Receiving a single message that said I should continue working, here is
chapter 1. C&C appreciated. Flames and generally telling me off is not.

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The Mongoose and the Guyver
by Thomas Hamill
*The Guyver is a trademarked term, and it isn't owned by me.*
*Ranma 1/2 and all its characters were created by Takahashi Rumiko.*
*Killian J. Harper and Yowaki are original characters, and are not 
owned by * *any conglomeration.*

Chapter 1

	*It's a goddamn Saturday!* Killian angrily thought. *If the old 
bastard wants me to do some crazy test on me, the least he can do is be 
on time!* Looking around the small laboratory, filled with computers 
and glass containers, each holding some odd technological artifact. 
	*Heeello. What's this?* Killian looked around, making sure no 
one was around. He  reached inside the case, picked up the odd, 
hexagonal disk. Organic looking cables circled the center, and some 
sort of dark metal reaching from the center hemisphere, wrapping 
around the "corners" of the disk. Killian hefted it in the air, testing
its 
weight. *Damn! This thing is heavy!* He thought. 
	"Killian J. Harper!" A bellowing voice shouted. Or at least it 
tried to bellow. "How many times do I have to tell you! DON'T 
TOUCH ANYTHING!"
	Giving the doctor an amused look, the teenager calmly asked 
"relax. It's just a funny looking discu-AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The 
reply was cut off in mid word, as the disk exploded into action. The 
organic cables shot from the "disk," and began to wrap the high school 
student. Killian never stopped screaming.
	*D-damn! T-this really HURTS!* The cables finished their 
business, and Killian was on the floor, completely unconscious.
	"Incredible! The legends were true!" Dr. Jones shouted 
excitedly.

	Several hours later, Killian awoke on a couch. The ugliest damn 
couch in the world. It was a mottled brown with orange splotches. It 
was also slightly less comfortable than the floor when one laid upon it. 
Looking around the cluttered lounge, the confused student righted 
himself. "Owwww..." he stated, holding his throbbing head in his hands. 
"What in the Nine Hells happened?" A vision came into his mind, of a 
suit of organic looking armor, all black, with long talons on each hand.
It 
was tearing apart a monster of some type, its fur and limbs quickly 
littering the ground. Killian shivered, violently. It wasn't the scene
that 
disturbed him, it the feeling that the armored figure, would _be_ him.
	"Among us living, Hmmm?" Standing, Killian looked towards 
Dr. Jones. "You know, the military has been sucking up to me for the 
past few hours, while you were unconscious."
	"Why?" Killian asked. "Why would the Army want me?"
	"Because," the doctor began, adjusting his glasses so they 
flashed once in the overhead lights. "You are the only known Guyver."

================================================

	Killian awoke from the dream soaked in cold, clammy, sheets. 
Breathing hard, the Guyver slowly brought his heartbeat return to 
normal levels. Thinking back, it seemed that "Dr. Jones" had done 
everything that was humanly possible to mess up his life. At a very 
young age, the doctor started "treatments," administered through shots, 
to turn the young man into an enhanced human. Then the Guyver unit - 
and his subsequent martial status, always training to "use" the Guyver
to 
its full extent. Damn the unit.
	"Guyver Talon?" A concerned voice rang through the small 
room. "Are you okay? I heard you scream, and thought you might be in 
trouble."
	"I wasn't in trouble , it was that damnable Dream, again." 
Looking at the cat-girl, Killian rethought his earlier decision about
the 
unit. "And please don't give me any more of this 'Guyver Talon' shit. I 
realize that is what I am, but it isn't my _name_."
	"Oh." A moment of silence. "What is your name?"
	"Killian."

	The dawn found one of the residents of the large, for New 
York City, apartment on the roof, "meditating."
	Something tapped him on the shoulder. Killian jumped five feet 
straight up, and shouted. Quite a feat for a person not using the armor 
or trained extensively in the martial arts.
	"Don't do that, Yowaki!" The Guyver berated the horned 
mongoose. "You scared me almost to death.'
	Grinning, the magical creature stuck its tongue out at its friend 
and made a rude noise.	
	"Don't give me that 'I'm-an-innocent-stupid-creature' routine. 
You and I both know you speak perfectly good English. And Japanese. 
And Mandarin. And German. And God knows how many other 
languages."
	Looking slightly annoyed, the ferret-like creature snorted. 
"Well, you're no fun this morning. I thought you would like to visit a 
reality where you can learn about Guyver history - and yourself." 
Inspecting a claw for burrs, Yowaki continued. "And especially the 
people. Why just last night I heard Raku in your room..." Killian put
his 
head in his palms and silently groaned.
	"You, are a pain in the ass."
	"I try. You have absolutely _no_  idea how many centuries I 
had to live through to get my technique perfect."
	Another groan, this one audible, and Killian jumped from the 
roof.
	"Always he goes for the adrenaline rush, and always this early in 
the morning." The mongoose shook its horned head.

	As Killian neared the rapidly approaching street, one word 
could fainly be heard by anyone who cared to listen. "GUYVER!" The 
organic armor exploded from the two purple marks on the back of his 
neck, and quickly formed a near-perfect sphere around him. Nearly as 
quickly, the sphere imploded, covering the falling Killian in armor, 
slightly reminiscent of  something alive. A small, circular metal plate 
embedded in the Guyver's abdomen began to glow.

	<Uh... Killian?> Yowaki's voice stated inside the others head. 
<We have a slight problem.>
	<What did I do, this time?> Was surly reply.
	<You didn't do anything.> The mythical mongoose mentally 
straightened his shoulders. <There's an Oroichi here.>
	<Do I even want to know?>
	<It'll be better if I explain when you get back.>
	Killian swore in several languages: English, Cantonese, the 
language of the Guyvers, Kilrathi, Sirian, Space Basic, and Mongoose 
for a long while.

	"And you expect me to believe that load of crap?!" Killian was 
pissed off. The mongoose had diverted him from a nice, relaxing flight 
around the city, and dumped a story so full of bull shit it stank in his
lap. 
"An eight headed dragon, came in here, kidnapped Raku, then left, 
without your noticing? How could something do this?"
	"Its magic." Yowaki said unhappily. "Like me."
	Eyeing Yowaki carefully, Killian asked "magic, eh? And what 
does the dragon-thing want with Raku."
	"It wants to eat her."
	"Where is it." Normally, such a statement was reserved for dogs 
or cats, especially when they did something "bad." In this case,  the 
statement meant "tell me where this bastardly thing is, so that I can go 
and kill it. Slowly and painfully." Yowaki, adventurer and mystical 
creature extroidenaire, smiled weakly and performed a perfect Big 
Sweat. Quite a feat for a horned mongoose.
	"Ehehe... I think it's somewhere in the city." Yowaki looked 
very nervous.
	"Yo," Killian began after thinking for a moment, "aren't your 
kind the only known predators of the orochi?"
	"Yes. And to complete a perfectly worthless paradox, the only 
natural predator of the horned mongoose is the orochi."
	"So... it could eat you, and you could eat it?"
	The despondent creature nodded.
	"Damned coward. No sense of adventure." 
	"HEY!  I have fought, and killed, both Saiyiji, and Freyeji! 
Don't call me a coward,  "Tell you what... if you can find it, I'll kill
it, 
and we get Raku back."

[snip of Killian/Guyver Talon slaughtering gigantic orochi, as Yowaki 
hides behind a really big rock. Raku is tied up and hanging on a spit in 
the background.]

	"Ready to leave yet?" Yowaki impatiently asked Killian. "We've 
been here for several months, and you're quite competent, even by the 
standards of your kind, with that armor of yours."
	"Almost. One more thing to do, here." Killian continued to pack 
his backpack. "Where are we going next?"
	Taking a small computer pad from nullspace, Yowaki tapped 
the small viewscreen a couple of times. "Hmmm..."
	"I thought you only used magic?"
	"If that were true, then I didn't just connect to 
;alt.universe.horned.mongoose.and.a.guyver,' just to see where our next 
assignment is."
	Narrowing his eyes, Killian asked "what do you mean 'our next 
assignment?'"
	Laughing nervously the mongoose began his explanation...

	Several hours later, Killian was sitting on the couch holding his 
head. "I really shouldn't have asked" he mumbled.
	Sitting smugly on Guyver Talon's shoulder, Yowaki simply said 
those four words that have damned men for centuries. "I told you so."
	"Damn you, Yo. Now, where in the Nine Hells are we going?"
	"You won't like it, Killer." Sparing a glance at said person's 
eyes, Yowaki wisely rethought that answer. "I mean, uh, uhm... that... 
you... might not like the next universe."
	"Why."
	"We're going to go visit a person I once new to be a fine and 
upstanding member of the community. And a great martial artist."
	"Do I even want to know this persons name?"
	"Nope."
	"Then humor me."
	A slight pause, then: "Happosai."
	"Damndamndamndamndamndamndamn." Killian began to slam 
his head into the coffee table, both repeatedly and noisily.

Several Days Later...

	A despondent cat-girl, Raku, was obviously upset about 
something. "Do you really have to go?" She asked, quite depressed. It 
was most heart-wrenching.
	Hating himself for it, Killian closed his eyes and steadied 
himself. "Yes." He paused and looked at her fondly. "But I'll come 
back. This is by far one of the best realities I've been to. I wouldn't 
mind spending eternity here, especially if I knew I could count on a 
Salusian to help me spend my free time..."
	Raku giggled, and looked faintly embarressed.
	Yowaki let out an exaggerated sigh, and loudly proclaimed to 
Killian "if you are done flirting with the cat, could we go now?
Please?" 
The last word was inflected in such a way as to drive any person, 
regardless of species, up the walls.
	Killian looked over his shoulder, towards the impatient 
mongoose. "Quiet, you lousy excuse for a ferret." Turning back to 
Raku, he whispered something into her large, catlike ear. The effect was 
for her to blush, even the thin layer of fur. Tears began to brim in her 
eyes, and a happy smile played across her face.
	"Promise?" She quietly asked.
	The Guyver nodded without hesitation.
	"_Now_ can we go?" Yowaki whined, trying to pitiful and 
abused. And doing quite well at it. "Please?"
	"Stand back, Raku, I'm going to change." Saying thus, the 
catlike Salusion stepped back, and Killain activitated the Guyver armor. 
It was a flat black, and looked quite ominous, even in the daylight. 
While it had the normal vibroblades that other Guyvers used, Guyver 
Talon also had small claws on each finger that could extend to nearly a 
foot long. The vibroblades curved forward, starting at the elbow and 
sweeping past the forearm, stopping above and behind the wrist. When 
extended, the blades reach past the wrist and hand by several inches.
	"If you would, please activitate the gravity cannon." Now all 
traces of patheticness were departed from the horned mongoose's 
voice. "But don't fire it."
	"I know, Yowaki. We have done this before, you know."
	"It never hurts to be reminded how to do something properly."
	"Always got to have the last word don't you?" Killian asked.
	"Of course." Then the mongoose began to chant sofly in a 
foreign language, one that Raku didn't understand at all, and Killian 
understood about every fifth word or so. After several minutes, Killian 
spread his hands apart, the gathered energy from the gravity cannon 
forming a swirling vortex. Softly, the mongoose sighed and said two 
words. "It's done."
	"I'll go first." The Guyver hopped through the portal. Sighing 
deeply, the mongoose favored the Salusian with a "we're going to miss 
you look," then hopped into the vortex.

-- 
Thomas Hamill
thamill@psd.k12.co.us
"If pro is the opposite of con, then is progress the opposite 
of congress?" -unknown