidori,ö Sousuke breathed as the water started to bleed off around him in the sealed off launch bay.
________________________________________
The Tuatha de Danaan was already speeding away from its launch site when Poseidon turned around to face it, leaving him open for the megalodon to zip back around and slam into him and tear out an explosive hunk of Poseidon's body.
The embattled God thrust outward with a blast of water pressure at the sub before retuning to looking at the massive shark, still small compared to him.
An emergency blow of air forced the Danaan back away from its intended path and the blast of destructive water pressure passed with yards of the Danaan.
"Targeting position and fire," Tessa ordered firmly.
Once again, the Danaan came to a sudden side-veering motion that lined it up directly with Centauri and two torpedoes were released.
These struck Poseidon in his shoulder and head, blowing the the skull of the construct open wide.
________________________________________
Naiki watched the body of her so-called father start to shrink away and she nudged the megalodon out toward the other battles the sharks were engaged in all around.
Naiki meanwhile pushed off the giant shark and zipped in toward Poseidon, twisting as she did so to pull vacuum blades under the water, though they lasted much less time than usual given the water always pushing into it.
Still Nabiki managed again to slice into the now only somewhat larger and follow it up again until the giant was torn away and only Poseidon's battered body was left as the spell was pulled away from him.
"What are you doing this for?" Poseidon demanded. "I'm only looking to free you to the way things are!"
"In your dreams!" Naiki snapped.
________________________________________
Eija reared up her sword as her opponent fell back to his knees. The tendrils ripped out from her ready stance and tore into him again before she took her step forward and stabbed straight for his projectionÆs heart.
________________________________________
"Get ready to fire another torpedo," Tessa said.
"But, Ma'am," one of the techs said. "We can't..."
Tessa turned to look at them.
ôWe arenÆt going to need targeting on this one!ö
Then she turned back toward the monitors and shouted animatedly at the dissipating image of Poseidon.
"Get out of....!"
________________________________________
"....our ocean!" Naiki agreed simultaneously.
Another torpedo left the Danaan and Naiki pulled back focusing a pair of torrents along either side of Poseidon, giving the torpedo a narrow tunnel of low pressure water to fly down and basically operate as the Danaan's targeting system in this case.
Poseidon opened his mouth again in preparation of saying something, only to have the torpedo slam into him and carry him far back, without detonating for a long moment before finally exploding.
Naiki took a deep breath and thought about relaxing there, but remembered the sea life battles currently going on. Given that she'd merely invited and nudged the sharks, mostly physically, it was probably not the best idea to hang around.
Coming in, she sent to Tessa. I need Eija to send me back to Tokyo, Kyoko was hurt and she needs a doctor!
All right, Tessa noted. The diver entrances are in the same...
A late explosion ripped through the scene and pushed upward toward the surface like an underwater eruption or rocket, drawing Tessa and Naiki's eyes in something like confusion.
"Where'd that come from?" Naiki wondered as she rushed to come into one of the many diver entries for the Da Danaan.
________________________________________
Kaname breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes finding herself back in the sensory deprivation tube and sitting up as it opened.
Eija are you okay? she asked, feeling a heavy sense of fatigue from the other girl.
He struck back, Eija returned. It seems to have translated into some internal injuries, but I shall be fine.
Thank Godàor, well you know.
It is a most unfortunate name for a species to have, Eija agreed with an audible mental pant. ThatÆs oddà
What is? Kaname asked looking down at her hands.
I thought I felt something, she paused and Kaname felt a hefty sigh. Naiki needs me to go to Tokyo, Kyoko is hurt and she thinks I might help.
IÆll be right there, Kaname returned tightly.
Is something wrong?
No, nothing, Kaname said quickly.
As she looked up, her eyes flooded red like EijaÆs were when she let her death sight out fully, though they faded away to her normal look.
However, the memory of the smeer of red along her left hand did not go away even though she couldnÆt see it now. She didnÆt want Eija or Sousuke to know about it just yet, sheÆd need to know how to tell them.
She didnÆt even really want to admit to herself that it was there, though sheÆd seen it.
One little blemish of red on her hands to EijaÆs death sight.
And something else that bothered her: sheÆd be actively participating in fighting both Poseidon and Gauron. So shouldnÆt there have been two?
**********************************************
Tessa stood up as soon as the Danaan righted, and almost tripped herself in the rush as she stared at the screen and listened to Naiki in her head.
"Kaname, there's something I need you to do," Tessa said.
"There's something I can do for this?" Kaname asked. "He's not even on the ship."
"I need you to replace the AI for a little bit," the captain said quickly. "Show her the way and how to hook up, and take three of the guards outside with you. No telling whether or not our prisoners escaped again in that."
"I could go with her..." Eija started to say.
"Poseidon is bleeding, Miss Satomi," Tessa said.
"Hull pressure increasing!" one of the techs declared.
"Go!" Tessa commanded firmly to Kaname and the tech.
Kaname barely hesitated, but followed quickly enough, confused over what exactly she'd be expected to do.
Naiki, I need the pressure kept off my ship.
Yeah, I've gotten very good at that the last couple of minutes.
"Hull pressure slacking off," the previous tech noted.
"Keep us moving!" Tessa said, "Vary speed and direction, maintain equilibrium as best you can. Sonar, I want tracking on the pockets of heavy pressure, get started now!"
Eija looked out through the camera as the sub turned about their enemy and noted the small rivelet's of red leaking out into the water.
"Miss Satomi," Tessa said. "If you'd do me the favor of bleeding our unwanted visitor."
________________________________________
Poseidon blinked a moment as he felt a noticeable drain on his endurance and felt a spark of mana lashing out towards, dark and filled with the touch of death and the weak-touch of a soft-hearted soul.
ôHecateÆs girl,ö he thought as his form enlongated and shifted in shape. ôAnother of these degenerate young Gods and Demons.
All around him, the wounds heÆd suffered were pushing themselves open even as he concentrated on pushing water in to close them and growing large enough to make them of minimal concern to him.
Slowly his form shifted into something massive and vaguely whale like, but with massive fins that still ended in distinct digits and parted feet that pushed him monstrously through the water.
Angrily, he opened his mouth and took in a massive surge of water before releasing it again into directed wave that should have torn the mortal craft into tiny pieces.
________________________________________
ôIncoming pressure wave!ö the sonar operator called out.
The wave struck into them and the deck titled sideways again sending Tessa sprawling to the side and slamming into one of the walls hard.
Eija meanwhile stood up with the shifting deck, leaned against the change in center of gravity and then leaned back again as the ship managed to right itself before shifting back into a kneeling meditative position, hands staying poised in front of her. ________________________________________
Elsewhere in the hallways, Kaname was running as quickly as she dared when the walls once again became floors and ceilings and both she and her escort were pulled off of their feet as the sub tried to right itself up.
TheyÆd been about to take a set of stairs down to a lower deck when the boat heaved and one of the three soldiers with her tripped and started to fall off the banister heading for a long, bouncing fall in the shifting sub.
Kaname reached out reflexively to grab the manÆs harness with both arms and locked her legs against the banister. She wouldnÆt have held had the other two soldiers not taken the opportunity sheÆd provided and grabbed their comrade to pull him back.
ôThanks Miss Chidori,ö the soldier said as the sub started to right itself again.
ôNo problem, protecting people that can kick my ass is what IÆm here for,ö Kaname said irritably.
________________________________________
ôTessa, do you neàö Eija started to say, looking toward the way the Captain was holding her right arm.
ôKeep on him!ö Tessa declared standing up herself and holding her arm as she walked up into the front of the command room.
ôCaptain, you should sit down,ö a tech noted. ôIf thereÆs another strike and you fall again.ö
ôThen I stand back up,ö Tessa said firmly. ôHe wants to face the Danaan in her ocean, heÆll find her Captain on her feet.ö
ôWhy the hell are we in one piece?ö the sonar tech said.
ôNaikiÆs out there,ö the Captain explained.
________________________________________
Naiki raced to the sub and kept above it, forcing a path through the thickening pressure for the sub as she watched Poseidon shift around in pursuit and reaching out with his over sized hand to apparently attempt to grab and crushing it physically rather than just with water pressure.
As he did so, Naiki noticed the small trails of blood coming off the massive construct the God had made of himself. It's smell filled the entire ocean in the area, pouring out of his body.
"Heh, Eija's here," Naiki said. "And I think I've got another thing I can do with that."
As she swam parallel to the Danaan, like a remora alongside a shark, Naiki let another thought empowered by pishogue flow out into the deep around her. A thought that directed the scent of that bled outward to deliver a message.
Poseidon reached out to grip closed one of his wounds when they first showed up, flowing around the danaan and Naiki, ignoring them as they keyed in on the source of the sweet scent of the bleeding god.
Naiki smiled as hundreds and thousands of sharks swarmed past her to attack Poseidon like over sized piranha.
And the kicker of the lot of them came as a vast dark shape rose out of the untracked depths and swum up beside the Danaan purposefully, seeming to roll one black eye to take it in curiously before pressing onward in the attack.
________________________________________
"Ma'am, is that?" one of the techs asked, gaping at the monitor along with everybody else.
"Megalodon charchadon," Tessa said, mouth agape. "Do we have a targeting solution?"
"No, not with the way we're moving," the tech said.
ôRig something,ö Tessa said. ôTry a snap shot.ö
Eija stood up from her kneeing position and wiped at the sweat on her forehead. ________________________________________
Kaname was rushed through the ship and to a strange room that only held a sensory deprivation tube like the one she had been held prisoner in sometime ago.
"Okay, I'm going to need you to get in that and...resonate," the tech said. "I'll start the procedures out here."
The entire sub shook and, in some places, groaned.
"I don't think we have much time," the tech said.
Kaname nodded and, with a trace of reluctance stepped into the tank.
Kaname's eyes closed and suddenly, she was floating the water and calm in every way. She could see Gauron and Sousuke gearing up for their fight in the launch bay and watch the play of ocean battle outside the Danaan, with the sub moving erratically and trying still to get a targeting lock on Poseidon.
Her body was in pain all over. It was cracked and even leaking in places. Nothing that couldn't be handled, but it was getting worse. Something kept trying to grab her and squeeze her and she didn't like that.
And she felt something powerful just within reach of her hand, but first she had to go to her friends.
________________________________________
Sousuke stood up and held his weapon and let go of the hand rail as the sub righted itself again. He looked out into the hold and saw the trail of blood that Gauron had left. It wasnÆt enough given how many bullets Sousuke had poured into him. HeÆd been wearing some sort of body armor.
ôSousuke,ö KanameÆs voice behind him said and he whirled to find her looking somewhat translucent and a bit distracted.
ôChidori,ö Sousuke said in a hushed whisper, ôwhat are you doing here?ö
ôIÆm in the ship,ö Kaname said. ôUsing this is hard, not sure how IÆm doing it. Got to get to it. Poseidon is in the ocean. Gauron is in the Danaan.ö
ôPoseidon?ö Sousuke repeated. ôIs that whatÆs here?ö
ôGauron is more dangerous,ö Kaname said. ôI didnÆt know that before, but I canàfeel him in the ship now. HeÆs diseased, he wants to die in glory and violence, hit a home run so hard that everyone stops playing the game because it can never be topped. This ship and everyone in it is the perfect ball to hit out of the park with him.ö
The ship shook then though KanameÆs image held steady in place with just a shiver of what looked like pain.
ôI have to go help Eija,ö she said. ôStop him, Sousuke. And donÆt answer his taunts. He wants fans. He wants an audience. He wants this to be about him.ö
She stopped and took a breath, or at least her image did.
ôMake it about us.ö
And then her image faded away.
________________________________________
Something snaked out of the gloom and latched onto the side of the massive shark, halting it just long enough for another tentacle to reach up and grab it again.
Grimacing, Naiki was about to go down and tear into the squid or whatever stopping her shark cold, when a burst of air heralded the sudden entrance of a guided torpedo into the water.
Damn it Tessa snapped not good enough!
Noting that the missile was going to go far off course, Naiki bent herself toward altering it's path a little, down along the route of the tentacles holding the struggling shark still.
The explosion pushed shark and Naiki up into the water, and stunned it, but at least it was free.
However, all about, Naiki looked and saw the sharks she had called in entered dozens of their own battles all over the place against dolphins, cuttlefish, squid, whales and numerous other things besides.
"You bring them up in rebellion, daughter," Poseidon roared though he had to catch his breath immediately afterward. "They will pay the price."
"Blowhard," Naiki snapped back angrily as a swarm of cuttlefish pulled around her and the megalodon.
One gripped at her leg and tried to pull her off down into the depths away from the shark. Or, worse, where the shark might decide she was a tidbit. Angrily she dipped into the form a demon remembered, though not to the extremity that Poseidon had into his.
Scales traveled up her body and she ripped her foot up, cutting through the water and into the cuttlefish and then slicing through the water fast enough to forge a small fan of vacuum blades that didnÆt last much longer than it took for the cuttlefish to be cleared from around the shark as it slammed into Poseidon again.
One of PoseidonÆs massive fins whipped forward into the megalodon and pushed it off as the shark pulled some of the skin away. It further ripped away into the deep as the mana-flesh exploded and Naiki had to fight to get herself back into position to shape the water currents to guide it back around again for another attack.
She slipped back into her true form, conserving her strength and attention on just the torrents she was shaping.
________________________________________
Why do you fight with this Demon and these mortals against, neophyte? A deep rumbling voice spoke in EijaÆs mind.
That is not a question that can be answered if you have to ask it, Eija responded.
You think you know more than me? Poseidon roared in her mind.
How are you in my mind? Eija demanded. You arenÆt dead and IÆm not linked with you.
You are attacking my life force directly and you wonder that I can speak to you? Poseidon responded with angry laughter. You donÆt deserve to be a part of my species. Why did you abandon your human blood if you care so much for these things.
Abandon myà Eija blinked.
You and my daughter both threw aside the blood of your human parent for the true power of the Immortals, Posiedon explained. If you cared so much for humanity and your family, why cut yourself off from it.
The hell she did! KanameÆs voice sniped in. Eija didnÆt abandon humanity. She protected me!
Another of these mortals intruding on the mind of the Gods, PoseidonÆs voice roared. When this toy of yours is destroyed, itÆll be a pleasure cleanse this taint from the Yggdrasil network.
Kaname donÆt get in to this, Eija said.
HeÆs distracting you, Eija, Kaname said quickly. The idiotÆs realized that he tried to rob a gun store packed with the cops and now heÆs trying to bluff his way out.
I do not bluff little mortal, you and your friends need a bit of the lessons I gave Odysseus.
It was strange, but Eija seemed to feel KanameÆs mental presence pushing past hers and rushing at PoseidonÆs.
Odysseus was a guy with a boat, a sword and a lot of smarts and he still escaped your wrath for ten years. YouÆre trying to take out Tessa now, and sheÆs got a lot more than that.
And what might that be?
Us.
The Whispers and Songs, the collective unconscious of both Gods and Humans, seemed to pull into the mindscape around them as a particular sequence of codes and symbols filtered in as the three figures turned visible instead of just being a collection of thoughts.
Poseidon stood across from the black and white spirit forms of Kaname and Eija, a blue-green shape of spirit and power that seemed almost twice the size of either girl though not both. And his image rushed forward at the two girls as various codes coalesced in front of them. The code of the spell forcing his wounds to bleed rushing out from Eija and tearing into him piece by piece.
He was distracted between the fight with the sharks and Naiki as well as trying to nail down the ship that his daughter was protecting, but he felt like he could handle two young spirits, one of them a mortal. It didnÆt require more than half a thought on his part to simply hurl them out of the way.
Which is why he was surprised when his rush was interrupted with a jarring smash from a collection of white and golden codes and symbols in the mortalÆs hands. The weapon formed was strange, and seemed to like a paper fan folded several times over. It didnÆt so much hurt as just stunned him with the sheer ridiculousness of it, especially as she smacked him back again with the mental harisen.
Poseidon growled irritably, stepping back, trying to formulate a response when she smacked him again upside the head.
You dare toà
And she didnÆt let him finish but just whacked him again and was in the process of swinging again when she was interrupted and Eija stepped forward, taking the harisen into hand herself. Immediately she recognized it as the virus that had attacked her not too long ago and which Kaname had altered, and apparently had kept in mind and altered again.
Thank you, Kaname, Eija said as the bleeding spell wrapped around the harisen and squeezed it tight, stretching it out into a long, thin bladed jian. I can handle this from here.
DonÆt let him distract you, remember, Buzzing of Hornets is your family technique, Kaname encouraged as her projection faded away to focus her attention on her main task.
She let herself back away and fall into a whirl of Whispered codes and numbers that attached to her and fled out, bringing to her knowledge and awareness which partially poured into Eija as well. Both girlsÆ spirits started to fill and Eija felt, for a moment, that she probably could make her projection as large as PoseidonÆsàbut decided against it.
Let him waste energy on impressing her. She was going to need every advantage.
________________________________________
"Don't every worry. Everything will be happy!"
Kaname's face popped up on screen briefly before it faded away.
"All right, here we go," Tessa said calmly, she turned to the intercom. "All hands, prepare for some extreme maneuvering."
Now she just had to hope the Kaname understood what it was Tessa wanted as she described it.
________________________________________
Naiki's swarm of sharks enjoyed only a short-lived success as Poseidon roared and pushed them back with a wave of water pressure lashed out from his mouth again that dispersed the swarm, killing some and stunning others. Only the megalodon, Naiki grabbed onto its massive fin managed to push against the wave and get in to tear out a chunk of the God's massive form.
It shook as the mana-crafted flesh exploded again slicing into NaikiÆs skin where shrapnel passed by, but this time the water dampened it and the megalodon turned about for another attack on Poseidon. Naiki glaring brilliantly from atop the creature and looking toward the other sharks she had called to the area.
Some were recovering and circling out at a distance, watching the megalodon taking on this thing that dwarfed even it.
The blood was still trailing out of his wounds in an ever increasing amount and as she directed her shark with a torrential nudge here or there in the currents of the water, Naiki smiled broadly and opted to give her sister and even more direct hand.
The leviathan Poseidon pushed in again to head for the sub and taking a breath to unleash another blast of water out at it. And then he stopped, as one of his energies burst out in an explosion of blood and tissue that brought the creature whirling about to stare at Naiki gripping the dorsal fin of the megalodon and staring at him with a wild sharp-toothed look.
ôViolent, tumultuous, overwhelming flow!ö she shouted into the water, knowing Poseidon would understand clearly.
The great monster that was a transformed creature shrieked outward bowling toward Naiki and her shark and pushing them end over end out into the depths even as the small sharks again flooded over the tide of red blood that had been blown out of the leviathanÆs side.
And a torpedo rushed past the megalodon only barely being struck aside by a burst of water pressure.
________________________________________
Eija ducked under PoseidonÆs trident, swiping up her virus-Jian as she came in under his reach. The tendrils of her spell ripped outward, tearing strips of her enemy apart each time she swung her sword, even apart from slashing it directly at her enemy.
But he was not helpless or unskilled despite his incredulous inability to comprehend KanameÆs attack on him earlier.
Eija felt a blast of focused power lift her off what she had thought of as her feet and bring her slam down painfully dozens of feet away. The wiry tendrils growing out of the blade of her spell ripped away from Poseidon one by one until they were whipping about her waiting to latch back onto her enemy.
But, she felt herself fading back away out of the soulscape, almost too tired to hold it.
________________________________________
Tessa watched as Eija dropped to one knee, panting heavily and goddess marks still glowing as she continued to try to bleed the massive form of the God.
"Miss Satomi?" Tessa said, "Are you okay?"
"There's a lot of blood," Eija noted, swallowing. ôBut heÆs not going down easy. I donÆt think I could do this alone.ö
"Good thing youÆre not alone then,ö Tessa said. ôHow are we doing?ö
ôItÆs been 30 seconds since the last time we neared theorized cataclysmic hull pressure, Captain,ö a tech said.
ôGood, youÆre making progress then, Miss Satomi,ö Tessa said. ôKeep it up.ö
Eija nodded and forced herself back into the mindscape.
________________________________________
The Goddess of Blood rose up again from where sheÆd disappeared before and looked to see Poseidon starting to try to pull away from this to focus all his attention on Naiki and the Danaan.
Poseidon, she called out calmly.
Her sword raised in her hand over her head, holding out the other with two fingers forward.
We are not finished yet. And, as you said, this soulscape is here because I am attacking, you donÆt get to leave if I donÆt want you to.
So be it, neophyte,
________________________________________
Gauron around, grimacing as he shrugged off the armor he had been wearing, something stripped from one of the soldiers he'd killed. It had stopped most of the bullets, but even the ones it had stopped and just about shattered his ribs. He'd been just about completely helpless when Sousuke had been about to obliterate his head, but he was at least partially mobile now.
Somewhere in the room, Sousuke was up and moving too, and with much less in the way of injury, Gauron was certain.
"Well, Kashim," he called out. "Your little lavender princess really pulled one over on me, if wasn't for that last minute emergency, I think you would have actually killed me."
The sub groaned around them.
"Uh oh, something tells me that's part of what we moved to avoid," Gauron noted with a laugh.
He crept over to his AS, the Venom, keeping his eyes open.
"So, I'm guessing you're waiting for me to keep talking so you can track down my position and outflank me," Gauron said chuckling. "But what do you do if I expect you to do that?"
Gauron eyed the Venom and smiled psychotically.
Sousuke meanwhile, was listening to the voices and trying to pin down Gauron's position in the vast, echoes of the launch bay. He had a good idea that the man would aim to get to the Venom, though and started to move in that direction.
He found blood on the hand rail of the Venom, leading up into the cockpit and followed the trail up quickly and found an empty cockpit.
At which point one of the M-9s shifted forward, the machine guns in the head firing across the launch bay.
Sousuke dived away from the Venom as it was peppered lightly and the machine gun fire followed him until he took cover behind another AS.
ôHey Kashim!ö Gauron shouted. ôAre you going to try to fight this without an AS?ö
Sousuke grimaced as the M-9 charged forward, knife drawing out, Gauron reaching out to tear aside the M-9 behind which Sousuke had taken cover. In the collision, Sousuke dived out and rolled away from the impact, moving in the blindspots of the M-9 that he knew so well, few of them that there were.
ôHey, Kashim!ö Gauron snapped. ôWhere are you?ö
The soldier came up behind the toppled M-9 and scampered up the side, having to hold tightly as the ship was rocked again by an attack from outside. But then he was up top of the wreck and in leaping distance of GauronÆs M-9Æs back.
A light clanking sound alerted the psychopath to the location of his opponent and he chuckled lightly at the roof of his cockpit and then laughed uproariously.
ôOh is the shifting deck not good enough for you Kashim?ö Gauron demanded with a loud chortle as he let his M-9 fall back in an attempt to crush Sousuke underneath it.
Grimacing, Sousuke pulled himself around to the front of the M-9Æs body and found a maintenance crevice in the M-9, firing his submachine gun into it in the hopes of gumming up some of the works.
The ship rocked again, turning the ASÆs controlled fall into a tumbling, smashing topple that scattered over the entire launch bay with Sousuke dropping off the machine and catching a sideways pillar to hold onto as the ship settled again and he took up his feet, making a dashing run at the downed M-9 as Gauron struggled to right himself as his mech leaned against the wall near where the damaged Venom was secured.
HeÆd covered half the distance when the head and its anti-personnel guns turned toward him and whirred into life, forcing him to dive aside for cover and continue his approach from behind the row of M-9s.
GauronÆs M-9 tried to stand but the shoulder of one arm wouldnÆt move completely, whether damaged in the fall or by SousukeÆs P90, or a combination of the two, it was hard to say. In any case, Sousuke heard the pop of a cockpit opening up.
ôI think itÆs time to trade up from this piece-of-shit M-9, Kashim,ö Gauron said with a smile. ôLetÆs go back to my old favorite.ö
Sousuke turned about a corner and saw Gauron ponderously leaping to the cockpit of his Venom to get inside.
If he started that up and cut loose with the lambda driver, he could tear open the da Danaan from the inside out like a bird hatching from an egg. And that would kill everyone on board.
The mithril soldier was too far away to stop Gauron from closing the hatch, but maybe.
SousukeÆs eyes turned toward the Arbalest.
If he couldnÆt stop Gauron from starting the Venom up, heÆd keep it busy and suppress that lambda field with his own.
ôWhere did you go, Kashim?ö Gauron demanded as he set his Venom to standing up, growling as the machine proved slow to respond from the accumulated damage it had suffered.
Further ahead in the launch bay, the Arbalest slowly stood up.
ôHeh, thatÆs good, Kashim,ö Gauron said. ôThatÆs the way things should go.ö
The Arbalest turned to face him and its lights blinked on.
ôStill with the silent treatment I see,ö Gauron said.
________________________________________
Naiki, most of the energy boost of the peach gone, but some still remaining, whooped under water as the great black shark took another massive bite out of the God.
"Go, Ed! Go!" she shouted eagerly.
Poseidon pushed the shark aside with a thrust of water. One less such thing that wasn't aimed at the Danaan, but still required Naiki to push her own torrent through it to stop it.
It was following one of those pressure waves that caused her to see a flutter of movement beyond the thousands of still circling sharks.
Naiki, follow the Danaan's lead.
What?
Naiki watched the Danaan blow some of its ballasts and whip around sideways in a painful looking ripple that couldn't have been doing much for the DAnaan's structure.
But it brought the Danaan to a brief but complete stop, pointed directly at Poseidon's back.
The Demoness smirked and pushed the patterns of water to suggest the giant shark to pull away from the fight for a moment.
"Still running daughter?" Poseidon demanded as he pursued.
Two torpedoes slammed into the massive center of Poseidon's body, rocking into distraction and setting off another explosion from the volatile nature of his fake, enlarged body.
________________________________________
The Venom and Arbalest felt the ground twist out from under them, scattering them apart for the brief moment it took to stand the machine up again and return to fighting.
"Are you mute, Kashim?" Gauron demanded loudly. "Why aren't you trying to upset my focus here? Tell you what, why donÆt I set a time limit on this conversation. Two minutes, one minutesàletÆs see what the self-destruct says."
Sousuke's mind ran through all the possible scenarios that involved his enemy and all the past events that he had been involved in.
Foremost in his mind, he imagined Kaname and Eija in one of those sensory deprivation tanks handled by one of the scientists Gauron employed.
The idea of them being tortured to the point that Sarah had been in when they'd rescued her put a spur of anger and swiftness to his actions.
"Start the lambda driver. Grab the cable."
The words typed themselves out over his computer monitor.
"So how did you goodie two shoes figure out a consistent lambda field?" Gauron wondered. "And how did you form one when the driver was down."
This followed by a quick laugh.
"I don't suppose it matters," he declared as he reached to trigger the self-destruct sequence. "We're both going to be gone soon."
Gauron frowned as the forward section of the launch pad suddenly sealed itself off from the bulk of the bay. As if the machine was rigging for an aquatic launch...
The doors above opened wide and Sousuke, glowing with the power of the lambda driver, bent down and gripped firmly on to one of the cables as the water rushed in over everything. The creaking of the metal, stressed by the flood and the high speed maneuvers of the Danaan, echoed dangerously, threatening for large sections to snap cold under the circumstances.
In the rush of waters, Sousuke directed himself toward Gauron as the psychopath was holding tight to the deck, apparently tearing gouges in the metal to hold. The ArbalestÆs feet slammed into the head of the Venom, dislodging it as both machines were pulled out of the da Danaan into the crushing water outside.
The cable in the ArbalestÆs hand snapped to an end and almost pulled out, but held just barely, keeping the Arbalest from wiping further out into the deep. Almost immediately, the da Danaan began to reel Sousuke back inside and close the doors.
ôV ^_^ Vö typed out on his computer screen.
ôThank you, Chidori,ö Sousuke breathed as the water started to bleed off around him in the sealed off launch bay.
________________________________________
The Tuatha de Danaan was already speeding away from its launch site when Poseidon turned around to face it, leaving him open for the megalodon to zip back around and slam into him and tear out an explosive hunk of Poseidon's body.
The embattled God thrust outward with a blast of water pressure at the sub before retuning to looking at the massive shark, still small compared to him.
An emergency blow of air forced the Danaan back away from its intended path and the blast of destructive water pressure passed with yards of the Danaan.
"Targeting position and fire," Tessa ordered firmly.
Once again, the Danaan came to a sudden side-veering motion that lined it up directly with Centauri and two torpedoes were released.
These struck Poseidon in his shoulder and head, blowing the the skull of the construct open wide.
________________________________________
Naiki watched the body of her so-called father start to shrink away and she nudged the megalodon out toward the other battles the sharks were engaged in all around.
Naiki meanwhile pushed off the giant shark and zipped in toward Poseidon, twisting as she did so to pull vacuum blades under the water, though they lasted much less time than usual given the water always pushing into it.
Still Nabiki managed again to slice into the now only somewhat larger and follow it up again until the giant was torn away and only Poseidon's battered body was left as the spell was pulled away from him.
"What are you doing this for?" Poseidon demanded. "I'm only looking to free you to the way things are!"
"In your dreams!" Naiki snapped.
________________________________________
Eija reared up her sword as her opponent fell back to his knees. The tendrils ripped out from her ready stance and tore into him again before she took her step forward and stabbed straight for his projectionÆs heart.
________________________________________
"Get ready to fire another torpedo," Tessa said.
"But, Ma'am," one of the techs said. "We can't..."
Tessa turned to look at them.
ôWe arenÆt going to need targeting on this one!ö
Then she turned back toward the monitors and shouted animatedly at the dissipating image of Poseidon.
"Get out of....!"
________________________________________
"....our ocean!" Naiki agreed simultaneously.
Another torpedo left the Danaan and Naiki pulled back focusing a pair of torrents along either side of Poseidon, giving the torpedo a narrow tunnel of low pressure water to fly down and basically operate as the Danaan's targeting system in this case.
Poseidon opened his mouth again in preparation of saying something, only to have the torpedo slam into him and carry him far back, without detonating for a long moment before finally exploding.
Naiki took a deep breath and thought about relaxing there, but remembered the sea life battles currently going on. Given that she'd merely invited and nudged the sharks, mostly physically, it was probably not the best idea to hang around.
Coming in, she sent to Tessa. I need Eija to send me back to Tokyo, Kyoko was hurt and she needs a doctor!
All right, Tessa noted. The diver entrances are in the same...
A late explosion ripped through the scene and pushed upward toward the surface like an underwater eruption or rocket, drawing Tessa and Naiki's eyes in something like confusion.
"Where'd that come from?" Naiki wondered as she rushed to come into one of the many diver entries for the Da Danaan.
________________________________________
Kaname breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes finding herself back in the sensory deprivation tube and sitting up as it opened.
Eija are you okay? she asked, feeling a heavy sense of fatigue from the other girl.
He struck back, Eija returned. It seems to have translated into some internal injuries, but I shall be fine.
Thank Godàor, well you know.
It is a most unfortunate name for a species to have, Eija agreed with an audible mental pant. ThatÆs oddà
What is? Kaname asked looking down at her hands.
I thought I felt something, she paused and Kaname felt a hefty sigh. Naiki needs me to go to Tokyo, Kyoko is hurt and she thinks I might help.
IÆll be right there, Kaname returned tightly.
Is something wrong?
No, nothing, Kaname said quickly.
As she looked up, her eyes flooded red like EijaÆs were when she let her death sight out fully, though they faded away to her normal look.
However, the memory of the smeer of red along her left hand did not go away even though she couldnÆt see it now. She didnÆt want Eija or Sousuke to know about it just yet, sheÆd need to know how to tell them.
She didnÆt even really want to admit to herself that it was there, though sheÆd seen it.
One little blemish of red on her hands to EijaÆs death sight.
And something else that bothered her: sheÆd be actively participating in fighting both Poseidon and Gauron. So shouldnÆt there have been two?
I've got to wonder which one was the roach this time. Series-wise, it should be Gauron, but killing a god can't be that easy...
You probably know this, but for breaks, there's a forum-code that's pretty easily translatable onto ff-net: here, [.hr.], less the periods, is <hr> there. It's pretty easy to search-and-find in a doc, too. Even starts it on a new line, wherever it is. Reason I bring it up is that one of the breaks- between Eija and where the tech's telling Kaname to start Resonating- is on the same line as the text.
You probably know this, but for breaks, there's a forum-code that's pretty easily translatable onto ff-net: here, [.hr.], less the periods, is <hr> there. It's pretty easy to search-and-find in a doc, too. Even starts it on a new line, wherever it is. Reason I bring it up is that one of the breaks- between Eija and where the tech's telling Kaname to start Resonating- is on the same line as the text.
Tessa sat down in the captain's chair and leaned back, holding her right arm very still as she did so, supporting it with her left. She took a deep breath of air and looked down at Eija painfully pulling herself to standing, wincing with each moment.
"Miss Satomi, are you okay to take Naiki back to Tokyo?" she asked. "Do you need a rest?"
"Kyoko is a friend, Captain," she said simply. "I'll go, and then I'll rest."
"As for you," Dr. Goldberry's voice declared as she came back into the room.
"Doctor," Tessa said in surprise. "I didn't call for you, I thought you'd gone ba..."
"Eija asked I bring her with me," Kaname said rushing into the bridge. "And I can see why! Arms are not supposed to bend like that."
"It's not as bad as it looks," Tessa noted.
"You broke it in the first wave or two," Eija said. "And you've hit it a few times after."
The Doctor walked up to the Captain's chair and triggered the intercom.
"Commander Mardukas, this is Dr. Goldberry," she said. "I need you to take command on the bridge. Captain Testarossa is being relieved for medical reasons for at least the next day."
"Understood," came the return answer. "I'll make my way right up there."
"This is Urzu-7," Sousuke's voice called out. "The launch bay is clear of hostiles. Kill is unconfirmed."
"Right, Sergeant Sagara," Tessa said tightly. "If you could..."
"You're not in command right now, Captain," the doctor reminded her.
"Really!" Tessa snapped, eyes furrowed. "I am still very much in..."
As she tried to stand she tripped in her hurry and tumbled to the floor, fortunately catching herself with her good arm as those in the room were treated to a particular high-pitched noiseless intake of breath.
"And there goes the left ankle," Eija said with a visible and sympathetic wince.
************
"I'm going to need you to try making sense here, Ma'am," the police officer said as he spoke to Ukyou, who was currently pinching the bridge of her nostrils, as Konatsu bandaged her arm. "What did you say attacked you?"
"Not what, who," Ukyou said. "Poseidon, some sort of European ocean God."
"I know the new media is going a little bit crazy, but do you really expect me to put an APB on a..." the cop stopped as several people called out and weapons were drawn to point toward a pool of blood.
First one head and then another was pulled through, with one of the two figures, a green-haired girl, drenching wet, who looked like she'd been through a hell of a fight. Beside her a pale, dark-haired girl sunk back into the pool of blood while the green-haired one quickly sniffed around at the air and honed in on the bystander being carefully moved into an ambulance.
"Kyoko!" Naiki shouted, pushing through the cops without worry and getting to her side.
There was a clear limp to her normal stride as she did so, and Eija watched from where she stayed in the blood pool focusing at least part of her attention on her sister.
Behind, Eija was bringing through Kaname and then Sousuke as the cops looked on in confusion and worry.
"Don't worry," Sousuke said. "I'm Sousuke Sagara of Jindai High, I handle the trash duties for my class and I can assure you that this is nothing but a school function."
He said this while dressed in military fatigues with a P90 submachine gun hanging from his back and sporting several clear battlefield injuries while Eija and Kaname stared at him, mouth open.
Further away, Ukyou was laughing loudly after fighting a losing battle to keep a straight face.
*****************
"You look like you've been through World War III," Kyoko declared as Naiki came to the side of her stretcher.
"Excuse me, we have to get her to the hospital please," one of the paramedics said, pausing as he took in Naiki as well. "And you should go too."
"Hey, I brought the hospital here," Naiki said pushing Eija forward as her sister came near. "See, Eija Satomi, Granddaughter of Persephone, Avalon Providers Prospective, Goddess of Blood 3rd category."
"I'm not a hospital, Naiki," Eija said quietly as she looked over Kyoko and glanced apologetically at the paramedics. "I am trained though, certified acupuncture, chiatsu, first aid and..."
"Goddess of Blood?" the paramedic said. "You mean like a vampire? Is that some sort of Live Action Game thing?"
Eija sighed expressively.
"There's not much I can do right now, Kyoko, sorry," Eija said. "There is some minor internal bleeding and I can soften that a bit, but hospital is better."
"That's fine," Kyoko said shrugging. "But maybe you and Naiki should go to the doctor's."
"We can take both of you right now," one of the paramedics noted.
"You're not set up for it," Eija said. "Slight but major differences in anatomy, body chemistry is all wrong. I've got someone I can call."
"I'll go with..." Naiki started to say as Eija grabbed her arm. "...Kyoko?"
"I'll take her with me," Eija said bluntly. "Sorry Kyoko."
"Well, everybody's fine so I'm fine too," Kyoko said. "Just make sure you both get looked at, I want to see everybody visit me."
Eija grimaced and looked up at her sister to see if Naiki had noticed. One of Kyoko's legs was shattered, it was amazing she was even as cheerful as he was, but walking without a cane would be hard. Had Yggdrasil been up...it could have been taken care of right now, but...
Sousuke and Kaname eventually made there way over to see Kyoko off while Eija moved to sit down near one of the clear martial artists she saw sitting to the side.
Slowly, she turned over and lay down on her side.
"Naiki can you call Belldandy please?" she asked quietly.
"Eija!" Kaname shouted, dragging Sousuke over with her as her friend started to lose hold on the repressed pain she was feeling.
**********
Ranma had been expecting to arrive in Tokyo and find one of his daughters in light training and recuperation. Instead he found herself arriving with Deimosu at Ukyou's place to see a scene of devastation ranging all the way up one of the streets and starting with Ukyou's backyard.
In the building, Urd and Persephone were discussing what sounded like injuries while Belldandy was treating a nervous looking Naiki and a sleeping Eija was lying down on a mat in the living room, a damp cloth on her forehead and Sousuke and Kaname sitting worriedly near her.
"What the hell?" Ranma demanded loudly from the doorway before moving to check first one and then the other girl.
She was immediately relieved to see that both appeared to have strong life signs.
"Poseidon attacked and the fight moved to the pacific and the Da Danaan," Mara's voice said from the side, drawing Ranma's attention. "It sounds like Poseidon's dead. Eija's suffering from exhaustion and some internal bleeding, but given what her Domain is she kept it in check until she could call the Norns."
"And Naiki?" Ranma asked, looking toward her green-haired daughter.
"Kyoko gave her one of my mother's peaches," Persephone said. "It healed her old wounds, but she picked up new ones immediately after. I suppose she didn't feel right without gaping injuries."
"Kyoko got that peach from you?" Naiki said, surprised. "I ate something from you?"
"Don't complain God-Mode Sue," Ukyou said coming into the room and handing out food and drinks. "That peach saved your bacon."
"I note you also did not much complain about Persephone when you were introducing Eija to the ambulance driver," Sousuke noted.
"You mean pushed her at the ambulance driver and asked her to fix everything," Kaname asked.
Ranma was holding a palm to her face tightly as Naiki was growing visibly more nervous and pale.
"That said, she handled herself pretty well, sugar," Ukyou said. "Though Mousse, 'Natsu an I were talking and we definitely see what you mean about defense."
Any further commentary on Naiki was paused as Deimosu entered the room. Mara looked up and stared at him, frowning heavily and clinching her fist. Persephone glanced over and then looked away, moving to help Belldandy with treating Naiki's injuries.
Urd stood up and walked past the blonde Satomi, looking toward Ranma.
"I'm going to head home and start putting together some potions for the girls," she said coolly as she left.
Deimosu watched her go, wishing he could be confused as to what the coldness was for.
"You'll have to excuse Urd," Belldandy noted politely. "Her mother died in the attack on Nifelheim."
"Yeah," Deimosu said, scratching behind his head.
He couldn't think of anything else to say. "Sorry" in no way made up for such a thing.
Ukyou frowned at the discussion and set her tray down.
"Well, another of...another kid," Ukyou said, stumbling over a phrasing choice regarding connecting the kids to Ranma. "Guess you can take a seat and I'll get you and your mother something."
She left the room then wishing she could ask what exactly the sudden chill had been about, but knew better than to do that while she had guests that might take offense.
She'd learned more than a few lessons on etiquette over the years as a restauranteur.
"Ranma, we need to talk," Mara said.
Ranma frowned as he looked between his injured and unconscious daughters and then back to Mara, leaving with a glance toward Sousuke and Kaname.
"I'll be right back," she said.
"Don't worry, Satomi-san," Kaname said. "I've gotten very good at taking care of Eija like this."
Ranma smirked momentarily and then followed Mara out of the house.
"What's so important you dragging me away from my kids now?" Ranma asked.
"Naiki owes favors to a rebel," Mara said simply.
Ranma frowned and crossed his arms.
"How'd that happen?" he asked.
"Before she came into my tutelage," Mara said. "She used the Formorian hunting spell from your collection. Have you or anyone else used that by the way?"
"No," Ranma said turning a bit more concerned. "Never had a need. Who's the Demon behind the spell."
"Balor," Mara said. "And that's a problem."
"Why precisely?" the martial artist insisted.
"Because Balor's been imprisoned so long nobody really owes him favors anymore," Mara said. "So as soon as Nifelheim is back up, he's bound to notice her as a Demon in the midst of the list of whatever humans magicians have cast the spell and are still alive."
Mara let that sink before continuing.
"I just got a report that confirms the bastard is alive," she said.
"You've got a file?" Ranma asked.
"Someone's putting together what we have and delivering it to your secretary now," Mara said. "Word is, Hild crippled him somehow, but he's still more dangerous than most of us."
"You mean she really exists?" Ranma asked in a bit of mood deflecting humor that fell flat.
"What?" Mara asked, just confused.
"Nevermind," Ranma said. "My superior wants me to invite you and one of the Gods to this meeting of mine."
"I probably would have at least had it watched anyway," Mara said, walking back to the house.
"Mara, I appreciate you looking out for my girls," Ranma said.
"Martial artists aren't the only ones with duty, Satomi," Mara said. "Oh, by the way, classes start in another day. I'm already letting the other faculty know that Eija and Naiki are going to miss the first day or so."
"Miss Satomi, are you okay to take Naiki back to Tokyo?" she asked. "Do you need a rest?"
"Kyoko is a friend, Captain," she said simply. "I'll go, and then I'll rest."
"As for you," Dr. Goldberry's voice declared as she came back into the room.
"Doctor," Tessa said in surprise. "I didn't call for you, I thought you'd gone ba..."
"Eija asked I bring her with me," Kaname said rushing into the bridge. "And I can see why! Arms are not supposed to bend like that."
"It's not as bad as it looks," Tessa noted.
"You broke it in the first wave or two," Eija said. "And you've hit it a few times after."
The Doctor walked up to the Captain's chair and triggered the intercom.
"Commander Mardukas, this is Dr. Goldberry," she said. "I need you to take command on the bridge. Captain Testarossa is being relieved for medical reasons for at least the next day."
"Understood," came the return answer. "I'll make my way right up there."
"This is Urzu-7," Sousuke's voice called out. "The launch bay is clear of hostiles. Kill is unconfirmed."
"Right, Sergeant Sagara," Tessa said tightly. "If you could..."
"You're not in command right now, Captain," the doctor reminded her.
"Really!" Tessa snapped, eyes furrowed. "I am still very much in..."
As she tried to stand she tripped in her hurry and tumbled to the floor, fortunately catching herself with her good arm as those in the room were treated to a particular high-pitched noiseless intake of breath.
"And there goes the left ankle," Eija said with a visible and sympathetic wince.
************
"I'm going to need you to try making sense here, Ma'am," the police officer said as he spoke to Ukyou, who was currently pinching the bridge of her nostrils, as Konatsu bandaged her arm. "What did you say attacked you?"
"Not what, who," Ukyou said. "Poseidon, some sort of European ocean God."
"I know the new media is going a little bit crazy, but do you really expect me to put an APB on a..." the cop stopped as several people called out and weapons were drawn to point toward a pool of blood.
First one head and then another was pulled through, with one of the two figures, a green-haired girl, drenching wet, who looked like she'd been through a hell of a fight. Beside her a pale, dark-haired girl sunk back into the pool of blood while the green-haired one quickly sniffed around at the air and honed in on the bystander being carefully moved into an ambulance.
"Kyoko!" Naiki shouted, pushing through the cops without worry and getting to her side.
There was a clear limp to her normal stride as she did so, and Eija watched from where she stayed in the blood pool focusing at least part of her attention on her sister.
Behind, Eija was bringing through Kaname and then Sousuke as the cops looked on in confusion and worry.
"Don't worry," Sousuke said. "I'm Sousuke Sagara of Jindai High, I handle the trash duties for my class and I can assure you that this is nothing but a school function."
He said this while dressed in military fatigues with a P90 submachine gun hanging from his back and sporting several clear battlefield injuries while Eija and Kaname stared at him, mouth open.
Further away, Ukyou was laughing loudly after fighting a losing battle to keep a straight face.
*****************
"You look like you've been through World War III," Kyoko declared as Naiki came to the side of her stretcher.
"Excuse me, we have to get her to the hospital please," one of the paramedics said, pausing as he took in Naiki as well. "And you should go too."
"Hey, I brought the hospital here," Naiki said pushing Eija forward as her sister came near. "See, Eija Satomi, Granddaughter of Persephone, Avalon Providers Prospective, Goddess of Blood 3rd category."
"I'm not a hospital, Naiki," Eija said quietly as she looked over Kyoko and glanced apologetically at the paramedics. "I am trained though, certified acupuncture, chiatsu, first aid and..."
"Goddess of Blood?" the paramedic said. "You mean like a vampire? Is that some sort of Live Action Game thing?"
Eija sighed expressively.
"There's not much I can do right now, Kyoko, sorry," Eija said. "There is some minor internal bleeding and I can soften that a bit, but hospital is better."
"That's fine," Kyoko said shrugging. "But maybe you and Naiki should go to the doctor's."
"We can take both of you right now," one of the paramedics noted.
"You're not set up for it," Eija said. "Slight but major differences in anatomy, body chemistry is all wrong. I've got someone I can call."
"I'll go with..." Naiki started to say as Eija grabbed her arm. "...Kyoko?"
"I'll take her with me," Eija said bluntly. "Sorry Kyoko."
"Well, everybody's fine so I'm fine too," Kyoko said. "Just make sure you both get looked at, I want to see everybody visit me."
Eija grimaced and looked up at her sister to see if Naiki had noticed. One of Kyoko's legs was shattered, it was amazing she was even as cheerful as he was, but walking without a cane would be hard. Had Yggdrasil been up...it could have been taken care of right now, but...
Sousuke and Kaname eventually made there way over to see Kyoko off while Eija moved to sit down near one of the clear martial artists she saw sitting to the side.
Slowly, she turned over and lay down on her side.
"Naiki can you call Belldandy please?" she asked quietly.
"Eija!" Kaname shouted, dragging Sousuke over with her as her friend started to lose hold on the repressed pain she was feeling.
**********
Ranma had been expecting to arrive in Tokyo and find one of his daughters in light training and recuperation. Instead he found herself arriving with Deimosu at Ukyou's place to see a scene of devastation ranging all the way up one of the streets and starting with Ukyou's backyard.
In the building, Urd and Persephone were discussing what sounded like injuries while Belldandy was treating a nervous looking Naiki and a sleeping Eija was lying down on a mat in the living room, a damp cloth on her forehead and Sousuke and Kaname sitting worriedly near her.
"What the hell?" Ranma demanded loudly from the doorway before moving to check first one and then the other girl.
She was immediately relieved to see that both appeared to have strong life signs.
"Poseidon attacked and the fight moved to the pacific and the Da Danaan," Mara's voice said from the side, drawing Ranma's attention. "It sounds like Poseidon's dead. Eija's suffering from exhaustion and some internal bleeding, but given what her Domain is she kept it in check until she could call the Norns."
"And Naiki?" Ranma asked, looking toward her green-haired daughter.
"Kyoko gave her one of my mother's peaches," Persephone said. "It healed her old wounds, but she picked up new ones immediately after. I suppose she didn't feel right without gaping injuries."
"Kyoko got that peach from you?" Naiki said, surprised. "I ate something from you?"
"Don't complain God-Mode Sue," Ukyou said coming into the room and handing out food and drinks. "That peach saved your bacon."
"I note you also did not much complain about Persephone when you were introducing Eija to the ambulance driver," Sousuke noted.
"You mean pushed her at the ambulance driver and asked her to fix everything," Kaname asked.
Ranma was holding a palm to her face tightly as Naiki was growing visibly more nervous and pale.
"That said, she handled herself pretty well, sugar," Ukyou said. "Though Mousse, 'Natsu an I were talking and we definitely see what you mean about defense."
Any further commentary on Naiki was paused as Deimosu entered the room. Mara looked up and stared at him, frowning heavily and clinching her fist. Persephone glanced over and then looked away, moving to help Belldandy with treating Naiki's injuries.
Urd stood up and walked past the blonde Satomi, looking toward Ranma.
"I'm going to head home and start putting together some potions for the girls," she said coolly as she left.
Deimosu watched her go, wishing he could be confused as to what the coldness was for.
"You'll have to excuse Urd," Belldandy noted politely. "Her mother died in the attack on Nifelheim."
"Yeah," Deimosu said, scratching behind his head.
He couldn't think of anything else to say. "Sorry" in no way made up for such a thing.
Ukyou frowned at the discussion and set her tray down.
"Well, another of...another kid," Ukyou said, stumbling over a phrasing choice regarding connecting the kids to Ranma. "Guess you can take a seat and I'll get you and your mother something."
She left the room then wishing she could ask what exactly the sudden chill had been about, but knew better than to do that while she had guests that might take offense.
She'd learned more than a few lessons on etiquette over the years as a restauranteur.
"Ranma, we need to talk," Mara said.
Ranma frowned as he looked between his injured and unconscious daughters and then back to Mara, leaving with a glance toward Sousuke and Kaname.
"I'll be right back," she said.
"Don't worry, Satomi-san," Kaname said. "I've gotten very good at taking care of Eija like this."
Ranma smirked momentarily and then followed Mara out of the house.
"What's so important you dragging me away from my kids now?" Ranma asked.
"Naiki owes favors to a rebel," Mara said simply.
Ranma frowned and crossed his arms.
"How'd that happen?" he asked.
"Before she came into my tutelage," Mara said. "She used the Formorian hunting spell from your collection. Have you or anyone else used that by the way?"
"No," Ranma said turning a bit more concerned. "Never had a need. Who's the Demon behind the spell."
"Balor," Mara said. "And that's a problem."
"Why precisely?" the martial artist insisted.
"Because Balor's been imprisoned so long nobody really owes him favors anymore," Mara said. "So as soon as Nifelheim is back up, he's bound to notice her as a Demon in the midst of the list of whatever humans magicians have cast the spell and are still alive."
Mara let that sink before continuing.
"I just got a report that confirms the bastard is alive," she said.
"You've got a file?" Ranma asked.
"Someone's putting together what we have and delivering it to your secretary now," Mara said. "Word is, Hild crippled him somehow, but he's still more dangerous than most of us."
"You mean she really exists?" Ranma asked in a bit of mood deflecting humor that fell flat.
"What?" Mara asked, just confused.
"Nevermind," Ranma said. "My superior wants me to invite you and one of the Gods to this meeting of mine."
"I probably would have at least had it watched anyway," Mara said, walking back to the house.
"Mara, I appreciate you looking out for my girls," Ranma said.
"Martial artists aren't the only ones with duty, Satomi," Mara said. "Oh, by the way, classes start in another day. I'm already letting the other faculty know that Eija and Naiki are going to miss the first day or so."
Hel found herself staring around the blasted edge of the village where Hecate had been brought down. She could still smell the blood even now, several days later. In fact, it looked to her as if she could still see the place where Natsumi-san's sister had died to throw her clear of the explosive trap.
"That's exactly the spot," a voice whispered in her ear.
She turned about and found herself staring at a woman's bloody face glaring at her.
"...where you helped kill me, worm."
************
Hel snapped awake and clutched at the blankets around her, feeling her heart beating quickly. The shock slowly faded away as her breathing slowed down and she honed in on the sound of Natsumi Tendo chopping vegetables.
"I'm Hel, Demoness of Imprisonment," she reminded herself. "I'm not some..."
She felt a shiver and looked back over her shoulder toward a corner of the room, narrowing her eyes as there was nothing there. Slowly, looking around carefully, Hel started to shift around looking for any sign of a problem.
She started to slide her legs out over the edge of the futon when a sudden thought chilled her and stopped the motion. Idly, she started to lean over the edge of the futon and glance down, breathing a sigh of relief.
"It's a futon, idiot," she noted. "There is no under the bed."
Taking a deep breath at this realization and laughing self-comfortingly, she calmed down.
And then lifted up the edge of the futon with her good hand to look under it anyway.
Reaching for her crutch, she started to climb to her feet and then to hobble her way out of the bed room toward the sound of the chopping vegetables. She approached through the hallways and came to the door of the human warrior's kitchen.
The woman stood there, back to the doorway, holding the food with one hand and chopping with the other.
"Natsume-san," she said idly. "I think your sister's ghost is..."
A hacked and bloody artificial arm was tossed over the shoulder of the figure she was speaking to, knocking into Hel and carrying her down to the floor as the figure started to turn around to face her.
************
Natsumi pushed herself into the bedroom she'd set Hel up in as she heard the girl's scream pulling her away from the morning routine. She found the girl, wide-eyed and panting, clutching the blanket hard.
Having basically raised her younger sister when they were children, Natsumi was no stranger to the need to comfort kids after something like that.
Though she had her own way to do that.
"Good, you're up," she commented, moving into the room and picking up some of the things around the room, immediately drawing Hel's attention.
"I can do that for myself!" the girl said, grabbing her crutch and struggling to stand up and start to clean the room.
Incidentally forgetting her own fear in the process of being spurred to action.
Natsumi watched her a few minutes and was about to turn about to leave when the girl paused in moving around, holding a book and not really looking at it.
"Is there something you wish to discuss?" Natsumi asked evenly.
"No," she said quickly. "But I thi..."
She stopped herself and then went back to cleaning the room.
Natsumi watched for a little bit more and then nodded, though the girl couldn't see her.
"We shall have visitors today," Natsumi said. "My sisters shall be here to plan the funeral."
Hel stopped and then started cleaning again, finishing up the last real bit of straightening that was needed and moving on to what was essentially just making more work for her to do.
"You can stay in here, if you want," Natsumi said.
The martial artist was pretty certain that the child would rise to that challenge and then perhaps take some of the weight off of her shoulders.
It didn't fall on Hel's shoulders, the guilt was solely on her own. The child had been Natsumi's responsibility and that should have included making sure she was out of the fighting area completely, especially knowing the girl's pride.
Kurumi had died amending her mistake, not the child's.
A sound of cracking glass drew Natsumi's eyes to one of the few framed pictures, her and her sister in happy days, in the hall and watched as a crack spread its way through the covering frame and then shatter completely to the floor.
"Yes, Kurumi," Natsumi said. "I know."
***********
Mara looked about her abandoned arcade, one of several lairs she'd used over the years in competing against the Norns, and took in all the various Demons and other Nifelheim residents that were currently there and getting information put together on numbers and placement and other such things.
A decision would have to be made before she went to this meeting Ranma had been assigned to represent Psyche at.
"What are the numbers, Tutivillus?" she asked.
"Sixty in the US, thirty-two in England and Western Europe, fifteen in Africa, forty throughout south east-asia, another eighteen here in Japan, six in Korea," a demon noted, pushing back a set of glasses. "An estimated one-hundred seventy one thousand confirmed and accounted for made it out or already lived on Earth. The last numbers we had out of Nifelheim before they got enough control of Nidhogg to shut outgoing as well as incoming says there were about eighty thousand Demons still back home. Any Gods or Half-Gods that stayed back were killed."
Mara closed her eyes along with several other people.
"Considering our state of over population and the few Earth communities we already had and taking a large estimate of usurper forces operating on planet and the population that was sealed in the Abyss at the time," the Demon noted. "That's an estimated one hundred ninety thousand dead. More than forty percent of the total population of Nifelheim and associated Earth communities."
"Creator," someone whispered.
"If even twenty percent of those stayed behind as ghosts..." another voice noted.
"There's worse," Mara said. "I don't see Avalon Providers being traitors to Asgard in general, so imagine all the millions of old and crazy ghosts they've been keeping around while attempting to cross them over out of this world. How long before those start escaping now that no one is likely watching them."
"What about the Doublet Fortress?" someone asked.
"Has moved itself and severed all connection," the informing Demon said. "The old passkeys aren't working."
"What sort of people do we have?" Mara asked.
"We have reports from nearly ten thousand Faustians on Earth," Tutivillus said. "The majority of the Gehenna Compact got out, being that they were almost half defected Gods and were evacced as soon as the virus was purged. Two thousand loyal Shadows got out of Nifelheim, five hundred stayed behind to sow dissension in the rebel ranks. About nine hundred of the Nidhogg Tenders escaped as well, meaning we have about twenty percent of our Network specialists."
"How about Rakshasha, we have to have more than three hundred," a dark skinned Demon bearing the full but damaged uniform of a Rakshasha captain.
"We have had contact with another five hundred, including recruiting from some of the general population," Tutivillus said. "And we have found ten researchers from the Forge."
"Ten?" Mara said. "Ten?! I heard nothing about Abyss, but it makes sense they were all dead if they weren't in a new incarnations. They got hit first. But are you saying out of a weapons and technology development staff of seven thousand we only managed to save ten?"
"Or else they're all traitors," Tutivillus noted.
"By the Call, we'll be drowning in Carapaces," someone noted.
"They have to make or repair more first," someone noted.
"What are the numbers on rebels that we know," Mara asked.
"There were sixty thousand criminals in the Abyss," the clerk noted. "All repeat offenders, all of whose activities continued past the tabula rasa effect of reincarnation. We estimate about twenty thousand rebels were in part of the active coup, maybe another five joined it. Mostly older Demons that rarely if ever reincarnated and were in what we thought to be unimportant positions."
"Please tell me that's Pre-Hild," someone said hopefully.
Mara growled at what she considered a disrespcetful term but looked back to the Demon giving the report.
"It is," Tutivillus said. "Currently, we think their numbers are about twenty-seven thousand. There is a confirmed death count on Hild's last act."
There was an intake of breath as they waited.
"Roughly forty thousand renegade Demons including all fifty carapaces that were known to be active in the attack on Nifelheim," he said. "Unfortunately, we think there were also five thousand civilians caught as well."
"It doesn't matter," a Rakshasha noted. "She almost took them in half, but she left us outnumbered more than thirty to one. Unless you want to include the secretaries, cooks and the like that are in the civilians we got out."
"We're only nine to one if you include Shadows," Mara said. "And almost two to one if you include Faustians."
"We're not going to win a war with saboteurs and spies," the Rakshasha captain noted. "A third of our warriors seem to have survived, if you include traitors and criminals, but that still leaves us thirty to one. Unless someone can find the Doublet Fortress and convince them it's not time to go away for a million years and then come back to see what's happening."
Mara crossed her arms and walked from one end of the room to the next.
"After confirming Ranma Satomi had reached category 2 level, Hild ordered a investigation into power levels of humans around the planet," Mara said. "I saw a preliminary survey that had confirmed thirty-five hundred category 2 humans alive on the planet. Many of those battle trained. That was preliminary."
Mara let that sink in.
"We can't win alone," Mara said. "And I'm going to tell you, from a military stand point, the Gods are probably worse off than we are. They had fewer warriors already, many of the old war gods had gone on to other things. Morrigan, THE Morrigan, is a divine cop in the Creator's name! And not head of the Eyes of Ra either."
She locked eyes with several people.
"Do you understand what I'm saying," she asked. "If we're going to get our homes back, we're going to need to get help from the humans. And given where they are now and where we are. That means no manipulation, but asking nicely and saying 'yes, please, thank you.'"
There were several groans around the room.
"Look, it was human munitions that took out Hecate and a human plan," Mara said. "And a human killed her in the end even if it was with a God-made weapon. Humans killed Poseidon. A human stormed the Doublet Fortress in the first place. The humans have their own immortals now."
"And what are we going to do?" a Rakshasha asked. "Sit back and let them rescue us?"
"Hell no," Mara said, shaking her head. "Hell no. It's our home, we are ACTING in this. Hild did not die to have us turn over on our backs because our numbers are small!"
"You have a plan that doesn't involve running?" someone asked.
Mara ignored the voice.
"We have spearheads, we have poison and daggers," Mara said. "What we need is the shaft to those spears. We need swords, we need shields. We need support. And we need it now."
She paused again.
"Because we all know that when that gate opens, we'll all still be stuck with our own resources until we can hack access," Mara said. "But there will be people coming down with Category 1 power without Category 1 restraint. The humans have an Ascension device. I suspect they're making a Network mainframe. If we want to be able to stand up to Balor, we need help."
She looked around, crossing her arms.
"Do you have any questions, or shall we make an obligatory remarks about the fact I'm less than half as old as any of you here?" Mara asked.
There was some grumbling but it quieted down.
"Then I want you to get word to the camps," Mara said. "Anybody with the Gehenna Compact needs to get to their local hospitals and start giving human doctors a crash course in Demonic and Godly anatomy and the like. Faustians need to start making plans about which nations and groups to appeal to and make connections with any Asgard refugees they know about."
"And the Shadows and Rakshasha?" someone asked.
"For Rakshasha, protect our camps for now," she said. "Until we got deals with the various countries for refuge. After that, we're going to be getting ready. I'm willing to bet that of that twenty-seven thousand usurpers, that are probably fewer disciplined soldiers than we have."
"And the shadows?" Mara continued. "The Shadows just do what they always have done, only taking Asgard off the target list."
"That's exactly the spot," a voice whispered in her ear.
She turned about and found herself staring at a woman's bloody face glaring at her.
"...where you helped kill me, worm."
************
Hel snapped awake and clutched at the blankets around her, feeling her heart beating quickly. The shock slowly faded away as her breathing slowed down and she honed in on the sound of Natsumi Tendo chopping vegetables.
"I'm Hel, Demoness of Imprisonment," she reminded herself. "I'm not some..."
She felt a shiver and looked back over her shoulder toward a corner of the room, narrowing her eyes as there was nothing there. Slowly, looking around carefully, Hel started to shift around looking for any sign of a problem.
She started to slide her legs out over the edge of the futon when a sudden thought chilled her and stopped the motion. Idly, she started to lean over the edge of the futon and glance down, breathing a sigh of relief.
"It's a futon, idiot," she noted. "There is no under the bed."
Taking a deep breath at this realization and laughing self-comfortingly, she calmed down.
And then lifted up the edge of the futon with her good hand to look under it anyway.
Reaching for her crutch, she started to climb to her feet and then to hobble her way out of the bed room toward the sound of the chopping vegetables. She approached through the hallways and came to the door of the human warrior's kitchen.
The woman stood there, back to the doorway, holding the food with one hand and chopping with the other.
"Natsume-san," she said idly. "I think your sister's ghost is..."
A hacked and bloody artificial arm was tossed over the shoulder of the figure she was speaking to, knocking into Hel and carrying her down to the floor as the figure started to turn around to face her.
************
Natsumi pushed herself into the bedroom she'd set Hel up in as she heard the girl's scream pulling her away from the morning routine. She found the girl, wide-eyed and panting, clutching the blanket hard.
Having basically raised her younger sister when they were children, Natsumi was no stranger to the need to comfort kids after something like that.
Though she had her own way to do that.
"Good, you're up," she commented, moving into the room and picking up some of the things around the room, immediately drawing Hel's attention.
"I can do that for myself!" the girl said, grabbing her crutch and struggling to stand up and start to clean the room.
Incidentally forgetting her own fear in the process of being spurred to action.
Natsumi watched her a few minutes and was about to turn about to leave when the girl paused in moving around, holding a book and not really looking at it.
"Is there something you wish to discuss?" Natsumi asked evenly.
"No," she said quickly. "But I thi..."
She stopped herself and then went back to cleaning the room.
Natsumi watched for a little bit more and then nodded, though the girl couldn't see her.
"We shall have visitors today," Natsumi said. "My sisters shall be here to plan the funeral."
Hel stopped and then started cleaning again, finishing up the last real bit of straightening that was needed and moving on to what was essentially just making more work for her to do.
"You can stay in here, if you want," Natsumi said.
The martial artist was pretty certain that the child would rise to that challenge and then perhaps take some of the weight off of her shoulders.
It didn't fall on Hel's shoulders, the guilt was solely on her own. The child had been Natsumi's responsibility and that should have included making sure she was out of the fighting area completely, especially knowing the girl's pride.
Kurumi had died amending her mistake, not the child's.
A sound of cracking glass drew Natsumi's eyes to one of the few framed pictures, her and her sister in happy days, in the hall and watched as a crack spread its way through the covering frame and then shatter completely to the floor.
"Yes, Kurumi," Natsumi said. "I know."
***********
Mara looked about her abandoned arcade, one of several lairs she'd used over the years in competing against the Norns, and took in all the various Demons and other Nifelheim residents that were currently there and getting information put together on numbers and placement and other such things.
A decision would have to be made before she went to this meeting Ranma had been assigned to represent Psyche at.
"What are the numbers, Tutivillus?" she asked.
"Sixty in the US, thirty-two in England and Western Europe, fifteen in Africa, forty throughout south east-asia, another eighteen here in Japan, six in Korea," a demon noted, pushing back a set of glasses. "An estimated one-hundred seventy one thousand confirmed and accounted for made it out or already lived on Earth. The last numbers we had out of Nifelheim before they got enough control of Nidhogg to shut outgoing as well as incoming says there were about eighty thousand Demons still back home. Any Gods or Half-Gods that stayed back were killed."
Mara closed her eyes along with several other people.
"Considering our state of over population and the few Earth communities we already had and taking a large estimate of usurper forces operating on planet and the population that was sealed in the Abyss at the time," the Demon noted. "That's an estimated one hundred ninety thousand dead. More than forty percent of the total population of Nifelheim and associated Earth communities."
"Creator," someone whispered.
"If even twenty percent of those stayed behind as ghosts..." another voice noted.
"There's worse," Mara said. "I don't see Avalon Providers being traitors to Asgard in general, so imagine all the millions of old and crazy ghosts they've been keeping around while attempting to cross them over out of this world. How long before those start escaping now that no one is likely watching them."
"What about the Doublet Fortress?" someone asked.
"Has moved itself and severed all connection," the informing Demon said. "The old passkeys aren't working."
"What sort of people do we have?" Mara asked.
"We have reports from nearly ten thousand Faustians on Earth," Tutivillus said. "The majority of the Gehenna Compact got out, being that they were almost half defected Gods and were evacced as soon as the virus was purged. Two thousand loyal Shadows got out of Nifelheim, five hundred stayed behind to sow dissension in the rebel ranks. About nine hundred of the Nidhogg Tenders escaped as well, meaning we have about twenty percent of our Network specialists."
"How about Rakshasha, we have to have more than three hundred," a dark skinned Demon bearing the full but damaged uniform of a Rakshasha captain.
"We have had contact with another five hundred, including recruiting from some of the general population," Tutivillus said. "And we have found ten researchers from the Forge."
"Ten?" Mara said. "Ten?! I heard nothing about Abyss, but it makes sense they were all dead if they weren't in a new incarnations. They got hit first. But are you saying out of a weapons and technology development staff of seven thousand we only managed to save ten?"
"Or else they're all traitors," Tutivillus noted.
"By the Call, we'll be drowning in Carapaces," someone noted.
"They have to make or repair more first," someone noted.
"What are the numbers on rebels that we know," Mara asked.
"There were sixty thousand criminals in the Abyss," the clerk noted. "All repeat offenders, all of whose activities continued past the tabula rasa effect of reincarnation. We estimate about twenty thousand rebels were in part of the active coup, maybe another five joined it. Mostly older Demons that rarely if ever reincarnated and were in what we thought to be unimportant positions."
"Please tell me that's Pre-Hild," someone said hopefully.
Mara growled at what she considered a disrespcetful term but looked back to the Demon giving the report.
"It is," Tutivillus said. "Currently, we think their numbers are about twenty-seven thousand. There is a confirmed death count on Hild's last act."
There was an intake of breath as they waited.
"Roughly forty thousand renegade Demons including all fifty carapaces that were known to be active in the attack on Nifelheim," he said. "Unfortunately, we think there were also five thousand civilians caught as well."
"It doesn't matter," a Rakshasha noted. "She almost took them in half, but she left us outnumbered more than thirty to one. Unless you want to include the secretaries, cooks and the like that are in the civilians we got out."
"We're only nine to one if you include Shadows," Mara said. "And almost two to one if you include Faustians."
"We're not going to win a war with saboteurs and spies," the Rakshasha captain noted. "A third of our warriors seem to have survived, if you include traitors and criminals, but that still leaves us thirty to one. Unless someone can find the Doublet Fortress and convince them it's not time to go away for a million years and then come back to see what's happening."
Mara crossed her arms and walked from one end of the room to the next.
"After confirming Ranma Satomi had reached category 2 level, Hild ordered a investigation into power levels of humans around the planet," Mara said. "I saw a preliminary survey that had confirmed thirty-five hundred category 2 humans alive on the planet. Many of those battle trained. That was preliminary."
Mara let that sink in.
"We can't win alone," Mara said. "And I'm going to tell you, from a military stand point, the Gods are probably worse off than we are. They had fewer warriors already, many of the old war gods had gone on to other things. Morrigan, THE Morrigan, is a divine cop in the Creator's name! And not head of the Eyes of Ra either."
She locked eyes with several people.
"Do you understand what I'm saying," she asked. "If we're going to get our homes back, we're going to need to get help from the humans. And given where they are now and where we are. That means no manipulation, but asking nicely and saying 'yes, please, thank you.'"
There were several groans around the room.
"Look, it was human munitions that took out Hecate and a human plan," Mara said. "And a human killed her in the end even if it was with a God-made weapon. Humans killed Poseidon. A human stormed the Doublet Fortress in the first place. The humans have their own immortals now."
"And what are we going to do?" a Rakshasha asked. "Sit back and let them rescue us?"
"Hell no," Mara said, shaking her head. "Hell no. It's our home, we are ACTING in this. Hild did not die to have us turn over on our backs because our numbers are small!"
"You have a plan that doesn't involve running?" someone asked.
Mara ignored the voice.
"We have spearheads, we have poison and daggers," Mara said. "What we need is the shaft to those spears. We need swords, we need shields. We need support. And we need it now."
She paused again.
"Because we all know that when that gate opens, we'll all still be stuck with our own resources until we can hack access," Mara said. "But there will be people coming down with Category 1 power without Category 1 restraint. The humans have an Ascension device. I suspect they're making a Network mainframe. If we want to be able to stand up to Balor, we need help."
She looked around, crossing her arms.
"Do you have any questions, or shall we make an obligatory remarks about the fact I'm less than half as old as any of you here?" Mara asked.
There was some grumbling but it quieted down.
"Then I want you to get word to the camps," Mara said. "Anybody with the Gehenna Compact needs to get to their local hospitals and start giving human doctors a crash course in Demonic and Godly anatomy and the like. Faustians need to start making plans about which nations and groups to appeal to and make connections with any Asgard refugees they know about."
"And the Shadows and Rakshasha?" someone asked.
"For Rakshasha, protect our camps for now," she said. "Until we got deals with the various countries for refuge. After that, we're going to be getting ready. I'm willing to bet that of that twenty-seven thousand usurpers, that are probably fewer disciplined soldiers than we have."
"And the shadows?" Mara continued. "The Shadows just do what they always have done, only taking Asgard off the target list."
Ranma stared at her secretary's desk and blinked.
Several times.
Paper was everywhere, a veritable sea of it.
There was also a small pile of books, a spy novel, a couple of fantasy books, an instruction text on how to fly fish, origami, an old tome that looked like it was about the War of the Roses, a genetics text, a few magazines and assorted newspapers.
A number of expanding file folders sat piled about the desk. Everything was piled as neatly and efficiently as possible. There was just so much of it.
She thought there might have been a computer under the lot somewhere. She remembered requisitioning one.
Oh, there it was piled in the corner.
In the waste bin across the room was a copy of Dianetics.
It was speared through with what looked like pieces of paper folded into thin strips.
"Excuse me," she called out, wondering if there was anybody behind all this.
"Yes?" a voice called from her office.
A small, mousy woman wearing thick glasses appeared in the doorway carrying a neat, black leather conference folder which she was reading through and a cup of tea she was sipping.
The woman herself was dressed in a long-skirt and button-up shirt with a tie and a rather thick jacket that made it somewhat difficult to tell what sort of shape she was in.
And there was paper apparently stuffed as neatly as possible into everyone of the pockets Ranma could see and probably a few she couldn't. There were three lumps that suggested she had full books in some of her pockets.
"Who are you?" Ranma asked.
"Oh," the woman said, looking around in a sudden confusion.
She practically shoved her folder over at Ranma and then pulled it back with a muttered sorry and embarrassed look before she set it carefully atop the precarious pile of papers and books. Then she drained her tea, coughed a bit as some went down the wrong way and waved herself in exasperation before bowing and laughing nervously.
"I'm Yomiko Readman," she said. "Your secretary?"
Ranma's eyes closed and her chin came down to her chest in exasperation before picking it up again.
"You haven't taken any guests with the office looking like this have you?" she asked, gesturing at the cacophony.
"Huh?" Yomiko asked. "Oh, sorry, I was trying to find something."
She gestured at the piles of paper and books and Ranma watched the paper lift up in a swarm, carrying books to the shelves and opening file cabinet drawers to file itself before a last piece of paper closed everything and slipped back toward the desk and into the conference folder the woman had been carrying.
Ranma stared again in surprise and then shook her head again.
"Telekinesis?" Ranma asked.
"Paper master," Yomiko said. "It's sort of like I've been reading about a Demon's Realm or God's Domain. I'm very versatile and powerful within my limits."
Ranma looked over toward the wastebasket and the speared book.
"Let's not leave evidence of what exactly you can do lying around like that?" she said, original impression of the girl mollified by the display.
"Oh, right, sorry Ma'am," Yomiko said, embarrassed as she moved to pick up the book and take it to an outer trash can. "I've got a file from a Mara Geisthexe here, I was told to make sure to give it to you first thing."
Ranma nodded and took it up quickly.
"Which I guess makes it lucky that you actually are where I was told you'd be for once," Yomiko said.
She immediately froze and turned to look at Ranma who was now staring across at her with an arched eyebrow and paused in the process of opening the file folder.
"I think I like you," Ranma said, cracking a smile.
Yomiko breathed out a sigh of relief and Ranma went back to the file. She was reading the first page when she paused and glanced up for a moment before looking back down.
"You're early," she noted over her shoulder in a casual tone. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."
"Ma'am?" Yomiko said, turning around and then noting the figure standing in the door. "Is there anything I should be attending to, Ma'am?"
"This is just a personal visit," the man there said.
"He's an old acquaintance," Ranma explained. "And he's one of our attendees for tomorrow's meeting, so respect."
"All right, Ma'am," Yomiko said. "I'll be here if you have need me."
Ranma continued reading without looking at herb and walked into her office gesturing for him to follow. The man said nothing of her practically ignoring him and followed Ranma into the next room.
Ranma sat down behind her desk and continued to read for several minutes quietly, mind clearly working. Her visitor waited patiently as the woman read the report in front of her, recognizing the look on the face from his youth.
Interrupting the redhead at this time would do nothing but make both of them look less dignified.
After ten minutes, Ranma set the folder down, eyes still seemingly seeing something else. And then she looked up toward Herb.
"No windows?" Herb asked conversationally, looking around.
"Sorry about that, Herb," the red-head said ignoring the non-sequitor with its implied commentary on being kept waiting. "It relates to one of my children."
"Ah," Herb said. "Should I hide mine?"
"Depends on if he's tried to kidnap my girls with the intention of raping them in the recent past," Ranma noted.
"I don't think his thoughts had gone as far as the second yet," Herb said in his own defense. "And if you truly had, I suspect he'd be dead right now."
Ranma and Herb locked eyes for a moment.
"After all," he said. "You once killed Saffron. And that was when you were still human. Or at least your chi wasn't what it is now...and is that mana?"
"Yes," Ranma said darkly. "It is."
"What are you, Saotome?" Herb asked.
"I don't know," Ranma said shrugging. "Maybe my body just up and decided if the world was going to keep dishing out battle and magic my way that it might as well take it."
"There are implications to that statement," Herb noted.
"Aren't there always?" Ranma asked. "And my name is Satomi now. I'm not part of the clan anymore."
"And your manhood," the Musk prince asked.
"Oh, right," Ranma said, leaning over a moment. "Readman, in here, please. I need you to witness something."
The paper master apparently dropped a pile of something that fluttered across the floor and then half ran into the room, noting Ranma's once again arched eyebrow.
"Yes, Ma'am?" she asked.
"Okay," Ranma said. "Watch."
And then Ranma grew into his male form, the clothing of his red power-dress shifting around into a red suit as it did so.
"I'm gonna need an ID, name and background for this form," Ranma said.
"Uhhh..." Yomiko said. "Did....did you have a particular name in mind?"
"Are you kidding?" Ranma asked. "When I had to come up with a new identity last time I went from Ranma Saotome to Ranma Satomi. This is not indicative of great skill in forging identities. Leave this to me and I'll end up with something stupid like Randy Savage and the heck would have a name like that?"
"There actually is a..." Yomiko sighed and shook her head. "Never mind, I'll work on it."
She bowed and moved back to the next room.
Ranma nodded and then shifted back into her female form to look at Herb and take in his reaction.
"But if you can do that...why are you in this form?" Herb asked, put off balance for the first time. "You especially."
"Well, let's count the reasons," Ranma said. "First I had put forth a substantial amount of effort to establish the identity of Ranma Satomi before I could change back. And I really don't feel like explaining that I made a mistake on my height, weight, hair-color and, oh, gender."
She ticked off one finger.
"Second," she continued. "I've been stuck in one form for seventeen years. It's gotten comfortable in spite of itself."
She ticked off another finger.
"Third," she added. "Aside from Nerima and a couple of other people, just about nobody knows this form is connected to my name."
Her voice raised.
"Including Psyche and Mithril, understand Readman?" Ranma called out.
"Wait," Readman said, sticking her head in the doorway. "I just met you and your trusting me with a secret you want kept from our bosses?"
"Problem?" Ranma asked.
Yomiko's mouth gaped open and tried to work to say something.
"I'll figure something out," she said and went back to work in the next room.
"Any other reason?" Herb asked.
"I have teenagers," Ranma said.
"You could have just started with that one," Herb noted.
"What's the reason you're here early," Ranma asked.
"I wanted to see if it was you," Herb said. "And I want to hear why Psyche is asking for all of us to send representatives. Why do you need to talk to the Byankala Valley so badly?"
"I'm guessing you haven't noticed the news the last few weeks," Ranma noted calmly, leaning back. "It's not just Byankala. Kamiya, Mano, O'Connor, Kisaragi, Yamigumo, Higurashi..."
"I do not follow the names outside the Musk so much," Herb noted. "Suffice to say, I assume you're bringing in a number of well known families in the region. Why."
Ranma held up two more fingers indicating two more names.
"Asgard and Nifelheim," she noted. "And if you know what mana is you know what they are."
Herb stared in shock.
"Why would the Gods and Demons sit down at a table together with us?" Herb demanded shocked.
"Because someone took their little drink and 8-Demon bag and went and stormed the Pillars of Heaven," Ranma said. "And Hell."
The fact that it had been her son was left quiet.
"And if you'd watched any news instead of just flying over here," Ranma said. "You'd have seen we have thousands of them popping up all over the world looking for refuge."
"So we are going to be discussing a response to..."
"A bunch of divine and infernal lunatics with enough power to make Saffron look like a light bulb," Ranma said.
Herb stared at her in shock.
Yomiko's chair rolled across the floor and she peeked in again.
"She's making sound just a tad worse than it really is," Yomiko said. "Somewhat....hopefully..."
Several times.
Paper was everywhere, a veritable sea of it.
There was also a small pile of books, a spy novel, a couple of fantasy books, an instruction text on how to fly fish, origami, an old tome that looked like it was about the War of the Roses, a genetics text, a few magazines and assorted newspapers.
A number of expanding file folders sat piled about the desk. Everything was piled as neatly and efficiently as possible. There was just so much of it.
She thought there might have been a computer under the lot somewhere. She remembered requisitioning one.
Oh, there it was piled in the corner.
In the waste bin across the room was a copy of Dianetics.
It was speared through with what looked like pieces of paper folded into thin strips.
"Excuse me," she called out, wondering if there was anybody behind all this.
"Yes?" a voice called from her office.
A small, mousy woman wearing thick glasses appeared in the doorway carrying a neat, black leather conference folder which she was reading through and a cup of tea she was sipping.
The woman herself was dressed in a long-skirt and button-up shirt with a tie and a rather thick jacket that made it somewhat difficult to tell what sort of shape she was in.
And there was paper apparently stuffed as neatly as possible into everyone of the pockets Ranma could see and probably a few she couldn't. There were three lumps that suggested she had full books in some of her pockets.
"Who are you?" Ranma asked.
"Oh," the woman said, looking around in a sudden confusion.
She practically shoved her folder over at Ranma and then pulled it back with a muttered sorry and embarrassed look before she set it carefully atop the precarious pile of papers and books. Then she drained her tea, coughed a bit as some went down the wrong way and waved herself in exasperation before bowing and laughing nervously.
"I'm Yomiko Readman," she said. "Your secretary?"
Ranma's eyes closed and her chin came down to her chest in exasperation before picking it up again.
"You haven't taken any guests with the office looking like this have you?" she asked, gesturing at the cacophony.
"Huh?" Yomiko asked. "Oh, sorry, I was trying to find something."
She gestured at the piles of paper and books and Ranma watched the paper lift up in a swarm, carrying books to the shelves and opening file cabinet drawers to file itself before a last piece of paper closed everything and slipped back toward the desk and into the conference folder the woman had been carrying.
Ranma stared again in surprise and then shook her head again.
"Telekinesis?" Ranma asked.
"Paper master," Yomiko said. "It's sort of like I've been reading about a Demon's Realm or God's Domain. I'm very versatile and powerful within my limits."
Ranma looked over toward the wastebasket and the speared book.
"Let's not leave evidence of what exactly you can do lying around like that?" she said, original impression of the girl mollified by the display.
"Oh, right, sorry Ma'am," Yomiko said, embarrassed as she moved to pick up the book and take it to an outer trash can. "I've got a file from a Mara Geisthexe here, I was told to make sure to give it to you first thing."
Ranma nodded and took it up quickly.
"Which I guess makes it lucky that you actually are where I was told you'd be for once," Yomiko said.
She immediately froze and turned to look at Ranma who was now staring across at her with an arched eyebrow and paused in the process of opening the file folder.
"I think I like you," Ranma said, cracking a smile.
Yomiko breathed out a sigh of relief and Ranma went back to the file. She was reading the first page when she paused and glanced up for a moment before looking back down.
"You're early," she noted over her shoulder in a casual tone. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."
"Ma'am?" Yomiko said, turning around and then noting the figure standing in the door. "Is there anything I should be attending to, Ma'am?"
"This is just a personal visit," the man there said.
"He's an old acquaintance," Ranma explained. "And he's one of our attendees for tomorrow's meeting, so respect."
"All right, Ma'am," Yomiko said. "I'll be here if you have need me."
Ranma continued reading without looking at herb and walked into her office gesturing for him to follow. The man said nothing of her practically ignoring him and followed Ranma into the next room.
Ranma sat down behind her desk and continued to read for several minutes quietly, mind clearly working. Her visitor waited patiently as the woman read the report in front of her, recognizing the look on the face from his youth.
Interrupting the redhead at this time would do nothing but make both of them look less dignified.
After ten minutes, Ranma set the folder down, eyes still seemingly seeing something else. And then she looked up toward Herb.
"No windows?" Herb asked conversationally, looking around.
"Sorry about that, Herb," the red-head said ignoring the non-sequitor with its implied commentary on being kept waiting. "It relates to one of my children."
"Ah," Herb said. "Should I hide mine?"
"Depends on if he's tried to kidnap my girls with the intention of raping them in the recent past," Ranma noted.
"I don't think his thoughts had gone as far as the second yet," Herb said in his own defense. "And if you truly had, I suspect he'd be dead right now."
Ranma and Herb locked eyes for a moment.
"After all," he said. "You once killed Saffron. And that was when you were still human. Or at least your chi wasn't what it is now...and is that mana?"
"Yes," Ranma said darkly. "It is."
"What are you, Saotome?" Herb asked.
"I don't know," Ranma said shrugging. "Maybe my body just up and decided if the world was going to keep dishing out battle and magic my way that it might as well take it."
"There are implications to that statement," Herb noted.
"Aren't there always?" Ranma asked. "And my name is Satomi now. I'm not part of the clan anymore."
"And your manhood," the Musk prince asked.
"Oh, right," Ranma said, leaning over a moment. "Readman, in here, please. I need you to witness something."
The paper master apparently dropped a pile of something that fluttered across the floor and then half ran into the room, noting Ranma's once again arched eyebrow.
"Yes, Ma'am?" she asked.
"Okay," Ranma said. "Watch."
And then Ranma grew into his male form, the clothing of his red power-dress shifting around into a red suit as it did so.
"I'm gonna need an ID, name and background for this form," Ranma said.
"Uhhh..." Yomiko said. "Did....did you have a particular name in mind?"
"Are you kidding?" Ranma asked. "When I had to come up with a new identity last time I went from Ranma Saotome to Ranma Satomi. This is not indicative of great skill in forging identities. Leave this to me and I'll end up with something stupid like Randy Savage and the heck would have a name like that?"
"There actually is a..." Yomiko sighed and shook her head. "Never mind, I'll work on it."
She bowed and moved back to the next room.
Ranma nodded and then shifted back into her female form to look at Herb and take in his reaction.
"But if you can do that...why are you in this form?" Herb asked, put off balance for the first time. "You especially."
"Well, let's count the reasons," Ranma said. "First I had put forth a substantial amount of effort to establish the identity of Ranma Satomi before I could change back. And I really don't feel like explaining that I made a mistake on my height, weight, hair-color and, oh, gender."
She ticked off one finger.
"Second," she continued. "I've been stuck in one form for seventeen years. It's gotten comfortable in spite of itself."
She ticked off another finger.
"Third," she added. "Aside from Nerima and a couple of other people, just about nobody knows this form is connected to my name."
Her voice raised.
"Including Psyche and Mithril, understand Readman?" Ranma called out.
"Wait," Readman said, sticking her head in the doorway. "I just met you and your trusting me with a secret you want kept from our bosses?"
"Problem?" Ranma asked.
Yomiko's mouth gaped open and tried to work to say something.
"I'll figure something out," she said and went back to work in the next room.
"Any other reason?" Herb asked.
"I have teenagers," Ranma said.
"You could have just started with that one," Herb noted.
"What's the reason you're here early," Ranma asked.
"I wanted to see if it was you," Herb said. "And I want to hear why Psyche is asking for all of us to send representatives. Why do you need to talk to the Byankala Valley so badly?"
"I'm guessing you haven't noticed the news the last few weeks," Ranma noted calmly, leaning back. "It's not just Byankala. Kamiya, Mano, O'Connor, Kisaragi, Yamigumo, Higurashi..."
"I do not follow the names outside the Musk so much," Herb noted. "Suffice to say, I assume you're bringing in a number of well known families in the region. Why."
Ranma held up two more fingers indicating two more names.
"Asgard and Nifelheim," she noted. "And if you know what mana is you know what they are."
Herb stared in shock.
"Why would the Gods and Demons sit down at a table together with us?" Herb demanded shocked.
"Because someone took their little drink and 8-Demon bag and went and stormed the Pillars of Heaven," Ranma said. "And Hell."
The fact that it had been her son was left quiet.
"And if you'd watched any news instead of just flying over here," Ranma said. "You'd have seen we have thousands of them popping up all over the world looking for refuge."
"So we are going to be discussing a response to..."
"A bunch of divine and infernal lunatics with enough power to make Saffron look like a light bulb," Ranma said.
Herb stared at her in shock.
Yomiko's chair rolled across the floor and she peeked in again.
"She's making sound just a tad worse than it really is," Yomiko said. "Somewhat....hopefully..."
Belldandy walked out into the main room and started handing out trays of food to the group of Gods that had gathered in her mortal home. Persephone and sipped a cup of tea while Thor drank a can of beer from a six pack that he had brought with him. Urd held another of the same drinks, but was only sipping it for now.
"Is everybody ready?" Belldandy asked.
"Yes, Lady Verdandi," Thor said respectfully. "Let's get this discussed."
"We all know there has been no contact with Asgard for the last week or more," Belldandy said. "Until three days ago, Mara said more Demons at least were escaping Nifelheim, but we haven't found any Gods that got out of Asgard since the initial attacks."
"And there are only roughly a hundred thousand of us that managed to get out of Asgard," Persephone noted.
"Fortunately," and there was a clear sarcasm to Thor's tone, "the majority of his Half-Demons and Asgardian Demons got forcibly pushed down here before the doors closed because of that damn virus. Unfortunately, you let too many of us reincarnate at once and let too many change out of the Einherjar completely."
"How many Einherjar got out?" Urd asked.
"Above the incarnation age of twelve?" Thor said. "A thousand, maybe another two hundred."
"Doesn't that put us better off than the Demons?" Skuld asked cautiously.
"You're kidding," another God said. "They still had a huge number of warriors."
"Mara was saying they found some more Rakshasha," Belldandy noted. "So I believe they have at least gone over three hundred."
"How many traitors did they have?" someone asked.
"Not as many as you're thinking," Kali said. "Most Demons are...were, religiously loyal to Hild. It's more a matter of how many died than how many betrayed their people."
"The problem is, we're missing a lot of big names," Thor said. "You've got me, yes, an Kali if she decides to take up the battlefield again, but most of the rest of what we have are mostly...okay. Athena is missing, Ares is missing..."
"Ares is dead," a bitter voice said and everyone turned to look at a girl with wild hair rocking back and forth. "Apollo and Cu Chulainn did it."
Belldandy stood up and walked over to the girl, reaching down to wrap an arm around her shoulders and then start walking out with the girl.
"Excuse us," she said to the others. "Artemis should be sleeping."
Thor, face pale with anger waited until the Norn was back to speak.
"You see, Artemis is too young to defend herself," Thor said, keeping his voice down and glancing toward where the girl had been taken. "Did any..."
"She got out before they could do anything," Belldandy promised him.
"What is wrong with all the Greek male Gods?" Skuld wondered. "Are they all perverts?"
"In any case," Belldandy said, "We have no information on what to do about Asgard, what happened, how many....how many are...okay. We had no plan for evacuation at all? Didn't Athena have a proposal?"
"Turned aside as alarmist," Persephone noted. "I remember voting in favor."
"The truce made us soft," Urd said. "Both sides. Ten thousand years ago, Hecate would never have been able to pull this off. We were too paranoid to not notice something like this. I can guarantee you, though, that the only reason we're not looking at her sitting over us with a horde of Doublet connections to keep us in line is that Deimosu Satomi jumped her gun."
"Right, so instead of oppression and enslavement," Skuld said. "We have total slaughter. That's a step up."
"Let us not blame Deimosu," Belldandy said. "We've all been tricked in the past to unleashing something very dangerous that came near to destroying the world. I'm certain this is nothing like what he intended."
She paused and then continued before anybody else could take up the discussion.
"In truth, we should have taken the system down ourselves years ago," Belldandy said. "But the matter isn't what was done, it is what shall we do now?"
"There's a new race of immortals out there," someone noted. "Doesn't that mean we should be finding a dimensional hiding place and come back later?"
"Not this time," Belldandy said calmly. "This time, I think it would be best if we were to work with this new race."
Belldandy sat calmly.
"I do not wish to see Gods die, or Demons die, or humans or..." she looked over toward Persephone.
"Ainur is what they're calling themselves," Persephone said. "Off that charming book of Mr. Tolkien's. Like much of the rest of their organization."
Belldandy nodded.
"I do not wish to see anyone die," Belldandy said. "Not even these who stole our home for us."
"People will die, Belldandy," Kali noted. "People have already died and the only way to stop more from dying will probably be for others to die."
"I know I can't stop it all," the middle Norn said.
"Big sister," Skuld said quietly.
"I do not remember the rise of the Gods from the silthine," she said. "I am younger than the human race. As is Thor and my sisters, and so many more of us. That old world that yo...that old world that was broken and the world before that are not our world. This is our world. Asgard is where we work, but Earth is where we grow and learn and live. It is what we remember when we recall our childhoods."
Belldandy took a breath.
"I do not want to see it destroyed by another war or accident," she said.
"Will you sit back and do nothing," someone asked.
"Most definitely not," Belldandy said, eyes narrowing angrily at the suggestion. "And I understand that battle will happen. It takes two sides at the least for a battle, but it takes only one side to have a massacre. I will fight. In my own way."
She stood up.
"And I shall do that by helping the effort already in place rather than trying to make a new one from the beginning," Belldandy said.
Then she walked to the doors.
"I'm sorry, I have to go see Keiichi," she said emotionally.
Urd stood up then and crossed her arms before looking at Skuld who nodded uncertainly, looking towards where her sister had already left.
"I think the Norns have made our decision," she said firmly. "If you're in, come and talk to us."
And then she left.
"Is everybody ready?" Belldandy asked.
"Yes, Lady Verdandi," Thor said respectfully. "Let's get this discussed."
"We all know there has been no contact with Asgard for the last week or more," Belldandy said. "Until three days ago, Mara said more Demons at least were escaping Nifelheim, but we haven't found any Gods that got out of Asgard since the initial attacks."
"And there are only roughly a hundred thousand of us that managed to get out of Asgard," Persephone noted.
"Fortunately," and there was a clear sarcasm to Thor's tone, "the majority of his Half-Demons and Asgardian Demons got forcibly pushed down here before the doors closed because of that damn virus. Unfortunately, you let too many of us reincarnate at once and let too many change out of the Einherjar completely."
"How many Einherjar got out?" Urd asked.
"Above the incarnation age of twelve?" Thor said. "A thousand, maybe another two hundred."
"Doesn't that put us better off than the Demons?" Skuld asked cautiously.
"You're kidding," another God said. "They still had a huge number of warriors."
"Mara was saying they found some more Rakshasha," Belldandy noted. "So I believe they have at least gone over three hundred."
"How many traitors did they have?" someone asked.
"Not as many as you're thinking," Kali said. "Most Demons are...were, religiously loyal to Hild. It's more a matter of how many died than how many betrayed their people."
"The problem is, we're missing a lot of big names," Thor said. "You've got me, yes, an Kali if she decides to take up the battlefield again, but most of the rest of what we have are mostly...okay. Athena is missing, Ares is missing..."
"Ares is dead," a bitter voice said and everyone turned to look at a girl with wild hair rocking back and forth. "Apollo and Cu Chulainn did it."
Belldandy stood up and walked over to the girl, reaching down to wrap an arm around her shoulders and then start walking out with the girl.
"Excuse us," she said to the others. "Artemis should be sleeping."
Thor, face pale with anger waited until the Norn was back to speak.
"You see, Artemis is too young to defend herself," Thor said, keeping his voice down and glancing toward where the girl had been taken. "Did any..."
"She got out before they could do anything," Belldandy promised him.
"What is wrong with all the Greek male Gods?" Skuld wondered. "Are they all perverts?"
"In any case," Belldandy said, "We have no information on what to do about Asgard, what happened, how many....how many are...okay. We had no plan for evacuation at all? Didn't Athena have a proposal?"
"Turned aside as alarmist," Persephone noted. "I remember voting in favor."
"The truce made us soft," Urd said. "Both sides. Ten thousand years ago, Hecate would never have been able to pull this off. We were too paranoid to not notice something like this. I can guarantee you, though, that the only reason we're not looking at her sitting over us with a horde of Doublet connections to keep us in line is that Deimosu Satomi jumped her gun."
"Right, so instead of oppression and enslavement," Skuld said. "We have total slaughter. That's a step up."
"Let us not blame Deimosu," Belldandy said. "We've all been tricked in the past to unleashing something very dangerous that came near to destroying the world. I'm certain this is nothing like what he intended."
She paused and then continued before anybody else could take up the discussion.
"In truth, we should have taken the system down ourselves years ago," Belldandy said. "But the matter isn't what was done, it is what shall we do now?"
"There's a new race of immortals out there," someone noted. "Doesn't that mean we should be finding a dimensional hiding place and come back later?"
"Not this time," Belldandy said calmly. "This time, I think it would be best if we were to work with this new race."
Belldandy sat calmly.
"I do not wish to see Gods die, or Demons die, or humans or..." she looked over toward Persephone.
"Ainur is what they're calling themselves," Persephone said. "Off that charming book of Mr. Tolkien's. Like much of the rest of their organization."
Belldandy nodded.
"I do not wish to see anyone die," Belldandy said. "Not even these who stole our home for us."
"People will die, Belldandy," Kali noted. "People have already died and the only way to stop more from dying will probably be for others to die."
"I know I can't stop it all," the middle Norn said.
"Big sister," Skuld said quietly.
"I do not remember the rise of the Gods from the silthine," she said. "I am younger than the human race. As is Thor and my sisters, and so many more of us. That old world that yo...that old world that was broken and the world before that are not our world. This is our world. Asgard is where we work, but Earth is where we grow and learn and live. It is what we remember when we recall our childhoods."
Belldandy took a breath.
"I do not want to see it destroyed by another war or accident," she said.
"Will you sit back and do nothing," someone asked.
"Most definitely not," Belldandy said, eyes narrowing angrily at the suggestion. "And I understand that battle will happen. It takes two sides at the least for a battle, but it takes only one side to have a massacre. I will fight. In my own way."
She stood up.
"And I shall do that by helping the effort already in place rather than trying to make a new one from the beginning," Belldandy said.
Then she walked to the doors.
"I'm sorry, I have to go see Keiichi," she said emotionally.
Urd stood up then and crossed her arms before looking at Skuld who nodded uncertainly, looking towards where her sister had already left.
"I think the Norns have made our decision," she said firmly. "If you're in, come and talk to us."
And then she left.
The knock on the door came and Hel looked that direction as she sat and read through one of the woman's books. There was a TV and a small number of DVDs that looked like they hadn't often been watched, possibly gifts from a student, but the books were more interesting. They also required a bit more distraction and thus allowed a bit more escape, not that she'd say that.
The knock came again and Hel realized that Natsumi was across the small compound in the training hall. She reached for her crutch and stood up, hobbling her way over to the door cautiously, wary of finding that she was in another dream and about to find a bloody figure staring at her behind the entrance.
It was quite the opposite when the door opened to reveal a tall woman with a beautiful, smiling face and long brown hair. There was a man with her and between them a girl not much younger than Hel currently was.
"Oh, hello," the woman said with a sad smile. "Would you be, Hel?"
"You're Natsumi-san's...other sister?" she asked.
"One of them," the woman said. "I'm Kasumi Ono, this is my husband, Tofu and this is our daughter Kimiko."
Hel nodded with a firmed up chin and limped aside to give them room to come in.
"I'll go find Natsumi-san," she said.
"That's all right," Tofu said. "Think you can keep our daughter company while we talk to her?"
"I am not unable to..." she sighed and then shook her head. "All right, fine. There are some videos..."
"Does she have Spirited Away?" Kimiko asked shyly, voice trailing in volume as she realized that she'd interrupted.
"Natsumi-san is an adult living alone," Hel said rolling her eyes. "Why would she have anything good?"
Kasumi and Tofu watched the little Demon limp off toward the couch and shared a look. Tofu nodded and quietly gestured for her to continue back towards the training hall and signaled he'd watch the two girls. Kasumi nodded and started in that direction.
The eldest of the former Tendo sisters paused in the hallway to take note of a missing picture that she knew had been one of Natsumi and Kurumi and frowned briefly before putting back a comforting expression and moving on.
She found Natsumi in the middle of the training hall, sitting amidst a scanty collection of photographs and picking through them. She glanced up as Kasumi entered the door and ventured one of the smiles that used to be more common when she was a teenager.
"Kasumi, it's good to see you," she said. "Did you come alone?"
"Nabiki and Ryouga are a little behind us, but I left Kimiko with your guest," she said. "Tofu is watching them."
"Hel is a bit grating," Natsumi said before moving on to assure Kasumi, "but she is safe."
She paused a moment and stood up.
"Or at least she's no threat," the martial artist corrected herself. "She will eventually be safe."
"I'm sure," Kasumi said, stepping forward to give Natsumi a firm and comforting hug.
Natsumi blinked, mind apparently railing at the sudden contact. It hadn't been all that uncommon in her youth given she'd grown up with Kurumi, but in her adult life it had become decidedly rare and usually uncomfortable.
Though a hug from Kasumi could never have been considered uncomfortable by her and she wrapped her own arm around her adoptive sister casually.
Kasumi stepped back and looked down.
"Are you picking a picture for the shrine?" Kasumi asked, kneeling down to look at the pictures. "You should have waited for all of us to be here first."
"Perhaps," Natsumi said, not elaborating.
"It is very kind of you to take in the girl," Kasumi said as she idly pulled the photos into a neat pile and started setting them aside for perusing later.
"Is Akane coming?" Natsumi asked. "I heard she was called up for dealing with these Demon and God refugees."
"She is assigned here," Kasumi said.
"But...she's navy," Natsumi noted.
"She's also a trained chi-user and there is a recently cursed monster-infested forest nearby," the ever calm elder sister reminded her.
"This is true, I was worried we might not be complete," the other woman said, holding a picture of Kurumi.
Kasumi paused and wondered at the fact that Natsumi made no comment that she should have been able to handle the forest herself.
"Will there be any others like Hel at the funeral?" Kasumi asked. "I know she died in battle and it is customary to invite those who stood beside one of us in battle."
"I have heard interest in attending the service from some," Natsumi said.
"Hmm, I shall have to attend to figuring out what is best to serve such guests then," Kasumi noted with a look of concern. "It would not do to dishonor her comrades by accidentally poisoning them."
"If we wanted to do that," Nabiki's voice said from the doorway, "we could always have Akane cook."
"Nabiki," Natsumi said nodding, and relaxing a little as the third of the Tendos appeared in the dojo. "You're showing."
"Yeah, boy am I," Nabiki said stepping forward with a smirk. "Three months left."
The smirk softened and she gave Natsumi an extremely awkward hug which was equally awkwardly received.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
"I shall be fine," Natsumi said.
"Are you putting up the photos, Sis?" Nabiki asked, looking over toward Kasumi.
"We should wait for all of us sisters to be here," Kasumi said.
"Leave it to Akane to be late," Nabiki noted with a smile as she looked toward the door.
"I am not late," Akane protested as she walked in wearing her uniform. "I had to report in and see the command post."
She didn't hesitate at all to cross over to Natsumi and hug her tightly and honestly, if a little aggressively as compared to Kasumi.
She then moved to Kasumi and, carefully, Nabiki.
"Well, then," Kasumi said. "I think we can begin to discuss the plans. Shall we, sisters?"
It was a moment later when the four sat down and Kasumi started passing out the photo collections Natsumi had while taking a small pile of her own pictures out of a purse. Nabiki and Akane did likewise and the four started to pick through the photos.
"It needs to be something triumphant," Kasumi noted, "Considering what she accomplished."
Natsumi nodded quietly at that.
"I do not have many pictures of her," she said.
"There are never enough pictures," Akane noted, thinking of her own mother. "You'd think we'd learn."
"Did she ever...have anyone?" Kasumi asked. "Is there someone we need to call?"
"I do not know," the one-armed sister noted. "She i...would occasionally be out of contact for months at a time, there might have been a man...woman...Tarou..."
"I don't see Kurumi as being into tentacles," Akane commented with a choked laugh as she brushed something out of the corner of her eye. "You don't think she would have told you?"
"She has...had been very angry quite often of late," Natsumi said with an expressive sigh.
"It was hard to tell from talking to her," Kasumi noted, lingering on a picture that showed Kurumi playing with her own little girl and tracing a finger along it. "She always sounded so upbeat."
"Upbeat doesn't mean there's no anger," Akane noted from experience. "I can tell you it was there. I think...I think she felt guilty for..."
She gestured toward Natsumi's missing arm and shrugged.
"I think I noticed that," the woman noted quietly. "But she wasn't even on the same continent when it happened, and in the end..."
"Are you about to say you feel guilty about this?" Nabiki asked quickly with narrowed eyes. "Because that sort of misplaced guilt almost got me killed once."
"Hel should not have been allowed to remain on the battlefield," Natsumi said. "I should have been more aware, it was my responsibility."
"Responsibility is not the same as fault, the fault is that of the one who made the fight necessary," Kasumi noted quietly looking at one of the pictures. "This is a good one."
"Oh yes," Akane said a bit too eagerly. "She'd taken the Championship in one of the old Indian tournaments."
"Is it traditional for a shrine photo to be giving a victory sign?" Natsumi asked cautiously. "Aren't they usually more serene?"
Kasumi set the picture aside to start a collection of possibles.
"This is Kurumi we're talking about," Nabiki reminded them mildly, the corners of her mouth twitching vaguely as she blinked rapidly three times. "Serenity wasn't worthy of her."
Natsumi chuckled briefly.
"I am not sure whether or not that works out to a compliment, Nabiki," she said.
"I like this one," Akane said, fanning herself as if she were hot despite the cool breeze and wiping a hand over her forehead and down her cheek.
"We should make an attempt to see if she has any loved ones," Kasumi noted again, holding a picture of Kurumi playing with Akane's children. "If she has a child that she hasn't told us about..."
"I can't imagine she would be quiet about anything like that," Nabiki said softly. "And the last time we saw her, she was practically terrified of the concept, remember?"
"Yes, she did have all sorts of strange ideas about what being pregnant was like," Kasumi said with a sigh. "I suppose I was simply hoping that there might be someone more than us. Nabiki's child will never get to know her now."
"We can tell him about her," Nabiki said softly. "It isn't the same...not...not close, but that is something we can do."
"She would have been a good mother," Akane said.
Kasumi sneezed momentarily, and took a deep breath.
"Pardon me," she said. "I must be a bit dusty from the train."
Natsumi nodded.
"It will be hard to live up to what she did...at the end," the martial artist said.
"Death is lighter a than feather," Akane noted, closing her eyes. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
"Death is lighter than a feather," Nabiki agreed, tapping her fingers on the floor. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
"Death is lighter than a feather," Kasumi said, looking at another picture of Kurumi smiling broadly. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
"Death is lighter than a feather," Natsume repeated finally. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
Natsumi wiped a tear from her cheek.
The knock came again and Hel realized that Natsumi was across the small compound in the training hall. She reached for her crutch and stood up, hobbling her way over to the door cautiously, wary of finding that she was in another dream and about to find a bloody figure staring at her behind the entrance.
It was quite the opposite when the door opened to reveal a tall woman with a beautiful, smiling face and long brown hair. There was a man with her and between them a girl not much younger than Hel currently was.
"Oh, hello," the woman said with a sad smile. "Would you be, Hel?"
"You're Natsumi-san's...other sister?" she asked.
"One of them," the woman said. "I'm Kasumi Ono, this is my husband, Tofu and this is our daughter Kimiko."
Hel nodded with a firmed up chin and limped aside to give them room to come in.
"I'll go find Natsumi-san," she said.
"That's all right," Tofu said. "Think you can keep our daughter company while we talk to her?"
"I am not unable to..." she sighed and then shook her head. "All right, fine. There are some videos..."
"Does she have Spirited Away?" Kimiko asked shyly, voice trailing in volume as she realized that she'd interrupted.
"Natsumi-san is an adult living alone," Hel said rolling her eyes. "Why would she have anything good?"
Kasumi and Tofu watched the little Demon limp off toward the couch and shared a look. Tofu nodded and quietly gestured for her to continue back towards the training hall and signaled he'd watch the two girls. Kasumi nodded and started in that direction.
The eldest of the former Tendo sisters paused in the hallway to take note of a missing picture that she knew had been one of Natsumi and Kurumi and frowned briefly before putting back a comforting expression and moving on.
She found Natsumi in the middle of the training hall, sitting amidst a scanty collection of photographs and picking through them. She glanced up as Kasumi entered the door and ventured one of the smiles that used to be more common when she was a teenager.
"Kasumi, it's good to see you," she said. "Did you come alone?"
"Nabiki and Ryouga are a little behind us, but I left Kimiko with your guest," she said. "Tofu is watching them."
"Hel is a bit grating," Natsumi said before moving on to assure Kasumi, "but she is safe."
She paused a moment and stood up.
"Or at least she's no threat," the martial artist corrected herself. "She will eventually be safe."
"I'm sure," Kasumi said, stepping forward to give Natsumi a firm and comforting hug.
Natsumi blinked, mind apparently railing at the sudden contact. It hadn't been all that uncommon in her youth given she'd grown up with Kurumi, but in her adult life it had become decidedly rare and usually uncomfortable.
Though a hug from Kasumi could never have been considered uncomfortable by her and she wrapped her own arm around her adoptive sister casually.
Kasumi stepped back and looked down.
"Are you picking a picture for the shrine?" Kasumi asked, kneeling down to look at the pictures. "You should have waited for all of us to be here first."
"Perhaps," Natsumi said, not elaborating.
"It is very kind of you to take in the girl," Kasumi said as she idly pulled the photos into a neat pile and started setting them aside for perusing later.
"Is Akane coming?" Natsumi asked. "I heard she was called up for dealing with these Demon and God refugees."
"She is assigned here," Kasumi said.
"But...she's navy," Natsumi noted.
"She's also a trained chi-user and there is a recently cursed monster-infested forest nearby," the ever calm elder sister reminded her.
"This is true, I was worried we might not be complete," the other woman said, holding a picture of Kurumi.
Kasumi paused and wondered at the fact that Natsumi made no comment that she should have been able to handle the forest herself.
"Will there be any others like Hel at the funeral?" Kasumi asked. "I know she died in battle and it is customary to invite those who stood beside one of us in battle."
"I have heard interest in attending the service from some," Natsumi said.
"Hmm, I shall have to attend to figuring out what is best to serve such guests then," Kasumi noted with a look of concern. "It would not do to dishonor her comrades by accidentally poisoning them."
"If we wanted to do that," Nabiki's voice said from the doorway, "we could always have Akane cook."
"Nabiki," Natsumi said nodding, and relaxing a little as the third of the Tendos appeared in the dojo. "You're showing."
"Yeah, boy am I," Nabiki said stepping forward with a smirk. "Three months left."
The smirk softened and she gave Natsumi an extremely awkward hug which was equally awkwardly received.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
"I shall be fine," Natsumi said.
"Are you putting up the photos, Sis?" Nabiki asked, looking over toward Kasumi.
"We should wait for all of us sisters to be here," Kasumi said.
"Leave it to Akane to be late," Nabiki noted with a smile as she looked toward the door.
"I am not late," Akane protested as she walked in wearing her uniform. "I had to report in and see the command post."
She didn't hesitate at all to cross over to Natsumi and hug her tightly and honestly, if a little aggressively as compared to Kasumi.
She then moved to Kasumi and, carefully, Nabiki.
"Well, then," Kasumi said. "I think we can begin to discuss the plans. Shall we, sisters?"
It was a moment later when the four sat down and Kasumi started passing out the photo collections Natsumi had while taking a small pile of her own pictures out of a purse. Nabiki and Akane did likewise and the four started to pick through the photos.
"It needs to be something triumphant," Kasumi noted, "Considering what she accomplished."
Natsumi nodded quietly at that.
"I do not have many pictures of her," she said.
"There are never enough pictures," Akane noted, thinking of her own mother. "You'd think we'd learn."
"Did she ever...have anyone?" Kasumi asked. "Is there someone we need to call?"
"I do not know," the one-armed sister noted. "She i...would occasionally be out of contact for months at a time, there might have been a man...woman...Tarou..."
"I don't see Kurumi as being into tentacles," Akane commented with a choked laugh as she brushed something out of the corner of her eye. "You don't think she would have told you?"
"She has...had been very angry quite often of late," Natsumi said with an expressive sigh.
"It was hard to tell from talking to her," Kasumi noted, lingering on a picture that showed Kurumi playing with her own little girl and tracing a finger along it. "She always sounded so upbeat."
"Upbeat doesn't mean there's no anger," Akane noted from experience. "I can tell you it was there. I think...I think she felt guilty for..."
She gestured toward Natsumi's missing arm and shrugged.
"I think I noticed that," the woman noted quietly. "But she wasn't even on the same continent when it happened, and in the end..."
"Are you about to say you feel guilty about this?" Nabiki asked quickly with narrowed eyes. "Because that sort of misplaced guilt almost got me killed once."
"Hel should not have been allowed to remain on the battlefield," Natsumi said. "I should have been more aware, it was my responsibility."
"Responsibility is not the same as fault, the fault is that of the one who made the fight necessary," Kasumi noted quietly looking at one of the pictures. "This is a good one."
"Oh yes," Akane said a bit too eagerly. "She'd taken the Championship in one of the old Indian tournaments."
"Is it traditional for a shrine photo to be giving a victory sign?" Natsumi asked cautiously. "Aren't they usually more serene?"
Kasumi set the picture aside to start a collection of possibles.
"This is Kurumi we're talking about," Nabiki reminded them mildly, the corners of her mouth twitching vaguely as she blinked rapidly three times. "Serenity wasn't worthy of her."
Natsumi chuckled briefly.
"I am not sure whether or not that works out to a compliment, Nabiki," she said.
"I like this one," Akane said, fanning herself as if she were hot despite the cool breeze and wiping a hand over her forehead and down her cheek.
"We should make an attempt to see if she has any loved ones," Kasumi noted again, holding a picture of Kurumi playing with Akane's children. "If she has a child that she hasn't told us about..."
"I can't imagine she would be quiet about anything like that," Nabiki said softly. "And the last time we saw her, she was practically terrified of the concept, remember?"
"Yes, she did have all sorts of strange ideas about what being pregnant was like," Kasumi said with a sigh. "I suppose I was simply hoping that there might be someone more than us. Nabiki's child will never get to know her now."
"We can tell him about her," Nabiki said softly. "It isn't the same...not...not close, but that is something we can do."
"She would have been a good mother," Akane said.
Kasumi sneezed momentarily, and took a deep breath.
"Pardon me," she said. "I must be a bit dusty from the train."
Natsumi nodded.
"It will be hard to live up to what she did...at the end," the martial artist said.
"Death is lighter a than feather," Akane noted, closing her eyes. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
"Death is lighter than a feather," Nabiki agreed, tapping her fingers on the floor. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
"Death is lighter than a feather," Kasumi said, looking at another picture of Kurumi smiling broadly. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
"Death is lighter than a feather," Natsume repeated finally. "Duty is heavier than a mountain."
Natsumi wiped a tear from her cheek.
Colonel O'Neil opened the door to the cell that held their guest and noticed her sitting in the middle of the room, dressed in a sports bra and running shorts. Her skin was covered in several places by what looked like blue paint, forming intricate designs. She breathed in and out idly.
"This Socrates Group of yours is quite impressive," Morrigan said, eyes still closed. "I noticed you have several examples of some of the minor races here. Was that a succubus I saw? I had thought they were extinct in the inquisition."
"You mean Vala?" O'Neil asked.
"As I remember, Vala was a rather irritating woman with black hair," Morrigan said. "The succubus I mentioned was the secretary who saw me, screamed out 'Oh God, it's the Phantom Queen!' and went to hide in the ladies room for an hour."
"Anything you can do to shed a light on that?" O'Neil asked.
"Succubi descend from Demon and human hybrids," Morrigan said. "The Einherjar command felt they might be used against us."
"So you killed them all," the colonel said judgmentally.
"Obviously not all," Morrigan said. "And they apparently kept a good description of me, that child didn't look older than twenty and I know that species is not Immortal."
"You know, I have a problem with someone that can so blithely admit to genocide," O'Neil noted.
Morrigan opened her eyes and looked over toward him with a sigh.
"Even if I were to unseal those memories and live through them," she said pointedly. "It wouldn't be more than like watching a movie. For me, it is a fact in a history book. There is no direct emotional connection."
"And you think this whole memory wipe thing absolves you of your sins?" O'Neil asked.
"There was once a woman named Linea who had committed crimes like mine," Morrigan noted. "And I believe you have a woman named Ke'ra under observation."
"It tends to seem like a cheat when you inflict that sort of thing on purpose to get out of such things," the colonel said. "That's not the sort of thing you can magically wipe away."
She closed her eyes again and pointed her head straight.
"I didn't become Catholic because I felt good about myself for some of my history book," she noted. "Did you come to ask me about my past? Or did you perhaps have something else on your mind?"
"We've got word about the people the president wanted us to contact for you," he said. "There's going to be some kind of meeting in Japan in the next couple of days. Apparently they mostly already there, just waiting until some local funeral to happen before they hold the meeting."
"I think I told you the effort would happen around them," Morrigan said with a smile. "Hang up some laundry and I can be out of your hair immediately."
"Yeah," O'Neil said. "No, we're going to be sending some people along with you."
"Who might that be?" she asked.
"Jackson, me, people...with names, and ranks," O'Neil said vaguely.
"Go ahead and ask," she said.
"Blue?" O'Neil said.
"Woad," Morrigan noted. "I'm getting ready for battle."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sort of stuff makes you high by wearing it on your skin," the colonel noted.
"Sadly, this is not one of the poisons that can affect me," Morrigan said with a sigh. "I merely place it on for tradition's sake."
"Uh huh," O'Neil said. "Well, we'll be ready to take you and your friends to Japan as soon as possible."
"Friends?" she asked.
"Mithril personnel brought a refugee group in with one of our teams," O'Neil said. "One of you Gods or Demons was in their unit."
"That would be either Naiki Satomi or Eija Satomi," Morrigan said. "I am surprised their mother would let them act on missions as such. What color were the marks, red or blue?"
"Green."
Morrigan's eyes snapped open and turned about to stare at O'Neil as her jaw dropped open.
"I take it that's not something you were expecting."
"This Socrates Group of yours is quite impressive," Morrigan said, eyes still closed. "I noticed you have several examples of some of the minor races here. Was that a succubus I saw? I had thought they were extinct in the inquisition."
"You mean Vala?" O'Neil asked.
"As I remember, Vala was a rather irritating woman with black hair," Morrigan said. "The succubus I mentioned was the secretary who saw me, screamed out 'Oh God, it's the Phantom Queen!' and went to hide in the ladies room for an hour."
"Anything you can do to shed a light on that?" O'Neil asked.
"Succubi descend from Demon and human hybrids," Morrigan said. "The Einherjar command felt they might be used against us."
"So you killed them all," the colonel said judgmentally.
"Obviously not all," Morrigan said. "And they apparently kept a good description of me, that child didn't look older than twenty and I know that species is not Immortal."
"You know, I have a problem with someone that can so blithely admit to genocide," O'Neil noted.
Morrigan opened her eyes and looked over toward him with a sigh.
"Even if I were to unseal those memories and live through them," she said pointedly. "It wouldn't be more than like watching a movie. For me, it is a fact in a history book. There is no direct emotional connection."
"And you think this whole memory wipe thing absolves you of your sins?" O'Neil asked.
"There was once a woman named Linea who had committed crimes like mine," Morrigan noted. "And I believe you have a woman named Ke'ra under observation."
"It tends to seem like a cheat when you inflict that sort of thing on purpose to get out of such things," the colonel said. "That's not the sort of thing you can magically wipe away."
She closed her eyes again and pointed her head straight.
"I didn't become Catholic because I felt good about myself for some of my history book," she noted. "Did you come to ask me about my past? Or did you perhaps have something else on your mind?"
"We've got word about the people the president wanted us to contact for you," he said. "There's going to be some kind of meeting in Japan in the next couple of days. Apparently they mostly already there, just waiting until some local funeral to happen before they hold the meeting."
"I think I told you the effort would happen around them," Morrigan said with a smile. "Hang up some laundry and I can be out of your hair immediately."
"Yeah," O'Neil said. "No, we're going to be sending some people along with you."
"Who might that be?" she asked.
"Jackson, me, people...with names, and ranks," O'Neil said vaguely.
"Go ahead and ask," she said.
"Blue?" O'Neil said.
"Woad," Morrigan noted. "I'm getting ready for battle."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sort of stuff makes you high by wearing it on your skin," the colonel noted.
"Sadly, this is not one of the poisons that can affect me," Morrigan said with a sigh. "I merely place it on for tradition's sake."
"Uh huh," O'Neil said. "Well, we'll be ready to take you and your friends to Japan as soon as possible."
"Friends?" she asked.
"Mithril personnel brought a refugee group in with one of our teams," O'Neil said. "One of you Gods or Demons was in their unit."
"That would be either Naiki Satomi or Eija Satomi," Morrigan said. "I am surprised their mother would let them act on missions as such. What color were the marks, red or blue?"
"Green."
Morrigan's eyes snapped open and turned about to stare at O'Neil as her jaw dropped open.
"I take it that's not something you were expecting."
Keiichi and Belldandy sat on the edge of the walkway, sitting close together. The Goddess's grey hair and slightly taller form leaning against Keichi and wrapping an arm around him as his wrapped around her.
"It'll be okay, Bell," Keiichi said. "It'll be okay. We've had bad stuff before."
"Is it selfish of me to be so appalled that Gods and Demons are dying when humans die everyday?" Belldandy asked.
"Belldandy, you're appalled when someone trips over a dog," Keiichi said. "You just don't like seeing people hurt. Neither do I."
"I don't know how to do this Keiichi," Belldandy said. "This isn't a renegade program like the Lord of Terror. This isn't some accident. It isn't...it isn't Hild. I acted like I knew what I was going to do but...I don't know about...war."
"Do you have to get involved?" Keiichi asked.
Belldandy stayed very quiet and nodded slowly, leaning against his shoulder.
"If I don't...people might be hurt that otherwise wouldn't be," the middle Norn said.
The fact that as a category 1 Goddess, she was immediately a target regardless of her decision didn't enter her mind for a moment. And Keiichi knew that it didn't.
"Whatever you decide will be the best course," Keiichi said. "You always know what's right, even when you don't know you know."
"Thank you, Keiichi," Belldandy said quietly.
He took a deep breath.
"Chihiro and I are thinking of developing the Sciricco for the Mithril people that have been talking to her," he admitted finally. "We weren't going to at first, but...with everything and with the Goddess thing in the open..."
Belldandy took a deep breath.
"If you didn't, people might get hurt who otherwise wouldn't have," Belldandy said after a moment. "Nothing stays the same after this."
"But we can face it all together," Keiichi said blushing and looking aside as he handed a small box over to her.
"Keiichi?" Belldandy said sitting up and taking the box and opening it.
Inside was a silver ring with a milky, translucent opal that seemed to shine in many colors.
"I...I guess I figure that everything else has been done," the engineer said. "Well, except...that."
He and Belldandy both blushed deeper and then laughed nervously in unison.
"I...I..." Belldandy took a deep breath and looked around to see if anybody was watching before she continued in a semi-giddy whisper. "We'd be the first. Cross species marriage."
"Really?" Keiichi asked. "With all the half-Gods and half-Demons and so on?"
"Nothing official or ceremonial," Belldandy said. "Even in the Doublet fortress."
"So uh..." Keiichi stuttered.
"Oh, yes!" Belldandy said loudly and then quieting down again. "Yes. Wh...when should we...?"
"How soon do you think?" Keiichi asked.
"Urd is attending...a funeral soon," the Goddess noted. "Soon after that? Just us and some friends?"
"After that then," Keiichi said
Natsume kneeled at the front of the mourners just ahead of the three women who were born Tendos and their family. Arranged behind them were a handful of martial artists that had heard about the woman's fall and come to pay their respects. Soun Tendo sat beside them, ignoring Ranma and her children for the moment to focus on his own adoptive daughter.
Ranma was dressed in a highly tasteful woman's suit. Naiki was immediately at her side, having been involved in the battle directly. The Demoness was sporting several bandages, still, following her involvement in the battle with Poseidon, but they were mostly under the suit that she had put on for the occasion.
Eija, Sousuke and Kaname had arrived out of respect for their mother's friend and for Naiki's support. They kneeled somewhere back behind the people that had actually known or fought with Kurumi, and remained quietly attentive as the Shinto priest continued the ritual. Eija was fidgiting quietly, hoping nobody noticed but wondering why she felt a bit on edge.
Mao, leaning on a temporary cane and standing beside the surviving members of the infantry that had been with them with them in the fight against Hecate, stood in a good approximation of attention. Had not one hand been on her cane and the other in a sling, she would have been saluting.
Tessa stood there with a bandage around her ankle and a cast about her broken arm. Mardukas stood behind her, looking more somber than usual. Both of them having earlier attended to the group funeral for their own troops lost in the recent action.
Persephone stood beside Urd and Mara, all three in the robes of their station. Only Persephone was mildly distracted as she looked around, feeling as if something was out of place, somehow. The worry about that was not often on her face, but could flashes of it could be seen.
Deimosu sat near Ranma, noting that several of the Demons and the couple of Gods there had turned to look at him with a mix of curiosity and anger. Yonjuu stood next to him, apparently visiting back from the Labyrinth, or else having trusted that Yaku was safe there.
Hel was sitting, uncomfortably so, a little behind Natsume, her crutch by her side as she listened to the ritual proceeding with nothing at all like boredom. She was nervous and ashamed, especially as she looked around to see the various people that had come to the funeral.
Eventually, as the ashes of her body were collect, Kurumi's sisters were called forward to help collect the ashes and unburnt bones to place within the urn for her grave. The bones were collected with chopsticks, handled by each of the four women with grave respect and undisplayed but thick emotion until all that remained of the body was put into the urn.
And then a fraction of the ashes was presented to each sister, into the four urns that they had brought with them. Each one for the family shrine of one of the four remaining sisters, even though Nabiki did not yet have her own place.
Quietly, the family urns were handed back to the sister's husbands and set down behind them, with everyone watching the sisters, wondering why they had not yet sat down even as the ritual came to an end.
Natsume held out her hand, still without a replacement prosthetic, palm open. Kasumi pulled out a small knife and placed it in Natsumi's palm, holding the knife as her adopted sister pulled her hand across the edge.
Then Kasumi took the knife and slashed it across her own palm as Natsume held her bleeding fist out over the ground in front of the temple shrine where the priest kneelled there watching in a bit of confusion.
Kasumi passed the knife to Nabiki and held her fist out with Natsume's as Nabiki slashed her palm and passed the knife on to Akane.
As the fourth fist was held out Akane looked to the left and held the knife, handle out, toward where Hel was sitting nearby. The Demoness stared in shock and confusion before struggling to her feet and accepting the knife.
Akane and the other sisters had started to look away before Hel, looking about with a look of surface confidence, also took the knife and cut her palm open with it, drawing back several looks.
The surprise of the four women was as evident at this act as most of the mourners had been when Natsume and Kasumi had first slashed their palms open.
"Okay," Akane said, reaching her open hand out to help bring Hel over to stand by Natsume.
The one-armed martial artist glanced down at the Demoness with an appraising look and continued to hold her bleeding hand out.
They held position for what seemed like ten minutes before turning about and moving back to sit down, letting the priest bring the ritual to an end. The knife was left in the ground in front of the temple shrine, much to the priest's consternation.
As the crowd started to file out, Naiki pushed forward to the shrine and took the knife out of the ground to slash her own palm open while everyone watched her. One of Mao's troops followed her and then one of the Demons. Tofu, Ryouga and Ryuu were next to take the knife, though Ryouga had difficulty cutting his hand without destroying the knife.
Urd determinedly took the knife next, handing the knife over to Mara. and on to Mao, who smirked as she cut her palm and flipped the finger in the direction of first the sky and then the ground.
Ranma stepped forward next, adding her blood to the small pool that was feeding the ground in front of what would be the temple to hold Kurumi's grave. And then Eija and Sousuke cut their palms calmly and cleanly. Kaname hesitated and gingerly did the same before passing the knife on.
Deimosu who ignored any of the eyes on him as he added his blood to the mix. Yonjuu followed him, wincing and shaking her hand a bit after the slice before holding the bleeding palm over the same spot.
Finally, Tessa reached out to take the knife, but was stopped at first by Mardukas who opened his own palm first, cleaned the blade of all the blood that he could and held it out to Tessa to use, her broken arm currently just being in the way.
Silently, Eija put forth a last effort out as people finally started to leave the blood soaked ground without another person coming up.
The blood seemed to coalesce and crystalize into the ground, forming a kanji out of what seemed to be jewels.
"One of Us."
Urd and Mara were standing together for another ceremony within eight hours. One which Mara held some lingering irritation and disappointment over, even as she consented to witness. Skuld, too, was less than certain of the wisdom behind this, but didn't interrupt no matter how much she wanted to.
Aside from them, Chihiro, Megumi and the rest of Belldandy and Keiichi's friends from Nekomi and the like were sitting in little foldout chairs listening a small shinto priest perform the rituals of marriage over Belldandy and Keiichi both.
Mara shook her head and smiled in spite of herself and the lingering urge to disrupt things according to her old mission.
"Nothing stays the same after this," she whispered.
"It'll be okay, Bell," Keiichi said. "It'll be okay. We've had bad stuff before."
"Is it selfish of me to be so appalled that Gods and Demons are dying when humans die everyday?" Belldandy asked.
"Belldandy, you're appalled when someone trips over a dog," Keiichi said. "You just don't like seeing people hurt. Neither do I."
"I don't know how to do this Keiichi," Belldandy said. "This isn't a renegade program like the Lord of Terror. This isn't some accident. It isn't...it isn't Hild. I acted like I knew what I was going to do but...I don't know about...war."
"Do you have to get involved?" Keiichi asked.
Belldandy stayed very quiet and nodded slowly, leaning against his shoulder.
"If I don't...people might be hurt that otherwise wouldn't be," the middle Norn said.
The fact that as a category 1 Goddess, she was immediately a target regardless of her decision didn't enter her mind for a moment. And Keiichi knew that it didn't.
"Whatever you decide will be the best course," Keiichi said. "You always know what's right, even when you don't know you know."
"Thank you, Keiichi," Belldandy said quietly.
He took a deep breath.
"Chihiro and I are thinking of developing the Sciricco for the Mithril people that have been talking to her," he admitted finally. "We weren't going to at first, but...with everything and with the Goddess thing in the open..."
Belldandy took a deep breath.
"If you didn't, people might get hurt who otherwise wouldn't have," Belldandy said after a moment. "Nothing stays the same after this."
"But we can face it all together," Keiichi said blushing and looking aside as he handed a small box over to her.
"Keiichi?" Belldandy said sitting up and taking the box and opening it.
Inside was a silver ring with a milky, translucent opal that seemed to shine in many colors.
"I...I guess I figure that everything else has been done," the engineer said. "Well, except...that."
He and Belldandy both blushed deeper and then laughed nervously in unison.
"I...I..." Belldandy took a deep breath and looked around to see if anybody was watching before she continued in a semi-giddy whisper. "We'd be the first. Cross species marriage."
"Really?" Keiichi asked. "With all the half-Gods and half-Demons and so on?"
"Nothing official or ceremonial," Belldandy said. "Even in the Doublet fortress."
"So uh..." Keiichi stuttered.
"Oh, yes!" Belldandy said loudly and then quieting down again. "Yes. Wh...when should we...?"
"How soon do you think?" Keiichi asked.
"Urd is attending...a funeral soon," the Goddess noted. "Soon after that? Just us and some friends?"
"After that then," Keiichi said
Natsume kneeled at the front of the mourners just ahead of the three women who were born Tendos and their family. Arranged behind them were a handful of martial artists that had heard about the woman's fall and come to pay their respects. Soun Tendo sat beside them, ignoring Ranma and her children for the moment to focus on his own adoptive daughter.
Ranma was dressed in a highly tasteful woman's suit. Naiki was immediately at her side, having been involved in the battle directly. The Demoness was sporting several bandages, still, following her involvement in the battle with Poseidon, but they were mostly under the suit that she had put on for the occasion.
Eija, Sousuke and Kaname had arrived out of respect for their mother's friend and for Naiki's support. They kneeled somewhere back behind the people that had actually known or fought with Kurumi, and remained quietly attentive as the Shinto priest continued the ritual. Eija was fidgiting quietly, hoping nobody noticed but wondering why she felt a bit on edge.
Mao, leaning on a temporary cane and standing beside the surviving members of the infantry that had been with them with them in the fight against Hecate, stood in a good approximation of attention. Had not one hand been on her cane and the other in a sling, she would have been saluting.
Tessa stood there with a bandage around her ankle and a cast about her broken arm. Mardukas stood behind her, looking more somber than usual. Both of them having earlier attended to the group funeral for their own troops lost in the recent action.
Persephone stood beside Urd and Mara, all three in the robes of their station. Only Persephone was mildly distracted as she looked around, feeling as if something was out of place, somehow. The worry about that was not often on her face, but could flashes of it could be seen.
Deimosu sat near Ranma, noting that several of the Demons and the couple of Gods there had turned to look at him with a mix of curiosity and anger. Yonjuu stood next to him, apparently visiting back from the Labyrinth, or else having trusted that Yaku was safe there.
Hel was sitting, uncomfortably so, a little behind Natsume, her crutch by her side as she listened to the ritual proceeding with nothing at all like boredom. She was nervous and ashamed, especially as she looked around to see the various people that had come to the funeral.
Eventually, as the ashes of her body were collect, Kurumi's sisters were called forward to help collect the ashes and unburnt bones to place within the urn for her grave. The bones were collected with chopsticks, handled by each of the four women with grave respect and undisplayed but thick emotion until all that remained of the body was put into the urn.
And then a fraction of the ashes was presented to each sister, into the four urns that they had brought with them. Each one for the family shrine of one of the four remaining sisters, even though Nabiki did not yet have her own place.
Quietly, the family urns were handed back to the sister's husbands and set down behind them, with everyone watching the sisters, wondering why they had not yet sat down even as the ritual came to an end.
Natsume held out her hand, still without a replacement prosthetic, palm open. Kasumi pulled out a small knife and placed it in Natsumi's palm, holding the knife as her adopted sister pulled her hand across the edge.
Then Kasumi took the knife and slashed it across her own palm as Natsume held her bleeding fist out over the ground in front of the temple shrine where the priest kneelled there watching in a bit of confusion.
Kasumi passed the knife to Nabiki and held her fist out with Natsume's as Nabiki slashed her palm and passed the knife on to Akane.
As the fourth fist was held out Akane looked to the left and held the knife, handle out, toward where Hel was sitting nearby. The Demoness stared in shock and confusion before struggling to her feet and accepting the knife.
Akane and the other sisters had started to look away before Hel, looking about with a look of surface confidence, also took the knife and cut her palm open with it, drawing back several looks.
The surprise of the four women was as evident at this act as most of the mourners had been when Natsume and Kasumi had first slashed their palms open.
"Okay," Akane said, reaching her open hand out to help bring Hel over to stand by Natsume.
The one-armed martial artist glanced down at the Demoness with an appraising look and continued to hold her bleeding hand out.
They held position for what seemed like ten minutes before turning about and moving back to sit down, letting the priest bring the ritual to an end. The knife was left in the ground in front of the temple shrine, much to the priest's consternation.
As the crowd started to file out, Naiki pushed forward to the shrine and took the knife out of the ground to slash her own palm open while everyone watched her. One of Mao's troops followed her and then one of the Demons. Tofu, Ryouga and Ryuu were next to take the knife, though Ryouga had difficulty cutting his hand without destroying the knife.
Urd determinedly took the knife next, handing the knife over to Mara. and on to Mao, who smirked as she cut her palm and flipped the finger in the direction of first the sky and then the ground.
Ranma stepped forward next, adding her blood to the small pool that was feeding the ground in front of what would be the temple to hold Kurumi's grave. And then Eija and Sousuke cut their palms calmly and cleanly. Kaname hesitated and gingerly did the same before passing the knife on.
Deimosu who ignored any of the eyes on him as he added his blood to the mix. Yonjuu followed him, wincing and shaking her hand a bit after the slice before holding the bleeding palm over the same spot.
Finally, Tessa reached out to take the knife, but was stopped at first by Mardukas who opened his own palm first, cleaned the blade of all the blood that he could and held it out to Tessa to use, her broken arm currently just being in the way.
Silently, Eija put forth a last effort out as people finally started to leave the blood soaked ground without another person coming up.
The blood seemed to coalesce and crystalize into the ground, forming a kanji out of what seemed to be jewels.
"One of Us."
Urd and Mara were standing together for another ceremony within eight hours. One which Mara held some lingering irritation and disappointment over, even as she consented to witness. Skuld, too, was less than certain of the wisdom behind this, but didn't interrupt no matter how much she wanted to.
Aside from them, Chihiro, Megumi and the rest of Belldandy and Keiichi's friends from Nekomi and the like were sitting in little foldout chairs listening a small shinto priest perform the rituals of marriage over Belldandy and Keiichi both.
Mara shook her head and smiled in spite of herself and the lingering urge to disrupt things according to her old mission.
"Nothing stays the same after this," she whispered.
What are you doing here? Deimosu asked mentally as they walked toward the train station after the wake had winded down to a close.
Sanya is watching Yaku, Yonjuu said.
She paused a moment and considered.
"You know this is odd," she said. "I got used to that very quickly."
"Yeah, it's pretty convenient," the blonde said nodding. "At least without the background noise."
He glared at the back of Kaname's head where she was chatting herself with Eija, the sensation of her echo not really bothering him too much, aside from the fact that it was Kaname. Sousuke and Kaname where standing on either side of Eija, just in case she was still a bit unstable from the battle with Poseidon.
The blue-haired girl turned around to narrow her eyes at Deimosu.
"I am not causing trouble here, buddy," she said firmly.
"I do see both of my sisters beat up," Deimosu noted angrily.
"Deimosu!" Eija snapped back. "That was unavoidable."
"Yeah, that was my fault," Naiki said, stretching out and checking her bandages.
"It still seems to me that every time Eija gets hurt then you're around," Deimosu noted.
"I suppose that is fortunate," Sousuke noted idly. "Given it means that there is someone to be there for her at least."
"Ha, good one, soldier-boy," Naiki said with a laugh.
She paused and then looked toward Sousuke again.
"Wait a minute," she protested. "I'm there for Eija!"
Kaname and Eija stopped cold and stared ahead, looking nervous, while Sousuke snapped to attention. Naiki and Deimosu turned to look forward, coming to a stop in their stride as they found their mother standing there and staring back at them with her arms crossed.
Yonjuu came to a much slower stop though she recognized the look of authority on the slightly shorter woman's face.
"Umm, Miss Satomi," Yonjuu asked.
"Chidori-san, Soldier-boy," she said. "You get my girls up to the train. I'll be there in a little bit."
"Yes, Ma'am," Sousuke said, saluting.
"I don't need hel...ow, ow," Naiki said as she hopped along.
"Really, You're bullet proof and you can't handle a stubbed toe?" Kaname asked tsking.
They still moved quickly ahead as Ranma turned and started walking slowly, encouraging Deimosu and Yonjuu to walk alongside.
"You're going to be seeing a lot of Kaname and Sousuke," Ranma said simply. "So I'd appreciate it if you kept a lid on your disapproval around them."
"She blew Eija up!" Deimosu protested.
"Months ago, and that was actually Sousuke, on accident," Ranma said. "Since then Kaname's been very good for her, both of them really. Eija goes out places now and does things...when there aren't life and death battles at least. I like that she has people she can trust and who I can trust to do anything to protect her."
Deimosu frowned and narrowed his eyes.
Why am I here? Yonjuu asked Deimosu.
"Because he'll likely leak it out to you anyway," Ranma noted.
Can she hear what I'm saying? Yonjuu asked pointing at her.
"No, I can't," Ranma said.
But... at this point Yonjuu was looking highly disturbed and confused.
"Deimosu, this girl has a worse poker face than I do," Ranma noted. "Gotta watch that."
Huh, but, whu?
Don't worry about it, Deimosu said. I think it's a mother thing.
"Then again it might just be a mother thing," Ranma noted.
Deimosu sighed and dropped his head.
Why..."...excuse me," the blonde Satomi said. "Why is Yonjuu with us?"
"Because she's going to be staying with us," Ranma said. "The warehouse should be a bit more clear, so we're going to have room for another four."
"Four?" Deimosu asked, hesitantly. "What four?""
"Why were you chosen for this honor," Morrigan asked Nimu finally after some time of silence and staring at her across from the plane.
"My...former mistress desires my body," Nimu said. "These are supposed to make sure she can't have it."
"You're talking about a spirit merger?" Morrigan noted.
"Spirit merger," the Air Force colonel asked.
"Resonance sir," Carter said. "It was mentioned in the brief that making too much use of Resonance produces a sort of blending. Like mixing paint together."
"That's what was explained to me," Nimu said.
"Spirit merger makes more sense as a term," Jack said. "And I hate agreeing with the flipping Goddess of Terror here."
"Bloodshed," Morrigan corrected.
"Whatever," Jack said.
"I find it interesting that you persist in posing as a false god," a tall, dark skinned man said in a noted term. He looked predominately human, but was quite a bit larger than anybody else in the plane.
"I am not a false god, troll," Morrigan said idly.
"You can die, can you not?" the "troll" asked.
"Never denied it," she commented.
"Are you all powerful or all knowing?" he continued.
"Of course not," Morrigan said. "Or we wouldn't need help."
"Then how can you claim to be a supreme being?" the troll asked.
"I've never claimed to be the Creator of the universe," Morrigan said. "We started to interact with you," and she gestured around at the various humans, "and you called us 'God', eventually we just kept having to respond to that and it became the name of the species. As far as I am concerned, the definition of 'God' is my species. And since I am a member of my species, I am not a false god."
She narrowed her eyes.
"I refuse to apologize because we abandoned our own cultural heritage in order to fit where you wanted us to fit," Morrigan said.
"Indeed," the troll said idly.
"Oi this is going to be a long flight," Jack said.
And it was, well up to where the plane finally landed and taxied to a stop at the military base on Japan.
Nimu pulled her luggage up to her shoulder and started to walk off of the plane down onto the American military base along with Kurz Weber, the two PRTs had stayed back in the hospital to be transferred over to Mithril's American facilities later.
Morrigan frowned as she slipped down the ramp herself, folding her arms.
"I could have gotten here much easier myself," she noted over her shoulder.
"You already know the answer to that," O'Neil said coming off the plane.
"It might have been an interesting chance to study the process, sir," a woman with short blonde hair noted.
"I am not going to hold her hand and prance through the laundry like some wimp in a musical," Jack said.
"Jack," the civilian Doctor started to say.
"Not doing it," O'Neil repeated.
"Well," Kurz said. "You guys have quarters here, I believe. The rest of us have our own places to go."
"Right, right," Jack said, waving them off. "Go, be happy little eternal life people."
"I haven't thought about it yet," Kurz said with a smirk. "For now I kind of like staying human thank you."
And with that, he and Nimu left the airfield.
"I shall see you at this meeting," Morrigan said. "For now I believe, I have to report to my superiors."
And with that she started walking away from both groups.
"Yeah, I don't suppose you mind..."
"Taking one of you with me," Morrigan noted dryly. "What a surprise. One of you must be aware that I can just leave without you stopping me."
"Yeah," Carter said. "We do apologize for the situation. I guess if you had showed up in someone else's laundry room besides the White House."
"Yes, you do have that point," Morrigan said. "Which is why I have been patient, but patience wears thin."
Sanya is watching Yaku, Yonjuu said.
She paused a moment and considered.
"You know this is odd," she said. "I got used to that very quickly."
"Yeah, it's pretty convenient," the blonde said nodding. "At least without the background noise."
He glared at the back of Kaname's head where she was chatting herself with Eija, the sensation of her echo not really bothering him too much, aside from the fact that it was Kaname. Sousuke and Kaname where standing on either side of Eija, just in case she was still a bit unstable from the battle with Poseidon.
The blue-haired girl turned around to narrow her eyes at Deimosu.
"I am not causing trouble here, buddy," she said firmly.
"I do see both of my sisters beat up," Deimosu noted angrily.
"Deimosu!" Eija snapped back. "That was unavoidable."
"Yeah, that was my fault," Naiki said, stretching out and checking her bandages.
"It still seems to me that every time Eija gets hurt then you're around," Deimosu noted.
"I suppose that is fortunate," Sousuke noted idly. "Given it means that there is someone to be there for her at least."
"Ha, good one, soldier-boy," Naiki said with a laugh.
She paused and then looked toward Sousuke again.
"Wait a minute," she protested. "I'm there for Eija!"
Kaname and Eija stopped cold and stared ahead, looking nervous, while Sousuke snapped to attention. Naiki and Deimosu turned to look forward, coming to a stop in their stride as they found their mother standing there and staring back at them with her arms crossed.
Yonjuu came to a much slower stop though she recognized the look of authority on the slightly shorter woman's face.
"Umm, Miss Satomi," Yonjuu asked.
"Chidori-san, Soldier-boy," she said. "You get my girls up to the train. I'll be there in a little bit."
"Yes, Ma'am," Sousuke said, saluting.
"I don't need hel...ow, ow," Naiki said as she hopped along.
"Really, You're bullet proof and you can't handle a stubbed toe?" Kaname asked tsking.
They still moved quickly ahead as Ranma turned and started walking slowly, encouraging Deimosu and Yonjuu to walk alongside.
"You're going to be seeing a lot of Kaname and Sousuke," Ranma said simply. "So I'd appreciate it if you kept a lid on your disapproval around them."
"She blew Eija up!" Deimosu protested.
"Months ago, and that was actually Sousuke, on accident," Ranma said. "Since then Kaname's been very good for her, both of them really. Eija goes out places now and does things...when there aren't life and death battles at least. I like that she has people she can trust and who I can trust to do anything to protect her."
Deimosu frowned and narrowed his eyes.
Why am I here? Yonjuu asked Deimosu.
"Because he'll likely leak it out to you anyway," Ranma noted.
Can she hear what I'm saying? Yonjuu asked pointing at her.
"No, I can't," Ranma said.
But... at this point Yonjuu was looking highly disturbed and confused.
"Deimosu, this girl has a worse poker face than I do," Ranma noted. "Gotta watch that."
Huh, but, whu?
Don't worry about it, Deimosu said. I think it's a mother thing.
"Then again it might just be a mother thing," Ranma noted.
Deimosu sighed and dropped his head.
Why..."...excuse me," the blonde Satomi said. "Why is Yonjuu with us?"
"Because she's going to be staying with us," Ranma said. "The warehouse should be a bit more clear, so we're going to have room for another four."
"Four?" Deimosu asked, hesitantly. "What four?""
"Why were you chosen for this honor," Morrigan asked Nimu finally after some time of silence and staring at her across from the plane.
"My...former mistress desires my body," Nimu said. "These are supposed to make sure she can't have it."
"You're talking about a spirit merger?" Morrigan noted.
"Spirit merger," the Air Force colonel asked.
"Resonance sir," Carter said. "It was mentioned in the brief that making too much use of Resonance produces a sort of blending. Like mixing paint together."
"That's what was explained to me," Nimu said.
"Spirit merger makes more sense as a term," Jack said. "And I hate agreeing with the flipping Goddess of Terror here."
"Bloodshed," Morrigan corrected.
"Whatever," Jack said.
"I find it interesting that you persist in posing as a false god," a tall, dark skinned man said in a noted term. He looked predominately human, but was quite a bit larger than anybody else in the plane.
"I am not a false god, troll," Morrigan said idly.
"You can die, can you not?" the "troll" asked.
"Never denied it," she commented.
"Are you all powerful or all knowing?" he continued.
"Of course not," Morrigan said. "Or we wouldn't need help."
"Then how can you claim to be a supreme being?" the troll asked.
"I've never claimed to be the Creator of the universe," Morrigan said. "We started to interact with you," and she gestured around at the various humans, "and you called us 'God', eventually we just kept having to respond to that and it became the name of the species. As far as I am concerned, the definition of 'God' is my species. And since I am a member of my species, I am not a false god."
She narrowed her eyes.
"I refuse to apologize because we abandoned our own cultural heritage in order to fit where you wanted us to fit," Morrigan said.
"Indeed," the troll said idly.
"Oi this is going to be a long flight," Jack said.
And it was, well up to where the plane finally landed and taxied to a stop at the military base on Japan.
Nimu pulled her luggage up to her shoulder and started to walk off of the plane down onto the American military base along with Kurz Weber, the two PRTs had stayed back in the hospital to be transferred over to Mithril's American facilities later.
Morrigan frowned as she slipped down the ramp herself, folding her arms.
"I could have gotten here much easier myself," she noted over her shoulder.
"You already know the answer to that," O'Neil said coming off the plane.
"It might have been an interesting chance to study the process, sir," a woman with short blonde hair noted.
"I am not going to hold her hand and prance through the laundry like some wimp in a musical," Jack said.
"Jack," the civilian Doctor started to say.
"Not doing it," O'Neil repeated.
"Well," Kurz said. "You guys have quarters here, I believe. The rest of us have our own places to go."
"Right, right," Jack said, waving them off. "Go, be happy little eternal life people."
"I haven't thought about it yet," Kurz said with a smirk. "For now I kind of like staying human thank you."
And with that, he and Nimu left the airfield.
"I shall see you at this meeting," Morrigan said. "For now I believe, I have to report to my superiors."
And with that she started walking away from both groups.
"Yeah, I don't suppose you mind..."
"Taking one of you with me," Morrigan noted dryly. "What a surprise. One of you must be aware that I can just leave without you stopping me."
"Yeah," Carter said. "We do apologize for the situation. I guess if you had showed up in someone else's laundry room besides the White House."
"Yes, you do have that point," Morrigan said. "Which is why I have been patient, but patience wears thin."
Tessa looked over the papers on the table in front of her and then across at the holograms facing her.
"What is your status?" Sir Mallory asked.
"Regarding the four recent actions," Tessa said, picking up her files. "You can see my casualty list for enemy and ally as well as ourselves. The conflict with Hecate DisPater is regarded a victory, indications are that could have gone much worse if she hadn't underestimated our capabilities. The biological weapons plant is also considered a victory in and of itself, note my concerns regarding infiltration. The benefits of the Canadian operation are still being considered, but we had two casualties, neither KIA, so it is at least not disaster. The attack by Poseidon is also a victory."
"Several of your SRTs are on medical leave or light duty," the tactical commander said. "And the Danaan is in dry dock for what looks like a month."
"We could be ready for limited emergency operations in as little as twelve hours," Tessa noted.
"And the paranormal assets?" Intelligence asked.
"Naiki Satomi is more of a contact than an asset," Tessa noted. "What I have from her superior is two weeks minimum, light duty. Eija Satomi should be recovered within the next week. Kaname Chidori is unscathed. Nimu Ichi and her sisters, I'm still recommending an extended training period before they are put into action again."
"Ichi reportedly did well in Canada, going by both Weber's and the American report," Zhuge said from his position, rankling some of the other division heads by his presence still.
"She's correct," the tactical leader said. "Our estimates are that the training on the Ni's is almost non-existent. Nimu Ichi is experienced, but could use some polishing."
"Is that why she's been housed with Satomi," Mallory asked.
"If I could note," the Intelligence director said. "Nimu Ichi might provide us with a route to acquire certain resources."
"You're referring to the Kuno family resources," Mallory said.
"My recommendation is to hold off on trying that," Tessa said. "That will bring Kodachi Kuno out, and while we want to do that eventually, we are not prepared currently. Nimu would have to be much better trained than current and I'd like to have fewer people on medical leave and light duty."
"Agreed," Lord Mallory said. "Start drawing up a plan of operation however."
The Intelligence division head nodded.
"We've already started," he said.
"And the question that we've been avoiding to now," Sir Mallory said. "Project Ainur, how do we plan to deal with this?"
"Captain Tessa seems to be setting up her own little empire in this," Intelligence noted.
"I am loyal to this organization, its ideals and its leaders," Tessa noted fiercely.
"There is no question that you have fulfilled all your objectives," the tactical division said. "However, it does seem that we should be looking at creating a fo...excuse me, fifth division."
"I would not advise that," Tessa said.
"Can you give your reasons?" Sir Mallory asked.
"Separation based on species will result in a lack of efficiency," Tessa said. "We'd have to redivide all the Ainur into duplicates of the existing divisions. In addition, we have vulnerabilities. As we have already seen, the network can be attacked directly and incapacitate any or all elements of that network."
"You'd create a preferred team A which has the possibility of being taken out of action in whole," the Intelligence operative noted. "Leaving you with a Team B that is probably both less trained and less experienced."
"It has been Psyche policy to requisition a tactical unit in cases where a team is expected to be needed," Zhuge said. "Psionics and the like have clear vulnerabilities. Very few have as versatile an array of abilities as Ranma Satomi or myself."
"The Gods and Demons have no choice but to organize that way," Tessa said. "Unless they fully integrate into society, because that's all that's left of their species. Also note that they feel it necessary to interact with humanity on a regular basis in order to stay grounded."
"But you do suggest that all Whispered we can offer the process too should go through it," Sir Mallory suggested.
"Regarding again, the file Kodachi Kuno, who has a limited variation of the Whispered trait," Tessa said. "Any Whispered has the potential to become what she is just on accident. This process is the only safe way for both variations of humanity to interact on a regular basis. It is really the only way we can be sure we, as an individuals, would survive at all in the long term."
"How successful is the process," Research asked.
"I have so far only offered it to a limited number of individuals," Tessa said. "What information I have from Persephone Dispater and Mara Geisthexe is that it works on almost anybody with psionic ability or significant training in using either magic or chi and on less than one percent of other individuals. Tests indicate our variation follows the success rate of metas, not enough tests yet for others."
"I see it worked on both Sergeant Major Mao and Sergeant Sagara," someone noted.
"It did not work on Ranma Satomi," Tessa noted.
"Director Satomi is a highly anomalous individual," Zhuge noted.
"Unfortunately, actually working on your Silmaril's coding so far requires Whispered or Ainur," Research said. "Which means that we are going to have at least one unit that is almost all Ainur."
"We know that trained humans can access a network," Tessa said. "It has traditionally been called magic. I think we might be able to find a work around to the vulnerability of a full Ainur staff eventually. The only remaining problem is the issue of the desirable side-effect."
"The end of aging," Sir Mallory noted. "Indeed and with it working on so few...but that is more of a political issue."
"I am curious as to why Kaname Chidori has not...'ascended' yet," Tactical noted.
"It's in her report," Intelligence said, lifting it up and turning it to the appropriate page. "A rogue element in the Whispers. Described by Eija Satomi as a dead spirit."
"Our last encounter with her severely hurt Naiki Satomi," Tessa said. "Eija has so far been able to handle this entity, but I don't doubt the next encounter will be much more dangerous. She wants Kaname for some reason. Which leads me to believe that Kaname is already more than just another Whispered."
"And currently, you are not able to withstand an attack with total confidence," Mallory noted. "All right, I believe this meeting shall be concluded. Ainur are to be included with the regular ranks and treated as per normal until a need is proven otherwise."
***********
"I am Sanya San Pillar of Strength of the San batch," Sanya declared loudly and proudly as she stared up at the green-haired girl that was looking down at her.
"I don't care if you're Lucky Number Slevin," Naiki said. "This is my room. Your room is back over there."
"Ha, you can't possibly realize, but I put first claim to this room two days ago," the younger girl noted.
"I've lived here for almost a year!" Naiki snapped back. "Get your stuff out of here now or you're going to get a spanking."
"I am not going to budge before an..."
"Sanya," Nimu said sharply. "I told you, you couldn't have that room."
"But..." Sanya said, pointing. "There are some cool things in here."
"Those are mine," Naiki protested.
"Naiki, why are you yelling at a fourteen year old at the top of your lungs?" Ranma asked casually.
"She's trying to take my room," Naiki said.
"Nimu, do you mind?" Ranma asked.
"Mind?" the older of the girls asked. "What are you going to do?"
Ranma walked into the room in question, noted the small group of items that didn't look like they belonged to Naiki and started gathering them up.
"Hey, that's my stuff?" Sanya protested stepping in the doorway and getting ready to block Ranma from getting out.
Of course, when the redhead simply picked her up and slung her up over her shoulder along with the stuff, it sort of upset her plans.
Naiki quickly got out of the way of her mother as she came out into the center area of the warehouse and then marched with a shocked Sanya all the way to the apartments that had been set up for the newcomers.
"You can't do this to me?" Sanya protested. "I'm Sanya San of the San Branch. I'm stronger than everybody so you can't."
Sanya found herself deposited on the bed in the room that had been set aside for her and then had her stuff, clothes mostly, dumped over her.
Nimu was in the doorway then staring a bit in confusion as Ranma stepped back and folded her arms, waiting for Sanya to extricate herself from the bed and make an angry declaration.
"How can you! How can you!" she demanded, stepping forward and hauling off with a heavy blow as Nimu tried to tell her to stop.
Ranma grabbed the strike and stopped it cold, a sudden brief wind washing over her body and blowing her hair back momentarily.
"Kinetic strength," Ranma said. "That'll be interesting."
"How did you...?" Sanya asked.
"Can you listen now?" Ranma asked patiently.
"Umm...yes...?" Sanya said.
"Nimu is your legal guardian, but this is my property," Ranma said. "You are guests here. I am not going to see guests behaving in an unruly manner. I saw too much of that as a kid. If you behave unruly, I'll behave unruly, and if gets to unruly only one person wins and that's not you."
"Nimu?" Sanya said in a huff.
Nimu was just staring with a little smirk on her face.
"It makes sense to me," she said, crossing her arms.
"Good," Ranma said. "Now, get your stuff put up and we'll talk about chores and training in the front room."
"Training?" Sanya said, blinking. "Real training?"
She looked hopefully toward Nimu.
"That's part of why we're here," she said.
"OH HOHOHO!" Sanya laughed out, leaning back and puffing out her chest while putting a hand to her mouth.
Ranma winced and cricked her neck.
"She inherited the laugh," Ranma sighed.
"What is your status?" Sir Mallory asked.
"Regarding the four recent actions," Tessa said, picking up her files. "You can see my casualty list for enemy and ally as well as ourselves. The conflict with Hecate DisPater is regarded a victory, indications are that could have gone much worse if she hadn't underestimated our capabilities. The biological weapons plant is also considered a victory in and of itself, note my concerns regarding infiltration. The benefits of the Canadian operation are still being considered, but we had two casualties, neither KIA, so it is at least not disaster. The attack by Poseidon is also a victory."
"Several of your SRTs are on medical leave or light duty," the tactical commander said. "And the Danaan is in dry dock for what looks like a month."
"We could be ready for limited emergency operations in as little as twelve hours," Tessa noted.
"And the paranormal assets?" Intelligence asked.
"Naiki Satomi is more of a contact than an asset," Tessa noted. "What I have from her superior is two weeks minimum, light duty. Eija Satomi should be recovered within the next week. Kaname Chidori is unscathed. Nimu Ichi and her sisters, I'm still recommending an extended training period before they are put into action again."
"Ichi reportedly did well in Canada, going by both Weber's and the American report," Zhuge said from his position, rankling some of the other division heads by his presence still.
"She's correct," the tactical leader said. "Our estimates are that the training on the Ni's is almost non-existent. Nimu Ichi is experienced, but could use some polishing."
"Is that why she's been housed with Satomi," Mallory asked.
"If I could note," the Intelligence director said. "Nimu Ichi might provide us with a route to acquire certain resources."
"You're referring to the Kuno family resources," Mallory said.
"My recommendation is to hold off on trying that," Tessa said. "That will bring Kodachi Kuno out, and while we want to do that eventually, we are not prepared currently. Nimu would have to be much better trained than current and I'd like to have fewer people on medical leave and light duty."
"Agreed," Lord Mallory said. "Start drawing up a plan of operation however."
The Intelligence division head nodded.
"We've already started," he said.
"And the question that we've been avoiding to now," Sir Mallory said. "Project Ainur, how do we plan to deal with this?"
"Captain Tessa seems to be setting up her own little empire in this," Intelligence noted.
"I am loyal to this organization, its ideals and its leaders," Tessa noted fiercely.
"There is no question that you have fulfilled all your objectives," the tactical division said. "However, it does seem that we should be looking at creating a fo...excuse me, fifth division."
"I would not advise that," Tessa said.
"Can you give your reasons?" Sir Mallory asked.
"Separation based on species will result in a lack of efficiency," Tessa said. "We'd have to redivide all the Ainur into duplicates of the existing divisions. In addition, we have vulnerabilities. As we have already seen, the network can be attacked directly and incapacitate any or all elements of that network."
"You'd create a preferred team A which has the possibility of being taken out of action in whole," the Intelligence operative noted. "Leaving you with a Team B that is probably both less trained and less experienced."
"It has been Psyche policy to requisition a tactical unit in cases where a team is expected to be needed," Zhuge said. "Psionics and the like have clear vulnerabilities. Very few have as versatile an array of abilities as Ranma Satomi or myself."
"The Gods and Demons have no choice but to organize that way," Tessa said. "Unless they fully integrate into society, because that's all that's left of their species. Also note that they feel it necessary to interact with humanity on a regular basis in order to stay grounded."
"But you do suggest that all Whispered we can offer the process too should go through it," Sir Mallory suggested.
"Regarding again, the file Kodachi Kuno, who has a limited variation of the Whispered trait," Tessa said. "Any Whispered has the potential to become what she is just on accident. This process is the only safe way for both variations of humanity to interact on a regular basis. It is really the only way we can be sure we, as an individuals, would survive at all in the long term."
"How successful is the process," Research asked.
"I have so far only offered it to a limited number of individuals," Tessa said. "What information I have from Persephone Dispater and Mara Geisthexe is that it works on almost anybody with psionic ability or significant training in using either magic or chi and on less than one percent of other individuals. Tests indicate our variation follows the success rate of metas, not enough tests yet for others."
"I see it worked on both Sergeant Major Mao and Sergeant Sagara," someone noted.
"It did not work on Ranma Satomi," Tessa noted.
"Director Satomi is a highly anomalous individual," Zhuge noted.
"Unfortunately, actually working on your Silmaril's coding so far requires Whispered or Ainur," Research said. "Which means that we are going to have at least one unit that is almost all Ainur."
"We know that trained humans can access a network," Tessa said. "It has traditionally been called magic. I think we might be able to find a work around to the vulnerability of a full Ainur staff eventually. The only remaining problem is the issue of the desirable side-effect."
"The end of aging," Sir Mallory noted. "Indeed and with it working on so few...but that is more of a political issue."
"I am curious as to why Kaname Chidori has not...'ascended' yet," Tactical noted.
"It's in her report," Intelligence said, lifting it up and turning it to the appropriate page. "A rogue element in the Whispers. Described by Eija Satomi as a dead spirit."
"Our last encounter with her severely hurt Naiki Satomi," Tessa said. "Eija has so far been able to handle this entity, but I don't doubt the next encounter will be much more dangerous. She wants Kaname for some reason. Which leads me to believe that Kaname is already more than just another Whispered."
"And currently, you are not able to withstand an attack with total confidence," Mallory noted. "All right, I believe this meeting shall be concluded. Ainur are to be included with the regular ranks and treated as per normal until a need is proven otherwise."
***********
"I am Sanya San Pillar of Strength of the San batch," Sanya declared loudly and proudly as she stared up at the green-haired girl that was looking down at her.
"I don't care if you're Lucky Number Slevin," Naiki said. "This is my room. Your room is back over there."
"Ha, you can't possibly realize, but I put first claim to this room two days ago," the younger girl noted.
"I've lived here for almost a year!" Naiki snapped back. "Get your stuff out of here now or you're going to get a spanking."
"I am not going to budge before an..."
"Sanya," Nimu said sharply. "I told you, you couldn't have that room."
"But..." Sanya said, pointing. "There are some cool things in here."
"Those are mine," Naiki protested.
"Naiki, why are you yelling at a fourteen year old at the top of your lungs?" Ranma asked casually.
"She's trying to take my room," Naiki said.
"Nimu, do you mind?" Ranma asked.
"Mind?" the older of the girls asked. "What are you going to do?"
Ranma walked into the room in question, noted the small group of items that didn't look like they belonged to Naiki and started gathering them up.
"Hey, that's my stuff?" Sanya protested stepping in the doorway and getting ready to block Ranma from getting out.
Of course, when the redhead simply picked her up and slung her up over her shoulder along with the stuff, it sort of upset her plans.
Naiki quickly got out of the way of her mother as she came out into the center area of the warehouse and then marched with a shocked Sanya all the way to the apartments that had been set up for the newcomers.
"You can't do this to me?" Sanya protested. "I'm Sanya San of the San Branch. I'm stronger than everybody so you can't."
Sanya found herself deposited on the bed in the room that had been set aside for her and then had her stuff, clothes mostly, dumped over her.
Nimu was in the doorway then staring a bit in confusion as Ranma stepped back and folded her arms, waiting for Sanya to extricate herself from the bed and make an angry declaration.
"How can you! How can you!" she demanded, stepping forward and hauling off with a heavy blow as Nimu tried to tell her to stop.
Ranma grabbed the strike and stopped it cold, a sudden brief wind washing over her body and blowing her hair back momentarily.
"Kinetic strength," Ranma said. "That'll be interesting."
"How did you...?" Sanya asked.
"Can you listen now?" Ranma asked patiently.
"Umm...yes...?" Sanya said.
"Nimu is your legal guardian, but this is my property," Ranma said. "You are guests here. I am not going to see guests behaving in an unruly manner. I saw too much of that as a kid. If you behave unruly, I'll behave unruly, and if gets to unruly only one person wins and that's not you."
"Nimu?" Sanya said in a huff.
Nimu was just staring with a little smirk on her face.
"It makes sense to me," she said, crossing her arms.
"Good," Ranma said. "Now, get your stuff put up and we'll talk about chores and training in the front room."
"Training?" Sanya said, blinking. "Real training?"
She looked hopefully toward Nimu.
"That's part of why we're here," she said.
"OH HOHOHO!" Sanya laughed out, leaning back and puffing out her chest while putting a hand to her mouth.
Ranma winced and cricked her neck.
"She inherited the laugh," Ranma sighed.
"I'm curious as to what all this is about," a woman said as she started picking through the buffet. "Usually we don't gather so many all together like this. Though it is nice to be in town and look normal for once."
Said woman was one of a handful of the minor races, as indicated by the ears trio of fox tails she had.
"Looking human gets so tiring after a while," she said, pausing to swallow down a couple grapes. "No offense."
She looked across the table at the woman on the other end, who had pale skin and long blonde hair, somewhat frayed in appearance and with three red marks on her face.
"None taken, I'm not human," Mara said, picking up something she recognized as one of Belldandy's dishes and licked her lips.
"Oh...vampyr or dhampil?" the kitsune asked. "The Harker family?"
"No, I'm not a blood-drinking human offshoot," Mara said, "nor was one of my parents a soul-rending undead abomination that my mother happened to survive an encounter with."
"Then what are you, some sort of society," the kitsune asked. "I've seen a lot of you around."
"I'm a Demon," Mara said simply.
"Right, that's what the uneducated masses call you," the kitsune said. "But what are you really, or do you just not know?"
Mara sighed.
"No, that's not what the uneducated masses call me," she said. "It's what I am. I am a Demon."
"Demon," the kitsune said hesitantly. "Immortal."
"Right," Mara said.
"Source of all the Black Magic," the kitsune noted.
"Well, certain spells anyway," she noted.
"The Demons that make deals with the forces of evil," she repeated again.
"And usually end up getting them killed in a variety of ironic ways," Mara said.
"Which Demon are you exactly?" she asked.
"Yes, you owe me favors, I note the plural," Mara said. "No, I'm not going to collect right now."
"Excuse me," she said nervously. "I'm going to go stand by the uh, exorcist over there."
"If you think it'll make you more comfortable," Mara said shrugging.
As the kitsune walked away, Mara went back to picking herself a plate of dishes. She was poking through the brisket, trying to pick out one that was as bloody as she liked it when a man walked forward and leaned over to whisper to her.
"You should be careful talking to that one," he said. "She's kind of an ends justifying the means type, uses a lot of black magic."
Mara rolled her eyes and straightened her back before turning to face the guy. He was tall with a mix of Chinese and Caucasian features and she noted an Egyptian heiroglyph tattoo on one wrist.
"Really," she said. "I didn't know that. You never know who's going to show up to this sort of thing, do you?"
***********
"Hello," Belldandy said giving a helping of rice and chicken to the person in front of her. "Thank you for coming."
The man glanced across at her cautiously, taking in her facial markings and narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. He was a rather plain looking Korean man that was rather well built and moved fairly gracefully.
"You're related to these people that appeared out of nowhere, aren't you?" he said.
"Well, yes," Belldandy said. "But I already lived here."
"So, I guess you know something about what's going on," he said.
"Yes," Belldandy said. "But I believe Miss Satomi wants to be able to broach that subject first."
"Makes sense, cuts down on rumors," the man said. "Always something, isn't it."
"Well, most of my life to now has been pretty quiet," Belldandy said. "I've only had a couple of incidents in the past. I...I'm rather hoping I prove useful in this."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," the man said. "I recognize some of the names and faces I've heard, and if you got invited to this crowd, then you've got to be pretty hefty. Just trust in the Gods to see us through this."
"Uhh...I suppose so," Belldandy said hesitantly.
Keiichi walked up to her side then and she turned toward him with a beaming smile as he put down a cooler beside her.
"Got more sodas and the sparkling water, Bell," he said cheerily.
"Oh, thank you, Keiichi...dear," she said, gripping his hand tightly and just seeming to boil over as she did so, face blushing brightly as she resisted the urge to giggle.
"Dear..." Keiichi said wonderingly as their hands intertwined.
"Newlyweds?" the man Bell had been talking to asked.
"Yeah," Keiichi said, flushing himself and scratching the back of his head.
"I hope the Gods bless your union with happiness." he said with a smile.
"Of that, I am sure," Keiichi said.
"Definitely," Belldandy noted.
Urd walked up behind the two and smirked.
"Oh, I think a particular Goddess blessed their union at least three or four times last night," Urd said as both newlyweds turned almost violet with embarrassment and closed their mouths tight. "Very loud blessing even."
A light bulb above them exploded and Urd looked up with an arched eyebrow.
"All right, I'll leave you alone," she said smiling. "About time though."
***************
"You were saying that this meeting was called by Saotome," a woman that looked very much like Akane Saotome said. "And I assumed you meant the so-called Phoenix-Slayer."
"You implied this to me as well, Herb," a severely beautiful woman with an unsmiling face and long purple hair said.
She wore her hair longer and dressed in Chinese clothes, and didn't have the same scars. However, they could have been twins.
Herb pointed to a red-headed woman dressed in a red power suit who was speaking to a nerdy looking woman who was enthusiastically taking down notes. Next to them was another woman in the uniform of a Mithril mercenary, leaning on a cane and wearing a sling.
The Akane-look-alike and the woman with purple hair glanced over toward the woman and thought nothing of it at first. It was just another of the assorted martial artists, at least by the way she moved, in the office.
However as they looked closer and started to see certain familiar facial features in the woman's face. Slowly, the fact of the woman's identity dawned on them.
The expression on the purple haired woman was easily the most amusing to Herb, especially given their respective tribes.
Ryuu Kumon walked over to the three, he took in the staring expressions of both Kiima and Shampoo and followed their line of site.
"Did you mention she has three kids yet?" he asked.
"This is not happening," Shampoo said. "This is not possible."
"Ranma Saotome is not allowed to be a parent before I'm married," Kiima protested. "Much less a mother."
"Hey, look Konatsu," Ukyou said as she walked over to join the group. "Martial Arts Spinsters."
The entire group of them felt a sudden chill and looked up to see Ranma staring across the room at them.
"Let's calm down," Herb noted.
"This sounds like a wise decision," Kiima agreed.
"This can't be happening," Shampoo repeated.
***************
Morrigan was watching Belldandy and Keiichi and noting the rings around their fingers and wondering what the heck she was supposed to think about that.
Companions weren't unusual. And long term Demon-God inter-relations were common now.
But marriage?
Nor was she certain about what Belldandy was planning to do. The other Gods were following the Norns' example, however, so there wasn't much she could say about it.
She'd held off on giving the news about Kami-sama yet, not wanting to further darken Belldandy's good mood. Though she suspected her lack of statements on that matter was...telling.
Ranma walked over to where the Socrates Group personnel were standing and held out her hand with a casual smile.
"I hear you guys are the Socrates Group people," she said in a friendly tone.
"What gave it away?" O'Neil asked taking her hand as she gave a slight bow.
"The USAF uniforms and Miss Ichi lives at my home," she said.
"Ahhh," O'Neil said. "You're running the show here for Mithril and Psyche?"
"Yeah, Ranma Satomi" Ranma said pointing over her shoulder.
"Colonel Jack O'Neil," the Air Force colonel said.
Ranma nodded and then moved toward Major Carter.
"Major Samantha Carter," the blonde noted, Ranma blinked. "Something wrong?"
"No, I just expected a British accent," the martial artist noted.
"Yeah, I've been told I look like her," the Major said.
Daniel stepped forward then to shake hands.
"Dr. Daniel Jackson," he said.
"I have heard of your prowess, Ranma Satomi," the tall dark-skinned man said. "I am Teal'c, it is an honor to meet you."
"Think I've heard that name myself," Ranma said.
"So, you've got quite a few well known names here," Jackson said, pointing around. "O'Connor's family is known for being skilled against undead. There are several families of Shinto priests. The Kamiya Kasshin school."
"And I see more Gods and Demons over there," O'Neil noted. "So, are we going to get our information soon?"
"Mithril's already reported the basics to the US," Ranma said. "But we got some new information for you in just a moment."
Said woman was one of a handful of the minor races, as indicated by the ears trio of fox tails she had.
"Looking human gets so tiring after a while," she said, pausing to swallow down a couple grapes. "No offense."
She looked across the table at the woman on the other end, who had pale skin and long blonde hair, somewhat frayed in appearance and with three red marks on her face.
"None taken, I'm not human," Mara said, picking up something she recognized as one of Belldandy's dishes and licked her lips.
"Oh...vampyr or dhampil?" the kitsune asked. "The Harker family?"
"No, I'm not a blood-drinking human offshoot," Mara said, "nor was one of my parents a soul-rending undead abomination that my mother happened to survive an encounter with."
"Then what are you, some sort of society," the kitsune asked. "I've seen a lot of you around."
"I'm a Demon," Mara said simply.
"Right, that's what the uneducated masses call you," the kitsune said. "But what are you really, or do you just not know?"
Mara sighed.
"No, that's not what the uneducated masses call me," she said. "It's what I am. I am a Demon."
"Demon," the kitsune said hesitantly. "Immortal."
"Right," Mara said.
"Source of all the Black Magic," the kitsune noted.
"Well, certain spells anyway," she noted.
"The Demons that make deals with the forces of evil," she repeated again.
"And usually end up getting them killed in a variety of ironic ways," Mara said.
"Which Demon are you exactly?" she asked.
"Yes, you owe me favors, I note the plural," Mara said. "No, I'm not going to collect right now."
"Excuse me," she said nervously. "I'm going to go stand by the uh, exorcist over there."
"If you think it'll make you more comfortable," Mara said shrugging.
As the kitsune walked away, Mara went back to picking herself a plate of dishes. She was poking through the brisket, trying to pick out one that was as bloody as she liked it when a man walked forward and leaned over to whisper to her.
"You should be careful talking to that one," he said. "She's kind of an ends justifying the means type, uses a lot of black magic."
Mara rolled her eyes and straightened her back before turning to face the guy. He was tall with a mix of Chinese and Caucasian features and she noted an Egyptian heiroglyph tattoo on one wrist.
"Really," she said. "I didn't know that. You never know who's going to show up to this sort of thing, do you?"
***********
"Hello," Belldandy said giving a helping of rice and chicken to the person in front of her. "Thank you for coming."
The man glanced across at her cautiously, taking in her facial markings and narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. He was a rather plain looking Korean man that was rather well built and moved fairly gracefully.
"You're related to these people that appeared out of nowhere, aren't you?" he said.
"Well, yes," Belldandy said. "But I already lived here."
"So, I guess you know something about what's going on," he said.
"Yes," Belldandy said. "But I believe Miss Satomi wants to be able to broach that subject first."
"Makes sense, cuts down on rumors," the man said. "Always something, isn't it."
"Well, most of my life to now has been pretty quiet," Belldandy said. "I've only had a couple of incidents in the past. I...I'm rather hoping I prove useful in this."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," the man said. "I recognize some of the names and faces I've heard, and if you got invited to this crowd, then you've got to be pretty hefty. Just trust in the Gods to see us through this."
"Uhh...I suppose so," Belldandy said hesitantly.
Keiichi walked up to her side then and she turned toward him with a beaming smile as he put down a cooler beside her.
"Got more sodas and the sparkling water, Bell," he said cheerily.
"Oh, thank you, Keiichi...dear," she said, gripping his hand tightly and just seeming to boil over as she did so, face blushing brightly as she resisted the urge to giggle.
"Dear..." Keiichi said wonderingly as their hands intertwined.
"Newlyweds?" the man Bell had been talking to asked.
"Yeah," Keiichi said, flushing himself and scratching the back of his head.
"I hope the Gods bless your union with happiness." he said with a smile.
"Of that, I am sure," Keiichi said.
"Definitely," Belldandy noted.
Urd walked up behind the two and smirked.
"Oh, I think a particular Goddess blessed their union at least three or four times last night," Urd said as both newlyweds turned almost violet with embarrassment and closed their mouths tight. "Very loud blessing even."
A light bulb above them exploded and Urd looked up with an arched eyebrow.
"All right, I'll leave you alone," she said smiling. "About time though."
***************
"You were saying that this meeting was called by Saotome," a woman that looked very much like Akane Saotome said. "And I assumed you meant the so-called Phoenix-Slayer."
"You implied this to me as well, Herb," a severely beautiful woman with an unsmiling face and long purple hair said.
She wore her hair longer and dressed in Chinese clothes, and didn't have the same scars. However, they could have been twins.
Herb pointed to a red-headed woman dressed in a red power suit who was speaking to a nerdy looking woman who was enthusiastically taking down notes. Next to them was another woman in the uniform of a Mithril mercenary, leaning on a cane and wearing a sling.
The Akane-look-alike and the woman with purple hair glanced over toward the woman and thought nothing of it at first. It was just another of the assorted martial artists, at least by the way she moved, in the office.
However as they looked closer and started to see certain familiar facial features in the woman's face. Slowly, the fact of the woman's identity dawned on them.
The expression on the purple haired woman was easily the most amusing to Herb, especially given their respective tribes.
Ryuu Kumon walked over to the three, he took in the staring expressions of both Kiima and Shampoo and followed their line of site.
"Did you mention she has three kids yet?" he asked.
"This is not happening," Shampoo said. "This is not possible."
"Ranma Saotome is not allowed to be a parent before I'm married," Kiima protested. "Much less a mother."
"Hey, look Konatsu," Ukyou said as she walked over to join the group. "Martial Arts Spinsters."
The entire group of them felt a sudden chill and looked up to see Ranma staring across the room at them.
"Let's calm down," Herb noted.
"This sounds like a wise decision," Kiima agreed.
"This can't be happening," Shampoo repeated.
***************
Morrigan was watching Belldandy and Keiichi and noting the rings around their fingers and wondering what the heck she was supposed to think about that.
Companions weren't unusual. And long term Demon-God inter-relations were common now.
But marriage?
Nor was she certain about what Belldandy was planning to do. The other Gods were following the Norns' example, however, so there wasn't much she could say about it.
She'd held off on giving the news about Kami-sama yet, not wanting to further darken Belldandy's good mood. Though she suspected her lack of statements on that matter was...telling.
Ranma walked over to where the Socrates Group personnel were standing and held out her hand with a casual smile.
"I hear you guys are the Socrates Group people," she said in a friendly tone.
"What gave it away?" O'Neil asked taking her hand as she gave a slight bow.
"The USAF uniforms and Miss Ichi lives at my home," she said.
"Ahhh," O'Neil said. "You're running the show here for Mithril and Psyche?"
"Yeah, Ranma Satomi" Ranma said pointing over her shoulder.
"Colonel Jack O'Neil," the Air Force colonel said.
Ranma nodded and then moved toward Major Carter.
"Major Samantha Carter," the blonde noted, Ranma blinked. "Something wrong?"
"No, I just expected a British accent," the martial artist noted.
"Yeah, I've been told I look like her," the Major said.
Daniel stepped forward then to shake hands.
"Dr. Daniel Jackson," he said.
"I have heard of your prowess, Ranma Satomi," the tall dark-skinned man said. "I am Teal'c, it is an honor to meet you."
"Think I've heard that name myself," Ranma said.
"So, you've got quite a few well known names here," Jackson said, pointing around. "O'Connor's family is known for being skilled against undead. There are several families of Shinto priests. The Kamiya Kasshin school."
"And I see more Gods and Demons over there," O'Neil noted. "So, are we going to get our information soon?"
"Mithril's already reported the basics to the US," Ranma said. "But we got some new information for you in just a moment."
As more of the called parties arrived and the buffet table started to grow a little bare, the various mystics, martial artists and exorcists started to find seats in the conference room as Ranma moved to the front and collected his notes.
"I hope you enjoyed the food," Ranma said calmly.
"It was heavenly," someone noted.
"I can believe it," the redhead said, mouth twitching. "I'm Ranma Satomi. I'm the Regional Director for Northeast Asia with Psyche."
There was some muttering at that.
"Even if you haven't worked with us in the past, you know Psyche's reputation," Ranma noted. "Psyche's made a mission of funding the champions of good against supernatural evils quietly and pointing them out to trouble spots for a few years now."
She glanced behind her to the screen and gestured back for it to be switched on. The lights came down and the white screen was filled with a recorded image of hundreds of men, women and children appearing in runic circles of bright light or bursts of smoke.
"The one-percent point has been coming quickly the last ten years," Ranma said. "This just put us over the edge. Everybody on Earth is starting to see us now. A lot are talking aliens right now, but it's coming. All the stuff we've managed to keep down as a rumor is going to get noticed."
Someone stood up momentarily and raised a hand before talking, not waiting to be invited to talk.
"And so this meeting is about what, public relations?" he asked. "Most governments know about this stuff already and we already know which are friendly to paranormals and which you don't want to step one inch in."
Ranma shook her head.
"Public relations is someone else's problem," Ranma said. "Okay, no, it isn't. It's my problem, but it's not the problem we're here to talk about today."
"And that problem is?" someone asked.
"Why did two hundred thousand people feel the need to appear on Earth out of nowhere?" someone asked.
"Correct," Ranma said. "That's the thing. They're clearly running from something and I can tell you its not a natural disaster."
"So what is it?" a question came.
"This is where you're going to have to bear with me a bit," the red-head noted, she gestured again and the image froze on two separate pictures.
Mao noted that the images Ranma had chosen were of Demons and Gods in childhood and looking decidedly upset and frantic.
The redhead walked to the screen and pointed first to the picture of the child with blue marks.
"God."
The Korean martial artist blinked and looked toward where Belldandy and Keiichi were sitting.
And then the child with red marks.
"Demon."
Mara waved at the man with the Egyptian heirogylph as he turned to look at her.
That provoked a lot of muttering and consideration.
"You must be joking," someone said, laughing.
"There are magicians here," Ranma said. "Have you noticed a change in the way spells work recently?"
People looked about a bit nervously.
"Spellcasting is sluggish, at best, isn't it," Ranma said. "Spells are glitching or failing enact. And some are just gone, nothing left but fancy words."
"You're saying something kicked Gods and Demons out of Heaven and Hell?" someone asked. "Are we talking about Cthulhu or something."
"No, we're talking about rebellion," Ranma said. "There are elements of both groups that decided the current leadership was too friendly with humanity and wanted to go back to the old way of doing things."
There was some whispering at that.
"For Gods, that means instead of acting guiding lights or guardian angels," Ranma said, "that they've decided we need to bow and scrape and basically be their playthings."
The vehemence and bitterness of the statement was not missed.
"For Demons, that means instead of a bunch of brimstone and fire vigilantes," Ranma said. "We have xenocidal maniacs who think this is their planet and we need to get off."
Ranma gestured for the screen to change again and it revealed four images, one Goddess and three Demonesses.
"These are our masterminds," she noted. "The Goddess Hecate was killed in action not to long ago at a cost of several lives including Kurumi Tendo. Some of you may have been at her funeral earlier in the week."
She moved on to the other three.
"These are the Furies," Ranma said. "They're somewhere on Earth but haven't poked their head out yet. Probably noticed that Hecate's head got snipped off as soon as she made herself obvious. For now, they can't access any shape-changing spells for the same reason you can't, so keep an eye out for them."
She switched the picture over to show an amateur video taken of the fight against Poseidon before he took to the sea.
"Poseidon was also one of our renegades," Ranma said. "He was killed in the Pacific Ocean."
Ranma let that set in and then turned back to the onlookers.
"You heard me right," Ranma said. "Poseidon and Hecate are dead. Not sealed or banished. Dead. D-E-D. Dead. We've come further than the renegades thought we could. Because of this, their plan has pretty much gone up in smoke around them."
She looked down into the front rows and gestured at Mara.
The woman stood up and walked up to the podium to take her position.
"Yes, I'm a Demon," Mara said. "Yes, that means the lot of you probably won't like me. I'm not going to make excuses, we've done things the way we felt they needed to be done, but that's not here or there. Most of my people, power or not, spend their days doing a nine to five job like most people. I'm military, basically an intelligence officer and right now, I'm in charge..."
She hesitated.
"...of what remains of the Nifelheim military," she noted. "We are...incapable of protecting our citizens in our current state. The numbers are...are not necessary."
She spoke quietly.
"But Hell...won't be overcrowded again for a long time whether we win or lose..." her head hung down and she took a deep breath. "...long time."
Then she rose her head and spoke clearly.
"We'll be putting our efforts behind Psyche and Mithril," she said. "I am yielding to the authority of human governments. We especially plan to support Captain Teletha Testarossa of Mithril and Director Ranma Satomi of Psyche. This is in the best interests of our civilians."
Urd and Morrigan stood up and walked forward in sheer shock while Mara continued to speak with a stone face despite the blow that admission had to have been to her pride.
Mara looked over toward Ranma and then towards the Socrates Group.
"That was mostly for the benefit of Psyche and Mithril personnel in the room," she said. "Socrates Group was an added bonus. Now, I think I'll get to the information Director Satomi wants me to focus on."
"Demons are dying," she said. "So are Gods, and there are things out there which have been sealed by us so they don't cause us trouble. Normally, if a human or someone else stumbled on one of the sites we have a seal, or if a natural disaster happened, the seal would be protected by its connection to the caster. Now, however, someone could just stumble on one of those things and out comes something nasty."
She gestured reluctantly and an image of a square inscribed in a circle appeared next to an image of an inscribed triangle.
"Our seals look like this," she said pointing to the four star circle. "And the God circles look like this. If the caster is dead, then they'll be leaking energy. A lot of these are things that couldn't die like Saffron, was already dead and wouldn't stop moving like certain Undead things some people have a bad habit of waking up, or was simply too strong for the particular Demon or God to kill. Or it was a God or Demon, whom we couldn't kill without consequence until recently."
"And I don't suppose you'll be able to tell us where these things are," O'Neil asked.
"The ones we know about are being checked and secured already," Mara said. "But there are seals out there only their caster knew about, so....yay, Cthulhu."
She twirled her finger in the air.
"I've made Director Satomi a list of known loyal Demons and known traitors," she said. "The reason you black-magicians are here is because you're on a list of people that we know don't owe favors to either criminals or traitors and haven't used these spells in a way that has had us decide to remove you from the population."
She looked toward the kitsune she'd been talking to earlier and nodded.
"Anyway," she said. "That's it for me...I believe..."
Mara stared for a moment.
"I'm not that old, five thousand years," she said. "Forty in this incarnation. I've seen the memories of when we were first born...all of us have...our people called us Keepers of Hope, because we were going to save our race from the meteor that was coming..." she said that emphatically. "...but all we could do was runaway and preserve the memory."
And then she turned away from the podium.
"And now the living memory is gone too," she said. "And all we can do is beg for help."
Mara moved to sit back down. Ranma watched Mara carefully as she sat down and then the red-head gestured for Belldandy to stand up.
The Goddess paused to pat Mara's shoulder comfortingly and moved up to the podium.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Belldandy, Goddess of Necessity, category 1, and I've chosen to add my support to Captain Testarossa and Director Satomi as well. This was a personal decision, but I'm told that most of the Gods on Earth are going to follow my lead."
She smiled and looked nervous.
"Someone gave me the advice to trust in the Gods," she said. "I hope the Creator is paying attention to our plight, but...the Gods...we have to trust in humanity. However, like Mara, I am here to give particular information."
Belldandy then gave a basic rundown of immortality, the network, reincarnation and the like to the assorted psychics.
"Category three beings are the normal, even for Gods and Demons," she noted. "Category two have either the skill or the power to heavily impact entire cities or regions with varying degrees of effort. Category one requires Yggdrasil and Nidhogg to be active to truly have more ability than category two and includes people with the combined power and skill necessary to impact things on a global scale."
"A living WMD," Jackson said.
"A living doomsday device," O'Neil noted.
"A counter Doomsday device, Colonel," Belldandy corrected. "Category one Demons and Gods combined have disarmed several potential naturally developing extinction level events since the development of the systems was made two million years ago. The people usually responsible for such things currently don't have the power to do anything about it if something happens."
"You shared how to get that much power with your enemies?" someone asked.
"We asked so nicely that they didn't notice us asking," Mara said snidely.
"I believe that's all from me," Belldandy said. "I still want to trust in the Creator and the like, I still believe that we are guided to our fortunes, even if it is up to us to make them."
She sat down and Morrigan moved forward without waiting to be called up.
"I have just a couple important pieces of information," she said. "Sorry to interrupt Miss Satomi...excuse me Director Satomi."
"Go ahead," Ranma said, arching an eyebrow.
"First...Kami-sama is dead," she said.
Belldandy gasped and missed finding her chair at the harsh reveal. Keiichi helped her stand up and move into the chair, holding her comfortingly as she started to cry.
Morrigan inwardly winced at the fact that she'd drawn it out and then hit the subject like a hammer.
"We managed to keep Yggdrasil out of the hands of the rebels," she said. "But we did not manage to inflict nearly as many casualties as the Demons did. They have active weapons and high numbers. Nor did we have as many Gods escape to Earth as Demons. At the moment, our leaders are holding off on bringing Yggdrasil up until they can at least temporarily block out the rebels."
She frowned.
"This means that the Demon rebels will be fewer in number with a lot more power per individual," Morrigan said. "Also, I have to say, Zeus will be a problem."
The "Phantom Queen" proceeded to explain Zeus's curse.
"Fortunately," she said. "We know were at least one of Zeus's children is, and he has quite a few more among pretty much every species that has women. I think I'll sit down now, because, unless I miss my guess, Satomi has a final bombshell."
Ranma frowned as Morrigan moved to sit down and stepped forward.
"And I thought I was undiplomatic," she said to a small roll of laughter. "And yeah, I have to talk about Ainur...."
"I hope you enjoyed the food," Ranma said calmly.
"It was heavenly," someone noted.
"I can believe it," the redhead said, mouth twitching. "I'm Ranma Satomi. I'm the Regional Director for Northeast Asia with Psyche."
There was some muttering at that.
"Even if you haven't worked with us in the past, you know Psyche's reputation," Ranma noted. "Psyche's made a mission of funding the champions of good against supernatural evils quietly and pointing them out to trouble spots for a few years now."
She glanced behind her to the screen and gestured back for it to be switched on. The lights came down and the white screen was filled with a recorded image of hundreds of men, women and children appearing in runic circles of bright light or bursts of smoke.
"The one-percent point has been coming quickly the last ten years," Ranma said. "This just put us over the edge. Everybody on Earth is starting to see us now. A lot are talking aliens right now, but it's coming. All the stuff we've managed to keep down as a rumor is going to get noticed."
Someone stood up momentarily and raised a hand before talking, not waiting to be invited to talk.
"And so this meeting is about what, public relations?" he asked. "Most governments know about this stuff already and we already know which are friendly to paranormals and which you don't want to step one inch in."
Ranma shook her head.
"Public relations is someone else's problem," Ranma said. "Okay, no, it isn't. It's my problem, but it's not the problem we're here to talk about today."
"And that problem is?" someone asked.
"Why did two hundred thousand people feel the need to appear on Earth out of nowhere?" someone asked.
"Correct," Ranma said. "That's the thing. They're clearly running from something and I can tell you its not a natural disaster."
"So what is it?" a question came.
"This is where you're going to have to bear with me a bit," the red-head noted, she gestured again and the image froze on two separate pictures.
Mao noted that the images Ranma had chosen were of Demons and Gods in childhood and looking decidedly upset and frantic.
The redhead walked to the screen and pointed first to the picture of the child with blue marks.
"God."
The Korean martial artist blinked and looked toward where Belldandy and Keiichi were sitting.
And then the child with red marks.
"Demon."
Mara waved at the man with the Egyptian heirogylph as he turned to look at her.
That provoked a lot of muttering and consideration.
"You must be joking," someone said, laughing.
"There are magicians here," Ranma said. "Have you noticed a change in the way spells work recently?"
People looked about a bit nervously.
"Spellcasting is sluggish, at best, isn't it," Ranma said. "Spells are glitching or failing enact. And some are just gone, nothing left but fancy words."
"You're saying something kicked Gods and Demons out of Heaven and Hell?" someone asked. "Are we talking about Cthulhu or something."
"No, we're talking about rebellion," Ranma said. "There are elements of both groups that decided the current leadership was too friendly with humanity and wanted to go back to the old way of doing things."
There was some whispering at that.
"For Gods, that means instead of acting guiding lights or guardian angels," Ranma said, "that they've decided we need to bow and scrape and basically be their playthings."
The vehemence and bitterness of the statement was not missed.
"For Demons, that means instead of a bunch of brimstone and fire vigilantes," Ranma said. "We have xenocidal maniacs who think this is their planet and we need to get off."
Ranma gestured for the screen to change again and it revealed four images, one Goddess and three Demonesses.
"These are our masterminds," she noted. "The Goddess Hecate was killed in action not to long ago at a cost of several lives including Kurumi Tendo. Some of you may have been at her funeral earlier in the week."
She moved on to the other three.
"These are the Furies," Ranma said. "They're somewhere on Earth but haven't poked their head out yet. Probably noticed that Hecate's head got snipped off as soon as she made herself obvious. For now, they can't access any shape-changing spells for the same reason you can't, so keep an eye out for them."
She switched the picture over to show an amateur video taken of the fight against Poseidon before he took to the sea.
"Poseidon was also one of our renegades," Ranma said. "He was killed in the Pacific Ocean."
Ranma let that set in and then turned back to the onlookers.
"You heard me right," Ranma said. "Poseidon and Hecate are dead. Not sealed or banished. Dead. D-E-D. Dead. We've come further than the renegades thought we could. Because of this, their plan has pretty much gone up in smoke around them."
She looked down into the front rows and gestured at Mara.
The woman stood up and walked up to the podium to take her position.
"Yes, I'm a Demon," Mara said. "Yes, that means the lot of you probably won't like me. I'm not going to make excuses, we've done things the way we felt they needed to be done, but that's not here or there. Most of my people, power or not, spend their days doing a nine to five job like most people. I'm military, basically an intelligence officer and right now, I'm in charge..."
She hesitated.
"...of what remains of the Nifelheim military," she noted. "We are...incapable of protecting our citizens in our current state. The numbers are...are not necessary."
She spoke quietly.
"But Hell...won't be overcrowded again for a long time whether we win or lose..." her head hung down and she took a deep breath. "...long time."
Then she rose her head and spoke clearly.
"We'll be putting our efforts behind Psyche and Mithril," she said. "I am yielding to the authority of human governments. We especially plan to support Captain Teletha Testarossa of Mithril and Director Ranma Satomi of Psyche. This is in the best interests of our civilians."
Urd and Morrigan stood up and walked forward in sheer shock while Mara continued to speak with a stone face despite the blow that admission had to have been to her pride.
Mara looked over toward Ranma and then towards the Socrates Group.
"That was mostly for the benefit of Psyche and Mithril personnel in the room," she said. "Socrates Group was an added bonus. Now, I think I'll get to the information Director Satomi wants me to focus on."
"Demons are dying," she said. "So are Gods, and there are things out there which have been sealed by us so they don't cause us trouble. Normally, if a human or someone else stumbled on one of the sites we have a seal, or if a natural disaster happened, the seal would be protected by its connection to the caster. Now, however, someone could just stumble on one of those things and out comes something nasty."
She gestured reluctantly and an image of a square inscribed in a circle appeared next to an image of an inscribed triangle.
"Our seals look like this," she said pointing to the four star circle. "And the God circles look like this. If the caster is dead, then they'll be leaking energy. A lot of these are things that couldn't die like Saffron, was already dead and wouldn't stop moving like certain Undead things some people have a bad habit of waking up, or was simply too strong for the particular Demon or God to kill. Or it was a God or Demon, whom we couldn't kill without consequence until recently."
"And I don't suppose you'll be able to tell us where these things are," O'Neil asked.
"The ones we know about are being checked and secured already," Mara said. "But there are seals out there only their caster knew about, so....yay, Cthulhu."
She twirled her finger in the air.
"I've made Director Satomi a list of known loyal Demons and known traitors," she said. "The reason you black-magicians are here is because you're on a list of people that we know don't owe favors to either criminals or traitors and haven't used these spells in a way that has had us decide to remove you from the population."
She looked toward the kitsune she'd been talking to earlier and nodded.
"Anyway," she said. "That's it for me...I believe..."
Mara stared for a moment.
"I'm not that old, five thousand years," she said. "Forty in this incarnation. I've seen the memories of when we were first born...all of us have...our people called us Keepers of Hope, because we were going to save our race from the meteor that was coming..." she said that emphatically. "...but all we could do was runaway and preserve the memory."
And then she turned away from the podium.
"And now the living memory is gone too," she said. "And all we can do is beg for help."
Mara moved to sit back down. Ranma watched Mara carefully as she sat down and then the red-head gestured for Belldandy to stand up.
The Goddess paused to pat Mara's shoulder comfortingly and moved up to the podium.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Belldandy, Goddess of Necessity, category 1, and I've chosen to add my support to Captain Testarossa and Director Satomi as well. This was a personal decision, but I'm told that most of the Gods on Earth are going to follow my lead."
She smiled and looked nervous.
"Someone gave me the advice to trust in the Gods," she said. "I hope the Creator is paying attention to our plight, but...the Gods...we have to trust in humanity. However, like Mara, I am here to give particular information."
Belldandy then gave a basic rundown of immortality, the network, reincarnation and the like to the assorted psychics.
"Category three beings are the normal, even for Gods and Demons," she noted. "Category two have either the skill or the power to heavily impact entire cities or regions with varying degrees of effort. Category one requires Yggdrasil and Nidhogg to be active to truly have more ability than category two and includes people with the combined power and skill necessary to impact things on a global scale."
"A living WMD," Jackson said.
"A living doomsday device," O'Neil noted.
"A counter Doomsday device, Colonel," Belldandy corrected. "Category one Demons and Gods combined have disarmed several potential naturally developing extinction level events since the development of the systems was made two million years ago. The people usually responsible for such things currently don't have the power to do anything about it if something happens."
"You shared how to get that much power with your enemies?" someone asked.
"We asked so nicely that they didn't notice us asking," Mara said snidely.
"I believe that's all from me," Belldandy said. "I still want to trust in the Creator and the like, I still believe that we are guided to our fortunes, even if it is up to us to make them."
She sat down and Morrigan moved forward without waiting to be called up.
"I have just a couple important pieces of information," she said. "Sorry to interrupt Miss Satomi...excuse me Director Satomi."
"Go ahead," Ranma said, arching an eyebrow.
"First...Kami-sama is dead," she said.
Belldandy gasped and missed finding her chair at the harsh reveal. Keiichi helped her stand up and move into the chair, holding her comfortingly as she started to cry.
Morrigan inwardly winced at the fact that she'd drawn it out and then hit the subject like a hammer.
"We managed to keep Yggdrasil out of the hands of the rebels," she said. "But we did not manage to inflict nearly as many casualties as the Demons did. They have active weapons and high numbers. Nor did we have as many Gods escape to Earth as Demons. At the moment, our leaders are holding off on bringing Yggdrasil up until they can at least temporarily block out the rebels."
She frowned.
"This means that the Demon rebels will be fewer in number with a lot more power per individual," Morrigan said. "Also, I have to say, Zeus will be a problem."
The "Phantom Queen" proceeded to explain Zeus's curse.
"Fortunately," she said. "We know were at least one of Zeus's children is, and he has quite a few more among pretty much every species that has women. I think I'll sit down now, because, unless I miss my guess, Satomi has a final bombshell."
Ranma frowned as Morrigan moved to sit down and stepped forward.
"And I thought I was undiplomatic," she said to a small roll of laughter. "And yeah, I have to talk about Ainur...."
"Now, that's the deal," Ranma said. "Most of the humans in this room are going to be offered the chance to 'ascend' if you want. Some of the people in here aren't human enough to go through the process. And you get all the vulnerabilities that come with it."
She paused and had the screen shift to another image, a set of women and girls of very similar builds and appearances. Black hair, pale skin and the woman in the middle held a rather disturbing smile underneath a look of insanity.
"This is the last thing for now," Ranma said. "After this, on to questions and volunteering."
Shampoo leaned forward in chair and frowned as she narrowed her eyes at the image.
"Rose-girl," she noted idly.
"Yeah, why does Kodachi rate as a point of discussion here," Ukyou asked.
"This is Kodachi Kuno," Ranma said. "Or at least this is the body she was born with. We have nine confirmed kills on this woman. Seven of them were confirmed by her."
"Make that twelve," Morrigan noted. "She came up in a study the Eyes ran after we found out you'd evolved a network."
"Sixteen," Mara said. "We had the same individual reports that would have told us what she was if we'd been looking for it."
"Twenty," O'Neil noted. "And we kinda knew she was a soul-sucking freak the second time."
"How is that possible?" someone asked as people looked about at the other speakers.
"What Colonel O'Neil said," Ranma said. "She has the ability to basically copy her mind into other bodies. Think Agent Smith."
"So what's the use of the picture then?" someone asked.
"So far, it sounds like she's stuck to eating...her own daughters," the redhead explained to the disturbed crowd. "So that she has bodies that look like her. She harvests her own reproductive cells, matures them to eggs, artificially inseminates them with DNA taken from the paranormal community and matures the fetus artificially."
Some other pictures appeared showing several of the recovered girls with their green marks. Ranma focused on the ones she knew for a moment.
"Nimu Ichi," she said. "That's twenty-six out of the first batch for those that don't catch it. Yonjuu Ni, four-ten, which we hope means forty, of batch two. Sanya San, thirty-eight of batch three. Musan Yon, sixty-three of batch four, and Yaku Go. Eighty-nine of batch five."
She emphasized the numbers of Yaku's name firmly and let that sink in.
"We've rescued nearly fifty girls," Ranma said. "Do the multiplication."
Several people's faces started to look a little squeamish as they did start thinking about the hundreds not accounted for.
"The Ichi branch attempted a rebellion and managed to reportedly kill seven of Kodachi's bodies," Ranma noted. "Nimu Ichi and the boasts of the woman herself are our primary sources of information so far. She keeps the girls controlled with some sort of biological control, the details are in the report. And she has any proven psychics brought to her to...eat."
Ranma looked around again.
"As to the girls themselves," she said. "They're akiras, the Ichis had some training, but since their rebellion training has been disallowed. They're basically biological byproduct and cannon fodder to Kodachi. Anybody with children feel free to be pissed."
"The Ni batch are all sensors of one variety or another," Ranma continued. "The San batch are physical adepts. Yons are all projectors, Musan produces a vertigo blast for instance. The Go batch are mental prodgies so we expect a lot of psychics in those kids. And we've only seen one Ichi so we're not sure what pattern they follow."
The redhead finished with another image of Kodachi Kuno.
"Do not use anything remotely telepathic or involving projecting your mind out at this woman," Ranma said. "Unless you're a God, Demon or Ainur or have really damn strong mental defenses. We think she's only taking her own in order to keep the same looks, but there is no guarantee. This woman is a damn virus don't expose yourself."
******
Elsewhere, Kurz was whispering to McAllen as they moved through the hallway.
"So, Mao is on medical leave, Sagara is on light duty," Kurz said idly.
"Mao has at least one thing she's doing," McAllen said with a smirk to his subordinate.
"Oh, she gets to go to a party with psychics and eat free food," Weber noted. "Wah. We're here tracking down a telepathic predator."
"Do my ears deceive me," McAllen asked with a smirk, "Or is Sergeant Weber expressing a lack of interest in a beautiful woman."
"I draw the line at someone who thinks their kids' minds are gum drops," Kurz said.
McAllen nodded and signaled to the other SRTs behind him as they moved to the next room and a burst of fire said the room was cleared.
Chatting stopped as the business of room-clearing was seen to with all focus and the only word heard was "clear" repeated successively as they moved along at rapid pace.
"You will look at me," a voice ordered as they came outside the last room. "Do you understand child. You've hidden this long enough, you''ll give it to me now."
Kurz looked to McAllen who nodded grimly. They'd already recovered a handful of these girls Kodachi bred, mostly unconscious from tranquilizers or just immobilized, apparently there was one of the woman's bodies here as well.
That was all just fine because apparently they hadn't noticed the invasion yet. These facilities, once they were found seemed very easy to take down. Every member of the team were thinking the same thing, that it wasn't likely to be so forever.
Three flashbangs were drawn, their pins pulled and tossed into the room.
"What is..." the shrill woman's voice demanded. "Intruders."
The last word sounded positively bored just before the flashbangs went off and the Mithril SRTs moved into the room.
A burst of rapid gunfire took out the dazzled and deafened mercenaries in this last room, but the main target was still moving fluidly along out of the way of the bullets, a whip ribbon flashing out to slice through the guns of several soldiers.
Kurz set himself to aiming and gauging the target as she danced among the soldiers. Some of them had moved to pistols as their primary firearms were destroyed, while others tried knives. The woman they were fighting varied her motion gracefully, making her difficult to target even without being truly faster than the bullets the way Satomi was.
However, even as she dodged and pivoted amongst the soldiers, she wasn't able to push a completely usable opening, and she was too distracted to notice Kurz studying her and waiting.
At least until he finally pulled the trigger and placed a bullet through her chest followed by two more for good measure.
"All right, everyone," McAllen said. "We're wrapping this up."
"Are you okay, Miss?" Kurz asked moving to the side of the girl they had just rescued.
"Wh..what was she going to do to me?" the girl, a clear sister of Yonjuu, asked. "I...I didn't do anything wrong."
"Don't worry," Kurz said. "Kurz Weber is here to make everything right. What's your name?"
"Shichimu Ni of the Ni batch," she said nervously looking across toward where the body of her mother lay dying. "Ahh! But we'll die without her."
"We've got a solution to that actually," McAllen said.
The dying body forced its head up, ignoring the pain as inconsequential and looked across into the rescuee's eyes.
"Eventually, child," she said gurgling. "You are going to be somewhere you feel is safe and will take you forever from my reach and then you will look back to me. And you will know, you belong to me."
Kurz fired another round of bullets into the head then.
*********
Several bodies across the planet sneered irritably.
"Well, well," she said, repeated several times over. "I'm guessing that means they've started looking for me. Interesting, that would imply that Ranma-darling is working for an organization."
She reached a hand over and took a scalpel from herself, cleaning it off as her other body started spreading open the incision she'd cut and the other moved to slice open the skull where she'd shaved it, wanting to get a good look at the brain while it was still alive and aware.
A third version of her stood over the captive God, enforcing a mental paralysis and actively probing through the man's mind looking for any sort of way to reach in and take over the body. It would be an excellent way to get a feel for this species's attitudes if she could feel the pain responses herself.
"Alas," she said. "I'm afraid that I shall have judge matters by observation rather than experience."
Across the room another of her sat at a series of instruments and studied the various already removed pieces of anatomy carefully as another beside studied the highly intriguing many layered and over-coded genetic structure.
Elsewhere, she was checking her records to see how many more of the vulnerable facilities she still had. Places that held those extra products of her true goals, breeding psychics that looked like her. In truth she didn't much care about those projects any longer. The earlier batches had mostly shown forth their usefulness already.
However, that didn't mean she especially wanted to give up on them. That was ridiculous. They were hers after all.
"I believe it is time to start experimenting with a little judicious modification," she noted calmly.
Behind her one of the other bodies glanced at where a spot of blood had gotten on her finger and all of the bodies across the world sneered in disgust.
She paused and had the screen shift to another image, a set of women and girls of very similar builds and appearances. Black hair, pale skin and the woman in the middle held a rather disturbing smile underneath a look of insanity.
"This is the last thing for now," Ranma said. "After this, on to questions and volunteering."
Shampoo leaned forward in chair and frowned as she narrowed her eyes at the image.
"Rose-girl," she noted idly.
"Yeah, why does Kodachi rate as a point of discussion here," Ukyou asked.
"This is Kodachi Kuno," Ranma said. "Or at least this is the body she was born with. We have nine confirmed kills on this woman. Seven of them were confirmed by her."
"Make that twelve," Morrigan noted. "She came up in a study the Eyes ran after we found out you'd evolved a network."
"Sixteen," Mara said. "We had the same individual reports that would have told us what she was if we'd been looking for it."
"Twenty," O'Neil noted. "And we kinda knew she was a soul-sucking freak the second time."
"How is that possible?" someone asked as people looked about at the other speakers.
"What Colonel O'Neil said," Ranma said. "She has the ability to basically copy her mind into other bodies. Think Agent Smith."
"So what's the use of the picture then?" someone asked.
"So far, it sounds like she's stuck to eating...her own daughters," the redhead explained to the disturbed crowd. "So that she has bodies that look like her. She harvests her own reproductive cells, matures them to eggs, artificially inseminates them with DNA taken from the paranormal community and matures the fetus artificially."
Some other pictures appeared showing several of the recovered girls with their green marks. Ranma focused on the ones she knew for a moment.
"Nimu Ichi," she said. "That's twenty-six out of the first batch for those that don't catch it. Yonjuu Ni, four-ten, which we hope means forty, of batch two. Sanya San, thirty-eight of batch three. Musan Yon, sixty-three of batch four, and Yaku Go. Eighty-nine of batch five."
She emphasized the numbers of Yaku's name firmly and let that sink in.
"We've rescued nearly fifty girls," Ranma said. "Do the multiplication."
Several people's faces started to look a little squeamish as they did start thinking about the hundreds not accounted for.
"The Ichi branch attempted a rebellion and managed to reportedly kill seven of Kodachi's bodies," Ranma noted. "Nimu Ichi and the boasts of the woman herself are our primary sources of information so far. She keeps the girls controlled with some sort of biological control, the details are in the report. And she has any proven psychics brought to her to...eat."
Ranma looked around again.
"As to the girls themselves," she said. "They're akiras, the Ichis had some training, but since their rebellion training has been disallowed. They're basically biological byproduct and cannon fodder to Kodachi. Anybody with children feel free to be pissed."
"The Ni batch are all sensors of one variety or another," Ranma continued. "The San batch are physical adepts. Yons are all projectors, Musan produces a vertigo blast for instance. The Go batch are mental prodgies so we expect a lot of psychics in those kids. And we've only seen one Ichi so we're not sure what pattern they follow."
The redhead finished with another image of Kodachi Kuno.
"Do not use anything remotely telepathic or involving projecting your mind out at this woman," Ranma said. "Unless you're a God, Demon or Ainur or have really damn strong mental defenses. We think she's only taking her own in order to keep the same looks, but there is no guarantee. This woman is a damn virus don't expose yourself."
******
Elsewhere, Kurz was whispering to McAllen as they moved through the hallway.
"So, Mao is on medical leave, Sagara is on light duty," Kurz said idly.
"Mao has at least one thing she's doing," McAllen said with a smirk to his subordinate.
"Oh, she gets to go to a party with psychics and eat free food," Weber noted. "Wah. We're here tracking down a telepathic predator."
"Do my ears deceive me," McAllen asked with a smirk, "Or is Sergeant Weber expressing a lack of interest in a beautiful woman."
"I draw the line at someone who thinks their kids' minds are gum drops," Kurz said.
McAllen nodded and signaled to the other SRTs behind him as they moved to the next room and a burst of fire said the room was cleared.
Chatting stopped as the business of room-clearing was seen to with all focus and the only word heard was "clear" repeated successively as they moved along at rapid pace.
"You will look at me," a voice ordered as they came outside the last room. "Do you understand child. You've hidden this long enough, you''ll give it to me now."
Kurz looked to McAllen who nodded grimly. They'd already recovered a handful of these girls Kodachi bred, mostly unconscious from tranquilizers or just immobilized, apparently there was one of the woman's bodies here as well.
That was all just fine because apparently they hadn't noticed the invasion yet. These facilities, once they were found seemed very easy to take down. Every member of the team were thinking the same thing, that it wasn't likely to be so forever.
Three flashbangs were drawn, their pins pulled and tossed into the room.
"What is..." the shrill woman's voice demanded. "Intruders."
The last word sounded positively bored just before the flashbangs went off and the Mithril SRTs moved into the room.
A burst of rapid gunfire took out the dazzled and deafened mercenaries in this last room, but the main target was still moving fluidly along out of the way of the bullets, a whip ribbon flashing out to slice through the guns of several soldiers.
Kurz set himself to aiming and gauging the target as she danced among the soldiers. Some of them had moved to pistols as their primary firearms were destroyed, while others tried knives. The woman they were fighting varied her motion gracefully, making her difficult to target even without being truly faster than the bullets the way Satomi was.
However, even as she dodged and pivoted amongst the soldiers, she wasn't able to push a completely usable opening, and she was too distracted to notice Kurz studying her and waiting.
At least until he finally pulled the trigger and placed a bullet through her chest followed by two more for good measure.
"All right, everyone," McAllen said. "We're wrapping this up."
"Are you okay, Miss?" Kurz asked moving to the side of the girl they had just rescued.
"Wh..what was she going to do to me?" the girl, a clear sister of Yonjuu, asked. "I...I didn't do anything wrong."
"Don't worry," Kurz said. "Kurz Weber is here to make everything right. What's your name?"
"Shichimu Ni of the Ni batch," she said nervously looking across toward where the body of her mother lay dying. "Ahh! But we'll die without her."
"We've got a solution to that actually," McAllen said.
The dying body forced its head up, ignoring the pain as inconsequential and looked across into the rescuee's eyes.
"Eventually, child," she said gurgling. "You are going to be somewhere you feel is safe and will take you forever from my reach and then you will look back to me. And you will know, you belong to me."
Kurz fired another round of bullets into the head then.
*********
Several bodies across the planet sneered irritably.
"Well, well," she said, repeated several times over. "I'm guessing that means they've started looking for me. Interesting, that would imply that Ranma-darling is working for an organization."
She reached a hand over and took a scalpel from herself, cleaning it off as her other body started spreading open the incision she'd cut and the other moved to slice open the skull where she'd shaved it, wanting to get a good look at the brain while it was still alive and aware.
A third version of her stood over the captive God, enforcing a mental paralysis and actively probing through the man's mind looking for any sort of way to reach in and take over the body. It would be an excellent way to get a feel for this species's attitudes if she could feel the pain responses herself.
"Alas," she said. "I'm afraid that I shall have judge matters by observation rather than experience."
Across the room another of her sat at a series of instruments and studied the various already removed pieces of anatomy carefully as another beside studied the highly intriguing many layered and over-coded genetic structure.
Elsewhere, she was checking her records to see how many more of the vulnerable facilities she still had. Places that held those extra products of her true goals, breeding psychics that looked like her. In truth she didn't much care about those projects any longer. The earlier batches had mostly shown forth their usefulness already.
However, that didn't mean she especially wanted to give up on them. That was ridiculous. They were hers after all.
"I believe it is time to start experimenting with a little judicious modification," she noted calmly.
Behind her one of the other bodies glanced at where a spot of blood had gotten on her finger and all of the bodies across the world sneered in disgust.
Mara wondered briefly at the wisdom of her maintaining the teaching position at Jindai High, but the more she thought, the more it was probably a good idea to stay close to the various young VIPs in the school.
Given that she'd taken the reins, she couldn't often be running around doing things anyway. Information would have to come to her from the various Shadows and Faustians, and that left her free to command her troops and report to Ranma what was going on.
When the storm finally hit, she'd have to abandon the cover, of course, but it meant she was in good position to basically evacuate a large number of kids out of the battle area...as soon as they had a place to go.
Given the increase in importance, however, it meant having a little more on hand than just herself was a good idea. And Mithril, Psyche and the Gods had agreed.
Of course, Mara was now listed as those needing protection rather than the protection staff. Irritably enough. The details of the security staff was being handled apparently by some Mithril person and Mara was supposed to focus on her cover and her overall task of coordinating the efforts of her Demons.
"Geisthexe-san," Miss Eri Kagurazaka asked her as the other teacher approached. "I hope you had a good summer vacation, because it's time to get to work again. And you missed a lot of time the end of last period."
"Don't I know it," Mara said idly looking over her lesson plan for the week.
She'd given the general gist of what she wanted to teach, but Tutivillus had found some actual teachers to help put it together.
"Oh," Kagurazaka said. "You have those marks on your face, does that mean?"
"Yeah, those are some of my people out there," Mara said. "It got around I was here and now I'm working paperwork for some new students."
"Tch, we're already crowded as it is," Kagurazaka said. "I'm curious, are you people really psychic."
"Yeah, we all have a little something," Mara noted wondering why more people weren't assuming massive cosmic power. "It's not really that big a deal."
"You'll have to show me something sometime, maybe read my fortune," the teacher said nervously before collecting herself and turning a friendly smile again. "You know, I've noticed a few new faces in the staff. Like in the cafeteria, janitors and the like."
"Yeah," Mara said. "Heard rumors of new teachers too, maybe to deal with the new students we're going to have."
"What in the world," Kagurazaka said looking down out the window.
Mara stood up and looked out the window and groaned as a terribly embarrassed fourteen year old girl, a God, stepped out of the limo and had two men in dark suits walking to the gate with her. It was clear from the girl's expression that this hadn't been her idea.
"Is that the Imperial Family crest on the limo?" the other teacher asked.
"Some people just don't understand the idea of low visibility," Mara thought to herself.
"Yeah, that would be Amaterasu," Mara said aloud. "She's distantly related to the Japanese Imperial Family. I suppose they wanted to make sure she was good on her first day of school."
"Oh poor girl," Kagurazaka said tsking and shaking her head. "With that name and display she's bound to get a bit more attention than she wants. Parents should really stop and think before coming up with 'clever' names like that."
**********
Ranma sneezed.
***********
Wraith looked watched the limo arrive and groaned as she watched the Japanese Imperial Bodyguards paint all sorts of targets on the school and the back of the specific girl in particular.
When she'd first had this assignment, it was as a second bodyguard for Kaname Chidori, since Sousuke Sagara was occasionally on assignment. She'd thought Sousuke's "undercover" behavior was remarkably idiotic and wondered how the hell he'd slipped under Gauron's nose through all the initial surveillance the psycho had put on the school.
This, however, made Sousuke look like a genius. Wraith glanced up into the teacher's office and watched the expression of the Demoness there basically mirror her own. That woman she could at least respect given she'd been a teacher under Wraith's nose for two months before she'd shown that she was something else.
At least Wraith was comforted in knowing that Mara's target hadn't been the person she was primarily assigned to guard.
Now, Wraith didn't particularly trust the woman and wasn't certain how to expect she'd handle running all her people as well as maintaining a cover as a teacher. Then, she supposed Mara had a lot of people to do the out-of-classroom stuff for her.
**********
"Miss Geisthexe," a girl's voice declared with loud confidence from the door behind her. "I'm calling in a favor. I want in your homeroom class."
"A favor?" Kagurazaka said, turning to look toward the speaker. "You should learn to speak more politely to your elders, Miss."
Mara rolled her eyes, favors couldn't be called in right now and favors repaid couldn't be recorded. Going along with this would be tauntamount to just giving out free labor, not something the current leader of Demons should be doing.
"Listen," Mara said, starting to turn around and look to see who had spoken. "I'll see what I...."
She took in the speaker and snorted, almost choking on the sudden burst of mirth, as she suddenly had an idea of just why the girl wanted in her class in particular.
"Oh...there is a Creator," she said reverently. "And they are both Just and Witty. HAHAHA...ha...ha.."
She started to think of some of her actions over the past few years.
"Oh no," carefully, she looked upward. "I think I'll be looking into getting religion later."
"Ummm? Is that a yes?" the girl asked.
*********
Nimu Ichi stood in Ranma's training space now and looked across toward the woman that was currently walking around and taking things in. The woman had long purple hair and crossed her hands with a severe expression.
"Ranma is busy," she said. "She has a war to plan. So I will be training you occasionally. This has been told to you?"
"She told me someone would be training me when she couldn't," Nimu noted.
"Good," the woman noted. "As I understand it, one of Ranma's daughters is currently training with Ukyou Kuonji?"
"I heard that when she discussed training assignments," the Ichi noted, arching an eyebrow.
"Then you will make sure that you surpass said girl in ability," Shampoo noted.
"From what I heard, you're some sort of Champion or something," Nimu noted. "Why would someone like you volunteer for this."
"I am less busy than Ranma," Shampoo said. "And h...she is a friend."
Quietly, she had her own thought: "we'll see about Martial Arts Spinsters."
*******
"Class we have a new teacher's aid and a new student today," the junior high teacher said smiling. "Please introduce yourselves."
"Hi, I'm Skuld Wodensdottir," the first girl said with a bright smile. "And I'm here as a student teacher because I recently graduated with a full engineering degree."
At least the Nekomi Tech courses had been something of a challenge in between studying for her currently on hold forever Goddess exams.
"Wow, you must be really smart." the teachre said, honestly impressed.
"You got that right," Skuld noted. "So if you need any help on math or science stuff, go ahead and ask me."
The teacher made a note to talk Skuld about the proper way to help before that actually happened and the girl started giving out answers willy nilly.
"That's very good," the teacher noted. "And now, why don't you introduce yourself."
The small girl stood up proudly in her uniform and turned around to write three digits on the wall over her head in a flourish.
38 - 3
"I am Sanya San!" she said with a confident thump, "The Pillar of Strength of..."
"Sanya-chan," Skuld said. "Calm down please."
She smiled over at the teacher a bit embarrassed.
"But...introduction speech," Sanya said. "I am a San. I live for this."
"At least write your name," Skuld said pointedly. "Not the number nickname thing you use."
"Huh...oh right!" Sanya turned back to chalk board and, with another flourish, wrote a series of kanji.
"I am Sanya San, cousin of Deimosu Satomi who is staying with her cousin because they're family and cousins," Sanya said. "And my name means the Cutting Arrow."
She vigorously sliced her arm across in front of her.
"San for to cut down, ya for arrow!," she said emphatically with more cutting motions. "And I am the strongest there is! And you shall see that this so. OHH HOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Skuld sighed and looked heavenward.
"Confident...isn't she?" the teacher asked.
"What an ego," Skuld thought. "Who could ever stand for someone talking about how great they are all the time."
*******************
"All right," the teacher said. "First, we need to welcome back Deimosu Satomi. I'm sure he has some interesting stories to tell about where he's been for several months."
"Oh wow, he has such sexy tattoos," one of the girls in the classroom whispered to the other.
"Damn he's back," one of the boys noted to another.
"And this is our new student," the teacher noted. "Please step forward."
"Hello, I am Yonjuu Ni," she said. "My name means Four Tools, my mind, body, soul and..."
She hesitated and looked around at the various people staring at her.
Why does it suddenly smell very, very thick in here? she asked Deimosu.
"Big, big....boobs," one of the boys whispered in the back of the room as he stared.
"Ah! She has the same tattoos that he does," a girl noted to her friend.
"Nooo, she can't be his...his..you know..." her friend said in a gasp.
I've found that hostility and random gifts are par for the course in this class, Deimosu noted.
*********
"Oh my God!" Kagurazaka-Sensei said in a gasp as she came into the classroom. "Satomi! Sagara!! Tokiwa!!! what happened to all of you? You look like you were in a war."
"No," Sousuke said. "Merely a preliminary skirmish."
Kaname moaned and put her head down on the desk.
"Well, you see, someone ran into a wall," Kyoko said. "And I was in the way. Fortunately, I went over the wall instead getting pancaked."
"Oh dear," Kagurazaka-sensei said with a frown and crossed arms. "I do hope the police put him away for good. How could someone make such a mistake.
"The perpetrator was dealt with immediately," Sousuke assured her. "I regret that I was not a party to the direct retaliation that occurred."
"I'm right there with you for once Sagara-kun," the teacher said. "People who endanger lives like that should be punished. And I wish I could have been a part of it."
Eija raised her hand.
"Yes, Satomi-chan?" the teacher said.
"All my injuries were internal," she said. "How could you tell I was hurt?"
"You looked pale and your eyes are blood red...." the teacher paused. "Nevermind."
Do I always look like someone beat me up?
No! You've totally got a sexy goth thing going on.
But I'm not goth. I'm not.
Uhhh...
I'm not willingly goth.
****************
"All right, class," Mara said, masterfully suppressing a smirk as she walked into class. "We have a new student in homeroom today. Go ahead and introduce yourself."
Until Mara had started teaching classes, Naiki hadn't spent much time paying attention to the teacher. She still didn't spend all that much time paying attention to what Mara was saying, it usually didn't deal with anything useful when they were in classes. And right now was no real exception.
She glanced aside at the new girl for a moment and almost ignored her until she noticed the red marks on her face.
Must have been one of the kids that were getting sent over here.
There wasn't all that much to the girl from Naiki's perspective. She had long brown hair that fell about her in eight oddly animated braids that fell down to her knees and never seemed to be getting in her way. She was sixteen, maybe fifteen, with narrow shoulders and long arms and legs.
She was cute in a sort of pettanko way, which was certainly not Naiki's thing. Nor was dark brown hair.
"Hello everyone," the girl said sweetly. "I'm Lusca Kraken, I'm recently here from my previous home and visiting this wonderful country, which is close to the sea. I really like the ocean and the sea. Mostly I like octopus and squid, but I've getting a little interested in sharks recently."
Naiki blinked and then arched an eyebrow as the girl seemed to hone through the crowd of students and lock eyes directly onto her position.
"Eh?" Naiki noted, looking back over her shoulder to see who else the girl could be looking at.
Then she shrugged it off as just a Demon recognizing another Demon.
"All right," Mara said. "Go ahead and we can take your seat and we can get started."
Lusca walked her way through the chairs and sat down in the seat next to Naiki and continuing to look at her as the long braids pooled about her in artistic little bunches, coiling on the desk or folding on the back of her desk.
"Uh, hello," Naiki said.
"You cast a spell from me, so you're mine," the girl sang sweetly kicking her. "You better figure out how to answer me. I said 'watch out, I ain't lyin' yeah. I ain't gonna take no fooling around. I ain't gonna take you putting me down. You cast a spell from me, so you're mine, all right?"
Naiki stared at the girl, now leaning very, very close to Naiki and smiling cutely up at her.
"Can I sit away from the creepy pettanko?" Naiki asked hopefully. "Please?"
"Sorry, Naiki, but that's where Lusca is assigned," Mara said mouth twitching.
"Oh, Satomi-sempai," Lusca said sweetly. "I'm not creepy, I'm just so totally in awe of you, surely you can see that."
"Uhhh," Naiki said, edging her desk away from Lusca's.
Lusca edged hers over just the same.
"And so it begins," Mara thought as she faced the blackboard and hid her bulging cheeks as she threatened to break out into evil laughter.
***********
"Well," Kurz asked.
"We're going to make slow going with all the security measures," McAllen said. "That leaves us with the girl for some time until we can get her to Meridia."
Kurz looked over at Shichimu where the girl was sitting and looking off into space.
"Twelve years old," he said.
Instantly, Kurz's face grimaced and he turned to look at his commanding officer.
"That is so not fair," he said shaking his head. "I wasn't thinking that at all!"
Suddenly the girl laughed for no apparent reason.
"What's so funny," Kurz asked.
"The movie," she said simply. "Oh, right...she glanced over again toward Kurz then. I see things far away when I want to. There was an add for a movie in the paper, so I decided to go see it. I mean, I'm kinda...scared with the guns and...everything."
"You know, you're supposed to pay for that," McAllen said.
The girl blinked and turned to look at him,
"I thought you were just paying for going into the theater," she said confused.
"Having it in the theater is the way they keep people from seeing without paying," Kurz said.
"Oh...I'll watch a different movie then," she said.
"That's not really the...." Kurz shook his head. "Hey, look, I'll go take you to a movie, all right. Just careful with that. That's probably how she was trying to get you."
"Get me, what do you mean?" the girl asked. "I know my sisters said not to let anyone know what my power is because I'd be taken away, but...what does she do?"
Kurz looked a little squeamish.
"If you touch her mind, or let her touch yours," he said. "She'll...basically eat your mind. So you've got to be careful with it. Don't use that power until we can protect you from her. Only a couple of weeks."
"Umm, all right," she said. "Where are my sisters? Why is it just us?"
"Because that woman will want you specifically," McAllen said. "So we're being a lot more careful with you. Want to make sure you get help."
"So, can we go to a movie then?" she asked. "Please, I don't want to just sit in here!"
McAllen grimaced and looked over toward Kurz.
"She's never seen one before," he said.
"What movie," he asked.
"There's this one about taming dragons in the...dollar theaters, I think?" she said. "Is that okay?"
"Why not," Kurz said shrugging with a smile.
Both mercenaries were more than a little cautious as they walked out with the girl towards the theater she'd pointed out in the newspaper.
"Ugg, people keep looking at me," she said. "Can I get a jacket, I forget how ugly I am sometimes."
"Trust me, kid," Kurz said. "There are plenty of women who pay lots of money to have your figure."
Shichimu stared at him a moment, mouth open.
"Why?" she asked.
"Yeah, we'll want to get you something anyway," McAllen said, glaring at a guy. "Probably a hat too."
"See, I'm ugly," the girl said. "No need to pretend."
"Look you're not...never mind," Kurz said. "We're here."
It was only a couple of minutes to get into the theater and as the first preview started to roll, Shichimu had one comment to make.
"Ah! There's sound!" she called out. "That's great! Do all movies have sound! What language is that?"
*******************
"I have that ID for you, Ma...Si...how should I refer to as?" Yomiko asked.
"Ma'am as a lady, excuse me woman," Ranma said. "Sir as a guy, let's try to get things as separate as possible. What's my name and stuff."
"Li Kurosawa, and your cell phone," she said handing the woman the identifications and papers she'd collected. "Private contractor in the region, I used the events you mentioned. Are you sure there'll be no problem with the real person claiming credit?"
"Dead, exorcised, sealed, buried under a rock in Kilimanjaro," Ranma noted.
"Uhh, all right," Yomiko said hesitantly.
"All right," she said. "Best give this a bit of a work out. You've got butterfly paper if we get something that needs immediate attention, or this cell, but let's keep contact between my male form and this office to a minimum of technologically trackable methods."
"Why are we doing it this way, Sir?" she asked. "Do you not trust Mithril or Psyche?"
"Not that," Ranma said. "It's always good to have a personal escape clause just in case something worms its way in. Having personal outs is a good way to get other people to safety too."
"So you already have some personal escapes?" she asked.
"I do," Ranma said with a smile as she gave no more information and walked out the door.
Ranma walked out of the office female and two blocks away, she shifted into male after ducking a corner.
He continued walking along just measuring his stride and attitude, making sure none of the last seventeen years gave him any tendencies that would stand out as more feminine than normal. Not that she especially femainine in the way most people thought of the word, but still.
It was about thirty minutes before he walked into a restaurant and moved to a table to sit down and start to look for a menu.
"Oh, excuse me," a woman said beside him, a certain playful humor in the voice. "Do you mind if I sit here? I can't seem to find any other seats."
Ranma leaned forward and laughed slightly before turning up to look at Mao.
"Mao, sit down and get off that leg," he said.
"I believe the line was 'fine with me, sit 'er down,'" Mao noted with half-lidded teasing eyes.
However, she did sit down and looked relieved as she did so.
"And then we start talking about how I lost a bet," she noted.
"We are not recreating our first meeting here," Ranma said smirking.
"Well that's fine..." she let the word draw out.
"Li Kurosawa," he said.
"Ah, right," the American said playfully. "So, your first socializing in this country..."
She gestured up his body indicating 'this country' to mean his male form.
"...and you decide to test it by taking me out on a date," she said with a smirk.
"That depends," Ranma said.
"On what?" Mao asked.
"What do you think of the other country?" Ranma asked.
Mao leaned over on her good arm and got in Ranma's face.
"The other country's just fine," she said. "I'm perfectly willing to visit the embassy and maybe visit and exchange drinks. But don't expect me to go spelunking."
"I wasn't going to," Ranma said chuckling. "Trust me there."
"So, can we get on to the fun part?" Mao asked.
The waiter walked over before Ranma could answer and took up his pad as he looked toward them and smiled.
"Can I get the gentleman and lady a drink?" he asked.
"Heinenken," Mao said quickly. "In a bottle if you can."
"All right," he said, blinking a little at the selection. "And for you sir?"
"Saki," he said with a smile. "Impolite not to drink if the lady is."
"Careful buddy," Mao said pointing at him. "I could end up ordering the lobster here."
"We don't actually have..." the waiter started to say.
"It's an expression," Mao said. "Probably loses something in translation."
"I...see," he said, slghtly confused.
Given that she'd taken the reins, she couldn't often be running around doing things anyway. Information would have to come to her from the various Shadows and Faustians, and that left her free to command her troops and report to Ranma what was going on.
When the storm finally hit, she'd have to abandon the cover, of course, but it meant she was in good position to basically evacuate a large number of kids out of the battle area...as soon as they had a place to go.
Given the increase in importance, however, it meant having a little more on hand than just herself was a good idea. And Mithril, Psyche and the Gods had agreed.
Of course, Mara was now listed as those needing protection rather than the protection staff. Irritably enough. The details of the security staff was being handled apparently by some Mithril person and Mara was supposed to focus on her cover and her overall task of coordinating the efforts of her Demons.
"Geisthexe-san," Miss Eri Kagurazaka asked her as the other teacher approached. "I hope you had a good summer vacation, because it's time to get to work again. And you missed a lot of time the end of last period."
"Don't I know it," Mara said idly looking over her lesson plan for the week.
She'd given the general gist of what she wanted to teach, but Tutivillus had found some actual teachers to help put it together.
"Oh," Kagurazaka said. "You have those marks on your face, does that mean?"
"Yeah, those are some of my people out there," Mara said. "It got around I was here and now I'm working paperwork for some new students."
"Tch, we're already crowded as it is," Kagurazaka said. "I'm curious, are you people really psychic."
"Yeah, we all have a little something," Mara noted wondering why more people weren't assuming massive cosmic power. "It's not really that big a deal."
"You'll have to show me something sometime, maybe read my fortune," the teacher said nervously before collecting herself and turning a friendly smile again. "You know, I've noticed a few new faces in the staff. Like in the cafeteria, janitors and the like."
"Yeah," Mara said. "Heard rumors of new teachers too, maybe to deal with the new students we're going to have."
"What in the world," Kagurazaka said looking down out the window.
Mara stood up and looked out the window and groaned as a terribly embarrassed fourteen year old girl, a God, stepped out of the limo and had two men in dark suits walking to the gate with her. It was clear from the girl's expression that this hadn't been her idea.
"Is that the Imperial Family crest on the limo?" the other teacher asked.
"Some people just don't understand the idea of low visibility," Mara thought to herself.
"Yeah, that would be Amaterasu," Mara said aloud. "She's distantly related to the Japanese Imperial Family. I suppose they wanted to make sure she was good on her first day of school."
"Oh poor girl," Kagurazaka said tsking and shaking her head. "With that name and display she's bound to get a bit more attention than she wants. Parents should really stop and think before coming up with 'clever' names like that."
**********
Ranma sneezed.
***********
Wraith looked watched the limo arrive and groaned as she watched the Japanese Imperial Bodyguards paint all sorts of targets on the school and the back of the specific girl in particular.
When she'd first had this assignment, it was as a second bodyguard for Kaname Chidori, since Sousuke Sagara was occasionally on assignment. She'd thought Sousuke's "undercover" behavior was remarkably idiotic and wondered how the hell he'd slipped under Gauron's nose through all the initial surveillance the psycho had put on the school.
This, however, made Sousuke look like a genius. Wraith glanced up into the teacher's office and watched the expression of the Demoness there basically mirror her own. That woman she could at least respect given she'd been a teacher under Wraith's nose for two months before she'd shown that she was something else.
At least Wraith was comforted in knowing that Mara's target hadn't been the person she was primarily assigned to guard.
Now, Wraith didn't particularly trust the woman and wasn't certain how to expect she'd handle running all her people as well as maintaining a cover as a teacher. Then, she supposed Mara had a lot of people to do the out-of-classroom stuff for her.
**********
"Miss Geisthexe," a girl's voice declared with loud confidence from the door behind her. "I'm calling in a favor. I want in your homeroom class."
"A favor?" Kagurazaka said, turning to look toward the speaker. "You should learn to speak more politely to your elders, Miss."
Mara rolled her eyes, favors couldn't be called in right now and favors repaid couldn't be recorded. Going along with this would be tauntamount to just giving out free labor, not something the current leader of Demons should be doing.
"Listen," Mara said, starting to turn around and look to see who had spoken. "I'll see what I...."
She took in the speaker and snorted, almost choking on the sudden burst of mirth, as she suddenly had an idea of just why the girl wanted in her class in particular.
"Oh...there is a Creator," she said reverently. "And they are both Just and Witty. HAHAHA...ha...ha.."
She started to think of some of her actions over the past few years.
"Oh no," carefully, she looked upward. "I think I'll be looking into getting religion later."
"Ummm? Is that a yes?" the girl asked.
*********
Nimu Ichi stood in Ranma's training space now and looked across toward the woman that was currently walking around and taking things in. The woman had long purple hair and crossed her hands with a severe expression.
"Ranma is busy," she said. "She has a war to plan. So I will be training you occasionally. This has been told to you?"
"She told me someone would be training me when she couldn't," Nimu noted.
"Good," the woman noted. "As I understand it, one of Ranma's daughters is currently training with Ukyou Kuonji?"
"I heard that when she discussed training assignments," the Ichi noted, arching an eyebrow.
"Then you will make sure that you surpass said girl in ability," Shampoo noted.
"From what I heard, you're some sort of Champion or something," Nimu noted. "Why would someone like you volunteer for this."
"I am less busy than Ranma," Shampoo said. "And h...she is a friend."
Quietly, she had her own thought: "we'll see about Martial Arts Spinsters."
*******
"Class we have a new teacher's aid and a new student today," the junior high teacher said smiling. "Please introduce yourselves."
"Hi, I'm Skuld Wodensdottir," the first girl said with a bright smile. "And I'm here as a student teacher because I recently graduated with a full engineering degree."
At least the Nekomi Tech courses had been something of a challenge in between studying for her currently on hold forever Goddess exams.
"Wow, you must be really smart." the teachre said, honestly impressed.
"You got that right," Skuld noted. "So if you need any help on math or science stuff, go ahead and ask me."
The teacher made a note to talk Skuld about the proper way to help before that actually happened and the girl started giving out answers willy nilly.
"That's very good," the teacher noted. "And now, why don't you introduce yourself."
The small girl stood up proudly in her uniform and turned around to write three digits on the wall over her head in a flourish.
38 - 3
"I am Sanya San!" she said with a confident thump, "The Pillar of Strength of..."
"Sanya-chan," Skuld said. "Calm down please."
She smiled over at the teacher a bit embarrassed.
"But...introduction speech," Sanya said. "I am a San. I live for this."
"At least write your name," Skuld said pointedly. "Not the number nickname thing you use."
"Huh...oh right!" Sanya turned back to chalk board and, with another flourish, wrote a series of kanji.
"I am Sanya San, cousin of Deimosu Satomi who is staying with her cousin because they're family and cousins," Sanya said. "And my name means the Cutting Arrow."
She vigorously sliced her arm across in front of her.
"San for to cut down, ya for arrow!," she said emphatically with more cutting motions. "And I am the strongest there is! And you shall see that this so. OHH HOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Skuld sighed and looked heavenward.
"Confident...isn't she?" the teacher asked.
"What an ego," Skuld thought. "Who could ever stand for someone talking about how great they are all the time."
*******************
"All right," the teacher said. "First, we need to welcome back Deimosu Satomi. I'm sure he has some interesting stories to tell about where he's been for several months."
"Oh wow, he has such sexy tattoos," one of the girls in the classroom whispered to the other.
"Damn he's back," one of the boys noted to another.
"And this is our new student," the teacher noted. "Please step forward."
"Hello, I am Yonjuu Ni," she said. "My name means Four Tools, my mind, body, soul and..."
She hesitated and looked around at the various people staring at her.
Why does it suddenly smell very, very thick in here? she asked Deimosu.
"Big, big....boobs," one of the boys whispered in the back of the room as he stared.
"Ah! She has the same tattoos that he does," a girl noted to her friend.
"Nooo, she can't be his...his..you know..." her friend said in a gasp.
I've found that hostility and random gifts are par for the course in this class, Deimosu noted.
*********
"Oh my God!" Kagurazaka-Sensei said in a gasp as she came into the classroom. "Satomi! Sagara!! Tokiwa!!! what happened to all of you? You look like you were in a war."
"No," Sousuke said. "Merely a preliminary skirmish."
Kaname moaned and put her head down on the desk.
"Well, you see, someone ran into a wall," Kyoko said. "And I was in the way. Fortunately, I went over the wall instead getting pancaked."
"Oh dear," Kagurazaka-sensei said with a frown and crossed arms. "I do hope the police put him away for good. How could someone make such a mistake.
"The perpetrator was dealt with immediately," Sousuke assured her. "I regret that I was not a party to the direct retaliation that occurred."
"I'm right there with you for once Sagara-kun," the teacher said. "People who endanger lives like that should be punished. And I wish I could have been a part of it."
Eija raised her hand.
"Yes, Satomi-chan?" the teacher said.
"All my injuries were internal," she said. "How could you tell I was hurt?"
"You looked pale and your eyes are blood red...." the teacher paused. "Nevermind."
Do I always look like someone beat me up?
No! You've totally got a sexy goth thing going on.
But I'm not goth. I'm not.
Uhhh...
I'm not willingly goth.
****************
"All right, class," Mara said, masterfully suppressing a smirk as she walked into class. "We have a new student in homeroom today. Go ahead and introduce yourself."
Until Mara had started teaching classes, Naiki hadn't spent much time paying attention to the teacher. She still didn't spend all that much time paying attention to what Mara was saying, it usually didn't deal with anything useful when they were in classes. And right now was no real exception.
She glanced aside at the new girl for a moment and almost ignored her until she noticed the red marks on her face.
Must have been one of the kids that were getting sent over here.
There wasn't all that much to the girl from Naiki's perspective. She had long brown hair that fell about her in eight oddly animated braids that fell down to her knees and never seemed to be getting in her way. She was sixteen, maybe fifteen, with narrow shoulders and long arms and legs.
She was cute in a sort of pettanko way, which was certainly not Naiki's thing. Nor was dark brown hair.
"Hello everyone," the girl said sweetly. "I'm Lusca Kraken, I'm recently here from my previous home and visiting this wonderful country, which is close to the sea. I really like the ocean and the sea. Mostly I like octopus and squid, but I've getting a little interested in sharks recently."
Naiki blinked and then arched an eyebrow as the girl seemed to hone through the crowd of students and lock eyes directly onto her position.
"Eh?" Naiki noted, looking back over her shoulder to see who else the girl could be looking at.
Then she shrugged it off as just a Demon recognizing another Demon.
"All right," Mara said. "Go ahead and we can take your seat and we can get started."
Lusca walked her way through the chairs and sat down in the seat next to Naiki and continuing to look at her as the long braids pooled about her in artistic little bunches, coiling on the desk or folding on the back of her desk.
"Uh, hello," Naiki said.
"You cast a spell from me, so you're mine," the girl sang sweetly kicking her. "You better figure out how to answer me. I said 'watch out, I ain't lyin' yeah. I ain't gonna take no fooling around. I ain't gonna take you putting me down. You cast a spell from me, so you're mine, all right?"
Naiki stared at the girl, now leaning very, very close to Naiki and smiling cutely up at her.
"Can I sit away from the creepy pettanko?" Naiki asked hopefully. "Please?"
"Sorry, Naiki, but that's where Lusca is assigned," Mara said mouth twitching.
"Oh, Satomi-sempai," Lusca said sweetly. "I'm not creepy, I'm just so totally in awe of you, surely you can see that."
"Uhhh," Naiki said, edging her desk away from Lusca's.
Lusca edged hers over just the same.
"And so it begins," Mara thought as she faced the blackboard and hid her bulging cheeks as she threatened to break out into evil laughter.
***********
"Well," Kurz asked.
"We're going to make slow going with all the security measures," McAllen said. "That leaves us with the girl for some time until we can get her to Meridia."
Kurz looked over at Shichimu where the girl was sitting and looking off into space.
"Twelve years old," he said.
Instantly, Kurz's face grimaced and he turned to look at his commanding officer.
"That is so not fair," he said shaking his head. "I wasn't thinking that at all!"
Suddenly the girl laughed for no apparent reason.
"What's so funny," Kurz asked.
"The movie," she said simply. "Oh, right...she glanced over again toward Kurz then. I see things far away when I want to. There was an add for a movie in the paper, so I decided to go see it. I mean, I'm kinda...scared with the guns and...everything."
"You know, you're supposed to pay for that," McAllen said.
The girl blinked and turned to look at him,
"I thought you were just paying for going into the theater," she said confused.
"Having it in the theater is the way they keep people from seeing without paying," Kurz said.
"Oh...I'll watch a different movie then," she said.
"That's not really the...." Kurz shook his head. "Hey, look, I'll go take you to a movie, all right. Just careful with that. That's probably how she was trying to get you."
"Get me, what do you mean?" the girl asked. "I know my sisters said not to let anyone know what my power is because I'd be taken away, but...what does she do?"
Kurz looked a little squeamish.
"If you touch her mind, or let her touch yours," he said. "She'll...basically eat your mind. So you've got to be careful with it. Don't use that power until we can protect you from her. Only a couple of weeks."
"Umm, all right," she said. "Where are my sisters? Why is it just us?"
"Because that woman will want you specifically," McAllen said. "So we're being a lot more careful with you. Want to make sure you get help."
"So, can we go to a movie then?" she asked. "Please, I don't want to just sit in here!"
McAllen grimaced and looked over toward Kurz.
"She's never seen one before," he said.
"What movie," he asked.
"There's this one about taming dragons in the...dollar theaters, I think?" she said. "Is that okay?"
"Why not," Kurz said shrugging with a smile.
Both mercenaries were more than a little cautious as they walked out with the girl towards the theater she'd pointed out in the newspaper.
"Ugg, people keep looking at me," she said. "Can I get a jacket, I forget how ugly I am sometimes."
"Trust me, kid," Kurz said. "There are plenty of women who pay lots of money to have your figure."
Shichimu stared at him a moment, mouth open.
"Why?" she asked.
"Yeah, we'll want to get you something anyway," McAllen said, glaring at a guy. "Probably a hat too."
"See, I'm ugly," the girl said. "No need to pretend."
"Look you're not...never mind," Kurz said. "We're here."
It was only a couple of minutes to get into the theater and as the first preview started to roll, Shichimu had one comment to make.
"Ah! There's sound!" she called out. "That's great! Do all movies have sound! What language is that?"
*******************
"I have that ID for you, Ma...Si...how should I refer to as?" Yomiko asked.
"Ma'am as a lady, excuse me woman," Ranma said. "Sir as a guy, let's try to get things as separate as possible. What's my name and stuff."
"Li Kurosawa, and your cell phone," she said handing the woman the identifications and papers she'd collected. "Private contractor in the region, I used the events you mentioned. Are you sure there'll be no problem with the real person claiming credit?"
"Dead, exorcised, sealed, buried under a rock in Kilimanjaro," Ranma noted.
"Uhh, all right," Yomiko said hesitantly.
"All right," she said. "Best give this a bit of a work out. You've got butterfly paper if we get something that needs immediate attention, or this cell, but let's keep contact between my male form and this office to a minimum of technologically trackable methods."
"Why are we doing it this way, Sir?" she asked. "Do you not trust Mithril or Psyche?"
"Not that," Ranma said. "It's always good to have a personal escape clause just in case something worms its way in. Having personal outs is a good way to get other people to safety too."
"So you already have some personal escapes?" she asked.
"I do," Ranma said with a smile as she gave no more information and walked out the door.
Ranma walked out of the office female and two blocks away, she shifted into male after ducking a corner.
He continued walking along just measuring his stride and attitude, making sure none of the last seventeen years gave him any tendencies that would stand out as more feminine than normal. Not that she especially femainine in the way most people thought of the word, but still.
It was about thirty minutes before he walked into a restaurant and moved to a table to sit down and start to look for a menu.
"Oh, excuse me," a woman said beside him, a certain playful humor in the voice. "Do you mind if I sit here? I can't seem to find any other seats."
Ranma leaned forward and laughed slightly before turning up to look at Mao.
"Mao, sit down and get off that leg," he said.
"I believe the line was 'fine with me, sit 'er down,'" Mao noted with half-lidded teasing eyes.
However, she did sit down and looked relieved as she did so.
"And then we start talking about how I lost a bet," she noted.
"We are not recreating our first meeting here," Ranma said smirking.
"Well that's fine..." she let the word draw out.
"Li Kurosawa," he said.
"Ah, right," the American said playfully. "So, your first socializing in this country..."
She gestured up his body indicating 'this country' to mean his male form.
"...and you decide to test it by taking me out on a date," she said with a smirk.
"That depends," Ranma said.
"On what?" Mao asked.
"What do you think of the other country?" Ranma asked.
Mao leaned over on her good arm and got in Ranma's face.
"The other country's just fine," she said. "I'm perfectly willing to visit the embassy and maybe visit and exchange drinks. But don't expect me to go spelunking."
"I wasn't going to," Ranma said chuckling. "Trust me there."
"So, can we get on to the fun part?" Mao asked.
The waiter walked over before Ranma could answer and took up his pad as he looked toward them and smiled.
"Can I get the gentleman and lady a drink?" he asked.
"Heinenken," Mao said quickly. "In a bottle if you can."
"All right," he said, blinking a little at the selection. "And for you sir?"
"Saki," he said with a smile. "Impolite not to drink if the lady is."
"Careful buddy," Mao said pointing at him. "I could end up ordering the lobster here."
"We don't actually have..." the waiter started to say.
"It's an expression," Mao said. "Probably loses something in translation."
"I...see," he said, slghtly confused.