(sorry this took me so long -- I've actually been C&Cing this bit by
bit for over a week, now, when I could steal a moment from RL.  Whoops,
here come the TimeCops -- gotta run!)

Morgan Hudson wrote:

                     RONIN SUMMER: CONVERGENCE

 A Bishoujou Senshi Sailor Moon / Yoroiden Samurai Troopers cross-over

                         by Morgan Hudson

"Convergence (n) - the approach of an infinite series to a finite limit."

	Look!  On the FFML!  It's a fic!  No, it's C&C!  No, it's an-- asymptote?

Chapter 7: Preparations

	The author's way of warning us that not much'll be happening, this
chapter.  :)

	<snip a lot of Oniwabandana stuff>

    She had left Juuban, settling down in the Kabukicho district of
Shinjuku. There, amongst the bakuto and the gurentai and the hostess bars
with their constant red lights, she had managed to eke out enough of a
living to keep her going while she worked on her next step. She knew that
revenge was pointless, and that she would never be truly free from the
power of her enemies as long as she remained in Japan. Nana Asahina was a
dead end: a useless personality that had long ago lost any chance at
getting out of the hole she had dug for herself. Nana Asahina *did* have
one last trick left, though: she had the power to become something else.
Something strong, and vibrant, and powerful enough that no mere mortal
could ever hope to harm her again. Nana Asahina could become a youma.
Surely it couldn't be too hard: she had already been one before, hadn't
she?

	The sad part is, under these circumstances, one could argue that this
is actually the better choice for her.
	And, oddly enough, she seems to be a better person as a youma than she
originally was as a human -- she's working for an evil empire, true, but
she actually seems less... I dunno, *petty* and casually hurtful.  She
actually seems to have some trace of professional ethics.  Of course,
I'm extrapolating wildly from very limited data, here, so I could end up
being very wrong.

    The Ankoku Priests were special, even by the standards of the
youjakai. Legend held that there was nothing beyond -or beneath- those
ministers of darkness. Through their own unique embracing of cruelty and
hatred, they had reached a strangely austere existence in which their
dedication to evil was as unshakeable and complete as any monk's faith in
the teachings of Buddha. Their power was a thing of awe,and they were
reknowned for their willingness to assist any mortal in seeking out the
path to evil. The Ankoku Priests had come to Nana Asahina, and they had
gladly returned her to her former glory.

	Ascetic evil?  That's a new concept.  Most of the time, evil is
associated with greed, lust, etc -- doing evil just for the sake of evil
is a bit unusual.

    There had been a price, of course - there always was, when dealing
with the Ankoku. So far as Oniwabandana could tell, however, it had been
a surprisingly small one. It was almost a relief to realise that she was

	Which means, of course, that we're going to find out what that price
is, in a spectacular and dramatic fashion.

free to be bad again after so much time spent as a spineless weakling.
Being good had done nothing but make her miserable, anyway, and with the
help of the Ankoku Priests, she had been able to make sure that nobody
could ever change her back into her pathetic human form again. She was
Oniwabandana, now and forever.

	Sooo, the next time she gets hit with a Moon Healing Escalator, she's
just going to get Moon Dusted?

    Grinning slightly under her mask, the youma blew a gentle kiss
towards the cloaked priest floating past her hiding place as he drifted
down the rocky corridor. The gaunt figure raised his head and turned
his dread gaze in her direction, thin and bloodless lips twitching in a
cruel smile. With a bob of his head, he accepted her salute and continued
on his way. The fortress of Radanthus was crawling with Ankoku Priests,
and since she could not hide from them it seemed only prudent to offer
them her respect and act as though nothing strange was going on. The

	Shades of Poe.  Although, if she can't hide from the rank&file priests,
how's she gonna spy on Badamon?

of course, assumed that anybody bothered to take her alive. It was more or
less a given that someone like Nise Suiko was not going to be stopped by
a few official documents. The papers were more of a gesture from Jadeite
than anything else: a physical reminder to her that he did not consider
her to be expendable. They meant that he cared. This was her big chance
to make an impression on somebody who was pretty important in the Dark
Kingdom, and she did not want to blow it.

	Gee.  Diplomatic immunity ain't what it used to be.

    She had heard the other youma talking in the camps, and Jadeite
sounded like he was one of the better people to work for. He was very
kind and considerate to his subordinates, in that he did not have them
randomly flogged for his own amusement. By Dark Kingdom terms, that was
almost too good to be true. Serving under Jadeite was like winning the
lottery as far as a youma could be concerned. He was generous in times of
plenty, fair in times of famine, and -which was important- understanding
when things went wrong. Nobody wanted to work for someone who would kill
them the second they made a mistake. Most youma only served masters like
that when they had no other choice.

	Which, w/o Jed around, they *didn't,* much, from the sound of things.
	You could almost make me like Jed, here.  Too bad he's an obsessed
homicidal psychopath with imperialistic megalomaniac tendencies.

    Oniwabandana waited a few moments to see if anyone else was going
to come down the corridor after the Ankoku Priest had passed. Seeing no
sign of any patrols, she gently eased her way up the wall and crawled
onto the ceiling. Demon Lords like Radanthus tended to place traps or
alarms in their floors and walls, but the ceilings were usually relatively
clear. Added to the fact that almost none of the youma guards she had
passed so far ever seemed to bother looking up while scanning the area,
this meant that she had already made it past most of the basic security
without even breaking a sweat. She had to admit, being a ninja was pretty
useful sometimes.

	"We are the ninja/who don't do anything/we just blend into the
walls/and lie around..."
	One *would* think, though, that given the average youma's mobility,
that they would pay more attention to the ceilings than their
human-security counterparts.

    Gauging the distance, she gently drew one of her kunai and
threaded a metal cord around the small hook on the weighted end of the
throwing knife. With a burst of energy to boost her strength, she drove
the blade smoothly into the rocky surface of the ceiling and looped the
wire around her wrist so that it would spool out behind her as she
advanced. Magical powers were pretty useful, too, sometimes, and this one
might just be able to get her out of a pinch if she needed it. Only an
idiot would just hurl herself into the deepest parts of this fortress
without some kind of insurance. Now the only problem was that she had no
idea where she was supposed to go. Aside from crawling around randomly
and hoping to bump into one of the people she was looking for, there was
no real way for her to locate her prey. She had never been inside this
fortress before. Radanthus had expressed no interest in a pathetic convert
like herself: he wanted only the strongest and most powerful youma for
his crusade.

	And once again, Jed will probably win based on superior Personnel
Management skills.

    Even as a human, she had never liked to be considered weak. She
may not have been born a member of the aristocracy, like Radanthus,but

	Sug:  "might not"

she still had a number of tricks that made her someone to be reckoned
with. Oniwabandana closed her eyes and bowed her head, her aura
flickering and writhing around her body as the ghostly images of multiple
arms and legs began to emerge from her body. There was a sudden flash of
dark purple energy, and a swarm of identical women raced out from their
starting point, each one trailing a thin metal wire from her wrist as

	Sug:  "origin point"

she charged off in a different direction from all of the others.
Scrambling through the shadows and careening wildly along the ceiling,
they spread through the castle. When one reached a fork in the path ahead

	Why the sudden rush?  A moment ago, she was trading speed for stealth
-- now it's the other way around.  Limited clone-time?

of her, she paused only long enough to produce another copy and send it
hurtling down the new pathway to explore further before continuing on her
own journey.

    There was no way for Oniwabandana to be certain how long she was
trapped in that strange limbo, her mind divided amongst hundreds of
different bodies and splitting into more at an exponential rate. None of
them were really her -they lacked her scintillating conversational skills,

	<snerk>
	Now, is "core" Oni still at the origin point, or is the "real" her
divided equally up amongst the clones?

for example- but each one was an integral part of her. It felt as though
she were somehow not dividing, but growing larger: stretching in every
direction until the essence of her being had filled the castle. Each tiny
little replication was like a finger, gently probing through the dark and
forboding corridors as she fumbled for some sign of Badamon. They had only
one goal on their minds: as her attention split further and further, there
was only room for one thing. Every one of her split forms had the same

	Talk about having your attention divided.
	This is the first mention of the clones' size -- if they're really that
small, it might warrant an earlier mention.
	Another thing -- do the clones start out small, or do they *get*
smaller as they divide further?

strength, stealth and agility of Oniwabandana herself, leaping from shadow
to shadow and quietly flitting from one piece of cover to another as they
continued their relentless search.

    One of her fingers suddenly released a quiet shriek, and went
permanently numb. Oniwabandana recoiled instinctively, her myriad bodies
scrambling into the nearest dark corners and lunging for cover even as
she began to recover enough higher function to analyse what had happened.
There was a faint memory of glowing sigils, and then a sudden fiery death
that had enveloped every fibre of that one replica's being. Glowing
symbols meant mystic wards, she recalled, mulling hazily over the markings
that she had seen but not registered as that body had approached them. She
began to shrink, replicas throughout the castle abruptly fading into
nonexistence as she focused her mind back onto the task at hand. She had

	Ah.. Well, that answers some of my questions.

seen wards like that before. She had learned them in the back alleys of
Kabukicho, shakily repeating the marks of the ominous priest that had
shown them to her. Still more copies vanished, as she racked her brain
to remember what had been so important about those wards.

    After a few moments, the remaining -and thus real- Oniwabandana
was crouched a mere arm's reach from the wards in question. They were

	Oh ho!  So, "core" Oni is whatever clone is left standing when she
dispells the jutsu.  That could be *handy.*

similar to the ones she had been taught by that mysterious man in that
dark alley all those months ago, but not quite the same. The wards she had
been taught were marks for use in protecting the caster while calling upon
creatures that might not have one's best interests in mind. These were
forged from the same sigils, but their design practically bled with
malice. They were exactly the kind of discreet and dangerous symbols she

	Discreet?  Glowing ward symbols are "discreet"?

would expect to find guarding a sorceror's inner sanctum. Judging from
the power she could feel pouring off of each mark, they were strong
enough to atomize almost anyone who got within less than a foot of them.
That meant they had not been put up by a mere dabbler like herself. This
was not the work of someone who merely saw the dark arts as a means to an
end - they were the masterpieces of someone for whom black magic was an
end all unto itself.

	Badamon:  "I am the Ranma Saotome of the Black Arts!"

    In other words, Badamon. Apparently, he did not wish to be
disturbed. As Oniwabandana did not particularly care what Badamon wished,
she began making preparations to disturb him, anyway. It was her job.

	Wouldn't the point be to *not* disturb him, so he doesn't notice he's
being spied upon?  Not that I'm suggesting a change, here -- that choice
of words is very Oni-ish.

    The easiest way to deal with wards was not to touch them. This
was sometimes easier said than done, but Oniwabandana had always been a
very ambitious girl. Badamon was definitely a powerful sorceror, but she
was fairly certain there was a way around him this time. There was nothing
wrong with the wards that had been set, but they had not been tailored
specifically for her. How could they be? Badamon had no reason to suspect
that she even existed. That gave her an edge.

    Badamon had set his wards to block random youma from getting close
enough to his chambers to bother him. The wards in question were not
unlike land mines: waiting quietly for someone to set off the trigger so
that they could blast whatever was nearby. Most youma would be scared off
just by the ominous glowing words in a cryptic and evil tongue that they
did not understand. Oniwabandana, however, was just enough of a mere
dabbler in the dark arts to know that the wards were only dangerous from
one direction. They were put in the ceiling and set to go off when someone
went *under* them.

	Black magic claymores.

    Oniwabandana melted into the shadows and felt her body tingle as
she phased into the jagged and clouded crystals of the ceiling. Most youma
could not turn intangible. If Badamon had known that she could, he might
have spent the extra time to build better wards. Swimming through the

	Mmmm... I dunno.  Badamon strikes me as being paranoid enough to have
at least *some* safeguard against that kind of power, unless it's so
rare as to be unheard of.

stone, she arced gracefully over the glowing symbols, feeling a slight
chill even as she passed above their sphere of influence without so much
as a flicker in response. As she neared the dark priest's chambers she
could make out the muffled sounds of his dry, croaking voice. Clearly he
was upset about something, if he was audible through solid crystal.
Curious, she poked her face through the surface of the rock and took a
quick look around. It was a shame they had let the palace go to waste
like they had: if it was still in the shape that it used to be, she could
have seen them clearly even while still inside the wall.

	Sug:  "If it had been maintained to earlier standards, she could have
seen them clearly even from inside the wall."
	Which just means that bad housekeeping is a form of security, in the
DK.  :)

    The dark priest was crouched in the centre of the ovoid chamber,
his hands combing over a glowing orb that Oniwabandana could not quite

	I think I know what you're trying to convey with "combing," but I'm not
sure it's the right word in this context.  Maybe "Combing the air over..."

make out from her position. His tattered robes swirled and rippled around
him as though he were encircled by violent winds, yet the pages of the
open tomes scattered around him did not so much as move. The only source
of light in the entire room was provided by twenty-two carefully arranged
iron braziers, each in the shape of a different monstrous creature. Sigils
and marks had been carefully prepared on the floor in a fine red powder
that writhed and re-shaped itself as Badamon focused on the task at hand.
Oniwabandana made a face and fought the sudden urge to go back out into
the corridor and pretend she had been unable to find the vile man. There
was something about the whole scene that she did not like at all.

	Smart girl.

    The light from Badamon's orb flickered, and a faint nimbus of
ghostly light rose into the air to funnel itself into a small black
crystal that was hanging above the dark priest's bowed head. As
Oniwabandana watched, he spoke in a deep, sonorous tone that reverberated
through the floor and walls of the castle until it seemed to be coming
from every direction at once. She could not make out the words any better
than she had been able to when they had been muffled by the crystal: they
were dark words, words that warped the very fabric of reality until she
could feel the tickling sensation of something flowing out of her ears.
With a sense of unease, Oniwabandana reached up and gingerly touched her
earlobe with a single fingertip. As she had suspected, her entire hand
came away coated in blood. Anything that needed to be said in a language
like that could not possibly be saying anything worth translating.

	Dunno... perhaps "could not possibly be worth the cost of translation"?

    With each word, the crystal pulsed and throbbed as though it were
some kind of strange, petrified heart, still beating despite having
changed to solid rock. A figure moved in the shadow, and Oniwabandana
shrank back further into the darkness as Nise Suiko emerged from where he
had been standing against the far wall. She had completely overlooked him,
in that black-and-red undergear armour of his. Without his crimson battle
armour, he actually looked fairly harmless: just another sullen young man
with a tousled head of shaggy red hair and the kind of face that might be
cute if it would just stop frowning all the time. How was it possible that
this could be the same armoured juggernaut who had steamrolled through
half of her camp just a few nights ago? He looked like a kid. He didn't
even look like a particularly dangerous kid.

    Nise Suiko exended his hand, and the glowing crystal fell into
his waiting palm. Curling his fingers around the talisman, the young man
smirked and bowed slightly before Badamon as he slipped it around his
neck. As he staightened, a massive cloud of billowing scarlet vapour rose

	Might mention that the crystal has a cord on it, or something.
	SP:  straightened

from the ground beneath him and enveloped his form. When the smoke
cleared, he was clad from head to toe in overlapping plates of chitinous
armour that rasped dryly against each other as he lifted his arms and
flexed his fingers experimentally. He stood nearly a foot taller in the
yoroi, and a long, sickle-like blade jutted upwards from the crown of his
helmet until it almost brushed against the ceiling. Where once had stood
a fairly average looking boy, there was now an armoured behemoth, a
monster sheathed in crimson, with a wicked ivory faceplate concealing his
features and a featureless black visor where his eyes should be. Blades
and spikes jutted from his body, and his entire being radiated with
sickening menace.

	O:  "Oh, yeah, *now* I recognize him!"

    Oniwabandana gulped and pressed herself against the wall. He had
looked a lot smaller when they had been out in the open. In here, amongst
the cramped confines of Badamon's chamber, the twisted youma warrior
seemed like some kind of giant. Steeling herself, she quickly formed a
square with her thumbs and index fingers and made sure he was centered
in it. Her right eye flickered, and made a muted clicking sound as she
recorded the image. Moving slightly she shifted her focus to Badamon and

	Eyeball Kodaku no jutsu!
	Just hope that click isn't very loud...

grabbed a few more pictures, trying to get as much of the moving glyphs
and braziers into the scene as possible. Maybe someone back home would be
able to recognise some of the books, or symbols, or something. She made
sure to get a few good shots of the crystal, too, as Nise Suiko tucked it
inside his breastplate. There was no telling what Jadeite might find
useful.

	The essential paradox of working in Intelligence: drown in irrelevant
data, or miss the essential datum.

    "We've hit a bit of a snag," Badamon was saying, as Oniwabandana
stopped to focus on what was going on again. "Xiang Yao has been freed
from the Castle of Eternal Regret, and apparently she will be getting in
our way very soon."

	She can still hear?

    Nise Suiko cocked his head to one side, a dim red glow emanating
from beneath the peaked brim of his helmet.

    "Radanthus has given her the task of destroying the Sailor Senshi
in your stead," the priest explained, standing and waving his skeletal
hand in a sweeping gesture that caused all of the various books scattered
about to slam themselves shut in unison. "What's worse is that she seems
as though she might actually succeed at it. She is too intelligent and
dangerous for us to leave out there unchecked."

	Badamon doesn't want the Senshi wiped out?  Or maybe he doesn't want
them wiped out *yet*...

    "Unchecked," Nise Suiko muttered with an air of disdain. "Let me
guess: that means you want me to handle things and get roughed up again
while you stay here in your little fortress of doom, fresh as a daisy.
Am I right?"

	I do wonder what motivates NS to obey B here, especially with the
Trooper of Water supposedly dead.

    "I have never known you to be so reluctant to fight, Nise Suiko."

    "Hey, even I get slowed down a little sometimes. Whatever that
Jadeite guy did to me, it *hurt*. Getting shocked by his little Bugrom
harem girls wasn't exactly fun and games for me, either. Those crazy

	"Bugrom harem girls"!  <snerk>

witches nearly fried my pendant, Badamon! If there had been just one more
of them, they might have broken it! Do you think I want to find out what
happens if someone does that?"

	So, even with Shin dead, he's still interested in living.

    Oniwabandana perked her ears up slightly and leaned forward a
little. So... the crystal was important, then. Badamon had been putting
a lot of magical power into it, almost as if he was trying to refill some
kind of reservoir: could that be what was making Nise Suiko so damned
indestructible? Maybe even the source of his power? She shifted her
position slightly and raised her hands to frame one of the books closest
to Badamon - she could almost make out the writing from where she was
sitting.

    Something bumped against the ninja's knee, and she glanced over
to see one of the towering stacks of books beginning to topple. Oh, no.
No, no, no! If those fell, she was as good as fish bait. Quickly, she
hurled her arms around the stack of ancient tomes and pulled it back in
the opposite direction it had been leaning in. A single book slipped from
the top of the stack and fell towards the floor, landing silently on
Oniwabandana's swiftly outstretched foot.

	Cue:  "Mission Impossible Theme."

    "Did those books over there just move?" Nise Suiko asked
suspiciously, and Oniwabandana felt her heart stop as she froze. She was
stuck - if she made even the slightest motion while he was looking in her
direction, it might give her away. She couldn't even bolt for it: the
second she moved her foot, the book would fall and they would know that
someone else was in the room.

	"Scotty?  *Now* would be a *very* good time!"

    Badamon turned and looked directly at her. Oniwabandana's breath
caught in her throat as she waited for him to blast her out of existence
with a single crackling bolt of eldritch energy. She couldn't hide from
the Ankoku Priests, and Badamon was their leader... she should have known
that a spiritual entity would be able to sense her energy....

    "Things move all the time around here," he said crankily, and
turned back towards Nise Suiko. "Don't let it bother you."

	Okay... I'm not even going to speculate.  Yet.

    Oniwabandana sighed in relief. He hadn't seen her. He had been
looking right at her, and somehow he hadn't seen her. Carfully, she inched
her leg over the top of the stack and let the book slide off of her foot.
Inching away from the still unstabile pile of tomes, she began to crawl up

	SP:  Unstable

the wall. Things were getting too dangerous at floor level for her: better
to take a few more shots from the ceiling and then call it a day. After

	Now that she mentions it, it's rather odd that she even abandoned the
ceiling in the first place, given how dedicated she was toit earlier.

all, it wasn't as if she had tried her luck quite far enough already - she
still needed to find a way to spy on Radanthus the Unconquered.

**********

    There came a point in every endeavour when a man had to just
shrug and admit that he had no idea what the hell he was doing. Shin Mouri
had reached this point roughly two days ago, but something kept drawing
him back to the massive pile of charts and maps that were scattered
haphazardly over the Fuan family's dining room table. He had been
gathering information on every current, thermocline, and reef within a
hundred miles of the local coastline, racking his brain for some kind of
magical neon sign that would point out where Nise Suiko was hiding. There
was a lot of ocean around Yokohama: when a guy could breathe underwater
and didn't have any problems with pressure or water conditions, he could
hide almost anywhere in them indefinitely. For all Shin knew, Nise Suiko
might not even be in the area any more - it was entirely possible that
his enemy had caught a passing pleasure cruise and was halfway to Alaska
by now. Nise Suiko could be off killing baby harp seals and choking out
polar bears just for shits and giggles, as far as Shin had been able to
discern. It sounded like the sort of depraved thing that maniac might do
for fun.

	"shits and giggles" sounds a bit to un-British for the way you've been
writing Shin so far.  Unfortunately, I can't think of a good Brit-ism
equivalent off the top of my head.

    The screen slid open with a rattle, and Shuu Rei Fuan emerged with
a yawn. Shin's friend was wearing a rumpled pair of orange pajamas with
white stripes that hung off of his stocky frame like a tent of flannel,
and his tangled mop of hair seemed determined to point in every direction
possible until it found one it liked. A toothbrush hung indolently from
the corner of the Chinese boy's mouth, and he scratched the back of his
head as he stared at Shin blearily.

	A spectacle only a mother could love.  Or maybe a girlfriend.  But
there aren't any Senshi left for him!  Oh, woe...

    "Oh, Shin!" he said, after a long pause. "Sorry, pal - forgot you
were here. You cooking breakfast, or what?"

    "Breakfast?" Shin raised an eyebrow and leaned through the
doorframe he was leaning on to catch a glimpse at the clock in the
kitchen. "Well, I'll be. I guess it is almost breakfast time...."

    "You mean you didn't SLEEP?" Shaking off his early morning stupor,
Shuu yanked the toothbrush out of his mouth and pointed it at his friend
as though it were some kind of weapon. "That's two days in a row, man!
You gotta get your mind off of this Nise Suiko thing before it makes you
sick."

	Ah, Obsession, thy name is Sleep Deprivation.  Or is that the other way
around?

    "I can't bloody well shrug it off and grab forty winks, okay?"
Shin snapped, slamming his teacup down on the counter and running his
fingers through his hair. "There is a dangerous killer somewhere out there
right this minute, doing God knows what, and he's wearing MY FACE! Do you
have any idea what that feels like? How do you expect me to sleep knowing
something like that? I've got to find him, Shuu, before he hurts anybody
else."

	Yeah, this unhealthy obsession runs *both* ways.

    "Give me a break," Shuu snorted, rolling his eyes. "You don't
want to protect anybody - you just want another chance to lay into the
guy. He kicked your ass, and now you won't be happy until you've kicked
his back. It's only natural, man."

	Natural for Shuu, at least.

    "That's got nothing to do with it," Shin argued halfheartedly,
walking over to the table and shuffling through the charts as though he
was looking for something. "I've just got to find him before he hurts
anybody, okay? I've got to stop him. It's got to be me."

    "Why is this such a big deal, anyway?" Shuu wondered, rubbing his
chin as he took a seat at the table across from Shin. "I mean, so what if
he kind of looks like you? If you ask me, he's not even that good a copy.
I mean, I can tell the difference between you two pretty easily."

    "Really?" Shin raised one eyebrow suspiciously. "And how, pray
tell, can you do that?"

    "Well, for starters, he's bright red and you aren't," Shuu said in

	Well, only NS's *hair* and *armor* are red.  But coming from Shuu, this
lack of precision seems entirely in-character.

reply, spreading his arms and shrugging as he leaned back in his chair.
"Besides, no evil twin could hope to copy your limp wrists and girlish
figure."

	Trying to start a fight with him to get his mind off it, hm?  Lesse,
when Water and Earth fight, the winner is usually... Mud!

    "Oh, piss off," Shin said, swatting his friend on the head with
a folded up map and tossing it aside as Shuu chuckled good-naturedly at
his joke. Shin knew full well that he was far from the most masculine of
the Samurai Troopers - actually, ever since Touma's growth spurt last
summer, he was one of the smallest members of the whole team. Only Shuu
was shorter, and the stocky Chinese boy made up for it with his girth.
Compared to Shuu, Shin was built like a toothpick. Compared to the other
three Troopers, he was lucky if he came up to their noses. He was doomed
to spend his life looking like a perennial kid brother, despite the fact
he was the oldest person on the team. Unless he counted the Masho, in
which case he came several centuries shy of that mark.

	"But we don't count the Masho.  We took a vote and everything!"

    Chimes jangled softly in the distance, and both boys turned in
the direction of the front door. The rest of Shuu's family were still
asleep, and there were no deliveries planned for the restaurant until at
least eight, so that left only option for who could be coming in at such

	"left only ONE option," ITYM?

an ungodly hour. Looking back at each other, the pair grinned in unison

	And in unholy glee

and launched themselves out of the living room, tearing down the hallway
as fast as their bare feet could carry them. Shuu elbowed Shin aside and
hurled open the bamboo screen door leading to the main hallway, throwing
himself at the person's back as they were taking off their shoes. A
battered old Converse high-top sneaker with neon green laces bounced down
the hall as Shuu landed on top of his quarry like a guided missile, and

	Well, at least it wasn't Ami.  Not that that was at all *likely,* but
there was an off chance that Ryo might have invited her along for breakfast.

the two disappeared into a brief tangle of flailing limbs. Stumbling into
the corridor a few moments later, Shin skidded across the slick wooden
floor and bounced off of the opposite wall before righting himself and
staggering over to where the other two were struggling with each other.

    "Hello, Ryo," he panted, grinning joyfully. "How's tricks, mate?"

    "Somebody get this oaf off of me!" Ryo Sanada choked, as Shuu
forced him to the ground and placed the taller boy in a vise-like
headlock. Laughing maniacally, Shuu began to rub his knuckles forcefully
across the other boy's scalp.

	Oh, yeah.  These guys are brothers, in every sense of the word except
genetic.

    "This is for not telling us what you were up to, Ryo!" Shuu said
sternly, pausing every so often to rap on a particular spot of his
leader's head before returning to his assault.

    "Ow! I give, okay? Ow! I said I'm sorry!"

    "It was awfully poor form of you to just scarper off last night,"
Shin admonished their friend and Shuu stopped rapping on their friend's
head long enough to start mussing up his already tousled black hair.
Reaching behind him, Shuu grabbed one of Ryo's ankles and wrenched his
leg back, causing the other boy to howl in pain and give him an angry
glare.

    "Hey, watch the wrestling moves, Shuu! Who do you think you are,
Tiger Mask? Shin, tell this guy to quit bending me into a pretzel!"

    "We were worried sick about you," Shin said, ignoring Ryo's
complaints. "How could you just run off into the night and not even tell
us what your problem was? We would have helped, if you had just reminded
us!"

    "Don't worry about -OW! Hey, that hurts!- any of it, Shin," Ryo
explained. "I was a little out of it last night -Seriously, Shuu, cut
it out!- but I'm feeling a lot better now. Really. "

	I'd uncap "Seriously"

    "No more moping around, feeling sorry for yourself?" Shin asked,
tilting his head to one side and examining his friend's face.

    "No more, I swear," Ryo said fervently, shaking his head
vigourously as Shuu shifted position and sat on the small of his back,
gripping one of the other boy's legs under each arm and forcing Ryo's
feet back until they nearly touched his shoulders. "So, call off your
maniac, okay?"

	Sug:  "...feet up and over until..."

    "Say it like you mean it," Shuu said chidingly.

    "I mean it! I mean it! I'm moving on with my life, I promise!
Sweet merciful gods, can't I tap out, or tag somebody, or something?"

	There's a hentai comment involving tapping Ami that I will manfully
refrain from making, here.

    "He sounds like he means it," Shin said thoughtfully.

    "Yeah," Shuu agreed. "He smells kinda pretty, too. Like dainty
perfume. Dainty *girl's* perfume. I'm pretty sure there's some lipstick
on his collar, too. Think we should let him up so he can tell us all the
salacious details of his night out?"

	Laughing.. too hard... to C&C.....

    "Well," Shin mused, "we *do* enjoy salacious details... Okay, let
him loose."

    "Thank you," Ryo said blandly, as Shuu clambered off of him and
he crawled back to his feet. Reaching down, he tugged off his other shoe
and dropped it right next to Shin's own carefully polished penny loafers
amongst the rest of the footwear that was lined up in the genkan. Exhaling
loudly, the dark-haired young man tried to smooth out his hopelessly
disheveled clothing.

    "Well, I always wanted a reason to iron my socks," he muttered,
giving Shuu another dirty look. Shuu merely grinned and shrugged in
response, still flushed slightly from the exertion of their scuffle.

	Shuu and "Unrepentant" go together like ham and eggs.

    "Hey, you don't hear me complaining. You're pretty wiry for a
little guy. Plus, I think you punched me in the eye when I wasn't
looking."

    "You're lucky that was all I punched you in, buddy," Ryo shot
back, smirking slightly as the trio walked back towards the main dining
room. "I wasn't exactly expecting to get ambushed today - for a second
there, I thought some Dynasty soldiers were trying to get frisky with me."

    "And, speaking of great openings," Shuu drawled, draping one
muscular arm around Ryo's shoulders, "weren't you going to tell us all
about your late night escapades? With a girl who you currently smell
like? And who we are assuming has your other shirt?"

    "Masterfully done, Shuu old bean," Shin commented, patting his
friend on the back. "Couldn't have been more subtle if you were ringing a
bell. Still, now that the topic *has* been brought up, I must admit to a
passing interest in the tale, myself...."

	Hello, Comedy Central?  Do I have a group act for *you*...

    "There's not much to tell, guys," Ryo said defensively, shrugging
off Shuu's arm and flopping onto the sofa with his fingers laced behind
his head. "I just went out for a while, cleared my head, got a few things
off my chest...."

    "We don't care what you got off *your* chest," Shuu interjected,

	I KNEW that was coming.

grinning suggestively as he leaned over the back of the couch and loooked
down at the reclining boy. "Get to the part with the girl, man - and she
better have been hot. If she wasn't hot, it's totally okay for you to lie
about it. We won't mind, will we, Shin?"

    "Well, a bit of embellishment is expected," Shin agreed, as he sat
on a nearby ottoman and moved it closer to where Ryo was stretched out on
the couch. "This isn't exactly the sort of thing that happens every day,
after all."

	Embellishment?  Ryo?  Bah.  Never happen.

    "I think you guys are blowing this way out of proportion," Ryo
warned them. "It's not like I ran off to some seedy love hotel, or
something."

    "See?" Shuu moaned. "That's the kind of thing you could have lied
about! If you had lied about that, it would have made the story, like, a
million times better! Shin, make him tell the story better!"

    "Where did you go, Ryo?" Shin asked curiously.

    "The Daisekai Chinatown Museum," Ryo replied, smiling gratefully
at a chance to ignore Shuu's continued whining. "You know, they've got
this awesome thing there - it's called the Tower of Time, and it's just
like you're really outside, with stars all over the place...."

    "I'll bet that the Sailor Senshi all really enjoyed that," Shin
replied calmly, leaning in slightly. "What was Rei's favorite part?"

	<Admiral Akbar:>  "IT'S A TRAP!!!!!!"

    "Oh, well, Rei and Usagi were off shopping or something, so-"

	<SNAP!>

    "So you went with Ami Mizuno," Shin concluded. "By yourselves, I
assume?"

    "Well, we didn't track down Mistress Nine and Shutendoji to be

	Whoa, hold up!  How does HE know about M9?  Unless he and Ami have been
swapping quite a few stories during the evening...
	And, Shu-niisan as chaperone?  *Oy*....

chaperones, if that's what you're asking," Ryo admitted, looking a little
confused. "What's the big deal? We just went to a museum."

    "At ten o'clock in the evening? Alone?"

    "It was the only decent place that was open! And yes, we went by
ourselves! What are you getting at, Shin?"

    "Nothing, yet," Shin assured his leader. "It's funny, though - I
always thought you didn't like going places where there were crowds. That
museum would have been pretty crowded, that late at night. It's a popular
place."

    "Well, I couldn't stay all night in her hotel room, could I? Then
you guys would have been asking even worse questions."

	I'm not saying anything.  In fact, butter would not melt on my tongue,
right now.

    "You could have come back here," Shin pointed out. "Shuu and I
were both still up, and she could have helped us plan a strategy for
taking down Nise Suiko."

    "Yeah, *that* would have been a real nice date," Ryo replied
snarkily, then paled and winced as he realised what he had said.
"Aw, nuts...."

	Hook!  Line!  And SINKER!!!!!!!

    "The prosecution rests," Shin said, leaning back and winking at
Shuu as he smiled happily.

    "So, dating Ami Mizuno behind our backs, eh?" Shuu clucked his
tongue disapprovingly. "Man, the least you could have done was make up
some kind of smutty story to placate us. You must be new at this."

    "Look, we're not dating, okay?" Ryo argued, then paused and made
a strange face. "At least, I don't *think* we're dating. I mean, she
didn't say that we were dating. Isn't that the sort of thing a girl tells
a guy?"

	Obliviousness, thy name is Ryo.

    "Usually, that's the sort of thing a guy is expected to figure
out for himself," Shin explained, and Ryo groaned.

    "Man, I hope we get attacked by a demon soon, or something," he
muttered, covering his face with his hands. "I could use the distraction.
I am seriously in over my head, here."

	And that is SUCH a comment on their lives, not to mention Ryo's various
competencies... and lack thereof.

    "Don't worry about it," Shuu said consolingly, shaking his head
in sympathy to his leader's obvious discomfort. "Trust me, Ryo: girls
always have stuff like this worked out years in advance. You might be a
little confused right now, but I can guarantee you that Ami Mizuno knows
exactly what she's doing."

	<faceplant>
	No, let me rephrase that properly:  <FACEPLANT!!!!!>
	Oh, Shin, you couldn't be more wrong....

**********

    For perhaps the first time in her life, Ami Mizuno did not have
the slightest idea what she was doing. Usually, she was the girl that
everyone else turned to for a plan, the one who always kept her cool when
the rest of her friends were losing theirs at the top of their lungs. She
was not used to feeling so disoriented. Most of the past evening was a
blur of colours and images that didn't seem to be in quite the proper
order to make any sense, as though she had viewed the whole night through
a kaleidoscope while falling down a hill. It was a dizzy, light-headed
feeling that she had begun to associate with the presence of Ryo Sanada.

	Cue:  "Dizzy... I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning..."

    Not that she was complaining - there were many delightful perks
to be found in the presence of Ryo Sanada. For one thing, she was willing
to admit that he was very cute, if you were into handsome, noble, heroic

	And who, pray tell, isn't?
	Oniwabandana:  "Yo!"

types. He carried himself with a sort of dignity and clarity of purpose
that almost reminded her of Tuxedo Kamen. Ryo had nothing near Tuxedo
Kamen's poise or grace, of course: he was still a bit rough around the
edges in that area. There was something wonderfully wild about the way
his dark hair hung playfully over his smoldering blue eyes.

    Those eyes still made her knees feel a little watery, but it was
nowhere near the sheer, heart-clenching terror that she used to get when
she met his gaze. Ryo Sanada had a way of looking at Ami that made her
suspect he was about to do *something*, and that she would be expected to
have an appropriate response prepared. He was unpredictable, to say the
least: Ami could almost feel her brain working in new and unexpected
patterns just trying to figure out what he was going to do next. The only

	Ah, so *that's* the attraction -- he exercises her brain.  :)

thing worse than trying to guess what he was plannng was trying to make
sense out of what he had already done.

    He had kissed her. She wasn't complaining about that part - as far
as she could tell it had been a very good kiss. The main problem was that
she really had no idea what he had meant by it. They had talked the entire
way back to her hotel afterwards, and somehow the boy had managed to
completely avoid saying or doing anything that might give her even the
slightest clue as to how he felt about her. Every time she had tried to
get even a hint of what was going on in that adorable head of his, it was
like some kind of internal warning system had told him to change the topic
before she could learn anything. It was infuriating. In retrospect, Ami
was beginning to think she should have slapped him the second he had even
tried to kiss her.

	That, or marry him -- as I recall, those were her two initial options
on first sight of him.  :)

    Ami blushed slightly and buried her head between her shoulders.

	Oddly worded, but I can *see* exactly what you mean.  She's so CUTE
that way, isn't she?

At the very least, she guessed that she probably should not have kissed
him back. Definitely not as much as she had. Her blush deepened, and she
cleared her throat self-consciously as she tucked her dark blue bangs
behind one ear. Okay, so she might have been a little forward on that
one. So what? It had taken almost sixteen years to get to that kiss and
there was no telling how long it might be until her next one. Was it
really so bad if she had enjoyed it?

	Excuse me whilst I rage in impotent jealousy over here...

    Before Ami was able to decide on an answer to that particular
question, the elevator chimed happily and opened its doors with a gentle
hydraulic hiss. Checking the display to make sure she was on the right
floor, Ami stepped out into the lushly carpeted hallway and began making
her way to her room. As she walked, she caught herself humming a tune
under her breath that she could not recall the words to. It had been
playing at the Daisekai Museum, when she and Ryo had been walking through
the 'Corridor of Time' together. Some kind of old Shanghai jazz, as far
as she could recall - the kind that they had banned in the Fifties for
being overly decadent. All in all, it had been a very pleasant evening.
She would have to see if Ryo felt like doing it again some time.

    Fumbling in the front pocket of her jeans, Ami fished out the
card key she had been given when she signed in almost a week ago. Of
course, it had been her who had needed to set up the hotel, as well as
all of the transportation for her friends. Poor Usagi was useless when it
came to arranging almost anything, and Rei had very sensibly pointed out
that since Ami was already handling everything for two of them, it only
made sense to take care of all the details for the whole group. At least

	<choke>  Rei has a lazy streak -- who knew?

it was only the three of them to take care of on this trip - Ami was so
used to looking after Rei and Usagi that it was practically second nature
to her, but having to juggle Minako and Makoto at the same time would
have been exhausting.

	Besides, girls don't juggle very well -- too flexible and bouncy.  I
prefer balls, knives, idling chainsaws -- you know, easy stuff.

    Ami swept her card through the lock, and it beeped cheerfully to

	The machinery all seems cheerful this morning.  I guess Ami's still in
a bit of a rose-tinted haze...

let her know that she had done it correctly. Turning the handle, she
pushed the door open slightly and began to ease her way into the room.
She had better be silent, she decided - it was pretty late, and the last
thing she wanted to do was accidentally wake anybody....

	I.  Can't.  WATCH!!!

    "Hello, Ami," Rei Hino said, jerking the door fully open and
smiling wryly at her friend. The raven-haired girl was still dressed in
the white denim jacket and matching skirt she had worn shopping with
Usagi, her sleeveless turtleneck shirt shimmering slightly as the light
of the hallway danced over the delicate swirling patterns that covered
the fabric. A small white hat with a sunflower tucked into the band sat
atop her head at a jaunty angle which was completely at odds with the
angry look in her dark eyes. Ami had seen that look on Rei's face before,
but it was usually directed at Usagi. This was the first time she had
been on the recieving end of it. Usagi was right - it was kind of scary.

	And when it's Fire vs Ice, the winner is usually... water.  Or steam.
	Hmmm... cue:  Peter Gabriel, "Steam."

    "Hello, Rei," Ami said, smiling politely. "Does something seem
to be the matter?"

	Okay, no wrestling.  So we're probably in for a virtuoso display of
verbal fencing... at least until Usagi shows up.

    "Of course not," the other girl replied sarcastically, crossing
her arms under her breasts and leaning against the doorframe. "Usagi and
I got back here almost three hours ago, and you were nowhere to be found.
Do you have any idea how worried Usagi was? For all she knew, you could
have gotten attacked by that Nise Suiko freak, or some other kind of
monster! She was about three seconds away from waking up every Sailor
Senshi in Japan and getting them to come down here to help her search for
you!"

	Oops.

    "Oh, hey, Ami!" Usagi said cheerfully, poking her head around
Rei's shoulder and waving. "How long have you been gone?"

	<a-HEM!>  Okay, *who* was worried sick?

    "She certainly doesn't *seem* very upset," Ami noted carefully.

    "Trust me," Rei growled between her clenched teeth, giving Usagi
a dirty glare, "She was VERY WORRIED about you. She's just... hiding it
really well."

	Uh... huh.  Yeah.  Right.  Whatever you say, Rei.

    "What are you talking about?" Usagi asked, blinking in confusion.
"You're the one who was calling all the hospitals and asking if they had
anybody with blue hair, remember? I was the one telling you that she was
probably off getting a can of juice."

	<ROTFL>

    "She was gone for three hours!" Rei yelled, throwing her arms into
the air and storming into the room as Usagi shrugged reasonably and sat
down at the small side table where Ami had left all of her schoolwork.

    "So? Maybe she went home for it," Usagi argued reasonably as she
picked up a pencil with a large tuft of pink fur on the end and began
scribbling into a small notepad that was covered with silver crescent
moons. "Everybody knows that Tokyo is the best place to get canned juice,
Rei - it's common knowledge."

	We're going to see flash-fried hossenfeffer any minute now, I just know it.

    "Wait a minute," Ami interjected, pushing her way into the room
and nudging past Rei. "What are you doing over there with all my notes,
Usagi?"

    "Nothing you can prove," the blonde girl said defensively, deftly
tucking the notepad into one of the pockets of her green denim shorts and
grinning innocently at her suspicious friend. "Besides, this isn't about
what I may or may not have copied off of you! This is about why you're
wearing Ryo Sanada's shirt."

	POW!  And it's Tsukino with beautiful succker punch, straight out of
the blue!

    "It is? Why would it- I'M DOING WHAT?" Ami looked down and made

	<plotz>

a strangled noise. Sure enough, that white sweater with the big orange
'R' on it was not something that had come from her closet. It was
definitely Ryo's shirt. How the heck had that - oh, right! They had been
walking home, and she had been cold, so he had offered her his sweater,
and she had tried very hard not to squeal excitedly. She must have
forgotten to give it back when he dropped her off at the hotel, and for
some reason he must have forgotten to ask for it.

    "Ami!" Rei gasped, giving her a horrified look.

	And Rei didn't even notice.  Heh.

    "It's not what it looks like," Ami swore, quickly slipping the
shirt off and setting it safely aside for later.

	Okay, why keep calling it a shirt?  I'm honestly confused, here -- why
not call a sweater a sweater?

    "I'll say," Usagi agreed, frowning thoughtfully. "I was kind of
assuming that Ryo would end up with Rei, since they both have fire
powers...."

	<facefault>  What?  Usagi, have you been reading the author's notes again?

    "What kind of stupid logic is that?" Rei asked, looking offended.
"Just because a guy can toss around some fireballs does not mean I'm
going to be interested in him! I happen to prefer older boys, Usagi: the
Samurai Troopers are all too goofy for my tastes. Uh, no offense, Ami."

	Except for His Culturedness, the Yoroiden of Waters, perhaps....

    "None taken," Ami assured the raven-haired girl, taking a seat on
the edge of the nearest bed. It was probably best to wait until her
friends were done arguing before she asked for them for any dating advice.
Like, for example, how she was supposed to know when one had actually
occured. Or how best to go about making sure she received another. She
had very little reference material to go by when it came to male/female
relationships - there were surprisingly few manuals on the subject. At

	Manuals.  <facepalm>  That is just Sooooo Ami.

least, there certainly were none in her house, and she had searched very
thoroughly. Usagi had managed to not only get a steady boyfriend, but she
had even managed to re-get him on at least four different occasions that
Ami could remember off the top of her head. Compared to wooing a

	<ahem>  Yeah, Usagi's love life really... um... well, it certainly
isn't normal.

brainwashed, evil, and amnesiac Tuxedo Kamen, winning over simple old Ryo
Sanada would surely be child's play.

	Oh, dear.  You're going to make her *pay* for thinking that, aren't you?

    "Oh, come on!" Usagi exclaimed, poking Rei in the chest. "You
can't honestly tell me that you haven't noticed! Did you see him in that
wetsuit on Nango Beach? I know I saw you checking him out!"

	Nothing escapes Usagi's eye.  Well, nothing she considers *important.*

    "Okay, so maybe I noticed a little," Rei admitted, blushing
slightly as she stepped back. "There's a big difference between looking
and actually wanting to be with a guy, Usagi!"

    "Not to me there isn't!" Usagi crowed victoriously. "I've never
checked out a guy I didn't fall immediately in love with!"

	...not sure I want to think about all the potential implications of
that statement.

    "He's too short," Rei said dismissively. "I mean, he's barely even
as tall as I am! A guy should be taller than his girlfriend, or else it
just looks funny."

    "Well, if that's the case then Mako-chan's going to have to settle
for a basketball player," Usagi argued. Sighing dramatically, the blonde

	Or an absentminded genius (subtype: Mad Scientist)

girl clasped her hands together in front of her and leaned back, her eyes
glistening with dreamy emotion. "Height shouldn't matter, anyway. Not if
true love can find a way into your hearts...."

    "This is so unfair," Rei grumbled. "I can't slap you, and Luna's
not here to do it for me."

	<ROTFLOL!!!>

    "Come on, Rei, what have you got to lose? Who knows, you might

	Yeah, go ahead, slap her.  :)

even manage to not be miserable for once. It's not like you'll ever meet
any cute boys staying up at that shrine of yours, and I'm not going to
just sit here and watch you turn into a spinster when there are perfectly
good guys you could be dating."

	<jawdrop>  GEEEZ, Usagi!

    "What is wrong with you?" Rei asked, with an exasperated groan.
"Why is my love life any of your business, anyway?"

	Oh.  I actually thought she'd hurt Rei's feelings with that one.  Okay,
nevermind.

    "Because I say so," Usagi replied simply, sticking her tongue out
at her friend. "And I'm the Moon Princess. So there."

    "You're the Moon IDIOT, and I'm leaving!" Grabbing her purse from
the bed, Rei stormed out of the hotel room and slammed the door violently
behind her. The sound of her grumbling slowly receded into the distance,
and Usagi turned to Ami with a cheerful smile.

	Aaaand, Rei's on her way to bump head-on into Shin, I bet.

    "She always hates it when I win," the blonde girl said proudly.
Taking a seat next to her friend, Usagi swept her long twin ponytails out
of the way and gently patted Ami's knee.

    "Now," she said, with an impish grin, "tell me more about Ryo
Sanada. Is he cool? Does your heart go all squishy when you look at him?
Oh, Ami, I'm so excited for you! Now you and Ryo can go on double dates
with me and Mamoru, and we can make them wear matching tuxedoes, and all

	I dunno, I keep seeing any tux that comes into contact with Ryo going
up in smoke.  Either that, or it gets what usually happens to any fancy
clothes that Son Goku wears...

the other girls at school are going to be *so* jealous when they find out
that you're dating a Samurai Trooper -once we tell them what one is, I
mean- and he can walk you home from school, and carry your books,
and...."

	^_^;;	They don't even live in the same *city.*

    "I'm not entirely sure that's how this works, Usagi," Ami said
nervously. "Now that you mention it, I'm not even sure if Ryo lives in the
same part of Tokyo that we do. Once this is over, we probably won't be
seeing each other again for a very long time."

	Oh, no.  Mentioning obstacles to True Love in front of Usagi is like
waving a red cloak in front of a bull.

    "Really? I can't lose a shoe without hitting my boyfriend," Usagi

	Mamoru:  "And I have the X-rays to prove it."

said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Any chance you can get him to move
to Juuban when this is all over? Where the heck does he live, anyway?
Shibuya? Shinjuku? Maybe you could take a bus, or something."

    "I think he lives in a cabin in the woods," Ami replied meekly,
hanging her head as Usagi frowned at her.

    "Great choice in crushes, Ami. Real convenient." After a moment,

	Bwah!?  This from *Usagi*???  Seriously, that's a little... curt for
her, don't you think?  Especially when it comes to love, and
double-especially when it comes to Ami -- after all, the poor girl's
never had a BF at *all.*

the other girl sighed. "Oh, well - I guess you can't control who you fall
in love with. We'll just have to work with what we've got. Now, the first
thing we've got to do is get you a new wardrobe...."

	Now this is the Usagi we all know and love.

**********

    The woman who most people called Perrine Etrange shivered and
pulled her jacket around herself a little tighter. A few hours ago, she
had still been in Japan, where dawn was only just arriving. Her sisters
were probably waking up to hot coffee and pastries, like they did every
morning when Carole was in the mood to do some cooking. Berenice would
probably be finding the letter that she had left them any minute now. She
had told them that she was going on a business trip to Taiwan. Like almost
everything else she had been saying lately, that was a lie.

	Y'know, I can't help hoping that Petz gets *something* out of all this
that helps make her life a little less miserable.

    Perrine sighed and rubbed her forehead with her gloved fingertips.
Even though she couldn't feel it, she knew that it was there: the inverted
black crescent moon that had marked her for so many years had returned
to its former resting place. If her sisters had any idea what she was
doing, they probably would have tried to stop her. Worse, they might have
tried to come with her. The last thing Petz wanted to do was drag any of
her other siblings back into their old lives as the Ayakashi Sisters.

    Admittedly, they might have made better allies than the strangers
she was paired with now. Petz glanced across at the woman seated next to
her and scowled slightly. Elios had paired up the different people on
their team for this part of the mission, and her partner had made it very
clear that she would rather have been teamed with someone else. Frankly,
the feeling was rapidly becoming mutual. It wasn't even really like Elios
had even invited her - she had demanded that he take her along. As if
a secretary was going to be of vital importance.

	<whistles innocently>

    Petz snorted. Sure, if the Dark Kingdom needed some filing done,
then maybe she could see the point, but she doubted that would happen.
Elios needed people who could handle themselves in a fight, not some
love-struck executive assistant who was obviously tarting herself up in a
vain attempt to attract her boss' attention. Really, who wore stilleto
high heels with a lab coat, anyway? And her sister Celimene said that
*she* was desperate...

	She's right about the heels, but let's face it, genre conventions are
almost undeniable.

    "Is there something wrong?" Kaolinite asked calmly, turning her
head and looking at her partner. She was almost annoyingly perfect; every
strand of her blood-red hair was perfectly in place, and she sat in the
cramped seat of the airplane as comfortably as if she were enjoying her
own personal balcony seat at an opera. She was dressed like she might
be on her way to one, in fact, with a slinky black dress that clung to
her every curve and dipped almost scandalously low in the front to show
off the large ruby amulet nestled between her breasts. It was also slit
so high up the sides that the whole gown practically counted as two
seperate pieces of fabric, and Petz would not have been caught dead in it
even if she *was* convinced she had the body to pull it off.

	Y'know, *someday* someone's going to write a mahou-shojo series where
the girls dress *sensibly,* and it'll probably signal the end of anime
as we know it.

    "Nothing, darling," she replied. "I'm just a little uncomfortable
on planes, that's all. Wondering how you were holding up."

    "I'm fine," Kaolinite responded, shrugging and looking past Petz
out the window. "You know, I still say that we could have gotten here
faster if I had flown us myself."

    "All the way across the ocean?" Petz snickered. "On what, your
magic broomstick?"

    "Broomsticks are for amateurs," Kaolinite said, smiling politely
as her pupils glowed with a soft crimson light. "I stopped working with
props a long time ago."

    "If you ask me, we've been given the short end of this particular
broomstick," Petz grumbled, crossing her arms and making a cross face. "I
mean, of all the people to send to the North Pole, why did he have to pick
us? He could have sent those creepy alien children."

	Ah.  Headed for D-point, eh?  I guess the Prof has decided against
trying to create his own path into the DK.
	Although that makes Kaori's getup make even *less* sense.

    "Ail and Ann have many skills," Kaolinite replied, shaking her
head slightly, "but subtlety is not among them. That Ann girl probably
would have started blowing up random pieces of the landscape as soon as
someone commented on her hair. Besides, you know how vulnerable Elios
said they are without their tree. It's better for them to infiltrate the
Dark Kingdom directly. Surely whoever is behind this will be looking for
recruits: those two and their cardians will seem like a blessing to him."

	1.  I wouldn't be so confident of that.
	2.  *Which* "whoever"?  Yeah, Team Tomoe doesn't have any idea that the
opposition is heavily factionalized, but I've got a hunch that ignorance
may make A&A's little infiltration-by-recruitment much more dicey than
anyone expects...

    "So we get to freeze our buns off in the middle of nowhere, and
they get to make themselves comfortable in some palace and wait for us to
show up," Petz concluded, her scowl deepening. "Where are we going,
anyway? I've never even heard of these places."

    "We'll be landing at Eureka," Kaolinite explained. "Professor
Tomoe pulled a few strings and was able to get us permission to use the
Environment Canada weather station there. As far as anybody knows, all the
equipment that you stowed so safely in the overhead compartment is going
to be for tracking Arctic stormfronts. Considering the entire base has a
population of eight, we should have no problem slipping away. We'll stop
in Alert for supplies - there's a heavy supply shipment every summer from
Montreal, so they won't notice if we take a few things. Since there are
only five people living there, I doubt anyone will even know we stopped
by. And before you ask, Alert is about eight hundred miles from the North
Pole. By that time, we should be close enough that the gear Professor
Tomoe and I designed will be able to locate any dimensional tears where
our reality and the Dark Kingdom are crossing over."

	Hm.  Are they headed for the Bear Island region, by any chance?  I ask
b/c that's (IIRC) the *magnetic* North Pole, roughly, which could make a
reasonable location for dimensional whatsits to congregate.  Otherwise,
the nearest geographic location of any distinction is the NP itself, and
*that's* gonna be a pain to get to.

    "Again, I am forced to notice that everybody except us seems to
have a much easier way of getting to the Dark Kingdom." Petz interjected,
tapping her foot against the back of the empty chair in front of her.

    "That's because the Professor wants us to seal up any of the
tears we find, too," Kaolinite said with a slightly exasperated sigh. "You
have no idea how much dark energy might be leaking through any of those
portals - and they've been open ever since Sailor Moon fought Queen Beryl,
if Elios is to be believed. Based on our prior experiments with these
kinds of energy, you do not want to know what it might be doing up there."

	Okay, I'm changing my vote to the real NP -- there's a lot less native
life of any kind up there to be corrupted by any dark energies.

    "I'm very familiar with what might be going on up there," Petz
admonished her partner. "It's not like I'm new at this. Polarised wave
differentials were my old boyfriend's idea of pillow talk."

    Whatever Kaolinite was planning to say in response to that was
left forever unspoken, as their plane chose that exact moment to buck
like a startled horse and hurled both women into the ceiling with enough
force to make the world spin. As they both tumbled back down into their

	This is why I always keep my seatbelt on.

seats, sprawled over the backs of the vacant chairs in front of them, a
red light began to flash wildly and oxygen masks dropped from the panels
above.

    "Who dares attack us?" Kaolinite hissed, crawling over Petz and
glaring out the window. "I'll fry them in their... oh, my."

	*That's* not good.

    Petz quickly righted herself and squeezed in next to the other
woman to see what she was looking at. The sky outside their tiny plane
was changing hues rapidly, shifting from putrescent green to deep violet
with a disturbing pulsing sensation that reminded her of a hearbeat. The
sky rumbled with evil intent, and huge sheets of blue lightning sparked
and rippled around them. In the distance, the black clouds spiralled and
began to take shape in the heart of the darkness that surrounded the
entire northen tip of the island they had been flying towards.

    "I think we can safely avoid using the Professor's equipment to
find the closest tear," Kaolinite said flatly.

    "I think I should have gone to Mount Osore with those creepy alien

	Mount Osore?

children and left you to handle this by yourself," Petz added in a
strangled tone as the plane shuddered and made a low groaning noise that
she did not like the sound of. She almost couldn't believe that she had
volunteered to go back to her old life so easily. How could she have
forgotten the part of her old life that included things like this?

	Everything looks nicer in retrospect.

    "It looks like it's enveloped nearly the entire northern tip of
Ellesmere Island," Kaolinite noted, squinting slightly as she focused her
vision on the heart of the disturbance. "Based somewhere on the Milne Ice
Shelf, I think. North of the grounding line."

	<squints suspiciously at author>  You've been doing *research* again,
haven't you?

    "What the hell does any of that *mean*?" Petz snapped, giving her
partner a venomous look.

    "It *means* that thing is sitting on top of a giant block of ice
with no ground under it," Kaolinite snapped back, her eyes flashing
crimson again. "Like a huge sheet of ice that's just hanging off the edge
of the island. Alert is probably already somewhere under that mess - we've
got to stop it before it can spread any further."

    "Is that going to be before or after it shakes us out of the sky?"
Petz asked, as their ride shuddered and groaned again, dipping to the left
without warning and sending both women falling free into the centre of
the fuselage as the entire plane spun around them. Landing on the ceiling
with a heavy thump, Petz cracked her head against the rails and bundled
netting holding together their equipment.

	BTW, who's *flying* this thing?  Most pilots would be turning tail and
heading for their nearest abort field right about now.

    "You go check on the pilot," Kaolinite ordered, pointing towards
the sealed door that led to the cockpit. "Make sure this plane gets landed
safely, or all the Professor's hard work will be for nothing!"

	Somehow I don't think Petz's skills extend to landing aircraft.

    "Me? What are you going to-"

    Before Petz could finish her sentence, Kaolinite had hurled
herself through the side of the plane. Arms and legs spread wide, the

	But did she leave a hole?

red-haired sorceress spun and tumbled through the air, soaring free of
the rattling plane and orienting herself a few feet off of its wingtip.
Her hair streaming behind her like a pennant, Kaolinite stretched her
arms along her sides and brought her feet together, darting forward
as she rocketed deeper into the turbulent sky. How the woman had managed
to make it through the window without breaking the glass was something
that Petz did not want to think about until later.

	Ah.

    "Okay," she said to herself, working her way towards the cockpit,
"so I have to handle the plane. Whatever. Can't be *that* much harder than
flying a UFO...."

	<blink>  Okay, *this* is what I get for never watching SMR.

    Clutching the flimsy netting with one hand, Petz quickly shook
off the heavy parka she had been wearing. Warmth was nothing compared to
mobility, and her costume was like a second skin to her. Without the bulky
coat to slow her down, she was much more agile. Swinging from the overhead
netting, Petz somersaulted down the aisle and slammed into the door feet
first. The door wisely gave way, breaking open on its hinges and yawning
to accept her as she tumbled into the cockpit and skidded to a halt
against the pilot's chair.

    Looking down at the pilot, Petz made a face. Well, so much for her
getting out of having to land the plane by herself. She was no medic, but
she was pretty sure people in this time period still needed their organs
on the inside to be considered alive. Gingerly taking the empty seat next
to the gently steaming remains, she gripped the controls in front of her

	??? What happened to him?  I mean, Petz hasn't noticed any holes in the
windscreen or anything...
	And it's pretty odd for a flight like this to have no co-pilot,
especially if this is an RCAF a/c.

and scanned the various displays. Okay, so it was not going to be quite
the same as piloting a UFO. For one thing, she had no idea where the
mind/machine interface was located. For a fleeting instant, she wished

	Oh dear.

that Sapphire was there to show her what to do - he had always been so
good with clunky old antiques like the one she was sitting in.

    Stupid Kaolinite just had to go and leave her with all the hard
work, didn't she?

	Cue Kaori...

**********

    Pirouetting in mid-air, Kaolinite swatted aside another of the
bat-like creatures that had swarmed her, her magic reducing the slavering
beast to ash even as another of its brood latched onto her back and began
tearing at her with its sickle-like claws. With a low growl, the young
witch struggled to pull the beast off of her, her fingers scrabbling
against its leathery hide. She had made it barely a hundred miles away
from the plane before the foul things had risen from the ice floe like a
cloud of gnats, biting and clawing and screeching at her with their
horridly shrill voices. Obviously, things had been going rotten in this
part of the world for some time now without anybody noticing. She would
have to remember that for her own use, if she ever decided to be evil
again.

	Comforting.  NOT.

    Of course, she reminded herself, as the loathsome creatures

	I'd drop the second comma.

flocked over her body, she had to be careful about thinking things like
that. The Professor had told her that he liked *good* girls, now, so

	And I'd drop the first comma there.

that meant she had to be on her best behaviour until he changed his mind.
After all, it wasn't like she really cared one way or the other what she
was doing, as long as it was with the right people.

	...that manages to be touching and rather scary at the same time.

    She fell from the sky, the monsters crawling over her in a giant
mass of flapping, screeching, slavering flesh that had her pinned so
tightly she could barely twitch. They were layered over her, beasts on top
of beasts on top of even more beasts as they all fought to claim her
blood. Kaolinite bit her lip and breathed a spell as she stopped
struggling against them and felt the first pair of fangs pierce her skin.

    There was a sudden explosion of flaming scarlet light, luminsecent
against the deep purple air as the entire mass of writhing monsters were
enveloped in a crackling eldritch fire that consumed them entirely. Only
Kaolinite was left, alone in the sky as she clutched the wound at the side
of her neck and grinned savagely in victory. Her pyrotechnic display had
sent the few surviving youma fleeing from the air in search of easier
prey, and left her with a free path to the heart of the disturbance.

    Clenching her fists, she flew into the face of the raging winds,
letting the storm buffet her as she soared towards the source of all the
trouble. As the Professor had feared, the growing instability caused by
Metallia's death throes had caused the negative energy of the Dark Kingdom
to start bleeding into the real world. If left unchecked, it might have

	Errm... the DK's seperate universe seems pretty "real," and if the
backstory implied with the Troopers is correct, it's been around a long
time, and wasn't just a pocket universe create by Serenity to hold
Beryl&co.  Are you sure "real" is the word you wanted to use there?

festered in this lonely corner of the planet for decades before anybody
noticed it gathering strength. Their enemy Radanthus would be able to get
too much use from something like this for them to leave it lying open for
him.

    As she neared, the air itself seemed to thicken, sticking to her
and resisting her advance as though she were trying to fly through the
web of a giant spider. It was more like swimming than flying, only worse:
swimming usually involved water. This was like swimming through chunky
tapioca pudding. Gritting her teeth, she tried to force her way through.
Elios had sworn that the amulet he gave her would boost her strength until

	Sug:  "that he had given her"

she was back up to her former power levels. There was no way she was going
to let a simple tear in the fabric of reality overwhelm her when she had
that much magical strength at her disposal.

	Hm.  She *did* manage to manhandle the Senshi rather badly, IIRC.

    The ice beneath her moaned like a wounded thing, and cracked open

	Sug:  "below her."  Just sounds better to me, since she's flying.
Also, this might be a good place to give some impression of how high up
she is, since that'll effect how close the dino-thing is for an ambush.

with a chorus of snaps and pops. Pausing her forward press, Kaolinite
looked down and hissed as her breath caught in her throat. The air had not
thickened to stop her advance, but to slow her down long enough for more
insidious magics to work their way through the soil. The glaciers of this
island had been in place since the dawn of time, churning away at the
ground as they wore their way towards the sea, and there were any number
of things buried beneath the miles of ice.

    One such thing, apparently, was the gigantic skeleton that was
only beginning to rise from the growing rift in the glacier's surface,
its ponderous skull grinning blankly up at her as it rose on the tip of
a seemingly endless series of vertebrae as thick as her leg. Kaolinite
had no idea what kind of fossil she was looking at - a Brachiosaurus,
maybe, or a Diplodocus - but there was a deliberate menace in its sinous
motions that was quite out of place for a simple herbivore.

    Lightning crashed nearby, splitting the air with a peal of thunder
as the skeletal monster opened its jaws and released a stentorian roar.
A single bony limb emerged from beneath the ice and dug deeply into the
snow covering as it began to lurch out of the chasm it had been buried
under for millenia. Kaolinite gulped as she stared at the creature in
mouting fear. It wasn't even half out, yet, and already it's chisel-like
teeth were gnashing far too close to her heels for comfort. With a
moment's concentration, she called upon the winds to lift her a little
further up. Whatever was powering that abomination, at least it could
only stretch so high. She would just stay out of its reach.

	Cue...

    Like a striking cobra, the huge skull launched itself at her, its
vertebrae popping and seperating as its neck elongated even farther than
it already had. Dark streams of viscous black protoplasm stretched from

	Yep.  Hm, this visual is familiar -- have you watched any of "Bleach"
yet?  There's a character named Zabimaru whose schtick is roughly similar.

one floating piece to the other as the abomination's jaws snapped shut
mere inches from Kaolinite's face. Stumbling back, the young witch
plummeted towards the earth as the beast snapped its neck like a giant
whip and smashed the side of its rock-hard skull into her body. Knocked
spinning, Kaolinite gasped for breath as she spiralled through the sky
and desperately tried to summon the power to halt her fall before she
struck the ice below.

    There was an explosion of snow as Kaolinite impacted with the
frozen ground, disappearing into a thick cloud of powder. Eager to finish
off its prey, the skeletal sauropod lunged forward with its jaws gaping
wide. The swirling flurry of snow parted and cleared, carried away on the
howling wind, and the creature stopped in mid-strike, an almost puzzled
look on its bony features.

    Kaolinite was sitting comfortably in the middle of a vast cushion
of her own hair, completley unharmed. The once waist-length hair now
stretched for miles, folded and piled on top of itself until it had been
formed into an impromptu crash pad. Smiling grimly, Kaolinite launched

	Well, that's one girl who'll never need an airbag.

herself back into the air, pushed and propelled by the streaming crimson

	Ehhh... I'd drop the "pushed," myself.

locks that seemed to be moving with a life of their own. Like a red comet,
the witch hurtled past the confused creature, circling its head and
binding its jaws in a thick train of hair that stretched and clutched the
beast's skull with Herculean strength. With a flourish, Kaolinite dropped

	Gee, shouldn't that be "Medusan"?  :)  No, wait, this isn't
"Avenging."  Never mind.

back down towards the ground, dragging the dinosaur's head behind her like
a dog on a leash.

    Skimming close to the ice, Kaolinite laughed as the beast's head
crashed into the ground and was dragged behind her, raising a deep furrow
in the glacier's surface and filling the air with a cloud of ice and snow
so thick that it pelted against her skin like hailstones. This was the
most fun she'd had in years.

    Bellowing mightily, the skeleton tried to pull itself free,
jerking Kaolinite backwards in mid-flight and slamming her into the snow
unexpectedly. Quickly bracing herself with another thick lock of hair that
wrapped around several nearby boulders and lashed her tight, she pulled
the dinosaur forward with all her might. As its skull emerged from the
thick cloud of swirling snow like an oncoming train, she raised her arms
above her head and called out to the heavens, her hands glowing with
mystical energy. The beast's head surged towards her, its empty eye
sockets glowing with malice as she thrust her hands in front of her and
unleashed a torrent of crimson power, slamming into its snout with enough
power to shatter a mountainside.

    To her surprise, the beast lowered its head and forced its way
onwards, the crackling streams of her mystic bolts flowing off of its
bony carapace with no damage. Kaolinite had no time to dodge as its bony
crest crashed into her like a battering ram, hurling her back and tearing
her hair as it shrank back to its regular length. Of course, she realised,
as she caught herself in the middle of her fall and soared back towards
her gargantuan opponent. The creature was ancient, hundreds of millions
of years older than any spell she knew. Whatever magic was fueling either
of them now meant nothing compared to the sheer power contained within
those bones. Direct attacks were not going to get her anything but
defeated.

	Just a sug:  "...accumulated power..." or "...sheer power accumulated
within..."

    Ducking under its attempt to crush her between its teeth, she
weaved around its elongated neck and swooped through its cavernous
ribcage, firing crimson bolts of energy behind her to dissuade pursuit.

	Figures.  Monster with a fully-exposed interior, and of *course* it's
got no inside to attack.

Hopefully she would be able to find some kind of weak point, and at least
it couldn't knock her around with its head while she was inside of it.
Her hair unfurled in all directions, wrapping tightly around each of the
giant fossilized ribs and pulling them inwards with tremendous force. The
bones cracked and splintered, releasing a blast of crackling black
electricity that caused Kaolinite to scream out in agony. Falling free
from the bony cage, the witch tumbled onto the ice in a senseless heap.

	Uh oh.

    After a few moments Kaolinite twitched, and began to move, lifting
her head and looking up just in time to see the monster's massive skull
descending on her, maw gaping wide. With a desperate leap, she hurled
herself upwards between its teeth, the creature's mouth slamming shut
beneath her feet as she darted out through the empty space in its lower
jaw and flew above its head.

	OTOH, she can do this since it doesn't have any stomach, so I guess
it's an even tradeoff.

    The sauropod roared, and a strange blue glow formed in the shadows
of its mouth. Reacting quickly, Kaolinite tried to form a shield as a hail

	Oh, great.  *Now* it thinks it's Gojira.

of needle-like energy bolts rained past her. Her powers responded, forming
a translucent panel of mystic force and deflecting the majority of the
onslaught. The young woman winced as several of the small blue needles
pierced her veil, however, burning jagged streaks along her exposed legs
and lancing across her cheek. The shield had been too slow, her power
reacting to her command too sluggishly to work perfectly. She was getting
sloppy, and that meant she was getting tired. Fighting the winds of the
storm and the bitter cold of the Arctic was bad enough without the added
strain this battle had been putting on her.

	Well, you know, you wouldn't *be* fighting the Arctic temperature (as
much) if you wore MORE SENSIBLE CLOTHES!!!

    Swivelling its head to a new position, the skeletal beast opened
its mouth and unleashed another barrage of mystical blue arrows. Kaolinite
spun and gestured, moving her shield to block the new attack even as its
force threw her backwards. The abomination stomped the ground, the ice
cracking and splitting with its tremendous weight even as its lengthy tail
whistled through the air and snapped across Kaolinite's back like a giant
bony whip. Crying out, the witch was hurled expertly into the chasm that
her opponent had formed in the glacier.

    Damn, she thought fuzzily, as she splashed into the frigid waters
of the Arctic Ocean. She had been so concerned with the thing's head that
she had forgotten about its tail. The cursed thing was so big that she
had completely lost track of where the rest of it had been. She should
have known better. She sobbed, the air escaping from her lungs and
bubbling around her before floating lazily towards the thick layer of ice
that covered the ocean's surface.

	Uh oh.

    The Professor would be so disappointed if he could see her.

	<snerk> These little character-maintenance asides are something you do
pretty well.
	Sug:  "...see her now."

**********

    Petz ran across the glacier, snow churning around her thigh-high
leather boots as she raced towards the giant skeleton that loomed over

	Y'know, I've never worn thigh-high leather boots, but based on
experience with the lower-topped versions, I have to wonder how anybody
ever flexes their knees while wearing those things...

the landscape. Kaolinite had been knocked out of the sky almost a minute
ago, and she still hadn't gotten back up again. If those two hadn't been

	Sug:  "...and Petz hadn't seen a sign of her since."  "hadn't gotten
back up" kind of suggests (to me, at least) that Petz can *see* her,
which obviously isn't the case.

fighting all over the ice shelf, she might have been able to catch up to
them in time to make a difference. It was beginning to look like she might
just be arriving in time to avenge her partner instead of rescue her.

    She hadn't even liked Kaolinite that much. It wasn't as if they
were ever going to be inviting each other over for sleepovers, or
anything. A few minutes ago, Petz would have been willing to bet that she
would not have cared if the other woman had vanished in a puff of smoke
and never returned.

    None of that mattered. They may not have liked each other, but

	Sug:  "...mattered now."

they had been partners, and Petz of the Ayakashi was not the sort of
person to take that kind of thing lightly. She had lost far too many
partners -lost nearly the entire Black Moon Family, in fact- and the idea
of losing another was maddening. With a ferocious cry, she hurled a
sizzling ball of lightning straight into the side of the beast's head. As
it turned and noticed her, she skidded to a halt and took a defensive
stance. Without Kaolinite, there was no way that she could work all of
the machines that they needed to get into the Dark Kingdom and close the
rift. Without Kaolinite, the whole mission was a loss, and this monster
had just killed Kaolinite.

	So, might as well just blow off some steam.  :)

    "You made me FAIL, you miserable wretch!" Petz shrieked, her voice
somehow audible even over the howling of the wind and the constant groan
of the shifting ice. "Do you have any *idea* how much I hate failing?"

	Noooo, but I think it's about to find out.

    The wind rose, lifting the top layer of snow into the air like a
thick fog of fluttering crystals that danced around her as Petz clenched
her fists and two gleaming bolts of lightning tore through the sky to
slam into the ground on either side of her. Instead of fading, however,
the two bolts flared and grew larger, forming twin columns of crackling
electricity that towered into the sky even as they churned deeper into
the ground. With a curt nod, Petz sent the gleaming beams surging forward,
ripping up great trails in the ice as they crashed against the giant
skeleton's body and exploded in a flash of brilliant light.

	Somewhere in Castle Gloom, Makoto just had a sneezing fit.

    Rocked back slightly, the creature released a loud bellow and
struck the ground with its tail, creating a booming noise louder than the
thunder as the ice cracked and shattered further. Unpertrubed, Petz raced
forwards, scrambling up the side of one mountain of ice as it moved and
shifted, then leaping nimbly to the top of another before launching
herself at her enemy with a bloodcurdling screech. The skies were filled
with lightning in this strange place, and Petz knew exactly how to use it.
In rapid succession the best found itself being struck by bolt after bolt
of sizzling energy, cracking away at the mighty bones of its massive body
and churning the ice around it into a thick slurry. Reeling from the sheer
ferocity of the assault, the beast staggered backwards before lifting its
head and retaliating with a burst of gleaming blue bolts.

	Y'know, if this is what an *accidental* leak of Dark Energy causes, I'd
hate to see how dangerous this thing would be if someone were
*directing* it's creation and development.
	Or... *is* someone doing so...?

    Petz dove for cover, the lethal shots raining down on her and

	Sug: "around her"

ripping through the surface of the glacier. With a curse, she darted out
from hiding and raced towards the next towering ice structure as steaming
blue darts of energy chewed the ground behind her feet. The last thing she
needed was one of those things to pierce her - she liked her body with
exactly the number of holes it currently posessed.

	That's my usual argument against body piercing.

    The ice buckled and gave suddenly under her weight, cracking and
tilting sharply upwards in a wide sheet as she stepped on it. Digging her
nails into its glossy surface, Petz dragged herself over the massive ice
floe and dropped down behind it, a flurry of blue darts sailing over her
head as she landed in a crouch.

    Petz scowled and looked down at her hand. Obviously her usual
attacks were not going to suffice against this monstrosity. Why was it
that whenever she had the Sailor Senshi in this kind of predicament, they
always seemed to come up with some sort of last minute rescue or new
attack that saved everybody? More importantly, why couldn't *she* do it?
She knew that she was at least as powerful as Sailor Jupiter was: Elios
had told her so when he restored her powers. So why was she still stuck
tossing thunderbolts at this thing?

	Easy answer: Naoko Takeuichi wanted the Senshi to win, and you to lose.

    Maybe she wasn't.

	Okay, that's the *other* easy answer.
	

    Petz concentrated, and a thin web of golden electricity began to
form between her fingers. After a few seconds it flickered and died, and
she frowned. Clenching and opening her fist, she tried again. This could
not possibly be that hard: she had *seen* Sailor Jupiter use this attack
before. If Sailor Jupiter could do it, then it only stood to reason that
Petz could do it better. As soon as she figured out the trick to it, at
least.

	There are holes in that logic I could drive the Yamato through.  But
hey, consider the source.  :)

    The beast's tail cracked through the sheet she was hiding behind,
shattering her cover and raising a huge wave of frigid seawater that
deluged the entire plain. Soaking wet, Petz scrambled out of the way as
the creature swung its tail in a semicircle, leaping over the massive
vertebrae as they tried to sweep her through the ice. The black feathers
that adorned her shoulders were a sodden mess, and tinkled like tiny bells
as they quickly froze on contact with the air. Forcing herself to ignore
the frost forming on her eyelashes and hair, Petz took off running towards
a promising snowbank that might be able to conceal her for a moment before
the monster began using that breath of its again. The once smooth and
featureless glacier had been cracked and shattered in so many places that
it was like trying to maneuver across the surface of the moon. Her only

	Which of course she has experience in.  Actually, what *does* the
landscape of Nemesis look like?

advantage was that she was so much smaller than her opponent that it was
almost impossible for it to get a good glimpse of her now that there was
so much terrain to hide behind.

    Muttering under her breath, Petz rubbed her arms and blew into
her hands before flexing her fingers and trying again to summon the
lightning in her hands. She was starting to shiver uncontrollably, and her
exposed skin felt clammy - the parts of it that still had any feeling at
all. She was tough enough to handle a little exposure, and her powers
would be more than able to warm her up later, but for the moment she
needed to focus on the giant undead dinosaur trying to turn her into
paste.

	Focus.  Yeah, focus is good.

    With a faint flicker, small bolts of lightning began to hum and
buzz between her fingertips. Grinning eagerly, Petz carefully focused on
maintaining the web of power that was slowly growing in her palm, until
it had formed a glowing orb roughly the size of a softball. Normally, this
would be the point where she lobbed it at something, but maybe... Brow

	It would?  She's never done this before.

furrowed in concentration, she lifted her other hand and felt the power
beginning to tingle in those fingers, as well. Placing her hands together,
Petz let the surging electricity flow freely through her palms and
carefully began to form the power as if it were soft clay, molding it and
compressing it until it had taken the shape of a large disc.

	Hmm!

    The ground shook, and the monster neared. Rising from the snowbank
she had been using for cover, Petz gave the crackling disc an experimental
toss, flipping it into the air and catching it again on the way down
before sending it flying with a flick of her wrist.

	And it blasted straight through Sark's Disc, splitting it cleanly in
half before doing the same to Sark's head-- oh, wait, wrong movie.

    "SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" Petz crowed victoriously, pumping her

	<snerkle>

fist as the disc sailed into the side of the creature's head and exploded
in a shower of sparks and flying pieces of bone. Smoke pouring from the
side of its ruined skull, the monster's legs buckled as it sagged to the
ground. Tail thrashing, it pawed at the cracked and damaged ice,
struggling to draw itself back up to its full height. Beneath the

	Too rattled to remember it can fly, huh?

behemoth, a dull red glow began to form under the ice, finally breaking
free as a web of fierce crimson energy that tore through the surface of
the glacier on all sides of the beast. With a final wail and a geyser of
seawater, the monster fell through the ice and plummeted below the waves.

    Petz stared in amazement at the giant crater in the ice. The
hole itself was more than a mile deep, and the water beneath... there

	Errr... I'm pretty sure there's no glaciers that close to a sea line
that are a mile thick vertically.  That kind of pressure would make the
bottom layers squeeze out like liquid soap.
	Also, it conflicts with the beast shattering the ice and spraying her
with seawater just a minute ago.

was no way of knowing. Slowly, almost cautiously, a thick tendril of
sopping wet hair slithered up from the black water and gripped the edge
of the gigantic hole. After a few moments, it was joined by another, and
another, until finally Kaolinite herself emerged, pulled out of the sea
by her crimson mane. The woman was dripping wet and shivering like a leaf
in a hurricane, her eyes glazed and slightly unfocused.

	...never thought I'd cheer for Kaori.  But hey, why not?  YEAH, KAORI!!!

    "See?" she said, her teeth chattering as she lowered herself to
the ground and tried to look as imperious as possible when covered with
seaweed and shuddering uncontrollably. "I t-told you we were p-past the
groundline."

	Whatever THAT means.

    "You look horrible," Petz said bluntly, hugging herself for
warmth and trying to rub some feeling back into her arms.

    "You look about as g-good as I do," Kaolinite replied, gasping
for air. "Let's g-get back to the p-plane."

	Dunno, I'd say Petz looks better -- less seaweed and general battery.
OTOH, if Petz only looks as bad as Kaori feels, then Kaori's obviously
not feeling as bad as she looks.
	...erm.  You know what, never mind.

    That was a good idea, Petz had to admit. There would be some
towels and blankets back there, not to mention some shelter and a dry
change of clothes for the both of them. They could rest up and regain
their strength there for the night.

	Assuming nothing *else* shows up.  They haven't plugged that hole yet,
have they?
	And... what season is this?  At that latitude (I finally got to my
maps), "night" could end up being quite a long time...

    "I w-want to g-get the Professor's equipment," Kaolinite
continued, with a dangerous look in her eyes. "W-We'll need to do more
t-tests before we c-close this thing for g-good."

	Ah, that's our Kaori -- recovering supervillain, non-recovering wokaholic.

    "Oh, right." Petz rolled her eyes and shook her head as she rubbed
her brow with her fingers. "Of course. We'll be wanting to get right on
that, won't we?"

	Well, maybe not "want," but...

    "How did you m-manage to harm it?" Kaolinite asked, as they began
the long walk to their plane. "It was too old for m-my powers...."

    "It wasn't older than mine," Petz explained with a shrug.
"Lightning's been around for a while. Is there any chance that we could
maybe stop long enough to warm up a bit before unpacking all that gear?
No offense, but you look like you need a hug. Or at least some soup. And
I *know* I do."

	Yuri!  Yuri!  Yuri!
	Just kidding.  Besides, they'd make a terrible couple anyway.  :)

    "We'll be f-fine," Kaolinite stammered, pausing to reach down and
rub her legs before continuing the walk. "All that m-matters is getting
to the Dark Kingdom and s-sealing this rip behind us."

    "Whatever you say, partner," Petz agreed. "Right now, I'm just
glad you're not dead."

    "N-never heard that one before," Kaolinite admitted with a
chuckle. "Okay, m-maybe we could s-stop for *one* cup of coffee...
partner. B-but just one."

	Heh.  I think they're actually warming to each other.  Pun unintended.

    "Deal," Petz replied with chuckle of her own. Maybe she had been
wrong about Kaolinite - it had been known to happen, sometimes. At the
very least, there was more to her than just her filing skills. They might
have a chance against this Radanthus the Unconquered guy after all.

	I dunno... given how much trouble they had with Dino-san, they'd better
approach Raddy much more carefully.  With greater numbers.  And a plan.
	Of course, IIRC, the plan was just to get Jupiter free -- this was
supposed to be a quick in-and-out commando raid, not a strategic
assault.  But then, if they want to free Jupiter, they're going after
exactly the wrong target, since Xiang Yao doesn't appear to even be *in*
the DK's zipcode right now.
	OTOH, we might get to see Petz and Kaori taking on Nise Suiko.  That
should be fun.

    Between the two of them, the Dark Kingdom wasn't going to know
what hit it.

	"Lord Radanthus!  There were *two* of them!  One slutty redhead in a
lab coat over a cocktail dress, and a green-haired one with e feather
duster fetish!"


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