Hi!

Thanks for the C&C! I thought I better send this response to the list as 
well as to you personally, since you didn't recieve my last chapter 
properly. I hate it when I miss stuff on the FFML, don't you? I'm seeing all 
these comments on fics that never made it to my inbox... *sniffle* :(

	(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!)

No problem, man. It got here just in time to give me a shot in the arm as 
far as my next chapter is going, anyway. Nothing helps kick my muse into 
gear like discussing stuff - C&C is like coffee to her. ;)

"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?

You're going to do that every time, aren't you? ^_^

Chapter 7: Preparations

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

The last time I called a chapter "Preparations", it meant that all of the 
female cast wound up taking a bath together. ^_^

	<snip a lot of Oniwabandana stuff>

Understandably. I've been told I kind of rambled for a bit at the start, 
there. :p

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.

Given her circumstances, it really did seem like the best option. It wasn't, 
of course, but it *was* a lot easier than sticking around and dealing with 
the consequences of her earlier actions. Oni-chan has a little problem with 
doing things that are difficult when there's an easier path. You'll notice 
that she is tempted on more than one occasion to just go back to Jadeite and 
lie about what she found instead of actually spying.

	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.

This is strangely true. Like I mentioned, Oni-chan is *tempted* to make up a 
story instead of actually finding out what is going on, but she goes ahead 
with the mission anyway. She's still nowhere near a model citizen (well, 
maybe for the Dark Kingdom she is), but she has learned enough not to just 
casually use everyone around her for her own petty convenience.

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.

Ironically, turning into a youma was actually one of the best things that 
happened to Oniwabandanna. Something that Usagi never stopped to consider 
during her time fighting the DK was that some of their "victims" might 
actually prefer not being humans. It's not as though the Moon Healing 
Escalation gave them a choice about which form was better for them. :p

When she finds out that Nana deliberately went back to evil after she healed 
her, Usagi is going to flip out. ^_^

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

	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.

Yeah, it's how those guys work. Kind of creepy, and one of the reasons I've 
always find them a little disturbing. They meditate ALL DAY on how they can 
best commit acts of evil. They're so devoted to the concept of evil and 
corruption that they actually focus on it to the exclusion of all else. They 
themselves are not corrupt in the slightest: their evil is actually "pure".

    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.

Yeah, the Ankoku never do anything that is in your best interests. They're 
surprisingly accomodating for creatures as powerful as they are, though: no 
act of damnation is too petty or small to keep them from helping you acheive 
it. ^_^

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?

And that's just one of the MANY potential down sides she has yet to 
consider! ;)

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.

Yeah, I can almost hear Nise now....

"What? You have papers? Dang! Here I was, all pissed off and about to kill 
you, too! Oh, well, I guess you're free to go."

Got to be honest, doesn't sound right to me. ^_^

Diplomatic immunity just gets her home in relatively one piece *if* she 
survives her own capture. If Nise Suiko or Badamon catch her, *she* might be 
the one screaming for the guards to come and arrest her... ;)

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.

Too true - the other Shitennou were not very kind to their troops. Zoicite 
tended to "set and forget" his youma, and Kunzite preferred converting 
humans to actually using the real thing. Even Nephrite was not quite as 
popular amongst the rank and file as Jadeite: there were a number of youma 
who were more than eager to help in his downfall, whereas Jadeite had youma 
actually trying to help him regain his position with Beryl.

	You could almost make me like Jed, here.  Too bad he's an obsessed
homicidal psychopath with imperialistic megalomaniac tendencies.

Well, not *quite* imperialistic, I would think. As he said earlier in the 
fic, he has no desire to rule the DK - it's not really worth ruling any 
more, in his opinion. All he'd be gaining is a whole lot of problems that 
may not be solvable.

As for megalomanical... does it count as a complex when you really *are* 
that powerful? ^_^

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.

Radanthus is too elitist for his own good. He wants the best of the best, 
but only by his own standards... and that is costing him a lot of useful 
troops. Even people that he might actually accept in his army (like the Doom 
and Gloom Girls) are staying away because they *feel* unwelcome. Part of the 
reason he wants Jadeite on his side is that he knows people will be willing 
to serve Jed who might not want anything to do with Raddy, allowing him to 
lead them by proxy.

Plus, it gives him a scapegoat in case the Sailor Senshi catch on to him - 
he intends to sacrifice Jadeite to them, because they know who Jadeite is 
and would be willing to believe that he might be the actual mastermind 
behind everything. The only problem with that tactic is that setting someone 
up as your fake mastermind is not a good idea if he is also a *real* 
mastermind.... ;)

    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"

Good point. Will fix. :)

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"

Also a good point! Will fix that, too.

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?

In a sense. Doing this is really disorienting and hard for her, so the less 
time she spends as multiple people, the better. Which is why she isn't 
constantly walking around with some clones on hand as backup bodies - it 
would make her nauseous and give her a splitting migraine trying to filter 
that much sensory input at the same time. ^_^

    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?

Like I said, her mind is divided equally between all of her clones. At the 
moment, the "core" Oni is more of a gestalt consciousness that all of the 
bodies are sharing. This is why they get stupider the more of them she 
makes: there is only so much of her mind she can give to each one. If she 
focuses more of herself into one clone, the others start to vanish in puffs 
of logic.

In the actual series, Oniwabandanna also lost control of her clones when 
Sailor Mars hit all of them with a Fire Soul. So, once again (as I'm sure 
Rei would gladly tell us), fire solves everything. ;)

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.

That's certainly one way of putting it. But it *does* help her cover ground 
pretty fast, when she needs to. Who needs a map when you can go in every 
direction at once?

Scarecrow: "Well, some people go this way, and some people go that way, but 
a really good ninja can go BOTH ways...."

	This is the first mention of the clones' size -- if they're really that
small, it might warrant an earlier mention.

Sorry, I was being too figurative. Each clone is the same size of Oni 
herself, but as she creates more and more of them, her perspective changes 
so that each one seems like just a small part of the whole. I'll try to 
think of a way to re-word that, so that I am not haunted by the image of a 
stampeding legion of Chibi-Oniwabandannas.

...

Too late. >_<

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.

Yeah, I try not to be *too* obscure. Most of these questions get answered 
eventually. ^_^

    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.*

At the very least, you would think that she might create a dupe to leave 
sitting safe in her tent back home while she goes out on missions, just in 
case something bad happens to her. That way, she would always have a back-up 
self to rely on. ^_^

Too bad for Oni that it's so hard for her to maintain multiples for long 
periods of time, or that would be a fun way for her to become 
nigh-unkillable.

They were exactly the kind of discreet and dangerous symbols she

	Discreet?  Glowing ward symbols are "discreet"?

Most youma would not even know what those words *meant*. Oni only recognises 
them because she had to learn that language in order to summon the Ankoku 
Priests back when she was human.

And remember; this is the Dark Kingdom. He could have had some chained up 
hell hounds with a sign saying "Trespassers will be lunch" hanging on the 
door or a wall of living flame blocking off the whole corridor instead of a 
few letters in the ceiling. Compared to the known alternatives, these wards 
are "discreet".

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!"

Nah. If you splashed Badamon with cold water, he'd probably just melt. ^_^

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.

Pretty much, yeah. ^_^

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.

This is a legitimate "oops" for Badamon. He's sharp, but he's not 
all-knowing, and intangibility is actually a very, very uncommon power in 
youma. In fact, I think Oniwabandanna may be the only youma we ever see 
doing it in the entire show. Most youma prefer to teleport or fly, instead. 
In the Dynasty, none of Badamon's enemies can turn intangible at all - 
Dynasty Soldiers are pretty solid, if a bit on the hollow side, and none of 
the Masho can do it, either.

    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..."

That does sound better. I think I'll change it. ^_^

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.

It's part of why Jadeite chose her: she's nervous enough that it makes her 
smarter than most of her comrades. A *stupid* youma would charge over and 
try to strike Badamon down before he could finish whatever he was doing.

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

I did, but that was waaay back in Chapter One, when we first saw Nise Suiko 
using it. Better re-emphasize, huh? ^_^

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!"

LOL! ^_^

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!

She's just so USEFUL! Girl even comes with her own magic camera! >_<

	Just hope that click isn't very loud...

Not very loud: odds are that nobody would notice it.

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.

And she's willing to admit that there might be someone else on the team who 
would be better at identifying stuff than she is. She's just there to get as 
much info as possible - it's up to other people to decide what is and isn't 
important.

I mean, it's not like she's going to run out of film, or anything.... ^_^

    "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.

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

Heh. Yeah, this is the crux of the issue between Badamon and Radanthus: 
Radanthus wants the Senshi dead first, and the Samurai Troopers dead 
afterwards. Badamon wants the Samurai Troopers dead first, and then the 
Sailor Senshi dead later.

There are certain members of the Sailor Senshi that Badamon needs both alive 
and present in order for his endgame strategy to go off properly. 
Ironically, killing those Senshi would probably stop his whole evil scheme 
dead in its tracks - which is what he is worried Xiang Yao might succeed at.

    "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.

Without Shin to go after, Nise Suiko has very little motivation. He's just 
hanging around because he has nowhere else to be. He only serves Badamon 
because Badamon controls the talisman, and the talisman is *very* important 
to Nise Suiko.

Of course, the second he finds out that Shin survived, he'll be off like a 
bat out of hell....

    "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>

Thanks - I kind of liked that one, myself. ^_^

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.

Well, he doesn't want to die. He's destructive, but he's not 
SELF-destructive.

Uh, unless wanting to brutally murder your exact double counts as 
self-destructive... in which case I guess both Nise *and* Shin might 
qualify.... ^_^;;;

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.

I respect your decision. ^_^

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.

	"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.

It's hard to come up with a replacement, especially since I'm pretty sure 
that British people actually do say that. I'll look into it, though. I'd 
hate for Shin to start seeming less British. ^_^

    "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?

"With all life has to offer, there's so much to be enjoyed / But the 
pleasures of insomnia are ones I can't avoid...." ^_^

"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.

Shin really thought he had gotten over all of this the *last* time he killed 
his evil twin. Turned out he was just repressing all of it.

Yeah, I know - but let's at least TRY to act surprised.... @_@

    "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.

He's a very simple man, and he knows what he likes. In his defence, it 
usually works to his advantage: not unlike Ranma Saotome, Shuu radiates such 
an aura of general confidence that his enemies have a very hard time 
unnerving him.

In YST: Message, Shuu actually swan-dives off of a skyscraper just to prove 
a point. Guy has his hands in his pockets and a cocky grin the whole way 
down. When their enemy catches him like an inch from the sidewalk, he just 
laughs at her and says "Yeah, I figured you probably wanted us alive for 
some reason."

YST: Message had some of Shuu's best moments. Too bad it had to happen in 
such a horrible OAV.

    "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.

Yeah, like I said: he's pretty straghtforward. It makes him really fun to 
write, actually. ^_^

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!

Yeah, Shuu is always there to lighten the mood. It's part of what he does 
for the rest of the team. Whenever things get too moody, he can usually be 
counted on to either start teasing somebody or acting so goofy that they 
can't resist teasing him.

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!"

This was one of the many reasons why they decided not to count the Masho. 
^_^

Looking back at each other, the pair grinned in unison

	And in unholy glee

You can almost *see* their expressions, can't you? ;)

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.

Nah, Ryo walked her to her door before coming home, himself. He *is* the 
Trooper of Virtue, after all. ^_^

    "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.

They really are, all nine of them. The problem is that Shuten and the other 
Masho tend to view the Troopers more as the annoying little brothers who 
always wreck everything. ^_^

    "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.

Again, I respect your decision. Even though I know how hard that is for you 
right now. ;)

    "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.

I really do love Shuu. He is just so charmingly... Shuu. It would take an 
act of both God and Congress to make him be anything other than himself. The 
boy has no discernable sense of shame or guilt.

Plus, when he was little, he drank a whole carton of sour milk because he 
thought that milk naturally turned into yogurt if you left it alone long 
enough. Poor kid was sick for DAYS. ^_^

I love how each of the Troopers have a "most embarassing moment" section in 
their official bios. Seiji's most embarassing moment is his entire 
CHILDHOOD. >_<

    "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.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to predict Shuu. On the plus side, at least he's 
being honest... ^_^

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!!!!!!"

Shin is *so* much smarter than the rest of the Troopers when it comes to 
this kind of thing... He already knows exactly what happened - he's just 
weaseling Ryo into admitting it.

    "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...

Well, the general idea is that there was some info-dumping on both sides 
that I have skipped in the interests of not forcing the audience to go over 
things they already know. Ami *does* know about Arago, after all - she 
mentioned that the Troopers had told her about him. Between their little 
supper in Shuu's kitchen and the date with Ami, there was a lot of time for 
someone to mention Mistress 9 to Ryo.

	And, Shu-niisan as chaperone?  *Oy*....

Heh. Yeah, that was kind of the point Ryo was making: who exactly was Shin 
*expecting* to go with him and Ami? It's not like either of them has any 
adult supervision worth mentioning. Odds are, these two could be married and 
have kids years before their parents even realised that they were dating 
anybody.

I mean, who checks up on these people? They could probably set fire to their 
own houses without anybody noticing that something was wrong.

    "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.

Ryo's got a point, though. It really was for the best that they got out of 
that hotel room as soon as possible. I mean, sure, he's naturally virtuous 
(SUPER-naturally, even), but there's only so temptation that a hero can be 
expected to take before something snaps. ^_^

    "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.

Yeah, he's still kind of confused about the whole situation. It's not like 
he has any real experience with women.

    "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.

Yeah, it sort of sucks to be a Samurai Trooper. Monsters attacking you for 
no reason is pretty much the status quo. Pretty girls wanting to go on a 
date? Somewhat rarer. For heaven's sake, Seiji has a pathological fear of 
women, and he gets more attention than the rest of them combined. They are 
as desperate and dateless as...

Well...

The Sailor Senshi, actually. ^_^

    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!"

Ryo Sanada is the leader, and he wears red. I think we've ALL watched enough 
Power Rangers to understand how awesome that makes him. I somehow suspect 
that Ami has, too... ;)

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.  :)

Exposing oneself to divergent thought patterns is the real key to keeping 
the mind active. ^_^

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.  :)

They were, and I was kind of hoping somebody would remember that little 
tirade of hers earlier. "Ryo Sanada needed to be slapped or married on a 
regular basis, before he became a threat to all womankind," I believe her 
opinion was? :)

    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?

I really do her find her downright adorable when she's all embarassed and 
flustered like this. ^_^

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...

What... Ami Mizuno, seriously repressed? Surely, you MUST be kidding. 
</sarcasm>

I really do see her as the type to totally lose her cool the second 
something romantic happened, but I can also see her feeling guilty about it, 
later. Ami seems to second-guess and analyse her own emotions way too much 
for her own good. Fortunately, that part of her mind gets turned off by 
Lust-Induced Brain Freeze whenever Ryo's around, or they'd never get 
anywhere. ^_^

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.

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

No, Rei has a *manipulative* streak, and I can imagine that very easily. 
This is the girl who got her and Ami tickets on a romantic cruise just so 
they could try to scoop up some vulnerable guys whose girlfriends had broken 
up with them.

BTW: Please note that Ami did not *object* to this plan... in fact, it 
wasn't until the whole cruise was over and nothing had happened that she 
mentioned she would have been better off staying home and studying.

    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...

Yeah, there is a little bit of pathetic fallacy going on, here.

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.

Rei is making a very good point. Right until... NOW.

    "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?

This is one of the ongoing reasons that Rei does not get along with Usagi. 
Deliberately or not, Usagi has a real knack for saying or doing something 
that ends up making Rei look bad. ^_^

    "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.

Poor Rei. She works *so hard* to maintain her image, and then Usagi comes 
along like a one-girl wrecking crew and shatters the whole thing without 
even noticing. And every time Usagi opens her mouth, it just makes Rei more 
and more embarassed.

Of *course* Rei panicked when she noticed Ami was gone. Rei is a complete 
and total mother hen. She worries about everybody, constantly. She probably 
really was a few minutes away from calling out an alert to every other 
Senshi in the country and forcing them to come down to Yokohama to help her 
look.  She just didn't want to have to ADMIT it, now that she knows that Ami 
is safe.

"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.

Note how calmly Usagi is both doing this to Rei *and* copying the last few 
answers out of Ami's open homework assignments. This is a girl who has her 
priorities in order. ^_^

"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!

The great thing is that she noticed, and didn't care.  If anything, she's 
probably resisting the urge to go over there and give Ami a high-five. ^_^

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

	<plotz>

It had slipped Ami's mind. Slipped Ryo's too, actually.

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

	And Rei didn't even notice.  Heh.

She was too busy being angry to let something like "details" slow her up. 
^_^

    "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?

Actually, I did call it a sweater a couple of times in there. I try not to 
use the same word too many times in a row, or it gets repetitive. I may have 
to go over this and see if I can't polish it up a little.

    "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?

It seems like the kind of logic that Usagi would use. ^_^

    "What kind of stupid logic is that?" Rei asked, looking offended.

See? Rei agrees with me. :p

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....

Unfortunately for Shin, he tends to fade into the background when he's 
standing near people like Ryo and Shuu. Rei is painting all the Troopers 
with the same brush, here, mainly because Shin has done very little to 
convince her that he ISN'T like every other Samurai Trooper she's met so 
far. She is willing to admit that they are good guys to have in a fight, but 
she's not really thinking of any of them as dating material. They all seem a 
little... immature.

If she could see them wrestling in the front hall, she would probably not 
change her opinion. :)

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.

Thanks: I try very hard to keep them plausible as the characters we all know 
and love. It's not always easy. ^_^

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.

But you have to admit, she's gotten a lot of practice at winning a guy's 
heart! Or, at least, she's gotten really good at winning ONE guy's heart....

I wonder if it's gotten to the point where she can just win him back 
instinctively, now? Like, before she even realises they've broken up, she's 
already gotten them back together? :)

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?

Well... I would, but let's admit it: Ryo cannot win against the kind of 
all-out, no-holds-barred assault that Usagi can unleash upon him. I would 
not put it past her to just walk up to him and smash him in the head with a 
giant sign that read "Date her, you idiot!" after all other plans had 
failed.

Repeatedly. She would smash him in the head REPEATEDLY.

    "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.*

Yep, and it doesn't take too much imagination to realise who she's talking 
about here. After all, there was only Samurai Trooper at Nango Beach who 
would have been wearing a wetsuit, and that would be the one who was 
surfing.... ;)

    "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.

One way to look at it is that Usagi is too innocent to admit to any kind of 
physical attraction to a boy, so if she checks him out, she thinks that she 
must be in love. You could say that she is too pure to be affected by base 
lust.

Or, you could say that she is a hopeless ditz who gets crushes on pretty 
much any guy who seems "cool" to her. Either one would be accurate. ^_^

    "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)

Heh. Touma actually *is* a basketball player.

Canonically, Touma Hashiba is 5 feet, 10 inches tall. Makoto Kino's height 
is usually given as 5 feet, 7 inches. So he is actually a bit taller than 
she is, too. At least she won't have to feel like she's too tall around him, 
right? ^_^

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!

Yeah, that was a little insensitive of her, but Usagi does not always say 
the right thing. Especially to Rei. The truth is that Usagi is worried that 
Rei is lonely, and she wants all of her friends to be happy and have 
boyfriends (which to Usagi is kind of a prerequisite for being happy).  The 
Samurai Troopers are attractive, nice, and available, not to mention right 
there for the taking, and Rei is quibbling about how none of them are tall 
enough for her.

Which is a pretty stupid reason not to date someone, really.

    "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.

Nah, Rei is impervious to pain when she's this ticked off. Although those 
words of Usagi's will be coming back to haunt her, later...

Mostly she's mad because she knows Usagi is right. I mean, it's one thing to 
be in a bit of a dating slump, but when AMI MIZUNO is getting more action 
than you are, it is time to seriously re-evaluate your romantic life. :p

    "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.

No takers. :p

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...

Well, Ryo has managed to wear a tux successfully at least twice before. 
Once, in the end credits for season two of YST, and again in the opening of 
"Gaiden", when he was invited to his own surprise party (and just who the 
hell INVITES someone to a surprise party, anyway?). Point being, he's two 
for two.

Although that also means it's inevitable that something bad will happen to 
him eventually, so I doubt he'll make it a hat trick without *something* 
blowing up on him. ^_^

mean- and he can walk you home from school, and carry your books,
and...."

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

Usagi: "So? He can bus there, walk her home, and bus back, for all I care! 
The important thing is the *symbolism*, here!"

"Now that you mention it, I'm not even sure if Ryo lives in the
same part of Tokyo that we do.

(sigh) Well, at least *Ami* remembered that they don't live in the same 
city....

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.

Yeah, Ami is kind of adding fuel to the fire, here. As someone else noted, 
she's already brought it up: she can't back out now that Usagi is on the 
case. Which, when you think about it, may be a large part of why she *got* 
Usagi on the case - to make sure her own natural squeamishness doesn't slow 
her down for once.

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.

I promise nothing, but I do tend to avoid miserable endings whenever 
possible. I may have bittersweet endings every now and again, but I *do* try 
to avoid completely depressing ones. ^_^

    "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.

Nope - he and Elios are busy making their own way in as we speak. They just 
decided to split up, rather than all show up in the same place at the same 
time. It increases the chances that one of them will make it in if they all 
take seperate routes.

	Although that makes Kaori's getup make even *less* sense.

Kaolinite is not the sort to let the weather control her sense of fashion. 
^_^

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.

True, but you know more than she does. ;)

	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...

It should be interesting, to say the least. And since Elsa *did* ask me for 
some Ail and Ann action next chapter, it's safe to assume that I will be 
checking in on them to see just how easy their end of the operation has 
been. ^_^

	Hm.  Are they headed for the Bear Island region, by any chance?

Not so close to Norway, closer to Canada. Ellesmere Island, to be precise. 
Alert (which Kaolinite mentioned), is the northernmost human settlement on 
the planet. It's pretty close to both the magnetic North Pole, and the 
geomagnetic North Pole - either of which could be D-Point, since the 
*physical* North Pole is somewhere in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

I ask
b/c that's (IIRC) the *magnetic* North Pole, roughly, which could make a
reasonable location for dimensional whatsits to congregate.

Nah, both the magnetic and the geomagnetic North Poles are closer to 
Ellesmere Island and Greenland than Norway. Although, if they keep moving at 
their current rate, they will end up somewhere in Siberia in about 50 years.

Otherwise,
the nearest geographic location of any distinction is the NP itself, and
*that's* gonna be a pain to get to.

No kidding. Like I said, it's basically floating on a giant ice cube in the 
middle of the ocean. Impossible to reach without an icebreaker or a much 
nicer plane than the one they are in.

BTW: I didn't use Bear Island because there is also a Bear Island in 
Antarctica, near the South Pole, and I didn't want people to accuse me of 
getting my Poles mixed up. ^_^

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.

There's not that much native life up there at all: it's mostly just some 
caribou, a few arctic foxes, and a couple of weather stations. Like 
Kaolinite notices later, things could go sour this far north for a LONG time 
before anyone called attention to it. If I was building an evil lair, I'd 
put it up there. Sure, the heating bill would be a pain, but the odds of a 
random hero tripping into your base is reduced to almost zero.

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

	Mount Osore?

It's a famous mountain located in Japan. Literally, the name means "Mount 
Terror" or "Dread Mountain", and Japanese superstition holds that it 
contains an entryway to Hell. The mountain is filled with volcanic hot 
springs that are every colour from canary yellow to blood red, and the whole 
place smells like sulfur. They believe that the ghosts of the dead are 
trapped on the mountain when they cannot find their way into the afterlife, 
so the entire mountainside is covered with effigies and offerings to the 
dead.

Ail and Ann went to Mount Osore because there is a portal to the DK located 
there. As you can imagine.

It's also, in YST mythology, where the Masho known as Anubis discovered his 
mystical armour of Yami, which might help explain why he chose the name that 
he did. ^_^

    "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?

Maybe a little. :p

    "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.

Petz and the rest of the girls showed up in modern-day Tokyo flying in a big 
UFO. It got blown up when their boss, Rubeus, tried to have a showdown with 
Sailor Moon that went horribly awry.

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.

Well, it's not like Kaori ever *reformed*... she just decided to stop being 
bad for a while because the Professor did not want her to. ^_^

The Professor had told her that he liked *good* girls, now, so

	And I'd drop the first comma there.

Good point. I do tend to get a little comma-happy, sometimes. :p

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.

Not unlike Kaolinite herself, really. ^_^

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.

	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?

Good point. I was trying to give a glimpse into Kaori's mind (she is still 
skeptical about just how "real" any of this is), but it does come across a 
bit confusing. I think I will change that. Thanks for pointing it out to me! 
^_^

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.

She kicked their asses using nothing but her *hair*. That takes class. ;)

    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.

Howl, Zabimaru! ^_^

Yeah, I've seen that one, but I only saw the first episode where that guy 
appeared. I thought his Soul Slayer turned into some kind of whip? I don't 
RECALL it becoming a dinosaur.... o_O

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.

Seriously, if anybody should be Medusa in that fic, I vote for Kaori. She's 
already got the hair for it and everything! And we *know* she won't mind 
wearing the costume - it's a step *up* from her usual dress, as far as 
modesty is concered.

Unless she refuses to wear it on the grounds that it is ugly. I seem to 
remember Medusa's outfit having a lot of purple in it....

    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.

Isn't that always the way? :p

As a great man once said: "Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb!"

    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.

It was doing a pretty close impersonation before, actually. Although with 
more biting, and less destroying of Tokyo. ^_^

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.

Good call. I think I will do that, since it sounds a lot better. ^_^

Without Kaolinite, the whole mission was a loss, and this monster
had just killed Kaolinite.

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

Yeah, that's pretty much what she's thinking, right about now. The mission's 
a bust, so we might as well break some stuff in petty revenge... ^_^

    "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.

Petz was always the perfectionist of the group. ;)

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...?

No comment. >:)

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.  :)

Well, their powers are pretty close to identical. And this is pretty much 
the same logic that Ranma used to learn the Shi Shi Hokodan. :)

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.

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

Barren, lifeless, and depressing. The main reason that Diamond and Sapphire 
were trying to take over Crystal Tokyo was that they just wanted their 
people to have something *pretty* to look at, for once. I mean, Nemesis 
*sucked*, and Neo-Serenity had basically told them that they were stuck 
there forever. Personally, I wouldn't blame them for rebelling - although 
Wiseman was a real bastard to use them like he did.

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.

Curse you for catching the most obscure reference I could have made! >_<

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

	<snerkle>

She's just happy because she learned a new attack. I can almost hear the 
Final Fantasy music. :)

    "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.

The Milne Ice Shelf is a huge glacier that is hanging off the edge of 
Ellesmere Island. Icebergs are made from the parts of it that crumble and 
fall off while it is moving. The "groundline" is that point on a glacier 
that it is no longer over ground, and officially over water. So, since both 
Kaolinite and the dinosaur fell through holes in the ice into the *water*, 
they must have been past the grounding line.

Yeah, I've been doing research again. It shows, doesn't it?

    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...

It's summer, which means that it should be "day" until... about November, 
actually. The North Pole spends the summer months bathed in constant 
daylight, and the sun doesn't really set until winter. I think it's safe to 
assume that Petz meant "night" in the figurative, as opposed to the literal, 
sense
of the word. ^_^

    "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.

Hey, it's just a little hypothermia! What does she look like, some kind of 
wuss? :)

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.  :)

I assure you, any naked cuddling these two perform will be purely for 
medicinal reasons. And never mentioned again. ^_^

    "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.

Yeah, Petz is willing to admit that Kaori is not such a bad choice in 
partners, after all. They actually compliment each other pretty well, 
tactically. Both are seriously heavy hitters, but their strengths lie in 
different areas. Plus, Petz is from the future, so she can actually follow 
along pretty well when Kaolinite starts getting all "weird science" on her.

They would still rather be with other people, but at least they have found a 
common ground. :)

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.

This is true: neither of these girls is any match for Radanthus. His only 
problem would be to stop laughing long enough to eat them. Raddy is a 
seriously powerful villain - he just prefers to work through lackeys 
whenever possible. You don't get to be as old as Radanthus without learning 
not to risk your own neck when it isn't necessary.

Radanthus could probably kill the Sailor Senshi by himself. However, there 
is a chance that they might be able to destroy him if he tried to fight 
them, and "a chance" is more than he is willing to risk when he can just 
send Xiang Yao to kill them and remain safely anonymous.

	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.

This is very true. ^_^

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.

This is *also* very true. Unfortunately, they are not going to where the box 
*is*, so much as they are going to where Elios is *assuming* that the box 
*will be*. And that could get them in a great deal of trouble, indeed.

	OTOH, we might get to see Petz and Kaori taking on Nise Suiko.  That
should be fun.

It definitely should be - I'm not too sure who would win that one, but I may 
have to give the edge to the girls on that one. Teamwork is one of the many 
ways to take down Nise Suiko, and he does have a weakness against electrival 
attacks, which are Petz' specialty.... ^_^

    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!"

Okay, so maybe the Dark Kingdom would have a *slight* idea who hit it, but 
only because they insist on wearing such easily identified costumes. ^_^

Thanks for writing! Sorry it took me a little while to get back to you, but 
things have been pretty hectic around here lately. I'm hoping to get enough 
time to myself that I can finish off my latest RS chapter, but I'm afraid it 
may be another week or so before that happens. Until then! ^_~

Later!

-Morgan Hudson



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