Here we go.  Already up to the end of part II.  Only another ~70,000
words to go! (It's looking like 33 chapters total.) Wai!  I hope people
are having fun with this.  Anyhow.

http://www.bloodgod.com/smgray/index.html for all fic-related materials.
As usual, comments of any kind are welcomed.

Django Wexler (khaine)
khaine@mindless.com

"These kinds of things don't happen to a bull.  Number of eagles
that can pick up a bull you can count on the fingers of one head."
	-Terry Prattchet, Small Gods

Chapter Twelve
     Ami
 

     "This is really strange."

     "How so?"

     I gestured down the street to the burned-out shell of a shop.  "I
used to eat lunch there, every day.  And I used to get groceries over
there.  Now this place looks like a war zone."

     "Indeed."

     I should have been more upset, I kept thinking.  But it all felt so
unreal.  Now that we were back on familiar territory I felt like every
turned corner would finally reveal to me the real city lurking under all
this mess -- I'd turn around and everything would be intact again and
filled with happy people instead of this deserted wasteland.  It didn't
happen, of course, and I chided myself for being unrealistic.

     Kyn was happy, at least, dashing from wreck to wreck ahead of us
looking for something to eat or play with.  This state of boundless
curiosity occupied most of her waking hours, but watching her amused me
enough to keep my mind off what had happened here as we closed in on the
Hikawa shrine, where I'd last felt the presence of another Senshi.

     Once we got there, things took a decided turn for the worse.

     "Laser fire."

     We surveyed the big red archways that guarded the entrance to the
shrine.  They were mostly intact, but blackened and scored along their
sides nearly the whole length of the walkway.  Whatever firefight had
taken place here had been intense.

     "It looks that way."  Zel's little circlet whirred as his sensors
analyzed the scene.  "A couple of months old, from the look of it.
Somebody fought a hell of a battle here."

     The sense of the spirit of the place -- a violated spirit, now --
was strong enough to quell even Kyn.  The catgirl stuck close to my
side, uncharacteristically quiet, as we walked up the winding path to
the hilltop.  I took her hand, gently, to quell at least a little of the
bad feeling, but truthfully I was feeling it too.  A shrine was a
magical place, obviously, but this was different.  

     "Something bad happened here."

     "Judging from the burns, I'd say so."

     "Worse than that.  I can feel--"  I cut off, at loss for words.
Something had happened, months ago, that had left a hole in the fabric
of the under-world like a gaping wound.  What we were feeling now was
the scar, what was left over after the world re-knit itself.  With every
breath, it seemed to ooze.

     "What the hell could do something like this?"  I whispered, under
my breath.  I dealt with enough black magic in my time to know the feel
of it, but this was worse then anything like that; a youma or an undead
creature is constructed of the same underlying threads as everything
else, albeit in a twisted way.  This was something else.

     "Oneesama."  Kyn squeezed my hand a bit tighter.  "I don't think I
like this place."

     "Me either."

     "Then let's go somewhere else!"  She looked up at me, bright-eyed.
"Let's go find the ocean and see if we can swim to the bottom!  Or we
could go to the zoo, unless all the animals are dead, but even if they
are I could get in a cage and you could throw me peanuts.  How about
that, Oneesama?  Can I have a peanut?"

     "One of my friends is here, Kyn.  We have to go in."

     She quieted down to a whisper.  "Okay."

     We reached the hilltop.  Most of the little out-buildings were
intact, but where Rei's home had been there was nothing but a pile of
rubble.  Blackened bits of wood and char suggested a fire had swept
through it after the battle, and it was in the center of this that the
wounded feeling originated.

     Nothing stirred while we waited there -- no birds, not even insects
chirping in the grass.  I shivered, and felt Kyn do the same.

     "So where's your friend, Ami?"   The computer, of course, was
oblivious to the tide of bad feeling.  I swallowed and looked around,
then closed my eyes.  

     "She's around here somewhere.  Close by."  Still, nothing moved.
"She might be camped out, and be asleep or something.  Let's look
around."

     "Oneesama..."  Kyn's voice was plaintive, and I sighed.

     "Nothing's going to hurt you, Kyn.  Don't worry."

     "I just don't like this place."

     The feeling only got worse as we explored the rubble.  I kept
expecting youma to jump out at me from under every overturned brick and
behind every bush; my head was starting to ache as I instinctively
pulled my personal defenses as tight as they would go.  Kyn stuck to my
side as if glued, keeping her eyes downcast.  As we made a slow circuit
of the blasted shrine, she perked up a bit and started to sniff the air.

     "Smell something?"

     She nodded, excitedly.  Apparently even this place couldn't crush
her optimism for long.  "Cats.  Like me!  But smaller."  The catgirl
looked up.  "Want me to find them, Oneesama?"

     "Go ahead."

     "Hai!"  She sprinted ahead, sniffing, and I followed her more
warily.

     "Cats?" asked Zel, in my ear.

     "It could be nothing.  But--"

     "Nyy*ya*!  Gotcha!"  Kyn's head popped up from behind a fallen
beam, holding a bedraggled looking black bundle high.  "Wai!  I got one,
Oneesama!  I got one!"

     Even at a distance, I recognized the crescent moon on Luna's
forehead with a sigh of relief.  "That's them, all right."  I raised my
voice.  "Put her down, Kyn?"

     "Ami?"  Luna's surprised shout carried all the way over to me; Kyn
dropped her and jumped back in shock.

     "It talks!"  She bounced excitedly.  "Did you hear that, Oneesama?
A talking cat!"

     I hurried over, rolling my eyes and not deigning to comment.

 

     Some minutes later, we'd gotten everyone calmed down and sitting in
a clear space next to one of the surviving sacred trees.  Luna was happy
to see me -- she was rubbing against my knee as I sat cross-legged, and
I scratched her back absently as we talked.  Kyn looked at this
jealously for a moment, then plopped down on the other side, laid her
head in my lap, and mewed plaintively.  Soon I found both my hands
occupied.  Zel chuckled.

     "Mmm.  We were all so worried about you, Ami."  Luna's speech was
mixed with purrs of satisfaction.  

     "Didn't you get my messages?"  I'd worked out how to do that pretty
quickly, a variant of the spell that powered the Senshi's communicators.

     "Only the first one.  After the Arrival everything got kind of
confused."

     "That would be when the Sa'an showed up."

     The cat nodded wearily.

     I had in my memories, as clear as though it had happened to me
personally, a record of the invasion of the world of the Unforgiven by
the Sa'an Empire.  That world had had a unified government and high
technology, along with a set of guardians stronger than the Senshi of
our universe.  The Empire had crushed them.

     "What happened?"

     Luna shrugged.  "They came and announced they were taking over the
planet.  We tried to stop them.  You can see how well that went."

     I shook my head.  "The whole planet?  How is that even possible?"

     "Not all at once.  They aren't finished yet, either -- last we
heard the Americans were still fighting, sort of."

     "Sort of?"

     "The Imperials tried to invade, and the Americans dropped a nuke on
the beachhead.  Now the Sa'an seem to be trying to figure out how to
take over without letting them destroy the whole continent."

     I nodded.  It made sense -- those cruisers I'd seen could probably
reduce a continent to glowing slag, but if you were after resources,
which in the case of the Sa'an meant people, that didn't make much
sense.

     "All the damage here in Tokyo looks old, though."

     "This is the first place they landed.  Everything happens here
first, remember?"

     The supernexus, of course.  With the conventional military forces
of the planet so inferior to the Sa'an military machine, a supernexus
would be the lynchpin of any credible defense and would naturally be the
first target.

     "So."  I stopped, knowing I had to ask the question but dreading
the possible answers.  I tried to steel myself, as best I could.  "What
happened to everyone?"

     Luna gave a feline sigh.  Clearly she wasn't looking forward to
this part, either, and I felt a shard of ice enter my heart.  My left
hand, running slowly through Kyn's hair, suddenly gripped it tight
enough to make her shift uncomfortably.

     "The real answer, Ami, is that I don't know.  The last time we
fought them..."  She nodded her head at the destruction surrounding us.
"This happened.  They'd tracked us to the shrine, finally.  We woke up
one morning surrounded by giant black suits of armor."

     A picture formed in my mind -- twelve feet of dark, gleaming steel,
long legged and agile, four beweaponed limbs sprouting from the
shoulders of a headless body.  "Imperial Assault Mecha."

     Luna blinked, then shook her head and continued.  "Rei and I got
split off from the others during the fight.  Since then, Uranus and
Neptune have just vanished."

     "Rei is okay?"

     There was a slight hesitation.  "Yes.  She's fine."

     "What about the others?"

     "I..."

     I sighed.  "Just tell me what you do know, Luna."

     "U...Usagi and Mamoru were captured."  The expression on her face
was agony for me, and I had the sense I was opening wounds that she'd
deliberately buried.  "During the initial attack.  We met one of the
first forces that landed, but we thought they were just some new set of
aliens.  We were wrong."  She shifted positions, uneasily, and I kept
rubbing just behind her head.  "Usagi was hurt while we were running
away.  Tuxedo Kamen went back after her -- he told the rest of us to
keep going.  We haven't seen either of them since."

     I closed my eyes, fighting the choke in my throat.  "Keep going."

     Luna took a deep breath.  "Minako left maybe three months ago, to
see if she could get help.  Shard -- you remember Shard? -- he went with
her.  They going to try to get to the US, or to England, where Minako's
old contacts are.  Rei wanted to go instead, but they wouldn't let her.
Since the Sa'an disabled our communicators, we haven't heard from them.
They took Artemis with them, too."

     That was slightly better news, I supposed.  I still felt almost
disoriented, dizzied by the litany of despair.  "Mako?"

     "M...Mako was captured too, in a raid that went bad just after Mina
left.  We saw her again, but..."  The cat stopped for a moment.  "She's
working for them now, somehow."

     "In one of those black suits?"  I hissed the question.  My memory
had only a little bit about how the Sa'an made their Legionnaires, but
one thing was clear -- whatever person inhabited a body before they put
black armor on it was gone, wiped away, impossible to retrieve.  I held
my breath until Luna shook her head.

     "No.  No, she looked normal, until she started shooting at us."
She winced in memory.  "Those pretty electrical attacks are not much fun
when you're on the other end."

     I let my breath go in a long whistle.  "There's still a chance for
her, then.  It could be ordinary mind-control, or something magical."

     "That's what we figured.  Rei and I have been trying to come up
with a way to capture her and see if we could undo it, but we haven't
found one yet."

     There was another pause as I sat, digesting this.  Kyn turned over
and looked up at me, big eyes questioning, and I shook my head as I
scratched under her chin.

     "What went wrong, Luna?  How could this happen?"

     The cat started to answer, but the sound of approaching footsteps
cut her off.  I looked around as Luna closed her eyes.

     "They're too good.  That's what went wrong."  The voice was
familiar.  "They're fast, and they're smart.  They don't fall for the
same trick twice, they communicate constantly, and they don't give up.
You hit some little patrol and wipe them out in half a second, and
somehow they *know* where you are, and then you're trying to find your
way out of a dragnet.  And every time you kill one of them the rest get
that much closer to finding you."

     Rei walked into my field of view.  My senses told me she was
transformed, but you wouldn't know it from looking at her.  She wore a
tight-fitting combat outfit in mottled gray and black, both hips adorned
with pistols and a rifle slung over her shoulder.  All three weapons
looked like lasers with black Sa'an styling.  Her hair was still short,
like I remembered from the last time I'd seen her, but her face had
changed -- it looked as though twenty years had passed instead of three.
Her cheeks were thin and hollow, and dark circles under her eyes
suggested too many sleepless nights.  For all that, though, she looked
alert and dangerous.

     She noticed my stare and raised an eyebrow.  "Oh, and they
outnumber us roughly a million to one.  That helps too."

     "Rei..."  I swallowed.  Something in her manner didn't seem right.
Kyn saw it too; she sat up quickly and I felt her tense.  Luna lay where
she was, eyes still closed.  "You--"

     "Don't."  She cut me off with an upraised hand.  "I'd melt you
where you sit, Ami, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work.  So I suppose
you'd better come with me.  We're not safe here."

     "Rei?"

     "No."  She spun on one heel.  "If you're coming, come.  Otherwise
you can stay here and die.  Come on, Luna, this search is a bust.  Back
to base before the goon squad shows up."

     Rubble crunched underfoot as she started to walk away, leaving me
stunned in her wake.  Luna spoke quietly.

     "I'm sorry, Ami.  I was going to try to warn you.  You will come
with us, won't you?  I'm sure if you just talk to her..."

     I blinked and wiped away tears with the back of my hand, nodding.




     Interlude Two

     Kaia searched her Commander's face for the self-satisfied smirk
that she *knew* had to be there.  There was no way he could avoid being
smug, just a little.  But Ashghar's expression and voice were both
perfectly businesslike.

     "Tsunami performed acceptably, then?"

     There was a time for a argument, and a time for facts.  This was
one of the latter, the Vice-Commander decided.  "Absolutely, sir.  Much
better than our tests anticipated.  I've ordered a series of
post-mission analyses--"

     "Why?  Vice-Commander, if I didn't know any better I'd think you
didn't trust my judgment."

     "Her performance in combat worries me, Commander."

     "I thought you said it was flawless."

     "That's the problem.  She's *too* good.  We measured her
observation-reaction times from the combat data, and the results are
highly worrying."

     "Too good, Vice-Commander?"

     "Far too good.  We're looking at close-combat skill far beyond the
level of a well-trained human.  Tsunami's reaction times are simply
supernatural."

     "That's only to be expected--"

     "With respect, Commander, no it isn't.  In the guardians we have
previously encountered, the supernatural force grants them some
resistance to supernatural weaponry, perhaps some greater combat skill,
and associated energy attacks.  What we're seeing here represents a
whole new level of enhancement.  This girl reacts faster than her
nervous system should be able to carry impulses, and her strength is
also greatly improved.  It does not fit the usual pattern."

     Ashghar steepled his hands.  "Your point, Vice-Commander?"

     "First of all, our back-up systems are inadequate.  Since we dare
not do a live test of the fly-by-wire system, the results if we are
forced to use it will be unpredictable."

     "Acceptable risk.  Go on."

     "I'm simply forced to remind you that if we get performance beyond
what our models predict, we may be tampering with a force we don't yet
understand.  I recommend delaying the experiments until pacification of
this world is complete and they can be continued under controlled lab
conditions.  Put the girls on ice, if necessary."

     "No.  We don't know what stasis would do to them.  I won't risk my
experiments because of your vague hunches, Vice-Commander."  

     Kaia's shoulders slumped in defeat.  "Yes, Commander."

     "You are dismissed."

     [Once again, he has chosen to ignore me.]  It was a Commander's
prerogative, of course, but Kaia was getting a distinct feeling of
unease.  [This world is far from pacified.]  The latest word from the
American continent was that all remained unchanged, but something in her
gut told Kaia that things were about to go sour.  [We should blast them
to atoms and be done with it.  Nothing on that continent justifies the
absurd risk the Commander takes by leaving a nuclear power intact.]  The
cruisers were safe inside their near-invincible shields, of course, but
grounded shuttles and troop concentrations were at constant risk.

     [At least this latest battery of tests should tell us something.]
Kaia smiled sourly as she stalked the black corridor, troopers following
her in an unshakeable tail.  [And I think Ashghar is getting ready to
tell me about his big secret project.  Then maybe I'll finally know
what's going on around here.]

 

     The submarine broke the surface of the water in Tokyo Bay with
barely a ripple.  It was sleek and silent, a masterpiece of nautical
design.  Perhaps because they neither had nor needed naval
installations, undersea warfare was one thing that had escaped the
notice of the Sa'an.  Threading through the Bay, now crowded and
dangerous with the ruins of sunken ships after the JSDFs single,
disastrous sortie, was a feat in and of itself.  The sub stayed up long
enough for a dozen wet-suited figures to pile out; then closed up
hatches and vanished.

     The figures treaded water for a few moments while their raft
self-inflated.  It was a far cry from the bright orange of a life-raft,
designed to be noticed from the air.  This was black, designed for
stealth, and once they'd all managed to board it they started for shore
accompanied by the faint hum of an electric motor.  The men were alert
under their night-vision goggles, watching the sky for the telltale
signature of a Sa'an assault drone whose appearance would mean sudden
death for all of them.

     The gods were smiling, however, and the boat reached the shore
unnoticed.  After the men had left it behind, stored chemicals sprayed
over the plastic and melted paths of catalytic destruction across its
surface.  By dawn, all that was left was a sticky black puddle,
unremarkable except, perhaps, to chemists.

	NEXT --
		Part III: Convergence
		Part IV: Visions and Confessions
		Part V: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wand




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