I know this one is short, compared to chapter one. I only need it to do one
thing, though, so it isn't really necessary for it to be long. Oh, I did not
spell check this one, because I've switched composition mediums from MS Word
to WordPad, which allows me to switch between my outline and the main body
of the story better. Unfortunate part is that Wordpad seems to lack a
spellchecker. If I missed anything, feel free to complain in your C&C.

Chapter 2

"Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly
action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?"
			-E.A. Poe, _The Black Cat_

	The office, third floor from the top in the Oni Industries Building held
six people that evening. Well, technically, four. Two were dead, but only
one of the dead ones was contributing to the conversation. The other four
were all alive, although the surviving man in black was obviously envious of
his deceased colleague, who sat stiffly in the least comfortable folding
chair in the room, still leaking from the knife wound in his neck. Since he
was incapable of doing it himself, the dead suit's living companion politely
wiped the blood away for him with a handkerchief before turning to the other
three living people.
	"I don't know who it was, but you've got my visual feed so you can find
that out yourselves. I do know that Kenji is still in the infirmary from the
encounter, and of course you can see what they did to Ono here."
	"You're sure he's not of any further use? We can't use the body for anything?"
	"I'll deliver him to the Progenitor Processing Unit if you so wish, ma'am."
	"How formidable would you say these opponents are?" The first of the two
other living men, who wore a ponytail and glasses, leaned forward. "Are they
strong enough to take out our best men in black?"
	"Yes, sir. Our training does not prepare us for opponents like this. Ono
attempted to sidestep the time stream and disable the targets, and the
effect was negated by an unknown influence. We can only assume it came from
the targets themselves."
	"Or an unknown ally." The second man had tilted his folding chair back a
bit. Now it banged down, bringing winces from everyone present who was
capable of wincing. He was taller than the ponytail, balding, grey-haired. 
	"All right." The ponytail took control again. "Here's what I want: All the
men in black and cyborgs are going to move out of Nerima for the moment. I
have no intention of wasting trained men and expensive equipment against two
such fighters in a situation where paradox has turned against us. You," he
nodded at the bald suit "are dismissed."
	The man in black got up, picked up his companion, bowed, and left.
	"All right." The ponytailed man looked around, spotted the other dead man,
the one capable of speaking. "You. Cainite. What's your name?"
	"I am Frederick de Rais, kine. Grand-nephew of Gilles de Rais." The vampire
sneered. "You may address me as Baron de Rais."
	"Don't you mean 'Baron-in-exile de Rais?" Ponytail smiled, and the
steel-haired woman smirked. "Your uncle went and lost you all your lands and
titles, as I recall. According to this report, you moved to America a
century after his trial. What were his crimes again? Paedophilia,
child-murder, kidnapping, devil-worship, _sorcery_..." the man grinned "and
treachery."
	The Cainite hissed, and the balding man spoke. "You're here to follow our
orders. Your prince sold you to us. Do not presume to exercise your petty
authority here."
	"Indeed." de Rais examined each of them minutely, but saw no opportunities
anywhere. "Very well. You removed your precious kine from the field of
battle. I assume that means you intend to send me and my people in."
	"Very good, Freddie." The woman was starting to irritate the vampire, but
he could hardly exact revenge now. Perhaps later.
	"de Rais, I want your Cainites to attack this address." The ponytail handed
the kindred a slip of paper. "Kill everyone in the building but this one," a
picture of a young man with a pigtail was placed on the table before him,
"and this one." Another picture, this one of a girl with short black hair.
	The kindred looked at the address. -Tendo Dojo. What idiotic names the
slants come up with for things. Why can't everyone speak French, like
rational human beings?-

	It was two AM in Nerima, and Kaosu was not asleep. This bothered him,
because it had been a long flight over the Pacific and he hadn't been able
to sleep at all because some brat was screaming his head off on the plane.
	Ah, well. He knew the Techies were going to strike at this place, because
it was where the two girls he'd encountered lived. He'd followed them to it,
then gone to buy new clothes again because these were pretty much used-up.
The coat was the only item of clothing he had that was proof against his
natural entropic field, but it was normally as ratty as everything else
became. He'd considered just buttoning the coat up and going around like
that, but he was pretty sure that the sight of a man's bare, hairy legs
sticking out of the bottom of a black trench would get him arrested pretty
damn quick.
	He shifted, and sighed as he felt a brand-new seam suddenly loosen.
Starting already. Ah, well. The clothes would last as long as they lasted.
He wasn't in a position to get new ones, seated as he was atop a wall with
the coat's tails hanging down the back, looking in profile like nothing so
much as a motionless, ancient raven, watching the Tendo Dojo across the
street for an omen of the coming storm.
	Ah. There it was, a barely shifting shadow. And there, a sudden blur of
movement from his side of the street to the dojo's front wall, brief pause
where a young man in chains and a leather jacket was momentarily visible,
then another blur moving up and over the wall in a millisecond. The shadow
shifted again, then slid, barely visible in the darkness, through the front
gate.
	Cainites, then. Kaosu had not been expecting this. -Damn.- He moved as
quickly as he could to the front gate. He lacked super-speed and the ability
to move in the shadows, but he was a pretty damn good lockpicker, and made
it through the gate in a few seconds.
	-Now, where are they...- He moved forward in the silent darkness, his
magickal senses primed, searching...they weren't in the yard. The house,
then. He made his way forward to the darkened dwelling, walking quietly,
when abruptly he was slammed in the chest by a powerful blow.
	"Whattya think you're doin', you murdering freak?" Another blow. Kaosu
gasped, held up his hands in supplication. 
	"Wait," he croaked. "Please." Ranma looked down at the mage with disgust.
Kaosu, gasping for his breath, gestured to the house urgently. "There's two
attackers in your dojo. They mean to murder your family."
	"Why should I believe you?"
	"You can't afford not to."
	Ranma paused, unsure, but then he heard a sound that changed his mind
instantly: Akane screaming. "You," he pointed at Kaosu "wait right here." He
dashed for the house.
	Kaosu was not going anywhere for a while. Ranma hadn't known how frail the
body he was punching was, had landed a heavier blow than the mage's delicate
ribs and straining lungs could take. He lay complacently in the yard,
listening to the sound of his ribs grinding against each other with each
breath he took and concentrating on not screaming.
	When Ranma entered the house through the window, he saw Akane was
downstairs, in her nightshirt, battling with what looked, through the blur
of blows, like a very tough gaijin in punker clothes. P-chan, rudely
awakened, was just staggering down the stairs when Ranma came in. The two
had time to briefly notice one another before the little black pig went
tearing off in search of hot water and Ranma joined the fight against the
gaijin. Although they didn't know it, they were soulmates in that moment;
each had only one thought in his mind: protect Akane.
	Speaking of Akane, she was doing remarkably poorly against what looked,
from Ranma's angle, like a very slow and clumsy opponent. The gaijin was
using underhand punches that looked like they came out of some American
Western movie saloon brawl, and was simply utterly failing to block. Akane
should have broken the man's ribcage to a thousand pieces by now, with the
punches and kicks she was throwing and connecting, but whenever she landed a
blow the gaijin would simply grin at her and keep right on fighting. Ranma
watched in disbelief as the gaijin laughed off a powerful kick she landed
across the man's face, a kick that broke his nose open and scraped his cheek
off of his jaw, exposing teeth and bone. All this he noticed in a moment,
before he joined the fight himself, attacking from behind. 
	Shampoo was on her way to deliver a "gift" to her arien to make him more
amenable to his inevitable (to Shampoo) future when she noticed Kaosu
breaking in at the front gate. -Aiyaaa,- she thought. -Why silly gaijin not
go over wall like normal people?- She had witnessed Ranma punching the
gaijin's chest in, then followed him in when he heard Akane scream. Now,
seeing the threat, she carefully put her gift down and joined the battle,
sending a bonbori flying into the clumsy gaijin's skull and drawing her
sword. Her great-grandmother had told her that she would have to kill these
gaijin if they fought her, and that she could only kill them by beheading
them. "Shampoo protect arien!"
	Ranma just barely had time to duck as the sword described a sweeping slice
over his head and through the unbelievable gaijin's neck. Ryoga, just coming
in, saw the sword barely miss Akane and turned to Shampoo with a growl of
rage. "Don't you dare touch Akane, you Chinese nutcase!"
	"Shampoo protecting husband from monster!"
	Before the Cainite's corpse fell to the ground, chaos was once again
ensuing. In the noise, no one noticed a soft cry emanating from upstairs.
Nabiki, passing down the hallway behind a sleepy panda and sleepier Soun
Tendo, was the only one to hear a long, whistling sigh come from Kasumi's
room, and the only thought in her sleep-fogged brain was that her older
sister could probably sleep through a gas tanker wreak.
	Downstairs, semi-order had finally been restored. Shampoo and Ryoga were
sitting on opposite sides of the trashed room, glaring at each other. The
walls bore the marks of ki attacks hurled from at least three directions. So
did Ranma, who had stepped in to try and stop the fight. He was currently
trying to extinguish his hair without getting himself wet. Akane was fuming.
She knew what this was all about, of course. Shampoo coming here at this
hour, Ranma awake...oh, yes. She knew. It took all her self-control not to
mallet-slam the hentai into the ground, but she was managing. Kaosu had been
carried in by Mousse, who had noticed Shampoo sneaking out and followed her
at a distance. Soun was sitting in a corner, weeping about the damage to the
dojo, the corpse on the floor, and the fact that his daughter's fiance had
invited Shampoo to the house for some perverse rendezvous.
	In the end it was Shampoo who began sorting things out with a very simple
question. "Shampoo confused. Come to dojo with gift for arien, find arien
and pervert girl fighting monster-gaijin. What going on?"
	Ranma, hair extinguished, gestured at Kaosu, who was lying on the floor
trying very hard not to move too much. Mousse hadn't been terribly gentle
moving him. "I dunno. That guy showed up earlier today when Akane and I were
attacked by those big guys in black who've been all over the neighborhood
lately. He killed one of them, but I made him let the others go. I aughta
call the police. Then I caught him sneaking in. Said there were two guys
sneaking in, going to kill us all."
	"Two? Shampoo only kill one."
	Kaosu opened his eyes. He'd been about to drift off into blessed
unconsciousness, but that woke him up quick. "Only one? You'd better count
noses." He coughed, spitting up a little blood, but not too much. His
magickal healing was starting to work already, although it'd be a few days
before he was able to move on his own again.
	"Yeah, that guy was pretty tough. If there was another one, he might have
gotten past us, attacked Nabiki or Kasumi..." Soun's eyes, brimming with
tears, suddenly widened. Ranma felt a sick heaviness developing deep in his
belly. "Has anyone seen Kasumi?"
	
	Upstairs, in Kasumi's room, a dark figure that had been crouched beside her
bed suddenly vanished, leaving only two drops of blood on the bedclothes and
a brief afterimage of a dark blur that ran through the window, down the
house front, through the yard and over the dojo wall.
-=-=-=-=-
End Chapter 2
-=-=-=-=-

-Drakkus Blasphemy, Greater Daemon of Eris Discordia
drakkus@labyrinth.net
-><-